On First Principles (De Principiis) · 24 of 25

Book IV, Chapter I: That the Scriptures Are Divinely Inspired

THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE DIVINELY INSPIRED.

1. But as it is not sufficient, in the discussion of matters of such importance, to entrust the decision to the human senses and to the human understanding, and to pronounce on things invisible as if they were seen by us,’ we must, in order to

Context

We have arrived at Book IV. Origen has spent the previous three books building a theology of God, of the rational creature, and of the moral life, all by reasoned argument from accepted premises. Now he turns to the question that quietly underwrites every premise he has used: why should anyone trust these particular books in the first place? Book IV.I is the answer. It is the first systematic Christian treatise on biblical interpretation — written around 225, roughly a century and a half before Augustine, and over a thousand years before Aquinas's questions on the senses of Scripture in Summa I.1. Almost everything Western Christianity will later say about how to read the Bible begins from arguments worked out in the chapter you are about to read.On dating, see Henri Crouzel, Origen, and the introduction to John Behr's edition of On First Principles (Oxford 2017).

1 Visibiliter de invisibilibus pronunciare.

TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK.