of existence, consistently with the
great purpose. If he choose wrongly, the results will in the end be
destroyed, not without suffering to himself and others.

To a more vivid imagination which thinks in pictures rather than in
metaphysical language, life presents itself as a great web which is
slowly coming from the loom, and sometimes there seems to be behind the
loom the figure of the great weaver; at other times the weaving is
being carried on by men and women whose weaving sometimes conforms,
sometimes does not, to an infinitely complicated but symmetrical plan
which, and here is the paradoxical tragedy, they can only see in the
web which has been already woven; but they know that whether what they
weave will remain, or not depends upon its being in accord with the
pattern. And then the picture changes slightly, and it seems as though
the pattern begins to reveal the same features as those dimly discerned
in the weaver behind the loom. And yet again the picture changes, and
it is not merely the great weaver, but the men and women who are
working that reappear with him to live on in the pattern emerging in
the web.

{134}

That is not the same thing as the Logos Christology or doctrine of
salvation as propounded by Origen, but I think that he would have
understood it had he lived now. It is not the same thing as the
teaching of the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus, yet I do not think
that he would have condemned it, for great men understand the thoughts
of lesser ones though they themselves fail to be understood. The
thoughts and words of Jesus, like those of Origen, were borrowed from
his own time and race; they belong to the first century as those of
Origen belong to the third. No historical reconstruction can make them
adequate for our generation, or even intelligible except to those who
have passed through an education in history impossible for most. But
the will of Jesus and the will of Origen, if we can reach them through
the language and thought of their time, have no such limitations. If I
have understood them rightly, both were animated by a desire to
accomplish the purpose of God, the God who is life.[22] And that
purpose did not appeal to them as the achievement for themselves of any
salvation, in this world or in the world to come, beyond the reach of
other men, but rather to show them what is the way of life, the natural
way, consistent with the purpose of God {135} and the pattern of life