observers have pointed out that the greatest strength of Origen’s system is also its Achilles’ heel: its unlimited freedom.19 How can we restrain the flights of fancy an interpreter might take? How do we keep him from reading into the text a meaning of his own invention? How do we guarantee that the interpretation is God’s message to us, not man’s creative but flawed imagination? Origen was well aware of this problem, though it did not concern him greatly. I would like to suggest he had three safeguards