Patristic Writer Origen: “Literal Genesis is Foolish”
I was perusing the inter-webs, and I stumbled across an interesting piece.
The Patristic writer Origen (c.185-254 CE) offers this commentary on Genesis 1-3:
What intelligent person can imagine that there was a first “day,” then a second and a third “day”—evening and morning—without the sun, the moon, and the stars? [Sun, moon, and stars are created on the fourth "day."] And that the first “day”—if it makes sense to call it such—existed even without a sky? [The sky is created on the second "day."]
Who is foolish enough to believe that, like a human gardener, God planted a garden in Eden in the East and placed in it a tree of life, visible and physical, so that by biting into its fruit one would obtain life? And that by eating from another tree, one would come to know good and evil? And when it is said that God walked in the garden in the evening and that Adam hid himself behind a tree, I cannot imagine that anyone will doubt that these details point symbolically to spiritual meanings, by using an historical narrative which did not literally happen. (p.71)
Cited from Origen’s “De Principiis“ 4.1.6, translated by Marcus Borg, “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally“ (2001).
It seems that there is a sensibility here that is radically different than the contemporary readings and debates over Genesis(!).
Somewhat ironically, perhaps the ancients would have accepted evolution more than we moderns…
My name is Aaron Rathburn. I am a senior in philosophy at Calvin College, and formerly studied at Trinity School of Theology (Wales, UK). I am a husband, and father of two. This site is a collection of musings on theology, culture, and more. 
Not to defend creationism, but I do wonder what Origen did with his interpretation of Genesis. I bet he might have understood it in ways that many of us would not be comfortable with. Origen’s understanding of Scripture would not necessarily led to his acceptance of evolution.
Yeah, I don’t mean to say that Origen specifically would have been an evolutionist. Only to say that the Patristic writers in general seem to be more open to Genesis being a non-literal text.
Augustine, for example, did not read Genesis 1 literally. He believed it was a poetic/metaphor passage, and that God created everything instantaneously. The Orthodox writers read Adam, Eve, and Seth to be an image of the Holy Trinity.
So what I mean to say is that generally speaking, the ancient writers probably have a better grasp on these ancient texts than we moderns do. We read Genesis literally by default, whereas they were all the exact opposite by default: it is a parable.
And with this “parabolic” reading of Genesis, they (we?) could be quite open to the possibility of evolution being exactly God’s way of creating the world.
I find it interesting that a treatise on not taking “if your hand causes you to sin” literally comes from a man rumored to have emasculated himself because he took that passage literally.
This would go down well on Theologica.
Still, I believe it was Origen who always looked to a ’spiritual’ rendering of texts, i.e., I believe he had the very spiritual understanding of the ‘Good Samaritan parable’ where every single detailed pointed to another truth. I think that is reading to much into the parable. Still, it remains interesting to consider the nature of Gen 1-3 (or 1-11).
Hey Joe! Long time no see, man =D.
Re: your and Scott’s points:
Origen definitely had some weird stuff going on for him. He was also a universalist, but also going so far as to say Satan himself would be “saved”!
Origen often interpretted passages overly-allegorically, as was a dominant hermeneutical tool at the time (cf. Paul in Galatians, even!).
But he actually provides valid proofs in this Genesis exposition. If a “day” is an orbit of the earth around the sun, and if the sun did not exist in Genesis days 1-3, then surely the language of “day” there does not refer to an orbit of the earth around the sun.
In this particular instance, he certainly has a legitimate point.
That’s funny about his reported emasculation! Perhaps it is due to the nature of the literature. He could have taken the gospels to be literal history, while Genesis to be figurative narrative. And in that case, emasculate himself! Bummer
.
Origen sees some of the problems of Genesis 1-3, but only has the option of spiritualizing to make sense of it. We actually have legitimate ANE texts and information that gives a valid and strong understanding of how to read those chapters. What would Origen have done if he had known of the alternative?
“We actually have legitimate ANE texts and information that gives a valid and strong understanding of how to read those chapters.”
Bingo.
I actually have a post written about this, “The Gospel According to Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology.”
But a day is one rotation of the earth around its own axis, not the sun. That’s a year.
In the section you quoted, Origen goes on to say:
“This precept also in the Gospels must be accounted among impossibilities, viz., that if the right eye offend you, it is to be plucked out; for even if we were to suppose that bodily eyes were spoken of, how shall it appear appropriate, that when both eyes have the property of sight, the responsibility of the offense should be transferred to one eye, and that the right one?”
My guess is that the rumor about his self-emasculation is the misunderstanding of some joke made years ago in an attempt at irony.
LOL, big “thought-o” (thought-typo, LOL) on the earth/sun part! But you guys knew what I meant ;-D (and presumably, Origen!).
Good investigation on the Origen quote, Joe! Origen definitely had an interesting “spiritualizing” hermeneutic, similar to the Jewish philosopher Philo. But then again, Second Temple Judaism altogether had a very interesting hermeneutic, even employed by the New Testament authors themselves.
Very different from today’s world.
The question, then, is how do we understand these ancient texts (such as Genesis 1-3), in light of how Paul understands them (such as Romans 5)?
Lots of interesting implications.
It is written that to break one Commandment is to break them all. To be holy is an act of Faith in God. I like to think to myself, “Victory is Sustained, not ever Achieved.” Each of our sins follow from the same source within us. I believe that a man makes a mistake to better understand himself, to further his perspective of the world. It’s what a man DOES with this knowledge that can bring him further in his own righteousness. I wish I could say that I follow Gods plan to the T. I do not. There is soooo much, I feel that I would lose my sense of Self. I do what I can to work With Him. Our Relationship =D
My take on “cut off thine hand if it causes you to sin” ties with “It is better to lose a hand than lose your Faith in God” Haha, obviously I’d be losing a lot of hands if I followed this literally.
It is written that it is better to not marry, but if you find yourself unable to overcome this tendency, and dwell upon it then you should marry. Do as best you are able to become Holy Temples for God, but to be filled with such thoughts will not bring you any peace or righteousness.
I believe that only Christ can achieve what Christ has achieved. We may try our Very best to be his “soldiers” but I would be lying if I said I could see the end of my Path from where I stand now.
WoW! Sorry if this became a rant.
On to the first topic, I feel the ‘day’ thing was more a Moment, an Act. His first Day was His action. Perhaps sense can be derived from the order He took in making the heavens and earth.
=D
Eric: “I feel the ‘day’ thing was more a Moment, an Act.”
That’s what Augustine thought. (see above)
At the moment, I would probably align with the “framework hypothesis,” that the 6 days are two parallel sets of 3 and 3. 3 days of forming, 3 days of filling; each corresponding to each other.
When you look at the Hebrew text of “day 7,” one cannot help but deduce that the author was being parabolic. The entire passage is filled with numerology revolving around the number “7,” or a multiple thereof.
I’ll put up Gordon Wenham’s exposition of “day 7″ in the Hebrew soon, so you guys can check it out.
Interestingly enough, Theologica member, JL Vaughn, has co-authored a book entitled Beyond Creation Science.
In the book (or subsequently to the book), I believe he purports that the creation account of Genesis is actually a temple dedication ceremony for the Hebrew people. Thus, everything stands for or points to something quite substantially different. Quite a newer view for me to hear. Anyways, you can read some of the chapters by clicking on the link above.
Scott,
I actually saw John Walton have a section of his book dedicated to this as well. “Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament.” Walton is far more traditionally evangelical than other OT scholars in the ANE field, but it is a phenomenal resource.
“Traditionally” evangelical… LoL
Well, “evangelical” is a pretty big umbrella term 0;-)
But remember, evangelicalism (from an American standpoint) will most likely collapse within 10 years or so.
LoL, of course, of course =).
The Southern Baptist Convention considers themselves the only true Christians holding onto evangelicalism anymore anyway, lol.
Have you guys been keeping up with the SBC2009 conference, by the way? Pretty crazy stuff.
I am so, so, SO not Baptist, lol.
I did not know about the conference. They didn’t send me an invite this year. I might check it out.
Of course, Origen also didn’t believe in creation ex nihilo, and Augustine understanding of creation also borrows from neoplatonism.
Proximity in time doesn’t equal greater familiarity. Both Origen and Augustine allowed neoplatonism to color their handling of the biblical text at times, particularly on the issue of creation.
So maybe you’re right that the Fathers would have accepted evolution more readily. But surely not for the same reasons that we might. Let’s not lump all the “ancients” together non-critically. The Alexandrian and Latin fathers were coming from a very different place in terms of philosophical underpinnings than either those in an ANE setting or us “moderns.”
Justin,
Augustine’s understanding of creation borrows from Neoplatonism to the same degree that contemporary evangelicals’ understanding of creation borrows from Enlightenment modernity. Evangelicals think that the earth was created in 6 literal days 6,000 years ago, which is a pretty silly reading of a text such as Genesis.
I don’t purport that the Patristics came from similar philosophical underpinnings as the ancient Near East. However, we do have documented evidence from early writings that they did indeed still maintain the same/similar cosmological understanding of the world (see my post, “The Gospel According to Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology”).