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"description": "The following excerpts are from Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John. In this section, Origen will argue for the Father being stronger and greater than the Son, and the Spirit owing his existence/essence to the Son, and not just the Father alone. However, Origen makes it clear that he doesn’t mean this in terms of the Son and Spirit being created from nothing or creation, but in respect to the Father being the divine Source of the Son and the Spirit. All emphasis will be mine.\n\nBook II\n\n6. ",
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"publishedAt": "2026-05-05T07:54:06.000Z",
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"Origen on God’s Uncreated Firstborn Son",
"Origen’s Trinitarianism Summarized"
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"textContent": "The following excerpts are from Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John. In this section, Origen will argue for the Father being stronger and greater than the Son, and the Spirit owing his existence/essence to the Son, and not just the Father alone. However, Origen makes it clear that he doesn’t mean this in terms of the Son and Spirit being created from nothing or creation, but in respect to the Father being the divine Source of the Son and the Spirit. All emphasis will be mine.\n\nBook II\n\n**6. How the Word is the Maker of All Things, and Even the Holy Spirit Was Made Through Him.**\n\n_All things were made through Him._ The _through whom_ is never found in the first place but always in the second, as in the Epistle to the Romans, Romans 1:1-5 Paul_a servant of Christ Jesus, a called Apostle, separated to the_ Gospel_of God which He promised before by His_ prophets_in_ Holy Scriptures_, concerning His Son, who was born of the seed of_ David_according to the flesh, determined the_ Son of God_in power according to the Spirit of_ holiness_, by the resurrection of the dead,_ Jesus Christ_our Lord, through whom we received_ grace_and apostleship, for_ obedience_of the_ faith_among all the_ nations_, for His name's sake_. For God promised aforehand by the prophets His own Gospel, the prophets being His ministers, and having their word to speak about Him _through whom._ And again God gave grace and apostleship to Paul and to the others for the obedience of the faith among all the nations, and this He gave them through Jesus Christ the Saviour, for the _through whom_ belonged to Him. And the Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: _At the end of the days He spoke to us in His Son, whom He made the heir of all things, 'through whom' also He made the ages_ , **showing us that** God**made the ages through His Son, the _through whom_ belonging, when the ages were being made, to the Only-begotten**. Thus, if all things were made, as in this passage also, _through_ the Logos, **_then they were not made _by_ the _**Logos**_, but by a stronger and greater than_ He. And who else could this be but the Father?** Now if, as we have seen, _all things were made through Him_ , we have to enquire if the Holy Spirit also was made through Him. It appears to me that those who hold the Holy Spirit to be created, and who also admit that _all things were made through Him,_ must necessarily assume that the Holy Spirit was made through the Logos, the Logos accordingly being older than He. And he who shrinks from allowing the Holy Spirit to have been made through Christ **_must, if he admits the_** truth**_of the statements of this_** Gospel**_, assume the Spirit to be uncreated_**. There is a third resource besides these two (that of allowing the Spirit to have been made by the Word, and that of regarding it as uncreated), **_namely, to assert that the_** Holy Spirit**_has no_** essence**_of His own beyond the Father and the_** Son. But on further thought one may perhaps see reason to consider that the Son is second beside the Father, **He being the same as the** Father**, while manifestly a distinction is drawn between the Spirit and the Son in the passage** , Matthew 12:32 _Whosoever shall speak a word against the_ Son of Man_, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever shall_ blaspheme_against the_ Holy Spirit_, he shall not have forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come_. ** _We consider, therefore, that there are three hypostases, the Father and the_** Son**_and the_** Holy Spirit**_; and at the same time we_** believe**_nothing to be uncreated but the Father. We therefore, as the more_** pious**_and the_** truer**_course, admit that all things were made by the_** Logos**_, and that the_** Holy Spirit**_is the most excellent and the first in order of all that was made by the Father through Christ. And this, perhaps, is the reason why the Spirit is not said to be God's own Son. The Only-begotten only is by nature and from the beginning a Son, and the_** Holy Spirit**_seems to have need of the_** Son**_, to minister to Him His_** essence**_, so as to enable Him not only to exist, but to be wise and reasonable and just, and all that we must think of Him as being_**. All this He has by participation of the character of Christ, of which we have spoken above. And I consider that the Holy Spirit supplies to those who, through Him and through participation in Him, are called saints, the material of the gifts, which come from God; so that the said material of the gifts is made powerful by God, is ministered by Christ, and owes its actual existence in men to the Holy Spirit. I am led to this view of the charisms by the words of Paul which he writes somewhere, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 _There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit, and diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but it is the same God that works all in all_. The statement that all things were made by Him, and its seeming corollary, that the Spirit must have been called into being by the Word, may certainly raise some difficulty.\n\nThere are some passages in which the Spirit is placed above Christ; in Isaiah, for example, Christ declares that He is sent, not by the Father only, but also by the Holy Spirit. _Now the Lord has sent Me, He says,_ Isaiah 48:16 _and His Spirit_ , and in the Gospel He declares that there is forgiveness for the sin committed against Himself, but that for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit there is no forgiveness, either in this age or in the age to come. What is the reason of this? Is it because the Holy Spirit is of more value than Christ that the sin against Him cannot be forgiven? May it not rather be that all rational beings have part in Christ, and that forgiveness is extended to them when they repent of their sins, while only those have part in the Holy Spirit who have been found worthy of it, and that there cannot well be any forgiveness for those who fall away to evil in spite of such great and powerful cooperation, and who defeat the counsels of the Spirit who is in them. When we find the Lord saying, as He does in Isaiah, **that He is sent by the Father and by His Spirit** , we have to point out here also that the Spirit is not originally superior to the Saviour, **but that the Saviour takes a lower place than He in order to carry out the plan which has been made that the** Son of God**should become man**. Should any one stumble at our saying that the Saviour in becoming man was made lower than the Holy Spirit, we ask him to consider the words used in the Epistle to the Hebrews, **where Jesus is shown by** Paul**to have been made less than the** angels**on account of the suffering of death**. _We behold Him_ , he says, _who has been made a little lower than the_ angels_, Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with_ glory_and_ honour. And this, too, has doubtless to be added, that the creation, in order to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and not least of all the human race, **required the introduction into** human**** nature**of a** happy**and divine power, which should set right what was wrong upon the earth, and that this action fell to the share, as it were, of the** Holy Spirit; but the Spirit, unable to support such a task, puts forward the Saviour as the only one able to endure such a conflict. **The Father therefore, the principal, sends the** Son**, but the** Holy Spirit**also sends Him and directs Him to go before, promising to descend, when the time comes, to the** Son of God**, and to work with Him for the** salvation**of men. This He did, when, in a bodily shape like a dove, He flew to Him after the** baptism**. He remained on Him, and did not pass Him by, as He might have done with men not able continuously to bear His** glory. Thus John, when explaining how he knew who Christ was, spoke not only of the descent of the Spirit on Jesus, but also of its remaining upon him. For it is written that John said: John 1:32 _He who sent me to_ baptize_said, On whomsoever you shall see the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same is He that baptizes with the_ Holy Spirit_and with fire_. It is not said only, _On whomsoever you shall see the Spirit descending_ , for the Spirit no doubt descended on others too, **but _descending and abiding on Him_**. Our examination of this point has been somewhat extended, since we were anxious to make it clear that if all things were made by Him, then the Spirit also was made through the Word, and is seen to be one of the _all things_ which are inferior to their Maker. This view is too firmly settled to be disturbed by a few words which may be adduced to the opposite effect. If any one should lend credence to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, where the Saviour Himself says, _My mother, the_ Holy Spirit_took me just now by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mount Tabor_ , ** _he will have to face the difficulty of explaining how the_** Holy Spirit**_can be the mother of Christ when it was itself brought into_** existence**_through the Word_**. But neither the passage nor this difficulty is hard to explain. For if he who does the will of the Father in heaven Matthew 12:50 is Christ's brother and sister and mother, and if the name of brother of Christ may be applied, not only to the race of men, but to beings of diviner rank than they, **_then there is nothing absurd in the_** Holy Spirit's**_being His mother, every one being His mother who does the_** will**_of the Father in heaven_**.\n\nOn the words, _All things were made by Him_ , there is still one point to be examined. The _word_ is, as a notion, from _life,_ and yet we read, _What was made in the Word was life, and the life was the light of men_. Now as all things were made through Him, was the life made through Him, which is the light of men, and the other notions under which the Saviour is presented to us? Or must we take the _all things were made by Him_ subject to the exception of the things which are in Himself? The latter course appears to be the preferable one. For supposing we should concede that the life which is the light of men was made through Him, since it said that the life _was made_ the light of men, **what are we to say about wisdom, which is conceived as being prior to the Word?** That, therefore, which is about the Word (His relations or conditions) was not made by the Word, and the result is that, with the exception of the notions under which Christ is presented, all things were made through the Word of God, the Father making them in wisdom. _In wisdom have You made them all_ , it says, not _through_ , but _in_ wisdom.\n\n**7. Of Things Not Made Through the Logos.**\n\nLet us see, however, why the words are added, _And without Him was not anything_ (Gr. even one thing) _made_. Some might think it superfluous to add to the words _All things were made through Him_ , the phrase _Without Him was not anything made_. For if everything whatsoever was made through the Logos, then nothing was made without Him. Yet it does not follow from the proposition that without the Logos nothing was made, that all things were made through the Logos. It is possible that though nothing was made without the Logos, all things were made, not through the Logos only, but some things by Him. We must, therefore, make ourselves sure in what sense the _all things_ is to be understood, and in what sense the _nothing._ For, without a clear preliminary definition of these terms, it might be maintained that, if all things were made through the Logos, and evil is a part of all things, then the whole matter of sin, and everything that is wicked, that these also were made through the Logos. **But this we must regard as false. There is nothing absurd in thinking that creatures were made through the** Logos**, and also that men's brave** deeds**have been done through Him, and all the useful acts of those who are now in bliss;__but with the__** sins**__and misfortunes of men it is otherwise__**. Now some have held that since evil is not based in the constitution of things — **__for it did not exist at the beginning and at the end it will have ceased__** — **_that, therefore, the_** evils**_of which we spoke are the Nothing_** ; and as some of the Greeks say that genera and forms, such as the (general) animal and the man, belong to the category of Nothings, **_so it has been supposed that all that is not of God is Nothing, and has not even obtained through the Word the subsistence it appears to have_**.\n\nWe ask whether it is possible to show from Scripture in any convincing way that this is so. As for the meanings of the word _Nothing_ and _Not-being,_ they would appear to be synonymous, for Nothing can be spoken of as Not-being, and the Not-being can be described as Nothing. The Apostle, however, appears to count the things which are not, not among those which have no existence whatever, but rather among things which are evil. To him the Not-being is evil; God, he says, Romans 4:17 _called the things that are not as things that are._ And Mardochæus, too, in the Esther of the Septuagint, calls the enemies of Israel _those that are not,_ saying, Esther 4:22 _Deliver not Your sceptre, O Lord, to those that are not_. We may also notice how evil men, on account of their wickedness, are said not to be, from the name ascribed to God in Exodus: Exodus 3:14-15 _For the Lord said to_ Moses_, I am, that is My name_. The good God says this with respect of us also who pray that we may be part of His congregation. The Saviour praises him, saying, Mark 10:18 _None is_ good_but one,_ God_the Father_. The good, then, is the same as He who is. Over against good is evil or wickedness, and over against Him who is that which is not, **_whence it follows that_** evil**_and_** wickedness**_are that which is not_**. This, perhaps, is what has led some to affirm that the devil is not created by God. **_In respect that he is the_** devil**_he is not the work of_** God**_, but he who is the_** devil**_is a created being, and as there is no other creator but our_** God**_, he is a work of_** God**_. It is as if we should say that a murderer is not a work of_** God**_, while we may say that in respect he is a_** man**_, God made him. His being as a man he received from_** God**_; we do not assert that he received from God his being as a murderer_**. All, then, who have part in Him who is, and the saints have part in Him, may properly be called Beings; **__but those who have given up their part in the Being, by depriving themselves of Being, have become Not-beings. But we said when entering on this discussion, that Not-being and Nothing are synonymous, and hence those who are not beings are Nothing, and all__** evil**__is nothing, since it is Not-being, and thus since they are called Not-being came into__** existence**__without the__** Logos_**_, not being numbered among the all things which were made through Him_**_. Thus we have shown, so far as our powers admit, what are the _all things_ which were made through the Logos, and what came into existence without Him, since at no time is it Being, and it is, therefore, called _Nothing._\n\n**8. Heracleon's View that the Logos is Not the Agent of Creation.**\n\nIt was, I consider, a violent and unwarranted procedure which was adopted by Heracleon, the friend, as it is said, of Valentinus, in discussing this sentence: _All things were made through Him_. He excepted the whole world and all that it contains, excluding, as far as his hypothesis goes, from the _all things_ what is best in the world and its contents. For he says that the æon (age), and the things in it, were not made by the Logos; he considers them to have come into existence before the Logos. He deals with the statement, _Without Him was nothing made_ , with some degree of audacity, nor is he afraid of the warning: Proverbs 30:6 _Add not to His words, lest He find you out and you prove a liar_ , for to the _Nothing_ he adds: _Of what is in the world and the creation_. And as his statements on the passage are obviously very much forced and in the face of the evidence, for what he considers divine is excluded from the all, and what he regards as purely evil is, that and nothing else, the all things, we need not waste our time in rebutting what is, on the face of it, absurd, when, without any warrant from Scripture, he adds to the words, _Without Him was nothing made_ , the further words, _Of what is in the earth and the creation_. In this proposal, which has no inner probability to recommend it, **he is asking us, in fact, to trust him as we do the** prophets**, or the Apostles, who had authority and were not responsible to men for the writings belonging to man's** salvation**, which they handed to those about them and to those who should come after. He had, also,_a private interpretation of his own of the words_** : _All things were made through Him_ , when he said that it was the Logos who caused the demiurge to make the world, not, however, the Logos from whom or by whom, but Him through whom, **_taking the written words in a different sense from that of common parlance_**. For, if the truth of the matter was as he considers, then the writer ought to have said _that all things were made through the_ demiurge_by the Word_ , and not _through the Word by the_ demiurge. We accept the _through whom_ , as it is usually understood, and have brought evidence in support of our interpretation, **_while he not only puts forward a new rendering of his own, unsupported by the_** divine Scripture, but appears even to scorn the truth and shamelessly and openly oppose it. For he says: _It was not the_ Logos_who made all things, as under another who was the operating agent, taking the through whom in this sense, but another made them, the_ Logos_Himself being the operating agent_. This is not a suitable occasion for the proof that it was not the demiurge who became the servant of the Logos and made the world; **_but that the_** Logos**_became the servant of the_** demiurge**_and formed the world_**. For, according to the prophet David, God spoke and they came into being, He commanded and they were created. **For the unbegotten God commanded the** first-born**of all creation** , Colossians 1:15-16 and they were created, not only the world and what is therein, but also all other things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, for all things were made through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things.\n\n**Further Reading**\n\nOrigen on God’s Uncreated Firstborn Son\n\nOrigen’s Trinitarianism Summarized",
"title": "Origen: Monarchia & the Filioque",
"updatedAt": "2026-05-05T07:54:08.923Z"
}