Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28

Homily 2 : Jeremiah 2.21–22

HOMILY 2 Jeremiah 2.21–22 On “How did you turn to bitterness, you strange vine?” up to, “‘If you wash in lye and wash yourself with soap, you remain stained in your iniquities before me,’ says the Lord.” od did not make death and he does not delight in the destruction of living things; for he created all things that they might exist and the creatures of the world are wholesome and there is no destructive poison in them and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.1 Passing over, then, a little passage, I will ask: From where, then, did death come? By the envy of the Devil death came into the world.2 If, then, there is something excellent3 in our regard, God has made it, but we have created evil and sins for ourselves. For the same reason, the beginning of the passage just read from the Prophet speaks in a rhetorical sense to those who have bitterness in the soul contrary to the sweetness which God fashioned for it: How have you turned to bitterness, you strange vine? as if he was saying: God did not make lameness, but he has made all things swift of foot, yet what cause arose which has made the lame lame? And God has made all limbs absolutely sound, but what cause arose which makes things suffer? In the same way, the soul, not only of the first man but of all men, arose according to the image—for the statement, Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness,4 applies to all men. 23 1. Wis 1.13–14. 2. Wis 2.24. 3. “Excellent” (a[riston), a correction of Delarue. S has ajresto;n. 4. Gen 1.26. And, just as in Adam, what most people think of as according to the image is prior to what was superimposed upon it when he bore the image of the earthly 5 due to sin, so in all people what is according to the image of God is prior to the inferior image. We have borne, being sinners, the image of the earthly, let us bear, after we repent, the image of the heavenly.6 Indeed, creation was made according to the image of the heavenly.7 (2) Hence there is a concern here when the Word says reprovingly to sinners: How did you turn to bitterness, you strange vine? For I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly true. In those things said before and when I resume after a little, I will convince you that God planted the human soul as a good vine, but each soul turned contrary to the plan of the Creator. I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly, not partly, true, not true in one sense, false in another, rather, I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly true. How did you turn, you whom I created as a wholly true vine, how did you turn to bitterness and become a strange vine? 8 2. After this let us look at the words: “Even if you wash in lye and cover yourself with soap, you are yet stained in your iniquities before me,” says the Lord. Does a sinful soul, which has taken up lye and which washes itself in bodily lye, suppose that it will put an end to its filth and put an end to its sin? Does anyone assume that when he has taken up soap that arose from the earth and washed himself and cleaned himself the soul is purified , because the Word then says to the one who has ORIGEN 24 5. 1 Cor 15.49. 6. 1 Cor 15.49. 7. Origen’s ideas on the “image,” discussed in all of his works, are a significant contribution to theology. See Henri Crouzel’s study, Théologie de l’image de Dieu chez Origène (Paris: Aubier, 1956). 8. This section is filled with unanswered questions, because for Origen there are no answers to this, perhaps the most profound, quandary of man: If man was created good, how could he not be good? The precise inner cause of perversion and evil is never developed, though in On First Principles and in other works, Origen indicates that man’s good is not his; only God is truly good. In that sense man can ignore it in the same way he can refuse to see the light by closing his eyes. Eventually he...