Origen deals with the question of the kidneys in his exegetical works
written on Old Testament books. The two major topics of these texts are
the cultic laws and sacrifices on the one side and the inner parts of
the human being and its metaphoric sense on the other. Origen uses the
word of "kidneys" in the following senses: 1) symbol of corporeal matter
in Christ, 2) sacrifice for the sins in opposition of thank-offering,
3) inner conviction in opposition of pronounced word, 4) passive part or
function of the soul, 5) desirous part or function of the soul, 6)
male's procreative power, seat of spermatogenesis, 7) impious thought,
8) place of the birth of the fear, 9) seat of the innate seeds and roots
of good and bad thoughts. In the newly rediscovered Second Homily on
the Fifteenth Psalm Origen uses his theory of homonymy, and in his
interpretation he follows an out-of-day medical theory criticized by
Galen. For Origen the kidneys are the seats of man's sexual potency.
Spiritual kidneys are the places of spiritual procreative power, i. e.
seeds and roots of good and bad thoughts, and these Origenian ideas of
the Second Homily on the Fifteenth Psalm strongly modify the
conventional picture of his anthropology.
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