Feb 12, 2010

Origen on the Prohibitions in Acts 15


Origen has an interesting take on the prohibitions in Acts 15:20, 29: 21:25. From his commentary on Romans 9:28 (Patrologia Graeca 14:1228) Origen writes,

“Now in these precepts where it says that no other burden ought to be imposed on Gentile believers except abstinence from the sacrifices of idols, from blood, from what has been suffocated and from fornication, homicide is not forbidden, nor adultery, nor theft, nor homosexual acts, nor other crimes that are punished by divine and human laws. But if it is saying that Christians must observe only that which it has recounted, it will appear to some that it granted license concerning the rest. But consider how the Holy Spirit manages affairs: since other crimes are avenged by laws of the world, it seemed superfluous for those things, which are sufficiently covered by human law, also to have been forbidden by divine law. It only decreed those things about which human law had said nothing and which seemed proper to religion.”

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