Church History 6.2.9 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Not content with the plain sense, the boy Origen pressed his father about Scripture's deeper meaning.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:241–242

οὐκ ἀπροαιρέτως δὲ ταῦτα ἐγίνετο τῷ παιδὶ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἄγαν προθυμότατα περὶ ταῦτα πονοῦντι, ὡς μηδʼ ἐξαρκεῖν αὐτῷ τὰς ἁπλᾶς καὶ προχείρους τῶν ἱερῶν λόγων ἐντεύξεις, ζητεῖν δέ τι πλέον καὶ βαθυτέρας ἤδη ἐξ ἐκείνου πολυπραγμονεῖν θεωρίας, ὥστε καὶ πράγματα παρέχειν τῷ πατρὶ τί ἄρα ἐθέλοι δηλοῦν τὸ τῆς θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς ἀναπυνθανόμενος βού- λῆμα.

English · Claude translation

Nor was this done against the boy's will; he laboured at it with great eagerness, so that the simple and obvious readings of the sacred words did not satisfy him, but he sought something more and already then busied himself with deeper speculations, so that he even troubled his father by asking what the intention of the inspired Scripture might be.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:241–242 · Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Eusebii Caesariensis Opera, vol. 4: Historiae ecclesiasticae libri I–X (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871) · Greek text: W. Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Dindorf, Eusebii Opera 4. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Teubner, 1871); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1 (1890) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/2/9/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.2.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/2/9/).