Introduction
Origen's understanding of the epinoiai (aspects or concepts)Footnote 1 of Christ is certainly one of the most fascinating and unique facets of his theology. By no means a marginal element in his Logos-Christology, a treatment, mention, or application of the epinoiai can be found in most of Origen's surviving texts. Scholarship on this topic has justifiably focused upon the two primary sources of the epinoiai in Origen's writings: Book I of his Commentary on John and Book I, Chapter 2 of On First Principles. While referencing these texts because of their systematic and definitional character, I intend to focus this article upon the substantial and multifaceted role of the epinoiai Christou in Origen's Commentary on Romans, the oldest extant commentary on this Pauline epistle.Footnote 2 In doing so, my thesis is two-fold: first, I will argue that the epinoiai Christou play a considerable role in Origen's exegesis of Paul's epistle. If correct, this conclusion will be crucial for anyone seeking to gain a comprehensive account of Origen's concept of the epinoiai. Such is especially the case insofar as I will propose that the Commentary on Romans accentuates specifically the virtues as epinoiai, thereby offering a noteworthy glimpse into this particular aspect of Origen's epinoiai teaching. Second, I will argue that the results of Origen's application of the epinoiai concept to his exegesis constitute a compelling reading of the Pauline text that is worthy of contemporary engagement.
In order to argue for this two-fold thesis, I have divided the paper into three parts. The thesis will be addressed most directly in Part II, while Parts I and III will be essential for a full treatment of the topic. Part I of the paper will begin with an introductory—and non-exhaustive—treatment of the epinoiai Christou in Origen's thought generally. Such an overview will provide the necessary context for the following analysis. Part II will be an in-depth engagement of the text of Origen's Commentary on Romans specifically. In analyzing three themes, each of which are prominent in the epistle itself, I intend to show that Origen applied the concept of the epinoiai Christou in his exegesis, and at the same time assess the results of this application. The themes are as follows: a) Christ as the end of the law, b) the Christian's life in and with Christ, and c) the relationship between faith and works. The third of these is perhaps the most important, insofar as Origen's exegesis offers a vision of the faith/works relationship that is as compelling as it is ancient. Finally, Part III will conclude the paper by turning to address briefly a criticism of Origen's Logos-Christology that may threaten the contemporary significance of Origen's exegesis.
I. The Epinoiai Christou in Origen's ThoughtFootnote 3
The core of Origen's understanding of the “aspects” of Christ is expressed nicely in his Commentary on John:
And let no one be surprised if we have understood Jesus to be announced by the plural “good things.” For when we have understood the things of which the names [τὰ ὀνόματα] which the Son of God is called are predicated, we will understand how Jesus, whom these whose feet are beautiful preach, is many good things. For life is one good thing, and Jesus is life. And “the light of the world” [John 8:12] is another good thing, which is “the true light” [John 1:4] and “the light of men” [John 1:4]. The Son of God is said to be all these. The truth is another good thing in concept [κατ’ ἐπίνοιαν] over and above the life and the light; the way which leads to it is a fourth in addition to these. Our Savior teaches that he himself is all these when he says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” [John 14:6].Footnote 4
The central tenet of the teaching is seen here in this quotation, in the phrases suggesting that “Jesus is life,” and “the Son of God is said to be all these.” The aspects or “names”Footnote 5 of Christ are by no means limited to those mentioned in this paragraph, but rather include many others that are enumerated more fully elsewhere.Footnote 6 As Origen writes,
It is possible to collect 10,000 times as many titles [προσηγορίας] [as those just enumerated by Origen] which are applied to the Son of God in the Gospels by the apostles and the prophets. These represent either those who wrote the Gospels setting out their own idea of what he is, or the apostles praising him on the basis of what they have learned, or the prophets proclaiming in advance his coming sojourn and declaring the things about him with different names [διαφόροις ὀνόμασιν].Footnote 7
For Origen, Jesus is the fullness and perfection of all that is good; the myriad titles by which he is represented manifest “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”Footnote 8 Accordingly, while the different aspects and “titles” reflect something true about Jesus, they do so according to our mode of human understanding. Insofar as they are conceptual, they do not divide or dissolve the unity of Christ: “But let no one take offense when we distinguish the aspects [ἐπινοίας] in the Savior, thinking that we also do the same with his essence [τῇ οὐσίᾳ].”Footnote 9 Yet, insofar as they communicate something true about Jesus, the aspects play a crucial role in our knowledge of him. For a proper understanding of the epinoiai, both their conceptual nature and their ability to communicate the truth of the Savior need to be held in tension. The mediation of this tension is the ever-greater richness of Christ, as Gerhard Gruber points out: “a single word or concept does not suffice to fully grasp the essence of the Son of God.”Footnote 10 In an attempt to illuminate the meaning of Origen's teaching, Ronald Heine recommends the helpful image of the prism: “Christ would be analogous to the prism through which the light of God is refracted and the person standing in the light would be the individual Christian. While the prism is more than the different hues of light, nevertheless one cannot see it without seeing the hues.”Footnote 11 Origen's treatment of this compelling theme was more extensive than any Christian writer prior and laid a broad foundation for later theologians.Footnote 12
An examination of the intellectual background of Origen's understanding of the epinoiai will help frame a further unpacking of the teaching. First, it is quite clear that scripture plays a prominent role in Origen's understanding of the epinoiai. It is no mistake that an extended treatment of the epinoiai arises in his commentary on the Gospel of John, wherein we find Jesus making a series of ego eimi (“I am”) statements. Several of these have predicates that indicate an aspect of his nature and/or mission which serve as epinoiai: “I am the bread of life,”Footnote 13 “I am the light of the world,”Footnote 14 “I am the door,”Footnote 15 “I am the good shepherd,”Footnote 16 “I am the resurrection and the life,”Footnote 17 “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”Footnote 18 and “I am the true vine.”Footnote 19 Beyond these important Johannine texts, there are a few crucial Pauline ones as well: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,”Footnote 20 “[God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption,”Footnote 21 “for [Christ] is our peace.”Footnote 22 At the most basic level, this meager listing of texts is evidence that the names of Christ play a noticeable role in the New Testament. Origen clearly detects this theme and develops it further through his concept of the epinoiai.
Second, a consideration of the characteristically Platonic “step” cosmology also helps to discern the role of the epinoiai Christou within Origen's Christology.Footnote 23 The following quote of Origen manifests the point of contact between his cosmology and the epinoiai:
God, therefore, is altogether one and simple. Our Savior, however, because of the many things, since God “set” him “forth as a propitiation” [Rom 3:25] and firstfruits of all creation, becomes many things. . . as the whole creation which can be made free needs him. And for this reason he becomes the light of men when men, darkened by evil, need the light which shines in the darkness and is not grasped by darkness.Footnote 24
For Origen, Jesus Christ, as the mediator between God and man, is both one and many: he is the intermediary between the Father (who does not and cannot have any dealings with multiplicity) and spiritual creatures (i.e., logikoi, who would otherwise never be able to participate in the ultimate unity of God). The logikoi participate in the Logos, and the Logos participates in the Father. Jean Daniélou articulates the central point: “it is the multiplicity in the Logos that makes his dealings with the logikoi possible, since it enables him to adapt himself to their diversity.”Footnote 25 We see here that Origen's cosmology gives shape to the epinoiai by situating their function as the means by which the Logos mediates between the logikoi and the Father.
Having said a word about the intellectual background of Origen's teaching, there are several other points of importance that must be mentioned. In Book I, Chapter 2 of On First Principles, Origen writes:
Our first task therefore is to see what the only-begotten Son of God is, seeing he is called by many different names [diversis nominibus] according to the circumstances and beliefs of the different writers. He is called Wisdom. . . . Also must wisdom be understood to be the Word of God. . . . This Son, then, is also the truth and the life of all things that exist; and rightly so [Hic ergo filius etiam omnium quae sunt veritas est et vita; et recte].Footnote 26
These four titles elucidated by Origen in this crucial quote—Wisdom, Word, Truth, and Life—are of particular importance. The following passage, in revealing an important distinction within the multiplicity of the aspects or titles of Christ, shows why this is the case:
Once we have collected the titles [τὰς ὀνομασίας] of the Son, therefore, we must test which of them came into existence later, and whether they would have become so numerous if the saints had begun and continued in blessedness. For perhaps wisdom alone would remain, or word, or life, and by all means truth, but surely not also the other titles which he took in addition because of us.Footnote 27
As Daniélou summarizes, “some of these epinoiai, such as the names Wisdom, Word, Truth, and Life, denote the Word as he is eternally in himself; others are bound up with the economy of the Redemption.”Footnote 28 The four aspects initially mentioned by Origen could appropriately be said of the Logos irrespective of his Incarnation.Footnote 29 The order in which they are written here is of great significance as well. Wisdom is the highest aspect for Origen, as he writes in the Commentary on John: “And if we should carefully consider all the concepts [τὰς ἐπινοίας] applied to him, he is the beginning only insofar as he is wisdom. . . . Someone might boldly say that wisdom is older than all the concepts in the names [πάντων τῶν ἐπινοοθμένων ταῖς ὀνομασίαις] of the firstborn of all creation.”Footnote 30 The Word follows next, and so on for truth and life.Footnote 31 Beyond these, once we consider the aspects of Christ that pertain to his economic activity, there appears to be no clear rank or scale for the epinoiai.Footnote 32 Many of the economic aspects or titles were mentioned already when several passages from the Gospel of John were quoted (“door,” “vine,” “shepherd,” etc.). This category of epinoiai would be incomplete, however, if we failed to mention that all the virtues are also included therein.Footnote 33 As will be shown below, the virtues as epinoiai play a central role in Origen's Commentary on Romans.
While there is no per se order to the economic epinoiai, they do have an overarching pattern of ascent, “like the steps leading up into the temple.”Footnote 34 Here we see that Origen's concept of the epinoiai, so important for his Logos–Christology, also informs his understanding of Christian life and mysticism: “Origen's Logos–mysticism and his Logos–theology are bound up together.”Footnote 35 In the wisdom of the divine pedagogy, “the doctrine of the epinoiai allows Christ to be accommodated to the specific needs and spiritual capacities of the different persons calling on him [Contra Celsum, 2.64]”;Footnote 36 thus “to the sick the Word will appear as Healer, to those who need guidance he will show himself the Shepherd; his self-revelation as Wisdom and Life will be kept for the perfect.”Footnote 37 The Christian will come to know Jesus more deeply and more perfectly, ascending from the economic aspects of Christ to those which pertain to his eternal existence with the Father and Holy Spirit.Footnote 38 The centrality of this rich element of the epinoiai teaching is clear: passages containing some variation of its central concern permeate Origen's corpus.Footnote 39
Insofar as the virtues as epinoiai feature prominently in Origen's Commentary on Romans, it will be helpful to offer two clarifications about this aspect of the teaching before we move to the next section. These are promissory comments that will be corroborated by the close attention to Origen's Commentary in the coming pages. First, Christ is indeed the fullness and perfection of each and every virtue. Thus, as one scholar puts it, for Origen “any true virtue in us is a share in his virtues.”Footnote 40 But the manner in which we share in his virtues is not simply by imitation. Rather, inasmuch as one participates in the life of Christ through the indwelling and the aid of grace, that person will be given an intrinsic participation in his virtues.Footnote 41 While the benefit of imitation cannot, of course, be lost, Origen is clear in his emphasis upon participation: “we have said that Christ is at the same time wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, truth, and all the virtues. Assuredly the one who has received these is said to have put on Christ. For if Christ is all these things, the one who has them necessarily has Christ as well.”Footnote 42
Second, the close participatory relationship between virtue and faith/life in Christ may suggest at the outset a starkly binary approach, in which one must either have the fullness of virtue—and thus also have Christ, who is virtue—or have the stain of sin and be cast out from Christ's presence. For example, in response to the quote we just cited from Origen, it could be suggested that any vice at all would be proof that one does not, in fact, have Christ, and therefore is not a true member of the Church. But this would be too simplified a view of Origen's understanding.Footnote 43 His incorporation of divine pedagogy allows for a real and dynamic growth in perfection, throughout which Christ reveals himself more and more perfectly to the Christian. Consonant with that further growth in knowledge of Christ will be a more perfect growth in virtue.Footnote 44
II. Themes in the Commentary on Romans
I have given a brief, systematic introduction to Origen's concept of the epinoiai Christou. Moving to the heart of my thesis, I now intend to show directly that Origen applies the concept of the epinoiai to his exegesis of Romans, while also articulating and examining the exegetic results of this application.Footnote 45 The three themes I will analyze in turn—a) Christ as the End of the Law, b) Life in and with Christ, and c) Faith and Works—are each founded principally upon the virtues taken as epinoiai. While the virtues as epinoiai are found elsewhere in Origen's writings,Footnote 46 the themes discussed here represent three extensions of the epinoiai concept that are unparalleled in their focus and depth.Footnote 47
A. Christ as the End of the Law
Origen's discussion and interpretation of St. Paul's use of law is a crucial characteristic of his Commentary on Romans. In fact, for Origen, the differentiation of the divergent meanings of St. Paul's use of law is a necessary step in coming to understand properly the epistle.Footnote 48 Needless to say, it is beyond the scope of our current argument to consider each of these meanings.Footnote 49 Rather, our main concern is to show how Origen employs the epinoiai Christou in his discussion of Christ as the fulfillment of the law.
The most fitting place to begin is Rom 10:4, where Paul writes: “For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.” Here is Origen's initial commentary:
“Christ is the end of the law,” that is, the perfection of the law, and Christ is righteousnessFootnote 50 [see 1 Cor 1:30], but for believers. For those who do not believe, however, since they do not have Christ, they do not have the perfection of the law and, therefore, they cannot attain to righteousness. . . . For if Christ is the end of the law, as the Apostle says, the one who does not accept Christ as the end of the law is not capable, without Christ, of fulfilling that righteousness that is from the law.Footnote 51
Origen often interprets Christ as the “end” or “fulfillment” (Matt 5:17 rsv) of the law to be synonymous with Christ as the “perfection of the law.” The law marks out what is righteous, and what is just; thus “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Rom 7:12 rsv). Yet, insofar as “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23 rsv), the fulfillment of the law is out of our reach. The only way to reach the righteousness which the law marks out is through participation by faith in Righteousness itself (see 1 Cor 1:30). This is because “the Savior alone, the Lord Jesus Christ, is justified in the sight of the Father, since ‘whatever the Father does, even that the Son does likewise’ [John 5:19].”Footnote 52 Origen writes elsewhere, “whoever then does not believe in Christ, of whom Moses wrote in the law, sets aside the law; but he who believes in the Christ, of whom Moses writes, confirms the law through the faith by which he believes in Christ.”Footnote 53 Origen's commentary on Christ as the end of the law is founded upon his use of 1 Cor 1:30 to establish righteousness as one of the epinoiai Christou.Footnote 54
Origen's exegesis does not stop here, however; it reaches high pitch in a passage from Book 3 of his Commentary:
And just as [Christ] himself is the righteousness through which all become righteous; and he is the truth through which all stand firm in the truth; and he himself is the life through which all live; so also he himself is the law through which all are under law. He comes to the judgment, then, not as one who is under law but as one who is law [non tamquam qui in lege sit sed tamquam qui lex sit]. But I think that even those who are already perfect and, by being united with the Lord, have become one spirit with him are themselves not under law but are themselves law.Footnote 55
While this quotation certainly builds upon those cited just above, the claim that Christ is law offers us a radical understanding of how Christ fulfills the law. From this perspective, Christ not only fulfills the law because he is its end, but because he is in some sense also its beginning. There is a sense in which the law (as precepts of righteousness), when given to Moses, was already a reflection of Christ, who is righteousness itself.Footnote 56 A Greek fragment of Origen's commentary on the same verse contains a condensed form of this point: “another could say that just as the only-begotten Son of God is the Word in person [αὐτολόγος] and wisdom in person [αὐτοσοφία] and truth in person [αὐτοαλήθεια], so also he is the law in person [αὐτονόμος].”Footnote 57 Note that Origen here employs αὐτό as a prefix in order to communicate the epinoiai of Christ.Footnote 58
A considerable theological concern may be voiced here: does this emphatic continuity between the law and faith in Christ overshadow the newness of the Gospel? The following passage reveals how Origen holds together quite nicely both continuity and newness:
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed which had been concealed previously, being hidden in the law. But it is revealed to those who go from the faith of the old covenant to the new faith of the gospel. . . . And when he comes to the gospel from the faith of the law he is led to faith in Christ and thus advances from faith to faith.Footnote 59
Origen's understanding of Christ as righteousness and law accentuates at least two central characteristics of his theology of law in his exegesis of Romans. First, Origen elaborately preserves the symphonic unity of God's providential plan as well as the organic unity of the Old and New Testaments. Christ stands as the alpha and the omega of the law, as righteousness and law itself. Second, insofar as Origen claims that Christ fulfills the law through perfecting it as righteousness, it follows that Origen's understanding of justification is more than simply declarative. Christ does not save us from the condemnation of the law by a simple edict that takes away the force of its precepts for righteousness. Rather, he saves us by offering participation in his own righteousness, which requires a perfection of virtue that supersedes even the demands of the law.Footnote 60
B. Life in and with Christ: The Reign of Christ (Rom 6:20–22), the Indwelling of the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9–10), and Conformation to the Image of Christ (Rom 8:29)
In this section I would like to assess Origen's exegesis of three different texts from Romans, each of which includes a crucial use of the epinoiai Christou. The Christian's life in and with Christ is the general leitmotif of these three texts.
(1) “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.”Footnote 61 Origen judiciously points out that the pairs of terms juxtaposed in this passage do not correspond as one might suppose they should. “Slaves of sin/free [from] righteousness” is paired with “free from sin/slaves of God.” One might expect the second pair to read, “free from sin/slaves of righteousness.” Deeply convinced that every word of scripture bears significance, Origen brings in the epinoiai concept to make sense of the different word choice. He writes,
this [difference in word choice] is no idle distinction. For through this it is shown that after someone has been set free from sin, he must, first of all, serve righteousness and all the virtues together, so that from there he might ascend, by means of progress, to the point that he becomes a slave to God. I grant that servitude to righteousness is servitude to God. For Christ is righteousness, and to serve Christ is to serve God [Christus est enim iustitia et seruire Christo seruire Deo est]. Nevertheless, there is an order in the levels of advancement and there are degrees within the virtues. And this is the reason Christ is said to reign, certainly according to this, that he is righteousness, until the fullness of the virtues is accomplished in each individual.Footnote 62
Origen's commentary involves the crucial identification of Christ as righteousness, which is used to link servitude to righteousness with servitude to God. Within this basic congruency, Origen also brings in the differentiation of levels of perfection, thus including the structural aspect of ascent as well. Rather than offering here a dismissible and fanciful interpretation, Origen's textual analysis clearly reveals that there is in Romans a real identification between being slaves of God and slaves of righteousness. Such would have to be the case if the literary effect of the juxtaposition of pairs is to retain its force.
(2) “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness.”Footnote 63 How are we to know whether we have the Spirit of Christ? What does it mean that our “spirits are alive because of righteousness”? Origen's understanding of the epinoiai opens up this passage, again through his identification of righteousness with Christ:
Moreover, each person shall be tested to see if he has the Spirit of Christ within him. Christ is wisdom [Christus sapientia est]; if he is wise according to Christ and sets his mind on the things of Christ, he has the Spirit of Christ in himself through wisdom. Christ is righteousness [Christus iustitia est]; if anyone has Christ's righteousness in himself, through righteousness he possesses the Spirit of Christ in himself. Christ is peace [Christus pax est]; if anyone possesses the peace of Christ in himself, through the Spirit of peace he has the Spirit of Christ in himself. So also love, so also sanctification, so also each particular thing that Christ is said to be [quae Christus esse dicitur]. It must be believed that the one who possesses these qualities has the Spirit of Christ in himself and hopes that his own mortal body will be made alive because of the Spirit of Christ that dwells within him.Footnote 64
In congruity with the Pauline verses that love and goodness are the marks of the ChristianFootnote 65 (and not knowledge or prophecy aloneFootnote 66 ), Origen offers righteousness, peace, love, and sanctification as the proof of the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. These are proof because, in their perfection, they are Christ himself. The epinoiai help us to further see that the presence of vice is necessarily opposed to the presence of Christ and his Spirit.Footnote 67
(3) “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”Footnote 68 In considering what it means to be “con-form-ed” to Christ, Origen immediately calls to mind a New Testament text that seems to indicate two forms of Christ. Philippians 2:6–7 states that Jesus, “though he was in the form of God,” took “the form of a servant” through his self-emptying. Again, wishing not to overlook even the smallest shade of meaning in sacred scripture, Origen considers this double–form of Christ to be insightful when considering how we are conformed to his image. Origen writes,
[Paul] says that Christ is formed in those who strive for perfection [see Gal 4:19]. Insofar as he is the Word, [this happens] when the sincerity of the word of God will be purely formed in them; and insofar as he is the truth, when truth exists within them without the admixture of any deceit; and insofar as he is wisdom, when the wisdom of God would be preserved in them, the wisdom that Paul speaks among the perfect, pure and without even the smallest deviation into error. The same applies with all that Christ is, whether righteousness, sanctification, or any of the other virtues. If these are clearly formed in them, having become conformed into his image they will be seen in that form in which [Christ] is in the form of God. But if anyone turns back to the beginning stages—but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom—and, while remaining in fear, he undertakes the first elements of the worship of God, they who receive the initial foundations in the fear of God must be understood to be conformed to [Christ] in his slave-form, a form that he took in order that he might teach the fear of God to the raw recruits and the ignorant.Footnote 69
The epinoiai are introduced here to help Origen elucidate what it means for a Christian to be conformed to Christ. Conformity to Christ means to bear the form—more or less perfectly—of that which he is, namely, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and all the virtues. Further, the two-fold form of Christ allows Origen to incorporate again the ascent structure of the epinoiai. The pattern of ascent articulated via the two-fold form reveals, interestingly, that Christ himself is the expression of the divine pedagogy: he takes the slave-form in order to “teach the fear of God” to those who lack knowledge of him, all the while offering the invitation to ascend higher, that they may attain to Jesus's divine form in knowledge and participatory virtue.
C. Faith and Works
It must be noted at the outset that Origen's discussion of justification in the Commentary on Romans operates within a notably different polemical milieu than that of the Pelagian controversy.Footnote 70 While in many cases he anticipates later theological flashpoints, Origen's polemical milieu in the Commentary remains a Christian opposition to the deterministic position of fixed natures;Footnote 71 accordingly, it would be anachronistic—and exegetically untenable—to label the Commentary as “Augustinian” or “Pelagian.”Footnote 72 It is crucial to pursue Origen's own position on justification, insofar as it can be gathered from the text. The title to this section, then, was not chosen in deference to the Pelagian controversy, but rather in deference to the decisive occurrences of the terms in Origen's text. While a treatment of Origen's discussion of faith and works in its entirety is beyond the scope of this paper, I will assess the manner in which the epinoiai Christou play a principal role in Origen's treatment of this crucial topic.Footnote 73
Commenting on the pivotal verse of Rom 3:21–24, Origen writes: “[All who believe, whether they come from the Jews or from the Gentiles], are justified, however, not by works but by the grace of God, through the redemption accomplished for them by Jesus Christ himself.”Footnote 74 We find Origen here expressing the centrality of grace as God's supreme gift to man: “the redemptive work of Christ has its own proper and unique value as the meritorious cause of our salvation, anterior to any cooperation on our part.”Footnote 75 Importantly, as will quickly be apparent, this claim is imbedded within an exegetical interpretation that holds a nuanced understanding of the relationship between the centrality of grace on the one hand, and works on the other. Origen makes a distinction within the general category of works that is crucial for an understanding of his theology of justification. Post-baptismal works play an important part in justification in addition to faith, insofar as they are the proper and necessary fruit borne of the working of God's free gift in us. Our pre-baptismal works—either those of natural virtueFootnote 76 or Jewish ritualsFootnote 77 —are not salvific; we are saved through our faith in Jesus Christ, in the remission of sins and the restoration of friendship with God through the Son's deed of love on the Cross. The crucial point of Origen's understanding comes in precisely here: works play a part in justification because they cannot be separated from justification itself. Faith and works form an “organic and synthetic unity”Footnote 78 which is rooted in the justification offered by Jesus Christ. “You see, then, that everywhere faith is joined with works and works are united with faith.”Footnote 79
Importantly, Origen's concept of the epinoiai Christou appears to be the mediating principle of this “organic and synthetic unity.” In other words, the epinoiai are precisely what makes possible the synthetic relationship between faith and works. Basic evidence for this claim can be found in the fact that Origen often invokes the epinoiai concept when articulating the inextricable unity of faith and works. A particularly prominent passage in this respect is Origen's commentary on Rom 4:23–25. He writes:
For it is not possible that righteousness can be reckoned to a person who has any unrighteousness dwelling in him, even if he believes in him who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. . . . For if we have been raised together with Christ, who is righteousness, if we walk in the newness of life, if we live in accordance with righteousness, then to us Christ has been raised for our justification. But if we have not yet laid aside the old man with his deeds, but we live in unrighteousness, I dare say that to us Christ has not yet been resurrected for justification nor has he been handed over on account of our sins. . . . Therefore Christ justifies only those who have received the new life in the pattern of his resurrection and who reject the old garments of unrighteousness and iniquity as if they were the cause of death.Footnote 80
In a formulation that is reminiscent of Jesus's words, “you will know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16 rsv), Origen claims that righteousness is the necessary fruit of our incorporation into Christ's life through baptism. The strong claim of Origen is clear: “Christ justifies only those who have received the new life in the pattern of his resurrection” because such newness of life is the inevitable manifestation of true faith. Origen's reasoning takes him further: how can one have Righteousness himself indwelling in us, if this place is occupied by unrighteousness?
For righteousness cannot have anything in common with unrighteousness; just as light cannot with darkness, nor life with death. So also then certainly to those who believe in Christ but do not lay aside the old man with his unrighteous deeds, faith cannot be reckoned as righteousness. Moreover in a similar way, we can say that just as righteousness cannot be reckoned to an unrighteous man, neither can chastity be reckoned to an unchaste one, nor justice to an unjust one, nor generosity to a greedy one, nor piety to an impious one, so long as he does not lay aside the old garments of the vices and “put on the new man who was created according to God and is being renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him” [Col 3:9–10].Footnote 81
These words may give rise to an objection, which was already mentioned above. If “righteousness cannot have anything in common with unrighteousness,” then are the sins of a person proof that he or she is, in fact, an unbeliever, and that Christ (as righteousness) does not dwell within him? As was argued above, Origen is far from affirming such a “rigoristic” position, which would hold that any sin committed is enough to revoke the person's status as a believer. Rather, Origen attempts to preserve the organic unity of faith and works, without necessarily claiming that an individual sin is manifest proof of a wholesale lack of faith. Thus, if we are striving forward to perfection, our sins do not individually serve to invalidate our faith, even while they do frustrate the intrinsic link between faith and works. The following passage should prove illuminating in this regard:
To serve Christ means to serve wisdom, i.e., to serve righteousness, to serve truth, and to serve all the virtues at the same time. This is why it must not be imagined that all at once, when a person expresses the will, he immediately becomes transferred into Christ Jesus from the slavery of the law of sin, so that he would possess nothing in him any longer that could serve as grounds for sin's condemnation. For in each person righteousness searches for its own portions and it tests to see if one has been reformed and corrected so that it can find no unjust work in the man, on the basis of which condemnation would follow. . . . If [righteousness] will have discovered that things are holding together in the individual rightly and with integrity, then the person will be reckoned to be in Christ and to have no condemnation. There is absolutely no doubt that these things should be sought after by means of constant practice and training and by vigilant effort. And for this reason it is certain that this does not come to pass in those who are lazy or inactive but rather in those who are gradually making progress, and who at first sin only a little, then later even less, and ultimately, if they are able to attain it, who no longer sin at all.Footnote 82
Therefore, while there will be a judgment for our works, Origen includes a strong sense of divine pedagogy in order to avoid the problems posed by such a rigoristic view of post-baptismal acts of sin. In fact, Origen appears to be arguing as follows: far from requiring us to believe that one who sins does not have faith, the fact that Christ is perfect righteousness and virtue proves that one could never ascend to that height in an instant. Rather, faith and works will be continually perfected in the one who strives earnestly to honor the gift of justification by gradually mounting the heights of true righteousness.
Maurice Wiles, commenting on the interpretation of faith and works in St. Paul's epistles among the Fathers of the Church, strongly emphasizes the mediating role of the epinoiai for Origen:
Christ did not merely possess the various virtues accidentally or contingently; Christ is his attributes. . . . Therefore our relationship to Christ is automatically our relationship to wisdom, righteousness, truth and all the other virtues. To be “in Christ” is to be “in” all the virtues; to have Christ in us is to have them in us. . . . Clearly therefore according to this analysis there can be for Origen no faith without works. Faith in Christ does not need to be supplemented by the virtuous life; it is the adoption of the virtues. Thus the connection between faith and works is a logically necessary one.Footnote 83
Wiles goes so far as to say that this is Origen's “fundamental resolution of the problem of the relation of faith and works,” and that this resolution “transposes the question [of the relation of faith and works] into a new key.”Footnote 84 I am arguing, along the same lines as Wiles, that the “new key” into which the question has been transposed can be articulated as follows: instead of working conceptually from either faith or works separately in an attempt to link the one up with the other extrinsically, Origen asks us to behold the prior and intrinsic unity of faith and works in the mystery of (the epinoiai of) Christ. In other words, Origen points to Christ as the point of unity between divinity and virtue; if one is to participate in divinity, that person necessarily must participate in his virtue. The result is a rather profound Christological understanding of the relationship of faith and works, which emphasizes their inextricable and internal relationship to each other.
III. Conclusion and Assessment
The foregoing engagement with the text of the Commentary on Romans has shown the considerable use of the epinoiai concept in Origen's exegesis. Considering this analysis, it is perhaps accurate to conclude that the Commentary on Romans does not simply apply the epinoiai concept that is worked out in full elsewhere; rather, it also makes a marked contribution of its own to our understanding of Origen's epinoiai teaching, principally through its focus upon the virtues as epinoiai. As a result, it seems clear that anyone who wishes to study Origen's concept of the epinoiai Christou—and his Logos-Christology more generally—cannot afford to overlook the contribution of the Commentary on Romans. Further, the compelling exegesis that results from Origen's application of the epinoiai Christou—especially in relation to faith and works—merits serious engagement by scholars and readers of the Epistle to the Romans.
In order to defend fully the contemporary significance of Origen's exegesis, a remaining criticism must be addressed. As a concluding note, I will engage a charge against Origen's Logos-Christology that would seem to invalidate the epinoiai Christou as a source for Christian theological reflection.
Part I of this paper benefited from Jean Daniélou's analysis of the epinoiai Christou in Origen's theology. Revisiting his analysis, it is to his criticism that I will now turn. Daniélou claims that Origen's overall theology of the Logos is fraught with a certain difficulty: namely, that it has been overly conformed to the contours of Middle Platonism and Stoicism, and is consequently disfigured in two interrelated respects.Footnote 85 The first alleged deformation results in a form of subordinationism of the Son to the Father. The second touches the concept of the epinoiai more directly and is less frequently addressed by Origen scholarship. Regarding this second deformation, Daniélou writes,
[Origen] does not allow difference enough between the Logos and the logikoi. On that point he was influenced by the Stoic idea that the Logos is imminent in all individual logikoi. “Insofar as a man possesses Wisdom, he shares in the life of Christ, who is wisdom” (Commentary on John, I:34). It is true that because of their sins spirits may, in his opinion, be incapable of living a fully spiritual life unless the Word helps them; they will need his assistance for that. But even so, the spiritual life is still only the development of that participation in the life of the Logos which is rooted in all spirits by nature. Hence the difference between them and the Logos can only be one of degree. And that destroys the essentially gratuitous character of grace considered as a sharing in the life of a transcendent Trinity.Footnote 86
Thus, to summarize the dual charges of Daniélou, the Logos is (so to speak) too “far” from the Father (subordinationism) and correspondingly too “close” to the logikoi. The two errors are therefore two sides of the same coin. The influence of Hellenistic sources has, on this reading, exerted too great a pull upon Origen's thought, causing his Logos-Christology/Mysticism to be doubly warped in a way that proves less than satisfactory for later Christian reflection.Footnote 87
Is Daniélou correct in his assertion? While a thorough assessment of whether—and to what to degree—he is indeed correct is a task that deserves a study of its own, a brief comment may be made with justification: just as several recent authors have cautioned against an unqualified accusation of subordinationism against Origen,Footnote 88 a similar caution is required in treating the corresponding accusation, namely, an over-identification of the Logos and the logikoi via the concept of the epinoiai. Such caution was exhibited by Aloisius Lieske, an Origen scholar from the first half of the twentieth century, in the following text:
As in the Stoics, the Logos dwells in all the logoi as “cosmic-reason,” or as in Plotinus the nous spans the multiplicity of the logoi and the world-soul exists in the individual souls as the unity of them all—so similar ideas resonate in Origen, though without intending to be identified with the former. For Origen denies that consubstantiality [Wesensgleichheit] between the divine Logos and the logoi. . . . [The presence of the divine Word in the ἡγεμονικόν] is in Origen not the indwelling of an impersonal, absolute reason, but a real-personal presence of Christ in the heart.”Footnote 89
Lieske can make this claim because of his nuanced understanding—opposed to Daniélou's on this point—of the impact of Hellenistic sources on Origen's work:
But also, if the world is viewed as a necessary and required emanation, and if at the same time the Logos is construed as its principle of creation, then undeniably the greatest danger is to attribute even to the Son only the necessity and eternity which the world possesses. . . . Nevertheless, it is important for the deeper understanding of these thoughts, strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism, to see them even still in conjunction with the ecclesial elements of his Logos-theology. . . . Of course Platonic-Stoic philosophy has greatly influenced Origen's conception of the Logos's existence in things; in spite of this, the formation process of our Christian life in the manner of grace is conceived of as definitely Christian in its foundations.Footnote 90
This communication in nuce of Lieske's argument serves to illustrate a position different than that of Daniélou, which exhibits a greater discretion towards the relationship between Origen's Christian confession and Hellenistic influences.Footnote 91 While a complete argument would need to be marshaled in critique of Daniélou's position and in support of Lieske's, I think it is minimally appropriate to claim that the analysis of the epinoiai in his Commentary on Romans achieved in this paper does not of necessity support Daniélou's claim that Origen “destroys the essentially gratuitous character of grace considered as a sharing in the life of a transcendent Trinity.” This is especially the case for our purposes insofar as the application of the epinoiai teaching therein draws much of its life-blood from the theology of the names of Christ already present in many scriptural texts. De Lubac once wrote, “whatever might have been the other sources of his thought, it was truly from the Bible that [Origen] drew the marrow of his theology.”Footnote 92 If this judicious observation is heeded throughout our reception of his work, Origen's concept of the epinoiai Christou need not be dismissed as destroying the gratuity of grace, but will rightfully retain a fruitful relevance for current theological reflection.
