Medieval · c. 185–254
Who influenced Origen?
Influences and legacy
Allegorist of the Bible and father of systematic theology — brilliant, condemned, endless.
Origen was influenced by Clement of Alexandria, and went on to influence Gregory of Nyssa. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Who was Origen?
Origen of Alexandria wrote some 2,000 treatises, helped by a team of secretaries paid for by his friend Ambrose. He founded the Christian school of Caesarea, and the churches of Palestine and Arabia treated him as their highest authority on theology. Tortured in the Decian persecution of 250, he died of his injuries a few years later.
His On First Principles set out Christian theology as a system, Contra Celsum defended Christianity against its critics, and his Hexapla set the Hebrew Bible beside its Greek versions in parallel columns, the first critical edition. He hoped, cautiously, that all might be saved, and he defended free will and Christian pacifism. Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers followed him, but by the end of the 4th century his orthodoxy was fiercely disputed.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Origen?
1 direct influence on this map, earliest first.
- Clement of Alexandria c. 150–215
Who did Origen influence?
1 thinker on this map draws directly on Origen.
- Gregory of Nyssa c. 335–395
The line of teachers behind Origen
The longest documented line of influence ending at Origen runs 7 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Origen
Indirect influences
- Through Clement of Alexandria: Philo of Alexandria
The second generation
- Through Gregory of Nyssa: Maximus the Confessor
Contemporaries of Origen
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Origen, with no direct line between them.
- Plotinus AD 204–270
- Sextus Empiricus c. 160–210
Origen by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 1
- Direct followers
- 1
- Thinkers upstream
- 16
- Thinkers downstream
- 3
- Wikipedia languages
- 67 — #24 of 58 among medieval philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Schools and lineages
Questions about Origen
- Who influenced Origen?
- Clement of Alexandria.
- Who did Origen influence?
- Gregory of Nyssa.
- When did Origen live?
- c. 185–254. The map files Origen under the medieval period.
- How rare is the Origen card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Origen in 67 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More medieval philosophers
- Augustine of Hippo AD 354–430
- Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274
- Avicenna 980–1037
- Ibn Khaldun 1332–1406
- Al-Ghazali c. 1058–1111
- Averroes 1126–1198
- Erasmus 1466–1536
- Hypatia c. 355–415