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.

In the meantime, we are talking about Origen himself. So, no matter how rich Origen's library was, it simply did not contain church answers to many questions. Knowing this, Origen cautiously goes out into those spaces on which there are not yet clear ecclesiastical signs. Going there for reconnaissance, Origen constantly warns: this is my experience, this is my personal step, this is my opinion...

He invariably speaks of his constructions as conjectures that are acceptable only in so far as they help to accept and reveal the apostolic and ecclesiastical faith. Origen begins the book "On the Elements" with an exposition of this faith (I, Introduction, 2-10). And he concludes by addressing the reader to it: "The same thing that we have said, or the other things that follow from it, must be thought of in accordance with the pattern which we have set forth above" (On the Elements IV, 37).

It is obvious that Origen himself distinguished the Apostolic Tradition from his rather arbitrary interpretations of it, and did not pass off his conjectures as a general ecclesiastical conviction: "However, let the reader himself carefully discuss and examine what we have said concerning the conversion of the mind into the soul, and other things that seem to relate to this question; and we, for our part, have expressed this not as dogmas, but in the form of reasoning and research" (On the Principles II, 8, 4). "We have offered the reader thoughts for discussion rather than giving a positive and definite teaching" (On the Principles II, 8, 5). "We speak of these subjects with great fear and caution, and we investigate and reason more than we assert anything with certainty and certainty. We have already indicated above what we need to give clear definitions (dogmate manifesto), which, I think, we have fulfilled when we speak of the Trinity. Now, as far as possible, we will exercise ourselves in reasoning rather than in definition" (On the Principles I, 6, 1). Pamphilus in the 9th book of the Apology of Origen conveys Origen's thought about reincarnation as follows: "As for us, these are not dogmas; but it is said for the sake of reasoning, and it is rejected by us: this is said only so that it does not seem to anyone that the question raised is not subject to discussion."293

We have also seen that Rufinus, Eusebius, and Jerome, in their different evaluations of Origen, agree that Origen never insisted on the idea of metempsychosis.

In fact, such a structure of the text was quite in the traditions of both ancient and medieval philosophical disputes: even in the Middle Ages, it was allowed to defend any, even anti-church, position with arguments – if this was done in the course of discussion and the "virtuality" of this position was stipulated. This natural right of every philosopher – the right to discuss hypotheses – was pointed out by Pamphilus in the Apology of Origen...

And in this emphasized indecision of Origen himself was the reason why for so long – three centuries – the Church hesitated in determining its attitude towards Origen. For - "Having distinguished those truths which are precisely defined in the Church's teaching from those which have not received a clear and complete definition, he affirms the former with all his force on the testimony of the Scriptures, and of the latter he interprets more by testing and searching than by asserting, although everywhere he is guided by the fundamental idea that nothing should be accepted as truth, if it directly contradicts the apostolic and ecclesiastical teaching. Often you see him stating his opinion with fear of God and humility before men, to the point of asking for an apology if anyone thinks anything strange in his judgments. When he has expressed an opinion, he is often in the habit of adding that he does not at all present it as decisive and indubitable, that in this case he is only seeking the truth to the best of his ability, but does not dare to assert that he has really found it completely, and then to pass off the solution of the problem as a dogma, that he is trying to penetrate into the meaning of the Holy Scriptures, but does not dare to assure others, Often he hesitates and stammers when he raises various questions, the solution of which he leaves to others, he himself is not ashamed to sincerely admit that he does not have a clear and firm answer to them, or, if he does solve them, he leaves the right of authority to the one who judges and says it better. Sometimes, however, he offers several solutions to one and the same question at once, and leaves it to choose which one is more reasonable and thorough, and this is especially in matters which have not received a clear and comprehensive solution in the Church" (Eusebius Pamphilus, Origen's Apology, Introduction). "Thus, both everywhere and especially in eschatology, Origen's errors are not at all the same as the heretical errors, which are usually presented and stubbornly defended by heretics as indubitable dogmas, equal to those confirmed by the authority of the Church; these are again nothing more than simple assumptions, fortune-telling, thoughts, the fleeting thoughts of the philosopher, which he is even ready to renounce whenever it would be proved to him that these thoughts are contrary to the meaning of the Church's teaching, and in their place the precisely defined dogmas of the Church were indicated.

So we have seen that Origen knew that church tradition does not accept the idea of reincarnation.