Section 270
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.14% accurate
ECCLESIASTICAL • HISTORY. 239 changed his views, and lived according to the laws. But Origen, as a Greek, being educated in Greek literature, dec-lined to this barbarian impudence. To which, also, betaking himself, he both consigned himself and his attainments in learning, living like a Christian, and swerving from the laws; but in regard to his opinions, both of things and the Deity, acting the Greek, and in termingling Greek literature with these foreign fictions. For he was always in company with Plato, and had the works also of Numenius and Cranius, of Apollophanes and Longinus, of Moderatus and Nicomachus, and others whose writings are valued, in his hands. He also read the works of Chasremon, the stoic, and those of Cornutus. From these he derived the allegorical mode of interpretation usual in the mysteries of the Greeks, and ap plied it to the Jewish Scriptures." Such are the assertions made by Porphyry, in the third book of his works, against the Christians, in which he asserts the truth respecting the study and great learning of the man, but also plainly asserts a falsehood (for what would not a man do writing against Christians ?) when he says that he went over from the Greeks to the Christians, and that Ammonius apostatised from a life of piety to live like the heathen. For the doctrine of Origen, and his Christian instruction, he derived from his ancestors, as our history has already shown ; and Ammonius continued to adhere unshaken, to the end of his days, to the unadulterated principles of the inspired philosophy. This is evident, from the labours of the man that are extant, in his written works, and that establishes his reputation with most men, even at the present day. As, for instance, that work with the title, " The Harmony of Moses and Jesus," and whatsoever others are found among the learned. Let these, therefore, suffice to evince both the calumnies of the false accuser, and also the great proficiency of Origen in the branches of Grecian literature. Respecting this, he defends him self, in an epistle, against the allegations of some who censured him for devoting so much study to these, writing, as follows : " But," says he, " when I had devoted myself wholly to the word, and ray fame went abroad concerning my proficiency, as I was sometimes visited bv heretics, sometimes by those who were con23 *