Origen Confirms the Consubstantial (Homoousios) Trinity

The following lengthy section is taken from Panayiotis Tzamalikos’ Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism: The Legacy of Anaxagoras to Classical and Late Antiquity (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 128), published by De Gruyter in 2016. Tzamalikos’ massive tome can also be downloaded from here: https://dokumen.pub/anaxagoras-origen-and-neoplatonism-the-legacy-of-anaxagoras-to-classical-and-late-antiquity-3110419467-9783110419467.html?__cf_chl_tk=5nPeXJ_JQtObesY_zFby7IqYtPtipHkiJ0RU09VDn3k-1788156568-1.0.1.1-3W4M0lrVVagwJ3q4tkDS8IN.EGgASZ82L21UXe_0eEE.

The author translates two unpublished manuscripts from Origen where the latter repeatedly speaks of the Trinity as possessing the same substance (homoousios), in fact as having the exact sameness of nature (ten homotimian tes phuseos). This shows that the homoousion language of Nicaea wasn’t invented for the first. What makes this even more interesting is that, one of the manuscripts happens to be a commentary on Genesis 18 where Origen views the three men that appeared to Abraham as a figure of the Holy and Blessed Trinity.

All emphasis will be mine.

Appendix II Origen and the homoousion.

A critical edition of two unpublished texts¹

The passage of Genesis 18, recounting the hospitality offered to three men by Abraham, states plainly that ‘God appeared to’ Abraham. However, Christian authors were slow in explicating that the ‘three men’ that appeared to the patriarch were the Three Persons of the Trinity. The first attempt to interpret this in light of Christian doctrine was made by Justin, who saw the three men as ‘angels’; ² but this is what any Jew would have endorsed, as indeed Josephus did.³ It could not be denied that Abraham saw God, but Christian authors were shy to make the three men of this passage an integral part of Trinitarian considerations: their comment was simply that which the biblical passage explicates, that is, it was ‘God’ that appeared. ⁴ This group of authors includes Cyril of Alexandria, ⁵ who, at a certain point, made only an oblique reference to the Trinitarian God, while he refrained from explicating that this was his own exegesis of the biblical passage.⁶

Epiphanius saw this as meaning ‘God along with two accompanying angels.’⁷ John Chrysostom engaged in long and dull talkativeness, in order to say not even this. He only just emphasized how hospitable Abraham was.⁸ Much later, another author saw the three mean as Christ along with two angels, obviously following Epiphanius.⁹

The idea was spelled out confidently yet scarcely by sixth-century anonymous authors, who wrote amidst hot Christological controversy, and put names of great stars of orthodoxy on the headers of their writings in order to vest their work with authority.¹⁰ Among those authors was a recently discovered Greek father, who was an erudite scholar of Greek philosophy and a moderate Origenist, namely, Cassian the Sabaite.¹¹ Another notable case is that of John Philoponus,¹² a great admirer of Origen, who argued for the distinct three Trinitarian Persons by using the passage of Genesis 18.

The case of Cyril is instructive of how the mainstream patristic literature was built and handed down to the faithful. A text that I discovered in the Patriarchal Library of Jerusalem proves that he used a passage from Origen’s commentary on Genesis, but he did so by picking up phrases selectively, so that hardly does the entire passage make sense.¹³ Following quotation of the text of Genesis 18:1‒3, the text of Origen in this manuscript reads as follows, and it will be included in a forthcoming volume which contains newly discovered texts of his, which cast light on his real intellectual and theological identity.

Origen, Commentary on Genesis, ¹⁴ Codex Holy Sepulchre, 3

And God appeared to him by the oak of Mambre, while he was sitting at the door of his tent at midday. And looking up with his eyes, he saw, and lo, three men stood over him. And when he saw them, he ran forward from the door of his tent to meet them, and did obeisance upon the ground and said, ‘Lord, if perchance I have found favour before you, do not pass by your servant.’

The previous visions of God by Abraham took place in dream; but this last one took place at his tent. This was actually a sign bespeaking that eventually God himself will dwell among us through his Logos. For indeed this epiphany involved a figure of the Holy Trinity, which is above creation.

Abraham saw three angels, who stood for the Holy Trinity as a figure of it, whereas Lot saw two [angels, betokening] the order of the Son and Father.

For during the time of Judgement, the Spirit coexists with the Son by nature, since The Father judges no one, but has handed over all judgement to the Son, which means that the Holy Spirit coexists with him [i.e. the Son] and inheres in him by nature.

The text then says that three men appeared to Abraham while he was sitting by the oak of Mambre, who stood for a figure of the Holy and Homoousios Trinity; then, [the text says] that the divine Abraham addressed them not ‘Lords’, but Lord, in singular (μοναδικῶς). [When therefore he said,] if I have found favour before you, [he suggested] the eyes which could not see this by nature; for it would have been impossible [for Abraham] to see Him, had He wished not to be seen.

Hence, the obeisance (προσκύνησις) [took place] because they were divine, whereas the invitation for them to wash [was extended] because they were guests. And he said Lord, in singular (μοναδικῶς), because of THE SAMENESS OF NATURE (τὴν ὁμοτιμίαν τῆς φύσεως) [of the three Persons of the Trinity] in terms of honour and rank.

Juxtaposition with the text of Cyril shows the phrases that he picked up from Origen; the only difference is that Origen’s text makes sense, since the entire context is there.

In this text, there are important points that should be considered:

1. Origen’s typological exegesis made it possible for him to comment confidently on the significance of the scriptural passage. There is no question as to whether the three men who were hospitalized by Abraham were physically human beings: indeed they were so. However, at the same time, this was a divine epiphany, and the three men were typos of the Holy Trinity, as indeed all of the Old Testament is a prefiguration of the New one. This is the only sense in which the three men could be called ‘angels’, since otherwise this was the Holy Trinity herself.

2. The fact that the Trinity appears as ‘three’ does not impugn the reality of God being one. This is why Abraham addressed the three men ‘singularly’ (μοναδικῶς), not ‘My Lords’, but ‘My Lord.’

3. Nevertheless, to say that the one God is seen means that God is seen as three Persons, because the Trinity is of one nature; therefore, where one Person is, all the others also are inherently present at the same time (συνόντι) by nature (φυσικῶς).

4. The Holy Trinity is styled ὁμοούσιος, which is the Nicaean catch-term that almost all Christian authors emphatically used. However, less known is another designation, which was shadowed by the acclaimed Nicene term: this was ‘the sameness of honour’, which, in this case, means sameness of ontological order accorded all three Trinitarian Hypostases (ὁμοτιμία τῆς φύσεως).

Despite controversy on whether Origen did in fact use the term ὁμοούσιος (which was negatively loaded, indeed a notorious and a suspect one, because of its Gnostic usage), it turns out that he was bold enough as to use this epithet after all. However, in order to make sure what he meant, he used also the term ὁμοτιμία τῆς φύσεως, which has its own history in the development of Christian doctrine, if less a conspicuous one.

The phrase appeared in a text of Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem and was read during the proceedings of the Council of Ephesus, at the presence of Emperor Constantine; it was included in the acts of the synod, and made an essential part of the doctrinal locution of its resolutions.¹⁵ That Origen’s formulations came from Jerusalem comes hardly as a surprise, since I have shown that Palestine, not Alexandria, was the true heir to Origen’s theological and textual concerns.¹⁶ Certainly, when Justinian used Origen’s formulation, ¹⁷ he had no inkling of the source, since his texts against both Origenism and the Monophysites were not actually his own: they were prepared for him by the leaders of the Laura of Sabas, under abbot Gelasius, and all Justinian did was just sign them.¹⁸

The formula of Origen positing the sameness of nature of all three Trinitarian Persons enjoyed considerable currency, but, with the exception of his admirer and anthologer Gregory of Nazianzus, this happened quite long after his death, and protagonists of this usage were the Antiochene authors Theodoret and Cassian the Sabaite.¹⁹

The term ὁμοούσιος has been much debated, even though it was staunchly advanced by the followers of Nicene orthodoxy. Since it introduced the ambiguous notion of ‘essence’ to God, it appears that Origen’s term ὁμοτιμία τῆς φύσεως in reference to each Person would have been a less controversial one. In any case, Origen’s grasp of it was all too clear: since the Anaxagorean Mind had to be described as a Trinitarian God, the notion of ‘second God’ should EXCLUDE ANY POSSIBILITY of allowing degrees or rank and classification within the Deity.²⁰ Although fanatics anachronistically attributed the folly of Subordinationism to him, in reality, all of the premisses of his philosophy made the opposite quite indispensable: no matter how the Trinitarian God manifested Himself, if the divine act should be considered as being one, the Three Persons should be considered as being of one nature, of one will, of one power, of one action, of one presence, one in three and three in one. This led to the ‘one essence’ and the ὁμοούσιον, to which the accompanying ὁμοτιμία τῆς φύσεως is an illuminating and decisive gloss. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that, when Origen introduced this consideration, he did so in order to secure that the Logos is a second God, yet not a secondary one. Any suggestion of subordination could only be a detriment to this fundamental idea of his, which takes us to the second text that we should consider.

Origen, Commentary on Matthew, ²¹ Codex Sabaiticus, 232

You should understand the expression, All power has been given unto me in heaven and in earth, as referring to the Incarnation. And if you proceed with considering the divinity [of Jesus], you should understand [the expression] power is given unto me as being used instead of, ‘it was granted’ [me]. [Thus], has been given means ‘it has been given to me from on high by [the divine] free will, or, it has been entrusted to me. Life took place first in those of the higher realms; then, as it happens now, in those of lower ones, whom you should baptize confidently in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He who saves is one; there is one salvation. He who lives is one, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is one; He is not a fusion of the three, but [He is] one in substance; There are three Hypostases, which are perfect and appropriate in all respects. God begat in accordance with his own nature, which is why the one who was born is consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος). God is not corporeal; and this is why the incorporeal God begat not by means of either flowing, or movement, or anything of the like that applies to bodies. This birth produced a subsistent being. The Son was born from the substance of the Father.

Baptizing them: He confers the baptism as the beginning of teaching the nations. For purification comes first, then, repletion with goods follows. And he associated the theology of the Trinity with the baptism by introducing a new [manifestation of] grace. For previously the baptism took place in accordance with the Law; even that by John [the Baptist] was performed by means of water, because of its relation with the previous tradition. However, this was not [real] baptism yet. But now, fellowship [with God] has appeared for the first time, when man emerges from baptism as a new one, as if he were resurrected from the dead, by being filled full with the Holy Spirit, which is a gift by Christ, whose source is the Father. This is why the name Trinity is necessary; and if one omits either of these [three] names [of the Trinity], then one mutilates the name of theology. For if one takes away the Spirit, [theology] is incomplete; if the middle (namely, the Son) is removed, then one severs the beginning from the end. For it is impossible for sanctification, which is effected by one and single action, to be effected by means of Substantial Beings which are different from each other (διαφόρων) and unlike [each other] (ἀσυναρτή των), since it is irreverent to attribute one single action to those who are of different natures (ἑτεροφυῆ) and disjoined from one another (ἀσύναπτα). Therefore, he [i. e. Jesus] pledges (παρεγγυᾷ) to his pupils to bestow upon those who are baptized a Trinity which is consubstantial (τριάδα ὁμοούσιον). [He does so] not by being someone who does not belong to this [Trinity]; but he [i.e. Jesus] does so by refer ring to ‘the Son’, thus indistinctly referring to himself. For indeed he is the genuine and real and strictly the sole Son of the Father. In like a manner, he refers to the Father, by speaking indistinctly of ‘the Father’, who though is the real Father, indeed not one of another son, but strictly the sole Father of the real Son. And he calls the Spirit ‘Holy’, in order to make a distinction from other spirits, which are profane and not holy by nature.

Of the Father and of the Son. While speaking of God, who either begets or is begotten, it is not possible to associate this with time, because God is not subject to time. It is not irreverent to say that God ‘gave birth’ to offspring. No one should be afraid of this, because it is neither contrary [to orthodoxy] nor does it give rise to inappropriate conception [of God], provided that this is understood in a way befitting, God. There is one Father of one Son. There is one unbegotten Father, [and] one begotten God, the Son. And just as there is no other God who is ‘co unbegotten’ (συναγέννητος), so neither is there any other God who is ‘generated’, namely, the Son.

The Holy Spirit is not Son. The Father has the hypostasis of the Father; the Son has the hypostasis of the Son; the Holy Spirit has the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. The hypostasis of the Father (that is, the Father himself) is incorporeal, intellectual, and perfect in every respect. The Son is like the Father in every respect, and he is himself complete, except from being Father; for he is a subsistent Son.

The Holy Spirit is perfect and complete in every respect. Just as the Father is perfect, so the Son is perfect, too; and so the Holy Spirit is also perfect, in the same way the Father and the Son are so, except for being Father and Son. For he is a subsistent Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and with the Son, proceeding from the Father, and being revealed through the Son, and being inseparable from the Father and from the Son, while being a hypostasis of his own. Therefore, there are three perfect hypostases, namely, those of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but [there is] one substance [of them].

Teaching them to observe. The former [teaching] refers to doctrines; the latter refers to the commandments. He makes no mention of the Jews; nor does he raise the issue of what they did [to him]; nor does he reproach either Peter’s denial or the flight of any of the others. He only commands them to pour themselves out to the entire world, after he handed over a succinct teaching to them, namely, the [teaching] through baptism.

And, lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. By saying that he should be together with the saints unto the end of the world, he did not mean that, after the end of the world, they will no longer see him. For it will be especially at that time that he will be together with the saints, who will see him not through a glass darkly, but face to face always.

^m Cf. Origen, commJohn, Χ.37.247: ὅσ᾿ἂν ὁ πατὴρ ποιῇ, ταῦτα ὁ οίως καὶ ὁ υἱὸς ποιεῖ. selNum, PG.12.576.22‒23: Ἐν γὰρ ἐν Χριστῷ τὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ μία διὰ πάντων ἡ ἐνέργεια. Princ, I.2.12: “As regards the power of his works, then, the Son is in no way whatever separate or different from the Father, nor is his work anything other than the Father’s work, but there is one and the same movement, so to speak, in all they do; consequently, the Father has called him an ‘unspotted mirror’, in order to make it understood that there is absolutely no dissimilarity between the Son and the Father. Some indeed have said that the Son’s acts are to be compared with a pupil’s work in likeness to, or imitation of, his master, or that the things which the Father has first formed in their spiritual essence are made by the Son in bodily material; yet how can these opinions be reconciled with the gospel, which says, not that the Son does like things, but that he does the same things ‘in like manner’?” [John, 5:19].

In this text, Origen uses the term ὁμοούσιος confidently once again. The important point about it is not mere usage of the Valentinian term by such a formidable foe of Gnosticism as Origen; more telling is the fact that the term ὁμοούσιος appears in two works which mark the entire span of Origen’s Christian life: the commentary on Genesis was one of his early works, which he began before his De Principiis, and then the two works were written more or less simultaneously, along with the first books of the commentary on John. In the extant Latin translations of his homilies (not the commentary) on Genesis, upon treating chapter 18 of the Genesis, he does not touch upon profound doctrines, such as the Trinitarian one, since those homilies were addressed much later to a wider public, in Palestine (some of them in Caesarea, others in Jerusalem). However, he did so in the commentary on Genesis, as the present manuscript reveals. In the same text, he attacks Melito of Sardis who claimed that God is corporeal. ²² On the other hand, the commentary on Matthew was probably the last of his works (written more or less simultaneously with the Contra Celsum), and the term ὁμοούσιος appears there, too, along with Origen’s care to emphasize that, since God is not corporeal, the notion of the Son having been ‘begotten’ should be understood accordingly, that is, in terms befitting incorporeality.

Some points of the foregoing text need to be perused, since they involve important information.

1. οὐ συναλοιφῇ τῶν τριῶν.

Origen’s term συναλοιφὴ (‘fusion’ or ‘coalescence’) being used in defence of the distinct hypostases of the Trinity is revealing indeed. It was definitely used by his contemporary Sabellius (fl. c. 215),²³ a priest and theologian who probably taught at Rome, but he might have been an African from Pentapolis in Libya, since Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Eunomius, and other theologians (Asterius of Amasea, Chrysostom, Theodoret) said so later. His teaching can be gathered only from polemical writings of his opponents, who argued that Sabellius taught that God was single and indivisible, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three modes or manifestations of one divine Person. Any Sabellian modalist would have maintained that the One God successively revealed Himself to man throughout time as the Father in Creation, the Son in Redemption, and the Spirit in Sanctification. Sabellius’ teaching was staunchly rebutted by Hippolytus in Rome.²⁴ This is a critical point, since Hippolytus was most probably the man that persuaded Origen to convert to Christianity,²⁵ and the two men retained close contact with each other. Therefore, when Origen uses the term συναλοιφὴ in order to refute its application to God, in fact he rebuts Sabellius. Although his great followers such as Athanasius and the Cappadocians did not use this term, ²⁶ Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310/320‒403) was at pains to refute the term συναλοιφὴ and its implications. However, in doing so, what he did not say was that he was using Origen’s characteristic phraseology that appears in the present manuscript.²⁷ Cyril of Jerusalem, a contemporary of Epiphanius, was aware of the heresy, though more restrained in his usage of Origen’s phraseology. ²⁸ This means that it was Origen who first pinpointed the Sabellian term συναλοιφὴ and cared to rebut this ad hoc, and little surprise that Cassian the Sabaite, his moderate sixth-century follower, whom we have recently discovered, followed suit.²⁹

2. οὐ κατὰ ρεῦσιν.

It is remarkable that Cassian the Sabaite followed Origen also on this characteristic expression, which means that he wrote having in mind this part of Origen’s commentary on Matthew, which now comes to light in a fuller form.³⁰ I have argued that also ‘Pseudo-Justin’ is no other than Cassian the Sabaite himself,³¹ hence, coming upon the same expression in Trinitarian considerations as those by Pseudo-Caesarius is no surprise either.³² Origen felt it necessary to make it clear that corporeal analogies should be excluded from accounts of God (which could have been entirely superfluous to do, had he been addressing a Greek audience), since Melito of Sardis claimed that God is corporeal, not to mention Tertullian. This was the reason why Eunomius also used the expression, but he had a different agenda: he argued that the term ὁμοούσιος should be rejected exactly on the grounds that the notions of ‘substance’ and generation ‘from the substance’ bespeak corporeal manner of procreation. ³³ This was the argument of the five bishops who rejected the term ὁμοούσιος of the Nicene resolution, and they did not sign the acts for that reason. ³⁴ Later, Cyril of Alexandria copied from this text of Origen almost to the letter, and although he wrote during different times, he also felt it necessary to emphasize that God is not corporeal.³⁵

3. ἐνυπόστατος ἡ γέννησις.

The authors that followed Origen on banning συναλοιφὴ (‘confusion’) in respect of the Three Persons, also followed him in his ensuing proposition positing that the Son who was begotten from the Father is a self-subsistent Person.³⁶

4. ἀπετέχθη ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὁυἱός.

The expression referring to the Son having been born (indeed to be himself) ‘from the substance of the Father’ became a catchphrase of the orthodoxy of Nicaea, and it was confirmed by subsequent synods. To be ‘born from the Father’ was a gloss to the proposition ‘of the essence of the Father’, and vice versa.³⁷ The Nicaean credo employed this as a phrase by Athanasius, who used it at scores of points in his own writings, to be followed by almost all of the authors who declared themselves followers of the doctrine of Nicaea, such as Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius of Salamis, Cyril of Alexandria, Nilus of Ancyra, Anastasius of Sinai, John of Damascus, and a host of late Byzantine theologians of the second millennium. Church histories, such as those by Theodoret, Socrates Scholasticus, Gelasius of Cyzicus, and Sozomenus, simply quoted Athanasius. What is interesting then is not the use of the expression ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός itself, but the following three points.

(i). The three Cappadocians clearly affirmed that the Father and Son are of ‘the same’, or ‘of one’, essence. However, on closer look, it turns out that they were all but keen on using the expression ‘from the essence of the Father’ as an alternative to ‘generation’ of the Son from the Father. This appears only in a couple of epistles ascribed to Basil of Caesarea, but I have argued that there is good reason to believe that several epistles of that collection were written by others, including Cassian the Sabaite in the sixth century. ³⁸ Likewise, Antiochene authors such as Theodoret and John Chrysostom also preferred to eschew the expression. ³⁹

(ii). The source of the expression ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρὸς is no other than Origen, ⁴⁰ from whom Athanasius borrowed his own formulations, which eventually became the doctrine of Nicaea, and certainly this is one of the reasons why Athanasius averred that Origen’s Trinitarian theory was impeccable by Nicaean standards.⁴¹ The historian Socrates reports that Athanasius USED ORIGEN’S BOOKS IN THE BATTLE AGAINST ARIANISM. ⁴² Nevertheless, since the fundamental meaning of οὐσία was ‘matter’, Origen introduced the caveat that being ‘from the essence’ should be understood far apart from any corporeal analogy. ⁴³ Hence, he warned against understanding the generation of the Son in terms of matter flowing from another matter, namely, οὐ κατὰ ρεῦσιν,⁴⁴ as explained above. However, in spite of this warning, the danger of misunderstanding was there. For, in the first place, mere reference to divine ‘essence’, indeed to ὁμοούσιος alone, takes for granted that there is a certain essence of God, along with its inevitable connotations (such as divine substance being prior to the Trinitarian Persons).⁴⁵ Little wonder then that employment of this term caused prolonged dispute.

(iii). Athanasius took notice of the warning of Origen against any material understanding of generation ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός, and he emphasized this in his own writings using the same terms. The irony is that he ascribed this explanation of the term ὁμοούσιος to Emperor Constantine, which only means paying lip service to a rude despot who had not idea of theology and did not care about anything other than his own power and the stability and coherence of the empire. ⁴⁶ Eusebius reproduced Origen’s cautious qualifications,⁴⁷ and so did Cyril of Alexandria,⁴⁸ but such instances are only a tiny fragment of references compared to the vast number of cases where ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός was used without reservation whatsoever. It is also irony that Abbot Gelasius of the Laura of Sabas in Palestine and the other leaders of the monastery, who composed Justinian’s text against the Monophysites, used Origen’s phraseology making this point (while they condemned him), without being aware of their actual source. ⁴⁹ Nevertheless, it is characteristic that those who cared to reproduce Origen’s expression ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρὸς were Origen’s followers, such as Cassian the Sabaite in the sixth century once again. ⁵⁰

5. Although Origen appears to be the origin of the orthodox expression ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός, my suggestion is that he was not the ultimate source of it. In fact, traces of this formula fade into the obscurity of the classroom of Origen’s teacher Ammonius Saccas employing the literature of hermetism.

1 I am most grateful to the saintly figure of His Eminence Aristarchos Peristeris, Archbishop of Constantina and scholar, Arch Secretary of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who granted me access to the wealth of manuscripts preserved at the Patriarchal Library and allowed me to photograph heretofore unknown texts of Origen. A critical edition of them is now under preparation.

2 Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone, 56.5; cf. 86.5; 126.4. Likewise, Basil of Caesarea, Epistulae, 42.5. Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione et Cultu in Spiritu et Veritate, PG.68.173.39 48. Gelasius of Cy zicus, Historia Ecclesiastica, 3.10.22. Romanus Melodus, Cantica, Hymn 17.4. Chronicon Paschale, pp. 956. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Virtutibus et Vitiis, p. 10.

3 Josephus, Antiquitas Judaica, 1.196.

4 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 9.21.11; Demonstratio Evangelica, 5.2.2; De Ecclesiastica Theologia, 2.21.1; Commentarius in Isaiam, 1.41. Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.2.7. Athanasius, Scholia in Job (e cod. Vat. Pii II), p. 26. Anastasius of Sinai, In Hexaemeron Anagogicarum Contemplationum Libros Duodecim, Book 7, line 206.

5 Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus De Sancta Consubstantiali Trinitate, PG.75.216.39 40; Commen tarii in Joannem, v. 2, p. 130; Contra Julianum, 1.26.

6 Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione et Cultu in Spiritu et Veritate, PG.941.17 19.

7 Epiphanius of Salamis, Ancoratus, 29.5 6: ἵνα τὸν ἕνα δείξῃ θεόν, τοὺς δὲ συνεπομένους αὐτῷ ἄλλους δύο ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ. Cf. op. cit. 53.2. In the Panarion, v. 3, p. 238, those were only ‘angels.’

8 John Chrysostom, In Genesim, PG.53.374.55 382.66; In illud: Ne timueritis cum dives factus fuer it homo, PG.55.505.50 ff.

9 Neophytus Inclusus, Commentarius in Hexaemeron Genesim, chapter 14...

20 In chapter 11, it has been shown that Origen’s reference to ‘second God’ can be understood only in such a context, and it has nothing to do either with similar references by Numenius, or with Subordinationism.

21 Codex 232 (beginning of the eleventh century, written on parchment. It comprises 240 folia, of which folia 128 135 on linen paper). During the fifteenth century, this codex was preserved at the monastery of Abba Gerasimus. Origen’s passage from the Commentary on Matthew is the first in the series of excerpts from authors of whom the Codex quotes scholia on Matthew. This codex contains excerpts from commentaries on Matthew by Origen, Theodore of Heraclea, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Gregory of Nyssa, and Photius, as well as some ‘unattributed’ ones (ἐξ ἀνεπιγράφου). However, Origen’s excerpts occupy more than two thirds of the codex, and I am now in the process of pre paring a critical edition of them. (Pp. 1559-1576)

This manuscript reveals that not only did Origen use the term ὁμοούσιος, but also that he argued for this. It appears none the less that the rationale of his argument goes back to the obscure syncretistic classes of Ammonius Saccas, as indeed the notion ‘from the essence of the Father’ does, too. It was in that setting that Origen realized that it was possible to move from the Anaxagorean Mind to the Trinitarian God without having to allow that generation of the Son/Logos entails of necessity change in God himself: it is possible to speak about both the ‘unbegotten Father’ (ἀγέννητος πατήρ) and the ‘generated God, that is, the Son’ (γεννητὸς θεός, ὁ υἱός), and to consider both of them as standing on the same ontological par, which is necessary in order for the single Trinitarian act to make sense. In short, Origen argues that it is possible to say that there is nothing irreverent about speaking of ‘God who both gives birth and is born’ (τὸν θεὸν γεννῶντα καὶ γεννώμενον).

The Son is not ‘unbegotten together with’ the Father (συναγέννητον), that is, alike unbegotten, yet he is a real hypostasis, who proceeded from the essence of the Father (ἐνυπόστατος ἡ γέννησις · ἀπετέχθη ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὁ υἱός). As there is no other God than the Father who is ‘unbegotten’, so there is no other God who is ‘begotten’ (καὶ ὥσπερ οὔκ ἐστιν συναγέννητος ἕτερος θεός, οὕτως οὐδὲ συγγεγεννημένος ἕτερος θεό ς, υἱός). (Ibid., p. 1585)

The texts from the two codices speak for themselves in respect of what Origen really taught. However, the issue is not concluded with the present appended article, since I am working on a critical edition of both codices, and I discuss Origen’s employment of homoousios in a study of his Trinitarian theology. For the time being, suffice it to refer to a testimony that has not been paid attention to.

A text in the chronicle known as Synodicon Vetus is pretty clear in assuring that Origen was one of those early authors who not only maintained the notion but also explicated the term homoousios. This document recounts a synod held in Alexandria, but it does not state clearly which one this was. However, this can be gathered from its context. By and large, the record follows a chronological order, and this synod is mentioned subsequent to one held at Constantinople by Constantius II (emperor during 317‒361), in which Meletius of Antioch (patriarch, from 360 until his death, in 381) took part and he was subsequently sent to exile. Therefore, this synod of Alexandria took place after the middle of the fourth century, and it can be determined that the document refers to the synod of Alexandria in 362, which was chaired by Athanasius. (P. 1589)

The most important moment of this process after Origen was a text by an author who concealed his identity under the authority of Gregory of Nyssa. Production of this kind of texts flourished at the end of the fifth century right through the middle of the sixth. The importance of this lies in that, in effect, it copies from the text of Origen from Codex Holy Sepulchre 3, which we saw above: the author quotes the same passage of Genesis that recounts the hospitality by Abraham, in order to argue that ‘at many points of the Old [Testament], it is possible to discover that the [kind of] Hypostasis of the Trinity and the homoousion are implied in a slight manner (Καὶ ἐπὶ πλείοσι τόποις τῆς Παλαιᾶς ἔστιν εὑρεῖν, ἠρέμα ὑποδεικνυμένης τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος τὴν ὑπόστασιν καὶ τὸ ὁμοούσιον αὐτῆς). Besides, following quotation from Genesis 18:1‒10, the author uses the selfsame argument as Origen, indeed in the same characteristic vocabulary: since, at Mambre, Abraham addressed the three men ‘singularly’ (μοναδικῶς), that is, not ‘My Lords’, but ‘My Lord’, this is an implicit manner for the Genesis to bespeak the Trinitarian nature of God. In Genesis 18:10, the verb used is ἥξω (‘I will return’), in singular, which means that the three speak as one, which is one more proof of the homoousion. ¹¹⁵ The author of this text was not Gregory of Nyssa. However, no matter who he was, he was a pupil of Origen, as indeed Gregory himself was. The text of Codex Holy Sepulchre 3, which is now being published, shows that the possibility of Gregory of Nyssa himself having employed Origen’s teaching once again, and having influenced an author of the sixth century in turn, is only a plausible likelihood. (P. 1593)

The real question at this point is what was that which encouraged Origen to use this term – since, in chapter 11, I have shown that there is no question about him maintaining the notion itself. I am going to return to this issue in Origen’s biography, particularly on Hippolytus being the one who played a critical role in Origen’s conversion to Christianity, and subsequently, to supplying him the means to produce his commentaries and other tracts, and certainly with having introduced Ambrose to Origen. It seems to me that Origen was encouraged to use the precarious Gnostic term ὁμοούσιος, which had been used in Greek by Hippolytus speaking of the Son being ὁμοούσιος with the Father,¹²⁶ although the latter’s theology was ditheistic rather than Trinitarian. There should be no doubt that usage of the term by Tertullian would have been retailed to Origen, who must have turned a favourable ear to this, all the more so since both theologians thought poorly of Platonism.

126 Hippolytus, In Canticum Canticorum (paraphrasis), 1.6: ἐν οἷ ςφέρεται ὁ πατὴρ περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἰδίου καὶ ὁμοουσίου μυστήριά τινα μέλλοντα ἐκβήσεσθαι ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμᾶς. (P. 1596)

Further Reading

Origen’s Trinitarianism Summarized

Origen on God’s Uncreated Firstborn Son

Origen – Dialog with Heracleides

Origen on the Father as the Source of the Son’s Goodness

Origen: Monarchia & the Filioque

Athanasius on Origen’s Christology

Eusebius on Origen