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The Concept of Time in Origen

by Panayiotis Tzamalikos (Author)
©1991 Monographs XVI, 606 Pages

Summary

It is the first time in the bibliography worldwide that Origen's concept of Time is expounded in an ad hoc treatise, in a courageous and well-executed attempt to eliminate long-standing miscomprehensions.
There is a reassessment of the relation between Hellenism and Christianity, both in general and as this is demonstrated in Origen's work. The author takes the opportunity to exonerate the Alexandrian from the traditional charge that he compromised his theology by mingling it with much of the substance of Platonist and Stoic philosophy: an old fallacy which has resulted in Origen being regarded as one of the chief architects of the Hellenization of Christianity.
Against any ancient or modern account, it is proven that Origen did not hold any notion such as the so-called "eternity of creation": a revolutionary thesis, substantiated and confirmed through Origen's own texts in Greek, most of which have remained unstudied hitherto.
Origen does have an eschatology, which is expounded in detail. In fact, this is the case of an intensely and fervently eschatological thought, determined by notions such as providence - prophecy - promise - expectation - kairos - realization - faith - hope - waiting - fulfilment - end. A thought earnestly oriented towards a promised, and thus expected, end.
On account of the major points forcefully made, and the vast number of assertions of modern and ancient scholarship convincingly rebutted, it is understandable why Philosophia, the Journal of the Academy of Athens, argued that after this book "nothing will be the same with regard to our knowledge of Origen, as well as the evolution of ideas during the first three centuries of the Christian era and the critical interplay between Hellenism and Christianity during the same period".

Details

Pages
XVI, 606
Publication Year
1991
ISBN (PDF)
9783034365208
ISBN (ePUB)
9783034365215
ISBN (Softcover)
9783261044402
DOI
10.3726/b23620
Language
English
Publication date
2026 (June)
Keywords
Concept of Time in Origen Panayiotis Tzamalikos
Published
Lausanne, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, New York, Oxford, 1991. xvi, 606 pp.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Panayiotis Tzamalikos (Author)

Panayiotis Tzamalikos, MSc, MPhil, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His books include The Concept of Time in Origen (1991 –his Phd at the University of Glasgow, 1987); Origen: Cosmology and Ontology of Time (2007); Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology (2007); A Newly Discovered Greek Father – Cassian the Sabaite eclipsed by John Cassian of Marseilles (2012); The Real Cassian Revisited – Monastic Life, Greek Paideia, and Origenism in the Sixth Century (2012); An Ancient Commentary on the Book of Revelation – A critical edition of the Scholia in Apocalypsin (2013); Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism – The Legacy of Anaxagoras to Classical and Late Antiquity (2 vols. 2016); Origen: New Fragments from the Commentary on Matthew (2020); Origen and Hellenism – The Interplay Between Greek and Christian Ideas in Late Antiquity (2022); Guilty of Genius – Origen and the Theory of Transmigration (2022); The Wisdom of Solomon and the Byzantine Reception of Origen (2023); Daemons in Hellenic and Christian Antiquity (2025).

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Title: The Concept of Time in Origen