CHRIST AND HOPE:

ELEMENTS FOR A THEOLOGY OF HOPE FROM THE COMMENTARY OF ORIGEN ON THE GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN

Seán Ó Cearbhalláin

Theology Annual vol.5 1981 p.121-158

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Abstract

The author examines Origen's Commentary from the point of view of Christian hope.

本文從基督徒希望的角挺去探討奧利振的註釋。

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I INTRODUCTION

The recovery of hope as a pertinent theological category has provided us with a key to much of theological thought. Concern for the future and the relevance of Christianity for that future demands a reexamination of Christian sources. While Moltmann's presentation of a theology of hope would seem to be somewhat onesided in its insistence on Paul to the virtual exclusion of the rest of the New Testament (1), his insights are valuable in making further use of the themes of hope, promise, future, new, etc., in a re-reading of the Scriptures. The present essay attempts to suggest a little of what some of the themes from Origen might have to offer to a theology of hope. Though occasional reference is made to other works, the essay is centred on the Commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

There are two approaches possible in such an essay. A first approach would be a reading of Origen to see what he says specifically about hope: while this would not, of course, be confined to an examination of whatever Origen might say in relation to the word elpis, still the infrequancy of the word in the Johannine writings would be reflected in Origen. The second approach would be to use the category of hope as a heuristic structure: while this involves the danger of finding in Origen what one wishes to find there, it can have the advantage of using a context different from that of Origen himself, in order to highlight a different aspect of his thought. The result would then be a dialogue between Origen and a theologian attempting to enrich a theology of hope from his thought. It is this latter way which we shall attempt to follow here.

The method might be supported from what Origen himself says concerning the Gospel: there is a distinction between the material of the Gospels and the purpose behind them: since all the New Testament writings are to provoke faith in Christ, they are all in some sense gospels(2)－ pointing out Christ, rather than merely announcing him, as the Old Testament writings did (3). Origen's purpose was presumably to teach, and to teach Christ, who is ultimately the only content of the Gospel (4); and Christ is, among many other attributes, not only the 'expected one' (prosdokomenos), he is also the 'hoped-for one' (elpizomenos)(5), as God is the apelpis-menon skepastes (the help of those who despair)(6).Christ is the way upon which we must walk, a way on which we need neither staff nor sandals.(7) But he is also the truth: he not only leads us to that future which is God the Father, he leads us through the Spirit in (or into) the whole truth: and if the future is not true, there is no hope.

II TRUTH, MYSTERY AND HOPE

To seek for Jesus is to seek for logos, sophia, dikaiosyna, aletheia, dynamis Theou.(8) Yet Jesus, composed though he may be of many theoremata. is one(9), for there is one Logos as there is one truth.(10) The wisdom which does not possess the truth is a false wisdom, abusing the very name of wisdom(11). If, in face of an uncertain and indeterminate future, man would lead his life in wisdom, above all in Christian wisdom it is necessary that he incorporate the truth into his life. The truth is the mystery(12), as Christ is the mystery(13), and the Trinity the fundamental mystery(14). That mystery is given in different degrees to different men, but the difference of degree is not a difference in kind, for the truth and the mystery is the same Christ, who is himself autoaletheia and the prototype of the truth found in rational souls (15): truth is a designation (epinoia) of Jesus(16), and Jesus himself is opposed to 'image' as well as to Satan (17), who pretends to be word and truth.

This wisdom which is Christ is not something esoteric: though Origen does speak of ta krypta etc., these terms accent the secret aspect of the mystery and mean rather something which of its nature is hidden, and not something which is 'reserved', to be given only to initiates(18). Again, Origen speaks of Christians and others who cannot, or do not, come to a full understanding of the mystery: the word of God considered as drink may be water or wine or the blood of Christ(19). Still, the certainty that in thus speaking of mysteries Origen is not speaking of a reserve for initiates, is in itself an element for a theology of hope. For while his whole speculative nature might have led him to seek salvation in a Gnosticism which would be so restricted as to leave most of the world in a darkness of despair, his identification of the mysteries as being those of Christ and of the Christian religion understood in its finest depths(20) means that there is hope for all men who, in face of the world, know that it is Christ himself who is the Good Samaritan who will bind up their wounds and keep them(21).

For John, truth is the sphere of divine(22) and hence too, for Origen, truth is the totality of the significance inherent in plural nouns ta mysteria and ta mystika(23) While it may have a more literal meaning, the opposite of error and falsehood, truth is also opposed to eikon, mimema, typos and skia. It is this latter meaning which is contained in the adjective alethinos in the Gospel of John(24).

For Origen, aletheia is the spiritual reality beyond all sensible appearances and, as such, is to be identified with mysterion (25). This can be seen especially in Origen's conception of the relationship between the two testaments; the mysteries of Naaman and the Jordon(26), of Hosea (27), etc., are to be understood in the light of the New Testament, for it is in the promises of the New Testament that the mysteria of the Old Testament are to be found. Yet the mystery is not completely unfolded or proposed in the New Testament, for even the events of the New Testament [Resurrection(28), Incaration(29), Call and Election(30), Death of Christ(3l), Divinity of Christ(32)] contain the mystery or are themselves contained in some statement of Jesus or reference to him: that is, they have a profound meaning which must be sought beyond the statement of the fact. If we may add to Dodd's categories of analeptic and proleptic signs(33) the third category of metaleptic signs(34), we may say that the events we have listed are metaleptic signs, in that they occur simultaneously with their significands: hence they are autologous, not heterologous, signs. Thus the Incaration is itself its own reality, even if that reality be understood in different degrees by Christians: the deeper understanding of this mystery which may be achieved by some is not an understanding of something different from the reality of the Incarnation itself. The Resurrection, too, is not, strictly speaking, a proof of anything: the mystery of the Resurrection points to itself, for the rising of Christ from the dead is the total and self-sufficient meaning of the Resurrection in that this is the very breaking through of Christ's divinity. The nature of metaleptic and autologous signs is better understood when one considers the Washing of the Feet in Jn 13, which Origen says is scene from the life of Christ designating or pointing to another mystery(35). This 'other' mystery, this total truth behind the event, we may take, with Dodd(36), to be the Incarnation, the parabolic reenactment of Phil 2:6f. However we understand it, the Washing of the Feet is heterologous, it is not a sign in and for itself.

The importance of this in relation to a theology of hope is seen when it aids an understanding of what Origen meant by mysterion and helps to ground a true attitude to the world. For the world is not myth. In Origen's thought, myth is to mystery as human invention (plasma) is to divine truth(37). While the world must ever be more of man's making as man progresses in an understanding of what God has given him both as principle and as task to be performed, that world must never be allowed to degenerate into myth, as if the totality of its meaning were ultimately to be derived from man in an absolute sense, or as if the world were to be an autologous sign. Christian hope must look beyond the tendency to myth and see the divine reality which creates the human liberty to make of the world what man wants and at the same time to act as a guarantee that man's effort will not have been in vain, but will indefectibly contain aletheia. Perhaps it is here that we should think of Origen's play on the word kosmos(38). Christ is a kosmos; the Church is the kosmos (ornament) of the kosmos (cosmos). We are close to the expressions and thought of Teilhard de Chardin: 'Christ……compels recognition as a world', and the concept of the Church as the core, the forward arrow of evolution(39). If for St. John it is the truth which will make us free (Jn 8:32), so too for Origen it is the truth, the mysterion, which sets us free, free from history and historicizing(40).

Since for Origen a spiritual person is only seen or known inasmuch as he allows it(41), there is little danger in knowledge of the world resulting in a myth of man's own creation. This has a twofold importance in a theology of hope. First of all, since there is a certain revelation of God in creation, and a definitive one in the Incarnation, we can be sure that the mystery of God confronting us is a divine receptivity opening out into creation. Secondly, no matter how distant the limits seem to be placed, either to human knowledge, or to human progress and enterprise, or even perhaps to human becoming, we can be sure that there is a divine being who is greater than creation, otherwise a complete understanding of the universe would entail a complete understanding of the mystery of God. Hence it is that, while admitting the validity of a natural knowledge of God, Origen is more concerned with a supernatural understanding of the image of God in man than with a natural one(42), for this acknowledges the transcendency of God.

III INCARNATION AND THE CONTEMPORARY CHRIST

Origen's approach to Jesus is incarnational: he even tells us that he went to the Jordan to find. the Bethany where John was baptizing, following in the footsteps of Christ(43). He can also say that the human nature of Jesus consisted precisely in being capable of death(44). His vision of Jesus, however, is not limited to such aspects of the Incarnation: he is taken up with that concern for the 'contemporary Christ' which David Stanley has shown to be an integral part of the New Testament world view(45). Thus, Christ is not only he who took away the sins of the world, nor he who will take them away, but he who here and now and for ever takes, is taking, them away(46); the healing power of Christ is operative in the present(47); he is continually reducing his enemies to make them a footstool under his feet, for this is a process not accomplished all at once (ouk athroos)(48).

This same incarnational dimension of his thought characterizes Origen's teaching on our knowledge of Christ. In a discussion on arche as the principle of science (mathesis) Origen distinguishes between science relative to the nature of an object and science relative to an object quoad nos. He applies this distinction to the knowledge we have of Christ, and affirms that while the principle of a knowledge of Christ in himself is his divinity, the principle of a knowledge of him in our regard is his humanity(49). The humanity of Jesus is the mirror through which the mystery is seen, and it is this mystery made flesh which John the Baptist gives witness to(50), it is the 'shadow of the Logos', whereas the alethinos Logos is the divinity(51)

Since the Father thinks the Son, the Son knows the Father(52) and derives his very existence from his continual and unceasing contemplation of the depths of God(53). It is this unceasing contemplation which is the source of the Son's glory(54) and which, since it involves a communication of himself by the Father, is the meaning of the Son's 'being taught' by the Father (55).

Though we are assured by Jesus that in seeing him we see the Father (Jn. 14:9), the materiality of the body (our own or that of Christ) is a darkness which stretches between God and us, for we do not now have a direct vision of the realities: we do not yet see them dia eidous(56). We can, it is true, prescind from the body for a short time so that we can contemplate the Logos, but such an abstraction cannot last long(57), for we do not attain the spiritual stripped of the sensible(58). This knowledge will be replaced at the end of time by one more kin to that of the angels, symbolized in the angelic manna(59), even though in the highest contemplation of the mysteries of the Logos we shall never be quite oblivious of his Passion and the other aspects of his earthly life(60)－the basis for a certainty in hope that no beauty which we shall ever create, no thought, no harmony, no unique nuance of human love will ever 'die entirely in their flesh', as Teilhard de Chardin puts it (61).

Christ is thus the key of knowledge(62). If we developed this in line with a theology of image in Origen's thought, we should see that not only does Christ in his image of the Father explain the ultimate reality of the human being who is created in the image of God(63). but since self-knowledge is an appropriation of that imaged, Christ in creatures is the ultimate and only key to the universe(65). Christ is thus also the ultimate ground of hope: even considered as Logos or Wisdom that ground of hope is not impersonal, for the Logos-Son or Wisdom-Son is the incorporeal hypostasis made up, even in his unity, of various theoremata containing the logoi of the universe(66), and is none other than Christ the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth. The seed which is sown is the logos of the mystery which was hidden from previous generations (Eph 3:5) and which is eventually revealed by Jesus in that he is the light which renders the Samaritan fields 'bright' for the harvest (Jn 4:35)(67).

It is precisely as the one who reveals the Father that Christ is the key of knowledge. For Origen, 'revelation' has two meanings: it is either the understanding of what is revealed, or the coming-to-be of what is foretold(68). The revelatory function of Christ as expressed in the events of his life is thus twofold. In the first place, these events reveal the mysterion of the divinity of Christ, and the mysterion is noeton as opposed to aistheton(69): what is to be understood in Christ is the mystery of his divinity. In the second place, these events reveal the future destiny of man. Thus the Resurrection of Christ was revelatory of his divinity. At the same time, in being the fulfilment of the scriptures and hence the coming-to-be of the mysterion of the Old Testament, the Resurrection is also promise of what is in store for man(70): the mystery of the third day(71), which in the Old Testament is the day of consolation.

Further, in the revelation of his own divinity, as Logos-God, Christ is the revealer of the Father (Jn 14:9; 8:9; Mt. 11:27) (72). Again, this very revelation is a revelation of the creature to himself, for it is the Father who is the source of the logoi, which he creates in the eternal act of generating the Son, and who is hence the source of the mystery of the creature(73).

While the mystery is Christ, the fundamental mystery is thus seen to be the Trinity: the Father reveals himself in Christ, who is both the Wisdom and the Logos of God. The Father is also revealed in the unveiling of the mystery of the creature which is part of the revelatory work of Christ. Further, the logikos must, inresponse to the Father his Creator, become pneumatikos, docile to the Spirit, so that his understanding of the mystery may be made perfect, for it is only a renovated conscience, one illuminated by the Wisdom of God, that can discern the will of God in all(74).

Yet the mystery of God is not entirely unfolded, since the journey facing man is into a future, a journey which in Origen's thought even transcends death and continues into the eternity of God－much, we might suggest, as the descent of Christ to the earth was not exhausted in the Incarnation but continues even today in fulfilment of the promise 'I am with you all days…… ' (Mt. 28:20) (75). While some may seek an answer to the riddle of the future, and hence to the quest of human hope, in terms of a quies, Origen would seem to place it in a continued journey, no longer perhaps towards the light but in the light.

The mystery out of which God speaks to us now is a darkness, for darkness is not always an evil thing but may serve as the hiding-place of God(76). It is Jesus, the light of men and the light of the world, who dispels the darkness of God, and yet the Incarnation itself is a form of darkness, being a mystery(77): hence the very light of God can be a darkness for man. But one day the partial will be destroyed and there will be no more ignorance, so that man will have 'angelic' knowledge at the end of time and share in 'angelic' adoration in spirit and truth (Jn. 4:23f), without images or shadows, but through intelligible realities(78).

Yet, since the 'hour is coming and now is' (Jn. 4:23) when that adoration takes place, the mystery of God and his creation is not an entire darkness: for Origen, in opposition to Celsus, believed in the validity of analogy, as well as of synthesis (via affirmationis) and of analysis (via negationis) (79), in coming to a knowledge of God. Analogy is valid because there is a similarity (syggenia) between the visible and the invisible(80). Hence he can affirm the reality of knowledge and of that area which is beyond the comprehension of man. This is expressed in various images, such as the lay-out of the Holy of Holies(81). It is also apparent in the different ways in which Origen explains Jn. 21:25, that the world could not contain all the books that might be written about Christ: only the Father is capable of understanding the totality of Christ(82); or some mysteries are inexpressible in human writing or in human speech(83); or in the imagery of the Treasury of the Temple－Jesus taught there, but only those things whose spiritual grandeur could be contained therein(84). There in their different ways all indicate the paradox of the mystery which is inexpressible and yet is noeton, the proper object of understanding(85).

IV CONFORMITY TO CHRIST

If the Christian is to be the hope of the world, it is only in the measure in which he is to be conformed to Christ: faith in Jesus must be such that it penetrates our very substance and directs our actions. Hence if we really believe that Jesus is justice (dikaiosyne), we shall never do what is unjust; if we believe he is Logos, reason, we shall not give ourselves up to that which is unreasonable (alogos); if we believe he is Wisdom, we shall neither do nor say anything foolish. As a programme for hope in the world this is a succinct expression of Christianity: our belief in Jesus as Patience and Fortitude, Wisdom and Power, leads us away from our sins so that we do not die in them. This belief leads us to survive in strength and to be not incapable of the beautiful (ta kala) or, as Crouzel translates it, 'to believe that the good is possible'(86).

While conformity with Christ may seem to be more a Pauline than a Johannine ideal, Origen's concern with the meaning of light in the life of both Christ and the Christian shows how there is here a fruitful category for a Johannine theology of hope. Origen wonders why John the Baptist was sent precisely in order to witness to Jesus as light, and not as life, nor as Word, nor as arche, nor as the subject of any other attribution (epinoia) (87). The dichotomy between light and the other attributes is not quite as rigid as might appear from the question, for it is precisely as light that Christ is the life of men(88). No one who is dead can follow Jesus(89), and he who remains in the darkness of sin remains in deaths(90): death and sin are the same for man(91), as are life and light, thought these latter at least not unequivocally so(92). The designation of Christ as the light of men does not mean exclusively of men(93): he is also the light of the world, and that is a more intense light than the light of men, either because the world is greater than man or different from man(94). As Christ is designated the light of the world from his operation of illuminating it(95), so too the saint is a son of light because his good works shine before men(96). The world cannot possess the fountain of light within itself, and hence the disciple is the light of the world because he brings the light of Christ to it(97).

Here is the basis for a theology of involvement in the world based on the concept of light: the Christian is a source of hope for the world because, even though it is Christ who is the light of the world, he shares this title with the Apostles and the Christian teachers, those who bring the light to others who cannot receive it directly(98).

The optimism of Origen is thus that of the Gospel of John; even thought the darkness persecutes the light, and may even seem to have triumphed over it in Judas ' exit into the night, it is certain that the light cannot be overcome by the darkness, for in its approach it is the light which is victorious(99). Nor is this victory through coming to be denied by what Origen calls the 'dispensation of the physical coming of Christ into our human life (bios) ', where he understands the approach of Jesus to John the Baptist and his disciples in terms of Is. 53:7 and Jer. 11:19 as necessarily a coming to death(100), for it is precisely the death of Jesus which brings life and hence is the hope of mankind. However, he is not such a misty-eyed optimist as to imagine that simply an exposition of the truth will be enough to bring the world to perfection in appropriation of that hope which is Christ. He recognizes the fact that the revelation of the truth may do more harm than good and hence, following the Apostles, he leaves the truth hidden on occasion－a device followed by Christ in teaching the multitudes in parables and later explaining their full significance to the Apostles(101).

This optimism, expressed also somewhat cautiously in the phrase 'to be not incapable of the beautiful', lies at the heart of his doctrine of apokatastasis (102), which was 'no more than a great hope on his part(103); for Christ must really be all things to all and in all, and that in a manner which far surpasses Paul's becoming all things to all men(104). In the doctrine that risen man shall become like the angels(105) there is the same radical optimism, even if it may seem to be based on a depreciation of the materiality of the human being: for Origen does not teach that men will become angels, but that they will become the equal of angels, hence preserving their own being in a great self-transcendence, where man will obviously be close to a full appropriation of that logikos centre of his being, in conformity with the one Logos of the Father, the source and organizing centre of the logoi of all beings(106).

Again, this same optimism grounds Origen's assertion of the evident, almost perceptible or sensible (aisthetos), Providence of God, denied by the Epicureans, which ought to convince one that there is no end different from the good(107).

Conformity to Christ in the light of Providence will imply that the Christian seek out the will of God(108): that will is involved not only in the sending of Christ, but in the sending of the Spirit as well. The perfect man (teleios), the one who has in himself the necessary formation (deousa proparaskeue) (109) to be capable of receiving the divinity of the glorified son in these end times, is the pneumatikos, the one who has opted for the Spirit(110). He is the opposite of the somatikos, and also of the aisthetos. While he is still logikos because of his rapport with the Logos-Son, he is also pneumatikos because of his rapport with the Spirit. Hence, in the last analysis the mystery, in its relation to man, is grace(111). It is the saint, the one whose conversation or citizenship is in heaven, who understands the works of God; for these are hidden from men and can only be understood by the one who enters the world of invisible realities to contemplate face to face the causes of things(112). This contemplation can, of course, only ultimately be achieved in death, so that is some sense there is a key to the mystery of the world in death. It is in face of death that human hope finds its greatest trial. There are indeed two ways of looking at death(113), derived from the two ways of looking at life. There is a life which is indifferent in itself, and in that sense we say that the 'impious' and the brute animals live; and there is a life which is 'hidden with Christ in God' (Col. 3:3), the meaning of life in Christ's predication of that term of himself (Jn. 11:25). Opposed to the first, death would also be indifferent; but opposed to the second, death is that last enemy which Christ is to overcome (1Cor. 15:26). Christ has in fact overcome the world 'Jn. 16:33) and so it is in dying with Christ that we come through victorious, through the mystery of death in the Kingdom, the world of the mystery, of ultimate reality.

There is a reciprocity of knowledge, for while it is true that it is only a knowledge of the mysteries of God which will reveal his works in the world, there is the study of 'physics'(l14) to act as a propaedeutic to the knowledge of God, and hence in itself a religious form of knowledge, a knowledge which shows the vanity of the sensible and the transitory nature of the terrestrial, and yet which is in fact a search for the plan of God in order to insert oneself into it(115).

The delight of God in his creation is a delight in the logoi of creatures(116), and hence ultimately a delight in his own Son, who as Logos is the receptacle of the logoi of creation. This ratio of creatures is not a static thing, it is a force of development, a divine idea, the will of God incarnate in every being(117). If we may correlate several different statements of Origen (without thereby implying that he himself necessarily saw the connection), we might say that 'physics' is a form of self-know-ledge, a seeking after the will of God which is incarnate in oneself, the understanding of the macrocosm through an assimilating understanding of the micrososm which is one-self, for 'physics' derives its validity from the fact that there is only one Word, through there are many 'incarnations' of the word－among them the human soul, the sensible world, the prophetic word(118).

Knowledge of oneself, which constitutes 'the greatest part of wisdom'(119) is, in Origen, a religious not a philosophical task: it is the attaining of the knowledge that one has been created in the image of God. This knowledge is a principle of a more mysterious knowledge, namely that of God himself(120). Though physics is a valid form of knowledge, nevertheless it is less than Scripture, as the two talents are less than the five(121). Hence it is that for Origen only a spiritual understanding of creation can open up the horizons necessary to transcend creation itself, whether in faith or in hope.

Knowledge as a basis for hope and of a Christian concern for the future must not be divorced from the Christian life in the world: if one does not live morally (kalos), one cannot possess the knowledge of God(l22): one must be of God to know God(l23) and this being 'of God' is filiation(124), for in order to know God as Father one must have the attitude of a son towards him, not that of a slave who only knows him as Master(125).

Thus Origen sees that light which the Gospels speak of as being applicable to both knowledge and morality(126): life and light are interchangeable, and yet the life which is in question here is not the life which is common to all logikoi, rational beings, and to the aloga the irrational. It is rather the perfecting of our logos in participation in the first Logos(127). Hence it is that the power of the Logos, that is to say the intensity of true light, increases in proportion to a holy life(128). Sin is an obstacle to light, and so it is a diminishment of the possibility of becoming a child of God: light itself is not in its perception alone a source of sonship, but only a source of its possibility, for true sonship consists in a full comprehension of the words of God(129).

If, again, adoration in spirit and truth is what creates real sonship(130), and if the hour for such adoration is already present here and now, then the task of undoing the works of the devil cannot be left to the eschatological hour of the final victory but must begin now, so that the Christian in the world may prove that he is not a child of the devil(131).

V THE CHURCH: LIGHT, JOY AND HOPE

The Church, the alethinon kai teleioteron soma of Christ(132), is the source of Christ's activity in the world, rather than the individual Christian as such, for it is Christian baptism, the incorporation into the Church, which gives a grasp of religion (taxis tes theosebeias) in all clarity(133). Hence the heretics cannot know either the goodness or the justice of God(134). in a certain sense we may say that the Church is the object of the promises of God, not simply in its earthly existence but in its perfection in heaven: for since all the parts of the earth have been cursed in Adam, the earthly Judea cannot be the promised land: that can only be the heavenly Jerusalem, which is none other than the Church(135).

The Church is the 'true' Jerusalem, where 'true' is to be understood of 'spiritual truth' in the conformity of the symbol to the mystery expressed(136). Hence it is the true and most perfect Body of Christ, in contrast to his historical body and his eucharistic body, which are in fact only images of the true body(137). Thus the Incarnation, as the Eucharist, is for the sake of the Church, to bring it into being. It is in this sense too that the Church can be seen to be the end and purpose of creation, an end which is ultimately no different from Christ himself (138).

As the Christian becomes the light of the world, so too the Church is the light of the world, the kosmos tou kosmou. The light, which was once given to the Jews has now been given to that race (the Church) which shows forth the fruit of light and gives light to the world(139). All who receive the light interiorize it so that they themselves become light(140). The Church will be seen to be the light of men at the end of the world, but even now her influence secretly extends to all men. As Crouzel points out(141), this is not an answer on the part of Origen to the question of the salvation of non-Christians. He is rather pessimistic and hesitant about this, in contrast to the optimism usually accorded his doctrine of apokatastasis. The principle of the Church's universality is that of Christ, who invisible in his divinity is present to every man and is 'extended' (symparekteinomenos ) to the whole world and to every world (142). It is thus the Church's universal task to unveil to mankind the Christ who stands in the midst of them, a task which first fell to John the Baptist.

The Church is the vehicle of eschatological joy and hence of hope, for though in the world we are set about by (eschatological) suffering (thlipsis), we are bidden to have courage, for Christ has overcome the world (Jn.16:33), and so his joy is in us and our joy is made perfect (Jn.15:11). Though Origen's treatment of the Miracle of Cana has disappeared with the lost Book Nine of the Commentary, there are enough scattered references to it to show its importance and to reveal a little of what it might have supplied for a theology of hope through its treatment of joy. His derivation of the name Cana from Hebrew qnh, to obtain etc.(143), is redolent of the Covenant theology of the seghullah (Ex. 19:5f etc.).

Origen seems to have regarded the first Cana miracle as the arche of the signs performed by Jesus, not only in the temporal sense of beginning but in the sense of principle (144). This is again underscored in the various uses he makes of the two comings of Christ to Cana. The first coming to Cana is symbolic of the Incarnation, the second of the Parousia(145). At his first coming, Jesus takes possession of the world, and at his second coming he establishes his possession of all those who believe in the Father through him(146). The first time, he comes to give wine for joy, the second time, to take away what illness remains and the danger of death (147). In comparison with the Samaritan episode (Jesus stayed only two days there) Cana is seen to be one of the signs which share the mystery of the third day(148).

VI CONCLUSION

The importance of the fact that the first word of Jesus in the Gospel of John is a question (Jn. 1:38) is underscored by Origen when he points out that there are six 'words' or sayings of John the Baptist recorded before Jesus takes up the word with 'What do you want?' (149). The perfection of revelation in Jesus, hinted at in this seventh word of the Gospel, confronts man as a question. When man responds by seeking the place where Jesus dwells (ultimately the bosom of the Father Jn.1:18), revelation becomes an invitation: 'Come and see', and the acceptance of the invitation becomes the tenth hour, the sacred time(150). This invitation to come and be with Jesus opens out into the promise at the end of Matthew's Gospel: 'I am with you all days till the end of the world' (Mt. 28:20). The future, then, is one of accompaniment by Christ and not simply one leading to a union in the parousia: there is a difference between being with and being in (151), a difference which could be exploited to reveal the Christian relevance of man's efforts in the world.

This optimism of the presence of Jesus would seem to be belied when Origen asserts that this world can possess nothing of ta ano, since its very creation is a katabole(152). The disciples of Jesus, however, have been taken out of the world and so do not belong to its condition of katabole: in this there lies a hope for the world, for the disciples are taken from the world inasmuch as they take up their cross and follow Jesus(153) and hence live fully according to the Gospel. By doing so they share in the nature of the Gospel: and the Gospel is aparchai in distinction from the Law, which was protogennemata(154). Hence the harvest is over, and sower and reaper may rejoice together (Jn.4:36).

A Theology of Hope would then include a Theology of Joy. It would also include a Theology of Festivals. Origen is puzzled as to why precisely John should say 'the pasch of the Jews ' (Jn. 11:13), and reasons that eventually what the Jews were celebrating was not the Pascha Domini (155). There is to be continually discovered in the Christian life what it means to say 'Christ our Pasch has been immolated' (1Cor. 5:7), and the relation of what is thus asserted to the future. A Theology of Festivals then takes on a profoundly Eucharistic meaning: for the historika are types of the noeta, as the somatika are of the pneumatika, and hence Christ our Pasch is ultimately what is meant by the Pasch of the Old Testament(156). When this is understood in relation to all that Origen has to say about mystery and its presentation in enigma and shadow, we are close to the sacramental dimension of the Christian life, through which the once and future Christ is here and now.

ABBEREVIATIONS

CJ－Commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

Frag－Fragments from the Catenae on the Gospel of St. John. (in GCS IV;481ff).

GCS－Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Drei Jahrhunderte. Herausgegeben von der Kirchenvater-Coimmission der Konigl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Leipzig 1903.

OCM－Crouzel, H., S.J.: Origene et La Connaissance Mystique. DDB 1960.

PG－Migne: Patres Graeci