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Sources of Origen's Doctrine of Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

B. Darrell Jackson
B. Darrell Jackson
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University
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Extract

In Contra Celsum Origen briefly states his approach to constructing a theological system. He says, “… anyone who constructs a Christian philosophy will need to argue the truth of his doctrines with proofs of all kinds, taken both from the divine scriptures and from rational arguments (logois akolouthias). ” Origen here specifies a twofold basis for theology—Scripture and rational argument. He often speaks explicitly of these two in his system. For example, in De principiis II.v.3 he says that he has refuted the heretics by arguments drawn from the authority of Scriptures (ex auctoritate … scripturarum) but it will not be unfitting if he discusses the matter from the standpoint of rational argument (ex ratione … consequentiae=akolouthia). And again at the end of the preface of De principiis, this programmatic statement occurs: Anyone desiring to construct a system out of the articles of faith just listed will do so “… with the aid of such illustrations and declarations as he shall find in the holy scriptures and of such conclusions as he shall ascertain to follow logically from them when rightly understood.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 1966 , pp. 13 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1966

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References

1. IV.9. Translation from Contra Celsum, Henry Chadwick (trans. and ed.), (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1953), p. 189Google Scholar. All page references to C. Cels. will be to this translation. All Greek and Latin quotes from Origen are from Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Drei Jahrhunderte, Vols. XXVIII, XXIX, XXXII, Origenes Werke, Paul Koetschau (ed.) (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1899, 1913).Google Scholar

2. Cf. also De principiis I.5.4. and III.6.6.

3. Translation from On First Principles, G. W. Butterworth (trans.) (London: SPCK, 1936), p. 6Google Scholar. All page refs. to De pr. will be to this translation.

4. De pr. preface, VI. 5

5. For example, Justin, , Apology I, 43–44Google Scholar; Theophilus, , Ad Autolycum II. 27Google Scholar; and Irenaeus, , Adversus Haereses IV.37Google Scholar. I owe the first two references to Prof. Robert Grant.

6. III.i.l, p. 157.

7. III.i.6.

8. Loc. cit.

9. Loc. cit., p. 166. My italics.

10. The latter is quoted in De pr. I.i.2 and C. Cels. V.60Google Scholar, but not in connection with freedom.

11. De pr. preface, 5.

12. II. ix. 5–6.

13. Loc. cit.

14. C. Cels. VI. 44.Google Scholar

15. De pr. II. ix. 2.Google Scholar

16. I.vi.1.

17. I.v.1, p. 54.

18. I.vi.3, p. 57.

19. III.v.4.

20. II.ix. 7.

21. III.v.4.

22. IV.iii.9–13.

23. I.v.4–5.

24. III.i.22 and II.ix.7.

25. Forunately De pr. is preserved in Greek in the Philocalia, ch. XXI.

26. De pr. III 3, p. 60.

27. Note that throughout freedom refere to the capapcity of the reason to judge among external impressions. It may be more correct, therefore, to say that Origen's is a doctrine of free mind or reason rather than of free will.

28. De oratione VI. 2.Google Scholar

29. Above, Section I.

30. De pr. III.i.7–14.

31. Hal Koch lists one part of this myth, 617e, Laws 904bf, and Timaeus 42d as the starting points of Origen' doctrine of freedom. Pronoia und Paideusis (Berlin and Leipzig; Walter de gruyter & Co., 1932), pp. 200f, n.2Google Scholar. Harnack says the system is constructed on the same plan as that of Valentinus in accordance with certain hints of Plato. History of Dogma, Vol. II, N. Buchanan (trans.) (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1961, p. 345Google Scholar. But the two points on which Origen differs from Valentinus, according to Harnack, are (1) in making the fall creaturely rather than within the divine itself and (2) in having an idea of freedom. But these two important points are Platonic and hence Plato affords more than hints.

32. C. Cels. II.16.Google Scholar

33. 617e, 620e.

34. 903d, trans. from Plato, , The Collected Dialogues, Hamilton, Edith and Cairns, Huntington (eds.) (New York: Random House, Inc., 1961), p. 1459Google Scholar. Cf. also Phaedrus 246–256 and Timaeus 42b-c.

35. For example, Cf. Daniélou, Jean, Origen, English translation by Mitchell, W. (London, 1955), pp. 77ff.Google Scholar

36. C. Cels. IV.3.Google Scholar

37. IV.51, VI.21.

38. I.77–88. This work is extant complete only in an Armenian version, although most of Book II is in Eusebius, , Praeparatio Evangelica VIII, 14, 386–399Google Scholar. I depend upon Amand, David for Book I. Fatalisme et Liberté dans L'Antiquité Grecque (Louvain: Bibliotheque de l'université 1945 pp. 81–95.Google Scholar

29. Above, page 12f.

39. Quod deus sit immutabilis 45–48 in Leob deries, vol. III.

40. This is important since certain of Plato's doctrines were in comparative disuse in the second century A. D., e.g., the theory of forms.

41. Albinus, , Epitomé, ed. and French trans. Louis, Pierre (Rennes, 1945), XXVI.1–2 My translation of the French.Google Scholar

42. Plutarch's, Moralia, Vol. VII (Loeb), trans. DeLacy, Phillip H. and Einarson, Benedict (London: Wm. Heinemann Ltd., 1959), 568D.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., 569E, 570A-B.

44. Epitomé, XXVI.2.Google Scholar

45. De pr. III.i.13, p. 182.

46. C. Cels. I.51, and V.38,57.Google Scholar

47. Leemans, E.-A., Studie over den Wijsgeer, Numenius van Apamea, Academie royale de Belgique, Memoires, Tome XXXVII, Fasc. 2 (Bruxelles, 1937), fragment A. 45.Google Scholar

48. Numenius taught two Gods (fr. B.20) and two world souls, a good one and an evil one (fr. A.30).

49. Fr. A.30.

50. Ennead VI.8.3Google Scholar. (“On Free Will and the Will of the One”).

51. Enn. III.1.1. (“On Fate”)

52. Enn. VI.8.3.

53. Enn. VI.8.4 and 7.

54. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. Ioannes ab Arnim, vol. II Chrysippi Fragments, Logica et Physica (Leipzig: Teubner, 1923), fr. 1000Google Scholar. For Chrysippus' views on fate see especially fragements 912–1007.

55. Amand, pp. 304–324. Origen does this especially in his Commentary on Genesis III which is preserved in Philocalia. XXIII.

56. Daniélou, p. 84.

57. Koch, p. 43.

58. Ibid., pp. 284f.

59. Amand, p. 293.

60. 39–44. SVF II, 974. I use Clark's, G. H. trans. of this fragment in Selections from Hellenistic Philosophy (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1941), pp. 101f.Google Scholar

61. SVF II, 997 and 974.

62. Loc. Cit.

63. SVF II, 974. Clark, p. 102.

64. De pr. III, i.4.

65. III.i. 22–23; II.i.22.

66. C. Cels. I,40.Google Scholar

67. I.64; II. 12; IV.48; IV.63; VIII.51.

68. SVF II, 956.

69. C. Cels. II. 20.Google Scholar

70. VII.15. Cf. Bocheński, I. M., Ancient Formal Logic (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1951), pp. 98f.Google Scholar

71. C. Cels. III.54; VI.2.Google Scholar

72. Epictetus, , The Discourses, ed. and trans. Oldfather, W. A. (Loeb), 2 vols. (London: Wm. Heinemann Ltd., 1959), I.i.7, also 5 and 12.Google Scholar

73. Discourses, I.12.33f. Cf. also I.27, III. 8, and Enchiridion 6.

74. De pr. III i.4.

75. Disc. II.18.15–26.Google Scholar

76. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II, A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (eds.) (New York: The Christian Literature Co,, 1890), p. 371Google Scholar. I have modified the translation.

77. Quod dues sit immutabilis 35–50. Von Arnim regards this as Stoic and includes it as SCF II, 458. But it may be partly Aristotelian, Cf. Aristotle's, Historia Animalium III, 588b4ffGoogle Scholar. which gives three levels: (1) lifeless things, (2) plants, and (3) animals.

78. SVF II, 442.

79. SVF II, 471.

80. SVF II, 499. The exposition is based on my translation of this very esoteric fragment.

81. De oratione VI, 3.Google Scholar

82. C. Cels. VIII.72Google Scholar; De pr. III.vi.