Origen Takes the School

While he was busy with his school, as he himself records somewhere in writing, there was no one at Alexandria devoted to giving instruction in the faith, for all had been driven away by the threat of persecution; and some of the pagans came to him to hear the word of God. [a] The first of them, he notes, was Plutarch, who after living a good life was adorned with a divine martyrdom. The second was Heraclas, Plutarch’s brother. He too, under Origen, gave the fullest proof of a philosophic life and of discipline, and was counted worthy of the office of bishop of Alexandria after Demetrius. [b]

Origen was in his eighteenth year when he took charge of the school of instruction. In that same time, during the persecutions under Aquila, governor of Alexandria, he went on advancing, and it was then above all that he won a very famous name among all who belonged to the faith, through the welcome and the eagerness he showed toward all the holy martyrs, strangers and acquaintances alike. [c] For he did not only stay with them while they were in chains, or while they were being examined until their final sentence. Even after it, when the holy martyrs were being led away to death, he was with them, speaking with great boldness and going straight into the dangers. And often, as he came up courageously and greeted the martyrs with a kiss, with great boldness, the pagan crowd around them grew mad with rage and all but stoned him. [d] He escaped only because God’s right hand helped him, completely and against all expectation. And the same divine and heavenly grace guarded him at other times too, again and again — it is impossible to say how often — when he was plotted against for his great zeal and boldness for the word of Christ. So great was the war of the unbelievers against him, because of the number of people being instructed by him in the sacred faith, that they gathered mobs and posted soldiers around the house where he was staying. [e] So the persecution against him blazed up day by day, until the whole city could no longer hold him. He moved from house to house and was driven out from every side, because of the crowds who came through him to the divine teaching. For his deeds, too, in his way of life, showed truly wonderful achievements of the most genuine philosophy. As his word was, they say, so was his manner of life; and as his manner of life, so his word. This above all is why, with divine power working with him, he led countless people to share his zeal. [f]

When he saw still more students coming to him, and the school of instruction had been entrusted to him alone by Demetrius, who presided over the church, he judged that teaching grammar did not agree with training in divine studies. Without delay he broke off his grammar school, as unprofitable and contrary to sacred learning. Then, with fitting good sense, so that he would not need help from others, he parted with all the works of ancient literature he had so lovingly studied before, and was content with four obols a day brought to him by the man who had bought them. For a great many years he kept up this philosophic way of life, cutting off from himself all the fuel of youthful cravings. Throughout the day he carried out no small labors of discipline, and he gave most of the night to studying the divine Scriptures. He persevered as far as possible in the most philosophic of lives, at one time by the exercise of fasting, at another by measured hours of sleep; and he took care to sleep never on a bed, but on the floor. [g] Above all, he thought the Savior’s words in the gospel must be kept: those that urge us not to have two coats, nor to wear shoes, nor to wear ourselves out with worry about the future. [h] With an eagerness beyond his years he held out in cold and nakedness, and went to the very extreme of poverty, so that he greatly astonished those around him. He grieved a great many who wished to share their possessions with him, because of the labors they saw him spending on the divine teaching. But he himself did not give way in his endurance. He is said, at any rate, to have walked the ground for several years without wearing any shoe at all, and for a great many years to have abstained from wine and from everything beyond the food he needed, so that he came into danger of breaking down and ruining his chest. [i]

By giving those who watched him such examples of a philosophic life, he naturally stirred many of his students to the same zeal, so that even among the unbelieving pagans, men of learning and philosophy, and no ordinary ones, came under his teaching. They too received from him, sincerely and in the depth of their souls, faith in the divine Word, and they became prominent in the persecution of that time; some of them were even arrested and perfected by martyrdom.