CHAPTER 10

Origen and His Followers

Augustine Casiday

The case could easily be made that Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 c. 254) was incom-parably the greatest Christian theologian of his time and indeed one of the greatest theologians ever. He pioneered systematic theology with his First Principles , and his Hexapla laid the foundation for textual analysis of the Bible; he wrote numerous occa-sional treatises and voluminous commentaries on books of the Bible. Admirers trans-lated his works from Greek into Latin, thereby extending his in uence. For our purposes, what matters most is the mystical vision that informs Origen s work. This, too, was hugely in uential, as we will see from considering two prominent monks whose debts to Origen were manifold: Anthony the Great (251 356) and Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345 c. 399). From their writings, and from passing consideration of even later theo-logians, we will arrive at a sense of the major themes that Origen bequeathed to Chris-tian mysticism.

To anticipate, Origen s strategies of interpreting Scripture (which we will observe in some detail) are integrated with his manner of living in such a way that they are mutu-ally reinforcing. Hermeneutics and ethics combine and open the way to communion with God. The techniques for mystically interpreting sacred writings through allegory, which Origen adapted for Christian purposes, 1 are always aimed to transform the inter-preter and to t the interpreter to encounter God ever more fully. In what follows, we will see that Origen and those inspired by him shared an overall understanding of the cosmos, of the human place in the cosmos, and of the salvation wrought by Jesus Christ on a cosmic scale all of which gives to Origen s mystical theology a universal scale.

A preliminary warning is necessary. Origen has been a controversial gure since his own lifetime. Any controversy roiling for over seventeen centuries will obviously change over time, but we can safely say in general terms that the debates about these Origen-ists chie y concern allegations that they were corrupted by Platonism. In one way or another, such claims have beset Origen from the days when Jerome (c. 347 420) and Ru nus (c. 340 410) clashed about him (Clark), through the erce controversies

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, First Edition. Edited by Julia A. Lamm. 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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of the sixth century (Diekamp; Hombergen), and beyond. After the Second Origenist Controversy the theological debates fade, leaving them a tarnished reputation with few (and often mistaken) speci c assertions attaching to it. The powerful, negative associations attaching to Origen s name have tended to limit the willingness of right - minded readers to recognize the recurrence amongst Christians of techniques pio-neered by Origen. By taking a deliberately broad approach to Origen and his legacy, signaled here by the use of the impartial neologism Origenian rather than the over - determined term Origenist, this account of Origen and of his heirs attempts to be inclusive and exploratory. Since this chapter aims to analyze their works rather than to assess trends in contemporary scholarship (see Casiday 2004 ), I hope it suf ces to acknowledge that the following interpretation is offered from the midst of lively schol-arly conversations, without trying to be controversial.

Origen

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263 339) organized the sixth book of his Ecclesiastical History around the life and works of Origen, whom he admired greatly. That section of the Ecclesiastical History describes the persecution of Christians sponsored by the Roman emperors Septimius Severus (r. 193 211), Maximinus I (r. 235 238) and especially Decius (r. 249 251). Origen s life was punctuated by these outbreaks of persecution. Indeed, Eusebius relates how Origen s father was imprisoned and eventually executed and how Origen yearned to join him but was thwarted by his mother. He disregarded her pleas that he should stay home, but she forced him to take her seriously when she hid his clothing ( Ecclesiastical History 6.2.2). And it was owing to judicial torture suf-fered during the Decian persecution that Origen s health was broken and his life short-ened (6.39.5).

Despite these outbreaks of sanctioned violence in the midst of his life, Origen accom-plished remarkable things. From the tender age of seventeen, he was recognized as a teacher (6.3). His precocious intelligence was at least in part the result of a serious, almost obsessive, commitment to study and to prayer that Eusebius called the philo-sophic way of life. Strange as that phrase may sound, it has become increasingly clear that the connotations of the English word philosophy are narrower than the connota-tions of the Greek or the Latin philosophia. Philosophy in the late ancient Mediterranean was a way of living (Hadot 1995 : 126 144). Christians of that age sometimes used the expression philosophic life to describe a life that was profoundly informed by ethical re ection, spiritual attentiveness, and devotion to God. To return to Origen himself, Eusebius reports that he limited his sleeping and slept on the oor when he did sleep, that he restricted his eating, that he embraced poverty to the extent of going barefoot for several years in brief, that in line with Christ s teachings he radi-cally simpli ed his life the better to dedicate himself to God. Through these disciplines, Origen integrated his way of living and his way of thinking; for this reason, and not simply because he practiced self - denial, he was an ascetic.

Another detail in Eusebius account of how Origen disciplined himself should be considered here. Eusebius relates that Origen castrated himself with an eye to Matt.

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19:12 a response to the text that Eusebius describes in a startling understatement as having been rather impoverished and impetuous ( Ecclesiastical History 6.8.2: ). Scholars have debated whether Origen actually did so, whether this was a piece of libel, and even the social propriety of self - castration (cf. Caner). It seems improbable that Eusebius would have related a damaging rumor as fact, and in his own Commentary on Matthew 15:1 4 Origen deplored the literal inter-pretation of that verse by young men, which has about it something like the ring of experience. But ultimately whether or not Origen made himself a eunuch for the kingdom s sake is less important to our purposes than is the exegetical question that this anecdote raises: should all Scriptures always be understood literally?

However simplistically and impetuously the youthful Origen may have read Mat-thew s Gospel, in his mature re ections found at First Principles 4.2.4 Origen claims that there are in the Scriptures three levels of meaning which he likens to the three constituents of a human being: the esh of the Scriptures, the soul of the Scriptures, and the spirit of the Scriptures. Each of those levels is appropriate to progressively advanced readers. The esh is understood literally and can be read by the simple. The soul edi es those who have made progress in Christian living and have thus become capable of greater understanding through anagogical reading. As for the Scriptures spirit, this Origen explains in terms he takes from 1 Cor. 2:6 7: it is wisdom for the perfect and is the spiritual law, which is available through allegorical reading. Some-times, says Origen (4.2.5), there is no bodily meaning at all in a given passage from the Scriptures. Even though it is not his chosen example at this point in First Principles, we can correlate his remarks here with his robust endorsement of an allegorical interpre-tation of Matt. 19:12. He claims that the point of Matt. 19:12 has nothing to do with male reproductive organs and everything to do with that spiritual castration which makes us servants of God as were Daniel, Ananiah, Mishael, and Azariah ( Commentary on Matthew 15.5). Origen s practice of cross - referencing these stories is typical. It is also something that he does provisionally and with a note of hesitation. The reluctance to develop these connections at length is attributable, I think, to the logic of his thinking, in terms of which such an explanation would be inappropriate (possibly harmful) to novice readers and whilst being at the same time unnecessary for accomplished readers.

Origen attributes the unity of Scriptures to the Holy Spirit s supervision of their writing ( First Principles 4.2.9). By identifying the Holy Spirit s role in this way, Origen can and does in effect treat all of the Scriptures as the single work of God. Though he does not elaborate on the implications of thinking in this way about the Word of God as being immediately inspired by God, Origen s assertion that the Holy Spirit super-vised the writing of Scriptures provides some justi cation for introducing material from Dan. 1 3 into his exegesis of Matt. 19:12. Since the Holy Spirit was involved in the writing of both books, Origen can look for traces of divine authorship in both of them and can use what he nds in one sacred text to illuminate the meaning of another sacred text (Harl 173 181).

Through understanding Holy Scriptures, one comes into contact with God who makes those writings holy. It is because engaging with the Scriptures implies engaging with God that Origen stipulates preparations for exegesis that reach well beyond basic, linguistic competence. Origen s prefatory remarks to his commentary On the Song of

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Songs describe the undertakings necessary to understanding and, not incidentally, mention that the process of encountering God in sacred writings is mystical . He begins by claiming that there is meaning behind the ordering of the three books by Solomon: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. The order of these books discloses a natural progression. And the progression across them corresponds, according to Origen, to a three - fold division of knowledge into ethics, physics and epoptics: these we may respectively call moral, natural, and inspective ( On the Song of Songs , prol. 3.1). 2 The signi cance of all three terms and all three glosses in the context of interpret-ing scriptures were perhaps as unfamiliar to Origen s original readers as they are us now, because he explains them:

That study is called moral . . . which inculcates a seemly manner of living and gives a grounding in habits that incline to virtue. The study called natural is that in which the nature of each single thing is considered; so that nothing in life may be done which is contrary to nature, but everything is assigned to the uses for which the Creator brought them into being. The study called inspective is that by which we go beyond things seen and contemplate somewhat of the things divine and heavenly, beholding them with the mind alone, for they are beyond the range of bodily sight. (prol. 3.3; trans. ACW 25:40)

The central purpose of Proverbs was to enable Solomon to teach the moral science, putting rules for living into the form of short and pithy maxims, as was tting (prol. 3.6; trans. ACW 25:41). That the literary form was tting to its purpose anticipates an important aspect of Origen s explanation of physics. For Origen s purposes, the relevance of physics has less to do with seeing the mites of matter . . . darted round about (Lucretius, De rerum natura 2.89 90; trans. Leonard 1916 : 48) and much more with perceiving how the shape of the universe corresponds to its meaning as creation ( On the Song of Songs , prol. 3.6; trans. ACW 25:41): by discussing at length the things of nature, and by distinguishing the useless and vain from the pro table and essential, [Solomon] counsels us to forsake vanity and cultivate things useful and upright. The discipline of studying nature is not a morally disengaged activity; rather, it is an attempt to discern the moral contours of reality. The habits of virtue are re ned with reference to the insights that derive from physics. The harmony of ethics and physics makes it pos-sible for humans to live meaningfully and to thrive.

Origen s third and nal term, epoptics or inspective science, requires extended atten-tion since (unlike the others) it has no modern cognate that helps us to understand it. At Plato s Symposium 210a1 (written c. 380 BC ), Diotima uses the word in describing to Socrates the revelations that a neophyte encounters upon initiation into a mystery cult. This sense was still current around Origen s time, for his near contem-porary Plutarch (c. AD 46 120) uses it similarly. Thus, he relates how Demetrius sought admission to the epoptika , or higher mysteries, in Athens ( Demetrius 26.1) and how Aristotle introduced Alexander into those secret and more profound teachings which philosophers designate by the special terms acroamatic and epoptic, and do not impart to many ( Alexander 7.3, trans. Perrin 1919: 240). The coincidence in Plutar-ch s Lives of epoptika as the culmination of both philosophical instruction and mys-tical initiation is suggestive. On the basis of these and other testimonies, Pierre Hadot ( 2004 : 153 154) calls epoptics the supreme revelation of transcendent reality, as in

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the Mysteries and identi es it with metaphysics and theology since, like them both, it ultimately entails the contemplation of God. Further consideration of Origen s pro-logue will con rm that these overtones are present when he uses the word epoptics.

Returning to the place occupied by the Song of Songs in Solomon s curriculum, we read in Origen s prologue 3.7:

The inspective science likewise he has propounded in this little book that we now have in hand that is, the Song of Songs. In this he instills into the soul the love of things divine and heavenly, using for his purpose the gure of the Bride and the Bridegroom, and teaches us that communion with God must be attained by the paths of charity and love. (trans. ACW 25:41)

The subject matter of the Song of Songs is communion with God attained by the paths of charity and love, as described in frankly erotic tones (see Chapters 2 and 3 , this volume). The poem s explicit sensuality marks it out as a thing reserved for mature readers. There is a radical shift from regarding the book as a wedding song that robustly celebrates physical pleasures, to regarding it as a wedding song for creature and Creator. Origen highlights the shift when he emphasizes that the nal stages of this process are mystical and spiritual:

This book comes last that a man may come to it when his manner of life has been puri ed and he has learnt to know the difference between things corruptible and things incorrupt-ible; so that nothing in the metaphors used to describe and represent the love of the Bride for her celestial Bridegroom that is, of the perfect soul for the Word of God may cause him to stumble. For, when the soul has completed these studies, by means of which it is cleansed in all its actions and habits and is led to discriminate between natural things, it is competent to proceed to dogmatic and mystical matters [ad dogmatica venitur et ad mystica], and in this way advances to the contemplation of the Godhead with pure and spiritual love[sincero et spirituali amore]. ( On the Song of Songs , prol. 3.16; trans. ACW 25:44)

According to Origen, the characters in the love song are the perfect soul and the Word of God. He takes it as accounting for the drama of loving God. But we should not for that reason think that Origen s orientation to the text was as a reader imagining from a distance the events it described. The competent reader enters the text and thus pro-ceeds to mystical matters, advancing to a pure and loving contemplation of God. What such a process entails is revealed in another account that Origen offers of how the faithful relate to Christ.

In his commentary On John 1, 171, Origen juxtaposes Jesus claim, I am the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5), and the statement to the disciples, Ye are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). The juxtaposition is fruitful, as when Origen ponders how some receive their light from Christ with no mediation and how others receive the glory of Christ through the ministration of others:

And as when the sun is shining the moon and the stars lose their power of giving light, so those who are irradiated by Christ and receive His beams have no need of the ministering apostles and prophets we must have courage to declare this truth nor of the angels;

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I will add that they have no need even of the greater powers when they are disciples of that rst - born light. To those who do not receive the solar beams of Christ, the ministering saints do afford an illumination much less than the former; this illumination is as much as those persons can receive, and it completely lls them. (1, 165 166; trans. ANF 9:311)

Origen s nal words here offer a tantalizing glimpse at the connections that bind together Christ s followers. Because the saints are able to enlighten others of the faithful, they are not simply individuals occupying individual relationships with Christ. Instead, they share amongst themselves the illumination that originates from Christ. The extent to which the saints participate in Christ is described in a startlingly direct passage in the commentary (6, 42; trans. ANF 9:353): For Christ is found in every saint, and so from the one Christ there come to be many Christs, imitators of Him and formed after Him who is the image of God; whence God says through the prophet [Ps. 105.15.], Touch not my Christs. 3

Reading Origen s claim that there come to be many Christs, we recall a claim against so - called Origenism by its sixth - century opponents. The Origenists allegedly taught that all rational beings would ultimately become equals to Christ. 4 To what extent we should allow our evaluation of a theologian who ourished during the early third century to be informed by controversies of the sixth century, is a question that would require an unjusti ably lengthy excursus. It is more relevant simply to observe that Origen was not alone in describing Christians as Christs: the same description can be found in pages written by Cyril of Jerusalem and by Athanasius the Great (Casiday 2007 : 521 525). The simple occurrence of that expression therefore tells us very little about how and what the person who used it thinks. Perhaps when he used it Origen was hinting that there will be total equality between Christ and the saints, but an equally plausible interpretation (and one less vulnerable to accusations of anachro-nism) nds in Origen s words evidence that creatures become Christs by assimilating to Christ s attributes through communion with Christ. Such an interpretation is sup-ported by the formal parallels in Origen s teachings about how creatures can be dei ed (cf. Casiday 2003 ).

Though there is considerable interest in Origen s Christology, we must note that the Holy Spirit, too, plays an important part in Origen s description of the mystical life. He states that the Spirit prays in the hearts of the saints ( On Prayer 2.5; trans. Chadwick 1954 : 243). The relevance of this involvement by the Spirit is far - reaching. As Origen states elsewhere in the same treatise, prayer culminates less in a series of blinding encounters with God, than in a manner of living that is thoroughly suffused with prayer. Origen takes the apostolic exhortation to pray ceaselessly as an instruction liter-ally to be followed, so that the saint (in whose heart the Spirit prays) becomes as it were a living prayer: For thus alone can we accept pray without ceasing [1 Thessalonians 5:17] as a practicable saying, if we speak of the whole life of the saint as one great unbroken prayer: of which prayer that which is commonly called prayer is a part (12.2; trans. Chadwick 1954 : 262).

By comparing Origen s comments from his On John to the prologue to his commen-tary On the Song of Songs , we can see that Origen s thinking about the ways that the faithful relate to God is dense with images of contemplation, encounter, transformation,

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and identity. These indications con rm our presumption that the language of mysticism we have found in Origen s description of epoptics is indicative of his thinking about how reading and re ection are indispensible elements of Christian living. Origen s protocols for interpreting Scriptures point to the conclusion that reading the Bible is a spiritual exercise the performance of which heralds maturation as a Christian, beginning with the formation of virtuous habits and culminating with the achievement of likeness to God. Profound understanding of the Word of God is by its nature mystical.

Anthony the Great

As the subject of an astoundingly popular hagiography, Anthony the Great s life needs little introduction. We note merely that the Life of Anthony , by its own admission, pro-moted Anthony as the archetypal monk. In this it was so successful that the hagiogra-phy has effectively eclipsed all other sources about Anthony. And that is a strange fact. Hagiographies by their nature idealize their subjects. Similar practices can of course be found elsewhere; direct, naturalistic presentation is merely one option among many and it is not necessarily the best vehicle for conveying the truth. As Czes aw Mi osz observed (170), When a writer strives to present reality most faithfully he becomes con-vinced that untruth is at times the greatest truth. The world is so rich and so complex that the more one tries not to omit any part of the truth, the more one uncovers wonders that elude the pen. His point is important here because the claims made in the Life of Anthony that Anthony had not learned his letters (1.2 3, 72.2, 78.1) and was taught - by - God (66.2) might be an untruth that relates a greater truth that Christianity was in competition with paganism (to use the Christians own polemic word) and that each claimed to teach how one ought to live. Taking as bare fact the claims that Anthony was uneducated is, I argue, to disregard how those claims buttress the image of Anthony that the Life was disseminating and thus to read the Life naively. It is also to handicap our ability to identify and to evaluate the profound similarities that Anthony s teachings have with the theology of Origen. 5 What impedes the evaluation of those similarities is the fact that generations of readers have supposed that Anthony was not, indeed could not have been, intellectually sophisticated in terms of the culture of his day. The strength of these presumptions is such that Anthony has become a kind of exemplar of holy ignorance and father of an anti - intellectual monasticism.

And yet, given the Life s constant emphasis on Anthony as a hermit, his avoidance of formal education can readily be taken as a youthful demonstration of his preference for solitude instead of a precocious rejection of intellectual discipline. Furthermore, literacy is relative to a variety of circumstances and is not an absolute (cf. Wipszycka): to know that Anthony didn t have letters is to know very little about him indeed. By regarding those claims in the Life as elements in an anti - pagan polemic, rather than as a simple statement that Anthony was ignorant and illiterate, it is easier for us to under-stand how Anthony could have engaged in conversations with philosophers ( Life 72.1 80.7). No doubt, Anthony is depicted as hostile to Hellenism, but terms of his depiction owe much to Acts 4:13, where we learn of bold preaching by apostles who were unedu-cated and ignorant ( ). Such scriptural echoes alert us to the

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need for nuance in our interpretation of the Life . If the details about Anthony s intel-lectual formation serve rhetorically to distance him from his opponents, rather than to provide us with biographical data, then the sophistication he demonstrates when interviewed by pagan philosophers makes more sense. Arguing from basic principles, Anthony debates epistemology and morality with the philosophers. These topics are part of a larger philosophical curriculum. As Samuel Rubenson rightly notes (62), Virtue is not only necessary for knowledge, it is knowledge, and the pursuit of knowl-edge is as much a moral and spiritual as an intellectual exercise.

A source about Anthony other than the Life elaborates on his teachings about the universe and our place in it: Once asked by a philosopher how he could endure a life without the consolation of books, Anthony is reported to have answered, My book, o Philosopher, is the nature of creation, and it is to hand when I wish to read the words [] of God. This saying is preserved by Evagrius Ponticus ( Praktikos 92), and also related by Socrates Scholasticus ( Ecclesiastical History 4.23). It is interesting that Eva-grius says Anthony was reported to have said this, since the Latin version of apopthe-gmata prepared by Pelagius and John ( Verba Seniorum 4.16) also reports this incident. This coincidence indicates that the anecdote circulated with other sayings of desert fathers. In any case, the claim that the universe is a book in which God wrote words, or meanings, and from which they can be read adds a further layer to Anthony s philo-sophical outlook. It suggests that Anthony was interested in cosmology as well as epis-temology and morality, in ways that we can compare to Origen s interest in physics.

That suggestion is borne out by Anthony s letters, 6 in which a major theme is that we should know ourselves and know our place in the order of creation. As Anthony writes in a typically dense passage, A sensible man who has prepared himself to be freed at the coming of Jesus knows himself in his spiritual essence, for he who knows himself also knows the dispensations of his Creator, and what he does for his creatures ( Letter 3.1 2, Rubenson 196 231). Of the Creator s dispensations, Anthony identi es three mechanisms that enable creatures to know their place: the law of promise ( Letter 1.2); the written law with its consequences for obedience and disobedience ( Letter 1.9); and the af ictions God sends upon the hard of heart ( Letter 1.16). Humans who respond to these opportunities are led by the Spirit back to God, their own Creator through many fasts and vigils, through the exertion and the exercises of the body ; thus, the Spirit begins to open the eyes of the soul, to show it the way of repentance, so that it, too, may be puri ed ( Letter 1.18 26). This movement is a return to the creatures original condition (cf. Letter 1.30), or rst formation ( Letter 2.4), which was one of union with God (see also Perczel; Casiday 2002 ). According to Anthony, the Spirit works to heal creatures, body and soul and this healing is closely associated with learning and knowledge.

Anthony s emphasis on knowledge is also evident when he describes the church as the house of truth. The church has existed since the Creator raised up Moses, the Lawgiver to found it on the written law ( Letter 2.10; cf. Bright). Although he and other forerunners contributed to this good work, it was Christ alone who could heal the great wound ( Letter 3.20 21, 5.23, 6.88 90, 7.26 30) that estranged creatures from God. As the Father s mind ( Letter 7.10: sensus , ), Christ is uniquely able to reconcile creatures to God according to their mental nature ( Letter 4.9: ). 7

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Precisely because he regards Christ s role in salvation as indispensable and cosmic in scope, Anthony is committed to understanding Christ rightly. By extension, he is stri-dent in his condemnation of Arius Christology. Reverting to his claims about how knowledge of the self discloses fundamental truths about creation as the handiwork of God, Anthony attributes Arius heresy to a lack of self - awareness ( Letter 4.17 18) (see Chapter 11, this volume). Elsewhere, Anthony describes how negligence and mis-understanding precede falling into the hands of the devil ( Letter 6.107). Through positive and negative claims, Anthony constantly emphasized the importance of knowing oneself and understanding one s place, so that one will respond actively and thankfully to God and embrace the opportunities for reconciliation with God.

Evagrius

From youth, Evagrius was marked out as a promising intellect (see Casiday 2006 : 5 13). His early successes foundered upon a disastrous entanglement with a married woman, after which he made his way to the Egyptian deserts. There, under the tutelage of renowned monks, he matured into a mystical theologian of sophistication and sub-tlety. His advice was sought widely, both by correspondents and by pilgrims to the living saints of Egypt. Evagrius lived in a hermitage, with a novice or attendant, and fre-quently passed his nights in vigil by walking within the hermitage s courtyard reciting the Scriptures. His own monastic observations were so austere that he died aged merely fty - four years embarrassingly young when compared to Anthony s extreme longevity.

Evagrius af rmed a three - fold scheme of spiritual development that is parallel to Origen s as outlined in the prologue to his Commentary on the Song of Songs. According to his de nition of Christianity ( Praktikos 1), the grades are ethical living (), the contemplation of nature (), and theology ( or ). To each corresponds a speci c goal ( Gnostikos 49): The object of good discipline [cf. ] is to cleanse the mind and to make it unreceptive to passions; the object of the knowl-edge of natures [cf. ], to reveal the answer hidden in things; but to separate the human mind from all earthly things and to turn it back towards the First Mind of all, is the grace of seeing God [cf. ]. 8 Christian progress thus outlined by Eva-grius is a journey along the course of which proper living leads to understanding and understanding leads to the vision of God.

As a hermit, Evagrius pursued these goals single - mindedly. He interpreted the insights born from these disciplines for the bene t of Christians generally, in line with his claim (13) that it is appropriate to discuss the proper way of life with monks () and seculars () and to give a partial explanation of those doctrines of natural contemplation and theology without which no one will see the Lord [Hebrews 12:14]. The guarded terms of that second clause emphasize the need for discretion when discussing theological topics, which is needed when conversing even with monks: doctrines should be discussed only with the pro cient (35).

These strictures are not determined simply by the maturity of those present; some-times, the topics themselves demand them. Do not theologize indiscriminately and

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never de ne the godhead, since de nitions are for created and composite things (27). Evagrius repeatedly insists on the ineffability of God because words and de nitions are inapplicable to the utter simplicity of the divine. A major challenge posed by Evagrius writings is that they strain against the limits of language to convey what it means for a creature to encounter God. Evagrius re ections on language are therefore integral to his mystical theology. Language and names are appropriate to composite, generated things. Because such things are synthetic and exist within time, they are subject to change in a way that God simply is not. Upon creation, says Evagrius, rational creatures existed in a concord of will of will with God (Evagrius, Great Letter 24, 26, Casiday 2006 : 63 77). In this state, before sin made a separation between the minds and God . . . they were one with him and undifferentiated (29). But even then, the minds were distinguishable from the Trinity by their origins and modes of being (cf. 25).

Because they are created, temporal, and mutable, the rational beings can be alien-ated from God (63). Subsequent to their creation, says Evagrius (26), they exercised their free wills, introducing variation between themselves and God where there had previously been the concord of will. Through exercising their will independently from God, the status of rational beings before God changed and, with it, so too did their qualities. Hereafter, they became distinguished by numbers and names (most conspicu-ously, the names mind, soul, and body ). Evagrius calls this process a depart[ure] from our own nature (55).

The universe as we know it, according to Evagrius, is fashioned by God to facilitate the return of rational beings (5): Now God in his love has fashioned creation as an intermediary. It exists like a letter: through his power and his wisdom (that is, by his Son and his Spirit), he made known abroad his love for them so that they might be aware of it and drawn near. The ability to read creation like a letter is characteristic of Christians pro cient in natural contemplation. Thus, the very ordering of creation contributes passively to the salvation of fallen beings: creation exists in a way that fallen creatures can use.

In addition to the ordering of natural phenomena (indeed, contrary to that order), God intervenes directly to bring about the return of the fallen. The most conspicuous example of God acting unnaturally is the incarnation of God the Son, who descended and endured everything that is ours because we departed from our own nature that is, everything from conception to death. But it came upon him not as one whose actions deserved these punishments, but because of his natural love in freeing us from the curse and all that follows upon it (which we received because of our transgressions, but which he received without transgressing) and he was able to blot them out from us (55).

God s entry into the human condition renewed the possibility of unmediated contact between the Trinity and creatures, for which the term theology is proper and uniquely appropriate. At this level of pro ciency, the letter of creation is surpassed by direct communication (cf. 8). Christians able to communicate with God in this way, and thus able to communicate about God to others, are theologians. Through approximating in their lives to a stable concord of will with God, Christians anticipate the drawing back of names and numbers and the raising of rational beings to the order of the mind (22). Ultimately, the minds will mingle with the Father but when they do so they will not jeopardize the integrity of Trinity or the uniqueness of Christ. Because Evagrius

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speci ed that restored unity with God generates no quadrupled persons or doubled natures (28), we can conclude that certain pantheistic tendencies in the subsequent Syrian tradition (see Chapter 12 , this volume) were developments or excesses. 9

According to Evagrius, the Holy Trinity can accommodate the diversity of creation in concord with no danger of confusing divine and human essences. In a comment that is retrospective and, by the logic of his mysticism, simultaneously eschatological, Eva-grius describes the nal encounter of creatures with God in these terms: (65), Just as the journey of one seeking to arrive at the end of all torrents will arrive at the sea, like-wise the one who seeks to arrive at the power of some created thing will arrive at the Wisdom full of diversity [cf. Ephesians 3:10] who established it. It is perhaps the most tting expression of Wisdom s diversity that it embraces and con rms all of creation.

The Ongoing Legacy

Origen s use of allegory in service of ascetical and spiritual progress is a major compo-nent of his legacy. His heirs differ with respect to what they took from that legacy. The breadth of Origen s in uence is partially obscured if we defer to the old habit of presum-ing that his writings were implicitly heretical (a habit perpetuated by the use of the term Origenist ), which creates persisting dif culties when we encounter loud echoes of Origen s thinking in unexpected places. Two examples taken from later in the tradi-tion will bring this account of Origenian mysticism to a close. The rst come from homilies preached in Coptic by Rufus of Shotep sometime before the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the seventh century; the second, from approximately contemporaneous writings by the Byzantine monk and theologian, Maximus the Confessor.

Fragments survive from 18 or 19 exegetical sermons by Rufus, on the gospels of Luke and Matthew (Sheridan 1998 ). In them, Rufus uses allegorical exegesis and its techni-cal vocabulary to promote ascetical and monastic growth, in a way that shows clear continuity with Origen s work (Sheridan 1997; 1998 : 241 308). This evidence con-tradicts long - standing preconceptions about the low state of theological and intellec-tual activity amongst sixth - century Copts. These ndings have been challenged by two critics (Lucchesi 2000; 2002 ; Luisier), who argued that the fragments represent a translation of Greek material from the milieu of Evagrius; their criticism is on balance not persuasive (see further Sheridan 2003 ). The fragments from Rufus indicate that he subscribed to Origen s anthropology ( On Matthew, frag. 28; cf. Sheridan 1998 : 245), though not necessarily his metaphysics. They also allow us to say that Rufus preaching demonstrates the characteristic application of exegetical techniques in conjunction with ascetical exhortation that we have identi ed with Origen.

By contrast, major elements of Origen s mystical vision of the universe, salvation, and Christ s role in them are instantly recognizable in letters Maximus the Confessor wrote to redress perplexing claims in earlier theological authorities (Blowers and Wilken). Generations of scholars have tended to approach Maximus works as a highly selective retrieval of themes from Origen for Christian orthodoxy (thus, Sherwood). But, as I have noted with reference to some developments within the Syrian Origenian tradition, some characteristic features of Origenist heresy are demonstrably foreign

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to Origen s own theology. It is no longer necessary to pay lip service to the idea that Origen stood in need of correction. Abandoning that perspective, we can instead see Origen as a teacher for Christians of many kinds and we can identify in his teachings exercises [that] have as their goal the transformation of our vision of the world, and the metamorphosis of our being. They therefore have not merely a moral, but also an existential value. We are not just dealing here with a code of good moral conduct, but with a way of being , in the strongest sense of the term (Hadot 1995 : 127). To a remark-able extent, Origen developed biblical interpretation as the unequalled exercise for Christians, thus decisively shaping early mysticism.

Notes

1 The pioneering work of the great Hellenistic Jew, Philo of Alexandria (20 BC AD 50), is often overlooked in this context. Greek philosophers and exegetes also employed similar techniques for the interpretation of the Homeric corpus, the early beginnings of which were contemporaneous to Origen (see Lamberton).

2 Trans. ACW 25:39, modi ed: with reference to SC 375:128, I prefer epopticen to enopticen . 3 The nal word(s) of Ps. 105:15 (, ) are usually translated into

English as my anointed ones. 4 Such is the implication of the twelfth and thirteenth anathemas against Origen frequently

attributed to the Fifth Ecumenical Council (as in the English translation at NPNF, second series, vol. 14, 318 319); but on that material and its evidentiary value, see Louth 2003 .

5 The formal parallels between Origen, the Life of Anthony , and Anthony have been extensively studied. See, e.g., Marx; Roldanus 1993 ; Kannengiesser.

6 Anthony was known from antiquity to have written seven letters (see Jerome, De viris inlustribus 88), but the content of the letters traditionally attributed to him have prompted some scholars to argue against their authenticity. However, I am persuaded by Rubenson s arguments that they are authentic.

7 With reference to the Coptic text (Winstedt 1906 ), I have modi ed Rubenson s translation in order to emphasize the semantic associations that link the probable terms at Letter 4.9 ( ) and at Letter 7.10 (); cf. Rubenson 47 n 3.

8 The text at SC 356:191 192 is probably sound, but I have preferred an actual ancient witness to the modern reconstruction; my translation is from Evagrius, Gnostikos , Frankenberg 1912 : 552.

9 See Frothingham, and Marsh. I have been unable to consult Pingg ra. Note, however, that Origen s and Evagrius in uence on Syriac Christianity is not limited to heresy; see further Ramelli, and Perrone.

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