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Translated by Allan Menzies.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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128 Pages
Page 56
For no one knows the Father save the Son, [4650] and he to whomsoever the Son reveals Him, and inasmuch as He is the Word He is the Messenger of Great Counsel, [4651] who has the government upon His shoulders; for He entered on His kingdom by enduring the cross. In the Apocalypse, [4652] moreover, the Faithful and True (the Word), is said to sit on a white horse, the epithets indicating, I consider, the clearness of the voice with which the Word of truth speaks to us when He sojourns among us. This is scarcely the place to show how the word "horse" is often used in passages spoken for our encouragement in sacred learning. I only cite two of these: "A horse is deceitful for safety," [4653] and "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will rejoice in the name of the Lord our God." [4654] Nor must we leave unnoticed a passage in the forty-fourth Psalm, [4655] frequently quoted by many writers as if they understood it: "My heart hath belched forth a good word, I speak my works to the King." Suppose it is God the Father who speaks thus; what is His heart, that the good word should appear in accordance with His heart? If, as these writers suppose, the Word (Logos) needs no interpretation, then the heart is to be taken in the natural sense too. But it is quite absurd to suppose God's heart to be a part of Him as ours is of our body. We must remind such writers that as when the hand of God is spoken of, and His arm and His finger, we do not read the words literally but enquire in what sound sense we may take them so as to be worthy of God, so His heart is to be understood of His rational power, by which He disposes all things, and His word of that which announces what is in this heart of His. But who is it that announces the counsel of the Father to those of His creatures who are worthy and who have risen above themselves, who but the Saviour? That "belched forth" is not, perhaps, without significance; a hundred other terms might have been employed; "My heart has produced a good word," it might have been said, or "My heart has spoken a good word." But in belching, some wind that was hidden makes its way out to the world, and so it may be that the Father gives out views of truth not continuously, but as it were after the fashion of belching, and the word has the character of the things thus produced, and is called, therefore, the image of the invisible God.
[4650] Matt. xi. 27.
[4651] Isa. ix. 5, 6.
[4652] xix. 11.
[4653] Ps. xxxiii. 17.
[4654] Ps. xx. 7.
[4655] Ps. xlv. 1.
Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/john-commentary.asp?pg=56
