Origen’s Revenge: The Greek and Hebrew Roots of Christian Thinking on Male and Female

by Brian Patrick Mitchell

Is the difference of male and female to be "completely shaken off" so that men and women are no longer men and women but merely human beings? The great seventh-century saint Maximus the Confessor said yes, but such thinking is difficult if not impossible to reconcile with much else in Christian tradition that obliges men and women to live as either men or women.

Origen's Revenge contrasts the two main sources of early Christian thinking on male and female: the generally negative view of Greek philosophy, limiting sexual distinction to the body and holding the body in low regard, and the much more positive view of Hebrew Scripture, in which sexual distinction and reproduction are both deemed naturally good and necessary for human existence. These two views account for much of the controversy in early Christianity concerning marriage and monasticism. They also still contribute to current controversies over sex roles, gender identity, and sexual ethics.

Origen's Revenge also develops the more Hebrew line of early Christian thought to propose a new understanding of male and female with a firmer grounding in scripture, tradition, theology, and philosophy and with profound implications for all human relationships, whether social, political, or spiritual.

Genres: Theology, Religion, History

250 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Author Brian Patrick Mitchell is a former soldier and journalist, the author of several nonfiction books and scholarly articles on politics and religion, and a deacon of the Orthodox Church. He and his wife have three grown children and live in Alexandria, Virginia.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thesis: there are two views, what Mitchell calls “two contradictory imperatives” of male and female that have shaped the church of Christ in the beginning – the Greek and the Hebrew. Characteristics of the Greek view shaped some of the church fathers negatively. The particular interest here is the view of Nyssa and Maximus, leaning on Origen, that male and female were 1). Introduced at the Fall with the need for sexual union and procreation; 2). And that they shall fall away in the resurrection when humanity will return to a generic non-sexual state. Mitchell does a thorough job in tracing both streams of thought and drawing attention to the revival of interest in Maximus and Nyssa in the modern sexuality debate.