ers. In this, too, it appears as a real human soul,
and in the same way the body is sinless and unpolluted, as being derived
from a virgin; but yet it is a human one. This humanity of the body,
however, does not exclude its capacity of assuming all possible
qualities the Logos wishes to give it; for matter of itself possesses no
qualities. The Logos was able at any moment to give his body the form it
required, in order to make the proper impression on the various sorts of
men. Moreover, he was not enclosed in the soul and body of Christ; on
the contrary he acted everywhere as before and united himself, as
formerly, with all the souls that opened themselves to him. But with
none did the union become so close as with the soul, and consequently
also with the body of Jesus. During his earthly life the Logos glorified
and deified his soul by degrees and the latter acted in the same way on
his body. Origen contrived to arrange the different functions and
predicates of the incarnate Logos in such a way that they formed a
series of stages which the believer becomes successively acquainted with
as he advances in knowledge. But everything is most closely united
together in Christ. This union ([Greek: koinonia enosis, anakrasis]) was
so intimate that Holy Writ has named the created man, Jesus, the Son of
God; and on the other hand has called the Son of God the Son of Man.
After the resurrection and ascension the whole man Jesus appears
transformed into a spirit, is completely received into the Godhead, and
is thus identical with the Logos.[793] In this conception one may be
tempted to point out all possible "heresies":--the conception of Jesus
as a heavenly man--but all men are heavenly;--the Adoptianist
("Ebionite") Christology--but the Logos as a person stands behind
it;--the conception of two Logoi, a personal and an impersonal; the
Gnostic separation of Jesus and Christ; and Docetism. As a matter of
fact Origen united all these ideas, but modified the whole of them in
such a way that they no longer seem, and to some extent are not, what
they turn out to be when subjected to the slightest logical analysis.
This structure is so constituted that not a stone of it admits of being
a hair's-breadth broader or narrower. There is only one conception that
has been absolutely unemployed by Origen, that is, the modalistic view.
Origen is the great opponent of Sabellianism, a theory which in its
simplicity frequently elicited from him words