ORIGEN 



ORINOCO 



641 



to the Christian life as the most convincing proof of 

 the Christian faith. The speculative theology of 

 Origen is presented in his four books Peri Arc/ton, 

 extant as a whole only in the somewhat garbled 

 Latin translation of Kufinus. It is a bold attempt 

 to evolve from the church's rule of faith, with the 

 help of Scripture and reason, a science of Christian 

 faith. Two books On tke Resurrection and ten 

 books of Stromata (in which he proved all the 

 Christian dogmas by quotations from the philo- 

 sophers) are lost. The eclectic philosophy of 

 Origen bears the distinctive stamp of Neopfatonist 

 and Stoic theories. God alone has being in the 

 proper sense. It is essential to the Deity to will, 

 work, and reveal Himself unchangeably and eter- 

 nally. In the Logos, proceeding by eternal genera- 

 tion from God, and of the same sulistance with 

 Him, all creative ideas are concentrated. He is 

 the link between the oneness of Deity and the 

 multiplicity of the world. All finite being is good 

 only aa it has part in the Divine. All created 

 spirits are free. Their fall led to the creation of 

 the material world, that in forms more or less 

 material (soul and body) the renewing discipline 

 of the spirit within might be realised. The idea of 

 the procession of all spirits from God, their fall, 

 their redemption, and return to God lies at the 

 foundation of the whole development of the world, 

 at the centre of which is the incarnation of the 

 Logos for the revelation of redeeming truth and the 

 union of divine forces with humanity. Origen 's 

 system is an elalmrate web, of which Greek meta- 

 physics is the warp, the gospel history the woof. 

 All that was true in Greek philosophy Origen held 

 to be traceable to the general revealing agency of 

 the Logos, who in Christianity alone is fully and 

 expressly manifested. The proper source of the 

 knowledge of the Christian raitli is the Word of 

 Christ (i.e. the Scriptures). A living faith in those 

 truths of Scripture which have been handed down 

 as fundamental by the church's succession of 

 bishops is itself sufficient for salvation. Beyond 

 such 'unreasoning faith' there is the ' knowledge' 

 or ' wisdom ' which rises to the free love of God, 

 and leaves behind it the historical contents of the 

 church's teaching, which have served to it as the 

 media of spiritual ideas in its promH from prac- 

 tical faith to the vision of God and likeness to Him. 

 It is by entering more deeply into the successive 

 senses of Scripture that this process is carried out. 

 Scripture admits of a threefold interpretation, in 

 correspondence to the tripartite natu re of man. The 

 ' liodily ' ( literal or historical ) sense is always to be 

 retained, except where it is unworthy of "God or 

 contradictory to reason ; for God has intended such 

 passages to be 'stumbling-blocks,' suggesting the 

 necessity of seeking a deeper meaning. The Psychi- 

 cal (or ethical signification) is next ; and beyond it 

 is the Pneumatic (allegorical or mvstical) sense. 



Unhappily for the memory of Origen, his name 

 was chiefly remernliered in connection with the 

 most erroneous part of his work. His fanciful 

 method of interpretation was perpetuated alike in 

 the east and the west, and the fruits of his gigantic 

 lalxmrs were appropriated by orthodox theologians, 

 who branded him as a heretic, and doubted of his 

 salvation. Long after his death malignant false- 

 hoods were heaped upon liis name by unscrupulous 

 enemies like Theopliilus of Alexandria ; and not 

 merely the heresy of maintaining the ultimate 

 pollution of all mankind, but even heresy respect- 

 ing the nature of Christ was triumphantly dis- 

 covered in his writings. Yet, heterodox though he 

 was, not one amongst those honoured by the church 

 as saints surpasses him in saintliness or spiritual 

 elevation of character. ' His whole life,' says 

 Itishop \\Vstrott, ' from first to last was fashioned 

 on the same type. It was, according to his own 

 353 



grand ideal, "one unbroken prayer, "one ceaseless 

 effort after close fellowship with the Unseen and 

 the Eternal. No distractions diverted him from 

 the pursuit of divine wisdom. No persecution 

 checked for more than the briefest space the energy 

 of his efforts. He endured a double martyrdom': 

 perils and sufferings from the heathen, reproaches 

 and wrongs from Christians ; and the retrospect of 

 what he had borne only stirred within liim a 

 humbler sense of his shortcomings. ' 



There is as yet no complete critical edition of Orij;en's 

 works ; the best apology for this is that of the uncle 

 and nephew, De La Rue (4 vols. folio, Paris, 1733-59), 

 reprinted by Lommatzsch ( 25 vols. Berlin, 1831-48 1, and 

 by Migne, Patrol. Curs. Compl., ser. Or., vols. xi.-xvii. 

 The Prolegomena to a critical edition by Dr Ph. P. . 

 Koetschau of the work against Celsus appeared in 

 1890. The work of P. D. Huet, Onijinia in sacras 

 Scripturas Comtnentaria qucecitnque (rra'ce rejifriri 

 potuerunt (2 vols. Rotliomagi, 1668), was the foundation 

 of the critical study of Origen. For an account of his 

 theological opinions and the great controversies that these 

 originated, see the works on church history by Baur, 

 Neander, Dorner, Bohringer, Schaff, and E. de Pressense ; 

 also E. W. lliiller, Geschichte des Kosmoloiiie in tier 

 Gritchitchen Kirche bit auf Oriiienes (Halle, 1800); 

 Kahnis, Die Lehre rom Htiliijen Geit (1847); and the 

 following special books : Thomasius, Oriiienes I Niirnberg, 

 1837); Moehler,.P(rofoj/iy(Regensb.l8J<)); and especially 

 Redepenning, Orif/cnes, eine Darssteltuny seines L(t>fns 

 und seiner Lehre ( 2 vols. Bonn, 1841-46 ). See also Joly, 

 Etude sur Oriytne ( Dijon, 1860 ) ; Freppel, Origlne ( Paris, 

 1868) ; J. Denis, La Philosophic d'Orii^m ( Paris, 1884 ) ; 

 as also Harnack's Dogmtwjeschichte (2d ed. 1888) and 

 Farrar's Lives of the Father's ( 1889). 



Original Sin. See SIN. 



Orihnela (the Auriwelah of the Moors), a 

 town in the Spanish province of Alicante, on the 

 Segura, 38 miles N. of Cartagena. Situated in a 

 plain of great beauty and fertility, it offers an 

 eastern aspect with its palm-trees, towers, anil 

 domes, and has a cathedral, a college, and manu- 

 factures of silk, linen, hats, &c. Pop. 20,929. 



Orinoco, one of the great rivers of South 

 America, has its origin on the slopes of the Sierra 

 Parima, in the extreme south-east of Venezuela ; 

 its exact sources were only discovered in 1886 

 by M. Chaffanjon. It Hows at first west by 

 north, a mountain-stream, as far as 67 W. long. 

 A little below Esmeralda (65 50' W. long.) it 

 divides and sends off to the south an arm, the 

 ( 'assiquiare, which, after a course of 180 miles, 

 enters the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon. 

 The other branch on reaching San Fernando ( 68 10' 

 long, and 4 2' N. lat. ) is met by the strong current 

 of the Guaviare ; the united stream then turns 

 due north, and, after passing over the magnificent 

 cataracts of Maypures and Atures (glowingly 

 described by Humboldt), and picking up the Meta 

 on the left, meets the A pure, which likewise 

 strikes it from the left. Below the continence with 

 the Apnre the Orinoco turns east and traverses 

 the llanos of Venezuela, its waters, with an 

 average breadth of 4 miles, being augmented from 

 the right by the Canra and the Caroni. About 

 120 miles from the Atlantic, into which it rolls its 

 milk-white flood, its delta (8500 sq. m.) begins. 

 Of the numerous mouths which reach the ocean 

 over 165 miles of coast-line only seven are navi- 

 gable. The waterway principally used by ocean- 

 going vessels, which penetrate up to Ciudad 

 Bolivar (Angostura), a distance of 240 miles, is the 

 Boca de Navios, varying in width from 3J to 23 

 miles. The total length of the river is some 1550 

 miles, of which 900, up to the cataracts of Atures, 

 are navigable, besides a farther stretch of 500 miles 

 above the cataracts of Maypures ; area of drainage 

 basin, 368,600 sq. m. Most of the larger affluents 

 are also navigable for considerable distances, tha 



