O R I 
That he furvived this perfecution, and afterwards wrote 
fever.al letters proper for the confolation of thofe who 
might be placed in the fame circumltances, we learn from 
different ancient writers ; but we have no information 
concerning the means by which he obtained his liberty, 
fie died at Tyre in the year 253, when in the fixty-ninth 
or feventieth year of his age. 
Origen was the author of a prodigious number of 
works, of which the remains that have reached modern 
times, though voluminous, conftitute but a fmall por¬ 
tion. Of thefe works Eufebius and Jerome drew up par¬ 
ticular catalogues, which are 110 longer extant, if we 
except a fmall part of that by Jerome, in a fragment of 
one of his letters to Paula. There are, however, accounts 
ftill to be found of many of Origen’s works in ancient 
writers, particularly in F.ufebius’s Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, 
which lead us to divide them into two claffes: the former 
confifting of works upon the Scriptures 5 the latter, of 
feparate treadles upon different fubjeCts. Among his 
works upon the Scriptures, we have already noticed his 
Hexapla; which was followed by his Tetrapla, compiled 
for the ufe of fuch fcholars as could not procure the 
Hexapla, and confided of the Greek verfions of Aquila, 
Symmachus, the Seventy Interpreters, and Theodotion. 
Both thefe works are now loft ; but a valuable fpecimen 
of the former was publifhed, with learned preliminary ob- 
fervations, notes, and a Hebrew lexicon, by father Mont- 
faucon, in 1713, in 2 vols. folio. The other works of 
Origen upon the Scriptures confided of Commentaries 
upon the books of the Old and New Teftament, Scholia, 
and Homilies. In his Commentaries, the greater part of 
which is now loft, he gave full fcope to his learning and 
imagination, in illuftrating what appeared to him to be 
the hiftorical, or literal, tlie 5 myftical, and the moral, fenfe 
of the facred writings. Of his Scholia, confifting of ftiort 
notes explanatory of difficult paflages, none are now' re¬ 
maining; and of his Homilies, or moral inftruCtions, 
fcarcely any in Greek, what we have of them being tranf- 
lations by Jerome and Ruffinus, chiefly by the latter. For 
an account of thefe remains, and the collections in which 
they are feparate]y preferved, we refer our readers to Cave 
and Dupin. With refpeCt to the feparate pieces of Ori- 
gen on different fubjeCts, befides fome Latin traufiations, 
we have ftill extant in the original Greek, his Treatife 
upon Prayer, his Exhortation to Martyrdom, addreffed to 
Ambrofe and ProtoCtetus, during the perfecution under 
Maximin, in the year 235 or 236; his Apology for the 
Chriftian Religion, in eight books, againft Cellus, which 
is the beft-vvritten work upon the fubjeCt left us by the 
ancients; a Letter to Africanus, concerning the Hiftory 
of Sufannah, fuppofed by fome to have been written in 
228, by others in 240; another Letter to Gregory Thau r 
maturgus; fragments of a few other Letters; and Philo - 
calia, containing extracts out of Origen’s works, by Gre¬ 
gory Nazianzen, and Bafil the Great. 
Thofe works of Origen which are communicated to us 
only through the medium of Latin verfions, were colleCt- 
ed together by Merlin, and afterwards by F.rafmus, and 
publifhed at Paris in 1512, and at Bafil in 1536, in 2 vols. 
folio. In 1574, a larger collection, including fome pieces 
tranflated by the editor, was publifhed at Paris under the 
care of Gilbert Genebrard, in two vols. folio, and was 
reprinted in 1604 and 16x9. In 1668, Huet bifhop of 
Avranches publifhed the Greek fragments of Origen’s 
Homilies and his Commentaries upon the Scriptures, 
with a Latin verfion, and notes, in 2 vols. folio, to which 
are prefixed copious and learned prolegomena, under the 
title of “ Origeniana,” containing an account of the life, 
doCtrines, and writings, of this father. New editions of 
this collection made their appearance in 1679 and 1685. 
In 1623, Michael Ghiflieri publifhed at Rome Origen’s 
Commentary on the twenty-eighth Chapter of the firft 
Book of Samuel, containing an account of Saul’s vifit to 
the witch at Endor; and fragments of his Commentaries 
on Jeremiah, with eight Homilies on the fame prophet, 
4 
GEN. 735 
tranflated into Latin by Matthew Caryophilus, and Alla- 
tius. In 1605, Origen’s “ Eight Books againft Celfus,” 
were publifhed in Greek, with a Latin verfion by Gele- 
nius, and the notes of-H.sefhelius, in quarto, and were 
afterwards edited more correctly at Cambridge, in 1658, 
by William Spencer, fellow of Trinity-college, who im¬ 
proved the tranflation, and gave additional notes of his 
own. This edition comprifes the author’s “ Philocafia, 
five de obfcuris Sacrse Scripturte Locis.” At length, a 
complete edition of all the remains of Origen, in Greek 
and Latin, was commenced at Paris by Charles de la 
Rue, a benediCtine of the congregation of St. Maur, in 
the year 1733, in folio; and, though the editor died in 
1739, when he had only publifhed three volumes of his 
plan, it was continued after his death by his nephew, 
Charles Vincent de la Rue, a member of the fame religi¬ 
ous community, who publifhed the fourth and laft vo¬ 
lume in the }'ear 1759. 
Origen, as Mofheim reprefents him, was a man of vaft 
and uncommon abilities, and the greateft luminary of 
the Chriftian world that the age in which he lived exhi¬ 
bited to view. Had the juftice of his judgment been 
equal to the immenfity of his genius, the fervour of his 
piety, his indefatigable patience, his extenfive erudition, 
and his other eminent and fuperior talents, all enco¬ 
miums muft have fallen fliort of his merit. Yet fuch as 
he was, his virtues and his labours deferve the admiration 
of all ages, and his name will be tranfmitted with honour 
through the annals of time, as long as learning and ge¬ 
nius fliall be efteemed among men. However, Origen, 
notwithstanding his diftinguifhed abilities, was milled by 
his imagination, and by that tafte for oriental philofophy 
which prevailed in his time. Enchanted by the charms 
of this philofophy, he fet it up as the teft of all religion, 
and imagined that the reafons of each doCtrine were to 
be found in that favourite philofophy, and their nature 
and extent to be determined by it; nor can it be denied, 
that many of the corruptions of Chriftianity proceeded 
from this fource. Hence fprung both the fcholaftic and 
myftic theology; and to the fentiments that were now 
adopted, we may afcribe the rife of monks and hermits. 
Origen was alfo milled by his imagination : for, having 
entertained a notion that it was very difficult, if not im- 
pofiible, to defend every thing in the facred writings from 
the cavils ol heretics and infidels, fo long as they were 
explained literally, according to the real import of the 
terms, he maintained that the Scriptures were to he in¬ 
terpreted in the fame allegorical manner that the Pla- 
tonifts explained the hiftory of the gods. In confequence 
of this pernicious rule of interpretation, he alleged that 
the words of Scripture were, in many places, abfolutely 
void of lenfe; and that, though in others there were in¬ 
deed certain notions conveyed under the outward terms, 
according to their literal force and import, yet it was not 
in thefe that the true meaning of the facred writers was 
to be fought, but in a myfterious and hidden fenfe, arifing 
from the nature of the things themfelves. This hidden 
fenfe he endeavours to inveftigate throughout his Com¬ 
mentaries, neglecting and defpifing for the molt part 
the outward letter. He divided this hidden fenfe into 
moral, which difplays thofe doCtrines that relate to the 
ftate of the foul and conduCt of life; and myftical or fpi- 
ritual, which reprefents the nature, the laws, and hiftory, 
of the fpiritual or myftical world. This myftical world 
he again fubdivided into two diftinCt regions, one called 
the (uperior, i. e. heaven ; and the other the inferior, by 
which he meant the church. And thus he was led to 
another divifion of the myftical fenfe into an earthly or 
allegorical fenfe, adapted to the inferior world ; and a 
celeftial or anagogical one, adapted to the fuperior re¬ 
gion. Plowever, the character and doCtrine of Origen 
were held by many, and efpecially by the monks, in the 
higheft veneration, and cheriftied in this and the follow¬ 
ing centuries with a kind of extravagant enthufiafm. 
Hence many commotions were railed in the church, 
which 
