Angel dialects; knowledge vs mysteries; giving and martyrdom without love; love’s praises
—conversing with one another—do they converse in these same tongues humans use, so that some angels would happen to be Greek, some Hebrew, others Egyptian? Or is it absurd to say this about the upper angelic ranks? Then perhaps, just as there are many dialects among humans, so also among angels? And if God grants us to be ranked from human nature into the angelic—my Lord Jesus Christ promising that they will be as angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection—will we no longer use a human dialect but the angelic dialect? And just as children’s dialect differs from that of those whose voice is clear, so every human dialect is somehow a children’s dialect, while the angelic is somehow that of perfect and clear-voiced men? And perhaps there too, according to the analogy of their station, there are dialects. “If then I speak with the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal.” Just as sounding bronze gives an indistinct voice, and the clanging cymbal nothing clear, in the same way, without love, a tongue—even of angels among humans by hypothesis—is unclear; for nothing makes human or angelic speech clear and plain as love does; when love is absent, what is spoken is nothing.
What is the difference between knowledge and knowing the mysteries? For the apostle speaks about two things. I hold, then, that knowing about the open things is knowledge, more generic than the mysteries; for within a part of knowledge lies the science of the mysteries. But knowing about the more unspeakable and more divine things is knowing the mystery—so that there is a generic account of knowledge, yet not every grasp of knowledge is grasp of mysteries, about which it is said, But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages for our gloryWhen I know these things, then I have the knowledge of the mysteries. “And if I have all faith so as to move mountains”: it is written in the gospel, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for youFor the one who has faith as a mustard seed has the whole of faith.
50 on 1 Corinthians 13:3: “And if I give away all my possessions as food, and if I hand over my body that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” [Origen:] “If I feed people with all my goods” not because of love; “if I hand over my body that I may boast”—as if it were possible to give away goods not for love but for empty glory, and as if it were possible also to bear witness for the sake of boasting and the glory with which martyrs are glorified in the churches.
51 on 1 Corinthians 13:4–5: “Love is patient, is kind; love does not envy; love does not brag, is not puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not seek its own.” [Origen:] He goes through the praises of the love that surpasses the gifts. For he had to teach both what love is and how the one who has love is. “Love is patient”: if you have patience that is a fruit of the Spirit, you have it because of love. “Is kind”: what is opposite to kindness? Wickedness. If you act wickedly against anyone, you do not have love. If you are kind and sweet toward all humans, you have love. “Love does not envy”: if there is envy in you like Cain’s toward Abel or like Joseph’s brothers toward Joseph, you do not have love. Loving and envying are fighting things. “Love does not brag”: when someone is rash, professing to know about a craft or a science or knowledge, that one is the braggart because he does not have love. “Does not behave indecently”: no one who has love does anything indecent; so if ever a brother and sister claiming to love one another according to God fall through weakness under the pretext of love, let us tell them they do not have love; for love does not behave indecently. “Does not seek its own”: no one who has love seeks his own things; for example a mother loving her son, or a father, does not seek his own as he seeks the son’s; for having love is not self-loving. If the Savior, being in the form of God and equal with God, had sought his own, he would have remained in that form; but now, wanting to save a perishing world, he emptied himself, taking a slave’s form; and being found in fashion as a human he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto—
Greek
διαλεγόμενοι πρὸς ἀλλήλους ταύταις ταῖς γλώσσαις διαλέ γονται αἷς καὶ ἄνθρωποι, ὥστε τῶν ἀγγέλων τινὰς μὲν Ἕλληνας εἶναι τυχὸν τινὰς δὲ Ἑβραίους καὶ ἄλλους Αἰγυπτίους; ἢ τοῦτο ἄτοπον λέγειν περὶ τῶν ἄνω ἀγγελικῶν ταγμάτων; μή ποτε οὖν ὥσπερ εἰσὶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις διάλεκτοι πολλαί, οὕτως εἰσὶ καὶ ἐν ἀγγέλοις; καὶ ἐὰν ὁ θεὸς ἡμῖν χαρίσηται ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως ἐπὶ τὴν ἀγγελικὴν καταταγῆν<αι>, τοῦ κυρίου μου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐπαγγελίαν λέγοντος Ἰ άγγελοι ἔσονται καὶ υἱοὶ θεοῦ τῆ ἀνα τά εω υἱοὶ ὄντε , οὐκέτι χρησόμεθα διαλέκτῳ ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ διαλέκτῳ τῇ ἀγγελικῇ; καὶ ὥσπερ ἄλλη διάλεκτος παιδίων καὶ ἄλλη τετρανωμένων τὴν φωνήν, οὕτως πᾶσα ἐν ἀνθρώποις διάλεκτος οἱονεὶ παιδίων ἐστὶ διάλεκτος· ἡ δὲ ἀγγελικὴ οἱονεὶ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι τελείων καὶ τετρανωμένων; ἴσως δὲ κἀκεῖ κατὰ τὴν ἀναλο γίνα τῆς καταστάσεως καὶ διάλεκτοί εἰσιν. ἐὰν οὖν ταῖς γλώσσαις τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαλῶ καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, γέγονα χαλκὸς ἠχῶν ἢ κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον. ὥσπερ ὁ χαλκὸς ἠχῶν ἄσημον δίδωσι φωνήν, ὥσπερ τὸ κύμβαλον τὸ ἀλαλάζον οὐδὲν τρανόν, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, χωρὶς μὲν ἀγάπης, γλῶσσα κἂν ἀγγέλων ἐν ἀνθρώποις καθ' ὑπόθεσιν ᾖ, ἀτράνωτός ἐστιν· οὐδὲν γὰρ ποιεῖ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἤ τοι τῶν ἀγγέλων τρανῆ καὶ σαφῆ, ὡς ἡ ἀγάπη· ἀγάπης δὲ μὴ παρούσης τὸ λαλούμενον οὐδέν ἐστιν. Τίς δὲ ἡ διαφορὰ τῆς γνώσεως καὶ τῆς τῶν μυστηρίων εἰδήσεως; περὶ δύο γὰρ πραγμάτων ὁ ἀπόστολος λέγει. ἡγοῦμαι τοίνυν τὸ μὲν περὶ τῶν φανερῶν εἰδέναι τὴν γνῶσιν εἶναι, γενικωτέραν οὖσαν τῶν μυστηρίων· ἐν μέρει γὰρ τῆς γνώσεως ἡ τῶν μυστηρίων ἐστὶν ἐπιστήμη· τὸ δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀπορρητοτέρων καὶ θειοτέρων εἰδέναι τοῦτ' εἶναι τὸ μυστήριον γινώσκειν, ὡς εἶναι γενικὸν μὲν λόγον τῆς γνώσεως οὐκέτι δὲ πάσης τῆς γνώσεως εἶναι τὴν κατάληψιν μυστηρίων περὶ ὧν λέλεκται Ἀλλὰ λαλοῦμεν θεοῦ οφίαν ἐν μυ τηρίῳ, τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, ἣν προώρι εν ὁ θεὸ πρὸ τῶν ἀιώνων εἰ δόξαν ἡμῶν. ὅταν γὰρ εἰδῶ ταῦτα, τότε ἔχω τὴν γνῶσιν τῶν μυστηρίων. Κἂν ἔχω πᾶσαν τὴν πίστιν ὥστε ὄρη μεθιστάνειν. γέγραπται ἐν τῷ εὐαγ γελίῳ Ἐὰν ἔχητε πί τιν ὡ κόκκον ινάπεω , ἐρεῖτε τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ Ἄρθητι καὶ βλήθητι εἰ τὴν θάλα αν, καὶ μεταβή εται, καὶ οὐδὲν ὑμῖν ἀδυνατή ει. ὁ γὰρ ἔχων πί τιν ὡ κόκκον ινάπεω ὅλην ἔχει τὴν πίστιν. 50 xiii3 [κἂν ψωμίσω πάντα τὰ ὑπάρχοντά μου, κἂν παραδῶ τὸ σῶμά μου ἵνα καυχήσωμαι, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, οὐδὲν ὠφελοῦμαι.] [Ὠριγένους] Κἂν ψωμίσω πάντα μου τὰ ὑπάρχοντα οὐ διὰ τὴν ἀγάπην· κἂν παραδῶ τὸ σῶμά μου ἵνα καυχήσωμαι, ὡς δυνατοῦ ὄντος ψωμίσαι τινὰ τὰ ὑπάρχοντα οὐ διὰ τὴν ἀγάπην ἀλλὰ διὰ κενοδοξίαν, καὶ ὡς δυνατοῦ ὄντος καὶ μαρτυ ρῆσαί τινα ἕνεκεν καυχήσεως καὶ δόξης ἧς δοξάζονται ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις οἱ μάρτυρες. 51 xiii4–5 [Ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ, χρηστεύεται, ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ ζηλοῖ, ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ περπερεύεται, οὐ φυσιοῦται, οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ, οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς.] [Ὠριγένους] Τὰ ἐγκώμια τῆς ἀγάπης τῆς ὑπερεχούσης τὰ χαρίσματα διεξέρχεται. ἔδει γὰρ αὐτὸν διδάξαι καὶ τί ἐστιν ἀγάπη καὶ πῶς ἐστιν ὁ ἔχων τὴν ἀγάπην. Ἡ ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ· εἰ ἔχεις μακροθυμίαν τὴν οὖσαν κάρπον τοῦ πνεύματο ἔχεις αὐτὴν διὰ τὴν ἀγάπην. Χρηστεύεται· τί χρηστότητι ἐναντίον; ἡ πονηρία. εἰ πονηρεύῃ κατά τινος, οὐκ ἔχεις τὴν ἀγάπην. εἰ χρηστὸς εἶ καὶ γλυκὺς πρὸς πάντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ἔχεις ἀγάπην. Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ ζηλοῖ· εἰ ζῆλός ἐστιν ἐν σοὶ ὁποῖος ἦν ἐν τῷ Κάϊν πρὸς τὸν Ἄβελ ἢ ὁποῖος ἦν ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ πρὸς τὸν Ἰωσήφ, οὐκ ἔχεις τὴν ἀγάπην. μαχόμενον πρᾶγμά ἐστι· τὸ ἀγαπᾶν, τὸ ζηλοῦν. Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ περπερεύεται· ὅταν τις προπετὴς ᾖ ἐπαγγελλόμενος εἰδέναι ἢ περὶ τέχνης ἢ περὶ ἐπιστήμης ἢ περὶ γνώσεως, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ περπερευόμενος παρὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν τὴν ἀγάπην. Οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ· οὐδεὶς τὴν ἀγάπην ἔχων ἄσχημόν τι πράττει· ἐὰν οὖν ποτε ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν ἄρρην καὶ θήλεια φάσκοντες κατὰ θεὸν ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν δι' ἀσθένειαν πέσωσι προφάσει ἀγάπης, λέγωμεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι οὐκ ἔχουσι τὴν ἀγάπην· ἡ γὰρ ἀγάπη οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ. Οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς· οὐδεὶς ἀγάπην ἔχων ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ· οἷον μήτηρ τὸ ἀγαπᾶν τὸν υἱὸν ἢ πατὴρ οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἴδια ὡς τὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ· τὸ γὰρ ἔχειν ἀγάπην οὐ φίλαυτον. εἰ ἐζήτει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ ὁ Σωτὴρ ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων καὶ ὢν ἴ α θεῷ, ἔμενεν ἂν ἐν τῇ μορφῇ ἐκείνῃ· νῦν δὲ σῶσαι κόσμον ἀπολλύμενον θελήσας ἑαυτὸν ἐκένω εν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών· καὶ χήματι εὑρεθεὶ ὡ ἄνθρωπο ἐταπείνω εν ἑαυτὸν γενόμενο ὑπήκοο μέχρι
About this text
Origen of Alexandria, Fragmenta ex commentariis in epistulam i ad Corinthios (Greek).
Catalogue & scope
Khazarzar scan
Witnesses
- Copy-text PG 14 (Khazarzar) (Greek)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.