The study of the bible stood at the center of Origen’s life and work. The majority of his writings are either commentaries on books of the Bible or homilies preached on biblical texts. His exegesis is interlaced with texts from the Bible. His mind wandered at ease through its pages, plucking appropriate phrases and arranging them artfully in his pursuit of the spiritual meaning he perceived to be latent in each word and phrase. “There has never been a theologian in the church,” Harnack observed, “who was (and wished to be) so exclusively a biblical exegete as Origen.”¹

(2) Perhaps...

Just as the people of old, who were called the people of God,¹ were divided into twelve tribes plus the Levitical order, and this order itself, which engaged in service of the Divine, was divided into additional priestly and Levitical orders, so, I think, all the people of Christ according to “the hidden man of the heart,”² who bear the name “Jew inwardly” and who have been circumcised “in spirit,”³ possess the characteristics of the tribes in a more mystical manner. This can be learned most clearly from John in the Apocalypse, although the other prophets are not silent for...

Since we have, in the preceding pages, discussed as sufficiently as we can at present, holy brother Ambrose, who have formed yourself according to the gospel, what the beginning is in which the Word was, and what Word was in the beginning, we now consider subsequently how “the Word was with God.”²

(2) It is useful, moreover, to reconcile with this statement the “word” which is recorded to have come³ to certain men. For example, “The word of the Lord which came to Osee the son of Beeri,”⁴ and, “The word which came to Isaias the son of Amos concerning...

He who distinguishes for himself between the expression, the concepts, and the realities to which the concepts refer, will not take offense at the incorrect use of expressions when he searches and finds that the realities of which the phrases are used are sound. This is especially so when the saints confess that their word and message are “not in the persuasiveness of words of wisdom,² but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power.”³

(Then after speaking of the awkwardness of the Gospel style, he proceeds.)

(2) But because the apostles are aware of those things in which they...

Since you are not content to have assumed at present the task of God’s overseers in relation to us, and you think it proper that while we are absent we devote most of our time to you and to what we owe you,² to avoid the toil and circumvent the danger announced by God to those who have devoted themselves to writing on divine subjects, I might take the advice of Scripture to decline to make many books. For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, “My son, beware of making many books; there is no end, and much study is a weariness...

Every house, in order to be built as solidly as possible, is built in fair and calm weather that nothing may prevent it from being solidly constructed. The purpose is to make it capable of withstanding the rush of flood,¹ the onslaught of river, and all the other things which are apt to test the weak parts of buildings when a storm occurs, and show those which have been constructed with the excellence proper to them.

(2) This is especially true for that structure which is capable of receiving the principles of the truth, the spiritual structure which consists in...

After this he went down to capharnaum, he, and his mother, and brothers, and disciples, and they remained there not many days. And the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those selling oxen, and sheep and doves, and the money-changers sitting. And when he had made, as it were, a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money-changers, and overturned their tables. And he said to those selling...