MrMacSon wrote:Do you think they [i.e., fathers like Jerome] 'sanitized' [the works of Origen] to make it seem there had been a more consistent theological theme through early antiquity?
Yes. I think they had to admit that men like Origen were clearly right about most of what they wrote, but that small remainder of heterodox ideas scared them. For instance, Origen, following Plato, thought that all souls, even the devil's, could be saved in time if they passed through life (were reincarnated) enough times, like gold is refined in a furnace.
DCHindley wrote:Mr Macson wrote:Several corpuses seem to be the results of crazy editors or even crazy, later compilers.
I do not get that impression. Mainly Ignatius' letters, and maybe 1st Clement.
Cheers. but not the Irenaeus corpus? or the corpus of Origen?
Well, definitely Origen, Even Eusebius was rehabilitated as some thought he had been too cozy with the Arians. Yet all agreed that Eusebius was too important for the organization of the Christian churches after Constantine legitimatized their existence, and helped define it's new self definition, to be ignored completely. The Greek and Latin versions both survived, so any rehabilitation was minor compared to Origen, where the bulk of his Greek original works were lost.
DCHindley wrote: ... Heresy-hunting authors tended to pass on and rework the same cliché (and often plainly wrong descriptions) of the authors of heresy and what they are thought to have taught. Irenaeus > Tertullian > Hippolytus.
Interesting. So, stuff was being re-worked through the 4th, 5th, & 6th centuries and, maybe, beyond?
Probably after Constantine, so 4th century onwards, maybe closer to 5th century.