Origen (circa 185-c. 254), celebrated Christian writer, teacher, and theologian of antiquity.

Also known as Origenes and surnamed Adamantius, Origen was born in Alexandria, Egypt. According to standard church histories, he was a student of Clement of Alexandria. Origen taught in the city for about 28 years, instructing Christians and pagans. He composed his major dogmatic treatises there and began his many critical works.

Visiting in Palestine in 216, Origen, a layperson, was invited by the bishop of Jerusalem and the bishop of Caesarea to lecture in the churches on the Scriptures. About 230, the same bishops ordained him a presbyter without consulting Origen's own bishop, Demetrius of Alexandria. Demetrius objected, and two synods were held at Alexandria, the first forbidding Origen to teach there and the second depriving him of his priesthood.

Origen then settled at Caesarea and founded a school of literature, philosophy, and theology. During the persecutions of the Christians in 250 under Emperor Decius, Origen was imprisoned and tortured. Released in 251, but weakened by injuries, he died about 254, probably in Tyre.

Origen may well have been the most accomplished biblical scholar of the early church. His accomplishments as an exegete and student of the text of the Old Testament were outstanding. He was a voluminous writer whose works include letters, treatises in dogmatic and practical theology, apologetics, exegeses, and textual criticism. Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) is a closely reasoned long apologetic work refuting arguments advanced by the philosopher Celsus, an influential 2nd-century Platonist of Alexandria and perhaps the first serious critic of Christianity.

In addition, Origen is regarded as the father of the allegorical method of scriptural interpretation. He taught the principle of the threefold sense, corresponding to the threefold division of the person into body, spirit, and soul, which was then a common concept. He was a Platonist and endeavored to combine Greek philosophy and the Christian religion. He developed the idea of Christ as the Logos, or Incarnate Word, who is with the Father from eternity, but he taught also that the Son is subordinate to the Father in power and dignity. This latter doctrine and others, such as that of the preexistence of the soul, were severely criticized by many of Origen's contemporaries and by subsequent writers. Theories that were developed from his doctrines became the subject of considerable theological controversy during the Middle Ages. Source: Microsoft Encarta 97