The relation between Books 1-3 and Book 4 of Origen’s Peri Archon has largely been left unspecified or denied. This is due to the apparent incongruence between the metaphysical discussions of the former section and the hermeneutical remarks of the latter. I argue that Origen’s threefold distinction of Scripture in Princ 4.2.4 draws upon key metaphysical conclusions of the earlier sections to depict the metaphysical structure of inspired Scripture as analogous to the Incarnation, and that this insight constitutes Origen’s fundamental polemic against scriptural literalism, the common error of the two primary adversaries of the work (the “simple” of the Church and the Marcionites). Peri Archon is thus unified around the polemical purpose of defending Origen’s allegorical exegesis.
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English translation: G.W. Butterworth, Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), unless otherwise noted. Critical edition: Herwig Görgemanns and Heinrich Karpp, Origenes Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien. Texte zur Forschung 24 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992), hereafter gk.
Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977) 369-70, 423-5; Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Scholarship in Service of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 87.
Karen Jo Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Method in Origen’s Exegesis (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986) 40-3, and Elizabeth Ann Dively Lauro, The Soul and Spirit of Scripture within Origen’s Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2005) 40-7 interpret Princ 4.2.4 in primarily pedagogical and soteriological terms, i.e. in terms of the final (and efficient) causes of Scripture. My reading does not contradict the observation that, for Origen, Scripture’s nature is determined by its role in the incarnational economy of salvation, but wishes to emphasize how that nature serves ongoing polemical concerns in Peri Archon.
Steidle 238; Kübel 36; Harl, “Structure,” 18-19; Kannengieser, “Divine Trinity,” 235.
Gedaliahu Stroumsa, “The Incorporeality of God: Context and Implications of Origen’s Position,” Religion 13 (1983): 346.
Gunnar af Hällström, Fides Simpliciorum According to Origen of Alexandria (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1984) 8. Literalism was such a constitutive feature of simple faith that “A simplicior who is not also a literalist would obviously not be a simplicior at all” (57).
Stroumsa 346, cf. Clement of Alexandria, Strom 5.16. I do not follow the view (Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 259, 276, 292; Stroumsa 346) that Origen has only “Stoic Christians” in mind and not the simpliciores, especially because Origen himself never makes this kind of distinction; see also Monique Alexandre, “Le statut des questions concernant la matière dans le Peri Archôn,” in Origeniana, 68-9. The label “simple” has more to do with spiritual, not strictly educational, assessment; cf. Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007 [1950]) 94. On Melito, see Paulsen 111-113.
Peter W. Martens, Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 138-48, and esp. idem, “Why Does Origen Accuse the Jews of ‘Literalism’? A Case Study of Christian Identity and Biblical Exegesis in Antiquity,” Adamantius 13 (2007): 218-30.
August Zöllig, Die Inspirationslehre des Origenes: Ein Beitrag zur Dogmengeschichte (Freiburg: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1902) 100-114; Eugène de Faye, Origen and His Work (trans. Fred Roghtwell; London: Allen & Unwin, 1926) 38-42; Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit, 159-71; idem, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture: Volume 1. Trans. Mark Sebanc (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998 [1959]) 142-50; R.M. Grant, The Letter and the Spirit (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957) 94-5; R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen’s Interpretation of Scripture (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1959) 235-58, esp. 243-6; M.F. Wiles, “Origen as a Biblical Scholar,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible. Eds. P.R. Ackroyd and C.F. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) 465-70; Daniélou, Origen, 161; idem, The Gospel in Hellenistic Culture. Trans. John Austin Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973) 283-8; Henri Crouzel, Origen (Trans. A.S. Worrall. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989 [1985]) 75-9.
D.G. Bostock, “Origen’s Philosophy of Creation,” in Origeniana Quintα, 254-5, drawing on Origen’s Commentary on Genesis (in a section written before Princ), notes that for Origen souls are like the cosmic “firmament” of Genesis 1, which lies between the timeless (and incorporeal?) creation above and the temporal, corporeal creation below. Cf. also Berchman, “Origen on The Categories: A Study in Later Platonic First Principles,” 231-52, who describes Origen’s metaphysics in terms of Aristotelian categories, which, while adding nuance (e.g. quality, quantity, relation, motion), does not considerably differ from my emphasis on time and space. “Space,” for instance, includes the categories of “place” and “magnitude.” Berchman does, however, further describe the gradation within the divine incorporeal nature between the Father (=substance), Son (=substance, quality, quantity, relation), and the Holy Spirit (=same as Son). But none of these include time or space (“place” and “magnitude”), which further validates focus on these properties.
Annewies van den Hoek, “The Concept of σῶμα τῶν γραφῶν in Alexandrian Theology,” Studia Patristica 19. Ed. E.A. Livingstone (Leuven, 1989) 251 notes that ancient Greek authors used σώμα to designate “body in a general sense: that is, any corporeal substance, element or even a mathematical figure,” citing Plato, Tim 31b, 32c; Philo, Migr 12, Conf 190, Dec 82.
Van den Hoek, “The Concept of σῶμα τῶν γραφῶν,” 250-4. Van den Hoek overlooks this result of her study: “This interpretive structure [i.e. body and soul of Scripture correspond to literal and hidden meanings] is passed on by Origen to later periods and goes on to play an important role in hermeneutics” (254). Yet Origen does not simply pass it on, but adds the “Spirit.”
Crouzel, Origen, 74; e.g. Princ 4.1.6, gk 688/gcs 302, 5: ἐνθουσιασμου; Princ 4.2.1, gk 694/gcs 305, 10: θεοπνεύστους. Cf. also de Lubac, History and Spirit, 338 n.8 and 344. Origen is particularly lucid in HomLev 4.1: “What is ‘the Lord’? Let the Apostle respond to you and learn from him that ‘the Lord is Spirit.’ If therefore both the Lord and God are ‘Spirit,’ we ought to hear spiritually those things which the Spirit says. Still further I say, we are to believe the things the Lord says, not only to be spiritual things, but even the Spirit. I will prove these things not with my own understanding but from the Gospels. Hear our Lord and Savior when he speaks to his disciples, ‘the words which I spoke to you are spirit and life’” (Heine 70, my emphasis).
On this parallel, cf. de Lubac, History and Spirit, 385-405; Gögler, Zur Theologie, 299-307, esp. 301: “The character of the biblical Word and the flesh of Christ are parallels in the one great incarnational economy of revelation”; Michael W. Holmes, “Origen and the Inerrancy of Scripture,” jets 24.3 (1981): 224. Typical texts include: Fr in Mt Fr 11; Comm ser 1-145 in Mt 27; Comm in Mt 10-17 10.6; Phil 15, 16. De Lubac (History and Spirit 389 [340 in original]) seems to conceive of this parallel in terms of a mere comparison: “In the letter of Scripture, the logos is not at all incarnated in the fashion, properly speaking, as it is in the humanity of Jesus” (my translation) and indeed notes (389 n.18) other Origenian comparisons, e.g. the letter as “milk” and the spirit as “solid food” (cf. Hom 1-16 in Lev 4.8). Harl, Origène et la fonction révélatrice du Verbe incarné, 142 n.13 appears to accept this view. Though de Lubac still speaks of Scripture as a kind of “incorporation of the Logos” (386), the thesis proposed in this essay goes beyond such a conception by suggesting an essential metaphysical relation (rather than a primarily metaphorical one) between the Incarnation and Scripture in Origen’s thought.
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The relation between Books 1-3 and Book 4 of Origen’s Peri Archon has largely been left unspecified or denied. This is due to the apparent incongruence between the metaphysical discussions of the former section and the hermeneutical remarks of the latter. I argue that Origen’s threefold distinction of Scripture in Princ 4.2.4 draws upon key metaphysical conclusions of the earlier sections to depict the metaphysical structure of inspired Scripture as analogous to the Incarnation, and that this insight constitutes Origen’s fundamental polemic against scriptural literalism, the common error of the two primary adversaries of the work (the “simple” of the Church and the Marcionites). Peri Archon is thus unified around the polemical purpose of defending Origen’s allegorical exegesis.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 474 | 50 | 19 |
Full Text Views | 198 | 6 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 99 | 21 | 0 |