Origen was the first great systematic theologian of Christianity, writing before the tradition calcified into orthodoxy, and he held positions that were later condemned but that resonate directly with the Royal Art synthesis: the pre-existence of souls, the ultimate salvation of all beings including the devil (apokatastasis), the spiritual interpretation of scripture as primary. He was the esoteric Christian thinker before esotericism was forced underground. Reading Origen is reading what Christianity might have been if the Gnostics and the orthodox had found a synthesis rather than a war.