Origen: On First Principles

per difficultates laborantium constitisset.”

Jer. xxiii. 24 .

Isa. lxvi. 1 .

Matt. v. 34 .

Acts xvii. 28 .

2 Mac. vii. 28 .

Hermæ Past ., book ii. [See vol. ii. p. 20, of this series. S]

Ps. cxlviii. 5 .

1 Cor. xv. 53–56; cf. Hos. xiii. 14 and Isa. xxv. 8 .

Dogmatibus. Schnitzer says that “dogmatibus” here yields no sense. He conjectures δείγμασι , and renders “proofs,” “marks.”

Rom. xiii. 14 .

This passage is found in Jerome’s Epistle to Avitus ; and, literally translated, his rendering is as follows: “If these (views) are not contrary to the faith, we shall perhaps at some future time live without bodies. But if he who is perfectly subject to Christ is understood to be without a body, and all are to be subjected to Christ, we also shall be without bodies when we have been completely subjected to Him. If all have been subjected to God, all will lay aside their bodies, and the whole nature of bodily things will be dissolved into nothing; but if, in the second place, necessity shall demand, it will again come into existence on account of the fall of rational creatures. For God has abandoned souls to struggle and wrestling, that they may understand that they have obtained a full and perfect victory, not by their own bravery, but by the grace of God. And therefore I think that for a variety of causes are different worlds created, and the errors of those refuted who contend that worlds resemble each other.” A fragment of the Greek original of the above is found in the Epistle of Justinian to the patriarch of Constantinople. “If the things subject to Christ shall at the end be subjected also to God, all will lay aside their bodies; and then, I think, there will be a dissolution ( ἀνάλυσις ) of the nature of bodies into non-existence ( εἰς τὸ μὴ ὄν ), to come a second time into existence, if rational (beings) should again gradually come down ( ὑποκαταβῇ ).”

Heb. ix. 26 .

Eph. ii. 7 .

In sæculum et adhuc.

Cf. John xvii. 24, 21, 22 .

Cf. Isa. iii. 24 . Origen here quotes the Septuagint, which differs both from the Hebrew and the Vulgate: καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ κόσμου τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ χρυσίου φαλάκρωμα ἕξεις διὰ τὰ ἔργά σου .

Wisd. xviii. 24 . Poderis, lit. “reaching to the feet.”

1 John v. 19 .

Clemens Rom., Ep. i., ad Cor ., c. 20. [See vol. i. p. 10, of this series. S.]

1 Cor. vii. 31 .

John xvii. 16 .

2 Cor. iv. 18–v. 1 .

Ps. viii. 3 .

Isa. lxvi. 2 .

This passage is found in Jerome’s Epistle to Avitus , and, literally translated, is as follows: “A threefold suspicion, therefore, is suggested to us regarding the end, of which the reader may examine which is the true and better one. For we shall either live without a body, when, being subject to Christ, we shall be subject to God, and God shall be all in all; or, as things subject to Christ will be subject along with Christ Himself to God, and enclosed in one covenant, so all substance will be reduced to the best quality and dissolved into an ether, which is of a purer and simpler nature; or at least that sphere which we have called above ἀπλανῆ , and whatever is contained within its circumference ( circulo ), will be dissolved into nothing, but that one by which the anti-zone ( ἀντιζώνη ) itself is held together and surrounded will be called a good land; and, moreover, another sphere which surrounds this very earth itself with its revolution, and is called heaven, will be preserved for a habitation of the saints.”

Omnique hoc mundi statu, in quo planetarum dicuntur sphæræ, supergresso atque superato.

Matt. v. 5 .

Matt. v. 3 .

Ps. xxxvii. 34 .

Matt. v. 48, 45 .

Matt. vi. 9 .

Matt. v. 34, 35 .

Isa. lxvi. 1 .

John ii. 16 .

Matt. xxii. 31, 32; cf. Ex. iii. 6 .

Isa. xlv. 6 .

Acts vii .

Matt. xxii. 37, 39, 40 .

2 Tim. i. 3 .

2 Cor. xi. 22 .

Rom. i. 1–4 .

1 Cor. ix. 9, 10; cf. Deut. xxv. 4 .

Eph. vi. 2, 3; cf. Ex. xx. 12 .

John i. 18 .

Col. i. 15 .

John xiv. 9 .

Ex. xxxiii. 20, cf. 23 .

Aliud sit videre et videri, et aliud nôsse et nosci, vel cognoscere atque cognosci.

Matt. xi. 27 .

Luke xix. 14 .

Ps. ii. 5 .

Ezek. xviii. 3 .

[Cum nihil dignum pœna commiserint. S.]

Pœnitentiam egissent.

Matt. xxii. 12, 13 .

Phil. iv. 8, 9 .

1 Pet. iii. 18–21 .

Ezek. xvi. 55, cf. 53 .

Isa. xlvii. 14, 15 . The Septuagint here differs from the Hebrew: ἔχεις ἄνθρακας πυρός, κάθισαι ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς, οὗτοι ἔσονταί σοι βοήθεια .

Ps. lxxviii. 34 .

Matt. vii. 18, cf. xii. 33 .

Rom. vii. 12 .

Rom. vii. 13 .

Rom. vii. 13 .

Matt. xii. 35 .

Matt. xix. 17 .

Ps. lxxiii. 1 .

Ps. cxviii. 2 .

Lam. iii. 25 .

John xvii. 25 : Juste Pater.

Col. i. 15 .

Col. i. 16, 17 .

1 Cor. xi. 3 .

Matt. xi. 27 .

John xxi. 25 .

Virtutibus, probably for δυνάμεσιν .

Matt. xxvi. 38 .

John x. 18 . “No other soul which descended into a human body has stamped on itself a pure and unstained resemblance of its former stamp, save that one of which the Savior says, ‘No one will take my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself.’”—Jerome, Epistle to Avitus , p. 763.

Principaliter.

1 Cor. vi. 17 .

Gen. ii. 24; cf. Mark x. 8 .

Meriti affectus.

Ps. xlv. 7 .

Col. ii. 9 .

Isa. liii. 9 .

Heb. iv. 15 .

John viii. 46 .

John xiv. 30 .

This quotation is made up of two different parts of Isaiah: chap. viii. 4 , “Before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father and my mother;” and chap. vii. 16 , “Before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”

Semper in verbo, semper in sapientia, semper in Deo.

Ps. xlv. 7 .

Illi enim in odore unguentorum ejus circumire dicuntur; perhaps an allusion to Song of Sol. i. 3 or to Ps. xlv. 8 .

Lam. iv. 20 .

Ps. lxxxix. 50, 51 .

Col. iii. 3 .

2 Cor. xiii. 3 .

Luke i. 35 .

Heb. viii. 5 .

Job viii. 9 .

2 Cor. v. 16 .

According to Pamphilus in his Apology , Origen, in a note on Tit. iii. 10 , has made a statement the opposite of this. His words are: “But there are some also who say, that it was one Holy Spirit who was in the prophets, and another who was in the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.”— Ruæus .

Joel ii. 28 .

Ps. lxxii. 11 .

Qui licet non omnes possint per ordinem atque ad liquidum spiritualis intelligentiæ explanare consequentiam.

Ita per singulos, qui eum capere possunt, hoc efficitur, vel hoc intelligitur ipse Spiritus, quo indiget ille, qui eum participare meruerit. Schnitzer renders, “And so, in every one who is susceptible of them, the Spirit is exactly that which the receiver chiefly needs.”

1 Tim. iv. 1–3 .

2 Cor. xii. 4 .

1 Cor. x. 23 .

1 John ii. 1, 2 .

Anima.

Animæ.

Animam animantium.

Gen. i. 21 : πᾶσαν ψυχὴν ζώων , Sept.

Erasmus remarks, that φανταστική may be rendered imaginitiva , which is the understanding: ὁρμητική , impulsiva , which refers to the affections (Schnitzer).

Animam.

Lev. xvii. 14 : ἡ ψυχὴ πάσης σαρκὸς αἶμα αὐτοῦ ἐστι , Sept.

Vitalis.

Animantia.

Gen. i. 24 , living creature, animam .

Gen. ii. 7 , animam viventem .

Lev. xvii. 10 . It is clear that in the text which Origen or his translator had before him he must have read ψυχή instead of πρόσωπον : otherwise the quotation would be inappropriate (Schnitzer).

Isa. i. 13, 14 .

Ps. xxii. 19, 20 , unicam meam, μονογενῆ μου .

Animalem.

Mens.

Anima.

1 Cor. xiv. 15 .

1 Pet. i. 9 .

These words are found in Jerome’s Epistle to Avitus , and, literally translated, are as follows: “Whence infinite caution is to be employed, lest perchance, after souls have obtained salvation and come to the blessed life, they should cease to be souls. For as our Lord and Saviour came to seek and to save what was lost, that it might cease to be lost; so the soul which was lost, and for whose salvation the Lord came, shall, when it has been saved, cease for a soul. This point in like manner must be examined, whether, as that which has been lost was at one time not lost, and a time will come when it will be no longer lost; so also at some time a soul may not have been a soul, and a time may be when it will by no means continue to be a soul.” A portion of the above is also found, in the original Greek, in the Emperor Justinian’s Letter to Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople.

Deut. iv. 24 .

Ps. civ. 4; cf. Heb. i. 7 .

Ex. iii. 2 .

Rom. xii. 11 .

Cf. Jer. i. 9 . The word “fire” is found neither in the Hebrew nor in the Septuagint.

Matt. xxiv. 12 .

Cf. Ezek. xxxii. 2 seqq.

Isa. xxvii. 1 .

Amos ix. 3 .

Job xli. 34 [LXX.].

Jer. i. 14 .

Ecclus. xliii. 20 .

ψυχή from ψύχεσθαι .

Ecclus. vi. 4 .

Ezek. xviii. 4, cf. 20 .

Ezek. xviii. 4, 19 .

“By falling away and growing cold from a spiritual life, the soul has become what it now is, but is capable also of returning to what it was at the beginning, which I think is intimated by the prophet in the words, ‘Return, O my soul, unto thy rest,’ so as to be wholly this.”— Epistle of Justinian to Patriarch of Constantinople .