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They look upon the Redeemer less as the Victim to be wept over than as the Mediator, the Friend, the Elder Brother. To them He was, to quote Origen's words, 'The Bridge between us and the Father.
It seems that Theophilus had driven out of Egypt a body of monks because they would not assent to the condemnation of Origen's writings; and the poor men, not knowing where to go, fled to Constantinople and implored the protection of the Patriarch. He compassionately gave them shelter, and permission to say their prayers in one of his churches.
"He who deals candidly with histories" this is Origen's general canon of interpretation "and would wish to keep himself also from being imposed on by them, will exercise his judgment as to what statements he will give his assent to, and what he will accept figuratively, seeking to discover the meaning of the authors of such inventions, and from what statements he will withhold his beliefs, as having been written for the gratification of certain individuals.
It had been used in the Nicene anathemas as equivalent to ousia or essence; and so Athanasius used it still, to denote the common deity of all the persons of the Trinity. Meantime the Easterns in general had adopted Origen's limitation of it to the deity of the several persons of the Trinity in contrast with each other. In this way East and West were at cross-purposes.
But long before the seventeenth century had closed, orthodox opinion seems to have set almost entirely in the direction of the sternest and most hopeless interpretation possible. Bishop Rust of Dromore, who died in 1670, ardently embraced Origen's view. So also did Sir Henry Vane, the eminent Parliamentary leader, who was beheaded for high treason in 1662.
Therefore, said Luther, these speculating Divines belong directly to the devil in hell. They follow their own opinions, and what with their five senses they are able to comprehend; and such is also Origen's divinity. But David is of another mind; he acknowledgeth his sins, and saith, "Miserere mei Domini," God be merciful to me a sinner.
But no dread of heresy stopped Jerome in his search for knowledge and for books. He obtained copies of the whole of Origen's works, and read them with the greatest admiration.
Childhood is beautiful in truth, but not therefore blest, that is, for the little bodiless cherubs of the canvas. It was one of Origen's fancies that the coats of skins given to Adam and Eve on their expulsion from Paradise were their corporeal textures, and that in Eden they had neither flesh nor blood, bones nor nerves.
Jerome having, like many others, adopted Origen's explanation of the scene between Peter and Paul at Antioch, Augustine wrote to him in protest against such teaching, with its implied approval of deceit and falsehood.
The reader, by this time, will easily recollect that the date of Origen's works is A.D. 230. II. Athanasias, about a century afterwards, delivered a catalogue of the books of the New Testament in form, containing our Scriptures and no others; of which he says, "In these alone the doctrine of Religion is taught; let no man add to them, or take anything from them."
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