Sunday, January 22, 2023

Origen on True Believers Losing their Justification and Affirming Baptismal Regeneration in his Commentary on Romans

 Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-254) wrote the following:

 

But the law of faith suffices for righteousness, even if we have done nothing, can be demonstrated from the robber crucified with Jesus and the sinful woman in Luke. . . .For it was not from any work but from her faith that her sins were forgiven her; and she heard the words: "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Lk 7:50). But that unrighteousness committed after coming to true knowledge destroys the faith of the one justified, Paul will show quite clearly. I also think that the works done before faith, even if they seem to be correct, do not justify the one doing them because they are not built upon the proper foundation of faith. (Fragment of Commentary on Romans, in Origen, Spirit and Fire, ed. Hans Urs von Balthasar [trans. Robert J. Daly; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1984), no. 487, p. 198)

 

Notwithstanding his use of “sola fide” like language, Origen clearly was not a “proto-Protestant” (cf. the “word concept fallacy” all too common in Protestant approaches to the patristics), as he believed that one could lose their justification. Furthermore, he also explicitly taught baptismal regeneration elsewhere in his commentary on Romans (showing that he did not believe baptism to be a human work):

 

"You were cast out on the open field because of the depravity of your soul on the day you were born" (Ezek 16:5). Can anyone already have a depraved soul on the very day of birth? He is really describing our passions and human vices and customary depravities. . . . If, after the rebirth of baptism, after receiving the word of God, we sin again, on that day on which we are born, we are cast out (cf. Ezek 16:5). All too often we find people who have been washed in the baptism of the second birth and do not "bear fruits that befit repentance" (Lk 3:8) nor rejoice in the mystery of baptism with a greater fear of God than they had when they were catechumens, nor with a fuller love than they practiced when they were only hearers of the word, nor with holier deeds than they did before. These will suffer the kind of fate spoken of here: "You were cast out on the open field because of the depravity of your soul on the day you were born" (Ezek 16:5). (Ibid., no. 406a, p. 162)

 

Indeed he comes to this rebirth only through the "washing of regeneration." If you want to understand that washing, consider how John, baptizing "with water for repentance," said of the Savior: "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Mt 3:11). Thus in the rebirth through the washing (Tit 3:5), we have been buried with Christ: "For we were buried with him," according to the Apostle, "by baptism" (Rom 6:4). IN the rebirth of washing through fire and the spirit we become "like unto the glorious body" of Christ (Phil 3:21), . . . if "we have left everything and followed" Christ (Mt 19:27). (Ibid., no. 984 p. 353)

 

986 Hear how the Savior explains in two places the meanings of "fire" and "sword." In one place he says: "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Mt 10:34). But in another place: "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled" (Lk 12:49). Thus the Savior beings both "sword" and "fire" and baptizes you "in sword" and "in fire." For those who have not been healed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit he baptizes "with fire". . . . These are divine sacraments [mysteries] which transcend human words and are known to God alone. But they consist more in the conferring of graces than in different kinds of torments.

 

987 Just as John stood by the Jordan waiting for those who came for baptism, some of whom he sent away with the words: "You brood of vipers," but the rest, who confessed their sins and vices, he accepted, so too will the Lord Jesus Christ stand in the river of fire by the "flaming sword"; and all those who, after departing this life, want to cross over into paradise but need purification, he will baptize them in this stream and bring them across to what they desire. But they who do not bear the sign of the prior baptisms, he will not baptize in this washing with fire. For it is necessary first to be baptized "with water and the Spirit" (Jn 3:5) so that, when arriving at the river of fire, one can show that one has undergone the washings of water and the Spirit and so is worthy also to receive the baptism of fire in Christ Jesus. (Ibid., nos. 986-87, p. 354)