attributed to Origen are genuine and which are spurious; and what parts, moreover, of the works received on the whole as genuine came from his pen.  Of {134} the spurious works, some are so palpably written in a much later age, and by authors of different religious views, that no one, after weighing the evidence, can be at a loss what decision to make concerning them; in the case of others, claims and objections may appear to be more evenly balanced.  I trust on the one hand to refer to no works for Origen’s testimony which are not confessedly his, nor on the other to exclude any passage which is not decidedly spurious; whilst in one particular case more immediately connected with our subject, I am induced to enter further in detail into a critical examination of the genuineness and value of a passage than the character of this work generally requires.  The great importance attached to the testimony of that passage by some defenders of the worship paid to angels, may be admitted to justify the fulness of the criticism.  Lest, however, its insertion in the body of the work might seem inconveniently to interfere with the reader’s progress in our argument, I have thought it best to include it in a supplementary section at the close of our inquiry into the evidence of Origen.

Coccius, in his elaborate work, quotes the two following passages as Origen’s, without expressing any hesitation or doubt respecting their genuineness, in which he is followed by writers of the present day.  The passages are alleged in proof that Origen held and put in practice the doctrine of the invocation of saints; and they form the first quotations made by Coccius under the section headed by this title:  “That the saints are to be invoked, proved by the testimony of the Greek Fathers.”

The first passage is couched in these words:  “I will {135} begin to throw myself upon my knees, and pray to all the saints to come to my aid; for I do not dare, in consequence of my excess of wickedness, to call upon God.  O Saints of God, you I pray with weeping full of grief, that ye would propitiate his mercies for me miserable.  Alas me!  Father Abraham, pray for me, that I be not driven from thy bosom, which I greatly long for, and yet not worthily, because of the greatness of my sins.”

Coccius cites this passage as from “Origen in Lament,” and it has been recently appealed to under the title of “Origen on the Lamentations.”  Here, however, is a very great mistake.  Origen’s work on the Lamentations, called also “Selecta in Threnos,” and inserted in the Benedictine edition (Vol. iii. p. 321.), is entirely a different production from the work which contains the above extract.  This apocryphal work, on the other hand, does not profess to be the comment of Origen on the Lamentations, but the Lament or Wailing of Origen himself; or, as it used to be called, the Penitence of Origen. (In the Paris edition of 1519 it is called “Planctus, seu Lamentum Origenis.”  Pope Gelasius refers