Saturday, April 6, 2024

"where truth and wisdom and [reason] are, . . . this is where Jesus is"

      "Now it is likely that, on the basis of our conjectures about the end, someone will focus on the statement, 'Where I go you cannot come,' [(Jn 8:21)] and reply that it is possible not to be able now, but to be able later.  And if indeed there is a present age and another to come, these to whom he has said, 'You cannot come,' cannot go where Jesus is during the present age (and the time which remains until its completion is great), that is, where truth and wisdom and the Word are, for this is where Jesus is [(ὅπου ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ σοφία καὶ ὁ λόγος, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν ὅπου Ἰησοῦς)].
     "But I know that some are overcome by their own sin not only in this age, but also in the age to come, as those of whom the Word says, 'If anyone blasphemes against the Holy Spirit he has forgiveness neither in this age nor in the one to come.'  If, however, there is no forgiveness in the coming age, neither is there any in the ages which come after it as well."

     Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Joannis 19.87-88 as trans. Ronald E. Heine (FC 89 (1993)), 187-188.  Heine is probably right, though, in translating 
ὁ λόγος as "the Word."  (But then why not "where the Truth and the Wisdom and the Word are"?)  Greek from Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which is where I stumbled upon this while searching (so far unsucessfully) for something else (the Origenistic "dictum" or "adage" hopou logos agei, "where(ever) reason leads," as quoted (?) often, but with never (?) a citation, by John Anthony McGuckin).