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“In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis
DOI link for “In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis
“In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis book
“In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis
DOI link for “In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis
“In My Father’s House Are Many Dwelling Places”: in Origen’s De principiis book
ABSTRACT
The Son’s nature as image actually undergirds all of the other names, since it is his position as image which, as Origen says, “preserves the unity of nature and substance common to a father and son”. Origen imagined the spherical dwelling places as forming a hierarchy, a series of abodes through which the soul traveled in descending movements from the “height of heaven” to the “lower regions”. According to Origen, the multiple Christ reveals himself in different aspects, forms, according to the state of the soul. Origen’s metaphors of the blood relationship and the seeing in the heart suggest that the round dance toward likeness is a relational process in which the images provide contexts for each other. One of the impressions of Origen’s style is the recognition that theology might be the poetic dance of the soul, a following of the spiraling way of religion’s images. The final catalogue of Wisdom names in the De principiis provides a clue.