Origen and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origens Commentary [Hardcover]

Standard accounts of the history of interpretation of Pauls Letter to the Romans often begin with St. Augustine. As Thomas P. Scheck demonstrates, however, theCommentary on the Epistle to the Romansby Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) was a major work of Pauline exegesis which, by means of the Latin translation preserved in the West, had a significant influence on the Christian exegetical tradition.

Scheck begins by exploring Origens views on justification and on the intimate connection of faith and post-baptismal good works as essential to justification. He traces the enormous influence Origens Commentary on Romans had on later theologians in the Latin West, including the ways in which theologians often appropriated Origens exegesis in their own work. Scheck analyzes in particular the reception of Origen by Pelagius, Augustine, William of St. Thierry, Erasmus, Cornelius Jansen, the Anglican Bishop Richard Montagu, and the Catholic lay apologist John Heigham, as well as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and other Protestant Reformers who harshly attacked Origens interpretation as fatally flawed. But as Scheck shows, theologians through the post-Reformation controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries studied and engaged Origen extensively, even if not always in agreement.

An important work in patristics, biblical interpretation, and historical theology,Origen and the History of Justificationestablishes the formative role played by Origens Pauline exegesis, while also contributing to our understanding of the theological issues surrounding justification in the western Christian tradition.

Origens CRm was originally written in Greek between 244 and 246.6 Origen himself refers to it in hisCommentary on Matthew17.32 andCels5.47 and 8.65. The Greek text was known to St. Jerome (cf.Eps36, 121), St. Basil (De Spiritu Sancto29.73), and the church historian Socrates (HE7.32.1lƒz