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Medieval Sourcebook:
Origen:
On Classical Learning
[Note: pagination of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers edition preserved]
295
LETTER OF ORIGEN TO GREGORY.
When and to whom the Learning derived from Philosophy may be of
Service for the Exposition of the Holy Scriptures; with a lively
Personal Appeal.
This letter to Gregory, afterwards bishop of Caesarea, and
called Thaumaturgus, was preserved in the Philocalia, or collection
of extracts from Origen's works drawn up by Gregory of Nyssa and
Basil of Caesarea. It is printed by Delarue and Lommatzsch in
the forefront of their editions of the works. It forms a good
preface to the commentaries, as it shows how Origen considered
the study of Scripture to be the highest of all studies, and how
he regarded scientific learning, in which he was himself a master,
as merely preparatory for this supreme learning. Draseke(1) has
shown that it was written about 235, when Origen, after having
had Gregory as his pupil at Caesarea for some years, had fled
before the persecution under Maximinus Thrax to Cappadocia; while
Gregory, to judge from the tenor of this Epistle, had gone to
Egypt. The Panegyric on Origen,(2) pronounced by Gregory at Caesarea
about 239, when the school had reassembled there after the persecution,
shows that the master's solicitude for his pupil's true advancement
was not disappointed.
I. GREGORY IS URGED TO APPLY HIS GENTILE LEARNING TO THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
All hail to thee in God, most excellent and reverend Sir,
son Gregory, from Origen. A natural quickness of understanding
is fitted, as you are well aware, if it be diligently exercised,
to produce a work which may bring its owner so far as is possible,
if I may so express myself, to the consummation of the art the
which he desires to practise, and your natural aptitude is sufficient
to make you a consummate Roman lawyer and a Greek philosopher
too of the most famous schools. But my desire for you has been
that you should direct the whole force of your intelligence to
Christianity as your end, and that in the way of production. And
I would wish that you should take with you on the one hand those
parts of the philosophy of the Greeks which are fit, as it were,
to serve as general or preparatory studies for Christianity, and
on the other hand so much of Geometry and Astronomy as may be
helpful for the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The children
of the philosophers speak of geometry and music and grammar and
rhetoric and astronomy as being ancillary to philosophy; and in
the same way we might speak of philosophy itself as being ancillary
to Christianity.
2. THIS PROCEDURE IS TYPIFIED BY THE STORY OF THE SPOILING OF THE EGYPTIANS.
It is something of this sort perhaps that is enigmatically
indicated in the directions God is represented in the Book of
Exodus(3) as giving to the children of lsrael. They are directed
to beg from their neighbours and from those dwelling in their
tents vessels of silver and of gold, and raiment; thus they are
to spoil the Egyptians, and to obtain materials for making the
things they are told to provide in connection with the worship
of God. For out of the things of which the children of lsrael
spoiled the Egyptians the furniture of the Holy of Holies was
made, the ark with its cover, and the cherubim and the mercy-seat
and the gold jar in which the manna, that bread of angels, was
stored. These probably were made from the finest of the gold of
the Egyptians, and from a second quality, perhaps, the solid golden
candlestick which stood near the inner veil, and the lamps on
it, and the golden table on which stood the shewbread, and between
these two the golden altar of incense. And if there was gold of
a third and of a fourth quality, the sacred vessels were made
of it. And of the Egyptian silver, too, other things were made;
for it was from their sojourn in Egypt that the children of lsrael
derived the great advantage of being supplied with such a quantity
of precious materials for the use of the service of God. Out of
the Egyptian raiment probably were made all those requisites named
in Scripture in embroidered work; the embroiderers working(1)
with the wisdom of God,(2) such garments for such purposes, to
produce the hangings and the inner and outer courts. This is not
a suitable opportunity to enlarge on such a theme or to show in
how many ways the children of Israel found those things useful
which they got from the Egyptians. The Egyptians had not made
a proper use of them; but the Hebrews used them, for the wisdom
of God was with them, for religious purposes. Holy Scripture knows,
however, that it was an evil thing to descend from the land of
the children of lsrael into Egypt; and in this a great truth is
wrapped up. For some it is of evil that they should dwell
296
with the Egyptians, that is to say, with the learning of the world,
after they have been enrolled in the law of God and in the Israelite
worship of Him. Ader the Edomite, (1) as long as he was in the
land of Israel and did not taste the bread of the Egyptians, made
no idols; but when he fled from the wise Solomon and went down
into Egypt, as one who had fled from the wisdom of God he became
connected with Pharaoh, marrying the sister of his wife, and begetting
a son who was brought up among the sons of Pharaoh. Therefore,
though he did go back to the land of Israel, he came back to it
to bring division into the people of God, and to cause them to
say to the golden calf, "These are thy gods, 0 Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." I have learned
by experience and can tell you that there are few who have taken
of the useful things of Egypt and come out of it, and have then
prepared what is required for the service of God; but Ader the
Edomite on the other hand has many a brother. I mean those who,
founding on some piece of Greek learning, have brought forth heretical
ideas, and have as it were made golden calves in Bethel, which
is, being interpreted, the house of God. This appears to me to
be intended to convey that such persons set up their own images
in the Scriptures in which the Word of God dwells, and which therefore
are tropically called Bethel. The other image is said in the word
to have been set up in Dan. Now the borders of Dan are at the
extremities and are contiguous to the country of the heathens,
as is plainly recorded in the Book of Jesus, son of Nave. Some
of these images, then, are close to the borders of the heathen,
which the brothers, as we showed, of Ader have devised.
3. PERSONAL APPEAL.
Do you then, sir, my son, study first of all the divine Scriptures.
Study them I say. For we require to study the divine writings
deeply, lest we should speak of them faster than we think; and
while you study these divine works with a believing and God-pleasing
intention, knock at that which is closed in them, and it shall
be opened to thee by the porter, of whom Jesus says,(1) "To
him the porter openeth." While you attend to this divine
reading seek aright and with unwavering faith in God the hidden
sense which is present in most passages of the divine Scriptures.
And do not be content with knocking and seeking, for what is most
necessary for understanding divine things is prayer, and in urging
us to this the Saviour says not only,(2) "Knock, and it shall
be opened to you," and "Seek, and ye shall find,"
but also "Ask, and it shall be given you." So much I
have ventured on account of my fatherly love to you. Whether I
have ventured well or not, God knows, and His Christ, and he who
has part of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. May you
partake in these; may you have an always increasing share of them,
so that you may be able to say not only, "We are partakers
of Christ,"(3) but also "We are partakers of God."
297
from Commentaries Of Origen, in Original supplement to the American Edition in Ante Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, (repr. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), X, 295-297
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(c)Paul Halsall Feb 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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