Customer Reviews

Origen

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From the back cover:

"With "Origen," Henri Crouzel has provided a major systematic exposition of this great theologian's career, thought and achievement.

Professor Crouzel first provides a general overview of Origen's life, work and character. He goes on to examine Origen's exegesis of scripture and his spirituality. The final part of the book deals with Origen's often controversial theology - his conception of the Three Persons, the beginnings of mankind, and his doctrines of Purgatory, Resurrection and Apocatastasis.

Crouzel is concerned to demonstrate Origen's orthodoxy, believing him to be much misunderstood, and to show how rewarding it is for the modern reader to reach a true understanding of his speculative theology.

'... Henri Crouzel must be acknowledged as the foremost scholar in the study of Origen alive today. "Origen" is an important event for students of the history of doctrine in the early Church ... a fine book, written by an expert, and it will long remain a standard work which no scholar can afford to ignore.' R.P.C. Hanson"

This book is much easier to read than Henri de Lubac's masterful, yet complex work on Origen that appeared earlier in the twentieth century. de Lubac sought to rehabilate Origen despite his condemnation at the fifth ecumenical council and Crouzel follows in that tradition. The chapters are:

The Life of Origen,
The Works of Origen,
The Man and the Writer,
The Interpretation of Scripture,
The Doctrine of Man as a Spiritual Being,
The Doctrine of Knowledge,
The Mystical Themes,
Questions of Ascesis and Ethics,
Characteristics of Origen's Theology,
Trinity and Incarnation,
The Church of the Pre-Existence and the Fall,
The Church of the Present Age,
The Church of the Age to Come.

Crouzel's translated work is a vital contribution to Origen studies, though some might argue that he de-emphasizes some of Origen's more controversial theories, i.e., some of his more heterodox thought that led to his ultimate condemnation in 533. Overall a very helpful resource on this complex, controversial and (probably)the most brilliant of all church fathers.