Note (return) — Chapter VI

Origen's eschatology occupies a middle position between that of Irenæus and the theory of the Valentinian Gnostics, but is more akin to the latter view. Whilst, according to Irenæus, Christ reunites and glorifies all that had been severed, though in such a way that there is still a remnant eternally damned; and, according to Valentinus, Christ separates what is illegitimately united and saves the spirits alone, Origen believes that all spirits will be finally rescued and glorified, each in the form of its individual life, in order to serve a new epoch of the world when sensuous matter disappears of itself. Here he rejects all sensuous eschatological expectations.805 He accepted the formula, "resurrection of the flesh", only because it was contained in the doctrine of the Church; but, on the strength of 1 Cor. XV. 44, he interpreted it as the rising of a "corpus spiritale", which will lack all material attributes and even all the members that have sensuous functions, and which will beam with radiant light like the angels and stars.806 Rejecting the doctrine that souls sleep,807 Origen assumed that the souls of the departed immediately enter Paradise,808 and that souls not yet purified pass into a state of punishment, a penal fire, which, however, like the whole world, is to be conceived as a place of purification.809 In this way also Origen contrived to reconcile his position with the Church doctrines of the judgment and the punishments in hell; but, like Clement, he viewed the purifying fire as a temporary and figurative one; it consists in the torments of conscience.810 In the end all the spirits in heaven and earth, nay, even the demons, are purified and brought back to God by the Logos-Christ,811 after they have ascended from stage to stage through seven heavens.812 Hence Origen treated this doctrine as an esoteric one: "for the common man it is sufficient to know that the sinner is punished."813