Homily on 1 Samuel 1–2

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.8 · 1.9–1.19

1. 1.1Origen opens by comparing God’s field to a farm with many kinds of trees, and warns his hearers, used to the gentle preaching of Bishop Alexander, that his own word may taste harsher but can heal.
2. 1.2Origen summarizes the reading, the story of Elkanah, Hannah, and Peninnah and the birth and offering of Samuel.
3. 1.3Origen raises the objection of a new hearer that the righteous Elkanah had two wives and that Hannah grieved at childlessness, though Christians honor chastity, and asks for prayer that the veil over the text be removed.
4. 1.4From the words “one man” Origen teaches that the sinner is divided into many selves, while the righteous, imitating the unchangeable God who is one, become one, individually and together.
5. 1.5Origen interprets Elkanah as “possession of God”, Peninnah as conversion, and Hannah as grace: grace is wedded first by faith, but the works of conversion must be born before grace bears a son like Samuel.
6. 1.6Shiloh, interpreted “tearing away” or “unshoeing,” is the place where sins are purged and the marks of mortality put off, while Eli, who fell backward and died, warns against turning back from faith.
7. 1.7Eli, “outsider,” is the one who neglects discipline; his sons Hophni and Phinehas are read as warnings against refusing conversion and against priests whose mouths are stopped by ignorance or sin.
8. 1.8Samuel could be offered to God only when weaned: so no one fed on the milk of beginners can be consecrated to God’s service until grace brings him to solid food.
9. 1.9Since Hannah’s “prayer” mostly does not address God, Origen argues that every righteous act done according to God counts as prayer, so that the righteous pray without ceasing, and reads the lifting of hands as lifting one’s deeds.
10. 1.10Hannah’s “My heart exulted in the Lord” teaches joy in the Lord rather than in earthly things; her exalted horn and enlarged mouth stand for the power to overthrow evil powers and refute heretics and philosophers.
11. 1.11“None holy as the Lord” allows that people can become holy, though never as God is; “none besides you” means that God alone has being of himself, while creatures exist by his will.
12. 1.12As with holiness, others may be mighty, but none is mighty as God.
13. 1.13We may speak lofty things only of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; pagans with many gods and heretics who invent a higher god than the Creator “multiply lofty things.”
14. 1.14We are in danger even in good things, for the devil uses visions, miracles, and virtues to stir up pride; therefore no boasting should leave our mouth.
15. 1.15Sinners excuse themselves and blame others, but the righteous accuse themselves first, as one becomes righteous by repenting and accusing oneself.
16. 1.16The bow of the mighty, the hostile powers, is weakened against one who wears the armor of God: the shield of faith, the breastplate, the sword of the Spirit, and the helmet of salvation.
17. 1.17The weak Gentile people, once strangers to God’s covenant, are girded with strength, which is Christ the Lord.
18. 1.18The fruitful woman made weak is the flesh with its many vices, put to death through faith in the cross; the barren woman who bears seven is the soul filled with the sevenfold Spirit.
19. 1.19The Lord puts us to death by making us dead to sin and makes us alive by making us live to God in newness of life.