Homilies on Luke

Homily 5. Luke 1.22

HOMILY 5 Luke I.22 On thefact that Zechariah fell mute. HEN THE PRIEST Zechariah offers incense in the temple , he is condemned to silence and cannot speak. Or better, he speaks only with gestures. He remains mute until the birth of his sonJohn. What does this mean? Zechariah 's silence is the silence of prophets in the people oflsrael.1 God no longer speaks to them. His "Word, which was with the Father from the beginning, and was God,""has passed over to us. For us Christ is not silent; for the Jews he is silent even to this day. Therefore, Zechariah the prophet was also silent. His words make it quite clear that he was both a prophet and a priest. But what does the phrase that follows mean, namely, "He kept nodding to them"3 - that is, he compensated for the loss of his voice with signs? I think that there are deeds that are no different from empty signs because they lack words and reason.4But, when words and reason come first and the deed follows, the deeds are not mere signs; they are endowed with rationality. 2. Consider the Jewish practices. They lack words and rea- ). Cf. Ambrose, Exposition ofthe Gospel AccoTding to Luke) .40. 2.Jn ).)-2. 3. Lk 1.22. 4.Jerome here translates A6yo~ awkwardly as "word and reason. ""\That follows makes it clear that, in Origen's view, Jewish practices (and more generally, the entire Old Testament) remain mere gestures if they lack the fulfillment that A6yo~-that is, the Word himself, the principle ofintelligibility-brings to them. Origen's disparagement of the Jews, sometimes expressed rather sharply, rests on his conviction that, in rejecting Jesus as Messiah, they rejected God's Word and hence the very principle that rendered their Scripture and their practices intelligible . 20 HOMILY 5 21 son.5 TheJews cannot give a reason for their practices. Realize that what happened in the past in Zechariah is a type ofwhat is fulfilled in the Jews even to this day. Their circumcision is like an empty sign. Unless the meaning of circumcision is provided, it remains an empty sign, a mute deed. Passover and other feasts are empty signs rather than the truth. To this very day the people ofIsrael are mute and dumb. The people who rejected the Word from their midst could not be anything but mute and dumb. 3. Moses himself once said, "I am a"Aoyor; (wordless) ." Ii The Latin version uses a different expression, but we can translate the word a"Aoyor; exactly as "without words and reason." Mter he said this, he received reason and speech, which he admitted that he did not have before. When the people of Israel were in Egypt, before they had received the Law, they too were without words and reason and thus, in a sense, mute. Then they received the Word; Moses was the image of it. So these people do not admit now what Moses had once admittedthat they are mute and wordless-but show by signs and silence that they have n either words nor reason. Do you not realize that the J ews are confessing their folly when none of them can give a reasonable explanation of the precepts of their Law and of the predictions of their prophetst 4. Christ ceased to be in them. The Word deserted them. What Isaiah wrote was fulfilled, "The daughter of Zion will be deserted like a tent in the vineyard or like a hut in the cucumber patch; she is as desolate as a plundered city." 8 The Jews were left behind and salvation passed to the Gentiles. God meant to spur on the Jews with envy. We contemplate God's mysterious plan, how for our salvation he rejected Israel. We ought to be careful. The Jews were rejected for our sake; on 5. That is. the Jews lack the A6yo£. 6. Ex 4.10.Jerome keeps the Greek word here. 7. See Rom 11.11. Origen here states the Christians' principal objection to the J ews. Jews failed to understand the Old Testament-that is. they failed to interpret it christologically. S. Is 1.8. 22 ORIGEN our account they were abandoned. We would deserve even greater punishment ifwe did nothing worthy ofour adoption by God and of his mercy. In his mercy God adopted us and made us his sons in ChristJesus...