The Quarrel over Origen’s Books

“After he had kindly accepted our gifts, the sailors called us back to sea and we left. After a good passage we arrived at Alexandria on the seventh day. There we found a disgraceful quarrel raging between the bishops and the monks. Its cause, or occasion, was that the priests, as everyone knew, had met together and often passed decrees in crowded synods that no one should read or own the books of Origen. Origen was, no doubt, regarded as a most able debater on the sacred Scriptures. But the bishops maintained that there were certain unsound things in his books. His supporters did not dare to defend these passages, and instead took the line that they had been inserted by heretics. So they argued that the other parts of his writings should not be condemned because of the things that were rightly censured, since the faith of readers could easily tell the difference, so as not to follow what had been forged and yet to keep hold of what was treated in agreement with the catholic faith. They remarked that it was no wonder if heretical cunning had been at work in modern and recent writings, since in certain places it had not been afraid to attack even the truth of the Gospels. [a]

The bishops resisted these arguments with all their power. They insisted that even what was entirely correct in Origen’s writings should be condemned along with the author himself and all his works, because the books the church had received were more than enough. They also said that people ought to avoid reading works that would do more harm to the unwise than good to the wise. For my part, when curiosity led me to look into some parts of these writings, I found a great many things that pleased me, but some that deserved blame. I think it is clear that the author himself really held these godless opinions, though his defenders maintain that the passages were forged. I truly wonder that one and the same man could be so unlike himself: in the part that is approved, he has had no equal since the time of the apostles, while in the part that is rightly condemned, no one can be shown to have erred more grossly.”