Fragments on the New Testament

1Setting him forth as craftsman of all things, the name ‘Word’ is predicated of him.

For since, as a rule, every work of crafting depends on a word, there was no other way to declare him maker of all — for those who possess it (and this is a productive state joined with guileless reason).

But the Son of God, being none other than the craftsman of wisdom and art, is fittingly named ‘Word.’

For it is not some other substance, distinct from the Word, that makes existing things through him; he himself is the maker, being God the Word.

Then, since this Word — being God in substance and being in himself the Son of God — became man for the sake of human salvation, the Word was named ‘Flesh.’

And since some, having fallen from right faith, suppose that he exists only from the time when he came forth having become man from the virgin, the theologian most rightly writes against such people: In the beginning was the Word.

And using the verbs fittingly, by ‘became’ he signifies his flesh, and by ‘was’ his Godhead.

It would have been more proper to say ‘is’ of the Word of God; but since he was declaring the Word’s existence by way of distinguishing the incarnation, which happened at a certain time, the evangelist used ‘was’ instead of ‘is.’

But one must not take the proper significations of verbs when they are applied to eternal things; for it is when the things signified by them have an existence measured by time that ‘was’ means what is no longer but once was — just as ‘is’ signifies what now exists, as ‘will be’ what is going to exist.

But since the Word of God is eternal… the fragment breaks off

2And ‘he dwelt among us’ — and this very name it bore, ‘God with us’ — but when he created, since it was not as a man sent by the Father that he brought all things into being: ‘he was with God, and was God.’

The Son of God is also called ‘Wisdom,’ created as ‘beginning of God’s ways’ according to the writing of Proverbs — because God’s Wisdom, existing in relation to him whose Wisdom she is, had no relation to anything else, but by God’s good pleasure willed that the creatures should come into being.

This Wisdom, then, willed to take up a creative relation to the things that were to be; and this is what is signified by her being created ‘beginning of God’s ways’ — along which ways he traverses, ordering beings, exercising providence, doing good, bestowing grace, in this Wisdom who was created.

They say, then, that the Word is ‘beginning’ — not being other than her in substance, but in our conception and in relation — so that it is the same existence which the scriptures now name in respect of substance: Wisdom insofar as she has been made God’s own, and the creative Word insofar as he has inclined, so to speak, toward the things made.

But it is not only here that the Son of God is called ‘Word’; sayings can be set alongside not only from the New Testament but also from the Old: ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were established’; and ‘He sent his word and healed them’; and Luke… the fragment breaks off

3The word ‘one’ is used in many ways — both by likeness and in many other ways: by agreement, when it says, ‘The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul’; by likeness, as when it says, ‘For we were all baptized in one Spirit into one body,’ by likeness of nature.

And as, having Adam as our beginning and head according to the nature of our birth, we are all said to have one body, so too we ascribe Christ to ourselves as head through the divine regeneration, which has become for us a type of his death and resurrection — he who rose as firstborn from the dead.

We ascribe him to ourselves as head in prefiguration of his resurrection — ‘whose members we are in part, and body, through the Spirit, being regenerated unto incorruption.’

4‘And no one receives his testimony’ — and yet many have received his testimony, as John himself goes on to add, saying: ‘He who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true.’

But how can it be true, when some do receive his testimony, that ‘no one receives his testimony’? The difficulty must be resolved as follows.

Jesus, having come from above and speaking what he heard and saw, speaks a most lofty and very great testimony concerning the Father and himself; and no one receives this testimony as he himself speaks it, because the hearers, who are only beginning to receive, fall far short of the greatness of the testimony.

Yet even though no one is able to receive his testimony in this way, it is still possible to receive it as those just now coming to faith are able to receive it.

Hence ‘he who received his testimony’ is not at odds with no one’s having received it — in one sense it is not received […] — they who, from having received Jesus’ testimony, seal with firm assent that God is true, having learned… the fragment breaks off

5The Savior comes to Simon’s house and finds his mother-in-law feverish: ‘and standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left.’

May it not be, then, that in the ‘the fever left her’ as told by Matthew and Mark — where in the whole transaction nothing appears as of a living being effecting the fever — while in the ‘standing over, he rebuked the fever, and it left’ as told by Luke, I do not know, unless we shall be compelled to say that what is rebuked and departs is a living being not admitting the rebuker’s working; for it is not reasonable to say that what is soulless and insensible of rebuke is rebuked.

And it is nothing marvelous that there are certain powers harmful to the human body — and we shall not in every case accuse the soul of the sufferers as being harmed by these; for neither, since the devil, having received authority to tempt him through the body, struck Job with a grievous sore, is Job to be accused on this account — he who contended and nobly endured the blow.

Only let this be said, whenever we are tried by bodily pains: ‘but not his soul’ — as the Lord too, rebuking, heals the sick.

6But since prudence is a virtue… break …the Lord prepared the heavens. fragmentary

7On Luke 1:1 — Since many undertook to set out a narrative of the things fulfilled among us — Origen hears a fitting apology: for a human to write Gods teaching is an oversized attempt. As Israel once had true and false prophets sorted by discernment of spirits, so many wished to write Gospels, yet approved bankers did not take every coin. Undertook may quietly blame those who rushed to record without the gift. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote moved by the Spirit; Egyptian, Twelve, and Basilides gospels were mere undertakings. The Church prefers only the four.

Fulfilled, not merely believed, marks what cannot be broken. Matters strikes down those who say the Saviors deeds were only appearance. Luke received the story as eyewitnesses and servants of the Word handed it down from the beginning.

8Scholia on Matthew compress notes on kingdom teaching and costly discipleship — take up the cross, learn of the meek King, and store treasure where moth and rust do not destroy.