Saturday, June 17, 2023

Did Origen Teach Original Sin? A Response to Matthew Paulson

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 εφω 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"