A review by davehershey
On First Principles by Origen

4.0

I read this years ago and just worked through it again as part of a book club here on Goodreads. It is a must read for any student of Christian history. Origen certainly does not write in what we might see as a "systematic" style, though you can also see the beginnings of systematic theology in his work. Origen argues strongly for the deity of Christ and the Trinity. At the same time there are many speculations here, some not even taken up and fully explained, that point to why he is not "St. Origen." From the pre-existence of souls to universal salvation to some nuances in his Trinitarian thought, Origen was a very controversial figure after his death.

I especially appreciated his arguments for human free will which had to influence later writers and which Augustine certainly would not have liked. Along with that, his explanation of how to read the Bible and his explanation of the allegorical method are valuable both from a historical standpoint but also as a check on how we read the Bible today. It is easy to dismiss the allegorical method in our love of historical-grammatical, but maybe we ought to take a longer listen to long-dead Christians who loved Jesus and may have interpreted scripture a bit differently then we do. Even if they had some odd ideas. I imagine in 1000 years people will look back and wonder at our odd, even heretical, ideas.