Podcasts about Hexapla

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biblical-studies

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Interested in further study of the Bible? Join us at Logos Bible Software. Sign up to attend Westminster Seminary California's Seminary for a Day here! Get a copy of the Family Worship Bible Study, The Works of William Perkins, & the RHB Store! Please help support the show on our Patreon Page! WELCOME TO BOOK CLUB! Peter Gurry (University of Cambridge, PhD) is Associate Professor of New Testament and Director at the Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary. His research interests range across the history and formation of the Bible, Greek grammar, and the history of New Testament scholarship. He has presented his work at the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, and the British New Testament Conference. John Meade (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, PhD) is Professor of Old Testament, Director of ThM Program, and a Director at the Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary. He teaches courses in Hebrew Language, Old Testament Literature, Greek Language and Literature, and Biblical Theology. His research interests include Origen's Hexapla, the Septuagint, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, the Canon of Scripture, and Biblical Theology. He also presents papers at scholarly meetings such as the Evangelical Theological Society, the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, and the Society of Biblical Literature. We want to thank Crossway for their help in setting up this interview and providing us with the necessary materials to interview Peter and John Purchase the book(s) here: Scribes and Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible Have Feedback or Questions? Email us at: guiltgracepod@gmail.com Find us on Instagram: @guiltgracepod Follow us on Twitter: @guiltgracepod Find us on YouTube: Guilt Grace Gratitude Podcast Please rate and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use! Looking for a Reformed Church? North American Presbyterian & Reformed Churches --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gggpodcast/support

REUNIDOS EN CASA| DOMINGO 28 DE NOVIEMBRE| MENSAJE| IGLESIA VIÑA CONCEPCIÓN

Orígenes nació cerca de Alejandría alrededor del año 185 d.C. En el 202, su padre fue decapitado por ser cristiano. Para mantener a su familia, Orígenes, de 18 años, abrió una escuela de gramática. Trabajó durante 20 años en su Hexapla, una obra masiva de análisis del Antiguo Testamento escrita para responder a los críticos del cristianismo. La Hexapla tenía seis columnas paralelas: una en hebreo y las otras cinco en varias traducciones griegas. Fue uno de los primeros esfuerzos de organizar y hacer exégesis profunda de las Escrituras, pero desafortunadamente fue destruido. Tan masivo era que los eruditos dudan que alguien lo haya copiado por completo. Orígenes siempre fue polémico, dormía en el suelo, no comía carne, ni bebía vino, ayunaba dos veces a la semana, no usaba zapatos y, según algunos, se castró por su fe. Aunque fue tildado como hereje posteriormente, por sus ideas sobre la preexistencia de los espíritus y sus posturas acerca de la trinidad, su obra Contra Celsum es una de las mejores defensas del cristianismo producidas en la iglesia primitiva. Su gran erudición y producción literaria lo convirtieron en un filósofo cristiano de primer orden y en un profundo estudiante de la Biblia. Orígenes es considerado hoy como uno de los personajes más importantes de la historia del cristianismo. Murió en el 254 d.C. luego de permanecer varios años en la cárcel por orden del emperador Decio. SÍGUENOS Sitio web: http://biteproject.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/biteproject Podcast: https://anchor.fm/biteproject Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biteproject/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biteproject/ CRÉDITOS Conductor: Giovanny Gómez Pérez. Guión: Giovanny Gómez Pérez. Producción: Pilar Prieto. Edición del audio: Alejandra Narváez. Música: Envato Elements.

It’s hard to be an intelligent Christian without somehow handling Origen’s ideas. He set the ground rules for scientific study of the Bible. He wrote foundational works in spirituality, apologetics, and fundamental theology. In this episode, we look at those big accomplishments, but also examine the ideas that got him into trouble. Do souls exist before they get bodies? Does Satan get saved in the end? Does allegory trump history when we read the Bible? And did Origen really say all these things anyway? Find out why the Man of Steel is just as controversial today as he was almost two millennia ago. Links St. Methodius of Olympus, Against Origen (fragment) https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=1833 St. Jerome, Letter 84 to Pammachius https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=2379 Thomas Mirus on Origen’s theology https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/church-fathers-origens-theology/ Pope Benedict XVI on Origen’s thought https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7548 Catholic Culture Audiobooks reading of Origen homily on Genesis: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/origen-alexandria-homily-i-on-genesis/ More works by the Fathers https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/ Mike Aquilina's website https://fathersofthechurch.com Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed http://www.ccwatershed.org.  

We now take a look at a Bible translation whose influence is comparable to that of the King James Version. Developed by a rather unusual man over more than two decades, the Latin Vulgate has a complex history. We'll also see a trend emerging that translators face up to the present day.

Este episodio se titula, “Esforzándose para dar una Respuesta”En su primera epístola, el Apóstol Pedro animaba a los seguidores de Jesús a estar siempre dispuestos a dar una defensa, una apología de su fe, a cualquiera que preguntara. Esa palabra significa, articular una posición razonada. Era usada para hablar de los argumentos que los abogados llevaban al tribunal para argumentar sus casos. Pedro añadió que el cristiano debe compartir su defensa de la fe, no en un tono combativo o argumentativo, sino con humildad y respeto.Si hubo algún Padre de la Iglesia que buscaba encarnar esta orden, fue Orígenes de Alejandría.Orígenes fue lo que algunos podrían llamar un "fanático religioso" que renunció a su trabajo, dormía en el suelo, no comía carne, no bebía vino, ayunaba dos veces a la semana, no usaba zapatos, y según una historia, se castró a sí mismo por la fe. También fue el más prolífico erudito de su tiempo, escribiendo cientos de manuscritos. Fue un filósofo de 1ª clase y un profundo estudiante de las Escrituras.Fue tan sobresaliente en resistir a todas las fuerzas que vinieron en contra  de él, que Orígenes fue dado el apodo "Adamantius" = hombre de acero. Si esto les suena familiar, Adamantino  es el metal que compone el esqueleto de Wolverine en la serie de los X-Men. Pero ¡no! Orígenes no era un Wolverine del 3 siglo → no es para tanto.Un niño prodigio, Orígenes nació cerca de Alejandría en Egipto acerca del año 185 d.C. El era el mayor de 7 hermanos, creció en un hogar cristiano aprender la Biblia y el significado de tener un compromiso. En el año 202 d.C. su padre, Leónidas, fue decapitado por la fe, en una de esas rondas regulares de persecución por funcionarios Romanos hostiles durante el reinado de Septimio Severo. El joven Orígenes de 17 años en su aflicción quería unirse a su padre como un mártir,  pero su madre le impidió salir de la casa ocultando su ropa. Así, que me imagino que él estaba dispuesto a morir en público pero no en salir desnudo para hacerlo. Me suena como un típico joven de 17 años de edad.Orígenes se dio cuenta rápidamente que tenía más que ofrecer que el martirio y fue a trabajar para sostener a su familia. Fundó una escuela de gramática, copio textos, e instruyó a los nuevos creyentes en los fundamentos de la fe. Mientras que se dedicaba a todo esto, él estudió con el filósofo pagano Amonio Saccas para poder defender mejor su fe en contra de los argumentos de los paganos hostiles.Como continuó la persecución, Orígenes sin temor visitó la prisión, asistió a sus juicios, y confortó a los condenados. Su fama se extendió y el número de sus estudiantes aumentó rápidamente. El Obispo de Alejandría en ese momento era Demetrio, con quien Orígenes tenía una relación que cambiaba entre fría y caliente. Hubo breves temporadas de buena voluntad quebrantada por períodos más largos de antagonismo entre los dos. Orígenes fue claramente el mayor intelecto y parece que Demetrio era celoso. Él le exigió a Orígenes que se limitara a enseñar a los estudiantes solamente en las cuestiones de doctrina. No se le permitió predicar.Alrededor del año 211-12 d.C., durante el reinado de Caracalla, Orígenes visitó Roma. La laxitud moral que vio de parte de funcionarios de la Iglesia lo perturbaron. Tenemos que ver, Orígenes era un asceta confirmado; comprometido con la autodisciplina y un estilo de vida austero que rechazaba cualquier cosa que diera apertura a debilitar la virtud moral. Así que al regresar a Alejandría reanudo su enseñanza con un gran celo y aumento su determinación de no seguir el ejemplo que vio en la capital.Su escuela había superado el solo tener un solo profesor y administrador. Los estudiantes claman por más instrucción, y los graduados querían mas materiales para ayudarles a estudiar la Biblia. Orígenes trajo a otros y se dedico cada vez al estudio de la Biblia y la producción de recursos de alta calidad. Aprendió Hebreo para que él pudiera entender el texto del Antiguo Testamento de forma más eficiente. Fue en ese momento, alrededor de año 212 d.C., que Orígenes se hizo amigo con un hombre rico llamado Ambrosio de Alejandría. Ambrosio había sido un gnóstico a quien Orígenes persuadió en dejar sus opiniones erróneas y convertirse en un Cristiano.Su amistad continuó durante años y en agradecimiento por la amistad de Orígenes y la preocupación por su alma, Ambrosio proporcionó varios secretarios para ayudar a transcribir los abundantes escritos de Orígenes. Un gran número de las obras de Orígenes, fueron dedicados a este amigo, Ambrosio.En el año 214 d.C., Orígenes visitó Arabia y la Tierra Santa. Al año siguiente, un levantamiento popular en Alejandría causó que el Emperador Caracalla le diera permiso a sus soldados de saquear la ciudad. Se cerraron las escuelas y todos los extranjeros fueron expulsados. Esto significo que Ambrosio tuvo que abandonar la ciudad y que Orígenes fuera con él. Se refugiaron en Cesárea, en la costa de Israel. Aunque él no era un sacerdote ordenado, los Obispos de Jerusalén y Cesárea le pidieron a Orígenes que llevara temporalmente el ministerio de la predicación en las iglesias locales.Mientras esto no era un problema en la práctica de las iglesias en Israel,  no estaba permitido por la Iglesia de Alejandría. Cuando orígenes volvió allí en el año 216 d.C., el Obispo Demetrio estaba furioso y trató de limitar el trabajo que Orígenes estaba haciendo.De su actividad durante los próxima década se sabe poco. Él probablemente se dedicaba principalmente en escribir y la instrucción de los nuevos creyentes.Orígenes entendía la amenaza que traía el Gnosticismo. También sabía que cuando el Gnosticismo finalmente desapareciera, otro error se elevaría para sustituirlo. La única manera de tratar con las olas de herejía y los desafío que seguramente vendrían, era proporcionar herramientas que los creyentes usarían para estudiar y entender la Biblia. Con tal fin le produjo la Hexapla, una forma temprana de lo que hoy conocemos como una Biblia Paralela. La Hexapla, tenía el texto original Hebreo del Antiguo Testamento, uno Griego, y la transliteración y varias otras traducciones de la Biblia en Griego. El acomodo todo en 6 columnas paralelas. Una de estas traducciones Griegas la encontró en un frasco en la ciudad de Jericó. Esta fue una tarea masiva y requirió 28 años para completar. La Hexapla obviamente se convirtió en una parte importante del desarrollo del canon del NT y ayudó a dar forma a la traducción bíblica. Lamentablemente se ha perdido. Era tan masiva que los eruditos modernos dudan que nadie la haya copiado por completo. Sabemos de su existencia porque las partes de lo que existe, y es referenciada en varios comentarios por parte de los Cristianos contemporáneos.Orígenes podría ser llamado con mucha razón el primer estudioso de la Biblia, en que el analizaba las escrituras en 3 niveles: el literal, el moral y el alegórico. Como Orígenes mismo dijo, "Porque así como el hombre consiste de cuerpo, alma y espíritu, por tanto, de la misma manera la Escritura." En realidad, Orígenes prefirió lo alegórico porque permitía interpretaciones más espirituales. Hay muchos pasajes que el consideraba imposible entenderlos literalmente.El método de interpretación alegórica de Orígenes se convirtió en el estándar para el estudio de la Biblia de la iglesia en las siguientes eras de la iglesia, y acabaría llevando a la iglesia bastante lejos por un mal camino.La principal obra de Orígenes, fue De Principiis o Sobre los Primeros Principios. Fue la primera exposición sistemática de la teología cristiana jamás escrita. Él creó una filosofía inconfundiblemente cristiana al sintetizar las tecnicas griegas  con técnicas de análisis de los textos bíblicos. Súmale a esto las 2 enormes obras de la Hexapla y De Principiis, homilías y comentarios, y está claro cómo mantuvo a 7 secretarios ocupados y causó al Padre de la Iglesia posterior, Jerónimo decir en admiración frustrada, "¿alguien ha leído todo lo que escribió Orígenes?"__________________________________________________________________________________________Mientras que lo que hemos visto hasta ahora nos hace ver a Orígenes como un cristiano bastante sólido, no estaba sin verrugas. De hecho, uno de los Concilios de la Iglesia mas tardé iría tan lejos como para etiquetar orígenes un hereje.Pero espera; como veremos más adelante, esos consejos no siempre fueron los más imparciales y justos tribunales de discernimiento. Lejos de ello!Fue Orígenes en su interpretación de las escrituras que se metió en agua caliente. Defendía la idea de que el verdadero significado de un texto no era su lectura literal directa, sino que las Escrituras tenían un significado alegórico y Ese era el propósito principal del texto. Orígenes y sus seguidores, afirmaban que encontrar la clave alegórica era el punto principal.Mientras hay cierta alegoría profunda en algunas de las Escrituras, la inmensa mayoría del texto bíblico debe entenderse literalmente. Pero aquellos que siguieron a Orígenes llevaron sus ideas de la alegoría demasiado lejos e hicieron a la alegoría el principal método interpretativo de todas las Escrituras. Esta metodología del estudio de la Biblia predomino durante cientos de años y acabó en contrarrestar la meta principal que Orígenes se había propuesto - hacer la Biblia accesible a todos los creyentes. En el método de interpretación alegórica, sólo aquellos educados en los símbolos muy a menudo esotéricos, de la Alegoría pueden acertadamente interpretar y entender la Palabra de Dios.Otra cosa que Orígenes hizo lo que tuvo un efecto negativo en la Iglesia era su fanática dedicación a la auto-negación. Orígenes estaba tan ansioso por presentarse a Dios como santo que empleaba prácticas que fueron seguramente aberrantes. Fue su fastidiosa devoción al ascetismo que alentó al movimiento monástico en las épocas posteriores. Él se negaba dormir, pasaba condiciones extremas de ayuno, e iba descalzo a todos lados.Hay un aspecto del ascetismo de Orígenes que es importante contar porque estudiantes modernos de la historia de la iglesia a menudo escuchan sólo una parte de la historia. Un informe más completo es justificada, puesto que ilustra cómo más conocimiento sobre un tema a menudo arroja una luz muy diferente sobre el cómo y el por qué de las cosas que nuestros antepasados hicieron.Así que, El gran celo por la santidad de Orígenes en su juventud e inmadurez lo movió a castrarse a sí mismo.Sí, lo has oído correctamente; él se castro - A SI MISMO! ⇒ Ouch!!!!!!!Su propósito era evitar cualquier escándalo potencial, porque en su escuela le daba instrucción a mujeres. Ahora esto es interesante, porque aunque Orígenes posteriormente desarrolló un método de interpretación alegórico, cuando era más joven, él tomó Mateo 19:12 bastante literal cuando dice; "Hay quienes se hacen eunucos por el reino de los cielos."El historiador de la iglesia primitiva, Eusebio, afirma que la auto-castración de Orígenes fue "la prueba de un corazón joven y sin experiencia, pero también de la fe y el dominio propio."Parece que Orígenes después cambio de opinión sobre su acto juvenil. En su Comentario sobre Mateo el condeno a aquellos que tomaban 19:12 literalmente, y dijo que tal acción era "indigno" Sobre esta base, los escépticos modernos sostienen que el informe de la auto-castración de Orígenes es falsa. Pero Orígenes sigue en sus escritos explicando los problemas físicos que resultan de la castración en una forma que sugiere una experiencia personal.__________________________________________________________________________________________Esto no es todo lo que le causo a Orígenes problemas más adelante con los líderes de la iglesia. Mientras que algunos de sus escritos eran seguramente hipotéticos, Orígenes enseñaba sobre la preexistencia del alma; que el espíritu de una persona existía antes de la concepción, y que todos los espíritus habían caído en pecado antes de nacer. Además, el decía que estos espíritus pecadores fueron esclavizados en cuerpos proporción a la gravedad de los pecados que cometieron. Así que algunos se convirtieron en demonios, algunos hombres, y algunos ángeles. También creía que todos los espíritus se podían salvar, incluso Satanás.Pero lo que dio a Orígenes el mas grande problema doctrinal fue su descripción de la Trinidad. El decía que era una jerarquía donde el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu NO eran iguales. Aunque él ataco las creencias Gnósticas, al igual que ellos, el rechazo la bondad de la creación material.Tres siglos después de su muerte, el Concilio de Constantinopla pronuncio que Orígenes era un hereje. Pero trata de guardar esta información para que la veamos más tarde, porque vamos a pasar un poco de tiempo en este tema de la iglesia y los debates sobre la trinidad y la naturaleza de Cristo en los próximos episodios. El siglo 4° y 5° fue dominado por estos debates y mientras la cuestión ya está en gran medida resuelta hoy para nosotros, deberíamos tener una mejor apreciación de la agonía, que la iglesia soportó durante 200 años mientras los ancianos de la Iglesia trataron de resolver todo esto.La pregunta es: ¿Orígenes realmente pensaba que el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu no eran iguales, haciéndolo un auténtico hereje? O refiriéndose a ellos como una jerarquía, estaba hablando de su sumisión entra cada uno de ellos en la matriz relacional de la Trinidad?Y allí esta el problema. Para poder responder a esto, necesitamos saber lo qué Orígenes y los escritores posteriores entiendan por las PALABRAS que utilizaban para describir lo que ellos creían. Y eso no siempre es una tarea fácil, especialmente cuando alguien como Orígenes no sabia o entendía los argumentos y debates y el furor que surgirian  2 y 300 años más tarde.Ahora, muchos estudiosos sostienen que Orígenes estaba simplemente tratando de encuadrar la Fe en las ideas de su día. Pero después del Concilio de Constantinopla, sus obras fueron reprimidas; muchas de ellas fueron recogidas y quemadas, haciendo difícil una evaluación moderna.Contra Celso de Orígenes es una de las mejores defensas del Cristianismo producida en la iglesia primitiva. Responde a la acusación de que los Cristianos, por negarse a cumplir el servicio militar, fallan la prueba de ser buenos ciudadanos, escribe, "somos nosotros quienes por nuestras oraciones destruimos todos los demonios que provocan guerras, violan juramentos, y perturbar la paz, somos de más ayuda a los emperadores que aquellos que parecen estar luchando las batallas".Las autoridades no estuvieron convencidos. En el año 250 d.C. el emperador Decio encarcelo y torturo a Orígenes. Lo mantuvieron vivo deliberadamente en la esperanza de que él renunciara a su fe. Pero Decio murió primero y Orígenes fue puesto en libertad. Su salud quebrantada, murió poco después de su liberación.

Continue to explore hypothesis, economy, and recapitulation. Consider the economy (“Oikonomia”) or the way the work is structured out. It means the good order and arrangement of affairs. How does the hypothesis relate to the economy? A valid hypothesis must express its economy. The overall gist of the story must make sense of all of its component parts and vice versa. Where do we get the “economy” of Scripture? We get the economy through the teachings of the Church, which upholds the Rule of Faith. Irenaeus stated, “But we hold fast to the rule of truth, that there is one almighty God who founded everything through his Word and arranged it and made everything out of the non-existent . . .” As the Church proclaims the Gospel, it is setting up the economy of Scripture. Christ is the center of all the economies of Scripture. Consider recapitulation, which is a summary and conclusion. For Irenaeus, Christ is the answer and fulfillment to all the questions to the Old Testament and creation. Jesus is the “x”, the referent and Christ is the hypothesis. Consider the broad view of hypothesis, economy, and recapitulation. There are various intensive reading strategies including the lexical strategy, which are tools to help study in the original languages. There are also translations for example, the LXX and Origen’s Hexapla. The goal of intensive readings is to gain a better understanding of what is written. Another strategy is the Dialectical strategy that considers apparent contradictions for example the Arian controversy and also the term “created by” in Hebrews 3:2 and Proverbs 8:22 as compared to what it tells us in John 1:1. The goal is to arrive at a unified reading by showing how seeming distinctions or contradictions illuminate other parts of Scripture. Athanasius points out that if Jesus was made, than he is a work. Ecclesiastes 12:14 states, “ For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.” But Jesus will never be brought to judgment. Consider what we read in Sanctified Vision. Consider that essence is being and economy is doing. Lastly there is the Associative strategy that attempts to establish links between texts. Cyril of Alexandria in his commentary on John states in reference to Ecclesiastes 10:9-10, “. . . whoever splits wood will be endangered thereby if the iron is blunt and he does not sharpen the edge he will be troubled and work harder.” For Cyril, wood is the Holy Scripture and the axe is the reader. Did Cyril taking things too far? How do we consider allegorical interpretation? Where does Cyril arrive at this interpretation? The goal of the Associative strategy is that it enhances the total reading of Scripture and it also provides a depth of interpretation.

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible's lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen's Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible's lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen's Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences.

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures between the third century BCE and the second century CE. Timothy Michael Law, Lecturer in Divinity in the University of St. Andrews, offers a thorough chronicle of the creation and afterlife of the Septuagint in When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013). Through this narrative Law also interrogates broader concerns, such as the ways we examine canons and scriptures during this period, translation in the ancient world, authorial intentions, and audience receptions. The book covers the role the Septuagint in the Bible’s lengthy history up until the present and demonstrates how our contemporary engagement with it can illuminate numerous shadowy paths in Religious Studies. In our conversation we discussed Hellenistic Judaism, apocrypha, Jerome, the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s Hexapla, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical citation, Augustine, the Protestant reformation, Eusebius, and academic writing for public audiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Episode of CS we'll take a look at a figure of church history anyone who's done any reading in such has likely encountered – Eusebius of Caesarea. He's a prominent figure because he's known as the Father of Church history for his classic work Ecclesiastical History which charts the course of the early church from its inception to the late 3rd C.His history of the Church was originally composed in 10 volumes. He began it during the Great Persecution of 303–313 and completed it around 315. Over the next 10 years he edited and revised it several times. It charted the course of primitive Christianity from obscurity in the backwater province of Israel to the favored faith of the new Emperor Constantine. Along the way, Eusebius does future generations a great service by giving careful lists of church regions and their sequence of leaders. He quotes early Christian authors; writings long since lost to us but now preserved by the pen of Eusebius. He describes the early church's labor to define and understand the Trinity as over against the various heresies that sought to hijack orthodoxy. Though Eusebius began his chronicle during the Great Persecution, he lived to see The Faith's emergence from the catacombs during the time of Constantine, to stand on the threshold of a new world in which Christ could be envisioned as triumphant over Caesar. [1]While Eusebius is honored today as the Father of Church History for his literally ground-breaking work, his generation knew him simply as the bishop of Caesarea and a friend of Pamphilus, a scholar who fought valiantly against the Arian heresy.Little is known of Eusebius' life prior to his tenure as lead pastor at the important church of Caesarea. He seems to have been born in the Roman province of Palestine around 260. He became a pupil of Pastor Pamphilus at Caesarea, then his chief assistant. Pamphilus had come from Alexandria and made at Caesarea one of the greatest libraries of Christian writings. Just before Pamphilus arrived, the great scholar Origen had centered his work at Caesarea and composed the famed Hexapla  there, a Bible in 6 side-by-side languages. It was kept in the library there. Though Pamphilus expanded Caesarea's library, it was Origen who'd started it with volumes he'd collected during his many travels. Eusebius so revered his teacher he called himself  “son of Pamphilus.” Pamphilus was imprisoned in the last days of the Great Persecution and died a martyr in 310.  Eusebius wrote a 3 volume biography of his mentor.The persecution that claimed Pamphilus continued to wreak havoc among the Christians in Caesarea, so Eusebius fled to Egypt for a few yrs where things were less dicey. When he returned to Caesarea in 313, the church elected Eusebius as bishop. The city had a population of 100,000; no small number of a city of that time and place.  There he wrote 3 of his longest works;1) A refutation of paganism in 15 volumes he titled Preparation,2) A 20 volume look at Old Testament prophecy's fulfillment by Christ titled Demonstration of the Gospel,3) And something he titled Chronicle which was a record of world history to 303, which Eusebius intended as a preface to his magnum opus, Ecclesiastical History.A few yrs after Eusebius became bishop at Caesarea, the Arian Controversy broke out in full force, threatening to tear the church apart. It seemed what persecution had been unable to do during the reign of Diocletian, an argument over theology would accomplish when persecution was over.As the student of Pamphilus, Eusebius did not support Arius' idea that Jesus wasn't God. But Eusebius would not go along with the movement to declare Arius a heretic and toss him and his many supporters from the church. For this, Eusebius himself was excommunicated in early 325 aby an Anti-Arian synod at Antioch. At the Council of Nicea later that year, he defended himself before the Emperor by bringing forth a copy of the baptismal creed used in his church at Caesarea. It stated an orthodox view and proved Eusebius was no Arian. What he was, was a church leader who felt the Arian controversy had been turned by some into a grievous black-mark on Christian unity. He though it would be better to keep Arius and his many supporters IN the Church and deal with them as men who needed correction, than to cast them out and see them agitate for their position there where the world would look on it all as a shameful display of pettiness.The Caesarean baptismal formula was such a clear affirmation of an orthodox view, it was apparently used as the template from which the Council of Nicaea crafted its final position and developed the Nicaean Creed. But some members of the council found the Caesarean formula a tad too vague. Then sought to remedy that vagueness by adding the controversial term homoousios that we talked at length about in Season 1.Eusebius reluctantly voted with the rest of the Council in approving the creed, though he was one of many bishops less than thrilled by the inclusion of that word. Over the next months and yrs, controversy raged over the word homoousias, and the condemned Arius returned to favor. The tables turned and orthodoxy seemed to go down to defeat at the hands of a resurgent heresy. And it would have too, were it not for the courageous stand of Athanasius, who refused to allow the Truth of God's Word to be edited by the prospect of pragmatic church politics. Sadly, Eusebius sat on the board that condemned Athanasius. Again, not for doctrinal reason, but because Eusebius judge Athanasius an divisive agent who hindered unity. What Eusebius had been reluctant to do with a heretic, that is, oust him, he was willing to do with a man who was orthodox.The Emperor Constantine was impressed with Eusebius and asked him to produce a speech to be given at the 13th Anniversary of the Emperor's ascension. Eusebius followed that up with a grandiloquent eulogy of Constantine when he died in 335.Eusebius himself died 4 yrs later.One of the works Eusebius produced that has been a source of much help to historians is called the Onomasticon. It was something of a ground-breaking innovation on Eusebius' part. In modern terms, we'd call it a Bible atlas, or a geographical gazette. His goal was to provide an easily referenced list of all the places the Bible mentions and give a short description of where they were located. He used Roman miles as a measure of distance, and listed them alphabetically and by book of the Bible.When Eusebius was an assistant to his mentor Pamphilus, they'd worked on the challenge of textual criticism with the Septuagint, the Common Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, as well as manuscripts of the NT. Jerome tells us Origen had already collected the Septuagint and that was the text Pamphilus and Eusebius worked on. Eusebius also set about to produce a kind of harmony of the 4 Gospels so that people could read the story of Jesus in a collected format. This work was a favorite text of Medieval scholars and became the source of many illuminated manuscripts.Besides these major works of Eusebius is a plethora of shorter & lesser works; letters, short treatises, notes and such that all bear his distinctive mark. Eusebius is recognized by no one as an author of great prose or eloquence. His writing is classically workman-like. What distinguishes his style, in everything except his praise of Constantine, is its refusal to embellish or fabricate. Not everything he wrote was factual, but whatever he did pen was a careful and faithful transmission of what he'd been told or had researched. For that reason, scholars tend to give Eusebius general credence in his recording of history.[1] Walter, V. (1992). Eusebius of Caesarea. In J. D. Douglas & P. W. Comfort (Eds.), Who's Who in Christian history (pp. 239–240). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

As I record  & post this episode, a new movie's out called Logan. It's appears to be the last installment for the venerable X-Men character Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. Logan was an immortal who became the subject of a secret military experiment gone wrong. His skeleton was infused with a fictional metal called adamantium that bears the hardness of a diamond.Why, you wonder, am I sharing this. What's this have to do with Church History? I mention it, not because I've seen the movie, but because of the name of the church father we're going to take a look at today. Or I should say his nickname; it was Adamantius. Roughly meaning, “Man of Steel” or if you prefer, “Tough Guy.”Can you guess who we're talking about, what his more common name was? Origen, a man both honored & despised. Honored because when he was good, he was very, very good and when he was bad he was awful!I've come to think of Origen as a really smart guy with a basically good heart, who went off into weirdness because of one simple error, which we'll take a look at later.Origen Adamantius was born at Alexandria in Egypt around AD 185, the eldest of 7. His parents were committed Christians who diligently raised their family in the Scriptures. Persecution led to his father Leonidas' beheading in 202. Origen was 17, and saw it as his duty to follow his dad's example. His mother hid his clothes to keep him from going out of the house. As he searched for them, she persuaded him to consider that as the eldest son, it was now his responsibility to provide for her & his siblings.To do just that, Origen opened a school for the wealthy children of Alexandria. He made extra money copying texts, and tutoring those seeking to become church members.It became clear to all who engaged him that he was a genius. A wealthy patron offered to assist him in further schooling. Origen wanted to parlay his emerging intellect as a tool for the defense of the Christian faith and decided the best way to do that was by making sure he understood the arguments of the major contenders. So he enrolled in a school of the pagan philosopher Ammonius Saccas. It was during this time Origen began putting together his ideas that would later come out in his work refuting the challenges of the pagan critic Celsus that we'll get to a bit later.As Origen's output grew, a wealthy friend supplied him with secretaries to capture his dictation and run his affairs.When Origen was installed by the pastor of the church at Alexandria, Bishop Demetrius, as the head of the Catechetical, or we might say, new-member school, Origen began a life of ultra strict asceticism. He slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, fasted twice a week, owned no shoes, and according to the ancient church historian Eusebius, castrated himself in mistaken obedience of what Jesus said about eunuchs in Matt 19. There's some debate if Origen actually did this, or just chose to stay celibate.Reflecting the safety of travel on the now Roman Lake of the Med, Origen made several trips to Rome, and one to Arabia. In 215, when he was about 30, unrest in Alexandria caused by a visit from the Emperor Caracalla, moved Origen to make a visit to Palestine. While there, he was asked by the pastors of both Caesarea and Jerusalem to preach in their churches. He did, though he was only a layman. He'd never been ordained a pastor. When he got home, his pastor, Bishop Demetrius was livid as this was regarded as a serious breach of ecclesiastical protocol.From 218 to 230, Origen devoted himself exclusively to writing. Then in 230 again set out for Palestine, where he the same pastor-bishops as before asked him to preach again. When he declined lest it create another brueha with Demetrius, they offered to ordain him then and there. Sounded good to Origen, so the deed was done.Yeah, Demetrius wasn't pleased and when Origen got back, fired him & revoked his ordination, claiming the other two pastors weren't Origen's spiritual authority, HE was.   That was too much for Origen to bear, so he moved to Caesarea in 231 where he opened a famous school, attracting scholars from all over.Origen then gave himself to writing & preaching. In 250, at the age of 65, he was rounded up in the persecution under Decius, endured prolonged torture, in which they hoped to get him to recant. But Origen outlasted Decius. He was released, but managed to survive just a few years.While Origen left a lasting impact on theology and the Church, his by far largest work was called the Hexapla, which he worked 20 years on. The Hexapla is a massive work 6000 pages spread over 15 volumes. It's 6 versions of the OT arranged in columns side by side, like what we call a parallel bible today. It compares the Hebrew text to the Greek Septuagint translation, and 4 other Greek translations, including one Origen found in a jar near Jericho – and which modern scholars wonder was an early find of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Hexapla became an important step in the development of the modern Bible and went far in advancing the science of scripture translation. Chances are there was only a single full edition of the Hexapla, housed in the church at Caesarea, but was destroyed by the Muslims in their invasion in 638.While the Hexapla was his largest work, his most significant was On First Principles, a systematic theology, the first ever for the Christian Faith. Origen merged a distinct  Christian philosophy with Greek rhetorical techniques and assumptions based on Scripture. In 4 volumes, Origen deals with God, spirits, man, nature, free will, & Scripture. The original text has all but disappeared, but a questionable Latin translation by Rufinus, and a more reliable rendering by Jerome convey most of it.These two works alone, to say nothing of all the other material he produced, it's easy to see how he kept 7 secretaries busy and moved Jerome a hundred yrs later to say, “Has anyone read everything Origen wrote?”In Against Celsus, Origen gave a stellar defense of the Christian faith against the erudite attacks of the pagan philosopher Celsus. Nothing of Celsus remains, except where Origen quotes him. It seems Celsus had had enough of the upstart Christians and their crucified God. He leveled his not insubstantial genius at clearing away what he considered the foolishness of the Gospel. But his, what he thought were ace serves into the Christian side of the court were returned by the Wimbledon champion Origen, who sent them back on fire! Really, it was clear that paganism was a dilapidated old shack that needed to come down. Christianity was the wrecking ball that did it in. Against Celsus is one of the finest defenses of Christianity produced in that era. Answering Celsus' accusation that by refusing military service Christians were poor citizens, Origen said, “We who by our prayers destroy all demons which stir up wars, violate oaths, and disturb the peace, are of more help to the emperors than those who seem to be doing the fighting.”Origen produced commentaries on almost all the books of the Bible, though only fragmentary evidence survives of most. His homilies are the oldest examples of Christian preaching.History has assigned many labels to Origen. He was at heart a biblical scholar whose intellect was nurtured by Scripture. But this is where Origen also seems to go off the rails. He applied a three-fold method when interpreting the Bible. He said the Bible could be understood literally, morally, and allegorically. Nothing too-too wild there. But where Origen DID go too far was in saying the allegorical method was the main way to view Scripture.In contrast, modern Evangelicals would say the literal, straight-forward meaning of the text prevails. You don't have to read anything INTO the text with a literal interpretation. Your goal is to get the meaning OUT of the text, not put it in. Now, there might be some allegorical meaning to some passages, but those ought to be considered only after first getting a good grasp on the literal meaning.Origen flipped that. He claimed the allegorical meaning was the primary purpose of the text, while the literal was SO obvious, well, clearly something as important as God's Word had to be deeper than just what any ole' uneducated person could get.That brings us to another error Origen made. He divided people into 2 categories; the mass of everyday commoners with average intelligence for whom a literal interpretation of the Bible was sufficient to help them muddle through. And the intellectually elite and enlightened for whom the lofty heights of allegory opened higher spiritual realms. For commoners, the Gospel with its message of the cross and resurrection were enough, but the elite who entered into the mysteries of allegory, the very mind of God was available.Sadly, Origen's view of interpreting Scripture dominated the European Medieval Church.Other problems areas with Origen are his belief that all spirits are created in the spiritual realm then find homes in either demons, humans or angels. He believed that ultimately, all spirits would be saved and restored to God, including the devil.Most problematic was Origen's thoughts on the Trinity. He conceived of it as a hierarchy. The Father was the absolute, supreme God, while Jesu and the Holy Spirit were also in essence God, but not equal to the Father. And though he attacked Gnostic beliefs, like them, he rejected the goodness of material creation.While Origen produced much helpful material, his nudging the Church to adopt an allegorical method for interpreting Scripture set it on a path that ended up obscuring God's Word and removing it from the hands of everyday believers.  Now it became the sole domain of those properly educated to parse it's esoteric truths.Three centuries after Origen's death, in 553, the Council of Constantinople declared him a heretic. His works were systematically removed.Modern apologists for Origen suggest he was only seeking to cast the Faith in the thought forms of his day. That may have been his goal, but he simply went too far and introduced ideas that were clearly anti-Biblical, ideas that a literal, straight-forward understanding of the text would have cleared up, had Origen let them.

This episode is titled, “Striving to Give an Answer”In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter urged Jesus' followers to always be ready to give a defense, an apologia, of their faith to anyone who asked. That word meaning an articulate, reasoned position. It was used of the arguments lawyers carried into court to argue their case. Peter added that the Christian must share his/her defense of the Faith, not in a combative or argumentative tone, but with meekness & respect.If there was any Church Father who sought to embody that command, it was Origen of Alexandria.Origen was what some might term a “religious fanatic” who gave up his job, slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, fasted twice a week, owned no shoes, & according to one account castrated himself for the faith. He was also the most prolific scholar of his age, penning hundreds of manuscripts. He was a 1st rate philosopher, & profound student of Scripture.So outstanding in resisting all the forces that came against him, Origen was nick-named “Adamantius” = man of steel. If that sounds familiar, Adamantine is the metal that makes up Wolverine's skeleton in the X-Men series. But no! Origen was not a 3rd C Wolverine. à Let's not get carried away.A child prodigy, Origen was born near Alexandria in Egypt about AD 185. The oldest of 7 children, he grew up in a Christian home learning the Bible & the meaning of commitment. In 202 his father, Leonidas, was beheaded for the faith in one of those regular rounds of persecution at the hands of hostile Roman officials during the reign of Septimius Severus. The grief stricken 17 year old Origen wanted to join his father as a martyr but his mother prevented him from leaving the house by hiding his clothes.So; I guess he was willing to DIE in public but not go out naked in it. Sounds like your typical 17 yr old to me.Origen quickly realized he had more to offer than martyrdom & went to work to support his family. He started a grammar school, copied texts, & instructed new believers in the basics of the faith. While engaged in all this, he himself studied under the pagan philosopher Ammonius Saccas in order to better defend his faith against the arguments of hostile pagans.As persecution went on, Origen boldly visited the imprisoned, attended their trials, & comforted the condemned.  His fame spread & the number of his students increased rapidly. The Bishop of Alexandria at this time was Demetrius, with whom Origen had a hot & cold relationship. There were brief seasons of good will broken by longer periods of antagonism between the two. Origen was by far the sharper intellect & it seems Demetrius was jealous. He demanded Origen limit himself to teaching students issues of doctrine alone. He was not allowed to preach.Around AD 211-12, during the reign of the Caracalla, Origen visited Rome. The moral looseness he witnessed on the part of Church officials disturbed him. You see, Origen was a confirmed ascetic; committed to self-discipline & an austere lifestyle that shunned anything hinting of a weakening of moral virtue. So on his return to Alexandria he resumed his teaching with a zeal increased by his determination to not follow the example he saw in the capital.His school had by this time outgrown the strength of a single instructor & administrator. The students clamored for more instruction, & graduates wanted materials to help them study the Bible. Origen brought on others and increasingly devoted himself to the study of the Bible and producing high quality resources. He learned Hebrew so he could get at the text of the OT more efficiently. It was at this time, about 212, that Origen became friends with a wealthy man named Ambrose of Alexandria. Ambrose was a Gnostic whom Origen persuaded to leave his errant views and become a Christian.Their friendship continued for years, & in appreciation for Origen's friendship & concern for his soul, Ambrose provided several secretaries to help transcribe Origen's copious writings. A large number of Origen's works were dedicated to this friend, Ambrose.In 214, Origen visited Arabia & the Holy Land. The following year, a popular uprising at Alexandria caused the Emperor Caracalla to allow his soldiers to loot the city. The schools were closed & all foreigners expelled. This meant Ambrose had to leave so Origen went with him. They took refuge in Caesarea on the coast of Israel. Though he wasn't an ordained priest, the bishops of both Jerusalem & Caesarea asked Origen to carry on a temporary preaching ministry in the local churches.While this was in line with the practice of the churches in Israel, it was NOT allowed by the Church in Alexandria. When Origen returned there in 216, Bishop Demetrius was furious & tried to limit Origen's on-going work.Of his activity over the next decade little is known. He likely engaged mostly in writing & the instruction of new believers.Origen understood the threat being posed by Gnosticism. He also knew when Gnosticism finally disappeared, another error would rise to replace it. The only way to deal with the sure coming waves of heretical challenge was to provide tools for believers to use to study & understand the Bible. To that end he produced the Hexapla, an early form of what we know today as a Parallel Bible. The Hexapla had the original Hebrew text of the OT, a Greek, transliteration & several other Grk translations. All arranged in 6 parallel columns. One of these Greek translations he found in a jar in the city of Jericho. This was a massive undertaking and required 28 years to complete. The Hexapla obviously became an important part of the development of the NT canon & helped shape scriptural translation. Unfortunately it was lost. It was so massive modern scholars doubt anyone ever copied it entirely. We know of its existence because portions of it exist, and it's referenced in several comments by contemporary Christians.Origen might rightly be called the 1st Bible scholar who analyzed the Scriptures on 3 levels: the literal, the moral, and the allegorical. As Origen himself put it, “For just as man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so in the same way does Scripture.” In truth, Origen preferred the allegorical because it allowed for more spiritual interpretations. There were many passages he considered impossible to understand literally.Origen's method of allegorical interpretation became the standard for Bible study of later church ages, and would end up leading people pretty far astray.Origen's main work, was De Principiis = On First Principles. It was the first systematic exposition of Christian theology ever written. He created a distinctly Christian philosophy by synthesizing Greek techniques of analysis with Biblical texts. Add to these the 2 massive works of the Hexapla & De Principiis, his homilies & commentaries, and it's clear how he kept 7 secretaries busy and caused the later church father Jerome to say in frustrated admiration, “Has anyone read everything Origen wrote?”While what we've looked at so far makes Origen out to be a pretty solid guy, he wasn't without warts.  In fact, one of the later Church Councils will go so far as to label Origen a heretic.But hang on; as we'll see, those councils weren't always the most unbiased and righteous courts of discernment. Far from it!It was Origen's interpretation of Scripture that got him into hot water. He advocated the idea that the real meaning of a text wasn't its straight-forward, literal reading but that Scripture had an allegorical meaning & THAT was the primary purpose of the text. Finding the allegorical key was the main point, Origen and his followers, claimed.While there is certainly some deep allegory to some of Scripture, the vast majority of the Biblical text ought to be understood literally. But those who followed Origen took his idea of allegory too far and made allegory the main interpretive method for all of Scripture. This methodology of Bible study held sway for hundreds of years & ended up countering the very thing Origen had set out to do – make the Bible accessible to all believers. For in the allegorical method of interpretation, only those educated in the often esoteric symbols of the Allegoricalists can rightly interpret & understand the Word of God.Another thing that Origen did which had a negative effect on the Church was his fanatical dedication to self-denial. Origen was so anxious to present himself to God as holy he engaged in practices that were surely aberrant. It was this fastidious devotion to asceticism that encouraged the monastic movement of later times. He denied himself sleep, engaged in extreme fasting, & went barefoot.There's one aspect of Origen's asceticism that bears recounting because modern students of church history often hear only a partial story. A fuller report is warranted as it illustrates how more knowledge on a subject often sheds a very different light on the how & why of things the ancients did.So – Origen's great zeal for holiness moved him when he was young & immature to castrate himself.Yes, you heard me correctly; he castrated – HIMSELF! è Ouch!!!!!!!His motive was to avoid any potential for scandal because of his instruction of women. Now this is interesting, because though Origen later developed an allegorical method of interpretation, when he was younger he took Matthew 19:12 pretty literally when it said; “There are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”The early church historian Eusebius says Origen's self-castration was “proof of an inexperienced and youthful heart but also of faith and self-control.”It seems Origen later thought better of his youthful act. In his Commentary on Matthew he condemned those who took 19:12 literally, and said such an action was an "outrage." Based on this, modern skeptics contend the report of Origen's self-castration is false. But Origen goes on in his writings to speak of the physical problems resulting from castration in a way that suggests personal experience.This isn't all that got Origen into trouble with later church leaders. While some of his writings were surely hypothetical, Origen taught the pre-existence of the soul; that a person's spirit existed before conception, & that all spirits had fallen into sin before birth.  Furthermore, he said these sinful spirits were then enslaved in bodies in proportion to the grievousness of the sins they committed. So some were made demons, some men, & some angels. He also believed all spirits could be saved, even satan.But what got Origen into the biggest trouble doctrinally was his description of the Trinity. He said it was a hierarchy where Father, Son, and Spirit were NOT equal. Though he attacked Gnostic beliefs, like them, he rejected the goodness of material creation.Three centuries after his death, the Council of Constantinople pronounced Origen a heretic. But try to file that little factoid away for later because we're going to spend quite a bit of time on this topic of the church debates over the Trinity & the nature of Christ in upcoming episodes. The 4th & 5th Cs were dominated by these debates & while the issue is largely settled for us today, we really ought to have a better appreciation for the agony the church endured for 200 years as church elders tried to figure all this out.The question is: Did Origen REALLY mean Father, Son & Spirit weren't equal, thus making him a genuine heretic? Of by referring to them as a hierarchy, was he speaking of their submission to each other in the relational matrix of the Trinity?Ah—there's the rub. In order to answer that, we need to know what Origen and later writers meant by the WORDS they used to describe what they believed. And that's not always an easy task – especially when someone like Origen was oblivious to the arguments and debates that would rage 2 & 300 years later.Many scholars now contend Origen was merely trying to frame the Faith in the ideas of his day. But after the Council of Constantinople his works were suppressed; many of them being rounded up and burned, making modern evaluation difficult.Origen's Against Celsus is one of the finest defenses of Christianity produced in the early church. Answering the charge that Christians, by refusing military service, failed the test of good citizenship, he wrote, “We who by our prayers destroy all demons which stir up wars, violate oaths, and disturb the peace are of more help to the emperors than those who seem to be doing the fighting.”The authorities weren't convinced. In AD 250 the Emperor Decius had Origen imprisoned and tortured. He was deliberately kept alive in hope he'd renounce his faith. But Decius died first and Origen was set free. His health broken, he died shortly after his release.

Este episodio se titula, “Esforzándose para dar una Respuesta”En su primera epístola, el Apóstol Pedro animaba a los seguidores de Jesús a estar siempre dispuestos a dar una defensa, una apología de su fe, a cualquiera que preguntara. Esa palabra significa, articular una posición razonada. Era usada para hablar de los argumentos que los abogados llevaban al tribunal para argumentar sus casos. Pedro añadió que el cristiano debe compartir su defensa de la fe, no en un tono combativo o argumentativo, sino con humildad y respeto.Si hubo algún Padre de la Iglesia que buscaba encarnar esta orden, fue Orígenes de Alejandría.Orígenes fue lo que algunos podrían llamar un "fanático religioso" que renunció a su trabajo, dormía en el suelo, no comía carne, no bebía vino, ayunaba dos veces a la semana, no usaba zapatos, y según una historia, se castró a sí mismo por la fe. También fue el más prolífico erudito de su tiempo, escribiendo cientos de manuscritos. Fue un filósofo de 1ª clase y un profundo estudiante de las Escrituras.Fue tan sobresaliente en resistir a todas las fuerzas que vinieron en contra  de él, que Orígenes fue dado el apodo "Adamantius" = hombre de acero. Si esto les suena familiar, Adamantino  es el metal que compone el esqueleto de Wolverine en la serie de los X-Men. Pero ¡no! Orígenes no era un Wolverine del 3 siglo → no es para tanto.Un niño prodigio, Orígenes nació cerca de Alejandría en Egipto acerca del año 185 d.C. El era el mayor de 7 hermanos, creció en un hogar cristiano aprender la Biblia y el significado de tener un compromiso. En el año 202 d.C. su padre, Leónidas, fue decapitado por la fe, en una de esas rondas regulares de persecución por funcionarios Romanos hostiles durante el reinado de Septimio Severo. El joven Orígenes de 17 años en su aflicción quería unirse a su padre como un mártir,  pero su madre le impidió salir de la casa ocultando su ropa. Así, que me imagino que él estaba dispuesto a morir en público pero no en salir desnudo para hacerlo. Me suena como un típico joven de 17 años de edad.Orígenes se dio cuenta rápidamente que tenía más que ofrecer que el martirio y fue a trabajar para sostener a su familia. Fundó una escuela de gramática, copio textos, e instruyó a los nuevos creyentes en los fundamentos de la fe. Mientras que se dedicaba a todo esto, él estudió con el filósofo pagano Amonio Saccas para poder defender mejor su fe en contra de los argumentos de los paganos hostiles.Como continuó la persecución, Orígenes sin temor visitó la prisión, asistió a sus juicios, y confortó a los condenados. Su fama se extendió y el número de sus estudiantes aumentó rápidamente. El Obispo de Alejandría en ese momento era Demetrio, con quien Orígenes tenía una relación que cambiaba entre fría y caliente. Hubo breves temporadas de buena voluntad quebrantada por períodos más largos de antagonismo entre los dos. Orígenes fue claramente el mayor intelecto y parece que Demetrio era celoso. Él le exigió a Orígenes que se limitara a enseñar a los estudiantes solamente en las cuestiones de doctrina. No se le permitió predicar.Alrededor del año 211-12 d.C., durante el reinado de Caracalla, Orígenes visitó Roma. La laxitud moral que vio de parte de funcionarios de la Iglesia lo perturbaron. Tenemos que ver, Orígenes era un asceta confirmado; comprometido con la autodisciplina y un estilo de vida austero que rechazaba cualquier cosa que diera apertura a debilitar la virtud moral. Así que al regresar a Alejandría reanudo su enseñanza con un gran celo y aumento su determinación de no seguir el ejemplo que vio en la capital.Su escuela había superado el solo tener un solo profesor y administrador. Los estudiantes claman por más instrucción, y los graduados querían mas materiales para ayudarles a estudiar la Biblia. Orígenes trajo a otros y se dedico cada vez al estudio de la Biblia y la producción de recursos de alta calidad. Aprendió Hebreo para que él pudiera entender el texto del Antiguo Testamento de forma más eficiente. Fue en ese momento, alrededor de año 212 d.C., que Orígenes se hizo amigo con un hombre rico llamado Ambrosio de Alejandría. Ambrosio había sido un gnóstico a quien Orígenes persuadió en dejar sus opiniones erróneas y convertirse en un Cristiano.Su amistad continuó durante años y en agradecimiento por la amistad de Orígenes y la preocupación por su alma, Ambrosio proporcionó varios secretarios para ayudar a transcribir los abundantes escritos de Orígenes. Un gran número de las obras de Orígenes, fueron dedicados a este amigo, Ambrosio.En el año 214 d.C., Orígenes visitó Arabia y la Tierra Santa. Al año siguiente, un levantamiento popular en Alejandría causó que el Emperador Caracalla le diera permiso a sus soldados de saquear la ciudad. Se cerraron las escuelas y todos los extranjeros fueron expulsados. Esto significo que Ambrosio tuvo que abandonar la ciudad y que Orígenes fuera con él. Se refugiaron en Cesárea, en la costa de Israel. Aunque él no era un sacerdote ordenado, los Obispos de Jerusalén y Cesárea le pidieron a Orígenes que llevara temporalmente el ministerio de la predicación en las iglesias locales.Mientras esto no era un problema en la práctica de las iglesias en Israel,  no estaba permitido por la Iglesia de Alejandría. Cuando orígenes volvió allí en el año 216 d.C., el Obispo Demetrio estaba furioso y trató de limitar el trabajo que Orígenes estaba haciendo.De su actividad durante los próxima década se sabe poco. Él probablemente se dedicaba principalmente en escribir y la instrucción de los nuevos creyentes.Orígenes entendía la amenaza que traía el Gnosticismo. También sabía que cuando el Gnosticismo finalmente desapareciera, otro error se elevaría para sustituirlo. La única manera de tratar con las olas de herejía y los desafío que seguramente vendrían, era proporcionar herramientas que los creyentes usarían para estudiar y entender la Biblia. Con tal fin le produjo la Hexapla, una forma temprana de lo que hoy conocemos como una Biblia Paralela. La Hexapla, tenía el texto original Hebreo del Antiguo Testamento, uno Griego, y la transliteración y varias otras traducciones de la Biblia en Griego. El acomodo todo en 6 columnas paralelas. Una de estas traducciones Griegas la encontró en un frasco en la ciudad de Jericó. Esta fue una tarea masiva y requirió 28 años para completar. La Hexapla obviamente se convirtió en una parte importante del desarrollo del canon del NT y ayudó a dar forma a la traducción bíblica. Lamentablemente se ha perdido. Era tan masiva que los eruditos modernos dudan que nadie la haya copiado por completo. Sabemos de su existencia porque las partes de lo que existe, y es referenciada en varios comentarios por parte de los Cristianos contemporáneos.Orígenes podría ser llamado con mucha razón el primer estudioso de la Biblia, en que el analizaba las escrituras en 3 niveles: el literal, el moral y el alegórico. Como Orígenes mismo dijo, "Porque así como el hombre consiste de cuerpo, alma y espíritu, por tanto, de la misma manera la Escritura." En realidad, Orígenes prefirió lo alegórico porque permitía interpretaciones más espirituales. Hay muchos pasajes que el consideraba imposible entenderlos literalmente.El método de interpretación alegórica de Orígenes se convirtió en el estándar para el estudio de la Biblia de la iglesia en las siguientes eras de la iglesia, y acabaría llevando a la iglesia bastante lejos por un mal camino.La principal obra de Orígenes, fue De Principiis o Sobre los Primeros Principios. Fue la primera exposición sistemática de la teología cristiana jamás escrita. Él creó una filosofía inconfundiblemente cristiana al sintetizar las tecnicas griegas  con técnicas de análisis de los textos bíblicos. Súmale a esto las 2 enormes obras de la Hexapla y De Principiis, homilías y comentarios, y está claro cómo mantuvo a 7 secretarios ocupados y causó al Padre de la Iglesia posterior, Jerónimo decir en admiración frustrada, "¿alguien ha leído todo lo que escribió Orígenes?"__________________________________________________________________________________________Mientras que lo que hemos visto hasta ahora nos hace ver a Orígenes como un cristiano bastante sólido, no estaba sin verrugas. De hecho, uno de los Concilios de la Iglesia mas tardé iría tan lejos como para etiquetar orígenes un hereje.Pero espera; como veremos más adelante, esos consejos no siempre fueron los más imparciales y justos tribunales de discernimiento. Lejos de ello!Fue Orígenes en su interpretación de las escrituras que se metió en agua caliente. Defendía la idea de que el verdadero significado de un texto no era su lectura literal directa, sino que las Escrituras tenían un significado alegórico y Ese era el propósito principal del texto. Orígenes y sus seguidores, afirmaban que encontrar la clave alegórica era el punto principal.Mientras hay cierta alegoría profunda en algunas de las Escrituras, la inmensa mayoría del texto bíblico debe entenderse literalmente. Pero aquellos que siguieron a Orígenes llevaron sus ideas de la alegoría demasiado lejos e hicieron a la alegoría el principal método interpretativo de todas las Escrituras. Esta metodología del estudio de la Biblia predomino durante cientos de años y acabó en contrarrestar la meta principal que Orígenes se había propuesto - hacer la Biblia accesible a todos los creyentes. En el método de interpretación alegórica, sólo aquellos educados en los símbolos muy a menudo esotéricos, de la Alegoría pueden acertadamente interpretar y entender la Palabra de Dios.Otra cosa que Orígenes hizo lo que tuvo un efecto negativo en la Iglesia era su fanática dedicación a la auto-negación. Orígenes estaba tan ansioso por presentarse a Dios como santo que empleaba prácticas que fueron seguramente aberrantes. Fue su fastidiosa devoción al ascetismo que alentó al movimiento monástico en las épocas posteriores. Él se negaba dormir, pasaba condiciones extremas de ayuno, e iba descalzo a todos lados.Hay un aspecto del ascetismo de Orígenes que es importante contar porque estudiantes modernos de la historia de la iglesia a menudo escuchan sólo una parte de la historia. Un informe más completo es justificada, puesto que ilustra cómo más conocimiento sobre un tema a menudo arroja una luz muy diferente sobre el cómo y el por qué de las cosas que nuestros antepasados hicieron.Así que, El gran celo por la santidad de Orígenes en su juventud e inmadurez lo movió a castrarse a sí mismo.Sí, lo has oído correctamente; él se castro - A SI MISMO! ⇒ Ouch!!!!!!!Su propósito era evitar cualquier escándalo potencial, porque en su escuela le daba instrucción a mujeres. Ahora esto es interesante, porque aunque Orígenes posteriormente desarrolló un método de interpretación alegórico, cuando era más joven, él tomó Mateo 19:12 bastante literal cuando dice; "Hay quienes se hacen eunucos por el reino de los cielos."El historiador de la iglesia primitiva, Eusebio, afirma que la auto-castración de Orígenes fue "la prueba de un corazón joven y sin experiencia, pero también de la fe y el dominio propio."Parece que Orígenes después cambio de opinión sobre su acto juvenil. En su Comentario sobre Mateo el condeno a aquellos que tomaban 19:12 literalmente, y dijo que tal acción era "indigno" Sobre esta base, los escépticos modernos sostienen que el informe de la auto-castración de Orígenes es falsa. Pero Orígenes sigue en sus escritos explicando los problemas físicos que resultan de la castración en una forma que sugiere una experiencia personal.__________________________________________________________________________________________Esto no es todo lo que le causo a Orígenes problemas más adelante con los líderes de la iglesia. Mientras que algunos de sus escritos eran seguramente hipotéticos, Orígenes enseñaba sobre la preexistencia del alma; que el espíritu de una persona existía antes de la concepción, y que todos los espíritus habían caído en pecado antes de nacer. Además, el decía que estos espíritus pecadores fueron esclavizados en cuerpos proporción a la gravedad de los pecados que cometieron. Así que algunos se convirtieron en demonios, algunos hombres, y algunos ángeles. También creía que todos los espíritus se podían salvar, incluso Satanás.Pero lo que dio a Orígenes el mas grande problema doctrinal fue su descripción de la Trinidad. El decía que era una jerarquía donde el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu NO eran iguales. Aunque él ataco las creencias Gnósticas, al igual que ellos, el rechazo la bondad de la creación material.Tres siglos después de su muerte, el Concilio de Constantinopla pronuncio que Orígenes era un hereje. Pero trata de guardar esta información para que la veamos más tarde, porque vamos a pasar un poco de tiempo en este tema de la iglesia y los debates sobre la trinidad y la naturaleza de Cristo en los próximos episodios. El siglo 4° y 5° fue dominado por estos debates y mientras la cuestión ya está en gran medida resuelta hoy para nosotros, deberíamos tener una mejor apreciación de la agonía, que la iglesia soportó durante 200 años mientras los ancianos de la Iglesia trataron de resolver todo esto.La pregunta es: ¿Orígenes realmente pensaba que el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu no eran iguales, haciéndolo un auténtico hereje? O refiriéndose a ellos como una jerarquía, estaba hablando de su sumisión entra cada uno de ellos en la matriz relacional de la Trinidad?Y allí esta el problema. Para poder responder a esto, necesitamos saber lo qué Orígenes y los escritores posteriores entiendan por las PALABRAS que utilizaban para describir lo que ellos creían. Y eso no siempre es una tarea fácil, especialmente cuando alguien como Orígenes no sabia o entendía los argumentos y debates y el furor que surgirian  2 y 300 años más tarde.Ahora, muchos estudiosos sostienen que Orígenes estaba simplemente tratando de encuadrar la Fe en las ideas de su día. Pero después del Concilio de Constantinopla, sus obras fueron reprimidas; muchas de ellas fueron recogidas y quemadas, haciendo difícil una evaluación moderna.Contra Celso de Orígenes es una de las mejores defensas del Cristianismo producida en la iglesia primitiva. Responde a la acusación de que los Cristianos, por negarse a cumplir el servicio militar, fallan la prueba de ser buenos ciudadanos, escribe, "somos nosotros quienes por nuestras oraciones destruimos todos los demonios que provocan guerras, violan juramentos, y perturbar la paz, somos de más ayuda a los emperadores que aquellos que parecen estar luchando las batallas".Las autoridades no estuvieron convencidos. En el año 250 d.C. el emperador Decio encarcelo y torturo a Orígenes. Lo mantuvieron vivo deliberadamente en la esperanza de que él renunciara a su fe. Pero Decio murió primero y Orígenes fue puesto en libertad. Su salud quebrantada, murió poco después de su liberación.