But as concerns “subordination,”
it does not at all signify this here, and, on the other hand, it does not mean
the equivalent in other places. So when you read in the Apostle: “When all
things are subordinated to him, then the Son himself will be subordinated to
him who has subordinated all things to him” (1 Cor 15.28), hear “when all
things are subordinated to him” in a manner worthy of Christ’s own
subordination (11). It must be, then, that, when all things have been
subordinated to Christ, so that, with all things subordinated, he might present
all things as an offering to the Father, then he is to be subordinated. For if
something like this is not to be understood in that passage, something impious
will be understood by those who have not grasped what is written: “When all
things are subordinated to him, the Son himself will be subordinated to him who
has subordinated all things to him.” And one of those who do not understand
will ask: “If the Son will be subordinated to the Father when all things have
been subordinated to him, is the Son, then, not actually subordinated to the
Father? (12) Even as we pray to be subordinated as soon as possible to the
logos, has he not yet been subordinated? But look at his great love of humanity
and kindness: he does not reckon himself subordinated, as long as there is
anything not subordinated to the Father. He will count himself among those
subordinated and be hold to say, “I am subordinated to God,” when all things
prove to be subordinated to the logos. (Psalm 36 Homily 2 in Homilies on the
Psalms: Codex Monacensis Graecus 314 [The Fathers of the Church; trans.
Joseph W. Trigg; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2020], 91-92)
Notes for the Above
(11) By “comparing
spiritual things to spiritual things” . . . “subordination” (hupatogē),
understood worthily (axiōs), implies the eschatological hope of assimilation
to the divine logos, that is, divinization, not simply being subject to him.
The model is the subordination of the Son to the Father in 1 Cor 15.28. In Comm.
Jo. 6.57.296 Origen states that if we understand being subordinate to
Christ “in a manner worthy of (axiōs) the goodness of the God of the
universe, we will understand ‘lamb of God removing the sin of the cosmos’” (Jn
1.29). See also Princ. 3.5.7.
(12) Interestingly,
in light of later criticisms of Origen for having a “subordinationist”
understanding of Christ’s relationship to the Father, putatively inconsistent
with equality of the person of the Trinity proclaimed by post-Nicene orthodoxy,
what Origen would consider impious (asebes) is not the belief that
Christ is subordinate but the prospect that he might not be subordinate to the
Father.