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Document Details :

Title: The 'Shadow of the Logos'
Subtitle: Origen's Metaphysics and Mysticism of Motion
Author(s): HENGSTERMANN, Christian
Journal: Studies in Spirituality
Volume: 29    Date: 2019   
Pages: 29-48
DOI: 10.2143/SIS.29.0.3286936

Abstract :
Origen’s is a metaphysics and mysticism of motion. In his theory of Christian theology as the supreme ancient theology, he views the writings of the Old Testament prophets as the apogee of biblical metaphysics. Of his many commentaries and homilies on the subject, only a fragmentary selection of exegeses of passages from the Book of Isaiah have come down to us. However, while short and extant in a tendentious translation, they contain Origen’s definition of God in terms of ‘motion’ which the Father undergoes in the Son and the Holy Spirit to redeem mankind. Like Isaiah, the soul experiences God in his salvific motion in which it comes to participate in moral and intellectual effort. As well as ascending to God in purgation, the soul is also called upon to mimic him in descending to fallen mankind to help redeem it in preaching and pedagogy. Origen thus proposes a new metaphysics of motion revolving around a practical insight into God.

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