Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/797

 on Titus.—] Short fragments from bk. iii. on Col. and the Comm. on Philemon, and more considerable fragments from Book on Titus (Tit. iii. 10, 11), are found in the trans. of Pamphilus's Apology. No Greek notes on these Epp. have been preserved.

I.. [3 Books; 2 Homilies.—] A considerable fragment from the third book of the Commentary on I. Thess. is preserved in Jerome's trans.: ''Ep. ad Minerv. et Alex.'' 9 (I. Thess. iv. 15–17).

.—[18 Homilies.—] Origen wrote Homilies and Commentaries on Hebrews. Two fragments of the Homilies are preserved by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 25), in which Origen gives his opinion on the composition of the epistle. Some inconsiderable fragments from the "Books" are found in the trans. of Pamphilus's Apology.

.—The quotations from Origen, given in Cramer's Catena on the Catholic epistles, are apparently taken from other treatises, and not from commentaries on the books themselves: Jas. i. 4, 13; I. Pet. i. 4 (ἐκ τῆς ἑρμηνείας εἰς τὸ κατὰ πρόγνωσιν θεοῦ); I. John ii. 14 (ἐκ τοῦ ᾄσματος τῶν ᾀσμάτων Τ. Α.).

.—Origen purposed to comment upon the Apocalypse (Comm. Ser. in Matt. § 49), but it is uncertain whether he carried out his design.

B. .—Origen's writings On the Resurrection were violently assailed by Methodius, and considered by Jerome to abound in errors (Ep. lxxxiv. 7). Probably they excited opposition by assailing the gross literalism of the popular view of the future life. The extant fragments are consistent with the true faith and express it with a wise caution, affirming the permanence through death of the whole man and not of the soul only. Thus Origen dwells rightly on St. Paul's image of the seed (Fragm. 2), maintains a perfect correspondence between the present and the future, and speaks very happily of the "ratio substantiae corporalis" as that which is permanent.

The book On First Principles is the most complete and characteristic expression of Origen's opinions. It was written while at Alexandria, when he was probably not much more than 30 years old and still a layman, but there is no reason to think that he modified, in any important respects, the views he unfolds in it. It was not written for simple believers but for scholars—for those who were familiar with the teaching of Gnosticism and Platonism; and with a view to questions which then first became urgent when men have risen to a wide view of nature and life. Non-Christian philosophers moved in a region of subtle abstractions, "ideas": Origen felt that Christianity converted these abstractions into realities, persons, facts of a complete life; and he strove to express what he felt in the modes of thought and language of his own age. He aimed at presenting the highest knowledge (γνῶσις) as an objective system. But in doing this he had no intention of fashioning two Christianities, a Christianity for the learned and a Christianity for the simple. The faith was one, one essentially and unalterably, but infinite in fulness, so that the trained eye could see its harmonies the most. Fresh wants made fresh truths visible. He who found much had nothing over: he who found little had no lack.

The book is the earliest attempt to form a system of Christian doctrine, or rather a philosophy of the Christian faith, and thus marks an epoch in Christian thought, but no change in the contents of the Christian creed. The elements of the dogmatic basis are assumed on the authority of the church. The author's object is, he says, to shew how they can be arranged as a whole, by the help either of the statements of Scripture or of the methods of exact reasoning. However strange or startling the teaching of Origen may seem to us, we must bear in mind that this is his own account of it. He takes for granted that all he brings forward is in harmony with received teaching. He professes to accept as final the same authorities as ourselves.

The treatise consists of four books. Digressions and repetitions interfere with the symmetry of the plan. But to speak generally, bk. i. deals with God and creation (religious statics); bks. ii. and iii. with creation and providence, man and redemption (religious dynamics); and bk. iv. with Holy Scripture. The first three books contain the exposition of a Christian philosophy, gathered round the three ideas of God, the world, and the rational soul, and the last gives the basis of it. Even in the repetitions (as on "the restoration of things") each successive treatment corresponds with a new point of sight.

In bk. i. Origen sets out the final elements of all religious philosophy, God, the world, rational creatures. After dwelling on the essential nature of God as incorporeal, invisible, incomprehensible, and on the characteristic relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity to man, as the authors of being, and reason, and holiness, he gives a summary view of the end of human life, for the elements of a problem cannot be really understood until we have comprehended its scope. The end of life, then, according to Origen, is the progressive assimilation of man to God by the voluntary appropriation of His gifts. Gentile philosophers had proposed to themselves the idea of assimilation to God, but Origen adds the means. By the unceasing action of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit towards us, renewed at each successive stage of our advance, we shall be able, he says, with difficulty perchance, at some future time, to look on the holy and blessed life; and when once we have been enabled to reach that, after many struggles, we ought so to continue in it that no weariness may take hold on us. Each fresh enjoyment of that bliss ought to deepen our desire for it; while we are ever receiving, with more ardent love and larger grasp, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (i. 3, 8).

But it will be said that this condition of progress, effort, assimilation, involves the possibility of declension, indolence, the obliteration of the divine image. If man can go forward he can go backward. Origen accepts the consequence, and finds in it an explanation of the actual state of men and angels. The present position of each rational being corresponds, in his judgment, with the use he has