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
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
“"But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him, knowing that Christ rising from the dead dies no more, death shall no longer have dominion over him.”
So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
“Whence also with good reason he adds in what follows: "So do you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord" — namely, that by the imitation of Christ we may die to sin, being…”
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not!
“"What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." This seems similar to that saying which we expounded above: "What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”
But thanks be to God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed.
“After these things he says: "Thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you have been delivered."”
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
“"And being freed from sin, you have been made the servants of justice." In these words there is an exposition of the things he said above.”
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
“"I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members to serve uncleanness, and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification."”
What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.
“"What fruit, therefore," he says, "did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For their end is death."”
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.
“"But now, having been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life."”
So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that…
“And for this reason he says: "Therefore, while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she be with another man," so as to show that the soul of a man too, if it has now come to Christ and has been joined…”
But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the…
“"But now we have been loosed from the law, having died to that in which we were held." From this law, then, in which we were held, we have now been loosed. "Now." When?”
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
“But lest anyone should ascribe to the commandment of the law the fact that by occasion of the precept the soul was deceived by sin and slain, the Apostle adds and says: "And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just…”
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.
“"For what I work, I do not know. For I do not do what I will; but what I hate, this I do."”
And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good.
“Nevertheless, in that part by which he does not will the evil, he consents to the law of God that it is good, since it forbids evil; and the natural law is brought into a certain harmony with the law of God, so that they…”
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
“"Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Perhaps someone will say that the Apostle, who up to this point has been speaking not as it were in his own person but having assumed…”
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
“"There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death."”
because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
“"Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God: for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be." The same understanding still seems to be unfolded.”
Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.
“"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, that we should live according to the flesh." He taught above that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, and that the gifts of the Spirit have been conferred upon us.”
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
“Just as we have shown that in this Epistle diverse laws are mentioned by Paul under the single word "law," and that diverse deaths are named under the one designation "death," so now we also see diverse spirits indicated under the one name of "Spirit."”
For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?
“After this he says: "For by hope we have been made safe. But hope that is seen is not hope."”
And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
“"And he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God."”
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.
“But as for this too which he said, "Conformed to the image of his Son," I wish to inquire to which form they are said to become conformed.”
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn us?
“"Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes rather, who rose again, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us."”
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“Human nature cannot by itself maintain the struggle against angels and heights and depths and any other creature; but when it has felt the Lord to be present and dwelling within, it will say in the confidence of receiving divine help: "The Lord is my…”
I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit.
“Paul, seeing that if, according to those things which he set forth above, he could be separated from the love of Christ by no power, whether heavenly or earthly, present or future, opposing him, it would seem contrary and incredible—what he was now proposing to…”
I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers…
“Consider, however, the greatness of the apostolic breast. He cannot be separated from the love of God; what he speaks, he speaks in Christ; what he holds in his conscience is contained by the Holy Spirit.”