© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Vigiliae Christianae 60, 1-8 Also available online – www.brill.nl 1 Abbreviations: PA = Peri Archon; GK = Origen, Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien, ed. by H. Görgemanns and H. Karpp, 3rd ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992). 2 The marginal gloss occurs at lines 13ff of MS B (Codex Venetus Marcianus, 47) (P. Koetschau, Origenes. Werke. Fünfter Band. De Principiis [PERI ARXVN], GCS 22/OW 5, apparatus on 308). For a description of this manuscript, cf. P. Koetschau, Die Textüberlieferung der Bücher des Origenes gegen Celsus in den Handschriften dieses Werkes und der Philokalia. Prolegomena zu einer kritischen Ausgabe (TU 6.1) (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1889): 117- 121; J. A. Robinson, The Philocalia of Origen (Cambridge: CUP, 1893) xiii-xvii. 3 §j §pipno¤aw toË èg¤ou pneÊmatow boulÆmati toË patrÚw t«n ˜lvn diå ÉIhsoË XristoË taÊtaw énagegrãfyai ka‹ efiw ≤mçw §lhluy°nai (PA 4.2.2/GK 700, 308.12-14). WHY DOES ORIGEN REFER TO THE TRINITARIAN AUTHORSHIP OF SCRIPTURE IN BOOK 4 OF PERI ARCHON ? 1  P. MARTENS A: There are only two passages in Peri Archon where Origen refers to the trinitarian authorship of Scripture. Both of these passages have, however, elicited either little or misleading commentary from the literature. In this arti- cle I will show how these two trinitarian expressions play a decisive role in Origen’s larger polemic against his main exegetical adversaries, the Jews and the Gnostics. At stake is the identification of the authorship of Scripture and, thus also, its resulting message. I. Introduction In the eleventh century Codex Venetus Marcianus, one of the oldest manu- scripts of the Greek text for Origen’s Peri Archon (PA), there is a marginal gloss which reads: per‹ triãdow. 2 This keen annotation was inserted in the margin at PA 4.2.2 where Origen had written that the Scriptures “were composed and have come down to us from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the will of the Father of the universe through Jesus Christ.” 3 A similar expression, evidently not detected by the scribe, occurred later at PA 4.2.7