Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 40/82

And he fabricates testimonies according to his own mind from the divine Scriptures, which are not so worded nor so intended.

For, he says, when the prophet says, 'Before I was humbled, I went astray,' this saying, he says, comes from the soul itself, as having gone astray above in heaven, before being humbled in the body;

and the saying, 'Return, O my soul, to your rest,' refers to one who, having acted valiantly here in good works, returns to the rest above on account of the righteous conduct of his labor.

And there are many other such things one could mention.

He says that Adam lost the 'according to the image.'

Hence, he says, Scripture also signifies this by the 'coats of skin';

for, he says, 'He made them coats of skin and clothed them' means, he says, the body.

And there is in him a great deal of this widely repeated absurdity.

He renders the resurrection of the dead deficient—at one point affirming it in argument, at another utterly denying it, and at yet another time saying that only a part of it rises.

And for the rest he allegorizes whatever he can—paradise and its waters, the waters above the heavens, and the water beneath the earth.

And he does not cease from babbling these things and others like them.

We have already, in certain other places, recalled and gone through such matters concerning him.

But now too it will do no harm, in dealing with the heresy named after him, to relate once more the same cause and subject matter, and to effect its refutation from the very statements put forward by him.

For great was the absurdity that later arose from him, and his cultivation of a distorted conception that had stepped outside the truth.

For he seemed to speak against all the heresies before him and to refute each one, but afterward he himself vomited forth upon the world this heresy of his own, no ordinary one.

And first I will set out what was said by him, for the refutation of his falsified and counterfeit notion; and then I will also show what will be said against him by our own humble self.

And these are they, as many things as he introduced into life in the first Psalm — for in every Scripture, always slipping in his wording, he fell into error on essential points.

But since the bulk is great — for he is said to have composed a large treatise on each Scripture, as I said — he did not refrain from saying what seemed good to him.

And as for the things said by him in his homilies and in the prologues concerning morals and the natures of animals and other matters, keeping to a middle course he often related graceful things;

except for the shameful deeds found among the heresies.

For he too was reputed to have taken up an ascetic life, as I have already indicated above;

wherefore some also say that his chest wasted away from the excess of his manner of life, both from fasting and from abstinence from things with life.

Come, then, let us set forth his very words from the first Psalm, together with the speculations contained in it, and the doctrines he taught, in his own words, so that no one may say that what is said against him by us has been slanderously invented.

And it is not that he fell away from the truth only in the first Psalm, but, as I have often said, in every exposition as well.

But because of the bulk of his treatise, having gathered material here from the aforementioned Psalm, let us, from one or two or three of his statements, expose the whole of his depravity concerning the faith, and let us take necessary care to speak against them.

And the basis of each statement follows immediately, so that you may know, O lover of what is good, hearer, that he most plainly taught that the Son of God is a creature, and from his audacity concerning the Son you may know that he introduced the Holy Spirit as the creature of a creature.

Let us, then, take up the Psalm from the beginning, up to the very statement, as Origen himself said:

The beginning of Origen's [commentary] on the first Psalm.

Now concerning its being closed and sealed, John teaches in the Apocalypse, saying: 'And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:'

'Behold, I have given before you an open door, which no one can shut.'

And after a little: 'And I saw in the right hand of him who sat upon the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.'

'And I saw another strong angel proclaiming with a great voice:'

'Who is worthy to open the scroll and loose its seals?' And no one was able, in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the scroll, nor to look upon it.

'And I wept, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, nor to look upon it.'

'And one of the elders says to me:'

But concerning its being sealed alone, Isaiah speaks thus: 'And all these words shall be to you as the words of this sealed book, which, if they give it to a man who knows letters, saying:'

'Read this,' and he will say:

'I cannot read it, for it is sealed.'

'And this book shall be given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, and it shall be said to him:'

For these things must be thought to be said not only concerning the Apocalypse of John and Isaiah, but concerning all divine Scripture, which even those moderately able to comprehend divine words must acknowledge is full of riddles and parables, of obscure sayings and other various kinds of obscurity, hard for human nature to grasp.

Wishing to teach this very thing, the Savior also says — since the key was in the possession of the scribes and Pharisees, who did not strive to find the way of opening it — 'Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge:'

'you yourselves did not enter, and those who were entering you did not allow to enter.'

These things have been said by us as a preface, since we are compelled by your great love of learning, and overawed by your kindness and moderation, holy Ambrose, to descend into a contest that is admittedly greatest and beyond us and our capacity;

to write and to leave a record for those who come after us. By charming me in every way as a friend, and by the prompting of the divine, you have brought me to this task; you shall be my witness before God, together with the whole of my life, when I am examined concerning the things dictated, and with what intention this has been done.

and in some places we succeed, but in others we either force the matter too violently, or merely seem to be saying something.

We have tracked out what is written, not disregarding the saying that when you speak concerning God, you are judged by God as to whether it has been well spoken, and that even to speak the truth concerning God carries no small danger.

We ask, then, since nothing can be good apart from God — and especially the understanding of the divinely inspired Scriptures — that, approaching the God and Father of all things through our Savior and High Priest, the generate God, you ask that it be granted to us first to seek rightly, since to those who seek there lies a promise of finding;

perhaps those who do not proceed to this by the right way are not even reckoned by God, from the outset, among those who seek.

Now it is my beginning to speak against this boastful man, wise in his own conceit, searcher of things unsearchable, and expounder of the heavenly things — this man who has filled life with idle talk, as one better than us has also said against him — first, concerning the generate God.

And that there are many identical expressions and homonyms in life is clear to everyone.

And if the expression had been used by someone else, one might say that this too was said according to right understanding;

but since we have found him, in many passages, wickedly alienating the Only-Begotten God from the Godhead and essence of the Father, and likewise the Holy Spirit too, it is for this reason clear that, in calling him the generate God, he defines him as created.

For as some wish to make us sophistical and to say that 'generate' is equal to 'begotten,' this must not be accepted;

— rather, it is to be said not of God, but only of created things.

for 'generate' is one thing, and 'begotten' is another.

As for, then, what was said by him — 'created,' that is, 'generate God' — we first ask:

In what manner was the God honored by you through this term created? And how is he to be worshipped, if he is something made? Remove, then, the reproach uttered by the holy Apostle against those who deify the creation, and show me a created God who is worshipped according to the pious faith — one that does not worship the creation but the Creator — and then your erring reasoning's departure from the piety of the fathers will seem reasonable to you.

But indeed you cannot demonstrate this.

And even if you should dare to plunder some argument from somewhere and force the matter, not even in this will you be able to divert the reasonable judgment of the God-fearing into such great baseness, O God-stricken man.

For both right thinking and reason fight against you.

For everything created is not to be worshipped, as I said.

But if it is altogether to be worshipped, then, since there exist many other created things, it would make no difference for us also to worship all things together with that one created being, since they are fellow-servants and have fallen under the same designation by classification.

Let us see, then, through the four Gospels — through which God the Word, having come, ordered the whole of our life — whether Christ has said anywhere, 'God created me' or 'My Father created me.'

Let us also see whether the Father declared in any one of the Gospels, 'I created the Son and have sent him to you.'

But let this matter stand as it is here, for now.

For concerning testimonies against those who introduce the creature, we have set forth many things many times.

But it will do no harm also on the present occasion to show the ease with which the argument may be grasped, and to say to this would-be philosopher:

How, O sir, can he who says, 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, and we two are one,' be a created being? And how can he who has equal honor with the Father be of a different nature? For 'no one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son,' and 'he who has seen me has seen the Father.'

And again likewise, as to the things concerning the resurrection which he calls into doubt, taking hold of the sequence of his argument, we will again speak from his own statements.

For even though he has spoken about this at length many times, and has babbled on about it in many books, nevertheless I will set forth the refutation from what he expounded in the first Psalm, against those who have believed in the resurrection of our sure hope.

He says: 'Therefore the ungodly shall not rise in the judgment.'

Then, as is his custom, he makes a display from the other editions:

'Likewise,' he says, 'Theodotion, Aquila, Symmachus [render it].'

Then he adds, mockingly, against the sons of the truth:

'From this,' he says, 'the more simple-minded among believers, taking their start, suppose that the ungodly will not attain the resurrection and will not be deemed worthy of the divine judgment;'

— not at all making clear what they understand the resurrection to be, or what sort of thing they imagine the judgment to be.

For even if they seem to make pronouncements about these matters, close scrutiny will expose them as unable to preserve logical consistency, since they have not grasped the manner of the resurrection and the judgment.

'If, then,' he says, 'we inquire of them what it is that rises, they answer that it is these bodies which we now wear.'

Then, when we further ask:

'Whether it is the whole substance or not,' before examining it they say, 'the whole.'

But if we press the difficulty further, bearing with their simplicity, and, saying nothing about the substance being in flux, we examine the matter, asking:

whether the blood that flowed away in blood-lettings, and the flesh wasted away in illnesses, and all the hair we ever had will rise together with us, or only that which was there at the very end, at our departure — being pressed, at one time they stumble even at the inquiry being made, thinking that they ought to leave to God what he wishes to do concerning these things; and at another time, seeming to make a concession, they say that the hair we had at the end of this life will rise together with us.

But the more noble-minded among them, so as not to be compelled by reason to gather back together the blood that has often been discharged from our bodies, and the flesh that in illnesses has been converted into sweat or into whatever other matter, say that it is the body as it is at the end of our life that rises.

These are the cavilling little words of the aforementioned would-be philosopher against the truth, which I have necessarily set forth as a demonstration for those wishing to know the whole mind of his unbelief concerning the resurrection.

For indeed he has other things as well, among many others, in this exposition of the Psalm.

For he says: 'Because of this the ungodly shall not rise in judgment.'

From this point he proceeds even further to attack those who define a secure resurrection and believe the firm hope of the resurrection of the dead, as though they were simpletons; and having added many base remarks and put forward a certain sophistic suspicion — nothing at all persuasive in the sense of producing faith, but wholly and entirely syllogistic, aimed at the ruin of those persuaded by him — he attempted, from what happens to us according to nature, to overturn the confession of our hope, in truth, of that same resurrection.

But I, not wishing to be more daring than those who have already labored well and most justly overturned the whole of his contrived rhetorical villainy, being but a small man, thought it good to be content with what was said by the blessed Methodius in his discourse on the resurrection against this same Origen, which I shall here set forth word for word.

And what was said by Methodius is as follows, just as he himself set it in order:

An Epitome of Origen's [Views], from the Works of Methodius

From this point the more simple-minded among believers, starting out [from this], suppose that the ungodly will not obtain the resurrection — but what do they understand the resurrection to be?

For even if they seem to make pronouncements about these matters, close examination will refute them, since they are unable to maintain consistently what follows from their own position.

If, then, we ask them of what the resurrection consists, they answer that it is of the bodies which we now wear.

Then, when we further ask:

whether of the whole substance or not, before being pressed they say, 'of the whole.'

[As for] the blood lost in bloodlettings, and the flesh and hairs that have ever come to be — or only those present at [our] departure from life — being hard-pressed, they take refuge in the claim that it is permissible for God to do whatever he wills.

But the more resolute among them, in order not to be compelled by the argument to gather back together the same blood which has often been discharged from our bodies, say that it is the body which is ours at the end that will rise, so it is claimed.

We raised a further difficulty. [They answered] that it is because bodily nature is subject to change, and other such things:

Just as foods, when arranged into our body, change their appearance [and are assimilated], so also our bodies are transformed within flesh-eating birds and beasts and become parts of those creatures' bodies; and again, when those creatures are eaten by men or by other animals, they are in turn transformed and become the bodies of men or of other animals.

And since this happens repeatedly, it is necessary that the same body[-matter] should often become a part of a number of different men.

Whose body, then, will it be at the resurrection? And thus it will turn out that we fall into an abyss of irrational nonsense.

And after these difficulties, they take refuge in the fact that all things are possible for God, and they bring forward expressions of Scripture which, according to their superficial sense, can suggest what they themselves have in mind.

such as the passage in Ezekiel: 'And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit, and set me in the midst of the plain, and this was full of human bones.'

'and he led me around them, round about in a circle;'

'and behold, there were very many upon the face of the plain, and behold, they were very dry.'

'Son of man, shall these bones live? And I said,'

'O Lord God, you know these things.'

'Prophesy, son of man,'

'[and say] to these dry bones, Hear the word of the Lord.'

'Thus says the Lord Adonai to these bones:'

'Behold, I bring the breath of life into you, and I will put sinews upon you, and bring flesh upon you, and stretch skin over you, and put my spirit into you, and you shall live; and I will set you upon your own land, and you shall know that I am the Lord.'

This, then, is the passage they use as the more plausible one.

And they also gather other, evangelical passages, such as: 'there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' and 'fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,' and the saying in Paul: 'he will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.'

But every lover of truth ought, applying his mind in like manner to these very matters, to strive concerning the resurrection, both to preserve the tradition of the ancients and to guard against falling into the nonsense of impoverished notions — notions that are at once impossible and unworthy of God.

On this point, then, this must be understood: that every body which is held together by a nature that arranges into itself something from without, after the manner of nourishment, and secretes other things in place of what is brought in — as is the case with plants and animals — never has the same material substrate.

Wherefore the body has aptly been called a river, because, strictly speaking, perhaps not even for two days is the primary substrate the same in our body — although, as it were, Paul or Peter is always the same person, not merely with respect to the soul (whose essence, as we understand it, neither flows nor ever has anything additionally introduced into it), but [the body too remains the same] even though the nature of the body is in flux, in that the form which characterizes the body is the same — just as the marks also remain the same which represent the bodily quality of Peter and of Paul; according to which quality, scars from childhood also remain on their bodies, and certain other peculiar features, such as moles, and whatever else of this kind there may be.

This form, according to which Peter and Paul are given their bodily identity, is what is placed again around the soul at the resurrection, changed for the better — not at all necessarily this particular substrate which was arrayed [around the soul] at the first.

...change. In this way one must also understand that the form which exists in the present [life] is the same as that of the life to come, even though there will be the very greatest possible change for the better.

For it is necessary that the soul, existing in bodily places, should make use of bodies suited to those places.

And just as, if we had to live in the sea, having become aquatic creatures, we would certainly need to have gills and the rest of the constitution of fish, so too, since we are going to inherit the kingdom of heaven and to be in different places, it is necessary that we make use of spiritual bodies;

— the former form not being destroyed, even though its transformation is into something more glorious, just as the form of Jesus, and of Moses, and of Elijah, was not other in the Transfiguration than it had previously been.

Do not, then, take offense if one should say that the primary substrate will not be the same at that time, since reason shows to those capable of paying attention that even now the primary substrate cannot remain the same for as much as two days.

It is also worth noting that what is sown is of one sort, while what rises is of another:

for it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body — as the Apostle further adds, teaching in effect that we are going to lay aside every earthly quality altogether, while the form itself is preserved at the resurrection;

'This I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.'

For perhaps, in the case of the holy body, there will be something held together by that which once gave form to the flesh, yet it will no longer be flesh; rather, that which was once imprinted in the flesh will now be imprinted in the spiritual body.

And in reply to the words of Scripture which our brothers cite, the following may be said.

And first, in reply to the passage in Ezekiel, insofar as the more simple-minded rely upon it:

according to these very words, there would be no resurrection of flesh at all, but only of bones and skins and sinews.

At the same time it must also be shown to them that they are carried away, as not having understood what is written.

For it is not the case that, wherever the word 'bones' is used, it must always be understood as actual bones — just as in 'our bones have been scattered beside Hades,' and 'all my bones were scattered,' and 'heal me, for my bones are troubled,' it is evident that 'bones' is not spoken of there according to the ordinary sense.

Indeed, it is added to the passage that they themselves say: 'Our bones have become dry.'

Do they perhaps say 'our bones have become dry,' meaning that, once gathered together, they wish to rise? But this is impossible.

'Our bones have become dry' — that is, having fallen into captivities and having cast off all vital moisture;

and indeed they go on to add: 'Our hope has perished, we are cut off.'

Therefore the promise of the resurrection is [a promise] of the people [rising] from their fall, and from the deadness, so to speak, in which they had been deadened because of their sins, having been handed over to their enemies.

And sinners, moreover, are said by the Savior to be tombs full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.

And it befits God to open the tomb of each one and to lead us out of the tombs, made alive, just as the Savior drew Lazarus forth.

As for 'there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' one must put this difficulty to them: just as in this present life the Creator fashioned every member for some particular use, so also he made teeth for the cutting of solid food.

What use, then, do teeth have for those being punished? For, according to them, those who are in Gehenna will not be eating.

And it must be shown that not everything is to be taken according to the letter of the text.

'The teeth of sinners,' it says, 'you have broken,' and 'the Lord has crushed the fangs of the lions.'

'over what he had devised he shall gnash his teeth.'

And the saying, 'fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,' perhaps teaches that the soul is bodiless, and perhaps it also shows that it will not be punished apart from a body;

concerning which, discoursing on natural philosophy, we have already spoken about the form and the primary substrate.

And the saying in the Apostle, 'he will give life also to your mortal bodies,' since the body is mortal and does not partake of true life, can indicate that the bodily form of which we have spoken, being mortal by nature, when Christ, who is our life, is manifested, itself too changes from being a body of death, made alive through the life-giving Spirit, and becomes spiritual instead of fleshly.

And the saying, 'But someone will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?' plainly shows that the primary substrate will not rise.

For if we have rightly grasped the illustration, we must observe that the seminal principle in the grain of wheat, taking hold of the matter lying next to it and passing through the whole of it, and grasping that matter entirely in its own form, imposes upon what was formerly earth, water, air, and fire whatever powers it possesses, and, having overcome the qualities of those elements, transforms them into that form of which it is itself the maker;

and thus the ear of grain is completed, differing exceedingly from the original kernel in size, shape, and complexity.

These, then, are — in epitome — the things which Origen labored over when he undertook his treatise on the resurrection, displaying a most varied theory.

But consider also what follows next, in order, upon these things.

For it remains, in addition to what has been said, to take up the testimonies from the Scriptures as well, so that, just as a statue having all its parts in due proportion, so this discourse too, having received due proportion, might be constructed as a complete whole, lacking nothing of what contributes to shapeliness and beauty.

It must therefore be explained how the Scriptures harmonize with these things, strengthening man toward the fulfillment of a better way of life.

For if anyone is able, without departing from what is fitting, to understand these things accurately, he will know that the resurrection ought not to be understood with reference to this present body, since it is incapable of remaining unchanged for eternity, but with reference to the spiritual body, in which that very character which is now preserved in this present body will be kept, so that each of us may also be the same according to form — just as was said even by Origen himself.

For that is indeed how he [Origen] himself posits that the resurrection will be.

For since the material body is fluid and never remains the same with itself even for a moment, but there is a constant accretion and loss around the form that characterizes the man, by which the shape too is held together, it is necessary, he says, to expect that the resurrection is preserved with respect to the form alone.

'And lest you say that you do not understand:'

for he explained this obscurely, but I shall here expound the sense of these things to you more clearly.

For surely you have already seen the skin of an animal, or some other such vessel, filled with water, so that if it is emptied a little at a time and filled a little at a time, it always shows the same form.

For whatever the container may be, the contents within must necessarily be shaped according to it.

Consider: as the water gradually flows out, if someone should add as much as pours out, not allowing the skin to be emptied of its water all at once, must not what is added necessarily appear of the same shape as what was there before, since the container—around which the water flows in and flows out—remains the same?

And indeed, one who wishes to liken the body to these things need not be ashamed to do so.

For in the same way, whatever is brought in from food in place of the flesh that is expelled will be transformed into the shape of the encompassing form; and whatever is diffused into the eyes becomes like the eyes, whatever into the face, like the face, and whatever into the other parts, like those.

...of the form, according to which the things that accrue are given their shape.

And so, if we are not the same even for a few days with respect to the body, but rather with respect to the form within the body—for this alone remains stable from birth—much more shall we then, too, not be the same according to the same flesh, but according to the form that is now and always preserved and abiding in us.

For what the skin is there, the form is here.

And what the water is there in the image, that is here what accrues and departs.

Just as now, even though the body is not the same, nevertheless the same characteristic form according to the same shape is preserved, so also then, even though the body is not the same, the form, grown into something more glorious, will no longer be shown in a corruptible body, but in one that is impassible and spiritual—just as, for instance, the body of Jesus was at the Transfiguration, when he went up onto the mountain with Peter, and the bodies of Moses and Elijah who appeared to him.

Let these matters, then, be considered thus far.

For this, in summary, is the sense of Origen's doctrines.

But if one of those who dispute this, putting forward the body of Christ—because he is called the firstborn of the dead and the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep—should say that just as he arose, so also the bodies of all must be expected to rise in like manner to his, so that, as Christ has been raised, God will likewise bring with him through Jesus those who have fallen asleep, and that the body of Jesus was raised having the very flesh it had and the very bones, as Thomas also was persuaded—we shall reply:

But the body of Christ was not from the will of man, from pleasure conjoined with sleep, conceived in iniquities and craved for in sins, but from the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High and a virgin; whereas yours is from sleep and pleasure and defilement.

So when Proclus had at last, with difficulty, stopped, and there was a long silence among those present, who had been considerably cast down toward disbelief, and I perceived that he had indeed ceased, I gently raised my head and drew breath, like sailors when the wave is already subsiding—still trembling and growing dizzy, for I had been, be it said to you, overwhelmed by the force of his arguments—I turned to Auxentius and, calling him, said:

'O Auxentius,' I said, 'I think that the poet's saying was not spoken in vain: "when two go together..."'

for indeed our opponents too are two.

therefore let the two of us together muster strength against the two of them.