Origen of Alexandria : It is written in the prophet, speaking in the person of the Lord: "and in the hands of the prophets I was made like." This saying indicates that, although our Lord Jesus Christ is one according to his substance and is nothing other than the Son of God, nevertheless in the figures and forms of the Scriptures he is displayed as varied and diverse. For example, as I recall we set forth in earlier passages that he himself was in the type of Isaac, when he was being offered for a holocaust, yet he himself also held the form of the ram. I say further that he is also displayed in the angel who spoke to Abraham and says to him: "do not lay your hand upon the boy" — since again he says to him: "because you have done this thing, in blessing I will bless you." He is called the sheep or the lamb that is sacrificed at the Passover, and he himself is signified as the shepherd of the sheep; and the high priest who offers the sacrifice is nonetheless described as he himself. He is named the bridegroom, inasmuch as he is the Word of God, and again, inasmuch as he is wisdom, he himself is named the bride; as the prophet also says in his person: "as on a bridegroom he set a mitre upon me, and as a bride he adorned me with ornament," and many other things, which it would be long to pursue for now. Just as, therefore, the Lord himself, according to place and time, accommodates the form of himself to each and every occasion, so also the saints, who bore his type, are to be believed to have enacted the figures of mysteries according to places and times and occasions; as we now also see happening in Isaac, concerning whom it has been read to us: "he went up," it says, "from there to the well of the oath, and the Lord appeared to him that night, and said: I am the God of Abraham your father, fear not. For I am with you, and I will bless you, and I will multiply your seed on account of Abraham your father." The Apostle Paul has set forth for us two figures of this Isaac: one, by which he said that Ishmael indeed, the son of Hagar, held the form of the people according to the flesh, but Isaac the form of the people which is from faith; the other, by which he says: "he did not say: and to seeds, as in many, but: to your seed, as in one, which is Christ." Isaac therefore holds both the figure of the people and of Christ. But that Christ, inasmuch as he is the Word of God, speaks not only in the Gospels but also in the Law and the Prophets, is certain. Yet in the Law he teaches those beginning, in the Gospels those who are perfect. And so Isaac now holds the form of the Word which is in the Law or the Prophets. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 14.1 Origen of Alexandria : "Isaac therefore went up to the well of the oath, and the Lord appeared to him." The going up of the Law we have said even before to be the ornament of the temple and of those divine services which were performed there. The increase of the prophets too can be named a going up of the Law; and for that reason perhaps he is said to have gone up to the well of the oath and there the Lord to have appeared to him. For through the prophets "the Lord swore, and will not repent, that he himself is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." "At the well" therefore "of the oath" God was seen by him, confirming the promises to come upon him. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 14.2