We have recently been discussing the early Christian thinker Origen in my “Age of the Fathers” class. While we have been focusing mostly on his thoughts regarding the Trinity, there has been much in my readings that have struck as peculiarly familiar to my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint. I guess this is to be expected, to an extent, since he was fairly early–born ca. 185 AD. Also, he was the student of Clement of Alexandria and followed the intruiging line of Alexandrian thought. However, many of my fellow students (and many Christians in general) do not especially like Origen. One of my fellow students referred to him as a “space cadet.” One of the frequent complaints is that he was obviously out of touch with mainstream Christianity, being too highly influenced by Greek philosophy (isn’t it funny how that argument can go both ways?).

Origen, like the rest of the Alexandrian school, was highly trained in philosophy. However, he didn’t see philosophy as more important than revelation, but did see it as a reliable source of truth¹.

Despite his scholarly training, Origen does not necessarily try to make Christian doctrine fit his understanding of Greek philosophy. He just wants to organize and systematize the various Christian beliefs using Aristotelian methods of presenting knowledge. Origen created the first systematic theology of Christian beliefs. His reason for doing so, in his words:

Since many…of those who profess to believe in Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling matters, but also on subjects of the highest importance, as, e.g., regarding God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit; and not only regarding these, but also regarding others which are created existences, viz., the powers and the holy virtues; it seems on that account necessary first of all to fix a definite limit and to lay down an unmistakable rule regarding each one of these, and then to pass to the investigation of other points.”²

It is important to note that Origen does not look to Greek philosophical theories to understand Christian doctrines. He wishes only to use the format of the scientific treatise as the vehicle for expounding Christian doctrine. If he sometimes is influenced by philosophical theories, such as Plato’s view that souls exist prior to their birth into mortality, he also has scriptural reasons for accepting that view. In particular his view of the Godhead does not draw on Greek models of deity. Origen holds that the Son makes “the willing in himself just what it was in the Father, so that…the will of the Son is inseparable from the will of the Father, so that there are no longer two wills but one. And this unity of will is the reason for the saying of the Son ‘I and my Father are one [John 10:30].’”³

Thus “they are two separate persons, but one in unity and concord of mind and in identity of will.” And Origen expressly resists the Greek tendency to make God impassible or incapable of emotion:

[Jesus] came down to earth in pity for human kind, he endured our passions and sufferings before he suffered the cross, and he deigned to assume our flesh…What is that passion which he suffered for us? It is the passion of love. The Father himself and the God of the whole universe is “long-suffering, full of mercy and pity” [Psalm 86:15]. Must he not then, in some sense, be exposed to suffering?…The Father himself is not impassible. If he is besought he shows pity and compassion;he feels, in some sort, the passion of love. Origen is not trying to make the Father and the Son sound like the ineffable One and the eternal Logos of the Platonists. He is trying to put into the language of philosphy the traits of God he finds in the Bible.⁴

More On Jesus as a Subordinate God:

In his Commentary on John, Origen noted a difference between the godhood of the Father and that of the Son. Commenting on John’s Prologue (the first verses of John 1), he explains the difference (in the Greek text) between ho Theos (God, with the article) and Theos (without the article) refers to the Father and the Son. Ho Theos, or The God, is the proper term for the Father, the source of all being. The Logos is termed simply Theos, God, conveying the derivative nature of the Son’s divinity. Elsewhere, as Norman Russell explains, this distinction helps Origen explain how the Father and the Son are two Gods in one sense and one God in another. They are two in so far as they are distinct from one another: the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. At the same time they are one God in the same way that Adam and Eve are one flesh and Christ and the righteous man are one in spirit. Flesh, spirit, and god are predicates in ascending order of honour and importance.⁵

On Deification:

Just as Christ derived his godhood from the Father and could thus also be called a God, Origen believed that the term “god” could be applied to angels and righteous human beings. He saw the “gods” as the highest class of rational beings alongside the “thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities of Col. 1:16. He points out Psalms 50:1 (LXX), 136:2, 82:6, and others and compared them with Matt. 22:32, where God is described as the God not of the dead but of the living. The “gods” are therefore living beings and not the dead, or lifeless idols. For Origen, the angelic orders form a continuum extending from the gods down to men. This enables Origen to interpret the “gods” of Scripture sometimes as angels but more often as human beings who have been promoted to the angelic life. The gods are “those to whom the Word of God came” (John 10:35). they are the saints, the perfect, those who live in beatitude. Through participation in God, they have been transformed from men into angels or gods.⁶

On the Preexistence of Souls:

Origen believed that spirits existed in another world prior to their birth into human bodies. Some have imagined that he believed in reincarnation, but this doesn’t appear to have been the case. In his own words:

When the Scriptures are carefully examined regarding Jacob and Esau, it is not found to be unrighteous of God to have said–before they were born, or had done anything in this life–that “the older will serve the younger.” However, it is not unrighteous…if we feel that Jacob was worthily beloved by God according to the deserts of his previous life…Owing to cause that have previously existed, a different office is prepared by the Creator for each one in proportion to the degree of his merit.

It appears to me that this will be seen more clearly at last if each being–whether heavenly, earthly, or infernal–is said to have the causes of his diversity in himself, prior to his bodily birth….There is no doubt that at the Day of Judgment, the good will be separated from the bad (and the just from the unjust) and all will be distributed according to their deserts, by the sentence of God…Similarly, I am of the opinion that such a state of things was the case in the past (i.e., in the pre-mortal world).

I think it should be inquired into as to the reasons why a human soul is acted on sometimes by good and at other times by bad. I suspect the reason for this is older than the bodily birth of the individual…To all these instances, those who maintain that everything in the world is under the administration of Divine providence can give no other answer (as it appears to me) to show that no sadow of injustice rests upon the divine government than to hold that there were ceratin causes of prior existence. And in consequence of this prior existence, our souls contracted a certain amount of guilt in their sensitive nature, before their birth in the body.

This is the objection which they generally raise: They say, “If the world had its beginning in time, what was God doing before the world began?”…I say that God did not begin to work for the first time when he made this visible world. Just as there will be another world after its destruction, so also I believe that other worlds existed before the present one came into being. And both of these positions will be confirmed by the authority of Holy Scripture…That before this world others also existed is shown by Ecclesiastes, in the words…”Who will speak and say, ‘Look! This is new’? It has already been in the worlds that have been before us” [Eccles. 1:9, 10, LXX].⁷

There is much, much more in Origen’s writings that would seem familiar and interesting to Latter-day Saints. While I obviously can’t put it all in one post, there are other reasons why I can’t provide you with all that he said that would be of interest. Although Origen would become one of the most popular of the early Church writers ever, he was condemned by later popes as a heretic. As Christianity changed, falling further into apostasy, Origen’s ideas were seen as more and more unorthodox. Later church scholars who preserved Origen’s writings and translated them into Latin, etc., conveniently edited, changed, inserted, omitted things from Origen’s writings that they saw as heretical or not matching with their beliefs. Most of what we have from Origen’s original +/- 2000 works come to us throught the Latin historian Rufinus. Consider the following concerning his opinion on translating/editing Origen’s materials.

Rufinus on Origen’s writings:

Wherever, therefore, we have found in his books anything contrary to that which was piously established by him about the Trinity in other places, either we have omitted it as corrupt and  interpolated, or edited it according to that pattern that we often find asserted by himself. If, however, speaking to the trained and learned, he writes obscurely because he desires to briefly pass over something, we, to make the passage plainer, have added those things that we have read on the same subject openly in his other books…All who shall copy or read this…shall neither add anything to this writing, nor remove anything, nor insert anything, nor change anything.⁸

While Rufinus looks unfavorably upon anyone tinkering with his translations, he felt justified in heavily editing the original documents. Now, unfortunately, when we read Origen (at least from the commonly accepted Latin translation), we don’t know if it is Origen speaking or if it is Rufinus inserting his own version of Origen’s words. Even worse, Rufinus claimed that he was just following the lead of other handlers of Origen’s works before him. 

Rufinus on Macarius:

…Who when he translated over seventy works of Origen, which are called homilies and also several of his writings on the apostle into Latin in which are found several offensive passages, therefore he removed or cleaned up all of these when he translated, so that a Latin reader would find nothing in them that disagrees with our belief. This, therefore, we follow even if we are not so eloquent, nevertheless as much as we can, by the same rules, watching to be sure not to reveal those passages in the books of Origen that disagree and contradict with himself.⁹

Perhaps if we had the opportunity to have direct access to more of Origen’s writings, instead of having them filtered through editors who saw no problem in changing what were probably some of his most interesting concepts, we would gain through them a greater insight into what some of the earliest Christians believed.

1. Noel B. Reynolds, “What Went Wrong for the Early Christians,” Early Christians in Disarray (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), 11
2. Origen, On First Principles, proemium 2, as cited in Daniel W. Graham and James L. Siebach, “The Introduction of Philosophy into Early Christianity,” Early Christians in Disarray, 216
3. Ibid., 218
4. Ibid., 218
5. See discussion in Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145
6. Russell, 146
7. These quotes taken from David W. Bercot, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1998), 489
8. As cited in John Gee, “The Corruption of Scripture in Early Christianity,” in Early Christians in Disarray, 172
9. Ibid., 173

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as frequently in the past week or so. I spent some good time with family last week and started up school again this week, so my time has been significantly occupied and I am having to accustom to my new schedule.

Also, I have been working on moving my blog to a self-hosted server (not that I don’t appreciate wordpress.com, but I’m looking for more freedom and flexibility for this site). I will provide an update of that as soon as I can–probably early next week. I would like to thank Bryce Haymond (author of www.templestudy.com) and his brother Brad for their support, advice, and help in making this change (for the better) possible.

School Journal

One of my intentions in starting this blog was to be able to share with others the interesting and exciting insights that I have been learning as a graduate student in Theology at Marquette University.  I consider it a great privilege and blessing to be able to be a part of this program and to pursue theological/religious studies in depth. I know that there are many people who would love to have this opportunity but have not been able to–so I see it as a great responsibility for me to share what I am learning with others.

Because I started this blog at the end of May, after classes had already ended, and did not attend courses over the summer, this will be the first opportunity I will have to share with you what I am actually learning in my theology courses. Although a certain percentage of it will probably be too boring to share here (no offense to any of my professors), I will try to make sure that I post the most exciting points on my blog.  In doing so, I want to make it clear that although I may mention my professors names here, I take full responsibility for the content posted. What I share will be based on my own notes from both lectures and readings, and should not be taken to represent direct or exact quotes from my instructors (I don’t want anyone to hold them to anything I incorrectly cite them as saying). However, I will try to reproduce what I am learning as accurately and responsibly as I possibly can.

I am taking three courses this semester:

• Theology 251 — The Age of the Fathers–Dr. Michel Barnes
• Theology 204 — Intro to Systematic Theology–Dr. Ralph Del Colle
• Theology 228 — Apocalyptic Literature–Dr. Andrei Orlov

For those of you who are familiar with this blog, you can probably guess that Apocalyptic Literature with Dr. Orlov would be my favorite class.  So far it has been incredibly exciting, and I can’t say enough how much I respect Dr. Orlov and his amazingly extensive knowledge of this literature–I have looked at some of his writings in a number of posts here. However, I am also very excited about my other courses as well, and have found both Professors Barnes and Del Colle to be excellent instructors with equally impressive knowledge of their subject matter.  Although I am very interested in pseudipigrapha and the intertestamental period, I am also quite passionate about the early Patristic era–the age of the early Church Fathers.

Anyways, instead of continuing my tedious rambling, I will now share with you some of the most interesting points that I learned in my classes this week. Depending on the subjects covered during a given week, I may not always include all three classes.

Age of the Fathers–Greek Philosophy as the Background for Nicene Theology

On Monday, Dr. Barnes launched into a discussion of trinitarian theology, looking specifically at the creedal/liturgical phrase describing Christ as “one in being/essence with the Father.” The key word in this phrase is the Greek homoousios –”same substance.” Dr. Barnes question was (paraphrasing): Why did they decide to use this word to describe Christ’s relationship to the Father? Wouldn’t the simple Father/Son description be sufficient? Homoousios is found nowhere in the scriptures. It wasn’t even in common use as a term at the time of the Council of Nicaea. Many of the bishops who accepted the use of the term didn’t even know what it meant initially, much less their parishioners at home.  So why did they use it?

A search of available early Christian works doesn’t give us much insight into the history of its use.  Homoousios is used more in “gnostic” texts more than “orthodox” Christian texts in the first centuries AD. Origen uses the word three times. Clement uses it once, when quoting gnostics. Pamphilus uses the word, when quoting Origen. Dionysius of Alexandria uses the word in a letter to the members of his congregation, trying to explain to them what in the world it meant and why it should be used to describe the Son of God.  In general, the term is employed to show that Christ was considered to be Son of God because he was of the same nature as God, and not adopted. The authors of the Nicaean creed decided that this was a word that, although not found in the scriptures, expressed (they felt) the most correct sense of the scriptures.  Although the word became part of the creed, there was still much misunderstanding and argument, and the idea had to be further revised and clarified numerous times in later creeds.

But where did Athanasius and his colleagues get this idea? Why was it necessary to decide whether Jesus was of the “substance/essence” of the Father? They felt the need to distinguish Jesus as Son of God from the rest of us as sons or daughters of God. This was because of the idea that had entered Christianity that there was an immense gulf between what God is, and what we, his creatures are.  This idea came from Hellenistic culture and the principles of Greek philosophy so popular at the time. In his book of “Lecture Notes” provided to the class, Dr. Barnes lays out the theory that the paradigm that these Christians were working from was heavily influenced by Greek thought. I quote from this booklet, starting on page 8 (emphasis in original):

Many ideas or teachings in both ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy were important for theology in the Common Era…Some of these teachings (or doctrines) date back to Plato…[or at least] date from the Hellenistic period. Here is a selected list of key doctrines that will help you understand early Christian theology:

• There is a tendency to describe God by talking about the kind of existence God has, and to contrast the kind of existence God has with the kind of existence we humans have. Thinking about something in terms of the kind of existence it has, or just thinking in terms of kinds of existence is what is meant by the terms “metaphysics” or “ontology”. The kind of existence of something that exists (an existent) is called the being of an existent.
• There is a sensitivity to the difference between things (better: existence) that can’t and don’t change (“immutable”) versus things that can and do change (“mutable”). Immutable existence is the best kind of existence (mutable existence always lets you down). God is immutable. Material existence is mutable existence. Also: whatever is immutable is certain (because it never changes).
• There is an understanding of a “God” who is good, in fact the Good. Goodness here means many, many things. Good in the sense that God is absolutely perfect, with no flaws, nothing lacking, no mutability (= immaterial = no decay = eternal ). Perfection means not needing, and not needing means able to give;
• Differences in being cash out as differences in goodness or desirability. This is often expressed in terms of a hierarchy. Something immutable is better, more desirable, “higher” than something mutable.
• Because the Good is different from everything else (perfect, immutable, immaterial, eternal) it is separate from everything else. Or, to express this metaphysically, the difference between the kind of existence (the being) of the Good and our being means that the Good exists uniquely.

As you can imagine, figuring out a bridge over the gap between immutable/perfect being (commonly identified with not being material) and mutable imperfect being (commonly identified with being made out of matter) was an important philosophical and theological problem.

Barnes goes on to explain how there was a deep mistrust and disdain for material things in antiquity–especially the body and the passions the body produces. Anything that is material decays–anything that has a cause external to itself will have a beginning, development, decay, and end. Anything that is truly good (divine) must not change or decay in this way. If God does not decay, if He is eternal, then he must not be material–and if not, he must have no external cause outside himself. He is the First Cause (p. 12).

Through this reasoning, we get the following conclusions (p. 13):

God = uncaused, immaterial, unchanging

Material = caused, change, decay (the exact opposite of God)

So this is the ideological paradigm that many Christians had accepted when they met to establish the Nicaean Creed.  Why did they have to come up with such a foreign term to describe how Jesus could be Son of God? Because Greek philosophy had convinced them that human beings were the opposite of what God was. For Jesus to be divine, he would have to be of the same substance or nature as the immutable and eternal Father. But this notion of ousia seems to have originated with Aristotle (Categories), instead of with Jesus or the Apostles. Our class discussion, together with the readings, emphasized the dependence on these early Christian doctrines and creeds on Greek philosophy. As Dr. Barnes put it:

[It is] true that I privilege philosophy as the discourse that a good student of patristic theology needs to know…

…traditionally Roman Catholic theology has explicitly been allied to philosophy…

…the intellectual milieu in which patristic authors wrote was a synthesis which itself depended upon a philosophical content.

As there is not time or space to continue, I will save the numerous insights I gained from Dr. Orlov’s class on Apocalyptic Literature for next time. You will probably not want to miss this one…