CHAPTER XXXII

THE COMMENTARIES THAT ORIGEN WROTE IN PALESTINE

ABOUT this time, also, Origen composed his Commentaries on Isaiah, as also on Ezekiel. Of the former, the third part of Isaiah, as far as the vision of the beast in the desert, have come down to us, consisting of thirty sections. On Ezekiel there are twenty-five sections, which are all that he wrote upon this prophet. When he came to Athens, he finished his Commentaries on Ezekiel, and also commenced his Notes on the Song of Solomon, and advanced there as far as the fifth book. But on his return to Cæsarea, he also brought these to a close, in number ten. Why should we, however, give a minute statement of the man’s labours, a performance, in itself, that would require a separate and distinct work? And, indeed, this has already been done by us in our life of Pamphilus, that holy martyr of our day, in which, after exhibiting the great zeal of Pamphilus, we also subjoin the catalogues of the library collected by him, of the works written by Origen and other ecclesiastical writers; by which any one that wishes may most satisfactorily learn what works of Origen have come down to us.