Chapter 5 Divine Simplicity as a Metaphysical-Ethical Synthesis in Origen

Chapter 5 Divine Simplicity as a Metaphysical-Ethical Synthesis in Origen

CHAPTER 5

Divine Simplicity as a Metaphysical-Ethical Synthesis in Origen

The narrative so far has traversed from Plato up to the early third century. This broad coverage set the scene for the remaining three chapters, which have a narrower focus. The aim of these chapters is to examine the role of divine simplicity in the thought of the third-century Alexandrian Christian writer Origen. Adamantius (“the man of steel”), as he is sometimes known, was both a Christian Platonist and a Scriptural exegete. As a Christian Platonist, Origen was committed to divine simplicity, as he drank deeply from the wells of Platonic philosophy. As an exegete of Scripture, Origen developed his commitment to divine simplicity primarily in the context of solving Scriptural problems arising in his daily activity of commentating on and teaching the Christian Scriptures. Furthermore, Origen also saw a commitment to divine simplicity as a result of the imperative of Scripture itself. Both of these aspects of Origen’s thought will be stressed in the next three chapters. In this chapter, Origen’s Christian Platonism will be emphasized slightly more; in the next two chapters, his identity as an exegete will be highlighted more. But overall, this lack of balance in no way reflects a commitment on my part to interpret Origen as either one or the other; it is simply a limitation due to the lack of space in the present work to provide comprehensive coverage that integrates both aspects. In any case, my decision to stress one or the other is based on the imbalance I have perceived in previous scholarship. These limitations notwithstanding, the argument I wish to unfold in the remaining three chapters is that in Origen’s thought on divine simplicity, various threads narrated in the previous chapters were tied together in a distinctive fashion. In light of my overarching goal, this chapter will first examine Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity in both its metaphysical and its ethical connotations in order to paint a picture of the intelligibility of the idea for the Alexandrian. The following two chapters will then show that divine simplicity played a crucial role in shaping Origen’s account of the Father-Son relation, acquiring both an anti-Monarchian and an anti-Valentinian function. As we shall see in the final chapter, as an anti-Monarchian committed to divine simplicity, Origen faced the challenge to resolve the ante-Nicene Trinitarian problematic sketched out in the previous two chapters. Consequently, he developed an account of the Son’s generation that constitutes a via media between Valentinian probolē and Monarchianism.

In this chapter, then, I first offer a nonreductive reading of Origen’s doctrine of divine simplicity. My account seeks to attend to the complexity already highlighted in chapters 1 and 2, namely, that divine simplicity exhibits two senses that are closely connected. The first—and, as I have argued, the more original—sense refers to God’s perfect constancy, which I denote the ethical sense of divine simplicity. This was first set out definitively in The Republic. The second refers to the metaphysical sense, which sets out the qualifications required by the identification of God as the supreme first principle of all things. This sense was subsequently developed in the Middle Platonic period. Scholars who have analyzed Origen’s doctrine of God tend to focus primarily on the second.¹ This reductive approach does not tell the full story for two reasons. At a basic level, it misses the importance of the ethical meaning of simplicity when it comes to God. But, more crucially, this approach misses the fact that for Origen the metaphysical sense of divine simplicity is intertwined with the ethical sense, a link that is crucial in Origen’s attempt to identify God as the very nature and ground of spiritual perfection.² Thus, not only is Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity characterized by the identification of the God of Scripture, whom he conceives, in light of the second rule of theological speech in The Republic, as supreme first principle; this identification leads to a synthesis that is indispensable for his theological vision of perfection.³ It will not be surprising, then, that Origen’s philosophical exposition of divine simplicity recapitulates many of the developments traced in chapters 1 and 2.

Given the complexity of my argument, this chapter is structured in a rather schematic manner. I shall take the metaphysical and ethical dimensions of Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity in turn in order to highlight the explicit link he draws between the two sets of language. This approach risks overdistinguishing two dimensions of divine simplicity that are in fact integrally linked, but the promise of clarity has been given priority in this instance. In the first part of this chapter, then, I will analyze Origen’s account of the metaphysical aspect of divine simplicity, a task most systematically set out in Peri Archōn (On First Principles) I.1. Along the way I will situate Origen’s discussion in light of the polemical and exegetical background for this text, which will add historical nuance to the analysis. In the second part I shall take a closer look at some of Origen’s exegetical and homiletical writings in order to reveal that he also possesses a notion of simplicity as self-constancy, one also found in Plato’s Republic and Philo’s Quod sit deus immutabilis, upon which he builds a vision of spiritual perfection grounded in God’s perfect simplicity. Finally, in the last section I shall turn to a crucial passage in Peri Euchēs in which Origen observes an analogy between being metaphysically simple and being ethically simple. According to this analogy, a life of perfect constancy is analogous to an incorporeal existence that is noncomposite and indivisible. Taken together, the three sections offer a nonreductive account of Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity that will shed light on the significance of the doctrine for the Alexandrian.

METAPHYSICAL SIMPLICITY

The metaphysical aspect of divine simplicity is most systematically set out in PArch I.1, a chapter concerned with the very nature of divinity itself.⁴ This chapter, however, first needs to be situated in light of two contexts. The philosophical theology in this chapter bears resemblance to the one found in writers such as Alcinous and Philo. As a Christian “Platonist,” Origen most likely inherited a tradition of philosophical thinking about God that was conversant with Middle Platonic theology.⁵ Hence Middle Platonism provides the immediate philosophical background for PArch I.1. But Origen’s philosophical theology also needs to be read in its exegetical context. This is because Origen’s discussions of philosophical theology, including divine simplicity, are frequently situated in the context of interpreting three specific passages in Christian Scripture: Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5. Thus Origen’s metaphysical reflections on divine simplicity developed not in a speculative vacuum but rather out of the desire to provide an adequate exegesis of Scripture. It is in light of this twin context that I shall interpret Origen’s systematic discussion of divine simplicity in PArch I.1.6.

Divine Simplicity in PArch I.1: The Immediate Polemical Context

PArch I.1 was written with a polemical agenda in mind. Its purpose was to criticize those who held that God is a body and to provide an alternative theology of divine incorporeality. Origen’s anti-corporealist polemic is firmly rooted in the philosophical context of his time. It was common for philosophers in this period to debate about the nature of the first principle.⁶ The standard options for interpreting the nature of God in Origen’s time are helpfully listed in ComJn XIII.123:

Many have produced lengthy discussions of God and his essence, so that (A) on the one hand some have said that he has a bodily nature which is composed of fine particles and is like ether, but (B) on the other hand (B1) others [have said] that he is incorporeal, (B2) and still others [have said] that he is beyond essence in dignity and power . . .

Πολλῶν πολλὰ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ ἀποφηναμένων καὶ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ, ὥστε τινὰς μὲν εἰρηκέναι καὶ αὐτὸν σωματικῆς φύσεως λεπτομεροῦς καὶ αἰθερώδους, τινὰς δὲ ἀσωμάτου καὶ ἄλλους ὑπερέκεινα οὐσίας πρεσβείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει . . .

Three positions are identified: (A) God’s essence is like a composite body, (B1) God’s essence is incorporeal, and (B2) God is beyond essence. The structure of the passage (μὲν . . . δὲ) makes it clear that Origen conceives a contrast between the first position (A) and the latter two positions (B1 and B2). This is likely because, whereas the first position affirms the corporeality of God, the latter two positions both deny it. As we shall see from PArch I.1, there is no doubt that Origen favors the latter two positions over the first.⁷ And by affirming divine incorporeality Origen positions himself among the Platonists of his time.⁸

But Origen’s interest in engaging with this debate springs from a more specific issue arising in Scriptural exegesis, namely, the applicability of the term ἀσώματον to God. The term ἀσώματον is central in Peri Archōn, where Origen explicitly states in the preface (praef. 8–9) that he intends to search for the equivalent of this philosophical term in Scripture.⁹ His inquiry, which is initiated in PArch I.1, has as its starting point an exegetical problem based on three key passages: Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5. These passages demand philosophical reflection because each may be read as offering an account of the divine essence: Deut. 4:24 says, “God is a consuming fire,” John 4:24 says, “God is spirit,” and 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light.” Given the grammatical structure of these passages (“God is X”), one’s interpretation of the key terms (“fire,” “spirit,” and “light”) will inevitably lead one to an account of the divine essence. Now, deciding between the different positions on the nature of God matters hermeneutically with respect to these three passages. If the divine essence is to be understood corporeally, then the terms “fire,” “spirit,” and “light” must be interpreted literally as referring to corporeal realities. But if the divine essence is incorporeal or God is beyond essence, then the same terms will demand an interpretation beyond their literal sense. In these cases, an alternative reading will be needed to make sense of these passages as descriptions of God. Characteristically, Origen is interested in the debate concerning the nature of the divine essence because this philosophical issue is intertwined with exegesis.

From Origen’s point of view, the exegetical issue arising from the three passages is that they are prone to be read as providing evidence of divine corporeality, a position he rejects. He is concerned that “fire,” “spirit,” and “light” are taken by some as referring literally to realities perceptible to the bodily senses. This raises a question, though: who were the opponents of Origen who interpreted the Scripture in this manner? It has been suggested that in PArch I.1 Origen probably had in mind “Christian Stoics,” not the “unsophisticated anthropomorphites,” when he explicitly rebuked his unnamed opponents for their interpretations of Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5.¹⁰ According to Stoic physics, every existent thing is corporeal. This is grounded on the criterion that any existent being must display the power or capacity (δύναμις) of acting or being acted upon. Based on this criterion, the Stoics argue that all existent things must be corporeal because only bodies can act or be acted upon. This does not mean that bodies are the only items in Stoic ontology. But it does mean that for the Stoics, principles (archai) that account for the cosmos are corporeal: God is the active principle, whereas unqualified matter is the passive principle.¹¹ Hence, in the Stoic scheme, God is a co-principle with matter, acting together with it to generate all existent things. It is difficult to say whether it is fair to accuse the Stoics of making God a material principle, possessing a body.¹² Nevertheless, this accusation was common among Platonists in Origen’s time.¹³ This polemical interpretation of Stoic theology appears frequently in Origen’s corpus and is summarized well in Contra Celsum:

The Stoics who maintain that God is a body . . . introduce a corruptible first principle which is corporeal [ἀρχὴν φθαρτὴν εἰσάγοντος τὴν σωματικὴν]. According to this last view, of the Stoics, even God is a body [ὁ θεὸς . . . ἐστι σῶμα], and they are not ashamed to say that He is capable of change [τρεπτὸν] and complete alteration [δι’ ὅλων ἀλλοιωτὸν] and transformation [μεταβλητὸν], and in general liable to corruption [ἁπαξαπλῶς δυνάμενον φθαρῆναι] if there is anyone to corrupt Him; as there is nothing which can do so He is fortunate enough not to be corrupted.¹⁴

Although a late work, Contra Celsum testifies that Origen has been concerned with Stoic theology explicitly. This lends some initial plausibility to the suggestion that he was earlier concerned with those who read Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5 through the lens of Stoic physics in PArch I.1. This conclusion is strengthened if we turn to examine another section from this same work, CCels. VI.69–71. The context of this passage is Celsus’s accusation that the Christian teaching of the incarnation, making God known to creatures through a kind of corporeal process, is unworthy of the divine.¹⁵ In response, Origen accuses Celsus of failing to understand the Christian position correctly. What is striking is that Origen’s response in CCels. VI.69–70 contains a number of points that are also found in the earlier work, PArch I.1:

1. God is incorporeal and thus invisible. The Son of God made God known by being the image of the invisible God (CCels. VI.69; PArch I.1.8).

2. The invisible God may be perceived by the “heart,” that is, the “mind” (CCels. VI.69; PArch I.1.9).

3. God shares his Spirit with those who can participate in him (the saints). But God’s Spirit is not to be conceived of as being cut into parts, divided up, and distributed to the saints (CCels. VI.70; PArch I.1.2).

4. Deut 4:24 is not to be interpreted literally. God is not a corporeal fire, and he does not consume corporeal things. Rather, the “wood or hay or stubble” (1 Cor. 3:12) consumed by God refers to sins (CCels. VI.70; PArch I.1.2).

5. Based on 2 Cor 3:6, we are to read certain passages (John 4:24 and Deut. 4:24) according to the spirit, not according to the letter (CCels. VI.70; PArch I.1.2).

6. Speaking to the Samaritan woman, Jesus taught that God is not to be worshiped in flesh and in material places. Rather, God is to be worshiped in spirit (understood in an incorporeal sense) (CCels. VI.70; PArch I.1.4).

These parallels suggest that Origen’s response to Celsus here simply rehearses anti-corporealist arguments developed earlier in PArch I.1. Origen’s response also touches on the key term in John 4:24—“spirit” (πνεῦμα)—which is central in the Stoic account of conflagration.¹⁶ In CCels. VI.71, at the summit of his response, Origen argues that Celsus’s chief error is lumping Christians and Stoics together when it comes to the term “spirit.”¹⁷ Because, like the Stoics, Christians have made πνεῦμα a key term in their theology, Celsus infers that the Christians must have understood the term corporeally as did the Stoics.¹⁸ Origen recognizes the problem created by the shared centrality of the term “spirit” in Christian and Stoic theology. His response is to summarize Stoic teaching in order to differentiate it from Christian teaching:

According to the opinion of the Stoics, who maintain that the first principles are corporeal, and who on this account hold that everything is destructible and venture even to make the supreme God Himself destructible (unless this seemed to them to be utterly outrageous), even the Logos of God that comes down to men and to the most insignificant things is nothing other than a material spirit. But in the view of us Christians, the divine Logos is not material. The Stoics may destroy everything in a conflagration if they like. But we do not recognize that an incorporeal being is subject to a conflagration, or that the soul of man is dissolved into fire, or that this happens to the being of angels, or thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers.¹⁹

This passage shows Origen’s familiarity with the Stoic doctrine of cosmic conflagration. His criticism of the Stoics in the passage I quoted earlier (CCels. I.21) is likely derived from the thought that if God is involved in the process of cosmic conflagration, then God is inevitably subjected to “change, complete alteration, transformation and corruption.”²⁰ Origen’s well-developed response to Celsus further illustrates that Stoic physics was the central background to the Alexandrian’s exegesis of πνεῦμα in John 4:24.

Summing up the foregoing evidence, we are led to the following view of the polemical context of PArch I.1. As an exegete and philosopher, Origen was sensitive to the problem of divine corporeality caused by Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5. He was deeply aware of the philosophical debates of the time concerning the nature of the first principle(s) and how it was relevant to the exegesis of these passages. In particular, as the response to Celsus has shown, Origen was aware that Stoic physics might lead some to interpret key terms in Scripture (in Deut. 4:24, “fire,” in John 4:24, “spirit”) as grounds for affirming divine corporeality. This constellation of issues in Origen’s mind formed the likely context for PArch I.1, an attempt to develop an alternative that counters the possibility of a “Christian Stoic” theology based on the three key passages. As we shall see, this is the task Origen set for himself in PArch I.1.

Origen’s Commitment to the Second Rule of The Republic in His Polemics

It is unlikely that we can reach any greater certainty regarding the identity of the opponents in PArch I.1. Origen’s critique of divine corporeality is not directed exclusively at the Stoics but also at the Epicureans, for instance.²¹ But what is clear is that Origen’s greatest concern is affirming a robust doctrine of divine incorporeality against the claim that God is a body. Origen’s own philosophical theology, including his exposition of divine simplicity, must be read as an attempt to set out an alternative. But before we analyze PArch I.1.6, it is helpful to see that Origen’s polemical insistence on divine incorporeality springs from his commitment to the second rule of the pattern of theological speech in The Republic. Underlying his critique of the Stoics is his conviction that it is not possible to believe in God’s perfect incorruptibility while holding that God has a body. As we have seen, Origen insists that everything that is corporeal is subjected to change, complete alteration, transformation, and corruption.²² This quartet of terms is repeated in CCels. III.75.²³ The Stoics might not have endorsed the logic that the corruptibility of God follows as a consequence of holding to divine corporeality. But in Origen’s reading, divine corporeality necessarily leads to a God who is mutable and subject to variation. Origen’s critique of the Stoics reveals that he is ultimately committed to the second rule in The Republic: theological speech that is worthy of God must not postulate that change and a multiplicity of forms are part of the divine nature.²⁴

In CCels. IV.14, we find testimony to Origen’s enduring commitment to this rule. In this passage Origen is responding to Celsus’s criticism of the Christian account of God’s descent into the world through the incarnation as inappropriate to the nature of divinity. The starting point of Celsus’s theology is precisely the Platonic rule in question: God “exists in the most beautiful state,” and hence he is unchangeable. For Celsus, if God is to descend into the world, then surely this subjects God to change. The kind of change Celsus has in mind is very precise: it is a change “from good to bad, from beautiful to shameful, from happiness to misfortune, and from what is best to what is most wicked.” In other words, Celsus is arguing that the incarnation will bring the most undesirable kind of change to God: change from one state to its contrary. But why, according to Celeus, should God be exempted from such changes? Mortal and immortal beings differ, he contends, in that it is only the former that are subjected to “change and remoulding,” whereas an immortal being’s nature is “to remain the same without alteration.” So if God is immortal—which Celsus takes for granted—then God is not be able to undergo change. So Celsus’s theology can be summed up thus: (1) God exists in the most perfect state, (2) the realm of corporeal reality demands everything to be subjected to change and remolding, and (3) the divine nature is immortal and remains always the same without change. On this basis, Celsus concludes that it would be inappropriate for God to be associated with the realm of corporeal reality, as in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, because God’s perfect incorruptibility would be compromised.

Celsus’s theology is clearly grounded in Plato’s second rule in The Republic.²⁵ He was simply drawing out the implication of the rule for God’s relations to the world. Origen’s response to Celsus’s reasoning, however, is illuminating. Origen affirms Celsus’s methodological principle that an immortal, self-same God cannot suffer any change from the perfect state to its contrary. Origen is thus equally committed to the second rule of theological speech in The Republic. But from Origen’s perspective, Celsus’s main error lies in his hermeneutics. Like the Christian Stoics and simple anthropomorphites, Celsus has failed to pass beyond the “letter” of Scripture. The Scriptural account of the incarnation does not imply that God was subjected to change when he “descended.” Rather, God descends in terms of his care for human affairs: “While remaining unchanged in essence, He comes down in his providence and care.”²⁶ According to Origen, God’s descent into human affairs is to be interpreted symbolically.²⁷ The sense in which God has “descended” is analogical to the way we commonly say that teachers come down to the level of children for the sake of their education or wise men come down to those who are beginners in philosophy. These examples provide a sense of descent without necessarily conveying a physical descent. For Origen, this is how one should understand the language of divine descent in Scripture—for it would make no sense for the God who fills heaven and earth to be limited in his presence to a localized place.²⁸ So if Celsus had gone beyond the “letter,” he would have reached the conclusion that the incarnation in no way implies the idea that in “descending” God’s immortal and self-same nature was changed to its contrary state.

Origen then repeats the same argument at the level of the doctrine of God. He argues that Celsus has failed to distinguish the Christian doctrine of God from various corporeal notions of the divine. Epicurean doctrines, for instance, hold that the divine is compounded of atoms and is liable to dissolution. Epicurean theology thus presents the gods as concerned with throwing off the atoms that may cause their destruction. The idea is that only certain specific atoms remain stable in composition, whereas others do not, and so it is necessary for the gods to throw off the ones that do not. In virtue of this process, the Epicurean gods are subjected to the kind of change Celsus had in mind. Similarly, the Stoic notion of divinity takes on different states during different stages of the dynamics of world history: at the conflagration stage, the divine substance is entirely composed of the ἡγεμονικόν (guiding principle), whereas at the stage of new world order, it becomes a part of the cosmos—a divine organism that is immanent in the cosmos. In Origen’s reading, the Stoic divinity is also subjected to the kind of change Celsus had in mind. But unlike Epicureans and Stoics, Origen argues, Christians likewise affirm the Platonic pattern for theological speech, albeit on the basis of the divine Scriptures.²⁹ On the basis of Mal. 3:6 and Ps. 101:28 (LXX), Christians teach “the true conception of God’s nature, as being entirely incorruptible, simple, uncompounded, and indivisible” (τὴν φυσικὴν τοῦ θεοῦ ἔννοιαν ὡς πάντῃ ἀφθάρτου καὶ ἁπλοῦ καὶ ἀσυνθέτου καὶ ἀδιαιρέτου).³⁰ Here divine simplicity is posited as a characteristic of divine incorporeality. If the gods of the Epicureans and Stoics are liable to dissolution and division, the God of the Christians is simple and free from the possibility of corruption. Furthermore, unlike the Epicureans and Stoics, Christians distinguish simple and intelligible reality from composite and sense-perceptible reality. For Christians, the “God of the universe is mind. . . . He transcends mind and being, and is simple and invisible and incorporeal.”³¹ Once again, Celsus’s overly simplistic approach has led to his failure to distinguish Christian theology from theologies that clearly affirm divine corporeality.

The foregoing analysis of CCels IV.14 thus confirms that Origen clearly shares with Celsus the demand for theological language to be shaped by the second rule of The Republic. This commitment, in turn, forms the backdrop of Origen’s polemic against attributing corporeality to God. Origen ultimately rejects divine corporeality because it is incompatible with God’s perfect constancy. It is not surprising, then, that simplicity, the notion at the heart of the second rule in The Republic, features prominently in Origen’s polemic in PArch I.1. In what follows, I shall read Origen’s exposition of divine simplicity in PArch I.1.6 as an attempt to counter a theology of divine corporeality and its associated hermeneutics with a robust doctrine of divine incorporeality that is fully compatible with the second rule of The Republic.

The Philosophical Case for Divine Simplicity in PArch I.1

Origen’s central focus in PArch I.1.6 is to clarify the distinction between God and corporeal beings. His central strategy is to follow what we have seen in the Middle Platonist Alcinous, namely, to identify God as the supreme first principle, source of all composite and sense-perceptible (hence corporeal) realities, a simple intellectual (hence incorporeal) existence. This identification suffices to differentiate God from corporeal realities. Like many of his Middle Platonic and Christian predecessors we have encountered in the previous chapters, Origen maintains this distinction by comparing the operations of the divine mind with the operations of human minds. Thus the central question posed in PArch I.1.6 is this: if God is simple, what is the necessary consequence in terms of the nature of his operations?

According to Origen, a simple God is distinguished from ordinary corporeal beings in that his actions can suffer no delay or hesitation due to factors associated with corporeality. In PArch I.1.6 Origen unfolds this claim through two basic premises about the divine nature. First, God does not require physical space for his acts because he is not conditioned by the limitations imposed by corporeality. Second, God does not need physical magnitudes in order to act.³² These premises are likely rooted in Middle Platonic negative theology.³³ As we have seen, Alcinous’s theology was strongly shaped by a theological reading of the first hypothesis of Plato’s Parmenides, according to which what is truly one is that which is not many and is without parts (Parm. 137c–d). This claim has a series of implications, of which four are particularly relevant to Origen’s argument in PArch I.1.6. Noncomposition (1) is without limits (Parm. 137d), (2) has no extension or shape (Parm. 137d–138a), (3) is nowhere, that is, not contained in space (Parm. 138a–b), and (4) is not in time, that is, cannot be or become older or younger (Parm. 140e–141d). Hence, if something is truly one, then one must abstract these restrictions from it.³⁴ As in Alcinous, the negative theology formulated through this method of abstraction is often combined with the (Aristotelianizing) identification of God as the supreme mind. Taken together, these implications help set out an account of God as a simple mind (i.e., the most supreme of all intellects) who is without limits, extension, and shape, not restricted in physical space or time. While Origen does not pursue the method of abstraction rigorously as Philo or Clement of Alexandria does, nevertheless PArch I.1.6 reflects his clear reliance on Middle Platonic theology to provide a concrete notion of divine incorporeality.

In light of this background, let us turn to examine Origen’s argument on the nature of divine operations. The bulk of PArch I.1.6 is spent establishing the plausibility of the two premises mentioned above. First, the mind does not require physical space to move because, by its very nature, intellectual operations are not affected by physical space. Consequently, a purely simple mind possesses its own sphere of operations unaffected by physical restrictions. For Origen, this is evident even from the nature of human minds:

It is certain, even from the observation of our own mind, that mind does not need space to move according to its own nature. For if it abides within its own sphere, and nothing from any cause occurs to obstruct it, it will never be slowed down at all, by reason of difference in place, from performing its own movements; nor, on the other hand, does it gain any addition or increase of mobility from the quality of [particular] places.³⁵

Origen gives an example to illustrate his point. He asks his reader to consider a man traveling by sea in a boat tossed by the waters. In this specific location, our mind would seem to be less effectual in its operations compared to when we are on land. In this instance, does it mean that the difference of physical place has affected the way our mind functions? For Origen, the answer is no. The difference in this case is caused not by the nature of the particular physical locations but by the movement and disturbance of the body. The man traveling by sea suffers diminishing mental capacities because it is against the nature of the human body to live at sea. Consequently, while at sea, the man is not able to sustain his intellectual operations as on land because his body, to which his mind is conjoined, suffers diminishing ability to enable the mind to function freely. Therefore, the following two accounts must be distinguished:

1. The human mind functions less well at sea than on land because intellectual operations are prone to be affected by physical locations

2. The human mind functions less well at sea than on land because it is conjoined with the body, and the body’s capacity to facilitate intellectual operations is prone to being affected by physical locations.

In other words, the cause of the discrepancy between our mental activities on land and at sea is found not in the mind, but in the body being affected by physical locations. Hence, in the case of the human mind, it appears that intellectual operations are affected by physical locations, but the discrepancy is due to the fact that humans are mind-body composites. Origen thus draws from this illustration the conclusion that even in the case of human minds, intellectual operations are not by nature affected by physical locations.

God’s mind, however, differs from human minds: “God, who is the beginning of all things, is not be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance there be found, prior to the first principle itself, elements, out of which whatever is called composite has been composed.”³⁶ Here Origen explicitly identifies God, the purely simple mind, as the first principle of all things. This identification implies that God must be prior to all things—the origin and source of everything that has come after him. Hence God is most appropriately called μονάς (unity) or ἑνάς (oneness) because he is the first being, who alone is truly one. Anything other than the first is merely one among many. Given that God is the first, there can be absolutely nothing prior to God. In the above passage, God’s priority is closely linked to simplicity in a way similar to what we have seen in Alcinous: if God is composed of parts, then each of the elements would have had to be prior to God. Origen thus also supposes the kind of reasoning we saw previously in the Phaedo. If something is a composite, then its existence as a whole is posterior to the individual parts because the whole is dependent on the putting together of all the parts. This implies that the individual parts need to exist prior to the composite whole not merely temporally, but causally. In a composite, then, the parts have a causal priority over the composite whole. It follows that the claim that God is the first principle cannot be made compatible with the claim that God is composite. Consequently, if God is the first principle of all things, then God cannot be a composite of mind and body. Now, as Origen has argued, the only restriction on human mental operations that is imposed by physical locations results from the fact that humans are mind-body composites. But since this restriction does not apply to God due to divine simplicity, God’s operations must be purely effectual and suffer no delay due to restrictions imposed by physical locations. This concludes the argument for the first premise, that God does not require physical space to act.

Now let us turn to Origen’s argument for the second premise, that God does not need physical magnitudes to act. Mind, by its very nature, is free from any corporeal attributes whatsoever: physical magnitudes, bodily shapes, colors, or anything of this kind. Just as mental operations act in a sphere distinct from physical space, so mental magnitudes that measure the strengths of mental operations are also distinct from physical magnitudes. All magnitudes that measure and circumscribe bodies are therefore not applicable to an existence that is purely intellectual. Unlike the eye, which grows in physical magnitudes—it expands and contracts—the mind does not grow in physical magnitudes when it operates. Instead, the mind grows with respect to intellectual magnitudes as opposed to physical magnitudes and a sense of growth (e.g., aging). Origen gives the following example: mind grows not as one ages physically but rather through education. The first point to note, then, is that the growth of mental magnitudes is not necessarily concomitant to the growth of physical magnitudes (e.g., age in this example).

As in the argument for the first premise, Origen proceeds to discuss the case of human minds in which the independence of mental magnitudes from physical magnitudes is somewhat impeded. He similarly accounts for this impediment by the fact that humans are mind-body composites. While in principle a mind could grow in intellectual magnitudes entirely free from physical magnitudes, humans are not able to carry out from birth the exercises necessary to sharpen the power of the mind. This is because human bodily parts are weak, in the first instance, with respect to their ability to enable the mind to grow effectively in intellectual magnitudes. No concrete example is supplied by Origen, but one could easily imagine what he might have had in mind. Consider a child who gets physically tired after long hours of mathematical exercises. The intellectual exercises tire her body, making her not “able to endure the force of the mind’s working.” Or consider a baby who is not yet able to receive verbal instructions. In this case, its physical immaturity prevents it from receiving instructions necessary for growth in intellectual magnitudes. Origen’s point is that in the case of humans, our physical conditions do indeed affect our capacity to grow intellectually because we are mind-body composites. But the human case notwithstanding, the distinction between intellectual and physical attributes implies that it is in principle possible to envisage a mind that is entirely without restrictions imposed by physical magnitudes. God is precisely such a mind due to his simplicity. Hence, divine simplicity implies that God is able to operate entirely independently from physical magnitudes.³⁷ This concludes the argument for the second premise, that God does not require physical magnitudes to act. This conclusion, in turn, further affirms that divine operations are totally unimpeded by corporeal conditions given divine simplicity.

The Exegetical Case for Divine Simplicity in PArch I.1

Origen’s philosophical case for divine simplicity is further accompanied by an exegetical case. As I stressed earlier, his concern for divine incorporeality in PArch I.1 is occasioned by an exegetical concern with interpreting Deut. 4:24, John 4:24, and 1 John 1:5. For Origen, the philosophical doctrine of divine simplicity finds its basis in the teachings of the Scriptures. In PArch I.1.4 Origen sets out his exegetical case: there is no doubt that Jesus’s response to the Samaritan woman in John 4:24 indicates that God is incorporeal. He writes:

To this belief, then, of the Samaritan woman, who thought that because of the privileges of material places, God was less rightly or rightly worshipped either by the Jews in Jerusalem or by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Saviour answered that one who would follow God must refrain from all preference for material places, and spoke thus: “The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain shall true worshippers worship the Father. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” See also how appropriately he has associated truth with spirit: he called [God] spirit to distinguish him from bodies, and truth to distinguish him from a shadow or an image.

In this passage Origen is offering a reading of John 4:24 in the context of the whole conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The woman believes that right worship is attached to a material place. But Jesus’s response to her goes beyond simply pointing out her faulty understanding of worship. Rather, Origen interprets Jesus’s response as offering a diagnosis of the Samaritan woman’s faulty theology: she has a materialistic understanding of God, from which her faulty belief about worship is derived. God, however, is “spirit.” This phrase, then, captures Jesus’s insistence, contrary to the Samaritan woman’s materialistic theology, that the divine nature must be distinguished from corporeal natures. This exegesis suggests that this passage teaches that God must be incorporeal. In Origen’s mind, then, John 4:24 offers a clear exegetical foundation for the metaphysical doctrine of divine simplicity set out in PArch I.1.6.

The use of John 4:24 showcases the exegetical case for divine simplicity only partially. Origen further argues that the Greek philosophical term ἀσώματον can be found in Scripture under the name ἀόρατον (invisible). While the two terms obviously differ in name, Origen argues that they are identical in sense: both ἀσώματον and ἀόρατον signify the reality of “any substance in which neither colour nor form nor touch nor magnitude is to be understood, to be visible to the mind alone.”³⁸ For Origen, there is ample Scriptural evidence that there is indeed such a correspondence:

Perhaps these assertions [viz., regarding divine incorporeality] may seem to have less authority with those who wish to be instructed in divine things from the holy Scriptures, and who seek to have it proved to them from that source how the nature of God surpasses the nature of bodies. See, then, if the Apostle also does not say the same thing when, speaking of Christ, he says, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15). Not, as some suppose, that the nature of God is visible to some and invisible to others; for the Apostle does not say, “the image of God who is invisible to men” or “invisible to sinners,” but pronounces, with absolute constancy, on the very nature of God, saying, “the image of the invisible God.” And John, also, saying in the Gospel, “No one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18), clearly declares to all who are able to understand that there is no being to which God is visible; not as if he were a being visible by nature and yet eludes and escapes the gaze of the frailer creatures, but because by nature it is impossible for him to be seen.³⁹

The argument here rests on the exegesis of Col. 1:15 and John 1:18. According to Origen, here Scripture does not apply the term ἀόρατον to God in a relative sense. In other words, God is not merely visible to one and invisible to another. Rather, ἀόρατον is applied to God in an absolute sense, meaning that by his very nature he is invisible—he does not possess a nature that admits of being seen. That which is visible can be seen in no other way than “by its shape and size and colour, which are properties of bodies.”⁴⁰ Thus, whenever Scripture declares that the divine nature is invisible, then it amounts to implying that God is incorporeal. In this manner, the doctrine of divine simplicity may be grounded exegetically given that, as we have seen in PArch I.1.6, divine simplicity is just a way to unpack divine incorporeality. Origen’s philosophical case for divine simplicity is therefore accompanied by an exegetical foundation that, in his mind, can be found if one attends to Scripture carefully.⁴¹

ETHICAL SIMPLICITY

Origen develops metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity along the lines we have seen in chapter 2. But the simplicity of God is not simply a metaphysical aside for Origen; it lies at the heart of his vision of spiritual perfection. Like Philo, Origen speaks of spiritual perfection as most appropriately reflected by the sense of absolute oneness, that is, in the sense of perfect constancy—a quality at the heart of the meaning of divine simplicity in The Republic. The second part of this chapter will be devoted to illustrating how Origen develops this sense of ethical simplicity, which serves as the basis of a vision of spiritual perfection. In this vision, the perfection of words and humanity itself is ultimately measured by the standard of God’s perfect simplicity. Hence Origen’s vision of spiritual life is inseparable from his doctrine of God. This examination thus unveils the centrality of ethical simplicity in Origen’s theology, located at the heart of his vision of spirituality.

The Basic Idea

Origen’s vision of perfection draws on the contrast between one and many. He takes this contrast as containing a deeper meaning beyond what we might call its literal sense. This claim arises out of his close attention to the grammatical structure of Scripture, especially to the use of the singular and the plural.⁴² In many places Origen observes that Scripture’s use of the singular and the plural points toward a deeper theological meaning in a given passage. In these instances, the contrast between one and many denotes a deeper theological contrast between perfection (goodness) and imperfection (lack of goodness). Origen thinks such passages call for a hermeneutic that unveils this deeper layer of meaning. It is in this context that Origen develops an ethical interpretation of one and many. Origen’s framework can be illustrated by the following fragment from Selecta in Genesim on Genesis 11:

“Come, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one language of his neighbor” (Gen. 11:7). The confusion of tongues is a sign of evil, whereas this is truly a sign of virtue, when “there was one heart and one soul of all believers” (Acts 4:32). Thus you will find, observing the Scriptures, that wherever there is a multitude of number [πλῆθος ἀριθμοῦ], that wherever there is schism [σχίσμα], that wherever there is division [διαίρεσις] and internal discord [διαφωνία], and the like, it is a sign of evil [κακία]. But where there is unity [ἑνότης], and harmony [ὁμόνοια], and many miracles in the Word, there virtue [ἀρετής] is made known.⁴³

In this fragment Origen picks up on the numerical plurality of languages (tongues) found in Genesis 11. God’s decision to confuse the tongues of men indicates the presence of evil on earth. This is because this act results in a multitude of number (πλῆθος ἀριθμοῦ)—a reality that is referred to in the plural. According to Origen, numerical plurality is always presented as a sign of evil in Scripture, which associates multiplicity with a group of terms that connote a lack of unity among many beings or things. “Schism,” “division,” and “internal discord” all refer to cases in which many beings or things are not held together by a more fundamental unity. In this sense, then, the multitude of tongues in Genesis 11 is a sign of evil among those confused by God. In contrast, the description of the disciples in Acts 4:32 reflects paradigmatically how Scripture uses oneness as a sign of virtue. Acts 4:32 refers to the believers as having “one heart and one soul” in order to indicate the profound virtuous quality, unity, and harmony, of the early Christian community. Since the contrast between multitude (Gen. 11) and oneness (Acts 4:32) is interpreted ethically, in this fragment Origen is not really focusing on numerical plurality as is seemingly indicated by the presence of the plural in Genesis 11. Rather, he is attending to how Scripture is using the plural as a sign that points toward the evil character among those confused by God. Similarly, while Acts 4:32 certainly refers to many disciples numerically, Origen is not primarily interested in the literal sense of numerical oneness indicated by the description “one heart and one soul.” Rather, his interpretation attends to how this use of the singular in Scripture serves as a sign that points to the virtuous quality of the community in Acts 4. What this illustrates, then, is Origen’s insistence on attending to an ethical sense of the singular and plural in Scripture beyond their respective literal senses.

This fragment on Genesis 11 sketches the basic contours of Origen’s ethical interpretation of one and many. On the one hand, perfect reality, characterized by virtue, possesses unity and harmony. Unity in this ethical sense is used by Scripture as a sign of those who are virtuous. On the other hand, imperfect reality is many, characterized by schism, division, and internal conflicts. Multiplicity in this ethical sense is used by Scripture as a sign of those who are imperfect (evil, sinful, etc.). One important implication that follows from this hermeneutical approach is that both one and many in their ethical senses must be distinguished from their literal counterparts. The use of the ethical sense of oneness will not be restricted to single subjects—those who are numerically one. Similarly, the application of multiplicity in its ethical sense also will not be restricted to multiple subjects (many in the numerical sense). In this way, as we shall see, Origen utilizes the ethical interpretation of one and many to unveil deeper theological meanings in many passages of Scripture. To see this in action, I shall now turn to examining how he applies this framework to three themes: word, man, and God.

εἷς λόγος: The One Word and Many Words

In a fragment of the Commentary on John preserved in the Philocalia, Origen wrestles with the spiritual appropriateness of his endeavor to compose many books of his commentary. It seems that certain passages in Scripture do not recommend the making of many books. Ecclesiastes 12:12 reads: “My Son, beware of making many books.” Further, Proverbs 10:19 states that “in the multitude of words you shall not escape sin, but he who restrains his lips is prudent.” In light of these passages, which potentially call into question Origen’s book-making endeavors, he poses this question: what is the “multitude of words” that Scripture condemns? The meaning of this phrase needs to be inquired into carefully, Origen argues, because one cannot take it literally to mean numerically more than one word. This interpretation is absurd because, if it were true, then even men such as Solomon and Paul, who were speaking “holy and saving words,” would not escape the condemnation issued by Scripture. They would be considered guilty of sin since both spoke many words in their profitable teaching.⁴⁴

How, then, can this conundrum be resolved? Origen turns to considering the “multitude of words” beyond its literal sense. According to Origen, there are two kind of words. On the one hand, there is the perfect Word of God, which is not multiple. This is because Scripture has deliberately referred to this Word in the singular and not in the plural. In John 1:1 we read, “In the beginning was the Word,” not “words” or “a multitude of words.” However, the fact that the Word is singular does not mean that it is free from all kinds of multiplicity: “There is one Word consisting of many aspects” (λόγος γὰρ εἷς συνεστὼς ἐκ πλειόνων θεωρημάτων).⁴⁵ Origen is well aware that multiple aspects can be attributed to “the Word.” But this multiplicity does not compromise its oneness, because “each of these aspects is a part of the whole Word” (ἕκαστον θεώρημα μέρος ἐστὶ τοῦ ὅλου λόγου). So the Word of God is one in a sense that does not exclude multiplicity absolutely. On the other hand, besides the Word of God there are words (λόγοι) that are to be referred to in the plural. The multiplicity associated with the λόγοι is contrasted with the oneness of the divine Word. For λόγοι possess a multiplicity that lacks the final unity possessed by the Word of God in spite of its multiple aspects:

[For they, i.e., λόγοι, are] in no way a unit, and in no way are they harmonious and one, but because of disagreement and conflict, they have lost their unity and have become numbers, perhaps even endless numbers.

Οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ ἡ μονάς, καὶ οὐδαμοῦ τὸ σύμφωνον καὶ ἕν, ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὸ διεσπᾶσθαι καὶ μάχεσθαι τὸ ἕν ἀπ’ ἐκείνων ἀπώλετο, καὶ γεγόνασιν ἀριθμοί, καὶ τάχα ἀριθμοὶ ἄπειροι.⁴⁶

The kind of unity and multiplicity involved in the contrast between the one Word and multiple words must be treated carefully. The Word of God is one, even though it consists of numerically multiple aspects. It is even described as having these multiple meanings as parts (μέρη). The Word, which possesses multiple aspects numerically, is one since its aspects are unified into a single Word. The problem with the λόγοι does not concern their numerical multiplicity. Rather, Origen understands λόγοι as containing a plurality in which conflict and division are found. Thus, for Origen, the difference between the Word of God and the λόγοι comes down to the fact that while the former possesses a final unity amid numerical multiplicity, the latter do not. On this basis, the “multitude of words” in the warnings found in Ecclesiastes 12:12 and Proverbs 10:19 therefore cannot be understood literally.

Instead, Origen suggests that the multiplicity in the “multitude of words” is to be interpreted according to its ethical sense. Many saints spoke many words, but that is not a sign of their sinfulness. This is because what differentiates the singular word and the multitude of words resides in the nature of the words uttered. So in the case when many words are spoken, whether these words are to be described in the singular or the plural depends on whether there is a final unity and harmony within the nature of these words. If many words are spoken in accordance with godliness and truth, then even though there is a multitude of words, they can be called one word (εἷς λόγος) collectively: “According to this we may say that he who utters anything whatsoever contrary to godliness speaks much, while he who speaks the things of the truth, even though he speak so exhaustively as to omit nothing, even speaks one word, and the saints, making the one Word their constant aim, do not fall into the vice of much speaking.”⁴⁷ Hence, the problem Scripture raises regarding the making of many books and the speaking of many words is not tied up with the speech of numerically multiple words. Rather, the problematic multiplicity pertains to the nature of the words in question. If the words in question reflect the truth and godliness, as in the case of words uttered by the saints, then even though there are many words, they are appropriately described as being one Word. It is the making of imperfect words that Scripture forbids.

In support of this reading, Origen highlights that Scripture is full of examples in which one and many are not used in their literal sense but rather their ethical sense. For instance, what does Christ mean when he asks his disciples to “search the Scripture” (in the singular) in order to find his presence?⁴⁸ Does he mean that they should find him in one specific book of Scripture? This does not make sense, Origen argues, because Christ asks his disciples to find him in all the books of Scripture and not only in a particular portion.⁴⁹ According to Origen, the many books of Scripture are described in the singular here because the nature of the words contained therein reflects the perfect reality—a reality ultimately characterized by unity in truth and goodness. So while there are many books of Scripture—the Pentateuch, Prophets, Psalms, and so on—we are to find Christ in one book. Further, Scripture also describes the opposition between the one word and the multitude of words: The holy words are contained in one book, whereas many books are brought to those judged by God.⁵⁰ Thus Scripture in many places teaches that the singular Word and the multitude of words contain a deeper ethical sense: perfect words that are godly and virtuous are described by Scripture in the singular, whereas imperfect words that are ungodly and evil are described in the plural, denoting their multiplicity, which characterizes the division and internal conflict inherent in their nature.

Vir Unus: Singular and Plural Pronouns in Scripture

Origen also develops an ethical interpretation of the contrast between one and many in the context of anthropology. According to Origen, Scripture provides numerous examples in which the perfect and imperfect natures of man are contrasted by the deliberate use of singular and plural pronouns. In a number of passages he observes that there is a shift in pronouns from the singular to the plural for the same subject in question. Instead of interpreting these changes as textual inconsistencies, he argues that they should be interpreted in light of the ethical sense of one and many. The contrast between singular and plural pronouns is not a mistake but a deliberate device. When a plural pronoun is used, Scripture is pointing to the imperfect nature of those who are addressed. But when a singular pronoun is used, Scripture is stressing the perfect nature of those who are addressed. So the shift of pronouns in Scripture for Origen signposts a theological lesson about the distinct natures of perfect and imperfect man.

A number of examples illustrate how Origen carries this exegesis out. In the ninth homily on Ezekiel he observes that Ezekiel 16 seems to be rebuking the same addressee (Jerusalem), and so it seems that Scripture is repeating the same message for no good reasons. However, he observes that in the same chapter the pronoun shifts from the singular (Pater tuus Amorrhaeus, Mater tua Chettaea, Ezek. 16:3) to the plural (Mater vestra Chettaea, Pater vester Amorrhaeus, Ezek. 16:45) in God’s naming of Jerusalem’s ancestry. According to Origen, this shift of pronouns is not accidental:

There the words are, as it were, addressed to one person; here as if to many. . . . When sin is diffused and evil goes forth more widely and sinners share their sins among themselves, then there is not a single sinner, but in one there are many, just as in the beginning when there was a commencement of transgressing, there were not yet so many as the multitudes that now exist.⁵¹

So even though Ezekiel 16 is addressing one person (Jerusalem interpreted figuratively), the plural pronoun is used to indicate the multiplicity contained in her sinful nature. In the one sinner there are paradoxically many sinners because of the contagiousness of sin. The nature of sin is that it multiplies and spreads. Here, clearly, the multitude in question goes beyond the literal sense. The one sinner can be called many because of the multitude that is characteristic of sin itself. Here we have a reversal of what we have seen previously when Origen points out that even though numerical multiplicity of aspects is present in the Word of God, there is an ultimate unity that warrants calling the Word one according to its perfection. In the passage on Ezekiel, even though there is numerical singularity, the one sinner contains, potentially, many sinners in herself. Hence Jerusalem is addressed by the plural pronoun according to her sinfulness. Just as the ethical sense of oneness can accommodate numerical multiplicity, so the ethical sense of multiplicity can accommodate numerical singularity. In this passage, then, Origen clearly takes the multiplicity in question in its ethical sense, denoting the nature of sin.

In Homily on Ezekiel 9.2, Origen further elaborates the respective natures of sin and virtue on the basis of an ethical interpretation of one and many. The language here is very close to that of the Genesis fragment we have seen previously: imperfection is associated with multiplicity, schisms, heresies, and dissensions, whereas perfection is associated with solitariness and unity. Origen’s language here, though, is even more striking: “The beginning of all evils is multiplicity,” he writes. Acts 4:32 is once again invoked as the paradigmatic Scripture account of perfection. What is new in this passage is that Origen elaborates the dynamic process of salvation in relation to the ethical sense of one and many:

If we are to be saved, we must in unity “become perfect in the same mind and in the same thought” (1 Cor. 1:10). We must be “one body and one spirit” (Eph. 4:4). But if we are such that unity does not circumscribe us . . . and we are still being torn apart and divided by evil, we are not going to be where those are who are drawn back into union. For as the Father and the Son are one (John 10:30), so those who have one Spirit are confined into a union. For the Saviour says: “I and the Father, we are one” (John 10:30), and “Holy Father, just as I and you are one, . . . they may be one in us’ (John 17:11–12). And one reads in the Apostle: “Until we all attain to the perfect man and to the measure of the age of fulness in the unity of Christ”; and again: “Until we all attain to the unity of the body and spirit of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). From this it is signified that virtue makes one from many, and that we need to become one through it and to flee from the multitude.⁵²

According to this passage, perfect unity characterizes the soteriological telos for the believer, as indicated by Scripture. So even though sinners possess multiplicity characterized by division, through virtue they may flee multiplicity and become one. This is possible because “virtue makes one from many.” This passage thus sets out a soteriological vision in terms of the ethical sense of one and many: it is possible to overcome one’s multitude (denoting imperfection) toward unity (denoting perfection). While sin is indicated by multitude, it is possible to be transformed from multiplicity toward unity through virtue.

The same soteriological vision is even more clearly set out in a passage from the lost Commentary on Hosea, which is preserved in Philocalia VIII. Commenting on Hosea 12:4, Origen notes a similar example of shifting pronouns, this time proceeding from the plural to the singular. Characteristically, he contends that this is not to be interpreted as an error in the copy of the text but rather to be understood as signposting a theological lesson. He turns to Genesis 2:16–17 to note that a similar pattern of shifting pronouns is observed.⁵³ In that passage God is giving commands to Adam. God begins by addressing Adam in the singular when he is giving positive commands: “Of every tree in the garden you may freely eat [βρώσει φαγῇ]” (Gen. 2:16). However, when God turns to the negative commands—regarding what Adam is forbidden to eat—he addresses Adam in the plural: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it [οὐ φάγεσθε]: for in the day that ye eat [φάγητε] thereof, ye shall surely die [ἀποθανεῖσθε]” (Gen. 2:17). The reason for the shift from the singular to the plural, Origen explains, is that in the case of the positive commands, God is speaking of the way that would preserve the lives of those who would obey them. As a result, those who would keep the positive commands are one in virtue of their single-minded obedience to God’s command, though they might be many in the literal sense (as seen in the example of Acts 4:32). However, in the case of the negative commands, God is speaking of laws regarding sin and transgression. The nature of such things is, as we have seen, associated with multiplicity. And so God refers to those who would sin and transgress his laws in the plural. In light of this observation, Origen suggests that the Genesis text reveals the principle that when Scripture is speaking of realities related to goodness and virtue, the singular is used and when it is speaking of realities related to sin and transgression, the plural is used. He then returns to the Hosea passage and attaches a soteriological thrust to this principle:

And so it is with the present passage. When they still weep and make supplication to God, the plural is used—“They wept and made supplication to me” [Ἔκλαυσαν καὶ ἐδεήθησάν μου]; but when they find God, He no longer uses the plural—“There He spake, not with them [πρὸς αὐτούς],” but “with him” [πρὸς αὐτόν]. For by finding God and by hearing His Word, they have already become one [ἕν γεγόνασιν]. For the individual when he sins is one of many, severed from God and divided, his unity gone [Ὁ γὰρ εἷς ὅτε ἁμαρτάνει πολλοστός ἐστιν, ἀποσχιζόμενος ἀπὸ θεοῦ καὶ μεριζόμενος καὶ τῆς ἑνότητος ἐκπεσών]; but the many [οἱ . . . πολλοὶ] who follow the commandments of God are one [εἷς].⁵⁴

According to this remarkable passage, those who are separated from God—who have fallen into sin and transgression—are addressed in the plural because this indicates their true nature. Before receiving salvation, a sinner was addressed in the plural because he was severed from God, the source of unity and oneness. Hence the unity of the person was gone. Nevertheless, the situation changes when he finds God and hears the Word of God. This encounter with God effects a transformation from many to one such that now the man is called one man, since those who have found God have become one (ἕν γεγόνασιν). Thus, while Origen sharply distinguishes perfect and imperfect men through the language of one and many, the man who is many can overcome his imperfect multiplicity through a proper encounter with God, the perfect source of unity.

One and many, then, are core terms Origen uses to speak of spiritual transformation. But a critical issue remains: why is it intelligible to associate the righteous man with oneness and the imperfect man with multiplicity? A passage from the First Homily on 1 Samuel will shed light on the issue. In Hom1S I.4, occasioned by 1 Sam. 1:1, Origen is concerned by a variant among various copies of the text. It seems that while some copies have “there was a certain man” (erat vir quidam), other copies have “there was one man” (erat vir unus). Origen argues in favor of the latter by offering an ethical interpretation of one and many. It is more correct to adhere to erat vir unus because Scripture is using unus to teach a theological lesson about the nature of the righteous man since rendering the verse erat vir quidam will remove the “title of praise,” vir unus, attributed to the righteous man. Here, then, Origen clarifies why this title cannot be attributed to the sinful man, who is said to be many and not one:

We, who are sinners until now, are not able to acquire the title of praise, because each one of us is not one, but many. For consider with me the face of someone who is angry at one moment, sad the next. Shortly afterwards, he is joyful, then troubled again, and then again calm. At one time, he enquires about divine things and the acts pertaining to eternal life, while shortly after, he strives towards things pertaining to greed or worldly glory. Behold, how that man whom we believe to be one person is not one at all. Instead, there seem to be many persons in him, as many as there are behaviors, since even according to the Scriptures, “the fool changes like the moon” (Sir. 27:11 LXX).⁵⁵

The sinner is many because he is subjected to changes that turn him from one state to another. But Origen’s stress here is not on the possibility of any change but on changes from one state to its contrary. The sinner is many because he is subjected to many mutually conflicting states. At one time he could be happy and yet sad soon after. At one time he could be striving for divine things and yet soon after moved toward worldly glory. Due to such changes, the sinner can never remain one. Internal division, then, is the ruling characteristic that qualifies a person to be described as many. Paradoxically, internal division turns the numerically one into what is truly many. In contrast, the vir unus is not subjected to changes that bring about in him one state at one time and its contrary at another time. Perfect constancy, then, is what qualifies a person to be described as one. Once again, paradoxically, this oneness has the effect of transforming the numerically many into one, as in Acts 4:32, where the multitude of believers are described as having “one heart and one soul.” For although the Church is composed of many in the numerical sense, there is a perfect constancy of character among them. This is why the Church is described as one man, vir unus, the perfect one who shall receive the prize from God.

The Homily on 1 Samuel I.4 clarifies the intelligibility of Origen’s application of one and many in his anthropology. Further, this passage crucially connects Origen’s ethical sense of oneness with the notion of simplicity in The Republic. Origen’s distinction between the perfect and the imperfect man in this passage resembles the distinction between the forms and particulars in The Republic. The form of beauty captures perfect beauty because its contrary, ugliness, can never be attributed to it. Similarly, the perfect man for Origen is one who is perfectly consistent with his own nature such that contraries cannot be found in him. Origen’s vir unus, then, is simple in the sense attributed to the divine in The Republic. Conversely, the imperfect sinner is many because he lacks this simplicity. It is therefore the ethical sense of simplicity that ultimately grounds the intelligibility of Origen’s use of one and many in his anthropology. From this observation it is no surprise that at the summit of Origen’s vision of spiritual perfection is the perfectly simple God, through whom all sinful humans, characterized by multiplicity, are to become one.

One God: The Self-Same Unchanging Reality

In the same discussion on the vir unus in Hom1S I.4, Origen identifies the ethical sense of oneness (and its contrary) as most perfectly found in God. But what does divine oneness entail? So far I have indicated that Origen’s understanding of the ethical sense of oneness is not an absolute rejection of multiplicity. Rather, multitude in the ethical sense refers to subjection to diverse conflicting states—thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and so on. Verbal multiplicity is imperfect because it lacks internal unity; hence, one word could stand in opposition to another. The sinner is many because he is internally divided, acting in contrary ways. So a reality described as many in the ethical sense is imperfect because it does not possess an ultimate unity that holds the multiplicity together and prevents the possibility of internal conflict caused by diverse contrary states. This state of affairs, according to Origen, is what stands in contrast with God, who is described in Deut. 6:4 as one: “Hear O Israel! The Lord your God; God is one [Deus unus est].” In Origen’s reading, here the oneness spoken of by Scripture goes beyond its literal sense. God is called one not simply according to number: “God is to be believed to be above all number.” Rather, “one” refers to God’s immutability, as indicated by Ps. 101:28 (LXX), where God is said to be “the same” (idem ipse), and in Mal. 3:6, God says of himself: “I do not change” (non immutor). It is in light of these verses that the “one” in Deut. 6:4 should be understood. God stands in contrast to the “many” because he is never subjected to the possibility of acting in contrary ways. Rather, God is truly one because he is ever self-same without being other than who he is. As a result, “That which does not change is said to be one.” This constellation of ideas points to what I have already hinted at earlier in Origen’s response to Celsus, namely, that the Alexandrian identifies the simple God of The Republic as the God of the Scriptures (Mal. 3:6).

Perfection, therefore, is appropriately described as one because God is one. God’s perfect oneness, or ethical simplicity, constitutes the basis for Origen’s ethical interpretation of one and many. Vir unus is an appropriate phrase to use to praise the perfect righteous man because he is the true imitator of God.⁵⁶ In other words, since the righteous man does not act in contrary ways and is not subjected to internal division, he truly reflects the simplicity of God. Likewise, the Word of God is one in that its diverse aspects display unity and harmony among them, lacking mutual conflicts. On the contrary, evil and imperfect realities are called “many” in order to reflect how their natures are contrary to the divine simplicity. Due to the presence of internal divisions, everything described by Origen as “many”—a single sinner, many words, and so on—lack the simplicity most perfectly reflected by God. Origen’s ethical interpretation of one and many thus ultimately springs from treating God’s perfect simplicity as the measure of perfection in all things. The nature of things can be one or many in the literal sense, but their ultimate natures are signified by one and many in the ethical sense, measured by the perfect simplicity of God. In the Homilies on Leviticus Origen remarks that “he who is holy is of God alone . . . but he who is a sinner and unclean is of the many.”⁵⁷ This statement sums up Origen’s ethical understanding of one and many: whatever is holy is of God alone, thus one, but whatever is imperfect is contrary to God, hence many.

THE METAPHYSICAL-ETHICAL SYNTHESIS

The foregoing analysis reveals two aspects of Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity. On the one hand, as the supreme first principle of all things, God is a simple intellectual existence. On the other hand, as the measure of perfection, God displays perfect constancy, never acting in contradictory ways. These two aspects are nonetheless not disconnected parts of Origen’s thinking. In this final section I shall turn to showing that Origen indeed explicitly connects the two aspects of this thinking in a crucial passage in his treatise Peri Euchēs (On Prayer).

In PEuch XXI.2 Origen considers the purpose of Jesus’s preface to the disciples in Matt. 6:7 before he teaches them how to pray. The disciples, Jesus exhorts them, are not to be like the gentile, who “uses vain repetitions.” What does Jesus mean by “vain repetitions,” Origen asks? His explanation is illuminating:

It seems indeed that he who speaks much “uses vain repetitions,” and he who “uses vain repetitions” speaks much. For no material or bodily thing is single: but every one of them, though reckoned single, is split up and cut in pieces and divided into several parts, having lost its unity. Virtue is one, vice is many; truth is one, falsehood is many; the true righteousness is one, ways to counterfeiting it are many; the wisdom of God is one, the wisdoms “of this world” and “of the rulers of this world, which are coming to nought,” are many; the word of God is one, those who are estranged from God are many.

καὶ ἔοικέ γε ὁ πολυλογῶν βαττολογεῖν, καὶ ὁ βαττολογῶν πολυλογεῖν. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἓν τῆς ὕλης καὶ τῶν σωμάτων, ἀλλ’ ἕκαστον τῶν νομιζομένων ἕν ἔσχισται καὶ διακέκοπται καὶ διῄρηται εἰς πλείονα τὴν ἕνωσιν ἀπολωλεκός· ἓν γὰρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν πολλὰ δὲ τὰ αἰσχρὰ, και ἓν ἡ ἀλήθεια πολλὰ δὲ τὰ ψευδῆ, καὶ ἓν ἡ ἀληθὴς δικαιοσύνη, πολλαὶ δὲ ἕξεις ταύτην ὑποκρίνονται, καὶ ἓν ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ σοφία, πολλαὶ δὲ αἱ καταργούμεναι τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου καὶ τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, καὶ εἷς μὲν ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος, πολλοὶ δὲ οἱ ἀλλότριοι τοῦ θεοῦ.⁵⁸

Origen’s interpretation of “vain repetitions” here resembles how he interprets the sense of “multitude of words” in Proverbs 10:19, as we have seen previously. The multitude in the one who “speaks much” is clearly understood in the ethical sense, referring to the imperfect and fallen nature of logoi characterized by mutual conflicts. But in the second sentence Origen develops a fresh point. He draws an analogy between the sense of multitude contained in “vain repetitions” and the nature of what is material and corporeal, since nothing of this sort is one. This analogy is valid due to the inherent instability in material and corporeal things. While Origen does not elaborate this in detail, it is not difficult to fill in what he had in mind. We have seen that for something to be many in the ethical sense means that it is subject to internal division. The man who is joyful at one time and sad at another time is aptly considered “many” because his nature is divided, open to being in contrary states. This state of affairs clearly resembles the nature of bodies, which are always subjected to being “split up,” “cut in pieces,” and “divided into parts.”⁵⁹ Hence, the sense in which the multitude lacks self-constancy finds a natural counterpart in bodies, which lack permanent immutability. Conflicts and schisms, which are characteristic of the multitude in the ethical sense, thus mirror corporeal divisions and dissolutions. It is this resemblance that enables Origen to draw an analogy between those who are ethically many and corporeal realities. In light of this, the purpose of the second sentence in this passage is to clarify the nature of the “multitude” in question, akin to the numerous passages we examined in the second part of this chapter, but this time through an analogy with corporeality: Corporeality highlights the crucial feature of imperfection signified by the “multitude of words,” namely, the lack of simplicity due to conflicts and divisions.

But we may go further. PEuch XXI.2 also suggests conversely that one who is perfectly one must be associated with incorporeality. Hence, this passage can be read as evidence that Origen holds the metaphysical and ethical senses of simplicity together in a synthesis. While he does not explicitly make this point in the passage, two observations drawing from what we have seen in this chapter will further support this claim. First, if such a synthesis exists, then a defense of divine incorporeality (metaphysical simplicity) will inevitably be a central feature of any theology that seeks to implement the second rule in The Republic, which is concerned with God’s constancy (ethical simplicity). This is indeed the case in Origen, as we have seen, in his reply to Celsus in CCels. IV.14. Second, the close connection between divine self-constancy and divine incorporeality is further reflected by Origen’s use of Ps. 101:28 (LXX) and Mal. 3:6 as the Scriptural basis for both divine self-constancy (Hom1S I.4) and divine incorporeality (CCels. IV.14). Mal. 3:6, in fact, fully captures Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity as a metaphysical-ethical synthesis: the simple God is one, remaining ever the same. To say that God is simple is to affirm the self-same reality of divinity, perfectly constant in goodness and free from division resulting from corporeal composition. The appropriateness of Mal. 3:6 in both contexts further signals the inseparability of divine self-constancy and incorporeality in Origen’s thinking. In light of this, I suggest that PEuch XXI.2 calls for a nonreductive reading of Origen’s doctrine of divine simplicity as a metaphysical-ethical synthesis. God’s metaphysical simplicity and ethical simplicity cannot be analyzed as two separate, disconnected aspects of Origen’s theology. Rather, for Origen, the God of Scripture is simple (perfectly constant) in the sense of The Republic, a sense that is reflected precisely by the simplicity (incorporeality) that follows from being the supreme first principle of all things.

Origen’s account of divine simplicity ties together various philosophical threads. First and foremost, he is committed to a Christian doctrine of God fully compatible with the second rule of The Republic, which requires the divine to be portrayed as simple in the sense of perfect constancy. This commitment needs not be exclusively attributed to Origen’s Platonism since it has obvious Christian Scriptural sources in Mal. 3:6 and Ps. 101:28 (LXX). But this commitment also leads Origen to develop a set of metaphysical qualifications of divine simplicity already seen in Alcinous and Philo: God is a simple intellectual reality, incorporeal, primordial, and noncomposite. Corporeal qualities are absent from God; in no way are God’s acts restricted by these qualities. Consequently, Origen also stresses a point highlighted earlier in Alcinous and Philo: God’s purely intellectual operations can in no way be conceived in anthropomorphic terms. Origen’s theology has thus absorbed the crucial developments I have identified in the Middle Platonic period regarding the philosophical meaning of divine simplicity: Origen identifies the simple God of The Republic as the supreme first principle of all things. However, once again, these commitments need not be attributed exclusively to Origen’s Platonism since they also have obvious Christian Scriptural sources such as John 4:24 and Col. 1:15. In this chapter, therefore, I have demonstrated that Origen’s commitment to divine simplicity flows equally from Platonism and Scriptural exegesis. The metaphysical-ethical synthesis I have described is not the result of one or the other exclusively; rather, it flows from the integrity that Origen has created between the two.

Further resonances with Philo abound in almost every part of Origen’s attempt to build a vision of spiritual perfection upon God’s simplicity. A few points are worth highlighting. Origen’s analysis of the multitude in the imperfect man and God’s immutability in Hom1S 1.4 corresponds closely to Philo’s analysis in Deus 20–32. Moreover, like Philo, Origen attempts to transpose the second rule of theological speech in The Republic to the context of biblical interpretation. His ethical interpretation of one and many examined in the second part of this chapter is the result of this undertaking. Finally, Origen’s account of one and many offers a soteriological vision of spiritual transformation that is bound up with his doctrine of God’s simplicity, a point already hinted at by Philo. These similarities are by no means exhaustive. But this list indicates how Origen’s approach to divine simplicity amounts to a further transposition of ideas from Philo’s Jewish context into the ante-Nicene Christian context.

This chapter advances my overall narrative by painting a nonreductive account of Origen’s commitment to divine simplicity, in order to shed light on the intelligibility of his attempt to regulate the language of the Father-Son relation by the doctrine. If my analysis in this chapter is correct, then nothing short of a metaphysical-ethical synthesis suffices to make sense of Origen’s understanding of divine simplicity. His commitment to divine simplicity is not merely a commitment to divine incorporeality, safeguarding God’s metaphysical supremacy over creatures. This is because this insistence, in turn, is inseparably connected to an affirmation of God’s self-constancy, safeguarding his supremacy in goodness over creatures. Thus, when we turn to Origen’s use of divine simplicity to regulate the language of the Father-Son relation, what is at stake is whether Christianity can offer a coherent theology according to which God is perfect goodness, supreme creator, and Triune.

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