Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’ So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. (Luke 16:1–8)

There are certain documents which God writes; certain documents which we ourselves write. We write documents of sin. Hear the Apostle saying: “Blotting out the handwriting in the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it out of the way, fastening it to his cross.” That which he calls handwriting was the bond of our sins. For each of us in these things which he commits is made a debtor and writes the documents of his sins. For also in the judgment of God which Daniel describes as having sat, he mentions “the books which were opened,” without doubt the books which contained the sins of men. We ourselves, therefore, write these documents for ourselves by those things which we commit. For that which is said in the Gospel of “the unjust steward” is also an image of this matter. He says to each debtor, “take your bill and sit down and write eighty,” and the other things which are related. You see, therefore, that it is said to each man: “Take your bill.” Whence it is evident that ours are documents of sin, but God writes documents of justice. For thus the Apostle says: “For you are an epistle written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart.” You have, therefore, in yourself documents of God and documents of the Holy Spirit. But if you transgress, you yourself write in yourself the handwriting of sin. But notice that at any time when you have approached the cross of Christ and the grace of baptism, your handwriting is affixed to the cross and blotted out in the fountain of baptism. Do not rewrite later what has been blotted out nor repair what has been destroyed. Preserve only the documents of God in yourself. Let only the Scripture of the Holy Spirit remain in you.

Origen, Homilies on Genesis 13