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| Elucidations.
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Elucidations.
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Neale, in his valuable
work,268
| 268 The
Patriarchate of Alexandria, London, 1847. | does full
justice to Dionysius, whose life is twinned with
Gregory’s; but he seems to me most unaccountably to slight the
truly great and commanding genius of Gregory. I take opportunity,
then, to direct attention to Neale’s candid, and, on the whole,
favourable view of Origen; but it grieves me whenever I see in critics
a manifest inability to put themselves back into the times of
which they write, as I think is the case, not infrequently, even with
Dr. Neale. The figure of this grand ornament of the mighty
patriarchate and school of Alexandria is colossal.269
| 269 The
ultimate influence of the school itself, Neale pronounces “an
enigma” (vol. i. p. 38). | His genius is Titanic, and has left
all Christendom profoundly his debtor to this day, by the variety of
his work and the versatility of his speech and pen. Doubtless the
youthful Gregory’s panegyric does contain, as he himself
suggests, much that is “puerile or bordering on flattery;”
but, as he protests with transparent truthfulness, “there is
nothing in it unreal.” It shines with “sincerity of
thought and integrity of judgment.” And as such, what a
portrait it presents us of the love and patient effort of this lifelong
confessor! Let me commend this example to professors of theology
generally. All can learn from it the power of sweetness and love,
united with holiness of purpose, to stamp the minds and the characters
of youth with the divine “image and
superscription.”
But, as to the sharpness of modern censures upon
Origen’s conspicuous faults, I must suggest three important
considerations, which should be applied to all the Ante-Nicene
doctors: (1) How could they who were working out the formulas of
orthodoxy, be expected to use phrases with the skill and precision
which became necessary only after the great Synodical period had
embodied them in clear, dogmatic statements? (2) How could the
active intellect of an Origen have failed to make great mistakes in
such an immensity of labours and such a variety of works? (3) If,
in our own day, we indulge speculative minds in large liberties so long
as they never make shipwreck of the faith, how much more should we deem
them excusable who were unable to consult libraries of well-digested
thought, and to employ, as we do, the accumulated wealth of fifty
generations of believers, whenever we are called to the solemn
responsibility of impressing our convictions upon others? The
conclusion of Dr. Neale’s review of Origen balances the praise
and blame accorded to him by those nearest to his times;270
but let us reflect upon the painful
conflicts of those times, and upon the pressure under which, to justify
their own positions, they were often forced to object to any error
glorified by even the apparent patronage of Origen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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