ORIGEN

ORIGEN, theologian (ca. 175-ca. 254). The most distinguished representative of the Alexandrian school who built on the previous contributions of Philo and Clement of Alexandria (q.v.), he left a massive corpus of works devoted to the textual criticism of Scripture (q.v.) (i.e., the Hexapla, the Old Testament in columns beginning with the Hebrew, moving to a transliteration in Greek, and following with four contemporary translations), Scriptural commentaries, homilies on Scripture, apologetics (q.v.) (Contra Celsum), and the first Christian attempt at a systematic theology, the Peri Archon (On First Principles). His thinking, especially in the last-mentioned work, was governed by the following axioms: 1) God (q.v.) is both good and just; 2) God is the creator of all; 3) the human being is free, and 4) ultimately rational; 5) Scripture is the very presence of the Word of God, both in the Old and New Testaments; 6) the Same became incarnate for human salvation; and 7) his truth is imparted to and lives in his Church.

While always striving to remain faithful to the lex credendi (q.v.) of his era, Origen did feel free to speculate. His forays into the origins of the world and of bodies led him to postulate a primordial creation of rational spirits, whose fall from grace led the Creator Word to fashion the material world as both a house of punishment and a schoolroom designed to teach the fallen about their true nature (q.v.) and reveal to them the path of return. This speculation was doubtless motivated primarily by Origen’s desire to defend the seven axioms noted above, especially in opposition to the gnosticism of his era and the nascent Neoplatonism (qq.v.) of his pagan contemporaries.

Much of later Greek patristic thought, indeed, of the whole Byzantine era (qq.v.), may be said to have been a rethinking of Origen. This applies not only to the formal thought of his system, but to scriptural exegesis, spiritual life and asceticism, the whole life of prayer (qq.v.). Origen is foundational to the Greek East in a way analogous to the role Augustine of Hippo (q.v.) plays in the West. This is in spite of the fact that the Fifth Ecumenical Council, at the urging of the Emperor Justinian (qq.v.), condemned Origen as a heretic three centuries after he had died in the peace of the Church. The concomitant destruction of the bulk of his writings, estimated by Eusebius of Caesarea (q.v.) at over eight hundred titles, must rank as one of the great tragedies and injustices of the Christian East. Certain of his works survive, but most of what remains is available only in the (often dubious) translations of Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia.