Accordance has released Greek and English editions of select works of Origen. There is one important thing to know about what sets this module apart from other digital editions: The Greek text has been hand tagged by Rex Koivisto of Multnomah University. Rex is behind many of Accordance’s tagged Greek text. His work is always careful and very well done, and this module is no exception.

Let’s take a look at what is included and how these modules can benefit you regardless of whether or not you are a patristic scholar.

Origen & the Works Included

Origen was an early, prolific Christian author (ca. 185–ca. 254). In The Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, Henri Crouzel and Emanuela Prinzivalli write,

Origin was probably the most prolific author of Antiquity, pagan or Christian: the list of his works given by Jerome in letter 33 to Paula, though incomplete, is astonishing. (vol. 2, p. 978)

The modules included in Accordance’s selected works are On the First Principles and Against Celsus. Crouzel and Prinzivalli speak of On First Principles as “the first Christian attempt at theological reflection to start from the regula fidei and rely on Scripture and reason” (vol. 2, p. 978).

What is the significance of Against Celsus? It’s “a refutation in eight books of the attack by the philosopher Celsus in his anti-Christian True Doctrine,” and it’s “the most important apologetic work of Christian Antiquity” (vol. 2, p. 978).

Benefit in Accordance

More complete editions of Origen’s works are certainly available, but these modules are set apart by the careful tagging of the Greek text and the edited English translation designed to run in parallel. I want these modules in my Accordance library primarily to enhance my Greek searches. Anyone interested in reading and studying Greek with Accordance should consider picking up these Origen modules while they are on sale this week.

Thanks to Rex Koivisto’s hard work, you don’t have to be a patristic scholar to take advantage of these modules. When you are reading your Greek Bible and live-click a word to see where else that word occurs, now Origen’s works are listed alongside your other Greek texts.

For more information on how to setup this live-click word usage feature, check out this post. Here’s the short story:

• I created a custom user group that includes all the tagged texts I would want to see concordance-like results for.
• I setup the live-click word usage feature to display results in this custom user group.
  

Even clicking on the most used Greek word of all, the article, produces all 19,865 results in about one second. I can quickly jump between the different modules by clicking ⌘+Down.

In that screenshot, you can also see the host of other Greek works alongside of which you can now use these Origen modules.

I usually keep the table of contents closed, however, and either (1) use ⌘+Down to scroll the the various Greek works or (2) open the table of contents only when I need it to jump to results in a particular work. Here’s an image of what that looks like with the LXX:

I hope this gives you an idea of what these new Origen modules include and how they can enhance your Accordance Greek studies. They are on sale now for about 60% off.