Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/907

Rh O R I G E N 841 saved. 1 Origen worked also at the text of the New Testa ment, although he produced no recension of his own. (3) The exegetical labours of Origen extend over the whole of the Old and Xew Testaments. They are divided into Scholia (o-^etwcrets, short annotations, mostly gram matical), Homilies (edifying expositions grounded on exe gesis), and Commentaries (TO//.OI). In the Greek original only a very small portion has been preserved ; in Latin translations, however, a good deal. The most important parts are the homilies on Jeremiah, the books of Moses, Joshua, and Luke, and the commentaries on Matthew, John, and Romans. With grammatical precision, antiquarian learning, and critical discernment Origen combines the allegorical method of interpretation the logical corollary of his conception of the inspiration of the Scriptures. He distinguishes a threefold sense of scripture, a grammatico- historical, a moral, and a pneumatic, the last being the proper and highest sense. He thus set up a formal theory of allegorical exegesis, which is not quite extinct in the churches even yet, but in his own system was of fundamental importance. On this method the sacred writings are regarded as an inexhaustible mine of philosophical and dogmatic wisdom ; in reality the exegete reads his own ideas into any passage he chooses. The commentaries are of course intolerably diffuse and tedious, a great deal of them is now quite unreadable ; yet, on the other hand, one has not unfrequently occasion to admire the sound lin guistic perception and the critical talent of the author. 2 (4) The principal apologetic work of Origen is his book KO.TO. KeAo-oi&amp;gt; (eight books), written at Csesarea in the time of Philip the Arabian. It has been completely preserved in the original. This work is invaluable as a source for the history and situation of the church in the 2d century ; for it contains nearly the whole of the famous work of Celsus (Adyos aA?;$&amp;gt;)9) against Christianity. What makes Origen s answer so instructive is that it shows how close an affinity existed between Celsus and himself in their fundamental philosophical and theological presupposi tions. The real state of the case is certainly unsuspected by Origen himself ; but many of his opponent s arguments he is unable to meet except by a speculative reconstruction of the church doctrine in question. Origen s apologetic is most effective when he appeals to the spirit and power of Christianity as an evidence of its truth. In details his argument is not free from sophistical subterfuges and superficial reasoning. 3 (5) Of the dogmatic writings we possess only one in its integrity, and that only in the translation of Rufinus, 4 Hep apxw (On the Fundamental Doctrines). This work, which was composed before 228, is the first attempt at a dogmatic at once scientific and accommodated to the needs of the church. The material is drawn from Scripture, but in such a way that the propositions of the reyula jidei are respected. This material is then formed into a system by all the resources of the intellect and of speculation. Origen thus solved, after his own fashion, a problem which his predecessor Clement had not even ventured to grapple with. The first three books treat of God, the world, the fall of spirits, anthropology, and ethics. &quot; Each of these three books really embraces, although not in a strictly comprehensive way, the whole scheme of the Christian view of the world, from different points of view, and with different contents.&quot; The fourth book explains the 1 Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quie supersunt, 2 vols., Oxon., 1867-74. 2 See Reuss, GcsMchte der heil. Schriften d. .V. T., 5th ed., 511. 3 Keim, Celsus, 1873; Aube, Hist, des persecut. de Veglise, vol. ii., 1875 ; Ornsby, &quot; Origen against Celsus,&quot; Dublin Review, July 1879, p. 58 ; Pelagaud, fitude stir Celse, 1878 ; Lebedeff, Origen s Book against Celsits, Moscow, 1878 (Russian) ; Overbeck in the Theolog. Lit. Zeitung, 1878 Xo. 22, 1879 No. 9; Orig. c. Gels., ed. Sehvyn, 1876. 4 There are-, however, extensive fragments of the original in existence. divinity of the Scriptures, and deduces rules for their interpretation. It ought properly to stand as first book at the beginning. The ten books of Stromata (in which Origen compared the teaching of the Christians with that of the philosophers, and corroborated all the Christian dogmas from Plato, Aristotle, Numenius, and Cornutus) have all perished, with the exception of small fragments ; so have the tractates on the resurrection and on freewill. 5 (6) Of practical theological works we have still the H/aoT/ae-TiKos eis /Aaprrpior and the Svi ray/^a trepl er^. For a knowledge of Origen s Christian estimate of life and his relation to the faith of the church these two treatises are of great importance. The first was written during the persecution of Maximinus Thrax, and was dedicated to his friends Ambrosius and Protoctetus. The other also dates from the Csesarean period ; it mentions many interesting details, and concludes with a fine exposi tion of the Lord s Prayer. (7) In his own lifetime Origen had to complain of falsi fications of his works and forgeries under his name. Many pieces still in existence are wrongly ascribed to him ; yet it is doubtful whether a single one of them was composed on purpose to deceive. The most noteworthy are the Dialogues of a certain Adaniantius : de recta in Deum fide,&quot; which seem to have been erroneously attributed to Origen so early as the 4th century. Outline of Oriyen s View of the Universe and of Life.- The system of Origen was formulated in opposition to the Greek philosophers on the one hand, and the Christian Gnostics on the other. 6 But the science of faith, as expounded by him, bears unmistakably the stamp both of Neo-Platonism and of Gnosticism. As a theologian, in fact, Origen is not merely an orthodox traditionalist and believing exegete but a speculative philosopher of Neo- Platonic tendencies. He is, moreover, a judicious critic. The union of these four elements gives character to his theology, and in a certain degree to all subsequent theology. It is this combination which has determine.! the peculiar and varying relations in which theology and the faith of the church have stood to each other since the time of Origen. That relation depends on the predomi nance of one or other of the four factors embraced in his theology. As an orthodox traditionalist Origen holds that Chris tianity is a practical and religious saving principle, that it has unfolded itself in an historical series of revealing facts, that the church has accurately embodied the substance of her faith in the reyula Jjdti, and that simple faith is suffi cient for the renewal and salvation of man. As a philo sophical idealist, however, he transmutes the whole con tents of the faith of the church into ideas which bear the mark of Xeo-Platonism, and were accordingly recognized by the later Neo-Platonists as Hellenic. 7 In Origen, how ever, the mystic and ecstatic element is held in abeyance. The ethico-religious ideal is the sorrowless condition, the state of superiority to all evils, the state of order and of rest. In this condition man enters into likeness to God and blessedness ; and it is reached through contemplative isolation and self-knowledge, Avhich is divine wisdom. &quot; The soul is trained as it were to behold itself in a mirror, it shows the divine spirit, if it should be found worthy of such -fellowship, as in a mirror, and thus discovers the traces of a secret path to participation in the divine nature.&quot; As a means to the realization of this ideal, 5 See Redfipenning, Origenis de principiis, first sep. ed., Leips., 1836 ; Schnitzer, Orig. utier die Grundlehren des Glav.bens, an attempt at reconstruction, 1835. 6 The opposition to the Unitarians within the church must also be kept in mind. 7 Porphyry says of Origen, Kara, ras irepl irpayfj-iiruv ecu rod deiov u/fEuseb., H.E., vi. 19). XVII. 1 06