Oddcast episode

June 13, 2025

Coming Back for More, Part X: Joel Kalvesmaki on Origenism, Evagrios, and the Spectre of Christian Transmigrationism

In Part II we begin by setting the stage, examining the reception of Origen’s ideas in his lifetime, later on, and the various ‘anti-Origenisms’ or ‘Origenist controversies’ which patristic historians routinely refer to as if we know what they mean. We then narrow the focus of the enquiry onto a crucially-important anti-Origenist event; I refer of course to the Fifth Ecumenical Council, a.k.a. the Second Council of Constantinople. This church council, called in 553 under the auspices of the emperor Justinian, has appeared here and there in the SHWEP podcast. The main focus of the council was not Origen nor the threat of Origenism; it had mainly to do with something called the ‘Three Chapters’ controversy (which we don’t need to get into here). But right at the end some monks from Syria/Palestine presented some kind of information about worrying ‘Origenist heresy’ allegedly to be found among the near-eastern monks; this is the famous, but poorly-understood ‘anti-Origenist’ part of the council.

Poorly-understood, that is, until now. Joel Kalvesmaki has gone back to the sources, triangulated them, and found that we can actually say much more about the anti-Origenist Council than we thought we could. Origen, Didymos, Evagrios, and a host of unnamed, ascetic, Platonistic Christians feature in the discussion. While reincarnation is not one of the so-called-Origenist beliefs anathematised by the council, this event nevertheless constitutes an important chapter in the history of western reincarnationism, and we are delighted to be able to present new research on it before it has even been published! For the full story, be sure to pick up Joel Kalvesmaki’s forthcoming monograph.

Interview Bio:

Editor in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks for more than a decade, Joel is currently an independent scholar. He holds a research fellowship at Catholic University of America, where he was a graduate student (PhD, 2006), and he maintains several editorial and advisory positions, notably with the Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative and the monograph series Christianity in Late Antiquity (University of California Press in conjunction with the North American Patristics Society). A specialist in the works and thought of Evagrius Ponticus, Joel is editor of the authoritative reference work Guide to Evagrius Ponticus, and co-author/editor/translator with Robin Darling Young et al. of Evagrius of Pontus, The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Works Cited in this Episode:

Gabriel Bunge. Les enseignements d’Évagre: (Chapitres des disciples d’Évagre); Le ‘missing link’ entre la première et la deuxième controverse origéniste. Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo and Editions Sankt Ottilien, 2021.

Idem. «Recherche» et «dogme» dans la pensée d’Évagre le Pontique: Études sur les questions controversées de la «préexistence» des âmes et de l’«apocatastase universelle» des êtres raisonnables. Eos Druck und Verlag, 2024.

Themes

Angelomorphic Transformation, Apokatastasis, Ascesis, Evagrios of Pontos, Maximus the Confessor, Metempsychosis, Origen of Alexandria, Origenism, Orthodoxy