This very valuable exposition of Origen by St. Jerome is worth reproducing because it contains illustrations of Origen's mind not found elsewhere. Origen's surviving treatises shew that he approached the subject with certain metaphysical presuppositions:

First, he maintained the indestructibility of substance. 'No destruction of substance,' he wrote, 'can befall those things which God created to exist and to continue.'1

Secondly, he held that embodiment was a necessity for all created rational beings. God alone is incorporeal.

Thirdly, he held a definite theory of matter. Matter? is that by which bodies subsist. It is the substratum underlying all varieties of form. Its characteristic is endless transmutation. Wood, for instance, is convertible into fire, fire into smoke, smoke into air. Bodies built up by assimilation from external sources necessarily exhibit perpetual fluctuation. Hence the comparison of the human body to a river is most appropriate. The river remains, but the water departs. The human constitution is in perpetual flux.

But, in the fourth place, Origen postulates, beneath this endless variation of form and change of substance, a germinative principle-the ratio insita, as Jerome translates itwhich is the constitutive unity of the body, both as it is and as it is to be.

The application of these principles to the ResurrectionBody is obvious. From the indestructibility of substance, and the necessity of embodiment, Origen infers that if it is necessary for us to be invested with bodies, as it certainly is necessary, we ought to be invested with no other than our own.' ' 'Its substance certainly remains.' His theory of the substantial identity beneath the changes of wood into fire, into smoke, into air, shews how readily Origen could conceive total change in the form of the Resurrection-Body as being perfectly consistent with real identity. His conception of the germinative principle beneath all variations

De Principiis, III. vi. 5.
In Psalm. i.

2λn, De Principiis, II. i. 4.
De Principiis, II. x. 1.

5 Ibid. III. vi. 5. VOL. LXVIII.-NO. CXXXV.

L

secured for him a principle of identity, most rational, most philosophic; unquestionably the best attainable solution of the problem Wherein does identity consist. Identity is to be sought neither in the particles, nor in the organs, nor in the form of the human frame; but in the spirit beneath them.

Thus the conditions of the Resurrection-state will be completely different from the existing gross materiality. The present fleshy solidity is necessitated by the environment. The soul which is immaterial exists in no material place without having a body suited to the nature of that place. Accordingly it at one time puts off one body which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed state, and it exchanges it for a second.' The soul dwelling in material surroundings adopts an organism appropriate to such surroundings. If, says Origen, we were destined to live in water, we must assume bodies like those of fish. Similarly if we are to live in spiritual surroundings we must assume bodies of a spiritual kind. Otherwise we

2

shall not be in harmony with our surroundings. Yet this does not mean the annihilation of the former body, but its transmutation into something of a pre-eminently glorious. character. Thus, to recall the remarkable sentence ascribed to him by St. Jerome, 'here we see with eyes, act with hands, walk with feet. But in that spiritual body we shall be all sight, all hearing, all activity.'

Origen utilized the principles of Greek thought, but his doctrine was derived from St. Paul. It was with him no question of abstract theology but of Scripture interpretation. The statements upon which he builds are chiefly these: 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'; we shall be changed'; 'thou sowest not that body that shall be '; God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him.'

'None of Origen's opinions,' says Bishop Westcott, 'was more vehemently assailed than his teaching on the Resurrection. Even his early and later apologists were perplexed in their defence of him. Yet there is no point on which his insight is 2 C. Celsum, VII. xxxii.

1 De Principiis, II. x. 3.

3 In Psalm. i.

more conspicuous. By keeping strictly to the apostolic language he anticipated results which we have hardly yet secured. He saw that it is the "spirit" which moulds the frame through which it is manifested; that the "body" is the same not by any material continuity, but by the permanence of that which gives the law, the "ratio" (Aóyos), as he calls it, of its constitution. No exigencies of controversy, it must be remembered, brought Origen to his conclusion. It was, in his judgment, the clear teaching of St. Paul.' '

Origen's spiritual theory of the Resurrection enabled him to deal with the problem of eschatology in a totally different manner from Tertullian. While to the latter the penalties of the future life were physical and material, the gnashing of teeth being literally understood, the former holds that spiritual bodies cannot be subjected to material flames. To Origen the fire that is not quenched is the mental anguish of the sinner contemplating in retrospect the wages of his own unholy deeds.2

The general correctness of this exposition of Origen is confirmed by a number of modern writers.3 According to Ramers, he taught that the Resurrection-Body will be flesh; yet not this corruptible flesh, but of a spiritual and aetherial nature. According to Turmel, what he denied was the doctrine of a material resurrection. According to Neander Origen endeavoured to occupy a via media between Gnosticism and gross materiality. According to Bovon, he denied the physical identity of the future body with that which we now possess. According to Dr. Bigg 'Origen, like Clement, found a solution of all his doubts in the teaching of St. Paul, but he refined upon this in a way peculiar to himself." According to Sheldon, he is distinguished among the early Fathers by his steadfast endeavour to

5

1 Dictionary of Christian Biography, s. v., iv. 138, footnote.

* De Principiis, II. x. 4.

C. Ramers, Des Origines Lehre von der Auferstehung des Fleisches (Trier, 1851), p. 76.

• Turmel, Histoire de la Théologie Positive, p. 182.

Neander, Allgemeine Geschichte, I. iii. 1097.

• Bovon, Dogmatique Chrétienne, ii. 448.

Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 225 ; cf. 291.

spiritualise the conception of the Resurrection. he accepted the fact of a bodily resurrection.''

III.

Still

The history of the doctrine since Origen's time is the history of a conflict between the materialistic and the philosophic schools. Roughly speaking, the materialistic conception of Tertullian became identified with the Latin Church the philosophic with the Greek. There were of course exceptions. Where a Greek theologian was unmetaphysical, he naturally sided with Tertullian : where a Latin writer was a metaphysician, he enrolled himself on Origen's side.

2

If Methodius, the Greek Bishop (in Lycia) in the early fourth century, was conspicuous among Origen's opponents, it was an instance of an unphilosophic Greek. Methodius threw his work into the forms of Platonic dialogue, yet he retained nothing of Plato, says Ritter, beyond the form of his expression. Methodius condemned Origen's doctrine in the severest terms-without, however, altogether representing it correctly. I cannot endure,' he wrote, 'the trifling of some who shamelessly do violence to Scripture, in order to support their opinion that the Resurrection is without flesh.' The Alexandrian School is guilty of perverting the Scriptures by allegorical methods; of regarding the body as a fetter to the soul; and of theorizing on the existence of rational bones and flesh. Methodius' own conception is obvious from his illustration. As a defaced statue melted down and recast includes the same materials as before, only in an improved condition, so he thinks it will be in the Resurrection of the Body. The same materials will reappear. The recast body will spend its future on earth, only exempted from change and decay. To his mind the Alexandrian view attenuates the body to vanishing point, and, in effect, leaves nothing but the soul. Reality

1 Sheldon, History of Christian Doctrine, i. 151.

Ritter, History of Christian Philosophy. Alzog, Grundriss der Patrologie, 1888, p. 164.

to Methodius necessitated identity of form, solidity, and sameness of materials. If the present human form will not be reproduced in the Resurrection-Body, he desires to be told in what shape that Body will appear. Will it be a circle, a polygon, a cube, or a pyramid? The inquiry shews how readily Origen's theory was misunderstood.

The defence of Origen's theory was undertaken chiefly by Pamphilus,' founder of the famous library of Caesarea, martyred in 309. He had been formerly a pupil in the Alexandrian School and a devoted admirer of its greatest master. The last two years of his life were spent in prison writing Origen's apology. This was translated into Latin by Rufinus, and thus the Alexandrian School was introduced to the Western Church. There, however, it shared Origen's unpopularity, being viewed as one of his numerous eccentricities. Jerome, whose translations of Origen's works, and earlier laudatory remarks about him, were now considered to compromise his own repute, attempted to re-establish himself by vigorous attacks, after his own manner, on Origen's doctrine of the Resurrection-state.

Jerome charged the school of Origen with insincerity and duplicity. They repeated the accepted formulas in an uncatholic sense. While asserting their belief in the Resurrection of the Body,' they use the word body instead of the word flesh, in order that an orthodox person hearing them say "body" may take them to mean "flesh,” while a heretic will understand that they mean "spirit.' This, says Jerome, is their first piece of craft. If pressed further they will adopt the orthodox confession and say, 'we believe in the Resurrection of the flesh.'

'Now when they have said this, the ignorant crowd thinks it ought to be satisfied, particularly because these exact word are found in the creed. If you go on to question them farther a buzz of disapproval is heard in the ring and their backers cry out: "You have heard them say that they believe in the resurrection of the flesh; what more do you want?" The popular favour is transferred from our side to theirs, and while they are called honest, we are looked on as false accusers. But if you set

1 Eusebius, H. E., vi. 32.