Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.
Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John.
2. The 144,000 Sealed in the Apocalypse are Converts to Christ from the Gentile World.
4. The Study of the Gospels is the First Fruits Offered by These Priests of Christianity.
5. All Scripture is Gospel But the Gospels are Distinguished Above Other Scriptures.
7. What Good Things are Announced in the Gospels.
8. How the Gospels Cause the Other Books of Scripture Also to Be Gospel.
9. The Somatic and the Spiritual Gospel.
10. How Jesus Himself is the Gospel.
11. Jesus is All Good Things Hence the Gospel is Manifold.
12. The Gospel Contains the Ill Deeds Also Which Were Done to Jesus.
13. The Angels Also are Evangelists.
14. The Old Testament, Typified by John, is the Beginning of the Gospel.
16. Meaning of “Beginning.” (1) in Space.
17. (2) in Time. The Beginning of Creation.
20. (5) of Elements and What is Formed from Them.
21. (6) of Design and Execution.
24. Christ as Light How He, and How His Disciples are the Light of the World.
25. Christ as the Resurrection.
29. Christ as the Door and as the Shepherd.
30. Christ as Anointed (Christ) and as King.
31. Christ as Teacher and Master.
33. Christ the True Vine, and as Bread.
34. Christ as the First and the Last He is Also What Lies Between These.
35. Christ as the Living and the Dead.
37. Christ as a Servant, as the Lamb of God, and as the Man Whom John Did Not Know.
38. Christ as Paraclete, as Propitiation, and as the Power of God.
39. Christ as Wisdom and Sanctification and Redemption.
40. Christ as Righteousness As the Demiurge, the Agent of the Good God, and as High-Priest.
41. Christ as the Rod, the Flower, the Stone.
42. Of the Various Ways in Which Christ is the Logos.
2. In What Way the Logos is God. Errors to Be Avoided on This Question.
3. Various Relations of the Logos to Men.
4. That the Logos is One, Not Many. Of the Word, Faithful and True, and of His White Horse.
5. He (This One) Was in the Beginning with God.
6. How the Word is the Maker of All Things, and Even the Holy Spirit Was Made Through Him.
7. Of Things Not Made Through the Logos.
8. Heracleon’s View that the Logos is Not the Agent of Creation.
9. That the Logos Present in Us is Not Responsible for Our Sins.
11. How No One is Righteous or Can Truly Be Said to Live in Comparison with God.
12. Is the Saviour All that He Is, to All?
13. How the Life in the Logos Comes After the Beginning.
15. Heracleon’s View that the Lord Brought Life Only to the Spiritual. Refutation of This.
16. The Life May Be the Light of Others Besides.
17. The Higher Powers are Men And Christ is Their Light Also.
18. How God Also is Light, But in a Different Way And How Life Came Before Light.
19. The Life Here Spoken of is the Higher Life, that of Reason.
20. Different Kinds of Light And of Darkness.
21. Christ is Not, Like God, Quite Free from Darkness: Since He Bore Our Sins.
22. How the Darkness Failed to Overtake the Light.
23. There is a Divine Darkness Which is Not Evil, and Which Ultimately Becomes Light.
24. John the Baptist Was Sent. From Where? His Soul Was Sent from a Higher Region.
26. John is Voice, Jesus is Speech. Relation of These Two to Each Other.
27. Significance of the Names of John and of His Parents.
28. The Prophets Bore Witness to Christ and Foretold Many Things Concerning Him.
30. How John Was a Witness of Christ, and Specially of “The Light.”
2. How Scripture Warns Us Against Making Many Books.
2. How the Prophets and Holy Men of the Old Testament Knew the Things of Christ.
4. John Denies that He is Elijah or “The” Prophet. Yet He Was “A” Prophet.
5. There Were Two Embassies to John the Baptist The Different Characters of These.
6. Messianic Discussion with John the Baptist.
8. John is a Prophet, But Not the Prophet.
10. Of the Voice John the Baptist is.
11. Of the Way of the Lord, How It is Narrow, and How Jesus is the Way.
12. Heracleon’s View of the Voice, and of John the Baptist.
13. John I. 24, 25. Of the Baptism of John, that of Elijah, and that of Christ.
16. Comparison of John’s Testimony to Jesus in the Different Gospels.
17. Of the Testimony of John to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel,
18. Of the Testimony in Mark. What is Meant by the Saviour’s Shoes and by Untying His Shoe-Latchets.
19. Luke and John Suggest that One May Loose the Shoe-Latchets of the Logos Without Stooping Down.
20. The Difference Between Not Being “Sufficient” And Not Being “Worthy.”
21. The Fourth Gospel Speaks of Only One Shoe, the Others of Both. The Significance of This.
22. How the Word Stands in the Midst of Men Without Being Known of Them.
23. Heracleon’s View of This Utterance of John the Baptist, and Interpretation of the Shoe of Jesus.
25. Jordan Means “Their Going Down.” Spiritual Meanings and Application of This.
27. Of Elijah and Elisha Crossing the Jordan.
28. Naaman the Syrian and the Jordan. No Other Stream Has the Same Healing Power.
29. The River of Egypt and Its Dragon, Contrasted with the Jordan.
30. Of What John Learned from Jesus When Mary Visited Elisabeth in the Hill Country.
31. Of the Conversation Between John and Jesus at the Baptism, Recorded by Matthew Only.
33. A Lamb Was Offered at the Morning and Evening Sacrifice. Significance of This.
34. The Morning and Evening Sacrifices of the Saint in His Life of Thought.
35. Jesus is a Lamb in Respect of His Human Nature.
3. What We are to Think of the Discrepancies Between the Different Gospels.
7. Why His Brothers are Not Called to the Wedding And Why He Abides at Capernaum Not Many Days.
10. Significance of Capernaum.
12. Of the Heavenly Festivals, of Which Those on Earth are Typical.
13. Spiritual Meaning of the Passover.
15. Discrepancy of the Gospel Narratives Connected with the Cleansing of the Temple.
19. Various Views of Heracleon on Purging of the Temple.
25. Further Spiritualizing of Solomon’s Temple-Building.
27. Of the Belief the Disciples Afterwards Attained in the Words of Jesus.
28. The Difference Between Believing in the Name of Jesus and Believing in Jesus Himself.
29. About What Beings Jesus Needed Testimony.
30. How Jesus Knew the Powers, Better or Worse, Which Reside in Man.
30. Of What John Learned from Jesus When Mary Visited Elisabeth in the Hill Country.
“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him.”493 John i. 29. The mother of Jesus had formerly, as soon as she conceived, stayed with the mother of John, also at that time with child, and the Former then communicated to the Formed with some exactness His own image, and caused him to be conformed to His glory. And from this outward similarity it came that with those who did not distinguish between the image itself and that which was according to the image, John was thought to be Christ494 Luke iii. 14. and Jesus was supposed495 Matt. xiv. 2. to be John risen from the dead. So now Jesus, after the testimonies of John to Him which we have examined, is Himself seen by the Baptist coming to him. It is to be noticed that on the former occasion, when the voice of Mary’s salutation came to the ears of Elisabeth, the babe John leaped in the womb of his mother, who then received the Holy Spirit, as it were, from the ground. For it came to pass, we read,496 Luke i. 41, 42. “when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said,” etc. On this occasion, similarly, John sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” For with regard to matters of great moment one is first instructed by hearing and afterwards one sees them with one’s own eyes. That John was helped to the shape he was to wear by the Lord who, still in the process of formation and in His mother’s womb, approached Elisabeth, will be clear to any one who has grasped our proof that John is a voice but that Jesus is the Word, for when Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit at the salutation of Mary there was a great voice in her, as the words themselves bear; for they say, “And she spake out with a loud voice.” Elisabeth, it is plain, did this, “and she spake.” For the voice of Mary’s salutation coming to the ears of Elisabeth filled John with itself; hence John leaps, and his mother becomes, as it were, the mouth of her son and a prophetess, crying out with a loud voice and saying, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Now we see clearly how it was with Mary’s hasty journey to the hill country, and her entrance into the house of Zacharias, and the greeting with which she salutes Elisabeth; it was that she might communicate some of the power she derived from Him she had conceived, to John, yet in his mother’s womb, and that John too might communicate to his mother some of the prophetic grace which had come to him, that all these things were done. And most rightly was it in the hill country that these transactions took place, since no great thing can be entertained by those who are low and may be thence called valleys. Here, then, after the testimonies of John,—the first, when he cried and spoke about His deity; the second, addressed to the priests and levites who were sent by the Jews from Jerusalem; and the third, in answer to the sharper questions of those from the Pharisees,—Jesus is seen by the witness-bearer coming to him while he is still advancing and growing better. This advance and improvement is symbolically indicated in the phrase, “On the morrow.” For Jesus came in the consequent illumination, as it were, and on the day after what had preceded, not only known as standing in the midst even of those who knew Him not, but now plainly seen advancing to him who had formerly made such declarations about Him. On the first day the testimonies take place, and on the second Jesus comes to John. On the third John, standing with two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as He walked, said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” thus urging those who were there to follow the Son of God. On the fourth day, too, He was minded to go forth into Galilee, and He who came forth to seek that which was lost finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me.” And on that day, after the fourth, which is the sixth from the beginning of those we have enumerated, the marriage takes place in Cana of Galilee, which we shall have to consider when we get to the passage. Note this, too, that Mary being the greater comes to Elisabeth, who is the less, and the Son of God comes to the Baptist; which should encourage us to render help without delay to those who are in a lower position, and to cultivate for ourselves a moderate station.