The Greek philosophy underlying Alexandrian thinking found the God of Judaism absurd and temperamental. Allegorical interpretation allowed Origen to use the Old Testament in an abstract way that disregarded the seeming absurdities of the Jewish God who walked in gardens and spoke on mountains. He could also skip over the embarrassing aspects of the New Testament (like instances of inferior grammar and syntax) by focusing on Christ, the divine Logos. Allegorical interpretation also helped Origen to affirm the Old Testament against Christians like the followers of Marcion, who rejected it completely. Rather than defending each story, he could insist that the other readers simply had not gone deeply enough into the meaning.
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/alexandria.stm
"The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written" ("McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia", article: "Origen").
http://www.present-truth.org/Bible-Batt ... attle4.htm
The Alexandrian School introduced new concepts into Christianity that denied the Hebraic roots of Christianity. Also this is how the DRV translates John 1:18
18 No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
The DRV was translated from the Vulgate, which was the official Bible of the Catholic Church from the 4th century until the Catholic Church authorized the Bible's translation into the vernacular.
Also, since no other NT author refers to Jesus as the only begotten God this one verse does not trump Jesus' own words in John 17:3.