notwithstanding, was strict and uncompromising, when its system is fairly viewed as a whole, and with reference to its objects, and as distinct from that rival and imitative philosophy, to be mentioned in the next section, which rose out of it at the beginning of the third century, and with which it is by some writers improperly confounded. That its principles were always accurately laid, or the conduct of its masters nicely adjusted to them, need not be contended; or that they opposed themselves with an exact impartiality to every form of error which assailed the Church; or that they duly entered into and soundly applied the Jewish Scriptures; or that in conducting the Economy they were altogether free from an ambitious imitation of the Apostles, nobly conceived indeed, but little becoming uninspired teachers. It may unreluctantly be confessed, wherever it can be proved, that their exoteric professions at times affected the purity of their esoteric doctrine, though this remark scarcely applies to their statements on the subject of the Trinity; and that they indulged a boldness of inquiry, such as innocence prompts, rashness and irreverence corrupt, and experience of its mischievous consequences is alone able to repress. Still all this, and much more than this, were it to be found, weighs as nothing against the mass of testimonies producible from extant documents in favour of the real orthodoxy of their creed. Against a multitude of the very strongest and most explicit declarations of the divinity of Christ, some of which will be cited in their proper

of Irenæus and friend of Origen (A.D. 222): and the Author who goes under the name of Novatian (A. D. 250). [This is Bull's view; for that maturely adopted by the author, vide his "Theological Tracts."]

place, but a very few apparent exceptions to the strictest language of technical theology can be gathered from their writings, and these are sufficiently explained by the above considerations. And further, such is the high religious temper which their works exhibit, as to be sufficient of itself to convince the Christian inquirer, that they would have shrunk from the deliberate blasphemy with which Arius in the succeeding century assailed and scoffed at the awful majesty of his Redeemer.

Origen, in particular, that man of strong heart, who has paid for the unbridled freedom of his speculations on other subjects of theology, by the multitude of grievous and unfair charges which burden his name with posterity, protests, by the forcible argument of a life devoted to God's service, against his alleged connexion with the cold disputatious spirit, and the unprincipled domineering ambition, which are the historical badges of the heretical party. Nay, it is a remarkable fact that it was he who discerned the heresy9 outside the Church on its first rise, and actually gave the alarm, sixty years before Arius's day.

9 "The Word," says Origen, "being the Image of the Invisible God, must Himself be invisible. Nay, I will maintain further, that as being the Image He is eternal, as the God whose Image He is. For when was that God, whom St. John calls the Light, destitute of the Radiance of His incommunicable glory, so that a man may dare to ascribe a beginning of existence to the Son? ... Let a man, who dares to say that the Son is not from eternity, consider well, that this is all one with saying, Divine Wisdom had a beginning, or Reason, or Life." Athan. de Decr. Nic. § 27. Vide also his πepì ȧpxŵv (if Ruffinus may be trusted), for his denouncement of the still more characteristic Arianisms of the v отe oùк v and the eέ ook ovтWV. [On Origen's disadvantages, vide Lumper Hist. t. x. p. 406, &c.]

H

Here let it suffice to set down in his vindication the following facts, which may be left to the consideration of the reader ;-first, that his habitual hatred of heresy and concern for heretics were such, as to lead him, even when left an orphan in a stranger's house, to withdraw from the praying and teaching of one of them, celebrated for his eloquence, who was in favour with his patroness and other Christians of Alexandria; that all through his long life he was known throughout Christendom as the especial opponent of false doctrine, in its various shapes; and that his pupils, Gregory, Athenodorus, and Dionysius, were principal actors in the arraignment of Paulus, the historical forerunner of Arius;-next, that his speculations, extravagant as they often were, related to points not yet determined by the Church, and, consequently, were really, what he frequently professed them to be, inquiries; further, that these speculations were for the most part ventured in matters of inferior importance, certainly not upon the sacred doctrines which Arius afterwards impugned, and in regard to which even his enemy Jerome allows him to be orthodox ;-that the opinions which brought him into disrepute in his lifetime concerned the creation of the world, the nature of the human soul, and the like;-that his opinions, or rather speculations, on these subjects, were imprudently made public by his friends;—that his writings were incorrectly transcribed even in his lifetime, according to his own testimony;-that after his death, Arian interpolations appear to have been made in some of his works now lost, upon which the subsequent Catholic testimony of his heterodoxy is grounded; that, on the other hand, in his extant

works, the doctrine of the Trinity is clearly avowed, and in particular, our Lord's Divinity energetically and variously enforced ;-and lastly, that in matter of fact, the Arian party does not seem to have claimed him, or appealed to him in self-defence, till thirty years after the first rise of the heresy, when the originators of it were already dead, although they had showed their inclination to shelter themselves behind celebrated names, by the stress they laid on their connexion with the martyr Lucian1. But if so much can be adduced in exculpation of Origen from any grave charge of heterodoxy, what accusation can be successfully maintained against his less suspected fellow-labourers in the polemical school? so that, in concluding this part of the subject, we may with full satisfaction adopt the judgment of Jerome :-"It may be that they erred in simplicity, or that they wrote in another sense, or that their writings were gradually corrupted by unskilful transcribers; or certainly before Arius, like 'the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day,' was born in Alexandria, they made statements innocently and incautiously, which are open to the misinterpretation of the perverse 2."

§ 1. Bull, Defens. F. N. i. 9. Baltus, Défense des Ss. Pères, ii. 20 Socrat. Hist. iv. 26. Athanasius

1 Huet. Origen. lib. 1. lib.ii. 4. Waterland's Works, vol. iii. p. 322. Tillemont, Mem. vol. iii. p. 259. notices the change in the Arian polemics, from mere disputation to an appeal to authority, in his De Sent. Dionys. § 1, written about A.D. 354. οὐδὲν οὔτ ̓ εὔλογον οὔτε πρὸς ἀπόδειξιν ἐκ τῆς θείας γραφῆς ῥητὸν ἐχούσης τῆς αἱρέσεως αὐτῶν, ἀεὶ μὲν προφάσεις ἀναισχύντους ἐπορίζοντο καὶ σοφίσματα πιθανά· νῦν δὲ καὶ διαβάλλειν τοὺς πατέρας τετολμήκασι.

2 Apolog. adv. Ruffin. ii. Oper. vol. ii. p. 149.

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SECTION IV.

THE ECLECTIC SECT.

THE words of St. Jerome, with which the last section closed, may perhaps suggest the suspicion, that the Alexandrians, though orthodox themselves, yet incautiously prepared the way for Arianism by the countenance they gave to the use of the Platonic theological language. But, before speculating on the medium of connexion between Platonism and Arianism, it would be well to ascertain the existence of the connexion itself, which is very doubtful, whether we look for it in history, or in the respective characters of the parties professing the two doctrines; though it is certain that Platonism, and Origenism also, became the excuse and refuge of the heresy when it was condemned by the Church. I proceed to give an account of the rise and genius of Eclecticism, with the view of throwing light upon this question; that is, of showing its relation both to the Alexandrian Church and to Arianism.

I.

The Eclectic philosophy is so called from its professing to select the better parts of the systems