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Translated by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 113
The Lord Himself, in the Gospel, not only declares that these same results are future, but that they are to be brought about by His own intercession, He Himself deigning to obtain them from the Father for His disciples, saying, "Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with Me; and as Thou and I are one, they also may be one in Us." [2677] In which the divine likeness itself already appears to advance, if we may so express ourselves, and from being merely similar, to become the same, [2678] because undoubtedly in the consummation or end God is "all and in all." And with reference to this, it is made a question by some [2679] whether the nature of bodily matter, although cleansed and purified, and rendered altogether spiritual, does not seem either to offer an obstruction towards attaining the dignity of the (divine) likeness, or to the property of unity, [2680] because neither can a corporeal nature appear capable of any resemblance to a divine nature which is certainly incorporeal; nor can it be truly and deservedly designated one with it, especially since we are taught by the truths of our religion that that which alone is one, viz., the Son with the Father, must be referred to a peculiarity of the (divine) nature.
[2677] Cf. John xvii. 24; cf. 21.
[2678] Ex simili unum fieri.
[2679] Jerome, in his Epistle to Avitus, No. 94, has the passage thus: "Since, as we have already frequently observed, the beginning is generated again from the end, it is a question whether then also there will be bodies, or whether existence will be maintained at some time without them when they shall have been annihilated, and thus the life of incorporeal beings must be believed to be incorporeal, as we know is the case with God. And there is no doubt that if all the bodies which are termed visible by the apostle, belong to that sensible world, the life of incorporeal beings will be incorporeal." And a little after: "That expression, also, used by the apostle, 'The whole creation will be freed from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God' (Rom. viii. 21), we so understand, that we say it was the first creation of rational and incorporeal beings which is not subject to corruption, because it was not clothed with bodies: for wherever bodies are, corruption immediately follows. But afterwards it will be freed from the bondage of corruption, when they shall have received the glory of the sons of God, and God shall be all in all." And in the same place: "That we must believe the end of all things to be incorporeal, the language of the Saviour Himself leads us to think, when He says, 'As I and Thou are one, so may they also be one in Us' (John xvii. 21). For we ought to know what God is, and what the Saviour will be in the end, and how the likeness of the Father and the Son has been promised to the saints; for as they are one in Him, so they also are one in them. For we must adopt the view, either that the God of all things is clothed with a body, and as we are enveloped with flesh, so He also with some material covering, that the likeness of the life of God may be in the end produced also in the saints: or if this hypothesis is unbecoming, especially in the judgment of those who desire, even in the smallest degree, to feel the majesty of God, and to look upon the glory of His uncreated and all-surpassing nature, we are forced to adopt the other alternative, and despair either of attaining any likeness to God, if we are to inhabit for ever the same bodies, or if the blessedness of the same life with God is promised to us, we must live in the same state as that in which God lives." All these points have been omitted by Rufinus as erroneous, and statements of a different kind here and there inserted instead (Ruaeus).
[2680] Ad unitatis proprietatem.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/principiis.asp?pg=113
