Published in French in 1957, the present study of Origen’s thought crowns a trilogy of monographs devoted to three speculative giants among the Greek Fathers (the other two being Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor). As Balthasar himself writes in the introduction, his goal in this work is “to organize Origen’s major theological ideas around the dominant idea of mystery” in order  “to understand Origen himself in a more immediate manner and to reveal … the most intimate aspirations of the great theologian.” By means of this “method of crystallization,” Balthasar shows that “the thought of Adamantius, the ‘man of iron,’ possesses an astonishing clarity … Under the apparently piece-meal quality of his exegetical commentaries we glimpse the outlines of a perfectly coherent sacramental theology (rather than a mere sacramental philosophy).”