Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 4) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read the Prologue of Rufinus and Origen De Principiis Book I.
My summary
Today we start reading Origen himself.
After reading an introduction to the work by Rufinus, Origen teaches us about the nature of different beings.
We learn about the nature of:
(i) God the Father;
(ii) God the Son;
(iii) God the Holy Spirit;
(iv) angels, including fallen ones;
(v) humans;
(vi) other 'rational' beings.
What grabbed me
A few strange ideas today.
But I did like this orthodox statement on the Son: 'But it is monstrous and unlawful to compare God the Father, in the generation of His only-begotten Son, and in the substance of the same, to any man or other living thing engaged in such an act; for we must of necessity hold that there is something exceptional and worthy of God which does not admit of any comparison at all, not merely in things, but which cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the unbegotten God is made the Father of the only-begotten Son. Because His generation is as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancy which is produced from the sun. For it is not by receiving the breath of life that He is made a Son, by any outward act, but by His own nature.'
Clearly the Son is not a created being.
Next week's reading
Commence Origen De Principiis Book II by reading Chapters I to
VI.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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