131 Facts About Origen

Origen of Alexandria, known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria.

Origen was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality.

Origen was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism.

Origen has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".

Origen sought martyrdom with his father at a young age but was prevented from turning himself in to the authorities by his mother.

When he was eighteen years old, Origen became a catechist at the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

Origen devoted himself to his studies and adopted an ascetic lifestyle.

Origen came into conflict with Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, in 231 after he was ordained as a presbyter by his friend, the bishop of Caesarea, while on a journey to Athens through Palestine.

Origen founded the Christian School of Caesarea, where he taught logic, cosmology, natural history, and theology, and became regarded by the churches of Palestine and Arabia as the ultimate authority on all matters of theology.

Origen was tortured for his faith during the Decian persecution in 250 and died three to four years later from his injuries.

Origen was able to produce a massive quantity of writings because of the patronage of his close friend Ambrose of Alexandria, who provided him with a team of secretaries to copy his works, making him one of the most prolific writers in all of antiquity.

Origen authored Contra Celsum, the most influential work of early Christian apologetics, in which he defended Christianity against the pagan philosopher Celsus, one of its foremost early critics.

Origen produced the Hexapla, the first critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, which contained the original Hebrew text as well as four different Greek translations of it, and one Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, all written in columns, side by side.

Origen wrote hundreds of homilies covering almost the entire Bible, interpreting many passages as allegorical.

Origen taught that, before the creation of the material universe, God had created the souls of all the intelligent beings.

Origen was the first to propose the ransom theory of atonement in its fully developed form, and he significantly contributed to the development of the concept of the Trinity.

Origen hoped that all people might eventually attain salvation, but was always careful to maintain that this was only speculation.

Origen is considered by some Christian groups to be a Church Father.

Origen is widely regarded as one of the most influential Christian theologians.

Origen's teachings were especially influential in the east, with Athanasius of Alexandria and the three Cappadocian Fathers being among his most devoted followers.

Anxious for more material about his hero, Eusebius recorded events based only on unreliable hearsay evidence, and frequently made speculative inferences about Origen based on the sources he had available.

Origen was born in either 185 or 186 AD in Alexandria.

Joseph Wilson Trigg deems the details of this report unreliable, but admits that Origen's father was certainly at least "a prosperous and thoroughly Hellenized bourgeois".

Origen's father taught him about literature and philosophy, and about the Bible and Christian doctrine.

Eusebius states that Origen's father made him memorize passages of scripture daily.

Eusebius reports that Origen became so learned about the holy scriptures at an early age that his father was unable to answer his questions.

In 202, when Origen was "not yet seventeen", the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus ordered Roman citizens who openly practised Christianity to be executed.

Eusebius reports that Origen wanted to turn himself in to the authorities so that they would execute him as well, but his mother hid all his clothes and he was unable to go to the authorities since he refused to leave the house naked.

Origen's father was beheaded, and the state confiscated the family's entire property, leaving them impoverished.

Origen was the eldest of nine children, and as his father's heir, it became his responsibility to provide for the whole family.

When he was eighteen years old, Origen was appointed as a catechist at the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

Many scholars have assumed that Origen became the head of the school, but according to McGuckin, this is highly improbable and it is more likely that he was simply given a paid teaching position, perhaps as a "relief effort" for his destitute family.

Origen spent the whole day teaching and would stay up late at night writing treatises and commentaries.

Origen did not drink alcohol and ate a simple diet and he often fasted for long periods.

Eusebius goes to great lengths to insist that, although Origen studied while in her home, he never once "prayed in common" with her or the Gnostic theologian.

Later, Origen succeeded in converting a wealthy man named Ambrose from Valentinian Gnosticism to orthodox Christianity.

Sometime when he was in his early twenties, Origen sold the small library of Greek literary works which he had inherited from his father for a sum which netted him a daily income of four obols.

Origen used this money to continue his study of the Bible and of philosophy.

Origen studied at numerous schools throughout Alexandria, including the Platonic Academy of Alexandria, where he was a student of Ammonius Saccas.

Eusebius claims that Origen studied under Clement of Alexandria, but according to McGuckin, this is almost certainly a retrospective assumption based on the similarity of their teachings.

Eusebius claims that, as a young man, following a literal reading of Matthew 19:12, in which Jesus is presented as saying "there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven", Origen either castrated himself or had someone else castrate him in order to ensure his reputation as a respectable tutor to young men and women.

Eusebius further alleges that Origen privately told Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, about the castration and that Demetrius initially praised him for his devotion to God on account of it.

Origen gave his job as a catechist to his younger colleague Heraclas.

Meanwhile, Origen began to style himself as a "master of philosophy".

Meanwhile, Origen began composing his massive theological treatise On the First Principles, a landmark book which systematically laid out the foundations of Christian theology for centuries to come.

Origen began travelling abroad to visit schools across the Mediterranean.

In Rome, Origen attended lectures by Hippolytus of Rome and was influenced by his logos theology.

In 213 or 214 the governor of Arabia sent a message to the prefect of Egypt requesting him to send Origen to meet with him so that he could interview him and learn more about Christianity from its leading intellectual.

Origen, escorted by official bodyguards, spent a short time in Arabia with the governor before returning to Alexandria.

Origen commanded them to expel all the teachers and intellectuals from the city.

Origen fled Alexandria and traveled to the city of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Palestine, where the bishops Theoctistus of Caesarea and Alexander of Jerusalem became his devoted admirers and asked him to deliver discourses on the scriptures in their respective churches.

Origen issued a decree chastising the Palestinians for allowing a person who was not ordained to preach.

Origen obeyed Demetrius's order and returned to Alexandria, bringing with him an antique scroll he had purchased at Jericho containing the full text of the Hebrew Bible.

Origen studied the Old Testament in great depth; Eusebius even claims that Origen learned Hebrew.

Origen studied the entire New Testament, but especially the epistles of the apostle Paul and the Gospel of John, the writings which Origen regarded as the most important and authoritative.

Origen repeatedly asked Demetrius to ordain him as a priest, but Demetrius continually refused.

Along the way, Origen stopped in Caesarea, where he was warmly greeted by the bishops Theoctistus of Caesarea and Alexander of Jerusalem, who had become his close friends during his previous stay.

Eusebius reports that as a result of Demetrius's condemnations, Origen decided not to return to Alexandria and instead to take up permanent residence in Caesarea.

John Anthony McGuckin argues that Origen had probably already been planning to stay in Caesarea.

Demetrius alleged that Origen had taught an extreme form of apokatastasis, which held that all beings, including even Satan himself, would eventually attain salvation.

Origen had responded by arguing that, if the Devil is destined for eternal damnation, it was on account of his actions, which were the result of his own free will.

Therefore, Origen had declared that Satan was only morally reprobate, not absolutely reprobate.

The accusations against Origen faded with the death of Demetrius, but they did not disappear entirely and they continued to haunt him for the rest of his career.

Origen defended himself in his Letter to Friends in Alexandria, in which he vehemently denied that he had ever taught that the Devil would attain salvation and insisted that the very notion of the Devil attaining salvation was simply ludicrous.

Origen started his curriculum by teaching his students classical Socratic reasoning.

Porphyry recounts that Origen had extensively studied the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, but those of important Middle Platonists, Neopythagoreans, and Stoics, including Numenius of Apamea, Chronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus of Gades, Nicomachus, Chaeremon, and Cornutus.

Nonetheless, Porphyry accused Origen of having betrayed true philosophy by subjugating its insights to the exegesis of the Christian scriptures.

In 235, approximately three years after Origen began teaching in Caesarea, Alexander Severus, who had been tolerant towards Christians, was murdered and Emperor Maximinus Thrax instigated a purge of all those who had supported his predecessor.

Origen's pogroms targeted Christian leaders and, in Rome, Pope Pontianus and Hippolytus of Rome were both sent into exile.

Origen knew that he was in danger and went into hiding in the home of a faithful Christian woman named Juliana the Virgin, who had been a student of the Ebionite leader Symmachus.

Origen preached regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and later daily.

Sometime between 238 and 244, Origen visited Athens, where he completed his Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel and began writing his Commentary on the Song of Songs.

Origen engaged Beryllus in a public disputation, which went so successfully that Beryllus promised only to teach Origen's theology from then on.

Origen refuted these teachings, arguing that the soul is immortal and can never die.

Eusebius recounts how Origen suffered "bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks".

The governor of Caesarea gave very specific orders that Origen was not to be killed until he had publicly renounced his faith in Christ.

Nonetheless, Origen's health was broken by the physical tortures enacted on him, and he died less than a year later at the age of sixty-nine.

Origen was the first Christian scholar to introduce critical markers to a Biblical text.

Origen marked the Septuagint column of the Hexapla using signs adapted from those used by the textual critics of the Great Library of Alexandria: a passage found in the Septuagint that was not found in the Hebrew text would be marked with an asterisk and a passage that was found in other Greek translations, but not in the Septuagint, would be marked with an obelus.

For some sections of the Hexapla, Origen included additional columns containing other Greek translations; for the Book of Psalms, he included no less than eight Greek translations, making this section known as Enneapla.

Origen produced the Tetrapla, a smaller, abridged version of the Hexapla containing only the four Greek translations and not the original Hebrew text.

Nautin has argued that they were all preached in a three-year liturgical cycle some time between 238 and 244, preceding the Commentary on the Song of Songs, where Origen refers to homilies on Judges, Exodus, Numbers, and a work on Leviticus.

Origen is the main source of information on the use of the texts that were later officially canonized as the New Testament.

Origen accepted the authenticity of the epistles of 1 John, 1 Peter, and Jude without question and accepted the Epistle of James as authentic with only slight hesitation.

Origen refers to 2 John, 3 John, and 2 Peter but notes that all three were suspected to be forgeries.

Origen's commentaries written on specific books of scripture are much more focused on systematic exegesis than his homilies.

The historian Socrates Scholasticus records that Origen had included an extensive discussion of the application of the title theotokos to the Virgin Mary in his commentary, but this discussion is not found in Rufinus's translation, probably because Rufinus did not approve of Origen's position on the matter, whatever that might have been.

Origen composed a Commentary on the Song of Songs, in which he took explicit care to explain why the Song of Songs was relevant to a Christian audience.

Citations in Origen's Philokalia include fragments of the third book of the commentary on Genesis.

Origen composed it as a young man between 220 and 230 while he was still living in Alexandria.

Origen initially wanted to ignore Celsus and let his attacks fade, but one of Celsus's major claims, which held that no self-respecting philosopher of the Platonic tradition would ever be so stupid as to become a Christian, provoked him to write a rebuttal.

Origen responds to Celsus's accusation that Jesus had performed his miracles using magic rather than divine powers by asserting that, unlike magicians, Jesus had not performed his miracles for show, but rather to reform his audiences.

Contra Celsum became the most influential of all early Christian apologetics works; before it was written, Christianity was seen by many as merely a folk religion for the illiterate and uneducated, but Origen raised it to a level of academic respectability.

Between 232 and 235, while in Caesarea in Palestine, Origen wrote On Prayer, of which the full text has been preserved in the original Greek.

Origen envisioned Jesus' human nature as the one soul that stayed closest to God and remained perfectly faithful to Him, even when all other souls fell away.

Origen was the first to propose the ransom theory of atonement in its fully developed form, although Irenaeus had previously proposed a prototypical form of it.

In recent years it has been questioned whether Origen believed this, being in reality a belief of his disciples and a misrepresentation of Justinian, Epiphanius and others.

Geddes MacGregor has argued that Origen must have believed in metempsychosis because it makes sense within his eschatology and is never explicitly denied in the Bible.

Roger E Olson dismisses the view that Origen believed in reincarnation as a New Age misunderstanding of Origen's teachings.

Origen is often believed to be a Universalist, who suggested that all people might eventually attain salvation, but only after being purged of their sins through "divine fire".

Origen was careful to maintain that universal salvation was merely a possibility and not a definitive doctrine.

Origen was an ardent believer in free will, and he adamantly rejected the Valentinian idea of election.

Furthermore, in his interpretation of the story of Jacob and Esau, Origen argues that the condition into which a person is born is actually dependent upon what their souls did in this pre-existent state.

Origen defends free will in his interpretations of instances of divine foreknowledge in the scriptures, arguing that Jesus's knowledge of Judas's future betrayal in the gospels and God's knowledge of Israel's future disobedience in the Deuteronomistic history only show that God knew these events would happen in advance.

Origen therefore concludes that the individuals involved in these incidents still made their decisions out of their own free will.

Origen was an ardent pacifist, and in his Against Celsus, he argued that Christianity's inherent pacifism was one of the most outwardly noticeable aspects of the religion.

Origen accepted that it was sometimes necessary for a non-Christian state to wage wars but insisted that it was impossible for a Christian to fight in such a war without compromising his or her faith, since Christ had absolutely forbidden violence of any kind.

Origen maintained that, if everyone were peaceful and loving like Christians, then there would be no wars and the Empire would not need a military.

Origen saw the scriptures as divinely inspired and was cautious never to contradict his own interpretation of what was written in them.

Nonetheless, Origen did have a penchant for speculating beyond what was explicitly stated in the Bible, and this habit frequently placed him in the hazy realm between strict orthodoxy and heresy.

Origen further taught that there were three different ways in which passages of scripture could be interpreted.

Origen saw the "spiritual" interpretation as the deepest and most important meaning of the text and taught that some passages held no literal meaning at all and that their meanings were purely allegorical.

Origen noticed that the accounts of Jesus's life in the four canonical gospels contain irreconcilable contradictions, but he argued that these contradictions did not undermine the spiritual meanings of the passages in question.

Origen significantly contributed to the development of the idea of the Trinity.

Origen declared the Holy Spirit to be a part of the Godhead and interpreted the Parable of the Lost Coin to mean that the Holy Spirit dwells within each and every person and that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was necessary for any kind of speech dealing with God.

Origen taught that the activity of all three parts of the Trinity was necessary for a person to attain salvation.

In one fragment preserved by Rufinus in his Latin translation of Pamphilus's Defense of Origen, Origen seems to apply the phrase homoousios to the relationship between the Father and the Son.

In other passages, Origen rejected the belief that the Son and the Father were one hypostasis as heretical.

Nonetheless, Origen was a subordinationist, meaning he believed that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son was superior to the Holy Spirit, a model based on Platonic proportions.

Jerome records that Origen had written that God the Father is invisible to all beings, including even the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that the Son is invisible to the Holy Spirit as well.

Origen is often seen as the first major Christian theologian.

For centuries after his death, Origen was regarded as the bastion of orthodoxy, and his philosophy practically defined Eastern Christianity.

Origen was revered as one of the greatest of all Christian teachers; he was especially beloved by monks, who saw themselves as continuing in Origen's ascetic legacy.

Tyrannius Rufinus, a priest at the monastery on the Mount of Olives who had been ordained by John of Jerusalem and was a longtime admirer of Origen, rejected the petition outright.

Rufinus's close friend and associate Jerome, who had studied Origen came to agree with the petition.

Origen successfully persuaded Jerome to break communion with John and ordained Jerome's brother Paulinianus as a priest in defiance of John's authority.

Origen continued to be revered as the founder of Biblical exegesis, and anyone in the first millennium who took the interpretation of the scriptures seriously would have had knowledge of Origen's teachings.

Jerome's Latin translations of Origen's homilies were widely read in western Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and Origen's teachings greatly influenced those of the Byzantine monk Maximus the Confessor and the Irish theologian John Scotus Eriugena.

Since the Renaissance, the debate over Origen's orthodoxy has continued to rage.

Origen concludes the sermon by inviting his audience to "welcome into your hearts the teaching of this great master of the faith".

Origen is often noted for being one of the few Church Fathers who is not generally regarded as a saint.