Advent with Origen
Final week: Union with the Word of God
Week 4: Origen and the Logos in the Unitive Stage
This Advent, we have been reflecting on Origen of Alexandria’s love for the Incarnate Word, the Logos, and in particular, his question, “What profit is it for me if the Word has dwelt in the world and [not in me]?”[1] God wants to dwell in each heart. It is the mighty Logos, who leapt down from heaven (Wis. 18:14-15), who guides souls through the purgative, illuminative and unitive stages of the spiritual journey. Concluding this pilgrimage with the Word, we meditate on the end of the journey, the unitive way. Here God communicates to the soul directly in the “noonday light of knowledge.”[2] .God dwells in the soul, and the soul delights in his presence. No relationship on earth captures this union better than the image of marriage. Before the time of Origen, St. Paul and early Church Fathers spoke of the Church as a whole or virgins as being Brides of Christ.[3] However, Origen saw each baptised soul, in its “union with the Word of God,” as Christ’s Bride, and from henceforth, this great dignity of each soul became normative.[4]
When God dwells in a soul, she possesses God as her own. This produces delight. In the last reflection, we left the maidens in the Song of Songs running after the Bridegroom; they illustrate the longing and growth in knowledge of Christ in the illuminative stage. After a small fragrance of the Bridegroom’s ointment wafts towards them, each of their five internal-senses pursue him. Origen ponders, “What, do you think, will they do when the Word of God takes possession of their hearing, their sight, their touch, and their taste as well, and offers excellences from Himself that match?”[5] They will see His glory “and desire to see nothing evermore,” taste His sweet delight, and “all other flavours will seem harsh and bitter,” and so with each of the senses.[6] For she “who has reached the peak of perfection and beatitude will be delighted by the Word of God in all [her] senses.”[7] This soul is His Bride. Her longing is fulfilled, and she delights in God. Thus, enjoyment is a hallmark of the unitive stage.
The Word fills the Bride so that her mind experiences things as Christ does. We can speak of this total conformity to Christ as “taking on the mind of Christ.” Saint Paul asks, “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Christ’s “mind” in Greek is nous, but this can also mean “sense” or “meaning.”[8] Therefore, when Christians receive the gift of the “nous of Christ,” God shares the secret treasures of his wisdom with them. The Bride knows this when she proclaims, “The king has brought me into his chambers” (Song 1:4). Her discovery of Christ’s secrets gives no end to her delights, as Origen writes, “This gives her good reason for gladness and rejoicing, in that she has now beheld the secrets of the King and hidden mysteries.”[9] This full access into the mind of Christ is reserved for the perfect, as opposed to the many maidens who are still running after Him.[10] She alone receives the prize and so delights in full union with the Word.
The Word’s continual self-gift to a soul gradually turns the soul into Himself.[11] This spiritual process is called “divinization.” Drawn from Saint Peter’s statement that we are to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4), the Catechism of the Catholic Church cites numerous Church Fathers who boldly proclaim this surprising truth that in “communion with the Word,” God “make[s] men gods.”[12] Writing on the same theme between the dates of these Catechism excerpts from Saint Irenaeus and Saint Athanasius, Origen teaches, “By fellowship with divinity human nature might become divine.”[13] And it is the Logos’ role to bring this divinization about. Origen writes that the same Word who inspired the prophets, the same Word who was “in the beginning with God” (Jn. 1:2), is “God the Logos, who divinizes believers.”[14] Why is this the Word’s role? Because the Word is “living and active” (Heb. 4:11), able to transform the depths of the human soul into Himself.[15]
When we speak of being divinized through participation in Wisdom’s knowledge, some may wonder where union through charity comes into play. The scholar Henri Crouzel explains that for Origen, “knowledge (gnosis) is the same thing as union and love. To ask Origen the question whether blessedness is knowledge or love would be for him nonsense, for knowledge is love.”[16] Because of her unquenchable love for the shepherd king, the Bride of Song of Songs asks where her lover feeds his flock at midday (Song 1:7). Origen explains that she longs for unveiled mysteries at “just that time when the light is poured out on the world more copiously, when the day is pure and the daylight clearer and brighter.”[17] Her unveiled knowledge is the same as her raptured love. She calls “the Bridegroom by a new name. For, knowing that He is the Son of Charity—nay, rather that He is Himself the Charity that is of God,” she says, “Thou whom my soul has loved.”[18] Her love is total, including her whole heart, soul, and strength (Lk. 10:27). Thus, it is the noblest sort of love, and it can truly be called “union.”
And this mystical love bears fruit, so Origen teaches that the Bride of the Word is a “mother.”[19] Merging his metaphors, Origen speaks of the Word as both Bridegroom and child, which makes sense spiritually after the model of the Annunciation. The Holy Spirit (acting with the power of God’s Word) overshadowed Mary, and she conceived the Word by the Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:35; Mt. 1:20). Just as Mary received, bore, and gave birth to the Incarnate Word, every soul is to receive the divine Word, let Him grow inside her, and bring forth this Word in the world.[20] Therefore, Origen identifies every soul who “give[s] birth to the Will of the Father” with Mary, “the Mother of Jesus.”[21] For this concept, Origen draws from the prophet Isaiah, who says the Lord makes Israel cry out as a woman in labour, but she cannot give birth (Is. 26:17-18). However, in the new covenant, when the soul cries out in labour, “Christ is formed in [souls]” (Gal. 4:19). We should note here that it is Saint Paul who “labours to give birth.” Therefore, in its relationship to God, every soul is feminine and can be called wife and mother.
Origen does not shrink from this child-bearing imagery. He writes, “Therefore, the soul conceives from the seed of the word . . . until it brings forth a spirit of the fear of God. . . . This is the birth of the holy souls, this is conception; these are holy unions.”[22] Saintly souls reach spiritual union and bear fruit. And what, exactly, does it mean for souls to give birth to the Word into the world? The spiritual children are “good works which are like Christ,” the “Will of the Father,” “practical and theoretical virtues,” and “generat[ions] of all good deeds, thoughts and words.”[23] They perpetuate Christ’s mission in the world, and this is the goal of Origen’s mysticism. A soul does not simply ascend the spiritual stages for the sake of her own mystical union. Her spiritual victories have universal dimensions, and the fruit of this union builds up the Kingdom of God around her.
As Christmas approaches, let us take on the spiritual posture of Mary. May the Holy Spirit overshadow us, and may we receive the Word deeply in our hearts. Let us foster this divine life, delight in His presence, allow Him to conform us into His image, and bring Him forth into the world.
By Sr Angela Marie OP
Sr. Angela Marie entered the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in 2009, and she's passionate about encountering Christ's love and Truth and sharing Him with others. She studied at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Aquinas College and Catholic Distance University, where she wrote a Masters Thesis on Origen of Alexandria's Logos theology. She's been missioned in Elgin, Scotland since 2017.
This is Sister’s last Advent reflection but I would encourage you to go back again and re-read them for their is much in them to glean. This is also our last email of the year so from everyone associated with St Moluag’s Coracle we wish you a blessed Christmastide and happy new year. See you again in 2024!
God Bless
Eric