Krántiz Mihály: Órigenész élete és az Órigenész-kutatás - Studia Theologica Budapestinensia 14. (1995)

Summary

SUMMARY

In the course of eighteen centuries Origen has become the most controversial personality of Christian thought. Nobody can deny his greatness and the significance of his teaching. Only St. Augustine and st. Thomas Aquinas can be compared to him, and Origen remains the greatest theologian of the Eastern Church to date. His posthumous history is by no means lacking in contradictions. Despite attacks against him at the turn of the third and fourth centuries he is- with some reservations - the undisputed master of the great teachers of the fourth century. Quoting Gregory of Nazianzus: „The stone which sharpens us all", and Didymus the Blind: „The second master of the Church after the Apostle."

Systematizing some aspects of his ideas monastic communities of Egypt and Palestine started a violend dispute in the second half of the fourth century. In the first half of the sixth century a new crisis emerged rather in the Evagrian than in the Origenian teaching, initiated by Palestinians monks. This led to Origen being made a heretic first by Justinian at the synod of 543 and then at the ecumenical synod of 553 in Constantinople, as regards Origen this fact is of hardly any historical significance as it was directed mainly against the Origenists of the time.

While the East makes Origen a heretic, he becomes known in the West through the translations of Rufin and Jerome. St. Bernard studied his writings. At the age of scholasticism he was hardly read- his Platonism did not accord with the Aristotelian environment. During the Renaissance he had a great impact on some of the great humanists, among them Pico della Mirandola and Erasmus. Erasmus said: „One page by Origen teaches more Christian philosophy then ten pages by Augustine." In the sixteenth century editions of his books contributed to the historical and systematic analysis of his writings but did not put an end to differing views about him.

The purpose of this thesis has been to give a detailed account about Origen's life and personality mainly in the light of research done in the twentieth century. A lot has been achieved in this respect in the past few decades, as the importance of the great Alexandrian master was not fully appreciated in the nineteenth century.

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