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."
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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…
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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
the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,
“"Which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy Scriptures." Whether the Gospel promised by God through the prophetic Scriptures ought to be taken simply, or by way of distinction from that other Gospel which John in the Apocalypse calls eternal — which…”
Through Him and on behalf of His name, we received grace and apostleship to call all those among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
“He says that through Christ he received grace and apostleship, inasmuch as Christ is the "mediator of God and men".”
And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
“Paul is said to be called to be an apostle, and the Romans are also called, though not to be apostles. Rather they are called to be holy in the obedience of faith. We have already spoken above about the different callings.”
God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you
“God is a witness to his saints, because they too are witnesses of God, according to what the prophet says: "You shall be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord."”
For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,
“First of all we ought to learn that it is an apostolic work to long for the brethren, yet for no other cause than either that we may confer upon them something of a spiritual gift if we are able, or, if we are not…”
that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.
“Blessed therefore are those to whom the Apostle wishes to impart spiritual grace for the confirming of their faith, that they may no longer be little ones, nor be carried about with every wind of doctrine.”
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, how often I planned to come to you (but have been prevented from visiting until now), in order that I might…
“There is indeed a hyperbaton in this passage; there is also a defect of expression. But the hyperbaton we may render in this way: "But I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that I have often purposed to come to you, that I might have…”
I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.
“Now we must inquire how the Apostle is a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the unwise. For what had he received from them, whereby he should become their debtor?”
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.”
For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
“Because what is known of God is manifest in them; for God has manifested it to them. We have already said above that what is known of God is that which they can attain from the order and reasons of this world, as the Apostle…”
For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
“Would those so condemned not have remained in the lusts of their hearts, even if they had not been given up to them by God? Would they not have fallen into dishonorable passions, even if they had not been given up to them by God?”
So when you, O man, pass judgment on others, yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?
“"But do you suppose this, O man, every one of you who judges those who do such things, and does them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?"”
God “will repay each one according to his deeds.”
“Now let us inquire concerning the just judgment of God, in which he will render to each one according to his works.”
but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the Greek.
“Yet why wrath and indignation to the Jew first, and to the Greek? Because glory and honor also belong to them first.”
So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them
“But as for his saying "in the hearts," it must not be supposed that the law is said to be written in that member of the body which is called the heart.”
on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel.
“Now let us see what follows: "And their thoughts among themselves accusing one another, or even defending them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel, through Jesus Christ."”
Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know His will and approve of what is superior because…
“"But if you are called a Jew, and rest in the law, and glory in God, and know his will, and approve the more useful things, being instructed by the law, and are confident that you are a guide of the blind, a light of…”
If a man who is not circumcised keeps the requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
“"But if the uncircumcision keeps the righteous requirements of the law, shall not that which is by nature uncircumcision, fulfilling the law, judge you, who by the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?"”
Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.
“In this Epistle Paul, sitting as a kind of arbiter between the Jews and the Greeks — that is, those who believe from among the Gentiles — so summons and invites both to faith in Christ that he neither gives offense to the Jews by…”
What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?
“The oracles of God, therefore, were entrusted to those first ones of whom we spoke above; but some, as he says, did not believe, whether God or the oracles of God.”
But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms.
“"But if our iniquity commends the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? I speak according to man. God forbid. Otherwise, how shall God judge this world?”
Certainly not! In that case, how could God judge the world?
“But as to what he says: "Otherwise how shall God judge the world," in this passage by "world" he means the men who are in this world, just as we read elsewhere, "that the whole world lies in the evil one"; which surely shows that…”
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.
“For this reason, then, Paul says it is written: “Because there is none righteous; there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God: all have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable”; just as elsewhere the Prophet says: “For in your sight…”
All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
““All have turned aside, together they have become useless.” It seems to me that he is not said to have turned aside except one who at some time stood on the straight road.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
“There is added in what follows: “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” Yet this crime will perhaps seem unable to be fitted to most of those of whom he said: “For we have charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin”; unless…”