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Translated by W. Curtis.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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104 Pages
Page 71
Exactly like the expression epiousion, needful, is one found in Moses' writings, spoken by God: Ye shall be my periousios--peculiar people. Either word seems to me to be a compund of ousia--essence--the former signifying the bread that contributes to the essence, the latter denoting the people that has to do with the essence and is associated with it. As for ousia, essence, in the strict sense, by those who assert the priority of the substance of immaterial things, it is ranked with immaterial things which are in possession of permanent being and neither receive addition nor suffer subtraction. For addition and subtraction are characteristic of material things in reference to which growth and decay take place owing to their being in a state of flux, in need of imported support and nourishment.
If the import exceeds the waste in a period growth takes place, if it is less, diminuation; and if, as in conceivable, there are things receiving no import at all, they are in what I may term unmitigated diminuation. Those on the other hand who hold the substance of immaterial things to be posterior and that of material things to be prior, define essence in these terms: It is the primary matter of existing things out of which they are or the matter of bodily things out of which they are; or that of terms out of which they are; or the primary unqualified substance or presubstance of existing things; or that which admits of all transformations and modifications though itself as such inherently incapable of modification; or that which undergoes all modification and transformation.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/prayer.asp?pg=71
