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A Series of Lessons in Mystic Christianity1090
Among the great authorities and writers in the Early Church, Origen
stands out pre-eminently as a great light. Let us quote from a leading writer,
regarding this man and his teachings: “In Origen’s writings we have a mine
of information as to the teachings of the early Christians. Origen held a
splendid and grandiose view of the whole of the evolution of our system. I
put it to you briefly. You can read it in all its carefully, logically-worked-out
arguments, if you will have the patience to read his treatise for yourselves.
His view, then, was the evolutionary view. He taught that forth from God
came all Spirits that exist, all being dowered with free-will; that some of
these refused to turn aside from the path of righteousness, and, as a reward,
took the place which we speak of as that of the angels; that then there came
others who, in the exercise of their free-will, turned aside from the path of
deity, and then passed into the human race to recover, by righteous and
noble living, the angel condition which they had not been able to preserve;
that others, still in the exercise of their free-will, descended still deeper into
evil and became evil spirits or devils. So that all these Spirits were originally
good; but good by innocence, not by knowledge. And he points out also
that angels may become men, and even the evil ones themselves may
climb up once more, and become men and angels again. Some of you will
remember that one of the doctrines condemned in Origen in later days
was that glorious doctrine that, even for the worst of men, redemption and
restoration were possible, and that there was no such thing as an eternity of
evil in a universe that came from the Eternal Goodness, and would return
whence it came.” And from the writings of this great man we shall now
quote.In his great work “De Principiis,” Origen begins with the statement
that only God Himself is fundamentally and by virtue of His essential nature,
Good. God is the only Good—the absolute perfect Good. When we
consider the lesser stages of Good, we find that the Goodness is derived
and acquired, instead of being fundamental and essential. Origen then says
that God bestows free-will upon all spirits alike, and that if they do not use
the same in the direction of righteousness, then they fall to lower estates