Church, it was considered the duty of the faithful to let works,
in themselves valuable, but containing such sentiments, altogether
perish, or to exclude the objectionable passages.

I would now invite you to examine the passage itself, and determine
whether it does not bear within it internal evidence of its having been
altogether interpolated.

In the first place, on the words upon which it professes to be a
comment, the author had already given his comment, and assigned to them
another meaning. "The heavens were opened," he says: "Before the time of
Christ the heavens were shut; but at his advent they were opened, THAT
THE HOLY SPIRIT MIGHT DESCEND FIRST ON HIM;" quoting also among others
the passage which speaks of Christ taking captivity captive. And then
after the passage in question, in which he assigns a totally different
reason for the opening of the heavens; without any allusion to the
intervening ideas, he carries on, and concludes the comment which he had
begun,--in words which fit on well with the close of that comment, but
which, as they stand now at the close of the intervening passage about
the angels, are abrupt and incoherent--"Forthwith the Holy Spirit {160}
descended;" recurring also again to the idea which he had before
introduced of Christ benefiting those who were in captivity. A passage
which affixes to the words commented upon, a different interpretation
from one already given in the same paragraph; and which forces itself
abruptly and incoherently in the middle of a brief comment, must offer
itself to our examination under strong grounds of suspicion, that it has
been interpolated. But when we examine the substance of the passage, its
sentiments, the ideas conveyed, and the associations suggested, and then
think of the author to whom it is ascribed, few probably will be
disposed to regard it as a faithful mirror in which to contemplate the
real sentiments of Origen.

How utterly unworthy of the sublime burst of Christian eloquence which
now delights us in undoubted works of Origen, is this strange and
degrading fiction! The true Origen THERE represents the tens of
thousands of angelic spirits ten thousand times told, as ever
surrounding the throne of God, and ministering for the blessing of those
in whose behalf God himself wills them to serve. [Vol. i. p. 767. Contr.
Cels. viii. 34.] Here he represents the revelation of the holiest of
holies as a throwing open of the various divisions or co