Contesting Origen

Is there any figure in early Eastern Christianity more controverted than Origen of Alexandria? Is there any other man whose legacy may have been more ill-served, or certainly more picked over, by his so-called friends? He continues to inspire a great deal of scholarly attention today, as he has for nearly 1800 years since his death. A new book adds to this attention:

Demetrios Katos, Palladius of Helenopolis: The Origenist Advocate (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2012), 288pp. 

This book, the publisher tells us, is:

• The first monograph devoted to the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362-420), who is a key source for the lives of John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, and Evagrius of Pontus, and in the topics of asceticism, spirituality, pilgrimage, hagiography, gender construction, and Origenism.

• Offers a new reading of of Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and his Lausiac History.

• Clearly written to be accessible to readers without prior knowledge of Palladius' writings.

This book is the first monograph devoted to the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362-420), an important witness of Christianity in late antiquity. Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and his Lausiac History are key sources for our knowledge of John Chrysostom's downfall and of the Origenist controversy, and they both provide rich information concerning many notable ecclesiastical personalities such as John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, Jerome, Evagrius of Pontus, Melania the Elder, Isidore of Alexandria, and the Tall Brothers.

Demetrios S. Katos employs late antique theories of judicial rhetoric and argumentation, theories whose significance is only now becoming apparent to late antique scholars, to elicit new insights from the Dialogue regarding the controversy that resulted in the death of John Chrysostom. He also demonstrates that the Lausiac History deliberately promoted to the imperial court of Pulcheria a spiritual theology that was indebted to his guide Evagrius and more broadly to the legacy of Origen, despite Jerome's recent attacks against both. Palladius emerges from this account not merely as a peripatetic monk, his own preferred self-portrait that has prevailed in most modern accounts, but as an ecclesiastical statesman who passionately supported both the causes and ideas of his associates in the most pressing controversies of his day. 

The study will also be valuable for scholars of late antiquity working in the areas of asceticism, spirituality, pilgrimage, hagiography, and early Christian constructions of gender, for all of which Palladius' works are important sources.