gravest errors are attempts to solve the insoluble. The question of the origin of the soul, e.g., is still beset by the difficulties Origen sought to meet, but they are ignored. So too with regard to his speculations on an endless succession of worlds. Thought must break down soon in the attempt to co-ordinate the finite and the infinite. But with whatever errors in detail, Origen laid down the true lines on which the Christian apologist must defend the faith against Polytheism, Judaism, Gnosticism, Materialism. These forms of opinion, without the church and within, were living powers of threatening proportions in his age, and he vindicated the Gospel against them as the one absolute revelation, prepared through the discipline of Israel, historical in its form, spiritual in its destiny; and the principles which he affirmed and strove to illustrate have a present value. They are fitted to correct the Africanism which, since Augustine, has dominated Western theology; and they anticipate many difficulties which have become prominent in later times. In the face of existing controversies, it is invigorating to feel that, when as yet no necessity forced upon him the consideration of the problems now most frequently discussed, a Christian teacher, the master and friend of saints, taught the moral continuity and destination of all being, interpreted the sorrows and sadnesses of the world as part of a vast scheme of purificatory chastisement, found in Holy Scripture not the letter only but a living voice eloquent with spiritual mysteries, made the love of truth, in all its amplitude and depth, the right and end of rational beings, and reckoned the fuller insight into the mysteries of nature one of the joys of a future state.
Such thoughts bring Origen himself before us. Of the traits of his personal character little need be said. He bore unmerited sufferings without a murmur. He lived only to work. He combined in a signal degree sympathy with zeal. As a controversialist he sought to win his adversary, not simply to silence him (cf. Eus. H. E. vi. 33). He had the boldest confidence in the truth he held and the tenderest humility as to his own weakness (in Joh. t. xxxii. 18; in Matt. t. xvi. 13). When he ventures freely in the field of interpretations, he asks the support of the prayers of his hearers. His faith was catholic, and therefore he welcomed every kind of knowledge as tributary to its fullness. It was living, and therefore he knew that no age could seal any one expression of it as complete. This open-hearted trust kept unchilled to the last the passionate devotion of his youth. He was therefore enabled to leave to the church the conviction, attested by a life of martyrdom, that all things are its heritage because all things are Christ's.
EDITIONS.—Through the labours of the great Benedictines of St. Maur the first two vols. of a complete edition of Origen (Origenis opera omnia quae Graece vel Latine tantum extant et ejus nomine circumferuntur) appeared at Paris in 1733, under the editorship of Charles Delarue, a priest of that society. Vol. iii. appeared at Paris in 1740, a few months after the death of the editor (Oct. 1739), who left, however, vol. iv. to the care of his nephew C. V. Delarue, who was not able to issue it till 1759. The service the two Delarues rendered was great; but their edition is very far from satisfying the requirements of scholarship. The collations of MSS. are fragmentary and even inaccurate; the text is only partially revised; the notes are inadequate. Later edd., particularly that of Lommatsch, have added little. This is the more to be regretted, as large additions have been, and are being, made to the Origenian fragments. These materials have been either wholly neglected or only partially used in the latest edd.; and practically nothing has been done to improve or illustrate the text. Migne's reprint of Delarue, in his Patr. Gk. t. xi.–xvii. (Paris, 1857), has the additions from Galland, most of those from Mai, and one fragment from Cramer as a supplement. An ed. of the Philosophumena (e codice Parisino), ed. by E. Miller, is pub. by the Clar. Press. A new ed. of Origen's works is now being pub. in the Berlin collection of early eccl. Gk. writers; Origen's Werke, i.–ii. von P. Koetshau (Leipz. 1899), vol. iii. ed. by Klostermann, and vol. iv. ed. by Preuschen (Berlin, 1903). A trans. of the de Principiis, the books against Celsus and the letters, with a life of Origen, is in 2 vols. of the Ante-Nicene Lib. of the Fathers.
[W.]
Orosius, Paulus, was a native of Tarragona in Spain, as he himself says (Hist. vii. 22), though an expression in a letter of Avitus may be thought to connect him with Braga (Ep. Aviti, Aug. Opp. vol. vii. p. 806; Baronius, vol. v. p. 435, A.D. 415). When the Alani and Vandals were introduced into Spain, A.D. 409, Orosius, though his language is somewhat rhetorical, appears narrowly to have escaped their violence (Hist. iii. 20; v.2; vii. 40). But a danger, more serious in his opinion, soon threatened to disturb the church in Spain,viz. the heresies of the Priscillianists and of the book by Origen, περὶ ἀρχῶν, lately translated by St. Jerome and brought from Jerusalem by Avitus, presbyter of Braga in Portugal, at the same time as a book by Victorinus was brought by another Avitus from Rome. Both books condemned the doctrines of Priscillian, but contained errors of their own. That by Victorinus attracted little notice, but Origen's was widely read, both in Spain and elsewhere; and Orosius, in his zeal against error proceeded, not commissioned by the church of Spain but on his own account, to Africa, to consult St. Augustine as to how best to refute these heretical doctrines, A.D. 415. Augustine speaks of him as young in years, but a presbyter in rank, zealous, alert in intellect, ready of speech, and fitted to be useful in the work of the Lord. He gave a partial reply to this appeal in his treatise contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas, saying but little on the subject which forms its title. He referred Orosius to his books against Manicheism, and recommended him to go to Palestine, the seat of the errors in question, to consult St. Jerome. [PELAGIUS.] Orosius was kindly received by St. Jerome at Bethlehem; but being summoned by the clergy, he attended a synod at Jerusalem on July 28, in which he took his seat under the direction of John the bishop, and informed the assembly that Coelestius had been condemned by a council
