Origen and the Life of the Stars

Intellectuals in antiquity and into the Middle Ages assumed that the stars were alive, and this had a great impact on philosophy, religion, and science. In the third century AD, Origen's development of this idea was not only an interesting episode in its history, but had important implications for early Christian theology.

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It was widely assumed by intellectuals from antiquity to the Middle Ages that the beauty and regularity of the heavens was a sign of their superior life. Through this belief the stars gained an important position in Greek religion, and speculations on their nature figured prominently in discussions of human psychology and eschatology.

In the third century AD the influential Christian theologian Origen included Hellenistic theories on the life and nature of the stars in his cosmology. This marked an interesting episode in the history of the idea, but it also had important implications for early Christian theology. Although he was condemned as heretical for these (and other) speculations, he was successful in incorporating traditional philosophical theories about the stars into a biblical theology.