Origen on the “Greater Works” image

Origen on the “Greater Works”

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I've been reading Origen's Against Celsus recently, and finding it a fascinating text when it comes to miracles, spiritual gifts and signs & wonders. I had already come across a number of places where Origen refers to the ongoing presence of miracles in his day (around 250), but I didn't know that he had also engaged with the question of what the "greater works" are in John 14. Here's how he answers:

His disciples performed even greater works than these miracles of Jesus, which were perceptible only to the senses. For the eyes of those who are blind in soul are ever opened; and the ears of those who were deaf to virtuous words, listen readily to the doctrine of God, and of the blessed life with Him; and many, too, who were lame in the feet of the inner man, as Scripture calls it, having now been healed by the word, do not simply leap, but leap as the hart, which is an animal hostile to serpents, and stronger than all the poison of vipers. And these lame who have been healed, receive from Jesus power to trample, with those feet in which they were formerly lame, upon the serpents and scorpions of wickedness, and generally upon all the power of the enemy; and though they tread upon it, they sustain no injury, for they also have become stronger than the poison of all evil and of demons.

(Against Celsus, 2.48)

Marvellous.

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