Origen (no, that’s a state)
Adamantius (c. 184 - c. 253)
This was one smart guy. He wrote over 2,000 treatises on religion and theology, was the biggest influence on early Christian belief and has been described as “the greatest genius the early Church ever produced.” He had initially wanted to martyr himself, but his mother had the final say on that: “No martyring for you young man! Go and clean your room!” or words to that effect. In the end, he got his wish, as he was tortured as part of the Decian Persecution in 250, when the Roman emperor Decius ordered every citizen of Rome (that included anyone in the empire; you didn’t have to actually live in or be born in Rome to be a Roman citizen) perform sacrifices to the gods and pray to them for his health. Those who did not, including obviously Christians, were tortured and killed. Although Origen was not killed in the crackdown, he died four years later as a result of his wounds, so it’s kind of the same thing. He was declared a martyr, finally realising his life’s ambition, by Pope Dionysus the Great. His story, however, would not end there, as we shall see. But back to this pesky sacrifice thingy.
The sacrifice had to be witnessed; it wasn’t the sort of thing where the Romans could knock at your door, Monty Python-like and say “Here you: sacrificed?” And you would nod and say “Sure,” and they’d go away. No. Every sacrifice had to be witnessed by a Roman magistrate, and you then got a certificate (no, really) to say you had done your duty and obeyed the law. One like this:
To the commission chosen to superintend the sacrifices. From Aurelia Ammonous, daughter of Mystus, of the Moeris quarter, priestess of the god Petesouchos, the great, the mighty, the immortal, and priestess of the gods in the Moeris quarter. I have sacrificed to the gods all my life, and now again, in accordance with the decree and in your presence, I have made sacrifice, and poured a libation, and partaken of the sacred victims. I request you to certify this below.
Jews were a special case, and were exempted. Respecting their tradition - and probably trying to avoid yet another costly uprising (do you know the price of wood these days? We can’t just be building hundreds of crosses every day!) Julius Caesar had established a precedent whereby Jews were allowed to practice their own religion and were not expected to sacrifice to, or even recognise, the gods of Rome. Christians, on the other hand, were the new kids on the block, and Rome did not take them seriously. Well, be fair here: Judaism had been around for thousands of years, whereas Christianity at this point wasn’t even 250 years old. So it was looked on as more a sect, a cult than a religion, and therefore not allowed any exemption. Christians could go and do their superstitious little practices, but they had better service the real gods or there would be trouble.
And there was. There is no surviving record of how many Christians were killed for disobeying the edict, though large numbers of them did do as they were told, causing something of a schism in the fledgling religion, as those who had fled rather than compromise their faith, remembering the braver (or slower or less organised) ones who had died for their God, sneered at and reviled the weak ones, and refused to let them back in to the club, as it were. Dark a period as this was in the history of Christianity, it is nevertheless amusing to me to read that the city of Carthage was overwhelmed with requests for forms needed to perform the sacrifice, and many had to be told to come back tomorrow. Bureaucracy, huh? “Nah nah mate, you need a form 19 A! That’s a 19F! What? Over there, just beyond the armed guards. Nah they won’t touch you. Just tell them you need a 19A Form. Yeah. Next!” Or picture the face of the aghast Carthaginian civil servant on his first day: “Nobody told me it was going to be like this! I turned down a position in Rome because I thought this would be
quieter! Where have all these
people come from? Sorry? You need a
what? Let me go get my supervisor…”
Horrible as it was, the edict only lasted a year, as Decius died in 251, but things were about to get a whole lot worse for Christians until the epiphany of Constantine made their religion not only legal, but the state one. But back to Origen.
Like I say, he was a busy boy. Having been thwarted of his attempts to sacrifice himself for his religion, he dedicated his life to writing, teaching about it and explaining it. He was the first to produce a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, along with five Greek translations; he postulated the theory of the Ransom of Atonement, by which Jesus died for our sins and attained for us forgiveness from his father, he promoted Christian pacifism and free will, and helped to explain the concept of the Divine Trinity. And without any god damn shamrock to help him. Take that, Saint Patrick!
Right. So that’s nice and clear, then.
However, not everything he wrote was accepted by the later Church. For example, he postulated that souls has been created before the universe, and had been part of God but then had fallen away into physical forms. I’m only guessing here, totally out of my depth, but I wonder if this was an attempt to explain the angels that attend God? In any case, the Church gave this one the big thumbs down. He was also said (though denied) to have believed that anyone could attain salvation, even Satan himself. "after aeons and the one restoration of all things, the state of Gabriel will be the same as that of the Devil, Paul's as that of Caiaphas, that of virgins as that of prostitutes." That was too much for the Church, and in 543 the Emperor Justinian I declared him a heretic, and ordered all his writings be burned. The Second Council of Constantinople also disagreed with many of his theories and declared them heretical.
Other things the Church did not agree with were Origen’s view that Jesus was born with a human soul, that he was essentially an angel - the greatest of them but still one of them - and that he had come to earth in a human, not spiritual form. His theory of the ransom of atonement, mentioned above, is interesting. He put forward the idea that Jesus died on the cross as a ransom to Satan, in exchange for the removal of sin from the world, but that the bargain was a double-cross, as Jesus being a divine being could not be taken into Hell and Satan had no power over him, as he was free of sin. Not surprisingly, the Church rejected this, and when you think about it, romantic though the notion is, Satan would have to have been pretty thick to have fallen for that one, wouldn’t he?
He also had a novel take on why the world seems unfair, why some people are born into richness and splendour and why some are fated to live and die in poverty. This all linked back to his theory of souls having had a pre-existence before they are incarnated in human bodies, and the circumstances that attend their birth, and their later lives, are dependent, apparently, on what their incorporeal souls did before they were born. Seems a little unfair; I must have been a right bastard before I was born then. He had some odd notions about pacifism though, believing that “earthy war was not the Christian way.” Yeah. Tell that to the Crusaders. Or the many Popes who kept their own armies, or.. Or, well, any Christian really. He believed, nevertheless, that it was impossible for a Christian to fight in a war as God had expressly forbidden violence, and that if all the world were Christian there would be no need for wars. Ah, bless. He doesn’t know he’s born, does he?
Despite this somewhat naive belief in the innate goodness of people (or their potential for it) Origen was one who failed to take the Bible literally, believing most if not all of it was written in allegory. Here’s what he has to say about the creation of the world, and the Garden of Eden, in
On the First Principles: 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? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? 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? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? 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. (On the First Principles, IV:16)
These ideas and theories were to have a major impact on the world of Christianity after Origen’s death, and lead to multiple attempts to have him declared a heretic. Mostly driven by the Cyprian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis, who was on a personal crusade to root out heresy in the Church, the attempts began in 375 when he wrote two anti-heretical treatises condemning Origen’s interpretations of the scriptures. When these didn’t work - guess they didn’t quite get on the bestsellers list - he turned to John, bishop of Jerusalem, asking him to denounce Origen as a heretic, but John said "No can do dude: once someone has passed on you can’t accuse them of being a heretic after the fact" (presumably because they’re dead and can’t refute the allegation or stand trial) so he tried again by appealing to him in 394, but John said “Look dude you deaf or something? Didn’t I already say no?”
Epiphanius though moaned “But didn’t you hear that guy Atarbius only last year advance a petition to denounce him? Come on. It’s got to be worth a second look at least, no?” John reminded him, probably, that the somewhat inappropriately-named-for-a-monk Tyrannius Rufinus (sounds like a T-Rex coming through the ceiling!) had scotched the request, but Epiphanius pushed “Yeah but Jerome thought it was a good idea, and he was a student of Origen!” And then “Aw dude! You left it too late! Now that John Cassian has gone and introduced these heretical writings to those gnarly dudes in the west. We screwed now, son.” Or words to that effect. The next year it was Jerome who wrote to John, again receiving a refusal
(“thank you for your application to have the writings of Origen of Alexandria censured. As we advised your friend and compatriot Epiphanius twice already in the foregoing years, this is not something we can support. We look forward to your custom in the future, but would ask you not to advance further applications of the same nature, as being excommunicated from your fellow Christians can sometimes cause offence.”
That was it. The two enemies of Origen banded together in a common cause. If they couldn’t get the old heretic they would get the new one, and they put pressure on John together, trying to have him condemned. John appealed to Pope Theophilus in Alexandria, who took his side and even began teaching the Origen way in Egypt. Both Jerome and Epiphanius would have been smugly delighted at the reaction this engendered, causing monks to riot in the streets. Wait, what? I’ll read that again. No, it’s right: monks. Rioting. In the streets.
How would that look I wonder?
"Brother, I love you but... but... oh I'm going to come right out and say it! I'm going to pray for you less!"
"
What? Brother, I love you, but you're asking not to be remembered in my prayers!"
"Oh now, you should follow the true path, brother, and if you don't, well, I - I - I may just have to ignore you at Vespers! There: I said it!"
"Truly brother, I will pray for you, but you shall no longer be in my good graces."
"Oh brother! No need to get violent!"
and so on.
As for the chant, well, you can just see it, can't you?
"What do we want?"
"Whatever God wants!"
"When do we want it?"
"Whenever God decides!"
Hmm. Anyway this quickly caused the pope to change his policy in order to avoid an all-out revolt against him, and the two enemies of Origen finally got what they wanted, as Theophilus denounced Origen as a heretic. Now, how this squared with John of Jerusalem’s claim that he was not allowed to brand Origen a heretic after his death I don’t know; maybe our John was just looking for a plausible excuse to refuse Epiphanius’s request, or maybe Theophilus ignored that part. Whatever the reason, Origen was denounced by the Pope of Alexandria, and to my knowledge, no electrical or sporting goods stores were looted, nor were any effigies set alight. The Great Library was, but that back in 48 BC and was, apparently, an accident.
In a move that would have had Epiphanius and Jerome jumping for joy, Theophilus labelled Origen as the “hydra of all heresies” and expelled his monks from Egypt, closing their monasteries and banning the teachings of Origen practiced by the Nitrian monks, although he seems to have had a change of heart the next year and invited them back, all friends again. Those popes, huh?
Another century and a half, another crisis, as the followers of Origen were at it again. It’s almost amusing how these factions and sub-factions fought over what we - well, I - would call small unimportant points of dogma. Talk about angels dancing on the head of a pin! Well, anyway, two factions got really fed up with each other and went to Emperor Justinian I (remember him?) to plead their case. He called a synod, and after examining all the writings of Origen agreed that he was a heretic, and branded him one again, ordering all his books burned. Not quite sure how you can be denounced twice: I mean, if you’re a heretic (in the eyes of the Church, of course) and nobody de-hereticises (or whatever the word is, if there is one) you, surely you remain a heretic? Any need to call you what you’ve already been called? Whatever the case, Origen was once again denounced by the Church and his writings condemned as heresy. This was about 543. Just time for tea, then.
Ten years later, as we have already heard, the Council of Constantinople (no, the second one) made him a heretic for the third time, though much of their ire does seem to have been directed at his disciple, Evagrius Ponticus, but you know what they say: like master, like disciple, yeah?
But the yo-yo nature of Christian belief continued to paint Origen as right, then wrong, then right and so on, until the great Renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus championed him, calling him the greatest of all Christian authors, while Martin Luther hated him, though some of his fellow reformers agreed with many of Origen’s ideas. In the end, his teaching seem to have eventually found favour with the Catholic and indeed much of the Protestant Church, and though he was never formally canonised is now often recognised as Saint Origen. No longer a heretic, then.
And where, I hear you ask testily, is the information about his ideas of the Fall of Satan? Well, I’ll be buggered if I know, but it sure was an interesting read, wasn’t it?