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Origen: source notes

Origen: source notes

Works: Commentary on Romans (Rufinus’s Latin, c. 406). Edition/translation: Latin: PG 14 (Delarue). English: Scheck, FOTC 103–104 (not public domain). Primary text not inspected.

Back to justification · reasoning · conventions

S1: Comm. Rom. III (on Rom 3:28), PG 14:952 (column per secondary source)

  • Source: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=mi&filename=2&type=additional (secondary)
  • Text: Reported Latin: “et dixit sufficere solius fidei justificationem” (“he said that justification by faith alone suffices”). Secondary sources also report the penitent thief as Origen’s example.
  • Context: Two problems: Rufinus abridged the Latin, so it is unclear whose wording this is; and Origen in the same commentary treats the penitent thief as an exceptional case of justification by faith without recorded works, while ordinarily joining baptismal grace to subsequent good works and judgment by works (Thomas P. Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification, Notre Dame, 2008, secondary-attested; cf. Armstrong, patheos.com, 2024). Primary Latin (PG 14) not inspected in this pass.
  • Bears on: Q2
  • Status: secondary-attested (primary edition not inspected; Rufinus abridgment and works-at-judgment noted via Scheck)

Topic: salvation

See salvation reasoning.

SAL S1: De Principiis III.1 (title and opening)

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04123.htm
  • Text: Chapter title “On the Freedom of the Will”. It opens by grounding free will in “the preaching of the Church” about “a future and just judgment of God”.
  • Context: Rufinus’s Latin. The detailed arguments (III.1.6 onward) are not yet quoted (to extract).
  • Bears on: S2
  • Status: verified (English; title and context only)

Topic: afterlife

See afterlife reasoning.

AFT S1: De Principiis I.6.2

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04121.htm
  • Text: “For the end is always like the beginning: and, therefore, as there is one end to all things, so ought we to understand that there was one beginning … are recalled to one end, which is like the beginning”.
  • Context: Rufinus’s Latin. Rufinus himself states in the preface to De Principiis that he omitted or softened passages that would scandalize Latin readers and that he sometimes clarified Origen from other Origenist works (New Advent preface, verified English of Rufinus’s preface). The Greek of I.6.2 is not compared here; treat the English as Rufinus’s transmission.
  • Bears on: L5
  • Status: verified (English; Rufinus’s softening secondary-attested from his own preface)

AFT S2: De Principiis II.10.4

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04122.htm
  • Text: “every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire … Of this fire the fuel and food are our sins”.
  • Context: Fire as remedial and internal.
  • Bears on: L5, L3
  • Status: verified (English)

Doctrine S22

See S22 reasoning.

S22 S1: Commentary on Matthew XIV.23

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101614.htm (public-domain English translation)
  • Text: “contrary to what was written, some even of the rulers of the church have permitted a woman to marry, even when her husband was living, doing contrary to what was written, where it is said, A wife is bound for so long time as her husband lives, and So then if while her husband lives, she shall be joined to another man she shall be called an adulteress, Romans 7:3 not indeed altogether without reason, for it is probabl …”
  • Context: Some bishops allowed remarriage, against Scripture in Origen’s view.
  • Bears on: S22.1
  • Status: verified (English)

Doctrine T20

See T20 reasoning.

T20 S1: Against Celsus VIII.73

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04168.htm (public-domain English translation)
  • Text: “We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army — an army of piety— by offering our prayers to God.”
  • Context: Christians pray for the emperor rather than fight.
  • Bears on: T20.1
  • Status: verified (English)

Doctrine S04X

See S04X reasoning.

S04X S1: Commentary on Matthew 11.14

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101611.htm (public-domain English translation)
  • Text: “But many things might be said about the Word Himself who became flesh, John 1:14 and true meat of which he that eats shall assuredly live for ever, no worthless person being able to eat it; for if it were possible for one who continues worthless to eat of Him who became flesh, who was the Word and the living bread, it would not have been written, that every one who eats of this bread shall live forever.”
  • Context: Origen distinguishes the ’typical and symbolic body’ from the Word himself, who is eaten only by the worthy.
  • Bears on: S04.3
  • Status: verified (English)