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Origen's Theology

J. Lebreton says, "In the whole of Christian Antiquity, at least in the Eastern Church, there is no writerwho is so attractive, whose glory is so disputed, or whose study is so difficult, as Origen... To-day wepossess only some portions of his immense work, and the greater part of it has come down to us only

by means of translations, the accuracy of which is by no means certain. In spite of all these difficulties,however, it is not impossible to determine in outline the life, character and thought of this famousdoctor."

The theology of Origen, his cosmology, anthropology, ecclesiology, eschatology etc. have beenaffected by the following factors:

1. The heresies of his time: Origens main aim almost in all his writings and homilies is to refute,directly or indirectly, the major heresies of his time. In his youth, Origen complied De Principiis "forthose who, sharing our faith, are accustomed to look for reasons for their belief and for those who stirup conflicts against us in the name of the heresies."

2. Origen had to deal with heretics as well as with the simple believers who were averse to any kindof speculation. His encounter was with these two theological movements.

3. His view on knowledge and philosophy: As we have seen the Alexandrians were concerned withphilosophy for many reasons. To answer the burning philosophical questions of their time, to correctthe philosophical views which were opposed to the Christian faith, to attract well-educated persons toChristianity and to defend Christianity from the accusation of ignorance and foolishness brought bysome philosophers. Many scholars believe that Origen founded Christian theology.

4. As a man of the Bible, Origens theological system is affected by it. He based his entire doctrine onhis commentaries on the Sacred Scriptures. His theology was, above everything else, a system ofexegesis. By his technique of spiritual interpretation, he succeeded in making the Bible accessible toevery Christian who had any feeling for holy things.

5. His heart was inflamedfor the conversion of the whole world, the edification of the true spiritualChurch and the progress of every soul in divine and practical knowledge of the Holy Trinity, unity withher Heavenly Groom, and continuos glorification. Therefore we cannot depend on his work " DePrincipiis" alone, which he had written while he was young, as if it contains his theological system.Undoubtedly his preaching and dialogues with simple people, bishops, philosophers and queens hadtheir effect on his theological system. One of these affects his soteriological attitude almost in all hiswritings and homilies.

Under the title "Origens Christian Gnosis" Basil Studer says,

This new, inquiring and systematic theology is rightly called Christian gnosis. It is gnosis not only

because it follows up the problems of the Gnostics of the second century but also and primarilybecause it takes up again the true concerns of those first Christian theologians: above all the searchfor the knowledge that would provide a foundation for the salvation of mankind and the world.

To understand Origens thoughts it is necessary to know what these heresies were, the simple peoplewho were disinclined to hold onto the true faith, and his view on philosophy.

The Heresies And Heretics


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Origen had Christianity in his very blood and never subscribed to any tolerance of heresy. Even as anorphan seventeen years old, when he was enjoying the financial help of a great lady of wealth anddistinction who treated him as an adopted son, he refused to compromise in any degree, according toEusebius: "She was treating with great honor a famous heretic then in Alexandria, a certain Paul ofAntioch. Origen could never be induced to join with him in prayer... and, as he somewhere expressesit, he abominated heretical teachings."

1. The main heresies which Origen faced was "Gnosticism," which I have discussed in Book 1,Chapter 4: "The School Of Alexandria And The Gnostics."Like St. Irenaeus and Tertullian, andalso St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen was opposed to the Gnostic movement.

Origen faced the Gnostic sects, especially the trio: Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, in the followingpoints:

I. Their systems were based on the inseparable division and antagonism between the Demiurge or"Creator God" and the supreme unknowable Divine Being. Origen insists on the identity of the CreatorGod and the Father of Jesus Christ.

The Gnostics contrast the two Testaments and the allegorical exegesis which Origen uses. Origen, asother Alexandrian Fathers emphatically stressed the fundamental unity of both phases ofrevelation (Old and New Testament). Heinculcates the unity of authorship of both revelations.

According to Origen, there were some who taught that Paul was seated at the right hand of Christ inheaven, and Marcion at the left. Marcion makes of the Creator God of the Old Testament a just butnot a good God and even one positively cruel and malicious. The essential concern of Origensstatement which opens the list of propositions of the rule of faith in the preface of the Treatise on FirstPrinciples is to oppose the Marcionite and Gnostic doctrines which separated the Creator God of theOld Testament from the Father of Jesus Christ, making the former a just God, the latter a good God.There is only one God, who created everything out of nothing, who was the God of all the holy men ofthe old covenant, who promised by his prophets the coming of his Son and subsequently sent Him.There is only one God for the law, the prophets and the apostles, for the Old Testament and the New.

Origen states that God is one; He is God both of the Old and New Testament.

The kind of doctrines which are believed in plain terms through the apostolic teaching are thefollowing:-

First, that God is one, who created and set in order all things, and who, when nothing existed, causedthe universe to be. He is God from the first creation and foundation of the world, the God of allrighteous men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, of the twelvepatriarchs, of Moses and the prophets. This God, in these last days, according to the previousannouncements made through his prophets, sent the Lord Jesus Christ, first for the purpose of callingIsrael, and secondly, after the unbelief of the people of Israel, of calling the Gentiles also. This just and

good God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, himself gave the law, the prophets and the gospels,and he is God both of the apostles and also of the Old and New Testaments.

II. He particularly objects to Valentinus doctrine of the three natures of souls and to thepredestinarianism which underlies it. It was by reason of this doctrine that Origen drew up his chapteron free will in equality of rational beings, an equality only to be broken by the free choice of their will:the cosmology described in that book is explained by the dialectic between divine action and humanfreedom which can accept or reject the divine.

I will speak of Origens Philosophy of Creation and Freedom in two separate chapters.

2. Origen faces two opposite tendencies in the Trinitarian theology:


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I. TheModalists, or the Monarchians, who tried to safeguard the divine "monarchy," the unity of theDeity "monotheism). They considered the Son a mere name and mode of manifestation of the Father.For them the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three modes of being a single divine Person.

They are called Noetians and laterSabellians, as they were attributed to Noetus of Smyrna and theLibyan Sabellius.

In the West they were called Patripassians, because it followed from their doctrine that the Fathersuffered the Passion.

II. TheAdoptianists also wanted to safeguard the "monarchy" by seeing in Christ just a man whomGod adopted as a Son of God for his merits.

In fact it could happen that Modalism and Adoptianism were mixed up.

In chapter seven I will show how Origenis quite familiar with the terms "triad" (Trias) and"Hypostaseis."J.N.D. Kelly says,

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are, Origen states, "three Persons" (Hypostaseis). Thisaffirmation that each of the Three is a distinct hypostaseis from all eternity, not just as manifested inthe "economy," is one of the chief characteristics of his doctrine, and stems directly from the idea ofeternal generation.

THE HERETICS AND THE ROAD OF FAITH

Origen believes that heretics receive the deposit of faith at first, then they depart from it. He says,"Heretics, all begin by believing, and afterwards depart from the road of faith and the truth of thechurch's teaching."

In their pride, the heretics search the holy Scriptures, not to discover the truth, but to confirm their owndoctrines. Henri de Lubac says,

One must receive the faith of God in the spirit which the church teaches us, and must not do like theheretics who search the Scriptures only in order to find some confirmation of their own doctrines.

Their pride raises them "higher than the cedars of Lebanon" and their sophistries are full of deceit. Butit is no use for them to pretend that they have a tradition which comes down from the apostles; theyare professors of error.

While the faithful Christian in no way strays from the great tradition, they appeal to secret Scriptures or

to secret traditions in order to confirm their lies. Thus they want to make us worship a Christ whomthey have invented "in solitude," while the only authentic Christ reveals Himself "within the house."

They disfigure those vessels of gold and silver which are the sacred texts, in order to fashion them intoobjects according to their own fancy.

They are thieves and adulterers who seize the divine words only to deform them by their perverseinterpretations.

They are counterfeiters for they have coined their doctrine outside the Church. False teachers, falseprophets, spinning out of their own minds what they propound, they are the liars of whom Ezekielspeaks. By a perverse trickery they often cover their idols, that is, their empty dogmas, with sweetness

and chastity so that their propositions may be smuggled more easily into the ears of their listeners andlead them astray more surely.


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They all call Jesus their master and embrace him; but their kiss is the kiss of Judas.

And this also we must know that as the gates of cities have each their own names, in the same waythe gates of Hades might be named after the species of sins; so that one gate of Hades is called"fornication," through which fornicators go, and another "denial," through which the deniers of God godown into Hades. And likewise already each of the heterodox and of those who have begotten any

"knowledge which is falsely so called (I Tim. 6:20)," has built a gate of Hades - Marcion one gate, andBasilides another, and Valentinus another.

The deceiver enemy, the devil, presents stone instead of bread (Luke 11:11). This is what the devilwants, that the stone may be changed into bread, so that men may be fed not by bread but by stonewhich has the shape of the bread.

If you see the heretics eat their false teachings as bread know that their discussions, and teaching area stone which the devil presents to us to eat as if it is bread. . .

May we be watchful and so not eat the stone of the devil believing that we are growing up by theLords bread.

The devil speaks and depends upon the Scripture... May he not deceive me even if he uses theScripture.

THE ANTHROPOMORPHITES,

MILLENARIANS, AND LITERALISTS

Origen opposes those whom he calls the "simpler"and whom we might call by three names:

I.Anthropomorphites: They take literally the anthropomorphism that the Bible attributes to God andto the soul and consequently picture God as corporeal: against these Origen clearly affirms theabsolute incorporeality of the three Persons and of the soul.

Against theAnthropomorphites Origen explains that God is Spirit, and He alone is without body.

But the substance of the Trinity, which is the beginning and cause of all things, of which are all thingsand through which are all things and in which are all things, must not be believed either to be a bodyor to exist in a body, but to be wholly incorporeal.

But if it is impossible by any means to maintain this proposition, namely, that any being, with theexception of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can live apart from a body, then logical reasoningcompels us to believe that, while the original creation was of rational beings, it is only in idea andthought that a material substance is separable from them, and that though this substance seems tohave been produced for them or after them, yet never have they lived or do they live without it; for weshall be right in believing that life without a body is found in the Trinity alone. Now as we have saidabove, material substance possesses such a nature that it can undergo every kind of transformation.

II. Millenarians orChiliasts, because they take literally the thousand years of Apocalypse 20:1-10.They believe that there will be a first resurrection of the just, who will reign for that time in the heavenlyJerusalem which will come down to earth. They will enjoy with Christ happiness before the final

resurrection.


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M. Simonetti says, "The decisive reaction against millenarism came from the Alexandrians, whopropound a much more spiritual conception of Christian eschatology. Origen rejected the literalinterpretation of Rev. 20-21, gives an allegorical interpretation of it and so takes away the Scripturalfoundation of millenarism."

Origen denied the millenarism, considering the exegesis of the literalists on some promises

concerning the kingdom of Christ was "unworthy of the divine promises." He castigates the follies ofliteralist believers who read the Scriptures like the Jews whose belief in the future Messianic kingdomis understood as political and material rule. They cherish dreams of dwelling in an earthly Jerusalemafter the resurrection, where they will eat, drink and enjoy sexual intercourse to their hearts" content.

Origen opposes the doctrine of the resurrection current among the millenarians or Chilliest. As regardsto the state of the bodyafter this resurrection, they imagine that it will be identical with the earthlybody so that people will eat and drink, marry and procreate, and that the heavenly Jerusalem will belike a city here below. The spiritual body will differ in nothing from the psychic body and everything inthe Beyond will be like life in this lower world. For, being anthropomorphisms, the millenarians takeliterally the biblical anthropomorphisms. They suppress all difference between the terrestrial body andthe glorious body, keeping only the identity.

III. The Literalists, because they preserve the literal meaning of the Scriptures, even to the absurdlengths of which anthropomorphism and millenarianism are examples: Origen's doctrine of Scripturalallegory is also directed against these.

ORIGENS SOTERIOLOGY

Origen, as a spiritual leader, concentrates on the salvation of his own soul and others souls almost inall his writings. His heart was inflamed with the desire of the restoration of the souls, and theirglorification through the redeeming work of the Savior of the whole world.

1. Origen systems of theology, spirituality, cosmology, ecclesiology, angelogy, demonolgy,eschatology etc. are aimed at the return of rational creatures to their eternal rest, as we will seeafterwards in the following chapters. This cannot be realized by their own efforts, especially men whoare in need of the divine grace to enjoy the redeeming work of the Savior.

2. Origen as a disciple of St. Clement of Alexandria faced the Hellenic culture not by attackingphilosophy and knowledge, but by assuring that salvation in its reality is the true gnosis and practicalphilosophy. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world descended to us as the Illuminator and Educator. Heis the Light of the world who redeems us from the darkness of ignorance and grants us victory on thedemons who prevent us from the light of truth. Christ is the Heavenly Teacher who renews our natureby His Holy Spirit and raises us with Him to His heaven, as His Bridal chamber, where the Groomreveals His divine mysteries to His bride.

3. Origen collects together in one place all the titles he can find in scripture which express the natureand work of Christ, the Savior of the world. He explains that these titles are mentioned in the HolyScriptures as promises to us, so that we may find our satisfaction, life, righteousness, salvation andglorification:

the Light of the World (John 8:12),

the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6),


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the Resurrection (John 11:25),

the Door (John 10:9),

the Good Shepherd (John 10:11),

the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last (Rev. 22:13),

the Messiah who is called Christ (Luke 24:14),

the Logos who is God (John 1:1),

the Son of God,

the Savior,

the Power of God (Rom. 1:16),

the Righteousness , the Holiness, and Redemption (1 Cor. 1:30),

the King, Teacher and Master,

the True Vine and Bread,

Living and Dead,

Sword, Servant, Lamb of God, Paraclete, Propitiation, Wisdom, Sanctification, Demiurge, Agentof the good God, High-Priest, Rod, Flower, and Stone.

These ideas Origen draws on at random as he discusses Christs saving work, in Homilies andCommentaries which wander unsystematically from point to point.

2. Frances M. Young says that the only work which is at all systematic is the De Principiis; even theContra Celsum takes the form of a commentary on Celsus anti-Christian arguments, and shows littlelogical sequence of thought. Yet it seems to the present writer that under this confusing array of ideas,there is a basic pattern to Origens soteriology, a pattern of conflict between good and evil in whichChrist achieves the victory.

3. Young also says that most expositors of Origens thought have regarded his idea of Christ asRevealer, Educator and Enlightenment, that is, as the Logos of God, as his characteristic view ofChrists saving function. That this should be Origens main account of Christs work in theDe Principiisis not surprising, since this was a work dominated by philosophical issues and ideas. It is alsoprominent in the Commentary on John. As the brightness of Gods glory, Christ enlightens the wholecreation, and, as the Word, he interprets and presents to the rational creation the secrets of wisdomand the mysteries of knowledge. The Only-Begotten is the Truth, because he embraces in himself,according to the Fathers will, the whole reason of all things, which he communicates to each creaturein proportion to its worthiness.

I will speak of the redeeming work of Christ and the meaning of salvation in chapter nine.


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