Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Paper
By
Jack Hakimian
Summer 2007
Section 1
Origen influenced the Alexandrian Theological Schools with his use of the
4:24, Origen seemed to advocate the view that the scriptures had more then a literal,
historical context, but a spiritual purpose (oikonomiai) in bringing souls closer to God.1
who also used Greek philosophy and the allegorical method of interpreting scripture to
prove his arguments against the Gnostics.2 The Gnostics basically had two major
premises. First, that there were hidden meanings in scripture that only “physics” could
understand. Secondly, the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the
New Testament. In response to this both, Origen and Clement of Alexandra argued a
defense of the ecclesiastical tradition on the basis of allegorical interpretation of the Bible
and an eschatology in which God’s punishments are seen more as a cleaning system,
Origen basically claimed if there were stumbling blocks in understanding the text
they were placed their by God so the reader can interpret their meaning by giving careful
attention to context, wording, and parallels.3 For him, the ultimate goal of hermeneutics is
to dig out the various meanings and experience the “ascent of the soul”.4 In theory, he
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and later theologians from Alexandria seemed to advocate a balanced method of
interpretation, which they didn’t in practice always apply. This balanced method is based
on a tripartite anthropology. The same way the Greeks viewed the human being as having
a body, soul and spirit the scriptures are viewed with having a literal, moral, and spiritual
sense.5 Origen does imply that the task of skillful exegete is to “identify the heavenly
realities” of a passage carefully. The “simple minded” miss this fact, like the literalist
Jews who could not get passed the misunderstandings of the messianic prophecies.6
The fact that he was raised and educated in Alexandria helps shed light as to why
Alexandria was one of the vital intellectual centers of the ancient world and the home of a
Section 2
Concerning the polemic nature Origen seems to argue against two popular belief systems.
Firstly, he argues against an extreme literal hermeneutical approach utilized by the Jews
when reading the Old Testament. He writes that they don’t take into account the various
purposes of scripture which range from: historical, moral, allegorical and anagogical. 7
Valentinus and Marcion. These men taught that the God of the Old Testament was
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vindictive and cruel, therefore a lesser God than the God of the New Testament. He
responds by stating that the unity of the Bible must be preserved and the narratives of
God’s judgments are not punitive, but rather disciplinary. It’s interesting that he uses Paul
as an authority to substantiate the Old Testament. On page 60 it reads, “It is likely that
those who accept the apostle once and for all as a man of God (theios aner) will not be in
doubt about the five books attributed to Moses.”8 The significance of this quote is that the
Gnostics claim that Paul’s writings and the Gospel of Luke are authoritative, and yet
Origen dispels this myth by showing the readers how Paul used the Old testament in an
allegorical authoritative sense to help convey the spiritual meaning to the readers.
This takes me to the last point in this section. He not only argues against these
heresies, but he also instructs the reader on how they should interpret the scriptures, by
giving examples on how Paul himself used the allegorical or even the anagogical method
at times.9
Section 3
It seems that Origen viewed the scripture as inspired by the Holy Spirit to help
humans in two ways. Firstly the Holy Spirit helps us understand the “ineffable mysteries
surrounding the fate of humans”.10 Secondly, to hide the meaning of subjects that some
people cannot handle. One example he constantly uses is the creation story.11 He argues
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that the creation story may seem plain and taken literally by most people, but some will
see the apparent unreasonableness of the story and yearn from it a greater truth, a hidden
truth that is in a sense the second meaning of the text. Or as he would state it, “the
heavenly” meaning.
Origen saw the Bible had contradictions in the narratives that didn’t connect with
what he considered the real world. He believed God placed those “wrenches in the
spoke” to make us want to learn more. He argues that if everything was plain we would
disregard the teaching of scripture or not feel that God is worthy of our Worship due to
In light of his views, it appears that he believes that certain events were falsely
placed in the scriptures. He writes on page 62, “…….Scripture has woven into the
historical narrative some feature which did not happen; sometimes the event is an
impossibility; sometimes though possible, it actually did not happen. Sometimes only a
few phrases which are not true in the bodily sense are inserted, sometimes more. We
He applies this idea aggressively to Genesis chapter one. He argues that a person
would be intellectually naive to believe that the creation story was literal since the sun,
moon and stars where not yet created. Without the heavens he feels there could be no
life.14 He even sees the idea of God as a garner ignorant and the anthropomorphic
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Overall he seems to have no problem with passages that seem implausible. For
him God ordained the difficulty of the scripture to teach allegorical truth or reinforce a
Section 4
Origen saw the use of the Old Testament as vital. For Him, the triune God does
not change, because He is eternal by nature and Origen is in agreement with the Gnostics
that He is the creator God. If He is the creator God, it means then that he is unbegotten
and always self existent. Since Jesus is eternally self-existent also then he cannot be
greater or less than the creator God. He writes, “In contrast to this speculation even the
simplest minds among those proud to belong to the church have never assumed the
existence if any god greater than the creator-god.” So, in arguing for the God of Genesis
who created, not maybe literally that way, he cannot be less than Jesus Christ, who like
the God of the Old Testament is unbegotten as to his divine nature. To break the unity of
the Bible is to take away the keys of salvation. Origen sees in the Old Testament
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