Orígenes

Origen (c.185–c.254)

An ascetic Christian, prodigious scholar and dedicated teacher, Origen devoted his life to exploring God’s revelation. Much of his work takes the form of commentaries on Scripture. He argued that Scripture has three levels: the literal, the moral and the spiritual. The literal level veils the others, and we need God’s help to find the divine mysteries behind the veil. His commentaries directly or indirectly influenced the practice of exegesis throughout the patristic period and the Middle Ages.

Origen used his spiritual exegesis, as well as arguments, concepts and models drawn from philosophy, to tackle the theological problems of his day: the compatibility of providence and freedom, the relation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to each other and to rational creatures, the problem of evil, and the origin and destiny of the soul. He is famous – or infamous – for arguing that the souls of angels, demons and human beings enjoyed a previous heavenly existence, but that they sinned and fell. God created the world to punish and remedy their faults.

1 Life and works

Origen was born to Christian parents in Alexandria. When he was seventeen, his father was martyred in the persecutions of Septimius Severus. Origen, the oldest child, supported his family by teaching grammar. Shortly afterwards, Bishop Demetrius asked Origen to take charge of the catechetical school in Alexandria. In that time of persecution, such a charge meant preparing catechumens not only for baptism, but for martyrdom as well. Accordingly, in addition to teaching, Origen tended to the martyrs at their trials and in prison, and even accompanied them to their executions. He himself lived an ascetic life, sleeping and eating very little, devoting himself to teaching, study and pastoral work with an uncompromising intensity.

He studied philosophy in Alexandria, perhaps with Ammonius Saccas, who taught Plotinus. He read widely in Greek philosophy, but also studied Jewish writers, in particular Philo of Alexandria, and was conversant with rabbinical traditions. In Alexandria, he founded his own school of advanced study. However, at some time between ad 230 and 233, Origen fell from Demetrius’ good graces and was banished from the church of Alexandria. Origen then moved to Palestine, where he enjoyed strong support from the bishops, and founded another school of advanced study. When the persecution of Christians resumed under the Emperor Decius, Origen was arrested, imprisoned and tortured. When the persecutions ended, he was released. He died shortly thereafter.

Origen wrote a prodigious number of works, some scholarly, some polemical, but all with the pastoral aim of helping Christians to avoid error and deepen their knowledge of moral and spiritual truth. In Kata Kelsou (Against Celsus; known in its Latin translation as Contra Celsum), he defends Christianity against charges of irrationality levelled by the pagan philosopher Celsus. Origen’s Peri archōn (On First Principles) is the first work of Christian systematic theology; however, acutely aware of his own fallibility, he proposes the elements of his system very tentatively. Origen also preached and wrote commentaries on nearly every book of Scripture, although most of these works have not survived and some exist only in Latin translations. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of these commentaries, whose methodology and content had a profound influence on Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa in the East, and on Jerome and Ambrose in the West (see Patristic philosophy). Through these writers, Origen influenced the practice of exegesis throughout the Middle Ages.

2 Revelation

In Origen’s view, Christians can come to understand moral and spiritual truths through study of Scripture. The Holy Spirit revealed these truths to the apostles and prophets, who recorded them in their writings for the benefit of the faithful. However, to express these truths plainly would risk allowing the enemies of the Church to ridicule them. Consequently, the authors veiled these truths in narratives and legal ordinances which constitute the literal level of Scripture. To find the spiritual level, Origen uses typological and allegorical exegesis. Typological exegesis, practised before Origen by Justin and Irenaeus as well as by the authors of the New Testament, interprets passages in the Old Testament as foreshadowing something in the gospel, whether historical or spiritual. Allegorical interpretation, practised before Origen by Philo of Alexandria, understands every detail of Scripture to have a moral or spiritual significance.

Finding the spiritual meaning of Scripture requires more than philological skill. As Origen sees it, one must first lead the spiritual life, a life of devotion to Christ in prayerful and diligent study of the Scriptures. As one becomes more like Christ and participates in him, one becomes worthy to be taught the mysteries of the spiritual gospel hidden by the literal gospel. Christ himself must lift the veil from the letter. Origen supposes that Jews, Gnostics and literalists misread the Scriptures because they do not listen to Christ’s explanation, available inwardly to those who lead the spiritual life. In his commentaries and homilies, Origen often prays for Christ’s help, or asks his listeners to pray for him, so that Christ might lift yet more of the veil from the letter. This process will continue in the next life, where Christ will teach the blessed, face to face, more and more of the spiritual mysteries (see Revelation).

3 Theology

The prophets and apostles taught in plain terms only a small part of the spiritual gospel, including the most important truths: that God is one and the creator of the world; that his Son took a human body without resigning his divinity, and that he suffered, died and rose from the dead; that the Holy Spirit inspired the saints of both Testaments; that the rational soul is free and will be rewarded or punished according to its deserts. The apostles left the explanation and clarification of these truths to others who have received the gift of wisdom from the Holy Spirit. Origen’s theology consists largely of what he takes to be this explanation and clarification. Acutely aware of the immensity of this task and of his own limitations, Origen often presents his views tentatively. With equal intensity and humility, he combs the Scriptures to investigate the relationship among the persons of the Trinity, God’s motives in creation; the incarnation and resurrection, and the origin and destiny of human beings, angels and demons. For these investigations, Origen borrows concepts, models and arguments from various philosophical schools, including the Stoic, Peripatetic and, in particular, the Platonic schools (see Neoplatonism; Platonism, Early and Middle). Though he finds philosophical tools and speculations useful in the service of Christianity, he warns his students to give their allegiance to God and not to any philosophical school. Too often, giving allegiance to one school means closing one’s mind to other ways of thinking.

In Origen’s theology, God is a Trinity of three beings or hypostases: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, coeternal, incorporeal and uncreated. Each of these three beings has its own attributes and role to play in the created world and in the life of the Trinity itself. The Father is absolutely simple, immutable and impassible. He receives nothing from any source, but is himself the source of all being and all goodness. The Son, begotten by the Father, bears the titles Wisdom, Word, Truth and Life, which characterize him as he is in himself, and about one hundred further titles which characterize his relationship to the created world, such as Redeemer, Good Shepherd and High Priest. The Holy Spirit sanctifies rational creatures, conferring spiritual gifts on them. The Spirit receives being and goodness from the Father, and wisdom and intelligence from the Son.

Origen’s admirers and detractors alike express worries about his subordination of the Son and Holy Spirit to the Father. Only the Father is God in his own right; the Son and Holy Spirit merely participate in his Godhead, as they participate in his being and goodness. However, Origen never asserts that the Son and Holy Spirit are God or good to a lesser degree than the Father, only that they receive their Godhead and goodness from him.

The Father creates the world and everything in it ex nihilo, not from pre-existent matter. Origen sometimes proposes that the Father creates not just one world but a succession of worlds, though that series itself has a beginning in time. His denial of the eternity of this series makes him vulnerable to the criticism that God was idle before the creation. However, to think God idle is both inconceivable and impious. God so overflows with goodness and creative power that it is impossible for him not to exercise this power and to manifest his goodness. Recalling the verse from Psalms 104 (103), ‘In Wisdom hast thou made them all’, Origen speculates that in addition to the temporal creation, there is also an eternal creation: The Father eternally creates in the Son, whose chief title is Wisdom, the plans and patterns of the temporal world as an expression of his power and goodness. In the Son, then, exist the genera and species of all things, and perhaps the patterns for individuals as well. The Son, therefore, provides the link between the One and the many (see Trinity).

4 Rational creatures

Origen develops much of his thought about rational creatures by reflection on the problem of evil and the goodness of God (see Evil, problem of). He was impressed by the great inequalities of life: inequalities of power, privilege and opportunity, of flourishing and suffering. Why are some rational creatures angels, some demons and others human beings? Why are some human beings born into power and privilege and others not? Why are some Christians martyred for their beliefs? The Gnostics claim, Origen writes, that some souls are by nature good, others evil, and still others indifferent, and one’s lot in life depends on the nature of one’s soul. Otherwise one’s lot would be a matter of blind luck (see Gnosticism). Origen rejects this Gnostic view. God’s providence governs every individual’s life, so the inequalities of life cannot be due to luck. Moreover, because he is good and just, God would not introduce inequality arbitrarily and, therefore, unjustly.

Origen proposes that rational creatures enjoyed a pre-existent life, united to God in heavenly contemplation. God created them entirely equal and sinless. However, because they were rational, their actions were up to them; and because God created them out of nothing, they were mutable. Although Christ’s human soul retained its innocence, other souls – perhaps all others – fell from their original union with God. Origen sometimes suggests that they grew satiated and lost interest in their contemplation of God. God responded to their fall by creating the world and assigning the fallen creatures a place in it according to their deserts. Those who distanced themselves from God the least became angels; those who distanced themselves the most became demons; and those whose fall was neither great nor small became human beings.

Human life, then, is God’s punishment for sins committed in the pre-existence. The particular circumstances in which human beings find themselves – their advantages and disadvantages – are assigned to them according to their deserts. However, Origen finds God’s punishment remedial as well as retributive. God is a doctor who sends us bitter medicine only to cure us. Origen also likens God to a loving tutor whose discipline aims at teaching the pupil a lesson. He puts us to the test because he wants us to face the secrets of our hearts: it is only through temptation that we see what we are really like. If we do not learn our lessons in this lifetime, then God does not abandon us, but continues the plan for our salvation into our next life (see Salvation).

From Paul’s teaching that, at the end, God will be all in all, Origen formulates his account of the apocatastasis, or restoration, when rational creatures regain the purity of their original state and God fills their minds. In Peri archōn, Origen suggests that the apocatastasis will be universal, so that all rational creatures, even the Devil, will eventually turn to God. However, he has no settled view on this subject. In a letter to friends in Alexandria, he explicitly denies that the Devil will be saved, and his homilies on Jeremiah suggest that some human beings too will suffer eternal punishment.