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Origen, the great pupil of Clement of Alexandria, cited three possible explanations for the origin of the human soul: i) "creationism"—that each soul is especially created and introduced into the body when the body is formed; 2) "tra-ducianism"—that the soul is transmitted from one generation to another; 3) "pre-existence." Origen chose the third—a theory that the church later condemned, as it did his other theory, that at the end of time, God would restore all things (even Satan) to himself, as they had been at the beginning of creation.
Origen, writes Pelikan, "cannot be persuaded that God has truly become 'all in all' ... so long as death remains. Giving death the last word would be a negation of God." Therefore Origen brought all creation round full circle, from eternity through existence to eternity. But however Greek this cycle of the soul may sound, Origen did not accept the idea that all things integrate and disintegrate again and again without ceasing. As opposed to the Stoics, he wrote, Christians "hold that, as from the grain of corn an ear rises up, so in the body there lies a certain principle that is not corrupted, from which the body is raised in incorruption."
Death for Pity's Sake. Irenaeus (2nd century) was more orthodox. Existence and the world of history he saw as willed and created by God, and therefore good; there is no need, as in Origen, for the soul's descent from eternity to history and back again. Man as God created him had the capacity for immortality but sacrificed it by his disobedience. God condemned him to death, but out of pity—Irenaeus thought—so that he would not continue a sinner forever.
"The core of the Christian faith," sums up Author Pelikan, "is pessimism about life and optimism about God . . . and nowhere do they come together more dramatically than in the Christian view of death." Today's world seems far removed from the world of the early Christians. "We look at the stars differently, and at disease, language, history, and many other constituent parts of life. But we still have to die, just as they did. Hence the Christian description of the shape of death can still make itself heard through a church father from long ago and far away: 'And by it he, being dead, yet speaketh.' "