Origen’s Psychology: The State of the Question

            Time has not looked kindly on Origen. Though first esteemed, the alexandrine posthumously ruffled other Fathers’ feathers and was anathematized. One Yale scholar has traced the early church’s reception of Origen to three “waves”: acceptance, review, and rejection.[1] During the first period, spanning the first two centuries after Origen’s death, some philosophers tentatively defended or attacked Origen’s legacy, but none questioned his rightful seat in the Christian tradition. The second period included the fiery, fourth-century debates over “Origenism,” beginning in 375 with Epiphanius of Salamis and ending with Jerome and Rufinus. Finally, the third period turned the tide, concluding in 553 with the condemnation of “Origenism” at the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople.[2] This council engraved Origen’s legacy upon the foundations of the early church, where it would remain unchanged for nearly two millennia.[3]

Slowly, modern scholarship reversed the tide of ancient views toward Origen: from rejection, to review, to acceptance. Adolf Harnack inaugurated the first category by critiquing Origen's philosophical Christianity.[4] According to his assessment, Origen overwrote liturgical Christianity with a philosophical quest for gnosis (knowledge). Following Harnack, two critical commentators drove the field. Eugène de Faye considered Origen’s state of mind “purely intellectualist and idealist,” with “nothing scientific about it,” his psychology one “which assuredly was not based on the study of human nature.”[5] Much later but from the same camp, Herbert Musurillo claimed that Origen simply restated what he knew of traditional Christianity in the borrowed terminology of the eclectic Stoic and Neoplatonic schools. Because Origen “had no feeling for the deeper, objective problems of a truly Christian theology,” he may “only with difficulty be called truly Christian.”[6]

Attempts to deem Origen thoroughly Christian came as early as 1938 with Hans Urs von Balthasar’s work.[7] His work presaged new patristic research that accompanied the rise of the ressourcement (or nouvelle théologie) school (mid 1900s). When the early twentieth century met with new discoveries of Origen’s Greek, German critical editions prepared the way for another wave of Origen scholarship. Of these, Walther Völker’s has probably most guided the field.[8] Seeing this and other editions, French scholars began calling for a positive reevaluation of Origen’s contributions to Christian theology.[9] Henri Crouzel’s important monograph first demonstrated that Origen’s theological reasoning drew not only on Middle Platonic thought but also on a synthesis of Middle Platonism with Scripture. For Crouzel, this synthesis was realized most fully in the theological concept of man as the “image and likeness” of God.[10] Crouzel followed this work with two more that would shape the field. The first showed that knowledge, according to Origen, rises from “image” to “model” to lead humans to God in a journey that requires a pure heart more than a resourceful mind.[11] The second demonstrated that Origen synthesized philosophy and Scripture to reach his theology.[12] The latter work importantly utilized Origen’s commentaries, marking a change in a field that had long been shaped by Origen’s polemics.[13]

Following Crouzel’s first articles, a contemporaneous wave of French scholarship called for Origen to be viewed not in light of static philosophical conceptions, but in light of a moral and mystical conception of humans as creations in the image of God. Among these works, one must mention Henri Crouzel’s groundbreaking article, “L’anthropolo-gie d’Origène”[14], and Jacques Dupuis’s 1967 dissertation on Origen’s notion of the human spirit.[15] In a work intended to revitalize the study of patristic exegesis, Henri de Lubac revitalized the study of Origen.[16] De Lubac demonstrated that Origen’s exegetical method—a longtime source of criticism against Origen—had profound implications for, and applications in, modern biblical studies. His work continues to drive the field.[17]

The third wave of scholarship saw Origen’s anthropology as more informed by biblical motifs, and Christology in particular, than by either Platonism or a Bible-Plato synthesis. Rowan Williams demonstrated the gravity of this wave with his essay on Origen’s understanding of God as both infinite and, through Christ’s revelation, finitely understood.[18] Blanc considered Origen’s use of Scripture central, not merely ornamental.[19] Simonetti saw Origen as a true exegete.[20] Mark J. Edwards continued pushing scholarship with two seminal works. First, he penned the first full study of Origen’s anthropology as central to his psychology,[21] a study that would be followed by Blosser.[22] Edward’s second work—this one a book—would demonstrate both (1) that Origen espoused an essentially Christian, not a Platonist, view of the soul and (2) that Origen did not espouse the views for which he was condemned.[23] Importantly, this latter work also called for a shift in Patristic studies toward greater logical stringency in assessing the history of ideas, a request that has largely been appreciated by Edwards’ colleagues.[24]

Yet another, a fourth, wave of scholarship reassessed Origen’s relationship with philosophy. Not surprisingly, Henri Crouzel beat scholars to the punch, suggesting in his 1962 dissertation that Origen had wrongly been likened to Tatian and Tertullian, whereas he more closely resembled Justin.[25] Origen’s “very nuanced” (très nuance, mais nette et ferme) position on philosophy should be read on its own rather than, one may presume, through the lens of centuries-later orthodoxy.[26] In 1966, Henry Chadwick showed that Origen’s familiarity with philosophical schools allowed him to “set one school against another” and to “use expressions of cold disparagement” against them.[27] Origen’s criticism of philosophy comes more clearly into view in Crouzel’s 1992 essay, which builds upon his work of thirty years prior.[28] Contemporaneous with Crouzel’s second article on the topic, John Dillon argued in language that would define scholarship on Origen’s relation to philosophy and so bears repeating:

Rather than adopting Platonism or the doctrine of any other Hellenic school, [Origen] has forged a system of his own out of the Christian Scriptures and tradition, to which he lays Platonism in tribute for concepts and formulations which he finds useful, without surrendering to the Greeks any principle whatever.[29]

Dillon’s view would mark a hopeful, albeit belated, trend toward accepting Origen as, in Henri de Lubac’s words, “truly ecclesiastic,”[30] or as Origen calls himself, “a man of the Church.”[31] Demonstrating this trend, Mark Edwards has argued as recently as 2002 that, when Origen borrows philosophical language, he often does so superficially.[32]

Inevitably, questions about hetero- or orthodoxy resurfaced. Some scholars avoided this debate, arguing that Origen’s allegorizing theology merits study in its own right, apart from questions of orthodoxy. Supporting Origen’s orthodoxy, Robert Daly has argued that Origen takes interest in “history” chiefly as a key to unlocking the spiritual meaning of texts, the center of which is Christ.[33] “But this Christ is not primarily the historical Christ or the historical event of Christ's life; it is the now living mystical Christ, it is the Christ-event as it is now taking place in the lives of the Christian faithful.”[34] As per Daly, Origen offers a genuinely existential interpretation in that the historical “passage” of the Jews from Egypt is seen primarily as a pre-figuring of the passage accomplished by Christ and still being accomplished in the souls of the Christians.[35] One need only to glance through modern publications to see that arguments in favor of Origen’s “orthodoxy” triumphed.[36] Even the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church cites Origen six times, and the Liturgy of the Hours includes numerous selections of his writings.[37]

Modern arguments for Origen’s orthodoxy have led to a reevaluation even of Origen’s philosophical propinquities. Elizabeth Digeser has argued that Origen reacted to and rejected Plotinus’ belief that the eucharist polluted Christians.[38] Origen, his student Porphyry, and Porphyry’s student Iamblichus formed the three eponymous schools that would define the Christian church at the turn of the fourth century: Origenists, Porphyrians, Iamblichaeans. Of these, Origen’s would most mirror later orthodoxy by rejecting both (1) Iambluchus’s insistence that rituals were necessary for salvation and (2) Porphyry’s notion that the eucharist polluted Christians. Origen “played the Greek,” according to Porphyry, and Origen’s teacher Ammonius Saccus was a great philosopher, but these factors only enabled and emboldened the young Origen to dismantle philosophical discourse.[39] Origen was becoming a Christian again.

In order to address Origen’s psychology, one must first assess the state of the texts in which it chiefly surfaces: On First Principles and Contra Celsum. The latter text is “remarkably well preserved” in a thirteenth-century manuscript, though some text-critical questions remain.[40] Something of a scholarly consensus has been reached concerning On First Principles: the extant Latin text is essentially dependable, though it should be cross-checked against surviving Greek when possible.[41] What survives may reasonably be called a “system,” a la Harnack.[42] Likewise, Johannes Quasten considers On First Principles “the first Christian system of theology and the first manual of dogma.”[43] Thomas Harmon finds ironic the fact that Harnack and those who accept his view of Origen—as a platonizer of Christianity—drew principally from “Origen's only systematic work, On First Principles and from his only apologetical work, Against Celsus, both available in the original Greek.” [44] Contrarily—Harmon notes—those who contest Harnack’s platonizing portrait prefer Origen's homilies and commentaries (most of which have survived only in a Latin translation), and these scholars tend to craft a picture of Origen as a Christianizer of Platonism.

Origen trotted out his view on the soul amidst a panoply of philosophical positions. These positions ranged from Platonic tripartition to Peripatetic bipartition to Stoic monism, not to mention attempts to mingle these models. Origen had much from which to draw up his theology. Indeed, most scholars agree that Origen accepts insights from each theory while rejecting from each what is incompatible with divine revelation.[45] In 1981, Henri Crouzel showed that Origen’s anthropology centers on the soul. Robert Daly furthered Crouzel by showing that, for Origen, while all embodied beings share the cosmos, the spirit remains extraneous to the human personality, implying that the soul alone constitutes the heart of the person.[46] Michael Petrow’s erudite dissertation re-introduces Origen as a vital guide for interpreting selfhood through the Father’s three-tiered, increasingly figurative exegetical method.[47] Employing C. G. Jung’s Depth Psychology, Petrow’s study amplifies Origen’s three stages of exegesis into stages of psychological transformation: Ethike, where literal beliefs form ethics, Physike, where disillusionment leads to moral introspection, and Enoptike, where self-knowledge transforms the soul.

Scholars debate which is Origen’s most original contribution to psychology. Blosser holds it to be Origen’s “identifying the vital and cognitive principles as a single principle differing only by orientation.”[48] Turned toward God, the principle is the mind; turned from God, it is the soul. Joseph Trigg would take a different tack, locating Origen’s unique addition to psychology in his ability neatly to fit into the philosophical milieu that surrounded him. On Trigg’s reading, Origen equates the heart explicitly with the Platonic nous or dianoētikon and the Stoic hēgemonikon, the intellectual faculty that governs the body and carries out rational functioning.[49] This equation comes clearly to light in On First Principles: “For you will certainly find in all the Scriptures, both old and new, the term ‘heart’ repeatedly used instead of ‘mind,’ i.e., intellectual power” (On First Principles 1.1.9).  For Crouzel, Origen’s unique contribution lay in his centering the heart on a moral crisis, a confrontation between its spiritual vocation and fleshly condition. This crisis occurs both interiorly—in the conflict between the image of God and the earthly image—and exteriorly—in a spiritual battle between the angels and demons over the individual human soul.[50]

Scholars largely agree that Origen rejects the Platonic world of “forms” or “ideas.”[51] For Origen, a world created apart from the divine Logos would imply a world upon which the Logos were dependent. What scholars disagree on is the extent and purpose of Origen’s merging the language of Platonic Ideas with the concepts of Stoic reason-principles. For Crouzel, Origen adopted koinē ennoia from Stoicism, placed it in the Logos, and made the Logos comprehensible to humans through the third Person of the Trinity.[52] Robert Berchman furthered Crouzel’s argument with the claim that Origen’s insistence on an uncreated Logos would be entirely novel within Platonism.[53] Building on both scholars, Blosser demonstrated that Origen made the Logos the seat of both (1) Christ’s epinoia (wisdom) shared with creation and (2) the logoi spermatikoi (seed-bearing reason) that made all of creation.[54] While others have considered Origen’s Christology a mere Christianizing of the Middle Platonic Demiurge,[55] time has looked more kindly on Crouzel and Blosser.

Psychic preexistence and Platonic reminiscence, or the notion that souls could remember elements of past existence(s), proved two more sticking points in Origen scholarship. Concerning reminiscence, many noted that only two passages in Origen apparently espouse the doctrine, and these might not bear on the Platonic interpretation.[56] This consensus notwithstanding, debates about Origen’s broader doctrine of preexistence remain contentious, with a tendency toward freeing Origen either of this doctrine, or of its heretical implications. Henri Crouzel and A. S. Worrall proposed that Origen’s mind may have come to rest upon preexistence as an alternative to two contemporary explanations of souls’ origin—traducianism and creationism.[57] Blosser considers Crouzel’s account “inadequate to explain the force and consistency with which Origen promotes the doctrine,”[58] so he advocates for a more thorough explanation that considers the value of Origen’s doctrine of preexistence to be more apologetic than theoretical. For a Christian apologist, the doctrine of preexistence could ward off “Gnostic claims of moral determinism and cosmic dualism.”[59]

Jonas’s account of the Gnostic religion would seem to support Blosser’s claim by detailing tripartite Gnostic determinism: each person was born into spirit, soul, or flesh, without recourse to changing categories.[60] Dupuis has demonstrated that this strict determinism would spell the destruction of human liberty for Origen.[61] If humans have perfect free will on earth, then inequalities of birth must result from free choices made in a preexistent state.[62] Thus, Origen’s doctrine of preexistence becomes a defense of divine justice.[63]

            Yet the state of the question concerning preexistence lies neither in Crouzel, Jonas, Dupuis, nor Blosser, but in Gerald Bostock’s monumental article.[64] Bostock attributes Origen’s doctrine of preexistence to a Christological motive: Christ’s preexistence was a requisite of Christ’s divinity, and humanity’s sharing in Christ’s identity implied a sharing in Christ’s preexistence. More plainly, if Christ’s human nature preexisted creation, and if humans share His humanity, then humans’ preexistence seems to follow logically. Robert Daly had demonstrated the centrality of Christology to Origen’s theology, writ large, in 1973,[65] but Bostock was the first to apply Daly’s conclusion to the particular doctrine of preexistence.

            We are now in a position to summarize the state of the question of Origen’s psychology. Origen describes a soul with a higher and a lower part that jointly explain moral conflict within humans.[66] Rather than merely adopting a Platonic notion of the soul, Origen adopts the Platonic conceptions that further Christian faith and jilts those that do not.[67] Centrally, Origen equates the heart explicitly with the rational faculty as conceived of in Platonism and Stoicism.[68] The soul is identified with Christ over against Platonic “forms”[69] and preexists creation because Christ preexisted creation.[70] Each human soul merits its condescension to a body because it freely committed faults in preexistent states, Christ redeems this descent by descending himself.[71] The tide has turned, and time now smiles on Origen.

Annotated Bibliography

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Geist Und Feuer. Salzburg: O. Müller, 1938.

———. Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings. Translated by Robert Daly. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001.

Balthasar’s is likely the first work of modern scholarship to show Origen as truly Christian.

Banev, Krastu. Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy: Rhetoric and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Banev suggests that Theophilus’s contrived account of Origen flourished because poetic license of the type Theophilus typified ancient rhetoric and so was widely accepted.

Berchman, Robert M. From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition. Brown Judaic Studies 69. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984.

Origen’s insistence on an uncreated Logos could not square with Platonism.

Blanc, Cécile. “L’attitude d’Origène à L’égard Du Corps et de La Chair.” Studia Patristica 17 (1986): 843–58.

Origen’s use of Scripture was central to his theology, not merely ornamental.

Blosser, Benjamin P. Become Like the Angels: Origen’s Doctrine of the Soul. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012.

Origen founded his psychology in Christian revelation rather than in Platonic conceptions.

Bostock, Gerald. “The Sources of Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence.” In Origeniana Quarta, edited by Lothar Leis, 259–64. Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1987.

Christology drives Origen’s anthropology.

Cadiou, René. La Jeunesse d’Origène: Histoire de l’École d’Alexandrie Au Début Du IIIe Siècle. Paris: G.Beauchesne et ses fils, 1935.

Origen drew not only on Scripture but also on the cultural and intellectual influences that surrounded him.

Chadwick, Henry. Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

Origen’s maintained familiarity with philosophy at least partly in order to be able to dismantle philosophical arguments.

Christian Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours. Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1976.

This Catholic liturgy contains numerous references to Origen’s works, connoting a shift in Catholic opinion toward Origen.

Clark, Elizabeth A. The Origenist Controversy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Clark forwards a masterful study of the controversy over “Origenism” that erupted 150 years after Origen’s death.

Crouzel, Henri. “Anthropologie et Cosmologie d’Origène et de Plotin.” Studia Patristica, 234–45, 26 (1993).

———. Bibliographie Critique d’Origène. Steenbrugge, Belgium: Abbey of St. Peter, 1971.

———. “Current Theology: The Literature on Origen 1970–1988.” Theological Studies 49 (1988).

———. “Idées Platoniciennes et Raisons Stöiciennes Dans La Théologie d’Origène.” Studia Patristica 19 (1989): 365–83.

———. “L’anthropologie d’Origène Dans La Perspective Du Combat Spirituel.” Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 31 (1955): 354–85.

———. “L’anthropologie d’Origène: De l’archē Au Telos.” In Arché e Telos: L’anthropologia Di Origene e Di Gregorio Di Nissa: Analisi Storico-Religiosa: Atti Del Colloquio. Milan: Vita e pensiero, n.d.

———. Origène et la ‘Connaissance Mystique.’ Paris: Aubier, 1961.

———. Origène et la Philosophie. Paris: Aubier, 1962.

———. Origène et Plotin: Comparaisons Doctrinales. Paris: Téquis, 1992.

———. Théologie de l’image de Dieu. Paris: Aubier, 1956.

Crouzel’s works, on the whole, show how Origen synthesized philosophy and Scripture to reach his theology.

Crouzel, Henri, and A. S. Worrall. Origen. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

Origen’s doctrine of psychic preexistence countered the two contemporary alternatives of traducianism and creationism.

Daly, Robert J. Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Chrsistian Background before Origen. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978.

———. Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice. London: T&T Clark, 2009.

———. “The Hermeneutics of Origen: Existential Interpretation in the Third Century.” In The Word in the World: Essays in Honor of Frederich Moriarty, S.J., 135–43. Cambridge, MA: Weston College, 1973.

———. The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978.

Origen’s understanding of history centers on Christ.

Daniélou, Jean. Origen. Translated by Walter Mitchell. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955.

———. Origéne. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948.

Origen’s researches into the history of the different versions of the senses of the Old and New Testaments make him the found of the Scientific study of the Bible.

Denziger, Heinrich. The Sources of Catholic Dogma. London: Herder, 1957.

For the purposes of this paper, Denziger delenieates the fifteen anathemas leveled against Origen’s teachings.

Digeser, Elizabeth D. A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.

Origen reacted to and rejected Plotinus’ belief that the  eucharist polluted Christians.

Dillon, John. “Origen and Plotinus: The Platonic Influence on Early Christianity.” In The Relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity, edited by Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey, 7–26. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992.

Origen’s surrendered no theological points to philosophy.

Dupuis, Jacques. L’Esprit De l’Homme: Étude Sur l’Anthropologie Religieuse d’Origène. Vol. 62. Desclée de Brouwer. Paris: Bruges, 1967.

Dupuis calls for Origen to be viewed not in light of static philosophical conceptions, but in a moral and mystical conception of humans as creations in the image of God.

Edwards, Mark J. “Christ or Plato: Origen on Revelation and Anthropology.” In Christian Origins, edited by L. Ayers and G. Jones, 11–25. London: Routledge, 1997.

Origen’s anthropology is central to his psychology.

———. Origen Against Plato. Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity. Aldershot, Ashgate.

Faye, Eugène de. Origen and His Work. Translated by Fred Rothwell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1929.

Origen is purely intellectualist and idealist.

Greer, Rowan. “Introduction.” In Origen, translated by Rowan Greer. New York: Paulist Press, 1979.

This introduction traces Origen’s earliest reception across three periods: acceptance, questioning, and rejection.

Harl, Marguerite. Origène et la Fonction Révélatrice du Verbe Incarné. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1958. An early voice calling for a positive reevaluation of Origen’s contributions to Christian theology

Origen’s contributions to Christian theology should be reevaluated in more positive light.

Harmon, Thomas. “Historicism Versus History and Spirit.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 19, no. 3 (2016): 29–58.

Views on Origen’s psychology are shaped by the evidence considered—those who use On First Principles and Against Celsus call Origen Platonists, whereas those who reference Origen’s commentaries count him truly Christian.

Harnack, Adolf. History of Dogma in Seven Volumes, 1897.

Harnack delivers the clearest and earliest critique of Origen's philosophical Christianity.

Hart, David Bentley. “Saint Origen.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, no. 256 (2015).

Origen should be canonized.

Heimann, Peter. Erwähltes Schicksal: Präexistenz der Seele und christlicher Glaube im Denkmodell des Origenes. Tübingen: Katzmann, 1988.

Heimann separates Origen’s theology from those of later thinkers in efforts to allow Origen to speak for himself.

Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity. 3rd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

This book details tripartite Gnostic determinism.

Laporte, Jean. “Models from Philo in Origen’s Teaching on Original Sin.” In Living Water, Sealing Spirit, edited by Maxwell E. Johnson. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995.

Origen’s envisioned preexistence to defend of divine justice.

Lienhard, Joseph T. “Orthodox Origen.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, no. 288 (2018).

Origen did not commit the many sins of which he is accused (he was less sure about universal salvation and more open about psychic preexistence than many scholars claim).

Lubac, Henri de. Histoire et esprit: L’intelligence de l’Écriture d’après Origène. Paris: Aubier, 1950.

———. History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen. Translated by Anne Englund Nash and Juvenal Merriell. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007.

———. Splendor of the Church. Translated by Michael Mason. San Fran- Cisco: Ignatius Press, 1986. Translated by Michael Mason. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986.

Origen’s exegetical method has profound implications for, and        applications in, modern biblical studies.

Moreschini, Claudio, and Enrico Norelli, eds. Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History. Vol. 1. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005.

Musurillo, Herbert. “The Recent Revival of Origen Studies.” Theological Studies 24 (1963).

Musurillo considers Origen no true Christian.

Origen. Homilies on Luke, n.d.

Osborn, Eric. “Origen Against Plato. by Mark Julian Edwards.” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54, no. 4 (n.d.): 734–6.

Percival, Henry. The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994.

For the current project, this work details the fifteen anathemas delivered against Origen's teachings.

Petrow, Michael. The Redemption of Perspective: Origen’s Exegesis for Reading “The Books of the Soul.” Doctoral Dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2015. https://yeshebi.ptsem.edu:3875/docview/1754368121?accountid=13316&pq-origsite=summon.

Origen’s three-tiered exegetical method provides a vital guide for understanding human selfhood.

Pizzolato, Luigi, and Marco Rizzi, eds. Origene: Maestro Di Vita Spirituale. Milano: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2001.

This volume contains a collection of essays dedicated to Origen’s spiritual

conception (prayer, the magisterium, confrontation with Gnosticism).

Quasten, Johannes. Patrology. Vol. 2. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992.

First published in 1951, Quasten’s four-volume set provides the first—and still the standard—English-language introduction to Patristic theology.

Rist, John. “The Greek and Latin Texts of the Discussion on Free Will in De Principiis, Book III.” In Origeniana: Premier Colloque International Des Études Origéniennes. Bari: Università Istituto di Letteratura Christiana Antica, 1975.

Runia, David T. “Philosophy.” Edited by John A. McGuckin. The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989.

Simonetti, Manlio. Origene esegeta e la sua tradizione. Brecia: Morcelliana, 2004.

Trigg, Joseph W. Origen. The Early Church Fathers. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Origen equates the heart explicitly with the Platonic nous or dianoētikon and the Stoic hēgemonikon, the guiding faculty of humans.

Tripolitis, Antonia. The Doctrine of the Soul in the Thought of Plotinus and Origen. Roslyn Heights, NY: Libra Publishers, 1978.

Origen’s Christology simply Christianizes the Middle Platonic Demiurge.

Völker, Walther. Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1931.

Vökler’s is the first and most lastingly important German critical edition of Origen’s writings that would make way for the second wave of twentieth century Origen research.

Williams, Rowan. “Origen on the Soul of Jesus.” In Origeniana Tertia, edited by R. Hanson and H. Crouzel, 131–37. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1985.

Origen understands God as both infinite and, through Christ’s revelation, finitely understood.

Texts, Translations, and Commentaries

Behr, John, ed. and trans. Origen: On First Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Behr’s work includes an introduction to Origen, his cultural milieu in Alexandria, and the text of On First Principles.

Chadwick, Henry, trans. Contra Celsum. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Chadwick’s accurate and readable translation (here in a revised edition) indicates Origen’s biblical allusions, italicizes texts quoted from Celsus, and explains philosophical references; it also includes an introduction with a helpful discussion on the difficulties of reconstructing Celsus’s writing.

———.  “Notes on the Text of Origen, ‘Contra Celsum,’” New Series, 4, no. 2 (October 1953): 215–219.

Chadwick’s short article has long been the definitive apparatus to Against Celsus.

Daly, Brian E. “Origen’s ‘De Principiis’: A Guide to the ‘Principles’ of Christian Scriptural Interpretation.” In Nova et Vatera: Patristic Studies in Honor of Thomas Patrick Holton, edited by John F. Petruccione. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998.

Daly gives critical analysis of the most cited text for studies on Origen’s psychology, showing that Origen’s On First Principles helped to establish the hermeneutical principles adopted by the early church.

Daly, Robert J., ed. Origen. Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul. Translated by Robert J. Daly. Vol. 54. Ancient Christian Writers. New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1992.

A renowned Origen scholar translates one of Origen’s most theological texts on the soul.

End Notes

[1]Rowan Greer, “Introduction,” in Origen, trans. Rowan Greer (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 29. See also Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) and Krastu Banev, Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy: Rhetoric and Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 3.

[2]Henry Percival, The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).

[3]See Heinrich Denziger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (London: Herder, 1957), nos. 212–28

[4]Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma in Seven Volumes, 1897, passim.

[5]Eugène de Faye, Origen and His Work, trans. Fred Rothwell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929), 28–29.

[6]Herbert Musurillo, “The Recent Revival of Origen Studies,” Theological Studies 24 (1963): 253.

[7]Hans Urs von Balthasar, Geist Und Feuer (Salzburg: O. Müller, 1938). English translation: Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings, trans. Robert Daly (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001).

[8]Walther Völker, Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1931).

[9]Marguerite Harl, Origène et la Fonction Révélatrice du Verbe Incarné (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1958).

[10]Henri Crouzel, Théologie de l’image de Dieu (Paris: Aubier, 1956).

[11]Henri Crouzel, Origène et la ‘Connaissance Mystique’ (Paris: Aubier, 1961).

[12]Henri Crouzel, Origène et la Philosophie (Paris: Aubier, 1962).

[13]David T. Runia, “Philosophy,” ed. John A. McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to Origen (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989).

[14]Henri Crouzel, “L’anthropologie d’Origène Dans La Perspective Du Combat Spirituel,” Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 31 (1955): 354–85.

[15]Jacques Dupuis, L’Esprit De l’Homme: Étude Sur l’Anthropologie Religieuse d’Origène, vol. 62, Desclée de Brouwer (Paris: Bruges, 1967).

[16]Henri de Lubac, Histoire et esprit: L’intelligence de l’Écriture d’après Origène. (Paris: Aubier, 1950). English translation: Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen., trans. Anne Englund Nash and Juvenal Merriell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007).

[17]Thomas Harmon, “Historicism Versus History and Spirit,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 19, no. 3 (2016): 29–58.

[18]Rowan Williams, “Origen on the Soul of Jesus,” in Origeniana Tertia, ed. R. Hanson and H. Crouzel (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1985), 131–37.

[19]Cécile. Blanc, “L’attitude d’Origène à L’égard Du Corps et de La Chair,” Studia Patristica 17 (1986): 843–58.

[20]Manlio Simonetti, Origene esegeta e la sua tradizione (Brecia: Morcelliana, 2004).

[21]Mark J. Edwards, “Christ or Plato: Origen on Revelation and Anthropology,” in Christian Origins, ed. L. Ayers and G. Jones (London: Routledge, 1997), 11–25.

[22]Benjamin P. Blosser, Become Like the Angels: Origen’s Doctrine of the Soul (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012).

[23]Mark J. Edwards, Origen Against Plato, Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002).

[24]Eric Osborn, “Origen Against Plato. by Mark Julian Edwards,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54, no. 4 (n.d.): 734–6. See, e.g., Peter Heimann, Erwähltes Schicksal: Präexistenz der Seele und christlicher Glaube im Denkmodell des Origenes (Tübingen: Katzmann, 1988).

[25]Crouzel, Origène et la Philosophie, 168.

[26]Ibid, 167.

[27]Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 1f.

[28]Crouzel, Origène et la Philosophie; Henri Crouzel, Origène et Plotin: Comparaisons Doctrinales (Paris: Téquis, 1992).

[29]John Dillon, “Origen and Plotinus: The Platonic Influence on Early Christianity,” in The Relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992), 7–26, p. 8.

[30]Crouzel, Origène et la Philosophie; Henri Crouzel, Origène et Plotin: Comparaisons Doctrinales (Paris: Téquis, 1992).

[31]Origen, Homilies on Luke, 16.

[32]Edwards, Origen Against Plato. For further sources, see Henri Crouzel, Bibliographie Critique d’Origène (Steenbrugge, Belgium: Abbey of St. Peter, 1971).

[33]Robert J. Daly, ed., Origen. Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul, trans. Robert J. Daly, vol. 54, Ancient Christian Writers (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1992), 10.

[34]Personal email communication on 4 March, 2019.

[35]Robert J. Daly, “The Hermeneutics of Origen: Existential Interpretation in the Third Century,” in The Word in the World: Essays in Honor of Frederich Moriarty, S.J. (Cambridge, MA: Weston College, 1973), 135–43. See also Robert J. Daly, Christian Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Chrsistian Background before Origen (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978); abbreviated in Robert J. Daly, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978); and summarized by Robert J. Daly, Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice (London: T&T Clark, 2009).

[36]See, e.g., David Bentley Hart, “Saint Origen,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, no. 256 (2015); Joseph T. Lienhard, “Orthodox Origen,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, no. 288 (2018). See also Henri Crouzel, “Current Theology: The Literature on Origen 1970–1988,” Theological Studies 49 (1988). Luigi Pizzolato and Marco Rizzi, eds., Origene: Maestro Di Vita Spirituale (Milano: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2001).

[37]See, e.g., CCC 113, 137, 498, 817, 2061, and 2114; the antiphon for Psalm 65 in Christian Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1976).

[38]Elizabeth D. Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).

[39]Eusebius, The History of the Church, 6.19.

[40]Henry Chadwick, “Notes on the Text of Origen, ‘Contra Celsum,’” New Series, 4, no. 2 (October 1953): 215–219.

[41]Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli, eds., Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005); John Rist, “The Greek and Latin Texts of the Discussion on Free Will in De Principiis, Book III,” in Origeniana: Premier Colloque International Des Études Origéniennes (Bari: Università Istituto di Letteratura Christiana Antica, 1975).

[42]Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma in Seven Volumes, 1897.

[43]Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 2 (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992). 52.

[44]Thomas Harmon, “Historicism Versus History and Spirit,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 19, no. 3 (2016): 29–58, p. 29.

[45]Blosser, Become Like the Angels, 18.

[46]Robert J. Daly, “The Hermeneutics of Origen: Existential Interpretation in the Third Century,” in The Word in the World: Essays in Honor of Frederich Moriarty, S.J. (Cambridge, MA: Weston College, 1973), 135–43.

[47]Michael Petrow, The Redemption of Perspective: Origen’s Exegesis for Reading “The Books of the Soul,” Doctoral Dissertation (Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2015), https://yeshebi.ptsem.edu:3875/docview/1754368121?accountid=13316&pq-origsite=summon.

[48]Blosser, Become Like the Angels, 140.

[49]See Joseph W. Trigg, Origen, The Early Church Fathers (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).

[50]Crouzel, Théologie de l’image de Dieu; Crouzel, “Anthropologie.”

[51]Jean Daniélou, Origéne (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948); English translation: Jean Daniélou, Origen, trans. Walter Mitchell (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955); Edwards, Origen Against Plato; Henri Crouzel, “Idées Platoniciennes et Raisons Stöiciennes Dans La Théologie d’Origène,” Studia Patristica 19 (1989): 365–83.

[52]Crouzel, “Anthropologie,” 243

[53]Robert M. Berchman, From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition, Brown Judaic Studies 69 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), 135.

[54]Blosser, Become Like the Angels, 164

[55]Daniélou, Origen, 261. John Dillon, “Origen and Plotinus: The Platonic Influence on Early Christianity,” in The Relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992), 7–26; Antonia Tripolitis, The Doctrine of the Soul in the Thought of Plotinus and Origen. (Roslyn Heights, NY: Libra Publishers, 1978).

[56] Crouzel, “Idées Platoniciennes et Raisons Stöiciennes Dans La Théologie d’Origène.” Henri Crouzel, “Anthropologie et Cosmologie d’Origène et de Plotin,” Studia Patristica, 234–45, 26 (1993): 236; Tripolitis, The Doctrine of the Soul, 105, 117.

[57]Henri Crouzel and A. S. Worrall, Origen (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 207–8.

[58]Blosser, Become Like the Angels, 161.

[59]Blosser, Ibid.

[60]Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, 3rd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 174–205.

[61]Dupuis, L’Esprit De l’Homme, 28.

[62]Cécile. Blanc, “L’attitude d’Origène à L’égard Du Corps et de La Chair,” Studia Patristica 17 (1986): 843–58, p. 848.

[63]Jean Laporte, “Models from Philo in Origen’s Teaching on Original Sin,” in Living Water, Sealing Spirit, ed. Maxwell E. Johnson (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995): 105.

[64]Gerald Bostock, “The Sources of Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence,” in Origeniana Quarta, ed. Lothar Leis (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1987), 259–64.

[65]Robert J. Daly, “The Hermeneutics of Origen: Existential Interpretation in the Third Century,” in The Word in the World: Essays in Honor of Frederich Moriarty, S.J. (Cambridge, MA: Weston College, 1973), 135–43.

[66]Crouzel, Théologie de l’image de Dieu; Crouzel, “Anthropologie.”

[67]John Dillon, “Origen and Plotinus: The Platonic Influence on Early Christianity,” in The Relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992), 7–26, p. 8.

[68]See Joseph W. Trigg, Origen, The Early Church Fathers (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).

[69]Daniélou, Origen.

[70]Bostock, “The Sources of Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence,” 259­–60.

[71]Blosser, Become Like the Angels, 267.