Origen of Alexandria

In his own words on Leviticus

• Leviticus 2:13

  Just as meat, if it is not sprinkled with salt, no matter how great and special it is, becomes rotten, so also the soul, unless it is somehow salted with constant temptations, immediately becomes feeble and soft. For this reason the saying is established that every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

  HOMILIES ON NUMBERS 27:12

• Leviticus 5:7

  Not without reason are "a pair of turtledoves and two young doves" accepted in the sacrifices. For they are worth the same, and you never find separate mention of just a pair of doves but "a pair of turtledoves and two young doves." The dove denotes the Holy Spirit. But when the great and more hidden mysteries are in question and the things that many people cannot grasp, then the Holy Spirit is represented under the appellation of a turtledove—of the bird, that is to say, that always dwells on mountain ridges and in the tops of trees. But in the valleys, in the things that all men understand, he figures as a dove.

  HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:12

• Leviticus 9:22

  Something of this sort has also been written about Aaron in the book of Leviticus, namely, that "he raised up his hands over the people and blessed them." I gather from this that the saying expresses a mystery, namely, that the one who blesses someone must be adorned with works that distinguish him from the many and raise him above them. For when he is going to bless the people, the hands of Aaron are raised on high. So if someone has his hands down toward earthly things, he does not intend to bless anyone.

  FRAGMENT ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 257

• Leviticus 11:3

  [In Songs], the bride desires to sit down in the shadow of this apple tree. This prefigures either the church, as we said, under the protection of the Son of God, or else the soul fleeing all other teachings and cleaving to the Word of God alone. She chews the Word, whose fruit, moreover, she finds sweet in her throat by continual meditation on the law of God, chewing as if it were like the cud of a clean animal.

  COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 3:5

• Leviticus 20:9

  But when we wish to examine the very letter of the words as given by Matthew, "He that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death," consider whether it was taken from the place where it was written, "Whoso strikes his father or mother, let him die the death; and he that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death." For such are the exact words taken from the law with regard to the two commandments; but Matthew has quoted them in part and in an abridged form, and not in the very words.

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 11.9

• Leviticus 21:17

  Moreover, blameless priests served the Godhead by offering blameless sacrifices, while those who were blemished and offered blemished sacrifices and whom Moses described in Leviticus were separated from the altar. And who else is the blameless priest offering a blameless sacrifice than the person who holds fast to his confession and fulfills every requirement the account of martyrdom demands? He is the one we have spoken of before.

  EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 30

• Leviticus 25:10

  Who is there who has grasped the mind of Christ so well that he knows the meaning of the seventh year of freedom of Hebrew slaves and the remission of debts and the intermission of the cultivation of the holy land? Over and above the feast of every seventh year is the feast called the jubilee. No one can ever come near divining its precise meaning or the true import of the prescriptions enjoined by it, except him who knows the Father's will and his disposition for every age according to "his incomprehensible judgments and unsearchable ways."

  ON PRAYER 27.14

• Leviticus 26:10

  For we eat with blessing the old things, the prophetic words and the old things of the old things, the words of the law. And, when the new and evangelical words came, living according to the gospel, we bring forth the old things of the letter from before the new. He sets his tabernacle in us, fulfilling the promise which he spoke, "I will dwell among them and walk in them."

  COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 10.15