4. Origen

proper sequence and order, just as they must also be narrated sequentially. That all things are held together in God's 'simultaneous' act, yet unfold in time, is perhaps best captured in the statement which Philo himself designates as stating his position in the simplest, 'most naked', words: 'the intelligible cosmos is nothing other than the Logos of God as he is actually making the cosmos' (Opif. 24).

There are numerous particular themes in this work which are picked up by Gregory (and noted in the footnotes to the translation): the sequential appearance of increasing levels of life narrated by Moses, with 'nature' being 'an irreproachable art moulding living beings' (Opif. 65–8); that though our intellect sees all and comprehends the nature of other things, it remains unseen and not understood by itself (Opif. 69); that the intellect and reason are the seat of goodness and evil

(Opif. 73); that although the human being is created in Gen. 1:27, the individual does not come into existence until Gen. 2:7 (Opif. 176); and that the cosmos has been prepared as a feast for the human being, and that the human being is to be an unarmed king before whom animals become tame (Opif. 77–83). More generally, the importance of this text of Philo for understanding Gregory's treatise lies in the way in which we see, for the ﬁrst time, an attempt to combine the two creation accounts in Genesis into a uniﬁed account, but one that accounts for 'the composite structure' (τὴν κατασκευὴν σύνθετον) of the human being, the 'borderline' between the mortal and the immortal (Opif. 135), and, of course, how they respectively deal with the question of male and female. Finally, if Moses' own account, in and as Philo's telling of this, is meant to aid in the forming of the human being, by observing the law, to be a citizen of the cosmos, Gregory's account pushes further towards something more, an economy that provides a pedagogy leading from Adam to Christ.

4. Origen While Origen's inﬂuence on Gregory is indisputable, Origen's understanding of creation is anything but, being instead a subject of controversy almost from the time he ﬁrst put pen to paper. Following his detractors, Origen has been presented as teaching that there was an eternal realm of intellects existing alongside God, which then fell away from God and into bodies, from which they will eventually be liberated to return to their original state of unity together and with God. This depiction, which dominated twentieth-century scholarship, has more recently been challenged and a new picture is gradually gaining acceptance.⁵⁵ We cannot

⁵⁵ Cf. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: An Introduction to His Life and Thought (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2019), 106–7: 'Most later scholars, including myself, have presented this as Origen's view. I now believe we were mistaken and that a continued careful reading of Origen's texts will provide further conﬁrmation of this.' He refers to Marguerite Harl, 'La préexistence des âmes dans l'oeuvre d'Origène',

here enter into a detailed engagement with the scholarly debate, but will rather try to present as clear and coherent a picture as possible, with an eye both backwards to what we have seen so far and forward to Gregory's On the Human Image.

Origen was not the ﬁrst Christian writer to focus attention on the opening verses or chapters of Genesis: according to Eusebius, Rhodo wrote a 'treatise on the hexaemeron'—that is, on the six days of creation—as also did Apion and Candidus, and, according to Anastasius of Sinai, Papias, Clement, Pantaenus, and Ammonius 'thought that the entire hexaemeron referred to Christ and the Church'.⁵⁶ Although there is no record of Origen having written a 'hexaemeron', his seminal and controversial work on this topic, the Commentary on Genesis, seems to have focused on the ﬁrst four chapters of Genesis. It is now lost, however, with only a few fragments surviving in the Catenae and elsewhere.⁵⁷ It seems to have consisted of thirteen books, the ﬁrst eight of which had been composed in Alexandria, in the same period as his On First Principles and the ﬁrst ﬁve books of his Commentary on John, and the ﬁnal ﬁve books in Caesarea between 232 and 235 .

In his Contra Celsum, begun some time after 246 , Origen refers back to his earlier work, saying that 'if anyone wants to see the arguments, with clear demonstration, that persuade us regarding the creation of the cosmos according to Moses [περὶκατὰΜωϋσέα κοσμοποιΐας], let him take our studies on Genesis from the beginning of the book down to the words "This is the book of genesis of humans" [Gen. 5:1]', further specifying that he had there identiﬁed what was 'the heaven and earth' made 'in the beginning', 'the invisible and unformed of the in Lothar Lies, ed., Origeniana Quarta (Innsbruck-Vienna: Tyrolia, 1987), 238–58, at 238–48; Mark

Edwards, Origen against Plato (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 82–92; Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, '"Preexistence of Souls"?: The ἀρχή and τέλος of Rational Creatures in Origen and Some Origenians', Studia Patristica,

56.4, Rediscovering Origen, ed. Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 167–226, at 167–81; Panayiotis

Tzamalikos, Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time, Suppl. VC 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 92–4, and my edition of Origen's On First Principles, OECT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), vol. 1, lvi–lxii.

See also the other works of Panayiotis Tzamalikos: The Concept of Time in Origen (Bern: Peter Lang,

1991); Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology, Suppl. VC 85 (Leiden: Brill, 2007); and Anaxagoras.

⁵⁶ Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.13.8; 5.27; Anastasius of Sinai, Hexaemeron, 6.1, ed. and ET Clement

A. Kuehn and John D. Baggarly, OCA 278 (Rome: Pontiﬁcio Istituto Orientale, 2007), 18, 322–5. It should also be noted that Theophilus of Antioch has a lengthy section dealing with creation and the hexaemeron (Ad. Auto. 2.10–30), and that Gen. 1–3 provides the scriptural matrix for much of Irenaeus' work explicating Christ and the economy, for which see Thomas Holsinger-Friesen,

Irenaeus and Genesis: A Study of Competition in Early Christian Hermeneutics, JTI Supp. 1 (Winona

Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009).

⁵⁷ For a complete collection of fragments and testimonia, see Karin Metzler ed. and German trans.,

Origenes: Die Kommentiering des Buches Genesis, Origenes Werke Mit Deutscher Übersetzung 1/1

(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010). See also the survey given by Ronald E. Heine, 'The Testimonia and Fragments Related to Origen's Commentary on Genesis', ZAC 9 (2005), 122–42. For the contextual setting of the Commentary on Genesis, see Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Scholarship in Service of the Church, CTC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 104–15.

earth', 'the abyss', 'the darkness upon it', and so on.⁵⁸ A few paragraphs later,

Origen takes up Gen. 5:1 again, combining it now with 2:4—'this is the book of the genesis of humans, in the day in which God made the heaven and the earth'— pointing out that 'the day' mentioned here cannot refer back to Gen. 1:1, for that verse occurs before the appearance of light and God calling the light 'day' (Gen.

1:3–5)—and then continues: 'it is not our present task to explain the doctrine about intelligible and sense-perceptible things [νοητῶν καὶαἰσθητῶν], and the way in which the natures of the days have been divided between both forms, or to study the text of the passage. We would need whole treatises to explain Moses' account of creation of the cosmos; we did this as well as we could a long time before writing the present treatise against Celsus' (Cels. 6.50–1). A little earlier in the same book, Origen had equated the distinction between 'intelligible' and 'sense-perceptible' with Paul's distinction between those 'things which are seen' and those 'which are not seen', the former being 'temporal' and the latter 'eternal'

(2 Cor. 4:18), further specifying that the latter are 'intelligible, comprehensible by the intellect alone'.⁵⁹ Origen thus, as with those we have examined so far, distinguishes two realms, the intelligible and the sense-perceptible; however, like

Philo, he did not align these realms straightforwardly with the two creation accounts, for he took the 'ﬁrmament' and the 'dry land', made on the second and third day, respectively, to be the sense-perceptible 'heaven' and 'earth' distinct from, but named after, the 'heaven and earth' made on 'day one'.⁶⁰ The distinction between the 'intelligible' and 'sense-perceptible' realms falls rather between 'day one', outside of time, and that which follows, marked as it is by the succession of time.⁶¹ This, moreover, enables Origen, as it did Philo, to read the two creation accounts together, especially as it pertains to the human being, differentiating between the accounts to distinguish different aspects of the human being.

One further preliminary point needs to be made regarding Origen's awareness of the limitations of our knowledge in speaking about creation. Ronald Heine points to a passage from Origen's Homilies on Isaiah, where Origen speciﬁes what

⁵⁸ Origen, Contra Celsum (Cels.), 6.49; ed. Paul Koetschau, GCS 2 and 3, Origenes Werke 1 and 2

(Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899); ET H. Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), modiﬁed.

Heine, Origen: Scholarship, 107–8, points to The Testimony of Truth (NH IX.3, 41.28–42.3; The Nag

Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson [Leiden: Brill, 1988], 453), the Apocryphon of John

(NH II.1, 13.14–14.34; Robinson, 112), and Irenaeus' account of Ptolemy (Haer. 1.4.1–5, and 1.8.2) for a similar concern to identify what each word refers to.

⁵⁹ Cels. 6.20. Cf. Commentary on John (Com. John) Frag. 13; ed. E. Preuschen, GCS 10, Origenes

Werke 4 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903), 494: our perception is, correspondingly, 'twofold, sense-perceptible and intelligible' (διττοῦτοῦθεωρεῖν ὄντος αἰσθητικοῦτε καὶνοητικοῦ); by the former we apprehend bodily objects, with the second incorporeal realities, which are not simply 'not seen', but rather those that 'by nature are not to be seen'.

⁶⁰ Gen. 1:1, 8–10. Cf. On First Principles (Princ.) 2.9.1. Ed. and trans. J. Behr, OECT (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2017), translation occasionally modiﬁed.

⁶¹ Cf. Homilies on Genesis (Hom. Gen.), 1.2; ed. W. A. Baehrens, GCS 29, Origenes Werke 6 (Leipzig:

Hinrichs, 1920), 2.17–19; ET Ronald E. Heine, FC 71 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1981).

can be known.⁶² There, Origen identiﬁes the two seraphim veiling God with their wings (Isa. 6:2) as 'my Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit', covering both the face of God, 'for God's beginning is unknown', and also his feet, 'for what could be understood as the end in our God?', and concludes:

Only the middle is visible. What was before this, I do not know. I understand God from those things that are. What will come about after this, in accordance with what is coming, I know not. 'Who has declared to him?' said Ecclesiastes

[6:12]. 'Declare to me the former things and the last things that shall be, and I will say that you are gods' [Isa. 41:22–3]. Therefore if someone shall tell past things and shall be able to speak of the last things, he is a 'god'. Who then besides the seraphim can say this? Who can say 'Holy, Holy, Holy!' besides the seraphim?

But what part of God have they left exposed, so to speak? His middle.⁶³ The beginning and end are veiled; only the middle, the present state of things, is directly available to us. The end, however, has been revealed, even if it is yet to be realized. So Origen continues: 'The coming of my Lord Jesus Christ is being announced; and so, now "all the earth is full of his glory".' Or rather, he adds, 'it is not yet full, but will be so', for 'in those who sin he does not yet reign, but when authority even over these has been given to him, when all things have been subjected to him [cf. Phil. 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:28], then the authority will be fulﬁlled when he goes about subjecting all things to himself '. It is in the light of the end that has already been announced, that is, the subjection of all to Christ, and then to God, so that he will be 'all in all' (1 Cor. 15:28), that we can make sense of what we know of 'the middle', that which is presently visible, and contemplate the beginning. As Origen puts it succinctly elsewhere: 'the phenomenal world is an image of the intellectual and invisible: the truth is in the future'.⁶⁴

This orientation is repeatedly underscored by Origen, most forcefully in On First Principles 1.6.2:

Seeing, then, that such is the end, when all enemies will be subjected to Christ, and when the last enemy, death, will be destroyed and when the kingdom shall be delivered to the God and Father by Christ, to whom all things have been subjected [cf. 1 Cor. 15:24–7], let us, I say, from such an end as this contemplate the beginning of things. For the end is always like the beginning, and, therefore,

⁶² Heine, Origen: An Introduction, 96–7.

⁶³ Origen, Homilies on Isaiah, 1.2; ed. W. A. Baehrens, GCS 33, Origenes Werke 8 (Leipzig:

Hinrichs, 1925); ET Thomas P. Scheck, ACW 69 (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 2015).

⁶⁴ καὶφαινόμενος κόσμος εἰκῶν ἐστι τοῦνοητοῦκαὶἀορατοῦ· ἐν τῷμέλλοντι γὰρ ἡἀλήθεια. In J. B. Cardinal Pitra, Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi Parata tome 3, Patres Antenicaeni (Venice:

Mechitaristarum Sancti Lazari, 1883), 30, commenting on Ps. 37:3, 'Indeed everyone passes through like an image; surely for nothing they are in turmoil . . .'

as there is one end of all things, so ought there to be understood one beginning of all things, and as there is one end of many things, so also from one beginning there are many differences and varieties, which, in turn, through the goodness of God and by subjection to Christ and through the unity of the Holy Spirit, are recalled to one end which is like the beginning: that is, all those who 'bending the knee at the name of Jesus' have displayed by this the proof of their subjection to him, those who are 'of the heavens and of the earth and of the regions under the earth' [Phil. 2:10].

It is important to note that although Origen says that 'the end is always like the beginning', he does not start from the beginning to envision an end that is straightforwardly a return to the same beginning; it is, rather, 'from such an end' that he proposes to 'contemplate the beginning of things'. This eschatological starting point for theological reﬂection is one he says he has 'frequently' afﬁrmed

(Princ. 3.5.4, cited below).⁶⁵ It must also be recognized that the end is said to be

'like', not identical to, the beginning, for there has been a path traversed from one to the other, which in turn implies time and growth. Finally, the combination of 1 Cor. 15:24–8 and Phil. 2:10 to explain this end, with every knee bowing in subjection to Christ so that God can be 'all in all', is one that, as we will see, is fundamental for Origen's understanding of the end and, on its basis, the beginning.

4.1 Christ, The Archē, and Intelligible World As similar as Origen is to Philo on many points, the fundamental difference, of course, is that he reads Genesis in the light of the end, that is, Christ. As Christ is

'the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. 1:24), and it is 'in wisdom' that 'God made all things'

(Ps. 103:24), 'the beginning' in which God made heaven and earth is, for Origen, none other than Christ himself. It is likely that Origen drew this conclusion already in his Commentary on Genesis;⁶⁶ it is emphatically stated in his ﬁrst homily on Genesis.

'In the beginning, God made heaven and earth'. What is the beginning of all things, except our Lord and Saviour of all, Jesus Christ the ﬁrstborn of every

⁶⁵ This point is forcefully argued by Alexander H. Pierce, 'Apokatastasis, Genesis 1.26–27, and the Theology of History in Origen's De Principiis', JECS 29 (2021), 169–91.

⁶⁶ Heine ('The Testimonia', 124) draws attention to a passage from John Philoponus, who likely knew Origen's Commentary on Genesis, which reports: 'Some say that "in the beginning" means "in wisdom". For God "made all things in wisdom" [Ps. 103:24], that is, in the Son. "For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God" [1 Cor. 1:24]. And "all things came to be through him and without him not one thing came to be" [John 1:3]. And again, "In him all things visible and invisible were created"

[Col. 1:16].' John Philoponus, De Opiﬁcio Mundi, 1.3. Ed. and German translation by C. Scholten, FChr

23, 3 vols (Freiburg i. Br. 1997), 1.90–2. That cf. John knew Origen's work, ibid. 63, 439.

creature [1 Tim. 4:10; Col. 1:15]? In this beginning, therefore, that is in his Word,

God made heaven and earth, as the evangelist John also says at the beginning of his Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him nothing was made [John 1:1–3]. Scripture is not speaking here of any temporal beginning [Non ergo hic temporale aliquod principium dicit], but it says that the heaven and the earth and all things which were made were made in the beginning, that is, in the Saviour.

(Hom. Gen. 1.1) Origen clearly understands the term 'beginning' (ἀρχή) not as a temporal 'beginning', but rather as 'origin', 'ﬁrst principle', or 'source' (to make this clear, I will hereafter transliterate the term: archē). In his Homily on the Passover, Origen points out that there is a difference in the way in which Scripture uses the term

'archē' and 'ﬁrst' (πρῶτος). Commenting on Exod. 12:2 ('This month is for you the archē of months; it is the ﬁrst month of the year for you'), Origen argues that 'properly speaking, "ﬁrst" applies only when nothing comes before, while "archē" applies to those which are beginning, even if they come last. What is "ﬁrst" is always "archē", but "archē" is not always "ﬁrst".'⁶⁷ He then points out the similar pairing of words in Christ's self-identiﬁcation, 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the ﬁrst and the last, the archē and the end' (Apoc. 22:13), and concludes that Christ is the 'ﬁrst' as 'the ﬁrst-born of all creation' (Col. 1:15), but the 'archē' as Wisdom, for Wisdom says of herself, 'The Lord created me the archē of his ways' (Prov.

8:22).⁶⁸ As it is 'in Wisdom' that God creates, it is as Wisdom that Christ is 'the archē of the ways of God', 'the archē of the creation of God' (Apoc. 3:14), or, more simply and absolutely, 'the archē' (Col. 1:18), while he is 'ﬁrst' as 'the ﬁrstborn of all creation' (Col. 1:15) and 'the ﬁrstborn of the dead' (Col. 1:18), a title he points out which clearly does not apply to him as archē.⁶⁹

Origen gives a further insight into how it is that God made all things 'in Wisdom' when he examines the divine titles or aspects of Christ in On First

Principles 1.2. Here he again takes 'Wisdom' as being the ﬁrst of these titles, making clear that he is not speaking of Christ as 'Wisdom' by a participation in wisdom but rather as being 'God's Wisdom subsisting substantially'. He then continues:

⁶⁷ Origen, On Pascha [Pasch.] 8.24–32: τ[ὸμὲν] [γ]ὰρ πρῶ[τον μό]νον μη[δένος] προάγο[ντος κυρίω]ς λέγ[εται], ἡδὲἀρχὴἐπὶτ[ῶν ἀρ]χεμέ[νων] κἂν τελευταῖ[α γέ]νηται, συμαίνεται. Κ[αὶὅτι] μὲν πρῶτόν ἐστιν, τοῦ[τ]ο κ[αὶ] ἀρχή ἐστιν, οὐχ ὅτι δὲἀρχή, ἤδη καὶπρῶτον. Ed. and French trans. O. Guéraud and P. Nautin, Origène: Sur la Pâque: Traité inédit publié d'après un papyrus de Toura, Christianisme

Antique 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979); ET Robert J. Daly, ACW 54 (New York: Paulist Press, 1992).

⁶⁸ Origen, Pasch. 10.4–11.4.

⁶⁹ Cf. Origen, Com. John, 1.117; ET Ronald E. Heine, 80, 89 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989, 1993).

And since within this very subsistence of Wisdom was every capacity and form of the creation that would come to be—both of those things which exist primarily and of those which occur in consequence, having been formed beforehand and arranged by the power of foreknowledge regarding these very created things, which had been as it were outlined and preﬁgured in Wisdom herself—Wisdom herself says through Solomon that she was 'created the beginning of the ways'

[Prov. 8:22] of God, that is, containing within herself the beginning and the reasons and the species of the entire creation. Now, in the same way in which we have understood that Wisdom is 'the beginning of the ways' of God, and is said to be 'created', that is, forming beforehand and containing within herself the species and reasons of the whole creation, in the same manner must she be understood to be the Word of God, as she discloses to all other beings, that is, to the entire creation, the reason of the mysteries and secrets which are contained within the Wisdom of God, and so she is called the Word, because she is, as it were, the interpreter of the secrets of the Intellect.

(Princ. 1.2.2–3) As Wisdom, Christ contains all 'the beginnings and the reasons and the species' of the cosmos that was to be, preﬁgured or outlined in him, and as such has been

'created the beginning of the ways of God'; then, as Word, he discloses these secrets of the Intellect.⁷⁰ Christ is the 'location', as it were, of the 'beginnings, reasons, and species' of the things that would come to be, already existing in himself, the archē, as the Wisdom of God. Christ is, as we will see, the 'intelligible world'. In his Commentary on John, Origen employs similar imagery to Philo to describe this: 'just as a house or ship are built according to the plans of the architect, the house and the ship having as their beginning the plans and thoughts in the craftsman, so all things have come to be according to the principles of what will be, which were preﬁgured by God in Wisdom' and so, he concludes: 'we must say that after God had created living Wisdom, if I may put it this way, from the models in her he entrusted to her [to present] to the things which exist and to matter [both] their conﬁrmation and forms, but I stop short of saying their essences'⁷¹—the hesitation presumably being because it is God who is the 'Maker of heaven and earth'.

The analogy with an architect or a ship-builder is limited, however, for as Origen insists, in an extract from the Commentary on Genesis regarding the 'invisible and unformed earth' made in the archē on day one, God was not in ⁷⁰ Cf. Com. John 1.118: 'And if we should carefully consider all the concepts applied to him, he is the archē only insofar as he is Wisdom. He is not even the archē insofar as he is Word, since "the Word" was "in the beginning," so that someone might say boldly that Wisdom is older than all the concepts in the names of "the ﬁrstborn of all creation".'

⁷¹ Com. John 1.113–15: . . . οὕτω τὰσύμπαντα γεγονέναι κατὰτοὺς ἐν σοφίᾳπροτρανωθέντας ὑπὸθεοῦ τῶν ἐσομένων λόγους· "Πάντα γὰρ ἐν σοφίᾳἐποίησε." καὶλεκτέον ὅτι κτίσας, ἵν᾽οὕτως εἴπω, ἔμψυχον σοφίαν ὁθεὸς, αὐτῇἐπέτεψεν ἀπὸτῶν ἐν αὐτῇτύπων τοῖς οὖσι καὶτῇὕλῃ<παρασχεῖν καὶ> τὴν πλάσιν καὶτὰεἴδη, ἐγὼδὲἐφίστημι εἰκαὶτὰς οὐσίας.

need of some pre-existing matter. Inquiring about the power of God, speciﬁcally 'whether God, by willing, gives subsistence to that which he wills, his will not lacking or being weak, not able to cause to subsist that which he wills', he asserts,

'on the ground that he, by his inexpressible power and wisdom, establishes the qualities (according to all who, on their own ground, introduce providence), when they did not exist, so as to adorn the universe as he wills, on the same ground also his will to create is sufﬁcient for as much substance to come into existence as he needs'.⁷² In the concluding paragraphs of On First Principles, Origen explores further what is meant by 'matter' (ὕλη), noting that it is not used in Scripture 'for that substance which is said to underlie bodies' (Princ. 4.4.6). An exception is

Wisdom of Solomon, where it says, 'For your all-powerful hand that created the world out of formless matter [ἀμόρφου ὕλης]' (Wisd. 11:17), which naturally leads

Origen back to the 'invisible and unformed [ἀκατασεύαστος]' earth of Gen. 1:1.

Origen continues by asserting that 'bodily nature is nothing other than qualities', and it is these qualities that are created by God and which are brought together in various ways to form bodies (Princ. 4.4.7). Bodies, for Origen, are essentially malleable or transformable, capable of existing in different states—a point of importance, as we will see, for understanding the consummation of all things and, on its basis, the beginning and 'the middle' state. He continues by saying that God has created 'two universal natures, a visible, that is, bodily nature, and an invisible nature, which is bodiless', both of which undergo different changes, the latter changing 'in mind and purpose, as it is endowed with free will', the former undergoing substantial changes, 'so that, in whatever he wishes to undertake or fashion or to rework, the Artiﬁcer of all things, God, has the service of matter in every way, so that he can transform and apply it in whatever forms and species he desires, as the merits of things require. The prophet evidently points to this when he says "God who makes and transforms all things"' (Princ. 3.6.7; Amos 5:8).

A ﬁnal point with regard to the term archē is that while in the LXX, Wisdom says of herself that 'The Lord created me archē' (Prov. 8:22: ἔκτισέν με ἀρχὴν), the Hebrew text has the verb 'acquire' or 'possess', and Origen knew of other Greek translations that rendered the verse as such: 'the Lord acquired me archē . . . .'⁷³ It is, intriguingly, in this form that he cites the verse in his newly rediscovered homilies on the Psalms, when discussing Ps. 73:2a: 'Remember your congregation, which you acquired from the archē [ἧς ἐκτήσω ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς]'. Referring to Paul's

⁷² D3, from Eusebius, Prep. Evang. 7.19 (ed. Metzler, 62–4): εἰθελήσας ὑποστῆσαι ὅτι βούλεται ὁ θεός, τῆς θελήσεως αὐτοῦοὐκ ἀπορουμένης οὐδὲἀτονούσης, οὐδύναται ὑποστῆσαι ὃβούλεται. ᾧγὰρ λόγῳτὰς ποιότητας (κατὰπάντας τούς πρόνοιαν εἰσάγοντας τῷἰδίῳλόγῳ) οὐκ οὔσας ὡς βούλεται εἰς διακόσμησιν τοῦπαντὸς ὑφίστησι τῇἀφάτῳαὐτοῦδυνάμει καὶσοφίᾳ, τούτῳτῷλόγῳκαὶτὴν οὐσίαν ὅσης χρῄζει ἱκανή ἐστιν αὐτοῦἡβούλησις ποιῆσαι γενέσθαι.

⁷³ Cf. Origen, Hexapla (ed. Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press,

words about 'those whom he foreknew', 'called', 'justiﬁed', and 'gloriﬁed' (Rom.

8:29–30), Origen comments:

When God foreknew, he foreknew in the archē and by his foreknowledge acquired everything that was going to come to be present by him, and this is what is said in 'Remember your congregation, which you acquired from the archē'. And I said this, being economical with the word, for I know the archē from which God acquired each of us; I know that this archē is animate, is alive, and says 'God acquired [ἐκτήσατο] me, the archē of his ways, for his works'. The archē is Christ; [God] acquired from the archē, from Christ, the real archē and the real end, the real alpha and the real omega [cf. Apoc. 22:13].⁷⁴

God 'acquired' Christ as the archē of his works, thereby in his foreknowledge also

'acquiring everything that was going to come to be present with him', that is, everything that, as he had put it in Princ. 1.2.2–3 (cited above), was 'outlined and preﬁgured in Wisdom herself ', 'every capacity and form of the creation that would come to be', formed and arranged beforehand by the power of God's foreknowledge.

This eschatological dimension of the work of Wisdom in creation is brought out a little further on in the same chapter on Christ in On First Principles, this time with reference to the description of Wisdom as 'a breath of the power of God and the emanation of the purest glory of the Almighty' (Wisd. 7:25, in Princ. 1.2.10).

Origen brings up again Ps. 103:24 and John 1:3 to conclude that 'the title of "Almighty" cannot be older in God than that of Father, for it is through the Son that the Father is Almighty'—One God, Father, Almighty, as the Creed of Nicaea puts it. He continues by noting that the Son is also called 'Almighty' (Apoc. 1:8), and then reﬂects on what 'the glory of omnipotence' is:

The God and Father is 'Almighty' because he has power over all things, that is, over heaven and earth, sun and moon, and all things in them. And he exercises power over them through his Word, for 'at the name of Jesus every knee bows, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth' [Phil. 2:10].

And, if 'every knee bows' to Jesus, then, without doubt, it is Jesus to whom 'all things have been subjected', and he it is who exercised power over all things, and through whom 'all things have been subjected' to the Father [1 Cor. 15:27–8.]; for ⁷⁴ Origen, Homilies on the Psalms, homily 1.4 on Ps. 73; GCS Origenes 13, 230 (ET 182–3): Ὁθεὸς ὅτε προέγνω, ἐν ἀρχῇδὲπροέγνω καὶἐκτήσατο τῇπρογνώσει αὐτοῦπάντα τὰμέλλοντα ἥκειν ὑπ᾽αὐτὸν, καὶτοῦτό ἐστιν τὸλεγόμενον· μνήσθητι τῆς συναγωγῆς σου ἧς ἐκτήσω ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς. Καὶτοῦτο λέγω οἰκονομῶν τὸν λόγον· οἶδα γὰρ ἐγὼἀρχὴν ἀφ᾽ἧς ἐκτήστατο ἕκαστον ἡμῶν ὁθεός, οἶδα ταύτην τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔμψυχον οὖσαν καὶζῶσαν καὶλέγουσαν· ὁθεὸς ἐκτήσατό με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦεἰς ἔργα αὐτοῦ. Ἡἀρχὴ

Χριστός ἐστιν· ἐκτήσατο οὖν ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς, ἀπὸΧριστοῦτοῦὄντος ἀρχῆς καὶτοῦὄντος τέλους, τοῦὄντος ἄλφα καὶτοῦὄντος ὦ. Ed. Lorenzo Perrone, GCS NF 19; Origenes Werke 13 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015);

ET Joseph W. Trigg, FC 141 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020), modiﬁed.

it is through Wisdom, that is by Word and Reason, not by force and necessity, that they have been subjected. And therefore his glory is in the very fact that he possesses all things, and this is the 'purest and most clear glory' of omnipotence, that by Reason and Wisdom, not by force and necessity, all things have been subjected.

Although, as we saw earlier, Origen employs the image of an architect building a house, the 'omnipotence' by which the Father is 'Almighty' is not simply that of 'force and necessity', and, in turn, his creation is not simply inert matter brought into existence and shaped into forms. God, rather, exercises his 'omnipotence' through the persuasion of Word or Reason and Wisdom, and his 'creation' (those whom he has 'acquired' from the archē) is those who have been persuaded to subject themselves willingly to their Creator. Moreover, this is, again, explained by reference to the combination of Phil. 2:10 and 1 Cor. 15:27–8: when all knees bow at the name of the one who was exalted above all because of his obedient acceptance of death upon a cross, then God will, in turn, be 'all in all'. If the archē of Gen. 1:1 is 'our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ', the creation that is brought into being, reﬂecting the will of God perfectly, is eschatological.

4.2 The Human Being, Made in the Image and Fashioned from the Earth We do not have any signiﬁcant passages from Origen's Commentary on Genesis to elucidate how he treated the various days of creation.⁷⁵ They are covered in his ﬁrst homily on Genesis, where they are presented in terms of the spiritual growth of the human being. Origen, as already mentioned, does not align the two creation accounts with the distinction between the intelligible and the sense-perceptible worlds. His words on these matters are very careful and precise, and need to be read carefully; as we will see, he occasionally prefaces his thoughts by an extended caution and exhortation.

Although he was repeatedly accused of teaching that pre-existing incorporeal souls fell into embodied existence, Origen emphatically denies that he taught any such thing, ridiculing it as 'folly', 'myth', 'false teaching', 'introduced by the Greeks', borrowed by Pythagoras and Plato from the Egyptians.⁷⁶ He insists that ⁷⁵ Metzler includes from the second book of the Commentary, short passages from John Philoponus on Gen. 1:9 (D5), from the Collectio Coisliniana on Gen. 1:11 (D6), and an extensive passage from the Philoc. 23, on Gen. 1:14 (D7), discussed above; from the third book of the Commentary, a passage from Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.1.1–3 on Gen. 1:14–18 (D8) discussed below, and from the Philoc. 14 on Gen.

1:16–18 (D9); and from somewhere in the fourth to eighth book of the Commentary, a sentence from the Catenae on Gen. 1:22 (D10).

⁷⁶ Cf. Cels. 1.13 [Philoc. 18.7]; Cels. 1.20 [Philoc. 18.5], Cels. 5.49; Com. John 6.66.

if Celsus had understood 'what is appropriate for a soul which will be in everlasting life, and what it is necessary to think regarding its essence and about its principles, he would not have ridiculed in this way the immortal entering a mortal body [τὸν ἀθάνατον εἰς θνητὸν ἐρχόμενον σῶμα]', adding that his view on this is

'not according to the Platonic transmigration [μετενσωμάτωσιν] but according to a more sublime contemplation', and, further, that Celsus would also have understood how 'in his great love for humanity [God] made one special descent

[κατάβασιν] to convert those whom the divine scripture mystically calls "the lost sheep of the house of Israel", which had strayed down from the mountain'.⁷⁷

What particularly catches Origen's interest in the two accounts of the origin of human beings, as it did Philo, is the different verbs used, 'make' (ποιέω) and 'mould' (πλάσσω), respectively, and the materiality implied by the latter. In his

Homilies on Jeremiah (preserved in Greek), commenting on the words 'Before I moulded you in the womb, I knew you' (Jer. 1:5), Origen points out that the text of Genesis speaks 'in a way exceedingly dialectic' (πάνυ διαλεκτικώτατα) by differentiating between the verbs 'to mould' and 'to make'. It is, Origen observes, only 'when he is created "in accordance with the image" that God says, "Let us make . . ."', whereas, when he takes clay from the earth, God did not 'make' but 'moulded the human being'. Accordingly, God did not say to Jeremiah, 'Before I made you in the womb', because, he explains, 'what is made [τὸποιούμενον] does not arise in a womb, but what is moulded [τὸπλάσσόμενον] from the clay of the earth is created [κτίζεται] in the womb'.⁷⁸ That is, the human 'made' by God is not strictly identical with the human 'moulded' from clay and 'created' in the womb.

This distinction is the subject of an extensive passage from the Dialogue with Heraclides, also preserved in Greek. Origen has been asked whether the soul is blood, on the grounds of the verse 'the soul of all ﬂesh is its blood' (Lev. 17:11), but he hesitates to speak directly about this, as the problem is 'rather delicate'.⁷⁹ He urges his audience: 'I beseech you, therefore, be transformed; resolve to learn that you can be transformed and put aside the form of swine . . . let us learn from the Apostle that the transformation depends on us. This is how he puts it: "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness" [2 Cor. 3:18]. If you were a barker, and the Word moulded you and changed you, you were transformed from a dog into a human. If you were impure, and the Word touched your soul, and if you offered yourself to be shaped by the ⁷⁷ Cels. 4.17, Matt. 15:24. In Com. John 6.68, Origen proposes to examine how 'transmigration'

(μετενσωμάτωσις) is different from 'incarnation' or 'embodiment' (ἐνσωμάτωσις).

⁷⁸ Homilies on Jeremiah, 1.10; ed. Erich Klostermann, rev. P. Nautin, GCS 6, Origenes Werke 3, 2nd edn. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1983); ET John Clark Smith, FC 97 (Washington, DC: Catholic

University Press, 1998).

⁷⁹ Dialogue with Heraclides (Dial.), 10.20–12.20; ed. Jean Scherer, Entretien D'Origène avec

Héraclide et les évêques ses colleges sur le Père, le Fils, et l'âme, Publications de la Société Fouad I de

Papyrologie, Textes et Documents 9 (Cairo: Institute Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1949); ET

Robert J. Daly, ACW 54 (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1992).

Word, you were changed from a swine into a human' (Dial. 13.26–14.16). After such exhortation, Origen continues with his subject, the human being, whether the soul is its blood, and, by consequence, 'the doctrine of the two humans', again urging his hearers that 'since we have come to a mystical subject, I appeal to you not to make me guilty on your account of casting pearls before swine' (Dial.

14.26–15.1). After further exhortation, and admitting that 'I am worried about speaking; I am worried about not speaking . . . You see how long my preamble is to prepare my hearers. I hesitate to put off speaking, and when I do speak I change my mind again. What is it that I really want? To treat the matter in a way that heals the souls of my hearers' (Dial. 15.9–27).

Only after such lengthy exhortation to be transformed into a human, and specifying his purpose, does Origen give his account:

The human, therefore, created ﬁrst [κτιζόμενος πρότερον] was created 'according to the image' in whom is found no matter [οὗὕλη οὐκ εὑρίσκεται], for that which is 'according to the image' is not made from matter. 'And God said, "Let us make the human being in accordance with our image and according to our likeness and let them have dominion"' and so forth. 'And God made the human' not by 'taking dust from the ground' as he did the second [ὡς ἐπὶτοῦδευτέρου], but made him 'in accordance with the image of God'. That Moses was not the only one to know that his being 'in accordance with the image of God' is nonmaterial

[ἄϋλον], superior to every bodily existence [κρεῖττον πάσης σωματικῆς ὑποστάσεως], but that the Apostle also knew this, is shown in his text which says, 'Seeing that you have put off the old human with its practices and have put on the new which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator'

[Col. 3:9–10]. There are, therefore, two humans regarding each of us [Δύο οὖν καθ᾽ἕκαστον ἡμῶν εἰσιν ἄνθρωποι].⁸⁰ This distinction then leads into a lengthy discussion on the spiritual senses, based on the homonymity of the word 'human', applying both to 'the outer human' and 'the inner' (Dial. 16.15–16; cf. 2 Cor. 4:16), so that each member or faculty of the outer human has a corresponding member or faculty in the inner human (Dial.

16.16–24.23). Important in all this, for our purposes, is that Origen is not speaking of two separate or separable entities (a pre-existing soul and a material body), but, as Paul, a distinction between 'the old human' and the new, 'the outer human' and 'the inner': the 'two humans', with their members and faculties, are 'regarding each of us'.

⁸⁰ Dial. 15.30–16.17. Cf. Origen, Commentary on Song of Songs, Prologue. Ed. W. A. Baehrens, GCS

33, Origenes Werke 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1925), 63.31–68.3; ET R. P. Lawson, ACW 26 (New York/

Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1956), 25–30.

Origen's primary concern in all this is that we should not identify the 'making' of the human being 'in the image' of God with the shape or ﬁgure in which the clay is 'moulded'. We have a lengthy fragment from Origen's Commentary on Genesis emphasizing this very point, arguing against those, like Melito, who, he says, took the scriptural descriptions of the bodily parts of God only 'according to the letter'.⁸¹ For Origen, being 'in accordance with the image' resides instead 'in the rational soul' (ἐν δὲτῇλογικῇψυχῇ), in its various faculties: 'for there is in the human a faculty of knowing, of judging and of doing good, of doing righteousness and of ﬂourishing, and, comprehensively, of completing every good: these bring about, by God, the "according to the image" in him; for actions characterize the "according to the image" and not the form of the body'.⁸² It is,

Origen further speciﬁes, by living according to the ﬂesh and doing its works that the human bears the image of the earthly (cf. Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:19; 1 Cor. 15:49), while the one who 'by the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the body bears the image of the heavenly'. Only in this way, he concludes, by being merciful, compassionate, righteous, and holy, as the Father in heaven, will we 'become in all things an image of God' (εἰκὼν γίνεται κατὰπάντα τοῦθεοῦ).⁸³ That is, although it is in their intellectual capacities, not the form of the body, that humans are 'in accordance with the image', this is not set in opposition to the body, for it is in their actions that human beings demonstrate this likeness. As Origen put it elsewhere, 'the saint alone is rational'

(Com. John 2.114), where the content of the term 'rational' (λογικός) is clearly derived from the 'Logos', Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God.

There is one intriguing passage in the Commentary on John where Origen not only differentiates but seems to coordinate the three verbs we have seen used so far—'to create' (κτίζω), 'to make' (ποιέω), and 'to mould' (πλάσσω)—and introduces a new element:

Because, therefore, the ﬁrst human fell away from the superior things and desired a life different from the better life, he deserved to be an archē neither of something created nor made [οὔτε κτίσματος οὔτε ποιήματος], but 'of something moulded [πλάσματος] by the Lord, made [πεποιημένον] to be mocked by the angels' [Job 40:19]. Now, our superior existence [ἡπροηγουμένη ὑπόστασις] is in our being made [κτίσαντος] 'in accordance with the image' of the Creator, but that resulting from a cause [ἡἐξ αἰτίας] is in the thing moulded [ἐν τῷ. . . πλάσματι], which was received from the dust of the earth. And if, forgetful, as it were, of the superior essence [οὐσίας] in us, we subordinate ourselves to that which is moulded from dust, even the superior part will take on the image of the ⁸¹ D11, from the Collectio Coisliniana (Metzler, 158–62).

⁸² Metzler, 160.24–6: ἡγὰρ γνωστικὴδύναμις ἡἐν τῷἀνθρώπῳ, κριτική τε καὶεὐποιητική, δικαιοπρακτική τε καὶἐρρωμένη, καὶἀπαξαπλῶς παντὸς καλλοῦἐπιτελεστική, "κατ᾽εἰκόνα" ὑπὸτοῦ θεοῦγεγόνασιν αὐτῷ. ὅτι δὲτὸκατ᾽εἰκόνα αἱπράξεις χαρακτηρίζουσι καὶοὐχὶἡτοῦσώματος μορφή, . . .

⁸³ Metzler, 162.5–6.

earthly. But if, once we have understood what has been made 'in accordance with the image' and what has been received 'from the dust of the earth', we should completely incline to him in whose image we have come into existence, we will also be in accordance with the likeness of God, having abandoned every passionate desire for matter and bodies, and even for some of those beings who are according to the likeness.

(Com. John 20.182–3) As Marguerite Harl points out, Origen seems to indicate a hierarchy of terms describing the different aspects of 'creation', a descending gradation of 'create'

(κτίζειν), 'make' (ποιεῖν), and 'mould' (πλάσσειν).⁸⁴ This should not be thought of so much as distinct or discrete acts, but rather as different aspects of God's act of creating, much the same way as Origen analyses the different titles of Christ as various aspects of the one Christ. Our 'superior existence' is being created according to the image of God—a distinction, as we have seen, that resides in our intellectual faculties, but which is manifest in our actions as embodied beings; it is 'superior' not only in an ontological sense but also in a literary sense (for Gen.

1 comes before Gen. 2). That which is moulded from the earth, on the other hand, is not simply 'created or made', but 'results from a cause'. To understand what this

'cause' is, and the further dimension that it adds to Origen's understanding of human embodiment, we must introduce one further word that Origen employs to speak about the origin of the world and human beings within it. But before that, to conclude what we have seen so far, it is clear that for Origen, human beings ﬁnd themselves caught between the two aspects of their existence, able to incline in either direction, either downwards, subordinating the superior aspect of their existence so that even this takes on the image of the earthly, or, abandoning their desire for things of sense-perception, inclining rather towards the one in whose image we have come into existence, to be made also in his likeness.

One ﬁnal and perhaps surprising point, regarding the difference between that made in the image and that formed from the earth, is the way in which Origen handles the remaining aspect of how the human being is described in the text of Scripture. In his Commentary on Matthew, he notes that while Christ had combined Gen. 1:27 and 2:24 together (Matt. 19:4–5), 'male and female' (ἄρρεν καὶθῆλη) are in fact said regarding 'those who came into being according to the image of God', while those moulded from the dust of the earth and from the rib are called 'man and woman' (ἀνὴρ καὶγυνὴ). He further points out that 'it is never said that woman was made in the image, nor man, for that matter, but those who are superior, namely male, and second, female'.⁸⁵ Origen doesn't follow Philo in ⁸⁴ Harl, 'Préexistence des âmes', at 244.

⁸⁵ Com. Matt., 14.16: οὐδέποτε γὰρ γυνὴκατ᾽εἰκόνα οὐδὲἀνήρ, ἀλλ᾽οἱμὲν διαφέροντες ἄρρεν οἱδὲ δεύτεροι θῆλυ. Ed. Erich Klostermann and Ernst Benz, GCS 40, Origenes Werke 10, two parts (Leipzig:

Hinrichs Verlag, 1935, 1937), 321–3; ET Ronald E. Heine, OECT, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2018), 177–8:

describing 'human' as the genus, and 'male and female' as the species, but 'male' and 'female' are indeed proper designations of those made in the image. He also seems to have a higher appreciation for the distinction of the sexes than Philo.

That 'the two become one ﬂesh', when there is 'oneness of mind, agreement, and harmony between husband and wife', he continues, is a 'gift of God' equivalent to the gift of celibacy spoken about by Paul. In his ﬁrst homily on Genesis, Origen further explains the distinction of the human as 'male and female' by reference to the blessing that follows: 'since, indeed, man could not otherwise increase and multiply except with the female. Therefore, that there might be no doubt about his blessing that is to come, the text says "Male and female he made them"'

(Hom. Gen. 1.14).

Having noted the 'literal sense', Origen then goes on in his homily to consider how, allegorically, 'the human, made in the image of God, is male and female'. As the inner human consists of spirit and soul, the former is said to be 'male', while the latter is 'female', so that 'if these have concord and agreement among themselves, they increase and multiply, by the very accord among themselves and they produce sons, good inclinations and understandings or useful thoughts, by which they ﬁll the earth and have dominion over it' (Hom. Gen. 1.15). In his

Commentary on Matthew, following many Christian writers before him (noted above) going back to Paul, Origen also takes the 'male' and 'female' to refer to Christ and the Church: 'he, who in the beginning created the one who is in the image (as "he is in the form of God"), made him male and the church female, and gave the "being in the image" to both as to one'.⁸⁶ It is, then, for the sake of the Church that Christ left the father and his mother ('for he is a son of the "Jerusalem above"') to join himself to his wife, ('who had fallen hence') so that, down here, the two became one ﬂesh, when 'the Word became ﬂesh and dwelt in us', forming

'the body of Christ and individually members of it'.⁸⁷ 4.3 The Throwing Down of the World and the Descent of the Human Origen was particularly struck by the way in which the writers of the New Testament employed the word καταβολή. It is used eleven times in the New Testament (once implied), where in all but one it is in the phrase usually translated 'the foundation of the world'; the word, however, really means a 'throwing down'.⁸⁸ Although the most

⁸⁶ Com. Matt. 14.17 (325.27–32; ET 179): ὁκτίσας γε ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς τὸν κατ᾽εἰκόνα (ὡς "ἐν μορφῇ" θεου ὑπάρχων) ἄρρεν αὐτὸν ἐποίησε καὶθῆλυ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ἓν τὸκατ᾽εἰκόνα ἀμφοτέροις χαρισάμενος.

⁸⁷ Ibid; Gal. 4:26, John 1:14; Eph. 5:31; Gen. 2:24, 1 Cor. 12:27. Cf. Origen, Com. Songs, 2.8

(Baehrens, 157–8; ET 149–50).

⁸⁸ Matt. 25:34; Lk. 11:50; John 17:24; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; 11:11; 1 Pet. 1:20; Apoc. 13:8; 17:8; in Matt. 13:35 'of the world' is implied; it is used one other time, in Heb. 11:11, where it refers to human reproduction.

controversial passages of Origen regarding this 'throwing down' are in On First Principles, it is better to start, as Heine suggests, with a lengthy passage from the nineteenth book of Origen's Commentary on John, which, although written in his

Caesarean period, and thus after On First Principles, is preserved in the original

Greek.⁸⁹ As we will see, the 'throwing down of the world' has as much to do with human orientation as it does with the relationship between the intelligible realm and the sense-perceptible world. In this passage, Origen is treating Christ's words: 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world' (John

8:23). He begins by quoting Christ's other words, 'He who is of the earth is of the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all; what he has seen and heard, to this he bears testimony' (John 3:31–2), and asks whether being 'of the earth' in the latter text is equivalent to being 'from below' in the former (Com.

John 19.127). Origen points out that in John 3, Christ did not put his statements about being 'of the earth' and coming 'from heaven' in direct parallel (by saying 'of heaven' instead of 'comes from heaven'), and suggests as a possible reason for this that 'the Saviour was not "of heaven", especially insofar as he was "ﬁrstborn of all creation"', while the phrase 'of heaven' is used by Paul to speak of the second human in contrast to the ﬁrst.⁹⁰ To be 'from above', he concludes, is not the same thing as to be 'not of this world'.

Likewise, being 'from below' and being 'of the earth' are also different, in that while 'from below' can refer to a place, it can also refer to 'a way of thinking' (Com.

John 19.131). 'Of the world' can certainly be used as a spatial designation, for the visible, material world has places 'of the world' that are above and others that are below. On the other hand, as referring to 'a way of thinking', he points out, 'the one from below is necessarily of the world, but the one who is of this world is not necessarily from below' (Com. John 19.132–3); that is, one who is 'of this world' can still be a 'citizen of the heavens', and one who is 'from below' can change to become 'one who is from above and is no longer of this world' (Com. John

19.134–5). The difference turns, for Origen, upon where one's heart is: 'if someone stores up treasure on earth, he is from below; but if someone stores up treasure in heaven, that person is born from above and assumes "the image of the heavenly"

. . . He is not of this world, however, who does not love the world nor the things in the world, but who says, "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of my

Lord Jesus Christ"' (Com. John 19.138–9). The descent and ascent of souls must ⁸⁹ Heine, Origen: An Introduction, 111–12.

⁹⁰ Com. John 19.128: τάχα γὰρ ὁσωτὴρ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦοὐρανοῦἦν, μάλιστα καθ᾽ὃ"προτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως" ἦν. τὸγὰρ "ἐκ τοῦοὐρανοῦ" ὁδεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἦν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, ὡς καὶὁΠαῦλός πού φυσιν· referring to Col. 1:15, and then 1 Cor. 15:47. The Gospel of John might also indicate such a distinction in the way it speaks of the ascending and descending Son of Man; cf. John Behr, John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 148–60,

218–44.

therefore, according to Origen, be understood 'in a more mystical manner not spatially' (Com. John 19.144–5).⁹¹ He continues by afﬁrming that there must therefore be 'another world' besides this sense-perceptible one, one which 'in its entirety is an invisible world, a world which is not seen, an intelligible world [νοητὸς κόσμος]', yet which is beheld by the pure in heart, that is, those being prepared to seek God (Com. John 19.146). This then raises the question, for Origen, of whether Christ, 'the ﬁrst-born of all creation' (Col. 1:15) 'can be a world, and especially in so far as he is "the manifold wisdom"' (Com. John 19.147; Eph. 3:10). He then comments:

For by being the principles [τοὺς λόγους] of absolutely everything according to which all things made by God in Wisdom have come to be (as the prophet says

'you made all things in wisdom') in himself he would also be a 'world' that surpasses the world of sense-perception in its diversity and excels it as much as the principle stripped of all the material of the whole world differs from the material world, [a world constituted] not on the basis of matter, but on the basis of the participation of the things that have been set in order in the Word and Wisdom, which set matter in order.⁹² It is here that Origen now introduces the term 'throwing down' (καταβολή):

That world has nothing below even as this world has nothing above, to the one who examines it as to its exact nature. For how can this world, whose creation is a throwing-down, have anything above? For one must not hear the phrase, 'Before the throwing-down of the world' [John 17:24; Eph. 1:4] in just any way, [but] advisedly because the saints coined the expression 'throwing-down' to express such a concept, although they could have said, 'Before the creation of the world', and not used the expression 'throwing down'. The whole world, therefore, and the things in it are included in the 'throwing down'. But the genuine disciples of Jesus, whom he chose out of the world that, by bearing their own cross and following him, they might no longer be of the world, but come to be outside the throwing down of the world in its entirety.

(Com. John 19.149–50) ⁹¹ Cf. Heine, Origen: Introduction, 113: 'We should note here that this is not a statement about an original fall of souls from the heavenly realm that occurred before the earth was created. This is a statement about the condition that people experience in life because of choosing to live with their thoughts focused on material realities rather than on immaterial realities.'

⁹² Com. John 19.147: τῷγὰρ εἶναι παντὸς οὑτινοσοῦν τοὺς λόγους, καθ᾽οὓς γεγένηται πάντα τὰὑπὸ τοῦθεοῦἐν σοφία πεποιημένα (ὥς φησιν ὁπροφήτης· "Πάντα ἐν σοφίᾳἐποίησας"), ἐν αὐτῷ, εἴη ἂν καὶ αὐτὸς κόσμος, τοσούτῳποικιλώτερος τοῦαἰσθητοῦκόσμου καὶδιαφέρων, ὅσῳδιαφέρει γυμνὸς πάσης ὕλης τοῦὅλου κόσμου λόγος τοῦἐνύλου κόσμου, οὐκ ἀπὸτῆς ὕλης ἀλλὰἀπὸτῆς μετοχῆς τοῦλόγου καὶ σοφίας τῶν κοσμούντων τὴν ὕλην κεκοσμημένων.

The distinction between the world 'thrown down' and the world above is thus not spatial or even temporal, but rather the distinction between the world of senseperception, what we can see physically as it currently is, and the principles (τοὺς λόγους) of absolutely everything according to which God made all things in Wisdom, the intellectual world that is Christ. The descent has not been of incorporeal intellects into material bodies, but rather, in a 'more mystical manner', the turning of attention and desire from the world made by God in Wisdom to the world that sense-perception sees and desires. And, in turn, the ascent from below to above is made by bearing the cross and following Christ. As we have already seen Origen assert: 'the phenomenal world is an image of the intellectual and invisible: the truth is in the future'.⁹³

The 'throwing down of the world' is also treated extensively in a passage in On First Principles, although only available as translated by Ruﬁnus. It begins by noting that the Scriptures speak of the creation of the world 'by a new and particular name, terming it the καταβολή of the world', a word which Ruﬁnus then explains (to his Roman readers) has been mistranslated into Latin (as constitutio rather than deicere). Then, after the quotation of a passage from John

(in fact, Matt. 24:21; 25:34, but cf. John 17:24) and Paul (Eph. 1:4), Origen continues:

It seems worthwhile, therefore, to inquire what is indicated by this new term.

And I am of the opinion that as the end and the consummation of the saints will be in those [worlds] that are 'not seen and eternal' [2 Cor. 4:18.], it must be supposed, from a contemplation of that very end, as we have frequently pointed out above, that rational creatures have also had a similar beginning. And if they had a beginning such as the end for which they hope, they were undoubtedly from the beginning in those [worlds] that are 'not seen' and 'eternal'. And if this is so, then there has been a descent from the higher conditions to the lower, not only on the part of those souls who have by the variety of their own movements deserved it, but also on that [part] of those who, to serve the whole world, were brought down from the higher and invisible conditions to these lower and visible ones, even against their will. 'Because the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the one who subjected it in hope' [Rom. 8:20], so that both the sun and the moon and the stars and the angels of God might fulﬁl an obedient service for the world; and for those souls which, because of their excessive spiritual defects needed these denser and more solid bodies, and because of those for whom this was necessary, this visible world was founded. From this, therefore, a descent of everyone alike would seem to be indicated by the meaning of the word, that is, of καταβολή. The whole creation indeed entertains the hope

⁹³ Pitra, Analecta Sacra, 30.

of freedom, of being 'set free from the bondage of corruption when the children of God' [Rom. 8:21], who either fell away or were scattered abroad, shall be gathered together into one, or when they shall have fulﬁlled their other duties in this world, which are known to God alone, the Artiﬁcer of all things. It must be supposed that the world was created of such a kind and of such a size as to be able to contain all those souls which were appointed to be trained in this world, and also those powers which were prepared to attend, to serve, and to assist them. For it is proved by many assertions that all rational creatures are of one nature; on which ground alone can the justice of God in all his arrangements concerning them be defended, when everyone has within himself the reasons he has been placed in this or that rank of life.

(Princ. 3.5.4) There are a number of important points in this passage. First, Origen again emphasizes (and notes that he has repeatedly made the point) that it is by looking to the end that human beings contemplate the beginning, and if the end is similar to the beginning, then their beginning is in that 'world' which was 'not seen and eternal', that is, they are chosen in Christ 'before the throwing down of the world'

(Eph. 1:4). Second, although the whole creation has been 'thrown down', this is not uniformly the result of sin. As Origen put it in the opening line to his homilies on Ezekiel, 'Not everyone who is a captive endures captivity on account of his sins.'⁹⁴ Some have certainly deserved it, on account of 'their own movements' as the above passage puts it, but others were brought down, sometimes against their will, to serve others. Third, this descent is described not in terms of incorporeal intellects or souls taking a body or being embodied, but rather as entering a 'denser and more solid' form of embodiment. While some have certainly 'needed' this condition, because of their 'excessive spiritual defects', the whole of creation has been subjected to this 'futility'—not willingly, however, but in hope, as Origen quotes Paul. As such, in reference to the same verse in his Commentary on John,

Origen suggests that as Paul himself 'wishes "to remain in the ﬂesh", not willingly but in hope', it is possible that 'some can exist in a body not in this way'.⁹⁵ What is meant by bodies become 'denser and more solid' is a question that we will return to later.

The questions we must ﬁrst address are: why is the world 'thrown down' in this manner, and what relationship might this have to the 'cause', mentioned above, resulting in the body being formed from the dust of the earth? Origen is particularly vexed by any imputation to God of partiality, whether in the form of making different 'kinds' of soul, some destined for salvation and others for damnation, or in the form of suggesting that he is directly (and arbitrarily) responsible for the ⁹⁴ Homilies on Ezekiel, 1.1; ed. W. A. Baehrens, GCS 33, Origenes Werke 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1925);

ET Thomas P. Scheck, ACW 62 (New York: Newman Press, 2010).

⁹⁵ Com. John 1.98–100, Phil. 1:24: δυναμένων τινῶν ὑπάρχειν ἐν σώματι οὐχ οὕτως.

different conditions in which people ﬁnd themselves through their birth. Origen's answer to this is to emphasize the role of human free will and to clarify the nature of God's foreknowledge. Both of these points are treated in a passage from the third book of his Commentary on Genesis, preserved for us in Greek in the Philocalia, where Origen is concerned to refute the idea that our fortunes are determined by the stars (made as 'signs', Gen. 1:14). According to Origen: 'When

God in the archē projected the creation of the world [ἐπιβάλλων ὁθεὸς τῇἀρχῇτῆς κοσμοποιΐας], inasmuch as there is nothing without a cause, his thoughts traversed the whole course of the future', so that he foresaw all the various trains of events that would occur and which would cause others to occur—without this, however, implying that he caused them, no more than when we see someone stepping out onto a slippery path, we can foresee that they will fall without causing that fall.⁹⁶

As Origen concludes, 'the future event is the cause of God's particular knowledge concerning it; for it does not happen because it is known, but it is known because it will happen'.⁹⁷ On this basis, Origen can argue in a passage from his

Commentary on Romans, also preserved in the Philocalia, with respect to Paul's 'election' by God before his birth (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:15), that 'anyone who is predestined through the foreknowledge of God is the cause of the events known', rather than as a result of 'the absurd doctrine' of being saved 'by nature', as his opponents taught (Philoc. 25.1–2). The 'antecedent causes' invoked by Origen to reconcile the diversity in which human beings ﬁnd themselves with the justice of God thus do not refer to the actions of souls prior to falling into bodies, as he was often charged with teaching, but rather to the anteriority of the foreknowledge of God.⁹⁸ Origen can thus distinguish between what is created by God 'in the archē' and what results from ourselves. In another important passage from On First

Principles, Origen further explains:

When, 'in the archē', he created those beings that he desired to create, that is, rational beings, he had no other reason for creating them other than himself, that is, his own goodness. As, then, he himself, in whom was neither variation nor change nor inability, was the cause of all those things which were to be created, he created all whom he created equal and alike, since there was in himself no ground

⁹⁶ Philoc. 23.8; ed. J. Armitage Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893); ET

George Lewis (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1911), modiﬁed.

⁹⁷ Philoc. 23.8. Cf. Cels. 2.20: 'We say that the one who made the prediction was not the cause of the future event, because he foretold that it would happen; but we hold that the future event, which would have taken place even if it had not been prophesied, constitutes the cause of its prediction by the one with foreknowledge.' See also, On Prayer 3. As Panayiotis Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology, Suppl. VC 85 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 119, argues, regarding the phenomenon of prophecy, in the intersection of eternity and temporality, causality works backwards: 'though odd as it may appear, the prospective fulﬁlment of certain prophecy is the cause, whereas the utterance of prophecy is the result, although it temporally precedes the event itself. . . . it is the future that determines the past'.

⁹⁸ Cf. Harl, 'Préexistence des âmes', 252.

for variety and diversity. But since these rational creatures, as we have frequently shown and will nevertheless show yet again in the proper place, were endowed with the faculty of free will, this freedom of will either incited each one to progress by the imitation of God or drew him to defection through negligence.

And this, as we have already said before, is the cause of the diversity among rational creatures, drawing its origin not from the will or judgment of the Creator, but from the freedom of the individual will.

(Princ. 2.9.6) Our existence is owed to God, or more speciﬁcally God's goodness, while the condition of our existence results from ourselves and our free will. Yet, Origen continues from the above passage, God does not simply leave the resulting diversity to unravel further, but rather 'drew these diversities of intellects into the harmony of one world', as vessels not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some unto honour and others unto dishonour, all adorning one house

(cf. 2 Tim. 2:20), with 'divine providence arranging each individual according to the variety of their movements or of their intellects and purposes'. In this way, he argues, the Creator will not appear unjust when, 'according to the antecedent causes', each is arranged according to their merit, nor will the particular circumstances of each one's birth or condition be held to be merely accidental, nor again will one be led into believing in different creators or diverse natures of souls. He has thus given an account of 'how the great variety and diversity of the world may appear to be consistent with the whole rationale of righteousness', though in general terms only, 'for it is', he cautions, 'the mark of an ignorant person to seek, and of a foolish person to give, the particular rationale for each being' (Princ.

2.9.4, cf. 2.9.8).

One ﬁnal point regarding the world as it is in this throwing down must be noted, and that is that the world is arranged suitably for 'all those souls which were appointed to be trained in this world' (Princ. 3.5.4, cited above)—that is, although resulting from a (future) cause, the throwing down of the world, and those in it, is pedagogically oriented, leading towards the ﬁnal return to the end which is 'like' the beginning, but not identical with it because of the path that has now been trodden. The position in which each ﬁnds themselves within this orderly arrangement is thus not permanently ﬁxed: there is no distinction of nature between vessels of honour and those of dishonour; it lies, rather, in the scope of each to 'purify himself from what is dishonourable', so as to be 'a vessel of honour, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work'

(2 Tim. 2:21; cf. Princ. 3.1.21–4). In this situation, while urging each to 'be transformed' by attending to their higher calling, Origen also, provocatively, suggests that it would be better for the soul to descend fully into the ﬂesh than to remain in a middle state, 'neither hot nor cold' (Apoc. 3:15): 'if it adheres to the ﬂesh, then, at some time it will be satiated and ﬁlled with those very evils which it suffers from the vices of the ﬂesh, and wearied, as it were, by the heavy burden of

luxury and lust, it may more easily and rapidly be converted from the squalor of material things to a desire for heavenly things and to spiritual grace' (Princ. 3.4.3; cf. 1.3.8). As 'the spirit wars against the ﬂesh, and the ﬂesh against the spirit, that we may not do that which we would' (Gal. 5:17), 'it is better', Origen concludes,

'for a human being to be either in a condition of virtue or wickedness than in neither of these', if possible, of course, 'to be rendered spiritual by adhering to the spirit; but, if this is not possible, it is more expedient to follow even the wickedness of the ﬂesh than, ﬁxed in the sphere of its own will, to hold the position of an irrational animal' (Princ. 3.4.3). Evil will run its course, being ﬁnite, resulting, in the end, in the return to God.

There is one further passage, in the fourth book of On First Principles, that, while not using the term 'thrown down', explores the contrast between the intelligible world and the sense-perceptible world not only vertically but also horizontally, as it were, in terms of two lineages. It has been argued, rightly

I think, that the exposition of 'ﬁrst principles' given in the ﬁrst three books, the framework that we have been exploring in the above pages, serves to provide the framework for the kind of scriptural exegesis that Origen propounds in the fourth book.⁹⁹ Reading from the light of the end conditions Origen's reading of the text of Genesis, and this is played out in the coordination of the beginning and the end, the below and above, just as it had done for Paul: the ﬁrst human being, Adam, was from below, animated earth, while the last Adam, from above, is a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45–7), so that while all die in Adam, death having come by a human being, in Christ all are made alive, through the resurrection of the dead effected by a human being (1 Cor. 15:22), with the consequence that the perishable, animated body, which is sown in weakness and dishonour, is raised as an imperishable spiritual body in glory and power for 'what you sow does not come to life unless it dies' (1 Cor. 15:35–44). Reading in the light of the end opens up a double narrative in Scripture, similar to the way, for example, that Joseph's being sold into slavery as a sinful action of his jealous brothers is revealed, only at the end, to have really been the action of God, sending him into Egypt to preserve life

(Gen. 37; 45:4–9). So, when Paul says, 'Behold Israel according to the ﬂesh' (1 Cor.

10:18), Origen concludes that 'there is an Israel according to the Spirit' (Princ.

4.3.6), a distinction also indicated by Paul's statement that 'it is not the children of the ﬂesh that are the children of God, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel' (Rom. 9:8, 6) and the contrast between one who is 'a Jew openly' and the one who is 'a Jew in secret' (Rom. 2:28–9). Origen then continues:

⁹⁹ Cf. Brian E. Daley, 'Origen's De Principiis: A Guide to the Principles of Scriptural Interpretation', in John Petruccione, ed., Nova et Vetera: Patristic Studies in Honor of Patrick Halton (Washington, DC:

Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 3–21, at 6, and Behr, Origen, On First Principles, xlv–liii.

Jacob was the father of the twelve patriarchs, and they of the rulers of the people, and these again of the rest of the Israelites. So, then, the bodily Israelites have reference to [τὴν ἀναγωγὴν ἔχουσιν] the rulers of the people, and the rulers of the people to the patriarchs, and the patriarchs to Jacob and those still higher up; the intelligible Israelites, on the other hand, of whom the bodily were a type [οἱδὲ νοητοὶἸσραηλῖται, ὧν τύπος ἦσαν οἱσωματικοί], are they not from the clans, the clans having come from the tribes, and the tribes from some one individual [i.e.

Jacob] having a birth not of a bodily kind but of the better kind, he too being born from Isaac, and he being descended from Abraham, all referring back up to Adam, whom the Apostle says is Christ [πάντων ἀναγομένων ἐπὶτὸν Ἀδαμ, ὃν ὁ ἀπόστολος εἶναι φησι τὸν Χηριστόν]? For every beginning of lineages as [referring] to the God of all began lower down from Christ [πᾶσα γὰρ ἀρχὴπατριῶν τῶν ὡς πρὸς τὸν τῶν ὅλων θεὸν κατωτέρω ἀπὸΧριστοῦἤρξατο], who is next to the God and Father of all, being thus the father of every soul, as Adam is the father of all human beings. And if Eve is touched on by Paul as referring to the Church, it is not surprising—Cain being born of Eve and all after him having reference to Eve—to have here types of the Church, they all being born from the Church in a preeminent sense.¹⁰⁰ These two lineages, that of the human bodily descent from Adam and that of the soul descending from Christ, perhaps allude to the difference between the genealogy given in Matthew, where 'the genesis of Jesus' (Matt. 1:1, 18) is described as a descending line from Abraham, and that of Luke (3:28–38), which traces the lineage backwards or upwards to Adam the son of God, the former being the descent of Israel according to the ﬂesh, the latter being the descent (or rather ascent) of the spiritual Israel, arriving at the end, when all are subject to Christ, so that 'Adam is Christ'. In the meantime, before the end, to quote Origen's comment one more time: 'the phenomenal world is an image of the intellectual and invisible: the truth is in the future'.¹⁰¹

4.4 Embodiment and Transformation We can now turn to the question of what might be meant by the 'denser and more solid bodies' inhabited by those who need this form of education in their fall away

¹⁰⁰ Princ. 4.3.7; it is notable that this striking passage is preserved in Greek in the Philocalia, but omitted by Ruﬁnus in his Latin translation. Origen continues by extending this correspondence to include a corresponding topography; while 'the mother city' in Judah is Jerusalem (Princ. 4.3.6), for Paul 'our mother' is 'the Jerusalem above' (Princ. 4.3.8; Gal. 4:26; and Heb. 12:22–3); and likewise 'If there are spiritual Israelites, it follows that there are also spiritual Egyptians and Babylonians', as what

Ezekiel says about Pharaoh or the Prince of Tyre clearly does not refer to a human being ruling over Egypt or Tyre (Princ. 4.3.9; cf. Ezek. 29:1–9; 28).

¹⁰¹ Pitra, Analecta Sacra, 30.

from the cause of their existence. The question of human embodiment is probably the most debated aspect of Origen's teaching.¹⁰² One might have thought that he had in mind the 'garments of skin' with which God clothed Adam and Eve upon their expulsion from paradise (cf. Gen. 3:21). But in fact, Origen's references to the 'garments of skin' are extremely sparse.¹⁰³ And although Origen was repeatedly accused of teaching that when incorporeal souls fell, they were embodied by being clothed in 'garments of skin', in a passage from his Commentary on Genesis preserved in the Catenae, he ridicules this as 'silly' and 'unworthy of God', for it would turn God into a tanner, and contradict the scriptural account in which Adam had previously described Eve as being 'bone of my bone and ﬂesh of my ﬂesh' (Gen. 2:23).¹⁰⁴ Neither can it be the process of dying (νέκρωσις), he adds, for it would be difﬁcult to explain how God, not sin, caused this, and such an answer would also require an account of how ﬂesh and bones, which previously existed in paradise, could have been immortal in themselves. There is no other passage in Origen's surviving works that really explains how he might have understood the 'garments of skin'. However, there is a passage in Procopius of Gaza's

Commentary on Genesis that might well refer to Origen. Procopius mentions those who ridicule the idea that God slaughtered cattle or sheep and undertook the craft of a tanner, and then gives an account of their view:

But the allegorists, after the previously mentioned ridicule, say the one 'in accordance with the image' refers to the soul, and the one 'formed from the dust' refers to the body, composed of ﬁne particles and worthy of the way of life in paradise, and which some call luminous [τὸλεπτομερὲς σῶμα . . . ὅτινες αὐγοειδὲς ἐκάλεσαν]. The garments of skin, on the other hand, refer to 'you clothed me with skin and ﬂesh and enveloped me with bones and sinews' [Job

10:11]. They say, furthermore, that the soul is borne upon the ﬁrst luminous body, which later is clothed with the garments of skin [τῷδὲαὐγοειδεῖτὴν ψυχὴν ἐποχεῖσθαι πρώτῳ λέγουσιν, ὅπερ ὕστερον ἐνεδύσατο τοὺς δερματίνους χιτῶνας].¹⁰⁵ Origen uses similar words in his Commentary on Matthew in explaining Christ's words about those raised from the dead being 'like the angels': their bodies 'of ¹⁰² See, for examples, the following exchange: Peter W. Martens, 'Origen's Doctrine of Pre-Existence and the Opening Chapters of Genesis', ZAC 16 (2012), 516–49; Mark Edwards, 'Origen in Paradise:

A Response to Peter Martens', ZAC 23 (2019), 163–85; Martens, 'Response to Edwards', ZAC 23 (2019),

186–200. Pierce, 'Apokatastasis, Genesis 1:26–27, and the Theology of History in Origen's De

Principiis', 174–5, ftn. 13, astutely suggests that Martens and others have taken Origen 'to be reasoning about eschatology on the basis of protology' rather than the other way round.

¹⁰³ Cf. Anders Lund Jacobsen, 'Genesis 1–3 as Source for the Anthropology of Origen', VC 62

(2008), 213–32, at 223.

¹⁰⁴ D 22, from the Collectio Coisliniana (Metzler, 190–2).

¹⁰⁵ Procopius of Gaza, Com. Gen. 3.21; ed. Karin Metzler, GCS NF 22, Prokop von Gaza 1 (Berlin:

De Gruyter, 2015), 151.

humiliation' are transformed to be like the bodies of angels, 'ethereal and luminous' (αἰθέρια καὶαὐγοειδὲς φῶς).¹⁰⁶ Given that for Origen, the end is 'like' the beginning, it would not be surprising at all if he had speculated about Adam in paradise possessing a 'luminous body' that is modiﬁed in the garments of skin.¹⁰⁷

In explaining the transformation of Christ's human body and soul in the resurrection, Origen has recourse to the understanding of matter that we considered earlier. 'Matter', he points out, 'by its own principle is without quality, but is clothed with qualities such as the Creator wishes to give it, and that it often puts aside its former qualities and receives better and different ones', so that 'it is nothing remarkable if in the resurrection the quality of mortality in the body of Jesus, by the providence of God, should have been changed into an ethereal and divine quality'.¹⁰⁸ It is, moreover, this capacity of matter to be changed, altered, and transformed, that explains, for Origen, the different forms of Jesus, appearing

'without form or comeliness' to the multitude, in the 'folly' of his preaching, but glorious, luminous, and exceedingly beautiful to those who ascend the mountain with him.¹⁰⁹ God is, as we have seen Origen quote Amos, the one 'who makes and transforms all things' (Amos 5:8; Princ. 3.6.7).

How the 'ethereal and luminous body' in the resurrection, and one like it in the beginning, relate to the 'denser and more solid body' in the 'throwing down' of the sense-perceptible world and the 'garments of skin' is simply not explained in any surviving text of Origen. However, it is likely that his account of the soul in On First Principles 2.8.3 gives an indication. There he suggests, on the basis of the supposed etymology of the word 'soul' (taking ψυχή as derived from ψυχόω, which, as a passive verb, can mean 'to become cool'), that the intellect becomes a soul through cooling down. Origen further points out that as God is a 'consuming ﬁre', whenever Scripture speaks of God in relation to creation, it does so in ¹⁰⁶ Com. Matt., 17.30; Matt. 22:30; Phil. 3:21. See also Cels. 2.60, where Origen explains apparitions of the dead on the grounds of the existence of the souls 'in what is called the luminous body' (τοῦκατὰ τὴν ὑφεστηκεῖαν ἐν τῷκαλουμένῳαὐγοειδεῖσώματι ψυχήν).

¹⁰⁷ For the idea of Adam's luminous body in Jewish thought, see David H. Aaron, 'Shedding Light on God's Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reﬂections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam', HTR 90

(1997), 299–314; and for an older, but succinct, survey of the 'ethereal' body in Neoplatonism and its background, see E. R. Dodds, Proclus: The Elements of Theology, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1963), 313–21. For the 'garments of skin' more generally, see Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY: Westminster John

Knox Press, 2001), 117–34.

¹⁰⁸ Cels. 3.41: Celsus should listen to what is said by the Greeks: ἐπιστησάτω τοῖς ὑπὸἙλλήνων λεγομένοις περὶτῆς τῷἰδίῳλόγῳἀποίου ὕλης, ποιότητας ἀμφισκομένης, ὁποίας ὁδημιουργὸς βούλεται αὐτῇπεριτιθέναι, καὶπολλάκις τὰς μὲν προτέρας ἀποτιθεμένης κρείττονας δὲκαὶδιαφόρους ἀναλαμβανούσης. εἰγὰρ ὑγιῆτὰτοιαῦτα, τί θαυμαστὸν τὴν ποιότητα τοῦθνητοῦκατὰτὸτοῦἸησοῦ σῶμα προνοίᾳθεοῦβουληθέντος μεταβαλεῖν εἰς αἰθέριον καὶθείαν ποιότητα; cf. Cels. 4.57: 'All of us who have accepted the existence of providence maintain that the underlying matter is capable of receiving qualities which the Creator wills to give it. And by God's will a quality of one kind is imposed upon this particular matter, but afterwards it will have a quality of another kind, one, let us say, which is better and superior.'

¹⁰⁹ Cels. 6.77, referring to Isa. 53:2, 1 Cor. 1:21; Matt. 17:2. Cf. Com. Matt. 12.36–8.

ﬁery terms (the burning bush, for example, or 'making' his ministers 'burning ﬁre' in Ps. 103:4), whereas when it speaks of the effects of the adverse powers, and these powers themselves, it is as 'cold'. Moreover, when it speaks of that which is lost and in need of salvation, Scripture speaks of 'soul', but when it speaks in terms of praise or as approaching God, it speaks instead of 'intellect', as for instance Paul, saying, 'I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the intellect' (Princ. 2.8.2;

1 Cor. 14:15). It is to 'throw ﬁre upon the earth' that Christ has come, and so he sets Simon and Cleopas' hearts aﬂame on the road to Emmaus.¹¹⁰ In Origen's analogy, borrowed from the Stoics, of iron placed in a ﬁre, where the iron, while remaining iron, 'has become wholly ﬁre, since nothing else is discerned in it except ﬁre', so too Christ's own human soul, 'like iron in the ﬁre, was placed in the Word forever, in Wisdom forever, in God forever, is God in all that it does, feels, and understands', and from him something of the warmth of the Word of God passes to others.¹¹¹ So too, when all have become subject to Christ, and then to God, such that God will be 'all in all', the rational mind 'will no longer sense anything else apart from God: it will think God, see God, hold God; God will be the mode and measure of its every movement; and thus God will be all to it' (Princ. 3.6.3). The 'mystery' proclaimed by Paul, at the end of his treatment of the resurrection and the transition from bearing the image of the earthy to that of the heavenly, is this change: 'we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. . . . we shall all be changed' (1 Cor. 15:49–52). It is this transformation that is the heart of Origen's vision of the human being and the culmination of God's act of creating, as is clear from his long preamble in the Dialogue with Heraclides discussed above: 'I beseech you, be transformed!'

There are many points from this survey of Origen's understanding of creation and the human being that are of importance for understanding Gregory. For Origen, the human being is emphatically twofold, so much so that he can speak, following Paul, of each being 'two humans', the inner and the outer, or the old putting on the new. 'What is moulded from the clay of the earth is created in the womb' (Hom. Jer. 1.10), while that which is accordance with the image is 'made' by God, residing in the intellectual capacities of the soul but only as embodied in virtue. The former belongs to the world as 'thrown down', its diversity resulting from the free actions of those made equally in the image, but a 'throwing down' which, in the foresight and providence of God, is a 'harmonious world', conﬁgured to be suitable as a realm of instruction where, by the persuasion of the Word or Reason and Wisdom, all come to learn to subject themselves to Christ, so that he

¹¹⁰ Luke 12:49; 24:32; brought together by Origen in Hom. Jer. 20.8 and Hom. Ex. 13.4, ed.

W. A. Baehrens, GCS 29, Origenes Werke 6 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1920), ET Ronald E. Heine, FC 71

(Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1981).

¹¹¹ Princ. 2.6.6. Chrysippus had previously used the image of iron and ﬁre; cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 3–4, for his theory of blending (image of iron and ﬁre at 218.1–2); ed. and ET

Robert B. Todd (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 216.14–218.10 (= SVF 2.473).

can subject all to God, so that God, in turn, can be 'all in all'. It is, above all, this eschatological orientation, the end which enables us to discern properly what we know of the present and contemplate the beginning, that is adopted by Gregory, with the difference that he sees the point of tension between the two clauses of Gen. 1:27 ('God made the human, in accordance with the image of God he made it' and 'male and female he made them'), for as Gregory points out, the latter has no point of reference in its archetype, for in Christ there is not 'male and female'

(Gal. 3:28). But both are equally concerned with transformation; indeed, Gregory concludes his treatise with the same verse repeatedly used by Origen, urging us

'to put off the old human with its practices and put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it'

(Col. 3:9–10).

Chapter 3 Gregory's Treatise, On the Human Image of God Written between the death of his brother Basil (September 378) and Easter in the following year, Gregory's treatise On the Human Image was composed, so he tells us in his covering letter to Peter, to complete Basil's Hexaemeron. While Basil had made known 'the world established by God in true wisdom' to those who are led by his words to a true contemplation of its 'sublime adornment', he had not continued to 'the contemplation of the human being' (Ep. Pet. 1). However,

Gregory does much more than supplement Basil's own treatment. In this work and in his own Hexaemeron, a companion piece written about same time,¹

Gregory provides a comprehensive cosmology and anthropology, drawing upon the traditions of classical philosophy and earlier theology that we have traced from Anaxagoras to Origen and also inspiring later writers such as Maximos the Confessor and John Scotus Eriugena.

But in On the Human Image, Gregory also addresses a speciﬁc problem. At the heart of the treatise, structurally and thematically, lies the question of how the human being is in the image of God: having given, in the ﬁrst 15 chapters, a beautiful description of the human being, decked in virtue, as the high point of creation, Gregory then asks: where, in fact, do we see this? Scripture does not lie when it says that the human being came to be in accordance with the image of God, yet neither can the 'pitiable wretchedness of human nature be likened to the blessedness of the impassible life' (De hom. 16.4). Intriguingly, the same problematic surfaces again a couple of decades later in the 'anthropomorphite' controversy. Although the ecclesiastical historian Socrates describes the controversy as being caused by Theophilus of Alexandria's assertion, in his Paschal Address for 399, that the incorporeal God cannot be described in human form, there are indications that the real issue was the reverse.² According to the dialogue between Apa Aphou and Theophilus of Alexandria, it was the bishop's assertion that 'it is not the image of God which we humans bear' which prompted Apa Aphou to go

¹ According to Maraval, 'Chronology of Works', it should be placed in the early months of 379, after the On the Human Image.

² Cf. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.7. Ed. G. C. Hansen, with M. Širingan, GCS NF 1 (Berlin:

Akademie Verlag, 1995); ET in NPNF 2.

to Alexandria to correct Theophilus.³ When Aphou told him that 'this sentence is not correct; for my part, I confess that all humans have been created in the image of God', Theophilus replied incredulously: 'How could you say of an Ethiopian that he is the image of God, or of a leper or of a cripple or of a blind man?' And when Aphou countered to say otherwise would be to contradict the statement in Genesis, Theophilus argued: 'Not so! I believe that Adam alone was created in his likeness and his image, but that the children whom he begot after him do not resemble him', adding, 'I hesitate to say of a human being, subject to sickness and to tiredness, that he bears the image of the impassible and simple God.' Pointing to the eucharistic gifts, which are afﬁrmed to be the body and blood of Christ, Aphou argued that 'just as it is necessary to believe this, so also it is necessary to believe the authority [that says] "the human being was created in the likeness and image of God"', and gave the further example of a king and his image, for although the portrait is nothing but wood and paint, everyone nevertheless pays it due respect.

That Gregory's treatise deals with the same issues suggests that although the 390s was, as Elizabeth Clark memorably described it, 'the decade of the image', the roots of the problem began earlier.⁴ However, Gregory doesn't resolve this problematic by simply afﬁrming that 'it is necessary to believe' that the human being is in the image of God, despite the evidence of our eyes. While acknowledging that 'only the very Truth knows the true answer to this question' Gregory seeks an account (logos) which enables both realities to be afﬁrmed, describing how the human being is indeed the image of God but also the economy of God that leads, ﬁnally, to this reality.

As suggested in Chapter 1, on the basis of the headings in the manuscripts (of which only two, 16 and 30, are designated as a 'contemplation') Gregory's treatise is divided into three parts and as we intimated when examining Plato's Timaeus these divisions mirror the corresponding threefold account in that work.⁵

Gregory begins, in Chapters 1–15, by presenting a beautiful picture of the human being as the apex of creation and more than that, the very image of God

(as Timaeus had ﬁrst given an account of 'what is crafted by intellect', Tim. 47e3).

³ The Coptic text is edited with a French translation, by Étienne Drioton, 'La Discussion d'un moine anthropomorphite Audien avec le patriarche Théophile d'Alexandrie en l'année 399', Revue de l'Orient

Chrétien, 2nd series 10 (=20) (1915–17), 92–100, 113–28. The ensuing discussion is on pp. 95–9.

A partial English translation is given by Georges Florovsky, 'The Anthropomorphites in the Egyptian

Desert', in idem, Aspects of Church History, Collected Works 4 (Belmont MA: Büchervertiebsanstalt,

1987), 89–96. For further discussion, see Paul A. Patterson, Visions of Christ: The Anthropomorphite

Controversy of 399 CE, STAC 68 (Berlin: Mohr Siebeck, 2012).

⁴ Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian

Debate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 55.

⁵ That Chapter 16 begins a new section of the work has previously been noted; scant attention has been paid to Chapter 30. Cf. Gerhardt B. Ladner, 'The Philosophical Anthropology of St Gregory of Nyssa', DOP 12 (1958), 61–94, at 78, who holds that Chapter 27 begins a 'ﬁnal section, which deals with the body-mind relationship in view of the resurrection of the bodies'. The structural comparison with the Timaeus has not, to my knowledge, previously been noted.

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