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Voices and influences

Origen of Alexandria

The boy who wanted to die with his martyred father, and spent his life laying six Old Testaments side by side.

Summary

This site quotes Origen of Alexandria 623 times across 44 books, and lists 0 works.

  • Lived died 253.
  • Quoted here most in Romans: 148 of 623.
Origen of Alexandria. Painted by Unknown engraver. The file is marked public domain. This site's record does not give the artist's death year, which is what settles the painting's own rights. The file record

Origen of Alexandria

Lived
died 253
Tradition
Early Church

5 of 623 quotations

Own words

Quoted in full, because Origen of Alexandria died in 253 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.

Celsus does not quote any passages from the law which are apparently in contradiction to what stands in the gospel, so that we might compare them. He says, "And to a man who has struck one once one should offer oneself to be struck again."

AGAINST CELSUS 7.25, 253

The rest of the quotation

But we will say that we are aware that "it was said to them of old time, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' " and that we have read also the words "But I say unto you, to him that strikes you on one cheek offer the other one also."

Exodus 21:24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, BSB

So then in the book of Numbers we find Moses taking an Ethiopian wife—that is to say, one who is dark or black. Because of her Mary and Aaron speak ill of him and say with indignation, "Has the Lord spoken to Moses only?

COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:1, 253

The rest of the quotation

Has he not also spoken to us?" Now on careful consideration the narrative here seems to lack coherence. What has their saying "Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? Has he not also spoken to us?" to do with their indignation about the Ethiopian woman?

Numbers 12:2 “Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this. BSB

See what we are generally taught about God: "God is not as a man to be deceived nor as the son of man to be threatened," and we learn that God is not as man.

HOMILY 18.3, 253

The rest of the quotation

But other texts say that God is as a man: "For the Lord your God has taught you as a man teaches his son," and again, "As a man he takes on the manners of his son."

Deuteronomy 1:31 and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.” BSB

But consider if perhaps all people participate in him insofar as he is Word. This is why the apostle teaches us that he is sought within the seekers by those who choose to find him.

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.269, 253

The rest of the quotation

He says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?' that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the deep?' that is, to bring Christ up again from the dead. But what does the Scripture say? The Word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart."

Deuteronomy 30:14 But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it. BSB

But meanwhile Jesus [Joshua] destroyed the enemies, not teaching cruelty through this, as the heretics think, but representing the future sacraments in these affairs, so that when Jesus destroys those kings who maintain a reign of sin in us, we can fulfill that which the…

HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 11.6, 253

The rest of the quotation

apostle said, "Just as we presented our members to serve iniquity for iniquity, so now let us present our members to serve righteousness for sanctification."What is it then that is condemned by them in this place as cruelty? It is this, it says, that is written, "Set your feet upon their necks and slay them."

Joshua 10:24 When they had brought the kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had accompanied him, “Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So the commanders came forward and put their feet on their necks. BSB

Influence, on the record

The life, in order

The life told as one accountfrom this site's record

Origen was about seventeen when the persecution under Septimius Severus took his father. Leonides was arrested at Alexandria in 202 and beheaded, and his property was confiscated, leaving a widow and seven children with nothing. Origen was the eldest. Eusebius says he wanted to go and die with his father and wrote him a note in prison telling him not to change his mind on the family's account, and that his mother stopped him by hiding all his clothes. He supported the family by teaching. Within a year, with the Christian teachers of Alexandria scattered or dead, converts were coming to him for instruction, and the bishop Demetrius put him in charge of the catechetical school. He was eighteen. He lived like an ascetic — one coat, no shoes, little sleep, fasting — and Eusebius reports that as a young man he took Matthew 19:12 literally and castrated himself. Modern scholars are divided on whether the story is true or a later slander, and Origen's own commentary on that verse argues firmly against reading it literally. His output was without parallel in the ancient world. A wealthy convert named Ambrose, whom Origen had won back from gnosticism, supplied him with seven shorthand writers working in shifts, copyists, and calligraphers. Jerome says he wrote more than any man could read. The Hexapla was the labor of decades. Origen set the Old Testament out in six parallel columns: the Hebrew text; the Hebrew transliterated into Greek letters; and then four Greek translations — Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion — with marks showing where the Greek had more or less than the Hebrew. It was the first critical edition of the Bible ever made, and the ancestor of every apparatus in a modern study Bible. The complete work was too large ever to be copied; it sat in the library at Caesarea until it was lost. On First Principles was the first systematic theology. Against Celsus answered the most intelligent pagan attack on Christianity ever written, quoting Celsus so fully that the lost original can largely be reconstructed from it. His commentaries and homilies covered most of the Bible. He was ordained a presbyter by bishops in Palestine without Demetrius's consent, and Demetrius deposed and exiled him for it. Origen moved to Caesarea in 232 and rebuilt his school there. Under Decius, in 250, he was arrested and tortured deliberately and at length — stretched on the rack, iron collar, threat of fire — with orders that he not be killed. He did not recant. He was released when the emperor died, broken by it, and died at Tyre around 253 or 254, about sixty-nine years old. Some of his speculations were condemned three centuries after his death. His scholarship has never stopped being used. Sources: Eusebius, Church History VI; Jerome, On Illustrious Men 54; Origen, On First Principles and Against Celsus (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.

623 quotations across 44 books

Where this voice is quoted

Acts 1:3Contra Celsum, Book II, Chapter 63 (253)

After His suffering, He presented Himself to them with many convincing proofs that He was alive.

After these points, Celsus proceeds to bring against the Gospel narrative a charge which is not to be lightly passed over, saying that "if Jesus desired to show that his power was really divine, he ought to have appeared to those who had ill-treated him…

Acts 8:16ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1.3.2 (253)

For the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

From all of which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit is of so great authority and dignity that saving baptism is not complete except when performed with the authority of the whole most excellent Trinity, that is, by the naming of Father…

Acts 8:17ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1.3.7 (253)

Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is why the passage fitly applies to the Holy Spirit, because he will dwell not in all people or in those who are flesh but in those whose "earth has been renewed."

Acts 10:16HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.4.5 (253)

This happened three times, and all at once the sheet was taken back up into heaven.

For the things made clean are made clean not by a single invocation nor by a second, but unless a third invocation is pronounced, no one is cleansed.

Acts 15:20COMMENTARY ON ROMANS 2.13 (253)

Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.

"Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the sons of Israel, and tell them: If anyone who is from among the sons of Israel or from among foreigners, who happens to be among you, eats any blood, I shall place my spirit over…

Acts 15:29COMMENTARY ON ROMANS 9.28 (253)

You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

Now in these precepts where it says that no other burden ought to be imposed on Gentile believers except abstinence from the sacrifices of idols, from blood, from what has been suffocated and from fornication, homicide is not forbidden, nor adultery, nor theft, nor homosexual…

Acts 16:3COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13.111 (253)

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, so he took him and circumcised him on account of the Jews in that area, for they all knew that his father was a…

[But] perhaps it has been recorded at some time or other with good reason that even the true worshiper who worships in spirit and truth performs certain symbolic acts so that, by acting in a most accommodating manner, he might free those who are enslaved…

Acts 16:17HOMILIES ON NUMBERS 16.7.10 (253)

This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation!”

Jesus our Lord does not accept witness from demons, as he said, "Be silent and come out of him." So, in imitation of him, his apostle Paul "grieving" it says, "turned and addressed the spirit of Python, 'I command you in the name of Jesus…

Acts 17:27PALESTINIAN CATENA ON PSALM 118.151 (253)

God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

"You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth." God says elsewhere, "I am a God who is near and not a God who is far away, says the Lord."

Acts 20:29HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 3.3.5 (253)

I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.

If you touch "what is seized by a wild beast," you will be unclean. Which wild beast? Is it a lion or a wolf that ravishes persons or animals?

Acts 27:23HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 23.3 (253)

For just last night an angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve, stood beside me

Both good and bad angels are among people. Not by chance or without reason was that angel, for example, allotted to be the guardian of Peter or that other one for Paul or those of the children of the church, those that always "behold the…