Introduction to St.Origen

The young Origen studied under the enigmatic giant of a master Ammonius Saccas, perhaps only 20 years before Plotinus attended the same school. Of Origen a fellow-student, Gregory Thaumaturgos who himself became an important theologian, had this to say of the man and the influence he had on the study groups.

‘And thus, like some spark of lighting upon our inmost soul, love was kindled and burst into flame within us - a love at once to the Holy Word, the most lovely object of all, who attracts all irresistibly towards himself by his unutterable beauty, and to this man, his friend and advocate. ... And in my estimation there arose but one object dear and worth desire - to wit, philosophy, and that master of philosophy, that divine man.' (Panegyric 6.83-84)

St. Origen was born in about 180AD and died at the age of about 82. He became the head of the important catechism school in Alexandria, Egypt, when he graduated from college at the age of 17, and he served Christ as the foremost philosopher and theologian of the early centuries. His mysticism inspired the great Fathers of the Western church and he is frequently quoted by later great ones of Western theology. Unfortunately for the West, in the 6th cent St. Origen was declared as "foremost heretic" or arch-heretic, by Western church leaders, mostly because of the popularity of the doctrine of Transmigration of souls which Origen taught along with the East. Thus, after 6 centuries, the West decided to turn against the original doctrines of the early Church and outlawed many of the old teachings. Thousands of Origenist monks and nuns and scriptures were destroyed in the ensuing zeal of the then Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome.  The Emporer's son, not a Roman Catholic supporter, decided in later years against this decision and ruled the reinstatement of early church teaching, Arianism and the likes of St. Origen--but a few years later his decision was again overruled by another synod.

St. Origen cannot be understood by only a few verses, he wrote prolifically (he wrote more than 400 books, only a fragments survived the zeal of Western Christians to rid the 7th century of all traces of reincarnation) and his scholarly input in Scriptural exegetics remains a monument to his genius.  What we do learn from the surviving fragments of  St. Origen's work is that the earliest Alexandrian and Eastern church was a world apart from the Roman and Greek Orthodox churches that arose some two centuries later.  Meditation on the mindset and the challenges of these earliest theologians leads one to discover another church--the church of Yesu the Saviour, which seems to stand apart, and not as foundation, to the later western churches.  These early fathers grappled with the new ideas which Yesu brought, and much of what we accept as standard common sense theology or philosophy was what they devoted their lives to formulate on our behalf.  

In the style of the master rhetorician St. Origen starts off by finding some points on which he and the reader may agree - he then continuous to develop his argument and later (about 30 pages later) he makes his conclusion - and at that stage no one can disagree with him although he always states that the conclusion is but a shimmering if the Truth which eludes us because of our clouded minds.  They put Yesu's teaching to the test of the Greek philosophical rhetoric of the day and proceeded to prove it for future generations to simply accept and live by it--and in so doing they squared up to best non-Christian philosophical minds of the Roman Empire.

To read how St. Origen and peers discuss, at loong length, the implications of the Christian teaching of reincarnation, or transmigration of souls, the pre-existence of our spirits, past lives, good helping angelic spiritual beings and negative almost demonic spiritual beings, allegory and mystical meaning in most texts of Scripture, levels of allegory--simply serves to reemphasize that we may think we know the Christian church but we know it not in the original way...we think we are cerebrally superior because we can all read and probably own a PC, but we are rather juvenile when compared to Origen, Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Ambrose and the early fathers.

The members web site features all of St. Origen's extant writings