Die Homilien zum Buch Josua

In a sequence of 26 homilies, Origen commented on the Book of Joshua (as preserved in Rufin’s Latin translation). He interpreted Joshua’s wars in the conquest of Canaan as an inner struggle of the soul to overcome desire and vices on the path of ascent to God. Origen based this internalization and spiritualization of violence on the similarity of the names Joshua and Jesus in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.