The Oxford Handbook of Origen

In the dozen years this wee blog has been going, there has never been a year, I don't think, without one or more significant publications devoted to Origen appearing. So 2022 will be no different in that regard as we see the publication later this month of The Oxford Handbook of Origen, eds. Ronald E. Heine and Karen Jo Torjesen (Oxford UP, 2022), 624pp.

This hefty collection includes numerous prominent scholars including, among the Orthodox, John McGuckin and and Andrew Louth.

About this book the publisher tells us this:

This interrogation of Origen's legacy for the 21st Century returns to old questions built upon each other over eighteen centuries of Origen scholarship-problems of translation and transmission, positioning Origen in the histories of philosophy, theology, and orthodoxy, and defining his philological and exegetical programmes. The essays probe the more reliable sources for Origen's thought by those who received his legacy and built on it. They focus on understanding how Origen's legacy was adopted, transformed and transmitted looking at key figures from the fourth century through the Reformation. A section on modern contributions to the understanding of Origen embraces the foundational contributions of Huet, the twentieth century movement to rehabilitate Origen from his status as a heterodox teacher, and finally, the identification in 2012 of twenty-nine anonymous homilies on the Psalms in a codex in Munich as homilies of Origen.

Equally important has been the investigation of Origen's historical, cultural, and intellectual context. These studies track the processes of appropriation, assimilation and transformation in the formation and transmission of Origen's legacy. Origen worked at interpreting Scripture throughout his life. There are essays addressing general issues of hermeneutics and his treatment of groups of books from the Biblical canon in commentaries and homilies. Key points of his theology are also addressed in essays that give attention to the fluid environment in which Origen developed his theology. These essays open important paths for students of Origen in the 21st century.

On the Origins of Origen

It remains forever fascinating to me to see how much interest in and controversy over Origen of Alexandria one still finds today. As I have noted on here for well over a decade, books about him appear in substantial numbers every year or so, and 2022 promises to be no different with the forthcoming publication of Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria by Mark E. Therrien (Catholic University of America Press, May 2022), 320pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Even though the theology of Origen of Alexandria has shaped the Christian Tradition in almost every way, the controversies over his legacy have been seemingly endless. One major interpretative trend, for example, has suggested Origen's theology is really akin to the heterodox Gnostics against whom he wrote than the actual teaching of the Gospel, since he (supposedly) had a disdainful attitude towards Creation and ultimately saw little redemptive meaning in the Passion.

In Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria, Mark Therrien offers an original interpretation of Origen's theology. Focusing on some of Origen's most important works (especially On First Principles and the Commentary on John, but ultimately making reference to his writings more broadly), this book retrieves and examines some of the foundational pillars of Origen's theology through close readings and re-examinations of those texts. It examines eight of these theological foundations: God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the end, the soul, the world, the cross, and deification. Moreover, by showing the connections between Origen's understanding of these foundational pillars, it also shows the coherence of his theology as a whole. Taken collectively, what emerges from these eight chapters is that two doctrines specially shape Origen's theology: Cross and Creation. As Therrien shows, Origen did not hold contempt for Creation. Rather, Origen thinks that Creation emerges from the very life of God as eternally foreknown and provided for in the person of Christ, the Wisdom of God the Father. Moreover, he also holds that, though fallen, Creation will be restored according to its original, eternal intention in God precisely through the Passion of Jesus Christ on the Cross. The Cross is thus not minimalized in Origen's theology; it is rather its very center.

Body and Soul in Patristic and Byzantine Thought

For better or worse, much theology--Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox--has for the better part of four decades now at least been rather interested in all things somatic. Along comes another volume, published just a month ago, to advance our understanding of The Unity of Body and Soul in Patristic and Byzantine Thought, eds., Anna Usacheva, Jörg Ulrich, and Siam Bhayro (Verlag Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2020), 350pp.

About this collection the publisher tells us this: 

This volume explores the long-standing tensions between such notions as soul and body, spirit and flesh, in the context of human immortality and bodily resurrection. The discussion revolves around late antique views on the resurrected human body and the relevant philosophical, medical and theological notions that formed the background for this topic. Soon after the issue of the divine-human body had been problematised by Christianity, it began to drift away from vast metaphysical deliberations into a sphere of more specialized bodily concepts, developed in ancient medicine and other natural sciences. To capture the main trends of this interdisciplinary dialogue, the contributions in this volume range from the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE, and discuss an array of figures and topics, including Justin, Origen, Bardaisan, and Gregory of Nyssa. 

Ronald Heine on Origen's Life and Thought

One of the several interesting "rehabilitations" we have seen in the last several decades of previously controverted figures is of course Origen. We've already seen, thanks to Augustine Casiday, that Origen's supposed "disciple" Evagrius has been exonerated of various charges against him. Now it seems increasingly hard to sustain some of the charges against Origen as well.

For an overview of his life, which has been much studied in the last 15 years or so, we have a new book by Ronald Heine: Origen: An Introduction to His Life and Thought (Cascade, 2019), 182pp. I previously interviewed Heine here about an earlier work on Origen.

Heine is a well-known Origen scholar, and author, editor, and/or translator of such previous works as The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew as well as Origen's Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 13-32.

About this new book of his, the publisher tells us this:

The late second and early third century was a turbulent time in the Roman Empire and in the relationship between the empire and the church. Origen was the son of a Christian martyr and was himself imprisoned and tortured in his late life in a persecution that targeted leaders of the church. Deeply pious and a gifted scholar, Origen stands as one of the most influential Christian teachers in church history, and also one of the most controversial. This introduction to Origen begins by looking at some of the circumstances that were formative influences on his life. It then turns to some key elements in his thought. The approach here differs from that taken by most earlier studies by working from the central position that Scripture had for Origen. Heine argues that Origen’s thought, in his later life especially, reflects his continual interaction with the Bible.

In the Image of Origen

Given his prominence and the controversy surrounding him, it should come as no surprise that interest in Origen has remained consistently high, as I have often noted on here over the years. Set for release next spring is a book that looks to cover a number of angles in academic scholarship on the great Alexandrian theologian: In the Image of Origen Eros, Virtue, and Constraint in the Early Christian Academy by David Satran (University of California Press, 2018), 270pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The most prominent Christian theologian and exegete of the third century, Origen was also an influential teacher. In the famed Thanksgiving Address, one of his students—often thought to be Gregory Thaumaturgus, later bishop of Cappadocia—delivered an emotionally charged account of his tutelage in Roman Palestine. Although it is one of the few “personal” accounts by a Christian author to have survived from the period, the Address is more often cited than read closely. But as David Satran demonstrates, this short work has much to teach us today. At its center stands the question of moral character, anchored by the image of Origen himself, and David Satran's careful analysis of the text sheds new light on higher education in the early Church as well as the intimate relationship between master and disciple.

Secrets of the Soul and Body Politic

Peter Tyler's densely argued The Pursuit of the Soul: Psychoanalysis, Soul-making and the Christian Tradition, published last year, is, alone of the recent attempts at a Christian re-engagement with psychoanalytic thought discussed on here, the most intellectually sophisticated and serious. He draws on the patristic tradition, including Origen and Augustine, to look at the conceptualization of the "soul" in classical Christian spiritual traditions as well as modern psychoanalysis.

About this latter he makes a convincing case that those who supervised the "Englishing" of Freud, that first generation of such as Ernest Jones and James Strachey, zealously concerned to protect Freud and his tradition from charges of being "unscientific," and equally zealous to differentiate themselves from "spiritual healers" and other charlatans and quacks, coined a series of neologisms in English purposefully to get away from any language of the "soul" and to sound more "scientific."

That theme of the soul also comes up in a very good history I've just finished by Eli Zaretsky: Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis. Published in 2005 by an author whose earlier work, Capitalism, the Family, and Personal Life, clearly informs the later work, Secrets of the Soul is the very model of the sort of careful cultural analysis that someone like Rod Dreher should have done if his new book (which I discussed here at length) were to be regarded as remotely intellectually serious. Zaretsky follows a similar narrative arc as Dreher, both tracing the rise and then gradual decline of a given tradition--Christianity in the West for Dreher, and the psychoanalytic tradition for Zaretsky--but what distinguishes Zaretsky is his careful and very detailed scholarship co-relating the socioeconomic conditions that facilitated first that rise and then more clearly still the gradual decline of psychoanalysis. Socioeconomic changes are not entirely responsible, but together with intellectual debates and other factors, they play a crucial role. Christians who wish to be taken seriously in staking out claims of decline cannot be taken seriously until and unless they also attend to socioeconomic changes in as careful and discerning a manner as Zaretsky has done.

Zaretsky's book would make a good companion for two works by George Makari: his Revolution in Mind: the Creation of Psychoanalysis, which I reviewed in some detail here; and then his more recent Soul Machine: the Invention of the Modern Mind.

One thing that comes up in all these works is the painstaking efforts Freud took to stay out of secular politics in both Austria and Germany. This was clearly done for purposes of preservation and protection, especially after 1933. Given the treatment handed out to Freud and his daughter Anna at the hands of the Gestapo in 1938, and the treatment more broadly during the war of Jews (all of Freud's sisters were killed in Nazi death camps), such anxiety to avoid politics makes a great deal of sense. Freud was in fact eventually, and with great reluctance, forced finally to flee Bergasse 19 in Vienna for London, where he died in 1939; the tale of this flight is well told in David Cohen's surprisingly well-done and riveting Escape of Sigmund Freud.

Freud also repeatedly insisted that psychoanalysis as such not enter into political debates about various topics, especially during and after the Bolshevik revolution. The early Bolsheviks saw some use for psychoanalysis, but it was later denounced and banned in Russia for its bourgeois-capitalist and Jewish backgrounds. Nevertheless, Freud lives on today in part not for his clinical work, but precisely for the political application of his clinical insights, a point made in depth and detail in Zaretsky's newest book, released just this month, Political Freud: A History.

About this new book the publisher tells us:

In this masterful history, Eli Zaretsky reveals the power of Freudian thought to illuminate the great political conflicts of the twentieth century. Developing an original concept of "political Freudianism," he shows how twentieth-century radicals, activists, and intellectuals used psychoanalytic ideas to probe consumer capitalism, racial violence, anti-Semitism, and patriarchy. He also underscores the continuing influence and critical potential of those ideas in the transformed landscape of the present. Zaretsky's conception of political Freudianism unites the two overarching themes of the last century―totalitarianism and consumerism―in a single framework. He finds that theories of mass psychology and the unconscious were central to the study of fascism and the Holocaust; to African American radical thought, particularly the struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery; to the rebellions of the 1960s; and to the feminism and gay liberation movements of the 1970s. Nor did the influence of political Freud end when the era of Freud bashing began. Rather, Zaretsky proves that political Freudianism is alive today in cultural studies, the study of memory, theories of trauma, postcolonial thought, film, media and computer studies, evolutionary theory and even economics.

In this light, Political Freud clearly picks up where Zaretsky ends Secrets of the Soul: noting that while its clinical status continues to decline, psychoanalysis is far from dead as a cultural hermeneutic. As Zaretsky notes in his epilogue, by the time we arrive at about 1980, psychoanalysis "divided into two divergent projects: a quasi-medical therapeutic practice aimed at treating mental and emotional disorders, and a set of new approaches to the study of culture." If the former project seems increasingly eclipsed by psychopharmacology and other therapeutic traditions (the efficacy of which is not, as noted here, always so great), the latter remains vibrant and valuable.

But what, in the end, remains valuable in the psychoanalytic tradition? This is a question I am continuing to think about in preparation for a lecture I've been asked to give in Iowa in late September of this year which marks two significant anniversaries in the Freudian canon: 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Freud's most popular and widely translated work, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.

It also marks the 90th anniversary of perhaps Freud's weakest but nonetheless one of his most controversial works, Future of an Illusion. This latter work purported to explain the origins and purposes of monotheistic religions certainly (and perhaps even all "religions" if such a thing can be defined at all); but it is not a good book, and it rather unnecessarily drew down upon itself a great deal of ire and opposition from Christians who were thereby handed an over-easy excuse for refusing to see what was valuable in Freud. (Having recently re-read Future of an Illusion, I must say, with all due respect to the great master, how much Terry Eagleton's opening line, reviewing Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, also applies to this book: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.")

But one badly considered book (especially in so vast a Freudian, to say nothing of wider psychoanalytic, canon) must not be allowed to detract us from seeing what remains valuable in psychoanalytic thought. Here Zaretsky's Secrets of the Soul offers us a useful list of "a set of understandings that we need to protect," including:

• the reality of the individual's inner and unconscious life, part of which is not just hidden but repressed;
• that such individuals exist not in the abstract but as "concrete, particular, and contingent";
• relations with others, especially loved ones, are shaped by that unconscious life;
• "psychologically, being a man or being a woman is the outcome of an idiosyncratic and precarious process, and that no one is simply one sex or the other" (a point I discussed at some length recently);
• an "irreducible gap" between the individual's psychic life and "the cultural, social, and political world";
• and finally that "society and politics are driven not just by conscious interests and perceived necessities but also by unconscious motivations, anxieties, and half-spoken memories, and that even great nations can suffer traumas, change course abruptly, and regress."

Can a Blind Man See?

As I have noted on here over the years, few figures from Christian antiquity continue to incite as much interest or controversy as Origen of Alexandria. A recent study looks at someone working within and struggling with his legacy: Grant D. Bayliss, The Vision of Didymus the Blind: A Fourth-Century Virtue-Origenism (Oxford UP, 2016), 304pp.

About this book we are told:

An independent teacher, based in Alexandria throughout the second half of the fourth century, Didymus appealed to many within the broadly Origenist currents of Egyptian asceticism, including Jerome, Rufinus, and Evagrius. His commentaries, lecture-notes, and theological treatises show him specifically committed to the legacy of Origen and Philo, rather than a broader "Alexandrian" or noetic reading of Scripture. Yet his concern was not to answer classic "Antiochene" critique but rather offer a faithful continuation of many aspects of Origen's thought and exegesis, now made consistent with the broader anti-subordinationist developments in Nicene faith from the 350s onwards. In doing so he made virtue a primary category of reality, human existence, and life, in ways that go beyond the traditional philosophical tropes.

This "turn to virtue" draws parallels with wider fourth-century trends but it sets Didymus' own Origenism apart from those of other Origenists, such as Eusebius of Caesarea or Evagrius of Pontus. Thus detailed discussion focuses on Didymus' portrayal of virtue, sin, and passion, which together form the constant hermeneutical terrain for his anagogical exegesis and exhortation to a dynamic process of ascent. Speculative comments of Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, salvation of the devil, pre-passion, and the sin of Adam are shown to be reframed, both to aid the individual's navigation of the return to virtue and to answer the challenge of contemporary Manichaean and Apollinarian beliefs.

The Mind of Christ and a Psychoanalytic Mind (V)

I am about half-way through this fascinating and learned book by the British scholar Peter Tyler, The Pursuit of the Soul: Psychoanalysis, Soul-making and the Christian Tradition. We've seen, as I have been noting on here in this series, an uptick in books re-engaging both theology and psychoanalytic thought recently, not all of them very good. But this book is very good, and those in the Christian East must not be put off by the author's modesty about not engaging the Christian East as much as he would like, for there is plenty in this book that engages the thought of both Origen and Evagrius, including the latter's well-known discussion about the logismoi.

I have already sent questions to the author for a blog interview, to which he has kindly agreed. So we can look forward to hearing from Tyler directly in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, for anyone with interests in how the language, concept, and interpretation of "the soul" has fared not just in patristic but also modern psychology--especially Freud and Adler--and not just theology but also philosophy, there is much good food in this book to chew on.

If I Light Origen on Fire, What Happens to His Spirit?

As I have shown on here many times over the years, interest in Origen of Alexandra has remained very high, perhaps higher than any other Alexandrian father certainly, and many other patristic figures besides. Late this year, a collection first published nearly eight decades ago will be released in a newly re-translated edition with an updated scholarly apparatus: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Robert J. Daly, ed., Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of The Writings of Origen (T&T Clark, 2016),464pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Originally published in German in 1938, this highly acclaimed volume presents more than one thousand selections from the various extant writings of Origen, the great Alexandrian theologian. Robert J. Daly, S.J., has re-translated the majority of these texts from the original Greek and Latin, added the scriptural references in the translated texts and an index, and included updated bibliographical information.

This volume comprises thoughts of one of the greatest of ancient theologians as seen through the eyes of an almost equally prolific successor in the same central Christian enterprise. The book remains a great resource for anyone interested in patristic theology, early Christian mysticism, and early interpretation of Scripture. This Cornerstones edition has a new introduction written by Robert J. Daly, S.J.

Justifying Origen

Controverted though he has been, Origen remains nonetheless (perhaps in part because of the controversy) an early Christian figure on whom books continue to be published year in and year out. His influence then and since has been vast in many areas.

Forthcoming early in 2016 will be a paperback edition of a book first published in 2008: Thomas Scheck, Origen and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origen's Commentary on Romans (UND Press, 2016), 312pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Standard accounts of the history of interpretation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans often begin with St. Augustine. As Thomas P. Scheck demonstrates, however, the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) was a major work of Pauline exegesis which, by means of the Latin translation preserved in the West, had a significant influence on the Christian exegetical tradition.

Scheck begins by exploring Origen’s views on justification and on the intimate connection of faith and post-baptismal good works as essential to justification. He traces the enormous influence Origen’s Commentary on Romans had on later theologians in the Latin West, including the ways in which theologians often appropriated Origen’s exegesis in their own work. Scheck analyzes in particular the reception of Origen by Pelagius, Augustine, William of St. Thierry, Erasmus, Cornelius Jansen, the Anglican Bishop Richard Montagu, and the Catholic lay apologist John Heigham, as well as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and other Protestant Reformers who harshly attacked Origen’s interpretation as fatally flawed. But as Scheck shows, theologians through the post-Reformation controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries studied and engaged Origen extensively, even if not always in agreement.

An important work in patristics, biblical interpretation, and historical theology, Origen and the History of Justification establishes the formative role played by Origen’s Pauline exegesis, while also contributing to our understanding of the theological issues surrounding justification in the western Christian tradition.

“Thomas Scheck's Origen and the History of Justification is first of all invaluable for increasing readers' exposure to a primary text of an exegete and theologian who will always be very relevant for the church—Origen. Second, this work is invaluable for presenting all sides of the debate today on the meaning of justification. All who weigh in on the doctrine of justification must consult this work in order to understand the seismic quakes that still affect Christians' balance on this issue. And third, since this book focuses on Origen's Romans commentary, it must be read by all Romans students who want to be able to discern the magnetic fields that still powerfully pull readers of Paul's letter in different directions.” —Mark Reasoner, Bethel University

“The interpretation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans has been a central and continuing preoccupation in the western Christian tradition. Origen’s contribution to its interpretation was seminal, subtle, and suggestive. But the expansiveness of Origen’s Commentary on Romans, combined with later controversies about Origen’s views, appears to have inhibited scholars from tracing the reception of Origen’s commentary in the West. Thomas P. Scheck’s book ably and admirably remedies this oversight.“ —Theodore de Bruyn, University of Ottawa

“Thomas Scheck demonstrates the range of Origen's influence and establishes his as the real alternative to the Augustinian understanding of the divine operation in Christians. His study raises again the questions posed by Robert O'Connell of Augustine's appropriation of and dissent from Origen. In each chapter, Scheck both reports and advances the existing scholarship on Origen's influence.” —Patout Burns, Vanderbilt Divinity School

Origen on Evil

As I have noted on here for five years now, the making of books about Origen shows no sign of letting up. This at once brilliant, controverted, and likely maltreated Alexandrian father, dead nearly 1800 years, continues to exert influence on the Church both East and West. A recent reprint of a book originally published in 2012 helps us understand Origen's theodicy: Mark S.M. Scott, Journey Back to God: Origen on the Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2015), 252pp.

About this book the publisher tells us

Journey Back to God explores Origen of Alexandria's creative, complex, and controversial treatment of the problem of evil. It argues that his layered cosmology functions as a theodicy that deciphers deeper meaning beneath cosmic disparity. Origen asks: why does God create a world where some suffer more than others? On the surface, the unfair arrangement of the world defies theological coherence. In order to defend divine justice against the charge of cosmic mismanagement, Origen develops a theological cosmology that explains the ontological status and origin of evil as well as its cosmic implications. Origen's theodicy hinges on the journey of the soul back to God. Its themes correlate with the soul's creation, fall and descent into materiality, gradual purification, and eventual divinization. The world, for Origen, functions as a school and hospital for the soul where it undergoes the necessary education and purgation. Origen carefully calibrates his cosmology and theology. He portrays God as a compassionate and judicious teacher, physician, and father who employs suffering for our amelioration.

Journey Back to God frames the systematic study of Origen's theodicy within a broader theory of theodicy as navigation, which signifies the dynamic process whereby we impute meaning to suffering. It unites the logical and spiritual facets of his theodicy, and situates it in its third-century historical, theological, and philosophical context, correcting the distortions that continue to plague Origen scholarship. Furthermore, the study clarifies his ambiguous position on universalism within the context of his eschatology. Finally, it assesses the cogency and contemporary relevance of Origen's theodicy, highlighting the problems and prospects of his bold, constructive, and optimistic vision.

Erasmus of Rotterdam on Origen of Alexandria

The latest catalogue of the Catholic University of America Press was on my desk after return from holidays in New England. Among the several new books of interest coming out later this year and early next year is a new translation by Thomas P. Scheck of Erasmus's Life of Origen: A New Annotated Translation of the Prefaces to Erasmus of Rotterdam's Edition of Origen's Writings (1536) (CUA Press, 2016),288pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) hailed Origen of Alexandria (185-254) as a holy priest, a gifted homilist, a heroic Christian, and a celebrated exegete and theologian of the ancient Church. In this book Thomas Scheck presents one of the fruits of Erasmus's endeavors in the field of patristic studies (a particularly neglected field of scholarshipwithin Erasmus studies) by providing the first English translation, annotated and thoroughly introduced, of Erasmus final work, the Prefaces to his Edition of Origen's writings (1536). Originally published posthumously two months after Erasmus's death, the work surveys Origen of Alexandria's life, writings, preaching, and contribution to the Catholic Church. The staggering depth and breadth of Erasmus's learning are exhibited here, as well as the maturity of his theological reflections, which in many ways anticipate the irenicism of the Second Vatican Council with respect to Origen. Erasmus presents Origen as a marvelous doctor of the ancient Church who made a tremendous contribution to the Catholic exegetical tradition and who lived a saintly life. Scheck's translation of Erasmus's prefaces is prefaced by four substantial chapters of introductory material, outlining Erasmus's program for theological renewal, a survey of Origen's life and works from a modern perspective, a discussion of Origen's legacy in the Church as an exegete and theologian (focusing particularly on Origen's influence on St. Jerome), and the immediate 16th century background of Erasmus's Edition of Origen. These chapters are followed by the translation itself, to which is then appended a lengthy appendix chapter that discusses Erasmus's own legacy in the Catholic Church in the 16th century.

Pity Origen

As the incomparable Sir Humphrey Appleby says to Prime Minister Jim Hacker in one of the most brilliant British comedies of the 1980s, "half of them are your enemies, and the other half the sort of 'friends' who make you prefer your enemies." How often I have thought of that line when thinking of besotted figures such as Origen or Evagrius, as I have noted several times on here. Their so-called friends and followers did them no favors in many ways, and may in fact in some cases have been worse than outright enemies.

Forthcoming this spring is another book that examines the condemnations attached to Origen, and the role that others played in getting Origen into trouble: Krastu Banev, Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy: Rhetoric and Power (Oxford UP, 2015), 256pp.

The publisher tells us that some of the virtues of this forthcoming book are that it:

• Presents a contextualized literary-historical approach and offers new insights into the life and reputation of Theophilus of Alexandria (385-412)
• Examines the Festal Letters of Theophilus and identifies the importance of classical rhetorical theory as a methodological tool for the interpretation of relevant historical data
• Focuses on the so-called First Origenist Controversy, the condemnation of Origen in AD 400 in Alexandria, and the punishment and expulsion of his monastic followers from the Egyptian desert

The publisher further blurbs the book thus: 

In the age of the Theodosian dynasty and the establishment of Christianity as the only legitimate religion of the Roman Empire, few figures are more pivotal in the power politics of the Christian church than archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria (385-412). This work examines the involvement of archbishop Theophilus in the so-called First Origenist Controversy when the famed third-century Greek theologian Origen received, a century and a half after his death, a formal condemnation for heresy. Modern scholars have been successful in removing the majority of the charges which Theophilus laid on Origen as not giving a fair representation of his thought. Yet no sufficient explanation has been offered as to why what to us appears as an obvious miscarriage of justice came to be accepted, or why it was needed in the first place. Kratsu Banev offers a sustained argument for the value of a rhetorically informed methodology with which to analyse Theophilus' anti-Origenist Festal Letters. He highlights that the wide circulation and overt rhetorical composition of these letters allow for a new reading of these key documents as a form of 'mass-media' unique for its time. The discussion is built on a detailed examination of two key ingredients in the pastoral polemic of the archbishop - masterly use of late-antique rhetorical conventions, and in-depth knowledge of monastic spirituality - both of which were vital for securing the eventual acceptance of Origen's condemnation. Dr Banev's fresh approach reveals that Theophilus' campaign formed part of a consistent policy aimed at harnessing the intellectual energy of the ascetic movement to serve the wider needs of the church.
 

The Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1. Theophilus of Alexandria and the Origenist Controversy
1: Historical Background
(a) Distant Prehistory
(b) Immediate Prehistory
2: Theological Issues
(a) Theophilus' Origenism and the Evagrian Heritage
(b) The 'Elusive Anthropomorphites' at the time of Theophilus
3: The Anti-Origenist Councils of AD 400
(a) Violence in the Desert
(b) The Condemnation of Orige
Part II. Background for the Analysis of Theophilus' Rhetoric
4: Classical Rhetoric and Christian Paideia
(a) Rhetoric and the Early Church
(b) Mass Persuasion in the Fifth Century: The Case of Theophilus' Festal Letters
(c) Jerome and Synesius on Theophilus' Letters
5: Classical Rhetoric: Theoretical Foundations
(a) Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric
(b) The Progymnasmata Tradition
(c) The Hermogenic Corpus
Part III. Analysis of Theophilus' Rhetoric
6: Rhetorical Proofs from Pathos, Ethos and Logos
(a) Emotional Appeal
(b) Ethical Appeal
(c) Logical Appeal
(d) Theophilus' Teachers
7: Rhetorical Proofs from Liturgy and Scripture
Part IV. Monastic Reception of Theophilus' Rhetoric
8: The Value of Monastic Sources
(a) Rhetorically Important Themes in the Apophthegmata
(b) The Ambiguous Place of Heresy
9: The Image of Theophilus in the Apophthegmata
Review of the Argument and Epilogue
Bibliography

Apokatastasis Again

If you remember the Rob Bell controversy from a few years ago, you will realize that some ideas never die, but get recycled in various forms down through the ages. Some debates are never concluded because their subject matter would seem to foreclose such tidy conclusion. And some names, it seems, are forever going to be associated with the adjective "controversial" or, worse, "heretical." The debate over the universal nature of salvation is one such debate, and Origen is one such name. A recent hefty tome looks afresh at the whole issue of what it means to hope that all things might be restored in Christ: Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of  Apokatastasis : A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Brill, 2013), 912pp.

About this book we are told:

The theory of apokatastasis (restoration), most famously defended by the Alexandrian exegete, philosopher and theologian Origen, has its roots in both Greek philosophy and Jewish-Christian Scriptures and literature, and became a major theologico-soteriological doctrine in patristics. This monograph—the first comprehensive, systematic scholarly study of the history of the Christian apokatastasis doctrine—argues its presence and Christological and Biblical foundation in numerous Christian thinkers, including Syriac, and analyses its origins, meaning, and development over eight centuries, from the New Testament to Eriugena, the last patristic philosopher. Surprises await readers of this book, which results from fifteen years of research. For instance, they will discover that even Augustine, in his anti-Manichaean phase, supported the theory of universal restoration.

Origen and Scripture

As I have noted repeatedly on here, interest in, and even lingering controversy over, Origen remains high. Set for release this summer is a more affordable paperback version of a book Oxford first published in 2012: Peter W. Martens, Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford, 2014), 294pp.

About this book we are told:

Scriptural interpretation was an important form of scholarship for Christians in late antiquity. For no one does this claim ring more true than Origen of Alexandria (185-254), one of the most prolific scholars of Scripture in early Christianity. This book examines his approach to the Bible through a biographical lens: the focus is on his account of the scriptural interpreter, the animating centre of the exegetical enterprise. In pursuing this largely neglected line of inquiry, Peter W. Martens discloses the contours of Origen's sweeping vision of scriptural exegesis as a way of life. For Origen, ideal interpreters were far more than philologists steeped in the skills conveyed by Greco-Roman education. Their profile also included a commitment to Christianity from which they gathered a spectrum of loyalties, guidelines, dispositions, relationships and doctrines that tangibly shaped how they practiced and thought about their biblical scholarship. The study explores the many ways in which Origen thought ideal scriptural interpreters (himself included) embarked upon a way of life, indeed a way of salvation, culminating in the everlasting contemplation of God. This new and integrative thesis takes seriously how the discipline of scriptural interpretation was envisioned by one of its pioneering and most influential practitioners.

The publisher also provides the table of contents:

Preface
Introduction
Part I: The Philologist
1: Mandate: The Interpreter's Education
2: Specialization: The Elements of Philology
Part II: The Philologist and Christianity
3: Scholarship: Divine Provenance
4: Conversion: Sanctified Study
5: Boundaries (Part I): Interpretation Among the Heterodox
6: Boundaries (Part II): Interpretation in the New Israel
7: Conduct: Moral Inquiry
8: Message: Saving Knowledge
9: Horizons: The Beginning and End of the Drama of Salvation
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

A Guide to the Perplexing Origen

I have frequently noted on here new works about the great, if still sometimes somewhat controverted, Origen of Alexandria. Late in this new year, we will have a new introductory volume to him and his writings: Paul R. Kolbet, Origen: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, October 2014).

About this book we are told:

Origen was the first Christian to relate fundamental theological and philosophical commitments systematically to a coherent reading of the whole Christian Bible. His prodigious writings evidence an outstanding education in Greek and Christian literature, classical philosophy, and even Jewish traditions. Under Roman persecution (at times intense), he formulated an intellectually daring spirituality emphasizing existential freedom, moral rigor, and a personally transformative spiritual reading of the Bible. Writing many of the first verse-by-verse biblical commentaries, Origen is without peer in shaping the Christian reading of Old Testament books. Finding profound wisdom in such ancient Jewish texts, Origen’s thought would prove to be a steady, comprehensive, thoroughly intellectual rejection of both Gnostic and simplistic forms of Christianity.

We are also provided with a detailed table of contents:

Introduction
This chapter provides Origen’s essential biographical information and outlines the largest obstacles to understanding his writings. This includes a discussion of his massive influence upon later centuries that included among other things: repeated condemnations of his writings, ongoing efforts to preserve his work, and continual rethinking both of the theological problems he raised and his proposed strategies to meet them.

1. Finitude and Philosophy
Origen’s sense of human finitude, ignorance, and death is profound and largely determines the shape of his intellectual project. His understanding of the indeterminacy afflicting human knowledge of ultimate things leads him to engage in daring modes of intellectual activity that readers can find unsettling. The all-too-human efforts we call philosophy and theology were not distinct fields for him. Their purpose and value were not primarily to provide answers or generate doctrines, but were essentially a particular kind of human activity or practice that is deeply transforming. When (later) readers read Origen for right “doctrine,” they gravely distorted his project.

2. The Bible in Three Dimensions
Origen’s understanding of scripture is so complex that it was difficult even for his contemporaries to follow his reasoning. Rather than seeking conclusions simply to be believed, Origen ordinarily approached biblical texts as exercises in interpreting the text, oneself, society, and the universe. These exercises had a progressive quality where one began with the biblical surface (or narrative meaning) only to delve more deeply into matters of the soul and eventually into the Spirit itself. By learning to read scripture in all its dimensions, one learns how superficial one’s ordinary perception of everything else truly is. This chapter also addresses the vexed question of what Origen means by “literal” and “allegorical” ways of reading and their relationship to the practices of ancient grammarians.

3. The Triune God and the Cosmos
A chapter devoted to Origen’s God in relationship to the world including the problem of how the “Incorporeal” relates to matter, various solutions to that problem proposed by Origen’s contemporaries involving ideas of mediation, and Origen’s notion of “incarnation.” This chapter also addresses Origen’s convictions about the relationship between divine providence, human freedom, and evil.

4. Abraham and the Moral Life
The first of three programmatic chapters explaining the notion of human development (or spiritual progress) that informs everything Origen wrote. For the sake of presentation, I will emphasize one of Origen’s preferred modes of understanding this progression, namely, by means of the lives of the biblical patriarchs. Each stage has both theoretical and practical content. The first stage, therefore, has to do with the process of moral conversion as each of us undertakes Abraham’s migration (with our minds rather than our feet). By conforming our desires to divine law, our emotions and cognitive perception stabilize which promotes our physical flourishing.

5. Isaac and Knowledge
The moral ordering of one’s inner life makes possible a truly intellectual inquiry that seeks to understand the causes and nature of the created order. This inquiry produces in us a keen awareness of creation’s goodness, limits, and contingency. According to Origen, when one joins Isaac in “digging wells of vision” and pushes one’s five senses and rational capacity to their limits, one not only acquires knowledge of oneself and the world, but also discovers a longing to understand more than created things.

6. Jacob and the Dynamics of Love
In the third stage, vision rises beyond visible things, their weakness and finitude, to the divine itself. Rather than being a new desire for us, Origen boldly insists that this yearning “to see God” is continuous with innate human “eros.” It is the completion of human nature and not its abolition. The vision of God in this life, however, is not the direct experience of the divine presence, but the mature love of those chastened by knowledge. In this case, perfection looks more like the longing of the lovers in the Song of Songs, or like the patriarch Jacob who was drawn by love of his family into Egypt even as he yearned to abide in the land of Israel.

7. Christ’s Body and the Travails of Political Life This chapter examines Origen’s highly speculative, even other-worldly, thought in relationship to the exigencies of the society in which he lived. It is shown to be deeply implicated in the life of his Christian community, the Roman Empire, the pressing issues of torture, martyrdom, Roman citizenship, and the nature of Christian hope.

So....Is Evagrius a Heretic or Not?

Some years back we ran an essay in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies that reviewed the spate of publications about Evagrius which began emerging early in the last decade. The author of that article, Andriy Chirovsky, began by noting that for some there is still a vague suspicion hanging over Evagrius as, perhaps, a kind of proto-Origenist and therefore a very bad man. Of course, this whole enterprise rests on a cascading series dubious assumptions--about Evagrius himself, about what his "friends" and followers may have done in his name without him knowing (indeed, long after he was dead), and of course about Origen himself. Whether the great teacher of Alexandria was a heretic is, among contemporary scholars, far from univocally or unambiguously settled. And whether his influence "tainted" Evagrius remains similarly debated.

It is, then, a very welcome development to note the publication this week of a book from a very respected scholar who has previously published learned articles about Evagrius, and a book about him in the prestigious Routledge series on the Fathers--as well as other major publications, including one I shall interview the author about presently.

Augustine Casiday's latest book, then, is Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy (Cambridge UP, 2013), 274pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Evagrius Ponticus is regarded by many scholars as the architect of the eastern heresy Origenism, as his theology corresponded to the debates that erupted in 399 and episodically thereafter, culminating in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD. However some scholars now question this conventional interpretation of Evagrius' place in the Origenist controversies. Augustine Casiday sets out to reconstruct Evagrius' theology in its own terms, freeing interpretation of his work from the reputation for heresy that overwhelmed it, and studying his life, writings and evolving legacy in detail. The first part of this book discusses the transmission of Evagrius' writings, and provides a framework of his life for understanding his writing and theology, whilst part two moves to a synthetic study of major themes that emerge from his writings. This book will be an invaluable addition to scholarship on Christian theology, patristics, heresy and ancient philosophy.

Was Origen Condemned in 553?

Debates about Origen, "Origenism," and those influenced by, or in the shadow of either (e.g., Evagrius) have raged for centuries. Was Origen condemned, and fairly? And if so, does this extend to those influenced by him? Or was this a case of his successors and disciples getting him into trouble for their own antics and perhaps dodgy positions that Origen may or may not have shared? Attempts to answer this question turn in significant measure on the fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553, whose acta we have in a new edition.

First released in hardback in 2009, and in September of this year in paperback, is another volume in a very welcome series from the University of Liverpool Press: Richard Price, ed., The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553: With Related Texts on the Three Chapters Controversy (2012, 384pp).

About this book the publisher tells us:

Because it condemned two of the greatest biblical scholars and commentators of the patristic era, the Council of Constantinople of 553 has long been considered the most controversial of the ecumenical councils. The council and its organizer, the Byzantine emperor Justinian, used brutality toward their opponents and the falsification of documents in order to pass decrees. However, this translation of the Council’s Acts by Richard Price reveals that the theology of the council was both opportune and constructive and its contributions to Christian unity were well-intentioned and not wholly unsuccessful. In his commentary, Price thoughtfully reevaluates material neglected by historians of the period.

The Welcome Rehabilitation of Jean Daniélou

Sandro Magister, who is always worth reading, has recently written of the "rehabilitation" as it were of Jean Daniélou nearly forty years after his death. (Say what you want about the Jesuits, but they know how to keep a secret. Has anyone yet discovered what it was that led to the downfall of the Jesuit bishop and obnoxious chauvinist Michel d'Herbigny, whose meteoric rise under Popes Pius XI and XII was matched by an almost equally rapid crash and burn? Even after reading Leon Tretjakewitsch's fascinating study--sadly hard to come by today--many years ago, Bishop Michel d'Herbigny SJ and Russia: A Pre-Ecumenical Approach to Christian Unity, I find that the mystery remains a closely guarded secret, which is itself a source for speculation not just about d'Herbigny but also about his Jesuit superiors and papal sponsors.Who has the most to hide?) I am heartened to see Daniélou being brought back in from the cold as it were. It seems that his alleged offense, now shown to be false, was used to bundle him off after he incautiously expressed politically incorrect (but manifestly obvious and demonstrably verifiable) truths about the heterodox drift of religious orders in the aftermath of Vatican II, his own Jesuit order being arguably the worst offender.

His books were part of that ressourcement movement that did so much not only to renew the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the twentieth century, but also to bring them closer. He was a prolific author, but is best known for his work on the Greek Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa especially and also Origen. I greatly enjoyed his typological work in From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers as well as From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings.

Daniélou also wrote much else besides, including, as mentioned, works on Origen as well as liturgical works: Bible and the Liturgy, The Angels and Their Mission: According to the Fathers of the Church, and Prayer: The Mission of the Church.

Origen the Writer

Interest in Origen, as I have noted frequently, remains very high today. He was one of the most influential figures of early Christianity and remains so today. A massive new collection, published at the very end of last year in the Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium series, looks at Origen as scribe: H. Pietras and S. Kaczmarek, eds., Origeniana Decima: Origen as Writer (Peeters, 2011), xviii+1039pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us:

This volume contains the proceedings of the tenth meeting of the international “Origeniana” conference which is convened every four years. The overall theme of the “Origeniana Decima” is “Origen as writer”. The volume is divided into eight parts which are preceded by two introductory papers that introduce the reader into some of the secrets of Origen’s writing techniques. The first part consists of two essays that deal with two intellectual traditions that had a major influence on Origen, Neo-Platonism and the rabbinic exegetical tradition. Part Two deals with the scope and complexity of Origen’s oeuvre and Part Three with aspects of hermeneutics. Part Four focuses on the Apologies, with special interest in the Contra Celsum, and Part Five on the commentaries and the homilies. The sixth part includes articles on various aspects of Origen’s language. Part Seven deals with the philosophical sources as these are used in exegetical and other works. Part Eight, on the disciples and followers of Origen, is the longest one with nineteen essays. Overall, this is once more an excellent specimen of the famous Origeniana conferences which for now almost forty years bring together specialists from all over the world. This volume, like previous ones in the series, will contribute significantly to our knowledge of Origen’s achievements and of his influence.

The publisher also helpfully provides a PDF of the table of contents here.