Origen Adamantius

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Origen Adamantius
an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. His orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the preexistence of souls. Today he is regarded as one of the Church Fathers.

biography

Origen was probably born in Alexandria, to Christian parents. Was educated by his father, St. Leonides, who gave him a standard Hellenistic education, but also had him study the Christian Scriptures. In 203 Origen revived the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Origen, to be entirely independent, sold his library for a sum which netted him a daily income of 4 obols, on which he lived by exercising the utmost frugality. Teaching throughout the day, he devoted the greater part of the night to the study of the Bible and lived a life of rigid asceticism.

biography
His own interests became more and more centered in exegesis, and he accordingly studied Hebrew, though there is no certain knowledge concerning his instructor in that language. From about this period (212-213) dates Origen's acquaintance with Ambrose of Alexandria, whom he was instrumental in converting from Valentinianism to orthodoxy. Later (about 218) Ambrose, a man of wealth, made a formal agreement with Origen to promulgate his writings, and all the subsequent works of Origen (except his sermons, which were not expressly prepared for publication) were dedicated to Ambrose.

works
Origin was the greatest textual critic of the early Church, directing the production of the massive Hexapla ("Sixfold"), an Old Testament in six columns: Hebrew, Hebrew in Greek characters, the Septuagint, and the Greek versions of Theodotion, Aquila of Sinope, and Symmachus. He was also the greatest biblical scholar of the early Church after Jerome, having written commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, though few are extant.

works
According to Epiphanius, Origen wrote about 6,000 works. These fall into four classes: textual criticism; exegesis; systematic, practical, and apologetic theology; and letters; besides certain spurious works. By far the most important work of Origen on textual criticism was the Hexapla, a comparative study of various translations of the Old Testament.

views
Origen has long been considered a Platonist with occasional traces of Stoic philosophy. Mark J Edwards has argued that many of Origen's positions are more properly Aristotelian than strictly Platonic (for instance, his philosophical anthropology). Nonetheless, he was thus a pronounced idealist, as one regarding all things temporal and material as insignificant and indifferent, the only real and eternal things being comprised in the idea. He therefore regards as the purely ideal center of this spiritual and eternal world, God, the pure reason, whose creative powers call into being the world with matter as the necessary substratum.

views

Origen's cosmology is complicated and controverted, but he seems to have held to a hypothesis of the preexistence of souls, before the world we know was created by God, God created a great number of spiritual intelligences.
Intelligences eventually grew bored of contemplating God, their love for him cooling off. Those whose love for God diminished the most became demons. Those whose love diminished moderately became human souls, eventually to be incarnated in fleshly bodies. Those whose love diminished the least became angels.

theological views
Origen's conception of God is apophaticGod is a perfect unity, invisible and incorporeal, transcending all things material, and therefore inconceivable and incomprehensible. He is likewise unchangeable, and transcends space and time. But his power is limited by his goodness, justice, and wisdom; and, though entirely free from necessity, his goodness and omnipotence constrained him to reveal himself.