Origen of Alexandria, Human Dignity and the History of Racism: A Rejoinder

Abstract This brief article is a rejoinder to John Solheid’s “Origen of Alexandria and Human Dignity” (2023), which offers a critique of my “Origen of Alexandria and the History of Racism as a Theological Problem” (2020). While I appreciate Solheid’s substantial engagement with my work and welcome his efforts to find inspiration in Origen for “a theology of human dignity in response to modern racist discourses,” I argue in this rejoinder that none of the evidence cited by Solheid effectively undermines the theses I advanced in my original article, and that Origen’s thought in relation to human dignity does not nullify his hierarchical claims about ethnic identity.