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.

We have seen that Origen was so afraid of allowing Christianity to be confused with paganism that he called people to a martyr's death, and he himself was ready to accept it. We have seen that Origen offered his missionary constructions as partial hypotheses. We have seen that Origen clearly indicated that he drew the material for these hypotheses from an extra-Christian environment.

Since both Plato and the Midrash, from which Origen took his basic cosmogonic and psychogonic ideas, are by no means Christian sources, it is natural that, comparing Origen's teaching on the pre-existence of souls and on the plurality of worlds with the apostolic tradition, church theologians entered into polemics with Origen century after century.

But precisely because Origen sharply opposed the occultists and gnostics, and expressed his ideas, which placed him on the border of "falsely named gnosis", as his own private assumptions, but not as the faith of the apostles and the whole Church, Origen was never officially accused of heresy during his lifetime.

Origen has only one mystery. There is one thesis that, according to Origen, should not be communicated to ordinary believers: this mystery is that God is love... The fact that God wants to save everyone should not be said too early and too loudly. That all rational beings will be purified and will one day be saved is an esoteric teaching; it is enough for an ordinary person to know that the sinner is punished... Just as we do not really get angry with two-year-olds, although we speak to them strictly, so according to Origen, the biblical threats of eternal torment should not be taken too literally (see Discourses on Jeremiah 18:6). "We make menacing grimaces to children, not because we really feel that way, but because we understand the reasonableness of that behavior. In the same way, God says that He is angry in order to convert you, but in fact He is not in anger" (Ibid.). "We deceive children by scaring them into becoming obedient. We frighten them with deceptive words adapted to childhood... We are all children for God, we need children's upbringing. That is why God deceives us out of pity for us" (Ibid., 18, 15).

This secret teaching of Origen can be ignored. But, as it turned out, what Origen hid from his parishioners is not "occult" at all. He did not conceal his secret captivity to Buddhism or Hermeticism, but the fact that the Gospel proclamation that God is love meant to Origen that God is only love (see Discourses on Ezekiel 1:2; Discourses on Numbers 16:3). Theosophists, on the other hand, have the opposite secret: their deity essentially loves no one, for it is only an inexorably automatic law of karma...

C) THE BOOK "ON THE ELEMENTS"