Celsus apparently taught some type of
human sinfulness with guilt (πλανη) upon birth
in contrast to the Christian teaching of moral innocence. Origen acknowledges
that some biblical passages (e.g., Ps 51) might appear to affirm such pagan
ideas, but he denies any guilt for sin at birth (Cels. 7.50). Indeed,
the sin nature (genuinae sordes paccati) enters humans through physical
birth (Hom. Lev. 8.3; 12.4; Comm Rom. 5.9; Cels. 7.50). .
. . Origen’s Hom. Jos. Has also been cited as a work that supports
paedobaptism.
dicentes de infantibus, quod et tu fuisti infans in baptismo, quia
"angeli eorum semper vident faciem Patris mei qui in coelis est."
Coram istis igitur filiis Israel, qui aderant illo in tempore, cum tibi fidei
sacramenta tradebantur, videntibus faciem Dei, Iesus in corde tuo Deuteronomium
scripsist. (Hom. Jos. 9.4)
However, the broader context suggests
that it may not be literal infants that are being discussed. Origen describes
these recipients of baptism in specific terms of ‘anyone believes in Jesus
Christ,’ and education in the mysteries of the faith. Infans was used
figuratively of catechumens receiving instruction at baptism (cf. 4.1; 5.3)
(Trigg [1982]: 960. “In his homilies on Joshua, Origen compared the newly
baptized to the newly circumcised.”) This raises questions whether Hom. Jos.
9.4 can be a passage on paedobaptism. Origen elsewhere reiterates their
instruction in the faith, renunciations, and promises prior to baptism (Hom.
Ex. 8.4.8-15; Hom. Num. 12.4.5; Hom. Ps. 38, 2.5.1-23; Hom.
Josh. 26.2), thus prohibiting infants due to liturgical requirements (e.g.,
Hom. Num. 12.4.5). As Ledegang correctly asserts, “He acknowledges the
legitimacy of infant baptism (Hom. Lev. 8.3; Hom. Jos 9.4; Com.
Mt 15.36; Hom. Lc 14.5; Comm. Rom 5.9) but all the tenor of
his thought turns around baptism as a process of moral conversion of intelligent
souls.” (Ledegang [2004], 69-70) In Matt 15.36 Origen similarly uses this
allegory in the parable of the vineyard. Paedobaptism cannot be objectively
identified.
Origen believed physical conception
within the mother’s womb contaminated the chid, proved by the command for the mother’s
post-partum sacrificial purification. “Omnis ergo homo in patre et in matre pollutes
est, solus vero Iesus Dominus meus in hanc generationem mundus ingressus est,
in matre non est pollutes” (Hom. Lev. 12.4) (Kenneth M. Wilson, Augustine’s
Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to “Non-free Free Will” [Studien
und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 111; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018], 70-71)
Wilson
then cites from the Latin of Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus 8.3. Here is
an English translation:
(3) For also such a great prophet-I
mean Jeremiah who "in the womb" of his mother "was
sanctified" and "was consecrated as a prophet for the nations,-would
not have composed something useless in the books destined to be eternal he
could preserve some secret, full of profound mysteries, where he says,
"Cursed be the day in which I was born, and the night in which they said,
behold a male child. Cursed be he who announced to my father, saying, 'A male
child was born to you.' Let that person rejoice as the cities which the Lord
destroyed in anger and did not repent it." Does it appear to you that the
prophet could have invoked such severe and oppressive things unless he knew
there was something in this bodily birth that would seem worthy of such curses
and for which the Lawgiver would blame so many impurities for which he
subsequently would impose suitable purifications? But it would be lengthy and
better suited to another time to explain the testimony which we have taken from
the prophet because now our purpose is to examine the reading of Leviticus, not
of Jeremiah. (Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1-16 [trans. Gary Wayne
Barkley; The Fathers of the Church 83; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1990], 156-57)
Continuing,
Wilson notes that
Origen does not say the mother
sacrifices for sin in purification after birth (Lev. 12.2), but only
notes its similarity to a guilty person sacrificing for sin. Either the
physical intrauterine location or conception from the father’s sperm contaminates
a newborn. He does not explain what an “uncontaminated body” might be, but that
“all who sin are contaminated in the father by whom they were created” (Hom.
Lev. 8.3.2). He does not state that all become sinners by contamination
from the father. Even his allegories demonstrate no evidence for transmission
of sin or guilt.
Most importantly, Origen’s Hom. Lc.
14.3-5 carefully distinguishes between the birth stain (sorde) and sin (peccato).
The fact that even the sinless Jesus required purification upon physical birth proves
Origen was not thinking of a guilt of original sin, (appealing to Christ’s
birth from a virgin cannot dismiss Origen’s point) but rather some physical
stain from the birth process (i.e., blood). (Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion,
71)
Origen distinguishes grace from
rewards. Christians earn rewards through their own efforts by availing
themselves of God’s grace, while grace itself (not good works or faith) is God’s
gift (Comm. Rom. 4.4-5). Higher honor and rewards (payment) come to
those who are diligent in pursuing God (e.g., Comm. Rom. 8.7.4; 8.7.7),
and especially those who suffer martyrdom valiantly (Exhort. 14). He
admits some persons do relegate individual good behavior to unilateral divine infusion
into the human ‘will’-the heretics who destroy free choice (P. Arch.
3.1.5). (Kenneth M. Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free
Choice to “Non-free Free Will” [Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum
111; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018], 66)
