Oddcast episode

June 11, 2025

Coming Back for More, Part VIII: Jonathan Young on Origen of Alexandria

So, did Origen believe in or teach (exoterically or esoterically) transmigration of souls, as so many of his opponents in antiquity accused him of doing? According to Jonathan Young, no, he did not. However, this episode is not over in the first five minutes. Instead we delve into the various surviving texts in which Origen weighs in on matters metempsychotical, the various lost texts, the question of expurgation-through-translation (which we know Origen’s texts were sometimes subjected to – I’m looking at you, Rufinus), the philosophic issues at stake, and more. The conversation then shades into the later history of ‘Origenism’, a polemical construct used by some Orthodox thinkers to condemn a host of interesting ideas – notably universal salvation, reincarnation, a spherical resurrection-body, and the pre-existence of souls – and considers the validity of that evidence for interpreting Origen’s own teaching.

Interview Bio:

Jonathan H. Young is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford in Theology and Religion. His research centres on the intersections of the religious, philosophical, and intellectual history of the Roman Empire. His doctoral research focuses on Hellenic, Jewish, and Christian debates regarding animal cognition and animals’ involvement in the religious world, especially their capacities for religious behaviour and thought. His expertise includes Early Christianity, Ancient Philosophy, especially the Platonic tradition, Imperial Prose, and the reception of earlier texts in the Empire.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Origen’s Discussion of Transmigration:

Regarding ‘Rational’ Beings, e.g., Humans:

Comm. Matt. 11.17 and 13.1 (GCS 40).

Comm. Jo. 6.66–77, 86–87 (GCS 10).

Origen, Cels. 1.32 (cf. ibid., 4.24; Princ. 1.5.1); 3.75; 3.80 (Plato, Phaedr. 246b–c); 4.17; 4.29 (See 1Cor. 14:40–4; cf. Princ. 2.11.6); 4.39–40 (cf. Plato, Symp. 203b–e; Gen. 2:8–9, 3:21); 5.29; 7.32 (cf. Princ. 2.10.1).

Regarding ‘Non-Rational’ Animals

Princ. 1.8.4 (cf. Num. 22:28–30, Lev. 20:16, Exod. 21:29)

Cels. 1.52, 3.75, 4.58, 4.83 (cf. Plato, Phaedr. 246c, 248d, 249a–c), 5.29, 5.49 (cf. Empedocles, frag. 31 B137 DK; 1Cor. 8:8), 8.30.

Later Charges that Origen Agrees with Transmigration

Jerome, Ep. 124.2–4 (CSEL 5, pp. 100.2–25)

Justinian, Ep. ad Menam, ed. Schwartz, p. 190.19–24, p. 202.13–15, p. 211.19–23, p. 212.5–8

Later Arguments that Origen Rejects Transmigration

Pamphilus, Apol. 175 (SC 464) (translated by Rufinus into Latin)

Secondary:

We mention a theory that there were, in the sixth century, some kind of ‘Origenist’ writings in circulation which prompted Justinian’s anti-Origenist conclave. I should have named names here: I got this from István Perczel. Pseudo-Dionysius and Palestinian Origenism. In Joseph Patrich, editor, The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present, pages 261–82. Peeters, Leuven, 2001.

Elizabeth A. Clark. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992.

Themes

Celsus, Esoteric Christianity, Evagrius, Metempsychosis, Origen, Origenism