C. V. Delarue, O.S.B., Monitum ad Commentaria Origenis in Joannem

NOTICE ON ORIGEN'S COMMENTARIES ON JOHN.

I. Origen, not long after he returned from Antioch, whither he had been summoned by Mammaea, the mother of Alexander Severus, namely in the year of Christ 219, began his Exegetical works on Scripture at Alexandria with these Commentaries on John, as he himself intimates in the prologue to John, num. 4: Since therefore our every action is dedicated to God, and our whole life, seeing that we hasten towards better things, and since we wish to have all of it as the firstfruits of many firstfruits, if indeed we are not mistaken in holding this opinion, what ought there to have been, after we were separated from one another in body, more excellent than the examination concerning the Gospel? For indeed one must venture to say that the Gospel is the firstfruits of all the Scriptures. What other firstfruits therefore of our actions, since we came to stay in Alexandria, ought there to have been than that which is upon the firstfruits of the Scriptures? Therefore, since our every action and our whole life is dedicated to God, inasmuch as we strive with great zeal towards more excellent things, and since we desire to have all the firstfruits of many firstfruits, unless we are deceived in thinking this, what other more excellent firstfruits ought we to have had, after we were separated from our mutual bodily companionship, than to undertake a disputation concerning the Gospel? For indeed one must venture to say that the Gospel is the firstfruits of all the Scriptures. From the time therefore that we arrived at Alexandria, what other firstfruits of our actions ought there to have been than in the firstfruits of the Scriptures? And below, num. 6: And I think that even though the Gospels are four, as it were the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements the whole world is compacted, reconciled in Christ to God, according as Paul says: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," of which world Jesus took away the sin; for the written word is concerning the world of the Church: "Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world," the firstfruits of the Gospels is that according to John, which we have been enjoined by you to search out according to our power. But I for my part think, even though the Gospels are four, as it were the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements this whole world consists, reconciled to God through Christ, as Paul says: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself;" the sin of which world Jesus took away; for concerning the world of the Church was that word written: "Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world," the firstfruits of the Gospels

is the Gospel of John set before us, the meaning of which we have been commanded by you to investigate to the best of our ability. Here he addresses Ambrose, at whose exhortation he undertook these Commentaries, and dedicated them to him.

II. Having interrupted the work by his Achaean journey, on his return and having now been made a presbyter, he resumed it at Alexandria, as is clear from the preface of the sixth tome on John, num. 1: And as far as the fifth tome, even though the storm at Alexandria seemed to oppose us, we dictated what was given to us, while Jesus rebuked the winds and the waves of the sea. Even up to the fifth tome, although the storm of Alexandria seemed to oppose us, we spoke what was granted to us, while Jesus rebuked the winds and the waves of the sea. Whence it is clear that the first five tomes were composed at Alexandria before the year 231, in which he removed to Caesarea: which Eusebius also teaches in Hist. book VI, chap. 24. Indeed he had likewise begun the sixth at Alexandria, but was obliged to begin it afresh, because when departing from Alexandria he had not brought the former writing away with him, just as he himself says in the preface of the same tome, a little below: But know that with great readiness I make this second beginning of the sixth tome, because the things previously dictated by us in Alexandria were, I know not how, not brought away. For the rest, know that with great readiness we make a beginning of the sixth tome afresh, because the things that we had previously expounded at Alexandria were, I know not how, not brought away with us. Hence Nicephorus is either not to be heeded, or is to be understood thus, when he says in book V, chap. 15, that six tomes on John were written at Alexandria at that time.

III. In the year 231, as we have already said, Origen, having experienced Demetrius the bishop of Alexandria to be hostile to him for many reasons, departed from Alexandria, and established his residence at Caesarea, where not immediately, yet not long afterwards, and perhaps after the death of Demetrius, namely in the year 232, having obtained some tranquillity, he continued the interrupted work. Which indeed one may also gather from the preface of the same sixth tome: And having gone forth from what befell us, we were drawn out of Egypt, God delivering us, Who brought His people out of it. Then, when the enemy waged war most bitterly against us through his new letters, truly hostile to the Gospel, and stirred up all the

winds of wickedness in Egypt against us, reason exhorted me rather to stand fast for the contest, and to guard the governing faculty, lest wicked thoughts should prevail to bring the storm into my soul also, rather than unseasonably, before my mind had attained calm, to join together the sequel of the Scripture. Moreover, the absence of the accustomed shorthand writers hindered me from keeping to the dictations. But now, when the many fiery darts aimed against us have been blunted, God quenching them, and our soul, having grown accustomed to the things that have happened on account of the heavenly word, constrains itself to bear more easily the plots that have been formed, having as it were laid hold of some measure of fair weather, we wish without further delay to dictate what follows, praying that God the Teacher may be present sounding within the innermost sanctuary of our soul, so that the building up of the exposition of the Gospel according to John may receive its completion. And may God hearken to our prayer, that we may be able to join together the body of the whole work, with no further crisis intervening that could effect any interruption whatever of the sequence of the Scripture! Having gone forth from this misfortune, we were drawn out of Egypt, God delivering us, Who brought His people out of it: then, when the enemy (Demetrius) fought most bitterly against us through his new letters, truly hostile to the Gospel, and stirred up all the winds of Egypt against us, reason exhorted me rather to stand fast for the contest, and to preserve the most excellent part of myself, than unseasonably to join together the remaining Scripture before the discourse of reason recovered tranquillity, lest perhaps perverse thoughts should prevail to bring a storm into my soul also. Moreover, the shorthand writers also, who are usually with me, being absent, prevented me from committing to writing what I had thought out. But now, when the many fiery darts aimed against us have been made vain, God quenching them, and our soul, accustomed to those things which happen for the sake of the heavenly word, is compelled to bear more easily the plots that have been made, having obtained as it were some measure of calm, we wish without delaying any longer to dictate what remains, praying that God the Teacher may be present sounding in the innermost sanctuary of our soul, so that the structure of the exposition of the Gospel according to John may receive its completion. And would that God may hear our prayers, so that we may be able to join together the body of the whole work, and that no necessity hereafter may intercept and interrupt the sequence of the Scripture! Nevertheless, it was only long after the persecution of Maximin, inasmuch as he had mentioned it in Tome XXII, as Eusebius testifies in Hist. book VI, chap. 28, and perhaps during his second Athenian journey, as Huet conjectures, that the later tomes were completed.

IV. Jerome, in the prologue which is prefixed to the Latin translation of the Homilies of Origen on Luke, records that thirty-nine tomes were written by the same Origen on John. For indeed, he says, what holy Blaesilla had formerly entreated at Rome, that I should render into our tongue his XXXVI (read XXV) tomes on Matthew, and five others on Luke, and XXXIX on John. The most learned Huet here suspects an error of the copyists, and thinks that for XXXIX one should read XXXII. For

Rufinus enumerates no more in Invectiv. 2, where he quotes this very prologue of Jerome: and a little below he repeats the same in these words: Meanwhile, he says, he extols the books of Origen, as we said above, to all admiration, and says that if he translates them into the Roman tongue, it will learn how much good it both was ignorant of before and has now begun to know, that is, on Matthew, he says, XXVI books (read XXV) and on Luke five, and on John XXXII. Hence it is that in the manuscript codex of the Commentaries on John which Ambrose Ferrarius used, the nine tomes of interrupted sequence which survive today had been distributed into thirty-two tomes. But no credence at all seems to be due to the reading of Rufinus: for since Tome XXXII, which survives even today, ends at chapter XIII, v. 33 of John, either Origen by no means completed the entire work, or if he carried it through to the end, it is likely that he elaborated no fewer than XXXIX tomes. Next, that more than XXXII tomes were completed is gathered from the fact that Origen himself in Tractate XXXV on Matthew, page 922, on these words of Matthew: And in the same way the robbers also, who were crucified with Him, reproached Him, says that in his Commentaries on John he expounded concerning the two robbers who were crucified with Christ, and there discussed whether these two robbers, of whom one blasphemed Christ according to Luke, are one pair, and those two robbers who both blasphemed according to Matthew and Mark were another pair. And in John, he says, as we were able, we expounded concerning the two robbers who were crucified with Christ, who according to Matthew indeed and Mark both reproached Him on the cross; whereas according to Luke, who says that one of the robbers who were hanging blasphemed.... It is fitting therefore that at first indeed both robbers should be understood to have blasphemed the Lord.... Or lest perhaps, as we also said there (namely in the Commentaries on John), these two robbers of whom one blasphemed Him are one pair, and those two robbers who both blasphemed were another pair (for thus must it be read according to the manuscripts). Now these things are nowhere found in the nine tomes on John which are still extant, and from the words just cited and the place where they are cited, Origen seems to have treated of the two robbers not in passing, but expressly, and in its proper place. Furthermore, since the thirty-second tome ends at chapter XIII, v. 33 of the Gospel of John, as we have already said, whereas the robbers are treated of in chapter XIX, v. 18 of the same Gospel, it is likely that more than XXXII tomes on John were elaborated, and accordingly the reading of Jerome, which records XXXIX tomes on John, seems genuine.

V. Out of so many compositions of Origen on John, Eusebius writes in Hist. book VI, chap. 24, that only XXII tomes had come down to his own age. But since Jerome afterwards had XXXIX in hand, and Rufinus perhaps only XXXII, and Tomes XXVIII and XXXII survive even today, one must conjecture that Eusebius saw no more than XXII, yet that more

were in existence in his own age. The injury of time afterwards consumed them, except Tomes I, II, VI, X, XIII, XIX, XX, XXVIII, and XXXII, of which a twofold translation appeared. From the Venetian codex of St Mark, which nowhere appears today, Ambrose Ferrarius of Milan, a monk of Monte Cassino, prepared the former, and published it in the year 1551; Joachim Perionius, likewise a Benedictine monk, prepared the latter from the Royal codex, three years later or thereabouts. Which labour I think he would not have taken upon himself, had he understood that he was not only doing what was already done, but doing very badly what had been well done. Yet the translation of Ferrarius had not yet reached him; and on that account, in the preface to his explanation, he professes himself the first beginner of this labour. He persuaded Sixtus of Siena of this, who reported the very same thing; and Sixtus also persuaded a learned man who falsely repeated the same. Moreover, that these codices, the Venetian and the Royal, came from one and the same exemplar is understood from the comparison of the translation of Ferrarius with that of Perionius and the Greek edition of Huet printed after the Royal exemplar, so accurately do the lacunae correspond to the lacunae, although it must be confessed that in some places the codex of Ferrarius was fuller and more complete. In this chiefly did the two books differ, that the Royal preserved the true and genuine distinction of nine tomes, whereas the Venetian had been cut into thirty-two tomes of a single and continuous series, by some petty Greek of uncertain name, says Sixtus of Siena, by a new kind of imposture, that he might render the work, increased by the multitude of numbers and continued in the order of arithmetical computation, more desirable, and sell it at a higher price: whence Ferrarius, being deluded, retained the same division of the book, and supposed that out of the thirty-nine tomes which he thought Origen had written on John, only the last seven were wanting, and that the series of the work was broken off only by some few slight lacunae. Although that learned man afterwards scented the fraud, for in the earlier edition of his translation, at the beginning of Tome XIX, in the margin, he writes that he suspects these tomes had been thus cut up lest the numbering should be interrupted.

VI. But the most illustrious Huet, who first published them in Greek at Rouen, in the year 1668, restored to each its own number in the Greek, while preserving the translation of Ferrarius distributed as it was before into XXXII tomes, inasmuch as, although rough in style and not sufficiently pure, yet neater and better than that of Perionius, it keeps closer to the Greek and sufficiently maintains its fidelity. Nevertheless it labours under its own faults as well, and therein either the candour of Ferrarius or his understanding of the matters seems greatly wanting, because in a solemn protestation at the end of his work he declared that in translating this book he had used the utmost fidelity and diligence, so that nothing whatever was altered from what the author writes. Then he adds: Know moreover that I have found nothing in this book which seems to oppose the decrees of holy Mother Church; for if I had found anything, either I would not have translated the book,

or I would have marked the passage as suspect. Yet he seems purposefully to have removed some things sprinkled with the stain of perverse doctrine, and suffered no fewer to remain which departed by no small interval from the decrees of the Church. All these, however, have been noted in their proper places.

VII. From the twofold translation of Ferrarius and Perionius and the single Royal codex Huet put together his edition, who would indeed gladly have used the other codices transcribed some years before from the Libraries of Italy by order of the Gallican clergy, if Jean Tarin, professor at Paris, to whose trust they had been committed in order that he might publish the same Commentaries on John, the Commentaries on Matthew, and the Philocalia, had been willing to share them with him: but he refused to kindle a light from his own light, lest his own should shine the less for him when he had kindled another's. Concerning which the most renowned Prelate complains very heavily and not unjustly. We, however, being more fortunate, have used two codices, namely the Bodleian and the Barberini, according to whose authority we have restored the Greek, filled up the lacunae, and emended the translation of Ferrarius, having first changed his division of the tomes, which Huet had preserved in the Latin.

VIII. Besides these nine tomes, chapters 4 and 5 of the Philocalia exhibit two fragments from Tome IV, and three others from the preface of the fifth, among which the middle place is held by a passage transferred from book VI of Eusebius's History, chap. 25. The Apology of Pamphilus the martyr also supplies two Latin fragments. The first is from Tome V, but the second, which is said to be drawn from the second, you will nowhere find in it. Nor yet on that account do we think it should be concluded that this tome has been mutilated, inasmuch as it appears complete in every part and not to gape with any lacunae. Whence we more plausibly suspect that these two fragments were plucked from one and the same fifth tome. The reason for which conjecture we have given where it is fitting.

IX. Now to say something concerning the lost tomes, besides what Eusebius writes in Hist. book VI, chap. 28, that mention is made in Tome XXII of the persecution of Maximin, which began to rage in the year of Christ 235, Origen himself in Tome XVI on Matthew, page 748, on these words of Matthew: Hosanna to the Son of David, etc., says that the same things were examined by himself in the Commentaries on John, namely when that passage was set before him to expound: On the next day a great crowd that had come to the feast day, etc. Which things indeed were likely treated in Tome XXIX. Next, on Matthew likewise, tract. XXXV, page 893, he testifies that he examined more diligently in the Commentaries on John whether the feet of Christ had been anointed at the supper by one woman alone or by several. Which indeed was prefixed to the same Tome XXIX. Finally, on the Epistle to the Romans, chap. VI, book V: But concerning the nature of baptism, he says, when we were expounding the Gospel according to John, when we came to that passage in which he says concerning Jesus: "He Himself

will baptize you in the Holy Spirit," and likewise where the Saviour Himself says: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:" according to our strength we said what could occur to us, or rather what God granted, where we also attempted to open more deeply the force of the expression wherein it is said: "Unless a man be born again." Now in Tome VI on John he expounds indeed these words: He Himself shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit; but the latter words, unless a man, etc., he must have expounded at the beginning of Tome XI. Eustathius of Antioch adduces a passage of Origen from the same lost tomes on John, where the stoning of Jesus by the Jews was treated of. Thus he writes in his book On the Witch of Endor (De engastrimytho): And no less, when contemplating the drama of the stoning, since he tries to turn this also into a trope, he utters falsehood against the evangelical letter: saying, Not at all have we found, upon seeking in what precedes this, that the Jews took up stones to stone Him. — Then after a little he says: For if they took up again, they took up before. And up and down he wishes to establish that nothing preceded, and likewise a different interpretation, in order that he might maintain that they heedlessly took up words, and not stones, against Him. And yet, though the evangelist had previously said something, "They took up stones therefore to cast at Him;" after he wrote these things in the interval, passing over some one hundred and thirty-five lines, he goes on to add: "The Jews therefore took up stones to stone Him." Now these things are recorded in two distinct passages, and appear to have been done at different times, from their not having the same interweavings or combinations of words; but Origen, who supposes that he knows all the Scriptures, did not read this even when writing these things upon the text of the Gospel as a whole together. And if anyone supposes that we are fabricating these things, upon lighting upon the evangelical declarations themselves, and the labours worked out by him concerning this, he will find that we have spoken nothing false. Nor less than these, while he contemplates the fact of the stoning (Origen), striving to draw that also, as if done by tropes, into another meaning, he wonderfully falsifies in the evangelical words.

Although, he says, we have searched much, we have not yet found in the things that are written that the Jews seized stones to cast at Him. — And adding a few words: For if they took up again, they took up before. And he wishes that both in what goes before and in what follows nothing of the kind had preceded, so that he may prove that they wrongly took up words, but not stones, against Him. And yet the evangelist said before: "They took up stones therefore to cast at Him." Having written which, with one hundred and thirty-five verses interposed, he subjoins: "The Jews therefore took up stones, to stone Him." Now these things are described in two places, and appear to have been done at different times, because they do not have the same connections or conjunctions of words: but Origen himself, who supposes that he holds all the Scriptures, in writing these things did not know that whole text of the Gospel written to the letter. Furthermore, if anyone supposes that we are fabricating these things, having read through the evangelical sentences and his commentaries upon them, he will find that we have abstained from all falsehood. From these words it is not clear where Origen treated of the stoning of Jesus by the Jews, whether when he expounded the former context of John, they took up stones therefore to cast at Him; or when the latter, the Jews therefore took up stones, to stone Him. Perhaps in both places. Which if it is so, it seems exceedingly probable that he treated of this stoning in Tome XXI and in Tome XXV or XXVI.

X. Tillemont, Hist. eccl. tome III, page 572, suspects that something is wanting in Tome VI, where Origen had spoken at length both concerning the martyrs and concerning a certain plague which is nowhere found in the histories, and which, he says, perhaps raged around the year 232. But I do not sufficiently understand whence the most learned man could have conjectured this. For Origen pursues both subjects, speaking both of the martyrs and of those who perished on account of pestilential conditions: nor is it a question there of those who perished consumed by some new plague, but of those who of old among the Gentiles, when pestilential diseases raged, gave themselves up as victims on behalf of their country, just as we have observed in its proper place.