The Centrality of
Corporeality for Origen’s Theology
The crisis for Origen was acute. That God is asomatos, without
a body, was not only a foundational principle for a Platonist cosmology, it was
also a constitutive element of Origen’s soteriology. Origen’s entire
theological system was dependent on this central tenet of Platonic philosophy.
Origen’s dilemma was that the incorporeality of God was neither a part of
apostolic teaching nor a part of the regula fidei. In his preface to On
First Principles, Origen exposed incorporeality as a major theme. “How god
himself is to be understood, whether as corporeal or formed according to some
shape or of some nature different than bodies is a point which is not clearly
in our teachings.” (Origen, De Principiis, Preface 9) Such topics were
then necessarily open for investigation, an investigation that employed
dialectics and drew heavily on the debates in philosophical circles. Such an
investigation was nonetheless located primarily in the linguistic world of
scripture.
When laying out the topics and the agenda for his four-volume work On
First Principles, Origen uses his discussion of incorporeality to function
as a fulcrum for leveraging his treatment of each of the major doctrines.
Origen begins his preface by listing each of the topics that he will take up in
Books I–III. He calls these topics the teachings of Christ delivered in “an
unbroken succession from the apostles [that] have been delivered in the
plainest terms”: the one creator God, the incarnate Christ, the divine Spirit
sharing in the divinity of Father and Son, the free will of the soul, its
rewards and punishments, the angels and the opposing powers, the creation and
dissolution of the world of matter, and finally the doctrine of scripture’s hidden
meanings. (Ibid.) Origen then proceeds to engage these topics in the above
order. Before he concludes his introduction, however, he takes up the problem
of the concept of incorporeality and its problematic absence from the language
of scripture. More critical than the problem that the incorporeality of God is
not part of apostolic teaching is the problem that no scriptural language
affirms the incorporeality of God. Origen states this problem in unequivocal
terms: “The term incorporeal is unknown, not only to the majority of Christians
but also to the scriptures.” (Ibid., Preface 8)
Even when Christians employed the word asomatos, they often
understood the term to mean a refined corporeality. This idea is similar to the
Stoic notion of pneuma, or spirit, as the divine, the purest and finest
essence, a divine form of corporeality. It is this notion of corporeality that
informed the Christians’ interpretation of John 4:24: “God is Spirit and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit.” Origen acknowledges that even in
view of this passage, Christians attribute some form of corporeality to God.
Origen acknowledges this attribution and then takes some time to discount this
popular use of incorporeality by discrediting the appeal to the Preaching of
Peter, a book whose apostolic authority was challenged in his age. He does
this to clear the way for a thoroughgoing Middle Platonic understanding of asomatos.
Origen concludes his preface by making the rigorous philosophical
concept of
incorporeality the leading topic for his ensuing discussions of God,
Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the creation of rational beings:
Nevertheless we shall inquire whether asomatos (incorporeal) is found
in the scriptures under a different name. We must also seek to discover how god
himself is to be conceived whether as corporeal and fashioned in some shape or
as having a different nature from bodies. A point which is not clearly set
forth in the teaching.
The same inquiry must be made in regard to Christ and the Holy Spirit
and indeed in regard to every soul and every rational nature also. (Origen, De
Princ., Preface 8-9)
The concept of the incorporeality of the divine is essential for
Origen’s elaboration of the doctrines of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In
addition to its importance for the Christian doctrine of God, Origen also
appeals to the incorporeality of the divine in order to explain the creation of
the rational beings, angels, daimons, and the human soul. In order to be given
the status of an article of faith, however, this philosophical concept must be
clothed in scriptural language. Indeed, it must be embedded in the scriptural
meanings themselves. Hence Origen proposes to “inquire whether the actual
things the Greek philosophers call asomatos is found in the Holy
Scriptures under another sense.” (Ibid., Preface 9) This is the overriding
concern of the first book of On First Principles; Origen’s introduction
of the term asomatos at the end of his preface allows him to begin his
treatment of the doctrines of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit with a
discussion of the incorporeal nature of the divine. (Karen
Jo Torjesen, “The Enscripturation of Philosophy: The Incorporeality of God in Origen’s
Exegesis,” in Biblical Interpretation: History, Context, and Reality,
ed. Christine Helmer [Symposium Series 26; Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2005], 76-78)
The Second
Strategy: Biblical Intertextuality
An internal intertextuality of scripture is key to Origen’s
incorporation of philosophical notions into biblical texts. Origen’s use of
exegesis to expound on philosophical ideas follows a recognizable pattern of
five steps. The first is a direct challenge to an anthropomorphic reading of a
biblical text. The second step is to bring another scripture, scripture “B,”
into the interpretation of scripture “A” on the basis of a common term. The
third step is to argue (often employing dialectic) that scripture “B” clearly
implies the incorporeality of God. The fourth step is to read from a clear
meaning of scripture (which affirms the incorporeality of the divine) to a
similar meaning of scripture “A” on the basis of the common term. The fifth,
and perhaps most important move, is to graft onto scripture “B” a religious
meaning or religious obligation nested in the concept of the incorporeality of
God. The result is that both scriptural passages “A” and “B” are understood to
confirm the incorporeality of God and, at the same time, are invested with an
important significance for the Christian life. For Origen, theology is
inseparable from soteriology.
The most interesting examples of this five-step process are found in
Origen’s refutations of readings that assume God’s embodiment in a fine,
ethereal materiality for such passages as: “God is a consuming fire”(Deut
4:24), “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), and “God is light” (1 John 1:5). Origen
challenges the readings that imply God’s embodiment—fire requires fuel, pneuma
can increase density; how can these passages be read literally? (Origen, Comm.
Jo. 13.129) The following illustrates the five-step interpretative process:
1. Origen moves from “God is light” in 1 John 1:5 to Ps 35:10: “In thy
light shall we see light.”
2. The Psalmist cannot be understood as referring to material light,
since what is implied here is the intellectual act of knowing. Origen’s Commentary
on John makes the point more clearly. Material light is a metaphor for the
invisible and incorporeal light; light is intelligible and spiritual. (Ibid.,
13.132) Thus light needs to be understood as a spiritual power that enlightens
the understanding.
3. To bring light is not to penetrate a material darkness, but to
enlighten the understanding. According to both Ps 35 and 1 John, light is
therefore the spiritual power that causes the human to see clearly the truth of
all things.
4. The hearer or reader who has diligently meditated on the meaning of
scripture is persuaded that spirit, fire, and light cannot refer to God’s mode
of corporeal being but to the spiritual powers that enlighten the mind and to
the fire that “consumes evil thoughts and shameful deeds and longings after
sin.” (Origen, De Princ. I.1)
5. A similar operation performed on John 4:24 (“God is Spirit”) and 2
Cor 3:15 (“Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty”) results in the
reader’s understanding that spirit refers to the intellectual or noetic realm.
In this case, the Spirit is the one who reveals spiritual knowledge. All of
these interpretations remain in the arena of the noetic—spirit, fire, and
light. (Karen Jo Torjesen, “The Enscripturation of Philosophy: The Incorporeality
of God in Origen’s Exegesis,” in Biblical Interpretation: History, Context,
and Reality, ed. Christine Helmer [Symposium Series 26; Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2005], 80-81)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
