THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA - ORIGEN - Orthodox eBooks

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POPE SHENOUDA III
COPTIC THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
LECTURES IN PATROLOGY
THE
SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA
Book two
ORIGEN
Preparatory edition
1995
FR. TADROS Y. MALATY
St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church
427 West Side Ave.
Jersey City, NJ 07304
English text is revised by
ROSE MARY HALIM
Reverend Father Tadros Y. Malaty has kindly permitted that his books be published in the
COeRL. He has requested that we convey that any suggestions or amendments regarding
their translation are welcome, and should be forwarded to:
[email protected]
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Origen
THE DEANS
OF THE
SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA

3
ORIGEN
6
His Life
1

HIS LIFE

St. Didymus the Blind, the head of the School of Alexan-
dria in the latter half of the fourth century, described Origen as
“the greatest teacher in the Church after the Apostles1.”
J. Quasten states, "The School of Alexandria reached its
greatest importance under St. Clement’s successor, Origen, the
outstanding teacher and scholar of the early church,...a man of en-
cyclopedic learning, and one of the most original thinkers the
world has ever seen2."
G.L. Prestige says, “He (Origen) was one of the greatest
teachers ever known in Christendom... He was the founder of bib-
lical science, and, though not absolutely the first great biblical
commentator, he first developed the principles of exposition to be
followed and applied the technique of methodical explanation on
the widest possible scale. He inaugurated the systematic treatment
of theology, by writing a book about God, the world, and religion
in their several relations. He finally completed and established the
principle that Christianity is an intelligent religion, by bringing the
strength and vigor of Greek philosophical insight to clarify the He-
brew religious institution and Christian spiritual history3.”
Jean Daniélou says, “Origen and St. Augustine were the two
greatest geniuses of the early church. Origen’s writings can be said to
mark a decisive period in all fields of Christian thought. His research
into the history of the different versions of the Scriptures and his
commentaries on the literal and spiritual senses of the Old and New
Testaments make him the founder of the scientific study of the Bible.
He worked out the first of the great theological syntheses and was the

1 G.L. Prestige: Fathers and Heretics, S.P.C.K., 1968, p. 52.
2 Quasten: Patrology, vol. 2, p.37.
3 G.L. Prestige: Fathers and Heretics, S.P.C.K., 1968, p .43.
7
Origen
first to try and give a methodical explanation of the mysteries of
Christianity. He was the first, too, to describe the route followed by
the soul on her way back to God. He is thus the founder of the
theology of spiritual life, and it may be questioned whether he is not
to some extent the ancestor of the great monastic movement of the
fourth century4.”
Hans Urs Von Balthasar says, "In the Eastern Church his
mysticism of ascent to God remained immensely powerful through
medieval and modern times, more powerful than the mysticism of
"dazzling darkness" of the Pseudo-Areopagite (whose dominant
influence was in the West). In the Western Church both Jerome
and Ambrose unhesitatingly copied his work and thus bequeathed
it to posterity... His work is aglow with the fire of a Christian crea-
tivity that in the greatest of his successors burned merely with a
borrowed flame5."
Robert Payne says, “This eunuch was the first great doctor,
the founder of scientific Biblical scholarship. He would use reason
and make reason itself the servant of Christ. He would batter down
the walls of Heaven by the main force of logic alone... And though
he was never officially granted the title of Doctor of the Church, he
was the greatest doctor of them all6.”
B.F. Westcott says that though countless doctors, priests,
and confessors proceed from his school, he was himself accused of
heresy and convicted; though he was the friend and teacher of
saints, his salvation was questioned and denied7.
G.W. Barkley says, “There can be no doubt that one of the
most influential of the early church fathers was Origen of Alexan-
dria8.”

4 Jean Daniélou: Origen, N.Y., 1955, p. VII..
5 Rowan A. Greer: Origen, Paulist Press, 1979, page xi.
6 Robert Payne: Fathers Of The Eastern Church, Dorset Press, New York, 1985, P. 43-44.
7 Brooke Fross Westcott: An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, NY 1896, p. 429.
8 Gary Wayne Barkley: Origen; Homilies on Leviticus, Washington, 1990, p. 4.
8
His Life
The interpretation of Origen was a problem to earlier ages.
Scholarius, the first patriarch of Constantinople under the Turks,
made his own synthesis. The western writers say, "Where Origen
was good, no one is better, where he was bad, no one is worse9."
The Coptic Church was compelled to excommunicate him
because of some false ideas that he believed in, like the salvation
of the devil, and the universal salvation of all the human race, be-
sides his acceptance of priesthood from others than his bishop and
after making himself eunuch. Other churches excommunicated
him, his followers, and their writings after his death in the Council
of Constantinople in 553 A.D.
Eric Osborn states that the middle third of this century saw
some very good books on Origen. He mentions the work of Danié-
lou saying,
The work of Daniélou 10 was comprehensive by conviction
and foreshadowed an end to disagreement. Origen was not either a
philosopher or an exegete or a systematic, or a sacramentalist, or a
mystic; he was all of them at once. The mistake which his inter-
preters had made was to isolate one element of his “vision totale
du monde11“. He was a man of the church, although the church
formed no part of his theology. For him, Christianity was not first
a doctrine but a divine force, active in history through its martyrs,
saints and community12. While Celsus regarded the vision of God
as accessible but difficult, Origen thought it was inaccessible and
easy13. His hermeneutic, like everything else was complex, and the
different strands had to be distinguished14.

9 Eric Osborn: The Twentieth Century Quarrel and Its Recovery, p.3, 2 (Colloquium Origenianum
Quintum, Boston College, August 14-18, 1989).
10 J. Daniélou: Origéne, Paris 1948.
11 Ibid 8.
12 Ibid 134.
13 Ibid 114
14 Ibid 198; (COQ,, p. 2.)
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Origen
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT ORI-
GEN15
1. The farewell speech made by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus,
the apostle of Cappadocia and Pontus, indicates and reveals their
relationship with Origen and his influence on them. This speech
has come down to us entire in its original language, Greek. While
the whole document tells us of the relation of Origen with his stu-
dents and the moving affection felt for him by St. Gregory, the sec-
ond part of it describes precisely the curriculum followed by the
master.
2. The “Church History” (Eccl. Hist.), book 6, of Eusebius,
who succeeded him at the school at Caesarea. He says, “The little I
have to say about him I will put together from letters and from in-
formation supplied by those of his friends who are still alive16.”
His main source of information was Origen's voluminous
correspondence, which he gathered into volumes and kept in the
library at Caesarea.
3. Pamphilus, a predecessor of Eusebius of Caesarea started
to collect material relating to Origen and at the same time to put
his library in order. He lived in Caesarea shortly after the death of
Origen, but it is not known whether he had known Origen person-
ally or not. Of the Apology for Origen that Pamphilus had com-
posed in prison with the help of Eusebius we only have Book I in a
Latin translation of Rufinus of Aquileia: the preface of this book,
addressed by Pamphilus to the Christians who were condemned to
labor in the mines of Palestine, contains precious hints on what
Origen meant and how he should be understood17.
Besides these sources we are informed about the contents
of the rest of the work in chapter 118 of the Bibliotheca of Photius.
Other scattered items are reproduced by various authors, St.
Jerome, the historian Socrates, Photius and others: many seem to

15 Jean Daniélou: Origen, Sheed and Woard, N.Y., 1955, Part 1, Chapter 1.
16 Hist. Eccles. 6:2:1.
17 Henri Crouzel: Origen, Harper & Row, 1989, p. 1.
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