Sin in Origen’s Commentary on Romans

Sin in Origen’s Commentary on Romans examines Origen as a critical third century voice seeking to articulate a cogent doctrine of sin, and presents his magisterial Commentary on Romans as a unique window to understanding his mature thought on the subject. It argues that Origen’s teaching on original and volitional sin demonstrates continuity with and divergence from the prevailing theological tradition. It offers a substantial, revisionist account of the thought of one of the most important thinkers in early Christianity and takes up important anthropological and soteriological questions in Origen, as presented in a key, but often neglected text, in Origen’s corpus of biblical commentary.

Bagby’s thesis is that Origen’s extensive (though neglected) engagement with Paul’s Epistle to the Romans forced him to develop, even alter, some of his earlier conceptions about original sin, resulting in a significant advance over his own early thoughts and the views of his predecessor Clement of Alexandria. Origen’s commentary on St. Paul thus exhibits a coherent and deeply Christian doctrine of sin that is faithful to Scripture. Bagby’s insightful study is worthy of his mentors, Ayres and Louth, and forms a nice complement to P. Beatrice’s work, The Transmission of Sin, which has recently appeared in English dress. Students of theology are now well-equipped to grasp the range of early Christian views of volitional and original sin in the centuries before Augustine., Stephen Bagby’s Sin in Origen’s Commentary on Romans is carefully researched and closely argued. It will be an important work for Origen scholars and those who work with early Christian doctrine. There has been no monograph-length study of Origen’s doctrine of sin for more than a half-century, and never one in English., Bagby has sinned boldly! This monograph offers a crisp and vivid presentation of Origen’s account of sin against its second and third century background. Focusing on Origen’s commentary on Romans Bagby’s book will be of great interest to all students of Origen’s anthropology, to all interested in the evolution of Christian accounts of sin, and should be required reading for all who still cling to simplistic accounts of the differences between ‘Greek’ and ‘Latin’ theology on this central question.

Stephen Bagby teaches humanities at The Covenant School in Dallas.