Summary
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".
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: God, World and Time
- §1. God and Time
- §2. The Providential Creation
- §3. The Fall and Creation of the World
- The conception of the world
- The notions of not seen and invisible
- God is incorporeal
- The world is material
- The world as καταβολή
- §4. The notion of “eternity of the world”
- §5. God, World and Time
- The “place” of the Logos
- World and Time
- Conclusion
- Chapter 2: The Conception of Time
- §1. Time in itself
- The background
- Time as extension (διάστημα)
- The term σνμπαρεκτείνεσθαι
- Time is a dimension
- Time is a creature
- Time is a continuum
- Time and the notion of Infinite
- Relativity in the perception of time
- Origen's influence on his successors
- Conclusion
- §2. Prolongation of Time
- The cause of consummation
- The end of aeon and Judgement
- The outcome of Judgement
- §3. Time and Causality
- The kinds of motion
- Free moral action as motion
- Trial of motion in time
- The notions of “fastness” and “slowness”
- God and creaturely freedom
- The conception of causality
- Natural causality
- Causality in rational action
- Existential causality
- The notion of pre-existent causes
- Time as the extension of freedom
- Causality between time and timelessness
- Timeless causality?
- Conclusion
- Chapter 3: The Character of Time
- §1. Human being throughout an aeon
- Origen and the doctrine of transmigration
- The distinction between soul and spirit
- Human being throughout an aeon
- Conclusion
- §2. Time and the Incarnation of Christ
- The perpetual advent of the Logos
- The consummation of aeons
- The uniquness of the Incarnation of Christ
- Incarnation and Time
- The eternal gospel
- The “intelligible crucifixion” of Christ
- Conclusion
- §3. The conception of prophecy
- §4. The concept of καιρός
- The kairoi in God’s action
- The notion of kairos in man’s action
- The notion of kairos and the character of Time
- Conclusion
- Chapter 4: Time and the Notion of Eternal
- §1. Eternal life
- Eternal life as end
- Eternal life as contemplation
- The conception of eternal life and Greek thought
- §2. Eternal life and the notion of Infinite
- The term αἰώνιος as a homonym
- §3. Eternal life and freedom
- The changelessness of eternal life
- §4. Eternal death
- Conclusion
- Chapter 5: The End of Time
- §1. The final abolition of evil
- §2. The perfection of all
- §3. The absolute end
- The notion of “after” the eternal life
- The “perfection of resurrection”
- The absolute end
- The dissolution of corporeality into non-being
- §4. The raison d’être of Time
- Conclusion
- Notes to the Introduction
- Notes to Chapter 1
- Notes to Chapter 2
- Notes to Chapter 3
- Notes to Chapter 4
- Notes to Chapter 5
- Notes to the Conclusion
- Bibliography
καὶ ἡ παιδεία σου
ἀνώρθωσέ με εἰς τέλος,
καὶ ἡ παιδεία σου
αὐτή με διδάξει
To My Mother
Maria
πτωχὸς εἰμι ἐγὼ
καὶ ἐν κόποις ἐκ νεότητός μου
ὑψωθεὶς δὲ
ἐταπεινώθην καὶ ἐξηπορήθην
Contents
Preface
This book is partially based on my Ph.D. Thesis which I had done at the University of Glasgow after a four-year full time research. In the years thereafter I carried on with my research both on Origen and the question of Time. This treatise then is the result of scholarship spanned in a long period of time.
I wish to acknowledge gratefully the partial sponsorship of this research by the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation.
The typewritten version of this book was dedicated to my mother Maria, with affection and full awareness of how much I owe to her. Meantime she passed away. Yet again I dedicate this book to herself, not simply to her memory.
For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
P. T.
Introduction
There is a remarkable difference in how space, on the one hand, and time, on the other, have been treated. At the dawn of Greek philosophy (the onset of philosophy itself) the Presocratic philosophers regarded the spatial aspect of the φύσις as an unquestionable datum. They sought to discover the permanent principles behind the φαινόμενα, but no one put the very existence of space proper in question. Thus the Euclidean conception of space encountered virtually no controversy throughout its historical life. In fact this conception of space endured for more than two thousand years.
By contrast, the question of time has received a vast variety of considerations and has been a matter of controversy since antiquity -a controversy which is still going on. Parmenides’ denial that succession is real established the first radical doubt about the very existence of time; a doubt which never ceased to tantalize philosophers ever since until our day. This is quite understandable even by common experience. Space constitutes a concrete sensory tangible reality. In spite of the fact that the world is an obviously temporal reality, time proper is an evasive conception. Meditation upon it demands introspective experience and recollection; in short, it demands abstractions far more elusive than the notion of space does. Space is available to the most immediate experience (or, so it was thought to be), namely, sight. Time appears as a reality apprehended subsequently to space and thus it is an abstruse conception. This led to reflection on time through non-temporal features and mainly to the “spatialization of time” -an illustration which was established as a well entrenched intellectual tradition, which is none the less responsible for many of the miscomprehensions of time proper and its nature. This tendency began with the observation of the periodicity of motions of heavenly bodies; it went on with the correlation of time to spatial motion; eventually time in itself came to be virtually spatialized and thus altogether eliminated. Quite rightly Bergson, almost a hundred years ago, pointed out that if we try to conceive time as a static geometrical line, we are really thinking of space.1
Thus the conceptualization of space proved to be far more steadfast than that of time. As the concept of space went effectively unchallenged right through the centuries, it provided a sufficient philosophical base, which played a decisive role in the growth of natural sciences. On the other hand, the non-commensurate developement (or, at least, general acceptance) of a sound philosophical ground for the comprehension of the nature of time played its part in a disproportionate development of the understanding of man and society. Great thinkers, especially religious ones, offered their accounts on the nature and meaning of time. The historical failure, however, lies either in the fact that they were neglected, even by those whom they were addressed to, or they were not properly understood. Yet it is primarily the conception of time which profoundly affects a philosophy of history and, in the final analysis, all the aspects and manifestations of human being in its temporal course. The most elementary manifestations of life involve the notion of time. The very notion of experience involves the distinction between past, present and future. Even the sense of to be as an individual, as well as the personal opinion about it, is based upon a certain understanding and evaluation of the historical process.
It was not meant to be so, it was not even realized that the problem of time was directed to such a spatialized perception, yet the fact is that this evolution lasted since Parmenides and Zeno until the twentieth century. Certainly this was not accidental. For no philosopher devoted his reflection to the question of time exclusively: this was just a part of his conception of reality as a whole. Hence, how time was viewed became an infallible indicator of fundamental orientations of a certain philosophy. For such a view is not just an fortuitous by-product of a physical or metaphysical system or doctrine proposed by a philosopher or by a school of thought. It is an essential constituent, an expressive and meaningful manifestation of the gist of a perception of reality as a whole and of the attitude towards this reality.
This is the reason why it is reasonable to expect that a certain conception of time can provide significant conclusions about the overall philosophical attitude respective to this. As the concept of time is pivotal into a general existential attitude, such a study may further enlighten other facets of a philosophy. Crucial conceptions, such as cosmological, anthropological, eschatological, the attitude to death, moral ideas -all are directly involved, and interwoven with, how time is perceived and what its meaning is felt (if not consciously known) to be. For time constitutes an essential element of an entire philosophy and thoroughly imbues all the vital premises of an existential attitude.
How thinkers conceive of time then, as well as the manner in which they portray their perception of it, is consonant with their overall conception of reality. The concept of time stands in harmony with their fundamental philosophical premises, their conception of being as a whole, as well as with their methods and dialectics of investigation of philosophical problems.
In view of this, the attitude of thinkers towards the notion of time is highly indicative of their general philosophical orientation. For it is not only their general philosophical tendency that determines the conception of time. But also, a certain view of time plays a decisive role in the formation of a general philosophical stance. How to live, what, if any, is the purpose of individual existence, how death is faced, what might constitute the content of a possible hope -all these are bound with time; how, if at all, God is conceived of; the perception of the world, its destination and purpose, if any; whether or not the world was created and all the temporal implications that the notion of creation entails -these are bound with the very conception of time, too. This close connexion of one’s general view of reality to his conception of time decisively forms his ideas of the future, namely, his expectations and the overall visualization of things in the time to come. For it is mainly the concern for the future that affects an existential attitude. No one, for example, feels fear in thinking that he did not exist before he was born -on the contrary, this thought rather brings about a feeling of inexplicable safety. But the awe at the idea of future non-existence is not unusual. As a matter of fact, such a horror is only one facet of the fear of death.
Beyond these general considerations, there are special reasons which render the study Origen’s conception of time necessary. For the Alexandrian’s thought has been a point of intense, and frequently tempestuous, controversy: a controversy2 since the fourth century until our day. It should be expected then that a definition and elucidation of his conception of time may provide clarifications, as well as elimination of miscomprehensions, of other crucial facets of his highly controversial theology3 -especially with respect to his cosmology and eschatology.
The criticism levelled against Origen varies. The best case is to regard him as the thinker who brought closely together Greek thought and the emerging religion of Christianity.4 A midway stance is the assertion that he was restricted by the church tradition and the Bible -but only to the extent that they did not contradict his own ideas.5 A more extreme opinion is that he was but a Platonist who did nothing more than composing an amalgam, a sui generis hybrid of Platonic and Plotinian thought in biblical terms.6 At any rate, the charge is that he was responsible for a “Hellenization” of Christianity. In this context he is considered as a kind of Christian “Gnostic”, in as much as Gnosticism is regarded as an “extreme hellenization” of Christianity.
To deal with this question in general is beyond our scope, since our aim here is to ponder upon Origen’s conception of time. This criticism, however, in its various degrees of moderation or extremity, will be extensively discussed in as much as it is related to aspects of his thought pertaining to our topic.
The birthplace of Origen, Alexandria, was where a number of different streams of thought were converging. Greek-Hellenistic schools, Hebrews, Christians and exponents of various oriental cults encountered each other -all these at a time when the Roman Empire was in a most powerful period of its history. Controversies, disputes, syncretism, eclecticism, allowed the flourishing of schools of thought such as the Judaeo-Hellenistic thought and Gnosticism in a Christian garment.
Origen found himself in the midst of this variety of religious, philosophical and existential attitudes. It is significant then to consider this famous “Greek” background which allegedly influenced him profoundly to a degree regarded as an unforgiveable deviation from the Christian orthodoxy. We should then make a survey of the various conceptions of time preceding Origen. Following this, one might be able to judge whether he formed his conception of time under the influence of, or in contrast to, his background or contemporary environment. Such a survey becomes all the more necessary since his works show that he was well aware of the various streams of thought converging in Alexandria. Despite the controversy surrounding his thought, his erudition has never been put in question. On the contrary, this has often been regarded as his crime, since it is sustained that his philosophical background was the cause for him to “hellenize” Christianity.
Most certainly Origen was an erudite man. But was it a matter of knowledge?
This is the critical question which brings to the core of his pre-suppositions towards a formation of a conception of time. In order to answer this question it will be of utmost significance to consider not only the evolution of a particular philosophical notion (be it time, or whatever) but also to take into account the profound changes which were taking place at the time.
As a matter of fact, the epoch in which Origen was born (185 A.D.) is a period at which radical tranformations were taking place. It was not a question of employing this or that philosophical opinion. It was something more thorough, more urgent, more dramatic: a profound, and none the less painful, change of existential attitude is the main characteristic of the era.
The major fact was that the more people were coming in contact with the various philosophical systems, the more they realized that philosophy was unable to fulfil its own self-imposed task: that is, to offer people the deeper knowledge of truth, through which they would reach virtue and bliss. Scientific knowledge (already largely undermined by Scepticism) did not believe any more that it possessed the truth. In the Stoic assemblies there was an idea which was constantly gainning ground: they realized and admitted that it was impossible for any human being to materialize their ideal of the wise man -which had so clearly and insistently been portrayed by them. From all the quarters, in all streams of thought, it had become evident that a human being cannot know the reality of things through his own power. Subsequently, no man could attain to virtue and happines if he relied exclusively on his own power. People were living under a Roman empire in which the social inequalities were an everyday experience; they were seeing all the goods of earth around them -and yet not belonging to them. Having to cope with the exigencies of daily life, they were faced with the inclemencies of both the political reality and philsophy. They felt ensnared in a world where neither the institutional framework of the Roman empire (animated by real people in everyday life), nor science, nor philosophy could provide solace so earnestly longed for. So there was an increasing change of interest from this world towards a better one. After the elapse of many centuries, people found themselves again filled with a passionate desire for the supernatural, a hunger for religion, a profound need for the salvation of the soul rather than mere knowledge and its confirmed impasses.7
Civilization, which had already given its fruits of Art and Science and exhausted itself, was turning to Religion again. The search for the reality of things in a supernatural non-sensible world already posited by Plato, the Aristotelian monotheism, the Stoic ethics -all were elements of a past still echoing at a period when people were orienting themselves towards redemption beyond the sensible world; a redemption that would be reached not through a process of intellectual activity, but by means of a revelation offered to people in one way or another.
So the requirements of science and life converged. Science sought to find in religion the solution of the problems which had been tantalizing it for so long time. Life, on the other hand, was seeking to base the hunger for religious faith on a scientific foundation or form.
Alexandria was the center of this radical historical procedure and transformation of the entire civilization. In the Library (Museum) of this cosmopolitan commercial capital city were treasured the fruits of the Greek erudition. People of every tribe and origin were gathered in that city, in order to find answers not to scientific questions any more, but to the feelings and existential requirements which were overwhelmingly pressing them. There were of course differences among cultures, stemming from diverse options for certain values. Still the quest for salvation seemed to prevail as the common pursuit of these different people.
Such was the environment in which early Christianity was developing. It has been suggested that Christianity built the system of its own doctrines by coming to terms with the old philosophy.8 Origen found himself in a period in which history of philosophy was increasingly interwoven with history of dogma. The relationship between Christianity and philosophy had been opened up by the Apologists. This phenomenon was to continue for a very long time.
The task facing Origen, therefore, was not to compose a theory of time and add one more account to the long series of scientific or philosophical tradition which reached him. It was the urgent need of the period to form in the first place, rather than merely couch, a view of time, which should be in tune with the Christian perception of the world and would serve the exposition of the new religion. For there were special reasons which rendered this demand particularly urgent.
The new religion was founded on the events related to the historical life of Jesus. The revelation did not come from the mystical experience of some master who was regarded as a chosen vessel of God; but it was based on a concrete historical occurence. It was a task of Christian thinkers to elucidate the significance of this event. Hence the problem of philosophy of history comes to the fore as one of prime importance. The Presocratic religious question had been treated mainly in terms of the stability behind the φύσις, the essence behind the phenomena. With Christianity it is the problem of the world in time that becomes of main priority. This does not mean that earlier schools of thought did not seek a purpose of the course in time. Plato did reflect on the ultimate goal of the earthly life. Aristotle did research on the teleological causal sequence according to which civil life was formed. The Stoics, as well as Cicero, did visualize a world-state based on reason as a goal which human race ought to fulfil. What was entirely new though was the question of an overall meaning of human history -a meaning originated in a “plan” or, as it was expressed, in an οἰκονομία, the dispensation of God already manifested and realized in the person of Jesus.
Christianity was grounded on the conviction that the advent of Jesus constitutes the pivotal point of the world history, as well as a turning point in a process towards salvation. The sense of victory stemmed from the belief that, in the person of Jesus, the first and decisive victory against evil had already been won. What remained was this victory to be realized for the entirety of the world in the future.
This is the fundamental perception on the ground of which a Christian conception of time should be formed. The question of the old philosophy about what is Being and Becoming, was not so much expressed in terms of the “essence” of φύσις behind the phenomena as contrasted to the phenomena themselves. It was now clear that Being is God whereas Becoming is a meaningful process in time, in which divine and creaturely will encounter each other. God manifests his will and man is free to obey or to disobey, to conform or not to conform to it, being responsible for his own action. All this interrelation was seen in the context of a teleological process, namely, a course towards a goal, an end, which was exemplified and prefigured in the personal historical life of Jesus and his promise to his disciples about the eschatological expectation.
Our scope in this work will be to enquire into Origen’s conception of time in itself, as well as to see whether or not he assignes an intrinsic meaning to it; and, if the answer to this question is positive, to see what actually constitutes this meaning of time.
We shall argue that the concept of time is present in the entire theology of Origen as a fundamental element which was formed in full accordance with his general perception of the world from a Christian point of view. This concept reflects the entirety of his theological views and thoroughly imbues them. Thus, although it was not our purpose to expound the whole of Origen’s theology, we have regarded the study of all the aspects of it as an indispensable presupposition for the understanding and exposition of this crucial facet of his thought. For, as we emphasized, how a thinker conceives of time is an expressive manifestation of his entire thought. This conception stands in close relation to one’s entire perception of reality, in natural, philosophical and theological terms. For, as we shall show, the notions comprising a certain view of time make up the kernel of a philosophy and they actually buttress up its cardinal tenets. This concept, therefore, cannot be determined unless every aspect of this thought has been perused. For the notion of time both determines and is determined by all the facets of a certain philosophy or theology or existential attitude to life in general.
The scientific benefit out of the study of Origen’s conception of time lies in the fact that this may elucidate other crucial aspects or particular points of his thought. We shall argue that his view of time is the decisive means through which long-standing miscomprehensions of his thought can be eliminated.
In studying this, we have followed certain principles drawn from the experience of how his work has been approached or treated hitherto:
A large part of Origen’s works has been preserved in the Greek original text; another is extant only in Latin versions; there are also extensive parts of his writings preserved both in the Greek original and in Latin translation. It is generally accepted that Latin versions must be read with caution: not only because Rufinus has no hesitation to explicate that he has taken some liberties in rendering Origen’s thought; but also because a comparison of Greek original texts to their respective in Latin show that the differences are not always just linguistic; they are essential. It is not just a question of Rufinus’ striving to avoid misunderstandings, or to comply with what was regarded as “orthodoxy” at his time; neither is it his being rather talkative, in his endeavour to produce an interpretation rather than mere translation. The most critical point is that Rufinus himself had not comprehended principal facets of his master’s thought, such as his conception of time and his eschatology. Thus he a priori regarded the task of translation as too intricate, while the requisite was simply a plain verbatim rendering of the Greek text in Latin. Thus he did not abstain from carrying out (indeed, perpetrating) what he saw as his own emendations of the Greek text.
The Latin rendering of De Principiis is an outstanding monument of this unfortunate fact. It is regrettable that, although this is declared as a free rendering, the vast majority of scholars made claims about Origen’s thought based on this text. With regard to the notion of time, when a student approaches the Latin version of this work intending to study the question of time, he is struck by a characteristic fact: whenever there are references crucially involving the concept of time (such as God himself with respect to time, or the relation of the persons of Trinity between themselves, or God’s relation to the world) there seems to be an unawareness of the momentous significance of the question of time in the treatment of these questions. Terms such as “before”, “after”, “earlier”, “later”, “younger”, “older”, applied to these subjects, seem to be used with no consciousness of their significance. For example, there are portions such as this: “... to prevent anyone from thinking that the title of Almighty belonged to God before the birth of wisdom, through which he is called Father; ...” or: “... the title of Almighty cannot be older in God than that of Father, for it is through the Son that the Father is Almighty...”.9
It is obvious that the terms “before” and “older” imply a kind of temporal sequence or temporal priority. Further, there are expressions such as “the world ... began to exist at a definite time ”;10 God did not exist “even for a single moment ” without begetting his wisdom.11 There is also reference to “certain ages or periods of time ... during which the world” might not exist, in order to reject the idea that there were “ages or periods” when God was not almighty and a “time when he began to have creatures”.12 Also, “wisdom is everlasting ”,13 whereas the author wonders as to whether “there will ever be a time when there will be no world anywhere, or if there ever was a time when there was no world at all”.14
Expressions of this sort seem to imply that time itself is something taken for granted; in fact they suggest that time is not considered at all. This simplistic manner in which the question of time seems to be treated in the Latin rendering of Princ indicates that time is applied to God unthoughtfully, without any serious analysis of the whole question.
The same happens with the notion of eternity. It is stated that “the term everlasting or eternal properly denotes this which had no beginning of existence and can never cease to be what it is ... His wisdom therefore is an everlasting brightness enduring eternally ...”.15 Although there is the additional definition “yet not in time”, the whole phrase suggests that the Son’s co-eternity to the Father is understood by placing the Son’s birth back to the infinite past.
Passages such as these seem to indicate that temporal notions are treated with unawareness of their crucial implications, even when they are attributed to the divine being. It is not difficult to find quite a number of similar passages in Princ where temporal notions are used in a awkward manner. The frequency of such terms is striking, particularly for someone who approaches this work with the intention to study the concept of time.
It would be then not unexpected if someone concluded that Origen considers time as an unquestionable datum attributed also to God’s life. However, we intend to show that such an assertion can be justified and grounded, to a certain extent, only in the event that the study is confined to the Latin rendering of Princ. Expressions such as “yet not in time” are actually Origen’s; yet they are almost lost and neglected into the flood of Rufinus’ arbitrary and unthoughtful use of unfit temporal notions.
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 (August)
- Keywords
- Concept of Time in Origen Panayiotis Tzamalikos
- Published
- Lausanne, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, New York, Oxford, 1991. xvi, 606 pp.
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