Origen

In his book, “My Work In Retrospect”, von Balthasar shows his high regard for Origen. He states that in Origen “we find the most logically consistent theology of the patristic age …an almost inexhaustible source of spiritual and theological stimulus for all later Christian thinking”.

He undertook to write a collection “Origen Spirit & Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings”. In his introduction he states, “None of the great Fathers … could escape an almost magical fascination for the ‘man of steel’ as they called him. Some were completely swept away.”

Here then is a sample from the Prologue.

“How fair are your houses, O Jacob, your tents, O Israel” (Num 24:5) … A house is a solidly grounded, permanent thing, set on a definite plot of ground. Tents, on the other hand, serve as a shelter for those who are always on the road, always moving, and who have not yet come to the end of their wandering. Thus ... Israel … stands for those who labor for wisdom and knowledge. … But they who labor for wisdom and knowledge, because there is no end to that task – for what could ever put a limit on God’s wisdom? Indeed, the more one enters into it, the deeper one goes, and the more one investigates, the more inexpressible and inconceivable it become, for God’s wisdom is incomprehensible and immeasurable – thus … he admires their “tents” in which they continually wander and make progress; and the more progress they make the more does the road to be travelled stretch out to the measureless. And so, contemplating in the spirit these progressions, he calls them the ‘tents of Israel.’ And true it is, when we make some progress in knowledge and gain some experience in such things … a certain insight and recognition of the spiritual mysteries, the soul rests there … as in a tent. But when it begins to make fresh sense again of what it finds there and moves on to other insights, it pushes on with folded tent, so to speak, to a higher place and sets itself up there, pegged down by strong conclusions; and again the soul finds in the place another spiritual meaning … and so the soul seems always to be pulled on toward the goal that lies ahead …. For once the soul has been struck by the fiery arrow of knowledge, it can never again sink into leisure and take its rest, but it will always be called onward from the good to the better and from the better to the higher.”

At times it seems that our conversations about things of the spirit go on and on and in the end only amount to so much babel. Both, Balthasar, in his prodigious output and Origen in his passion in the pursuit of knowledge, inspire me to treasure my restlessness and continue to fold up my tent and move on to another place.