ZAC 2019; 23(1): 53–81

Katarina Pålsson*
Angelic humans, glorious flesh:
Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings
on the resurrection body
https://doi.org/10.1515/zac-2019-0004

Abstract: One of the most important theological questions in the first Origenist
controversy was that of the resurrection of the dead. Jerome accused both Origen
and contemporary “Origenists” of speaking only of the resurrection of the body,
and not of the flesh, and he claimed that an idea of resurrection without the flesh
could not guarantee the identity between the body living on earth and the res-
urrected body. I argue that although Jerome attempted to maximize the differ-
ence between himself and Origen by speaking of flesh instead of body, and by
emphasizing the sameness of the body, it is clear that he, too, thought that the
resurrection would imply a profound change. At closer scrutiny, Jerome’s way of
understanding this change, namely as the nature remaining the same while the
glory increases, shows striking similarities to Origen’s explanation of change. I
argue that Jerome was dependent on Origen’s ideas about the resurrection, even
in his polemics against him. Jerome’s heresiological strategies, I argue, have
had consequences for modern historical reconstructions of his eschatological
thought, which is often presented in opposition to Origen’s more spiritual under-
standing. Awareness of the rhetorical strategies used by Jerome in the context of
controversy is crucial, I claim, in assessing a continuing reception of Origen in
his theology.

Keywords: Jerome, Origen, heresiology, resurrection, body, angelic life, sexual

difference, hierarchy.

1 Introduction
In 396, Jerome wrote a letter to Vigilantius, a priest from Gaul who had earlier
visited him in Bethlehem. The letter is of a special importance, since it is the first
instance of Jerome clearly expressing the view that some of Origen’s ideas were
heretical. Although siding with Epiphanius of Salamis in the conflict between

*Corresponding Author: Katarina Pålsson, Lund University, Centre for Theology and Religious
Studies, Helgonavägen 3, Lund, Sweden; e-mail: [email protected]

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54   Katarina Pålsson

him and John of Jerusalem, beginning in 393, Jerome had, apart from a transla-
tion of a letter by Epiphanius, not been involved in anti-Origenist polemics at all
until now. The reason for this is clear: Vigilantius had obviously brought with him
to the West information about Jerome holding Origenist views.1
Jerome writes: “Origen is a heretic. What does that have to do with me, who do
not deny that on many points he is heretical?”2 He also numbers such points, one
of which concerns the resurrection of the body.3 It is well known that this question
was an important one in the conflict that has been called the Origenist controversy.
Jerome would return to this issue in his work Against John of Jerusalem, prob-
ably written in 397.4 The immediate reason for the writing of this work was that
the bishop of Jerusalem, because of the problematic situation in which he found
himself, accused of Origenism by Epiphanius, had written a letter to bishop The-
ophilus of Alexandria, in which he had given his views on the situation and also,
in a kind of apology answering the accusations of heresy, explained his views
on the matters under debate. The letter is not extant, but can to a great extent be
recovered from Jerome’s polemical treatise against John.5 In this work, the ques-
tion about the resurrection is presented as the most important one.6
In this article, I will focus on Jerome’s anti-Origenist polemics that concerned
the question about the resurrection body, mainly from his Against John, but also
from other writings from the time of the Origenist controversy. In my analyses, I
will examine Jerome’s heresiological presentation of Origen, as well as his ortho-
dox self-presentation. With the concepts of orthodoxy and heresy, which will thus
be important in the examination, I am not referring to actual ideas as being ortho-
dox or heretical, but to rhetorical presentations of heresy and orthodoxy. Follow-
ing insights in this subject made by Alain le Boulluec and others,7 I see orthodoxy
and heresy as contingent and mutually constructed.

1 It seems like Vigilantius had stayed with Rufinus and Melania in Jerusalem before he visited
Jerome, and that it was from them that he learned about Jerome’s admiration of Origen. See John
Kelly, Jerome. His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London, 1975), 202.
2 Jerome, Epistula 61,2 (CSEL  54, 577,1–2 Hilberg): Origenes hereticus: quid ad me, qui illum in
plerisque hereticum non nego?
3 Jerome, Epistula 61,2 (577,2–3 H.). Jerome also writes that he himself, while Vigilantius was
visiting, had preached on the resurrection and on the reality of the risen body, apparently to the
satisfaction of his visitor (see Epistula 61,3 [580,2–4 H.]).
4 Kelly, Jerome (see note 1), 207.
5 Kelly, Jerome (see note 1), 205–206.
6 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 23 (CChr.SL 79A, 37,1–2 Feiertag): Transeamus hinc ad famosissimam
de resurrectione carnis et corporis quaestionem.
7 Alain Le Boulluec’s work La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque, IIe-IIIe siècles (Études
Augustiniennes; Paris, 1985) is arguably the most groundbreaking contribution to the study of

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   55

The heresiologists’ rhetorical constructions of their own orthodoxy often

meant a maximizing of difference to the heretic or heresy constructed, a rhetor-
ical strategy that may mislead us to see them as more different from the writer/
groups they polemicized against than they actually were. Besides focusing on
Jerome’s constructions of Origenist heresy and of his own orthodoxy, I will ask
to what degree he differed from Origen in these matters, and to what extent the
difference he marks is a rhetorical strategy to hide an actual closeness. As Jon-
athan Smith, among others, has argued, in the marking of difference, it is the
“proximate other,” the one who is actually very close, that demands the most
extreme distancing.8 When examining the reception of Origen in Jerome, it is of
great importance to take account of the workings of heresiological rhetoric. There
is a methodological risk of being trapped in simplifying heresiological categori-
zations, which may make us blind to an actual closeness between heresiologist
and heretic and even a positive reception of the heretic in the heresiologist. It is
important to remember that the orthodox self that the heresiologist constructs
also is a rhetorical construction, and that there is as much need of recovering
heresiologists as heretics.
After years of using the works of Origen, after, in Mark Vessey’s terms, pre-
senting himself in the persona of Origen,9 after developing a theology of asceti-
cism which was deeply influenced by Origen’s thought, Jerome, when accused of
being an Origenist, certainly felt the need to make that seem distant which was
dangerously close.
When it comes to Jerome’s teachings on the resurrection body (and his
eschatology at large), there is a tendency in modern scholarship to position

ancient orthodoxy and heresy since Walter Bauer’s Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten
Christentum (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 10; Tübingen, 1934). While Bauer, who argued
that heresy preceded orthodoxy in early Christianity, still had an essentialist approach to the
concepts, Le Boulluec shifted the focus to a history of the representation of orthodoxy and her-
esy. According to this view, orthodoxy and heresy are not seen as things, but as notions, and the
one cannot precede the other since they must always be defined in relation to each other. Schol-
ars who have built on Le Boulluec’s works in dealing with orthodoxy and heresy include Daniel
Boyarin, Border Lines. The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Divinations; Philadelphia, 2004),
Karen L. King, What is Gnosticism? (London, 2003), Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish
and Graeco-Roman World (New York, 2004) and Virginia Burrus, The Making of a Heretic: Gender,
Authority, and the Priscillianist Controversy (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 24; Los
Angeles, 1995).
8 See Jonathan Smith “Differential Equations” and “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” in
idem, Relating Religion. Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago, 2004), 230–250 and 251–302.
9 Mark Vessey, “Jerome’s Origen: The Making of a Christian Literary Persona,” Studia Patris-
tica 28 (1993): 135–145.

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56   Katarina Pålsson

him as an opposite to Origen, both as an advocate of materiality in the resur-

rection, in contrast to Origen’s spirituality, and as holding a hierarchical view of
the afterlife, as opposed to Origen’s idea of final equality.10 Jerome is presented
as someone who emphasized sameness in the relation between the resurrected
body and the earthly body, while Origen’s ideas are thought to centre on differ-
ence. I argue that this way of presenting the two theologians depends, to a large
extent, on the continuing influence that ancient heresiology has on early Chris-
tian studies. Although the concepts of orthodoxy and heresy have since long been
deconstructed, and an awareness has grown of the performative side of religious
polemics, I argue that the categorizations made by ancient heresiologists, their
constructions of the heresy of others and their own orthodoxy, are still influential
in how scholars today interpret their sources.
In this article, my intention is to problematize the above-mentioned way of
presenting the relation between Origen’s and Jerome’s ideas about the resurrec-
tion. Examining the heresiological strategies applied by Jerome in Against John
and other works, and comparing his orthodox self-presentation not to his polem-
ical portrayal of Origen, but to Origen’s own ideas about the resurrection, I will
argue that the similarities between these thinkers are much greater than either
Jerome’s polemics or modern reconstructions have allowed for.

10 For instance, John P. O’Connell, The Eschatology of Saint Jerome (Dissertationes ad Lau-
ream 16; Mundelein, 1948), 48–52 emphasizes that Jerome had never held any Origenist opinion
on the resurrection, and that he denied change in the body itself; Elizabeth Clark, The Origenist
Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992), 6 distin-
guishes Origen’s “egalitarianism” from “Jerome’s theory of a hierarchy of merit based on ascetic
renunciation”; Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity,
200–1336 (Lectures on the History of Religions, N.S. 15; New York, 1995), 90–91, 110 claims that
what Jerome feared above all was change and connects his ideas of hierarchy to a wish to pre-
serve the social hierarchies on earth in heaven; John Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (5th ed.;
London, 1977), 476 claims that Jerome, after his involvement in anti-Origenist polemics, “began
to stress, with crudely literalistic elaboration, the physical identity of the resurrection body with
the earthly body.”

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   57

2 Glorious flesh vs. spiritual body.

The question of identity

2.1 Jerome’s presentation of Origen’s ideas

Before Jerome presents Origen’s views on the resurrection body in Against John,
he provides a context for Origen’s argumentation. This explanation appears to be
accurate, from what can be found in texts from Origen, but what is most essen-
tial for our present purposes is the function that it has in Jerome’s anti-Origenist
rhetoric. Origen, Jerome claims, saw a twofold error in the church: “That of us,
and that of the heretics” (nostrorum et haereticorum).11 We thus note that Jerome,
already in the beginning of his presentation, identifies himself with one of two
groups against whom Origen expressed his ideas about the resurrection. The
other group, the heretics, are those who Origen claims to deny the resurrection of
both flesh and body, so that only the soul will be saved. Who, then, are “we”? “We,
who are simple and φιλοσάρκους, that is, lovers of the flesh, say that the same
bones and blood, and flesh, the same outer appearance and bodily members, yes,
the whole bodily composition, will rise in the last day.”12
This description, of course, is one in which Jerome presents Origen’s views
about this group, rather than presenting his own actual ideas; it goes on with
the claim that according to these, we will again eat, marry, beget children—why
otherwise would we be resurrected with, for instance, teeth and genital organs?
However, this does not lessen the importance of Jerome’s identification with the
group. It is strategic in the sense that he, from the very beginning, marks distance
towards Origen by identifying with a group against whom Origen had expressed
his own views. Origen, Jerome writes, is dissatisfied with both these opinions—
“our flesh and the phantom of the heretics”13—thinking that they express oppo-
site extremes, the ones claiming that we will be exactly the same, the others
claiming that the body will not rise at all.
Also, this identification fits into a larger rhetorical strategy that runs through
the whole heresiological treatment of the question of the resurrection in Against

11 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 (41,10–13 F.): Dicit ergo Origenes in pluribus locis et maxime in
libris de resurrectione quattuor, et in expositione primi Psalmi et in Stromatibus, duplicem errorem
uersari in ecclesia: nostrorum et haereticorum.
12 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 (41,13–16 F.): Nos simplices et φιλοσάρκους, id est amatores car-
nium, dicere quod eadem ossa et sanguis, et caro, idem uultus et membra, totiusque compago
corporis resurgat in nouissimo die.
13 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 (42,35–36 F.): nostrorum carnes, et haereticorum phantasmata.

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58   Katarina Pålsson

John: That of presenting Origen, as well as a contemporary follower like John, as

an intellectual elite, confusing simple believers with their cunning arguments.
We may already at this point note that Jerome, from the very beginning, rhetori-
cally places himself among the “simple.”
If we turn to Jerome’s presentation of Origen’s ideas about the resurrection,14
Origen is said to hold that the same people will rise who have lived on earth. The
bodies that will rise are those which have been placed in the tombs and decayed
into ashes. Paul and Peter will have their own bodies. In this, Origen uses an
argument from justice: “it is not right,” nor “worthy of the righteous Judge” that a
soul sins in one body and is tormented in another, or is martyred for Christ in one
body to be crowned in another.15
He presents Origen’s explanation of this identity as follows: Taking his depar-
ture from 1 Corinthians 15,16 Origen compared the resurrected body to the plant
springing from a seed. In every seed, there is a principle (σπερματικὸν λόγον)17
that contains all of the future growth. When the seed is dissolved in the earth, it
draws unto itself the surrounding materials, so that a plant can rise.18 In a similar
way, the elements of the human body—earth, air, water and fire—each return, as
the body decays, to their original substances.19 However, certain ancient prin-
ciples (antiqua principia) remain that will rise, and on the Day of Judgment, the
principles in the seeds will cause the dead to live again in a manner similar to a
plant rising from the ground. One thing dies, another rises. The bodies that will
rise “will not be restored with the same flesh, or in the form that they previously
had.”20 Returning to their elements, the substance of flesh and blood does not
disappear, but neither will they return to their “former composition” and be “alto-

14 This presentation takes to a large extent the form of quotations, although Jerome does not
state which works he has used. The content is very similar to fragments from On the resurrection
which have been preserved in Caesariensis Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, above all Apologeticus
pro Origene 130 (SC 464, 210,1–214,36 Amacker/Junod), although the wording is different.
15 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (43,3–6 F.): Neque enim fas est ut in aliis corporibus animae pec-
caverint, in aliis torqueantur, nec iusti iudicis alia corpora pro Christo fundere sanguinem et alia
coronari. Cf. the fragment from On the resurrection, preserved in Pamphilus, Apologeticus pro
Origene 128 (208,1–210,17 A./J.).
16 1 Cor 15:35–37 and 42–44 are quoted: Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (44,25–28; 46,45–48 F.).
17 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (44,12 F.).
18 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (44,14–15 F.): In terra fuerit dissoluta, trahit ad se uicinas mate-
rias, et in stipulam, folia, aristasque consurgit.
19 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 (43,44–47 F.): paulatim redire omnia ad matrices suas substan-
tias: carnes in terram elabi, halitum in aera misceri, humorem reuerti ad abyssos, calorem ad ae­-
thera subuolare.
20 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (44,23–24 F.): Non tamen easdem carnes, nec in his formis resti­
tuent quae fuerunt.

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   59

gether what they were.”21 As if you throw wine or milk into a lake, although they
do not disappear, you cannot again separate what has been mixed.
If even something that will ultimately perish—like a vine—can pass from being
a small, dry seed to having roots, leaves and grapes, how can it seem improbable
that the human being, who will live forever, will have a condition that is very dif-
ferent from its former? If we would again have flesh, bones, blood, and members,
we would again need barbers because of growing hair, nails would have to be cut,
and our genital organs would be used for sexual purposes. We would again be
males and females; also, small children in need of nursing and old men who need
support by a staff, would be seen among the resurrected.22 Instead, we will rise
with a spiritual body, our body of humility being transformed according to the
Lord’s glorious body, Origen affirms, quoting Philippians 3:21.23 Something else,
spiritual and ethereal, is promised to us, which cannot be subjected to touch or
sense. The body will be changed in such a way that it can inhabit the place in
which it will live.
This account of Origen’s ideas of the resurrection is, in my judgment, accu-
rate: The importance of 1 Corinthians 15, the concept of λόγος σπερματικὸς, the
emphasis that the resurrected body will be spiritual and that our existence will
be utterly different from that on earth, are all characteristic of what we know
about Origen’s ideas on resurrection. However, it is, of course, selective. Every
explanation of the resurrection of the dead has to take two things into account:
sameness and difference.24 On the one hand, identity has to be guaranteed; on
the other, some difference has to be admitted. Jerome’s presentation of Origen is
one that focuses on one of these aspects, that of difference. As we will see further
on, Origen expressed ideas about the sameness that were very similar to the ones
Jerome himself expressed.

2.2 Jerome about sameness and difference in the resurrection

Jerome uses this description of Origen’s ideas to argue that Bishop John’s attempt
to demonstrate his orthodoxy in this question is insufficient. Nine times he had

21 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 (43,52–53 F.): non tamen in in antiquam redire compagem, nec
posse ex toto esse eadem quae fuerint.
22 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (46,52–47,63 F.).
23 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 26 (46,51–52 F.): Et transfigurabit dominus corpus humilitatis nostrae
conforme corpori gloriae suae.
24 As aruged by Outi Lehtipuu, Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early
Christian Identity (The Early Oxford Christian Studies; Oxford, 2015), 117.

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60   Katarina Pålsson

spoken of the body in his letter, but not even once of the flesh. Jerome returns
to his rhetoric of simplicity: In speaking of the body, he claims, John sought to
deceive simple Christians, so that they would think that he confessed the resur-
rection of the flesh. Again, Jerome identifies himself with the simple ones (nos
rudes). Meanwhile, the perfect (hi qui perfecti sunt) would understand that in
speaking only of the resurrection of the body, John denied the resurrection of the
flesh.25 However, Jerome points out to John, “flesh is defined in one way, body in
another.”26 Even if all flesh is also body, it is not the case that everything that is a
body is also flesh. Sometimes a body is said to be ethereal or aerial, that is, when
it is not subject to touch or sight—and such a body is not flesh. However, there are
also many kinds of bodies that can be seen, but are still not flesh, such as a wall
or a stone. As for flesh, it “is properly what is held together by blood, veins, bones
and sinews.”27
Jerome also points out that it is the work of the flesh, and not its nature, that
is condemned in the Scriptures. For instance, he writes concerning Paul that:

Et ad sanctos, qui utique in carne erant, dicit: “Vos autem in carne non estis, sed in Spiritu, si
tamen Spiritus dei habitat in uobis.” Negando enim eos in carne, quos in carne esse constabat,
non carnis substantiam, sed peccata damnabat.

To the saints, who certainly were in the flesh, he says: “You are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.” For when he denied that they were in the flesh,
whom he had asserted were in the flesh, it was not the substance of the flesh, but the sins
that were condemned.28

We will later return to Jerome’s ideas about the difference between fleshly sub-
stance and fleshly life. For the moment, we may note that crucial in his heresi-
ological construction of an Origenist idea of the resurrection is the distinction
between body and flesh, and the assertion that claiming the resurrection of the
body is not enough in order to claim identity between the person on earth and
the person resurrected: For this, it is necessary to confess the resurrection of the
flesh. The flesh that will rise is defined in quite a crude sense, as “what is held
together by blood, veins, bones and sinews.”29 This, together with Jerome’s iden-
tification with the “simple-minded” Christians of a chiliast and anthropomor-

25 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 27 (49,28–29 F.).

26 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 27 (48,11 F.): Alia enim carnis, alia corporis definitio est.
27 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 27 (48,12–14 F.): Caro est proprie quae sanguine, uenis, ossibus
neruisque constringitur.
28 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 28 (51,34–52,38 F.).
29 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 27 (48,13–14 F.): quae sanguine, uenis, ossibus neruisque constrin-
gitur.

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   61

phist kind, certainly makes his idea of resurrection appear as very distant from
that of Origen.30
However, this emphasis on sameness over difference is soon to be modified
in the treatise. A formulation that Jerome had expressed already before, and
would return to in later writings, if in slightly different formulations, is the fol-
lowing: “This is the true confession of the resurrection, which ascribes glory to
the flesh, but does not take away its reality.”31 A change, thus, is certainly taking
place, and this change is described by Jerome in terms of clothing. When it is said
that the corruptible puts on incorruption, and the mortal immortality, this does
not mean that the body is done away with, but that which was without glory is
adorned in glory, is made glorious (efficere gloriosum),

ut mortalitatis et infirmitatis uiliore ueste deposita, immortalitatis auro et, ut ita dicam, fir-
mitatis atque uirtutis induamur, uolentes non spoliari carne, sed superuestiri gloria, et domi-
cilium nostrum, quod de caelo est, superindui desiderantes, ut deuoretur mortale a uita.

so that when the more worthless clothing of mortality and weakness has been laid aside, we
may be clothed in the gold of immortality and, so to say, in strength and virtue. In this, we
do not want to take away the flesh, but put the glory on over it, and we want to put on our
house which is of heaven, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.32

Jerome also speaks of the flesh being “mortal according to nature and eternal
according to grace.”33 The biblical words about the hand of Moses changing
colour into white,34 and then again into its original colour, is used by Jerome to
illustrate the kind of change that the body will undergo in the resurrection: There
was still a hand, but the two states were different; that is, one and the same thing
assumed different qualities.35 Another biblical passage used by Jerome is Jere-
miah 18:4, about the potter whose pot was marred, and who remade the same pot
into the way that seemed best to him.36 Resurrection does not imply a new body,

30 For instance, he argues that when it is claimed that the substance of flesh and blood, having
returned to the original materials after death, cannot go back to their former compositions, “the
firmness of the flesh, the fluidity of the blood, the density of sinews, the interlacing veins and
the hardness of bones is denied” (Jerome, Contra Iohannem 25 [43,54–56 F.]: soliditas carnium,
sanguinum uis, crassitudo neruorum uenarumque perplexio et ossium durities denegatur).
31 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 29 (52,1–2 F.): Haec, haec est resurrectionis uera confessio, quae sic
gloriam carni tribuit, ut non auferat ueritatem.
32 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 29 (52,7–12 F.).
33 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 33 (61,46 F.): mortali secundum naturam, aeterna secundum gratiam.
34 Ex 4:6.
35 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 33 (61,47–62,49 F.).
36 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 33 (62,49–52 F.).

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62   Katarina Pålsson

but a reshaping of the one we formerly had.37 If we look at the word itself, says
Jerome, it does not mean that one thing perishes and another is raised; besides,
the resurrection of the dead certainly points to our flesh, since it is that which
dies which is brought back to life.38
The words in Isaiah about the one who is coming from Edom, with shining
raiment from Bozrah,39 are interpreted by Jerome as pointing to the mystery of
the resurrection, showing “both the reality of the flesh and the growth in glory.”40
Edom is interpreted as either “earthly” or “bloody,” Bozrah as either “flesh” or “in
tribulation.”41
Jerome admits, in the last passage dealing with the resurrection in Against
John, that as long as human beings remain mere flesh and blood (tantum caro san-
guisque permanserint), they will not inherit the kingdom of God.42 Reference is
made to the words in 1 Corinthians about the corruptible putting on incorruption,
and the mortal putting on immortality. The flesh, Jerome explains, will undergo
a change, not a destruction (immutationis, non abolitionis). The flesh that was
formerly kept down by heavy weight upon the earth will receive the wings of the
spirit, and fly with fresh glory into heaven.43
What may be concluded so far is that, for all his emphasis on sameness in
Against John—on the resurrection of blood, bones, and sinews—Jerome certainly
left room also for difference in the resurrection, and this difference, this change,
was explained in terms of clothing, of one and the same thing putting on new
qualities. This is an aspect of Jerome’s teachings on the resurrection that has been
overlooked in modern scholarship, arguably because of an imagined opposition,
which I discussed briefly in my introduction, between Origen’s emphasis on
spirituality and equality on the one hand, and Jerome’s emphasis on materiality
and inequality on the other.44

37 See Jerome Contra Iohannem 36 (71,22–26  F.). Jerome speaks of the change that the flesh
undergoes in terms of clay being formed into a vessel.
38 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 33 (62,52–57 F.)
39 Is 63:1.
40 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 34 (62,8–63,9 F.): et ueritatem carnis et augmentum gloriae.
41 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 34 (62,5–7 F.): Edom aut terrenus interpretatur, aut cruentus, Bosor
aut caro, aut in tribulatione.
42 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 36 (70,17–71,22 F.).
43 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 36 (71,22–26 F.).
44 O’Connell, The Eschatology of Saint Jerome (see note 10), 49 and Bynum, The Resurrection
of the Body (see note 10), 91, both concentrate on a supposed denial of difference in Jerome’s
thought, arguing that change was what he feared above all (Bynum) and that according to
Jerome, “[t]here is no change in the body itself” (O’Connell).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   63

Although Jerome did not treat the issue of bodily resurrection to any great
extent before his involvement in anti-Origenist polemics, a comparison can be
made to a passage from his Commentary on Galatians, written in the late 380s:

… cum de corpore humilitatis transformati fuerimus in corpus gloriae Domini Iesu Christi, illud
habebimus corpus quod nec Iudaeus possit incidere, nec cum praeputio custodire Gentilis.
Non quod aliud iuxta substantiam sit: sed quod iuxta gloriam sit diuersum.

… when we have been transformed from the body of humility into the body of glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we will have that body that neither the Jew can cut nor the Gentile pre-
serve in the state of uncircumcision. It will not be different in regard to the substance but
in regard to the glory.45

Already here, Jerome expressed that the substance (in Contra Iohannem: ueritas)
will remain, but that the glory will change. John O’Connell, in his work on the
eschatology of Jerome, gives this as evidence that Jerome was consistent in his
views on the resurrection body, meaning that he held the same idea that he
expressed during the Origenist controversy already before.46 I agree with O’Con-
nell in this regard; however, O’Connell sees this as evidence that Jerome never
embraced an Origenist idea of the resurrection. I argue to the contrary that in this
quotation, a dependence on Origen’s thought can be seen—a dependence that
brings nuance to the supposed anti-Origenism of Jerome’s views on the resurrec-
tion in Contra Iohannem.
In the preface to his commentary on Galatians, Jerome says that Origen had
been an important authority in his writing of the work. Although Origen’s com-
mentary is not extant, it is very probable that Jerome depended on it when he
wrote the words quoted above, because precisely the distinction between a sub-
stance that remains the same, and qualities that change, was very important in
Origen’s explanation of the sameness and difference of the resurrection body in
relation to the earthly body. To this subject we now turn.

2.3 Origen about substance and qualities

In On First Principles, Origen speaks of two general natures (generales naturas),

created by God: A visible and corporeal one and an invisible and incorporeal
one.47 To the two natures correspond two kinds of change (permutationes): The

45 Jerome, Commentaria in Epistulam ad Galatas 3,6,15 (PL 26:436).

46 O’Connell, The Eschatology of Saint Jerome (see note 10), 40–41.
47 Origen, De principiis 3,6,7 (SC 268, 250,222–224 Crouzel/Simonetti).

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invisible nature changes with regard to mind and purpose because of free will,
while the visible nature may undergo substantial change (substantialem recipit
permutationem). This nature may be transformed by God into different forms.48
In his Commentary on John, Origen writes that every material body has a
nature (φύσις) that is in itself without qualification, and receives the qualities
(ποιότητες) that the Creator gives it.49 Later in the same work, he writes that a
mortal essence (οὐσίαν θνητὴν) cannot transform into (μεταβάλλουσαν εἰς) an
immortal one.50 Nothing can transform from corporeal into incorporeal. However,
while the material (ὑλικὸν) subsists, and cannot be destroyed, the qualities may
change.51 What is denied in this text is change from a mortal essence (equivalent
to the material substance) into an immortal (immaterial), while what is affirmed
is a change of the qualities of matter.
A similar view is expressed in Against Celsus: There are bodies celestial, and
bodies terrestrial.52 The glory (δόξα) of the celestial is one, that of the terrestrial
another. Even the glory of the celestial ones differs: That of the sun, moon, stars,
and among the stars themselves.53 As those who expect the resurrection of the
dead, we believe that the qualities in bodies undergo change. The matter under-
lying bodies is capable of receiving the qualities that the Creator wishes to give
them.
In On First Principles, Origen, discussing the issue of corporeality and incor-
poreality, claims that the thing that changes (mutatur) is not destroyed (perit).
The habitus, that is, the form of the world, will certainly pass away, but not the
material substance (substantiae materialis):54 “but a certain change [inmutatio]
of the quality [qualitatis] takes place, and a transformation [transformatio] of
the form [habitus].”55 The material or corporeal nature (naturam) cannot pos-
sibly disappear, because only the Trinity is without body.56 Importantly, Origen
does not only speak of the body as remaining, but also the flesh. The flesh, says

48 Origen, De principiis 3,6,7 (250,225–235 C./S.).

49 Cf. Origen, Commentarii in Iohannem 13,21 (SC 222, 98,24–29 Blanc) and Origen, Contra Cel-
sum 4,56–57 (SC 136, 326,1–332,32 Borret), where Origen says that the same matter, underlying
all bodies, is in itself without qualities and without form: ἂποιος, ἀσχημάτιστος (Origen, Contra
Celsum 4,56 [328,11 B.]).
50 Origen, Commentarii in Iohannem 13,61 (268,10–13 B.).
51 Origen, Commentarii in Iohannem 13,61 (268,15–18 B.).
52 Origen, Contra Celsum 4,56–57 (326,1–332,32 B.).
53 Cf. 1 Cor 15.
54 Origen, De principiis 1,6,4 (SC 252, 204,163–166 Crouzel/Simonetti).
55 Origen, De principiis 1,6,4 (204,166–167 C./S.): Sed inmutatio quaedam fit qualitatis atque ha­-
bitus transformatio.
56 Origen, De principiis 1,6,4 (206,175–182 C./S.).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   65

Origen, is thought by ignorant people to be destroyed after death. We who believe

in its resurrection, however, understand that only a change takes place, while its
substance remains.57
In another part of the same work, Origen says that it is only in opinione … et
intellectu that the material substance is distinguished from the rational natures
with whom it is combined, and who cannot exist without it.58 This substance is
formed into more solid bodies when used on inferior beings, but when used by
perfect and blessed beings (perfectoribus … beatoribus), it shimmers in the splen-
dour of celestial bodies (cf. 1  Corinthians 15:40).59 Likewise, in Contra Celsum,
using the words about the tent in 2 Corinthians 5:4, Origen explains that the soul
has to be united to a body, and that the body is adapted to the place where the soul
lives. A distinction is made between the tent and the habitation (οἰκία) in which
the tent is located. This habitation will be destroyed, but not the tent itself.60
In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen explains that likeness to the angels,
spoken of in Matthew 22, does not only imply that the resurrected will not again
be married, but also that their bodies will change into the likeness of angelic
bodies: “their bodies of humility, being transformed, become such as the bodies
of angels are, that is, ethereal.”61 Their bodies will not be taken away, but be
transformed into the likeness of angels. The σχῆμα, form, of the same body will
be transformed into an ethereal body, like the angels have.
So far, we have seen Origen express an idea of the resurrection according
to which the sameness is explained by reference to what is in Greek designated
as οὐσία, φύσις, ὓλη, and in Latin translations natura and (materialis) substan-
tia. The difference is explained by Greek terms as ποιότητες and σχῆμα, and
by the Latin terms forma, habitus, and qualitas. A transformation takes place
(μετασχηματίζω, μεταβάλλω, immuto, permuto), which does not imply the
destruction of the substance or essence, but a change of its qualities.
This explanation of sameness and difference is certainly very close to what
we have seen Jerome presenting in Against John. That is, the very idea that Jerome
presents as his own, orthodox view, in opposition to the heretical idea that he
constructs as Origen’s, appears to have important parallels in Origen’s thought.

57 Origen, De principiis 3,6,5 (246,154–156  C./S.): Immutationem eius tantummodo per mortem
factam … substantiam uero certum est permanere.
58 Origen, De principiis 2,2,2 (248,29 C/S.).
59 Origen, De principiis 2,2,2 (246; 248,37–38 C/S.).
60 Origen, Contra Celsum 5,19 (SC 147, 58,1–62,51 B.); 7,32–33 (SC 150, 84,1–90,23 Borret).
61 Origen, Commentaria in Evangelium secundum Matthaeum 17,30 (PG  13:1568–1569): τὰ
μετασχηματιζόμενα αὐτῶν τὰ σώματα τῆς ταπεινώσεως γίνεσθαι τοιαῦτα, ὁποῖά εστι τὰ τῶν
αγγέλων σώματα, αἰθέρια.

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66   Katarina Pålsson

For all his insistence on the resurrection of bones, blood and sinews, Jerome cer-
tainly takes account not only of sameness, but also of difference: A clothing in
incorruption, an increase of glory, a being lifted up by wings, that is, resurrection
as implying a real transformation—the same thing taking on a different form.
We have noted that clothing was an important theme in Jerome’s heresiolog-
ical presentation of his own view of the resurrection—one that implied a putting
on rather than a passing from one kind of being into another. In what follows,
I will address the concept of clothing in Origen’s understanding of change, in
order to demonstrate that Jerome’s anti-Origenist explanation of difference in the
resurrection to a great extent builds on ideas that Origen had himself expressed.

2.4 Transformation as clothing

What has become clear, if we return to Origen’s ideas, is that bodily change is
dependent on the condition of the soul. In On First Principles 2,2,2, Origen says
that the material substance, when used by perfect beings, adorns both the angels
of God and the sons of the resurrection with the clothing of a spiritual body (spiri-
talis corporis indumentis … exornat).62 On the one hand, then, the body is seen as
a clothing of these beings; on the other hand, its very being a spiritual body is
itself dependent on the condition of the beings that wear it. In this way, Origen
can, as will become clear in what follows, speak of the soul clothing the body,
because the body is transformed in accordance with, even into the likeness of its
soul.
In a passage from Against Celsus, which we have already referred to, the tent
(σκηνή), spoken of in 2  Corinthians 5:4,63 is interpreted as signifying the body.
This tent is not the same as the habitation (οἰκία) in which it is located. It is the
habitation that will be destroyed, while the tent itself will remain. This change is
expressed in terms of clothing in the following way: The righteous “do not wish to
put off the tent, but to put something else on over it, and through this, mortality
might be swallowed up by life.”64
It is clear from this text that clothing, as Origen uses the concept in relation
to the issue of the resurrection body, means that one thing remains that takes off

62 Origen, De principiis 2,2,2 (248,39–40 C./S.).

63 “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be
unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be
swallowed up by life.”
64 Origen, Contra Celsum 5,19 (62,39–41  B.): μὴ θέλοντες τὸ σκῆνος ἀπεκδύσασθαι ἀλλὰ τῷ
σκήνει ἐπενδύσασθαι, ἵν’ ἐκ τοῦ ἐπενδύσασθαι καταποθῇ τὸ θνητὸν ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς.

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   67

its old clothes—qualities—and puts on new ones. We also return to the idea that
bodily change is preceded by psychic change. The development of the body is
always a consequence of the development of the soul.
In his Commentary on John, Origen, rather than contrasting transformation
to destruction, contrasts one kind of transformation to another; that is, trans-
formation into another essence, and transformation into the likeness of another
essence. As we have already seen, Origen argues that a mortal essence (οὐσία)
cannot transform into (μεταβάλλω εἰς) an immortal one. He makes the following
distinction:

Οὐ ταὐτὸν δέ ἐστιν <τὸ> τὴν φθαρτὴν φύσιν ἐνδύεσθαι ἀφθαρσίαν, καὶ τὸ τὴν φθαρτὴν
φύσιν μεταβάλλειν εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν.

It is not the same thing that the corruptible nature [φύσιν] is clothed [ἐνδύεσθαι] in incorrup-
tion, and that the corruptible nature is transformed into [μεταβάλλειν εἰς] incorruption.65

Here, a distinction is made between being transformed into and being clothed with.
The material nature cannot become another nature, that is, essentially possess
what the immaterial nature possesses: The qualities of immortality and incor-
ruption. However, it can put on these qualities, remaining the same nature itself.
That is, the body can become like the soul, which, as we know, Origen thought
to belong to the other of the two “general natures,”66 the immaterial one, which
possesses in itself immortality from physical death. The body can possess the
same qualities as the soul, while remaining a body. We return to the idea of the
condition of the soul being determinative for the condition of the body.
This theme is elaborated in a fragment from the Commentary on Ephesians,
which has been preserved thanks to Jerome, who quotes it in his own commen-
tary. We will return to this text later on; for now, we will concentrate on what
is said about the soul’s condition as determinative for that of the body. Origen,
quoted by Jerome, says:

… illam carnem quae uisura sit salutare Dei, anima diligat, et nutriat et foueat, eam disciplinis
erudiens, et coelesti saginans pane, et Christi sanguine irrigans, ut refecta et nitida possit
libero cursu uirum sequi, et nulla debilitate, et pondere [Al. nullo debilitatis pondere] prae-
grauari. Pulchre etiam in similitudinem Christi nutrientis, et fouentis Ecclesiam, et dicentis ad
Ierusalem: “Quoties uolui congregare filios tuos sicut gallina congregat pullos suos sub alas,
et noluisti?” Animae quoque fouent corpora sua, ut corruptiuum hoc induat incorruptionem,
et alarum leuitate suspensum, in aerem facilius eleuetur. Foueamus igitur et uiri uxores, et
animae nostra corpora, ut et uxores in uiros, et corpora redigantur in animas.

65 Origen, Commentarii in Iohannem 13,61 (268,18–20 B.).

66 Origen, De principiis 3,6,7 (250,223 C./S.): generales naturas.

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[T]he soul loves, nourishes, and cherishes that flesh which will see the salvation of God,
educating it with disciplines, fattening it with the heavenly bread, and supplying it with
the blood of Christ to drink so that, renewed and with the look of health, it can follow its
husband with free course and be unencumbered by weakness or burden. Excellently fur-
thermore, in the likeness of Christ nourishing and cherishing the Church and saying to Jeru-
salem, “How often did I wish to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her
wings, and you were not willing” (Matt 23:37), souls also cherish their bodies so that this
corruptible may put on incorruption (1 Cor 15:53) and, suspended on the lightness of wings,
may be lifted more easily into the air. Therefore, let us husbands cherish our wives and let
our souls cherish our bodies so that wives may be brought into the rank of men and bodies
into the rank of souls.67

First, we may note that Origen does not speak of the body, but of the flesh, more
precisely the flesh that will see the salvation of God. The distinction between this
flesh (which, we understand from what he says next, will be preserved, and thus
seems to be signifying the material substance that we have seen him speaking of
elsewhere) and that flesh which will disappear, is expressed in his Commentary
on Romans.68
Origen interprets the passage in such a way that the relation between soul
and flesh is correspondent to a relation between husband and wife. This is a rela-
tion of cherishing and nourishing, by which the higher/stronger part helps the
lower/weaker part to rise. Souls are to cherish their bodies in such a way that
bodies may be brought into the rank of souls. This is compared to how Jesus nour-
ishes the Church, and as we shall see further on, precisely this parallel between
Jesus moulding the soul and the soul moulding the body was central in Origen’s
ideas of transformation.
Here, it is not only a question of the body being adapted to the location
wherein the soul lives, but also a question of the soul reshaping the body by
teaching and nourishing it, making it take part of its own qualities and rise to its
own rank. Seen together with texts already discussed on this theme, we may con-
clude that the soul, by its free will, can effect a change in the body, a change that
means that in the resurrection, it will be clothed with the qualities that essentially
belong to the soul: Those of incorruption and immortality. Again, we are speak-

67 Jerome, Commentaria in Epistulam ad Ephesios 3,5,29 (PL 26:534; trans. Ronald E. Heine, The
Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians [Oxford Early Christian
Studies; Oxford, 2002], 238).
68 Origen, Commentarii in Romanos 2,9,38 (SC  532, 416,15–19 Hammond Bammel), where the
flesh that perishes (in the circumcision) is said to be that written of in Isaiah: Omnis caro faenum
et omnis gloria eius ut flos faeni (Is 40:8) while the flesh that is preserved, Origen writes: formam
teneat illius carnis de qua dicitur quia ‘omnis caro uidebit salutarem Dei’ (Is 40:5). Cf. Jerome,
Commentaria in epistulam ad Galatas 1,2,17–18 (PL 26:344).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   69

ing of transformation into likeness, rather than into another being. The passing
between ranks is precisely a transformation in terms of clothing, because passing
to another rank means a transformation with regard to qualities.
In another text, Origen speaks in a similar way of how the matter of the body,
which is now corruptible,69 will put on (induet) incorruption when a perfect
soul, and one instructed in the doctrines of incorruption, begins to use it (cum
perfecta anima et dogmatibus incorruptionis instructa uti eo coeperit).70 Such a
perfect soul is clothing the body (indumentum corporis perfectam animam dici-
mus),71 as Jesus is a clothing of the saints (indumentum sanctis), according to
the words: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14).72 We thus return to the
parallel between Christ forming—clothing—the soul, and the soul clothing the
body.
The soul is understood to be an ornament (ornamentum) of the body, covering
its mortal nature (celans et contegens eius mortalem naturam).73 Origen interprets
Paul’s words about the corruptible putting on incorruption as meaning: This cor-
ruptible nature of the body must receive the clothing of incorruption—a soul pos-
sessing in itself incorruptibility, because it has been clothed with Christ.74 “The
incorruption and immortality that the body will put on is nothing else than
the Wisdom, Word and Justice of God, who moulds, clothes, and adorns the
soul.”75

2.5 Jerome’s anti-Origenist critique reconsidered

We may conclude that transformation understood as clothing, an idea that

Jerome presents in his anti-Origenist polemics to indicate that a change (and not
a destruction) will take place, as well as a change into the likeness of something
else (rather than into the thing itself), had been part of Origen’s understanding of
the resurrection as well. Jerome’s critique centres around precisely the distinction

69 He points out that Paul, when speaking of this corruptible and this mortal being used, cer-
tainly must have been considering bodily matter.
70 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,50–51 C./S.).
71 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,52–53 C./S.).
72 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,55–57 C./S.).
73 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,59–61 C./S.).
74 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,62–254,66 C./S.): … necesse est naturam hanc corruptibilem cor-
poris indumentum accipere incorruptionis, animam habentem in se incorruptionem, pro eo uideli-
cet quod induta est Christum, qui est sapientia et uerbum dei.
75 Origen, De principiis (254,84–86 C./S.): Incorruptio autem et inmortalitas quid aliud erit nisi
sapientia et uerbum et iustitia dei, quae formant animam et induunt et exornant?

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70   Katarina Pålsson

between being changed into something else, and being changed into the likeness
of something else; the first being an essential change, the other one limited to
the qualities of the being. Giving an argument that Origen had actually used him-
self,76 Jerome claims that when the Apostle says “this mortal” etc., he certainly
points to the body that was then present.77 We have also seen Jerome use 2 Corin-
thians 4:6 to make the same point as Origen, that is, “we do not want to take away
the flesh, but put the glory on over it, and we want to take on our house which is
of heaven, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.”78
Likewise, Jerome’s words about the flesh being “mortal according to nature,
but eternal according to grace,”79 appears to be close to Origen’s idea of trans-
formation, as does his statement that it is a change, not a destruction, that the
flesh will undergo. His final words in the treatment of the resurrection in Against
John, where he speaks of the putting on of incorruption and immortality, and says
that the flesh which was formerly kept down by heavy weight upon the earth,
when receiving the wings of the spirit, will fly with fresh glory to heaven,80 cer-
tainly echo the passage from Origen’s Commentary on Ephesians that we treated
above—a passage that Jerome had brought into his own commentary.
This brings us to our next theme, that of likeness to angels in the resurrec-
tion.

3 Angelic humans vs. humans becoming angels

3.1 Jerome about likeness to angels in Against John

Why is the resurrection of the flesh, rather than simply the body, so important
in Jerome’s anti-Origenist polemics? Of course, as we have already noted, the
concept of flesh itself is part of his rhetoric, a way of marking difference, a way of
identifying with Origen’s opponents. But when we come further into the text, we
find another clue to why it was so important for Jerome to claim the resurrection
of the flesh in opposition to Origen. Resurrection with the same flesh meant, first
and foremost, resurrection as man and woman.

76 Origen, De principiis 2,3,2 (252,46–51 C./S.).

77 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 29 (52,2–4 F.).
78 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 29 (52,10–12 F.): … uolentes non spoliari carne, sed superuestiri glo-
ria, et domicilium nostrum, quod de caelo est, superindui desiderantes, ut deuoretur mortale a uita.
79 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 33 (61,46 F.): mortali secundum naturam, aeterna secundum gratiam.
80 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 36 (71,24–26 F.).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   71

Jerome uses the words in Job to illustrate the resurrection of the flesh:

Scio enim quod redemptor meus uiuat et in nouisimmo die de terra surrecturus sim, et rursum
circumdabor pelle mea, et in carne mea uidebo deum, quem uisurus sum ego ipse, et oculi mei
conspecturi sunt, et non alius. Reposita est haec spes mea in sinu meo.

I know that my Redeemer lives and that on the last day I will rise from the earth, and again
be covered in my skin, and in my flesh I will see God, whom I will see for myself, and my
own eyes will see, not those of anyone else. This hope rests in my bosom.81

“Where is the ethereal body?”82 asks Jerome. Job will rise in his own flesh, and
this has the consequence that Job will rise as a man: “where there is a structure of
flesh, there is also the distinction of sex.”83
The resurrected body, Jerome continues to assert, is one of flesh, bones,
blood and members. Where these are found, there is certainly also diversity of
sex (sexus diuersitas). And “[w]here there is diversity of sex, there John is John,
and Mary is Mary.”84 Again, flesh, in contrast to body, is claimed to guarantee
identity, and precisely sexual identity appears to be important for Jerome to
claim. We remember that he had presented Origen as claiming that those who
think that we will rise with the exact same body, apparently think that we will
again marry and beget children. While Origen certainly did not claim that having
sexual organs by necessity meant that they would be used, Jerome presents
this to be an Origenist idea, and positions himself against it: He claims that we
should not fear the marriage in heaven among those who, when still living on
earth, did not use the sexual functions. “When it is said: ‘In that day they will
neither marry nor be married,’ it is said of those who can marry, but still do not
marry. For no one says of the angels: ‘They will neither marry nor be given in
marriage.’”85 What, then, is meant by likeness to the angels? Jerome’s answer is
that: “the blessedness which they have without flesh and without sex, will be
given to us in our flesh and with our sex.”86 We will be like angels in the sense
that we rise without the functions (operibus) of sex. “Likeness to the angels does

81 Job 19:25–27; Jerome, Contra Iohannem 30 (54,5–10 F.).

82 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 30 (54,22–55,23 F.): Ubi hic corpus aetherium …?
83 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 30 (55,24–25 F.): ubi carnis structura, ibi sexus proprietas.
84 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 31 (56,6–7 F.): Ubi sexus diuersitas est, ibi Iohannes Iohannes et
Maria Maria.
85 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 31 (56,9–12 F.): Quando dicitur: “In illa die neque nubent neque
nubentur,” de his dicitur qui possunt nubere et tamen non nubent. Nemo enim dicit de angelis:
“Neque nubent neque nubentur.”
86 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 31 (57,22–24 F.):  … beatitudo illa, in qua sine carne et sexu sunt
angeli, nobis in carne et in sexu nostro donabitur.

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72   Katarina Pålsson

not mean that humans will be transformed into angels, but refers to an increase
in immortality and glory.”87
There are two important things to note in this passage. First, again, we see a
denial of transformation into something else and an assertion instead of qualita-
tive change, that is, an increase in immortality and glory. Secondly, we note that
Jerome uses the fact that ascetics already in this live strive not to fulfil the func-
tions of sex, in arguing against the Origenist idea that having sexual organs in the
resurrection would imply a continuous use of them (as we have seen, a caricature
of Origen’s, in turn, polemical construction of the chiliast position).88
While Origen had written that likeness to angels implies both the absence of
sexuality and a bodily change,89 Jerome focuses on the first aspect, although, as
we have seen, he too embraced an idea of a profound bodily transformation. His
insistence on rising with sexual organs certainly has to be explained in the same
way as his insistence on the rising with flesh: He sought to rhetorically maximize
the difference between his own view and what he presented to be Origen’s view.
However, Jerome might have had especially good reason to focus precisely on
sexual difference, since he had often expressed ideas about the possibility, for the
ascetic person, to transcend sexual difference—a fact that may have made him all
the more liable to accusations of being an Origenist.
In the following, I will argue that while the affirmation of lasting sexual dif-
ference was an important component in Jerome’s anti-Origenist polemics, he con-
tinued to embrace the idea of a possibility to transcend sexual difference in the
present life. Precisely the distinction between present and future, individual and
general, and, above all, inner and outer being, became central in his simultane-
ous construction of Origenist heresy and of his own anti-Origenist orthodoxy. It
is also yet an example of how Jerome put Origenist ideas to new use in anti-Ori­
genist polemics.

87 Jerome, Contra Iohannem 31 (57,29–30 F.): Similitudo autem ad angelos non hominum in ange-
los demutatio, sed profectus immortalitatis et gloriae est.
88 Cf. Jerome, Epistula 84,5 (CSEL 55, 126,13–127,13 Hilberg) where he discusses the Origenists,
and among other things their way of dealing with the question of the resurrection body. The
critique against John returns: They speak of body rather than flesh, because they believe in the
resurrection of a spiritual body. If this strategy is uncovered, they use another one: They speak
of the flesh, but do not accept that all the body parts will be resurrected. If one asks them if we
will have hair in the resurrection, they will laugh and say that in that case, we will need barbers.
Again, the issue of sexual difference is brought up: These Origenists deny that we will rise with
male and female characteristics.
89 Origen, Commentaria in Evangelium secundum Matthaeum 17,30 (PG 13:1568–1569).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   73

3.2 Jerome about the angelic life on earth

One of the accusations brought against Jerome by Rufinus of Aquileia, in a later

state of the controversy, was that he had formerly agreed with Origen’s views on
the possibility of transcending sexual difference. He was said to have done so
precisely in the passage from his Commentary on Ephesians which we discussed
above. The passage ends with the words:

Et nequaquam sit sexuum ulla diuersitas: sed quomodo apud angelos non est uir et mulier: ita
et nos, qui similes angelis futuri sumus, iam nunc incipiamus esse quod nobis in coelestibus
repromissum est.

And may there be no diversity of the sexes at all, but as there is no man and woman among
the angels, so also let us, who will be like angels, even now begin to be that which has been
promised us in the heavens.90

In his Apology against Rufinus,91 Jerome explains that the passage in question
was a quotation from Origen. Jerome, however, does not stop his explanation
there, but actually defends what he has quoted. What is it that Rufinus finds dis-
turbing in the quotation from Origen? Jerome thinks that the problem, in Rufinus’
view, lies in the following words: “so that this corruption may put on incorrup-
tion and, suspended on the lightness of wings, may be lifted more easily into the
air.”92 When saying this, Jerome explains, he does not alter the nature of bodies,
but increase their glory. Receiving immortality does not mean ceasing to be what
one was—we return again to what we have seen to be Origen’s understanding of
change. When it comes to the question of women being brought into the rank of
men and the ending of sexual difference, being like the angels, Jerome directs the
following words at Rufinus: “These words should rightly disturb you, if I had not
said after the previous words: ‘Let us even now begin to be that which is promised
us in the heavens.’ ”93 Precisely this focus on the present becomes essential in
Jerome’s orthodox self-construction, as we have already seen in Against John. He
claims that because he says “let us begin here on earth,” he does not take away
the nature of the sexes, but only sexual desire and sexual intercourse, since, of
course, bodies remain physically the same while still on earth. Then, about the

90 Jerome, Commentaria in Epistulam ad Ephesios 3,5,29 (PL 26:534; trans. 238 H.).

91 Jerome, Contra Rufinum 1,29 (CChr.SL 79, 28,24–29 Lardet).
92 Jerome, Contra Rufinum 1,29 (28,14–16 L.).
93 Jerome, Contra Rufinum 1,29 (28,28–29  L.): Recte mouerent, nisi post priora dixissem: “Iam
nunc incipiamus esse quod nobis in caelestibus repromissum est.”

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74   Katarina Pålsson

meaning of likeness to the angels, he returns to the explanation from Against John
that this has to do with sexual functions, not bodily nature:

Et reuera ubi inter uirum et feminam castitas est, nec uir incipit esse, nec femina, sed, adhuc
in corpore positi, mutantur in angelos, in quibus non est uir et mulier.94

Actually, where there is chastity between man and woman, there begins to be neither man
nor woman, but, still situated in the body, they are changed into angels, among whom there
is neither man nor woman.

Jerome is evidently aware that his ideas about sexual differentiation are a cause
for concern, and it becomes important for him to show that his ideas about this
question are orthodox: They do not, as is the case with Origen, imply a denial of a
real resurrection in the future, that is, one guaranteeing the identity between the
person living on earth and the person being resurrected. Being like angels means
living like the angels, imitating the heavenly life. This can be done on earth as it is
in heaven, and does not imply bodily transformation. Saying that we can already
be like the angels means that we are like angels in our earthly body, which, in
turn, means that in the resurrection, we will be like the angels in our earthly body.
Perhaps the clearest statement of Jerome’s view on the resurrection body as
well as his view on sexual difference after his engaging in anti-Origenist polemics
is seen in Letter 75, to the widow Theodora. Here, Jerome expresses the idea that
for a couple living in continence, there is no difference of sex—this is the reason
why Theodora’s husband treated her as a sister, or even as a brother. Since even
when still living in the flesh, the distinction between male and female may cease,
how much more will this be true in the future resurrection, when this corruptible
has put on incorruption.

Quando dicitur: “non nubent neque nubentur, sed erunt sicut angelis in caelis,” non natura
et substantia corporum tollitur, sed gloriae magnitudo monstratur. Neque enim scriptum
est: “erunt angeli,” sed: “sicut angeli,” ubi similitudo promittitur, ueritas denegatur. … Ergo
homines esse non desinunt, incliti quidem et angelico splendore decorati, sed tamen homines,
ut et apostulus apostulus sit et Maria Maria et confundatur heresis, quae ideo incerta et
magna promittit, ut, quae certa et moderata sunt, auferat.

When it is said: “They will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will be like the angels
in heaven,” the nature and substance of bodies is not taken away, but the greatness of the
glory is shown. Because it is not written: “they will be angels” but “like the angels.” When
likeness is promised, identity is denied. … Therefore they will not cease to be human. They
will certainly be glorious and adorned with angelic splendour, but they will still be human,

94 Jerome, Contra Rufinum 1,29 (29,38–40 L.).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   75

so that the Apostle will be the Apostle, and Mary will be Mary. Then that heresy will be
brought to confusion, which promises what is great but uncertain, to take away what is
certain and modest.95

Again, the idea about transcendence of sexual difference in the present life
becomes important in Jerome’s heresiological presentation of Origen’s heresy as
well as his own orthodoxy. The ascetic person living on earth already lives the
angelic life, in his/her earthly body; thus, in the future resurrection, sexual differ-
ence will certainly be absent in the sense of using the functions of sex; however,
the resurrected will not be turned into angels, but be angelic humans.
In what follows, my intention is to demonstrate that the ideas about pres-
ent-life transcendence, used in anti-Origenist polemics, is yet another example of
Jerome using Origenist ideas against Origen, and contemporary Origenists.

3.3 Origen about the angelic life on earth

In his Commentary on Romans, Origen speaks of the twofold resurrection, the

first meaning that we rise with Christ from what is earthly and seek the future,
the second being the general resurrection.96 The first one concerns an inner
state, what we set our mind on. This would seem to be fulfilled in some already.
The second resurrection is said to be one of the flesh. A distinction thus emerges
between the first resurrection as individual, voluntary and involving the inner
person—the soul, and the second as general, necessary and involving the outer
person—the body. The soul was conceived by Origen as the individual, invested
with free will, and it could choose to turn either to the spirit or to the flesh.
Origen expressed, in several texts, the idea that it was possible for a person
to live on earth, in the flesh, without living in accordance with the flesh. In a
fragment from the Commentary on Ephesians, preserved in Greek, Origen com-
ments on Ephesians 2:6,97 and explains that if we understand that the kingdom
of Christ is spiritual, something that is within us, we will hold that someone who
is already holy (άγιον) is not in the flesh, nor on the earth, even if simple people

95 Jerome, Epistula 75,2 (31,20–32,4 H.). See also Epistula 71,3 (4,3–4  H.), written a couple of
years earlier to Theodora’s husband: “You have with you one who was once a partner in the flesh
but is now a partner in the spirit, once your wife but now your sister, once a woman but now a
man, once an inferior but now an equal” (Habes tecum prius in carne, nunc in spiritu sociam, de
coniuge germanam, de femina uirum, de subiecta parem).
96 Origen, Commentarii in Romanos 5,9,14 (SC 539, 500,6–9 Hammond Bammel).
97 “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.”

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76   Katarina Pålsson

may say that he/she is.98 Such a person already has his/her citizenship in heaven
and is sitting with Christ in the heavenly places. No one of those in the heavenly
places is in the flesh, but already in the spirit.99
This is a splendid example of Origen’s view of the soul’s possibility to trans­
cend its bodily condition, by choosing to follow the spirit—which also means to be
in the spirit, or in Christ—rather than the flesh. Interestingly, this following, this
inhabiting (which, as we shall see, Origen could express in terms of clothing) also
meant a transformation. Following the spirit, imitating Christ, meant a change
of the soul into spirit, which also meant a change into the likeness of Christ. In
his book On prayer, Origen speaks about the spiritual soul (ψυχὴ πνευματικὴ) as
one which is lifted up and follows the spirit—and not only follows it, but even
becomes it (ἐν αὐτῷ γινομένη).100
In the same work, Origen expresses the same idea by speaking of earth being
transformed into heaven. The one who sins is earth, and becomes what he/she
is associated with.101 The one who does the will of God is heaven. If God’s will is
done on earth as in heaven, the earth will no longer be earth. The useless flesh
and the blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom of God, can still inherit it if it
is changed (μεταβάλωσιν) from flesh and dust and blood to the heavenly being/
essence (οὐράνιον οὐσίαν).102
We have already seen that the transformation of the body is dependent on the
condition of the soul; that the body puts on the qualities of the soul. Here, we see
how the same is true of the relation of the soul to the spirit, or to Christ. Turning
to the spirit, or imitating Christ, the soul is transformed from fleshly to spiritual,
a transformation not meaning that it becomes spirit rather than soul—and cer-
tainly not equal to Christ—but that it puts on spiritual qualities. The passage
from Jerome’s Commentary on Ephesians discussed above, about beginning to
live like angels already on earth, is another example of Origen’s idea of how the
saints on earth, transcending their bodily existence, anticipate what will become
a reality in the general, bodily resurrection. Jerome, who apparently, even after
his involvement in anti-Origenist polemics, agreed with this idea, expressed it
in several other texts as well. It is clear that in his Commentary on Ephesians,
he was dependent on Origen’s interpretation of Ephesians 2:6, mentioned above:

98 Origen, Commentarii in Ephesios 2,6 (ed. John A. F. Gregg, “The Commentary of Origen upon
the Epistle to the Ephesians,” The Journal of Theological Studies 3 [1902], 405,1–8).
99 Origen, Commentarii in Ephesios 2,6 (405,8–13 G.). Cf. Origen, Commentarii in Iohannem 13,53
(232,36–234,71 B.), about the saints not being in the flesh but in the Spirit, who lives in them.
100 Origen, De oratione 9,2 (GCS 3, 319,6–8 Koetschau).
101 Origen, De oratione 26,6 (363,1–2 K.): εἰς τὴν συγγενῆ, ἐὰν μὴ μετανοῇ, ἐσόμενός πῃ.
102 Origen, De oratione 26,6 (362,22–363,22 K.).

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   77

Like Origen, he claims that if we understand the Kingdom of Christ in a spiritual

way, we will say that the saints already sit and rule with Christ. The one who
has his/her conversation in heaven ceases to be flesh, being changed totally into
spirit.103
In another commentary in which he was heavily dependent on Origen, that
on Galatians, Jerome likewise spoke about transformation in this life, in terms of
having risen with Christ in baptism. We have become new beings and “we should
believe that we even now are what we will be.”104 The idea of living in the flesh,
but not in accordance with it, was also brought up in letters in which he dealt
with the ascetic life.105
We have seen that an important element in Jerome’s anti-Origenist polemics
was to claim that sexual difference will remain in the resurrection. For all his
emphasis on the remaining of sexual organs, however, he continued to express
the idea—expressed long before his involvement in anti-Origenist polemics,
and certainly under the influence of Origen’s thought—that it is possible for the
perfect Christian living on earth, the ascetic person, to transcend his/her bodily
condition, including sex. Paradoxically, this Origenist idea is used against Origen
in Jerome’s treatment of the question of bodily resurrection. In his simultane-
ous construction of Origenist heresy and his own orthodoxy in this question, the
distinction between the present and the future, the individual and the general,
the inner person and the outer person, is central. It is possible, in this life, in
our earthly bodies, to transcend sexual difference. This is a transformation that
concerns the inner being, the soul, and it is individual and voluntary. The future
resurrection, on the other hand, concerns the outer person, and is general and
necessary. Jerome thus both maintains the Origenist idea of transcending sexual
difference through asceticism and distances himself from an Origenist view on
the resurrection as one of spiritual beings without sexual difference. This is
important in how he presents Origen as heretical and himself as orthodox: While
Origen is presented as claiming a transformation of human beings into angels,
Jerome presents himself as claiming only an inner transformation, which takes

103 Jerome, Commentaria in Epistulam ad Ephesios 1,2,6 (PL  26:468–469): Alius uero qui re­-
surrectionem, et regnum Christi spiritualiter intelligit, non deliberauit dicere, iam sanctos sedere,
et regnare cum Christo: quomodo enim nequaquam in carne sanctus est, cum uiuat in carne, et
habet conuersationem in coelestibus, cum gradiatur in terra, et caro esse desistens, totus uertatur
in spiritum: ita eum in coelestibus sedere cum Christo: regnum quippe Dei intra nos est; et ubi
fuerit thesaurus noster, ibi erit et cor nostrum; firmique et stabiles sedemus cum Christo, sapientia,
Verbo, iustitia, ueritate.
104 Jerome, Commentaria in Epistulam ad Galatas 3,6,15 (PL 26:437): Sed quod futuri sumus, iam
nunc nos esse credamus.
105 See for instance Jerome, Epistulae 54,9 (474,17–476,9 H.); 60,3 (551,1–552,9 H.).

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78   Katarina Pålsson

place with the same body intact. The transformation of the soul, and its possibil-
ity to achieve fleshlessness/sexlessness, is presented as an orthodox counterpart
to the idea of a transformation of the body into fleshlessness/sexlessness. Thus,
the ascetic person living on earth assumes the central place in Jerome’s anti-Ori-
genist polemics concerning the question of the resurrection.

3.4 Hierarchy in the resurrection

A final point to consider is that of hierarchy in the resurrection. Important in

Jerome’s anti-Origenist heresiology was to present his own idea of heaven as hier-
archical as an orthodox alternative to Origen’s idea about a state of equality—
that is, the idea of ἀποκατάστασις. As our focus is on the resurrection, I will not
elaborate on either Origen’s ideas about salvation in general or Jerome’s critique
thereof, but concentrate on the idea of hierarchy among the resurrected.
It becomes clear from Jerome’s argumentation from the book of Job in Against
John, that he sees the resurrection of the flesh as important for preserving iden-
tity, and that the importance of identity in turn is explained by an argument
from justice. If it is not the same person that rises, the same person will not be
rewarded.106 Although Jerome’s critique of Origen’s ideas of salvation is first and
foremost elaborated in polemics against the idea of ἀποκατάστασις,107 also the
spiritual body, in Jerome’s heresiological construction of the concept, implies an
ending of difference—not only of sex, but of identity in general.
However, Origen himself imagined the resurrection as being hierarchical,
and he too argued from justice when he claimed that the same body will be res-
urrected.108 In several texts, Origen used 1 Corinthians 15:23 (each one will rise
“in turn”) and 15:39–42109 (about the different splendour of the heavenly bodies)

106 In Jerome, Contra Iohannem 30 (55,34–35 F.) he writes of Job: Dolet ei, si frustra tanta perpes-
sus sit, et alia spiritaliter resurgente, ista carnaliter excruciata sit. (“It grieved him to think that he
suffered so much in vain, that while his flesh had suffered in a carnal way, something else would
rise in a spiritual way.”)
107 The critique against this idea is expressed in several works from the time of the Origenist
controversy, for instance, Jerome, Epistula 84,6–7 (127,14–130,17 H.); Jerome, Contra Rufinum 1,6
(6,14–21 L.), Jerome, In Ionam 3,6/9 (CChr.SL 76, 407,137–408,158 Adriaen).
108 Pamphilus, Apologeticus pro Origene 128 (208,1–210,17 A./J.).
109 “Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another
and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendour
of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. The sun
has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in
splendour. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead.”

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   79

in arguing that the future resurrection will be diversified. There will not only be
a difference between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the sheep and
the goats, but also among the sheep themselves.110 John  14:2, about the many
mansions in the Father’s house, was also used by Origen to make the same point:
There will be a hierarchy among the righteous.111 We may note that precisely
these biblical passages were frequently used by Jerome as well. For instance, in
his Commentary on Ephesians, Jerome writes that the kingdom of heaven can be
understood as one house of God with various dwellings, “for there is one glory of
the sun, another of the moon and another of the stars.”112 As we know, Origen was
his main source in composing this commentary. Jerome also applied this exegeti-
cal strategy in his polemics against Jovinian.113
In De Principiis, Origen had written that when the flesh is raised from the
earth, it will, according to the merits of the soul, advance to the glory of a spiritual
body (prout meritum inhabitantis animae poposcerit, in gloriam “corporis” profi-
ciat “spiritalis”).114
We have already seen that the condition of the body is understood by Origen
to be dependent on the condition of the soul. The hierarchy in the resurrection
is precisely a hierarchy of souls, based on their difference in merit. It is to this
difference that the different splendour of the bodies corresponds. The idea that
psychic change precedes bodily change appears to be basic to Origen’s view of
resurrection as diversified.
The idea of the soul clothing the body and the idea of hierarchy in the resur-
rection are thus closely connected. If the change taking place in the body depends
on the condition of the soul, in the sense that the body is clothed with the quali-
ties of the soul, the change will not be the same in everyone.

110 Origen, Homiliae in Iosuam 10,1 (SC 71, 270 Jaubert): Multae ergo eorum, qui ad salutem ueni-
unt, differentiae designantur. Reference to the same biblical passage is made in Origen, Homiliae
in Iosuam 25,4 (488 J.), where Origen argues that there will be a certain order in the resurrection.
Here, reference is also made to 1 Cor 15:23–24, about each one rising “in turn.” See also Origen,
De principiis 2,10,2–3 (376,45–382,120 C./S.).
111 See, for instance, Origen, Homilia in Leviticum 14,3,1 (GCS 29, 482,9–10 Baehrens) and Origen,
Homilia in Numeros 1,3,2 (GCS 30, 6,20–21 Baehrens).
112 Jerome, Commentarii in Ephesios 2,4,3–4 (PL 26:495).
113 See Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum 2,23 (PL 23:332–334) and 2,28 (PL 23:338–340).
114 Origen, De principiis 3,6,5 (246,161–163 C./S.).

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80   Katarina Pålsson

4 Conclusion
A common strategy in heresiology is the maximizing of difference to the heretic or
the heresy constructed. In Jerome’s case, there was certainly good reason to use
this strategy, because of his affinity with Origen’s theology. Origen was a proxi-
mate other, who demanded a good deal of difference making.
When it comes to the question about the resurrection, this maximizing of dif-
ference is seen not only in statements about the resurrection of blood, bones, and
sinews, or in the emphasis on flesh over body, but also in Jerome’s identifica-
tion with a group within the church—the antropomorphists—whom Origen had
opposed, and against whom he had expressed his view on the resurrection. This,
in turn, is part of a larger rhetorical strategy, an identification on Jerome’s part
with the simple and unlearned Christians; those who are despised by an intellec-
tual elite, who consider themselves to be perfect.
Jerome had in fact little in common with the antropomorphists whom Origen
had argued against. Jerome was not a chiliast, nor did he imagine a life including
marriage and childbirth in the resurrection, nor, indeed, did he think that our
body would be exactly the same—from what we have seen above, he seems to
have imagined a profound transformation. His emphasis on flesh over body, and
his reluctance of using the concept of spiritual body, has to be understood as
reflecting his polemical concerns. At closer look, we may conclude that his idea
of sameness and difference in the resurrection, his ideas about transformation,
his view on what constituted the angelic life, and his idea of diversity in the res-
urrection, had very much in common with Origen’s thought, which was certainly
his main source.
The change that takes place, in Jerome’s view, is a transformation of the body
into the likeness of the soul. The nature, or reality, remains the same, but the
qualities change. The bodily condition is dependent on the condition of the soul;
thus, the hierarchy of the resurrection is a hierarchy of souls, corresponding to
the hierarchy of Christians on earth: The more perfect will be more splendid;
their victory and superiority will be complete, perfect, irreversible and visible to
all. Such ideas we have seen to be expressed by Origen as well, and still, they
are used in Jerome’s anti-Origenist polemics, as Jerome presents his own view
on sameness and difference, as well as on diversity among the resurrected, as an
orthodox opposite to a heresiologically constructed Origenist idea of a dissolve-
ment of the human person, a ceasing to be human and a change into something
else, and thus, an absence of diversity. The idea of transformation as clothing,
as a putting on, as the possessing of other qualities—that is, the transformation
into the likeness of something—so important in Origen’s theology of the resurrec-
tion, was used by Jerome against Origen and his contemporary followers. Ideas

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  Jerome’s reception of Origen’s teachings   81

about hierarchy in the afterlife, expressed by Origen, are likewise used against
Origen.
When it came to the question of sexual difference, Jerome continued to hold
the Origenist view that sexual difference could cease in the inner person, while
he firmly held that it would continue in the outer person. In this way, he marked
difference from Origen: Origen was presented as claiming bodily transformation,
a transformation of humans into angels, without flesh and sexual organs, while
Jerome presented himself as claiming a transformation of the inner person with
the outer person—that is, with bodily flesh and sexual organs—intact. This idea
of a transformation of the inner person in this life through asceticism, an idea
that Jerome had learnt from Origen and had used to a great extent in his ascetical
theology, was now used to distance his own, supposedly orthodox view on the
resurrection from Origen’s view. The ascetic person, the angelic human living on
earth, was elevated to heaven, and became the orthodox counterpart of humans
transformed into angels.
The rhetorical maximizing of difference by which Jerome sought to dis-
tance himself from Origen and, thereby, from accusations of heresy, has had its
intended effect. It has contributed to shaping our common ideas of both Origen
and Jerome. It is common to find, in modern historical reconstructions, the
opinion that materiality and hierarchy are characteristic of Jerome’s thought, in
contrast to Origen’s emphasis on spirituality and equality. I hope that this article
can provide one step in the deconstruction of this simplifying categorization,
which does not do justice to the thought of either Origen or Jerome. If we begin to
search beneath the heresiological constructions, we may be on our way to a reas-
sessment of Jerome’s place in the history of the reception of Origen: Rather than
being seen as an anti-Origenist who turned away from Origen and refuted his
ideas, he might be seen as theologian who, even after his involvement in anti-Ori-
genist polemics, continued to integrate ideas from Origen in his thought. Because
of his lasting influence in Western Christianity, there may be reason to appreciate
Jerome as one of the authors who made sure that Origen would have a remaining
place in this tradition.

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Download Date | 2/23/20 9:12 AM