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
- 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."
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?
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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
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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.
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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…
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
This site quotes Origen of Alexandria 623 times across 44 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
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
Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,
“I think we learn from this that we say some things on our own, by ourselves, where there is no power that inspires us to speak.”
But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it, so that they could arrest Him.
“Observe how it has been testified that he has withdrawn, that we too might know to do such at the proper time.”
Jesus knew that the Father had delivered all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was returning to God.
“The things, therefore, that were not formerly in Jesus' hands are given into his hands by the Father. And it is not some things and not others that are given into his hands, but all things.”
So He got up from the supper, laid aside His outer garments, and wrapped a towel around His waist.
“In bringing to mind the spiritual meaning of the passage, the Evangelist here seems to me not to have observed the literal sequence of the washing.”
When Jesus had washed their feet and put on His outer garments, He reclined with them again and asked, “Do you know what I have done for you?
“Jesus washed the feet of the disciples insofar as he was their teacher, and the feet of the servants insofar as he was their Lord.”
So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus which one He was talking about.
“Now, beckoning is taken as slander in proverbs, for the wicked person "beckons with his eyes" … Peter's act, however, was to beckon out of his eagerness for knowledge, and subsequent to such beckoning, to say to his fellow disciple, since he was more intimate…”
As soon as he had received the morsel, Judas went out into the night.
“(t. xxxii. 16.) Our Lord then said to Judas, That thou doest, do quickly, and the traitor this once obeyed his Master. For having received the sop, he started immediately on his work: He then having received the sop, went, immediately out.”
When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
“But the matters in this passage might be understood even more clearly as follows. Just as the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of some, so, because of the saints whose good works are seen very distinctly before people, the name of…”
Little children, I am with you only a little while longer.
“The statement "Yet a little while I am with you" is clear in the simple sense, so far as the literal sense is concerned, since he would soon no longer be with the disciples.”
I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it.
“The Gospel shows him [the Paraclete] to be of such power and majesty that the apostles could not yet receive those things that the Savior wished to teach them until the advent of the Holy Spirit, who, pouring himself into their souls, might enlighten them…”
But it is your custom that I release to you one prisoner at the Passover. So then, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”
“Do not wonder that the Roman government, holding sway over the Jews who had recently become their subjects, thought it was appropriate to grant them something acceptable at the feast of the Passover.”
and he went back into the Praetorium. “Where are You from?” he asked. But Jesus gave no answer.
“Since he willed to suffer on behalf of the world, he is silent when examined and beaten by Pilate. For if he had spoken, he would not have been crucified from weakness, since there is no weakness in the words that the Word speaks.”
And because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus there.
“Surely if no one had as yet been laid there, men and women were afterward laid there. For this is the meaning for those who consider carefully.… He who said, "We have been buried with Christ through baptism and have risen with him," has himself…”