Always Son: An Origenian Consensus between Alexander and Arius
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Jean-Paul Juge
Abstract
The tangled influence of Origen’s theology on the fourth-century dispute between Alexander of Alexandria and Arius has not yet been entirely unraveled. Recent scholarship on the anti-Monarchian and anti-Valentinian aspects of Origen’s trinitarian theology has offered insight into not only Origen’s thought but also its reception both before and after the Council of Nicaea (325 C. E.). Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to a distinctive aspect of Origen’s trinitarian theology that sets him apart from many of his Greek Christian predecessors, namely, his refusal to characterize the divine Son’s origin according to two stages (i. e., first dwelling within God as God’s reason, and then, in a second stage, uttered forth as a distinct entity). Tied to Origen’s departure from this two-stage Logos theology is the conviction that the divine Son is always Son throughout his entire existence. I argue that, their theological differences notwithstanding, Arius and Alexander espoused this unique feature of Origen’s theology and that this common ground between the two fourth-century Alexandrians sheds greater light on their dispute over the Son’s origin.
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- God did not make death: Wisdom 1:13 and 2:23 in Patristic Discussions of Human Will and Embodiment
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- Marius Victorinus und die römische Liturgie – Bemerkungen zu drei Zitaten in Adversus Arium 1,30.31; 2,8
- The Syriac Reception of John Chrysostom’s Homilies against the Jews: First Soundings
- Cyril of Alexandria and the Apis Bull
- Manipulating the Imagination—Enargeia and Persuasion in Augustine’s Confessions and its Classical Roots
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Artikel
- Apocalyptic Letter Writing in Early Christianity: The Letter of Lyon and Vienne and its Reception of the Apocalypse of John
- God did not make death: Wisdom 1:13 and 2:23 in Patristic Discussions of Human Will and Embodiment
- Always Son: An Origenian Consensus between Alexander and Arius
- Marius Victorinus und die römische Liturgie – Bemerkungen zu drei Zitaten in Adversus Arium 1,30.31; 2,8
- The Syriac Reception of John Chrysostom’s Homilies against the Jews: First Soundings
- Cyril of Alexandria and the Apis Bull
- Manipulating the Imagination—Enargeia and Persuasion in Augustine’s Confessions and its Classical Roots
- Rezensionen
- Nathan Betz, Anthony Dupont, and Johan Leemans, eds.: Revelation’s New Jerusalem in Late Antiquity, History of Biblical Exegesis 6, Tübingen (Mohr Siebeck) 2023, 348 pp., ISBN 9783161623769, € 109,–.
- Olga Lorgeoux: Religiöse Bildungsprozesse in den Taufkatechesen Kyrills von Jerusalem, Studies in Education and Religion in Ancient and Pre-Modern History in the Mediterranean and Its Environs 17, Tübingen (Mohr Siebeck) 2023, XII + 369 pp., ISBN 9783161616730, € 89,–.
- Moysés Marcos: Emperors and Rhetoricians. Panegyric, Communication, and Power in the Fourth-Century Roman Empire, Transformation of the Classical Heritage, Berkeley (University of California Press) 2023, XVIII + 304 pp., ISBN 9780520394988, $ 95,–/ £ 80,–.
- Cambry G. Pardee and Jeffrey M. Tripp, eds.: Sacred Texts & Sacred Figures. The Reception and Use of Inherited Traditions in Early Christian Literature, Judaïsme ancient et origins du christianisme 25, Turnhout (Brepols) 2022, 386 pp., ISBN 9782503599182, € 80,–.
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