Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
According to the storied coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, his sojourn among us happened bodily, a certain universal one that shone upon the whole world, when "the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us." For "it was the true light that enlightens every man" — that light was coming into the world; in that world he already was, and it was through him that the world came into being, and
him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him." Yet we must know that he was present earlier too, even if not bodily, in each of the saints, and that after this visible coming of his he comes to us again. And if you wish to receive proof of this, attend to "the word
that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 'Hear'" and so on. For who is "the word that came from the Lord," whether to Jeremiah or to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or to anyone whatever, other than the one who in the beginning was with God? I know no other word of the Lord than this one, concerning whom the evangelist has said, "In
the beginning was the Word, and with God was that Word, and God was the Word." And we must also know this, that for those most able to profit, there is a coming of the Word to each one. For what benefit is it to me if the Word has come to the world, but I do not have him? And on the other hand, even if
he has not yet come to the whole world, but grant that I have become like the prophets, I have the Word. And I would say that Christ came to Moses, to Jeremiah, to Isaiah, to each of the righteous, and that what was said by him to the disciples, "Behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age,"
was in fact being fulfilled in deed and coming to pass even before his coming; for he was with Moses and he was with Isaiah and with each of the saints. How could those men have spoken the word of God, if the word of God had not come to them? And it is especially necessary for us who belong to the church to know these things, we who wish that the same God should be author of both law and gospel,
the same Christ both then and now, unto all the ages. But there will be those who, so far as their own opinion goes, cut off the divinity that is older than the Savior's coming from the divinity proclaimed by Jesus Christ. But we know one God both then and now, one Christ both then and now. This is said because of
"the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying." What, then, shall we also hear? "Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to those dwelling in Jerusalem." We are men of Judah because of Christ; for it is plain that "our Lord has risen from Judah," and if I should set forth the name of Judah
...according to the Scripture, referred to Christ: "men of Judah" — those who disbelieve in Christ will not be Jews, but we who believe in Christ will be. "Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies" — "shall praise you." It was not that Judah, the son of Jacob, whom his brothers praised. But this Judah
...his brothers will praise, since this Judah says: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will hymn you." This is not said of that Judah. "Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies" — where is it found that that Judah placed his hands on the neck of his enemies? The history records nothing of the kind about him. But if
...you understand the coming of the Lord Jesus, abolishing the devil, stripping off "the rulers and the authorities," making a public example of them and triumphing over them on the wood, you see how the prophecy that says this has been fulfilled with reference to this Judah: "Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies." If this is so, and the word now says "to the men of Judah," to
...whom might it mean, except those who believe in Christ, who are in some sense called Judah too, on account of the tribe of Judah? The word is spoken "to the men of Judah and to those who dwell in Jerusalem." This is the church. For the city of God is the church, the Vision of Peace; in it is the peace that he brought us,
...if indeed we are children of peace, it is multiplied and is seen. "Hear," then, "the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to those who dwell in Jerusalem. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God <of Israel>: Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of the covenant which I commanded your fathers." Who above all hears "the words of the covenant which
...God commanded the fathers"? Is it those who believe on him, or those who are shown not even to believe Moses, from the fact that they have not believed on the Lord? For the Savior says to them: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"
So then, they have not believed in Moses, but we, believing in Christ, believe the covenant given through Moses, and it is said to us, so that we may not become cursed: "Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of the covenant which I commanded the fathers." They, then, have the fate of being cursed. For they did not hear "the covenant which God commanded
...to the fathers." "On the day," it says, "when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace." And God brought us up out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, especially according to one who understands what is written in the Revelation of John, that the place "where their Lord was crucified is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt." If
for it is spiritually called Egypt. But this Egypt is not the Egypt that is spiritually called Egypt, for it is perceptible to the senses; it is clear that if you understand the Egypt that is spiritually called Egypt and go out from it, you are the one who went out “from the land of Egypt and from the iron furnace,” and it is said to you: “Hear my voice and do according to all”
these things. Then there is a promise of God to those who hear, if they do what he has commanded, saying: “and you shall be a people to me, and I will be a God to you.” Not everyone who says he is God’s people is that one; therefore the one who promised to be God’s people heard “you are not my people” in the words “because you are not my people,” and it was said
to that people, “not my people,” and again this people was called a people. For “they made me jealous with what is no god”—and he says concerning those others—“they angered me with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is no nation, I will anger them with a senseless nation.” We, then, have become a people to God, and the righteousness of God belongs to the
people, the people from the nations. For this people is born all at once, and it is also said in the prophet: “if a nation was born at once.” And a nation was indeed born at once, when the Savior came to dwell among us, and in one day five thousand believed, and on another day three thousand more were added. And it is possible to see an entire people being born by the word of God and
the barren woman, who did not give birth before, bearing all at once—the one to whom it is said: “Rejoice, you barren woman who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate woman are many, more than of her who has a husband.” The church is the desolate one—desolate of the law, she was desolate of God. But the one having the law as husband is called the synagogue. What, then, is
God promising to me? “You shall be a people to me, and I will be a God to you.” He is not the God of all, but only of those to whom he grants himself, just as he granted himself to that patriarch to whom he said, “I am your God,” and again to another, “I will be your God,” and concerning others, “I will be their God.” When, then, do we attain this—I mean each one individually—
so that God may be our God? If you wish to learn whose God he is and to whom he grants his own title, he says, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of …” — the third name stands in a gap in the Greek text. And explaining this, the Savior says: “He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.” Who is the dead? The sinner, the one who does not have him who said, “I”
am the life,” the one who has dead works, the one who has not yet repented from dead works, concerning whom the apostle says: “not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works.” If then he is “God — no God of the dead, but of those who live —” and we know who the living one is—that it is the one who conducts himself according to Christ and remains with him—if we wish, one
may be our God, let us renounce the works of deadness, so that he may fulfill his promise, the one that says: “And I will be to you a God, so that I may establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” For observe that he says: “I will establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give”
them “a land flowing with milk and honey,” as though he had not yet given them the “land flowing with milk and honey.” For this is not the land which God called “flowing with milk and honey,” but it is that other land, about which the Savior taught when he said: “Happy are those of gentle spirit, since it is they who will inherit the earth.” Then, in response to what had been said before by the Lord,
the prophet answers, in reply to “cursed is the man who will not listen to the words of this covenant,” and he says: “And I answered and said, So be it, Lord.” What does “so be it, Lord” mean? Cursed is the one who will not abide by the words of this covenant. “And the Lord said to me: Read these words in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem.” And
to those outside we read the words of God, calling them to salvation. “Hear the words of this covenant and do them.” And they did not do them. “And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among those who dwell in Jerusalem.” Are we about to repent of the sins spoken of concerning the men of Judah, knowing that we are the men of Judah,
of Judah — the Christ prophesied and spoken of as Judah? For is it not perhaps because there are among us some who are sinners and act contrary to right reason, that the prophet says for this reason: “a conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among those who dwell in Jerusalem”? For whenever there is found, among those reckoned as belonging to the church, a conspiracy of injustice and a conspiracy of sins, such that one might apply to them
what is said of the sinner: “each man is bound fast by the cords of his own sins,” God might say: “a conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah” — but may no conspiracy be found among us. Yet how is it that no conspiracy is found among us, if even to this day there is a conspiracy among some? “Loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of violent contracts, tear up every unjust document. Break
your bread for the hungry.” “A conspiracy,” then, “has been found among the men of Judah and among those who dwell in Jerusalem. They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers, the former ones.” “They turned back to the injustices” — of whom? He does not simply say “of the fathers.” What is the addition? “They turned back to the injustices of their fathers, the former ones”? We were saying that these things are said concerning us and concerning those
who sin among us. How then have those who sin among us turned back not to the injustices “of the fathers,” but to those of “their fathers, the former ones”? Is it, then, that there are two kinds of fathers of ours, and that there is among us a worse kind of father? For before we believed, we were, so to speak, sons of the devil, as the gospel word shows when it says: “You
"You are of your father the devil." But when we believed, we became children of God. So whenever we sin, we turn back to the iniquities not simply of "the fathers," but of "the former fathers." To show that there are two kinds of fathers for us, I will use words from the forty-fourth Psalm, which run thus: "Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear,
and forget your people and your father's house." A father says: "forget the house of your father" — for it is as a father that he says, "Hear, daughter." So there are two fathers of ours. But "forget the house" — the former house — "of your father." If, having forgotten your former house, you turn back again to sins, you
have committed what are here called sins. "They turned back to the iniquities of their former fathers." I was saying that the devil too was formerly our father, before God became our father — if indeed the devil is not our father even now — which we will show also from the catholic epistle of John, where it is written: "everyone who commits sin has been begotten of
the devil." If "everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil," then, so to speak, we are begotten of the devil as many times as we sin. Wretched, then, is the one who is always being begotten of the devil, just as, in turn, blessed is the one who is always being begotten by God. For I will not say that the righteous man was begotten by God once, but that he is always being begotten, at each
good deed by which God begets the righteous man. If, then, I set you before the Savior — that the Father did not beget the Son and then release him from his begetting, but is always begetting him — I will demonstrate something comparable also in the case of the righteous man. Let us see who our Savior is. "The radiance of glory." The radiance of glory
was not begotten once and no longer being begotten; rather, for as long as the light is productive of the radiance, for that long the radiance of the glory of God is being begotten. Our Savior is the wisdom of God. And wisdom is "the radiance of everlasting light." If, then, the Savior is always being begotten, this is why it says, "before all the hills he begets me" — not
"before all the hills he has begotten me," but "before all the hills he begets me" — and the Savior is always being begotten by the Father. So too, if you have the spirit of adoption, God always begets you in him at each deed, at each thought, and being thus begotten you become one who is always being begotten a son of God in Christ Jesus, to whom belongs
the glory and the might unto the ages of ages. Amen.