# Is this why Origen was branded a heretic?



## Relztrah (Nov 2, 2021)

I am not familiar with Origen other than that he was branded a heretic and later un-branded. Out of curiosity I began reading _Origen on Prayer _and found this interesting passage in Chapter 10:

For when He has heard one say. “Teach you us to pray,” He does not teach men to pray to Himself but to the Father saying, “Our Father in heaven,” and so on. For if, as is shown elsewhere, *the Son is other than the Father in being and essence*, prayer is to be made either to the Son and not the Father or to both or to the Father alone.​​That prayer to the Son and not the Father is most out of place and only to be suggested in defiance of manifest truth, one and all will admit. In prayer to both it is plain that we should have to offer our claims in plural form, and in our prayers say, “Grant you both, Bless you both, Supply you both, Save you both,” or the like, which is self-evidently wrong and also incapable of being shown by anyone to stand in the scriptures as spoken by any.​​It remains, accordingly, to pray to God alone, the Father of All, not however apart from the High Priest who has been appointed by the Father with swearing of an oath, according to the words He hath sworn and shall not repent, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” In thanksgiving to God, therefore, during their prayers, saints acknowledge His favors through Christ Jesus.​​I'm not sure what to make of this. The words I have made bold sound Arian or Sabellian or ... well, something other than Nicene Trinitarian. Your thoughts?​


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Nov 2, 2021)

I have a friend at work who subscribes to the teachings of Origen. That friend openly denies the Trinity. So maybe there's something to be said about that.


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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 2, 2021)

One of the heresies was that he was a universalist


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

Kind of. The word "ousia" was slippery in meaning in Origen's time than it was in Nicea. It connoted something close to materiality. That's why he didn't want to say the Father and Son were of the same ousia. On the other hand, if you would have asked him if the Son was fully God, he would have said yes.

He was probably a universalist, but we don't have a complete text of Peri Archon in the Greek.

His main problem was that he allowed for the possibility of multiple falls and that souls pre-existed bodies.

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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

Christopher Beeley has a good analysis of Origen's Christology.
https://puritanboard.com/threads/un...-and-continuity-in-patristic-tradition.85174/
Maximus the Confessor addressed his pre-fall stuff.








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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

Basically for Origen the Son mediates the Father's utter simplicity. That's his Christology in a nutshell.

For Origen a hypostasis is a distinctly existing thing; a concrete entity or being (Cm. John. 10.212). 
On the Son’s being: ousia meant something different for Origen than it did for Nicea. For Origen this suggested a diminution from the Father’s being. “Being” suggests the actual existence of a thing, so for two things to share the same being is to be the same thing.


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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 3, 2021)

One other thing I have picked up from my reading, and I suppose this could be grave error or heresy, is his allegorical method of interpreting scripture. Basically, the plain meaning of the text is not what it means, you need to go deeper and find out the secret meaning of the text. Seems almost like a form of gnosticism at the worst. At best, it is a convenient way to twist scripture to make it say what what you want it to. I am not saying this is specifically what Origen had in mind when he did it, but certainly those who came after him exploited it.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

retroGRAD3 said:


> One other thing I have picked up from my reading, and I suppose this could be grave error or heresy, is his allegorical method of interpreting scripture. Basically, the plain meaning of the text is not what it means, you need to go deeper and find out the secret meaning of the text. Seems almost like a form of gnosticism at the worst. At best, it is a convenient way to twist scripture to make it say what what you want it to. I am not saying this is specifically what Origen had in mind when he did it, but certainly those who came after him exploited it.



I wouldn't call it heretical in itself. I think much of allegory is silly. It really depends on how it is used. Allegory is built upon a Platonic framework. The literal/historical participates in the spiritual or tropological. The former points to the latter.

In any case, allegorical reading was the norm for church history. Even Reformed people do it when it comes to Song of Solomon.

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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I wouldn't call it heretical in itself. I think much of allegory is silly. It really depends on how it is used. Allegory is built upon a Platonic framework. The literal/historical participates in the spiritual or tropological. The former points to the latter.
> 
> In any case, allegorical reading was the norm for church history. Even Reformed people do it when it comes to Song of Solomon.


That's true. I think the point I was trying to make was that when pushed too far it can lead to serious error. Also, I believe he was the ORIGIN (bad pun) of this method of Biblical interpretation.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

retroGRAD3 said:


> That's true. I think the point I was trying to make was that when pushed too far it can lead to serious error. Also, I believe he was the ORIGIN (bad pun) of this method of Biblical interpretation.



Maybe. He was the first major Christian thinker of any note besides Irenaeus. Irenaeus did hold to figural readings but he never got carried away. You can see some hints in the Apostolic Fathers, but their writings are too scanty (and not really impressive in any case).

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## Relztrah (Nov 3, 2021)

And wasn't the Alexandrian school known for allegorical interpretation as opposed to the Antoichian school which favored the literal interpretation?


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I wouldn't call it heretical in itself. I think much of allegory is silly. It really depends on how it is used. *Allegory is built upon a Platonic framework. The literal/historical participates in the spiritual or tropological. The former points to the latter.*
> 
> In any case, allegorical reading was the norm for church history. Even Reformed people do it when it comes to Song of Solomon.



I think I know where this is going, but would you expand on it?


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

retroGRAD3 said:


> One other thing I have picked up from my reading, and I suppose this could be grave error or heresy, is his allegorical method of interpreting scripture. Basically, the plain meaning of the text is not what it means, you need to go deeper and find out the secret meaning of the text. Seems almost like a form of gnosticism at the worst. At best, it is a convenient way to twist scripture to make it say what what you want it to. I am not saying this is specifically what Origen had in mind when he did it, but certainly those who came after him exploited it.



Martin Luther was educated in allegorization, which shows you how long the influence of the method lasted, and only how recently the church began to discard it. There were others before Luther, but not quite a wholesale rejection. Luther's technical term for allegorization was "monkey business."

Mankind's never had an issue since then finding creative ways to make Scripture say what they want it to say, or silencing it at convenient times. Just make God too transcendent to know how to talk to us.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> I think I know where this is going, but would you expand on it?



There is an eternal realm of Forms (truth, justice, love, etc.). It is a realm of pure being. We participate in this realm. The biblical text points to this realm of eternal forms. Think of divine patterns in the text. The historical narrative (which Origen affirmed) is like a ladder that lets us better participate in this realm.


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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> Martin Luther was educated in allegorization, which shows you how long the influence of the method lasted, and only how recently the church began to discard it. There were others before Luther, but not quite a wholesale rejection. Luther's technical term for allegorization was "monkey business."


Unfortunately, allegorization is still around today and used by liberals and many others engaging in continuing "monkey business". As you mention, it had a LONG lasting effect. Which is why I often see Origin in more of a negative light (while realizing there were some positive contributions).


RPEphesian said:


> Mankind's never had an issue since then finding creative ways to make Scripture say what they want it to say, or silencing it at convenient times. Just make God too transcendent to know how to talk to us.


Indeed


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> Mankind's never had an issue since then finding creative ways to make Scripture say what they want it to say, or silencing it at convenient times. Just make God too transcendent to know how to talk to us.



Origen had the bible memorized in several languages. He was tortured even beyond what the Romans normally did to people. He wasn't worried about what was convenient. I don't like Origen for other reasons, but he wasn't trying to silence the Scripture. Most of these early guys had the Psalter memorized as a matter of course.

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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Origen had the bible memorized in several languages. He was tortured even beyond what the Romans normally did to people. He wasn't worried about what was convenient. I don't like Origen for other reasons, but he wasn't trying to silence the Scripture. Most of these early guys had the Psalter memorized as a matter of course.


I didn't read his comment as specifically calling out Origen. I read it as condemning the fallout from what Origin started, the allegorical method specifically. I don't think the blame can be placed on Origen directly though. He didn't go into his room one day and say "How can I twist scripture and make it say what I want it to?" Like many of the rituals and superstitions that have come down to us and that required reformation, this was just the start of a thread. It would take centuries before it became the whole sale disaster that modern allegorical methods are (or just the outright denial of scripture by people claiming to be Christians).


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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> There is an eternal realm of Forms (truth, justice, love, etc.). It is a realm of pure being. We participate in this realm. The biblical text points to this realm of eternal forms. Think of divine patterns in the text. The historical narrative (which Origen affirmed) is like a ladder that lets us better participate in this realm.


So to use our language today, do you think Origen would have been focusing on the metanarrative or redemptive historical themes of Scripture when moving from literal to "allegorical"? Or was he just making speculative allegorical interpretations?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

Puritan Sailor said:


> So would to use our language today, do you think Origen would have been focusing on the metanarrative or redemptive historical themes of Scripture when moving from literal to "allegorical"? Or was he just making speculative allegorical interpretations?


He did both. Sometimes it was what we would call typology. At other times it was imagination.


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> There is an eternal realm of Forms (truth, justice, love, etc.). It is a realm of pure being. We participate in this realm. The biblical text points to this realm of eternal forms. Think of divine patterns in the text. The historical narrative (which Origen affirmed) is like a ladder that lets us better participate in this realm.



That's what I suspected. I never thought of Plato in connection with allegorization.

Origen also believed it was acceptable to list even a single word from its context and derive spiritual meaning from it. Eg. the Israelites reaching the lips of the Nile being the Israelite rejection of the philosophy of Pharaoh, because lips are the organ of speech and communication of ideas. That idea is so far up the ladder that you don't recognize the Scripture was ever a rung in the ladder.

Did Platonists ever treat their own sacred works (The Odyssey, etc.) the way Origen does the Scriptures? ie. allegory, radical decontextualization. Is there another philosophical precedent for this?


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> Origen had the bible memorized in several languages. He was tortured even beyond what the Romans normally did to people. He wasn't worried about what was convenient. I don't like Origen for other reasons, but he wasn't trying to silence the Scripture. Most of these early guys had the Psalter memorized as a matter of course.





retroGRAD3 said:


> I didn't read his comment as specifically calling out Origen. I read it as condemning the fallout from what Origin started, the allegorical method specifically. I don't think the blame can be placed on Origen directly though. He didn't go into his room one day and say "How can I twist scripture and make it say what I want it to?" Like many of the rituals and superstitions that have come down to us and that required reformation, this was just the start of a thread. It would take centuries before it became the whole sale disaster that modern allegorical methods are (or just the outright denial of scripture by people claiming to be Christians).



Retro, your interpretation is right; though looking back I can see how it'd look the way Jacob read it. In all fairness, Augustine believed in the quadrilateral interpretation. And had we lived at the time, there'd be a fair chance we would hold the same views.

I personally withhold opinion on Origen until I'm a bit better studied. Some of the real early folks believed and taught things that, 1800 years later, would get them kicked out of the church. It was a new dynamic when the Gospel got out to the Gentiles in the biggest wave since Ninevah.

I do wonder what historians a thousand years from now will think of our doctrines.


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

retroGRAD3 said:


> Unfortunately, allegorization is still around today and used by liberals and many others engaging in continuing "monkey business". As you mention, it had a LONG lasting effect. Which is why I often see Origin in more of a negative light (while realizing there were some positive contributions).



What examples of modern day liberal allegorization are you thinking of?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> What examples of modern day liberal allegorization are you thinking of?



I wondered the same thing, too. Liberal biblical studies are generally non-allegorical. Allegory implies a transcendent realm, and liberals don't believe that. Liberals believe only in historical particulars. They are anti-allegorical, if anything. In fact, on some supernatural elements in Genesis, Job, and the Psalms, liberals don't flinch from what the text says. They simply reject it on principle.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> Did Platonists ever treat their own sacred works (The Odyssey, etc.) the way Origen does the Scriptures? ie. allegory, radical decontextualization. Is there another philosophical precedent for this?



The Platonists, no. Some Greeks did but by the time of Plato the intellectuals were suspicious of that. You do see some allegory by the time of Philo, but he is working more with Scripture than pagan literature.


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## deleteduser99 (Nov 3, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I wondered the same thing, too. Liberal biblical studies are generally non-allegorical. Allegory implies a transcendent realm, and liberals don't believe that. Liberals believe only in historical particulars. They are anti-allegorical, if anything. In fact, on some supernatural elements in Genesis, Job, and the Psalms, liberals don't flinch from what the text says. They simply reject it on principle.



I feel like sometimes the liberals see Scriptures themselves as allegory. Or even just hyped up. For example, the feeding of the five thousand is more or less an aggrandized account of everyone becoming overwhelmed with generosity and sharing their own loaves and fish. So instead of trying to go higher up with the text, they actually try to make it more bearable for man's fallen intellect.



BayouHuguenot said:


> The Platonists, no. Some Greeks did but by the time of Plato the intellectuals were suspicious of that. You do see some allegory by the time of Philo, but he is working more with Scripture than pagan literature.



What was the original then of the idea that you could, for example, take just a word, rip it from its context, and get an elevated meaning? It makes sense that they would treat the Scriptures different than other texts, but that's, to use a technical term, "way out there." Maybe it was just the imagination of the time, or it was already done somewhere in the world outside the church, or maybe they misunderstood the way the apostles interpreted the Scriptures?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> I feel like sometimes the liberals see Scriptures themselves as allegory. Or even just hyped up. For example, the feeding of the five thousand is more or less an aggrandized account of everyone becoming overwhelmed with generosity and sharing their own loaves and fish. So instead of trying to go higher up with the text, they actually try to make it more bearable for man's fallen intellect.



William Barclay did that, but academic liberals today in legit journals and commentaries wouldn't do that. They would (rightly) get laughed off the stage.


RPEphesian said:


> What was the original then of the idea that you could, for example, take just a word, rip it from its context, and get an elevated meaning?



Origen did that at times, but at other times, like in his treatment of Pascha and against Melito of Sardis, he was quite attentive to the actual context. Boersma deals with it here:








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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

Origen: the earthly scene contains patterns (exemplaria) of the heavenly things. They teach us to mount up (ascendere). “We contemplate heavenly things by means of their forms and likenesses as they appear in visible things. It is by means of actual things and copies (rebus ipsis et exemplis) that we can move on to heaven itself” (Boersma 10).

Ancient readers relished verbal associations in the text (39). Phrases like “tree of Life” or “Wisdom” were “trigger-loaded.” This is like a non-Satanic version of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (how it should have been, before it was corrupted by the Deep State).


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## retroGRAD3 (Nov 3, 2021)

RPEphesian said:


> I feel like sometimes the liberals see Scriptures themselves as allegory. Or even just hyped up. For example, the feeding of the five thousand is more or less an aggrandized account of everyone becoming overwhelmed with generosity and sharing their own loaves and fish. So instead of trying to go higher up with the text, they actually try to make it more bearable for man's fallen intellect.


This is what I was referring to, this type of "allegory". It is not the same as what Origen did. I have also heard the excuse, that's all allegory and you are stupid to believe in that. Or, they will go on to tell you what _it really means. _Perhaps I am using the term incorrectly.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 3, 2021)

retroGRAD3 said:


> This is what I was referring to, this type of "allegory". It is not the same as what Origen did. I have also heard the excuse, that's all allegory and you are stupid to believe in that. Or, they will go on to tell you what _it really means. _Perhaps I am using the term incorrectly.



Right. They are confusing allegory with other literary genres (and probably don't understand any of it).

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## Reformed Covenanter (Nov 3, 2021)

My initial response to the OP was going to be, "How long have you got?"


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Nov 4, 2021)

I was chatting with my coworker today. He said Origen was used on both sides in forming the Nicean creed. That those for it and against it would both cite his works to justify their position. So basically, he was trinitarian, but not in the way we understand it today. According to my coworker anyway. I hope this helps!


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## RamistThomist (Nov 4, 2021)

Ryan&Amber2013 said:


> I was chatting with my coworker today. He said Origen was used on both sides in forming the Nicean creed. That those for it and against it would both cite his works to justify their position. So basically, he was trinitarian, but not in the way we understand it today. According to my coworker anyway. I hope this helps!



That is true.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 4, 2021)

The official reason Origen was branded a heretic was because Justinian convened the 5th Council to condemn Origen's followers. He then strong-armed the bishops to add on a list of condemnations of Origen. Protestants generally don't accept any council after Chalcedon, so it's kind of a moot point.

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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 4, 2021)

BayouHuguenot said:


> I wondered the same thing, too. Liberal biblical studies are generally non-allegorical. Allegory implies a transcendent realm, and liberals don't believe that. Liberals believe only in historical particulars. They are anti-allegorical, if anything. In fact, on some supernatural elements in Genesis, Job, and the Psalms, liberals don't flinch from what the text says. They simply reject it on principle.


I think there may be some liberals who do approach them allegorically. Some would try to find the "kernel" of truth in the passage without having to take it literally as inspired Scripture. They treat the "substance" as a form of human wisdom or experience that we can learn from but don't treat it as actual history or truth on it's own terms. Perhaps that's not strictly allegory, but when you relativize the text, it's hard not to devolve into some form of allegory. Perhaps we could distinguish between academic liberals and pastoral liberals? Just thinking out loud...


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## RamistThomist (Nov 4, 2021)

Puritan Sailor said:


> I think there may be some liberals who do approach them allegorically. Some would try to find the "kernel" of truth in the passage without having to take it literally as inspired Scripture. They treat the "substance" as a form of human wisdom or experience that we can learn from but don't treat it as actual history or truth on it's own terms. Perhaps that's not strictly allegory, but when you relativize the text, it's hard not to devolve into some form of allegory. Perhaps we could distinguish between academic liberals and pastoral liberals? Just thinking out loud...



I think that is a good distinction. Academic liberals would over-analyze the text. Pastoral liberals are just twitter hippies.

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## RamistThomist (Nov 12, 2021)

I went over some notes I had on Thomas Torrance. This is from one of his essays on Athanasius. From _Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics._

Hellenism had to have allegory because Hellenism posited a _chorismos_ between the sensible world and the intelligible world, and since they could never touch, allegory allowed one to “jump” from one world to the other. To this Irenaeus opposed typology. There is an inseparable relation between word and event (101). Therefore, “the distinction between aletheia and tupos is not that between intelligible and sensible…but between the preparatory action of God in history pointing forward to…his final action in the Incarnation and Atonement through which all things are changed and brought to their fulfillment” (102).


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## Semper Fidelis (Nov 16, 2021)

This is a really good read overall to see how many strange ideas in theology have surprising theological connections as far back as forms of Jewish mysticism. He has a whole section devoted to Origen and many of the views he held to that were rejected by the Church.





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