Jean Khoury

Summary: Long before Pseudo-Dionysius gave the expression mystikē theologia its classical technical form, Origen of Alexandria had already developed something remarkably close to what later generations would recognise as a theology of the mystical life. He did not possess the later terminology of the via purgativa, via illuminativa and via unitiva, nor did he write a treatise entitled Mystical Theology. Yet the fundamental structure is unmistakably present.

In Origen, the Christian life is understood as a real transformation of the person: conversion leads to purification; purification makes possible progress; progress leads to illumination and contemplation; contemplation deepens knowledge and love of the Logos; and this knowledge culminates in communion with God. Scripture is not merely the object of theological study but the instrument through which this transformation takes place. The Exodus becomes the paradigm of the soul’s journey; Moses’ ascent becomes an image of contemplative approach to God; the three Solomonic books become an ordered curriculum of spiritual formation; and the Song of Songs becomes the biblical expression of the soul’s nuptial encounter with Christ.

For this reason, it is defensible to regard Origen, together with Gregory of Nyssa, as one of the foundational figures in the emergence of Christian mystical theology as a theological discipline. The expression itself belongs to a later period; the theological reality it describes is already profoundly present in Origen.

Introduction: Was Origen a “Mystical Theologian”?

There is a historical problem in calling Origen a “mystical theologian”. The term is anachronistic if it is understood in its later technical sense. Mystical theology as a recognised theological expression and genre belongs especially to the tradition inaugurated by Pseudo-Dionysius in the late fifth or early sixth century. Dionysius’s short treatise The Mystical Theology gives the term an extraordinarily precise meaning: the soul’s approach to the transcendent God through the progressive negation of all finite concepts, culminating in what he calls the “divine darkness” and a knowledge beyond ordinary knowledge. Origen obviously does not offer this particular synthesis. But that does not settle the question.

For if “mystical theology” means a theological understanding of the Christian’s transformation by God, including purification, spiritual progress, illumination, contemplation, knowledge of God, encounter with Christ, participation in divine life and loving union with the Logos, then Origen stands remarkably close to the beginning of the tradition. Indeed, one could formulate the historical thesis quite strongly: Origen does not yet possess the name “mystical theology”; he possesses much of its theological architecture.

This is why Origen occupies such a decisive position in the history of Christian spirituality. His works do not merely contain occasional mystical passages. Rather, a theology of spiritual transformation runs through his biblical exegesis, his doctrine of Scripture, his Christology, his anthropology, his ascetical teaching and his understanding of Christian perfection.

The modern Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example, notes that Origen uses mystikos for the “most arcane sense” of Scripture and that, in his Homilies on the Song of Songs, the encounter with the Bridegroom is something “which no-one can understand who has not experienced it”. The same discussion identifies this experience as belonging to the culmination of the soul’s journey. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

That is already significant. Origen does not simply speak about hidden meanings. He speaks about an experience of the mystery which requires transformation in the person who encounters it. The question, therefore, is not whether Origen had already written “mystical theology” in the later Dionysian sense. He had not. The more interesting question is whether the theological substance of mystical theology already exists in his thought. The answer, I would argue, is emphatically yes.

I. The Fundamental Principle: Christianity Is a Journey of Transformation

At the heart of Origen’s spirituality is an understanding of salvation as movement. The Christian does not simply pass from “unsaved” to “saved” and then remain essentially unchanged. Salvation initiates a process of transformation. The rational creature is capable of advancing continually in virtue, knowledge and participation in God. This is expressed particularly clearly in Origen’s interpretation of Israel’s forty-two stations in the wilderness. In Homily 27 on Numbers, commenting upon Numbers 33, he writes: “All the ways of life and faith will be said to have stages, in which increases in virtues are acquired one by one, and what is written is fulfilled: ‘They will go from virtue to virtue,’ until the soul reaches its final end.” This is an extraordinarily important statement for the history of spiritual theology. Origen is not merely saying that Christians should become virtuous. He is describing Christian existence as a structured progression in which “stages” correspond to increasing acquisition of virtue. (School of Mary)

And the purpose of the stages is not merely ethical improvement. The soul is moving towards a final end. The wilderness therefore becomes a map of spiritual existence. The Christian life has a beginning, stages, development and consummation. The implication is profound: the spiritual person is not simply a person who possesses grace; the spiritual person is a person who is progressively transformed by grace. This is precisely why Origen’s thought is so important for spiritual formation. His conception of perfection is dynamic. The creature can never exhaust the infinite God. Consequently, even genuine perfection does not necessarily mean an end to movement. There is always a deeper participation in the infinite goodness and wisdom of God. The Christian life can therefore be described as an ascent without an absolute terminus within the finite creature. This principle will later become extraordinarily important in Gregory of Nyssa, especially in his doctrine of epektasis, the continual stretching forward of the soul towards the infinite God. But the foundations are already unmistakably Origenian.

II. The Exodus: Conversion Is Only the Beginning

One of Origen’s great contributions is his transformation of biblical narrative into a theology of spiritual formation. The Exodus becomes the paradigm. Israel is in Egypt. Egypt represents bondage. Pharaoh represents the power that enslaves. The departure from Egypt represents conversion and liberation. The Red Sea represents the decisive passage from slavery into a new existence. But then something unexpected happens. Israel has left Egypt — and yet Israel has not arrived. There is a wilderness. There are temptations. There are failures. There are stations. There is learning. There is purification. There is movement. There is a Promised Land towards which the people must continue. The importance of this for spiritual theology cannot be overstated. Conversion is not the whole spiritual life. Liberation from Egypt is necessary, but it is not the destination. The soul must learn to live in freedom. The person must be formed. Virtue must be acquired. The mind must be purified. The capacity for receiving God must grow. The journey must continue. Origen’s interpretation of the Exodus therefore contains the fundamental logic which later mystical theology would articulate through its language of purification, illumination and union. We should not simply impose those later terms upon Origen. But we can recognise the structural correspondence. There is a first movement away from slavery. There is a long process of purification. There is progressive illumination. There is an approach towards God. There is finally entry into a deeper participation in divine life. Mark S. M. Scott’s work on Origen’s spirituality explicitly identifies the stages of the Exodus with stages in the soul’s purification and ascent. The Exodus is therefore not merely an allegorical curiosity in Origen; it provides a theological grammar for the transformation of the person. (Cambridge University Press)

This gives us one of the first great principles of Origenian spiritual theology: God saves the person in order to lead the person somewhere. Salvation is therefore both gift and journey.

III. Moses: The Ascent from the Multitude to the Presence of God

The Exodus gives us the horizontal journey. Moses gives us the vertical ascent. Moses climbs the mountain. The biblical narrative itself therefore supplies Origen with a powerful image for the soul’s approach to God. The mountain represents movement beyond ordinary perception towards divine revelation. The multitude remains below; Moses ascends. The symbolism is not difficult to understand. The soul must move from multiplicity towards unity, from exteriority towards interiority, from sensible things towards intelligible realities, from the visible towards the invisible. But once again Origen does not reduce this to intellectual speculation. The person must become capable of seeing. This is where Origen’s remarkable doctrine of the “spiritual senses” becomes important.

In On First Principles, he interprets Christ’s words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”, by arguing that the language of physical perception can be transferred to the spiritual faculties: “By this divine sense, therefore, not of the eyes, but of a pure heart, which is the mind, God may be seen by those who are worthy.” (New Advent)

The expression “divine sense” is extraordinarily significant. The person must acquire a capacity for perceiving divine realities. Spiritual formation is therefore not simply the accumulation of theological information. It involves the transformation of the subject who knows. The spiritual person learns to see differently. He learns to hear differently. He learns to perceive Scripture differently. He learns to perceive Christ differently. And consequently, he learns to perceive reality differently.

Origen therefore comes remarkably close to what later mystical theology will call a transformation of the faculties. The question is not simply: What does the Christian know? It is: What has the Christian become capable of knowing?

IV. The Knowledge of God Is Transformative

This brings us to the centre of Origen’s understanding of contemplation. For Origen, gnosis is not merely information about God. There is a knowledge of God which transforms the knower. This is why contemplation cannot be separated from purification. The person who remains attached to disordered realities cannot perceive divine realities adequately. The mind must be purified; the heart must become capable of seeing; the spiritual senses must become increasingly receptive. Origen writes to Gregory: “Prayer is of all things indispensable to the knowledge of the things of God.” And then he adds the astonishing expression: “May you also be a partaker, and be ever increasing your inheritance, that you may say not only, ‘We have become partakers of Christ,’ but also partakers of God.” (New Advent)

This is not simply speculative theology. It is participatory theology. The purpose of Christian knowledge is participation. The person does not merely know about Christ. He becomes a “partaker of Christ”. And participation in Christ leads towards participation in God. The movement can therefore be represented as: purification → knowledge → contemplation → participation → transformation. This is one of the reasons Origen’s theology is so important for the later mystical tradition.

He does not separate intellectual illumination from spiritual transformation. Knowledge of God is itself part of the soul’s movement towards God.

V. Scripture Is Not Merely Read: Scripture Transforms the Reader

Perhaps Origen’s most extraordinary contribution to mystical theology lies in his understanding of Scripture. For Origen, Scripture possesses depths. There is the letter. There is the spiritual meaning. There is the hidden mystery. But the movement from the letter to the spirit is not simply a hermeneutical procedure. It corresponds to the transformation of the reader. In On First Principles, Origen writes: “If we turn to the Lord, where also is the word of God, and where the Holy Spirit reveals spiritual knowledge, then the veil is taken away, and with unveiled face we shall behold the glory of the Lord in the holy Scriptures.” (New Advent) This is an extraordinary sentence. The veil is removed when the person turns to the Lord. The spiritual meaning of Scripture is therefore connected with conversion. The Holy Spirit reveals spiritual knowledge. And the result is contemplation: “we shall behold the glory of the Lord”. Scripture is thus simultaneously revelation and formation. The reader is changed through the reading. This explains why Origen’s exegesis cannot be separated from his spirituality. The deeper meaning of Scripture is not merely a deeper proposition. It is a deeper participation in the mystery revealed by Scripture.

Susanna Drake’s study of Origen’s hermeneutics similarly describes his interpretation of Scripture as an askēsis, a spiritual discipline in which the “veil” of the letter is progressively unveiled. (Cambridge University Press) This is a decisive principle for a theology of spiritual formation: the Word of God forms the person who receives the Word. And therefore the movement into the spiritual sense of Scripture is simultaneously a movement into the spiritual sense of one’s own existence.

VI. The Three Books of Solomon: An Ordered Curriculum of Spiritual Formation

Origen makes this even more explicit in his interpretation of the three Solomonic books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. For him, their canonical order is itself pedagogical. The soul does not begin with the Song. It must be prepared for the Song. Proverbs represents moral formation. Ecclesiastes teaches the soul to discern the vanity and transience of created things. The Song of Songs represents the contemplative and nuptial encounter with God. Origen writes: “The book of Proverbs is put first among them, then second the book which is called Ecclesiastes, and the volume of the Song of Songs is reckoned in the third place.” He then associates these with distinct disciplines, culminating in contemplation. The contemplative discipline is that by which “we transcend visible things and contemplate something of divine and heavenly things”. (StudyLight) Here we have something strikingly close to a curriculum of spiritual theology. The order is not arbitrary. The person must first learn how to live. Then the person must learn how to detach from the transitory. Then the person becomes capable of contemplation. The sequence can therefore be expressed as: Proverbs → moral formation; Ecclesiastes → discernment and detachment; Song of Songs → contemplation and union The spiritual life consequently has an order. The person cannot simply leap from moral disorder into mystical contemplation. The soul must become capable of receiving what contemplation gives. This principle will recur throughout the entire history of Catholic mystical theology.

VII. The Song of Songs: The Summit of the Mystical Life

Everything now converges in Origen’s interpretation of the Song of Songs. Here we arrive at perhaps the clearest evidence that Origen possesses the fundamental architecture of mystical theology. The Song is not simply about marriage. It is about the mystery of divine-human love. The Bridegroom is the Logos. The bride is the Church and, at the deepest level, the individual soul. Origen describes the Song as an epithalamium, a marriage song, in which the bride burns with heavenly love for her Bridegroom, who is the Word of God. (SermonIndex)

The movement is now no longer simply ethical. It is nuptial. The soul desires. The soul seeks. The soul is wounded by love. The soul longs for the Bridegroom. The soul discovers the presence of the Word. The soul enters into communion with him. This is precisely why Origen’s interpretation of the Song of Songs became foundational for Christian mystical theology. Modern scholarship has recognised that the Song became one of the principal biblical texts through which Christian mystical theology developed, particularly through Origen’s interpretation. (Cambridge University Press) The extraordinary thing is that Origen does not simply interpret the Song as a metaphor for Christian existence. He understands it as the expression of the highest stage of Christian existence. The Song therefore becomes the theological language appropriate to the soul that has passed through formation. The soul has learned virtue. The soul has become detached from the world. The soul has learned to perceive spiritually. The soul has encountered the Word in Scripture. The soul now desires the Word himself. The spiritual life has become love.

VIII. The Bridegroom Is the Logos: Mystical Theology Is Christological

There is an essential safeguard here. Origen’s ascent is not simply Platonism baptised. The Christian does not ascend from the soul towards an abstract metaphysical principle. The centre of the ascent is Christ. The Logos is the object of contemplation. The Logos is the teacher. The Logos is the interpreter of Scripture. The Logos is the revelation of the Father. The Logos is the Bridegroom. The Logos is the one who draws the soul towards himself. This gives Origen’s mystical theology a fundamentally Christological structure. The basic movement is not: soul → contemplation → abstract God. It is: soul → Logos/Christ → Father. And the movement takes place in the Holy Spirit. Origen’s mystical theology is therefore already profoundly Trinitarian in structure, even though the later theological terminology with which we describe this structure had not yet been developed. This also explains why the Christian’s contemplation cannot be detached from Christological knowledge. The soul does not discover God by escaping Christ. It discovers the Father through the Logos. The Christian’s ascent is therefore not a flight away from revelation but an entry more deeply into revelation.

IX. “The One Who Has Not Experienced It Cannot Understand It”

One of the most remarkable dimensions of Origen’s thought appears in his treatment of mystical experience itself. The Song of Songs cannot simply be understood from outside. The person must have entered into the reality of which the text speaks. Origen can therefore speak of the encounter with the Bridegroom as something that “no-one can understand who has not experienced it”. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) This is an extraordinary statement for the history of theology. There are realities which cannot be adequately comprehended merely through external conceptual description. There is an experiential dimension to theological knowledge. One must enter into the mystery in order to understand it. This does not mean that Origen abandons theology for irrational experience. Quite the contrary. He is suggesting that the highest theological realities require a transformation of the knower corresponding to the reality known. This is precisely one of the deepest intuitions of mystical theology. Theology cannot remain entirely external to its object. The knowledge of God demands a transformation of the person who knows God.

X. The Soul’s Union with the Word

At the summit of this process stands union. Origen can interpret the Song as describing the union of the soul with the Logos. The soul’s desire for the Word is therefore not merely metaphorical. The Word comes to dwell in the soul. The soul becomes receptive to the divine presence. The two are united in love. This is why the nuptial metaphor becomes so powerful. Human marriage provides an analogy for a deeper reality: the union between Christ and the Church and, simultaneously, between the Logos and the individual soul. The spiritual life therefore culminates not simply in “knowing God” but in communion with God. The final category is participation. And this explains why Origen’s earlier statement about becoming “partakers of God” is so important. (New Advent) The movement which began with conversion terminates in participation. The person leaves Egypt in order eventually to enter into communion. The soul climbs the mountain in order to encounter God. The reader moves from letter to spirit in order to behold divine glory. The student learns virtue and detachment in order to become capable of contemplation. The bride seeks the Bridegroom in order to enter into union with him. These are not separate systems. They are different expressions of one theological vision.

XI. The Four Great Images Are One Theology

At this point the remarkable coherence of Origen’s thought becomes visible. The Exodus describes the spiritual journey historically. Moses describes the spiritual ascent vertically. The three books of Solomon describe the spiritual journey pedagogically. The Song of Songs describes the same journey nuptially. Scripture’s movement from letter to spirit describes it hermeneutically. The Logos describes it Christologically. The spiritual senses describe it anthropologically. Participation describes it ontologically. And love describes it affectively. We can therefore put Origen’s entire vision into one movement: conversion → purification → progression → illumination → contemplation → encounter with the Logos → transformation → participation → union. This is, in substance, a theology of mystical life. It is not yet called that. But it is there.

XII. Origen and Gregory of Nyssa: Founders of Mystical Theology?

This brings us to the provocative historical claim that Origen and Gregory of Nyssa can be regarded as founders, or at least foundational architects, of Christian mystical theology. The claim requires qualification. Origen is not the absolute beginning of Christian mystical thought. There are important mystical and contemplative elements in Paul, John, Hebrews, the Johannine tradition, the apocalyptic literature, Philo and early Christian writers before Origen. Even the Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs did not begin with him; Hippolytus already interpreted the Song christologically, and the Jewish tradition had developed allegorical readings before Origen. (Cambridge University Press) Nor should Origen’s theology be confused with the later synthesis of Pseudo-Dionysius. Nevertheless, Origen does something historically decisive. He gathers the elements of Christian mystical existence into a coherent theological vision. And Gregory of Nyssa then develops this vision with extraordinary depth. The relationship between the two is especially visible in their interpretations of the Song of Songs. Modern scholarship explicitly studies Origen and Gregory together in this context, describing both as central figures in the development of the mystical interpretation of the Song. (Cambridge University Press) Gregory takes the Origenian trajectory and deepens it. The soul progresses endlessly. Moses becomes the paradigmatic contemplative. The darkness becomes not merely absence but the mode in which the infinite God is encountered. The soul’s desire expands precisely because God is infinite. The Song of Songs becomes the language of the soul’s ever-deepening union with God. In this sense, Origen and Gregory can indeed be viewed as two foundational architects of the Christian mystical tradition. Origen provides much of the architecture. Gregory develops it into a more explicit theology of the soul’s infinite ascent. Dionysius then gives another decisive development: he takes the question of divine transcendence and theological knowledge and constructs the classical apophatic framework of mystical theology.

XIII. Origen and Dionysius: What Changes?

It is important not to flatten this historical development. Dionysius does something Origen does not. The central problem of Dionysian mystical theology is epistemological and apophatic: how can the creature approach the God who infinitely transcends every created concept? Dionysius therefore develops the movement of affirmation, negation and transcendence. The soul must pass beyond every finite theological concept. Hence the language of divine darkness, unknowing and agnōsia. Origen certainly knows divine transcendence and the inadequacy of human understanding, but his primary emphasis is somewhat different. His great question is: How does the soul advance towards God? Dionysius asks with particular intensity: How can the finite mind approach the transcendent God without reducing God to its concepts? The two questions are complementary. Origen provides much of the theology of the journey. Dionysius provides the theology of the mode of knowing God in transcendence. This distinction is historically important. It allows us to say something more precise than “Origen invented mystical theology”. He did not. Rather: Origen articulated one of the earliest comprehensive theologies of the mystical journey; Dionysius subsequently gave mystical theology one of its most influential technical and apophatic formulations. That is a much stronger historical claim because it is also more accurate.

XIV. The Consequences for Spiritual Theology

The implications of this Origenian vision for spiritual theology are considerable.

First, spiritual theology cannot be reduced to moral theology. Moral formation is indispensable, but it is only the beginning. Proverbs comes before Ecclesiastes and the Song, but the journey does not end with moral virtue.

Second, conversion cannot be regarded as the entirety of Christian formation. Egypt must be left, but the wilderness remains. Third, spiritual growth must be understood as progressive.

The Christian is capable of increasing receptivity to God. Origen’s language of stages therefore gives us a genuinely developmental understanding of the spiritual life.

Fourth, contemplation belongs to the normal horizon of Christian existence.

This does not mean that every Christian receives extraordinary mystical experiences. It means that contemplation — an increasingly profound knowledge and loving apprehension of God — belongs to the logic of Christian maturation.

Fifth, Scripture is formative rather than merely informative.

The Bible does not simply give the Christian material to study. The Word transforms the reader who approaches it in faith, prayer and obedience.

Sixth, theology itself must remain connected to transformation. For Origen, knowledge of God divorced from transformation would be inadequate. The spiritual person must become capable of what he seeks to know.

Seventh, Christ is the centre of the entire mystical journey. There is no authentic Christian ascent that bypasses the Logos.

Finally, the goal of the Christian life is participation. Origen’s language of becoming “partakers of Christ” and even “partakers of God” gives the whole journey its ultimate direction. (New Advent)

The goal is therefore not simply better behaviour. It is not simply theological knowledge. It is not even simply contemplation. The goal is communion with God through Christ.

XV. A Fundamental Pedagogical Consequence: One Cannot Begin with the Song

Perhaps one of the most important consequences for spiritual formation is the order Origen gives to the spiritual journey.

One cannot simply begin with mystical experience. One must first become capable of receiving God. The spiritual pedagogy therefore has an order. There is conversion. There is moral purification. There is detachment. There is formation of the intellect. There is formation of desire. There is prayer. There is contemplation. There is increasing receptivity to the Word. There is deeper love. There is union. This is why the Song of Songs is third. The person who has not passed through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes does not yet possess the interior capacity required for the Song. This insight is remarkably relevant to contemporary spiritual formation. Much confusion in modern spirituality arises from attempting to speak about contemplation without sufficient attention to conversion, purification, virtue, Scripture, discernment and the transformation of desire. Origen’s pedagogy is more demanding. Mystical theology requires mystical anthropology. The person must be transformed in order to receive the realities of which mystical theology speaks.

XVI. Origen’s Great Synthesis

We can now see why Origen is so important. He brings together biblical exegesis, Christology, anthropology, asceticism, prayer, contemplation, spiritual interpretation of Scripture and the doctrine of participation. The Exodus becomes the paradigm of progression. Moses becomes the paradigm of contemplation. The spiritual senses become the anthropology of contemplation. The three Solomonic books become the pedagogy of formation. The Song of Songs becomes the theology of union. The Logos becomes the centre of the entire journey. The Holy Spirit becomes the one who unveils Scripture and makes spiritual knowledge possible. And participation becomes the goal. This is not merely “spiritual writing”. It is theology. More precisely, it is theology ordered towards the transformation of the person by God. That is why the designation “spiritual theology” can actually be helpful here. Origen is doing more than describing mystical experiences. He is constructing a theological account of how the Christian becomes capable of divine knowledge and communion. And this is perhaps the deepest reason why Origen belongs at the beginning of the history of mystical theology.

Conclusion: The Mystical Theology Is Already There

The historical vocabulary must be handled carefully.

Origen should not be called a “mystical theologian” as though he had written the kind of technical treatise later produced by Pseudo-Dionysius. Nor should the later categories of Catholic mystical theology simply be projected backwards onto him.

Yet once that caution has been made, the evidence is remarkable.

Origen already possesses the principal elements of what can properly be called a theology of the mystical life. He has conversion. He has purification. He has progression. He has stages. He has illumination. He has spiritual senses. He has contemplation. He has knowledge of God. He has the unveiling of Scripture. He has the Logos as the centre of the ascent. He has the Holy Spirit as the one who opens divine meaning. He has participation. He has transformation. He has the language of the Bridegroom. He has the soul’s loving desire for Christ. And he has union. The great biblical images reinforce one another. Egypt → the wilderness → the mountain → the unveiled face → the spiritual sense → the Bridegroom → union. Or, expressed theologically: conversion → purification → progression → illumination → contemplation → participation → union. This is why the claim that Origen is one of the founders of Christian mystical theology is not merely rhetorical. He did not invent Christian mysticism. The roots are much earlier. He did not invent the word “mystical”. The word already belonged to the vocabulary of Christian interpretation.

He did not provide the final form of mystical theology. Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Augustine, the Cappadocians, Pseudo-Dionysius and the medieval tradition would develop dimensions that remain only implicit or embryonic in Origen. But he did something foundational. He made the Christian journey towards God itself an object of theological reflection. And he understood that journey as a progressive transformation of the whole person by the Logos, through Scripture and the Spirit, towards contemplation, participation and union with God. In that precise sense, the history of Christian mystical theology does not begin with Pseudo-Dionysius. Dionysius gives mystical theology its classical name and its great apophatic formulation. But Origen had already begun to build the house. And Gregory of Nyssa would raise its walls still higher.

Bibliography

Origen. On First Principles. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973.

Origen. Homilies on Exodus. Translated by Ronald E. Heine. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982.

Origen. Homilies on Numbers. Translated by Thomas P. Scheck. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009.

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King, J. Christopher. Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture: The Bridegroom’s Perfect Marriage-Song. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. The Oxford study is particularly important for understanding how Origen’s interpretation of Scripture and his theology of spiritual transformation are inseparable. (dokumen.pub)

Scott, Mark S. M. Journey Back to God: Origen on the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Scott’s treatment is especially useful for Origen’s theology of ascent and the interpretation of the Exodus as a progressive journey of the soul. (Cambridge University Press)

Halperin, David J. “Origen, Ezekiel’s Merkabah, and the Ascension of Moses.” Church History 50, no. 3 (1981): 261–275. (Cambridge University Press)

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Scott, Mark S. M. “Shades of Grace: Origen and Gregory of Nyssa’s Soteriological Exegesis of the ‘Black and Beautiful’ Bride in Song of Songs 1:5.” Harvard Theological Review 99 (2006): 65–83. (Cambridge University Press)

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McGinn, Bernard. The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century. New York: Crossroad, 1991.

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