Note N42 — St. PETER (continued 7)

The chief Errors of Origen were concerning the Trinity, the Resurrection of the Body, the Eternity of Hell-Torments, and the Origin of Souls. If his Works were not interpolated by the Heretics, as Ruffinus pretended they were, it is no easy Matter to determine what was his real Opinion with respect to the Trinity; for in some Passages he seems to acknowlege an Equality, and in others to establish an Inequality, between the Father and the Son. As to the Resurrection, he was accused of not believing, that the Body, at least the same Body, was to rise from the Dead. He denied the Eternity of Hell-Torments, and held, that even the Devils would repent in the End, and be saved. He maintained the Souls to have been created before the World; to have been confined to the Bodies, which they animated, as so many Prisons, to expiateexpiate there the Sins which they had committed; to be in perpetual Motion passing from one Body to another, and at last to become Angels. With the Three last Errors chiefly Ruffinus was charged by St. Jerom; and it was to clear himself from such an Imputation, that, in his Answer to Anastasius summoning him to Rome, he declared his Belief with respect to those Articles, styling his Answer on that Account an Apology. As to the Trinity, those whom they called Origenists, were allowed, even by their Enemies, to be quite orthodox in their Belief of that Mystery. Touching the Resurrection, Ruffinus declared and explained his Faith in such clear Terms as ought to have left no room, even for St. Jerom, to arraign him on that Head. He expressed himself in a manner no less orthodox with respect to the Eternity of the Pains of Hell. But, as to the Origin of Souls, he owns himself to be quite at a Loss what to think, and what to determine, on that Subject, since no particular Opinion had been yet settled by the Church, and the Ecclesiastical Writers disagreed in that Point among themselves; some believing, with Tertullian and Lactantius, the Souls to have been formed with the Bodies; and others maintaining, with Origen, that they were all created before the World: as to himself, he declared, that he held nothing for certain but what he was taught by the Church, viz. that the Souls as well as the Bodies proceeded from God[1]. This Jerom called a false, artful, and imposing Confession, as if Ruffinus did not believe what he professed in the most solemn Manner to believe; and Anastasius, judging of his Faith not from his own Words, but from those of Jerom, separated himself from his Communion.

I cannot help observing here, that Jerom, whom nothing now will satisfy but the Condemnation of Origen, used a few Years before to inveigh with the same Gall and Bitterness against the Enemies of that Writer as he does now against his Friends, condemning with as much Acrimony those who accused him, as he now condemns those who excuse him. Origen had been condemned in his Life-time by Demetrius Bishop of Alexandria, and by several other Bishops: and Jerom, after telling us, in speaking of the Judgment that was given against him, that he had written more Books than others had time to read; and that in the Number of his Volumes he had surpassed Varro, and the other most eloquent Writers both Greek and Latin; adds, But what Reward did he receive for so much Toil and Labour? He was condemned by the Bishop Demetrius; and, if we except the Bishops of Palæstine, Arabia, Phœnicia, and Achaia, he was condemned by all the rest. Even Rome assembled her Senate against him, not because he taught any new Doctrines, or held any heretical Opinions, which those who snarl at him, like so many mad Dogs, would fain make us believe; but because they could not bear the bright Rays of his Eloquence and Knowlege, and were forced to be dumb when he spoke. This Passage is quoted by Ruffinus, and Jerom himself owns it to have been copied from his Letter to Paula^[2].

By the Senate that Rome assembled against Origen, Jerom meant, no doubt, the Bishop and Clergy of that City: and that he made no Account of their Judgment, sufficiently appears from the contemptuous and ironical Manner he speaks of it. However, that Father is brought in by Baronius as an Evidence for Infallibility, on account of the Regard which he afterwards paid to the Judgment of Anastasius, styling it a decisive Sentence. But Jerom had then changed his Opinion; and Anastasius only condemned what he had condemned before; so that from the great Regard which Jerom shewed on that Occasion for the Judgment of Anastasius, Baronius can at most conclude, that he thought the Popes infallible when they agreed with him; for that he thought them fallible when they disagreed with him, is manifest from his not acquiescing in the Judgment of another Pope condemning Origen, when he himself had not yet condemned him.