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Origen · Annotations on Deuteronomy (fragments from Catenae) §1.7

God's Condescension and Bearing of Man as a Father

Passage 1 of 10 · Greek

Summary

Presents Aquila's interpretation of Deuteronomy 1:31 ('as a man should bear/nourish') and a quotation from Origen's Homilies on Jeremiah regarding how God condescends and adapts Himself to humans like a teacher or a father.

§1.7Στίχ. λα΄.
Verse 31.
Ὁσεὶ τροφοφορήσαι ἀνθρωπος. Ἀκύλας. Ὡσεὶ ἄραι τροφὸς τὸν υἱὸν ἐβάστασεν, ἡρμήνευσεν. Ὦριγένης δὲ ἐν ταῖς εἰς τὸν Ἱερεμίαν ὁμιλίαις φησί· « Συμπεριηνέχθη καὶ συγκατέβη ὑμῖν (27), τὴν ἡμετέραν ἀσθένειαν οἰκειούμενος· ὡς διδάσκαλος συμψελλίζων παιδίοις, ὡς πατὴρ ἰδίους τιθηνούμενος παῖδας, καὶ τοὺς τρόπους αὐτῶν ὑποδυόμενος, καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν ἄγων αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ τὰ τελειότερα καὶ ὑψηλότερα. »
'As if a man should nourish.' Aquila interpreted: 'As if a nurse should lift up her son, he carried.' And Origen says in the Homilies on Jeremiah: 'He accommodated Himself to you and descended to you (27), making our weakness His own; like a teacher lisping with young children, like a father nursing his own children, and assuming their manners, and leading them little by little to more perfect and loftier things.'

Notes

  1. §1.7τροφοφορήσαι — Reflects the textual variant in Deuteronomy 1:31 of the Septuagint between ἐτροφοφόρησεν ('he nourished/carried') and ἐτροποφόρησεν ('he bore with their manners'). Here it functions as an infinitive (or optative) following ὡσεί (written as ὁσεί), introducing a hypothetical comparison: 'as if [one] should nourish/carry'.
  2. §1.7συμπεριηνέχθη — Third-person singular aorist passive indicative of συμπεριφέρω ('to adapt oneself to, deal gently with, accommodate oneself to'). In the passive, it takes a dative complement (here ὑμῖν) and means 'to accommodate oneself to' or 'to show indulgence to.' It is used in the context of divine condescension, where God adapts Himself to human weakness.

Cite this passage

Origen, Annotations on Deuteronomy (fragments from Catenae) §1.7. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2042.tlg070.humanitext-grc1:1.7

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