What Shall we Say on Origen?

What Did Origen Really Say? · What Shall we Say on Origen?

The Greek and Latin versions do not seem to raise different issues. I'll take only the Greek one.

16. It was not only, however, with the (Scriptures composed) before the advent (of Christ) that the Spirit thus dealt; but as being the same Spirit, and (proceeding) from the one God, He did the same thing both with the evangelists and the apostles — as even these do not contain throughout a pure history of events, which are interwoven indeed according to the letter, but which did not actually occur. Nor even do the law and the commandments wholly convey what is agreeable to reason.

Note, his "reason" seems to be "common sense" and not modern science, as the examples will show.

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars?

Time is measured by the movement of these heavenly bodies around earth but essentially by the movement of heaven, when went on even before these bodies were created, and in which God had planted a light.

And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky?

While day-light is now shown to us by the sky, the thing is, it shone.

And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?

Here Origen goes into Platonising overemphasis on spirituality.

First, while God no doubt gave Adam a well ordered organism with soul obeying Him and getting obedience from the body to a degree we cannot imagine, and the garden could signify this, nevertheless Adam and then Eve also were bodily beings who lived in an actual place. And why should this place not mirror the dispositions of who was living there?

And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree?

Here Origen seems to deny the sacramental principle. He is, fortunately, not in this denial when discussing the Eucharist:

Origen (c. 185 - 254 A.D.)


We give thanks to the Creator of all, and, along with thanksgiving and prayer for the blessings we have received, we also eat the bread presented to us; and this bread BECOMES BY PRAYER A SACRED BODY, which sanctifies those who sincerely partake of it.(Against Celsus 8:33)

You see how the ALTARS are no longer sprinkled with the blood of oxen, but consecrated BY THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. (Homilies on Joshua 2:1)

But if that text (Lev 24:5-9) is taken to refer to the greatness of what is mystically symbolized, then there is a 'commemoration' which has an EFFECT OF GREAT PROPITIATORY VALUE. If you apply it to that 'Bread which came down from heaven and gives life to the world,' that shewbread which 'God has offered to us as a means of reconciliation, in virtue of faith, ransoming us with his blood,' and if you look to that commemoration of which the Lord says, 'Do this in commemoration of me,' then you will find that this is the unique commemoration WHICH MAKES GOD PROPITIOUS TO MEN. (Homilies on Leviticus 9)

You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received THE BODY OF THE LORD, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall, and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish….how is it that you think neglecting the word of God a lesser crime than neglecting HIS BODY? (Homilies on Exodus 13:3)

…now, however, in full view, there is the true food, THE FLESH OF THE WORD OF GOD, as He Himself says: "MY FLESH IS TRULY FOOD, AND MY BLOOD IS TRULY DRINK." (Homilies on Numbers 7:2)

Fathers of the Church on the Eucharist
by Fr. Burns K. Seeley, S.S.J.C., Ph.D.
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/fathers.htm

So, how would Origen have answered someone saying one cannot be sanctified by masticating the Host? Well, the tree of life is a pre-figuration of Christ as "the true bread", and therefore God would have provided immortality by masticating the fruit of that tree, according to some kind of sacramental arrangement made by God without any preceding prayer by the Church.

And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.

If Adam and Eve could talk to God, it is more likely, God appeared in a theophany, with similar traits as Jesus Christ had as true Man. Let's hope Origen by "in appearance" meant "through a theophany" and "not literally" meaning it was not the three persons and fulness of divinity which was limited to the place in a manner allowing it to be seen, it was a theophany. But I am afraid, he may not even have believed in a theophany.

Cain also, when going forth from the presence of God, certainly appears to thoughtful men as likely to lead the reader to inquire what is the presence of God, and what is the meaning of going out from Him.

Same observation, though t could also be a question no more of a visible outer theophany as of God speaking in the inner mind of a man, through his imagination, in which case Cain might have simply stopped being quiet to listen to what God had to say.

And what need is there to say more, since those who are not altogether blind can collect countless instances of a similar kind recorded as having occurred, but which did not literally take place?

Well, if each item, where Origen denies literal occurrence of the story, actually allows it, this would no doubt also be the case with those "countless" other ones he hints at.

Nay, the Gospels themselves are filled with the same kind of narratives; e.g., the devil leading Jesus up into a high mountain, in order to show him from thence the kingdoms of the whole world, and the glory of them. For who is there among those who do not read such accounts carelessly, that would not condemn those who think that with the eye of the body— which requires a lofty height in order that the parts lying (immediately) under and adjacent may be seen — the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and Indians, and Parthians, were beheld, and the manner in which their princes are glorified among men?

I have already given a conspectus of the Church Father responses in the previous one. Let's resume.

From the high mountain (which could be in geography or an arrangement made by angelic willpower as to the matter), the Devil could have said "there in the South you have Arabia, and a little to the right Egypt, turn to the left now, you see the direction of Edom, Moab and Ammon, then Persia, Bactria, India, the land of Seres from which the rare silk comes and a land on islands which has fairer skin but same slit eyes as the Seres, and who value warriors more, like the Romans do, beyond them is a sea wider than the mediterranian, and beyond that sea lives a people who all these peoples do not know" or he could have shown the kind of techniques he uses to dominate men into sin, or he could have used some kind of angelically arranged tele-vision to show Our Lord actual moving pictures of Beduins from ravines in Edom or of people in Persian trousers on horsebacks in Persia, which technique could also have been used to tell Our Lord of his techniques of domination. So, no impossibility. It's not the Gospel story, but the common sense objection, which actually cannot stand once you scrutinise it.

And the attentive reader may notice in the Gospels innumerable other passages like these, so that he will be convinced that in the histories that are literally recorded, circumstances that did not occur are inserted.

As with countless previously, so with innumerable here.

...All these statements have been made by us, in order to show that the design of that divine power which gave us the sacred Scriptures is, that we should not receive what is presented by the letter alone (such things being sometimes not true in their literal acceptation, but absurd and impossible), but that certain things have been introduced into the actual history and into the legislation that are useful in their literal sense.

I suspect a scribe has here altered "useless in the literal sense" to "useful" - otherwise the passage doesn't make sense. If this is so, this correction shows how "far out" Origen was in comparison to other Church Fathers (early or late).

As to "not receive what is presented by the letter alone" I'd prefer "not alone receive that which is presented by the letter" - that being obviously St. Augustine's take on it. Let's go to his view on the Deluge:

Chapter 27.— Of the Ark and the Deluge, and that We Cannot Agree with Those Who Receive the Bare History, But Reject the Allegorical Interpretation, Nor with Those Who Maintain the Figurative and Not the Historical Meaning.

Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were written for no purpose, or that we should study only the historical truth, apart from any allegorical meanings; or, on the contrary, that they are only allegories, and that there were no such facts at all, or that, whether it be so or no, there is here no prophecy of the church. For what right-minded man will contend that books so religiously preserved during thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly a succession, were written without an object, or that only the bare historical facts are to be considered when we read them? For, not to mention other instances, if the number of the animals entailed the construction of an ark of great size, where was the necessity of sending into it two unclean and seven clean animals of each species, when both could have been preserved in equal numbers? Or could not God, who ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race, restore them in the same way He had created them?

But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only figures setting forth other things, in the first place suppose that there could not be a flood so great that the water should rise fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top of Mount Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere in which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect that the densest element of all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then, do these measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth can be raised to those aerial altitudes, and that water cannot, while they admit that water is lighter, and more likely to ascend than earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower element, has for so many ages scaled to the tranquil ether, while water, the lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not suffered to do the same even for a brief space of time?

They say, too, that the area of that ark could not contain so many kinds of animals of both sexes, two of the unclean and seven of the clean. But they seem to me to reckon only one area of 300 cubits long and 50 broad, and not to remember that there was another similar in the story above, and yet another as large in the story above that again; and that there was consequently an area of 900 cubits by 150. And if we accept what Origen has with some appropriateness suggested, that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Acts 7:22 who delighted in geometry, may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say that one is equal to six of our cubits, then who does not see what a capacity these dimensions give to the ark? For as to their objection that an ark of such size could not be built, it is a very silly calumny; for they are aware that huge cities have been built, and they should remember that the ark was an hundred years in building. Or, perhaps, though stone can adhere to stone when cemented with nothing but lime, so that a wall of several miles may be constructed, yet plank cannot be riveted to plank by mortices, bolts, nails, and pitch-glue, so as to construct an ark which was not made with curved ribs but straight timbers, which was not to be launched by its builders, but to be lifted by the natural pressure of the water when it reached it, and which was to be preserved from shipwreck as it floated about rather by divine oversight than by human skill.

As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very minute creatures, not only such as mice and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there were not in the ark a larger number of them than was determined by God in His command, those persons who are moved by this difficulty are to be reminded that the words every creeping thing of the earth only indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can live in the water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the sea-birds that swim on its surface. Then, when it is said male and female, no doubt reference is made to the repairing of the races, and consequently there was no need for those creatures being in the ark which are born without the union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from their corruption; or if they were in the ark, they might be there as they commonly are in houses, not in any determinate numbers; or if it was necessary that there should be a definite number of all those animals that cannot naturally live in the water, that so the most sacred mystery which was being enacted might be bodied forth and perfectly figured in actual realities, still this was not the care of Noah or his sons, but of God. For Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the ark, but gave them entrance as they came seeking it. For this is the force of the words, They shall come unto you, Genesis 6:19-20 — not, that is to say, by man's effort, but by God's will. But certainly we are not required to believe that those which have no sex also came; for it is expressly and definitely said, They shall be male and female. For there are some animals which are born out of corruption, but yet afterwards they themselves copulate and produce offspring, as flies; but others, which have no sex, like bees. Then, as to those animals which have sex, but without ability to propagate their kind, like mules and she-mules, it is probable that they were not in the ark, but that it was counted sufficient to preserve their parents, to wit, the horse and the ass; and this applies to all hybrids. Yet, if it was necessary for the completeness of the mystery, they were there; for even this species has male and female.

Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the carnivorous animals — whether, without transgressing the command which fixed the number to be preserved, there were necessarily others included in the ark for their sustenance; or, as is more probable, there might be some food which was not flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many animals whose food is flesh eat also vegetable products and fruits, especially figs and chestnuts. What wonder is it, therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed by God what would suit each, so that without flesh he prepared and stored provision fit for every species? And what is there which hunger would not make animals eat? Or what could not be made sweet and wholesome by God, who, with a divine facility, might have enabled them to do without food at all, had it not been requisite to the completeness of so great a mystery that they should be fed? But none but a contentious man can suppose that there was no prefiguring of the church in so manifold and circumstantial a detail. For the nations have already so filled the church, and are comprehended in the framework of its unity, the clean and unclean together, until the appointed end, that this one very manifest fulfillment leaves no doubt how we should interpret even those others which are somewhat more obscure, and which cannot so readily be discerned. And since this is so, if not even the most audacious will presume to assert that these things were written without a purpose, or that though the events really happened they mean nothing, or that they did not really happen, but are only allegory, or that at all events they are far from having any figurative reference to the church; if it has been made out that, on the other hand, we must rather believe that there was a wise purpose in their being committed to memory and to writing, and that they did happen, and have a significance, and that this significance has a prophetic reference to the church, then this book, having served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on to trace in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two cities — the earthly, that lives according to men, and the heavenly, that lives according to God.

This is from his work City of God, book 15
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120115.htm

My own view on the dimensions of the Ark does not appeal to a cubit six times as long as "ours."

19. But that no one may suppose that we assert respecting the whole that no history is real because a certain one is not; and that no law is to be literally observed, because a certain one, (understood) according to the letter, is absurd or impossible; or that the statements regarding the Saviour are not true in a manner perceptible to the senses; or that no commandment and precept of His ought to be obeyed — we have to answer that, with regard to certain things, it is perfectly clear to us

The danger is a very real one, as we see from the current apostasy.

that the historical account is true; as that Abraham was buried in the double cave at Hebron, as also Isaac and Jacob, and the wives of each of them; and that Shechem was given as a portion to Joseph; and that Jerusalem is the metropolis of Judea, in which the temple of God was built by Solomon; and innumerable other statements.

Ah, quand même, as they say here!

Origen would not have felt at home with those who consider the patriarch's graves to be and to have always been cenotaphs. They may have become so, since the righteous of the Old Testament rose in the darkness of Good Friday, if that was their final resurrection - but perhaps it was just a passing resuscitation.

For the passages that are true in their historical meaning are much more numerous than those which are interspersed with a purely spiritual signification.

Tell me more, tell me more ...

And again, who would not say that the command which enjoins to honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, is useful, apart from all allegorical meaning, and ought to be observed, the Apostle Paul also having employed these very same words?

Exactly.

And what need is there to speak of the (prohibitions), You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness?

Figurative laws would have on St. Thomas Aquinas' view have been such ritual laws on the Old Testament that have ceased to oblige, but unlike Origen, he considers they did literally oblige back then.

And again, there are commandments contained in the Gospel which admit of no doubt whether they are to be observed according to the letter or not; e.g., that which says, But I say unto you, Whoever is angry with his brother, and so on.

Here, some people have since taken a less rigorist stance.

And again, But I say unto you, Swear not at all.

Dito.

And in the writings of the apostle the literal sense is to be retained: Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient towards all men; although it is possible for those ambitious of a deeper meaning to retain the profundities of the wisdom of God, without setting aside the commandment in its literal meaning.

Oh, that section is totally exempt from non-literality. Note, the language of St. Paul was an ecclesiastical language, where one tried to be precise and where therefore figurative speech was excluded when it could cause doubt, perhaps even when it couldn't. The language of Catholic dogma is heir to this kind of literality.

The careful (reader), however, will be in doubt as to certain points, being unable to show without long investigation whether this history so deemed literally occurred or not, and whether the literal meaning of this law is to be observed or not. And therefore the exact reader must, in obedience to the Saviour's injunction to search the Scriptures, carefully ascertain in how far the literal meaning is true, and in how far impossible; and so far as he can, trace out, by means of similar statements, the meaning everywhere scattered through Scripture of that which cannot be understood in a literal signification.

If a member is tempting you, cut it off ... Origen seems to have taken this too literally with his own genitals - he is not a canonised saint - and so he could have some kind of reason to ponder this point ... nope, we are not skoptsy.

Overall, Origen is slightly heterodox, and this means it is putting things in exactly reverse perspective to the true one to appeal concretely from St. Augustine to Origen while pretending in principle to shun taking one Church Father who has his own line and to favour the line where Church Fathers actually meet. It is noteworthy that the timeline of Biblical history does not at all figure among his criticisms of the litteral sense after the six days of creation, and that his criticism there is to make them into one moment, not an accomodation for deep time. He was, still, a Young Earth Creationist.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Easter Monday
18.IV.2022