Dies una. L’allegoria di «coelum et terra in Principio» ricapitolazione del sistema mistico-speculativo di Origene

The essay offers an in-depth analysis of the highly allegorical exegesis of Gen 1,1-2 provided by Origen, by connecting the rich (even though concise) statements of the First Homily on Genesis' first chapters with Origen's theological system as developped in his major extant works. This analysis highlights the identification of the logical world's eternal creation, which the Son evokes by creating heaven and heart in dies una, namely the one and only precosmic day to be diverted away from the ordinal series of the other days in the material creation. In dies una, the heaven stands for the intelligible nature of the logoi, which are protologically converted in the contemplation of God's absolute light; instead, the earth is the merely potential presence of matter, interpreted as the contingency of the creature, which is drawn ex nihilo, and ecstatically lifted up by the union with the Logos. The matter/earth is determined through the logoi's free parting from the Logos, with which every will shall however be reunited in the apocatastasis, by virtue of its logical nature.