In spite of all the hermeneutic research, the allegorizing of the Alexandrians, and above all the exegetical work of Origen, remains a strange phenomenon of the early church. Historians have often smiled indulgently, if they have not scoffed, at those childhood steps of biblical interpretation within ancient Christian theology, from Thomasius more than a century ago up to our present. The possibility of a complete understanding is hindered by the lack of many of Origen's texts in the original language. Many of his commentaries are lost. And yet there are certain indications from which we can learn that Origen did have his sound reasons for his exegetical undertaking. For this, one has to examine the tenth chapter of his Commentary on Joh
