Origen

c. 185 - c. 254 CE · Greek (Alexandria and Caesarea) · Patristics

For as man is said to consist of body, and soul, and spirit, so also does sacred Scripture.

Origen (c. 185 – c. 254) was the first Christian to attempt a systematic account of the whole faith and the first to read the Bible with the tools of a professional scholar. His father was martyred at Alexandria when he was seventeen; Eusebius says the boy wanted to go with him and his mother hid his clothes. He took over the catechetical school at eighteen, learned Hebrew, and spent decades constructing the *Hexapla* — six columns of the Old Testament in parallel, Hebrew and Greek versions side by side — because he had discovered that Christians arguing with Jews about scripture did not know…

Topics Origen addresses

• the threefold sense of Scripture
• body, soul and spirit of the text
• the spiritual sense
• stumbling-blocks placed in the letter
• the Hexapla
• allegory and the rule of faith
• On First Principles
• the pre-existence of souls
• the fall of rational natures
• apokatastasis
• the restoration of all things
• medicinal punishment
• free will and the differentiated world
• eternal generation of the Son
• Against Celsus
• faith as a starting point
• the charge of appealing to the uneducated
• the resurrection body
• prayer and providence
• the exhortation to martyrdom
• the Dialogue with Heraclides
• the Word in Moses and the prophets
• the perfect and the simple
• the condemnation of 553

Questions to put to Origen

Scripture: Body, Soul, and Spirit

• What do you mean when you say Scripture has body, soul, and spirit like a person does?
• What are the stumbling-blocks you say are placed in the letter of Scripture?
• How do you decide when to read allegorically and when to read literally?
• Is the spiritual sense something you discover in the text or something you bring to it?
• Why did you create the Hexapla with six columns of different versions?
• Who are the simple, the progressing, and the perfect as readers of Scripture?

The Fall and Restoration of Rational Creatures

• Why do you think souls existed before they were born into bodies?
• How does pre-existence explain why people are born into such different circumstances?
• What do you mean by the fall of rational natures through misuse of freedom?
• What is the apokatastasis, and why do you think all things will be restored?
• Will the devil himself be restored at the end, or is there a limit?
• How can punishment be medicinal if it's also just?

God, the Son, and Eternal Generation

• What do you mean when you say the Son is eternally generated?
• Was there ever a time when the Son did not exist?
• How do you understand the difference between the Father and the Son?
• Why do you say the Word was already present in Moses and the prophets?
• How do you answer the charge that you make the Son a lesser God?

Against Celsus: Faith and the Incarnation

• How do you answer Celsus's charge that Christians are credulous and uneducated?
• Why do you say faith is a reasonable starting point, not blind credulity?
• What is Celsus getting wrong about the incarnation?
• How do you defend the resurrection of the body against philosophical objections?
• Why does Celsus think Christianity stole its ideas from Plato, and how do you respond?

Prayer, Martyrdom, and the Christian Life

• How should a Christian pray, and what can we reasonably ask God for?
• Does prayer change God's mind, or does it change the one praying?
• What would you say to someone facing martyrdom under persecution?
• Why did you write an exhortation to martyrdom when you yourself avoided it?
• What happened in your dialogue with Bishop Heraclides?

The Condemnation and What You Actually Taught

• Why were you condemned at Constantinople in 553, three centuries after your death?
• How much of what you're accused of teaching did you actually hold as doctrine?
• What did you mean when you called your ideas investigations rather than the rule of faith?
• How did Rufinus and Jerome change your work in translation?
• Can we trust what survives of your writings to represent what you actually thought?

Converse with Origen on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Origen's own writing, cited to the page.