The goodness of divine grace in the divine-human Person of the Saviour Jesus Christ is a central theme in Origen’s writings, and it is around this theme that the great Alexandrian patristic writer of the early centuries organises his exposition of soteriological teaching, integrating it into a tradition of thought that proves to be extremely rich. No patristic author of the first three centuries comes close to the richness or depth of Origen’s theological thought.
Our Church’s teaching on the goodness of God can only begin with the words of Christ the Saviour, with which He answered a rich young man’s question: ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Mark 10:17). His first reply was: ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone’ (Mark 10:18). This is the hermeneutical key which the Lord Christ offers us and which has been adopted by the whole of patristic theology to explain the concept of goodness, its source, the relationship between God’s goodness and justice in the world, and also the relationship between good and evil.
Goodness in the world cannot in any way be understood as a reflection of God’s goodness, but rather as a participation in the one and only source of goodness, which is God. The Holy Fathers speak of the attribute of goodness as the most fitting name for the being of God, and man becomes a partaker of this goodness, improving himself to the extent that he grows in God. Man and the world are good if they are permeated by God’s essential goodness.
The whole of Holy Scripture proclaims the goodness of God prepared for mankind: from the land promised to Abraham, for which he left Ur of the Chaldeans, his father’s house, setting out, in obedience to God, towards his Father’s House, right up to the Kingdom of God promised to those who remain obedient to His Word: ‘Do this, and you will live’ (Luke 10:28). The Gospel itself is a revelation of God’s goodness as the good news. All the proclamations concerning God’s goodness culminate in the Person of the incarnate Son of God, Who embodies God’s goodness: ‘Let us not be surprised that this goodness, expressed in the plural (these good things), is in fact none other than Jesus Christ Himself, for if we consider the things to which these names by which God is known refer, we shall immediately understand that Jesus, the One proclaimed by the apostles with joyful hearts, is the personification of several forms of goodness at once’1
In his commentary on the Parable of the Treasure, Origen begins with the verse ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid’ (Matthew XIII, 44) and shows how the Saviour Jesus Christ is the fullness of all goodness: ‘It might also be said that the true field, which the Lord blessed (Genesis 27:27) and showered with every good thing, is none other than “the Christ of God” (Luke 9:20) and that the treasure hidden in Him is the one of which Saint Paul speaks as having been hidden in Christ, in Whom are ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Colossians 2:3)’2.
Christ the Lord, ‘writing on the tablets of the hearts’3 of the faithful, pours out His goodness upon them to lift them from the valleys of ignorance to spiritual heights: ‘Let us now consider what was preached at the coming of Christ. To explain, amongst other things, the purpose of John’s preaching, let us begin with what is written: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight’ (Luke 3:4). What follows concerns only the Lord, our Saviour. For it is not John who ‘filled the whole valley’, but the Lord, our Saviour. Let each one consider what was within him before he had faith, and he will then realise that it was a kind of deep valley, a precipitous valley, leading down into the depths. But the Lord Jesus came, and afterwards He sent the Holy Spirit in His stead; and thus ‘the whole valley was filled’. It was filled with good deeds and with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Love does not allow a valley to remain within you, and if you cultivate peace, patience and kindness, not only will you cease to be ‘a valley’, but you will begin to become a mountain of God’4”. Thus, anyone who opens themselves to God’s goodness will rejoice in the abundance of divine grace. The valley of people’s spiritual deficiency will be filled with the grace of His goodness until they reach ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13).
‘…Love does not allow a valley to remain within you, and if you master peace, patience and kindness, not only will you cease to be “a valley”, but you will begin to become a mountain of God.’
The Word of God, His commandments contained in the Holy Gospels, bring Christ the Lord to us as a real presence in our souls. Partaking of and from the Word of God is an outpouring of the grace of His goodness. ‘Each Gospel is a collection of messages beneficial to those who believe and who do not misunderstand these benefits. It is therefore natural that the Gospel should bring joy by announcing the coming amongst men of the ‘firstborn of all creation’ (Colossians 1:15), Jesus Christ, their Saviour. It is also clear to every believer that, in a narrower sense, each Gospel is a text which proclaims the indwelling of God in His Son, who is full of goodness and who came into the world for all those who wish to receive Him”5.
The chief goodness which Christ the Lord pours out upon mankind is Life, the Saviour being Eternal Life Itself; yet by receiving Life within us, we also receive the Kingdom of God as a gift of Life: ‘For behold, the kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17:21). Origen testifies to this, writing: ‘Life is one of these blessings, for Jesus said: “I am the Life”. ‘The light of the world’ (John 8:12), which is ‘the true light’, ‘the light of men’, is also such a blessing; whereas the Son of God is all these blessings taken together’6).
The Word of God made man becomes the power of the perfected man (the man in whom the grace of His goodness dwells): “And as the eighth virtue we must also count the power of God (Romans 1:16), which is none other than Christ Himself”7. The Christian, striving to purify himself of passions, becomes ever more like God, ever more devoted to obeying God, thus receiving ‘the supreme goodness’: his deification, that is, the sanctification of his life through the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to us through the divine-human Person of the Saviour: ‘Following the way of life of this Jesus (of whom it is said that whatever is lived is lived for the sake of God), it follows that whoever has come to resemble Him will also receive the gift of living for God. And so who would doubt that righteousness in itself, sanctification or salvation in itself are not supreme goods? ‘Everything that proclaims Jesus proclaims Him, for He has been made for us by God to be righteousness, sanctification and salvation (1 Corinthians 1:30)’7’.
The spiritual life is life in Christ the Lord (τὴν πνευματικὴν καὶ τὴν ἐν Χριστῷ ζωήν) 8, which brings about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. Thus, we understand how the Church is the Body of Christ, as an extension of Him in the faithful, and that whoever becomes a partaker of Life cannot keep it only for themselves but must also proclaim it to their fellow human beings. Having received God’s goodness, you cannot keep it solely for yourself, but must proclaim it to your neighbour as well, planting that same eternal goodness in their soul: ‘Therefore, it is one and the same to say that the apostles proclaim the Saviour or that they preach ‘the good news’, for it is He who receives these blessings from His good Father, so that then, each of us, having received, through the mediation of Jesus, this blessing or these blessings, may live our lives delighting in them’9
Christ the Lord transforms man through the Sacrament of Repentance, leading him towards a new life in which he becomes aware of the eternal work of God’s goodness: ‘Such a person should give thanks more than Daniel, for he has been spared from more terrifying and dangerous beasts. Likewise, he who knows what beast lurks beneath the one that swallowed Jonah and understands the very meaning of what Job said: ‘Cursed be the night of my birth by those who curse the days, by those who know how to cast a spell on Leviathan’ (Job 3:8); and if, through transgression, he has ended up in its belly, let such a one repent and pray, for in the end he will come out of there, and if he has escaped and steadfastly follows God’s commandments, then he may, through the goodness of his spirit, become an occasion of salvation for the people of Nineveh today, provided, of course, that they seek to understand God’s boundless goodness and do not seek to hinder the return of those who repent’10’.
We see, then, that goodness is a gift of the Spirit of God received through fellowship with Christ the Lord: ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness’ (Galatians 5:22) and a principal attribute of God as perfect Love: ‘Love is patient; love is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:5), and we too are urged to follow Christ the Saviour, the fullness of goodness, so that we may in turn share in His eternal goodness: ‘Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’ (Colossians 3:12).
- 1
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, IX, 52, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 157.
- 2
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, I, V, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 23.
- 3
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, I, III, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 21.
- 4
Origen, From the Homilies on the Gospel according to Luke, XXII, I, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 111.
- 5
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, V, 28, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 151.
- 6
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, IX, 53, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 157.
- 7a7b
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, IX, 56, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 158.
- 8
Origen, On Prayer, XIII, 4, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 227; cf. PG 11, 456D.
- 9
Origen, From the Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, X, 62, in PSB, vol. 7, p. 158.
- 10
Origen, On Prayer, XIII, 4, in PSB, vol. 7, pp. 227–228.