to it as “Poenitentia Origenis.”) That this work has no pretensions whatever to be regarded as Origen’s, has been long placed beyond doubt.  Even in the edition of 1545, this treatise is prefaced by Erasmus in these words, “This Lamentation was neither written by Origen nor translated by Jerome, but is the fiction of some unlearned man, who attempted, under colour of this, to throw disgrace upon Origen.” [Basil, 1545. vol. i. p. 498.] In the Benedictine edition (Paris, 1733.) no trace of this work is to be found.  They do not admit it among the doubtful, or even the spurious works; they do not so {136} much as give room for it in the appendix; on the contrary, they drop it altogether as utterly unworthy of being any longer preserved.  Instead, however, of admitting the work itself, these editors have supplied abundant reason for its exclusion, by inserting the sentiments of Huetius, or Huet, the very learned bishop of Avranches.  He tells us, that formerly to Origen’s work on Principles used to be appended a treatise called, the Lament of Origen, the Latin translation of which Guido referred to Jerome.  After quoting the passage of Erasmus (as above cited from the edition of 1545) in proof of its having been “neither written by Origen nor translated by Jerome, but the fabrication of some unlearned man, who attempted, under colour of this, to throw disgrace on Origen, just as they forged a letter in Jerome’s name, lamenting that he had ever thought with Origen,” Huet proceeds thus:  “And Gelasius in the Roman Council writes, ’The book which is called The Repentance of Origen, apocryphal.’  It is wonderful, therefore, that without any mark of its false character, it should be sometimes cited by some theologians in evidence.  Here we may smile at the supineness of a certain heterodox man of the present age, who thought the ‘Lament,’ ascribed to Origen, to be something different from the Book of Repentance.” [Vol. iv. part ii. p. 326.]

The Decree here referred to of Pope Gelasius, made in the Roman Council, A.D. 494, by that pontiff, in conjunction with seventy bishops, contains these strong expressions, before enumerating some few of the books then condemned:  “Other works written by heretics and schismatics, the Catholic and Apostolic Church by {137} no means receives; of them we think it right to subjoin a few which have occurred to our memory, and are to be avoided by Catholics.” [Conc.  Labb. vol. iv. p. 1265.] Then follows a list of prohibited works, among which we read, “the book called The Repentance of Origen, apocryphal,” the very book which Huet identifies with the “Lament of Origen,” still cited as evidence even in the present day. (See Appendix A.)

The second passage cited by Coccius, and also by writers of the present time, as Origen’s, without any allusion to its spurious and apocryphal character, is from the second book of the work called Origen on Job.  The words cited run thus:  “O blessed Job, who art living for ever with God, and remainest conqueror in the sight of the Lord the King, pray for us wretched, that the mercy of the terrible God may protect us in all our afflictions, and deliver us from all oppressions of the wicked one; and number us with the just, and enrol us among those who are saved, and make us rest with them in his kingdom, where for ever with the saints we may magnify him.”