The writings of Origen, Vol. 1 (of 2) — John Shaqi
The writings of Origen, Vol. 1 (of 2)Origen
Religion
The writings of Origen, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Origen
Apologetics -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Celsus (Platonic philosopher), active 180; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
Eusebius (_Eccles. Hist._ iii. c. 36), treating of Ignatius, quotes
from his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna as follows: “Writing to the
Smyrnæans, he (Ignatius) has also employed words respecting Jesus, I
know not whence they are taken, to the following effect: ‘But I know
and believe that He was seen after the resurrection; and when He came
to Peter and his companions, He said to them, Take and handle me, and
see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.’” Jerome, in his catalogue of
ecclesiastical writers, says the words are a quotation from the Gospel
of the Nazarenes, a work which he had recently translated. Origen here
quotes them, however, from _The Doctrine of Peter_, on which Ruæus
remarks that the words might be contained in both of these apocryphal
works.
Footnote 16:
Dæmonium.
Footnote 17:
Subtile.
Footnote 18:
Hos. x. 12. The words in the text are not the rendering of the
authorized version, but that of the Septuagint, which has φωτίσατε
ἑαυτοῖς φῶς γνώσεως. Where the Masoretic text has וְעֵת (_et tempus_)
Origen evidently read דַּעַת (_scientia_), the similarity of _Vau_ and
_Daleth_ accounting for the error of the transcriber.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
ON GOD.
1. I know that some will attempt to say that, even according to the
declarations of our own Scriptures, God is a body, because in the
writings of Moses they find it said, that “our God is a consuming
fire;”[19] and in the Gospel according to John, that “God is a Spirit,
and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[20]
Fire and spirit, according to them, are to be regarded as nothing else
than a body. Now, I should like to ask these persons what they have to
say respecting that passage where it is declared that God is light; as
John writes in his epistle, “God is light, and in Him there is no
darkness at all.”[21] Truly He is that light which illuminates the whole
understanding of those who are capable of receiving truth, as is said in
the thirty-sixth Psalm, “In Thy light we shall see light.”[22] For what
other light of God can be named, “in which any one sees light,” save an
influence of God, by which a man, being enlightened, either thoroughly
sees the truth of all things, or comes to know God Himself, who is
called the truth? Such is the meaning of the expression, “In Thy light
we shall see light;” _i.e._ in Thy word and wisdom, which is Thy Son, in
Himself we shall see Thee the Father. Because He is called light, shall
He be supposed to have any resemblance to the light of the sun? Or how
should there be the slightest ground for imagining, that from that
corporeal light any one could derive the cause of knowledge, and come to
the understanding of the truth?
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