Origen’s Corpus

The Works of Origen of Alexandria

Origen of Alexandria

Commentaries, homilies, the Hexapla, and an answer to nearly everyone. Condemned three centuries after his death, and quoted by everybody in between.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 236
Stat total: 356

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina86

Contend96

Defend76

Popularity98

Total356

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 86

Origen is said to have written more than any other ancient Christian — commentaries, homilies, the six-column Hexapla. What survives is a fraction of it, and the fraction is still enormous.

Contend 96

Eusebius says heretics, philosophers and Christians all sought him out as a teacher. Very few books argue with that kind of reach.

Defend 76

The Second Council of Constantinople condemned him in 553, and a great deal of the Greek did not survive the centuries after. His stature is higher than his transmission, and Defend measures the transmission.

Popularity 98

Everybody in the fourth century has read him or has an opinion about him. He takes the floor first almost anywhere.

Cited for this book

Ambrose of Alexandria came to Origen a Valentinian and left orthodox, then spent the rest of his life funding shorthand writers to take down whatever Origen said. Almost everything we have of Origen exists because one convert would not stop paying for scribes.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

On First Principles→
Lv 34

Origen’s Corpus

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
34	Quote Him In Full	Rationality	Type shift	—	—	5
34	From What Is Made	Natural Theology	Argument	62	100%	15
40	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
40	Emptied, Not Changed	Theology Proper	Argument	70	100%	10
46	Beyond the Reach of Nature	Presupposition	Argument	86	100%	10
50	Speak Greek	History	Status	—	100%	5
54	Judge and Determine	Rationality	Argument	88	100%	10
62	No Indication in Their Lives	History	Argument	90	100%	10
68	Believes Where He Pleases	Exegesis	Argument	92	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“No one is able to speak with certainty about God the Father, but it is possible for some knowledge of him to be gained from the visible creation and the natural feelings of the human mind. Such knowledge can then be confirmed by the Holy Scriptures.”
Origen, On First Principles (trans. Gerald Bray) — quoted under fair use.in copyright · fair use

From What Is Made

Natural TheologyArgument · power 62 · 100% accurate

In the gameCreation and conscience get you some way toward God on their own. Scripture then confirms what they could only gesture at — Origen is careful never to claim more than that.

Strong against

×2The Five Common Notionsan argument · why?

Origen says creation gives some knowledge of God, but not certainty about the Father. For that, God has to speak, as he has in Scripture and in his Son.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”
Philippians 2:6–7, quoted by Origen against Celsus in Contra Celsum 4.18 (trans. Frederick Crombie, ANF 4, public domain).public domain

Emptied, Not Changed

Theology ProperArgument · power 70 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe objection is that God cannot change and so cannot come down. Origen answers that the Word never stopped being what he was: he took the form of a servant without laying down the form of God.

Strong against

×2The True Word: On the Godsan argument · why?

Origen answered with Philippians 2. The Word did not stop being God when he came down. He took the form of a servant without losing what he was.

“Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that the knowledge of God is beyond the reach of human nature, and hence the many errors into which men have fallen in their views of God.”
Origen, Contra Celsum 7.44 (trans. Frederick Crombie, ANF 4, public domain).public domain

Beyond the Reach of Nature

PresuppositionArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameCelsus offers a method — combine, separate, argue by analogy, and arrive at God the way a mathematician arrives at a proof. Origen answers that the errors are the evidence: men have been running that method for centuries and have come out somewhere different every time.

Strong against

×2.5Christianity Not Mysteriousan argument · why?

Toland allows nothing in the gospel that reason could not have reached on its own. Origen had the same offer from Celsus — combine, separate, argue by analogy — and pointed at the record: the method has run for centuries and come out somewhere different every time.

“But since a rational animal not only has within itself these natural movements, but has moreover, to a greater extent than other animals, the power of reason, by which it can judge and determine regarding natural movements, and disapprove and reject some, while approving and adopting others, so by the judgment of this reason may the movements of men be governed and directed towards a commendable life.”
Origen, De Principiis 3.1.3 (trans. Frederick Crombie, ANF 4, public domain) — Rufinus’ Latin.public domain

Judge and Determine

RationalityArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameA stone is moved from outside it, a spider weaves because it can do nothing else, and a man does neither. Origen sets out the ladder in order and stops at the rung where reason can look at its own impulse and refuse it — which is where praise and blame become possible at all.

Strong against

×2.5Basil’s Corpusa book · why?

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, in its chapter on free will.

×2.5Historical Materialisman argument · why?

Marx has the thinking follow the conditions, the way a stone follows whatever pushed it. Origen sets out the ladder and stops where the pushing stops: a creature that can look at its own impulse and refuse it is not being moved from outside, and praise and blame mean nothing unless somebody can.

×2.5Nazianzen’s Corpusa book · why?

Gregory and Basil put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, in its chapter on free will.

“Now this story, if an invention, as it appears to be, cannot be compared with what is related of Jesus, since in the lives of such men there is found no indication of their possessing the divinity which is ascribed to them; whereas the divinity of Jesus is established both by the existence of the Churches of the saved, and by the prophecies uttered concerning Him.”
Origen, Contra Celsum 3.33 (trans. Frederick Crombie, ANF 4, public domain).public domain

No Indication in Their Lives

HistoryArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameCelsus had the parallels first — Aesculapius healing, Aristeas vanishing, Cleomedes flying out of a sealed chest. Origen does not deny that the stories are told. He asks what came of each one, and answers his own question by pointing at the churches.

Strong against

×2.5The History of Religionsan argument · why?

Celsus ran the parallels first — Aesculapius healing, Aristeas vanishing, Cleomedes out of a sealed chest — and Origen never denied the stories were told. He asked what followed from each, which is a question about evidence rather than about resemblance.

“He seems, in order to bring an accusation against Christianity, to believe the Gospel accounts only where he pleases, and to express his disbelief of them, in order that he may not be forced to admit the manifestations of Divinity related in these same books.”
Origen, Contra Celsum 1.63 (trans. Frederick Crombie, ANF 4, public domain) — opening capital ours; Crombie runs the sentence on from the charge it answers.public domain

Believes Where He Pleases

ExegesisArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameCelsus takes the apostles’ trades out of the Gospels and the miracles on the next page out of consideration. Origen names the move: one book, one set of writers, and a reader deciding page by page which of them to credit by what he has already settled to believe.

Strong against

×2.5Basil’s Corpusa book · why?

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, their anthology of his work.

×2.5Nazianzen’s Corpusa book · why?

Gregory and Basil put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, their anthology of his work. Gregory sent a copy to a friend.

×2.5The Life of Jesus Examinedan argument · why?

Strauss keeps the Galilean preacher out of the Gospels and sends the miracles on the same page to myth. Origen had already named the move: one book, one set of writers, and a reader crediting them page by page according to what he settled before he opened it.