The issue of Origen’s relation with Hellenism has been debated ever since his lifetime, and eventually became the lynchpin and gist of a host of allegations, on the grounds of which he was officially condemned in the sixth century. Before that event, arguments were supposedly based on his writings, either by his defenders (such as Eusebius, Athanasius, Pamphilus, Rufinus) or his detractors (Antipater of Bostra, Methodius of Olympus, Epiphanius of Salamis, Jerome, et al.). By contrast, during the few centuries after his condemnation, scholars and chroniclers simply copied the official allegations that led to his anathematisation, but the need for adducing any textual evidence from his works was never felt.
The aim of this book is to explore critical aspects of Origen’s relationship with Hellenism on the basis of his own considerations and overall mode of thinking.
Christianity and Hellenism were two worlds that vehemently repudiated each other. Christian authors wrote in Greek but they could not overcome the unflinching idea that Hellas was dangerous to Christians. Even Gregory of Nazianzus, who by all accounts was at odds with the spirit of Hellas, wrote his poems in an exhibitionistic Homeric language, while not caring about whether those hymns could be understood by the hoi polloi. Hence, the Byzantine literatus was both enchained by the Greek letters and bound to refute and fight against the ←1 | 2→Greek spirit in compliance with the religious teaching of the Christian hierarchs. However, among the latter, there were several ones who were keen on imitating the philological style of the ancient Greeks – but they sought to stand close to the ancient language while at the same time militating against the ancient spirit. Hence, Byzantine monasteries spared many people from the vainglory of mundane deeds only to surrender them to the vainglory of words.
On the other hand, up until the sixth century, important masters who had a good command of the ancient Greek lore, such as those of the moribund Academy, kept themselves aloof from Christianity, because they felt that this was the way for them to remain faithful to the legacy of Hellas.
However, this legacy was gradually moving to its sunset. Upon closure of the Academy by Justinian, its masters decamped to Persia, but others felt the sundown of Hellenism much earlier. In c. 400, a lowly and meek teacher of grammar at Alexandria called Palladas was a wholehearted but disillusioned Hellene, who wrote several epigrams. He was as dispirited as to render reality tersely in the following epigram of his:
We are no longer Greeks: we are burnt to ashes’ (ἄνδρες ἐσποδωμένοι [that is, ashes of the real Greeks]); for things have now been reversed’ (ἀνεστράϕη γὰρ πάντα νῦν τὰ πράγματα).1
Hellenism blew out, and Byzantium was the force that struck the final blow at that specific way of contemplating, debating, and of seeing the world and human existence. Nevertheless, that which emerged in the fourth century was a hybrid of Greek Christianity, since Hellenic cerebral modes and pregnant terminology became integral to the new religion’s doctrinal formulations.
Naturally, therefore, in the eleventh century, the seasoned Michael Psellus writing as a Christian while seeing the Greeks as the ‘others’, wrote, ‘as regards the offspring of the Hellenes, Proclus was the last torch-bearer and hierophant of Hellenism’ (‘Eλλήνων δὲ παῖδες, ὧν δὴ τελευταῖος δᾳδοῦχος ϰαὶ ἱεροϕάντης Πρόϰλος ἐγένετο).2 Hence, although Proclus was seen as the ‘the last Hellene’ already during the early eleventh century, less than a century after Proclus, Justinian was considered as ‘the last Roman’,3 which is also how mid-twentieth century historiographers saw him.←2 | 3→
Origen knew that Hellenism was a multifaceted phenomenon built by intellectuals, poets, rhetors, artists, and politicians, a phenomenon characterised by a particular way of seeing human existence, the society, and the world – which eventually determined a certain way of life.
This is how Origen saw and treated that phenomenon in the dusk of the old Roman Empire and the aurora of Byzantium, but this was exactly what was denounced as his mortal sin. To Origen, the spirit of Greece was a complex set of ideas and mentality, involving inspired propositions, respectable ethical precepts, idealistic approaches that could not be discarded out of hand just because those were Greek, and, nonetheless, misguided theories, superstitious veneration of daemons’4), erroneous conceptions of God and of divine Providence, indecent myths5 and obscene portrayals that were unbefitting the nobleness of the sublime reality that surpasses the human condition. Whatever intellectually correct or morally decent the Greeks had said, this had been granted them by God, and yet the Greeks, ‘although they knew of God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither did they give thanks to Him, but their reasoning was brought to naught and their heart was blinded’,6 – plus, long before the Greeks, the Bible had anticipated several of the flawless Greek ideas in a concealed and symbolical manner.
This is why, to Origen, Christianity was not simply the real philosophy worthy of its name, but in fact this was the only true one and the acme of all philosophy.
Nevertheless, there is a point of Paul’s statement which has always been downgraded: no matter what the Greek philosophical shortcomings, or even failures, Paul conceded that, to a certain extent, the Greeks had a correct perception of God. However, hardly did specific foolproof points of Greek theological considerations appear (let alone acknowledged) in the several polemic Christian diatribes ‘Against the Greeks’.7
What was seen as Origen’s unpardonable sin was that, despite his criticism of Greek philosophical theories, he saw no reason why not to grant or indeed use points on which (in Paul’s expression) the Greeks had known God. He was a formerly ←3 | 4→illustrious Greek philosopher who converted to Christianity at the age of nearly fifty, but he did not feel he should wipe the slate of his Greek past clean. He never tried to conceal his former pagan identity: he just did not advertise it too much. Nevertheless, suggestions about this abound throughout his works.8
In the commentary on Matthew, probably the last work of his (and much later than Contra Celsum), which he wrote during the last and downcast 28 years of his living at Tyre, he argued against those Christians of the city who boasted that they were Christians by upbringing and despised the converts (such as Origen himself) as second-class parvenus. His heart at points appearing contrite for having lived for years away from the Truth, was one thing; but confuting those conceited Tyrians (especially, the local bishop, i.e. Methodius, formerly ‘of Olympus’, and the rest of high-rank clergymen) in that commentary was quite another, and he never felt any inferiority complex vis-à-vis them.
Already by Origen’s times, several heresies claimed authentic perception of Jesus’ teaching. Origen saw those Christian heresies during the third century as a natural phenomenon, and pointed out that, after all, the same happened also with Greek schools, indeed not only the philosophical ones but also those of medicine,9 as well with ‘every good thing that was useful to human life’.10 Once there had been five ‘Academies’ claiming authoritative understanding of Plato’s teaching (clinging to such different streams of thought as Pythagoreanism, Scepticism, even Stoicism),11 it was all too easy to argue that ‘from Plato’s teaching many schools have arisen, whose adherents do not hold the same opinions.’12 Not surprisingly, he appealed to Paul’s phrase, ‘there should be heresies among yourselves, so that that the noblest among you should come to light.’13←4 | 5→
Both prior to and after Origen’s lifetime, aspects of Platonism attracted some Christian intellectuals, although this school was treated with suspicion, and came to be a cursed daemon by the official orthodoxy. Presumably, the nebulous notion of ‘Ideas’ allegedly existing in an obscure Beyond and being ‘participated in’, or the bewitching saga about an ‘intelligible world’, were convenient and easy to swallow, although some of the avowed but perceptive followers of Plato were rather apprehensive about his inconsistencies, and made every effort to preserve the august legacy on its venerated pedestal. After all, this was the main reason for Plotinus’ Neoplatonism to appear, since otherwise this philosophy that pleaded allegiance to Plato would have been entirely uncalled for. Quite simply, Neoplatonism was another philosophy, it was not Platonism, since it soon became evident that the latter was not a ‘system’, let alone a coherent one, and its dead ends had been realised already during Plato’s lifetime, as his dialogue Parmenides indicates, which also the apprehensive and nonetheless heretical exertions of diadochi, such as Speusippus and Xenocrates, evince.
Origen had his own philosophical leanings and yens, and I have shown that those were pre-eminently Anaxagorean that burgeoned and at points blossomed also within the context of his Christian analyses. Nevertheless, he had no psychological complexes opposite Greek philosophy, because he knew who he was – and he was a formerly glorious Greek philosopher. This is why he had no difficulty with speaking positively of Plato’s idealistic traits, or of the several noble aspects of the Stoic ethics (plus, using himself their theory of spermatic logoi with regard to physical generation). Actually, he held the Stoics in high regard, particularly Chrysippus, whom he styled ‘an august philosopher’ (ὁ σεμνὸς ϕιλόσοϕος)14 and dubbed Stoicism ‘a by no means dishonourable school’ (ϰαὶ οὐϰ ἀγεννεῖ ϕιλοσόϕων αἱρέσει τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ Kιτιέως Zήνωνος).15 Nevertheless, whereas he saw Greek philosophers as ‘men who on no account could be despised’ (ἀνδράσιν οὐϰ εὐϰαταϕρονήτοις), he added that those important men said also things that were ‘utterly absurd’, and ‘if Celsus was prone to lampoon Christian doctrines as naïve ones and beseeming old illiterate women, much more ought he to have done so with the theories of those men’,16 who, on the one hand, said a few things that ←5 | 6→touched on truth because ‘God revealed those to them’,17 while, on the other, the same men ‘went down to Piraeus in order to pray to goddess Artemis’ and ‘offer sacrifice of a cock to Asclepius.18 This was a remark of contempt for Plato that stood side by side with Origen’s appreciation of Plato’s idealism.
In any case, once Origen forsook his patrimonial Greek religion, he embraced the Psalmic pronouncement, ‘All of the gods of nations are daemons’. Actually, he made much of this19 and appealed to that while proclaiming that ‘it is not possible both to know God and pray to statues’.20
As for Plato, it goes without saying that Origen by and large had respect for him. For Plato had taught sublime things,21 he was an idealist who posited incorporeal principles, he revered Deity,22 he dismissed those Greek myths that were debauched,23 he ‘spoke well’ by positing God as ‘the Supreme Good’ (πρῶτον ἀγαϑόν)24 and affirmed a universal Nous who ‘decorated everything’,25 which Plato himself acknowledged that he had learned it from Anaxagoras.26 All in all then, Plato ‘has been serviceable to many people’.27
Therefore, to be kindly minded towards Plato or Chrysippus and say a couple of complimentary words about them make Origen neither a Platonist nor a Stoic. In other words, assessing his thought is a proposition much tougher than simply picking up from his writings cursory statements and quibbling by blowing them up out of all proportion.
Moreover, too little attention has been paid to Origen’s devout follower Didymus, who (despite his occasional Platonic tendencies, in contrast to Origen) used similar caustic terms speaking of transmigration, and condemned this theory, by styling it ‘myth’ and ‘monstrous’.28 In the teeth of unambiguous matters ←6 | 7→of fact, Didymus’ name was stated along that of Origen in order to signalise the damned ‘heretics’ who espoused this doctrine, although not a single passage of them was ever adduced in support of such allegations. In fact, the name of Didymus along those of Origen and Evagrius appeared only in the acts of later synods.29 In the texts of Justinian and his synod, no mention of Didymus and Evagrius was made: the three names in connection to transmigration were mentioned only later, when it was retrospectively claimed that all of them were condemned by the synod of 553.30 Anyway, during the sixth century, those three names circulated in monastic circles and were either venerated or condemned by different groups of monks.31 However, this did not deter Procopius of Gaza (c. 465–528 AD) from compiling his collection of comments on Ecclesiastes by excerpting passages from Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius along with ones from Gregory of Nyssa, Nilus of Ancyra, and Dionysius of Alexandria.32
Origen knew full well that the fancy of ‘participation’ in the Ideas (μέϑεξις) was a source of puzzlement rather than a theory. He also knew of Aristotle’s devastating criticism of Plato’s theory,33 which he used himself.34 This is why Plato’s ←7 | 8→‘Platonism’ never procured any account of this point whatsoever: his proximate and later successors, who styled themselves ‘Platonists’, were nonplussed, hence the deadlock of that school, which I have discussed in the past.35 Modern ‘scholarship’ of a certain quality relaxedly speaks of ‘logoi or Ideas’, taking them as synonymous. But Origen knew full well the far-reaching difference between those two notions, as indeed Late Antique commentators did.36 When Aristotle dismissed Plato’s theory of Ideas styling this ‘twitterings’ (τερετίσματα, i.e. prattle),37 the gist of his indignation roused not simply from Plato’s positing Ideas as self-subsistent entities, but also from the latter’s indifference to determine (or, at least, somehow explain) how exactly is it that incorporeal entities are related to generation of material things;38 that is, what is the cause for such factors (indeed any factors) to operate, so that ‘gazing at the Ideas’ should produce any sort of material entity and make Ideas ‘causes’ after all.39
Origen dismissed Plato’s gist of thought, namely, the existence of Ideas as self-subsistent entities; instead, by employing the Stoic thesis, he styled them ‘imaginary forms’. Moreover, he denounced the utopia of ‘an intelligible world’ as fanciful, and banned existence of any rational creature existing in a purely incorporeal mode. Actually he dismissed the notion of any rational being other than God living apart from a body, thus employing an Aristotelian mode of cerebration. He dismissed also the (Platonic, in fact, Pythagorean and Egyptian) theory of transmigration by using an array of scornful terms, as well as expressions (such as the notion of ‘a soul changing bodies’), and declared that his own theory of soul was ‘more sublime’ than that of Plato’s.←8 | 9→
In the teeth of such annoying facts, time after time, real or fake scholars discover in Origen either ‘Platonism’, or ‘Philonism’, or ‘Neoplatonism’ or ‘Gnosticism’, let alone the humbug ‘Christian Platonism’ which is but a banal mess of pottage. Bigots see allegoric analysis as Hellenistic ‘corruption’ and ‘danger’, even though the epistle to Hebrews clearly advances allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, as do the Gospels, the Revelation, and the Catholic epistles.40 Obviously the Scripture did so, but some devout ‘Christians’ decided that Christian fathers were not allowed to practice this sort of two-level reading of scriptural texts – even when they had to do so in order to contradict Jewish or heretical interpretations. At any rate, Origen did not call the literal factuality in question. At the same time, however, his message was that if we are to do away with arid literal instances of the text, we must embark on a specific kind of reading that unlocks the latent truths, which is why his own method became the prototype and catalyst.
Moreover, once Origen employed the Anaxagorean term Nous as synonymous with the term God (as well as with any Trinitarian Person), or availed himself of an Anaxagorean portrayal for the object of creation (which he styled logoi),41 one should also see that the former idea was more abundantly entertained by Cyril of Alexandria, and of the latter Gregory of Nyssa made the utmost. This is why, in my Anaxagoras (a philosopher whose fate has stunning similarities to Origen’s one),42 I have not minced my words concerning weighing paltriness and nescience hailing its brother. Since my PhD years, I have argued that Origen was an anti-Platonist in many respects; actually, he dismissed the pillars of Platonism, such as the notion of Ideas (which he styled ‘fanciful’), the existence of an ‘intelligible world’, or ‘rational creatures existing in incorporeal form without a body’, let alone that, whereas Plato had urged that ‘it is impossible for evils ever to be extinguished,43 Origen was the chief exponent of the doctrine of final abolition of evil and universal restoration.
At that time, when I expounded the real Origen, I appeared as if I urged that the earth is flat. Naturally, I was not as naïve as to expect that this demolition of entrenched stereotypes could be immediately acclaimed. However, it came about that arguably pointing out the numerous brilliant cynosures in Origen’s work turned out impossible to refute.←9 | 10→
Ever since, I have been constantly and repeatedly coming upon ‘views’ about Origen, which flagrantly conflict his plain texts and analyses, and merely parrot Justinian’s condemnation, while either overlooking how Origen was praised and adhered to by Athanasius and the three Cappadocians, or ignoring the extent to which theologians were indebted to Origen’s flair.
To be sure, Origen did not have the cathexis, or indeed the obsessive paranoid fear, of those who saw Platonism as a daemon, certainly a formidable foe, and, anyway, a ‘danger’ or ‘contamination’:44 he just believed that Christianity was a philosophy that by far surpassed all the streams of the heathen one. However, he was prepared to accept points that had been ‘well said’ (ϰαλῶς εἰρημένα, or ὑγιῶς εἰρημένα) by the Greeks.45 This is why he was not shy about praising some of Plato’s (mainly moral) ideas whenever this suited his cerebration (although normally and arguably he traced all of them back to the Old Testament);46 but so he did unflinchingly about other Greek philosophers and poets (especially Euripides), or the Stoics, from whom he quoted conveniently while praising their ethos that moulded some of their theories, but excoriated other theories of them which he saw as gullible.
Anyway, Origen accorded the highly laudatory denomination ‘the august philosopher’ (ὁ σεμνὸς ϕιλόσοϕος) not Plato, but Chrysippus,47 adding that the Stoic philosophy ‘could not be despised’.48 However, he styled the Stoic doctrine of re-appearance of identical worlds (and persons and actions) ‘most ridiculous’ (γελοιότερον),49 and excoriated the Stoics for propounding ‘material principles’,50 or positing ‘God as being a material body’.51
It was because of his attitude that important aspects of Stoicism that otherwise could have been lost have been preserved by Origen52 – a person of which we are invited to believe (after Eusebius, who wrote that the juvenile Origen relinquished philosophy and all of Greek letters) that since the age of his late juvenescence had sold all of his pagan library. Against this, we come upon an intellectual ←10 | 11→who was more than well versed in Greek literature, including not only philosophy and theology, but also poetry, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and was able to commit portions of the Greek lore to memory, from authors such as Homer and Empedocles down to later Stoics, and recall them 50 years later.
The fact is that Origen used Greek philosophy selectively ‘towards creating a Christian philosophy’ (ϕιλοσοϕίας πρὸς χριστιανισμόν),53 because he had an excellent command of the teaching of all Greek schools. Anyway, he used extensively cardinal Aristotelian ideas, and much more so Stoic ones, whereas his opposition to Platonism appears every now and then, as I have shown in my previous books and hope to expound more systematically in the future.
Origen’s relationship to Greek philosophy and specific philosophers is misunderstood, which is a psychological rather than intellectual problem of those who, unlike Origen, discombobulate scholarship with bigotry. By contrast, Origen had never any problem with declaring his respect for the Greek letters,54 and I am afraid that the anxiety to prove that there were ‘two Origens’ in order to abide by Eusebius’ sanctimonious urban myth masqueraded as ‘biography of Origen’ is but total nescience of the fact that, in Origen’s work, terminology, relevance, and implicit consideration of Greek philosophy appear at almost every five lines of text. That this is not recognised has to do not with Origen himself, but with the extent to which Greek philosophy is taught in modern faculties of theology, which is why I have no illusions about some of those who will not feel at home with the analyses made in the present book, as it happened with my previous ones, which indispensably presuppose philosophical training and background.
What matters at this point is that Origen, at the outset of his rebuttal of Celsus, explaining his own method of argument and exegesis, declared that ‘there is a method of proving the truth of the Gospel which is proper to it, and which is more divine than the Greek [method] which was demonstration based on dialectical argument. This the more divine method that the Apostle calls demonstration of the Spirit and of the power’, since it is by means of the Spirit that the truth of ‘the prophecies’ could come to light.55 Accordingly, when he unfolded his argumentation against Celsus, he was seeing himself as ‘a philosopher who construed the implications of Christian teaching’ (ϕιλοσοϕοῦντα τὰ τοῦ λόγου). Besides, he deemed it indispensable that ‘the truth of such an exegesis’ should ←11 | 12→be demonstrated by means of ‘proofs of all kinds’, namely, ‘both from the divine statements and from the logical coherence of argument’ (ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἀ - ϰολουϑίας).56
I have always declared that I am not concerned with determining whether Origen was ‘orthodox’, or not; in fact, I am not interested in such categories as ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ (but it would be interesting to learn from a company of theologians comprising a Greek Orthodox, a Roman Catholic, and a Protestant – never mind the thousands of their respective ramifications – who is ‘orthodox’ and who is ‘heretic’ after all). Nevertheless, it could not take too much study of ‘history of doctrine’ in order to see how fluid was the notion of ‘orthodoxy’ with the passage of time.57 I have pointed out ostensible similarities of Origen’s concept of Creation expressed in terms of ‘seeds’ placed by the Father on the Son with the Gnostic theory of this.58 The fact that the origin of this was Anaxagorean aside, this idea made its way into orthodoxy through Gregory of Nyssa – but no one did ever notice that this was Origen’s theory, as well as that the Gnostics had used like terms, although the differences are distinguishable, owing to different points of departure, provided that respective theories are perused to begin with. In any event, accommodating the Greek culture appeared a mortal sin by those who could allow nothing less than flat rejection of anything supposed to be ‘Greek’. But had this happened, the question is how could a system of Christian belief have been formed in the first place. Anyway, if there was some asymmetry as to the vigour of mutual influence between Christian and pagan philosophers (as indeed there was), damning the Greek paideia could not be, and was not, the way forward.59
During both Origen’s times and modern era, the ‘logic’ of nescience has been the same and all too simple: since Origen spoke of ‘antecedent causes’ (πρεσβύτερα αἴτια), which determine the structure of any subsequent world-setting, the only assumption that could be conceived of was to postulate that he ←12 | 13→espoused pre-existence of souls, hence, transmigration. What if he railed against the ‘folly of transmigration’ in strongly vituperative terms? What if he derided the Greek idea of ‘souls exchanging bodies’? What if he declared that his theory of soul had nothing to do with the Platonic one and that this was by far ‘a more sublime’ one? Once the benightedness of his audience barred any possibility of guessing (let alone conceptualising) what else other than transmigration could he have possibly had in mind, laying this at his door was all too convenient a way-out concealing mental darkness under the veil of ‘scholarship’. After all, ignorance is rapturous bliss. But then, since no one could envision what Origen’s ‘more sublime theory of soul’ was about, all of the aspirant Grand Inquisitors of the faith engaged in a duel with a phantom, indeed with figments and shadows of their own imagination. Quite simply, everyone of them was neither prepared nor able to grant Origen a proper hearing, only because he had dared to crown the faith with some elaborate reasoning, and was satisfied that no forfeiture of either reason or of ‘the mind of Christ’ is entailed once a philosopher assents to the revelation as a real source of authentic knowledge. And yet, no matter what the heathen ideas Origen made use of in order to portray his exegesis, all the aspects of it sit cheek by jowl with elements of the two Testaments, both of which pronounce the homology of the one and same Christian truth.
Those who still wish to make reality less real by urging that Origen espoused the idea of transmigration or ‘pre-existence of souls’ should never read Greek literature again (if indeed did they ever do so at all): such people will never recognise either the profoundness of his inspiration or the amplitude of his underlying theory, nor his learned exposition, nor his background that burgeoned from the very roots of philosophy – never mind philosophy itself. In fact, they should remain in their safe imprisonment, protected by the impregnable fences of timorous bigotry, and ridiculously speak of ‘primeval world of souls or minds’ in Origen. As always, the condemnatory and proscriptive confidence of narrow-minded rabids has been fearfully headstrong.
Against this, it was Origen’s ingenious inspiration that begat Gregory of Nyssa, it begat Athanasius and Didymus, it begat Basil of Caesarea, Cyril of Alexandria, then Cassian the Sabaite, Maximus Confessor, and later still Augustine.60 Athanasius reported that, in effect, Nicaea employed and endorsed Origen’s Trinitarian doctrine.←13 | 14→
Recently, a good and very erudite friend (with whom I disagree on some issues, but this strengthens rather than abates mutual respect) told me that Athanasius’ reference to Origen clearly refers to others apart from Origen (maybe the bishops at the deposition of Paul of Samosata in 268), and if it refers to him also, the cautious syntax (avoiding the plain assertion that the Son is homoousios with the Father) seems perfectly congruent with the analogy drawn in Origen’s Commentary on Hebrews between the relation of things that are consubstantial and the relation of the Son to the Father. Eusebius knew this text, of course, from the Apology of Pamphilus, which he completed.
In other words, why did Athanasius not explicate that Origen used the term homoousios for the Father and Son? To this, part of my answer will be that Origen did use the homoousios, yet he did not make this a ‘banner’, as the bishops of Nicaea led by Athanasius felt they should do later. In fact, Athanasius made reference to the man from whom he took his cue and, as shown below, he knew that Origen said nothing less of the Nicene Creed.
To this, a few things need to be said, but I will not repeat the discussion of Origen’s use of homoousios that I made in my last book (including Pamphilus’ arguments from Origen’s Commentary on Hebrews),61 which I regard as far from being complete, since there are more arguments that can be adduced. I will only focus on this particular remark by a learned colleague. For one thing, considering the context of Athanasius’ texts would be illuminating.
On this, a small digression is called for. I believe that theologians were loath to swallow the fact that Origen boldly had employed Gnostic62 and Hermetic63 terms, such as homoousios or pleroma,64 even though he transformed and applied them to an entire different context contradicting the Gnostic outlook.
Nevertheless, Athanasius reported that the Nicene term homoousios entertained in Trinitarian theology was not any novelty whatsoever: for this had been already used by ‘scholars and bishops of old’, whom Athanasius himself knew.
As for the Logos eternally co-existing with the Father (περὶ δὲ τοῦ ἀϊδίως συνεῖναι τὸν Лόγον τῷ Πατρί), and that he is not of a different essence or hypostasis (μὴ ←14 | 15→ἑτέρας οὐσίας ἢ ὑποστάσεως), but he is an offspring of the Father’s own essence, anyone can learn from the industrious Origen, as the members of the synod said.65
Further in the same work, Athanasius appended a letter by ‘Eusebius, the Arian-minded, to the people of his sea’, which was of particular importance, since it was written by an author who set aside his initial reservations (let alone that he had been was rebuked by Eustathius of Antioch for deviating from the Nicene faith) and eventually was convinced to concur.
This is also what the [proposition], the Son is homoousios with the Father, once perused, demonstrates: [for it bespeaks that the Son was begotten] neither in the way this happens in bodies nor similarly to mortal animals, nor by means of the essence [= material] being severed (οὔτε ϰατὰ διαίρεσιν τῆς οὐσίας), nor by cutting off (οὔτε ϰατὰ ἀποτομήν), nor indeed in the sense of [the Son having been begotten by means of] any sort of passion (ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ϰατά τι πάϑος) or alteration (ἢ τροπήν) or mutation (ἢ ἀλλοίωσιν) of the Father’s essence and power (τῆς τοῦ Πατρὸς οὐσίας τε ϰαὶ δυνάμεως). For the Father’s nature is alien to all of those.
Instead, the [expression] homoousios with the Father is indicative of the fact that the Son of God has no likeness to the created being, and that in every respect he has been like the Father who begat him (τῷ πατρὶ τῷ γεγεννηϰότι ϰατὰ πάντα τρόπον ἀϕωμοιῶσϑαι), and he is of no different hypostasis or ousia (ϰαὶ μὴ εἶναι ἐξ ἑτέρας τινὸς ὑποστάσεώς τε ϰαὶ οὐσίας); instead, he is from the Father’s [hypostasis and ousia] (ἀλλ’ ἐϰ τοῦ Πατρός).
Once this was interpreted in this way, it appeared [to us] that it was good to concur, because we know of certain scholars and bishops of old (ϰαὶ τῶν παλαιῶν τινας λογίους ϰαὶ ἐπιϕανεῖς ἐπισϰόπους ϰαὶ συγγραϕεῖς ἔγνωμεν), who, in reference to the theology of the Father and Son (ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ Πατρὸς ϰαὶ Υἱοῦ ϑεολογίας), used the term homoousios (τῷ τοῦ ὁμοουσίου χρησαμένους ὀνόματι).66
Eusebius forthwith explained to his flock that he concurred because the terms used in those doctrinal proclamations ‘had been perused by the most-loving God king’ [Constantine], and that he believed that it is not inappropriate (ἄλυπον εἶναι) to use ‘non-scriptural’ terms (ἀγράϕοις χρῆσϑαι ϕωναῖς), ‘wherefore a lot of confusion ←15 | 16→and commotion (σύγχυσις ϰαὶ ἀϰαταστασία) had been caused to the churches’. ‘But once the king approved of this, we went along (συνεϑέμεϑα), whereas, prior to this time, we did not, because, earlier, we were not used to making use of such terms’ (ἐπεὶ μηδὲ ἐν τῷ πρὸ τούτου χρόνῳ εἰώϑαμεν συγχρῆσϑαι τοῖς ῥήμασιν).67
The importance of this letter may be assumed also from the fact that this was quoted not only by Athanasius, but also by Theodoret, Socrates Scholasticus, and, much later, by Nicephorus Callistus.68
The last phrase does not matter much, since Eusebius had to explain his earlier position. Nevertheless, he used the terms hypostasis and ousia without caring to explain them too much. Actually, his use of ousia within the same passage is polysemic: at one point, it means an animal’s bodily ‘matter’, whereas, in the next phrase, it means God’s unfathomable ‘essence’. As for hypostasis, he used this indiscriminately as if it were an alternative to ousia.
Eusebius did not use this locution fortuitously: instead, he relied on Origen’s selfsame proposition rebutting the Gnostics (who had used homoousios, too).
Others have explained the [phrase], I came forth from God [John, 8:42; 16:27] as meaning ‘I have been born by God’; from which it follows that, to say that the Son has been born from the essence of the Father (ἐϰ τῆς οὐσίας ϕάσϰειν τοῦ Πατρὸς γεγεννῆσϑαι τὸν ὐἱόν) means that, once God begets the Son, this entails that He somehow decreases, and the ousia [sc. matter] He had prior to this is reduced, in like manner one would understand this in the case of pregnant women (ὡσεὶ νοῆσαι69 τις τοῦτο ϰαὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐγϰυμόνων). What ensues from these is that the Father and Son are corporeal, and that the Father has been severed –which are but doctrines maintained by men who have absolutely no inkling of what the invisible and incorporeal nature is, which is essence par excellence (οὖσαν ϰυρίως οὐσίαν).70
In this passage Origen’s fundamental doctrine positing that ‘the Son was born from the essence of the Father’ (ἐϰ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός) is manifestly taken for granted.71 All Eusebius did was to use Origen’s selfsame argument and terminology – all the more so, since the polysemic sense of ousia played its role. For Origen (and then Eusebius) used the term ‘ousia’ not only as ‘essence’ (indeed, ‘divine essence’) in its abstract philosophical sense, but also as the material of one’s body, ‘which is reduced’ when we speak about ‘pregnant women’.
Unlike Eusebius, when Origen spoke of οὐσία ϰαὶ ὑπόστασις, he had a clear grasp of the meaning of those terms. By ὑπόστασις he meant the fact of something’s or someone’s existence itself. By οὐσία he meant the ‘essence’ of such an existence – and I have explained that, in this case, ‘essence’ means the specific concurrence of the particular incorporeal logoi, which generate and sustain a certain thing, person, or phenomenon. In order for something to have οὐσία, it should have ὑπόστασις, too.72 This is why Origen wrote that ‘the invisible and incorporeal nature is essence par excellence’ (οὖσαν ϰυρίως οὐσίαν).73
Why was it that Eusebius used the terms οὐσία and ὑπόστασις as if they were synonymous, or at least, interchangeable? Because the synod on Nicaea had not considered the term hypostasis at all, as Socrates Scholasticus explained.74 For example, Dionysius of Alexandria rejected the term because this was not biblical. But Athanasius insisted that, although the term was not used in the scripture (ἄγραϕον), its meaning was scriptural. Amidst this quarrel, it is all but strange that prelates rested content with the term remaining obscure and absence of any definition of it. But the problem was addressed later, in 362, at a synod held in Alexandria,75 where Athanasius sought to secure the homoousios. The reason why ←17 | 18→Athanasius convened that synod was that some semi-Arians compromising the homoousion urged that the terms ὁμοούσιος (‘of one essence’) and ὁμοιούσιος (‘of like essence’) should have the same sense.
This synod was the climax of Athanasius struggle to establish permanently a cardinal notion of Trinitarian Theology. Socrates Scholasticus reported that, unlike Nicaea, the synod of Alexandria set out to determine the terms οὐσία and ὑπόστασις. It was Hosius of Cordoba who took the task upon himself, but this resulted in idle disputing (ἐρεσχελία), yet in the end they reached a certain decision, which was ambiguous, to say the least.
However, the erudite Socrates Scholasticus cared to say a few more things, pointing out (‘so far as we know of the terms ousia and hypostasis’) that, whereas the Greek sages used ousia as a polysemous term, they made no mention of hypostasis whatsoever. Besides, the grammarian Irenaeus76 styled the term ‘a barbarous one’, and adduced irrelevant and discrepant senses of hypostasis as used by Sophocles and Menander.77 In that synod, Origen’s name was ‘much discussed’, and the participants adduced the Apology by Pamphilus and Eusebius arguing that all Origen did was ‘to interpret the secret tradition of the Church’.78
Athanasius always humbly argued that the homoousion was but a legacy handed down by ‘the fathers’ of old,79 and now we can consider what appeared as Athanasius’ ‘cautious syntax’ referring to Origen as a predecessor of Nicaea.
I believe that the text of Athanasius quoted above80 involves no effort to conceal anything about Origen: it only means to demonstrate that, along with the ancestral ‘bishops’, the ‘scholars’ that had spoken of the Son being co-eternal and ←18 | 19→homoousios with the Father was no other that Origen. In order to confirm this, we should peruse another statement by Athanasius.
The merit of this text lies in its tenor: it is as if Athanasius meant to reply to some of his contemporaries, who could have complained to him that his foregoing statement did not do full justice to Origen having propounded the homoousion, and that he had used a ‘cautious syntax (avoiding the plain assertion that the Son is homoousios with the Father)’ instead. Here is what Athanasius wrote, perhaps explaining himself with regard to his previous statement.
As for those who accept the rest of those that have been proclaimed by Nicaea, but they are doubtful about the homoousion, no one should treat them as enemies. For we do not stand up to them, either as if they were bowled head over heels into the Arian madness or as ones disputing the fathers; instead, we converse with them as brothers who share the same view with us, yet they are hesitant only with regard to this term. For those who profess that the Son is from the essence of the Father (ἐϰ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρὸς εἶναι τὸν ὐἱόν) and not from any other hypostasis, and he is neither a creature nor one who was made, but he eternally co-exists with the Father as a genuine and by nature offspring, since he is both the Logos and Wisdom, they are not far from consenting to the term homoousios. This is what Basil of Ancyra, who wrote On the Faith, explains.81
Athanasius continues with quoting from Basil of Ancyra’s treatise, who argued that ‘to profess the genuine relation of the Son to the Father’ by using the terms ‘similar’ (essence) (ὅμοιον) and ‘in essence’ (ϰατ’ οὐσίαν) does not necessarily mean ‘from the essence’ (ἐϰ τῆς οὐσίας of the Father). But since they (sc. the Homoiousians) professed both that the Son is from the essence of the Father (ἐϰ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός) and of ‘like essence’ (ὁμοιούσιον), they grant nothing different from the homoousion. Thus, whereas homoiousion does not entail ‘from the essence’, once ‘from the essence of the Father’ is appended, this clearly means professing that the Son is homoousios with the Father.
What is interesting in Basil of Ancyra’s analysis is that his argument is in fact that which Origen expounded in the Commentary on John82 (quoted above): Basil distinguished the Son’s birth from the human one which takes place as something ←19 | 20→that pregnant women ‘suffer’ (ϰατὰ πάϑος) and that this birth involves no ‘severance’ of the Father’s essence (ϰαὶ τὸ ἀμέριστον τῆς ἐϰ Πατρὸς οὐσίας).
Moreover, Basil continued, this analysis is made ‘lest someone who heard the term Logos should assume that this is something similar to the human [logos], which has not an existence of its own (ὁποῖος ἐστὶν ὁ τῶν ἀνϑρώπων λόγος ἀνυπόστατος); instead, those who listen to [the term Logos] should understand him as being the living Logos and the subsistent Wisdom (ζῶντα Лόγον ϰαὶ ἐνούσιον Σοϕίαν).83
Put simply, Origen provided both Athanasius and Basil of Ancyra not only with the notion of homoousios Son, but also with the arguments in order to convert the Homoiousians to orthodoxy.
Therefore, when Eusebius (endorsed by Athanasius) said that he knew of ‘certain scholars of old, and renowned bishops and authors, who used the term homoousios in the context of the theology of the Father and Son’, who those ‘scholars and renowned authors’ could possibly have been other than Origen, in view of inexorable textual evidence?
Eusebius’ phrase became famous and was reproduced by several subsequent authors.84 And yet, in the teeth of this, Origen’s use of the homoousion is still disputed by many scholars.
Athanasius said these addressing the Homoiousians. But Origen was not one of them; instead, he had used the term homoousios, and indeed he was the only ‘scholar of old’ whom Athanasius and Eusebius appealed to when they called upon the auctoritas vetustatis. The irony is that, whereas Athanasius and Eusebius ←20 | 21→called in Origen as witness (the only layman that the term ‘scholars’ of old could have suggested) in order to secure their view, today we appeal to them instead of Origen himself, in order to ascertain what Origen really believed.
Athanasius had no reason to seek any ‘cautious syntax’ when he spoke of Origen. For had had already employed Origen’s fundamental postulations, on account of which not only the Father and Son, but also the Trinity should be homoousios – e.g. the concept of God being ‘entirely one and simple’ and strictly ‘incomposite’.85
Besides, it was Athanasius himself who signalised the scriptural passages from which he was led to postulate the homoousion of the Son – and these were exactly those that Origen had adduced and considered in this theological context. Such instances were, Psalm 44:1 (‘My heart has disgorged a good word’);86 Psalm 109:3 (‘Before the morning-star I begat you’);87 John, 8:42 (‘I came out and have come from God’);88 John, 6:46 (‘Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God, he has seen the Father’);89 John, 10:30 (‘I and the Father are one’); 14:10–11 (‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’);90 as well as numerous others (e.g. Matt. 11:27, ‘No one knows the Father except the Son’; John, 1:18, ‘The Only-Begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed’), with regard to which Athanasius’ debts to Origen’s analyses can be easily determined. Therefore, the whole matter is not about a word having been either used or not: it was an entire and incisive background that shaped Trinitarian theology, and Origen’s use of homoousios was but only one instance of his pertinent exposition, of which Athanasius turned out the most faithful exponent.←21 | 22→
This was one of the feats by a man whom Greeks saw as an unthoughtful apostate and Christians abhorred as an abominable heretic.
Besides, Athanasius confirmed that which any careful reader of De Principiis could have said, namely, that, apart from Origen’s Trinitarian doctrine (which can be confirmed by his contemporary commentary on Genesis), the rest of De Principiis was but tentative considerations by a veritable Greek philosopher and inchoate Christian, who could have never left any aspect of scriptural statement not perused to its bitter end. After all, if De Principiis was such an abominably heretical work, Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea could have never anthologised this. Cyril of Alexandria never said a single word against Origen; instead, his commentary on the gospel of Mark is full from loans from his spiritual forbear. And if Cyril used the term Nous almost as frequently as the term God, and conveniently applied this designation to the Trinitarian Persons apiece more than any other theologian ever did, this was because, in De Principiis, Origen heavily used the terms Nous and God as synonymous. Beneath the sesquipedalian bells and whistles of John Chrysostom, there is plenty of his copying from Origen,91 which is why the vitriolic and meddlesome Epiphanius of Salamis held Chrysostom to obloquy for using Origen’s works and indeed being an Origenist, but Chrysostom ignored Epiphanius’ conniption and bill of indictment, which first and foremost denigrated Origen, and he unabashedly kept on flaunting his rhetorical skill.92 As for Gregory of Nyssa, he fastened on Origen’s doctrine of creation and universal Restoration to its minutest details, and Anastasius of Sinai’s commentary In Hexamemeron is manifestly influenced by Origen’s ideas – not to mention Maximus Confessor, who copied from Origen abundantly.
To the list of those who held Origen in the highest regard, others can be added, too, such as Titus of Bostra, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Alexander of Hierapolis.93
By contrast, during and after the sixth-century, authors let loose a barrage of invective railing against Origen, while not allowing that he was entitled to gestation of Greek ideas upon forming his world view by means of a provably Christian rationale. The echo of such allegations sadly but largely determines the present state of Origenian studies.←22 | 23→
The chapters of the present book are integrally interconnected, indeed permeated by an inherent appositeness, which is Origen’s multifaceted relationship with Hellenism, and all of them conspire to cast some light on Origen’ contentious relation with Greek philosophy and mentality.
Chapter 1 treats the question of how Plato’s theory of Ideas, following the devastating criticism of it by Aristotle, was transformed during the Late Antiquity, so as to claim that the Ideas were but ‘thoughts of God’. Origen knew of this, and he was able to dismiss not only Plato’s theory as one that cut-off the real world from reality, but also subsequent theories by Greek intellectuals who dignified themselves as Platonists and strove to rescue the notion of Ideas by placing them in the Divine Mind.
Origen dismissed Plato’s theory of Ideas not out of whimsical selectiveness; instead, he was compelled to do so on account of his fundamental premisses and concerns. If everything in this world is but a ‘shadow’,94 how could shadows make an effect on such authentic and sublime realities as ‘justice’, ‘virtue’, and the like? Plato thought that it sufficed for him to have recourse to the solution ‘that virtue comes to us by divine dispensation, when it does come’,95 but his frequent appealing to ‘the divine dispensation’ (ϑεία μοῖρα)96 hardly squared with his alleged method of demonstration by means of dialectical argument. Through such or similar instances, Plato’s ‘dialectics’ frequently appeared as a hopeless effort to prove the unprovable, such as the independent and transcendent reality of the Good and its retinue. Later Greek thinkers were more sensible in their modesty. Syrianus speaking of Plato, at points gave up ratiocination, and confessed that there is the realm of ‘substances, which are the simplest and intelligible par excellence’ (ἐν ταῖς ἁπλουστάταις ϰαὶ ϰυρίως νοηταῖς οὐσίαις), and these ‘are contemplated by means of direct apprehension alone (μόνῃ ἐπιβολῇ)’,97 that is, not by means of ratiocination.
Plato created a veil that screened-off the obscure Deity. Hence, what remained was a world of ‘shadows’, wherefore reality became illusion, yet an illusion that to other important Greek philosophers claimed absolute reality.←23 | 24→
I have argued that Anaxagoras was a different case on that score. For he did not need dialectics: he just invited us to watch; actually, to see a reality that makes its mark by means of the phenomena, which are not less real for that matter. In fact, this struggle to ‘see’ is but the quest itself for ‘saving the phenomena.’ Anaxagoras had already torn down the veil of the Mythos on various issues, for which he paid a high price. Plato represented a new version of this Mythos, and claimed this to be a positive reality allegedly ‘argued dialectically’, indeed, to be philosophy.
Anaxagoras taught that God is here, and he is present everywhere and yet nowhere all the same.
It took centuries for philosophers to come to terms with the notion of Deity (as indeed with any incorporeal entity) being ‘both everywhere and nowhere’, and to treat this as a matter of course, as discussed in Chapters 1 and 3.
Although the phenomena are manifestations of unseen underlying realities and processes,98 these are all too real nevertheless, and they reveal that which is commandingly present here and now. Phenomena are not any sort of ignis fatuus curtaining reality off: instead, they are the clues to a universe considered as revelation, both in itself and in its particular operations and manifestations. Anaxagoras made it his task to guide people to glimpsing the grandeur of the world, and ultimately its secret joy – the joy of being existent rather than nonexistent, the joy of being there rather than not being at all. Unlike Anaxagoras who sought to reveal this to everyone, Plato’s veil screened people off the joy of the real world. No matter how the two stars of Greek philosophy (i.e. Plato and Aristotle) strove to obscure their influence by their predecessor, Anaxagoras made waves that I have explored in the past. For example, Plato’s statement about the divine Nous being the Sophia was just one of those dues. Moreover, to Anaxagoras, the universe was mysterious but not inscrutable; it is a riddle that it is possible to unravel. If this approach is not the gist of scientific approach and exploration, what else could science possibly be? And while revealing to us how to get to the bottom (i.e. to discover the underlying causes) of this magnificent universe, he nonetheless taught us that there is no place like home, hence, escapism was banned, it was not allowed the slightest bit of room. This was a major difference from Plato; and Anaxagoras’ anteceding lesson was that there is no need to swallow Plato’s sugared pill and his escapism, which is the constant melody supposedly heard in his mirage reality.←24 | 25→
Sometimes I call Origen an ‘Anaxagorean’, and I am gratified because the versed readers of my previous work grasped the true meaning of this: certainly Origen was not bowled head over heels by that Presocratic, or by any other Greek’s cerebration; for otherwise, this predecessor of Nicaea and a Christian par excellence could not have been a Christian. Nevertheless, by using his enormous Greek background, he took his cue from Anaxagoras on critical questions (such as the doctrine of creation and subsequent generation, or God being Nous, or not indulging in utter and unqualified transcendentalism) in order to build his own coherent set of principles,99 so as to expound his Christian thought by realising that, once his mindset fundamentally and arguably stemmed from the divine scriptures, his system was bound to be anti-Platonic.
Chapter 2 peruses how Origen interpreted the ‘garments of skin’ of Genesis, 3:21, which was hotly debated until as late as the sixth century, and occasionally later. It turns out that Origen’s theory was all but ‘Greek’, whereas exegeses by orthodox theologians fell into the domain that had been upbraided.
Concerning Chapter 3, Origen, in some of his particular exegeses, did not think it fit to contradict the biblical narrative; hence, he yielded to considerations treating ‘Adam’ as if ‘Adam’ were a historical figure. However, when ‘Adam’ of Genesis (i.e. the doctrine of creation) had to be accounted for in a strict sense, he allowed no room for dubiety: ‘Adam’ was not a specific individual; the name (which in Hebrew means ‘man’) was about the ‘entire human nature’, on which Gregory of Nyssa (as almost always) followed his creative flare suit. The question, therefore, which is invited, is this: is ‘Adam’ a sort of Platonic universal? To this, Origen’s reply was a decisive ‘no’, but this calls for argument which is expounded in that chapter.
Nevertheless, to orthodoxy, this was an alarming proposition, since it immediately rang a bell of idealism, and several apprehensive theologians saw it as Platonism. The fact that Origen’s oeuvre is replete with anti-Platonic theses (that I have perused in the past) hardly touched anyone. Instead, his exegesis appeared as smacking of ‘Hellenism’; therefore, it had to be exorcised – since the masters of Christian teaching (who nevertheless wrote in Greek) saw the Greek spirit as ‘the satan’ who should ‘get behind’.100←25 | 26→
In the official documents of synods, Hellenism is described by means of a vast number of derogatory expressions, such as Greek ‘dupery’ (ἀπάτη), ‘impiety’ (δυσσέβεια), ‘superstition’ (δεισιδαιμονία), ‘delusion’ (πλάνη), ‘madness’ (μανία), ‘myths’ (μῦϑοι or μυϑοποιία), ‘alien to Christ’ (ξένη ϰαὶ ἀλλοτρία Xριστοῦ), ‘cunning inventions’ (ἐπιτηδεύματα), ‘monstrous’ (τερατώδη), false ‘inventions’ (ἀναπλάσματα), and the period of Hellenism was styled ‘times of fighting against God’ (ϑεομάχοι ϰαιροί). Naturally, some of those designations were associated with the name of Origen.101 In modern times, these were glossed over, wherefore some scholars saw Hellenism in milder terms, such as ‘contamination’102 or ‘danger’.103
The rest of the ensuing chapters of this book touch upon and treat Origen’s complex spiritual approach and relation to Greek philosophy and mentality in one way or another. They delve into critical facets of his thought, which should (partially, at least) determine whether he was the irredeemably ‘heretical Greek’ that he has been claimed to be, or not, so as to figure out Origen’s relation to Greek philosophy and outlook as a whole. This is the line of argument and scope of the present book.
It is my hope that the present study contributes to understanding who Origen really was by exploring some of his main theories, while at the same time mulling over him not only as an object of scholarship, but also as a subject that had his own dramatic turns of life. In fact, empathising with this tragic figure is no less important than contemplating his ideas. Origen is not visibly here, he is not filmed in any video so as to be possible for us to study the language of his body. But we could feel the body of his language, by way of its meaningful nuances, loans, sympathies and antipathies, allegiances and breakthroughs.
The ancient rule of historiography had it that Rhetoric should attend to ‘skillful forcefulness’ (δεινότης); Poetry, to fictitious inventiveness (μυϑοπλαστεῖν); and History, to ‘truth’ (ἀλήϑεια).
I can only assure that, in compliance to the golden old rule, this study has attended to truth. After all, plain and unadorned truth is always the strongest of all arguments.