Discover Origen of Alexandria, scholar whose On First Principles, Against Celsus, and Commentary on John shaped biblical exegesis and apologetics.
Who Was Origen?
Meta description: Origen (c. 185–254) was the most prolific scholar of the early church. Learn what On First Principles, Against Celsus, and his Commentary on John teach, and why his legacy remains both honored and disputed.
Hexapla: Origen’s six-column edition of the Old Testament, placing the Hebrew text, a Greek transliteration, and four Greek translations side by side.
Allegorical interpretation: A way of reading Scripture that looks for a spiritual meaning beneath the literal sense. Origen taught that Scripture has a body, a soul, and a spirit.
Keywords: Origen, Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles, Against Celsus, Commentary on John, early church fathers, biblical exegesis, Hexapla, Christian apologetics
Who Was Origen?
Origen was a Christian scholar, teacher, and writer from Alexandria, Egypt. He was born around AD 185 to Christian parents. In 202 his father Leonides was beheaded for his faith. Eusebius says Origen wanted to die with him and that his mother hid his clothes to keep him home.
At about 18 he took charge of Christian instruction in Alexandria. Around 231 a conflict with his bishop, Demetrius, led him to move to Caesarea in Palestine. In the persecution under Emperor Decius in 250 he was imprisoned and tortured. He died a few years later, around 253 or 254, in Tyre.
Major Works
Ancient writers credit Origen with hundreds of works, and many are lost. The three the church still reads most are these:
On First Principles, four books and the first attempt at a full Christian theology.
Against Celsus, eight books written around 248.
Commentary on John, originally 32 books, of which 9 survive.
On First Principles
Origen set out what the church clearly taught: one God, Christ the eternal Son, the Holy Spirit, the resurrection, and judgment. He then explored questions the apostles had left open. Some of his answers, such as the preexistence of souls, moved far past Scripture.
The Greek original is mostly lost. It survives in a Latin translation by Rufinus, who admitted he softened passages he thought were unorthodox.
Against Celsus
Around 175 a pagan philosopher named Celsus wrote The True Word, a sharp attack on Christianity. Seventy years later Origen answered it line by line. Because he quoted Celsus at length, Against Celsus preserves most of the pagan work.
Origen argued from fulfilled prophecy, from the changed lives of believers, and from the growth of the church despite persecution. It remains one of the most complete defenses of the faith from the ancient world.
Commentary on John and Biblical Exegesis
Origen spent his life on the text of Scripture. His Hexapla set six versions of the Old Testament side by side so he could compare readings. He wrote commentaries and homilies on most books of the Bible.
In On First Principles book 4, he explains his method. Scripture has a literal sense, a moral sense, and a spiritual sense. He believed the Holy Spirit placed difficult passages in the text to push readers toward deeper meaning.
Influence on Future Thought
Origen shaped almost every Greek theologian who came after him. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus compiled a collection of his best passages called the Philocalia.
His speculation also caused trouble. In 553 the Second Council of Constantinople condemned teachings linked to Origen and his later followers, including the preexistence of souls and the final restoration of all beings. Read Origen as a brilliant and devoted scholar whose guesses did not all hold up.
How to Read Origen Today
Start with Against Celsus book 1. It shows his mind at work in about 2 hours.
Read On First Principles book 4 for his method of reading Scripture.
Both are free in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 4. Selections of the Commentary on John are in volume 9.
Read his speculative passages alongside Scripture and the creeds, the same way the church did.
About the Author
CK Quarterman is a USAF veteran, independent author, and publisher at CKQbooks. He writes the Malaterrestrials nonfiction series, which examines evil earthbound non-human intelligences through Scripture and history, along with the Watchers’ Universe and Sons of the Flood fiction series. Find his books at ckqbooks.com.
Truth · History · Scripture
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