Didjaredit?
1. How did Origen feel about his father’s martyrdom?
2. What did Emperor Justinian do to Origen?
3. What horrible thing did Origen do to himself and why?
4. Is Origen considered a heretic today? Why?
5. How did Origen die?
6. In the first letter you read by Origen…to whom did he write?
7. What did Origen say we should consider when we find it tough to read the Bible?
8. According to Gregory of Pontus…what kind of teacher was Origen?
Extra credit: Who was the famous Greek speaking Platonist of Alexandria that was
so well known for his allegorical interpretation of Scripture? (Clue: he was a Jewish
philosopher who lived 25-50 BC)
Origen
Adamantius
c. 185–254
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Ante-Nicene Father from185-254.
Teacher at Alexandrian School
Alexandria = Northern Egypt
Origen is very controversial. He was not a heretic.
He constructed a systematic theology.
Origin wanted to make a systematic study of
Christian Theology. Remember, he didn’t have the
materials we do today. He was a trailblazer.
 Origen was a son of a martyr from a Christian family.
Early 3rd ctry his dad was killed. Origin held him in
high esteem.
 Origen was well educated with best of pagan
philosophy. Read Greek thinkers. Only upper crust
of society had this education.
 His writings are difficult to read because he was
brilliant.
 Origin was tortured and killed in persecution.
However he is not considered a martyr.
 His Theology: 2 major works.
 1. On First Principles. (Systematic
Theology)
 2. Against Celsus.
 Celsus was a pagan philosopher who
despised Christianity. Believing in a
God born into stinky stable and had to
flee, die on cross, Rise from dead was
ridiculous in his mind. He was insulted
by the Christ story.
 Origen wrote other minor works – most
famous for his Scripture commentary.
 The Scriptural “senses” = literal, spiritual etc.
started with Origin.
CELSUS
• Origen wrote against the Gnostics.
• Origin sought to write against Gnostics “Secret knowledge”
which held beliefs that the human body was somehow
evil…because we all die. They didn’t “belong” to the body. Body
doesn’t desire immortality.
• Gnositcs had their creation story: We are fragments of the
Divine (the ONE). We became trapped in bodies. The fall wasn’t
Adam and Eve’s free choice. It was the created world that was
the problem. The created world didn’t come from a good God.
• Bodies are jail cells.
• Jesus comes in as an enlightened spirit that “SEEMS” to be a
man. He reveals his knowledge.
• You are a god…you are divine and you need to escape the
body.
• In the end the privileged knowledgeable ones will return to
creator. Faith and love are not as good as knowledge.
• Fleshly pagans had no chance to return – but some Christians
might.
 Origen sought to contest these thoughts.
 He made the distinction between the creator and
created.
 All these souls created in state of bliss. Origin
thought souls existed before material world. All
created souls got bored with union with God and
we fell.
 We are bored with bliss. Our sin is boredom.
 God’s remedy was to create body.
 When you are in body and in time you’ll die, but
you’ll learn how to love me better.
 Origin believed the body was good. It is proof
that God loves us. It is an act of Divine Love.
 For Gnostics, Savior “seems to be man” with secret
knowledge, but Origen’s Savior loves man so much, he
becomes man and isn’t afraid of suffering and death.
God made material creation for us and bodies to return to
him. In the Incarnation, God didn’t refuse to die.
Gnostic account has no thought of a body for Christ.
Christ’s body dying meant for them that the Divinity in
him had already left.
 Origen contrasted openness of Christianity with secrecy
of Gnosticism.
 Eschatology related to faith and love. Gnostics
eschatology focused on knowledge and acquaintance.
LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA
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The city of Alexandria was
established as the capital of Egypt
in 332 BC and this ancient city
remained as the capital of Egypt
for around one thousand years
until the Muslims opened Egypt
and changed the capital to the
Fustat, the first Islamic capital in
Egypt.
•
The library of Alexandria had many
names because of its greatness
and the number and variety of
books it contained. It was named
"the royal library of Alexandria, the
Grand Library, or the great library
of Alexandria. The library acted as
a major center for science and
culture for many centuries.
Reconstruction of the “Great Hall”
• The ancient library was built due to the orders of Ptolemy the second in the
third century BC and it was said that it contained 700,000 books and it was
the greatest library in the world at that time. This is besides the fact that
many great scientists studied in the library like Archimedes
• The library of Alexandria became famous world wide because it was the first
public governmental library in history. There were many libraries in the times
of the pharos but it was exclusive for the priests of the temples and the royal
family. The library contained the science, civilization, and books of two
remarkable periods: The Pharonic and the Greek.
• The two civilizations of the west and east met in this great library through
books and lectures that the library hosted and it was considered the first
attempt for the modern concept of globalization.
• It was obligatory that any scholar who studies in the library of Alexandria has
to leave a copy of his writings in the library. Maybe this was why the library
was rich with books, researches, and studies that was contemporary at the
time. This is besides the books of older periods. The responsible for the
library freed them selves from discrimination of all sorts in order to collect all
the sciences and ideas of the whole world in one great location.
The Burning of the Library
• Most historians believe that Julius Cesar burned 101 ships that were
landing on the Mediterranean Sea shore in front of Alexandria in the
year 48 BC. This was after little Ptolemy, the brother of Cleopatra,
went to fight Cesar thinking that he is helping the queen to fight
against him. This great fire reached the library and caused a huge
damage to the building of the library and its books.
• The history also recorded when the Roman emperor Thyosyos
ordered his man to destroy the library. However, some historians
claim that the library stood still till the year 640 AD when the
Moslems burned it under the orders of Amr Ibn Al Aas, the Moslem
leader who conquered Egypt at the time. Some other scholars
believe that when Amr entered Alexandria the library was no longer
there and he has nothing to do with its damage and that the library
was totally destroyed in the period of Julius Cesar.
Rebuilt in 1980’s
The SCHOOLS:
Alexandria & Antioch
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There were three cities in the Roman Empire which were recognized as having
special status during the time of the Ante-Nicene Fathers: Rome, first of all,
because, of course, it was the capitol; Alexandria, which was the leading city in
the Greek-speaking world; and Antioch, which was another important city in the
Greek-speaking world. The churches in these three cities were given special
responsibility for overseeing developments in their respective parts of the world.
When problems became too intense, a church council was convoked.
It is important to recognize that the 'schools‘ of Alexandria and Antioch, as
schools, never existed in a concrete sense.
It is possible that the “Catechetical School of Antioch” as such may have been an
academy. Historians aren’t sure.
However, when we refer to the 'schools' of Alexandria and Antioch, we speak of
them as we would speak of a 'British school of thought' on international relations,
or a the 'German school' of biblical source criticism.
The term “school” is applied by the observer, the historian and thinker, to
accommodate evident convergent themes and approaches across geographical
locales; but they do not represent a specific building, university, etc.
The Catechetical School of Alexandria
• a school of Christian theologians and priests in Alexandria
• The teachers and students of the school (also known as the
Didascalium) were influential in many of the early
theological controversies of the Christian church.
• It was one of the two major centers of the study of biblical
exegesis and theology during Late Antiquity, the other being
the School of Antioch. Emphasized allegorical interpretation
of Scripture.
• exegesis = critical interpretation of Scripture
• According to St. Jerome the Alexandrian school was
founded by Mark the Apostle.
• The earliest recorded dean was Athenagoras (176). He was
succeeded by Pantaenus 181, who was succeeded as head
of the school by his student Clement of Alexandria in 190.
• There is another opinion that the school was founded midsecond century, around 190 A.D.
• The Catechetical School of Alexandria was the oldest catechetical school
in the world.
• Under the leadership of the scholar Pantaenus, the school of Alexandria
became an important institution of religious learning, where students were
taught by scholars such as Athenagoras, Clement, Didymus, and the great
Origen, who was active in the field of commentary and comparative
Biblical studies.
• Many scholars, such as Jerome, visited the school of Alexandria to
exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars.
• The scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects. Apart from
subjects like Theology, Christian Philosophy and the Bible; science,
mathematics and Greek & Roman Literature, Logic and Arts were also
taught.
• The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and,15
centuries before Braille, blind students at the school were using woodcarving techniques to read and write.
• Emphasized a Christology focused on the union of the Human and Divine.
• The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria claims continuity with the
catechetical school of Alexandria, and regards that the school was reestablished in 1893 as the Coptic Theological Seminary.
A rendering of Ancient
Alexandria. The lighthouse
you see depicted here was one
of the seven wonders of the
ancient world. This was one of
the most beautiful cities ever.
THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH
• Antioch = Antakya, Turkey today
• was one of the two major centers of the study of
biblical exegesis and theology during Late Antiquity;
the other was the Catechetical School of
Alexandria.
• This group was known by this name because the
advocates of this tradition were based in the city of
Antioch, one of the major cities of the ancient
Roman Empire.
• Antioch held to a more literal and occasionally
typological exegesis
• Held a Christology that emphasized the distinction
between the Human and the Divine in the person of
Jesus Christ.
• The school of Antioch is best divided
into three periods:
1.the early school (270-early fourth
century)
2.the middle school (350-433)
3.the late school (after 433).
• After the early school of Antioch came
into decline, the presbyter Diodore of
Tarsus re-founded it in the middle of the
fourth century as a semi-monastic
community.
• So we must take care not to read these 'schools' not
schools in any strict sense.
• Rather, they represent loci of converging
approaches to Christological reflection centered
around two great strongholds of theological activity
in the fourth and fifth centuries.
• We have to be careful, that while noting the schools’
differences, they were not mutually exclusive.
• And despite the danger of making overgeneralizations about each school of thought,
certain common characteristics of these converging
traditions can be determined.
• In a general sense, these trends and tendencies are
as follows:
Alexandrian 'school'
Antiochene 'school'
Tendency toward Aristotelian stress on concrete realities,
Tendency toward Platonic metaphysical approach; a desire
factual historicity and its analysis, and the discernable
to move beyond appearances to the 'truly real'.
characteristics of concrete reality.
Favours an allegorical reading of scripture, first proffered in
a notable way by Origen; driven here by a desire to 'get to Favors an historical/factual, 'literal', reading of scripture.
the real meaning' of given biblical passages.
With regard to Christ, a tendency to focus on inner,
metaphysical composition and activity.
A tendency to focus upon the factual/historical aspects of
the human life of Christ-what he did, said, accomplished,
etc. Cf. Theodore's exegetical interest in the 'historical
Jesus'.
Soteriological convictions driven most often by notions of
sanctification/divinisation, mystical relation, etc.
Soteriological convictions driven by corrective agency of
divinity on humanity.
Generally: stress laid upon the ontological oneness of
Christ-the divinity and humanity form one being-wrought
most often by reference to the Logos/sarx framework
(though not always; cf. Cyril of Alexandria).
Generally: stress laid upon the distinction between God and
man in Christ-these not only distinct in discernable
attributes, but in substantive reality. Preservation of full
reality and integrity of both natures. Logos/anthropos model
predominates.
Key weakness lies in the routine jeopardy into which the
persistent distinction of natures is cast in the maintenance
of the single ontological reality of the incarnate Christ.
Key weakness lies in the difficulty in expressing the genuine
union of the two natures, and indeed the true oneness or
singular subjectivity of the incarnate Christ.