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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
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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, [Greek text], or,
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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,
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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
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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
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De Principiis. The lame and disjointed condition of the present text is evident on a very cursory examination; it is perfectly unworthy of the
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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
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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
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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
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De Principiis