Status Updates From Origen (The Early Church Fa...

"Among stories there are some that are useful to everyone, some not to everyone. Take, for example, the story of Lot and his daughters: if it teaches something useful in an elevated sense, God knows, as does that person who has received the gift of grace to expound these matters. As for the usefulness of the story itself, it would take quite a search to find it!" -Hom.5, 1 Samuel


Well, the man had a sense of humor.

The analogy isn't perfect, of course, since the other stars don't actually reflect the light of our sun, but it's a lovely image nonetheless. It endows the Church, which is the world itself as transfigured by divine kenosis, with the moon's feminine mystery and allure.

Origen is now going to discuss the significance of Christ's most-venerated title, "Word", in light of all His other titles.

Discussing Christ's title, "light of the world", Origen makes the radically simple move of comparing Him to the "light of the sensible world" - the sun. If Christ is the source of light, he says, then "the bride, the church, and the disciples [are] analogous to the moon and the stars...they possess...light acquired from the true sun in order to enlighten those who cannot construct in themselves a source of light."

"By each room is placed a key, but not the one that corresponds to it, so that the keys are scattered about beside the rooms, none of them matching the room by which it is placed...We therefore know the Scriptures that are obscure only by [referring to other Scriptures] because they have their interpretive principle scattered among them." - Origen, Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms

"As we are about to begin the interpretation of the Psalms, we shall disclose a very beautiful tradition handed on to us by the Hebrew [an unknown Jewish teacher in Alexandria] which applies generally to the entire divine Scripture. For the Hebrew said that the whole divinely inspired Scripture may be likened, because of its obscurity, to many locked rooms in one house. . . ." 1/2