At that time, as was indeed natural, when the faith was multiplying and our doctrine was being boldly proclaimed before all, they say that Origen, being over sixty years old, since he had now acquired the greatest facility from his long preparation, permitted the discourses delivered by him in public to be taken down by shorthand-writers, a thing which he had never before allowed to be done.
At this time also he composed the eight treatises against the work entitled True Discourse, written against us by Celsus the Epicurean; and the twenty-five tomes on the Gospel according to Matthew; and those on the twelve prophets, of which we have found only twenty-five.
There is also extant a letter of his to the emperor Philip himself, and another to his wife Severa, and various others to various persons. Of these, as many as we have been able to gather, preserved here and there among various people, we have arranged in distinct collections of tomes, so that they might no longer be scattered abroad; and they exceed the number of a hundred.
He writes also to Fabian, bishop of Rome, and to very many other rulers of churches, concerning his own orthodoxy. You have proofs of these things also in the sixth book of the Apology written by us concerning the man.