Resurrection, another On the Pythoness or Witch of Endor, and a third On Created Things; in all which, as well as in some other pieces, he inveighed against his opinions, and sometimes treated him with angry abuse. In the first, he directed his attacks against such of Origen's notions as may be comprised under the following heads, viz. 1, That mankind will rise from the dead with aerial instead of fleshly bodies; 2, That in the ages of eternity, the saints will become angels; 3, That human souls have existed and sinned in a former state of being; 4, That Adam and Eve were, before their transgression, incorporeal spirits; and 5, that the garden of Eden, so called, was an abode in heaven, belonging to the pre-existent state. The second work, now lost, is said to have been a stricture upon some of Origen's notions concerning the Witch of Endor, and the apparition of Samuel; and the third, of which only a fragment remains, was a refutation of an opinion, attributed perhaps falsely to him, that the world had no beginning, as well as of another, which in some sense he doubtless advanced, that the world existed long before the six days of creation mentioned in Genesis. With these seven or eight particulars, there are some points more trivial which Methodius selected as obnoxious; but in all his search for errors, Universalism escaped without a censure. After these attacks, it

e Du Pin's Biblioth. Pat. Art. Methodius. And Lardner's Credibility &c. Chap. Methodius. And Epiphanii Panarium, Hæres. Ixiv. where most of Methodius On the Resurrection, is preserved. Also, Photii Bibliotheca, Cod. 234, 235. Some have said that Methodius's treatise On Free-will, was against Origen; but it was against the Valentinians.

seems, he grew more favorably disposed towards the object of his late enmity; and at length joined in the general admiration of his talents and virtues f. He was a writer of no great celebrity. While this was transacting in the East, Origen's writings appear to have found a professed admirer in the West: Victorinus, who was probably a Greek by birth and education, but now bishop of Petabium on the Danube in Western Germany, is said to have imitated him in his Commentaries, though he disagreed with him in some of his views, particularly on the Millennium o.

III. In the numerous and influential churches of Alexandria, we discover that the troubles which arose on his expulsion, seventy or eighty years before, had not yet subsided. Among his adversaries, now, was Peter, the bishop; the first, probably, from that class, who had presided there, since the time of Demetrius. About this time, or a little after, Peter publicly opposed the notion of pre-existence, though incidentally, perhaps, and without ascribing it to Origen. But he certainly betrayed his prejudice by unjustly stigmatizing him with the character of a schismatic, merely for having disobeyed his passionate and domineering bishop". There is

Lardner thinks that Methodius was made bishop about A. D. 290, and martyred in the year 311, or 312. It is suspected that his malicious treatment of Origen, was the reason of Eusebius's remarkable omission of his name in his Ecclesiastical History. f Huet. Origenian. Lib. ii. cap. 4, sect. i. § 2, inter Origenis Opera, Edit. Delarue; cum Not. in loco. Hieronymi Epist. xxxvi. ad Vigilant. p. 276, Edit. Martianay. And Cave, Hist. Literaria, Art. Victorinus Petavionensis. h Petrus Alexandrinus apud Justiniani Epist. ad Menam, quoted by Du Pin, Biblioth. Pat. Art. Peter of Alexandria 1. Yet Eusebius mentions Peter with praise.

reason to suspect that the dissentions at Alexandria, never ceased till they at length produced, as we shall hereafter see, two avowed parties, both in the orthodox churches there, and in the monasteries of the Egyptian deserts.

IV. As we are now arrived, however, at the age of two eminent fathers of the Western church, who explicitly stated their opinions of future torments, we shall make a moment's digression in order to avail ourselves of their representations. Arnobius of Sicca, about seventy or eighty miles southwest of Carthage in Africa, wrote his large work Against the Heathens, probably about A. D. 305; in which he asserted that the wicked will, hereafter "be thrown into torrents of fire, amidst "dark caverns and whirlpools, where they shall at length "be annihilated and vanish in perpetual extinction," while the righteous on the other hand, shall reign in life eternal; "for,", says he, "souls are of such a mid"dle nature that they can be exterminated when they "have not the knowledge of the God of life, and can " also be preserved from destruction by taking heed to "his threatenings and his merciesi." So thought Arnobius. But his own scholar, the celebrated Lactantius, who, after going to Asia Minor, wrote his Institutes, perhaps about A. D. 306, asserted the endless misery,

i Arnobius Adversus Gentes, Lib. ii. pp. 52, 53, Edit. Lugduni Bat. 1651. It has been said that this work was written soon after his conversion, while he was only a Catechumen; but Lardner shows, satisfactorily I think, from the book itself, that the author must have been in full communion. See Lardner's Credibility &c. chap. Arnobius. j Cave and Lardner place this work at A. D. 306; and the latter assigns his reasons against the former critics, who had, for the most part, brought it down to about A. D. 321.

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instead of the annihilation of unbelievers. Having mentioned certain events to precede the end of the world, he says, "After these things the secret place of the "dead shall be laid open, and they shall rise. And "on them the great Judgment shall set, conducted by "that King and God, to whom the supreme Father "shall give full power both to judge and to reign. . . . . "Nevertheless, not the whole Universe, but only such "as have professed the divine religion, shall then be "judged. For since those who never confessed God, cannot possibly be absolved, they have been already "judged and condemned: as the holy scriptures testify "that the impious are not to rise in the judgment. (Ps. i. 5.) Accordingly those only will be judged "who believed in God; and their deeds shall be weighed, the evil against the good, that if their right"eous works are more in number and weight, they may "be admitted to happiness; but if their wicked acts ex"ceed, they may be condemned to punishment." Afterwards he proceeds to describe more particularly the future conditions of these several classes: the impious who have never acknowledged the true God, shall be consigned to endless torment, in devouring yet unconsuming flame; but the professors whose sins exceed their righteousness, shall be more slightly touched and scorched by the fire; while they who are fully matured in holiness, shall pass through it without the least sensation of pain1.

k Lactantii Institut. Lib. vii. cap. 20. 1 Ditto. Lib. vii. cap. 21. Du Pin has not exactly stated Lactantius's meaning here.

Neither the sentiment of Arnobius, nor that of Lactantius, on this subject, though different from each other, appears to have occasioned any complaint or dissatisfaction. Both of these authors acquired considerable fame the latter was the most elegant and classical writer of all the Latin fathers; and the fond partiality of his admirers, has ventured to compare his style, for

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excellence, with that of Cicero.

V. Resuming the history of Origen's doctrine, we discover that in addition to the particulars on which Methodius had inveighed against him, he began now to be accused of error concerning the Trinity and Incarnation. To the former of these points the public attention had been awakened more than half a century before, by Origen's own controversy with Beryllus; and afterwards by those that the church carried on against Noetus, Sabellius and Paul of Samosata. And if, as is thought, Lucian, a learned presbyter of Antioch, had still more lately advanced notions contrary to trinitarianism, the circumstance would naturally add fresh excitement to feelings already on the alarm. The jealousy thus roused and cherished, was now scrutinizing every form of expression in order to detect heresy on this subject: though the self-constituted censors were by no means clear nor unanimous as to the precise point they themselves would regard as truth. Many began to discover in the writings of the venerated Origen, expressions inconsistent with their favorite tenet; and consequently the enmity against him, which had hitherto been confined to a few individuals, instantly spread to a considerable extent. Some became satisfied, undoubtedly from candid examination, that if he were not