Origen of Alexandria

In his own words on Deuteronomy

• Deuteronomy 1:1

  And here this other fact will not appear to be without significance, that it is Moses who hears from God all that is written down in the law of Leviticus, whereas in Deuteronomy it is the people who are represented as listening to Moses and learning from him what they could not hear from God. This indeed is why it is called Deuteronomy, meaning the second law. A fact which some will think points to this [is] that when the first law given through Moses came to an end, a second legislation was apparently composed, and this was specially delivered by Moses to his successor Joshua. And Joshua is certainly believed to be a figure of our Savior, by whose second law, that is, by the precepts of the Gospels, all things are brought to perfection.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.3.12

• Deuteronomy 1:31

  See what we are generally taught about God: "God is not as a man to be deceived nor as the son of man to be threatened," and we learn that God is not as man. But other texts say that God is as a man: "For the Lord your God has taught you as a man teaches his son," and again, "As a man he takes on the manners of his son." Hence, wherever the Scriptures speak theologically about God in relation to himself and do not involve his plan for human matters, they teach that he is "not as a man." For "there will be no limit to his greatness," and "he is more feared than all of the gods," and "praise him, all you angels of God; praise him, all his hosts; praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all stars and light." You can find many other passages in the sacred Scriptures to which you can relate the words "God is not as a man."

  HOMILY 18.3

• Deuteronomy 4:16

  The intention of the law was that in everything they should look toward what is real. They should not make up things which are different from reality or misrepresent what is truly male or what is really female, or the nature of beasts or the species of birds or creeping things, or fishes.

  AGAINST CELSUS 4.31

• Deuteronomy 4:16

  We create other images in ourselves instead of the Savior's image. Instead of being the image of the Word, or of wisdom, justice, and the rest of the virtues, we assume the form of the devil. Then we can be called "serpents" and "a generation of vipers." When we are venomous, cruel or wily, we have taken on the character of the lion, the snake or the fox. When we are prone to pleasure, we are like the goat. I recall once explaining that place in Deuteronomy where it is written, "Do not make any image of a male or a female or an image of any beast." I said that "because the law is spiritual," the passage means this. Some make themselves into the image of a male, others into the image of a female. One has the likeness of birds, another of reptiles and serpents. Still another makes himself into the image of God. Anyone who reads what I wrote will know how the passage can be understood.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 8:3

• Deuteronomy 4:19

  It is clear then that since those who live according to the law reverence the One who made the heaven, they do not reverence the heaven as if God. Furthermore, none of those who serve the Mosaic law worship the angels in heaven. And in the same way that they do not worship the sun, moon, and stars and "the world of heaven." They avoid worshiping heaven as such or the angels in it.

  AGAINST CELSUS 5.6

• Deuteronomy 4:19

  It is quite likely that the enemy will want to induce us by every possible trick down to "the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven." But we shall reply that the Word of God did not command us to do so. For in no way may we bow down to the creature in the presence of the Creator who sustains all and anticipates their prayer. Not even the sun would wish that any friend of God or anyone else, it would seem, should bow down to it. It imitates him who says, "Why do you call me good? None is good but one, that is God" the Father.

  EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 7

• Deuteronomy 4:24

  Hear what is written: "Our God is a consuming fire." What does the God of fire consume? Will we be so senseless as to think that God consumes the firewood or straw or hay? But the God of fire consumes human sins. He consumes them, devours them, purges them, as he says in another place, "I will purge you with fire for purity."

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 5.3

• Deuteronomy 4:24

  "God is spirit, and those who worship him should worship in spirit and in truth." Our God is also "a consuming fire." Therefore God is called by two names: "spirit" and "fire." To the just he is spirit; to sinners he is fire.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 26.1

• Deuteronomy 4:38

  If we rightly understand the matter, this is the statement of Moses at the beginning of his book: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." For this is the beginning of all creation; to this beginning the end and consummation of all things must be recalled, in order that this heaven and this earth may be the habitation and resting place of the pious. So all the holy ones and the meek obtain an inheritance in that land, since this is the teaching of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.6.8

• Deuteronomy 5:31

  [Celsus] continues by making further remarks as if they were what we should agree to, although none of those Christians who have any intelligence would agree to them. Not one of us says that "God participates in shape or color." Nor does he "partake of movement"; because it is his nature to be established and firm, he calls the righteous man to imitate him in this respect when he says, "But as for you, stand with me." If, however, some texts suggest that there is movement of some sort on his part, as for example that which says "They heard the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening," we should understand such sayings in the sense that God is regarded as being moved by those who have sinned. Or we should interpret such texts in the same way as we do when there is a figurative reference to God's sleep or his anger or anything of this sort.

  AGAINST CELSUS 6.64

• Deuteronomy 9:9

  Every form of nourishment is called "bread" in the Scriptures. This is clear from what is written concerning Moses: for forty days he neither ate "bread" nor drank water. The word that nourishes is multidimensional and varied. Not everyone can receive the solid and strong nourishment of God's teachings. Therefore, wishing to give an athlete's nourishment suitable to the more perfect, [Christ] says, "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

  ON PRAYER 27.4

• Deuteronomy 10:12

  God seeks from us and entreats us, not because he needs something that we have to give him but, after we have given it to him, he will account that very thing to us for our salvation.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 39.6

• Deuteronomy 16:10

  An offering of "first fruits," that is, from the beginning of the harvest, is commanded. If you remember well, the law commands this is to be done on the day of Pentecost. This was obviously given to them as a "shadow," but the truth was reserved for us. For on the day of Pentecost, after they offered up the sacrifice of prayers, the church of the apostles received the first fruits of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 2.2.5

• Deuteronomy 18:15

  It is written in Deuteronomy, "[The Lord] your God will raise up a prophet like me for you from your brothers. You shall hear him; and it shall be that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from his people." Therefore some prophet was specially expected who would be similar to Moses in some respect, to mediate between God and humanity, and who would receive the covenant from God and give the new covenant to those who became disciples. And the people of Israel knew so far as each of the prophets was concerned that no one of them was the [special] one announced by Moses.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 6.90

• Deuteronomy 18:20

  We can be prepared to find some prophet even of impiety—and perhaps not just one but several—who will tell us of a word of the Lord, which the Lord has not at all commanded, or a "word of wisdom" which has nothing whatever to do with wisdom. His purpose is to slay us by the word of his mouth.

  EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 8

• Deuteronomy 21:10-11

  But nevertheless I also intellectually have "gone out to war against my enemies, and I saw there" in the plunder "a woman with a beautiful figure." Whatever we find said well and reasonably among our philosophical enemies, or we read anything said among them wisely and knowingly, we must cleanse it. We must remove and cut off all that is dead and worthless. It is as if one were trimming the hairs of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemy. Only then would you take her as a wife.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.6.7

• Deuteronomy 22:8

  When you build a house, you do not quit before building the protective parapet of the house. It is this parapet that prevents one who has ascended onto the house from falling. So it is with the house of the Word. Consequently those who fall because of unfinished buildings fall only from houses which lack the parapet. Those architects and builders bear the blame for such slaughters and falls.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 6.7

• Deuteronomy 29:23

  He pretends then that he does not see your future so that he may preserve your self-determination by not foretelling or foreknowing whether you will repent or not. So he says to the prophet, "Speak, perhaps they will repent." You will find numerous other passages where Scripture talks about God "taking on the manners of" man. If you hear of the anger of God and his wrath, do not suppose that anger and wrath are passions of God. The purposes of using this way of speaking are for converting and educating the infant, since we also use a fearful expression with children, not from an actual state of mind but because of a purpose to cause fear.

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 18.6.7

• Deuteronomy 30:14

  The "kingdom of God," according to the word of our Lord and Savior, "comes not with observation"; and "neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there"—but "the kingdom of God is within us" (for "the Word is very nigh unto" us, "in our mouth and in our heart"). So it is clear that he who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God rightly prays that the kingdom of God might be established and bear fruit and be perfected in himself.

  ON PRAYER 25.1

• Deuteronomy 30:14

  But what does Scripture say? The Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart. And to these the Savior also kindly points out the matters pertaining to the kingdom of God, that they may not seek it outside themselves or say, "Behold here or behold there." For he says to them, "The kingdom of God is within you."

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 19.77

• Deuteronomy 30:14

  But consider if perhaps all people participate in him insofar as he is Word. This is why the apostle teaches us that he is sought within the seekers by those who choose to find him. He says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?' that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the deep?' that is, to bring Christ up again from the dead. But what does the Scripture say? The Word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart." This is as though Christ and the Word which is sought are the same.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.269

• Deuteronomy 32:2

  Therefore let us seek in the Scriptures what is "the rain" which is given only to the saints and concerning which "it is commanded to the clouds that they do not pour their rain" upon the unjust. Therefore Moses and the Lawgiver himself teach us what this rain is. For he himself says in Deuteronomy, "Consider, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words from my mouth; let my speech be awaited like rain." Are these words my speech? Do we pervert violently the meaning of divine law by arguments of rhetoric? Is it not Moses who says that it is "rain" of which he speaks? He says, "Let my speech be awaited like rain and my words descend as dew, as a storm upon the grass and as snow upon the hay."

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 16.2.3.See also AMBROSE ON DEUTERONOMY 28:12

• Deuteronomy 32:4

  But he who is on the white horse is called "faithful," not so much because he trusts as because he is trustworthy, that is, he is worthy of being trusted. According to Moses, the Lord is faithful and true. For he is also true in contradistinction to a shadow and a type and an image, since the Word that powers from heaven is true. For the Word on earth is not like the Word in heaven, inasmuch as he has become flesh and is expressed by means of a shadow and types and images.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2.49

• Deuteronomy 32:6

  But if the Lord himself is Creator of all things, we must consider in what manner he is said "to have acquired" what is without doubt his own. It is said also in another song in Deuteronomy: "Is not he himself your God who made you and created you and acquired you?" For each one appears to acquire that which was not his own. Indeed, on this basis the heretics also say of the Savior that he "acquired" those who were not his; for with the price which was paid he purchased men whom the Creator had made. And it is certain, they say, that everyone buys that which is not his own; indeed, the apostle says, "You have been bought with a price."

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 6:9

• Deuteronomy 32:32

  It was the work of the good God, indeed, to destroy the land of the Sodomites and to dry up all its remaining moisture, so that there might no longer be a vineyard of the Sodomites, or a vine branch of Gomorrah, or grapes of gall, or a cluster of bitterness, or wine, the wrath of dragons and the incurable wrath of asps.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 20.28