Note 720 — Chapter VI
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 720:
(return)
In defining the superessential nature of the One, Origen did not go so far as the Basilidians (Philosoph. VII. 20, 21) or as Plotinus. No doubt he also regards the Deity as επεκεινα της ουσιας (c. Cels. VII. 42-51; περι αρχων I. 1; Clement made a closer approach to the heretical abstractions of the Gnostics inasmuch as he still more expressly renounced any designation of God; see Strom. V. 12, 13), but he is not βυθος and σιγη, being rather a self-comprehending Spirit, and therefore does not require a hypostasis (the νους) before he can come to himself. Accordingly the human intellect is not incapable of soaring up to God as the later Neoplatonists assert; at least vision is by no means so decidedly opposed to thought, that is, elevated above it as something new, as is held by the Neoplatonists and Philo before them. Origen is no mystic. In accordance with this conception Origen and Clement say that the perfect knowledge of God can indeed be derived from the Logos alone (c. Cels VII. 48, 49: VI. 65-73; Strom. V. 12. 85: VI. 15. 122), but that a relative knowledge may be deduced from creation (c. Cels. VII. 46). Hence they also spoke of an innate knowledge of God (Protrept. VI. 68; Strom. V. 13. 78), and extended the teleological proof of God furnished by Philo (περι αρχων I. 1. 6; c. Cels I. 23). The relatively correct predicates of God to be determined from revelation are his unity (c. Cels I. 23), his absolute spirituality (πνευμα ασωματος, αυλος, ασχηματιστος)—this is maintained both in opposition to Stoicism and anthropomorphism; see Orig. περι αρχων I. 1, Origen's polemic against Melito's conception of God, and Clem., Strom. V. 11. 68: V. 12. 82,—his unbegottenness, his immortality (this is eternity conceived as enjoyment; the eternity of God itself, however, is to be conceived, according to Clement, as that which is above time; see Strom. II. 2. 6), and his absolute causality. All these concepts together constitute the conception of perfection. See Fischer, De Orig. theologia et cosmologia, 1840.