Who was Origen of Alexandria?

Origen, who was born at Alexandria — the cradle of gnosticism — about the year 185, was the Father who gave form and completeness to the Alexandrian method of interpreting scripture. He distinguished in it a threefold sense — the literal, the moral, and the mystical — answering respectively to the body soul, and spirit in man. The literal sense, he held, might be understood by any attentive reader; the moral required higher intelligence; the mystical was only to be apprehended through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was to be obtained by prayer.

It was the great object of this eminent teacher to harmonise Christianity with philosophy, this was the leaven of the Alexandrian school. He sought to gather up the fragments of truth scattered throughout other systems, and unite them in a christian scheme, so as to present the gospel in a form that would not offend the prejudices, but insure the conversion, of Jews, gnostics, and of cultivated heathen. These principles of interpretation, and this combination of Christianity with philosophy, led Origen and his followers into many grave and serious errors, both practical and doctrinal. He was a devoted, earnest, zealous Christian himself, and truly loved the Lord Jesus, but the tendency of his principles has been, from that day to this, to weaken faith in the definite character of truth, if not to pervert it altogether by means of spiritualizing and allegorising, which his system taught and allowed.

Paying a visit to Palestine and Caesarea, he began to give discourses in the church, but was forbidden by Demetrius of Alexandria, and he resumed his catechetical instruction. About A.D. 218, he was invited to Antioch to give christian instruction to Mammaea, the mother of the emperor Alexander Severus. About A.D. 230, he went to Greece, by way of Palestine, where he was ordained presbyter. This again roused Demetrius, who caused him, at two synods, to be forbidden to act as presbyter, perhaps because he was a eunuch, though Jerome says it was through jealousy of his talents. He went on with his teaching (some renowned in the church placing themselves under him) and his writing, employing several to copy his works, and he was looked up to by many for counsel. As we have seen, he suffered torture under Decius, but died a natural death about A.D. 254.

He was a compiler of the renowned book known as Origen's Hexapla, a work that must have involved immense labour. It gave the Old Testament in Hebrew, the same in Greek characters, the translations of Aquila, of Symmachus, of the LXX, of Theodotion, with three other versions. It occupied nearly fifty volumes, but unhappily all is lost, except the extracts that had been made from it. He was also the author of several commentaries on parts of scripture; but he mixed philosophy with his Christianity and was not sound in the faith. There were repeated controversies as to his teaching, but some of it was so speculative that Athanasius and Arius both claimed him as on their side. He denied eternal punishment, holding the eventual restoration of all, even the devil! Thus we see the danger of attempting to join philosophy with Christianity, and not keeping simply to the teaching of the word of God.

As might have been expected, the text of the Septuagint was never so carefully preserved as that of the Hebrew. From an early epoch, it seems to have been in an imperfect condition. At the beginning of the third century of the Christian era, the illustrious Origen devoted a large portion of his life to the amendment of this text; and, for this purpose, he published his celebrated work, The Hexapla (or Six-fold; containing six parallel columns of different editions of the Bible). By comparing these together, he produced an improved text, known as the Hexaplarian. It would have been of the utmost interest to have preserved this work: but, from its great size (it is said to have been in fifty volumes) transcription was, in a manner, impossible. After lying for many years in the library of Caesarea, it is believed to have perished when the Arabs took that city in the seventh century. But the amended text was preserved; and has been almost universally adopted as the text of the Septuagint, since the days of Origen.

The baptized are washed, illuminated, perfect, etc.; and so stated in a passage which shews, as do his writings, very little respect for, or knowledge of, the Person of Christ. To say the truth, if converted at all, philosophy had far more influence over him than Christianity. In poor, wild, persecuted, but sincere Origen, we see confusion and unbridled imagination indeed; but, in spite of all, marks of genuine living faith. But Origen furnishes us with little which throws direct light on the progress of church opinion, though he may have largely influenced it. He studied scripture, and was not occupied in the government of the Church; indeed, his own diocesan would not ordain him, but drove him away. In interpreting scripture he gives on these points pretty much the contents of the text itself as it is: only the spouse in the Canticles is the Church; the tabernacle represents everything in detail; the ark is the Church; Noah was in the highest story - that is, Jesus, the true rest - at the top; ill-conditioned Christians, like the unclean beasts, at the bottom.

174 Again, Origen — a most attractive, interesting man, I fully admit, but whose name became the football of passion in the church — what was he? First he applied to himself literally, by mutilation, Matthew 19:12. He held that souls were born into different conditions in this world, according to their conduct in a previously existing state — a doctrine current among the heathen Egyptians, but a well-known eastern idea of Buddhists and Brahmins too. Buddha's great doctrine was, how to escape it by hearing "Bana," and absolute indifference to everything sense could feel, so as to obtain Nirvana (extinction). But Origen held — it is not my part to make him consistent — that the fall (and this was Alexandrian and Philo's doctrine already, and Platonic) was the pure soul of man coming into a body. He was not sound, though he seems sometimes to be clear, on the divinity of Christ. As to the divinity of the Holy Ghost, he was wholly unsound. As to Ammonius (the master of Heraclas the Patriarch, and others), it is disputed whether he is Christian or heathen.

As to Origen, he was as heretical as he well could be. He unequivocally declares the Son to be inferior to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son; and held that all men had lived before they were born, and were born here according to their previous merits, could recover themselves here, and be saved, as could the devil, and, as it seems, when in a heavenly state fall, for all that, afterwards: in a word, every wild notion that might grace a Mormon.

Oh, yes; they were attached to the Person of Christ in an unintelligent way, and they suffered martyrdom for His sake. Justin Martyr denies the full personal divinity of Christ. Presently they got praying for the saints after they were dead. Origen held that all souls existed before, and that the fall of man was just his coming down into a body, and he was the most learned Father of the Church. Clement, too, did not hold the divinity of Christ. It was the Platonic philosophy that corrupted the doctrine. Origen was the teacher of a school of doctrine. Hermas says the Holy Ghost was God's Son, and took counsel with God what he should do, and he did more than God set him to do, and therefore God gave him a great reward. It was lately ascertained that Hermas was the brother of Pius I, and not an apostolic Father at all.

Plato teaches the pre-existence of the soul (Phaedo, 923) and transmigration. Only true saints, who had kept alone from every snare of corporate existence, went, it is suggested, to God: so did Pythagoras. Philo, the Jew, held the pre-existence of the soul, as Plato, and that the air is full of demons up to the moon; and the lower, or inferior class, were disposed to be earthly, and came into bodies. This came from Indian or Egyptian heathenism. Why do I speak of these things? Because the great early doctors of the church, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, were educated in Platonism. Origen, too, embraced the whole system — transmigration, and the renewal of the whole series of the soul's history in another earth. Jerome and Ruffinus (Latins), and even, in part, Ambrose followed Origen in a great deal, as did Gregory of Nyssa, and many others in the East.

344 Origen was followed and defended till the fifth general council. Jerome and Augustine, who hesitated, as we have seen, about it all, led in the notions of the Western church. But Origen held that angels, devils, and men, were all on the same footing of responsibility, though in different states; and withal, that all would be ultimately saved; punishment was only purgatory for any.*

Origen, also of the third century, though acquainted with the Hebrew Canon, did not depart from the Alexandrian Bible. He refers to the books of the Maccabees as possessed of 'scriptural authority,' quotes Wisdom and Tobit, calls Ecclesiasticus 'the Divine Word,' and so on.

The early centuries of the Christian dispensation were ages of marked intellectual ability. The great names that are mentioned in history confirm this. Tertullian in the second century wrote his famous Apology. Origen manifested his zeal and learning by editing the celebrated Hexapla edition of the Holy Scriptures. Jerome translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and the New Testament from the Greek originals into the Latin, then the language of the West. John, called Chrysostom, or the "golden mouthed," was the greatest preacher of his time. Augustine was the greatest teacher. Many others might be mentioned who were not only familiar with the Scriptures but did everything they could to make their contents known to others.