Origen

The origin of Origen

Origen (c.e. 185-254) was a scholar and early Christian theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, philosophical theology, preaching, and spirituality written in Greek.

Origen produced the Hexapla, the first critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, which contained the original Hebrew text as well as four different Greek translations of it, and one Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, all written in columns, side by side.

Hexapla was to provide a secure basis for debate with rabbis to whom the Hebrew alone was authoritative. At Alexandria Origen wrote Miscellanies (Stromateis), On the Resurrection (Peri anastaseos), and On First Principles (De principiis).

Origen wrote De principiis to be an ordered statement of Christian doctrine. He believed every Christian is committed to the rule of faith laid down by the Apostles and the God of both Old and New Testaments.

No Trinity yet

Origen believed in the Creator and the Lord and the Holy Spirit but there was no teaching of the Trinity which would be pushed by some bishop of the First Nicene Council.

Origen said these three were "homoousios" which does not mean they were "one in the same being" but actually meant "of the same kind of stuff as". It was a common word used in Greek and also by the Gnosticism

The Latin word Trinitas, would be coined by Tertullian.

The De principiis actually diverged from later standards of orthodoxy.

Origen’s writings vindicated Christianity concerning pagan attack in the Contra Celsum, written at Ambrose’s request. It was to be the answer to the 2nd-century anti-Christian philosopher Celsus contained in the fragments of the Philocalia and in the Alēthēs logos which has been called “The True Doctrine” or “True Discourse”.

Around 233 he wrote "On Prayer" which expounds the Lord’s Prayer and discusses some of the philosophical problems of petition for what you want.

While he wrote pre Constantine his writings may have survived because they were useful to the progenitors of a new form of Christianity that advocated some legal charity rather than fervent charity and pure Religion alone.

I have found no evidence Origen excused the covetous practiced of Legal charity but the proliferation of doctrinal arguments can cloud and distract from the the simplicity of the Sound Doctrine of Jesus.

Once people are submersed in the doctrines of confusion of mysteries they can be baptized in a religion of fear and false hope. Once the social bonds of the early Church begin to break down under the insidious and pernicious ways of legal charity the people become the masses and a mass formation of ideology may replace true faith.

John Zachariah and murder

John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah who was literally one of the acting High priests of Judea. Origen suggested that the Zechariah mentioned in Matthew 23:35 may be the father of John the Baptist. But according to the Gospel of James, Zechariah was killed by those under Herod's order because he did not reveal the location of John to them.

Still others contradict this. It was certainly a time of corruption where they feared Jesus going to Jerusalem and we also see in the history of the Sanhedrin.

Was the Zechariah mentioned in Matthew 23:35 and killed between the temple and the altar the father of John the Baptist. According to Reimund Bieringer's The Corinthian Correspondence, page 497, footnote 20 this is the best conclusion. In Fact, he was emphatic that Zechariah was killed by the scribes and Pharisees and not by Herod's assassins of the children of Bethlehem.

But it could have been sanctioned by Herod's corrupt cohorts among the scribes and Pharisees. Several Byzantine authors do not connect the prophet of 2 Chronicles 24 to the Zachariah of Matthew 23.35

If there was a murder in the temple it was no longer holy and a new temple would need to be consecrated according to the traditions coming down from ancient times to this very day.

Of course Christ would consecrate that temple made without hands as it was intended from the beginning. The altars and temple of God was always meant to be made with lively stones.