Origen, COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN Complete

Translated by Allan Menzies.

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128 Pages

Page 81

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

One point more on the words: "Without Him was not anything made." The question about evil must receive adequate discussion; what was said of it has not, it is true, a very likely appearance, and yet it appears to me that it ought not to be simply overlooked. The question is whether evil, also, was made through the Logos, taking the Logos, now be it well noted, in the sense of that reason which is in every one, as thus brought into being by the reason which was from the beginning. The Apostle says: [4698] "Without the law sin was dead," and adds, "But when the commandment came sin revived," and so teaches generally about sin that it has no power before the law and the commandment (but the Logos is, in a sense, law and commandment), and there would be no sin were there no law, for, [4699] "sin is not imputed where there is no law." And, again, there would be no sin but for the Logos, for "if I had not come and spoken unto them," Christ says, [4700] "they had not had sin." For every excuse is taken away from one who wants to make excuse for his sin, if, though the Word is in him and shows him what he ought to do, he does not obey it. It seems, then, that all things, the worse things not excepted, were made by the Logos, and without Him, taking the nothing here in its simpler sense, was nothing made. Nor must we blame the Logos if all things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made, any more than we blame the master who has showed the pupil his duty, when the instruction has been such as to leave the pupil, should he sin, no excuse or room to say that he erred through ignorance. This appears the more plainly when we consider that master and pupil are inseparable. For as master and pupil are correlatives, and belong together, so the Logos is present in the nature of reasonable beings as such, always suggesting what they ought to do, even should we pay no heed to his commands, but devote ourselves to pleasure and allow his best counsels to pass by us unregarded.

[4698] Rom. vii. 8, 9.

[4699] Rom. v. 13.

[4700] John xv. 22.

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