Origen (c.185–253) was lauded as “the greatest teacher in the Church, after the Apostles,” by Didymus the Blind (d. 398). But he was also condemned as the “hydra of all heresies” by Theophilus of Alexandria (d. 412). The emperor Justinian I (d. 565) commanded that Origen’s writings should be burned as heretical, and Pope Vigilius (d. 555) endorsed the decree. Yet, Pope Benedict XVI described Origen as a “brilliant theologian… an exemplary witness… and a great master of faith” (General Audience, 25 April 2007).
Such vastly differing opinions raise questions about Origen. But they also raise questions about the idea of posthumous condemnation, whereby people of one generation are judged by the standards of another age. In an era which sometimes seems to take delight in statue-toppling, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from what happened with Origen?
1. Origen’s Early Life
Origen was born in Alexandria (Egypt), around the year 185. We know very little about his youth, except that he grew up in a middle-class Christian family, with a father who was a professor of Literature.
When Origen was about 17 years old, Septimius Severus began a persecution of Christians. He commanded that any Christians with a public profile should be executed. This led to the arrest and martyrdom of Origen’s father, Leonides. Origen wanted to go to his father’s prison and turn himself in, so that he could die with his father. His mother prevented him from leaving the house by hiding his clothes.
The martyrdom of his father had an enormous spiritual impact on Origen. It also had a serious economic impact. The state confiscated almost all of the family’s property. So, Origen, his mother and his six siblings found themselves homeless and subsisting on donations from the Church. When persecution subsided, the Alexandrian Church supported Origen’s family by employing him as a catechist.
Origen seems to have been personable, persuasive and extraordinarily intellectually gifted. His erudition and his ability to see connections between ideas meant that he was a popular catechist with a powerful impact. Perhaps nothing shows this more clearly than his conversion of Ambrose of Alexandria around the year 212. Ambrose was so impressed by Origen that he became his patron for the rest of Origen’s life, funding teams of secretaries and writing materials to support Origen’s academic work.
This led Origen to write so prolifically that his contemporaries referred to the “thousands of books” which he wrote. St. Jerome (d. 420) referenced his enormous output by saying that there were so many books that no one could read them all (Letter 33).
2. Origen at Alexandria
Origen’s teaching made a significant impression and his reputation gradually spread. Around the year 212 he was invited to speak in Rome. Soon after that, the pagan governor of Arabia sent soldiers to escort Origen to his palace, so that he could hear about Christianity from its leading exponent. A few years later, Origen was summoned to explain Christianity to Julia Mamaea (d. 235), the mother of the emperor Alexander Severus.
One of the factors which made Origen’s teaching so popular was that it was not just words. He integrated his academic teaching with a spirituality of personal piety which saw him visiting prisons, accompanying martyrs to their executions and giving alms widely and generously. To this day, readers can still enjoy his spiritual treatises On Martyrdom, On Prayer, and his Philocalia.
Part of what makes Origen so significant is the creativity within his thinking. This led him to produce one of the first Christian textbooks on “systematic theology.” He called the book On First Principles (Peri Archon). It sets out a vision of salvation history, explaining the creation and the fall, and God’s redemptive activity in Christ to bring humanity and creation back to salvation. The book’s impact was enormous, providing a theological framework which influenced generations of priests and bishops.
Origen’s deep learning and profound intellectual skills meant that he was constantly called upon to debate and to correct other thinkers. When Syrian bishop Beryllus of Bostra (d. 235) said that Jesus was just a human being whom God had “adopted” (i.e., Adoptionism), Origen debated him into completely renouncing those views.
However, one of Origen’s debates led to allegations of heterodoxy. He disputed a philosopher who claimed that the doctrine of eternal damnation meant that the Christian God was evil. Origen insisted that God was good, and so all divine punishment must be viewed as beneficial. We don’t know exactly what was said, but after the debate Origen’s opponent claimed that Origen had said that the Devil would eventually be saved. Origen denied making any such claim. Nevertheless, the allegation led to whispers that Origen held heterodox opinions.
High profile debates, literary masterpieces, and a holy lifestyle brought fame to the lowly catechist. Inevitably, his celebrity began to outshine that of his employer, Demetrius (d. 232), the bishop of Alexandria. Friction ensued. The bishop banned Origen from preaching in churches because he was not ordained. Origen asked for ordination. Demetrius refused.
Matters came to a head in 231, when Origen was visiting Bishop Theoctistus at Caesarea Maritima (Palestine). That bishop admired Origen’s work and wanted him to preach in his churches. Canon law prevented a non-ordained person from preaching, so the bishop decided to ordain Origen.
Bishop Demetrius in Alexandria was furious when he heard about the ordination. He accused Origen of disobedience and of subverting his authority by seeking ordination in a different diocese. He added to his accusations that Origen held unacceptable theological views, such as the salvation of Satan. He also said that Origen had taken unacceptable actions, such as self-castrating himself (in accordance with Matthew 19:12) and so Origen’s ordination should be considered invalid.
Was Demetrius exercising rightful rebuke or was he fulminating vindictive jealousy? Historians disagree, and perhaps we will never know the full truth of matters.
3. Origen at Caesarea
After falling out with the bishop of Alexandria in 231, Origen moved to Ceasarea (Palestine). In that location he opened a new Catechetical school which he spent the rest of his life leading. He may also have travelled to Cappadocia (Turkey) for a couple of years during the Maximian Persecution in 235, but the historical records are unclear.
Origen preached and lectured regularly as well as carrying out his own academic research, especially in the area of Biblical scholarship. Around the year 240 he produced a Hexapla, which put six Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible alongside each other. This enabled theologians to compare and contrast different translations, and thus to extract the most accurate interpretation of the text. Modern Christians tend to cite St. Jerome (d. 420) as the father of Biblical studies, because of his work producing the Vulgate Bible. Few remember that St. Jerome consulted Origen’s Hexapla and that he was considerably indebted to Origen’s earlier work.
As a result of his Biblical scholarship, Origen’s knowledge and appreciation of Scripture was extraordinarily thorough. This is evident throughout his writings and it has given his books an enduring impact. Thirteen hundred years after his death, when Erasmus (d. 1536) debated Martin Luther (d. 1546) on the freedom of the will, Erasmus was more than happy to admit that he drew many of his arguments and Biblical examples from the writings of Origen.
Despite his increasingly hectic research, Origen never gave up his charitable and pastoral activities. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. 270) was one of his students at Caesarea and he reported that Origen was as inspiring by what he did, as by what he said. (See Panegyric.)
As Origen’s reputation continued to grow, leading Christians asked him to refute specific anti-Christian texts. Thus, around 248 he produced his Contra Celsum, which took issue with popular mockeries that Christianity was just an irrational religion for simpletons. On the contrary, insisted Origen, Christianity is a divine revelation in which faith and reason are fully in harmony. The rationality of Christianity is proven through its fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament, and also through the miracles of the New Testament which culminate in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4. Origen’s Death
In the year 250, when Origen was around 65 years of age, the Decian Persecution erupted. As he was such a famous Christian, the Roman authorities decided that the publicity value of Origen’s renouncing Christianity would be better than an immediate execution. So, Origen was arrested and tortured.
St. Eusebius (d. 339) tells us that the tortures consisted of being stretched, wearing iron collars and being “threatened by fire” (Church History, 6.39). It is not clear whether the tortures continued for weeks or for months. All we know is that Origen remained constant in his faith, earning himself the nickname “man of steel” (Adamantius).
When the persecution ended in mid-251, Origen was so severely injured that his health never recovered. Within 18 months he was dead and buried with honor behind the high altar of the Cathedral of Tyre (Lebanon).
Although Origen’s death was arguably caused by the tortures of persecution, it did not count as a martyr’s death as he did not die during the actual torture. At that time martyrdom was the criterion of sanctity, so Origen could not be venerated liturgically as a saint, despite the fact that many of his contemporaries publicly praised him for his saintly life.
5. Origenism
In 325, about 75 years after Origen’s death, the Arian heresy was condemned by the Council of Nicaea. Arianism essentially denied the (full) divinity of Jesus Christ.
Many of the Arians appealed to Origen’s writings. This was because when Origen had explained the doctrine of the Trinity he could be read as seeming to suggest a Subordinationism, which implied that Jesus was God in a slightly different (subordinate) sense than God the Father.
Whether Origen was really a Subordinationist is a question which is still debated. However, Origen’s views were not considered heretical by his third-century contemporaries, and Origen was never accused of what was to be later called “Arianism.” Nevertheless, the fact that fourth and fifth century Arians kept citing Origen gradually undermined Origen’s own reputation.
Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, arguments about Origen’s views (i.e., Origenism) kept recurring. It led to several Origenist Crises which sharply divided bishops. Eventually matters culminated in a condemnation of Origen at two Ecumenical Councils. This occurred at the Second Council of Constantinople (553) and it was repeated at the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which stated:
We reject… [and] we anathematize the mythical speculations ofOrigen,… as did the fifth synod, that assembled at Constantinople. (Nicaea II)
6. The Problem of Origen
When we look at Origen from a modern perspective, two questions arise.
Firstly, did Origen say or do anything that was (theologically) objectionable by the standards of his age? This is a difficult question to answer definitively, as some of Origen’s writings were burned and some may have been deliberately changed by copyists. However, what we do know is that Origen was buried in a place of honor in a cathedral. That implies considerable contemporary esteem for Origen, rather than accusation or condemnation.
A second question concerns the appropriateness of posthumous condemnations. Is it really fair and reasonable to judge Origen’s theology by the standards of later centuries?
Consider the analogous example of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). He denied the idea of the Immaculate Conception. (See Summa Theologiae, Part 3, Q.27, a.2, ad.2.) He did so 600 years before that idea became a defined dogma. So, it is generally recognized that it would be both inaccurate and unjust to retrospectively accuse Thomas Aquinas of being a heretic.
Do not the same principles apply to Origen? And if so, does that raise questions about the very idea of retrospective condemnations, and about the appropriateness of the actions of the Ecumenical Councils which condemned Origen?
Over the last few centuries an increasing number of popes have explicitly acknowledged Origen’s contribution to the Church. In 1893 Pope Leo XIII said:
In the Eastern Church, the greatest name of all is Origen — a man remarkable alike for penetration of genius and for persevering labor; from whose numerous works and his great Hexapla almost all have drawn that came after him. (Providentissimus Deus, 7)
The gradual rehabilitation of Origen’s reputation has led some Protestant Churches to consider whether they should add Origen’s name to their Liturgical calendars. (See the Episcopalian Formal Resolution 2018-CO12.)
Has the time come for other Churches to review how they remember Origen? And in doing so, perhaps there is a lesson for the contemporary age about the appropriateness of posthumous condemnations?
