The Anathemas
Against Origen.
I.
anyone asserts the fabulous
pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration
which follows from it: let him be anathema.
II.
anyone shall say that the
creation (τὴυ
παραγωγὴν) of all
reasonable things includes only intelligences (νόας) without bodies and altogether immaterial, having neither number nor name, so that there is unity between them all by identity of substance, force and energy, and by their union with and knowledge of God the Word; but that no longer desiring the sight of God, they gave themselves over to worse things, each one following his own inclinations, and that they have taken bodies more or less subtile, and have received names, for among the heavenly Powers there is a difference of names as there is also a difference of bodies; and thence some became and are called Cherubims, others Seraphims, and Principalities, and Powers, and Dominations, and Thrones, and Angels, and as many other heavenly orders as there may be: let him be anathema.
III.
anyone shall say that the
sun, the moon and the stars are also reasonable beings, and that they
have only become what they are because they turned towards evil: let him be anathema.
IV.
anyone shall say that the
reasonable creatures in whom the divine love had grown cold have been
hidden in gross bodies such as ours, and have been called men, while
those who have attained the lowest degree of wickedness have shared
cold and obscure bodies and are become and called demons and evil
spirits: let him be anathema,.
V.
anyone shall say that a
psychic (ψυχικὴν) condition
has come from an angelic or archangelic state, and moreover that a
demoniac and a human condition has come from a psychic condition, and
that from a human state they may become again angels and demons, and
that each order of heavenly virtues is either all from those below or
from those above, or from those above and below: let him be
anathema.
VI.
anyone shall say that there
is a twofold race of demons, of which the one includes the souls of men
and the other the superior spirits who fell to this, and that of all
the number of reasonable beings there is but one which has remained
unshaken in the love and contemplation of God, and that that spirit is
become Christ and the king of all reasonable beings, and that he has
created all the bodies which exist in heaven, on
earth, and between heaven and earth; and that the world which has in
itself elements more ancient than itself, and which exists by
themselves, viz.: dryness, damp, heat and cold, and the image
(ιδέαν) to which it was formed, was so formed, and that the most holy and consubstantial Trinity did not create the world, but that it was created by the working intelligence (Νοῦς δημιρυργός) which is more ancient than the world, and which communicates to it its being: let him be anathema.
VII.
anyone shall say that Christ, of whom it is said that he appeared in the form of God, and that he was united before all time with God the Word, and humbled himself in these last days even to humanity, had (according to their expression) pity upon the divers falls which had appeared in the spirits united in the same unity (of which he himself is part), and that to restore them he passed through divers classes, had different bodies and different names, became all to all, an Angel among Angels, a Power among Powers, has clothed himself in the different classes of reasonable beings with a form corresponding to that class, and finally has taken flesh and blood like ours and is become man for men; [if anyone says all this] and does not profess that God the Word humbled himself and became man: let him be anathema.
VIII.
anyone shall not acknowledge
that God the Word, of the same substance with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, and who was made flesh and became man, one of the Trinity, is
Christ in every sense of the word, but [shall affirm] that he is so
only in an inaccurate manner, and because of the abasement (κενώσαντα), as they call it, of the intelligence (νοῦς); if anyone shall affirm that this intelligence united (συνημμένον ) to God the Word, is the Christ in the true sense of the word, while the Logos is only called Christ because of this union with the intelligence, and e converso that the intelligence is only called God because of the Logos: let him be anathema.
IX.