12. In the fourth and last book of his work the following passages deserve the church's condemnation. "It may be that as, when men die in this world by the separation of soul and body, they are allotted different positions in hell according to the difference in their works; so when angels die, out of the system of the heavenly Jerusalem, they come down to this world as a hell and are placed on earth according to their deserts." And again: "as we have compared the souls which pass from this world to hell with those which as they come from heaven to us are in a manner dead; so we must carefully inquire whether this is true of all souls without exception. For in that case souls born on earth when they desire better things rise out of hell and assume human bodies or when they desire worse things come down to us from better worlds; and in the firmament above us likewise there are souls on their way from our world to higher ones, and others who, while they have fallen from heaven, have not sinned so grievously as to be thrust down to earth." He thus tries to prove that the firmament, that is the sky, is hell compared with heaven; and that this earth is hell compared with the firmament; and again that our world is heaven to hell. Or in other words what is hell to some is heaven to others. And not content with saying this he goes on: "at the end of all things when we shall return to the heavenly Jerusalem the hostile powers shall declare war [3390] against the people of God to breathe and exercise their valour and strengthen their resolve. For this they cannot have until they have faced and foiled their foes; of whom we read in the book of Numbers [3391] that they are overcome by reason, discipline, and tactical skill."
13. After saying that according to the apocalypse of John "the everlasting gospel" which shall be revealed in heaven [3392] as much surpasses our gospel as Christ's preaching does the sacraments [3393] of the ancient law, he has asserted what it is sacrilegious even to think; that Christ will once more suffer in the sky for the salvation of demons. And although he has not expressly said it, it is yet implied in his words that as for men God became man to set men free, so for the salvation of demons when He comes to deliver them He will become a demon. To shew that this is no gloss of mine, I must give his own words: "As Christ," he writes, "has fulfilled the shadow of the law by the shadow of the gospel, and as all law is a pattern and shadow of things done in heaven, we must inquire whether we are justified in supposing that even the heavenly law and the rites of the celestial worship are still incomplete and need the true gospel which in the apocalypse of John is called everlasting to distinguish it from ours which is only temporal, set forth in a world that shall pass away. Now if we extend our inquiry to the passion of our Lord and Saviour, it may indeed be overbold to suppose that He will suffer in heaven; yet if there is spiritual wickedness in heavenly places [3394] and if we confess without a blush that the Lord has once been crucified to destroy those things which He has destroyed by His passion; why need we fear to imagine a like occurrence in the upper world in the fulness of time, so that the nations of all realms shall be saved by a passion of Christ?"
14. Here is another blasphemy which he has spoken of the Son. "Assuming that the Son knows the Father, it would seem that by this knowledge He can comprehend Him as much as a craftsman can comprehend the rules of his art. And, doubtless, if the Father is in the Son, He is also comprehended by Him in whom He is. But if we mean by comprehension not merely that the knower takes a thing in by perception and insight but that he contains it within himself by virtue of a special faculty; in this sense we cannot say that the Son comprehends the Father. For the Father comprehends all things, and of these the Son is one; therefore, He comprehends the Son." And to shew us reasons why, while the Father comprehends the Son, the Son cannot comprehend the Father, he adds: "the curious reader may inquire whether the Father knows Himself in the same way that the Son knows Him. But if he recalls the words: the Father who sent me is greater than I,' [3395] he will allow that they must be universally true and will admit that, in knowledge as in everything else, the Father is greater than the Son, and knows Himself more perfectly and immediately than the Son can do."
15. The following passage is a convincing proof that he holds the transmigration of souls and annihilation of bodies. "If it can be shewn that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it; then beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more annihilated. They are thus ever vanishing and ever reappearing." And to prevent us from minimizing the impiety of his previous utterances he ends his work by maintaining that all reasonable beings, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, angels, powers, dominations, and virtues, and even man by right of his soul's dignity, are of one and the same essence. "God," he writes, "and His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit are conscious of an intellectual and reasonable nature. But so also are the angels, the powers, and the virtues, as well as the inward man who is created in the image and after the likeness of God. [3396] From which I conclude that God and they are in some sort of one essence." He adds "in some sort" to escape the charge of blasphemy; and while in another place he will not allow the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance with the Father lest by so doing he should appear to make the divine essence divisible, he here bestows the nature of God almighty upon angels and men.
16. This being the nature of Origen's book, is it anything short of madness to change a few blasphemous passages regarding the Son and the Holy Spirit and then to publish the rest unchanged with an unprincipled eulogy when the parts unaltered as well as the parts altered flow from the same fountain head of gross impiety? This is not the time to confute all the statements made in detail; and indeed those who have written against Arius, Eunomius, Manichæus, and various other heretics must be supposed to have answered these blasphemies as well. If anyone, therefore, wishes to read the work let him walk with his feet shod towards the land of promise; let him guard against the jaws of the serpent and the crooked jaws of the scorpion; let him read this treatise first and before he enters upon the path let him know the dangers which he will have to avoid.
[3354] The certain person' is of course Rufinus.
[3355] See Letter LXXXIII.
[3356] See Letter LXXXIV.
[3357] Rom. x. 2, R.V.
[3358] Cf. Luke x. 19; Ezek. ii. 6.
[3359] This statement is not borne out by the existing fragments of the treatise. In fact Origen declares Christ's divinity in unambiguous language. "Being God he was made man" First Principles, I. Preface.
[3360] F. P., I. 1, 8.
[3361] F. P., I. 2, 6.
[3362] F. P., I. 2, 7.
[3363] F. P., I. 2, 8.
[3364] F. P., I. 2, 9, 13. The last words are omitted by Rufinus.
[3365] F. P., I. Preface, 4.
[3366] F. P., I. 3, 5. The words are omitted by Rufinus.
[3367] F. P., I. 5, 5.
[3368] F. P., I. 6, 2.
[3369] Isa. lxv. 17.
[3370] Rom. viii. 19-21, R.V.
[3371] 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54.
[3372] This word is doubtful.
[3373] Matt. xiii. 8.
[3374] Joh. x. 18.
[3375] Luke xix. 10.
[3376] The paralogism in this reasoning--so obvious to modern minds--is due to the confusion of the copula with the verb substantive.
[3377] Rom. viii. 20.
[3378] Phædo, 70-77.
[3379] 2 Tim. ii. 20.
[3380] Mal. i. 2, 3.
[3381] 2 Tim. ii. 21.
[3382] i.e. demons.
[3383] Luke i. 41.
[3384] Cf. Acts xvi. 16, A.V. margin.
[3385] Isa. lxvi. 22.
[3386] Eccles. i. 9, 10.
[3387] Rom. viii. 20, R.V.
[3388] Rom. viii. 21, R.V.
[3389] Joh. xvii. 21.
[3390] Reading adversariorum fortitudinum...bella consurgere.
[3391] Passim.
[3392] Rev. xiv. 6.
[3393] This term had not in Jerome's time become restricted to its later sense. Anything mysterious or sacred was called a sacrament. Here it refers to the mystic teaching of the O.T.
[3394] Eph. vi. 12.
[3395] Joh. xiv. 28.
[3396] 2 Cor. iv. 16; Gen. i. 27.