в) ОРИГЕН И ЦЕРКОВНОЕ ПРЕДАНИЕ

Казалось бы странно, что Ориген заимствует из языческих источников мнения, очевидно несовместимые с церковным преданием. Если бы он был диссидентом, протестантом – то это было бы понятно. Но Ориген совершенно сознательный церковный традиционалист: “Мы должны хранить церковное учение, преданное от апостолов чрез порядок преемства. Только той истине должно веровать, которая ни в чем не отступает от церковного и апостольского предания» (О началах. 1, Введение, 2).

Слова Оригена о “порядке апостольского преемства” — не просто повторение общего места церковного богословия. Линия преемства действительно весьма четко прослеживается от апостолов до Оригена. Как известно, Ориген был преемником Климента Александрийского по церковной школе. О последнем же св. патриарх Фотий, один из образованнейших византийцев, сообщает, будто “говорят, что Климент был учеником Пантена и что Пантен был учеником тех, кто видел апостолов и даже, что он сам видел некоторых апостолов лично” (Фотий. Библиотека, 118). Сам Климент среди наставников Пантена называет Петра, Иакова, Иоанна и Павла (Строматы. I,11,3). Климент был противником идеи реинкарнации. Один из его текстов, противопоставляющих христианство пифагорейству, Ориген воспроизводит в своих трудахggggggg.

Кроме того, в 212 г., во время своего пребывания в Риме Ориген слушал проповедь св. Ипполита Римского (Иероним. О знаменитых мужах, 61; Евсевий. Церковная история VI,14,10-11) Патриарх Фотий (Библиотека, 121) даже говорит, что Ориген в одном своем письме именует Ипполита своим возбудителем на труд, который предоставлил Оригену переписчиков… Ипполит же, как мы помним, был явным противником идей метемпсихоза.Ориген точно знает, что церковное предание отвергает идею душепереселения: "Цельс, нередко обнаруживающий склонность мыслить по-платоновски, старается показать, что все души одинаковы, и что, следовательно, души людей ничем не отличаются от душ муравьев и пчел; он в данном случае говорит как человек, по мнению которого душа из небесной тверди спускается не в одно человеческое тело, но и во все прочие тела. Такому взгляду христиане не придают никакого вероятия; ведь они знают, что душа человеческая создана по образу Божию, а потому понимают, что существо, созданное по образу Божию, не в состоянии утратить свои характерные свойства и принять другие, присущие неразумным животным" (Против Цельса IV,83). О том, что вера в переселение душ противоречит церковному преданию, Ориген говорит и в Толкованиях на Евангелие от Матфея (PG XIII, 469; 1088 и XVII, 612).

В тексте «Против Цельса» (1,16) есть упоминание о труде Татиана «Увещание к эллинам», в котором Татиан довольно ехидно отзывается о вере в переселение душ («смеюсь над бабьими сказками Ферекида, Пифагора, принявшего его мнение, и Платона, который был в этом его подражателем” ).

Итак, по тем вопросам христианского понимания мира, Бога и человека, которые были ясно проповеданы апостолами, у Оригена была возможность учиться у прямых наследников апостолов, которые, по слову Климента, “хранили святое учение, в точности переданное им”. У Оригена просто не было необходимости обращаться к новоявленным гностическим лидерам для уяснения Евангелия.

At the same time, Origen very sharply distinguished Christian teaching from occult revelations. Explaining the words of the Apostle that Christians have been revealed "the wisdom not of the princes of this world, which none of the princes of this world has understood" (1 Corinthians 2:6-8), Origen says: "I consider it necessary to say what the wisdom of this world is, and what is the wisdom of the princes of this world." The first includes rhetoric, grammar, geometry, music, medicine. "By the wisdom of the princes of this world we mean, for example, the Egyptian so-called secret and secret philosophy, the astrology of the Chaldeans and Indians, who promise the highest knowledge, as well as the manifold and varied opinions of the Greeks about the Godhead. When these spiritual forces saw the Lord and Saviour, promising and preaching that He had come into this world to destroy all the dogmas that falsely bore the name of knowledge ("gnosis" – A.K.), then, not knowing who was hiding in Him, they immediately began to plot against Him: "The king of the land and the princes stood together, gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ" (Psalm 2:2). Understanding these plots against the Son of God, the Apostle says: "Wisdom is not spoken by the princes of this world" (On the Beginnings. III,3,1-2). It is noteworthy that Origen is very far from Egyptian patriotism. He believes that every nation has its own good and evil angels, and so, "The angel who ruled Egypt benefited greatly from Christ's descent from heaven to convert the Egyptians to Christianity. For before the coming of Christ, the good angels could do little for the good of those who were entrusted to them. When the Egyptians were assisted only by the angels of the Egyptians, it was with difficulty that even one proselyte believed in God" (Discourses on the Gospel of Luke, 13; see also Commentary on John 12:50). As we can see, pre-Christian Egypt appears to Origen as a rather gloomy place, in which there was no true knowledge of God...

Origen knows the Church Tradition and repeatedly cites the Church Creed. And he insists that it must be recognized. In all those questions which by his time had already been clearly defined in church doctrine, he accepted the faith of the Church. According to the unanimous conclusion of the researchers, "Origen never at any point in his life expressed a desire to clearly contradict the teaching of the Church"290; "In a region in which the tradition of the Church had already been determined, Origen was a mere echo of it."

Only in "archaeology" and in "eschatology," in the idea of the beginning and end of the world, does he express his own opinions, justifying his boldness by the fact that "Church tradition teaches that the soul, after leaving this world, will receive the reward according to its merits..., but in Church tradition it is not clearly indicated about the soul whether it comes from a seed, or whether it has another origin, Or perhaps the soul enters the body from without... Church tradition also contains that this world was created. But what was before this world or what will come after it, remains unknown to many, because the Church's teaching does not speak about it clearly... The Church's teaching contains the fact that there are angels of God; but when they are created, this is not indicated with sufficient clarity" (On the Elements. 1. Introduction, 5-6 and 10).

It must be said that even today these topics are among the least developed in church thought. We were not there at the creation of the world. And what will happen — "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9). Ecclesiastical reason does not dogmatize the details of cosmogony or archaeology, but it can remove from itself those ideas about the fate of the world that are not consonant with the Gospel. We may not know the map of ocean currents, but we can tell the difference between fresh water and seawater. The same is true of the Orthodox Church: without expanding the circle of positive dogmas about the beginning and end of the universe, she did not accept Origen's conjectures. He is the first to try to create a system of Christian thinking, defending and explaining every step of his construction. He had too few predecessors who would have tried to pose the same questions, and even more so to answer them with that measure of exactingness, reasonableness, persuasiveness even for "outsiders", which Origen himself defined for himself. Yes, the Church believes in the resurrection of the body. But what details of this teaching could the preceding theological tradition offer him? Origen had reason to believe that there was no apostolic universally binding tradition on this issue, for among his predecessors there were opinions both different and erroneous: "Athenagoras proved the possibility of resurrection by the fact that the particles of the body cannot be assimilated by other bodies, and Origen literally proved the impossibility of resurrection... In addition, Athenagoras, as is well known, asserted that without a body the soul is inconceivable; whereas, in the sense of Origen's system, nothing can be said more unreasonable than this. Still less authoritative for Origen could be Tatian, who taught that the soul dies in the same way as the body, together with which it will be resurrected, because nothing is more contrary to the basic concepts of Origen's system than this teaching. Tertullian also could not be an authority, both because of his general positively naturalistic worldview, which was almost the opposite of Origen's idealism and spiritualism, and because he did not even remain faithful to his worldview or to the church when he converted to Montanism. Finally, on the question of the resurrection, neither St. Justin nor Irenaeus could be an authority for Origen, since both adhered to chiliasm, which is also not easily reconciled with the Christian teaching on the resurrection. That is why Origen did not raise questions concerning the ultimate fate of the world among the dogmas precisely defined by the Church (see On the Principles of 1 Introduction 6)."292

Thus, speaking of the relationship between Origen and Church Tradition, it must be remembered that Church Tradition itself develops: that which was not clearly expressed, realized, and witnessed in earlier times eventually comes into the focus of Church attention, polemics, and comprehension. Therefore, opinions that in today's church schools would have been unequivocally and thoroughly evaluated as contradicting church teaching, in earlier times could not immediately be evaluated in the same way and with the same speed and decisiveness.

Can we conclude from what has been said that since Origen was in agreement with everything that has been established in Church tradition, and nevertheless allows reincarnation, it follows that it is precisely the attitude towards reincarnation that has not yet been established in the Church of the third century? If this is so, then it is difficult to speak of a Christian attitude to the idea of the transmigration of souls, and one can only speak of the attitude of certain Christian writers. After all, if it turns out that during the first two centuries of church history, the attitude to the transmigration of souls was different, then it turns out that no definite teaching on this issue was bequeathed to the Church by Christ and the Apostles, and, therefore, subsequent church writers simply built a negative attitude to the belief in the transmigration of souls to their liking.

This objection cannot be answered without familiarizing oneself with Origen's system. Therefore, we will return to it in the next chapter.