Annotatio CXXXV

”The Chaldeans made three troops, and fell upon the camels.” — Job 1:17

Origen — in book 1 of the commentaries on Job, forging an allegory with these words¹ — [treats of] the Homoousians, that is, those who rightly [hold] concerning the consubstan- [those who rightly hold concerning the con]substantiality [of the Father and the Son], he assails with these words: “Three horns, or three troops, the Devil made as a type, and equal to that three-named sect of his, and to the heresy of the three Gods, which filled the whole globe of the earth in the manner of darkness — [the heresy] which sometimes worships the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as three [gods], sometimes adores [them as] one, in the manner in which the language of the Greeks commemorates the Triad and the Homoousion. Therefore that most crafty Devil, designating from afar, long ago, this sect and heresy of the Trinity, and its wickedness, sent three horns to plunder Job. For thus also the aforesaid three-named heresy — now especially — plunders and storms the Church.” Thus far the author of these commentaries, which we have already shown to be falsely inscribed with the title of Origen, when in the preceding volume we set out the catalogue of Origen’s works.