Chapter 1. On God
·
We can know God by his effects
o
(1.1.6) Our eyes frequently cannot look upon the
nature of the light itself — that is, upon the substance of the sun; but when
we behold his splendour or his rays pouring in, perhaps, through windows or
some small openings to admit the light, we can reflect how great is the supply
and source of the light of the body. So, in like manner. the works of Divine
Providence and the plan of this whole world are a sort of rays, as it were, of
the nature of God, in comparison with His real substance and being. As,
therefore, our understanding is unable of itself to behold God Himself as He
is, it knows the Father of the world from the beauty of His works and the
comeliness of His creatures.
·
God is an “uncompounded intellectual nature.”
·
An intellectual nature is incorporeal… Origen
anticipates Descartes in distinguishing the mental from the physical… by its
properties.
o
(1.1.6) But mind, for its movements or operations,
needs no physical space, nor sensible magnitude, nor bodily shape, nor color,
nor any other of those adjuncts which are the properties of body or matter.
·
Anticipates Aquinas. God cannot change. The
beginning of all things cannot have potentiality, for such requires a cause.
·
God cannot have composition, or he would require a
cause of his composition.
o
(1.1.6) God, who is the beginning of all things, is not to
be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance there should be found to exist
elements prior to the beginning itself, out of which everything is composed,
whatever that be which is called composite.
·
How can we comprehend God… move past the things of
the senses to higher things? The mind must be incorporeal. Or we could not
understand divine things. Aristotle argued that the mind must be immaterial in
order to comprehend ideas (universals).
o
(1.1.7) The mind bears a certain relationship to
God, of whom the mind itself is an intellectual image, and that by means of
this it may come to some knowledge of the nature of divinity, especially if it
be purified and separated from bodily matter.
·
Continuing on the them of the incorporeality of God,
Origen gives examples of bodily metaphor applied to the soul and to God.
Problematically (?) he suggests that Christ spoke metaphorically when speaking
of chewing the bread of life.
o
(1.1.9) For the names of the organs of sense are
frequently applied to the soul, so that it may be said to see with the eyes of
the heart, i.e., to perform an intellectual act by means of the power of
intelligence. So also it is said to hear with the ears when it perceives the
deeper meaning of a statement. So also we say that it makes use of teeth, when
it chews and eats the bread of life which comes down from heaven.
Chapter 2, On Christ
·
Christ does not have a beginning. Christ is
identified as the wisdom of God. “he only-begotten Son of God is His wisdom
hypostatically existing” (1.2.2). God is
simple and His wisdom is not endowed but identical with him. A beginning of
Christ would be a change in God, and so require potentiality.
o
(1.2.4) His generation is as eternal and everlasting
as the brilliancy which is produced from the sun. For it is not by receiving
the breath of life that He is made a Son, by any outward act, but by His own
nature.
o
(1.2.5) He Himself is the only one who is by nature
a Son, and is therefore termed the Only-begotten.
·
Effects are given what they have by their cause. We
have what God is in a divided way. He is those things and is the source of them.
This shares a principle with Aquinas 4th way.
o
(1.2.4) For how could those things which were
created live, unless they derived their being from life? Or how could those
things which are, truly exist, unless they came down from the truth? Or how
could rational beings exist, unless the Word or reason had previously existed?
Or how could they be wise, unless there were wisdom?
·
Plato also thought this way.
·
Christ is the image of the Father
·
Christ is the image of God, we are images of God.
Origen illustrates the difference.
o
(1.2.6) That is sometimes called an image which is
painted or sculptured on some material substance, such as wood or stone; and
sometimes a child is called the image of his parent, when the features of the
child in no respect belie their resemblance to the father. I think, therefore,
that that man who was formed after the image and likeness of God may be
fittingly compared to the first illustration. Respecting him, however, we shall
see more precisely, God willing, when we come to expound the passage in Genesis.
But the image of the Son of God, of whom we are now speaking, may be compared
to the second of the above examples, even in respect of this, that He is the
invisible image of the invisible God, in the same manner as we say, according
to the sacred history, that the image of Adam is his son Seth. The words are,
And Adam begot Seth in his own likeness, and after his own image. Now this
image contains the unity of nature and substance belonging to Father and Son.
·
We come to know God through his image, as expressed
in the incarnation…
o o Consider, then, whether the Son of God, seeing He is His Word and Wisdom, and alone knows the Father, and reveals Him to whom He will (i.e., to those who are capable of receiving His word and wisdom), may not, in regard of this very point of making God to be understood and acknowledged, be called the figure of His person and subsistence; that is, when that Wisdom, which desires to make known to others the means by which God is acknowledged and understood by them, describes Himself first of all, it may by so doing be called the express figure of the person of God. In order, however, to arrive at a fuller understanding of the manner in which the Saviour is the figure of the person or subsistence of God, let us take an instance, which, although it does not describe the subject of which we are treating either fully or appropriately, may nevertheless be seen to be employed for this purpose only, to show that the Son of God, who was in the form of God, divesting Himself (of His glory), makes it His object, by this very divesting of Himself, to demonstrate to us the fullness of His deity. For instance, suppose that there were a statue of so enormous a size as to fill the whole world, and which on that account could be seen by no one; and that another statue were formed altogether resembling it in the shape of the limbs, and in the features of the countenance, and in form and material, but without the same immensity of size, so that those who were unable to behold the one of enormous proportions, should, on seeing the latter, acknowledge that they had seen the former, because it preserved all the features of its limbs and countenance, and even the very form and material, so closely, as to be altogether undistinguishable from it; by some such similitude, the Son of God, divesting Himself of His equality with the Father, and showing to us the way to the knowledge of Him, is made the express image of His person: so that we, who were unable to look upon the glory of that marvellous light when placed in the greatness of His Godhead, may, by His being made to us brightness, obtain the means of beholding the divine light by looking upon the brightness.
·
The Father and the Sone are one.
o
(1.2.12) As therefore the Son in no respect differs
from the Father in the power of His works, and the work of the Son is not a
different thing from that of the Father, but one and the same movement, so to
speak, is in all things, He therefore named Him a stainless mirror, that by
such an expression it might be understood that there is no dissimilarity
whatever between the Son and the Father.
o
(1.2.12) in the Gospel the Son is said to do not
similar things, but the same things in a similar manner.
Chapter 3:
The Holy Spirit
·
Origen introduces the atemporal character of
eternity…
o
When we use, indeed, such terms as always or was, or
any other designation of time, they are not to be taken absolutely, but with
due allowance; for while the significations of these words relate to time, and
those subjects of which we speak are spoken of by a stretch of language as
existing in time, they nevertheless surpass in their real nature all conception
of the finite understanding.
·
All three persons of the Blessed Trinity are
involved in the salvation of the regenerated.
o
1.3.5. [It] seems proper to inquire what is the
reason why he who is regenerated by God unto salvation has to do both with
Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and does not obtain salvation unless with the
co-operation of the entire Trinity; and why it is impossible to become partaker
of the Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit.
·
What then is the role of each?
·
The Father and the Son act in the lives of all. The
Holy Spirit operates on the path of conversion (?)
·
The Son
o
1.3.6. That the working of the Father and the Son
operates both in saints and in sinners, is manifest from this, that all who are
rational beings are partakers of the word, i.e., of reason, and by this means
bear certain seeds, implanted within them, of wisdom and justice, which is
Christ.
·
This reminds me of St. Justin’s idea that the Greek philosophers
partook in Christ inasmuch as they possessed and conformed themselves to
reason.
o
1.3.6. Christ is in the heart of all, in respect of
His being the word or reason, by participating in which they are rational
beings.
·
The Father
o
1.3.6. Now, in Him who truly exists, and who said by
Moses, I Am Who I Am, all things, whatever they are, participate; which
participation in God the Father is shared both by just men and sinners, by
rational and irrational beings, and by all things universally which exist.
·
Origen connects sin with knowledge…
o
1.3.6. And this is the meaning of the expression,
that men have no excuse for their sin, viz., that, from the time the divine
word or reason has begun to show them internally the difference between good
and evil, they ought to avoid and guard against that which is wicked: For to
him who knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.
·
The Holy Spirit
o
1.3.8. God the Father bestows upon all, existence;
and participation in Christ, in respect of His being the word of reason,
renders them rational beings. From which it follows that they are deserving
either of praise or blame, because capable of virtue and vice. On this account,
therefore, is the grace of the Holy Ghost present, that those beings which are
not holy in their essence may be rendered holy by participating in it. Seeing,
then, that firstly, they derive their existence from God the Father; secondly,
their rational nature from the Word; thirdly, their holiness from the Holy
Spirit — those who have been previously sanctified by the Holy Spirit are again
made capable of receiving Christ, in respect that He is the righteousness of
God; and those who have earned advancement to this grade by the sanctification
of the Holy Spirit, will nevertheless obtain the gift of wisdom according to
the power and working of the Spirit of God.
·
Further…
o
1.3.8. Whence also the working of the Father, which
confers existence upon all things, is found to be more glorious and
magnificent, while each one, by participation in Christ, as being wisdom, and
knowledge, and sanctification, makes progress, and advances to higher degrees
of perfection; and seeing it is by partaking of the Holy Spirit that any one is
made purer and holier, he obtains, when he is made worthy, the grace of wisdom
and knowledge, in order that, after all stains of pollution and ignorance are
cleansed and taken away, he may make so great an advance in holiness and
purity, that the nature which he received from God may become such as is worthy
of Him who gave it to be pure and perfect, so that the being which exists may
be as worthy as He who called it into existence.
·
Progress toward perfection…
o
1.3.8. For, in this way, he who is such as his
Creator wished him to be, will receive from God power always to exist, and to
abide forever. That this may be the case, and that those whom He has created
may be unceasingly and inseparably present with Him, Who IS, it is the business
of wisdom to instruct and train them, and to bring them to perfection by
confirmation of His Holy Spirit and unceasing sanctification, by which alone
are they capable of receiving God.
·
Satiety… increase and falling away… Origen brings
out the idea that the greater is our increase in holiness, the harder it is for
us to fall away and the easier to find our way back should we fall…
o
1.3.8. … the more we perceive its blessedness, the
more should be increased and intensified within us the longing for the same,
while we ever more eagerly and freely receive and hold fast the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. But if satiety should ever take hold of any one of
those who stand on the highest and perfect summit of attainment, I do not think
that such an one would suddenly be deposed from his position and fall away, but
that he must decline gradually and little by little, so that it may sometimes
happen that if a brief lapsus take place, and the individual quickly repent and
return to himself, he may not utterly fall away, but may retrace his steps, and
return to his former place, and again make good that which had been lost by his
negligence.
