Chapter 1: Major influences that shaped Origen’s mind
Chapter 1
Major influences that shaped Origen’s mind
John Donne’s poetic line, “No man is an island,” was certainly true of Origen. He was a man whose life and accomplishments depended on several key people, some of whom are unknown to us by name. The first two, as with most people, were his parents. His father Leonides was responsible for the beginning of the scholarly habits we know that characterized Origen’s entire life. It was also under the guidance of his father that he began to acquire his intimate knowledge of Scripture, which would be the foundation for his life’s work. The name of Origen’s mother is unknown, but it was her active intervention, both verbally and physically, that preserved his life for posterity. He was on the point of becoming a nameless, zealous, teenage volunteer martyr when his mother stepped in and prevented it. She acted, no doubt, out of a mother’s love, but her action preserved one of the most brilliant thinkers and leaders of Christian antiquity.
After Leonides’ death Origen was taken in by a distinguished, wealthy Christian lady in Alexandria. While it is not known for certain, it is most likely that this too was the result of the action of Origen’s mother looking out for him, for when her husband was martyred, his property was confiscated leaving her with seven children to raise, of whom Origen was the oldest. This unnamed Christian lady not only provided Origen with a home after his father’s death, but also financed his further education until he was able to earn a living on his own by teaching. Somewhat later Origen was also befriended and supported by another wealthy Alexandrian named Ambrose. Ambrose was a Valentinian Gnostic whom Origen had converted. They appear to have become close friends. The way Origen refers to Ambrose in some of his writings sounds as if he was present as Origen spoke. It was Ambrose who made the production of Origen’s many treatises possible. He set up, at his own expense, a scriptorium for Origen, which included several stenographers, copyists, and calligraphers to take down Origen’s dictated words and produce manuscript copies of his works. Many of Origen’s writings were also produced at the request, and sometimes prodding, of Ambrose. In the Commentary on John Origen refers to an agreement he had with Ambrose to produce books, and to Ambrose’s insistence that he work on these even in Ambrose’s absence.
The support of one other rather unknown man was also crucial to what Origen accomplished in his life. Demetrius, Origen’s bishop in Alexandria, seems to have been ambivalent about Origen. He must have recognized his exceptional intelligence and knowledge of Scripture as a young man, for he appointed him as catechist in the Alexandrian church when Origen was in his late teens. He never ordained Origen, however, which meant that Origen was never allowed to preach in the Alexandrian church. Nevertheless, Origen’s fame as an expounder of Christian teaching spread. He was invited to Palestine where Bishops John of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea asked him to preach to their congregations and, at a later date, ordained him, which infuriated Origen’s Alexandrian bishop, Demetrius. The latter unleashed a vicious verbal attack on Origen, much of which he put in letters sent to bishops of other churches. This was a very low point in Origen’s emotional life. He talks about it in the prologue to the sixth book of his Commentary on John and describes how it interrupted his intellectual work as well as threatened his emotional state. He refers to the controversy as the “storm at Alexandria” and borrowing the imagery of the exodus of Israel, says, “We were rescued from the land of Egypt, when the God who led his people from Egypt delivered us.” The human deliverer of Origen from Alexandria was Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea, who welcomed Origen to settle at Caesarea, put him to work preaching in the church, and provided the environment in which Origen could get on with his intellectual work. We know little more about Theoctistus. He had obviously perceived the genius in the teacher from Alexandria and welcomed him as a leader in the Christian community at Caesarea. This perceptive, rather unknown bishop provided Origen with the last platform for his life work. All his homilies, with the exception of one delivered at Jerusalem, were delivered and taken down by stenographers at Caesarea, and many of his most important treatises were composed there, such as his On Prayer, Exhortation to Martyrdom, Against Celsus, and commentaries on The Epistle to the Romans, and The Gospel of Matthew. Without these five rather obscure people on whom Origen’s life and work depended there would be little to write about him.
Origen’s early education under his father
Origen was born in A.D. 185 at Alexandria, Egypt, the son of Christian parents. His father Leonides was an educator by profession. His son followed him in this, as was the common practice in antiquity. Origen would be a teacher all his life, though in many different locales and situations. Leonides was in charge of Origen’s early education. Eusebius indicates that in addition to Origen’s general education, which would have consisted of studies in grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and musical theory, his father insisted that he study the Scriptures as well. This study of the Scriptures with his father was a rigorous program including regular memorization and repetition. Origen took to this study with enthusiasm, going beyond even what his father expected from him, perhaps in ways that disturbed his father. Leonides was satisfied with the literal or obvious meaning of the biblical text. Origen, however, even as a boy, raised questions about the intended deeper meaning behind the obvious gist of the text. His father counselled him to stick to the literal meaning of the words in the inspired texts. In private, however, Eusebius tells us Leonides thanked God for the privilege of being the father of such a son.
This early rigorous application to the study and memorization of the Scriptures provided the foundation on which Origen’s later accomplishments were erected. As a mature scholar, teacher, and preacher, his mind moved over the text of Scripture like a computer search program pulling up textual parallels and illustrations and peppering his pages with phrases and sentences culled from passages ranging from Genesis through Revelation, including the books today called the Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical books.
After his father’s death, when Origen was in his mid-teens, he was enabled to continue his education by the generous help of a wealthy Christian lady. He progressed rapidly in his education and soon was able to become a teacher of secular subjects, following in the footsteps of his father. Although Origen mentions his father only once in his preserved works, there can be little doubt that his father had a deep and abiding influence on his life.
Scripture
Scripture was a second major influence in the shaping of Origen’s mind. Origen knew Scripture in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures called the Septuagint. This translation had been produced by Jews prior to the Christian era and was used by the church from its earliest days. This is what Origen read and memorized as a child under the tutelage of his father. He later learned the Hebrew language as well, so that he could read the Old Testament Scriptures in their original language, but the Septuagint was the default version of Scripture that he used. In his writings he cites all thirty-nine books of the Hebrew canon plus ten books from those known as deuterocanonical or apocryphal books.
One of the early works that Origen began in Alexandria was a massive compilation in parallel columns of four translations of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek along with the Hebrew Old Testament itself plus a sixth column containing the Hebrew text of the entire Old Testament transliterated into Greek characters, perhaps so that the words could be pronounced by Greek speakers who could not read Hebrew. These six texts were copied by hand in parallel columns for comparative purposes. It was referred to as the Hexapla because of the six columns. In the Psalms there were two additional columns of different Greek translations that Origen had discovered. The very undertaking of such a huge project indicates how important Scripture was to Origen. This careful work of copying would also have increased his knowledge of the contents of Scripture.
There was also a canon of New Testament books by Origen’s time, though there would be no official conciliar decree about the limits of the New Testament canon for several centuries. It consisted of the apostolic books recognized and used by the churches in general. Origen states that there were only four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—recognized by the church, though many more had been written, some of which he names and claims to have read. He cites from all twenty-seven writings of the New Testament and wrote commentaries or delivered homilies on the majority of them. He also uses the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” when referring to the two parts of Christian Scripture.
Origen had a wide knowledge of secular Greek literature as well. He had read the philosophers and knew the epic poems of Homer well enough to be able to argue with the philosopher Celsus about their proper and improper use. But it was Scripture that he loved and interiorized. Writing to a former student named Gregory, he urged him to take from philosophy, geometry, and astronomy the things that would “be useful for the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.” But above these secular studies, Origen urges Gregory, “Devote yourself, primarily to the reading of the divine Scriptures.” It was Scripture, not philosophy or any other aspect of ancient learning, that formed the basis of Origen’s thought and life.
The faith of his parents and of the second-century church
Hal Koch made an important but often overlooked observation in his 1932 study of Origen when he pointed out that Origen did not come to Christianity out of a pagan background, as the majority of the leaders of the second- and third-century church had done, but was born to Christian parents. From his childhood Origen was instructed in Scripture and the Christian faith. He did not arrive at his knowledge of divine truth after searching for it first in various philosophical schools, as Justin relates that he had done, or from seeking it in the mystery religions. Origen was a devoted Christian from his childhood, studying the Scriptures under the guidance of his father, and doubtless also worshipping with his parents and the Christians in Alexandria.
Koch’s observation carries some very important implications for how we should approach the study of Origen if we are to understand him correctly. We must look at his life and work in the context of the thought of the second-century church. Koch suggested that the thought of the second-century church could be known from the writings of the second-century apologists, and perhaps even better from writings such as The Shepherd of Hermas¸ II Clement, and The Letter to Diognetus. Curiously, he omits the works of Irenaeus written near the end of the second century and offering a very thoughtful presentation of the church’s faith in the context of his arguments against those he considered to threaten it. In what follows, as well as summarizing Koch’s conclusions I will also introduce a few additional points concerning the second-century church drawn from the works of Irenaeus and other Christian authors of the second century.
Koch capsulized the faith of the second-century church in three points: (1) There is one true God, creator of heaven and earth; (2) Christ overpowered the demons and the devil and thereby provides eternal life to humanity; and (3) Christianity is a new life that should be apparent in the way those in the church actually live.
Second-century Christians were strict monotheists. There was no wavering on the basic belief that there was only one God and that this God created heaven and earth. This fundamental belief set the Christians, along with the Jews, apart from every other person in the Roman world and also made them suspect to their pagan neighbors. It was not a risk-free belief; it stigmatized them in the eyes of those who worshipped many gods and was at the head of the list of charges against them when they were put on trial by the Roman authorities. In the late second century, Irenaeus spoke of the common faith of the church everywhere and said that the church in many nations believes “in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein.” Somewhat earlier, in the middle of the second century, Hermas, writing probably in Rome, sets out the same view in the creed-like statement, “First of all believe that God is one who created all things, and fashioned them and made all things to exist out of what did not exist.” This must have been a confessional statement Origen regularly heard and repeated in worship as a child and throughout his life, for he has the same statement word for word in the last book of his Commentary on John, which was written in the final years of his life. Origen’s faith in the one God, creator of heaven and earth, had deep roots in the faith of the second-century church, which he embraced as a child and defended throughout his adult life.
Koch’s second point in regard to the faith of the second-century church concerns Christ’s victory over death and the demonic world of Satan thereby providing humanity with the promise of eternal life. Such a view is nascent in the story Jesus told about the necessity of binding the strong man before plundering his house. This way of understanding the redemptive work of Christ has its earliest clear expression in the work of Irenaeus in the late second century. Christ is understood to have waged war against the enemy and crushed him who had made humanity captive to sin and death by his deceit of Adam. Origen has an extended reflection on Christ’s struggle against the demonic world in his discussion of the betrayal of Jesus and Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane. When Jesus tells his disciples that “the Son of Man is about to be handed over into the hands of men,” Origen ponders what this means and who it is who hands him over. He notes that it is not as simple as saying that Judas handed Jesus over to the priestly aristocracy. The whole process involves God, who, Origen says on the basis of Romans 8:32 and Galatians 1:4, hands the Son over for the salvation of humanity. This is not, however, Judas’ betrayal recorded in the Gospels. Origen is thinking of a cosmic struggle between Christ and Satan, which is only hinted at in the story in the Gospels. It is what we might call a behind-the-scenes struggle that is being played out in the trial, execution, and resurrection of Jesus. In this struggle Origen says that Christ, by his death, destroyed the devil, who held the power of death and, in the words of Hebrews 2:15, set free “all those who, by fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery.” Origen depicts Christ’s struggle with the demonic world in the imagery of Psalm 2. He sees the eminent struggle foreshadowed in the description of Christ in Gethsemane when Matthew refers to Christ beginning “to be sad and distressed,” or, Origen adds, as Mark put it, “He began to be afraid and distressed.” The reason for this distress, Origen suggests, was that Jesus may have perceived “‘the kings and princes of the earth’ standing gathered ‘together against the Lord and against’ himself, ‘his Christ’. And because those multitudes were drawn up, as it were, and were mighty in evil, ‘he began to be sad and distressed’ or even ‘afraid’.” The conclusion of the cosmic struggle between Christ and Satan is also described in the language of the second psalm. Satan and the demons were “laughed at by the dwellers ‘in heaven’ and mocked by the Lord for the destruction of their own kingdom and rule contrary to their expectation when they received the Son from the Father. For the Son,” Origen continues,
“was raised on the third day” because his enemy, death, had been rendered ineffective and we have been made conformed, not only “to his death” but also “to his resurrection” and, therefore, we walk “in newness of life,” no longer sitting “in the region and shadow of death” but also of the “resurrection,” because the “light” of God has risen on us.
This is a more extended and sophisticated discussion than that found in Irenaeus in the second century, but the theme is the same: Christ’s work was to engage the power of Satan, destroy it and the demonic world that held human beings captive, and set humanity free from death. That this discussion found in Origen’s Commentary on Matthew, which was one of the last things he wrote, indicates that this view of the work of Christ held by the second-century church remained with Origen throughout his life.
The third aspect of the faith of the second-century church noted by Koch is that Christianity is the expression of a new way of life and the lives of the individuals who constitute the church are expected to reflect this new life. The lives of Christians should be noticeable different from those in their worldly environment. The Didache, written in the first part of the second century, begins with a description of two ways, one leading to life and one to death. This was probably intended to present the form of teaching to be addressed to candidates for baptism. The first command concerning the way of life expands on the commands to love God and neighbor, joined with the golden rule. The second presents a detailed list of negative commands to regulate the life of the Christian.
In the middle of the second century, the Epistle to Diognetus refers to the Christian faith as a “new way of life” and the author sets this way of life forth in a well-known passage in which he contrasts the way Christians live with the life of the world around them. Christians, he says,
are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language, or custom. For nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric way of life. . . . But while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities . . . and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They marry . . . and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food but not their wives. They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws; indeed, in their private lives they transcend the laws. They love everyone, and by everyone they are persecuted. . . . They are cursed, yet they bless; they are insulted, yet they offer respect.
Origen took the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5–7 to be the new law for Christians and expected them to live by it. In a homily on Psalm 81, which comes from very late in Origen’s life, he censures his audience for the shoddy way they are living out the Christian moral ideal in the following words:
No one compels you to commit fornication so that you will die, but you die because of committing fornication. No one compels you to commit fraud so that you will die but because you do this and take away what belongs to another and do not pay what you owe, you cause your own death. No one makes you die but because of anger you destroy even your sensible self. [God] rebukes us, therefore, because we cause our own death through our sin . . . .
Second-century Christianity had a strong focus on the kind of moral life that was expected of a follower of Christ. Origen’s understanding of the life expected of the members of the church reflects this strict approach to Christian morality.
Another aspect of the second-century church that was present especially, but not exclusively, in Alexandria was the attempt to correlate Christian faith and Greek philosophy. I say not exclusively because Greek apologists of the second century such as Justin in Rome, Athenagoras perhaps of Athens, and Theophilus in Antioch had used Greek philosophy to set forth the Christian faith to their pagan addressees. In Alexandria the Jewish philosopher Philo had wedded Platonic philosophy with the writings of Moses in the first century. Clement of Alexandria, who may have been born in Athens, travelled widely before finally setthng in Alexandria in the early third century. Clement was deeply influenced by Greek philosophy and by its expression in the works of Philo. Philo clearly influenced Origen’s thinking as well; he is one of the few authors whom Origen sometimes cites by name. Philo’s influence on Origen, however, did not begin to approach that of Moses, David, the Hebrew prophets, and Paul and John.
Eusebius quotes from a letter of Origen in which he defends his study of philosophy. He states that as his renown as a student of Scripture was increasing, he began to be approached by heretics and others who were proficient in philosophy. Prompted by their questions, he says, he decided to look into the views of the heretics and philosophers. This indicates that his study of philosophy occurred sometime after his education in Scripture, and that he undertook it to be able to defend the Christian faith intelligently. This is in harmony with his later advice to his student Gregory when he advises him to “take from Greek philosophy what can serve for general education and, as it were, preparatory teaching for Christianity.”
There was a strong presence of gnostic Christians among the Christians in Alexandria. The famous gnostic teacher Basilides had taught there during the reign of Hadrian, and his son succeeded him as leader of his school. Valentinus may also have taught there at approximately the same time. One characteristic of these early gnostic teachers was their use of philosophy in expounding Scripture. Origen definitely had contact with gnostics in the church in Alexandria. When he was living at the home of the Christian lady who provided for his education after the death of his father, she was also hosting another man from Antioch named Paul at the same time. Eusebius labels Paul a heretic. Origen’s hostess appears to have had a church that met in her home. Eusebius refers to numerous people, both heretics and some “of our own,” as he puts it, who would gather to hear the man preach because he was a very skilled speaker. Origen, he hastens to add, would never associate with the man, even in prayer, “keeping the rule of the Church, even from boyhood.” In his early Commentary on John, begun in Alexandria, Origen says he has undertaken the commentary because of the many heterodox who are presenting interpretations of the Gospels in writing and whose influence, he fears, will lead believers astray if not countered by people such as himself who can present the teaching of the church against heretical falsehoods. Throughout much of this commentary he argues with interpretations that had been put forward in a writing on the Gospel of John by Heracleon, who, Origen says, was an acquaintance of Valentinus.
One further aspect of the faith of the second-century church that must be mentioned in relation to its influence on the thinking of Origen is the belief that the Old Testament was understood correctly only when read in relation to Christ and the cross. This way of reading Old Testament Scripture had its roots in the apostolic writings themselves. The letters of Paul show that it was the way the church learned to read Old Testament Scripture from its earliest days. The Lukan tradition indicates that the apostles had learned this from Jesus himself. Oscar Skarsaune has argued that Justin, the mid-second-century Christian apologist, understood his Christological reading of the writings of the Hebrew prophets to stand in the direct line of interpretation that the apostles had learned from Christ himself.
The second-century church believed that the books of the Old and New Testament formed a unity, and that those of the Old Testament were to be understood and interpreted in light of the saving work of God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Christ. “If anyone . . . reads the Scriptures with attention,” Irenaeus says, and by Scriptures he means the Old Testament, “he will find in them an account of Christ. . . . For . . . the treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ.” Christ is not present in obvious ways in Old Testament Scripture, however; he is hidden, to use Irenaeus’ word, in “types and parables.” His presence was imperceptible prior to the incarnation of Jesus. Irenaeus uses Daniel’s description of the sealed book to describe the hidden presence of Christ in the Old Testament. The concealed message becomes understandable only after its fulfillment. John Behr points out that “in the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching . . . Irenaeus does not explicitly make any great use of the apostolic writings. . . . Apart from” a “few references, Irenaeus simply expounds the apostolic preaching within the framework of the Christocentric reading of the Old Testament that characterized second-century Christianity.” When we later discuss Origen’s interpretation of Scripture, we will see how deeply this Christological approach to Old Testament Scripture influenced his interpretation.
These are some of the more important aspects of the faith of the second-century church. This was the nature of the Christianity in which Origen grew up; it was the Christianity in his home, where his father instructed him in the Bible, and it was the Christianity believed, preached, and taught in the Christian community where he worshipped. He would modify and develop parts of this faith as he matured, but he would never abandon it.
Roman persecution of the church
When Origen was born, c. A.D. 185, Commodus (A.D. 180–92) ruled the Roman Empire, and empire and church were at peace. Walzer suggested that Commodus’ mistress was either a Christian or was favorable to them. The church was blossoming at this time. Among its literary works were those considered to be the writings of the apostles, along with the writings of the earliest post-apostolic leaders, usually referred to as the apostolic fathers, and the legacy of the Greek apologists. Irenaeus was either writing or had recently completed his major theological work called The Defence of the Faith against All Heresies. The larger body of Christians had been successful in defining and defending itself against Christian groups considered to deviate from the original teachings of the apostles. The four Gospels had been recognized as authoritative and most of the apostolic epistles had been accepted as authoritative in the church as well, though perhaps not yet on the same level as the four Gospels. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian attest to the existence of a widely accepted Rule of Faith that summed up what were considered the most basic Christian teachings. Many of the greatest cities in the empire had churches with prominent leaders. Frend has noted that sometime around A.D. 190 powerful bishops emerged in the church: Demetrius in Alexandria, Serapion in Antioch, and Victor followed by Zephyrinus in Rome. The church was also expanding in the decade in which Origen was born. There were churches stretching from the region of modern Iran to Spain and along the entire Mediterranean coast of North Africa.
While church and empire were, in general, at peace in the decade of Origen’s birth, it was a tenuous peace. There had been no official recognition of the church by the empire, so Christianity was still an illegal religion. Some of the earlier pagan suspicions and hatreds against Christians recorded by the mid-second-century apologists had faded somewhat but had by no means died completely. Origen comments in his Contra Celsum, written when he was over sixty years old, that some of the old rumors that had been spread about the immoralities that occurred in Christian worship were still believed by some people. The more pressing issues, however, in Origen’s later life at least, were the refusal of Christians to comply with Roman expectations of what they should do and how they should serve the empire. Christians were considered to be disloyal and possibly dangerous. Their most blatant deviation from Roman customs was their refusal to swear by the genius of the emperor. They also refused to fight as soldiers in the army and were reluctant to accept the duties of public office. In mid-180, when Origen was still a small boy, approximately 1,200 miles west of Alexandria in a town called Scillium, near Carthage, North Africa, a small group of Christians was put on trial, condemned, and executed precisely for their refusal to conform to Roman customs. The spokesman for the group insisted that they had committed no crime, that they honored the emperor, and that they paid the tax. They refused, however, to swear by the genius of the emperor. Their sentence was that they confessed to living by Christian rites and refused the opportunity to return to the Roman customs. For this they were executed. A Christian named Apollonius was also tried and executed in the later years of Commodus’ reign.
A change in the semi-peaceful relationship between church and state occurred, however, when Commodus was murdered and succeeded by Septimius Severus (A.D. 193–211) as emperor. While the statement of Spartianus (Severus’ biographer in The Scriptores Historiae Augustae) that Severus issued an edict that no one was to convert to Judaism or Christianity may not be correct, there was a notable increase in the persecution of Christians in various places during his reign, and most notably in Alexandria. There was no previous law governing the treatment of Christians except for the rescript of Trajan in the early second century instructing Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, that Christians were not to be sought out, but were to be punished by death if they refused to recant their faith when they were discovered. This gave the provincial governor the right to exercise his discretion and be as lenient or as severe as he chose in his dealings with Christians. The persecutions at this time may have resulted from the actions of local governors, with which Septimius simply did not interfere. He may not have been in Alexandria, however, when the persecutions described by Eusebius were occurring, for which Eusebius blames Severus. Eusebius intimates that the persecutions were going on in the tenth year of Severus’ reign, which would have been 202. Solid historical evidence, including coins from Alexandria, shows that Severus was in Egypt in 200. There is no evidence that he ever returned. There is, nevertheless, ample evidence that persecution of Christians increased significantly in the opening years of the third century.
Hippolytus of Rome composed his Commentary on Daniel sometime between 202 and 204. A recent interpretation of the sixty-six weeks in Daniel had pointed to the year 202 as the time when the antichrist would appear. Hippolytus compared what he anticipated would happen when this occurred with what he had heard, and perhaps observed, currently taking place.
We must, therefore, contemplate the tribulation and distress of the saints that will occur at that time—for we must think on the things that will come based on what is already happening in part—such a storm and commotion as this which is occurring in the entire world. All the faithful everywhere are being destroyed, slaughtered in every city and country. The blood of just people is being shed; people are being burned alive, and others thrown to wild beasts. Infants are killed in the squares, and all are cast aside unburied to be eaten by dogs. Both virgins and wives are brazenly defiled and shamelessly mocked. . . .”
In 203 at Carthage, North Africa, the twenty-two-year-old Perpetua and her pregnant slave girl, Felicitas, along with several young catechumens, were arrested, condemned, and gored to death by a young heifer in the arena. Clement of Alexandria, Origen’s older contemporary, speaking of what he must have been observing in Alexandria refers to the daily sight of “martyrs being roasted, impaled, and decapitated.”
This persecution in Alexandria impinged directly on the young Origen. His father, Leonides, who had been a chief source of his education up to this point, was arrested, held in prison, and then decapitated. Origen was about seventeen years old. He was so moved that he wanted to rush out to martyrdom himself. His mother, so Eusebius says, was able to prevent this only by hiding his clothes so that he remained in the house. As an old man Origen alludes to his father’s martyrdom in one of his homilies on Ezekiel and says, “Having a father who was a martyr does me no good, if I do not live well myself and adorn the nobility of my descent. That is, I must adorn his testimony and confession by which he was illustrious in Christ.” These words suggest the deep and lasting influence Origen’s father’s martyrdom had on him—he thought of his own life and work as a way to adorn this ultimate confession his father had made.
Since all the church’s catechetical instructors had fled Alexandria because of the persecution, two brothers, Plutarch and Heraclas, approached Origen asking him to be their catechist. Origen seems to have done this for a while without any official appointment from the church. Somewhat later, Eusebius says when Origen was eighteen years old, he was officially appointed as catechist for the Alexandrian church, a position he seems to have held throughout his remaining time in Alexandria. Christians were still being arrested and martyred. Eusebius mentions Aquila as governor at this time; Laetus, Aquila’s predecessor, was governor when Eusebius first introduced the subject of persecution in Alexandria. This persecution may have stretched over a few years. Origen became well-known for his ministries to all those who were arrested for the faith. Eusebius names seven of Origen’s students who were receiving catechetical instruction who were martyred, including a woman who had not yet been baptized. Origen said she received “the baptism by fire,” which was an early Christian designation of martyrdom. Origen later refers back nostalgically to this period as a time that produced people of intense faithfulness. “But people were faithful then,” he says,
when intense martyrdoms were occurring. We used to come back to our gatherings from the burial places after we had followed the martyrs to their graves. The whole church would be gathered without depression. The catechumens, neither frightened nor troubled, were instructed by the martyrdoms and by the deaths of those confessing the truth unto death before the living God. The faithful were few at that time, but they were genuinely faithful.
He testifies that he witnessed the faithful being martyred in this period when he says in a homily on Ezekiel, “I have known just men who persevered in the faith who were handed over to wild beasts and were torn to pieces by them.” These close encounters with martyrs at such an early age made a deep impression on Origen’s mind and faith. This was the first persecution that Origen experienced. There would be two more that directly affected him.
Not long after Origen had moved his place of residence from Alexandria to Caesarea, in 235 Alexander Severus, the last of the Severan dynasty that had come to power when Origen was a boy in Alexandria, was killed in a mutiny led by Maximinus the Thracian. Origen was approximately fifty years old. Maximinus soon initiated a reign of tyranny and began eliminating people who had been associates of Alexander Severus. He also targeted people of wealth and some leaders of the church. In Caesarea, Origen’s friend and patron Ambrose, a wealthy man and perhaps also a public official under Alexander Severus, was arrested along with Protoctetus, a presbyter. Origen addressed his treatise Exhortation to Martyrdom to these two men. He urges that they remain true to the confession of the one God and that they make this confession with their mouths, and not only in their hearts. These were two of the important elements in the faith of the second-century church that were discussed above: (1) there is only one God, and (2) Christian faith must be demonstrated visibly in the way the Christian lives. Belief assumedly held in the heart was cancelled by contradictory overt actions.
Origen’s views on martyrdom had matured from that of the young teenager who wanted to volunteer for martyrdom when his father was arrested in Alexandria. Throughout the Exhortation to Martyrdom Origen encourages his friends to faithfulness to their confession and praises martyrdom as an ultimate confession of faith. But nowhere in the treatise does he speak of himself or anyone else seeking martyrdom. In the later Book 28 of his Commentary on John, when he discusses the statement that Jesus withdrew from Jewish territory to Ephrem when the Jews were seeking to kill him, he says that these words counsel against hastily rushing to death by martyrdom and encourage withdrawal from danger when that is possible. Nevertheless, if caught in a situation where this is not possible one should faithfully accept martyrdom.
The final persecution that affected Origen directly was that instigated by the emperor Decius in 251. A number of bishops—Eusebius mentions those of Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch—were arrested and either executed or died in prison. Origen was arrested and severely tortured but survived the imprisonment. Decius’ reign lasted less than two full years. Eusebius puts Origen’s death very vaguely early in the reign of Decius’ successor Gallus and says he was sixty-nine years old when he died. While Origen was not executed nor did he die in prison, he nevertheless, seems to have died when he did as the result of his treatment during the persecution of Decius. Persecution and martyrdom were never far removed from Origen in the whole course of his life.
Questions for Discussion
1.Which of the influences on Origen’s early life do you think probably had the greater impact on his later thought? Why do you think this?
2.How would you have reacted to the various encounters with persecution that Origen experienced in his lifetime?
3.What do Origen’s writings contribute to our knowledge of the books of Scripture recognized by the church at that time?
. The information about Origen in this section is dependent on Eusebius, H.E. 6 unless otherwise noted. Eusebius says he got his information about this phase of Origen’s life from letters and information coming from some of Origen’s students.
. ComJn 5.1, 2.
. ComJn 6.8; trans. Origen, Commentary, FOTC 80, 170.
. Eusebius, H.E. 6.2.7; Marrou, Education in Antiquity, 244–45.
. The martyrdom of Leonides and its impact on Origen will be discussed below in the section, “Roman Persecution of the Church.”
. See the discussion above.
. HomEz 4.8, Origen: Homilies 1–14 on Ezekiel, ACW 62.75.
. For Origen’s use of and attitude toward this latter group of books see Heine, “Boundaries.”
. HomLk 1.1–2.
. See Jerome, Ep 33.4.
. See Heine, “Origen and Celsus.”
. EpistGreg, 1, 4.
. Koch, Pronoia, 311–14.
. See the previous section.
. On the reading of Irenaeus’ works in Egypt by the time of Origen, see Heine, “Boundaries,” 406–8, esp. n. 46.
. Koch, Pronoia, 312–13.
. See, for example, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 43.
. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.4.2, p. 417.
. The Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 1.
. ComJn 32.187.
. Matt 12:29.
. See Matt 12:29; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.21.1.
. ComMt 13.8.
. SerMt 90; Ps 2:2. Origen proceeds to emphasize that Matthew says Jesus “began” to be sad and distressed and did not experience the fullness of these emotions.
ComMt 13.9, trans. Commentary on Matthew, 1, 137–38.
. Didache 1.1—4.14.
. The Epistle to Diognetus 5.1–15.
. Origenes Werke Dreizehnter Band, 356–59 (First homily on Ps 77. 3–4); see also Origen, Commentary on Matthew, I. 20–24.
. Origenes Werke Dreizehnter Band, 521–22 (HomPs 81.7).
. Eusebius, H.E. 6.19.11–12.
. EpistGreg, 1.
. Eusebius, H.E. 6.2.13–14.
. ComJn 5.8, trans. Origen, Commentary, FOTC 80, 106.
. ComJn 2.100. On Heracleon’s identity see Berglund, “Origen’s Vacillating Stances.”
. See Luke 24.
. Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy, 11–13.
. See Theophilus, 3.12.
. Irenaeus, 4.26.1; cf. 4.20.2 (ANF I. 496, 488); Dan 12:4; and Behr, Irenaeus, 95–96, 134.
. On the Apostolic Preaching, 16.
. See chapter 3 below.
. See Eusebius, H.E. 5.21.1.
. Walzer, Galen, 10. See Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies 9.12.10–11, on Marcia, Commodus’ mistress, obtaining pardon for some Christians imprisoned in Sardinia.
. See Ferguson, The Rule of Faith.
. Frend, Martyrdom, 303–4.
. Cels. 6.27.
. Cels. 8.65, 73, 75.
. Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Vol. 2, 86–89.
. Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Vol. 2, xxiii–xxv, 90–105; Eusebius H.E. 5.21. The two sources disagree on the place this occurred, whether in Rome or the province of Asia, and on several other details.
. The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ch. 17, 409.
. See Birley, The African Emperor, 135 and the secondary literature cited there. Tertullian certainly gives a favorable impression of Septimius’ attitude toward Christians in To Scapula 4.5–6 and On the Pallium 2.7.
. Pliny, Epistles 10.96 and 97.
. See Platnauer, The Life and Reign, 153.
. H.E. 6.1–2.
. Birley, The African Emperor, 138–39.
. Hippolyte (IV.51), 368 (my italics). See also 10, 12.
. Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Vol. 2, 106–31. See also xxv–xxvii.
. Clemens Alexandrinus, Vol. 2 (Book 2.20.125.1–3), 180–81.
. HomEz 4.8, trans. Origen: Homilies 1–14 on Ezekiel, ACW 62, 75.
. The information in this paragraph has been drawn from Eusebius, H.E. 6.1–5.
. HomJer 4.3.
. HomEz 4.7, trans. Origen: Homilies 1–14 on Ezekiel, ACW 62, 75.
. See Origen, Commentary, FOTC 89, 5–6.
. See ExhMart 36.
. See ExhMart 5–7.
. John 11:54; ComJn 28.192–201.
. Eusebius, H.E.6.39.