Let me back up. For our Ruah class we had to pick a saint or church father or mother to study. I picked Origen, because I'd heard he was kinda crazy and read the Bible in eccentric ways. After reading Balthasar's thematic anthology and a handful of articles about Origen, I'd describe him and his exegesis as "very intense," rather than eccentric. He is certainly eccentric vis a vis me and my experience, but it seems like for his time and place he was right in the thick of things. His allegorical method (allegoresis) can claim a Biblical basis - he relies heavily on Paul's distinction between flesh and spirit, letter and spirit, so forth; he's also traditional - scholars speak of an Alexandrian school - Philo, Clement, and other people I haven't read; and he's a very devoted Christian - Christ and his church are front and center.
What is the big bad deal with allegoresis? Don't we all use it a little bit?
I like to think of allegory as a double decker bus - a story or scenario with a literal meaning on the first deck and a similarly structured symbolic meaning on the second deck. To me, allegory comes alive the more the relationships at the symbolic level (second deck) correspond to the relationships on the literal level (first deck). Often what happens is, we - the readers - unconsciously discover a couple characters or events with symbolic vibrations; we "find" the stairs to the second deck, so to speak. Then we start to look for more symbolic resonances, and more, and try to understand the second deck plan based on the first deck plan.
However, we don't want the literal level and the symbolic level to be too squarely stacked, or too easily discerned; that ruins the fun of finding the hidden meaning and structure. The experience is as important as the result. Maybe that's why meticulously designed allegories often feel lifeless or taste stale.
Then there's the messiness of determining what the literal is. How literal is literal? I often think of the literal as the plain, ordinary meaning, but plain, ordinary speech uses lots of "figures of speech." For Origen, the literal level seems to be the most concrete meaning possible.
So, where does this typology thing fit? Typology is when we understand events or things on the first deck refer to other events or things (as opposed to ideas or values) on the second deck - Old Testament to New Testament, the past age to this age, or this age to the future age, etc.. I think that's a decent definition. Or, to use Bienert's distinction between allegory and typology, allegory is vertical - first deck to second deck, while typology is horizontal - like an articulated bus, two similar structures joined horizontally by a stretchy thingy. I think I'm gonna stick with that: allegory is a double decker bus, typology is an articulated bus. However, for Origen, allegory is any non-literal interpretation, so typology wouldn't be a separate exercise.
I think for my paper I'm going to take this angle: how does Origen read the Bible, and how do I feel about it...participate in it...reject it...converse with it...etc
Origen - Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings - ed Hans Urs von Balthasar, transl Robert Daly, S.J.
from The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity - by Peter Brown
Chp 8 - "'I Beseech You: Be Transformed': Origen"
from The Blackwell Companion to Paul - ed Stephen Westerholm
Chp 10 - "Paul and Scripture" - by J. Ross Wagner
Chp 20 - "Origen" - by Peter Widdicombe
from International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol 18, No 3
"The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato" - by Ilaria Ramelli
from Journal of Early Christian Studies, 16:3
"Revisiting the Allegory/Typology distinction: The Case of Origen" - by Peter Martens
from A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology - ed Vanda Zajko and Helena Hoyle
Chp 8 - "Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory" - by Greta Hawes
I beseech you: be transformed
- Origen thought of himself, above all, as an exegete
- "the whetstone of us all," Gregory Nazianzen
- The material universe as a whole, in his opinion, had been subjected to frustration, not of its will; but it had been subjected in hope...to be placed in a body was to experience a positive act of divine mercy...the body was necessary for the slow healing of the soul...pressing against the limitations imposed by a specific material environment that the spirit would learn to recover its earliest yearning
- Angels and demons were as close to the Christian of the third century as were adjacent rooms
- [sex, even in marriage, procreation - provisional, fleshly, not our highest calling (somewhat different from Clement)
- The eunuch was notorious (and repulsive to many) because he had dared to shift the massive boundary between the sexes
- It [virginity] was a physical concretization, through the untouched body, of the pre-existing purity of the soul
- In such a Platonism, sensuality could not simply be abandoned or repressed. Rather, the sharpness of sensual experience was brought back to its primordial intensity: it was reawakened, in the mystic's heart, at its true level - the level of the spirit. [spiritual senses - Origen and Plotinus]
- the "declaratory" role of the Christian virgin
- [body as temple of the Lord] The humble "ass" of the body could become the "resplendent" vehicle of the soul
Paul and Scripture
- 1 Cor 15 Christ died for our sins "in accordance with the scriptures," buried then raised "in accordance with the scriptures
- weight of holy scripture
- "he says," "it is written"
- 1 Cor 9:10 [do not muzzle oxen while treading out grain] "Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake.
- 1 Cor 10 (recounting Israel in the wilderness, and putting God to the test, "spiritual food and spiritual drink," "And Christ was the rock") Now these things occurred as examples for us...to serve as an example...written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come
- Paul's frequent clustering of mutually interpreting citations and his occasional conflation of two or more separate passages to form a composite quotation provide further evidence that he hears in Scripture a multitude of harmonious voices speaking in concert with him as witnesses to the gospel.
- allusion
- intertextual echo
- For Paul, the hermeneutical key to the Scriptures is the extra-textual apocalypse of God's righteousness in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah
- Rom 15:4 whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we would have hope
- For Origen, the writers of the New Testament, and the Old for that matter, all told one story about one subject.
- By the time of Origen, the Pauline epistles had acquired the status of Christian Scripture.
- 2 Cor 3:6 the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life
- he tends to use the distinction between the letter and the spirit to solve any problems
- Paul, for Origen, was the person who taught the church how to read the Bible [also Jesus - explaining the scriptres on emmaus rd - and Holy Spirit]
- arkhe (arche) - beginning, origin, source of power, first principle, method of government
- telos - end, purpose, goal
- [on stoic use of allegoresis] Poetry, expressing myth, and cultic traditions must therefore be interpreted allegorically in order to detect the truth hidden in them, and since truth is one, just as the Stoic Logos is one, the truth thereby detected will be one with the philosophical truth of Stoicism.
- etymology very important
- finding hidden truth, under the veil of riddles, decrypt symbolic language
- Porphyry on Origen, "His life was that of a Christian and contravened the laws, but in his view of the existing realities and of God his thoughts were those of a Greek, and he turned the Greek ideas into a substratum of the alien [Jewish] myths...he availed himself of the books of the Stoics Chaeremon and Cornutus, from which he learned the allegorical method of the Greek mysteries, which he applied, then, to the Jewish Scriptures
- according to Ramelli, Origen, Philo, and Clement insisted texts have complete unity, coherence, interpret scripture with scripture, intratextuality [for Stoics, myths not exactly "holy scripture"]
- Origen quoting Celsus, "they [the scriptures] are not susceptible of any allegorical interpretation, but, on the contrary, they are bare myths, and of the most stupid kind...However the allegories that appear to be written on these myths are far more shameful and unlikely than the myths themselves, since, with astonishing and totally senseless madness, they link together things that are absolutely and completely incompatible with one another
- for Origen, creation and Revelation almostly completely allegorical
- the spiritual meanings of scripture are inexhastible
- moral interpretation - troubles of the soul (Philo)
- Origen "necessary to look for a meaning that is worthy of God"
- "Eden" as "once upon a time"
- Origen against Marcionites - "if they are so mistaken in their thoughts it is because they interpret the Law exclusively in a literal sense, and ignore that the Law is spiritual
- Danielou - typology is the research of the correspondences between...OT...and NT
- Gal 4:24 Sara and Hagar as allegory
- W.A. Bienert - "allegory is the vertical manner of interpretation, since it establishes unhistorical-timeless relationships between images (allegories) and their spiritual archetypes; typology, in contrast, is the horizontal manner of interpretation, since it transports the historical events of the past into the present and future
- Frances Young - typology "requires a mirroring of the supposed deeper meaning in the text taken as a coherent whole" (doesn't destroy narrative; ikonic mimesis)
- typology, more analogous relationship?
- typology (requires perception of likeness) as species of allegory (any kind of non-literal understanding)
- for Origen, allegory appears "simply to label the nonliteral reading of texts"
- allegoria - other speaking
- typos - result of a blow or pressing, image, symbol, figure
- sometimes Origen uses typos as a mere symbol, like a letter of the alphabet, to mean literal level
- Origen's guidelines for good allegoresis
- principle of similitude, likeness or relationship between symbol and symbolized
- must fit church doctrine, ecclesiastical rule
- etymology important
- interpret scripture with scripture
- follow example of authoritative allegorists, such as paul
- Responses to ancient myth are never arbitrary; a subtle nexus of established assumptions and habits of thinking guide both interpretation and narration.
- allegoresis - an instrument of transformation
- huponoia - undermeaning
- Heraclitus, "If Homer did not compose allegorically, then he was entirely impious; desecrating myths, full of blasphemous madness, tear through both texts"
- need a stable literal level as foil for allegory
- use existing mythological associations
- allegorists distil from texts generalized philosophical principles
- The habits of allegoresis captured a partial vision of Greek literature. Allegorists shone lights into hidden corners of the mythic tradition, but cast a blinkered gaze over other aspects of it.
- lose "numinous ambivalence"
- creative subjectivity of interpretation
- the deliberate composition of large-scale allegories was rare
- Northrope Frye "all commentary is allegorical interpretation"
Spirit and Fire
- He himself hardly ever wrote, but dictated, practically day and night, tirelessly, to a team of stenographers.
- The voice of the Alexandrian is more like that glowing, rainless desert wind that sometimes sweeps over the Nile delta, with a thoroughly unromantic passion: pure, fiery gusts. Two names come to mind in comparison: Heraclitus and Nietzsche. For their work too is, externally, ashes and contradiction, and makes sense only because of the fire of their souls which forces their unmanageable material into a unity and, with a massive consumption of fuel, leaves behind it a fiery track straight across the earth.
- Nevertheless, Origen's style is so thoroughly saturated with the language of scripture that there is really no way to draw clear lines between quotation, vague reminiscence and his personal manner of speaking.
- "...he [Isaac/Christ] wants to renew the wells of the Law and the Prophets which the Philistines had filled with earth....those who put an earthly and fleshly understanding of the law and block up its spiritual and mystical meaning so that they neither themselves drink nor allow others to drink...'neither enter yourselves or permit others to enter'
- But if, from among those who are now listening to me speak, someone familiar with secular letters should say: what you are saying is ours, and it is learned from our skill; these very things which you are discussing and teaching are our art of eloquence...all earth contains water
- For Christ did not change their names but their understanding
- everything that is manifest is related to one of those things which are secret (quoting wis of sol)
- [soul kinda in the middle between body and spirit; call is to be transformed into spirit, or follow spirit]
- every creature endowed with reason has a need for participation in the Trinity
- Justice is in us like an echo; it comes to us by reverberation from the first Justice
- [image - at creation; likeness - consummation]
- look for the fall of the world, so that from finding its fall you might come to see its setting aright
- [journey through wilderness as journey of soul - etymologies or symbolism of place names, Num Com]
- in that same way must Wisdom be understood to be the Word of God because it opens up to everything else, that is, to every creature, the meaning of the mysteries and secrets which are, of course, contained within the divine wisdom.
- For when the Word became flesh, he opened up with this key the scriptures which were closed before his coming, and which no one can now close by claiming they have not been fulfilled
- the Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart
- [spoken word cannot be touched or seen, but takes bodily form when written, so Word of God, took flesh, was seen and written.
- You are, therefore, to understand the scriptures in this way: as the one, perfect body of the Word
- even an "iota or dot" is full of mystery
- If the Law of Moses contained nothing written with a deeper meaning, the prophet would not have said in his prayer to God, "Open my eyes...
- scripture is the "one perfect and harmonious instrument of God"
- all if 167 (so vast a sea of mysteries)
- Search the scriptures (John)
- all of 178 and 179 (will hold the four to be true, but not in bodily form)
- the kingdom of heaven is likened o a net of varied texture because the scripture of the old and new testament is woven together from all kinds of variegated thoughts [humans are fish, some caught by one part of net - prophets - others by another - law - others by apostolic part, etc]...this net is cast into the sea, the tumultuous life of human beings who, everywhere in the world, swim in the bitter affairs of life
- the tutor of the law [and letter?]...we have need of the splendor which can pass away for the sake of the splendor which surpasses it (2 Cor 3:10)...perhaps this refuse is the dung put down under the fig tree by the vinedresser which is the cause of its bearing fruit
- the holy and spiritual person a kind of botanist who reads every iota and every dash which happens to be in the sacred scripture, and finds out the power of the letter and whit it is good for, and knows that nothing written down is superfulous
- the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field...that field, it seems to me, is the scripture, planted...of the histories, law and prophets...Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3)
- it seems to me that each word of the divine scripture is like a seed whose nature it is, once it has been thrown into the earth...to be multiplied many times over [happens more with more effort or beneficial earth]
- [multiplying loaves] well then, consider how we break the few loaves: we take from the divine scriptures a few words, and how many thousand people are filled! But unless these loaves were broken, unless broken down into small pieces by the disciples, that is unless the letter was broken down into little pieces and discussed, its meaning would not be able to come to all
- ..."And the Rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4)...You can see how different Paul's tradition is from the historical reading...How then are we to act, who have received such principles of interpretation from Paul, the teacher of the church?
- all of 205...search out every sign in the old scriptures as a type of something in the new, and what is called sign in the new covenant as indicative of something either in the age to come or in the generations after that in which the sign took place
- pointed to by signs and guarded by seals
- 207...proper understanding of scripture...purpose of the Spirit...to teach us something about the hidden mysteries regarding the fate of human beings...second purpose...to conceal the doctrine...in the revealed accounts...[so that we wouldn't be content with obvious meaning] the Word of God arranged it that some scandals, so to speak, stumbling blocks, and impossibilities would be mixed in...by not parting from the letter, learn nothing that is more divine
- 208 some things literal and not allegorical (ethics), some things both, some things allegorical and not literal
- 209 threefold mode of understanding in the holy scripture: a historical, a moral and a mystical [body, soul, spirit] [three chambered ark]
- the literal sense in holy scripture cannot always stand but is often lacking, when for example it is written, "Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard" (Prov 26:)...etc
- 212 threefold - Abraham means moral philosophy through obedience...Isaac stands for natural philosophy since he dug wells and searched into the depths of things. But Jacob stands for internal vision [vision of angel and ladder]
- 213 just as "the seen and unseen" (2 Cor), earth and heaven, soul and flesh, body and spirit are related to each other, and this world is made up of these relationships, so too must it be believed that holy scripture is made up of seen and unseen things. It consists of a body, namely, the visible letter, and of a soul which is the meaning found within it, and of a spirit by which is also has something of the heavenly in it...let us seek out not the letter but the soul...if we can do this, we will also ascend to the spirit
- 216 [hunter seeking prey with help of dog's sense of smell - hidden trails, losing the trail, asking for help]
- 217 [like journey through wilderness, suffering failure and hunger], those searching the scriptures "frequently tried by a failure of their ability to perceive"...God "gives food in due season" (Ps 145)
- 218 Jesus spits on the ground and makes a past [dust of the ground is history and deeds, law and prophets, Christ's spittle is Logos, anoints our eyes, wash in the pool of Siloam] by this is signified the swimming so to speak involved in the searching and groping for the truth
- One can even dare to say that the gospels are the first fruits of all the scriptures, but that John is the first fruits of the gospels. No one can grasp its meaning who has not lain on Jesus' breast and also received Mary from Jesus as one's own mother...shown Jesus by Jesus...how elevated a mind must we have in order to be able to perceive worthily this Word lying hidden within the earthen treasures of the ordinary word [Origen interprets "Behold your son" as not "Behold this too is your son," therefore John is like Jesus now, like Paul "Christ lives in me"
- For truly, before Jesus, the scripture was water, but after Jesus it has become wine for us
- lifting the veil (2 Cor 3:14 - have the veil when old covenant is read, only in Christ is it taken away
- Heb 10:1 - since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities
- 214 - divine providence arranged for the city itself and the temple and everything to be destoryed...[so that people would look for higher or deeper meaning of scripture]
- Mt 21:43 - the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it...the meaning of the scriptures is taken from them
- law/prophets and gospels: for neither one has fullness of life without the other
- tree of knowledge of good and evil - thus the law contains both: the letter that kills and the Spirit that gives life [seems to play on Paul's claim that before the law there was no sin...before eating of tree no sin]
- [disciples told to cross the sea - cross from material to immaterial, buffeted by wind
- [Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus - law and prophets in the gospel
- [Jesus as Isaac, as the ram, as the angel who stays Abraham's hand] he himself was in the form of Isaac...the ram too was a form of him
- there never was a time when the spiritual order of salvation according to Jesus was not available to the saints
- We would like, now, to say something even more daring: what came into this life emptied itself, so that through its emptiness the world would be fulfilled. But if what came into this life emptied itself, that very emptiness was Wisdom"
- And just as sin began with the woman and then spread to man, so too what was good began with women.
- For Christ has inundated the whole world with holy and divine streams...from the wound...in his side
- the cross was a double cross, Jesus visibly and the devil/evil invisibly
- Nevertheless it was with wood that that fire was lit (importance of body to the spirit, fire points upward)
- 2 Cor 5:16, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer
- is everywhere and interpenetrates everything
- for he was sent not only to be known but also to remain hidden [why did some did him resurrected and others didnt]
- two laws, two men
- steps up the temple - our savior is all the steps
- Mt 24:27 [coming of the son of man like lighting] this lighting...it can be found in the whole scripture
- "climbing to higher levels to search out meanings which are beyond my power and ability
- You took your garments, and sewed them into idols for yourself (Ezek 16:16) These clothes are the divine scriptures and the meaning which lies in them. The heretics tore up these clothes and sewed together expression to expression and word to word, but without the right connection
- there is also sin to be seen at a higher level, because I frequently am nourishing pride if I understand the divine word, if I am wiser than the rest. "Knowledge puffs up" (1 Cor 8:1)
- they want to kill the Word and break it up into pieces, as it were, because they do not have room within them for its great size
- there is no matter, which has been founded seriously and is useful for life, in which various heresies have not arisen
- [Jesus escaping arrest] with the exception of the Word of Christ, it is possible to 'capture' every other teaching. It is possible to grasp the spirit of each and every system, gain control of it and, as scripture says, come to terms with it.
- but listen to this spiritually, if you can
- "his garments became white as light" The garments of Jesus are the words and letters of the scripture which he had put on
- But what John calls the "eternal gospel" (Rev 14:6), which might be rightly called the spiritual gospel, presents clearly to those who understand, everything about the Son of God in himself, both the mysteries contained in his words and also the realities of which his deeds were the symbols
- bodily meaning v higher meaning
- John 1:45, we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote
- speech is one thing, voice is something else...the sheep hear his voice, but the men hear his Word
- the deeper meaning of what he said
- that which someone cherishes above all else, admires and loves above all, that is that person's God
- the prototype of all images, "the image of the invisible God"
- it is thus necessary to die first to the letter so that the soul, finally free, can wed the Spirit and enter into matrimony of the new covenant
- [things hidden brought to light by temptations]
- the holy spaciousness of God "You have given me room" (Ps 4:1)
- [the sun] makes the day by shining, but the night by going away
- evil works constrict the evil one in himself. the love of God makes room in our souls
- as human beings, all of us have within us both sight and blindness
- Would that we too, understanding from this that we are blind and do not see, as we sit by the road of the scriptures and hear that Jesus is passing by, might by our prayers make him stop and tell him we want our eyes to be opened.
- Abraham sitting at the door of his tent (not inside, bodily, etc)
- for something cannot be desired if it is not even known (also Augustine)
- for these things go together inseparably: the pure word in the soul and an irreproachable life
- For one cries out "Lord!" in a perfect way when one's works are crying out and saying, "Lord, Lord!"
- the fruit of works is the vision of being
- and it seems to me that the first beginning and the very foundation of salvation is faith, the development and expansion of the building is hope, but the perfection and summit of the whole work is love
- every time we understand, we owe it to our faith that we understand
- the disciples were reminded of the fulfillment of the scriptures
- But if, like the apostles, we never move away from him but remain with him in all his trials, he will then privately explain and interpret for us what he had said to the multitudes
- [com on Lev] Christ...the one and perfect sacrifice which all these sacrifices preceded in type and image
- just as the church was given for its dowry the books of the law and the prophets, so too were the law of nature, reason, and free-will given to the soul...
- [com on Cant] this is the explanation of the plot of the drama; let us now come to its spiritual understanding
- 691 [if living right, words are "sweeter far than honey in the comb;" if living in sin, then words are bitter]
- true bread is that which feeds the true human being
- 700 "Give us this day our essential bread" Because some suppose that we are being told here to pray for physical bread, it will be helpful, after exposing their error, to present the true understanding
- we must pray for this, that we may be made worthy of it
- do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul
- which truth is rightly called the blood and life of the scriptures because all scripture, unless it is understood according to the truth, is dead
- 727 the law and the prophets are the cups of the soul's spiritual drink...the scribes and Pharisees search after the external and common meaning and try to show that this is pure and holy; but the disciples of Christ try to purify the internal and spiritual meaning... (clean the inside and the outside will be clean)
- the soul becomes sterile when God abandons it; but becomes a mother when he is at work in it
- In his Epistle to Timothy Paul says that "woman will be saved through bearing children, with modesty." But who is this woman, if not the soul which conceives the divine Word of truth and brings forth good works which are like Christ?
- Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
- Say to wisdom, you are my sister (Prov 7:4)
- Those who do righteousness do Christ who is justice. Their souls become, in bringing him forth, the mother of Christ
- 759 [com on Gen] Now I have often said that it is not history being narrated here, but mysteries being woven. I think that something like the following is meant here
- for there is never a time when the soul is not giving birth; it is always doing so
- [com Cant] no flowers appear to her then in her scripture reading, nor do any secrets of a deeper wisdom or hidden mysteries echo, so to speak, from the voice of the turtledove...Then the Word of God comes to her, then he calls her to himself and urges her to "go out"...beyond everything that is bodily and visible in the world
- Blessed is the one who is always being born of God
- all will nevertheless come to salvation in their own particular ways
- Lev 1:3 and 5 - repetition of place
- take heed: there must always be fire on the altar
- Col 2:16-17 - Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ
- we ought to practice the symphony of this divine music
- 856 worthy of supplying some goats' hair
- Let us see how we can apply this...
- he cannot drink alone the wine he promised to drink with us
- 872 - seraphim hide beginnings (head) and endings (feet) but not the middle
- since what was prophesied by them [law and prophets] has been fulfilled, but the words of Christ are always full, and are always in the act of being fulfilled, and are daily fulfilled and never overfilled
- And perhaps everything that is perceivable by the senses, right up to heaven itself and what is in it, are fields white for the harvest, waiting for those who lift up their eyes
- for the one who is dead to worldly things, the weekdays have been skipped and the day of the Lord has come
- Our God is a consuming fire
- What is this fire so wise that it guards my gold and shows forth my silver more brilliantly, that it leaves undamaged that precious stone in me and burns up only the evil I have done, the wood, hay and straw I have built over it"
- but fire has a twofold power: to illuminate, and to burn
- But even if one could, one should not, I think, want to escape the judgment of God
- rather we will learn all things in the judgment of God through our Savior Jesus Christ
- What seemed at first to be an evil, the Egyptian famine, became the starting point of the best decisions the Hebrews could make. Indeed, whatever is regarded as evil, even if it is really evil, is later turned into something good.
- he makes use of these spirits in accordance with their own free decisions
- 948 If the poor heretics could only understand this, they would not be constantly repeating to us: Do you see how the God of the law is savage and inhuman, since he says: "I kill and I make alive"? Don't you see in the scriptures the message of the resurrection of the dead?
- even to speak truly of God is dangerous
- 961 [interpreting God hardening Pharaoh's heart vs Pharaoh's heart hardened] Now if we really believe that these writings are divine and written by the Holy Spirit, I do not think that we would think so poorly of the divine Spirit as to attribute it to chance that there is this variety in so great a work as this
- I pray that my examination will find something true in this passage
- We are all children with respect to God
- Or don't you see that the resurrection of the dead has already begun in each one?
- If someone, then, in searching through the law and going through the texts which speak of the marriage of women and men thinks that there is nothing more there than the literal meaning, that person is in error, and knows "neither the scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29)
- But it will be a true sabbath on which God will rest from all his work...when God will be all in all
- And this too must be looked into
- 1015 - Woe to you [those who understand only the letter], scribe of gospel...allegorical meanings "A scribe is trained for the kingdom of heaven"
- 1035 one should not think that historical events are types of historical events, and that bodily things are types of bodily things, but that bodily things are types of spiritual things, and that historical events are types of intelligible events [doesn't this contradict 205]
- in the very acts themselves knowledge is written
- he recognizes there not only the historical but also the anagogical meaning, as it is written, "interpreting spiritual truths to those who posses the Spirit" (1 Cor 2)
- RJD - Origen's mind was tireless in noting the rich panoply of the connectedness and interconnectedness of things
