"In his Pncumatology," says Schaff, "Origen vacil- lates still more than in his Christology between or- thodox and heterodox views. He ascribes to the Holy Ghost eternal existence, exalts him, as he does the Son, far above all creatures, and considers him the source of all charisms (not as vXri tCjv \apiapaTti}V, as Neander and others represent it, but as ti)v 'v\i]v tCov xapiajji. Tvap'ixov, as offering the substance and fulness of the spiritual gifts ; therefore as the apxi] and 7r>)y/; of them [/« Joh. ii, § 6]), especially as the principle of all the illumination and holiness of believers under the Old Covenant and the New. But he places the Spirit in essence, dignitj', and efficiency below the Son, as far as he places the Son below the Father; and though he grants in one passage {De Princip. i, 3, 3) that the Bible nowhere calls the Holy Ghost a creature, yet, according to another somewhat obscure sentence, he himself inclines towards the view, which, however, he does not avow, that the Holy Ghost had a beginning (though, according to his system, not in time but from
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eternity), and is the first and most excellent of all the beings produced by the Logos {In Joh. ii, § G : Ti/^uw- Ttpov — this comparative, by the way, should be no- ticed as possibh' saying more than the superlative, and perhaps designed to distinguish the Spirit from all creatures — ttuvtwv tCjv vtto tov Flarpog Sid Xpiurov yiyivvrii.iiv(x}v). In the same connection he adduces three opinions concerning the Holy Ghost : one, regard- ing him as not having an origin ; another, ascribing to him no separate personality ; and a third, making him a being originated by the Logos. The first of these opinions he rejects, because the Father alone is without origin {dy'tvvi]roc) ; the second he rejects, because in Matt, xii, 32 the Spirit is plainly distinguished from the Father and the Son ; the third he takes for the true and scriptural view, because everything was made by the Logos (according to John i, 3). Lideed, according to Matt, xii, 32, the IIolj'^ Ghost would seem to stand above the Son ; but the sin against the Holy Ghost is more heinous than that against the Son of Man only be- cause he who has received the Holy Ghost stands higher than he who has merelj' the reason from the Logos" {Ch. Hist, i, 280).
These errors, and others connected with and flow- ing from these, together with that " furor allegoricus" above mentioned, which pushed him on to turn even the whole law and Gospel into allegorj-, are the founda- tion of all that enmity which has beenconceived against Origen, and of all those anathemas with which he has been loaded. His damnation by Romanists has been often decreed in form ; and it has been deemed heretical even to suppose him saved. John Picus, earl of Miran- dula, having published at Rome, among his 900 proposi- tions, that it is more reasonable to believe Origen saved than damned, the masters in divinity censured him for it, asserting that his proposition was rash, blamable, fa- voring of heresy, and contrary to the determination of the Catholic Church. This is what Picus himself re- lates in his Apolog. c. vii. Stephen Binct, a Jesuit, published a book at Paris in 1629, concerning the salva- tion of Origen, in which he took the affirmative side of the question, but not without diffidence and fear. This work is written in the form of a trial ; witnesses are in- troduced and depositions taken, and the cause is fully pleaded pro and con. The witnesses for Origen are Merlin, Erasmus, Genebrard, and Picus of Mirandula : after this, cardinal Baronius, in the name of Bellarmine, and of all who are against Origen, makes a speech to de- mand the condemnation of the accused. After having ex- patiated on Origen's heresies, the cardinal adds: "Must I at last be reduced to such an extremity as to be obliged to open the gates of hell, in order to show that Origen is there V otherwise men will not believe it. Would it not be enough to have laid before you his crime, his un- fortunate end, the sentence of his condemnation deliv- ered by the emperors, by the popes, b}' the saints, by the fifth general council, not to mention others, and almost by the mouth of God himself? Yet, since there is no other method left but descending into hell and showing there that reprobate, that damned Origen, come, gen- tlemen, I am determined to do it, in order to carry this matter to the highest degree of evidence : let us, in God's name, go down into hell, to see whether he really be there or not, and to decide the question at once." The seventh general council has quoted from the Pratnm Spiri/uale (Baron. Annal. ad ann. 532), and by quot- ing it has declared it to be of sufficient authority to furnish us with good and lawful proofs to support the determination of the council with regard to Origen. " Why should not we, after the example of that council, make use of the same book to determine this contro- versy, which besides is already but too much cleared up and decided? It is said there that a man being in great perplexity about the salvation of Origen, after the fervent prayers of a holy old man, saw plainly, as it were, a kind of hell open ; and, looking in, observed the heresiarchs, who were all named to him one after another VII.— E E