and had passed through Palestine on his way back. Both
Alexander Bishop of Jerusalem, and Theostite, Bishop of
Caesarea, considering it amiss that the teacher of Bishops
and the Oracle of the Church should remain in the ranks of
the laity, had jointly ordained him bishop. This angered
Abba Demetrius greatly, and so he convoked a council and
excommunicated Origen. Why did Abba Demetrius take
such a drastic step against a man of Origen's calibre is still
inexplicable. Was not this the indefatigable torch-bearer,
and. giant of the Church whom he had called at the age of
eighteen to become Dean of the school, and had since relied
so continuously upon? Did the two reasons that the
Alexandrian Pope gave for the excommunication-namely, the
indiscretion Origen had committed against his own body, and
his acceptance to be ordained by bishops other than his own-
really justify his action? So far history has given us no clue
to affirm this.
When Origen arrived at the precincts of Alexandria
and heard of his excommunication, his emotions were so
deeply stirred that, he returned immediately to Palestine and
settled there, without even attempting to meet his Pope and
discuss the matter with him. This voluntary exile seemed to
have been one more occasion for the manifestation of the
work of Divine Grace. For upon his return, Origen opened a
school there, which became the means of spreading the
Word of God and converting many more people to
Christianity among whom were Gregory, the Wonder-
Worker, and his brother Athenodorus.l9
- While doing so much good, Origen persisted in
criticising Abba Demetrus publicly, and this made' the road
for the Pope to pardon him difficult. His conscience,
however, was not quite at ease, as the following incident
proved. One day when he had got up to preach in the church