The answer
In one of his homilies on the Psalms, Origen calls the bishops “physicians” who are skilled in healing wounds.1607 He also comments on the bishops’ authority by saying that Christ was the great physician who heals from all sicknesses and diseases. Now, His apostles Peter and Paul, like the prophets, are also physicians. Likewise, those who are entrusted with the Church follow in their footsteps, for they were granted the gift of healing. Especially those servants in the Church, whom God established as physicians of souls, for He does not wish the death of a sinner, but rather that he returns and repents.1608
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1607 Ernest Latko, Origen’s Concept of penance (Laval, 1949): p. 78.
1608 Origen, Homilies on the Psalms On Psalm 37, 1.1 (FOTC 141; PG 12:1369); Ernest Latko, Origen’s Concept of penance (Laval, 1949): p. 74.