Apology for Origen; On the Falsification of the Books of Origen

Apology for Origen

39 APOLOGY FOR ORIGEN Translated into Latin according to the edition of Pamphilus the Martyr AMPHILUS. What you have experienced does not seem to me in the least surprising, brothers: the understand- ing of Origen has so eluded your grasp that you too share the opinions about him that many others hold as well.22 These, either through their own inexperience (because of which they cannot behold the depth of his thought) or through the perversity of their mind (by which they expend effort, not only to accuse his statements but even to take up hostilities against those who read them), suppose that to them alone, obviously , should be granted the experience needed to judge a discourse. Indeed, they act with such obstinacy that they think that [readers of Origen] are worthy of no indulgence whatsoever , not even that which is usually accorded, for instance, to those who, in their zeal for thorough investigation and learning , work through the books of pagan Greeks, or sometimes even of the heretics. For instance, if they know that they should retain anything good that someone says, they would know that they should stay away from every form of evil.23 But they imagine that those who read the books of Origen are completely ignoring that mandate by which money-changers are asked to become worthy of approval, knowing how to keep the good [coins] while staying away from the bad.24 But who merely seems to be reading [Origen’s] books is immediately 22. In the Latin text, this whole first paragraph comprises a single sentence. 23. Cf. 1 Thes 5.21–22. 24. Cf. ibid.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom 1.28.177.2; Origen, Com in Mt 17.31; Hom in Lv 3.8; Hom in Ezek 2.2.4. 40 ST. PAMPHILUS drenched by them with the slanderous reputation of being heretics . In short, for one reason alone they harbor hostility against many men of humble life and religious purpose, in whom they find no fault whatsoever: if they have perceived in these people a somewhat too eager zeal for the books of the man in question. Even more maliciously they fabricate the following charge: that these men rank both Origen himself and his words at the same level as the holy apostles and prophets.25 2. But on this point I am not sure whether they utter these things with the sole intention of stirring up calumny, or whether possibly at some time they have actually heard something like this from some of the simpler brothers who are devoted to Origen with excessive affection. 3. We, however, have frequently observed that Origen speaks with a great fear of God and in all humility. This is noticeable when he begs pardon for those things that come to the mind of the investigator in the course of extended discussion and lengthy scrutiny of Scripture. In the process of explaining these things, his frequent custom is to add an admission that he is not declaring these things by a definitive pronouncement, nor is he defining them as secure dogma, but he is investigating to the best of his ability and discussing the meaning of the Scriptures. Yet he does not profess that he has completely and perfectly comprehended these things. Rather, he says that he is offering conjectures on as many subjects as possible and that he is not certain that he has attained a perfect and complete interpretation in everything. Moreover, sometimes we find that he admits that he is at a loss in many subjects on which he raises those very points that come into question; and yet he does not 25. Amacker and Junod (SC 464, 37, n. 1) note that this sort of accusation, that the Origenists considered Origen as an equal to the apostles, was leveled against the Origenists in the fourth century. Marcellus of Ancyra reproached Paulinus of Tyre for believing that the words of Origen were as persuasive as those of the prophets and apostles (cf. fr. 32 in Eusebius of Caesarea, Contra Marcellum 1.1.22, GCS 14, p. 21, 13–15). Jerome will make a similar reproach against his Origenist adversaries (cf. Ep. 84.9). On the other hand, Rufinus (Apology against Jerome 1.16) will strongly reproach Jerome’s hypocrisy in this regard , since Jerome had once praised Origen as an apostle and prophet. APOLOGY FOR ORIGEN 41 add solutions to...