This paper investigates Origen's complex position on metempsychosis — the movement of souls through multiple bodies — as articulated in De Principiis and his Commentary on Matthew. It distinguishes Origen's theory from classical transmigration by analyzing his cosmological framework, his reading of Pauline Scripture, and his vision of universal reconciliation in Christ. The paper further traces how Origen's ideas, though initially offered as tentative theological propositions, became politically entangled in the sixth-century disputes of Emperor Justinian I and were ultimately condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553 — less because of their actual content than because of their association with Justinian's theological and political enemies.
The paper exemplifies close reading of primary sources in dialogue with secondary scholarship. The author quotes Origen directly in both Greek-patristic translation and modern commentary, then uses those quotations as anchors for sustained interpretive argument — demonstrating how to build a thesis through evidence rather than assertion. The technique of first presenting the apparent counter-evidence (Origen's rejection of transmigration) before resolving it through contextual analysis is a strong model of academic argumentation.
The paper opens by establishing the interpretive problem — Origen's apparent contradiction on metempsychosis — then isolates and analyzes the rejection passage in Matthew, before moving to De Principiis to reconstruct Origen's actual cosmological position. A middle section draws the theological distinction between the two concepts. The paper then shifts historical register to explain the church context and Greek influences on Origen's method. The final analytical section traces Justinian's political use of Origenism, and the conclusion synthesizes theological and political findings into a broader reflection on canon-formation and power.
Origen remains one of the most tantalizing, and often frustrating, thinkers of early Christianity for multiple reasons. His own work is already complex enough: his hypotheses regarding theological and dogmatic issues facing the young Church necessitated the formulation of a complex cosmology, and the difficulty of understanding it is further complicated by the fact that central components of his work were 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 come 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, yet elsewhere he directly rejects the notion of transmigration, claiming it is a notion external to Christianity. While Origen's subsequent condemnation as a heretic might lead one to assume that he 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 established, 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 his theory is. In Book XIII of his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Origen considers Matthew chapter 17, where, following Jesus' transfiguration, the disciples ask him, "Why then do 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 also lists some fairly straightforward logistical problems with the notion of transmigration:
"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 discussing the most generally understood notion of reincarnation — that is, the idea that the soul inhabits a succession of bodies as penance or reward for behavior, until the soul has effectively atoned for past sins and is granted access to a higher, final state (regardless of whether that state is one of pure spirit or a heavenly body). This evidence has led some scholars to argue that Origen clearly opposes reincarnation, and views "reincarnation in the Pythagorean form that was transmitted to Plato [as implying] 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, and 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, given 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 proposes an end wherein the ultimate fate of every created thing — whether angels, demons, or humans — is essentially the same: 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). He thus 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 that 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 moral and immoral actions, yet 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 what 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 the actions one takes within the temporal world are meaningless, since everything will ultimately be united 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 of the extent of their depravity and rebellion, they will ultimately fail at achieving any lasting effect, since 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 at first glance (Heine 2011, "But on the other hand"). When considered in the context of the end of the world as Origen describes it, it becomes clear that 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 — while conversely, the punishment for sinful souls will be the overpowering of their rebellious will and subjugation under Christ.
Examining Origen's particular notion of metempsychosis, as well as its eventual anathematization, offers important insights not only into the formation of early Church theology, but also into the role this canon-formation played in the political maneuverings of Church leaders. As a theologian and scholar, Origen made crucial contributions to biblical exegesis through his application of Greek philosophical ideas to the problems, mysteries, and questions facing the early Church. His simultaneous rejection of transmigration and proposal of a complex metempsychosis grounded in metaphysical cosmology represented a complexity of critical and theological thought that would inspire subsequent scholars to examine not only the literal content of the Scriptures, but also the deeper allegorical and spiritual truths contained within. He applied what can only be described as a scientific schema to the unresolved issues of faith and human experience, and in doing so he anticipated the kind of rational, scientific approach to theology that would flourish in the latter portions of the second millennium.
While one can easily imagine a number of Origen's ideas that could have put him in disfavor with certain factions of Christianity, perhaps the most revealing aspect of Origen's ultimate fate is the fact that his most important and controversial theories were not even the cause of his anathematization. Instead, his name became a kind of catch-all for a number of different sects, to the point that it became politically advantageous for Justinian to condemn Origen and Origenism outright, regardless of their relation to each other or to accepted dogma. In this way, Origen's work — and its subsequent anathematization — can be viewed as a kind of primer in how theological concerns can so easily be co-opted to serve political power, a phenomenon that would play itself out repeatedly over the subsequent centuries.
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.