Homily 7.5:
(3) But, in order that what we say may be opened more clearly to your
understanding, let us take an example from greater things, so that descending
little by little we come to the lesser things. Our Lord and Savior says,
"Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in
you. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." Therefore,
since Jesus is totally clean, all his "flesh is food" and all his "blood
is a drink" because his every deed is holy and his every word is true. For
this reason, therefore, his "flesh is true food and" his "blood
is true drink." For from the flesh and blood of his word, as from pure
food and drink, he gives drink and refreshment to every kind of person.
(4) In the second place, after his flesh, the clean food is Peter, Paul,
and all the apostles; in the third place, their disciples. Thus, any food is
made clean for their neighbor in accordance with the number of their merits or
the purity of their understanding. Perhaps he who does not know how to hear these
things may turn away and divert his attention to those who said, "How will
he give us his flesh to eat? Who can hear him? And they departed from
him." But you, if you are sons of the Church, if you are instructed in the
evangelical mysteries, if "the Word made flesh lives in you,” know that what
we say is of the Lord, lest "he who knows does not know may be
unknown." Know that they are figures written in the divine volumes and,
for that reason, examine and understand what is said as spiritual and not as
carnal. For if you receive those things as carnal, they wound you and do not
sustain you.
(5) For even in the Gospels, it is "the letter" that
"kills." Not only in the Old Testament is "the letter that
kills" found; there is also in the New Testament "the letter that
kills" that one who does not spiritually perceive what is said. For, if
you follow according to the letter that which is said, "Unless you eat my
flesh and drink my blood,” this "letter kills." Do you want me to
bring out of the gospel for you another "letter" that
"kills"? He says, "Let the one who does not have a sword sell
his tunic and buy a sword." Behold, this is the letter of the gospel, but
"it kills." But, if you take it spiritually, it does not kill, but
there is in it "a spirit that gives life." For this reason, receive spiritually
what is said either in the Law or in the Gospels because "the spiritual one
judges all things but that one is not judged by anyone."
(6) Therefore, as we said, every person has some food within him from
which, if indeed it is good and "from the good treasure of his heart he
brings forth good," he may supply pure food to his neighbor. But if he is
evil and "brings forth evil,” he supplies unclean food to his neighbor.
For anyone who is innocent and led by the heart can be seen as a sheep, a clean
animal. He can furnish the hearers clean food as a sheep which is a clean
animal. It is the same in the others. For this reason, every person, as we
said, when he speaks to his neighbor and either he does him good or harms him
by his words, the animal is made either clean or unclean by him. Form these we
are taught either to use the clean ones or to abstain from the unclean ones. (Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1-16 [trans.
Gary Wayne Barkley; The Fathers of the Church 83; Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1990], 145-47)
One should
also compare the above with the following from Homily 7 on Exodus:
But Scripture says, "And in the morning you will
be filled with bread." The word of God is also bread for us. For he himself
is "the living bread which descends from heaven and gives life to this
world." But the fact that it says that this bread is given "in the
morning" when we said his coming in the flesh took place in the evening, I
think is to be understood as follows. The Lord came in the evening of the
declining world and near the end of its appointed course, but at his coming,
since he himself is "the sun of righteousness," he restored a new day
for those who believe. Because, therefore, a new light of knowledge arose in
the world, in a certain manner he made his own day in the morning and, as it
were, "the sun of righteousness' brought forth its own morning, and in
this morning those who receive his precepts are filled with bread.
Do not marvel that the word of God is said to be
"flesh" and "bread" and "milk" and "vegetable"
and is named in different ways for the capacity of those believing or the
ability of those appropriating it. This, nevertheless, also can be understood because
after his resurrection, which we showed happened in the morning, he has filled
those who believe with bread because he has given us those books of the Law and
prophets previously unknown and unexamined, and has consigned these documents
to the Church for our instruction, that he himself might be bread in the
Gospel. In fact the other books of the Law or prophets or histories have been
called more loaves from which they "who believe from the Gentiles" are
filled. We teach, however, that this did not happen without prophetic authority.
For Isaias the prophet had predicted in this manner: "They will ascend
into the mountain; they will drink wine; they will be anointed with ointment.
Deliver all these things to the Gentiles for this is the will of the omnipotent
Lord." So, therefore, appropriately we both receive flesh in the evening
and will be filled with bread in the morning because it was not possible for us
to eat flesh in the morning for it was not yet time, but neither were we able
at noon. For scarcely do angels eat flesh at noon and they are perhaps consigned
time belonging to midday in rank. (Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus [trans.
Ronald E. Heine; The Fathers of the Church 71; Washington, D.C.: 1982], 312-13)