Annotatio CXLVI

”Blessed is the man who hath not walked [in the counsel of the ungodly].” — Psalm 1:1

Origen, about to expound this Psalm, when in the very preface he implored God as the helper of the future work,¹ says: “Since nothing can be good without God — and especially the divinely-inspired Scripture of understanding — let us ask the Father of all, the God, through our Savior and high priest the begotten [γεννητόν] God, that it be given us first that we may rightly seek,” etc. Epiphanius, in the second book against heresies, charges Origen that, whereas he could and ought to have called Christ God γεννητόν [begotten] with a double n (for that signifies “begotten”), he preferred to name him γενητόν [made] with a single n — which indeed sounds “made”: namely, so that from this one word he might maliciously alienate Christ from the essence of the paternal deity, and declare him to be a fashioning and a creature. Epiphanius’s censure I myself, for the present, neither approve nor disapprove; but concerning this very error — which others also, men of great name, attribute to Origen — I shall more conveniently write below.