Origen, COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, Part II, Complete

Translated by Allan Menzies.

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This Part: 132 Pages

Page 66

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

The reader will do well to consider what was said above and illustrated from various quarters on the question what is meant in Scripture by the word "world"; and I think it proper to repeat this. I am aware that a certain scholar understands by the world the Church alone, since the Church is the adornment of the world, [4983] and is said to be the light of the world. "You," he says, [4984] "are the light of the world." Now, the adornment of the world is the Church, Christ being her adornment, who is the first light of the world. We must consider if Christ is said to be the light of the same world as His disciples. When Christ is the light of the world, perhaps it is meant that He is the light of the Church, but when His disciples are the light of the world, perhaps they are the light of others who call on the Lord, others in addition to the Church, as Paul says on this point in the beginning of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, where he writes, "To the Church of God, with all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Should any one consider that the Church is called the light of the world, meaning thereby of the rest of the race of men, including unbelievers, this may be true if the assertion is taken prophetically and theologically; but if it is to be taken of the present, we remind him that the light of a thing illuminates that thing, and would ask him to show how the remainder of the race is illuminated by the Church's presence in the world. If those who hold the view in question cannot show this, then let them consider if our interpretation is not a sound one, that the light is the Church, and the world those others who call on the Name. The words which follow the above in Matthew will point out to the careful enquirer the proper interpretation.

[4983] kosmos means both "ornament" and "world."

[4984] Matt. v. 14.

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