Slow of speech before the true Word
While Moses was still trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, he was neither slow of speech nor slow of tongue. Once he heard God’s voice, he felt his speech thin and his tongue hindered; before the Word that was in the beginning with God he names himself mute. A rational man looks eloquent beside mute beasts, mute beside the learned, and — before divine Wisdom — a beast, as David said: I became as a beast before you. Beside the divine Word every human tongue is dumb.
Latin
Donec Moyses in Aegypto omni sapientia Aegyptiorum erudiretur, non erat gracili voce nec tardus lingua. Ubi vocem Dei audivit, sensit exilem vocem et impeditam linguam; se mutum profitetur coram Verbo quod in principio apud Deum erat. Homo mutis animalibus eloquens, eruditis mutus, apud divinam sapientiam iumentum — ut David: ut iumentum factus sum apud te. Omnes ad comparationem verbi divini muti sunt.
About this text
Origen’s Homilia III on Exodus (Rufinus’s Latin). Complete on this page: §§1–3.
English follows Baehrens, Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, 1920), Rufinus’s Latin of Homilia III. Heine FOTC 71 was not used as wording. This page is Homilia III §§1–3 (closeout).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Baehrens, Origenes Werke VI = GCS 29 (1920) (Latin · Homilia III §§1–3)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.