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| Letter of Origen to Gregory.
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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
Cæsarea, 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 Cæsarea. 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.
Dräseke4446
| 4446 Jahrbucher fur Prot. Theol. 1881, 1. | has shown that it
was written about 235, when Origen, after having had Gregory as his
pupil at Cæsarea 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,4447
| 4447 See
Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. xx. (Clark). | pronounced by
Gregory at Cæsarea 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.
1. 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 Exodus4448
as giving to the
children of Israel. 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 Israel 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 Israel 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 working4449
| 4449 Reading with
Dräseke, ραφιδεόυτῶν,
συρραπτόντων
τῶν
ραφιδευτῶν. |
with the wisdom of God,4450
| 4450 Exod. xxxi. 3, 6; xxxvi. 1, 2,
8. | 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 Israel into Egypt; and in this a great truth is
wrapped up. For some it is of evil that they should dwell
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,4451
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, O 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,4452
“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,4453
“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,”4454
but also “We are partakers of God.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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