Chapter 8: The Rise of Theologians. The people who have done the most harm to Christianity have invariably been people who are actually trying to help the cause of Christ. From what I've observed, few people have purposely tried to corrupt Christianity. The people who have introduced innovations have almost always thought they were doing the work of God. So it should come as no surprise that the first Christian theologian was a godly man who devoted his entire life to Jesus Christ and His kingdom.
His name was Origen. In fact, Origen had no further aim in life than to serve Christ and to be a fellow worker in the kingdom. Origen nearly lost his life in persecution when he was only seventeen, and as an older man, he faithfully endured torture for the name of Christ. In fact, he died as a result of his imprisonment and torture. Actually, in most ways, Origen personified the kingdom life taught by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount.
He witnessed about Christ to whomever he could; he passed up wealth to live in poverty for the king, and he always treated both friend and foe alike with gentleness and love. Now I realize that my description may portray a different Origen than you've heard about in books and pamphlets. Today, Origen is blamed for just about every heresy imaginable. He's even erroneously blamed for the Alexandrian text used in modern Bible translations.
However, what I usually find is that the people who criticize or condemn Origen have never read one word of his writings. They know nothing about his godly lifestyle and the close walk he had with Christ. All they know about him are the things they've read in pamphlets and books about him. Although Origen was a man of God, he had one major attribute that proved to be as much of a curse to him as it was a blessing. The attribute was that he was a genius, and it proved to be his undoing.
One might say that Origen was the Leonardo da Vinci or Isaac Newton of his day. If he had devoted his life to science, who knows what discoveries he might have made. Like most geniuses, he had unlimited curiosity and boundless energy. Origen took on Christianity's toughest critics and silenced them with his answers. He even carried on correspondence with the wife of one of the Roman emperors.
Although he was from Alexandria, Egypt, he traveled throughout Palestine to learn as much about the geography of the area as he could. He became the first biblical geographer. He dialogued with prominent Jewish theologians of his day. In fact, he was the first Gentile Christian to actually learn Hebrew. He did this so he could better defend the faith against the ridicule the Jews were heaping on it.
Most of the pamphlets and books written today in support of the King James Version attack Origen and accuse him of tampering with the scriptures and creating the Alexandrian text. However, it is not the Alexandrian text that follows Origen's recommended readings. Rather, it is the majority text in the Textus Receptus, from which the King James Version was translated. The First Doctrinal Textbook.
It's too bad that Origen didn't limit his intellectual gifts to textual criticism, biblical geography, and defending Christianity against the attacks made by the Romans and Jews. If he had so limited himself, his spiritual legacy would have remained untarnished. However, Origen's unbridled intellectual curiosity sent him down paths he should never have entered. One of the great mistakes Origen made was to write Christianity's first theological work. It was a book entitled On First Principles.
Since Origen's day, so many theological books have been written on the basic doctrines of Christianity that we now take such doctrinal books for granted. But that's because of the precedent Origen set. In his day, it was a novel idea. The New Testament had always been the book that contained the fundamentals of the faith. There was no need for any human work in addition to it. Christianity had prospered for nearly two hundred years without a doctrinal textbook. So why start something new?
By writing a doctrinal textbook, Origen was implying that the New Testament is insufficient. Now, if Origen had limited his work to merely summarizing the body of beliefs handed down to Christians of his day, it might not have been a particularly bad idea. However, the purpose of his book was not to reiterate what the church already taught. No, the purpose of On First Principles was to speculate on theological areas for which the church had no set teachings and where the Bible sheds little light.
In other words, it was largely a work of personal theological speculation. For example, in his book, Origen discussed the question of where we get our souls. Do they exist before they are given to our bodies, or are they created anew at the moment of conception? Do our parents create our soul in conception, or does God make a special creation every time a human is conceived? The church had no teaching on the subject because the Bible has no teaching on it.
There are many areas about life and eternity that the Bible simply doesn't tell us much about. The wise thing is to leave those things alone and not delve into mysteries that God hasn't chosen to reveal to us. Unlike the doctrinal books written after his day, Origen wasn't trying to tell other Christians what they should believe. He made it clear that what he wrote was simply his personal speculations.
He always set forth what the church said on each subject, and he was careful not to contradict what the church taught. His inquiries were limited to areas in which the church had no teaching. Origen was only in his twenties when he wrote On First Principles. He was a young man who held no position of authority in the church, and the furthest thing from his mind was to make dogmatic assertions about what others must believe.
Nevertheless, On First Principles is the work that launched the new class of Christian theologians. Instead of simply sticking to the language of Scripture and leaving things alone that are not revealed, Origen set the precedent of going beyond Scripture. He made it acceptable to speculate about things for which we have been given no clear revelation. He also helped to create a rift between the wise and educated and the ordinary Christian.
The learned could understand and dialogue about Origen's theological speculations. The ordinary Christian couldn't. It was like the Jewish theologians versus the ordinary uneducated Jews. Once Origen opened the door, a wave of theological speculations followed. And before the third century was over, Christians everywhere were entangled in theological speculations and disputes. Whereas Origen had a kind, undogmatic spirit, the theologians who followed him were often dogmatic and judgmental. The First Commentary.
Origen has the distinction of writing not only the first theological treatise but also the first set of commentaries. But his commentaries further amplified the notion that the ordinary and uneducated were merely skimming the surface of the scriptures. His commentaries promoted the idea that there was a lot of spiritual meat average Christians were missing and that only the wise and prudent could grasp. And that notion has continued to this very day.
Nowadays, the typical Christian who is asked to teach Sunday school or preach a message thinks he has to turn to a commentary to be able to understand what the scriptures are really saying. After Origen's death, the balance of power in the church shifted away from the ordinary and uneducated to the wise and prudent. A new class of theologians had formed. Although Origen unwittingly launched the Christian theological movement, he himself remained a kingdom Christian his entire life.
He had never lost sight of the kingdom. Sadly, the same cannot be said about those who followed him.