Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Judges 2 and Origen's De Principiis: Book V (4-5)

Judges 2 – The angel of the Lord reminds the people to make covenants with the inhabitants of the land, but to “tear down their altars” (2:2).  But they do not obey.  For this reason it says, they will be forced to share the land.

At age 110, Joshua dies and is buried in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mt. Gaash.  Another generation comes along “who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped the Baals; and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger” (2:10-12).

The Lord raises up Judges from among the people to help them, but they do not listen to them with any consistency.  During the time of the particular judge, things would be better; but when he died, things would degenerate again.  “So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel; and he said, ‘Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their ancestors, and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died” (2:20-21).

Origen (185-254 AD)

De Principiis (First Principles)

Chapter V

4 – Origen feels it is important to reason out the conclusions that he draws not just to rely on “inference alone” or getting his listeners to agree with him on assertions that are merely conjecture. He seems to be examining whether or not the structures of political power that men have always had around them are somehow there “by divine order” or if they actually came into being because of “reasons” that can be tracked.

He starts by examining the Scripture narrative – the story of the prince of Trye from the Book of Ezekiel. Here are my notes on this chapter of Ezekiel where he is prophesying over the kingdoms and powers that surround God’s people:

The prophecy against the kingdom of Tyre – great trading city and center of the region. Tyre is condemned for being proud enough to consider itself “a god.”  But foreigners will be brought against them.

Tyre was created perfect – full of natural riches and guarded by God’s ensigns. But Tyre’s “busy trading has filled you with violence and sin” (28:16). The dishonesty of their trade, however, and the pride they showed has brought them to ashes. They have become “an object of terror – gone forever” (28:19).

        

Sidon too (less important but involved in the political intrigue Ezekiel is condemning here) is addressed God will send the plague to demonstrate His anger. Men will “learn that I am the Lord Yahweh” by God’s bringing down the nations hostile to Judah around it. Similarly, God will replant his people “on the soil . . .I gave to my servant Jacob [and] they shall live there in confidence, build houses, plant vineyards” (28:26).

What Origen calls the “malignant powers” of the world “were not formed or created so by nature, but fell from a better to a worse position” and the “blessed” powers also were not created so but just never fell into negligence regarding their moral state.

5 – In this section, Origen examines a passage from Isaiah (14:12-14), which was understood to be the story of Satan or Lucifer’s origins. Lucifer (helel) is called the “brightness of morning” or the “day star”:

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High’" (Isaiah 14:12-14, NIV).

”[A]t one time he was light”; “he had been at one time in heaven, and had had a place among the saints, and had enjoyed a share in that light in which all the saints participate, by which they are made angels of light, and by which the apostles are termed by the Lord the light of the world. In this manner, then did that being once exist as light before he went astray, and fell to this place, and had his glory turned into dust, which is peculiarly the mark of the wicked, as the prophet also says; whence, too, he was called the prince of this world, i.e., of an earthly habitation: for he exercised power over those who were obedient to his wickedness.”

Job refers to this same power by the name “dragon.” He concludes that “it is evident from all this that no one is pure either by essence or nature, and that no one was by nature polluted. And the consequence of this is, that it lies within ourselves and in our own actions to possess either happiness or holiness; or by sloth and negligence to fall from happiness into wickedness and ruin, to such a degree that, through too great proficiency, so to speak, in wickedness . . . he may descend even to that state in which he will be changed into what is called an “opposing power.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Joshua 22-24 and Origen's De Principiis: Books IV and V-1

Joshua 22 – Joshua releases the Gadites, Reubenites and half-tribe of Manasseh to go to their lands east of the Jordan, instructing them “to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (22:5).

When they get there, though, there is a serious misunderstanding.  They construct an altar by the Jordan, “an altar of great size” (22:10). When the other Israelite tribes learn of it, they “gathered at Shiloh, to make war against them” (22:12).

The Ephraimites were in possession of the ark and the sanctuary and opposed proliferation of altars, but each tribe had a sanctuary according to The Jerusalem Bible. They send out Phineas, Eleazar’s son, to talk to them along with ten chiefs.  When they get there they confront them by saying, “What is this treachery that you have committed against the God of Israel in turning away today from following the Lord, by building yourselves an altar today in rebellion against the Lord” (22:16). They compare the offense with the trouble they had at Peor [see Numbers 25] when a plague was attributed to Israelites having sexual relations with the women of Moab.  They tell them rather to come across the Jordan and take lands there if they are tempted to apostasy. 

But the eastern tribes had no intention of rebelling. They do not intend to “offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or offerings of well-being on it” (22:23). What they want is a physical reminder that will establish their connection to the tribes west of the Jordan. “We did it from fear that in time to come our children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you Reubenites and Gadites; you have no portion in the Lord,’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord.  Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, no for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you, and between the generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and offerings of well-being; so that your children may never say to our children in time to come, ‘You have no portion in the Lord”’  (22:24-28.) This is satisfactory to Phineas and the Israelites.

Joshua 23 – A long time later, when Joshua is old, he summons everyone to him and admonishes them to be steadfast as Moses did before his death.  He tells them to love the Lord and avoid intermarriage with the women of the region lest they “be a snare and a trap for you,” (23:13).  The blessing has been experienced, but the curse is always there for them to consider.  If they transgress the covenant “then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land that he has given to you” (23:16).

Joshua 24 – Joshua gathers the tribes at Shechem and goes over with them the whole narrative from Terah and his sons, Abraham (who built an altar at Shechem) and Nahor to the present.  And again he asks them to renew the covenant by choosing “this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (24:15).  The people choose likewise, not once but three times (24:16-18; 24:21 and 24:24). 

Joshua wrote their promise “in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord. [And he said] ‘See, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you, if you deal falsely with your God’” (24:27). 

Joshua was 110 when he died and he was buried in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mt Gaash. Joseph’s bones were buried at Shechem in the plot Jacob had bought from the children of Hamor [see Genesis 33:18].  And Eleazar dies too and is buried at Gibeah (his son Phineas’ town).

Origen (185-254 AD)

De Principiis (First Principles)

Chapter IV – On Defection or Falling Away

1 – Origen compares how some “fall away” from the faith with people like doctors or mathematicians who spend so much of their lives learning their crafts, their “art.” A person like this is not going to lose everything all at once. He still may “repair the losses” his negligence will bring and recover the knowledge.

2 – If we wish to examine the “divine benefits bestowed upon us by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” we must start with considering three different natures we are dealing with.

Chapter V – On Rational Natures

1 – There are in Origen’s intellectual landscape different “species and orders” of “rational natures.” We find, he says, in the Holy Scriptures different “orders and offices, not only of holy beings, but also of those of an opposite description” and he intends to examine references to such “beings” in this section as best he can.

“There are certain holy angels of God whom Paul terms ‘ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.’ In the writings also of St. Paul himself we find him designating them, from some unknown source, as thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers; and after this enumeration, as if knowing that there were still other rational offices and orders besides those which he had named, he says of the Savior: ‘Who is above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.’