by their own names; and in the midst of them he saw Origen, who was there damned among the others, load- ed with horror, flames, and confusion." Protestants have alwa3-s revered his memorj'. The orthodox and heterodox have frequently quarrelled over his relative position in the Church. It would be difficult for us to determine his relation to the Church at large better than it has already been done by Dr. Schaff. AVe there- fore prefer to let this learned Church historian speak. " Origen," says Schaff, " was the greatest scholar of his age, and the most learned and genial of all the ante-Ni- cene fathers. Even heathens and heretics admired or feared his brilliant talents. His knowledge embraced all departments of the philology, philosophy, and theology of his day. With this he united profound and fertile thought, keen penetration, and glowing imagination. As a true divine, he consecrated all his studies by prayer, and turned them, according to his best convictions, to the service of truth and piety. It is impossible to deny a re- spectful sympathy to this extraordinary man, who, with all his brilliant talents and a host of enthusiastic friends and admirers, was driven from his country, stripped of his sacred office, excommunicated from a part of the Church, then thrown into a dungeon, loaded with chains, racked by torture, doomed to drag his aged frame and dislocated limbs in pain and poverty, and long after his death to have his memory branded, his name anathematized, and his salvation denied ; but who nev- ertheless did more than all his enemies combined to ad- vance the cause of sacred learning, to refute and convert heathens and heretics, and to make the Church respect- ed in the eyes of the world. Origen may be called in many respects the ScJtleiermacher of the Greeh Church. He was a guide from the heathen philosophy and the heretical Gnosis to the Christian faith. He exerted an immeasurable influence in stimulating the development of the catholic theology and forming the great Nicene fathers, Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregories, Hilary, and Ambrose, who consequently, in spite of all his de- viations, set great value on his services. But his best disciples proved unfaithful to many of his most peculiar views, and adhered far more to the reigning faith of the Church. For — and in this, too, he is like Schleier- macher — he can by no means be called orthodox, either in the Catholic or in the Protestant sense. His leaning to idealism, his predilection for Plato, and his noble ef- fort to reconcile Christianity with reason, and to com- mend it even to educated heathens and Gnostics, led him into many grand and fascinating errors" {Ch. Hist, i, 504, 505). " Christian science," says Pressense {Heresy and Christian Martyrs, p. 297 sq.), " is in Origen's view the full faith or knowledge, which rises to the direct contemplation of its object, and ascends from the visible Christ, 'known after the flesh,' to the Eternal Word. He falls into the same error as Clement in thinking too lightly of the foundation of this transcendent knowledge — that historical Gospel which is the very substance of the truth — and in treating the letter of the Scriptures as a seal that needs to be broken. It remains none the less true that speculation is never with him a mere men- tal feat; that it is rather the aspiration of the entire be- ing after the living and complete possession of the truth. Origen spoke the philosophical language of his time. He resolutely dealt with the problems which occupied the minds of his contemporaries. In order rightly to estimate and understand him, we must bear constantly in mind that sublime and subtle pantheism which ■ft-as the primary inspiration both of Valentinian Gnos- ticism and of Platonism. If his mind frequently for- sakes the solid ground of psychological observation and exact history, to soar into vague regions which are neither heaven nor earth, it is because he is desirous to occupy a sphere as wide as that of his adversaries. Anxious to excel them in science no less than in faith, he will not abandon to them any vantage ground. Like them, he peoples the infinite void with the crea- tions of his imagination. To the -^Eous be opposes good
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