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Article Title: Homily 7

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 ORIGEN
HOMILIES ON JOSHUA

Translated by
BARBARA J. BRUCE

Edited by
CYNTHIA WHITE
i The University of Arizona

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS

‘Washington, D.C. .
 HOMILY 7

Concerning how Jericho was captured and how Rahab was saved,
and concerning him who stole the tongue of gold and the
pure bracelets from what had been banned.!
RICHO IS OVERTHROWN by the trumpets of the
priests. For when the noise of the trumpets resounded,
immediately the circle of walls was thrown down.?
We had said before that Jericho may possess the sign of the
present age, whose forces and defenses we see to have been de-
stroyed.’ For indeed the strength and defenses that that world
used as walls was the worship of idols, the deceit of divinations
directed by the skill of demons and devised by diviners, sooth-
sayers, and magicians. By all these most powerful walls, as it
were, this world was encircled. Moreover, as though with cer-
tain tall and strong towers, it was also fortified with diverse dog-
mas of philosophers and the most eminent assertions of con-
tentions,
But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, whose arrival that
prior son of Nun designated, he sends priests, his apostles,
bearing “trumpets hammered thin,™ the magnificent and heav-
enly instruction of proclamation. Matthew first sounded the
priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each
played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with
trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addi-
tion, John also sounds the trumpet through his epistles, and
Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last

1. Focal passage: Jos 67.

2. Jos 6.20.
3. See Homily 6.4.
4 Nm 102, Ps g8.6; Sir 50.16. See Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus
11116,

74
 HOMILY 7 75

one comes, the one who said, “I think God displays us apostles
last,” and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets,
he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry
and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations.
2. It also stirs me when history reports that not only did the
priests play the trumpets so that the walls of Jericho might fall,
but also, when the sound of the trumpet was heard, it is said the
whole people cried out with a great cry, or, as it is held in other
copies, they shouted with a great shout.® That word, however,
seems improperly translated. For it is written dAakaypds in
Greek, which properly signifies neither “shout” nor “cry,” but
rather it expresses that sound by which in time of war the army,
unanimously raising a loud call together, is accustomed to in-
cite one another to battle. Nevertheless, this word “shout,”
rather than “cry,” is accustomed to be written in Scripture, as
in, “Shout to the Lord, all the earth,” and again, “Blessed the
people who know the joyful shout.”®
That verse deeply moves me. So great indeed is the nature of
this word that it makes the people blessed. It did not say,
“Blessed are the people who do righteousness” or “Blessed are
the people who have knowledge of mysteries or who know the

5.1 Cor 4.9. The editions of Lommatzsch and Delarue added et Apocalypsim
after “through his epistles” [per epistolas suas], making a complete New Testa-
ment canon. See PG 12.857B. Though Harnack saw the authentic Origen here
(Der hirchengeschichtliche Ertrag, TU 42.3, p. 13), it is possible Rufinus brought
the canon up to the standard of his day. See J. E. L. Oulton, “Rufinus’ Transla-
tion of the Church History of Eusebius,” /ThS30 (1929): 156-57. According to
Eusebius, Origen considered several books doubtful, including 2 Peter and He-
brews. He felt only God knew who wrote Hebrews (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical Histo-
1y 6.25.13). Yet Origen credited Peter with the second epistle in Homilies on
Leviticus 4.4 and attributed Hebrews to Paul in the Homilies (e.g., 9.9).
6.Jos 6.9-10, 20.
7.Ps 100.1.
8. Ps 89.16. It is possible that the explanation concerning d\a\aypés is a
contribution of Rufinus. Yet Origen may have contrasted Greek and Hebrew
variants. There is evidence that he considered more than one Greek word for
this idea. In the LXX version of Jos 6.20, d\a\ayu6s is used, but a codex of the
Hexapla shows two marginal variants, a form of kpavyf being one of them. Sec
Origenis Hesaplorum, vol. 1, ed. Fridericus Field (Oxonii: Typographo Clarendo-
niano, 1875), p. 346. For Origen’s use of these variants, see Jaubert, Homélies,
SC71:1g8 n. 1. In translating, Rufinus may have used ululare (to cry) for kpdZw
and jubilasse (to shout) for dAakdlw.
 76 ORIGEN
reckoning of heaven and earth and of the stars”; but “Blesse
d,”
it says, “are the people who know the Jjoyful shout.” In
other
places, the fear of God makes someone blessed, but it
makes
only one person blessed, for thus it says, “Blessed is the
man
who fears the Lord.”™ Also, elsewhere, more are made
blessed,
as the poor in spirit, or the meek, or the peaceable, or the
pure
in heart."” But here the blessedness is lavish, and here the
cause
of the blessedness is shown to be so great that it makes all
the
people who know the joyful shout equally blessed.
Whence, it seems to me this shout indicates a certain
disposi-
tion of concordance and unanimity. If this happens to two
or
three disciples of Christ, the Father of heaven
bestows to them
everything they will ask in the name of the Savior.
But if, in-
stead, it were so great a blessedness that the whole
people re-
main united and of one mind, that “persevering,
they all say the
same things in the same frame of mind and in
the same way of
thinking,”! then, by such a people lifting up a sound
unani-
mously, that which was written in the Acts of
the Apostles will
happen. There a great carthquake occurred at the
time when
“the apostles of one accord were praying with
the women and
Mary the mother of Jesus.”* And after the shaking of
the earth,
all things that are of the earth will be torn down and
fall, and
the world itself will be overturned. Finally, hear
our Lord and
Savior himself exhorting his own soldiers to
this, as he says, “Be
assured; I have overcome the world.”® Therefore,
with that
leader the world has now been overcome by
us. And its walls,
which persons of this age used as support, have
collapsed.
But also, every one of us ought to accomplish
this in our-
selves. You have in you, through faith, Jesus
the leader. If you
are a priest, make for yourself “trumpets
hammered thin”; no,
rather, because you are a priest. For you have
indeed been made
“a kingly race,” and it has been said of you
that you are “a holy
priesthood.”"* Make for yourself trumpets
hammered thin from
9-Ps11z1. 10. Mt 5.3-g.
11.1 Cor 1.10.
12 Acts 1.13-14. No earthquake is mentioned at this time,
ofa “violent wind” [mvois unless the sound
13.Jn 16.33. Bualas] in Acts 2.2 be so interpreted.
14.1Pt2.g.
 HOMILY 7 77

the Holy Scriptures. From there bring forth perceptions; from

there, discourses; for, on that account, they are called trumpets
hammered thin. Sing in them, that is, “in psalms, in hymns, in
spiritual songs.”® In the prophetic mysteries, in the secrets of
the Law, in apostolic doctrines, sing.
And if you have played on such trumpets and seven times
you have carried around the ark of the covenant (that is, if you
do not sever the mystic precepts of the Law from the Gospel
trumpets'®); if you demand from yourself the harmony of the
Jjoyful shout (that is, if the people of your reason and feeling
that are within you always bring forth a united and harmonious
voice, and you do not at one time tell the truth and at another
time stain yourself with a falsehood as you try to impress some
person of authority); if at one time a weakness does not make
you a flatterer, and at another a proneness to anger make you
cruel; if you are not found arrogant toward modest persons or
fawning in the presence of haughty ones; and, finally, if a battle
is not waged within you when “the flesh lusts against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh”;'” if these things within you are
now harmonious and united, then send forth the sound of a
joyful shout, because for you the world has been overthrown
and cast down. Such a one, I believe, was even that one who
boldly said, “But let me not glory except in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified
to me and I to the world.”®
3. Yet something in this passage still moves me. I seem to
have perceived too little about the joyful shout, to have said
small things about great things.
At the coming of Jesus, the walls of Jericho were overthrown;
at the coming of my Lord Jesus, the world is overcome. Yet I
want to know more plainly how the world is overcome, and to
understand more clearly those things that are said. I myself, I
who teach you, want to learn equally with you. Let us summon
Paul as a teacher for all of us, for he is a fellow priest'® of Christ,

15. Col 3.16. 16. See the Introduction, p. 6-7.

17. Gal .17 18.Gal 6.14.
19. Symmystes. A mystes was a priest of the mysteries or of the secret rites of di-
vine worship.
8 ORIGEN

so that he can disclose to us how Christ overcame the world.

Therefore, hear him saying, “That which was opposed to us he
took away from our midst and fixed to his own cross; and strip-
ping principalities and authorities he exposed them openly, tri-
umphing over them on the wood of the cross.”® From these
words, therefore, I understand that when the heavenly powers
saw the fight of Jesus—the principalities and hostile authorities
stripped of their authorities, “the strong one bound and his
goods plundered”®—they thundered with their heavenly trum-
pets, because with the prince of this world bound, the world
Wwas overcome, and the heavenly army gave the joyful shout at
the triumph of Christ. Truly, therefore, blessed are the people
of the nations, those who know this joyful shout of the heavenly
army and who begin to recognize the mysteries and believe.
4- But let us see what it is that is indicated in the following.
For Jesus says, “Guard Yyourself against what has been
declared
anathema,? so you do not accidentally desire it
and take up
what is anathema and make the camp of the sons of Israel
anathema, and destroy both yourself and all the congregati
on
of the Lord.” This is what is indicated by these
words: Take
heed that you have nothing worldly in you, that you bring
down
wn.h you to the Church neither worldly customs
nor faults nor
€quivocations of the age. But let all worldly ways
be anathema
to you. Do not mix mundane things with divine; do not
intro-
duce worldly matters into the mysteries
of the Church.
This is what John also sounds with the trumpet
of his epistle,
saying, “Do not love the world, nor the
world.”! And likewise Paul, “Do not,” he things
says,
that are in the
to this world.”®
“be conformed
For those who do these things
anathema. But also those introduce anathema accept what is
es who, for example, celebrate the solemnitiesinto the church-
of the nations
20.Col 21415,
21 Mt1z.2g,
dens o mathemate vtbeua]
1thas reers
been odevoted
an offeing tht s iredeemable, forbid
Anyone paraking of s . bors DECE 1 © destruction and is5 under a ban
35 1 Cor 16.22; Gal 1.8-g.
25.Rom 12,2, s
 HOMILY 7 79

even though they are Christians. Those who eagerly seek the
lives and deeds of humans from the courses of the stars, who in-
quire of the flight of birds and other things of this type that
were observed in the former age, carry what is anathema from
Jericho into the Church and pollute the camp of the Lord and
cause the people of God to be overcome.* But there are also
many other sins through which anathema from Jericho is intro-
duced into the Church, through which the people of God are
overcome and overthrown by enemies. Does not the Apostle
also teach these same things when he says, “A little leaven spoils
the whole lump?™®
5. But let us see just now what follows. When Jericho is over-
thrown, only the prostitute Rahab is saved. For it is written con-
cerning her, “And Jesus restored Rahab the prostitute and all
her father’s house; and she was joined to Israel up to this very
day.®
1 would like to inquire of the Jews and of those who are
called Christians, but who still preserve the Jewish interpreta-
tion of Scriptures, how they explain that “Rahab the prostitute
Ra-
was joined to the house of Israel up to this very day.” How is
hab said to be “joined up to this very day?* For it is the custom
of Holy Scripture to say this about things that remain up to the
end of life or to the end of the age. For example, when it says,
“This one is the father of the Moabites up to this very dag," it
is
signifies until the end of the age. And, again, in the Gospel it
said that “this word has been spread abroad among the Jews up
to this very day,™! that is, it persists up to that age.
But the woman Rahab, how is she said to be joined to fl.me
house of Israel up to this very day? Is a succession of posterity
on her mother’s side ascribed so that she is considered to be
it be un-
preserved in a renewal of offspring? Or rather must
derstood that she has really been bound and united to Israel up

26. See Homily 7.6. 27.1 Cor 5.6

28.Jos 6.25. . s
confirmation for this inter-
20. Usque in hodiermum diem. Procopius furnishes
Pretation in Cat in Jos 87.1.1033A. See also Homilies 4.4; 14:% 2Lt
30.Gn19.37.
31. Mt 28.15.
80 ORIGEN
to this very day? If you want to see more plainly how Rahab is
bound to Israel, consider how “the branch of the wild olive tree
is implanted in the root of a good olive tree.”” Then you will
understand how those who have been implanted in the faith of
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are rightly called attached and
“joined to Isracl up to this very day.” For we have been attached
up to this very day in the root of those former ones, we, the
branches of the wild olive taken up from the nations, who at
one time were dealing with harlots and worshipping wood and
stone instead of the true God.** And we ourselves have been
made “above” through faith in Christ, and that former people
who remained unbelieving are “below,” according to the proph-
ecy of Deuteronomy* If, therefore, anyone holds in himself
Christ, who is the head of all,*® this one is made “into the
head,” for those former ones have denied Jesus Christ and have
been made “into the tail,”* and those who were “first” have
been made “last.”s"
6. But also we should not let it be passed over without com-
ment that by one sinner wrath comes upon all the people.
How does it happen? It happens when the priests who have
charge of the people want to seem kind toward those who sin,
and they fear the tongues of those sinners who might speak evil
of them. Forgetful of priestly severity, they do not wish to dis-
charge that which is written, “Reprove sinners in the presence
of all so that the rest may have fear,” and again, “Remove
the
evil one from your midst.”® Nor are they kindled with the zeal
of God 50 as to imitate the Apostle, who said, “Hand over
this
sort of person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
so that
the spirit may be saved.”® And they do not strive to follow
the
Gospel teaching, that if they have seen someone
sinning, they
should first come together privately, and afterwards “with
two
or three witnesses”; but if the sinner is defiant and has
not
changed his way after the reproof of the Church, “they should
32.Rom 11.17. 33. Dt 28.36.
34. CF. Dt 213, 35.CE 1 Cor 11.3.
36.Dt 28,3, 37. Mt 19.30.
38.1Tm 5,20, 39.1 Cor5.13.
40.1Cor 5.5,
 HOMILY 7 81

consider that person as a pagan and publican,” expelled from

the Church.#
‘When they spare one, they set in motion the destruction of
the whole Church. What kind of goodness is that, what kind of
compassion to spare one and to draw all into danger? For by
one sinner the people are defiled. Just as from one sick sheep,
the whole flock is infected, so also by one fornicator—or perpe-
trator of whatever other wickedness—the whole people are pol-
luted.
Therefore, let us guard one another, and let the manner of
life of each be known, especially by the priests and ministers.
Let them not think it right to say, “Why look at me if another
does evil™? This is for the head to say to the feet, “What does it
concern me if they suffer, if my feet are not well? It makes no
difference to me if only the head may continue in health.” Or if
the eye says to the hand, “I do not need your works; what does
it concern me if you endure pain, if you are wounded? Shall I,
the eye, be disturbed by the infirmity of the hand?"#
Such therefore is what those who lead the churches do who
do not consider that all of us who believe are one body, hav-
ing one God who draws us into one and holds us together—
Christ.®* You who preside over the Church are the eye of
Christ’s body, so that you may especially keep an eye on every-
thing, examine everything, and even foresee things about to
come. You are a pastor; you see the lambs of the Lord unaware
of danger to be carried to precipices and suspended over steep
places. Do you not run? Do you not call them back? Do you not
at least restrain them with your voice and deter them with a
shout of reproof? The Lord, with the other ninety-nine aban-
doned in heaven on account of one lamb that had strayed,* de-
scended to earth and found it and carried it back again to heav-
en on his shoulders.* Are you so unmindful of the mystery of
the Lord that when we ourselves care for lambs we do not at all
follow the example of the master shepherd?

41.Mt18.15-17. 42.CE. 1 Cor 12.14-21, 26.

48 CE Col 117, 44-Mt18.2.
451K 15.5.
82 ORIGEN

‘We do not say this in order that someone may be cut off for
a light fault. But if by chance someone makes no amends, al-
though reminded forcibly and reproved for a fault once and
again and a third time, then let us use the discipline of a sur-
geon. If we have anointed with oil, if we have soothed with plas-
ter, if we have softened with emollient, and nevertheless the
hardness of the tumor does not yield to the medications, the
only remedy that remains is to cut it away. For thus also the
Lord says, “If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off
and thrust it from you.”*® But does the hand of our body ever
cause us to stumble or does the Gospel say concerning this
hand of the body, “Cut it off and thrust it from you”? On the
contrary, this is what it says, that I, who seem to be a right hand
to you and am named a presbyter and seem to preach the word
of God, if I should do anything against the teaching of the
Church and the rule of the Gospel, so that I create a stumbling
block for you the Church, may the whole Church in one ac-
cord, acting in concert, cut me off and fling me, their right
hand, away. “For it is expedient for you,” the Church, to enter
into the kingdom of heaven without me, your hand, which, by
doing evil, prepared a stumbling block, than with me “to go
into Gehenna.”"
‘We have said these things, therefore, because we see record-
ed in the Holy Scriptures that on account of one sinner “the
sons of Israel became anathema™® so that they were overcome
by enemies.
7- But let us also see what sort of sin this person did. He
stole, it says, “a tongue of gold™ and placed it in his own tent.
1 do not think so great a force of sin was in that theft of a lit-
tle gold that it defiled the innumerable Church of the Lord.
But let us see if a deeper understanding does not reveal the
enormity and severity of the sin. There is much elegance in
words and much beauty in the discourses of philosophers and
rhetoricians, who are all of the city of Jericho, that is, people of

46. Mt 5.30. 47.Thid.

48.Jos 7.12.
49. Linguam auream (tongue-shaped ingot, bar of gold). Jos 7.21. The more
literal translation is used here to accompany Origen’s comparison with the
‘metaphorical golden tongue of a philosopher or poet.
 HOMILY 7 83

this world.® If, therefore, you should find among the philoso-
phers perverse doctrines beautified by the assertions of a splen-
did discourse, this is the “tongue of gold.” But beware that the
splendor of the performance does not beguile you, that the
beauty of the golden discourse not seize you. Remember that
Jesus commanded all the gold found in Jericho to be anathe-
ma. If you read a poet with properly measured verses, weaving
gods and goddesses in a very bright tune, do not be seduced by
the sweetness of eloquence, for it is the “tongue of gold.” If you
take it up and place it in your tent, if you introduce into your
heart those things that are declared by the [poets and philoso-
phers], then you will pollute the whole Church of the Lord.
This the unhappy Valentinus did and Basilides; Marcion also
did this. Those persons stole the “tongues of gold” from Jeri-
cho. They attempted to introduce into the churches sects not
fitting to us, and to pollute all the Church of the Lord.”
But let us follow the example of the fathers going before us.
Let us examine more diligently, lest anyone have a tongue of
Jericho hidden in their tent, and let us throw away the evil from
us because, even if we do nothing, God will reprove in such a
way that the thief freely confesses and says, “I stole the tongue
of gold and the pure bracelets.” Do you see what kind of thing
the thief stole? He stole the tongue and pure bracelets. The
pure bracelets are works in which nothing divine is mixed, but
the whole thing is accomplished according to the will of a hu-
man.** Finally, it is our custom in the debates to say that Christ
is not a pure man; instead we confess him to be God and man.?
But that which the sinner steals from Jericho is said to be pure,
50. Though Origen warns against the dogmas of the philosophers, he could
still advise his students to use the spoils of Egypt. See his letter to Gregory (Ep.
2.1-2).
51. Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion were founders of second-century
sects who introduced gnostic teachings into the churches. Origen’s repeated
polemic against the gnostics may show their attraction for some of his hearers.
See Homily 10.2; 11.6; 12.3; 14.2
52. Scripture does not mention the pure bracelets in our present texts, but
of. Homilies on Numbers 26.2; Homilies on Genesis 10.4; Selections on Exekiel 16.
53. In First Principles Origen speaks of Christ as both God and man (pref.4;
1.2.1). See J. W. Trigg’s summary of Origen’s understanding of the nature of
Christ in Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta:
John Knox Press, 1983), pp. 97-101.
84 ORIGEN

that is, without God, which certainly for the one stealing is the
cause of the sin.
Therefore, let us imagine nothing pure and mortal concern-
ing Christ, but let us acknowledge him equally God and man,
since even the wisdom of God is called manifold,> so that for
this we may deserve to have a share of the wisdom of God, who
is Christ Jesus our Lord, “to whom is the glory and the domin-
ion for ever and ever. Amen!"
54- Cf. 1 Cor 1.24; Wis 7.22.
55.1Ptg11.