Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
ORIGEN The most outstanding figure among the Greek Church Fathers is Origen. Notable scholarship and an incredible capacity for work were combined in him in the service of an all-embracing intellect. His thought set its mark not only on the thinking of his own time and of the immediately following generations, but even on that of a later time which wished to forget him. We know very little of the life-history of the writers with whom we have so far been dealing; but with Origen the situation is very different. His pupils and admirers felt that the story of his life, as well as his writings and teachings, deserved to be handed down to those of later times; some legends have become mingled with historical fact, yet on the whole we can accept these records of the life of Origen as genuinely historical.
Origen was born about a.p. 185 in a Christian family.
His father met a martyr's death in a.p. 202 in the time of persecution under Septimius Severus. But now let Eusebius, the fourth-century Church historian, take up the tale:
When Severus set in motion the persecution of the Churches, notable martyrdoms of the champions of the faith were accomplished in every place. They were most numerous in Alexandria.
... Among the martyrs was Leonidas the father of Origen. .
The fire of persecution burned furiously, and many attained the martyr's crown. Origen was at that time little more than a boy. But he was seized with such a love for martyrdom that he wished deliberately to run into danger and to fling himself into the battle. His attempts were very nearly successful, and his life
might very well have come to an end, if it had not pleased divine and heavenly providence to hinder his purpose, to the advantage of many, through the opposition of his mother. She first implored him in words, and besought him to show some consideration for his mother's love. But at that time he learned that his father had been arrested, and was straitly shut up in prison. She saw that his longing for martyrdom had grown even stronger, and that he was now wholly given up to the desire for it. So she took and hid all his clothes, and by that means compelled him to remain at home. ..
. As he could do nothing else, he wrote a letter to his father, urging him to hold fast in the face of martyrdom; in the letter occur these words: "Whatever else you do, do not for our sakes falter in your resolution"... .
Here for the first time we see that intelligence and uncompromising religious conviction which Origen displayed even as a young man. He had already made considerable progress in the knowledge of the faith, and from his childhood had been well trained in the Holy Scriptures. He had worked very hard in this field, as his father had laid special stress on this kind of knowledge, as well as on the acquisition of a general education.
Every day he made Origen learn parts of the Bible by heart and repeat them. But he had no need to compel him; Origen set himself eagerly to make progress in this kind of knowledge.
And he was not content with the simple and literal sense of the holy words; he sought more than this, and was already intent on the deeper meaning; indeed he gave his father quite a lot of trouble with questions as to what it was that the inspired Scripture really intended to express. . . .
His father had already introduced him to the wisdom of the Greeks. After his father's death he devoted himself with even greater enthusiasm to these learned studies, and acquired a good general education. .
. This enabled him to earn what, considering his age, was a considerable income. While he was thus engaged, as he himself tells us in one of his writings, a number of pagans came to him to hear the word of God. For at that time no one in Alexandria was occupied with the work of Christian instruction—all had fled by reason of the persecution. The first
of those who came, as he tells, was Plutarch, who after leading a good life was adorned with the crown of martyrdom. The second was Plutarch's brother Heraklas who . . . after the death of Demetrius was raised to the office of bishop among the Alexandrians. Origen was in his eighteenth year when he became head of the catechetical school in Alexandria. .
. The hostility of the unbelievers towards him was so great that they formed conspiracies against him, and posted soldiers round the house in which he lived, because of the large numbers of people who were being instructed by him in the principles of the holy faith. And each day persecution flamed so fiercely against him that he could no longer find any place in the whole city; but, driven out everywhere, he had to move from house to house because of the number of those who came to him to receive the divine instruction. ...
For many years he maintained the manner of life of a philosopher, and kept all youthful lusts far from him. The whole day he carried a very considerable load of teaching; the greater part of the night he gave up to his own deep studies of the divine
Scriptures. Throughout his life as a philosopher he was highly abstemious. He enthusiastically adopted a rule of fasting; then set limits to his time for sleep; later he did not use a bed, but simply slept on the ground. Above all he thought it his duty to pay strict attention to those words of the Lord, which bid us not to have two coats or pairs of shoes, and not to be fretted by anxieties about the future... .
He gave to the world around him such an example of the life of a philosopher that, as can be well understood, he inspired a number of his students to follow the example of his zeal. And the best of the unbelievers, who were masters of the culture and philosophy of the time, came to hear his instruction. Through his ministry a number of these sincerely received into their souls belief in the divine Logos; and, in the persecution of that time, they distinguished themselves in such a way that some of them were arrested and reached perfection through martyrdom. . .
Origen regarded the pursuit of the wisdom of this world and of philosophy as very necessary for himself. Evidences of his
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success as a teacher are to be found in the contemporary Greek philosophers. He is often mentioned in their writings. Sometimes they dedicated works to him. Sometimes they submitted works to his judgment, as a student submits his work to a teacher.
Porphyry, who took it upon him to write controversial books against us and to vilify the holy scriptures, lived on in Sicily until our own time. He refers also to the interpreters of Scripture; and when he can find nothing to criticize in the teachings, for lack of material for blame he turns to insulting the teachers, and especially Origen.
Porphyry has hard things to say about the allegorical method of interpretation:
What Moses had written quite clearly they claim to be riddles; and these they treat with special reverence as though they were oracles, full of hidden secrets; and through the dizziness which they produce, the mind loses its capacity for judgment. This is the value of their interpretations.
Later he goes on as follows:
This absurd method can be found in writings of a man whom I came to know personally when I was almost a child—Origen
.. Origen was a pupil of Ammonius, the most highly reputed philosopher of our time. From the point of view of knowledge
Origen gained greatly from his teacher, but he adopted a manner of life which was entirely contrary to that knowledge. Ammonius had been brought up by his parents as a Christian and within the Christian Church; but as soon as he began to think and to study philosophy, he at once adopted the appropriate manner of life. Origen, on the contrary, though he was a Greek and had been brought up among the Greeks, fell away to the wicked and barbarous errors of the Christians.t
Origen had converted a wealthy man named Ambrose from the heresy of the Valentinians. Ambrose out of gratitude
1 Here, of course, Porphyry was wrong; as we have seen, Origen was brought up as a Christian from birth.
put at his disposal an extensive office, which made possible a multiplication of his labours.
From this time on Origen began to write commentaries on the divine Scriptures. .
.. More than seven shorthand writers waited to take dictation from him, one relieving another after a given time. There were an equal number of scribes, and also girls well trained in the art of beautiful writing. Ambrose made generous provision for all these necessary aids to the work. Further, he himself took part with incredible zeal in the laborious task of expounding the holy Scriptures. It was for that reason especially that he had urged Origen to undertake the work of preparing his commentaries on the Scriptures.
With this help, Origen was now able to dictate instead of writing. As a result the number of works attributed to him is enormous. Many of them have been lost. But even so, what survives is very considerable; no other father of the Church except Chrysostom equals Origen in the volume of his surviving work.
As the fame of Origen grew, he was led to make many journeys. While in Caesarea, he was invited not only to lecture, but also to preach; as it was unusual in the Church of those days for an unordained man to preach, in a.p. 230 some of his friends who were bishops ordained him to the priesthood. Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, objected to this ordination as contrary to rule, and therefore invalid; as Origen was an Alexandrian, he ought to have been ordained in Alexandria and nowhere else. Various attempts were made to patch up the quarrel; but in the end the situation in Alexandria became so difficult that Origen left the city, and moved once again to Caesarea, where he spent the rest of his life.
Origen was already an old man when in the year a.p. 250, under the Emperor Decius, the first systematic persecution
of the Christians broke out. The eagerness to confess Christ through suffering which had marked him as a young man had never been extinguished. Naturally the heathen state did its very utmost to bring this famous teacher to the point of renouncing his faith. In spite of his age he was subjected to ill-treatment and torture—without the least effect on his resolution. But the judge did not regard it as right to put a man of the stamp of Origen to death. So, when all torments had proved unavailing, he was again set at liberty.
Many of the letters of Origen contain a true and exact account of all that he suffered in the persecution, and what the issue of the affair was, when the evil spirit stirred up all his hosts to fight against this man and entered into the field against him with all cunning and power. Among all that were attacked at that time the fiercest assaults were made on Origen. The letters tell what, and how much, this man endured for the sake of Christ . .
. and how he courageously endured all that the enemy could do to him, and what was the end of all the proceedings against him, when. the judge eagerly made use of every possible means to avoid putting Origen to death. Finally they tell of the utterances he has left behind him, which are full of comfort and profit for those that need them.
Origen died a few years after the persecution. In view of the interval of time, it is impossible to say whether this was a result of the hardships that he had endured or not. The place of his death is unknown. It is noteworthy that his grave was shown not in Caesarea but in Tyre.
Even during Origen's lifetime there were those who were offended because many of his views could not be exactly reconciled with the traditional doctrines of the Church, and who consequently accused him of heresy. But Origen enjoyed in general the highest reputation. His utterances were completely in accord with the basic structure of Greek theological
thinking. And at that time there were no definitions of the faith, accepted by the whole Church as binding, by means of which orthodoxy could be exactly tested. So these complaints had little effect during Origen's lifetime. But they did not diminish after his death, and he had always fierce enemies as well as many warm admirers. A particularly violent dispute broke out at the end of the fourth century; and after that controversies never really ceased, until finally by an edict of the Emperor Justinian put forth in the year 543 Origen was declared to be a heretic.
The Bible as foundation The best traditions of Alexandria can be recognized in Origen's manner of working. The conclusion of his theology is speculative thought on the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith. But a firm foundation had been laid for this in minute study of the text of the Bible and its interpretation.
Here we must first mention that gigantic work, the Hexapla, the six-fold Bible. Christians in Alexandria used as their Bible the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.
But this departed in many places from the Hebrew text and from other translations. In order to reduce the matter to order once for all, Origen set out in six columns the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters; the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters; and the four Greek translations which were available to him. Additions and omissions he marked with the critical signs, obelus (+) and asterisk (*). For some books he had more than the four translations, and at certain points the number of columns was increased to nine. We may realize the greatness of Origen's achievement, when we recall that twelve hundred years were to pass before the Church undertook a comparable piece of work in the so-called "Complutensian Polyglott" (begun in Spain in 1502 and "published in'1522).
In the interpretation of the Bible Origen followed that allegorical method, which we have already encountered in Philo and in Clement; but he carried it further and perfected it.
He did not interpret the holiness of the Scriptures as meaning simply that the breath of the Holy Spirit breathes through them. For him, inspiration means a holiness which attaches itself to the whole Bible, and is recognizable in every phrase, in every letter. But this is not to ascribe any magic potency to the words themselves. Behind each phrase there must be a meaning which points to God, a meaning which must be discovered, and which will convey to man the knowledge of God.
Origen, as a good follower of Plato, thinks in terms of a descending series of images, each one reflecting the image above it. The original image becomes fainter, as we go downwards, but is never wholly lost. The last and lowest of these images constitutes for man the bottom rung of a ladder which, if he follows it, will in the end lead him up to God.
This means of course that on man is laid the duty of leaving the lower levels and mounting upwards. Origen thinks of the Scriptures in terms of three levels, which may be roughly compared to the three ways in which man's own being can be thought of. We may distinguish between the literal or physical; the "psychic" which is related to the soul; and the "pneumatic", which has to do with the spirit. The literal sense first meets us, and entices us to go forward to the "psychic" meaning, through which we receive for the most part ethical and moral counsels. But the thing that really matters is the knowledge of God, and this is conveyed only by the "spiritual" sense.
In the Fourth Book of his treatise On Basic Principles (De Principiis), Origen composed the first systematic study of the art of biblical interpretation ever to be written, and set out in ordered form the principles that he himself followed
in his exposition of Scripture. Here are some selections from what he wrote:
We have treated briefly the question of the inspiration of the holy Scriptures through the Holy Spirit. Now we must pass on to the manner in which they are to be read and understood. The worst errors arise from the failure of so many readers to discover the right method for finding their way through these holy books. The hardened and ignorant Jews of the Circumcision did not become believers in the Saviour, because they thought that he must literally carry out those sayings, of the prophets that refer to him. But they did not see with the eye of the body that he "preached deliverance to the captives", or that he built the "city of God" in the only sense in which they understood that expression; or that he "'cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem'"?; he did not eat "butter and honey before he knew how to choose the good and refuse the evil'.
. .. In the period during which the Christ in whom we believe lived upon the earth, they had seen none of these things happen with their physical eyes. They did not, therefore, accept our
Lord Jesus; on the contrary they crucified him, on the ground that he had wrongly called himself Messiah.
The heretics on the contrary read that "a fire has burned in mine anger', and that "I am a jealous God that visits the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation', . .
. and that "an evil spirit from God troubled Saul''6 . . . and a thousand other things of the same kind. They did not venture to deny the divine origin of the Scriptures, but they imagined that they came from the Demiurge,' the lower god whom the Jews worship. On their view the creator was imperfect and not good, and so the Saviour came to proclaim a more
Isa. 61:1.
2Zech. 9:10.
Sisa7 215.
Jer. 15:14.
5Rx. 20:5.
81 Sam. 15:11.
7An intermediate creator.
perfect God. They say of this God that He is not the creator and let themselves be led away into the most contradictory assertions about Him.
. There are also some less educated Christians, who are proud of their adherence to the Church, and who recognize that there is none greater than the Creator—in that they are entirely right. But they believe such things of Him as they would not attribute to the roughest and most unrighteous of men.
The cause of all these false, ungodly or primitive points of view in relation to God is apparently simply this—that the Scripture is not understood in its spiritual sense, but is expounded according to the bare letter. . .
For a man must inscribe the meaning of the Scriptures on his own spirit in threefold fashion. For the edification of quite simple people there is that sense which may be taken as the flesh, the physical component of the Scriptures; and by that we mean the accustomed and obvious interpretation. For those who have made a certain amount of progress, there is the interpretation which is drawn from the soul of the Scriptures. To him who is perfect corresponds the word of the apostle, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect .
. ."1; he is here referring to the spiritual law which is an image of good things yet to come?. For just as man is made up of body, soul and spirit, God has ordained that the Scripture which has been given for the salvation of men should exist in the same threefold manner.
(De Principiis 4:11) This also we must recognize: the chief purpose of the Word was to proclaim the relations of those spiritual realities by means of those things which have happened or are yet to happen.
When he saw that the events of actual history could be combined with this inner and spiritual meaning, he made use of them, concealing the deeper meaning from the majority of readers.
But when, in the setting forth of the order of the spiritual things, the method I have just mentioned could not be followed, because of the even more secret character of their contents, the 11 Cor. 2:6-7.
2Heb. 10:1.
Scripture wove together into the record things that had not actually happened; sometimes things that could not possibly have happened, at other times things that could have happened but did not actually happen. And sometimes there are fewer, and sometimes more, of these inserted sections that are not literally true. The same is true of the giving of the law; there are some sections which are entirely useful and appropriate to the time when the law was given; but here and there no useful sense appears to be present. In a number of cases laws are given which could not possibly be obeyed. These are for the zealous and enquiring readers, in order that they may take the trouble really to study the Scriptures, and may reach the right and binding conclusion, that if our interpretation of such passages as these is to be acceptable, we must go on enquiring until we discover in them a sense which is worthy of God.
(De Principiis 4:15) Bible commentaries Origen's Commentaries on the Scriptures were of enormous extent. His comments on the first verse of the fourth Gospel takes up the whole of the first Book of his Commentary; a fact from which it may be understood that Origen's is fuller than the fullest modern commentary. And it has to be admitted that these works are often very tedious. Great thinker that he was, Origen had never mastered the art of point and brevity. This is true even in his more carefully considered works; and he is at his worst in the Commentaries, which he dictated as he went. We must limit ourselves to one example of Origen's style and method as a commentator:
John 4:40 £. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. It is likely that someone may point to the contrast between this word, and that other word of the Lord: "Go not in the streets of the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans." When he is invited by the Samaritans, the 1Matt. 10:5.
Saviour stayed there two days, although in another place he says "Enter no town of the Samaritans." Quite clearly the disciples went with him into the town. This means that the expression "going in the streets of the Gentiles" is to be understood to mean adopting some pagan doctrine, which is contrary to the law of the God of Israel, and walking according to that teaching.
"Entering into a town of the Samaritans" happens when a man passes beyond those passages which bid us give heed to the teaching of the Law, the prophets, the Gospels or the apostles, and comes to some "wisdom falsely so called".
The Samaritans had left their town, and come out to Jacob's well to Jesus; they have believed on him, and he is now willing to accept their proposal. This is what makes it possible for Jesus to stay with those who have invited him. I think that John quite deliberately puts things in this way. He does not say that the Samaritans invited him to go with them to Samaria, or to enter into their town, but that they asked him "to stay with them".
For to stay with one who believes is not the same as to enter into the city where he dwells. And later on, the words are not "he stayed two days in that town", or "he stayed in Samaria", but "he stayed there", that is, with those who had invited him.
Jesus stays with those who invite him, especially when those who invite him come out from their own city, and come to Jesus, following the example of Abraham who believed the God who said to him, "Go out from your country and your kindred and your father's house."
He stayed two days with them. This means that they were not yet able to receive his third day, because they were not yet strong enough to be witnesses of a miracle, as were those who on the third day were at table with Jesus at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The beginning of the faith of many, who believed in Samaria, was the word of the woman, who bore witness, that he "told me all that I ever did". The increase, and the multitude of the many more that believed, comes about not through the word of the woman, but through the Word himself. For there is an immense difference between these two things—that the 1Gen. 1:12.
Word enlightens him who can receive him and is seen in himself; and that the Word is proclaimed and witnessed to by another.
(Commentary on St. John's Gospel 13:51) Defending the faith Origen has left so many writings that it is not possible to enumerate them all. We shall take up only some of the most important among them.
On the side of the defence of the faith, the most important work is certainly that "Against Celsus", or to speak more exactly, Eight Books of Origen, against the work of Celsus entitled "The True Word'.
Celsus was a Platonic philosopher. He lived about two generations before Origen, and when he wrote his True
Word Origen was probably not yet born. This was the great period of the apologists. The apologists of that time were
Platonic philosophers, who had found in Christian faith the completion of their Platonic philosophy. But naturally there were other Platonic philosophers who did not take this step; the apologists had not only disciples and followers, they also had opponents. So there were not only the philosophic defences of Christianity composed by the apologists, but also philosophical attacks on the faith. Among these that of Celsus seems to have been one of the most important. As the title of his book shows, Celsus attacks primarily the apologists' doctrine of Christ as the true Logos. Like most of the apologists he is convinced that the divine Logos was manifest in ancient times in the great intellectual achievements of the Greek genius. But there alone, he thinks, the true and ancient
Logos is to be found, and not in this new-fangled Christianity, which is to be regarded rather as a phenomenon of degeneration and decay. In his judgment the "True Word" is not the word preached by the Christians.
Celsus took his work very seriously. He had carefully
studied the Christian books; he was familiar with the history of Israel and of the Church, with the moral principles of the Gospel, and with the way in which the Bible was interpreted in the Church. All this must have seemed to educated Christians to make his book particularly dangerous. The influence of it appears to have persisted after the death of the writer.
Origen, in the introduction to his book against Celsus, speaks of men who had been led astray by him, and his rich friend Ambrose had specially asked him to write a book in refutation of the "True Word".
Origen's method is to set out the greater part of the "True Word'—possibly the whole work, but this is not certain—step by step and sentence by sentence, and to comment on it. The result of this labour was not the greatest of all defences of the Christian faith, but it is certainly a notable work of Christian scholarship.
+x.
When false witness was brought against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he was silent, and when he was accused, he answered nothing. For he was convinced that his whole life and activity among the Jews bore witness on his behalf more mightily than speeches made to refute the false witness, or words spoken to defend him against the accusations.
. I make so bold as to think that a defence of the kind you ask me for may weaken the defence provided by the facts, and by that power of Jesus which is clearly visible for all who have eyes to see. But, in order that I may not seem to have rejected the commission you have given me through sheer laziness, I have endeavoured to set down to the best of my ability what seemes to me to be the obvious reply to each of the points raised by Celsus, although these could not really shake the faith of any believer. May there be no one with so small an experience of the love of God in Jesus Christ that he could be shaken in his purpose by the words of Celsus or of any other of his kind! ...
The reader should recognize that this reply to Celsus is not written for fully-convinced believers, but either for those who
have no acquaintance at all with faith in Christ, or for those who, as Paul puts it, are "weak in faith"... . But better is he who, even if he should encounter the work of Celsus, has no need at all of any answer to it, but passes lightly over everything that is contained in the book; for indeed any simple believing
Christian can, through the Spirit that is in him, rightly treat it with contempt.
(In Celsum, Introd. 1, 3, 6) Christian living We could easily picture a man of such outstanding culture and comprehensive intellect as a scholar living remote from the world. In point of fact Origen was nothing of the kind.
His pastoral treatises show chat he lived fully in the world, and was well aware of his responsibility as a teacher of the Church. We have from him a Treatise on Prayer, and an Exhortation to Martyrdom.
The Preface to the Treatise on Prayer does not deal directly with the subject, but is of basic importance, as it treats of that well-worn theme, the relation between man's capacity for knowledge and the grace of God:
The greatest themes surpass man's understanding, and are far beyond the reach of our perishable nature; therefore it is impossible for the reason of the race of mortals to grasp them. Nevertheless this becomes possible by the will of God through the abundant and immeasurable grace that is poured forth from God upon men, through Jesus Christ, who ministers unto us his unsurpassable grace, and through the Holy Spirit who works with him. Certainly it is impossible for human nature of itself to acquire that wisdom by which all things have been established
(for, according to David, God made all things in wisdom).
What is impossible, however, becomes possible through our Lord Jesus Christ, whom "God made our wisdom, our righttRom. 14:1.
*Ps, 104:24.
eousness and sanctification and redemption". "For what man shall know the counsel of God? or who shall conceive what the Lord wills?". .
. Anyone, I think, would agree that it is impossible for man to trace out the things that are in the heavens.
Nevertheless this impossible becomes possible by the exceeding grace of God.
(On Prayer I) The occasion of the Exhortation to Martyrdom was an actual occurrence in history. In a.p. 235 the Emperor Maximin the Thracian, shortly after his accession, stirred into life the war against the Christian Church which had slept for more than a generation. On this occasion the persecution was directed specially against the leaders in the Church. Origen writes his treatise for a priest Protoctetus and a deacon
Ambrose, to encourage them to stand firm to the end. But really the treatise is addressed not so much to these two men as to all those Christians who might be suspected of showing a tendency towards compromise. Origen, who at the beginning and end of his life manifested his willingness to suffer for Christ, was clearly the fit person to write such an exhortation:
Man is still feeble, though he may have attained to the understanding that the essence of the rational soul has a certain kinship with God. For both are intellectual and invisible and without body. But why did our Creator implant in us a longing for religious communion with Him (so that even in those who go astray He preserves certain traces of the divine will) if it were not possible, and within the reach of the rational creatures, to satisfy this natural desire? And it is clear that, just as each of our members has some ability for which it is naturally fitted, the eyes to see visible things, and the ears to hear sounds, so the mind is for the intelligible things, and for the God who transcends them.
Why then do we hesitate and doubt to put off the corruptible 11 Cor. 1:30.
body that hinders us and weighs down the soul, the earthly tabernacle that fills the mind full of many anxieties? Why not be set free from our bonds and retire from the stormy waves that are the lot of flesh and blood? For then we may enjoy with Christ Jesus the rest which accompanies blessedness, and may contemplate him in his wholeness, the living Word. Fed by him, and comprehending the manifold wisdom that is in him, and being stamped with the very truth, we may have our minds enlightened by the true and unfailing light of knowledge and have the vision of those things that only through that light can be seen by eyes illuminated by the commandment of the Lord.
(Exhortation to Martyrdom 47) Setting out the truth in order The most important work of Origen—indeed one of the most important works which has come down to us from the early Church—is his De Principiis, On the Fundamental Principles of the Christian Faith. This is the first systematic work on doctrine produced in the history of the Church.
We can trace its influence through the whole history of the Church, and down to the books of doctrine that are being written in our own time.
Origen starts from the assumption that the Christian Church is in possession of the truth; this is present in the tradition of the Church and of the apostles. But the form in which this tradition is expressed is not adequate to its content.
The various sections of the tradition are not knit together in one whole; and they do not answer all the questions by means of which men try to master the meaning of revelation.
The setting out of the truth in order is the task which the apostles perhaps deliberately left to their successors. This is the task that Origen has decided to take in hand. It is his purpose to erect a Christian edifice of doctrine; his stones for the building are taken from the Holy Scriptures; but the general plan is taken from the Platonic philosophy—for Origen no other plan was available.
The work consists of four books. The first deals in the main with the spiritual, the unseen, world. It treats of God, the Logos, the Holy Spirit, the angels, and finally of the fall of the angels. This leads on to the coming into being of the visible world, and this is in fact the subject of the second book
—the world, man, redemption, and the last things—i.e., resurrection and judgment. In both these books Origen is dealing with the ordinances of God. In the third book we come to man, his capacities and his situation. After a very extensive discussion of the freedom of the will, we read of the hostile powers, the battle of good and evil, and the final victory of the good in the bringing back of all things to their appointed harmony. A section on ethical principles is included in this book. The fourth, as we have already seen, is a study of the principles of biblical interpretation (p. 54 above).
In the introduction to the work Origen tells us something of what was in his mind in the composition of it:
One who becomes a believer, and is convinced that grace and truth have come through Jesus and that Christ, according to his own word, "I am the truth", is the truth, knows well that there is no place in which he can attain to that knowledge that leads men into a good and blessed life, other than the word and teaching of Christ himself. When we speak of the words of Christ, we do not refer only to those which he spoke after his incarnation and his appearing in flesh. For before that Christ the Word was already present in Moses and the prophets. For unless God's word had dwelt in them, how could they have prophesied of Christ? .
. Let us be content with one illustration from the letter of Paul to the Hebrews: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for the Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt.'
1Heb. 11:24-26.
And that after his ascension Christ has spoken in the apostles is made clear by the words of Paul: "Since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me."2
But many of those who profess faith in Christ err from the truth, not only in small and insignificant things, but even in those that are of the greatest importance. ..
. Just so, there are many who though they believe themselves to hold the true faith concerning Christ, actually hold views that diverge from the truth taught by those who have gone before us in the faith.
For this reason it is essential to maintain the message of the Church, as it has been handed down from the time of the apostles without a break in the succession of authority, and has remained within the Church until the present time. Only that may be held to be the truth which does not diverge in any single detail from that tradition of the Church and of the apostles.
We must however recognize that when the holy apostles proclaimed the faith of Christ, they gave quite clear information on certain subjects which they saw to be absolutely necessary to the faith of all. .
. Of certain other things, they stated simply that they were so, but said nothing concerning the How and the Why of such things. This they certainly did in order that those among their successors who were diligent and lovers of wisdom might have a field of exercise, in which they could display the fruit of their understanding—these are those who have trained themselves to be worthy and capable of receiving the gift of wisdom.
After sketching the plan of his work Origen ends his introduction with the words:
One who wishes to reduce the contents of all this to a right order, and to fashion an exposition as a single whole, must use points like these as elementary and foundation principles—in accordance with the commandment, "Enlighten yourselves with the light of wisdom." Thus, starting out from clear and necessary axioms, he investigates each individual thing to ascertain what its true character really is, and builds up one single unified work
SY Cor. 1359; 2Hos. 10:12 (Greek version).
out of examples and affirmations, which he has either found in the Holy Scriptures, or has arrived at by the method of correct deduction from the biblical material, or of ascertaining the right connection of one thing with another.
(De Principiis, preface) God and the world In many respects Origen carries on the Alexandrian tradition in its two-fold aspect—man's capacity to receive the revelation of God, and the duty laid on man to strive upwards through philosophical training to the vision of God.
He is distinguished from the Gnostics by his determination to base everything on the Bible—they had actually taken little from the Bible other than the name of the Redeemer.
His starting-point, however, is not the same as that of Clement.
Clement starts from the doctrine of the Logos. His theology moves between two poles—man's capacity as a reasonable being, and the gifts of the Logos. Origen starts from the being of God. In Clement the doctrine of redemption grows out of the doctrine of man; in Origen out of the doctrine of the nature of the world, which is most closely related to his doctrine of the being of God.
For Clement, revelation is the continuation and completion of the work of creation. For Origen, revelation and redemption are separate acts of God, parallel to the act of creation, and in some sense a repetition of it.
Origen does his utmost to remain faithful to the Bible.
Yet from time to time his manner of reasoning compels him to draw inferences which are completely unbiblical, and at the same time to put up with inexactitudes and gaps in his system.
We may take as an example of non-biblical inference Origen's doctrine of the eternity of the world. For him this follows necessarily on the idea of the eternity and unchangeableness of God. In consequence, for all his utterances to the
contrary, Origen does not make an absolute distinction between the Creator and the creation; at least in his system this distinction is nowhere made plain. The God of Origen does not in the strict sense of the term create; He begets from within Himself; and so the whole existing universe in its own degree shares in the existence of God Himself.
Now let us look at the way in which the book On Fundamental Principles is built up.
The first sections deal with the principle that God is not material. The Stoics taught that all existence is in some ways physical. Some Christians held a very primitive and material view of God. Both these errors are to be rejected.
We must not think that Ged is physical or exists in a body. He is a simple, intelligible nature, which does not admit of any direct connection with anything else. Therefore we may not believe that in him there is anything greater or less; we must think that he is in every respect one, indeed that he is unity itself, that he is Spirit, and that he is the source from which all intelligible natures, all spiritual things, take their origin.
(De Principiis 1:1.6) How are we to understand this proceeding of the intelligible nature out of God? The begetting, or creation, of the world comes about in such a way that the godhead of God becomes less divine, progressively strips itself of its divine qualities, as it moves further from the centre. We are not to imagine that this means any alteration in God; we may perhaps express it by saying that, in proportion as the rational or spiritual nature is farther away from its source, it loses in intensity of existence.
The eternal Son The first of the divine qualities which disappears is that of being uncaused. The Father alone is unbegotten. The Son proceeds from the Father, as the first and highest image of Him, in the same way as will proceeds from Spirit:
This concept "image" includes the unity of the nature and the substance of the Father and the Son. When it is said that "everything that the Father does, the Son does also in like manner"
(John 5:19£.), this means that the image of the Father is displayed in the Son in the very fact that the Son does everything in the same manner as the Father; for the Son comes forth from the Father in the same way that will comes forth from the mind that wills.
(De Principiis 1 :2.6) Since there can be no change in God, and since the first reflection of the godhead must be changeless, like the godhead itself, the Father must be eternally Father and the Son must be eternally Son. Therefore the begetting of the Son must be a happening which belongs to the very being of God. Indeed, in the strict sense of the term one should not speak of a happening. The begetting of the Son is a description of the being of God; in meaning it does not differ from the statement that God is Father.
But it would be a basic error to try to explain this situation by reference to the relationship between a human father and a human son. Origen expressly rejects all comparison with human fatherhood. The begetting of the Son surpasses every power of human imagining. As eternal and continuous process, it can be compared only with the streaming out of radiance from light. The manner of this process is inexpressible.
Therefore it is unlawful and forbidden to compare God the Father, in the begetting of His only Son and in His own existence, with the process of begetting in man or in any other living creature. There must needs be some exceptional process, appropriate to God alone, for which no comparison can be found, either in fact, or even in thought and in imagination, by means of which human thought could grasp how the unbegotten God becomes the Father of the only-begotten Son. For the eternal and ever-continuing begetting is after the manner in which radiance is begotten by light.
(De Principiis 1:2.4)
The Holy Spirit From here Origen should logically have gone on to the doctrine of the physical universe, and of the manner in which it has come into existence. But in loyalty to the tradition of the Church he takes next the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
This he treats at length with the citation of many passages from the Scriptures. Yet the doctrine of the Holy Spirit does not really fit into his scheme; indeed, it cannot really fit into any Platonic scheme. Origen limits the work of the Holy Spirit to the "holy ones", that is to Christians, and among them even to good Christians, who manifest sanctity in their lives. No such limitation is ascribed to the Logos, of whom it is said that all things were madz through him:
God who is Father holds all things together, and draws near to every existing thing, giving to every existing thing from his own being its power to be that which it is. The Son, with a more restricted activity than the Father, draws near to intelligent beings only; for he is the second after the Father. Even more limited is the sphere of the Holy Spirit; he comes only to the holy ones. So, in this way, the power of the Father is greater than that of the Son or of the Holy Spirit; and that of the Son is greater than that of the Holy Spirit; and the power of the Holy
Spirit far greater than that of any other being that can be called holy.
(De Principiis 1:3.5) A little later Origen remarks:
Now that we have set forth the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit through those (quotations from Scripture), we will return to that order, which we had begun to expound.
God the Father gives to all things that existence which they have.
But since Christ is the Word (or the Reason), participation in him makes certain beings to be reasonable beings. It follows that these can become either praiseworthy or guilty, since they are capable of turning either to virtue or to wickedness. It then
follows logically that the grace of the Holy Spirit is added, so that those who in their inmost essence are not holy may be made holy by participation in him. So in the first place they receive from the Father the very possibility of existence itself; in the second they receive from the Logos the possibility of existing as reasonable beings; and thirdly they receive from the Holy Ghost the possibility of being made holy.
(De Principiis 1:3.8) Now, as we have said, the introduction of the Holy Spirit at this point does not fit in with the scheme that Origen is following, and breaks up the unity of his system. The cause for this lies deep in the system. Origen has to attempt to reconcile two different starting-points for the building up of his edifice of Christian thought.
In the schemes of the older writers—Philo, the apologists, Clement—the Holy Spirit had a clear and definite place; but this came in the section on redemption and not in the section on the origin of the world. They said that redemption takes place in this way: in the act of revelation (or in the mystery of initiation) the Logos pours into men the heavenly
Wisdom, which is another name for the Holy Spirit; and this makes the soul able to ascend to God, that is, to become holy. Now this way of putting it presupposes the doctrine of the fall and of man's need for redemption. But Origen has not yet come to this point; and it is for this reason that his attempt to relate the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to his doctrine of the origin and nature of the universe is a failure, and could not be anything but a failure.
Created spirits and their freedom So when we go back to ask, with Origen, what was the step in the evolution of the universe which followed on the begetting of the Son, we find that at this point we have no need of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. God's first creation
through the Logos was the world of intelligent spirits.
And these have a share in the divine being, which is mediated to them through the Logos. But, in their coming into being, one more of the qualities of God has been lost—this time His quality of changelessness:
These are created beings, and before their creation they did not exist at all. But, from the fact that once they did not exist at all and that their being had a beginning, it follows necessarily that they can be changed and altered. For the power that makes it possible for them to exist is not inherent in them by nature, but was conferred upon them by the goodness of the Creator. So their being is not intrinsic and eternal; it is the gift of God. This means that it was not alweys in existence; and everything that has been given can be taken away or return to its source. . . .
The Creator gave to the spirits that he had created freedom and the possibility of choice, in order that the good that is in them should become their own through their holding fast to it of their own free will. But indolence and weariness in holding fast to the good, and turning away from that which is better, and neglect of it, were the beginning of withdrawal from the good.
But withdrawal from the good is just the same as progress in evil. For it is evident that "to be evil" means exactly the same as "'to be lacking in good". And so it comes about that a man advances into evil just so far as he has turned away from good.
So every spirit which according to its impulses has to a greater or less degree neglected the good is drawn into the opposite of the good, and that means assuredly into that which is evil.
(De Principiis 2:9.2) Created spirits have not the changelessness of God. This means that they are free. But here we run into another of the inconsistencies of the system of Origen. He seems to treat this freedom as though it were both good and bad.
First, where he is speaking of man's faculties, the freedom of the will is a quality that corresponds to man's possession of intelligence; it is this alone that makes redemption possible;
it is this that is the basis for man's responsibility in the sight of God. Such freedom is the necessary foundation for any doctrine of moral action. Hence Origen regards the doctrine of freedom as so important that the section which he devotes to it is the longest in the whole book.
But secondly, when we are thinking in terms not so much of man as of essential being, and of the universe, freedom is seen under a very different aspect. It becomes a principle of inferiority, almost of evil. It is in virtue of their freedom that intelligent spirits move away from God, or, to put it in another way, move away from the principle of being into non-being.
This means that they turn away from God, who is not material, to material existence. In proportion as they move away from God, they sink themselves more deeply in matter, which gradually checks and finally paralyses their freedom.
Alienation from God may take place ina greater or lesser degree. In fact we have to distinguish three levels. The angels have fallen less deeply than other spirits; so they are clothed with bodies of finer matter. The souls of men are imprisoned in human bodies. Even further from God are the demons: they are completely ugly, and have bodies which are as remote as could be from the divine beauty.
The God-man The extension of the universe away from God has now reached its furthest possible limit. The second act of the cosmic drama must begin; this is salvation, the return of the world from its alienation to God. The redeemer is naturally the Logos. But, in order to carry out the work of redemption, it is necessary that he should follow man into his alienation from God; and this means that he must become complete and perfect man, made up of spirit, soul and body:
The only begotten Son of God, then... according to the word of Scripture, created all things, and he "loves what he has
created". For, since he is the invisible image of the invisible God,? he has granted to all intelligent creatures participation in himself invisibly, so that each should share in his being according to the measure in which it has attached itself to him with love and devotion. .
. But that soul, of which Jesus said "No man takes my soul from me", from the beginning and through all subsequent ages clung to God inseparably and indissolubly, as being the soul of God's wisdom and God's word, of the truth and of the true light. So this soul received God wholly, and itself entered into the light and his radiance, and thus became essentially one Spirit with him, just as the apostle says of those who will imitate that soul, that "he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him'. So this substance of the soul acted as mediator between God and the flesh. For without a mediator it was not possible that the nature of God should be joined to a body. So, as we said, the God-man could be born, because that middle substance existed, and it was not contrary to the nature of that substance to take on a body. But equally, since that soul was an intelligent substance, it was not contrary to its nature to take God into itself; and, as we explained above, that soul in its entirety had entered into God as into Word and wisdom and truth.
So, because this soul has entered completely into the Son of God, or has taken the Son of God completely into itself, it is quite appropriate that, together with the flesh which it has assumed, it should be called the Son of God, and the power of God, and Christ, and the wisdom of God. It is equally suitable that the Son of God by whom all things were made should also be called
Jesus, and the Son of man. We say "the Son of God died", in virtue of that nature which was able to accept death. And the title "Son of man" is used of him of whom it is proclaimed that he will come in the glory of the Father with the holy angels®. lWisdom 11:24.
BON 115.
3John 10:17-18; Greek "soul" = elite gs *{ Cor. 6:17.
5Matt. 16:27.
For this reason everywhere in Scripture the divine nature is referred to in terms that are appropriate to man, while the human nature is adorned with those titles of honour that are appropriate only in the divine.
(De Principiis 2:6.3) As far as we know, Origen was the first to use the expression
"the God-man"', an expression that caused him little difficulty, since he did not think of the nature of God and the nature of man as being entirely different. This God-man, who in carrying out the work of redemption does not cease to be
God—for any change in God is unthinkable—makes it possible for men to return to God. In describing the work of redemption Origen makes use of all the ideas that have come to him through the tradition of the Church, without any very great attempt to harmonize them. The Redeemer is the divine teacher, the bringer of knowledge—this is the central thought of the system. But we meet also the concept of the propitiatory offering by means of which God is reconciled, and even of the ransom that is paid to the devil!
However, what is essential in redemption is that the soul should devote itself to the return to God and should follow the example of the Redeemer.
The approach to heaven This process is described as progress in knowledge, which begins with baptism and the proclamation of the Gospel, but does not end with the death of the body:
It is my opinion that all the saints, when they leave this life, will stay for a time in a certain place on this earth, which the divine
Scriptures call Paradise. That will be a place of education—as it were, a lecture-hall or school for souls. There they will receive instruction about everything that they have seen on earth. Also they will receive certain indications of the future and of things
to come, just as they received indications of things to come in this life, but "as in a mirror and through dark words", and in fragmentary fashion; these will become brighter and clearer to the saints in the appropriate place and time. If a man is pure in heart and purified in spirit, and well trained in the use of his senses, he will advance more rapidly, and will ascend to the region of the air, and so eventually to the kingdoms of heaven.
He will pass through those dwelling-places, which are called by the Greeks "'the spheres", but in the holy Scriptures are referred to as "the heavens". There he will first become acquainted with what happens in each of them. Next he will come to understand the reason for the happening of each particular thing. So he will pass through all things in order, following him who "has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God''?, who said, "that they may be with me where I am"'*. Jesus himself gave a hint of the diversity of these various dwelling-places, when he said "In my Father's house are many rooms'. He however is himself everywhere present and penetrates all things. Let us think of him no longer in that form of humiliation which he took upon him for our sakes, not in that limitation which he accepted when he dwelt here in our body among men...
When the saints come to those heavenly places, they will see the plan of the stars in detail, and will understand whether they have souls, or what their condition is. And they will come to understand other reasons for the works of God, which He Himself will reveal to them. .
. And then they will come to those things which cannot be seen, those things perhaps of which up till now we have only heard the names—and to the invisible things®, of which Paul tells us that there are many; but what they may be, or what the distinguishing feature of them may be— that with our limited insight we cannot even imagine. . .
. There the rational being will no longer be hindered by the bodily 1Cor. 13:12.
2Heb. 4:14.
3John 17:24.
"John 14:2.
5Col. 1:16.
senses; he will be helped onwards by the growth of his spirit.
And when he beholds in pure vision, so to speak "face to face", the ultimate causes of things, then he attains to perfection; first that perfection by means of which he is able to rise to that height, and secondly that perfection through which he is able to abide in it. . .
. I think that when the spirit has reached perfection, it is nourished by exactly suitable and beneficial kinds of food, and uses them in such a way as to have neither excess nor defect. The term "food" here is to be understood in the sense of the contemplation and the knowledge of God...
. And the observance of due measure is natural to anyone who has begun to behold God, that is, through purity of heart to know
Him.
(De Principiis 2:11.6f.) When he comes to treat of the last things, as in treating of redemption, Origen reproduces all the common teaching of the Church about death, resurrection and judgment. But for him that is not the last word. Redemption reaches out beyond the saints. Everything that has come forth from God must be redeemed; thus angels and demons, and even the devil himself will be brought back; so the end will be as the beginning, and all things will have been brought back to what they were.
God's eternal activity But, when this has been achieved, the separation of free spirits from God could begin all over again, and a new period of the existence of the world follow that which is past. For, on Origen's view, everything that exists, the whole intelligent universe, participates in the being of God. But in God there is no change, no history, no beginning and no end.
And this perpetual alternation of falling away and redemption is in reality no more than a movement within the being of God Himself; what we might call the breathing of the godhead.
So Origen speaks of the eternity of the world:
One of the objections commonly raised to our teaching is this:
What was God doing before the creation of the world, if the world had a beginning in time? For it would be both impious and ridiculous to say that the nature of God could be idle and inactive, or to think that there was a time when He who is good was not doing good, or when the All-powerful was not exercising His power. This objection they raise when we say that this world began at a specific time, and when according to the testimony of the Scriptures we calculate the period during which it has existed. I do not think that any of the heretics would find it easy to give an answer to these observations on the basis of their teaching. We, observing the rule of piety, will give the following logical answer: God did not begin to work for the first time when He created this visible world; but just as another world will come into existence after the destruction of this nowexisting world, we believe that a previous world existed before this present world came into being.
(De Principiis 3:5.3) It is not our task to show how gradually the Church was led to abandon this point of view; that would be to open up a new period of Church history, and a new period in the history of philosophy. It is hoped that in this book the words of Clement and Origen have given the reader some idea of two things: how great was the task they undertook, and how considerable was the measure of success that they achieved.
In the light of their Christian faith they sought to understand all that was then known of the universe. Some of their insights have proved to be of permanent value; and their example has been an inspiration to Christian thinkers from their day to our own. fa
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About this book ..
Under the Roman Empire the city of Alexandria in Egypt a great meeting point between East and West. From the Ea came the followers of many pagan religions, together with Jey
— and Christians. These all mingled with the heirs of the fir European scientists and philosophers from Greece. The author ties of the State sometimes persecuted the Christians. But philos: phers, whether pagan, Jewish, or Christian, were sincerely tryir to learn all the truth they could; and they were willing to lea from one another. All made some mistakes, but all believed tha if they were honest, they must draw nearer to God. Many of tl
| writings of the Jew Philo and the Christians Clement and Orige | have come down to us today. They were trying to take all thi
| men then knew of the universe and to understand it in the ligl that have ever served the Christian cause. Some of his discoveri have been accepted by the Church ever since his time, thoug certain of his speculations have had less influence.
Dr. H. Kraft is Professor of Theology in the University of Ki. in Germany and an eminent interpreter of early Christian though
In this book he has quoted generously from the early writer They come to life before the reader, and their thoughts are pr sented to him in their own words.
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