In his General Audience of May 2, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI praised Origen for his ''primordial role'' in the history of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. He explained that Origen approaches Scripture reading not as ''mere study'' but as the pathway to knowing Christ and ''falling in love with him.'' Origen's nine extant homilies on Judges exemplify this approach. In them, Origen calls his audience to participate in a loving relationship with Christ through interaction with Scripture. Delivered sometime between 238 and 248, these homilies expound on themes extracted from Judges 2-7. Some of the homilies focus generally on God's redemption of Israel through judges after each cycle of sin, enslavement, and repentance, while others stress that victory belongs to God alone through events such as the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon's meager army of 300 men, Gideon's test with the fleece, and the murder of the Philistine general Sisera by the woman Jael. The homilies brim
