"Divine Wisdom has arranged for there to be certain stumbling blocks or interruptions of the narrative meaning, by inserting in its midst certain impossibilities and contradictions, so that the very interpretation of the narrative might oppose the reader, as it were, with certain obstacles thrown in the way. By them Wisdom denies a way and an access to the common understanding, and when we are shut out and hurled back, it calls us back to the beginning of another way, so that by gaining a higher and loftier road through entering a narrow footpath it may open for us the immense breadth of divine knowledge."
Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185-254)