Origen's Commentary on John
Book 10

(ca. 240 C.E.)

The section headings and translations are those of Heine (Ronald E. Heine, trans., Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1–10 [Washington: Catholic University Press of America, 1989]).

Introduction and Descent to Capharnaum (pars. 1–9)

Summary: In these paragraphs, Origen talks about the order of events in John 2:12–25, as well as what comes before and after them, and how they do not agree with the Synoptic Gospels.  Origen's analysis is so detailed that one could lose sight of what is most obvious: John recounts an early trip to Jerusalem during which Jesus cleanses the Temple, while the Synoptics do not recount such a trip until the very end of his ministry.  Origen will later rightly conclude that there are many such irreconcilable factual differences between the Gospels.  This fact leads him into important reflections about the purposes of the Gospel writers.

Necessity of Spiritual Sense for Resolving Contradictions of the Gospels (pars. 10–14)

"(10) [We must, however, set before the reader] that the truth of these accounts lies in the spiritual meanings, [because] if the discrepancy is not solved, [many] dismiss credence in the Gospels as not true, or not written by a divine spirit, or not successfully recorded.  . . . (14) On the basis of numerous other passages also, if someone should examine the Gospels carefully to check the disagreement so far as the historical sense is concerned—we shall attempt to show this disagreement in individual cases as we are able—, he would grow dizzy, and would either shrink from really confirming the Gospels, and would agree with one of them at random because he would not dare reject completely the faith related to our Lord, or, he would admit that there are four [and would say] that their truth is not in their literal features."

Parable for the Different Narrators (15–17)

Summary: In these paragraphs, Origen sets forth a convoluted analogy to illustrate the Evangelists' intentions in writing their Gospels.  A good writing teacher would have made Origen revise this entire section.  However, what he wants to say is fairly clear.  The Gospel writers are like four different narrators who "in the Spirit," see God and receive revelations from him simultaneously.  Origen thinks the very fact that God is God and can do things like appear to people simultaneously and give them different revelations should be a clue to the nature of these books.  The bottom line is that anyone who wants to read such narratives as "history" and evaluate their truthfulness by how much they agree "historically" has missed the point.  The agreement is to be found in the meaning, not the factual details.  Origen spells out his point more fully in the next section. 

Spiritual Nature of the Contents of the Gospels (18–20)

"(18) In the case of these four narrators, therefore, whom I have assumed, who wanted to teach us by a type [i.e., an example] the things they had seen in their mind, if they should be wise, the meaning  of their historical accounts would be found to be harmonious once it was understood [emphasis mine].  We must conceive that it is this way also in the case of the four evangelists who made full use of many things done and said in accordance with the prodigious and incredible power of Jesus.  In some places they have interwoven in Scripture something made clear to them in a purely intellectual manner, with language as though it were something perceptible to the senses.

(19) But I do not condemn them, I suppose, the fact that they have also made some minor changes in what happened so far as history is concerned, with a view to the usefulness of the mystical object of [those matters].  Consequently, they have related what happened in [this] place as though it happened in another, or what happened at this time as though at another time, and they have composed what is reported in this matter with a certain degree of distortion.

(20) For their intention was to speak the truth spiritually and materially at the same time where that was possible but, where it was not possible in both ways, to prefer the spiritual to the material.  The spiritual truth is often preserved in the material falsehood, so to speak [emphasis mine]."

Origen goes on to discuss several other cases of literal disagreement but spiritual agreement in the Bible.  Click here to see the entirety of book 10.