Human Dignity in the Latin Reception of Origen

Sara Contini assesses the meanings attributed to the term dignitas ("dignity") in the Latin translations of Origen of Alexandria, as well as in other Latin Christian texts of the 4th century which, to different degrees, show the reception of Origen's views on the creation of the human being according to the image of God. Authors like Rufinus, Jerome, or Hilary of Poitiers are the first Latin writers to employ the term dignitas to denote the universal potential of humans as rational and free beings. The contribution offered by these authors to the history of the idea of human dignity was, based on Origen's notion of the universal reach of God's love, to problematise the elitism and individualism associated with Classical views on dignitas, and thus to frame the traditional understanding of dignity as rank in a new egalitarian perspective.

This work has been awarded the prize for outstanding excellence in a doctoral dissertation for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bristol in 2022/23.