The Capture of Jericho
From a homily on Joshua by Origen, priest (c. 185)
The Capture of Jericho
Narrated by Frank Dugan, Huntington Beach, California
Once Jericho was surrounded it had to be stormed. How then was Jericho stormed? No sword was drawn against it, not battering ram was aimed at it, no javelins were hurled. The priest merely sounded their trumpets, and the walls of Jericho collapsed.
In the Scriptures Jericho is often represented as an image of the world. There can be not doubt that the man whom the Gospel describes as going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling into the hands of brigands is an image of Adam being driven out of paradise into the exile of this world. Likewise the blind men in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to give sight, signified the people in this world who were blinded by ignorance, to whom the son of God came.
Jericho will fall, then; this world will perish. Indeed inthe sacred books the end of the world was proclaimed long ago. How will the world be brought to an end, and by what means will it be destroyed? The answer of Scripture is: By the sound of trumpets. If you ask what trumpets, then let Paul reveal the secret. Listen to what he says: The trumpet will sound, and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible. The voice of the archangel and the trumpets of God will give the signal, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Then the Lord Jesus will conquer Jericho with trumpets and destroy it, saving only the harlot and her household.
Jesus our Lord will come says Paul, and he will come with the sound of trumpets. He will save only the woman who received his spies, that is, his apostles, in faith and obedience, and hid them on the roof of her house; and he will join this harlot to the house of Israel. But let us notbring up her past sins again or impute them to her. She was a harlot once, but now she is joined to Christ, chaste virgin to one chaste husband. Listen to what the Apostle say of her: He has determined to present you to Christ as a chaste virgin to her one and only husband. Indeed, Paul himself had been born of her: Misled by our folly and disbelief, he said, we too were once slaves to our passions and to pleasures of every kind.
If you wish to learn more fully about how this harlot ceased to be a harlot then listen to Paul once again: And such were you also, but you have been cleansed and made holy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. To assure her escape when Jericho was destroyed, the harlot was given that most effective symbol of salvation, the scarlet cord. For it is by the blood of Christ that the entire Church is saved, in the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belongs glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Origen, born in 185, witnessed the persecution of the Church in Alexandrian. Early on he evidenced a certain genius while leading a life of virtue. He was well educated and deeply devout in his faith. When his father was thrown into prison and condemned to a martyrs death, Origen wrote him a moving letter encouraging him to persevere courageously in the faith.
The family fortune had been confiscated by the imperial magistrates and Origen became a teacher and so helped support his mother and his six younger brothers. He sold his manuscripts and started a catechetical school which soon became a center of learning through his eloquent exhortations. Origin devoted himself to the study of philosophy, the scriptures and Hebrew.
He was sought out who heard of his teaching. He traveled to Rome, and was invited to Arabia by its governor who wanted to meet him. In 215 he traveled to Palestine, Greece and Caesarea where the Bishop of Jerusalem ordained him a priest. His ordination was invalidated when two councils were held at Alexandria, one of which pronounced a decree of banishment against Origen while the other deposed him from the priesthood. St. Jerome declares expressly that he was not condemned on a point of doctrine.
Before St. Augustine, Origen was the most influential theologian in the church. His threefold plan of interpreting Scripture (literal, ethical, and allegorical) influenced subsequent exegetical works. In spite of Origen’s fame as an apologist for Christianity, there was question as to his orthodoxy. His somewhat recondite blending of pagan philosophy with Christian theology led to his condemnation by Justinian in the Monophysite controversy. There is good reason to believe that he was the victim of misquotation and unfair interpretation.