Origen, COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN Complete

Translated by Allan Menzies.

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128 Pages

Page 103

It is likely that this was really said by Jacob, and was therefore written down, and that there is also a deeper meaning in what we are told, "He supplanted his brother in the womb." Consider whether the celebrated question about Jacob and Esau has a solution. We read, [4757] "The children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth, it was said, "The elder shall serve the younger." Even as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What shall we say, then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." If, then, when they were not yet born, and had not done anything either good or evil, in order that God's purpose according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, if at such a period this was said, how if we do not go back to the works done before this life, can it be said that there is no unrighteousness with God when the elder serves the younger and is hated (by God) before he has done anything worthy of slavery or of hatred? We have made something of a digression in introducing this story about Jacob and appealing to a writing which we cannot well treat with contempt; but it certainly adds weight to our argument about John, to the effect that as Isaiah's voice declares [4758] he is an angel who assumed a body for the sake of bearing witness to the light. So much about John considered as a man.

[4757] Rom. ix. 11-14.

[4758] Isa. xl. 3.

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