SOURCE: "The Charismatic Intellectual: Origen's Understanding of Religious Leadership," in Church History, Vol. 50, No. 1, March, 1981, pp. 5-19.

[In this essay, Trigg contends that Origen had succeeded in reconciling his two roles as intellectual or philosopher and as a faithful churchman by making churchmanship a function of intellectual achievement.]

Origen's vocabulary is quite definitely that of an intellectual; it owes little to daily life or to the vernacular of the time.… He seems … to manufacture his own language, often hermetic, abstract, or difficult to understand, the language of a man concerned above all with ideas, somewhat cut off from the real world, and constitutionally separated from concrete realities. Are we wrong in attaching a particular significance to the fact, so characteristic of his passionate idealism as well as of his introversion, that he made himself a eunuch?¹

Thus Marguerite Harl, over twenty years ago, introduced Origène professeur to scholars more familiar with Origène: homme de l'église, More recently, Pierre Nautin, in Origène: sa vie et son oeuvre,² has made it starkly apparent how much trouble Origen had in being both an intellectual and a churchman. I contend that Origen's reconciliation of these roles was a coherent theory of religious leadership that merits our attention, a theory in which churchmanship becomes a function of intellectual achievement.

If we were to trust Eusebius's account of Origen's life in the Ecclesiastical History, we should think that only the personal jealousy of Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria disturbed Origen's career as a churchman. Nautin shows how the evidence points to Origen's persistent inability to get along with his official ecclesiastical superiors. Reverence for his father, not respect for the church as an institution, accounts for his continued loyalty to the church.³ The influences that formed his thought were, as far as we know, outside of or on the fringes of the church. He had a pagan literary education, fraternized with gnostics, sought out rabbis and studied under the philosopher Ammonius Saccas. He received his Bible training from his father, and Clement of Alexandria, a free spirit if ever there was one, taught him theology.

Nautin concurs with other scholars that Origen did not consider himself an official catechist, even if Bishop Demetrius may have given his teaching a belated cachet.⁴ In fact, he wished to keep his teaching secret and strenuously objected when his treatise On First Principles, a fruit of that teaching, was made public.⁵ A rich lay patron, Ambrosius, facilitated his independence, as did Origen's eminence beyond the Christian community. His early writings, particularly On First Principles and the Commentary on Genesis, bespeak such independence by often contradicting received ecclesiastical tradition. Nautin argues that Origen undertook a number of journeys, including one to Rome, due to conflict with bishops.⁶ He interprets the "war" that obliged Origen to settle in Palestine for some years before returning to Alexandria as a stage in the conflict with Demetrius that eventuated in his permanent departure from that city. Scholars, with little justification, have conventionally interpreted this "war" as a massacre that occurred during the reign of Caracalla.⁷ Nautin thinks that a gift from the Empress Julia Mammaea may have enabled Origen to leave Alexandria for good and that he probably intended to settle in Athens.⁸ Once he had left and had been ordained as a presbyter, Demetrius secured from the church in Egypt Origen's condemnation as a heretic. Nautin argues that only Demetrius's timely death prevented him from engineering the condemnation of Origen and his supporters in Palestine. Origen responded to these proceedings, he thinks, with an autobiographical letter that was Eusebius's principal source for his account of Origen's life.⁹

For a time after he settled in Caesarea, where he spent most of his life after about 234, Origen got along well with his bishop. During that period he was able to examine bishops himself as a theological adviser and to preach regularly. But Nautin documents evidence that Origen's homilies met resistance and concludes that he failed to preach on the entire Bible because Theoctistus of Caesarea relieved him of his duties.¹⁰ Nautin also presents evidence that Bishop Heraclas of Alexandria resumed his predecessor's attacks on Origen's orthododoxy.¹¹ These trials, in Nautin's opinion, account for the unrelieved bitterness against ecclesiastical officials in Origen's last surviving work, the Commentary on Matthew.

Nautin does not explain Origen's persistent difficulties with bishops. He seems to consider Origen a third-century Newman, a courageous and loyal thinker on the outs with an obtuse hierarchy.¹² But this is an inadequate parallel. In the church Newman joined there was no question where authority legitimately lay. Newman meekly submitted until his hour arrived, but Origen did not need to be so passive. Demetrius of Alexandria was himself an innovator as Bishop of Alexandria, and the scope of his authority was not clearly defined. Adolf Harnack and Walter Bauer have shown that Demetrius was the first bishop (in the monarchical sense) to direct the Alexandrian church. Before 189, when he took charge, it seems likely that a board of presbyters, one of whom may have been called bishop, governed the church at Alexandria, a church where loose standards of orthodoxy did not exclude gnosticizing tendencies.¹³ Demetrius achieved his triumph by associating himself with an interlocking network of bishops who increasingly claimed broad ex officio powers, including the right to excommunicate persons who offended in doctrine or conduct and to readmit them, when penitent, to the church. As the community's official leader, the bishop developed an ideology of religious authority that buttressed his leadership, presenting himself as a successor of the Old Testament priest in his role as an indispensible ritual mediator and as a successor of the New Testament apostles when representing supreme doctrinal authority. Origen, on the other hand, sought to retain his position and dignity as an independent scholar. In doing so he developed a radically "charismatic" ideology of religious authority with which to confront the "official" ideology of the bishops.

I should clarify my understanding of charisma. The term comes, ultimately, from the Apostle Paul, for whom it meant "gift of grace." Rudolf Sohm, in his work on ecclesiastical law, adopted the term from Paul and bequeathed it to modern sociology via Max Weber.¹⁴ Sohm's use of the term is more precise than it is in later writers. I have isolated five leading characteristics, which I illustrate from the epistles of Paul. (1) God confers charismatic authority, not through human mediation (as by ordination) but directly. Paul claimed that he was "an apostle—not from man nor through man, but from Jesus Christ and God the Father."¹⁵ (2) Since God has conferred this authority, it is men's duty to defer to it. Thus charisma demands and elicits free obedience. Paul says to Philemon: "though I am bold enough in Christ to command of you what is required, yet for love's sake I appeal to you."¹⁶ (3) This means that individuals, by recognizing it, verify charismatic authority. Thus Paul says: "If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord."¹⁷ (4) Charisma mediates God's word. Thus Paul claimed to speak by the same spirit that inspired the prophets and assigned to his opinions an importance comparable to that of traditional "words of the Lord."¹⁸ (5) Charismatic authority, by its very nature, can belong only to individuals. Thus the point of Paul's simile of the body is to show that God has bestowed his gifts differently on different individuals.¹⁹

Rudolph Sohm did not apply his concept of charisma to Origen because, in Sohm's view, charisma, which alone had legitimated leadership in the primitive church, had been replaced by legal authority after the apostolic age. But his contemporary, Karl Holl, believed that charismatic authority played a more enduring role in the history of the church. Charisma and legal authority, he argued, had existed side by side even in the primitive church and continued to down to the present. He argued that in Eastern Christianity, charismatic authority had always maintained its legitimacy in the monastic tradition, and he placed Origen in a tradition of charismatic authority that stretched from Paul, through the itinerant apostles of the Didache, down to the startsy of contemporary Russia.²⁰ Holl, though he did no more than sketch out the broad outlines of Origen's understanding of religious authority, thus provided, along with Sohm, a solid foundation for understanding Origen.

Origen's one explicit discussion of the Pauline concept of charisma is his commentary on Ephesians 4:11-12, where he cautiously criticizes the official ecclesiastical leadership and suggests and alternative to it:

Christ is above all and through all and in all, but grace is given to each of the saints according to the measure of the gift of Christ, so that some are apostles but some are prophets, and others evangelists, and after them pastors and, above all, teachers. If a gift of grace [charisma] is given to a teacher according to the measure of the gift of Christ, it is clear that the pastor, exercising his duties with skill, must have the gift of grace to be a pastor. And how, indeed, could anyone be an evangelist, unless the feet—so to speak—of his soul are beautiful? For them to become so, God must supply them with beauty. The prophet as well, testing unbelievers and judging them (for such is the prophet of the new covenant), must be considered as one appointed in the church by God. It is possible for these to exist continually in the church; perhaps apostles also, to whom it is given to work the signs of an apostle, may be found even now.²¹

Notice the insistence that charismata must be empirically verified. The charisma, thus verified, makes someone a teacher, a pastor, an evangelist and so on; ordination alone cannot supply the needed qualifications. Notice also that Origen treats the teacher as the culmination of the list. This illustrates that charisma is, for Origen, predominantly intellectual. Lastly, notice how Origen hints that persons fulfilling the functions of an apostle may still exist in the church. Here he implies that the apostolic function cannot be identified with any specific ecclesiastical office; otherwise there would be no question of its continuing existence. We shall soon see what Origen considered the continuing apostolic function and the works of an apostle to be.

Origen's commentaries on the Pauline epistles survive only in fragments, and he did not write a treatise specifically on religious authority, but we can trace a coherent position in incidental references to the issue throughout his works. I find it convenient to discuss the issue under four heads: (1) the priest, (2) the apostle, (3) criticisms of the established ecclesiastical leadership and (4) penitential discipline. "Priest" was the principal term in the Old Testament that for Origen connoted religious leadership, as was "apostle" in the New Testament. Given Origen's digressive style, therefore, discussions of religious leadership tend to cluster about these terms. Likewise, passages in the Bible critical of religious leaders often led Origen to draw a moral for his own time, and references to forgiveness led him into discussing penitential discipline, a key issue in his time for defining the limits of ecclesiastical authority.

The Old Testament priesthood was appealing to Origen, in the first place, because priests were a tribe apart, entirely consecrated to God's service. On his return to Alexandria after his first sojourn in Caesarea, Origen wrote about this at the beginning of his Commentary on John. Priests, he explains, are persons consecrated to the study of the word of God, and high priests are those who excel at such study.²² There can be no question that these grades correspond to ecclesiastical offices. Priests, and the high priest in particular, also have privileged access to God. Thus Origen follows Clement of Alexandria in interpreting the priest as a spiritual man.²³ But if the priest has a privileged access to divine secrets, this is only so that, as a teacher, he might mediate God's word to others. Origen transforms the Jewish ritual legislation into an exposition of the priest's vocation as a teacher. For example, removing the skin of the sacrificial victim symbolizes removing the veil of the letter from God's word, and taking fine incense in the hand symbolizes making fine distinctions in the interpretation of difficult passages.²⁴ He also interprets sacrifice as the progressive liberation of the soul from the body that makes possible the apprehension of higher truths.²⁵ Thus the Levitical priesthood comes to symbolize a moral and intellectual elite of inspired teachers of scripture. This transformation culminates in Origen's interpretation of the high priest's vestments, each item of which symbolizes a spiritual qualification.²⁶

The apostle was even more appealing to Origen as a symbol of religious authority. He tacitly claims for himself an apostolic function and dignity in the preface of On First Principles. The apostles who wrote the New Testament, he claims, must have had a full, spiritual perception of what they were writing, since it was not God's way to employ automatons. Nonetheless, rather than expounding the deep, spiritual matters that they learned from Jesus, they instead set forth in their writings simple, basic doctrines which they expected to be taken on authority. The disciples did not intend for all Christians to accept these bald statements as the sum and substance of the truth, but they recognized that the more profound doctrines were inappropriate for the majority of believers. They therefore reserved the knowledge of these profound doctrines for future believers worthy to receive them. These are persons who have diligently prepared themselves to receive knowledge and as a result, have received from God the same spiritual gifts that enabled the apostles themselves to write the scriptures.²⁷ Now On First Principles is precisely an investigation of the deeper doctrines that the apostles kept silence about. By undertaking it, therefore, Origen was claiming for himself a God-given comprehension of doctrine comparable to that of the apostles.

He identifies the apostles themselves as inspired exegetes when he interprets the "fields white with the harvest" which the apostles are commissioned to reap in John 4:36 as the legal and prophetic books of the Old Testament.²⁸ It is clear, moreover, that the deeper, spiritual interpretation that the apostolic man receives is a genuine gift of God, even if it comes only to those who diligently prepare themselves. Origen makes this clear in his interpretation of Matthew 14:22-26. The disciples attempt to cross the lake—that is, to pass from the literal to the spiritual sense of scripture—but they cannot do this without Jesus assisting them after they have come part of the way on their own initiative.²⁹ But what right do the apostles' successors have to publish doctrines which the apostles themselves saw fit to keep silent about? Here Origen appeals to apostolic discretion, itself a gift from God: if God grants the spiritual insight into scripture, he grants along with it the discretion to judge how fully and in what circumstances it is to be revealed. An example is the parable of the unmerciful steward in Matthew.³⁰ Paul is the great example of apostolic discretion. When among the perfect, he was bold to impart a "secret and hidden wisdom of God," but among more simple believers he saw fit to "know nothing … save Jesus Christ and him crucified."³¹

If the apostle is an inspired exegete, he is also, like the priest, a teacher by vocation, responsible for mediating God's word to persons at all levels of spiritual progress. Jesus made this clear when he ordered the disciples to allow little children to come to him, thus signifying that more advanced Christians should condescend to the simple.³² The "works of an apostle" are, in fact, works of teaching. When Jesus commissioned his disciples and gave them power to give sight to the blind and to raise the dead, he had in mind restoring to sight persons "blinded" by false doctrines and raising to life persons "dead" in their sins.³³ Being an apostle is not an official position but a function verified in the doing. In arguing to this effect Origen cites 1 Corinthians 9:2: "If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord."³⁴

It is readily apparent that Origen's priest and apostle are charismatic figures in Sohm's terms. (1) God confers on them without mediation their spiritual gifts. He alone appoints prophets, makes beautiful the feet of evangelists and provides insight into the deeper doctrines hidden in the mystical interpretation of scripture. (2) The demand for free obedience is not so far explicit, but we shall come to it in Origen's discussion of more practical matters. (3) The requirement that charisma be verified empirically is implicit in Origen's demand that the supposed bearer of charismatic authority prove himself by his deeds. (4) The bearer of charisma mediates God's word in the fullest sense. He has privileged access to divine secrets and responsibility to teach them with discretion. (5) This charisma belongs to individual teachers, not to a collective group.

Origen's choice of these two symbols of religious authority is highly significant. His choice of the priest may appear anomalous, since modern sociologists of religion see the priest as the archetypal representative of a noncharismatic traditional or legal authority.³⁵ It would seem as if the prophet would be a more congenial symbol of charismatic authority; but, though Origen takes Jeremiah as a model, he rarely treats prophetic authority in this way.³⁶ One reason Origen found both the priest and the apostle attractive symbols is that they had a privileged access to divine secrets, the priest through ritual and the apostle through personal conversation with Jesus. But there is, I believe, a more significant reason why Origen picked just these two symbols of authority from the Bible. They gave him a way to oppose the pretensions of official authority, which was rapidly appropriating these very symbols to legitimate episcopal authority. "Priest," in Origen's time, was just beginning to become the customary term to describe presbyters and bishops, and bishops were increasingly depicting themselves as successors to the apostles.³⁷ Origen, by stressing the necessity of personal gifts for these functions, was implicitly criticizing this development. Origen's rejection of Clement's appeal to an "apostolic succession" of esoteric teachers, in which he could have claimed a place, underscores this insistence that charisma is a gift of God alone, unmediatedly accessible through spiritual exegesis.³⁸

Opposition to the claims of ecclesiastical authorities is still more apparent in his demand that ecclesiastical offices themselves should be characterized by charismatic authority. The bishop, that is, should belong to the spiritual elite which priests and apostles symbolize. The bishop as an ideal is absolutely essential to Origen's conception of the church; his office symbolizes the continuing possibility of charismatic leadership.³⁹ Thus the ideal bishop unites in his person a philosophical understanding of scripture, capacity to teach and sanctity of life. In Contra Celsum and elsewhere Origen elaborates on the qualifications for the episcopate as set forth in the Pastoral Epistles. The ability to "refute the adversaries" (Titus 1:9) sets forth the intellectual qualifications, since it implies that the bishop has studied dialectic and sought out the hidden doctrines of the Bible.⁴⁰ Similarly, the requirement that the bishop be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6) sets forth allegorically the ethical standards. Taken literally, being the husband of one wife is scarcely an adequate standard of morality, but the marriage in question is not a physical but a spiritual marriage. That is, a person of great holiness is spiritually married to an angel of high rank. Nevertheless, if he sinned, the angel could present him with a bill of divorcement, forcing him to marry an angel of lower rank and thus be "twice married."⁴¹ A person "twice married" in this sense does not, properly speaking, belong to the church, and he could not possibly be a bishop.⁴²

Bishops have a special place in the divine economy, since they share responsibility for their congregations with angelic bishops, with whom they cooperate.⁴³ As a result of these unique responsibilities, bishops have more powers granted to them than are granted to ordinary Christians, though, conversely, more is required of them.⁴⁴ Because it is a position that entails such awesome responsibilities, the episcopate must go to just the man whom God has chosen for it, and no human machinations should be involved in the bishop's selection. Moses' selection of Joshua as his successor is thus the pattern for the selection of a bishop:

Here is no popular acclamation, no thought given to consanguinity or kinship; … the government of the people is handed over to him whom God has chosen, to a man who … has in him the Spirit of God and keeps the precepts of God in his sight. Moses knew from personal experience that he was preeminent in the law and in knowledge, so that the children of Israel should obey him. Since all these things are replete with mysteries, we cannot omit what is more precious, although these things commanded literally seem necessary and useful.⁴⁵

Few bishops, however, meet these high standards. Far from exemplifying the proper intellectual standards, they fail to search the scriptures and have contempt for those who do.⁴⁶ Worse, many are tainted by heresy. Such bishops are fortunate God no longer deals with heretics as he dealt with Korah, Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed up alive.⁴⁷ In their greed and lust for power many bishops also make a mockery of the ethical standards of their office. The corrupt priests of Pharaoh in the Old Testament provide a more adequate image for most of them than does the Levitical priesthood.⁴⁸ In the New Testament the appropriate image is the scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus excoriated rather than the apostles.⁴⁹ The bishops utterly fail to exemplify the standard of Christian leadership set forth in Matthew 20:26: "Whoever would be great among you must be your servant." That is, they attempt to rule by force and intimidation rather than by eliciting the free obedience of those set under them.⁵⁰ In fact, some bishops, "particularly in the largest cities," make themselves as inaccessible as tyrants in order to overawe their congregations.⁵¹ We might say they do not exercise the style of authority that characterizes a true charismatic leader. But, then, how could they? Their ignorance of the scriptures disqualifies them at the outset as genuine mediators of God's word. Hence, rather than trusting that their ministry will validate itself, they must appeal to the prestige of their office. Origen, as a presbyter at Caesarea, made a point of rejecting any such validation. He urged his congregation to judge for themselves the worth of what he had to say.⁵² Confident that he belonged to the spiritual elite which formed the church's true leadership, he welcomed such verification. But he was sadly aware that this elite did not correspond to the church's official leadership. How is it that the church is in such a sorry state? Has God failed to provide the church with worthy leaders? By no means. But the church often fails to give such persons their proper place of honor and responsibility.

For it frequently happens that he who deals in an humble and abject interpretation and knows earthly things has the preeminent rank of a priest or sits in the chair of a teacher, while he who is spiritual and so free from earthly things that he "judges all things and is judged by no one" either holds a lower rank of ministry or is relegated to the common multitude.⁵³

But this anomaly is only external, for on a deeper level the members of the spiritual elite whom Origen describes as priests and apostles are the true leaders of the church:

Whoever has in himself those things that Paul enumerates about a bishop, even if he is not a bishop before men, is a bishop before God, since he did not come to his position by the ordination of men.⁵⁴

The clear implication is that the bishop at the front of the church may well be bogus while the real bishop is lost in his congregation.

By later standards, such an understanding of Christian ministry is heresy, of course; hence many Origen scholars have attempted to explain away such statements. Chief among these scholars is Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose article "Le Mysterion d'Origène" was seminal for the nouvelle théologie school which revived Roman Catholic interest in Origen. Balthasar admitted the existence in Origen's writings of a charismatic hierarchy of spiritual men alongside of the official hierarchy of the church.⁵⁵ But this distinction, he argued, is purely formal: the charismatic hierarchy is the invisible institution whose existence assures the validity of the external institution, the official hierarchy, that symbolizes it.⁵⁶ Demetrius, in other words, had nothing to worry about. But Balthasar's interpretation will not do. In the first place, it rests on an unproven—and in my view gravely mistaken—assumption about the structure of Origen's thought, the assumption that the symbol necessarily partakes of the reality of the thing it symbolizes. In the second place, it founders on Origen's interpretation of penitential discipline, where Balthasar himself candidly admitted difficulties.⁵⁷ Here is one case, the forgiveness of sins, where the bishop clearly posesses no ex officio authority and the spiritual man possesses full authority.

Origen makes the limitation of ex officio powers most explicit in his commentary on Matthew 16:13-20, the passage (obviously a crucial one for any understanding of religious authority) where Peter confesses at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus is the Christ and then receives the power to bind and loose. Origen makes it clear that Peter, as an apostle, symbolizes the member of his spiritual elite. Peter is one who "knows the Son by the revelation of the Father"; that is, he has inward knowledge as opposed to mere faith.⁵⁸ To make sure that we do not miss the point, Origen states that if any of us can recognize Jesus as the Christ as Peter did, not by the revelation of flesh and blood but by the light from the Father enlightening us in our hearts, then we are what Peter was.⁵⁹ Moreover, if we are what Peter was, the words Jesus spoke to Peter apply to us too: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church."⁶⁰ If so, then it is the spiritual man who holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven, the power to bind and loose.

We cannot mistake the ecclesiological bearing of Origen's argument when he goes on to refute unnamed persons who claim that the church is founded on "one Peter" only, presumably the local bishop. Peter is rather a representative of all the apostles and hence of all who are like them. These men are the "rocks" upon whom Christ founded the church.⁶¹ But a criterion does exist for determining if someone is one of these "rocks." Christ went on to say: "and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." A "rock," therefore, is one against whom the gates of Hades have not prevailed. And what are the "gates of Hades" but sins, since each sin a person commits is an entranceway to hell? It therefore follows that the "rocks" must be pure and blameless souls, persons against whom sins have not prevailed.⁶² This, Origen argues, makes good sense out of Jesus' promise of the keys to the kingdom of heaven; these keys enable the possessor to open for himself the corresponding gates of Zion, the virtues.⁶³ Thus we have two criteria for the true successor to Peter and the rightful possessor of his power to forgive sins—spiritual insight and holiness of life. Official position has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Origen goes on to contrast this genuine doctrine of the power of the keys with the spurious claims of ecclesiastical officials. He warns those who use this passage to vindicate the place of the episcopate that the bishop has the power of the keys only in so far as he is a "Peter," a spiritual man.⁶⁴ If the bishop attempts to loose others while bound by sin himself, his attempt is vain. Likewise, if he attempts to use his powers of excommunication against a virtuous man, his excommunication is invalid; God himself, much less a Peter, could not bind a virtuous man.⁶⁵ Those who claim such authority without possessing the requisite qualifications do not understand the scriptures and have fallen under condemnation for the devil's own sin of pride.⁶⁶

A second passage, not so forthright on ecclesiology, explains why it is that an ex officio power to forgive sins is impossible. In it Origen discusses the power of binding and loosing in the context of so-called unforgivable sins. He clearly rejects the notion, steadily gaining ground during his lifetime, that no sins place the sinner, if repentant, permanently outside the pale of the church. He upholds, that is, a "rigorist," penitential position. This rigorism, by itself, is unimportant, and Origen was later to reject it;⁶⁷ what is interesting for my purposes is that he utilizes a strongly charismatic understanding of religious leadership in order to argue against it. The person who has the power to forgive sins has this power because he is directly inspired by God:

But he who is inspired by God, as the apostles were, and can be known by the fruits, as one who has received the Holy Spirit and has become spiritual by being led by the Spirit as a Son of God to do everything in accordance with reason—such a one forgives whatever God forgives and retains such sins as are incurable; and even as the prophets serve God in speaking not the things of their own but of the divine will, so he serves him alone who has power to forgive, even God.

Notice that here the apostle is the image of the spiritual man and that, beside being inspired by God (a point Origen belabors by using words with the "pne" root four times in one sentence), he mediates God's word and must be verified by his works. Origen goes on in this passage to explain just how it is that the spiritual man forgives—it is by spiritual insight:

the apostles, being priests [nota bene] of the great high priest, having received knowledge of the healing that comes from God, know, being taught by the Holy Spirit, concerning what sins they ought to offer sacrifices, and when, and in what manner, and they understand concerning what sins they ought not to do this.

This, presumably, is the same sort of insight which the spiritual man has into the mystical meaning of scripture. Thus even the truly apostolic and priestly man who has the power to forgive sins does not have this power as a sort of privilege accruing to his advanced spiritual status. Rather, the power to forgive sins is simply a function of his holiness and spiritual insight. Those who arrogate for themselves powers beyond the priestly office—powers, that is, to pardon incurable sins—do so because they "have no accurate grasp of the knowledge a priest should possess."⁶⁸ Origen, like Clement before him, understood the forgiveness of sins as a pastoral process that involves voluntary obedience to a spiritual man. (Here, at last, is the other leading characteristic of charismatic authority.) Origen urged his congregation at Caesarea to choose a physician of their souls carefully on the basis of his personal gifts and then to submit their lives implicitly to him if they truly desired the forgiveness of their sins.⁶⁹

Penitential matters are thus a practical area where Origen's rejection of official claims to authority has concrete implications for ecclesiastical order. This was one area where he found it tactically possible to oppose episcopal pretensions, because the limits of episcopal authority on penitential matters were still uncertain. Since bishops took a laxist position in claiming authority to readmit penitents into the church, Origen adopted for a while the rigorist position on incurable sins which strikes us as anomalous in the larger context of his thought. On other matters, such as teaching authority, he had no such room for maneuver; there we find him allowing bishops to determine the church's public teaching while preserving an esoteric sphere where he had supreme authority. His theological inquisition of Bishop Heracleides must have been a thoroughly savored pleasure.

Thus we have an explanation for the consistent tension between Origen and his ecclesiastical superiors that, as Nautin shows, characterized Origen's life. Make no mistake: Origen himself, as one who "searches the deep things of God," was preeminently qualified as a priest, apostle and bishop. Obviously Origen and Demetrius, men with powerful personalities and diametrically opposed positions on authority, could not remain together in the same church. Origen's understanding of religious authority certainly justified his own position, but it would be unjust to imply that it was simply a function of his not being a bishop. The belief that allegorical interpretation of the Bible provides an unparalleled access to divine mysteries, which lies at the basis of his claim to authority, is integral to Origen's thought. So is his notion that the charismatic leader should evoke free obedience. After all, God's providential design to restore all rational creatures to free obedience is the mainspring of his cosmology, and the leader who mediates the divine should scarcely indulge in a compulsion which God himself so rigorously eschews. On the other hand, we cannot imagine that Origen would have maintained this understanding of religious authority had he been a bishop. It is a doctrine which is radically subversive of institutional stability. We can thus understand why Origen should eventually have alienated even a warm admirer like Theoctistus, who had to confront the intractable reality of governing a church. It was inevitable that as the church developed institutionally, charismatic authority of Origen's type should have become increasingly marginal.

How, then, does Origen's understanding of religious leadership fit into the pattern of Christian history? In one respect we might consider Origen as a conservative figure, one who attempted to preserve the charismatic understanding of leadership we find in Paul and the Didache. But Origen's esotericism was an innovation. He is willing to tolerate the outward authority of bishops whom he considers no true bishops before God and speaks complacently of those who "seem, in preeminence, to be bishops and presbyters."⁷⁰ He can do so because the authority of the spiritual bishop is unchallenged among the spiritual elite who constitute the true church. However, in Paul or the Didache there is no inner church and the legitimate authorities are openly acknowledged by all. Structurally, Origen's understanding of authority is identical to that which Klaus Koschorke has reconstructed for the Valentinian gnostics.⁷¹ One might suggest, therefore, that Origen mediates to more normative Christianity a gnostic conception of authority in a two-tiered church.

I have already mentioned that Karl Holl assigned Origen's concept of authority considerable influence in the monastic tradition, where the abba exercises charismatic authority. Peter Brown also considered Origen an illuminating figure in the transformation of perceived reality which made the holy man a key figure of authority in the Late Antique era.⁷² In one sense, though, Origen's understanding of authority is distinctive in the Christian tradition: he validates charisma in terms of intellectual gifts acquired through open-minded and disciplined study. Thus, whatever his relationship to the larger tradition, Origen stands out as the theoretician of the charismatic intellectual.

Notes

1. Marguerite Harl, Origène et la fonction révélatrice du Verbe incarné (Paris, 1958), p. 366. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
2. Pierre Nautin, Origène: sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1977). See also his Lettres et écrivains chrétiens des II^e et III^e siècles (Paris, 1961).
3. Nautin, Origène, p. 414.
4. Ibid., p. 48 on Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.3.3-8. Hal Koch, "Origenes," in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classische Altertumswissenschaft, q. v., 1939), Manfred Hornschuh, "Das Leben des Origenes und die Entstehung der alexandrinischen Schule," Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 71 (1960):1-25, 193-214, and F. H. Kettler, "Origenes," in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd. ed., 1960, deny more forthrightly than Nautin that Origen was a catechist.
5. See Jerome, Epistle 84.10.
6. Nautin, Origène, p. 418.
7. Ibid., p. 316. I can see no plausibility in Hornschuh's contention ("Das Leben des Origenes," pp. 1-2) that Caracalla's measures endangered Origen in his capacity as a philosopher.
8. Ibid., p. 428.
9. Ibid., p. 22, and Nautin, Lettres, pp. 133-134.
10. Nautin, Origène, pp. 401-405.
11. Ibid., pp. 437-438.
12. Ibid., p. 439.
13. See Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, trans. James Moffatt, 2 vols. (New York, 1908), 1:463 and Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, trans. Robert Kraft et al. (Philadelphia, 1971), pp. 53-54. Colin H. Roberts's Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London, 1977), p. 71, confirms the picture I have presented: "We may surmise that for much of the second century it [the church in Egypt] was a church with no strong central authority and little organization; one of the directions in which it developed was certainly Gnosticism, but a Gnosticism not initially separated from the rest of the Church."
14. Rudolph Sohm, Kirchenrecht, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1892). See Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt (Chicago, 1968), p. 46, and Ulrich Brockhaus, Charisma und Amt (Wuppertal, 1972).
15. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, pp. 29-35 and 58-59, and Galatians 1:1.
16. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, pp. 27-28 and 56, and Philemon 8.
17. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, pp. 51-52 and 1 Corinthians 9:2 (also 2 Corinthians 3:2, Philippians 4:1, and 1 Thessalonians 2:19).
18. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, p. 29; 2 Corinthians 4:13; and 1 Corinthians 7:30.
19. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, pp. 116-118. See Ernst Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia, 1971) and J. H. Schutz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (London, 1975) for a detailed discussion of charisma in Paul.
20. See Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum: eine Studie zu Simeon dem Neuen Theologen (Leipzig, 1898) and Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte II, der Osten (Tübingen, 1928), pp. 44-67. Walter Volker amplifies Holl's views in Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes: eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der Frömmigkeit und zu den Anfängen christlicher Mystik (Tubingen, 1930) pp. 168-192.
21. In J.A.F. Gregg, "Origen's Commentary on Ephesians," Journal of Theological Studies 3 (1902): 413-414.
22. Origen, Commentary on John 1.2 (4.5.16-6.6). In citing Clement and Origen, I give conventional book and chapter numbers followed, in parentheses, by the volume, page and line in the Griechische christlische Schriftsteller edition. See also Homilies on Joshua 9.5 (7.350.27-351.5), where Origen states that the real priest is not just a person who has an outward eminence in the church but one who acts in a priestly manner. These "priests" are presumably those who "abandon themselves to the study of rational argument" so as not to have to accept their faith on authority; Origen, Contra Celsum 1.11 (1.62.25-26).
23. See Clement, Stromateis 4.25.157.3-159.3 (2.318.7-319.4), 5.6.32.1-40.1 (2.346.27-354.4) and 7.7.36.2 (3.28.8) and Excerpts from Theodotus 27 (3.115.22-116.17). In Clément d'Alexandrie: Extraits de Théodote (Paris, 1970), 2nd. ed., pp. 220-223), Francois Sagnard demonstrates Clement's dependence on Philo, Life of Moses 2.95-135 for this theme.
24. Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1.4 (6.285.22-25) and 9.8 (6.433.10-18).
25. Ibid., 5.4 (6.341-342).
26. Ibid., 6.5 (6.367).
27. Origen, On First Principles Preface.3 (5.9). See also fragment 47 in Claude Jenkins, "Origen on 1 Corinthians," The Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1907-1908): 240.
28. Origen, Commentary on John 13.47.307-308 (4.273.12-22).
29. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 11.5 (10.41.2-42.32).
30. Ibid., 13.11-12 (10.302.17-305.32).
31. See, for example, fragment 18 in Jenkins (JTS 9:354), where Origen so interprets 1 Corinthians 4:1-4 as to distinguish the functions of the apostle in his exoteric role as a "minister of Christ" from his functions in his esoteric role as a "steward of the mysteries of God." Origen, Commentary on John 13.18.109-111 (4.242.10-11) and Homilies on Leviticus 4.6 (6.273.12-22) are also informative; in the latter Origen depicts Paul, in his esoteric role, as high priest.
32. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 15.7 (10.365-370).
33. Origen, Homilies on Isaiah 6.4 (8.8.15-9.10).
34. Origen, Commentary on John 32.17 (4.453.6-454.11).
35. See, for example, Joachim Wach, Sociology of Religion (Chicago, 1956), pp. 46-47.
36. Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 14.15 (3.122.11-21).
37. See Syriac Didascalia 9, trans. Hugh Conolly (Oxford, 1929), p. 86 for the earliest attestation of this usage in the East and the works of Cyprian for its attestation (with regard to bishops) in the West. Origen seems to refer to this practice, though disparagingly, in Homilies on Jeremiah 12.3 (3.89.15.27) and Homilies on Numbers 2.1 (7.9.22-27).
38. For Clement's "apostolic succession" see Stromateis 1.11.2 (2.8.20-9.3), 1.12.55.1 (2.35.15-17), 5.4.26.5 (2.352.18-19), and 5.10.63.2 (2.368.14-15).
39. Thus Adolf Harnack argued that the bishop is essential to Origen's understanding of the church (Der kirchengeschichtliche Ertrag der exegetischen Arbeiten des Origenes, 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1924], 2:129-130).
40. Origen, Contra Celsum 6.7 (2.106). See also 3.48 (1.244.17-245.2).
41. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 14.21-22 (10.344-349) For angelic marriages see also Hermas, Shepherd, Similitude 8.3.3, and the accounts of Ptolemaeus in Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.1.7.1 and Clement, Excerpts from Theodotus 64.1 (3.128).
42. See Origen, Commentary on John 6.59 (4.167) and Homilies on Luke 17.1 (92.110) as well as the commentary on I Corinthians 1:2, fragment 1 in Jenkins's collection (JTS 9:232). Compare Origen, On Prayer 6.4 (2.314.15-25).
43. Origen, On First Principles 1.8.1 (5.95) and Homilies on Luke 12.3 (92.146).
44. Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 11.3 (3.80-81) and fragment 50 (3.223).
45. Origen, Homilies on Numbers 22.4 (7.209.3-14).
46. See Contra Celsum 6.7 (2.106) and Series Commentary on Matthew 20 (11.35).
47. Origen, Homilies on Numbers 9.1 (7.54.9-10).
48. Origen, Homilies on Genesis 16.5 (6.142.6-11).
49. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 16.22 (10.549-550).
50. Ibid., 16.8 (10.492.24-31).
51. Ibid., 16.8 (10.494.3-4).
52. Origen, Homilies on Ezechiel 2.2 (8.342.23-343.3). Compare his Commentary on John 19.7 (4.306.32-307.7).
53. Origen, Homilies on Numbers 2.1 (7.9.22-27).
54. Origen, Series Commentary on Matthew 12 (11.23.2-5). Compare Clement, Stromateis 6.13.106.2 (2.485.10-17).
55. Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Le Mysterion d'Origène," Recherches de science religieuse 26 (1936): 513-562 and 27 (1937): 38-64, p. 45.
56. Ibid., pp. 49-50.
57. Ibid., p. 50.
58. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 12.5 (10.103.29-31 and 10.105.2-5).
59. Ibid., 12.10 (10.84.24-33).
60. Ibid., 12.10 (10.85.25-86.2).
61. Ibid., 12.11 (10.86.15-88.12).
62. Ibid., 12.12 (10.90.1-11). Such a person is, in fact, the only true Christian; any one disturbed that many ostensible Christians do not meet these standards should remember that "many are called but few are chosen" (Ibid., 12.12 [90.11-91.14] and 17.24 [10.650.1-652.25]).
63. Ibid., 12.14 (10.96.6-32).
64. Ibid., 12.14 (10.98.28-99.10). See also Contra Celsum 6.77 (2.147.16-22).
65. Ibid., 12.14 (10.99.27-32). See also his Homilies on Leviticus 14.2-4 (6.479-487, especially 479.18-26) and Homilies on Judges 2.5 (7.479.1-23).
66. Ibid., 12.14 (10.100.17-26).
67. Origen, fragment 24 on 1 Corinthians (Jenkins, JTS 9:364), Commentary on Romans, Preface (Carl Heinrich Eduard Lommatzsch, ed., Origenes Opera omnia, 25 vols. [Berlin, 1831-1848], 6:3-4), Homilies on Exodus 6.9 (6.201.12-19), Contra Celsum 3.51 (1.247.20-248.5), and Series Commentary on Matthew 117 (11.247.9-22), all written later than On Prayer, seem to indicate that Origen abandoned the rigorist position.
68. Origen, On Prayer 28.8-10 (2.380-381), trans. J. E. L. Oulton in Henry Chadwick and J.E.L. Oulton, eds., Alexandrian Christianity (Philadelphia, 1954), pp. 309-310.
69. Origen, Homily on Psalm 37 2.6 (Lommatzsch ed., 12.267-268).
70. Origen, Commentary on John 32.12 (14.444.31-32).
71. Klaus Koschorke, Die Polemik der Gnostiker gegen das kirchliche Christentum (Leiden, 1978), especially pp. 220-232.
72. Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 70-73.