Life and setting
Origen was one of antiquity’s most productive Christian scholars. He produced extensive biblical interpretation, the Hexapla comparing textual forms of the Old Testament, apologetic works and speculative theology.
Alexandrian Fathers • Early Church
Origen of Alexandria
c. 185 – c. 253–254 • Biblical scholar and theologian
Why this person matters
His textual scholarship and biblical exegesis shaped later Christianity in both East and West.
What should not be sanitized
Some of his speculative teachings became subjects of later controversy, and later condemnations make it important to distinguish Origen’s surviving writings from positions attributed to “Origenism.”