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Origen,
surnamed Adamantinus, was born in all
probability at Alexandria, about the year 185 a.d.1867
| 1867 Cf.
Redepenning’s Origenes, vol. i. pp. 417–420 (Erste
Beilage: über Origenes Geburtsjahr und den Ort, wo er
geboren wurde). [His surname denotes the strength,
clearness, and point of his mind and methods. It is generally
given Adamantius.] |
Notwithstanding that his name is derived from that of an Egyptian
deity,1868
| 1868 Horus vel
Or. Cf. Ibid. (Zweite Beilage:
über Namen und Beinamen der Origenes). [But compare
Cave, vol. i. p. 322. Lives of the Fathers, Oxford,
1840.] | there seems no
reason to doubt that his parents were Christian at the time of his
birth. His father Leonides was probably, as has been
conjectured,1869
| 1869 Encyclopædie
der Katholischen Theologie, s.v. Origenes. | one of the many
teachers of rhetoric or grammar who abounded in that city of Grecian
culture, and appears to have been a man of decided piety. Under
his superintendence, the youthful Origen was not only educated in the
various branches of Grecian learning, but was also required daily to
commit to memory and to repeat portions of Scripture prescribed him by
his father; and while under this training, the spirit of inquiry into
the meaning of Scripture, which afterwards formed so striking a feature
in the literary character of the great Alexandrine, began to display
itself. Eusebius1870
| 1870 Hist. Eccles.,
b. vi. c. ii. § 9. | relates that he was
not satisfied with the plain and obvious meaning of the text, but
sought to penetrate into its deeper signification, and caused his
father trouble by the questions which he put to him regarding the sense
of particular passages of Holy Writ. Leonides, like many parents,
assumed the appearance of rebuking the curiosity of the boy for
inquiring into things which were beyond his youthful capacity, and
recommended him to be satisfied with the simple and apparent meaning of
Scripture, while he is described as inwardly rejoicing at the
signs of genius exhibited by his son, and as giving thanks to God for
having made him the parent of such a child.1871
| 1871 Hist. Eccles.,
b. vi. c. ii. §§ 10, 11. | But this state of things was not to
last; for in the year 202 when Origen was about seventeen years of age,
the great persecution of the Christians under Septimius Severus broke
out, and among the victims was his father Leonides, who was apprehended
and put in prison. Origen wished to share the fate of his father,
but was prevented from quitting his home by the artifice of his mother,
who was obliged to conceal his clothes to prevent him from carrying out
his purpose. He wrote to his father, however, a letter, exhorting
him to constancy under his trials, and entreating him not to change his
convictions for the sake of his family.1872
| 1872 Eusebius, Hist.
Eccles., b. vi. c. ii.: ῞Επεχε, μὴ δι᾽
ἡμᾶς ἄλλο τὶ
φρονήσης. | By the death of his father, whose
property was confiscated to the imperial treasury, Origen was left,
with his mother and six younger brothers dependent upon him for
support. At this juncture, a wealthy and benevolent lady of
Alexandria opened to him her house, of which he became an inmate for a
short time. The society, however, which he found there was far
from agreeable to the feelings of the youth. The lady had adopted
as her son one Paul of Antioch, whom Eusebius terms an “advocate
of the heretics then existing at Alexandria.” The eloquence
of the man drew crowds to hear him, although Origen could never be
induced to regard him with any favour, nor even to join with him in any
act of worship, giving then, as Eusebius remarks, “unmistakeable
specimens of the orthodoxy of his faith.”1873
| 1873 τῆς ἐξ
ἐκείνου περὶ
τὴν πίστιν
ὀρθοδοξίας
ἐναργῆ
παρείχετο
δείγματα. |
Finding his position in his household so uncomfortable,
he resolved to enter upon the career of a teacher of grammar, and to
support himself by his own exertions. As he had been carefully
instructed by his father in Grecian literature, and had devoted himself
to study after his death, he was enabled successfully to carry out his
intention. And now begins the second stadium of his career.
The diligence and ability with which Origen
prosecuted his profession speedily attracted attention and brought him
many pupils. Among others who sought to avail themselves of his
instructions in the principles of the Christian religion, were two
young men, who afterwards became distinguished in the history of the
Church,—Plutarch, who died the death of martyrdom, and Heraclas,
who afterwards became bishop of Alexandria. It was not, however,
merely by his success as a teacher that Origen gained a
reputation. The brotherly kindness and unwearied affection which
he displayed to all the victims of the persecution, which at that time
was raging with peculiar severity at Alexandria under the prefect
Aquila, and in which many of his old pupils and friends were martyred,
are described as being so marked and conspicuous, as to draw down upon
him the fury of the mob, so that he was obliged on several occasions to
flee from house to house to escape instant death. It is easy to
understand that services of this kind could not fail to attract the
attention of the heads of the Christian community at Alexandria; and
partly, no doubt, because of these, but chiefly on account of his high
literary reputation, Bishop Demetrius appointed him to the office of
master in the Catechetical School, which was at that time vacant (by
the departure of Clement, who had quitted the city on the outbreak of
the persecution), although he was still a layman, and had not passed
his eighteenth year. The choice of Demetrius was amply justified
by the result. Origen discontinued his instructions in
literature, in order to devote himself exclusively to the work of
teaching in the Catechetical School. For his labours he refused
all remuneration. He sold the books which he
possessed,—many of them manuscripts which he himself had
copied,—on condition of receiving from the purchaser four
obols1874
| 1874 The obol was about
three-halfpence of English money. | a day; and on this scanty pittance he
subsisted, leading for many years a life of the greatest asceticism and
devotion to study. After a day of labour in the school, he used
to devote the greater part of the night to the investigation of
Scripture, sleeping on the bare ground, and keeping frequent
fasts. He carried out literally the command of the Saviour, not
to possess two coats, nor wear shoes. He consummated his work of
mortification of the flesh by an act of self mutilation, springing from a perverted
interpretation of our Lord’s words in Matthew xix. 12 and the desire to place himself
beyond the reach of temptation in the intercourse which he necessarily
had to hold with youthful female catechumens.1875
| 1875 For a full discussion
of the doubts which have been thrown upon the credibility of Eusebius
in this matter by Schnitzer and Baur, cf. Redepenning, Origenes,
vol. i. pp. 444–458, and Hefele, Encyclopædie der
Katholischen Theologie, s.v. Origenes. | This act was destined to exercise a
baneful influence upon his subsequent career in the Church.
During the episcopate of Zephyrinus
(201–218) Origen visited Rome,1876
| 1876 [Where he met with
Hippolytus, and heard him preach, according to St. Jerome.] | and on his
return again resumed his duties in the Catechetical School,
transferring the care of the younger catechumens to his friend and
former pupil Heraclas, that he might devote himself with less
distraction to the instruction of the more advanced, and to the more
thorough investigation and exposition of Scripture. With a view
to accomplish this more successfully, it is probable that about this
time he set himself to acquire a knowledge of the Hebrew language, the
fruit of which may be seen in the fragments which remain to us of
his magnum opus, the Hexapla, and as many
among the more cultured heathens, attracted by his reputation, seem to
have attended his lectures, he felt it necessary to make himself more
extensively acquainted with the doctrines of the Grecian schools, that
he might meet his opponents upon their own ground, and for this purpose
he attended the prelections of Ammonius Saccas, at that time in high
repute at Alexandria as an expounder of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, of
which school he has generally been considered the founder. The
influence which the study of philosophical speculations exerted upon
the mind of Origen may be traced in the whole course of his after
development, and proved the fruitful source of many of those errors
which were afterwards laid to his charge, and the controversies arising
out of which disturbed the peace of the Church during the two following
centuries. As was to be expected, the fame of the great
Alexandrine teacher was not confined to his native city, but spread far
and wide; and an evidence of this was the request made by the Roman
governor of the province of Arabia to Demetrius and to the prefect of
Egypt, that they would send Origen to him that he might hold an
interview with one whose reputation was so great. We have no
details of this visit, for all that Eusebius relates is that,
“having accomplished the objects of his journey, he again
returned to Alexandria.”1877
| 1877 Euseb., Hist.
Eccles., b. vi. c. 19, § 16. | It was in the
year 216 that the Emperor Caracalla visited Alexandria, and directed a
bloody persecution against its inhabitants, especially the literary
members of the community, in revenge for the sarcastic verses which had
been composed against him for the murder of his brother Geta, a crime
which he had perpetrated under circumstances of the basest treachery
and cruelty.
Origen occupied too prominent a position in the
literary Society of the city to be able to remain with safety, and
therefore withdrew to Palestine to his friend Bishop Alexander of
Jerusalem, and afterwards to Cæsarea, where he received an
honourable welcome from Bishop Theoctistus. This step proved the
beginning of his after troubles. These two men, filled with
becoming admiration for the most learned teacher in the Church,
requested him to expound the Scriptures in their presence in a public
assembly of the Christians. Origen, although still a layman, and
without any sacerdotal dignity in the Church, complied with the
request. When this proceeding reached the ears of Demetrius, he
was filled with the utmost indignation. “Such an act was
never either heard or done before, that laymen should deliver
discourses in the presence of the bishops,”1878
| 1878 Ibid., b. vi.
c. 19. | was his indignant remonstrance to the two
offending bishops, and Origen received a command to return immediately
to Alexandria. He obeyed, and for some years appears to have
devoted himself solely to his studies in his usual spirit of
self-abnegation.
It was probably during this period that the
commencement of his friendship with Ambrosius is to be dated.
Little is known of this individual. Eusebius1879
| 1879 Ibid., b. vi.
c. 18. | states that he had formerly been
an adherent of the
Valentinian heresy, but had been converted by the arguments and
eloquence of Origen to the orthodox faith of the Church. They
became intimate friends; and as Ambrose seems to have been possessed of
large means, and entertained an unbounded admiration of the learning
and abilities of his friend, it was his delight to bear the expenses
attending the transcription and publication of the many works which he
persuaded him to give to the world. He furnished him “with
more than seven amanuenses, who relieved each other at stated times,
and with an equal number of transcribers, along with young girls who
had been practiced in calligraphy,”1880
| 1880 Euseb., Hist.
Eccles., b. vi. c. 23. | to
make fair copies for publication of the works dictated by Origen.
The literary activity of these years must have been prodigious, and
probably they were among the happiest which Origen ever enjoyed.
Engaged in his favourite studies, surrounded by many friends, adding
yearly to his own stores of learning, and enriching the literature of
the Church with treatises of the highest value in the department of
sacred criticism and exegesis, it is difficult to conceive a condition
of things more congenial to the mind of a true scholar. Only one
incident of any importance seems to have taken place during these
peaceful years,—his visit to Julia Mammæa, the pious mother
of Alexander Severus. This noble lady had heard of the fame of
Origen, and invited him to visit her at Antioch, sending a military
escort to conduct him from Alexandria to the Syrian capital. He
remained with her some time, “exhibiting innumerable
illustrations of the glory of the Lord, and of the excellence of divine
instruction, and then hastened back to his accustomed
studies.”1881
| 1881 Euseb., Hist.
Eccles., b. vi. c. 21: παρ᾽ ᾗ
χρόνον
διατρίψας
πλεῖστά τε
ὃσα εἰς τὴν
τοῦ Κυρίου
δόξαν καὶ τῆς
τοῦ θείου
διδασκαλείου
ἀρετῆς
ἐπιδειξάμενος,
ἐπὶ τὰς
συνήθεις
ἔσπευδε
διατριβάς. |
These happy years, however, were soon to
end. Origen was called to Greece, probably about the year
228,1882
| 1882 Cf. Hefele,
Encyclopædie, etc., s.v. Origenes. | upon what Eusebius vaguely calls “the
pressing need of ecclesiastical affairs.”1883
| 1883 ᾽Επειγούσης
χρείας
ἐκκλησιαστικῶν
ἕνεκα
πραγμάτων. | But, this has generally been
understood1884
| 1884 Cf. Redepenning, vol.
i. p. 406, etc. | to refer to the
prevalence of heretical views in the Church there, for the eradication
of which the assistance of Origen was invoked. Before entering on
this journey, he obtained letters of recommendation from his
bishop.1885
He passed
through Palestine on his way to Greece, and at Cæsarea received at
the hands of his friends Alexander and Theoctistus ordination to the
office of presbyter,—an honour which proved to him afterwards the
source of much persecution and annoyance. No doubt the motives of
his friends were of the highest kind, and among them may have been the
desire to take away the ground of objection formerly raised by
Demetrius against the public preaching of a mere layman in the presence
of a bishop. But they little dreamed of the storm which this act
of theirs was to raise, and of the consequences which it was to bring
upon the head of him whom they had sought to honour. After
completing his journey through Greece, Origen returned to Alexandria
about the year 230. He there found his bishop greatly incensed
against him for what had taken place at Cæsarea. Nor did his
anger expend itself in mere objurgations and rebukes. In the year
231 a synod was summoned by Demetrius, composed of Egyptian bishops and
Alexandrian presbyters, who declared Origen unworthy to hold the office
of teacher, and excommunicated him from the fellowship of the Church of
Alexandria. Even this did not satisfy the vindictive feeling of
Demetrius. He summoned a second synod, in which the bishops alone
were permitted to vote, and by their suffrages Origen was degraded from
the office of presbyter, and intimation of this sentence was ordered to
be made by encyclical letter to the various Churches. The
validity of the sentence was recognised by all of them, with the
exception of those in Palestine, Phœnicia, Arabia, and Achaia; a
remarkable proof of the position of influence which was at that time
held by the Church of Alexandria. Origen appears to have quitted
the city before the bursting of the storm, and betook himself to
Cæsarea, which henceforth became his home, and the seat of his
labours for a period of nearly a quarter of a century. The
motives which impelled Demetrius to this treatment of Origen have been variously
stated and variously criticized. Eusebius1886
| 1886 Hist. Eccles.,
b. vi. c. 22. and c. 33. |
refers his readers for a full account of all the matters involved to
the treatise which he and Pamphilus composed in his defence; but this
work has not come down to us,1887
| 1887 With the exception of
the first book; cf. Migne, vol. ix. pp. 542–632. | although we possess
a brief notice of it in the Bibliotheca of Photius,1888
| 1888 Cf. Photii
Bibliotheca, ed. Hoeschel, p. 298. | from which we derive our knowledge of the
proceedings of the two synods. There seems little reason to doubt
that jealousy of interference on the part of the bishops of another
diocese was one main cause of the resentment displayed by Demetrius;
while it is also possible that another alleged cause, the heterodox
character of some of Origen’s opinions, as made known in his
already published works, among which were his Stromata
and De Principiis,1889
| 1889 Eusebius expressly
mentions that both these works, among others, were published before he
left Alexandria.—Hist. Eccles., b. vi. c. 24. | may have
produced some effect upon the minds of the hostile bishops.
Hefele1890
asserts that the
act of the Palestinian bishops was contrary to the Church law of the
time, and that Demetrius was justified on that ground for his procedure
against him. But it may well be doubted whether there was any
generally understood law or practice existing at so early a period of
the Church’s history. If so, it is difficult to understand
how it should have been unknown to the Palestinian bishops; or, on the
supposition of any such existing law or usage, it is equally difficult
to conceive that either they themselves or Origen should have agreed to
disregard it, knowing as they did the jealous temper of Demetrius,
displayed on the occasion of Origen’s preaching at Cæsarea
already referred to. This had drawn from the Alexandrine bishop
an indignant remonstrance, in which he had asserted that such an act
was “quite unheard of before;”1891
| 1891 Hist. Eccles.,
b. vi. c. 19. |
but, to this statement the Cæsarean bishops replied in a letter,
in which they enumerated several instances of laymen who had addressed
the congregation.1892
The
probabilities, therefore, are in favour of there being no generally
understood law or practice on the subject, and that the procedure,
therefore, was dictated by hierarchical jealousy on the part of
Demetrius. According to Eusebius,1893
indeed, the act of mutilation already referred to was made a ground of
accusation against Origen; and there seems no doubt that there existed
an old canon of the Church,1894
| 1894 ὁ ἀκρωτηριάσας
ἑαυτὸν μὴ
γενέσθω
κληρικός. Cf.
Redepenning, vol. i. pp. 208, 216, 218. | based upon the
words in Deuteronomy
xxiii. 1, which
rendered one who had committed such an act ineligible for office in the
Church. But there is no trace of this act, as disqualifying
Origen for the office of presbyter, having been urged by Demetrius, so
far as can be discovered from the notices of the two synods which have
been preserved by Rufinus and Photius. And it seems extremely
probable, as Redepenning remarks,1895
| 1895 Cf. Redepenning, vol.
i. p. 409, note 2. | that if
Demetrius were acquainted with this act of Origen, as Eusebius says he
was,1896
| 1896 Hist. Eccles.,
b. vi. c. 8. | he made no public mention of it, far less
that he made it a presence for his deposition.
Demetrius did not long survive the execution of his
vengeance against his unfortunate catechist. He died about a year
afterwards, and was succeeded by Heraclas, the friend and former pupil
of Origen. It does not, however, appear that Heraclas made any
effort to have the sentence against Origen recalled, so that he might
return to the early seat of his labours. Origen devoted himself
at Cæsarea chiefly to exegetical studies upon the books of
Scripture, enjoying the countenance and friendship of the two bishops
Alexander and Theoctistus, who are said by Eusebius “to have
attended him the whole time as pupils do their master.” He
speedily raised the theological school of that city to a degree of
reputation which attracted many pupils. Among those who placed
themselves under his instructions were two young Cappadocians, who had
come to Cæsarea with other intentions, but who were so attracted
by the whole character and personality of Origen, that they immediately
became his pupils. The former of these, afterwards Gregory
Thaumaturgus, Bishop of New
Cæsarea, has left us, in the panegyric which he wrote after a
discipleship of five years, a full and admiring account of the method
of his great master.
The persecution under the Emperor Maximin obliged
Origen to take refuge in Cæsarea in Cappadocia, where he remained
in concealment about two years in the house of a Christian lady named
Juliana, who was the heiress of Symmachus, the Ebionite translator of
the Septuagint, and from whom he obtained several mss. which had belonged to Symmachus. Here, also, he
composed his Exhortation to Martyrdom, which was expressly
written for the sake of his friends Ambrosius and Protoctetus, who had
been imprisoned on account of their Christian profession, but who
recovered their freedom after the death of Maximin,—an event
which allowed Origen to return to the Palestinian Cæsarea and to
the prosecution of his labours. A visit to Athens, where he seems
to have remained some time, and to Bostra in Arabia, in order to bring
back to the true faith Bishop Beryllus, who had expressed heterodox
opinions upon the subject of the divinity of Christ, (in which attempt
he proved successful,) were the chief events of his life during the
next five years. On the outbreak of the Decian persecution,
however, in 249, he was imprisoned at Tyre, to which city he had gone
from Cæsarea for some unknown reason, and was made to suffer great
cruelties by his persecutors. The effect of these upon a frame
worn out by ascetic labours may be easily conceived. Although he
survived his imprisonment, his body was so weakened by his sufferings,
that he died at Tyre in 254, in the seventieth year of his
age.
The character of Origen is singularly pure and noble;
for his moral qualities are as remarkable as his intellectual
gifts. The history of the Church records the names of few whose
patience and meekness under unmerited suffering were more conspicuous
than his. How very differently would Jerome have acted under
circumstances like those which led to Origen’s banishment from
Alexandria! And what a favourable contrast is presented by the
self-denying asceticism of his whole life, to the sins which stained
the early years of Augustine, prior to his conversion! The
impression which his whole personality made upon those who came within
the sphere of his influence is evidenced in a remarkable degree by the
admiring affection displayed towards him by his friend Ambrose and his
pupil Gregory. Nor was it friends alone that he so
impressed. To him belongs the rare honour of convincing heretics
of their errors, and of leading them back to the Church; a result which
must have been due as much to the gentleness and earnestness of his
Christian character, as to the prodigious learning, marvellous
acuteness, and logical power, which entitle him to be regarded as the
greatest of the Fathers. It is singular, indeed, that a charge of
heresy should have been brought, not only after his death, but even
during his life, against one who rendered such eminent services to the
cause of orthodox Christianity. But this charge must be
considered in reference to the times when he lived and wrote. No
General Council had yet been held to settle authoritatively the
doctrine of the Church upon any of those great questions, the
discussion of which convulsed the Christian world during the two
following centuries; and in these circumstances greater latitude was
naturally permissible than would have been justifiable at a later
period. Moreover, a mind so speculative as that of Origen, and so
engrossed with the deepest and most difficult problems of human
thought, must sometimes have expressed itself in a way liable to be
misunderstood. But no doubt the chief cause of his being regarded
as a heretic is to be found in the haste with which he allowed many of
his writings to be published. Had he considered more carefully
what he intended to bring before the public eye, less occasion would
have been furnished to objectors, and the memory of one of the greatest
scholars and most devoted Christians that the world has ever seen would
have been freed, to a great extent at least, from the reproach of
heresy.
Origen was a very voluminous author. Jerome
says that he wrote more than any individual could read; and
Epiphanius1897
relates that his
writings amounted to 6,000 volumes, by which statement we are probably
to understand that every individual treatise, large or small, including
each of the numerous homilies, was counted as a separate volume.
The admiration entertained for him by his friend Ambrosius, and the
readiness with which the latter bore all the expenses of transcription
and publication, led Origen to give to the world much which otherwise
would never have seen the light.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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