Finally, and most distinctively,
we have in iv. 24 the words ‘God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship in spirit and in truth’. Origen fully recognises the importance of this
text. It has, he says, every appearance of being a definition of the ουσια of God. But if we were to take it
as such we would be committing ourselves to the view that God is σωμα.
In its literal sense πνευμα
is as physical a word as fire or light. Its use is therefore just as
metaphorical in this case as in the others. The significance of the metaphor is
this. Just as the literal πνευμα
around us provides the essential breath of physical life, so God is called πνευμα because
it is he who leads men to real (αληθινος)
life (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 13, 21-23). So for Origen
the assertion that God is πνευμα
is not a straightforward assertion of the incorporeal nature of God. Rather God
is incorporeal, in spite of the fact that he is called πνευμα (Origen, Con. Cel. 6, 70).
In the second half of the text he does allow that the appropriate contrast with
worship in the spirit is bodily or fleshly worship, but this is based more on
the total context and on the conjunction with worship in the truth than on the
inherent meaning of the word πνευμα
itself (Origen, De Principiis, 1, 1, 4; Con. Cel. 6, 70).
Tertullian agrees with Origen in
asserting a physical element in the literal meaning of πνευμα. He writes ‘Who will deny that
God is a body, although “God is a Spirit”? For Spirit is body of its own kind,
in its own form’ (Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 7, 8) The conclusion is the
exact opposite of that of Origen, but the premises are identical. (Maurice F.
Wells, The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the
Early Church [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960], 67-68)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
