APPENDIX. DIALOGUE ON THE RIGHT FAITH IN GOD. ADMONITION.
Cardinal Baronius, in the year of Christ 220, § 8, says that certain heretics, having heard of the conversion of Ambrose to the Catholic faith, driven by an evil mind and intent, approached Origen for the purpose of disputation, and having chosen a philosopher who abhorred the Christian religion as judge of their discourse, began to dispute: and that in the end, the victory lay with the entire Catholic Church: from which it happened that many Gentiles and even heretics, with Eutropius as judge, embraced the Christian religion. This, indeed, the most learned man had drawn from the preface prefixed to the little work *On the Right Faith in God*, which is also commonly inscribed *Dialogue against the Marcionites*. But this preface is missing in the Pici manuscript, and it varies in others. Certainly, that which the Basel edition of Origen's works of the year 1571 exhibits in Latin, and the Greek text brought to light by Wetstein in the year 1674, differs far from that which Baronius reports and which you have below in the first note. This is proof that neither proceeds from the author of this Dialogue, but is an added patch, prefixed to the front of the work by later hands at their own discretion. Even if the same were present everywhere, it would not for that reason be of great importance, since many things prove that a work of this kind was falsely ascribed to our Origen and was composed long after his death. 1º In the first section, when Megethius the heretic gathered from the frequent persecutions against Christians that we belong to another god and are alienated from the God of creation, Adamantius responds: A “If you were framing these arguments before these times, it would perhaps have had some reason; and it would also have had an easy resolution. But I think you have brought forward this point at the present time in an inappropriate and unsuitable manner. For now, when the emperor is God-fearing, what do you say? One who held the hearts of those people before this, and was a persecutor, and another God who holds the heart of this man? For He Himself is king in a better way and contrary to those kings. For what they tore down, He rebuilt; whom they hated, He loved; whom they honored with temples and idols, He tore down.” B If indeed you had contained these sophistries within earlier times, they would have been plausible to some extent: they would have also had an easy solution. But I think you have introduced this argument ineptly and with little accommodation to the time. For now, when there is a pious emperor, what then? Do you say that before his age some other god held the hearts of the preceding emperors, and was a persecutor; but another God directs the heart of this one? For he reigns better and in opposition to those emperors. For what they dissipated, he restores; whom they hated, he loves; the shrines and idols which they held in honor, these he subverts. But pray, what emperor in the age of Origen flourished in this way? Certainly none. In vain does Wetstein try to obtrude the emperor Philip. Let it be granted that he was a Christian: a fact which is not without the gravest difficulties, but it is certainly clear that he was never driven by such zeal of piety as to tear down the temples and idols of the gods. Nor does it signify that in the Acts of the holy martyr Pontius, in Bollandus, May 14, page 274, it is read: “At the beginning, however, the temple which they called great, by the order of the emperors (both Philip the father and the son), Fabian the saint and the most blessed Pontius, seizing it and breaking it, utterly destroyed all its carvings together with the temple, so that all the people might run with alacrity and joy to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, bathed in the wave of baptism, bless the Lord: for where the temples of demons were destroyed, there immediately churches would rise up.” Tillemont, vol. III, *History of the Emperors*, note 7 on the persecution of Valerian, takes away all authority from these Acts; and Petavius, in book eleven of *De doctrina temporum*, chap. 25, page 538, specifically calls this passage a ridiculous fable. See also Baronius on the year of Christ 246, page 399. Finally, Wetstein himself, after having heaped up all the testimonies of the ancients by which the Christianity of the emperor Philip is somehow supported, nevertheless frankly confesses that he doubts whether these things satisfy the issue when taken from the *Dialogue against the Marcionites*. Nor do I see any other way, he says, of escaping than if we say those final words, “For what they tore down, He rebuilt,” were added to the text by an interpolator. But truly, this is the refuge of a man whose case is failing. 2º That this Dialogue was written after the first general Council of Nicaea is evidenced by the confession of faith which Adamantius offers shortly after the beginning of the first section in these words: C “I have believed in one God, both Creator and Maker of all things, and in the God the Word from Him, consubstantial, always existing, and in the last times having taken a man from Mary, and this one having been crucified, and having risen from the dead. I believe also in the Holy Spirit, the one who always exists.” D I believe that there is one God, the creator and author of all things, and the God the Word who is from Him, consubstantial, always existing, who in the last times assumed a man from Mary, and was acted upon the cross, and was raised from the dead. I believe also in the Holy Spirit who always existed. Add to this that towards the end of the fifth section he twice calls the most holy Trinity *consubstantial* (ὁμοούσιον), and once *inseparable and consubstantial* (ἀχώριστον καὶ ὁμοούσιον). For who, before the Nicene Council, finds among ecclesiastical writers a profession of faith which asserts the Catholic dogma in such explicit words? Certainly, if these were the words of Origen, why did Pamphilus the martyr omit them in his *Apology* for him? Why did Athanasius, in the book *On the Synods*, where he brings forward three testimonies of Origen concerning the eternity of the Word against the Arians, not use these things taken from the *Dialogue against the Marcionites*? Undoubtedly they were far more luminous than the others, since they usurped the term *consubstantial* (ὁμοούσιον), which the Arians could not bear. 3º None of the ancients, not even Eusebius himself, who omits nothing that pertains to the praise of Origen, makes any mention anywhere of this disputation. Yet it ought to have been most famous, if it was ever undertaken by Origen: for with Eutropius, a pagan man, chosen as judge by both sides, and Origen disputing, the Catholic Church is said to have achieved a signal victory over Megethius, Marcus, and other heretics, as is clear from the last words of the fifth section. But, says Wetstein, this assertion barely holds, since the *Philocalia* expressly makes mention of that disputation, as Basilius Magnus and Gregory the Theologian [state], at the end of chapter 23, otherwise 24: “These things have been excerpted from the sixth book of the *Evangelical Preparation* of Eusebius Pamphili; and they are Maximus’s, as the same Eusebius says, not an obscure writer among the Christians. And these things are said to be written word for word also in the dialogue of Origen against the Marcionites and other heretics, Eutropius judging, and Megethius disputing in opposition.”