No Wonder They Call Him Heretic

Origen was one of the greatest Christian theologians of the Early Church. Born in 185 A.D. in Alexandria, Origen was the son of Leonidas, who was martyred. At the ripe old age of 18, Origen succeeded Clement of Alexandria as the head of catechismal school in said city. Origen found increasing success as a teacher, and he is said to have worked day and night with the crowds that came to hear him, both "orthodox" Christians and Gnostics alike. In 215, he was asked to lecture on Scripture by bishops in Caesarea and Jerusalem, but as he was not yet ordained Demetrius, the patriarch of Alexandria, ordered him to return to Alexandria. Between 219 and 230, Origen wrote his great comprehensive study of Christian doctrine, On First Principles. Origen then was invited to Greece and on the way was ordained presbyter by the bishops of Jerusalem and Caesarea. This action caused the final break with Demetrius, who called a synod of Egyptian bishops. The decision was that Origen was forbidden to teach at Alexandria, and he was soon afterwards excommunicated. The sentence had little effect outside Egypt. Origen became an honored teacher of the church, working out of the city of Caesarea in Palestine from 231 through the rest of his life. From 231 to his death, Origen produced a vast body of works, including scriptural commentaries on both the Old and the New Testaments. In 250, when the persecution of the Emperor Decius broke out, Origen was imprisoned at Tyre and subjected to torture. He was released in 251 but succumbed two years later. He died at Tyre in 253. Although Origen considered himself "orthodox", even during his lifetime he was accused of being a "heretic". The "orthodox" theology Origen evolved included several notions that have distinctly Neo-Platonist and Gnostic flavors to them, which accounts for Origen's fall into disrepute with later Christian fathers.

Now it is time to explore some of what exactly in Origen's theology made people believe his ideas were heretical. First, we will begin with Origen's belief on the Trinity. Origen was the first Church father to develop an actual doctrine of the Trinity. In it, Origen asserts The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are One, but subordinate to each other. This is illustrated by the following passage,

"The Father, "holding all things together, reaches (Ð"¶Ð"ЁάÐ"­Ð"ҐÐ"©) to each being, imparting being to each from that which is His own, for He is absolutely (ὢÐ"­ Ð"ЈὰÐ"± ἔÐ"Ñ-Ð"Ò'Ð"©Ð"­). The Son is less than the Father (ἐÐ"«άÐ"Ò'Ð"Ò'Ð"â„-Ð"­ Ð"oÐ"ÐŽÐ"±ὰ Ð"Ò'. Ð"o.), reaching only to rational beings, for He is second to the Father; and, further, the Holy Spirit is less (ἧÐ"Ò'Ð"Ò'Ð"Їϖ), and extends (Ð"¤Ð"©Ð"©Ð"ЄÐ"­Ð"ЇύÐ"¬Ð"ҐÐ"­Ð"ЇÐ"­) to the saints only. So that in this respect (Ð"ЄÐ"ÐŽÐ"Ò'ὰ Ð"Ò'Ð"ЇῦÐ"Ò'Ð"Ї) the power of the Father is greater in comparison with (Ð"oÐ"ÐŽÐ"±ά) the Son and the Holy Spirit; and that of the Son more in comparison with the Holy Spirit; and, again, the power of the Holy Spirit more exceeding (Ð"¤Ð"©Ð"ÐŽÐ"¶έÐ"±Ð"ЇÐ"µÐ"Ñ-Ð"ÐŽ Ð"¬ᾶÐ"«Ð"«Ð"ЇÐ"­) in comparison with all other holy beings."

It is important to note however, Origen is not saying the Three Persons in the Godhead are not of the same essence, "The existence of the Son is generated [begotten] by the Father" he is saying they are subordinate in person and office. Origen identifies the Son with absolute Wisdom of the Logos. The Son, he says, is eternally generated and is the mediator between the Father and the divine powers created by him. The Holy Spirit was the primary Being created by the Son or Word. This act was then followed by the creation of spiritual beings or rational souls. The rational souls or beings thus pre-existed their bodies and even the creation of the material cosmos. All beings are subordinated to God the Father from the beginning. Thus, the Son mediates between God's absolute Oneness and this multiplicity of beings. So far, so good. The only part that might cause trouble is the subordination of the Persons, but it is not a real issue this early in the history of the church. Origen did reject the Gnostic notion of Aeons who emanated from the unknown Father and existed in the Pleroma (spiritual plain). He replaced that notion with one in which there are souls who are created by God instead of emanating from Him. Thus, Origen's theology leaves us with preexisting minds dwelling in a spiritual universe, a Christian- Gnostic teaching he was unable or unwilling to refute, a thought abhorrent to later Christian fathers.

Next, Origen's Christology will be explored. Origen makes a clear distinction between the Divine Wisdom or Logos and Jesus, the man, much in the same manner as the Nazoreans, Ophites and Valentinians. In an age when Church Fathers were debating whether or not Jesus Christ preexisted, Origen gives us the astounding but rational doctrine that the soul of Jesus preexisted along with all other souls and the nature of Jesus' soul was the same as all other souls. This doctrine was to produce thunderous reverberations of "blasphemy" down through the ages. Yet, Origen taught nothing more than the ancient doctrine of the preexistence of all beings. Origen teaches that Christ's soul did not preexist in and unto itself but was one of the preexisting rational souls. It then chose righteousness and BECAME one and inseparable with the Logos or Wisdom. These ideas are illustrated in the following quotations,

"It cannot be doubted that the nature of his [Christ's] soul was the same as that of all souls; otherwise it could not be called a soul, if it were not truly one. But since the ability to choose good or evil is within the immediate reach of all, this soul which belongs to Christ so chose to love righteousness as to cling to it unchangeably and inseparably in accordance with the immensity of its love Ð'...That soul [of Jesus] clinging to God from the beginning of the creation and ever after in a union inseparable and indissoluble, as being the soul of the wisdom and word of God and of the truth and the true light, and receiving him wholly, and itself entering into his light and splendor,