Note (return) — Chapter VI

From the perfect goodness of God Origen infers that he reveals or communicates himself, from his immutability that he always reveals himself. The eternal or never beginning communication of perfection to other beings is a postulate of the concept "God". But, along with the whole fraternity of those professing the same philosophy, Origen assumed that the One, in becoming the Manifold and acting in the interests of the Manifold, can only effect his purpose by divesting himself of absolute apathy and once more assuming a form in which he can act, that is, procuring for himself an adequate organ—the Logos. The content of Origen's teaching about this Logos was not essentially different from that of Philo and was therefore quite as contradictory; only in his case everything is more sharply defined and the hypostasis of the Logos (in opposition to the Monarchians) more clearly and precisely stated.729 Nevertheless the personal independence of the Logos is as yet by no means so sharply defined as in the case of the later Arians. He is still the Consciousness of God, the spiritual Activity of God. Hence he is on the one hand the idea of the world existing in God, and on the other the product of divine wisdom originating with the will of God. The following are the most important propositions.730 The Logos who appeared in Christ, as is specially shown from Joh. I. 1 and Heb. I. 1, is the perfect image731 of God. He is the Wisdom of God, the reflection of his perfection and glory, the invisible image of God. For that very reason there is nothing corporeal in him732 and he is therefore really God, not αυτοθεος, nor 'ο Θεος, nor αναρχος αρχη ("beginningless beginning"), but the second God.733 But, as such, immutability is one of his attributes, that is, he can never lose his divine essence, he can also in this respect neither increase nor decrease (this immutability, however, is not an independent attribute, but he is perfect as being an image of the Father's perfection).734 Accordingly this deity is not a communicated one in the sense of his having another independent essence in addition to this divine nature; but deity rather constitutes his essence: 'ο σοτηρ ου κατα μετουσιαν, αλλα κατ' ουσιαν εστι Θεοσ735 ("the Saviour is not God by communication, but in his essence"). From this it follows that he shares in the essence of God, therefore of the Father, and is accordingly 'ομοουσιος ("the same in substance with the Father") or, seeing that, as Son, he has come forth from the Father, is engendered from the essence of the Father.736 But having proceeded, like the will, from the Spirit, he was always with God; there was not a time when he was not,737 nay, even this expression is still too weak. It would be an unworthy idea to think of God without his wisdom or to assume a beginning of his begetting. Moreover, this begetting is not an act that has only once taken place, but a process lasting from all eternity; the Son is always being begotten of the Father.738 It is the theology of Origen which Gregory Thaumaturgus has thus summed up:739 εις κυριος, μονος εκ μονου, θεος εκ θεου, χαρακτηρ και εικων της θεοτητος, λογος ενεργος, σοφια της των 'ολων συστασεως περιεκτικη και δυναμις της 'ολης κτισεως ποιητικη, 'υιος αληθινος αληθινου πατρος, αορατος αορατου και αφθαρτος αφθαρτου και αθανατος αθανατου και αιδιος αιδιου. ("One Lord, one from one, God from God, impress and image of Godhead, energetic word, wisdom embracing the entire system of the universe and power producing all creation, true Son of a true Father, the invisible of the invisible and incorruptible of the incorruptible, the immortal of the immortal, the eternal of the eternal"). The begetting is an indescribable act which can only be represented by inadequate images: it is no emanation—the expression προβολη is not found, so far as I know740—but is rather to be designated as an act of the will arising from an inner necessity, an act which for that very reason is an emanation of the essence. But the Logos thus produced is really a personally existing being; he is not an impersonal force of the Father, though this still appears to be the case in some passages of Clement, but he is the "sapientia dei substantialiter subsistens"741 ("the wisdom of God substantially existing") "figura expressa substantial patris" ("express image of the Father's substance"), "virtus altera in sua proprietate subsistens" ("a second force existing in its own characteristic fashion"). He is, and here Origen appeals to the old Acts of Paul, an "animal vivens" with an independent existence.742 He is another person,743 namely, the second person in number.744 But here already begins Origen's second train of thought which limits the first that we have set forth. As a particular hypostasis, which has its "first cause" (πρωτον αιτιον) in God, the Son is "that which is caused" (αιτιατον), moreover as the fulness of ideas, as he who comprehends in himself all the forms that are to have an active existence, the Son is no longer an absolute simplex like the Father.745 He is already the first stage of the transition from the One to the Manifold, and, as the medium of the world-idea, his essence has an inward relation to the world, which is itself without beginning.746 As soon therefore as the category of causality is applied—which moreover dominates the system—and the particular contemplation of the Son in relation to the Father gives way to the general contemplation of his task and destination, the Son is not only called κτισμα and δημιουργημα, but all the utterances about the quality of his essence receive a limitation. We nowhere find the express assertion that this quality is inferior or of a different kind when compared with that of God; but these utterances lose their force when it is asserted that complete similarity between Father and Son only exists in relation to the world. We have to acknowledge the divine being that appeared in Christ to be the manifestation of the Deity; but, from God's standpoint, the Son is the hypostasis appointed by and subordinated to him.747 The Son stands between the uncreated One and the created Many; in so far as unchangeableness is an attribute of self-existence he does not possess it.748 It is evident why Origen was obliged to conceive the Logos exactly as he did; it was only in this form that the idea answered the purpose for which it was intended. In the description of the essence of the Logos much more heed continues to be given to his creative than to his redeeming significance. Since it was only a teacher that Origen ultimately required for the purpose of redemption, he could unfold the nature and task of the Logos without thinking of Christ, whose name indeed he frequently mentions in his disquisitions, but whose person is really not of the slightest importance there.749