A Teacher
Origen of Alexandria
The soul’s ascent and the restoration of all (apokatastasis)
The transmission
Origen was born around 185 in Alexandria and died around 253, probably of injuries suffered under persecution. The most learned and prolific theologian of the early Greek church, he produced biblical commentaries, the textual Hexapla, and the first systematic Christian theology, On First Principles (Peri Archon), written in the late 220s.
Working at the meeting-point of Christian faith and Platonist philosophy, he read scripture on multiple levels — literal, moral, and above all spiritual or allegorical — treating the text as a veil through which the soul ascends toward hidden divine meaning.
For a mind-power lineage, Origen is a foundational voice for the soul’s progressive ascent and for a vision of cosmic restoration. His doctrine of apokatastasis — the eventual return and restoration of all rational beings to God — anticipates the “all shall be well” universalism that recurs through the mystical tradition, and his allegorical method models reality itself as layered, with an inner spiritual sense beneath the surface of things.
Though several of his speculations were later condemned, his conviction that every soul originates in and is destined to return to the divine made him a wellspring for the contemplative ascent traditions that followed.
What they gave
The soul’s ascent: Framed the spiritual life as a graded interior ascent from the literal toward direct contemplation of the divine.
- Apokatastasis (restoration of all): Taught the ultimate return of every soul to God, an early form of the “all is finally well” universalism.
- Allegorical reading of reality: Treated text and world as layered veils with an inner spiritual meaning, a hermeneutic of hidden depth.
- The soul’s divine origin: Held that rational souls proceed from and return to God, grounding inner kinship between the seeker and the sought.
In their words
For whatever be the knowledge which we are able to obtain of God, either by perception or reflection, we must of necessity believe that He is by many degrees far better than what we perceive Him to be.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: Middle Platonism; the allegorical exegesis of Philo of Alexandria; his predecessor Clement of Alexandria; and the close reading of scripture.
- Taught / Influenced: Gregory of Nyssa and the Cappadocian Fathers; the contemplative theologian Evagrius Ponticus; and the long current of Christian universalism and mystical ascent.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- On First Principles (De Principiis)c.230
- Contra Celsumc.248