Footnote 60:[(return)]
Dum supplere cupimus ea quæ ab Origene in auditorio Ecclesiæ extempore (non tam explanationis quam ædificationis intentione) perorata sunt.... Si addere quod videar, et explere quæ desunt.—Orig. vol. iv. p. 688.
Moreover, he proceeds so far as to tell us[61] that his false friends had remonstrated with him for not publishing the works under his own name, instead of retaining Origen's, his changes having been so great; a point, which he was far from unwilling to acknowledge. This must appear to every one unsatisfactory in the extreme, and to shake one's confidence in any evidence drawn from such a source. Indeed, the Benedictine editor, with great cause and candour, laments this course of proceeding on the part of Ruffinus, as throwing a doubt and uncertainty, and suspicion, over all the works so tampered with. "This one thing (observes that honest editor) would the learned desire, that Ruffinus had spared himself the labour of filling up what he thought deficient. For since the Greek text has perished, it can scarcely with certainty be distinguished, where Origen himself speaks, or where Ruffinus obtrudes his own merchandise upon us." This is more than enough to justify our remarks. I must, however, refer to the conduct of another editor and translator of Origen, of a similar tendency. It unhappily shows the disposition to sacrifice every thing to the received opinions of the Church of Rome, rather than place the whole evidence of antiquity before the world, and abide by the result. How many works this principle, in worse hands, may have mutilated, or utterly buried in oblivion, and left to perish, it is impossible to conjecture; that the principle is unworthy the spirit of Christianity will not now be questioned. That editor and translator, in his advertisement on the Commentary upon St. John, thus professes the principles which he had adopted: "Know, moreover, that I have found nothing in this book which seemed to be inconsistent with the decrees of holy Mother Church: for had I found any, I would not have translated the book, or would have marked the suspected place." [Quoted by the Benedictine, vol. iv. p. viii.] The Benedictine proceeds to say, that the writer had not kept his word, but had allowed many heterodox passages to escape, whilst he had deliberately withdrawn others.
Footnote 61:[(return)]
His words, as indicative of his principles of translation, and bearing immediately on the question, as to the degree of authority which should be assigned to the remains of Origen, when the original is lost, deserve a place here: "I am exposed to a new sort of charge at their hands; for thus they address me,—In your writings, since very many parts in them (plurima in eis) are considered to be of your own production, give the title of your own name, and write, for example, The Books of Explanations of Ruffinus on the Epistle to the Romans,—but the whole of this they offer me, not from any love of me, but from hatred to the author. But I, who consult my conscience more than my fame, even if I am seen to add some things, and to fill up what are wanting, or to shorten what are too long, yet I do not think it right to steal the title of him, who laid the foundations of the works, and supplied the materials for the buildings. Yet, in truth, it may be at the option of the reader, when he shall have approved of the work, to ascribe the merits to whom he will."
Many works probably, of the earliest ages, have been wholly or in part lost to us from the working of the same principle in its excess. Rather than perpetuate any sentiments at variance with the received doctrines of the Church, it was considered the duty of the faithful to let works, in themselves valuable, but containing such sentiments, altogether perish, or to exclude the objectionable passages.
I would now invite you to examine the passage itself, and determine whether it does not bear within it internal evidence of its having been altogether interpolated.
In the first place, on the words upon which it professes to be a comment, the author had already given his comment, and assigned to them another meaning. "The heavens were opened," he says: "Before the time of Christ the heavens were shut; but at his advent they were opened, THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT MIGHT DESCEND FIRST ON HIM;" quoting also among others the passage which speaks of Christ taking captivity captive. And then after the passage in question, in which he assigns a totally different reason for the opening of the heavens; without any allusion to the intervening ideas, he carries on, and concludes the comment which he had begun,—in words which fit on well with the close of that comment, but which, as they stand now at the close of the intervening passage about the angels, are abrupt and incoherent—"Forthwith the Holy Spirit descended;" recurring also again to the idea which he had before introduced of Christ benefiting those who were in captivity. A passage which affixes to the words commented upon, a different interpretation from one already given in the same paragraph; and which forces itself abruptly and incoherently in the middle of a brief comment, must offer itself to our examination under strong grounds of suspicion, that it has been interpolated. But when we examine the substance of the passage, its sentiments, the ideas conveyed, and the associations suggested, and then think of the author to whom it is ascribed, few probably will be disposed to regard it as a faithful mirror in which to contemplate the real sentiments of Origen.
How utterly unworthy of the sublime burst of Christian eloquence which now delights us in undoubted works of Origen, is this strange and degrading fiction! The true Origen THERE represents the tens of thousands of angelic spirits ten thousand times told, as ever surrounding the throne of God, and ministering for the blessing of those in whose behalf God himself wills them to serve. [Vol. i. p. 767. Contr. Cels. viii. 34.] Here he represents the revelation of the holiest of holies as a throwing open of the various divisions or compartments of the celestial kingdom for all the angels to hasten forth together, from their several places of indolence and carelessness and self-indulgence, (for such he represents their state to have been,) to visit this earth. Surely such a comment would better suit the mythology of the cave and dens of Æolus and his imprisoned winds (velut agmine facto qua data porta ruunt) than the awfully sublime revelation vouchsafed to the prophet Ezekiel. And how unworthy and degrading is that representation of the heavenly host, resting inactive, and sparing themselves from toil, until they witnessed Christ's descent and humiliation; and then when chid and put to shame and rebuke, and mutually roused to action by their fellows, coming down to visit this earth, and rushing through the opened portals of heaven.
Again, we see how incoherent is the whole section which contains the alleged prayer to angels: "Thou wast yesterday under a demon, to-day thou art under an angel: the angels minister to thy salvation; they are granted for the ministry of the Son of God, &c. All things are full of angels. Come, Angel, take up one who is converted from his ancient error, &c. And call to thee other companions of thy ministry, that all of you alike may train up to the faith those who were once deceived." Indeed the passage seems to carry within itself its own condemnation so entirely, that what we have before alleged, both of internal and external evidence, may appear superfluous. Surely the conceit of a preacher of God's word addressing an angel, (which of them he thus individually addresses does not appear; for he says not "My Angel," as though he were appealing to one whom he regarded as his guardian, the view gratuitously suggested in the marginal note of the Benedictine editor, "the invocation of a guardian angel,") and bidding some one angel, as a sort of summoner, to go and call to himself all the angels of heaven to come in one body, and instruct those who are in error, is, even as a rhetorical apostrophe, as unworthy the mind of a Christian philosopher, as it is in the light of a prayer totally inconsistent with the plain sentiments of Origen on the very subject of angelic invocation. Even had Origen not left us his deliberate opinions in works of undoubted genuineness, such a strange, incoherent, and childish rhapsody could never be relied upon by sober and upright men as a precedent sanctioning a Christian's prayer to angels; no one would rely upon such evidence in points of far less moment, even were it uncontradicted by the same witness.