Codex 117

[Anonymous, In Defense of Origen]

Read an anonymous work defending Origen and his abominable writings, in five volumes. The style is neither clear nor pure and contains nothing deserving of mention. The author brings forward on behalf of Origen and his dogmas Dionysius of Alexandria,[1] Demetrius,[2] Clemens, and several others, but chiefly relies upon Pamphilus the martyr and Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. This apology is not a refutation of the charges against Origen for the most part, but rather supports the accusation, since he is not altogether free from his blasphemous opinions. Thus, he asserts that souls existed before bodies, supporting this nonsense by passages from the Scriptures and Fathers, and imagines the taking up of other bodies. In regard to the Holy Trinity, however, he is orthodox; he asserts that Origen was not guilty of error in his opinions on the subject, but that he was opposing the Sabellian[3]heresy, which at that time had spread extensively, and that, in his endeavour to show that the Trinity of Persons was quite clear and differed in many ways, he allowed himself to be carried away beyond what was right in the opposite direction. However, in regard to Origen’s other dogmas, to which he does not even venture to give a specious assent, and to which he does not think it possible to adapt his defence, he takes great trouble to prove that they were only intended as a rhetorical exercise, or that they were foisted into his writings by certain heterodox persons. In proof of this he quotes Origen himself as loudly protesting, for he says that even when he was alive he discovered that such reckless statements were made against him. The counts on which he asserts that he was falsely accused are fifteen in number, which he declares to be mere slanders, proving it by quotations from his writings in his fourth book, and refuting them by the evidence of others on his behalf in the fifth. The counts are as follows. He is charged with teaching that prayer should not be offered to the Son, and that He is not absolutely good; that He does not know the Father as Himself; that rational natures enter into the bodies of irrational beings; that there are migrations from one body into another; that the soul of the Saviour was the same as the soul of Adam; that there is neither eternal punishment nor resurrection of the flesh; that magic is not an evil; that astronomy is the cause of events; that the Only Begotten has no share in the Kingdom; that the holy angels came into the world by falling down from heaven, not to render service to others; that the Father is unseen by the Son; that the Cherubim are the ideas of the Son; that the image of God, in reference to him whose image it is, quaimage, is untrue. He rejects these charges, as already stated, as slanders on Origen, and does his utmost to prove that he is an orthodox member of the Church. But, my dear sir, if any one is shown to be not altogether impious, this is no reason why he should escape punishment for obvious blasphemies.