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APPENDIX VIIL
Origen on Metempsychosis.
I am indebted to my father for the following note on Origen'a
references to Metempsychosis.
Palladius of Csesareia, who suffered martyrdom A.D. 309, in his
" Apology for Origen," which, with the exception of a few
fragments, only survives in a translation made hy Rufinus of
Aquileia (died A.D. 410), thus explains the position taken up by
the great Alexandrian upon the subject:
"The most recent charge is that of /icrcrffu/iaYucrtc (trans-
" incorporation), that is, the transmutation of souls. To which,
" as we have done with regard to other chaTges, we will reply in
" his own words." He then quotes Origen as saying, But these
" things, so far as we are concerned, are not dogmata but spoken
" of for the sake of discussion, and that they may he rejected,"1
1 E.g. inMigne. Patrol. Graec. xvii. 608, and Routh, Relig. Sacr. iv. 883.
The passage is probably taken from his Do Principiis, i. 8, in Migne, n.s. xL,
Rufinus's translation of which is thus rendered by Dr. Crombie in the Anti-Nicene
Christian Library, x. 70: "We think that those views are by no means to be
"admitted which some are wont unnecessarily to advance and maintain, viz. that
"souls descend to such a pitch of abasement that they forget their rational nature
"and dignity, and sink into the condition of irrational animals, either large or
"Bmall; and in support of these assertions they generally qnote some pretended
"statements of Scripture,such as, that a beast, to which a woman has unnaturally
"prostituted herself, shall be deemed equally guilty with the woman, and shall be
" ordered to be stoned; or that a bull which strikes with its hornB shall be put to
"death in the same way; or even the speaking of Balaam's ass, when God opened
"its month, and the dumb beast of harden, answering with human voice, reproved
"the madness of the prophet. All of which assertions we not only do not receive,
14 but, as being contrary to our belief, we refute and reject." The original Greek |
