Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, ‘Philo as Origen’s Declared Model’, p.5<\/a><\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n
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Origen promoted the Platonic idea that all human souls pre-existed as rational beings who fell from heaven and subsequently entered wombs to be born in the flesh. These souls would then be perpetually reincarnated from one human body to another until, through mystical contemplation, they finally ascended to heaven. In this model, all souls (including Satan) would eventually be redeemed.27<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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It was Origen who devised the theory known as the\u00a0Eternal Generation of the Son<\/em>. This pillar of Trinitarian theology makes one very significant change to Justin\u2019s view that Jesus was begotten by God in pre-human form at the dawn of creation. Origen proposed that Jesus\u00a0never<\/em>\u00a0had a beginning. The word \u201cbegotten\u201d could be stretched to mean an infinite span of time, such that Jesus is eternally being \u201cbegotten\u201d right up to the present day in a mystical sense that simply can\u2019t be fathomed:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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. . .[it] cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the unbegotten God is made the Father of the only-begotten Son, because\u00a0His generation is as eternal<\/strong>\u00a0and everlasting. . .\u00a0<\/em>28<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Firmly rooted in Platonic metaphysics, Origen\u2019s idea that the begotten Son had a \u201cbeginning-less\u201d beginning became popular in certain quarters of the Hellenized church. But this concept was not accepted by all, and would ultimately become the flashpoint of controversy in the Christological debates of the following century.<\/p>\n
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Origen himself would be posthumously anathematized as a heretic at the Fifth Ecumenical Council for other doctrines within the work containing his theory on the\u00a0Eternal Generation of the Son.<\/em>\u00a029<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Tertullian (160 \u2013 225 AD)<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
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Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born Carthage, Africa. A contemporary of Origen, Tertullian was a noted theologian and an equally gifted writer. He was the first Latin Christian philosopher to coin the theological term \u201cTrinity\u201d and supply a formal doctrine for it.30<\/sup>\u00a0Tertullian\u2019s ideas, built upon the Logos Christology of the prior century, contain many of the phrases found in the official creeds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Yet Tertullian did not conceive of a co-equal, co-eternal, co-essential Trinity. Instead he had in mind an\u00a0unequal<\/em>\u00a0Trinity in which God is distinct from and fully superior to the Son and Holy Spirit. For Tertullian, there was a time when the Son did not exist:\u00a0\u201cHe could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son.\u201d<\/em>\u00a031<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Later church councils frowned upon Tertullian\u2019s conception of the Trinity. The\u00a0New Catholic Encyclopedia<\/em>\u00a0notes: \u201cIn not a few areas of theology, Tertullian\u2019s views are, of course, completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/em>\u00a032<\/sup>\u00a0Thus the man who introduced the concept of the Trinity into theological discourse was judged heretical according to the final version of his own doctrine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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FOURTH CENTURY<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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The Arian Controversy (318 \u2013 381 AD)<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
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The final leg of the journey toward an official doctrine of the Trinity unfolded over a period of 60 years in the fourth century (318 \u2013 381 AD). It involved a famous dispute known as the Arian Controversy. When this portion of church history is discussed in mainstream Christianity, Arius is cast as a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, insidiously attempting to subvert established church doctrine with heretical teachings. But this turns out to be a significant distortion of the truth.<\/p>\n
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The theological state of affairs at the dawn of the fourth century was complex. Due to recent Roman persecution, the church existed not as a monolithic body with a uniform set of doctrines, but as a loose network of nearly autonomous assemblies. By this time many divergent views about the nature of Christ had arisen out of the assumption that Jesus consciously pre-existed his birth. Each sect was equally convinced that they were correct and vigorously denounced their rivals as heretics.33<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Some of the most speculative ideas about Christ\u2019s nature originated in Alexandria, Egypt, the ancient hub of intellectual thought where Philo and Origen once taught. A bishop named Alexander presided over the church in this famous port city, and serving beneath him was an older Libyan priest named Arius.<\/p>\n
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The crux of the disagreement between Arius and his bishop lay in how they defined the word\u00a0begotten<\/em>. Arius contended that since the Father alone is\u00a0unbegotten<\/em>, the Father is the sole source of everything else in existence. The Son cannot be\u00a0co-eternal<\/em>\u00a0because this would mean that he is unbegotten,\u00a0<\/em>making\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0unbegotten sources of everything rather than one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Aligning with the second century church, Arius argued that the term \u201cbegotten\u201d necessitated a beginning. He held that the Son\u2019s existence began when he was begotten by the Father just prior to the creation of the world. Bishop Alexander, however, embraced Origen\u2019s claim that the Son can be begotten\u00a0by<\/em>\u00a0God yet also be co-eternal\u00a0with<\/em>\u00a0God by means of a mystical \u201cbegetting\u201d that spans all of eternity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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When Alexander discovered that his own priest disputed this point, he sent a scathing letter to a fellow bishop, urging the excommunication of Arius and his supporters as men who were nothing short of wicked for denying Origen\u2019s Eternal Generation theory:\u00a0\u201cI roused myself to show you the faithlessness of those who say that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>34<\/sup>\u00a0This effectively labeled previous contributors to the doctrine of the Trinity such as Tertullian and Justin Martyr as wicked and faithless men, for they held this view long before Arius.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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In response to this animosity, Arius attempted to reconcile with his bishop by letter. He respectfully restated his position and noted that it was the faith received\u00a0\u201cfrom our forefathers,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0perhaps referring to men like Justin and Tertullian. But Alexander rejected this overture and instead convened a local council in 318 AD, where the leadership were required to sign a document professing his Origenist Christology. Those who refused were to be expelled.35<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Yet at this point in church history, there was no \u201corthodox\u201d view on the metaphysical nature of Christ. Dr. R.P.C. Hanson points out that\u00a0\u201cAlexander\u2019s leaning toward Origen was the result of his personal choice, not the perpetuation of the tradition of his see.\u201d<\/em>\u00a036<\/sup>\u00a0Opposing not established orthodoxy but bishop Alexander\u2019s personal opinion, Arius refused to sign the document and was subsequently ousted. But his supporters later held their own council to have him reinstated. So began a series of contentious councils that threatened to divide both the church and the empire.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Constantine and the Council of Nicaea<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
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Constantine the Great was emperor of Rome at the time of the Arian controversy. Over the course of his violent reign he murdered his father-in-law, three brothers-in-law, a nephew, his first-born son, and his wife. He was also an opportunistic man who nominally embraced Christianity after having a dream in which he saw a cross in the sky and was told that this symbol would grant him military victory.37<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Constantine initially tried to resolve the burgeoning dispute between Arius and Alexander by letter. The emperor did not consider the disagreement a serious theological matter; rather, his primary goal was to unite an empire that was quickly becoming fragmented along religious sectarian lines. Thus, when his attempt to broker peace failed, he convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.<\/p>\n
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The turnout was relatively slim \u2013 only about 300 of the 1800 invited to the conference actually attended, and most of these were Alexander\u2019s supporters.38<\/sup>\u00a0At the end of the proceedings, Constantine delivered a speech urging the attendees to vote for the bishop\u2019s Origenist Christology. He made his case by citing writers such as Virgil, Cicero, and a pagan priestess named Erythraean Sybil. But his crowning piece of evidence was Plato\u2019s\u00a0Timaeus:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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\nLastly, Plato himself, the gentlest and most refined of all, who first essayed to draw men\u2019s thoughts from sensible to intellectual and eternal objects, and taught them to aspire to sublimer speculations, in the first place declared, with truth, a God exalted above every essence, but to him he [Plato] added also a second, distinguishing them numerically as two, though both possessing one perfection, and the being of the second Deity proceeding from the first. . .In accordance, therefore, with the soundest reason, we may say that there is one Being whose care and providence are over all things, even God the Word, who has ordered all things; but the Word being God himself is also the Son of God.<\/p>\n
Oration of Constantine to the assembly of the saints (Eusebius)<\/a><\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n
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History attests that the Council of Nicaea voted for the emperor-endorsed view of Bishop Alexander. But the wording of the creed \u2013 which employed the highly controversial and originally Gnostic term\u00a0homoousios<\/em>\u00a0(meaning \u201csame substance\u201d) \u2013 left it open to different interpretations.39<\/sup><\/p>\nAs a result, a fresh round of acrimonious councils convened in the decades that followed. This included the double council of Rimini-Seleucia in 359 AD, which was better represented than Nicaea with nearly 500 bishops in combined attendance, yet voted in favor of the\u00a0