In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

PREFACE [OF ORIGEN] t seems to me that there are two reasons why the letter that was written to the Romans is considered to be harder to understand than the Apostle Paul’s other letters . First, because he makes use of expressions which sometimes are confused and insufficiently explicit.1 Second, because he stirs up very many questions in the letter and the heretics, especially propping themselves up on these, are accustomed to add that the cause of each person’s actions is not to be attributed to one’s own purpose but to different kinds of natures.2 And, from a handful of words from this letter they attempt to subvert the meaning of the whole of Scripture, which teaches that God has given man freedom of will.3 (2) Therefore, first praying to God, “who teaches man knowledge ”4 and “who gives the word of wisdom through the Spirit”5 and who “enlightens every man coming into this world,”6 that he might deem to make us worthy “to understand parables and obscure words and the sayings and riddles of the wise,”7 only then shall we touch the Introduction of the Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (3) I want to say by way of a preface what is usually observed by the diligent, that the Apostle seems to have been more perfect in this letter than in the others.8 To be sure when he was 1. Cf. 1.9.6; 1.13.1–2; 6.3.2. 2. Cf. 1.3.1; Princ 3.1.7ff. See Introduction (14). 3. Arbitrii libertatem. “Free will” is the traditional rendering of liberum arbitrium (lit. “free choice”) and will be used in this translation. According to Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 79, the term “free will” was coined by Tertullian in On the Soul 21. Origen was this doctrine’s greatest ancient defender against gnostic determinism . Cf. 1.3.1–4; 2.4.7; 2.10.2; Hom in Ezek 1.3. 4. Ps 94.10. 5. 1 Cor 12.8. 6. Jn 1.9. 7. Prv 1.6. 8. Cf. 10.14.3. 53 writing First Corinthians he was someone in great progress, yet he declares something about himself which sounds like a man who is wavering when he says, “but I punish my body and reduce it to slavery, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be rejected.”9 Moreover, when writing to the Philippians he reveals that thus far there was less perfection in himself than that which he subsequently attained when he claims to be conformed to the death of Christ “if somehow” he might attain “the resurrection from the dead.”10 For he would not have said “if somehow” if the matter appeared to him at the time to be of undoubted certainty. But also, in what follows in the same epistle he reveals the same thing when he says, “Not that I have already attained this or have already become perfect, but I press on to take hold of that in which I am held by Christ. Brothers, I do not yet consider that I have taken hold of it.”11 But if anyone thinks this has been said out of humility, let him see in what follows what great things he relates in regard to his own progress when he says, “but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead of me, with [M834] purpose I pursue the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”;12 and after this he says, “Let those of us then who are perfect be of this mind.”13 By these words he reveals that there is a twofold perfection: one which consists in the satisfying of the virtues,14 according to which he says that he is not perfect; the other is when someone advances so far that he is not able to fall away or to look backwards,15 according to 54 ORIGEN 9. 1 Cor 9.27. 10. Cf. Phil 3.10–11. 11. Phil 3.12–13. 12. Phil 3.13–14. 13. Phil 3.15. 14. Heither, Translatio Religionis, p. 31, notes that Origen’s conception of “virtue” does not correspond to Stoic and Aristotelian views which were incorporated into Scholasticism. Instead Origen understands virtues to be the expressions of the living Christ dwelling within man. 15. Cf. 5.10.15; 6.5.6; 10...

Share