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…
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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
ruin and misery lie in their wake,
““Contrition and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace they have not known.” Here he speaks of a contrition, not that by which the spirit is broken over sins in repentance, whence it is said in the Psalms: “A contrite and humbled…”
and the way of peace they have not known.”
““And the way of peace they have not known.” Christ is our peace. Therefore the way of peace is the way of Christ.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
“After these things is added: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” If there be anyone who always thinks upon the fear of God, who inquires what pleases him and what displeases him, of such a one it is said that the fear…”
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable…
““But we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are in the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be made subject to God.”
Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.
“But if to someone it should seem that this was said of human beings alone, both that he said the natural law is present in them and that he takes it as written of them alone, “That every mouth may be stopped, and the whole…”
and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
“Therefore the righteousness of God, coming through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, whether they be Jews or Greeks, justifies them once cleansed of their former crimes, and makes them capable of the glory of God: and this he does not from their…”
God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.
“"Whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, for the showing forth of his righteousness, through the remission of former offenses, in the forbearance of God, for the showing forth of his righteousness at this present time: that he himself may…”
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of works? No, but on that of faith.
“"Where then is your boasting? It has been shut out. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we reckon that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law."”
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, has discovered?
“These things having thus been explained according to our ability, it also seems by no means to be passed over that he named Abraham "our father according to the flesh."”
Now the wages of the worker are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation.
“But as to what he says: "To him who works, the wage is not imputed according to grace but according to debt; but to him who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned unto righteousness" — he seems to show that in…”
However, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
“Faith, which believes in the justifier, is the beginning of justification before God. And this faith, when it is justified, is like a root in the soil of the soul, which the rain has watered, so that as it begins to grow by the law…”
And David speaks likewise of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
“After these things, as if for the confirmation of his statement which he had made — "But to him who does not work, yet believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned unto righteousness" — he takes up a testimony from the Psalms…”
“Blessed are they whose lawless acts are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
“Whence I think that David too, in the thirty-first psalm, which he entitled "Of the understanding of David," gave this beginning, admonishing by the very superscription that a deeper understanding must be sought in the things he was about to say, namely that "blessed are…”
For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith is useless and the promise is worthless,
“"For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been made void, and the promise has been annulled. For the law works wrath. But where there is no law, neither is there transgression."”
because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression.
“But now, in this place where he says, "For the law works wrath," it must be considered more carefully to which law this saying seems to look; and likewise that which follows, "For where there is no law, neither is there transgression."”
As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”
“And he added in what follows: "Who quickens the dead, and calls those things which are not as those which are." Here we understand the dead according to the sin of the soul, since he says, "the soul which sins shall die."”
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”
“Therefore Abraham "against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations," which were to be as the stars of heaven, not only in multitude but also in brightness; and he, faithfully believing him who promised, "was not," he says, "weakened…”
Now the words “it was credited to him” were written not only for Abraham,
“But I should like to inquire into this: whether it is only for this reason that the Apostle says that "it was not written for the sake of" Abraham "alone, but for our sake also," namely, because he said, "Abraham believed God, and it was…”
but also for us, to whom righteousness will be credited—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
“I should indeed like to inquire why it is that in this place the Apostle, when naming God, in whom we believe and in whom Abraham believed, did not say "believing" in God most high, or "believing in him" who made heaven and earth, or…”
He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.
“For this reason also in what follows he adds and says of the Lord Jesus: "Who was delivered up," he says, "for our sins, and rose again for our justification" — that he may show that those things for which Christ was delivered up we…”
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
“"Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of God."”
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
“"Let us" therefore "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And he added: "Through whom also we have access into this grace in which we stand."”
Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him!
“"Much more therefore," he says, "being now justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him."”
The law came in so that the trespass would increase; but where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
“"But the law entered in secretly, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, so also grace might reign through justice unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord."”
Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?
“But that these things may become clearer, let us inquire what it is to live to sin, and what it is to die to sin.”