Sources of Origen’s “Psychology”: Platonist and Christian

Kirk A. Essary (Texas Tech University)

Origen, perhaps the holiest of the heretics, has very many interesting and orthodox theological ideas. Many of his philosophical ideas, however, brought about much controversy during the first few centuries of the church, and ultimately led to his anathematization. His conception of the soul certainly falls into this latter category, and it is the object of this paper to shed light on how Origen might have been influenced in developing his ideas on psyche, and to what extent these ideas are either Platonist or Christian, granting, unfortunately, that neither “Platonist” nor “Christian” denotes lucidity when discussing the soul.

As yet, there has been no one who has attempted to extensively document what might be the sources that influenced Origen in expounding his particular psychology. As with many other of his ideas, there seems, with regard to his ideas on the soul, to be a blend of influences at work. This paper will focus primarily on what I’ve found to be the two most important sources from which Origen drew: Plato (and the later Platonic tradition) and the (pre-canon) Christian literature floating during Origen’s lifetime.

As with the vast majority of Origen’s arguments, those concerned with the soul are more overtly supplemented with scriptural references than with citations of philosophical treatises. This holds even for the philosophical ideas of his that are more strongly rooted in the secular tradition than the Christian one. I think, however, that we can say many valuable things in this regard with much confidence, given the all but universal agreement that Origen was familiar with various philosophers like Plato, Philo and Chrysippus first-hand.

This paper, then, will examine possible and probable external influences on Origen’s doctrine of the soul, and will answer the question to what extent his psychology is Platonist and to what extent it is Christian. For the sake of brevity, this paper will deal only with Origen’s ideas on the early life of the soul, that is, with its inception (or lack thereof), and with its descent into one of various possible ranks in accord with its own free will. Also for the sake of brevity, we will be primarily discussing these ideas as they are put forth in Origen’s De Principiis, and will only discuss other of Origen’s works insofar as they are especially important to the topic at hand.

This paper will form a chapter of what will be a Master’s thesis on the external influences of Origen’s entire psychology.