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Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John
As to the shoes, too, which are spoken of in the three Gospels, we have a question to consider; we must compare them with the single shoe named by the disciple John. “I am not worthy,” we read there, “to untie the latchet of His shoe.” Perhaps he was conquered by the grace of God, and received the gift of doing that which of himself he would not have been worthy to do, of untying, namely, the latchet of one of the shoes, namely, after he had seen the Saviour’s sojourn among men, of which he bears witness. But he did not know the things which were to follow, namely, whether Jesus was to come to that place also, to which he was to go after being beheaded in prison, or whether he was to look for another; and hence he alludes enigmatically to that doubt which was afterwards cleared up to us, and says, “I am not worthy to untie His shoe-latchet.” If any one considers this to be a superfluous speculation, he can combine in one the speech about the shoes and that about the shoe, as if John said, I am by no means worthy to loose His shoestring, not even at the beginning, the string of one of His shoes. Or the following may be a way to combine what is said in the Four. If John understands about Jesus’ sojourn here, but is in doubt about the future, then he says with perfect truth that he is not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoes; for though he loosed that of one shoe, he did not loose both. And on the other hand, what he says about the latchet of the shoe is quite true also; since as we saw he is still in doubt whether Jesus is He that was to come, or whether another is to be looked for, in that other region.
As for the saying, “There standeth one among you whom you know not,” we are led by it to consider the Son of God, the Word, by whom all things were made, since He exists in substance throughout the underlying nature of things, being the same as wisdom. For He permeated, from the beginning, all creation, so that what is made at any time should be made through Him, and that it might be always true of anything soever, that “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made;” and this saying also, “By wisdom didst thou make them all.” Now, if He permeates all creation, then He is also in those questioners who ask, “Why baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” In the midst of them stands the Word, who is the same and steadfast, being everywhere established by the Father. Or the words, “There standeth among you,” may be understood to say, In the midst of you men, because you are reasonable beings, stands He who is proved by Scripture to be the sovereign principle in the midst of every body, and so to be present in your heart. Those, therefore, who have the Word in the midst of them, but who do not consider His nature, nor from what spring and principle He came, nor how He gave them the nature they have,[4914] these, while having Him in the midst of them, know Him not. But John knew Him: for the words, “Whom you know not,” used in reproach to the Pharisees, show that he well knew the Word whom they did not know. And the Baptist, therefore, knowing Him, saw Him coming after himself, who was now in the midst of them, that is to say, dwelling after him and the teaching he gave in his baptism, in those who, according to reason (or the Word), submitted to that purifying rite. The word “after,” however, has not the same meaning here as it has when Jesus commands us to come “after” Him; for in this case we are bidden to go after Him, so that, treading in His steps, we may come to the Father; but in the other case, the meaning is that after the teachings of John (since “He came in order that all men through Him might believe”), the Word dwells with those who have prepared themselves, purified as they are by the lesser words for the perfect Word. Firstly, then, stands the Father, being without any turning or change; and then stands also His Word, always carrying on His work of salvation, and even when He is in the midst of men, not comprehended, and not even seen. He stands, also, teaching, and inviting all to drink from His abundant spring, for[4915] “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”
But Heracleon declares the words, “There standeth one among you,” to be equivalent to “He is already here, and He is in the world and in men, and He is already manifest to you all.” By this He does away with the meaning which is also present in the words, that the Word had permeated the whole world. For we must say to him, When is He not present, and when is He not in the world? Does not this Gospel say, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” And this is why those to whom the Logos is He “whom you know not,” do not know Him: they have never gone out of the world, but the world does not know Him. But at what time did He cease to be among men? Was He not in Isaiah, when He said,[4916] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me,” and[4917] “I became manifest to those who sought me not.” Let them say, too, if He was not in David when he said, not from himself,[4918] “But I was established by Him a king in Zion His holy hill,” and the other words spoken in the Psalms in the person of Christ. And why should I go over the details of this proof, truly they are hard to be numbered, when I can show quite clearly that He was always in men? And that is enough to show Heracleon’s interpretation of “There standeth in the midst of you,” to be unsound, when he says it is equivalent to “He is already here, and He is in the world and in men.” We are disposed to agree with him when he says that the words, “Who cometh after me,” show John to be the forerunner of Christ, for he is in fact a kind of servant running before his master. The words, however, “Whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” receive much too simple an interpretation when it is said that “in these words the Baptist confesses that he is not worthy even of the least honourable ministration to Christ.” After this interpretation he adds, not without sense, “I am not worthy that for my sake He should come down from His greatness and should take flesh as His footgear, concerning which I am not able to give any explanation or description, nor to unloose the arrangement of it.” In understanding the world by his shoe, Heracleon shows some largeness of mind, but immediately after he verges on impiety in declaring that all this is to be understood of that person whom John here has in his mind. For he considers that it is the demiurge of the world who confesses by these words that he is a lesser person than the Christ; and this is the height of impiety. For the Father who sent Him, He who is the God of the living as Jesus Himself testifies, of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, and He who is greater than heaven and earth for the reason that He is the Maker of them, He also alone is good and is greater than He who was sent by Him. And even if, as we said, Heracleon’s idea was a lofty one, that the whole world was the shoe of Jesus, yet I think we ought not to agree with him. For how can it be harmonized with such a view, that “Heaven is My throne and the earth My footstool,” a testimony which Jesus accepts as said of the Father?[4919] “Swear not by heaven,” He says, “for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet.” How, if he takes the whole world to be the shoe of Jesus, can he also accept the text,[4920] “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” saith the Lord. It is also worth while to enquire, whether as the Word and wisdom permeated the whole world, and as the Father was in the Son, the words are to be understood as above or in this way, that He who first of all was girded about with the whole creation, in addition to the Son’s being in Him, granted to the Saviour, as being second after Him and being God the Word, to pervade the whole creation. To those who have it in them to take note of the uninterrupted movement of the great heaven, how it carries with it from East to West so great a multitude of stars, to them most of all it will seem needful to enquire what that force is, how great and of what nature, which is present in the whole world. For to pronounce that force to be other than the Father and the Son, that perhaps might be inconsistent with piety.
“These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.”[4921] We are aware of the reading which is found in almost all the copies, “These things were done in Bethany.” This appears, moreover, to have been the reading at an earlier time; and in Heracleon we read “Bethany.” We are convinced, however, that we should not read “Bethany,” but “Bethabara.” We have visited the places to enquire as to the footsteps of Jesus and His disciples, and of the prophets. Now, Bethany, as the same evangelist tells us,[4922] was the town of Lazarus, and of Martha and Mary; it is fifteen stadia from Jerusalem, and the river Jordan is about a hundred and eighty stadia distant from it. Nor is there any other place of the same name in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, but they say that Bethabara is pointed out on the banks of the Jordan, and that John is said to have baptized there. The etymology of the name, too, corresponds with the baptism of him who made ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him; for it yields the meaning “House of preparation,” while Bethany means “House of obedience.” Where else was it fitting that he should baptize, who was sent as a messenger before the face of the Christ, to prepare His way before Him, but at the House of preparation? And what more fitting home for Mary, who chose the good part,[4923] which was not taken away from her, and for Martha, who was cumbered for the reception of Jesus, and for their brother, who is called the friend of the Saviour, than Bethany, the House of obedience? Thus we see that he who aims at a complete understanding of the Holy Scriptures must not neglect the careful examination of the proper names in it. In the matter of proper names the Greek copies are often incorrect, and in the Gospels one might be misled by their authority. The transaction about the swine, which were driven down a steep place by the demons and drowned in the sea, is said to have taken place in the country of the Gerasenes.[4924] Now, Gerasa is a town of Arabia, and has near it neither sea nor lake. And the Evangelists would not have made a statement so obviously and demonstrably false; for they were men who informed themselves carefully of all matters connected with Judæa. But in a few copies we have found, “into the country of the Gadarenes;” and, on this reading, it is to be stated that Gadara is a town of Judæa, in the neighbourhood of which are the well-known hot springs, and that there is no lake there with overhanging banks, nor any sea. But Gergesa, from which the name Gergesenes is taken, is an old town in the neighbourhood of the lake now called Tiberias, and on the edge of it there is a steep place abutting on the lake, from which it is pointed out that the swine were cast down by the demons. Now, the meaning of Gergesa is “dwelling of the casters-out,” and it contains a prophetic reference to the conduct towards the Saviour of the citizens of those places, who “besought Him to depart out of their coasts.” The same inaccuracy with regard to proper names is also to be observed in many passages of the law and the prophets, as we have been at pains to learn from the Hebrews, comparing our own copies with theirs which have the confirmation of the versions, never subjected to corruption, of Aquila and Theodotion and Symmachus. We add a few instances to encourage students to pay more attention to such points. One of the sons of Levi,[4925] the first, is called Geson in most copies, instead of Gerson. His name is the same as that of the first-born of Moses;[4926] it was given appropriately in each case, both children being born, because of the sojourn in Egypt, in a strange land. The second son of Juda,[4927] again, has with us the name Annan, but with the Hebrews Onan, “their labour.” Once more, in the departures of the children of Israel in Numbers,[4928] we find, “They departed from Sochoth and pitched in Buthan;” but the Hebrew, instead of Buthan, reads Aiman. And why should I add more points like these, when any one who desires it can examine into the proper names and find out for himself how they stand? The place-names of Scripture are specially to be suspected where many of them occur in a catalogue, as in the account of the partition of the country in Joshua, and in the first Book of Chronicles from the beginning down to, say, the passage about Dan,[4929] and similarly in Ezra. Names are not to be neglected, since indications may be gathered from them which help in the interpretation of the passages where they occur. We cannot, however, leave our proper subject to examine in this place into the philosophy of names.
Let us look at the words of the Gospel now before us. “Jordan” means “their going down.” The name “Jared” is etymologically akin to it, if I may say so; it also yields the meaning “going down;” for Jared was born to Maleleel, as it is written in the Book of Enoch—if any one cares to accept that book as sacred—in the days when the sons of God came down to the daughters of men. Under this descent some have supposed that there is an enigmatical reference to the descent of souls into bodies, taking the phrase “daughters of men” as a tropical expression for this earthly tabernacle. Should this be so, what river will “their going down” be, to which one must come to be purified, a river going down, not with its own descent, but “theirs,” that, namely, of men, what but our Saviour who separates those who received their lots from Moses from those who obtained their own portions through Jesus (Joshua)? His current, flowing in the descending stream, makes glad, as we find in the Psalms,[4930] the city of God, not the visible Jerusalem—for it has no river beside it—but the blameless Church of God, built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus our Lord being the chief corner-stone. Under the Jordan, accordingly, we have to understand the Word of God who became flesh and tabernacled among us, Jesus who gives us as our inheritance the humanity which He assumed, for that is the head corner-stone, which being taken up into the deity of the Son of God, is washed by being so assumed, and then receives into itself the pure and guileless dove of the Spirit, bound to it and no longer able to fly away from it. For “Upon whomsoever,” we read, “thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.” Hence, he who receives the Spirit abiding on Jesus Himself is able to baptize those who come to him in that abiding Spirit. But John baptizes beyond Jordan, in the regions verging on the outside of Judæa, in Bethabara, being the forerunner of Him who came to call not the righteous but sinners, and who taught that the whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For it is for forgiveness of sins that this washing is given.
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