C. Delarue, O.S.B., Praefatio

PREFACE.

Among the ancient writers of the Greek Church there is scarcely one who left behind him among posterity so great a fame for learning as Origen. As regards the human disciplines, he learned, on the testimony of Jerome, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, rhetoric, and the sects of all the philosophers so well that he had all the zealous followers of secular letters as his disciples. "He judged," says Eusebius, "the studies of secular literature and philosophy to be above all necessary to him." How far, moreover, he excelled in those studies, the very philosophers of the gentiles who flourished in his age are witnesses, in whose books we find frequent mention made of this man, while they either dedicate their own books to him or send them to him to be examined as to their master. Nor is this surprising: for, on the testimony of Porphyry, "he was constantly occupied with Plato. He also had in his hands daily the writings of Numenius, Cronius, Apollophanes and Longinus, of Moderatus too and Nicomachus, and of others who are held to be foremost among the Platonists. He also made use of the books of Chaeremon the Stoic and of Cornutus." And indeed, even if testimonies of this kind were lacking to Origen in that knowledge of human affairs and arts, the eight books Against Celsus would plainly declare it; a work which by itself supplies the very greatest richness and abundance of profane learning.

Of what kind and how great he was in divine matters would be easily judged, if a huge number of volumes were the surest proof of the highest learning. Vincent of Lérins affirms that no mortal wrote more than Origen. "Which of us," says Jerome, "can read as much as he wrote? He published a thousand and more treatises, which he delivered in church; besides innumerable commentaries, which he himself calls τόμοι." And in another place, where he compared all the writings of Varro among the Latins with the writings of Origen among the Greeks, enumerating them one by one: "Do you see," he says, "that Greeks and Latins alike are surpassed by the labour of one man (Origen)? For who has ever been able to read as much as he wrote?" But it is well established that the more anyone has written, he has not on that account always turned out more learned or worthy of a greater name. And if we appeal to the ancients concerning Origen's skill in expounding the Scriptures, their zeal is split into opposite camps, so that among the Catholics themselves saints oppose saints, martyrs oppose martyrs. Some, as a heretic

and as the corruption and perdition of souls, decry him; others defend him with most learned apologies and call him the second master of the Churches after the apostles. Pamphilus the martyr dedicates to the Church of Caesarea his books, sought out from every quarter and for the greater part copied out with his own hand; but behold, Methodius and Eustathius, martyrs, rise up sharply against them, and the abbot Pachomius, when about to die, forbids his monks in the gravest words to read them. What then was not attempted by Theophilus, Epiphanius, Honorius and Arcadius, and also Justinian, that those books might be struck out of the hands of all, while meanwhile there stood on Origen's side Theotimus of Tomi, John Chrysostom, and many other bishops and monks, who refused to approve his condemnation by signature or assent? Jerome cries out: "Believe one who has tried it; I speak as a Christian to Christians: his doctrines are poisoned, alien to the holy Scriptures, doing violence to the Scriptures." But these very passages, which the holy Doctor charges with manifest heresy against the Trinity, are brought back to a Catholic sense by Didymus in brief commentaries; the rest, Eusebius, Didymus, Pamphilus and others contend, were either spoken in a Catholic manner or not yet overthrown by the decrees of the Church, being things, that is, which Origen did not propose as dogmas, but left to each one's judgement only as questions for exercise.

In so great a disagreement among so many illustrious ancients, a fair and prudent judge of things will observe: 1° That those who rose up most sharply against Origen, while they recite all his harmful opinions to the point of nausea and devote them to curses, declare clearly enough, even against their will, that whatever they did not censure in his books meets with their approval: and since these things are far more in number than those which they marked with their censure, it necessarily follows that with a few evils there are mixed goods almost innumerable. 2° That of those who with more ardent zeal were striking his books out of the hands of all, some were rather often caught reading them, struck with admiration at the excellent things which occur here and there in them. Thus that Theophilus, the scourge of Origen, after he had wretchedly harassed Chrysostom, when, returned from Constantinople to Alexandria, he was caught reading Origen, said shrewdly that his books were like a meadow planted with every kind of flower; that if he found anything good in them, he plucked it; if anything seemed thorny, that he, as if it were a prickle,

stepped over. Finally, that others in express words confess that very many benefits can be reaped from his books. Who, says Jerome, would not admire his ardent mind in the Scriptures? But if some Judas the Zealot should object his errors, let him freely hear:

Sometimes great Homer nods.

Yet in a long work it is natural for sleep to creep in.

(Horace, in the Art of Poetry.)

Let us not imitate the faults of him whose virtues we cannot imitate. And Vincent of Lérins says: So great in him was the magnificence of all erudition, that he surpassed almost all men, and there were few things of divine, and almost none of human philosophy which he did not thoroughly attain. By the voluntary confession, therefore, of those very men among whom he is held guilty of violated faith, Origen was very great in divine matters also.

Nor is there reason for you to say that scarcely anything certain can be drawn from his writings today: inasmuch as idle and heretical men laid faithless hands upon them, who also published spurious and wholly alien works under his name, and perpetrated crimes of that kind with greater boldness after his death; and that moreover a great part of Origen's works is circulated today without the Greek text in the sole translation of Rufinus, whose trustworthiness is very shaky; and that no one can fish out from it the true mind of Adamantius. For this adulteration of his books is far from being so well established as it seems to some. It is agreed indeed that some heretics while he was still alive reached such a pitch of audacity that they corrupted certain of his books, and published other writings under his name, wherein he was feigned to say things that had never come into his mind. Yet within a very short interval of time the fraud was detected, not without vast disgrace to the forgers, after he himself brought forth authentic copies of his own works, openly testifying that others had been falsely attributed to him. Wherefore the adulteration of his books, attempted by heretics while he himself was alive, could not harm posterity: for it is not likely that Catholics, having heard Origen's complaints on that matter, copied out the fictitious and fabricated books which the heretics had substituted, setting aside the true and genuine books which he produced. Next, after his death, with what appearance of truth does this adulteration move us? Rufinus, and another apologist whom Photius mentions in codex 117, are the only ones who use this evasion in order to free him from the charges of violated faith pressed against him. Jerome cleverly observes that no mention of a corruption of this kind was made in the Apology for Origen, which Rufinus attributes solely to the martyr Pamphilus, although the more important part should be credited to Eusebius of Pamphilus. The most learned man Eusebius, he says,.... through six volumes did nothing else than show Origen to be of his own faith, that is, of the Arian perfidy, and puts forward many examples, and constantly proves this.

In what dream of the Alexandrian prison, therefore, was it revealed to you that you should invent as falsified the things which he professes as true? But perhaps he, as an Arian, drew the things added by heretics into an occasion for his own error, lest he alone should be thought to have held ill opinions against the Church: what will you answer for Didymus, who is certainly Catholic on the Trinity? Certainly he could not agree in those things which were added by heretics in the works, and on the very books On First Principles which you translated, he dictated brief commentaries in which he did not deny that the things written were written by Origen, but tries to persuade us that we simple men cannot understand what is said, and in what sense they ought to be taken in good part. This only concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the rest, in other dogmas both Eusebius and Didymus openly concede to the tenets of Origen, and defend as catholically and piously said what all the Churches reprobate. Moreover, the sole argument which Rufinus brings forward to prove that the works of Origen were corrupted by heretics is sought from passages conflicting with one another, several of which kind he seemed to himself to detect in this writer. Truly, says Jerome, if it is granted that whatever is found contrary in the books of all men has been corrupted by others, nothing will belong to those under whose names it is passed, but it will be imputed to those by whom it is said to have been violated: although it will not belong even to those whose names are uncertain. And so it will come to pass that while all things belong to all, nothing belongs to anyone. By this confusion of defence neither Marcion, nor Manichaeus, nor Arius, nor Eunomius will be able to be accused, because whatever we object as impiously said by them, their disciples will answer that it was not thus published by their masters, but violated by enemies. In this way even that very book of yours will not be yours, but perhaps mine; and my book, in which when accused I reply to you, if you reprove anything in it, will not be mine, but yours by whom it is reproved. And while you refer all things to heretics, what will you attribute to churchmen, to whom you leave nothing of their own? And how, you will say, are there some faulty things in their books? If I answer that I do not know the causes of the faults, I shall not immediately judge them heretics. For it can happen that either they simply erred, or wrote in another sense, or certainly before Arius was born in Alexandria like the midday demon, spoke some things innocently and less cautiously and such as cannot avoid the calumny of perverse men. Next, Rufinus alleged this distortion to lie only in some passages of the books On First Principles which seemed to oppose the Catholic faith concerning the Trinity; whereas, as we have already said, Eusebius and Didymus recognized those very same passages as genuine, with this one difference, that the former drew them in brief scholia to an Arian sense, the latter to a Catholic sense. Furthermore, whatever things in the Origenian writings seemed to the ancients worthy of reproof and censure are not contained in one, two, or three statements which out of

the books On First Principles alone have been excerpted, and are most disconnected from the Origenian purpose. The very body of Origenian doctrine is the argument of the work On First Principles, the foundations upon which the entire system of Origen rests, the columns, of which if one is overturned the whole edifice must necessarily fall. Finally, the faults which seemed to the ancients to be in the books On First Principles, you may see the same scattered in the other works of this writer; the doctrine everywhere the same, the same singular opinions everywhere. Moreover, who could bring himself to believe that all the works of Origen together, of which there was a vast number, were deformed, perverted, and thrown into confusion by heretics, so that not even a single one remained which escaped their faithless hands, not even that vast stock of volumes which Pamphilus the martyr transcribed with his own hand and dedicated to the Church of Caesarea? Let Apella the Jew believe it, not I.

As regards the works of which the Greek text has perished, and only the Latin translation of Rufinus survives, Rufinus testifies in the peroration subjoined to the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans that he simply rendered the homilies on Joshua the son of Nun, on the book of Judges, and on Psalms 36, 37, and 38 as he had found them in the Greek; in the rest, however, namely on Genesis, on Leviticus, on Isaiah, in the tomes on the Song of Songs, and in the Explanation of the Epistle to the Romans, it cannot be concealed that he used excessive licence. He confesses in that peroration which I mentioned that in the homilies on Genesis, on Exodus, and especially on Leviticus he added many things of his own: Which labour, he says, of filling up what was lacking, we undertook for this reason, lest questions raised and left unresolved should generate disgust in the Latin reader. He permitted himself the same in translating the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans. For since in the libraries of almost everyone (by what chance is uncertain) several volumes from the body itself were lacking, he attempted to fill up what was lacking and to give an unbroken sequence in the Latin work; indeed, he abbreviated this whole body of ten volumes, which the Greek text extended to almost forty thousand lines or more, and compressed it to half the space. In the preface to the books On First Principles he asserts, first, that where he found anything in these books contrary to what had been piously defined concerning the Trinity by Origen in other places, he either omitted it as adulterated by heretics, or recalled it to a Catholic sense by removing some things and fetching others from elsewhere; next, that where Origen pronounced certain things more obscurely, he added what he had read more clearly in his other books, so that the meaning might become more explicit, yet said nothing of his own, but restored to Origen what was his own, though spoken in other places. He added, says Jerome, things which were not there, asserting that they were disputed by the same author in other places: which, unless he shows the very places whence he says he transferred them, he will not be able to prove. Moreover, when the holy Doctor came upon the Rufinian translation, immediately, as he warns in the same place, he noticed that the things which

Origen had said concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and which Roman ears could not bear, had been changed for the better by the translator; whereas the remaining dogmas concerning the fall of the angels, the lapse of souls, the illusions of the resurrection, the world or the intermundia of Epicurus, the restitution of all things into an equal state, and things much worse than these, which it would be long to recount, he either translated just as he had found them in the Greek, or set them down exaggerated and strengthened from the brief commentaries of Didymus, who is the champion of Origen. Rufinus therefore deceives when he says that in translating he said nothing of his own, but restored to Origen what was his own, though spoken in other places, seeing that, on the testimony of Jerome, he inserted several things from the brief commentaries of Didymus into his translation.

Yet besides the fact that the Rufinian translations do not today constitute even a third part of the Origenian works, the few additions which Rufinus contributed of his own into them nowhere (unless perhaps you except some passages concerning the Trinity) adulterate the true mind of Origen, but were inserted only with this design, that it might be more fully explained. Everywhere Origen is recognized, and scarcely anything is found which by a comparison with other passages extant in the Greek works is not demonstrated either to be Origen's, or to have been written according to the mind of Origen. Add to this that from the two chapters of the books On First Principles of which we still have the Greek original, it is clear that the translation of Rufinus, even if it should be held less accurate, yet certainly cannot be rejected as alien to the mind of Origen.

Since, therefore, it has been established that the erudition of Origen was extraordinary, and it cannot be proved that heretics laid faithless hands upon his surviving writings, no one, I think, will deny that an edition is useful, indeed even necessary, in which the remains of so great a writer, scattered here and there, are collected as it were into one body, the genuine separated from the spurious, the Greek presented whenever it appears, and finally all things revised according to the authority of ancient manuscripts. A twofold collection of his Works into one body has indeed been attempted: the one smaller, which Jacques Merlin, doctor of the Royal College of Navarre, prepared and published in the year 1512; the other far ampler, which another Parisian doctor of theology, Gilbert Génébrard, made public in the year 1574. But because those editions were not complete in all their parts, and the Greek texts were lacking in them, therefore in the general assemblies of the Gallican clergy, which were held at Paris in the year 1635, and subsequently in 1636, it was decreed that the Works of Origen should be published anew in print in Greek and Latin more accurately and more fully than before. The decree of the prelates of the Gallican Church is extant in the Acts of those assemblies at the 21st day of January of the year 1636.

Of Monday the twenty-first of January at eight o'clock in the morning, My Lord the Archbishop of Arles presiding.

My Lord the Archbishop of Toulouse reported,

and said, that he and my lord of Séez had, according to the intention of the Assembly, conferred together, and taken the advice of several doctors, concerning the choice of the books of the Greek Fathers which it would be most fitting to have printed. That they had judged that the works of Saint John Damascene, of Origen, of Maximus, and of Ephrem Syrus, were the most necessary, among those of all the ancients, to serve for the decision of the controversies of Religion, which nevertheless had not hitherto been printed in their original language; indeed that most of their works have not been printed at all, which can be found in various libraries; and that for this it would be necessary to choose some person well versed in the Greek language, who should take this care; to which my lord of Séez added, that one might pray my lord of Toulouse to take Monsieur Aubert, doctor of the Sorbonne, for one of the two whom the company previously prayed him to choose to work on Canon Law and on Ecclesiastical History, and give him the care of this printing, so as not to burden the State with greater expense.

The said report having been considered and debated, my said lords of Toulouse and of Séez were prayed to treat with some printers who will make the most advantageous terms; and by lending them the sum of eight thousand livres, which is in the hands of Cramoisy, to oblige them to the printing of the said Authors and of the others which they shall judge necessary; into which contract they shall admit by preference Monsieur Vitré, printer to the Clergy. And furthermore the company desired that the said Monsieur Aubert should be employed in the care of the said printing; and for this ordered that he shall be set down on the list of gratuities, with the other whom my lord of Toulouse shall name for Canon Law.

Now the president of the assembly was the most illustrious Archbishop of Arles, Jean Joubert de Barrault; the Archbishop of Toulouse who is named in the decree, Charles de Montchal, a man of extraordinary erudition and most zealous for literature; and finally the Bishop of Séez, Jacques Le Camus de Pontcarré, a man likewise most cultivated in polite literature. Yet Aubert, who, passing over Damascene and Origen, had determined to publish Ephrem Syrus, published neither Ephrem Syrus, nor Origen, nor Damascene.

Afterwards the most learned man Daniel Huet proposed to himself another edition of Origen, which should comprise only those works or fragments which have come down to us in Greek; but after he published at Rouen in the year 1668 in two folio volumes several exegetical works on the sacred Scriptures, partly already edited, partly not yet edited, he suddenly desisted from the undertaking, and did not care to commit to print the other Syntagmata of Origen, which are contained in the first volume of this my edition (as he had promised in book III of the Origeniana, sect. 2, num. 7, that he would do). Add to this that in his two volumes, in which the exegetical works on the sacred books are contained in Greek and Latin, very many other Greek

fragments were omitted, which altogether deserved to occupy a place there.

Since the matter stood thus, I considered that I would do something worthwhile if, after the Reverend Father Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, to the applause of the literary world, published the remains of the Hexapla of Origen in two folio volumes, I should undertake a new Graeco-Latin edition, which should comprise in their proper order all the remaining works of so great a writer, both those of which the Greek has perished and only the Latin translation survives, and those which have come down to us in Greek. These either pertain to the interpretation of the sacred books, and are called exegetical by Huet, or are of a particular subject, and are named Syntagmata by the same. In the first volume of this edition are contained the Syntagmata; in the four remaining volumes the exegetical works, at the end of which, namely at the close of the last volume, will be subjoined the Origeniana of the most illustrious man Pierre Daniel Huet, where he first writes the life of our Adamantius: next he discusses his erudition and dogmas, which stirred up great disturbances in the Church while he lived, and greater ones after his death; finally he touches upon and distinguishes his writings, which the criticism of many has harassed. Great, and not undeserved, glory has that work brought to its author among the learned. Wherefore I thought I should refrain from writing the life of Origen anew and debating his dogmas, lest, as the saying goes, I should do what has already been done, and I judged that it would be enough for my reader if, whenever strong considerations of reason lead me away from embracing the opinion of the most illustrious prelate, I should present them after the manner of notes and observations at the foot of each page. For thus it will come about that at a single glance of the eyes, as it were, it can easily be perceived what is brought forward on either side to accuse or defend Origen. Now if anyone should ask of me why I preferred to relegate these Origeniana to the end of the whole work rather than prefix them to the front of the first volume, let him know that this was done for two reasons. 1st, Because as I wished to comprise in a single volume all the works of Origen which are of a particular subject, that is, the Syntagmata, the first volume would have grown into a larger and altogether abnormal bulk if in addition it had had the Origeniana prefixed to its front. 2nd, Because since five folio volumes do not usually issue from the press together in one, two, or three years, but Parisian printers commonly spend the space of ten years in publishing them, I not imprudently hoped that in so great an interval of time new light would daily accrue to me for the recension of Origen's works, and that I should not, as usually happens to other editors of very many volumes, be compelled in the last volume to correct my observations on the earlier volumes and sing a palinode. You have, kind reader, a survey of the whole of this edition. What has been chiefly accomplished by us in this first volume must now be told in particular.

On the remains of the letters of Origen, and especially on the letter of Africanus to Origen and the reply of Origen to Africanus on the history of Susanna.

Whence have come forth the remains of the letters of Origen

which are prefixed to the front of the Syntagmata, the preliminary general admonition teaches, in which only those things have been omitted which pertain to the various editions of the mutual letters of Africanus and Origen. Both of them Leo Castro, a Spaniard, first published in Latin only, and prefixed to his commentaries on the prophet Isaiah published at Salamanca in the year 1570. Next, Gilbert Génébrard in the year 1574 inserted both into the second volume of his edition, translated by Gentian Hervet of Orléans, canon of Reims, from a manuscript codex of Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto. Afterwards the entire letter of Africanus to Origen together with the beginning of the reply of Origen to Africanus was published in Greek only at Augsburg in the year 1602, under the care of David Hoeschel, after Adrian's Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures and the Sticheron on Isaiah and the Twelve Prophets of Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem. The second fragment of the reply of Origen to Africanus Patrick Young likewise published in Greek at London, in the year 1637, after the Catena of the Greek Fathers on Job. Finally, Johann Rudolf Wetstein, professor of the art of oratory in the academy of the same city, published both letters together in Greek and Latin along with the Dialogue against the Marcionites and Origen's Exhortation to Martyrdom at Basel in the year 1674. Yet his edition seems to suffer chiefly from a threefold fault: 1st, that for the most part it follows a faulty manuscript codex; 2nd, that the Latin translation set opposite the Greek text savours for the most part of barbarism; 3rd, that it endeavours to disparage almost all the arguments of Origen by which the objections raised by Africanus against the history of Susanna are refuted, by means of prolix notes stuffed with useless erudition. Our edition presents the Greek text purged of innumerable faults with the help of manuscripts, and opposite it a Latin translation which, as I hope, will seem less barbarous and less rough. Those notes of Wetstein which do not depart from the Catholic faith we thought should be presented in their proper place at the foot of each page, whereas the rest, as more prolix and departing from the Catholic faith, you will find refuted in our observations on the second book of Huet's Origeniana. Finally, a notice is prefixed to the front of each letter, whereby the genuineness of each is established.

On the fragments of the books On the Resurrection, and on the fragments of the books which are entitled Stromateis.

The letter of Origen to Africanus on the history of Susanna is followed by some surviving remains of the books On the Resurrection, and of the books of the Stromata. Whence we have brought them into this edition, a very brief note subjoined to each fragment teaches. This one thing remains to be noted here, that it does not seem certain to me that all those things which are brought forward in the fifth fragment On the Resurrection as the words of Origen are in reality Origen's. For perhaps Jerome thus fashioned him speaking, as Huet conjectures in the second book of the Origeniana, quaest. 9, num. 7.

On the books Περὶ ἀρχῶν, or On First Principles.

The four books On First Principles, in Latin only as translated by Rufinus (for the greatest part of the Greek text had long since perished), Jacques Merlin first caused to be committed to print in the year 1512, together with the remaining relics of the works of Origen which he had found in Latin. Yet that good doctor seems to have paid little heed to that adjuration of Rufinus whereby at the end of his prologue he solemnly charges everyone who is about to transcribe or read these books, in the sight of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and binds him by the faith of the coming kingdom, by the mystery of the resurrection from the dead, by that eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels, that he add nothing to the writing, take nothing away, insert nothing, change nothing, but compare it with the copies whence he transcribed it, and emend it to the letter, and punctuate it, and not keep an unemended or unpunctuated codex, lest the difficulty of the meanings, if the codex be not punctuated, generate greater obscurities for the readers. Indeed, Merlin, not well practised in reading ancient manuscripts, happened, as I conjecture, upon a single Sorbonne codex, accurate indeed, but so entangled with frequent abbreviations that he was brought to a standstill at almost every word, guessed rather than read, and in guessing very often obtrudes absurd and ridiculous readings for the genuine ones. Thus he very often reads Deus where the manuscript codex has dicitur, and copied out Hebraeis where habebis should have been read; and conversely dicitur and habebis where Deus and Hebraeis should have been read. I would be too long if I were to enumerate here the remaining blunders of Merlin. Anyone who reads our notes placed at the foot of each page will easily detect them all. Moreover, what happened to ancient copyists, that where the manuscript codex which they were transcribing offered two successive clauses ending in the same way, deceived by an error of the eyes they often omitted one, happened also to him who wrote the Sorbonne codex; but afterwards, comparing what he had transcribed with the exemplar whence he had written it, he added in the margin all that he had omitted, yet in so minute a character that Merlin was unequal to reading them. Wherefore there are innumerable passages in his edition, the obscurity of which would be insuperable even to Oedipus himself. Nor did Génébrard apply a healing hand to them, whose edition in the year 1574 does not depart even a finger's breadth from Merlin's, unless you except new typographical errors, and the new Latin translation which he instituted at the beginning of the third book and at the beginning of the fourth book, neglecting Rufinus's. Finally, the remains of the Greek text which partly the Philocalia, partly the letter of the Emperor Justinian to Menas, and partly Marcellus of Ancyra in Eusebius present, are lacking in both editions, as well as a few fragments of the Hieronymian translation.

In order to remedy so many faults, we have diligently emended the Rufinian translation according to the authority of six most ancient manuscripts, and whenever a small portion of the Greek text or of the Hieronymian translation presented itself, we placed it opposite, so that

at a single glance of the eyes the reader may more easily judge of what sort is the trustworthiness of Rufinus as a translator. Fragments of this kind are about forty-two in number, and sometimes it happens that the same column, now cut into two, presents on the one side the Greek, and on the other the translation of Rufinus; or on this side Rufinus's, on that side Jerome's; or on this side the Greek, on that side a new translation, where Rufinus's is lacking; now divided into three, brings forward the Greek in the middle, on the left the translation of Rufinus, and on the right a new one, where Jerome's is lacking; or presents on the left what Jerome translated, in the middle the Greek, and on the right a new translation more accurate than Jerome's. Finally, there is placed at the front of the whole work an admonition, whereby is briefly indicated: 1st, at what time Origen wrote these books, and what is the argument of each book; 2nd, how great envy that most famous work stirred up against Origen; 3rd, at whose exhortation, in what year, and with what trustworthiness Rufinus translated it into Latin; 4th, why the blessed Jerome undertook another Latin translation.

On the book On Prayer.

The most illustrious Huet, in the third book of the Origeniana, § 2, num. 7, had given hope to the learned world that he would shortly, in the third volume, which was to contain the Syntagmata of Origen, commit to print the treatise On Prayer from a Stockholm manuscript codex transcribed by himself. But after almost a century had elapsed since he had pledged his word, at length in the year 1685 at Oxford in England, from the Sheldonian Theatre, that work came to light in Greek and Latin. The editor used the same Greek codex as Huet, namely the Stockholm one, which Thorndike received from Isaac Vossius, and Gale from Thorndike, who deposited it in the archives of the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, where it is now preserved. From this single codex (for it is not known that another complete one exists anywhere) flowed both that Oxford edition and the other Basel edition, which Johann Rudolf Wetstein published in quarto in the year 1695. This latter edition differs from the former only in this, that besides the different format of the volume, the Latin translation, which the Oxford editor had relegated to the end of the work, is placed opposite the Greek text, and that Wetstein added at the end a discourse not yet edited of Marius Diadochus against the Arians. For the rest, the same blunders are seen in the Greek text in both, and a similar barbarism in the Latin and blundering of the translator in both. Nor ought that to seem wonderful, since the editor and translator of the Greek text had necessarily to depend upon the authority of a single manuscript codex, and of an apograph unhappily transcribed therefrom. Namely, the manuscript codex gapes with not a few lacunae, and being entangled with perpetual abbreviations of words and defiled with several corruptions of the copyist, seems to require a diviner rather than a reader, especially for those who are not practised in the use of Greek manuscripts, nor clever enough to repair the negligences of copyists by ingenious conjectures. It fell to my lot to be more fortunate.

For the most illustrious Mr John Walker, an English presbyter, a man both most skilled in Greek and most practised in reading even the most difficult Greek manuscripts, at my request again accurately collated the Cambridge codex with the Oxford edition; how greatly he found it to differ from it, we have noted at the foot of each page, where there are extant in addition the conjectures of another most learned Englishman, Richard Bentley, by which he happily restored to health almost all the passages that needed a healing hand. Moreover, from number 31 right to the end of the work we obtained the manuscript codex Colbertinus 3607, now Royal, in which there is a very ample fragment of this treatise, whereby very many passages of the Oxford edition are emended, and Bentley's conjectures upon it are confirmed.

To the Greek text, in which our most learned friends were so diligent and sedulous, we have subjoined a Latin translation far more accurate and more polished than the Oxford one. It had formerly been worked out by Claude Fleury, the most celebrated writer of Ecclesiastical History, for the use of the most illustrious Huet, among whose papers, since it still exists in manuscript, the Reverend Father Louis de Tournemine, of the Society of Jesus, and an ornament of the republic of letters, voluntarily and most kindly communicated it to me. Finally, a brief notice is prefixed to the front of the whole work, whereby with strong arguments this treatise is vindicated for Origen; it is explained who Ambrose and Tatiana were, at whose exhortation it was written; and the time at which it was written is investigated.

For the rest, almost two years after this treatise, thus revised and emended by us according to our small measure, had issued from the press of Vincent, there came out at London in the year 1728 another Graeco-Latin edition of the same work, under the care of William Reading, M.A., librarian of the London clergy at Sion College, who subjoined to the same the notes, partly critical, partly exegetical of difficult passages, of a certain learned but anonymous Englishman.

On the Exhortation to Martyrdom.

The Royal Library supplies a fragment from the Exhortation to Martyrdom, but when Huet had in his possession the whole work drawn from the Basel library through the care of the most illustrious Monsieur de la Barde, ambassador of the Most Christian King among the Swiss, he had promised in book III of the Origeniana, § 2, num. 4, that he would commit it to print in its proper order among the Syntagmata of Origen; but because he did not redeem his pledge, at length it was published in Greek and Latin at Basel in the year 1674 together with the Dialogue against the Marcionites and the reply of Origen to the letter of Africanus on the history of Susanna, through the care and study of Johann Rudolf Wetstein, who illustrated all these works with learned notes. He used the same manuscript codex as Huet. We too have used the same single codex, since we had access to none besides this; but having rejected Wetstein's Latin translation, we have placed opposite the Greek another far more polished one, which had been prepared for the use of Huet by Claude

Fleury. The Reverend Father Louis de Tournemine, in whose possession it is, kindly granted it to me to be transcribed.

On the eight books Against Celsus.

The first edition of these golden books came to light in Latin only at Rome in the year 1481, dedicated to Sixtus IV, Supreme Pontiff, by the translator Cristoforo Persona, a Roman, Prior of Santa Balbina, as is clear from these words which are read at the end of the edition: The end of Origen Against Celsus: which Cristoforo Persona, a Roman, Prior of Santa Balbina of the City, most skilled in Latin and Greek, faithfully translated from the Greek and emended. And Master Georg Herolt of Bamberg printed it at Rome. In the one thousand four hundred and eighty-first year of the Incarnation of the Lord, in the reign of Sixtus the Fourth, Supreme Pontiff, in his tenth year. At the front, moreover, stands a choice letter of Theodore Gazinus (he is commonly called Theodore Gaza) of Constantinople to Persona, which, since on account of the extreme rarity of this edition it may be regarded almost as unedited, will perhaps not be unpleasant to the reader if it is presented here: Theodore Gazinus of Constantinople to Cristoforo Persona, greeting. When in these past days, as I often do, I was turning over in my mind the Latin men who seemed to know something of Greek, and furthermore the Greek authors who could be turned into Latin with no small praise, you above all presented yourself, whom alone I know from early youth to have so imbibed Greek letters, and, what helped most of all, in Greece itself and from Greek teachers, that unless I knew you to be a Roman citizen, and knew well enough your kinsmen, leading men of the City, I could easily say that you were sprung from Greece; for even your very Greek pronunciation displays you as a Greek. To what end is this? See not a few discourses of Chrysostom which you have made Latin from the Greek, and several declamations of Libanius, as future preludes to greater things. I saw a little later at your house your Athanasius, the translation of which so delighted me that from that time I came into good hope that you could also translate Origen Against Celsus: which book, because it is most elegant and written in defence of the Christian faith, Pope Nicholas, although of himself he was most desirous of new works, and especially of Greek ones, at my exhortation sent to Constantinople someone to buy and bring to him: and when it was brought he presently gave it to me, and said that he wished to promise any reward whatever to him who should make it Latin. And indeed I myself would gladly have undertaken that work, had not another weighty translation preoccupied me at that time. That book therefore remains untouched in the library of the Pontiff, and, as I think, reserved for you, that you may make it Latin with that dignity which it sounds in Greek, or at least the nearest to it, and I hope that in accordance with your singular skill in both languages you will merit no less praise in translating this than the author himself merited in publishing it. But you will say that those rewards which you relate Pope Nicholas to have proposed are not now set forth, nor are there now such princes as follow in his footsteps. Why then should I spend so much labour?

Nor do I myself deny it. Why should I not? I who, taught by experience, would dare to confirm this, that there are neither such princes now as formerly existed, nor those rewards for labours and virtues. Yet what prince is so ungenerous or so ungrateful that, when you bring him this book translated as a gift, he would not honour you with gifts worthy of a prince and with great honours? Undertake therefore that work, and in order to complete it according to its dignity, apply yourself continually. Play the part of a Roman man, and with a great spirit surmount all difficulties. This is indeed, I confess, difficult to translate, but you will win all the more praise the more you are seen to have undertaken no easy matter. Farewell. By these incentives, therefore, Cristoforo Persona was induced to make the eight books Against Celsus Latin, and to dedicate them to Sixtus the Fourth, Supreme Pontiff, in a letter which certainly, were it not too long, would deserve to have a place here. It has this beginning: To Sixtus IV, Supreme Pontiff, Cristoforo Persona, Prior of Santa Balbina. I have often observed, most blessed Father, those ancient men of outstanding genius, etc. However, whether because the munificence of Sixtus IV had not answered to his wishes, or for whatever other reason, he slyly and cunningly removed this letter from his aforesaid edition, and substituted for it another inscribed with the name of Giovanni Mocenigo, Doge of Venice, which begins thus: To Giovanni Mocenigo, most illustrious Doge of the Venetians, and to the whole renowned and most wise Senate, Cristoforo Persona, a Roman. Although almost all of us seem to undertake noble deeds for this reason, etc. To return to the translation itself, Persona seems to have consulted not badly for his reputation for some time when, after the custom of those times, he neglected to commit the Greek of Origen to print. For after it was made public, it is incredible to say what great ignorance of the Greek language, what scant diligence in investigating the meanings, what dullness of mind, what slight and shaky trustworthiness the learned detected in this translator whom Theodore Gazinus esteemed so highly. Nevertheless, of whatever sort this translation was, Merlin eagerly seized upon it and thought fit to insert it entire into his edition of the works of Origen in the year 1512. At length in the year 1605, at Augsburg, from the Bavarian and Augsburg libraries of the Elector Palatine, the eight books Against Celsus came forth in Greek and Latin, translated by Sigismund Gelenius, with the notes of David Hoeschel. The same books William Spencer, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, published anew in Greek with the Latin translation of the same Gelenius subjoined, at Cambridge in the year 1658, and also added most learned annotations at the end of the work. This edition was reprinted at Cambridge in the year 1677. Yet it were to be wished that as much care as Spencer took to illustrate with most learned notes almost innumerable passages which pertain either to history, or to the peculiar dogmas of Origen, or to the discipline of earlier centuries, or to ancient philosophy, he had applied so much diligence both to the emendation of the Greek text,

and to the correction of the frequent blunders of the translator Gelenius. The Greek, just as the edition of David Hoeschel presented it, he followed entire, if only a few passages be excepted where he introduced into the Greek text, as better, certain variant readings which Hoeschel had relegated to the margin. Innumerable others which needed a healing hand he left untouched, without proposing even the slightest conjecture whereby they might at least be recalled to a more suitable sense. He warns in the preface that he had been able to procure none of those things which are wont to be of assistance to others, although he had taken the greatest care to acquire them. Hoeschel, he says, had two manuscript codices, which he had drawn from the Bavarian and Augsburg libraries of the Elector Palatine. I have used these printed texts alone. Yet what prevented him from visiting the Oxford library either in person or through friends? There he would certainly have found three other manuscript codices, and would not have complained that editions of books had to be prepared in the utmost destitution of all helps and codices. However that may be, I myself have not experienced so great a scarcity of manuscript codices, seeing that not only were variant readings drawn from eight manuscripts of great assistance to me, but also the notes and conjectures both of the learned François Guyet, the Jesuit, which the Reverend Father Louis de Tournemine has in his possession in manuscript, and others far more numerous which Élie Bouhéreau proposed to the learned world at the end of his choice French translation of the books Against Celsus published at Amsterdam in the year 1700.

When the Greek original had been restored to a better state by so many and such great helps, it was long deliberated whether the Latin translation of Sigismund Gelenius should be preserved, or a new one forged. That the Gelenian translation should be preserved was urged by the praises with which that industrious translator is adorned by most learned men. Thus (says Celio Secondo Curione, in the preface to Appian of Alexandria) he left us seven, and those most noble writers, translated from the Greek, and so translated that you will find either no one, or very few, who have engaged in this arena with greater praise. That is surely a great encomium, yet one of which Henri de Valois does not judge him unworthy in the preface to Ammianus Marcellinus, where he speaks thus of Mariangelo Accursio and Sigismund Gelenius: There was in each of these men great learning, as the writings of each testify. But in Gelenius there was a certain greater force of genius and a keener judgement. Which both many noble labours of that man testify, and especially the Latin translations of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, of Appian, likewise of Philo and Josephus, of Origen and others. From which it appears that he was endowed with an excellent genius and singular learning. The most illustrious Huet comes closer to the matter in his book On Illustrious Translators, page 225. Among them also, he says, is numbered Sigismund Gelenius, a Bohemian, than whom scarcely anyone enriched this art with more monuments. He was accounted above all eloquent and elegant: bold in compressing several periods into one or in disjoining them, meanings

not always understood by himself he recasts at pleasure. Relying therefore on the name of so great a man, I had hoped that by changing and emending some passages of which he had less happily grasped the sense, his translation could be retained. But when it came to the emendation of these passages, and it was found that there is scarcely a single page where he does not depart once and again from the true sense of Origen, I immediately understood that a new translation could more easily be prepared than the old one emended. Add to this that to correct the translation of others seemed, as troublesome and difficult in itself, so also odious. For to each his own praise, to each his own honour is due from us, whose labour they endeavoured to lighten and lessen by their own. Accordingly the work of each translator is rather to be praised by us than interpolated, especially if the interpolations are to be frequent. I was revolving these things in my mind, when behold, joined to me in ancient friendship, Dom Vincent Thuillier, with whom I had communicated my emendations of the Greek text, suddenly offered a new Latin translation, which he had undertaken both to test his own strength and to oblige me. Immediately I read it eagerly, and maturely weighed each point against the authority of the Greek; and since three things above all are required in a translation, that it be faithful, that it be elegant, and perspicuous, not without great pleasure of mind I found that none of these endowments was lacking in his writing. He does not slavishly cling to the words, but faithfully expresses the sense, and so renders it that, although sometimes in another order, yet he never or at least very rarely says more or less than Origen. Where a period is longer in the Greek, he cuts it into several, unless the connexion of the discourse forbids this to be done from elsewhere: which often happens. For the fertile genius of Origen heaps up thoughts everywhere, so that in words seemingly redundant the greatest abundance of matter is contained. Which surely would have presented an insuperable difficulty to the translator Thuillier, had not that noble sagacity of mind with which he is endowed, his supreme skill in both the Greek and Latin languages, and that desire with which he burned of lessening the labour of an old friend, overcome all things.

The translation is followed by notes, of which some present the variant readings of manuscript codices, others elucidate ancient history and philosophy, sometimes dogmas, and the ancient discipline of the Church. The greater part of these is due to William Spencer; and since he brought forward the testimonies of Greek writers in Greek only, we have subjoined a Latin translation, lest they should cause trouble to readers unskilled in Greek, who previously had to have recourse to the individual authors whence those passages had been copied in order to have a translation of them. Moreover, we have cut out some of Spencer's notes, inasmuch as they taught nothing that is not treated more at length in Huet's Origeniana. Finally, to the front of the whole work is prefixed an admonition whereby it is taught at what time Celsus lived, what he wrote, and also to what sect of philosophers he attached himself, with whom

Origen deals; at what time the eight books of Origen were written against him; and with what great praises that choice Apology for the Christian religion is adorned both by the ancients and by moderns.

On the works falsely attributed to Origen, and first on the Dialogue against the Marcionites, or On the Right Faith in God.

The genuine writings of Origen are followed by several spurious ones, namely the dialogue On the Right Faith in God, or, as is read in other copies, Against the Marcionites; and the Philosophumena, or book On the Opinions of the Philosophers. The Dialogue Johann Rudolf Wetstein first of all published in Greek and Latin together at Basel in the year 1674, who in his preface to the reader moves every argument to vindicate it for Origen, but in an altogether vain attempt, as is clear from the notice which we have prefixed to the front of this little work, where we omitted only this one point, namely that the style differs by the whole heaven from the Origenian, and abounds in innumerable Greek words which you would seek in vain in the other Greek works of Origen, and which savour of a Greek man far more recent than Origen. Wetstein published this treatise in Greek from a single manuscript codex; we have revised it according to the authority of four others, and have expunged various faults with which the Wetstenian codex was defiled. Before Wetstein's Graeco-Latin edition, three others had come to light, but in Latin only. The first was that of Picot, a most learned Parisian councillor, which he presented to Henry II, King of France, in the year 1555, although the title of the edition bears the following year 1556. At the same time at Basel Laurence Humphrey, an Englishman, was preparing another at the press of Hieronymus Froben, as these words of his own teach: A year and a half ago I translated from the Greek two Dialogues against the Marcionites out of Froben's manuscript codex, rendering the sense, not the words, and weighing rather than counting them: everywhere taking care lest anything set down in Greek should in translating be overturned and perish. Thus he wrote in the year 1557, on the sixth day of August. And his translation was added to the works of Origen published at Basel in the year 1571. The third was made by Joachim Périon, a Benedictine of Cormery, which in the year 1574 Gilbert Génébrard inserted into the first volume of his edition. Those three translators used very different Greek codices; and that Humphrey used a purer and fuller copy than either Picot or Périon is clear to anyone from comparison, and that has already been observed by André Rivet, Critica sacra, book II, chap. 13, and Philippe Labbe, De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, vol. II, page 145. Nevertheless, to Johann Rudolf Wetstein, Humphrey seemed often to act the paraphrast rather than the translator, and not rarely to have inserted certain things in order to attain the meaning in whatever way. Wherefore, since his translation is for the most part too diffuse to match the Greek copy, Wetstein was compelled to compress it, and in very many places to compose another; in which

matter he profited much from the translation of Jean Picot, much closer to the Greek words and in many places clearer. We have followed Périon's translation, corrected in many places, inasmuch as it seemed clearer and more elegant than the other two. Wetstein's notes we have placed at the foot of the pages, removing only those which either contain nothing beyond what had already been observed by Spencer on the books Against Celsus, or more openly oppose the Catholic faith and have been refuted in Huet's Origeniana.

On the Philosophumena.

The Philosophumena, or book On the Opinions of the Philosophers, the most illustrious man Jakob Gronovius first published in Greek and Latin from a codex of the Medicean library and illustrated with several notes in the Thesaurus antiquitatum, vol. X, where he maintains that this treatise is a genuine offspring of Origen, but with arguments so weak that Johann Christoph Wolf rightly and deservedly considered them altogether unworthy of so great a man. The first he seeks from the fact that the Medicean manuscript codex bears the name of Origen, from the authority of which, he says, one must not rashly depart. Yet who does not know, replies Wolf, that this kind of fraud and deceit was formerly most familiar to copyists, to inscribe a book with that name by the splendour of which honour and value might be won for the work itself? Specifically it is agreed that so many spurious writings are circulated under the name of Origen that Huet in the third book of the Origeniana, in a special section, was able to bring forward no small abundance of them. And the reason for this fact is close at hand. For such was the persuasion of the ancients concerning the erudition of Origen that copyists had no cause to doubt that books inscribed with his name would find ready buyers. From which it follows that this argument of Gronovius for the authority of the treatise is of little or no moment, unless other reasons of greater weight be added. The second argument of Gronovius seems equally weak, being drawn from the condition of the manuscript codex. For that codex, he says, though it be of paper, is yet plainly more precious than gold in every respect, being unique, in which there is a most correct copy of Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander the Great written by the same hand, and whence we formerly published those excellent supplements of that writer, to which on that account nothing similar or equal exists. Moreover, it is that very codex in which the most learned commentary of Hierocles on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras is presented so entire and uncorrupted that from nowhere else so well as from the volume itself can it be gathered how faulty were the codices used by our printers to multiply copies of it; so that the writer of it was altogether a most learned man himself, and one who sought out the most faithful copies for his library: to which last of all he added this fragment of Origen, which to denounce under the name of false and spurious, and hence to traduce so learned a hand as slight, belongs to no other man than one who regards the best and noblest things as trifles.

Truly all this argumentation of Gronovius comes down to this, that from the scarcity of other codices similar to this one, and from the singular diligence and erudition of the copyist with which the Medicean copy was written, he proves that this work is preposterously accused of spuriousness. Yet the rarity of codices similar to this one is not so great as he imagined to himself, since three other manuscript codices of this work exist, two at Rome, and another at Turin. Next, what sort of arguing is this: Rare, and almost unique is the codex which bears the name of Origen; therefore it is not falsely attributed to Origen? Restrain your laughter, friends. The same must be said, says Wolf, concerning the singular erudition of the transcriber which he extols. For what has this to do with the matter? Let us grant that that copyist was most learned and comparable even with Aristarchus; who will warrant that the same man instituted an examination of the book, and did not rather purposely neglect it, or if he noticed the fraud, was unwilling to impose upon others in order to sell his wares more dearly, or when he congratulated himself on the possession of that little work, did not indulge too much a preconceived opinion of Origen as the author? Besides this, weak is that reasoning whereby he seems to think that this treatise is Origen's because in the same codex it is joined with other works which without controversy belong to those writers whose names they bear. As if indeed the sinew of this inference were not cut by so many other collections of manuscripts which mix together genuine and spurious monuments of writers. The third argument of Gronovius is drawn from the style and manner of speaking met with in the little work. Finely indeed, if the individual passages which he brought forward to this purpose are not of such a sort that they could have proceeded no less from anyone else whomsoever than from Origen. For agreement of style is not to be estimated from received words or phrases worn by the common use of all writers, but either from the train of whole periods, or at least from words which seem plainly proper to that author, and equally familiar to no one else. Hence it avails Gronovius little that he observes the true Origen to use these words, incoherent dogmas and an incoherent thing; and the author of the Philosophumena these: the most impious of dogmas, and an incoherent thing. For first, the most impious of dogmas does not correspond to incoherent dogmas. Next, the true Origen did indeed say an incoherent thing, but it was open to another to say the same. For where the dogmas of the Gentiles are treated of, that expression is so proper to this subject, and so familiar to ecclesiastical writers, that not even Lactantius in book III of the Divine Institutes feared to express it in Latin, when he said an asystaton argument. The same judgement must be passed concerning the verb to set forth, which Gronovius brings forward from another passage of Origen. For that is so far from being proper to Origen that it is commonly used of the exposition of dogmas. Laertius not only in the Parmenides, but also in other places very often uses this word, not to mention others whose passages have been collected by lexicographers, among whom Budé brings forward three examples in all from Justin Martyr, where this verb

is used in the same signification. The same lexicographers will show that to partake in something is so far from being peculiarly Origenian that it is also customary among the best writers of Greece, in noting whose passages we should delay beyond reason. The fourth passage of the author of the Philosophumena occurs where Plato is treated of, by whom he says matter was called formless and qualityless. To this passage Gronovius brings forward two from the books Against Celsus, in the former of which matter is called qualityless, and in the latter qualityless and formless. Yet all authors of philosophical history set forth the same thing in the same way. Moreover, neither Origen nor the author of the Philosophumena could have used other words, if each wished to express the opinion of Plato in the proper words of the Platonists, as ought to be done. For they properly and customarily called matter qualityless, whence Origen himself warns that in its own definition it is so called. Thus Laertius also, according to the mind of Plato, III, 69, calls matter formless and qualityless, if Ménage's emendation holds good. No greater account is to be taken of the passage occurring in the same place where the word metensomatosis is found, which Gronovius warns likewise occurs in Origen in book IV Against Celsus. For that word too is not proper to Origen, since not only does Plato himself use the same in book X of the Laws, but Epiphanius also uses the same in book I of the Panarion, Pr. 5, to express a similar opinion of the Stoics. Indeed, this word seemed to Hermias so apt and suited to this subject that by a new precedent he did not fear to form from it the verb to embody in his Derision, § 4, where he says: Some embody it (namely the soul) thrice; others appoint periods of three thousand years for it, etc. Above all others Gronovius seems to rely upon a passage occurring in Aristotle, where the verb to endure after occurs, which he tries to prove to be altogether Origen's from three passages out of his books Against Celsus, to which he might have added this other from the same author's Commentary on Matthew: The Sadducees, however, saying that there is no resurrection of the flesh, rejected it, and also utterly abolished not only the immortality of the soul, but also its continued survival, thinking that the life of the soul hereafter is in no way signified in the writings of Moses. Yet these things do not prevent us from holding that the same word was used or could have been used by others. For what will become of Laertius, VII, 157, who likewise used this word when warning that the same was the opinion of Cleanthes in these words: Cleanthes indeed holds that all souls endure until the conflagration. What of Marcus Antoninus, who in his books To Himself, book IV, § 21, uses concerning souls not only the verb endures, but also the noun continued survival? Indeed, innumerable others on the same subject employ either with Numenius the verb to endure after, or with Tzetzes to remain beside, or with Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book VIII, to abide in. Nor can they do otherwise at all, since there were chiefly three opinions of the ancients concerning the state of the soul after death, of whom some denied it to be immortal, others affirmed it, and others, walking by a middle way, defined for it only a certain time during which it should survive the body

the body. The last opinion pleased the Stoics above all, concerning whom see Gataker on Antoninus in the passage cited above, and Ménage in the passage likewise praised above. Hence the ancient writers just praised, and Origen himself also, carefully distinguish immortality from the continued survival of the soul. What similarity Gronovius in the same place recognizes in the following words compared with another passage of Origen is not clear, unless perhaps he means that which consists in the agreement of the account. Yet you may recognize that in other writers also, and perhaps a greater one, since words are observed in them which come closer to the language of the author of the Philosophumena. See Laertius V, 33, and Ammonius in the Life of Aristotle. Nor does the passage concerning the Stoics, which testifies that they called God a body, make any more for Gronovius: for although Origen in two other passages adduced by Gronovius says that the God of the Stoics is a body, and hints at the same opinion of the Stoics in a third passage, yet Origen could not have been the only one to do this, since the tenets of the Stoics, who indicated this universe of things by the name of God, bade all men speak thus. Nor in fact did Origen alone speak thus; for Clement of Alexandria also in book I of the Stromata, p. 295 of the Cologne edition, says: They say not well that God, being a body, has pervaded the vilest matter. And in book V: The Stoics say that God is a body and a spirit in essence, just as without doubt the soul also is; not to mention others in great number praised by those who have expounded the dogmas of the Stoics more at large. Finally, in the last passage concerning the gods of Epicurus sprung from atoms, to which Gronovius thinks he adduces a similar one from book I Against Celsus, nothing similar is found, except that the same thing is related concerning the origin of gods of this kind according to the mind of Epicurus. Yet how few are there who have not said or thought the same concerning the gods of Epicurus? And these are the arguments whereby the most illustrious man Johann Christoph Wolf learnedly blows away all the petty reasonings which impelled Gronovius, a man otherwise most learned, obstinately to ascribe the Philosophumena to Origen.

After the Gronovian edition, there came out at Hamburg in the year 1706 another Graeco-Latin edition through the care and study of the same Wolf just mentioned, who illustrated the whole work with most learned notes, prefixing a preface in which he shows that the writer of the book is uncertain, and that therefore neither Huet's, nor Gale's, nor Gronovius's opinions or conjectures concerning him rest upon firm arguments of fact. After some years he repeatedly emended his edition from the Medicean manuscript itself collated anew, and from another Turin manuscript, and illustrated it with new notes, and subjoined a disputation in which against Christoph August Heumann he teaches that Didymus of Alexandria is not the author of this writing. The palmary and ineluctable argument whereby he demonstrates that neither Origen, nor Aetius, nor Didymus of Alexandria is the parent of this treatise, he seeks from the fact that the author of the Philosophumena, on p. 876 of our edition, openly declares himself to be a bishop: which dignity it is agreed neither Origen, nor Aetius, nor Didymus attained. Since, however, Epiphanius

was a bishop and wrote a book concerning heresies, Huet considered that a not idle conjecture could be taken therefrom that this work should be referred to him. Yet what sort of reasoning of inference, says Wolf, is this: Epiphanius was a bishop, and wrote a book concerning heresies: therefore he must be called the author of this treatise! As if indeed both things could not be said of others also, both that they were bishops, and that they wrote concerning heresies. "Indeed," continues Wolf, "that very work concerning heresies, which Epiphanius entitled Panarion, seems to supply arguments not to be despised which overturn the Huetian opinion. For in that work, vol. I, p. 1086 and following, up to page 1091, there is a brief and synoptic review of the sects of ancient philosophy, which nevertheless differs by the whole heaven from the present one, since it is both fuller, if you reckon the number of philosophers whose dogmas it recounts, and more imperfect, if you have regard to the dogmas themselves. For the author of the Philosophumena seems chiefly to have devoted his labour to enumerating the opinions of various men concerning the principles of things, whereas in the Epiphanian collection mention is made of no one without his other opinions besides being reviewed. Next, the same Epiphanius does not seem in different places to have pursued the same design, since in the passage cited he not only gave a full designation of the sects, but thereafter in a more careful style derived the opinions of the individual heretics for the most part from the puddles of the philosophers: which from his preface becomes manifest to have been the design of the author of the Philosophumena also. Nor is it an objection that the author of the Philosophumena professes that he has pursued the same subject more at large elsewhere: for by the force of the words this must be understood of the refutation of heresies, from which the present treatise differs at least in this, that it compares together the opinions of philosophers and of heretics. Moreover, in several places the author of the Philosophumena disagrees with Epiphanius. Thus in chap. 19 he says that Plato held the world to be unbegotten; whereas Epiphanius in vol. I, page 1088, according to the mind of Plato says that the world is begotten and perishable. Add book I, haeres. 6. Epiphanius therefore cannot be held the author of the Philosophumena, unless he be said to have shamefully contradicted himself." Thus far the learned Wolf, whose opinion on that matter we embrace, and the edition of this treatise which he published we have followed in almost all things.

Now it remains that besides the learned men whom I have already commemorated in the course of this preface as the chief patrons and helpers of my studies, I should in addition honourably mention others here who personally or through others gave me access to manuscript codices. First of all must be named by me the blessed and most excellent prince of the Church and of the Holy Empire, My Lord Henri Charles du Cambout, Duke of Coislin, Peer of France and Bishop of Metz, who by bequeathing to us in his will the distinguished stock of manuscript codices of every kind which many years ago he had deposited in our monastery, at his death left an eternal

pledge of his benevolence towards our congregation. I shall praise also the most illustrious and most learned perpetual patron of all the liberal arts, Monsieur the Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon, Councillor of State and Royal Librarian, with whose kindly favour and assent, in accordance with his innate courtesy, the keepers of the same library, most illustrious men of erudition and courtesy well known to the literary world, Monsieur de Targny, most celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, and Monsieur Sallier, Royal Professor and most worthy member both of the French Academy and of the Academy of Inscriptions, always granted me the fullest and freest opportunity of consulting and transcribing any royal books whatever, whether handwritten or printed. The treasures of the Colbertine library, before it was sold off and the Royal Library was enriched by the splendid accession of its manuscripts, the most distinguished Count of Seignelay also most kindly opened to us, and by his order Monsieur Millet lent the codices according to our wish. Here also honourable mention shall be made of the most learned doctor and librarian of the Sorbonne, Monsieur Salmon, who very obligingly offered me for collation anew the distinguished manuscript codex of Origen's On First Principles which Merlin had used. With an equally grateful mind I shall testify to the singular services towards me of the most accomplished citizens of Basel, Messieurs Battier and Wetstein, of whom the former, at my request and that of the most learned Iselin, most accurately collated with the printed texts the Basel Greek codex in which the eight books of Origen Against Celsus are contained, and transmitted the variant readings to me; while the latter, while travelling in England, compared with great care and fidelity all the English manuscript codices of the same books as well as of other treatises of Origen with the printed texts, and placed the readings differing from one another at my disposal. What shall I say of my master ever to be revered by me, Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, that would not fall far short of his merits towards me? He himself not only kindled me to undertake the labour of this edition, but also, whereas he has devoted himself wholly for the longest span of life to enriching ecclesiastical and literary studies by noble works and the publication of ancient monuments, and (may it be for many years!)

continues to devote himself, in no way forgetful of me, that best of men communicated to me whatever he found here and there apt and suitable for the edition of Origen. How much I likewise owe to the blessed Dom Charles Petey de L'Hostellerie, Superior General of our congregation, and to his senior assistant Dom Maur Audren, cannot be worthily enough expressed by me. For the latter, most loving of all studious monks, and himself most learned in French history, caused almost all the handwritten codices of Origen extant in Latin in the various libraries of the provinces of France to be collated with the printed texts through the help of his friends; while the former, in accordance with a certain incredible innate zeal of his for promoting letters among us (which is reborn in his third successor, the Very Reverend Father Dom Jean-Baptiste Alaydon), while he was building at great cost the vast edifice of the library of Saint-Germain, with the cooperation of that best of men Dom Barthélemy de La Prade, spared no expense in the meantime that whatever we sought from the various libraries of Europe might be transcribed as quickly as possible and brought to us: his command being willingly obeyed at Rome by Dom Philippe Raffier, then Procurator General of our congregation in the Roman Curia, Dom François Le Bel, his companion, a learned man; as well as after them by Dom Charles-Louis Conrade, who, discharging the same office of Procurator General in the Roman Curia, shone forth with great dexterity in conducting affairs. I should plainly be ungrateful if I defrauded of the praise due to him also my dearest fellow-initiate Dom Jean-Baptiste Robart, a man altogether praiseworthy for the purity of his morals, his sincere piety towards God, his no common skill in the Greek language, as well as his indefatigable zeal for thoroughly learning and illustrating the civil and ecclesiastical history of the Eastern Empire. He himself, so far as in him lay, always shared with me with a cheerful and ready mind all the labour in preparing this edition, especially when copious indexes of passages of sacred Scripture had to be compiled, the Latin translation accurately compared with the Greek, or the proof-sheets of the typographical work emended and corrected.