Grace, Justice, and the Gift of Salvation in Early Christianity

Charles Rivera's study offers the first substantive comparison of the theologies of Origen of Alexandria and Ephrem of Nisibis, two towering figures of early Christian literature. Tracing the distinct approaches to grace in Origen and Ephrem, he argues that Origen uses grace (Greek charis) as a technical term for the gifts of the Spirit, whereas Ephrem uses grace (Syriac taybuta) to encompass divine attributes like goodness, mercy, and generosity. Tracing these different ideas of grace across topics from providence to divinization to the last judgment, Rivera demonstrates that Origen and Ephrem do not merely have different understandings of a shared concept. Rather, they use a shared key term to refer to two distinct theological ideas. Rivera's comparison of Origen and Ephrem thus suggests a re-evaluation of the diversity of views of grace not only in the Patristic period but in the Christian tradition more broadly, prompting a reconsideration of long-held assumptions of Christian theology.