He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality.

Origen produced a massive quantity of writings because of the patronage of his close friend Ambrose of Alexandria, who provided him with a team of secretaries to copy his works, making him one of the most prolific writers in late antiquity.

[20] Argument over the orthodoxy of Origen's teachings spawned the First Origenist Crisis in the late fourth century, in which he was attacked by Epiphanius of Salamis and Jerome but defended by Tyrannius Rufinus and John of Jerusalem.

[26] According to Eusebius, Origen's father was Leonides of Alexandria, a respected professor of literature and also a devout Christian who practised his religion openly (and later a martyr and saint with a feast day of April 22 in the Catholic church).

[14][39] Ambrose was so impressed by the young scholar that he gave Origen a house, a secretary, seven stenographers, a crew of copyists and calligraphers, and paid for all of his writings to be published.

[14][39] When he was in his early twenties, Origen sold the small library of Greek literary works that he had inherited from his father for a sum which netted him a daily income of four obols.

[38] Henry Chadwick argues that, while Eusebius's story may be true, it seems unlikely, given that Origen's exposition of Matthew 19:12 "strongly deplored any literal interpretation of the words".

[56] In 213 or 214, the governor of the Province of Arabia sent a message to the prefect of Egypt requesting him to send Origen to meet with him so that he could interview him and learn more about Christianity from its leading intellectual.

[60] Origen obeyed Demetrius's order and returned to Alexandria,[60] bringing with him an antique scroll he had purchased at Jericho containing the full text of the Hebrew Bible.

[72] Demetrius also alleged that Origen had taught an extreme form of apokatastasis, which held that all beings, including even Satan himself, would eventually attain salvation.

[78] Porphyry recounts that Origen had extensively studied the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle,[78][84] but also those of important Middle Platonists, Neopythagoreans, and Stoics, including Numenius of Apamea, Chronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus of Gades, Nicomachus, Chaeremon, and Cornutus.

[78][85] Eusebius reports that Origen was summoned from Caesarea to Antioch at the behest of Julia Avita Mamaea, the mother of Roman Emperor Severus Alexander, "to discuss Christian philosophy and doctrine with her".

[86] In 235, approximately three years after Origen began teaching in Caesarea, Alexander Severus, who had been tolerant towards Christians, was murdered[87] and Emperor Maximinus Thrax instigated a purge of all those who had supported his predecessor.

[87] Origen knew that he was in danger and went into hiding in the home of a faithful Christian woman named Juliana the Virgin,[87] who had been a student of the Ebionite leader Symmachus.

[13][93] Eusebius recounts how Origen suffered "bodily tortures and torments under the iron collar and in the dungeon; and how for many days with his feet stretched four spaces in the stocks".

[104] None of these scholia have survived intact,[104] but parts of them were incorporated into the Catenaea, a collection of excerpts from major works of Biblical commentary written by the Church Fathers.

[114] On June 11, 2012, the Bavarian State Library announced that the Italian philologist Marina Molin Pradel had discovered twenty-nine previously unknown homilies by Origen in a twelfth-century Byzantine manuscript from their collection.

[168] Jerome quotes Origen as having allegedly written that "after aeons and the one restoration of all things, the state of Gabriel will be the same as that of the Devil, Paul's as that of Caiaphas, that of virgins as that of prostitutes".

[169] A number of critics in the patristic era accused Origen of teaching that even the resurrection bodies would eventually vanish so that the souls could be united with the incorporeal God.

[167][20] But this may refer only to a specific kind of transmigration according to theologian Geddes MacGregor, who has argued that Origen must have believed in the Platonic teaching of metempsychosis ('transmigration of souls'; i.e. reincarnation)[173][167] because it makes sense within his eschatology[174] and is never explicitly denied in the Bible.

[173] Nonetheless, Origen did have a penchant for speculating beyond what was explicitly stated in the Bible,[175][194] and this habit frequently placed him in the hazy realm between strict orthodoxy and heresy.

The focused understanding of the Logos, along with the paradigms of participation carried from Greek philosophy, allowed Origen to have a major role in the development of the concept of human deification or theosis.

[244] Tyrannius Rufinus, a priest at the monastery on the Mount of Olives who had been ordained by John of Jerusalem and was a longtime admirer of Origen, rejected the petition outright.

[244] Pope Theophilus I of Alexandria was sympathetic to the supporters of Origen[244] and the church historian, Sozomen, records that he had openly preached the Origenist teaching that God was incorporeal.

[254][255][256][i] Theophilus labeled Origen as the "hydra of all heresies"[255] and persuaded Pope Anastasius I to sign the letter of the council, which primarily denounced the teachings of the Nitrian monks associated with Evagrius Ponticus.

[258] After the council officially opened, but while Pope Vigillius was still refusing to take part, Justinian presented the bishops with the problem of a text known as The Three Chapters, which attacked the Antiochene Christology.

[264] Major controversy erupted in 1487, after the Italian humanist scholar Giovanni Pico della Mirandola issued a thesis arguing that "it is more reasonable to believe that Origen was saved than he was damned".

[265] In the seventeenth century, the English Cambridge Platonist Henry More was a devoted Origenist,[266] and although he did reject the notion of universal salvation,[266] he accepted most of Origen's other teachings.

[266] Pope Benedict XVI expressed admiration for Origen,[17] describing him in a sermon as part of a series on the Church Fathers as "a figure crucial to the whole development of Christian thought", "a true 'maestro'", and "not only a brilliant theologian but also an exemplary witness of the doctrine he passed on".

[268] Modern Protestant evangelicals admire Origen for his passionate devotion to the scriptures[269] but are frequently baffled or even appalled by his allegorical interpretation of them, which many believe ignores the literal, historical truth behind them.