Origen of Alexandria

In his own words on Hosea

• Hosea 2:7

  So, therefore, understand that there were also many lovers of your soul who have been seduced by its splendor with whom it has been a prostitute. It was also said of these, "I will go after my lovers, who give me my wine and my oil." But the soul has now come to that time that it should say, "I will return to my first husband because it was better for me than now." You have returned, therefore, to your first husband. You have doubtless displeased your lovers with whom you used to commit adultery. Unless, therefore, you now remain with your husband in total faith and are joined to him in total love, because of the many evil deeds that you committed, your every movement and look and even your walk is suspected by him, if these should be too careless. He must see nothing further in you that is playful, licentious or prodigal. But when you turn aside your eyes in the slightest from your husband, immediately he necessarily is reminded of your former conduct. Therefore, that you may destroy the former things and he henceforth may be able to have confidence in you, not only must you do nothing immodest, but also you must not even think of such.

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 8:4

• Hosea 2:9

  "And if [the adulterous spirit] comes and finds the house vacant, clean, and furnished, it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and enters that house and lives in it. And the last of that man is worse than the first." If we give attention to these words, how can we give place to carelessness even in a small matter? For the unclean spirit dwelled in us before we believed, before we came to Christ when our soul, as I said previously, was still committing fornication against God and was with its lovers, the demons. But afterward it said, "I will return to my first husband," and it came to Christ who "created" it from the beginning "in his image." Necessarily the adulterous spirit yielded when it saw the legitimate husband. We therefore have been received by Christ, and our house has been "cleansed" from its former sins and has been "furnished" with the furnishing of the sacraments of the faithful which they who have been initiated know. But this house does not deserve to have Christ as its resident immediately unless its life and conduct are so holy, so pure and incapable of being defiled that it deserves to be called the "temple of God."

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 8:4

• Hosea 2:23

  Next the promise of God is said for those who hear; if they do what is "commanded: And you will be my people and I will be your God." Not everyone who says they are a people of God are "a people" of God. Hence, that people who were proclaimed to be a people of God heard, "You are not my people," in the passage, "Therefore you are not my people." And it has been said to that people you are "not my people." Elsewhere this people was called a "people," for "they have provoked me to jealousy with what is not God"—he speaks concerning the former—"they have provoked me with their idols. So I will provoke them to jealousy with those who are not a people, with a senseless nation I will provoke them."

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 9:4

• Hosea 3:4

  For the prophecy was fulfilled that had declared, "For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king and prince. There shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood, nor answers." These testimonies, accordingly, we employ against those who presume to assert that what is spoken in Genesis by Jacob refers to Judah. They say that there still remains a prince of the race of Judah—he, namely, who is the prince of their nation, whom they style patriarch—and that there cannot fail [a ruler] of his seed, who will remain until the advent of that Christ whom they picture themselves. But if the prophet's words are true when he says, "The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, without prince; and there shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood," and if, certainly, since the overthrow of the temple, victims are neither offered, nor any altar found, nor any priesthood exists. So it is most certain that, as it is written, princes have departed from Judah and a leader from between his thighs, until the coming of him for whom it has been reserved. It is established, then, that he has indeed come from whom it has been reserved and in whom is the expectation of the Gentiles. And this manifestly seems to be fulfilled in the multitude of those who have believed in God through Christ out of the different nations.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4:1.3

• Hosea 3:4

  I ask, therefore, on what day the heavenly manna began to be given. I wish to compare our Lord's day with the sabbath of the Jews. For the divine Scriptures it appears that manna was first given on earth on the Lord's day. For if, as Scripture says, it was gathered for six consecutive days, but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, it was stopped, without doubt it began on the first day, which is the Lord's day. But if it is plain from divine Scriptures that on the Lord's day God rained manna and on the sabbath he did not, let the Jews understand that already at that time our Lord's day was preferred to the Jewish sabbath. Even then it was revealed that on their own sabbath no grace of God descended to them from the sky; no bread of heaven, which is the Word of God, came to them. For a prophet also says elsewhere, "The sons of Israel will sit for many days without a king, without a prince, without a prophet, without a victim, without a sacrifice, without a priest." On our Lord's day, however, the Lord always rains manna from the sky.

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 7

• Hosea 4:8

  The text wants you to make a more daring assertion if your hearing will still follow. What is the "sacrifice" that is offered "for sin" and is "very holy" except "the only begotten Son of God," Jesus Christ my Lord? He alone is the "sacrifice for sins," and he is "a very holy offering." But since it added that "the priest who offers it will eat it," it seems to be hard to understand. For that which it says must be eaten seems to be referring to the sin, just as in another place the prophet says concerning the priests that "they will eat the sins of my people." This also shows that the priest ought to eat the sin of the one who is offering. We frequently show from holy Scripture that Christ is also the sacrifice that is offered for the sin of the world and the priest who brings the offering.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 5:2

• Hosea 4:14

  Hear what he says through the prophet. When he had enumerated abominable things that the people had committed, he adds these words also: "And for this reason I will not visit your daughters when they fornicate, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery." This is terrible! This is the outcome when we are no longer reproached for sins, when we offend and are no longer corrected. For then, when we have exceeded the measure of sinning "the jealous God" turns his jealousy away from us, as he said above, "For my jealousy will be removed from you, and I will no longer be angry over you." I have said these things about the statement "God is jealous."

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 8

• Hosea 6:2

  Hear what the prophet says: "God will revive us after two days, and on the third day we shall arise and live in his sight." The first day is the passion of the Savior for us. The second is the day on which he descended into hell. The third day is the day of resurrection. Therefore on the third day "God went before them, by day in a column of cloud, by night in a column of fire." But if according to what we said above, the apostle teaches us rightly that the mysteries of baptism are contained in these words, it is necessary that "those who are baptized in Christ are baptized in his death and are buried with him." [They must] also arise from the dead with him on the third day, according to what the apostle says, "He raised up together with him and at the same time made them sit in the heavenly places." When, therefore, you shall have undertaken the mystery of the third day, God will begin to lead you and will himself show you the way of salvation.

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 5

• Hosea 7:2

  Therefore each one must keep his heart with all watchfulness, for when the Lord comes in the day of judgment, "He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts," "all the thoughts of men meanwhile accusing or else excusing them," "when their own devices have beset them about." But of such a nature are the evil thoughts that sometimes they make worthy of censure even those things which seem good and which, so far as the popular judgment is concerned, are indeed worthy of praise.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 11:15

• Hosea 7:4

  But where shall I find an approach to the divine Scripture that teaches me what "an oven" is? I must call upon Jesus my Lord, that he may make me the seeker find and may open to the one knocking, that I may find in Scriptures "the oven" where I can rightly bake my sacrifice that God may accept it. Indeed, I think I have found it in Hosea the prophet, where he says, "All adulterers are as an oven ignited for burning." And again he says, "Their hearts glowed as an oven." The human heart therefore is "an oven." But this heart, if vices ignite it or the devil inflames it, will not bake, but it will burn up. But if that one who said, "I came to send fire into the earth" should ignite it, the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up for destruction, but I bake for sacrifice.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 5:2

• Hosea 7:6

  But where shall I find an approach to the divine Scripture that teaches me what "an oven" is? I must call upon Jesus my Lord, that he may make me the seeker find and may open to the one knocking, that I may find in Scriptures "the oven" where I can rightly bake my sacrifice that God may accept it. Indeed, I think I have found it in Hosea the prophet, where he says, "All adulterers are as an oven ignited for burning." And again he says, "Their hearts glowed as an oven." The human heart therefore is "an oven." But this heart, if vices ignite it or the devil inflames it, will not bake, but it will burn up. But if that one who said, "I came to send fire into the earth" should ignite it, the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up for destruction, but I bake for sacrifice.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 5:2

• Hosea 10:12

  Observe how holy and how marvelous is the sequence of things. Do not imagine that wisdom will come before its enactment in deeds. The deeds ought to come first, and wisdom sought afterwards.… We ought not teach others before we ourselves are instructed and rational. After these things, however, "truth" is added because "truth" is the highest wisdom. The prophet also preserves this same order when he says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of life; illuminate yourselves with the light of knowledge." See how he does not first say, "Illuminate yourselves with the light of knowledge," but first, "Sow for yourselves righteousness." It is not sufficient just to sow, but he says, "reap the fruit of life" so that after these you can fulfill what follows, "illuminate yourselves with the light of knowledge."

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 6:4.4

• Hosea 14:9

  And to such a degree does the gospel desire that there should be wise people among believers, that for the sake of exercising the understanding of its hearers, it has spoken certain truths in enigmas, others in what are called "dark" sayings, others in parables, and others in problems. And one of the prophets—Hosea—says at the end of his prophecy, "Who is wise, and he will understand these things? Or prudent, and he shall know them?"

  AGAINST CELSUS 3:45

• Hosea 14:9

  If any reader is "a spiritual man who judges all things and he is judged by no one," not only will he allegorize the major regions as Judea and Egypt and Babylon but also areas of the earth. And just as in Judea is Jerusalem and Bethlehem and other cities, so in Egypt when he reads, "Diospolis, Bubastis, Taphnis, Memphis, Syene," he will understand the meaning of things figuratively. "Who is wise and understands these things? Or who is understanding and will know them?"

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 28:5