176. Hippolyti Fragmentum, vol. II. p. 45. The following is taken from a work of his upon Easter. "He was entire to all persons and in all places; and he who filled all space divested himself, and contended against all the powers of the air, and all but cries out that the cup may pass

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away, that he might truly shew that he was a "man; but remembering also the reason for which “ he was sent, he cries out, Father, not my will : "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." See note at p. 253.

Since the publication of the first edition of this work, some new fragments of Hippolytus have been brought to light by Angelo Maio, in his Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio e Vaticanis Codd. &c. Vol. I. p. 161, &c. They are taken from a Catena of commentators upon Daniel: and on those words, The form of the fourth is like the Son of God, iii. 25. Hippolytus says, "The scripture shewed beforehand, "that the Gentiles were afterwards to know him in "the flesh, whom Nebuchadnezzar had long before seen without flesh and recognised in the furnace, "and acknowledged him to be the Son of Gody." Commenting upon Dan. vii. 18. he speaks of the time arriving," that the heavenly king may be "shewn openly to all, no longer seen partially as in a vision, nor revealed in a pillar of a cloud on the

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τινα εἰληφέναι, ἵνα φανῇ δύο προσ- λημά μου· τὸ μὲν πνεῦμα πρόθυμον, ώπων μεσίτης. ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσθενής.

* Ὅλος ἦν πᾶσι καὶ πανταχοῦ, γεμίσας δὲ τὸ πᾶν πρὸς πάσας τὰς ἀερίους ἀρχὰς γυμνὸς ἀνταπεδύσατο, καὶ πρὸς ὀλίγον βοᾷ παρελθεῖν τὸ ποὺ τήριον, ἵνα δείξῃ ἀληθῶς ὅτι καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἦν μεμνημένος δὲ καὶ διὸ ἀπεστάλη, καὶ βοᾷ, Πατὴρ, μὴ τὸ θέα

* Προαπέδειξεν ἡ γραφὴ, ὅτι μελλήσουσι τὰ ἔθνη τοῦτον ἔνσαρκον ἐπιγινώσκειν, ὃν πάλαι ἄσαρκον ἰδὼν ἐπέγνω ἐν καμίνῳ ὁ Ναβουχοδονόσορ, καὶ υἱὸν Θεοῦ εἶναι τοῦτον ὡμολό γησεν. Ρ. .188.

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top of a mountain, but with power and angelic "hosts, God in the flesh, and man the Son of God "and Son of man, coming from heaven to the world " as judge."

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ORIGEN. A. D. 240.

Origen was born in Egypt about the year 185, and before he attained his seventeenth year, his father Leonides suffered martyrdom. He was a scholar of Clement of Alexandria, and we are also informed that he had been a hearer of Hippolytus. At the age of eighteen he was himself appointed to preside in the catechetical school of Alexandria, and Dionysius, who was afterwards bishop of that see, was one of his pupils. He was not ordained till the year 228, when he was forty-three years of age. In 231 he left Alexandria and went to Cæsarea, where he was received with great attention and admiration. The Homilies which passed under his name amounted to a thousand: and the number is more astonishing, because he did not suffer his discourses to be taken down in writing till he was sixty years of age. It was about this time that he composed his work against Celsus, which is one of the soberest and most valuable of all his writings, and has come down to us entire. All his works together are said to have amounted to the incredible number of 6000 volumes"; but we are probably to understand by volumes the books or parts into which his works were divided. It was either his unwearied labour in reading and composing, or the great strength of his reasoning,

which gained him the title of Adamantius, or Invincible. He is said to have suffered considerably in the Decian persecution in 250, and to have died at Tyre in the year 255 at the age of seventy.

Of his numerous works, not many have come down to us in their original language. Some which have perished are preserved in a Latin translation executed by Rufinus towards the end of the fourth century: but the accuracy and fidelity of these translations have been questioned, and apparently not without reason.

It is not the object of the present work to enter into a minute investigation of Origen's tenets. Both in ancient and modern times he has had many accusers and defenders: not only has he been charged with holding visionary and unfounded opinions concerning the preexistence of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the nature of angels, &c. &c. &c. but his faith concerning the Trinity, and the divinity of the Son, has often been called in question; and the Arians have laid claim to the high authority of Origen as supporting their own doctrines. If Origen was really heterodox upon these fundamental articles of Christianity, it is scarcely possible, but that some traces of it would be found in his existing writings. I can only say, that after a careful perusal of all of them, I cannot point out any passage, which when taken in conjunction with the tenor of his writings would lead me to conclude, that Origen was an Arian.

We must remember, that he wrote before the great controversies concerning the Trinity had distracted the Christian church. The curious and pre

had not yet caused the meanings of words to be defined with that scrupulous precision, which the subtlety of opposing sects afterwards made necessary: and Origen, in his voluminous writings, many of which, be it remembered, were taken down from his own copious and unpremeditated delivery, may have used terms in a sense, which the catholic church a few years afterwards excluded them from bearing, and anathematized as heterodox. But we must judge of Origen, as of every author, from the whole tenor of his writings, and not from particular parts of them, or from single words, which have changed their meaning. Thus Origen may have fully believed in the consubstantiality of the Son, and in his eternal coexistence with the Father; and yet he may have spoken of the Son as in some sense inferior to the Father; a doctrine, which, as bishop Bull has plainly and unanswerably shewn, has been held by the catholic church from the days of the apostles

to our own.

But it is not fair to argue, because Origen speaks of the Son as inferior to the Father, that he therefore believed him to be created, or that he did not believe him to have existed from all eternity. We must take Origen's doctrine in Origen's own words; and if any of his expressions seem opposed to each other and incompatible, we must see which of them contains a sense, which cannot be mistaken; and if one of them admits of different interpretations, we must decide which is correct by observing the meaning of the other expression which is simple and unequivocal. Thus if Origen says that the Son was begotten of the Father, we must see that when he says he was produced, (yemròs,) he did not mean that

he was created, like the objects of this material world, but that he derived his origin from the Father; a doctrine, which is perfectly scriptural and sound.

So also when we find him saying that the Son is of one substance with the Father, and that he is by nature very and eternal God, we must see that any expression, which marks the inferiority of the Son, cannot mean an inferiority of nature. If we try the tenets of Origen by this test, i. e. if we make his expressions, which admit of no doubt, explain those which may receive two interpretations, I have no hesitation in saying, that we shall have no reason whatever for questioning his orthodoxy. Upon this subject I have satisfaction in fully subscribing to the sentiments of bishop Bull: not as presuming to have come to my conclusion by an equal acquaintance with the subject, but venturing to express my own conviction with more confidence, when I find that the extensive reading and judicious reflection of that great man led him to pronounce the same favourable opinion concerning this calumniated Father. See Bull Defens. Fid. Nic. II. 9. 22. b

Having said this, I must explain myself as referring only to the doctrine which Origen held concerning the Trinity, and the divinity of the Son. His opinions upon other subjects have no connection with the present discussion.

Of all the works which Origen wrote, there were none which brought upon him more abuse for the

b See also Waterland, IV. p. 322, &c. where he shews that the most learned writers,

tury, had not disapproved of Origen's doctrine concerning the Trinity.