Origen

Origen of AlexandriaTemplate:Efn (Template:Circa 185 – Template:Circa 253),<ref>The New Catholic Encyclopedia (Detroit: Gale, 2003). Template:ISBN</ref> also known as Origen Adamantius,Template:Efn was an early Christian scholar,<ref name="Wilken 2013">Template:Cite book</ref> ascetic,<ref name=richardfinn100>Template:Cite book</ref> and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism.<ref name=richardfinn100/>Template:Sfn He has been described by John Anthony McGuckin as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".Template:Sfn

Overview

Origen sought martyrdom with his father at a young age but was prevented from turning himself in to the authorities by his mother. When he was eighteen years old, Origen became a catechist at the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} or School of Alexandria. He devoted himself to his studies and adopted an ascetic lifestyle. He came into conflict with Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, in 231 after he was ordained as a presbyter by his friend Theoclistus, the bishop of Caesarea, while on a journey to Athens through Palestine. Demetrius condemned Origen for insubordination and accused him of having castrated himself and of having taught that even Satan would eventually attain salvation, an accusation which Origen vehemently denied.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Origen founded the Christian School of Caesarea, where he taught logic, cosmology, natural history, and theology, and became regarded by the churches of Palestine and Arabia as the ultimate authority on all matters of theology. He was tortured for his faith during the Decian persecution in 250 and died three to four years later from his injuries.

Origen produced a massive quantity of writings because of the patronage of his close friend Ambrose of Alexandria, who provided him with a team of secretaries to copy his works, making him one of the most prolific writers in late antiquity. His treatise On the First Principles systematically laid out the principles of Christian theology and became the foundation for later theological writings.Template:Sfn He also authored {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, the most influential work of early Christian apologetics,Template:Sfn in which he defended Christianity against the pagan philosopher Celsus, one of its foremost early critics. Origen produced the Template:Translit, the first critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, which contained the original Hebrew text, four different Greek translations, and a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, all written in columns, side by side.

He wrote hundreds of sermons covering almost the entire Bible, interpreting many passages as allegorical. Origen taught that, before the creation of the material universe, God had created the souls of all intelligent beings. These souls, at first fully devoted to God, fell away from him and were given physical bodies. Origen was the first to propose the ransom theory of atonement in its fully developed form, and he also significantly contributed to the development of the concept of the Trinity. Origen hoped that all people might eventually attain salvation but was always careful to maintain that this was only speculation. He defended free will and advocated Christian pacifism.

Origen is considered by some Christian groups to be a Church Father.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He is widely regarded as one of the most influential Christian theologians.Template:Sfn His teachings were especially influential in the east, with Athanasius of Alexandria and the three Cappadocian Fathers being among his most devoted followers.Template:Sfn Argument over the orthodoxy of Origen's teachings spawned the First Origenist Crisis in the late fourth century, in which he was attacked by Epiphanius of Salamis and Jerome but defended by Tyrannius Rufinus and John of Jerusalem. In 543, Emperor Justinian I condemned him as a heretic and ordered all his writings to be burned. The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 may have anathematized Origen, or it may have only condemned certain heretical teachings which claimed to be derived from Origen. The Church rejected his teachings on the pre-existence of souls.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Life

Early years

Almost all information about Origen's life comes from a lengthy biography of him in Book VI of the Ecclesiastical History written by the Christian historian Eusebius (Template:Circa – c. 340).Template:Sfn Eusebius portrays Origen as the perfect Christian scholar and a literal saint.Template:Sfn Eusebius, however, wrote this account almost fifty years after Origen's death and had access to few reliable sources on Origen's life, especially his early years.Template:Sfn Anxious for more material about his hero, Eusebius recorded events based only on unreliable hearsay evidence. He frequently made speculative inferences about Origen based on the sources he had available.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, scholars can reconstruct a general impression of Origen's historical life by sorting out the parts of Eusebius's account that are accurate from those that are inaccurate.Template:Sfn

Origen was born in either 185 or 186 AD in Alexandria.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Porphyry called him "a Greek, and educated in Greek literature".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to Eusebius, Origen's father was Leonides of Alexandria, a respected professor of literature and also a devout Christian who practised his religion openly (and later a martyr and saint with a feast day of April 22 in the Catholic church).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Joseph Wilson Trigg deems the details of this report unreliable, but admits that Origen's father was certainly at least "a prosperous and thoroughly Hellenized bourgeois".Template:Sfn According to John Anthony McGuckin, Origen's mother, whose name is unknown, may have been a member of the lower class who did not have the right of citizenship.Template:Sfn

It is likely that, on account of his mother's status, Origen was not a Roman citizen.Template:Sfn Origen's father taught him about literature and philosophyTemplate:Sfn as well as the Bible and Christian doctrine.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius states that Origen's father made him memorize passages of scripture daily.Template:Sfn Trigg accepts this tradition as possibly genuine, given Origen's ability as an adult to recite extended passages of scripture at will.Template:Sfn Eusebius also reports that Origen became so learned about the holy scriptures at an early age that his father was unable to answer his questions about them.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In 202, when Origen was "not yet seventeen", the Roman emperor Septimius Severus ordered Roman citizens who openly practised Christianity to be executed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen's father Leonides was arrested and thrown in prison.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius reports that Origen wanted to turn himself in to the authorities so that they would execute him as well,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but his mother hid all his clothes and he was unable to go to the authorities since he refused to leave the house naked.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to McGuckin, even if Origen had turned himself in, it is unlikely that he would have been punished, since the emperor was only intent on executing Roman citizens.Template:Sfn Origen's father was beheaded,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the state confiscated the family's entire property, leaving them impoverished.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen was the eldest of nine children,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and as his father's heir, it became his responsibility to provide for the whole family.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

When he was eighteen, Origen was appointed as a catechist at the Catechetical School of Alexandria.Template:Sfn Many scholars have assumed that Origen became the head of the school,Template:Sfn but according to McGuckin, this is highly improbable. It is more likely that he was given a paid teaching position, perhaps as a "relief effort" for his impoverished family.Template:Sfn While employed at the school, he adopted the ascetic lifestyle of the Greek Sophists.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="EusebiusHistoria" /> He spent the whole day teachingTemplate:Sfn and would stay up late at night writing treatises and commentaries.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He went barefoot and only owned one cloak.Template:Sfn He did not drink alcohol and ate a simple dietTemplate:Sfn and he often fasted for long periods.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Although Eusebius goes to great lengths to portray Origen as one of the Christian monastics of his era,Template:Sfn this portrayal is now generally recognized as anachronistic.Template:Sfn

According to Eusebius, as a young man, Origen was taken in by a wealthy Gnostic woman,Template:Sfn who was also the patron of a very influential Gnostic theologian from Antioch, who frequently lectured in her home.Template:Sfn Eusebius goes to great lengths to insist that, although Origen studied while in her home,Template:Sfn he never once "prayed in common" with her or the Gnostic theologian.Template:Sfn Later, Origen succeeded in converting a wealthy man named Ambrose from Valentinian Gnosticism to orthodox Christianity.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Ambrose was so impressed by the young scholar that he gave Origen a house, a secretary, seven stenographers, a crew of copyists and calligraphers, and paid for all of his writings to be published.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

When he was in his early twenties, Origen sold the small library of Greek literary works that he had inherited from his father for a sum which netted him a daily income of four obols.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="EusebiusHistoria">Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.3.9</ref> He used this money to continue his study of the Bible and of philosophy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen studied at numerous schools throughout Alexandria,Template:Sfn including the Platonic Academy of Alexandria,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn where he was a student of Ammonius Saccas.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius claims that Origen studied under Clement of Alexandria,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but according to McGuckin, this is almost certainly a retrospective assumption based on the similarity of their teachings.Template:Sfn Origen rarely mentions Clement in his writings,Template:Sfn and when he does, it is usually to correct him.Template:Sfn

Alleged self-castration

Eusebius claims that, as a young man, following a literal reading of Matthew 19:12, in which Jesus is presented as saying "there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven",<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> Origen either castrated himself or had someone else castrate him in order to ensure his reputation as a respectable tutor to young men and women.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica VI.8</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Eusebius further alleges that Origen privately told Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, about the castration and that Demetrius initially praised him for his devotion to God on account of it.Template:Sfn

Origen, however, never mentions anything about having castrated himself in any of his surviving writings.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In his explanation of this verse in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written near the end of life, he strongly condemns any literal interpretation of Matthew 19:12,Template:Sfn asserting that only an idiot would interpret the passage as advocating literal castration.Template:Sfn

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, some scholars have questioned the historicity of Origen's self-castration, with many seeing it as a wholesale fabrication.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Origen and Origenism">Template:Cite CE1913</ref> Trigg states that Eusebius's account of Origen's self-castration is certainly true, because Eusebius, who was an ardent admirer of Origen, yet clearly describes the castration as an act of pure folly, would have had no motive to pass on a piece of information that might tarnish Origen's reputation unless it was "notorious and beyond question".Template:Sfn Trigg sees Origen's condemnation of the literal interpretation of Matthew 19:12 as him "tacitly repudiating the literalistic reading he had acted on in his youth".Template:Sfn

In sharp contrast, McGuckin dismisses Eusebius's story of Origen's self-castration as "hardly credible", seeing it as a deliberate attempt by Eusebius to distract from more serious questions regarding the orthodoxy of Origen's teachings.Template:Sfn McGuckin also states: "We have no indication that the motive of castration for respectability was ever regarded as standard by a teacher of mixed-gender classes."Template:Sfn He adds that Origen's female students (whom Eusebius lists by name) would have been accompanied by attendants at all times, meaning that Origen would have had no good reason to think that anyone would suspect him of impropriety.Template:Sfn

Henry Chadwick argues that, while Eusebius's story may be true, it seems unlikely, given that Origen's exposition of Matthew 19:12 "strongly deplored any literal interpretation of the words".Template:Sfn Instead, Chadwick suggests, "Perhaps Eusebius was uncritically reporting malicious gossip retailed by Origen's enemies, of whom there were many."Template:Sfn However, many noted historians, such as Peter Brown and William Placher, continue to find no reason to conclude that the story is false.<ref name="Platcher">William Placher, A History of Christian Theology: An Introduction, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 62.</ref> Placher theorizes that, if it is true, it may have followed an episode in which Origen received some raised eyebrows while privately tutoring a woman.<ref name="Platcher" />

Travels and early writings

In his early twenties Origen became less interested in work as a grammarianTemplate:Sfn and more interested in operating as a rhetor-philosopher.Template:Sfn He gave his job as a catechist to his younger colleague Heraclas.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Origen began to style himself as a "master of philosophy".Template:Sfn Origen's new position as a self-styled Christian philosopher brought him into conflict with Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria.Template:Sfn Demetrius, a charismatic leader who ruled the Christian congregation of Alexandria with an iron fist,Template:Sfn became the most direct promoter of the elevation in status of the bishop of Alexandria;Template:Sfn before Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria had merely been a priest who was elected to represent his fellows,Template:Sfn but after Demetrius, the bishop was seen as clearly a rank higher than his fellow priests.Template:Sfn By styling himself as an independent philosopher, Origen was reviving a role that had been prominent in earlier ChristianityTemplate:Sfn but which challenged the authority of the now-powerful bishop.Template:Sfn

Meanwhile, Origen began composing his massive theological treatise On the First Principles,Template:Sfn a landmark book which systematically laid out the foundations of Christian theology for centuries to come.Template:Sfn Origen also began travelling abroad to visit schools across the Mediterranean.Template:Sfn In 212 he travelled to Rome – a major center of philosophy at the time.Template:Sfn In Rome, Origen attended lectures by Hippolytus of Rome and was influenced by his Template:Translit theology.Template:Sfn In 213 or 214, the governor of the Province of Arabia sent a message to the prefect of Egypt requesting him to send Origen to meet with him so that he could interview him and learn more about Christianity from its leading intellectual.Template:Sfn Origen, escorted by official bodyguards,Template:Sfn spent a short time in Arabia with the governor before returning to Alexandria.Template:Sfn

In the autumn of 215, the Roman Emperor Caracalla visited Alexandria.Template:Sfn During the visit, the students at the schools there protested and made fun of him for having murdered his brother GetaTemplate:Sfn (died 211). Caracalla, incensed, ordered his troops to ravage the city, execute the governor, and kill all the protesters.Template:Sfn He also commanded them to expel all the teachers and intellectuals from the city.Template:Sfn Origen fled Alexandria and traveled to the city of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Palestine,Template:Sfn where the bishops Theoctistus of Caesarea and Alexander of Jerusalem became his devoted admirersTemplate:Sfn and asked him to deliver discourses on the scriptures in their respective churches.Template:Sfn This effectively allowed Origen to deliver sermons even though he was not formally ordained.Template:Sfn While this was an unexpected phenomenon, especially given Origen's international fame as a teacher and philosopher,Template:Sfn it infuriated Demetrius, who saw it as a direct undermining of his authority.Template:Sfn Demetrius sent deacons from Alexandria to demand that the Palestinian hierarchs immediately return "his" catechist to Alexandria.Template:Sfn He also issued a decree chastising the Palestinians for allowing a person who was not ordained to preach.Template:Sfn The Palestinian bishops, in turn, issued their condemnation, accusing Demetrius of being jealous of Origen's fame and prestige.Template:Sfn

File:1 QIsa example of damage col 12-13.jpg

While in Jericho, Origen bought an ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Bible which had been discovered "in a jar",Template:Sfn a discovery which prefigures the later discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the twentieth century.Template:Sfn Shown here: a section of the Isaiah scroll from Qumran.

Origen obeyed Demetrius's order and returned to Alexandria,Template:Sfn bringing with him an antique scroll he had purchased at Jericho containing the full text of the Hebrew Bible.Template:Sfn The manuscript, which had purportedly been found "in a jar",Template:Sfn became the source text for one of the two Hebrew columns in Origen's Template:Translit.Template:Sfn Origen studied the Old Testament in great depth;Template:Sfn Eusebius even claims that Origen learned Hebrew.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Most modern scholars regard this claim as implausible,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but they disagree over how much Origen knew about the language.Template:Sfn H. Lietzmann concludes that Origen probably only knew the Hebrew alphabet and not much else,Template:Sfn whereas R. P. C. Hanson and G. Bardy argue that Origen had a superficial understanding of the language but not enough to have composed the entire Template:Translit.Template:Sfn A note in Origen's On the First Principles mentions an unknown "Hebrew master",Template:Sfn but this was probably a consultant, not a teacher.Template:Sfn

File:OrigenStudentsLuyken.jpg

Dutch illustration by Jan Luyken (1700), showing Origen teaching his students

Origen also studied the entire New Testament,Template:Sfn but especially the epistles of the apostle Paul and the Gospel of John,Template:Sfn the writings which Origen regarded as the most important and authoritative.Template:Sfn At Ambrose's request, Origen composed the first five books of his exhaustive Commentary on the Gospel of John,Template:Sfn He also wrote the first eight books of his Commentary on Genesis, his Commentary on Psalms 1–25, and his Commentary on Lamentations.Template:Sfn In addition to these commentaries, Origen also wrote two books on the resurrection of Jesus and ten books of Template:Translit ('Miscellanies').Template:Sfn It is likely that these works contained much theological speculation,Template:Sfn which brought Origen into even greater conflict with Demetrius.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Conflict with Demetrius and removal to Caesarea

Origen repeatedly asked Demetrius to ordain him as a priest, but Demetrius continually refused.<ref>Eusebius, Church History, VI.14. See Eusebius – Church History (Book VI) Template:Webarchive.</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In around 231, Demetrius sent Origen on a mission to Athens.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Along the way, Origen stopped in Caesarea,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn where he was warmly greeted by the bishops Theoctistus of Caesarea and Alexander of Jerusalem, who had become his close friends during his previous stay.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn While he was visiting Caesarea, Origen asked Theoctistus to ordain him as a priest.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Theoctistus gladly complied.<ref>Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica VI.26</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Upon learning of Origen's ordination, Demetrius was outraged and issued a condemnation declaring that Origen's ordination by a foreign bishop was an act of insubordination.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Eusebius reports that as a result of Demetrius's condemnations, Origen decided not to return to Alexandria and instead to take up permanent residence in Caesarea.Template:Sfn John Anthony McGuckin, however, argues that Origen had probably already been planning to stay in Caesarea.Template:Sfn The Palestinian bishops declared Origen the chief theologian of Caesarea.Template:Sfn Firmilian, the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, was such a devoted disciple of Origen that he begged him to come to Cappadocia and teach there.Template:Sfn

Demetrius raised a storm of protests against the bishops of Palestine and the church synod in Rome.Template:Sfn According to Eusebius, Demetrius published the allegation that Origen had secretly castrated himself,Template:Sfn a capital offense under Roman law at the timeTemplate:Sfn and one which would have made Origen's ordination invalid, since eunuchs were forbidden from becoming priests.Template:Sfn Demetrius also alleged that Origen had taught an extreme form of Template:Translit, which held that all beings, including even Satan himself, would eventually attain salvation.Template:Sfn This allegation probably arose from a misunderstanding of Origen's argument during a debate with the Valentinian Gnostic teacher Candidus.Template:Sfn Candidus had argued in favor of predestination by declaring that the Devil was beyond salvation.Template:Sfn Origen had responded by arguing that, if the Devil is destined for eternal damnation, it was on account of his actions, which were the result of his own free will.Template:Sfn Therefore, Origen had declared that Satan was only morally reprobate, not absolutely reprobate.Template:Sfn

Demetrius died in 232, less than a year after Origen's departure from Alexandria.Template:Sfn The accusations against Origen faded with the death of Demetrius,Template:Sfn but they did not disappear entirelyTemplate:Sfn and they continued to haunt him for the rest of his career.Template:Sfn Origen defended himself in his Letter to Friends in Alexandria,Template:Sfn in which he vehemently denied that he had ever taught that the Devil would attain salvationTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and insisted that the very notion of the Devil attaining salvation was simply ludicrous.Template:Sfn

Work and teaching in Caesarea

During his early years in Caesarea, Origen's primary task was the establishment of a Christian School;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Caesarea had long been seen as a center of learning for Jews and Hellenistic philosophers,Template:Sfn but until Origen's arrival, it had lacked a Christian center of higher education.Template:Sfn According to Eusebius, the school Origen founded was primarily targeted towards young pagans who had expressed interest in ChristianityTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but were not yet ready to ask for baptism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The school therefore sought to explain Christian teachings through Middle Platonism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen started his curriculum by teaching his students classical Socratic reasoning.Template:Sfn After they had mastered this, he taught them cosmology and natural history.Template:Sfn Finally, once they had mastered all of these subjects, he taught them theology, which was the highest of all philosophies, the accumulation of everything they had previously learned.Template:Sfn

With the establishment of the Caesarean school, Origen's reputation as a scholar and theologian reached its zenithTemplate:Sfn and he became known throughout the Mediterranean world as a brilliant intellectual.Template:Sfn The hierarchs of the Palestinian and Arabian church synods regarded Origen as the ultimate expert on all matters dealing with theology.Template:Sfn While teaching in Caesarea, Origen resumed work on his Commentary on John, composing at least books six through ten.Template:Sfn In the first of these books, Origen compares himself to "an Israelite who has escaped the perverse persecution of the Egyptians".Template:Sfn Origen also wrote the treatise On Prayer at the request of his friend Ambrose and Tatiana (referred to as the "sister" of Ambrose), in which he analyzes the different types of prayers described in the Bible and offers a detailed exegesis on the Lord's Prayer.Template:Sfn

File:Julia mammea02 pushkin.jpg

Julia Avita Mamaea, the mother of the Roman emperor Severus Alexander, summoned Origen to Antioch to teach her philosophy.Template:Sfn

Pagans also took a fascination with Origen.Template:Sfn The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry heard of Origen's fameTemplate:Sfn and traveled to Caesarea to listen to his lectures.Template:Sfn Porphyry recounts that Origen had extensively studied the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but also those of important Middle Platonists, Neopythagoreans, and Stoics, including Numenius of Apamea, Chronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus of Gades, Nicomachus, Chaeremon, and Cornutus.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Nonetheless, Porphyry accused Origen of having betrayed true philosophy by subjugating its insights to the exegesis of the Christian scriptures.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius reports that Origen was summoned from Caesarea to Antioch at the behest of Julia Avita Mamaea, the mother of Roman Emperor Severus Alexander, "to discuss Christian philosophy and doctrine with her".<ref>From The Emergence of Christianity, Cynthia White, Greenwood Press, 2007, p. 14.</ref>

In 235, approximately three years after Origen began teaching in Caesarea, Alexander Severus, who had been tolerant towards Christians, was murderedTemplate:Sfn and Emperor Maximinus Thrax instigated a purge of all those who had supported his predecessor.Template:Sfn His pogroms targeted Christian leadersTemplate:Sfn and, in Rome, Pope Pontianus and Hippolytus of Rome were both sent into exile.Template:Sfn Origen knew that he was in danger and went into hiding in the home of a faithful Christian woman named Juliana the Virgin,Template:Sfn who had been a student of the Ebionite leader Symmachus.Template:Sfn Origen's close friend and longtime patron Ambrose was arrested in Nicomedia, and Protoctetes, the leading priest in Caesarea, was also arrested.Template:Sfn In their honor, Origen composed his treatise Exhortation to Martyrdom,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which is now regarded as one of the greatest classics of Christian resistance literature.Template:Sfn After coming out of hiding following Maximinus's death, Origen founded a school of which Gregory Thaumaturgus, later bishop of Pontus, was one of the pupils. He preached regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and later daily.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Later life

Sometime between 238 and 244, Origen visited Athens, where he completed his Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel and began writing his Commentary on the Song of Songs.Template:Sfn After visiting Athens, he visited Ambrose in Nicomedia.Template:Sfn According to Porphyry, Origen also travelled to Rome or Antioch, where he met Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism.Template:Sfn The Christians of the eastern Mediterranean continued to revere Origen as the most orthodox of all theologians,Template:Sfn and when the Palestinian hierarchs learned that Beryllus, the bishop of Bostra and one of the most energetic Christian leaders of the time, had been preaching adoptionism (the belief that Jesus was born human and only became divine after his baptism),Template:Sfn they sent Origen to convert him to orthodoxy.Template:Sfn Origen engaged Beryllus in a public disputation, which went so successfully that Beryllus promised only to teach Origen's theology from then on.Template:Sfn On another occasion, a Christian leader in Arabia named Heracleides began teaching that the soul was mortal and that it perished with the body.Template:Sfn Origen refuted these teachings, arguing that the soul is immortal and can never die.Template:Sfn

In Template:Circa 249, the Plague of Cyprian broke out.Template:Sfn In 250, Emperor Decius, believing that the plague was caused by Christians' failure to recognise him as divine,Template:Sfn issued a decree for Christians to be persecuted.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn This time Origen did not escape.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius recounts how Origen suffered "bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Timothy David Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, page 351, footnote 96 (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 1981) Template:ISBN</ref>Template:Sfn The governor of Caesarea gave very specific orders that Origen was not to be killed until he had publicly renounced his faith in Christ.Template:Sfn Origen endured two years of imprisonment and torture,Template:Sfn but obstinately refused to renounce his faith.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In June 251, Decius was killed fighting the Goths in the Battle of Abritus, and Origen was released from prison.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, Origen's health was broken by the physical tortures enacted on him,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and he died less than a year later at the age of sixty-nine.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A later legend, recounted by Jerome and numerous itineraries, places his death and burial at Tyre, but little value can be attached to this.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Works

File:Origen.jpg

lang}} by André Thévet

Exegetical writings

Origen was an extremely prolific writer.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Epiphanius, he wrote a grand total of roughly 6,000 works over the course of his lifetime.Template:Sfn<ref>Haer., lxiv.63</ref> Most scholars agree that this estimate is probably somewhat exaggerated.Template:Sfn According to Jerome, Eusebius listed the titles of just under 2,000 treatises written by Origen in his lost Life of Pamphilus.Template:Sfn<ref>Ecclesiastical History, VI., xxxii. 3; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 277</ref><ref>Epist. ad Paulam, NPNF, vi. 46</ref> Jerome compiled an abbreviated list of Origen's major treatises, itemizing 800 different titles.Template:Sfn

By far the most important work of Origen on textual criticism was the Template:Translit ('Sixfold'), a massive comparative study of various translations of the Old Testament in six columns:Template:Sfn Hebrew, Hebrew in Greek characters, the Septuagint, and the Greek translations of Theodotion (a Jewish scholar from Template:Circa 180 AD), Aquila of Sinope (another Jewish scholar from Template:Circa 117–138), and Symmachus (an Ebionite scholar from Template:Circa 193–211).Template:Sfn<ref>Trigg, Joseph W. – Origen – The Early Church Fathers – 1998, Routledge, London and New York, page 16. Retrieved 2 September 2015.</ref> Origen was the first Christian scholar to introduce critical markers to a Biblical text.Template:Sfn He marked the Septuagint column of the Hexapla using signs adapted from those used by the textual critics of the Great Library of Alexandria:Template:Sfn a passage found in the Septuagint that was not found in the Hebrew text would be marked with an obelus (÷)Template:Sfn and a passage that was found in other Greek translations, but not in the Septuagint, would be marked with an asterisk (*).Template:Sfn

File:Texts of the OT.svg

Diagram showing the inter-relationship between various significant ancient versions and recensions of the Old Testament (some identified by their siglum). LXX here denotes the original septuagint.

The Template:Translit was the cornerstone of the Great Library of Caesarea, which Origen founded.Template:Sfn It was still the centerpiece of the library's collection by the time of Jerome,Template:Sfn who records having used it in his letters on multiple occasions.Template:Sfn When Emperor Constantine the Great ordered fifty complete copies of the Bible to be transcribed and disseminated across the empire, Eusebius used the Template:Translit as the master copy for the Old Testament.Template:Sfn Although the original Template:Translit has been lost,Template:Sfn the text of it has survived in numerous fragmentsTemplate:Sfn and a more-or-less complete Syriac translation of the Greek column, made by the seventh-century bishop Paul of Tella, has also survived.Template:Sfn For some sections of the Template:Translit, Origen included additional columns containing other Greek translations;Template:Sfn for the Book of Psalms, he included no less than eight Greek translations, making this section known as Template:Translit ('Ninefold').Template:Sfn Origen also produced the Template:Translit ('Fourfold'), a smaller, abridged version of the Template:Translit containing only the four Greek translations and not the original Hebrew text.Template:Sfn

According to Jerome's Epistle 33, Origen wrote extensive Template:Translit on the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Psalms 1–15, Ecclesiastes, and the Gospel of John.Template:Sfn None of these Template:Translit have survived intact,Template:Sfn but parts of them were incorporated into the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, a collection of excerpts from major works of Biblical commentary written by the Church Fathers.Template:Sfn Other fragments of the Template:Translit are preserved in Origen's Template:Translit and in Pamphilus of Caesarea's apology for Origen.Template:Sfn The Template:Translit were of a similar character, and the margin of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 184, contains citations from this work on Romans 9:23; I Corinthians 6:14, 7:31, 34, 9:20–21, 10:9, besides a few other fragments. Origen composed homilies covering almost the entire Bible. There are 205, and possibly 279, homilies of Origen that are extant either in Greek or in Latin translations.Template:Efn

File:Papyrus Bodmer VIII.jpg

Two sides of the Papyrus Bodmer VIII, an early New Testament fragment from the third or fourth century AD containing the Epistle of Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter. Origen accepted the two former as authentic without question,Template:Sfn but noted that the latter was suspected to be a forgery.Template:Sfn

The homilies preserved are on Genesis (16), Exodus (13), Leviticus (16), Numbers (28), Joshua (26), Judges (9), I Sam. (2), Psalms 36–38 (9),Template:Efn Canticles (2), Isaiah (9), Jeremiah (7 Greek, 2 Latin, 12 Greek and Latin), Ezekiel (14), and Luke (39). The homilies were preached in the church at Caesarea, with the exception of the two on 1 Samuel which were delivered in Jerusalem. Nautin has argued that they were all preached in a three-year liturgical cycle some time between 238 and 244, preceding the Commentary on the Song of Songs, where Origen refers to homilies on Judges, Exodus, Numbers, and a work on Leviticus.Template:Sfn On June 11, 2012, the Bavarian State Library announced that the Italian philologist Marina Molin Pradel had discovered twenty-nine previously unknown homilies by Origen in a twelfth-century Byzantine manuscript from their collection.<ref name=hom2012>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Prof. Lorenzo Perrone of Bologna University and other experts confirmed the authenticity of the homilies.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The texts of these manuscripts can be found online.<ref>Digitalisat Template:Webarchive</ref>

Origen is the main source of information on the use of the texts that were later officially canonized as the New Testament.Template:Sfn<ref name="Bateman">C. G. Bateman, Origen's Role in the Formation of the New Testament Canon, 2010 Template:Webarchive. archive</ref> The information used to create the late-fourth-century Easter Letter, which declared accepted Christian writings, was probably based on the lists given in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History HE 3:25 and 6:25, which were both primarily based on information provided by Origen.<ref name="Bateman"/> Origen accepted the authenticity of the epistles of 1 John, 1 Peter, and Jude without questionTemplate:Sfn and accepted the Epistle of James as authentic with only slight hesitation.Template:Sfn He also refers to 2 John, 3 John, and 2 PeterTemplate:Sfn but notes that all three were suspected to be forgeries.Template:Sfn Origen may have also considered other writings to be "inspired" that were rejected by later authors, including the Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, and 1 Clement.<ref name="McGuckin2001">McGuckin, John A. "Origen as Literary Critic in the Alexandrian Tradition." 121–37 in vol. 1 of 'Origeniana octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition.' Papers of the 8th International Origen Congress (Pisa, 27–31 August 2001). Edited by L. Perrone. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 164. 2 vols. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003.</ref> "Origen is not the originator of the idea of biblical canon, but he certainly gives the philosophical and literary–interpretative underpinnings for the whole notion."<ref name="McGuckin2001"/>

Extant commentaries

File:Origenes Opera.JPG

Books containing Latin translations of some of Origen's extant writings

Origen's commentaries written on specific books of scripture are much more focused on systematic exegesis than his homilies.Template:Sfn In these writings, Origen applies the precise critical methodology that had been developed by the scholars of the Mouseion in Alexandria to the Christian scriptures.Template:Sfn The commentaries also display Origen's impressive encyclopedic knowledge of various subjectsTemplate:Sfn and his ability to cross-reference specific words, listing every place in which a word appears in the scriptures along with all the word's known meanings,Template:Sfn a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he did this in a time when Bible concordances had not yet been compiled.Template:Sfn Origen's massive Commentary on the Gospel of John, which spanned more than thirty-two volumes once it was completed,Template:Sfn was written with the specific intention not only to expound the correct interpretation of the scriptures, but also to refute the interpretations of the Valentinian Gnostic teacher Heracleon,Template:Sfn<ref>Joel C. Elowsky (editor), John 1–10. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Voliume 4a., page xix, (InterVarsity Press Academic, 2007). Template:ISBN</ref> who had used the Gospel of John to support his argument that there were really two gods, not one.Template:Sfn Of the original thirty-two books in the Commentary on John, only nine have been preserved: Books I, II, VI, X, XIII, XX, XXVIII, XXXII, and a fragment of XIX.Template:Sfn

Of the original twenty-five books in Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, only eight have survived in the original Greek (Books 10–17), covering Matthew 13.36–22.33.Template:Sfn An anonymous Latin translation beginning at the point corresponding to Book 12, Chapter 9 of the Greek text and covering Matthew 16.13–27.66 has also survived.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The translation contains parts that are not found in the original Greek and is missing parts that are found in it.Template:Sfn Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew was universally regarded as a classic, even after his condemnation,Template:Sfn and it ultimately became the work which established the Gospel of Matthew as the primary gospel.Template:Sfn Origen's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans was originally fifteen books long, but only tiny fragments of it have survived in the original Greek.Template:Sfn An abbreviated Latin translation in ten books was produced by the monk Tyrannius Rufinus at the end of the fourth century.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn The historian Socrates Scholasticus records that Origen had included an extensive discussion of the application of the title Template:Translit to the Virgin Mary in his commentary,Template:Sfn but this discussion is not found in Rufinus's translation,Template:Sfn probably because Rufinus did not approve of Origen's position on the matter, whatever that might have been.Template:Sfn

Origen also composed a Commentary on the Song of Songs,Template:Sfn in which he took explicit care to explain why the Song of Songs was relevant to a Christian audience.Template:Sfn The Commentary on the Song of Songs was Origen's most celebrated commentaryTemplate:Sfn and Jerome famously writes in his preface to his translation of two of Origen's homilies over the Song of Songs that: "In his other works, Origen habitually excels others. In this commentary, he excelled himself."Template:Sfn Origen expanded on the exegesis of the Jewish Rabbi Akiva,Template:Sfn interpreting the Song of Songs as a mystical allegory in which the bridegroom represents the Logos and the bride represents the soul of the believer.Template:Sfn This was the first Christian commentary to expound such an interpretationTemplate:Sfn and it became extremely influential on later interpretations of the Song of Songs.Template:Sfn Despite this, the commentary now only survives in part through a Latin translation of it made by Tyrannius Rufinus in 410.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Fragments of some other commentaries survive. Citations in Origen's Template:Translit include fragments of the third book of the commentary on Genesis. There is also Ps. i, iv.1, the small commentary on Canticles, and the second book of the large commentary on the same, the twentieth book of the commentary on Ezekiel,Template:Efn and the commentary on Hosea. Of the non-extant commentaries, there is limited evidence of their arrangement.Template:Efn

On the First Principles

Origen's On the First Principles was the first ever systematic exposition of Christian theology.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He composed it as a young man between 220 and 230 while he was still living in Alexandria.Template:Sfn Fragments from Books 3.1 and 4.1–3 of Origen's Greek original are preserved in Origen's Template:Translit.Template:Sfn A few smaller quotations of the original Greek are preserved in Justinian's Letter to Mennas.Template:Sfn The vast majority of the text has only survived in a heavily abridged Latin translation produced by Tyrannius Rufinus in 397.Template:Sfn On the First Principles begins with an essay explaining the nature of theology.Template:Sfn Book One describes the heavenly worldTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and includes descriptions of the oneness of God, the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity, the nature of the divine spirit, reason, and angels.Template:Sfn Book Two describes the world of man, including the incarnation of the Logos, the soul, free will, and eschatology.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Book Three deals with cosmology, sin, and redemption.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Book Four deals with teleology and the interpretation of the scriptures.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Against Celsus

File:Grec 945 48r.jpg

lang}}, which is considered to be the most important work of early Christian apologeticsTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Against Celsus (Template:Langx Template:Translit; Latin: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), preserved entirely in Greek, was Origen's last treatise, written about 248. It is an apologetic work defending orthodox Christianity against the attacks of the pagan philosopher Celsus, who was seen in the ancient world as early Christianity's foremost opponent.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In 178, Celsus had written a polemic entitled On the True Word, in which he had made numerous arguments against Christianity.Template:Sfn The church had responded by ignoring Celsus's attacks,Template:Sfn but Origen's patron Ambrose brought the matter to his attention.Template:Sfn Origen initially wanted to ignore Celsus and let his attacks fade,Template:Sfn but one of Celsus's major claims, which held that no self-respecting philosopher of the Platonic tradition would ever be so stupid as to become a Christian, provoked him to write a rebuttal.Template:Sfn

In the book, Origen systematically refutes each of Celsus's arguments point by pointTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and argues for a rational basis of Christian faith.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen draws heavily on the teachings of PlatoTemplate:Sfn and argues that Christianity and Greek philosophy are not incompatible,Template:Sfn and that philosophy contains much that is true and admirable,Template:Sfn but that the Bible contains far greater wisdom than anything Greek philosophers could ever grasp.Template:Sfn Origen responds to Celsus's accusation that Jesus had performed his miracles using magic rather than divine powers by asserting that, unlike magicians, Jesus had not performed his miracles for show, but rather to reform his audiences.Template:Sfn Against Celsus became the most influential of all early Christian apologetics works;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn before it was written, Christianity was seen by many as merely a folk religion for the illiterate and uneducated,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but Origen raised it to a level of academic respectability.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eusebius admired Against Celsus so much that, in his Against Hierocles 1, he declared that Against Celsus provided an adequate rebuttal to all criticisms the church would ever face.Template:Sfn

Other writings

Between 232 and 235, while in Caesarea in Palestine, Origen wrote On Prayer, of which the full text has been preserved in the original Greek.Template:Sfn After an introduction on the object, necessity, and advantage of prayer, he ends with an exegesis of the Lord's Prayer, concluding with remarks on the position, place, and attitude to be assumed during prayer, as well as on the classes of prayer.Template:Sfn On Martyrdom, or the Exhortation to Martyrdom, also preserved entire in Greek,Template:Sfn was written some time after the beginning of the persecution of Maximinus in the first half of 235.Template:Sfn In it, Origen warns against any trifling with idolatry and emphasises the duty of suffering martyrdom manfully, while in the second part he explains the meaning of martyrdom.Template:Sfn

The papyri discovered at Tura in 1941 contained the Greek texts of two previously unknown works of Origen.Template:Sfn Neither work can be dated precisely, though both were probably written after the persecution of Maximinus in 235.Template:Sfn One is On the Pascha.Template:Sfn The other is Dialogue with Heracleides, a record written by one of Origen's stenographers of a debate between Origen and the Arabian bishop Heracleides, a quasi-Monarchianist who taught that the Father and the Son were the same.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>An English translation of the Dialogue is in Oulton and Chadwick, eds, Alexandrian Christianity, pp. 430–455.</ref> In the dialogue, Origen uses Socratic questioning to persuade Heracleides to believe in the "Logos theology",Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn in which the Son or Logos is a separate entity from God the Father.Template:Sfn The debate between Origen and Heracleides, and Origen's responses in particular, has been noted for its unusually cordial and respectful nature in comparison to the much fiercer polemics of Tertullian or the fourth-century debates between Trinitarians and Arians.Template:Sfn

Lost works include two books on the Resurrection, written before On First Principles, and also two dialogues on the same theme dedicated to Ambrose. Eusebius had a collection of more than one hundred letters of Origen,<ref>Historia ecclesiastica, VI, xxxvi.3; Eng. transl. NPNF, 2 ser. i.278–279.</ref> and the list of Jerome speaks of several books of his epistles. Except for a few fragments, only three letters have been preserved.Template:Sfn The first, partly preserved in the Latin translation of Rufinus, is addressed to friends in Alexandria.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The second is a short letter to Gregory Thaumaturgus, preserved in the Template:Translit.Template:Sfn The third is an epistle to Sextus Julius Africanus, extant in Greek, replying to a letter from Africanus (also extant), and defending the authenticity of the Greek additions to the book of Daniel.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Many works have been falsely ascribed to Origen. Forgeries of the writings of Origen made in his lifetime are discussed by Rufinus in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. The {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, the Template:Translit attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, and the Commentary on Job by Julian the Arian have also been ascribed to him.<ref name="Vicchio2006">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="ScheckErasmus2016">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Views

Christology

Origen writes that Jesus was "the firstborn of all creation [who] assumed a body and a human soul".Template:Sfn He firmly believed that Jesus had a human soulTemplate:Sfn and abhorred docetism (the teaching which held that Jesus had come to Earth in spirit form rather than a physical human body).Template:Sfn Origen envisioned Jesus' human nature as the one soul that stayed closest to God and remained perfectly faithful to Him, even when all other souls fell away.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn At Jesus's incarnation, his soul became fused with the Logos and they "intermingled" to become one.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Thus, according to Origen, Christ was both human and divine,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but like all human souls, Christ's human nature was existent from the beginning.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Origen was the first to propose the ransom theory of atonement in its fully developed form,Template:Sfn although Irenaeus had previously proposed a prototypical form of it.Template:Sfn According to this theory, Christ's death on the cross was a ransom to Satan in exchange for humanity's liberation.Template:Sfn This theory holds that Satan was tricked by GodTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn because Christ was not only free of sin, but also the incarnate Deity, whom Satan lacked the ability to enslave.Template:Sfn The theory was later expanded by theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia.Template:Sfn In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury criticized the ransom theory, along with the associated Christus Victor theory,Template:Sfn resulting in the theory's decline in western Europe.Template:Sfn The theory has nonetheless retained some of its popularity in the Eastern Orthodox Church.Template:Sfn

Cosmology and eschatology

File:Jan Brueghel de Oude en Peter Paul Rubens - Het aards paradijs met de zondeval van Adam en Eva.jpg

The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (Template:Circa 1617) by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Origen based his teaching of the preexistence of souls on an allegorical interpretation of the creation story in the Book of Genesis.Template:Sfn

One of Origen's main teachings was the doctrine of the preexistence of souls,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn which held that before God created the material world he created a vast number of incorporeal "spiritual intelligences" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Translit).Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn All of these souls were at first devoted to the contemplation and love of their Creator,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but as the fervor of the divine fire cooled, almost all of these intelligences eventually grew bored of contemplating God, and their love for him "cooled off" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Translit).Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn When God created the world, the souls which had previously existed without bodies became incarnate.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Those whose love for God diminished the most became demons.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Those whose love diminished moderately became human souls, eventually to be incarnated in fleshly bodies.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Those whose love diminished the least became angels.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

One soul, however, who remained perfectly devoted to God became, through love, one with the Word (Logos) of God.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Logos eventually took flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary, becoming the God-man Jesus Christ.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In recent years it has been questioned whether Origen believed this, being in reality a belief of his disciples and a misrepresentation by Justinian, Epiphanius and others.<ref> Ilaria Ramelli. (2018). Chapter 14 - Origen. In; Anna Marmodoro and Sophie Cartwright. (2018). A History of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. pp. 245 - 266. </ref>

Origen believed that, eventually, the whole world would be converted to Christianity,Template:Sfn "since the world is continually gaining possession of more souls".Template:Sfn He believed that the Kingdom of Heaven was not yet come,Template:Sfn but that it was the duty of every Christian to make the eschatological reality of the kingdom present in their lives.Template:Sfn Origen is often believed to be a Universalist,Template:Sfn who suggested that all people might eventually attain salvation,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but only after being purged of their sins through "divine fire".Template:Sfn This, of course, in line of Origen's allegorical interpretation, was not literal fire, but rather the inner anguish of knowing one's own sins.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Origen was careful to maintain that universal salvation was merely a possibility and not a definitive doctrine,Template:Sfn though he seemed strongly convinced that at least all human souls will be reunited to God in a final apokatastasis – the re-establishment of an original unity in creation – "because the end is always like the beginning" and because he believed all divine punishment to be medicinal.Template:Sfn It is certain that Origen rejected the Stoic doctrine of eternal return,Template:Sfn although he did posit the existence of a series of non-identical worlds.Template:Sfn Jerome quotes Origen as having allegedly written that "after aeons and the one restoration of all things, the state of Gabriel will be the same as that of the Devil, Paul's as that of Caiaphas, that of virgins as that of prostitutes".Template:Sfn However, Origen expressly states in his Letter to Friends in Alexandria that Satan and "those who are cast out of the kingdom of God" would not be included in the final salvation.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Moreover, Origen often described a quite traditional fiery punishment in his homilies, considering the doctrine vital for the Christians who are not yet spiritually mature. On the other hand, he thought it sometimes necessary to admit the medicinal character of divine punishment to refute the notion of a cruel God.Template:Sfn

A number of critics in the patristic era accused Origen of teaching that even the resurrection bodies would eventually vanish so that the souls could be united with the incorporeal God. In Rufinus's favourable translation of On the First Principles, however, Origen repeatedly asserts that some kind of body is indispensable for created beings, although when contemplating the final end of all things, he offers three hypotheses – incorporeal existence, ethereal corporeality, or corporeality coming to rest in a stable part of the universe – leaving the reader to judge whichever is best. Nevertheless, based on other passages from his works, he probably preferred the third one.Template:Sfn He seems to have believed that even the not yet resurrected souls of the departed possess bodies, albeit luminous ones, which explains ghost sightings.Template:Sfn In discussing the resurrection bodies, he stressed Paul's teaching about the spiritual body. Origen emphasized its vast superiority and difference from the current body to the point of arguing that it will lack teeth and other no longer needed parts. However, he insisted that our individual bodies will be recognizable thanks to a unique form (εἶδος), preserved by each of our immortal souls, that shapes and integrates each body.Template:Sfn

Origen explicitly rejected "the false doctrine of the transmigration of souls into bodies".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn But this may refer only to a specific kind of transmigration according to theologian Geddes MacGregor, who has argued that Origen must have believed in the Platonic teaching of Template:Translit ('transmigration of souls'; i.e. reincarnation)Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn because it makes sense within his eschatologyTemplate:Sfn and is never explicitly denied in the Bible.Template:Sfn Roger E. Olson, however, dismisses the view that Origen believed in reincarnation as a New Age misunderstanding of Origen's teachings.Template:Sfn

Ethics

File:Master of Jean de Mandeville The Birth of Esau and Jacob.jpg

The Birth of Esau and Jacob (Template:Circa 1360–1370) by Master of Jean de Mandeville. Origen used the Biblical story of Esau and Jacob to support his theory that a soul's free will actions committed before incarnation determine the conditions of the person's birth.Template:Sfn

Origen was an ardent believer in free will,Template:Sfn and he adamantly rejected the Valentinian idea of election.Template:Sfn Instead, Origen believed that even disembodied souls have the power to make their own decisions.Template:Sfn Furthermore, in his interpretation of the story of Jacob and Esau, Origen argues that the condition into which a person is born is actually dependent upon what their souls did in this pre-existent state.Template:Sfn According to Origen, the superficial unfairness of a person's condition at birth—with some humans being poor, others rich, some being sick, and others healthy—is actually a by-product of what the person's soul had done in the pre-existent state.Template:Sfn Origen defends free will in his interpretations of instances of divine foreknowledge in the scriptures,Template:Sfn arguing that Jesus's knowledge of Judas's future betrayal in the gospels and God's knowledge of Israel's future disobedience in the Deuteronomistic history only show that God knew these events would happen in advance.Template:Sfn Origen therefore concludes that the individuals involved in these incidents still made their decisions out of their own free will.Template:Sfn Like Plato, Plotinus<ref> Enn. 6.8.4.11 </ref> and Gregory of Nyssa, Origen understands that only the agent who chooses the Good is free; choosing evil is never free but slavery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Origen was an ardent pacifist,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and in his Against Celsus, he argued that Christianity's inherent pacifism was one of the most outwardly noticeable aspects of the religion.Template:Sfn While Origen did admit that some Christians served in the Roman army,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn he pointed out that most did notTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and insisted that engaging in earthly wars was against the way of Christ.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen accepted that it was sometimes necessary for a non-Christian state to wage warsTemplate:Sfn but insisted that it was impossible for a Christian to fight in such a war without compromising his or her faith, since Christ had absolutely forbidden violence of any kind.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen explained the violence found in certain passages of the Old Testament as allegoricalTemplate:Sfn and pointed out Old Testament passages which he interpreted as supporting nonviolence, such as Psalm 7:4–6<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> and Lamentations 3:27–29.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref>Template:Sfn Origen maintained that, if everyone were peaceful and loving like Christians, then there would be no wars and the Empire would not need a military.Template:Sfn

Hermeneutics

Origen bases his theology on the Christian scripturesTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and does not appeal to Platonic teachings without having first supported his argument with a scriptural basis.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He saw the scriptures as divinely inspiredTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and was cautious never to contradict his own interpretation of what was written in them.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, Origen did have a penchant for speculating beyond what was explicitly stated in the Bible,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and this habit frequently placed him in the hazy realm between strict orthodoxy and heresy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

According to Origen, there are two kinds of Biblical literature which are found in both the Old and New Testaments: Template:Translit ('history' or 'narrative') and Template:Translit ('legislation' or 'ethical prescription').Template:Sfn Origen expressly states that the Old and New Testaments should be read together and according to the same rules.Template:Sfn Origen further taught that there were three different ways in which passages of scripture could be interpreted.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The "flesh" was the literal, historical interpretation of the passage;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn the "soul" was the moral message behind the passage;Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the "spirit" was the eternal, incorporeal reality that the passage conveyed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In Origen's exegesis, the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs represent perfect examples of the bodily, soulful, and spiritual components of scripture respectively.Template:Sfn

Origen saw the "spiritual" interpretation as the deepest and most important meaning of the textTemplate:Sfn and taught that some passages held no literal meaning at all and that their meanings were purely allegorical.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, he stressed that "the passages which are historically true are far more numerous than those which are composed with purely spiritual meanings"Template:Sfn and often used examples from corporeal realities.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Origen noticed that the accounts of Jesus's life in the four canonical gospels contain irreconcilable contradictions,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but he argued that these contradictions did not undermine the spiritual meanings of the passages in question.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Origen's idea of a twofold creation was based on an allegorical interpretation of the creation story found in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.Template:Sfn The first creation, described in Genesis 1:26,<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> was the creation of the primeval spirits,Template:Sfn who are made "in the image of God" and are therefore incorporeal like Him;Template:Sfn the second creation described in Genesis 2:7<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> is when the human souls are given ethereal, spiritual bodiesTemplate:Sfn and the description in Genesis 3:21<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> of God clothing Adam and Eve in "tunics of skin" refers to the transformation of these spiritual bodies into corporeal ones.Template:Sfn Thus, each phase represents a degradation from the original state of incorporeal holiness.Template:Sfn

Theology

File:Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg

Origen significantly contributed to the development of the concept of the TrinityTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and was among the first to name the Holy Spirit as a member of the Godhead,Template:Sfn but he was also a subordinationist,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn who taught that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son was superior to the Holy Spirit.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Origen's conception of God the Father is apophatic—a perfect unity, invisible and incorporeal, transcending all things material, and therefore inconceivable and incomprehensible. He is likewise unchangeable and transcends space and time. But his power is limited by his goodness, justice, and wisdom; and, though entirely free from necessity, his goodness and omnipotence constrained him to reveal himself. This revelation, the external self-emanation of God, is expressed by Origen in various ways, the Logos being only one of many. The revelation was the first creation of God (cf. Proverbs 8:22), in order to afford creative mediation between God and the world, such mediation being necessary, because God, as changeless unity, could not be the source of a multitudinous creation.

The Logos is the rational creative principle that permeates the universe.Template:Sfn The Logos acts on all human beings through their capacity for logic and rational thought,Template:Sfn guiding them to the truth of God's revelation.Template:Sfn As they progress in their rational thinking, all humans become more like Christ.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, they retain their individuality and do not become subsumed into Christ.Template:Sfn Creation came into existence only through the Logos, and God's nearest approach to the world is the command to create. While the Logos is substantially a unity, he comprehends a multiplicity of concepts, so that Origen terms him, in Platonic fashion, "essence of essences" and "idea of ideas".

The focused understanding of the Logos, along with the paradigms of participation carried from Greek philosophy, allowed Origen to have a major role in the development of the concept of human deification or Template:Translit. Origen believed that Christ's humanity was deified and this deification spread to all the believers.<ref>Contra Celsum 3.28</ref> By participating in the very Logos himself, we become participants in divinity. Origen, however, concluded that only those who are created in God's image and live a life of virtue can deified; virtue for Origen is linked to the person of Jesus Christ.<ref name="Zakhary-2024">Template:Cite journal</ref> Thus, he excluded all inanimate objects or animals (previously seen as divine in some pagan polytheistic systems), and also excluded the pagan heroes from this perceived deification.<ref name="Zakhary-2024" />

Origen significantly contributed to the development of the idea of the Trinity.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn He declared the Holy Spirit to be a part of the GodheadTemplate:Sfn and interpreted the Parable of the Lost Coin to mean that the Holy Spirit dwells within each and every personTemplate:Sfn and that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was necessary for any kind of speech dealing with God.Template:Sfn Origen taught that the activity of all three parts of the Trinity was necessary for a person to attain salvation.Template:Sfn

In one fragment preserved by Rufinus in his Latin translation of Pamphilus's Defense of Origen, Origen seems to apply the phrase Template:Translit ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} 'of the same substance') to the relationship between the Father and the Son.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn But Williams states that it is impossible to verify whether the quote that uses the word Template:Translit really comes from Pamphilus at all, let alone Origen.Template:Sfn

In other passages, Origen rejected the belief that the Son and the Father were one Template:Translit as heretical.Template:Sfn According to Rowan Williams, because the words Template:Translit and Template:Translit were used synonymously in Origen's time,Template:Sfn Origen almost certainly would have rejected Template:Translit, as a description for the relationship between the Father and the Son, as heretical.Template:Sfn

Nonetheless, Origen was a subordinationist,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn meaning he believed that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son was superior to the Holy Spirit,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn a model based on Platonic proportions.Template:Sfn Jerome records that Origen had written that God the Father is invisible to all beings, including even the Son and the Holy Spirit,Template:Sfn and that the Son is invisible to the Holy Spirit as well.Template:Sfn At one point Origen suggests that the Son was created by the Father and that the Holy Spirit was created by the Son,Template:Sfn but, at another point, he writes that: "Up to the present I have been able to find no passage in the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is a created being."Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn At the time when Origen was alive, orthodox views on the Trinity had not yet been formulatedTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and subordinationism was not yet considered heretical.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In fact, virtually all orthodox theologians prior to the Arian controversy in the latter half of the fourth century were subordinationists to some extent.Template:Sfn Origen's subordinationism may have developed out of his efforts to defend the unity of God against the Gnostics.Template:Sfn

Transmission of knowledge

Origen cites Hermippus of Smyrna to argue that Pythagoras owed a debt to Judaism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Influence on the later church

File:First Council of Nicea by V.Surikov (1876-7, GTG).jpg

Athanasius of Alexandria, shown standing in this 1876 oil painting by Vasily Surikov, was deeply influenced by Origen's teachings.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Before the Crises

Origen is often seen as the first major Christian theologian.Template:Sfn Though his orthodoxy had been questioned in Alexandria while he was alive,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn after Origen's death Pope Dionysius of Alexandria became one of the foremost proponents of Origen's theology.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Every Christian theologian who came after him was influenced by his theology, whether directly or indirectly.Template:Sfn Origen's contributions to theology were so vast and complex, however, that his followers frequently emphasized drastically different parts of his teachings to the expense of other parts.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Dionysius emphasized Origen's subordinationist views,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which led Dionysius to deny the unity of the Trinity, causing controversy throughout North Africa.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn At the same time, Origen's other disciple Theognostus of Alexandria taught that the Father and the Son were "of one substance".Template:Sfn

For centuries after his death, Origen was regarded as the bastion of orthodoxy,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and his philosophy practically defined Eastern Christianity.Template:Sfn Origen was revered as one of the greatest of all Christian teachers;Template:Sfn he was especially beloved by monks, who saw themselves as continuing in Origen's ascetic legacy.Template:Sfn As time progressed, however, Origen became criticized under the standard of orthodoxy in later eras, rather than the standards of his own lifetime.Template:Sfn In the early fourth century, the Christian writer Methodius of Olympus criticized some of Origen's more speculative argumentsTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but otherwise agreed with Origen on all other points of theology.Template:Sfn Peter of Antioch and Eustathius of Antioch criticized Origen as heretical.Template:Sfn

Both orthodox and heterodox theologians claimed to be following in the tradition Origen had established.Template:Sfn Athanasius of Alexandria, the most prominent supporter of the Holy Trinity at the First Council of Nicaea, was deeply influenced by Origen,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and so were Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the "Cappadocian Fathers").Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn At the same time, Origen deeply influenced Arius of Alexandria and later followers of Arianism.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Although the extent of the relationship between the two is debated,Template:Sfn in antiquity, many orthodox Christians believed that Origen was the true and ultimate source of the Arian heresy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

First Origenist Crisis

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File:Domenico Ghirlandaio - St Jerome in his study.jpg

St. Jerome in His Study (1480), by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Although initially a student of Origen's teachings, Jerome turned against him during the First Origenist Crisis.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He nonetheless remained influenced by Origen's teachings for his entire life.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The First Origenist Crisis began in the late fourth century, coinciding with the beginning of monasticism in Palestine.Template:Sfn The first stirring of the controversy came from the Cyprian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis, who was determined to root out all heresies and refute them.Template:Sfn Epiphanius attacked Origen in his anti-heretical treatises {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (375) and Template:Translit (376), compiling a list of teachings Origen had espoused that Epiphanius regarded as heretical.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Epiphanius's treatises portray Origen as an originally orthodox Christian who had been corrupted and turned into a heretic by the evils of "Greek education".Template:Sfn Epiphanius particularly objected to Origen's subordinationism, his "excessive" use of allegorical hermeneutic, and his habit of proposing ideas about the Bible "speculatively, as exercises" rather than "dogmatically".Template:Sfn

Epiphanius asked John, the bishop of Jerusalem, to condemn Origen as a heretic. John refused on the grounds that a person could not be retroactively condemned as a heretic after that person had already died.Template:Sfn In 393, a monk named Atarbius advanced a petition to have Origen and his writings censured.Template:Sfn Tyrannius Rufinus, a priest at the monastery on the Mount of Olives who had been ordained by John of Jerusalem and was a longtime admirer of Origen, rejected the petition outright.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rufinus's close friend and associate Jerome, who had also studied Origen, however, came to agree with the petition.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Around the same time, John Cassian, an Eastern monk, introduced Origen's teachings to the West.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In 394, Epiphanius wrote to John of Jerusalem, again asking for Origen to be condemned, insisting that Origen's writings denigrated human sexual reproduction and accusing him of having been an Encratite.Template:Sfn John once again denied this request.Template:Sfn By 395, Jerome had allied himself with the anti-Origenists and begged John of Jerusalem to condemn Origen, a plea which John once again refused.Template:Sfn Epiphanius launched a campaign against John, openly preaching that John was an Origenist deviant.Template:Sfn He successfully persuaded Jerome to break communion with John and ordained Jerome's brother Paulinianus as a priest in defiance of John's authority.Template:Sfn

In 397, Rufinus published a Latin translation of Origen's On First Principles.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rufinus was convinced that Origen's original treatise had been interpolated by heretics and that these interpolations were the source of the heterodox teachings found in it.Template:Sfn He therefore heavily modified Origen's text, omitting and altering any parts which disagreed with contemporary Christian orthodoxy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the introduction to this translation, Rufinus mentioned that Jerome had studied under Origen's disciple Didymus the Blind, implying that Jerome was a follower of Origen.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Jerome was so incensed by this that he resolved to produce his own Latin translation of On the First Principles, in which he promised to translate every word exactly as it was written and lay bare Origen's heresies to the whole world.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Jerome's translation has been lost in its entirety.Template:Sfn

In 399, the Origenist crisis reached Egypt.Template:Sfn Pope Theophilus I of Alexandria was sympathetic to the supporters of OrigenTemplate:Sfn and the church historian, Sozomen, records that he had openly preached the Origenist teaching that God was incorporeal.Template:Sfn In his Festal Letter of 399, he denounced those who believed that God had a literal, human-like body, calling them illiterate "simple ones".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn A large mob of Alexandrian monks who regarded God as anthropomorphic rioted in the streets.Template:Sfn According to the church historian Socrates Scholasticus, in order to prevent a riot, Theophilus made a sudden about-face and began denouncing Origen.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In 400, Theophilus summoned a council in Alexandria, which condemned Origen and all his followers as heretics for having taught that God was incorporeal, which they decreed contradicted the only true and orthodox position, which was that God had a literal, physical body resembling that of a human.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Efn

Theophilus labeled Origen as the "hydra of all heresies"Template:Sfn and persuaded Pope Anastasius I to sign the letter of the council, which primarily denounced the teachings of the Nitrian monks associated with Evagrius Ponticus.Template:Sfn In 402, Theophilus expelled Origenist monks from Egyptian monasteries and banished the four monks known as the "Tall Brothers", who were leaders of the Nitrian community.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn John Chrysostom, the patriarch of Constantinople, granted the Tall Brothers asylum, a fact which Theophilus used to orchestrate John's condemnation and removal from his position at the Synod of the Oak in July 403.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Once John Chrysostom had been deposed, Theophilus restored normal relations with the Origenist monks in Egypt and the first Origenist crisis came to an end.Template:Sfn

Second Origenist Crisis

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File:Mosaic of Justinianus I - Basilica San Vitale (Ravenna).jpg

Emperor Justinian I, shown here in a contemporary mosaic portrait from Ravenna, denounced Origen as a hereticTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and ordered all of his writings to be burned.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Second Origenist Crisis occurred in the sixth century, during the height of Byzantine monasticism.Template:Sfn Although the Second Origenist Crisis is not nearly as well documented as the first,Template:Sfn it seems to have primarily concerned the teachings of Origen's later followers, rather than what Origen had written.Template:Sfn Origen's disciple Evagrius Ponticus had advocated contemplative, noetic prayer,Template:Sfn but other monastic communities prioritized asceticism in prayer, emphasizing fasting, labors, and vigils.Template:Sfn

Some Origenist monks in Palestine, referred to by their enemies as "Template:Translit" (meaning 'those who would assume equality with Christ'), emphasized Origen's teaching of the pre-existence of souls and held that all souls were originally equal to Christ's and would become equal again at the end of time.Template:Sfn Another faction of Origenists in the same region instead insisted that Christ was the "leader of many brethren", as the first-created being.Template:Sfn This faction was more moderate, and they were referred to by their opponents as "Template:Translit" ('[those] first created').Template:Sfn Both factions accused the other of heresy, and other Christians accused both of them of heresy.Template:Sfn

The Protoktistoi appealed to the Emperor Justinian I to condemn the Isochristoi of heresy through Pelagius, the papal {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.Template:Sfn In 543, Pelagius presented Justinian with documents, including a letter denouncing Origen written by Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople,<ref name="Origen and Origenism"/><ref>"Apocatastasis Template:Snd § 2. Opponents". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. I: Aachen Template:Snd Basilians at Christian Classics Ethereal Library. {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn along with excerpts from Origen's On First Principles and several anathemata against Origen.Template:Sfn A domestic synod convened to address the issue concluded that the Isochristoi's teachings were heretical and, seeing Origen as the ultimate culprit behind the heresy, denounced Origen as a heretic as well.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Emperor Justinian ordered for all of Origen's writings to be burned.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the west, the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, which was written sometime between 519 and 553, listed Origen as an author whose writings were to be categorically banned.Template:Sfn

In 553, during the early days of the Second Council of Constantinople (the Fifth Ecumenical Council), when Pope Vigilius was still refusing to take part in it despite Justinian holding him hostage, the bishops at the council ratified an open letter which condemned Origen as the leader of the Isochristoi.Template:Sfn The letter was not part of the official acts of the council, and it more or less repeated the edict issued by the Synod of Constantinople in 543.Template:Sfn It cites objectionable writings attributed to Origen, but all the writings referred to in it were actually written by Evagrius Ponticus.Template:Sfn After the council officially opened, but while Pope Vigillius was still refusing to take part, Justinian presented the bishops with the problem of a text known as The Three Chapters, which attacked the Antiochene Christology.Template:Sfn

The bishops drew up a list of anathemata against the heretical teachings contained within The Three Chapters and those associated with them.Template:Sfn In the official text of the eleventh anathema, Origen is condemned as a Christological heretic,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but Origen's name does not appear at all in the Template:Translit, the first draft of the anathemata issued by the imperial chancery,Template:Sfn nor does it appear in the version of the conciliar proceedings that was eventually signed by Pope Vigillius, a long time afterwards.Template:Sfn Norman P. Tanner's edition of the Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Georgetown University Press, 1990) says: "Our edition does not include the text of the anathemas against Origen since recent studies have shown that these anathemas cannot be attributed to this council." These discrepancies may indicate that Origen's name was retrospectively inserted into the text after the council.Template:Sfn

Some authorities believe these anathemata belong to an earlier local synod.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Even if Origen's name did appear in the original text of the anathema, the teachings attributed to Origen that are condemned in the anathema were actually the ideas of later Origenists, which had very little grounding in anything Origen had actually written.Template:Sfn<ref name="Origen and Origenism"/>Template:Sfn Popes Vigilius, Pelagius I, Pelagius II, and Gregory the Great were only aware that the Fifth Council specifically dealt with The Three Chapters and make no mention of Origenism or universalism, nor spoke as if they knew of its condemnation—even though Gregory the Great was opposed to universalism.<ref name="Origen and Origenism"/>

After the Anathemas

Template:Rquote As a direct result of the numerous condemnations of his work, only a tiny fraction of Origen's voluminous writings have survived.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Nonetheless, these writings still amount to a massive number of Greek and Latin texts, very few of which have yet been translated into English.Template:Sfn Many more writings have survived in fragments through quotations from later Church Fathers.Template:Sfn Even in the late 14th century, Francesc Eiximenis in his Llibre de les dones, produced otherwise unknown quotations from Origen, which may be evidence of other works surviving into the Late Medieval period.<ref>Wittlin, Curt J. "Francesc Eiximenis and the" Sins of the Tongueu: Observations on a Semantic Field." Catalan Review 13.1–2 (1999): 255–276, p.255</ref><ref>Llibre de les dones. Barcelona. Curial Edicions Catalanes. 1981, p.387. Introduction by Curt Wittlin. Template:In lang</ref>

It is likely that the writings containing Origen's most unusual and speculative ideas have been lost to time,Template:Sfn making it nearly impossible to determine whether Origen actually held the heretical views which the anathemas against him ascribed to him.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, in spite of the decrees against Origen, the church remained enamored of himTemplate:Sfn and he remained a central figure of Christian theology throughout the first millennium.Template:Sfn He continued to be revered as the founder of Biblical exegesis,Template:Sfn and anyone in the first millennium who took the interpretation of the scriptures seriously would have had knowledge of Origen's teachings.Template:Sfn

Jerome's Latin translations of Origen's homilies were widely read in western Europe throughout the Middle Ages,Template:Sfn and Origen's teachings greatly influenced those of the Byzantine monk Maximus the Confessor and the Irish theologian John Scotus Eriugena.Template:Sfn Since the Renaissance, the debate over Origen's orthodoxy has continued to rage.Template:Sfn Basilios Bessarion, a Greek refugee who fled to Italy after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, produced a Latin translation of Origen's Against Celsus, which was printed in 1481.Template:Sfn Major controversy erupted in 1487, after the Italian humanist scholar Giovanni Pico della Mirandola issued a thesis arguing that "it is more reasonable to believe that Origen was saved than he was damned".Template:Sfn A papal commission condemned Pico's position on account of the anathemas against Origen, but not until after the debate had received considerable attention.Template:Sfn

The most prominent advocate of Origen during the Renaissance was the Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who regarded Origen as the greatest of all Christian authorsTemplate:Sfn and wrote in a letter to John Eck that he learned more about Christian philosophy from a single page of Origen than from ten pages of Augustine.Template:Sfn Erasmus especially admired Origen for his lack of rhetorical flourishes, which were so common in the writings of other Patristic authors.Template:Sfn Erasmus borrowed heavily from Origen's defense of free will in On First Principles in his 1524 treatise On Free Will, now considered his most important theological work.Template:Sfn

In 1527, Erasmus translated and published the portion of Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that survived only in GreekTemplate:Sfn and in 1536, he published the most complete edition of Origen's writings that had ever been published at that time.Template:Sfn While Origen's emphasis on the human effort in attaining salvation appealed to the Renaissance humanists, it made him far less appealing to the proponents of the Reformation.Template:Sfn

Martin Luther deplored Origen's understanding of salvation as irredeemably defectiveTemplate:Sfn and declared "in all of Origen there is not one word about Christ".Template:Sfn Consequently, he ordered for Origen's writings to be banned.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, the earlier Czech reformer Jan Hus had taken inspiration from Origen for his view that the church is a spiritual reality rather than an official hierarchy,Template:Sfn and Luther's contemporary, the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, took inspiration from Origen for his interpretation of the Eucharist as symbolic.Template:Sfn

In the seventeenth century, the English Cambridge Platonist Henry More was a devoted Origenist,Template:Sfn and although he did reject the notion of universal salvation,Template:Sfn he accepted most of Origen's other teachings.Template:Sfn Pope Benedict XVI expressed admiration for Origen,Template:Sfn describing him in a sermon as part of a series on the Church Fathers as "a figure crucial to the whole development of Christian thought", "a true 'maestroTemplate:'", and "not only a brilliant theologian but also an exemplary witness of the doctrine he passed on".Template:Sfn He concludes the sermon by inviting his audience to "welcome into your hearts the teaching of this great master of the faith".Template:Sfn Modern Protestant evangelicals admire Origen for his passionate devotion to the scripturesTemplate:Sfn but are frequently baffled or even appalled by his allegorical interpretation of them, which many believe ignores the literal, historical truth behind them.Template:Sfn

Origen is often noted for being one of the few Church Fathers who is not generally regarded as a saint.<ref>Hook, Walter Farquhar. The Nonentity of Romish Saints and the Inanity of Romish Ordinances. John Murray, 1850, p. 21</ref> Nevertheless, there are notable individuals who referred to Origen as St. Origen. This includes Anglicans such as Edward Welchman,<ref>Welchman, Edward. The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: Illustrated with Notes, and Confirmed by Texts of the Holy Scripture, and Testimonies of the Primitive Fathers.... Written in Latin by the Rev. Mr Archdeacon Welchman, and Now Translated Into English According to the Sixth Edition, by a Clergyman of the University of Oxford. No. 4. John and Francis Rivington, 1767, p.54.</ref> John Howson<ref>Howson, John. Uxore dimissa propter fornicationem aliam non licet superinducere. Barnesius, p.16.</ref> and Sir Winston Churchill;<ref>Churchill, Winston. Divi Britannici: Being a Remark Upon the Lives of All the Kings of this Isle, from the Year of the World 2855. Unto the Year of Grace 1660. Tho. Roycroft, to be sold by Francis Eglesfield, 1962, p.49.</ref> Calvinists such as Pierre Bayle,<ref>Bayle, Pierre, et al. A General Dictionary: Historical and Critical: in which a New and Accurate Translation of that of the Celebrated Mr. Bayle, with the Corrections and Observations Printed in the Late Edition at Paris, is Included; and Interspersed with Several Thousand Lives Never Before Published. The Whole Containing the History of the Most Illustrious Persons of All Ages and Nations Particularly Those of Great Britain and Ireland, Distinguished by Their Rank, Actions, Learning and Other Accomplishments. Vol. 4. J. Bettenham, 1736.</ref> Georges-Louis Liomin<ref>Liomin, Georges-Louis. Préservatif contre les opinions erronées qui se répandent au sujet de la durée des peines de la vie à venir. chez le Sr. Fréderic Louis Liomin, 1760.</ref> and Heinrich Bullinger;<ref>Gantet, Claire. "La religion et ses mots: La Bible latine de Zurich (1543) entre la tradition et l'innovation." Zwingliana 23 (2010): 143–167, p.149.</ref> American scholar and Orthodox Christian David Bentley Hart;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Oriental Orthodox such as Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria,<ref>H.H. Pope Shenouda III. "THE BEHOLDER OF GOD MARK THE EVANGELIST SAINT AND MARTYR." (1995), p.95.</ref> Fr. Tadros Yakoup Malaty<ref>Fr. Malaty, Tadros Yakoup. "Divine Love and Divine Commandment" Divine Love Vol. 4 (2019), p.203.</ref> and the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States.<ref>Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. "NT 101 Gospel and Acts" Servants' Preparation Program (2005), p.75.</ref> Origen's father, Saint Leonides of Alexandria, has a feast day on April 22 in the Catholic tradition, and the Evangelical Church in Germany celebrates April 27 as Origen's feast day.

Translations

• The Commentary of Origen On S. John's Gospel, the text revised and with a critical introduction and indices, A. E. Brooke (2 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1896): Volume 1, Volume 2
• Contra Celsum, trans Henry Chadwick, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965)
• On First Principles, trans GW Butterworth, (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973) also trans John Behr (Oxford University Press, 2019) from the Rufinus trans.
• Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom; Prayer; First Principles, book IV; Prologue to the Commentary on the Song of Songs; Homily XXVII on Numbers, trans R Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality, (1979)
• Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans RE Heine, FC 71, (1982)
• Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1–10, trans RE Heine, FC 80, (1989)
• Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and his Fellow Bishops On the Father, the Son and the Soul, trans Robert Daly, ACW 54 (New York: Paulist Press, 1992)
• Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 13–32, trans RE Heine, FC 89, (1993)
• The Commentaries on Origen and Jerome on St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, RE Heine, OECS, (Oxford: OUP, 2002)
• The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew, 2 vols., trans RE Heine, OECS, (Oxford: OUP, 2018)
• Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 1–5, 2001, Thomas P. Scheck, trans., The Fathers of the Church series, Volume 103, Catholic University of America Press, Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN<ref>Template:Cite book

</ref>

• Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 6–10 (Fathers of the Church), 2002, The Fathers of the Church, Thomas P. Scheck, trans., Volume 104, Catholic University of America Press, Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• On Prayer in Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen, "On the Lord's Prayer", translated and annotated by Alistair Stewart-Sykes, (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004), pp. 111–214

Translations available online

• Translations of eight of Origen's writings can be found in Ante-Nicene Fathers or in the New Advent section on the Fathers of the Church.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Material not in those collections includes:
  • Dialogue with Heracleides ({{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }})

• • On Prayer ({{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }})

• • Philocalia ({{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}) Template:Refend

See also

• Allegorical interpretations of Plato
• Apocatastasis
• Descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross
• Pre-existence of the soul
• Pseudo-Origen

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

• Bigg, Charles. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. 1886, revised 1913.
• Bruns, Christoph (2013). Trinität und Kosmos. Zur Gotteslehre des Origenes [Trinity and cosmos. On the doctrine of God in Origen]. Adamantiana, vol. 3. Münster: Aschendorff, 2013.
• Template:Cite book
• Fürst, Alfons (2017). Origenes. Grieche und Christ in römischer Zeit [Origen. Greek and Christ in Roman Times]. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, Template:ISBN.
• Heine, Ronald E.; Torjesen, Karen Jo (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Origen. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• Martens, Peter. Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1984.
• Westcott, B. F. "Origenes", Dictionary of Christian Biography.
• Williams, Rowan. "Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy", in W. A. Bienert and U. Kuhneweg, eds., Origeniana Septima, 1999, pp. 3–14.

External links

• Analysis and criticism
  • Modern
    • Coptic Church on Origen Template:Webarchive
    • The two-part Roman Catholic meditation on Origen by Pope Benedict XVI: April 25, 2007 and May 2, 2007.
  • Ancient
    • The Anathemas Against Origen
    • Evagrius Ponticus and the Condemnation of Origen
• Derivative summaries
  • Template:Cite SEP
  • Edward Moore, Origen Entry in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Template:Cite EB1911
  • Template:Cite Jewish Encyclopedia
  • Origen from New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
• Bibliography
  • EarlyChurch.org.uk Extensive bibliography and on-line articles.
• Original texts
  • Greek and Latin Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca, with Analytical Indexes and Concordances (Lexicon Proprium)
• Other resources
  • Table of Origen's Works with Links to Texts and Translations
  • Morwenna Ludlow Lecture on Origen for St John's College, Nottingham, June 13, 2016
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