His name is Origen (185-254).
He was an early Christian scholar, theologian, and one of the most distinguished of the early fathers of the Christian Church. He taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement had taught. The patriarch of Alexandria at first supported Origen but later expelled him for being ordained without the patriarch’s permission. He relocated to Caesarea Maritima and died there after being tortured during a persecution.
His writings are important as one of the first intellectual attempts to describe Christianity. He espoused a Platonic view of eternal souls achieving perfection while escaping the temporary, imperfect material world. But this is what he wrote in his work “On First Principles” that I wanted to convey.
“Very many mistakes have been amde because the right method of examining the holy texts has not been discovered by the great number of readers…becasue of their habit of following the bare letter.”
In other words, because of the literal approach to interpreting ALL the Scriptures. He followed that up with these words.
“Scriptures interweaves the imaginary with the historical, sometimes introducing what is utterly impossible sometimes what is possible but never occurred.”
We are in desperate need of more Origens today who will use common sense and the Spirit of God to help us discern and interpret what the early Fathers gave us as canon to follow.
Agree?
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