SOURCE: "Origen," in The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1981, pp. 52-74.

In this essay, Louth examines the degree to which Platonism permeates Origen's theology, showing how Origen helped found the tradition of intellectual mysticism received by the Eastern Church and, more broadly, the whole of the Christian mystical tradition, having provided a framework within which mystical theology could develop.

With Origen we begin to discuss specifically Christian mystical theology. So far we have discussed the Platonic background to such theology, and in doing that we may seem to have prejudged the issue as to whether Christian mystical theology has, in fact, a Platonic background at all. However, the idea that Christian mystical theology is nothing but Platonism is a charge often made, and we shall not advance our understanding of this problem by ignoring it. Even without discussing...