Was Origen A Heretic?
Origin has been pronounced by the verdict of ages a genius of the first order. But on this man there has also been pronounced another verdict of still greater importance: “No one has surpassed him either in good or in evil”—Ubi bene nemo melius, ubi male nemo pejus. Terrible words on a man who was the wonder of his age, and an uncompromising father of the church! We propose to set forth in this article some of the reasons tending to prove that this sentence is an unjust one, and that Origen was a faithful child of the church—faithful, too, at a time when fidelity was tried by the fire, the sword, or the cold, damp dungeon. We bring forward the reasons of our opinion, suppressing none of the accusations that have been brought against this great man at sundry times, but refuting them by arguments which are at least extremely probable, and have convinced some very eminent scholars.
The orthodoxy of Origen is presumptively established from the pure sources from which he received the rudiments of the Christian faith, from the soundness of the doctrines he is known to have taught during his public ministry, from his saintly associations, from his undoubted works, and from his heroic virtues.
Born in the bosom of the church, of noble and virtuous parents, in the year 185, he drank in with the nutriment of his infancy the pure and saving doctrines of Christianity. As his powers of reason expanded, the beauty and splendor of the new but persecuted religion were laid open before him by S. Leonides, his father, whose celebrity as a philosopher was only equalled by his proficiency in profane and sacred sciences. Under such fostering care and parental cultivation, Origen received the most careful training, the wisest instructions, and most virtuous examples. So deeply did this pious and excellently versed man plant the germs of Catholic [pg 110] truth in the heart of his eldest son that the most flattering promises of Roman governors, the most subtle reasonings of philosophers, were alike unable to entice him into the paths of error at an age when the passions are strongest and the glittering tinsel of worldly honors exerts so powerful an influence on the mind. S. Leonides, aware of the necessity and value of religious education in youth, took every precaution to instil virtue into the heart while profane learning entered into the mind. Each day he required Origen to commit to memory certain parts of the Old and New Testaments, and, after their recital and an invocation of the Holy Ghost, he explained the sense of the Scripture. A plant reared in such soil, and impregnated with an atmosphere so holy, must be beautiful to the sight in its maturity. Advanced in the liberal arts to a degree far beyond his years, Origen made those studies only accessories to a more complete attainment of sacred knowledge. His progress in the sciences was only rivalled by his increase in piety. What a deep root religion had taken in his nature may be known from his burning ardor to win the glorious crown of martyrdom when the bloody persecution of Septimius Severus raged with unequalled fury in his native city, Alexandria. Among its victims was his father. Deprived of the boon of losing his life for Christ in his company, he wrote letters of encouragement and exhortation that S. Leonides would endure his torments heroically, looking only to the future life and its incorruptible inheritance. It was painful for Leonides to leave behind him seven orphan children; but, to alleviate his sorrows in this direction, Origen, upon whom he looked as a living tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, sent him words of cheer: “Be sure, dear father, that on our account you do not alter your mind”; and in another part of the same letter we read words which appear almost incredible coming from one so young: “Have confidence, father; leave all for Jesus Christ; he will be your reward.” S. Leonides was beheaded, his property confiscated, according to the laws, and Origen, at seventeen years of age, found himself and the rest of his family reduced from abundance to poverty for the sake of Christ. Next to dying in the faith, there is no greater blessing than to have been born in it. From a martyr and a bishop[28] Origen learned the rudiments of the faith, and it grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. Those who had charge of his education at the most critical juncture were still more eminent in letters and sanctity than Leonides.
He was placed under Titus Flavius Clemens, generally known as S. Clement of Alexandria, whom S. Jerome[29] considered “the most learned of our authors,” and who, Theodoret believed,[30] “surpassed all others in the extent of his learning.” The erudition of Flavius Clement found in Origen a worthy receptacle, and the Christian morality taught in his lectures and practised in his life were truly reflected in the rising glory of the East. Clement, drinking from the crystal fountain of truth that issued from the evangelist Mark, who had made, by the order of the prince of the apostles, Alexandria his apostolic seat, imbibed its saving [pg 111] waters in all their purity. In his Stromata, as well as on the authority of Eusebius, we learn that the immediate successors of the apostles, preservers of the true doctrine of S. James, S. John, S. Paul, were still in existence and teaching the Gospel in its entirety. “They have lived down to our times,” says Clement,[31] “and scattered in our hearts the seed of truth which they had received of their predecessors, the apostles.” It was from this beautiful and fertile garden that Origen culled the flowers of Christianity that ornamented his soul, that bloom in his luminous works, that preserve their fragrance and throw around sacred studies an imperishable lustre. While Origen was pursuing his studies under Clement, he did not fail to engraft upon himself the holiness and sanctity of his teacher—the Pedagogue of the master was transformed into the life of the scholar. The holy practices running through the Pedagogue, its inculcation of austere morals and inexhaustible charity, became to Origen, through his long and arduous career, hand-posts pointing to solid grandeur, durable happiness, and supreme good.
On leaving this famous catechetical school, he perfected himself under Ammonius Saccas, whose celebrity among pagans for the reconciliation he effected between jarring philosophical systems was only eclipsed by the esteem in which he was held by the infant church, to whose cause he brought the aid of philosophy and the requirements of the times. Among all those who attended the lectures of Ammonius, the most remarkable was young Origen, though he had for rivals no less famous persons than Plotinus, the philosopher and teacher of Porphyry, and the critic Longinus. All eyes were centred on Origen, and his name was in every mouth—his mind a prodigy of letters, his soul a temple of the Holy Ghost. The vast amount of erudition now acquired by Origen, not only by reason of his extraordinary abilities, but also on account of his eminent preceptors, whose sanctity of life imparted to their expositions of religion the irresistible authority of example, attached him with unshaken firmness to the infallible truths which were sealed by his father's blood. No other belief could satisfy his yearnings, no other creed answer to the wide comprehensions of his conceptions and the loftiness of his aspirations.
The completion of his studies found him versed in astronomy, the higher mathematics, thoroughly acquainted with the sentiments and theories of the different philosophical schools, and more or less familiar with the construction of languages and the leading issues of the times. Reduced to straitened circumstances in consequence of the persecution, he opened, on his own responsibility, an institution for dialectics, music, and profane sciences.
This was a dangerous enterprise for one so young, but it was the only alternative to avoid a life of dependency and association with heretics, as well as to assist a helpless mother and a large family. He felt bound to shun the enemies of the church; he refused to mingle in their company, save when the necessity of their spiritual welfare demanded it, or the exigencies of the occasion prevented his escape. Scrupulous even to the spirit of the apostolic teachings, rather than associate with the opponents of [pg 112] Christianity, he preferred to sacrifice the friendships of his youth and the liberality of his patroness, at a time, too, when he stood most in need of assistance. His reputation attracted large numbers to his lectures, and the applause he received, while it elevated him in popularity, was the source of interior humiliation, the antidote of pride. Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, moved by the superior attainments, the fervent piety and unswerving orthodoxy in faith, of the young Christian, appointed him regent of the famous catechetical school, a.d. 203. The course of studies taught in this institution comprised, aside from secular pursuits, theology and Scriptural expositions. Origen[32] was only eighteen years of age when he assumed this responsible charge—a charge that, in the history of the province, had never been committed but to persons of advanced years. This appointment, then, was an exception, strange in the extreme; but Origen was an exceptional scholar—so exceptional, indeed, that history has failed to record his compeer at that time of life in any other person. But, as St. Jerome[33] remarks, “From his childhood he was a great man.” And Bossuet, admiring the young Alexandrian, towering in intellect above those of his day, like Saul above his brethren, declares: “Il se rendit célèbre par toute l'Eglise des sa première jeunesse et enseigna de grandes vérités.”[34] The violence of the persecution under Septimius Severus had interrupted the Christian school of Alexandria, and forced its president, Clement, to fly from his murderers. It was during his retirement and under the uplifted sword that Origen assumed the regency—a position as precarious and laborious as it was honorable. It required varied knowledge, uncommon prudence, and unswerving adhesion to the traditions of Christ's ambassadors.
For more than one hundred years Catholic blood, “the secret power and seed of Christianity,”[35] had flowed through the Roman provinces; Catholic heads been decapitated by the sword of the executioner. Every method of destruction and annihilation that human artifice and cruelty could devise was brought into play to sweep from the world the new religion; but the kingdom of Christ emerged from the contest more glorious and powerful, and asserted in bolder terms the divinity which was emblazoned on its standard. The saying of Gamaliel was verified: Man cannot stop the accomplishment of God's designs. Then the pagans felt convinced that some other means should be employed against the Christians, whom the emperors and governors had in vain sought to extinguish in blood. To this end, they had recourse to the schools, to the philosophers, to men skilled in the oracles; the followers of the different systems of belief, to preserve the existence of their body, girded on their helmets of sophistry and raillery; the pagan writers dealt in flings of irony and the gall of mockery; wit and sarcasm, powerful weapons, were handled with remarkable ingenuity. The life-blood of mythology, sanctioned for ages by the devotion of its victims, was on the eve of ebbing from its very arteries; polytheism, rooted in the manners of the multitude, supported by legislation, [pg 113] upheld in literature, protected by the sympathies of all, was losing ground at every step that Christianity was making upon its domains; idolatry saw its statues fall one by one, its members disappearing like vapor beneath the absorbing rays of light; and all these forms of superstition joined hands and allied their forces to impede the onward and irresistible march of Catholic truth. Alexandria, cradle of Eastern genius at that time, became the Christian Thermopylæ, and Origen the Christian Leonidas. It was he who headed the forces, and, by the splendor of his genius, prepared in his school illustrious men to lead on the van. He vindicated the truth from calumny, supported it by facts, disengaged it from the sophisms in which enemies had obscured it, and held it up to view in all its natural beauty and attraction. His learning became telling in a short time upon the prejudices of the people in regard to his despised religion, and gradually inspired a kinder feeling towards the misrepresented Christians in the minds of the cultivated. His fame drew to his auditory persons who had studied under other masters, desirous of listening to his wisdom, and of the honor of calling him their teacher. Heathens were delighted with his language, full of unction and charm, and the literati of the age, who had been lost in the intricacies of Aristotle, the obscurities of Plato, and the absurdities of Epicurus, wondered at the young Christian philosopher. His name was asked by authors for dedicatory purposes, and works were subject to his judgment for their circulation.
To give an insight into the system of education adopted by Origen, and which produced so many great men in the IIId century, we will quote from the writings of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who was under the direction of Origen for five years, the method employed by the philosopher to win him to Christ. The extract will also show the clearness of his ideas, the thoroughness and universality of his knowledge. The reader, if he chooses, may compare the plan of education followed by Origen with that pursued in our colleges and universities in the XIXth century, and judge for himself of the progress civilization has made in this direction. “Like a skilful agriculturist,” says S. Gregory,[36] “who examines in all its aspects the land which he intends to prepare for cultivation, Origen sounded and penetrated the sentiments of his disciples, making inquiries, and reflecting upon their replies. When he had prepared them to receive the seed of truth, he instructed them in various branches of philosophy—in logic, to form their judgment, by teaching them to discriminate between solid reasonings and the specious sophisms of error; in physics, to make them admire the wisdom of God, by an analytic knowledge of his works; in geometry, to habituate their minds to rectitude, by the rigor of mathematical propositions; in astronomy, to elevate and extend their thoughts, by giving them immensity for a horizon; finally, in morals—not those of the philosophers, whose definitions and sterile divisions give birth to no virtue, but practical morals, making them study in themselves the movements of the passions, so that the soul, seeing itself as in a mirror, may extirpate every vice, even to the roots. He then approached theology, or [pg 114] the knowledge of God. He made them read on Providence, which has created the world and governs it, all that has been written by the ancients, philosophers or poets, Greeks or barbarians, without otherwise minding their systems, their sects, or their particular opinions. In this labyrinth of pagan philosophy he served as their guide to discern whatever might be really true and useful, without allowing them to be fascinated by the pomp and ornaments of language. He laid it down as a principle, that, in whatever regards God, we must trust only God and the prophets inspired by him. And then he commenced the interpretation of the Scriptures, which he knew thoroughly, and which, by the grace of God, he had penetrated in all their most secret depths.”
The magnitude of his intellectual powers excited no less interest than his manner of life; and it is not without reason that his friends allege the sanctity of his life as the best interpreter of the few objectionable passages in his gigantic works, and no weak argument for the purity of his faith. Surrounded by eminent savants, and in correspondence with others in distant countries, he found himself hard pressed to accommodate the former and answer the communications of the latter. He was obliged to engage several secretaries to write out his discourses on the arts and sciences in conjunction with his explanations of Christianity. Their assistance afforded him better opportunities of enriching his stock of knowledge. He realized what Trithemius,[37] Abbot of Spanheim, repeated to himself every day: “To know is to love.” His insatiable thirst for learning left him plodding among manuscripts through the day into the long hours of the night; and when nature, succumbing under the severe stress of exhaustion, would demand rest, he would make the bare ground his bed, and the books his pillow. Simple in his dress, the mortifications he imposed upon himself on several occasions threatened his life. Temperate in all things, he was particularly so in drink. Wine he never used.
While his prodigious talents and able discourses brought within the true fold large numbers from among the most distinguished learned men and philosophers, his virtues and sublime renunciation of the world produced so many holy men that his school has been deservedly termed “the school of martyrs.” More than once he accompanied his disciples to the place of execution, and exhorted them, in the very face of the instruments of torture, to endure death with fortitude for the cause of truth and the eternal inheritance promised to those who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb. He stood by at the martyrdom of S. Plutarch, brother of S. Heraclas, Bishop of Alexandria, both catechumens under himself, administering consolations and pouring into his soul words of hope and encouragement. A martyr's crown he courted from infancy, and from sickness and infirmities contracted in the persecutor's dungeon, it is reasonably supposed, his life went out. It could only have been divine interposition that rescued him from the numerous assaults made upon his life. When permission was refused him to visit the Christians in chains, he made incredible efforts to convey to them words of sympathy and articles of comfort. His solicitude and bearing on the [pg 115] eve of the martyrdom of his disciples, SS. Heron, Potamiæna, Herias, Sereni, and Heraclides, is conclusive proof of Origen's ardor to seal with his blood the divinity of the cause he advocated with his eloquence, and evidence of the falsity of the notorious slander which represents him yielding to the wishes of the persecutors in the midst of his torments, and offering sacrifice to the gods. The first trace we meet with in history of this accusation is in the Treatise against Heresies,[38] by S. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, and given to the world one hundred years after the death of Origen. This slander, never repeated by the learned—if we except Petavius, in the XVIIth century, while employed on the works of Epiphanius—has been wiped out of ecclesiastical history by the weight of such writers as Baronius, Halloix,[39] Raynaudet, Henry Valois, Vincent de la Rue, and Frederic Spanheim.[40] This defamation of his character, unfounded as it is, though so much like other insinuations against the noble Alexandrian, was not even alluded to in the Justinian age, in which he was so violently and bitterly opposed. Had S. Jerome credited this monstrous fabrication, had it rested upon anything but a sandy foundation, the literary war between the lifelong friends, Jerome and Rufinus, would have terminated at the first volley from the pen of the learned scriptural writer. It would have been a crushing argument against Rufinus, and S. Jerome was the person to turn it to advantage. In those times, it was a common thing to be reproached if one, arrested for the faith, escaped death. Some of the greatest saints, S. Cyprian, S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and others, suffered not a little from calumnies of like import. Origen's behavior, on the occasion to which the allusion refers, was honorable, heroic, and in entire harmony with his life-long fidelity to principle. He was seized, and—whether it was the design of the magistrates to draw many Christians back to the gods of the empire by circulating the fall of Origen, or their admiration of the genius of their noble victim that prevented his summary decapitation—was thrown into a cold cell, bound in an iron collar, with heavy shackles to his feet, and his legs drawn apart to a painful degree.
It appears that during the first years that Origen filled the regency of the Alexandrian theological seminary, he experienced no small amount of inconvenience, in his controversial discourses with Jews and pagans, in consequence of the different versions of the Holy Scriptures. In their inspired pages he found true wisdom and spiritual life: “Oh! how have I loved thy law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day.”[41] In this sacred department he stands without a rival, if we except S. Jerome, “the greatest doctor, divinely raised up to interpret the Sacred Scriptures.”[42] Yet to Origen the indebtedness of S. Jerome is very great. He borrowed[43] from him, studied him,[44] followed him,[45] admired him,[46] and then attacked him.[47] S. Jerome declares that in reading the Twelve Prophets by Origen, in the works of S. Pamphilus, he saw in them the wealth of [pg 116] Crœsus; and, as far as our judgment goes, we never read a higher eulogium than the one S. Jerome pays to the genius of Origen on his two homilies in Cantica Canticorum.
It was Origen's love of the Scriptures that gave birth to the grand idea of compiling the sacred books of the different versions into one work—the Octapla, a legacy to posterity more than sufficient to support his reputation and endear it to all succeeding ages. For this purpose, he decided, in 212, to travel through different countries, and collect the most recognized and authentic copies of the Scriptures. Those travels opened to his view the pages of nature, on which he read the customs and habits of men, religions and governments, arts and sciences. Aside from those motives, he had another reason for travelling. He longed to see Rome, the chair of Peter,[48] “upon whom, as on a rock, Christ built his church”; he desired to pay his homage in the “principal church”[49] to the successor of S. Peter, “against whom the gates of hell shall not prevail.”[50] He arrived at Rome about the close of the pontificate of S. Zephyrinus, to whom his presence and devotion must have been a source of consolation, as the saintly pontiff, at that time, was pained to the heart by the fall of the great Tertullian and the deplorable perversions in the African Church.
The travels of Origen are full of interest and instruction. Each journey was a crusade against heathenism, and a glorious triumph for the Gospel; like S. Paul, he wandered over sea and land to make profit for Christ, strengthening the weak and marshalling the strong; the power of his pen was felt where his voice failed to reach. As a comet that illumines its course with darting rays of light, and obscures the flickering stars, such were the brilliant tours of Origen, leaving the light of faith and the fire of charity behind them. Wherever heresy raised its head in the church, there was Origen to batter it with reason and tradition; wherever the faithful were wavering, there was Origen cheering and rallying the forces; wherever the enemy made an onslaught on Christianity, it found Origen in the breach; like an Agamemnon or a Hector, wherever battle raged the fiercest, Origen took the front. Now he is in the presence of the governor of Arabia, enlightens him on scientific subjects, and gradually raises his mind to nature's God; then he traverses through Palestine, expounding the Scriptures in the assemblies of the faithful; at one time he is at Antioch before the royal family, pleading for the liberty and free exercise of Christian worship; at another in Nicomedia, maintaining the canonicity of certain parts of the inspired writings; now he is in Greece, thundering against the Montanists; and again in Arabia, at Bozra, reclaiming fallen prelates, and defending the divinity and humanity of the second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity.
There is a point in the preceding sentence worthy of more than passing notice—namely, Origen's visit to Mammæa, mother of Emperor Alexander Severus. This estimable lady, who afterwards, in all probability, embraced the Christian religion, desirous of seeing so illustrious a doctor as Origen, sent her retinue to escort him to her palace. She was pleased with her learned guest, and her son, the future ruler of the empire, listened with delight [pg 117] to the great prodigy of learning. The virtues that characterized the reign of Severus, in contradistinction to the licentiousness, cruelty, and extortion of his predecessors, have been, not without justice, attributed to the influence exerted on him by lessons of morality given in the discourses of Origen. It is not improbable that the law he presented, soon after his ascension to the throne, to the Roman senate for its sanction, whereby the religion of Christ would be incorporated among the others of the empire, had for its source Origen's instructions to him about the divinity of the Catholic faith, its purity and sanctity. Dom Gueranger, in his Life of S. Cecilia,[51] adduces monuments of antiquity going to prove the protection and favors extended to the infant church by Alexander; and Origen himself,[52] in his Apology, chronicles the abatement of the persecution shortly after his return from the imperial court. On this part of his work a writer very felicitously adds: “If he modestly declines telling us the part he bore in it, we owe him so much the more honor the less he seems to claim.”[53]
During the comparative peace obtained under Alexander, the church made incredible efforts to fill up her shattered ranks, restore order, and produce scholars. She succeeded, for never was she more fruitful in great men than at this epoch. Origen had reconciled her, in the opinion of philosophers, to genius, adorned her with intellectual wealth, and introduced her to the occupants of the throne she was soon to fill with so much glory; and, what is still more, he had disciplined a galaxy of scholars, who were about to dazzle the world by the grandeur of their minds, and beautify the church by the holiness of their lives.
Origen's brilliant career, like the career of all great men, was not allowed to end without its trials. Aside from the assaults of the professed enemies of the church, he met with severe annoyances from the jealousy of those whose interests he had studied to further. The trouble came from a quarter he least expected. Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, during the early part of his episcopate entertained for Origen the highest esteem; and there is no ostensible motive to believe that Origen, throughout all his relations with the patriarch, gave him any cause of offence, or else this prelate would not have retained him in the presidency of his theological school till the year 230—a period of twenty-seven years. The humility of the regent and his innate respect for authority held his tongue in silence, whatever may have been his opinion of the conduct of Demetrius as a prelate. Still, we may conjecture Demetrius was not far from the mind of Origen when, in speaking of disorders and irregularities in the church, he wrote of bishops: “We would almost have guards like kings; we make ourselves terrible and difficult of access, chiefly to the poor; we treat them who speak with us and ask for some favor in a manner which the most cruel tyrants and governors would not assume towards suppliants.”[54] It is not wrong to look upon Demetrius as a man who consulted with the general interests of Christianity his own popularity, the extension of his diocese, [pg 118] and the increase of his subjects; perhaps he was of the opinion that the advancement of religion in Alexandria and its suffragan dependencies, his own juridical district, was of more importance than its dissemination in other places. It was interested motives of this sort that led him to disapprove of Origen's evangelical missions, by which his invaluable services were temporarily withdrawn from his native city. Origen, being a layman, free from any obligations to Demetrius, except in a spiritual point of view, possessed the individual right of travelling from country to country, and of delivering lectures without the permission of any authority. If he spoke before the congregations of the faithful, it was only at the urgent solicitation of the prelates, whose jurisdiction within their respective provinces was recognized and unquestioned; champion of the faith in the East, he was waited upon by delegations from pious bishops, entreating him to come to their dioceses. Those missions Origen, in his love for the glory of God, felt conscientiously bound to perform. On a journey to crush by his eloquence the heresy of the Valentinians, that had made lamentable ravages in Greece, he paid a visit to S. Alexander of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Cæsarea, by whom he was ordained priest. This act, irreprehensible in itself, entailed upon Origen serious difficulties, and became the groundwork upon which his enemies fabricated the most severe accusations.
Demetrius, taking to heart the course of conduct of the great philosopher, and assured, by the aspect of things, of his speedy disconnection with the interests of Alexandria, sent letters to the bishops, containing bitter recriminations for imposing hands on Origen. He did not stop at this point. He also despatched to the prelates of Asia letters full of invectives and animosity, requiring them to hold no communion with Origen, who had violated the disciplinary canons. The respite that ensued on his return to Alexandria was of short duration. A council was “assembled by the care, and under the presidency, of Demetrius,” for the purpose of examining the legality and validity of Origen's ordination. In this council we can only discover two things laid to his charge—namely, that he had made himself a eunuch, and had been ordained without the consent of Demetrius, his ordinary. Those charges, if we take into consideration the customs of the times and the imperfections of ecclesiastical discipline during the persecutions, contain in themselves very little upon which a grievous censure of Origen could be founded. In the language of the church, they are irregularities; one ex defectu, the other ex delicto. Let us for a moment concede that there were such canons in existence at the time of Origen's ordination, by the violation of which irregularities were incurred, what then follows? In that age of the church, bishops enjoyed great privileges, discretionary powers—far more discretionary than even the bishops of the United States enjoy nowadays in this missionary country—and pre-eminently so the Patriarch of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Antioch, and the Metropolitan of Palestine, who was Bishop of Cæsarea. These prelates could dispense, in nearly all emergencies, the violators of the ecclesiastical ordinances; other prelates in the East were more or [pg 119] less restricted in their functions, and in matters of moment could do nothing detrimental to those sees. What authority, then, prevented Theoctistus from pronouncing Origen released from the irregularities, and canonically qualified for the reception of orders? Had any other ordinary imposed hands on him except the Metropolitan of Palestine, the objections of the Patriarch of Alexandria would undoubtedly have carried with them more weight. But the Metropolitan of Cæsarea, while respectfully acquiescing in the priority of the See of Alexandria, through reverence of its princely founder, always exercised his own jurisdiction without the permission or consultation of Alexandria. Theoctistus of Cæsarea was not even under Demetrius, but under the Patriarch of Antioch, and these provincial and patriarchal boundaries as well as episcopal relations were only finally authoritatively adjusted by the Council of Nice.[55] In the second place, the Metropolitan of Cæsarea, who always exercised more than ordinary episcopal functions, which were afterwards approved and sanctioned by œcumenical councils,[56] deemed it not a usurpation of power to impose hands on Origen without the direct consent of his bishop, inasmuch as he was personally acquainted with the subject of the sacrament, morally certain of his piety and learning. If we add to those reasons the surrounding circumstances stated in the reply of S. Alexander of Jerusalem to Demetrius, it becomes patent that neither Origen was to blame in the premises nor Theoctistus for the exercise of his jurisdiction and powers. Demetrius had given Origen commendatory letters on his departure for Greece, and, on the strength of these commendations, Theoctistus and S. Alexander conferred on him holy orders. His services had been valuable as a layman; they would become still more valuable as a cleric, and, actuated by those pure motives, they ordained him.
Now, is it historically true that in the year 230, or previous to that time, there were any such canons framed by the church as excluded eunuchs from the reception of holy orders? It will be difficult to come across statutes of this nature in canon law or ecclesiastical history. We will find such acts of discipline framed years after the death of Origen, but none previous to that epoch.
The other accusation, that he was ordained without the permission of his bishop, has a weaker foundation even than the preceding one. According to the practice of the church in our day, every candidate for the sacred ministry who is not a religious must be ordained by his own bishop (titulo nativitatis, domicilii, beneficii, seu familiaritatis prout accidit), or possess the written consent of his own ordinary, if ordained by another. Origen, viewed from a modern stand-point, contracted an irregularity ex delicto; but, judged in the century in which he lived—the only one in which he must be judged—was as regular in his ordination as the young men who are semi-annually ordained in our provincial seminaries. Origen transgressed no ecclesiastical injunction by receiving orders at the hands of a foreign bishop, because it was only under S. Anastasius that this restriction was placed on aspirants to the priesthood. The [pg 120] Council of Nice, embodying the canons of Arles, Ancyra, and Gangres, passed laws prohibiting clerics from attaching themselves at will to different churches and dioceses; this prohibition affected clerics alone, and in no way referred to laics, who were at perfect liberty to be ordained by any prelate upon testimonials of worthiness. It was only during S. Ambrose's time that this abuse became offensive, and that the Roman pontiff deemed it proper to eradicate it. To this end, in the year 400 a canon was enacted by the pope, which forbade any prelate ordaining the subjects of another, unless such subjects had permissive letters bearing the signature of the bishop who had authority over them. From this sprang dimissorial letters. Indeed, whatever view an impartial and competent person takes of the whole affair, Origen and the saintly bishops who ordained him appear innocent, and seem to have acted with the best intentions. Nevertheless, the decision arrived at by Demetrius' council was that Origen should be dismissed from the theological school, upon which his learning had reflected so much glory, and that he should also withdraw himself from Alexandria, retaining, however, his priesthood.
Origen, anticipating the result of the council “assembled by the care of Demetrius,” quietly retired to Cæsarea. Matters did not end here. The immense amount of writings that the unwearied industry of Origen had contributed to the literature of the church offered a wide field in which his adversaries might search for something reprehensible. His works would form in themselves a rare library, had the fall of empires not entombed a large portion of them in their ruins. No less than six thousand books did his indefatigable application produce: “Sex millia Origenis tomos non poterant quipiam legere.”[57] In the copying, revision, and compiling of these manuscripts, he employed twenty, at other times twelve, but always more than eight, amanuenses. As this article has no reference to his writings, their merits, or the influence they exerted upon church learning, we must make this cursory allusion to his gigantic labors sufficient for our present purpose. It will lay before the reader the great mass of matter his enemies had at hand to examine, the possible mistakes that might have crept into his works by the carelessness of so many secretaries, the possible corruptions they might have suffered at the hands of heretics or jealous rivals. Not a finger could be raised against his spotless and ascetic life in the council; the teacher of martyrs and companion of saints, his character was irreproachable.
Demetrius, not unlikely hearing of the warm reception extended to Origen in Palestine, convened, after a short interval, another council. The works of Origen were subjected to the sharpest examination. One instinctively inquires why Demetrius, if he were simply actuated by zeal for the preservation of ecclesiastical discipline and the purity of revealed truth, did not introduce those serious charges in the former council. To resort to the non-publication of the Periarchon and Dialogues at the time of the first convocation of bishops, in order to remove the suspicions that point to the malice of Demetrius, is an ingenious special plea, unsupported by facts and testimonies. S. Jerome, [pg 121] studying this question learnedly, defends Origen and censures Demetrius. Why did the Patriarch of Alexandria, next in hierarchical honor to the Bishop of Rome, permit Origen for over a quarter of a century to expound within his own hearing the sublime dogmas of Christianity, if his conceptions of those dogmas were radically false? Can we suppose that the few months between the assembly of the two councils were spent by the bibliophilist in composing a work that would give the lie to the glorious achievements of thirty years? Or can we allow the conviction to settle in our minds that he, so remarkable in virtue, would deliver in the pulpit one doctrine, and write in his books another? Will we find fault with saints and illustrious doctors of the church, who, by the nature of their high calling, are bound to avoid false teachers, for extending to Origen the warmest hospitalities, or acknowledge, with Eusebius of Cæsarea and S. Pamphilus, the severe and unjustifiable measures adopted by Demetrius? Whatever secret motives guided Demetrius in the prosecution of the inquisition, his course, disapproved of by his contemporaries, has never secured a sincere advocate of ordinary importance. The errors which he imagined he had detected in the writings assumed, in the eyes of Demetrius' council, sufficient gravity to cause the deposition and excommunication of Origen.
Never did an imperial edict, suddenly proclaimed in the midst of peace, sanctioning the indiscriminate massacre of Christians, produce greater consternation in the church than the announcement of Origen's deposition. The report of the fall of the great Tertullian had scarce died away, when the faithful were filled with alarm at the momentary expectation of its echoes being taken up by the fall of Origen, and resounding throughout Christendom. But there was a vast difference between these two great men. Quintius Tertullianus, while the superior of Origen in eloquence, style, and strength of language, was at the same time his inferior in the sacred sciences and in humility, the safeguard of Origen's genius. The one blended with Christianity the elegance and wisdom of the pagans, the other the beauty and inspiration of the prophets. Both the brightest ornaments of the church in their day, they no less adorned her sanctity by their lives than enriched her treasures by their genius. Tertullian, a pagan by the prejudices of birth and education, unaccustomed to religious authority, could not endure the correction of superiors; and wounded pride, inflamed by impatience and an ambitious nature, gave way to impious belief, and Tertullian, the fallen genius, dwindles into a fanatical heretic. It was not so with Origen. Having received information of the action of the council, with real humility equalled only by that of the meek Fénelon, Origen wrote[58] to Alexandria that he had never taught such doctrine as was imputed to him, and, if contained in his works, it was through the machinations of heretics. Then follows, in the same document, a clear and orthodox exposition of his belief upon the contested points—an exposition that will satisfy a modern theologian, with all his precise distinctions and scholastic definitions. As long as this monument of antiquity, this spontaneous proof of his adhesion to apostolic truth, this undeniable [pg 122] evidence of the absence of all pertinacity, exists, so long will those to whom his memory is dear love to look upon him as sincere in his protestations and sincere in his faith. Here was the rule of his belief, and according to this rule his works should be interpreted: “That alone must we believe to be the truth which differs in nothing from the ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition.”[59] A noble rule of faith, truly Catholic and orthodox! Words appropriate for an Origen, who caught up, as it were, the traditions of the apostles, and echoed them into Nicene times. What cause have we of refusing credence to Origen when he tells us that the errors attributed to him were the interpolations of heretics? Every intelligent reader of history knows that his works were corrupted, shamefully corrupted, at the close of the IVth century. In substantiation of this, we have only to refer to the learned Rufinus and S. Jerome. Each of these translated into Latin the Periarchon of Origen and many other works of the same author; and what do we find? Why, S. Jerome accuses Rufinus of altering, inverting, suppressing the sense of the original; and, in turn, Rufinus charges Jerome with malicious perversion of the meaning of the learned Alexandrian, wilful corruption of the text, and personal jealousy of the fame of Origen. S. Augustine, an intimate friend of S. Jerome, used his influence to reconcile those two great personages disputing about Origen; and from his letter to S. Jerome, it appears to us that his sympathies were with Rufinus. Indeed, in the first ages of the church, it was no uncommon thing for great men to have not only their works interpolated, but entire books circulated under their name, S. Cyprian[60] complained that works that he had never seen were issued in his name. S. Jerome[61] testifies that the letters of S. Clement, Pope, were interpolated, as well as the writings of S. Dionysius and Clement of Alexandria; the same trustworthy author was very much annoyed that the people of Africa in his day were reading a supposititious volume bearing his name. We see no reason, then, why heretics would not tamper with Origen's productions, when they had the audacity to corrupt such public and sacred documents as those we have mentioned, some of which were read in the religious assemblies of the people. It is the misfortune of exalted persons to be cited as authorities for opinions they never maintained. Indeed, when we perceive how the teachings of men amongst us are misrepresented, notwithstanding the assistance of the press, the telegraph, and other modern detectives, we can understand with what facility opinions could have been accredited to Origen which were not his. Well might S. Jerome with the works of Origen scattered around his room, perhaps under his very elbows, write: “O labores hominum! semper incerti; O mortalium studia! contrarios interdum fines habentia.”[62]
The acts of Demetrius' council, we are informed, were forwarded to S. Pontianus, whose short pontificate of a few years spent in exile, as well as the still shorter reign of his successor, S. Anterus, which lasted only a month, was absorbed in the discharge of duties more vital to the church than the Alexandrian [pg 123] inquisition. Ere Rome took any steps in this matter, or sanctioned the proceedings by her silence, the discussion ended by the death of Demetrius, 231.
It is probable that Origen indulged in conceptions or hypotheses not altogether in accordance with Catholic doctrine; but we must keep before our minds the circumstances in which he was situated, the persons with whom he disputed, and the noble aim he had in view. The philosophy of Aristotle, whom Tertullian calls the “patriarch of heretics,” was very unpopular in Alexandria at the opening of the IIId century. The neo-Platonic system was the prevalent philosophy of the day at Alexandria. The issue of the day was, Is the religion of Christ philosophical? Can it with safety be subjected to logical rules? Does it not contradict the reasonings of Plato? To meet this issue, so important to the spread of the Gospel among the enlightened class, Origen had recourse as much as was possible to the tenets of the Platonic school for arguments. With Platonic philosophers he had his controversies; and his language, the more Platonic it was, the more power it exerted; the more he reconciled revelation with reason, in their estimation, the more entered within the pale of the church. Just as in our times able writers use the popular issues, because the most intelligible and taking, to dissipate the clouds of ignorance that bigotry has thrown around the public mind in regard to Catholicity, to show the natural compatibility of the church with all legal forms of government, her inexhaustible resources for meeting the requirements of society, and her sacred and impartial maintenance of true liberty; so, too, did Origen turn to advantage the doctrines of the schools in demonstrating the love of the church for sound philosophy, her adaptability to the sciences, and her divine mission as regenerator of the world. This tincture of Platonism pervading his early productions, combined with the mysterious figures under which Eastern nations convey sacred truths, the allegorical style, and the Discipline of the Secret, which was in active force, rendered Origen obscure, and his works susceptible of doubtful interpretation.
Though his admirers go so far as to exculpate him from every error, we are not prepared to accompany them to that distance. We are willing to concede that Origen may have advanced some erroneous opinions, but error without contumacy does not entail the sin of heresy, which is a wilful rejection of any revealed truth authoritatively proposed. “I may fall into a mistake,” says the learned S. Augustine, “but I will not be a heretic.” The fathers of the church were only men, subject to human weakness, liable to err. The doubtful and obscure speculative hypotheses of the Alexandrian's fertile imagination, then, should in no way darken the splendor of his genius or belittle his devotion to Catholic truth. F. Petau, his declared enemy, followed by Huet, who gave his learning to this controversy, refuses to believe Origen obstinate. Halloix, Charles Vincent de la Rue, Tillemont, Witasse, Ceillier, and other erudite scholars, who studied with care and impartiality this whole matter, unite in the emphatic declaration that Origen “died in the bosom of the Catholic Church.”
This is the verdict of great men [pg 124] in modern times. It was also the verdict of the century in which he lived—the IIId—as may be seen in the apology of S. Pamphilus, composed in defence of Origen's orthodoxy, and extant in the works of S. Gregory Nyssen; also in that beautiful monument of antiquity, the panegyric over Origen by S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, given in full in the works of Gerard Vossius. This verdict was confirmed in the IVth century by the catalogue of orthodox ecclesiastical writers, published by S. Gelasius, pope, among which is the name of Origen; and in the following century, in a profession of faith drawn up by Pope S. Hormisdas, and sent by Germanus, Bishop of Capua, to be signed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the heretics condemned by the church are enumerated, but in this enumeration we can discover no allusion to the great Scripturist.
Indeed, it has always been a source of surprise to us how Origen, a fallible creature, a man like other men, unaided by any divine assistance, could have written in several thousand volumes so much truth, and so little error. There were but few Encyclical Letters, no Index, no decisions of Sacred Congregations, no Syllabus, in the days of Origen; and yet his enemies will measure the length of his definitions with theirs, compare his expressions with the theological niceties of the present, and, should a word be wanting or a synonymous one substituted, exclaim: “There is an error; Origen is a heretic!” The body of infallible definitions from popes and councils which we now possess did not exist at this early epoch; to write then orthodoxically, to justify the Christian belief in the Trinity, to explain the hypostatic union, the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Ghost, to expound the Scripture and the other sublime mysteries of religion, and escape with one or two mistakes, was simply marvellous. Thus Origen, born in the true faith, reared in a religious atmosphere, educated under pious men, the intrepid defender of truth and meek retractor of error, the teacher and companion of saints, the prisoner for Christ, has impressed on his life, in golden letters, the best defence of his orthodoxy. And if the saintly Origen be distinguished from the abominable Origenians; if the allowances due to the age in which he lived be accorded him, an injustice to the works of Origen—a valuable legacy to posterity—will be removed, and the injury done to a reputation obscured by the malice of some and the misapprehension of many others will in part be repaired.[63]