One important problem with ‘Origenism’

 

One important problem with ‘Origenism’

Associated with the Fifth Ecumenical Council (held in 553), there is a list of 15 anathemas that are directed against Origenism. The first and the fourteenth are of particular interest in this post:

1)       If anyone advocates the mythical pre-existence of souls and the monstrous restoration that follows from this, let him be anathema.

14)  If anyone says that there will be one henad of all rational beings, when the hypostases and numbers are annihilated together with bodies, and that knowledge about rational beings will be accompanied by the destruction of the universes, the shedding of bodies, and the abolition of names, and there will be identity of knowledge as of hypostases, and that in this mythical restoration there will be only pure spirits, as there were in their nonsensical notion of pre-existence, let him be anathema. (source: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2026/01/09/apokatastasis-origen-and-the-fifth-ecumenical-council-part-3/ )

These two anathemas clearly condemn a doctrine of restoration (apokatastasis) that is coupled with a belief in a state of ‘pre-existence of souls’ and the 14th anathema explicitly asserts that the final state will be the same as the initial state.

One problem is the ‘deterministic’ language that is used here: the final state in the 1st anathema is said to ‘follow upon’ the state of ‘pre-existence’. However, the biggest problem, in my opinion, was another.

In his discussion against Origen of Alexandria (c.a. 185-253), Augustine of Hippo (c.a. 354-430) at one point affirms that:

"But the Church, not without reason, condemned him [Origen] for this and other errors, especially for his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed periods of ages" (City of God, 21.17, source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120121.htm ) 

It is a debated issue if Origen himself asserted some doctrines that were attributed to him[1]. However, if by ‘Origenism’ we mean a system in which the final state of creation will be the same as the initial state, it certainly follows that sins and consequent falls from that ‘final’ state will happen again and, therefore, the supposedly ‘final’ state will not be final at all. But, rather, as Augustine tells us the consequence is a cyclical cosmology in which there will be a succession of state of blessedness and fallen states forever and ever.

 Indeed, if human beings (or, more generally, rational beings) existed in a state of blessedness from which they fell because they sinned and the ‘restoration’ (apokatastasis) will be a restoration to a state which is the same as the one in the beginning, it certainly follows that such a supposedly ‘final’ state will never be truly final. Sins in such a ‘final’ state will be always possible and the same goes for the consequent ‘falls’ from such a ‘final’ state. So, this ‘Origenist’ system doesn’t offer any chance of truly definitive salvation. The necessary consequence is that a true salvation is simply impossible and human beings (or, more generally, rational beings) are forever trapped in an unending cycle of ‘falls’ or ‘restorations’ (or at least, they will be always be trapped in a state in which falls will be forever possible).   

So whatever one think the original teachings of Origen were, it is clear to me that the belief in a restoration (apokatastasis) that  leads to the same condition of the initial state would lead to a sort of eternal cyclical universe in which history loses completely its meaning and, most importantly, a true final state, a true eschaton in which there is a permanent salvation is, indeed, impossible.

Of course, there are also other problems with this conception of ‘restoration’ – if individuality seems to be ‘abolished’ as the 14th anathema says, is it even meaningful to speak of a true ‘salvation’  or even a true ‘restoration’… A restoration of what? However, the main problem, I believe, is the one I described before: if the supposedly ‘final’ state will be the same as the initial, there is no real final state.

Clearly, if there is no true final state, the situation is completely helpless. We can think, for instance, of an Indian Samsara, the cycle of deaths and rebirths, without the possibility of Liberation[2] that Indian religions promise[3].

*Update (20/07):  In his Apology against Jerome, Rufinus of Aquileia (fl. 4-5th centuries) attributes the belief in the pre-existence of souls in heaven and a final restoration to Origen of Alexandria and this, in my opinion, leads support to the idea that Origen himself believed in the pre-existence of souls (however, it should be noted that, that this doesn't prove that Origen believed that the final state was the same as the initial. It just supports the idea that he did believe in some kind of pre-existence of souls in heaven):

"But now let us look at the other points which he blames. He says that the doctrines in question are of heathen origin, but in this judgment he condemns himself. He calls these doctrines heathenish; yet he himself incorporates them into his works. He here makes a mistake. Still, we ought to stretch out the hand to him, and not to press him too far: for it is only because he soars so completely above the world on the wings of his eloquence, and is borne along by the full tide of invective and vituperation that he forgets himself and his reason loses its place. Do not be so rash, my brother, as to condemn yourself unnecessarily. Neither you nor Origen are at once to be set down among the heathen if, as you have yourself said, you have written these things to vindicate the justice of God, and to make answer to those who say that everything is moved by chance or by fate: if, I say, it is from your wish to show that God's providence which governs all things is just that you have said the causes of inequality have been acquired by each soul through the passions and feelings of the former life which it had in heaven; or even if you said that it is in accordance with the character of the Trinity, which is good and simple and unchangeable that every creature should in the end of all things be restored to the state in which it was first created; and that this must be after long punishment equal to the length of all the ages, which God inflicts on each creature in the spirit not of one who is angry but of one who corrects, since he is not one who is extreme to mark iniquity; and that, his design like a physician being to heal men, he will place a term upon their punishment. Whether in this you spoke truly, let God judge; anyhow such views seem to me to contain little of impiety against God, and nothing at all of heathenism, especially if they were put forward with the desire and intention of finding some means by which the justice of God might be vindicated." (Rufinus, Apology Against Jerome, book 2, chapter 9; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27052.htm )*

*Update (21/07): Jerome of Stridon later in his life (in about 414 AD) also attests (albeit in a very critical way) a certain prevalence of the idea of 'pre-existence' of soul:

"Men of this type whisper in corners and pretend to inquire into the justice of God. Why, they ask, was a particular soul born in a particular province? What is the reason that some are born of Christian parents, others among wild beasts and savage tribes who have no knowledge of God? Wherever they can strike the simple with their scorpion-sting and form an ulcer fitted to their purpose, there they diffuse their venom. Is it for nothing, think you,— thus they argue — that a little child scarcely able to recognize its mother by a laugh or a look of joy, which has done nothing either good or evil, is seized by a devil or overwhelmed with jaundice or doomed to bear afflictions which godless men escape, while God's servants have to bear them?  Now if God's judgments, they say, are true and righteous altogether, and if there is no unrighteousness in Him, we are compelled by reason to believe that our souls have pre-existed in heaven, that they are condemned to and, if I may so say, buried in human bodies because of some ancient sins, and that we are punished in this valley of weeping for old misdeeds. This according to them is the prophet's reason for saying: Before I was afflicted I went astray, and again, Bring my soul out of prison. They explain in the same way the question of the disciples in the gospel: Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? and other similar passages. This godless and wicked teaching was formerly ripe in Egypt and the East; and now it lurks secretly like a viper in its hole among many persons in those parts, defiling the purity of the faith and gradually creeping on like an inherited disease till it assails a large number. But I am sure that if you hear it you will not accept it. " (Letter 130 to Demetrias, section 16; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001130.htm )*

*Update (22/07): See also this paper by Ambrose Andreano: https://www.academia.edu/44789406/Pamphilus_Justinian_and_the_Preexistence_of_Souls *

*Update (09/08): A further confirmation that the belief of pre-existence of (possibly disembodied, however this is contested: https://historicalchristian.faith/doctrine/doctrines/origin-of-the-soul/didymus-the-blind.html) souls was popular in Egypt at the time comes from the third book of Jerome's Apology against Rufinus in which he attributes the belief also to Didymus the Blind by saying that Didymus wrote a treatise to explain why infants die by saying that they die soon because they didn't sin much in the previous heavenly existence:

"And if I say that the church's doctrine is that God forms souls every day, and sends them into the bodies of those who are born, you will at once bring out the snares your master invented, and ask, Where is God's justice if he grants souls to those who are born of adultery or incest? Is he not an accessory to men's sins, if he creates souls for the adulterers who make the bodies? As if, when you hear that seed grain had been stolen, you are to suppose the fault to lie in the nature of the grain, and not in the man who stole the wheat; and that therefore the earth had no business to nourish the seed in its bosom, because the hands of the sower who cast them in were unclean. Hence comes also your mysterious question, Why do infants die? Since it is because of their sins, as you hold, that they received bodies. There exists a treatise of Didymus addressed to you, in which he meets this inquiry of yours, with the answer, that they had not sinned much, and therefore it was enough punishment for them just to have touched their bodily prisons. He, who was your master and mine also, when you asked this question, wrote at my request three books of comments on the prophet Hosea, and dedicated them to me. This shows what parts of his teaching we respectively accepted." (Jerome of Stridon, Apology against Rufinus, 3.28; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27103.htm ) *

*Update(20/08): This interesting link discusses the possible presence of belief in pre-existence of souls in some Jewish writings: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12340-preexistence-of-the-soul *

*Update(23/08): There is also other evidence that Didymus the Blind also believed in the pre-existence of souls (https://historicalchristian.faith/doctrine/doctrines/origin-of-the-soul/didymus-the-blind.html ).*


 


[2] Often called ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvana’.

[3] It is more like Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’. If that was true, despite what Nietzsche said, everything would be meaningless and the world would be an eternal prison from which we can never escape and in which there is no hope for any kind of improvement (as it remains forever the same).

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