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.