Dialogue Against the Marcionites, Exhortation to Martyrdom (Wettstein 1674)

...specifically, antiquity has preserved for us. Hence, the illustrious Rivet, in Critica Sacra, book 2, ch. 12, page 231, writes: "No monuments of Origen exist, or at least none are publicly available, edited in the language which he used." But is the happiness of our own times different, or is it the condition? Certainly, the tireless diligence of great men has brought many ancient writings out of the shadows and returned them to the public light; and among them are various works of Origen. Erasmus, Picus, Perionius, Genebrardus, Humfrey, and others have placed excellent effort into translating and editing some in Latin; though they were not so concerned, in the manner of the previous century, with attaching the Greek texts as well. We owe the first Greek editions of Origen to the care of D. Hoeschel: namely, the books Against Celsus, published at Augsburg in the year 1605; later reprinted by the most learned Spencer in England in the year 1658. John Tarin, following him at Paris, gave us the Philocalia in the year 1619. I pass over some fragments edited here and there by others. However, the most famous ornament of France, the illustrious Huet, has surpassed the diligence of all; he collected in two volumes whatever commentaries of Origen on the Holy Scripture existed anywhere in Greek; prefaced by most learned Dissertations, distributed into three parts, concerning the Life, Dogmas, and Books of Origen.

When these monuments appeared, learned men, examining them not with alien but with their own eyes, it is strange to say how varied their pronouncements were. Most were rendered gentler and granted Origen his place among the illustrious Luminaries of the early Church; even if he was not entirely without his own blemishes (which skilled astronomers also read in the Sun and the Moon). Others have long since not only cleared him of blame but also declared him worthy of the highest praise: Halloix in particular, in his defense of Origen: who for this reason suffers no small beating from Philippe Labbe, in On Ecclesiastical Writers, Vol. 2, page 140. The illustrious Huet, who wrote the preface, entered a middle and, if I am not mistaken, the safest path; by comparing various opinions of Origen, drawn from his own writings, with the accusations and charges of his adversaries; by diluting those brought without merit; by indicating those found to be true; and by adding whatever might contribute to the understanding of the matter. Whence at last, with the matter properly weighed in the balance of truth and equity, it shines forth that Origen broke the ice in explaining the Scriptures; for he, being the only one among the Greeks instructed in the skill of the holy language, did not expend common labor, but built up the Church of Christ most greatly through infinite labors and the example of an unblemished life.

Yet let no one go so far in their affection for Origen, that the ship of that...