Nielsen’s Nook

The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (1 of 2)

John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. Snapshot of Origen

Origen's [c.a. 182 - 251 CE] personality and ideas have always been the source of passionate controversies. Condemned in his lifetime by his bishop, supported by numerous disciples, he was attacked again in the fourth century by St. Epiphanius and condemned in 400 by a council presided over by Theophilus of Alexandria. The role played by St. Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia in the Origenist quarrels of that time are also well known. The same quarrels were used as an excuse for the deposition of St. John Chrysostom. (p 47)

anthropology cosmology eschatology monism

Whoever says that the life of the spirits will be analogous to the life which existed at the beginning, when the spirits were not yet fallen and lost, so that the end and the beginning are similar, and that the end will be the true measure of the beginning, be he anathema (Anathema 15).