Origen of Alexandria

In his own words on 2 Timothy

• 2 Timothy 1:3

  We grant that there are some among us who may deny that the God of the Jews is truly God. Yet that is no reason to criticize those who prove from the same Scriptures that there is one and the same God for Jews and Gentiles. So also Paul, who came to Christianity from the Jews, says clearly, "I thank my God whom I serve from my forefathers in a pure conscience."

  AGAINST CELSUS 5.61

• 2 Timothy 2:3

  The true soldiers of Christ must, in every way, form a fortification for truth and nowhere permit an opening for persuasive falsehood, so far as they are able.

  Commentary on John 6.32

• 2 Timothy 2:4

  If you have understood how either an animal or a vessel or a garment is called holy, understand too that a person is also called holy by these observances and laws. For if anyone should devote himself to God, if anyone should not entangle himself in secular affairs, "in order to please him who appointed him," if anyone was separated and set apart from the rest of men who live carnally and are bound with mundane affairs and does not seek things which are upon the earth but which are in heaven, that person is deservedly called holy.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 11.1

• 2 Timothy 2:5

  We who are concerned with the business of our Creator will live according to the laws of God. We have no desire to serve the laws of sin.… If necessary, we will also partake of the joys of this life and endure the appointed evils as trials of the soul.… In them the soul of the man who is being tested, like gold in the fire, is either convicted of failure or is manifested as reliable.… Moreover, no one is crowned unless he strives lawfully even here upon earth with the body of humiliation.

  AGAINST CELSUS 8.56

• 2 Timothy 2:11

  The Savior, too, first granted you this very thing—that you should fall. You were a Gentile. Let the Gentile in you fall. You loved prostitutes. Let the lover of prostitutes in you perish first. You were a sinner. Let the sinner in you fall. Then you can rise again and say, "If we have died with him, we shall also live with him," and, "If we have been made like him in death, we shall also be like him in resurrection."

  HOMILIES ON LUKE 17.3

• 2 Timothy 2:15

  But it is God's work to dwell invisibly by his spirit and by the Spirit of Christ in those whom he judges it right to dwell. Whereas it is our task, since we try to confirm faith by arguments and treatises, to do all in our power that we may be called "workmen who need not to be ashamed, handling rightly the word of truth."

  AGAINST CELSUS 5.1

• 2 Timothy 2:19

  God ignores those who are alienated from him.… We say these things, however, not thinking anything blasphemous about God … not ascribing ignorance to him, but thus we understand that these whose activity is considered unworthy of God are also considered to be unworthy of knowledge of God. For God does not deign to know him who has turned away from him and does not know him.

  HOMILIES ON GENESIS 4.6

• 2 Timothy 2:19

  Those who have been made one with and united with something know that with which they have been made one and have been united. Yet before such unity and participation, even if they objectively grasp something of the explanations given about a thing, they still do not know it.… For, in our view, the Lord has known those who are his because he has been made one with them and has given them a share of his own divinity and has taken them up, as the language of the Gospel says, into his own hand, since those who have believed in the Savior are in the Father's hand. For this reason also, unless they fall from his hand—thereby removing themselves from the hand of God, they will not be snatched away, for no one snatches anyone from the Father's hand.

  COMMENTARY ON JOHN 19.22, 25

• 2 Timothy 2:20

  God who from the beginning felt it just to arrange his creation according to merit gathered the diversities of minds into the harmony of a single world, so as to furnish, as it were, out of these diverse vessels or souls or minds one house. In this house there must be "not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some unto honor and some unto dishonor."

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.9.6

• 2 Timothy 2:21

  Whoever purges himself when placed in this life will be prepared for every good work in the future.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.9.8

• 2 Timothy 3:12

  When you flee Egypt, you come to these steep ascents of work and faith. You face a tower, a sea and waves. The way of life is not pursued without the waves of temptation. The apostle says, "All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution." Job also, no less, declares, "Our life upon earth is a temptation."

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 5.3

• 2 Timothy 4:3-4

  You can understand the desire of the prodigal son to be sated with pods in this way. When rational nature exists in irrationality, it simply desires. If it does not get more convincing reasons, then it accepts any reason at all. Since the pods taste sweet and make the body fat, they do not bind the bowels. They are the specious words of lovers of matter and the body, who say that pleasure is a good, "itching at their ears and running after myths."

  FRAGMENT ON LUKE 216