Ilaria Ramelli on the question of pre-existence

 Ilaria Ramelli on the question of pre-existence

In her book 'A Larger Hope, vol. 1', Ilaria Ramelli writes the following:

"Justinian’s Letter to Mennas attacks a number of doctrines that he attributed to Origen himself, but were certainly not Origen’s, such as the coeternity of creatures with God, the preexistence of disembodied souls, the sphericity of the risen body (but also the denial of the risen body and the eschatological destruction of the body, ascribing two inconsistent theses to Origen!), besides the transmigration of souls mentioned above. In particular, Justinian linked the preexistence of disembodied souls to metensomatosis in Origen, while Origen himself rejected both doctrines." (A Larger Hope, vol.1, p. 171)

However, Rufinus of Aquileia, who translated into Latin various works of Origen of Alexandria, including 'On First Principles', writes this in his 'Apology agains Jerome':

"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 (2); source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27052.htm )

So, it appears that, according to Rufinus, Origen did believe in the pre-existence of souls in heaven. Interestingly, a part of this quoted is cited in Ramelli's book but the reference to the pre-existence of souls is, for some reasons, removed:

"it befits the character of the Trinity, who is good, simple, and immutable, to hypothesize that every creature, at the end of all, will be restored into the state in which it had been created at the beginning, and this will take place after a long punishment, even coextensive with the duration of all the aeons, inflicted by God to every creature, not because God is angry, but in order to correct, because God is not excessive in punishing iniquity, and since the intention of God, as Physician, is that of healing humans, he will put an end to their punishment." (quoted in A Larger Hope, vol.1, p. 149)

I guess that Ramelli can be right in what she writes in the first quote if Origen believed in a bodily existence in the 'heavenly pre-existence'. 

*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 ) *


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