.
. . although the existence of the Son s derived from the Father, the Son is
also the Agent in imparting existence to all other existing beings. Thus the
Word of God is spoken of as the Agent by Whom (υφ’ ου) all things were made (Comm.
in Joh. 1.19). It is said elsewhere (Hom. in Exod. I.5) that though
the devil may have obtained power over those whom he has not brought into
being, they will eventually leave him and become followers of Jesus Christ,
their Lord and Creator Who has brought them into being (qui eos genuit).
On the other hand Origen corrects any misunderstanding of this statement by
saying elsewhere (Comm. in Joh. II.10) that strictly speaking, all
things came into being δια (by means of) the Word of God,
and not υπο (by the agency of) the Word of God, because
the ultimate Agent is a Being superior to the Word—none other, in fact, than
God the Father Himself. (J. Nigel Rowe, Origen’s Doctrine of Subordination:
A Study in Origen’s Christology [European University Studies 272; Berne:
Peter Lang, 1987], 4)
[There
are passages] where Origen appears to interpret the words in John i.16 “Of His fullness
have we all received and grace for grace” (χαριν αντι χαριτος) as meaning that the prophets received an
initial revelation from the Divine Word because they were predisposed to do so,
and a second and clearer one as a consequence of the former by God’s free gift.
In one passage (Comm. in Joh. VI.3), after saying that Abraham saw “the
day of Christ” even in his own lifetime (cf. John viii.56), Origen says that
the prophets first obtained an introduction through symbols (εν τοις τυποις) to the truth residing in Jesus and then
obtained a full vision of it through the guidance of God’s Spirit. In another passage
(Frag. In Joh. XI and Comm. in Joh. VI.6) where the virtue of
faith is discussed, it is said that a person first possesses faith as a result
of free choice (προαιρετικως) and then obtains a greater measure as a
result of asking God for it as the Apostles did. (Ibid., 38)
There
is a notable passage in Comm. in Joh. (Hom. in Exod. XX.27) in
which we are reminded that on one occasion Moses was called by God to stand “on
the rock” (Exod.xxxiii.21). Origen identifies the rock with Christ, and
therefore with the truth, seeing that Christ is Truth. But he points out that
many people are prisoners of false doctrines, so that they cannot easily stand
in the truth. However, once they attain to this state, they have outgrown human
status, and they are thus addressed as “gods” by the Supreme God. Elsewhere (Comm.
in Rom. III.1), Origen says that the human state is the result of a
declension from an original state of divinity, and then says that when God says
“You shall die as men” (ut homines) (Ps.lxxxii.7), He means that those
addressed will be destroyed so far as they are men, inasmuch as their sins will
be blotted out, and they will thus be made once more divine. (Incidentally,
those human beings who receive Divine grace can be called not only “gods” but “Christs”,
in so far as this grace is imparted through Christ (Contra Cels. VI.79)
and also “sons of God”, in so far as they come to have Christ’s sonship (Matt.
Comm. Series 111; Frag. In Matt. 5; Comm. in Rom. VIII.1; Sel.
In 1 Reg.). In one place Origen even says that those who set their hope on
the Word of God and the words of God can themselves become “words (λογοι) of God.”) (Cadiou, Frag. In Ps.
CXVIII.74)
None
the less the ultimate Divinity of the Father is safeguarded inasmuch as iti s
from the Father that the Son receives the power of imparting divinity to
others. It follows that though there are many beings who bear a likeness to the
one true God, the Archetype or Model from Whom this likeness is derived is the
Word of God, Who was “with God” in the beginning, and by continuing to gaze
steadfastly into the depths of the Father’s being remains Divine in the full
sense (Comm. in Joh. II.2). (Ibid., 47)
But
whatever the defects of Origen’s doctrine of creation, it at any rate enables
him to uphold the statement of the Saviour that “the Father Who sent me is greater
than I”, and His refusal to allow Himself to be called “good” in the absolute
sense, on the ground that this epithet is reserved for the Father, Whose
goodness is merely communicated to the Son (Comm. in Joh. XIII.25; cf. Comm.
in Joh. I.10; Comm. in Matt. XV.11; Comm. III in Gen, where
the love of Christ and the love of the Father are said to be reconciled if one
loves the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father). In the same way, Origen
says elsewhere that although the Son if good, He is not good purely and simply
(ουχ ως απλως αγαθος)
as the father is, because just as He is the Image of the Father, so His goodness
is merely the image of the father’s goodness (De. Princ. I.2.13).
(Ibid., 50)
It
has already been stated that those who apprehend invisible realities are
governed according to Origen by the Divine element in the Son of God, whereas
those who do not progress further than sensible realities are governed by the
human element of His nature. It is clearly to the latter element that Origen
refers when he states that the Lord Who made an end of all His enemies by His
Passion needed the cleansing which the Father alone could bestow on account of
His exploits, and thus prevented Mary Magdalene from touching Him when He
appeared to her after His Resurrection (Comm. in Joh. VI.55). We may
observe that this is the supreme instance of the fact recorded in Hom. in Num.
(XXV.6), where it is said that those who fight against the powers of evil and overcome
them are defiled and therefore need to be cleansed by the very fact of having
had dealings with them. In fact the greater the achievements, the greater the
purification needed (as in the case of St. Peter and St. Paul) (cf. also Hom.
in Luc. XIV).
On
the other hand, in Convs. With Her. (8.5-17) a quote different reason is
adduced for His refusal to allow Mary Magdalene to touch Him. There it is
stated that He had not yet returned to the Father to claim His spirit (πνευμα), which had been yielded to the Father to be
kept in trust for Him at the time of His crucifixion. It would however be said
that only through claiming back His πνευμα
could the other elements of His nature be cleansed.
In
order to understand the meaning of the “cleansing” which Christ is alleged to
have needed after the Crucifixion, it seems desirable to refer to another
passage, where Origen states that it was because our Lord submitted to death on
behalf of mankind that He became worthy of the second place of honour after the
God of the universe as an acknowledgement of His outstanding achievements alike
in heaven and on earth (Contra Cels. VII.57). It is clearly to the human
element of our Lord’s nature that this statement refers: so far as His Divine nature
is concerned, the second place is accorded to Him by the very fact of His
sharing in the Father’s Divinity. This perhaps give us a clue to the meaning of
the cleansing referred to by Origen as being needed after the Crucifixion. In
so far as Christ was human, He could not be said to possess the full knowledge characteristic
of the Word of God, and so while He was undergoing the suffering of the Cross,
although He might have some inkling of the purpose of it, that purpose would
not be fully apparent to Him, as the Cry of Dereliction makes clear. It was
only after the pain and agony were over that He would be in a full position to
appreciate why He had been obliged to suffer, and how the sufferings
contributed to the end they were intended to serve. That could only come about
when His πνευμα became full self-conscious, ie., when it
received the full influx of Divine enlightenment. It was as true of the human
Jesus as it is of every human being that he needed to advance in self-knowledge,
and that at no time in His life could it necessarily be said that the
self-knowledge was complete. If His chief work was accomplished without His
full awareness, that is simply equivalent to saying that God was in control of
His life, but that being human, He did not fully understand how that control was
exercised.
In
Matt. Comm. Series it is stated that when Jesus hung on the Cross, there
was inscribed over His head the text “This is the King of the Jews”; but when
he ascended to the father and received the Father into Himself, He gained
possession of Him Who was really designated b the title inscribed above the
Cross, and seeing that He had become worthy of Him, He became the Father’s
dwelling-place, He being the one Who was alone able to appropriate the Father
completely. “To gain possession of the father” really means to accomplish to
the full the Father’s purpose, to have linked one’s own will indissolubly to
the will of the Father; but it is still possible to hold that even in the act
of doing so, Christ in His human nature was not fully aware that this was what
He was in fact doing, and only became so aware later on. In this sense, the
human Jesus Himself progressed from “faith” to “knowledge,” inasmuch as He
endured what He did endure in a state of uncertainty as to whether it was valuable,
but in the end came to understand its value after emerging on to the “other
side.”
These
considerations may help us to understand the meaning of the curious passage in Hom.
in Lev. (IX.5) where Origen refers to the purifications which Christ underwent.
The first is suggested by the man who led the scapegoat into the wilderness in
accordance with Jewish custom, and was obliged to wash his clothes at eventide
because he had touched what was unclean; in the same way, Christ took human
nature upon Himself, ie. Flesh and blood, and washed it at the close of His
earthly life in His own blood, and thus became clean. In other words He
fulfilled in His own body the requirements of God when He suffered on the
Cross, because previously He had not been able to fulfill them. On the other
hand it is made clear that further purification was needed when He said to Mary
Magdalene after His Resurrection when she wanted to hold His feet “Do not touch
Me.” After He had taken the powers of evil to a desert place in the power of
His Crucifixion, it was necessary for Him to ascend to the father and be more
fully purified at the heavenly altar, so that He might bestow on our flesh, which
He had not ceased to wear, the gift of perpetual purity. IN other words though
He suffered to the full for our stakes on the Cross, He did not become aware of
the extent of His achievements until it was all over and He could enter into uninterrupted
communion with God and so be enlightened as to what He had in fact
accomplished. Then, and only then, could He convey these benefits to others. (Ibid.,
216-18)
