Prudence stretches the heavens; Christ is God’s prudence

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And in his prudence he stretched out the heaven. He did not take up prudence for the heaven by chance; for you will find it said in Proverbs: “God in wisdom founded the earth, and prepared heavens in prudence.” There is, then, a certain prudence of God, which you must not seek except in Christ Jesus. For all such things as are of God—Christ is. He himself is the wisdom of God; he himself is God of God; he himself is God’s righteousness; he himself is sanctification; he himself is redemption; thus he himself is also God’s prudence. But the underlying subject is one; by aspects the many names are upon different things. And you do not think the same about Christ when you think him wisdom and when you think him righteousness.

For when wisdom, you receive the knowledge of divine and human things; when righteousness, the power that distributes according to worth in the whole; and when sanctification, the perfecting power that makes those who believe and are devoted to God become holy. Thus also you will think him prudence when it is knowledge of good things and bad and indifferent. Since, then, there is a separating for those who dwell in heaven or for those who bear the heavenly man—evil having been separated from good, so that that heaven may no longer be polluted, because by God’s prudence the heaven has been stretched out—nor the righteous one who is heaven (for the righteous too is heaven, as it has been said: “And he stretched out the heaven by his prudence”).

How, then, is the heaven stretched out? Wisdom stretching it. And it is shown how wisdom stretches in the saying, “Since I stretched out words and you did not pay attention,” and it says there is a certain stretching of words; thus the heaven is stretched out. And in the one-hundred-third Psalm it is said: “Stretching out the heaven like a skin”; and our soul too, previously contracted, is stretched out so that it may be able to receive the wisdom of God. But let us return to what lies before us.

We were saying about the heaven’s having come to be in prudence. And we say that those who bear the heavenly man are themselves also heaven. For if to the one sinning it is said, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” it would not be said to the righteous, whose is the kingdom of the heavens: “You are heaven, and to heaven you shall go”? Or, because of the earthy one it will be said to the one bearing “the image of the earthy,” “You are earth, and to earth you shall go”; but because of the heavenly, when you bear “the image of the heavenly,” it will no longer be fitting to say that—rather: you are heaven, and to heaven you shall go. Each of us, then, has heavenly works and earthly works.

Earthly works are those that lead down upon the earth kindred to them the one who stores them up upon the earth and does not store up in heaven; again, upon the places in heaven kindred to the works, they lead up the one who stores up in heaven, the one who has borne “the image of the heavenly,” the things practiced according to virtue.

Greek

Καὶ ἐν τῇ φρονἠσει αὐτοῦ ἐξέτεινεν τὸν οὐρανόν((. οὐ συν- τυχικῶς τὴν φρόνησιν παρέλαβεν ἐπὶ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· εὑρήσεις γὰρ ἐν ταῖς Παροιμίαις λεχθέν. «ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ ἐθεμελίωσεν τὴν γῆν, ἡτοίμασεν δὲ οὐρανοὺς ἐν φρονήσει. ἔστιν οὑν τις φρόνησις θεοῦ, ἥν μὴ ζήτει εἰ μὴ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. πάντα γὰρ ὅσα τοῦ θεοῦ τοιαῦτά ἐστιν, ὁ Χριστός ἔστιν. σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτός, θεοῦ θεοῦ αὐτός, δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ αὐτός, ἁγιασμὸς αὐτός, ἀπολύτρωσις αὐτός· οὕτως φρόνησις αὐτός ἐστιν θεοῦ. ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ὑποκείμενον ἕν έστιν, ταῖς δὲ ἐπινοίαις τὰ πολλὰ ὁνόματα ἐπὶ διαφόρων ἐστίν. καὶ οὐ ταὐτὸν νοεῖς περὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅτε νοεῖς αὐτὸν σοφίαν, καὶ ὅτε νοεῖς αὐτὸν δικαιοσύνην.

ὅτε μὲν γὰρ σοφίαν, τὴν ἐπιστήμην λαμβάνεις τῶν θείων καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων. ὅτε δὲ δικαιοσύνην, τὴν τοῦ κατ΄ άξίαν ἀπονεμητικὴν δύναμιν ἐν τῷ παντί· καὶ ὅτε ἁγιασμόν, τὸν περιποιη- τικὸν τοῦ ἁγίους γενέσθαι τοὺς πιστεύοντας καὶ ἀνακειμένους τῷ θεῷ. οὕτως οὖν Ι καὶ φρόνησιν αὐτὸν νοήσεις, ὅτε ἐπιστήμη ἐστὶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν καὶ οὐθετέρων. ἐπεὶ οὐν χωρίζεται τοῖς ἐν οὐ- ρανῷ κατοικοῦσιν ἢ τοῖς τὸν οὐράνιον ἄνθρωπον φοροῦσιν † χωρίσαν- τος τὰ κακὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀγαθῶν, ἴνα μηκέτι μολύνηται ἐκεῖνος ὁ οὐ- ρανὸς διὰ τὸ τῇ φρονήσει τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκτετάσθαι τὸν οὐρανὸν μήτε ὁ δίκαιος ὢν οὐρανός (ἔστιν δὲ καὶ ὁ δίκαιος οὐρανός, ὡς εἴρηται. «καὶ ἐξέτεινεν τὸν οὐρανὸν τῇ φρονήσει αύτοῦ.

Πῶς οὖν ἐκτείνεται ὁ οὐρανός; ἐκτεινούσης αὐτὸν τῆς σοφίας. δηλοῦται δὲ ὡς ἡ σοφία ἐκτείνει ἐν τῷ τῷ «ἐπειδὴ ἐξέτεινον λόγους καὶ οὐ προσείχετε«, καὶ λέγει ἔκτασίν τινα εἶναι λόγων· οὕτως ἐκτείνεται ὁ οὐρανός. καὶ ἐν ἑκατοστῷ τρίτῳ λέγεται ψαλμῷ. «ἐκτείνωνξ τὸν οὐρανὸν ὡσεὶ δέρριν«, ἐκτείνεται δὲ καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἡμῶν πρότερον συνεσταλμένη, ἴνα δυνηθῇ χωρῆσαι τὴν σοφίαν τοῦ θεοῦ. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἐπὶ τὸ προκείμενον ἐπανέλθωμεν.

ἐλέγομεν περὶ τοῦ τὸν οὐρα- νὸν ἐν φρονήσει γεγονέναι. καί φαμεν ὅτι οἱ τὸν οὐράνιον ἄνθρωπον φοροῦντες καὶ αὐτοί εἰσιν οὐρανός. εἰ γὰρ πρὸς τὸν ἁμαρτά- νοντα λέγεται. «γῆ εἶ καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ«, πρὸς τὸν δίκαιον οὐκ ἂν λεχθείη, οὑ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν‘· οὐρανὸς εἶ, καὶ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀπελεύσῃ; ἢ διὰ μὲν τὸν χοϊκὸν λεχθήσεται τῷ φοροῦντι «τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ. «γῆ εἶ, καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ«, διὰ δὲ τὸν οὐράνιον, ἐπὰν φορέσῃς «τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου«, οὑκέτι ἁρμόσει λέγεσθαι. οὐρανὸς εἶ, καὶ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀπελεύσῃ; ἐκαστος οὖν ἡμῶν ἔχει ἔργα οὑράνια καὶ ἐπίγεια.

ἐπίγειά ἐστιν ἔργα, ἅ ἐπὶ τὴν συγγενῆ αὐτοῖς γῆν κατάγει τὸν θησαυφίζοντα αὐτὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ μὴ θησαυρίζοντα ἐν . πάλιν ἐπὶ τὰ συγγενῆ τοῖς ἔργοις χωρία τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἀνάγει τὸν θησαυρίξοντα ἐν , τὸν φορέσαντα «τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου« τὰ πραττόμενα κατ΄ ἀρετήν.

About this text

Origen on Jeremiah. Twenty Greek homilies survive. This page has Homilies 1–20. 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.

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.