The Pilgrimage of Commentary Writing

Origen (3rd century church father) spent three decades writing a commentary on the Gospel of John which remained incomplete at his death. In the preface to “Book 32” of the commentary (an exposition of John 13:2-33) he wrote about the work utilzing the analogy of the wilderness wandering of Israel. These are encouraging words to any of us writing commentaries:

Guided by God through Jesus Christ, let us walk in the great and life-giving way of the gospel, in hope that we may know and traverse it until we reach its end. For the moment, however, let us strive to attain the thirty-second encampment, as it were, in the things that are to be said; and may the pillar of shining cloud that is Jesus be with us, holy brother Ambriosius, leading us on when necessary and halting us when needful, until we have finished dictating our exposition of this gospel – not discouraged by the length of the journey or wearied by our own weakness, but impelled to follow in the tracks of the pillar of truth. But whether it is God’s will that we should complete this intellectual journey-by-dictation through the whole text of the Gospel according to John, God alone knows.

– exerpted from Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing, p. 516-17