Now this solves the problem with which you always have to deal in your congregations, the problem of the simple ones who take the myths literally – and you have many of them – and the educated to whom you cannot speak in terms of literalism, otherwise they will turn away from you, not because of the Christian message but because of the way you give it to them. This was the same problem with which Clement and Origen had to deal and they solved it in terms of these two forms of participation in the Christian communion.
The first doctrine in Origen’s system, as in every system, is the doctrine of God. God is being-itself, and therefore beyond everything that is. He is beyond knowledge, because knowledge presupposes the cleavage between subject and object. He is beyond change. He is beyond passion. He is the source of everything. But now He has His logos, His inner word, His self-manifestation. This self-manifestation makes Him first manifest to Himself and then to the world. The Logos is the first and creative power of being. All powers of being are united in Him. The whole spiritual world is united in the Logos. The Logos is the universal principle of anything special, of anything (that has) being. This Divine Logos radiates eternally from the Ground of Being, from the Divine Abyss, as splendor radiates from the source of light. Therefore one is not allowed to say, “There was a time when the Son did not exist.” To say this is to deny the eternity of the Logos. Therefore it never should be said. There never was a time in which the Son, namely the eternal Logos, did not exist..
The eternal Logos is eternally generated out of the Divine substance. He is not created; He is “out of nothing.” He is not finite. Therefore He has the same substance with the Father. Here the term homoousios t patri (being equal with the Father) first arises. In spite of the eternity of the Logos the Logos is less than the Father. The Father alone has no origin. He is not even generated. He is auto theos, God by Himself, while the Son is God by the Father. The Son is the picture of the goodness or essence or nature of God, but not God Himself.
