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On First Principles
s/t: Being Koetschau's Text of the De Principiis Translated into English Together with an Introduction & Notes
The Father
Christ
The Holy Spirit
Loss or falling away
Rational natures
The end or consummation
Things corporeal & incorporeal
The angels
The world & the creatures in it
The perpetuity of bodily nature
The beginning of the world & its causes
That there is one God of the law & the prophets, & that the God of the old & new covenants is the same
The just & the good
The incarnation of the Saviour
That it was the same Spirit who was in Moses & the rest of the prophets & in the holy apostles
The soul
The world & the movements of rational creatures both good & evil & the causes of these movements
Resurrection & punishment
The promises
Free will
How the devil & the opposing powers are, according to the Scriptures, at war with the human race
The threefold wisdom
Whether the statement made by some is true, that each individual has two souls
That the world is originated & subject to decay, since it took its beginning in time
The end
The inspiration of divine Scripture
How divine Scripture should be read & interpreted
The principle underlying the obscurities in divine Scripture & its impossible or unreasonable character in places, if taken literally
Summary of doctrine concerning the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit
The Father
Christ
The Holy Spirit
Loss or falling away
Rational natures
The end or consummation
Things corporeal & incorporeal
The angels
The world & the creatures in it
The perpetuity of bodily nature
The beginning of the world & its causes
That there is one God of the law & the prophets, & that the God of the old & new covenants is the same
The just & the good
The incarnation of the Saviour
That it was the same Spirit who was in Moses & the rest of the prophets & in the holy apostles
The soul
The world & the movements of rational creatures both good & evil & the causes of these movements
Resurrection & punishment
The promises
Free will
How the devil & the opposing powers are, according to the Scriptures, at war with the human race
The threefold wisdom
Whether the statement made by some is true, that each individual has two souls
That the world is originated & subject to decay, since it took its beginning in time
The end
The inspiration of divine Scripture
How divine Scripture should be read & interpreted
The principle underlying the obscurities in divine Scripture & its impossible or unreasonable character in places, if taken literally
Summary of doctrine concerning the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit
342 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 215
158 people are currently reading
1371 people want to read
About the author
Origen
336 books104 followersOrigen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and biblical hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
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December 21, 2024
The eighteen-hundred-year controversy over the content and legacy of the writings of Origen can only be regarded among the most sordid episodes in the annals of the written word. Perhaps the single most influential Christian writer beyond the confines of the New Testament itself—the man who, more than any of the Fathers, shaped the entire subsequent paradigm of patristic exegesis—Origen was the most sought-after theological teacher of his time; and, despite his later reputation, was highly revered as a pillar of Christian orthodoxy, being commonly employed in “testing” the beliefs of priests and bishops—even while himself still a layman—and correcting their doctrinal errors. Athanasius lauded “the labor-loving Origen” and praised him for defending the orthodox teaching that the Father and the Son are of one substance, while Gregory of Nazianzus regarded him as “the whetstone of us all.” Gregory and Basil of Caesarea collected some of their favorite passages from Origen’s corpus in their Philocalia, providing to posterity a valuable resource of untranslated Greek extracts which could be compared with such other surviving texts as Rufinus’s Latin translation of On First Principles.
Despite his enormous stature, the long history of altercations over Origen’s legitimacy within the Christian tradition began during his own lifetime, and were often driven more by personal animosities than by any studied effort to properly articulate—let alone refute—his teachings. When a round of persecutions began under the prefect Aquila in the year 206, young Origen was the only Christian teacher who did not flee Alexandria, instead continuing to expound the faith without regard for his own safety. This attracted the jealous ire of the city’s bishop, Demetrius, who came to view independent scholars like Origen as an obstacle to the establishment of a monepiscopacy in Alexandria like the one taking shape in Rome. Their rivalry is almost certainly what prompted Origen to leave the city of his birth, and the invectives launched by Demetrius against the supposed scandal of a layman teaching in the presence of bishops marked the beginning of a long tradition of hearsay and rumor-mongering on the content of Origen’s writings.
Controversy flared again, this time more decisively, at the end of the fourth century, in wake of another dubious dispute over ecclesiastical authority. Epiphanius of Salamis denounced John of Jerusalem for his “Origenism” and his tolerance of iconography, ordaining Saint Jerome’s brother Paulinian as priest of the monastery where the brothers lived in an effort to detach it from John’s jurisdiction. Jerome sided with Epiphanius, but his close friend Rufinus sided with John, and the two had an intensely bitter falling out when the power struggle within the Church hierarchy was displaced into a new debate on the orthodoxy of Origen. Rufinus produced a Latin translation of On First Principles—the only complete surviving version—while Jerome wrote a polemic attacking Rufinus and accusing Origen of all manner of heretical beliefs—the transmigration of souls, the infinite succession of worlds, the creaturely status of the Son of God, and so forth—without specifying where exactly in the text these teachings could be found. Rufinus, for his part, acknowledged that he altered the text while translating it, but insisted that he only removed certain heretical accretions, inserted into the text by anti-Origenist scribes, which were contradicted in Origen’s other writings. Rufinus’s translation holds up well alongside the aforementioned Philocalia, and even Jerome himself could not identify where the text was altered. Nonetheless, Jerome’s allegations prompted a chain of events that culminated with the condemnation of “Origenism” at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.
Even more egregiously, one of the most influential modern renditions of On First Principles, produced by Paul Koetschau in 1913 and translated into English by G.W. Butterworth in 1936, utterly mangled Rufinus’s text. Koetschau decided, with no clear justification, that Rufinus’s own admission that he altered the text meant that his translation was entirely unreliable; so Koetschau attempted to “fix” it by inserting passages stitched together from the works of anti-Origenist writers. He even went so far as to insert the anathemas of 553 into the Rufinus translation, as if Origen himself had written them! These additions, either fabricated or borrowed from Origen’s adversaries, included far more explicit statements of heretical belief—like the notion of a preexistent world of intellects that held faithfully to the Word of God before falling away into an array of mortal bodies befitting the divergency of their wills—than are found in Rufinus’s original translation. Labor-loving Origen is due for a reappraisal, and Fr. John Behr’s new translation of On First Principles is an indispensable contribution to that effort.
Much of the confusion over Origen’s teachings stems from the fact that Origen wrote apocalyptically—that is, in the vein of the Apostles and early Fathers like Irenaeus and Ignatius of Antioch—but is often read philosophically. For Origen, the eternal nature of God is revealed perfectly and decisively in the Passion. The Cross is the still point at which temporality and eternality, the earthly and the divine, interpenetrate, and Creation, understood as the perfection of the divine will, an eschatological reality rather than a temporal one, spills forth. The Cross is the prism through which the patterns of reality are properly understood and the Scriptures are read as theology. Though we’re inclined to view the crucifixion as one event in the flow of history, for Origen and the Apostles the Passion is the beginning of Creation, the fixture from which, with regards to the economy, time and space radiate outward. God reveals Himself to the world, in all His glory, through His seemingly ignominious death as a human being.
There are extraordinarily dense and intricate passages in which Origen does indeed speak of souls endowed with free will and the ability to participate freely in the Word of God nonetheless falling away from the Word to various degrees based on the diversity of their wills; but Origen is not referring to some preexistent state in which disembodied intellects fell away from God and were enveloped in mortal bodies befitting the nature of their transgression at the “beginning of history”, as we typically understand it. He is not mythologizing, but theologizing: reading scripture in light of the Cross. Where in scripture do we find souls falling away from the Word of God, while in the end only One remains perfectly adherent? Of course, we find it in the Passion narratives: in the Synoptic Gospels, the followers of Jesus disavow Him and recoil from His Passion when confronted with the full realization of what perfect faith, and the divinization to be achieved through it, requires of them. Only Jesus Himself, in the Synoptic tradition, remains perfectly faithful to the Wisdom of God, and by so doing He becomes, temporally, that which He always is in eternity: the Son of God.
By adhering perfectly to the uncreated Word, Christ both absorbs it and is assimilated into it; His soul, though no different from others, wills the Word of God so perfectly that this will becomes His nature. Origen likens Christ’s ensconcement in the Word to iron in a fire: just as iron, though never losing its innate structure, takes on the properties of the fire by heating up, so too does Christ, through the Passion, rest in the “fire” of God, taking on His properties so perfectly that Christ “becomes” the fire itself, able to impart this heat to those who follow Him. John Behr takes pains to remind us that Origen is not advocating a form of “adoptionism”, but is merely articulating the paradoxical synthesis of time and eternity that is revealed on the Cross. Christ becomes, in time, what He is in eternity, so that through Him, we might do the same. Since we are all created, in eternity, as guests at the divine banquet—partakers of the heavenly liturgy—our true selves are in some profound sense already united with God: “hidden with Christ in God,” as Colossians puts it. But we can only access them through the self-sacrificial love that is revealed by God and as God on the Cross.
In his essential introduction, Behr summarizes Origen’s understanding of the foldedness of time and eternity, the unveiling of God’s timeless nature within the field of temporality in what we would typically call “salvation history”, in the following manner:
"God has called or elected all to existence in the heavenly court from before the foundation of the world. Seeing to what they are called is a cause for scandal and falling away, with the result that we come to be in temporal existence: the world itself is ‘thrown down,’ and we come into existence in time, fashioned or moulded from the dust of the earth. As this happens, the lamb is also ‘slain from the foundation of the world.’ Yet, at the same time, through the slaying of the Lamb within time at the Passion, at which all fall away (with the notable exception of the beloved disciple in the Gospel of John the Theologian), we are, in fact, brought to participate in the heavenly liturgy through, and requiring, our own taking up the cross. Thus the cause both for diversification as well as unification, in a movement that gives flesh to the heavenly reality (and transforms that flesh into an eternal state) is the self-sacrificial love that is divine life, celebrated eternally in the heavens, but taking on the character of the slaying of the Lamb as those called to the feast fall away, both eternally in the heavens and in time on earth. Yet at the same time this sacrifice is also the means by which the final unity of God’s creation is achieved, when God is indeed ‘all in all,’ enfleshed, and the marriage of the Lamb is consummated.”
Despite his enormous stature, the long history of altercations over Origen’s legitimacy within the Christian tradition began during his own lifetime, and were often driven more by personal animosities than by any studied effort to properly articulate—let alone refute—his teachings. When a round of persecutions began under the prefect Aquila in the year 206, young Origen was the only Christian teacher who did not flee Alexandria, instead continuing to expound the faith without regard for his own safety. This attracted the jealous ire of the city’s bishop, Demetrius, who came to view independent scholars like Origen as an obstacle to the establishment of a monepiscopacy in Alexandria like the one taking shape in Rome. Their rivalry is almost certainly what prompted Origen to leave the city of his birth, and the invectives launched by Demetrius against the supposed scandal of a layman teaching in the presence of bishops marked the beginning of a long tradition of hearsay and rumor-mongering on the content of Origen’s writings.
Controversy flared again, this time more decisively, at the end of the fourth century, in wake of another dubious dispute over ecclesiastical authority. Epiphanius of Salamis denounced John of Jerusalem for his “Origenism” and his tolerance of iconography, ordaining Saint Jerome’s brother Paulinian as priest of the monastery where the brothers lived in an effort to detach it from John’s jurisdiction. Jerome sided with Epiphanius, but his close friend Rufinus sided with John, and the two had an intensely bitter falling out when the power struggle within the Church hierarchy was displaced into a new debate on the orthodoxy of Origen. Rufinus produced a Latin translation of On First Principles—the only complete surviving version—while Jerome wrote a polemic attacking Rufinus and accusing Origen of all manner of heretical beliefs—the transmigration of souls, the infinite succession of worlds, the creaturely status of the Son of God, and so forth—without specifying where exactly in the text these teachings could be found. Rufinus, for his part, acknowledged that he altered the text while translating it, but insisted that he only removed certain heretical accretions, inserted into the text by anti-Origenist scribes, which were contradicted in Origen’s other writings. Rufinus’s translation holds up well alongside the aforementioned Philocalia, and even Jerome himself could not identify where the text was altered. Nonetheless, Jerome’s allegations prompted a chain of events that culminated with the condemnation of “Origenism” at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.
Even more egregiously, one of the most influential modern renditions of On First Principles, produced by Paul Koetschau in 1913 and translated into English by G.W. Butterworth in 1936, utterly mangled Rufinus’s text. Koetschau decided, with no clear justification, that Rufinus’s own admission that he altered the text meant that his translation was entirely unreliable; so Koetschau attempted to “fix” it by inserting passages stitched together from the works of anti-Origenist writers. He even went so far as to insert the anathemas of 553 into the Rufinus translation, as if Origen himself had written them! These additions, either fabricated or borrowed from Origen’s adversaries, included far more explicit statements of heretical belief—like the notion of a preexistent world of intellects that held faithfully to the Word of God before falling away into an array of mortal bodies befitting the divergency of their wills—than are found in Rufinus’s original translation. Labor-loving Origen is due for a reappraisal, and Fr. John Behr’s new translation of On First Principles is an indispensable contribution to that effort.
Much of the confusion over Origen’s teachings stems from the fact that Origen wrote apocalyptically—that is, in the vein of the Apostles and early Fathers like Irenaeus and Ignatius of Antioch—but is often read philosophically. For Origen, the eternal nature of God is revealed perfectly and decisively in the Passion. The Cross is the still point at which temporality and eternality, the earthly and the divine, interpenetrate, and Creation, understood as the perfection of the divine will, an eschatological reality rather than a temporal one, spills forth. The Cross is the prism through which the patterns of reality are properly understood and the Scriptures are read as theology. Though we’re inclined to view the crucifixion as one event in the flow of history, for Origen and the Apostles the Passion is the beginning of Creation, the fixture from which, with regards to the economy, time and space radiate outward. God reveals Himself to the world, in all His glory, through His seemingly ignominious death as a human being.
There are extraordinarily dense and intricate passages in which Origen does indeed speak of souls endowed with free will and the ability to participate freely in the Word of God nonetheless falling away from the Word to various degrees based on the diversity of their wills; but Origen is not referring to some preexistent state in which disembodied intellects fell away from God and were enveloped in mortal bodies befitting the nature of their transgression at the “beginning of history”, as we typically understand it. He is not mythologizing, but theologizing: reading scripture in light of the Cross. Where in scripture do we find souls falling away from the Word of God, while in the end only One remains perfectly adherent? Of course, we find it in the Passion narratives: in the Synoptic Gospels, the followers of Jesus disavow Him and recoil from His Passion when confronted with the full realization of what perfect faith, and the divinization to be achieved through it, requires of them. Only Jesus Himself, in the Synoptic tradition, remains perfectly faithful to the Wisdom of God, and by so doing He becomes, temporally, that which He always is in eternity: the Son of God.
By adhering perfectly to the uncreated Word, Christ both absorbs it and is assimilated into it; His soul, though no different from others, wills the Word of God so perfectly that this will becomes His nature. Origen likens Christ’s ensconcement in the Word to iron in a fire: just as iron, though never losing its innate structure, takes on the properties of the fire by heating up, so too does Christ, through the Passion, rest in the “fire” of God, taking on His properties so perfectly that Christ “becomes” the fire itself, able to impart this heat to those who follow Him. John Behr takes pains to remind us that Origen is not advocating a form of “adoptionism”, but is merely articulating the paradoxical synthesis of time and eternity that is revealed on the Cross. Christ becomes, in time, what He is in eternity, so that through Him, we might do the same. Since we are all created, in eternity, as guests at the divine banquet—partakers of the heavenly liturgy—our true selves are in some profound sense already united with God: “hidden with Christ in God,” as Colossians puts it. But we can only access them through the self-sacrificial love that is revealed by God and as God on the Cross.
In his essential introduction, Behr summarizes Origen’s understanding of the foldedness of time and eternity, the unveiling of God’s timeless nature within the field of temporality in what we would typically call “salvation history”, in the following manner:
"God has called or elected all to existence in the heavenly court from before the foundation of the world. Seeing to what they are called is a cause for scandal and falling away, with the result that we come to be in temporal existence: the world itself is ‘thrown down,’ and we come into existence in time, fashioned or moulded from the dust of the earth. As this happens, the lamb is also ‘slain from the foundation of the world.’ Yet, at the same time, through the slaying of the Lamb within time at the Passion, at which all fall away (with the notable exception of the beloved disciple in the Gospel of John the Theologian), we are, in fact, brought to participate in the heavenly liturgy through, and requiring, our own taking up the cross. Thus the cause both for diversification as well as unification, in a movement that gives flesh to the heavenly reality (and transforms that flesh into an eternal state) is the self-sacrificial love that is divine life, celebrated eternally in the heavens, but taking on the character of the slaying of the Lamb as those called to the feast fall away, both eternally in the heavens and in time on earth. Yet at the same time this sacrifice is also the means by which the final unity of God’s creation is achieved, when God is indeed ‘all in all,’ enfleshed, and the marriage of the Lamb is consummated.”
August 30, 2021
Who Should Read This Book? – Theologians, pastors and anyone interested in Christian theology.
What is the Big Takeaway? – The Church today would do well to learn how to read scripture from Origen. Also, John Behr is a treasure for his working in translating this.
And a Quote – “There will be then, an end and consummation of the world, when every one shall be subjected to punishments on account of sins; this time, when he will render to each one what is deserved, is known to God alone. We think, indeed, that the goodness of God through Christ may recall his whole creation to one end, with even his enemies being overcome and subdued” (1.6.1)
Growing up in evangelical Christian America, the major litmus test for whether you interpreted scripture correctly (and basically, whether you were legitimately saved) was if you took it “literally”? To question the so-called literal meaning of scripture was to place oneself on the slippery slope to heresy (and probably eternal damnation).
Of course, the more I read the Bible the more I learned no one actually took the Bible literally, at least in the way they claimed to. If you meet someone’s literal scripture with a literal scripture that appears to teach something different, well, you were interpreting, and twisting, the text. How does one know which scriptures are the literal ones and which are not? Unfortunately this question is rarely asked for it seems many of the people quickest to claim their literal reading is the unquestioned right one do not realize they are just repeating what they’ve heard. Its been said so often by so many in their circles, it just sounds right.
Speaking of these sorts of questions, they are less and less possible to be avoided. It seems everyone and their sister is talking about deconstructing faith. That is a whole separate subject from this review and, for the record, I think a lot of things need to be deconstructed. What once just sounded right no longer does, and its super quick and easy to hop on TikTok or Reddit and see the host of questions, often good and necessary questions, from exvangelicals and ex-Christians.
Now, I am not saying Origen – a church father who died nearly 1,800 years ago has all the answers. But I do think pastors and church leaders would do well to learn from Origen. There is a whole lot of wisdom in the tradition of the church, especially the pre-Reformation tradition. I am not interested in scapegoating or bashing the Reformers. But it is worth wondering how the history of Christianity may have gone differently if the Reformers (and the western tradition) was reading more Origen (and the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor and others).
All that to say, if you are interested in historical theology and you want to learn from one of the great saints (well not officially, but I’m not catholic so I’ll go ahead and call him a saint) of the church, read Origen. This new translation by John Behr (also, read anything by Behr you can) is worth the money. I mean, maybe not the $180 for the super-scholarly version (unless you’re actually a scholar) but the $35 for the readers version.
At this point, if you want more background on Origen I am going to point you to another review which is brilliant: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
As I said, I think Origen has a lot to teach us on how to read scripture. Much of this comes in book four, the final book in On First Principles. He speaks of three levels of the scripture – the surface level, the soul (think the moral/spiritual) level and then the deepest level where it speaks of Christ. This brings me back to interpreting the Bible. Origen would agree with my literalist friends that the Bible does have a literal (bodily) meaning. The problem is, this is literally just the surface level. Its beginner stuff. Until we dig deep into the spiritual meaning we have not plumbed the depth of the text.
What is fascinating is Origen even argues that some passages in scripture are obviously confusing or make little sense because God wrote them so to force us to dig deeper! Today some Christians get very worried about contradictions in scripture. Much ink is spilt and much time is spent trying to prove things that appear contradictory are not. What if we spent less time defending the surface level of the text and helped people dig deeper into it.
After all, the point of scripture is not the surface level:
“For our position is that with respect to the whole of the divine scripture all of it has a spiritual meaning, but not all of it has a bodily meaning, for there are many places where the bodily is proved to be impossible” (4.3.5)
What’s the point then? Well, Origen is rather keen on Jesus. Jesus is the key to scripture, the key that is lacking in how many read scripture today. The revelation of God in Jesus is the key that guides all our interpretation of scripture. So, and this is my point not Origen’s, when we see God commanding genocidal violence in the OT and then we see Jesus commanding love of enemy in the NT, we don’t have God commanding two different things. We don’t get to, as the saying goes, “pick and choose.” We start with Jesus and this forces us to move past the surface level of those OT commands.
Anyway…for Origen scripture is written by Jesus and is about Jesus:
“By the words of Christ we mean not only those which he spoke when he became human and dwelt in the flesh; for even before this, Christ, the word of God, was in Moses and the prophets” (Pr. 1)
“Then, finally, that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and that they have not only the meaning which is obvious, but also another which escapes the notice of most” (Pr.8 )
This is because Jesus is God. Origen’s doctrine of God and the Trinity was influential for the next generation of theologians who hammered out the doctrine of the Trinity. Origen, against what some have said about him, does not present us with a created Son. Rather, the Son has always been for the Father is always begetting the Son.
Speaking of false ideas about Origen, Behr talks in the preface about the infamous idea that humans pre-existed and were placed in bodies based on their obedience. This is not what Origen actually taught and a close reading of the book shows that. Origen’s view of God, creation, rational beings and such is worth the price of the book.
That reminds me, I’ve read a lot of Charles Taylor on how the premodern age was enchanted and David Bentley Hart on how the early Christians had a much more vivid sense of powers and principalities than we do. With this in mind, reading Origen’s description of angels, demons, powers, principalities and even the sun and moon was jarring and fascinating. Simply put, he viewed the cosmos quite differently than we postmoderns do. And we’d probably do well to return to a more enchanted view.
Finally, I love what Origen says about free will. He says a lot. Basically, all rational beings have a choice. We can choose to do right or to do wrong. There are forces at work that are certainly influencing us, but the choice is ours. Further, God’s grace and strength will help us, so its not ALL us. Would that this view of freedom and God’s sovereignty had won out in the West rather than Augustine’s view. On that note, its hard for me to see how the Calvinist/Augustine view does not make God the author of evil (I mean, I’ve thought this for a while). For Origen, humans are born with choice, God only works and does good, and eventually evil will be no more so all creation will be restored to God. For Augustine (and Calvin) humans are born inherently sinful and there will always be a portion of humans consumed by evil so evil will exist eternally right alongside of God.
One more time for the exvangelicals and deconstructionist in the back – there are better, more satisfying, more compelling and more beautiful understandings of God than you realize!
Of course, I suppose its up to people like me and you to help them see. Becuase they’re certainly not going to read Origen!
What is the Big Takeaway? – The Church today would do well to learn how to read scripture from Origen. Also, John Behr is a treasure for his working in translating this.
And a Quote – “There will be then, an end and consummation of the world, when every one shall be subjected to punishments on account of sins; this time, when he will render to each one what is deserved, is known to God alone. We think, indeed, that the goodness of God through Christ may recall his whole creation to one end, with even his enemies being overcome and subdued” (1.6.1)
Growing up in evangelical Christian America, the major litmus test for whether you interpreted scripture correctly (and basically, whether you were legitimately saved) was if you took it “literally”? To question the so-called literal meaning of scripture was to place oneself on the slippery slope to heresy (and probably eternal damnation).
Of course, the more I read the Bible the more I learned no one actually took the Bible literally, at least in the way they claimed to. If you meet someone’s literal scripture with a literal scripture that appears to teach something different, well, you were interpreting, and twisting, the text. How does one know which scriptures are the literal ones and which are not? Unfortunately this question is rarely asked for it seems many of the people quickest to claim their literal reading is the unquestioned right one do not realize they are just repeating what they’ve heard. Its been said so often by so many in their circles, it just sounds right.
Speaking of these sorts of questions, they are less and less possible to be avoided. It seems everyone and their sister is talking about deconstructing faith. That is a whole separate subject from this review and, for the record, I think a lot of things need to be deconstructed. What once just sounded right no longer does, and its super quick and easy to hop on TikTok or Reddit and see the host of questions, often good and necessary questions, from exvangelicals and ex-Christians.
Now, I am not saying Origen – a church father who died nearly 1,800 years ago has all the answers. But I do think pastors and church leaders would do well to learn from Origen. There is a whole lot of wisdom in the tradition of the church, especially the pre-Reformation tradition. I am not interested in scapegoating or bashing the Reformers. But it is worth wondering how the history of Christianity may have gone differently if the Reformers (and the western tradition) was reading more Origen (and the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor and others).
All that to say, if you are interested in historical theology and you want to learn from one of the great saints (well not officially, but I’m not catholic so I’ll go ahead and call him a saint) of the church, read Origen. This new translation by John Behr (also, read anything by Behr you can) is worth the money. I mean, maybe not the $180 for the super-scholarly version (unless you’re actually a scholar) but the $35 for the readers version.
At this point, if you want more background on Origen I am going to point you to another review which is brilliant: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
As I said, I think Origen has a lot to teach us on how to read scripture. Much of this comes in book four, the final book in On First Principles. He speaks of three levels of the scripture – the surface level, the soul (think the moral/spiritual) level and then the deepest level where it speaks of Christ. This brings me back to interpreting the Bible. Origen would agree with my literalist friends that the Bible does have a literal (bodily) meaning. The problem is, this is literally just the surface level. Its beginner stuff. Until we dig deep into the spiritual meaning we have not plumbed the depth of the text.
What is fascinating is Origen even argues that some passages in scripture are obviously confusing or make little sense because God wrote them so to force us to dig deeper! Today some Christians get very worried about contradictions in scripture. Much ink is spilt and much time is spent trying to prove things that appear contradictory are not. What if we spent less time defending the surface level of the text and helped people dig deeper into it.
After all, the point of scripture is not the surface level:
“For our position is that with respect to the whole of the divine scripture all of it has a spiritual meaning, but not all of it has a bodily meaning, for there are many places where the bodily is proved to be impossible” (4.3.5)
What’s the point then? Well, Origen is rather keen on Jesus. Jesus is the key to scripture, the key that is lacking in how many read scripture today. The revelation of God in Jesus is the key that guides all our interpretation of scripture. So, and this is my point not Origen’s, when we see God commanding genocidal violence in the OT and then we see Jesus commanding love of enemy in the NT, we don’t have God commanding two different things. We don’t get to, as the saying goes, “pick and choose.” We start with Jesus and this forces us to move past the surface level of those OT commands.
Anyway…for Origen scripture is written by Jesus and is about Jesus:
“By the words of Christ we mean not only those which he spoke when he became human and dwelt in the flesh; for even before this, Christ, the word of God, was in Moses and the prophets” (Pr. 1)
“Then, finally, that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and that they have not only the meaning which is obvious, but also another which escapes the notice of most” (Pr.8 )
This is because Jesus is God. Origen’s doctrine of God and the Trinity was influential for the next generation of theologians who hammered out the doctrine of the Trinity. Origen, against what some have said about him, does not present us with a created Son. Rather, the Son has always been for the Father is always begetting the Son.
Speaking of false ideas about Origen, Behr talks in the preface about the infamous idea that humans pre-existed and were placed in bodies based on their obedience. This is not what Origen actually taught and a close reading of the book shows that. Origen’s view of God, creation, rational beings and such is worth the price of the book.
That reminds me, I’ve read a lot of Charles Taylor on how the premodern age was enchanted and David Bentley Hart on how the early Christians had a much more vivid sense of powers and principalities than we do. With this in mind, reading Origen’s description of angels, demons, powers, principalities and even the sun and moon was jarring and fascinating. Simply put, he viewed the cosmos quite differently than we postmoderns do. And we’d probably do well to return to a more enchanted view.
Finally, I love what Origen says about free will. He says a lot. Basically, all rational beings have a choice. We can choose to do right or to do wrong. There are forces at work that are certainly influencing us, but the choice is ours. Further, God’s grace and strength will help us, so its not ALL us. Would that this view of freedom and God’s sovereignty had won out in the West rather than Augustine’s view. On that note, its hard for me to see how the Calvinist/Augustine view does not make God the author of evil (I mean, I’ve thought this for a while). For Origen, humans are born with choice, God only works and does good, and eventually evil will be no more so all creation will be restored to God. For Augustine (and Calvin) humans are born inherently sinful and there will always be a portion of humans consumed by evil so evil will exist eternally right alongside of God.
One more time for the exvangelicals and deconstructionist in the back – there are better, more satisfying, more compelling and more beautiful understandings of God than you realize!
Of course, I suppose its up to people like me and you to help them see. Becuase they’re certainly not going to read Origen!
October 5, 2015
I read this at Union Theological Seminary in New York during the first semester of 1975/76 alongside Cyril Richardson's "Early Christianity" course. It was, as I recall, the last term Richardson taught before his death.
Clement and Origen, both connected to the catechetical school of Alexandria during the late second and early third centuries, were the most congenial Christian theologians of that era. Both project a philosophical depth and liberality of spirit entirely lacking in such a near-contemporary as Irenaeus. One gets a sense of persons devoted more to seeking truth and wisdom than to exercising control from their writings.
Of the two and based on their extant writings, Origen is the greater intellect and this text may be most representative of his learning. The orientation is neo-Platonic, which, alongside a healthy dose of commonsense, provides him with a conceptual framework to interpret Christian literature. He is, notably, reliant upon allegorical interpretations of "revealed" scripture when their immediately apparent sense amounts to nonsense.
My favorite portion of this book was the part in which he apologetically addressed the accusation of atheism commonly made against his coreligionists. Rather than making any ontologically monotheistic claim against the polytheists, Origen simply states something along the lines of "we believe in one god so that our souls may become one". This may be viewed as a sort of henotheism, but it is certainly more psychologically sophisticated than such claims as appear in the Hebrew scriptures.
Clement and Origen, both connected to the catechetical school of Alexandria during the late second and early third centuries, were the most congenial Christian theologians of that era. Both project a philosophical depth and liberality of spirit entirely lacking in such a near-contemporary as Irenaeus. One gets a sense of persons devoted more to seeking truth and wisdom than to exercising control from their writings.
Of the two and based on their extant writings, Origen is the greater intellect and this text may be most representative of his learning. The orientation is neo-Platonic, which, alongside a healthy dose of commonsense, provides him with a conceptual framework to interpret Christian literature. He is, notably, reliant upon allegorical interpretations of "revealed" scripture when their immediately apparent sense amounts to nonsense.
My favorite portion of this book was the part in which he apologetically addressed the accusation of atheism commonly made against his coreligionists. Rather than making any ontologically monotheistic claim against the polytheists, Origen simply states something along the lines of "we believe in one god so that our souls may become one". This may be viewed as a sort of henotheism, but it is certainly more psychologically sophisticated than such claims as appear in the Hebrew scriptures.
May 11, 2015
Beware syncretism
Some keen insights, some grave errors. Origen did his best to meld the philosophies of his day with the authority of scripture, with not always pleasing results. This is a cautionary tale for the modern bible student. "Scripture and" environmentalism; evolution; sexual identity, etc., is sure to lead one astray from truth.
Some keen insights, some grave errors. Origen did his best to meld the philosophies of his day with the authority of scripture, with not always pleasing results. This is a cautionary tale for the modern bible student. "Scripture and" environmentalism; evolution; sexual identity, etc., is sure to lead one astray from truth.
January 15, 2021
All Systematic Theology is Footnotes on Origin
To paraphrase Whitehead’s oft cited quip on Plato, all efforts to build a worldview on theological principles might be said to be so many footnotes on Origin.
The basics are all there: fidelity to the tradition of the apostles, the Bible as the soul of the project, the use of secular sciences to aid in making it comprehensive—it’s amazing how modern a second century writer can seem.
Perhaps his greatest contribution is the modesty with which he held his views by carefully distinguishing them from the Christian faith. He’s trying to build a system that makes sense of the world; he’s using the Bible and tradition as his foundation; but he nowhere demands that anybody’s salvation depends upon whether they agree or disagree with his thought. It’s a marvelous quality that later Christian writers would have done well to emulate.
Though not directly pertaining to modern concerns, the Principles is still an engaging work where one can see the young Christian faith in its first grapplings with secular worldviews. Recommended to all interested in the history of ideas and civilization.
To paraphrase Whitehead’s oft cited quip on Plato, all efforts to build a worldview on theological principles might be said to be so many footnotes on Origin.
The basics are all there: fidelity to the tradition of the apostles, the Bible as the soul of the project, the use of secular sciences to aid in making it comprehensive—it’s amazing how modern a second century writer can seem.
Perhaps his greatest contribution is the modesty with which he held his views by carefully distinguishing them from the Christian faith. He’s trying to build a system that makes sense of the world; he’s using the Bible and tradition as his foundation; but he nowhere demands that anybody’s salvation depends upon whether they agree or disagree with his thought. It’s a marvelous quality that later Christian writers would have done well to emulate.
Though not directly pertaining to modern concerns, the Principles is still an engaging work where one can see the young Christian faith in its first grapplings with secular worldviews. Recommended to all interested in the history of ideas and civilization.
July 17, 2018
J'ai été très agréablement surpris par De Principiis d'Origène. Je m'attendais à un livre obscur rempli d'hérésies vaseuses, un peu comme on m'avait toujours décrit Origène dans les différentes introductions que j'avais écouté.
Tout au contraire, j'ai découvert un Origène très pédagogue, extrêmement clair, profondément orthodoxe (sauf deux chapitres à la fin du livre III) et qui dans l'ensemble m'a laissé une très belle impression. De Principiis devrait faire partie de toute liste de lecture incluant des pères de l'église, il vaut la peine d'être lu.
Tout au contraire, j'ai découvert un Origène très pédagogue, extrêmement clair, profondément orthodoxe (sauf deux chapitres à la fin du livre III) et qui dans l'ensemble m'a laissé une très belle impression. De Principiis devrait faire partie de toute liste de lecture incluant des pères de l'église, il vaut la peine d'être lu.
March 20, 2025
Hermeneutics: good. Christology: mostly good. Preexistence of souls: not good.
One can see how Origen sets the table — and sets up problems — for the next 1500 years of Christian theologizing, even when said theologizing is being done over against "Origen" or "Origenism". To my mind, Behr is pretty convincing to the effect that the various condemnations of the sixth century had relatively little actual purchase on Origen's own writings or opinions. Many features of his overall reading are less convincing, particularly his attempts to rescue Origen from the charge of importing Greek philosophical-religious notions of the immortal soul and its movement between bodies into Christian thought. That's just an utterly foreign set of concepts to the Scriptural way of thinking, as far as I can tell.
On the other hand, his hermeneutics bear the unmistakable stamp of deep, sustained reflection on the text of Scripture itself and a real wrestling with what they are — and are not. His Christology and Trinitarian theology are wonderful and rich — except when the preexistence of souls doctrine impinges and he seems to suggest that the human soul of Jesus was the one which, in its pre-incarnate existence, most perfectly meditated on the things of God and thus most merited being united to the eternal Word. But even when he's speculating, he does so with admirable humility.
Not a place one can, or should, ultimately rest, hermeneutically or otherwise; but a brilliant shove in (most of) the right directions. Except for the soul's preexistence. Don't go that way, folks.
One can see how Origen sets the table — and sets up problems — for the next 1500 years of Christian theologizing, even when said theologizing is being done over against "Origen" or "Origenism". To my mind, Behr is pretty convincing to the effect that the various condemnations of the sixth century had relatively little actual purchase on Origen's own writings or opinions. Many features of his overall reading are less convincing, particularly his attempts to rescue Origen from the charge of importing Greek philosophical-religious notions of the immortal soul and its movement between bodies into Christian thought. That's just an utterly foreign set of concepts to the Scriptural way of thinking, as far as I can tell.
On the other hand, his hermeneutics bear the unmistakable stamp of deep, sustained reflection on the text of Scripture itself and a real wrestling with what they are — and are not. His Christology and Trinitarian theology are wonderful and rich — except when the preexistence of souls doctrine impinges and he seems to suggest that the human soul of Jesus was the one which, in its pre-incarnate existence, most perfectly meditated on the things of God and thus most merited being united to the eternal Word. But even when he's speculating, he does so with admirable humility.
Not a place one can, or should, ultimately rest, hermeneutically or otherwise; but a brilliant shove in (most of) the right directions. Except for the soul's preexistence. Don't go that way, folks.
January 16, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this treatise on first principles. Origen attempts and (I think rather beautifully) succeeds in manufacturing a sweeping systematic theological framework. His uncompromisingly curious mind was refreshing in light of many other deep thinkers who hesitantly tiptoe around the conclusions of their thought. There were many assumptions I took into this book that I thought I'd be cringing whilst digging through; pre-existent souls, universal redemption, platonic ideals and a heavy asceticism. This was not the case however, in fact for every one of them I was surprised to find a legitimate reason for his belief - what's more, the more dangerous ends of his theology he’d apparently be willing to give up if someone would correct him. A curious mind indeed.
Origins explanation of the will was a curveball, somehow i’d imagined he’d align with a more Thomistic view of things. I mean there’s certainly evidence for this in the text, but perhaps the will wasn't as large of an issue as it would come to be in the following centuries. I also suspect that Origen was defending free will as it opposes determinism rather than detailing the intricacies of the will.
It was a curveball but in the end I see why he got there. The idea of pre-existent souls helps him to understand why there is such a diversity of human experience, some born into struggle and others born into bliss. He posits that there must have been an age prior to the one we now live, in which the will of all rational creatures determined their fate in the next age (this age). Now before you run off to find wood and fire for the heretic, this is exactly what christians believe will happen in the future, only in Origens case he has also superimposed it onto the beginning - smart move.
This of course is important to Origen as he is expounding on the inevitable direction of all rational creatures. He declares that the end must be like the beginning and that God’s intentions in his creation must eventually find its fulfillment. That is, when all rational beings are brought into harmony with their creator and God is “all in all”.
There are so many wonderful aspects to his system of thought, I'd even say that I hold a very similar position to him. I wasn't so sure of his conclusion that nodded in the direction in the complete loss of the ego when all are one with God and I found some of his exegesis hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I eat the meat and spit out the bones!
Origins explanation of the will was a curveball, somehow i’d imagined he’d align with a more Thomistic view of things. I mean there’s certainly evidence for this in the text, but perhaps the will wasn't as large of an issue as it would come to be in the following centuries. I also suspect that Origen was defending free will as it opposes determinism rather than detailing the intricacies of the will.
It was a curveball but in the end I see why he got there. The idea of pre-existent souls helps him to understand why there is such a diversity of human experience, some born into struggle and others born into bliss. He posits that there must have been an age prior to the one we now live, in which the will of all rational creatures determined their fate in the next age (this age). Now before you run off to find wood and fire for the heretic, this is exactly what christians believe will happen in the future, only in Origens case he has also superimposed it onto the beginning - smart move.
This of course is important to Origen as he is expounding on the inevitable direction of all rational creatures. He declares that the end must be like the beginning and that God’s intentions in his creation must eventually find its fulfillment. That is, when all rational beings are brought into harmony with their creator and God is “all in all”.
There are so many wonderful aspects to his system of thought, I'd even say that I hold a very similar position to him. I wasn't so sure of his conclusion that nodded in the direction in the complete loss of the ego when all are one with God and I found some of his exegesis hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I eat the meat and spit out the bones!
July 9, 2015
I read this years ago and just worked through it again as part of a book club here on Goodreads. It is a must read for any student of Christian history. Origen certainly does not write in what we might see as a "systematic" style, though you can also see the beginnings of systematic theology in his work. Origen argues strongly for the deity of Christ and the Trinity. At the same time there are many speculations here, some not even taken up and fully explained, that point to why he is not "St. Origen." From the pre-existence of souls to universal salvation to some nuances in his Trinitarian thought, Origen was a very controversial figure after his death.
I especially appreciated his arguments for human free will which had to influence later writers and which Augustine certainly would not have liked. Along with that, his explanation of how to read the Bible and his explanation of the allegorical method are valuable both from a historical standpoint but also as a check on how we read the Bible today. It is easy to dismiss the allegorical method in our love of historical-grammatical, but maybe we ought to take a longer listen to long-dead Christians who loved Jesus and may have interpreted scripture a bit differently then we do. Even if they had some odd ideas. I imagine in 1000 years people will look back and wonder at our odd, even heretical, ideas.
I especially appreciated his arguments for human free will which had to influence later writers and which Augustine certainly would not have liked. Along with that, his explanation of how to read the Bible and his explanation of the allegorical method are valuable both from a historical standpoint but also as a check on how we read the Bible today. It is easy to dismiss the allegorical method in our love of historical-grammatical, but maybe we ought to take a longer listen to long-dead Christians who loved Jesus and may have interpreted scripture a bit differently then we do. Even if they had some odd ideas. I imagine in 1000 years people will look back and wonder at our odd, even heretical, ideas.
April 19, 2021
A stimulating and insightful introduction by John Behr, covering Origen’s life, theology, and hermeneutics. I’ll defer the review of Behr’s translation to others! The layout and footnotes are very helpful.
August 14, 2014
On First Principles (Peri Archon) is the first "systematic" theology in Christian history but do not expect it to read like a modern textbook. Origen applies his expansive and speculative mind to Scripture and the faith for the sake of the church with an easy aplomb and conciseness that is quite a feat. His work is both linear and cyclical; he weaves a narrative together, but continually loops back to fill in gaps and build upon the framework. He is unafraid yet reverent in his groundbreaking work on the Trinity and Christology, both of which will be foundational for the solidification of the doctrine of the church. On First Principles is meant to be a service for the church, to deal with hard questions, sort out rampant errors, and play with concepts that would lead to deeper exploration of the scriptures and of humanity's relationship with God.
It's worth the extra effort it takes to get on the same page with Origen as far as context. Reading this work (for the second time) was incredibly rewarding and has helped jolt and shape my theological imagination.
It's worth the extra effort it takes to get on the same page with Origen as far as context. Reading this work (for the second time) was incredibly rewarding and has helped jolt and shape my theological imagination.
July 14, 2022
Origen has some pretty strong opinions on meritocracy when it comes to heavenly and infernal offices, which is informed by his equally strong opinions regarding free will, and salvation. He even goes so far as to state that the devil himself could be redeemed in the end times when God becomes all in all. After all, he fell into the state of sin by his own choice. In fact in Origen's cosmology rational beings angels and demons all seem to be endowed with free will. One thing that struck me in Volume 2 is Origen's affirmation of the idea that the contagion of sin does not spare even celestial bodies, which would seemingly bring these objects into the eschatological fold as concerns their ultimate fate.
May 1, 2024
Origen is an interesting read. John Behr's edition and critical reconstruction is the best out there, so don't read On First Principles by any other translator or compiler.
Origen gets a bad rap in Christian history, and the story of his reception is complicated. Christian theology has rightfully moved beyond Origen in some ways, but in other ways I think he has deep insight. Contra the ignorant and uninteresting claims that Origen was a heretic , he was a devout churchman and brilliant theologian of his time - don't let internet dweebs say otherwise. Christian theological reflection bears the indelible mark of Origen's insights.
Origen gets a bad rap in Christian history, and the story of his reception is complicated. Christian theology has rightfully moved beyond Origen in some ways, but in other ways I think he has deep insight. Contra the ignorant and uninteresting claims that Origen was a heretic , he was a devout churchman and brilliant theologian of his time - don't let internet dweebs say otherwise. Christian theological reflection bears the indelible mark of Origen's insights.
December 12, 2024
This is a very clear translation to one of the most historically important works of theology ever written. Sadly, it is not entirely preserved in its original language, but in Rufinus' Latin translations and fragments from the Philocalia compiled and edited by Basil and Gregory. Where applicable, translations of both the Latin and Greek texts are mirrored on the top and bottom of the page.
The introduction to this book is worth reading by itself. It gives a theological introduction to Origen and helps explain some of the often-misunderstood points of Origen's theology. He also gives a brief apology for some of Origen's doctrines and others Behr wholly admits are bewildering and were rightly anathematized.
This theological work can be extremely bewildering at times, as it contains many speculative points that are seldom held today.
The introduction to this book is worth reading by itself. It gives a theological introduction to Origen and helps explain some of the often-misunderstood points of Origen's theology. He also gives a brief apology for some of Origen's doctrines and others Behr wholly admits are bewildering and were rightly anathematized.
This theological work can be extremely bewildering at times, as it contains many speculative points that are seldom held today.
May 15, 2025
Origin the Wild. Of those earliest Christian thinkers that had to learn the hard way—shelter your theological speculations under the umbrella of “speculation” all you want, when it comes down to it you’ll still get tagged as heretical. (Tolkien, 1800 years later, on the shoulders of fallen giants, learned better—couch it in fiction and they won’t blink, but rave). Also working against Origen—he came too early for his own good; no odd opinions allowed when we’re trying to cement the orthodox. But in the days of Protestantism, sectarianism, and individualism, our Wild West of anything goes… is he or isn’t he a patron saint?
July 28, 2022
Cautious must-read for any pastor or theologian. Cautious because he relies way too much, too often, on philosophies of his day, particularly Plato’s. Must-read because once you get rid of the bones and find your way to the meat, his hermeneutic of the Old Testament is brilliant, along with (and I’m in the minority here) his view of judgment, punishment, and restoration “to their ancient rank.” I wouldn’t recommend this to a casual congregant that doesn’t know what to keep and what to sift out, but for the serious students of theology, this is one to spend the time on, if not for anything else, for the fact that it is such an early text of a church father (one of the earliest).
Read
November 3, 2021read for school.
July 29, 2022
Probablement le meilleur traité théologique pré-nicéen lu à ce jour
# Propos général et œuvre
## Propos général
En parlant improprement, on pourrait dire qu'il s'agit de la première systématique avec IRENEE Démonstration de la prédication apostolique.
## Edition
J'ai suivi l'édition de Sources Chrétiennes, excellente à tout point de vue.
## Texte
L’original est perdu. Nous disposons de la paraphrase latine de Rufin, d’originaux grecs pour certaines sections (sur l’Ecriture et sur le libre arbitre), de citations diverses, de Jérôme notamment et concernant surtout les extraits hérétiques. Et nous disposons d’une Philocalie copiée par Basile de Césarée et Grégoire de Naziance. Cet extrait choisi en grec nous donne un original pour les livres III et IV en majeure partie. Il y a aussi le florilège de Justinien.
## Polémique
Jérôme a attaqué l’orthodoxie d’Origène, Rufin l’a défendu. Origène a été condamné mais une certaine distance existe entre ce qu’a réellement dit Origène et ce qu’on en savait et qui a été condamné.
## Plans
Plan en trois parties 1) Dieu Trinité ; 2) Les créatures raisonnables ; 3) Le monde à la manière des traités philosophiques sur les principes.
1. Préface : 9 points de la prédication apostolique : 1. Dieu unique, 2. Le Christ, 3. Esprit Saint, 4. L’âme, 5. Résurrection, 6. Libre arbitre, 7. Le diable et ses anges, 8. Le monde créé et fini, 9. Ecritures inspirées. Remarque sur l’absence du mot incorporel dans les Ecritures.
2. Première série de traités, philosophique : Trinité, natures raisonnables, le monde et les créatures.
3. Suit les 9 points de la préface. Revient sur le mot incorporel. Problème de la connaissance.
4. L’anakephalaiosis qui reprend le même plan que la première série avec une inversion : Trinité puis monde puis créatures raisonnables. Problème de la connaissance.
Tome I : Trinité, chute et dégradation, natures raisonnables, fin et consommation, corporels et incorporels, anges
Tome II : monde, perpétuité de la nature corporelle, début du monde et ses causes, le Dieu unique dans les 2 testaments, du Dieu juste et bon, de l’incarnation, Esprit, de l’âme, des changements des créatures raisonables, de la résurrection, des promesses
Tome III : Du libre arbitre, puissances adverses, triple sagesse, deux âmes ?, le monde a commencé, la consommation du monde,
Tome IV : Les Ecritures sont inspirées, sens spirituel, exemples, récapitulation générale.
## Causes de la polémique
Toutes les sources sur Origène sont donc des interprétations et traductions des IVème et VIème siècles. Origène n’évolue pas dans un monde où les chrétiens sont majoritaires et où le magistrat punit l’hérésie. A son époque, les philosophes sont encore une intelligentsia à convertir alors qu’elle intéresse moins plus tard. Etant moins versés en philosophie, ses commentateurs (alliés comme opposants) ratent des choses. Les problèmes qui se posent à lui ne se posent plus dans les époques subséquentes. Origène mèle à des dogmes de foi reconnus des spéculations philosophiques, énoncées de manière dubitatives, à visée de recherche, sur d’autres sujets. Les périodes suivantes seront beaucoup plus dogmatiques. Enfin, il y a la différence entre latins et grecs. Les aspects disciplinaires, judiciaires, autoritaires, moraux sont plus latins ainsi que la rhétorique. Les hérésies qui préoccupent ne sont plus les mêmes non plus. Origène répond avant tout à Valentin, Marcion et Basilide : il faut montrer l’unité des Testaments. Il faut lutter contre les 3 natures d’âme et le prédestinatianisme strict de Valentin. Il faut répondre à l’idée d’une génération du Fils comme nouvelle substance. La doctrine de la préexistence des âmes est forgée par lui comme solution au problème de l’apparence de malveillance du Dieu de l’AT, pour répondre à Marcion. Il répond aussi au montanisme, à l’adoptianisme, au modalisme. Origène semble adopter une former de subordinatianisme courant chez les anténicéens : il s’agit de l’origine, de l’économie.
Origène écrit aussi contre les « naïfs », pour ainsi dire, qui interprètent littéralement l’Ecriture. Il vante l’interprétation spirituelle, répond à ceux qui pensent que Dieu a un corps, répond aux chiliastes.
Origène a donc été accusé de toute part d’arianisme, de pélagianisme, de nestorianisme ou de monophysisme, souvent par incompréhension et parce que ses formulations ne concernaient pas des matières de débat de son époque et son vocabulaire n’était donc pas raffiné. Cf. Com Jn VI, 36 (20) pour se convaincre qu’il n’était pas pélagien.
Origène formule des hypothèses donc, sur des domaines non encore élucidés de la théologie et opte donc pour des solutions dont l’hétérodoxie sera plus tard manifeste. Les autres options à la préexistence étaient le traducianisme et le creatianisme. La première explique les inégalités par les fautes des parents, la deuxième ne les explique pas. Origène les explique par les mérites d’une existence antérieure. Le traducianisme pose le souci de faire dépendre l’âme de la formation du corps au risque de la faire mourir avec lui. Augustin lui-même a hésité toute sa vie sur ce sujet. De même l’idée que les astres seraient des créatures raisonnables est en dehors du cadre du dogme.
Les formulations aussi sont imprécises. Certains termes étaient utilisés pour dire à la fois créer et engendrer. Plus tard, les termes se précisent et l’un signifie spécifiquement créer l’autre engendrer éternellement.
Il y a aussi le fait que plusieurs hérétiques se réclament d’Origène, précipitant leurs opposants à condamner Origène avec eux et à le lire avec le sens que lui donnaient ces hérétiques. Evagre le Pontique en est un représentant illustre. Ce dernier sélectionne parmi les antithèses origénistes et fait une synthèse scolastique cohérente avec ce qu’il a sélectionné. Etienne bar Sudaïli est un autre hérétique qui s’inspire d’Origène.
## Intentions d’Origène
Présenter la foi et répondre aux hérétiques. Origène s’adresse aux intellectuels séduits par les hérésies et insatisfaits des présentations simples de la foi chrétienne.
Origène distingue les vérités de foi des domaines laissés libres à la spéculation. Il admet son ignorance et parle prudemment. Il examine beaucoup de philosophes pour en distinguer ce qui est vrai du faux.
Origène fait de la théologie avec des thèses contradictoires et tâtonnantes. Ainsi, il faut le lire avec ses tensions et incohérences plutôt que de tirer à sa place les conséquences qu’il ne tire pas de ses propos.
# Résumé détaillé
- Premier cycle de traité sur les Principes, de I, I à II, III.
## Livre I
### Préface
1. La doctrine du salut nous vient par le Christ. Par ses enseignements et ceux qui ont été donnés par l’Esprit du Christ par Moïse et les prophètes. Christ a encore parlé par les apôtres après son assomption dans le ciel.
2. Il y a beaucoup de désaccords chez les chrétiens. Il faut donc énoncer ce qui est certain : la prédication apostolique. Puis se tourner vers ce qui reste.
3. Les apôtres ont transmis très clairement et à tous les croyants ce qui était nécessaire. Ils ont laissé aux docteurs à venir le soin d’exposer les raisons de ces affirmations. Pour d’autres sujets, ils les ont mentionné mais sans nous livrer leur origine et tous les tenants et aboutissants.
4. Résume la prédication apostolique : Il existe un seul Dieu créateur, Dieu des justes, des patriarches, de Moïse, des prophètes, Père de Jésus-Christ, Dieu des apôtres et des deux Testaments. Il existe le Jésus-Christ, né du Père avant toute création, tout a été fait par lui, il s’est fait homme en restant Dieu, il a revêtu un corps comme nous excepté qu’il est né d’une vierge et de l’Esprit, il a souffert véritablement, il est mort véritablement, il est ressuscité et est apparu aux disciples puis a été enlevé au ciel. Le Saint-Esprit est associé au Père et au Fils. Il est difficile de dire s’il est engendré ou non. Il a inspiré les prophètes et apôtres.
5. L’âme recevra le salaire de ses agissements, elle est une substance propre. Le corps ressuscitera glorieux. L’âme est douée du libre arbitre et de volonté. Elle lutte contre le diable et ses anges. Mais elle n’est pas sans force et ainsi elle n’est pas forcée de faire, contre son gré, le mal ou le bien. Nous ne sommes pas contraints par la nécessité d’agir bien ou mal. Rejette l’erreur de ceux qui font des étoiles les causes de nos actions. L’origine de l’âme (traducianisme, creatianisme, etc.) n’est pas de la règle de foi.
6. Le diable et ses anges existent, mais leur nature reste floue. Beaucoup pensent que le diable a été un ange et qu’il a apostasié avec d’autres.
7. La prédication apostolique dit encore que notre monde a un début et aura une fin. Il n’est pas clair ce qu’il y a eu avant et ce qu’il y aura après.
8. L’Esprit a inspiré les Ecritures et celle-ci n’a pas simplement son sens naturel mais aussi des figures de mystères et réalités à venir. Toute l’Eglise est unanime là-dessus, mais pas pour ce que signifie spirituellement les parties de la loi. Le terme incorporel n’est pas dans les Ecritures. Il est dans la Doctrine de Pierre, mais c’est un apocryphe pseudépigraphe.
9. Considérons toutefois si incorporel ne se trouve pas en d’autres termes dans l’Ecriture.
10. Les anges aussi existent, qui aident les saints. Mais le temps de leur création, leur nature ne sont pas clairs. Rien de clair non plus au sujet des astres et de leur caractère raisonnable ou non. Il convient de partir de ces éléments pour énoncer un ensemble d’affirmations, selon qu’on trouve ce que dit l’Ecriture et ce qu’indique la droite raison.
### Premier traité : Du Père, du Fils, du Saint-Esprit.
#### I. De Dieu (le Père)
1. Dieu n’est pas corporel. Comment il faut comprendre les analogies scripturaires.
2. Que Dieu soit appelé feu ou souffle ne prouve pas qu’il est corporel.
3. L’Esprit Saint n’est pas non plus corporel : il est une puissance sanctifiante
4. Comment il faut comprendre que Dieu est Esprit en Jean 4
5. Etant limité par la matière, notre intelligence peine à saisir les réalités immatérielles. Mais Dieu est proprement ineffable, quoi qu'on dise de lui sera bien en deçà de ce qu'il est.
6. Nous ne pouvons pas regarder le soleil en face, mais nous voyons ses reflets en divers lieux. De même, nous connaissons Dieu par ses oeuvres. Dieu est sans corps, il est pure intelligence simple. S'il était corps, il ne serait pas simple mais composé. Etant pure intelligence, rien ne fait obstacle à son mouvement d'un lieu à un autre, pour ainsi dire, car la nôtre non plus ne connaît pas d'obstacle pour se mouvoir ainsi. Si Dieu était composé, les choses qui le composent seraient antérieures à lui. Notre intelligence s'exerce et s'accroit sans changement corporel.
7. Réponse à ceux qui font de l'intelligence et de l'âme un corps. A chaque sens correspond un objet. Il serait absurde qu'aux objets incorporels et spirituels ne corresponde qu'un sens lui aussi encore corporel. Ces gens font injure à la meilleure partie de l'homme mais aussi à Dieu car notre intelligence étant immatérielle, elle est une image de Dieu et ce qui nous permet de l'appréhender.
8. Dieu est invisible par nature. Le Fils même ne le voit pas mais le connait. Voit convient aux corps, connait aux choses immatérielles.
9. Les coeurs purs verront Dieu, et non les yeux purs. Or voir avec le coeur, c'est comprendre.
#### II. De Christ (le Fils)
1. Le Christ a deux natures. Il est la Sagesse, en Proverbes. Il est le Premier-Né.
2. Christ est la Sagesse, mais non pas dans le sens qu’il serait l’intellect de Dieu ou ce par quoi Dieu est sage. Il l’est comme un être propre (ici, le vocabulaire est anténicéen). Christ est donc la sagesse subsistant de manière substantielle. Son hypostase n’est pas corporelle. L’engendrement du Fils est sans commencement. Tous les êtres qui devaient être créés étaient virtuellement présents dans la Sagesse. Elle contient donc les principes de toute la création.
3. La Sagesse est dite créée, non pas parce qu’elle aurait un commencement mais parce qu’elle contient en elle les « idées » (mon terme) de toutes les choses créées. De même elle est appelée Parole de Dieu en tant que révélation de la Sagesse. Dieu le Père a toujours été Père, a toujours engendré une sagesse et une parole.
4. Il est aussi la Vérité et la Vie. Toute Vie et Vérité dérive de lui. Il est la Résurrection. Il est la Voie vers le Père. Dieu n’engendre pas corporellement comme les hommes. Comparaison entre le rayonnement et la lumière. Mais rien n’est comparable à l’engendrement divin. Le Fils ne l’est pas par adoption mais par nature.
5. Passages des Ecritures qui confirment cela. Le Fils étant seul à l’être par nature, il est dit Fils unique.
6. Le Fils est aussi Image du Dieu invisible. Mentionne deux types d’images : les représentations artistiques et la façon dont un fils et l’image de son père. L’homme est image dans le premier sens, le Fils dans le second. Le Fils demeure invisible, mais il est dit image parce qu’il est semblable à son Père. Il est donc l’image invisible du Père invisible. Le Père et le Fils ont une même nature et substance, leurs actions sont communes. Dieu le Père ne s’est pas fragmenté pour engendrer. La volonté procède de l’intelligence sans en retrancher une partie. Similairement, le Père a engendré le Fils, son image. Etant Sagesse et Parole, il n’y a rien de corporel en lui. Il est une lumière, mais non physique. Le Fils révèle le Père en étant compris. Car connaître l’image c’est connaître le modèle.
7. Le Fils est le rayonnement de la gloire de Dieu. Par le rayonnement on perçoit la lumière elle-même. Le Fils est médiateur entre les hommes et la Lumière qu’est Dieu.
8. Le Fils est la figure et l’expression de la substance de Dieu. Imaginons une statue immense que nous ne pourrions voir tellement elle serait grande. Et imaginons qu’on en fasse une en tout point semblable mais plus petite. Le Fils en se dépouillant pour devenir homme a fait quelque chose de similaire de telle sorte qu’on peut désormais le contempler et, par là, connaître le Père : Cette comparaison des deux statues, appliquée à des objets matériels, ne doit avoir de sens que le suivant : le Fils de Dieu, inséré dans la forme minuscule d'un corps humain, indiquait en lui-même, par suite de la similitude de ses oeuvres et de sa puissance, la grandeur infinie et invisible de Dieu le Père présent en lui et c'est pourquoi il disait à ses disciples : Qui m'a vu a vu le Père »
9. Le Fils est un souffle de la puissance de Dieu.
10. Il est une émanation très pure de la gloire du Tout-Puissant. Le Père est Tout-Puissant, comment a-t-il pu l’être éternellement sans sujets sur qui régner ? Ils étaient pour ainsi dire tous dans le Fils, préexistant. Dieu le Père est Tout-Puissant par le Fils. Le Père et le Fils ont une seule et même toute puissance, divinité. Tout ce qu’a le Père, le Fils l’a. Sa gloire est parfaite.
11. Il est rayonnement de la lumière éternelle. Origène renvoie au point 7. Le Fils n’a pas d’autre commencement que Dieu lui-même. La Sagesse est éternelle.
12. Il est le miroir sans tache de l’activité de Dieu. Le Fils fait pareillement ce que fait le Père. Il ne fait rien d’autre que ce que fait le Père. Un seul mouvement est dans les deux, pour ainsi dire. Ce propos de Jean traite des œuvres éternelles du Fils et non principalement de celle qu’il fait dans la chair.
13. Il est l’image de sa bonté. Le Père et le Fils ont une seule bonté. Dieu le Père seul est bon, le Fils est bon de la même bonté, de même le Saint-Esprit. Cette phrase n’est donc pas blasphématrice. La bonté du Fils est née de celle du Père et celle de l’Esprit en procède et ce sont les mêmes. Les autres choses bonnes le sont accidentellement et dans un sens large. Ce serait trop long de discuter de toutes les autres appellations du Fils.
#### III. Du Saint Esprit
1. Beaucoup reconnaissent le Dieu inengendré. Certains philosophes confessent le Fils (la Raison ou la Parole). Mais par les Ecritures que l’on peut parler adéquatement du Fils. Ces écrits sont inspirés par l’Esprit (Evangile + livres apostoliques, loi et prophètes). Quant au Saint-Esprit, seuls ceux qui ont les Ecritures le connaissent (Juifs ou chrétiens). Car le Père peut être connu par nature. Mais c’est par les Ecritures qu’on connait le Fils. Les actes des saints de l’AT nous font connaître par figure le Christ et ses deux natures.
2. Les Ecritures dans leur ensemble nous en apprennent aussi sur l’Esprit. Parcourt Psaume, Daniel, Evangiles, Actes. Formule baptismale trinitaire. Blasphème contre l’Esprit.
3. La matière n’est pas coéternelle à Dieu. Les âmes non plus. Pour l’Esprit, les Ecritures sont discrètes. Il était là dès la création.
4. Quand il est dit Esprit sans qualification dans le NT, il s’agit du Saint-Esprit. Origène pense qu’il en est de même dans l’AT. Le cantique d’Habacuc parle du Fils et de l’Esprit quand il parle des deux vivants. Nous connaissons le Père par le Fils dans l’Esprit. L’Esprit n’ignore rien, il ne change pas. Lorsqu’on utilise des termes temporels comme « était », la signification est impropre. L’Esprit dépasse toute compréhension temporelle.
#### (III. continue) De l’action de chaque personne
5. Le Père et le Fils œuvrent sur toute la création, l’Esprit uniquement sur les régénérés.
6. Le Père est principe d’être, le Fils de rationalité. Tout ce qui existe est sous la gouvernance du Père et tout ce qui est rationnel sous l’influence de la Parole. Les hommes raisonnables n’ont pas d’excuse pour le péché.
7. L’Esprit principe de sainteté. Les infidèles ne l’ont pas comme le montrent le déluge et les Psaumes. L'Esprit est le vin nouveau qui n'habite pas de vieilles outres. Après la résurrection, nous sommes sur une nouvelle terre (Psaume 104 lu allégoriquement). Interprète le blasphème contre le Saint Esprit comme l'apostasie. Ne pensons pas, toutefois, que l'Esprit aurait la prééminence : toute l'action de la Trinité est commune. Ainsi, lorsque nous parlons d'une oeuvre spécifique de l'Esprit dans les saints, il s'agit d'une oeuvre conjointe du Père et du Fils aussi.
suite en commentaire
# Propos général et œuvre
## Propos général
En parlant improprement, on pourrait dire qu'il s'agit de la première systématique avec IRENEE Démonstration de la prédication apostolique.
## Edition
J'ai suivi l'édition de Sources Chrétiennes, excellente à tout point de vue.
## Texte
L’original est perdu. Nous disposons de la paraphrase latine de Rufin, d’originaux grecs pour certaines sections (sur l’Ecriture et sur le libre arbitre), de citations diverses, de Jérôme notamment et concernant surtout les extraits hérétiques. Et nous disposons d’une Philocalie copiée par Basile de Césarée et Grégoire de Naziance. Cet extrait choisi en grec nous donne un original pour les livres III et IV en majeure partie. Il y a aussi le florilège de Justinien.
## Polémique
Jérôme a attaqué l’orthodoxie d’Origène, Rufin l’a défendu. Origène a été condamné mais une certaine distance existe entre ce qu’a réellement dit Origène et ce qu’on en savait et qui a été condamné.
## Plans
Plan en trois parties 1) Dieu Trinité ; 2) Les créatures raisonnables ; 3) Le monde à la manière des traités philosophiques sur les principes.
1. Préface : 9 points de la prédication apostolique : 1. Dieu unique, 2. Le Christ, 3. Esprit Saint, 4. L’âme, 5. Résurrection, 6. Libre arbitre, 7. Le diable et ses anges, 8. Le monde créé et fini, 9. Ecritures inspirées. Remarque sur l’absence du mot incorporel dans les Ecritures.
2. Première série de traités, philosophique : Trinité, natures raisonnables, le monde et les créatures.
3. Suit les 9 points de la préface. Revient sur le mot incorporel. Problème de la connaissance.
4. L’anakephalaiosis qui reprend le même plan que la première série avec une inversion : Trinité puis monde puis créatures raisonnables. Problème de la connaissance.
Tome I : Trinité, chute et dégradation, natures raisonnables, fin et consommation, corporels et incorporels, anges
Tome II : monde, perpétuité de la nature corporelle, début du monde et ses causes, le Dieu unique dans les 2 testaments, du Dieu juste et bon, de l’incarnation, Esprit, de l’âme, des changements des créatures raisonables, de la résurrection, des promesses
Tome III : Du libre arbitre, puissances adverses, triple sagesse, deux âmes ?, le monde a commencé, la consommation du monde,
Tome IV : Les Ecritures sont inspirées, sens spirituel, exemples, récapitulation générale.
## Causes de la polémique
Toutes les sources sur Origène sont donc des interprétations et traductions des IVème et VIème siècles. Origène n’évolue pas dans un monde où les chrétiens sont majoritaires et où le magistrat punit l’hérésie. A son époque, les philosophes sont encore une intelligentsia à convertir alors qu’elle intéresse moins plus tard. Etant moins versés en philosophie, ses commentateurs (alliés comme opposants) ratent des choses. Les problèmes qui se posent à lui ne se posent plus dans les époques subséquentes. Origène mèle à des dogmes de foi reconnus des spéculations philosophiques, énoncées de manière dubitatives, à visée de recherche, sur d’autres sujets. Les périodes suivantes seront beaucoup plus dogmatiques. Enfin, il y a la différence entre latins et grecs. Les aspects disciplinaires, judiciaires, autoritaires, moraux sont plus latins ainsi que la rhétorique. Les hérésies qui préoccupent ne sont plus les mêmes non plus. Origène répond avant tout à Valentin, Marcion et Basilide : il faut montrer l’unité des Testaments. Il faut lutter contre les 3 natures d’âme et le prédestinatianisme strict de Valentin. Il faut répondre à l’idée d’une génération du Fils comme nouvelle substance. La doctrine de la préexistence des âmes est forgée par lui comme solution au problème de l’apparence de malveillance du Dieu de l’AT, pour répondre à Marcion. Il répond aussi au montanisme, à l’adoptianisme, au modalisme. Origène semble adopter une former de subordinatianisme courant chez les anténicéens : il s’agit de l’origine, de l’économie.
Origène écrit aussi contre les « naïfs », pour ainsi dire, qui interprètent littéralement l’Ecriture. Il vante l’interprétation spirituelle, répond à ceux qui pensent que Dieu a un corps, répond aux chiliastes.
Origène a donc été accusé de toute part d’arianisme, de pélagianisme, de nestorianisme ou de monophysisme, souvent par incompréhension et parce que ses formulations ne concernaient pas des matières de débat de son époque et son vocabulaire n’était donc pas raffiné. Cf. Com Jn VI, 36 (20) pour se convaincre qu’il n’était pas pélagien.
Origène formule des hypothèses donc, sur des domaines non encore élucidés de la théologie et opte donc pour des solutions dont l’hétérodoxie sera plus tard manifeste. Les autres options à la préexistence étaient le traducianisme et le creatianisme. La première explique les inégalités par les fautes des parents, la deuxième ne les explique pas. Origène les explique par les mérites d’une existence antérieure. Le traducianisme pose le souci de faire dépendre l’âme de la formation du corps au risque de la faire mourir avec lui. Augustin lui-même a hésité toute sa vie sur ce sujet. De même l’idée que les astres seraient des créatures raisonnables est en dehors du cadre du dogme.
Les formulations aussi sont imprécises. Certains termes étaient utilisés pour dire à la fois créer et engendrer. Plus tard, les termes se précisent et l’un signifie spécifiquement créer l’autre engendrer éternellement.
Il y a aussi le fait que plusieurs hérétiques se réclament d’Origène, précipitant leurs opposants à condamner Origène avec eux et à le lire avec le sens que lui donnaient ces hérétiques. Evagre le Pontique en est un représentant illustre. Ce dernier sélectionne parmi les antithèses origénistes et fait une synthèse scolastique cohérente avec ce qu’il a sélectionné. Etienne bar Sudaïli est un autre hérétique qui s’inspire d’Origène.
## Intentions d’Origène
Présenter la foi et répondre aux hérétiques. Origène s’adresse aux intellectuels séduits par les hérésies et insatisfaits des présentations simples de la foi chrétienne.
Origène distingue les vérités de foi des domaines laissés libres à la spéculation. Il admet son ignorance et parle prudemment. Il examine beaucoup de philosophes pour en distinguer ce qui est vrai du faux.
Origène fait de la théologie avec des thèses contradictoires et tâtonnantes. Ainsi, il faut le lire avec ses tensions et incohérences plutôt que de tirer à sa place les conséquences qu’il ne tire pas de ses propos.
# Résumé détaillé
- Premier cycle de traité sur les Principes, de I, I à II, III.
## Livre I
### Préface
1. La doctrine du salut nous vient par le Christ. Par ses enseignements et ceux qui ont été donnés par l’Esprit du Christ par Moïse et les prophètes. Christ a encore parlé par les apôtres après son assomption dans le ciel.
2. Il y a beaucoup de désaccords chez les chrétiens. Il faut donc énoncer ce qui est certain : la prédication apostolique. Puis se tourner vers ce qui reste.
3. Les apôtres ont transmis très clairement et à tous les croyants ce qui était nécessaire. Ils ont laissé aux docteurs à venir le soin d’exposer les raisons de ces affirmations. Pour d’autres sujets, ils les ont mentionné mais sans nous livrer leur origine et tous les tenants et aboutissants.
4. Résume la prédication apostolique : Il existe un seul Dieu créateur, Dieu des justes, des patriarches, de Moïse, des prophètes, Père de Jésus-Christ, Dieu des apôtres et des deux Testaments. Il existe le Jésus-Christ, né du Père avant toute création, tout a été fait par lui, il s’est fait homme en restant Dieu, il a revêtu un corps comme nous excepté qu’il est né d’une vierge et de l’Esprit, il a souffert véritablement, il est mort véritablement, il est ressuscité et est apparu aux disciples puis a été enlevé au ciel. Le Saint-Esprit est associé au Père et au Fils. Il est difficile de dire s’il est engendré ou non. Il a inspiré les prophètes et apôtres.
5. L’âme recevra le salaire de ses agissements, elle est une substance propre. Le corps ressuscitera glorieux. L’âme est douée du libre arbitre et de volonté. Elle lutte contre le diable et ses anges. Mais elle n’est pas sans force et ainsi elle n’est pas forcée de faire, contre son gré, le mal ou le bien. Nous ne sommes pas contraints par la nécessité d’agir bien ou mal. Rejette l’erreur de ceux qui font des étoiles les causes de nos actions. L’origine de l’âme (traducianisme, creatianisme, etc.) n’est pas de la règle de foi.
6. Le diable et ses anges existent, mais leur nature reste floue. Beaucoup pensent que le diable a été un ange et qu’il a apostasié avec d’autres.
7. La prédication apostolique dit encore que notre monde a un début et aura une fin. Il n’est pas clair ce qu’il y a eu avant et ce qu’il y aura après.
8. L’Esprit a inspiré les Ecritures et celle-ci n’a pas simplement son sens naturel mais aussi des figures de mystères et réalités à venir. Toute l’Eglise est unanime là-dessus, mais pas pour ce que signifie spirituellement les parties de la loi. Le terme incorporel n’est pas dans les Ecritures. Il est dans la Doctrine de Pierre, mais c’est un apocryphe pseudépigraphe.
9. Considérons toutefois si incorporel ne se trouve pas en d’autres termes dans l’Ecriture.
10. Les anges aussi existent, qui aident les saints. Mais le temps de leur création, leur nature ne sont pas clairs. Rien de clair non plus au sujet des astres et de leur caractère raisonnable ou non. Il convient de partir de ces éléments pour énoncer un ensemble d’affirmations, selon qu’on trouve ce que dit l’Ecriture et ce qu’indique la droite raison.
### Premier traité : Du Père, du Fils, du Saint-Esprit.
#### I. De Dieu (le Père)
1. Dieu n’est pas corporel. Comment il faut comprendre les analogies scripturaires.
2. Que Dieu soit appelé feu ou souffle ne prouve pas qu’il est corporel.
3. L’Esprit Saint n’est pas non plus corporel : il est une puissance sanctifiante
4. Comment il faut comprendre que Dieu est Esprit en Jean 4
5. Etant limité par la matière, notre intelligence peine à saisir les réalités immatérielles. Mais Dieu est proprement ineffable, quoi qu'on dise de lui sera bien en deçà de ce qu'il est.
6. Nous ne pouvons pas regarder le soleil en face, mais nous voyons ses reflets en divers lieux. De même, nous connaissons Dieu par ses oeuvres. Dieu est sans corps, il est pure intelligence simple. S'il était corps, il ne serait pas simple mais composé. Etant pure intelligence, rien ne fait obstacle à son mouvement d'un lieu à un autre, pour ainsi dire, car la nôtre non plus ne connaît pas d'obstacle pour se mouvoir ainsi. Si Dieu était composé, les choses qui le composent seraient antérieures à lui. Notre intelligence s'exerce et s'accroit sans changement corporel.
7. Réponse à ceux qui font de l'intelligence et de l'âme un corps. A chaque sens correspond un objet. Il serait absurde qu'aux objets incorporels et spirituels ne corresponde qu'un sens lui aussi encore corporel. Ces gens font injure à la meilleure partie de l'homme mais aussi à Dieu car notre intelligence étant immatérielle, elle est une image de Dieu et ce qui nous permet de l'appréhender.
8. Dieu est invisible par nature. Le Fils même ne le voit pas mais le connait. Voit convient aux corps, connait aux choses immatérielles.
9. Les coeurs purs verront Dieu, et non les yeux purs. Or voir avec le coeur, c'est comprendre.
#### II. De Christ (le Fils)
1. Le Christ a deux natures. Il est la Sagesse, en Proverbes. Il est le Premier-Né.
2. Christ est la Sagesse, mais non pas dans le sens qu’il serait l’intellect de Dieu ou ce par quoi Dieu est sage. Il l’est comme un être propre (ici, le vocabulaire est anténicéen). Christ est donc la sagesse subsistant de manière substantielle. Son hypostase n’est pas corporelle. L’engendrement du Fils est sans commencement. Tous les êtres qui devaient être créés étaient virtuellement présents dans la Sagesse. Elle contient donc les principes de toute la création.
3. La Sagesse est dite créée, non pas parce qu’elle aurait un commencement mais parce qu’elle contient en elle les « idées » (mon terme) de toutes les choses créées. De même elle est appelée Parole de Dieu en tant que révélation de la Sagesse. Dieu le Père a toujours été Père, a toujours engendré une sagesse et une parole.
4. Il est aussi la Vérité et la Vie. Toute Vie et Vérité dérive de lui. Il est la Résurrection. Il est la Voie vers le Père. Dieu n’engendre pas corporellement comme les hommes. Comparaison entre le rayonnement et la lumière. Mais rien n’est comparable à l’engendrement divin. Le Fils ne l’est pas par adoption mais par nature.
5. Passages des Ecritures qui confirment cela. Le Fils étant seul à l’être par nature, il est dit Fils unique.
6. Le Fils est aussi Image du Dieu invisible. Mentionne deux types d’images : les représentations artistiques et la façon dont un fils et l’image de son père. L’homme est image dans le premier sens, le Fils dans le second. Le Fils demeure invisible, mais il est dit image parce qu’il est semblable à son Père. Il est donc l’image invisible du Père invisible. Le Père et le Fils ont une même nature et substance, leurs actions sont communes. Dieu le Père ne s’est pas fragmenté pour engendrer. La volonté procède de l’intelligence sans en retrancher une partie. Similairement, le Père a engendré le Fils, son image. Etant Sagesse et Parole, il n’y a rien de corporel en lui. Il est une lumière, mais non physique. Le Fils révèle le Père en étant compris. Car connaître l’image c’est connaître le modèle.
7. Le Fils est le rayonnement de la gloire de Dieu. Par le rayonnement on perçoit la lumière elle-même. Le Fils est médiateur entre les hommes et la Lumière qu’est Dieu.
8. Le Fils est la figure et l’expression de la substance de Dieu. Imaginons une statue immense que nous ne pourrions voir tellement elle serait grande. Et imaginons qu’on en fasse une en tout point semblable mais plus petite. Le Fils en se dépouillant pour devenir homme a fait quelque chose de similaire de telle sorte qu’on peut désormais le contempler et, par là, connaître le Père : Cette comparaison des deux statues, appliquée à des objets matériels, ne doit avoir de sens que le suivant : le Fils de Dieu, inséré dans la forme minuscule d'un corps humain, indiquait en lui-même, par suite de la similitude de ses oeuvres et de sa puissance, la grandeur infinie et invisible de Dieu le Père présent en lui et c'est pourquoi il disait à ses disciples : Qui m'a vu a vu le Père »
9. Le Fils est un souffle de la puissance de Dieu.
10. Il est une émanation très pure de la gloire du Tout-Puissant. Le Père est Tout-Puissant, comment a-t-il pu l’être éternellement sans sujets sur qui régner ? Ils étaient pour ainsi dire tous dans le Fils, préexistant. Dieu le Père est Tout-Puissant par le Fils. Le Père et le Fils ont une seule et même toute puissance, divinité. Tout ce qu’a le Père, le Fils l’a. Sa gloire est parfaite.
11. Il est rayonnement de la lumière éternelle. Origène renvoie au point 7. Le Fils n’a pas d’autre commencement que Dieu lui-même. La Sagesse est éternelle.
12. Il est le miroir sans tache de l’activité de Dieu. Le Fils fait pareillement ce que fait le Père. Il ne fait rien d’autre que ce que fait le Père. Un seul mouvement est dans les deux, pour ainsi dire. Ce propos de Jean traite des œuvres éternelles du Fils et non principalement de celle qu’il fait dans la chair.
13. Il est l’image de sa bonté. Le Père et le Fils ont une seule bonté. Dieu le Père seul est bon, le Fils est bon de la même bonté, de même le Saint-Esprit. Cette phrase n’est donc pas blasphématrice. La bonté du Fils est née de celle du Père et celle de l’Esprit en procède et ce sont les mêmes. Les autres choses bonnes le sont accidentellement et dans un sens large. Ce serait trop long de discuter de toutes les autres appellations du Fils.
#### III. Du Saint Esprit
1. Beaucoup reconnaissent le Dieu inengendré. Certains philosophes confessent le Fils (la Raison ou la Parole). Mais par les Ecritures que l’on peut parler adéquatement du Fils. Ces écrits sont inspirés par l’Esprit (Evangile + livres apostoliques, loi et prophètes). Quant au Saint-Esprit, seuls ceux qui ont les Ecritures le connaissent (Juifs ou chrétiens). Car le Père peut être connu par nature. Mais c’est par les Ecritures qu’on connait le Fils. Les actes des saints de l’AT nous font connaître par figure le Christ et ses deux natures.
2. Les Ecritures dans leur ensemble nous en apprennent aussi sur l’Esprit. Parcourt Psaume, Daniel, Evangiles, Actes. Formule baptismale trinitaire. Blasphème contre l’Esprit.
3. La matière n’est pas coéternelle à Dieu. Les âmes non plus. Pour l’Esprit, les Ecritures sont discrètes. Il était là dès la création.
4. Quand il est dit Esprit sans qualification dans le NT, il s’agit du Saint-Esprit. Origène pense qu’il en est de même dans l’AT. Le cantique d’Habacuc parle du Fils et de l’Esprit quand il parle des deux vivants. Nous connaissons le Père par le Fils dans l’Esprit. L’Esprit n’ignore rien, il ne change pas. Lorsqu’on utilise des termes temporels comme « était », la signification est impropre. L’Esprit dépasse toute compréhension temporelle.
#### (III. continue) De l’action de chaque personne
5. Le Père et le Fils œuvrent sur toute la création, l’Esprit uniquement sur les régénérés.
6. Le Père est principe d’être, le Fils de rationalité. Tout ce qui existe est sous la gouvernance du Père et tout ce qui est rationnel sous l’influence de la Parole. Les hommes raisonnables n’ont pas d’excuse pour le péché.
7. L’Esprit principe de sainteté. Les infidèles ne l’ont pas comme le montrent le déluge et les Psaumes. L'Esprit est le vin nouveau qui n'habite pas de vieilles outres. Après la résurrection, nous sommes sur une nouvelle terre (Psaume 104 lu allégoriquement). Interprète le blasphème contre le Saint Esprit comme l'apostasie. Ne pensons pas, toutefois, que l'Esprit aurait la prééminence : toute l'action de la Trinité est commune. Ainsi, lorsque nous parlons d'une oeuvre spécifique de l'Esprit dans les saints, il s'agit d'une oeuvre conjointe du Père et du Fils aussi.
suite en commentaire
February 21, 2022
Origen's Genesis
Young Origen lived in a chaotic time in Alexandria where persecution of Christians was severe. His father was killed for his faith and he attempted to die along with him. He was given a Hellenistic education and was well versed in Platonism and a range of other religious traditions. His name Origen means "child of Horus" for instance. His early life and education were chaotic and he had no Orthodox teacher to explain the teachings of the apostles to him, as far as history records. It was amazing he was as orthodox as he was, given the vacuum, he educated himself in.
Origen has been Platonic ideas like per-mortal existence, playing around with ideas like the eventual reconciliation of all beings (including the devil), Platonic Transmigration of the Soul, and strict asceticism. The enduring heresy he is rightfully blamed for holding, despite his largely Athanasian formulation of the Trinity, is Subordinationism. As such, he is the only important Early Church father who is not canonized as a Saint, due to his application of Platonism to Christian Theology in teaching heresies and heterodoxies. The Eastern Orthodox church does not even refer to him as an Early Church Father, merely as an important Theologian. The Protestant Reformers utilized Origen to their own ends- Luther hated his emphasis on human agency, and banned all of his writings, but Zwingli anachronistically proof-read Origen to justify his Memorialism, which Origen would have considered heretical, so Zwingli defended him since it fit his purpose.
But even in his heterodoxies, he was pious. His Subordinationism is Platonic in nature, and seems to be an accidental apologetic response to Gnosticism. He was under the care of Bishop Ambrose of Alexandria. The Scholar Jerome mentions the beautify and profundity of the letters between Ambrose and Origen, but no modern copy has survived. Jerome, St. Basil all the way to Erasmus praised Origen, but many other important theologians have condemned him, depending on what they read and understood of him. Perhaps part of the reason he is so controversial is that he published thousands of texts which survived for millennia, making it difficult to ascertain the measure of the man from such an inaccessible cannon.
Περὶ Ἀρχῶν : The First Systematic Theology
Origen's attempt to unite his apologetic and theological works resulted in Περὶ Ἀρχῶν, On First Principles, the first comprehensive systematic theology attempting to lay out all essential Christian principles in relation to each other and in contrast to pagan theologies such as Celsusianism. It spans a broad range of topics from Cosmogony, heavenly hierarchies, Anthropological Teleology, and Trinitarian formulations.
Throughout On First Principles, his logic is confusing and contradictory at points. He writes about the legitimacy of Platonic Transmigration and then abruptly changes topics as he seems to realize that Plato's view on the nature of the soul contradicts Christ's. He doesn't return to the subject or try to reconcile those two understandings. In regard to the heresies he is know for (Universalism and modified Marcionism), he at times explicitly condemns those views. And then he strays into them, and then contradicts himself again. I cannot consider him a heretic because when you look at all his works, he himself did not have a clear stance on those two topics. It seems to shift chapter to chapter. His theology is half-baked, and On First Principles provides a showcase of this.
Factual and historical inaccuracies are scattered throughout his writing. Misunderstandings of the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim abound. For instance, he thought that some of the animals mentioned in the Old Testament (types of antelope native to the near east) were mythical animals. This was not a fault of his logic, but of his library. He did not have the contextual resources necessary to dig as deep as he did into theological and exegetical topics.
Before reading primary-source information on Origen, I thought he was impious, heretical or dense from what I knew of him, and after I ended with the view that he was a pious man in an intellectually anarchic environment without theological support making sense of the gospel to the best of his ability. He has a place among the fathers, but needs to be read with a critical eye. Understanding Origen is critical to a more nuanced understanding of 2nd century Christianity where Platonism, paganism and ancient Mediterranean cults came intellectually toe-to-toe with the teachings of the Apostles. In this politically violent anarchic environment, the transmission of Orthodoxy from the original 12 was uneven and messy at points. Origen is one of those points.
Young Origen lived in a chaotic time in Alexandria where persecution of Christians was severe. His father was killed for his faith and he attempted to die along with him. He was given a Hellenistic education and was well versed in Platonism and a range of other religious traditions. His name Origen means "child of Horus" for instance. His early life and education were chaotic and he had no Orthodox teacher to explain the teachings of the apostles to him, as far as history records. It was amazing he was as orthodox as he was, given the vacuum, he educated himself in.
Origen has been Platonic ideas like per-mortal existence, playing around with ideas like the eventual reconciliation of all beings (including the devil), Platonic Transmigration of the Soul, and strict asceticism. The enduring heresy he is rightfully blamed for holding, despite his largely Athanasian formulation of the Trinity, is Subordinationism. As such, he is the only important Early Church father who is not canonized as a Saint, due to his application of Platonism to Christian Theology in teaching heresies and heterodoxies. The Eastern Orthodox church does not even refer to him as an Early Church Father, merely as an important Theologian. The Protestant Reformers utilized Origen to their own ends- Luther hated his emphasis on human agency, and banned all of his writings, but Zwingli anachronistically proof-read Origen to justify his Memorialism, which Origen would have considered heretical, so Zwingli defended him since it fit his purpose.
But even in his heterodoxies, he was pious. His Subordinationism is Platonic in nature, and seems to be an accidental apologetic response to Gnosticism. He was under the care of Bishop Ambrose of Alexandria. The Scholar Jerome mentions the beautify and profundity of the letters between Ambrose and Origen, but no modern copy has survived. Jerome, St. Basil all the way to Erasmus praised Origen, but many other important theologians have condemned him, depending on what they read and understood of him. Perhaps part of the reason he is so controversial is that he published thousands of texts which survived for millennia, making it difficult to ascertain the measure of the man from such an inaccessible cannon.
Περὶ Ἀρχῶν : The First Systematic Theology
Origen's attempt to unite his apologetic and theological works resulted in Περὶ Ἀρχῶν, On First Principles, the first comprehensive systematic theology attempting to lay out all essential Christian principles in relation to each other and in contrast to pagan theologies such as Celsusianism. It spans a broad range of topics from Cosmogony, heavenly hierarchies, Anthropological Teleology, and Trinitarian formulations.
Throughout On First Principles, his logic is confusing and contradictory at points. He writes about the legitimacy of Platonic Transmigration and then abruptly changes topics as he seems to realize that Plato's view on the nature of the soul contradicts Christ's. He doesn't return to the subject or try to reconcile those two understandings. In regard to the heresies he is know for (Universalism and modified Marcionism), he at times explicitly condemns those views. And then he strays into them, and then contradicts himself again. I cannot consider him a heretic because when you look at all his works, he himself did not have a clear stance on those two topics. It seems to shift chapter to chapter. His theology is half-baked, and On First Principles provides a showcase of this.
Factual and historical inaccuracies are scattered throughout his writing. Misunderstandings of the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim abound. For instance, he thought that some of the animals mentioned in the Old Testament (types of antelope native to the near east) were mythical animals. This was not a fault of his logic, but of his library. He did not have the contextual resources necessary to dig as deep as he did into theological and exegetical topics.
Before reading primary-source information on Origen, I thought he was impious, heretical or dense from what I knew of him, and after I ended with the view that he was a pious man in an intellectually anarchic environment without theological support making sense of the gospel to the best of his ability. He has a place among the fathers, but needs to be read with a critical eye. Understanding Origen is critical to a more nuanced understanding of 2nd century Christianity where Platonism, paganism and ancient Mediterranean cults came intellectually toe-to-toe with the teachings of the Apostles. In this politically violent anarchic environment, the transmission of Orthodoxy from the original 12 was uneven and messy at points. Origen is one of those points.
May 4, 2014
читання отців церкви – то з багатьох точок зору доволі специфічний досвід.
по-перше, це зазвичай читання перекладів із перекладів (російська версія оригена, наприклад, перекладена з латинського перекладу руфіна в основному), а часом ще й позбираних фрагментів. тобто мало того, що це не та ситуація, де можна говорити "ориген пише, що", – адже руфін сам визнає, що сумнівні й суперечливі місця в тексті оригена просто залишає за рамками свого перекладу, – це ще й ситуація, коли навряд чи можна покладатися на яку-небудь теорію паралельних місць, щоб мати цілковиту певність щодо того, що вжите в одному місці слово має те саме значення, що і те саме слово, вжите в іншому місці. в оригенових "началах" у мене з цього приводу були серйозні проблеми з поняттям "душа": там, де йдеться власне про особливості душі та її проблематику, воно добре розтлумачене, але коли мова заходить про інші речі, а "душа" вживається просто побіжно, іноді виникають інші відтінки значень.
по-друге, весь час доводиться себе смикати і згадувати, що це початок нашої ери, якесь друге-третє-четверте століття, коли купа зокрема християнських ідей, присутніх у європейській культурі, ще не була сформована. тобто ці хлопці не пишуть банальностей – вони з нуля складають те, що через тисячоліття з гаком стане банальностями. підступ же в тому, що і вони, і ті, хто пише через тисячоліття після них, спираються на той самий текст, тому загубити хронологію стає зовсім просто. але так, коли все-таки згадуєш, що ориген перший проговорює оці зараз-очев��дні речі про, наприклад, стосунки отця, сина й духа чи неможливість темпорального розуміння бога, воно вражає.
по-третє, пам'ятаєте анекдот про корейців, які розповідають одне одому про неймовірне багатство американців: "уявляєш, в америці кожен отримує продуктові картки на 900 грамів рису на день"? іноді, читаючи отців церкви, я почуваюся таким-от корейцем. бо різниця не просто в культурній базі, а в речах повсякденних, у життєвій рутині. може, тут навіть не про якісь радикальні штуки (наприклад, що оригена, який перший проговорює різні сміливі речі, за них і каменувати могли... чи тоді вже були модні інші способи?), а про зовсім базові. наприклад, чи знали ви, що в ранньому християнстві була практика кількох хрещень – ну, якщо після першого так нагрішив, що допоможе хіба поновне? чи що сповідь була голосна й колективна, тому процес каяття по суті своїй разюче відрізнявся від нинішнього? це деталі, які мені вже пояснили, коли я зрозуміла, що в певних місцях святоотцівських писань є щось не те; і боюся уявити, скільки схожих моментів лишилися непомічені – тому не осягнені.
по-четверте, ці тексти написані людьми, які палко вірять і раді за свою віру вмерти (здебільша у прямому сенсі). які, крім того, ще й убивати часто готові, якщо інші способи навернення проваляться. втім, це робить їх тільки цікавішими об'єктами для дослідника розмаїтих носіїв істини.
у чомусь ці тексти – дуже хороша фізкультура для мозку. з іншого боку, те саме можна сказати про багато інших, ближчих. тому дякую оригенові, на цьому наше знайомство, мабуть, скінчиться.
по-перше, це зазвичай читання перекладів із перекладів (російська версія оригена, наприклад, перекладена з латинського перекладу руфіна в основному), а часом ще й позбираних фрагментів. тобто мало того, що це не та ситуація, де можна говорити "ориген пише, що", – адже руфін сам визнає, що сумнівні й суперечливі місця в тексті оригена просто залишає за рамками свого перекладу, – це ще й ситуація, коли навряд чи можна покладатися на яку-небудь теорію паралельних місць, щоб мати цілковиту певність щодо того, що вжите в одному місці слово має те саме значення, що і те саме слово, вжите в іншому місці. в оригенових "началах" у мене з цього приводу були серйозні проблеми з поняттям "душа": там, де йдеться власне про особливості душі та її проблематику, воно добре розтлумачене, але коли мова заходить про інші речі, а "душа" вживається просто побіжно, іноді виникають інші відтінки значень.
по-друге, весь час доводиться себе смикати і згадувати, що це початок нашої ери, якесь друге-третє-четверте століття, коли купа зокрема християнських ідей, присутніх у європейській культурі, ще не була сформована. тобто ці хлопці не пишуть банальностей – вони з нуля складають те, що через тисячоліття з гаком стане банальностями. підступ же в тому, що і вони, і ті, хто пише через тисячоліття після них, спираються на той самий текст, тому загубити хронологію стає зовсім просто. але так, коли все-таки згадуєш, що ориген перший проговорює оці зараз-очев��дні речі про, наприклад, стосунки отця, сина й духа чи неможливість темпорального розуміння бога, воно вражає.
по-третє, пам'ятаєте анекдот про корейців, які розповідають одне одому про неймовірне багатство американців: "уявляєш, в америці кожен отримує продуктові картки на 900 грамів рису на день"? іноді, читаючи отців церкви, я почуваюся таким-от корейцем. бо різниця не просто в культурній базі, а в речах повсякденних, у життєвій рутині. може, тут навіть не про якісь радикальні штуки (наприклад, що оригена, який перший проговорює різні сміливі речі, за них і каменувати могли... чи тоді вже були модні інші способи?), а про зовсім базові. наприклад, чи знали ви, що в ранньому християнстві була практика кількох хрещень – ну, якщо після першого так нагрішив, що допоможе хіба поновне? чи що сповідь була голосна й колективна, тому процес каяття по суті своїй разюче відрізнявся від нинішнього? це деталі, які мені вже пояснили, коли я зрозуміла, що в певних місцях святоотцівських писань є щось не те; і боюся уявити, скільки схожих моментів лишилися непомічені – тому не осягнені.
по-четверте, ці тексти написані людьми, які палко вірять і раді за свою віру вмерти (здебільша у прямому сенсі). які, крім того, ще й убивати часто готові, якщо інші способи навернення проваляться. втім, це робить їх тільки цікавішими об'єктами для дослідника розмаїтих носіїв істини.
у чомусь ці тексти – дуже хороша фізкультура для мозку. з іншого боку, те саме можна сказати про багато інших, ближчих. тому дякую оригенові, на цьому наше знайомство, мабуть, скінчиться.
Want to read
August 1, 2020Origen 2 - Me 0. This is now the second book of Origen I have tried to start and have failed to finish. The first was Spirit and Fire, the Origen anthology by Hans Urs von Balthasar. I eagerly opened his book only to find myself overwhelmed by Origen's writing. After waiting several years, I decided I was again ready to try and read the famous and controversial theologian. I picked up John Behr's highly lauded translation with eagerness in my heart only to be again turned away by the confounding theologian from Alexandria.
In my defense, I did give this book more of an attempt than I did Spirit and Fire. I read the entire section on Origen's approach to interpreting scripture, his section on God being all in all, the multiple ages, his thoughts on the literal interpretation of Genesis, and how the beginning can only be understood by the end. All of these I read and found fascinating. On top of all these wonderful sections, the book also contained many other sections which I found incredibly dense and philosophical. These sections might have been as wonderful as the sections I enjoyed, but alas, I cannot say because I struggled to understand what Origen was saying and why I should care. Before reading Origen I had never considered that when scripture says God is spirit some people might interpret that to mean that God has a body. This is not what Origen holds, and he spends the first paragraph of the book refuting it, but this paragraph lets me know that Origen is not writing a theology for me. My context is quite different than his context. And I get it. Why am I even reading a book on Origen if I want him to answer my questions. If I don't let myself get into the same mindset as Origen himself then I have little business in reading the past. I'm merely reading myself into the past, which is no way to learn from my elders. With that said though, I think Origen might be a little too strange for me to grapple with. His thinking is too heavily philosophical with plenty of sentences like this strewn throughout the text "Every intellect that partakes of intellectual light ought, without doubt, to be of one nature with every intellect that partakes in a similar manner of intellectual light." I could possibly unpack what this means, but the effort needed is not trivial, and sentences like this are all throughout Origen's writings.
All of what I said above brings me back to my attempt to read Origen. I want to like Origen and be cool enough to read his works. But I will have to admit to myself that today is not that day. Maybe in another 5 years I will read even more of Origen and then will get closer to finishing one of his books.
In my defense, I did give this book more of an attempt than I did Spirit and Fire. I read the entire section on Origen's approach to interpreting scripture, his section on God being all in all, the multiple ages, his thoughts on the literal interpretation of Genesis, and how the beginning can only be understood by the end. All of these I read and found fascinating. On top of all these wonderful sections, the book also contained many other sections which I found incredibly dense and philosophical. These sections might have been as wonderful as the sections I enjoyed, but alas, I cannot say because I struggled to understand what Origen was saying and why I should care. Before reading Origen I had never considered that when scripture says God is spirit some people might interpret that to mean that God has a body. This is not what Origen holds, and he spends the first paragraph of the book refuting it, but this paragraph lets me know that Origen is not writing a theology for me. My context is quite different than his context. And I get it. Why am I even reading a book on Origen if I want him to answer my questions. If I don't let myself get into the same mindset as Origen himself then I have little business in reading the past. I'm merely reading myself into the past, which is no way to learn from my elders. With that said though, I think Origen might be a little too strange for me to grapple with. His thinking is too heavily philosophical with plenty of sentences like this strewn throughout the text "Every intellect that partakes of intellectual light ought, without doubt, to be of one nature with every intellect that partakes in a similar manner of intellectual light." I could possibly unpack what this means, but the effort needed is not trivial, and sentences like this are all throughout Origen's writings.
All of what I said above brings me back to my attempt to read Origen. I want to like Origen and be cool enough to read his works. But I will have to admit to myself that today is not that day. Maybe in another 5 years I will read even more of Origen and then will get closer to finishing one of his books.
June 26, 2015
This is one of the earliest systematic theologies of the Christian faith, and was quite illuminating for its historical context. Methodologically, Origen attempts to find a match between reason and biblical exegesis, but being more philosophically-minded I found some of his dependence upon biblical passages to "prove" his claims unconvincing.
In particular, Origen is inconsistent in his presentation of hell - at times seeming to defend universalism, at others seeming to defend the existence of hell (though the nature of Origen's hell isn't quite certain - annihilation? endless torment? dull nothingness? not clear).
I was pleasantly surprised that in Part IV Origen argues for an interpretation of the Bible that is not wholly literal. This feels progressive in today's literalist Christian climate, and it was refreshing to read what I think is an accurate understanding of the context, audience, and purpose behind some of the biblical passages.
Overall, On First Principles is worth reading for its historical significance and context within the trajectory of Christian thought, even though the arguments therein are not always internally consistent.
In particular, Origen is inconsistent in his presentation of hell - at times seeming to defend universalism, at others seeming to defend the existence of hell (though the nature of Origen's hell isn't quite certain - annihilation? endless torment? dull nothingness? not clear).
I was pleasantly surprised that in Part IV Origen argues for an interpretation of the Bible that is not wholly literal. This feels progressive in today's literalist Christian climate, and it was refreshing to read what I think is an accurate understanding of the context, audience, and purpose behind some of the biblical passages.
Overall, On First Principles is worth reading for its historical significance and context within the trajectory of Christian thought, even though the arguments therein are not always internally consistent.
May 26, 2022
Five stars for the editorial work.
February 8, 2024
This work is widely considered to be the first attempt at systematic theology. Origen starts with a set of dogmatic truths and, applying reason, begins to unpack them and relate then to one another. Origen was well versed in philosophy and certainly uses philosophical terminology and concepts (from the time) in his explanations, although Origen never strays too far from Holy Scripture, which is still the absolute centre of his system. His method is much to be admired, but his conclusions can leave something to desire.
One error that comes up a lot (he was soundly rebuked for this by St Jerome) is Origen's doctrine of the pre-existence and transmigration of the soul. While the Latin text we have received from Rufinus (much of the original Greek text has been destroyed) clearly sanitises Origen of many errors, Rufinus still leaves in much about the pre-existence of souls, seemingly because it is so central to Origen's system. The pre-existence of souls is Origen's answer to theodicy. Bad things can happen to people because their souls preexisted and did wrong so they merited just punishment in their next life. Obviously this doctrine has been rightly condemned by the Church as unacceptable.
However, First Principles was an early work of Origen and it's not clear if he kept up with these beliefs into later life so I do not hold it against him. Origen was not condemned as a heretic during his life. I think there is much to learn from Origen who St Jerome, despite his scathing attacks on this work in particular for multiple errors within, nevertheless stated in his preface to Origen's commentary on the Song of Songs "Origen, while in his other books he has surpassed all others, has in the Song of Songs surpassed himself." Origen was the towering genius of the pre-Nicene era and this work does show it, despite the errors. Origen was so ahead of his time that a few mistakes seems inevitable.
One error that comes up a lot (he was soundly rebuked for this by St Jerome) is Origen's doctrine of the pre-existence and transmigration of the soul. While the Latin text we have received from Rufinus (much of the original Greek text has been destroyed) clearly sanitises Origen of many errors, Rufinus still leaves in much about the pre-existence of souls, seemingly because it is so central to Origen's system. The pre-existence of souls is Origen's answer to theodicy. Bad things can happen to people because their souls preexisted and did wrong so they merited just punishment in their next life. Obviously this doctrine has been rightly condemned by the Church as unacceptable.
However, First Principles was an early work of Origen and it's not clear if he kept up with these beliefs into later life so I do not hold it against him. Origen was not condemned as a heretic during his life. I think there is much to learn from Origen who St Jerome, despite his scathing attacks on this work in particular for multiple errors within, nevertheless stated in his preface to Origen's commentary on the Song of Songs "Origen, while in his other books he has surpassed all others, has in the Song of Songs surpassed himself." Origen was the towering genius of the pre-Nicene era and this work does show it, despite the errors. Origen was so ahead of his time that a few mistakes seems inevitable.
June 10, 2021
Origen’s work on First Principles gives an incredible window into the mind of the Church’s greatest post-apostolic and pre-credal teacher. This can be considered an ancient systematic theology and cosmology, treating matters such as God in His Trinity, the incarnation, the world with its causes and ending, and the Scriptures.
The introductions and preface make this particular edition salient for those familiar with the controversy surrounding the great Alexandrian. It’s difficult for the modern evangelical to look past the (validated) charges of subordinationism, universalism, and pelagianism, but Origen’s audience and purpose must be brought into context before casting judgements and lighting the pyre.
This great church father lived prior to the creeds and sowed many of the seeds that developed into those particular formulas in the ensuing centuries. Origen was a man of the church, a lover of the Lord, and a genius of the world. His explications of the eternal generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, and the dual natures in the person of Christ will invigorate any seeking Christian soul. He brings up matters like the communicatio idiomatum two centuries before Ephesus and Chalcedon (pp. 111)!
While his treatment of the transmigration of souls, eternality of creation, angelology, and especially his allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures may cause the stomachs of evangelical readers to turn, his genius, ingenuity, and influence on the great fathers of the fourth century warrant an honest reading and evaluation from all liberal-minded lovers of the truth.
Really fun and challenging read!
The introductions and preface make this particular edition salient for those familiar with the controversy surrounding the great Alexandrian. It’s difficult for the modern evangelical to look past the (validated) charges of subordinationism, universalism, and pelagianism, but Origen’s audience and purpose must be brought into context before casting judgements and lighting the pyre.
This great church father lived prior to the creeds and sowed many of the seeds that developed into those particular formulas in the ensuing centuries. Origen was a man of the church, a lover of the Lord, and a genius of the world. His explications of the eternal generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, and the dual natures in the person of Christ will invigorate any seeking Christian soul. He brings up matters like the communicatio idiomatum two centuries before Ephesus and Chalcedon (pp. 111)!
While his treatment of the transmigration of souls, eternality of creation, angelology, and especially his allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures may cause the stomachs of evangelical readers to turn, his genius, ingenuity, and influence on the great fathers of the fourth century warrant an honest reading and evaluation from all liberal-minded lovers of the truth.
Really fun and challenging read!
September 16, 2018
This book is considered to be the first systematic theology produced by the church. Its organization made for an easier reading experience, as Origen was less concerned with countering his opponents' specific points as he is with establishing his viewpoints on a bunch of issues.
Origen was a church father and when reading this book you can tell that he loves God. Yet his theology contains elements that now would seem completely out of place in (Western) Christianity: universalism, reincarnation, an infinite procession of worlds, and an emphasis on merit being the explanation for all events, good and evil. These elements are not introduced arbitrarily, however; Origen believes them to be the best explanation for theological problems like the problem of evil, and his allegorical view of scripture gives him the flexibility to find "spiritual meanings" of key verses to support his arguments. Still, he holds a high view of scripture in a certain sense, and he takes care to support all his ideas both with philosophy and with scripture.
These unorthodox ideas made this book very interesting. Actually, I am sure many Christians still go down similar lines of thinking today, and it is interesting how the logic remains the same. I personally didn't get much in the way of spiritual nourishment from this book because of the craziness, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Origen was a church father and when reading this book you can tell that he loves God. Yet his theology contains elements that now would seem completely out of place in (Western) Christianity: universalism, reincarnation, an infinite procession of worlds, and an emphasis on merit being the explanation for all events, good and evil. These elements are not introduced arbitrarily, however; Origen believes them to be the best explanation for theological problems like the problem of evil, and his allegorical view of scripture gives him the flexibility to find "spiritual meanings" of key verses to support his arguments. Still, he holds a high view of scripture in a certain sense, and he takes care to support all his ideas both with philosophy and with scripture.
These unorthodox ideas made this book very interesting. Actually, I am sure many Christians still go down similar lines of thinking today, and it is interesting how the logic remains the same. I personally didn't get much in the way of spiritual nourishment from this book because of the craziness, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
August 25, 2024
Origen provides the much-needed antidote to the gross errors of Fundamentalism that reign so victorious in America. In particular, his defense of the spiritual reading of Scripture - especially the Old Testament - is a great bulwark for believers in a time when the literal reading of passages like the Creation myth in Genesis have run up into total senselessness.
Read for a satisfying, rigorous hermeneutics that preserves the mystical character of many of the stories in Scripture. Read for brilliant Christological expositions, if oddly tied, at times, to less desirable aspects of Neo-platonism/metempsychosis.
We are fortunate to have this text, given both how old it is (2nd century AD!!!) and how few of Origen's other writings have survived. It is representative of a deeply spiritual mind at work, reaching for a systematic theology while at the same time humbly recognizing the ultimate futility of such a task.
I will return to this text often; I'm happy to have pushed through it to the end.
Read for a satisfying, rigorous hermeneutics that preserves the mystical character of many of the stories in Scripture. Read for brilliant Christological expositions, if oddly tied, at times, to less desirable aspects of Neo-platonism/metempsychosis.
We are fortunate to have this text, given both how old it is (2nd century AD!!!) and how few of Origen's other writings have survived. It is representative of a deeply spiritual mind at work, reaching for a systematic theology while at the same time humbly recognizing the ultimate futility of such a task.
I will return to this text often; I'm happy to have pushed through it to the end.
August 25, 2025
John Behr’s introduction was truly one of the best I’ve ever read and one I kept coming back to throughout the book. Origen, like I’ve been told is true about most patristic works, is at times writing as if he is having a conversation with the 21st century evangelicals I grew up around and other times moving into frames and modes that are so foreign to me it often requires more reading/study/assistance from those smarter than I am.
I found particularly interesting the fact that, to my knowledge, he never mentions the cross or crucifixion once throughout the text, instead referring to it as the “common death.” As well, his interplay with gender and what seems like modern universalist language intermixed with what evangelicals may call “spiritual warfare” was a fascinating whiplash which I’m still continuing to unpack.
Hopefully I will be returning to this text soon
I found particularly interesting the fact that, to my knowledge, he never mentions the cross or crucifixion once throughout the text, instead referring to it as the “common death.” As well, his interplay with gender and what seems like modern universalist language intermixed with what evangelicals may call “spiritual warfare” was a fascinating whiplash which I’m still continuing to unpack.
Hopefully I will be returning to this text soon
September 6, 2020
Absolutely loved this book. Origen is often criticized as a theologically wayward mind, but what many fail to realize is that he was really the first theologian that put together a systematic theology. It took an adventurous mind to complete such a work, and while he does drift off into some strange areas, it was this freedom which allowed Origen to drift off and develop areas which are now apart of Christian Orthodoxy.
October 2, 2024
Admittedly, Origen is my role model. This is an excellent work, and it’s good to see a translation that hasn’t interpolated anathemas from centuries later. He’s certainly not always right, but he’s an early beacon to guide us in right and honorable theology for the church. A true vir ecclesiasticus.
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