On Origen the Heretic

We have looked at Marcion the Heretic, but now I wish to look at Origen Adamantius, the heretic. He is credited with writing parts of the Septuagint. He was a teacher of Alexandria school of thought, and was originally an Egyptian. Why was he pronounced a heretic? He was a heretic over his replacement Theology. He is considered as one of the most distinguished writers of the early church time period. Origen established a version of the Logos concept which was held LATER to be very controversial by around 500 A.D. and got him into a lot of trouble. Origen believed in the preexistence of souls (a concept that is also propagated by Jehovah's Witnesses), universal salvation (somewhat being propagated in Catholic churches today, and especially in universalistic ministries), and a hierarchical concept of the trinity. His ideology regarding the preexistence of the soul was right in line with reincarnation. Where is this taught within the Bible? However it certainly falls into line with Platonism. This was something that eventually began to coincide with the early church fathers, especially when we get to Augustine. By Augustine's time period, Neoplatonic Christianity was at its peak. Origen also taught the multiple ages and transmigration of souls; and eventual restoration of all souls to a state of dynamic perfection in proximity to the godhead. Thus far we have his teachings from "On First Principles." This sounds very much along the lines of modern day Mormon thought. This is in line with his Greek ideology, similar to that of Ignatius. Now lets take a look at some quotes from Origen in his writings "The Hexapla" to describe his belief system.

One thing that Origen did that was highly disputable was his approach to Jews. We can see clearly what he thought about Jews within this very quote "But Paul, in his preaching of the Gospel, is a debtor to deliver the word not to Barbarians only, but also to Greeks, and not only to the unwise, who would easily agree with him, but also to the wise. " He is calling the Jews unwise. We see that Paul disagreed with these writings, and declared that there was every advantage to being a Jew, and that they were the wise ones given the oracles. Funny how the Greeks were actually described. The Greeks are mentioned as the Barbarians within the Bible, to a certain degree, dabbling in paganistic ideology in Acts 17. The encounter that the Jewish disciples had with the Greeks can be found here "16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearers, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' " What happened to what Origen was stating about the Greeks being the wise? It appears the Greeks are the ones being educated by the Jews. Lets proceed.

Origen separates the concept of God the Father from God the Son as can be seen here. "But the Wisdom of God, which is His only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of change or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential, and such as cannot be changed and converted, His glory is therefore declared to be pure and sincere." I believe this statement is important. But obviously given the statement above by Origen, he is not claiming that Yeshua is the Wisdom of God as would have been understood by a Jew. Though I have been able to find no actual translation of Wisdom that means this definitively (that Logos means Wisdom), I am not opposed to saying that The Wisdom of God is actually the Logos, which means the Word, but it ultimately means the Torah. And we from the Messianic community recognize Yeshua as "the living Torah." What I am opposed to is that this is an attempt to put a vacuous ideology of Wisdom on John 1:1 since we see that Origen opposes the Torah. This is irreconcilable with scripture, and something that I often troubled myself over trying to understand when I was an advocate of Christian Apologetics, since if God became a man, and man's wisdom is below God's wisdom as is indicated by scripture, we have a contradiction here, because man's wisdom becomes God's wisdom based off of Greek philosophy. Of course we have the Matthew 24:36 scripture that is often translated puts a damage to this ideology to Greek thinking Christians. For a Jew, it is not hard to understand what Yeshua was talking about. But additionally, look at 1 Corinthians 3:19 " For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, "He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS." 1 Corinthians 1:25 clearly states "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." This is my number One objection to remaining a Neo-Platonic Christian, as I was in the past an admirer of the likes of Ignatius, Origen and Augustine, as well as Aquinas. The Bible teaches that God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and a part of this is even reflected in Origen's writings in the next passage.

"For whatever be the knowledge which we are able to obtain of God, either by perception or reflection, we must of necessity believe that He is by many degrees far better than what we perceive Him to be. " It also correlates with Isaiah 55:6-10. No problem here. So lets move on.

"Having refuted, then, as well as we could, every notion which might suggest that we were to think of God as in any degree corporeal, we go on to say that, according to strict truth, God is incomprehensible, and incapable of being measured. " To say God is incomprehensible here is incorrect, because we can know SOME things about God. You can not lay claims to even the triune nature of God without knowing something about God. So this is an Agnostic theology being promoted by Origen, and a vain attempt to relate it to scripture. This is self refutation. Moving on....

"If all things were made through Him, clearly so must the splendid revelations have been which were made to the fathers and prophets, and became to them the symbols of the sacred mysteries of religion." This is very true if we're talking about the Patriarchs of the Jewish faith. Again it doesn't appear given Origen's claim above about Jews being Barbarians that this is the case.

"This also is a part of the teaching of the Church, that there are certain angels of God, and certain good influences, which are His servants in accomplishing the salvation of men." What this declares is something rather heretical. Basically, that angels are necessary in accomplishing the salvation of men. What does the Bible teach? Acts 4:12 directly opposes this concept of Origen. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." This is often put forth by the church today, even in Protestant circles. However, we see no documented place in scripture to support Origen's point of view beyond the various shofar blowing and announcements that they make within the Bible. Its always God doing something, never the angels. Lets continue forth.

"This opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel, and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these up to the present time are called his angels." There is absolutely no deviation from our stance here.

"We must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and that they bore prudence on their lips. " This is an interesting comment, but also contradictory to his earlier writings. Earlier we are hearing that anyone who is not a Greek is a barbarian and unwise, and now the prophets, who were NOT Greek are considered to hold prudence. Let us proceed.

This next comment I believe really disturbs scripture. "But God, who is the beginning of all things, is not to be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance there should be found to exist elements prior to the beginning itself, out of which everything is composed, whatever that be which is called composite." But God is described as infinite, so he can exist prior to the beginning itself. In fact, he created the beginning. He can not be less than a composite being if he does not hold to a triune nature. Besides this, Revelation 5:6 declares that God exists in the form of a sevenfold spirit. This is a contradiction.

Origen further put forth in finality, his replacement theology which spurned his first of two impeachments from the church. This is the final comment we will look at from Origen. "We may thus assert in utter confidence that the Jews will not return to their earlier situation, for they have committed the most abominable of crimes, in forming this conspiracy against the Savior of the human race…hence the city where Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election."

It is definitely an assertion. But who was this "other" people called by God to the blessed election? We see that in Romans 11:1-2 it is stated " 1I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 2God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel."

God will not reject his people. Jeremiah 33:14-22 states " 14 " 'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 " 'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it [c] will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'
17 For this is what the LORD says: 'David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 nor will the priests, who are Levites, ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices.' "
19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 20 "This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, 21 then my covenant with David my servant—and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me—can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. 22 I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.' "

So God does say he will restore his people unlike what Origen believes. Origen is the 2nd to support a replacement Theology. And he was declared heretical. Not once, but twice. Yet today, he is held alongside Justin Martyr to be one of the most knowledgeable scholars in the early church on the history of Scripture, by both Protestant and Catholic alike. Orthodox Christians are much more reluctant to declare this title to him, but he also remains an early church father as pronounced by the Catholic church.