Origen

ORIGEN (c. 254), the most distinguished and most influential of all the theologians of the ancient church, with the possible exception of Augustine.

Origen was born, perhaps at Alexandria, of Christian parents in the year 185 or i86. His father Leonidas gave him an excellent education. At a very early age, about the year 200, he listened to the lectures of Pantaenus and Clement in the catechetical school. This school, of which the origin (though assigned to Athenagoras) is unknown, was the first and for a long time the only institution where Christians were instructed simultaneously in the Greek sci ences and the doctrines of the holy Scriptures. Asia Minor and the West developed the strict ecclesiastical forms by means of which the church closed her lines against heathenism, and espe cially against heresy; in Alexandria Christian ideas were handled in a free and speculative fashion and worked out with the help of Greek philosophy. The line between heresy and orthodoxy was less rigidly drawn there than at Ephesus, Lyons, Rome or Carthage.

In the year 202 a persecution arose, in which the father of Origen perished. Origen began about the same time to earn his bread by teaching; and in 203 he was placed, with the sanction of the bishop of Demetrius, at the head of the catechetical school. He regularly attended the lectures of Ammonius Saccas, and made a thorough study of the books of Plato and Numenius, of the Stoics and the Pythagoreans. At the same time he endeavoured to acquire a knowledge of Hebrew, in order to be able to read the Old Testament in the original. His manner of life was ascetic; the sayings of the Sermon on the Mount and the practical maxims of the Stoics were his guiding stars. Four oboli a day, earned by copying manuscripts, sufficed for his bodily sustenance. A rash resolve led him to castrate himself that he might work unhin dered in the instruction of women.

He commenced his great work on the textual criticism of the Scriptures; and at the instigation of his friend Ambrosius, who provided him with the necessary amanuenses, he published his commentaries on the Old Testament and his dogmatic investiga tions. He worked at Alexandria for 28 years (till 231-232). This period, however, was broken by many journeys to Rome, to Arabia, to Antioch, and, in 216, when the imperial executioners were ravaging Alexandria, to Palestine. There the bishops of Jerusalem and Caesarea got him to deliver public lectures in the churches. In the East, especially in Asia Minor, it was still no unusual thing for laymen, with permission of the bishop, to address the people in the church. In Alexandria, however, this custom had

been given up, and Demetrius took occasion to express his disap proval and recall Origen to Alexandria.

Probably the bishop was jealous of the high reputation of the teacher ; and a coolness arose between them which led, fifteen years later, to an open rupture. On his way to Greece (apparently in the year 23o) Origen was ordained a presbyter in Palestine by his friends the bishops. This was undoubtedly an infringement of the rights of the Alexandrian bishop; at the same time it was simply spite on the part of the latter that had kept Origen so long without orders. Demetrius convened a synod, at which it was resolved to banish Origen from Alexandria. A second synod, composed en tirely of bishops, determined that Origen must be deprived of his status as a presbyter. This decision seems to have been justified by referring to the self-mutilation of Origen and adducing objec tionable doctrines which he was said to have promulgated. No formal excommunication of Origen appears to have been decreed; the sentence of deprivation was approved by most of the churches, in particular by that of Rome. At a later period Origen sought to vindicate his teaching in a letter to the Roman bishop Fabian, but, it would seem, without success.

In

these circumstances Origen retired from Alexandria (231 232) to Palestine, where his condemnation had not been acknowl edged by the churches. He settled in Caesarea, and established a flourishing school there. Enthusiastic pupils sat at his feet (see the Panegyric of Gregory Thaumaturgus), and the methodical in struction which he imparted was famous all over the East. He made frequent journeys. He was for two years together at Caesa rea in Cappadocia, where he was overtaken by the Maximinian persecution ; here he worked at his recension of the Bible. We find him again in Nicomedia, in Athens, and twice in Arabia. He was called there to combat the unitarian christology of Beryllus, bishop of Bostra, and to clear up certain eschatological questions. As he had formerly had dealings with the house of Alexander Severus, so now he entered into a correspondence with the em peror Philip the Arabian and his wife Severa. But through all situations of his life he preserved his equanimity, his keen interest in science, and his indefatigable zeal for the instruction of others. In the year 25o the Decian persecution broke out, Origen was arrested, imprisoned and maltreated. But he survived these trou bles and lived a few years longer in active intercourse with his friends. He died, probably in the year 254 at Tyre.