This volume inaugurates a new series under the title Adamantiana dedicated to translations and studies of Origen and his thought. But unlike the journal Adamantiana, this series is especially interested in charting the transmission of Origen's legacy and its contribution to contemporary philosophical and religious issues. The term Orient refers, it seems, to the Christian traditions of the Middle East. This collection of articles builds on two collaborative projects; the first, an international conference at the University of Münster on the significance of Origen for theology and humanistic studies in Europe and the Near East; the second, a funded project at the University of Cardiff on ‘Christianisation, Translation and Transformation in Late Antique Commentary Culture: the Emergence of the Latin and Syriac Commentary Traditions’.

This interesting collection of articles aims to introduce Origen as a worthy dialogue partner in contemporary philosophical and religious debates and to extend the scope of the cultural legacy of the West to include the cultural traditions of the Near East. Articles by Alfons Fürst and Christoph Markschies introduce these two major themes. The second section ‘On Origen's thought’ takes up select topics connected to contemporary theological debates: Christian Hengstermann on a philosophy of nature and history articulated in Origen's concept of the world soul, Josef Lössl on natural law and conscience in Romans, and Lorenzo Perrone on contemporary history of religion's interpretations of piety in Origen's treatise, On prayer. Antonio Cacciari's analysis of Origen's use of the excursus brings the volume to its third section on the mechanisms by which the legacy of Origen has been transmitted within the Middle East and to the West. Zachary Esterson traces the influence of Origen on the Latin commentaries, Daniel King tracks the influence of Origenism on the transmission of philosophy in sixth-century Syria, John W. Watt reviews the intellectual connections between Alexandria and Baghdad and Elif Tokay traces the history of the Arabic translation of Gregory of Nazianzen's treatise On baptism.

One of the most intriguing appropriations of Origen for contemporary theological debate comes from Fürst's article where he explores Origen's distinctive approach to theologising. As the first Christian intellectual to sustain a Christianised philosophical theorising, Origen is claimed as the father of the lineage of the orthodox thinkers. For similar reasons his opponents trace to him the lineage of the heterodox. Origen's distinctive approach is to carefully analyse the parameters of a problem, stopping short of a final resolution, an act of respect and humility for one who works along the limits of human understanding. During the following centuries and the consolidation of a Christian orthodoxy Origen's approach made him vulnerable to charges of heresy. However in a newly globalised intellectual mileux Fürst believes that Origen's approach holds promise for negotiating the diversity among competing religious worldviews.

Fürst finds additional aids in Origen for navigating social as well as religious diversities. While Furst acknowledges that Origen imagines a universalism that eventually becomes a totalising orthodoxy, none the less Origen's idea of a prior creation of rational souls as equal and their fall into bodies and diversity as an alienated state reveals a profound conviction that the fundamental inequalities between human beings are morally unjust. Fürst judges that in this Origen ‘sees a contribution of Christianity to the reduction of potential conflicts that contain within themselves social and religious differences’ (p. 19).

Christian Hengstrom's article,‘Christiche Natur und Geschichtsphilosophie’, is persuaded that the third hypostasis of Origen's Trinity can be understood as a dynamic principle grounded in historical reality. Hengstrom demonstrates that the world soul (or the Church) functions as a new metaphysical construct – a historical, cosmological soteriology that operates through grace and healing – creating the conditions for ethical agency. In Origen's exegetical treatises the world soul is the animating soteriological activity that restores the fallen intelligences; in his philosophical writing, On first principles and Against Celsus, the Logos as a creative principle functions much like the world soul. The knowledge of the structured and ordered world (the truth of God) and (the ground of all things) is part of a soteriological knowing – a fully realised ‘Freiheit des Wissens’ (‘libertas scientiae’) (p. 67). Fürst judges that with the historicising of the world soul as a process of salvation history, Origen's vision of an educative cosmos earns him a place among the founders of the Western metaphysics of freedom.

The intention of these articles, as indeed the entire series, is to bring Origen into direct conversation with issues of contemporary theology and philosophy of religion. There is much to discuss and much to debate. These articles are an invitation and a challenge to find modes of engaging with Origen. However much Origen can contribute to a postmodern and poststructuralist worldview, these careful studies, coming from a new perspective, yield new insights into Origen's meaning. As Vlad Nicolescu's monograph, The spell of the Logos, has shown this dialogue between Origen and postmodern thought has the potential to be productive in both directions.