Acknowledged Writings.

 A Declaration of Faith.

 Part I.—Acknowledged Writings.

 Elucidation.

 A Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

 These words speaketh Solomon, the son of David the king and prophet, to the whole Church of God, a prince most honoured, and a prophet most wise above

 Chapter II.

 Chapter III.

 Chapter IV.

 Chapter V.

 Chapter VI.

 Chapter VII.

 Chapter VIII.

 Chapter IX.

 Chapter X.

 Chapter XI.

 Chapter XII.

 Canonical Epistle.

 Canon I.

 Canon II.

 Canon III.

 Canon IV.

 Canon V.

 Moreover, it has been reported to us that a thing has happened in your country which is surely incredible, and which, if done at all, is altogether th

 Now, as regards those who have been enrolled among the barbarians, and have accompanied them in their irruption in a state of captivity, and who, forg

 Now those who have been so audacious as to invade the houses of others, if they have once been put on their trial and convicted, ought not to be deeme

 Now, those who have found in the open field or in their own houses anything left behind them by the barbarians, if they have once been put on their tr

 Canon X.

 Weeping takes place without the gate of the oratory and the offender standing there ought to implore the faithful as they enter to offer up prayer on

 Elucidations.

 The Oration and Panegyric Addressed to Origen.

 Argument I.—For Eight Years Gregory Has Given Up the Practice of Oratory, Being Busied with the Study Chiefly of Roman Law and the Latin Language.

 Argument II.—He Essays to Speak of the Well-Nigh Divine Endowments of Origen in His Presence, into Whose Hands He Avows Himself to Have Been Led in a

 Argument III.—He is Stimulated to Speak of Him by the Longing of a Grateful Mind. To the Utmost of His Ability He Thinks He Ought to Thank Him. From G

 Argument IV.—The Son Alone Knows How to Praise the Father Worthily. In Christ and by Christ Our Thanksgivings Ought to Be Rendered to the Father. Greg

 Argument V.—Here Gregory Interweaves the Narrative of His Former Life. His Birth of Heathen Parents is Stated. In the Fourteenth Year of His Age He Lo

 Argument VI.—The Arts by Which Origen Studies to Keep Gregory and His Brother Athenodorus with Him, Although It Was Almost Against Their Will And the

 Argument VII.—The Wonderful Skill with Which Origen Prepares Gregory and Athenodorus for Philosophy. The Intellect of Each is Exercised First in Logic

 Argument VIII.—Then in Due Succession He Instructs Them in Physics, Geometry, and Astronomy.

 Argument IX.—But He Imbues Their Minds, Above All, with Ethical Science And He Does Not Confine Himself to Discoursing on the Virtues in Word, But He

 Argument X.—Hence the Mere Word-Sages are Confuted, Who Say and Yet Act Not.

 Argument XI.—Origen is the First and the Only One that Exhorts Gregory to Add to His Acquirements the Study of Philosophy, and Offers Him in a Certain

 Argument XII.—Gregory Disallows Any Attainment of the Virtues on His Part. Piety is Both the Beginning and the End, and Thus It is the Parent of All t

 Argument XIII.—The Method Which Origen Used in His Theological and Metaphysical Instructions. He Commends the Study of All Writers, the Atheistic Alon

 Argument XIV.—Whence the Contentions of Philosophers Have Sprung. Against Those Who Catch at Everything that Meets Them, and Give It Credence, and Cli

 Argument XV.—The Case of Divine Matters. Only God and His Prophets are to Be Heard in These. The Prophets and Their Auditors are Acted on by the Same

 Argument XVI.—Gregory Laments His Departure Under a Threefold Comparison Likening It to Adam’s Departure Out of Paradise. To the Prodigal Son’s Aband

 Argument XVII.—Gregory Consoles Himself.

 Argument XVIII.— Peroration, and Apology for the Oration.

 Argument XIX.—Apostrophe to Origen, and Therewith the Leave-Taking, and the Urgent Utterance of Prayer.

 Elucidations.

Argument XV.—The Case of Divine Matters. Only God and His Prophets are to Be Heard in These. The Prophets and Their Auditors are Acted on by the Same Afflatus. Origen’s Excellence in the Interpretation of Scripture.

With respect to these human teachers, indeed, he counselled us to attach ourselves to none of them, not even though they were attested as most wise by all men, but to devote ourselves to God alone, and to the prophets. And he himself became the interpreter of the prophets230 ὑποφητεύων. to us, and explained whatsoever was dark or enigmatical in them. For there are many things of that kind in the sacred words; and whether it be that God is pleased to hold communication with men in such a way as that the divine word may not enter all naked and uncovered into an unworthy soul, such as many are, or whether it be, that while every divine oracle is in its own nature most clear and perspicuous, it seems obscure and dark to us, who have apostatized from God, and have lost the faculty of hearing through time and age, I cannot tell. But however the case may stand, if it be that there are some words really enigmatical, he explained all such, and set them in the light, as being himself a skilled and most discerning hearer of God; or if it be that none of them are really obscure in their own nature, they were also not unintelligible to him, who alone of all men of the present time with whom I have myself been acquainted, or of whom I have heard by the report of others, has so deeply studied the clear and luminous oracles of God, as to be able at once to receive their meaning into his own mind, and to convey it to others. For that Leader of all men, who inspires231 ὑπηχῶν. God’s dear prophets, and suggests all their prophecies and their mystic and heavenly words, has honoured this man as He would a friend, and has constituted him an expositor of these same oracles; and things of which He only gave a hint by others, He made matters of full instruction by this man’s instrumentality; and in things which He, who is worthy of all trust, either enjoined in regal fashion, or simply enunciated, He imparted to this man the gift of investigating and unfolding and explaining them: so that, if there chanced to be any one of obtuse and incredulous mind, or one again thirsting for instruction, he might learn from this man, and in some manner be constrained to understand and to decide for belief, and to follow God. These things, moreover, as I judge, he gives forth only and truly by participation in the Divine Spirit: for there is need of the same power for those who prophesy and for those who hear the prophets; and no one can rightly hear a prophet, unless the same Spirit who prophesies bestows on him the capacity of apprehending His words. And this principle is expressed indeed in the Holy Scriptures themselves, when it is said that only He who shutteth openeth, and no other one whatever;232 Isa. xxii. 22; Rev. iii. 7. [All these citations of the Scriptures should be noted, but specially those which prove the general reception of the Apocalypse in the East.] and what is shut is opened when the word of inspiration explains mysteries. Now that greatest gift this man has received from God, and that noblest of all endowments he has had bestowed upon him from heaven, that he should be an interpreter of the oracles of God to men,233 [A noble sentence. Eph iii. 8, 9.] and that he might understand the words of God, even as if God spake them to him, and that he might recount them to men in such wise as that they may hear them with intelligence.234 The text gives ὡς ἀκούσωσιν with Voss. and Bengel. The Paris editor gives ἀκούουσιν. Therefore to us there was no forbidden subject of speech;235 ἄῤῥητον. for there was no matter of knowledge hidden or inaccessible to us, but we had it in our power to learn every kind of discourse, both foreign236 Barbarian. and Greek, both spiritual and political, both divine and human; and we were permitted with all freedom to go round the whole circle of knowledge, and investigate it, and satisfy ourselves with all kinds of doctrines, and enjoy the sweets of intellect. And whether it was some ancient system of truth, or whether it was something one might otherwise name that was before us, we had in him an apparatus and a power at once admirable and full of the most beautiful views. And to speak in brief, he was truly a paradise to us after the similitude of the paradise of God, wherein we were not set indeed to till the soil beneath us, or to make ourselves gross with bodily nurture,237 σωματοτροφεῖν παχυνομένους. but only to increase the acquisitions of mind with all gladness and enjoyment,—planting, so to speak, some fair growths ourselves, or having them planted in us by the Author of all things.