doubt, however, that something more illustrious and excellent than this present world is pointed out by the Saviour, at which He incites and encourages believers to aim. But whether that world to which He desires to allude be far separated and divided from this, either by situation, or nature,. or glory; or whether it be superior in glory and quality, but confined within the limits of this world (which seems to me more probable), is nevertheless uncertain, and in my opinion an unsuitable subject for human thought. But from what | Clement seems to indicate when he says, “The ocean is | impassable to men, and those worlds which are behind it,” speaking in the plural number of the worlds which are be- hind it, which he intimates are administered and governed by the same providence of the Most High God, he appears to throw out to us some germs of that view by which the whole universe of existing things, celestial and super-celestial, earthly and infernal, is generally called one perfect world, within which, or by which, other worlds, if any there are, must be supposed to be contained. For which reason he wished the globe of the sun or moon, and of the other bodies called planets, to be each termed worlds. Nay, even that pre-eminent globe itself which they call the non-wandering (amAavn), they nevertheless desire to have properly called world. Finally, they summon the book of Baruch the prophet to bear witness to this assertion, because in it the seven worlds or heavens are more clearly pointed out. Never- 1 John xvii. 16.
88 ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIS. [Boox 11.
theless, above that sphere which they call non-wandering (avAavy), they will have another sphere to exist, which they say, exactly as our heaven contains all things which are under it, comprehends by its immense size and indescrib- able extent the spaces of all the spheres together within its more magnificent circumference; so that all things are within it, as this earth of ours is under heaven. And this also is believed to be called in the holy Scriptures the good land, and the land of the living, having its own heaven, which is higher, and in which the names of the saints are said to be written, or to have been written, by the Saviour; by which heaven that earth is confined and shut in, which the Saviour in the Gospel promises to the meek and merciful. For they would have this earth of ours, which formerly was named “ Dry,” to have derived its appellation from the name of that earth, as this heaven also was named firmament from the title of that heaven. But we have treated at greater length of such opinions in the place where we had to inquire into the meaning of the declaration, that in the beginning “God made the heavens and the earth.” For another heaven and another earth are shown to exist besides that “ firmament” which is said to have been made after the second day, or that “dry land” which was afterwards called “earth.” Certainly, what some say of this world, that it is corruptible because it was made, and yet is not corrupted, because the will of God, who made it and holds it together lest corruption should rule over it, is stronger and more powerful than corruption, may more correctly be supposed of that world which we have called above a “ non-wandering” sphere, since by the will of God it is not at all subject to corruption, for the reason that it has not admitted any causes of corruption, seeing it is the world of the saints and of the thoroughly purified, and not of the wicked, like that world of ours. We must see, moreover, lest perhaps it is with reference to this that the apostle says, “ While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal. For we know that , Caap. 111. | ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. 89 if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”’ And when he says elsewhere, “‘ Because I shall see the heavens, the works of Thy fingers,”* and when God said, regarding all things visible, by the mouth of His prophet, “ My hand has formed all these things,” ® He declares that that eternal house in. the heavens which He promises to His saints was not made with hands, pointing out, doubtless, the difference of creation in things which are seen and in those which are not seen. For the same thing is not to be understood by the expressions, “those things which are not seen,” and “those things which are invisible.” For those things which are invisible are not only not seen, but do not even possess the property of visibility, being what the Greeks call adowpara, t.e. incorporeal; whereas those of which Paul says, “They are not seen,” possess indeed the property of being seen, but, as he explains, are not yet be- held by those to whom they are promised.
7. Having sketched, then, so far as we could understand, these three opinions regarding the end of all things, and the supreme blessedness, let each one of our readers determine for himself, with care and diligence, whether any one of them can be approved and adopted.* For it has been said that we must suppose either that an incorporeal existence is possible, 4 This passage is found in Jerome's letter to Avitus, and, literally translated, is as follows: ‘‘ A threefold suspicion, therefore, is suggested to us regarding the end, of which the reader may examine which is the true and the better one. Tor we shall citherlive without a body, when, being subject to Christ, we shall be subject to God, and God shall be all in all; or, as things subject to Christ will be subject along with Christ Himself to God, and enclosed in one covenant, so all substance will be reduced to the best quality and dissolved into an cther, which is of a purer and simpler nature; or at least that sphere which we have called above &=?.ay, and whatever is contained within its circumference (cir- culo), will be dissolved into nothing, but that one by which the anti-zone (dv7iZen) itself is held together and surrounded will be called a good land; and, morcover, another sphere which surrounds this very earth itself with its revolution, and is called heaven, will be preserved for a habitation of the saints.”
90. ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. [Book 11.
after all things have become subject to Christ, and through Christ to God the Father, when God will be all and in all; or that when, notwithstanding all things have been made subject to Clirist, and through Christ to God (with whom they formed also one spirit, in respect of spirits being rational natures), then the bodily substance itself also being united to most pure and excellent spirits, and being changed into an ethereal condition in proportion to the quality or merits of those who assume it (according to the apostle’s words, “ We also shall be changed”), will shine forth in splendour; or at least that when the fashion of those things which are seen passes away, and all corruption has been shaken off and cleansed away, and when the whole of the space occupied by this world, in which the spheres of the planets are said to be, has been left behind and beneath,' then is reached the fixed abode of the pious and the good situated above that sphere, which is called non-wandering (a7rAav7s), as in a good land, in a land of the living, which will be inherited by the meek and gentle; to which land belongs that heaven (which, with its more mag- nificent extent, surrounds and contains that land itself) which is called truly and chiefly heaven, in which heaven and earth, the end and perfection of all things, may be safely and most confidently placed,—where, viz., these, after their apprehen- sion and their chastisement for the offences which they have undergone by way of purgation, may, after having fulfilled and discharged every obligation, deserve a habitation in that land; while those who have been obedient to the word of God, and have henceforth by their obedience shown them- selves capable of wisdom, are said to deserve the kingdom of that heaven or heavens; and thus the prediction is more worthily fulfilled, “‘ Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- herit the earth;”? and, “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven;”* and the declaration in the Psalm, “ He shall exalt thee, and thou shalt inherit the land.”* For it is called a descent to this earth, but an 1Qmnique hoc mundi statu, in quo planetarum dicuntur sphere, Cuap. tv. | ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. 91 exaltation to that which is on high. In this way, therefore, does a sort of road seem to be opened up by the departure of the saints from that earth to those heavens; so that they do not so much appear to abide in that land, as to inhabit it with an intention, viz., to pass on to the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, when they have reached that degree of perfection also.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GOD OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, AND THE FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, IS THE SAME GOD.
1. Havine now briefly arranged these points in order as we best could, it follows that, agreeably to our intention from the first, we refute those who think that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a different God from Him who gave the answers of the law to Moses, or commissioned the prophets, who is the God of gur fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For in this article of faith, first of all, we must be firmly grounded. We have to consider, then, the expression of fre- quent recurrence in the Gospels, and subjoined to all the acts of our Lord and Saviour, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by this or that prophet,” it being manifest that the prophets are the prophets of that God who made the world. From this therefore we draw the conclusion, that He who sent the prophets, Himself predicted what was to be foretold of Christ. And there is no doubt that the Father Himself, and not another different from Him, uttered these predictions. The practice, moreover, of the Saviour or His apostles, frequently quoting illustrations from the Old Testa- ment, shows that they attribute authority tothe ancients. The injunction also of the Saviour, when exhorting His disciples to the exercise of kindness, ‘“ Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect; for He commands His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,”’ most evidently suggests even to 92 ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIHS. [Book 11.
a person of feeble understanding, that He is proposing to the imitation of His disciples no other God than the maker of heaven and the bestower of the rain. Again, what else does the expression, which ought to be used by those who pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,”* appear to indicate, save that God is to be sought in the better parts of the world, te. of His creation? Further, do not those admirable principles which He lays down respecting oaths, saying that we ought not to “swear either by heaven, because it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, because it is His footstool,’? harmo- nize most clearly with the words of the prophet, “ Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool?”* And also when casting out of the temple those who sold sheep, and oxen, and doves, and pouring out the tables of the money-changers, and saying, “ Take these things hence, and do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise,”* He undoubtedly called Him his Father, to whose name Solomon had raised a magnificent temple. The words, moreover, “ Have ye not read what was spoken by God to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; He is not a God of the dead, but of the living,”* most clearly teach us, that He called the God of the patriarchs (because they were holy, and were alive) the God of the living, the same, viz., who had said in the prophets, “I am God, and besides me there is no God.”* For if the Saviour, knowing that He who is written in the law is the God of Abraham, and that it is the same who says, “I am God, and besides me there is no God,” acknowledges that very one to be His Father who is ignorant of the existence of any other God above Himself, as the heretics suppose, He absurdly declares Him to be His Father who does not know of a greater God. But if it is not from ignorance, but from deceit, that He says there is no other God than Himself, then it is a much greater absurdity to confess that His Father is guilty of falsehood. From all which this conclusion is arrived at, that He knows 3 Tsa. Ixvi. 1. 4 John ii. 16. 5 Matt. xxil. 325 cf. Ex. iii. 6. © Isa. xlv. 6.
Cuar. rv.] ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. 93 of no other Father than God, the Founder and Creator of all things.
2. It would be tedious to collect out of all the passages in the Gospels the proofs by which the God of the law and of the Gospels is shown to be one and the same. Let us touch briefly upon the Acts, of the Apostles,’ where Stephen and the other apostles address their prayers to that God who made heaven and earth, and who spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, calling Him the “God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob;” the God who “ brought forth His people out of the land of Egypt.” Which expressions undoubtedly clearly direct our understandings to faith in the Creator, and implant an affection for Him in those who have learned piously and faithfully thus to think of Him; according to the words of the Saviour Himself, who, when He was asked which was the greatest commandinent in the Jaw, replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And to these He added: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”? How is it, then, that Ile commends to him whom He was instructing, and was leading to enter on the office of a disciple, this commandment above all otliers, by which undoubtedly love was to be kindled in him towards the God of that law, inasmuch as such had been declared by the law in these very words? But let it be granted, notwith- standing all these most evident proofs, that it is of some other unknown God that the Saviour says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” etc. etc. How, in that case, if the law and the prophets are, as they say, from the Creator, t.e. from another God than He whom He calls good, shall that appear to be logically said which He subjoins, viz. that “on these two commandments hang the law and the prophets?” For how shall that which is strange and foreign to God depend upon Him? And when Paul says, “I thank my God, whom I serve in my spirit from my forefathers with pure conscience,” * he clearly shows that he came not 94 ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIS. [ Boox 1.
to some new God, but to Christ. For what other forefathers of Paul can be intended, except those of whom he says, *“ Are they Hebrews? so am I: are they Israelites? so am I.”! Nay, will not the very preface of his Epistle to the Romans clearly show the same thing to those who know how to under- stand the letters of Paul, viz. what God he preaches? For his words are: “ Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart to the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy Scriptures concern- ing His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of Christ Jesus our Lord,”? etc. Moreover, also the following, “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he that plougheth should plough in hope, and he that thresheth in hope of par- taking of the fruits.”* By which he manifestly shows that God, who gave the law on our account, z.e. on account of the apostles, says, “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn;” whose care was not for oxen, but for the apostles, who were preaching the gospel of Christ. In other passages also, Paul, embracing the promises of the law, says, “ Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and that thy days may be long upon the land, the good land, which the Lord thy God will give thee.”* By which he undoubtedly makes known that the law, and the God of the law, and His promises, are pleasing to him.
3. But as those who uphold this heresy are sometimes accustomed to mislead the hearts of the simple by certain deceptive sophisms, I do not consider it improper to bring forward the assertions which they are in the habit of making, and to refute their deceit and falsehood. The following, ‘then, are their declarations. It is written, that “no man 3 1 Cor. ix. 9,10; cf. Deut.xxv.4. 4 Eph. vi. 2,3; cf. Ex. xx. 12.
Cuap. iv. | ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIS. 95 hath seen God at any time.”’ But that God whom Moses preaches was both seen by Moses himself, and by his fathers before him; whereas He who is announced by the Saviour has never been seen at all by any one. Let us therefore ask them and ourselves whether they maintain that he whom they acknowledge to be God, and allege to be a different God from the Creator, is visible or invisible. And if they shall say that he is visible, besides being proved to go against the declaration of Scripture, which says of the Saviour, “ He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature,” ’ they will fall also into the absurdity of asserting that God is corporeal. For nothing can be seen except by help of form, and size, and colour, which are special properties of bodies. And if God is declared to bea body, then He will also be found to be material, since every body is com- posed of matter. But if He be composed of matter, and matter is undoubtedly corruptible, then, according to them, God is liable to corruption! We shall put to them a second question. Is matter made, or is it uncreated, i.e. not made? And if they shall answer that it is not made, z.e. uncreated, we shall ask them if one portion of matter is God, and the other part the world? But if they shall say of matter that it is made, it will undoubtedly follow that they confess Him whom they declare to be God to have been made!—a result which certainly neither their reason nor ours can admit.
But they will say, God is invisible. And what will you do? If you say that He is invisible by nature, then neither ought He to be visible to the Saviour. Whereas, on the contrary, God, the Father of Christ, is said to be seen, because “he who sees the Son,” he says, “sees also the Father.” ° This certainly would press us very hard, were the expression not understood by us more correctly of understanding, and not of seeing. For he who has understood the Son will under- stand the Father also. In this way, then, Moses too must be supposed to have seen God, not beholding Him with the bodily eye, but understanding Him with the vision of the heart and the perception of the mind, and that only in some 1 John i. 18. 2 Col. i. 15. § John xiv. 9.
96 ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. [Book 11.
degree. For it is manifest that He, viz., who gave answers to Moses, said, “ You shall not sce my face, but my hinder parts.” These words are, of course, to be understood in that mystical sense which is befitting divine words, those old wives’ fables being rejected and despised which are invented by ignorant persons respecting the anterior and posterior parts of God. Let no one indeed suppose that we have indulged any feeling of impiety in saying that even to the Saviour the Father is not visible. Let him consider the distinction which we employ in dealing with heretics. For we have explained that it is one thing to see and to be seen, and another to know and to be known, or to understand and to be understood.? To see, then, and to be seen, is a property of bodies, which certainly will not be appropriately applied either to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit, in their mutual relations with one another. For the nature of the Trinity surpasses the measure of vision, grant- ing to those who are in the body, te. to all other creatures, the property of vision in reference to one another. But to a nature that is incorporeal and for the most part intellectual, no other atttribute is appropriate save that of knowing or being known, as the Saviour Himself declares when He says, “No man knoweth the Son, save the Father; nor does any one know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the | Son will reveal Him.”® It is clear, then, that He has not said, “ No one has seen the Father, save the Son;” but, “No one knoweth the Father, save the Son.”
4, And now, if, on account of those expressions which occur in the Old Testament, as when God is said to be angry or to repent, or when any other human affection or passion is described, [our opponents] think that they are furnished with grounds for refuting us, who maintain that God is altogether impassible, and is to be regarded as wholly free from all affections of that kind, we have to show them that similar 7 Aliud sit videre et videri, ct aliud ndsse et nosci, vel cognoscere atque cognosci.
5 Matt. xi. 27.
Cuar. v.] ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. 97 statements are found even in the parables of the Gospel; as when it is said, that he who planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen, who slew the servants that were sent to them, and at last put to death even the son, is said in anger to have taken away the vineyard from them, and to have delivered over the wicked husbandmen to destruction, and to have handed over the vineyard to others, who would yield him the fruit in its season. And so also with regard to those citizens who, when the head of the houschold had set out to receive for himself a kingdom, sent messengers after him, saying, “ We will not have this man to reign over us;”? for the head of the household having obtained the kingdom, returned, and in anger commanded them to be put to death before him, and burned their city with fire. But when we read either in the Old Testament or in the New of the anger of God, we do not take such expressions literally, but seck in them a spiritual meaning, that we may think of God as He deserves to be thought of. And on these points, when ex- pounding the verse in the second Psalm, “ Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His fury,”’ we showed, to the best of our poor ability, how such an expression ought to be understood.
CHAPTER V. ON JUSTICE AND GOODNESS.
1. Now, since this consideration has weight with some, that the leaders of that heresy (of which we have been speaking) think they have established a kind of division, according to which they have declared that justice is one thing and good- ness another, and have applied this division even to divine things, maintaining that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed a good God, but not a just one, whereas the God of the law and the prophets is just, but not good; I think it necessary to return, with as much brevity as possible, an ORIG. G 98 ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. [Boox m.
answer to these statements. These persons, then, consider goodness to be some such affection as would have benefits conferred on all, although the recipient of them be unworthy and undeserving of any kindness; but here, in my opinion, they have not rightly applied their definition, inasmuch as they think that no benefit is conferred on him who is visited with any suffering or calamity. Justice, on the other hand, they view as that quality which rewards every one according to his deserts. But here, again, they do not rightly interpret the meaning of their own definition. For they think that it is just to send evils upon the wicked and benefits upon the good; 2.e. so that, according to their view, the just God does not appear to wish well to the bad, but to be animated by a kind of hatred against them. And they gather together in- stances of this, wherever they find a history in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, relating, e.g., the punishment of the deluge, or the fate of those who are described as perishing in it, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha by a shower of fire and brimstone, or the falling of all the people in the wilder- ness on account of their sins, so that none of those who had left Egypt were found to have entered the promised Jand, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb. Whereas from the New Testament they gather together words of compassion and piety, through which the disciples are trained by the Saviour, and by which it seems to be declared that no one is good save God the Father only; and by this means they have ventured to style the Father of the Saviour Jesus Christ a good God, but to say that the God of the world is a dif- ferent one, whom they are pleased to term just, but not also good.