e
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 O