1“Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber.
2But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
5They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.”
6Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them.
7Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door.
8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them.
9I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out and will find pasture.
10The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them.
13The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care for the sheep.
14I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;
15even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.
16I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.
17Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.
18No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.”
19Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words.
20Many of them said, “He has a demon and is insane! Why do you listen to him?”
21Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”
22It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem.
23It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
24The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me.
26But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
30I and the Father are one.”
31Therefore the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
33The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
34Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?
35If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken),
36do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
37If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me.
38But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
39They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand.
40He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and he stayed there.
41Many came to him. They said, “John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true.”
42Many believed in him there.
John x. 9.
Editorial footnote · Exhortation to the Heathen, THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN. / CHAPTER I. EXHORTATION TO ABANDON THE IMPIOUS MYSTERIES OF IDOLATRY FOR THE ADORATION OF THE DIVINE WORD AND GOD THE FATHER. · Original source
John x. 11.
Editorial footnote · The Instructor, THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / THE INSTRUCTOR. / BOOK I. / CHAPTER VII. WHO THE INSTRUCTOR IS, AND RESPECTING HIS INSTRUCTION. · Original source
John x. 16.
Editorial footnote · The Instructor, THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / THE INSTRUCTOR. / BOOK I. / CHAPTER VII. WHO THE INSTRUCTOR IS, AND RESPECTING HIS INSTRUCTION. · Original source
John x. 3.
Editorial footnote · Letter to Gregory, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / LETTERS. / A LETTER FROM ORIGEN TO GREGORY. · Original source
John x. 24.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN CONTRA CELSUM. / ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS. BOOK I. / Chapter XLVIII. · Original source
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 Saviour says, ‘No one will take my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself.’”—Jerome, Epistle to Avitus, p. 763.
Editorial footnote · On First Principles, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. / BOOK II. / CHAPTER VI. ON THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. · Original source
John x. 18.
Editorial footnote · On First Principles, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. / BOOK II. / CHAPTER VIII. ON THE SOUL (ANIMA). · Original source
John x. 28.
Editorial footnote · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK VI. / CHAPTER XIV. DEGREES OF GLORY IN HEAVEN. · Original source
John x. 1–3, 7.
Editorial footnote · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK V. / CHAPTER XIII. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD A DIVINE GIFT, ACCORDING TO THE PHILOSOPHERS. · Original source
John x. 15.
Editorial footnote · On the Correction of the Donatists (Letter 185), WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / A TREATISE CONCERNING THE CORRECTION OF THE DONATISTS; FORMING EPISTLE 185 IN MIGNE'S EDITION OF AUGUSTINE'S WORKS. / Chapter vi · Original source
John x. 37.
Editorial footnote · Answer to the Letters of Petilianus, WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / BOOK SECOND. / Chapter XII · Original source
John x. 27.
Editorial footnote · Answer to the Letters of Petilianus, WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / BOOK SECOND. / Chapter lxxiii · Original source
John x. 8-10.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VII. / Chapter LXX. · Original source
John x. 30.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VIII. / Chapter XII. · Original source
Cf. John x. 18.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK III. / Chapter XXXII. · Original source
If, on account of the Christian people in whom the city of God sojourns in the earth, we look for the flesh of Christ in the seed of Abraham, setting aside the sons of the concubines, we have Isaac; if in the seed of Isaac, setting aside Esau, who is also Edom, we have Jacob, who also is Israel; if in the seed of Israel himself, setting aside the rest, we have Judah, because Christ sprang of the tribe of Judah. Let us hear, then, how Israel, when dying in Egypt, in blessing his sons, prophetically blessed Judah. He says: "Judah, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hands shall be on the back of thine enemies; thy father's children shall adore thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the sprouting, my son, thou art gone up: lying down, thou hast slept as a lion, and as a lion's whelp; who shall awake him? A prince shall not be lacking out of Judah, and a leader from his thighs, until the things come that are laid up for him; and He shall be the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's foal to the choice vine; he shall wash his robe in wine, and his clothes in the blood of the grape: his eyes are red with wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk." I have expounded these words in disputing against Faustus the Manichæan; and I think it is enough to make the truth of this prophecy shine, to remark that the death of Christ is predicted by the word about his lying down, and not the necessity, but the voluntary character of His death, in the title of lion. That power He Himself proclaims in the gospel, saying, "I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and take it again." So the lion roared, so He fulfilled what He said. For to this power what is added about the resurrection refers, "Who shall awake him?" This means that no man but Himself has raised Him, who also said of His own body, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And the very nature of His death, that is, the height of the cross, is understood by the single word, "Thou art gone up." The evangelist explains what is added, "Lying down, thou hast slept," when he says, "He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost." Or at least His burial is to be understood, in which He lay down sleeping, and whence no man raised Him, as the prophets did some, and as He Himself did others; but He Himself rose up as if from sleep. As for His robe which He washes in wine, that is, cleanses from sin in His own blood, of which blood those who are baptized know the mystery, so that he adds, "And his clothes in the blood of the grape," what is it but the Church? "And his eyes are red with wine," [these are] His spiritual people drunken with His cup, of which the psalm sings, "And thy cup that makes drunken, how excellent it is!" "And his teeth are whiter than milk,"—that is, the nutritive words which, according to the apostle, the babes drink, being as yet unfit for solid food. And it is He in whom the promises of Judah were laid up, so that until they come, princes, that is, the kings of Israel, shall never be lacking out of Judah. "And He is the expectation of the nations." This is too plain to need exposition.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SIXTEENTH. / ARGUMENT. / 41. Of the blessing which Jacob promised in Judah his son. · Original source
Chap. XII.—27. Petilianus said: "The Lord Jesus said to the Jews concerning Himself, 'If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.'"
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Answer to the Letters of Petilianus, WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / BOOK SECOND. / Chapter XII · Original source
164. Augustine answered: I should be glad to utter the same sentiment against you, but not in the words which you have used: they are too inappropriate, or rather mad. But what was required was, that you should show that we were wolves and that you were sheep, not by the emptiest of evil-speaking, but by some distinct proofs. For when I too have said, We are sheep, and you are wolves, do you think that there is any difference caused by the fact that you express the idea in swelling words? But listen whilst I prove what I assert. For the Lord says in the gospel, as you know full well, whether you please it or not, "My sheep hear my voice, and follow me." There are many sayings of the Lord on different subjects; but supposing, for example, that any one were in doubt whether the same Lord had risen in the body, and His words were to be quoted where He says, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;"—if even after this he should be unwilling to acquiesce in the belief that His body had risen from the dead, surely such a man could not be reckoned among the sheep of the Lord, because he would not hear His voice. And so too now, when the question between us is, Where is the Church? whilst we quote the words that follow in the same passage of the gospel, where, after His resurrection, He gave His body even to be handled by those who were in doubt, in which He showed the future wide extent of the Church, saying, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name throughout all nations, beginning at Jerusalem;" whereas you will not communicate with all nations, in whom these words have been fulfilled, how are you the sheep of this Shepherd, whose words you not only do not obey when you have heard them, but even fight against them? And so we show to you from this that you are not sheep. But listen further whence we show you that, on the contrary, you are wolves. For necessarily, when it is shown by His own words where the Church is to be found, it is also clear where we must look for the fold of Christ. Whenever, therefore, any sheep separate themselves from this fold, which is expressly pointed out and shown to us by the unmistakeable declaration of the Lord,—and that, I will not say because of charges falsely brought, but on account of charges brought, as no one can deny, with great uncertainty against their fellow-men, and consequently slay those sheep which they have torn and alienated from the life of unity and Christian love,—is it not evident that they are ravening wolves? But it will be said that these very men themselves praise and preach the Lord Christ. They are therefore those of whom He says Himself, "They come unto you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them." The sheep's clothing is seen in the praises of Christ; the fruits of their wolfish nature in their slanderous teeth.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Answer to the Letters of Petilianus, WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / BOOK SECOND. / Chapter lxxiii · Original source
22. For who can possibly love us more than Christ, who laid down His life for His sheep? And yet, after calling Peter and the other apostles by His words alone, when He came to summon Paul, who was before called Saul, subsequently the powerful builder of His Church, but originally its cruel persecutor, He not only constrained him with His voice, but even dashed him to the earth with His power; and that He might forcibly bring one who was raging amid the darkness of infidelity to desire the light of the heart, He first struck him with physical blindness of the eyes. If that punishment had not been inflicted, he would not afterwards have been healed by it; and since he had been wont to see nothing with his eyes open, if they had remained unharmed, the Scripture would not tell us that at the imposition of Ananias' hands, in order that their sight might be restored, there fell from them as it had been scales, by which the sight had been obscured. Where is what the Donatists were wont to cry: Man is at liberty to believe or not believe? Towards whom did Christ use violence? Whom did He compel? Here they have the Apostle Paul. Let them recognise in his case Christ first compelling, and afterwards teaching; first striking, and afterwards consoling. For it is wonderful how he who entered the service of the gospel in the first instance under the compulsion of bodily punishment, afterwards laboured more in the gospel than all they who were called by word only; and he who was compelled by the greater influence of fear to love, displayed that perfect love which casts out fear.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · On the Correction of the Donatists (Letter 185), WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. / A TREATISE CONCERNING THE CORRECTION OF THE DONATISTS; FORMING EPISTLE 185 IN MIGNE'S EDITION OF AUGUSTINE'S WORKS. / Chapter vi · Original source
He is called Jesus. Sometimes He calls Himself a shepherd, and says, “I am the good Shepherd.” According to a metaphor drawn from shepherds, who lead the sheep, is hereby understood the Instructor, who leads the children—the Shepherd who tends the babes. For the babes are simple, being figuratively described as sheep. “And they shall all,” it is said, “be one flock, and one shepherd.” The Word, then, who leads the children to salvation, is appropriately called the Instructor (Pædagogue).
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Instructor, THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / THE INSTRUCTOR. / BOOK I. / CHAPTER VII. WHO THE INSTRUCTOR IS, AND RESPECTING HIS INSTRUCTION. · Original source
The angel announced to us the glad tidings of a husband. John entreated us to recognise the husbandman, to seek the husband. For this husband of the barren woman, and this husbandman of the desert—who filled with divine power the barren woman and the desert—is one and the same. For because many were the children of the mother of noble race, yet the Hebrew woman, once blessed with many children, was made childless because of unbelief: the barren woman receives the husband, and the desert the husbandman; then both become mothers through the word, the one of fruits, the other of believers. But to the unbelieving the barren and the desert are still reserved. For this reason John, the herald of the Word, besought men to make themselves ready against the coming of the Christ of God. And it was this which was signified by the dumbness of Zacharias, which waited for fruit in the person of the harbinger of Christ, that the Word, the light of truth, by becoming the gospel, might break the mystic silence of the prophetic enigmas. But if thou desirest truly to see God, take to thyself means of purification worthy of Him, not leaves of laurel fillets interwoven with wool and purple; but wreathing thy brows with righteousness, and encircling them with the leaves of temperance, set thyself earnestly to find Christ. “For I am,” He says, “the door,” which we who desire to understand God must discover, that He may throw heaven’s gates wide open to us. For the gates of the Word being intellectual, are opened by the key of faith. No one knows God but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him. And I know well that He who has opened the door hitherto shut, will afterwards reveal what is within; and will show what we could not have known before, had we not entered in by Christ, through whom alone God is beheld.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Exhortation to the Heathen, THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN. / CHAPTER I. EXHORTATION TO ABANDON THE IMPIOUS MYSTERIES OF IDOLATRY FOR THE ADORATION OF THE DIVINE WORD AND GOD THE FATHER. · Original source
It is the wise man, therefore, alone whom the philosophers proclaim king, legislator, general, just, holy, God-beloved. And if we discover these qualities in Moses, as shown from the Scriptures themselves, we may, with the most assured persuasion, pronounce Moses to be truly wise. As then we say that it belongs to the shepherd’s art to care for the sheep; for so “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep;” so also we shall say that legislation, inasmuch as it presides over and cares for the flock of men, establishes the virtue of men, by fanning into flame, as far as it can, what good there is in humanity.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / THE MISCELLANIES. / BOOK I. / CHAPTER XXVI. MOSES RIGHTLY CALLED A DIVINE LEGISLATOR, AND, THOUGH INFERIOR TO CHRIST, FAR SUPERIOR TO THE GREAT LEGISLATORS OF THE GREEKS, MINOS AND LYCURGUS. · Original source
I cannot help admiring in every particular that divine utterance: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth.” Then the Lord says in explanation, “I am the door of the sheep.” Men must then be saved by learning the truth through Christ, even if they attain philosophy. For now that is clearly shown “which was not made known to other ages, which is now revealed to the sons of men.” For there was always a natural manifestation of the one Almighty God, among all right-thinking men; and the most, who had not quite divested themselves of shame with respect to the truth, apprehended the eternal beneficence in divine providence. In fine, then, Xenocrates the Chalcedonian was not quite without hope that the notion of the Divinity existed even in the irrational creatures. And Democritus, though against his will, will make this avowal by the consequences of his dogmas; for he represents the same images as issuing, from the divine essence, on men and on the irrational animals. Far from destitute of a divine idea is man, who, it is written in Genesis, partook of inspiration, being endowed with a purer essence than the other animate creatures. Hence the Pythagoreans say that mind comes to man by divine providence, as Plato and Aristotle avow; but we assert that the Holy Spirit inspires him who has believed. The Platonists hold that mind is an effluence of divine dispensation in the soul, and they place the soul in the body. For it is expressly said by Joel, one of the twelve prophets, “And it shall come to pass after these things, I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” But it is not as a portion of God that the Spirit is in each of us. But how this dispensation takes place, and what the Holy Spirit is, shall be shown by us in the books on prophecy, and in those on the soul. But “incredulity is good at concealing the depths of knowledge,” according to Heraclitus; “for incredulity escapes from ignorance.”
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK V. / CHAPTER XIII. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD A DIVINE GIFT, ACCORDING TO THE PHILOSOPHERS. · Original source
“And other sheep there are also,” saith the Lord, “which are not of this fold”—deemed worthy of another fold and mansion, in proportion to their faith. “But my sheep hear my voice,” understanding gnostically the commandments. And this is to be taken in a magnanimous and worthy acceptation, along with also the recompense and accompaniment of works. So that when we hear, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” we do not understand Him to say absolutely that those who have believed in any way whatever shall be saved, unless also works follow. But it was to the Jews alone that He spoke this utterance, who kept the law and lived blamelessly, who wanted only faith in the Lord. No one, then, can be a believer and at the same time be licentious; but though he quit the flesh, he must put off the passions, so as to be capable of reaching his own mansion.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK VI. / CHAPTER XIV. DEGREES OF GLORY IN HEAVEN. · Original source
3. The Only-begotten of God, therefore, through whom, as the previous course of the discussion has shown, all things were made, visible and invisible, according to the view of Scripture, both made all things, and loves what He made. For since He is Himself the invisible image of the invisible God, He conveyed invisibly a share in Himself to all His rational creatures, so that each one obtained a part of Him exactly proportioned to the amount of affection with which he regarded Him. But since, agreeably to the faculty of free-will, variety and diversity characterized the individual souls, so that one was attached with a warmer love to the Author of its being, and another with a feebler and weaker regard, that soul (anima) regarding which Jesus said, “No one shall take my life (animam) from me,” inhering, from the beginning of the creation, and afterwards, inseparably and indissolubly in Him, as being the Wisdom and Word of God, and the Truth and the true Light, and receiving Him wholly, and passing into His light and splendour, was made with Him in a pre-eminent degree one spirit, according to the promise of the apostle to those who ought to imitate it, that “he who is joined in the Lord is one spirit.” This substance of a soul, then, being intermediate between God and the flesh—it being impossible for the nature of God to intermingle with a body without an intermediate instrument—the God-man is born, as we have said, that substance being the intermediary to whose nature it was not contrary to assume a body. But neither, on the other hand, was it opposed to the nature of that soul, as a rational existence, to receive God, into whom, as stated above, as into the Word, and the Wisdom, and the Truth, it had already wholly entered. And therefore deservedly is it also called, along with the flesh which it had assumed, the Son of God, and the Power of God, the Christ, and the Wisdom of God, either because it was wholly in the Son of God, or because it received the Son of God wholly into itself. And again, the Son of God, through whom all things were created, is named Jesus Christ and the Son of man. For the Son of God also is said to have died—in reference, viz., to that nature which could admit of death; and He is called the Son of man, who is announced as about to come in the glory of God the Father, with the holy angels. And for this reason, throughout the whole of Scripture, not only is the divine nature spoken of in human words, but the human nature is adorned by appellations of divine dignity. More truly indeed of this than of any other can the statement be affirmed, “They shall both be in one flesh, and are no longer two, but one flesh.” For the Word of God is to be considered as being more in one flesh with the soul than a man with his wife. But to whom is it more becoming to be also one spirit with God, than to this soul which has so joined itself to God by love as that it may justly be said to be one spirit with Him?
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · On First Principles, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. / BOOK II. / CHAPTER VI. ON THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. · Original source
31. Let no one, however, suppose that by this we affirm that some portion of the divinity of the Son of God was in Christ, and that the remaining portion was elsewhere or everywhere, which may be the opinion of those who are ignorant of the nature of an incorporeal and invisible essence. For it is impossible to speak of the parts of an incorporeal being, or to make any division of them; but He is in all things, and through all things, and above all things, in the manner in which we have spoken above, i.e. in the manner in which He is understood to be either “wisdom,” or the “word,” or the “life,” or the “truth,” by which method of understanding all confinement of a local kind is undoubtedly excluded. The Son of God, then, desiring for the salvation of the human race to appear unto men, and to sojourn among them, assumed not only a human body, as some suppose, but also a soul resembling our souls indeed in nature, but in will and power resembling Himself, and such as might unfailingly accomplish all the desires and arrangements of the “word” and “wisdom.” Now, that He had a soul, is most clearly shown by the Saviour in the Gospels, when He said, “No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.” And again, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” And again, “Now is my soul troubled.” For the “Word” of God is not to be understood to be a “sorrowful and troubled” soul, because with the authority of divinity He says, “I have power to lay down my life.” Nor yet do we assert that the Son of God was in that soul as He was in the soul of Paul or Peter and the other saints, in whom Christ is believed to speak as He does in Paul. But regarding all these we are to hold, as Scripture declares, “No one is clean from filthiness, not even if his life lasted but a single day.” But this soul which was in Jesus, before it knew the evil, selected the good; and because He loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, therefore God “anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows.” He is anointed, then, with the oil of gladness when He is united to the “word” of God in a stainless union, and by this means alone of all souls was incapable of sin, because it was capable of [receiving] well and fully the Son of God; and therefore also it is one with Him, and is named by His titles, and is called Jesus Christ, by whom all things are said to be made. Of which soul, seeing it had received into itself the whole wisdom of God, and the truth, and the life, I think that the apostle also said this: “Our life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” For what other Christ can be here understood, who is said to be hidden in God, and who is afterwards to appear, except Him who is related to have been anointed with the oil of gladness, i.e. to have been filled with God essentially, in whom He is now said to be hidden? For on this account is Christ proposed as an example to all believers, because as He always, even before He knew evil at all, selected the good, and loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, and therefore God anointed Him with the oil of gladness; so also ought each one, after a lapse or sin, to cleanse himself from his stains, making Him his example, and, taking Him as the guide of his journey, enter upon the steep way of virtue, that so perchance by this means, as far as possible we may, by imitating Him, be made partakers of the divine nature, according to the words of Scripture: “He that saith that he believeth in Christ, ought so to walk, as He also walked.”
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · On First Principles, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. / BOOK IV. / FROM THE LATIN. · Original source
3. Do you then, my son, diligently apply yourself to the reading of the sacred Scriptures. Apply yourself, I say. For we who read the things of God need much application, lest we should say or think anything too rashly about them. And applying yourself thus to the study of the things of God, with faithful prejudgments such as are well pleasing to God, knock at its locked door, and it will be opened to you by the porter, of whom Jesus says, “To him the porter opens.” And applying yourself thus to the divine study, seek aright, and with unwavering trust in God, the meaning of the holy Scriptures, which so many have missed. Be not satisfied with knocking and seeking; for prayer is of all things indispensable to the knowledge of the things of God. For to this the Saviour exhorted, and said not only, “Knock, and it shall be opened to you; and seek, and ye shall find,” but also, “Ask, and it shall be given unto you.” My fatherly love to you has made me thus bold; but whether my boldness be good, God will know, and His Christ, and all partakers of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. May you also be a partaker, and be ever increasing your inheritance, that you may say not only, “We are become partakers of Christ,” but also partakers of God.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Letter to Gregory, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / LETTERS. / A LETTER FROM ORIGEN TO GREGORY. · Original source
But as Celsus next mentions the case of the Clazomenian, subjoining to the story about him this remark, “Do they not report that his soul frequently quitted his body, and flitted about in an incorporeal form? and yet men did not regard him as a god,” we have to answer that probably certain wicked demons contrived that such statements should be committed to writing (for I do not believe that they contrived that such a thing should actually take place), in order that the predictions regarding Jesus, and the discourses uttered by Him, might either be evil spoken of, as inventions like these, or might excite no surprise, as not being more remarkable than other occurrences. But my Jesus said regarding His own soul (which was separated from the body, not by virtue of any human necessity, but by the miraculous power which was given Him also for this purpose): “No one taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” For as He had power to lay it down, He laid it down when He said, “Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? And when He had cried with a loud voice, He gave up the ghost,” anticipating the public executioners of the crucified, who break the legs of the victims, and who do so in order that their punishment may not be further prolonged. And He “took His life,” when He manifested Himself to His disciples, having in their presence foretold to the unbelieving Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again,” and “He spake this of the temple of His body;” the prophets, moreover, having predicted such a result in many other passages of their writings, and in this, “My flesh also shall rest in hope: for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer thine holy One to see corruption.”
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK III. / Chapter XXXII. · Original source
His next remark was, “Have not these inferior powers had assigned to them by God different departments, according as each was deemed worthy?” But this is a question which requires a very profound knowledge. For we must determine whether the Word of God, who governs all things, has appointed wicked demons for certain employments, in the same way as in states executioners are appointed, and other officers with cruel but needful duties to discharge; or whether as among robbers, who infest desert places, it is customary for them to choose out of their number one who may be their leader,—so the demons, who are scattered as it were in troops in different parts of the earth, have chosen for themselves a chief under whose command they may plunder and pillage the souls of men. To explain this fully, and to justify the conduct of the Christians in refusing homage to any object except the Most High God, and the First-born of all creation, who is His Word and God, we must quote this from Scripture, “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them;” and again, “The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy;” and other similar passages, as, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you;” and again, “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.” But of these things Celsus knew nothing, or he would not have made use of language like this: “Is not everything which happens in the universe, whether it be the work of God, of angels, of other demons, or of heroes, regulated by the law of the Most High God? Have these not had assigned to them various departments of which they were severally deemed worthy? Is it not just, therefore, that he who serves God should serve those also to whom God has assigned such power?” To which he adds, “It is impossible, they say, for a man to serve many masters.” This last point we must postpone to the next book; for this, which is the seventh book which we have written in answer to the treatise of Celsus, is already of sufficient length.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VII. / Chapter LXX. · Original source
In what follows, some may imagine that he says something plausible against us. “If,” says he, “these people worshipped one God alone, and no other, they would perhaps have some valid argument against the worship of others. But they pay excessive reverence to one who has but lately appeared among men, and they think it no offence against God if they worship also His servant.” To this we reply, that if Celsus had known that saying, “I and my Father are one,” and the words used in prayer by the Son of God, “As Thou and I are one,” he would not have supposed that we worship any other besides Him who is the supreme God. “For,” says He, “my Father is in me, and I in Him.” And if any should from these words be afraid of our going over to the side of those who deny that the Father and the Son are two persons, let him weigh that passage, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul,” that he may understand the meaning of the saying, “I and my Father are one.” We worship one God, the Father and the Son, therefore, as we have explained; and our argument against the worship of other gods still continues valid. And we do not “reverence beyond measure one who has but lately appeared,” as though He did not exist before; for we believe Himself when He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Again He says, “I am the truth;” and surely none of us is so simple as to suppose that truth did not exist before the time when Christ appeared. We worship, therefore, the Father of truth, and the Son, who is the truth; and these, while they are two, considered as persons or subsistences, are one in unity of thought, in harmony and in identity of will. So entirely are they one, that he who has seen the Son, “who is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His person,” has seen in Him who is the image of God, God Himself.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VIII. / Chapter XII. · Original source
Exceedingly weak is his assertion, that “the disciples of Jesus wrote such accounts regarding him, by way of extenuating the charges that told against him: as if,” he says, “any one were to say that a certain person was a just man, and yet were to show that he was guilty of injustice; or that he was pious, and yet had committed murder; or that he was immortal, and yet was dead; subjoining to all these statements the remark that he had foretold all these things.” Now his illustrations are at once seen to be inappropriate; for there is no absurdity in Him who had resolved that He would become a living pattern to men, as to the manner in which they were to regulate their lives, showing also how they ought to die for the sake of their religion, apart altogether from the fact that His death on behalf of men was a benefit to the whole world, as we proved in the preceding book. He imagines, moreover, that the whole of the confession of the Saviour’s sufferings confirms his objection instead of weakening it. For he is not acquainted either with the philosophical remarks of Paul, or the statements of the prophets, on this subject. And it escaped him that certain heretics have declared that Jesus underwent His sufferings in appearance, not in reality. For had he known, he would not have said: “For ye do not even allege this, that he seemed to wicked men to suffer this punishment, though not undergoing it in reality; but, on the contrary, ye acknowledge that he openly suffered.” But we do not view His sufferings as having been merely in appearance, in order that His resurrection also may not be a false, but a real event. For he who really died, actually arose, if he did arise; whereas he who appeared only to have died, did not in reality arise. But since the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a subject of mockery to unbelievers, we shall quote the words of Plato, that Herus the son of Armenius rose from the funeral pile twelve days after he had been laid upon it, and gave an account of what he had seen in Hades; and as we are replying to unbelievers, it will not be altogether useless to refer in this place to what Heraclides relates respecting the woman who was deprived of life. And many persons are recorded to have risen from their tombs, not only on the day of their burial, but also on the day following. What wonder is it, then, if in the case of one who performed many marvellous things, both beyond the power of man and with such fulness of evidence, that he who could not deny their performance, endeavoured to calumniate them by comparing them to acts of sorcery, should have manifested also in His death some greater display of divine power, so that His soul, if it pleased, might leave its body, and having performed certain offices out of it, might return again at pleasure? And such a declaration is Jesus said to have made in the Gospel of John, when He said: “No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” And perhaps it was on this account that He hastened His departure from the body, that He might preserve it, and that His legs might not be broken, as were those of the robbers who were crucified with Him. “For the soldiers broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with Him; but when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead, they brake not His legs.” We have accordingly answered the question, “How is it credible that Jesus could have predicted these things?” And with respect to this, “How could the dead man be immortal?” let him who wishes to understand know, that it is not the dead man who is immortal, but He who rose from the dead. So far, indeed, was the dead man from being immortal, that even the Jesus before His decease—the compound being, who was to suffer death—was not immortal. For no one is immortal who is destined to die; but he is immortal when he shall no longer be subject to death. But “Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over Him;” although those may be unwilling to admit this who cannot understand how such things should be said.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK II. / Chapter XVI. · Original source