Origen's doctrine of reincarnation

Origen remains one of the most tantalizing, and often frustrating, thinkers of early Christianity for multiple reasons; Origen's own work is already complex enough, because his hypotheses regarding some of the theological and dogmatic issues facing the young Church necessitated the formulation of a complex cosmology, but the difficulty in understanding it is complicated by the fact that central components of Origen's work was subsequently deemed anathema, precipitating the destruction or alteration of many of his texts. In fact, there is even evidence to suggest that "his friends imposed a sort of informal censorship on works and passages that seemed to them to besmirch his orthodoxy," such that the only extant versions of Origen's work comes to us through a variety of redactors and Bowdlerizers (MacGregor 1990, p. 58). As such, he is alternately considered a heretic and "a kind of superhero of Christian piety and scholarship," depending on who happens to be reading him, and in the end one may only ever begin to approach the complete content of his ideas (Grafton 2008, p. 22).

This is why what is perhaps his most controversial work, De Principiis, appears to argue for a relatively straightforward form of metempsychosis, or reincarnation, wherein the soul inhabits multiple bodies (whether physical or spiritual) over the course of finite periods within an otherwise infinite universe, but elsewhere he directly rejects the notion of transmigration, claiming that it a notion external to Christianity. While Origen's subsequent condemnation as a heretic might lead one to assume that Origen was merely covering his tracks by arguing for a kind of reincarnation by a different name, at the time of his writing ecumenical standards had not yet been fully set, and by his own admission his propositions were theoretical exercises, "in the manner rather of an investigation and discussion, than in that of fixed and certain decision" (2007b, p. 260). While he ultimately produced a robust, complex account of the human soul, God, eternity, and the observable universe, he nevertheless maintained that these were merely propositions based on the available evidence, and that "how things will be […] is known with certainty to God alone, and to those who are His friends through Christ and the Holy Spirit" (2007b, p. 262).

Therefore, the goal of this study is to unambiguously determine Origen's position regarding metempsychosis, as well as the reason why this position, among others, was deemed anathema following the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553. Examining Origen's work in detail alongside the history of the early church suggests that Origen did advocate a complex form of reincarnation, and that this idea was ultimately condemned not strictly due to the content of Origen's texts, but rather because Origen's theories were taken up and altered by groups that would eventually come under the ire of Justinian I, the dictatorial emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, such that Origen and his notion of metempsychosis was condemned alongside the emperor's political and theological enemies.

Before examining Origen's theory of metempsychosis, it will first be useful to consider the instance where Origen appears to directly discard the notion of reincarnation, as a means of better understanding precisely how unique Origen's theory is. In Book XIII of his commentary of the Gospel of Matthew, Origen considers Matthew chapter 17, where, following Jesus' transfiguration, the disciples ask him "Why then say the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" (NIV 17:10). Jesus responds by telling them that "Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him," after which "the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist" (NIV 17:12-13). Almost immediately Origen appears to take a firm position against any notion of reincarnation, stating that "in this place it does not appear to me that by Elijah the soul is spoken of, lest I should fall into the dogma of transmigration, which is foreign to the church of God, and not handed down by the Apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the Scriptures" (2007a, p. 474). Origen goes on to quote Scripture in support of this argument, stating that transmigration is:

In opposition to the saying that "things seen are temporal," and that "this age have a consummation," and also to the fulfillment of the saying, "Heaven and earth shall pass away," and "the fashion of this world passeth away," and "the heavens shall perish" and what follows (2007a, p. 474).

Origen goes on to list some fairly straightforward problems with the notion of transmigration in terms of sheer logistics; for example:

If any one soul is always being removed from the definite number of souls and returns no longer to the body, sometime after infinite ages, as it were, birth shall cease; the world being reduced to some one or two or a few more, after the perfection of whom the world shall perish, the supply of souls coming into the body having failed (2007a, p. 474).

A cursory reading of these lines would suggest that Origen rejects reincarnation outright, and indeed, it would be difficult to argue otherwise so long as one is talking about the most generally discussed notion of reincarnation; that is, the idea that the soul inhabits a succession of bodies as penance (or reward) for behavior, until that point at which the soul has effectively paid for any past sins and is granted access to a higher, final state (regardless of whether it is a state of pure spirit or some heavenly body). This evidence has led some scholars to argue that Origen is clearly anti-reincarnation, and views "reincarnation in the Pythagorean form that was transmitted to Plato implies a fatalistic conception of the soul's destiny" (MacGregor 1990, p. 51).

One must wonder, then, how Origen could square this unambiguous rejection of transmigration with his assertion in De Principiis that:

Both in those temporal worlds which are seen, as well as in those eternal worlds which are invisible, all those beings are arranged, according to a regular plan, in the order and degree of their merits; so that some of them in the first, others in the second, some even in the last times, after having undergone heavier and severe punishments, endured for a lengthened period, and for many ages, so to speak, improved by this stern method of training, and restored at first by the instruction of angels, and subsequently by the powers of a higher grade, and thus advancing through each stage to a better condition, reach even to that which is invisible and eternal, having traveled through, by a kind of training, every single office of the heavenly powers (2007b, p. 261).

Although Origen extends the possible bodies into which a soul might migrate to include those of the angels, at first glance this does not appear substantially different from the idea of transmigration he so clearly discards; while the potential bodies are different, the fundamental movements appear largely unchanged. However, there are subtle yet important differences between the two ideas, but in order to see them more clearly, one must examine the context in which Origen proposes his notion of metempsychosis.

The passage from De Principiis quoted above comes in chapter six of Book I, within the context of Origen's discussion of "the end or consummation." Origen reads Paul's statement that Jesus "must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet," to mean that in the end, everything will be reunited in God, due to the fact that God has "put everything under his feet," according to Psalm 8:6 (I Corinthians 15:25, 27, NIV). The subjugation of God's enemies, then, is in reality no different from "this very subjugation by which we also wish to be subject to Him, by which the apostles also were subject, and all the saints who have been followers of Christ" (2007b, p. 260). Origen is proposing an end wherein the ultimate fate of every created thing, whether angels, demons, or humans, is essentially the same; that is, all are recalled to once again be "in" Christ, in the same way "that in Christ and through Christ were all things made and created" (2007b, p. 262). However, Origen's goal is not necessarily to describe the beginning or the end, but rather "to explain the diverse, hierarchical and corporeal world that emerged from this pristine state, in such a way as not to implicate the Creator in an act of injustice" (Martens 2012, p. 230). Thus, he proposes a means by which the wide variety of actions and moral status seen in human existence might be reconciled with an eternal, inherently pure God.

From here Origen proposes a kind of cosmological inference regarding the relationship of the created, temporal existence of individuals (whether angels, demons, or humans) to the eternal existence of God; because "the end is always like the beginning," one may presume that just as "there is one end to many things, so there spring from one beginning many differences and varieties," such that the pocket of temporality and the lives within it which make up the perceivable universe function as a kind of bubble, expanding and collapsing according to a set of metaphysical laws that allow for a complex abundance of actions, both moral and immoral, that is nevertheless contained within "the author of all things," who is unique in having "goodness exist in virtue of essential being" (2007b, p. 260). This cosmological discussion is one reason Origen is said to have "created, indeed embodied, the first model of a scientific theology;" his approach to the notion of metempsychosis, like nearly all of his theological work, is rooted in a steadfast determination to distinguish "between the dogmata of the church tradition and the problemata which were to be discussed" according to reason, logic, and a prototype of the scientific method (Kung 1994, pp. 48-49). As will be seen, Origen's focus on not-yet-determined points of Christianity would ultimately contribute to his condemnation as a heretic, because could be considered genuine, innocent investigation in the third century would rapidly become dangerous propaganda to the Church's ruling powers.

Origen's description of an ultimate, total reunification should not be taken to mean that he is arguing that the actions one takes within the temporal world is meaningless, since everything will ultimately be united once again in Christ. Rather, Origen is suggesting that while every created thing's ultimate fate will be the same (subjugation to Christ), that subjugation will be seen as either defeat or reward, depending on the merit of the individual. Thus, for "those who fell from a better condition without at all looking back, and who are called the devil and his angels, and the other orders of evil," this subjugation and return to Christ will represent the ultimate defeat, because their efforts to descend to a lower position will have proved futile; regardless the extent of their own depravity and rebellion, they will ultimately fail at achieving any lasting effect, because they cannot corrupt the eternal God (2007b, p. 261). Likewise, for those who have "remained in that beginning which we have described as resembling the end which is to come" and "obtained, in the ordering and arrangement of the world, the rank of angels," as well as those who have, through struggle and commitment, been "restored to their condition of happiness," subjugation and return to Christ represents the ultimate goal of all their efforts, as "the individual soul enjoys an intimate union with the Word of God" (2007b, p. 261, Dively Lauro 2010, p. 200).

In this way, Origen is able "to reconcile the conflicting claims of perfect justice and infinite mercy," because his notion of metempsychosis simultaneously includes the punishment of sin and the eventual reconciliation in Christ without diminishing either (Bowen 1881, p. 318). Origen suggests that "the time is coming when the Logos will overpower every rational nature and perfect each soul so that it will choose from its own freedom what the Logos wills," but this is not the self-contradictory proposition it might appear to be upon first glance (Heine 2011, "But on the other hand"). Instead, when considered in the context of the end of the world as described by Origen, it becomes clear that those righteous souls will already have reached the point whereby they would naturally assent to the will of the Logos (Origen's term for that element of God that interacts with temporality), and conversely, the punishment for those sinful souls will be the overpowering of their rebellious will and subjugation under Christ.

Within this context, one may begin to understand how Origen's notion of metempsychosis differs from the transmigration he condemns, because Origen is careful to highlight how this metempsychosis confirms and conforms to the very same Scriptural notions transmigration supposedly defies. Returning to Paul's assertion that "the fashion of this world passeth away," Origen suggests that "if the fashion of the world passes away, it is by no means an annihilation or destruction of their material substance that is shown to take place, but a kind of change of quality and transformation of appearance" (2007b, p. 262). In other words, while transmigration depends upon a kind of eternal cycle for the refinement of souls in physical bodies (a logical impossibility, considering that the last unrefined soul, upon physical death, would have no other body to inhabit), Origen proposes a finite, temporal mobility of souls until their ultimate reunification in Christ. Thus, where transmigration suggests a process by which all souls are oriented towards, and will ultimately reach, an idealized state prior to the end, Origen proposes a system wherein souls may endeavor towards a multiplicity of states, and only fully attain an idealized state after Christ's return and the "consummation" promised. Recognizing this highlights another point where transmigration defies Scripture and Origen's particular form of metempsychosis conforms to it; Origen notes that the Scriptures predict "a multitude of sinners at the time of the destruction of the world," something that would be impossible with transmigration but essentially demanded by Origen's metempsychosis (2007a, p. 474).

One may also return to Origen's discussion of bodies in order to better understand how he is able to argue for metempsychosis while disavowing transmigration. To reiterate, Origen does not limit the bodies a soul might inhabit to solely human forms, but instead suggests that the soul may travel through, "by a kind of training, every single office of the heavenly powers" (2007b, p. 261). Origen finds the possibility of these alternate bodies within his view of the eternal God, because he questions "how beings so numerous and powerful are able to live and to exist without bodies, since it is an attribute of the divine nature alone -- i.e., of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- to exist without any material substance, and without partaking in any degree of a bodily adjunct" (2007b, p. 262). As stated above, a cursory reading suggests that this inclusion of angelic or demonic bodies merely adds to the number of potentially inhabitable bodies without addressing the problem of a finite supply of ever-improving souls. However, when considered within the context of Origen's larger cosmology regarding the nature of the temporal universe, it becomes clear that this inclusion of angelic and demonic bodies is more than a mere addition of potential bodies; instead, it reflects the exponential possibility of movement and change within Origen's notion of metempsychosis.

Furthermore, the possibility of inhabiting angelic or demonic bodies depending on one's actions is crucial to understanding Origen's position regarding "the existence of human souls before birth [and] previous formative activities, the consequences of which are brought into earthly incarnation, showing positive or negative effects" (Frieling 1997, p. 10). Origen views every station of life, whether one is talking about angels and demons or masters and slaves, as predicated upon earlier actions and "conferred by Divine Providence in just and impartial judgment according to their merits" (2007b, p. 261). Therefore, one must further view Origen's inclusion of angelic and demonic bodies as not merely potential habitats for the human soul following a "first" life, but rather the potential origin of any given soul; that is, because all souls were initially created in what one might call a neutral (yet righteous) state, one must presume that any given human at some point must have inhabited that same rank as angels (even if only briefly), and furthermore, that any given human may have even previously existed in a state of moral lack lower than humans. Although Origen notes that there are "certain beings who fell away from that one beginning of which we have spoken" and:

Have sunk to such a depth of unworthiness and wickedness as to be deemed altogether undeserving of that training and instruction by which the human race, while in the flesh, are trained and instructed with the assistance of the heavenly powers; and continue, on the contrary, in a way state of enmity and opposition to those who are receiving this instruction and teaching, he does not explicitly deny the possibility that these lower beings "will in a future world be converted to righteousness because of their possessing the faculty of freedom of will" (2007b, p. 261). As such, one must conclude that in Origen's view, the human experience is not necessarily the lowest point at which a soul may find itself, and furthermore, that this human experience may actually be an elevated position relative to the soul's past experience.

Within 4th century Christianity, Origen is not alone in proposing a form of reincarnation, even if his is more unique and somewhat more refined than his contemporaries (as evidenced by the comparison between transmigration and Origen's metempsychosis) (Bovon 2010, pp. 392-393, Hurtado 2005, p. 122). Furthermore, as recently as the last century certain tenets of Origen's thought have been reiterated by theologians and scholars; for example, a group of clergymen from the Church of England assert that "the only hypothesis which covers all the facts, is simply this: that the history of souls does not begin here, that this is not their first existence, and that our state here is simply the consequence of something that has gone before" (Clergymen of the Church of England 2010, p. 39). They are so confident in this proposition that they state "this is surely in accordance with all know of the principles on which this Universe is governed," because "there is noting now extant in all the Universe as we know it which is not the result of previous conditions, and we have no reason whatsoever to suppose -- in fact, all analogy is against the idea -- that the condition of human souls is an exception and is the result of an arbitrary decree" (2010, p. 39). (Although Origen suggests that the soul is eternal in that it ultimately exists as part of the eternal God, within the context of the temporal universe he would largely agree with the clergymen.)

Appreciating this raises the question of how Origen's ideas came to be considered so heretical to the point that by the early fifth century, Theophelius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, succeeded in having the Church issue a condemnation of "everything written in former days by Origen that is contrary to our faith," and by the middle of the sixth century, the notion of reincarnation was done away with entirely by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Hall 2011, p. 168). In order to understand how Origen's ideas could become, in a sense, popular enough to be condemned, one must examine the state of the Christian Church at the time of his writing and afterward. In the third century, "Christians were simply too few, too scattered, too disorganized, and mostly too poor to support a phalanx of academicians capable of developing their own scholarly culture," and as such Origen operated in a period of theological and ideological flux (Grafton 2008, p. 22-23). This is one reason his focus was on problemata, rather than dogmata; quite simply, there were so many unanswered questions regarding Christian theology and the proper means of interpreting the Scriptures that Origen almost could not help but propose novel ideas.

Much of his success, and subsequent condemnation, stems from this period of uncertainty, because in some ways Origen sought to harmonize preexisting modes of thought with emerging Christian notions, and particularly Greek philosophy. While he clearly discarded the Greek notion of transmigration, he nevertheless applied Greek notions of logic and spiritual ideals, to the point that he was accused of "abandoning immediately practical pastoral concerns" and thinking "of little except converting intellectuals," and doing so by applying "to the Bible their own method with respect to their ancient poets and mysteries" (De Lubac 2007, p. 17). The most important element of Origen's exegesis to be influenced by Greek thought was his allegorical approach to much of the Scriptures, something that help provide the foundation for centuries of theological investigation but at the time had the air of disregarding the supposedly simple truth of the Bible.

Origen's tendency to apply preexisting modes of philosophical thought to the Bible helps explain both his success and his eventual condemnation, because on the one hand he was able to claim well-known, preexisting theories as justification for his ideas, but on the other, the notion that the Bible needed these "pagan" theories suggested to some that Origen's ideas might be nothing more than a kind of popular revisionism (there is at least some irony in the fact that Origen may have been deemed heretical for applying pagan concepts to the Scriptures even as Christianity readily subsumed pagan rites and holidays). Furthermore, his reliance on Greek philosophy invited subsequent revision and adaptation of his ideas that would ultimately serve to besmirch his exegesis even though these later ideas had little to no relation to Origen's actual propositions.

While Origen was criticized during his life and immediately after his death, the total renunciation of work would not come until 553, when the Fifth Ecumenical Council (or Second Council of Constantinople) condemned Origenism as anathema (Stavrides 2000, p. 66). While his Greek-influenced exegesis undoubtedly brought condemnation during his lifetime and after, it is important to note that "in the Origenist quarrel of the sixth century […] allegory figures neither in the anathemas of 543 nor in those of 553" (De Lubac 2007, p. 40). Instead, Origen's ideas and subsequent texts they inspired did not conform to "the ignorant calumnies of Justinian," then-emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Edwards 2005, p. 546). Over the course of centuries, church dogma had gradually solidified so that what were once curious investigations into undetermined elements of Christianity became dangerously heretical ideas that did not conform to the theology of the Church's leadership.

In addition, by the sixth century, "the Origenist label was probably used to cover notions that were not at all taught by Origen, and that may have been indeed as remote from Origen's teaching as were those of the Neoplatonists from Plato's;" however, this distinction did not matter, because "at the command of Justinian, a synod was convened at Constantinople in 542 a.D., and an edict was issued, which set forth a list of errors attributed to Origen and purported to refute them" (MacGregor 1990, p. 56). Similarly, in 553, the second synod at Constantinople condemned "writings sympathetic to Nestorius [a previously anathematized Archbishop of Constantinople]," and although "these writings had nothing to do with Origen at all," his name was associated with them, such that the entirety of his work was deemed anathema even though his most important contributions to exegesis and theological study were not actually the ideas under discussion (MacGregor 1990, p. 56). In fact, the tenuous connection between the Fifth Ecumenical Council and Origen's actual work is evidenced by the fact that "of the fourteen anathemas pronounced by the Council, Origen's name is mentioned in one, among a list of heretics" (MacGregor 1990, p. 58).

Thus, one must consider the sad fact that Origen's condemnation had as much, if not more, to do with sixth century politics as with the content of his actual work. Justinian's commitment to Christianity was despotic, and although he undoubtedly did much to further the growth of the early Church, he did so in a ruthless, almost blunt fashion. For example, Justinian called both the Councils of 543 and 553 in an attempt to reconcile the Eastern and Western portions of Christendom, almost through sheer force of will, but he largely failed on both accounts. Justinian's edict against Origen in 543 angered Pope Vigilius, who chafed at the notion of the emperor engaging himself in matters of doctrine; while the emperor was responsible for enforcing Christian doctrine and ensuring that the populace followed the law, decisions regarding the actual content of that doctrine were supposed to be reserved for the church leaders (MacGregor 1990, p. 56, Hall 2011, p. 235). Justinian and Vigilius came to a sort of cold agreement for a few years, whereby Vigilius, "while being careful not to concede that the Emperor had any authority in theological matters, issued a document condemning the writings that had been anathematized in the imperial edict;" the document "was much criticized by bishops in Gaul, North Africa, and elsewhere, and Vigilius withdrew it in 550 a.D." (MacGregor 1990, p. 56).