Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.

 Book I.

 Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John.

 2. The 144,000 Sealed in the Apocalypse are Converts to Christ from the Gentile World.

 3. In the Spiritual Israel the High-Priests are Those Who Devote Themselves to the Study of Scripture.

 4. The Study of the Gospels is the First Fruits Offered by These Priests of Christianity.

 5. All Scripture is Gospel But the Gospels are Distinguished Above Other Scriptures.

 6. The Fourfold Gospel. John’s the First Fruits of the Four. Qualifications Necessary for Interpreting It.

 7. What Good Things are Announced in the Gospels.

 8. How the Gospels Cause the Other Books of Scripture Also to Be Gospel.

 9. The Somatic and the Spiritual Gospel.

 10. How Jesus Himself is the Gospel.

 11. Jesus is All Good Things Hence the Gospel is Manifold.

 12. The Gospel Contains the Ill Deeds Also Which Were Done to Jesus.

 13. The Angels Also are Evangelists.

 14. The Old Testament, Typified by John, is the Beginning of the Gospel.

 15. The Gospel is in the Old Testament, and Indeed in the Whole Universe. Prayer for Aid to Understand the Mystical Sense of the Work in Hand.

 16. Meaning of “Beginning.” (1) in Space.

 17. (2) in Time. The Beginning of Creation.

 18. (3) of Substance.

 19. (4) of Type and Copy.

 20. (5) of Elements and What is Formed from Them.

 21. (6) of Design and Execution.

 22. The Word Was in the Beginning, I.e., in Wisdom, Which Contained All Things in Idea, Before They Existed. Christ’s Character as Wisdom is Prior to

 23. The Title “Word” Is to Be Interpreted by the Same Method as the Other Titles of Christ. The Word of God is Not a Mere Attribute of God, But a Sepa

 24. Christ as Light How He, and How His Disciples are the Light of the World.

 25. Christ as the Resurrection.

 26. Christ as the Way.

 27. Christ as the Truth.

 28. Christ as Life.

 29. Christ as the Door and as the Shepherd.

 30. Christ as Anointed (Christ) and as King.

 31. Christ as Teacher and Master.

 32. Christ as Son.

 33. Christ the True Vine, and as Bread.

 34. Christ as the First and the Last He is Also What Lies Between These.

 35. Christ as the Living and the Dead.

 36. Christ as a Sword.

 37. Christ as a Servant, as the Lamb of God, and as the Man Whom John Did Not Know.

 38. Christ as Paraclete, as Propitiation, and as the Power of God.

 39. Christ as Wisdom and Sanctification and Redemption.

 40. Christ as Righteousness As the Demiurge, the Agent of the Good God, and as High-Priest.

 41. Christ as the Rod, the Flower, the Stone.

 42. Of the Various Ways in Which Christ is the Logos.

 Book II.

 Book II.

 2. In What Way the Logos is God. Errors to Be Avoided on This Question.

 3. Various Relations of the Logos to Men.

 4. That the Logos is One, Not Many. Of the Word, Faithful and True, and of His White Horse.

 5. He (This One) Was in the Beginning with God.

 6. How the Word is the Maker of All Things, and Even the Holy Spirit Was Made Through Him.

 7. Of Things Not Made Through the Logos.

 8. Heracleon’s View that the Logos is Not the Agent of Creation.

 9. That the Logos Present in Us is Not Responsible for Our Sins.

 10. “That Which Was Made Was Life in Him, and the Life Was the Light of Men.” This Involves the Paradox that What Does Not Derive Life from the Logos

 11. How No One is Righteous or Can Truly Be Said to Live in Comparison with God.

 12. Is the Saviour All that He Is, to All?

 13. How the Life in the Logos Comes After the Beginning.

 14. How the Natures of Men are Not So Fixed from the First, But that They May Pass from Darkness to Light.

 15. Heracleon’s View that the Lord Brought Life Only to the Spiritual. Refutation of This.

 16. The Life May Be the Light of Others Besides.

 17. The Higher Powers are Men And Christ is Their Light Also.

 18. How God Also is Light, But in a Different Way And How Life Came Before Light.

 19. The Life Here Spoken of is the Higher Life, that of Reason.

 20. Different Kinds of Light And of Darkness.

 21. Christ is Not, Like God, Quite Free from Darkness: Since He Bore Our Sins.

 22. How the Darkness Failed to Overtake the Light.

 23. There is a Divine Darkness Which is Not Evil, and Which Ultimately Becomes Light.

 24. John the Baptist Was Sent. From Where? His Soul Was Sent from a Higher Region.

 25. Argument from the Prayer of Joseph, to Show that the Baptist May Have Been an Angel Who Became a Man.

 26. John is Voice, Jesus is Speech. Relation of These Two to Each Other.

 27. Significance of the Names of John and of His Parents.

 28. The Prophets Bore Witness to Christ and Foretold Many Things Concerning Him.

 29. The Six Testimonies of the Baptist Enumerated. Jesus’ “Come and See.” Significance of the Tenth Hour.

 30. How John Was a Witness of Christ, and Specially of “The Light.”

 1. He who distinguishes in himself voice and meaning and things for which the meaning stands, will not be offended at rudeness of language if, on enqu

 From the Fifth Book.

 From the Fifth Book.

 2. How Scripture Warns Us Against Making Many Books.

 But he who was made fit to be a minister of the New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit, Paul, who fulfilled the Gospel from Jerusalem roun

 4. I feel myself growing dizzy with all this, and wonder whether, in obeying you, I have not been obeying God, nor walking in the footsteps of the sai

 Book VI.

 Sixth Book.

 2. How the Prophets and Holy Men of the Old Testament Knew the Things of Christ.

 3. “Grace and Truth Came Through Jesus Christ.” These Words Belong to the Baptist, Not the Evangelist. What the Baptist Testifies by Them.

 4. John Denies that He is Elijah or “The” Prophet. Yet He Was “A” Prophet.

 5. There Were Two Embassies to John the Baptist The Different Characters of These.

 6. Messianic Discussion with John the Baptist.

 7. Of the Birth of John, and of His Alleged Identity with Elijah. Of the Doctrine of Transcorporation.

 8. John is a Prophet, But Not the Prophet.

 9. John I. 22.

 10. Of the Voice John the Baptist is.

 11. Of the Way of the Lord, How It is Narrow, and How Jesus is the Way.

 12. Heracleon’s View of the Voice, and of John the Baptist.

 13. John I. 24, 25. Of the Baptism of John, that of Elijah, and that of Christ.

 14. Comparison of the Statements of the Four Evangelists Respecting John the Baptist, the Prophecies Regarding Him, His Addresses to the Multitude and

 15. How the Baptist Answers the Question of the Pharisees and Exalts the Nature of Christ. Of the Shoe-Latchet Which He is Unable to Untie.

 16. Comparison of John’s Testimony to Jesus in the Different Gospels.

 17. Of the Testimony of John to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel,

 18. Of the Testimony in Mark. What is Meant by the Saviour’s Shoes and by Untying His Shoe-Latchets.

 19. Luke and John Suggest that One May Loose the Shoe-Latchets of the Logos Without Stooping Down.

 20. The Difference Between Not Being “Sufficient” And Not Being “Worthy.”

 21. The Fourth Gospel Speaks of Only One Shoe, the Others of Both. The Significance of This.

 22. How the Word Stands in the Midst of Men Without Being Known of Them.

 23. Heracleon’s View of This Utterance of John the Baptist, and Interpretation of the Shoe of Jesus.

 24. The Name of the Place Where John Baptized is Not Bethany, as in Most Copies, But Bethabara. Proof of This. Similarly “Gergesa” Should Be Read for

 25. Jordan Means “Their Going Down.” Spiritual Meanings and Application of This.

 26. The Story of Israel Crossing Jordan Under Joshua is Typical of Christian Things, and is Written for Our Instruction.

 27. Of Elijah and Elisha Crossing the Jordan.

 28. Naaman the Syrian and the Jordan. No Other Stream Has the Same Healing Power.

 29. The River of Egypt and Its Dragon, Contrasted with the Jordan.

 30. Of What John Learned from Jesus When Mary Visited Elisabeth in the Hill Country.

 31. Of the Conversation Between John and Jesus at the Baptism, Recorded by Matthew Only.

 32. John Calls Jesus a “Lamb.” Why Does He Name This Animal Specially? Of the Typology of the Sacrifices, Generally.

 33. A Lamb Was Offered at the Morning and Evening Sacrifice. Significance of This.

 34. The Morning and Evening Sacrifices of the Saint in His Life of Thought.

 35. Jesus is a Lamb in Respect of His Human Nature.

 36. Of the Death of the Martyrs Considered as a Sacrifice, and in What Way It Operates to the Benefit of Others.

 37. Of the Effects of the Death of Christ, of His Triumph After It, and of the Removal by His Death of the Sins of Men.

 38. The World, of Which the Sin is Taken Away, is Said to Be the Church. Reasons for Not Agreeing with This Opinion.

 Book X.

 Tenth Book.

 2. The Discrepancy Between John and the First Three Gospels at This Part of the Narrative, Literally Read, the Narratives Cannot Be Harmonized: They M

 3. What We are to Think of the Discrepancies Between the Different Gospels.

 4. Scripture Contains Many Contradictions, and Many Statements Which are Not Literally True, But Must Be Read Spiritually and Mystically.

 5. Paul Also Makes Contradictory Statements About Himself, and Acts in Opposite Ways at Different Times.

 6. Different Accounts of the Call of Peter, and of the Imprisonment of the Baptist. The Meaning of “Capernaum.”

 7. Why His Brothers are Not Called to the Wedding And Why He Abides at Capernaum Not Many Days.

 8. How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age, and Whether He Abides with Them After that Consummation.

 9. Heracleon Says that Jesus is Not Stated to Have Done Anything at Capernaum. But in the Other Gospels He Does Many Things There.

 10. Significance of Capernaum.

 11. Why the Passover is Said to Be that of the “Jews.” Its Institution: and the Distinction Between “Feasts of the Lord” And Feasts Not So Spoken of.

 12. Of the Heavenly Festivals, of Which Those on Earth are Typical.

 13. Spiritual Meaning of the Passover.

 14. In the First Three Gospels the Passover is Spoken of Only at the Close of the Ministry In John at the Beginning. Remarks on This. Heracleon on th

 15. Discrepancy of the Gospel Narratives Connected with the Cleansing of the Temple.

 16. The Story of the Purging of the Temple Spiritualized. Taken Literally, It Presents Some Very Difficult and Unlikely Features.

 17. Matthew’s Story of the Entry into Jerusalem. Difficulties Involved in It for Those Who Take It Literally.

 18. The Ass and the Colt are the Old and the New Testament. Spiritual Meaning of the Various Features of the Story. Differences Between John’s Narrati

 19. Various Views of Heracleon on Purging of the Temple.

 20. The Temple Which Christ Says He Will Raise Up is the Church. How the Dry Bones Will Be Made to Live Again.

 21. That the Son Was Raised Up by the Father. The Charge Brought Against Jesus at His Trial Was Based on the Incident Now Before Us.

 22. The Temple of Solomon Did Not Take Forty-Six Years to Build. With Regard to that of Ezra We Cannot Tell How Long It Took. Significance of the Numb

 23. The Temple Spoken of by Christ is the Church. Application to the Church of the Statements Regarding the Building of Solomon’s Temple, and the Numb

 24. The Account of the Building of Solomon’s Temple Contains Serious Difficulties and is to Be Interpreted Spiritually.

 25. Further Spiritualizing of Solomon’s Temple-Building.

 26. The Promises Addressed to Jerusalem in the Prophets Refer to the Church, and are Still to Be Fulfilled.

 27. Of the Belief the Disciples Afterwards Attained in the Words of Jesus.

 28. The Difference Between Believing in the Name of Jesus and Believing in Jesus Himself.

 29. About What Beings Jesus Needed Testimony.

 30. How Jesus Knew the Powers, Better or Worse, Which Reside in Man.

From the Fifth Book.

From the Preface.327 2 Cor. v. 19. From the Philocalia.

You are not content to fulfil the office, when I am present with you, of a taskmaster to drive me to labour at theology; even when I am absent you demand that I should spend most of my time on you and on the task I have to do for you.328 John i. 29. This is addressed to Ambrose, who was at the time absent from Alexandria. Cf. book i. chap. 6, p. 299. I, for my part, am inclined to shrink from toil, and to avoid that danger which threatens from God those who give themselves to writing on divinity; thus I would take shelter in Scripture in refraining from making many books. For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes,329 Ambrosius. xii. 12. “My son, beware of making many books; there is no end of it, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” For we, except that text have some hidden meaning which we do not yet perceive, have directly transgressed the injunction, we have not guarded ourselves against making many books.

[Then, after saying that this discussion of but a few sentences of the Gospel have run to four volumes, he goes on:]