Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
If it were not implanted in us by nature to judge what is just, the Savior would never have said: "And why do you not judge for yourselves what is just?" But so that we do not wander too far afield in proving this point, especially since matters much more difficult are attached to this chapter, let it suffice to have indicated this much, and let us rather spread the sails of our souls toward God and pray for the coming of the word,
so that he may interpret the parable about which it is written: "When you go with your adversary before the ruler on the way, make an effort to be freed from him, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not come out from there until you have paid the last penny." I see four persons set forth: the adversary, the ruler, the judge, the officer; and
since the evangelist Matthew seems to have said something similar where he says: "Be well disposed toward your adversary while you are on the way with him," I ask whether the sense is the same or whether there is some kinship between them, since in Matthew one person is omitted and another is changed. The [ruler] is omitted, and in place of "officer" is inserted "adversary," and "judge" is likewise set down by
both. So we go "with our" [adversary] "to the ruler," and it is necessary for us, while we still have time, to labor vigorously, that we may be freed from him. From whom? For the wording is indeed ambiguous and can be referred either to the ruler or to the adversary: "lest" either the ruler "hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer," and: "you will not"
until you have paid the last penny" — for which Matthew has "until you pay the last quadrans." Each kept it, but they appear to differ in that this one set down "quadrans" and the other "penny." For my part, more hidden matters must be touched upon, that we may understand the adversary to be one thing, and the other three persons — that is, the ruler, the judge, the officer — to be another. We read — if indeed it pleases anyone to accept a writing of this kind —
of angels of justice and of iniquity disputing over the salvation and the destruction of Abraham, while each of the two companies wishes to claim him for its own assembly. But if this displeases anyone, let him turn to the volume entitled "The Shepherd," and he will find that two angels are present to every man: an evil one, who exhorts to perverse things, and a good one, who persuades to all that is best. It is also written elsewhere that there attend upon a man, whether
for good or for evil, two angels. Of the good ones the Savior also makes mention, saying: "Their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." At the same time inquire whether it is only the little ones in the church who "always see the face of the Father," and whether others do not have the freedom to gaze upon the countenance of the Father. For it is not to be hoped that the angels of all always behold the "face of the Father, who dwells in"
heaven." If I belong to the church, however small a member I may be, my angel too is emboldened always to behold my "Father's face, who dwells in heaven." But if I stand outside, not belonging to that church "which has neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such blemish," and by that very fact am estranged from such a gathering, then my angel lacks the boldness to gaze upon my "Father's countenance, who"
...is in heaven." How solicitous the angels are for the good, knowing that if they have governed us well and brought us through to salvation, they too will have confidence to see the face of the Father. For just as, if through their care and diligence salvation is secured for human beings, they always gaze upon the face of the Father, so too, if through their negligence a person should fall, they know that it is also a matter of
their own peril. And just as a good bishop and the best steward of the church knows that it redounds to his own merit and virtue if the sheep of the flock entrusted to him have been kept safe, understand the same of angels. It is a disgrace to an angel if the person entrusted to him should sin, just as, on the contrary, it is glory to an angel if the one entrusted to him, even the least in the church, should
make progress. For not merely on occasion but continually will they behold my Father's countenance, who dwells in heaven, even while others fail to see it. For according to the merit of those souls whose angels they are, the angels will gaze upon God's countenance either constantly or not at all, or in lesser or greater measure. God alone has clear knowledge of this matter, and knows whether anyone, however seldom, has been found whom Christ has taught. Let us see,
then, first, who the "adversary" is, with whom our journey is always shared. Unhappy are we: as often as we sin, our adversary exults, knowing that he has, before the prince of this age who sent him, the opportunity to exult and boast, on the grounds that the adversary of this or that person, for example, has made him subject to the prince of this age through so many and such sins,
through this offense or that. But it sometimes happens that, if someone has been prepared with the armor of God and has covered himself on every side, the adversary indeed tries to inflict a wound but has no opportunity to strike. The adversary always walks with us, never abandons us, seeks an opportunity for ambush, hoping somehow to overthrow us and cast an evil thought into the ruling part of our heart. "When
you go to..." Who then is this prince? "When he apportioned the nations, when he dispersed Adam's offspring, he set the boundaries of the peoples to match the count of God's angels, and the Lord's own share became his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance." So then, the earth was from the beginning split up among princes, that is, among angels. Daniel indeed testifies more openly that those beings whom Moses had called "angels" are
"the prince of the kingdom of the Persians," "of the Greeks," and "Michael your prince," of the nations. And each one of us has an adversary clinging to him, whose task is to lead us to the prince and say: O prince — of the kingdom of the Persians, for example — this one, who was under you, I have kept for you just as he was; none of the other princes was able to draw him over to himself, lest
that one, who boasted that he had come for this very purpose — to snatch people away from all the inheritances of the Persians or the Greeks and of all the nations, and to make them subject to the inheritance of God. Christ our Lord conquered all the princes, and crossing their boundaries, brought the captive peoples over to himself for salvation. And you belonged to the portion of some prince: Jesus came and snatched you from
...with perverse power, and offered it to God the Father. Our >adversary<, then, walks leading us >to his own<. Hence, since I believe that every word of the scriptures has a reason, I do not think it is without purpose that among the Greeks >judge< is written with the article, which is a marker of singularity, while >ruler< is written simply, without the article. >When<, he says, >you go with your adversary...< He says pointedly: >your<. Nor
are they many adversaries, but each of us has his own single one, who everywhere follows him and is his companion. >When you go with your [adversary] to the ruler.< He did not put the article with >ruler<, so as to seem to point to a particular one, but wrote it without the article, so as to show that he is one out of many, which is understood better among the Greeks. For not each of us has his own particular ruler; but if someone is Egyptian,
he has the ruler of Egypt; whoever is Syrian is under the ruler of the Syrians, and each is under the ruler of his own nation — if indeed it is enough for me to have proceeded this far, and not to pass from this discussion to another, greater one, so as to mention the other nations as well. Hence it is said: >behold Israel according to the flesh<. ...it has been said; although even this itself may be a rash thing to say concerning
such a matter, to have begun a discourse before the people. He who wishes, he says, to lead you to his own ruler and to transfer you away from another ruler — >when you are with your adversary on the way to the ruler, make an effort to be freed from him<. Unless with all diligence you strive to >be freed<, while you are still on the way, before you enter before the ruler, before the ruler hands you over, prepared by the adversary, to the judge — afterward
you will strive in vain. >Make an effort<, then, to be freed, whether from your adversary or from the ruler to whom the adversary drags you. >Make an effort< to possess justice, fortitude, and temperance, and then this will be fulfilled: >behold the man, and his works before his own face<. Unless you >make the effort<, you will not be able to break the pact whose >friendship is enmity toward God<. ...you go with
your adversary to the ruler on the way, make an effort.< Something lies concealed in this passage, I know not what, and it is a mystery: >on the way, make the effort<. The Savior declares: >I myself am the way, the truth, and the life<. If you >make the effort< to be freed from the adversary, be on the way; and when you have taken your stand on him who declares: >I myself am the way
<, to have taken one's stand is not enough, but >make an effort to be freed< from the adversary. For unless you >make the effort< to >be freed< from the adversary, listen to what follows. The adversary, or the ruler, >drags you to the judge<, once he has received you from... >drags you to...< How fitting is the word >drags<, showing in a way that those being dragged to condemnation hold back and are unwilling
and are compelled to go! For what murderer hurries with quickened step to the judge? Who hastens rejoicing toward his own condemnation, and is not instead dragged unwilling and resisting? For he knows that he is going to this end, that he may receive the sentence of death. >Lest perhaps he drag you to the judge<. Who, do you suppose, is this >judge<? I know no other judge except
our Jesus Christ, of whom it is also said elsewhere: "He will set the sheep on the right, but the goats on the left," and again: "Whoever confesses me, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." "Let him drag you to the judge, and let the judge
hand you over to the collector." Each of us bears loss for his individual sins, and the magnitude of the loss is reckoned according to the quality and reasoning of the offense. I ought to bring forward some testimony from the scriptures concerning debt and a great sum of money. One person bears a debt of five hundred denarii and owes them; another is condemned to fifty denarii; that sum is forgiven to both by the creditor. Again another, as scripture says: "There was brought to him a certain man
who owed ten thousand talents," is condemned to a debt of a thousand talents. And why is it necessary for me to pursue further examples? Each person receives a different sentence of penalty according to the quality and quantity of his sin. If your sin is small, you will be struck with the loss of a "farthing," as Luke writes, or as Matthew has it, a "quadrans." Yet it is still necessary to pay off this very thing for which you became a debtor,
for you will not come out of prison unless you have paid even the smallest amounts. But whoever is faithful is struck by no loss, but is enriched daily; for the whole world is his wealth; whereas the unfaithful man does not have even an obol. One is condemned to a denarius, another to a mina, another to a talent. There is an examiner of this business, who knows the measures of everyone's sins and says: This offense
is condemned to a talent, that sin deserves a penalty of this kind. For it is written: "But when he had begun to settle accounts." There is a "reckoning" for all of us. There is no other time for making it but the time of judgment, when it will be clearly known what has been entrusted to us and what profit or what loss we have made, which of us has received a mina, which one talent, which two, which five. Why
is it necessary to repeat more examples, since it suffices to have said this in general: that we will render an account, and, if we are found to be debtors, we will be dragged to the judge and handed over by the judge to the collector? We each have our own collectors, but the whole multitude is handed over to several, according to what is written in Isaiah: "My people, your collectors despoil you, and those who are powerful lord it over
you" — the collectors lord it over us, if we owe anything. But if we have confidence and say with a free brow: I have kept the precept of him who commands: "Render to all their dues: to whom tribute, to whom fear, to whom tax, to whom honor" — if I have rendered everything in full to everyone, I come to the collector with an undaunted mind and answer him: I owe you nothing. The collector comes to demand payment — I resist him; for I know that,
if I owe nothing, he has no power over me. But if I am a debtor, my "collector" will "send" me "into that order which has been foretold." For the "adversary" will hand me over to the ruler, the ruler to the judge, the judge will hand me over to the collector, the collector "will send me into prison." What is the law of that prison? I do not leave it, nor does the collector allow me to go out,
unless I pay the whole debt. The collector does not have the power to grant me even a quarter, or a portion of it; there is only one who can grant remission to debtors who have nothing with which to pay. ‘There came to him,’ it says, ‘one who owed five hundred denarii, and another fifty; and since they had nothing with which to repay, he forgave them both.’ He was the lord; but this one—
who is the collector, is not the lord, but has been appointed by the lord to exact the debts. You were not worthy to have the five hundred or the fifty denarii forgiven you, nor did you deserve to hear, ‘your sins have been forgiven you’; you are sent to prison, and there you are made to pay through labor and toil, or through punishments and torments, and you will not come out from there until you have repaid the last quarter
—or ‘the last,’ which in Greek can be called ‘slight.’ Our sins are either—for it is written, ‘the heart of the people has grown thick’—or, by comparison with greater ones, slight and subtle. Blessed, then, is the one, first, who does not sin at all; and second, the one who, by comparison, has at least a slight sin. And even among these slight and subtle sins there is a further diversity. For unless
there were, among slight and subtle sin, something yet more subtle, it would never be said, ‘not from there, until you repay the last quarter.’ It is as though it said ‘the last mite’—the mite being a coin, whether an obol or a stater; but what if we owed a great sum, as the one is written to have owed who owed ten thousand talents? For how long a time we shall be shut up in prison until we repay the debt,
I cannot declare plainly. For if one who owes little does not come out unless he pays off the tiny quarter, then surely one who is liable for so much more will have countless ages numbered to him for repaying the debt. Wherefore let us take pains to be freed from it while we are on the way, and to be joined to the Lord Jesus, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.