The Literalist

Origen of Alexandria was the most prolific Christian theologian of the third century. His patron set him up with more than seven stenographers working in relays, plus copyists, plus girls trained in calligraphy. Epiphanius later counted six thousand works. He compiled the Hexapla, a single Old Testament in six parallel columns, running to roughly fifty volumes and twenty years of his life.

He owned one cloak. He refused a second. He walked barefoot through Alexandrian winters and slept on the floor.

When he was sixteen and his father was about to be beheaded for the faith, he tried to run out and join him. His mother hid all his clothes. He wrote his father a letter instead, instructing him not to weaken on the family's account.

Then, as a young man, he read Matthew 19:12, there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, and paid a physician.

His bishop, Eusebius reports, initially admired the daring of the deed. There is no good moment to admire such a thing. Years later, when Origen got too famous to control, the same bishop used it to bar him from the priesthood.

Decades on, writing his Commentary on Matthew, Origen returned to the verse and noted that reading it literally would be an outrage.

He had, by then, given the matter some thought.