Il Commento a Giovanni di Origene: Il testo e i suoi contesti. Atti dell'VIII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene e la Tradizione Alessandrina (Roma, 28-30 settembre 2004). Edited by EMANUELA PRINZIVALLI.

Abstract

It is a rule in academic life that many hands make heavy work—never more so, one might fear, than when a conference on Origen's prolix Commentary on John gives rise to a volume greater in bulk than the original. Yet if any commentary deserves a commentary, it is this profound and enigmatic masterpiece, which contains the germs of all Christian orthodoxy after Origen as well as a more candid presentation of his idiosyncrasies than any other work, including the De Principiis. The 22 participants in this conference, held in Rome in 2004, have approached their task with the skill and patience characteristic of the ‘Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene’. Manlio Simonetti sounds the keynote in ‘Il Commento a Giovanni tra esegesi e teologia’, showing that Origen's hermeneutic of the written word is grounded in the twofold character of Christ the Word as the immutable wisdom of God and as the agent of a manifold creation. But if the tools are furnished by his theology, it was the whimsical hypomnema of Heracleon, the Valentinian teacher, that provided the occasion for Origen's commentary: in ‘Il profilo litterario del Commento a Giovanni’, Lorenzo Perrone notes that he takes pains to outdo Heracleon in the use of demonstrative arguments, in attention to the structure of the Gospel, and in the juxtaposition of every text with its cognates, so that Scripture in its entirety becomes his canon for the interpretation of any one verse.