Opening the womb and Christ the firstborn
And what it says — for every firstborn who opens the womb — is not easy to unfold. Not everyone who opens a womb is at once worthy of the firstborn sanctification; the psalm says sinners are estranged from the womb; they went astray from the belly; they spoke lies — which cannot stand by the bare letter. We must seek that womb which every firstborn sanctified to God opens. God once opened Leah’s womb and Rachel’s. They shall be mine as Levites; every firstborn is mine from the day I struck the firstborn of Egypt. Who struck Egypt’s firstborns — the principalities and powers? My Lord Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who disarmed the rulers and authorities, triumphing over them on the cross. Unless he had struck them down, firstborn sanctification could never have reached us. He, firstborn from the dead, takes us who believe into the order of the firstborns — if we hold the grace firm to the end.
Latin
Sed et quod ait: pro omni primitivo qui adaperit vulvam, non facile explanatur. Non quicumque adaperit vulvam continuo dignus sanctificatione primitivatus est; psalmus dicit: alienati sunt peccatores a vulva, erraverunt a ventre, locuti sunt falsa — quod secundum litteram stare non potest. Quaerenda est vulva quam adaperit omnis primitivus Deo sanctificatus. Deus adaperuit vulvam Liae et Rachel. Levitae erunt mihi; meum est omne primitivum ex die qua percussi primogenita Aegypti. Quis primogenitos Aegyptiorum — principatus et potestates — percussit? Dominus Iesus Christus, primogenitus omnis creaturae, qui adversas potestates triumphavit in cruce. Nisi ille percussisset, sanctificatio primitivatus ad nos venire non potuisset. Ipse primogenitus ex mortuis nos credentes adsumit in ordinem primitivorum, si gratiam usque ad finem firmam retinuerimus.
About this text
Origen’s Homilia II on Numbers (Rufinus’s Latin). Complete on this page: §§1–4.
English follows Baehrens, Origenes Werke VII (GCS 30, 1921), Rufinus’s Latin of Homilia II. Scheck FOTC was not used as wording. This page is Homilia II §§1–4 (closeout).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Baehrens, Origenes Werke VII = GCS 30 (1921) (Latin · Homilia II §§1–4)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.