Origen and the Emergence of Divine Simplicity before Nicaea by Pui Him Ip

Author:Pui Him Ip [Ip, Pui Him]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 60416239
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 2022-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 6.1. A Schematic Presentation of Origen’s Account of Patrological and Christological Titles

Source: Expansion of a diagram found in Orbe, Hacia, 1:443.

Note: A = absolute patrological titles; Ba = titles the Son receives from the Father; Bb absolute sonship titles; Bc = relative soteriological titles

Origen’s Anti-Monarchianism

Building on the work of Orbe, figure 6.1 indicates a number of ways Origen’s theory of Scriptural titles fills out the content of the Father-Son distinction.83 By unfolding these possibilities captured in the above diagram, it will be possible to arrive at a more precise determination of the content of Origen’s anti-Monarchianism, his insistence on the distinction between the Father and the Son. It is in the context of Origen’s anti-Monarchianism where one can pinpoint more precisely how divine simplicity differentiates the Father from the Son.

The Transcendence of the Father over the Son as an anti-Monarchian Emphasis: Patrological Titles

The patrological titles reveal the first sense in which Origen distinguishes the Father and the Son in a hierarchical manner. The Father is the single fount and source of goodness, divinity, immortality (A in figure 6.1). In this role he is simple in the sense of The Republic: perfect goodness itself, self-constant, and immutable.84 The Son receives these qualities (Bb) derivatively, that is, through participation in the Father. Since the Son is not fount and source—the form—of the absolute patrological titles, he is not simple. This does not imply that the Son is not good and immutable. But it is as the image of the Father that he acquires these qualities.85 Origen’s account of the absolute patrological titles thus reveals that it is the Father who is most truly simple in the sense of The Republic.

It is possible to show explicitly that Origen developed this emphasis on the Father’s transcendence over the Son as an anti-Monarchian emphasis. For ComJn II.12–20, where he develops the formalized account of the Father’s transcendence, clearly possesses an anti-Monarchian context. In this section Origen explicitly addresses the Monarchians twice. First, as we have seen in ComJn II.16, he criticizes the Monarchians explicitly. It is in the next paragraph, beginning with the words Λεκτέον γὰρ αὐτοῖς, that he immediately turns to developing the formalized scheme for distinguishing between “The God” (= the Father) and “God” (= the Son) on the basis of John 17:3. This suggests that he set out the hierarchical scheme directly in response to Monarchian theology. Second, having set out the scheme, in ComJn II.19 Origen explicitly anticipates what resembles an objection from the Monarchians: does the differentiation between “true God” and “God” compromise monotheism? This point arises because Origen’s scheme not only differentiates between the Father and the Son; it actually envisages a more general differentiation between “The God” and everything else that Scripture calls “gods,” including the Son.86 This opens up Origen’s scheme to the objection of polytheism. Does the differentiation between “The God” and “God”—thus implicitly affirming the appropriateness of applying the title to more than one being—lead to the degradation of the term “God”? It is

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