Never did an imperial edict, suddenly proclaimed in the midst of peace, sanctioning the indiscriminate massacre of Christians, produce greater consternation in the church than the announcement of Origen’s deposition. The report of the fall of the great Tertullian had scarce died away, when the faithful were filled with alarm at the momentary expectation of its echoes being taken up by the fall of Origen, and resounding throughout Christendom. But there was a vast difference between these two great men. Quintius Tertullianus, while the superior of Origen in eloquence, style, and strength of language, was at the same time his inferior in the sacred sciences and in humility, the safeguard of Origen’s genius. The one blended with Christianity the elegance and wisdom of the pagans, the other the beauty and inspiration of the prophets. Both the brightest ornaments of the church in their day, they no less adorned her sanctity by their lives than enriched her treasures by their genius. Tertullian, a pagan by the prejudices of birth and education, unaccustomed to religious authority, could not endure the correction of superiors; and wounded pride, inflamed by impatience and an ambitious nature, gave way to impious belief, and Tertullian, the fallen genius, dwindles into a fanatical heretic. It was not so with Origen. Having received information of the action of the council, with real humility equalled only by that of the meek Fénelon, Origen wrote(58) to Alexandria that he had never taught such doctrine as was imputed to him, and, if contained in his works, it was through the machinations of heretics. Then follows, in the same document, a clear and orthodox exposition of his belief upon the contested points—an exposition that will satisfy a modern theologian, with all his precise distinctions and scholastic definitions. As long as this monument of antiquity, this spontaneous proof of his adhesion to apostolic truth, this undeniable evidence of the absence of all pertinacity, exists, so long will those to whom his memory is dear love to look upon him as sincere in his protestations and sincere in his faith. Here was the rule of his belief, and according to this rule his works should be interpreted: “That alone must we believe to be the truth which differs in nothing from the ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition.”(59) A noble rule of faith, truly Catholic and orthodox! Words appropriate for an Origen, who caught up, as it were, the traditions of the apostles, and echoed them into Nicene times. What cause have we of refusing credence to Origen when he tells us that the errors attributed to him were the interpolations of heretics? Every intelligent reader of history knows that his works were corrupted, shamefully corrupted, at the close of the IVth century. In substantiation of this, we have only to refer to the learned Rufinus and S. Jerome. Each of these translated into Latin the _Periarchon_ of Origen