The Concept of 'Deposit' in Origen

[Secret Alias]

Maximus: May everyone hold the same doctrines as I do. Before God and the Church I both give my signature and make my oath. But the reason why I raised a certain question was in order that I might be in no doubt or uncertainty at all. For the brethren know that this is what I said: "I need the help of my brother and instruction on this point." If the spirit was truly given back to the Father, in accordance with the saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and if without the spirit the flesh died and lay in the tomb, how was the tomb opened and how are the dead to rise again?

Orig.: That man is a composite being we have learnt from the sacred Scriptures. For the apostle says, "May God sanctify your spirit and your soul and your body," and "May he sanctify you wholly, and may your entire spirit and soul and body be preserved unblameable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." This spirit is not the Holy Spirit, but part of the constitution of man, as the same apostle teaches when he says: "The spirit bears witness with our spirit." For if it were the Holy Spirit he would not have said: "The spirit bears witness with our spirit." So then our Saviour and Lord, wishing to save man in the way in which he wished to save him, for this reason desired in this way to save the body, just as it was likewise his will to save also the soul; he also wished to save the remaining part of man, the spirit. The whole man would not have been saved unless he had taken upon him the whole man. They do away with the salvation of the human body when they say that the body of the Saviour is spiritual. They do away with the salvation of the human spirit, concerning which the apostle says: "No man knows the things of man except the spirit of man that is in him." . . . Because it was his will to save the spirit of man, about which the apostle said this, he also assumed the spirit of man. At the time of the passion these three were separated. At the time of the resurrection these three were united. At the time of the passion they were separated—how? The body in the tomb, the soul in Hades, the spirit was put in the hands of the Father. The soul in Hades: "Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hades." If the spirit was put into the hands of the Father, he gave the spirit as a deposit (Εἰ παρέθετο τὸ πνεῦμα τῷ Πατρί, παρακατα θήκην δέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα). It is one thing to make a gift, another thing to hand over, and another to leave in deposit (Ἄλλο ἐστὶν χαρίσασθαι, καὶ ἄλλο παραδοῦναι, καὶ ἄλλο τὸ παρακαταθέσθαι). He who makes a deposit does so with the intention of receiving back that which he has deposited (Ὁ παρακατατιθέμενος παρακατατίθεται ἵνα ἀπολάβῃ τὴν παρακαταθήκην). Why then had he to give the spirit to the Father as a deposit (Τίνι οὖν ἔδει τὴν παρακαταθήκην παραθέσθαι τὸ πνεῦμα τῷ Πατρί)? The question is beyond me and my powers and my understanding (Ὑπὲρ ἐμέ ἐστιν καὶ τὴν ἐμὴν ἕξιν καὶ τὸν ἐμὸν νοῦν). For I am not endowed with knowledge to enable me to say that, just as the body was not able to go down to Hades, even if this is alleged by those who affirm that the body of Jesus was spiritual, so also neither could the spirit go down to Hades, and therefore he gave the spirit to the Father as a deposit until he should have risen from the dead (οὐ γάρ εἰμι τηλι κοῦτος εἰπεῖν ὅτι ὥσπερ τὸ σῶμα οὐχ οἷόν τε ἦν εἰς ᾅδου καταβῆναι, κἂν τοῦτο λέγωσιν οἱ πνευματικὸν λέγοντες τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, οὕτως οὐδὲ τὸ πνεῦμα οἷόν τε ἦν καταβῆναι εἰς ᾅδου, διὸ παρακαταθήκην ἔδωκεν ἕως ἀναστῇ ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸ πνεῦμα τῷ Πατρί) . . . . After he had entrusted this deposit to the Father, he took it back again (Ταύτην τὴν παραθήκην παραθέμενος τῷ Πατρί, ἀπο λαμβάνει). When? (Πότε) Not at the actual moment of the resurrection, but immediately after the resurrection (Οὐχ ἅμα τῇ ἀναστάσει, ἀλλ' εὐθέως μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν). My witness is the text of the gospel (Μάρτυρά μοι φέρε τὴν γραφὴν τὴν εὐαγγελικήν). The Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead (Ἀνέστη ὁ Κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐκ νεκρῶν). Mary met him and he said to her: "Touch me not." For he wished anyone that touched him to touch him in his entirety, that having touched him in his entirety he might be benefited in body from his body, in soul from his soul, in spirit from his spirit. "For I am not yet ascended to the Father." He ascends to the Father and comes to the disciples. Accordingly he ascends to the Father. Why? To receive back the deposit (Ἕνεκα τίνος; τὴν παρακαταθήκην ἀπολαβεῖν).[Dialogue with Heracleides]

More on the Alexandrian interest in 'the deposit.' Daly writes "Origen sees the work of sacrificial redemption as having been completed by Christ only with his “ second baptism ” when , after the resurrection , he returned to the Father to receive back his human soul which he had left in deposit with the Father while his body lay in the tomb." https://books.google.com/books?id=DxzFz ... 22&f=false

[Stuart]

This is a key point of difference of the orthodox from the heterodox. The Orthodox emphasized the subservience of Jesus to his father, filial piety which well fit the Roman cultural norms, his stature as second to God, and gave the power of resurrection to the father. The heterodox, certainly the Docetic sects, did not give the power of resurrection to the father, but insisted that Jesus had the power to raise himself from the dead, which they say he did. This self resurrection is reflected in the Marcionite opening of the Galatians letter, and can be easily read in John, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and speaks of his raising the dead, not God his father.

This deposit of the human side of Jesus, his human soul, is an additional (later) theological development to explain how Jesus could be both human and divine. There is a hint of Separtionism in this concept of deposit. (Trying to remember what it is the Catholics later decided was heretical about Origen)

Interesting mid-3rd century theological development.

[MrMacSon]

There's eight mentions of deposit in that excerpt.

Prior to that excerpt -

Offering is universally made to Almighty God through Jesus Christ inasmuch as, in respect of his deity, he is akin to the Father. Let there be no double offering, but an offering to God through God.

At the beginning -

Origen said: ... I charge you, father Heraclides: God is the almighty, the uncreated, the supreme God who made all things. Do you hold this doctrine?

Heracl.: I do. That is what I also believe.

Orig.: Christ Jesus who was in the form of God, being other than the God in whose form he existed, was he God before he came into the body or not?

Heracl.: He was God before.

Orig.: Was he God before he came into the body or not?

Heracl.: Yes, he was.

Orig.: Was he God distinct from this God in whose form he existed?

Heracl.: Obviously he was distinct from another being and, since he was in the form of him who created all things, he was distinct from him.

Orig.: Is it true then that there was a God, the Son of God, the only begotten of God, the firstborn of all creation, and that we need have no fear of saying that in one sense there are two Gods, while in another there is one God?

Heracl.: What you say is evident. But we affirm that God is the almighty, God without beginning, without end, containing all things and not contained by anything; and that his Word is the Son of the living God, God and man, through whom all things were made, God according to the spirit, man inasmuch as he was born of Mary.

Orig.: You do not appear to have answered my question. Explain what you mean. For perhaps I failed to follow you. Is the Father God?

Heracl.: Assuredly.

Orig.: Is the Son distinct from the Father?

Heracl.: Of course. How can he be Son if he is also Father?

Orig.: While being distinct from the Father is the Son himself also God?

Heracl.: He himself is also God.

Orig.: And do two Gods become a unity?

Heracl.: Yes.

Orig.: Do we confess two Gods?

Heracl.: Yes. The power is one.

Then, in part, -

... Accordingly, there are many things which are two that are said in the Scriptures to be one. What passages of Scripture? Adam is one person, his wife another. Adam is distinct from his wife, and his wife is distinct from her husband. Yet it is said in the story of the creation of the world that they two are one: "For the two shall be one flesh." Therefore, sometimes two beings can become one flesh. Notice, however, that in the case of Adam and Eve it is not said that the two shall become one spirit, nor that the two shall become one soul, but that they shall become one flesh. Again, the righteous man is distinct from Christ; but he is said by the apostle to be one with Christ: "For he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." Is it not true that the one is of a subordinate nature or of a low and inferior nature, while Christ's nature is divine and glorious and blessed? Are they therefore no longer two? Yes, for the man and the woman are "no longer two but one flesh," and the righteous man and Christ are "one spirit."

So in relation to the Father and God of the universe, our Saviour and Lord is not one flesh, nor one spirit, but something higher than flesh and spirit, namely, one God. The appropriate word when human beings are joined to one another is flesh. The appropriate word when a righteous man is joined to Christ is spirit. But the word when Christ is united to the Father is not flesh, nor spirit, but more honourable than these —God. That is why we understand in this sense "I and the Father are one." ...