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XV. Disturbed, but not dismayed, by this unexpect ed attack, Jerome sat down angrily to the composition of his Apology against Rufinus : replying haughtily, and sometimes disingenuously, to the numerous charges against his conduct, recriminating on his antagonist for the same acts which he excused in himself, and attempting by the most groundless insinuations to render him suspected of evasion in his late Apology to Anastasius. We have little concern, however, except with what relates to Universalism. To extricate himself from the awkward predicament in which he was placed by the unfortunate reference to his Commentaries on Ephesians and Ecclesiastes, he resorted to the desperate plea, that as the passages containing the doctrines of an aerial resurrection, pre-existence, and universal restoration, were abridged by him from Origen and other authors, he was not responsible for the sentiments. The truth was, he had incorporated them into his own work, without a mark of censure, and without giving the original writers as his authority.

That he would now be understood to deny the salvation of the devil and of the damned, is certain; and he even complained that upon this, as well as other points, Rufinus had not been sufficiently explicit in his Apology to the Roman pontiff. But it is remarkable that he still avoided reckoning it among the important errors of Origen, and that he invariably passed over it, when he referred to them; as in the following catalogue: "I point out to you, in Origen's works," said he to Rufinus," many evil things, and particularly these here"sies: that the Son and the Holy Spirit are subordinate; y Ditto. Lib. ii. p. 393.

x Ditto.

that there are innumerable worlds succeeding each other to all eternity; that angels were changed into human souls; that Christ's human soul existed before it was born of Mary; and that it was this which thought it no robbery to be equal with God, seeing it was in the form of God, yet humbled itself, and took the form of a servant; that in the resurrection our - bodies will be aerial, without members, and that they will eventually vanish into nothing; that in the uni'versal restitution, the celestial powers and the infernal spirits, together with the souls of all mankind, will be 'reduced into one order or rank of beings; and that from this uniform state of equality they will again diverge, as formerly, holding various courses, until at length some, falling into sin, shall be born once 66 more, into a mortal world, with human bodies. So "that we, who are now men, may fear hereafter to be women; and they who are now virgins, to be, then, "prostitutes. These heresies I point out in Origen's works; do you now show me in what work of his you can find the contrary z."

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This Apology, abounding in ridicule and sarcasm, was finished in two books, and sent to Italy, some time in the year 403a, while Rufinus was still flattering himself that the secret of his performance had not transpired. Stung into madness by the lampoons, the insults

a

z Ditto, Lib.ii. p, 403,See also Lib. i. pp. 355, 371. and Lib. ii. p. 407. And Lib. iii. p. 441. Huet, Du Pin, &c. say in A. D. 402; but as Jerome mentions Anastasius's Letter to John of Jerusalem (Lib. ii. p. 405,) which could not have reached Palestine before the close of the year 402, or beginning of 403, I have given Jerome's Apology the later date.

and the misrepresentations of his opponent, Rufinus immediately sent to Bethlehem the whole of his Invective, accompanied with a letter threatening prosecution, and perhaps death. Upon this, Jerome added to his Apology a third book, written in a style which showed that he would not be outdone in rage nor in vulgar abuse. Though too much engrossed by other matters to pay particular attention to the old topic of Origen's errors, he nevertheless repeated his attacks on the notion that all rational creatures will eventually return to one common grade of being, and that they may afterwards relapse, and renew their present diversity b. It is remarkable that he seemed almost to concede, notwithstanding his perverse temper, that he had once followed Origen too far c

XVI. With this hot altercation and with the A. D. 404. simultaneous triumph of Theophilus, subsided, for the present, the public contest in the church, concerning Origenism. Its professors were every where obliged to conceal their belief; and their doctrine was generally regarded as heretical, at least as dangerous to the peace of christendom. Some of its particulars, however, were still avowed without censure, when no partiality towards the sect was suspected. But Universalism, having been condemed in one of its points, received a check from which it never entirely recovered in the catholic church.

We may pronounce it probable that the doctrine of the salvation of the devil and his angels, would, for this time, have escaped condemnation and perhaps reproach,

b Apolog. Lib. iii. P.

441.

c Ditto. pp. 445, 447.

had it not been found in company with other offensive tenets. As to the general character of the violent proceedings now described, it is too manifest that they deserve the brand of personal quarrels, rather than the honorable appellation of a contest for the truth. Of the three chief agents, Epiphanius, an honest but credulous and bigoted man, may indeed be supposed to have acted, in a great measure, from principle, as he had long been distinguished for zeal against Origenism. But Theophilus engaged in the quarrel through policy and grudge, and prosecuted it for private revenge; and we must pass nearly the same judgment on the motives of Jerome. Both had formerly been admirers of Origen; and both, after the strife was past, betrayed again, though with caution, their partiality for his works.

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CHAPTER VIII.

[From A. D. 404, to A. D. 500.]

I. After two or three centuries of decay, A. D. 405. the unwieldly mass of the Roman Empire had now fallen into two parts, by a permanent separation of the East from the West. Over these divisions, the innocent but effeminate sons of Theodosius the Great, enjoyed the name of sovereignty, while their feeble hands, unable to sway the sceptre, resigned to their favorites and ministers the actual exercise of authority. Arcadius, the eastern emperor, sat on his father's throne in Constantinople; and his younger brother, Honorius, held the western court at Ravenna in Italy. Rome, the eternal city, the boasted mistress of the world, was no longer honored with the empty compliment of the imperial residence. Patriotism, courage, and even bodily strength, had, to a great degree, forsaken a people dispirited by ages of despotism, corrupted by its vices, and enervated by luxury and sloth. Throughout the East, internal disorders agitated the public tranquillity, and open rebellion alarmed the feeble administration. But in the West, all hearts were trembling at the portentous movements of the fierce barbarians of the North, who hovered in fear

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