man known her" (Gen. xxiv. 16), must mean that Christ is the husband of the soul when it is converted, and that Satan becomes the husband of the soul when it falls away.1

One or two brief specimens of his method must suffice. When we are told that Rebecca comes to draw water at the well and so meets the servant of Abraham, the meaning is, according to Origen, that we must daily come to the wells of Scripture in order to meet with Christ. He thinks that there is a contradiction because in Ex. i. 5 the midwives are not said to have killed the female children as well as to have saved the male children. A glance at the text shows that there is no difficulty whatever in an expression of the plainest kind. But failing to see that the Scriptures are written according to the ordinary rules of language, he explains the female children to mean carnal affections, and the male children the reasonable sense and intellectual spirit. So that when men live their life in pleasure Pharaoh is killing the males in them and preserving the females. In the twenty-first verse of the same chapter Origen follows the mistranslation of the LXX. "because the midwives feared God they made for themselves houses," 2 and declaring it to be inconsequent, takes it to mean that if we act like the midwives in keeping alive the spiritual sense we shall gain eternal life. In Gen. xviii. 2, the Septuagint says that the three men stood above Abraham,3 and this is interpreted to mean that Abraham submitted himself to the will of God. Of what use, he asks, is it to me, who have come to hear what the Holy Spirit teaches the human race, to be told that Abraham stood under the oak of Mamre? Mamre means "Vision," and the sense of the passage is that God was pleased with the insight of Abraham. What meaning can there possibly be, he asks, in our being told that "the Lord opened the eyes of Agar"? Where do we read that she had closed

1 Hom. in Rom. vii. § 8 (De la Rue, iv. 604). It need hardly be said that the tautology is only due to the descriptive fulness of Hebrew style, just as "I am a widow woman, and my husband is dead," 2 Sam. xiv. 5.

* Εx. i. 21, ἐποίησαν ἑαυταῖς οἰκίας, LXX.

3 Gen xviii. 2, εἱστήκεισαν ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, LXX.

eyes ? Is it not clear as daylight that the mystic sense implies the blindness of the Jewish synagogue!

But the allegoric method is still more inexcusable when it invades the simplest and most precious passages of the New Testament. St. Mark tells us (x. 50) that Bartimaeus when he hastened to Jesus flung off his coat. Origen cannot conceive that the dignity of the Evangelist would have allowed him to record such a trivial circumstance (as he regards this to be) without a mystic meaning. We feel it to be singularly out of place when the mention of divorce in Matt. xix. leads Origen into a long digression about the marriage of the soul with its guardian angel. We cannot value the method which explains "the water-pots of stone containing two or three firkins apiece," to be the Scriptures which were intended to purify the Jews, and which sometimes contain two firkins, namely, the moral and literal sense, and sometimes three, namely also the spiritual; nor are we able to see the smallest relevance in the remark about the six water-pots that the world was made in six days. There are many beautiful and touching lessons in the humble triumph of Palm Sunday, but it loses every particle of its natural instructiveness when we are told that the ass represents the letter of the Old Testament, the ass's foal, which was gentle and submissive, the New Testament, and that the two Apostles who go to loose them are the moral and mystic sense. Nor are we in any better position to understand "whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to bear," or " to unloose," when it is made to refer to Christ's Incarnation and descent into Hades, "whatever Hades may be." 3 All such comments are 2 μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος. They do but weary and offend us with a sense of incongruous unreality. They

1 Orig. Comm. in Matt. (xx. 33).

2 For abundant specimens of Origen's allegorising methods see Huet, Origeniana, II. 2 Ger. 13; (De la Rue iv. App. 240-244).

3 Hom. in Joann. vi. § 18 (De la Rue, iv. p. 136). The passage is long and difficult. Εἰ δὲ μυστικὸς ὁ περὶ τῶν ὑποδημάτων τόπος οὐδὲ τοῦτον παρελθεῖν ἄξιον. οἶμαι τοίνυν τὴν μὲν ἐνανθρώπησιν ὅτε σάρκα καὶ αἷμα ἀναλαμβάνει ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ υἱὸς τὸ ἕτερον εἶναι τῶν ὑποδημάτων, τὴν δὲ εἰς ᾅδου κατάβασιν, ὅστις ποτέ ἐστιν ὁ ᾅδης, κ.τ.λ.

Influence of Origen.

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change tender human narratives into dreary and ill-constructed riddles. With the highest admiration, and even the deepest reverence for Origen, whose spiritual teaching is often full of beauty and depth, and whose isolated comments are often valuable, we can only come to the conclusion that the foundations of his exegetic system are built upon the sand.

V. The influence of Origen was wide and deep,1 and all the more so because he did but expand and systematise in the Christian Church, as Philo had done in the Jewish, the principles which we have already seen at work in the writings of the Fathers. Even those who, like Methodius and Cyril, opposed some of the best parts of Origen's teaching, yet interpreted Scripture in a similar similar way. Methodius, an ardent Platonist,2 commenting on Gen. xv. 9, explains "the calf, the goat, and the ram of three years" in Abraham's sacrifices to mean his soul, his sentient faculty, and his mind. The same arbitrary mixture of allegory and dogma is found in the works of Cyril. It is needless and impossible to speak separately of him, and many others of the Fathers, and in point of fact there is no new or original principle observable in their comments.5 Gregory

1 Gieseler says that "his exegetical writings were the model and sources for all succeeding Greek commentators" (i. 232); he might have added, and for most Latin ones also.

2 See his only extant work, the Symposium, or ñepì ȧyveías. It is printed in Migne, vol. xviii.

3 That Hippolytus explained Scripture by the same methods we see from his comment on Gen. xlix. 12 in his book De Christo et Antichristo. His interpretation resembles that of Justin. Thus "His teeth are whiter than milk" is made to refer to the commands which come from the mouth of Christ, which are white like milk. He still more clearly shows the basis of his system in his book on Daniel. Explaining the Story of Susanna as forming part of the Book of Daniel, he says that Susanna represents the Church; her husband Joacim is Christ; the garden is the calling of the Saints; Babylon is the world; the bath is baptism; the two Elders are the Jews and the Gentiles; and the two handmaids are Love to God and Faith in Christ.

In Cant. vi. 7 Methodius says that the 60 queens are royal souls like those of Enoch, Seth; and the concubines, the souls of the Prophets after the Deluge. In Judg. ix. he explains the trees who went to choose a king to be sinful souls before the Incarnation which now implore the mercy of God (see Photius, Cod. 234-237; Schröck, K. G. iv. 427, sq.; Rosenmüller, Hist. Interpr. iii. 187, sq.).

Euseb. H. E. vi. 46; Steph. Gobar. ap. Phot. Cod. 232; Guerike, De Schol. Alex. 67.

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8

11

2

Thaumaturgus,1 the the martyr Pamphilus, Athanasius,3 Didymus the Blind, Pierius, Theognostus, Hierax of Leontopolis, Eusebius of Vercellae, Eusebius of Cæsarea,9 Firmilian,10 Victorinus of Pettau, all made some contributions to exegesis in their day, but there is nothing distinctive in their special methods. Like many others they openly expressed their admiration of Origen, and largely borrowed from him in their writings. It was the - express object of the Presbyter Rufinus to make him known in the West. The great Cappadocian Fathers adopted many of his views.12 Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, was the most Origenising of all the Fathers of the Nicene age, and he adopted not only his exegetic system, but also many of his dogmatic opinions.13 Even Tillemont 14 admits that, from the days of Origen to those of Chrysostom, there was not a single eminent commentator who did not borrow largely from the works of that great man. They found in them as Doucin says Une source inépuisable de lumières. In spite of the unjust and sweeping condemnation

1 See his Apology for Origen in De La Rue's edition, vol. iv.

2 Euseb. H. E. vi. 53; vii. 32; Jer. Catal. 75; Routh, Rel. Sacr. iii. 491-512; Böhringer, iii. 578; Schröck, K. G. xii. 93, sq.

3 See Rosenmüller, Hist. Int. iii. 206, sq. He follows Origen in the remark that the literal sense is often unworthy of God. The genuineness of Athanasius's commentary on the Psalms is doubtful, but his letter to Marcellinus on the Psalms is excellent, and it is needless to point out the high value of his contributions to exegetic theology.

4 Jer. Ep. 84; Apol. adv. Ruf.; Socrates, H. E. iv. 25; Baronius, Ann. A.D. 347.

5 He was called "the young Origen" (Phot. Cod. 119; Jer. Catal. 76; Euseb. H. E. vii. 32).

He was a pupil of Origen, and was called "the Exegete."

7 Epiphan. Haer. 67.

8 Jerome calls him an admirer and imitator of Origen.

9 Euseb. H. E. vi. 53; Photius, Cod. 118. He was greater as a scholar and historian than as an exegete. Fragments of his commentaries have been published by Mai, Nov. Patr. Bibl. iv. and Migne, vi. His Εὐαγγελίων διαφωνία is unfortunately lost.

10 Euseb. H. E. vi. 27.

11 Jer. Ep. lxv. 2

12 Niceph. H. E. xi. 17; Schröck, K. G. xiv.; R. Simon, Hist. Crit. (N. T.), p. 111, sq.; Buddeus, Isag. 1385, sq.

13 See Rupp, Greg. v. Nyssa, pp. 243-262; Schaff, Ch. Hist. ii. 907. For Gregory's exegetical preference of allegory see Prooem. in Cant. Basil, however, though not free from it, has some strong and wise protests against it (Hexacm. ii. 2; iii. 9; ix. 1; Hom. I. in § 9, c. 2).

14 Tillemont, iii. 266.

of his theology, he yet was the chief teacher of even the most orthodox of the Western Fathers. They delighted in a system which still left them some semblance of originality and freedom. We need only instance the names of Hilary of Poictiers and of Ambrose.

VI. HILARY, "the Athanasius of Gaul," admirable as a theologian, and powerful as a writer,2 but commonplace as an exegete, was almost entirely dependent on Origen.3 Jerome says that in his Commentary on the Psalms, he imitated Origen and added some things of his own, and that his commentary on St. Matthew and his book on Job were free translations of Origen. Like many other Latin Fathers he knew no Hebrew. A specimen of his remarks on passages of the Old and New Testament will show the general character of his exegesis.5 Writing about the inscription of the Psalms," To the chief musician a Psalm of David," he adopts the mistaken rendering, "In finem intellectus David," and infers that Psalms headed" in finem "7 had no relation to contemporary history, but must all be explained of Christ. The 50th Psalm (A.V. li.) refers to forgiveness, because its number is that of the year of

1 See the remarkable testimony of Suidas s.v. Ωριγένης. πλεῖστα καὶ ἀναρίθμητα ἐκλέλοιπεν ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνου πάντας τοὺς μετέπειτα ἐκκλησίας διδασκάλους καὶ ἀφορμὰς εἰληφέναι, ὡς ὁ θεολόγος φάσκει Γρηγόριος, Ωριγένης ἡ πάντων ἡμῶν ἀκονή.

2 Jerome calls him " a Rhone of eloquence." Dorner's estimate of his theology is very high.

3 On Hilary see Schröck, xii. 252, sq.; Rosenmüller, Hist. Interp. 301, sq.; Buddeus, Isagoge, 1388, sq. Both Ambrose and Hilary speak of the contradictions of Scripture from which we can only escape by allegory (Diestel, pp. 80 ff.).

Jer. Catal. 100, "Quos de Graeco Origenis in sensum transtulit." Hilary, not quite honourably, avoided acknowledging his obligations to Origen-" ut Origeniani nominis invidiam vitaret" (Erasm.).

Jerome, perhaps unjustly, implies that he also knew but little Greek (Graecorum literarum quamdam aurulam ceperat), and was assisted in understanding Origen by the Presbyter Heliodorus (Ep. ad Marcell. and ad Paullin. De Inst. Monach.).

6

7 LXX. eis Tò Téλos. The remark is borrowed from Eusebius, who also refers the superscription 'any mepi Anvŵv, LXX. (Pro torcularibus, Vulg.) of Ps. 8 to Christian altars and the wine of the Eucharist (Diestel, p. 119). Hilary says that Pro torcularibus shows the Psalm to be about the new fruits prepared out of men by God's Spirit. The inscription probably means “in the manner of Gath."