“If you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. . . . Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off.” (Romans 11:18,20-22)
Patristic scholars generally agree that the early Christians viewed the Second Advent of Christ to be an event looming just around the corner, possibly (if not likely) within a given writer’s own lifetime. One massively peer-reviewed source had this to say about the earliest extra-Biblical writings: “the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the homily known as 2 Clement speak of history’s final crisis as imminent (Barn. 4; Did. 16; 2 Clem. 5.5; 7.1; 8.1-3) and express a longing for Jesus’ coming (Did. 10.6; cf. Barn. 21.1).”1 Likewise, further into the second century, Tertullian spoke of, “two comings of Christ having been revealed to us . . . a second, which impends over the world, now near its close.”2 Even in the mid third century Cyprian, after a particularly vicious persecution, could state with confidence that, “already His second coming is drawing near to us.”3
Given this eschatological view of the perceived timing of Christ’s Second Advent, the concept of a potential falling away of the corporate Church wasn’t particularly in the early Christians’ purview. Had they known that well over a millennium later Christians would still be writing in anticipation of this event, they would certainly have had something different to say on the matter than what we reviewed above. We’ll not know in this life whether they would have had any consensus or majority view regarding a possible falling away had they known how history would prove to play out, but by the time the Church was some two hundred years removed from the First Advent we do find that Origen, commonly acknowledged as the most brilliant writer in this period of church history and well known for plumbing the depths of theological speculation, repeatedly made observations on the matter based on relative Scriptural statements, such as the following:
“‘Behold, the days will come,’ says the Lord, ‘that I shall send a famine across the land; not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but famine to hear the words of the Lord. The waters will be unsettled as far as the sea. And from the north to the east men will scurry about seeking to find the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’” (Amos 8:11-12)
While some today feel that this passage from Amos only had application to its direct historical context, Origen, true to the form of eastern thought in seeing foreshadowings and types in the Old Testament in addition to their immediate application (such as various Messianic prophecies, for instance), saw this passage as having potential application under the New Covenant as well: “whenever we become unjust, he will send forth ‘a famine upon the earth, not a famine of bread nor a thirsting of water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.’ [Amos 8:11]”4 Nor did he imagine this to be any less total in scale than the text itself indicates, as he expounded elsewhere:
“if ‘the people do evil in the sight of the Lord,’ [cf. Judges 4:1] to the church such a judge is given under whom the people suffer ‘hunger and thirst,’ ‘not hunger for bread or thirst for water, but hunger for hearing the word of God.’ [Amos 8:11] Therefore, let us so act and let us so pray lest divine indignation should ever condemn us to a ‘famine of the word’ and to ‘thirst for the word,’ lest he should ever be taken away from us who would instruct us in word and deed, who, in character and integrity, would offer himself as a perfect example of patience and gentleness to the people. For if ‘we were to do evil in the sight of the Lord,’ [cf. Judges 4:1] that is, if we were to live wickedly, if we do our will and not the will of God, ‘Ehud dies’ also for us, and Shamgar is taken away, and our glory will be rendered invisible, and ‘we will be handed over into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan.’ [Cf. Judges 4:2]”5
The greater part of Origen’s warning, however, actually comes from the New Testament. In order to understand his thought processes, however, it may first be necessary to review how the early Christians viewed fleshly Israel under the Old Covenant versus spiritual Israel under the New Covenant. Returning to Tertullian in the late second century, we have the succinct declaration that, “The Jews had formerly been in covenant with God; but being afterwards cast off on account of their sins, they began to be without God.”6 Going further back into church history, we find Irenaeus delivering the same teaching:
“For inasmuch as the former have rejected the Son of God, and cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew Him, God has justly rejected them, and given to the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its cultivation. This is in accordance with what Jeremiah says, ‘The Lord hath rejected and cast off the nation which does these things; for the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord.’ [Jeremiah 7:29-30]”7
This teaching, while not quite unique to the earliest period of the faith, certainly appears to have drastically diminished in today’s Christendom, either in part in some communities or in whole in others. Origen’s own teacher, Clement, likewise gives us the following:
“They were people gone astray, who did not know their Lord; they were uncircumcised in mind; [cf. Ezekiel 44:7; Acts 7:51] not recognizing God, they rejected their Lord and so lost the promise implied in their name Israel, [cf. Genesis 35:10] for they persecuted God and tried to bring disgrace to the Word.”8
And such is what the early Christians unanimously believed to have become of the corporate or fleshly Israel. Finally, how Origen himself expressed this belief:
“living apart as a ‘chosen nation and a royal priesthood,’ [1 Peter 2:9] and shunning intercourse with the many nations around them, in order that their morals might escape corruption, they enjoyed the protection of the divine power, neither coveting like the most of mankind the acquisition of other kingdoms, nor yet being abandoned so as to become, on account of their smallness, an easy object of attack to others, and thus be altogether destroyed; and this lasted so long as they were worthy of the divine protection. But when it became necessary for them, as a nation wholly given to sin, to be brought back by their sufferings to their God, they were abandoned (by Him), sometimes for a longer, sometimes for a shorter period, until in the time of the Romans, having committed the greatest of sins in putting Jesus to death, they were completely deserted.”9
Note that this is not an exhaustive set of examples; the above are representative of pre-Nicene orthodoxy as a whole with other witnesses including Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Melito, Marcus Menicius Felix, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Lactantius.10 With this in mind, consider the implications this foundational teaching has on the following passage from the Apostle Paul:
“I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? Far from it! But by their wrongdoing salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their wrongdoing proves to be riches for the world, and their failure, riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Therefore insofar as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry if somehow I may move my own people to jealousy and save some of them. For if their rejection proves to be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are as well. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’ Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.” (Romans 11:11-32)
The implications of this passage for the corporate Church become clear when considered within the context of the original Christian perspective here presented. While the extant writings of other early figures do not often dwell on this passage, Origen follows its logical train of thought:
“As the nation of the Hebrews formerly attained mercy after they had been given up on by men and rejected by God, so also now, therefore, the people of the Gentiles, who were looked down upon and given up on by those who boast in circumcision, have attained mercy. But we need to examine what that means more critically, that they have also attained mercy and have been called the people of God and were loved by God, [Hosea 2:1] but since they were ignorant of how to preserve the grace they had received, it is said to them, ‘Because the dwelling place of Israel committed adultery, I sent her away and put a decree of divorce in her hands’; [Jeremiah 3:8] and again in another passage, ‘You have become loathsome to me, I will no longer forgive your sins.’ [Cf. Isaiah 1:14] And through Jeremiah the Lord says, ‘My inheritance has become to me like a jackal’s den,’ [Jeremiah 12:9] lest perhaps in our case too, we who were not God’s people, but through the riches of his glory he called us his own people, and who were not beloved, but have become beloved as sons of the living God, if we fail to walk as sons of the light [cf. Ephesians 5:8] and sons of God, if we do not behave as God’s people, ‘so that men who see our good works may glorify our Father in heaven,’ [Matthew 5:16] it has to be feared lest we fall upon that word of the Apostle when he says, ‘For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.’ [Romans 11:21]”11
Just as the nation of the Hebrews comprising ancient Israel was not immune to corporate rejection, so, too, is the nation of the Gentiles comprising the Church not immune to corporate rejection. An insistence to the contrary would no doubt have been viewed by Origen as a dangerously delusional false sense of security potentially inviting laxity and corruption. On this point he gave further elucidation in the most recently rediscovered of his writings:
“‘Their kinship said together, ‘Come, and let us cause all God’s feasts to cease from the earth.’’ [Psalm 73:8] They say such things, but what they had said was produced for the Jews. Therefore, the people said: ‘We do not see our signs.’ [Psalm 73:9] When our Savior suffered, signs stopped for the people. There are no longer signs and wonders, [cf. Matthew 24:24; Mark 31:22; John 4:48] even though they had been produced then up to the Savior’s birth itself, when such signs were produced, for example, such as the vision of an angel that appeared to Zachariah, [Luke 1:11] such as the signs that were at the Savior’s passion. [Cf. Matthew 27:45,51-53; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:44-45] After these signs, signs were produced, but not to Jews or by Jews, but the signs went over from the people to the gentiles. Therefore, the people said: ‘We do not see our signs; there is no longer a prophet.’ [Psalm 73:9] For prophecy was stopped since ‘the law and the prophets’ prophesied ‘until John.’ [Luke 16:16] And when prophecy was stopped, the Holy Spirit, as a consequence, stopped from them, and the benefit went over to the gentiles, unless we also run riot, [cf. Revelation 18:7,9; 1 Timothy 5:11] unless we also are watered down, unless we become coarse and destroy the grace poured out [cf. Psalm 44:3] on us by God, so that the people would once more be speaking in our dispensation the truth concerning it: ‘We do not see our signs; there is no longer a prophet.’ [Psalm 73:9]”12
The translator summarized this passage while tying it back in with Origen’s treatment of the Epistle to the Romans:
“Israel’s estrangement from God will end when God’s plan is complete. The (temporary) estrangement of Israel from God is a warning that Christians should not presume on their status as God’s people. See Rom 11:25-32.”13
Footnotes
1 Brian E. Daley, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pg. 383
2 Tertullian, ca. 197, Apology 21, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:35
3 Cyprian, ca. 254, Letters 63:18, in Fathers of the Church 51:215
4 Origen, ca. 239, Commentary on John 13:224, in Fathers of the Church 89:114
5 Origen, ca. 245, Homilies on Judges 4:3, Fathers of the Church 119:73-74
6 Tertullian, ca. 197, Prescription Against Heretics 8, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:247
7 Irenaeus, ca. 180, Against Heresies 4:36:2, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:515
8 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Christ the Educator 2:8:73, in Fathers of the Church 23:157
9 Origen, ca. 248, Against Celsus 4:32, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 4:511
10 Cf. Epistle of Barnabas 4, Dialogue With Trypho 140, Discourse 5, Octavius 33, Fragments on Psalms 5, On the Lord’s Prayer 13, Divine Institutes 4:20, respectively.
11 Origen, Commentary on Romans 7:18:6, in Fathers of the Church 104:124
12 Origen, ca. 251, Homilies on Psalm 73 2:2, in Fathers of the Church 141:193-194
13 Joseph W. Trigg, Fathers of the Church 141:194-195
