“Hopes” in Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms

Abstract

The Psalms consist primarily of human words uttered to God whether in praise or petition, or proclaimed about God for instruction or worship. They make up hopes relating to the future. In Origen’s interpretation the interlocutors of the Psalms may be Christ, the prophets or simple human beings, and the main discipline of these songs belongs to moral philosophy. We must distinguish between the theoretical question of apokatastatis tôn pantôn and the personal elpis. In the Homilies on the Psalms Origen speaks about human hopes in a non-theoretical way mostly in terms of the communion with God and deification.