THE TRUE FATE OF “THE SO-

CALLED DEVIL” IN ORIGEN

BY AMBROSE ANDREANO

D idSome
Origen really think even the devil would be saved?
have argued that Origen did not believe this.
Some wish even to assert that Origen was not even a
universalist, which is even more perplexing to me, since
this conclusion is logically impossible to arrive at when
one understands the systematic exegetical logic of his
thought. I will explain why these interpretations of
Origen are incorrect, and why Origen was not only a
universalist, but one that also affirms, by necessity, the
restoration of even he who authored death. But first, a
little on the seeming contradictions...

In his Commentary on Romans, Origen says:

“For I saw that Satan had fallen like lightning from

heaven”; and that fall of which Isaiah says, “How
has Lucifer fallen from heaven, who was rising in
the morning?” He is denying, then, that Israel had
fallen by this kind of fall. For indeed there will be a
conversion for them at the end of the age, at that
time when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and
all Israel will be saved; but for that one who is said
to have fallen from heaven, there will not be any
conversion at the end of the age.1

These readers interpret Origen’s words to mean that he

did not believe Satan, the celestial person, can ever be
restored at any point in our future. However, what these
readers fail to notice is that Origen specifically says there
would not be a conversion "at the end of the age," which

1
Origen, Commentary on Romans, 8.9.4.

1
is to say this age, because mankind is restored first.
Origen does not mean all future ages, because he
imagines different demographics being restored at
different future ages.
First we must understand that Origen, who is a
supremely nuanced thinker, has a multi-dimensional
definition of what Satan (usually translated to mean
“Enemy”) actually means. “Satan” can refer to (a) “The
Enemy” called Lucifer (but more precisely called
Samma’el by the mystics2): one specific heavenly being
that fell from blessedness at some point in the distant
past, which Origen would call the “strict” sense, (b)
“The Enemy” called death - which is simply death
personified, being a more metaphorical sense, (c) “The
Enemy” called immorality - which is anything contrary to
virtue, being a more mystical sense concerning the “Satan
within” (that is, our immorality). Therefore, correctly
interpreting what Origen says about Satan can only be
accomplished by intentionally examining which sense he
means when he says “Satan.” Origen explains these
different “Satans” in Against Celsus:

The word Satan in Hebrew, which some spell in a

more Hellenic fashion as Satanas, means adversary
when translated into Greek. Every man who has
chosen evil and to live an evil life so that he does
everything contrary to virtue is a Satan, that is, an
adversary to the Son of God who is righteousness,
truth, and wisdom. But speaking more strictly, the
Adversary is the first of all beings that were in
peace and lived in blessedness who lost his wings
and fell from the blessed state. According to Ezekiel
he walked blameless in all his ways until iniquity
was found in him, and being 'a seal of likeness and
a crown of beauty' in the paradise of God he
2
In most esoteric Jewish and Christian literature, Satan is not called "Lucifer,"
but rather "Sammael." He is also seen as "the venom of God," and is associated
with blindness. In On the Origin of the World for example, Sammael is a blind
lion-headed serpent entity also named Yaldabaoth who mistakenly thought he
was the only God. The word "Lucifer" really just means something like
"shining/morning star," which is more of a figurative description than a name.
Something similar occurs in Revelation 2:28 and 22:16 but as a description of
Christ. Therefore in the scriptures the angelic entity called “Satan” and
“Lucifer” remains, in actuality, unnamed.

2
 became, as it were, sated with good things and came
to destruction, as the Word tells us which
mysteriously says to him: 'Thou didst become
destruction and shalt not exist for ever.' However,
although we have boldly and rashly committed
these few remarks to writing in this book, perhaps
we have said nothing significant. But if anyone with
the time to examine the holy scriptures were to
collect texts from all sources and were to give a
coherent account of evil, both how it first came to
exist and how it is being destroyed, he would see
that the meaning of Moses and the prophets with
regard to Satan has not even been dreamt of by
Celsus or by any of the people who are dragged
down by this wicked daemon and are drawn away
in their soul from God and the right conception of
Him and from His Word.3

And prior to this, Origen has already stated the

distinction between the devil as devil, and the devil as a
rational creation of God:

And no one will be able to know the origin of evils

who has not grasped the truth about the so-called
devil and his angels, and who he was before he
became a devil, and how he became a devil, and
what caused his so-called angels to rebel with him.
Anyone who intends to know this must possess an
accurate understanding of daemons, and be aware
that they are not God's creation in so far as they are
daemons, but only in so far as they are rational
beings of some sort. And he must understand how
they came to be such that their mind put them in the
position of daemons. Accordingly if there is any
subject among those that need study among men
which is baffling to our comprehension, the origin
of evil may be reckoned as such.4

Here we see that Origen conceives of “the so-called

devil” as simply he who first fell. He interprets “devil”
(which can be viewed as synonymous with “Satan”) to be
fundamentally the enslavement of the will. The devil is
not called “devil” because he is a devil by nature, but by
3
Origen, Against Celsus 6.44.
4
Origen, Against Celsus 4.65.

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will. In other words, option (c) above. The devil is
immoral by will, therefore he is the Devil (which is true
of every wicked man, including Paul, as we will see
below). The devil was the first to be immoral by will,
therefore he is The devil, being head of the headless. And
if anyone be confused as to how it is all they who are
wicked are called “the devil,” let them be asked how it is
that elsewhere all they who are contrary to Christ are
called “Antichrist.” For the scriptures say “every spirit
that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is
not of God; and such is the spirit of Antichrist.”5
Origen views the devil as the personification of
that which is contrary to life and virtue, which is option
(b) in the list above. In other words, sin is the devil;
death is the devil. He explains both this and why the first
fallen angel is uniquely called “the devil” because he was
first to fall in his Commentary on Romans:

It may be the case that, just as he said that all these

good things come into being through our Lord Jesus
Christ, so also he wanted it to be understood that
those evils have arisen through the devil. But he has
remained silent about the name of the originator of
those things in order that he might attribute the
superabundance in all things to grace. For just as
Christ is indeed one in essence but may be
designated in many ways according to his virtues
and operations (for example he is understood to be
grace itself, as well as righteousness, peace, life,
truth, the Word) so perhaps also the devil can
himself be understood by various designations. For
he should be thought of as the sin which is said to
exercise dominion. Also one has to believe that he
is that death of which it is said, “For the last enemy,
death, will be destroyed.” Moreover he is
understood to be a desolation according to what has
been spoken by the prophet, “You have become a
desolation and you will not exist in eternal time.”
Furthermore I think that what the Apostle says,
“Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal
bodies,” could be said even more about the devil.
For he is the author of sin and death and desolation,
5
1 John 4:3.

4
 and the author of an invention is logically named
after the things he has invented. So then, it is
impossible that a soul exists at any time without
having a ruler. But we must make provision that
Christ should be that ruler, whose yoke is easy and
whose burden is light, and not the devil, whose
dominion is burdensome. For it is wickedness
which sits enthroned upon a leaden weight; but
wherever Christ reigns, there grace and
righteousness superabound unto eternal life.6

We know that Origen believed that all these celestial

archons, regardless of rank or moral status, are
essentially rational and dynamic beings like us: able to
will and change and so on. He says this explicitly in On
First Principles:

Then, in the next place, one should know that every

rational being that turns aside from the measures
and ordinances of reason is undoubtedly involved in
sin by this departure from what is right and just.
Every rational being, therefore, is capable of praise
and censure: of praise, if, in conformity to that
reason which he has in himself, he advance to better
things; of censure, if he depart from the order and
course of what is right, for which he is rightly
subject to pains and penalties. And this is also
thought to apply to the devil himself and those who
are with him and are called his angels.7

Origen’s Doctrine of Destruction

Does this mean Origen thinks the devil will be saved and
not be destroyed? No. On the contrary, Origen believes
the angelic entity (we shall call Samma’el) will be
restored through the destruction of “Satan.” That is, that
which is “the enemy” within Samma’el will be destroyed
so that the creature can be restored. Christ says the
divine flames of the coming age are prepared “for the
devil and his angels.”8 We know that these flames are the
6
Origen, Commentary on Romans, 5.6.7-8.
7
Origen, On First Principles, 1.5.2.
8
Matthew 25:41.

5
presence of God Himself, because scripture says “God is
a consuming fire,”9 and that the destruction and
punishment comes “from the presence of the Lord,”10
destroying “with the brightness of his coming.”11 And
what kind of fire is this except the refiner’s fire? For
scripture says “who may abide the day of his coming?
and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a
refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap”12 And elsewhere
scripture says, “when he hath tried me, I shall come forth
as gold.”13 Therefore, the devil is destroyed because his
works are destroyed, and this is precisely the mechanism
through which salvation occurs. As the apostle says, “If
any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but
he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”14 To
understand this, we must understand Origen’s mystical
understanding of what it means for God to “destroy”
persons.

He says the following in his Homilies on Jeremiah:

But the words of God do not end with these:

to uproot, demolish and destroy. For let what is bad
be uprooted from me, the inferior demolished! If the
superior was not planted before the others were
uprooted, what does it matter to me? What does it
matter to me if what is distinguished cannot be built
up before these others? On account of this, first the
words of God fulfill the need to uproot, demolish
and destroy, then to build and to plant. In Scripture
we always note that those acts which are
“unpleasant-seeming,” as I will name them, are
listed first, then those acts which seem gladdening
are mentioned second. I will kill and I will make
alive. He did not say, I will make alive and then I
will kill. For it is impossible that what God has
made to live would be taken away by himself or by
someone else. But, I will kill and I will make alive.
9
Hebrews 12:29.
10
2 Thessalonians 1:9.
11
2 Thessalonians 2:8.
12
Malachi 3:2.
13
Job 23:10.
14
1 Corinthians 3:15.

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 Whom will I kill? Paul the traitor, Paul the
persecutor. And I will make alive so that he
becomes Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ.15

And again in On First Principles:

For the destruction of the last enemy must be

understood in this way, not that its substance which
was made by God shall perish, but that the hostile
purpose and will which proceeded, not from God
but from itself, will come to an end. It will be
destroyed, therefore, not in the sense of ceasing to
exist, but of being no longer an enemy and no
longer death. For to the Almighty nothing is
impossible, nor is anything beyond the reach of cure
by its maker.16

According to Origen, St Paul was "destroyed" by God.

This does not mean to suggest that Paul was annihilated
from existence, or tormented without end. It simply
means Paul "the persecutor;" Paul “the Satan” was
destroyed, that he may become Paul "the apostle of Jesus
Christ." Paul as Satan is not truly Paul, but a shadow or
void of the true Paul that must be burned away. This Paul
that must be destroyed is not the Apostle Paul, but Paul
Achamoth, having not the heavenly wisdom of life, but
one who has fallen into the lesser wisdom of death. The
shadow self is what must be completely destroyed, that
the true self can emerge and live everlasting life. This is
the mystical sense in which God destroys.

Origen’s Doctrine of Life and Death

However, there are other reasons besides these why it
cannot be said that Origen was not a universalist or
believed that Samma’el would not be saved. For
example, in his Commentary on Romans he explicitly
says life and death logically cannot both exist forever,
because this makes death equal to life:
15
Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah, 1.
16
Origen, On First Principles, 3.6.5.

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 Nevertheless no matter how much a person may
continue in sin, no matter how much he should hold
out under the dominion and authority of death, I do
not think that the kingdom of death is therefore of
eternal duration in the same way as that of life and
righteousness, especially when I hear from the
Apostle that the last enemy, death, is going to be
destroyed. And in fact, if the duration of the eternity
of death is supposed to be the same as that of life,
death will no longer be the contrary to life but its
equal. For an eternal will not be contrary to an
eternal, but identical. Now it is certain that death is
contrary to life; therefore it is certain that if life is
eternal, death cannot be eternal; whence also the
resurrection of the dead necessarily takes place. For
when the death of the soul, who is the last enemy,
should be destroyed, likewise this common death,
which, we have said to be like the shadow of the
other one, shall necessarily be abolished. Logically,
at that time room will be made for the resurrection
of the dead, when the dominion of death has been
destroyed equally with death.17

Origen here says not just death, but “the dominion of

death” must cease to exist. In other words, not just the
mortality of the flesh, but spiritual death: the dominion
death has over the soul. Because the destruction of the
body cannot exist in an everlasting form, neither can the
destruction of the soul. In other words, there will be no
one left as an enemy.

Listen to what Origen says in his Commentary on John:

I think its stopping point and goal is in the so-called

restoration because no one is left as an enemy then,
if indeed the statement is true, ‘For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. But
the last enemy to be destroyed is death’18

17
Origen, Commentary on Romans, 5.7.8.
18
Origen, Commentary on John, 1.91.

8
And we know that the cessation of sin is what Origen
means by “the dominion of death” because he says the
following:

But I would like to ask particularly: Since we have

indeed said that death had held dominion until the
arrival of Christ,who is life, but the Apostle says
that Christ had come not only to destroy death but
also him who was holding the power of death, i.e.,
the devil, who is reigning? That is, before that
which is written happens, “Then comes the end
when he hands over the kingdom to God the
Father.” For if we should say what seems logical,
that life reigns when death has been destroyed, it
could be objected to us: Why then is sin still being
committed? It is clear that death exercises its
dominion through sin. But if we should say that
Christ, i.e., life, reigns in certain souls, and death in
certain others, what persons shall we find in whom
the dominion of life exists in such a way that the
dominion of death has no authority in them? In
other words, who is entirely free from sin? These
matters seem to me to pertain instead to the future
kingdom, and there those things are to be fulfilled
where it is said, “That God may be all in all.” For
this is why we are taught to say in the Lord’s prayer,
“Your kingdom come!” as if it has not yet come.
And the Lord himself, when he began to preach,
does not say: The kingdom of heaven has come,
but: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”19

Origen’s Doctrine of Subjection

Another reason why Origen is, in fact, a universalist, is
his doctrine of subjection as founded in 1 Corinthians 15.
I have explained this elsewhere in my essay Origen
Against Arius, but I will quickly explain it again:

[A]s long as I am not subjected to the Father,

neither is he said to be "subjected,” to the Father.
Not that he himself is in need of subjection before
the Father but for me, in whom he has not yet

19
Origen, Commentary on Romans, 5.3.7.

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 completed his work, he is said not to be subjected,
for, as we read, "we are the body of Christ and
members in part.”20

Origen talks about Christ within us, His followers, being

subordinate to the Father when we are, by faith,
subordinate to the Father. Christ subjects the whole of
humanity to the Father because the head subjects the
members of the body to itself. For Christ, who is the head
of the human race that sees the Father, is eternally fixed
upon the Father: "for whatever He does, the Son also
does in like manner." Therefore, when all members of the
body are subject to the head, all members of the body are
subject to the Father, and God is all in all. This is why the
destiny of man is to become as Christ, having Christ say
to His mother concerning us: "Behold, your son."21 To be
a “right hand” of Christ, that is, a worker of the Church,22
Christ says mystically concerning them: "This is my
body." To be Body, possessed of His Spirit, is to be
united with Christ. For Origen, every single person must
have Christ reign within them in order for it to be said
that God is “all in all.”23 And for “all” enemies to be put
under His feet,24 death (in all its forms) must be no more,
which means even the fallen angels have bowed to
Christ. For scripture says “every knee will bow before
me, and every tongue will confess.”25 And not just
confess, but confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”26

Subjection by Reason, not Force

Now, here is the most important detail: the subjection

cannot be one by force and necessity, but by Word and
Reason, because many will say “yes, everyone will bow
20
Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, 7.
21
cf. Commentary on John 1.23.
22
cf. Homilies on Joshua 14.
23
1 Corinthians 15:28.
24
1 Corinthians 15:25.
25
Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11
26
Philippians 2:10-11.

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and confess but not everyone will like it!” It is this very
interpretation that Origen explicitly rejects. He wants to
make this point so clear that he emphasizes it multiple
times in the same paragraph:

And we add this, so that it may be more clearly

understood what the glory of omnipotence is. The
God and Father is Almighty because he has power
over all things, that is, over heaven and earth, sun
and moon, and all things in them. And he exercises
power over them through his Word, for at the name
of Jesus every knee bows, of things in heaven, and
things on earth, and things under the earth. And, if
every knee bows to Jesus, then, without doubt, it is
Jesus to whom all things have been subjected, and
he it is who exercised power over all things, and
through whom all things have been subjected to the
Father; for it is through Wisdom, that is by Word
and Reason, not by force and necessity, that they
have been subjected. And therefore his glory is in
the very fact that he possesses all things, and this is
the purest and most clear glory of omnipotence, that
by Reason and Wisdom, not by force and necessity,
all things have been subjected. Now the purest and
most clear glory of Wisdom is a convenient
designation to distinguish it from that glory which
is not called pure or genuine.27

And later on he says Christ restores not just mankind in

particular, but the whole of creation itself, which
encompasses all enemies, not just on earth but also those
powers and principalities in high places:28

If, then, that subjection, by which the Son is said to

be subject to the Father, is good and salvific, it is
very logically and coherently concluded that the
subjection also of enemies, which is said of the Son
of God, is to be understood as something salvific
and useful; so that, just as when the Son is said to
be subjected to the Father, the perfect restoration of
the whole creation is announced, so also when the
enemies are said to be subjected to the Son of God,
the salvation of the subjected and the restoration of
27
Origen, On First Principles 1.2.10.
28
cf. Ephesians 6:12.

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 the lost is understood in that.29

I think its stopping point and goal is in the so-called

restoration because no one is left as an enemy then,
if indeed the statement is true, ‘For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. But
the last enemy to be destroyed is death’30

If even a single person bow and confess because they are

forced to bow and confess, this only means death has not
been destroyed. But if death is truly destroyed, then the
bowing and confessing can only be done willingly,
without coercion, by Word and Reason. And if this is the
case for all rational creatures, then the only logical
conclusion is that even Samma’el must be restored in the
very end because death is destroyed. This is why anyone
who understands Origen’s exegetical logic cannot assert
that Origen rejects the restoration of the first fallen being.
St Gregory of Nyssa correctly understood Origen's logic,
which is why he said "the originator of evil himself will
be healed.”31 Nyssen's understanding of what it means for
God to heal is identical to Origen's: to be healed is to be
healed through wounding, as scripture testifies saying, "I
wound, and I heal."32 The idea here is the surgeon who
must wound in order to heal. St Isaac the Syrian believes
the same thing concerning the fallen archons,33 as do
others.

The First Fallen Shall Be The Last Fallen

Origen does not elaborate, but the Origenian interpreter
can easily presume that because Samma’el was the first
to fall, he would theoretically be the last to be restored,
since the moral distance necessary for the first-fallen to
traverse will be greatest, and as the Lord says mystically
concerning the mysteries of salvation: “so shall the last
29
Origen, On First Principles 3.5.7.
30
Origen, Commentary on John, 1.91.
31
Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations, 26.9.
32
Deuteronomy 32:39.
33
Isaac the Syrian, The Second Part, II.40.2-7.

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be first, and the first last.”34 The fact that the devil is not
mortal, he does not have an inherent limiting mechanism
that inhibits the potential damage caused, and this shows
that the number and depth of sins are far greater than
even the worst among men, living a mere “seventy or
eighty years,”35 give or take. This can only mean that the
first-fallen will be the last remaining fallen.
However, I must take the time to comment on a
now lost private letter from Origen’s hand that is quoted
by Rufinus (as well as Jerome36). Origen says the
following concerning those who were in his day
manipulating his words after he had published them,
creating contradictions:

They say that I claim that the father of wickedness

and perdition, and of those who are cast out of the
kingdom of God, that is, the devil, is to be saved.
This is something which not even a madman and
someone who is manifestly insane can say.37

This letter is by far the most obvious challenge to the

idea that Origen believed in the salvation of the devil. We
know for certain that Rufinus also believed Samma’el
became The Devil through free choice and not by
nature,38 so we know they did not conceive of angels as
having an ontological stasis (like much of the later
medieval theologians). The question becomes: “Why did
Origen say this, and what does he mean?”
There are at least three main possibilities as to
what is going on here:

1. Origen really did believe Samma’el and the other

fallen angels would not be restored at the time of
34
Matthew 20:16.
35
cf. Psalm 90:10.
36
Jerome, Apology Against Rufinus, 2.18.
37
Pamphilus, Apology for Origen (FOTC 120), trans. Thomas P. Scheck
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), p. 128.
38
Ibid., p. 126. Rufinus states, “Then again, the following kind of falsification is
introduced: that the nature of the devil and of other demons was produced not
from the wickedness of their purpose and will, but from an exceptional and
separate quality of their creation. Yet assuredly elsewhere Clement taught that
every rational creature was endowed with the faculty of free choice”

13
 writing this letter, and then later changed his tune
and better refined his understanding the more he
thought about the implications of this being true.
2. Origen had a moment of weakness and caved under
the pressure of having his entire reputation ruined
over something that ultimately does not matter, so
he condescended to the majority opinion as an
attempt to stop the controversy from continuing.
3. What Origen meant by the devil being “saved” was
that Samma’el would be forgiven in the sense of
escaping the punishment of hellfire rather than have
to be restored through it. In other words, Origen is
rejecting that the devil will be saved specifically at
the end of this age and the age immediately
following this one (see the quote at the beginning of
this essay).

The fact of the matter is, Origen’s logic about this is

spread out across many of his works, so all of them being
interpolations is quite unlikely. And the exegetical logic
is very obviously his own and not from another, as it is
grounded in both scripture and airtight reasoning.
Therefore, Origen not believing Samma’el would be
ultimately restored is actually far more destructive to the
underlying logic of his corpus as a whole, rather than if
the reverse were true. Thus, regardless of whatever the
case may be for this passage in question, it is almost
certainly the case that he died believing in the restoration
of all fallen angels.
The universalism that denies the salvation of all
fallen angels is simply half-cocked. Universalism must
affirm the ultimate restoration even of the originator of
evil itself if it is to remain logically consistent on the
restoration of all rational creatures and all creation. To
deny this is to simply deny the universality of the
restoration. Origen and his mystical descendants all knew
this, which is why they all follow him in this. The
archons are rational and dynamic creatures like we are,
capable of change. Otherwise, how is it possible for them
to fall to begin with? And if they can change enough to
fall, it stands to reason that they can change enough to
rise again. However, the question inevitably becomes,

14
“How is it that Christ saves even the angels?” Origen
responds:

[I]n those ages to come God will show the riches ‘of
His grace in kindness,’ since the worst sinner, who
has blasphemed the Holy Spirit and been ruled by
sin from beginning to end in the whole of this
present age, will afterwards in the age to come be
brought into order, I know not how.39

39
Origen, On Prayer, 27.15.

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