In his book, Breaking the Mormon Code, a book-length attempt to respond to contemporary LDS scholarship, Matthew Paulson wrote that:
Origen knew of a type of
original sin. He has said, “Every soul that is born into flesh is soiled by the
filth of wickedness and sin . . .” (Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 8:3)
and, moreover, Origen clearly states, “Everyone in the world falls prostrate
under sin. And it is the Lord who sets up those who are cast down and who
sustains all who are falling. In Adam all die, and thus the world prostrate and
requires to be set up again, so that Christ all may be made to live.” (Origen, Homilies
on Jeremias, 8:1) (Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique
of Mormon Scholarship Regarding Classical Christian Theology and the Book of
Mormon [Livermore, Calif.: WingSpan Press, 2006, 2009], 136-37)
Comments like this show the poor patristic (not just biblical) understanding of Paulson in his book. Did Origen teach “a type of original sin”? Origen did believe man, after the fall, was morally fallen and “unclean” in this respect. However, Origen did not hold to the Reformed understanding of Original Sin and/or Total Depravity. Note the following from John S. O’Leary:
Origen
has a strong rhetoric of original sin, but it is skewed by his theory of the
fall of preexistent spirits into matter (see Fall, Anthropology, Cosmology).
Human birth is itself a result of sin in a previous existence and adds to that
sinfulness the "shameful" contamination of sexuality and materiality
(HomLev 8.3; 12.4; HomLc 14; HomPs 37.1.6; ComRm 5.9 [PG 14.1046-47]; ibid.
6.12 [PG 14.1094- 95]). It is conceivably possible that these texts may be a
source for the later Augustine's thinking on original sin. However, for Origen
sin is transmitted less by generation than by bad teaching and example; hence
Christ's regeneration comes with good teaching (ComRm 5.2 [PG 14.1024]). Sin
reigns only with the consent of free will (ComRm 5.3 [10260]), and not all who
commit sins, but only "many" (Rom. 5: 19), are "sinners" in
the full sense (ComRm 5.5). The Pauline vision of universal sinfulness is
further diluted by Origen's talk of degrees of sinfulness and of justification
(ComRm 3.3-5). Paul's stark cry, "No one shows kindness" (Rom. 3:12),
is taken by Origen to mean that no one completely succeeds in accomplishing the
good (ComRm 3.3) or that we perform only a "shadow of good" in
obeying the Law, which is itself a shadow of future goods (ComPs 52:2; d. Heb.
8:5; 10:1; ComRm 5.1 [PG 14. 1020]). (Joseph S. O'Leary, "Grace," in The
Westminster Handbook to Origen, ed. John Anthony McGuckin [The Westminster
Handbooks to Christian Theology; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press,
2004], 116)
Compare the above with Thomas P.
Scheck, who, commenting on the theology of Origen’s Commentary on Romans,
notes that Origen believed that, prior to regeneration (which was through the instrumentality
of water baptism), one had a “genuine freedom of will”:
Disregard for what is undoubtedly
Origen’s greatest exegetical achievement has resulted in imbalanced and
misleading depictions of his thought. Entire monographs on Origen have been
written with virtually no engagement with his Commentary. Yet the Commentary
is one of Origen’s longest and most mature works. It is the only commentary
of Origen that we posses in a coherent form from beginning to end. His work is
characterized by its opposition to Gnostic, i.e., predestinarian,
interpretations of Paul. Above all Origen defends Paul against the “doctrine of
natures,” i.e., the belief that all human beings are born with unalterable
natures, either good or evil, and thus bound for either salvation or damnation,
and that no conduct of theirs during this life can alter their destiny. Origen
successfully refutes this teaching, claiming a genuine freedom of will
always abides in rational beings. (Thomas P. Scheck in Origen, Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans Books 1-5 [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The
Fathers of the Church 103; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2001], 22-23)
Elsewhere,
in Book 5, Chapter 8, Origen provided the following commentary for Rom 6:3-4:
8, Do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so
that, just as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
too might walk in newness of life.
(2) Observe carefully the order of
words and the line of thought. For he compares the death which is through Adam
with the life which is through Christ; and he says, “The gift is not like the
trespass.” And likewise after this he says that the law entered so sin might
abound, but while sin was abounding grace superabounded. By these words he
solves the apparent contradiction and says, “For how shall we who have died to
sin go on living in it? Now then, because he wants to show in these matters
that it means to be dead to sin, he says, [M1038] “Do you not know that all of
us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death For we
have been buried with him through baptism into death,” teaching through these things
that if someone has first died to sin, he has necessarily been buried with
Christ in baptism. But if the person does not die to sin beforehand,
he cannot be buried with Christ. For no one who is still alive is ever buried.
But if one is not buried with Christ, he is not validly baptized.
(Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Books 1-5 [trans.
Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 103; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2001], 353-54)
Commenting
on the section in bold, Scheck wrote:
The un-sacramental stress of
Origen’s theology comes through clearly here. Without denying the efficacy of
the sacramental act, Origen emphasized that moral conversion had to take place
before baptism for any benefit to be derived from the rite. See 5.7.3, Hom
in Lv 6.2; Hom in Lk 21; Hom in Ezek 6-10;
and esp. Comm in Jn 6.17 (= FOT 80:215): “He is teaching that
the benefit of baptism depends on the choice of the one who is baptized. It is
a benefit for the one who repents, but it will result in more grievous judgment
for the one who does to approach baptism in this way. (Ibid., 354 n. 411)
Elsewhere,
in another footnote, we read that:
For [Origen] “dying to sin is
understood as an act of faith. No mention if made of the sacrament [of
baptism].” Whereas for Origen death to sin must take place before baptism, for
the other Fathers (Ephrem, Cyril of Jerusalem, Theodoret, Pelagius, Ambrosiaster,
Chrysostom), the death takes place at the same moment of baptism. (Ibid., 350
n. 376)
In other words,
according to Origen, an unregenerate man can have a genuine moral conversion to
God and experience “death to sin” before regeneration.
In
Book 5, Chapter 1 of his commentary on Romans, Origen provides the following
translation of Rom 5:12-14:
Therefore, just as sin came into
this world through one man, and death through sin, and so death passed through
to all men in that all have sinned. For sin was in the world until the
law. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion
from Adam to Moses, in those who sinned in the likeness of Adam’s
transgression, who is a type of hat which was to come. (Origen, Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans Books 1-5 [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The
Fathers of the Church 103; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2001], 303, emphasis in bold added)
Commenting
on Origen’s understanding of Rom 5:12 and “in that”, Scheck wrote:
In quo. Possibly “in which” or “in whom” or “because.”
Elsewhere (Comm. in Jn 20.39) Origen interprets the εφ’ ω of Rom 5.12 causally, i.e., “because” or “in that.”
In the present section he is somewhat ambivalent. He seems to allow the
interpretation of in quo as a relative clause, i.e., “in whom,” namely n
Adam. See 5.1.3 and 5.1.4 below. However nowhere does Origen develop the
concept of guilt inherited or imputed from Adam, as taught by Augustine and
Ambrosiaster in the subsequent doctrine of original sin. (Ibid., 303 n. 1,
emphasis in bold added)
For
the sake of being as thorough as possible, here is Commentary on Romans
5.1.3-4, referenced above:
(3) For when it is said, “Therefore
just as,” it would seem necessary that some kind of completion should be added
so that it be said: so also this or that. This is what he writes in several
other passages, for example when he says, “For just as in Adam all die, so also
in Christ all were made alive.” Here, however, when he said, “Just as sin came
into this world through one man, and death through sin, and so it passed through
all men,” he did not complete [his thought] to say, for example: so also
righteousness, and so life passed through to all men, in which all have been
made alive. For the sense of purposive style seemed to demand this, agreeing
with what he himself says in other passages. For there is no great difference
between this and what he says elsewhere, “For just as in Adam all die,” and
what he says here, “Therefore just as sin came into the world through one man
and death through sin, and so it passed through to all men, in whom all have
sinned.” Moreover, what he has said, “so in Christ all will be made alive,”
does not differ at all from that sense which above we said lacked style and was
left to the reader’s understanding.
(4) But it seems to me that Paul, who
says, “Our competence is from God, who has made us suitable to be ministers of
the new covenant,” and who also says, “Or do you desire proof that Christ is
speaking in me?” has not missed these things through a failure in his
eloquence. On the contrary he has anticipated something useful where, even if
the things which we said were lacking style and which need to be supplied ought
to be understood here, however, on account of certain negligent people who
perhaps could become slack, should they hear that just as death passed through
to all men through sin, so also life will pass through to all men through
Christ, [Paul] took care that these matters ought not to be spoken of openly
and publicly. At the same time he was also showing that even though
righteousness will come into this world through one man and, through
righteousness life will also pass through to all men, nevertheless this does
not happen at once in the present, nor does it come to pass to those who are
idle. [M1006] On the contrary it occurs to those who, by a great deal of
effort, and sweat, are able to ask for what is not seen, knock on that which is
closed, and seek what is hidden. (Ibid., 304-5)
In light of the
above considerations, I will now reproduce translations of relevant portions of
Homilies on Jeremiah and Homilies on Leviticus. When read in context, Origen is
not teaching the later formulation of Original Sin (e.g., Second Council of
Orange) or Total Depravity (cf. Synod of Dordt):
Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah
Homily
2:
God did not make death
and he does not delight in the destruction of living things; for he created all
things that they might exist and the creatures of the world are wholesome and
there is no destructive poison in them and the dominion of Hades is not on
earth. Passing over, then, a little passage, I will ask: From where, then,
did death come? By the envy of the Devil death came into the world. If,
then, there is something excellent in our regard, God has made it, but we have
created evil and sins for ourselves. For the same reason, the beginning of the
passage just read from the Prophet speaks in a rhetorical sense to those who
have bitterness in the soul contrary to the sweetness which God fashioned for
it: How have you turned to bitterness, you strange vine? as if he was
saying: God did not make lameness, but he had made all things swift of foot,
yet what cause arose which had made the lame lame? And God has made all limbs
absolutely sound, but what cause arose which makes things suffer? In the same
way, the soul, not only of the first man but of all men, arose according to
the image—for the statement, Let us make man according to our image and
according to our likeness, applies to all men. And, just as in Adam, what
most people think of as according to the image is prior to what was
superimposed upon it when he bore the image of the earthly due to sin,
so in all people what is according to the image of God is prior to the inferior
image. We have born, being sinners, the image of the earthly, let us
bear, after we repent, the image of the heavenly. Indeed, creation
was made according to the image of the heavenly.
(2) Hence there is a
concern here when the Word says reprovingly to sinner: How did you turn to
bitterness, you strange vine? For I planted you as a fruitful vine,
wholly true, In those things said before and when I resume after a little,
I will convince you that God planted the human soul as a good vine, but each
soul turned contrary to the plan of the Creator. I planted you as a fruitful
vine, wholly, not partly, true, not true in one sense, false in
another, rather, I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly true. How did you
turn, you whom I created as a wholly true vine, how did you turn to
bitterness and become a strange vine?
2. After this let us look
at the words: “Even if you wash in y and cover yourself with soap, you are
yet stained in your iniquities before me,” says the Lord. Does a
sinful soul, which has taken up lye and which washes itself in bodily lye,
suppose that it will put an end to its filth and put an end to its fin? Does
anyone assume that when he has taken up soap that arose from the earth and
washed himself and cleaned himself the soul is purified, because the word then
says to the one who has turned to bitterness and become like a strange vine: “Even
if you wash yourself in lye and cover yourself with soap, you are yet stained
in your iniquities before me,” says the Lord?
(2) Hardly, but one needs
to see that the Word has every power, and just as he has the power of every
Scripture, so the Word has the power of every ointment and he is the most
cleansing power of any purifying agent. For the Word of God is living and
active and sharper than any two-edged sword and whatever you mention, if
there is a need, it is in the power of the Word.
(3) Thus there is a lye
Word and a soap Word which, when it has been spoken, and purifies
that sort of filth. But since the Word which is lye and the Word which is soap
does not cure every kind of sin, and there are sins which need neither lye nor
soap, it is said to him who thinks that he has sins which can be washed away in
lye and soap: “Even if you wash in lye and cover yourself with soap, you are
yet stained in your iniquities before me,” says the Lord. And just as
certain wounds are cursed by emollients and others by oil and others need a
bandage and hence are healed, yet others are wounds about which it is written: It
is not closed with ointments or oil or bandages; but your country is a desert,
your cities are burnt up, so there are certain sins which foul the soul and
man needs for such sins the lye of the Word, the soap of the Word, yet there
are some sins which are not cured in this way, for they are not comparable to
filth. (Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28 [trans. John Clark
Smith; The Fathers of the Church 97; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 1998], 23-25)
Origen, Homilies on
Leviticus:
Homily 8:
The prophet, when he
reports three socalled virtues of God—his strength and his wisdom and his
prudence—assigns to each of them a certain work of their own: to his strength
earth, and to his wisdom the inhabited world, and to his prudence heaven. For
hear the text which says: The Lord who made the earth in his strength, who
set right the inhabited world in his wisdom, and in his prudence he stretched
forth the heaven. And we need the strength of the Lord with respect
to our earth (for it is written regarding Adam, You are earth),
for without the power of God we are unable to accomplish what does not concern
the mind of flesh. Putting to death the members which are on
the earth will be what concerns the will of the spirit, since, according to
the Apostle, the practices of the flesh are killed by the spirit.
Thus we read, the Lord who made the earth in his strength. But if you
also come over this earth, if you can see what was written in Job—as we find it
in the most accurate copies—that he stood it upon nothing, you will see
that it rested by the strength of God perfectly in the middle.
(2) I come also to the inhabited
world. I know the inhabited soul, I know the "deserted"
soul. For if a soul does not have God, if it does not have the Christ who said,
I and my Father, we will come to him and we will make our dwelling with him,
if it does not have the Holy Spirit, it is a desert. But it is inhabited when
it is filled with God, when it has Christ, when the Holy Spirit is in it. Yet
that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in the soul of man is said
variously and diversely in the Scriptures. So David, in the psalm of the
confession concerning these spirits, asks the Father, when he says, with a
governing spirit uphold me, a right spirit renew in me, and
take not your holy spirit from me. What three spirits are these? The Father
is the governing spirit, Christ is the right spirit, and the Holy
Spirit is the holy spirit.
(3) These to prove that
the inhabited world arises in no other way than in the wisdom of
God. For, wisdom gives strength to the wise man beyond ten rulers who live
in the city. And the one who despises wisdom and instruction is
miserable, and his hope empty, and his labors unprofitable, and his works
useless, says the book of Wisdom ascribed to Solomon. Hence insofar as possible,
since the inhabited world is set aright in the wisdom of
God, let us ourselves desire that our inhabited world, which perhaps has
fallen, be set aright. For this inhabited world has fallen
whenever we went to the place of affliction. This inhabited world has
fallen whenever we sinned, did wrong, acted wickedly, and it has need of
being set aright.
(4) Thus God is he who
sets aright the inhabited world. But if you do not take the passage he
who has set aright the inhabited world in that sense, but you understand
the inhabited world in a more ordinary sense, seek how it could be that
he sets aright the inhabited world, seek the fall of the inhabited
world so that when you have discovered its fall, you may see its setting
aright. Therefore if anyone is in this inhabited world—if you understand
inhabited world in this way—it is clear that it has need of being set
aright. For no one who has not fallen has need of being set aright.
It is clear that each of those in the inhabited world has fallen through
sin, and the Lord is he who sets aright those who have collapsed and
raises up all of those who have fallen down. In Adam all die, and so the
inhabited world has fallen and has need of being set aright, in
order that in the Christ all may be made alive.
(5) So in two ways I have
explained what concerns the inhabited world: I have shown, on the one
hand, how for each person each soul is either inhabited or deserted; and I have
set down, on the other hand, the meaning of the inhabited world itself.
(Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28 [trans. John Clark Smith;
The Fathers of the Church 97; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1998], 74-76)
Homily
8.2:
2. It says, "And the Lord spoke
to Moses saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, If any woman
conceives and bears a male child, she will be unclean for seven days.'”
First, let us consider according to the historical sense if this does not seem
to be a superfluous addition, "A woman who conceives and bears a male
child." How else could she bear a male child unless she had conceived? But
the addition is not superfluous.
(2) For the Lawgiver added this word
to distinguish her who "conceived and gave birth" without seed from
other women so as not to designate as "unclean" every woman who had
given birth but her who "had given birth by receiving seed." There
can also be added to this the fact that this Law which is written concerning
uncleanness pertains to women. But concerning Mary, it is said that "a
virgin,” conceived and gave birth. Therefore, let women carry the burdens of
the Law, but let virgins be immune from them. (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], 154)
Homily
8.3:
3. Now therefore, let us also inquire
what may be the reason that a woman, who in this world furnishes a service for
those who are born, is said to become "unclean" not only when
"she received the seed" but also when "she gave birth."
From this also she is commanded to offer "the young of pigeons or
turtledoves for sin at the door of the Tent of Witness" for her
purification that "the priest may make propitiation for her" as if
she owes a propitiation and a purification for sin because she furnishes the
service of bearing a man into this world. For so it is written, "And the
priest will intercede for her and she will be clean." I myself in such
matters dare to say nothing. Yet, I think there are some hidden mysteries contained
in these things and there is some hidden secret, for which "the
woman" who conceives by the seed and gives birth is called
"unclean," just as the one guilty of sin is commanded to offer a
sacrifice "for sin" and thus to be purified.
(2) But Scripture also declares that
one himself who is born whether male or female is not "clean from filth
although his life is of one day.” And that you may know that there is something
great in this and such that it has not come from the thought to any of the saints;
not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a
great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the day
of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of
birthday . For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
celebrating the day of his birth with a festival,17 and in the New Testament,
Herod.ls However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding
human blood. For the Pharaoh killed "the chief baker,” Herod, the holy
prophet John "in prison.” But the saints not only do not celebrate a
festival on their birth days, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that
day.
(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. (Ibid., 155-57)
Further Reading:
Kenneth Wilson on Origen's Anthropology
Listing of articles responding to "Breaking the Mormon Code"
