Provoked in part by Marcion’s repudiation of
the OT and desecration of the New, Origen’s emphasizes the unity and integrity
of the whole Christian canon. He also stresses the harmony between the Law and
Gospel. The contrast between Origen’s interpretive categories and those of
modern, chiefly Protestant, interpreters is obvious. This may be in part due to
Origen’s failure to apprehend correctly some aspects of Paul’s thought. What is
undeniable is that there are real and apparent similarities between certain
Protestant theological formulae, especially those of Calvinism and Lutheranism,
and the assertions of Gnostic and Marcionite exegesis. E. Molland has observed:
In all the works of Origen there is hardly a
passage where he conceives of the relation of the Law and Gospel in the Pauline
terms of GK [law] and GK [grace], the role of the Law being to convince mankind
of sin and bring all men under the judgment of God, whereas redemption comes by
Grace through the Gospel. Of this idea, which is so central in theological thinkers
like Marion and Luther and has determined their whole conception of the Gospel,
there are but very faint traces in Origen. . . . Origen thus conceives of the
difference and contradiction of the Law and the Gospel in quite other terms
than those of judgment and grace, viz., in the terms of imperfect and perfect
religion. (E. Mollland, The Conception of the Gospel in Alexandrian Theology
[Oslo: I kommisjon hos. J. Dybwad, 1938[, p. 121)
This passage illustrates
the chasm standing between Origen’s teaching and Protestant theology,
especially the Lutheran antithesis between Grace and Law. Another point of divergence
is Origen’s repudiation of the natural predestinarian doctrine of his Gnostic
opponents, a doctrine which seems to resemble that of the double-predestinarianism
of Calvinism. (Thomas P.
Scheck in Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 1-5 [trans.
Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 103; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2001], 22-23)
Elsewhere,
Sheck notes that:
To Origen, justification is more than
a remission and more than a renewal. It is the reception of Christ himself, our
justice (1 Cor 1.30) who makes us just. It begins with a bestowal of forgiveness
of past sins that takes place at the moment of faith and baptism. It it is
identical with the process of sanctification so that it can increase, decrease,
or be repudiated through negligence. (Ibid., 48)
For
the above, 9.3.4 is referenced. Here it is in Scheck’s translation:
(4) In light, however, of his statement
that grace is given “for that which benefits,” it can also come to pass that
even if the measure of faith in someone is great enough to merit receiving a
higher grace, if the Holy Spirit, when he looks into the future, judges that it
will not benefit the recipient, he inevitably apportions it to each one as he
wills and as is beneficial. After all, we observe that many have received the
grace of teaching or exhorting the people and, having become puffed up because
of this and having turned to arrogance, have fallen into the judgment of the
devil. Others have indeed received grace but have ruined it through the negligence
of their mind and the laziness of their life. It was from this that the man who
had received the denarius and wrapped it in a piece of cloth did not want
anything to be earned from it. It was for this reason, after all, that the
Apostle also writes, saying to his most beloved son, “Do not neglect the grace
that is in you.” He knows that grace can be lost through negligence. But in
regard to what he said, “according to the rule, or measure, of faith,” I think
I have already adequately explained above which is the faith that is demanded
from us and which is given by God through grace according to what the same
Apostle says, “to others, faith by the same Spirit”; and again, as the apostles
elsewhere say to the Lord, “Increase our faith”; that the faith that would hope
and believe and trust without any doubting is indeed in us; but the rule of
that faith and the knowledge and perfect understanding of what we believe is
given by God. (Thomas P. Scheck in Origen, Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans Books 6-10 [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The
Fathers of the Church 104; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2002], 206-7)
Further
Reading:
Thomas
P. Scheck, Origen
and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origen's Commentary on Romans