Nevertheless it seems proper to inquire what is the reason why he who is regenerated by God unto salvation has to do both with Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and does not obtain salvation unless with the co-operation of the entire Trinity; and why it is impossible to become partaker of the Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit. And in discussing these subjects, it will undoubtedly be necessary to describe the special working of the Holy Spirit, and of the Father and the Son. I am of opinion, then, that the working of the Father and of the Son takes place as well in saints as in sinners, in rational beings and in dumb animals; nay, even in those things which are without life, and in all things universally which exist; but that the operation of the Holy Spirit does not take place at all in those things which are without life, or in those which, although living, are yet dumb; nay, is not found even in those who are endued indeed with reason, but are engaged in evil courses, and not at all converted to a better life. In those persons alone do I think that the operation of the Holy Spirit takes place, who are already turning to a better life, and walking along the way which leads to Jesus Christ, i.e., who are engaged in the performance of good actions, and who abide in God. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 5)

Belief in God is not sufficient for Origen.

Salvation, wholeness, completeness requires the Trinity.

Standing in awe of the Father is not sufficient.

Knowing and loving the Son is not sufficient.

Only when Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are encountered together does Origen perceive that grace has a chance to do its work.

I am skeptical, but will listen.

We must understand, therefore, that as the Son, who alone knows the Father, reveals Him to whom He will, so the Holy Spirit, who alone searches the deep things of God, reveals God to whom He will: For the Spirit blows where He lists. We are not, however, to suppose that the Spirit derives His knowledge through revelation from the Son. For if the Holy Spirit knows the Father through the Son's revelation, He passes from a state of ignorance into one of knowledge; but it is alike impious and foolish to confess the Holy Spirit, and yet to ascribe to Him ignorance. For even although something else existed before the Holy Spirit, it was not by progressive advancement that He came to be the Holy Spirit; as if any one should venture to say, that at the time when He was not yet the Holy Spirit He was ignorant of the Father, but that after He had received knowledge He was made the Holy Spirit. For if this were the case, the Holy Spirit would never be reckoned in the Unity of the Trinity, i.e., along with the unchangeable Father and His Son, unless He had always been the Holy Spirit. When we use, indeed, such terms as always or was, or any other designation of time, they are not to be taken absolutely, but with due allowance; for while the significations of these words relate to time, and those subjects of which we speak are spoken of by a stretch of language as existing in time, they nevertheless surpass in their real nature all conception of the finite understanding. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 4)

Origen anticipates our potential misunderstanding and attempts to correct it. There are still, it seems to me, some complicated mutual dependencies in his schema.

Must God be changeless? Does being perfect require eternal continuity? Must God be perfect?

To use any of these words - changeless, perfect, or eternal - requires a great leap of imagination.

As creatures of time and space we are intimate with change, error, and endings. How do we presume to know their opposites?

I perceive in the gospels a Jesus who changed, who was evidently on the edge of error, and who came to an end before transcending that end.

Might this insight also be a purpose of the incarnation?

The image is the Deposition of Christ by Rubens.

And we think that that expression also which occurs in the hymn of Habakkuk, In the midst either of the two living things, or of the two lives, You will be known, ought to be understood of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. For all knowledge of the Father is obtained by revelation of the Son through the Holy Spirit, so that both of these beings which, according to the prophet, are called either living things or lives, exist as the ground of the knowledge of God the Father. For as it is said of the Son, that no one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him, the same also is said by the apostle of the Holy Spirit, when He declares, God has revealed them to us by His Holy Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God; and again in the Gospel, when the Saviour, speaking of the divine and profounder parts of His teaching, which His disciples were not yet able to receive, thus addresses them: I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now; but when the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, has come, He will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 4)

I hear a tendency here -- if ever so slightly -- for the Spirit to depend on the Son.

In Plotinus The One emanates the Intellect and the Soul, while maintaining the essential simplicity of being One.

The Intellect (the Son) and the Soul (Spirit) are derivative of The One. There are echoes, at least, of this in Origen.

My meaning for the trinity is a bit different: God is One. God is known and recognized through many expressions. This variety of expression has much less to do with God and much more to do with our encountering God from different points in time, space, and experience.

Of these variety of expressions I am especially aware of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Some indeed of our predecessors have observed, that in the New Testament, whenever the Spirit is named without that adjunct which denotes quality, the Holy Spirit is to be understood; as e.g., in the expression, Now the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace; and, Seeing you began in the Spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh? We are of opinion that this distinction may be observed in the Old Testament also, as when it is said, He that gives His Spirit to the people who are upon the earth, and Spirit to them who walk thereon. For, without doubt, every one who walks upon the earth (i.e., earthly and corporeal beings) is a partaker also of the Holy Spirit, receiving it from God. My Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim in Isaiah, which are described as having each six wings, and calling to one another, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts, were to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God and of the Holy Spirit. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 4)

"Every one who walks upon the earth is a partaker also of the Holy Spirit."

Each of us has received the Holy Spirit. Each of us shares in an immutable, begotten not made, aspect of God?

We are each a child of the Father, a sibling of the Son, sharing in the Spirit of God.

These are not the only descriptions that fit us.

These are not typically how we think of ourselves or our neighbors. What else might change if we began to live in accordance with this identity?

And in the boo of Enoch also we have similar descriptions. But up to the present time we have been able to find no statement in holy Scripture in which the Holy Spirit could be said to be made or created, not even in the way in which we have shown above that the divine wisdom is spoken of by Solomon, or in which those expressions which we have discussed are to be understood of the life, or the word, or the other appellations of the Son of God. The Spirit of God, therefore, which was borne upon the waters, as is written in the beginning of the creation of the world, is, I am of opinion, no other than the Holy Spirit, so far as I can understand; as indeed we have shown in our exposition of the passages themselves, not according to the historical, but according to the spiritual method of interpretation. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 3)

Even for this long-time skeptic of the trinity, I have understood the Holy Spirit to be the same as the Breath of God. I have taken this for granted.

Origen could take nothing for granted. Nothing had been established. All was new.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "Although the Holy Spirit is often named instead of God (e.g., in Sifre, Deut. 31 [ed. Friedmann, p. 72]), yet it was conceived as being something distinct. The Spirit was among the ten things that were created on the first day (Ḥag. 12a, b). Though the nature of the Holy Spirit is really nowhere described, the name indicates that it was conceived as a kind of wind that became manifest through noise and light."

It is easy to critique. It is more difficult to imagine being at the beginning and doing our best to make sense.

The tone and approach of Origen is exploratory rather than dogmatic. He is working with us to understand and organize as best we can. In humility and openness to other possibilities, this is entirely worthwhile.

That all things were created by God, and that there is no creature which exists but has derived from Him its being, is established from many declarations of Scripture; those assertions being refuted and rejected which are falsely alleged by some respecting the existence either of a matter co-eternal with God, or of unbegotten souls, in which they would have it that God implanted not so much the power of existence, as equality and order. For even in that little treatise called The Pastor or Angel of Repentance, composed by Hermas, we have the following: First of all, believe that there is one God who created and arranged all things; who, when nothing formerly existed, caused all things to be; who Himself contains all things, but Himself is contained by none. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 3)

In English the text by Hermas is most widely known as The Shepherd. It had quasi-canonical status prior to the Council of Nicea and appears in bibles as late as the 4th Century.

Origen is almost certainly referring to The Shepherd as a paradoxical source of support for his trinitarian doctrine. He is using a popular - but for him mistaken - book, saying in effect, even Hermas supports my position.

In fact Hermas is inconsistent. While the quotation above anticipates the orthodoxy that would eventually emerge. In another passage a Son of God is described as a good man filled with a "pre-existent spirit" and adopted as the Son.

The Holy Pre-existent Spirit. Which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired. This flesh, therefore, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the Spirit, walking honorably in holiness and purity, without in any way defiling the Spirit. When then it had lived honorably in chastity, and had labored with the Spirit, and had cooperated with it in everything, behaving itself boldly and bravely, He chose it as a partner with the Holy Spirit; for the career of this flesh pleased [the Lord], seeing that, as possessing the Holy Spirit, it was not defiled upon the earth. He therefore took the son as adviser and the glorious angels also, that this flesh too, having served the Spirit unblamably, might have some place of sojourn, and might not seem to have lost the reward for its service; for all flesh, which is found undefiled and unspotted, wherein the Holy. (The Shepherd, Parable V)

The image is from the catacombs at Rome.

From all which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all, i.e., by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to His only-begotten Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit. Who, then, is not amazed at the exceeding majesty of the Holy Spirit, when he hears that he who speaks a word against the Son of man may hope for forgiveness; but that he who is guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has not forgiveness, either in the present world or in that which is to come! (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 2)

There is a hypostasis -- a persona or aspect -- of God alive in the world.

The Father is present in creation, in the structure of the universe.

The Son is present through example, teaching, and relationship and in our understanding of what is taught, the meaning of what is exemplified, and the nature of our relationship with the Son.

The Spirit is God-in-this-Moment, recognized and affirmed in coherence with the Father and Son.

God is present here and now.

Now, what the Holy Spirit is, we are taught in many passages of Scripture, as by David in the fifty-first Psalm, when he says, And take not Your Holy Spirit from me; and by Daniel, where it is said, The Holy Spirit which is in you. And in the New Testament we have abundant testimonies, as when the Holy Spirit is described as having descended upon Christ, and when the Lord breathed upon His apostles after His resurrection, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit; and the saying of the angel to Mary, The Holy Spirit will come upon you; the declaration by Paul, that no one can call Jesus Lord, save by the Holy Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit was given by the imposition of the apostles' hands in baptism. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 2)

When I am most magically inclined, I reach out to what I vaguely understand to be the Holy Spirit.

When I am in need of insight or the ability to influence others, my silent prayer is most inclined to that Spirit.

When I am exhausted and at my last and loosest of ends, I will open myself and ask the Holy Spirit to take me, not caring where.

I give thanks and praise to God, seek forgiveness of the Father, listen to, learn from, and love the Son, and - occasionally - turn myself over to the Holy Spirit.

We, however, in conformity with our belief in that doctrine, which we assuredly hold to be divinely inspired, believe that it is possible in no other way to explain and bring within the reach of human knowledge this higher and diviner reason as the Son of God, than by means of those Scriptures alone which were inspired by the Holy Spirit, i.e., the Gospels and Epistles, and the law and the prophets, according to the declaration of Christ Himself. Of the existence of the Holy Spirit no one indeed could entertain any suspicion, save those who were familiar with the law and the prophets, or those who profess a belief in Christ. For although no one is able to speak with certainty of God the Father, it is nevertheless possible for some knowledge of Him to be gained by means of the visible creation and the natural feelings of the human mind; and it is possible, moreover, for such knowledge to be confined from the sacred Scriptures. But with respect to the Son of God, although no one knows the Son save the Father, yet it is from sacred Scripture also that the human mind is taught how to think of the Son; and that not only from the New, but also from the Old Testament, by means of those things which, although done by the saints, are figuratively referred to Christ, and from which both His divine nature, and that human nature which was assumed by Him, may be discovered. (Book I, Chapter 3, Part 1)

Of the three hypostases (ὑπόστᾰσις) with which we speak of the trinity, I feel most familiar with the Son.

Regarding the Father, there is a sense of separation spawned by a gulf in capacity and context.

Regarding the Spirit, there is a mysterious otherness, an uncanny character that both attracts and differentiates.

But regarding Christ - or more precisely, Jesus - there is a sense of shared experience and common concern.

It is also possible to speak of me being Father, Son, and Spirit... each has reality. But alone none captures my ousia (oὐσία), my full being. And even taken together, this is only part of the whole person.

The next point is to investigate as briefly as possible the subject of the Holy Spirit. All who perceive, in whatever manner, the existence of Providence, confess that God, who created and disposed all things, is unbegotten, and recognise Him as the parent of the universe. Now, that to Him belongs a Son, is a statement not made by us only; although it may seem a sufficiently marvellous and incredible assertion to those who have a reputation as philosophers among Greeks and Barbarians, by some of whom, however, an idea of His existence seems to have been entertained, in their acknowledging that all things were created by the word or reason of God.(Book I, Chapter 3, Part 1)

The word or reason of God is the logos, as articulated by Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, and practically the entire pantheon of Greek philosophy. It is a concept especially advanced by the Stoics.

Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jewish philosopher writing in the generation before Jesus, offered, "For there are, as it seems, two temples of God; one being this world, in which the High Priest is the Divine Logos, His own first-born son... For God is his Father (who is also Father of all things) and Wisdom is his Mother, through whom the Universe came into being." (De Profugis, 20, Mi, page 562)

The Evangelist John begins his book with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

And therefore it is not to be imagined that there is a kind of blasphemy, as it were, in the words, "There is none good save one only, God the Father", as if thereby it may be supposed to be denied that either Christ or the Holy Spirit was good. But, as we have already said, the primal goodness is to be understood as residing in God the Father, from whom both the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds, retaining within them, without any doubt, the nature of that goodness which is in the source whence they are derived. And if there be any other things which in Scripture are called good, whether angel, or man, or servant, or treasure, or a good heart, or a good tree, all these are so termed catachrestically, having in them an accidental, not an essential goodness. But it would require both much time and labour to collect together all the titles of the Son of God, such, e.g., as the true light, or the door, or the righteousness, or the sanctification, or the redemption, and countless others; and to show for what reasons each one of them is so given. Satisfied, therefore, with what we have already advanced, we go on with our inquiries into those other matters which follow. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 13)

This conversation with Origen is the most detailed consideration of the trinity I have ever engaged. For most of my life I have probably been a unitarian without much interest in the issue.

The trinity that has personal meaning helps me conceive of God. In this construct God demonstrates three particular aspects. These are not the only aspects of God, but they are three especially important aspects:

Father, creator, origin, pattern-maker, law-giver, fundamental structure of the universe.

Son, teacher, mediator, prophet, example, personification of God in human history.

Spirit, inspiration, enthusiasm, insight, strange attractor of meaning, crystallization of God in context.

It remains that we inquire what is the image of His goodness; and here, I think, we must understand the same thing which we expressed a little ago, in speaking of the image formed by the mirror. For He is the primal goodness, doubtless, out of which the Son is born, who, being in all respects the image of the Father, may certainly also be called with propriety the image of His goodness. For there is no other second goodness existing in the Son, save that which is in the Father. And therefore also the Saviour Himself rightly says in the Gospel, There is none good save one only, God the Father, that by such an expression it may be understood that the Son is not of a different goodness, but of that only which exists in the Father, of whom He is rightly termed the image, because He proceeds from no other source but from that primal goodness, lest there might appear to be in the Son a different goodness from that which is in the Father. Nor is there any dissimilarity or difference of goodness in the Son. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 13)

In the Republic, Plato writes - and Socrates says - "You'll be willing to say, I think, that the sun not only provides visible things with the power to be seen but also with coming to be, growth, and nourishment, although it is not itself coming to be."—"How could it be?"—"Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the Good, but their being is also due to it, although the Good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power."

I understand Origen to argue, Jesus Christ owes his being to the Good and his being is the Good. There is no meaningful distinction between being and the Good.

There is a seductive intellectual coherence to all this. But in the process it seems to brush away the very humanness of Jesus.

In the gospels we perceive Jesus growing, changing, struggling in a manner that is, at least, in considerable tension with Jesus eternally being a complete manifestation of unchanging perfection.

Either the gospels tell us something about God that is very non-Platonic - or -the Good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power.

And again He says, that the Son cannot do anything of Himself, save what He sees the Father do. As therefore the Son in no respect differs from the Father in the power of His works, and the work of the Son is not a different thing from that of the Father, but one and the same movement, so to speak, is in all things, He therefore named Him a stainless mirror, that by such an expression it might be understood that them is no dissimilarity whatever between the Son and the Father. How, indeed, can those things which are said by some to be done after the manner in which a disciple resembles or imitates his master, or according to the view that those things are made by the Son in bodily material which were first formed by the Father in their spiritual essence, agree with the declarations of Scripture, seeing in the Gospel the Son is said to do not similar things, but the same things in a similar manner? (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 12)

If Jesus is just another prophet, how can Christianity claim any privilege over Moses, John the Baptist, Zoroastor, or Mithras?

What is the relationship of Jesus to God? What does it mean to be Father and Son? How is the relationship of Jesus to the Creator different than that of Paul or Susan or Bill?

Unless Jesus is worthy of worship, how can the church be distinguished from the synagogue?These were real questions in the second century.

In the generation before Origen the middle Platonists, especially in Syria, came to conceive of Plato's essential Oneness or Being (Ousia) as having two additional aspects: maker and that which is made. Numenius of Apamea speaks of the maker being the Nous or wisdom.

We can see a preexisting Platonic notion of the Trinity, already intellectually acceptable, being adapted to the needs of the early Church.

But wisdom is also called the stainless mirror of the ἐνέργεια or working of God. We must first understand, then, what the working of the power of God is. It is a sort of vigour, so to speak, by which God operates either in creation, or in providence, or in judgment, or in the disposal and arrangement of individual things, each in its season. For as the image formed in a mirror unerringly reflects all the acts and movements of him who gazes on it, so would Wisdom have herself to be understood when she is called the stainless mirror of the power and working of the Father: as the Lord Jesus Christ also, who is the Wisdom of God, declares of Himself when He says, The works which the Father does, these also does the Son likewise. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 12)

The stainless mirror to which Origen refers is from the seventh chapter of the Book of Wisdom:

For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.

For she is an aura of the might of God and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.

For she is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.

And she, who is one, can do all things, and renews everything while herself perduring; And passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets.

In the two centuries or so prior to Jesus, Hellenistic concepts had a profound impact on Jewish thought, especially reflected in the wisdom literature of the deuterocanonoical texts and the works of Philo. Similar influences can be perceived in literature recovered from the Essene or Zakokite communities contemporary with Jesus.

I assume Jesus was familiar with these strains of thought, but they are either absent or very subtle in what we are told of Jesus' teaching.

In the third place, wisdom is called the splendour of eternal light. The force of this expression we have explained in the preceding pages, when we introduced the similitude of the sun and the splendour of its rays, and showed to the best of our power how this should be understood. To what we then said we shall add only the following remark. That is properly termed everlasting or eternal which neither had a beginning of existence, nor can ever cease to be what it is. And this is the idea conveyed by John when he says that "God is light." Now His wisdom is the splendour of that light, not only in respect of its being light, but also of being everlasting light, so that His wisdom is eternal and everlasting splendour. If this be fully understood, it clearly shows that the existence of the Son is derived from the Father but not in time, nor from any other beginning, except, as we have said, from God Himself. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 11)

There are times when a translation - no matter how faithful - is insufficient. In the case of De Principiis the original Greek has mostly been lost. We depend on a Latin translation by Rufinus, writing a century after Origen's death.

Is the "wisdom" of which Origen writes above, "sophia" or "nous" or some other carefully considered concept of wisdom?

I bet it is nous (νοῦς). This bet is based mostly on my understanding of Plato and Plotinus, the other horses in this race.

For Plato the nous is the only immortal element of the human soul, that which links us with the divine.

Quoted from a skilled translator of both Greek and Latin: "Plotinus writes that "sophia (wisdom) and phronesis (sapience) come from the theoria (theory, vision, contemplation) of nous (intellect), and nous comes from epaphe (touching)... Phronesis goes around being, nous goes beyond being (Enneades 1, 2, 6 and 1, 3, 5), therefore there is some higher contact/touching of the nous with a reality that transcends even being, out of which all sorts of our knowledge spring according to the quality of that contact.

And therefore His glory consists in this very thing, that He possesses all things, and this is the purest and most limpid glory of omnipotence, that by reason and wisdom, not by force and necessity, all things are subject. Now the purest and most limpid glory of wisdom is a convenient expression to distinguish it from that glory which cannot be called pure and sincere. But every nature which is convertible and changeable, although glorified in the works of righteousness or wisdom, yet by the fact that righteousness or wisdom are accidental qualities, and because that which is accidental may also fall away, its glory cannot be called sincere and pure. But the Wisdom of God, which is His only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of change or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential, and such as cannot be changed and converted, His glory is therefore declared to be pure and sincere. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

What we perceive of God - our immediate impression of God - is glory. But Origen is doing something a bit radical here with his treatment of glory.

For Plato and Plotinus glory or δόξα (doxa)is opinion in contrast to knowledge, appearance in contrast with substance, accidental rather than purposeful, derived rather than original.

For Origen what we perceive of God through Christ - divine doxa in contrast to other forms of doxa - is an accurate source of true knowledge, essential, unchangeable, pure, and sincere.

I wonder - but that is all - if Origen is preparing to offer his own approach to Plato's sense of aletheia, a revealing of hidden truth.

How can we perceive God in a manner that will distinguish what we project from what is actual? Plato suggested it involved fusing doxa with logos.

And that it may be more clearly understood what the glory of omnipotence is, we shall add the following. God the Father is omnipotent, because He has power over all things, i.e., over heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars, and all things in them. And He exercises His power over them by means of His Word, because at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, both of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth. And if every knee is bent to Jesus, then, without doubt, it is Jesus to whom all things are subject, and He it is who exercises power over all things, and through whom all things are subject to the Father; for through wisdom, i.e., by word and reason, not by force and necessity, are all things subject. And therefore His glory consists in this very thing, that He possesses all things, and this is the purest and most limpid glory of omnipotence, that by reason and wisdom, not by force and necessity, all things are subject. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

I have argued that omnipotence - as typically understood - is not what we have seen in the life of Jesus. (additional critique)

Above Origen defines omnipotence in an atypical manner: the application of reason and wisdom, the antithesis of force and necessity.

Logos does not force itself upon us, but logos is the fundamental nature of reality. In the end, reason wins. Over the long-term wisdom has her way.

The Sermon on the Mount has persisted long after the execution of its preacher.

Wisdom is omnipotent.

The image is an early 18th Century icon of Holy Wisdom with Christ.

Now, if all things which are the Father's are also Christ's, certainly among those things which exist is the omnipotence of the Father; and doubtless the only-begotten Son ought to be omnipotent, that the Son also may have all things which the Father possesses. “And I am glorified in them,” He declares. For “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.” Therefore He is the efflux of the glory of God in this respect, that He is omnipotent— the pure and limpid Wisdom herself— glorified as the efflux of omnipotence or of glory. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

Origen's fellow Alexadrian, Plotinus, argued that the first hypostatsis (ὑπόστᾰσις): the Good, the Beautiful, the One overflows without diminishment.

As light is the efflux - the flowing out - of the sun, a spontaneous, unconstrained, and perpetual manifestation of the sun's internal processes - so also is glory, wisdom, omnipotence, and Christ an efflux of God.

Plotinus also uses the analogy of a stream which is its own source, whose currents flow in all directions, but which continues to subsist immutably in and for itself.

For through Wisdom, which is Christ, God has power over all things, not only by the authority of a ruler, but also by the voluntary obedience of subjects. And that you may understand that the omnipotence of Father and Son is one and the same, as God and the Lord are one and the same with the Father, listen to the manner in which John speaks in the Apocalypse: “Thus says the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” For who else was “He which is to come” than Christ? And as no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Saviour is also God; so also, since the Father is called omnipotent, no one ought to be offended that the Son of God is also called omnipotent. For in this way will that saying be true which He utters to the Father, “All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

The ideal form of a table has - and has always had - legs, a surface, height, width, and edges, which establish it's tableness

So also does God have - and has always had - omnipotence, wisdom, Father, Son, and other attributes which are innate to being God.

Christ was not some imperfect reflection of God, but a perfect embodiment - a full incarnation - of every characteristic of a changeless God.

I wonder how much neo-Platonic theology was a reaction to the deification of the Roman emperors. Origen was born in the reign of the capricious and cowardly Commodus, experienced the year of the five emperors, and was in his prime during the egregious and surreal rule of Elagabalus.

In the early Third Century the imperial system was in crisis and hit bottom. Only two of the twenty emperors known by Origen died of natural causes. Most were murdered.

When faced with such obviously false gods, it is not surprising to encounter a preoccupation with finding and defining an alternative.

But even now I think it necessary to drop a word, although cursorily, of warning, since the question before us is, how wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty, lest any one should think that the title of Omnipotent was anterior in God to the birth of Wisdom, through whom He is called Father, seeing that Wisdom, which is the Son of God, is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty. Let him who is inclined to entertain this suspicion hear the undoubted declaration of Scripture pronouncing, “In wisdom have You made them all,” and the teaching of the Gospel, that “by Him were all things made, and without Him nothing was made;” and let him understand from this that the title of Omnipotent in God cannot be older than that of Father; for it is through the Son that the Father is almighty. But from the expression “glory of the Almighty,” of which glory Wisdom is the efflux, this is to be understood, that Wisdom, through which God is called omnipotent, has a share in the glory of the Almighty. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

Is God unchangeable? For many the answer must be, yes. For to change is, they perceive, an indication of imperfection.

For Plato perfection is found in the wholly realized ideal form. The perfect is complete, nothing more is needed.

Because of this Platonic notion of perfection Origen is very keen to emphasize that Omnipotence and Wisdom and the Son and the Father and the Spirit and every aspect of Glory have always been characteristics of God.

But all this treats perfect as a noun. What if God is the ideal form of the verb?

How might we perceive our reality if God is less object than action?

And now how can it appear otherwise than absurd, that when God possessed none of those things which it was befitting for Him to possess, He should afterwards, by a kind of progress, come into the possession of them? But if there never was a time when He was not omnipotent, of necessity those things by which He receives that title must also exist; and He must always have had those over whom He exercised power, and which were governed by Him either as king or prince, of which we shall speak more fully in the proper place, when we come to discuss the subject of the creatures. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

The Greek for omnipotent is Παντοκράτωρ or pantokrator. The meaning is essentially identical: all powerful, almighty, full strength, wholly potent, all sustaining.

The notion of all sustaining could be especially important in reading Origen. Gsijsbert van den Brink explains:

...Plato's Timaeus promoted the idea of God's (i.e. the Demiurge's) preservation
of what was created by Him. The Middle Stoic think Posidonus introduced it from
both Anximander and the Timaeus into Stoic circles , and seems to have used the
simple kratein as a further synonym... It is this new use of kratein with the
accusative in the sense of "to sustain, to preserve, to hold" which entered also
into Christian discourse... the term pantokrator is now more and more going to
point to a continuous relationship between God and the world. (Almighty
God: A study of divine omnipotence, page 51-52)

This is a very different sense of potency and more consistent with my understanding and experience. So far, this is not what I "hear" from Origen. But let's keep reading and listening.

The image is of Christ Pantocrator from the Palermo Cathedral (12th Century mosaic)

Let us now examine the expression, “Wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty;” and let us first consider what the glory of the omnipotent God is, and then we shall also understand what is its efflux. As no one can be a father without having a son, nor a master without possessing a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent unless there exist those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore, that God may be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things should exist. For if any one would have some ages or portions of time, or whatever else he likes to call them, to have passed away, while those things which were afterwards made did not yet exist, he would undoubtedly show that during those ages or periods God was not omnipotent, but became so afterwards, viz., from the time that He began to have persons over whom to exercise power; and in this way He will appear to have received a certain increase, and to have risen from a lower to a higher condition; since there can be no doubt that it is better for Him to be omnipotent than not to be so. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 10)

Is there truly no doubt it is better to be omnipotent than not to be so?

Was Jesus omnipotent? Did the Son come to earth to demonstrate the all-powerful nature of the Father?

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’

Luke 4:1-8

Whatever the power of Jesus, it was not a power we generally associate with omnipotence. There is power, but there is also restraint.

Another power accordingly is produced, which exists with properties of its own—a kind of breath, as Scripture says, of the primal and unbegotten power of God, deriving from Him its being, and never at any time non-existent. For if any one were to assert that it did not formerly exist, but came afterwards into existence, let him explain the reason why the Father, who gave it being, did not do so before. And if he shall grant that there was once a beginning, when that breath proceeded from the power of God, we shall ask him again, why not even before the beginning, which he has allowed; and in this way, ever demanding an earlier date, and going upwards with our interrogations, we shall arrive at this conclusion, that as God was always possessed of power and will, there never was any reason of propriety or otherwise, why He may not have always possessed that blessing which He desired. By which it is shown that that breath of God's power always existed, having no beginning save God Himself. Nor was it fitting that there should be any other beginning save God Himself, from whom it derives its birth. And according to the expression of the apostle, that Christ is the power of God, it ought to be termed not only the breath of the power of God, but power out of power. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 9)

Jews, Muslims, Christian Unitarians and others critique Trinitarianism as conflicting with monotheism. I have often been sympathetic to these concerns.

But among its most thoughtful advocates, the Trinity is a means to better perceive the singular character of the One God.

Just as we might consider breathing a characteristic of existence - neither preceding nor following other primal characteristics - so are Father, Son, and Spirit all at once, everywhere.

God has no beginning and no end, so the various characteristics of God have no beginning and no end but exist as a fundamental whole.

If I understand Origen's Trinitariansim and if I understand Wiggenstein's sense of tautology, then the Trinity might be expressed as:

which may communicate both the unity and mystery of the trinity more accurately than the typical icon.

Now, by the power of God is to be understood that by which He is strong; by which He appoints, restrains, and governs all things visible and invisible; which is sufficient for all those things which He rules over in His providence; among all which He is present, as if one individual. And although the breath of all this mighty and immeasurable power, and the vigour itself produced, so to speak, by its own existence, proceed from the power itself, as the will does from the mind, yet even this will of God is nevertheless made to become the power of God. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 9)

What is the nature of power we perceive in the life of Jesus?

Certainly there was strength... and wisdom... and courage... and vigor. Was there might?

Did Jesus appoint, restrain, and govern? Did Jesus rule? In some ways, yes. But in the more typical meaning of these terms, not so much.

Origen has described Jesus as a full expression of God, sized to our limited powers of comprehension. If so we might understand God's power to be humble, self-restrained, loving, gentle, and vulnerable.

It is a power that infuses but does not control.

Let us see now what is the meaning of the expression which is found in the Wisdom of Solomon, where it is said of Wisdom that it is a kind of breath of the power of God, and the purest efflux of the glory of the Omnipotent, and the splendour of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of the working or power of God, and the image of His goodness. These, then, are the definitions which he gives of God, pointing out by each one of them certain attributes which belong to the Wisdom of God, calling wisdom the power, and the glory, and the everlasting light, and the working, and the goodness of God. He does not say, however, that wisdom is the breath of the glory of the Almighty, nor of the everlasting light, nor of the working of the Father, nor of His goodness, for it was not appropriate that breath should be ascribed to any one of these; but, with all propriety, he says that wisdom is the breath of the power of God. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 9)

From Chapter 7, verses 24-28 of the Wisdom of Solomon (King James Version)

For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.
For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.
For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.
And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.
For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.

The same from the Revised Standard Version:

For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Though she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the man who lives with wisdom.

We will see what Origen does, but I would not be surprised to see him claiming Wisdom - like the Christ - to be of one being with the Father. Yet we also read here that "she is but one."

This comparison, of course, of statues, as belonging to material things, is employed for no other purpose than to show that the Son of God, though placed in the very insignificant form of a human body, in consequence of the resemblance of His works and power to the Father, showed that there was in Him an immense and invisible greatness, inasmuch as He said to His disciples,"He who sees Me, sees the Father also," and "I and the Father are one." And to these belong also the similar expression, "The Father is in Me, and I in the Father." (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 8)

That we understand Christ to be the Incarnation - the manifestation of God in a human body - is of profound significance.

In the life of Jesus, his joy, suffering, and death, we know that God is with us. God is here, now, within the realm of our experience.

By assuming human form God confirms the sacred potential of human experience. The body and blood of Jesus - and each of us - are sacramental, embodying spiritual reality.

In order, however, to arrive at a fuller understanding of the manner in which the Saviour is the figure of the person or subsistence of God, let us take an instance, which, although it does not describe the subject of which we are treating either fully or appropriately, may nevertheless be seen to be employed for this purpose only, to show that the Son of God, who was in the form of God, divesting Himself (of His glory), makes it His object, by this very divesting of Himself, to demonstrate to us the fullness of His deity. For instance, suppose that there were a statue of so enormous a size as to fill the whole world, and which on that account could be seen by no one; and that another statue were formed altogether resembling it in the shape of the limbs, and in the features of the countenance, and in form and material, but without the same immensity of size, so that those who were unable to behold the one of enormous proportions, should, on seeing the latter, acknowledge that they had seen the former, because it preserved all the features of its limbs and countenance, and even the very form and material, so closely, as to be altogether undistinguishable from it; by some such similitude, the Son of God, divesting Himself of His equality with the Father, and showing to us the way to the knowledge of Him, is made the express image of His person: so that we, who were unable to look upon the glory of that marvellous light when placed in the greatness of His Godhead, may, by His being made to us brightness, obtain the means of beholding the divine light by looking upon the brightness. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 8)

Jesus is the Mini-Me of the Father?

The Christ is a crystallizaton of the Father. The Christ is a holograph of the Father.

My brush (or more) with disdain for the image offered by Origen is prompted by a sense that Origen is straining where he does not need to strain.

Origen was a contemporary of Plotinus, the great reinterpreter of Plato. Both were Egyptian, both studied philosophy in Alexandria, both studied with Ammonius Saccas. If they did not actually know each other, surely they knew of each other.

Plotinus offers a trinity of the Good, Intellect and Soul. Origen is arguing for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I wonder how much of Origen is a dialogue and debate with Plotinus.

But since He is called by the apostle not only the brightness of His glory, but also the express figure of His person or subsistence, it does not seem idle to inquire how there can be said to be another figure of that person besides the person of God Himself, whatever be the meaning of person and subsistence. Consider, then, whether the Son of God, seeing He is His Word and Wisdom, and alone knows the Father, and reveals Him to whom He will (i.e., to those who are capable of receiving His word and wisdom), may not, in regard of this very point of making God to be understood and acknowledged, be called the figure of His person and subsistence; that is, when that Wisdom, which desires to make known to others the means by which God is acknowledged and understood by them, describes Himself first of all, it may by so doing be called the express figure of the person of God. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 8)

I could be described as having three aspects: You may have a physical encounter with me, you can have an intellectual exchange with me, or you might know me only through these writings.

Each aspect is authentic. Each is a meaningful expression of my person. None alone nor all together reflect my full person.

While each of these aspects are distinct - and distinguishing them can be helpful to both you and me - it would be a foolish reductionism to mistake these particular parts for the sum of the whole.

For, agreeably to what we have already explained as to the manner in which He is the Way, and conducts to the Father; and in which He is the Word, interpreting the secrets of wisdom, and the mysteries of knowledge, making them known to the rational creation; and is also the Truth, and the Life, and the Resurrection,— in the same way ought we to understand also the meaning of His being the brightness: for it is by its splendour that we understand and feel what light itself is. And this splendour, presenting itself gently and softly to the frail and weak eyes of mortals, and gradually training, as it were, and accustoming them to bear the brightness of the light, when it has put away from them every hindrance and obstruction to vision, according to the Lord's own precept, “Cast forth the beam out of your eye,” renders them capable of enduring the splendour of the light, being made in this respect also a sort of mediator between men and the light. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 7)

Brightness allows us to accurately perceive.

Christ is the aspect of God which empowers our ability to see.

Without Christ we might hear, touch, taste, or smell but reality would be enshrouded.

Even with Christ we may only see as through a mirror, darkly.

But as our experience of Christ grows - as the brightness increases - we will see as if fully face-to-face.

But since we quoted the language of Paul regarding Christ, where He says of Him that He is “the brightness of the glory of God, and the express figure of His person,” let us see what idea we are to form of this. According to John, “God is light.” The only-begotten Son, therefore, is the glory of this light, proceeding inseparably from (God) Himself, as brightness does from light, and illuminating the whole of creation.(Book I, Chapter 2, Part 7)

Brightness is an innate characteristic of light. It is an aspect of the light which can be seen.

It is much more difficult to perceive other properties of light: the particles and waves of radiation, photons, the electromagnetic spectrum...

Light can be described as having five characteristics: intensity, propagation direction, frequency, polarization, and phase.

God can be described as having three fundamental aspects: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Son proceedeth from the Father as intensity characterises light.

The Son is very intense.

For the Son is the Word, and therefore we are not to understand that anything in Him is cognisable by the senses. He is wisdom, and in wisdom there can be no suspicion of anything corporeal. He is the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world; but He has nothing in common with the light of this sun. Our Saviour, therefore, is the image of the invisible God, inasmuch as compared with the Father Himself He is the truth: and as compared with us, to whom He reveals the Father, He is the image by which we come to the knowledge of the Father, whom no one knows save the Son, and he to whom the Son is pleased to reveal Him. And the method of revealing Him is through the understanding. For He by whom the Son Himself is understood, understands, as a consequence, the Father also, according to His own words: He that has seen Me, has seen the Father also. (Book I, Chapter 2, Part 6)

What does it mean to understand? When we stand under a tree, a bridge, almost any construction we can observe with some intimacy the nature of the thing. We can see its structure and how it works.

The Greek ginosko also suggests direct experience and intimacy, even sexual intimacy. But the verb ginosko also points to a knowledge (gnosis) that is considerably beyond what we observe.

Plato writes of gnosis, "This knowledge (gnosis) is not something that can be put into words like other sciences; but after long-continued intercourse between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of the subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straightway nourishes itself." (Epistle VII 341c-e)

It is a knowing that begins in relationship, in experiences with another, and through this relationship and experience a far greater knowledge is gained.

"If you know Me, you have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:7-9)