The Methodist Origen: The Homily on Psalm 81 as the Heart of Origen’s Theology

This paper argues that Origen's Homily on Psalm 81, in which he issues a universal summons to the imitation of divine virtue through spiritual vigilance and the practice of justice, reveals a "Methodist Origen." Encountering Origen as a Methodist thinker not only broadens Wesleyan theology's awareness of its own resources in the Christian past, but also suggests a new approach to the study of Origen, one which centers not the controversial and speculative questions that have dominated European study of Origen since early modernity, but the exhortations to virtue and holiness that characterize his preaching.