Origen (Platonist)

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Origen ( Greek  Ὠριγένης Ōrigénēs ; † probably no later than 268) was an ancient philosopher ( Platonist ) during the transition from Middle Platonism to Neoplatonism . He is not to be confused with the Christian writer Origen , of whom he was a contemporary.

identity

Together with Plotinus , the founder of Neoplatonism, Origen belonged to the philosophical school of the influential Platonist Ammonios Sakkas in Alexandria . In the past he was often equated with the famous Christian writer Origen , who also lived in Alexandria for a time. Therefore, the Christian Origen was regarded as a member of the closest circle of students of Ammonios Sakkas and as a fellow student of Plotinus. According to the current state of research, however, it can be considered certain that Origen, the pupil of Ammonios Sakkas, was not a Christian. His identification with the Christian author was a mistake based on the identity of name and residence. The identity hypothesis is only supported sporadically. Therefore, today he is also called "Origen the Heath", "Origen the Platonist" or "Origen the Neoplatonist" to distinguish it. It is possible that the two scholars were confused in antiquity; it is also conceivable that the Christian Origen attended occasional lectures by Ammonios Sakkas.

Life

Very little is known about Origen's life. Clues for the dating result from the fact that Plotinus studied with Ammonius in Alexandria in the thirties of the 3rd century, when Origen also belonged to his school, and that the famous Platonist Longinos , who later taught in Athens , was a long time ago on Took part in the lessons of Ammonius and Origen. Thus, when Plotinus 232 began his training in the school of Ammonios, Origen had been teaching there for years.

Plotin's pupil Porphyrios reports in his teacher’s biography that three of Ammon’s pupils - Plotinus, Herennios and Origen - made a binding agreement not to publish anything they had heard in their teacher's lectures. This agreement, concluded after the death of Ammonius, was broken, first by Herennios, then by Origen. That is why Plotinus later no longer adhered to it either. The famous confidentiality pact has been the subject of intense research, with various assumptions being made about the subject matter and purpose of the agreement.

After Plotinus founded a school in Rome, Origen, who stayed there temporarily, wanted to attend one of his lectures. Plotinus then broke off the lesson in shame and said that he felt inhibited because it was clear to him that his audience already had the knowledge that he could convey.

A comment by Porphyry shows that Origen was still active as an author under Emperor Gallienus , i.e. after 253. No information is available about his further fate. From a formulation in a text of Longinos written no later than 268 it seems to emerge that Origen was no longer alive at the time of writing.

Works and teaching

The works of Origen are lost. Therefore, little is known about his teaching and its relationship to the philosophy of Ammonios Sakkas is difficult to determine. Like Ammonios, he took a harmonizing position with regard to the relationship between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. In other ways, too, he evidently tended to adopt a balancing attitude; so he tried to justify Homer , whom he held in high regard, although Plato had sharply criticized him, and to prove that Homeric poetry was ethically valuable. In this effort, with which he contradicted Plato's clear wording, he sweated profusely for three days, as Porphyry claims, mockingly and perhaps exaggeratedly.

Porphyrios reports that Origen only wrote two writings: "On the daemons " and "That only the king is creator" ( hoti mónos poiētḗs ho basileús ). Longinos also mentions "About the daimons" and names Origen among those philosophers who concentrated on oral teaching and wrote little.

The question of what is hidden behind the strange title of the book about the creativity of the king is intensely discussed in research. The king obviously means the demiurge (world creator), and Origen defends the thesis that this creator, as world ruler, is identical with the supreme deity and at the same time with the nous . With this he turns against Numenios and Plotinus, who assume an ontological gradation and assign the demiurge a subordinate position. Since poiētḗs can mean “creator” as well as “poet” and basileús denotes both a king and an emperor, an alternative interpretation is possible, according to which the title refers to the poetic activity of the emperor Gallienus and is to be understood as flattery. Intentional ambiguity has also been considered. However, the interpretation relating to the emperor as a poet is far less plausible than the metaphysical one . In any case, it can be assumed that Origen was interested in cosmogony (creation of the world), because he was concerned with the interpretation of Plato's cosmological dialogue Timaeus . This emerges from the Timaeus commentary by the late ancient Neo-Platonist Proclus , who reproduces a series of statements by Origen on the prologue of the dialogue. Proclus draws from an older, lost Timaeus commentary, the information of which was probably based on a post-writing by a student from Origen's lessons.

Origen thinks that there are daemons of different ethical quality that conflict with one another. The worse ones are in the majority, but the better ones are more powerful. Allegorically, he interprets the mythical war between Atlantis and Ur-Athens, described in Plato's Timaeus, as a struggle between armed forces of hostile daemon parties.

The ontology of Origen is very different from that of Plotinus, as it is neither a "überseiendes" completely transcendent One assumes nor a neo-Platonic Hypostasenlehre represents. Rather, he equates the one with the being. This makes his philosophy more Middle-Platonic than Neoplatonic.

Origen belongs to the current in Platonism, which distrusts rhetoric and disapproves of the use of linguistic artifacts to specifically influence the reader. Although he concedes Plato's literary creative will, he denies that Plato used rhetorical technique because he wanted to evoke approval from the public. Rather, it is simply a matter of natural persuasiveness that does not require any linguistic embellishments.

reception

As in Rome with Plotinus, Origen enjoyed the highest esteem in Athens in the circles of the contemporary Platonists, regardless of all differences of opinion; According to the judgment of the school principal Longinos there, he and Ammonios were considerably ahead of their contemporaries in terms of insight. The aftermath of his writings, however, was small; Eunapios reports that they were written in an ugly style and therefore hardly attracted any attention. In the first half of the 5th century, the Neo-Platonist Hierocles praised Origen's philosophical format. Proclus was astonished that Origen rejected the Neoplatonic doctrine of the One, although he and Plotinus had belonged to the school of Ammonius. In Proklos' time the original texts were probably no longer known, only individual quotations in Neoplatonic literature. Proclus judged that Origen's ontology was far removed from Plato's philosophy and full of peripatetic innovation.

Source collections

  • Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes (ed.): Platonism in antiquity . Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt
    • Volume 3: Platonism in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. 1993, ISBN 3-7728-1155-8 , pp. 10 f., 54 f., 92 f. (Source texts with translation), 141, 219 f., 241, 336 f. (Comment)
    • Volume 7.1: The Philosophical Doctrine of Platonism. 2008, ISBN 978-3-7728-1159-3 , pp. 208–211 (source text with translation), 580–586 (commentary)

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Richard Goulet provides a detailed study with a research overview: Études sur les Vies de philosophes dans l'Antiquité tardive , Paris 2001, pp. 267–290 and 391–394. See also Gilles Dorival: Origène d'Alexandrie . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 807–842, here: 810–813 as well as Christoph Bruns: Was Origen like Plotinus pupil of Ammonios Sakkas? A source-critical contribution to its location in the educational environment of Alexandria . In: Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 7, 2008, pp. 191–208, here: 192–196.
  2. ↑ Discuss the latter possibility and a. Christoph Bruns: Was Origen, like Plotinus, a pupil of Ammonios Sakkas? A source-critical contribution to its location in the educational environment of Alexandria . In: Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 7, 2008, pp. 191–208, here: 196–207 and Maria Di Pasquale Barbanti: Origene di Alessandria e la scuola di Ammonio Sacca . In: Maria Barbanti u. a. (Ed.): ΕΝΩΣΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΙΑ. Unione e amicizia. Omaggio a Francesco Romano , Catania 2002, pp. 355-373.
  3. ↑ Irmgard Männlein-Robert : Longin, philologist and philosopher , Munich 2001, p. 26.
  4. ^ Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé: L'arrière-plan scolaire de la Vie de Plotin . In: Luc Brisson u. a. (Ed.): Porphyre, La Vie de Plotin , Vol. 1: Travaux préliminaires et index grec complet , Paris 1982, pp. 229–327, here: 257–260; Denis O'Brien: Plotinus and the Secrets of Ammonius . In: Hermathena 157, 1994, pp. 117-153.
  5. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 14, 20-25.
  6. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antiquity , Vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, pp. 140 f .; Richard Goulet: Sur la datation d'Origène le Platonicien . In: Luc Brisson u. a .: Porphyre, La Vie de Plotin , Vol. 2, Paris 1992, pp. 461-463, here: 462. Denis O'Brien has a different opinion: Plotinus and the Secrets of Ammonius . In: Hermathena 157, 1994, pp. 117-153, here: 137-139.
  7. ↑ Karl-Otto Weber: Origen the Neo-Platonists. Attempt to interpret , Munich 1962, p. 29.
  8. ↑ For the interpretation of the portrayal of Porphyry handed down in Proklos' Timaeus commentary, see Irmgard Männlein-Robert: Longin, Philologist and Philosopher , Munich 2001, pp. 453–458; Karl-Otto Weber: Origen the Neo-Platonists. An attempt at an interpretation , Munich 1962, pp. 64-69.
  9. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 3.30-32.
  10. ↑ Quoted in Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 20: 36-47.
  11. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Platonism in antiquity , Vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 336 f. and Vol. 7.1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2008, p. 581 ff.
  12. ↑ Luc Brisson, Richard Goulet: Origène le Platonicien . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 804–807, here: 805.
  13. ↑ Denis O'Brien: Origène et Plotin sur le roi de l'univers . In: Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé u. a. (Ed.): Sophies maietores, “Chercheurs de sagesse”. Hommage à Jean Pépin , Paris 1992, pp. 317–342, here: 317–321.
  14. ↑ On Origen's doctrine of daimons see Mark J. Edwards: Porphyry's Egyptian 'De Abstinentia' II.47 . In: Hermes 123, 1995, pp. 126–128, here: 127 f .; Karl-Otto Weber: Origen the Neo-Platonists. An attempt at an interpretation , Munich 1962, pp. 117–122.
  15. ↑ See also Henry D. Saffrey, Leendert G. Westerink (ed.): Proclus: Théologie platonicienne , Vol. 2, Paris 1974, pp. X – XX.
  16. ↑ See Irmgard Männlein-Robert: Longin, Philologe und Philosopher , Munich 2001, pp. 445–448, 450–452.
  17. ↑ George F. Karamanolis: Plato and Aristotle in Agreement? , Oxford 2006, p. 192 f.
personal data
SURNAME Origen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Origen the Platonist; Origen the Neoplatonist; Origen the Heath
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century or 3rd century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century