Eirini ARTEMI

Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body

Keywords: Christian Platonist, Greek Philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Origen, Plato, Platonism, Plotinus, Proclus.

Origen is a Christian writer who knows very well not only the Bible and the Christian tradition until his day, but he has studied Greek philosophy and probably Greek literature. His knowledge of Greek philosophy and literature gives him an absolute privilege to deepen and enrich the meanings of the biblical language and terminology. Origen doesn’t adopt Greek philosophy without any critical thought. He accepts Platonism and Neo-Platonism ideas only if they were consistent with the church’s rule of faith. For him, the study of philosophy is understood as an exercise involving moral purification as well as intellectual training, as a necessary preparation for the study of Scripture. In this essay, we will show that Origen was a Christian Platonist, who accepts many things of Platonic philosophy and criticizes many others which do not belong to Plato but were expressed by some other philosophers as false Platonism ideas. Plotinus and Proclus showed a disliked view against Origen’s Christian writings, but they accepted his ideas concerning God and “the things”, deeming them raised by Greek philosophy. In Origen’s theological system, Neoplatonic features can be underlined. The knowledge of the Bible is for Origen the only truth, but Platonism and Neoplatonism provide a simpler and more natural explanation of the revelation of God.