History of Dogma, Volume 2

by Adolf von Harnack

The importance that the Alexandrian school was to attain in the history of dogma is not associated with Clement, but with his disciple Origen.[⁶⁷⁶] This was not because Clement was more heterodox than Origen, for that is not the case, so far as the Stromateis is concerned at least;[⁶⁷⁷] but because the latter exerted an incomparably greater influence than the former; and, with an energy perhaps unexampled in the history of the Church, already mapped out all the provinces of theology by his own unaided efforts. Another reason is that Clement did not possess the Church tradition in its fixed Catholic forms as Origen did (see above, chapter 2), and, as his Stromateis shows, he was as yet incapable of forming a theological system. What he offers is portions of a theological Christian dogmatic and speculative ethic. These indeed are no fragments in so far as they are all produced according to a definite method and have the same object in view, but they still want unity. On the other hand Origen succeeded in forming a complete system inasmuch as he not only had a Catholic tradition of fixed limits and definite type to fall back upon as a basis; but was also enabled by the previous efforts of Clement to furnish a methodical treatment of this tradition.[⁶⁷⁸] Now a sharp eye indeed perceives that Origen personally no longer possessed such a complete and bold religious theory of the world as Clement did, for he was already more tightly fettered by the Church tradition, some details of which here and there led him into compromises that remind us of Irenæus; but it was in connection with his work that the development of the following period took place. It is therefore sufficient, within the framework of the history of dogma, to refer to Clement as the bold forerunner of Origen, and, in setting forth the theology of the latter, to compare it in important points with the doctrines of Clement.

2. The system of Origen.[⁶⁷⁹]

Among the theologians of ecclesiastical antiquity Origen was the most important and influential alongside of Augustine. He proved the father of ecclesiastical science in the widest sense of the word, and at the same time became the founder of that theology which reached its complete development in the fourth and fifth centuries, and which in the sixth definitely denied its author, without, however, losing the form he had impressed on it. Origen created the ecclesiastical dogmatic and made the sources of the Jewish and Christian religion the foundation of that science. The Apologists, in their day, had found everything clear in Christianity; the antignostic Fathers had confused the Church's faith and the science that treats of it. Origen recognised the problem and the problems, and elevated the pursuit of Christian theology to the rank of an independent task by freeing it from its polemical aim. He could not have become what he did, if two generations had not preceded him in paving the way to form a mental conception of Christianity and give it a philosophical foundation. Like all epoch-making personalities, he was also favoured by the conditions in which he lived, though he had to endure violent attacks. Born of a Christian family which was faithfully attached to the Church, he lived at a time when the Christian communities enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace and were being naturalised in the world; he was a member of a Christian Church where the right of scientific study was already recognised and where this had attained a fixed position in an organised school.[⁶⁸⁰] He proclaimed the reconciliation of science with the Christian faith and the compatibility of the highest culture with the Gospel within the bosom of the Church, thus contributing more than any other to convert the ancient world to Christianity. But he made no compromises from shrewd calculation: it was his inmost and holiest conviction that the sacred documents of Christianity contained all the ideals of antiquity, and that the speculative conception of ecclesiastical Christianity was the only true and right one. His character was pure, his life blameless; in his work he was not only unwearied, but also unselfish. There have been few Fathers of the Church whose life-story leaves such an impression of purity behind it as that of Origen. The atmosphere which he breathed as a Christian and as a philosopher was dangerous; but his mind remained sound, and even his feeling for truth scarcely ever forsook him.[⁶⁸¹] To us his theory of the world, surveyed in its details, presents various changing hues, like that of Philo, and at the present day we can scarcely any longer understand how he was able to unite the different materials; but, considering the solidity of his character and the confidence of his decisions, we cannot doubt that he himself felt the agreement of all essential parts of his system. No doubt he spoke in one way to the perfect and in another to the mass of Christian people. The narrow-minded or the immature will at all times necessarily consider such proceedings hypocrisy, but the outcome of his religious and scientific conception of the world required the twofold language. Orthodox theology of all creeds has never yet advanced beyond the circle first mapped out by his mind. She has suspected and corrected her founder, she has thought she could lop off his heterodox opinions as if they were accidental excrescences, she has incorporated with the simple faith itself the measure of speculation she was obliged to admit, and continued to give the rule of faith a more philosophic form, fragment by fragment, in order that she might thus be able to remove the gap between Faith and Gnosis and to banish free theology through the formula of ecclesiastical dogma. But it may reasonably be questioned whether all this is progress, and it is well worth investigating whether the gap between half theological, clerical Christianity and a lay Christianity held in tutelage is more endurable than that between Gnosis and Pistis, which Origen preserved and bridged over.

The Christian system of Origen[⁶⁸²] is worked out in opposition to the systems of the Greek philosophers and of the Christian Gnostics. It is moreover opposed to the ecclesiastical enemies of science, the Christian Unitarians, and the Jews.[⁶⁸³] But the science of the faith, as developed by Origen, being built up with the appliances of Philo's science, bears unmistakable marks of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. Origen speculated not only in the manner of Justin, but also in that of Valentinus and therefore likewise after the fashion of Plotinus; in fact he is characterised by the adoption of the methods and, in a certain sense, of the axioms current in the schools of Valentinus and traceable in Neoplatonism. But, as this method implied the acknowledgment of a sacred literature, Origen was an exegete who believed in the Holy Scriptures and indeed, at bottom, he viewed all theology as a methodical exegesis of Holy Writ. Finally, however, since Origen, as an ecclesiastical Christian, was convinced that the Church (by which he means only the perfect and pure Church) is the sole possessor of God's holy revelations with whose authority the faith may be justly satisfied, nothing but the two Testaments, as preserved by her, was regarded by him as the absolutely reliable divine revelation.[⁶⁸⁴] But, in addition to these, every possession of the Church, and, above all, the rule of faith, was authoritative and holy.[⁶⁸⁵] By acknowledging not only the relative correctness of the beliefs held by the great mass of simple Christians, as the Valentinians did, but also the indispensableness of their faith as the foundation of speculation, Origen like Clement avoided the dilemma of becoming a heterodox Gnostic or an ecclesiastical traditionalist. He was able to maintain this standpoint, because in the first place his Gnosis required a guaranteed sacred literature which he only found in the Church, and because in the second place this same Gnosis had extended its horizon far enough to see that what the heretical Gnosis had regarded as contrasts were different aspects of the same thing. The relative way of looking at things, an inheritance from the best time of antiquity, is familiar to Origen, as it was to Clement; and he contrived never to lose sight of it, in spite of the absolute attitude he had arrived at through the Christian Gnosis and the Holy Scriptures. This relative view taught him and Clement toleration and discretion (Strom. IV. 22. 139: 'η γνωσις αγαπα και τους αγνοουντας διδασκει τε και παιδευει την πασαν κτισιν του παντοκρατορος Θεου τιμαν, "Gnosis loves and instructs the ignorant and teaches us to honour the whole creation of God Almighty"); and enabled them everywhere to discover, hold fast, and further the good in that which was meagre and narrow, in that which was undeveloped and as yet intrinsically obscure.[⁶⁸⁶] As an orthodox traditionalist and decided opponent of all heresy Origen acknowledged that Christianity embraces a salvation which is offered to all men and attained by faith, that it is the doctrine of historical facts to which we must adhere, that the content of Christianity has been appropriately summarised by the Church in her rule of faith,[⁶⁸⁷] and that belief is of itself sufficient for the renewal and salvation of man. But, as an idealistic philosopher, Origen transformed the whole content of ecclesiastical faith into ideas. Here he adhered to no fixed philosophical system, but, like Philo, Clement, and the Neoplatonists, adopted and adapted all that had been effected by the labours of idealistic Greek moralists since the time of Socrates. These, however, had long before transformed the Socratic saying "know thyself" into manifold rules for the right conduct of life, and associated with it a theosophy, in which man was first to attain to his true self.[⁶⁸⁸] These rules made the true "sage" abstain from occupying himself in the service of daily life and "from burdensome appearance in public". They asserted that the mind "can have no more peculiar duty than caring for itself." This is accomplished by its not looking without nor occupying itself with foreign things, but, turning inwardly to itself, restoring its own nature to itself and thus practising righteousness.[⁶⁸⁹] Here it was taught that the wise man who no longer requires anything is nearest the Deity, because he is a partaker of the highest good through possession of his rich Ego and through his calm contemplation of the world; here moreover it was proclaimed that the mind that has freed itself from the sensuous[⁶⁹⁰] and lives in constant contemplation of the eternal is also in the end vouchsafed a view of the invisible and is itself deified. No one can deny that this sort of flight from the world and possession of God involves a specific secularisation of Christianity, and that the isolated and self-sufficient sage is pretty much the opposite of the poor soul that hungers after righteousness.[⁶⁹¹] Nor, on the other hand, can any one deny that concrete examples of both types are found in infinite multiplicity and might shade off into each other in this multiplicity. This was the case with Clement and Origen. To them the ethical and religious ideal is the state without sorrow, the state of insensibility to all evils, of order and peace—but peace in God. Reconciled to the course of the world, trusting in the divine Logos,[⁶⁹²] rich in disinterested love to God and the brethren, reproducing the divine thoughts, looking up with longing to heaven its native city,[⁶⁹³] the created spirit attains its likeness to God and eternal bliss. It reaches this by the victory over sensuousness, by constantly occupying itself with the divine—"Go ye believing thoughts into the wide field of eternity"—by self-knowledge and contemplative isolation, which, however, does not exclude work in the kingdom of God, that is in the Church. This is the divine wisdom: "The soul practises viewing herself as in a mirror: she displays the divine Spirit in herself as in a mirror, if she is to be found worthy of this fellowship; and she thus discovers the traces of a mysterious way to deification."[⁶⁹⁴] Origen employed the Stoic and Platonic systems of ethics as an instrument for the gradual realisation of this ideal.[⁶⁹⁵] With him the mystic and ecstatic as well as the magic and sacramental element is still in the background, though it is not wanting. To Origen's mind, however, the inadequacy of philosophical injunctions was constantly made plain by the following considerations. (1) The philosophers, in spite of their noble thoughts of God, tolerated the existence of polytheism; and this was really the only fault he had to find with Plato. (2) The truth did not become universally accessible through them.[⁶⁹⁶] (3) As the result of these facts they did not possess sufficient power.[⁶⁹⁷] In contrast to this the divine revelation had already mastered a whole people through Moses—"Would to God the Jews had not transgressed the law, and had not slain the prophets and Jesus; we would then have had a model of that heavenly commonwealth which Plato has sought to describe"[⁶⁹⁸]—and the Logos shows his universal power in the Church (1) by putting an end to all polytheism, and (2) by improving everyone to the extent that his knowledge and capacity admit, and in proportion as his will is inclined to, and susceptible of, that which is good.[⁶⁹⁹]

Not only, however, did Origen employ the Greek ethic in its varied types, but the Greek cosmological speculation also formed the complicated substructure of his religious system of morals. The Gnosis is formally a philosophy of revelation, that is a Scripture theology,[⁷⁰⁰] and materially a cosmological speculation. On the basis of a detailed theory of inspiration, which itself, moreover, originates with the philosophers, the Holy Scriptures are so treated that all facts appear as the vehicles of ideas and only attain their highest value in this aspect. Systematic theology, in undertaking its task, always starts, as Clement and Origen also did, with the conscious or unconscious thought of emancipating itself from the outward revelation and community of cultus that are the characteristic marks of positive religion. The place of these is taken by the results of speculative cosmology, which, though themselves practically conditioned, do not seem to be of this character. This also applies to Origen's Christian Gnosis or scientific dogmatic, which is simply the metaphysics of the age. However, as he was the equal of the foremost minds of his time, this dogmatic was no schoolboy imitation on his part, but was to some extent independently developed and was worked out both in opposition to pantheistic Stoicism and to theoretical dualism. That we are not mistaken in this opinion is shown by a document ranking among the most valuable things preserved to us from the third century; we mean the judgment passed on Origen by Porphyry in Euseb., H. E. VI. 19. Every sentence is instructive,[⁷⁰¹] but the culminating point is the judgment contained in § 7: κατα μεν τον Βιον Χριστιανως ζων και παρανομως, κατα δε τας περι των πραγματων και του θεου δοξας 'Ελληνιζων και τα 'Ελληνων τοις οθνειοις 'υποβαλλομενος μυθοις. ("His outward life was that of a Christian and opposed to the law, but in regard to his views of things and of the Deity, he thought like the Greeks, inasmuch as he introduced their ideas into the myths of other peoples.") We can everywhere verify this observation from Origen's works and particularly from the books written against Celsus, where he is continually obliged to mask his essential agreement in principles and method with the enemy of the Christians.[⁷⁰²] The Gnosis is in fact the Hellenic one and results in that wonderful picture of the world which, though apparently a drama, is in reality immovable, and only assumes such a complicated form here from its relation to the Holy Scriptures and the history of Christ.[⁷⁰³] The Gnosis neutralises everything connected with empiric history; and if this does not everywhere hold good with regard to the actual occurrence of facts, it is at least invariably the case in respect to their significance. The clearest proof of this is (1) that Origen raised the thought of the unchangeability of God to be the norm of his system and (2) that he denied the historical, incarnate Logos any significance for "Gnostics." To these Christ merely appears as the Logos who has been from eternity with the Father and has always acted from the beginning. He alone is the object of the knowledge of the wise man, who merely requires a perfect or, in other words, a divine teacher.[⁷⁰⁴] The Gospel too only teaches the "shadow of the secrets of Christ;" but the eternal Gospel, which is also the pneumatic one, "clearly places before men's minds all things concerning the Son of God himself, both the mysteries shown by his words, and the things of which his acts were the riddles" (σαφως παριστησι τοις νοουσι τα παντα ενωπιον περι αυτου του 'υιου του Θεου, και τα παρισταμενα μυστηρια 'υπο των λογων αυτου, τα τε πραγματα, ων αινιγματα ησαν 'αι πραξεις αυτου).[⁷⁰⁵] No doubt the true theology based on revelation makes pantheism appear overthrown as well as dualism, and here the influence of the two Testaments cannot be mistaken; but a subtle form of the latter recurs in Origen's system, whilst the manner in which he rejected both made the Greek philosophy of the age feel that there was something akin to it here. In the final utterances of religious metaphysics ecclesiastical Christianity, with the exception of a few compromises, is thrown off as a husk. The objects of religious knowledge have no history or rather, and this is a genuinely Gnostic and Neoplatonic idea, they have only a supramundane one.

This necessarily gave rise to the assumption of an esoteric and exoteric form of the Christian religion, for it is only behind the statutory, positive religion of the Church that religion itself is found. Origen gave the clearest expression to this assumption, which must have been already familiar in the Alexandrian school of catechists, and convinced himself that it was correct, because he saw that the mass of Christians were unable to grasp the deeper sense of Scripture, and because he realised the difficulties of the exegesis. On the other hand, in solving the problem of adapting the different points of his heterodox system of thought to the regula fidei, he displayed the most masterly skill. He succeeded in finding an external connection, because, though the construction of his theory proceeded from the top downwards, he could find support for it on the steps of the regula fidei, already developed by Irenæus into the history of salvation.[⁷⁰⁶] The system itself is to be, in principle and in every respect, monistic, but, as the material world, though created by God out of nothing, merely appears as a place of punishment and purification for souls, a strong element of dualism is inherent in the system, as far as its practical application is concerned.[⁷⁰⁷] The prevailing contrast is that between the one transcendent essence and the multiplicity of all created things. The pervading ambiguity lies in the twofold view of the spiritual in so far as, on the one hand, it belongs to God as the unfolding of his essence, and, on the other, as being created, is contrasted with God. This ambiguity, which recurs in all the Neoplatonic systems and has continued to characterise all mysticism down to the present day, originates in the attempt to repel Stoic pantheism and yet to preserve the transcendental nature of the human spirit, and to maintain the absolute causality of God without allowing his goodness to be called in question. The assumption that created spirits can freely determine their own course is therefore a necessity of the system; in fact this assumption is one of its main presuppositions[⁷⁰⁸] and is so boldly developed as to limit the omnipotence and omniscience of God. But, as from the empirical point of view the knot is tied for every man at the very moment he appears on earth, and since the problem is not created by each human being as the result of his own independent will, but lies in his organisation, speculation must retreat behind history. So the system, in accordance with certain hints of Plato, is constructed on the same plan as that of Valentinus, for example, to which it has an extraordinary affinity. It contains three parts: (1) The doctrine of God and his unfoldings or creations, (2) the doctrine of the Fall and its consequences, (3) the doctrine of redemption and restoration.[⁷⁰⁹] Like Denis, however, we may also, in accordance with a premised theory of method, set forth the system in four sections, viz., Theology, Cosmology, Anthropology, Teleology. Origen's fundamental idea is "the original indestructible unity of God and all spiritual essence." From this it necessarily follows that the created spirit after fall, error, and sin must ever return to its origin, to being in God. In this idea we have the key to the religious philosophy of Origen.

The only sources for obtaining a knowledge of the truth are the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments. No doubt the speculations of Greek philosophers also contain truths, but these have only a propædeutic value and, moreover, have no certainty to offer, as have the Holy Scriptures, which are a witness to themselves in the fulfilment of prophecy.[⁷¹⁰] On the other hand Origen assumes that there was an esoteric deeper knowledge in addition to the Holy Scriptures, and that Jesus in particular imparted this deeper wisdom to a few;[⁷¹¹] but, as a correct Church theologian, he scarcely made use of this assumption. The first methodical principle of his exegesis is that the faith, as professed in the Church in contradistinction to heresy, must not be tampered with.[⁷¹²] But it is the carrying out of this rule that really forms the task of the theologian. For the faith itself is fixed and requires no particular presentation; it never occurred to Origen to assume that the fixing of the faith itself could present problems. It is complete, clear, easily teachable, and really leads to victory over sensuality and sin (see c. Cels. VII. 48 and cf. other passages), as well as to fellowship with God, since it rests on the revelation of the Logos. But, as it remains determined by fear and hope of reward so, as "uninformed and irrational faith" (πιστις ιδιωτικη and αλογος), it only leads to a "somatic Christianity" (Χριστιανισμος σωματικος). It is the task of theology, however, to decipher "spiritual Christianity" (Χριστιανισμος πνευματικος) from the Holy Scriptures, and to elevate faith to knowledge and clear vision. This is effected by the method of Scripture exegesis which ascertains the highest revelations of God.[⁷¹³] The Scripture has a threefold sense because, like the cosmos, alongside of which it stands like a second revelation, as it were, it must contain a pneumatic, psychic, and somatic element. The somatic or historical sense is in every case the first that must be ascertained. It corresponds to the stage of mere faith and has consequently the same dignity as the latter. But there are instances where it is to be given up and designated as a Jewish and fleshly sense. This is to be assumed in all cases where it leads to ideas opposed to the nature of God, morality, the law of nature, or reason.[⁷¹⁴] Here one must judge (see above) that such objectionable passages were meant to incite the searcher to a deeper investigation. The psychic sense is of a moral nature: in the Old Testament more especially most narratives have a moral content, which one can easily find by stripping off the history as a covering; and in certain passages one may content oneself with this meaning. The pneumatic sense, which is the only meaning borne by many passages, an assertion which neither Philo nor Clement ventured to make in plain terms, has with Origen a negatively apologetic and a positively didactic aim. It leads to the ultimate ideas which, once attained, are self-evident, and, so to speak, pass completely over into the mind of the theologian, because they finally obtain for him clear vision and independent possession.[⁷¹⁵] When the Gnostic has attained this stage, he may throw away the ladders by which he has reached this height.[⁷¹⁶] He is then inwardly united with God's Logos, and from this union obtains all that he requires. In most passages Origen presupposed the similarity and equal value of all parts of the Holy Scriptures; but in some he showed that even inspiration has its stages and grades, according to the receptivity and worthiness of each prophet, thus applying his relative view of all matters of fact in such cases also. In Christ the full revelation of the Logos was first expressed; his Apostles did not possess the same inspiration as he,[⁷¹⁷] and among the Apostles and apostolic men differences in the degrees of inspiration are again to be assumed. Here Origen set the example of making a definite distinction between a heroic age of the Apostles and the succeeding period. This laid the foundation for an assumption through which the later Church down to our time has appeased her conscience and freed herself from demands that she could not satisfy.[⁷¹⁸]

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AND HIS SELF-UNFOLDINGS OR CREATIONS.[⁷¹⁹] The world points back to an ultimate cause and the created spirit to an eternal, pure, absolutely simple, and unchangeable spirit, who is the original source of all existence and goodness, so that everything that exists only does so in virtue of being caused by that One, and is good in so far as it derives its essence from the One who is perfection and goodness. This fundamental idea is the source of all the conclusions drawn by Origen as to the essence, attributes, and knowableness of God. As the One, God is contrasted with the Manifold; but the order in the Manifold points back to the One. As the real Essence, God is opposed to the essences that appear and seem to vanish, and that therefore have no real existence, because they have not their principle in themselves, but testify: "We have not made ourselves." As the absolutely immaterial Spirit, God is contrasted with the spirit that is clogged with matter, but which strives to get back to him from whom it received its origin. The One is something different from the Manifold; but the order, the dependence, and the longing of that which is created point back to the One, who can therefore be known relatively from the Manifold. In sharpest contrast to the heretical Gnosis, Origen maintained the absolute causality of God, and, in spite of all abstractions in determining the essence of God, he attributed self-consciousness and will to this superessential Essence (in opposition to Valentinus, Basilides, and the later Neoplatonists).[⁷²⁰] The created is one thing and the Self-existent is another, but both are connected together; as the created can only be understood from something self-existent, so the self-existent is not without analogy to the created. The Self-existent is in itself a living thing; it is beyond dispute that Origen with all his abstractions represented the Deity, whom he primarily conceived as a constant substance, in a more living, and, so to speak, in a more personal way than the Greek philosophers. Hence it was possible for him to produce a doctrine of the attributes of God. Here he did not even shrink from applying his relative view to the Deity, because, as will be seen, he never thinks of God without revelation, and because all revelation must be something limited. The omnipresence of God indeed suffers from no limitation. God is potentially everywhere; but he is everywhere only potentially; that is, he neither encompasses nor is encompassed. Nor is he diffused through the universe, but, as he is removed from the limits of space, so also he is removed from space itself.[⁷²¹] But the omniscience and omnipotence of God have a limit, which indeed, according to Origen, lies in the nature of the case itself. In the first place his omnipotence is limited through his essence, for he can only do what he wills;[⁷²²] secondly by logic, for omnipotence cannot produce things containing an inward contradiction: God can do nothing contrary to nature, all miracles being natural in the highest sense[⁷²³]—thirdly, by the impossibility of that which is in itself unlimited being comprehended, whence it follows that the extent of everything created must be limited[⁷²⁴]—fourthly, by the impossibility of realising an aim completely and without disturbing elements.[⁷²⁵] Omniscience has also its corresponding limits; this is specially proved from the freedom of spirits bestowed by God himself. God has indeed the capacity of foreknowledge, but he knows transactions beforehand because they happen; they do not happen because he knows them.[⁷²⁶] That the divine purpose should be realised in the end necessarily follows from the nature of the created spirit itself, apart from the supporting activity of God. Like Irenæus and Tertullian Origen very carefully discussed the attributes of goodness and justice in God in opposition to the Marcionites.[⁷²⁷] But his exposition is different. In his eyes goodness and justice are not two opposite attributes, which can and must exist in God side by side; but as virtues they are to him identical. God rewards in justice and punishes in kindness. That it should go well with all, no matter how they conduct themselves, would be no kindness; but it is kindness when God punishes to improve, deter, and prevent. Passions, anger, and the like do not exist in God, nor any plurality of virtues; but, as the Perfect One, he is all kindness. In other places, however, Origen did not content himself with this presentation. In opposition to the Marcionites, who declared Christ and the Father of Christ to be good, and the creator of the world to be just, he argued that, on the contrary, God (the foundation of the world) is good, but that the Logos-Christ, in so far as he is the pedagogus, is just.[⁷²⁸]