This week, we will take our first (superficial) dive into the person, infamous controversy, and New Testament commentaries of the 3rd Century Christian scholar, Origen.
I first heard of Origen in two contexts: first, that he was anathemized (excommunicated or declared a heretic) by the Catholic church in 543 A.D., and second, that he allegedly castrated himself to resist sexual temptation. I had planned to write this post on Contra Celsus, his apologetic work directed at the philosopher Celsus, but I couldn’t neatly disentangle him from the controversies surrounding his work and his person, so we shall talk about them today and discuss Contra Celsus in the next post.
Legend has it, Origen castrated himself to honor God with his piety. There are several medieval miniatures depicting this act; I won’t include any in this article (you’re welcome) but a quick Google search will furnish a surprising number of results for the curious. But before we investigate the truth behind this legend, let’s dive into a quick background of Origen so we can know him as not simply an emasculated fellow but as a prolific writer, philosopher, teacher, and survivor of persecution.
Who was Origen?
Origen (c. 185- 253 AD) lived a tumultuous yet productive life— and like many church fathers, he was not exempt from heresy. At the time of Origen’s birth, there was peace between the Church and the Roman Empire and yet the Empire had not officially recognized Christianity, which remained an illegal practice while Christians were considered disloyal and dangerous1. When Origen was seventeen years old, tensions between the Emperor and Christians ran high, and Origen’s father was imprisoned and decapitated for his faith. To provide for his remaining seven family members, Origen became a teacher and a writer. Reflecting on his father’s martyrdom in a later homily, Origen states2:
Having a father who was a martyr does me no good, if I do not live well myself and adorn the nobility of my descent. That is, I must adorn his testimony and confession by which he was illustrious in Christ.
Origen continued on to study philosophy and Hebrew, becoming a highly sought-after orator and traveling widely: to Rome where he learned Logos theology, to Egypt to discuss Christianity with the governor of Arabia, to the schools in Alexandria, and then to Caesarea, where he was invited to deliver homilies despite a lack of formal ordination. Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, was incensed that the honor of preaching be given to a man lacking in formal qualification, and he demanded Origen’s return. Back in Alexandria, Origen became the first scholar to compare the Old Testament from the early church to the Greek Septuagint (as recorded in Hexapla, though only fragments remain) and the controversies began.
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Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, repeatedly refused to ordain Origen, so Origen sought a solution elsewhere, and was ordained on a visit to Caesarea in 231 A.D. Demetrius condemned his ordination an act of insubordination and— according to the Caesarian bishop and recorder of early church history Eusebius— alleged that Origen castrated himself, an act prohibited under Roman law at the time.
But Origen continued to write, producing Contra Celsus in his sixties to refute the philosopher Celsus’s objections to Christianity at the request of his friend Ambrosius. He died as a likely result of his imprisonment and torture during the Decian persecution, as recorded below by Eusebius:
But how many and how great things came upon Origen in the persecution, and what was their final result, -- as the demon of evil marshaled all his forces, and fought against the man with his utmost craft and power, assaulting him beyond all others against whom he contended at that time, -- and what and how many things he endured for the word of Christ, bonds and bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks he bore patiently the threats of fire and whatever other things were inflicted by his enemies; and how his sufferings terminated, as his judge strove eagerly with all his might not to end his life; and what words he left after these things, full of comfort to those needing aid, a great many of his epistles show with truth and accuracy.
… so why should we care if Origen castrated himself?
First, we should care because Origen’s (alleged) autocastration ties neatly into his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew and his overarching allegorical style of Biblical criticism. Second, because it is worthwhile to contemplate “how far is too far”; we all sin and we know that God doesn’t want us to sin, but to what lengths should we go to prevent ourselves from sinning, and to what degree should we endeavor to extricate all temptation in our path? (In speaking with some of my non-Catholic friends, the concept of castration for management of sexual sin switches from patently absurd to alluring in managing and punishing the rampant sexual abusers within the Catholic church.)
But where would Origen (or Demetrius) have even derived this idea of autocastration? Historians debate whether Origen made himself a eunuch, or a castrated male, in an overly literal keeping with Matthew 19 (partially reproduced below3):
[Jesus] said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
If Origen did indeed castrate himself “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” we should expect his theology to reflect a literal reading of that passage and a broader pattern of literal Biblical interpretation. Instead, Origen was highly figurative in his interpretation of the New Testament as a whole. One English translation of Origen’s commentary on the Book of Matthew shows that Origen actually condemns a literal interpretation of Matthew 19:12, asserting that Jesus’s three mentions of eunuchs should rather be interpreted figuratively. He defines three types of eunuchs as follows4:
Men who, by nature, do not experience sexual desires.
Men who practice abstinence, not because they are led by Scripture or Christian faith, but because of secular reasons (i.e. because they practice Greek philosophy or adhere to pagan customs).
Men who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead an ascetic lifestyle: they have used the “sword of the Spirit” to excise sexual sin from their hearts.
See below for the full text on these three types of eunuchs taken from Origen’s commentary:
But we wish to preserve the consistency of the three eunuchizations, and we agree with the figurative interpretation of the third and will also say the same regarding the first two. Eunuchs in the metaphorical sense might well now include those who live in sexual abstinence and who do not indulge in such debauchery [2 Corinthians 12:21] and impurities or similar things. Among those who live abstinently in this regard, however, there are, in my opinion, three different groups. The first are so because of their nature; to them the word should be applicable: There are eunuchs who are born so from their mother's womb. The others may well, for rational reasons, practice asceticism and have turned toward abstinence from the enjoyment of love and from any lack of restraint in these matters; but this intention and asceticism and (so to speak) good performance was not generated in them by the Word of God, but rather by human words, whether of those who practice philosophy among the Greeks, or of the heretics […] These ones appear to me to be meant when it says: "There are eunuchs who have been eunuchized by human beings".
But it deserves our assent when someone takes in hand the living and efficacious Word, sharper cutting "than any double-edged sword" [Hebrews 4:12], and "the sword of the Spirit" (as the apostle calls it) [Ephesians 6:17] and cuts out the passion of the soul, without, however, laying a hand on the body, and does so because he understands the kingdom of heaven and understands that in order to inherit the kindom of heaven it is of the greatest assistance to cut passion out of his soul through the Word. It is to such persons, and not as those people think who interpret the verse literally, that the saying is applicable: There are eunuchs who have eunuchized themselves for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
Self-made eunuchs aside, Origen takes an allegorical interpretation of many other parts of the Bible and is said to be the father of textual criticism. Some scholars suggest that his allegorical interpretation, because it became more exaggerated as he grew older, was a result of his personal failure to live an ascetic lifestyle.5 This appears to me as pure speculation, especially given Eusebius’s testimony to Origen’s asceticism (he describes how Origen doesn’t wear shoes, drink wine, or eat for pleasure), however if we dive into Origen’s On First Principles, we can see how his allegorical Biblical interpretation takes form despite what he may have practiced6:
And now, if we institute a similar examination with regard to the Gospels, how shall it appear otherwise than absurd to take the injunction literally […] that when one is smitten on the right cheek, he is ordered to present the left also, since everyone who strikes with the right hand smites the left cheek? This precept also in the Gospels must be accounted among impossibilities, viz., that if the right eye offend you, it is to be plucked out; for even if we were to suppose that bodily eyes were spoken of, how shall it appear appropriate, that when both eyes have the property of sight, the responsibility of the offense should be transferred to one eye, and that the right one? Or who shall be considered free of a crime of the greatest enormity, that lays hands upon himself?
Yet Origen does recognize a literal interpretation when appropriate:
And what need is there to speak of the prohibitions, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” and others of the same kind? And with respect to the precepts enjoined in the Gospels, no doubt can be entertained that very many of these are to be literally observed, as, e.g., when our Lord says, “But I say unto you, Swear not at all”; and when He says, “Whosoever looks upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart”; the admonitions also which are found in the writings of the Apostle Paul, Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient towards all men, and very many others.
But although we have described Origen’s style as allegorical thus far, Heine notes that the word “allegory” may be insufficient to describe Origen’s work and may be dismissive of the importance of the flesh in Christian theology. Origen himself only uses the word allegoria nine times in his commentaries. He describes his Biblical interpretations rather as a means of revealing deeper, hidden truths in Scripture or as a means of anagogy or ascension7:
In the Commentary on John, one of Origen’s earliest compositions, he states his task as a commentator on the Gospel, in keeping with his understanding of the nature of Scripture, to be ‘to translate the gospel perceptible to the senses into the spiritual gospel’, which means he will ‘attempt to penetrate the depths of the meaning of the gospel and examine the bare truth of its figures’ (ComJn 1.44–46).
Application to the modern day
I shall leave you with the following questions for contemplation:
Despite rampant pornography addictions and sexual sin in our current world, even the most devout Christian would not consider autocastration, nor should he. However, there is a wide spectrum of actions by which one may guard oneself against sin. The Bible mentions marriage as one such means of avoiding lust; is early marriage one reasonable answer to the reduction of sexual sin? What are some others?
Origen’s interpretation of the Bible is more allegorical or figurative rather than literal. Sometimes the Bible is very clear on what we should take literally, such as with Jesus’s parables. Other times, it is less clear (i.e. in the reading of Creation). How might the literary structure of the Bible inform us of whether we are to read a passage as allegory?
Origen is seen by some as a church father and by some as a heretic. He lived closely after Jesus’s death, presumably at a time where he had both the full knowledge of the Christian Bible and close proximity to the early church’s teachings. Most Christians would certainly not condemn him to Hell for his heresies; but where do we draw the line between heresy and sin? Why mightn’t the Holy Spirit guide a man so desirous of knowing God to a correct theological understanding?
Miscellaneous facts:
At the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the first canon agreed upon by bishops across the Roman Empire prohibited autocastration in members of the clergy. It did, however, allow a man castrated due to illness or from an attack by “barbarians” to remain, as they did not willfully undergo the procedure.
Heine, Robert E. Origen: An Introduction to His Life and Thought. Wipf and Stock Publishers (2019). p. 29.
Ibid, 32.
ESV Study Bible. Matthew 19:7-12. (2008). Crossway Books.
Origen & Brustman, M. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Translated from Greek into German by Hermann Vogt and from German into English by Mark Brustman, with a review of the original Greek. https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/origen-matthew.htm
Jonathan Hill, The History of Christian Thought (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 53.
Origen, De Principiis (First Principles; Princ.), ed. P. Koetschau, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913; translation G.W. Buttwerworth, London: SPCK 1936; reprinted Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1973.
Heine, Ronald E., 'Origen’s Gospel Commentaries', in Ronald E. Heine, and Karen Jo Torjesen (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Origen, Oxford Handbooks (2022; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Mar. 2022), https://doi-org.proxy1.library.jhu.edu/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199684038.013.15, accessed 27 Mar. 2024.