In their scholarship, Origen and Eusebius made revolutionary use of tabular organisation, a device little known in earlier Greek and Roman contexts. This usage is driven by a variety of ideological motives but likely enabled by physical features of their working environment. In the more specific case of his Hexapla, Origen drew on the already quasi-tabular form of bilingual texts previously used for language instruction. This has consequences for debates about the meaning of the ordering and function of the individual columns. It also suggests that the reader was to be interpellated as a (subordinate) student, whatever their actual relationship to Origen or his text was.

Material for alternative framings of science is sought in the context of high medieval natural philosophy. The chapter reviews the work of thirteenth-century English scholar Robert Grosseteste on light and colour, as well as his reflective comments on a theological teleology of science, with additional reference to his patristic and early medieval sources. The visual metaphor of insight and imagination, and the restorative and reconciliatory purpose of engaging with nature, emerge strongly. A concluding section discusses which aspects of such a pre-modern framing might still inform a theology of science today, and reflects on other contributions in this volume from that perspective taken together with a personal experience of pursuing science

Origen here represents Christian notions of angelification, although brief consideration is given to antecedents, namely Clement of Alexandria and the Valentinians. Origen, like Empedocles, offered a cosmic story of fall and redemption. According to Origen, humans are “cooled” intellects whose natural state is to burn with love for God. A species upgrade is part of humanity’s evolutionary design, but it takes intense moral labor. Origen offers the most speculation on the nature of angels, the original consubstantiality of angels and souls, how angels and souls fell from divine Love, and the moral means of their return.