/> continued, especially by Clement. Origen, following the bent of his

genius, developed other sides of Christian thought as well, bringing it

all into a more systematic form than had ever before been attempted. The

Catechetical School of Alexandria was the most celebrated of all the

educational institutions of Christian antiquity. It aimed to give a

general secular and religious training. It appears to have been in

existence well before the end of the second century, having been founded,

it is thought, by Pantaenus. Clement assisted in the instruction from 190,

and from about 200 was head of the school for a few years. In 202 or 203

he was forced by persecution under Septimius Severus to flee from the

city. He died before 215. Of his works, the most important is his

three-part treatise composed of his Protrepticus, an apologetic work

addressed to the Greeks; his Paedegogus, a treatise on Christian

morality; and his Stromata, or miscellanies. Origen became head of the

Catechetical School in 203, when but eighteen years old, and remained in

that position until 232, when, having been irregularly ordained priest

outside his own diocese and being suspected of heresy, he was deposed. But

he removed to Caesarea in Palestine, where he continued his work with the

greatest success and was held in the highest honor by the Church in

Palestine and parts other than Egypt. He died 254 or 255 at Tyre, having

previously suffered severely in the Decian persecution. His works are of

the highest importance in various fields of theology. De Principiis is

the first attempt to present in connected form the whole range of

Christian theology. His commentaries cover nearly the entire Bible. His

Contra Celsum is the greatest of all early apologies. The Hexapla was

the most elaborate piece of text-criticism of antiquity.





Additional source material: Eusebius. Hist. Ec., VI, deals at

length with Origen; Gregory Thaumaturgus, Panegyric on Origen,

in ANF. VI.





(a) Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, I, 5. (MSG, 8:717.)





Clement's view of the relation of Greek philosophy to Christian

revelation is almost identical with that of the apologists, as are

also many of his fundamental concepts.





Before the advent of the Lord philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for

righteousness. And now it becomes useful to piety, being a kind of

preparatory training to those who attain to faith through demonstration.

"For thy foot," it is said, "will not stumble" if thou refer what is good,

whether belonging to the Greeks or to us, to Providence. For God is the

cause of all good things; but of some primarily, as of the Old and the New

Testament, and of others by consequence, as philosophy. Perchance, too,

philosophy was given to the Greeks directly till the Lord should call the

Greeks also. For this was a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind to

Christ, as was the law to bring the Hebrews. Philosophy, therefore, was a

preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ.



"Now," says Solomon, "defend wisdom, and it will exalt thee, and it will

shield thee with a crown of pleasure."(66) For when thou hast strengthened

wisdom with a breastwork by philosophy, and with expenditure, thou wilt

preserve her unassailable by sophists. The way of truth is therefore one.

But into it, as into a perennial river, streams flow from every side.





(b) Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VII, 10. (MSG, 9:47.)





See Clement of Alexandria, VIIth Book of the Stromateis, ed. by

Hort and Mayor, London, 1902. In making faith suffice for

salvation, Clement clearly distinguishes his position from that of

the Gnostics, though he uses the term "gnostic" as applicable to

Christians. See next passage.





Knowledge [gnosis], so to speak, is a perfecting of man as man, which is

brought about by acquaintance with divine things; in character, life, and

word harmonious and consistent with itself and the divine Word. For by it

faith is made perfect, inasmuch as it is solely by it that the man of

faith becomes perfect. Faith is an internal good, and without searching

for God confesses His existence and glorifies Him as existent. Hence by

starting with this faith, and being developed by it, through the grace of

God, the knowledge respecting Him is to be acquired as far as possible.



But it is not doubting, in reference to God, but believing, that is the

foundation of knowledge. But Christ is both the foundation and the

superstructure, by whom are both the beginning and the end. And the

extreme points, the beginning and the end, I mean faith and love, are not

taught. But knowledge, which is conveyed from communication through the

grace of God as a deposit, is intrusted to those who show themselves

worthy of it; and from it the worth of love beams forth from light to

light. For it is said, "To him that hath shall be given" [cf. Matt.

13:12]--to faith, knowledge; and to knowledge, love; and to love, the

inheritance.



Faith then is, so to speak, a compendious knowledge of the essentials; but

knowledge is the sure and firm demonstration of what is received by faith,

built upon faith by the Lord's teaching, conveying us on to unshaken

conviction and certainty. And, as it seems to me, the first saving change

is that from heathenism to faith, as I said before; and the second, that

from faith to knowledge. And this latter passing on to love, thereafter

gives a mutual friendship between that which knows and that which is

known. And perhaps he who has already arrived at this stage has attained

equality with the angels. At any rate, after he has reached the final

ascent in the flesh, he still continues to advance, as is fit, and presses

on through the holy Hebdomad into the Father's house, to that which is

indeed the Lord's abode.





(c) Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V, 11. (MSG, 9:102, 106.)





The piety of the Christian Gnostic.





The sacrifice acceptable with God is unchanging alienation from the body

and its passions. This is the really true piety. And is not philosophy,

therefore, rightly called by Socrates the meditation on death? For he who

neither employs his eyes in the exercise of thought nor draws from his

other senses, but with pure mind applies himself to objects, practises the

true philosophy.



It is not without reason, therefore, that in the mysteries which are to be

found among the Greeks lustrations hold the first place; as also the laver

among the barbarians. After these are the minor mysteries, which have some

foundation for instruction and preparation for what is to follow. In the

great mysteries concerning the universe nothing remains to be learned, but

only to contemplate and comprehend with the mind nature and things. We

shall understand the more of purification by confession, and of

contemplation by analysis, advancing by analysis to the first notion,

beginning with the properties underlying it; abstracting from the body its

physical properties, taking away the dimension of depth, then of breadth,

and then of length. For the point which remains is a unit, so to speak,

having position; from which, if we abstract position, there is the

conception of unity.



If, then, we abstract all that belongs to bodies and things called

incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ, and thence

advancing into immensity by holiness, we may reach somehow to the

conception of the Almighty, knowing not what He is, but knowing what He is

not. And form and motion, or standing, or a throne or place, or right hand

or left, are not at all to be conceived as belonging to the Father of the

universe, although it is so written. For what each of these signifies will

be shown in the proper place. The First Cause is not then in space, but

above time and space and name and conception.





(d) Origen, De Principiis, I, 2:2. (MSG, 11:130.)





Origen's doctrine of the "eternal generation of the Son" was of

primary importance in all subsequent discussions on the Trinity.





Let no one imagine that we mean anything unsubstantial when we call Him

the Wisdom of God; or suppose, for example, that we understand Him to be,

not a living being endowed with wisdom, but something which makes men

wise, giving itself to, and implanting itself in, the minds of those who

are made capable of receiving its virtues and intelligence. If, then, it

is once rightly understood that the only begotten Son of God is His Wisdom

hypostatically [substantialiter] existing, I know not whether our mind

ought to advance beyond this or entertain any suspicion that the

hypostasis or substantia contains anything of a bodily nature, since

everything corporeal is distinguished either by form, or color, or

magnitude. And who in his sound senses ever sought for form, or color, or

size, in wisdom, in respect of its being wisdom? And who that is capable

of entertaining reverential thoughts or feelings regarding God can suppose

or believe that God the Father ever existed, even for a moment of time,

without having generated this Wisdom? For in that case he must say either

that God was unable to generate Wisdom before He produced her, so that He

afterward called into being that which formerly did not exist, or that He

could, but--what is impious to say of God--was unwilling to generate; both

of which suppositions, it is patent to all, are alike absurd and impious:

for they amount to this, either that God advanced from a condition of

inability to one of ability, or that, although possessed of the power, He

concealed it, and delayed the generation of Wisdom. Therefore we have

always held that God is the Father of His only begotten Son, who was born

indeed of Him, and derives from Him, what He is, but without any

beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but

even that which the mind alone contemplates within itself, or beholds, so

to speak, with the naked soul and understanding. And therefore we must

believe that Wisdom was generated before any beginning that can be either

comprehended or expressed.





(e) Origen, De Principiis, I, 2:10. (MSG, 11:138.)





Origen's doctrine of "eternal creation" was based upon reasoning

similar to that employed to show the eternal generation of the

Son, but it was rejected by the Church, and figures among the

heresies known as Origenism. See below, §§ 87, 93.





As no one can be a father without having a son, nor a master without

possessing a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent(67) unless

there exists those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore,

that God may be shown to be almighty it is necessary that all things

should exist. For if any one assumes that some ages or portions of time,

or whatever else he likes to call them, have passed away, while those

things which have been made did not yet exist, he would undoubtedly show

that during those ages or periods God was not omnipotent but became

omnipotent afterward: viz., from the time that He began to have those over

whom He exercised power; and in this way He will appear to have received a

certain increase, and to have risen from a lower to a higher condition;

since there can be no doubt that it is better for Him to be omnipotent

than not to be so. And, now, how can it appear otherwise than absurd, that

when God possessed none of those things which it was befitting for Him to

possess, He should afterward, by a kind of progress, come to have them?

But if there never was a time when He was not omnipotent,(68) of necessity

those things by which He receives that title must also exist; and He must

always have had those over whom He exercised power, and which were

governed by Him either as king or prince, of which we shall speak more

fully when we come to discuss the subject of creatures.





(f) Origen, De Principiis, II, 9:6. (MSG, 11:230.)





The theory of pre-existence and the pretemporal fall of each soul

was the basis of Origen's theodicy. It caused great offence in

after years when theology became more stereotyped, and it has

retained no place in the Church's thought, for the idea ran too

clearly counter to the biblical account of the Fall of Adam.





We have frequently shown by those statements which we are able to adduce

from the divine Scriptures that God, the Creator of all things, is good,

and just, and all-powerful. When in the beginning He created all those

beings whom He desired to create, i.e., rational natures, He had no

other reason for creating them than on account of Himself, i.e., His

goodness. As He himself, then, was the cause of the existence of those

things which were to be created, in whom there was neither any variation

nor change nor want of power, He created all whom He made equal and alike,

because there was no reason for Him to produce variety and diversity. But

since those rational creatures themselves, as we have frequently shown and

will yet show in the proper place, were endowed with the power of free

choice, this freedom of his will incited each one either to progress by

imitation of God or induced him to failure through negligence. And this,

as we have already stated, is the cause of the diversity among rational

creatures, deriving its origin not from the will or judgment of the

Creator, but from the freedom of the individual will. God, however, who

deemed it just to arrange His creatures according to merit, brought down

these differences of understanding into the harmony of one world, that He

might adorn, as it were, one dwelling, in which there ought to be not only

vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay and some, indeed, to

honor and others to dishonor, with those different vessels, or souls, or

understandings. And these are the causes, in my opinion, why that world

presents the aspect of diversity, while Divine Providence continues to

regulate each individual according to the variety of his movements or of

his feelings and purpose. On which account the Creator will neither appear

to be unjust in distributing (for the causes already mentioned) to every

one according to his merits; nor will the happiness or unhappiness of each

one's birth, or whatever be the condition that falls to his lot, be deemed

accidental; nor will different creators, or souls of different natures, be

believed to exist.





(g) Origen, Homil. in Exod., VI, 9. (MSG, 12:338.)





In the following passage from Origen's Commentary on Exodus and

the four following passages are stated the essential points of

Origen's theory of redemption. In this theory there are two

elements which have been famous in the history of Christian

thought: the relation of the death of Christ to the devil, and the

ultimate salvation of every soul. The theory that Christ's death

was a ransom paid to the devil was developed by Gregory of Nyssa

and Gregory the Great, and reappeared constantly in theology down

to the scholastic period, when it was overthrown by Anselm and the

greater scholastics. Universal redemption or salvation, especially

when it included Satan himself, was never taken up by Church

theologians to any extent, and was one of the positions condemned

as Origenism. See § 93.





It is certain, they say, that one does not buy that which is his own. But

the Apostle says: "Ye are bought with a price." But hear what the prophet

says: "You have been sold as slaves to your sins, and for your iniquities

I have put away your mother." Thou seest, therefore, that we are the

creatures of God, but each one has been sold to his sins, and has fallen

from his Creator. Therefore we belong to God, inasmuch as we have been

created by Him, but we have become the servants of the devil, inasmuch as

we have been sold to our sins. But Christ came to redeem us when we were

servants to that master to whom we had sold ourselves by sinning.





(h) Origen, Contra Celsum, VII, 17. (MSG, 11:1445.)





If we consider Jesus in relation to the divinity that was in Him, the

things which He did in this capacity are holy and do not offend our idea

of God; and if we consider Him as a man, distinguished beyond all others

by an intimate communion with the very Word, with Absolute Wisdom, He

suffered as one who was wise and perfect whatever it behooved Him to

suffer, who did all for the good of the human race, yea, even for the good

of all intelligent beings. And there is nothing absurd in the fact that a

man died, and that his death was not only an example of death endured for

the sake of piety, but also the first blow in the conflict which is to

overthrow the power of the evil spirit of the devil, who had obtained

dominion over the whole world. For there are signs of the destruction of

his empire; namely, those who through the coming of Christ are everywhere

escaping from the power of demons, and who after their deliverance from

this bondage in which they were held consecrate themselves to God, and

according to their ability devote themselves day by day to advancement in

a life of piety.





(i) Origen, Homil. in Matt., XVI, 8. (MSG, 13:1398.)





He did this in service of our salvation so far that He gave His soul a

ransom for many who believed on Him. If all had believed on Him, He would

have given His soul as a ransom for all. To whom did He give His soul as a

ransom for many? Certainly not to God. Then was it not to the Evil One?

For that one reigned over us until the soul of Jesus was given as a ransom

for us. This he had especially demanded, deceived by the imagination that

he could rule over it, and he was not mindful of the fact that he could

not endure the torment connected with holding it fast. Therefore death,

which appeared to reign over Him, did not reign over Him, since He was

"free among the dead" and stronger than the power of death. He is, indeed,

so far superior to it that all who from among those overcome by death will

follow Him can follow Him, as death is unable to do anything against

them. We are therefore redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus. As a

ransom for us the soul of the Son of God has been given (not His spirit,

for this, according to Luke [cf. Luke 23:46] He had previously given to

His Father, saying: "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit"); also,

not His body, for concerning this we find nothing mentioned. And when He

had given His soul as a ransom for many, He did not remain in the power of

him to whom the ransom was given for many, because it says in the

sixteenth psalm [Psalm 16:10]: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell."





(j) Origen, De Principiis, I, 6:3. (MSG, 11:168.)





The following states in brief the theory of universal salvation.





It is to be borne in mind, however, that certain beings who fell away from

that one beginning of which we have spoken, have given themselves to such

wickedness and malice as to be deemed altogether undeserving of that

training and instruction by which the human race while in the flesh are

trained and instructed with the assistance of the heavenly powers: they

continue, on the contrary, in a state of enmity and opposition to those

who are receiving this instruction and teaching. And hence it is that the

whole life of mortals is full of certain struggles and trials, caused by

the opposition and enmity against us of those who fell from a better

condition without at all looking back, and who are called the devil and

his angels, and other orders of evil, which the Apostle classed among the

opposing powers. But whether any of these orders, who act under the

government of the devil and obey his wicked commands, will be able in a

future world to be converted to righteousness because of their possessing

the faculty of freedom of will, or whether persistent and inveterate

wickedness may be changed by habit into a kind of nature, you, reader, may

decide; yet so that neither in those things which are seen and temporal

nor in those which are unseen and eternal one portion is to differ wholly

from the final unity and fitness of things. But in the meantime, both in

those temporal worlds which are seen, and in those eternal worlds which

are invisible, all those beings are arranged according to a regular plan,

in the order and degree of merit; so that some of them in the first,

others in the second, some even in the last times, after having undergone

heavier and severer punishments, endured for a lengthened period and for

many ages, so to speak, improved by this stern method of training, and

restored at first by the instruction of angels and subsequently advanced

by powers of a higher grade, and thus advancing through each stage to a

better condition, reach even to that which is invisible and eternal,

having travelled by a kind of training through every single office of the

heavenly powers. From which, I think, this will follow as an

inference--that every rational nature can, in passing from one order to

another, go through each to all, and advance from all to each, while made

the subject of various degrees of proficiency and failure, according to

its own actions and endeavors, put forth in the enjoyment of its power of

freedom of will.





(k) Origen, De Principiis, IV, 9-15. (MSG, 11:360, 363, 373.)





Allegorism.





The method of exegesis known as allegorism, whereby the

speculations of the Christian theologians were provided with an

apparently scriptural basis, was taken over from the Jewish and

Greek philosophers and theologians who employed it in the study of

their sacred books. Origen, it should be added, contributed not a

little to a sound grammatical interpretation as well. For

Porphyry's criticism of Origen's methods of exegesis see Eusebius,

Hist. Ec., VI, 19.





Ch. 9. Now the cause, in all the points previously enumerated, of the

false opinions and of the impious statements or ignorant assertions about

God appears to be nothing else than that the Scriptures are not understood

according to their spiritual meaning, but are interpreted according to the

mere letter. And therefore to those who believe that the sacred books are

not the compositions of men, but were composed by the inspirations of the

Holy Spirit, according to the will of the Father of all things through

Jesus Christ, and that they have come down to us, we must point out the

modes of interpretation which appear correct to us, who cling to the

standard of the heavenly Church according to the succession of the

Apostles of Jesus Christ. Now that there are certain mystical economies

made known in the Holy Scriptures, all, even the most simple of those who

adhere to the word, have believed; but what these are, the candid and

modest confess they know not. If, then, one were to be perplexed about the

incest of Lot with his daughters, and about the two wives of Abraham, and

the two sisters married to Jacob, and the two handmaids who bore him

children, they can return no other answer than this--that these are

mysteries not understood by us.



Ch. 11. The way, then, as it seems to me, in which we ought to deal with

the Scriptures and extract from them their meaning is the following, which

has been ascertained from the sayings [of the Scriptures] themselves. By

Solomon in the Proverbs we find some rule as this enjoined respecting the

teaching of the divine writings, "And do thou portray them in a threefold

manner, in counsel and knowledge, to answer words of truth to them who

propose them to thee" [cf. Prov. 22:20 f., LXX]. One ought, then, to

portray the ideas of Holy Scripture in a threefold manner upon his soul,

in order that the simple man may be edified by the "flesh," as it were, of

Scripture, for so we name the obvious sense; while he who has ascended a

certain way may be edified by the "soul," as it were. The perfect man, and

he who resembles those spoken of by the Apostle, when he says, "We speak

wisdom among them that are perfect, but not the wisdom of the world, nor

of the rulers of this world, who come to nought; but we speak the wisdom

of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God hath ordained before the

ages unto our glory" [I Cor. 2:6, 7], may receive edification from the

spiritual law, which was a shadow of things to come. For as man consists

of body and soul and spirit, so in the same way does the Scripture

consist, which has been arranged by God for the salvation of men.



Ch. 12. But as there are certain passages which do not contain at all the

"corporeal" sense, as we shall show in the following, there are also

places where we must seek only for the "soul," as it were, and "spirit" of

Scripture.



Ch. 15. But since, if the usefulness of the legislation and the sequence

and beauty of the history were universally evident, we should not believe

that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was

obvious, the Word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, and

offences, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the

law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in

all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language, either

altogether fall away from the true doctrines, as learning nothing worthy

of God, or, by not departing from the letter, come to the knowledge of

nothing more divine. And this, also, we must know: that, since the

principal aim is to announce the "spiritual" connection in those things

that are done and that ought to be done where the Word found that things

done according to the history could be adapted to these mystic senses, He

made use of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but

where in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things there

did not follow the performance of those certain events which was already

indicated by the mystical meaning the Scripture interwove in the history

the account of some event that did not take place, sometimes what could

not have happened; sometimes what could, but did not happen. And at other

times impossibilities are recorded for the sake of the more skilful and

inquisitive, in order that they may give themselves to the toil of

investigation of what is written, and thus attain to a becoming conviction

of the manner in which a meaning worthy of God must be sought out in such

subjects.