Spirit and Fire: Origen: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings 9780567669728, 9780567658258

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Translator’s Foreword Despite a fairly strong consensus among patristic scholars that Origen might well be the greatest of all the early Christian writers, he still remains relatively inaccessible for contemporary Christians. A desire to do something about this ‘scandal of inaccessibility’ has been the motivation behind this translation. Von Balthasar’s introduction, although written in 1938, still remains the best brief introduction to the heart, soul and spirit of Origen’s writings. The brief bibliographic update provided here in the Translator’s Epilogue will meet the initial needs of the serious reader or scholar who is eager for further study. Beyond that, it seems appropriate to add here some comment on Origen’s interpretation of scripture. While they are less likely than their forebears to be upset by speculations which have proven to be erroneous or inadequate, modern readers are more likely to be alienated by Origen’s manner of interpreting the Bible which is often so badly misunderstood as to make it difficult for them to hear and understand what Origen was really saying and doing. Our basic challenge in reading Origen today is that we tend to read him in terms of the current standards of scholarly exegesis. How well does Origen measure up to these? But this is far from being the most important question in coming to an understanding of what Origen was really about. For if we are thinking of modern exegesis when we ask: ‘Was Origen an exegete?’ ‘No’ is a far more correct answer than ‘Yes’. Now Origen obviously did many of the things a modern exegete does, and in some of these, such as textual criticism and sensitivity to the differences between the evangelists, his accomplishments were not even equalled, let alone surpassed, until our own times. However, most of the methods of modern exegesis were simply not available in Origen’s time. And most important of all, his central conception of what he was doing as he interpreted the Bible was quite different from what the modern exegete or biblical theologian thinks he

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or she is or should be doing. The modern exegete1 applies a sophisticated blend of philosophical, historical and literary tools to uncover the ‘literal meaning’ of the Bible. This literal meaning of the Bible is understood to be the meaning intended by its human authors, or the meaning contained, by denotation or connotation, in the text itself. Practically all of the work of the modern biblical scholar is directed towards or proceeds from this central goal. Origen would have regarded such a conception of theology (at that time, all Christian theology was essentially biblical theology), if indeed anyone could have formulated it that way at that time, as curious, misguided or even pernicious. For although he was constantly looking to see precisely what Moses, David, Jeremiah, Matthew, John, Paul, among others, were saying and why they were saying it, this was always done with a view to hearing and understanding not just what God, the WORD, was saying, but also what was happening to and in the person who, in the Spirit, was attending to what the WORD was saying. One way of putting this is to point out that in commenting and preaching on the Bible, Origen was really doing theology (as opposed to exegesis). At first glance, the modern reader might well conclude that Origen simply used the Bible as a means or catalyst to bring his theology to expression, or, put more bluntly, that Origen arbitrarily and irresponsibly used the Bible as a handy frame on which to hang the various elements of his thought. This was the basic position, made popular in the 1920s by Eugene de Faye, who saw in Origen only a philosopher.2 For the educated modern reader this is an obvious misuse of the Bible. Such a misuse might indeed be more elegant and sophisticated, but in the end it does not essentially differ from the way some modern religious sects selectively quote the Bible to support their own particular view of Christian reality. However, there is a vitally important grain of truth in such an observation, and we will return to it later. But for the moment, let us examine some of its unacceptable consequences. The most striking of these is that it logically pushes

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By ‘modern exegete’ we mean someone committed to scientific or ‘critical’ exegesis, and working in the context of a theology which accepts the inspiration of scripture, the reality of the incarnation and the life of the Spirit in the church – that is a serious, critical scholar who accepts the Bible as the word of God. See below, the TRANSLATOR’S EPILOGUE, footnote 2.

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us to dismiss patristic theology – of which Origen might well be the most brilliant representative – as something irrelevant for the modern Christian. It is reduced, at its worst, to a naively unscientific biblicism, and at its best to an elegant glass bead game. However, reducing Origen’s exegesis to an elegant ‘game’ does not adequately explain his ability to inspire a whole series of great theologians from ancient times (Athanasius, Basil, the Gregorys) down to our own (Karl Rahner, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac and our own Hans Urs von Balthasar). To make sense of this fact we must obviously look more deeply. Our suggestion on how to do this will consist of a brief presentation of the following three points: (1) a description of Origen’s conception of the biblical WORD of God, (2) an indication of how this determines his methods of interpreting scripture, and (3) an attempt to put all this in the context of his rule of faith. (1) Jesus Christ, the WORD incarnate, is central to Origen’s concept of scripture, because for him, the WORD was incarnated not only in the flesh of the historical Jesus, but also in the very words of scripture. This is what Origen has in mind when he says that the meaning of all scripture, of the Old as well as of the New Testament, is Jesus Christ. Thus, he means much more than what comes to our minds when we hear the statement that the Old Testament points to the New. For Origen, the WORD is already there, in the Old Testament, incarnated, as it were, in the words of Moses, David and the prophets. Thus, the real meaning or, as he liked to express it, the ultimate spiritual meaning of every biblical text is Christ. Hence, every text, indeed every word of the Bible is important and worthy of reverence and study. This is strikingly illustrated in the famous homily where, after reminding his listeners of the care and reverence with which they handle every particle of the consecrated bread, Origen asks: ‘But if you exercise such concern in taking care of his body – and indeed with every right – how can you think it a lesser crime to neglect the WORD of God than his body?’ (No. 721). Thus, when a Christian prays the Psalms, the eternal Logos, in the hereand-now, is speaking to that soul. In the Song of Songs, the bridegroom is the WORD, conversing with his spouse, the soul. And, perhaps most revealing of all, the historical, Egyptian Passover is not primarily an image or type of Christ’s suffering, but of Christ’s transitus to the Father – a reality that is

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still taking place in us (see Nos. 1035–9). The words of the Bible are not just signs and symbols and images of Christ; in a very real sense they are Christ; the eternal Logos is present in them by an incarnation which is different, of course, but no less real than the historical, bodily incarnation of Jesus in the womb of Mary. But just as many who encountered the man Jesus in the flesh did not, because of their lack of faith, encounter the eternal WORD, so too is it with the biblical WORD: many do not see beyond the flesh of the letter or historical meaning; they do not see beyond these externals to the internal reality of the eternal WORD already present and active within themselves, calling and leading their souls to make progress towards perfect unity with the Father who is all in all. (2) Once one sees Origen’s concept of the biblical WORD as the letter of history in which the eternal WORD has become incarnate, the main aspects of Origen’s method of interpreting scripture fall logically – or ‘theologically’ – into place. The text, the literal or historical meanings, are by no means unimportant, for they are the ‘body’ or the ‘flesh’ in which the Logos becomes incarnate. But in relation to the inner, spiritual reality of the eternal Logos, God the WORD, these external realities tend to pale into insignificance. This alone would account for the impression that Origen undervalues the historical meaning. This is indeed an obvious tendency in Origen, and it is all the more heightened by the Platonizing cast of his thought.3 But when Origen speaks of the biblical WORD, the WORD incarnate in the scriptures, at least four interconnected levels of meaning are in play. First, this WORD is the pre-existent, eternal, divine Logos, the Logos proclaimed in the prologue of John’s gospel and expounded in extraordinary detail and depth in Origen’s commentary on this prologue. Second, this same divine Logos is the one who took flesh of the Virgin Mary, lived and worked among us, suffered, died, rose again and ascended to the Father, where he continues to intercede for us and to work until all things have become subjected to the Father who

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The mere fact that Origen’s thought can be described as ‘Platonizing’ is, in itself, only a sign that he was a Christian thinker in the third century. There was at the time no thought system better suited to help Christians in their theological reflection. The real question is not whether Origen thinks like a Platonist, but whether in so doing he gives sufficient place to the incarnational aspects of Christianity.

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is all in all. Third, this same eternal WORD who took flesh of Mary has also become incarnate in the words of scripture. Fourth, this same eternal divine WORD, born of Mary, and incarnate in the scriptures, also dwells and is at work within us, espoused to our souls, calling us to make progress towards perfection, and to work with him in ascending to and subjecting all things to the Father. At any time Origen may have one of these levels of meaning more in mind than another, but at no time is any one of them very far from his consciousness. But clearly dominating, and thus constituting his central hermeneutical principle, is the fourth level of meaning which includes the other three. It is thus that one can speak of ‘existential interpretation’ in describing Origen’s hermeneutics; but in doing so one must locate it within Origen’s conception of the real incarnation and hence ‘real presence’ of the eternal WORD in the scriptures. It is thus not mere metaphorical language but precise theological description to speak of the ‘sacramentality of the biblical word’ according to Origen. This enables us to see, for example, that where Origen seems to speak of or favour a ‘WORD-presence’ of Christ in the Eucharist over against a mere physical or bodily presence, this is not a downgrading but an upgrading of the reality and mystery of the Eucharistic presence. An interesting contrast between the typical modern exegete and Origen the biblical theologian can be drawn by locating where each of them sees what we now call diachronic complexity. The modern exegete locates this in the complicated processes, sometimes extending over centuries, by which the biblical text came to take its final form. Origen had access to none of the information and methods which would have afforded him a view into this process. But he does find complex diachronic reality in the scriptures; not, however, in how they came to be, but in the way that they reveal how the soul is making progress towards God, and in the way that they document how the Logos, who is already incarnated in the scriptures, is also coming to be in us. Thus, much of what Origen is doing in his commentaries and homilies would, in today’s classification, be called spiritual theology. This outline of Origen’s understanding of the biblical WORD enables us to make sense of Origen’s particular techniques for approaching the biblical

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text, some of which are quite foreign or even alienating to modern scholarly sensitivities. First, the extraordinary reverence and meaning attached to each particular word and phrase is the logical consequence of Origen’s understanding of the real incarnation of the eternal Logos in all of scripture, in both Testaments, and not just in the more important or elevated passages of either. In particular, variations and inconsistencies (as between the different evangelists), or passages whose literal or historical meanings seem unworthy of the WORD, are obvious signs that one should search for the deeper, spiritual meaning behind these words. This, of course, tends to annoy the modern exegete who can explain most of these variations, inconsistencies, and ‘unworthinesses’ as part of the process of the human authorship of the Bible. Equally annoying to the typical modern exegete, especially if one is unaware of what Origen is about, is his habit of ranging freely across the entire Bible in order to interpret any particular passage. Since the WORD, as explained above, is incarnate in all of the Bible and in all of its parts, such a procedure is not only allowable but necessary. Up to this point we have been speaking of the difference between the literal or historical and the higher or spiritual sense. This is indeed the simplest schema which applies to all cases in Origen. But beyond this, Origen quite often speaks of or uses a triple schema, and he does so in two distinguishable variations. In the first variation, there is (1) a historical or literal meaning: facts recorded, or the texts of the Law; then (2) a moral meaning, which is an application to the soul (but not yet talking about Christian grace); and fi nally (3) a mystical meaning relating to Christ, the church and all the realities of faith. In the second variation, there is (1) a historical or literal meaning relating to the things of Israel; then (2) a mystical meaning relating to the mystery still to be fulfilled, that is, Christ and the church; and finally (3) a spiritual meaning relating to the soul – but here it is the soul not just in its psychological reality as in the first variation, but the soul as ‘spouse of the WORD’ in its graced progress towards full union with God.4 Origen will use,

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See Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash, Greek and Latin trans. Juvenal Merriell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), esp. 159–64 (= ET of Histoire et Esprit: L’intelligence de l’écriture d’après Origène. Theologie 16 (Paris: Aubier, 1950)). The English edition carefully translates into English de Lubac’s voluminous Latin and Greek quotations of Origen, thus making it a much more valuable research tool than the original French edition.

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without apparent rule or consistent method of application – method in this sense is a modern invention – sometimes only the basic letter-spirit schema, sometimes one or other of its more elaborate triple variations, and sometimes other variations of these possibilities. Allegory and typology simply fit in as techniques to be used within these schemas. And although the triple schemas were often more helpful in dealing with some of the apparently more ‘Christdistant’ realities of the Old Testament, Origen apparently never made a significant attempt to be consistent in these matters.5 But such inconsistency was itself fully consistent with his overall conception of what was happening as he interpreted scripture: what was happening was the Christian soul following the guidance of the Spirit to look beyond the literal and historical meanings to catch some glimpse of the humanly incomprehensible mystery of the WORD. This is what Origen thought he was about as he interpreted scripture. It is, quite clearly, not what the modern scholar would call exegesis. But once modern readers see what Origen was doing and attempting to do, it becomes possible for them too to become captivated by the brilliance and range of insight that flashes from the pages of the great Alexandrian. But if this captivation is to become more than just a fascinating glimpse into an elaborate game, once played but now dead, two interrelated objections remain to be faced. The first and more obvious is the charge of arbitrariness: one can see what Origen is doing and why, but in the end, there often seem to be no consistent rules and regulations as to how and why Origen comes up with one particular interpretation, especially in his allegorizing, rather than another. The second objection is that of irrelevance: one can marvel at the brilliance of his interpretations; but because his fundamental conception of the Bible is so different from that of a modern theologian, one is tempted to concede antiquarian significance to the study of Origen, and then dismiss him as of little relevance for the modern Christian. To meet these objections, one has to see Origen’s biblical theology in the context of his concept of the Christian faith or, more precisely, the rule of faith.

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This inconsistency is quite consistent with the perception of some of his more astute modern interpreters (like Daniélou and de Lubac) that, although profoundly synthetic in his thinking, Origen was not a systematician.

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(3) Origen’s faith and biblical theology is radically and profoundly ecclesial. Notwithstanding the famous difficulties with his own local bishop, Demetrios, in Alexandria, or the questionable use to which some of the Origenists later put his work,6 no one actually familiar with Origen’s work as a whole can have any doubt about this. The two texts selected by von Balthasar to serve as the epigraph of this anthology are fully typical of Origen’s total adherence to the church. One aspect of Origen’s church-oriented faith is his insistence that all of the  Bible must be kept in mind when interpreting any particular passage. On the one hand, this corresponds to the church’s insistence on the sacredness of the whole Bible over against the heretics, especially the gnostics who rejected the Old Testament as unworthy of God and, in general, accepted only parts of the Bible as inspired. Origen’s church-oriented faith removed much of the danger of arbitrariness from his interpretations. Indeed, the fact that Origen’s interpretations made so much sense in the context of the whole Bible is a major reason for his massive influence on the development of the so-called ‘golden age’ of patristic theology.7 But in the end, it was Origen’s ecclesial rule of faith that was decisive. This is what provided the structure and substance of his particular hermeneutical circle; this is what, in effect, determined his interpretations of the Bible. As becomes perfectly clear from the prologue to On First Principles – where Origen outlines the church’s rule of faith in its still undeveloped form in the early third century, a full century before the a.d. 325 Council of Nicea began to limn the outlines of the church’s trinitarian theology – Origen does not share in the hermeneutical naiveté of those who believe that they are taking all their faith and theology directly from the Bible, but who are, in fact, only reading into a select part of the Bible that particular narrow rule of faith that reigns in their own sectarian community. But there is one point of parallel: Origen is, as a modern scholar would put it, reading into the Bible. But, he is with the utmost conscientiousness reading both from and into the whole

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See Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1992) and more briefly: ‘Origenist Controversy’, in Everett Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (New York/London: Garland Publishing, 1997), 837–9. Roughly from the middle of the fourth to the end of the fifth century.

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Bible, and doing so with unparalleled skill and insight. Because that which he is, so to speak, ‘reading into’ the Bible is the broad rule of faith of the whole Christian community. This is Origen’s hermeneutical circle (of which he himself, for an ancient writer, seems to be impressively conscious): He studies and interprets the Bible in order to know and understand his Christian faith; but it is his already possessed ecclesial Christian faith – that has of course come from the Bible in the first place – that tells him what to look for and find in the Bible. Hermeneutical circles can be concentric, that is, limiting or confining, as is the case with sectarians or heretics in the classical sense, or they can be open and expansive in order to embrace as much of reality as possible. Origen’s hermeneutical circle was of the latter type in at least three different ways. First, he was an avid, curious, dedicated and daring biblical ‘scientist’. All that could be known about the Bible in his day he took pains to learn. Second, he was a thinker of considerable philosophical ability and dedicated to the idea that Christian faith, although not answerable to human reason, was not inconsistent with it, because true human reason is always a participation in divine reason. Properly approached, he saw philosophy and reason not as a danger but as a help to faith. Third, he brought his own personal and practical experience to bear on his theological reflection and interpretation of the Bible.8 Thus, to say that the Christian rule of faith as handed on from the apostles and as received in the church of his day determined how Origen interpreted the Bible is far from the whole story. From his constant research, from his incessant questioning and speculating and from his own personal and spiritual experience, he was continually bringing in new insight and understanding to the church’s understanding both of the Bible and of its own rule of faith. His was not only the vision and insight to broaden and deepen, not only the courage to admonish and correct, but also the boldness and adventuresomeness to question and speculate. It was this unique combination of knowledge and curiosity, insight and eagerness to teach,

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On the question whether or in what way Origen may have been a mystic, see Henri Crouzel, Origène et la ‘connaissance mystique’ (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1961), as well as von Balthasar’s own Parole et mystère chez Origène (Paris: Cerf, 1957).

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fidelity to the rule of faith as well as the boldness to correct misconceptions of it, and finally, absolute faithfulness to the WORD, that enabled him to captivate the minds and hearts of so many of the church fathers and others to follow. And he will captivate ours too if we do not smother him with erroneous presuppositions Robert J. Daly, S. J.

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Translator’s Epilogue I Recent Origen Studies Although there has been nothing in Origen studies comparable to the massive external impact on New Testament studies of such things as the Dead Sea Scrolls, increased access to the religious life and writings of early rabbinic Judaism, and the discovery of the Nag Hammadi gnostic texts, to say nothing of the internal impact of the movements from form criticism to redaction criticism, and then on to structural criticism and sociological analysis, there has nevertheless been an impressive amount of movement and progress in patristic studies in general and in Origen studies in particular over the four and one-half decades between the first German edition of Geist und Feuer in 1938 and my translation of it as Spirit and Fire in 1984. At the beginning of that period Origen scholars were just beginning to come to terms with Walther Völker’s recent insistence that all Origen texts, even those available only in the reputedly suspect Latin translations from the end of the fourth century and later, had to be taken into consideration if one was to do justice to the full range of Origen’s thought.1 Völker’s corrective ran counter to the prevailing scholarly opinion that tended to see Origen much more as a philosophical systematician than as a Christian biblical theologian. Eliminating all of the Latin translations (which included most of the almost 400 extant homilies as well as the commentaries on Romans and on the Song of Songs, and much of the commentary on Matthew) left the speculatively oriented Peri Archōn – On First Principles – in a much more central position, and made it relatively easy to read Origen primarily as a systematically philosophical figure.2 1

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Walther Völker, Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes (BHT 7l; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1931). Völker, in applying this much-needed corrective to the popular position of Eugène de Faye (see below footnote 2) was, in effect following the lead of the somewhat neglected work of Ferdinand Prat, S.J., Origène, le théologien et l’exégète (Paris: Bloud, 1907); ‘Origen and Origenism’, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1911), 306–12. This was the position made popular by the brilliantly written but erroneous work of Eugène de Faye, Origène, sa vie, son oeuvre sa pensée, 3 vols. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1923–8); Origen and his Work, trans. Fred Rothwell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929).

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This corrective, this vitally important interpretive principle of giving due, if cautious, attention to the extensive writings extant only in Latin was readily welcomed by Henri de Lubac, the theological mentor who introduced von Balthasar to Origen and the Fathers in the mid-1930s. These two theologians, together with Jean Daniélou, led the charge which eventually restored, at least to the consciousness of scholars, the reputation of Origen as the towering figure of early Christian spiritual and biblical theology. By the time of the second German edition of Geist und Feuer (1956), all three had made major contributions to Origen studies,3 and the modern revival in the study of Origen was well under way. However, at that time, the more dominant earlier view which saw Origen primarily as a philosopher still had its defenders, and it was too early to tell which view would eventually dominate. The long series of books and articles by scores – even hundreds – of authors that would eventually give massive support to the portrait of Origen as a biblical and spiritual theologian had only begun to appear. However, to say simply that the biblical and theological view eventually won the day does not do justice either to the complexity of Origen studies or to the many-sidedness of the great Alexandrian himself. For, while remaining ever centred on the biblical WORD, he was also a man of the Church and, in his own day, an arbiter of orthodoxy. He was also a Christian ascetic, martyr-in-waiting, and spiritual father for the whole tradition that followed in both East and West. He was also an extraordinary homilist, catechetical instructor, and, beyond that a daring doctrinal theoretician. He was also a Christian apologist and thinker of extraordinary philosophical sophistication, a constant seeker of coherence but always willing to accept incoherence – of which there was a great deal in the century before Nicea – rather than devalue the truth or any aspect of the rule of faith. He never stopped being all of these things when he was doing ‘exegesis’ or writing ‘commentaries’ or while exhorting, or preaching, or teaching.4

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Hans Urs von Balthasar, ‘Le mystérion d’Origène’, Recherche de science religieuse 26 (1936), 513–62; 27 (1937), 38–64; reprinted as Parole et mystère chez Origène (Paris: Cerf, 1957); Jean Daniélou, Origène (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948); Engl. trans.: Origen (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955); Henri de Lubac, Histoire et esprit: L’Intelligence de l’écriture d’après Origène (Théologie 16; Paris: Aubier, 1950); Engl. trans.: History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash, Greek and Latin trans. Juvenal Merriell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007). Adapted from an unpublished manuscript being prepared for a forthcoming handbook on Origen.

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And as the decades passed, the debate took place in a more irenic and ‘ecumenical’ atmosphere. Emphasizing one facet of Origen carried with it less and less a diminution or negation of other facets. Greatly contributing to this process have doubtless been the meetings of patristic scholars every four years at the Oxford Patristic Congresses beginning in 1951, and, beginning in 1973 (at midpoint between the Oxford meetings) the international Origen congresses.5 Reading through the proceedings of the Origen congresses and the relevant papers from the Oxford congresses is a good way to step into the flow of the current course of Origen studies.6 However, if one is just beginning with Origen, the best beginning is with Crouzel’s magisterial (1983) Origène.7 Crouzel’s summarizing treatment in his NCE article is somewhat complemented by subsequent review articles by myself, Lothar Lies, S. J., and Joseph Trigg.8 Moving on from there, the obvious key tool is the comprehensive critical bibliography on Origen studies produced by the recent patriarch of modern Origen scholars, Henri, Crouzel.9

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At Montserrat in 1973, Bari in 1977, Manchester in 1981, Innsbruck in 1985, Boston in 1989, Chantilly in 1993, Marburg in 1997, Pisa in 2001, Pécs, Hungary in 2005, Cracow in 2009 and Aarhus, Denmark in 2013. The papers from the Oxford patristic congresses have all appeared under the series title: Studia Patristica. The papers from the Origen congresses have appeared as Origeniana (the first congress in 1973), Origeniana Secunda (the second congress in 1977), Origeniana tertia (the third congress in 1981), Origeniana quarta in 1985, quinta in 1989, etc., down to Origeniana undecima, the most recent 2013 congress in Aarhus. Further details readily available via normal bibliographic search engines. Henri Crouzel, Origène (Paris: Pierre Zech, 1985); Engl. trans. A. S. Worall (London/San Francisco: T. & T. Clark/Harper & Row, 1989) which Crouzel himself summarizes in the article: ‘Origen and Origenism’ in both the first (1967) and second (2003) edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Daly, ‘Origen Studies and Pierre Nautin’s Origène’, Theological Studies 39 (1978), 508–19. Nautin’s Origène: sa vie et son oeuvre (Christianisme antique 1; Paris: Beauchesne, 1977) was the first comprehensive study of Origen’s life and work to appear since Eugène de Faye’s Origène: Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée, 3 vols. (Paris: Leroux, 1923–8). Lothar Lies, ‘Zum Stand heutiger Origenesforschung’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie (now Innsbrucker theologische Zeitschrift) 102 (1980), 61–75, 190–205; Joseph W. Trigg, ‘A decade of Origen Studies’, Religious Studies Review 7 (1981), 21–7. Henri Crouzel, S.J. (1918–2003), Bibliographie critique d’Origène (Instrumenta Patristica 8; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971); idem, Bibliographie critique d’Origène. Supplement 1 (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1982). This is somewhat complemented by R. Farina, Bibliographia Origeniana 1960–1970 (Biblioteca del ‘Salesianum’ 77; Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1971). Since 1967, and continuing for several decades, Crouzel published annually in the Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique under the title ‘Chronique Origénienne’ a review of the new Origen books of the previous year. Basically, from the very beginning of Origen studies several centuries ago up through the end of Crouzel’s Bibliographie Critique, one will find everything listed year by year and alphabetically within each year. After that the most complete bibliographic listing, year by year, is the massive ‘Elenchus bibliographicus’ of the periodical Ephemerides theologicae Lovaniensis.

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II This Translation In effect, this is a second edition of the English translation of von Balthasar’s Geist und Feuer that first appeared in 1984. But the changes between that edition and this one are to be found only in the updated TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD and the first part of the TRANSLATOR’S EPILOGUE. In this second part of my epilogue I repeat, mostly verbatim what I wrote in 1984. In a modest way, this translation amounts to a new, that is, fourth, edition, two in German and now two in English translation. However, apart from the few instances where minor errors or inadequacies were discovered and corrected, no liberties whatsoever were taken with von Balthasar’s work. My occasional additional remarks (in the footnotes) have all been clearly indicated as additions by my initials: R.J.D. Beyond that, the ‘newness’ of this edition consists in the following: (1) The texts have been freshly translated from the original Greek and Latin.10 (2) There is an additional now updated TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD in which I try to make Origen’s way of doing theology and interpreting scripture more understandable and helpful to the modern reader. (3) In the first part of this TRANSLATOR’S EPILOGUE (above), under the title ‘Recent Origen Studies’, the reader with scholarly interests is provided with the key concepts and bibliographic information needed to gain a solid overview of Origen studies in recent decades. (4) From the recently published Origen texts not yet available when von Balthasar published the second edition, I have added a new section ‘Appendix: The Paschal Mystery’ with the additional texts 1035–9. The final four of these are from the Peri Pascha, Origen’s treatise on the Passover that was among the 1941 Toura papyrus discoveries, but only recently edited and published. (5) In the hope of making this translation more helpful to the reader, and of drawing the reader’s attention more forcefully to the unmistakable centre

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With the exception of thirty-eight mostly very brief texts on the Psalms from J. B. Pitra, Analecta sacra 2 (Tusculanus, 1884) and 3 (Venice, 1883), from R. Cadiou, Commentaires inédites des Psaumes: étude sur les textes d’Origène contenus dans le manuscrit Vindobonensis 8 (Paris, 1936). These editions were not available to me during the time I was working on this translation. I simply translated these few texts from von Balthasar’s German, after checking to make sure that none of them represented a critical or unique witness to important points in Origen’s thought.

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of Origen’s writings, the WORD incarnated in the scriptures, I have traced down and parenthetically inserted in the translations the references to the scripture texts that Origen quoted, paraphrased or obviously alluded to. For the sake of consistency, all the references are made according to the chapter and verse numbering as found in the RSV. Where appropriate, the RSV wording has been followed. This was often not appropriate, as when Origen was paraphrasing, quoting freely and at times inexactly from memory, or following the Septuagint or some other ancient translation or version of the Old Testament. In those cases where the differences in wording or numbering seemed to be due to Origen following the Septuagint, this has been indicated by the abbreviation ‘LXX’ after the text reference. (6) An index of biblical references has been provided.11 In the translation itself, I have chosen, where necessary, to be faithful and precise rather than elegant or literary. This corresponds to Origen’s own attitude that was far more concerned with content and meaning than with expression and style. I have also tried to reproduce in good English the thought structure reflected in Origen’s sometimes convoluted prose. Origen’s mind was tireless in noting the rich panoply of the connectedness and interconnectedness of things. Language and sentence structure was often simply inadequate to express what was in his mind. Thus, in our translation, some of the occasional ‘strangeness’ or ‘roughness’ is due not merely to the limitations of the translator; it is sometimes a calculated reflection of the text being translated. However, I have consciously allowed such roughness to remain in the translation only when it seemed needed to reflect Origen’s own thought and expression. Otherwise, it has been my constant effort to produce as smooth and readable a translation as would be commensurate with texts that are important theological sources. I have tried to eliminate exclusive language, but without full success. And in any case I stopped short whenever I sensed that my efforts might endanger the meaning of the text in hand.

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Since this is an index to an inevitably somewhat arbitrary and – relative to the whole work of Origen – somewhat small selection of Origen’s writings, this index has no precise statistical value in relation to Origen’s work as a whole. Those interested in such precise information should consult the comprehensive index of scripture quotations of Origen contained in Biblia Patristica. Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la littérature patristique 3: Origène (Paris: éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1980).

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Many, sometimes difficult, hours have gone into this translation. But in the end, it will have been worth it if it succeeds in making more effectively accessible to the reader of modern English one of the greatest minds ever to serve the church of God. Robert J. Daly, S.J.

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