5. Of the dogmatic writings we possess only one in its integrity,
and that only in the translation of Rufinus,[1] Περὶ ἀρχῶν (On
the Fundamental Doctrines). This work, which was composed
before 228, is the first attempt at a dogmatic at once scientific
and accommodated to the needs of the church. The material
is drawn from Scripture, but in such a way that the propositions
of the regula fidei are respected. This material is then formed
into a system by all the resources of the intellect and of speculation.
Origen thus solved, after his own fashion, a problem
which his predecessor Clement had not even ventured to grapple
with. The first three books treat of God, the world, the fall
of spirits, anthropology and ethics. “Each of these three
books really embraces, although not in a strictly comprehensive
way, the whole scheme of the Christian view of the world, from
different points of view, and with different contents.” The
fourth book explains the divinity of the Scriptures, and deduces
rules for their interpretation. It ought properly to stand as
first book at the beginning. The ten books of Stromata (in which
Origen compared the teaching of the Christians with that of the
philosophers, and corroborated all the Christian dogmas from
Plato, Aristotle, Numenius and Cornutus) have all perished,
with the exception of small fragments; so have the tractates
on the resurrection and on freewill.[2]
6. Of practical theological works we have still the Προτρεπτικὸς εἰς μαρτύριον and the Σύνταγμα περί εὐχῆς. For a knowledge of Origen’s Christian estimate of life and his relation to the faith of the church these two treatises are of great importance. The first was written during the persecution of Maximinus Thrax, and was dedicated to his friends Ambrosius and Protoctetus. The other also dates from the Caesarean period; it mentions many interesting details, and concludes with a fine exposition of the Lord’s Prayer.
7. In his own lifetime Origen had to complain of falsifications of his works and forgeries under his name. Many pieces still in existence are wrongly ascribed to him; yet it is doubtful whether a single one of them was composed on purpose to deceive. The most noteworthy are the Dialogues of a certain Adamantius “de recta in Deum fide,” which seem to have been erroneously attributed to Origen so early as the 4th century, one reason being the fact that Origen himself also bore that name. (Eusebius, H.E. vi. 14.)
Outline of Origen’s View of the Universe and of Life.—The system of Origen was formulated in opposition to the Greek philosophers on the one hand, and the Christian Gnostics on the other.[3] But the science of faith, as expounded by him, bears unmistakably the stamp both of Neo-Platonism and of Gnosticism. As a theologian, in fact, Origen is not merely an orthodox traditionalist and believing exegete, but a speculative philosopher of Neo-Platonic tendencies. He is, moreover, a judicious critic. The union of these four elements gives character to his theology, and in a certain degree to all subsequent theology. It is this combination which has determined the peculiar and varying relations in which theology and the faith of the church have stood to each other since the time of Origen. That relation depends on the predominance of one or other of the four factors embraced in his theology.
As an orthodox traditionalist Origen holds that Christianity is a practical and religious saving principle, that it has unfolded itself in an historical series of revealing facts, that the church has accurately embodied the substance of her faith in the regula fidei, and that simple faith is sufficient for the renewal and salvation of man. As a philosophical idealist, however, he transmutes the whole contents of the faith of the church into ideas which bear the mark of Neo-Platonism, and were accordingly recognized by the later Neo-Platonists as Hellenic.[4] In Origen, however, the mystic and ecstatic element is held in abeyance. The ethico-religious ideal is the sorrowless condition, the state of superiority to all evils, the state of order and of rest. In this condition man enters into likeness to God and blessedness; and it is reached through contemplative isolation and self-knowledge, which is divine wisdom. “The soul is trained as it were to behold itself in a mirror, it shows the divine spirit, if it should be found worthy of such fellowship, as in a mirror, and thus discovers the traces of a secret path to participation in the divine nature.” As a means to the realization of this ideal, Origen introduces the whole ethics of Stoicism. But the link that connects him with churchly realism, as well as with the Neo-Platonic mysticism, is the conviction that complete and certain knowledge rests wholly on divine revelation, i.e. on oracles. Consequently his theology is cosmological speculation and ethical reflection based on the sacred Scriptures. The Scriptures, however, are treated by Origen on the basis of a matured theory of inspiration in such a way that all their facts appear as the vehicles of ideas, and have their highest value only in this aspect. That is to say, his gnosis neutralizes all that is empirical and historical, if not always as to its actuality, at least absolutely in respect of its value. The most convincing proof of this is that Origen (1) takes the idea of the immutability of God as the regulating idea of his system, and (2) deprives the historical “Word made flesh” of all significance for the true Gnostic. To him Christ appears simply as the Logos who is with the Father from eternity, and works from all eternity, to whom alone the instructed Christian directs his thoughts, requiring nothing more than a perfect—i.e. divine—teacher. In such propositions historical Christianity is stripped off as a mere husk. The objects of religious knowledge are beyond the plane of history, or rather—in a thoroughly Gnostic and Neo-Platonic spirit—they are regarded as belonging to a supra-mundane history. On this view contact with the faith of the church could only be maintained by distinguishing an exoteric and an esoteric form of Christianity. This distinction was already current in the catechetical school of Alexandria, but Origen gave it its boldest expression, and justified it on the ground of the incapacity of the Christian masses to grasp the deeper sense of Scripture, or unravel the difficulties of exegesis. On the other hand, in dealing with the problem of bringing his heterodox system into conformity with the regula fidei he evinced a high degree of technical skill. An external conformity was possible, inasmuch as speculation, proceeding from the higher to the lower, could keep by the stages of the regula fidei, which had been developed into a history of salvation. The system itself aims in principle at being thoroughly monistic; but, since matter, although created by God out of nothing, was regarded merely as the sphere in which souls are punished and purified, the system is pervaded by a strongly dualistic element. The immutability of God requires the eternity of the Logos and of the world. At this point Origen succeeded in avoiding the heretical Gnostic idea of God by assigning to the Godhead the attributes of goodness and righteousness. The pre-existence of souls is another inference from the immutability of God, although Origen also deduced it from the nature of the soul, which as a spiritual potency must be eternal. Indeed this is the fundamental idea of Origen—“the original and indestructible unity of God and all spiritual essences.” From this follows the necessity for the created spirit, after apostasy, error and sin, to return always to its origin in God. The actual sinfulness of all men Origen was able to explain by the theological hypothesis of pre-existence and the premundane fall of each individual soul. He holds that freedom is the inalienable prerogative of the finite spirit; and this is the second point that distinguishes his theology from the heretical Gnosticism. The system unfolds itself like a drama, of which the successive stages are as follows: the transcendental fall, the creation of the material world, inaugurating the history of punishment and redemption, the clothing of fallen souls in flesh, the dominion of sin, evil and the demons on earth, the appearing of the Logos, His union with a pure human soul. His esoteric preaching of salvation, and His death in the flesh, then the imparting of the
- ↑ There are, however, extensive fragments of the original in existence.
- ↑ See Redepenning, Origenis de principiis, first sep. ed. (Leipzig, 1836); Schnitzer, Orig. über die Grundlehren des Glaubens, an attempt at reconstruction (1835).
- ↑ The opposition to the Unitarians within the church must also be kept in mind.
- ↑ Porphyry says of Origen, κατὰ τὰς περὶ πραγμάτων καὶ τοῦ θείου δόξας Ἑλληνίζων (Euseb. H.E. vi. 19).
