Origen’s Christian Epistēmē in De Principiis: Exegesis as Ktisis

Origen of Alexandria’s De principiis exerted enormous influence on early Christian writers, yet few works have been met with such a perplexingly varied and polemical reception, even up to our time. In this article, I propose a new reading of De principiis based on taking seriously Origen’s enduring preoccupation with movement and body throughout his work, in conjunction with the central relevance he accords to imitation. I argue that books 1 and 4 provide the framework in which the two cycles of the work are unfolding, thereby initiating the reader into the praxis of Origen’s ἐπιστήμη. It is then this praxis that is able to enlighten even notoriously obscure passages by uniting the ambiguities of “ἀρχή” in itself and finally leading human beings into the completion of themselves and the cosmos.