Reading Church History

Origen

• 39: “Origen is, together with Augustine and Luther, one of the most important figures in this book.”
• 39: “One of the greatest minds of his age, he debated with pagan philosophers as their superior.”
• 39: “… the first truly professional theologian,…”

Life

• 40: “… born in about A.D. 185 in Alexandria.”
  “… he received the best education available… “
• 40-42: His father, Leonides, was also a Christian and died as a martyr in about year 202. All his property was confiscated, but Origen was able to support his family through teaching.
• 42: Two influences upon Origen were:
  • Ammonius Saccas, who also taught Plotinus, founder of Neoplatonism;
  • Clement of Alexandria. “Clement believed that the advanced Christian philosophy was publicly available in the Bible. But he argued that only those with great spiritual insight were capable of looking beyond the plain meaning of the words and understanding the deeper meaning of Scripture.”
• 43: “… such was [Origen's] reputation that when a fresh wave of persecution left the catechetical school with no teacher, Bishop Demetrius of Alexander asked the 18-year-old … to take on the job.”
• 43: Origen became convicted about reading anything but Scripture. So he sold his books and began to only read Scripture. He became an ascetic and might have even gone so far as to make himself a eunuch so that he would not sin sexually.
• 44: Origen earned the nickname “Adamantius,” meaning “Unbreakable” or “Iron Man” because of his “bravery and seeming invulnerability to the hostile authorities.”
• 44: “[Origen] undertook one of the most impressive feats of scholarship of ancient times: the Hexapla. This work was a critical collection and comparison of all the versions of the Old Testament on which [he] could lay his hands.]
• 44-45: “[Origen] met a wealthy Alexandrian called Ambrose,…” Ambrose was a gnostic, but converted through Origen’s ministry. He then funded Origen as an author, providing him with a team of professional scribes. But, “[he] seems to have been a reluctant author.”
• 45: “Origen’s works were so ambitious in scope and minute in detail that he often seems to have got tired of them and abandoned them for new, more interesting projects.”
• 45: “Aproximately 800 titles of his books are known, and ancient sources estimate the total number as to 6,000 items, ranging from short letters and pamphlets to weighty commentaries on the Bible and philosophical tomes.”
• 45: One of these works, “On First Principles, was the first work of systematic Christian theology ever written; in it Origen set forth his fundamental ideas about God, Christ, the world and humanity.”
• 45-46: He eventually “left Alexandria to settle in Caesarea, on the coast of Judea.” This ushered in a time of conflict in Origen’s life. When he was later ordained a presbyter by the bishop of Caesaria, Theocristus, his old bishop Demetrius denounced him and his teachings.
• 46: “Demetrius … now began to work against him as an enemy.”
• 46: “… the church in Egypt condemned Origen’s teachings and excommunicated him.”
• 47: But Origen remained in Caesaria and “resumed his work as a teacher. … he now offered an advanced course in Christian philosophy, covering all the secular literature and science taught in normal higher education but with a Christian focus.”
• 47: “… Origen was becoming something of a sage to the worldwide church.”
• 47: “Origen’s formidable debating powers, combined with his zeal for orthodoxy and fair-handedness in dealing with those who disagreed with him, made him a valuable presence at a number of synods.”
• 47-48: However his last years were marked by more controversy over his teachings and persecution from the Roman authorities.
• 48: “[Origen] was arrested, incarcerated and cruelly tortured in an effort to force a recantation. But a lifetime of ascetic training supported his faith,…”
• 48: “Origen was released after a few days, his faith intact, but physically a broken man. Virtually nothing is known of the last years of his life; his literary and ecclesiastical activities were no more. He is thought to have ended his days in obscurity at Tyre in about A.D. 254.”

Condemnation

• 48: “Even in his lifetime, Origen was a controversial figure.”
• 48: “… as the years passed Origen’s name became increasingly associated with unorthodox ideas.”
• 48-49: At the Second Council of Constantinople ( A.D. 553), many doctrines developed by his later followers would be condemned. Along with this, “the order was given for his works to be destroyed.”

Thought

• 49: “Today only a tiny fraction remains of Origen’s original writings. Only one major treatise, Against Celsus, survives in the original Greek.”
• 49: “… however, enough Greek fragments and Latin translations exist to piece together a sizable body of work from which we can reconstruct most of Origen’s thought.”
• Scripture.
  • 49: “Origen’s thought revolves around the Bible. … Every word [he] wrote was based on his conviction that the whole Bible was God’s revelation to humanity.”
  • 49: “Yet Origen was highly aware of the problems posed by the Bible.”
  • 49: “His answer is that these passages—and indeed the entire Bible—have a deeper meaning.”
  • 52: “This deeper meaning can be discovered by the use of allegory.”
  • 52: “… Origen has received much criticism for reading his own ideas into the text. But three points should be made in his defense.”
    • “First, the use of allegory was widespread in antiquity,…”
    • “Second, the method is part and parcel of Origen’s Platonism. …”
    • “Third, Origen’s allegorizing is not quite as arbitrary as it at first appears—at least in theory. … each passage is interpreted by reference to the whole rest of the Bible.”
  • 52: “So Origen … believed that a body of higher, deeper doctrine existed beyond what ordinary Christians knew about. … Origen believed that this higher truth was publicly available in the Bible but concealed from those who lacked the intellectual and spiritual abilities to see and understand it.”
• God.
  • 52-53: “He insists repeatedly that God is incorporeal, which means he not only lacks a body, but exists everywhere. He is a perfect mind.”
  • 53: “It follows that it is my using our mind—through intellectual activity—that we can become most like God. Origen’s spirituality … is extremely intellectualist.”
• The Trinity.
  • 53: “Like Tertullian, Origen firmly upholds a divine Trinity. Each of the three persons is God. But he is quite clear: they are not equal.”
  • 54: “… these ideas would be rejected by later orthodoxy.”
  • 54: “But Origen did introduce one idea that was to become central: eternal generation. …  … the Son and the Spirit always existed. They are generated from the Father eternally.”
  • 54: “This idea, in the hands of Athanasius, would be central to the fight against Arianism in the 4th century and would become a central plank in the doctrine of the Trinity.”
• The cycles of the universe.
  • 54: Origen believed also that “… the universe is eternally created.”
  • 54: “There was a universe  before this one was created, and after the present order of things is wrapped up a new one will be created—and so on and on, through countless eons.”
  • 54-55: “… each world is different from its predecessor.”
• The Fall and human nature.
  • 55: “Origen rejects the idea that humans are intrinsically embodied, physical beings and accepts instead Plato’s belief that the body is simply a temporary container for an eternal, immaterial soul.”
  • 55: In the Fall, our “… pure intellectual nature became sullied” when we fell away from God. He then “… created the physical world to act as a sort of safety net.” The reason for the Fall was “… caused by free will, a central doctrine for Origen.”
• Christ and salvation.
  • 55: “One [soul] alone chose to remain faithful and united to God. From this union it began to take on God’s qualities itself… This soul is of course the human soul of Christ. Origen is unique among the early fathers in his emphasis on Christ’s human soul…”
  • 56: “Although Origen refers to Christ as Savior, he seems to lack a clear doctrine of Christ’s role in salvation.”
  • 56: “Just like Ireneaus, Origen believes that the universe was created as a place in which we could better ourselves. He stresses that God cannot simply restore us to our original perfection by divine decree: that would override free will. We must get there ourselves, by the exercise of the free will that caused us to fall in the first place.”
  • 56: “… the process lasts far longer than any one lifetime. This is why there is a long succession of universes.”
  • 57: Regarding Hell, Origen says “… the punishment [people] receive there is not retribution for their crimes; it is a remedy for their sickness. … What this means is that hell is not eternal. And that means that all creatures will in the end be restored…”
  • 57: “It is a striking fact that, the devil aside, Origen’s belief in universal salvation appears to have excited very little controversy in his lifetime or shortly thereafter.”
• The resurrection.
  • 57-58: “Origen’s teaching here is among the most obscure in all his work.”
  • 58: Many people apparently thought he was denying any kind of resurrection. And this was part of the charge that caused his works to be burned in the 6th century.
• The spiritual life.
  • 58: “The study of Scripture is central to the spiritual life.”
  • 58-59: He bases his ideas about the spiritual life upon three books attributed to Solomon:
    • Proverbs teaches us “how to live correctly.”
    • Ecclesiastes teaches us “about the world around us, both the physical and spiritual realms.”
    • Song of Songs teaches us the love between “God and the soul of the mystic.”
  • 59: “He was the first great Christian mystic, and his account of the mystical progression toward union with God is arguably the most influential part of his whole system.”

Influence

• 59: “… despite his unorthodoxy in many areas and the destruction of his works, the teaching of Origen has continued to exercise enormous influence down to the modern day.”
• 60: “Wherever Christians try to work out the meaning of their faith with intellectual, spiritual and scientific integrity, the influence of Origen may still be detected.”