The Concept of Time in Origen

It is the first time in the bibliography worldwide that Origen's concept of Time is expounded in an ad hoc treatise, in a courageous and well-executed attempt to eliminate long-standing miscomprehensions.

There is a reassessment of the relation between Hellenism and Christianity, both in general and as this is demonstrated in Origen's work. The author takes the opportunity to exonerate the Alexandrian from the traditional charge that he compromised his theology by mingling it with much of the substance of Platonist and Stoic philosophy: an old fallacy which has resulted in Origen being regarded as one of the chief architects of the Hellenization of Christianity.

Against any ancient or modern account, it is proven that Origen did not hold any notion such as the so-called "eternity of creation": a revolutionary thesis, substantiated and confirmed through Origen's own texts in Greek, most of which have remained unstudied hitherto.

Origen does have an eschatology, which is expounded in detail. In fact, this is the case of an intensely and fervently eschatological thought, determined by notions such as providence - prophecy - promise - expectation - kairos - realization - faith - hope - waiting - fulfilment - end. A thought earnestly oriented towards a promised, and thus expected, end.

On account of the major points forcefully made, and the vast number of assertions of modern and ancient scholarship convincingly rebutted, it is understandable why Philosophia, the Journal of the Academy of Athens, argued that after this book "nothing will be the same with regard to our knowledge of Origen, as well as the evolution of ideas during the first three centuries of the Christian era and the critical interplay between Hellenism and Christianity during the same period".