Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 27

Recurrence of Origenism.

Justinian revealed the real extent of his absolutism in the obscure and lengthy history of the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
The outward reasons leading to it may seem fortuitous, and it is not easy to discern its inner congruity with the gradual crystallization of Orthodox dogma, a congruity which, despite its sad historical appearance, has still preserved ecumenical authority for it in the mind of the Church.

The council arose from a new dispute over the theology of Origen, who, as we have already seen, was the first to attempt a synthesis between Christianity and Hellenism. In spite of the immense influence of the great Alexandrian teacher, certain points in his thought aroused doubts very early. Even at the end of the third century, Methodius of Olympus was writing against his doctrine of the pre-existence of souls and the nature of resurrected bodies. A hundred years later, at the end of the fourth century, Epiphanius of Cyprus, a celebrated exposer of heresies, regarded Origen as the source of the Arian subordination of the Son to the Father; at the same time St. Jerome was also writing against him; and finally, in 400, a council led by Theophilus of Alexandria in that city solemnly condemned the errors of Origenism. For in it Hellenism had fundamentally distorted Christianity, and the struggle against Origen was one aspect of the critical and difficult Christianization of Hellenism in which, as I have pointed out, we find the historical meaning of the patristic period. The Church “revised” Origen, discarding from his teachings what seemed incompatible with its faith and perfecting what seemed valuable and useful.

But the problem or Origen had not been posed on an ecumenical scale, and had been overcome primarily in theological disputes about the Trinity and God-Manhood, through gradual refinement of the theological language and hence by a clear theological mastery in Church tradition.
Thus the sudden relapse into Origenism at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth was not a matter of chance; it revealed all the strength of Hellenistic themes that had not been overcome, even in the mind of the Church itself — a constant temptation to rationalize Christianity. The revival of Origenism must be interpreted in this connection.

It is not accidental that these disputes over Origen, which became so acute under Justinian, were limited almost exclusively to the monastic environment, which had arisen as a way or method of “practical” incarnation of the evangelical ideal. But very early the ascetic experience began to be interpreted and to grow into a definite theory. In this, Origen’s influence was a decisive factor, and not Origen alone, but the whole Alexandrian tradition with its interest in mystical and spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, and its ideal of gnosis as a higher way, and “deification.” Disputes over Origen arose very early among the monks.
According to tradition, St. Pachomius the Great had forbidden his followers to read his works. On the other hand, his influence may be felt in the Life of Anthony composed by St. Athanasius. Origen attracted Basil the Great and his friends, founders of monasticism on Greek soil; and without doubt the ascetic works of Evagrius of Pontus, which were distributed throughout the East on a vast scale and strongly influenced all later ascetic writing, were directly derived from Origenism. Along with the adoption of much that was valuable in Alexandrian tradition, its danger too might be discerned more and more clearly: it lay in the “spiritualization” of Christianity, the very subtle and innermost “de-incarnation” of man. This was a danger from Greek idealism, which had not been overcome — the desire to replace “salvation” by contemplation.

 

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