Origen of Alexandria: A Brief Examination of His Hermeneutics (Methods for Interpreting the Bible)

Origen of Alexandria (185-254) was a disciple of Clement of Alexandria. He was the son of Christian parents. His father was martyred when he was in his teens; and Origen would later suffer the same fate.[1] Although he fused Greek thought with biblical exposition, Origen was the greatest theologian of the early Greek Church.[2] Leaving little to speculation or to the imagination in his commentary on the Gospel of John, Origen argues, "Scripture contains many contradictions, and many statements which are not literally true, but must be read spiritually and mystically."[3] Although it must be noted that he took Matthew 19:12 literally, for he castrated himself in order to instruct his female students without fear of sexual immorality, most of the time he favored a spiritual interpretation.[4] Like any good Christian, whenever difficulties arise in the text or difficult questions are asked within or without the church that cannot be answered immediately; he searched for answers until the questions were satisfied. Origen found his answers in the allegorizing and spiritualizing of the text. It seems that Origen implemented his spiritualizing hermeneutic mainly when he perceived textual difficulties. The examples he cites in order to prove his argument concerning contradictions and the necessary allegorical responses are numerous.

One reason Origen seeks to spiritualize the Scriptures is because he believes the gospels cannot be harmonized without this method of interpretation. Concerning the apparent difficulty of the forty days of Christ's temptation, and reconciling the timeline between the Gospels, Origin writes,

"If the discrepancy between the Gospels is not solved, we must give up our trust in the Gospels, as being true and written by a divine spirit, or as records worthy of credence, for both these characters are held to belong to these works. Those who accept the four Gospels, and who do not consider that their apparent discrepancy is to be solved anagogically (by mystical interpretation), will have to clear up the difficulty, raised above, about the forty days of the temptation, a period for which no room can be found in any way in John's narrative; and they will also have to tell us when it was that the Lord came to Capernaum.[5]"

Origen is correct in his emphasis on the reality that these apparent discrepancies demand answers. However, one can answer these discrepancies by understanding the theme, the purpose of the various Gospels, and argue that precise historical accuracy was not their concern; although this writer believes the timeline can be accounted for. The events and narratives are possibly summarized as well, for the authors only included enough information to validate their points, but the truth is still intact. So, spiritualizing the text is not necessarily the only answer or possibly even the most preferred answer as Origen argues.

As a good apologist Origen further seeks to explain why the Gospel writers wrote these contradictions that they "expected" to be spiritualized. Although his arguments are compelling, the fact that his spiritualizing causes more unanswered questions reveals the danger in spiritualizing the text. He purports that the supposed contradictions exist because each author comes from a different perspective.[6] Granted, each author does come from a different perspective, but what they describe is placed in historical narrative without figurative language or genre. One wonders how Origen can argue for spiritualizing without the language of the author even pointing him to spiritualizing the text.

Another reason for spiritualizing the text according to Origen is to reconcile Paul's contradictory statements concerning Himself. He believes, if taken literally, that the Apostle Paul talks out of both sides of his mouth. Understanding Paul properly is important because if Paul cannot be trusted, then his letters cannot be trusted; and thus, most of the Newer Scriptures in use at the time of Origen could not be trusted as well. Origen writes,

"On the same passage one may also make use of such an example as that of Paul, who at one place Romans 7:14 says that he is carnal, sold under sin, and thus was not able to judge anything, while in another place he is the spiritual man who is able to judge all things and himself to be judged by no man. Of the carnal one are the words, Not what I would that do I practice, but what I hate that do I. And he too who was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words is a different Paul from him who says, Of such an one I will glory, but of myself I will not glory. If he becomes 1 Corinthians 9:20-22 to the Jews as a Jew that he may gain the Jews, and to those under the law as under the law that he may gain those under the law, and to them that are without law as without law, not being without law to God, but under law to Christ, that he may gain those without law, and if to the weak he becomes weak that he may gain the weak, it is clear that these statements must be examined each by itself, that he becomes a Jew, and that sometimes he is under the law and at another time without law, and that sometimes he is weak. Where, for example, he says something by way of permission 1 Corinthians 7:6 and not by commandment, there we may recognize that he is weak; for who, he says, 2 Corinthians 11:29 is weak, and I am not weak?[7]"

Origen is correct in his detailing of Paul's various discrepancies about himself; however, each verse can also fit together. These verses at least detail the Apostle Paul's beliefs about himself. Though they may appear contradictory to readers, this does not mean that Paul is speaking in a contradictory manner. There are many literary methods in use in Paul's writings. Origen misses these apparent uses of literary method and finds comfort in spiritualizing. Also, the Apostle Paul could be speaking about different time periods of his life. Some of the statements Origen mentions could have been said about when Paul was not a Christian, when he was an immature Christian or a mature Christian; or he could have merely been referring ironically to himself in one statement and referred to himself literally in another statement. The point is that these purported contradictions do not have to be spiritualized in order to explain them. When one spiritualizes he or she speculates; and although his or her thoughts may be biblical as proven by other literal texts, the goal of interpretation is to understand the author's purpose for writing his text, not to merely speculate about how his text points to other truths found in other literally interpreted texts.

Another reason Origen spiritualizes is to make sense out of difficult texts. One example is his spiritualizing of the cleansing of the temple contained in the beginning of John's gospel. It is a difficult text because the Apostle John offers different words that Christ says and he places the cleansing of the temple at an earlier time than the other Gospel writers. Origen argues,

"When, therefore, the Savior finds in the temple, the house of His Father, those who are selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting, He drives them out, using the scourge of small cords which He has made, along with the sheep and oxen of their trade, and pours out their stock of coin, as not deserving to be kept together, so little is it worth. He also overturns the tables in the souls of such as love money, saying even to those who sell doves, Take these things hence, that they may no longer traffic in the house of God. But I believe that in these words He indicated also a deeper truth, and that we may regard these occurrences as a symbol of the fact that the service of that temple was not any longer to be carried on by the priests in the way of material sacrifices, and that the time was coming when the law could no longer be observed, however much the Jews according to the flesh desired it. For when Jesus casts out the oxen and sheep, and orders the doves to be taken away, it was because oxen and sheep and doves were not much longer to be sacrificed there in accordance with Jewish practices.[8]"

Origen offers some vivid explanations; and though his arguments are true of Scripture overall, they cannot be deduced from this text without speculation. It does make the story more interesting as Charles Haddon Spurgeon argued over 1500 years after Origen, but it does not mean that God the Holy Spirit intended the spiritualized meaning.[9] If the interpreter must be divinely inspired to understand the text, then it makes no sense that God would divinely inspire a limited number of men if He was going to divinely inspire all His people at a later time. The words contained in specific sentences, in specific genres, in specific paragraphs, in specific historical contexts, etc. were divinely inspired in this manner for the teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness of Christ's church (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The text therefore must be responsible for the author's purported spiritualizing; otherwise he has no authority for such interpretation and is merely speculating.

There are many, many more possibilities to examine concerning Origen's spiritualizing. They are virtually endless. It must be admitted however that some of Origen's arguments for spiritualizing are more compelling than others; one of his best examples is his examination of Solomon's temple:

"For the sake of those, however, who consider that nothing further than the narrative itself is meant to be indicated in these words, it may not be unfitting to introduce at this point some considerations which they can scarcely withstand, to show that the words ought to be regarded as those of the Spirit, and that the mind of the Spirit should be sought for in them. Did the sons of the kings really spend their time in hewing the great and precious stones, and practice a craft so little in keeping with royal birth? And the number of the burden-bearers and of the stone-cutters and of the officers, the duration, too, of the period of preparing the stones and marking them, is all this recorded as it really was? The holy house, too, was got ready in peace and was to be built for God without hammer or axe or any iron tool, that there might be no disturbance in the house of God. And again I would ask those who are in bondage to the letter how it is possible that there should be eighty thousand stone-cutters and that the house of God should be built out of hard white stones without the noise of hammer or axe or any iron tool being heard in His house while the building was going on? Is it not living stones that are hewn without any noise or tumult somewhere outside the temple, so that they are brought ready prepared to the place which awaits them in the building?[10]"

His arguments are compelling. The questions he raises concerning Solomon's temple appear to argue for the impossibility of a literal interpretation. Although this writer agrees with his questioning, spiritualizing is still not the immediate answer. However, if one chooses to spiritualize, then the spiritualizing must speak more about heaven than earth since the temple is a type of heaven on earth. Furthermore, having constructed the temple hundreds of years before Origen, is it really impossible to cut the stones precisely without iron tools? Also, could the Israelites have cut the stones somewhere else and brought them in when they were finished? The answer to both of these questions is a clear yes. Furthermore, the question arises if whether or not Israel would have spiritualized the text when it was spoken to them. Would the people of God that had witnessed miracles and heard of their Father's miracles in the past have replied with doubt that such construction was possible? It is highly unlikely, although Israel struggled with unbelief almost continually. Finally, for Israel having not fully understood Christ's coming, it would be difficult for them to see the symbolism Origen argues in favor of; although it is very interesting argumentation.

[1] JustoGonzalez, The Story of Christianity (Vol. I.), (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1984), 78.

[2] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2007), 870.

[3] Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, A. Cleveland Coxe, Allan Menzies, Ernest Cushing

Richardson, and Bernhard Pick, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 9). Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325. (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912), 383.

[4] Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 870.

[5] Roberts, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 9). Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, 382.

[6] Ibid., 382-383.

[7] Ibid., 384.

[8] Ibid., 394.

[9] Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, (Nashville, TN: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980), 97-109. Although Spurgeon argues for allegorizing within certain limits, in this writer's opinion Origen seems well within these limits in his discussion of Jesus cleansing the temple in the Gospel of John.

[10] Roberts, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 9). Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, 404-405.