Origen's Doctrine of Pre-Existence and the Opening Chapters of Genesis

Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence and the Opening Chapters of Genesis

Peter W. Martens*

Saint Louis University, 3800 Lindell Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108, e-Mail: [email protected]

And thus the Assertors of Preexistence seem fi rst to be enamoured with the Prettiness of their Hypothesis, and then to seek out for Scripture expressions to countenance it. For all the testimonies they alledge would never have afforded the least intimation of it, had it not fi rst prepossest their Fancies.1

1. Introduction: Topic, Status Quaestionis, and Sources

Origen’s doctrine of pre-existence—the drama of a primordial creation of incorporeal rational minds, their contemplation of God, and how this activity faltered, resulting in subsequent embodiment for many and place-ment in the corporeal world—has long been regarded as one of the most disagreeable features of his theology.2 While much of the contemporary

* I delivered versions of this paper at the Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta, Ga., 2010) and the St. Louis Society for Catholic Theologians (Clayton, Miss., 2011). I would like to thank the participants at both sessions for their instructive responses, as well as Ronald E. Heine for several helpful comments on an earlier draft. Special thanks to Andrew Chronister for formatting the fi nal draft of this essay.

1 Samuel Parker, An Account of the Nature and Extent of the Divine Dominion & Good-nesse, Especially as They Refer to the Origenian Hypothesis Concerning the Preexistence of Souls, Together with a Special Account of the Vanity and Groundlesness of the Hy-pothesis It Self (Oxford: W. Hall for R. Davis, 1666), 98.

2 Opposition to Origen’s teaching of pre-existence is already evident at the beginning of the fourth century. In the Apologia pro Origene, co-authored by Pamphilus and Eusebius, there is a response to earlier criticisms of his account of the creation of souls (159-172 [SC 464, 244-260 Amacker/Junod]). Both authors are replying to Methodius’ criticisms of this teaching in De resurrectione, but perhaps also to Peter of Alexandria’s critique in De anima (see René Amacker and Éric Junod, Pamphile et Eusèbe de Césarée: Apologie pour Origène, suivie de Rufi n d’Aquilée: Sur la falsifi cation des livres d’Origène: Étude, commentaire philologique et index [SC 465; Paris: Cerf, 2002], 88-98). More concerted opposition to this teaching (especially from Epiphanius and Theophilus) surfaced at the end of the fourth century, during the so-called “fi rst Origenist crisis.” See Jon F. Dechow, “The Heresy Charges Against Origen,” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.-6. September 1985) (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1987), 112-122; Jose Declerck, “Théophile d’Alexandrie contre Origène: Nouveaux fragments de l’epistula synodalis prima (CPG 2595),” Byzantion 54

ZAC, vol. 16, pp. 516-549 DOI 10.1515/zac-2012-0030© Walter de Gruyter 2013

Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence and the Opening Chapters of Genesis 517

Origenian scholarship has eschewed the overt denunciations that late antique authors often heaped upon this doctrine, a long-standing modern trajectory has nevertheless cast suspicious light upon it. It is a teaching ostensibly driven by philosophical concerns, uninformed by the Scriptures, and thus, an epitome of the worrisome rift within Origen of dueling, and ultimately unresolved, philosophic and scriptural interests.3 In recent years,

(1984): 495-507; and more generally, both Jon F. Dechow, Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius of Cyprus and the Legacy of Origen (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1988), and Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 86-104. However, most damaging to Origen were two anathemas from the “second Origenist crisis.” A list of nine anathemas, approved by a local synod in Constantinople in 543, was directed specifi cally against him by emperor Justinian (the fi rst three deal explicitly with the doctrine of pre-existence); at the fi fth ecumenical council at Constan-tinople (553), fi fteen anathemas were published against fi gures otherwise unspecifi ed, though they were probably intended to target Origenists in Palestine, and not Origen himself (anathemas 1, 2, 4, 7, 13, 15 directly referred to some aspect of the doctrine of pre-existence). The two anathemas in question can be found in Herwig Görgemanns and Heinrich Karpp, eds., Origenes: Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien (Texte zur Forschung 24; 3d ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992), 822-831. Still important on the sixth century reception of Origen is Franz Diekamp, Die origenistischen Streitig-keiten im sechsten Jahrhundert und das fünfte allgemeine Concil (Münster: Aschendorff, 1899). For orientation to the more recent scholarship surrounding the fi fth ecumenical council in particular, see Paolo Bettiolo, “Origenismo (in Oriente, Secc. V–VI),” in Ori-gene: Dizionario: La cultura, il pensiero, le opere (ed. Adele Monaci Castagno; Rome: Città Nuova, 2000), 336-337, and E. M. Harding, “Origenist Crises,” in Westminster Handbook to Origen (ed. John A. McGuckin; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 162-167 (both with bibliographies).

3 This approach has been particularly dominant in the twentieth century biographies on Origen. Eugène de Faye drew the following conclusion about Origen’s account of the pre-existence of souls and their fall: “Considered as a whole this cosmology of Origen would seem to be of very composite source, composed as it is of elements borrowed from Plato and Aristotle, from Stoicism and from the great Gnostic theologians. Of all the infl uences that made up his doctrine of the Universe, it is the Biblical infl uence that is least pronounced. The only trait which Origen retained is the idea of a fall which took place at the beginning. No wonder it appeared the most heretical of his doctrines and that his detractors made it the chief head of their accusations” (Eugène de Faye, Origen and His Work [transl. Fred Rothwell; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1926], 92; see also 94, as well as idem, Origène: Sa vie, son œuvre, sa pensée 3 [Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1928], 105-106). — De Faye’s perspective has shaped subsequent biographies. René Cadiou, for instance, claimed that the doctrine of pre-existence “was nothing but the theory of a philosophical school derived from Neoplatonism and from the Jewish apocrypha” (René Cadiou, Origen: His Life at Alexandria [transl. John A. Southwell; London: B. Herder, 1944], 224, see also 181). Jean Daniélou, in sketching out Origen’s philosophical background, noted that the “great Platonic themes—a God distinct from creation, the immortality and pre-existence of the soul, the power of contemplation to make the soul like God—all occur in his writings” (Jean Daniélou, Origen [transl. Walter Mitchell; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955], 75). In his concluding comments, Daniélou divides Origen’s theology into two trajectories: on the one hand, where he echoes the common traditions of the church, and on the other hand, where he develops a “philosophical theory” on points where the tradition has nothing clear to offer, and here Daniélou explicitly refers to the pre-existence of the soul (313). And more recently, arguably Origen’s most prolifi c advocate, Henri Crouzel, wrote that the “theory of pre-existence . . . is for Origen, following the consistent line of his theology when he

518 Peter W. Martens

however, several scholars have offered an alternative account of Origen’s drama of pre-existence, highlighting how he often conversed with a wide range of scriptural passages that he thought supported this teaching.4 In this paper I intend to strengthen this scholarly trajectory by focusing on the opening three chapters of Genesis. I will argue that in these chapters that depicted the creation of the cosmos, the making of humans, and their subsequent fall and dismissal from paradise, Origen saw a narrative symbolic of his corresponding drama of beginnings.

To the typical modern reader of Genesis, Origen’s interpretation comes across as strongly revisionary. A surface reading of the opening chapters of the Bible suggests that they narrate the creation and fall of humanity in a manner incongruous with his narrative of the origin and fall of souls. Genesis begins, for instance, with a summary statement of God’s creation of the heavens and earth, whereas in Origen’s theology the fi rst creative act has God, through his Wisdom or Word, fashioning rational creatures—of all this, there is seemingly no hint in the opening verse of Genesis.5 As the fi rst chapter of Genesis unfolds, we see the gradual formation of the cosmos, culminating on the sixth day with the making of humans, male and female, in the image of God. In Origen’s theology, this chronology is reversed: humans, or at the very least their minds, anticipate the visible

is not relying directly on Scripture, a hypothesis” (Henri Crouzel, Origen [transl. A. S. Worrall; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989], 206-207; italics P. M.). Crouzel continued, conceding that this hypothesis is one of “the most vulnerable parts of Origen’s thought” (217) and that it “comes from Platonism” (207), often striking the reader as “[m]ythical” (217). With varying degrees of specifi city, these scholars (as well as others) have sought to identify the Platonic and Philonic sources for Origen’s account of the immortality of souls and their fall in the pre-existent world. All make a point of highlighting Origen’s philosophical dependency, and either deny, or minimize, those scriptural passages that might also have informed his account of this doctrine.

4 Scholars who have acknowledged (usually in passing) Origen’s attempts to root this doctrine in Scripture include Charles Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria: Be-ing the Bampton Lectures of the Year 1886 (rev. ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), 241-242, esp. note 1; Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 114-115; Joseph W. Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third Century Church (Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox, 1983), 103-115; Gerald Bostock, “The Sources for Origen’s Doctrine of Pre-Existence,” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.-6. September 1985) (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Ty-rolia, 1987), 259-264. — This list of scriptural passages is by no means exhaustive, but note in particular: Eph 1:4 (that God chose the saints “before the casting down of the world”) at Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 19,149-150 (GCS 10, 324,16-25 Preuschen) and De principiis 3,5,4 (ed. Görgemanns and Karpp, Origenes [see note 2], 628,273,17-632,275,27); Ps 118[119]:67 (“Before I was humbled, I went wrong”) at Origen, De principiis 2,8,3 (386,155,7-394,159,2 G./K.); Jer 1:5 (“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”) at Origen, Homiliae in Ieremiam 1,10 (SC 232, 216-220 Husson/Nautin).

5 On this initial creation of rational creatures, see Origen, De principiis 1,4,3-5 (188,65,9-192,68,16 G./K.); 2,9,1-2 (398,163,24-404,166,11 G./K.).


cosmos in the creative plan of God.6 Moreover, in the second and third chapters of Genesis, we are presented with the fi rst couple, Adam and Eve, embodied and dwelling in a lush paradise prior to their disobedience of the divine command. Yet in Origen’s narrative, this sort of embodiment in a corporeal world comes after, and not before, the fall.7 For many, Samuel Parker included,8 it is bewildering to think that Origen’s prelapsarian drama of souls could have had much to do with the opening chapters of Genesis. Indeed, on several occasions, Origen’s doctrine appears to run counter to this biblical narrative.

Perhaps it does not surprise, then, that several Origenian scholars have been reluctant to see the opening chapters of Genesis yield his account of the pre-existent life and demise of souls. According to his early twentieth century biographer, Eugène de Faye, Origen was “obliged to uphold cer-tain Biblical and Christian ideas which did not agree with his own con-ception [scil. of the origins of rational creatures and the cosmos, P. M.], bringing into it irregularities, even contradictions.”9 First and foremost among these contradictions, de Faye insisted, was the claim made in the opening line of Genesis, “that God is the maker of heaven and earth,”10 a teaching incongruous (as already noted above) with the fi rst creative act of God in Origen’s theology. Nor has de Faye been the only scholar to assert discordance between Origen’s account of beginnings and what we fi nd in Genesis. Two more recent essays echo, and indeed strengthen, this assertion. In “La préexistence des âmes dans l’œuvre d’Origène,” Mar-guerite Harl emphasized the diffi culty of reconciling the opening chapters of Genesis with Origen’s theory of the pre-existence of souls. With the exception of only one or two passages, she concluded that Origen did not read the opening chapters of the Bible as a symbol of his drama of pre-existence.11 A few years after Harl’s essay was published, Caroline P. Bammel provided a more extensive dossier of Origen’s refl ections on Adam, though her conclusions closely mirrored those of Harl. For Bammel, Ori-

6 For this sequence of creative acts, see Origen, De principiis 2,9,2 (402,165,17-404,166,11 G./K.); 2,9,6 (412,169,19-414,170,17 G./K.); Homiliae in Genesim 1,1 (SC 7 bis, 24-26 Doutreleau); De pascha 7-8 (ed. Octave Guéraud and Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sur la Pâque [Christianisme Antique 2; Paris: Beauchesne, 1979], 166-168).

7 In addition to the passages in the two previous footnotes, see Origen, Contra Celsum 4,40 (SC 136, 288-290 Borret), discussed in more detail below, p. 534, 540-541.

8 Cited in the epigraph above, see note 1.9 De Faye, Origen and His Work (see note 3), 92.10 De Faye, Origen and His Work (see note 3), 93.11 Marguerite Harl acknowledges Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 where Origen associates Gen

1:1 with the creation of pre-existent intelligences, as well as Contra Celsum 4,40 where he speaks of Adam symbolically to refer to pre-existent humanity. Later, however, she says only Gen 1:1 for Origen actually pointed to his pre-existent narrative and that he identifi ed Adam not with pre-existent souls but with an embodied soul dwelling in a paradise in the cosmos (Marguerite Harl, “La préexistence des âmes,” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.-6. Sep-tember 1985) [ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1987], [238-258] 244-246).


gen clearly distinguished a literal Adam’s fall from the earlier pre-existent fall (a theory of “two falls”).12 Moreover, she expressed similar reserve about the fall in Genesis symbolizing the earlier pre-existent fall: “[I]t is diffi cult to imagine how this [scil. Origen’s] version of the fall, in which all rational beings are created equal and fall a greater or lesser distance through neglect of the good, could be identifi ed with the story of Adam and Eve, which takes place in an environment in which there is already a differentiation of roles.”13 With few exceptions, most scholars today have ignored, or denied, that Origen affi rmed that the opening chapters of Genesis symbolized his account of pre-existence.14

In this paper I intend to challenge this prevailing position. My fi rst task will be to demonstrate, more thoroughly than has previously been done, that Origen mapped onto the opening chapters of Genesis his conten-tious doctrine of the pre-existence of souls and their subsequent fall into a corporeal world. In doing so, I also wish to be clear about what I am not arguing. First, I am not insinuating that because Origen recruited the opening chapters of Genesis for his account of pre-existent souls, philo-sophical resources correspondingly played no role—in fact, he clearly tells us that they did.15 Nor will I suggest that he read the opening chapters of Genesis exclusively as an allegory of pre-existent souls and their fall. It is important to recognize that he interpreted these chapters in multiple registers, sometimes literally and at other times allegorically (moreover, many of his allegories had nothing to do with the pre-existent drama of

12 See Caroline P. Bammel, “Adam in Origen,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (ed. Rowan Williams; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), (62-93) 68.

13 Bammel, “Adam in Origen” (see note 12), 64.14 Thereby resisting an older scholarly tradition that did see Origen’s exegesis of Gen

1-3 as symbolic of his account of pre-existence. See most notably, Georg Bürke, “Des Origenes Lehre vom Urstand des Menschen,” Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 72 (1950): 1-39; Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, “Doppia creazione e peccato di Adamo nel Peri Archon: Fondamenti biblici e presupposti Platonici dell’esegesi Origeniana,” in Origeniana Secunda: Second colloque international des études origéniennes, Bari 20-23 septembre 1977 (ed. Henri Crouzel and Antonio Quacquarelli; Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1980), 57-67; Paola Pisi, “Peccato di Adamo e caduta dei NOES nell’esegesi origeniana,” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.-6. September 1985) (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1987), 322-335. More briefl y, see Crouzel, Origen (see note 3), 90-91, 94, 218, and Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy (see note 4), 103-104.

15 See Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,182 (87,11-19 P.), as well as Contra Celsum 6,43 (SC 147, 284-286 Borret). In the fi rst passage Origen expressly refers (posi-tively) to the prevailing philosophical doctrine of a soul that pre-exists its body, while in the latter he refers to this soul’s fall with imagery drawn from Plato’s Phaedrus 246 b, c. In neither of these passages does he distance his account of the soul as strongly from Plato or the current philosophical traditions of his day as Mark Edwards contends in Origen against Plato (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 87-122, see esp. 89 and the concluding paragraph on 114.


souls).16 Perhaps most important, I am not arguing against the modern reader of Genesis that this drama mapped effortlessly onto the narrative of Gen 1-3. It is entirely plausible that Origen perceived these chapters as offering resistance to this particular allegorical strategy. In the fi rst part of this paper, then, I will compile a dossier of texts that support the thesis that the opening chapters of Genesis occasionally coded his corresponding drama of beginnings.17 The second task will be to suggest reasons why he interpreted these chapters in this way. I will argue that when we attend to the heresiological function of the doctrine of pre-existence in his writings, the similar polemic that animated his own exegetical project, as well as to

16 For examples of literal interpretations of the opening chapters of Genesis, note the dis-cussions of Adam, who is often depicted as a historical fi gure in Origen’s corpus (e.g. De principiis praef. 4 [86,9,12-90,11,10 G./K.]; 1,2,6 [132,34,8-136,37,3 G./K.]; 1,3,6 [170,56,19-174,58,6 G./K.]; 2,3,4 [310,119,4-312,119,31 G./K.]; 3,2,1 [560,244,14-566,246,30 G./K.]; Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 3,12 [SC 376, 612-620 Brés-ard/Crouzel/Borret]; Homiliae in Ieremiam 20,3,4 [SC 238, 266,90-98 Husson/Nautin]; Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 15,31 [GCS 40, 442,10-445,34 Klostermann/Benz]; Commentarii in Romanos 5,1-5 [SC 539, 348-443 Hammond Bammel]). For allegorical interpretations of Gen 1-3 that do not point to the drama of pre-existence, note especially the fi rst of the Homiliae in Genesim where Gen 1 mainly supports a moral allegory. These multiple interpretations of the opening chapters of Genesis have raised important questions about how they relate to one another. Perhaps none is more interesting (or poorly understood) than the relationship between the literal Adam’s fall, and the prior fall of an Adam symbolic of pre-existent minds (see Pisi, “Peccato di Adamo” [see note 14], 322-335, and Bammel, “Adam in Origen” [see note 12], 80-83).

17 I will draw upon three principle sources: (1) Origen’s Commentarii in Genesim, which he began around 229 while still in Alexandria. He completed the fi rst eight books there, before moving to Caesarea Maritima in 231/232 where he shortly thereafter fi nished the remaining books (for the total number of books that made up the Commentarii in Genesim, see Ronald E. Heine, “The Testimonia and Fragments Related to Ori-gen’s Commentary on Genesis,” ZAC 9 [2005]: [122-142] 122, and Karin Metzler, Die Kommentierung des Buches Genesis [Origenes: Werke mit deutscher Übersetzung 1,1; Freiburg: Herder, 2010], 4, who both propose a total of 13 books). The Commentarii in Genesim were probably completed around 233 or 234 (see Heine, “Testimonia and Fragments,” [see above], 123). Its exegetical scope was narrow: Origen covered only Gen 1:1-5:1 (see Origen, Contra Celsum 6,49 [147, 300-304 B.]). This commentary lamentably survives only in a lacunose state with fragments and scattered testimonia that often conceal more than they disclose. However, thanks largely to the work of Heine and especially Metzler in recent years, we are now in a position to assess more clearly the scope and contents of this work. For descriptions of the content of the Commentarii in Genesim see Ronald E. Heine, “Origen’s Alexandrian Commentary on Genesis,” in Origeniana Octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition 1 (ed. Lorenzo Perrone, with P. Bernardino and D. Marchini; Origeniana 8 = Bibliotheca Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 164; Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 63-73; idem, “Testimonia and Fragments” (see above); Karin Metzler, “Weitere Testimonien und Fragmente zum Genesis-Kommentar des Origenes,” ZAC 9 (2005): 143-148. The next source (2) for reconstructing Origen’s work on the opening chapters of Genesis are his Homiliae in Genesim (particularly the fi rst which examines Gen 1). He delivered these in Caesarea in the 240s (Henri de Lubac and Louis Doutreleau, eds., Origène: Homélies sur La Genèse [2d ed.; SC 7 bis; Paris: du Cerf, 2003], 13; Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa vie et son œuvre [Paris: Beauchesne, 1977], 401-405). Finally, (3) I will rely upon scattered refl ections on these opening chapters of Genesis in his other extant writings. For dates of these writings, consult Nautin, Origène (see above), 409-412.


contemporary interpretive work on the early chapters of Genesis among the Christians Origen deemed heterodox, we will begin to appreciate why he discerned in these chapters his contentious doctrine of pre-existent souls.

2. The Symbolism of Pre-Existence in Genesis 1-3

The evidence still available to us indicates that Origen approached the opening chapters of Genesis with a strong interest in their deeper allegorical sense, sometimes even to the exclusion of a literal inquiry. In book four of De principiis, written concurrently with his earlier books of the Com-mentarii in Genesim,18 Origen alerts his readers to several episodes in Gen 1-3 that, while narrated as actual historical events, never in fact occurred:

Now what intelligent person will believe that the fi rst and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? And that the fi rst day, if we may so call it, was even without a heaven (cf. Gen 1:5-13)? And who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, “planted a paradise eastward in Eden” (Gen 2:8), and set in it a visible and palpable “tree of life” (Gen 2:9), of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life; and again that one could partake of “good and evil” by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to “walk in the paradise in the cool of the day” and Adam to hide himself behind a tree (Gen 3:8), I do not think anyone will doubt that these are fi gurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events.19

For Origen, well-trained interpreters of Scripture were attentive to the historical impossibilities in the opening chapters of Genesis. These impos-sibilities, in turn, spurred them on to search for a fi tting allegorical sense.20

18 In the years 229-230. There are a handful of references to the ongoing work on the Com-mentarii in Genesim in De principiis (1,2,6 [132,34,8-136,37,3 G./K.]; 1,3,3 [160,50,14-164,52,7 G./K.]; 2,3,6 [314,121,1-322,124,25 G./K.]). Pierre Nautin proposes not im-plausibly that Origen interrupted his Commentarii in Genesim to compose De principiis, and in particular, book four with its focus on the principles of allegorical exegesis, in order to defend his contentious allegorical exposition of the opening chapter of Genesis in the Commentarii in Genesim (see Nautin, Origène [see note 17], 370).

19 Origen, De principiis 4,3,1 (730,323,5-732,324,4 G./K.): T…j goàn noàn œcwn o„»setai ‘prèthn kaˆ deutšran kaˆ tr…thn ¹mšran ˜spšran te kaˆ prw$an’ cwrˆj ¹l…ou gegonšnai kaˆ sel»nhj kaˆ ¢stšrwn; t¾n d{ oƒoneˆ prèthn kaˆ cwrˆj oÙranoà; t…j d’ oÛtwj ºl…qioj æj o„hqÁnai trÒpon ¢nqrèpou gewrgoà tÕn qeÕn ‘pefuteukšnai par£deison ™n 'Ed{m kat¦ ¢natol£j’, kaˆ ‘xÚlon zwÁj’ ™n aÙtù pepoihkšnai ÐratÕn kaˆ a„sqhtÒn, éste di¦ tîn swmatikîn ÑdÒntwn geus£menon toà karpoà tÕ zÁn ¢nalamb£nein· kaˆ p£lin ‘kaloà kaˆ ponhroà’ metšcein tin¦ par¦ tÕ memasÁsqai tÕ ¢pÕ toàde toà xÚlou lambanÒmenon; ™¦n d{ kaˆ ‘qeÕj tÕ deilinÕn ™n tù parade…sJ peripate‹n’ lšghtai kaˆ ‘Ð 'Ad¦m ØpÕ tÕ xÚlon krÚptesqai’, oÙk o"mai dist£xein tin¦ perˆ toà aÙt¦ tropikîj di¦ dokoÚshj ƒstor…aj kaˆ oÙ swmatikîj gegenhmšnhj mhnÚein tin¦ must»ria. (translation slightly modifi ed from: George W. Butterworth, Origen: On First Principles [Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973], 288).

20 Origen consistently adopted an allegorical approach to the opening three chapters of Ge nesis. For example, in the prologue to book one of his Commentarii in Genesim he


It was in this spirit—the quest for the deeper, allegorical meaning in the opening chapters of Genesis—that Origen sought to discover in his ac-count of the pre-existent drama of souls. In what follows, I will highlight several of the more prominent passages in his writings where he mapped this controversial doctrine onto the early chapters of Genesis.

2.1 Genesis 1:1: “In arche [™n ¢rcÍ] God made the heaven and the earth”

Genesis 1:1 appears to describe God’s fi rst creative act as the formation of the visible cosmos. For Origen, however, this verse would have immediately presented two signifi cant challenges to his cosmology: fi rst, for him God’s fi rst creative act was not the forming of the perceptible heaven and earth, but rather the making of incorporeal rational creatures; and second, there seems to be no indication in this verse of a crucial christological thesis, that God’s Wisdom or Word was a co-agent in the fi rst creative act. A surface reading of Gen 1:1, then, did not correspond well to the fi rst creative act within Origen’s system.

announces the need to interpret the events from Adam to Joseph’s death kat¦ m{n t¾n . . . ¢nagwg»n (Fragment from Codex Marcianus 47 [ed. Paul Koetschau, Beiträge zur Textkritik von Origenes’ Johanneskommentar (TU 13,2; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1905), 13]). In the Commentarii in Genesim he offers an allegorical interpretation of the six-day sequence of creation, of paradise, and of the garments of skins (see Catenae in Genesim frgs. 193; 259; 121 [ed. Françoise Petit, La Chaîne sur la Genèse 1: Chapitres 1 à 3 [Traditio exegetica Graeca 1; Louvain: Peeters, 1991], 134, 180-181, 94). Furthermore, in his later work, Contra Celsum, Origen repeatedly refers to the allegorical approach he needed to take in his Commentarii in Genesim. On several occasions he responds to Celsus’ critique of the opening chapters of Genesis, in which “he fi nds fault with those who interpret it fi guratively and allegorically” (Contra Celsum 1,17 [SC 132, 120,4-5 Borret]: a„ti©tai toÝj tropologoàntaj kaˆ ¢llhgoroàntaj aÙt»n [transl. Henry Chad-wick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 18]; see also 1,20 [132, 126-128 B.]). Celsus mocks, for instance, the idea in Gen 2:7 that God literally breathed the breath of life into man, to which Origen replies that “this is meant allegorically and needs an explanation which shows that God imparted a share of His incorruptible spirit to man” (Contra Celsum 4,37 [136, 278,26-28 B.]: tropikîj e„rhmšnon kaˆ deÒmenon dihg»sewj, parist£shj metadedwkšnai tÕn qeÕn toà ¢fq£rtou pneÚmatoj tù ¢nqrèpJ [transl. Chadwick, 213]). Or again, when Celsus ridicules the notion of God forming the woman from the rib of Adam (Gen 2:21-22), Origen again responds that “one has only to hear [this passage] to understand that it is to be interpreted allegori-cally. In fact, he wanted to pretend that such stories are not allegories” (Contra Celsum 4,38 [136, 278,6-8 B.]: dunamšnhn ™pistÁsai tÕn ¢koÚonta Óti met¦ tropolog…aj e‡rhtai. Kaˆ oÙk ºqšlhsš ge prospoi»sasqai ¢llhgore‹sqai t¦ toiaàta [transl. Chadwick, 213]). Other passages in Contra Celsum where Origen insists on an allegorical interpretation of Gen 1-3 are: on interpreting paradise and the serpent allegorically, see Contra Celsum 4,39 (136, 282-288 B.); on the curse against Adam (Gen 3:17-19) and the coats of skins (Gen 3:21), see Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 288-290 B.); on God walking in the garden (Gen 3:8), see Contra Celsum 6,64 (147, 338-340 B.); on God resting on the seventh day (Gen 2:3), on God creating over the course of several days, see Contra Celsum 6,60-61 (147, 326-332 B.). Note as well the sweeping statement Origen makes about Moses’ rhetoric in the Pentateuch, speaking both in a literal and uplifting way to the masses, but also communicating a concealed, allegorical meaning to the select few capable of inquiry (Contra Celsum 1,18 [132, 122 B.]).


Origen consequently pursued two strategies for interpreting this verse in accordance with his cosmology. First, he rendered the noun ¢rc» in Gen 1:1 so that it did not have its basic sense of “beginning,” “source,” or “principle.” In theological discourse, early Christians also used ¢rc» in an extended sense to speak of the beginning or source of creation, hence: “First Cause, Creator.” In this sense it was sometimes used with reference to the Father, but more frequently it served as a marker for the Son. In Origen’s lexicon, ¢rc» often had this personal, christological reference.21 This interpretation clearly emerges in the opening lines of his fi rst homily on Genesis that survives in Rufi nus’ Latin translation. “ ‘In principio God made heaven and earth’ (Gen 1:1). What is the principium of all things,” Origen asks, “except our Lord and ‘Savior of all’ (cf. 1 Tim 4:10) Jesus Christ ‘the fi rstborn of every creature’ (cf. Col 1:15)? In this principium, therefore, that is, in his Word, ‘God made heaven and earth.’ ”22 In this passage Origen identifi es ¢rc» (principium) in Gen 1:1 with the Lord, Sav-ior, and ultimately, Word. Crucial for this identifi cation is his association of this noun with the semantically related term, “fi rstborn” (prwtÒtokoj/primogenitus), which in Col 1:15 is explicitly identifi ed with Jesus Christ. It is the account of Jesus as “fi rstborn” of all creatures in the New Testa-ment that shapes Origen’s analysis of Gen 1:1: ¢rc» actually signifi es the personal agent through whom God made heaven and earth. “Scripture is not speaking here [in Gen 1:1] of any temporal beginning, but it says that the heaven and the earth and all things which were made were made ‘in principio,’ that is, in the Savior.”23 Thus by dropping the chronological

21 Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), s.v. ¢rc», esp. I and I.D.1.c. For the Kerygma Petrou as a possible antecedent to Origen’s christological interpretation of Gen 1:1, see Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 35, 89-96.

22 Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1,1 (24,1–5 D.): “In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram.” Quod est omnium principium nisi Dominus noster et “Salvator omnium,” Iesus Christus, “primogenitus omnis creaturae”? In hoc ergo principio, hoc est in Verbo suo, “Deus cae-lum et terram fecit.” (transl. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus [Fathers of the Church 71; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982], 47—I have supplied the Latin principium since “beginning” can easily mislead).

23 Homiliae in Genesim 1,1 (24,9-12 D.): Non ergo hic temporale aliquod principium dicit, sed “in principio,” id est in Salvatore, factum esse dicit caelum et terram et omnia quae facta sunt (transl. Heine, 47). Note several passages in Origen’s corpus where he renders the noun ¢rc» similarly, esp. De pascha 7-8 (166-168 G./N.) and Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 1,90-118 (68,4-74,3 P.). In the former passage he explicitly refers to Gen 1:1, while in the latter he does not. However, note the opening lines in his fi rst homily on Genesis where Origen does associate the christological sense of ¢rc» in Jn 1:1-3 with Gen 1:1 (Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1,1 [24,5-9 D.]). Two additional passages merit attention. There is a strikingly Origenian discussion of ¢rc» /initium in Calcidius’ In Platonis Timaeum Commentarius (fourth century) where the author reports on the view of certain Hebraei on Gen 1:1. In section 276 (ed. Claudio More-schini et al., Commentario al ‘Timeo’ di Platone [Milan: Bompiani, 2003], 564-568), this reported view rejects the temporal sense of ¢rc» and insists that it refers here in Gen 1:1 to God’s Wisdom that existed before heaven and earth were created. Most modern commentators attribute this report to Origen’s Commentarii in Genesim (for


defi nition of ¢rc» in Gen 1:1 and replacing it with a christological refer-ent, Origen secured a vital cosmological thesis—that God creates all things through the agency of his Word—and prepared the way for a reading of this agency throughout the remainder of the fi rst chapter of Genesis.24

But what were the “heaven and earth” that God made through this agency? Occasionally Origen interpreted the “heaven and earth” of Gen 1:1 literally as the visible cosmos.25 More frequently, however, he subjected “heaven and earth” to an allegorical analysis on the basis of the repeti-tion of these terms in the opening lines of Genesis.26 This repetition struck him as a clue to search for some deeper sense. In Gen 1:1 God was said to make the “heaven and the earth,” yet on the second day the “fi rma-ment” was created which was also named “heaven” (Gen 1:6-8), and on the third day “dry land” was made which was later designated “earth” (Gen 1:9-10). Origen tells us in De principiis that when Moses “somewhat obscurely” (latentius) referred to God making the heaven and earth in Gen 1:1, “it is certain that these words refer not to the ‘fi rmament’ nor to the ‘dry land’ [of Gen 1:6-10], but to that heaven and earth from which the names of the ones we see were afterwards borrowed.”27 To what, then,

a detailed analysis of this excerpt, see Charlotte Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie und kaiserzeitliche Philosophie: Die Auslegung des Schöpfungsberichtes bei Origenes, Basilius und Gregor von Nyssa vor dem Hintergrund kaiserzeitlicher Timaeus-Interpretationen [STAC 56; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 227-237). Note as well the presence of this excerpt in Metzler’s Die Kommentierung des Buches Genesis (see note 17), 46-53 [frg. C II 1]. Finally, note the possible reference to Origen’s interpretation of Gen 1:1 in his Commentarii in Genesim in John Philoponos’ De opifi cio mundi (sixth century), where ¢rc» is again identifi ed with God’s Wisdom or Son through whom all things are created (see Heine, “Testimonia and Fragments” [see note 17], 124-125). For a more detailed discussion of Origen’s christological interpretation of Gen 1:1, see Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie (see above), 240-247; for a comparative assessment of Origen’s interpreta-tion alongside rabbinic exegesis of Gen 1:1, see Philip Alexander, “ ‘In the Beginning’: Rabbinic and Patristic Exegesis of Genesis 1:1,” in The Exegetical Encounter between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity (ed. Emmanouela Grypeou and Helen Spurling; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1-29; Anna Tzvetkova-Glaser, Pentateuchauslegung bei Origenes und den frühen Rabbinen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2010), 43-48.

24 Origen interprets God’s commands in Gen 1 (e.g. “Let there be light” [Gen 1:3], “Let there be a fi rmament” [Gen 1:6], “Let us make man according to our image and likeness” [Gen 1:26]) as directed to the Logos who alone was capable of fulfi lling these commands (see Contra Celsum 2,9 [132, 300-306 B.]; 5,37 [147, 110-114 B.]; 6,60 [147, 326-330 B.]; Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 1,110 [72,10-19 P.]).

25 See Origen, De principiis 3,5,1 (622,271,4-624,272,12 G./K.); De pascha 7-8 (166-168 G./N.).

26 Thereby likely adapting Philo’s account of the opening lines of Genesis where 1:1-2 and 1:6-10 spoke of two separate creations, see De opifi cio mundi 16 (ed. Leopold Cohn, Philonis Alexandrini Opera quae supersunt, vol. 1 [Berlin: Reimer, 1896], 4,21-5,6) and 36 (11,5-12 C.), as well as Heine, Origen: Scholarship [see note 21], 142).

27 Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 (402,165,12-16 G./K.): Certum est enim quia non de “fi r-mamento” neque de “arida” sed de illo caelo ac terra dicatur, quorum caelum hoc et terra quam videmus vocabula postea mutuata sunt (transl. Butterworth, 130). Origen often drew attention to the repetition of “heaven” and “earth” in the opening lines of Genesis. See De principiis 2,3,6 (314,121,1-322,124,25 G./K.; with probable reference to his Commentarii in Genesim); De principiis 3,6,8-9 (662,289,23-666,291,5 G./K.);


did the original heaven and earth of Gen 1:1 refer? While there are several views expressed in his writings, most important for my argument are two passages where the “heaven” of Gen 1:1 pointed to the world of rational creatures that existed before this world came into existence.28

In his fi rst homily on Genesis, Origen contrasts the heaven in Gen 1:1 with the fi rmament in 1:6-8. He writes: “Although God had already pre-viously made heaven [i.e. Gen 1:1], now he makes the fi rmament. For he made heaven fi rst, about which he says ‘heaven is my throne’ (Isa 66:1). But after that he makes the fi rmament, that is, the corporeal heaven.” Origen continues, proposing the nature of the heaven God made fi rst: “ ‘in principio’ (Gen 1:1) and before all things [ante omnia], heaven is said to be made, that is, all spiritual substance [omnis spiritalis substantia] upon which God rests as on a kind of throne or seat (Is 66:1). . . . And, therefore, that fi rst heaven indeed, which we said is spiritual, is our mind [mens nostra].”29 Here Origen identifi es the “heaven” of Gen 1:1 with the “spiritual substance” or “mind” that was made in principio, in God’s Word. Moreover, he uses several temporal markers in the foregoing cita-tion to underscore how this spiritual substance or mind was made “before all things,” thus strongly indicating the creation of the world of rational creatures prior to the corporeal creation.

In De principiis 2,9,1 Origen offers a related exposition of “heaven and earth” that points even more clearly to his account of pre-existent minds. He turns to “the beginning of creation, so far as it is possible for the mind to contemplate the beginning of God’s creative work.”30 He opens his account of God’s fi rst creative activity by describing the forma-tion of minds in their prelapsarian state, before anything else was created. “We must suppose, therefore, that in the beginning God made as large

Homiliae in Numeros 26,5,2-3 (GCS 30, 251,14-253,8 Baehrens); Homiliae in Psalmos 36,5,4 (ed. Emanuela Prinzivalli, Origene: Omelie sui Salmi [Firenze: Nardini Editore, 1991], 222-226); 36,2,4 (86-90 P.); Contra Celsum 6,49 (147, 300-304 B.; with reference to the Commentarii in Genesim); 7,31 (SC 150, 82-84 Borret). Also note the very similar distinction drawn in Calcidius’ report on Origen (?) in his In Platonis Timaeum Com-mentarius 277 (568 M.), as well as the discussion of this passage in Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie (see note 23), 247-248.

28 For a fuller discussion of what the “heaven and earth” in Gen 1:1 referred to in Origen’s corpus, see Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie (see note 23), 247-292. Concerning the two passages that now follow (Homiliae in Genesim 1,2 and De principiis 2,9,1) she makes a sharper distinction than I would like to draw between “heaven and earth” signifying two distinct meanings: spiritual and corporeal substance on the one hand, and a more personal, intellectual creature on the other (see esp. 250, notes 131 and 133).

29 Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1,2 (28,4-16 D.): Cum iam antea Deus fecisset caelum, nunc fi rmamentum facit. Fecit enim caelum prius, de quo dicit: “Caelum mihi sedes.” Post illud autem fi rmamentum facit, id est corporeum caelum. . . . “in principio” et ante omnia caelum dicitur factum, id est omnis spiritalis substantia super quam velut in throno quodam et sede Deus requiescit. . . . Et ideo illud quidem primum caelum, quod spiritale diximus, mens nostra est (transl. Heine, 48-49, modifi ed).

30 Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 (398,163,24-164,1 G./K.): Initium creaturae, quodcumque illud initium creantis dei mens potuerit intueri (transl. Butterworth, 129).


a number of rational and intelligent beings [rationabilium creaturarum vel intellectualium], or whatever the before-mentioned minds [mentes] ought to be called, as he foresaw would be suffi cient.”31 Before tracing out their fall, Origen notes that God also made “bodily matter, which we must believe to have been created by God in such quantity as he knew would be suffi cient for the ordering of the world.”32 He then links these creative acts of rational beings and matter to the creation of “heaven and earth” in Gen 1:1:

These [minds and matter] then are the objects which we must believe were created by God in the beginning, that is, before everything else [Haec ergo sunt, quae in initio, id est ante omnia, deo creata esse aestimandum est]. And it is this truth which we may suppose to be indicated also in that beginning which Moses somewhat obscurely introduces when he says, “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). For it is certain that these words refer not to the “fi rmament” nor to the “dry land” (cf. Gen 1:6-10) but to that heaven and earth from which the names of the ones we see were afterwards borrowed.33

The “heaven and earth” of Gen 1:1 refer respectively to pre-existent minds and the matter which would subsequently be used for the fashioning of the world.34 Here then, as in the fi rst homily on Genesis, the “heaven” of

31 Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 (400,164,10-12 G./K.): In illo ergo initio putandum est tantum numerum rationabilium creaturarum vel intellectualium, vel quoquomodo appellandae sunt quas mentes superius diximus, fecisse deum, quantum suffi cere posse prospexit (transl. Butterworth, 129).

32 Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 (402,165,8-10 G./K.): “Mensura” vero materiae corporali consequenter aptabitur, quam utique tantum a deo creatam esse credendum est, quantam sibi sciret ad ornatum mundi posse suffi cere (transl. Butterworth, 130).

33 Origen, De principiis 2,9,1 (402,165,11-16 G./K.): Haec ergo sunt, quae in initio, id est ante omnia, a deo creata esse aestimandum est. Quod quidem etiam in illo initio, quod Moyses latentius introducit, indicari putamus, cum dicit: “In principio fecit deus caelum et terram.” Certum est enim quia non de “fi rmamento” neque de “arida” sed de illo caelo ac terra dicatur, quorum caelum hoc et terra quam videmus vocabula postea mutuata sunt (transl. Butterworth, 130).

34 Several scholars have taken the “These” (haec) at the start of the quotation to refer only to the rational and intelligent beings, and thus that “heaven” and “earth” of Gen 1:1 point to these (Harl, “La préexistence des âmes” [see note 11], 244-245; Köckert, Christliche Kosmologie [see note 23], 250 note 133). It seems to me that the strongest argument for this view is that as Origen resumes his narrative in De principiis 2,9,2 he refers only to rational natures (rationabiles . . . naturae) and their fall (402,165,17-166,11 G./K.). Note as well De principiis 2,9,6 where Origen repeats himself: “Now when ‘in the beginning’ he created what he wished to create, that is rational beings” (412,169,23-24 G./K.: Hic cum “in principio” crearet ea, quae creare voluit, id est rationabiles naturas [transl. Butterworth, 134]). At the same time, in the context that immediately precedes the above quotation, Origen is discussing both the creation of rational minds and bodily matter in conjunction with Wisdom 11:20(21). Note as well Contra Celsum 6,50-51 where Origen associates the “heaven and earth” of Gen 1:1 with “the doctrine about intelligible and sensible things” (147, 306,1-2 B.: tÕn perˆ nohtîn kaˆ a„sqhtîn lÒgon [transl. Chadwick, 367]; see also De principiis 3,6,7 [662,289,11-289,22 G./K.]). I incline to the latter position. Yet regardless of what view one takes, either “heaven” alone or both “heaven and earth” in Gen 1:1 refer to the incorporeal, pre-existent rational minds that mark the beginning of God’s creative work.


Gen 1:1 refers to God’s creation of pre-existent rational beings before the visible cosmos was later made. We can thus see how Origen read Gen 1:1 so that it narrated the opening act in the pre-existent drama of rational creatures: through the agency of the Word—the ¢rc»—God fi rst made rational creatures or minds, the “heaven.” On this reading, Gen 1:1 did not begin in medias res with the creation of the visible cosmos subsequent to the fall of rational creatures. It began, rather, at the very start of the creative story, as Origen understood it.

2.2 Male and Female (Gen 1:26-27; 2:7; 2:24)

Origen considered several statements made about the man and woman in Gen 1-3—that they were made in the “image and likeness” of God (Gen 1:26-27), that the man was made from the “dust of the earth” (Gen 2:7), and that they would become “one fl esh” (Gen 2:24)—symbolic of his account of pre-existence. We are fortunate to have in his extant corpus numerous refl ections on the “image and likeness” of God. There is a Greek fragment from the Commentarii in Genesim where Origen writes at length on Gen 1:26 (“Let us make man according to our image, in our likeness.”). Here he poses the problem that he often posed in his writings: “where the ‘according to the image’ exists, in the body or in the soul.”35 After advancing several arguments against the view that our bodies bear this image and that, accordingly, God ought also to be thought of as cor-poreal, Origen presents a different view that is “not easily despised”: that the “according to the image” is not in the body but “in the rational soul” (™n d{ tÍ logikÍ yucÍ)36 with its capacities for knowledge, justice, and in general, the capacity to bring about every good. The picture that emerges from this fragment frequently surfaces elsewhere in Origen’s corpus: it is our minds that are made in accordance with the divine image.37

But what about the man specifi cally spoken of in Gen 1:26? Was this one, whose mind was made “according to the image” of God, a compos-ite creature: mind and body? There are passages in Origen’s corpus that suggest that he occasionally interpreted the creature in Gen 1:26 as made solely “according to the image” of God, i.e. as only a mind or soul. This creature resided in its pre-corporeal, pre-existent state, and it was only

35 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 73 (CChr.SG 15, 73,2-3 Petit) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 11 (ed. Metzler, Die Kommentierung des Buches Genesis [see note 17], 158,18-19): poà sun…statai tÕ ‘kat’ e„kÒna’, ™n sèmati À ™n yucÍ.

36 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 73 (74,43-49 P.) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 11 (160,22-26 M.).

37 See, for instance, Origen, De principiis 1,2,6 (132,34,8-136,37,3 G./K.); 2,11,3 (442,186,4-444,186,21 G./K.); 3,6,1 (642,279,22-644,281,12 G./K.); Contra Celsum 4,30 (136, 254-260 B.); 4,37 (136, 276-278 B.); and esp. 6,63 (147, 334-338 B.); Dia-logus cum Heraclide 11-12 (SC 67, 78-82 Scherer). For a detailed discussion of humans made “in the image and likeness” of God, see Henri Crouzel, Théologie de l’Image de Dieu chez Origène (Paris: Aubier, 1956), 147-179, 217-245.


the reference to man emerging from the “dust of the earth” in Gen 2:7 that pointed to the subsequent embodiment of this pre-existent mind. In the Dialogus cum Heraclide, for instance, Origen clearly distinguishes between the fi rst and second phases of the creation of this fi rst person. “In creation, therefore, the human being fi rst created [Ð ¥nqrwpoj to… nun ktizÒmenoj prÒteron] was the one ‘in the image’ (Gen 1:26) in whom is nothing material. For what is made ‘in the image’ is not made from mat-ter.” As he continues, Origen explicitly distinguishes the fi rst phase of creation, indicated in Gen 1:26, from the second phase narrated in Gen 2:7: the fi rst creative act of the soul was not “as he did the second time” (æj ™pˆ toà deutšrou)38 when God made man from the earth. We fi nd a similar interpretation of the two phases of creation in Origen’s Homiliae in Genesim where, as already noted above, he explicitly interpreted Gen 1:1 with reference to his theory of pre-existence. In the fi rst homily Origen revisits the debate about where the “according to the image” resides. As elsewhere in his writings, here too he is clear that it is “our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immortal which is made ‘accord-ing to the image of God.’ For it is in such qualities as these that the image of God is more correctly understood.”39 As for the person specifi cally discussed in Gen 1:26, Origen insists that this creature was not corporeal at all, and that it was only the second account of creation in Gen 2 that pointed to the subsequent emergence of corporeality:

We do not understand, however, this man indeed whom Scripture says was made “according to the image of God” [Gen 1:26] to be corporeal. For the form of the body does not contain the image of God, nor is the corporeal man said to be “made,” but “formed,” as is written in the words which follow. For the text says: “And God formed man,” that is fashioned, “from the slime of the earth.” [Gen 2:7].40

38 Origen, Dialogus cum Heraclide 15 (88,28-30 S.): Ð ¥nqrwpoj to…nun ktizÒmenoj prÒteron m{n ™kt…sqh Ð ‘kat’ e„kÒna’, oá Ûlh oÙc eØr…sketai· oÙd{ g¦r ™x Ûlhj ™stˆn Ð ‘kat’ e„kÒna’; 16 (88,2-3 S.): æj ™pˆ toà deutšrou (transl. Robert J. Daly, Origen: Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul [Ancient Christian Writers 54; New York: Paulist, 1992], 69-70). For a similar passage, see Origen, Homiliae in Ezechielem 7,6 (SC 352, 264,9-11 Borret).

39 Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1,13 (56,12-58,15 D.): Qui “ad imaginem Dei” factus est, interior homo noster est, invisibilis et incorporalis et incorruptus atque immortalis. In his enim talibus Dei imago rectius intelligitur (transl. Heine, 63).

40 Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 1,13 (56,6-11 D.): Hunc sane hominem, quem dicit “ad imaginem Dei” factum, non intelligimus corporalem. Non enim corporis fi gmentum Dei imaginem continet, neque factus esse corporalis homo dicitur, sed plasmatus, sicut in consequentibus scriptum est. Ait enim: “Et plasmavit Deus hominem,” id est fi nxit, “de terrae limo” (transl. Heine, 63). A few lines later, Origen reiterates this point, disavowing the view that supposes “that this man who is made ‘according to the image and likeness of God’ is made of fl esh” (Homiliae in Genesim 1,13 [58,15-16 D.]: hunc corporeum . . . qui “ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei” factus est [transl. Heine, 63]). So too Bürke, “Des Origenes Lehre vom Urstand” (see note 14), 31-32, who reads this passage in the same way.


The picture that emerges from this homily and other passages in Origen’s corpus is that the person of Gen 1:26 was only a rational soul whose embodiment transpired later, as indicated by Gen 2:7. It certainly appears, then, that the doctrine of the image and likeness of God proved useful in buttressing Origen’s two-stage account of the formation of humans: fi rst they were created as souls, and only later were they put into bodies.41

In his Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei Origen again intimates his doctrine of pre-existence from Gen 1:27, though here he is concerned to identify the male and female in this passage (“in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”). The starting point for his exegesis is Jesus’ citation in Matt 19:5, that the “two shall be one fl esh” (Gen 2:24). Origen takes the allegorical referents of the Edenic male and female to be, respectively, Christ and the church, following the exegetical precedent set for Gen 2:24 in Eph 5:31-32.42 But how and when did these two—Christ and the church—become “one fl esh”? In the immediate liter-ary context of the commentary, Origen is concerned to show that Jesus did not abandon his former wife, the “synagogue,” in favor of the more recent church, but rather that he was from the very beginning joined to the church, his true wife. He writes: “He [God] who at the beginning created Him ‘who is in the form of God’ (Phil 2:6) after the Image, made Him male, and the church female, granting to the two to be one accord-

41 There are a few other passages where Origen links Gen 1:26 with the pre-existent mind alone and Gen 2:7 with its subsequent embodiment (see Homiliae in Ieremiam 1,10,1 [232, 216-218 H./N.]; Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 14,16 [318,18-325,4 K./B.]; Homiliae in Lucam 39,5 [SC 87, 454-456 Crouzel/Fournier/Périchon]; Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 20,182 [355,4-11 P.]). Note, however, that there is a signifi cant debate in the literature about whether Gen 1:26 and 2:7 refer to successive creative acts as I have argued here (fi rst the creation of souls, then the creation of bodies), or to simultaneous acts, so that souls were never without bodies. The passages provided here strongly suggest Origen could, at least on some occasions, entertain the former interpreta-tion, which would have been integral to his drama of pre-existence (so also Bürke, “Des Origenes Lehre vom Urstand” [see note 14], 30-33; Crouzel, Théologie de l’Image [see note 37], 148-153; Sfameni Gasparro, “Doppia creazione” [see note 14], 63–64). Yet others insist on the latter interpretation (that Gen 1:26 and 2:7 refer simultaneously to the creation of souls and bodies), most notably Manlio Simonetti, “Alcune Osservazioni sull’Interpretazione Origeniana di Genesi 2,7 e 3,21,” Aevum 36 (1962): 370-381; Harl, “La préexistence des âmes” (see note 11), 245; so too the later Crouzel, Origen (see note 3), 90-92.

42 The Adam/Christ and Eve/church symbolism occurs throughout Origen’s corpus (drawn from Eph 5:31-32 and 1 Cor 15:45—see the list of his citations and allusion to these passages in Jean Allenbach et al., eds., Biblia Patristica: Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la literature patristique 3: Origène (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que, 1980). Note, however, that it also surfaced in his Commentarii in Genesim. Socrates reports that Origen developed this symbolism in book nine of the Commentarii in Genesim (see Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3,7,7-10 [GCS NF 1, 198,3-12 Hansen]), and we might catch an echo of his exegesis in Jerome’s Commentarii in epistulam Pauli ad Ephesios when he turns to these verses (see Heine, “Testimonia and Fragments” [see note 17], 137-138).


ing to the Image [cf. Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:24].”43 This is one of the more transparent references to the pre-existent church in Origen’s writings.44 Here he stresses that, already from the beginning, Christ’s soul and this pre-existent church were one, their union (Gen 2:24) transpiring “accord-ing to the Image” (Gen 1:27), i.e. the Logos of God.45 Moreover, as the passage continues, Origen speaks of how the pre-incarnate Christ pursued his estranged wife who had “fallen down here,” further implying that she fell down from her previously lofty perch, i.e. her life in the pre-existent realm where Christ had fi rst known her. “And, for the sake of the church, the Lord—the husband—left the Father whom he saw when he was ‘in the form of God’ (Phil 2:6) . . . and was joined to His wife who had fallen down here, and these two here became one fl esh.”46 By becoming incarnate, Christ, the allegorical husband, pursued the church, the allegorical (and unfaithful) wife, into this fallen world. In so doing, he was not becoming newly united with her, but rather reacquainting himself with her.

Origen is even clearer about the pre-existent union between the soul of Christ and the souls of the church in his Commentarius in Canticum canticorum:

For you must please not think that she [i.e. the church] is called the Bride or the Church only from the time when the Saviour came in fl esh: she is so called from the beginning of the human race and from the very foundation of the world—indeed, if I may look for the origin of this high mystery under Paul’s guidance, even “before the foundation of the world” [Eph 1:4].47

43 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 14,17 (325,27-32 K./B.): Ð kt…saj ge ¢p’ ¢rcÁj tÕn kat’ e„kÒna (æj ‘™n morfÍ qeoà Øp£rcwn’) ¥rren aÙtÕn ™po…hse kaˆ qÁlu t¾n ™kklhs…an, |n tÕ kat’ e„kÒna ¢mfotšroij caris£menoj (modifi ed translation from Ronald E. Heine, The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002], 52).

44 For more on Origen’s view of the pre-existent church, see Jacques Chênevert, L’Église dans le Commentaire d’Origène sur le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1969), 13-43; Herman J. Vogt, Das Kirchenverständnis des Origenes (Cologne: Böhlau, 1974), 205-210; Freddy Ledegang, Mysterium Ecclesiae: Images of the Church and Its Members in Origen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 649-650; and most recently, Heine, Origen: Scholarship (see note 21), 43-44, 216-218.

45 See Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,20 (55,15-21 P.) where Origen distin-guishes between the Word as Image, and rational beings—Jesus’ soul included—who are images of this Image. For more on Christ’s soul as the image of the Image, see Crouzel, Théologie de l’Image (see note 37), 129-142.

46 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 14,17 (326,1-11 K./B.): kaˆ katalšloipš ge di¦ t¾n ™kklhs…an kÚrioj Ð ¢n¾r prÕj Ön Ãn patšra Óte ‘™n morfÍ qeoà’ ØpÁrce . . . kaˆ ™koll»qh tÍ ™ntaàqa katapesoÚsV gunaikˆ aÙtoà, kaˆ gegÒnasin ™nq£de oƒ dÚo e„j s£rka m…an (transl. Heine, Commentaries [see note 43], 52). For more on this passage, see Chênevert, L’Église (see note 44), 58-59.

47 Origen, Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,8,4 (SC 375, 408 Brésard/Crouzel/Borret): Non enim mihi ex adventu Salvatoris in carne sponsam dici aut ecclesiam putes, sed ab initio humani generis et ab ipsa constitutione mundi, immo, ut Paulo duce altius mysterii huius originem repetam, “ante” etiam “constitutionem mundi” (transl. R. P. Lawson, Origen: The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies [Ancient Christian Writers 26; New York: Newman Press, 1957], 149).


After arguing for the existence of the church from before the foundation of the world, Origen expands upon this motif by drawing upon the afore-mentioned words in Gen 2:24, refracted through the familiar lens of Eph 5:31-32. The union of man and woman is a mystery pointing to Christ and the church, and in particular, to the incarnation and death of Christ for the church. But this prophecy from Genesis, Origen insists, does not prove the “she [i.e. the church] did not exist before. For how could He have loved her, if she did not exist? Undoubtedly He loved her who did exist; she existed in all the saints who have been since time began.”48 While the prophecy from Genesis looks forward to the incarnate ministry of Christ for the church, it implicitly also looks backward, since the best way to explain Christ’s sacrifi cial service for the church is to locate this church at the very beginning of creation: Christ became incarnate for those whom he had already loved, those who existed from the beginning.

In each of these passages from Origen’s writings, then, we see how the references to the “image and likeness” of God (Gen 1:26-27), the formation of man “from the dust of the earth” (Gen 2:7), and the union of male and female (Gen 2:24), offered him the opportunity to see in the opening chapters of Genesis intimations of pre-existing rational souls, Christ’s included.

2.3 The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2)

There is one passage in De principiis where Origen offers an interpretation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that suggests he again has the pre-existent world, prior to the fall of rational souls, in view when he reads Genesis. In this passage he is discussing the eschaton, and in par-ticular, what the apostle Paul’s claim could mean, that God will eventually be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Origen proposes God will be

all things in each person in such a way that everything which the rational mind, when purifi ed from all the dregs of its vices and utterly cleared from every cloud of wickedness, can feel or understand or think will be all God and that the mind will no longer be conscious of anything besides or other than God, but will think God and see God and hold God and God will be the mode and measure of its every movement; and in this way God will be all to it.49

48 Origen, Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,8,6 (375, 410 B./C./B.): eam prius non fuisse. Quomodo enim dilexisset eam quae non erat? Sed eam sine dubio dilexit quae erat. Erat autem in omnibus sanctis qui ab initio saeculi fuerunt (transl. Lawson, 149-150). For a related passage, see Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 19,21-25 (302,10-303,11 P.). For more on Adam and Eve and the pre-existence of the church in the Song of Songs, see Chênevert, L’Église (see note 44), 28-37.

49 Origen, De principiis 3,6,3 (648,283,15-650,283,21 G./K.): Per singulos autem “om-nia” erit hoc modo, ut quidquid rationabilis mens, expurgata omni vitiorum faece atque omni penitus abstersa nube malitiae, vel sentire vel intellegere vel cogitare potest, omnia deus sit, nec ultra iam aliquid aliud nisi deum sentiat, deum cogitet, deum videat, deum


As Origen continues, he insists that in this fi nal, glorious eschatologi-cal state, evil will not exist “nor will the one who is always in the good and to whom God is all things desire any longer to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [cf. Gen 2:9.17].”50 Origen then immediately calls to the mind of his readers one of his core theological principles, that the end, as he has here presented it, will mirror the beginning.51

If then the end is renewed after the pattern of the origin, and the issue of things made to resemble their beginning, and that condition restored which rational nature once enjoyed when it had no need to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Gen 2:17] . . . then truly God will be “all in all” [1 Cor 15:28].52

Here Origen cryptically alludes to his account of pre-existence. The escha-tological state that he has sketched for his readers is patterned off of the beginning, restoring what “rational nature once enjoyed” when it had no need or desire to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What beginning does Origen have in mind where there was no desire to eat of this tree? There is no suggestion here that he is entertaining a literal view of Gen 2, where the embodied fi rst couple is dwelling in a lush, corporeal paradise prior to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Rather, the sort of eschatological state Origen presents to his readers focuses on rational minds, purifi ed of all sin, contemplating God with no distraction. This state mirrors most closely Origen’s protological account of minds who, only in their pre-existent, prelapsarian state, practiced the unceasing contemplation of God free from all sin.53 It is these pristine pre-existent minds, who had “no need to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” whose pattern of activity the eschatological “all in all” would eventually restore.54

teneat, omnis motus sui deus modus et mensura sit; et ita erit ei “omnia” deus (transl. Butterworth, 248).

50 Origen, De principiis 3,6,3 (650,284,1-3 G./K.): Nec ultra “ex arbore sciendi bonum et malum edere” concupiscet qui semper in bono est et cui “omnia” deus est (transl. Butterworth, 248).

51 For other places where Origen announces this principle, see e.g. De principiis 1,6,2 (216,79,19-224,82,19 G./K.); 2,1,1 (284,106,8-286,107,18 G./K.); 2,1,3 (288,108,11-290,109,8 G./K.).

52 Origen, De principiis 3,6,3 (650,284,3-10 G./K): Si ergo fi nis ad principium reparatus et rerum exitus conlatus initiis restituet illum statum, quem tunc habuit natura rationabilis, cum “de ligno sciendi bonum et malum edere” non egebat . . . tunc vere deus “omnia in omnibus” erit (transl. Butterworth, 248, slightly emended).

53 See Origen, De principiis 2,6,3 (360,141,25-364,143,17 G./K.); 2,9,1-2 (398,163,24-404,166,11 G./K.); 2,9,6 (412,169,18-414,170,17 G./K.).

54 Bürke, “Des Origenes Lehre vom Urstand” (see note 14), 26, reads this passage similarly.


2.4 Adam and Eve as Sinners in Eden

When we turn our focus to the fall of Adam and Eve as depicted in Gen 3, we again discover clues that Origen allegorized this event to code the primordial fall of pre-existent minds. He offered two different ways of allegorizing Adam and Eve, but interestingly both patterns of interpreta-tion corroborated his account of the pre-existent fall. The fi rst allegorical reading hinged upon an etymological analysis of “Adam” as “man.” In his debate with Celsus, Origen argued that the story of Adam and his sin must be “interpreted philosophically” (filosof»sousin) i.e. allegorically, since it could not possibly refer to a single individual. “Adam means ¥nqrwpoj [i.e. man] in the Greek language, and . . . in what appears to be concerned with Adam Moses is speaking of the nature of man [perˆ tÁj toà ¢nqrèpou fÚsewj].”55 Origen confi rms his suspicion that Genesis is narrating the fall not of an individual person, but “of the whole human race” (perˆ Ólou toà gšnouj), by turning to Paul who wrote that “in Adam all die” (1 Cor 15:22). Moreover, Origen resumes, while the sequence of curses listed in Gen 3:17-19 appears to be directed to one particular person, in fact “the curse of Adam is shared by all men [¹ . . . koin¾ p£ntwn].”56 This allegorical interpretation of Adam’s sin strongly points to Origen’s account of pre-existence, where it is not simply one person (or couple) who fell, but rather “the whole human race.” Further confi rmation that he has his doctrine of pre-existence in mind comes a few lines later in Contra Celsum where he remarks that the casting out of the garden “on account of the transgression of mankind” (di¦ t¾n par£basin tîn ¢nqrèpwn) refers to a mysterious teaching about the “descent of the soul” (t¾n . . . k£qodon tÁj yucÁj) to a fi rm resting place.57 Adam’s sin in the garden is, thus, rendered as the fall of the primordial human race.

55 Origen, Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 288,11-14 B.): kaq’ `Ell£da fwn¾n Ð 'Ad¦m ¥nqrwpÒj ™sti, kaˆ ™n to‹j dokoàsi perˆ toà ¢nqrèpou fÚsewj (transl. Chadwick, 216). For glossing the verb filosofšw as “to interpret allegorically,” see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon (see note 21), s.v. “filosofšw,” entry D. For an orientation to Origen’s etymological work, see Heine, “Appendix: The Interpretation of Names in the Genesis and Exodus Homilies,” in idem, Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (see note 22), 389-397.

56 Origen, Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 288,17-19 B.; transl. Chadwick, 216).57 Origen, Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 290,23-26 B.; transl. Chadwick, 216-217). Origen

hints at a similar account of Adam’s sin in his Commentarii in Romanos when he turns to Rom 5:18 (“Accordingly just as through the trespass of the one came condemnation to all men”). The condemnation came to all either “because all who are born from him were in Adam’s loins and were equally expelled with him or, in some other inexplicable fashion known only to God, each person seems to be driven out of paradise and to have received condemnation” (Commentarii in Romanos 5,4,3 [432,7-10 H. B.]: sive quod in lumbis Adae fuerunt omnes qui ex eo nascuntur et cum ipso pariter eiecti sunt, sive alio quolibet inenarrabili modo et soli Deo cognito unusquisque de paradiso trusus videtur et excepisse condemnationem [transl. Thomas P. Scheck, Origen: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 1-5 (Fathers of the Church 103; Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 341]). The latter view expressed in this passage mir-rors the view in Contra Celsum. See also Commentarii in Romanos 5,1,7 (358 H. B.)


As we have already seen, however, Origen could also allegorize Adam as Christ, following the precedent set in Eph 5:31-32.58 The pressing im-plication of such an allegory, of course, was that it could not have been this allegorical Adam who fell. Origen was able to circumvent this prob-lem by drawing upon 1 Tim 2:14 which attributed the fi rst sin not to the man but to the woman (“And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”). This passage, in conjunction with the symbolism advocated in Eph 5:31-32, allowed Origen to argue that it was the allegorical Eve, the church, and not the allegorical Adam, Christ, who fell. He quickly advances this argument in the second book of his Commentarius in Canticum canticorum, where he interprets the bride’s statement, “My vineyard I have not kept” (Cant 1:6). Origen concedes that this bride, the church, had been guilty in her pre-existent past of wrongly keeping her “vineyard,” i.e. her ungodly be-havior, which precipitated the incarnation and death of Christ. To make this point, he turns his congregation back to Genesis, and in particular to Eve’s transgression. He focuses the Edenic sin on Eve with the words of 1 Tim 2:14-15: “Remember how the fi rst ‘woman was seduced and was in the transgression,’ and could fi nd her salvation, so the Scripture says, only in bearing children.”59 However, this Eve, Origen reminds his audience, stands for the church, according to Eph 5:21-32.60 Indeed, she stands more particularly for the pre-existent church. As Origen continues his interpretation of this church’s fall, he shifts the scene forward to the incarnation, stressing that it was this prior ungodly or undutiful behavior that precipitated Christ’s later incarnation. Christ “so loved [his wife] that He gave Himself for her, while she was yet undutiful [cum esset adhuc haec ipsa impia].”61 Here Origen points to a theme that we have already seen in this paper. Christ became incarnate to reunite himself with his spouse who had become estranged from him in its pre-existent life.

Origen thus offered two different allegorical accounts of the transgres-sors in Eden. One interpretation was driven by an etymological analysis, the other by a symbolism advocated in the New Testament. Despite these divergent allegorical interpretations of Adam and Eve, Origen used both readings to animate the same exegetical strategy: to fi nd clues pointing

where Origen raises the issue of sin that transpired in another world prior to this one, but then decides (or has Rufi nus excised this passage?) not to discuss it.

58 See the discussions of Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 14,17 and Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,8 in section 2,2 above, pp. 530-532.

59 Origen, Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,3,13 (375, 322 B./C./B.): Recordare quomodo prima “mulier seducta est et in praevaricatione facta,” quae non aliter “salva fi eri” dicitur nisi “per fi liorum generationem” (transl. Lawson, 116).

60 Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,3,14 (375, 322 B./C./B.).61 Commentarius in Canticum canticorum 2,3,14 (375, 322 B./C./B.; transl. Lawson, 117).

For a similar reading of this passage, see Chênevert, L’Église (see note 44), 28-29 note 4, as well as Gary Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 101-103.


to the pre-existent state of souls and their fall in the opening chapters of Genesis.

2.5 Clothed with Garments of Skins and Cast out of Paradise

Two of the thorniest issues in Origen’s interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis concern his accounts of paradise and the garments of skins (Gen 3:21) with which Adam and Eve were clothed.62 It lies beyond the scope of this paper to attempt to resolve the issues associated with either topic, but rather to demonstrate that Origen could interpret these allegorically in ways that supported his account of the primordial fall. There are passages that indicate paradise was a divine or heavenly realm distinct from this earth, that the garments of skins signifi ed the bodies that enveloped pre-existent souls after their fall, and that the casting of the fi rst couple out of paradise symbolized the descent of embodied souls into this corporeal world.

Origen describes the Edenic paradise in a fragment from his Commen-tarii in Genesim as “some divine place” (qe‹Òn ti cwr…on) unsuitable for corporeal inhabitants.63 In fact, he repeatedly insisted that the garden in Eden was not to be literally understood as an actual, perceptible place here on earth. In the passage already cited above from De principiis, he thought it a “silly” (ºl…qioj) idea that God planted a paradise in Eden, with actual trees, and then proceeded to walk around in it—passages such as these

62 For orientation to the history of interpretation of paradise in late antiquity, see Gerald P. Luttikhuizen, ed., Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1999), and Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa, eds., Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). For discussions on Origen in particular, see Bürke, “Des Origenes Lehre vom Urstand” (see note 14), 25-28; Max Rauer, “Origenes über das Paradies,” in Studien zum Neuen Testament und zur Patristik: Erich Klostermann zum 90. Geburtstag (TU 77; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961), 253-259; Wolfgang K. Bietz, Paradiesvorstellungen bei Ambrosius und seinen Vorgängern (Ph.D. diss., Universität Giessen, 1973); and most recently, Tzvetkova-Glaser, Pentateuchauslegung bei Origenes (see note 23), 117-125. — For discussion of Gen 3:21 (“garments of skin”) in late antiquity, see Pier F. Beatrice, “Le tuniche di pelle: Antiche letture di Gen. 3,21,” in La tradizione dell’enkrateia: Mo-tivazioni ontologiche e protologiche: Atti del Colloquio Internazionale, Milano, 20-23 aprile 1982 (ed. Ugo Bianchi; Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1985), 433-484. For Origen’s view of these garments, see as well Simonetti, “Alcune osservazioni” (see note 41), 370-381; Herman J. Vogt, “Warum wurde Origenes zum Häretiker erklärt? Kirchliche Vergangenheits-Bewältigung in der Vergangenheit,” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.-6. September 1985) (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1987), 85-87; idem, “Seminar I: Texte zum Hauptreferat,” in Origeniana Quarta (see above), 100-103; Carla Noce, Vestis Varia: L’immagine della veste nell’opera di Origene (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2002), 99-108; Dechow, Dogma and Mysticism (see note 2), 115-133; Hanneke Reuling, After Eden: Church Fathers and Rabbis on Genesis 3:16-21 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 74-77; Tzvetkova-Glaser, Pentateuchauslegung bei Origenes (see note 23), 98-108.

63 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 121 (125,20-21 P.) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 22 (192,8-9 M.).


“indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events.”64 We encounter similar sentiments about Eden throughout his writings.65 There are compelling hints, moreover, that Origen saw this paradise not simply as a place distinct from this world, but also the proto-logical residence of pre-existent rational creatures. Probably the clearest of these accounts occurs in the second book of the Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis where he is discussing the doctrine of pre-existence in connection with the verse, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John” (Jn 1:6).66 Origen wants to know from where John was sent, especially since he was already fi lled with the Holy Spirit while he was still in his mother’s womb (Lk 1:15). In his proposed solution, he reverts to “the general theory concerning the soul,” namely, “that it has not been sown with the body but exists before it [prÕ aÙtoà] and for various reasons is clothed with fl esh and blood.”67 He argues, with this general theory, that “John must have been sent from some other region when he was placed in a body. . . . John’s soul, being older than his body and subsisting prior to it [presbutšran oâsan t¾n 'Iw£nnou yuc¾n toà sèmatoj kaˆ prÒteron Øfestîsan], was sent to the ministry of testimony concerning the light.”68 Origen then elaborates upon this idea that John’s soul existed prior to his body, and only entered it when coming into the corporeal world. He turns to Adam’s dismissal from paradise in Gen 3 and writes:

64 Origen, De principiis 4,3,1 (730,323,5-732,324,4 G./K.): di¦ dokoÚshj ƒstor…aj kaˆ oÙ swmatikîj gegenhmšnhj mhnÚein tin¦ must»ria (transl. Butterworth, 288), see note 18.

65 There are several other passages in Origen’s corpus that confi rm he rejected a literal rendering of paradise. In addition to Origen, De oratione 23,3-4 (GCS 3, 351,1-353,4 Koetschau), see Homiliae in Genesim 2,4 (94-96 D.); Contra Celsum 4,39 (136, 282-288 B.) and 6,49 (147, 300-304 B.), in both of these passages Origen refers readers to his interpretations in his Commentarii in Genesim; see also Contra Celsum 7,28-29 (150, 76-80 B.) where he again clearly removes the Edenic paradise from this earth. For other passages where Origen contrasts the Edenic paradise from life in this world, note Homiliae in Ezechielem 1,3,7 (54,89-108 B.); Commentarii in evangelium Matthaei 16,9 (501,4-504,20 K./B.); Homiliae in Lucam 34,3-4 (402-404 C./F./P.); Homiliae in Lucam frg. 71 (520 C./F./P.); esp. Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 288-290 B.), see Ledegang, Mysterium Ecclesiae (see note 44), 472. Note also that his opponents attributed this interpretation to him: e.g., Eustathius of Antioch, De engastrimytho contra Origenem 21 (ed. Manlio Simonetti, La Maga di Endor: Origene, Eustazio, Gregorio di Nissa [Firenze: Nardini Editore, 1989], 170-176), and Epiphanius, Epistula ad Ioannem Hierosolymitanum (in Jerome, Epistula 51,5,4 [CSEL 54, 404,2-10 Hilberg]).

66 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,175-192 (85,28-89,21 P.).67 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,182 (87,11-13 P.): Ð kaqÒlou perˆ yucÁj

lÒgoj æj oÙ sunesparmšnhj tù sèmati ¢ll¦ prÕ aÙtoà tugcanoÚshj kaˆ di¦ poik…laj a„t…aj ™ndoumšnhj sarkˆ kaˆ a†mati (transl. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John. Books 1-10 [Fathers of the Church 80; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989], 144).

68 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,180-181 (86,31-87,9 P.): ˜tšrwqšn poqen ¢pest£lqai tÕn 'Iw£nnhn ™nswmatoÚmenon . . . presbutšran oâsan t¾n 'Iw£nnou yuc¾n toà sèmatoj kaˆ prÒteron Øfestîsan pepšmfqai ™pˆ diakon…an tÁj perˆ toà fwtÕj martur…aj (transl. Heine, 143).


Perhaps just as it has been written of Adam, “And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure to work the earth from which he was taken” (Gen 3:23) so also John was sent, either from heaven, or from paradise, or from whatever other place there may be besides this place on earth, and he was sent “that he might give testimony of the light” (Jn 1:7).69

Here Origen offers an analogy between John and Adam that provocatively hints at his mystical interpretation of the Edenic paradise. When John’s soul was sent from some other world to be embodied in this one, this event mirrored what had earlier transpired when Adam left paradise to work the earth. The parallel drawn between John and Adam strongly suggests that the Edenic paradise was a residence for rational souls prior to their embodiment in this world.70

69 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,175-176 (86,1-7 P.): t£ca . . . ésper ™pˆ toà 'Ad¦m gšgraptai: ‘Kaˆ ™xapšsteilen aÙtÕn kÚrioj Ð qeÕj ™k toà parade…sou tÁj trufÁj ™rg£zesqai t¾n gÁn, ™x Âj ™l»fqh’, oÛtw kaˆ Ð 'Iw£nnhj ¢pest£lh, ½toi ™x oÙranoà À ™k toà parade…sou À Óqen d»pote ˜tšrwqen par¦ tÕn ™pˆ gÁj toàton tÒpon, kaˆ ¢pest£lh, ‘†na martur»sV perˆ toà fwtÒj’ (transl. Heine, 142).

70 Note as well the two following closely related passages: Origen, Homiliae in Genesim 15,5 (364-368 D.) and In Iesu Nave Homiliae 6,4 (GCS 30, 325,18-327,7 Baehrens). In the former, Origen is inquiring into the fi gurative sense of the command to Jacob, “Fear not to descend into Egypt” (Gen 46:3). Jacob might be a “fi gure of the Lord who descends into this world . . . and after all things were completed, returned to the Father. Or,” Origen continues, Jacob might be a “fi gure of ‘the fi rst-formed man’ [Wis 7:1] who descends to the struggles of Egypt after having been cast from the delights of paradise into the labors and toils of this world” (Homiliae in Genesim 15,5 [366,37-42 D.]: Domini descendentis in hunc mundum . . . facti consummatisque omnibus ad Patrem regressi, vel “protoplasti” in hoc fi gura formetur, qui in agones descendit in Aegyptum, cum de paradisi deliciis eiectus ad huius mundi labores aerumnasque [transl. Heine, 211, corrected]). Similarly, in In Jesu Nave Homiliae 6,4 Origen interprets Jericho as a “fi gure of this world. For also in the gospel,” he continues, “it is said that: ‘A man had descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and had run into thieves,’ [Lk 10:30] a type without doubt of that Adam who was driven from paradise to the exile of this world” (In Jesu Nave Homiliae 6,4 [325,22-326,1 B.]: In fi gura mundi huius poni Hiericho in scripturis frequenter invenimus. Nam et in evan-gelio quod dicitur ‘homo de Hierusalem in Hiericho descendisse et in latrones incurrisse,’ forma sine dubio erat illius Adae, qui de paradiso in huius mundi exilium trusus est [transl. Barbara Bruce, Origen: Homilies on Joshua (Fathers of the Church 105; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 72]). A few lines later, as in the passage from Homiliae in Genesim 15,5, Origen offers another interpretation, noting that it was also the Son of God who came down to “Jericho,” this world of blindness. In both passages it appears that Origen portrays Edenic paradise as a dwelling place for pre-existent souls: paradise is understood as a realm distinct from this world; “Adam” descends from, or is driven out of, paradise into this world; and perhaps most tellingly, in both passages Origen likens this Adamic descent with the descent of Christ, who clearly came from the world in which souls once resided. Note Marguerite Harl, who thinks that in passages such as these, Origen is referring to a literal Adam whose sin in the garden imitates or reproduces the precosmic fall, but does not symbolize this fall. She admits that Origen uses similar language to describe this literal Adam’s fall from paradise as he does to describe the pre-cosmic fall, but that nevertheless the Adam in view here is only the literal Adam (Harl, “La préexistence des âmes” [see note 11], 246). Harl’s position is possible, though I think unlikely, given the parallelisms Origen offers in both of these passages between Adam’s descent into this world and Christ’s, where the latter descent clearly involves a soul tak-ing on a body. Both of these passages mirror the argument in Commentarii in evangelium


Origen’s interpretation of the “garments of skins” (Gen 3:21) is no-toriously diffi cult to reconstruct.71 While he does not refer to these gar-ments in the previous passage about John the Baptist, their presence and signifi cance is implied. If, like John, Adam’s soul became embodied as he was cast out of paradise into this world, a reader could reasonably infer that the bestowal of the garments of skins on Adam immediately preced-ing his dismissal from paradise symbolized the bestowal of a body that allowed this soul to reside in a corporeal world. Elsewhere in his writings we fi nd passages that confi rm this suspicion that Origen allegorized the “garments of skins” as bodies. There is an important fragment on Gen 3:21 from the Commentarii in Genesim where he proposes three different interpretations of these garments, though fi nds only the second “persua-sive” (piqanÒn): that these garments are bodies.72 The sole objection Origen raises to this interpretation is that if, in fact, these garments symbolize bodies constituted by fl esh and blood, then how does one make sense of what is read earlier in Genesis, where Adam turns to Eve and says, “This is bone of my bone, fl esh of my fl esh (Gen 2:23)?”73 It appears, in other words, that bodies were already fashioned in Gen 2 so that the bestowal of garments (i.e. bodies) in Gen 3 would have been redundant. However, Origen offers a quick rebuttal to this critique based upon the nature of the Edenic paradise, thereby suggesting that he accepted the identifi cation of the garments with bodies. He notes that since paradise is “some divine place,” those who posit bodies in Gen 2 need to explain “how each of the body parts there which were not created in vain, performs its own proper activity.”74 The implication of this counter argument is that since

Ioannis 2,175-176 (86,1-7 P.; transl. Heine, 142) already discussed above, where Adam’s descent out of paradise is likened to John the Baptist’s, whose soul took on a body at a later point in time.

71 In addition to the literature mentioned above in note 62, see Peter W. Martens, “Origen’s Interpretations of the ‘Garments of Skins’ (Gen 3:21)” in Esoteric Readings of Genesis 1-3 (SBL – Semeia Studies; ed. Susanne Scholz and Caroline Vander Stichele; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

72 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 121 (124-126 P.) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 22 (190,23-192,15 M.). On the Origenian authorship of this fragment, see Vogt, “Warum wurde Origenes zum Häretiker erklärt?” (see note 62), 86-87. Others who read Origen endorsing the identifi cation of these garments with bodies include: Simonetti, “Alcune os-servazioni” (see note 41), 370-381; Beatrice, “Le tuniche di pelle” (see note 62), 448-454; Bammel, “Adam in Origen” (see note 12), 72-73; Holger Strutwolf, Gnosis als System: Zur Rezeption der valentinianischen Gnosis bei Origenes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 253-254. Note as well the late antique reception of Origen’s interpre-tation of Gen 3:21 where his opponents held that he did, in fact, see these “garments of skins” as bodies (for a dossier concerning his interpretation in his Commentarii in Genesim, see frgs. D 22 Nebenüberlieferungen 1-4 and D 22 Testimonium (193-197 M.).

73 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 121 (124,6-125,12 P.) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 22 (190,27-192,1 M.).

74 Collectio Coisliniana frg. 121 (125,20-23 Petit) = Origen, Commentarii in Genesim frg. D 22 (192,8-10 M.): pîj ™ke‹ ›kaston tîn melîn, m¾ m£thn dedhmiourghmšnon, t¾n o„ke…an ™nšrgeian ™nerge‹. Recall the discussion above of paradise as an incorporeal place distinct from any sort of place on this earth.


paradise was an incorporeal realm, it is hard to imagine how body parts could have had any value in it. Thus, however we are to read references to corporeality in Genesis prior to the fall, Origen appears here to insist that the “garments of skins” symbolized bodies.

He does not explicitly refer to his account of pre-existence in this fragment from the Commentarii in Genesim. But if the garments of skin were bodies, and paradise “some divine place,” it is certainly likely that Origen was envisioning in Gen 3 the fall of pre-existent minds who, in their heavenly paradise, turned away from God and were subsequently enveloped in bodies—the “garments of skins”—as they were cast out into this corporeal world. In the passage from Contra Celsum already discussed above, Origen implies this interpretation more clearly. In Contra Celsum 4,40 he denies that Adam refers to a single individual, but rather when allegorized according to its etymological sense, “Adam” refers corporately to the nature of man, i.e. the whole human race. It was, moreover, this race that sinned in paradise, Origen insists, and as a consequence it was dismissed from paradise. In what follows, he describes this dismissal by referring to the “garments of skins” (Gen 3:21) in a way that suggests that he again sees these as bodies. He writes:

And the statement that the man who was cast out of the garden with the woman was clothed with “coats of skins” (Gen 3:21), which God made for those who had sinned on account of the transgression of mankind, has a certain secret and mysterious meaning [¢pÒrrhtÒn tina kaˆ mustikÕn œcei lÒgon], superior to the Platonic doctrine of the descent of the soul which loses its wings and is carried hither “until it fi nds some fi rm resting-place.” (Phaedrus 246 b, c).75

Since the statement about the “garments of skins” in Genesis has a “cer-tain secret and mysterious meaning,” this almost certainly rules out the obvious literal interpretation of these garments as actual animal hides. Instead, Origen refers his readers to a similar (though less impressive) Platonic doctrine. In the section of the Phaedrus to which Origen al-ludes, Plato tellingly speaks of the soul shedding its wings through some “foulness and ugliness” and then wandering until it lands on something solid, “where it settles and takes on an earthly body.”76 This reference to Plato’s doctrine of the soul’s embodiment intimates how Origen thought about the mysterious garments: as symbols of bodies given by God, they would have facilitated the soul’s descent from paradise into this corpo-

75 Origen, Contra Celsum 4,40 (136, 288,20-290,26 B.): Kaˆ Ð ™kballÒmenoj d{ ™k toà parade…sou ¥nqrwpoj met¦ tÁj gunaikÒj, toÝj ‘dermat…nouj’ ºmfiesmšnoj ‘citînaj’, oÞj di¦ t¾n par£basin tîn ¢nqrèpwn ™po…hse to‹j ¡mart»sasin Ð qeÒj, ¢pÒrrhtÒn tina kaˆ mustikÕn œcei lÒgon, Øp{r t¾n kat¦ Pl£twna k£qodon tÁj yucÁj, pterorruoÚshj kaˆ deàro feromšnhj, ‘›wj ¨n stereoà tinoj l£bhtai’ (transl. Chadwick, 216-217).

76 Plato, Phaedrus, 246e/246c: a„scrù . . . kaˆ kakù/oá katoikisqe‹sa, sîma g»inon (transl. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, in Plato: Complete Works [ed. John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997], 524-525).


real world, as Origen (and not Plato) understood this primordial event.77 If this admittedly cryptic passage from Contra Celsum is to be read in this manner, Origen is again allegorizing the Edenic garments as bodies, and such an allegory is advancing his larger narrative of the pre-existent “Adam’s” fall into this world.

3. Proposal: An Alternative, Anti-Gnostic Allegory

Despite the fragmentary remains at our disposal, the evidence gathered in this paper demonstrates that Origen did, in fact, read several episodes in the opening three chapters of Genesis as symbolic of the pre-existent state of souls and their subsequent fall. Yet this dossier of texts compels us to ask a follow-up question: why did he allegorize these chapters in this manner? As already noted in the introduction above, in a number of ways the drama of pre-existence mapped poorly onto these chapters of Genesis. This interpretation comes across—at least to the modern ear—as forced, if not aggressively revisionary. While it is diffi cult to gauge how artifi cial (if at all) such an allegory appeared to Origen, it is important to acknowledge the resistance the opening chapters of Genesis offered to his drama of pre-existence.

At the same time, we should not exaggerate this tension to the point where we only see confl ict between these two narratives. There were also thematic harmonies. Most obviously, the opening chapters of Genesis and the drama of pre-existence both concerned the theme of beginnings. Both narrated the formation of the cosmos and humanity, and provided clues about how to understand the make-up of each of these. In Genesis, moreover, there were two clear phases of human existence: life in paradise, followed by life outside of paradise, two stages that mirrored the sequence in Origen’s own account of pre-existence: fi rst an idyllic existence, followed by a fall and expulsion from this realm. In both narratives, additionally, the catalyst that ushered humans out of paradise was an act of turning away from God. And fi nally, both narratives had a heightened concern for the emergence of human corporeality. For Origen, these sorts of resemblances were clearly striking enough to encourage him to associate the opening of Genesis with the opening of his own theological system.

Yet these thematic resemblances alone do not account, I think, for his willingness to extract the drama of pre-existence out of the fi rst chapters of Scripture. A closer inspection of the critical function of this doctrine, the heresiological polemic that shaped Origen’s own exegetical project, and especially contemporary interpretive work on Genesis in broadly Chris-

77 For the same reading of the garments in this passage, see Strutwolf, Gnosis als System (see note 72), 253 note 263. Origen makes the same allusion to Plato’s Phaedrus again at Contra Celsum 6,43 (147, 286,38-40 B.).


tian circles, suggests that his decision to recruit the opening chapters of Scripture for the opening of his own theological system involved far more than simply discerning a handful of literary parallels between these two narratives. The allegory of pre-existence created an opportunity for Origen to engage the theology and exegesis of several Christian groups whom we usually call “Gnostics” today. More specifi cally, through this allegory he was able to provide a critical and alternative interpretation to the prevail-ing Gnostic readings of the opening chapters of Genesis.

To see how this is so, it is important to begin with the easily overlooked critical function of Origen’s doctrine of pre-existence. While it echoed Valentinian themes, it was unmistakably anti-Gnostic in intent from its earliest expression in his writings.78 In De principiis we fi nd his lengthiest and most transparent account of this doctrine.79 There he explains how this teaching was explicitly designed to challenge the larger theological and anthropological vision of the Christian heterodox. In De principiis 2,9,5-6 he recounts the objection “raised by many, and particularly by those who come from the schools of Marcion, Valentinus and Basilides.”80 According to him, these otherwise anonymous theologians began with a problem neither he nor they denied, that the world was full of a seemingly arbitrary diversity of creatures, some of whom enjoyed a loftier status, while others suffered in more miserable conditions.81 Given this situation, these opponents challenged the notion that there could be one God who was good, just and powerful. Origen says:

[T]hey ask what reason there could be, supposing that God the Creator lacks neither the will to desire what is good and perfect nor the power to produce it, that when creating rational natures, that is, beings of whose existence he himself is the cause, he should make some of higher rank and others of second and third and many still lower and less worthy degrees?82

78 Strutwolf, Gnosis als System (see note 72), has authored the most recent comprehensive study on Origen’s “reception”—defi ned as both critique and affi rmation—of Valentinian theology. Note in particular his discussion of Origen’s drama of pre-existence (242-269), in which he both acknowledges its targeted criticism of the three-natures doctrine of the Valentinians (244, 258-259), as well as proposes ways in which it was indebted to Valentinian theology. More recently, see David Brakke, The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual and Diversity in Early Christian (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 128-130, for a brief account of Origen’s adaptation and critique of Valentinian myths for several leading themes in his own theology.

79 See Origen, De principiis 1,6,2 (216,79,19-224,82,19 G./K.); 1,8,1-2 (252,94,16-256,99,13 G./K.); 2,1,1 (284,106,8-286,107,18 G./K.); 2,6,3-6 (360,141,25-370,146,9 G./K.); 2,8,3-4 (386,155,7-396,162,21 G./K.); 2,9,1-2 (398,163,24-404,166,11 G./K.); 2,9,5-6 (408,168,12-414,170,17 G./K.).

80 Origen, De principiis 2,9,5 (408,168,14-15 G./K.): Obicere hoc plurimi solent et hi max-ime, qui ex schola Marcionis ac Valentini et Basilidae venientes (transl. Butterworth, 133).

81 For more on the problem of a world “various and diverse,” see e.g. Origen, De principiis 1,6,2 (216,79,19-224,82,19 G./K.); 1,8,2 (254,98,8-256,99,13 G./K.); 2,1,1 (284,106,8-286,107,18 G./K.).

82 Origen, De principiis 2,9,5 (410,168,23-28 G./K.): Si creatori deo nec voluntas summi bo nique operis nec perfi ciendi facultas deest, quid causae existere potuerit, ut naturas


To rescue God from this theodicy, Origen continues, they press people like him to admit either that creaturely life is the result of accident or chance—a point Origen cannot concede, since it implies the world is not made, governed or judged by God—or else concede their own position: that diverse stations in life go back to our birth and are not determined by our choices, but by our diverse natures. In other words, diverse natures are inherited from correspondingly diverse creators,83 and “a soul with an evil nature is destined for an evil nation and a good one for a good nation.”84

It is in response to this deterministic anthropology, undergirded by a pluralist theology, that Origen crafts his drama of pre-existence.85 On the basis of all the Scriptures, he responds, “God the Creator of the universe is both good and just and omnipotent.” Since in this one God there was “neither variation nor change nor lack of power,” and since God alone was the cause of what he created, “ ‘in principio’ [Gen 1:1] . . . he cre-ated all his creatures equal and alike, for the simple reason that there was in him no cause that could give rise to variety and diversity.”86 But God also endowed these creatures with the “power of free will” (arbitrii liberi facultate),87 and it was on the basis of this freedom that they voluntarily turned away, in varying degrees, from their contemplation of God. Herein

rationabiles creans, id est eos, quibus ut essent ipse extitit causa, celsiores alios faceret, alios secundo aut tertio et multis iam inferiores gradibus deterioresque procrearet (transl. Butterworth, 133). Note the earlier statement in De principiis where Origen’s opponents, as he understood them, thought it “illogical for one and the same creator, quite apart from any reason of merit, to confer on some the authority to rule, while others are subjected to rulers, or to assign principalities to some, while others are made subject to princes” (De principiis 1,8,2 [254,98,13-22 G./K.]: Aiunt enim consequens non videri ut unus atque idem conditor, nulla extante causa meritorum, aliis potestatem dominationis iniungat, alios subiciat dominantibus, aliis tribuat principatum, alios subiectos esse principibus faciat [transl. Butterworth, 69]).

83 Origen, De principiis 1,8,2 (254,98,8-10 G./K.). Origen often criticizes the Gnostic view of human nature. As he understood it, his opponents denied that humans had the capacity for self-determination (tÕ aÙtexoÚsion), that is, the capacity to make decisions for which God held them accountable. Instead, they possessed pre-determined rational natures, some lost, incapable of receiving salvation, and others saved, incapable of being lost. See De principiis 1,7,2 (234,86,25-236,87,23 G./K.); 1,8,2 (254,98,8-256,99,13 G./K.); 3,1,1 (462,195,4-196,15 G./K.); 3,1,23 (552,240,6-556,242,22 G./K.); Contra Celsum 5,61 (147, 164-166 B.); Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 20,54 (335,34-336,3 P.); 20,135 (348,15-18 P.); 28,179 (415,17-23 P.).

84 Origen, De principiis 2,9,5 (410,169,6-15 G./K.): Mala natura animae ad gentem malam destinetur, bona autem ad bonas (transl. Butterworth, 133).

85 Thereby strengthening two articles in the church’s rule of faith: the article on God (there is one God, both just and good, who made the cosmos—Origen, De principiis praef. 4 [86,9,12-90,11,10 G./K.]) and the article on souls (that they have the power of choice—Origen, De principiis praef. 5 [90,11,11-92,13,11 G./K.]).

86 Origen, De principiis 2,9,6 (412,169,21-28 G./K.): Bonum esse et iustum et omnipo-tentem deum creatorem universorum . . . Hic cum “in principio crearet” . . . in quo neque varietas aliqua neque permutatio neque inpossibilitas inerat, aequales creavit omnes ac similes quos creavit, quippe cum nulla ei causa varietatis ac diversitatis existeret (transl. Butterworth, 134).

87 Origen, De principiis 2,9,6 (412,169,28 G./K.; transl. Butterworth, 134).


lies the true cause of the diversity among rational creatures, Origen con-cludes, “a cause that takes its origin not from the will or judgment of the Creator, but from the decision of the creature’s own freedom [sed propriae libertatis arbitrio].”88 In response to their fall, he concludes, God issued a fi rst judgment, appropriately arranging all rational creatures, according to their individual merit, in the visible cosmos.

For Origen, in short, the drama of pre-existence in De principiis was composed with heresiological intent, designed to offer a corrective theologi-cal and anthropological vision to what was being proposed by a number of Christians he deemed heterodox. Moreover, it is important to recall that he wrote this treatise early in his scholarly career (in 229), and thus the polemical undertones of this doctrine were already present when he started his ambitious writing projects in Alexandria. But how likely is it that when he drew pre-existence out of Scripture, the opening chapters of Genesis in particular, that he did so with the same intent? The likelihood seems high, since Origen was not reticent about advancing his critique of the Gnostics through his exegetical scholarship. In fact, biblical interpretation was arguably the most important vehicle for his critique of the Christian heterodox.89 Perhaps his most transparent statement to this effect occurs in book fi ve of the Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis:

But even now the heterodox [tîn ˜terodÒxwn], with a pretense of knowledge [prof£sei gnèsewj], are rising up against the holy Church of Christ and are bringing compositions in many books, announcing an interpretation of the texts both of the Gospels and of the apostles. If we are silent and do not set the true and sound teachings down in opposition to them, they will prevail over inquisitive souls which, in the lack of saving nourishment, hasten to foods that are forbidden and are truly unclean and abominable. For this reason it seems

88 Origen, De principiis 2,9,6 (412,170,3-5 G./K.): Causa diversitatis, non ex conditoris vo luntate vel iudicio originem trahens sed propriae libertatis arbitrio (transl. Butterworth, 134). For other similar passages where diversity is attributed to rational creatures and not the capricious deity of his opponents, see De principiis 1,6,2 (216,79,19-224,82,19 G./K.); 1,8,1 (252,94,16-254,95,10 G./K.); 2,1,1 (284,106,8-286,107,18 G./K.).

89 Origen had fi rst-hand familiarity with contemporary fi gures he deemed heterodox. He was raised in the diverse Christian milieu of Alexandria where he encountered many such fi gures. Eusebius refers, for instance, to the “famous heretic” Paul whom Origen met as a young man in Alexandria (Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6,2,13-14 [GCS 9,2, 522,17-524,1 Schwartz/Mommsen]). His patron, Ambrose, was apparently a follower of Valentinus (Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 5,8 [104,32-105,24 P.]; Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6,18,1 [556,9-12 S./M.]), and one of Origen’s letters preserved by Eusebius shows him referring to “heretics” among his pupils in Alexandria (Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6,19,12 [562,8-12 S./M.]). Jerome reports that there existed a Greek dialogue between Origen and a Valentinian by the name of Candidus on whether Christ was an emanation (Jerome, Adversus Rufi num 2,19 [CChr.SL 79, 54-56 Lardet]). And, of course, Origen possessed a copy of Heracleon’s Commentarii in Iohannem to which he responded by offering his own commentary on this gospel. Origen suspected Heracleon was a Valentinian (see Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 2,100 [70,3-13 P.]; 6,116 [130,30-131,6 P.]), and apparently knew several of Heracleon’s followers (Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 20,170 [352,33-35 P.]).


necessary to me that one who is able intercede in a genuine manner on behalf of the teaching of the Church and reprove those who pursue the knowledge falsely [gnîsin] so-called [cf. 1 Tim 6:20]. He must take a stand against the heretical fabrications [kat¦ tîn aƒretikîn ¢naplasm£twn] by adducing in opposition the sublimity of the gospel message, which has been fulfi lled in the agreements of the common doctrines in what is called the Old Testament with that which is named the New.90

This passage was composed in 231, and thus offers us a distinct glimpse of the heresiological motive of Origen’s exegetical project as it was taking root within the fi rst decade of his scholarly life.91 When we recall that he had developed his pointedly anti-Gnostic version of pre-existence a few years earlier in 229 (the same year he began his extended scholarly analysis of Genesis in his commentary on that book), it is certainly plausible that already from this early scholarly phase, Origen was drawing the allegory of pre-existence from the opening chapters of Genesis with polemical intent.92

But it appears that he did more than critique Gnostic theology when he allegorized pre-existence out of Genesis. To detect this additional in-terpretive strategy, we need to attend to exegetical work on this biblical book roughly contemporary to Origen. As Ronald E. Heine and others have recently demonstrated, several of his interpretations of the opening chapters of Genesis refl ected a keen awareness of competing Gnostic inter-pretations of these same chapters that were in circulation in his days.93

90 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 5,8 (105,4-16 P.): Kaˆ nàn d{ prof£sei gnèsewj ™panistamšnwn tîn ˜terodÒxwn tÍ ¡g…v toà cristoà ™kklhs…v kaˆ polub…blouj sunt£xeij ferÒntwn, ™paggellomšnaj di»ghsin tîn te eÙaggelikîn kaˆ ¢postolikîn lšxewn, ™¦n siwp»swmen m¾ ¢ntiparatiqšntej aÙto‹j t¦ ¢lhqÁ kaˆ ØgiÁ dÒgmata, ™pikrat»sousi tîn l…cnwn yucîn, ¢por…v trofÁj swthr…ou ™pˆ t¦ ¢phgoreumšna speudousîn kaˆ ¢lhqîj ¢k£qarta kaˆ bdelukt¦ brèmata. diÒper ¢nagka‹Òn moi doke‹, tÕn dun£menon presbeÚein Øp{r toà ™kklhsiastikoà lÒgou ¢paracar£ktwj, kaˆ ™lšgcein toÝj t¾n yeudènumon gnîsin metaceirizomšnouj, †stasqai kat¦ tîn aƒretikîn ¢naplasm£twn ¢ntiparab£llonta tÕ Ûyoj toà eÙaggelikoà khrÚgmatoj, peplhrwmšnon sumfwn…aj dogm£twn koinîn tÍ kaloumšnV palai´ prÕj t¾n Ñnomazomšnhn kain¾n diaq»khn (transl. Heine, 166). For other similar autobiographical passages where Origen presents himself as “man of the church” (vir ecclesiasticus) or holder of the church’s rule, see Homiliae in Leviticum 1,1,4-6 (SC 286, 66-70 Borret); Homiliae in Ieremiam 5,14,1 (232, 314-316 H./N.); Commentarii in evangelium Ioannis 6,66 (120,5-14 P.); 32,183-193 (450,32-452,13 P.).

91 Note as well that in De principiis, written in 229, Origen expressed the same concern to interpret the church’s Scriptures according to the standards of its anti-heretical rule of faith. This occurs famously in his preface to the work where he explains the need to hold to the church’s rule of faith for interpreting Scripture well (Origen, De principiis pref. 1-3 [82,7,9-86,9,11 G./K.]). Recall also the more concise statement at De principiis 4,2,2 (700,308,8-704,310,22 G./K.).

92 It is certainly striking that in De principiis, both his anti-heretical doctrine of pre-existence and his assertions about producing anti-heretical scriptural interpretations were made concurrently with his fi rst scholarly engagement with the opening chapters of Genesis. He began the Commentarii in Genesim earlier in the same year that he wrote De principiis (229).

93 Ronald E. Heine argues, on the basis of a careful comparative examination of the extant fragments from Origen’s Commentarii in Genesim and contemporary Gnostic exegesis of Gen 1-4, that “the theological milieu of Alexandria, and especially the heterodox


There were, in fact, a number of Greek treatises of Gnostic provenance, dating from the middle of the second through early fourth centuries, that drew heavily upon the opening chapters of Genesis: for instance, On the Origin of the World, Testimony of Truth, Ptolemy’s Version of the Gnostic Myth, The Revelation of Adam, The Reality of the Rulers (Hypostasis of the Archons), and perhaps most notable, The Secret Book According to John.94 In these treatises we fi nd authors recruiting (criticizing, re-writing, transforming) episodes in the fi rst chapters of Genesis to advance central elements in the distinctive Gnostic myth of origins that fi gures like Origen found so contentious.95 It is especially conspicuous that among these de-bated teachings were the very theological and anthropological theses that his doctrine of pre-existence explicitly challenged, i.e. polytheistic views of the divinity and deterministic accounts of human nature.96 Thus, it

component of that milieu, set the agenda for the Commentary on Genesis” (Heine, “Origen’s Alexandrian Commentary on Genesis” [see note 17], 63). See as well his more recent discussion of this issue in Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (see note 21), esp. chapter 4, “The Beginnings of Origen’s Published Biblical Scholarship.” Note as well two earlier scholars who anticipated parts of Heine’s argument: Strutwolf, Gnosis als System (see note 72), 242-268, in connection with Origen’s interpretation of Gen 2:7 and 3:21; Anne Pasquier, “L’allégorie du ciel et du fi rmament chez Origène et dans un traité gnostique de Nag Hammadi,” in Origeniana Sexta: Origène et la Bible: Actes du Colloquium Origenianum Sextum (Chantilly, 30 Août-3 Septembre 1993) (ed. Giles Dorival et al.; Louvain: Peeters, 1995), 37-52, with a focus on how Origen’s anthropological interpretation of heaven and fi rmament bear the traces of a debate with Gnostic interpretations.

94 For introductions, bibliographies, and translations of these texts (including discussions of their dates), consult James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (3d ed.; New York: Harper Collins, 1978), which has all of these texts, less Ptolemy’s Version; Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (New York: Doubleday, 1987), which has all of these texts, less On the Origin of the World and Testimony of Truth.

95 For literature that focuses on the Gnostic retrieval of Gen 1-4, see Orval Wintermute, “A Study of Gnostic Exegesis of the Old Testament,” in The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays: Studies in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring (ed. James M. Efi rd; Durham: Duke University Press, 1972), 241-270; Birger Pearson, “The Figure of Seth in Gnostic Literature,” in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, March 28-31, 1978 2: Sethian Gnosticicsm (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 472-504; Elaine H. Pagels, “Exegesis and Exposition of the Genesis creation Accounts in Selected Texts from Nag Hammadi,” in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (ed. Charles W. Hedrick and Robert Hodgson; Peabody, Mass.: 1986): 257-285; A. H. B. Logan, Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: A Study in the History of Gnosticism (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), 211-257; Gerald P. Luttikhuizen, “A Resistant Interpretation of the Paradise Story in the Gnostic Testimony of Truth (Nag Hamm. Cod. IX.3) 45-50,” in idem, ed., Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 140-152; idem, Gnostic Revisions of Genesis Stories and Early Jesus Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1-116.

96 In the aforementioned works, there is ample evidence for how the opening chapters of Genesis were rewritten to advance central episodes in the corresponding Gnostic myth of the divine or heavenly origins of the cosmos and humanity. There is more debate in the scholarship, however, about whether Origen’s opponents specifi cally developed the doctrine of fi xed natures that he was keen to discredit with his account of pre-existence. Many scholars today have dismissed this doctrine as a stable feature of a wide spectrum


seems likely that Origen offered his readers and congregants more than a critique of Gnostic theological convictions when he spoke of pre-existence. Precisely because he allegorized pre-existence out of the opening chapters of Genesis, I would propose that he was also furnishing his audience with an alternative reading to prevailing Gnostic visions of these opening chapters of Scripture.

In short, I have argued in this section that we ought to acknowledge two converging factors—philological and polemical—that encouraged Origen to draw the narrative of pre-existence out of the opening chapters of Gen-esis. Thematic resemblances between these respective narratives certainly contributed to his allegorical strategy. But we should not overlook the considerable role also played by contemporary Gnostic interpretations of these opening chapters of Scripture.

4. Conclusion

In this paper I have sought to demonstrate what has, until now, been largely ignored and sometimes denied by many of Origen’s readers, both critics and supporters alike: that Origen sought to map his account of pre-existence onto the opening chapters of Genesis. A careful re-assessment of his corpus suggests otherwise. On the basis of a wide spectrum of writings, including his Commentarii in Genesim and Homiliae in Genesim, there is suffi cient evidence to indicate that he allegorized the opening of Genesis, so that these chapters announced the opening scenes in his dramatic account

of Gnostic texts (see Luise Schottroff, “Animae naturaliter salvandae: Zum Problem der himmlischen Herkunft des Gnostikers,” in Christentum und Gnosis [ed. Walther Eltester; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969], 65-97; Michael A. Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996], 189-212; and more recently, Luttikhuizen, Gnostic Revisions [see note 95], 83-96). At the same time, this is not to say that there were no Gnostic texts that advocated such an anthropology. See the detailed discussion of relevant Valentinian texts in Strutwolf, Gnosis als System (see note 72), 104-154, noting also his engagement with scholars who deny these texts teach a deterministic doctrine of natures. Relevant for us is Heracleon’s version of this doctrine (for a discussion of the relevant passages, see Strutwolf, Gno-sis als System [see note 72], 114-125), since this would have been a direct source for Origen’s knowledge of a Valentinian school of thought. Perhaps even more important are the reports from Irenaeus and Clement that link this deterministic anthropology with Ptolemy’s and Theodotus’ respective exegeses of the opening chapters of Genesis: see Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1,5,5-6 (SC 264, 86,88-90,117 Rousseau/Doutreleau); 1,6,1-2 (90,1-42 R./D.); 1,7,5 (110,76-112,92 R./D.); Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto 50-58 (SC 23, 162-176 Sagnard). It certainly appears that there were some Gnostic interpretations of the opening chapters of Genesis that promoted a deterministic view of human nature. It appears, moreover, that two lost treatises by Origen, De naturis and the Dialogus cum Candido both wrestled with the issue of Valentinian determinism (see Heine, Origen: Scholarship [see note 21], 127-128). For more on the heresiological critique of determined natures, and its development from Irenaeus through Clement to Origen, see Winrich A. Löhr, “Gnostic Determinism Reconsidered,” VigChr 46 (1992): 381-390 and Luttikhuizen, Gnostic Revisions (see note 95), 83-86.


of the rise and fall of souls. The second task in this paper has been to suggest reasons why Origen allegorized these chapters in this way. I have argued that two intersecting factors yielded favorable conditions for this allegory. Given not only the broad thematic resemblances between Gen 1-3 and the doctrine of pre-existence, but also (and probably more press-ingly) the anti-Gnostic thrust of this doctrine, Origen’s interpretive strategy becomes more intelligible. The opening chapters of Genesis had already been recruited by the Gnostics to advance a theology and anthropology that Origen’s doctrine of pre-existence explicitly sought to critique. These chapters, thus, provided him the opportunity to present his readers, pupils and congregants an alternative, anti-Gnostic interpretation of Genesis that sought to preserve, as so many of Origen’s other interpretations did, key tenets of the church’s rule of faith.

Finally, this reassessment of Origen’s account of pre-existence has rami-fi cations for our larger portrait of him. This doctrine is one of the most contentious features of his teaching, and has played a pivotal role in him being branded by subsequent generations as both heretical and (what for many is related) one-sidedly philosophical. By highlighting in this paper both the heresiological purpose and scriptural sources of Origen’s doc-trine of pre-existence, we are in a position to complicate these enduring, twin historiographical categories. To begin with, only when we resist the anachronistic lens suggested by the sixth century condemnation of Origen’s doctrine of pre-existence, are we in a position to recognize how instrumental this teaching was for his own critique of those he considered heretical in his own day. This paper underscores how profoundly ironic the later censure of Origen’s doctrine of pre-existence was. While this doctrine played a key role in his critique of the Gnostics, it also proved central to his later condemnation. Second, this paper complicates how we think about the relationship between Origen the philosopher and Origen the biblical scholar. This distinction has decisively shaped the modern historiography, and it is usually the case (as we have seen in the introduc-tion) that the doctrine of pre-existence has been presented almost solely in terms of its philosophical roots. By implication, it is considered emblematic of a discordant, even confl icted, scholarly profi le: as a biblical interpreter, Origen was compelled to explicate the creation of the cosmos and human-ity in light of the opening chapters of Genesis; yet as a philosopher, his cosmology and anthropology were driven away from Genesis and toward the philosophically-inspired doctrine of pre-existence. Certainly far more work could be done on the exegetical sources for this doctrine than I have presented in this paper. Hopefully, however, enough has been offered to indicate that Origen did not think that the philosophical tradition was alone in advocating the doctrine of pre-existence.


ZUSAMMEN FASSUNG

Der Artikel führt die Vorstellung des Origenes von der Präexistenz der Seelen ins-besondere auf seine exegetische Arbeit zurück, speziell auf die Auslegung der ersten Genesiskapitel. Soweit sich aufgrund der Homiliae in Genesim und der Commenta-rii in Genesim sowie weiterer Schriften erkennen lässt, hat Origenes den Beginn der Genesis allegorisch gedeutet. Hierfür dürfte nicht nur die inhaltliche Nähe zwischen einer allegorischen Auslegung der ersten Genesiskapitel und einigen Grundgedanken der Vorstellung von der Präexistenz der Seele verantwortlich sein, sondern besonders auch der antignostische Duktus von Origenes’ Theologie. Origenes versucht mit seiner Genesisdeutung, die Theologie und Anthropologie der Gnostiker zu kritisieren und zugleich eine Vorstellung von der Präexistenz der Seelen zu entwickeln, die mit der regula fi dei der Kirche vereinbar war. Diese Beobachtungen haben einige Konsequenzen für das Origenesbild insgesamt. Zum einen zeigt sich, dass ausgerechnet der Topos, der in den späteren Verurteilungen des 6. Jahrhunderts für die Verurteilung der Theologie des Origenes wichtig wurde, selbst – Ironie der Geschichte – antihäretisch motiviert war. Gerade die Vorstellung von der Präexistenz der Seele spielte in Origenes’ Auseinandersetzung mit den Gnostikern eine zentrale Rolle. Zum anderen stellt die biblische Begründung der Lehre von der Präexistenz alle Versuche, den philosophischen Anteil im Denken Origenes gegen seinen theologischen auszuspielen, in Frage. Keineswegs führte die Rezeption philosophischer Gedanken Origenes vom Genesistext weg, sondern die Vorstellung der Präexistenz zeigt gerade, wie stark Origenes’ Denken auf der exegetischen Arbeit am biblischen Text beruht.

Origen's Doctrine of Pre-Existence and the Opening Chapters of Genesis

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