Origen Quotes
If all things were made through Him, clearly so must the splendid revelations have been which were made to the fathers and prophets, and became to them the symbols of the sacred mysteries of religion.
Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of John. Translated by Allan Menzies, Christian Literature Publishing, 1897.
Although a conservative, he had a great tolerance for and understanding of other points of view. For this some people thought him a radical.
This view was infuriating to the Rabbis, Priests and Immams of the time. Miracles and Scrip[ture were not determinatve Spinoza taught but the issue was did the docrine of the religion make sense. Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
In 1877 Wasburn was dropped from the List of Ministers by the Unitarian Church. He had become very critical of organized and orthodox religion of all kinds.
Al-Maarri’s quotations are not only meaningful in their own right, but they illustrate the openness and free thinking that was allowed in the early days of Islam before about 1100. If anyone wrote such things today in most Islamic countries he would at least be jailed if not executed for blasphemy. And if any Christian in Europe made the same statement, he would have been excommunicated at least if not tortured and murdered.
Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
