Going Deep with Origen – On Trinity

Mark Edwards writes in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Origen was the first Christian to speak and write of the Trinity. Most scholars give Origen of Alexandria credit being the first great theologian of Christianity.[1]  Origen thoughts on the Trinity are braced between the Platonic philosophy of the Logos and the trinitarian doctrine we know today. He describes the relationship of the Trinity as homoousios,[2] as of one substance between the second hypostases (Jesus) and the first hypostases (The father). In The Story of Christian Theology, Olson writes of a disparity in Origen’s philosophy, “The Logos, according to Origen, is somehow less than the Father, although he never explained exactly what that means.”[3] Did Olson’s research on Origen include On First Principles? Mark Edwards explicitly states that the Son is autotheos:

• “The Father, or first person, is nevertheless the only one who is autotheos, God in the fullest sense, whereas the Son is his dunamis or power and the Spirit a dependent being, operative only in the elect. All three are eternal and incorporeal, the Son being known as Wisdom in relation to the Father and Logos (reason, word) in relation to the world.”[4]

Looking at On First Principles[5],
Origen writes that the Son is less than the Father:

• “The God and Father, who holds the universe together, is superior to every being that exists … the Son, being less than the Father, is superior to rational creatures alone (for he is second to the Father); the Holy Spirit is still less, and dwells within the saints alone.”[6]

Later in On First Principles. Preface[7]:

• “That Jesus Christ Himself, who came (into the world), was born of the Father before all creatures; that, after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation of all things, “For by Him were all things made” He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit: that this Jesus Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not endure this death common (to man) in appearance only, but did truly die; that He did truly rise from the dead; and that after His resurrection He conversed with His disciples and was taken up (into heaven).”

On First Principles. 2.1, On Christ[8]:

• “According to John, “God is light.” The only-begotten Son, therefore, is the glory of this light, proceeding inseparably from (God) Himself, as brightness does from light, and illuminating the whole of creation. For, agreeably to what we have already explained as to the manner in which He is the Way, and conducts to the Father; and in which He is the Word, interpreting the secrets of wisdom, and the mysteries of knowledge, making them known to the rational creation; and is also the Truth, and the Life, and the Resurrection, in the same way ought we to understand also the meaning of His being the brightness: for it is by its splendour that we understand and feel what light itself is.”

 Origen affirmed a belief in the pre-existence of the soul[9]. For Origen, Jesus is a pre-existent human soul who became the Logos because he alone did not fall away from God as the other souls did Before the Logos became man in the incarnation, the soul of Jesus had to be united with the Logos.
Against Celsus 5.39[10]:

• “For these things are in our view the Son of God, as His genuine disciple has shown, when he said of Him, “Who of God is made to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” And although we may call Him a “second” God, let men know that by the term “second God” we mean nothing else than a virtue capable of including all other virtues, and a reason capable of containing all reason whatsoever which exists in all things, which have arisen naturally, directly, and for the general advantage, and which “reason,” we say, dwelt in the soul of Jesus, and was united to Him in a degree far above all other souls, seeing He alone was enabled completely to receive the highest share in the absolute reason, and the absolute wisdom, and the absolute righteousness.”

Arians would later use Origen’s theology to defend their own because of Origen’s subordinationist tendencies. As Jonathan Hill explains in The History of Christian Thought[11], Arius (250-336 AD), a presbyter in the church at Alexandria, took Origen’s lack of hierarchy to different level. Even though Origen believed that there was never a time when the Son did not exist because of eternal generation.  He taught Jesus who was created the Son of the Father; God’s first creation. The Council of Nicaea in 325AD wrote the Nicene Creed to respond to this heresy of Arianism.


[1] Moore, Edward. "Origen of Alexandria". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The University of Tennessee at Martin. Retrieved, 2 June 2019, https://www.iep.utm.edu/origen-of-alexandria/

[2] Homoousios: key term of the Christological doctrine formulated at the first ecumenical council, held at Nicaea in 325, to affirm that God the Son and God the Father are of the same substance. Encyclopædia Britannica: July 30, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/homoousios

[3] Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999. (143)

[4] Edwards, Mark J and Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Origen", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition),  URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/origen/>.

[5] Philip Schaff, Editor. Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885. (On First Principles 2.6.5; Against Celsus 5.39; and the Commentary on John 2.2)

[6] On First Principles 1.3.5

[7] Philip Schaff, Editor. Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885. (561)

[8] Philip Schaff, Editor. Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885. (587)

[9] Philip Schaff, Editor. Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885. (On First Principles 2.6.5; Against Celsus 5.39; and the Commentary on John 2.2)

[10] Philip Schaff, Editor. Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885. (1287)

[11] The first book on early church fathers I read when the call to ministry became central to my life.