Preface

PRÆFATIO

Among the ancient writers of the Greek Church, there is almost no one who has left behind for posterity such a reputation for learning as did Origen. As regards human disciplines, he learned dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, rhetoric—as Jerome attests ^A (a)—and the sects of all the philosophers, to such a degree that he had as pupils those who were devoted to secular literature. “Secular literature and the study of philosophy,” says Eusebius (b), “he considered to be of primary necessity for himself.” Furthermore, the pagan philosophers themselves who flourished in his own age are witnesses to how much he excelled in these studies, since we find frequent mention of this man in their books, while they either dedicated their own books to him or sent them to him to be examined as if to their own master. Nor is this surprising, for according to Porphyry (c), he was constantly occupied with Plato. He also kept in his hands daily the writings of Numenius, Cronius, Apollophanes, and Longinus, as well as those of Moderatus and Nicomachus, and others who are held to be the foremost among the Platonists. He also employed the books of Chaeremon the Stoic and Cornutus. And indeed, even if such testimony were lacking, his eight books *Against Celsus* would clearly demonstrate his brilliance in that science of human affairs and arts; a work that provides a singular and truly immense abundance and store of profane learning.

What kind of man he was, and how great he was in divine matters, would be easily judged if a vast number of volumes were a most certain argument for supreme erudition. Vincent of Lérins (d) affirms that no mortal has written more than Origen. “Who among us,” says Jerome (e), “can read as much as he has written?” He published more than a thousand discourses which he spoke in church; besides these, there are countless commentaries, which he himself calls *tomoi*. And in another place, where he compared all the writings of Varro among the Latins with the writings of Origen among the Greeks, item by item, he says: “Do you see how both the Greeks and the Latins were surpassed by the labor of one man (Origen)? For who has ever been able to read as much as he himself wrote?” Yet it is a known fact that the more a man writes, he does not always turn out to be the more learned or worthy of a greater name. But if we appeal to the ancients regarding Origen's expertise in interpreting the Scriptures, opinions are divided into contrary directions, so that among Catholics themselves, saints conflict with saints, and martyrs with martyrs. Some denounce him as ^B a relic of corruption and the perdition of souls; others defend him with most learned apologies and call him the master of the churches, second only to the apostles. Pamphilus the martyr (g) dedicated his books, gathered from everywhere and for the most part transcribed by his own hand, to the Church of Caesarea; yet Methodius and Eustathius the martyrs rise up fiercely against them, and Pachomius the abbot, when he was already about to die, forbade his monks in the most grave terms from reading them. What, then, was not attempted next by Theophilus, Epiphanius, Honorius, and Arcadius, and even Justinian, to have those books removed from the hands of all, while in the meantime Theotimus of Tomis, John Chrysostom, and many other bishops and monks stood by Origen’s cause and refused his condemnation, so as not to approve it by writing or by consent? Jerome cries out, “Believe one who is experienced; I speak as a Christian to Christians: his dogmas are poisoned, they are alien to the Holy Scriptures, and they offer violence to the Scriptures.” But those very passages which the holy Doctor accuses of manifest heresy regarding the Trinity are recalled to a Catholic sense by the brief commentaries of Didymus; the rest, however, Eusebius, Didymus, Pamphilus, and others contend, were either written in a Catholic sense or had not yet been weakened by the decrees of the Church—which, obviously, Origen did not propose as dogmas, but as questions concerning which he permitted the judgment of each individual for the sake of exercise.

In this great dissension among so many illustrious ancient men, a fair and prudent evaluator of affairs will observe: 1. That those who rose up most bitterly against Origen, while they recite all his harmful opinions until the point of nausea and consign them to curses, sufficiently declare, even against their will, that they approve all those things in his books which they have not seen fit to censure; and since these are far greater in number than those which they have marked with their censure, it necessarily follows that the countless good things are interspersed with a few bad ones. 2. That among those who with more ardent zeal were removing his books from the hands of all, some were caught in the reading of them, struck by the admiration of the excellent things that occur in them here and there. Thus, that Theophilus, the *Origen-mastix*, after having miserably harassed Chrysostom, when he returned to Alexandria from Constantinople, being caught in the reading of Origen, wittily said that his books ^D were like a meadow planted with every kind of flower; if he found anything good in them, he plucked it; if anything seemed thorny, he treated it as a sting.

^A Finally, others have declared in eloquent terms that very many profits can be derived from his books. "Who," asks Jerome (a), "would not marvel at a mind so ardent in the Scriptures?" But if any Judas Zelotes should pose his errors to him, let him hear freely: "Sometimes even great Homer nods." "In a long work, it is allowable for sleep to steal in." (Horace, in the *Ars Poetica*) Let us not imitate his vices, whose virtues we cannot attain. And Vincent of Lérins (b) says: "Such was the magnificence of his entire learning that he surpassed almost everyone, and there were few things of divine, and almost none of human, philosophy that he did not thoroughly master." Therefore, even by those very people in whose eyes he is held guilty of a violated faith, it is freely admitted that Origen was supreme even in divine matters.

Neither is there any reason for you to say that it is difficult today to extract anything certain from his writings: namely, that insincere hands and heretical men have been set to them, who have issued even spurious and absolutely alien works under his name, and who have committed such crimes with greater confidence after his death; furthermore, that a great part of Origen’s works circulates today without the Greek text, only in the translation of Rufinus, whose reliability is very low; and that no one can from this glean the true mind of Adamantius. Far be it, however, that this adulteration of his books be as thoroughly explored as it seems to some. It is indeed certain that some heretics, while he was still alive, reached such a degree of audacity that they corrupted certain portions of his books and published other writings under his name, where he was feigned to say things that had never entered his mind (c). But in a very brief interval of time the fraud was detected, not without great disgrace to the forgers, after he himself had produced the authentic copies of his works and had publicly testified that other things had been falsely attributed to him. Therefore, the adulteration of his books, attempted by heretics while he was still alive, could not harm posterity: for it is not probable that Catholics, having heard Origen’s complaints on the matter, would have copied the books that heretics had furtively substituted, fictional and counterfeit as they were, while neglecting the true and sincere books which he himself provided. ^D Then, after his death, with what appearance of truth does this adulteration move? Rufinus and another apologist, whom Photius mentions in *Codex* 117, are the only ones who resort to this escape in order to free him from the charges of violated faith leveled against him. Jerome shrewdly observes that such mention of depravation was not made in the *Apology for Origen*, which Rufinus attributes to the martyr Pamphilus alone, although the superior part ought to be attributed to Eusebius of Pamphilus. "The most learned man Eusebius," he says (d), "...in six volumes did nothing other than strive to show that Origen was of his own faith, that is, of Arian perfidy, and he sets forth many examples, and constantly proves this."

^A To you, therefore, in what dream of the Alexandrian prison was it revealed that you should feign as falsified what he himself professes as true? But perhaps here, as an Arian, he drew from heretics points added for the occasion of his own error, lest he be thought to have held a wrong opinion against the Church alone: what will you answer for Didymus, who is certainly Catholic in the Trinity? Certainly he could not have consented to these things which were added by heretics in the books

Περὶ ἀρχῶν

Περὶ ἀρχῶν

^A have been excerpted from the *De principiis* alone, and which are completely disjointed from Origen’s original intent. The body itself is the Origenian doctrine, the theme of the work *De principiis*, the foundations upon which the entire Origenian system rests, the columns, one of which being tilted, the whole edifice must necessarily collapse. Finally, whatever faults have seemed to the ancients to exist in the books *De principiis*, you may see the same things scattered throughout the other works of this writer; the doctrine is everywhere the same, the same singular ornaments are everywhere. Who, then, could persuade his mind that all of Origen’s works together, the number of which was vast, had been deformed, perverted, and confounded by heretics, so that not even one remained that had escaped their treacherous hands, not even that vast collection of volumes which the martyr Pamphilus had transcribed with his own hand and dedicated to the Church of Caesarea? Let Apella the Jew believe that; I will not.

^B Regarding those works for which the Greek text has perished and only Rufinus’s Latin translation survives, Rufinus testifies in the peroration appended to his *Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans* that he translated the homilies on Joshua, Judges, and the Psalms 36, 37, and 38 simply as he found them in the Greek; but he cannot deny that he used excessive license in the rest, namely, in Genesis, Leviticus, Isaiah, the volumes on the *Song of Songs*, and in his *Explanation of the Epistle to the Romans*. In the peroration I mentioned, he admits to having added much of his own in the homilies on Genesis, Exodus, and especially Leviticus: "We undertook this labor," he says, "of fulfilling what was lacking, lest the questions raised and left unanswered might breed weariness in the Latin reader." He allowed himself the same thing in translating the *Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans*. For since in almost everyone's libraries (it is uncertain by what chance) some volumes were missing from the body of the work, he attempted to fulfill what was lacking and to provide a complete connection in the Latin work; indeed, he abbreviated and compressed to half-size this entire body of ten volumes, which the Greek text had extended to nearly forty thousand lines or more. In his preface to the books *De principiis*, he asserts ^C first that, where he found in those books something against what Origen had piously defined elsewhere concerning the Trinity, he had either passed it over as something adulterated by heretics, or had recalled it to a Catholic sense by removing some things and bringing in others from elsewhere; then, where Origen had pronounced certain things more obscurely, he had added what he had read more clearly in his other books, so that the meaning might become clearer, yet he had said nothing of his own, but had only attributed to Origen what was said in other places. "He added," says Jerome (a), "what was not there, asserting that it was discussed by him in other places: which, unless he shows the very places from which he says he translated it, he will not be able to prove." Furthermore, when the holy Doctor had encountered Rufinus’s interpretation, he immediately, as he notes in the same place, observed what Origen had said about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and which Roman ears could not endure, had been changed by the translator for the better; but as for other dogmas regarding the ruin of the angels, the fall of souls, the illusions of the resurrection, the Epicurean world or intermundia, the restitution of all things to an equal state, and many things much worse than these, which it would take long to recount, he had either translated them as he found them in the Greek, or had exaggerated and made them firmer from the notes of Didymus, who is a defender of Origen. Rufinus is therefore mistaken when he says that in translating he said nothing of his own, but that, even if they were said in other places, he nevertheless attributed them to Origen, since, as Jerome attests, he inserted some things from the notes of Didymus into his own interpretation.

^D Truly, besides the fact that the translations of Rufinus do not constitute even a third part of Origen’s works today, the few additions which Rufinus contributed of his own in that work nowhere adulterate the true mind of Origen (unless perhaps you except some passages on the Trinity), but they were inserted with the sole purpose of making those things better explained. Origen is recognized everywhere, and there is scarcely anything to be found which, when compared with other passages existing in the Greek works, does not show that it is either Origen’s or written according to Origen’s mind. Add to this that, from two chapters of the books *De principiis* of which we even now have the Greek archetype, it is clear that if Rufinus’s interpretation is not to be held as accurate, it at least certainly cannot be rejected as alien to Origen’s mind.

Since, therefore, it has been established that Origen’s erudition was exceptional, and it cannot be proven that heretics laid treacherous hands on the rest of his writings, no one, I think, will deny that an edition is useful, and even necessary, in which the relics of such a great writer, dispersed here and there, are collected into a single body as it were, the genuine are separated from the spurious, the Greek is shown whenever it is available, and finally, everything is reviewed according to the faith of ancient manuscripts. A collection of his works into a single body was indeed attempted twice: the more minor one, which Jacobus Merlinus, a doctor of Royal Navarre, adorned and brought to light in the year 1512; and the other, far more comprehensive, which another Parisian doctor of theology, Gilbertus Genebrardus, brought into the public domain in the year 1574. But because those editions were not complete in their numbers, and the Greek was missing in them, it was therefore decreed in the general assemblies of the Gallican clergy, which were held in Paris in the year 1635 and subsequently in 1636, that Origen’s Works should be printed again in Greek and Latin, more accurately and more fully than before. The decree of the prelates of the Gallican Church is extant in the Acts of those assemblies dated the 21st of January in the year 1656. On Monday, the 21st of January, at eight o’clock in the morning, the Most Reverend Archbishop of Arles presiding. The Most Reverend Archbishop of Toulouse reported,

and said that he and the Bishop of Seez had, according to the intention of the Assembly, conferred together and taken the advice of several doctors regarding the choice of books by the Greek Fathers which it would be most appropriate to have printed. They had judged that the works of Saint John Damascene, of Origen, of Maximus, and of Ephrem the Syrian were the most necessary among those of all the ancients to serve for the decision of controversies of Religion, which nevertheless had not been printed until now in their original language; indeed, that most of their works had not been printed at all, which are to be found in various libraries; and that for this reason it would be necessary to choose some person well versed in the Greek language who would take charge of this; to which the Bishop of Seez added that one could pray the Bishop of Toulouse to take Sieur Aubert, a doctor of the Sorbonne, for one of the two [positions]; that the company had previously asked him to choose someone to work on Canon law and on Ecclesiastical history, and to give him the care of this printing, so as not to charge the State with greater expense.

The said report having been concerted and deliberated upon, the said bishops of Toulouse and Seez were asked to treat with some printers who would offer the most advantageous condition; and by lending them the sum of eight thousand livres, which is in the hands of Cramoisy, to bind them to the printing of the said Authors and of others that they shall judge necessary; in which treaty they shall cause Sieur Vitré, printer to the Clergy, to enter by preference. And furthermore the company desired that the said Sieur Aubert be employed regarding the aforementioned printing; and for this it has ordered that he be placed on the list of gratuities, along with the other whom the Bishop of Toulouse shall name for Canon law.

The president of the assembly ^A was the most illustrious Archbishop of Arles, Joannes Joubert de Barrault; the Archbishop of Toulouse who is named in the decree, Carolus de Monchal, a man of most extraordinary erudition and most studious of literature; finally, the Bishop of Seez, Jacobus le Camus de Pontcarré, a man likewise most refined in elegant learning. But Aubert, who, having omitted Damascene and Origen, had intended to publish Ephrem the Syrian, edited neither Ephrem the Syrian, nor Origen, nor Damascene.

Afterwards, the most learned man Daniel Huet proposed to himself another edition of Origen, which would comprise only those works or fragments which have come down to us in Greek; but after he had published at Rouen in the year 1668 two folio volumes of certain ^B commentaries (¿{ŋŋtixà) upon the holy scriptures, both those already edited and those not yet edited, he suddenly desisted from his undertaking, nor did he take care to have other Origenist *Syntagmata*, which are contained in the first volume of this my edition, sent to the press (as he had promised he would do in *Origeniana* lib. III, sect. 2, num. 7). Add to this that in his two volumes, in which are contained the commentaries upon the holy books in Greek and Latin, many other Greek fragments were omitted, which fully deserved to occupy a place there.

Since matters stood thus, I deemed it worth the effort that, after the Reverend Father Dom Bernard de Montfaucon—to the applause of the learned world—had brought to light the remains of the Origenian Hexapla in two folio volumes, I should undertake a new Graeco-Latin edition, which would encompass the remaining works ^C of such a great author in their proper order, both those whose Greek [original] has perished and only the Latin translation remains, and those which have come down to us in Greek. These either pertain to the interpretation of the sacred books and are called *egētikà* by Huet, or are of a special nature and are named *Syntagmata* by the same. In the first volume of this edition are contained the *Syntagmata*; in the four remaining [volumes are] the exegetical works, at the foot of which—namely, at the end of the last volume—will be placed the *Origeniana* of that most illustrious man, Peter Daniel Huet, where he first describes the life of our Adamantius: thence he discourses upon his erudition and doctrines, which stirred up great troubles in the Church while he lived, and even greater ones after his death; finally, he touches upon and examines his writings, which have vexed the criticism of many. ^D This work earned for its author great, and not unmerited, glory among the learned. Wherefore, I thought it best to desist from establishing once again the life of Origen and discussing his doctrines, lest, as they say, I "act the act," and I deemed it sufficient for my reader if, as often as valid moments of reasoning lead me away from embracing the opinion of the most illustrious prelate, I show them in the manner of notes and observations at the bottom of every page. For thus it will be that, by one glance of the eyes, it can be easily perceived what is brought forward on both sides to accuse or defend Origen. Now, if anyone should ask me why I preferred to relegate these *Origeniana* to the end of the whole work, rather than to place them at the front of the first volume, let him know that it was done for two reasons. 1. Because, for one wishing to include all of Origen’s works which are of a special nature, that is, the *Syntagmata*, in one volume, the first volume would have grown into a more extensive and altogether unnatural bulk, if it had additionally possessed the *Origeniana* prefixed to it. 2. Because, since five folio volumes are not wont to come out from the press all at once in one, two, or three years, but Parisian printers generally spend a decade in publishing them, I did not imprudently hope that, in such an interval of time, new light might come to me day by day for the review of the *Origeniana*, nor, as is wont to happen to the editors of other multi-volume works, would I be forced to correct my observations on the earlier volumes in the last volume and sing a palinode. You have, benevolent reader, the prospectus of this entire edition. What we have accomplished particularly in this first volume must now be stated.

Of the remains of the epistles of Origen, and especially of the epistle of Africanus to Origen and the response of Origen to Africanus concerning the history of Susanna. Whence the remains of the epistles of Origen originated

^A a general admonition placed at the front of the Syntagmata teaches, wherein only those things are omitted which pertain to the various editions of the epistles of Africanus and Origen. The Spaniard Leo Castrius first edited both, but only in Latin, and appended them to his commentaries on the prophet Isaiah, published at Salamanca in 1570. Subsequently, Gilbert Genebrard included both in the second volume of his edition in 1574, translated from a manuscript codex belonging to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto by Gentien Hervet of Orléans, a canon of Reims. Later, the epistle of Africanus to Origen, complete with the beginning of Origen's response to Africanus, was published in Greek only at Augsburg in 1602, under the care of David Hoeschel, following the *Isagoge* of Hadrian on the Holy Scriptures and the *Stichiron* on Isaiah and the twelve prophets by Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem. Patrick Young published a second fragment of Origen's response to Africanus in Greek at London in 1637, after the *Catena* of the Greek Fathers on Job. Finally, in 1674 at Basel, Joannes Rodolphus Wetstein, professor of oratory in the academy of the same city, published both epistles together in Greek and Latin, along with the *Dialogue against the Marcionites* and Origen's *Exhortation to Martyrdom*. However, his edition seems to suffer primarily from three defects: 1° that it usually follows a faulty manuscript codex; 2° that the Latin translation placed opposite the Greek text most often smacks of barbarism; 3° that it attempts to elevate almost all of Origen's arguments, by which objections made by Africanus against the history of Susanna are refuted, with notes that are prolix and laden with useless erudition. Our edition presents the Greek text purged of countless errors with the help of manuscripts, and opposite it a Latin translation, which I hope will appear less barbarous and less rough. Those notes of Wetstein which do not depart from the Catholic faith we have deemed fit to represent in their proper place at the bottom of each page; the rest, however, being too prolix and abnormative to the Catholic faith, you will find refuted in our observations on the second book of Huet’s *Origeniana*. Finally, a warning is prefixed to the front of each epistle, by which the sincerity of both is asserted.

Concerning the fragments of the books *On Resurrection*, and concerning the fragments of the books which are inscribed *Stromata*

The epistles of Origen to Africanus concerning the history of Susanna are followed by the surviving remains of the books *On Resurrection* and the books of the *Stromata*. A very brief note appended to each fragment teaches whence we brought them into this edition. Only this needs to be warned here: that it does not seem certain to me that all things presented in the fifth fragment *On Resurrection* as if they were the words of Origen, truly are Origen's. For perhaps Jerome fashioned him speaking in this way, as Huet conjectures in the second book of the *Origeniana*, quest. 9, no. 7.

Concerning the books *On Principles* (Περὶ ἀρχῶν)

The four books *On Principles* (Περὶ ἀρχῶν) were first brought to the press in Latin only by Jacques Merlin in 1512, with Rufinus as translator (for the greater part of the Greek text had long since perished), together with the rest of the remains of Origen’s works that he had found in Latin. But it seems little care was given by that good doctor to that adjuration of Rufinus by which, at the end of his prologue, he testifies to everyone who is about to copy or read these books in the sight of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and agrees by the faith of the future kingdom, by the sacrament of the resurrection from the dead, and by [the punishment of] the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, that one should not add anything to the scripture, nor take away, nor insert, nor change, but should collate it with the exemplars from which he has written, and correct it to the letter, and distinguish it, and not hold an uncorrected or undistinguished codex, lest the difficulty of the meaning, if the codex is not distinguished, should generate greater obscurities for the readers. Indeed, Merlin, not being well practiced in the reading of ancient manuscripts, fell, as I conjecture, into a single Sorbonne codex—accurate, indeed, but so implicated with frequent abbreviations that he was stuck at almost every word; he guessed rather than read, and by guessing, very often thrust forth absurd and ridiculous readings in place of genuine ones. Thus, very often he reads *Deus* (God) where the manuscript codex has *dicitur* (it is said), and he wrote down *Hebræis* (to the Hebrews) where one ought to read *habebis* (you will have); and vice versa, he says *dicitur* and *habebis* where one ought to read *Deus* and *Hebræis*. I would be long-winded if I were to enumerate here the other hallucinations of Merlin. Anyone who reads our notes placed at the bottom of each page will easily detect them all. Furthermore, what happened to the ancient amanuenses—that where the manuscript codex which they were copying offered a double period, they, deceived by an error of the eyes, often omitted one—that also happened to him who copied the Sorbonne codex; but afterwards, comparing what he had described with the exemplar from which he had written, he added in the margin everything he had omitted, but in such a small character that Merlin was unable to read them. Wherefore, there are innumerable places in his edition the obscurity of which would be insurmountable even for Oedipus himself. Nor did Genebrard apply a healing hand, whose edition of 1574 does not depart a hair's breadth from the Merlinian, if only you except the new typographical errors and a new Latin translation which he instituted at the beginning of the third and fourth books, having neglected that of Rufinus. Finally, the remains of the Greek text—which the *Philocalia*, the epistle of Emperor Justinian to Menas, and Marcellus of Ancyra found in Eusebius, in part provide—are missing in both editions, as are a few fragments of the Hieronymian translation. To remedy so many defects, we have diligently corrected the Rufinian translation to the standard of six most ancient manuscripts, and as often as a particle of the Greek text or of the Hieronymian translation presented itself, we have placed it opposite.

^A For the most distinguished lord John Walker, an English presbyter, a man most skilled in Greek and well-exercised in reading even the most difficult Greek manuscripts, did at my request once more carefully collate the Cambridge codex with the Oxford edition; and insofar as he discovered it to differ, we have noted this on every page, where there also exist the conjectures of another most learned Englishman, Richard Bentley, by which he happily restored to health almost all the passages that required a medical hand. Furthermore, from number 31 to the very end of the work, we have obtained the Colbertine manuscript codex 3607, now a royal one, in which is the most extensive fragment of this little book, by which many passages of the Oxford edition are amended, and the Bentleian conjectures in it are confirmed.

For the Greek discourse, in which our most learned friends have been so diligent and assiduous, we have added a Latin translation far more accurate and elegant than the Oxford one. It had been prepared long since by Claude Fleury, the most celebrated writer of ecclesiastical history, for the use of the most illustrious Huet, in whose papers it even now survives in manuscript; and the Reverend Father Louis de Tournemine, of the Society of Jesus and an ornament to the republic of letters, voluntarily and most kindly shared it with me. Finally, to the front of the entire work, a short notice is prefixed, in which it is shown by valid arguments that this little book is attributed to Origen; it is explained who Ambrose and Tatiana were, at whose exhortation it was written; and the time when it was written is investigated.

Moreover, about two years after this little book had left the Vincentian presses—having been thus reviewed and amended by us to the best of our ability—there appeared at London in the year 1728 another Greek-Latin edition of the same work, through the labors of William Reading, A.M., librarian of the London clergy in Sion College; he subjoined to it the notes of a certain learned but anonymous Englishman, partly critical and partly exegetical of difficult passages.

On the book *On Prayer*

On the *Exhortation to Martyrdom*

The Reverend Father Ludovicus De Tournemine, in whose possession it remains, kindly shared it with me for the purpose of transcribing it.

Of the Eight Books Against Celsus

The first edition of these golden books appeared in Latin only at Rome in the year 1481, dedicated to the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV by the translator Christophorus Persona, a Roman and Prior of Saint Balbina, as is evident from the words found at the end of the edition: *The end of Origen against Celsus: which Christophorus Persona, a Roman, Prior of Saint Balbina of the City, most skilled in Latin and Greek, translated from the Greek with fidelity and corrected. Master Georgius Herolt of Bamberg printed it at Rome in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation one thousand four hundred and eighty-one, in the tenth year of the reign of the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV.* At the beginning, furthermore, there exists an excellent letter from Theodorus Gazinus (who is commonly called Theodorus Gaza), a Constantinopolitan, to Persona, which, because it may be considered practically unpublished due to the extreme rarity of this edition, will perhaps not be unpleasant for the reader if it is presented here: *Theodorus Gazinus, a Constantinopolitan, to Christophorus Persona, greetings. When, in these past days, I was, as I often am, passing my time with Latin men who appeared to know something of Greek, and furthermore with Greek authors who could be translated into Latin with no small praise, you in particular presented yourself to me, as if one who from early adolescence had so imbibed the Greek classics—and, which helped most of all, in Greece itself and from Greek teachers—that, if I did not know you to be a Roman citizen and did not know your kinsmen, the primary men of the City, I could easily say you were born in Greece; for even your very Greek pronunciation marks you out as a Greek. Why all this? Behold the not few sermons of Chrysostom that you have rendered into Latin from the Greek, and several declamations of Libanius, as preludes to greater things. Shortly afterward I saw your Athanasius, whose translation so delighted me that from that time I arrived at the good hope that you could translate Origen against Celsus. Because this book is most elegant, and was written in defense of the Christian faith, Pope Nicholas, who was most desirous of new works and especially of Greek ones, sent to Constantinople at my urging, that one might be brought to him. Soon after it was brought, he gave it to me and said that he was willing to grant any reward to whoever would render it into Latin. And I myself would have undertaken the task willingly, had I not been preoccupied at that time by another grave translation. That book therefore remains intact in the pontifical library, and, as I think, reserved for you, so that you might translate it into Latin with that dignity which it possesses in Greek, or at least as close to it as possible; and I hope that, given your singular skill in both languages, you will win no less praise in translating this than the author himself earned in writing it. But you will say that those rewards which you recount Pope Nicholas offered are not now available, nor are the princes such as to follow in his footsteps. Why then should I expend so much labor? ^A I, for my part, dare to confirm that there are no such princes now as existed heretofore, nor are there such rewards for labors and virtues. But what prince is so ungenerous, or so ungrateful, that when you present him with this book translated for him, he would not reward you with gifts worthy of a prince and with great honors? Therefore undertake the task, and apply yourself continuously to complete it with dignity. Act like a Roman man, and with a great spirit overcome all difficulties. This is, I confess, a difficult thing to translate, but you will win the more praise the more difficult one you are seen to have tackled. Farewell.*

Led by these incentives, Christophorus Persona translated the eight books against Celsus into Latin and dedicated them to the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV with a letter which, indeed, would have deserved a place here had it not been too long. It begins thus: *To the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV, Christophorus Persona, Prior of Saint Balbina. I have often observed, most blessed Father, that those men of old and of excellent talent, etc.* ^B But whether because the munificence of Sixtus IV did not answer his desires, or for some other reason, he craftily and cunningly removed this letter from his aforementioned edition and substituted another, written in the name of Giovanni Mocenigo, Prince of the Venetians, which begins thus: *To Giovanni Mocenigo, most illustrious Prince of the Venetians, and to the whole renowned and prudent senate, Christophorus Persona, a Roman. Although almost all of us ^C seem to undertake noble deeds, etc.*

To return to the interpretation itself: Persona seems not to have consulted his reputation well for some time when he neglected to commit the Greek of Origen to print, according to the custom of those times. For after it was made public, it is incredible to dictate how great an ignorance of the Greek language, what small diligence in investigating the meanings, what obtuse acumen, and what light and feeble fidelity the learned discovered in this interpreter—whom Theodorus Gazinus had valued so highly. Nevertheless, whatever this interpretation was, Merlin clutched at it greedily and decided it should be inserted in its entirety into his edition of the works of Origen in the year 1512. Finally, in the year 1605, at Augsburg, from the libraries of the Elector Palatine, the Bavarian, and the Augustan, the eight books against Celsus appeared in Greek and Latin, translated by Sigismund Geslenius, with notes by David Hoeschelius. William Spencer, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, published them again in Greek with the addition of the same Geslenius's Latin interpretation at Cambridge in the year 1658, and he also added most learned annotations at the end of the work. This edition was reprinted at Cambridge in the year 1677. Yet it would have been desirable that, as much care as Spencer took to illustrate with most learned notes nearly countless passages—which pertain either to history, or to the peculiar dogmas of Origen, or to the discipline of the earlier centuries, or to ancient philosophy—he had applied as much diligence ^D to the correction of the Greek text.

^A He had followed the Greek text, as David Hoeschel’s edition provided it, entirely, if a few passages are excepted where he introduced into the Greek series certain variant readings that Hoeschel had relegated to the margins as being better. Countless other things that required a medical hand he left untouched, without proposing even the slightest conjecture by which they might at least be recalled to a more convenient sense. He notes in the preface that he had not been able to procure any of those things that others were accustomed to have as an aid, although he had been very concerned about acquiring them. There were, he says, two manuscript codices available to Hoeschel, which he had taken from the libraries of the Elector Palatine, the Bavarian, and the Augustan. I have used these printed ones alone. But what prevented him from approaching the Oxford library, either in person or through friends? There he could certainly have found three other manuscript codices, and would not have complained that he had to prepare editions of books in total lack of all aids and manuscripts. Be that as it may, I myself have not experienced such a lack of manuscript codices, inasmuch as not only have various readings drawn from eight manuscripts been a great help to me, but so too have the notes and conjectures, both of the erudite Jesuit Franciscus Guiet, which the Reverend Father Ludovicus de Tournemine has in his possession, and other far more numerous ones which Elias Boherellus proposed to the learned world at the end of his excellent French translation of the books against Celsus, published at Amsterdam in the year 1700.

^B The Greek archetype having been restored to a better state with so many and such aids, it was debated for a long time whether Sigismund Geslenius’s Latin translation should be kept, or a new one produced. The praises with which that industrious translator is adorned by the most learned men argued that the Geslenian version should be kept. "Thus," says Caelius Secundus Curio (in his preface to Appian of Alexandria), "he left to us seven, and those most noble, writers translated from the Greek; and translated in such a way that you would find either no one, or very few, who have performed with greater praise in this arena." That is indeed a great encomium, but one which Henricus Valesius does not judge him unworthy of (in his preface to Ammianus Marcellinus), where he speaks ^C thus concerning Mariangelus Accursius and Sigismund Geslenius: "There was in both of these men great learning, as the writings of both testify. But there was a certain greater power of intellect and sharper judgment in Geslenius." That this is true is testified to by many of that man’s excellent labors, and most especially the Latin translations of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appian, Philo, as well as Josephus, Origen, and others. From which it appears that he was endowed with excellent intellect and singular learning. The most illustrious Huetius approaches the matter more closely in his book *On Famous Translators*, page 225. "Among them," he says, "is counted Sigismund Geslenius, a Bohemian, than whom hardly anyone has enriched this art with more monuments. He is considered eloquent above all, and elegant; bold in condensing many periods into one or disentangling them, he does not always render these according to his whim, and he rewrites them as he pleases." Trusting, therefore, in the name of so great a man, I had thought that his translation could be retained ^D with some changes and amendments in places whose sense he had less happily grasped. But when it came to the amendment of these places, and it was discovered that there was hardly a page where he did not depart once or oftener from the true sense of Origen, I immediately understood that a new translation could be prepared more easily than the old one amended. Add to this that correcting the translation of others, as it is troublesome in itself and difficult, so it also seemed odious. For to each is owed his own praise and his own honor by us, whose labor they attempted to lighten and reduce by their own. Hence, the work of each translator should rather be praised by us than interpolated, especially if the interpolations are to be frequent. I was revolving these things in my mind when, behold, my old friend, Dom Vincent Thuillier, with whom I had shared my corrections of the Greek text, suddenly offered a new Latin translation, which he had undertaken both for the sake of testing his own powers and for the sake of obliging me. I immediately read it eagerly and maturely weighed each part against the fidelity of the Greek; and since three things are required above all in a translation—that it be faithful, elegant, and perspicuous—I discovered with great pleasure of mind that none of these gifts were lacking in his writing. He does not slavishly adhere to the words but faithfully expresses the sense, and renders it in such a way that, although sometimes in a different order, he never, or at the very least very rarely, says more or fewer things than Origen. Where the period is longer in the Greek, he cuts it into several, unless the connection of the discourse prohibits it from being done otherwise: which often happens. For Origen’s fertile genius gathers ideas everywhere, so that in words that seem redundant there is contained an immense richness of substance. This would have presented an insuperable difficulty to the translator Thuillier, had he not overcome all things by that excellent sagacity of intellect with which he is endowed, the highest mastery of both the Greek and Latin languages, and that by which he burned: the desire to lighten the labor of an old friend.

Following the translation are the notes, some of which exhibit variant readings of manuscript codices, while others elucidate ancient history and philosophy, occasionally dogmas, and the ancient discipline of the Church. The greater part of these is owed to William Spencer, who, since he only brought forward the testimonies of Greek writers in Greek, we have added a Latin translation so as not to cause trouble for readers unskilled in Greek, who previously had to recur to the individual authors from whom those passages were transcribed in order to have their translation. Furthermore, we have cut out some of Spencer’s notes, as they taught nothing that is not more fully treated in Huet’s *Origeniana*. Finally, prefixed to the front of the whole work is a notice teaching at what time Celsus lived, what he wrote, and to which sect of philosophers he attached himself, with whom...

^A Origen has to deal; at what time the eight books of Origen against him were written; with what great praises that excellent Apology for the Christian religion is adorned, both by the ancients and by the moderns.

Of the works falsely attributed to Origen, and first of the Dialogue against the Marcionites, or On the right faith in God.

Following the genuine writings of Origen are a few spurious ones, namely the dialogue On the right faith in God, or, as it is read in other copies, Against the Marcionites; and the *Philosophumena*, or book On the Opinions of the Philosophers. Johann Rudolf Wetstein first published the dialogue in Greek and Latin together at Basel in the year 1674; in his preface to the reader, he sets forth all the arguments to attribute it to Origen himself, but with efforts entirely in vain, as is evident from the note which we have prefixed to the front of this little work, where we have omitted that one point, namely, that the style differs from the Origenian style in every respect, and teems with innumerable Greek words which you would seek in vain in the other Greek works of Origen, and which smack of a Greek man far more recent than Origen. Wetstein published this little book in Greek from a single manuscript codex; we have compared it with the reliability of four others, and have corrected various errors with which the Wetstein codex was tainted. Before Wetstein’s Greco-Latin edition, three others had been brought to light, but in Latin only. The first was that of Picus, a most learned senator of Paris, which he presented to Henry II, King of the Gauls, in the year 1555, although the title of the edition bears the following year, 1556. At the same time in Basel, Laurence Humphrey, an Englishman, was preparing another at the house of Hieronymus Froben, as these words of his testify: "I translated from Greek into Latin two Dialogues Against the Marcionites a year and a half ago from a manuscript Froben codex, rendering the sense, not the words, and appending rather than numbering, taking care everywhere that nothing rendered from the Greek should be perverted or destroyed in translation." This he did on the sixth day of August in the year 1557. His interpretation, however, was added to the works of Origen published at Basel in the year 1571. The third was produced by Joachim Perionius, a Benedictine of Cormery, which Gilbert Genebrard included in the first volume of his edition in the year 1574. Those three interpreters used Greek codices that were very diverse; and that Humphrey used a more sincere and fuller copy than either Picus or Perionius is evident to anyone from a comparison; and this has already been observed by André Rivet in his *Critica sacra*, lib. II, cap. 15, and by Philippe Labbé, *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, tom. II, p. 145. Nevertheless, to Johann Rudolf Wetstein it seemed that Humphrey was acting more as a paraphraser than an interpreter, and not infrequently inserted certain things so that he might attain the meaning in some way or another. Wherefore, since his interpretation is for the most part more verbose than what could be equaled by the Greek original, Wetstein was compelled to condense it and rewrite it in many places; which ^B turned out much more limited to the Greek words and in many places much clearer. In many places we have followed the corrected version of Perionius, since his appeared clearer and more elegant than the other two. We have placed Wetstein’s notes at the end of the pages, having removed only those which either contain nothing more than what had already been observed by Spencer regarding the books against Celsus, or which are more openly opposed to the Catholic faith and have been refuted in the Origenian writings of Huet.

Of the Philosophumena (a).

The *Philosophumena*, or book On the Opinions of the Philosophers, was first published in Greek and Latin from a codex of the Medici library and illustrated with some notes by the most illustrious man Jacob Gronovius in his *Thesaurus antiquitatum*, tom. X, where he argues that this little book is a genuine work of Origen, though with arguments so weak that Johann Christoph Wolf rightfully and deservedly judged it entirely unworthy of such a man. He draws his first point from the fact that the Medici manuscript codex bears the name of Origen, from whose authority, he says, one should not rashly depart. But who does not know, replies Wolf, that that sort of fraud and trickery was once most familiar to booksellers, to inscribe a certain book with such a name in order that its splendor might bring honor and price to the work itself? It is particularly established that under the name of Origen so many forged writings are circulated that Huet, in the third book of his Origeniana, in a special section, was able to present no small quantity of them. And the reason for this matter is at hand. For such was the persuasion regarding the erudition of Origen among the ancients that there was no cause for doubt among booksellers but that books inscribed with his name would find ready buyers. From this it is concluded that this particular argument of Gronovius for the authority of the little book is of small or no importance, unless other arguments of greater weight are added. The second argument of Gronovius seems equally weak, as it is taken from the condition of the manuscript codex. For that one, he says, although it is of paper, is yet clearly more precious than gold in every respect, as it is the only one in which there is a most emended copy of Arrian's *Anabasis of Alexander the Great*, written by the same hand, and from which we once published those excellent supplements of that writer, to which there exists therefore no equal or comparable copy. Moreover, this is the very same codex in which the most learned commentary of Hierocles on the golden verses of Pythagoras is exhibited so intact and inviolate that from no other source can it be gathered as well as from this volume how much the blemished codices used by our printers for multiplying copies were surpassed, so that its scribe was also an entirely most learned man and one who had procured the most faithful copies for his library: to which at the very end he added this fragment of Origen, which for a man to denounce by the name of false and spurious, and hence to disparage such a learned hand as insignificant, is the act of none other than one who looks upon the best and most excellent things as trifles.

^A Indeed, all this argumentation of Gronovius amounts to this: that he attempts to prove that this work is wrongly accused of being spurious, from the lack of other similar manuscripts and from the singular diligence and erudition with which the Medicean exemplar was transcribed. But the rarity of manuscripts similar to this is not as great as he has imagined for himself, since three other manuscripts of this work exist, two in Rome and one in Turin. Furthermore, what kind of reasoning is this: "The manuscript is rare, and practically unique, which bears the name of Origen; therefore, it is not supposititious to Origen"? Restrain your laughter, friends. The same must be said, says Wolf, concerning the singular erudition of the scribe which he praises. For what does this contribute to the matter? Let us grant that that amanuensis was most learned and even to be compared with Aristarchus; who will guarantee that he conducted an examination of the book and did not rather deliberately neglect it, or, if he did notice a fraud, did not refrain from exposing it to others in order to sell his wares more dearly, or, when he congratulated himself on the possession of that little work, did not indulge too much in a preconceived opinion about its being by Origen? To this point, that weak argument—by which it seems to be argued that this little book is Origen’s because in the same codex it is joined with other works which without controversy bear the names of their authors—is feeble. As if, indeed, so many other collections of manuscripts, which mingle genuine and spurious monuments by writers, did not cut through the nerve of this deduction.

The third argument of Gronovius is drawn from the style and manner of speaking found in the booklet. Clever indeed, if the individual passages he has adduced for this purpose were not so ordered that they could have proceeded no less from any other person than from Origen. For the consistency of style is not to be judged from words or phrases that are received and worn out by the common use of all writers, but either from the series of entire sentences or at least from words which appear to be clearly proper to that author and not equally familiar to anyone else. Hence, it benefits Gronovius little that he observes that the true Origen uses these words: ^B *ἀσυστάτοις δόγμασι* (unstable dogmas) and *ἀσύστατον πρᾶγμα* (unstable thing); and the author of the *Philosophoumena*, ^C *ἀσεβέστατα τῶν δογμάτων* (most impious of dogmas) and *ἀσύστατον πρᾶγμα*. For, first of all, *ἀσεβέστατα τῶν δογμάτων* does not correspond to *ἀσυστάτοις δόγμασι*. Then, the true Origen certainly did say *ἀσύστατον πρᾶγμα*, but another was permitted to say the same thing. For when the matter concerns the dogmas of the pagans, that word is so proper to this subject, and so familiar to ecclesiastical writers, that not even Lactantius (in Book II of the *Divine Institutes*) was afraid to express it in Latin, when he called the argument "asystatum" (unstable).

The same judgment must be rendered concerning the word *ἐκτίθεσθαι*, which Gronovius brings forth from another passage of Origen. For that is so far from being proper to Origen that it is generally not used (by him) concerning the exposition of dogmas. Laertius uses this word quite frequently, not only in the *Parmenides*, but also in other places, to say nothing of others whose passages have been collected by lexicographers—among whom Budé brings forward three examples in total from Justin Martyr, where this word ^C is used with the same meaning. The same lexicographers will show that *τὸ κοινωνεῖν τινι* (to have communion with something) is so far from being Origenian that it is not standard even among the best writers of Greece, regarding whose passages we would be wasting time without reason.

The fourth passage of the author of the *Philosophoumena* exists where he treats of Plato, by whom he says matter is called *ἀσχημάτιστον καὶ ἄποιον* (formless and qualityless). Gronovius brings forward two (passages) from the books *Against Celsus* for this place; in the former of these, matter is called *ἄποιος*, and in the latter, *ἄποιος καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος*. All writers of the history of philosophy discuss the same matter in the same way for the same reason. But neither Origen nor the author of the *Philosophoumena* could have used other words if both wished, as they should, to express the opinion of Plato using the proper Platonic terms. For they properly and habitually called matter *ὕλην ἄποιον*, which Origen himself warns is so called *ἰδίῳ λόγῳ* (in a technical sense). Thus also Laertius, following Plato’s thought (in Book III, 69), says that matter is *ἀσχημάτιστον καὶ ἄποιον*, if Menage’s emendation holds. No greater weight should be given to the passage existing in the same place, where the word *μετενσωμάτωσις* (re-embodiment) is found, which Gronovius notes also occurs in Origen, Book IV *Against Celsus*. For that word too is not peculiar to Origen, since Plato himself uses it in Book X of the *Laws*, and Epiphanius also uses the same word in Book I of the *Panarion*, Prooemium 5, to express a similar opinion of the Stoics. Indeed, this word seemed so apt and convenient to Hermias for this argument that he was not afraid to form the verb *ἐνσωματεῖν* from it as a new example, as in § 4, where he says: "But some re-embody (namely, the soul) three times; others limit its periods to three thousand years," etc.

Gronovius seems to rely more than on others on the passage existing in Aristotle, where the verb *ἐπιδιαμένειν* (to persist or survive) occurs, which he attempts to prove is entirely Origen’s by three passages from his books *Against Celsus*, to which he could have added another from his commentary *On Matthew*: "The Sadducees, however, saying that there is no resurrection of the flesh, were rejecting it, but were also extravagantly removing not only the immortality of the soul, but also *ἐπιδιαμονήν* (its persistence), thinking that the life of the soul after these things is by no means signified in the writings of Moses." But these things do not stand against our asserting that the same word had been or could have been used by others. For what will become of Laertius, VII, 157, who likewise used this word when he was warning that this was the opinion of Cleanthes in these words: "Cleanthes, however, [says] that all persist until the conflagration." What of Marcus Antoninus, who in his books *To Himself*, Book IV, § 21, uses not only the verb *διαμένει* concerning souls, but also the word *διαμονή*? Indeed, countless others, on the same subject, use the verb *ἐπιδιαμένειν* with Numenius, or *παραμένειν* with Tzetzes, or *ἐνδιαμένειν* with Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Book VIII. And they cannot do otherwise at all, since there were three principal opinions among the ancients concerning the state of the soul after death: some denied it was immortal, some asserted it, and others, walking a middle path, defined for it only a certain time, until it should be...

perishes. The latter opinion was especially pleasing to the Stoics, regarding whom one may see Gataker on Antoninus in the place cited above, and Menage in the place likewise cited above. Hence, the ancient writers just mentioned, and Origen himself as well, anxiously distinguish immortality from the state of the soul after death. Although Gronovius, in the words that follow in the same place, recognizes a similarity when it is compared with another passage of Origen, it is not clear, unless perhaps he considers it to consist in the convenience of the relationship. Indeed, one might recognize it in other writers, and perhaps to a greater degree, when those words are observed in them which approach more closely to the discourse of the author of the *Philosophumena*. See Laertius, V, 33, and Ammonius in his *Life of Aristotle*. Nor does the passage concerning the Stoics carry more weight coming from Gronovius, who testifies that they said God was a body: for although Origen, in other two places cited by Gronovius, says that the God of the Stoics is a body, and hints at the same Stoic opinion in a third place, Origen could not have done this alone, since the tenets of the Stoics, who indicated this universe by the name of God, commanded everyone to speak in such a way. Nor in reality has Origen spoken thus alone; for Clement of Alexandria says in *Stromata*, book I, p. 295, Cologne edition: "They do not speak correctly who say that God is a body, having been generated through the most base matter." And in book V: "The Stoics say that God is a body and breath according to essence, just as, indeed, is the soul," to omit others in great number praised by them, who explained the dogmas of the Stoics more fully. Finally, in the last place concerning the gods of Epicurus born from atoms, to which Gronovius thinks he finds a likeness from book I *Against Celsus*, nothing similar is found, except that the same thing is reported from the mind of Epicurus concerning the origin of such gods. But who is there who would not have said or thought the same thing about the gods of Epicurus? And these are the arguments by which the most illustrious man Johann Christoph Wolf learnedly puffs away all the little reasonings which impelled Gronovius, a man otherwise most learned, to stubbornly attribute the *Philosophumena* to Origen.

After the Gronovian edition, there appeared at Hamburg in the year 1706 another edition, with Greek and Latin text, by the care and study of the aforementioned Wolf, who illustrated the whole work with most learned notes, and prefixed a preface in which he showed that the writer of the book is uncertain, and consequently that neither the opinions nor the conjectures of Huet, Gale, or Gronovius rest upon firm arguments of fact. Some years later, he again amended his own edition, having collated it anew from the Medicean manuscript itself and another from Turin, illustrated it with new notes, and added a dissertation in which he argues against Christoph August Heumann that Didymus of Alexandria is not the author of this writing. The main and irrefutable argument, by which he demonstrates that neither Origen, nor Aetius, nor Didymus of Alexandria is the parent of this little book, he draws from the fact that the author of the *Philosophumena*, on p. 876 of our edition, openly declares himself to be a bishop: a dignity which it is agreed neither Origen, nor Aetius, nor Didymus ever attained. ^A Since however Epiphanius was a bishop and wrote a book on heresies, Huet thought a conjecture could be drawn from that source, that this work should be referred to him. But what, says Wolf, is this logic of consequence: Epiphanius was a bishop and wrote a book on heresies, therefore he is to be called the author of this little book! As if, indeed, it could not also be said of others that they were both bishops and had written on heresies. Nay, continues Wolf, that very work on heresies which Epiphanius titled the *Panarion* seems to provide arguments not to be despised which overturn the Huetian opinion. For in that work, Vol. I, p. 1086 et seq., there is a brief and synoptic review of the sects of ancient philosophy up to page 1091, which, however, differs from our present one in every respect, ^B as it is both fuller if you count the number of philosophers whose dogmas it commemorates, and more imperfect if you consider the reasoning of the dogmas themselves. For the author of the *Philosophumena* seems to have labored chiefly for this, to enumerate the various opinions concerning the principles of things, whereas in the Epiphanian collection there is mention of no one whose other opinions are not recorded besides. Furthermore, Epiphanius does not seem to have acted with the same purpose in different places, since in the place cited he not only gave a full designation of the sects, but thereafter, with a more accurate style, generally derived the opinions of individual heretics from the lacunae of the philosophers: that this was also the intention of the author of the *Philosophumena* becomes manifest from his preface. Nor is it an obstacle that the author of the *Philosophumena* professes that he has pursued the same subject more fully elsewhere: for by the force of the words this must be understood concerning the refutation of heresies, from which the present treatise is different at least in this, that it compares the opinions of philosophers and heretics at the same time. Moreover, in several places the author of the *Philosophumena* disagrees with Epiphanius. Thus, in chapter 19, he says that Plato posited the world as unbegotten; but Epiphanius, vol. I, p. 1088, says that in the mind of Plato the world exists as "begotten and perishable." Add book I, heresy 6. Therefore, the author of the *Philosophumena* cannot be considered to be Epiphanius, unless he is said to have shamefully contradicted himself. So far the learned Wolf, whose opinion on this matter we embrace, and whose edition of this little book we have followed in almost all things. ^{C D}

It now remains that, besides the learned men whom I have already commemorated in the course of this preface as the chief supporters and helpers of my studies, I should here call others honorably by name, who furnished me with a copy of the manuscript codices, either by themselves or by others. In the first place, I must name the late most excellent prince of the Church and of the holy Empire, Henri-Charles du Cambout, Duke of Coislin, Peer of France and Bishop of Metz, who, from the distinguished wealth of manuscript codices of every kind which he had deposited in our monastery many years ago, bequeathed them to us in his will, dying eternally mindful of his duty toward...