Not only, however, did Origen employ the Greek ethic in its varied types, but the Greek cosmological speculation also formed the complicated substructure of his religious system of morals. The Gnosis is formally a philosophy of revelation, that is a Scripture theology,700 and materially a cosmological speculation. On the basis of a detailed theory of inspiration, which itself, moreover, originates with the philosophers, the Holy Scriptures are so treated that all facts appear as the vehicles of ideas and only attain their highest value in this aspect. Systematic theology, in undertaking its task, always starts, as Clement and Origen also did, with the conscious or unconscious thought of emancipating itself from the outward revelation and community of cultus that are the characteristic marks of positive religion. The place of these is taken by the results of speculative cosmology, which, though themselves practically conditioned, do not seem to be of this character. This also applies to Origen's Christian Gnosis or scientific dogmatic, which is simply the metaphysics of the age. However, as he was the equal of the foremost minds of his time, this dogmatic was no schoolboy imitation on his part, but was to some extent independently developed and was worked out both in opposition to pantheistic Stoicism and to theoretical dualism. That we are not mistaken in this opinion is shown by a document ranking among the most valuable things preserved to us from the third century; we mean the judgment passed on Origen by Porphyry in Euseb., H. E. VI. 19. Every sentence is instructive,701 but the culminating point is the judgment contained in § 7: κατα μεν τον Βιον Χριστιανως ζων και παρανομως, κατα δε τας περι των πραγματων και του θεου δοξας 'Ελληνιζων και τα 'Ελληνων τοις οθνειοις 'υποβαλλομενος μυθοις. ("His outward life was that of a Christian and opposed to the law, but in regard to his views of things and of the Deity, he thought like the Greeks, inasmuch as he introduced their ideas into the myths of other peoples.") We can everywhere verify this observation from Origen's works and particularly from the books written against Celsus, where he is continually obliged to mask his essential agreement in principles and method with the enemy of the Christians.702 The Gnosis is in fact the Hellenic one and results in that wonderful picture of the world which, though apparently a drama, is in reality immovable, and only assumes such a complicated form here from its relation to the Holy Scriptures and the history of Christ.703 The Gnosis neutralises everything connected with empiric history; and if this does not everywhere hold good with regard to the actual occurrence of facts, it is at least invariably the case in respect to their significance. The clearest proof of this is (1) that Origen raised the thought of the unchangeability of God to be the norm of his system and (2) that he denied the historical, incarnate Logos any significance for "Gnostics." To these Christ merely appears as the Logos who has been from eternity with the Father and has always acted from the beginning. He alone is the object of the knowledge of the wise man, who merely requires a perfect or, in other words, a divine teacher.704 The Gospel too only teaches the "shadow of the secrets of Christ;" but the eternal Gospel, which is also the pneumatic one, "clearly places before men's minds all things concerning the Son of God himself, both the mysteries shown by his words, and the things of which his acts were the riddles" (σαφως παριστησι τοις νοουσι τα παντα ενωπιον περι αυτου του 'υιου του Θεου, και τα παρισταμενα μυστηρια 'υπο των λογων αυτου, τα τε πραγματα, ων αινιγματα ησαν 'αι πραξεις αυτου).705 No doubt the true theology based on revelation makes pantheism appear overthrown as well as dualism, and here the influence of the two Testaments cannot be mistaken; but a subtle form of the latter recurs in Origen's system, whilst the manner in which he rejected both made the Greek philosophy of the age feel that there was something akin to it here. In the final utterances of religious metaphysics ecclesiastical Christianity, with the exception of a few compromises, is thrown off as a husk. The objects of religious knowledge have no history or rather, and this is a genuinely Gnostic and Neoplatonic idea, they have only a supramundane one.
This necessarily gave rise to the assumption of an esoteric and exoteric form of the Christian religion, for it is only behind the statutory, positive religion of the Church that religion itself is found. Origen gave the clearest expression to this assumption, which must have been already familiar in the Alexandrian school of catechists, and convinced himself that it was correct, because he saw that the mass of Christians were unable to grasp the deeper sense of Scripture, and because he realised the difficulties of the exegesis. On the other hand, in solving the problem of adapting the different points of his heterodox system of thought to the regula fidei, he displayed the most masterly skill. He succeeded in finding an external connection, because, though the construction of his theory proceeded from the top downwards, he could find support for it on the steps of the regula fidei, already developed by Irenæus into the history of salvation.706 The system itself is to be, in principle and in every respect, monistic, but, as the material world, though created by God out of nothing, merely appears as a place of punishment and purification for souls, a strong element of dualism is inherent in the system, as far as its practical application is concerned.707 The prevailing contrast is that between the one transcendent essence and the multiplicity of all created things. The pervading ambiguity lies in the twofold view of the spiritual in so far as, on the one hand, it belongs to God as the unfolding of his essence, and, on the other, as being created, is contrasted with God. This ambiguity, which recurs in all the Neoplatonic systems and has continued to characterise all mysticism down to the present day, originates in the attempt to repel Stoic pantheism and yet to preserve the transcendental nature of the human spirit, and to maintain the absolute causality of God without allowing his goodness to be called in question. The assumption that created spirits can freely determine their own course is therefore a necessity of the system; in fact this assumption is one of its main presuppositions708 and is so boldly developed as to limit the omnipotence and omniscience of God. But, as from the empirical point of view the knot is tied for every man at the very moment he appears on earth, and since the problem is not created by each human being as the result of his own independent will, but lies in his organisation, speculation must retreat behind history. So the system, in accordance with certain hints of Plato, is constructed on the same plan as that of Valentinus, for example, to which it has an extraordinary affinity. It contains three parts: (1) The doctrine of God and his unfoldings or creations, (2) the doctrine of the Fall and its consequences, (3) the doctrine of redemption and restoration.709 Like Denis, however, we may also, in accordance with a premised theory of method, set forth the system in four sections, viz., Theology, Cosmology, Anthropology, Teleology. Origen's fundamental idea is "the original indestructible unity of God and all spiritual essence." From this it necessarily follows that the created spirit after fall, error, and sin must ever return to its origin, to being in God. In this idea we have the key to the religious philosophy of Origen.
The only sources for obtaining a knowledge of the truth are the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments. No doubt the speculations of Greek philosophers also contain truths, but these have only a propædeutic value and, moreover, have no certainty to offer, as have the Holy Scriptures, which are a witness to themselves in the fulfilment of prophecy.710 On the other hand Origen assumes that there was an esoteric deeper knowledge in addition to the Holy Scriptures, and that Jesus in particular imparted this deeper wisdom to a few;711 but, as a correct Church theologian, he scarcely made use of this assumption. The first methodical principle of his exegesis is that the faith, as professed in the Church in contradistinction to heresy, must not be tampered with.712 But it is the carrying out of this rule that really forms the task of the theologian. For the faith itself is fixed and requires no particular presentation; it never occurred to Origen to assume that the fixing of the faith itself could present problems. It is complete, clear, easily teachable, and really leads to victory over sensuality and sin (see c. Cels. VII. 48 and cf. other passages), as well as to fellowship with God, since it rests on the revelation of the Logos. But, as it remains determined by fear and hope of reward so, as "uninformed and irrational faith" (πιστις ιδιωτικη and αλογος), it only leads to a "somatic Christianity" (Χριστιανισμος σωματικος). It is the task of theology, however, to decipher "spiritual Christianity" (Χριστιανισμος πνευματικος) from the Holy Scriptures, and to elevate faith to knowledge and clear vision. This is effected by the method of Scripture exegesis which ascertains the highest revelations of God.713 The Scripture has a threefold sense because, like the cosmos, alongside of which it stands like a second revelation, as it were, it must contain a pneumatic, psychic, and somatic element. The somatic or historical sense is in every case the first that must be ascertained. It corresponds to the stage of mere faith and has consequently the same dignity as the latter. But there are instances where it is to be given up and designated as a Jewish and fleshly sense. This is to be assumed in all cases where it leads to ideas opposed to the nature of God, morality, the law of nature, or reason.714 Here one must judge (see above) that such objectionable passages were meant to incite the searcher to a deeper investigation. The psychic sense is of a moral nature: in the Old Testament more especially most narratives have a moral content, which one can easily find by stripping off the history as a covering; and in certain passages one may content oneself with this meaning. The pneumatic sense, which is the only meaning borne by many passages, an assertion which neither Philo nor Clement ventured to make in plain terms, has with Origen a negatively apologetic and a positively didactic aim. It leads to the ultimate ideas which, once attained, are self-evident, and, so to speak, pass completely over into the mind of the theologian, because they finally obtain for him clear vision and independent possession.715 When the Gnostic has attained this stage, he may throw away the ladders by which he has reached this height.716 He is then inwardly united with God's Logos, and from this union obtains all that he requires. In most passages Origen presupposed the similarity and equal value of all parts of the Holy Scriptures; but in some he showed that even inspiration has its stages and grades, according to the receptivity and worthiness of each prophet, thus applying his relative view of all matters of fact in such cases also. In Christ the full revelation of the Logos was first expressed; his Apostles did not possess the same inspiration as he,717 and among the Apostles and apostolic men differences in the degrees of inspiration are again to be assumed. Here Origen set the example of making a definite distinction between a heroic age of the Apostles and the succeeding period. This laid the foundation for an assumption through which the later Church down to our time has appeased her conscience and freed herself from demands that she could not satisfy.718
THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND HIS SELF-UNFOLDINGS OR CREATIONS.719 The world points back to an ultimate cause and the created spirit to an eternal, pure, absolutely simple, and unchangeable spirit, who is the original source of all existence and goodness, so that everything that exists only does so in virtue of being caused by that One, and is good in so far as it derives its essence from the One who is perfection and goodness. This fundamental idea is the source of all the conclusions drawn by Origen as to the essence, attributes, and knowableness of God. As the One, God is contrasted with the Manifold; but the order in the Manifold points back to the One. As the real Essence, God is opposed to the essences that appear and seem to vanish, and that therefore have no real existence, because they have not their principle in themselves, but testify: "We have not made ourselves." As the absolutely immaterial Spirit, God is contrasted with the spirit that is clogged with matter, but which strives to get back to him from whom it received its origin. The One is something different from the Manifold; but the order, the dependence, and the longing of that which is created point back to the One, who can therefore be known relatively from the Manifold. In sharpest contrast to the heretical Gnosis, Origen maintained the absolute causality of God, and, in spite of all abstractions in determining the essence of God, he attributed self-consciousness and will to this superessential Essence (in opposition to Valentinus, Basilides, and the later Neoplatonists).720 The created is one thing and the Self-existent is another, but both are connected together; as the created can only be understood from something self-existent, so the self-existent is not without analogy to the created. The Self-existent is in itself a living thing; it is beyond dispute that Origen with all his abstractions represented the Deity, whom he primarily conceived as a constant substance, in a more living, and, so to speak, in a more personal way than the Greek philosophers. Hence it was possible for him to produce a doctrine of the attributes of God. Here he did not even shrink from applying his relative view to the Deity, because, as will be seen, he never thinks of God without revelation, and because all revelation must be something limited. The omnipresence of God indeed suffers from no limitation. God is potentially everywhere; but he is everywhere only potentially; that is, he neither encompasses nor is encompassed. Nor is he diffused through the universe, but, as he is removed from the limits of space, so also he is removed from space itself.721 But the omniscience and omnipotence of God have a limit, which indeed, according to Origen, lies in the nature of the case itself. In the first place his omnipotence is limited through his essence, for he can only do what he wills;722 secondly by logic, for omnipotence cannot produce things containing an inward contradiction: God can do nothing contrary to nature, all miracles being natural in the highest sense723—thirdly, by the impossibility of that which is in itself unlimited being comprehended, whence it follows that the extent of everything created must be limited724—fourthly, by the impossibility of realising an aim completely and without disturbing elements.725 Omniscience has also its corresponding limits; this is specially proved from the freedom of spirits bestowed by God himself. God has indeed the capacity of foreknowledge, but he knows transactions beforehand because they happen; they do not happen because he knows them.726 That the divine purpose should be realised in the end necessarily follows from the nature of the created spirit itself, apart from the supporting activity of God. Like Irenæus and Tertullian Origen very carefully discussed the attributes of goodness and justice in God in opposition to the Marcionites.727 But his exposition is different. In his eyes goodness and justice are not two opposite attributes, which can and must exist in God side by side; but as virtues they are to him identical. God rewards in justice and punishes in kindness. That it should go well with all, no matter how they conduct themselves, would be no kindness; but it is kindness when God punishes to improve, deter, and prevent. Passions, anger, and the like do not exist in God, nor any plurality of virtues; but, as the Perfect One, he is all kindness. In other places, however, Origen did not content himself with this presentation. In opposition to the Marcionites, who declared Christ and the Father of Christ to be good, and the creator of the world to be just, he argued that, on the contrary, God (the foundation of the world) is good, but that the Logos-Christ, in so far as he is the pedagogus, is just.728
From the perfect goodness of God Origen infers that he reveals or communicates himself, from his immutability that he always reveals himself. The eternal or never beginning communication of perfection to other beings is a postulate of the concept "God". But, along with the whole fraternity of those professing the same philosophy, Origen assumed that the One, in becoming the Manifold and acting in the interests of the Manifold, can only effect his purpose by divesting himself of absolute apathy and once more assuming a form in which he can act, that is, procuring for himself an adequate organ—the Logos. The content of Origen's teaching about this Logos was not essentially different from that of Philo and was therefore quite as contradictory; only in his case everything is more sharply defined and the hypostasis of the Logos (in opposition to the Monarchians) more clearly and precisely stated.729 Nevertheless the personal independence of the Logos is as yet by no means so sharply defined as in the case of the later Arians. He is still the Consciousness of God, the spiritual Activity of God. Hence he is on the one hand the idea of the world existing in God, and on the other the product of divine wisdom originating with the will of God. The following are the most important propositions.730 The Logos who appeared in Christ, as is specially shown from Joh. I. 1 and Heb. I. 1, is the perfect image731 of God. He is the Wisdom of God, the reflection of his perfection and glory, the invisible image of God. For that very reason there is nothing corporeal in him732 and he is therefore really God, not αυτοθεος, nor 'ο Θεος, nor αναρχος αρχη ("beginningless beginning"), but the second God.733 But, as such, immutability is one of his attributes, that is, he can never lose his divine essence, he can also in this respect neither increase nor decrease (this immutability, however, is not an independent attribute, but he is perfect as being an image of the Father's perfection).734 Accordingly this deity is not a communicated one in the sense of his having another independent essence in addition to this divine nature; but deity rather constitutes his essence: 'ο σοτηρ ου κατα μετουσιαν, αλλα κατ' ουσιαν εστι Θεοσ735 ("the Saviour is not God by communication, but in his essence"). From this it follows that he shares in the essence of God, therefore of the Father, and is accordingly 'ομοουσιος ("the same in substance with the Father") or, seeing that, as Son, he has come forth from the Father, is engendered from the essence of the Father.736 But having proceeded, like the will, from the Spirit, he was always with God; there was not a time when he was not,737 nay, even this expression is still too weak. It would be an unworthy idea to think of God without his wisdom or to assume a beginning of his begetting. Moreover, this begetting is not an act that has only once taken place, but a process lasting from all eternity; the Son is always being begotten of the Father.738 It is the theology of Origen which Gregory Thaumaturgus has thus summed up:739 εις κυριος, μονος εκ μονου, θεος εκ θεου, χαρακτηρ και εικων της θεοτητος, λογος ενεργος, σοφια της των 'ολων συστασεως περιεκτικη και δυναμις της 'ολης κτισεως ποιητικη, 'υιος αληθινος αληθινου πατρος, αορατος αορατου και αφθαρτος αφθαρτου και αθανατος αθανατου και αιδιος αιδιου. ("One Lord, one from one, God from God, impress and image of Godhead, energetic word, wisdom embracing the entire system of the universe and power producing all creation, true Son of a true Father, the invisible of the invisible and incorruptible of the incorruptible, the immortal of the immortal, the eternal of the eternal"). The begetting is an indescribable act which can only be represented by inadequate images: it is no emanation—the expression προβολη is not found, so far as I know740—but is rather to be designated as an act of the will arising from an inner necessity, an act which for that very reason is an emanation of the essence. But the Logos thus produced is really a personally existing being; he is not an impersonal force of the Father, though this still appears to be the case in some passages of Clement, but he is the "sapientia dei substantialiter subsistens"741 ("the wisdom of God substantially existing") "figura expressa substantial patris" ("express image of the Father's substance"), "virtus altera in sua proprietate subsistens" ("a second force existing in its own characteristic fashion"). He is, and here Origen appeals to the old Acts of Paul, an "animal vivens" with an independent existence.742 He is another person,743 namely, the second person in number.744 But here already begins Origen's second train of thought which limits the first that we have set forth. As a particular hypostasis, which has its "first cause" (πρωτον αιτιον) in God, the Son is "that which is caused" (αιτιατον), moreover as the fulness of ideas, as he who comprehends in himself all the forms that are to have an active existence, the Son is no longer an absolute simplex like the Father.745 He is already the first stage of the transition from the One to the Manifold, and, as the medium of the world-idea, his essence has an inward relation to the world, which is itself without beginning.746 As soon therefore as the category of causality is applied—which moreover dominates the system—and the particular contemplation of the Son in relation to the Father gives way to the general contemplation of his task and destination, the Son is not only called κτισμα and δημιουργημα, but all the utterances about the quality of his essence receive a limitation. We nowhere find the express assertion that this quality is inferior or of a different kind when compared with that of God; but these utterances lose their force when it is asserted that complete similarity between Father and Son only exists in relation to the world. We have to acknowledge the divine being that appeared in Christ to be the manifestation of the Deity; but, from God's standpoint, the Son is the hypostasis appointed by and subordinated to him.747 The Son stands between the uncreated One and the created Many; in so far as unchangeableness is an attribute of self-existence he does not possess it.748 It is evident why Origen was obliged to conceive the Logos exactly as he did; it was only in this form that the idea answered the purpose for which it was intended. In the description of the essence of the Logos much more heed continues to be given to his creative than to his redeeming significance. Since it was only a teacher that Origen ultimately required for the purpose of redemption, he could unfold the nature and task of the Logos without thinking of Christ, whose name indeed he frequently mentions in his disquisitions, but whose person is really not of the slightest importance there.749
In order to comply with the rule of faith, and for this reason alone, for his speculation did not require a Spirit in addition to the Logos, Origen also placed the Spirit alongside of Father and Son. All that is predicated about him by the Church is that he is equal to the other persons in honour and dignity, and it was he that inspired both Prophets and Apostles; but that it is still undecided whether he be created or uncreated, and whether he too is to be considered the Son of God or not.750 As the third hypostasis, Origen reckoned him part of the constant divine essence and so treated him after the analogy of the Son, without producing an impressive proof of the necessity of this hypostasis. He, however, became the Holy Spirit through the Son, and is related to the latter as the latter is related to the Father; in other words he is subordinate to the Son; he is the first creation of the Father through the Son.751 Here Origen was following an old tradition. Considered quantitatively therefore, and this according to Origen is the most important consideration, the Spirit's sphere of action is the smallest. All being has its principle in the Father, the Son has his sphere in the rational, the Holy Spirit in the sanctified, that is in the Church; this he has to rule over and perfect. Father, Son, and Spirit form a τριας ("triad")752 to which nothing may be compared; they are equal in dignity and honour, and the substance they possess is one. If the following is not one of Rufinus' corrections, Origen said753: "Nihil in trinitate maius minusve dicendum est cum unius divinitatis fons verbo ac ratione sua teneat universa"754 ("nothing in the Trinity is to be called greater or less, since the fountain of one divinity holds all his parts by word and reason"). But, as in Origen's sense the union of these only exists because the Father alone is the "source of deity" (πηγη της θεοτητος) and principle of the other two hypostases, the Trinity is in truth no homogeneous one, but one which, in accordance with a "subtle emanation idea", has degrees within it. This Trinity, which in the strict sense remains a Trinity of revelation, except that revelation belongs to the essence of God, is with Origen the real secret of the faith, the mystery beyond all mysteries. To deny it shows a Jewish, carnal feeling or at least the greatest narrowness of conception.
The idea of createdness was already more closely associated with the Holy Ghost than with the Logos. He is in a still clearer fashion than the Son himself the transition to the series of ideas and spirits that having been created by the Son, are in truth the unfolding of his fulness. They form the next stage after the Holy Spirit. In assuming the existence of such beings as were required by his philosophical system, Origen appealed to the Biblical doctrine of angels, which he says is expressly acknowledged in the Church.755 With Clement even the association of the Son and Holy Ghost with the great angelic spirits is as yet not altogether avoided, at least in his expressions.756 Origen was more cautious in this respect.757 The world of spirits appears to him as a series of well-arranged, graded energies, as the representative of created reason. Its characteristic is growth, that is, progress (προκοπη).758 Growth is conditioned by freedom: "omnis creatura rationabilis laudis et culpæ capax: laudis, si secundum rationem, quam in se habet, ad meliora proficiat, culpæ, si rationem recti declinet"759 ("every rational creature is capable of meriting praise or blame—praise, if it advance to better things according to the reason it possesses in itself, blame, if it avoid the right course"). As unchangeableness and permanence are characteristic of the Deity, so freedom is the mark of the created spirit.760 In this thesis Origen goes beyond the assumption of the heretical Gnostics just as much as he does in his other proposition that the creaturely spirit is in no sense a portion of the divine (because it is changeable761); but in reality freedom, as he understands it, is only the capacity of created spirits to determine their own destiny for a time. In the end, however, they must turn to that which is good, because everything spiritual is indestructible. Sub specie æternitatis, then, the mere communication of the divine element to the created spirit762 is not a mere communication, and freedom is no freedom; but the absolute necessity of the created spirit's developing itself merely appears as freedom. Yet Origen himself did not draw this conclusion, but rather based everything on his conception that the freedom of naturæ rationabiles consisted in the possibilitas utriusque, and sought to understand the cosmos, as it is, from this freedom. To the naturæ rationabiles, which have different species and ordines, human souls also belong. The whole of them were created from all eternity; for God would not be almighty unless he had always produced everything763; in virtue of their origin they are equal, for their original community with the Logos permits of no diversity764; but, on the other hand, they have received different tasks and their development is consequently different. In so far as they are spirits subject to change, they are burdened with a kind of bodily nature,765 for it is only the Deity that is without a body. The element of materiality is a necessary result of their finite nature, that is, of their being created; and this applies both to angels and human souls.766 Now Origen did not speculate at all as to how the spirit world might have developed in ideal fashion, a fact which it is exceedingly important to recognise; he knows nothing at all about an ideal development for all, and does not even view it as a possibility. The truth rather is that as soon as he mentions the naturæ rationabiles, he immediately proceeds to speak of their fall, their growth, and their diversities. He merely contemplates them in the given circumstances in which they are placed (see the exposition in περι αρχων II. 9. 2).
THE DOCTRINE OF THE FALL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. All created spirits must develop. When they have done so, they attain perfection and make way for new dispensations and worlds.767 In the exercise of their freedom, however, disobedience, laxity, laziness, and failure make their appearance among them in an endless multiplicity of ways.768 The disciplining and purifying of these spirits was the purpose for which the material world was created by God.769 It is therefore a place of purification, ruled and harmoniously arranged by God's wisdom.770 Each member of the world of spirits has received a different kind of material nature in proportion to his degree of removal from the Creator. The highest spirits, who have virtually held fast by that which is good, though they too stand in need of restitution, guide the world, are servants of God (αγγελοι), and have bodies of an exceedingly subtle kind in the form of a globe (stars). The spirits that have fallen very deeply (the spirits of men) are banished into material bodies. Those that have altogether turned against God have received very dark bodies, indescribably ugly, though not visible. Men therefore are placed between the angels and demons, both of whom try to influence them. The moral struggle that man has to undergo within himself is made harder by the demons, but lightened by the angels,771 for these spiritual powers are at all times and places acting both upon the physical and the spiritual world. But everything is subject to the permission of the divine goodness and finally also to the guidance of divine providence, though the latter has created for itself a limit in freedom.772 Evil, however, and it is in this idea that Origen's great optimism consists, cannot conquer in the end. As it is nothing eternal, so also it is at bottom nothing real; it is "nonexistent" (ουχ ον) and "unreal" (ανυποστατον).773 For this very reason the estrangement of the spirits from God must finally cease; even the devil, who, as far as his being is concerned, resulted from God's will, cannot always remain a devil. The spirits must return to God, and this moment is also the end of the material world, which is merely an intermediate phase.774
According to this conception the doctrine of man, who in Origen's view is no longer the sole aim of creation to the same extent as he is with the other Fathers,775 assumes the following form: The essence of man is formed by the reasonable soul, which has fallen from the world above. This is united with the body by means of the animal soul. Origen thus believes in a threefold nature of man. He does so in the first place, because Plato holds this theory, and Origen always embraced the most complicated view in matters of tradition, and secondly, because the rational soul can never in itself be the principle of action opposed to God, and yet something relatively spiritual must be cited as the cause of this action. It is true that we also find in Origen the view that the spirit in man has itself been cooled down into a soul, has been, as it were, transformed into a soul; but there is necessarily an ambiguity here, because on the one hand the spirit of man is said to have chosen a course opposed to God, and, on the other, that which is rational and free in man must be shown to be something remaining intact.776 Man's struggle consists in the endeavour of the two factors forming his constitution to gain control of his sphere of action. If man conquers in this struggle he attains likeness to God; the image of God he bears beyond danger of loss in his indestructible, rational, and therefore immortal spirit.777 Victory, however, denotes nothing else than the subjugation of the instincts and passions.778 No doubt God affords help in the struggle, for nothing good is without God,779 but in such a way as not to interfere with freedom. According to this conception sin is a matter of necessity in the case of fallen spirits; all men are met with as sinners and are so, for they were already sinners.780 Sin is rooted in the whole earthly condition of men; it is the weakness and error of the spirit parted from its origin.781 The idea of freedom, indeed, is supposed to be a feature which always preserves the guilty character of sin; but in truth it becomes a mere appearance,782 it does not avail against the constitution of man and the sinful habit propagated in human society.783 All must be sinners at first,784 for that is as much their destiny as is the doom of death which is a necessary consequence of man's material nature.785
In the view of Clement and Origen the proposition: "God wishes us to be saved by means of ourselves" (ο Θεος 'ημας εξ 'ημων αυτων βουλεται σωζεσθαι) is quite as true as the other statement that no spirit can be saved without entering into fellowship with the Logos and submitting to his instruction.786 They moreover hold that the Logos, after passing through his various stages of revealing activity (law of nature, Mosaic law), disclosed himself in the Gospel in a manner complete and accessible to all, so that this revelation imparts redemption and eternal happiness to all men, however different their capacities may be. Finally, it is assumed that not only men but all spiritual creatures, from the radiant spirits of heaven down to the dusky demons, have the capacity and need of redemption; while for the highest stage, the "spiritual Church", there is an eternal Gospel which is related to the written one as the latter is to the law. This eternal Gospel is the first complete revelation of God's highest intentions, and lies hidden in the Holy Scriptures.787 These elements compose Origen's doctrine of revelation in general and of Christ in particular.788 They presuppose the sighing of the creature and the great struggle which is more especially carried on upon earth, within the human breast, by the angels and demons, virtues and vices, knowledge and passion, that dispute the possession of man. Man must conquer and yet he cannot do so without help. But help has never been wanting. The Logos has been revealing himself from the beginning. Origen's teaching concerning the preparatory history of redemption is founded on the doctrines of the Apologists; but with him everything takes a more vivid form, and influences on the part of the heretical Gnosis are also not lacking. Pure spirits, whom no fault of their own had caused to be invested with bodies, namely, the prophets, were sent to men by the Logos in order to support the struggling and to increase knowledge. To prepare the way of salvation the Logos chose for himself a whole people, and he revealed himself among all men. But all these undertakings did not yet lead to the goal. The Logos himself was obliged to appear and lead men back. But by reason of the diverse nature of the spirits, and especially of men, the redeeming work of the Logos that appeared could not fail to be a complicated one. In the case of some he had really to show them the victory over the demons and sin, a view which beyond dispute is derived from that of Valentinus. He had, as the "Godman," to make a sacrifice which represented the expiation of sin, he had to pay a ransom which put an end to the devil's sovereignty over men's souls, and in short he had to bring a redemption visible and intelligible to all.789 To the rest, however, as divine teacher and hierophant he had to reveal the depths of knowledge, and to impart in this very process a new principle of life, so that they might now partake of his life and themselves become divine through being interwoven with the divine essence. Here, as in the former case, restoration to fellowship with God is the goal; but, as in the lower stage, this restoration is effected through faith and sure conviction of the reality of a historical fact—namely, the redeeming death of Christ,—so, in the higher stage, it is accomplished through knowledge and love, which, soaring upward beyond the Crucified One, grasp the eternal essence of the Logos, revealed to us through his teaching in the eternal Gospel.790 What the Gnostics merely represented as a more or less valuable appearance—namely, the historical work of Christ—was to Origen no appearance but truth. But he did not view it as the truth, and in this he agrees with the Gnostics, but as a truth, beyond which lies a higher. That historical work of Christ was a reality; it is also indispensable for men of more limited endowments, and not a matter of indifference to the perfect; but the latter no longer require it for their personal life. Here also Origen again contrived to reconcile contradictions and thus acknowledged, outdid, reconciled, and united both the theses of the Gnostics and those of orthodox Christians. The object and goal of redemption are the same for all, namely, the restoration of the created spirit to God and participation in the divine life. In so far as history is a struggle between spirits and demons, the death of Christ on the cross is the turning-point of history, and its effects extend even into heaven and hell.791
On the basis of this conception of redemption Origen developed his idea of Christ. Inasmuch as he recognised Christ as the Redeemer, this Christ, the God-man, could not but be as many-sided as redemption is. Only through that masterly art of reconciling contradictions, and by the aid of that fantastic idea which conceives one real being as dwelling in another, could there be any apparent success in the attempt to depict a homogeneous person who in truth is no longer a person, but the symbol of the various redemptions. That such an acute thinker, however, did not shrink from the monstrosity his speculation produced is ultimately to be accounted for by the fact that this very speculation afforded him the means of nullifying all the utterances about Christ and falling back on the idea of the divine teacher as being the highest one. The whole "humanity" of the Redeemer together with its history finally disappears from the eyes of the perfect one. What remains is the principle, the divine Reason, which became known and recognisable through Christ. The perfect one, and this remark also applies to Clement's perfect Gnostic, thus knows no "Christology", but only an indwelling of the Logos in Jesus Christ, with which the indwellings of this same Logos in men began. To the Gnostic the question of the divinity of Christ is of as little importance as that of the humanity. The former is no question, because speculation, starting above and proceeding downwards, is already acquainted with the Logos and knows that he has become completely comprehensible in Christ; the latter is no question, because the humanity is a matter of indifference, being the form in which the Logos made himself recognisable. But to the Christian who is not yet perfect the divinity as well as the humanity of Christ is a problem, and it is the duty of the perfect one to solve and explain it, and to guard this solution against errors on all sides. To Origen, however, the errors are already Gnostic Docetism on the one hand, and the "Ebionite" view on the other.792 His doctrine was accordingly as follows: As a pure unchangeable spirit, the Logos could not unite with matter, because this as μη ον would have depotentiated him. A medium was required. The Logos did not unite with the body, but with a soul, and only through the soul with the body. This soul was a pure one; it was a created spirit that had never fallen from God, but always remained in faithful obedience to him, and that had chosen to become a soul in order to serve the purposes of redemption. This soul then was always devoted to the Logos from the first and had never renounced fellowship with him. It was selected by the Logos for the purpose of incarnation and that because of its moral dignity. The Logos became united with it in the closest way; but this connection, though it is to be viewed as a mysteriously real union, continues to remain perfect only because of the unceasing effort of will by which the soul clings to the Logos. Thus, then, no intermixture has taken place. On the contrary the Logos preserves his impassibility, and it is only the soul that hungers and thirsts, struggles and suffers. In this, too, it appears as a real human soul, and in the same way the body is sinless and unpolluted, as being derived from a virgin; but yet it is a human one. This humanity of the body, however, does not exclude its capacity of assuming all possible qualities the Logos wishes to give it; for matter of itself possesses no qualities. The Logos was able at any moment to give his body the form it required, in order to make the proper impression on the various sorts of men. Moreover, he was not enclosed in the soul and body of Christ; on the contrary he acted everywhere as before and united himself, as formerly, with all the souls that opened themselves to him. But with none did the union become so close as with the soul, and consequently also with the body of Jesus. During his earthly life the Logos glorified and deified his soul by degrees and the latter acted in the same way on his body. Origen contrived to arrange the different functions and predicates of the incarnate Logos in such a way that they formed a series of stages which the believer becomes successively acquainted with as he advances in knowledge. But everything is most closely united together in Christ. This union (κοινωνια ενωσις, ανακρασις) was so intimate that Holy Writ has named the created man, Jesus, the Son of God; and on the other hand has called the Son of God the Son of Man. After the resurrection and ascension the whole man Jesus appears transformed into a spirit, is completely received into the Godhead, and is thus identical with the Logos.793 In this conception one may be tempted to point out all possible "heresies":—the conception of Jesus as a heavenly man—but all men are heavenly;—the Adoptianist ("Ebionite") Christology—but the Logos as a person stands behind it;—the conception of two Logoi, a personal and an impersonal; the Gnostic separation of Jesus and Christ; and Docetism. As a matter of fact Origen united all these ideas, but modified the whole of them in such a way that they no longer seem, and to some extent are not, what they turn out to be when subjected to the slightest logical analysis. This structure is so constituted that not a stone of it admits of being a hair's-breadth broader or narrower. There is only one conception that has been absolutely unemployed by Origen, that is, the modalistic view. Origen is the great opponent of Sabellianism, a theory which in its simplicity frequently elicited from him words of pity; otherwise he made use of all the ideas about Christ that had been formed in the course of two hundred years. This becomes more and more manifest the more we penetrate into the details of this Christology. We cannot, however, attribute to Origen a doctrine of two natures, but rather the notion of two subjects that become gradually amalgamated with each other, although the expression "two natures" is not quite foreign to Origen.794 The Logos retains his human nature eternally,795 but only in the same sense in which we preserve our nature after the resurrection.
The significance which this Christological attempt possessed for its time consists first in its complexity, secondly in the energetic endeavour to give an adequate conception of Christ's humanity, that is, of the moral freedom pertaining to him as a creature. This effort was indeed obliged to content itself with a meagre result: but we are only justified in measuring Origen's Christology by that of the Valentinians and Basilidians, that is, by the scientific one that had preceded it. The most important advance lies in the fact that Origen set forth a scientific Christology in which he was able to find so much scope for the humanity of Christ. Whilst within the framework of the scientific Christologies this humanity had hitherto been conceived as something indifferent or merely apparent, Origen made the first attempt to incorporate it with the various speculations without prejudice to the Logos, God in nature and person. No Greek philosopher probably heeded what Irenæus set forth respecting Christ as the second Adam, the recapitulatur generis humani; whereas Origen's speculation could not be overlooked. In this case the Gnosis really adopted the idea of the incarnation, and at the same time tried to demonstrate the conception of the God-man from the notions of unity of will and love. In the treatise against Celsus, moreover, Origen went the reverse way to work and undertook to show, and this not merely by help of the proof from prophecy, that the predicate deity applied to the historical Christ.796 But Origen's conception of Christ's person as a model (for the Gnostic) and his repudiation of all magical theories of redemption ultimately explain why he did not, like Tertullian, set forth a doctrine of two natures, but sought to show that in Christ's case a human subject with his will and feelings became completely merged in the Deity. No doubt he can say that the union of the divine and human natures had its beginning in Christ, but here he virtually means that this beginning is continued in the sense of souls imitating the example of Christ. What is called the real redemption supposed to be given in him is certainly mediated in the Psychic through his work, but the person of Christ which cannot be known to any but the perfect man is by no means identified with that real redemption, but appears as a free moral personality, inwardly blended with the Deity, a personality which cannot mechanically transfer the content of its essence, though it can indeed exercise the strongest impression on mind and heart. To Origen the highest value of Christ's person lies in the fact that the Deity has here condescended to reveal to us the whole fulness of his essence, in the person of a man, as well as in the fact that a man is given to us who shows that the human spirit is capable of becoming entirely God's. At bottom there is nothing obscure and mystical here; the whole process takes place in the will and in the feelings through knowledge.797
This is sufficient to settle the nature of what is called personal attainment of salvation. Freedom precedes and supporting grace follows. As in Christ's case his human soul gradually united itself with the Logos in proportion as it voluntarily subjected its will to God, so also every man receives grace according to his progress. Though Clement and Origen did not yet recommend actual exercises according to definite rules, their description of the gradations by which the soul rises to God already resembles that of the Neoplatonists, except that they decidedly begin with faith as the first stage. Faith is the first step and is our own work.798 Then follows the religious contemplation of visible things, and from this the soul advances, as on the steps of a ladder, to the contemplation of the substantiæ rationabiles, the Logos, the knowable essence of God, and the whole fulness of the Deity.799 She retraces her steps upwards along the path she formerly passed over as a fallen spirit. But, when left to her own resources, she herself is everywhere weak and powerless; she requires at every stage the divine grace, that is, enlightenment.800 Thus a union of grace and freedom takes place within the sphere of the latter, till the "contemplative life" is reached, that joyous ascetic contemplativeness, in which the Logos is the friend, associate, and bridegroom of the soul, which now, having become a pure spirit, and being herself deified, clings in love to the Deity.801 In this view the thought of regeneration in the sense of a fundamental renewal of the Ego has no place;802 still baptism is designated the bath of regeneration. Moreover, in connection with the consideration of main Biblical thoughts (God as love, God as the Father, Regeneration, Adoption, etc.) we find in both Clement and Origen passages which, free from the trammels of the system, reproduce and set forth the preaching of the Gospel in a surprisingly appropriate way.803 It is evident that in Origen's view there can be no visible means of grace; but it likewise follows from his whole way of thinking that the symbols attending the enlightening operation of grace are not a matter of indifference to the Christian Gnostic, whilst to the common man they are indispensable.804 In the same way he brought into play the system of numerous mediators and intercessors with God, viz., angels and dead and living saints, and counselled an appeal to them. In this respect he preserved a heathen custom. Moreover, Origen regards Christ as playing an important part in prayer, particularly as mediator and high priest. On prayer to Christ he expressed himself with great reserve.
Origen's eschatology occupies a middle position between that of Irenæus and the theory of the Valentinian Gnostics, but is more akin to the latter view. Whilst, according to Irenæus, Christ reunites and glorifies all that had been severed, though in such a way that there is still a remnant eternally damned; and, according to Valentinus, Christ separates what is illegitimately united and saves the spirits alone, Origen believes that all spirits will be finally rescued and glorified, each in the form of its individual life, in order to serve a new epoch of the world when sensuous matter disappears of itself. Here he rejects all sensuous eschatological expectations.805 He accepted the formula, "resurrection of the flesh", only because it was contained in the doctrine of the Church; but, on the strength of 1 Cor. XV. 44, he interpreted it as the rising of a "corpus spiritale", which will lack all material attributes and even all the members that have sensuous functions, and which will beam with radiant light like the angels and stars.806 Rejecting the doctrine that souls sleep,807 Origen assumed that the souls of the departed immediately enter Paradise,808 and that souls not yet purified pass into a state of punishment, a penal fire, which, however, like the whole world, is to be conceived as a place of purification.809 In this way also Origen contrived to reconcile his position with the Church doctrines of the judgment and the punishments in hell; but, like Clement, he viewed the purifying fire as a temporary and figurative one; it consists in the torments of conscience.810 In the end all the spirits in heaven and earth, nay, even the demons, are purified and brought back to God by the Logos-Christ,811 after they have ascended from stage to stage through seven heavens.812 Hence Origen treated this doctrine as an esoteric one: "for the common man it is sufficient to know that the sinner is punished."813
This system overthrew those of the Gnostics, attracted Greek philosophers, and justified ecclesiastical Christianity. If one undertook to subject it to a new process of sublimation from the standpoint given in the "contemplative life", little else would be left than the unchangeable spirit, the created spirit, and the ethic. But no one is justified in subjecting it to this process.814 The method according to which Origen preserved whatever appeared valuable in the content of tradition is no less significant than his system of ethics and the great principle of viewing everything created in a relative sense. Supposing minds of a radical cast, to have existed at the close of the history of ancient civilisation, what would have been left to us? The fact of a strong and undivided religious interest attaching itself to the traditions of the philosophers and of the two Testaments was the condition—to use Origen's own language—that enabled a new world of spirits to arise after the old one had finished its course.
During the following century Origen's theology at first acted in its entirety. But it likewise attained this position of influence, because some important propositions could be detached from their original connection and fitted into a new one. It is one of the peculiarities of this ecclesiastical philosophy of religion that the most of its formulæ could be interpreted and employed in utramque partem. The several propositions could be made to serve very different purposes not only by being halved, but also by being grouped. With this the relative unity that distinguishes the system no doubt vanished; but how many are there who strive after unity and completeness in their theory of the world? Above all, however, there was something else that necessarily vanished, as soon as people meddled with the individual propositions, and enlarged or abridged them. We mean the frame of mind which produced them, that wonderful unity between the relative view of things and the absolute estimate of the highest good attainable by the free spirit that is certain of its God. But a time came, nay, had already come, when a sense of proportion and relation was no longer to be found.
In the East the history of dogma and of the Church during the succeeding centuries is the history of Origen's philosophy. Arians and orthodox, critics and mystics, priests who overcame the world and monks who shunned it but were eager for knowledge815 could appeal to this system and did not fail to do so. But, in the main problem that Origen set for the Church in this religious philosophy of his, we find a recurrence of that propounded by the so-called Gnosticism two generations earlier. He solved it by producing a system which reconciled the faith of the Church with Greek philosophy; and he dealt Gnosticism its death-blow. This solution, however, was by no means intended as the doctrine of the Church, since indeed it was rather based on the distinction between Church belief and theology, and consequently on the distinction between the common man and the theologian. But such a distinction was not permanently tenable in a Church that had to preserve its strength by the unity and finality of a revealed faith, and no longer tolerated fresh changes in the interpretation of its possession. Hence a further compromise was necessary. The Greek philosophy, or speculation, did not attain real and permanent recognition within the Church till a new accommodation, capable of being accounted both Pistis and Gnosis, was found between what Origen looked on as Church belief and what he regarded as Gnosis. In the endeavours of Irenæus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus were already found hesitating, nay, we may almost say naïve, attempts at such an accommodation; but ecclesiastical traditionalism was unable to attain complete clearness as to its own position till it was confronted with a philosophy of religion that was no longer heathen or Gnostic, but had an ecclesiastical colouring.
But, with this prospect, we have already crossed the border of the third century. At its beginning there were but few theologians in Christendom who were acquainted with speculation, even in its fragmentary form. In the course of the century it became a recognised part of the orthodox faith, in so far as the Logos doctrine triumphed in the Church. This development is the most important that took place in the third century; for it denoted the definite transformation of the rule of faith into the compendium of a Greek philosophical system, and it is the parallel of a contemporaneous transformation of the Church into a holy commonwealth (see above, chapter 3).
Footnote 656: (return)Guericke, De schola, quæ Alex. floruit catechetica 1824, 1825. Vacherot, Hist. crit. de l'école d'Alex., 1846-51. Reinkens, De Clemente Alex., 1850. Redepenning, Origenes Thl. I. p. 57 ff. Læmmer, Clem. Al. de Logo doctrina, 1855. Reuter, Clem. theolog. moralis, 1853. Cognat, Clement d'Alex. Paris, 1859. Westcott, Origen and the beginnings of Christian Philosophy (Contemporary Review, May 1879). Winter, Die Ethik des Clemens von Alex., 1882. Merk, Cl. Alex, in seiner Abhängigkeit von der griech. Philosophie, Leipzig, 1879 (see besides Overbeck, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1879. No. 20 and cf. above all his disquisitions in the treatise "Ueber. die Anfänge der patristischen Litteratur,") Hist. Ztschr. N.F., Vol. XII., pp. 455-472 Zahn, Forschungen, Vol. III. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Oxford, 1886. Kremmer, De catal. heurematum, Lips. 1890. Wendland, Quæst. Musonianæ, Berol. 1886. Bratke, Die Stellung des Clem. Alex. z. antiken Mysterienwesen (Stud. u. Krit. 1888, p. 647 ff). On Alexander of Jerusalem see Routh, Reliq. Sacr. T. II. p. 161 sq.; on Julius Africanus see Gelzer, Sextus Jul. Afr. I. Thl., 1880, p. 1 ff., Spitta, Der Brief des Jul. Afr. an Aristides, Halle 1877, and my article in the Real-Encykl. On Bardesanes see Hilgenfeld, B., der letzte Gnostiker, 1864, and Hort's article in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. On the labours in scientific theology on the part of the so-called Alogi in Asia Minor and of the Roman Theodotianists see Epiph. hær. 51, Euseb., H. E. V. 28 and my article "Monarchianismus" in the R.-Encykl. f. protest. Theol. 2nd. ed., Vol. X., pp. 183 ff., 188 ff. On the tendencies even of orthodox Christians to scientific theology see Tertull., de præscr. hær. 8 ff. (cf. the first words of c. 8: "Venio itaque ad illum articulum, quem et nostri prætendunt ad ineundam curiositatem. Scriptum est, inquiunt, Quærite et invenietis" etc.).
Footnote 657: (return)This manner of expression is indeed liable to be misunderstood, because it suggests the idea that something new was taking place. As a matter of fact the scientific labours in the Church were merely a continuation of the Gnostic schools under altered circumstances, that is, under the sway of a tradition which was now more clearly defined and more firmly fenced round as a noli me tangere.
Footnote 658: (return)This was begun in the Church by Irenæus and Tertullian and continued by the Alexandrians. They, however, not only adopted theologoumena from Paulinism, but also acquired from Paul a more ardent feeling of religious freedom as well as a deeper reverence for love and knowledge as contrasted with lower morality.
Footnote 659: (return)We are not able to form a clear idea of the school of Justin. In the year 180 the schools of the Valentinians, Carpocratians, Tatian etc. were all outside the Church.
Footnote 660: (return)On the school of Edessa see Assemani, Bibl. orient., T. III., P. II., p. 924; Von Lengerke, De Ephraemi arte hermen., p. 86 sq.; Kihn, Die Bedeutung der antiochenischen Schule etc., pp. 32 f. 79 f., Zahn, Tatian's Diatessaron, p. 54. About the middle of the 3rd century Macarius, of whom Lucian the Martyr was a disciple, taught at this school. Special attention was given to the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures.
Footnote 661: (return)Overbeck, l.c., p. 455, has very rightly remarked: "The origin of the Alexandrian school of catechists is not a portion of the Church history of the 2nd century, that has somehow been left in the dark by a mere accident; but a part of the well-defined dark region on the map of the ecclesiastical historian of this period, which contains the beginnings of all the fundamental institutions of the Church as well as those of the Alexandrian school of catechists, a school which was the first attempt to formulate the relationship of Christianity to secular science." We are, moreover, still in a state of complete uncertainty as to the personality and teaching of Pantænus (with regard to him see Zahn, "Forschungen" Vol. III., pp. 64 ff. 77 ff). We can form an idea of the school of catechists from the 6th Book of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and from the works of Clement and Origen.
Footnote 662: (return)On the connection of Julius Africanus with this school see Eusebius, VI. 31. As to his relations with Origen see the correspondence. Julius Africanus had, moreover, relations with Edessa. He mentions Clement in his chronicles. On the connection of Alexander and the Cappadocian circle with Pantænus, Clement, and Origen, see the 6th Book of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. Alexander and Origen were disciples of Pantænus.
Footnote 664: (return)We have the most complete materials in Zahn, "Forschungen" Vol. III. pp. 17-176. The best estimate of the great tripartite work (Protrepticus, Pædagogus, Stromateis) is found in Overbeck, l.c. The titles of Clement's remaining works, which are lost to us or only preserved in fragments, show how comprehensive his scientific labours were.
Footnote 665: (return)This applies quite as much to the old principles of Christian morality as to the traditional faith. With respect to the first we may refer to the treatise: "Quis dives salvetur", and to the 2nd and 3rd Books of the Pædagogus.
Footnote 666: (return)Clement was also conscious of the novelty of his undertaking; see Overbeck, l.c., p. 464 f. The respect enjoyed by Clement as a master is shown by the letters of Alexander of Jerusalem. See Euseb., H. E. VI. 11 and specially VI. 14. Here both Pantænus and Clement are called "Father", but whilst the former receives the title, 'ο μακαριος 'ως αληθως και κυριος , the latter is called: 'ο 'ιερος Κλημης, κυριος μου γενομενος και ωφελησας με.
Footnote 667: (return)Strom. VI. 14, 109: πλεον εστιν του πιστευσαι το γνωναι, Pistis is γνωσις συντομος των κατεπειγοντων (VII. 10. 57, see the whole chapter), Gnosis is αποδειξις των δια πιστεως παρειλημμενων τη πιστει εποικοδομουμενη (l.c.), τελειωσις ανθρωπου (l.c.), πιστις επιστημονικη (II. II. 48).
Footnote 668: (return)We have here more particularly to consider those paragraphs of the Stromateis where Clement describes the perfect Gnostic: the latter elevates himself by dispassionate love to God, is raised above everything earthly, has rid himself of ignorance, the root of all evil, and already lives a life like that of the angels. See Strom. VI. 9. 71, 72: Ουδε γαρ ενδει τι αυτω προς εξομωιοσιν τω καλω και αγαθω ειναι ουδε αρα φιλει τινα την κοινην ταυτην φιλιαν, αλλ' αγαπα τον κτιστην δια των κτισματων. Ουτ' ουν επιθυμια και ορεξει τινι περιπιπτει ουτε ενδεης εστι κατα γε την ψυχην των αλλων τινος συνων ηδη δι' αγαπης τω εραστω, ω δη ωκειωται κατα την 'αιρεσιν και τη εξ ασκησεος 'εξει, τουτω προσεχεστερον συνεγγιζων, μακαριος ων δια την των αγαθων περιουσιαν, ωστε 'ενεκα γε τουτων εξομοιουσθαι βιαζεται τω διδασκαλω εις απαθειαν. Strom. VII. 69-83: VI. 14, 113: 'ουτως δυναμιν λαβουσα κυριακην 'η ψυχη μελετα ειναι Θεος, κακον μεν ουδεν αλλο πλην αγνοιας ειναι νομιζουσα. The whole 7th Book should be read.
Footnote 669: (return)Philo is quoted by Clement several times and still more frequently made use of without acknowledgment. See the copious citations in Siegfried, Philo von Alexandrien, pp. 343-351. In addition to this Clement made use of many Greek philosophers or quoted them without acknowledgment, e.g., Musonius.
Footnote 670: (return)Like Philo and Justin, Clement also no doubt at times asserts that the Greek philosophers pilfered from the Old Testament; but see Strom. I. 5. 28 sq.: παντων μεν αιτιος των καλων 'ο Θεος, αλλα των μεν κατα προηγουμενον 'ως της τε διαθηκης της παλαιας και της νεας, των δε κατ' επακολουθημα 'ως της φιλοσοφιας. ταχα δε και προηγουμενως τοις 'Ελλησιν εδοθη τοτε πριν η τον κυριον καλεσαι και τους 'Ελληνας. επαιδαγωγει γαρ και αυτη το 'Ελληνικον 'ως 'ο νομος τους 'Εβραιους εις Χριστον.
Footnote 672: (return)The fact that Clement appeals in support of the Gnosis to an esoteric tradition (Strom. VI. 7. 61: VI. 8. 68: VII. 10. 55) proves how much this writer, belonging as he did to a sceptical age, underestimated the efficacy of all human thought in determining the ultimate truth of things. The existence of sacred writings containing all truth was not even enough for him; the content of these writings had also to be guaranteed by divine communication. But no doubt the ultimate cause of this, as of all similar cases of scepticism, was the dim perception that ethics and religion do not at all come within the sphere of the intellectual, and that the intellect can produce nothing of religious value. As, however, in consequence of philosophical tradition, neither Philo, nor the Gnostics, nor Clement, nor the Neoplatonists were able to shake themselves free from the intellectual scheme, those things which—as they instinctively felt, but did not recognise—could really not be ascertained by knowledge at all received from them the name of suprarational and were traced to divine revelation. We may say that the extinction or pernicious extravagancies to which Greek philosophy was subjected in Neoplatonism, and the absurdities into which the Christian dogmatic was led, arose from the fact that the tradition of placing the ethical and religious feelings and the development of character within the sphere of knowledge, as had been the case for nearly a thousand years, could not be got rid of, though the incongruity was no doubt felt. Contempt for empiricism, scepticism, the extravagancies of religious metaphysics which finally become mythology, have their origin here. Knowledge still continues to be viewed as the highest possession; it is, however, no longer knowledge, but character and feeling; and it must be nourished by the fancy in order to be able to assert itself as knowledge.
Footnote 673: (return)Clement was not a Neoplatonic mystic in the strict sense of the word. When he describes the highest ethical ideal, ecstasy is wanting; and the freshness with which he describes Quietism shows that he himself was no Quietist. See on this point Bigg's third lecture, l.c., particularly p. 98 f. "... The silent prayer of the Quietist is in fact ecstasy, of which there is not a trace in Clement. For Clement shrank from his own conclusions. Though the father of all the Mystics he is no Mystic himself. He did not enter the 'enchanted garden,' which he opened for others. If he talks of 'flaying the sacrifice,' of leaving sense behind, of Epopteia, this is but the parlance of his school. The instrument to which he looks for growth in knowledge is not trance, but disciplined reason. Hence Gnosis, when once obtained, is indefectible, not like the rapture which Plotinus enjoyed but four times during his acquaintance with Porphyry, which in the experience of Theresa never lasted more than half an hour. The Gnostic is no Visionary, no Theurgist, no Antinomian."
Footnote 674: (return)What a bold and joyous thinker Clement was is shown by the almost audacious remark in Strom. IV. 22. 136: ει γουν τις καθ' 'υποθεσιν προθειη τω γνωστικω ποτερον 'ελεσθαι βουλοιτο την γνωσιν του Θεου η την σωτηριαν την αιωνιαν, ειν δε ταυτα κεχωρισμενα παντος μαλλον εν ταυτοτητε οντα, ουδε καθ' οτιουν διστασας 'ελοιτ αν την γνωσιν του Θεου.
Footnote 675: (return)Strom. VII. 1. 1. In several passages of his main work Clement refers to those churchmen who viewed the practical and speculative concentration of Church tradition as dangerous and questioned the use of philosophy at all. See Strom. VI. 10. 80: πολλοι καθαπερ 'οι παιδες τα μορμολυκεια, 'ουτως δεδιασι την 'ελληνικην φιλοσοφιαν, φοβουμενοι μη απαγαγη αυτους. VI. 11. 93.
Footnote 677: (return)Clement's authority in the Church continued much longer than that of Origen. See Zahn, "Forschungen" III. p. 140 f. The heterodox opinions advanced by Clement in the Hypotyposes are for the most part only known to us in an exaggerated form from the report of Photius.
Footnote 678: (return)In ecclesiastical antiquity all systematising was merely relative and limited, because the complex of sacred writings enjoyed a different authority from that which it possessed in the following period. Here the reference of a theologoumenon to a passage of Scripture was of itself sufficient, and the manifold and incongruous doctrines were felt as a unity in so far as they could all be verified from Holy Scriptures. Thus the fact that the Holy Scriptures were regarded as a series of divine oracles guaranteed, as it were, a transcendental unity of the doctrines, and, in certain circumstances, relieved the framer of the system of a great part of his task. Hitherto little justice has been done to this view of the history of dogma, though it is the only solution of a series of otherwise insoluble problems. We cannot for example understand the theology of Augustine, and necessarily create for ourselves the most difficult problems by our own fault, if we make no use of that theory. In Origen's dogmatic and that of subsequent Church Fathers—so far as we can speak of a dogmatic in their case—the unity lies partly in the canon of Holy Scripture and partly in the ultimate aim; but these two principles interfere with each other. As far as the Stromateis of Clement is concerned, Overbeek (l.c.) has furnished the explanation of its striking plan. Moreover, how would it have been conceivable that the riches of Holy Scripture, as presented to the philosophers who allegorised the books, could have been mastered, problems and all, at the first attempt.
Footnote 679: (return)See the treatises of Huetius (1668) reprinted by Lommatzsch. Thomasius, Origenes 1837. Redepenning, Origenes, 2 Vols. 1841-46. Denis, de la philosophie d'Origène, Paris 1884. Lang, Die Leiblichkeit der Vernunftwesen bei Origenes, Leipzig, 1892. Mehlhorn, Die Lehre von der menschlichen Freiheit nach Origenes (Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Vol. II., p. 234 ff.). Westcott, Origenes, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography Vol. IV. Moller in Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie, 2nd ed., Vol. XI., pp. 92-109. The special literature is to be found there as well as in Nitzsch, Dogmengeschichte I., p. 151, and Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 5th ed, p. 62 f.