Origen (c. 185–254) of Alexandria is considered one of the most important theologians and biblical interpreters of the early church. He combined unparalleled scholarship with philosophical depth and developed a concept of God combined with an already categorical understanding of the Bible that was far ahead of his time.
New concept of God. For Origen, God was not an anthropomorphic being, but the infinite, purely spiritual origin underlying all being. The Logos—the creative Word—functions as a mediator between the invisible primal source and the finite world. Thus, Origen introduced a consistently transcendent conception of God, which simultaneously revealed a deep inner closeness of the divine to the human spirit.
Interactive Bible understanding. Origen understood the Bible not as a literally fixed legal text, but as a multi-layered system of symbols and revelation. In addition to the literal meaning, he recognized the moral meaning and the spiritual/allegorical meaning, all of which become transparent in relation to a deeper Logos reality. In doing so, he was already approaching what today can be called a categorical starting point for understanding the spiritual meaning of the Bible. Clearly, for him, Scripture was a living resonance chamber in which the divine spirit reveals itself on different levels.
Reception by the church. It was precisely this breadth of thought that later led to massive conflicts with the official church. After his death, Origen was increasingly branded a heretic in the 4th to 6th centuries; his speculative ideas about the pre-existence of souls, universal reconciliation (apocatastasis), and the infinite essence of God did not fit within the increasingly narrow dogmatic boundaries. The condemnations of the 5th and 6th centuries had a devastating effect: an original, spiritually open understanding of Christianity was displaced in favor of a more authoritarian and dogmatically entrenched church model and an increasingly narrow concept of faith.
Meaning today. From today’s perspective, Origen appears as an early pioneer of a dynamic hermeneutics: his understanding of God as the spiritual source and the Bible as a multi-layered symbolic text already points to paradigms that will only be explored again, for example, in Mary Baker Eddy’s major work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures have become visible.
