Annotatio CCXLII

”When a land shall have sinned against me, so as to transgress by transgressing.” — Ezekiel 14:13

Origen, in homily 4 on Ezekiel, from the interpretation of this sentence attempts to establish that the earth is an animal endowed with sense and reason, capable of virtue and of vice, of reward and of punishment.¹ His sayings, summarily excerpted, are these: “Reviewing the most ample forest of Scripture, I am constrained to suspect that this earth which we behold is an animal — receiving proofs taken from [what is said] concerning the earth: [namely] from, ‘Who looketh upon the earth, and maketh it tremble’;² and, ‘The earth is offended by those who dwell in it’; and, ‘The earth shall take complacency in its sabbaths’;³ likewise from, ‘Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth’;⁴ and…” #### “When a land shall have sinned against me, so as to transgress by transgressing.” — Ezekiel 14:13

(the excerpt from Origen continues:) “…and Jeremiah: ‘Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.’⁵ And Paul: ‘Every creature groaneth together and travaileth.’⁶ If every creature groaneth and travaileth, and part of the creatures is earth and heaven, and every creature shall be freed from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God — who knows also concerning the earth, whether according to its own nature it be held liable to some sin? whether it be an animal, whether rational, whether it needs the hearing of the prophetic word — [Scripture] saying, ‘Attend, O heaven, and let it speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth,’⁷ and, ‘Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth’⁸ — why should we not say that, as there is to be a judgment of men and of Angels, so there shall be a judgment of the air and of the earth? But if thou thinkest that we ought not to consent to this disputation, through which we assert that every creature is to be judged, hear yet another testimony concerning the earth, [addressed] to Cain: ‘Cursed [be] the earth, which hath opened its mouth to receive the blood of thy brother from thy hand;’⁹ likewise, ‘Cursed [be] the earth in thy works;’¹⁰ likewise, concerning the coming of the Lord it is written, ‘All the earth crieth out with joy.’¹¹ For it is capable, as an animal, according to the qualities of the portions of good acts and of evil, in which it either merits praise or punishment. When therefore it is said, ‘The land which shall have sinned against me,’ a certain mystery is signified; for one thing is said concerning the inhabitants, another concerning it [the land] which is inhabited. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away’¹²: why does heaven pass over? why does the earth pass away, except because their passing has merited certain worthy things? And in another place, ‘Corrupt,’ it says, ‘is all the earth.’¹³ When was it corrupted? before the flood — not because it was corrupted through the inundation of the deluge. I could also interpret it otherwise, that the earth sometimes offends: for the earth is our soul, as is signified in the parable of the Gospel; but since here it is added, ‘And I will take away from it man and beast,’¹⁴ [it is] one thing [that is] earth, another man: for it does not now name the inhabitants of the earth for the earth, as some think; for if it wished the inhabitants of the earth to be taken by [the word] “earth,” it would have been superfluous to say, “I will take away from it man and beast.""

These things Origen — or rather the corrupter of Origen. To whom, according to the opinion of Chrysostom, we respond that all the aforesaid testimonies are to be accommodated to the earth through prosopopoeia — that is, through the fashioning of a person.¹⁵ For the divine writers are wont, that the discourse may become more significant, to feign animated persons for inanimate things — introducing now rivers clapping with [their] hands,¹⁶ now hills leaping, now mountains skipping¹⁷ — not that we should think these to be animated, nor that we should attribute to them any cogitation, but that we may understand how great is the amplitude of the goods proposed, so that it may reach even to those things which lack sense. This same thing they do also in troublesome matters, introducing both a lamenting life, and mountains, and the wailing ceilings of the temple, that from this too we may reckon the gravity of evils.

In this same homily of Origen, about seventy lines far from the beginning, read cautiously that which he says: “That some of the Angels are those who transgress, others who do not transgress, and both are to be judged in the day of judgment according to their works.”