, or work-presser. and in another place he says he is one of God's work-pressers. There is little doubt that the Hexapla is in great measure owing to Ambrose. Origen resisted long his friend's solicitations to undertake a revision of the text; reverence for the sacred words, and for the tradition of the ancients, held him back; but he was at length prevailed upon. Ambrose, indeed, did a great deal more than advise and exhort; he put at Origen's disposal seven short-hand writers, to take down his dictations, and seven transcribers to write out fairly what the others had taken down. And so the gigantic work was begun. When it was finished we cannot exactly tell, but it cannot have been till near the end of [{358}] his life, and it was probably completed at Tyre, just before he suffered for the faith. After his death, the great work, "opus Ecclesia," as it was termed, was placed in the library of Caesarea of Palestine. Probably no copy of it was ever taken; the labor was too great. It was seen, or at least quoted, by many; such as Pamphylus the Martyr, Eusebius, St. Athanasius, Didymus, St. Hilary, St. Eusebius of Vercelli, St. Epiphanius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and especially St. Jerome and Theodoret. It perished in the sack of Caesarea by the Persians or the Arabs, before the end of the seventh century. [Footnote 54]
[Footnote 54: A new edition of the fragments of the Hexapla is announced, at we write, by Mr. Field, of Norwich. The first instalment of this important work, for which there are now many more materials than Dom Montfaucon had at command, may be expected almost as we go to press. The editor's new sources are chiefly the recently discovered Sinaitic MSS., and the Syro-Hexaplar version, part of which he has lately re-translated into Greek in a very able manner, by way of a specimen.]
We need not say much here about the Tetrapla. Its origin appears to have been as follows: When the Hexapla was completed, or nearly completed, it was evident that it was too bulky to be copied. Origen, therefore, superintended the production of an abridgment of it. He omitted the two columns of Hebrew, the great stumbling-block to copyists, and suppressed some of his notes. He then transcribed Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, putting his amended version of the Septuagint, without the marks and signs, just before the last. The two first answered the purposes of a Hebrew text, the last was a sort of connecting link between it and the freedom of the Septuagint; and so, for all practical purposes, he had a version that friends might put their trust in, and that enemies could not dispute.
Such was the work that Origen did for the Bible. It was not all done at once, in a year, or in ten years. It was begun almost without a distinct conception of what it would one day grow to. It progressed gradually, in the midst of many cares and much other labor, and it was barely completed when its architect's busy life was drawing to a close. Every one of those twenty years at Alexandria, which we are now dwelling upon, must have seen the work going on. The seven short-hand writers, and the seven young maidens who copied out, were Origen's daily attendants, as he seems to say himself. But the catechetical school was in full vigor all this time. Indeed, the critical fixing of the Bible text, wonderful as it was, was only the material part of his work. He had to preach the Bible, not merely to write it out. His preaching will take us to a new scene and to new circumstances--to Caesarea, where the greater part of his homilies were delivered. But, before we accompany him thither, we must take a glance at his school at Alexandria, and try to realize how he spoke and taught. We have already described his manner of life, and the description of his biblical labors will have given some idea of a very important part of his daily work; what we have now to do is to supplement this by the picture of him as the head of the great catechetical school.
One of the most striking characteristics of the career of Origen is the way in which his work grew upon him. It is, indeed, a feature in the lives of all the great geniuses who have served the church and lived in her fold, that they have achieved greatness by an apparently unconscious following of the path of duty rather than by any brilliant excursion under the guidance of ambition. Origen was the very opposite of a proud philosopher or self-appointed dogmatizer. He did not come to his task with the consciousness that he was the man of his age, and that he was born to set right the times. We have seen his birth and bringing up, we have seen how he found himself in the important place that he held, and we have seen how all his success [{359}] seemed to come to him whilst he was merely bent on carrying through with the utmost industry the affair that had been placed in his hands. We have seen that, so far was he from trying to fit the gospel to the exigencies of a cramped philosophy,--that he was brought up and passed part of his youth without any special acquaintance with philosophy or philosophers. He found, however, on resuming his duties as catechist, that if he wished to do all the good that offered itself to his hand, he must make himself more intimate with those great minds who, erring as he knew them to be, yet influenced so much of what was good and noble in heathenism. At that very time, a movement, perhaps a resurrection, was taking place in Gentile philosophy. A teacher, brilliant as Plato himself, and with secrets to develop that Plato had only dreamt of, was in possession of the lecture-hall of the Museum. Ammonius Saccas had landed at Alexandria as a common porter; nothing but uncommon energy and extraordinary talents can have given him a position in the university and a place in history, as the teacher of the philosophic Trinity and the real founder of Neo-Platonism. Origen, to whom the Museum had been strange ground in his early youth, saw himself compelled to frequent it at the age of thirty. Saccas, to be sure, was probably a Christian of some sort. At any rate, the Christian teacher went and heard him, and made himself acquainted with what it was that was charming the ears of his fellow-citizens, and furnishing ground for half of the objections and difficulties that his catechumens and would-be converts brought to him for solution. That the influence of these studies is seen in his writings is not to be denied. It would be impossible for any mind but the very dullest to touch the spirit of Plato and not to be impressed and affected. The writings of Origen at this period include three philosophical works. There is first the "Notes on the Philosophers," which is entirely lost. We may suppose it to have been the common-place book wherein was entered what he learnt from his teacher, and what he thought of the teacher and the doctrine. Then there is the "Stromata" (a work of the same nature as the Stromata of his master, St. Clement), whose leading idea was the great master-idea of Clement, that Plato and Aristotle and the rest were all partially right, but had failed to see the whole truth, which can only be known by revelation. This work, also, is lost--all but a fragment or two. Thirdly, there is the celebrated work,
, or, "De Principiis." Eusebius tells us expressly that this work was written at Alexandria. Most unfortunately, we have this treatise not in the original, but in two rival and contradictory Latin versions, one by St. Jerome, the other by Ruffinus. Both profess to be faithful renderings of a Greek original, and on the decision as to which version is the genuine translation depends in great measure the question of Origen's orthodoxy or heterodoxy. And yet this treatise, "De Principiis," much as it has been abused, from Marcellus of Ancyra down to the last French author who copied out Dom Ceillier, and waiving the discussion of certain particular opinions that we may have yet to advert to, seems to us to bear the stamp of Origen on every page. It is such a work as a man would have written who had come fresh from an exposition of deep heathen philosophy, and who felt, with feelings too deep for expression, that all the beauty and depth of the philosophy he had heard were overmatched a thousand times by the philosophy of Jesus Christ. It is the first specimen, in Christian literature, of a regular scientific treatise on the principles of Christianity. Every one knows that a discussion on the principles or sources of the world, of man, of life, was one of the commonest shapes of controversy between the [{360}] schools of philosophy; and at that very time, the great Longinus, who probably sat beside Origen in the school of Ammonius Saccas, was writing or thinking out a treatise with the very title of that of Origen. It was a natural idea, therefore, to show his scholars that he could give them better principia than the heathens. The treatise takes no notice, or next to none, of heathen philosophy and its disputes; but it travels over well-known ground, and what is more, it provokes comparison in a very significant manner. For instance, the words wherewith it commences are words which Plato introduces in the "Gorgias," and to those who knew that elaborate dialogue, the sudden and unhesitating introduction of the name of Christ, and the calm position that he and none else is the truth, and that in him is the science of the good and happy life, must have been quite as striking as its author probably intended it to be. The treatise is not in the Platonic form--the dialogue; that form, which was suitable to the days of the Sophists and the sharp-tongued Athenians, had been superseded at Alexandria by the ornate monologue, more suitable to an audience of novices and wonderers. Origen adopts this form. One God made all things, himself a pure spirit; there is a Trinity of divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; of the rational creatures of God, some fell irremediably, others fell not at all; others again--that is, the race of man--fell, but not irremediably, having a mediator in Jesus Christ, being assisted by the good angels and persecuted by the bad; the wonderful fact that the Word was made flesh; man's free will, eternal punishment and eternal reward; such are the heads of the subjects treated of in the "De Principiis." The lame and disjointed condition of the present text is evident on a very cursory examination; it is perfectly unworthy of the "contra Celsum." But the reader who studies the text carefully, by the light of contemporary thought, can hardly help thinking that materials so solid and good must have been put together in a form as satisfactory and as conclusive. A first attempt in any science is always more admired for its genius than criticised for its faults. This of Origen's was a first attempt toward a scientific theology. We say a theology, not a philosophy; for, though philosophic in form, and accepted as philosophy by his hearers, it is wholly theological in matter, being founded on the continual word of Holy Scripture, and not unfrequently undertaking to refute heresy. Christianity, as we have before observed, was looked upon by strangers as a philosophy, and its doctors rightly allowed them to think so, and even called it so themselves. Now the "De Principiis" was Origen's philosophy of Christianity. It did not prove so much as draw out into system. It answered all the questions of the day. What is God? asked the philosophers. He is the creator of all things, and a pure spirit, answered the Christian catechist. Is not this Trinity a wonderful idea? said the young students to each other, after hearing Saccas. Christianity, said Origen, teaches a Trinity far more awful and wonderful, and far more reasonable, too--a Trinity, not of ideas, but of persons. The new school talked of the inferior gods that ruled the lower world, and of the demons, good and bad, who executed their behests. The Christian philosopher explained the great fact of creation, and laid down the true doctrine of guardian angels and tempting devils. The constitution of man was another puzzle; the rebellion of the passions, the nature of sin, the question of free-will. Plotinus, who listened to Saccas at the same time as Origen, has left us the attempts at the solution of these difficulties that were accepted in the school of his master; the answers of Origen may be read in the "De Principiis." The earnest among the heathen [{361}] philosophers were totally in the dark as to the state of soul and of body after death. Some were ashamed of having a body at all, and few of them could see of what use it was, or how it could subserve the great end of arriving at union with God. Origen dwells with marked emphasis, and with tender lingering, on the great key of mysteries, the incarnation, and its consequences, the resurrection of the flesh; and shows how the body is to be kept down in this life by the rational will, that it too may have its glory in the life to come. The whole effort and striving of Neo-Platonism was to enable the soul to be united with the Divinity. Origen accepted this; it was the object of the Christian philosophy as well; but he drew into prominence two all-important facts--first, the necessity of the grace of God; secondly, the moral and not physical nature of the purification of the soul; together with the Christian dogma that it was only after death that perfect union could take place. All this must have been perfectly fitted to the time and the occasion. And yet there are evident signs that it was not delivered or written as a manifesto to the frequenters of the Museum; it was evidently meant as an instruction to the upper class of the catechetical school. Its author's first idea was that he was a Christian teacher, and he spoke to Christians who believed the Holy Scriptures. What his words might do for others he was not directly concerned with, but there is no doubt that the subjects treated of in the "De Principiis" must have been discussed over and over again with those students and philosophers from the university who, as Eusebius tells us, flocked to hear him in such numbers, and also with that large class of Christians who still retained their love of scientific learning, though believing most firmly in the faith of Jesus Christ.
Of the matter of his ordinary catechetical instructions we need say little, because it is evident that it would be mainly the same as it has been under the like circumstances in all ages. Those of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, delivered a century later, may furnish us with a good idea of them, saving where doctrinal distinctions are discussed which had not arisen in the time of the elder teacher. It is rather extra-ordinary that so little trace has reached us of any formal catechetical discourse of Origen. We are inclined to think, however, that the "De Principiis," in its original form, must have been the summary or embodiment of his periodical instructions. But we have numerous hints at what he taught in the several works on Holy Scripture, some lost, some still partly extant, which he composed during these twenty years at Alexandria. It appears that he was in the habit of writing three different kinds of commentary on the Scriptures; first, brief comments or notices, such as he has left in the Hexapla; secondly, scholia, or explanations of some length; and thirdly, regular homilies. But his homilies belong to a later period. At Alexandria he commented St. John's Gospel (a labor that occupied him all his life), Genesis, several of the Psalms, and the "Canticle of Canticles," a celebrated work, yet extant in a Latin version, of which it has been said that whereas in his other commentaries he excelled all other interpreters, in this he excelled himself. But the whole interesting subject of his creation of Scripture-commenting must be treated of when we follow him to Caesarea, and listen to him preaching.
What we desire now, to complete our idea of his Alexandrian career, and of what we may call the inner life of his teaching, is, that some one--a contemporary and a scholar, if possible--should describe his method and manner, and let us know how he treated his hearers and how they liked him. Fortunately, the very witness and document that we want is ready to our hands. One of the most famous of Origen's scholars was St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and the most [{362}] interesting of the extant works of that father is undoubtedly the discourse and panegyric which he pronounced upon his master, on the occasion of bidding farewell to his school. Gregory, or, as he was then called, Theodore, and his brother Athenodorus, were of a noble and wealthy family of Cappadocia; that is to say, probably, descendants of Greek colonists of the times of the Alexandrian conquests, though, no doubt, with much Syrian blood in their veins. When Gregory was fourteen they lost their father, and the two wealthy young orphans were left to the care of their mother. Under her guidance they were educated according to their birth and position, and in a few years began to study for the profession of public speakers. As they would have plenty of money, it mattered little what they took to; but the profession of an orator was something like what the bar is now, and gave a man an education that would be useful if he required it, and ornamental whether he required it or not. The best judges pronounced that the young men would soon be finished rhetores; St. Gregory tells us so, but will not say whether he thinks their opinion right, and before proof could be made the two youths had been persuaded by a master they were very fond of to take up the study of Roman jurisprudence. Berytus, a city of Phoenicia, better known to the modern world as Beyrout, had just then attained that great eminence as a school for Roman law which it preserved for nigh three centuries. Thither the young Cappadocians were to go. Their master had taught them what he could, and wished either to accompany them to the law university or to send them thither to be finished and perfected. It does not appear, however, that they ever really got there. Most biographies of St. Gregory say that they studied there; what St. Gregory himself says is, that they were on their way thither, but that, having to pass through Caesarea (of Palestine), they met with Origen, to whom they took so great an affection that he converted them to Christianity and kept them by him there and at Alexandria for five years. The "Oratio Panegyrica" was delivered at Caesarea, and after the date of Origen's twenty years as catechist at Alexandria; but it will be readily understood that the whole spirit, and, indeed, the whole details, of the composition are as applicable to Alexandria as to Caesarea; for his teaching work was precisely of the same nature at the latter city as at the former, with a trifling difference in his position. The oration of St. Gregory is a formal and solemn effort of rhetoric, spoken at some public meeting, perhaps in the school, in the presence of learned men and of fellow-students, and of the master himself. It is written very elegantly and eloquently, but it is in a style that we should call young, did we not know that to make parade of apophthegms and weighty sayings, to moralize rather too much, to pursue metaphors unnecessarily, and to beat about a thing with words so as to do everything but say it, was the characteristic of most orators, old and young, from the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus till the days when oratory, as a profession, expired before anarchy and the barbarians. But its literary merits, though great, are the least of its recommendations. Its value as a theological monument is shown by the appeals made to it in the controversy against Arius; and in more recent times Bishop Bull, for instance, has made great use of it in his "Defensio Fidei Nicaenae." To us, at present, its most important service is the light it sheds upon the teaching of Origen. We need make no apology for making St. Gregory the type of the Alexandrian or Caesarean scholar; they may not have been all like him, but one real living specimen will tell us more than much abstract description.