made of the revelations and gifts of God. No beings were created immutable. Some by diligent obedience have been raised to the loftiest places in the celestial hierarchy; others by perverse self-will and rebellion have sunk to the condition of demons. Others occupy an intermediate place, and are capable of being raised again to their first state, and so upward, if they avail themselves of the helps provided by the love of God. "of these," he adds, "I think, as far as I can form an opinion, that this order of the human race was formed, which in the future age, or in the ages which succeed, when there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, shall be restored to that unity which the Lord promises in His intercessory prayer. . . . Meanwhile, both in the ages which are seen and temporal, and in those which are not seen and eternal, all rational beings who have fallen are dealt with according to the order, the character, the measure of their deserts. Some in the first, others in the second, some, again, even in the last times, through greater and heavier sufferings, borne through many ages, reformed by sharper discipline, and restored . . . stage by stage . . . reach that which is invisible and eternal . . ." Only one kind of change is impossible. There is no such transmigration of souls as Plato pictured, after the fashion of the Hindoos, in the legend of Er the Armenian. No rational being can sink into the nature of a brute (i. 8, 4; cf. c. Cels. iv. 83).
The progress of this discussion is interrupted by one singular episode characteristic of the time. How, Origen asks, are we to regard the heavenly bodies—the sun and moon and stars? Are they the temporary abodes of souls which shall hereafter be released from them? Are they finally to be brought into the great unity, when "God shall be all in all"? The questions, he admits, are bold; but he answers both in the affirmative, on what he held to be the authority of Scripture (i. 7; cf. c. Cels. v. 10 f.).
In bk. ii. Origen pursues, at greater length, his view of the visible world, as a place of discipline and preparation. He follows out as a movement what he had before regarded as a condition. The endless variety in the situations of men, the inequality of their material and moral circumstances, their critical spiritual differences, all tend to shew, he argues, that the position of each has been determined in accordance with previous conduct. God, in His ineffable wisdom, has united all together with absolute justice, so that all these creatures most diverse in themselves, combine to work out His purpose, while "their very variety tends to the one end of perfection." All things were made for the sake of man and rational beings. Through man, therefore this world, as God's work, becomes complete and perfect (cf. c. Cels. iv. 99). The individual is never isolated, though never irresponsible. At every moment he is acting and acted upon adding something to the sum of the moral forces of the world, furnishing that out of which God is fulfilling His purpose. The difficulties of life, as Origen regards the given scope for heroic effort and loving service. The fruits of a moral victory become more permanent as they are gained through harder toil. Obstacles and hindrances are incentives to exertion. Man's body is not a "prison," in the sense of a place of punishment only: it is a beneficent provision for discipline, furnishing such salutary restraints as are best fitted to further moral growth.
This view of the dependence of the present on the past—to use the forms of human speech—seemed to Origen to remove a difficulty which weighed heavily upon thoughtful men then as now. Very many said then that the sufferings and disparities of life, the contrasts of law and gospel, point to the action of rival spiritual powers, or to a Creator limited by something external to Himself (ii. 9, 5). Not so, was Origen's reply; they simply reveal that what we see is a fragment of a vast system in which we can only trace tendencies, consequences, signs, and rest upon the historic fact of the Incarnation. In this respect he ventured to regard the entire range of being as "one thought" answering to the absolutely perfect will of God, while "we that are but parts can see but part, now this, now that." This seems to be the true meaning of his famous assertion, that the power of God in creation was finite and not infinite. It would, that is, be inconsistent with our ideas of perfect order, and therefore with our idea of the Divine Being, that the sum of first existences should not form one whole. "God made all things in number and measure." The omnipotence of God is defined (as we are forced to conceive) by the absolute perfections of His nature. "He cannot deny Himself" (ii. 9, 1, iv. 35). It may be objected that our difficulties do not lie only in our present circumstances; the issues of the present, so far as we can see them, bring difficulties no less overwhelming; even if we allow this world to be a fit place of discipline for fallen beings capable of recovery, it is only too evident that the discipline does not always work amendment. Origen admits the fact, and draws the conclusion that other systems of penal purification and moral advance follow. World grows out of world, so to speak, till the consummation is reached. The nature, position, or constitution of the worlds to come he does not attempt to define. It is enough to believe that, from first to last, the will of Him Who is most righteous and most loving is fulfilled; and that each loftier region gamed is the entrance to some still more glorious abode above, so that all being becomes, as it were, in the highest sense a journey of the saints from mansion to mansion up to the very throne of God. To make this view clear Origen follows out, in imagination, the normal course of the progressive training, purifying, and illumination of men in the future. He pictures them passing from sphere to sphere, and resting in each so as to receive such revelations of the providence of God as they can grasp; lower phenomena are successively explained to them, and higher phenomena are indicated. As they look backward old mysteries are illuminated; as they look forward unimagined mysteries stir their souls with divine desire. Everywhere their Lord is with them, and they advance from strength to strength through the perpetual supply of spiritual food. This food, he says, is the contemplation and understand-
