Read an anonymous work defending Origen and his abominable writings,
in five volumes. The style is neither clear nor pure and contains
nothing deserving of mention. The author brings forward on behalf of
Origen and his dogmas Dionysius of Alexandria,[597] Demetrius,[598]
Clemens, and several others, but chiefly relies upon Pamphilus the
martyr and Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. This apology is
not a refutation of the charges against Origen for the most part, but
rather supports the accusation, since he is not altogether free from
his blasphemous opinions. Thus, he asserts that souls existed before
bodies, supporting this nonsense by passages from the Scriptures and
Fathers, and imagines the taking up of other bodies. In regard to the
Holy Trinity, however, he is orthodox; he asserts that Origen was
not guilty of error in his opinions on the subject, but that he was
opposing the Sabellian[599] heresy, which at that time had spread
extensively, and that, in his endeavour to show that the Trinity of
Persons was quite clear and differed in many ways, he allowed himself
to be carried away beyond what was right in the opposite direction.
However, in regard to Origen’s other dogmas, to which he does not
even venture to give a specious assent, and to which he does not
think it possible to adapt his defence, he takes great trouble to
prove that they were only intended as a rhetorical exercise, or that
they were foisted into his writings by certain heterodox persons. In
proof of this he quotes Origen himself as loudly protesting, for he
says that even when he was alive he discovered that such reckless
statements were made against him. The counts on which he asserts
that he was falsely accused are fifteen in number, which he declares
to be mere slanders, proving it by quotations from his writings in
his fourth book, and refuting them by the evidence of others on his
behalf in the fifth. The counts are as follows. He is charged with
teaching that prayer should not be offered to the Son, and that He
is not absolutely good; that He does not know the Father as Himself;
that rational natures enter into the bodies of irrational beings;
that there are migrations from one body into another; that the soul
of the Saviour was the same as the soul of Adam; that there is
neither eternal punishment nor resurrection of the flesh; that magic
is not an evil; that astronomy is the cause of events; that the Only
Begotten has no share in the Kingdom; that the holy angels came
into the world by falling down from heaven, not to render service
to others; that the Father is unseen by the Son; that the Cherubim
are the ideas of the Son; that the image of God, in reference to him
whose image it is, _qua_ image, is untrue. He rejects these charges,
as already stated, as slanders on Origen, and does his utmost to
prove that he is an orthodox member of the Church. But, my dear sir,
if any one is shown to be not altogether impious, this is no reason
why he should escape punishment for obvious blasphemies.