Daniel Tolan: Origen and Creation Causa Exemplaris: Proponent or Opponent?

Origen’s disavowal of the divine ‘ἰδέας’ in περὶ ἀρχῶν II.3.6 is a perplexing passage, for divine exemplarism seems omnipresent in the Origenian corpus. Origen’s clearest account of divine exemplarism is in hisCommentariusin Evangelium Ioannis, wherein he likens God’s creation of the world to the work of an architect. This architect, Origen notes, has the plans for a house or a ship in himself prior to its creation. While these two accounts seem conceptually to contradict one-another, one finds that this is not the case if one pays careful attention to the prepositions used in both accounts. Origen’s repudiation of the ‘ἰδέας’ seems to be driven by a concern that the ideas create a world which consists of thought alone, this world existing independently from God. In agreement with this, Origen’s appeal to the architect notes the ‘plans’ for creation as existing in the architect. This interpretation of the architect, and consequently Origen’s divine exemplarism, is reinforced by Origen’s note in Homiliae in Genesimthat ‘ἐνἀρχή’ refers to ‘in the Saviour,’ rather than a temporal sequence, and his suggestion in theContra Celsumthat the Son is the ‘Idea of Ideas’. Thus, Origen’s refutation of the ‘ἰδέας’ ought to be understood as a rebuke of late-antique divine-exemplarist cosmologies that understood God and the cosmos’ paradigm as two separate entities. Accordingly, this paper argues that Origen had a definitive notion of creationcausa exemplaristhat was deliberately situated within the thought of his day.