Against Celsus is not the only important surviving book by Origen. Origen’s On First Principles is often called the first systematic Christian theology. It was written some time before 231. It is a bold and wide-ranging work, and in Origen’s day Christian theologians could speculate a fair amount.
But the curtain was brought down on this era of freedom by ecclesial-political events of the fourth century. While many still considered Origen a great scholar, the atmosphere was such that one might lose one’s church career if people thought you were too sympathetic to his views.
Among his admirers was the great scholar Jerome (translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible), but Jerome had do distance himself from Origen lest the heresy hunters get him. But still, people wanted to read Origen. Answering this need, Rufinus (d. 410) translated Origen’s On First Principles into Latin. Problem is, Rufinus systematically cut out and/or changed numerous passages that would not fit the new Pro-Nicene hegemony.
How do we know this? Because Rufinus tells us! He argues that heretics must have corrupted Origen’s works, since there just could not be a difference between those and the new catholic orthodoxy. Also, we have from other sources, e.g. letters of his contemporaries, the Greek texts of some of the cut and altered passages. In the excellent modern edition of the book, the editor-translator restores these to the text. Sadly, Rufinus’s Latin version is the only complete version we have of Origen’s book, so as it stands, the book is riddled with suspicious passages that don’t fit what we otherwise know about Origen, but which we have no textual grounds to correct. (On the whole crazy affair, see the above edition, pp. xxxi-lii.)
Here are some of the cut and restored passages; if you’re familiar with the “Arian” controversy and the trinitarian orthodoxy that coalesced and acquired the power of the Roman emperor at the end of the fourth century, you will not need an explanation why Rufinus cut them.
…the Saviour… is an image of God’s goodness, but not goodness itself. And perhaps also the Son, while being good, is yet not good purely and simply. And just as he is the image of the invisible God, and in virtue of this is himself God, and yet is not he of whom Christ himself says, ‘that they may know thee, the only true God‘; so he is the image of the goodness, and yet not, as the Father is, good without qualification. (On First Principles I.2.13, p. 27, bold added)
Now this Son was begotten of the Father’s will, for he is the ‘image of the invisible God’ and the ‘effulgence of his glory and the impress of his substance’, ‘the firstborn of all creation’, a thing created [Greek: ktisma], wisdom. For wisdom itself says: ‘God created me in the beginning of his ways for his works’… and I would dare to add that as he is a likeness of the Father there is no time when he did not exist. (IV.4.1, pp. 314-5)
But if the Father comprehends all things, and the Son is among all things, it is clear that he comprehends the Son. But someone will inquire whether it is true that God is known by himself in the same way in which he is known by the only-begotten, and he will decide that the saying, ‘My father who sent me is greater than I’, is true in all respects; so that even in his knowledge the Father is greater, and is known more clearly and perfectly by himself than by the Son. (IV.4.8, p. 324)
What do you see here?
- Is Jesus called “God” but is not the one true God, that is, the Father? And is Jesus caused to exist by God, and inferior to God in knowledge? (unitarian)
- Or is Jesus God himself? Or is Jesus just as divine as his Father, and like him somehow “within” the one true God, which is the Trinity? (trinitarian)
John,
I believe I have already made my (slightly different) opinion at comment #32, in particular that “author of the Prologue to the Gospel of John has certainly in mind Hellenistic readers, but is firmly rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures”. What is unclear?
MdS
Villanovanus
I get the impression that John was writing in a way that would be understood by BOTH Jews and Hellenists.
I’m told that some scholars have suggested that John made creative use of the double meaning in the word “Logos” to communicate to both Jews who were familiar with Word Wisdom tradition – with followers of Hellenistic Judaism.
What do you think?
Every Blessing
John
@ John [March 19, 2013 at 6:35 am]
I presume you make reference to this NAB note appended to John 1:1:
“ The Word (Greek logos): this term combines God’s dynamic, creative word (Genesis), personified preexistent Wisdom as the instrument of God’s creative activity (Proverbs), and the ultimate intelligibility of reality (Hellenistic philosophy).”
My understanding is slightly different. The author of the Prologue to the Gospel of John has certainly in mind Hellenistic readers, but is firmly rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. What he is saying to the Hellenistic readers, steeped in Greek philosophy, is something like this: “We do not need to resort to (let alone depend on) the Greek-philosophical notion of Logos, in particular to account for Creation and for the Son of God, because for us, the Logos is the same Dabar of YHWH that we find in the Scripture”.
MdS
Villanovannus
I’ve just shown your reply to someone who seems quite knowledgable.
His reply was that John was making creative use of double meaning in the word ‘Logos” to communicate to both Jews and Hellenists, the concept of Word-Wisdom. The latter is explained in the notes to the NAB Bible.
John was the first ‘theologian’ – whereas Luke was more ‘literal’ in style,
As you say, there is a complementarity!
It’s all very difficult, but important.
Every Blessing
John
Villanovanus
Thanks for your time!
I guess that’s about as far as we can go with this one!
Every Blessing
John
@ John [#28, March 19, 2013 at 1:02 am]
What your question implies is, “if Luke does not have (or anyway does not resort to) the notion of Word, in the conception of Jesus, how do we know that he distinguishes it from the notion of Holy Spirit?” This is quite a difficult question, in fact. I can only give you my tentative answer.
There are two topical moments when Luke speaks of the Holy Spirit: one is at the Conception of Jesus:
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35).
Another one is at the Baptism of Jesus, when it is said that “the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22).
If we consider the Evangelist John, he also speaks of the Holy Spirit at Jesus Baptism, with almost identical words, attributing the witness to John the Baptist:
Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.” (John 1:32)
But, unlike Luke, the Evangelist John clearly distinguishes between God’s Spirit and God’s Word, and, in particular, God’s Word incarnated in/as Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14).
So we have this complex situation: Luke does not speak of the Word’s role in the conception of Jesus. John does speak of the Word’s role in the conception of Jesus, but does not speak of the Spirit’s role in the conception of Jesus.
Are the two accounts contradictory, or at least inconsistent? I don’t think so: they are simply different. Once again, as I assume that they are both informed and inspired, I believe that they are complementary.
MdS
Villanovanus
Thanks for giving me your time!
Sorry to be ‘pedestrian’, but do you think that the ‘Word’ that became flesh was the Holy Spirit ?
God Bless
John
@ John [#26, March 16, 2013 at 1:59 am]
The Evangelists Luke and John refer to the same event in space and time, the conception of Jesus of Nazareth. Although their accounts are very different, I assume that they are both informed and inspired, and therefore complementary.
MdS
Villanovanus
What, if any ,is the the ‘link’ between Luke 1:35 “the Holy Spirit will come upon you”- and ‘the word’ of John 1:1?
Every Blessing
John
Villanovanus
sorry – to continue-
Is being ‘one in essence’ similar or the same as or similar, to being a quality of theos.
Thanks
Abel
Villanovanus
Thanks for that!
It’s a bit of a handful for me to get my mind around!
@ Fr Aidan Kimel [# 8, March 17, 2013 at 12:36 pm]
So Alvin Kimel and Aidan Kimel are one and same. But Steve’s charge of “rambling, repetitious style” seems to me absolutely venial, compared to the main charge of the article, starting from the very title, that of Misreading Scripture …
MdS
That the Word and God are one in essence, without this implying that the Word is either numerically identical with God or that the pre-incarnated Word is a person.
This conclusion, that I believe to be the most scripturally consistent, is not only not accepted by “egalitarian trinitarians”, or by “subordinationist trinitarians”, but not even by unitarians like Socinus etc. I am not even sure if this position was ever advocated by Michael Servetus. AFAIC, the ONLY theologian who consistently affirmed it is Marcellus of Ancyira (+ 374 AD).
MdS
Ah, yes. I remember Steve Hays. And he’s right. My writing style can sometimes be rambling and repetitious. I need to work on that. 🙂
Villanovanus
Thank you!
What do you conclude from the fact that the definite article is missing before ‘theos’ in John 1:1?
Thank You
Abel
@ Abel [# 17, March 16, 2013 at 2:41 pm]
Thanks for the comment. But why the question marks? 🙂
I presume that “verse 2” refers to John 1:2. If so, that autos indeed refers back to the logos at John 1:1, not to any imaginary “he”.
MdS
@ Fr Aidan Kimel [# 8, March 16, 2013 at 1:52 pm]
I don’t know if you are related to another Kimel, Al, but you two certainly have in common the same admiration of Richard Swinburne and his Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy. Anyway, here is the criticism that “Steve” applies to Al Kimel at Misreading Scripture …
MdS
Villanovanus
Surely you have ‘hit the nail on the head’?
Christ must surely be the incarnation of God’s Logos, Gods Word-Wisdon, God’s self expression. ?
After all, the construction of verse 2 suggests that the Logos is not a person.
Yours sincerely
Abel
“I would ask you, do you accept the NT primarily or only because the Church has endorsed that collection of books?”
Greetings, Dale. Good question. I think that ultimately I embrace the canon of Scripture (and please remember that Orthodoxy, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, has never dogmatically finalized that canon) based on the witness and practice of the Church. I honestly do not see how one can get around this. I certainly do not believe that an authoritative canon (Protestant canon? Catholic canon? Orthodox canon?) can be established by critical-historical scholarship, nor do I believe that the canon, following Barth, is self-authenticating, that it imposes itself on the Church. Even if this were true (and I think it is partially true), this still doesn’t relieve of of the problem of deciding which books are canonical and which are not. Why not Marcion’s canon? Are we free today, are you free today, to adopt it?
My approach to this whole question has been deeply influenced over the years by Richard Swinburne’s discussion of canon and hermeneutics in his book *Revelation*. I imagine you are acquainted with it, so I won’t attempt to summarize his arguments.
But let me mention one critical point: the incorporation of a literary work into the canon alters its meaning. Its plain meaning is no longer identical to its authorial meaning. Context has changed and now the work must be interpreted within the whole of Scripture. But what are the hermeneutical rules? Swinburne writes, “So there was a wide tradition in the early Church of reading the Bible metaphorically and not always literally; it was the Church of the centuries which established the canon of Scripture which taught that this was the way in which it ought to be read. It was the Bible understood in that way which they declared to be true” (p. 206). I have yet to come across a cogent refutation of Swinburne’s position, which is one reason why I am no longer an Anglican.
I see that you are evasive about my question no.1, and don’t answer at all my question no. 3.
In your answer to my question no. 2, you cite Luke (presumably, you have in mind, most of all, Luke 1:32,35). Are you suggesting then, that, by the miraculous virgin conception, God wanted to convey the message that Jesus, being “God’s Son” “from before birth” was indeed “God’s Son” in a unique way (ho monogênes)?
If not, in what way does the whole passage Luke 1:26-35 “explain the sense in which Jesus is ‘God’s Son’ from before birth”?
If yes, what prevents you from considering the Incarnation of God’s logos the “substance” of which the virgin conception is the sign?
MdS
“There is a very serious hermeneutical problem here. Evidently, folks here believe that the “plain” witness of the New Testament should be treated as authoritative, yet it is the very same Church that confessed the New Testament as canonical that also confessed God as Holy Trinity. If you do not want to interpret the Bible through the trinitarian hermeneutic of Nicaea, why bother with it at all? After all, neither the Old nor New Testaments fell from the sky.”
Fr. Kimel,
Yes, there is more than a whiff of protestantism here. 🙂
I would ask you, do you accept the NT primarily or only because the Church has endorsed that collection of books?
I would answer no. I accept them, yes, because of the witness of the church through the centuries, but also and more fundamentally because I think they come from Jesus’ apostles, and are our best information about him (and so, our best information about the God whom Jesus reveals in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection). About *most* of these books, it seems there was in the early to mid 100s, a wide consensus among followers of Christ.
What if I decided that, say 2 Peter was not a genuine book, but a forgery? I don’t see that this would affect my Christian belief or practice. I mean, even if one stuck to the synoptics and the undisputed letters of Paul, we’d still have the good news of the Kingdom. I’m not thinking of doing that, mind you. My only point is that Christianity seems to have done quite well without a fully determinate canon for quite awhile. If we don’t, on grounds of catholic tradition, take the boundaries to be fully set then… I don’t see any dire theological or spiritual consequences.
“2. Why couldn’t God attribute to a human not born miraculously the same role and mission that He attributed to Jesus? ”
I can’t think of any reason why he couldn’t. But I don’t conclude much from that.
According to Luke, the virgin birth explains the sense in which Jesus is “God’s Son” from before birth – and not, say, starting at his baptism, which is what some early Christians thought.
Far from me to subscribe to William Lane Craig’s trinitarianism: quite the opposite, in fact. But I think it is fair to put your snippet of quotation [#] in context, in particular, by adding this sentence at the end of the same paragraph whence your quotation comes from:
“ We all affirm that God is personal, but Trinitarians reject the claim that God is a person.” — Trinity Monotheism Once More: A Response to Daniel Howard-Snyder, by William Lane Craig (www.reasonablefaith.org/trinity-monotheism-once-more-a-response-to-daniel-howard-snyder)
So, Craig’s qualm is NOT against God being personal, BUT against God being ONE person.
What is, IYO, a “more natural reading of the Scriptures that is also Biblically consistent”? Humanitarian unitarianism (to use Dale’s expression)? Subordinationism? Irenaeus notion of God with his two “eternal arms/hands” (Deut 33:27; Psalm 33:6), Word/Logos/Dabar and Spirit/Pneuma/Ruwach? What?
All the above is absolutely fine, BUT …
… here is a little questionnaire for you:
1. Was the virgin conception essential to Jesus’ role and mission? If not, why would have God adopted it? If yes, in what sense is it essential?
2. Why couldn’t God attribute to a human not born miraculously the same role and mission that He attributed to Jesus?
3. You said elsewhere that Jesus’ in-carn-ation (“en-flesh-ment”) is, somehow, conceptually similar to the “in-brick-ation” of Jefferson’s plan for his villa at Monticello in the villa of brick and mortar. A more (Greek) philosophical way of putting it would be that Jesus was the anthropos “par excellence”. If that is the case, why did God only achieve that with the “second Adam”, and not with the first one? What made Jesus “in all things like us except for sin” (Heb 2:17; 4:15)?
What “trinitarian hermeneutic of Nicaea”? It is a clumsy, totally unfounded legend that what was spelled out at Constantinople 381, under the spell of the Cappadocian scoundrels (“God is one ousia in three hypostases“) was already present at Nicea. Nicea was convened to oppose the novelty introduced by Arius, viz. that the “Son” was a creature, that “there was [a time] when [he] was not”. And the only device that the Council Fathers managed to come up with (under the personal spell of the Hermetic-savvy Constantine), so as to put Arius in “off side”, was the homoousios.
In the original creed of Nicea (325) there was no mention that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would have been begotten of the Father “before all ages (aeons)”.
And the Holy Spirit was simply mentioned: “And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost.”
That’s all.
MdS
Fr. Kimel,
“There is a very serious hermeneutical problem here. Evidently, folks here believe that the “plain” witness of the New Testament should be treated as authoritative, yet it is the very same Church that confessed the New Testament as canonical that also confessed God as Holy Trinity”
Fr. Hopko of your church said so clearly in several places, the One God is NOT the Holy Trinity, the One God is the Father. When you say the very same Church, what church, which church, originalism or a living evolving church. There seems to not even be an agreement within your own Eastern Orthodox Church. No pre-Nicene writers have evern said the One God to be the Holy Trinity, but always the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Nicene Creed clearly confess One God the Father, not One God the Holy Trinity.
Thanks,
Mark
Hi John
According to Porter’s Idioms of NT Greek:
“1. A Scheme for the Article
One of the difficulties in understanding the article is the tendency to want to make the Greek article do the same things as the English article. Try as one might, there are persistent ways in which they cannot be correlated. The following table is a schematic arrangement for interpretation of substantives with and without the article.
Substantive
Articular (with article)
particular
categorical
Anarthrous (without article)
non-particular (qualitative)
individual
When the article is used, the substantive may refer to a particular item, or it may represent a category of items. When the article is not used, the substantive may refer to the non-particular or qualitative character of an item, or it may refer to an individual item.
Porter, S. E. (1999). Idioms of the Greek New Testament (pp. 103–104). Sheffield: JSOT.”
The article precedes ‘love’ and ‘glory’ because it is referring to God’s love/glory in particular, as opposed to any old love or glory.
When the article is omitted it can refer to a quality: 1 John 4:8 ‘God is love’ or to an individual, with the context being the deciding factor between individual/quality.
In John 1:1c a lot hinges on whether the anarthrous THEOS is an individual: ‘a god’ or a quality: ‘divine’. Grammatically, it could go either way.
Andy
Fr Aidan
Are you in fact saying
-We know that the Doctrine is not scriptural
-We know it is not logical
-We know it is a product of human rationalisation and speculation
BUT YOU MUST ACCEPT TRADITION.?
Dale
Re post 6 – ‘Fear’ is the key to understanding why people still cling to the Doctrine of the Trinity
but I suspect that the people who burdened humankind with this nonsense did so as a marketing gimmick.
There was a perceived need to give the faith a ‘unique selling point’ and this was it.!
In todays parlance one might say that the trinity was a ‘killer app”!
All
Several people have commented on John 1 v1-3 over the past few posts.
I always believed that the lack of the definite article before the second mention of “God’ in verse 1 meant that the Word was probably ‘qualitative’ in nature.
I have noted however that the definite article appears TWICE in the Greek, in statements like “The Love of God” or ‘The Glory of God’ (e.g. the glory of the God)
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Every Blessing
John
There is a very serious hermeneutical problem here. Evidently, folks here believe that the “plain” witness of the New Testament should be treated as authoritative, yet it is the very same Church that confessed the New Testament as canonical that also confessed God as Holy Trinity. If you do not want to interpret the Bible through the trinitarian hermeneutic of Nicaea, why bother with it at all? After all, neither the Old nor New Testaments fell from the sky.
Dale,
“FearThis is a big factor in Christians not applying their minds to all of this”
Nothing else needs to be added to your conclusion.
Fear. This is a big factor in Christians not applying their minds to all of this. Fear of apostasy. Fear of losing one’s job at an evangelical institution. Fear of prying into divine mysteries and somehow making God mad. Oddly enough, fear of pride. Fear that Christianity is all bunk if somehow these Trinity theories don’t work out.
On that last one, it is not so! The New Testament makes all the more sense without those theoretical blinders on – in many, many ways. We now understand why the exaltation of Jesus post-resurrection was such a big deal to them. And there really is a mediator between God and man – it’s not that God took on human guise, to show us how friendly he really is. He’s as transcendent and glorious as he ever was – he’s not a Jewish man – but we have an eternal high priest now, through whom we can access him. And this man too is worthy of worship, for he’s been exalted by God to rule church and world. And yes, he really was tempted, and really was not sure he was going to be crucified, before God said “No” to his request to be spared. And he really did do miracles by the power of God’s spirit – not by exercising his essential omnipotence (which he hid most of the time. He really is our model in all things. And I could go on, but this is probably fit for another series of posts, another time.
“backlog of unanswered/ignored comments”
If you ask two questions instead of ten per comment, you’ll get a higher % of answers. It is simply a matter of available time and other obligations. You should separate the important questions from just anything that pops into your mind, like this: “First, care to provide hard evidence that “heresy hunters” were after Origen and when? AFAIK, it is the fruit of your imagination.” Look at the intro to the book discussed in this post, or any standard source on “Origenist controversies”. Why would you think I’d imagine such a thing? (I’m not that imaginative.)
“Arius, OTOH, with bold and unprecedented breach with the status quo, affirmed that the “Son” was a mere creature, the first and highest, but still a creature, and that “there was [a time] when [he] was not“. ”
No, not at all unprecidented. Look at the whole range of 2-stage logos theories, 2nd and 3rd c. More of those to come. Calling him a “creature” was unusual, but not the idea that he came into existence some time before creation. That was a very old idea by 325.
” that the “eternal generation of the Son” is Origen’s original doctrine”
That has not been disputed. In fact, I agree that that was his theory.
Yes, I’m aware that Origen refers to Jesus as a god / God, and sometimes, a “God”. That’s all compatible with thinking the Father is the one true God. I may post an a bit from his commentary on John where he’s explicit about the different ways he’s using the terms “theos” and “ho theos”.
Hi Anthony,
By his own admission, one of Bill Craig’s greatest fears is that he might deviate from the faith and teach an apostasy from the truth. This is one of the underlying motivations as to why he holds rigidly to traditional orthodoxy as seen through the lens of Protestantism, and why he has spilled so much ink in confirming this view.
Unfortunately, this same fear won’t permit him to entertain a more natural reading of the Scriptures that is also Biblically consistent. The irony and the tragedy in all of this is that his own fear has unwittingly led him to the realization of his fears.
I am loving this series so far. I have found reading these entries and then following up on the sources to delve into the issues further to be very edifying. I have been encouraged and have grown in my conviction that the earliest Christians just have no concept of a tri-personal God. YHWH, our creator, IS our God, and Jesus Christ is His son. These are the basic and fundamental truths that were preached by Paul, Peter and of course our Lord Himself.
Though I have been greatly edified and encouraged, I am saddened when I see just how far from this truth our faith’s intellectual leaders have managed to stray. I am grieved when I compare the words of the Lord, talking to His father “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” to the words of one of the best minds defending the faith today who writes “there is nothing objectionable in the implication of our view that God is not a person. That is part and parcel of Trinitarian orthodoxy.” Though I personally do not believe it to be a salvation forfeiting error, I do pray that more of the church would come to return to that view of the nature of God, His son and His personhood which is cried out from Genesis to Revelation.
Errata => Corrige
De Principiis, §4 => De Principiis, Preface, §4
Dale,
while your backlog of unanswered/ignored comments is getting longer and longer, let’s see this new post of the “Origen saga”.
First, care to provide hard evidence that “heresy hunters” were after Origen and when? AFAIK, it is the fruit of your imagination. What we know for sure (as already written by me, without objection on your part) is that both Athanasius of Alexandria and Basil of Caesarea (the eldest of the Cappadocian scoundrels) defended Origen’s orthodoxy. AFAIK, Origen’s Orthodoxy was seriously challenged, for the first time, at the Synod of Constantinople in 453 CE, which posthumously excommunicated Origen, and the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE declared his doctrine of apokatastasis heresy.
Second, what is so special about Rufinus “doctoring” Origen, so as to make his theology more compatible with the Nicene orthodoxy, in particular the homoousios? Of course he would! (BTW, it is a well known fact to scholars that Jerome and Rufinus broke their relationship on this.) BUT there is something that you entirely omit to say: that Origen’s lack of harmony with Nicea was of a totally different sign to that of Arius:
•Origen affirmed that the “Son”, while subordinated to the Father, was eternally generated by the Father.
•Arius, OTOH, with bold and unprecedented breach with the status quo, affirmed that the “Son” was a mere creature, the first and highest, but still a creature, and that “there was [a time] when [he] was not“.
While it is debatable which parts of Origen’s original work were altered by Rufinus, few doubt that the “eternal generation of the Son” is Origen’s original doctrine, as attested here:
“Jesus Christ Himself, who came (into the world), was born of the Father before all creatures; that, after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation of all things—“For by Him were all things made”[John 1:3]—He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit: that this Jesus Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not endure this death common (to man) in appearance only, but did truly die; that He did truly rise from the dead; and that after His resurrection He conversed with His disciples, and was taken up (into heaven). ” (Origen, De Principiis, §4 – bolding by MdS)
I will simply ignore your (by now pathetically repetitive) “questionnaire”.
MdS
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