|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE | LIBRARIES | BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | FREEWARE | BOOKSTORE |
|
|
Translated by W. Curtis.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
|
104 Pages
Page 41
Who would not acknowledge that in the spiritual blessing which comes home to all the saints and which Isaac spoke of to Jacob, "God give you of the rain of heaven," a higher rain had fallen to Ananiah and those with him than the material rain that overcame Nebuchadnezzar's flame? Greater had been the muzzling of the unseen lions by the prophet Daniel so that they were unable to work anything against his soul, than that of the visible lions to which all of us who read the passage have understood it to refer.
And who as a saint, becoming a fit recipient of the holy spirit, had ever, like Jonah, escaped the belly of a monster that swallowed every fugitive from God and which has been defeated by Jesus our Savior? It need not cause surprise if, to keep the metaphor, the corresponding shadow is not given to all who receive objects capable of making shadows, while to some a shadow is what is given. Students of questions relating to sundials and of the relation of shadows to the illuminating body clearly observe what is the case with bodies generally, that at a particular time some projectors are shadowless, others are short shadowed, others are more or less long-shadowed.
It is therefore not astonishing that, as the Giver's plan is to bestow the principal things in accordance with certain unutterable and mystic guiding principles and suitable to the recipients and occasions, when the principal objects are being given there should sometimes go with them no shadows at all for the recipients. At other times shadows are but few; at other times shadows which are smaller in comparison accompany different objects.
As the presence or absence of the shadow of bodies neither pleases nor pains the man whose object of search is solar beams, he possesses his chief necessity in being illumined or freed from shadow or in having more or less of shadow as the case may be. If the spiritual things are ours, and we are being illumined by God for complete possession of true blessings, we shall not quibble over a matter so paltry as concerns the shadow.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/prayer.asp?pg=41
