offered to all men and attained by faith, that it is the doctrine of
historical facts to which we must adhere, that the content of
Christianity has been appropriately summarised by the Church in her rule
of faith,[687] and that belief is of itself sufficient for the renewal
and salvation of man. But, as an idealistic philosopher, Origen
transformed the whole content of ecclesiastical faith into ideas. Here
he adhered to no fixed philosophical system, but, like Philo, Clement,
and the Neoplatonists, adopted and adapted all that had been effected by
the labours of idealistic Greek moralists since the time of Socrates.
These, however, had long before transformed the Socratic saying "know
thyself" into manifold rules for the right conduct of life, and
associated with it a theosophy, in which man was first to attain to his
true self.[688] These rules made the true "sage" abstain from occupying
himself in the service of daily life and "from burdensome appearance in
public". They asserted that the mind "can have no more peculiar duty
than caring for itself." This is accomplished by its not looking without
nor occupying itself with foreign things, but, turning inwardly to
itself, restoring its own nature to itself and thus practising
righteousness.[689] Here it was taught that the wise man who no longer
requires anything is nearest the Deity, because he is a partaker of the
highest good through possession of his rich Ego and through his calm
contemplation of the world; here moreover it was proclaimed that the
mind that has freed itself from the sensuous[690] and lives in constant
contemplation of the eternal is also in the end vouchsafed a view of the
invisible and is itself deified. No one can deny that this sort of
flight from the world and possession of God involves a specific
secularisation of Christianity, and that the isolated and
self-sufficient sage is pretty much the opposite of the poor soul that
hungers after righteousness.[691] Nor, on the other hand, can any one
deny that concrete examples of both types are found in infinite
multiplicity and might shade off into each other in this multiplicity.
This was the case with Clement and Origen. To them the ethical and
religious ideal is the state without sorrow, the state of insensibility
to all evils, of order and peace--but peace in God. Reconciled to the
course of the world, trusting in the divine Logos,[692] rich in
disinterested love to God and the brethren, reproducing