This is an important new contribution to our understanding of Origen, and of early Christian theology and Greek philosophy in general. Casting both forwards and backwards in time, Guilty of Genius: Origen and the Theory of Transmigration illustrates Origen's fruitful engagement with earlier Greek philosophy, as well as his enormous influence on both later philosophers (Porphyry, Proclus) and Christian theologians, including the Cappadocians, Maximus Confessor, and the authors of the Nicene Creed. Building on his earlier books, which overturned erroneous but long-established assertions about Origen, the author brings together various strands to form a detailed and coherently focused treatment, demolishing the myth that Origen upheld theories such as the preexistence and transmigration of souls. This is a seminal and ground-breaking contribution to the scholarship of both early Christianity and Greek philosophy as it was inherited during the second and third centuries.

Guilty of Genius: Origen and the Theory of Transmigration

History

Tzamalikos, Panayiotis

World

Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers

This book elucidates and engages in critical discussion of the Greek philosophical background to the work of Origen, the great third-century scholar and theologian. The author, Professor Panayiotis Tzamalikos, has long argued that Origen was in many respects an anti-Platonist, and that the clauses in Origen's official anathematisation in AD 553 were based on misreadings by unschooled and fanatical drumbeaters. Tzamalikos has refutedthose charges and demonstrated that they had nothing to do with Origen's real thought. Origen and Hellenism continues the argument by placing Origen's achievement in its correct context: Origen may have forsaken his ancestral religion and converted to Christianity when he was advanced in years, but he implicitly made much use of his Greek intellectual inheritance in composing his ground-breaking theological work, which paved the way to Nicaea.\nThe author's thesis is that, in the quest to discover the real Origen, scrutiny of this background is vital. In the history of philosophy, Origen is uncategorisable as an author: his thought constitutes an unexampled chapter of its own, revealing a perfect match between Christian exegesis and Greek philosophy, which gave later episcopal orthodoxy the gravamen of its anti-Arian doctrine. 
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"The author presents Origen's thought as a completely original contribution to ancient philosophy and Christian theology at the same time. He shows convincingly that the classification of Origen as 'Christian Platonist' obscures rather that clarifies, since Origen took a critical stance towards several aspects of Platonism. In doing so, the author is able to free Origen's intellectual profile, on the one hand, from distortion of Eusebius of Caesarea, and, on the other hand, from the clichés of the anti-Origenist polemics in late antiquity, especially in the fifth ecumenical council. 
With the liberation of Origen from the prison of his often ill-informed theological reception, the author makes an outstanding contribution to research, which in any case should be listened to not only in the field of theology, but also in the field of the history of ancient philosophy." 
-Martin Illert, Prof.Dr. University of Halle, Germany 
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"No-one acquainted with current scholarship on Origen will fail to recognise the author of this book, not only on account of its length and the vigour of its style, but because Tzamalikos has no rival in erudition or in the fecundity of his ideas. None of his critics (least of all those who accuse him of disparaging Greek philosophy) will be able to produce the range of quotations from two millennia of Greek literature that Tzamalikos can marshal in support of every one of his conclusions, and few of them will be able to match his conceptual subtlety or his tenacity in exegesis. 
Since he is the one indispensable author writing in English on Origen at the moment, this volume will be especially useful to scholars because, while it introduces a lot of new material, it also recapitulates the arguments of Tzamalikos' earlier studies, which, famous as they are, do not seem always to have been read in their entirety by his critics." 
-Mark Edwards, Professor of Early Christian Studies, University of Oxford

Origen and Hellenism: The Interplay between Greek and Christian Ideas in Late Antiquity

The Wisdom of Solomon and the Byzantine Reception of Origen (English and Greek Edition)

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

This book presents a ground-breaking exposition of Anaxagoras' legacy to Classical and Late Antiquity, critically assessing Aristotle's distorted representation of Anaxagoras. Origen, formerly a Greek philosopher of note, is placed in the history of philosophy for the first time. By drawing on his Anaxagorean background, and being the first to revive the Anaxagorean Theory of Logoi, Origen paved the way to Nicaea.

Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism: The Legacy of Anaxagoras to Classical and Late Antiquity (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 128)

de Gruyter

This new and revolutionary edition of Origen's Commentary on Matthew is based on the version in Codex Sabaiticus 232, the most important of all because, unlike the 24 codices consulted by Erich Klostermann in his standard edition of 1941, it contains not only episodic 'passages', but also unique flowing text. The same codex also reveals for the first time how heavily Origen's work was used, and sometimes copied to the letter, by ancient authors. Against the prevailing opinion, Professor Panayiotis Tzamalikos incontrovertibly confirms his long-standing thesis that the Commentary on Matthew is much later than the Contra Celsum. Origen's detractors, both ancient and modern alike, in order to show how much of a 'heretic' Origen was, point the finger at a garbled, untrustworthy, and heavily interpolated Latin rendering of his De Principiis, whereas reference to his Commentary on Matthew has always been scarce, and Pamphilus' illuminating and documented Apology for Origen is normally paid almost no attention. The author demonstrates that, unless the correlations of Origen's work to both Greek philosophy and subsequent Patristic literature are knowledgeably delved and brought to light, it is impossible to recognise the real Origen, which has far too little to do with current allegations concerning pivotal aspects of his thought. By means of his commentary on this Greek text, P. Tzamalikos, as he did with his previous books, casts light on the widespread and multiform miscomprehension of Origen's fundamentals, and demonstrates that this is a terra still calling for informed and unbiased exploration.

Origen: New Fragments from the Commentary on Matthew: Codices Sabaiticus 232 & Holy Cross 104, Jerusalem

Brill Schoningh

An exposition challenging inveterate verdicts ingrained in the historical / theological mindset about Origen, who is shown to have produced a sheerly new theory of Time, the Christian one. Claims attributing the tenet of a ‘beginningless world’ to him are disproved. The author challenges the widespread impression about this theology being bowled head over heels by its encounter with Platonism or Neoplatonism, casting new light on Origen’s grasp of the relation between Hellenism, Hebrew thought and Christianity.

Origen: Cosmology And Ontology of Time (Supplements To Vigiliae Christianae, 77)

Brill Academic Pub

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