Origen was a pupil of Clement of
Alexandria. His virtues and his labours have called forth the admiration
of all ages; and though he cannot be implicitly followed as a teacher,
what still remains of his works will be delivered down as a rich
treasure to succeeding times. He was a most voluminous writer; and
Jerome asked the members of his church, "Who is there among us that can
read as many books as Origen has composed?" [Vol. iv. epist. xli. p.
346.] A large proportion of his works are lost; and of those which
remain, few are preserved in the original Greek. We are often obliged to
study Origen through the medium of a translation, the accuracy of which
we have no means of verifying. A difficult and delicate duty also
devolves upon the theological student to determine which of the works
attributed to Origen are genuine and which are spurious; and what parts,
moreover, of the works received on the whole as genuine came from his
pen. Of {134} the spurious works, some are so palpably written in a much
later age, and by authors of different religious views, that no one,
after weighing the evidence, can be at a loss what decision to make
concerning them; in the case of others, claims and objections may appear
to be more evenly balanced. I trust on the one hand to refer to no works
for Origen's testimony which are not confessedly his, nor on the other
to exclude any passage which is not decidedly spurious; whilst in one
particular case more immediately connected with our subject, I am
induced to enter further in detail into a critical examination of the
genuineness and value of a passage than the character of this work
generally requires.
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