A company of volunteers are drilling on the green, perhaps in the same place where the Knights [pg 109] Templars had their military exercises; children are playing in the gravelled walks; and groups of gentlemen and ladies, and here a lone pilgrim, are sauntering about, enjoying the calm bright evening and the view of the Thames, with little steamers rushing up and down among all sorts of craft; and beyond, the great city with its countless spires, the bells of which seem to be all ringing. Perhaps the cheerful notes of that psalm come from S. Clement's in the Strand, which Dr. Johnson used to frequent—notes that will sound as cheerfully when we are no more as they do now over the tombs of past generations who likewise have paced up and down this terrace listening to them.
“The boat, and the barge, and the wave have grown red,
And the sunset has crimsoned the boughs overhead;
But the lamps are now shining, the colors are gone,
And the garden lies shadowy, silent, and lone.”
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.