The lion from the den; put on sackcloth
'A lion has gone up from his den.' Where? When? He is down, having fallen; he has come down into the lowest parts of the earth. 'A lion has gone up from his den.' You are a human being; you are higher than the devil. For you are stronger than he, whatever you may be. He, because of wickedness, is below. So 'a lion has gone up from his den; destroying nations he has carried them off.' Having gone up from his den—the place belonging to his own punishment—'destroying nations he has carried them off; he has gone out from his place to make your land a desolation.' He wants your land, about which we spoke a little earlier. He wants each of us to be pastured on.
So he comes 'to make your land' desolate, so that the lion may trample the seeds, so that he may make your land empty. 'And your cities will be torn down because they are not inhabited.' Upon these things, gird yourselves with sackcloth.
Since then a lion has gone up and a lion threatens you and wants to wipe out your land, gird sackcloth, weep and mourn, call on God through prayers, that he may destroy this lion from you and you may not fall into his mouth. For 'as when the shepherd snatches from a lion's mouth two legs or a lobe of an ear'—this lion seeks to take you by the ears, so that by your greediness, casting false words beside you, he may drive you from the truth; he wants to snatch your feet from the truth and devour them. But you gird sackcloth and beat your breast and weep and cry out, seeing the enemy who has come, so that 'the wrath of the Lord's anger' may turn away from you, and when the wrath has turned you may be able, in freedom from care—the lion no longer slipping in on you, because you have entered the walled city—to glorify the God who delivers you in Christ Jesus, to whom is the glory and the power forever and ever.
Amen.
Greek
«Ἀνέβη« οὖν λέων ἐκ τῆς μάνδρας αὐτοῦ. ποῦ; πότε; κάτω ἐστὶν πεσών, εἰς τὰ κατώτατα τῆς γῆς κατελήλυθεν. «ἀνέβη λέων ἐκ τῆς μάνδρας αὐτοῦ. ἄνθρωπος εἶ, ἀνωτέρω εἶ τοῦ διαβόλου· κρείττων γὰρ εἶ αὐτοῦ, ὁποῖος ἐὰν ᾖς· ἐκεῖνος διὰ τὴν κακίαν κάτω ἐστίν. «ἀνέβη« οὖν «λέων ἐκ τῆς μάνδρας αὐτοῦ, ἐξολοθρεύων ἔθνη ἐξῆρεν«· ἀναβὰς «ἐκ τῆς μάνδρας αὐτοῦ«, τόπου τοῦ οἰκείου τῇ κολάσει ἑαυτοῦ, «ἐξολοθρεύων ἔθνη ἐξῆρεν· ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ τόπου αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεῖναι τὴν γῆν σου εἰς ἐρήμωσιν( βούλεται σου εἰς τὴν γῆν, περὶ ἡς πρὸ βραχέως ἐλέγομεν. ἕκαστον ἡμῶν βούλεται νεμηθῆναι.
ἔρχεται οὐν «τοῦ θεῖναι τὴν γῆν σου εἰς ἵνα καταπατήσῃ τὰ σπέρματα ὁ λέων , ἵνα ποιήσῃ ἔρημόν σου τὴν γῆν. «καὶ πόλεις σου καθαιρεθήσονται παρὰ τὸ μὴ κατοικεῖσθαι αὐτάς. ἐπὶ τούτοις περιζώσασθε σάκκους.
ἐπεὶ οὖν ἀνέβη λέων καὶ ἀπειλεῖ σοι λέων καὶ βούλεταί σου ἀφανίσαι τὴν γῆν, περίζωσαι σάκκον, κλαῖε καὶ πένθει, διὰ τῶν εὐχῶν παρακάλει τὸν θεόν, ἵνα τοῦτον τὸν λέοντα ἐξολοθρεύσῃ ἀπὸ σοῦ καὶ μὴ ἐμπέσῃς αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸ στόμα. «ὃν πρόπον« γὰρ «ὅταν ἐκσπάσῃ ὁ ποιμὴν ἐκ στόματος λέοντος δύο σκέλη ἢ λοβὸν ὠτίου«· οὗτος ὁ λέων ζητεῖ τῶν ὤτων σε λαβεῖν, ἴνα διὰ τῆς λιχνείας σου λόγους ψευδεῖς σοι παραβαλὼν ἐκστήσῃ σε ἀπὸ τῆς ἀληθείας, βούλεταί σου ἀπὸ τῆς ἀληθείας ἁρπάσαι τοὺς πόδας καὶ καταφαγεῖν. ἀλλὰ σὺ περίζωσαι σάκκους καὶ κόπτου καὶ κλαῖε καὶ ἀλάλαζε βλέπων τὸν πολέμιον τὸν ἐνεστηκότα, ἵνα ἀποστραφῇ «θυμὸς ὀργῆς κυρίου« ἀπὸ σοῦ, καὶ ἀποστραφέντος τοῦ θυμοῦ δυνηθῇς ἐν ἀμεριμνίᾳ γενόμενος, μηκέτι τοῦ λέοντος ὑπεισερχομένου σοι, τῷ σε εἰσεληλυθέναι εἰς τὴν τειχήρη πόλιν, δοξάζειν τὸν ῥυόμενόν σε θεὸν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, ᾧ ἐστιν ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.
Ἀμήν.
About this text
Origen on Jeremiah. Twenty Greek homilies survive. This page publishes the Pass B English for Homilies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Homily 8 remains a machine draft and is not shipped yet. The rest of the volume is still being translated.
English follows Erich Klostermann, Origenes Werke III (GCS, 1901). A second transcription of that same edition (First1KGreek TEI) was checked; where the TEI drops or garbles a line, the page image wins. This is a reading translation for study, not a new critical edition of the Greek. Homilies that survive only in Jerome’s Latin are not on this page yet. When they are, they will be marked at those homilies.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Klostermann, Origenes Werke III (GCS, 1901) (Greek · Homilies 1–20 Greek (this page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20))
- Checked print Archive.org page image and DjVu of GCS III (Greek · Same print as the copy-text)
- Checked print First1KGreek TEI of GCS III (Greek · Same print; encoding errors deferred to the page image)
Where the prints differ
- Homily 1.1 — The TEI omits Ἑβραῖον. English follows the GCS page image: Jonah is “a Hebrew prophet.”
- Homily 1.5 — The TEI dropped Ἰσαάκ. English follows the GCS page image: Isaac born of promise.
- Homily 1.11 — The TEI/OCR of this line is garbled. English follows the GCS page image and the quoted verse: “I have sanctified you.”
- Homily 3.2 — The TEI gaps Matthew 5:45 (sun on the evil and [gap]; rain on [gap] and the unjust). English follows the Gospel wording.
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.