The Anathemas Against Origen

Anathema 1. If anyone asserts the mythical pre-existence of souls, and the monstrous restoration that follows from it: let him be anathema. [a]

Anathema 2. If anyone says that the creation of all rational beings included only intelligences without bodies and wholly immaterial, having neither number nor name, so that they were all one by sameness of substance, power and working, and by their union with God the Word and their knowledge of him; but that, no longer desiring the sight of God, they gave themselves over to worse things, each following his own inclinations, and took bodies more or less fine, and received names, since among the heavenly powers there is a difference of names as there is also a difference of bodies; and that from this some became and are called cherubim, others seraphim, and principalities, and powers, and dominions, and thrones, and angels, and as many other heavenly orders as there may be: let him be anathema. [b]

Anathema 3. If anyone says that the sun, the moon and the stars are also rational beings, and that they became what they are only because they turned toward evil: let him be anathema.

Anathema 4. If anyone says that the rational creatures in whom the love of God had grown cold were hidden in coarse bodies such as ours and were called men, while those who reached the lowest depth of wickedness received cold and dark bodies, and became and are called demons and evil spirits: let him be anathema.

Anathema 5. If anyone says that the state of a soul has come from the state of an angel or an archangel, and further that the state of a demon and of a man has come from the state of a soul, and that from the human state they may become angels and demons again; and that each order of the heavenly powers comes either wholly from those below, or from those above, or from those above and below: let him be anathema.

Anathema 6. If anyone says that there are two kinds of demons, one made up of the souls of men and the other of higher spirits who fell to this state; and that out of the whole number of rational beings only one remained unshaken in the love and contemplation of God, and that this spirit became Christ and the king of all rational beings, and that he created all the bodies that exist in heaven, on earth, and between heaven and earth; and that the world, which has in itself elements older than itself and existing by themselves, namely dryness, moisture, heat and cold, and the pattern after which it was formed, was formed in that way; and that the most holy Trinity, of one substance, did not create the world, but that it was made by the working intelligence, which is older than the world and which gives it its being: let him be anathema. [c]

Anathema 7. If anyone says that Christ, of whom it is said that he appeared in the form of God, that he was united before all time with God the Word, and that he humbled himself in these last days even to humanity, took pity, to use their expression, on the various falls that had appeared among the spirits joined in the same unity, of which he himself is part; and that to restore them he passed through various orders, had different bodies and different names, and became all things to all, an angel among angels, a power among powers; that in each order of rational beings he clothed himself with a form suited to that order, and at last took flesh and blood like ours and became man for men; if anyone says all this, and does not confess that God the Word humbled himself and became man: let him be anathema. [d]

Anathema 8. If anyone does not acknowledge that God the Word, of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who was made flesh and became man, one of the Trinity, is Christ in every sense of the word, but says that he is Christ only loosely, because of what they call the self-emptying of the intelligence; if anyone says that this intelligence, joined to God the Word, is Christ in the true sense of the word, while the Word is called Christ only because of his union with the intelligence, and conversely, that the intelligence is called God only because of the Word: let him be anathema. [e]

Anathema 9. If anyone says that it was not the divine Word, made man by taking a body given life by a rational and intelligent soul, who went down into hell and went up into heaven, but claims that it was the intelligence that did this, the intelligence that they impiously say is Christ in the proper sense, and that it became Christ by knowledge of the Monad: let him be anathema. [f]

Anathema 10. If anyone says that after the resurrection the Lord’s body was made of ether and had the shape of a sphere, and that the bodies of all will be like this after the resurrection; and that once the Lord himself has cast off his true body, and the others who rise have cast off theirs, the nature of their bodies will be brought to nothing: let him be anathema.

Anathema 11. If anyone says that the coming judgment means the destruction of the body, and that the end of the story will be an immaterial nature, and that after that there will no longer be any matter, but only intelligence: let him be anathema. [g]

Anathema 12. If anyone says that the heavenly powers and all men, and the devil and the evil spirits, are united with the Word of God in every respect, just as the intelligence is, the one they call Christ, which is in the form of God and humbled itself, as they say; and if anyone says that the kingdom of Christ will have an end: let him be anathema.

Anathema 13. If anyone says that Christ, meaning the intelligence, differs in no way from other rational beings, neither in substance, nor in wisdom, nor in his power and might over all things, but that all of them will be placed at the right hand of God, just like the one they call Christ, the intelligence, as they also were in the imagined pre-existence of all things: let him be anathema.

Anathema 14. If anyone says that all rational beings will one day be united in one, when hypostases, numbers and bodies have disappeared; that the knowledge of the world to come will bring with it the ruin of the worlds, the casting off of bodies and the abolition of all names; that at last there will be a sameness of knowledge and of hypostasis; and further, that in this pretended restoration only spirits will go on existing, as it was in the imagined pre-existence: let him be anathema. [h]

Anathema 15. If anyone says that the life of the intelligences will be like the life that existed in the beginning, while the intelligences had not yet come down or fallen, so that the end and the beginning will be alike, and the end will be the true measure of the beginning: let him be anathema.