Origene e la filosofia greca: Scienze, testi, lessico. By Vito Limone

Abstract

This book takes Origen studies across the threshold to a new kind of rigour and depth. The book is not another study of Origen and Platonism and does not enter into the structures of Origen’s theology; even the Peri Archôn is not examined. That the author is in fact versed in these wider aspects is attested in a string of articles written between 2013 and 2016 on such themes as Plotinian henology and Origen’s Trinity, kenosis in the Commentary on John, and mercy in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as studies on Origen and Schelling published from 2011 to 2013. But in the present work he descends to the base of the Origenian colossus, in order to assess Origen’s acquaintance with and use of the disciplinary procedures of Greek philosophy in his time, his citations of Greek philosophers within that context, and his use of philosophical lexicons. The texts most relevant for this are the Commentary on John, of which Limone prepared a bilingual edition (Milan: Bompiani, 2012), and of course the Contra Celsum.