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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2017
As the church historian Henri Crouzel observed, questions about the nature of human autonomy were central to the thought of the third-century theologian Origen of Alexandria. On this question, his influence on later generations, though complicated, would be difficult to overstate. Yet, what exactly Origen thought autonomy required has been a subject of debate. On one widespread reading, he has been taken to argue that autonomy requires that human beings have the capacity to act otherwise than they do in fact act; that is, that alternative possibilities of action are causally available to them. As Susanne Bobzien has argued, however, there is good reason to think that the view that such alternative possibilities are required for the ascription of autonomy did not explicitly emerge until Alexander of Aphrodisias, a rough contemporary of Origen's of whose thought he was likely unaware. In revisiting Origen on the notion of ‘free will’, Michael Frede, against the ‘alternative possibilities’ reading, argued that his theory of the will was largely attributable to Stoicism, and in particular to Epictetus’ theory of will as προαίρεσις. George Boys-Stones, for his part, has claimed that, while Origen's theory of the descent of the pre-existent minds is aimed at providing an account of how human beings are entirely responsible for their characters, in the embodied state we find no evidence that he understood human choice subsequent to the fall to depend upon the existence of alternative possibilities in order to be autonomous.
Earlier versions of this paper benefitted greatly from discussions with George Boys-Stones and Robert Sinkewicz, as well as the suggestions of David Brakke, Lloyd Gerson and the anonymous referee of CQ; I thank them warmly for their generosity. I also extend my deepest gratitude to Ian Drummond for many years of stimulating philosophical conversation, about the argument of this paper and on matters relating to volition more generally.
2 Crouzel, H. (trans. Worrall, A.S.), Origen: The Life and Thought of the First Great Theologian (San Francisco, 1985), 211 Google Scholar. Translations of Origen are my own, and based on texts from the following editions: Crouzel, H. and Simonetti, M. (edd.), Origène. Traité des Principes, I-IV (Paris, 1978 and 1980)Google Scholar; Junod, E. (ed.), Origène. Philocalie 21–27: Sur le libre arbitre (Paris, 1976)Google Scholar; Borrett, M. (ed.), Origène. Contre Celse, I-V (Paris, 1967–1969)Google Scholar; Migne, J.-P. (ed.), Patrologiae Graecae Cursus completus (Paris, 1857–1863)Google Scholar. I have consulted the translations in Butterworth, G.W. (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester, 1973)Google Scholar; Chadwick, H. (trans.), Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge, 1980)Google Scholar; Lewis, G. (trans.), The Philocalia of Origen: A Compilation of Selected Passages from Origen's Works Made by St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Basil of Caesarea (Edinburgh, 1911)Google Scholar; and Greer, R. (trans.), Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Writings (Mahwah, NJ, 1979). Otherwise translations are as notedGoogle Scholar.
3 Hal Koch's discussion of human freedom is developed primarily in the context of his examination of Origen's treatment of πρóνοια’s pedagogical activities, where he suggests that, for Origen, human autonomy requires the freedom to do otherwise; Koch, H., Pronoia und Paideusis: Studien über Origenes und sein Verhältnis zum Platonismus (Berlin and Leipzig, 1932), 286 Google Scholar. H.S. Benjamins has offered a careful study of the major texts of Origen's views on the relationship between providence and human freedom, arguing that, while Origen, like Alexander of Aphrodisias, was committed to the idea that human action is not determined by prior causes, nevertheless God can use his foreknowledge of human action to arrange for the restoration of all human beings; see Benjamins, H.S., Eingeordnete Freiheit: Freiheit und Vorsehung bei Origenes (Leiden and New York, 1994), 70 and 92–127CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other interpretations that attribute to Origen the belief that human freedom requires the ability to act otherwise, see Holliday, L., ‘Will Satan be saved: reconsidering Origen's theory of volition in Peri Archon ’, VChr 63 (2009), 1–23, at 15 n. 69Google Scholar; Ramelli, I., The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden, 2013), 112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scott, M., Journey Back to God: Origen on the Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2012), 187 n. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harper, K., From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 118–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Panayiotis Tzamalikos argues that Origen's conception of freedom plays a significant role in his cosmology and philosophy of history, but does not take a position on the question of whether choice is itself indeterminate; see Tzamalikos, P., Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time (Leiden, 2006), 310–63Google Scholar and id., Origen: Philosophy and History of Eschatology (Leiden, 2007), 207–22Google Scholar.
4 In theories of autonomy which depend upon a person's ability to choose or to act otherwise in order for that person to be understood as autonomous, it must be the case that that person, given that he or she has the character and the psychological states that he or she has in a particular set of circumstances, might act in a different way, at a different time, given the exact same character and psychological states and same set of circumstances. As Bobzien observes, however, theories of autonomy which understood that the same person, given the same character and psychological states and in the same set of circumstances, will always act in the same way without undermining autonomy were prevalent in antiquity; Bobzien, S., ‘The inadvertent conception and late birth of the free-will problem’, Phronesis 43 (1998), 133–75, at 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 In A Free Will, Frede revises the approach to the history of the will, taken by Albrecht Dihle, which emphasizes a preoccupation with the concept of the will as a distinct faculty; see Dihle, A., The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982)Google Scholar. Frede suggests that in examining concepts of will we ought to bring minimal presuppositions to what such a concept requires; see Frede, M., A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar, as well as Kenny, A., Aristotle's Theory of Will (New Haven, 1980)Google Scholar, Inwood, B., Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome (Oxford, 2005), 132–56Google Scholar, and Irwin, T., ‘Who discovered the will?’, Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992), 453–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Boys-Stones, G.R., ‘Human autonomy and divine revelation in Origen’, in Swain, S., Harrison, S. and Elsner, J. (edd.), Severan Culture (Cambridge, 2007), 489–99Google Scholar; see also Crouzel (n. 1), 205–18. The traditional view, that Origen had a theory of pre-existent minds that became embodied after the fall, has been called into question by Edwards, Mark in Edwards, M.J., Origen Against Plato (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2002), 87–122 Google Scholar, as well as Edwards, M.J., ‘Further reflections on the Platonism of Origen’, Adamantius 18 (2012), 317–24Google Scholar and id., ‘Origen's Platonism. Questions and caveats’, ZAC 12 (2008), 20–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Edwards situates his critique in the context of the revisionist studies of Marguérite Harl, who has examined the larger ancient context of Origen's discussion of satiety or κόρος, and of Jean Laporte, whose deflationary account suggests that Origen understands the fall primarily as an internal descent of the soul from the spirit. See Harl, M., ‘Recherches sur l'origénisme d'Origène’, Studia Patristica 2 (1963), 373–405 Google Scholar and Laporte, J., Théologie liturgique de Philon d'Alexandrie et d'Origène (Paris, 1995), 147–65Google Scholar. An alternative critique of the traditional view has been defended by Tzamalikos (n. 2 [2006]), 65–118 and id. (n. 2 [2007]), 56–64. Many interpreters, however, continue to maintain that Origen was committed to a theory of the fall of the pre-existent minds; see Martens, P., ‘Origen's doctrine of pre-existence and the opening chapters of Genesis’, ZAC 16 (2013), 516–47 and Scott (n. 3), 49–73Google Scholar.
7 How one construes Aristotle's theory of action shapes how one understands his influence on Stoic compatibilism, or the belief that one's actions being determined by antecedent causes is compatible with the ascription of moral responsibility. While Salles argues that Stoic compatibilism was a rejection of both fatalism and what he takes to be Aristotle's incompatibilism, Bobzien maintains that Chrysippus was responding only to fatalism. See Salles, R., The Stoics on Determinism and Compatibilism (London, 2005), 69–90 Google Scholar and Bobzien, S., Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford, 1999), 234–329 Google Scholar.
8 On the use of the locution ἐφ’ ἡμῖν as one Chrysippus likely would have used, see Bobzien (n. 6), 280.
9 Bobzien (n. 7), 202.
10 Long, A.A., ‘Freedom and determinism in the Stoic theory of human action’, in Long, A.A. (ed.), Problems in Stoicism (London, 1966), 173–99Google Scholar.
11 Bobzien (n. 7), 234–329.
12 Cic. Fat. 42–3. As Bobzien (n. 7), 234 notes, ‘[b]y “that which depends on us” and “that which happens because of us” Chrysippus seems to have understood simply the things (mainly actions) of which we, qua rational beings, are the possible or actual cause. Such causal origination is brought about by the faculty of assent. The freedom from force and external hindrances is guaranteed by the utilization of this very mechanism through which we become the cause of our actions. For it is part of the nature of this human mental capacity of assent that it is neither forced nor fully externally determined.’
13 On Chrysippus’ theory of passion, see Graver, M., Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago, 2007), 66–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Text from Long, A. and Sedley, D., The Hellenistic Philosophers Volume 2: Greek and Latin Texts with Notes and Biography (Cambridge, 1987), 385 Google Scholar and trans. (with emendation) from idd., The Hellenistic Philosophers Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge, 1987), 388 Google Scholar.
15 Frede (n. 5), 42–3.
16 Inwood, B., Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford, 1985), 125–6Google Scholar and Bobzien (n. 7), 341–2.
17 Long, A.A., Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (Oxford, 2002), 212–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Frede (n. 5), 45.
19 Frede (n. 5), 75.
20 Bobzien (n. 7), 342.
21 For a discussion of the various treatments of the first and the second creation throughout Origen's writings, see Crouzel, H., Théologie de l'image de Dieu chez Origène (Paris, 1956), 147–79Google Scholar.
22 Boys-Stones (n. 6), 494–5. While Origen's discussion of the pre-existent minds are sometimes understood as a product of the influence of Platonism, Boys-Stones argues that Origen's modifications to this theory represent an anti-Platonist polemic. He argues that Origen's theory of pre-existent minds are part of a larger concern to explain how human beings are, without qualification, responsible for their characters, a position Boys-Stones observes is not maintained by the Platonists. Edwards argues that Origen's discussion of Esau's sin ‘in a previous life’ in De principiis 2.9.7 refers to a uterine sin, rather than to sin committed by a pre-existent mind; even if one takes Edwards’s reading, however, this passage still suggests that Esau is unqualifiedly responsible for the character he is born with. See Edwards (n. 6 [2008]), 35–7.
23 Benjamins notes how Origen points to human experience as evidence for this claim; see Benjamins (n. 3), 61–2. For more on the discussion of autonomy in De oratione 6.1–6, see Eijk, J. van der, ‘Origenes’ Verteidigung des freien Willens in De oratione 6, 1–2’, VChr 42 (1998), 339–51Google Scholar and Hahm, D., ‘A neglected Stoic argument for human responsibility’, ICS 17 (1992), 23–48 Google Scholar.
24 John Rist, in his examination of Rufinus’ translation of the third book of De principiis, argues that Rufinus in general gets the sense of Origen's passages correct, though his translations are sometimes imprecise owing to his lack of philosophical training. See Rist, J., ‘The Greek and Latin texts of the discussion on free will in De Principiis, Book III’, in Crouzel, H., Lomiento, G. and Rius-Camps, J. (edd.), Origeniana (Bari, 1975), 97–111 Google Scholar.
25 αὐτοτελὴς αἰτία refers to the Stoic notion of sufficient cause, as one finds in Plut. Comm. not. 1056b-c (SVF 2.997) and Clem. Al. Strom. 8.33.2 (SVF 2.351); see Sedley, D., ‘Chrysippus on psychophysical causality’, in Brunschwig, J. and Nussbaum, M.C. (edd.), Passions and Perceptions: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, 1993), 313–31Google Scholar.
26 Benjamins (n. 3), 64–6.
27 Frede (n. 5), 102–22.
28 On Origen's use of Stoicism in relation to Celsus, see Chadwick, H., ‘Origen, Celsus, and the Stoa’, JThS 44 (1947), 34–49 Google Scholar; for another early study on Origen's use of Stoicism, see Jackson, B.D., ‘Sources of Origen's doctrine of freedom’, ChHist 35 (1966), 13–23 Google Scholar. On Origen's critique of Celsus in relation to the providential debates of post-Hellenistic philosophy, see Bergjan, S.-P., ‘Celsus the Epicurean? The interpretation of an argument in Origen, Contra Celsum ’, HThR 94 (2004), 179–204 Google Scholar.
29 Frede (n. 5), 120–1.
30 For a recent discussion of Heracleon, see Attridge, H., ‘Heracleon and John: reassessment of an early Christian hermeneutical debate’, in Helmer, C. and Petrey, T. (edd.), Biblical Interpretation: History, Context, and Reality (Atlanta, 2005), 57–72 Google Scholar.
31 For a discussion of purificatory death, see Harl, M., ‘La mort salutaire du Pharaon’, in Le Déchiffrement du Sens: Études sur l'herméneutique chrétienne d'Origene à Grégoire de Nysse. (Paris, 1993), 269–77Google Scholar; on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, see also Crouzel, H., ‘Theological construction and research: Origen on free will’, in Bauckman, R. (ed.), Scripture, Tradition, and Reason: A Study in the Criteria of Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh, 1988), 239–65Google Scholar.
32 For discussion, see Crouzel, H., ‘L'anthropologie d'Origène: de l'arché au telos’, in Pensiero, V.S. (ed.), Arché e Telos: L'antropologia di Origene e di Gregorio di Nissa. Analisi storico-religiosa (Milan, 1970), 36–49 Google Scholar. For a discussion of how Origen's anthropology draws together Biblical and Platonic ideas, see Markschies, C., Origenes und sein Erbe: Gesammelte Studien (Berlin and New York, 2002), 91–106 Google Scholar.
33 In suggesting that Origen's discussion bears some resonances of the Phaedo, I do not at all mean to deny the significance of the body for Origen. While the distinction between the visible and the invisible part of the human person resonates with Phd. 80c-d, the body's role for Origen is to provide an occasion for the instruction that helps the soul return to its prelapsarian state. On the theme of the resurrection, see Edwards, M., ‘Origen's two resurrections’, JThS 46 (1995), 502–18Google Scholar, Chadwick, H., ‘Origen, Celsus, and the resurrection of the body’, HThR 41 (1948), 83–102 Google Scholar, and Dorival, G., ‘Origène et la résurrection de la chair’, in Lies, L. (ed.), Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origenskongresses (Innsbruck, 1987), 291–321 Google Scholar.
34 Crouzel (n. 2), 87–8.
35 How exactly Origen's account of the fall of the pre-existent minds relates to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve has been disputed. For readings which argue that Origen understood the fall of Adam and Eve as distinct from the fall of the minds, see Harl, M., ‘La préexistence des âmes dans l’œuvre d'Origène’, in Lies, L. (ed.), Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 1985), 238–58Google Scholar and Bammel, C., ‘Adam in Origen’, in Williams, R. (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1989), 62–93 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Peter Martens has recently argued that Origen does take Adam's fall in Genesis as an allegory of the pre-existent fall in Martens (n. 6).
36 Crouzel (n. 1), 87–92.
37 For a discussion of the context of Origen's treatment of the two souls doctrine, see Ferwerda, R., ‘Two souls. Origen's and Augustine's attitude toward the two souls doctrine. Its place in Greek and Christian philosophy’, VChr 37 (1983), 360–78Google Scholar.
38 Boys-Stones (n. 6), 494 and C. Cels. 5.20–1.
39 In making this claim, Inwood distinguishes between an ontological dualism of the body and the incorporeal soul and an ethically relevant dualism, and argues that the Stoics can maintain the latter without giving up the idea that the soul is itself corporeal; see Inwood (n. 5), 34 n. 19 and Sedley (n. 25). In arguing that Seneca serves as an example of a long Stoic engagement with the Phaedo, Inwood's larger argument counters the view that Seneca's theory of pre-passions reflects a departure from an ‘orthodox’ theory of the passions initiated by Posidonius; see Fillion-Lahille, J., Le De Ira de Sénèque et la philosophie stoïcienne des passions (Paris, 1984), 167 Google Scholar and Cooper, J., ‘Posidonius on emotions’, in Sihvola, J. and Engberg-Pedersen, T. (edd.), Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1998), 71–111, at 99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other discussions of the role of Posidonius and emotion, see Gill, C., ‘Did Galen understand Platonic and Stoic thinking on emotions?’, in Sihvola, J. and Engberg-Pedersen, T. (edd.), Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 1998), 113–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kidd, I.G., ‘Posidonius on emotions’, in Long, A.A. (ed.), Problems in Stoicism (London, 1971), 200–15Google Scholar. Sorabji argues that Seneca's theory of passion is meant to defend Chrysippus against Posidonius in R. Sorabji, ‘Chrysippus – Posidonius – Seneca: a high-level debate on emotion’, in Sihvola and Engberg-Pederson (this note), 149–71 and Sorabji, R., Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford, 2000), 66–75 Google Scholar; see also Cooper (this note), 72–3. For an account of Stoic pre-passion, see Graver (n. 13), 85–108.
40 For further discussion on Origen's treatment of pre-passion, see Layton, R., ‘ Propatheia: Origen and Didymus on the origin of the passions’, VChr 54 (2000), 262–82Google Scholar; id., Didymus the Blind and his Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria: Virtue and Narrative in Biblical Scholarship (Urbana, IL and Chicago, 2004), 114–34Google Scholar; Knuuttila, S., Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford, 2004), 121–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sebastian Guly raises an objection to Sorabji's identification of pre-passions or προπάθειαι with the bad thoughts or λογισμοί, though on the basis of a distinction between προπάθεια and primus motus that seems tenuous; see Guly, S., ‘The distinction between propatheiai and first movements in Origen's De Principiis III’, Studia Patristica 50 (2010), 177–88Google Scholar. For a discussion of Philo as evidence that Stoic theories of pre-passion emerged prior to Seneca, see Graver, M., ‘Philo of Alexandria and the origins of the Stoic προπάθειαι’, Phronesis 44 (1999), 300–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Philo and Origen, see also Graver (n. 13), 102–8.
41 Sorabji (n. 39 [2000]), 346–51.
42 Origen discusses how Jesus uses his pre-passion to instruct Peter in the weakness of the flesh in his exegesis of Matthew 26:17–30 in Comm. Matt. 90.2–24; see also Sorabji (n. 39 [2000]), 349–50.
43 As Mark Scott has noted, the Exodus story provides one of the most important scriptural examples for his discussions of remedial punishment; Scott (n. 3), 74–101.
44 As Inwood observes in Inwood (n. 5), 59, ‘in early Stoicism we find no insistence that the assent given to a stimulus must be voluntary in our and Seneca's sense—that is, a consciously chosen response to a stimulus. For earlier Stoics it is enough if it is a response to a rational stimulus in a rational animal.’ For Origen, the idea of awareness is not developed in order to explain what constitutes voluntary action, but to explain what is required for a person to alter their character particularly for the better (which makes up only a subset of voluntary actions).
45 For other discussions that reject eternal punishment, see Olymp. In Grg. 24.5 and 70.13 and In Phd. 10.14; Dam. In Phd. 1.492, 2.147; Proc. In Remp. 2.178, as well as Jackson, R., Lycos, K. and Tarrant, H. (trans.), Olympiodorus: Commentary on Plato's Gorgias (Leiden, 1998), 317 n. 1004Google Scholar.
46 Trans. from Jackson, Lycos and Tarrant (n. 45), 159. I thank George Boys-Stones for suggesting comparison with this text.
47 Benjamins, for example, takes it as an indication of Origen's commitment to the idea that human beings can act otherwise, though Boys-Stones's analysis of the hypothetical-fate argument among the figures of the Platonist revival raises problems for this view. See Benjamins (n. 3), 92–8 for a discussion of C. Cels. 2.20. For a discussion of similar issues in De or. 6.3–5 and Phil. 25, see Benjamins (n. 3), 99–121. On Boys-Stones's interpretation of the hypothetical-fate argument, see Boys-Stones, G.R., ‘Middle Platonists on fate and human autonomy’, in Sharples, R. and Sorabji, R., Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC – AD 200 (London, 2007), 431–46Google Scholar and Sharples, R., ‘The Stoic background to the Middle Platonist discussion on fate’, in Bonazzi, M. and Helmig, C. (edd.), Platonic Stoicism – Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue Between Platonism and Stoicism in Antiquity (Leuven, 2007), 169–88Google Scholar. For a discussion of the juridical and pedagogical functions of providence on Origen's thought, see Bergjan, S.-P., Der fürsorgende Gott: der Begriff der Pronoia Gottes in der apologetischen Literatur der alten Kirche (Berlin and New York, 2002), 184–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 Boys-Stones argues that Origen's view that God's knowledge is finite commits him to this position; see De principiis 3.5.2 and Boys-Stones (n. 6), 494.
49 Again, however, Origen is immune to the criticism made against the Stoics that this theory renders God responsible for human blame, on the basis of his claim that human beings have the characters they have not because of a causal chain that goes back to God, but because of the pre-existent choices they made before the second creation (Phil. 23.1). While, on Origen's account, God does not directly compel human vice or virtue, God does manipulate affairs in such a way as to bring human failings to light for the sake of moral therapy.
50 If Origen was, as Ronald Heine has suggested, rethinking his notion of ἀποκατάστασις or universal restoration during his later period in Caesarea, this rethinking may have been informed by a recognition of difficulties of this kind. On the other hand, the ambivalence Heine perceives with respect to the idea of universal salvation in the texts he cites from this later period might also be explained by their protreptic contexts. See Greggs, T., ‘Exclusivist or universalist? Origen the “wise steward of the word” (Comm. Rom. V.1.7) and the issue of genre’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 9 (2007), 315–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heine, R., Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford, 2010), 241–56Google Scholar and Norris, F., ‘Universal salvation in Origen and Maximus’, in Cameron, N.M. de S. (ed.), Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991), 35–52 Google Scholar.
51 In this respect my conclusions differ from Jacobsen, A., ‘Freedom and providence in Origen's theology’, Church Studies 3 (2006), 65–77, at 77Google Scholar.