Test
Notwithstanding the difficulties involved in reconstructing the details of Origen’s life and work, the following outline is reasonably certain. Origen was born, ca. 185, in Alexandria, where he was reared in a Christian family of some means. He received an education in Greek literature and the Christian Bible. During the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211), when Origen was in his teens, his father was martyred and his estate confiscated, leaving his family destitute. A wealthy Christian woman enabled Origen to complete his studies so as to become a teacher of Greek literature. During his youth Origen also became familiar with other intellectual traditions. His patron also supported a gnostic whose teaching Origen attended; he studied philosophy under the Platonist Ammonius Saccas (early 3d century), who later taught Plotinus (205–ca. 269); and he became familiar with Jewish exegetical traditions. He probably studied also with Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215), who dealt with many issues Origen was to develop more fully. During a second period of persecution under Severus, when Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria (d. ca. 231) and most of the Church’s teachers hid or fled, Origen courageously provided Christian instruction. Shortly thereafter he underwent a conversion that led him to abandon pagan literature, to adopt a life of rigorous self-mortification (almost certainly including voluntary castration), and to restrict himself to Christian teaching.
