Journal of Early Christian Studies

This handbook introduces the seminal thought of Origen in a rapidly growing reference series for the study of historic and contemporary theological movements and theologians. It opens with a brief biographical essay by McGuckin followed by an orientation to the writings of Origen together with a useful bibliography of editions and translations. The heart of the volume, however, is a series of dictionary-style entries organized primarily to address theological, ecclesiological, and hermeneutical terms essential for an understanding of Origen.

The introductory essay expertly negotiates the ambiguities of Origen's meteoric rise to celebrity and the tensions of his relationship with the episcopal hierarchy of Alexandria. McGuckin, however, does not neglect the older Origen, who patiently nurtured the newly emerging school of Caesarea and planted the seeds for centuries of Christian scholarship. The topical entries vary in length and complexity, and in some cases concepts of daunting scope (e.g., "Mystical Thought") are heroically brought into manageable form by the contributor. The entries are richly documented with original sources, and they provide a point of departure for further research.

Without exception, the handbook offers an impressive display of learning, but the learning comes with a price. Some topics might be forbidding to readers not schooled in the conflicts and technical aspects of early Christian thought, for whom references to "neo-Nicene" positions, Middle Platonism, and a "pullulation of syzygies and emanations" (143) might not be immediately transparent. Readers might find that negotiating the byways and highways of Origen's thought is facilitated by starting with topics of narrower focus before tackling the broader, more conceptual entries. It helped me, for example, to digest "universalism," "pre-existence," and "atonement" before undertaking "anthropology" and "Christology." This approach had a further advantage. Origen famously compared the Scriptures to a series of locked rooms with the keys distributed among other rooms, thus necessitating the unlocking of many doors to traverse the entire mansion. Origen's own thought might be described in the same way, and the reader will quickly discover that one topic will unlock the door to many related ideas. Consequently, no strict boundaries separate the topics, and one will be well-advised to sample the entries broadly to get an exhaustive discussion of any one topic and its family of related concepts.

It is difficult to leaf through the handbook without gaining deepened appreciation for how thoroughly Origen integrated his stirring vision of theology as an activity of mental illumination occurring through the encounter with the divine Logos in the contemplation of Scripture. Despite the density and interlocking quality of Origen's thought, the handbook is refreshingly easy to use. Readers will turn with profit to this volume either to obtain a first [End Page 393] acquaintance with Origen or to delve repeatedly into the many facets of this elusive and brilliant thinker.

As the title of the series indicates, the handbook is more concerned with "thought" than history. It is understandable, then, that the strictly theological entries are on the whole more successful and more fully integrated than the historical ones. There are two major areas where stronger historical emphasis could have contributed to the aims of the volume. First, readers could use an historiographical essay to survey the shifting assessments of Origen over time. Some historiographical commentary is present in piecemeal remarks throughout the handbook, but it would have been helpful to have organized these comments systematically. Second, McGuckin achieves greater success in portraying the texture of the theological world Origen envisioned than the intellectual and social world that Origen inhabited. The term "disciple" is bandied about without much differentiation among the varying degrees to which subsequent thinkers appropriated Origen's diverse contributions. Also, there is disappointingly little information provided on Origen's rivals and opponents although an entry on Heracleon is a happy exception to this omission. Accordingly, the various discussions of the subsequent contestation of Origen's legacy suffer as readers are not provided adequate foundation to understand the complex disputes that clouded...