Daemons in Hellenic and Christian Antiquity

Contents

1. Abbreviations

2. Preface

3. Prolegomena

4. General Introduction: A world in limbo

   1. Tensions in Late Antiquity

   2. Origen and the Greeks

   3. The figment ‘Christian Platonism’

   4. The ‘mind that comes from without’ (θύραθεν νοῦς)

   5. Tentative statements for ‘mental exercise’ (γυμνασία)

   6. Translations, calumniations, and stigmatising ‘excerpts’

   7. Greeks on philology, philosophy, and theology

5. Chapter 1: What is a daemon? Greeks and Christians

   1. Archaic poets and Classical philosophers

   2. Daemons shrouded with bodies

   3. Daemonic activity

6. Chapter 2: Later Greeks on daemons

   1. Alexander of Aphrodisias

   2. Plotinus

   3. Porphyry and Proclus

   4. One’s tutelary daemon

7. Chapter 3: Angels and daemons

   1. The need for a systematic theory

   2. Angels as surrogates of divinity

   3. Daemons and angels

8. Chapter 4: Origen and Porphyry: A tender relationship

   1. Porphyry and ‘certain Platonists’

   2. Symmetric and asymmetric bodies

   3. Wickedness as irrationality

   4. Rationality and human conduct

   5. The rational soul and passions

9. Chapter 5: Wrestling against daemons

10. Chapter 6: Names and correlative activity

11. Chapter 7: Philosophical affinities

12. Conclusion

13. Bibliography

14. Indices

    1. Ancient and Medieval

    2. Modern Names

Abbreviations

Preface

After having studied Origen for some decades now, I have come to be convinced about a certain things concerning this philosopher. Of them, perhaps the most entrenched one is this: if, hypothetically, his extant texts were anonymous, a student equipped with the proper background (a very demanding one, to be sure) would ineluctably determine that these were written by a Greek-educated and Greek-minded author; an author who put his vast background to use and formulated profoundly Christian doctrines, which paved the way to Nicaea. And yet, mental darkness and bigotry, until today, responded to his genius with ostracism and to his keen acumen with anathema.

However, despite his tragic fate and the ongoing abominable reception, it has turned out that Origen was far ahead of his time.

In the first place, making out his real spiritual identity should not be based on ‘passages’, similarity of locution, or citations of Greek (far less, Oriental) lore, loans, and the like. First and foremost, this is about style, and above all, methodology. Origen is the first author who took up and emulated the startlingly original (and unprecedented for that matter) technique of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentaries on Aristotle’s works: first, a portion from the Stagirite was quoted; then, the commentator’s scholia followed. Origen did this not only in his rebuttal of Celsus, but right from the start, when he set out to compose his commentary on John’s gospel, and so he did subsequently with the rest of his pertinent works. In his confutation of Celsus, his Greek dialectics reaches its finest, and would be arguably placed on a par with orations of Demosthenes, or at least, of Lysias and Isocrates.

Besides, he mentioned ‘Greek dialectics’ as a creditable methodology and an ideal to be pursued; actually, he did so not only in that trenchant rebuttal, but also in his commentaries on other scriptural works, such as the commentary on John and his homilies on Jeremiah. His references to highly refined inveterate Greek methods of study and argument are numerous. All of those were techniques set forth by the most prominent Greek philosophers of the Classical and Later era.

In the second place, careful reading of Origen’s works reveals that his references (not always too implicit ones) to his pagan past are by no means few. These pertain not only to his earlier religious allegiances, but also to his being an illustrious fecund philosopher far and near acclaimed by the Greeks, as Eusebius attested, too.

It is only in the third place that his terminology should be considered: parallels to, and quotations from, all the stars of Greek philosopher abound every now and then – from Homer, Pindar and Hesiod, via Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, to those of the Late Antiquity, especially Origen’s cherished intellectuals, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Galen, Plutarch, and certainly the later Stoics. I have spotlighted numerous such instances in my earlier books, and so I am doing in the present study, too. I only note that, in J. von Arnim’s collection of testimonies to and fragments from old Stoic philosophers, Origen’s work has contributed with sixty-six passages attesting to all of those noble intellectuals.

Origen was the author who unremittingly demanded from both himself and the others accurate use of Greek words, especially those heavily loaded with pregnant philosophical import. The instances of his pointing out long-standing misuse of such locution are numerous, and he went as far as to coin words that are easy to understand, yet they were never used by any other author, either prior or posterior to him. For example, the epithet ἀκαιρορρήμων (supposedly used by Aristophanes scolding Euripides, because he put on mouths of women or household slaves words that he had learned from his teacher Anaxagoras, as Origen informs) is a neologism by Origen that obtains in no other author; nevertheless, it is easy to make this out: it means a person who speaks inopportunely. Besides, this is a neologism betraying Origen being far more versed and refined in Greek language, since the normal term was ἀκαιρολόγος.

To be sure, barely could this background and practice as an intellectual have obtained with the work of an allegedly Christian zealot, born to a Christian martyr; an Origen who hated Greek letters and, while still a young boy, sold out all of his father’s Greek books for a fee of ‘four obols a day’. An Origen who, nearly fifty years later, was able to quote short or long passages from the Greek authors mentioned above and legion of others still.

Since the theory about a ‘Christian Origen’ being different from a ‘Neoplatonist’ one is ineluctably based on Eusebius’ testimony, those who maintain this should be ‘logical to the bitter end’, as Camus put it. On the one hand, Eusebius sky-high praised Origen as an allegedly juvenile Christian enthusiast and teacher, who deemed ‘the ancient Greek letters’ both ‘useless’ and ‘contrary to the divine teaching’. On the other, in his letter to Gregory Thaumaturgus, Origen defended teaching of all the established secular sciences as indispensable introduction to Christian theology, which is what also Gregory wrote in his Panegyric, describing Origen’s extended syllabus as a teacher. Clement of Alexandria could have sympathised with his attitude,¹ yet Origen was the first who avouched forthrightly that he could select aspects of the heathen lore, of which he had memorised prodigious amounts.

In any case, those who espouse the theory of ‘two Origens’ should take notice also of Eusebius’ section included in his tract aimed for those whom he ‘prepared for the Gospel’. The title of that section is, “On that sometimes it will be necessary to use lie as a remedy, in order to benefit those who need such a mode of treatment” (Ὅτι δεήσει ποτὲ τῷ ψεύδει ἀντὶ φαρμάκου χρῆσθαι ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τῶν δεομένων τοῦ τοιούτου τρόπου).

Eusebius alleged that, when Porphyry reported that Origen was an erstwhile illustrious Greek philosopher who forsook Hellenism and converted to Christianity, he ‘clearly lied’ (ψευσαμένῳ δὲ σαφῶς). Eusebius himself explicated the reasons on account of which he was allowed to make use of ‘lie’. What he did not explain, however, was this: what were the reasons for Porphyry to ‘lie’, too?

In this context, I should add a few remarks. Origen wrote that he derided, indeed he ‘laughed’ (γελάσωμεν) at those pagan ‘lovers of truth’, who, during that time, were making a mock of him as allegedly being deluded (πλανᾶσθαι) by having been converted to Christianity. He added that those were the same people who had admired him for his ‘love of truth’ (παρὰ τοῖς φιλαλήθεσιν ἐθαυμάσθημεν) during the earlier period, when he was a heathen philosopher. As I argue presently, he presumably had in mind his erstwhile aficionado, Porphyry.

If anything, an ideal that both Origen and Porphyry enshrined to the end was being ‘a lover of truth’ (φιλαλήθης). My point will be that Origen’s portion in the Exhortation to Martyrdom (section 43)² was in fact written in a sarcastic tenor, and went thus: If I have been admired by the lovers of truth (παρὰ τοῖς φιλαληθέσιν ἐθαυμάσθημεν) as being a lover of truth myself (ὡς ἀληθεῖς), and yet the same people now deride me as being deluded (πλανᾶσθαι), just because I have converted to Christianity, I should only ‘laugh’ at this (γελάσωμεν). His point was all too clear: how could it have been possible for the same philosopher, who was previously hailed as a genius, now to be considered as being delusional? Origen could have had in mind also Porphyry, and those words were a provisional reply to Porphyry’s allegation³ as in his Against the Christians. It is noteworthy that, even amidst that situation, Origen did not dispute that his critic was ‘a lover of truth’, too. It was that man, of whom Eusebius (a defender of use of ‘lie’ as an expedient to ‘edification’) alleged that Porphyry ‘lied’ when he wrote about Origen.

In view of arresting congruence of On Abstinence and Origen’s work, it could be reasonably assumed that Porphyry penned that treatise while being under the spell of Origen’s personality and ideas. In view of this, a possible question would be if Porphyry wrote also after Origen’s personal example, namely, because Origen himself practiced vegetarianism, too.

This is what Epiphanius reported. Besides, a few things can be said for sure, since Origen mentioned the issue of abstinence from animal food – although he did so mainly because it was Celsus who had brought this up. On the one hand, he contemptuously dismissed the relevant Pythagorean practice, because that was based on their ‘myth of reincarnation of souls’. In Cels, V.49, he quoted a strophe from Empedocles (a renowned vegetarian, too), which caveated that by killing an animal one could perhaps kill one of his deceased relatives (a father, a son, or a mother).⁴ Opposite that, Origen declared himself proud because Christian ‘ascetics’ (τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν ἀσκητῶν) practiced abstemiousness from animal food (ἐμψύχων ἀποχῆς) on grounds entirely different from those of Pythagoras and Empedocles, that is, in order to subdue carnal passions and mortify everything that stems from the body.⁵ Nevertheless, both before and after that point, he spoke of those who are abstemious in first person: (1) “We are not conceited because we do not eat [animal food]” (οὐ μέγα φρονοῦμεν μὴ ἐσθίοντες). (2) And if we practice this [sc. abstemiousness from animal food], we do so because we bruise the body and bring it into subjection ( Ἡμεῖς δὲ κἂν τὸ τοιοῦτο πράττωμεν, ποιοῦμεν αὐτό, ἐπεὶ ὑπωπιάζομεν ... καὶ δουλαγωγοῦμεν καὶ βουλόμεθα ... καὶ πάντα γε πράττομεν). Noticeably, he uses six verbs in first person.

Definitely, this text includes also Porphyry’s treatise-title (ἐμψύχων ἀποχῆς). However, Origen’s use of first person Plural alone does not suffice in order to ascertain his vegetarian practice, although Epiphanius’ testimony could bolster this hypothesis. Two things are certain, nevertheless:

1. At another point of Against Celsus (again using the same title-terminology), he praised ‘Daniel and his companions’ who were fed with ‘pulse, since they abstained from animal food’ (καὶ ὅτι ἡ τροφὴ ἦν αὐτοῖς ὄσπριον, ἐμψύχων ἀπεχομένοις).⁶

2. Porphyry wrote that the Stoics were among those (including Peripatetics and Epicureans) who opposed the theory of abstention from animal food: actually, they did so with good reason, arguing that ‘animate’ beings are not only the animals, but also the trees.⁷ Naturally, also Porphyry argued against those critics by using some reasonable arguments, too.⁸ But when he made reverent reference to the Cosmic Soul,⁹ his pattern was Neoplatonic, yet his rationale was not far from the Stoic ‘universal sympathy’ (συμπάθεια), although he cared not to use that famous term at all. Nevertheless, his overall reasoning was based on the axiom positing that there is a universal interrelatedness, and in this setting vegetarianism was valuable in order to preserve the cosmic concord of Nature. To be sure, this was a moral teaching rather than a philosophical analysis. But Stoicism, albeit a sort of ‘adversary’, somehow had cast its shadow on Porphyry’s outlook. And it should be reminded that it was Origen who, notwithstanding his criticism of important Stoic tenets, had a lot of respect for certain aspects of the Stoic ethics – and Porphyry’s treatise, deep down, was in fact an ethical plea.

Moreover, we know that Porphyry was an extremely ardent seeker after the truth. So much so, that never did he rest content with any school of thought whatsoever. Eunapius of Sardis wrote that ‘Porphyry, in his numerous books, propounded several, yet conflicting, theories; and the only conclusion out of those could be no other than that, in the course of his lifetime, he espoused different views’. Furthermore, the polymath Michael Psellus, being aware of a non-extant phrase of Porphyry in an epistle to Anebo (probably Iamblichus, or a like-minded friend of his), quoted a phrase by Porphyry, which is not included in the epistle of which we know: “I look forward to learning from him, because from the Greeks I have grown despondent!” Who was ‘him’? It was Hermes Trismegistus. In the end, just like in the beginning, to Porphyry, the Greeks were the ‘others’. After having embraced various schools of philosophy (he converted even to Christianity for some time), eventually he was disappointed in them all – hence, his exclamation. However, as I argue in this book, to Porphyry, Origen remained a lifelong hero, indeed even after Origen’s death, as his vociferous diatribe against Christianity clearly demonstrates. And his ostensible stricture of Origen was not in fact a reprimand: it was a threnody, lamenting his champion’s irrevocable defection to the ‘barbarous shameless venture’, namely, Christian faith.

Of course, the hackneyed label attached to Porphyry is ‘Neoplatonist’ – a name unknown to any ancient philosopher, indeed a neologism that Plotinus himself would have rebuffed, just as all of his like would have done, too, until the end of Byzantium: for all of those men flattered themselves with the title ‘Platonist’. Besides, this is not about one school. For example, it would be useful for those who delight in this designation to study (just as a mental exercise) the theory of soul as propounded by Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus – and then determine which one of them was the genuine ‘Neoplatonist’, and who was nearly-so, or perhaps a sham, or (in Christian terms) a ‘heretic’.

However, as an ardent well-wisher as Eusebius was, things turned out differently: his hero was officially condemned as a heretic, and later authors could not have enough of stressing this allegation every now and then, in order to make sure that they besmirched Origen’s work and tarnished his person. Scarcely did any one have to say a good word about him, and those who had inhaled influence by his genius (such as Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, or Maximus Confessor) and deep down were disposed to say so, opted for totally silencing his name, while glaringly following in his footsteps: they just made Origen’s impression on them the innermost secret of their hearts.

The present book advances my firm conviction that, opposite the modern invention of ‘two Origens’, there was only one Origen, the far-famed philosopher mentioned by Porphyry, Proclus, and others. The ‘two Origens’-pleaders should perhaps wonder how could their conviction square with the findings of the present treatise, all the more so, once I also adduce evidence by Byzantine authors reporting that Origen’s Christian production lasted for eighteen years in all. However, this is not my last word on this issue, which hopefully I will assay in a subsequent work expounding Origen’s arduous odyssey. For the time being, let readers assess for themselves Origen’s terms and ideas on daemons as taken up by Porphyry, sometimes verbatim – yet only in his On Abstinence, and, to a limited extent, in his Letter to Marcella. Moreover, Origen’s influence upon Proclus will pop up at several points of this monograph – but this is a topic I have provisionally treated in a section of my The Real Cassian Revisited (Chapter 7, subsection “Christian Influence on Neoplatonism”).

In respect of this, as central as Porphyry’s discipleship with Origen is to the present book, the requisite pertinent research has cast further light on relevant points that I have made in the past. For example, I am always warning that Eusebius’ testimonies should be read circumspectly, since he had no qualms about making up history, and indeed ‘make use of lie as a means for edification’, as he himself wrote (and I discuss in due course). However, this should not be a cause for uncritical scepticism upon reading everything he wrote.

Unlike modern theologians (let alone philologists and historians who presume to make claims on Origen), Eusebius was demonstrably and admirably versed in the entire Hellenic tradition (as was Theodoret, too) – and he was truthful whenever he felt his duty to ‘edify’ his audience was not jeopardised. In such a context, he informed that lots of the heathen philosophers, and indeed not few of the most illustrious ones’ (μυρίοι δὲ τῶν αἱρετικῶν φιλοσόφων τε τῶν μάλιστα ἐπιφανῶν οὐκ ὀλίγοι), attended Origen’s lectures looking to him for guidance, not only on the Christian scriptures (μόνον οὐχὶ πρὸς τοῖς θείοις) but also on the heathen philosophy (καὶ τὰ τῆς ἔξωθεν φιλοσοφίας). This was so because Origen ‘was hailed as a great philosopher by the Greeks’ (ὥστε μέγαν καὶ παρ’ αὐτοῖς Ἕλλησιν φιλόσοφον τὸν ἄνδρα κηρύττεσθαι). Moreover, those ‘most illustrious’ heathen philosophers sometimes wrote treatises addressed to Origen personally (τοτὲ μὲν αὐτῷ προσφωνούντων τοὺς ἑαυτῶν λόγους) and ‘they submitted their own exertions to him as a magister (ὡς διδασκάλῳ), in order for Origen to assess and determine the value of those works’ (εἰς ἐπίκρισιν τοὺς ἰδίους ἀναφερόντων πόνους). In my book on Anaxagoras (pp. 1032–1040: ‘Origen writing after 265 AD’), I have already demonstrated that Origen had inspected sections of Plotinus’ Enneads long before those were published by Porphyry.

In the present study, it is made clear that Plotinus had taken pains to read the Bible and inadvertently used the locution of the Deuteronomy, 4:19, in order to mull over the same pertinent issue and indeed to make the same point as the biblical author at that point (discussed on p. 82). Besides, Amelius explicitly brought the opening phrases of John’s gospel to the fore and made it a question for meditation in Plotinus’ class. Those were some of the ‘most illustrious philo­sophers’ reflecting on the Christian scriptures, whom Eusebius had in mind. Such men were ‘very erudite Greeks’ (πολλοῖς τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι φιλολόγων) who cared ‘to study the Christian teaching’ (διὰ τὸ σπουδάζειν συνιέναι τὰ Χριστιανισμοῦ, Origen, Cels, III.12 & Philocalia, 16.1). And if Eusebius’ testimony is considered both in the light of Origen’s reference and of textual evidence by third parties discussed in the present book, who other than Origen could have bestirred his contemporaneous ‘illustrious philosophers’ to study the Christian scriptures? Was it not Eusebius who advised that legion of heathen philosophers made haste to be instructed by the great master ‘since his renown was acclaimed far and wide’ (τῆς περὶ τὸν Ὠριγένην φήμης πανταχόσε βοωμένης)? Was it not the Christian Origen who taught ‘the most intelligent of heathen’ (ὅσους εὐφυῶς ἔχοντας ἑώρα) not only philosophy, but also Arithmetic and Geometry and the rest of the propaedeutic education (καὶ τἄλλα προπαιδεύματα), and reviewed and commented on their treatises (γεωμετρίαν καὶ ἀριθμητικὴν καὶ τἄλλα προπαιδεύματα παραδιδοὺς εἴς τε τὰς αἱρέσεις τὰς παρὰ τοῖς φιλοσόφοις προάγων καὶ τὰ παρὰ τούτοις συγγράμματα διηγούμενος ὑπομνηματιζόμενός τε καὶ θεωρῶν εἰς ἕκαστα – Eusebius, HE, 6.18) which is what also Origen himself wrote to Gregory Thaumaturgus?

Thus, sporadic points in Eusebius that in fact were inadvertent lapsi calami gratifying his enthusiasm, turn out serendipitous information which he never meant to share.

These are some of the reasons why I am making cautious use of Eusebius’ unpremeditated testimonies, which ran contrary to the rest of his ‘hagiography’ of Origen allegedly being a Christian by birth and nourishment, and a zealot verging on bigotry, who loathed his father’s Greek library ever since his adolescence, and disposed of that on that score.

Quite simply, Eusebius’ text is an ore from which some chunks of gold can be serendipitously procured, provided they are juxtaposed with several other data from comprehensive research of other sources.

With my doctoral dissertation The Concept of Time in Origen, presented at the University of Glasgow in 1987 after a four-year research, I argued for the thesis that Origen was an anti-Platonist in many respects and he did not maintain any notion of pre-existent souls, which ignorance since Antiquity haphazardly styled also ‘pre-existence of intellects’, only because of lack of perception as to what the difference between ‘souls’ and ‘intellects’ is. This work was published by Peter Lang in 1991. Naturally, this caused numerous ‘scholars’ going to pieces upon realising that their ‘work’ based on nonsense they had been taught by their cut-from-the-same-cloth ‘teachers’ turned out a demolished house of cards. Thus, an American pip-squeak of this sort wrote that I went ‘contra mundum’, adding also the name of Mark Edwards and his 2002-book Origen Against Plato. Of course, since the period of 1983-1987, I knew perfectly well that I set upon contra mundum! My Glasgow supervisor was the first who told me so, and the St Andrews external examiner was the second. Both of those, however, officially enunciated their enthusiasm at the manner my arguments had been built and expounded. And both of those told me what I knew all along: “Your conclusions will not be accepted easily, since no-one is prepared to see their work torn to pieces and lain in ruins.” But my concern was, and has always been, for the solidly argued truth about the real Origen, not for abject follies monotonously parroting ancient loutish allegations, or trifling ‘scholars’ copying those from each other.

Ever since, while waging a campaign against nescience rooted in unscholarly bigotry and mental darkness, I keep on unmasking the folly that keeps on torturing Origen, as it did even when he was still alive, of which he was aware. He stood up to and decried the (often vicious) feeble-mindedness, refusing to strike a happy medium between his enormous philosophical panoply and the obdurate fact that, although all human beings at some moment die, stupidity shall never die.

My six books in Greek apart, the present one is the twelfth in English that followed my thesis. In all of those, I have adduced abundant and compelling evidence that not a single ‘heretical’ doctrine of those imputed on Origen by detractors, ecumenical synods, emperors, bishops, chroniclers, and bigotry in general, had anything to do with his real thought and philosophically brilliant exposition. For very few ancient authors (such as Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor) managed to grasp the profundity of his ideas, which was a very demanding proposition, since it called for comprehensive knowledge of the main glorious schools of Greek philosophy, especially the Presocratic and Classical one.

Thus, Origen was in fact the fountainhead not only of the Nicene Creed, but also of landmark analyses and breakthroughs, that his admirers and detractors alike utilised (or plundered), not infrequently as if those were their own, as it happened with Gregory of Nazianzus, and the others discussed both in the present and my earlier books.

To me, it has been a rewarding privilege to work once again with the Editor and learned scholar Dr. Philip Dunshea, to whom I am both thankful beyond words and beholden in many respects.

I especially thank also Ms Vijaya Gowri Sankar, Senior Publishing Success Manager. I am grateful for her compassion, effectiveness, patience, and brilliant acumen. I believe that this is not mere chance or irrelevant to her being a poetess, too. Philosophy and poetry are affiliated with each other more than they are normally believed to be. There is no need to to evoke Martin Heidegger’s aphorism averring that, in the present age, the language of ‘technology’ (built on and by its endogenous utilitarian logicality) flattens the significance of our world – which is why he turned to poetry for salvation, and made the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin central to his later work and thought. But long before him, as discussed shortly, Porphyry had presented to Plotinus’ class his most profound insights in the form of a poem entitled On the Sacred Marriage [of human soul to God]. Following his recitation, his befuddled fellow-students said, “Porphyry has gone mad.” But Plotinus exclaimed to Porphyry, “You have shown yourself at once to be a poet, a philosopher, and a hierophant.” Likewise, Origen saw similar sublime truths in the biblical poem Song of Songs, and Gregory of Nyssa shared his hero’s far-reaching existential experience to the core.

Last but not least, I am grateful to Professor Dr Martin Illert, of Halle University, Germany, who embraced this project and boosted its publication.

Prolegomena

This one more book on Origen as an intellectual who deployed all of his vast secular erudition (both Greek and Oriental one) upon his conversion to Christianity and in his treatises that ensued. Having adduced a lot of evidence in my previous books about his special relationship with Porphyry, now I am concentrating on their theory about daemons and show the influence Origen exerted on Porphyry, while bearing in mind the latter’s testimony reporting that Origen had written a treatise entitled On the Daemons ‘during the reign of Gallienus’.

The present monograph has been called for by the fact that Origen was a formerly illustrious Greek philosopher, who converted to Christianity at a rather advanced age by the standards of his day. Following some tantalising considerations, he opted for teaching his Christian audience as if that were erudite, although, for the most part, those people were largely grassroots from subaltern, and on occasion downtrodden societal strata. To be sure, he was aware of that situation, and definitely found himself in the horns of a dilemma as to how he should promulgate his analyses. If he chose to popularise his teaching, perhaps the homespun hoi polloi would grasp a few things, but this would be a detriment to the core of that teaching nonetheless. On the other hand, if he had opted for acting according to his real self and set forth his thoughts as he felt befitting to do, his audience would be very narrow and occasionally discomposed.

It would be very felicitous if one were able to convert even the most rude and idiotic people. It is quite obvious that such a teacher ought to use a style which would be beneficial and suitable for attracting every sort of audience. On the other hand, all those who have shunned the idiotic people as being lowly and unfit to follow the consistency of the promulgated teaching, which is articulated according to a certain order, and cared to address only those who have been nurtured in learning and scholarship, they managed to attract only an audience which is very narrow and limited.¹

Finally, the inspired Greek philosopher took the better of him. He went some way in order to compose his homilies in a somewhat ‘simpler’ style, in fact though he did not go too far. This is why he declared that, if one is able to philosophise the Scripture’s truths, he should compose the logical demonstrations to this purpose accordingly; otherwise, those who are simpletons and unqualified to tread along such paths should rely on the Saviour and content themselves with the phrase, ‘He said so’,² or something similar to this.

Besides, he knew that it was impossible for him to avail himself of any serious Christian tradition – which is why he felt he ought to break ranks and construct a doctrinal corpus ab ovo, based on the authority of Scripture.

The erudite historian Dositheus II, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1669–1707), reported a sermon delivered from pulpit by the great scholar, writer, and clergyman, Meletius Syrigus (1586–1664), who was as erudite in Greek and Latin (out of his studies in Venice) as he was in Mathematics. In that homily, Meletius ‘first and foremost enumerated those who were principally philosophers, yet heretics’ (κατηρίθμησε γὰρ πρῶτον τοὺς φιλοσόφους μὲν ὄντας, αἱρετικοὺς δέ, οἷοι ἦσαν Ὠριγένης, Πορφύριος, Ἀέτιος, Εὐνόμιος, Φιλόπονος). To me, it is all but surprise that, in this group, he listed Origen’s name along with that of Porphyry. Hopefully, so this will be to the readers of the present study, too.

It is also natural that Socrates Scholasticus wrote that Porphyry sank his teeth into Origen’s works ‘with an open mind and heart’ (εὐγνωμόνως, i.e. ‘sympathetically’).³ Likewise, Michael Psellus wrote that ‘Origen, who flourished during the same period as Porphyry, embraced our theology and acceded to the oikonomia’ (αὐτίκα γοῦν Ὠριγένης ἐκεῖνος ὁ συνακμάσας Πορφυρίῳ τῷ φιλοσόφῳ καὶ τῇ καθ’ ἡμᾶς θεολογίᾳ προσβέβηκε καὶ τὴν οἰκονομίαν ἐδέξατο).⁴ This is what Origen himself insinuated, too, when he began his text of First Principles with the declaration that he became a Christian once he was ‘convinced and believed’.

This is not the place to expound in detail the course of Origen’s life, which I hope to do later, in a biography of his. I only note that he mentions Greek philo­sophical theories and uses technical terms (let alone Greek methodology and rules of exposition) every now and then, thus making his ‘common education with Plotinus’ (as Proclus wrote)⁵ all too evident. If anything, this could have been all but possible for him to do, had he been a Christian zealot by birth and nourishment, who got rid of all of his father’s Greek books since his boyhood, as Eusebius represented him.

As a convert, Origen did not forego his Greek paideia, because he knew that it was only Hellas that could conjoin the evanescence of ephemeral life with the lofty grandeur of eternity, and ally the universal with the particular, thus touching upon the souls of all people.

Concerning the ambience and contingent reception of the present treatise, if there is a problem about Origen, this is not what he believed: it is the blatantly hopeless inability of the vast majority of those who read his work to fathom his real ideas, and consequently the monstrous allegations brazenly ignoring his patent statements. Of course, old habits die hard and, naturally, scholars who have parroted the calumnies imputed to Origen since Antiquity are trying to rescue the follies which are the spine of the so-called work they have produced. This is what in ancient Greek drama was called peripeteia, namely, the moment the hero realises that everything he knew about certain situations has turned out fallacious and he has been wrong about everything all along.

Origen wrote for the future (the future of a coherently systematised Christian philosophy), but the brilliance of this has been dimmed by another future that followed his genius – a future which is already past, and only the defenders of a brutally skewed ‘Origen’ clutching at straws desperately seek to foster a disgraceful tradition, just because they are terrified at their own paltry peripeteia and turn a blind eye to this already facing a ruinous reckoning.

Recently, featherbrained, and yet self-swollen, theologians, philologists, and trifling historians of Roman era, parrot the hogwash about ‘renaissance of Origen’s studies’. This mock-commotion bathes those who delude themselves with the designation ‘major scholar’ with gratification beyond words, indeed it basks them in reflected glory at the expense of the deceased Origen’s majesty. They are demonstrably impressed (and try to impress others) by selling the delusion more orotundly: this is an aetia Origeniana, whereby they believe they obtain a veneer of scientific kudos – and who really? Actually, those who have no idea of what science is. This corny banality is fostered by considering the number of works on Origen currently published. As for the content, which, almost entirely, is an endless garrulous regurgitation of old follies and trite prattle of no consequence, they find themselves in too deep waters to say anything substantial.

This means that wheels are turning, but in reality they are spinning in place – they are not grinding towards any resolution which could be worth even a tiniest bit’s weight in gold.

Thus, the physiognomy of this purview has been populated and determined by ‘scholars’ more often than not second-rate ones, always replicating obsolescent platitudes, out of not only benightedness, but also fear of tipping the balance of threadbare ‘knowledge’. And yet, subsequent fourth-rate ‘researchers’ no less ignorant of philosophy, who are infesting the field and are sometimes mediocre and usually less than so, have rhapsodically acclaimed some of those people as ‘authorities’, naming enthralled nugatory clergymen or philologists, never mind holders of some degree in history – all of them demonstrably untrained amateur-‘philosophers’ seeking to impress by means of nescient truffle-hunting and hodgepodge of Ancient and Late Antique Greek ‘passages’.

The phenomenon is not new, since it was also Origen who wrote that ‘in philosophy, too, there are many phony ones’ (πολλοὶ γὰρ καὶ ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ νόθοι).⁶ It is this kind of self-appointed modern feigned ‘philosophers’ that simply copy the claims of spiteful prelates of Late Antiquity, who crudely strove to present Origen’s ingenious analyses and exposition as ignominious miscarriage, such as the allegation that he was a ‘Platonist’, which modern ignorance turned to the asinine ‘Christian Platonist’, so that ‘the last deception should be worse than the first.’

Origen was quintessentially a philosopher, but the overwhelming majority of those who presume to speak of him are entirely untrained in this field. Hence, once works that cast light on Origen’s philosophical background appear, their only funny reaction is to bury their panic-ridden heads into the sand.

This is perfectly understandable. Would it not be more convenient, indeed soothing, to turn a blind eye to works that have cast light on untrodden territory, but they are impossible even to read (let alone consider) because of the background they demand on the reader’s part? Would it not be a supine appeasement to escape any sort of situation of being riddled with self-doubt? Would it not be better to parry uncomfortable books, which unsettle the sterile nirvana of ignorance? Would it not be better for theologians, philologists, or fourth-rate historians to spare themselves from a daunting personal peripeteia after all? Who could possibly be prepared to concede without trouble that, despite having written pages on steroids, in fact such ‘scholars’ are in for a shock, and those pages have turned out worthy of only a little room in the garbage?

Therefore, ostensible turning a deaf ear to the real Origen, is not in fact lack of interest: it is dismal trepidation by aghast overblown academics, only because something unthinkable is pressing the forefront of their minds: everything they knew about Origen, everything they wrote, everything they taught because they have so been taught, is abjectly nescient and now arrantly upended and relentlessly shred?

The case is exactly the same as that of the Arab theologian Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Sayyar ibn Hani al-Nazzam (c. 775 – c. 845), discussed later in this book: since he was a theologian, histories of Islamic philosophy pass him over almost out and out, although he wrote and bequeathed otherwise unattested testimonies, including stupendous reports revealing also the intimate spiritual relationship between Porphyry and Origen.

As temporally remote and different as those two cases are, they have a specific gist in common: after the sixth century (with the closure of the Academy), ‘theology’ and ‘philosophy’ came to be regarded as two fields proof to each other – as if Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Simplicius, Damascius, and numerous other brilliant minds, were not regarded as great fertile minds on theology, too. However, all of those are banned from the syllabi of faculties of theology, just as to Origen the doors of faculties of philosophy are hermetically shut, although Origen’s era credited him as the great philosopher, who was equipped to review and assess philosophical treatises humbly submitted to him by heathen accomplished philosophers.

Consequently, this redounded to almost all of theologians loathing knowledge of philosophy (assuming that some of them have the acumen to do otherwise). I know, of course, of a few bloated winbags among theologians, who claim possession of some degree also in philosophy – yet, in at least two of those cases, on closer look, the gilt is taken of the gingerbread.

By the same token, students of philosophy do not fancy even reading Origen, or Nemesius of Emesa, or Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who, by the way and ironically, could have been but (the converted Christian) Proclus himself. They anxiously ignore theologians such as Eusebius and Theodoret, whose knowledge of ancient philosophy was by no means inferior to that of the philosophers of their time and later ones. Hence, the delusion of theology and philosophy being ipso facto proof to each other took on a life of its own, and came to be boldly declared openly and assertively.

However, long before all of these, Origen realised that he had to begin construction of a Christian canon ab ovo, and explicitly condemned the rubbish of some of his predecessors, such as Melito and Tatian. He wrote as if there was no Christian legacy whatsoever, and applied his stupendous Greek erudition to use instead. On this, Porphyry was right, notwithstanding his vituperative mood against Christianity in general and the captious one towards Origen specifically.

The reason why Origen came to be admired by his contemporary highly erudite Christians and Greeks were the same as those that led a few of his ancient detractors (e.g. Marcellus of Ancyra) and all of the modern theologians: Origen had changed the rules of the trade, and on that ground, modern theologians have been always in dire straits.

It is in the nature of bigots always to look for a dog to kick – and Origen has always been the most convenient case for that matter: most of ancient chroniclers (now ridiculously styled ‘church historians’) never cared to read, let alone study, his work; it sufficed that the inveterate verdict about ‘the damned Origen’ had been long-sanctioned and shrouded with imperial ‘authority’. Thus, students of theology have always been fed by blatant derelict allegations unfettered by any concern for accuracy and promiscuously shirking any modicum of truth.

This is why I have persistently urged philosophers to engage in Origen’s study. For the more philosophers will look into Origen’s theories, the more orthodox those theories will turn out to be.

In 1859, Darwin corroborated the ancient Stoic notion of συμπάθεια (universal interconnection) in the context of his own theory, which revealed the complex connexions between all life on earth: remove or damage one part of the delicate web of life, and you can cause catastrophic consequences elsewhere.

The Bible informs that God saw that his creature / logoi was ‘good’: this is beautiful indeed, but the web of relations is fragile. Origen opened our eye to this, through his vital insight into the intricate interconnections of logoi / causes, whereby he explored their (to human mind, infinite) linkages. His notion of successive worlds coming to pass in accordance with a certain Causality was motivated by his cardinal doctrine of creaturely freedom. In fact it was his conviction that purge of sinful action could come about through free will. In contrast, the Medieval invention of the Purgatory sought the same end by means of fire, and, at a time, remission through ‘indulgences’.

It was this idea of ‘cleansing through fire’ that Origen had forcefully dismissed upon confuting the Stoic tenet of universal conflagration, due to the harmonious order of the world having been damaged, when a certain element overpowers all the others. Upon closing his extensive refutation of Celsus (VIII.72), he proclaimed a sheer different axiom.

Contrast to that [sc. to the Stoic doctrine], we maintain that the time will come when the Logos will prevail over the entire rational nature (ὅλης κρατῆσαί ποτε τὸν Λόγον) and will have transmuted every soul to His own perfection (καὶ μεταποιῆσαι πᾶσαν ψυχὴν εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ τελειότητα), once each individual, by merely exercising one’s power of choice (ἐπὰν ἕκαστος ψιλῇ χρησάμενος τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ), opts for what one wants (ἕληται ἃ βούλεται) and comes to be in the state of things one has chosen (καὶ γένηται ἐν οἷς εἵλατο).

This is his idea positing that a soul becomes what is does. It suffices for the soul to opt for hearkening to man’s ‘spirit’, of which ‘the soul is a priest in the temple of the body’, whereby the soul will be transmuted to ‘spirit’, and will be ‘one spirit’ with the Logos (1 Cor. 6:17). It was this Theory of Creation and consequent Anthropology that reshaped cardinal Hellenic notions, notably ones of Anaxagoras, whereby also the Presocratic’s Nous bespeaking the Supreme Principle was reasserted.

To Origen, the Anaxagorean logoi / causes construct a boiling cauldron, which stirs and manages Becoming per se. This influenced Gregory of Nyssa from the ground up, and it was with his having gone to great lengths to secure his insights that Origen’s resolution came into its own. Since the logoi comprising the Body of Logos are bound together in an incessant dynamically causative complex of relations, ‘irrational’ human action (ἀλογία, Stoically identified as ‘sin’) resulted in the Body of Logos being ‘re-crucified’, which means that the resurrected God is still suffering out of human activity. Beyond all these, as well as other doctrines (which the Greeks styled ‘barbarism’), Origen propounded theories that were plain un-Platonic on argued philosophical grounds, which was a tough message in its own right. This did not pass unnoticed by Plato’s diadochi, of whom Proclus took strong exception to Origen’s fundamental doctrine (Nous is the Supreme Principle, Plotinus’ One is a non-existent figment) already since Origen’s pagan period, and contended that Plato could have never included Origen among his pupils. But Origen was not any philosopher – he was a universally hailed genius of philosophy. This is why his attitude to his contemporary critics that styled him ‘delusional’ because of his new theories was self-possessed and indeed sarcastic. If there were people that dreaded Origen’s novelties, this was not Origen himself: it was his erstwhile companions, who could not easily belie Origen’s genius and background upon facing Origen defending his new faith with steely determination. However, scholars have always been reluctant to listen and slow to act, only because they have no inkling of the full implications of his legacy. Definitely, Origen’s thought has for them many surprises in store, not the least of which is their impotent dread at Origen’s formulations that are heavily loaded with a glorious Greek tradition mostly unknown to both theologians and numerous philosophers.

Had it not been for Origen to be asked to confute Celsus, some of his cardinal insights and revealing formulas he had been sitting on for years, could have never come to light. His propositions always appeared to theologians disturbingly intricate, hence, befuddled as they have always been, they have habitually opted for burying their head into the sand and for constructing perceptions of their own (e.g. pre-existence of souls) which are naive as much as they are fictive. They are simply incompetent to comprehend Origen’s insights. This is why he has never been held to answer through a due and fair process. Instead, they sought to vanquish Origen not simply from the church, but from the stage of History altogether.

There is a need, therefore, to dismantle one of the worst misunderstandings in the history of ideas. No doubt, grasp of this legacy is not easy, but this is not impossible either. After all, this is about one of the main aims of history of ideas, which is the relationship between the still living and the long dead.

Origen spent the last twenty-eight years of his life dwelling at Tyre, Porphyry’s birthplace, too. While living there, he retreated from the focus of the limelight and (unlike what he did in the early De Principiis, which he wrote walking tightrope), he kept his most intricate resolutions to himself, because those called for exceptional background and keenness of insight, bar the notion of Universal Restoration, which had a critical bearing on his theory of salvation – actually, a bearing on the most critical aspect of Christian teaching. Origen just felt that, in consideration of the social forces limiting the chances of his theories being understood, he should drive himself to relative reticence.

He experienced all but halcyon days, living in bleak solitude and almost as an outcast hated by the local bishop (History and Reason point their finger at Methodius, who wrote against Porphyry, too)⁷ and suffering the spite of the Christian clergy because he was ‘new in the faith’ (νεώτερος τῇ πίστει),⁸ that is, an ex-pagan convert, as Psellus also wrote and Origen himself insinuates at scores of points of his work. This was an experience of which he speaks in his commentary on Matthew, probably his last work, composed in more or less reclusiveness, which he endured only because he knew that he did not choose it but incurred it because he was himself chosen. This was an ostensively uneventful period because of his self-seclusion, certainly a sombre one, yet it was not unfruitful for that matter: instead, it was a fertile and mature period, as his commentary on the gospel of Matthew evinces. No matter how resentment by his surrounding prelates had taken a toll on him, his winter years at Tyre showed no let-up in his creative output – actually it was during that period that his parlance became still more straightforward and tenacious, which endowed him with a renewed and enriched redemptive power. After all, Origen was as wise as to know that not only is fame fickle, but also sometimes it attracts the maleficence of ungifted fudging ciphers. Thus, he learned what is like to be a privileged and to be an outsider; to be hailed as an authority and to be damned as a heretic.

On that account, I myself would have thought that it might well have been that those years helped him plump the depths of the human condition further. At all events, he withstood the hardship of the long last period of his life, because he was determined to offer all of his fruits to his present, which turned out his true generosity to the future.

Actually, he was trained in enduring through thick and thin, which is why he was not a candle in the wind, nor was his enormous Greek background left to fester into a state of collecting dust despite his environment’s efforts to wreak havoc on his morale. His paideia became a sore spot to the ferociously flustered local bishop, who put the blame on Origen on account of libellous and indeed delusive aberrations of that bishop’s own making, and brooded about Origen’s illustriousness rather than his real writings. But this has always been the case with blind fanatics: a life full of evasions desperately struggling to shroud ineluctable inner doubts and misgivings.

In any case, he always felt like a single riding-horse not apt to collective work or attached to a group. After all, crows fly in groups but eagles fly alone. This is why his putative association with the clergy of Caesarea lasted for no more than a short period, after which he moved to Tyre. Quite simply, a man who had no rival in terms of genius and vast philosophical background was utterly averse to engaging in sharp contention with less than mediocre savage beasts of prey. When he settled at Tyre, he all but had his day, and, despite all real or ostensible admiration or fake praise, all too often were accusing fingers pointed at him.

As it normally happens, geniuses attract all sorts of enemies, and indeed Origen’s predatory foemen lurked, always eager to find faults in his teaching. For example, speaking in first person, he refers to ‘the faultfinders’ (οἱ φιλαίτιοι), who had ‘accused him’ (κατηγορήθην), only because he spoke of and construed ‘the foolishness of God’ (τὸ μωρὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ), whereby they took offence at this. And Origen had to reply to them by saying what was all too evident: this was but Paul’s phrase (1 Cor. 1:25), which of course shows the mental quality of those scandalmongers.⁹ Likewise, when he said that any living being has a body which is apposite to their natural environment, and adduced the physical structure of fishes as a relevant case, he caveated, ‘I have just said this as an example; let no one use this as a pretext in order to accuse me on account of what they did not hear’ (παράδειγμα ἔλαβον, μὴ ἀφορμάς τις λαμβανέτω ὧν οὐκ ἤκουσε).¹⁰ This was imperative for him to say, since (1) he was explaining his theory about the soul and its prospects; (2) to speak of ‘fishes’ in relation to the ‘soul’ could be slanted and associated with Plato’s theory of metempsychoses to ‘women’ or ‘birds’, or ‘fishes’ or ‘oysters’;¹¹ (3) he made both of those points in homilies of his, that is, before an audience which could have included not only sympathisers but also insidious backbiters poking around for duplicitous vilification.

All of these mean that, given his experience, he was always alert to the danger of slander by mendacious vilifiers. In the second instance, he had sought to explain that it is possible for the soul ‘to transform to something which is superior and more divine’.¹² He meant the soul becoming ‘spiritual’; but since he spoke to a larger public, he kept from explicating what he meant, which was but the tripartite human constitution and his (un-Platonic) Theory of Logoi. This is why, in his letter to Julius Africanus, he spoke of those fault-mongers who lay in wait for him, ‘seeking pretexts in order to slander eminent men and impute blame to the distinguished ones (καὶ μὴ προφάσεις διδῶμεν τοῖς ζητοῦσιν ἀφορμάς, ἐθέλουσι τοὺς ἐν μέσῳ συκοφαντεῖν καὶ τῶν διαφαινομένων ἐν τῷ κοινῷ κατηγορεῖν).

Likewise, ‘to explicate the things that preceded generation and those happening with those that have been generated is precarious to do. For once one hears those, unable as he is to comprehend them, he would be embarrassed, even if the exegete expounded the truth about those.’¹³

In reality, Origen’s crucible was only a façade veiling an unbridled tenacious creative vigour, which was concomitant with his unique ability to demonstrate a miraculous harmony upon making the most of his Greek paideia in order to produce a discursive contemplation of the Christian revelation.

Presumably, Eusebius knew of Origen’s ordeal, which is why he contrived the mythology about his hero having been a Christian by birth and nourishment. Nevertheless, Eusebius was all but an underwhelming or dishonest scholar: he was a very learned one, and could be very accurate whenever he wanted to be so; but when circumstances called otherwise, he had no problem with making up history, as it happened with his hagiography of a knave such as Constantine, whose reign was soaked by blood. When it came to his social status, Eusebius was unbending and displayed a chameleon-like ability to adapt himself. But if circumstances threatened to compromise that, he was all too yielding. He had no problem with recanting his staunch opposition to the Nicene homoousion, but when his followers were sent to exile one after another, and his turn was at hand, he went along, making himself a reluctant signatory to the decree. It was only then that he recalled (in an self-exculpating epistle to his Caesarean flock) that this term had been used by ‘eminent scholars and authors of old’, certainly meaning Origen, too – and Athanasius promptly quoted that point of the epistle both in his narrative about the Council of Nicaea and in his epistle to the African bishops.

Therefore, in connexion to Eusebius’ truthfulness when he wrote Origen’s ‘biography’, suffice it to recall that he himself had made clear his practice, in the title of an entire subsection explaining this: “On that it will be necessary sometimes to use lie as a remedy, in order to benefit those who need such a treatment” (Ὅτι δεήσει ποτὲ τῷ ψεύδει ἀντὶ φαρμάκου χρῆσθαι ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τῶν δεομένων τοῦ τοιούτου τρόπου).¹⁴

Eusebius knew that Origen had been born on the wrong side of the religious divide. However, given the mood of his times and the wanting cultivation of that historian’s audience, he knew that it was not difficult for those people to be carried away. In an epoch when there was pressure for everyone to declare their true allegiance, to divulge their inner soul and indeed lay it bare, the struggle of power and conscience was too flaming to do away with. It was a rather dramatic situation to be born into, and Eusebius knew the price of conscience and the cost of disloyalty to one’s patrimonial heathen allegiances. How then could he have written about an ‘Origen’ who had not been faithful to his roots? And what could possibly Eusebius have said to those whom (by means of that specific treatise) he ‘prepared for the Gospel’ other than present to them an ‘Origen’ who was born to a Christian father (to later chroniclers, a bishop!)?

This could have been one of the main reasons why ‘use of lie’ appeared to Eusebius worthwhile (actually, edifying), all the more so since, with Origen, Christian theology got on the rise and vigorously ushered into a reinvigorated dawn of enlightenment, during which Christianity could stand up to Hellenism on new terms.

Since the early hours of his heyday, Origen experienced the rancour of not only the Greeks who felt betrayed by him, but also of high-echelon Christians. However, he allowed himself to flee from that surroundings, only because he felt that his wide horizons, his penetrating discernment, and the far-ranging erudition were jeopardised. In such circumstances, he did what Jesus had taught: “when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next one” (Matt. 10:23). Otherwise, he was perfectly equanimous of his incisive astuteness and he confidently believed that this gift had been bestowed on him by God. This is why he also felt that (like the ‘talants’ [τάλαντα] of the parable in Matthew’s gospel) this was nonetheless a ‘sign’, which kept him on red alert concerning his obligation to return those ‘talants’ to the Lord, after he had multiplied them as much as possible. And the only way for him to achieve this was to make his own talents beneficial to other people – but gradually he realised that he ought to do so especially to people whom he felt at home with, as I discuss later (pp. 90 and 682). Hence, to Origen, writing was the only bright spot in his life at Tyre. However, theologians of later times took up the cudgels against him, and wrote inflammatory libels inculpating him. No matter how uncouth all of those aspersions were, they succeeded in causing his work to incur the wrath of the State, which resulted in his official anathematisation in the sixth century.

Origen was certainly aware of how much his own formulations were indebted to the toil of some brilliant men of old. However, the Scriptural text apart, all of those were outside philosophers, not Christian predecessors. Nevertheless, in order to transform all of this patrimony to fresh and innovative ideas, he struggled very hard.

As for the novelty of making up ‘two Origens’, those who maintain this should be ‘logical to the end’. And logical consistency compels that the ‘Christian Origen’ should be the one biographised by Eusebius. There can be no ‘third Origen’,¹⁵ except in references that are irrelevant to our present scope, and they indeed mention other people by that name. In this context, some questions arise.

Question one: could it have been possible for a Christian zealot, who disposed of all of his Greek books when he was still a young boy, ever to have entertained a highly nuanced technical philosophical terminology (as discussed below, pp. 25–28; 113–114), indeed a locution that was loaded with a very heavy weight in the annals of philosophy?

Question two: why did he write openly to his pupil Gregory Thaumaturgus that he regarded ‘Geometry and Music, Grammar, Rhetoric and Astronomy’ as ‘useful to unlocking the meaning of the holy scriptures’ and indeed indispensable introductory knowledge to Christian theology? And why did that pupil, in his Panegyric, feel it necessary to recall gratefully Origen’s syllabus and made special mention of Geometry, Astronomy, Music, and Rhetoric – all of which had been cultivated by the damned Greeks? As a matter of fact, Origen was censured for his vast Greek knowledgeability and arrant refusal to forsake his Greek studies, also during the period he was a Christian teacher, which impelled him to write a letter defending himself for his ‘sin’.