SOURCE: "The Illiberal Humanist," in Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1966, pp. 66-94.

In this essay, Chadwick reviews Origen's life and teachings, showing in what ways Origen is different from Clement, his predecessor. Throughout are discussions of Origen's thinking on revelation, gnosticism, Christian philosophy, human sexuality, and the Incarnation.

Origen is not a figure it is easy to see in accurate perspective. This difficulty is not caused merely by the massive dimensions of his work, nor because he is especially obscure, nor even because we do not possess the full original text of his most controversial treatise. The primary reason is perhaps that some of his most characteristic themes, warmly debated during his lifetime and a stone of stumbling to many in the three hundred years following his death, have remained to this day permanently troubling...