Anastasios
We just had a glimpse inside the influence that a thinker as Origen had in his time and well beyond. This is an influence that cannot be overlooked. Indeed we can judge from following writers the extent of the importance that Origen had in the development of Christian thought. One of his most ardent followers was Pamphilus, born toward the end of the third century in present-day Beirut (Phoenicia at the time, today Lebanon). He came from a well distinguished family and move to Alexandria to study theology and Sacred Scriptures. He was ordained a priest in Caesarea, as reported by Eusebius, his disciple and future great historian.
In Caesarea he built a very important library, a library that contained the Christian texts that were available to him. He himself copied most of the work of Origen, that he revered as a teacher to him. He was also the founder of a Christian school in the same city. He will die as a martyr during the persecutions in 309.
Pamphilus, following the lesson of Origen, attempted to have a good version of the Scriptures according the version of the Septuagint.
His most important work, from the one we may know today, is the Apology for Origen, written with his student Eusebius, but today only first book of this work remains. In this work Pamphilus passionately defend Origen, who was considered unorthodox for part of his doctrines.
“Of the Apology for Origen only the first book is extant, and that in a Latin version made by Rufinus. It begins with describing the extravagant bitterness of the feeling against Origen. He was a man of deep humility, of great authority in the Church of his day, and honoured with the priesthood. He was above all things anxious to keep to the rule of faith that had come down from the Apostles. The soundness of his doctrine concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation is then vindicated by copious extracts from his writings. Then nine charges against his teaching are confronted with passages from his works. St Jerome stated in his De Viris illustribus that there were two apologies—one by Pamphilus and another by Eusebius. He discovered his mistake when Rufinus’s translation appeared in the height of the Origenistic controversy, and rushed to the conclusion that Eusebius was the sole author. He charged Rufinus, among other things, with palming off under the name of the martyr what was really the work of the heterodox Eusebius, and with suppressing unorthodox passages. As to the first accusation there is abundant evidence that the Apology was the joint work of Pamphilus and Eusebius. Against the second may be set the negative testimony of Photius who had read the original; ‘Photius, who was severe to excess towards the slightest semblance of Arianism, remarked no such taint in the Apology of Origen which he had read in Greek’ (Ceillier). The Canons of the alleged Council of the Apostles at Antioch were ascribed by their compiler (late fourth century) to Pamphilus (Harnack, Spread of Christianity, I, 86-101). The ascription to Pamphilus, by Gemmadius, of a treatise Contra mathematicos was a blunder due to a misunderstanding of Rufinus’s preface to the Apology. A Summary of the Acts of the Apostles among the writings associated with Euthalius bears in its inscription the name of Pamphilus (P.G., LXXXIX, 619 sqq.)” (Bacchus, F.J. (1911). St Pamphilus of Cæsarea. In The Catholic Encyclopedia).
Let us read a passage from the preface, written by Eusebius: “You have been moved by your desire to know the truth, Macarius, who are ‘a man greatly beloved,’ to make a request of me, which will bring you the blessing attached to the knowledge of the truth; but it will win for me the greatest indignation on the part of those who consider themselves aggrieved whenever anyone does not think evil of Origen. It is true that it is not my opinion about him that you have asked for, but that of the holy martyr Pamphilus; and you have requested to have the book which he is said to have written in his defence in Greek translated for you into Latin: nevertheless I do not doubt that there will be some who will think themselves aggrieved if I say anything in his defence even in the words of another man. I beg them to do nothing in the spirit of presumption and of prejudice; and, since we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, not to refuse to hear the truth spoken, lest haply they should do wrong through ignorance. Let them consider that to wound the consciences of their weaker brethren by false accusations is to sin against Christ; and therefore let them not lend their ears to the accusers, nor seek an account of another man’s faith from a third party, especially when an opportunity is given them for gaining personal and direct knowledge, and the substance and quality of each man’s faith is to be known by his own confession. For so the Scripture says: “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”: and: “By his words shall each man be justified, and by his word shall he be condemned.” The opinions of Origen in the various parts of Scripture are clearly set forth in the present work: as to the cause of our finding certain places in which he contradicts himself, an explanation will be offered in the short document subjoined”.
Church history is so full of interesting men and women, saints or not, of whom we know so little.
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