Origen's interpretation of Jude 3 and his approach to reading Scripture

What is it about?

Origen is the only Church Father to quote the phrase ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’ from the Letter of Jude, verse 3. He paraphrases it while interpreting chapter 2 of John’s Gospel, where he identifies the temple with Jesus’s body and, through this, with the Church. This article argues that the phrase represents the position of other Christians whose methods of interpreting the Scriptures differ from Origen’s. Origen’s own method of relating the literal and the spiritual levels or senses of Scripture leads him to apply the temple’s destruction, the Jewish exile, and their restoration to the Church. As he does this, he claims to be the one who preserves the good things that were given to the saints – in other words, he claims that his method of interpretation is more faithful to Jude 3.

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