“Jerome and Origen - original Latin Text with English translation”
two contrasting passages from Jerome - one positive towards Origen and another (later passage) negative. Fragment of Letter 33 to Paula and Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum, 7. Linked with Origenist controversy.
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Letter XXXIII. To Paula. 1. Antiquity marvels at Marcus Terentius Varro, because of the countless books which he wrote for Latin readers; and Greek writers are extravagant in their praise of their man of brass, because he has written more works than one of us could so much as copy. But since Latin ears would find a list of Greek writings tiresome, I shall confine myself to the Latin Varro. I shall try to show that we of to-day are sleeping the sleep of Epimenides, and devoting to the amassing of riches the energy which our predecessors gave to sound, if secular, learning. 2. Varro’s writings include forty-five books of antiquities, four concerning the life of the Roman people. 3. But why, you ask me, have
I thus mentioned Varro and the man of brass? Simply to bring to your notice our
Christian man of brass, or, rather, man of adamant—Origen, I mean—whose zeal for
the study of Scripture has fairly earned for him this latter name. Would you
learn what monuments of his genius he has left us? The following list exhibits
them. His writings comprise thirteen books on Genesis, two books of Mystical
Homilies, notes on Exodus, notes on Leviticus, * * * * also single books, four
books on First Principles, two books on the Resurrection, two dialogues on the
same subject. 4. So, you see, the labors of
this one man have surpassed those of all previous writers, Greek and Latin. Who
has ever managed to read all that he has written? Yet what reward have his
exertions brought him? He stands condemned by his bishop, Demetrius, only the
bishops of Palestine, Arabia, Phenicia, and Achaia dissenting. Imperial Rome
consents to his condemnation, and even convenes a senate to censure him, not—as
the rabid hounds who now pursue him cry—because of the novelty or heterodoxy of
his doctrines, but because men could not tolerate the incomparable eloquence and
knowledge which, when once he opened his lips, made others seem dumb. ------------------ Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum, 7
7. The questions relate to the passages in the Περὶ Αρχῶν. The first is this,
“for as it is unfitting to say that the Son can see the Father, so neither is it
meet to think that the Holy Spirit can see the Son.” The second point is the
statement that souls are tied up in the body as in a prison; and that before man
was made in Paradise they dwelt amongst rational creatures in the heavens.
Wherefore, afterwards to console itself, the soul says in the Psalms, “Before I
was humbled, I went wrong”; and “Return, my soul, to thy rest”; and “Lead my
soul out of prison”; and similarly elsewhere. Thirdly, he says that both the
devil and demons will some time or other repent, and ultimately reign with the
saints. Fourthly, he interprets the coats of skin, with which Adam and Eve were
clothed after their fall and ejection from Paradise, to be human bodies, and we
are to suppose of course that previously, in Paradise, they had neither flesh,
sinews, nor bones. Fifthly, he most openly denies the resurrection of the flesh
and the bodily structure, and the distinction of senses, both in his explanation
of the first Psalm, and in many other of his treatises. Sixthly, he so
allegorises Paradise as to destroy historical truth, understanding angels
instead of trees, heavenly virtues instead of rivers, and he overthrows all that
is contained in the history of Paradise by his figurative interpretation.
Seventhly, he thinks that the waters which are said in Scripture to be above the
heavens are holy and supernal essences, while those which are above the earth
and beneath the earth are, on the contrary, demoniacal essences. The eighth is
Origen’s cavil that the image and likeness of God, in which man was created, was
lost, and was no longer in man after he was expelled from Paradise. |
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Jerome and Origen
Migne Latin Text
Patrologiae Latinae Cursus Completus
Patrologia Latina
Vulgate