Origen of Alexandria

In his own words on Isaiah

• Isaiah 1:2

  All that exists was created by God, and there is nothing uncreated except the nature of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God, who is good by nature, wishing to have those whom he might benefit and who might enjoy the benefits received from him, made creatures worthy of himself, that is, who could receive him worthily.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 44:8

• Isaiah 1:3

  That manger was the one the prophet meant when he said, "The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master's manger." The ox is a clean animal, and the donkey an unclean one.… The people of Israel did not know the manger of their Lord, but the unclean Gentiles did.… We should strive to recognize the Lord and to be worthy of knowing him. We should strive to appropriate not only his birth and fleshly resurrection but also his anticipated second coming in majesty.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 13:7

• Isaiah 1:6

  Isaiah teaches that there are certain wounds of the soul.… Without doubt, he is speaking about the transgressions of the people, because there are some to whom the medicine of the poultice must still be applied. Others may be sinners in such a degree that no cure can be found for them.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 8:5.5

• Isaiah 1:6

  And just as there are some wounds that are cured by emollients, others that are cured by oil and others that need a bandage, there are still other wounds about which it is said, "It is not emollients or oil or bandages; but your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire." So there are some sins that pollute the soul, and for those sins one needs the lye of the Word, the soap of the Word. Yet some sins are not cured this way, because they do not pollute the soul.

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 2:2

• Isaiah 1:7-8

  Christ ceased to be in them. The Word deserted them.… The Jews were left behind, and salvation passed to the Gentiles. God meant to spur on the Jews with envy. We contemplate God's mysterious plan, how for our salvation he rejected Israel. We ought to be careful. The Jews were rejected for our sake; on our account they were abandoned. We would deserve even greater punishment if we did nothing worthy of our adoption by God and of his mercy. In his mercy God adopted us and made us his sons [children] in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory and power for ages of ages.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 5:4

• Isaiah 1:13

  Tell me, you who come to church only on festal days, are the other days not festal days? Are they not the Lord's days? It belongs to the Jews to observe religious ceremonies on fixed and infrequent days.… God hates, therefore, those who think that the festal day of the Lord is on one day.

  HOMILIES ON GENESIS 10:3

• Isaiah 2:8

  Not only do human beings "make gods for themselves" from statues, but you will also find them "making gods for themselves" from their imaginations. For such people can imagine another god and creator of the world in a system different from the divine plan of the world recorded by the Spirit, other than the true world. These all have "made gods for themselves," and they have "worshiped the works of their hands." So, too, I believe is the case either among the Greeks who generate opinions, so to speak, of this philosophy or that, or among the heretics, the first who generate opinions. These have "made idols for themselves" and figments of the soul, and by turning to them "they worship the works of their hands," since they accept as truth their own fabrications.

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 16:9.1

• Isaiah 4:4

  When one has recognized the differences in sins, one can see how the Lord says in Isaiah, "The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion and will cleanse the blood from their midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning." Filth is washed away by a spirit of judgment. Blood is washed away by a spirit of burning. Even if you have not committed a sin that leads to death, you have still sinned and have thereby become filthy. The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and he will cleanse the blood from among them. A spirit of judgment will be the recompense for filth, and a spirit of burning will be a recompense for the blood. Whenever we commit heinous sins, we do not need lye or washing with soap; rather we need the spirit of burning.

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 2:2

• Isaiah 4:4

  Then the gospel says, "When the days of their purification were fulfilled, according to the law of Moses, they brought him into Jerusalem." The passage says, on account of "their" purification. Who are "they"? If Scripture had said, "on account of 'her' purification"—that is, Mary's, who had given birth—then no question would arise. We would say confidently that Mary, who was a human being, needed purification after childbirth. But the passage reads, "the days of their purification." Apparently it does not signify one but two or more. Did Jesus therefore need purification? Was he unclean or polluted with some stain? Perhaps I seem to speak rashly; but the authority of Scripture prompts me to ask. See what is written in the book of Job: "No man is clean of stain, not even if his life had lasted but a single day." The passage does not say, "No man is clean of sin," but "No man is clean of stain." "Stain" and "sins" do not mean the same thing. "Stain" is one thing, "sin" another. Isaiah teaches this clearly when he says, "The Lord will wash away the stains of the sons and daughters of Zion, and he will cleanse the blood from their midst. By the spirit of judgment he will purge the stain, and by the spirit of burning the blood."Every soul that has been clothed with a human body has its own "stain." But Jesus was stained through his own will, because he had taken on a human body for our salvation.

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 14:3-4

• Isaiah 5:4

  See then how very bad sinning is, that they may be delivered to Satan, who holds captive the souls of those forsaken by God—though God does not forsake without cause or judgment those whom he has abandoned. For when he sends the rain for the vineyard and the vineyard bears thorns instead of grapes, what else will God do except order the clouds not to sprinkle rain on the vineyard?

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 1:4

• Isaiah 5:6

  See then how very bad sinning is, that they may be delivered to Satan, who holds captive the souls of those forsaken by God—though God does not forsake without cause or judgment those whom he has abandoned. For when he sends the rain for the vineyard and the vineyard bears thorns instead of grapes, what else will God do except order the clouds not to sprinkle rain on the vineyard?

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 1:4

• Isaiah 6:3

  My Hebrew teacher also used to teach as follows, that since the beginning or the end of all things could not be comprehended by any except our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, this was the reason why Isaiah spoke of there being in the vision that appeared to him two seraphim only, who with two wings cover the face of God, with two cover his feet and with two fly, crying one to another and saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of your glory." For because the two seraphim alone have their wings over the face of God and over his feet, we may venture to declare that neither the armies of the holy angels, nor the holy thrones, nor the dominions, nor principalities nor powers can wholly know the beginnings of all things and the ends of the universe.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4:3

• Isaiah 6:3

  My Hebrew master used to say that the two seraphim, which are described in Isaiah as having six wings each and as crying one to another and saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts," were to be understood to mean the only-begotten Son of God and the Holy Spirit.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1:3

• Isaiah 6:7

  We read also in Isaiah that the prophet is purified with fire by "one of the seraphim which was sent to him, when he took with a pair of tongs one coal from those which were upon the altar; and he touched the lips of the prophet and said, Behold, I have taken away your iniquities." These appear to me to be mystical and to indicate that the coals are put on the members of each in proportion to his sins, if he is worthy to be purified. For since the prophet says here, "I have unclean lips; also I dwell in the midst of a people who have unclean lips." For this reason, "a coal taken up with a pair of tongs" by the seraphim cleanses his lips.… The cleansing of his lips indicates that Isaiah's sin continually would be found only in words, but he would not have sinned in any act or deed. Otherwise, he would have said since I have an unclean body or I have unclean eyes, if he had sinned in desiring what belongs to something other than his lips. He would have said I have unclean hands, if he had polluted these with unjust deeds. But now since possibly he was aware of his transgression in word alone, about which the Lord says, "Likewise, you will give an account for every useless word on the day of judgment"; because it is difficult even for the perfect to escape the fault of the word, the prophet was likewise in need only of a purification of his lips.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 9:7.2

• Isaiah 8:9

  And what the same prophet said has been fulfilled. "God is with us. Know this, O nations, and be conquered." For we who are from the nations have been conquered and overcome. And we who bend our necks beneath his grace stand forth as a kind of spoils of his victory.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4:1.5

• Isaiah 9:2

  Now the expression darkness will likewise be used to refer to two corresponding concepts. The statement "And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night" is an example of the more common meaning. An example of the spiritual meaning occurs in the statement "The people who sat in darkness … and in the shadow of death, light has dawned on them."

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13:134

• Isaiah 10:10-11

  Unquestionably, at the time when the early Israelites fell into sin, religion languished. Judah made for themselves "statues in Jerusalem," as well as in that part that came to be called Israel, "in Samaria." But even now, if one considers the mass of sinners taken together, it would not be hard to say that everyone who, serving sin, makes a god out of what seems good to him—making a statue, casting the work of an artisan, setting it up in secret—is under the curse. It is precisely in the secret of the heart that we fabricate many idols when we sin. Therefore the Word admonishes us to do penance and to "cry out in lamentation over the statues" and the idols that are "in Jerusalem and in Samaria." Truly, if we who desire to be of the church commit sin, we fabricate "statues in Jerusalem." If those who are outside of the church sin, as heretics, they make "idols in Samaria." Nevertheless God, in conformity with his goodness, calls all to repentance, saying, "Cry out in lamentation, statues, in Jerusalem and in Samaria, since as I have acted toward Samaria and the works of their hands, so also will I act toward Jerusalem and its idols." The threat will be carried out toward those who are in the church just as it was with the Samaritans.

  HOMILIES ON ISAIAH 8:1

• Isaiah 14:4

  According to Isaiah, in which lament is offered on behalf of the king of Babylon, much can be learned about the origin and beginning of evil. Evil derived its existence from some who had lost their wings by following the one who was first to lose his own wings.

  AGAINST CELSUS 6:43

• Isaiah 14:12

  It is most clearly proved by these words that he who formerly was Lucifer and who "arose in the morning" has fallen from heaven. For if, as some suppose, he was a being of darkness, why is he said to have formerly been Lucifer or lightbearer? Or how could he "rise in the morning" who had in him no light at all?… So he was light once … when "his glory was turned into dust."

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1:5

• Isaiah 14:12

  How can we possibly suppose that what is said in many places by Scripture, especially in Isaiah, about Nebuchadnezzar is said about a human being? For no human being is said to have "fallen from heaven" or to have been "Lucifer" or the one who "arose every morning."

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4:3.9

• Isaiah 26:20

  Therefore [Noah] constructs the ark and makes nests in it, that is, certain chambers in which animals of various kinds are received. The prophet also speaks of these chambers: "Go, my people, into your chambers, hide yourself a while until the fury of my anger pass away." This people, therefore, which is saved in the church is compared with all those, whether men or animals, which are saved in the ark.

  HOMILIES ON GENESIS 2:3

• Isaiah 28:16

  If at any time in reading the Scripture you stumble at something which is a fair stone of stumbling, and rock of offence, blame yourself; for you must not despair of finding in this stone of stumbling and rock of offence thoughts to justify the saying, "He that believeth shall not be ashamed." First believe, and thou shalt find beneath what is deemed a stumbling-stone much gain in godliness. For if we really received a commandment to speak no idle word, because we shall give account of it in the day of judgment; and if we must with all our might endeavour to make every word proceeding out of our mouths a working word both in ourselves who speak and in those who hear, must we not conclude that every word spoken through the Prophets was fit for work? and it is no wonder if every word spoken by the Prophets had a work adapted to it. Nay, I suppose that every letter, no matter how strange, which is written in the oracles of God, does its work. And there is not one jot or tittle written in the Scripture, which, when men know how to extract the virtue does not work its own work.

  FRAGMENTS FROM THE PHILOCALIA 10:1

• Isaiah 29:8

  And those who sleep are those who, when they ought to be taking heed and watching with the soul, are not doing this. But by reason of great want of attention they are nodding in resolution and are drowsy in their reflections, such as "in their dreaming defile the flesh, and set at nothing that which is highest in authority, and rail at dignities." And these, because they are asleep, live in an atmosphere of vain and dreamlike fancies concerning realities. [They do not admit] the things that are actually true, but [they are] deceived by what appears in their vain imaginations. In regard to [them] it is said in Isaiah, "Like as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but when he has risen up is still thirsty, and his soul has cherished a vain hope, so shall be the wealth of all the nations, as many as have warred in Jerusalem."

  COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 10

• Isaiah 29:11

  And clearly, if we hear negligently, if we bring no zeal to learning and understanding, not only are the Scriptures of the law and prophets but also of the apostles and Gospels covered for us with a great veil. I fear, however, lest by too much negligence and dullness of heart the divine volumes are not only veiled to us but also sealed, so that "if a book should be put into the hand of a man who cannot read to be read, he would say, 'I cannot read'; if it should be put into the hands of a man who can read, he would say, 'It is sealed.' " Whence it is shown that we must not only employ zeal to learn the sacred literature, but we must also pray to the Lord and entreat "day and night" that the Lamb "of the tribe of Judah" may come and himself taking "the sealed book" may deign to open it. For it is he who "opening the Scriptures" kindles the hearts of the disciples so that they say, "Was not our heart burning within us when he opened to us the Scriptures?"

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 12:4

• Isaiah 35:6

  That [Jesus] healed the lame and the blind, and that therefore we hold him to be the Christ and the Son of God, is manifest to us from what is contained in the prophecies: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened."

  AGAINST CELSUS 2:48

• Isaiah 40:3

  The Lord wants to find in you a path by which he can enter into your souls and make his journey. Prepare for him the path of which it is said, "Make straight his path." "The voice of one crying in the desert"—the voice cries, "prepare the way."

  HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 21:5

• Isaiah 40:3

  Now the way of the Lord is made straight in two ways: by contemplation, which is clarified by truth unmixed with falsehood, and by activity, which follows sound contemplation of the appropriate action to be taken, which is conformed to the correct sense of these things to be done.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 6:103

• Isaiah 40:6

  And [Christ] commanded all the multitudes to sit down on the grass because of what is said in Isaiah, "All flesh is grass." That is to say, he commanded them to subjugate the flesh and to keep in subjection "the mind of the flesh," so that one might be able to partake of the loaves that Jesus blesses.

  COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 11:3

• Isaiah 40:26

  In many places in scripture is the phrase "Lift up your eyes" set forth by the divine word, urging us to elevate and raise our thoughts and our vision, which is cast down and stooped, unable to fully look up and to rise on high; just as in Isaiah: "Lift up your eyes on high and see: who has created these things?" And the Savior, when about to proclaim the Beatitudes to those gathered on the plain, lifted up his eyes to his disciples and said, "Blessed are they" and so forth; for no true disciple of Jesus is below, just as neither is the one resting in Abraham's bosom. Thus the rich man, being in torments, lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham and Lazarus in his bosom. Moreover, the woman "bowed together and could in no wise lift up herself" was straightened by Jesus so that she might lift up her eyes. And no one involuntarily afflicted or attached to the flesh or immersed in material things has kept the commandment that says, "Lift up your eyes," whence such a one shall not see the fields even if they are "already white to harvest." Yet again, no one working the deeds of the flesh has lifted up their eyes.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13:274

• Isaiah 42:5

  It says, "He who gives spirit to the people who are on the earth, and spirit to them who walk on it." For undoubtedly every one who walks on the earth, that is, every earthly and corporeal being, is a partaker of the Holy Spirit that he receives from God.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1:3.4

• Isaiah 42:10

  You descend into the water and come out unimpaired, the filth of sins having been washed away. You ascend "a new person" prepared to "sing a new song."

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 5:5

• Isaiah 42:18

  Now the blind see when they see the world, and from the exceedingly great beauty of things that have been created they contemplate the Creator corresponding in greatness and beauty to them. And when they see clearly "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world, which are perceived through the things that are made," [then] they see and understand with attentiveness and clarity.

  COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 11:18

• Isaiah 43:2

  What kind of fire? "He stationed the cherubim and the fiery sword, which turns about to protect the way of the tree of life." Where the tree of life is, where the paradise of God is, where God the gardener is, where the blessed and the elect and the holy ones of God reside, there the blessed await God's own way of handling affairs.

  HOMILY ON 1 KINGS 28:9.3

• Isaiah 43:25

  For now the devil urges us to sin and also accuses us when we do sin. If, therefore, in this life we anticipate him and are ourselves our own accusers, we escape the wickedness of the devil, our enemy and our accuser.… Does he [the prophet] not evidently show the mystery that we are dealing with when he says, "you speak first" to show you that you ought to anticipate him who was prepared to accuse you?

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 3:4.5

• Isaiah 44:22

  It is as though a malicious painter brought together colors to paint an image of the earthly that God did not make in you. So you must now beg God, as the prophet says, "Blot out your iniquities as a cloud, and your sins as a mist." And when [God] has blotted out all those colors in you which have been taken up from the reddish hues of malice, then that image that was created by God will shine brightly in you. You see, therefore, how the divine Scriptures bring in forms and figures by which the soul may be instructed toward knowledge and cleansing of the soul.

  HOMILIES ON GENESIS 13:4

• Isaiah 45:3

  The higher and profounder spiritual meaning is the "hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge," which the Holy Spirit speaking through Isaiah calls "dark and unseen and concealed treasures." These treasures require for their discovery the help of God, who alone is able to "break in pieces the gates of brass" by which they are shut in and concealed and to burst the iron bolts and bars that prevent us from entering in and reaching all those truths written in veiled language in Genesis concerning the various races of souls and the seeds and generations named there, whether closely akin to Israel or widely separated from his posterity.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4:3.11

• Isaiah 45:7

  In the same way also we explain the expressions, "I, who make peace and create evil"; for he calls into existence "corporeal" or "external" evils, while purifying and training those who would not be disciplined by the word and sound doctrine. This, then, is our answer to the question, "How is it that God created evil?"

  AGAINST CELSUS 6:56

• Isaiah 46:12

  The inner person has a heart. "Hear me, you who have lost heart." They possessed a physical heart, that organ of the body. It was not that heart which they lost. But when a person neglects to cultivate his intellectual life, and in consequence of much idleness his thinking capacity has atrophied, he has lost his heart, and it is to such a person that the words are added, "Here me, you who have lost your heart."

  DIALOGUE WITH HERACLIDES

• Isaiah 47:15

  And when God afflicts those who deserve punishment, how else is it intended except for their good? It is he who says to the Chaldaeans, "You have coals of fire; sit on them. They shall be a help to you." Further, let them hear what is related in the seventy-seventh psalm, which is ascribed to Asaph, about those who fell in the desert. It says, "When he slew them, then they sought him." It does not say that some sought him after others had been killed but that those who were slain perished in such a manner that when put to death they sought God. From all these illustrations it is plain that the just and good God of the Law and the Gospels is one and the same and that he does good with justice and punishes in kindness, since neither goodness without justice nor justice without goodness can describe the dignity of the divine nature.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2:5.3

• Isaiah 48:9

  But we say that God brings fire on the world, not like a cook [pace Celsus] but like a God who is the benefactor of those who stand in need of the discipline of force. This is confirmed by the prophet Isaiah.… Now the Scripture is appropriately adapted to the multitudes of those who are to peruse it, because it speaks obscurely of things that are sad and gloomy, in order to terrify those who cannot by any other means be saved from the flood of their sins, although even then the attentive reader will clearly discover the end that is to be accomplished by these sad and painful punishments on those who endure them. It is sufficient, however, for the present to quote the words of Isaiah: "For my name's sake will I delay my anger, and my glory I will bring on you, that I may not destroy you."

  AGAINST CELSUS 5:15

• Isaiah 48:16

  Did the Father and the Holy Spirit send Jesus, or did the Father send both Christ and the Spirit? The latter is correct. For, because the Savior was sent, afterwards the Holy Spirit was sent also, that the prediction of the prophet might be fulfilled.

  AGAINST CELSUS 1:46

• Isaiah 48:16

  According to Isaiah the Lord has sent Christ and his Spirit.… It is also possible there to allege of the Spirit that sent the Christ that he does not excel him in nature but that the Savior was made to seek greater lowliness because of the plan of the incarnation.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2:79.81

• Isaiah 49:2

  If anyone has been able to hold in the breadth of his mind and to consider the glory and splendor of all those things created in him, he will be struck by their very beauty and transfixed by the magnificence of their brilliance or, as the prophet says, "by the chosen arrow." And he will receive from him the saving wound and will burn with the blessed fire of his love.

  COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, PROLOGUE

• Isaiah 49:8

  God says through the prophet, "In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you." What other time, then, is more acceptable than when for piety toward God in Christ we are led under guard in procession before the world, celebrating a triumph rather than being led in triumph? For the martyrs in Christ disarm the principalities and powers with him, and they share his triumph as fellows of his sufferings, becoming in this way also fellows of the courageous deeds wrought in his sufferings. These deeds include triumphing over principalities and powers, which in a short time you will see conquered and put to shame. What other day is so much a day of salvation as the one when we gain such deliverance from them?

  EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 42

• Isaiah 50:1

  Hear what the prophet says: "You have been sold for your sins, and for your iniquities I sent your mother away." You see, therefore, that we are all creatures of God. But each one is sold for his own sins and, for his own iniquities, separates from his Creator. We, therefore, belong to God insofar as we have been created by him. But we have become slaves of the devil insofar as we have been sold for our sins. Christ came, however, and "bought us back" when we were serving that lord to whom we sold ourselves by sinning. And so [Christ] appears to have recovered as his own those whom he created; to have acquired as people belonging to another, indeed, those who had sought another Lord for themselves by sinning.

  HOMILIES ON EXODUS 6:9

• Isaiah 50:11

  This "fire" is not "from the altar." The fire that is "from the altar" is the fire of the Lord. But that which is outside the altar is not of the Lord but is properly of each one who sins.… This fire is of those who have ignited it, just as it also was written in other places, "Walk in your fire and in the flame which you kindled for yourselves." But to Isaiah his own fire was not applied but the fire of the altar that "will cleanse his lips."

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 9:8.1

• Isaiah 50:11

  If then this is the character of the body that rises from the dead, let us now see what is the meaning of the threatened "eternal fire." Now we find in the prophet Isaiah that the fire by which each person is punished is described as belonging to himself. For it says, "Walk in the light of your fire and in the flame which you have kindled for yourselves." These words seem to indicate that every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire and is not plunged into a fire that has been previously kindled by someone else or that existed before him.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2:10.4

• Isaiah 52:7

  "How are beautiful are the feet of those who announce good things!" Since Isaiah perceived the beautiful and opportune preaching of the apostles who follow the One who said, "I am the way," he praises the feet that proceed over the intelligible way, which is Christ Jesus, and go in to God through the door. Those whose feet are beautiful announce Jesus as "good tidings."

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1:11

• Isaiah 52:11

  It says, "you who carry the vessels of the Lord be separated and depart from their midst, says the Lord." "Separate yourself" from earthly deeds; "separate yourself" from the desire of the world.… Moreover, we say to be set apart not from places but from deeds, not from regions but from ways of life.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 11:5-6

• Isaiah 53:2

  There are, indeed, admitted to be recorded some statements respecting the body of Jesus having been "ill-favored"; not, however, "ignoble," as has been stated, nor is there any certain evidence that he was "little."

  AGAINST CELSUS 6:75

• Isaiah 54:1

  So when he was not a desert or a land made dry to Israel, he was, with respect to what is particular, a desert and land made dry to the pagan nations. But when he turned away from Israel and became to that Israel like a desert and land made dry, then grace was poured forth on the pagan nations, and Jesus Christ became now to us not a desert but abundance, and not a land made dry but one that bears fruit.

  HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 3:3

• Isaiah 54:12

  It seems to me also that that fancy of Plato, that those stones that we call precious stones which derive their luster from a reflection, as it were, of the stones in that better land, is taken from the words of Isaiah in describing the city of God: "I will make your battlements of jasper, your stones shall be crystal and your borders of precious stones."

  AGAINST CELSUS 7:30

• Isaiah 60:1

  And the Logos, exhorting us to come to this light, says, in the prophecies of Isaiah, "Enlighten yourself, enlighten yourself, O Jerusalem, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen on you." Observe now the difference between the fine phrases of Plato respecting the chief good and the declarations of our prophets regarding the light of the blessed; and notice that the truth as it is contained in Plato concerning this subject did not at all help his readers to attain to a pure worship of God, or even himself, who could philosophize so grandly about the chief good, whereas the simple language of the Scriptures led to their honest readers being filled with a divine spirit; and this light is nourished within them by the oil, which as a certain parable is said to have preserved the light of the torches of the five wise virgins.

  AGAINST CELSUS 6:5

• Isaiah 60:16

  And they will be called the city of the Lord, Zion of holy Israel. On account of your being trapped and despised when there was no help, I will give you eternal rejoicing and joy for ages to come. And though you desire the milk of the nations and to consume the riches of kings, so that you might know that I am the Lord who saved you and led you out of Israel, "I will render for you gold instead of brass, and silver instead of steel … and I will give you rulers in peace and your bishops in justice, and injustice will no longer be heard in your land."

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10:294

• Isaiah 60:19-20

  We must keep in mind, however, that the Word promises to the righteous through the mouth of Isaiah that days will come when not the sun but the Lord will be to them an everlasting light, and God will be their glory. And it is from misunderstanding, I think, some pestilent heresy that gave an interpretation to the words "let there be light," as if they were the expression of a wish merely on the part of the Creator, that Celsus made the remark, "The Creator did not borrow light from above, like those persons who kindle lamps at those of their neighbors."

  AGAINST CELSUS 6:51

• Isaiah 65:11

  If a person, because he is too tenacious of life or too weak in the face of suffering, or because of the apparently convincing arguments of such as seek to induce us to accept the evil choice, has denied the one and only God and his Christ and borne testimony to demons or goddesses of fortune, then this person must realize that in doing this he is "setting," as it were, "a table for the demon and offering libations" to Fortune, "forsaking the Lord" and "forgetting his holy mount." He will incur the reproaches written in Isaiah.

  EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 40

• Isaiah 65:17

  Isaiah also, declaring prophetically that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, undoubtedly suggests a similar view. For this renewal of heaven and earth, and this transformation of the form of the present world and this changing of the heavens will undoubtedly be prepared for those who are walking along and are tending to that goal of happiness to which, it is said, even enemies themselves are to be subjected and in which God is said to be "all in all." And if anyone imagines that at the end, material, that is, bodily nature will be entirely destroyed, he cannot in any respect meet my view, how beings so numerous and powerful are able to live and to exist without bodies, since it is an attribute of the divine nature alone.… Another, perhaps, may say that in the end every bodily substance will be so pure and refined as to be like the ether and of a celestial purity and clearness. How things will be, however, is known with certainty to God alone and to those who are his friends through Christ and the Holy Spirit.

  ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1:6.4

• Isaiah 66:2

  If you are not "humble and peaceful," the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot live within you, if you do not receive the divine words with fear. For the Holy Spirit departs from the proud and stubborn and false soul. Therefore, you ought first to meditate on the law of God that, if perhaps your deeds are intemperate and your habits disordered, the law of God may correct you and reform you.

  HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 6:2.5