{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p class=\"c006\">Now let us hear what it is that he invites us to learn, that we\r\nmay ascertain from him how we are to know God, although he\r\nthinks that his words are beyond the capacity of all Christians.\r\n“Let them hear,” says he, “if they are able to do so.” We\r\nhave then to consider what the philosopher wishes us to hear\r\nfrom him. But instead of instructing us as he ought, he abuses\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_461\">461</span>us; and while he should have shown his goodwill to those\r\nwhom he addresses at the outset of his discourse, he stigmatizes\r\nas “a cowardly race” men who would rather die than abjure\r\nChristianity even by a word, and who are ready to suffer every\r\nform of torture, or any kind of death. He also applies to us\r\nthe epithet “carnal” or “flesh-indulging,” “although,” as we\r\nare wont to say, “we have known Christ after the flesh, yet\r\nnow henceforth we know Him no more,”<a id=\"r1504\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1504\"><sup>[1504]</sup></a> and although we are\r\nso ready to lay down our lives for the cause of religion, that no\r\nphilosopher could lay aside his robes more readily. He then addresses\r\nto us these words: “If, instead of exercising your senses,\r\nyou look upwards with the soul; if, turning away the eye of the\r\nbody, you open the eye of the mind, thus and thus only you\r\nwill be able to see God.” He is not aware that this reference\r\nto the two eyes, the eye of the body and the eye of the mind,\r\nwhich he has borrowed from the Greeks, was in use among our\r\nown writers; for Moses, in his account of the creation of the\r\nworld, introduces man before his transgression as both seeing\r\nand not seeing: seeing, when it is said of the woman, “The\r\nwoman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was\r\npleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise;”<a id=\"r1505\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1505\"><sup>[1505]</sup></a>\r\nand again not seeing, as when he introduces the serpent saying\r\nto the woman, as if she and her husband had been blind, “God\r\nknows that on the day that ye eat thereof your eyes shall be\r\nopened;”<a id=\"r1506\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1506\"><sup>[1506]</sup></a> and also when it is said, “They did eat, and the eyes\r\nof both of them were opened.”<a id=\"r1507\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1507\"><sup>[1507]</sup></a> The eyes of sense were then\r\nopened, which they had done well to keep shut, that they might\r\nnot be distracted, and hindered from seeing with the eyes of the\r\nmind; and it was those eyes of the mind which in consequence\r\nof sin, as I imagine, were then closed, with which they had up to\r\nthat time enjoyed the delight of beholding God and His paradise.\r\nThis twofold kind of vision in us was familiar to our Saviour,\r\nwho says, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they\r\nwhich see not might see, and that they which see might be\r\nmade blind,”<a id=\"r1508\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1508\"><sup>[1508]</sup></a>—meaning by the eyes that see not the eyes of the\r\nmind, which are enlightened by His teaching; and the eyes\r\nwhich see are the eyes of sense, which His words do render blind,\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_462\">462</span>in order that the soul may look without distraction upon proper\r\nobjects. All true Christians therefore have the eye of the\r\nmind sharpened, and the eye of sense closed; so that each one,\r\naccording to the degree in which his better eye is quickened,\r\nand the eye of sense darkened, sees and knows the Supreme\r\nGod, and His Son, who is the Word, Wisdom, and so forth.</p>","headings":["The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2","BOOK VII.","Chapter XXXIX."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg70693-paragraph-516"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"095906af5c5d9e7ec0fa5a6ebe832746054049b9baf1d156450dccf344b078dd","edition_title":"The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 (of 2)","edition_translators":["Frederick Crombie","W. H. Cairns"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"JHN","chapter":9,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"John ix. 39","verse":39,"verse_end":39}],"headings":[],"id":"pg70693-f1508","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Project Gutenberg metadata: Public domain in the USA. Existing 1872 English edition; listed translators died 1889 and 1872. Electronic transcription subject to Project Gutenberg reuse terms.","source_anchor":"f1508","source_ebook":70693,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\" id=\"f1508\">\n<p class=\"c007\"><span class=\"label\"><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#r1508\">1508</a>. </span>John <abbr title=\"nine\">ix.</abbr> 39.</p>\n</div>","source_sha256":"76ed9a9fd752c1d5095189e38fe3dcbbea0fd23d6be719db17360e4da14552fa","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70693/pg70693-images.html#f1508","text_sha256":"6ccc53a16fc27f76ed53249ba3fcfe250d487d421b6a53e53eb6b465a20b40c1","verified":false,"work_id":null}