¹⁵⁹ See above, Bk. IV. chap. 11, note 21.

¹⁶⁰ The words used to designate the official who sent for Origen (o ths =Arabiaj hgoumenoj) lead us to think him a Roman, and governor of the Roman province of Arabia, which was formed by the Emperor Trajan in the year 106, and which comprised only the northern part of the peninsula. We know no particulars of this visit of Origen to that province, but that he was remembered and held in honor by the people is proved by chaps. 33 and 37, which record that he was summoned thither twice to assist in settling doctrinal difficulties.

¹⁶¹ In the sixth year of his reign (216 a.d.) Caracalla visited Alexandria, and improved the occasion to take bloody vengeance upon the inhabitants of the city, from whom had emanated a number of satirical and cutting comments upon the murder of his brother Geta. He instituted a horrible butchery, in which young and old, guilty and innocent, perished, and in which scholars were objects of especial fury. (See Herodian, IV. 8, 9, and Dion Cassius, LXXVII. 22-24, and cf. Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. III. p. 115 sq.) This was undoubtedly the occasion, referred to here, which caused Origen to flee from the city and retire to Palestine.

¹⁶² oi thde episkopoi. The thde must refer to Palestine, not to Caesarea, for "bishops" are spoken of, not "bishop."

¹⁶³ In the apostolic age, and the generations immediately succeeding, it was the privilege of every Christian to take part in the public meetings of the Church in the way of teaching or prophesying, the only condition being the consciousness of guidance by the Spirit (see 1 Cor. xiii.). We cannot call this teaching and prophesying preaching in our sense of the term. The services seem rather to have resembled our "open prayer-meetings." Gradually, as the services became more formal and stereotyped, a stated address by the "president" (as Justin calls him) became a regular part of the service (see Justin's Apol. I. 67), and we may assume that the liberty of teaching or prophesying in the public meetings did not now belong to all the members as it had in the beginning. The sermon, in our sense of the word, seems to have been a slow growth, but a direct development from this exhortation of the president mentioned by Justin. The confinement of the speaking (or preaching) to a single individual,-the leader,-which we see in Justin, is what we find in subsequent generations quite generally established. It becomes, in time, the prerogative of the bishop to preach, and this prerogative he confers upon his presbyters also (not universally, but in most cases), while deacons and laymen are almost everywhere excluded from the right. We see from the present chapter, however, that the custom was not the same in all parts of the Church in the time of Origen. The principle had evidently before this become firmly established in Alexandria that only bishops and presbyters should preach. But in Palestine no such rule was recognized as binding. At the same time, it is clear enough that it was exceptional even there for laymen to preach (in the presence of their bishops), for Alexander in his epistle, instead of saying that laymen preach everywhere and of right, cites particular instances of their preaching, and says that where they are qualified they are especially requested by the bishops to use their gifts; so that the theory that the prerogative belonged of right to the bishop existed there just as truly as in Alexandria. Origen of course knew that he was acting contrary to the custom (if not the canon) of his own church in thus preaching publicly, and yet undoubtedly he took it for granted that he was perfectly right in doing what these bishops requested him to do in their own dioceses. They were supreme in their own churches, and he knew of nothing, apparently, which should hinder him from doing what they approved of, while in those churches. Demetrius, however, thought otherwise, and considered the public preaching of an unordained man irregular, in any place and at any time. Whether jealousy of Origen's growing power had anything to do with his action it is difficult to say with certainty. He seems to have treated Origen in a perfectly friendly way after his return; and yet it is possible that the difference of opinion on this point, and the reproof given by Demetrius, may not have been wholly without influence upon their subsequent relations, which became in the end so painful (see chap. 8, note 4).

¹⁶⁴ On Alexander, see chap. 8, note 6.

¹⁶⁵ Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea, seems to have been one of the most influential bishops of the East in his day, and played a prominent part in the controversy which arose in regard to Novatus, as we learn from chap. 46 of this book and from chap. 5 of the next. He was also a firm friend of Origen's for many years (see chap. 27), probably until the latter's death. We do not know the dates of his accession and of his death, but we find him already bishop in the year 216, and still bishop at the time of the episcopate of Stephen of Rome (254-257; see Bk. VII. chap. 5), but already succeeded by Domnus, when Xystus was bishop of Rome ((257-258; see Bk. VII. chap. 14). We must, therefore, put his death between 255 and 258.

¹⁶⁶ Eusebius is apparently mistaken in stating that this epistle was addressed to Demetrius, for the latter is spoken of throughout the epistle in the third person. It seems probable that Eusebius has made a slip and said "to Demetrius" when he meant to say "concerning Demetrius."

¹⁶⁷ Of the persons mentioned here by the Palestinian bishops in support of their conduct, Neon, bishop of Laranda in Lycaonia, Celsus, bishop of Iconium, and Atticus, bishop of Synada in Phrygia, together with the laymen Euelpis, Paulinus, and Theodore, we know only the names.

¹⁶⁸ ou proj monwn twn sunhqwn, alla kai twn epi cenhj episkopwn. sunhqwn seems here to have the sense of "countrymen" or (bishops) "of his own country" over against the epi cenhj, rather' than the meaning "friends" or "acquaintances," which is more common.

¹⁶⁹ Aelia, the city built by Hadrian upon the site of Jerusalem (see Bk. IV. chap. 6). We do not know the subsequent history of this library of Alexander, but it had already been in existence nearly a hundred years when Eusebius examined it.

¹⁷⁰ On Beryllus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, see chap. 33.

¹⁷¹ On Hippolytus, see chap. 22.

¹⁷² On Caius and his discussion with Proclus, see Bk. II. chap. 25, notes 7 and 8.

¹⁷³ Zephyrinus was bishop of Rome from 198 or 199 to 217. See Bk. V. chap. 28, note 5.

¹⁷⁴ On the Epistle to the Hebrews and the opinions of the early Church in regard to its authorship, see Bk. III. chap. 3, note 17.

¹⁷⁵ i.e. Caracalla, who was slain on the 8th of April, 217. Four days later, Marcus Opilius Macrinus, prefect of the praetorians, was proclaimed emperor. After a reign of fourteen months, he was defeated and succeeded by Varius Avitus Bassianus, a cousin of Caracalla, and priest of the Phoenician Sun-god, from which fact is derived the name by which he is commonly known,-Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. Upon his accession to the imperial power, he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, which became his official designation.

¹⁷⁶ On Zephyrinus, see Bk. V. chap. 28, note 5.

¹⁷⁷ As shown in the next note, a comparison of our best sources leads us to the year 222 as the date of the accession of Urban, and consequently of the death of Callistus. A careful comparison of the various sources, which differ in regard to the years of the several episcopates of Victor, Zephyrinus, and Callistus, but agree as to the sum of the three, leads to the result that Callistus was bishop for five years, and therefore his accession is to be put into the year 217, and the reign of Macrinus (see Lipsius, Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 171 sq.). This agrees, so far as the years of our era are concerned, with the statement of Eusebius in this chapter; but he wrongly puts Callistus' accession into the first year of Alexander, which is a result of an error of a year in his reckoning of the dates of the emperors, which runs back to Pertinax (see Lipsius, p. 7 sq.). He does not assign Callistus' accession to the first year of Heliogabalus because of a tradition connecting the two, but simply because his reckoning of the lengths of the various episcopates, which were given in the source used by him, led him to the year 217 for Callistus' accession, and this, according to his erroneous table of the reigns of the emperors, was the first year of Heliogabalus. We thus see that Eusebius is in real, though not in apparent, agreement with the Liberian catalogue in regard to the date of Callistus' accession, which may, therefore, be accepted as certain.

Nothing was known about the character and life of Callistus until the discovery of Hippolytus' Philosophumena, or Refutation of All Heresies (see the next chapter, note 1). In Bk. IX. of that work is given a detailed description of him, from the pen of a very bitter opponent. At the same time, it can hardly be doubted that at least the groundwork of the account is true. According to Hippolytus, he was a slave; a dishonest banker, who was punished for his dishonesty; the author of a riot in a Jewish synagogue, who was sent as a criminal to the mines; finally, after various other adventures, the right-hand man of the bishop Zephyrinus, and after his death, his successor. According to Hippolytus, he was a Patripassian, and he introduced much laxer methods of church discipline than had hitherto been in vogue; so lax as greatly to scandalize Hippolytus, who was a very rigid disciplinarian. Whatever truth there may be in this highly sensational account (and we cannot doubt that it is greatly overdrawn), it is at least certain that Callistus took the liberal view of Christian morals and church discipline, over against the stricter view represented by Hippolytus and his party. It was, perhaps, owing to his popularity on this account that, after the death of Zephyrinus, he secured the episcopacy of Rome, for which Hippolytus was also a candidate. The latter tells us also that Zephyrinus "set him over the cemetery,"-a most interesting notice, as the largest catacomb in Rome bears the name of St. Callistus, and may be the very one of which Zephyrinus made him the superintendent.

¹⁷⁸ Lipsius, in his Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 170 sq., shows that the only fixed point for a calculation of the dates of Urban and the three bishops preceding him, is the banishment by the Emperor Maximinus of Pontianus to Sardinia, which took place, according to the Liberian catalogue, while Severus and Quintinus were consuls; that is, in the year 235. The duration of Pontianus' episcopate is shown by a comparison of the best sources to have been a little over five years (see chap. 23, note 3). This brings us to the year 230 as the date of Urban's death. According to chap. 23, Urban was bishop eight years, and with this the Liberian catalogue agrees, so that this figure is far better supported than the figure nine given by the Chron. Accepting eight years as the duration of Urban's episcopate, we are brought back to 222 as the date of his accession, which agrees with Eusebius' statement in this chapter (see the previous note). There are extant Acta S. Urbani, which are accepted as genuine by the Bollandists, and assigned to the second century, but they cannot have been written before the fifth, and are historically quite worthless. For a good discussion of his supposed connection with St. Cecilia, which has played such an important part in ecclesiastical legend, see the article Urbanus in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. We have no certain knowledge of his life and character.

¹⁷⁹ Elagabalus was slain in March, 222, after a reign of three years and nine months, and was succeeded by his cousin, Alexianus Bassianus, who assumed the names Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus, by the last two of which he is commonly known.

¹⁸⁰ Philetus, according to the Chron. (Armenian), became bishop in the sixth year of Caracalla (216), and was succeeded by Zebinus in the sixth year of Alexander Severus (227). Jerome puts his accession into the reign of Macrinus (217-218), and the accession of Zebinus into the seventh year of Alexander (228). The accession of Zebinus must have taken place at least as early as 231 (see chap. 23, note 4), and there remains therefore no reason to doubt the approximate accuracy of the latter dates. If the dates given for Philetus' accession (216-218) be approximately correct, we must understand the words "at this time" of the present chapter, to refer back to the reign of Macrinus, or the accession of Alexander Severus, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. This does not seem natural, but we cannot say it is impossible. Knowing the unreliability of the dates given in the Chron., we are compelled to leave the matter undecided. He is called by the Armen. Philip, by Syncellus filhtoj h filippoj. The latter assigns him an episcopate of eight years, which agrees with none of the figures given by the two versions of the Chronicle or by the History. We know nothing about the person or the life of Philetus.

¹⁸¹ On Asclepiades, see chap. 11, note 6.

¹⁸² Julia Mamaea or Mammaea (Eusebius, Mammaia) was the niece of Septimius Severus' wife Julia Domna, the aunt of the Emperor Elagabalus, and the mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus, by the Syrian Gessius Marcianus. She accompanied Elagabalus to Rome, and had strength of character enough to protect her son from the jealousy of the latter, and to keep him comparatively pure from the vice and debauchery of the court. During the reign of her son she exerted great influence, which was in the main highly beneficial; but her pride and avarice finally proved fatal, both to her son and to herself. Her character seems to have been in the main pure and elevated; and she was apparently inclined to the same sort of religious syncretism which led her son to adopt many Christian principles of action, and to put the busts of Abraham and of Christ, with those of Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, and the best of the Roman emperors, it, his private chapel (see Lampridius, Vita Sev. c. 29, 43). Eusebius calls Mammaea qeosebestath and eulabhj, and Jerome calls her a religiosa femina (de vir. ill. c. 54); but there is no evidence that she was a Christian. The date of Origen's interview with her has been greatly disputed. Huet and Redepenning, accepting the order of events recorded in this chapter as chronological, put the interview in the early years of Alexander Severus, Redepenning assuming an otherwise unrecorded visit of Mammaea to Antioch, Huet connecting her visit there with the Persian expedition of Alexander. Huet assumes, upon the authority of Jerome's Chron., that the Persian expedition took place in the early part of Alexander's reign; but this is against all other ancient authorities, and must be incorrect (see Tillemont, Mem. III. 763 sq.). The only occasions known to us, on which Mammaea can have been in Antioch, were this expedition of her son (between 230 and 233) and the visit of her nephew Elagabalus to Antioch, after his victory over Macrinus in 218. At both these times Origen was quite probably in Caesarea (see chap. 19, note 23, and p. 392, below), whence it is more natural to suppose him summoned than from Alexandria. If we put the interview in 218, we must suppose (as Tillemont suggests) that Eusebius is led by his mention of Alexander to give this account of his mother, and that he does not intend to imply that the interview took place after Alexander's accession. There is nothing at all improbable in this. In fact, it seems more likely that he would mention the interview in connection with Alexander than in connection with Elagabalus, in spite of chronology. On the other hand, it is not impossible that the interview took place subsequently to the year 231, for Origen's fame was certainly by that time much greater in Syria than fifteen years previous. At the same time, to accept this date disarranges seriously the chronological order of the account of Eusebius, for in chap. 24 we are told of those works which Origen wrote while yet in Alexandria; that is, before 231. Moreover, there is not the same reason for inserting this account of Mammaea at this point, if it occurred later in Alexander's reign, that there is if it occurred in the reign of Elagabalus. We shall, therefore, do best to accept the earlier date with Tillemont, Westcott, and others.

¹⁸³ Hippolytus (mentioned above in chap. 20) was one of the most learned men and celebrated writers of his age, and yet his personal history is involved in the deepest obscurity. The earliest mention of him is by Eusebius in this passage and in chap. 20, above. But Eusebius tells us there only that he was a bishop of "some other church" (eteraj pou ekklhsiaj), and Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 61) says that he was a bishop of some church whose name he did not know (Hippolytus, cujusdam Ecclesiae episcopus, nomen quippe urbis scire non potui). In the East, from the fourth century on, Hippolytus was commonly called bishop of Rome, but the Western tradition makes him simply a presbyter. The late tradition that he was bishop of Portus Romanus is quite worthless. We learn from his Philosophumena, or Refutation of Heresies, that he was active in Rome in the time of Zephyrinus and Callistus; but what is significant is the fact that he never recognizes Callistus as bishop of Rome, but always treats him as the head of a school opposed to the orthodox Church. This has given scholars the clue for reconciling the conflicting traditions about his position and his church. It seems probable that he was a presbyter of the church of Rome, and was at the head of a party which did not recognize Callistus as lawful bishop, but set Hippolytus up as opposition bishop. This explains why Hippolytus calls himself a bishop, and at the same time recognizes neither Callistus nor any one else as bishop of Rome. The Western Church therefore preserved the tradition of Hippolytus only as a presbyter, while in the Orient, where Hippolytus was known only through his works, the tradition that he was a bishop (a fact directly stated in those works; see the preface to his Philosophumena) always prevailed; and since he was known to have resided in Rome, that city was made by tradition his see. The schism, which has left no trace in the writings either of the Western or Eastern Church, cannot have been a serious one. Doubtless Callistus had the support of by far the larger part of the Church, and the opposition of Hippolytus never amounted to more than talk, and was never strong enough to enlist, or perhaps even attempt to enlist, the support of foreign bishops. Callistus and the body of the Church could afford to leave it unnoticed; and after Callistus' death Hippolytus undoubtedly returned to the Church and was gladly received, and the memory of his brief schism entirely effaced, while the knowledge of his orthodoxy, and of his great services to the Church as a theologian and a writer, kept his name in high repute with subsequent generations. A Latin translation of a Chronicle written by Hippolytus is extant, and the last event recorded in it is the death of the Emperor Alexander, which took place early in the year 235. The Liberian catalogue, in an entry which Lipsius (Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 194) pronounces critically indisputable, records that, in the year 235, the bishop Pontianus and the presbyter Hippolytus were transported as exiles to the island of Sardinia. There is little doubt that this is the Hippolytus with whom we are concerned, and it is highly probable that both he and Pontianus died in the mines there, and thus gained the title of martyrs; for not only is the account of Hippolytus' martyrdom given by Prudentius in the fifth century not reliable, but also in the depositio martyrum of the Liberian catalogue the bodies of Pontianus and Hippolytus are said to have been buried in Rome on the same day; and it is therefore natural to think that Hippolytus' body was brought from Sardinia, as we know Pontianus' was.The character of Hippolytus, as revealed to us in the Philosophumena, is that of a strictly, even rigidly, moral man, of a puritanic disposition, who believed in drawing the reins very tight, and allowing to the members of the Christian Church no license. He was in this directly opposed to Callistus, who was a lax disciplinarian, and favored the readmission to the Church even of the worst offenders upon evidence of repentance and suitable penance (see the previous chapter, note 3). We are reminded greatly of Tertullian and of Novatian in studying Hippolytus' character. He was, moreover, strictly orthodox and bitterly opposed to what he considered the patripassianism of Zephyrinus and of Callistus. He must be admired as a thoroughly independent, sternly moral, and rigidly orthodox man; while at the same time it must be recognized that he was irascible, bitter, and in some respects narrow and bigoted. He is known to have been a very prolific writer, composing all his works in Greek. Eusebius mentions but eight works in this chapter, but says that many others were extant in his day. Jerome, who in the present instance has other sources of information than Eusebius' History, mentions some nineteen works (de vir. ill. c. 61), including all of those named by Eusebius, except the commentary on portions of Ezekiel and the work on the Events which followed the Hexaemeron (but see note 4, below). In the year 1551 a statue representing a venerable man sitting in a chair, and with an inscription upon it enumerating the writings of the person commemorated, was found near the church of San Lorenzo, just outside of Rome. The statue, though it bears no name, has been shown to be that of Hippolytus; and with the help of the list given upon it (which contains some thirteen works), together with some extant fragments of writings which seem to have been composed by him, the titles known to us have been increased to about forty, the greater part of which are entirely lost. We cannot discuss these works here. For the most complete list of Hippolytus' writings the reader is referred to Caspari's Taufsymbol und Glaubensregel, III. 377 sq., or to the more accessible article by Salmon in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. In 1842 was discovered the greater part of a work in ten books directed against heresies, the first book of which had been long before published by the Benedictines among Origen's works with the title of Philosophumena. This discovery caused great discussion, but it has been proved to the complete satisfaction of almost every scholar that it is a work of Hippolytus (cf., among other discussions, Döllinger's Hippolytus und Callistus, translated by Plummer, and the article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. already referred to). The work was published at Oxford in 1851 by Miller (who, however, wrongly ascribed it to Origen), and at Göttingen, in 1859, by Duncker and Schneidewin. It is given also by Migne; and an English translation is found in the Ante-Nicene Fathers (Amer. ed.), Vol. V., under the title the Refutation of All Heresies.

¹⁸⁴ This chronological work on the passover, which contained a cycle for the purpose of determining the date of the festival, is mentioned also by Jerome, and is given in the list on the statue, on which the cycle itself is also engraved. Jerome says that this work was the occasion of Eusebius' work upon the same subject in which a nineteen-year cycle was substituted for that of Hippolytus. The latter was a sixteen-year cycle and was formed by putting together two of the eight-year cycles of the Greek astronomers,-according to whose calculation the full moon fell on the same day of the month once in eight years,-in order to exhibit also the day of the week on which it fell; for he noticed that after sixteen years the full moon moved one day backward (if on Saturday at the beginning of the cycle, it fell on Friday after the sixteen years were past). He therefore put together seven sixteen-year cycles, assuming that after they had passed the full moon would return again to the same day of the week, as well as month. This cycle is astronomically incorrect, the fact being that after sixteen years the full moon falls not on the same day of the week, but three days later. Hippolytus, however, was not aware of this, and published his cycle in perfect good faith. The work referred to seems to have contained an explanation of the cycle, together with a computation by means of it of the dates of the Old and New Testament passovers. It is no longer extant, but the cycle itself, which was the chief thing, is preserved on the statue, evidently in the form in which it was drawn up by Hippolytus himself.

¹⁸⁵ This treatise on the Hexaemeron, or six days' work, is mentioned also by Jerome, but is not in the list on the statue. It is no longer extant; but according to Jerome (Ep. ad Pammachium et Oceanum, c. 7; Migne's ed. Ep. 84), was used by Ambrose in the composition of his own work upon the same subject, which is still preserved (cf. also Bk. V. chap. 27, note 3, above).

¹⁸⁶ Greek, eij ta meta thn ecahmeron. This work is not given in the list on the statue. It is mentioned in some of the mss. of Jerome under the form et post Hexaemeron; but the best mss. omit these words, and substitute for them et in Exodum, a work which is not mentioned by any other authority. Jerome mentions also a commentary in Genesim, which we hear of from no other source, and which may be identical with this work mentioned by Eusebius. If the two be identical (which is quite possible), the nature of the work is plain enough. Otherwise we are left wholly to conjecture. No fragments of the work have been identified.

¹⁸⁷ This work is mentioned also by Jerome, but is not in the list on the statue. The last work, however, mentioned in that list bears the title peri tagaqou kai poqen to kakon, which, it has been conjectured, may be identical with Eusebius and Jerome's Contra Marcionem. No fragments are extant.

¹⁸⁸ Eusebius has simply to asma (The Song), which is the title given to the book in the LXX. This commentary on the Song of Songs is mentioned also by Jerome, but is not in the statue list. Four fragments of it are given by Lagarde, in his edition of the works of Hippolytus.

¹⁸⁹ This commentary on portions of Ezekiel is mentioned by no one else. A supposed fragment of it is given by Lagarde, Anal. Syr., p. 90.

¹⁹⁰ Jerome agrees with Eusebius in mentioning a work On the Passover, in addition to the chronological one already referred to. The list on the statue, however, mentions but one work on the passover, and that the one containing the paschal cycle. Fragments are extant of Hippolytus' work On the Passover,-one from his echghsij eij to pasxa (see Lagarde's edition of Hippolytus p. 213), and another from "the first book of the treatise on the holy paschal feast" (tou peri tou agiou pasxa suggrammatoj, Lagarde, p. 92). These fragments are of a dogmatic character, and can hardly have occurred in the chronological work, except in a separate section or book; but the last is taken from "the first book" of the treatise, and hence we are safe in concluding that Eusebius and Jerome are correct in enumerating two separate works upon the same subject,-the one chronological, the other dogmatic, or polemical.

¹⁹¹ This work, Against All the Heresies, is mentioned both by Eusebius (proj apasaj taj aireseij) Jerome (adv. omnes haereses), but is not given in the list on the statue. Quite a full account of it is given from personal knowledge by Photius (Cod. 121), who calls it a small book (biblidarion) directed against thirty-two heresies, beginning with the Dositheans and ending with Noetus, and says that it purported to be an abstract of lectures delivered by Irenaeus. The work is no longer extant (it must not be confounded with the Philosophumena, or Refutatio, mentioned in note 1), but it has been in part restored by Lipsius (in his Quellenkritik des Epiphanius) from the anti-heretical works of Pseudo-Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Philaster. There is in existence also a fragment of considerable length, bearing in the ms. the title Homily of Hippolytus againt the Heresy of one Noetus. It is apparently not a homily, but the conclusion of a treatise against a number of heresies. It was suggested by Fabricius (who first published the original Greek) that it constituted the closing chapter of the work against the thirty-two heresies. The chief objection to this is that if this fragment forms but one of thirty-two chapters, the entire work can hardly have been called a "little book" by Photius. Lipsius suggests that the little book of which Photius speaks was not the complete work of Hippolytus, but only an abbreviated summary of its contents, and this is quite possible. At any rate it seems probable, in spite of the objections which have been urged by some critics, that this constituted a part of the larger work, and hence we have one chapter of that work preserved. The work seems to have been composed in Rome and during the episcopate of Victor (as Lipsius holds), or, as is more probable, in the early part of the episcopate of Zephyrinus (as is maintained by Harnack). This conclusion is drawn from the dates of the heretics mentioned in the work, some of whom were as late as Victor, but none of them later than the early years of Zephyrinus. It must, too, have been composed some years before the Philosophumena, which (in the preface) refers to a work against heresies, written by its author a "long time before" (palai). Upon this work and its relation to the lost Syntagma of Justin Martyr, which Lipsius supposes it to have made use of, see is work already referred to and also his Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte together with Harnack's Quellenkritik der Gesch. des Gnosticismus, and his article in the Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, 1874, p. 143-226.

¹⁹² On Ambrose and his relation to Origen, see chap. 18, note 1.

¹⁹³ On Urbanus, bishop of Rome, see chap. 21, note 4.

¹⁹⁴ For the dates of the first group of Roman bishops, from Peter to Urbanus, the best source we have is Eusebius'Church History; but for the second group, from Pontianus to Liberius, the notices of the History are very unreliable, while the Liberian catalogue rests upon very trustworthy data (see Lipsius, Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 39 and p. 142 sq.). We must therefore turn to the latter for the most accurate information in regard to the remaining Roman bishops mentioned by Eusebius, although an occasional mistake in the catalogue must be corrected by our other sources, as Lipsius points out. The notice of Eusebius at this point would throw the accession of Pontianus into the year 231, but this is a year too late, as seen in chap. 21, note 4. According to chap. 29, he was bishop six years, and was succeeded by Anteros at about the same time that Gordian became emperor; that is, in 238. But this is wide of the truth. The Liberian catalogue, which is supported by the best of the other sources, gives a little over five years for his episcopate, and puts his banishment to Sardinia, with which his episcopate ended, on the 28th of September, 235. According to the Felician catalogue, which may be trusted at this point, he was brought to Rome and buried there during the episcopate of Fabian, which began in 236 (see also the preceding chapter, note 1). We know nothing about the life and character of Pontianus.

¹⁹⁵ The notices of the Chronicle in connection with Zebinus are especially unreliable. The Armen. puts his accession into the sixth (227), Jerome into the seventh year of Alexander (228). Jerome makes no attempt to fix the date of his death, while the Armen. puts it in the first year of Gallus (251-252). Syncellus assigns him but six years. In the midst of such confusion we are obliged to rely solely upon the History. The only reliable data we have are Origen's ordination to the priesthood, which took place in 231 (see below, p. 392) and apparently, according to this chapter, while Zebinus was bishop of Antioch. If Eusebius is correct in this synchronization, Zebinus became bishop before 231, and therefore the statements of the Chron. as to his accession may be approximately correct. As to the time of his death, we know that his successor, Babylas, died in the Decian persecution (see chap. 39), and hence Zebinus must have died some years before that. In chap. 29, Eusebius puts his death in the reign of Gordian (238-244), and this may be accepted as at least approximately correct, for we have reason to think that Babylas was already bishop in the time of Philip (see chap. 29, note 8). This proves the utter incorrectness of the notice of the Armen. We know nothing about the person and life of Zebinus. Harnack concludes from his name that he was a Syrian by birth. Most of the mss. of Eusebius give his name as Zebinoj; one ms. and Nicephorus, as Zebenoj; Syncellus as Zebennoj; Rufinus, Jerome, and the Armen. as Zebennus.

¹⁹⁶ On Philetus, see chap. 21, note 6.

¹⁹⁷ See the note on p. 395, below.

¹⁹⁸ Eusebius refers here to the Defense of Origen, composed by himself and Pamphilus, which is unfortunately now lost (see above, chap. 2, note 1, and the Prolegomena, p. 36 sq.).

¹⁹⁹ Origen's commentary upon the Gospel of John was the "first fruits of his labors at Alexandria," as he informs us in Tom. I. §4. It must have been commenced, therefore, soon after he formed the connection with Ambrose mentioned in the previous chapter, and that it was one of the fruits of this connection is proved by the way in which Ambrose is addressed in the commentary itself (Tom. I. §3). The date at which the work was begun cannot be determined; bnt if Eusebius follows the chronological order of events, it cannot have been before 218 (see chap. 21, note 8). Eusebius speaks as if Origen had expounded the entire Gospel (thj d= eij to pan euaggelion auto de touto pragmateiaj), but Jerome, in his catalogue of Origen's works given in his epistle to Paula (in a fragmentary form in Migne's ed., Ep. 33, complete in the Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol. 1851, p. 75 sq.), reports that the commentary consisted of thirty-two books and some notes (cf. his prologue to his translation of Origen's homilies on Luke, Migne's ed., VII. 219), and Rufinus likewise (Apol. II. 22) speaks of thirty-two books only. But in the thirty. second book, which is still extant, Origen discusses the thirteenth chapter of John, and does not promise to continue the commentary, as he does at the close of some of the other books. We may therefore conclude that Eusebius' rather indefinite statement (which was probably not based upon personal knowledge, for he says that he had seen only twenty-two books), is incorrect, and that the commentary extended no further than the thirteenth chapter. We learn from the preface to the sixth book that the first five were composed while the author was still in Alexandria, the remaining books after his removal to Caesarea, and at least part of them after the persecution of Maximinus (235-238), to which reference was made in the twenty-second book, according to Eusebius, chap. 28, below. There are still extant Books I., II., VI., X., XIII., XX., XXVIII., XXXII., small fragments of IV. and V., and the greater part of XIX. (printed in Lommatzsch's ed., Vols. I and II.). The production of this commentary marked an epoch in the history of theological thought, and it remains in many respects the most important of Origen's exegetical works. It is full of original and suggestive thought, and reveals Origen's genius perhaps in the clearest and best light, though the exegesis is everywhere marred by the allegorizing method and by neglect of the grammatical and historical sense.

²⁰⁰ Of the commentary on Genesis, only some fragments from the first and third books are extant, together with some extracts (eklogai), and seventeen homilies (nearly complete) in the Latin translation of Rufinus (see Lommatzsch's ed., Vol. VIII.). Eight of the books, Eusebius tells us, were written in Alexandria, and they must, of course, have been begun after the commencement of the commentary on John. Jerome (according to Rufinus, Apol. II. 20) gave the number of the book as thirteen (though in his catalogue mentioned in the previous note, he speaks of fourteen), and said that the thirteenth discussed Gen. iv. 15; and in his Contra Cels. VI. 49 Origen speaks of his work upon Genesis "from the beginning of the book up to" V. 1. We may therefore conclude that the commentary covered only the early chapters of Genesis. The homilies, however, discuss brief passages taken from various parts of the book.

²⁰¹ Origen's writings on the Psalms comprised a complete commentary (cf. Jerome's Ep. ad Augustineum, §20; Migne's ed.; Ep. 112), brief notes ("quod Enchiridion ille vocabat," see Migne's edition of Jerome's works, Vol. VIII. 821, and compare the entire Breviarium in Psalmos which follows, and which doubtless contains much of Origen's work; see Smith and Wace, IV. p. 108) and homilies. Of these there are still extant numerous fragments in Greek, and nine complete homilies in the Latin version of Rufinus (printed by Lommatzsch in Vols. XI.-XIII.). The catalogue of Jerome mentions forty-six books of notes on the Psalms and 118 homilies. The commentary on the 26th and following Psalms seem to have been written after leaving Alexandria (to judge from Eusebius' statement here).

²⁰² There are extant some extracts (eklogai) of Origen's expositions of the book of Lamentations, which are printed by Lommatzsch, XIII. 167-218. They are probably from the commentary which Eusebius tells us was written before Origen left Alexandria, and five books of which were extant in his time. The catalogue of Jerome also mentions five books.

²⁰³ Jerome (in the catalogue and in the passage quoted by Rufinus, Apol. II. 20) mentions two books and two dialogues on the Resurrection (De Resurrectione libros duos. Et alios de Resurrectione dialogos duos). Whether the dialogues formed an independent work we do not know. We hear of them from no other source. The work was bitterly attacked by Methodius, but there are no traces of heresy in the extant fragments.

²⁰⁴ Of Origen's De Principiis (peri arxwn), which was written before he left Alexandria, there are still extant some fragments in Greek, together with brief portions of a translation by Jerome (in his epistle to Avitus; Migne's ed.; Ep. 124), and a complete but greatly altered translation by Rufinus. The latter, together with the extant fragments, is printed by Lommatzsch, Vol. XXI.; and also separately by Redepenning (Lips. 1836); Engl. trans. by Crombie, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. The work is the most important of all Origen's writings, and from it we gather our fullest knowledge as to his opinions, philosophical and theological; though unfortunately Rufinus' alterations have made it doubtful in many cases what Origen's original meaning was. The work constitutes the first attempt to form a system of Christian doctrine. It contains a great many peculiar, often startling errors, and was the chief source of the attacks made upon Origen for heterodoxy; and yet the author's object was only to set forth the doctrines accepted by the Church, and to show how they could be systematized by the aid of Scripture or of reason. He did not intend to bring forward doctrines inconsistent with the received faith of the Church. The work consists of four books. To quote from Westcott: "The camposition is not strictly methodical. Digressions and repetitions interfere with the symmetry of the plan. But to speak generally, the first book deals with God and creation (religious statics); the second and third books with creation and providence, with man and redemption (religious dynamics); and the fourth book with Holy Scripture."Intellectually the work is of a very high order, abounding in deep and original thought as well as in grand and lofty sentiments.

²⁰⁵ In his catalogue, Jerome gives among the commentaries on the Old Testament the simple title Stromatum, without any description of the work. But in his Ep. ad Magnum, §4 (Migne's ed., Ep. 70), he says that Origen wrote ten books of Stromata in imitation of Clement's work, and in it compared the opinions of Christians and philosophers, and confirmed the dogmas of Christianity by appeals to Plato and other Greek philosophers (Hunc imitatus Origines, decem scripsit Stromateas, Christianorum et philasophorum inter se sententias comparans: et omnia nostrae religionis dogmata de Platone et Aristotele, Numenio, Cornutoque confirmans). Only three brief fragments of a Latin translation of the work are now extant (printed in Lommatzsch's ed., XVII. 69-78). These fragments are sufficient to show us that the work was exegetical as well as doctrinal, and discussed topics of various kinds in the light of Scripture as well as in the light of philosophy.

²⁰⁶ On Origen's commentary on Psalms, see the previous chapter, note 3. The first fragment given here by Eusebius is found also in the Philocalia, chap. 3, where it forms part of a somewhat longer extract. The second fragment is extant only in this chapter of Eusebius' History.

²⁰⁷ On the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament, see Bk. III. chap. 10, note 1. Upon Origen's omission of the twelve minor prophets and the insertion of the apocryphal epistle of Jeremiah, see the same note.

²⁰⁸ I have reproduced Origen's Greek transliteration of this and the following Hebrew words letter by letter. It will be seen by a comparison of the words with the Hebrew titles of the books, as we now have them, that Origen's pronunciation of Hebrew, even after making all due allowance for a difference in the pronunciation of the Greek and for changes in the Hebrew text, must have been, in many respects, quite different from ours.

²⁰⁹ Ouelesmwq. I represent the diphthong ou at the beginning of a word by "w."

²¹⁰ The first and second books of Esdras here referred to are not the apocryphal books known by that name, but Ezra and Nehemiah, which in the Hebrew canon formed but one book, as Origen says here, but which in the LXX were separated (see above, Bk. III. chap. 10, note 4). Esdras is simply the form which the word Ezra assumes in Greek.

²¹¹ Whether this sentence closed Origen's discussion of the Hebrew canon, or whether he went on to mention the other apocryphal books, we cannot tell. The latter seems intrinsically much more probable, for it is difficult to understand the insertion of the Maccabees in this connection, and the omission of all the others; for the Maccabees, as is clear from the words ecw de toutwn esti ta Makkabaika, are not reckoned by Origen among the twenty-two books as a part of the Hebrew canon. At the same time, it is hardly conceivable that Eusebius should have broken off thus, in the midst of a passage, without any explanation; though it is, of course, not impossible that he gives only the first sentence of the new paragraph on the books of the LXX, in order to show that the discussion of the Hebrew canon closes, and a new subject is introduced at this point. But, however that may be, it must be regarded as certain that Origen did not reckon the books of the Maccabees as a part of the Hebrew canon, and on the other hand, that he did reckon those books, as well as others (if not all) of the books given in the LXX, as inspired Scripture. This latter fact is proved by his use of these books indiscriminately with those of the Hebrew canon as sources for dogmatic proof texts, and also by his express citation of at least some of them as Scripture (cf. on this subject, Redepenning, p. 235 sq.). We must conclude, therefore, that Origen did not adopt the Hebrew canon as his own, but that he states it as clearly as he does in this place, in order to bring concretely before the minds of his readers the difference between the canon of the Jews and the canon of the Christians, who looked upon the LXX as the more authoritative form of the Old Testament. Perhaps he had in view the same purpose that led him to compare the Hebrew text and the LXX in his Hexapla (see chap. 16, note 8).

²¹² On Origen's Commentary on Matthew, see chap. 36, note 4. The fragment given here by Eusebius is all that is extant of the first book of the commentary.

²¹³ Compare Origen's Hom. I. in Lucam: Ecclesia quatuor habet evangelia, haeresea plurima; and multi conati sunt scribere, sed et multi conati sunt ordinare: quatuor tantum evangelia sunt probata, &c. Compare also Irenaeeus, Adv. Haer. III. 11, 8, where the attempt is made to show that it is impossible for the Gospels to be either more or fewer in number than four; and the Muratorian Fragment where the four Gospels are named, but the number four is not represented as in itself the necessary number; also Tertullian's Adv. Marc. IV. 2, and elsewhere.

²¹⁴ See Bk. III. chap. 24, note 5.

²¹⁵ See Bk. II. chap. 15, note 4.