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Translated by Allan Menzies.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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This Part: 132 Pages
Page 44
In understanding the world by his shoe, Heracleon shows some largeness of mind, but immediately after he verges on impiety in declaring that all this is to be understood of that person whom John here has in his mind. For he considers that it is the demiurge of the world who confesses by these words that he is a lesser person than the Christ; and this is the height of impiety. For the Father who sent Him, He who is the God of the living as Jesus Himself testifies, of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, and He who is greater than heaven and earth for the reason that He is the Maker of them, He also alone is good and is greater than He who was sent by Him. And even if, as we said, Heracleon's idea was a lofty one, that the whole world was the shoe of Jesus, yet I think we ought not to agree with him. For how can it be harmonized with such a view, that "Heaven is My throne and the earth My footstool," a testimony which Jesus accepts as said of the Father? [4919] "Swear not by heaven," He says, "for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet." How, if he takes the whole world to be the shoe of Jesus, can he also accept the text, [4920] "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" saith the Lord. It is also worth while to enquire, whether as the Word and wisdom permeated the whole world, and as the Father was in the Son, the words are to be understood as above or in this way, that He who first of all was girded about with the whole creation, in addition to the Son's being in Him, granted to the Saviour, as being second after Him and being God the Word, to pervade the whole creation. To those who have it in them to take note of the uninterrupted movement of the great heaven, how it carries with it from East to West so great a multitude of stars, to them most of all it will seem needful to enquire what that force is, how great and of what nature, which is present in the whole world. For to pronounce that force to be other than the Father and the Son, that perhaps might be inconsistent with piety.
[4919] Matt. v. 34, 35.
[4920] Jer. xxiii. 24.
Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/john-commentary-2.asp?pg=44
