Origen is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable men among the ancient Christian writers. His talents, eloquence, and learning have been celebrated not only by Christian writers, but also by heathen philosophers, including Porph\Ty himself. Jerome calls him " a man of immortal genius, who understood logic, geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, rhetoric, and all the sects of the philosophers, so that he was resorted to by many students of secular literature, whom he received chiefly that he might emlirace the opportunity of instructing them in the faith of Christ" {De Vir. Illust. c. 54). Elsewhere he calls him the greatest teacher since the apostles. We find this same Jerome, however, at a later period of his life violently attacking Origen, and approving of the persecution against his followers. "Origen," says Prof. Emerson (in the Biblical lieposi- t(»-i/, Jan. 1834, art. i, p. 47), "is one among the few who have graced the annals of our race, by standing up as a living detinition of what is meant by a man of genius, learning, piety, and energy. All these he pos- sessed in amiable combination. Any subject that is worth mastering he would master, and when he had done it would devote the acquisition to a specific pur- pose for which he souglit it. Thus he learned music, philosophy, and iieathen literature, that he might gain the esteem and win the souls of the devotees to such accomplishments. Thus he studied Hebrew, that he might impart the Scriptures and meet the Jews; and then he wrote commentaries witiioutend. He pursued nothing without a design. The soul of man was his
great object; the world was his theatre; it was his purpose to make himself at liome everywhere and in all things, that he might gain all men. Like the great apostle, we find him everywhere true to his purpose and prepared for his work : at Alexandria, in the school and amid its pliilosophers and multifarious population ; in Arabia, in Palestine, in Athens ; among Christians and among heathen; among persecutors and heretics as well as among friends. It was worse than in vain for opposition to do anything to such a man short of put- ting him to death. Drag him, half dead, to the hea- then temple, and bid him distribute the emblems of hea- then rites, and you hear him preaching Jesus to those who approach to grasp the sacred branches. Let De- metrius and his councils expel and expose him, he does but retire to Ca^sarea, where he opens a new school of greater numbers, and 'myriads' throng around him. He is the stamp of a tridy great and good man. Sac- rificed to the world in his youth, and the world to him, there remained nothing in the world to do except to kill him — and even this he courted, instead of dreading. He wished for no excuse to cease from his Christian toils; they were his meat and drink." Indeed, his whole life was occupied in writing and teaching, and principally in explaining the Scriptures. No man-=T certainl}' none in ancient times — did more to settle the true text of the sacred writings, and to spread them among the people; yet, whether from a defect in judg- ment or from a fault in his education, he applied to the Holy Scriptures the allegorical method which the Plato- nists used in interpreting the heathen mythology. He says himself that " the source of many evils is the ad- hering to the carnal or external part of Scripture. Those who do so shall not attain to the kingdom of God. Let us, therefore, seek after the spirit and the substantial fruit of the Word, which are hidden and mj'sterious." Again, " the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written." In the 4th century the writings of Origen led to violent con- troversies in the Church. Epiphanius, in a letter pre- served by Jerome, enumerates eight erroneous opinions. Wor/cs. — All the extant works of Origen have been very much corrupted, either intentionally or accident- ally, by copyists and annotators, etc. The number of his works is stated by Epiphanius and Rufinus to have exceeded 6000, and although this is probably only meant as an exaggerated round number, yet the amount of writings that issued from his always busy brain and hands cannot but have been enormous. Seven secre- taries and seven co|iyists, aided by an uncertain num- ber of young girls, are by Eusebius reported to have been always at work for him. The great bulk of his works is lost ; but among those that have survived the most important by far is his elaborate attempt to rec- tify the text of the Septuagint by collating it with the Hebrew original and other (Jreek versions. On this he spent twenty-eight years, during whicli he travelled through the East collecting materials. The form in which he first issued the result of his labors was that of the Tetrapln, which presented in four columns the texts of the Sept., Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodo- tion. He next issued the Ilexapla, in which the He- brew text was given, first in Hebrew and then in Greek letters. Of some books he gave two additional (ircek versions, whence the title Octdplii; and there was even a seventh Greek version added for some books. The arrangement was in columns, in the following order: Hebrew in its proper characters; Hebrew in (ireek characters; Aquila; Symmachus; Sept.; Theodotion; 5th version; Oth ; 7th. Unhappily this great work, which extended to nearly fifty volumes, was never transcribed, and so perished. It had been placed in the library at C.'esarea, and was still much used in the times of Jerome. It was probably destroyed by the Saracens in G53. Extracts from it, however, had been made, and of these s^me are preserved. They were collected by Montfaucon, entitled Ilexaplorum