"Within a little more than a hundred years after John wrote, ----a “Theological Seminary” was in full operation at Alexandria,
spreading the darkness of Egypt over the earth.
The two principal teachers at the school were Origen and Clement. 
To this school young men came from all parts of the world, to learn how to preach; and so great was its influence,that we are told that nearly all the servants of the day were taken either directly or indirectly from Origen.
To this school young men came from all parts of the world, to learn how to preach; and so great was its influence,that we are told that nearly all the servants of the day were taken either directly or indirectly from Origen.
We have only to learn the sentiments of the teachers in that school, to know the kind of husks upon which the churches were fed.
Origen wrote a work on the principles of things, from which we quote:
Having spoken thus briefly on the subject of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, it is necessary to proceed to the consideration of the manner in which they are to be read and understood, seeing numerous errors have been committed in consequence of the method in which the holy documents ought to be examined not having been discovered by the multitude.
Clement also said:
For many reasons, then, the Scriptures hide the sense. First, that we may become inquisitive, and be ever on the watch for the discovery of the words of salvation.
Then it was not suitable for all to understand, so that they might not receive harm in consequence of taking in another sense the things declared for salvation by the Holy Spirit.
Here we have a direct contradiction of the words of Christ,who said that the things of God were revealed unto babes, and that they who receive the kingdom of God must do so as little children, and not as philosophers.
When Christ was on earth,
Mark 12:37
The common people heard Him gladly.
They could understand the deep things which the learned men found so difficult. But let us read further what these mens aid.
Origen said,
With respect to Holy Scripture, our opinion is that the whole of it has a spiritual, but not the whole a bodily meaning, because the bodily meaning in many places proved to be impossible.
Again He said, in the same book:
And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a 
husbandman, planted a par-adise in Eden, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpa-ble, so that one tasting fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masti-cating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the Paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide him-self under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally."
E.J.Waggoner
