Origen's Commentary on Matthew.
I have thought it right briefly to set forth the prophecy, and to a certain extent elucidate its meaning, seeing that Matthew made mention of it. And Mark also made mention of it, from whom we may usefully set down the following words in the place, with reference to the transgression of the elders who held that it was necessary to wash hands when the Jews ate bread, “For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders;
and when they come from the market-place except they wash themselves they eat not. And there are some other things which they have received to hold, washings of cups and pots and brazen vessels and couches.”
12. Things Clean and Unclean According to the Law and the Gospel.
“ And He called to Him the multitude and said unto them, Hear and understand, ” etc. We are clearly taught in these words by the Saviour that, when we read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy the precepts about meat clean and unclean, for the transgression of which we are accused by the material Jews and by the Ebionites who differ little from them, we are not to think that the scope of the Scripture is found in any superficial understanding of them. For if “not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which proceedeth out of the mouth,” and especially when, according to Mark, the Saviour said these things “making all meats clean,” manifestly we are not defiled when we eat those things which the Jews who desire to be in bondage to the letter of the law declare to be unclean, but we are then defiled when, whereas our lips ought to be bound with perception and we ought “to make for them what we call a balance and weight,” we speak offhand and discuss matters we ought not, from which there comes to us the spring of sins.
And it is indeed becoming to the law of God to forbid those things which arise from wickedness, and to enjoin those things which tend to virtue, but as for things which are in their own nature indifferent to leave them in their own place, as they may, according to our choice and the reason which is in us, be done ill if we sin in them, but if rightly directed by us be done well. And any one who has carefully thought on these matters will see that, even in those things which are thought to be good, it is possible for a man to sin who has taken them up in an evil way and under the impulse of passion, and that these things called impure may be considered pure, if used by us in accordance with reason. As, then, when the Jew sins his circumcision shall be reckoned for uncircumcision, but when one of the Gentiles acts uprightly his uncircumcision shall be reckoned for circumcision, so those things which are thought to be pure shall be reckoned for impure in the case of him who does not use them fittingly, nor when one ought, nor as far as he ought, nor for what reason he ought. But as for the things which are called impure, “All things become pure to the pure,” for, “To them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, since both their minds and their conscience are defiled.” And when these are defiled, they make all things whatsoever they touch defiled; as again on the contrary the pure mind and the pure conscience make all things pure, even though they may seem to be impure; for not from intemperance, nor from love of pleasure, nor with doubting which draws a man both ways, do the righteous use meats or drinks, mindful of the precept, “Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever other thing ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
And if it be necessary to delineate the foods which are unclean according to the Gospel, we will say that they are such as are supplied by covetousness, and are the result of base love of gain, and are taken up from love of pleasure, and from deifying the belly which is treated with honour, when it, with its appetites, and not reason, rules our souls. But as for us who know that some things are used by demons, or if we do not know, but suspect, and are in doubt about it, if we use such things, we have used them not to the glory of God, nor in the name of Christ; for not only does the suspicion that things have been sacrificed to idols condemn him who eats, but even the doubt concerning this; for “he that doubteth,” according to the Apostle, “is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
He then eats in faith who believes that that which is eaten has not been sacrificed in the temples of idols, and that it is not strangled nor blood; but he eats not of faith who is in doubt about any of these things. And the man who knowing that they have been sacrificed to demons nevertheless uses them, becomes a communicant with demons, while at the same time, his imagination is polluted with reference to demons participating in the sacrifice.
And the Apostle, however, knowing that it is not the nature of meats which is the cause of injury to him who uses them or of advantage to him who refrains from their use, but opinions and the reason which is in them, said, “But meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse.” And since he knew that those who have a loftier conception of what things are pure and what impure according to the law, turning aside from the distinction about the use of things pure and impure, and superstition, I think, in respect of things being different, become indifferent to the use of meats, and on this account are condemned by the Jews as transgressors of law, he said therefore, somewhere, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink,”
etc., teaching us that the things according to the letter are a shadow, but that the true thoughts of the law which are stored up in them are the good things to come, in which one may find what are the pure spiritual meats of the soul, and what are the impure foods in false and contradictory words which injure the man who is nourished in them, “For the law had a shadow of the good things to come.”
13. The Offence of the Pharisees.
And as in many cases we have to consider the astonishment of the Jews at the words of the Saviour, because they were spoken with authority, so also in regard to the words in this place. Having called the multitudes therefore, He said unto them, “Hear and understand,” etc. And He said this, the Pharisees being offended at this saying, as, because of their evil opinions and their worthless interpretation of the law, they were not the plant of his own Father in heaven, and on this account were being rooted up; for they were rooted up as they did not receive the true vine, which was cultivated by the Father, even Jesus Christ. For how could they be a plant of His Father who were offended at the words of Jesus, words which turn men away from the precept, “Handle not, nor taste, nor touch,—all which things were to perish in the using—after the precepts and doctrines of men,” but induce the intelligent hearer of them to seek in regard to them the things which are above and not the things upon the earth as the Jews do? And since, because of their evil opinions, the Pharisees were not the plant of His Father in heaven, on this account, as about such as were incorrigible, He says to the disciple, “Let them alone;” “Let them alone,” He said for this reason, that as they were blind they ought to become conscious of their blindness and seek guides; but they, being unconscious of their own blindness, profess to guide the blind, not reckoning that they would fall into a pit, about which it is written in the Psalms, “He hath made a pit, and digged it, and will fall into the ditch which he hath made.” Again, elsewhere it is written, “And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain, and when He had sat down His disciples came unto Him;” but here He stretches forth His hand to the multitude, calling them unto Him, and turning their thoughts away from the literal interpretation of the questions in the law, when He in the first place said to them, who did not yet understand what they heard, “Hear and understand,” and thereafter as in parables said to them, “Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which proceedeth out of the mouth.”
14. Why the Pharisees Were Not a Plant of God. Teaching of Origen on the “Bread of the Lord.”
After this, it is worth while to look at the phrase which has been assailed in a sophistical way by those who say that the God of the law and the God of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the same; for they say that the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ is not the husbandman of those who think that they worship God according to the law of Moses. Jesus Himself said that the Pharisees, who were worshipping the God who created the world and the law, were not a plant which His heavenly Father had planted, and that for this reason it was being rooted up.
But you might also say this, that even if it were the Father of Jesus who “brought in and planted the people,” when it came out of Egypt, “to the mountain of His own inheritance, to the place which He had prepared for Himself to dwell in,” yet Jesus would have said, in regard to the Pharisees, “Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up.”
Now, to this we will say, that as many as on account of their perverse interpretation of the things in the law were not a plant of His Father in heaven, were blinded in their minds, as not believing the truth, but taking pleasure in unrighteousness, by him who is deified by the sons of this world, and on this account is called by Paul the god of this world. And do not suppose that Paul said that he was truly God; for just as the belly, though it is not the god of those who prize pleasure too highly, being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, is said by Paul to be their god, so the prince of this world, in regard to whom the Saviour says, “Now has the prince of this world been judged,” though he is not God, is said to be the god of those who do not wish to receive the spirit of adoption, in order that they may become sons of that world, and sons of the resurrection from the dead, and who, on this account, abide in the sonship of this world.