(335) But it is likely that someone
will disconcert us by introducing the holy patriarchs into the examination, or
the sacred servant, or the marvelous prophets, or the mightiest apostles of our
Savior Jesus, so that these too then might say, like Jesus, “I do not have a
demon.” It is possible to ask them in response, And did these ever sin? Or is
the statement false, “For all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God”?
[Rom. 3.23] And is this statement not true, “Not one is clean from defilement?”
[Jb 14.4] And was it not carefully stated, “There is no just man on the earth
who will do good and will not sin”? [Eccl. 7.20] But it is clear that all
the Scriptures are true, and that not even those who changed to the virtuous
life were always able to say from the beginning, “I do not have a demon.” The
statement of that man considered to be the Savior alone was from the beginning.
This is why he alone honored the Father in the most appropriate and true
manner, for no one who honors something that God does not honor, honors the one
who esteems the things he honors as unworthy of honor. (Origen, Book 20, in Commentary
on the Gospel According to John Books 13-32 [trans. Ronald E. Heine; The
Fathers of the Church 89; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1993], 275)