Origen - Böcker

Few works of the early Church are as interesting to the modern reader or as important to the historian as Origen's reply to the attack on Christianity made by the pagan Celsus. The Contra Celsum is the culmination of the great apologetic movement of the second and third centuries AD, and is for the Greek Church what St Augustine's City of God is for Western Christendom. It is also one of the chief monuments of the coming together of ancient Greek culture and the new faith of the expanding Christian society. Thus Origen's work is of interest not only to the historian and theologian, but also to the hellenist. Professor Chadwick's English translation is preceded by a substantial introduction which includes discussion on Celsus' date, identity and theological outlook, as well as an account of Origen's philosophical background and method. The notes elucidate the many obscure allusions of a difficult text.

Origen composed at least thirty-two books of a commentary on the Gospel according to John, at the request of St. Ambrose of Milan. Of these, only nine books are extant in almost complete form, although we have selections of others persevered in other collections of the works of Origen. The commentary proceeds verse by verse, and is particularly notable for its emphasis on the spiritual meaning of the Gospel.This volume contains books 1,2,6, and 10, and fragments of books 4 and 5. Origen's main interest is the allegorical interpretation of the Gospel according to John, which makes this an important work in the study of Origen's mystical thought. A secondary interest is the refutation of Valentinian gnosticism. According to Eusebius, Ambrose had been a Valentinian before his conversion by Origen, and Origen refers to the Gnostic writer Heracleon regularly throughout the commentary in order to refute his views.Although the refutation of Heracleon may have been a stimulus for the composition of this work, Origen moved beyond this goal in order to present a commentary on the Gospel which would appeal to the growing number of educated Christians who wanted a scientific exegesis. The author's writing covers a wide range of historical, theological, philosophical and etymological topics, all focused on this Gospel of "spiritual food." "We might dare to say," Origen says as he begins his commentary, "that the Gospels are the first-fruits of all Scriptures, but that the first-fruits of the Gospels is that according to John. How great must be our understanding, that we may be able to understand in a worthy manner the word which is stored up in the earthen treasures of paltry language." The Spirit-led exegete can thus draw out of the words and symbols a higher level of insight. This "spiritual gospel" is the reality of which Christ's acts were symbols; it is the secrets hidden in the mysteries of Christ's words.

Origen, son of the martyr Leonides, oldest in a family of seven children was born probably at Alexandria 184/85 and died probably in Tyre 253/54 after imprisonment and torture during the Decian persecution. Surnamed "man of steel" Origen was an outstanding theologian of the early Greek-speaking Church, a man of the virtue and a genius with a prodigious capacity for work, an excellent teacher to whose lectures students flocked "and did not give him time to breathe for one bath of pupils after another kept frequenting from morn till night his lecture-room" (Eusebius, H.E. 6, 15). As an author Origen surpasses all the writers of the Early Church in literary output. A list complied by Eusebius, now unfortunately lost, credited Origen with some 2000 books. Even a far shorter list known to St. Jerome and mentioned by him in his Letter To Paula giving the number of 786 works is still impressive. Jerome then goes on to add some reflections. "Do you see the Greeks and Latins outstripped by the work of one man? Who could ever read all that he wrote? What reward did he receive for this exertion? He is condemned by bishop Demetrius; except for the bishops of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia and Achaia the world concurs in his condemnation. Rome itself convokes an assembly against this man not because of novelty of teachings, not because of heresy as now mad dogs pretend against him, but because they could not bear the fame of his eloquence and learning and were considered speechless when he spoke". (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol.54, pp.253-59) .Origen's chief aim was to be an interpreter of the Scriptures. To this end he composed scientific commentaries on various books of the Old and New Testaments, homilies, and short exegetical notes. The translations presented here belong to the second category. Though he did not reject the literal sense of Scripture Origen here is more intent upon the spiritual meanings of passages selected from Genesis and Exodus.

This new translation of Origen's Homilies on Leviticus may be read as a companion to Ronald E. Heine's translation of Origen's Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, volume 71 in the Fathers of the Church series. Both volumes reveal Origen's tenacious belief that, although the meaning of Scripture was threefold, that is, literal, moral, and spiritual, the most important interpretation was the spiritual.The Homilies on Leviticus were delivered during a three-year cycle between 238 and 244 in Alexandria where Origen was a brilliant teacher, theologian, churchman, and exegete until his imprisonment and torture under Decian and his reluctant death in Tyre in 253/254. They were translated by Rufinus, who admitted to having changed the text by condensing the homilies and, at the same time, expanding some of the explanations. Nevertheless they provide valuable insights on the third-century Church, touching on topics of conversion from sin, works of piety, baptism, Lent and fasting, the ordination of a priest, and the process of Christian discipline. Perhaps Origen's most significant theological contribution, however, is his doctrine of the Trinity which influenced the Trinitarian debates of the fourth and fifth centuries.Origen was the most prolific write of all the writers of the Early Church. Eusebius numbers his books at 2000, and St. Jerome writes of 786 works. But Origen's chief aim, as an interpreter of the Scriptures, was to draw out the historical meaning of the text and communicate that wisdom of perception to his flock. It was this that inspired his profound spiritual interpretation in the Homilies on Leviticus so finely translated in this volume.

This volume contains what remains of Books 13-32 of Origen's Commentary on the Gospel according to John, and thus completes the publication of the first full English translation of this work that stands as the beginning of Christian scriptural exegesis. Ronald Heine introduces his translation with a discussion of the times and circumstances within which the commentary was composed. He also provides a survey of the major theological questions with which the commentary is concerned. These include Origen's thought on the nature of God, the person and work of Christ, his relation to the Father and to the created order, his teaching on the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection, and eschatology, and his ideas on the devil.Beginning with the conversation between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well and ending with Christ's discourse to his disciples at the Last Supper, the commentary displays Origen's attention to the literal meaning of the passages but moves beyond them to try to grasp their spiritual significance, providing us with the opportunity to examine Origen's mystical thought. Origen also refutes the Gnostic reading of the Gospel presented by Heracleon, but this polemic is subordinate to his own investigation of the theological, philosophical, historical, and etymological questions raised by the Gospel.Because it treats many of the same passages of the Gospel of St. John for which St. Augustine provides a commentary in The Fathers of the Church, volume 88, this volume provides a worthy companion to it and invites a comparison of the thoughts of these two great exegetes upon what both regarded as the greatest of the Gospels.

Origen of Alexandria's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans is the oldest extant commentary on Romans (ca. 246). This volume presents the first English translation of the commentary, covering his exegesis of Rom 1:1 to 6:11. One of his longest and most mature works, it is the only commentary of Origen available in a coherent form from beginning to end. The work was originally composed in Greek in Caesarea, but only fragments of the archetype have survived. Fortunately, Origen's admirer Rufinus of Aquileia translated the work into Latin (ca. 406).Origen's exegesis predates the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius by 170 years; thus it offers a striking perspective on Romans. Opposition to Gnostic interpretations of Paul is an important characteristic of the commentary. Above all Origen defends the Church against the "doctrine of natures"―the belief that all human beings are born with unalterable natures, either good or evil, and thus bound for either salvation or damnation, and that their conduct during this life cannot alter their destiny. Origen successfully refutes this teaching, showing that freedom of will always abides in rational beings.Provoked by Marcion's repudiation of the Old Testament, Origen emphasizes the harmony between Gospel and Law. He highlights as one of Paul's main themes in Romans the transfer of religion from Judaism to Christianity, from the letter to the spirit, in terms both of salvation history and of the transformation of the individual. Origen claims that the key to unlocking Romans is understanding Paul's use of homonyms―identical expressions such as law, Jew, circumcision, death, etc., with divergent meanings.Books 6-10 of the commentary, presenting Origen's interpretation of Rom 6:12 to 16:27, will be the next volume published in the Fathers of the Church series.

Thirty-nine of Origen's homilies on the Gospel of Luke survive in Jerome's Latin translation. Origen preached them in Caesarea, perhaps around 234 or 240, to a congregation of catechumens and faithful. Most of the homilies are short; on average, they treat about six verses of the Gospel and would have lasted between eight and twelve minutes. The first thirty-three homilies treat chapters one through four of Luke's Gospel; the remaining six treat passages from the tenth to the twentieth chapters.Origen's homilies are the only extant patristic writing devoted to Luke's Gospel before Ambrose's Exposition on Luke, written ca. 390 (and Ambrose himself followed Oorigen, sometimes quite closely). Homilies 1 to 20 also constitute the only existing commentary from the pre-Nicene Church on either Infancy Narrative. Several hundred fragments of Origen's homilies and commentary on Luke also survive, mostly in Greek.Henri de Lubac formulated the important principle, "Observe Origen at work," and Origen's writings on Luke's Gospel are an intriguing place to do that. Origen, the champion of spiritual interpretation, regulary beings with a painfully literal reading of the text. His first unit of understanding is the word, and often the key that unlocks the meaning of a word in the Bible for him is the use of that same word elsewhere in Scripture. Origen assumed that each word had a meaning that is both profound and relevant to the reader―for the Holy Spirit is never trite and what the Holy Spirit says must always touch the hearer.This volume, the first English translation of the extant homilies and of fragments from the commentary on Luke, is an important addition to the growing body of Origen's work now available in English.

This volume completes the first English translation of Rufinus's Latin version of Origen of Alexandria's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans and contains Origen's detailed exegesis of Romans 6:12-16:27. Origen's much neglected Commentary, which stands out in splendid isolation at the fountainhead of Greek and Latin exegesis, is now completely accessible to English readers.In Books 6-10 Origen carries through to completion his programme, begun in Books 1-5, of defending human freedom and of opposing the natural predestinarian doctrine of the sects founded by the Gnostic heretics Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides. These schools relied heavily on texts from Paul, interpreted in isolation from the rest of Scripture, not only to deny free will but to support the doctrine that salvation is determined by the nature one receives at birth, whether good or evil. In contrast Origen clarifies passages in Romans by citations from Paul's other letters, from the Gospels, and from the Old Testament. He attempts to construct a coherent and unified ""biblical theology."" Origen views human beings as chosen or rejected by God deservedly; everyone has it within his own power whether he becomes a servant of God or of sin, a vessel of wrath or of mercy.Whether one sympathises with Origen's interpretations or finds them infuriating, it is difficult not to admire his concordance-like mind at work as he tackles the apostle Paul's greatest epistle. Readers will find interesting and thought-provoking discussions of all the important theological themes and terms of Romans: faith, hope, love, works, justification, election, law, Israel, Gentiles, Church, sin, death, flesh, body, glory, etc. The importance of these discussions is magnified by the fact that they stand alone in their detail and breadth and stem from the Church's most important theologian of the third century. Moreover, because Origen's work was productive in subsequent centuries in Rufinus's Latin translation, the Commentary is of outstanding importance for the history of New Testament exegesis.

Souls existing before their bodies, witches summoning dead prophets from the underworld, the return of the damned--and the Devil himself--to God in the end, and many other theological speculations surprise the reader of Origen's Homilies on Jeremiah and I Kings 28. Some of these very theses of the third-century priest from Alexandria, Egypt, were condemned in the Second Council of Constantinople. But plumbing the mystical depths of the Prophecy of Jeremiah is the central point of the homilies.Presented in this volume are the remains of twenty-two homilies and a collection of fragments delivered by Origen around A.D. 240. The original texts of the homilies on Jeremiah have not come down to us completely; two of the homilies survive only in a Latin translation of St. Jerome. The homily on I Kings 28, while not a part of the homilies on Jeremiah, deals with the Witch of Endor and has been added to this volume in virtue of its own inherent interest.In this collection, Origen seeks understanding of the significance of the hostility of the Chosen People towards the Prophet Jeremiah before their captivity in Babylon. Origen in many ways identified with the great prophet and thought of Jeremiah as a type for Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. Origen realized that Jeremiah came at a crucial time in the history of Israel, the time of captivity, and he views this event and the events around it as pregnant with meaning for the people of his time.Watching a master grapple with admittedly difficult, obscure texts and give them compelling, forceful delivery must have impressed Origen's congregation. Readers will find it no less engaging to read his homilies now and experience some of that exhilaration of hearing a true expert highlight every subtlety of the pericope and make plain what once was obscure.John Clark Smith studied religion, theology, and philosophy at Syracuse University, Duke University, and the University of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, where he was also a lecturer for several years. He is the author of The Ancient Wisdom of Origen and numerous articles.""Smith's translation is first rate. It reads smoothly and clearly. . . . Smith has done a good service to the field.""--Church History""The decision to translate and publish the homilies on 1 Kings and Jeremiah together was a sound one for two reasons. First, they are the only homilies of Origen that have been preserved in Greek, rather than Latin. Second, neither has ever been published in English before. Thus this volume is to be greeted by anglophones with especially loud huzzahs. . . . A solid, respectable volume, which clearly sees its role as being as transparent a medium for Origen's thoughts as possible.""--Laval theologique et philosophique

With this publication, English readers now have available to them the complete homilies of Origen of Alexandria on the book of Joshua. These homilies were among the last Origen gave before his torture and death during the Decian persecution, around 254.With the saga of the Israelites entering and possessing their promised land, Origen unfolds the story of the Christian life from baptism to resurrection. He exhorts his hearers to persevere in their own struggles to overcome the enemies of their souls and obtain their own inheritance. Their leader is Jesus, the Son of God, who is prefigured in Jesus (Joshua), the son of Nun. All battles, victories, and defeats happen within the individual; all aspects of the Law and temple become but shadows of the fulfilling work of God in Jesus Christ. The story brims with allegory and passion, a passion for the people and for their priests who, ""standing near the blazing fire of the altar,"" must illuminate the path for others.As Origen exhorted, others wrote down his words, words he had asked the people to pray for and the Spirit to supply. Most of the original writings in Greek were lost during the centuries when Origen was officially defamed. What we have today is the Latin translation by Rufinus, the basis of the translation in this volume. In the Introduction, Barbara J. Bruce discusses and affirms the reliability of the Latin text, and briefly looks at Origen's ministry, his concept of the nature of Scripture, and his method of interpretation.Those who recognize the value of praying the Scripture through lectio divina, those who want to understand more about early Christianity, and those who seek to borrow fire from an elder brother will find flashes of insight in this new volume.

In his General Audience of May 2, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI praised Origen for his ""primordial role"" in the history of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. He explained that Origen approaches Scripture reading not as ""mere study"" but as the pathway to knowing Christ and ""falling in love with him."" Origen's nine extant homilies on Judges exemplify this approach.In them, Origen calls his audience to participate in a loving relationship with Christ through interaction with Scripture. Delivered sometime between 238 and 248, these homilies expound on themes extracted from Judges 2-7. Some of the homilies focus generally on God's redemption of Israel through judges after each cycle of sin, enslavement, and repentance, while others stress that victory belongs to God alone through events such as the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon's meager army of 300 men, Gideon's test with the fleece, and the murder of the Philistine general Sisera by the woman Jael. The homilies brim with hope in Christ's ultimate victory over sin and death, a hope that is specific to the individual believer but accessible only within the Church.Origen applies his allegorical method of Scriptural interpretation to these passages, sometimes drawing faith-enriching meaning from the literal (somatic) sense as well as from one or both of the two figurative (psychic and pneumatic) senses. Using both allegory and typology, Origen shows his audience God's abundant mercy and grace, the power of Scripture to assist in the battle against sin and the promotion of virtue, and the church leader's duty to walk his flock through the transforming terrain of Scripture toward likeness to and union with Christ.Largely because of early controversies over Origen's legacy, these homilies are extant only in Rufinus's fourth-century Latin translation, but his ability to capture Origen's meaning and spirit is well documented. This is the first-ever English translation of Origen's homilies on Judges.

In 2012 Dr. Marina Marin Pradel, an archivist at the Bayerische Stattsbibliotek in Munich, discovered that a thick 12th-century Byzantine manuscript, Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, contained twenty-nine of Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms, hitherto considered lost. Lorenzo Perrone of the University of Bologna, an internationally respected scholar of Origen, vouched for the identification and immediately began work on the scholarly edition that appeared in 2015 as the thirteenth volume of Origen’s works in the distinguished Griechische Christlichen Schrifsteller series. In an introductory essay Perrone provided proof that the homilies are genuine and demonstrated that they are, astonishingly, his last known work. Live transcripts, these collection homilies constitute our largest collection of actual Christian preaching from the pre-Constantinian period.In these homilies, the final expression of his mature thought, Origen displays, more fully than elsewhere, his understanding of the church and of deification as the goal of Christian life. They also give precious insights into his understanding of the incarnation and of human nature. They are the earliest example of early Christian interpretation of the Psalms, works at the heart of Christian spirituality. Historians of biblical interpretation will find in them the largest body of Old Testament interpretation surviving in his own words, not filtered through ancient translations into Latin that often failed to convey his intense philological acumen. Among other things, they give us new insights into the life of a third-century Greco-Roman metropolis, into Christian/Jewish relations, and into Christian worship.This translation, using the GCS as its basis, seeks to convey, as faithfully as possible, Origen’s own categories of thought. An introduction and notes relate the homilies to the theology and principles of interpretation in Origen’s larger work and to that work’s intellectual context and legacy.

Hans Urs von Balthasar places Origen of Alexandria “in rank . . . beside Augustine and Thomas” in “importance for the history of Christian thought,” explaining that his “brilliance” has captivated theologians throughout history (Spirit and Fire, 1984, 1). This brilliance shines forth in his nine extant homilies on Isaiah, in which he employs his theology of the Trinity and Christ to exhort his audience to play their crucial role in salvation history.Origen reads Isaiah’s vision of the Lord and two seraphim in Isaiah 6 allegorically as representing the Trinity, and this theme runs throughout the nine homilies. His representation of the seraphim as the Son and Holy Spirit around the throne of the Father brought early accusations that Origen was a proto-Arian subordinationist, followed by a pointed condemnation by Emperor Justinian in 553. These homilies, originally delivered between 245 and 248, are extant only in a fourth-century Latin translation. Though St. Jerome, likely because of these controversies, does not identify himself as the Latin translator, the evidence overwhelmingly points to his pen, and his reliability in conveying Origen’s authentic meaning is well documented.If one sets aside the questionable charges of subordinationism, these homilies, expounding on passages from Judges 6-10, come alive with Origen’s legacy of presenting Christ as the central figure of the soul’s ascent to God. Reading allegorically the two seraphim to be Jesus and the Holy Spirit around the Father’s throne, Origen draws a picture of the Trinity as a tightly knit whole in which the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally sing the Trisagion (“Holy, holy, holy”) to each other and the Father about the divine truths of God’s nature, allowing the part of their song that conveys the “middle things” of salvation history to be heard by creation. The “second seraph” is the Son, or Jesus, who descends holding a hot coal, or Scripture, from the altar of the throne, with which he cleanses Isaiah’s lips, or the believer’s soul. Origen employs his signature exegetical method of allegory and typology through the lens of the threefold meaning of Scripture to emphasize to his hearers that Christ is the deliverer, the content, and the reward of the healing Word. He repeatedly assures them that those who submit to Scripture will enter into salvation history’s cycle of cleansing from sin, growth in virtue, and ever-deepening knowledge of God. As a result, they will become like Christ and thus will be prepared to join the Trinity for all eternity at the heavenly wedding feast.

This volume provides the first English translation of the nine extant homilies on Psalms 36[37]–38[39] preached by Origen (d. 253/4) to his congregation at Caesarea as arranged and translated for Latin readers by his admirer, Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 411). These homilies are among the earliest extant examples of patristic preaching on the Psalter. The interpretation offered throughout these homilies, which is almost wholly moral, reflects Origen's understanding of the "soul" of the scriptural text. These homilies provide a glimpse of Origen's account of scriptural meaning, outlined in De principiis 4, in pastoral practice. In his preaching, Origen offers a vision of the Christian life as centered on the soul's continuing conversion, growth, and progress, with particular reference to and within the context of the Church. The life of the believer is one of combat and struggle with powers opposed to Christ. It is Christ, as the divine Physician, who offers healing to the one who is wounded and ailing from sin, and it is Christ, as Wisdom and Word of God, who instructs and educates the believer in the life of the Spirit. These homilies reveal the substantial coherence of Origen's thought, as expressed in the more speculative De principiis and as revealed in the more elaborate, nuptial theology found in his Commentary on the Canticle.This volume includes a robust introduction and complements the work of Joseph Trigg, whose translation from the original Greek of the cache of homilies discovered in Codex Monacensis 314 has recently appeared in this series.

In these firsthand accounts of the early church, the spirit of Pentecost burns with prophetic force through the fog enveloping the modern church. A clear and vibrant faith lives on in these writings, providing a guide for Christians today. Its stark simplicity and revolutionary fervor will stun those lulled by conventional Christianity.The Early Christians is a topically arranged collection of primary sources. It includes extra-biblical sayings of Jesus and excerpts from Origen, Tertullian, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Justin, Irenaeus, Hermas, Ignatius, and others. Equally revealing material from pagan contemporaries – critics, detractors, and persecutors – is included as well.