C. V. Delarue, O.S.B., Praefatio ad tomum IV

Preface.

Although we thought that we would be doing something worthwhile if we collected into a single body all the Works of Origen, both those of which it is established that he is the genuine author and those which were formerly circulated under his name, nevertheless, since several learned men complained and took it ill that at the end of the earlier volumes of this edition certain works falsely ascribed to Origen had been added, which seemed to them altogether superfluous and therefore burdensome to buyers, we have for that reason decided to omit the remaining spurious works of this kind in the later tomes, such as the second Commentary on Job translated into Latin by Joachim Perionius, the Commentaries on the Gospel of Mark which the most learned Huet had once proposed to publish, the Homilies on various subjects, and other pieces which the previously published Latin editions display: whence it comes about that the whole collection of the Origenian Works is now completed not in five volumes, as had originally been intended, but in four only.

Yet it will perhaps seem surprising that this fourth and final volume, which I had announced in the preface of the third in the year 1740 as about to be committed soon to the press, nevertheless comes forth so late after the others. But apart from the fact that when I examined it more closely I found scarcely anything in it worked out and prepared for the press, being absent shortly afterwards and occupied with other labours, I was not able to stand by my promises. For after our master Pierre Sabatier died in the year 1742, who had published in folio at Reims the first two volumes of the Old Latin Version of the Bible, which they call the Italic, having been sent to Reims in the year 1743 by my Superiors to carry on this edition, which the most serene Duke and Prince of Orléans earnestly demanded and whose expenses he had supported, I spent six whole years there in completing its third and final volume. When that was finished, I returned wholly to Origen, collated and corrected each piece against the manuscript codices, illustrated them with notes, and in short spared no care, zeal, or labour so that this volume might turn out whole, complete, and finished in all its parts. If any delay intervened afterwards, that must be attributed either to the greed and negligence of the printers, who, lest their printing-house ever stand idle, always grasp after new things to print and neglect what they have begun, or to whatever other accidents are brought about by the vicissitude of human affairs, which are never constant to themselves.

Furthermore, this fourth and final tome is divided into two parts, the first of which contains the remaining works of Origen on John, a fragment from the fourth homily on the Acts of the Apostles, his Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, with fragments on the Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Titus, to Philemon, and to the Hebrews, and with the two customary indexes, one of passages of Sacred Scripture, the other of memorable matters: the second part comprises Works relating to Origen, namely the Apology for Origen of St. Pamphilus the martyr, and the Panegyric Oration for the same composed by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus as he was preparing to return to his homeland from the school of Origen and delivered publicly at Caesarea in Palestine, the Origeniana written by the most learned Huet and illustrated with historical and critical notes where we do not agree with him, together with a summary of the books, sections, chapters, and numbers of the same work; and the ninth chapter excerpted from George Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith, on the Son as consubstantial (τῷ ὁμοουσίῳ), where the Catholic faith of Origen concerning the Trinity is especially vindicated.

A special Notice has been prefixed to the Commentaries on John and to the Apology of Pamphilus. Since, however, the fragments on the Acts of the Apostles and on the Epistles of Paul are treated in Book III of the Origeniana, section 2, nos. 7 and 8, p. 297, and section 3, nos. 14 and 15, pp. 305 and 306, where we have noted in our annotations what new material has been found by us, it follows that it seems superfluous to make a further preface concerning them, unless perhaps something more should be said concerning the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans.

On the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans.

Since in Books V and VIII of Against Celsus Origen mentions his studies on the Epistle to the Romans, it is certain that he wrote on this Epistle before Against Celsus, and therefore before Philip brought his reign to an end. It is also clear that that work was composed after his Homilies on Leviticus, the second of which he mentions in Book IX, no. 1 of the Commentaries on the same Epistle. Moreover, since, in Rufinus's judgement, those Homilies were delivered extempore, they could only have been given after the year of Christ 245. Whence we gather that at the time when Origen was putting together his Commentaries on Matthew, namely around the year 246, during the reign of Philip, at that very same time he also prepared his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans. And to this

that is deduced all the more plausibly because in Tome XVII on Matthew he reviews his explanations on the Epistle to the Romans, and in Book I on the Epistle to the Romans, no. 5, concerning the genealogy of the Saviour related by Matthew, he promises that he will write at greater length in its proper place in what follows.

Cassiodorus, in his Institutes of Divine Readings, Chapter 8, relates that twenty books on this Epistle were written by Origen. First of all the Epistles of Saint Paul, he says, and known to have been designed as the more admirable, is that to the Romans, which Origen expounded in twenty books in the Greek tongue. Yet Rufinus, who at the urging of Heraclius undertook to render them into the Latin language, reckons only fifteen in the prologue of his translation: indeed the readings vary, and instead of fifteen, as all the printed editions read, two very ancient codices which we have used, one belonging to the cathedral church of Évreux, the other to the monastery of Clairvaux, have the one ten, the other twelve. But here perhaps Rufinus denotes only the books that survived in his own age; for he testifies in the preface to Heraclius that several had already perished. However that may be, he professes in the same place that he supplied what was lost out of his own store, and contracted the whole work to nearly half its length: and in fact, on the testimony of Cassiodorus in the same place as above, out of twenty books he made only ten: Which nevertheless, he says, the aforesaid Rufinus, reducing into ten books, translated still copiously into Latin. Against this audacity Erasmus flares up in anger, and not without reason have some rebuked Rufinus, just as he himself says in the epilogue of his translation that it was objected against him that he had not inscribed his own name rather than that of Origen on the title of this work. For hence it comes about that you can scarcely find Origen in Origen, and you will more easily detect the injury done to Origen if you compare certain fragments of this work inserted in the Philocalia with Rufinus's version.

Theophilus Salodianus, a professor of the Order of the Observance of the Mendicants of St. Jerome, from a manuscript codex of the Fiesole library of his convent which bore the name of Jerome as translator on its front, first published these ten books under the name of Jerome at Venice in the year 1506. Following him, Merlin, Erasmus, Genebrard, and the Basel editors of the Works of Jerome in the year 1571, as well as Philippe Labbe in On Ecclesiastical Writers, Vol. II, p. 145, likewise ascribed the translation of this work to Jerome. But that it must be attributed to Rufinus is proved most evidently both by Cassiodorus, and by our manuscripts, and by Rufinus's own epilogue, where he says that shortly afterwards he would translate the books of Clement, which it is established was done by Rufinus. Erasmus, accusing the booksellers of trickery, thinks that the name of Jerome was prefixed by them as a pretext to entice buyers. But Huet, rejecting this more probable opinion of Erasmus, sets forth his own, with which we by no means agree, in his Origeniana, Book III, Chapter 2, section 3, no. 15, as follows: "Why it (this translation) was attributed to Jerome, I think came about through the craft and cunning of Rufinus, who in order to avoid the odium of the deed (for the name of Origen was in bad repute), and to shift it onto Jerome, by whom he had often been harassed on account of Origenism, did not affix his own name, pretending that what had been done by ill arts was done out of modesty." He says almost the same thing in no. 5 of the same section, where he treats of the Homilies on Joshua. But of these matters we shall discourse in their proper place.

Besides that abridged and truncated translation of Rufinus, we have a not inconsiderable fragment of the first tome in Chapter 24 of the Philocalia, and two smaller shreds in the Apology of Pamphilus. Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, Chapter 32, observes that Origen in that same first tome expounded at very great length for what reason the Virgin Mary is called Mother of God. Origen himself, in Book V of Against Celsus, no. 47, says that he treated of circumcision in his Commentaries on this Epistle to the Romans. Saint Basil, in his book On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 29, quotes a passage from the same Commentaries in these words: The holy powers are receptive of the Only-Begotten and of the deity of the Holy Spirit: Sacrae virtutes capaces sunt Unigeniti et sancti Spiritus deitatis: he did not, however, note the book from which he drew it; but the same words are found in the translation of Rufinus, Book III, no. 8, p. 515. Again, Origen in Tome XVII on Matthew, no. 32, relates that very many things were said by him in his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans upon this passage of the Apostle: Or are you ignorant, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man so long as he lives, etc., down to the words, if she be with another man (Rom. 7:1–3). Another fragment also from Tome IX is offered to us by the ninth chapter of the Philocalia. Finally, Origen again in Book VIII of Against the same Celsus, no. 65, says that he treated at length and in various senses of these verses: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power except from God; and the powers that be are ordained by God: therefore those who resist the power resist the ordinance of God (Rom. 13:1). And although these facts demonstrate most clearly that Adamantius is the genuine author of these Commentaries, nevertheless a certain recent heterodox writer did not hesitate to cast these very works into the class of supposititious writings of Origen; deluded by William Perkins, who wrote indeed that they had been badly translated by Rufinus, which is most true, but by no means thought that they were falsely attributed to Origen.