From that time also Origen's commentaries on the divine Scriptures had their beginning, since Ambrose urged him on most strongly with innumerable exhortations of every kind, not only by words and entreaties, but also by most lavish supplies of what was needful.
For there were present with him more than seven shorthand-writers as he dictated, who relieved one another at appointed times, and copyists not fewer in number, together with girls trained in fine penmanship. For all of these Ambrose furnished the needful and abundant supply; nay more, he also brought to bear upon him an unspeakable eagerness in the practice of and zeal for the divine oracles, by which above all he urged him on to the composition of the commentaries.
While things were thus, Pontianus succeeded Urban, who had been bishop of the church for eight years, and Zebinus came after Philetus in the church of the Antiochenes.
In their day Origen, having set out for Greece by way of Palestine on account of a pressing need in ecclesiastical affairs, received at Caesarea the laying-on of hands for the presbyterate from the bishops there. The matters that were stirred up concerning him on this account, and the decisions made by those who presided over the churches upon the matters thus stirred, as well as the other contributions that, in his prime, he made to the divine word, require a separate composition, and we have recorded them with moderate fullness in the second book of the Apology that we have made on his behalf.