Symbolic Drama of Passage: Envisioning Scriptural Interpretation As a Symbolic Act With Origen of Alexandria (Patristic Studies in Global Perspective, 3) 350679342X, 9783506793423

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Symbolic Drama of Passage

Patristic Studies in Global Perspective Editors Wendy Mayer, Chris L. De Wet, Patricia Ciner, Naoki Kamimura, Edwina Murphy Advisory Board Roger Akhrass, Patriarcat Syriaque Orthodoxe, Damascus Lisa Bailey, University of Auckland, New Zealand Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Paul Decock, University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa Geoffrey D. Dunn, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland Samuel Fernández, Pontifical University of Chile Alex Hon-Ho Ip, Divinity School of Chung Chi College, Hong Kong Lenka Karfiková, Charles University, Prague Michel Willy Libambu, Université Catholique du Congo, Kinshasa Rubén Peretó Rivas, National University of Cuyo-CONICET, Argentina Wonmo Su, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul

Volume 3

Kyeil Kwak

Symbolic Drama of Passage Envisioning Scriptural Interpretation as a Symbolic Act with Origen of Alexandria

Cover illustration: Christ on the Road to Emmaus by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308–1311

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. © 2022 by Brill Schöningh, Wollmarktstraße 115, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany¸ Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, Verlag Antike and V&R unipress. www.schoeningh.de Cover design: Evelyn Ziegler, Munich Production: Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn ISSN 2700-1210 ISBN 978-3-506-79342-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-3-657-79342-6 (e-book)

Table of Contents Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Preface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 1. Introduction: Origen, a Public Theologian  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Origen and Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Origen and Allegory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 Outline and Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4 Origen, A Public Theologian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2. “To Speak in a Manner Proper to the Σύμβολον”: Origen’s Rereading and Reenacting of the Passover Narrative in Peri Pascha . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.2 Problematizing the Passover Reading in the Post-70 Context  . . . 18 2.3 Origen’s Tripartite Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.4 The Tripartite Hermeneutics Applied to the Structure and Flow of Peri Pascha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.5 Rereading and Reenacting with the Blood, the Water, and the Logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.6 Rereading and Reenacting with the Lamb, Scripture, and the Logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2.7 Rereading and Reenacting with a Once-a-Year, Daily, and Once-for-All Sacrifices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3. “The Truth in Enigmas, and Symbols, and Allegories”: Semantic Origins and Genealogies of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed by its Kindred Terms  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.2 Common Cosmological Grounds and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.3 Semantic Origins of Σύμβολον . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.4 Semantic Genealogies of Σύμβολον . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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4. “One Complete Body of the Word”: Christian Genealogy of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed from Origen’s Contra Celsum . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4.2 Origen’s Contra Celsum as a Site for Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 4.3 Origen’s Christian Genealogy of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed by its Kindred Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.4 Interpretation as a Symbolic Act of Comparing and Matching  . . . 74 4.5 Interpretation as a Symbolic Act for Θεωρία . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 5. “Linking up the Words of the Torah with One Another”: Origen’s Witness to Rabbinic Literal Allegory Carried Out in a Symbolic Manner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.2 Origen and the Rabbis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 5.3 Rereading the Passover Narrative with the Mekiltot . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5.4 Reenacting the Passover Narrative with the Mishnah . . . . . . . . . . . 102 5.5 “To Make a Fence around the Torah” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.6 Rabbinic Literal Interpretation Carried Out in a Symbolic Manner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 5.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 6. Conclusion: Symbol, Scripture, and the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 6.1 Symbol, Creed, and Sacrament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 6.2 Symbol, Allegory, and the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 6.3 Concluding Remarks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Origen’s Primary Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Other Primary Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Secondary Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Scriptural Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Abbreviations CC CJn CMt CRm CSong ExMar HEx HGen HJer HJsh HLev HLk HNum HPs HSam HSong LA PA Phil PP



Origen’s Works Contra Celsum Commentary on John, the Gospel Commentary on Matthew Commentary on Romans Commentary on the Song of Songs Exhortation to Martyrdom Homilies on Exodus Homilies on Genesis Homilies on Jeremiah Homilies on Joshua Homilies on Leviticus Homilies on Luke Homilies on Numbers Homilies on Psalms Homilies on Samuel Homilies on the Song of Songs Letter to Africanus Peri Archon Philocalia Peri Pascha

Other Ancient Works

ACW Ancient Christian Writers Series ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers Series Bib Cod Photius, Bibliotheca BT Babylonian Talmud CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Deut Rab Deuteronomy Rabbah Ex Rab Exodus Rabbah FCP Fathers of the Church Patristic Series GCS Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller Gen Rab Genesis Rabbah

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Abbreviations

HE Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica LCL Loeb Classical Library Lev Rab Leviticus Rabbah Mkt Ishm Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Mkt Shim Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon Bar Yoḥai PG Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Gareca PL Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina PT Palestinian Talmud SC Sources Chrétiennes Song Rab Song of Songs Rabbah

ATR BDD BHR CInq FTh HTR HUCA JECS JRn JSQ LTP MH NLH PTS RAC SJT TU VChr

Secondary Works Anglican Theological Review Bekhol Derakheka Daehu Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance Critical Inquiry First Things Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Religion Jewish Studies Quarterly Laval Théologique et Philosophique Museum Helveticum New Literary History Patristische Texte und Studien Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Scottish Journal of Theology Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur Vigiliae Christianae

Preface This book is a substantial revision of my doctoral dissertation, “Symbolic Drama of Passage: Envisioning Scriptural Interpretation as a Symbolic Act in Origen’s Hermeneutics” (Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, 2017). Its central thesis is that Origen of Alexandria envisioned the essence of Christian life as a tripartite drama of passage with the Logos-Christ from the law through the temporal gospel to the eternal gospel by means of scriptural interpretation. Its beginnings reach back to the Ph.D. courses I took on the early church and scriptural theology at my alma mater – called (often with laughs) “the seminary across the WAWA,” a popular convenience store on Germantown Ave. in Philadelphia – as well as to the courses on Jewish studies I took at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the main chapters in this book were originally written for those courses, and later they were developed and incorporated into the dissertation. I owe a debt of enormous gratitude to J. Jayakiran Sebastian, my Doktorvater, and I want to extend it to the members of my dissertation committee in alphabetical order: Paul Rajashekar, Robert Robinson, and Walter Wagner. The Clyde Kelchner Fund generously supported my doctoral program and research. During a period of writing the dissertation in Atlanta, GA, the staff of Pitts Theology Library at Emory University aided my research and writing by finding, reserving, and providing substantial resources for me. I extend my thanks to Donghyun Jeong for often accompanying me to lunches during breaks from writing and also to Eunil Cho for energizing my body and mind through countless friendly tennis matches. My fellowship with these two keen intellectuals and compassionate ministers, both of whom have since earned doctorates from Emory University, enabled me to accomplish the dissertation project in seven months – nearly a chapter per month. After a few years of my teaching part as an Assistant Professor at the School of Divinity, Georgia Central University, I have had time to rewrite this manuscript for publication. I thank Martina Kayser and Edwina Murphy as well as the anonymous reviewers solicited by Brill & Schöningh Publishers for encouraging me to stand up “above the scholarship rather than (buried) underneath it.” I extend my thanks to Jin K. Hwang, my former next-door neighbor at my current academic institution, for granting me access to digitized resources for further research and revision; also, to Jarrett Knight, Director of Cogito at Hampden-Sydney College, for his close proofreading of the manuscript.

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I joyfully dedicate this book to my wife, Hyun, and our ever-growing loves, Hyunseo and Minseo. It has been a quite wonderful “symbolic” drama of passage from the moment we two initially joined together in marital union to now, when we four are continually growing and fitting together in familial union.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Origen, a Public Theologian 1.1

Origen and Symbol

In the ancient Greek world, a messenger or merchant was frequently required to match one half of a clay dish with another half to prove his identity and the authenticity of his message or transaction. The two halves of the dish were each called a σύμβολον (symbol).1 Thus the term semantically denotes a drama in which the two fragments may be compared and matched together by the two parties: in brief, a drama of reuniting what was originally one. Sometime in the second half of the fourth century B.C.E., the notion of σύμβολον stepped in as a synonym for αἴνιγμα (enigma) and ἀλληγορία (allegory) and began to form a new approach to understanding the cosmos.2 During the first three centuries C.E., these terms collectively opened a new hermeneutical horizon that enabled interpreters of the Mediterranean region to reinterpret widely held doctrines concerning the primary origins of the cosmos and to show the paths upward to the divine. A formula generally adopted among them was this: a symbol encodes the divine mysteries in enigmatic forms, and allegory decodes them.3 Thus, the formular construes allegorical interpretation of ancient enigmatic texts as a symbolic act of comparing and matching one text with another. The purpose of allegorical interpretation was to induct the interpreter into the divine mysteries of the cosmos as higher as the degrees of wisdom and virtue the interpreter could demonstrate. Origen’s use of σύμβολον in the third century C.E. forms a part of the broad semantic history of the term. He displays awareness of non-Christian symbols in his disputation of second-century Greek philosopher Celsus. For instance, in Contra Celsum 4.88, Origen raises methodological challenges to Celsus’s 1 See Van Austin Harvey, A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 232–233. 2 See Peter Stuck, Birth of the Symbol (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 24, 39. 3 For example, according to the first-century Stoic Cornutus in Compendium 35, 76.2–5: “The ancient writers were no ordinary men, but they were able to understand the nature of the cosmos and to make philosophical statements about it through symbols and enigmas [οὐχ οἱ τυχόντες ἐγένοντο οἱ παλαιοί, ἀλλὰ καὶ συνιέναι τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν ἱκανοὶ καὶ πρὸς τὸ διὰ συμβόλων καὶ αἰνιγμάτων φιλοσοφῆσαι περὶ αὐτῆς εὐεπίφοροι].” See also Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum 6.14, 22; 8.5, 20, 29, 31; 10.25; 12.4, 9; 14.27, 30, 31; 16.3, 20, 31; 18.21, 25; 20.5, 19, 25; 22.2; 26.12; 28.17; 30.2, 14, 23 – referring “symbol/symbols” to be interpreted allegorically.

© Brill Schöningh, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783657793426_002

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view that a bird in the sky “seems to be naturally so much nearer in communication with God” and therefore should be used as a valid symbol for divinization.4 Origen also acknowledges that several of the symbols he uses to explain Christian mystery and truth were inherited from his predecessors in faith.5 Once, in Contra Celsum 6.23, Origen compares the symbolism of the Mithras cult and Zoroastrianism with that of Christian tradition regarding the meaning of “the seven gates” in relation to divine reality (see Ezek 48.30–35; Rev 21). In Contra Celsum, Origen defines a σύμβολον by how accurately it presents ἀλήθεια (reality).6 Thus, he claims that the Christian Scripture authoritatively prohibits any false symbol that misrepresents it. He grounds Scripture’s normative role in revelation and judgment on his conviction that Scripture itself contains the God-given “countless symbols [μυρία σύμβολα]” that ought to be legitimately decoded by “those who are learned.”7 According to Origen’s definition, the concept of σύμβολον deals specifically with how the corporeal is related to the incorporeal and the divine as well as how one can attain divine wisdom and have access to divine truths. This definition in turn implicates key cosmological questions for the third century regarding the ontological structures of the cosmos as well as soteriological questions regarding one’s ontological location in the cosmos.8 These integrated ideas about the term σύμβολον contribute to Origen’s understanding and presentation of the true reality via interpretation of Christian Scripture. Thus, the term σύμβολον, together with αἴνιγμα and ἀλληγορία, provided Origen and his cosmological and theological interlocutors with a public locus into which they brought their own symbolism – that is, their own ways of interpreting sacred symbols – and competed with one another for a better understanding and presentation of reality. A prominent case in point can be found 4 CC 4.88; SC 136, 402.15–16. 5 E.g. HSam 1.9; SC 328, 1.9.69–71 – translations are by Henri De Lubac, History and Spirit (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), 203: “Many have often trod this [Christian] path and explained the truth that these things [symbols] are to be understood as indicating the mystery of the Cross and the nailing of the hands of the Savior.” 6 CC 4.31; SC 136, 262.27–31: “The intention of the law was that in everything they should have the reality [ἀληθείᾳ], and should not make up things which are different from reality, and mispresent [ψευδόμενα] what is truly male, or what is really female, or the nature of beasts, or the species of birds, or creeping things, or fishes.”. 7 CC 4.31; SC 136, 262.47–48. 8 According to Berchman, the relation of the corporeal to the incorporeal was one of the key questions dominating the philosophical discourses for the first three centuries C.E. Other key questions include the relation of the intelligible to one another and the relation of the first principle to all things. See Robert Berchman, From Philo to Origen, (Chico: Scholars Press, 1984), 113.

Introduction

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in Peri Pascha, in which Origen inquires into how to carry out the Passover ceremony (Exod 12) in “a different manner [κατ᾽ ἄλλην ἐκδοχήν]” for the present time.9 Here, Origen suggests carrying it out “in a manner proper to the symbolon [οἰκείως ὡς πρὸς τὸ σύμβολον]” to deal not only with the practical matter of ritual performance, but also, more fundamentally, with a hermeneutical one: how to reread and reenact the Passover narrative.10 Origen believes that, in comparing Christianity to other religious traditions – particularly Judaism – the Christian’s “different manner” of scriptural reading emerges as the cause of the Christian’s “different [i.e., better] manner” of life.11 What then does Origen mean by reading Scripture in a symbolic (συμβολικός) manner, especially when he compares Scripture to “the one complete body” of the Logos, containing “countless symbols?”12 How does this symbolic manner fit into his overarching hermeneutical task of seeking the threefold – the somatic, psychic, and pneumatic – sense of Scripture? Moreover, how does Origen’s symbolic approach to scriptural interpretation contribute to his collaboration and competition with other Mediterranean contemporaries from various sects and traditions in dealing with key cosmological and soteriological questions? Furthermore, since Origen uses the term σύμβολον interchangeably with other interpretive terms such as ἀλληγορία and τύπος, any attempt to answer these questions may cast revisionary light upon his rationale in pursuing allegorical – so, alternative – readings of Scripture for the formation of a distinctive Christian identity.13 Last, yet not least, later Christian applications 9 10 11

12

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PP 39.18–26; Sur la Pâque 230.18–26. PP 4.29; Sur la Pâque 160.29. For example, see HJer 12.13.1; SC 238, 46.25–32: “Since the Passover is near, all among you observe the unleavened bread, the unleavened bread which is corporeal. You do not hear the commandment which says, If you do not hear in a hidden way [ἐὰν μὴ ακούσητε κεκρυμμένως], your soul cries out [Jer 13.17]. And concerning the sabbath, women, by not hearing the Prophet, do not hear in a hidden way, but hear outwardly [φανερῶς]. They do not bathe the day of the sabbath, they go back to the poor and weak elementals [cf. Gal 4.9].” See also CC 5.60; SC 147, 162.3–164.7: “We both confess that the books were written by the divine inspiration, but concerning the interpretation of the contents of the books we no longer speak alike. In fact, the reason why we do not live like the Jews is that we think the literal interpretation of the laws does not contain the meaning of the legislation.” HJer 39.2; SC 302, 368.18–20: “Notice for me that the Scriptures are in this way … one complete body of the Word [νόει μοι τοίνυν τὰς γραφάς τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον…ἕν τέλειον λόγου σῶμα].” For another analogy of Scripture to the flesh of the Logos-Christ, see PP 26.5–8; Sur la Pâque 204.6–8: “If the lamb is Christ and Christ is the Logos, what is the flesh of the divine words if not the divine Scriptures [Εἰ δὲ τὸ πρόβατον ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, καί ὁ Χριστός ὁ λόγος ἐστίν, τίνες τῶν θείων λόγων αἱ σάρκες εἰ μή αἱ θεῖαι γραφαί]?” By redefining ancient allegory “not only as a way of reading texts, but also as a way of using that reading to reinterpret culture and society” David Dawson portrays Origen as

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of the term to their sacraments and creeds (e.g. Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας) call for envisioning Scripture as the proto-symbol (or, the source-symbol) of other Christian symbols, if one admits the sacraments as instituted in it and defines the creeds as its summaries. 1.2

Origen and Allegory

Despite the prominence and significance of the term σύμβολον for Origen, his appropriation of it has received no specific attention in scholarship. In an article directly addressing the subject in 1952, Samuel Laeuchli explicitly asserts that “One could not say that symbolon was Origen’s main term in his contemplation of history or in his exegesis” when compared with other terms such as ἀλληγορία, ἀναγωγή, or τύπος.14 Karen Jo Torjesen highlights the term when articulating how the biblical text conceals the saving doctrine of Christ in its “symbolic form.”15 However, she does so only to introduce Origen’s lofty procedure of allegory, which takes the symbolic forms of letter and history as “the point of departure” for discovering eventually “the ascending sense or spiritual meaning.”16 In a more recent instance, Peter Martens describes σύμβολον

14

15 16

one who sought the formation of distinctive social identity of Christians by means of teaching different or alternative ways of reading Scripture. See David Dawson, Allegorical Reader and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 1–8. Samuel Laeuchli, “Origen’s Conception of Symbolon,” ATR 34.2 (1952), 116 – italics added for emphasis. During the 1950s, Origen scholarship characterized Origen primarily as an allegorist and had the narrow and polemical focus of either defending him, like Henri de Lubac, as a Judeo-Christian allegorist who read the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old Testament within salvation history; or attacking him, like R. P. C. Hanson, as a Hellenistic-philosophical allegorist who used allegory to read metaphysical speculations into Scripture. See Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007); R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1959). Karen Jo Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Structure in Origen’s Exegesis (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1986), 13. Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure, 142, 144. For another parallel example, Bernhard Neuschäfer in Origenes als Philologe (Basel: Friedrich Reinhard, 1987) portrayed Origen as a typical Alexandrian philologist of his own time, who relied on contemporary allegorical principles, procedures, and techniques to expound the meaning of Christian Scripture and to teach its praxis. See also W. Gruber, Die Pneumatische Exegese bei den Alexandrinern (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1957); Jean Pépin, Mythe et Allégorie (Aubier: Editions Montaigne, 1958); Rolf Gögler, Zur Theologie des Biblischen Wortes bei Origenes (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1963); Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa Vie et Son Oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977); Jo Tigcheler, Didyme l’Aveugle et l’Exégèse Allégorique (Nijmegen: Dekker & van de Vegt, 1977).

Introduction

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in Origen’s use of it as synonymous with ἀλληγορία and τύπος and so merely as something “referential, pointing beyond itself to its ἀλήθεια.”17 Overall, the semantic notion and genealogy of σύμβολον for Origen have at best been considered by scholarship only as a cipher for ἀλληγορία and thus for Origen’s allegorical or non-literal approach to scriptural interpretation. In this book, however, I will revise such conventional views on the subordinate relation of σύμβολον to ἀλληγορία by demonstrating how the notion of σύμβολον is integral to Origen’s idea and practice for allegorical interpretation of Scripture and, hence, for the formation of a distinctive Christian identity and life. That is simply to quote Laeuchli and revise it as in the following: “One should say that symbolon was Origen’s main term in his contemplation of history or in his exegesis.” Or, one can say even more boldly that σύμβολον is a more fundamental and primary term for Origen than ἀλληγορία. For σύμβολον, as Peter Struck elaborates in his groundbreaking study on the semantic origins and genealogies of the term during late antiquity, indicates the formative way in which spiritual truths are encoded in Scripture by the Logos and thus determines the specific interpretive way in which the hermeneutical procedures and exegetical techniques of ἀλληγορία decode what has been encoded.18 Unlike ἀλληγορία, which is a tool temporally employed for the task of interpretation, σύμβολον refers to an ontological and epistemological structure of Scripture (on a micro-scale) and the cosmos (on a macro-scale) that can be carefully studied and properly applied only under the divine paideia (παιδεία) 17

18

Peter Martens, “Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction,” JECS 16.3 (2008): 304; also 298 n. 59 and n. 60. Over against the modern notion of symbol as a mere reference that points to something else, Rolf Gögler rightly observed that in Origen’s own notion a symbol, like Scripture in this case, has a power to meditate the real presence of the divine Logos-Christ. Regarding the loss of its lofty status, once highly valued by the ancients but no longer, he referred the main cause to the modern loss of an integrative cosmic view on what is natural/physical and what is supernatural/metaphysical and to the modern obsession with only the former. See Gögler, Zur Theologie des Biblischen Wortes bei Origenes, 37, 370–376; Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 3–9. Peter Struck, The Birth of Symbol, 39: “[T]he most common and enduring conceptual category within allegorical reading is not ἀλληγορία, which Plutarch says is a neologism in his time (De Audiendis Poetis 19e–f), nor is it ὑπόνοια, which appears in a prominent location in Plato but is not very prominent in the allegorical texts themselves. Rather αἴνιγμα terms are the real conceptual engines of allegorism. They form the terrain onto which the symbol will enter as a synonym some time in the second half of the fourth century B.C.E.” See also Struck, The Birth of Symbol, 24: “[S]ometime in the second half of the fourth century B.C.E., the notion of the symbol steps in as a synonym for enigma and begins to take its place within the vocabulary of ancient allegorism – a position that grows and expands until it reaches exalted status among the later Neoplatonists such as Porphyry.”

6

Chapter 1

of the Logos-Christ who created both. For Origen, to interpret Scripture in a symbolic manner means to receive the real presence of the Logos-Christ and rediscover “an integrated vision of reality, one that is centered on [him] as the true reality (res), in which all created things (sacramenta) hold together.”19 In other words, Origen envisions scriptural interpretation as a symbolic act with the Logos-Christ. Moreover, he summarizes the essence of Christianity as a symbolic drama of passage with the Logos-Christ through the cosmos, which Origen construes as a tripartite reality corresponding to the threefold sense of scriptural meaning. For this cosmic drama to unfold, ἀλληγορία is temporally employed as a procedure of symbolic acts of comparing and matching a scriptural text with others. In short, for Origen, the end of ἀλληγορία is to make Scripture and its interpreter “the one complete body” of the Logos-Christ – to reunite what was originally one.20 1.3

Outline and Approach

To begin, I will focus in the next chapter on Origen’s Peri Pascha, wherein Origen casts a critical methodological question regarding how to reread and reenact the Passover narrative from Exodus 12 “in a different manner” for his time.21 Taking a cue from Origen’s formulaic phrase, “in a manner proper to the σύμβολον,” I will follow the way Origen applies this theoretical principle to his concrete interpretations of the Exodus text in order to infer what he means by that phrase.22 Since Origen’s central question itself presupposes hermeneutics that others have previously employed, we will focus on clarifying Origen’s 19 20

21

22

Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence, 17. Origen’s concept of human union with the Logos-Christ is not that of the same substance by nature, as opposed to Jerome’s critique of him (see Hier. Ep. 124.14.2; CSEL 56, 116), but that of the participation by grace, as remarked in his works such as HPs 15.2.8 (GCS NF 19, 108), CJn 13.149 (GCS 10, 149.4-9), CRm 7.1.2, and CC 5.23. See also Dirk Evers, “Origen and Karl Barth on Universal Salvation,” Adamantius 25 (2019), 40–46; Samuel Fernández, “‘That Man Who Appeared in Judaea’ (Prin II,6,2),” Origeniana Duodecima (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 563–572; Sara Contini, “‘You Are Gods’ (Ps 81:6),” Open Theology 7.1 (2021), 225–228. PP 39.18–26; Sur la Pâque 230.18–26: “We now raise the question whether [the sacred ceremony and sacrifice of the Passover] is only in that time of its concrete celebration that it is carried out, or whether we might not have to admit that it is also carried out in a different manner in our own time, the time of fulfillment – upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10.11).” PP 4.29–32; Sur la Pâque 160.29–32.

Introduction

7

hermeneutics as a distinctive alternative. This will be accomplished by highlighting how it is “different” from his interlocutors, especially with regard to his perception of time and history as denoted in the following phrase, “in our time, the time of fulfillment.” Specifically, I will demonstrate how Origen’s tripartite view of the relation between the times of the law, the temporal gospel, and the eternal gospel (and between each manner of interpretation corresponding each time) is formed and signified by Christ’s two advents, the Incarnation and the Parousia. Furthermore, I will examine how this tripartite view gives the narrative structure and movement through which Origen interprets the Passover narrative in a different manner than his predecessors and contemporaries. Therefore, I will conclude for this chapter that Origen’s “different” manner of scriptural interpretation intends the reader’s tripartite passage with Christ from the law through the temporal gospel into the eternal gospel. In Chapter 3, I will focus on reconstructing Origen’s notion of the term σύμβολον to develop a clearer understanding of what Origen means by the phrase “in a manner proper to the σύμβολον.” To do so, I will trace some of the major semantic genealogies of this Greek term, which came from the Greco-Roman and pan-Mediterranean worlds, by using some prominent religious and philosophical texts of the major interpretive traditions from the sixth century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E. Then, I will describe the semantic development of σύμβολον from a commercial and social term to a cosmological and ritualistic term in the first three centuries C.E. Doing so will include an examination of how the term formed a semantic cluster with other interchangeable terms such as αἴνιγμα and ἀλληγορία. Further, I will demonstrate how σύμβολον – together with its kindred terms – played a key role as catalyst for a groundbreaking shift that fundamentally revised the cosmological relation between the corporeal, the incorporeal, and the divine; and that consequently readjusted the soteriological approach to the divine by means of allegorical interpretation of ancient sacred texts. I will conclude that Origen also contributed to this shift with his view of Christian Scripture as the source of divine symbols, which was indeed “different” from his cosmological and theological interlocutors. In Chapter 4, I will delve into Origen’s Contra Celsum, the work in which he uses the term σύμβολον most extensively and technically. Throughout the work Origen employs the term to present Christianity to Celsus as the most rational and beneficial philosophy and theology. Since Origen builds his arguments primarily based on the rational conclusions inferred from scriptural interpretation, this chapter will focus on articulating how the original notion of σύμβολον

8

Chapter 1

is enlivened in Origen’s principium approach to scriptural interpretation “in a manner proper to the σύμβολον.”23 Again, for Origen, to interpret Scripture in this way means to compare and match one text to other and to make them into a connected whole – which echoes a Christian traditional principle of interpretation, “Sacra Scriptura sui interpres” – and, still further, to connect the whole Scripture to the divine Logos.24 With regard to the soteriological benefit of such a symbolic act of allegorical interpretation upon the interpreter, I will draw specific attention to the term θεωρία, which within Contra Celsum signifies a tripartite passage of the interpreter with the Logos-Christ into fellowship with the Father.25 Indeed, the semantic association of σύμβολον with θεωρία reflects Origen’s perception of cosmological reality as tripartite and yet connected into a whole by συμπάθεια (sympathy).26 Within this metaphysical and soteriological 23

24

25

26

CC 4.9; SC 136, 206.10–13: “[T]hen anyone who constructs a Christian philosophy will need to argue the truth of his doctrines with proofs of all kinds, taken both from the divine scriptures and from [logical conclusions/τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἀκολουθίας].” The cognates with ἀκολουθία used by Origen include διάνοια (“discursive thought”; e.g. CC 6.7), ἀπόδειξις δι’ ἐρωτήσεων καὶ ἀποκρίσεων (“demonstration by means of questioning and answering”; e.g. CC 6.10) – synonymous with διαλεκτική (“dialectics”; e.g. CC 6.7) – and δεῖξις τῆς πίστεως (“the rational proof of faith”; e.g. CC 7.4). These terms render a condition for the possibility of attaining to higher and divine knowledge (νόησις or γνῶσις). On allegorical interpretation of Scripture as a symbolic act/event, Eugenio Trías, “Thinking Religion,” Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 103: “The symballic event constitutes a highly complex process or progression in which the two fragments may combine and fit together. The fragment in one’s possession may be thought of as the ‘symbolizing’ component of the symbol. The other fragment, not in one’s possession, represents the other half, in the absence of which even the first half lacks any established meaning. It is to this second fragment that the first refers to gain significance and meaning.” The principle of ‘Sacra Scriptura sui interpres’ practiced by Origen has also been called “to explain Homer with Homer [Ὅμηρον ἐξ ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν].” On this expression and its historical receptions, see Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe, 276–280; C. Schäublein, “Homerum ex Homero,” MH 34 (1977), 221–227. The term θεωρία shares some key connotations with the term σύμβολον, as it traditionally refers to a pilgrimage to sacred oracles and festivals to encounter the deities. See Wilson Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3–4; Jas Elsner, Roman Eyes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 24. On the cultural background and the connotations of the term theoria as significantly retained in the practice of Neoplatonists, see Crystal Addey, Divination and Theurgy (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014), 200–204. Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 69–70: “[T]he idea of sympathy (συμπάθεια), the notion that truth is expressed in different ontological levels of reality in the way most appropriate to the level. Hence, everything within the metaphysical universe is connected and the same ‘meaning’ or ‘truth’ can be expressed simultaneously on different ontological levels of reality. This conception of sympathy encapsulates and contains the

Introduction

9

setting, I will demonstrate that for Origen ἀλληγορία prompts the interpreter’s ontological and epistemological passage from corporeal reality (represented by “the law”) through incorporeal reality (by “the temporal gospel”) and eventually to divine reality (by “the eternal gospel”).27 I will conclude for this chapter that Origen ties together Scripture and its reader to the symbolic act (πράξις) or drama (δράμα) of passage, through which both reunite and become one with the Logos-Christ.28 microcosm-macrocosm idea which is so vital to allegory in the sense that the ‘microcosmic’ text reflects the ‘macrocosmic’ cosmos.” 27 See CC 7.46; SC 150, 124.34–126.42: “It is in this way also that the disciples of Jesus look at the things that are becoming [τοῖς γενέσεως], so that they use them as steps [ἐπιβάθρᾳ] to the contemplation of the nature of intelligible things [πρὸς τὴν κατανόησιν τῆς τῶν νοητῶν φύσεως]…. And when they have ascended from the crated things of the world to the invisible things of God they do not stop there. But after exercising their minds sufficiently among them and understanding them [αλλὰ γὰρ ἱκανῶς ἐκείνοις ἐγγυμνασάμενοι καὶ συνιέντες αὐτά], they ascend to the eternal power of God, and, in a word, to His Divinity [ἐπὶ… τὴν θεότητα αὐτοῦ].” 28 Per Aristotle (Poetics 1148a 24–29; 1448a 28; 1448b 5–9; etc.), the Greek term δράμα – derived from the verb δράω (‘do’ or ‘accomplish’) – it is a non-Attic cognate of πράξις used in a specific sense when signifying one’s engaging in the μίμησις of other characters that form certain μύθοι, narratives or plots. See Storey-Allan, A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 1–2. Claude Calame, in his study on Classical Athenian dramas in specific relation to rituals, concludes that for the ancient Athenians δράμα signified a procession of ritual or cultic actions intended for the epiphany of the city’s tutelary goddess (i.e. Athena), and for the worship of her at the end by civil spectators. See Claude Calame, “Drama,” The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 182–183, 187; Cummings-Simpson, Cultural Reformations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 600. Calame’s conclusions also ascribe the term δράμα to the divine actions of a deity as well as to human actions in their mutual coming to and playing with one another. In these respects, δράμα is a symbolic (συμβολικός) act of identifying/comparing oneself with/to other characters that may bring the actors into the divine presence and unite them with the deity in fellowship. Or, as Origen puts it in CSong pref.1; SC 33, 61.18–62.1: “And that is what we meant just now, when we said that the marriage-song was written in dramatic form [in modum dramatis]. For we call a thing a drama, such as the enaction of a story on the stage, when different characters are introduced and the whole structure of the narrative consist in their comings and goings among themselves. And this work contains these things one by one in their own order, and also the whole body of it consists of mystical utterances [mystieis formatur eloguiis].” See also R. A. Greer, “Introduction” to Origen (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 17–28. This study uses the English word “drama” to include Origen’s notion of signifying the ritual or liturgical actions made by God and his human partners that form a narrative of their coming and joining to one another; this notion of drama is intimately associated with the notion of σύμβολον – i.e. a narrative of reuniting what was originally one, as denoted in the title: Symbolic Drama of Passage.

10

Chapter 1

In Chapter 5, I will take Rabbinic-Jewish manners of scriptural interpretation into consideration as a case study for comparison with Origen’s. Origen dealt with rabbinic Jews as one of his primary interlocutors in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, especially after he made a permanent move by ca. 232 C.E. to Caesarea Maritima in Palestine, a prominent rabbinic center of his time. While focusing on the two Mekiltot of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon as well the Mishnah, I will draw specific attention to the rabbinic hermeneutical rules (namely, middot/‫ )מידות‬applied to rereading and reenacting the Passover narrative and ceremony in a symbolic manner. Given that the first and representing rule for the rest (i.e. kal vahomer/‫ )קל וחומר‬follows the principle of comparing and matching the less significant law or stipulation (the kal) with the more significant (the vahomer) to draw a logical conclusion, I will highlight the methodological compatibility between rabbinic midrashic interpretation and Christian allegorical interpretation. As evidenced in the different outcomes of these compatible methods of interpretation Christian and the Jewish teachers used to dispute each other, the common principle of making Scripture a connected whole – or, in a famous rabbinic idiomatic phrase, “making a fence around the Torah” – highlights the “different” rules each group used and raises certain key questions: “why this text with that one?” or “why not this one with that one?”29 In light of these questions, which are relevant for any allegorical interpretation carried out in a symbolic manner, I will take Origen’s use of the phrase “literal reading” as a typical anti-Semitic maneuver into account. I will then conclude for this chapter that Origen refers the phrase to specifically rabbinic allegorical principles of making biblical texts into a connected whole (namely, middot) and denigrates those principles as applicable and accomplishable on neither an incorporeal nor a divine level but only on a corporeal level. To put it in Origen’s words, reading the Hebrew Bible in a “Judaistic sense” (and in the absence of the divine Logos) enables its reader to “correspond” every letter only to “the course of this life.”30 Finally, in Chapter 6, I will determine what Origen means by “in a manner proper to the σύμβολον” regarding his central question as to the way in which Christians reread and reenact Scripture in a different manner. I will conclude that Origen envisions scriptural interpretation as a symbolic act or drama through which the somatic letters of Scripture are compared and matched with the pneumatic Logos-Christ in the psychic mind and life of the reader. 29 30

See Jacob Neusner, Symbol and Theology in Early Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 14. PA 2.11.2; GK 442.22-25 – Rufinus’s Latin translation; italics added for emphasis.

Introduction

11

Since this symbolic drama is taking place in the reader’s soul (ψυχή), Origen narrates another symbolic drama of the reader’s union and passage with the Logos-Christ into eternal fellowship with the Father. That is to say, the semantic notion and genealogy of σύμβολον enables Origen to construe the cosmos as a tripartite reality and narrate the divine drama of salvation as a tripartite passage with the Logos-Christ into God’s divine presence through allegorical interpretation of Scripture. This thesis, hence, demands a revision to accounts of ancient ἀλληγορία based on its relation to σύμβολον and other cosmological terms. For Origen, allegory is not merely a literary tool employed for seeking textual meaning but also a ritualistic one employed for elevating the reader’s soul out of corporeal reality through incorporeal reality to divine reality. Finally, I will touch upon the possible implications of Origen’s use of σύμβολον to the continuing (or, even increasing) significance of the term in the subsequent development of the Christian worship and identity, since the term was applied to their sacraments and creeds with its semantic notion and genealogy retained in the backdrop. 1.4

Origen, A Public Theologian

Origen was doing scriptural interpretation and theology not in a void but through mirroring of his interlocutors. Origen’s Peri Archon, for instance, shows him dialoguing with his Christian predecessors, who “handed down” the rule of faith “in unbroken succession from the apostles.”31 To teach a group of church leaders, he articulated “the tradition of the church and the apostles” as opposed to a series of doctrinal deviancies and fallacies of others, whom he revealed to be the Jews, the Gnostic heterodoxies or heretics (e.g. the followers of Valentinus, Basilides and Marcion) and the simple believers in the church.32 These interlocutors of Origen in theology were also such ones in scriptural interpretation inasmuch as he devoted the last pages of the Peri Archon to explaining “the methods of interpretation that appear right” to those “who keep to the rule of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ through the succession from the Apostles.”33 For Origen, as Peter Martens notes, scriptural 31 32

33

PA 1. pref. 2; GK 84.18–28 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. Origen applied “heretics [αἱρετικοί]” or “heterodoxies [ἑτερόδοξοι]” specifically to Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, and their followers, while he reserves “gnosis [γνώσις],” “gnostics [γνωστικοί]” for a wide spectrum of Christians within the apostolic tradition. Nevertheless, following modern scholarly convention, this study uses the term “Gnostics” where Origen would have said “heretics” or “heterodoxies.” PA 4.2.2; GK 700.8–16.

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interpretation became “the main arena in which he contested with his religious adversaries,” since it is, according to Origen’s own words, “a factor which caused sects to begin.”34 Porphyry’s description of Origen’s curriculum vitae, cited in Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica, reveals more of Origen’s cosmological and theological interlocutors: For this man was a hearer of Ammonius, who had the greatest proficiency in philosophy in our day; and so far as a grasp of knowledge was concerned he owed much to his master…. He was always consorting with Plato, and was conversant with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes and Loginus and Moderatus, Nicomachus and the distinguished men among the Pythagoreans; and he used also the books of Chaeremon the Stoic and Cornutus, from whom he learnt the method of allegorical interpretation [τὸν μεταληπτικὸν τρόπον], as employed in the Greek mysteries, and applied it to the Jewish writings.35

Porphyry and Eusebius, who used this statement for cross-purposes, place Origen into a third-century context, one in which accounts of the relation between the corporeal, the incorporeal, and the divine underwent a dramatic shift.36 The shift went from the corporeal merely copying and reflecting the 34

35 36

Martens, Origen and Scripture, 113. CC 3.12; SC 136, 36.21–23. Origen continues, “The result of this was that they interpreted differently the scriptures universally believed to be divine, and sects arose named after those who, although they admired the origin of the word, were impelled by certain reasons which convinced them to disagree with one another” (CC 3.12; SC 136, 36.29–33). This partially explains why Origen rarely cited any Gnostic writing or source. The exception to this is when he alludes to or excerpts their commentaries on Scripture, especially on Genesis and John’s Gospel, due to the cosmological concerns at issue. One can assume either that Origen had no immediate contact with the Gnostics and their writings but encountered their deficient doctrines through his predecessors’s references (see Martens, Origen and Scripture, 111 n. 19) or, more likely, that he only alluded to their sources for pedagogical and rhetorical purposes – sources such as the Valentinian Excerpts from Theodotus, the Sethian Apocryphon of John (see CC 6.49; Heine, Origen, 106–109), and the Ophidian-Peratic writings (see CC 5.62 and n. 9; CC 6.28 and n. 5; Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haereses 5.2), at least. HE 6.19; LCL 265, 58.6–8. This was originally written in the third book of Porphyry’s Against the Christians. On the reliability of Origen’s authentic identity and his direct or intermediate acquaintance with these authors and their works, see P. Beatrice, “Porphyry’s Judgment on Origen,” Origeniana Quinta (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), 351–367; T. Böhm, “Origenes, Theologe und (Neu-)Platoniker?”, Adamantius 8 (2002), 7–23; A. Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 126–130. For the traditional and relatively older views on the two different Origens, one a Christian in Eusebius’s account, and the other a Neoplatonist in Porphyry’s, see Koch-Schmidt, Pronoia und Paideusis (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1932), 291–; W. Theiler, “Ammonios der Lehrer des Origenes,” Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1966), 1–45; John Dilon, The Middle Platonists

Introduction

13

incorporeal to the potential to ascend and partake in the incorporeal through an ontological link (or, συμπάθεια) between the two.37 The term σύμβολον should be considered one of the key terms that account for this groundbreaking shift from the first three centuries C.E. on.38 That is to say, Origen was a public theologian of his time, one who engaged in cosmological and theological discourses with his contemporaries while presenting Christian truths by means of allegorical reading of Scripture in a symbolic manner.39 If ancient allegory as an inversion of symbol was a part of the common hermeneutical procedures and exegetical techniques that Origen and his counterparts employed to decode a sacred and enigmatic text through which they sought the divine (i.e. permanent) truths about the world, then the key to such a procedure and technique must lie in knowing the rule of comparing and matching the texts to one another and eventually to the cosmic world.40 Thus,

37

38

39

40

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 380–; M. Baltes, “Ammonios Sakkas,” RAC 3 (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1985), 323–332. According to Robert Berchman, “In the first three through the third centuries A.D. a great deal of debate went on among Platonists, Peripatetics, and Stoics. As a result, norms originally situated in one school tradition were adapted by others. In addition, Jewish and Christian thinkers added the wisdom of their sacred scriptures to the cacophony of philosophical discourse…. In the first decades of the third century, Origen enters into this dialogue and hammers out a synthesis intensely Christian and Platonic” (From Philo to Origen, 9). Pierre Hadot explains that this shift inaugurated a large-scale exegetical movement in the form of writing a commentary on any authoritative text. See P. Hadot, “Théologie, Exégèse, Révélation, Écriture, dans la Philosophie Grecque,” Les Règles de l’Interprétation (Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1987), 13–34. See also CC 1.9, 2.16, 3.58, 6.49, where Origen nearly equates philosophical activity to exegetic activity. See Struck, The Birth of Symbol, 171: “The author of the Hymn to Hermes, Aeschylus, Pindar, Aristophanes, and Xenophon all attest to the symbol as occupying the paradoxical position of ‘meaningful coincidence.’ This and broader divinatory senses reappear in the work of many later figures, including Philo, the historian Appian (95–165 C.E.), the second-century novelist Achilles Tatius, Galen (130–200 C.E.), Aelian, Origen, Porphyry, Eusebius, Proclus, and Eustathius, in a scholion on Aristophanes, and in the Suda.” Furthermore, numerous ancient accounts refer the origin of Pythagorean symbolism to ancient Egypt, delineating σύμβολον as an ancient Egyptian mode of representing the divine. For examples, see Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae 11–12; Clement, Stromata 5.4.20–21; Plutarch, De Iside Et Osiride 354E; Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 6.19.41. To clarify the phrase “public theologian,” this study follows the definition stated in Brill’s International Journal of Public Theology: “Public theology is the result of the growing need for theology to interact with public issues of contemporary society. It seeks to engage in dialogue with different academic disciplines such as politics, economics, cultural studies, religious studies, as well as with spirituality, globalization and society in general” (http:// www.brill.com/international-journal-public-theology). By “the world [κόσμος],” following Clement of Rome, Origen generally meant “a single perfect world” (see PA 2.3.6), a totality that contains many realms/worlds for the various

14

Chapter 1

allegory as a symbolic act involves a critical process of hermeneutical decisions: first, decisions about which texts can be used legitimately; and, second, decisions about which rules of comparing and matching should be applied.41 For example, in the case of “a man of the Church” – a phrase Origen often applied to himself – the rule ought to be one of Christian faith (as opposed to the Jewish middot, for instance) to connect a text with other texts and make the whole Scripture a connected whole.42 This is to say that ancient allegory beings and things to dwell according to their merits and statues (see also PA 3.6.7–9; CJn 12.36; CC 4.99; CMt 12.36; Phil 1.12; 20.26). According to Origen’s trinitarian understanding of the economy of God, the world is largely divided into three hierarchical parts (see PA 1.3.8): the low part for all existing beings (created by the Father through the Son); the middle part for all the rational beings (participating in divinity through the Son); and the highest part for all the perfect and holy (participating in the fullness of divinity through the Holy Spirit). See PA 2.10.7; 2.11.6; 4.4.5; HGen 1.15; 2.5; 2.6; 6.2.3. Origen thus employed allegory as a method “to announce [or, disclose] the connection [τυγχάνοντος τὸν…εἱρμόν]” between the events occurring in each realm by comparison with the Logos of God guiding the procedure (see PA 4.2.9; 4.3.5). Based on a scriptural understanding of the Logos as the divine agent (i.e. the Wisdom of God; see Prov 8.22–30) for the creation of the world, Origen portrayed him also as the divine interpreter who is able to reveal the secrets of the created world through allegorical interpretations of Scripture (see PA 1.2.3; 1.2.7; 4.2.2; 4.2.4). For Origen, “symbolism” – the constituting mode through which divine wisdom is encoded in the words of Scripture – becomes “appropriate to the understanding of divine sayings” when the Logos decodes them for his disciples through allegorical interpretations (PA 2.4.3). 41 According to Dionysius Thrax’s Ars Grammatica, which remained an Alexandrian standard textbook on philology during the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E., the first philological procedure is text-critical analysis (διορθωτικόν) to establish the legitimate text for the procedures that follow. As an Alexandrian philologist, Origen often displays his sensitivity to textual matters, such as unintentional scribal errors and ignorance (e.g. CMt 15.14; HJer 16.5.2) or intentional interpolations and corruptions (e.g. CC 2.27), as well as the multiple versions of translation (e.g. the Hexapla). In pointing out some translation errors in the LXX, Origen maintains its divine origin from the divine fullness, which is equal to that of the Hebrew Bible (e.g. HJer 28.4.1). 42 HLk 16.6; GCS 35, 97.28–98.3: “But I hope to be a man of the Church. I hope to be addressed not by the name of some heresiarch, but by the name of Christ. I hope to have his name, which is blessed upon the earth. I desire, both in deed and in thought, both to be and to be called a Christian.” For other instances in which Origen presented himself as “the man of the church”, see HLev 1.1.4–6; HJsh 7.6, 9.8; HJer 5.14.1; CJn 6.66, 32.183–193; CRm 3.1.18. Origen perceived linking the Hebrew Bible, as a connected whole, as the general principle of rabbinic interpretation. See, for example, Phil 2.3; SC 302, 244.1–17: “As we are about to begin the interpretation of the Psalms, we shall disclose a very beautiful tradition handed on to us by the Hebrew which applies generally to the entire divine Scripture. For the Hebrew said that the whole divinely inspired Scripture may be likened, because of its obscurity, to many locked rooms in one house…. It is a difficult task to find the keys and match them to the rooms that they can open.”

Introduction

15

involves, at a deeper level, the reader’s social identity. In other words, it involves the reader’s commitment to a particular community with its particular rules rather than to another with different rules. Therefore, allegorical interpretation of Scripture carried out in a symbolic manner indicates the underlying formation of the reader’s social identity. The formation of identity is, as Rebecca Preston notes, “a process of self-definition in opposition to other identities; it relies as much on differences from others as on similarities.”43 Since this process involves the procedure of comparing and matching, it denotes a symbolic event through which the “symbolizing” fragment, obscure by itself, comes to gain its true meaning and significance at the end in its union with the “symbolized” other.44 Origen views Christian life as a symbolic drama of passage, beginning with the first passage into the Logos-Christ (through baptism) and ending with the final passage with him into eternal fellowship with the Father. To sum up, for Origen, the main character of this drama, which unfolds in the present time, is the Logos-Christ, who dwells in the action of reading Scripture until his bride (i.e. the church) may fully grasp “his mind and understanding.”45 In other words, the Logos-Christ was Origen’s “symbolized” other rather than anyone else, the one who encounters Christians and leads them into the fulfillment of their true and distinctive identity by means of divine teachings from Scripture.

43 44 45

Rebecca Preston, “Roman Questions, Greek Answers,” Being Greek Under Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 87. Trías, “Thinking Religion,” 103. HJsh 9.8; GCS 30, 353.16–20: “Therefore, Jesus reads the Law to us when he reveals the secret things of the Law. For we who are of the catholic Church do not reject the Law of Moses, but we accept it as if Jesus reads it to us. For thus we shall be able to understand the Law correctly, if Jesus reads it to us, so that when he reads we may grasp his mind and understanding [ut ipso legente nos sensum eius et intelligentiam capiamus].” See also HEx 1.1; GCS 29, 146.9.10: “May you help with your prayers, that the Logos of God may be present with us and deign himself to be the leader of our discourse [ut adsit nobis sermo Dei et ipse dux nostri dignetur esse sermonis].” See further PP 33.19–23; Sur la Pâque 218.19–23: “[H]is flesh and blood, as shown above, are the divine Scriptures, eating which, we have Christ [οὗ σάρκες καὶ ὀστέα καὶ αἷμα, ὡς προαπεδείχθη, αἱ θείαι εἰσίν γραφαί, ἅς ἐὰν τρώγωμεν, χριστὸν ἔχομεν].”

CHAPTER 2

“To Speak in a Manner Proper to the Σύμβολον”: Origen’s Rereading and Reenacting of the Passover Narrative in Peri Pascha We now raise the question whether [the sacred ceremony and sacrifice of the Passover] is only in that time of its concrete celebration that it is carried out, or whether we might not have to admit that it is also carried out in a different manner in our own time, the time of fulfillment – upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10.11).1

2.1 Introduction In this excerpt from one of his later third-century writings from Caesarea Maritima in Palestine, Origen explains a pivotal controversy for Christian-Jewish interactions over the proper interpretation of “Passover.”2 With an awareness of Jewish cynical responses, Origen challenges the mainline Christian interpretation of “Passover” as “to suffer [πάσχειν]” or “passion [πάθος]” against the Hebrew word ‫ ֶּפ ַסח‬, which means “passage” or “crossing-over.”3 Instead, Origen suggests that διάβασις (for people) and ὑπέρβασις (for Christ) are the proper Greek words for translating ‫ ֶּפ ַסח‬, and develops the central idea of the treatise 1 PP 39.18–26; Sur la Pâque 230.18–26. 2 On the composition date(s) of this treatise to 245 C.E., see Pierre Nautin, Sur la Pâque (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979), 108–110; Robert Daly, “Introduction” to Origen’s Treatise on the Passover, 4; to some prolonged years closely from his composition of CJn 10 before 239 C.E. (for Part A) to the end of Origen’s life (for Part B), see Giuseppe Sgherri, Sulla Pasqua (Milan: Figlie di San Paolo, 1989), 41–42; and, to some time at least ten years after his permanent settlement in Caesarea, see Ruth Clements, Peri Pascha (Ph.D. Dissertation: Harvard Divinity School, 1997), 22 (n. 49 and n. 50), 23. By assuming its composition later than HJer and earlier than CMt and CC, it is most likely its composition date falls sometime between 240 and 248 C.E. 3 Some of Origen’s Christian peers, who espoused the Passover-Passion interpretation are: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Tertullian, Melito of Sardis, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, and Hippolytus of Rome. However, as Ruth Clements elucidates in her doctoral dissertation, this reading is both supported and challenged by these same readers due to both the historical synchrony and asynchrony of Jesus’s death with the paschal sacrifice, as divergent accounts between the Johannine Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels demonstrate. As a result, toward the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century C.E., Passover reading began to be diverse and widespread among Christian readers, including Origen.

© Brill Schöningh, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783657793426_003

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through lexical analysis.4 He states, “the antitype of the Passover is not his suffering; rather the Passover becomes the type of Christ himself sacrificed for us.”5 Thus, in Peri Pascha, Origen suggests a revisionary reading of Exodus 12 that addresses both insiders and outsiders, that is, both fellow Christians by means of the Jewish-influenced literal approach to the text, and rival Jews by means of the Christian non-literal approach revised.6 As such, Origen hints that each religious group is not forming their own distinctive approaches to the text independently, but rather interdependently, through mutual interaction and competition. Indeed, second and early third centuries C.E. Christian interpretations of Passover took shape in explicitly polemical contexts, specifically against Jews, but also heretics and the heterodoxies. In fact, third-century Palestine was the rabbinic center, as “almost all midrashim originated” in the area, “aside from the late compendia.”7 Both in private and public, Origen dealt with rabbinic Jews regarding scriptural interpretation, which is, in his view, “a factor which caused sects to begin.”8 Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible was the primary weapon for both Palestinian Christians and Jews to disclaim the other as true Israel and to win the proselytes

4 This analysis of ‫ ֶּפ ַסח‬can be considered γλωσσηματικόν, an Alexandrian philological practice subordinate to the third procedure, i.e., “literary analysis (ἐξηγητικόν),” which is carried out after “text-critical analysis (διορθωτικόν)” and “reading a passage aloud (ἀναγνωστικόν),” but before “aesthetic and moral evaluation (κρίσις ποιημάτων).” Origen makes a transition to other practices in this procedure by noting in PP 2.5–18: “Now this should be enough comment on the mere name to teach us the meaning that comes from the word fas…. We come now to an examination of the text itself [αὐτῶν τῶν ῥητῶν τὴν ἐξέτασιν], knowing that the passover (πάσχα) means passage (διάβασις)” (Sur la Pâque 156, 5–18). Other philological practices subordinate to this third procedure normally involve “grammatical and rhetorical analysis (τεχνικόν),” “metrical and style analysis (μετρικόν),” and “analysis of the historical realities behind a text (ἱστορικόν).” A trained philologist may bring all of these procedures and evaluations into her/his overall conclusions through the final procedure of “aesthetic and moral evaluation (κρίσις ποιημάτων).” This final procedure entails transformation of the literal and historical into something morally and spiritually meaningful for the reader that is allegorical in nature. 5 PP 13.10–14; Sur la Pâque 178.10–14: “οὐχ ἄρα ἀντίτυπος τοῦ πάσχα τὸ πάθος αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ τύπος αὑτοῦ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὸ πάσχα γίνεται τοῦ ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν θυομένου.” 6 See Clements, Peri Pascha, 120. 7 Herman Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 240. 8 CC 3.12; SC 136, 36.21–23. See also HEx 5.1: “[Apostle Paul] wishes, therefore, to distinguish disciples of Christ from disciples of the Synagogue by the way they understand the Law…. We, by understanding the Law spiritually, show that it was justly given for the instruction of the Church.”

18

Chapter 2

from the middle.9 In this way, in his prologue to Peri Pascha, Origen bore witness that proper reading of the Hebrew Bible drove Christian-Jewish competition and each group’s exclusive claim to be “perfect” Hebrews. 2.2

Problematizing the Passover Reading in the Post-70 Context

One of the key factors that Christian interpreters utilized in their polemics against Jewish interpretation was the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. (and the hope for its restoration in 135 C.E.). In his homilies on Leviticus 6.19–23, for instance, Origen challenges the Jews regarding how they can continually keep a sacrificial law that is eternally legislated. He opens his rhetorical arguments by calling on “those who want to follow the letter of the law” and states, I want them to tell me now how the law of this sacrifice can be “eternal,” since certainly with the destruction of the Temple, with the overturning of the altar and with all the things that were called holy profaned, this rite of sacrifices could not remain. How do they call eternal, therefore, what has obviously ceased long ago and was already finished?10

Origen’s challenge addresses not merely a matter of practice (in the absence of the Temple, where can one observe these sacrificial laws eternally ordinated?), but also a hermeneutical matter (in the absence of the Temple, how can one read the Mosaic prescriptions about sacrificial law and observe them as permanent ordinances?). When Origen mentions in PP 40.25–30 that the Passover rite is one of the eternal ordinances (see Exod 12.14, 24; Deut 16.5–6), he likely alludes to the historical crisis of the Temple’s destruction, and, by quoting 1 Cor 2.1, underscores 9

10

Rabbi Yohanan, a Palestinian contemporary of Origen, emphasized the Oral Torah over the Written Torah as a hold for true Israel (BT Gittin 60b and PT Peah 2.6 17a) and warned gentiles studying Torah deserved severe punishment (BT Sanhedrin 38b), while affirming missionary effort toward proselytes (BT Nedarim 32a). Richard Kalmin observes that Palestinian rabbis used scriptural interpretation in a more apologetic and polemical manner against minim (‘heretics’) than Babylonian rabbis and focused on subjects such as: 1) the identity of true Israel; 2) the nature of God; and 3) the importance of halakhic laws. See Richard Kalmin, “Patterns and Developments in Rabbinic Midrash of Late Antiquity,” Hebrew Bible/Old Testament I/1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 288. HLev 4.10.5; GCS 29, 331.11–17. See also HGen 6.3; GCS 29, 69.2–6: “But if you wish to be taught how the Law is dead, look and see. Where now are the sacrifices? Where now is the altar? Where is the temple? Where are the purifications? Where is the celebration of the Passover? Is not the Law dead in all these things? Or let those friends and defenders of the letter keep the letter of the Law if they can.”

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19

the necessity of an approach other than the literal one. In this way, Origen’s Peri Pascha echoes the theological and sociological responses of third-century Christians and Jews to the hermeneutical crisis regarding how then to read the Hebrew Bible in a post-70 context. Not only Origen, but also other Christian teachers took seriously “the fundamental problem that orthodox Christianity created for itself when it decided, in the late second century, to incorporate the Jewish Scripture within the nascent Christian biblical canon.”11 However, Origen was the first Christian scholar, according to Robert Wilken, to deal directly with the problem, particularly when raising a valid question regarding how to carry out the Passover rite in a different manner.12 Israel Yuval sketches out this hermeneutical dynamic of post-70 eras from a Jewish perspective on the Passover: Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., two competing interpretations were formed for Passover, one Jewish and one Christian. To replace the ritual of the defunct paschal sacrifice, each religion adopted the strategy of mandating the telling of a story. Jews adhered to the original meaning of the festival as deriving from the initial redemption from Egypt that served as a sign of a second deliverance still to come. Christians narrated the tale of a second redemption already in place: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.13

Thus, how to read and enact the Passover anew in a post-70 context was a quintessential part of the competition between Christians and Jews in forming their distinctive group identities as the perfect Hebrews. Therefore, Origen’s revisionary reading of Exodus 12 is meant to be properly understood within this context. However, it is equally important to determine his distinctive 11 12 13

Grafton-Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, 235. Robert Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 71. Israel Yuval, “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” Passover and Easter (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1999), 98. The rabbinic hermeneutical responses to the absence of the Temple can be summarized from the Mishnah, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael and Shimon, and Midrash Rabbah, as a Jewish way of continuing their theological and sociological privilege as the chosen people by means of degrading the Passover sacrifice to a lower rank, substituting the Passover sacrificial meat with other non-sacrificial meal elements, and appealing to the permanent merits of Abraham and Isaac for the future redemption of Jews. See also Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder (Berkeley: University of California, 1984), 99; David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London: University of London, 1956), 194; Reuven Kimelman, “Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs,” HTR 73.3–4 (1980), 583–585; Jacob Neusner, Judaism: the Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 183; David Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” CInq 15.1 (1988), 150–155.

20

Chapter 2

scriptural hermeneutics that was employed to make his reading sound different, more authoritative, and relevant to his contemporaries, both Christian and not. 2.3

Origen’s Tripartite Hermeneutics

Having raised the question “how can sacrificial law (which is temporally and spatially tied to the destroyed Temple) be eternal?”, Origen’s hermeneutics revolves around determining the relation between temporal and eternal, between history and mystery. For example, all of HLev 4.10.5 shows that Origen uses this question to set up his answer, which is different from those “who want to follow the letter of the law.” Origen states, And it says this “law” is “eternal.” Indeed, John the Apostle says in the Revelations that it is “an eternal gospel.” We also find this written as “an eternal law.” But those who want to follow the letter of the law, I want them to tell me now how the law of this sacrifice can be “eternal,” since certainly with the destruction of the Temple…. It remains that according to this part this law is called “eternal,” by which we mean “the law” is “spiritual,” and through it spiritual sacrifice can be offered which can neither be interrupted at any time nor cease. For they are not in a place that is overthrown, or in a time which is changed, but are in the faith of the believer and in the heart of the one making a sacrifice.14

By “eternal,” Origen means “spiritual,” an eternal law is a spiritual law “which can neither be interrupted at any time nor cease.” It is apparent that he postulates the eternal laws of the Hebrew Bible, including the Passover feast, as changeless and ceaseless, and thus, from a Midplatonic perspective, to be truthful and divine. His view of them as spiritual and divine rationalizes his employment of a reading method that is worthy of them (i.e., a spiritual reading, rather than a literal one). Consequently, a spiritual reading of a sacrificial law demands the reader to observe it by offering a spiritual sacrifice in their faith instead a temporal one in the physical Temple. Moreover, Origen equates an eternal law to an eternal gospel. According to Shawn Keough’s research, the instances in which Origen mentions “eternal gospel” (Rev 14.6) appear in a few of his extant works.15 Among them, PA 4.3.13 provides Origen’s most comprehensive view of the relationship between 14 15

HLev 4.10.5; GCS 29, 331.9–21. Shawn Keough, “The Eternal Gospel,” The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 193–226. The texts are PA 3.6.8 and 4.3.13; CJn 1.40 and 1.84; HLev 4.10; and CRm 1.4, 14.

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21

the law and the gospel.16 In this passage, Origen mentions the eternal gospel in a discourse regarding how the law is “presented with greater clearness and distinctness in Deuteronomy,” than in Leviticus, as history and revelation progress toward the first advent of Christ, Incarnation. Yet, for Origen, the first advent of Christ is not only the fulfillment of the law, but also the prefiguration of the second advent, Parousia. If the first advent is fulfilled in time-bound history – in Paul’s words, “in humility” and in “the form of a servant” (see Phil 2.7) – the “more splendid and glorious” second one will be fulfilled in the glory of the Father (see Matt 16.27).17 Origen thus remarks, “just as by his present coming he has fulfilled that law which has a ‘shadow of the good things to come’ (Heb 10.1), so also by that glorious coming the shadow of his first coming will be fulfilled and brought to perfection.”18 Origen construes Parousia as the teleological consummation of revelatory history, the redemptive moment when Christ shall “transfer all the saints from the temporal to the eternal gospel,” and as the new beginning when the saints shall “live by the laws of the eternal gospel” in the kingdom of heaven.19 The first and second advents of Christ, therefore, open the scriptural window for Origen into a tripartite reality of the cosmos, which is divided in three stages by Christ’s two advents and yet all connected by Christ’s fulfillment. Several scholars – such as De Lubac, Crouzel, and Gögler – have recognized Origen’s tripartite structure of the cosmological reality from his employment of various terms in combination: the shadow; image; and truth; or, the law (OT); temporal gospel (NT); and eternal gospel.20 According to Keough’s helpful summary of the interrelations among the three stages, “the law first prefigures and finds its fulfillment in the temporal gospel, and the temporal gospel not only fulfills the law but also prefigures and is itself fulfilled in the eternal gospel.”21 Therefore, to determine Origen’s so-to-speak “tripartite hermeneutics” for scriptural interpretation of the cosmos, one needs to take a closer look at Origen’s own statements that address the relation of the law to the eternal gospel as mediated through the temporal gospel. According to Origen, the law prefigures not only the temporal gospel, but also ultimately the eternal gospel, and thus, will be fulfilled eventually in the 16 17 18 19 20 21

PA 4.3.13; GK 770.17–772.7 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. PA 4.3.13; GK 770.19–21 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. PA 4.3.13; GK 772.1–3 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. PA 4.3.13; GK 770.22–772.7 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. Keough, “The Eternal Gospel,” 199. See also De Lubac. History and Spirit, 247–258; Henry Crouzel, Origène et la “Connaissance Mystique” (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1961), 324–370; Gögler, Zur Theologie des biblischen, 381–389. Keough, “The Eternal Gospel,” 199.

22

Chapter 2

eternal gospel. In his commentaries on John’s Gospel, Origen determines the relation ever clearly and succinctly: “We must not suppose that historical things are types of historical things, and corporeal of corporeal. Quite the contrary: corporeal things are types of spiritual things, and historical of intellectual.”22 If one reads “temporal” as “historical” with Origen and his contemporaries, anything belonging to the temporal (historical) gospel cannot be the antitype of anything belonging to the law. This is seen clearly in an example from Origen’s prologue to Peri Pascha, the Passover (‫ ) ֶּפ ַסח‬as a Hebrew feast cannot be fulfilled in the historical Passion (πάθος) of Christ – as some Christian interpreters have insisted – but rather in something else belonging in the eternal gospel (i.e., in “Christ himself” who is eternal and divine).23 In fact, as will be articulated in detail below, this is the underlying hermeneutical principle that forms Origen’s treatise on the Passover as a coherent whole. Yet, Origen also articulates that the law becomes one with the eternal gospel in fulfillment only through the temporal gospel. He perceives that the historical event of Christ’s first advent – followed by his teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension – accelerate the teleological drama of the law conjoining the eternal gospel in its fulfillment. Indeed, having seen in HLev 4.10.5 and PA 4.3.13 (and elsewhere), he takes the historical destruction of the Temple seriously as an undeniable sign that demonstrates God’s disfavor for the Jews in the progress of salvation history toward the eternal gospel.24 Even with his utmost concern for spiritual things and divine matters, Origen ascribes value to their historical counterparts through their interconnected relation. Origen’s acknowledgement of history in his concern for mystery is primarily because the historical Christ of the temporal gospel is identical to the mystical Christ of the eternal gospel in his Christology. Another instance of the “eternal gospel” in Origen’s writings affirms this: “Indeed, perhaps what is called ‘the eternal gospel’ (Rev 14.6) should be interpreted with reference to him.”25 For Origen, history becomes one with mystery, and the law with the eternal gospel in Christ. Thus, Origen could say that the law is the eternal gospel, but only 22 23

24 25

CJn 10.110; GCS 10, 189.27–29: “οὐ γὰρ νομιστέον τὰ ἱστορικὰ ἱστορικῶν εἶναι τύπους καὶ τὰ σωματικὰ σωματικῶν, ἀλλὰ τὰ σωματικὰ πνευματικῶν καὶ τὰ ἱστορικὰ νοητῶν.” See PP 13.10–14; Sur la Pâque 178.10–14: “[T]he antitype of the Passover is not his suffering; rather the Passover becomes the type of Christ himself sacrificed for us [οὐχ ἄρα ἀντίτυπος τοῦ πάσχα τὸ πάθος αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ τύπος αὑτοῦ τοῦ Χριστοῦ τὸ πάσχα γίνεται τοῦ ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν θυομένου].” For instance, see PA 4.1.3–4, where Origen uses the destruction of the Temple and the political entity of Israel as proof of the fulfillment of scriptural pronouncements regarding God’s plan for replacing Israel with a new one. CRm 1.14.1; Bammel 79.19–20.

To Speak in a Manner Proper to the Σύμβολον

23

through Christ. “The law and the prophets [i.e. the Old Testament] are shown to harmonize with the Gospels [of Christ] and to shine forth with the same glory when viewed and interpreted spiritually,” states Origen in his commentaries on Romans.26 From the mountain of Jesus’s transformation in Matthew 17, Origen is thus able to see the glorious transformation of the Old Testament by the Logos-Christ into a single being with the eternal gospel: but, after the touch of the Word, lifting up their eyes they saw Jesus only and no other. Moses, the law, and Elijah, the prophet, became one only with the Gospel of Jesus; and not, as they were formerly three, did they so abide, but the three became one [καὶ οὐχ ὥσπερ ἦσαν πρότερον τρεῖς, οὕτω μεμενήκασιν, ἀλλὰ γεγόνασιν οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν].27

Indeed, Origen comprehends the relationship between history and mystery by essentially reading Scripture in terms of the metanarrative of Christ’s advents. Christ’s first and second advents give the overarching scriptural narrative (and correspondingly so history) a tripartite structure as it unfolds from Genesis through the Gospels to Revelation. Keough states, The revelatory and redemptive economy is consistently given Christological content by Origen, so that the movement from law to temporal gospel to eternal gospel becomes a narrative movement, a progression in the story of the Saviour. The grand narrative that Origen discerns in the text of scripture stretches from before the creation of the world to the final restoration of all created reality to communion with God.28

Origen remains consistent with his tripartite hermeneutics, and thus, one should read his treatise on the Passover with this hermeneutics. 2.4

The Tripartite Hermeneutics Applied to the Structure and Flow of Peri Pascha

Overall, Origen applies this tripartite hermeneutics of the Logos-Christ to his rereading and reenactment of the Passover narrative and ceremony in his Peri Pascha. Origen states:

26 27 28

CRm 1.10.3; Bammel 70.41–42. CMt 12.43; GCS 40, 168.4–12. Keough, “The Eternal Gospel,” 222.

24

Chapter 2 Just as the mysteries of the Passover which are celebrated in the Old Testament are superseded by the truth of the New Testament, so too will the mysteries of the New Testament, which we must now celebrate in the same way, not be necessary in the resurrection, a time which is signified by the morning in which nothing will be left, and what does remain of it will be burned with fire.29

Origen structures the treatise into two main parts: his running commentaries on Exod 12.1–11 (Part A), and his summary with spiritual interpretation of the text (Part B). Yet, Origen organizes the entire work with a tripartite structure: starting with the Passover mysteries prefigured in the Old Testament; moving toward those fulfilled and prefigured in the temporal gospel of the New Testament; and finishing with those fulfilled in the eternal gospel. In the introduction to each stage, Origen outlines the meaning and significance of the Passover mystery according to the law, the temporal gospel, and the eternal gospel, as follows: [The law] When the Hebrew people came out of Egypt, it was fitting that the law was given to them to celebrate the feast in this way…. After this the people leave Egypt and the first-born of the Egyptians perish, and Pharaoh … is thus drowned in the Red Sea, but Moses passes through the sea with the people.30 [The temporal gospel] That the Passover still takes place today, that the sheep is sacrificed and the people come up out of Egypt, this is what the Apostle is teaching when he says: For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5.7)…. If our Passover has been sacrificed, Jesus Christ, those who sacrifice Christ come up out of Egypt, cross the Red Sea, and will see Pharaoh engulfed.31 [The eternal gospel] This is what the great prophet [Moses], in full understanding, ordains for the Hebrews nation when he envisions … the fulfillment of the commandment that this should be done forever in the generations to come as a memorial for them and their sons; for he recognizes there not only the historical but also the anagogical meaning, as it is written: interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit (1 Cor 2.13). I will therefore try, with the grace of God, to expound the spiritual meaning in order that the power of salvation accomplished in Christ may become manifest….32

Though Origen often skips explanations about historical meanings in the Old Testament texts in Part A, he moves the readers from the Jewish Passover to the

29 30 31 32

PP 32.20–28; Sur la Pâque 216.20–28. PP 2.19–3.8; Sur la Pâque 156.19–158.8. PP 3.8–23; Sur la Pâque 158.8–23. PP 40.12–37; Sur la Pâque 232.12–37.

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Christian Passover (Part A), and eventually to Christ’s cosmic Passover with his people (Part B), concludes Ruth Clements.33 The turning point of the treatise is when Origen makes a transition from Part A to Part B with a critical question. He asks, We now raise the question whether [the sacred ceremony and sacrifice of the Passover] is only in that time of its concrete celebration that it is carried out, or whether we might not have to admit that it is also carried out in a different manner [κατ᾽ ἄλλην ἐκδοχήν] in our own time, the time of fulfillment – upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10.11).34

As the temporal gospel mediates the encountering of the law with the eternal gospel in Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics, his answers for his time within the temporal gospel ties the two main parts of the treatise (and, thus the tripartite stage) together as a coherent whole. Throughout the Peri Pascha, Origen unpacks these summary statements regarding each manner of rereading, reenacting, and remembering the Passover mystery according to the law (PP 2.19– 3.8), temporal gospel (PP 3.8–23), and eternal gospel (PP 40.12–37). Therefore, Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics, which defines the relation of the sensible to the insensible within the cosmos, also defines the way he makes a revisionary reading of the Passover narrative for his time within the temporal gospel and moving toward “the end of ages.” In other words, for Origen, the Passover narrative (and the entire Scripture by extension) is to be read, reenacted, and remembered anew in light of the metanarrative of Christ’s first and second advents. 2.5

Rereading and Reenacting with the Blood, the Water, and the Logos

Commentating on the Exodus text word for word, Origen suggests the following reading of Exod 12.2, “This month is the beginning of months”, in a manner “proper to the sacrament [σύμβολον] through water given those who have hoped in Christ.”35 Prior to this, Origen has given the rationale of Christ’s first advent for such an approach to the reading of the text: “But when Christ came not to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them (Matt 5.17), he showed

33 34 35

Clements, Peri Pascha, 327. PP 39.18–26; Sur la Pâque 230.18–26. PP 4.29–32; Sur la Pâque 160.29–32: “οἰκείως ὡς πρὸς τὸ σύμβολον τὸ δἰὕδατος διδόμενον τοῖς εἰς χριστὸν ἠλπικόσιν.”

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us what the true Passover is, the true ‘passage [διάβασις]’ out of Egypt.”36 By understanding one’s baptism with Christ as the true passage from darkness to light (see John 3.20–21), Origen interprets the historical meaning of the new month as being fulfilled in the sacramental meaning of rebirth or regeneration through baptism (see Titus 3.5).37 In drawing a Christological correlation between the new month (according to the law) and the baptismal rebirth (according to the temporal gospel), Origen illustrates the sacrament of baptism in the language of sacrifice through the Exodus text, “all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight” (Exod 12.6). Origen thus remarks, “It is necessary for us to sacrifice the true lamb – if we have been ordained priests.”38 If one had to sacrifice the paschal lamb according to the law in order to participate in the Passover mysteries, for the present time one has to sacrifice Christ, “the true lamb,” according to the temporal gospel. For Origen, the true sacrifice of Christ, which occurs during the sacrament of baptism, is an unbloody sacrifice as opposed to the bloody one expected by the law. Rather, it is a watery sacrifice that does not require the physical existence of the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead, it requires faithful anointing through water to be the Passover mystery – one’s union and passage with Christ. In his exposition on the legislation of Exod 12.7, which instructs one to put sacrificial blood on house doorframes, Origen explains anointing with blood is equated with having faith in Christ, to have “confidence in the destruction of the power of the destroyer.”39 However, just as the bloody sacrifice of the lamb is more corporeal and less spiritual than the watery sacrifice of baptism, the watery one is also more corporeal and less spiritual than the heavenly sacrifice of the Logos-Christ, the third and final Passover. That which is more than corporeal and less than spiritual can be properly described as “sacramental [συμβολικός].” This sacramental understanding of the Passover is to be fulfilled and superseded by “the actual realization of the name of the Passover” when “the migrant world has passed over into the firmly established age of the Father.”40 Origen believed that “Christ shall purify and convert the entire world,” by offering himself for 36 37

38 39 40

PP 4.13–19; Sur la Pâque 160.13–19. Ruth Clements notes that toward the end of the second century C.E. the Christian phenomena of reading the Passover narrative in the larger context of the Exodus begins “to assume more importance,” and that “a related phenomenon is the beginning of an explicit relation of Pascha, or of the Red Sea crossing itself, with baptism.” Clements, Peri Pascha (1997), 156; and n. 45 for specific literary evidence. PP 13.3–6; Sur la Pâque 178.3–6. PP 25.[-]15–[-]4; Sur la Pâque 202.[-]15–[–]4. PP 45.7–14; Sur la Pâque 242.7–14.

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“the third pasch [τὸ τρίτον πάσχα] which will be celebrated in a most perfect assembly and a most blessed exodus.”41 To the central question from PP 39, therefore, Origen offers Christians a sacramental way of rereading and reenacting the Passover narrative through their baptism with Christ.42 Moreover, the two laws found in Exod 12.7 and 8 – to put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts (v. 7) and to roast and eat the flesh of the lamb (v. 8) – prompts Origen to reread it according to the manner and language of another sacrament – the Eucharist. 2.6

Rereading and Reenacting with the Lamb, Scripture, and the Logos

Origen explicitly connects baptism with the Eucharist in his exposition on Exod 12.8. He notes, “And after we have been anointed, that is, after having believed in Christ, we are then ordered to move on to the eating of Christ….”43 Robert Daly points out that the phrase “to believe in Christ” is often used to signify baptism in the time of Origen; so, one may naturally read the next phrase “to eat Christ” in terms of the Eucharist, which completes the picture of the two traditional sacraments of initiation into the Christian life and community.44 In the following lines, however, Origen cleverly substitutes the eucharistic bread with Scripture as the flesh of the divine Logos by asking, “If the lamb is Christ and Christ is the Logos, what is the flesh of the divine words if not the divine Scriptures?”45 From Origen’s tripartite hermeneutical point of view, the paschal lamb prefigures the historical Christ (who is also the Logos that comes with the eternal gospel), and the flesh of the lamb prefigures Scripture that reveals the divine Logos by cooking and eating it – scriptural interpretation. Using clever analogies, Origen applies three different modes of cooking and eating the flesh to his three different groups of opponents, all of which are polemical in tone and mood. Thus, based on Exod 12.9, he portrays the heretics as those who mix the flesh of the Savior (i.e. the words of Scripture) with “another material which could water it down,” whereas the Jews as those who “partake of them raw

41 42 43 44 45

For Christ’s purification of the world, see PP 47.2–7; Sur la Pâque 246.2–7. For Christ’s third passage, see CJn 10.111; GCS 10, 189.30–31. PP 39.18–25; Sur la Pâque 230.18–26. PP 25.[-]8–[-]4; Sur la Pâque 202.[-]8–[-]4. Robert Daly’s note for Origen’s Treatise on the Passover, 98 n. 32. PP 26.5–8; Sur la Pâque 204.5–8.

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when they rely on just the letter of the Scriptures [μόναις ταῖς λέξεσιν ἐπερειδόμενοι τῶν γραφῶν].”46 Origen, then, teaches proper interpretation and coherent practice of Exod 12.9 while fancying himself and his group as the perfect Hebrews, “We are commanded … but to partake of it by cooking it with fire alone, that is, with the divine Spirit.”47 Thus, he describes spiritual interpretation of Scripture as transforming the letters of Scripture by the Holy Spirit into their spiritual meanings so as to partake of Christ now in mystery as the divine Logos: Therefore the Holy Spirit is rightly called fire, which it is necessary for us to receive in order to have converse with the flesh of Christ, I mean the divine Scriptures, so that, when we have roasted them with this divine fire, we may eat them roasted with fire. For the words are changed by such fire, and we will see that they are sweet and nourishing.48

Using similar language to that spoken with the eucharistic bread, Origen in Contra Celsum draws a parallel with Scripture: “[B]y the prayer they become a certain holy body which sanctifies those who partake of it with a pure intention.”49 In PP 33.20–25, Origen draws a fuller eucharistic analogy of scriptural interpretation for his readers. He refers to Christ’s blood as well as his flesh in union as the divine Scripture, so that those who eat and drink it – those who understand its meanings – have Christ.50 In this way, he applies the eucharistic aspect of scriptural interpretation to the flesh, which becomes by the Holy Spirit “the meaning” about the things to come (cf. 1 Cor 13.12), and to the blood, which becomes “the faith in the gospel of the new covenant (cf. 1 Cor 11.25; Luke 22.20).”51 However, since the eucharistic flesh and blood is of Christ, “the meaning” and “the faith” ought to be Christologically coupled and synonymously signified by the single body of Scripture, which is the flesh of Christ for Origen. Thus, by drawing the Christological correlation between the paschal lamb, Scripture, and the Logos in tripartite, Origen illustrates the sacrament of the 46 47 48 49 50 51

For Origen’s description of the heretics’s manner of observance, see PP 28.[-]11–[-]8; Sur la Pâque 208.[-]11–[-]8. For Origen’s description of the Jews’s manner, see PP 28.[-]5–29.1; Sur la Pâque 208.[-]5–210.1. PP 28.[-]6–[-]5; Sur la Pâque 208.[-]6–[-]5. PP 26.[-]6–27.5; Sur la Pâque 204.[-]6–206.5. CC 8.33; SC 150, 246.25–26. See PP 33.19–23; Sur la Pâque 218.19–23: “[H]is flesh and blood, as shown above, are the divine Scriptures, eating which, we have Christ [οὗ σάρκες καὶ ὀστέα καὶ αἷμα, ὡς προαπεδείχθη, αἱ θείαι εἰσίν γραφαί, ἅς ἐὰν τρώγωμεν, χριστὸν ἔχομεν].” PP 33.24–34; Sur la Pâque 218.24–34.

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Eucharist in the language of paschal sacrifice that prompts his unique understanding of Christian scriptural interpretation as the bloodless paschal sacrifice. As noted above, Origen described the sacrament of baptism as a watery sacrifice. Likewise, Origen similarly views the sacrament of the Eucharist as another bloodless sacrifice, offered with bread and wine – so to be designated as the meal sacrifice. Jean Laporte notes how Origen understands the paschal mysteries from eucharistic perspective in what follows: The obvious meaning of the Pascha in Origen is centered around the Last Supper. Origen does not doubt that the Last Supper took place during the Passover meal. Therefore, the Jewish Passover described in Exodus 12 is the model and foreshadowing of the Last Supper which continues in the Christian Eucharist, and culminated in the heavenly Pascha with Jesus sitting on the right hand of the Father.52

However, as all of Origen’s sayings on the Eucharist in his extant works point to the same conclusion, the superior sacrament of the Eucharist is always the sacrifice that is offered with the letters of Scripture rather than the one that is offered with bread and wine.53 Though the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ in a true sense, Scripture is the body and blood of the Logos, indeed for Origen, in a truer sense.54 In Origen, however, the Eucharist is identical to Scripture in their correlation to the same Logos, which both serve as revelatory and soteriological medium.55 For instance, in his homilies on Exodus, Origen highlights the similarities between the scriptural letter and the eucharistic bread, and yet places them in a hierarchical order where the former is considered higher than the latter. Origen confirms this order when expressing his great reverence even to the latter (and the lower), stating, “But if you are so careful to preserve his body, and rightly so, how do you think that there is less guilt to have neglected God’s word than to have neglected his body?”56 If Scripture is superior to the eucharistic bread and wine for Origen, it is because he believes that Scripture is the source and judge of all the divine symbols (σύμβολα), including Christian sacraments and creeds.57 52 53 54 55 56 57

Jean Laporte, “Philonic Models of Eucharistia in the Eucharist of Origen,” LTP 42.1 (1986), 78. Laporte, “Philonic Models of Eucharistia,” 77. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 415. De Lubac, History and Spirit, 417. HEx 13.3; GCS 29, 274.11–13. On Origen’s use of analogy between Scripture and the Eucharist, see Lothar Lies, Wort und Eucharistie bei Origenes (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1978), 217–258; De Lubac, History and Spirit, 406–426. See CC 4.31; SC 136, 262.27–31, 47–48.

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In these respects, therefore, Origen introduces a unique view on the task of scriptural interpretation; it is a priestly ministry of the eucharistic sacrifice of Scripture that sanctifies those who partake of it. Origen elaborates on this in his homilies on Leviticus, “Let the priest of the Church consume ‘the sins of the people’ so that when he kills the sacrifice of God’s Word and offers sacrifice ‘of holy doctrine’ (cf. 1 Tim 1.10) he may cleanse the consciences of the hearers from sins.”58 Origen’s unique view has a number of implications for the central question he raised in PP 39. As a matter of course, Origen utilizes and maximizes them in his appeal for the distinctive excellence of his Passover reading to convince his readers that his approach is superior to that of his interlocutors. One of several implications is that Origen’s Passover-Eucharist reading overcomes a significant problem laid in the Passover-Passion line of interpretation, that is, the typological inconsistency between the Passover narrative and the Passion narrative in terms of ‘who sacrificed and consumed the lamb.’ Tackling this issue in Peri Pascha, Origen emphasizes that the lamb is sacrificed by the “saints” or “ordained priests.”59 In light of his description of the Holy Spirit as the fire to roast the letters of Scripture, by the saints or ordained priest Origen means those who have the Holy Spirit, in contrast to those who crucified Christ, like the (Jewish) sinners in first-century Jerusalem, or to those who have refused him, like their descendants in third-century Palestine. In his desire to keep the integrity of the Passover narrative as a unified whole with the following Exodus narrative of departing out Egypt to the wilderness, Origen thus compares and matches the biblical exiles in Egypt to the present Christians, instead to those who killed or have refused Christ, in his suggestion of a different manner of rereading and reenacting the Passover.60 Consequently, in applying the Exodus narrative in unbroken parallel to the Christian life, he weds in Peri Pascha “the notion of sacrifice and meal” practiced in the eucharistic celebration of scriptural interpretation to “the notion of spiritual transformation” accomplished in Christian life as a passage with Christ into the presence of the Father.61 For another implication, Origen’s distinctive reading of the Passover is also concerned with frequency: how often should the paschal-eucharistic sacrifice be offered by these priestly saints? Returning to Origen’s treatise, one should be able to see that this issue of frequency can also be articulated in a tripartite way. 58 59 60 61

HLev 5.3.5; GCS 29, 339.25–340.2. PP 13.3–6; Sur la Pâque 178.3–6. See also PP 12.17–16.4 for the whole context and arguments. See also PP 41.36–42.16; Sur la Pâque 234.36–236.16, as quoted in the section below, where Origen compares Christians with the biblical exiles in various respects. Clement, Peri Pascha, 309.

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Rereading and Reenacting with a Once-a-Year, Daily, and Once-for-All Sacrifices

In the introduction to the first part of Peri Pascha, Origen reads the Passover narrative through Paul’s teaching from 1 Cor 5.7–8: “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival … but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.” Origen adds “the Passover still takes place today,” meaning “the sheep is sacrifice and the people come up out of Egypt, cross the Red sea, and will see Pharaoh engulfed.”62 Regarding how frequently the Passover should be read, reenacted, and remembered in contemporary Christian life, Origen gives an explicit answer in his homilies on Genesis: “Christians eat the flesh of the lamb every day, that is they consume daily the flesh of the word.”63 Also, he adds in other homilies that “those who offer to God the Passover sacrifice” are particularly commanded “to eat not yesterday’s meat but always fresh and new.”64 One is best able to understand Origen’s view on frequency through the paschal-eucharistic link to scriptural interpretation as seen above. According to Origen, Christians should eat the flesh of the lamb whenever they do scriptural interpretation in the divine firing of the Spirit. Thus, for Origen, scriptural interpretation is not merely an intellectual task to pursue divine knowledge or textual meaning, but an ontological enterprise to experience the divine economy of the Passover from Egypt to the Holy Land, from the law to the eternal gospel through the temporal gospel. As instituted in the Mosaic law, the Passover ordinance is to be observed once a year. Yet, Origen claims that for the time of the temporal gospel it can be observed daily or even more often, depending on one’s eagerness for and maturity in scriptural interpretation, regardless of the Temple’s non-existence. Origen uses this difference in frequency between the temporal gospel and the law to distinguish Christians from Jews, and to demonstrate Christianity’s superiority over its rivals. Once again in his HGen 10.3, Origen spells out such distinctions when challenging some Christians for their idleness and 62 63

64

PP 3.8–23; Sur la Pâque 158.8–23. HGen 10.3; GCS 29, 97.8–9. See also CC 8.22; SC 150, 224.11–16: “Furthermore, if a man has understood that ‘Christ our passover was sacrificed’, and that he ought to ‘keep the feast’ by eating the flesh of the Logos [ἐσθίοντα τῆς σαρκὸς τοῦ λόγου], there is not a moment when he is not keeping the Passover, which means offerings before making a crossing [οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτε οὐ ποιεῖ τὸ πάσχα, ὅπερ ἑρμηνεύεται διαβατήρια]. For he is always passing over [διαβαίνων ἀεί] in thought and in every word and every deed from the affairs of this life to God and hastening towards His city.” HLev 5.8.2; GCS 29, 348.12–14.

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indifference in participating in church services, the heart of which is the study of God’s word: I entreat you who are always present in this place where the word is preached…. Tell me, you who come to Church only on festal days, are the other not festal days? Are they not the Lord’s days? It belongs to the Jews to observe religious ceremonies on fixed and infrequent days.65

Thereafter, Origen urges his fellow Christians, as cited above, to eat the flesh of the paschal lamb every day (in contrast to Jews) through preaching and hearing the word of God in Scripture. Furthermore, Origen devotes a significant amount of Peri Pascha to demonstrating from various points of view the superiority of Christians to Jews in terms of Christ’s fulfillment of the law. Origen elaborates in PP 42.1–18, for example, For just as they [the Hebrews] were prefigured in a male lamb (cf. Exod 12.5), so are we in the man like a lamb (cf. Isa 53.7); just as they were prefigured in a perfect lamb (cf. Exod 12.5), so are we in the fullness (cf. John 1.16) of him who has carried out his Father’s will; just as they were prefigured in a one-year-old lamb, so are we at the end of the ages (1 Cor 10.11)…; just as they in a lamb without blemish (cf. Exod 12.5 etc.), so we in a man without sin; just as they in the first month (cf. Lev 23.5), so we in the beginning of all creation, in which all things were made new….66

However, according to Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics, even numerous paschal sacrifices offered by the Christians will be superseded by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ in “the actual realization of the name of the Passover” with the second advent and the final cosmic Passover.67 “Just as the Passover mysteries of the Old Testament are superseded by the truth of the New Testament,” concludes Origen, “so too will the mysteries of the New Testament” by the truth of the eternal gospel.68

65 66 67 68

HGen 10.3; GCS 29, 96.19–97.4. PP 41.36–42.16; Sur la Pâque 234.36–236.16. PP 45.12–13; Sur la Pâque 242.12–13. PP 32.20–23; Sur la Pâque 216.20–23.

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2.8 Conclusion Regarding how to reread and reenact the Passover narrative “in a different manner in our own time,” that is in post-70, Origen answers for his contemporary Christians in a manner proper to the sacraments.69 Origen uses water and Scripture for the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist in order to explain how Passover becomes one with the eternal gospel. Through these sacraments belonging to the temporal gospel, he links the Passover narrative with the truer one (that is, Christ’s first advent) and with the truest one (that is, his second advent). Indeed for Origen, the temporal gospel expresses “the essence of sacramentalism,” as Crouzel notes, meaning “here below we possess the true realities, but we perceive them under the veil of an image.”70 Through these sacraments, in Origen’s tripartite hermeneutical view, the law becomes one with the eternal gospel, history with mystery, and thus, the Passover narrative with the narrative of Christ’s second advent for the third and final Passover of Christians with Christ. Therefore, Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics, shaped by the metanarrative of Christ’s two advents, defines the way in which he rereads and reenacts the Passover narrative in a sacramental way for his contemporary Christians in third-century Caesarea, as well as the Greco-Roman world. By means of this revisionary reading and enactment, prompted in response to the Jewish understanding of ‫ ֶּפ ַסח‬, Origen attempted to transform (rather than reject) the dominant Christian reading of Exodus 12 from a narrow historical reference to Christ’s Passion and death into a grand metanarrative of Christ’s advents and cosmic passage (ὑπέρβασις) with his believers.71 Consequently, Origen’s revisionary reading and reenactment contributed to forming the distinctive Christian identity as the perfect Hebrews (as opposed to the Jews) by subordinating the literal and historical meaning of ‫ ֶּפ ַסח‬to the advents and actions of Christ. In defining “Hebrews” as “sojourners” (see PP 44.30–35), Origen uses a sacramental framework to present Christian life in narrative form. To conclude for Origen, this life is passage with Christ “from the migrant world” into

69 70 71

PP 39.18–26; 4.29–32. Henry Crouzel, Origen (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 68. For a later evidence of this development in Origen, see CC 8.22, where he displays his understanding of “the Passover,” in continuous line with PP, meaning “offerings before making a crossing [ὅπερ ἑρμηνεύεται διαβατήρια]” toward the city of God.

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“the firmly established age of the Father,” from the baptismal crossing into the eucharistic banquet.72 Therefore, Origen’s Peri Pascha bears witness to an iconic moment in third century Christian internal and external interactions, which were fundamentally initiated and developed by distinctive scriptural readings. Robert Daly assumed Origen’s sacramental approach to the Passover when he translated the Greek word σύμβολον into English as “sacrament” (also Nautin, “sacrement” in French) – although it generally means “symbol.” Thus, Origen’s symbolic (συμβολικός) approach to a rereading and reenactment of Exodus 12 needs to be explored in light of the semantic notion and genealogy of the term σύμβολον as applied to scriptural interpretation.

72

PP 45.7–14; Sur la Pâque 242.7–14.

CHAPTER 3

“The Truth in Enigmas, and Symbols, and Allegories”: Semantic Origins and Genealogies of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed by its Kindred Terms For this man was a hearer of Ammonius, who had the greatest proficiency in philosophy in our day; and so far as a grasp of knowledge was concerned he owed much to his master…. He was always consorting with Plato, and was conversant with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes and Loginus and Moderatus, Nicomachus and the distinguished men among the Pythagoreans; and he used also the books of Chaeremon the Stoic and Cornutus, from whom he learnt [the method of allegorical interpretation], as employed in the Greek mysteries, and applied it to the Jewish writings.1

3.1 Introduction The era Origen lived was one that overflowed with sacred symbols. Sacred symbols of gods overflowed from a temple on a high hill and encroached down into the most profane spaces, such as the marketplace. Peter Brown notes, There was no period of the ancient world in which the average man could be quite as certain that he knew exactly what the classical gods looked like: they were everywhere in the second century, in their most stereotyped and traditional form – on mass-produced statues, coins and pottery.2

The sacred symbols inscribed on profane materials filled every aspect of life for the ordinary and poor people of the empire (not to mention the educated and privileged). They enjoyed a surplus of solaces for the plethora of gods, but also suffered from anxiety about whether the gods would care for them. These ambivalent religious sentiments of late antiquity were often expressed in the motto that is frequently found on coins from the second and third centuries C.E.: Providentia deorum (“The gods are looking after us”).3 Otherwise, it would be expressed by outward hatred and persecution against the socio-religious 1 Porphyry, as quoted by Eusebius, HE 6.19; LCL 265, 58.6–8. 2 Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 50. 3 Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, 50. Here and henceforth this study follows Peter Brown’s notion of “late antiquity,” spanned from the second to the eighth century C.E.

© Brill Schöningh, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783657793426_004

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others, who seemed to provoke gods’s anger in their neglect of the traditional rites, thus threatening and breaking the social equilibrium. Merchants, soldiers, and travelers carried those sacred coins all around the Mediterranean and beyond to protect the empire from any kinds of threat, such as famine, earthquakes, epidemics, or unknown enemies. Sacred coins not only bore the visual images of gods, but also another symbol, their sacred names. For similar purposes, the sacred names were meant to strike the air by people’ tongues, and to be reverberated throughout the empire.4 According to Origen, its efficacy is dependent on “the qualities and characteristics of the sounds” when pronounced, and “if the same spell is translated into any other language whatever, it can be seen to be weak and ineffective.”5 Origen stresses the miraculous efficacy of the formula “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” that even non-Christians/ Jews invoke this divine name that becomes even more powerful when combined with the names of these biblical men and when pronounced properly in its original language.6 In a sense, its efficacy is dependent on the degree of one’s intelligibility to juxtapose sacred names in a powerful formulaic combination and to spell correctly in their original languages. In any case, sacred symbols played certain soteriological roles, while displaying a multi-leveled and yet all-connected hierarchical reality from the divine through the intelligible to the ignorant. 3.2

Common Cosmological Grounds and Questions

Elaborating on this “mysterious divine science [τίνος θεολογίας ἀπορρήτου]” (divine names as powerful symbols), Origen shares common ground with his contemporaries, particularly with those mentioned by Porphyry.7 Per this younger contemporary and one-time student of Origen, 4 In HGen 3.2 Origen follows the stoic definition of sound (φωνὴ) – “air which has been struck, that is, made to reverberate by the tongue.” 5 CC 1.25; SC 132, 142.31–35. 6 See CC 4.33; SC 136, 266.16–268.21: “Their names are so powerful when linked [συναπτόμενα] with the name of God that the formula ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ is used not only by members of the Jewish nation in their prayers to God and when they exorcise daemons, but also by almost all those who deal in magic and spells.” See also CC 1.25; SC 132, 144.42–43: “And when the name ‘God’ is linked [ἐφαρμοζόμενον] with the names of these men a miraculous effect is produced among men.” 7 CC 1.24; SC 132, 138.25–29. For Origen’s other references to this theme, see also CC 3.44; 4.34; 5.45; 8.37; ExMar 46; Ora 2.42.

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For this man was a hearer of Ammonius, who had the greatest proficiency in philosophy in our day; and so far as a grasp of knowledge was concerned he owed much to his master…. He was always consorting with Plato, and was conversant with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes and Loginus and Moderatus, Nicomachus and the distinguished men among the Pythagoreans; and he used also the books of Chaeremon the Stoic and Cornutus, from whom he learnt [the method of allegorical interpretation/τὸν μεταληπτικὸν τρόπον], as employed in the Greek mysteries, and applied it to the Jewish writings.8

For the first three centuries C.E., as Robert Berchman notes, there was a great deal of intra- and intergroup debating among Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, and neo-Pythagoreans.9 As a result of syncretism, Ammonius Saccas, a Platonist who tried to harmonize Plato with Aristotle, could have adapted a peripatetic norm to transform the traditional concept of the divine Form (ιδέα) into something apprehensible and dynamic in combination with a Stoic concept of sympathy (συμπάθεια), while maintaining its transcendentalism in line with Pythagoreanism.10 To this syncretistic and revisionary phenomenon “Jewish and Christian thinkers added the wisdom of their sacred scriptures,” which is remarkable with Philo and Clement of Alexandria.11 Such collective efforts were made by Origen’s cosmological interlocutors to readdress a set of key questions focusing on the relation of the sensible to the insensible, on the relation of the insensible to one another, and on the 8

9 10

11

HE 6.19; LCL 265, 58.6–8. Jerome (347–420 C.E.) names Plato, Numenius, and Cornutus as philosophers used often by Origen (Hier. Ep. 70.4.3). Gregory Thaumaturgus (213–270 C.E.) affirms Origen’s affiliation with these philosophers, named by Porphyry, by recounting Origen’s running curriculum for his school in Caesarea in sequential order that are accorded with the conventional tripartite division of the philosophical disciplines for the paideia: mastering dialectics (Address 8; SC 148, 140.1: “διαλεκτική”) to begin and then to advance in various philosophical subjects, such as natural sciences (Address 8; SC 148, 142.6–7: “μαθήμασιν ἑτέροις, τοῖς φυσικοῖς”) and ethics (Address 9; SC 148, 142.5: “τὰς θείας ἀρετὰς τὰς περὶ ἦθος”), all geared toward scriptural interpretation, the highest discipline seeking divine knowledge (Address 13, 15). Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 9. See also P. Hadot, “Théologie, Exégèse, Révélation, Écriture, dans la Philosophie Grecque,” 13–34; Martens, Origen and Scripture, 36 n. 43. See Photius, Bib Cod 214; Henry 3, 126.2–9: “σύμφωνον ἐν τοῖς ἐπικαίροις τε καὶ ἀναγκαιοτάτοις τῶν δογμάτων Πλάτωνός τε καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης τὴν γνώμην ἀποφῆναι.” See also Photius, Bib Cod 214; Henry 3, 129.18–24, where Hierocles placed Ammonius as a legitimate successor of pure doctrines after Plato and then Aristotle. Proclus, a prominent Neoplatonist of the fifth century, describes Origen in a similar attempt to interpret Plato through “Peripatetic innovation [τῆς Περιπατητικῆς…καινοτομίας],” and designates Origen as one of “all the other interpreters of Plato [τούς τε ἅλλους…τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἐξηγητάς]” who astonishes Proclus for blending too much Aristotelian thought into Plato’s pure doctrines (Theologiam 2.4). Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 9.

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relation of the first principle to all creatures, both sensible and insensible.12 Such cosmological questions postulated certain epistemological enterprises in order to determine the cosmological structures and the ontological locations within them. “Ever since the first edition of the Aristotelian corpus prepared by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century B.C.E.,” notes Berchman, “the Categories has been a subject of debate among Peripatetics, Platonists, and Stoics alike.”13 John Dillon adds Christians, represented by Origen, as well as magicians and priests from non-Greco-Roman traditions.14 Yet, more importantly, those key questions illuminate their shared conviction with the Mesopotamians and Egyptians that “the meaning of life is rooted in an encompassing cosmic order in which man [sic], society and the gods all participate.”15 This widespread conviction has at least five key characteristics, according to Cornelius Loew, that provide a rationale for what they were doing, regardless of their backgrounds: 1) there is a cosmic order that permeates every level of reality; 2) this comic order is the divine society of the gods; 3) the structure and dynamics of this society can be discerned in the movements and patterned juxtapositions of the heavenly bodies; 4) human society should be a microcosm of divine society; 5) the chief responsibility of priests is to attune human order to the divine order.16 Jonathan Smith has defined these characteristics as “a locative vision of the world,” in which “order is something won by the gods” and “man’s [sic] responsibility becomes one of discovering, of knowing his [sic] place.”17 Origen, like many of his contemporaries, reevaluated their ontological stance toward the cosmic order of divine society and the virtuous way of living in harmony with its members. In this respect as well as in other ones, Alexandria was a remarkable microcosm of the Mediterranean world in the Roman period. As the second largest city in the empire after Rome, it was a crossroads not only of commerce but also of numerous ethnicities, languages, and thoughts.18 However, this traditionally Greek city near (but never of) Egypt was not a racial melting pot, but mosaic, rigidly maintaining racial distinctions and social hierarchies as the 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 113. Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 122. Berchman also notes: “The doctrine of the categories is one of the most important elements of Origen’s metaphysics” (123). See John Dillon, “Magical Power of Names in Origen and Later Platonism,” The Golden Chain (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990), 216. Cornelius Loew, Myth, Sacred History, and Philosophy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967), 5. Loew, Myth, Sacred History, and Philosophy, 13. Jonathan Smith, Map is not Territory (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 133. See Idris Bell, Egypt, from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 52–53.

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city was divided into five distinct sections from the third century B.C.E. on.19 According to Heine’s description, Roman Egypt’s sociopolitical makeup has been compared to a pyramid. A few powerful Romans occupied the top. Under them was a larger, less privileged group comprising the urban Greeks and, in the earlier period, Jews. Below these two strata of privilege lay the remaining masses…. The Romans referred to the totality of the lower masses, regardless of their nationality, as “Egyptians.”20

The pyramid-shaped civil and social structure of Alexandria was just a microcopy of the divine societies: The Roman gods were located on the top tier, the Greek gods occupied the next level, with other foreign or inferior gods below.21 The spread of the Eastern cults through merchants and immigrants was “a notorious feature of the first and second centuries.”22 Yet, those cults never subverted the social and divine structures set in such-and-such hierarchical order, even when their influence was hard to deny. Cults gave the seekers and adherents “a sense of belonging” to their given locations in the pyramid structure – which only reinforced the given order – in turn demanding conformity from new members as the price of inclusion (or exclusion if they do not accept).23 In this way, a reinterpretation of the previous conviction, spurred on by new and foreign influences, developed to make sense, and provide relevance and authority to a new era and a new people.24 For this reason, Christians, though still a small minority group, became a big problem because they dared to subvert the social equilibrium by breaking racial, gender, and socio-economic boundaries (see Gal 3.28), and by elevating Jesus to the first tier with the most high God (see Heb 1.3). This led to Christian persecution, as is exemplified in the life of Origen. Origen was the victim of persecution during the reigns of Septimius Severus in 202 C.E., Maximinus Thrax in 235–238 C.E., 19

20 21 22 23 24

Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 20 n. 40: “Αλεξάνδρεια ἡ πρὸς Αιγύπτωι was the city’s official name in the Roman period…. The distinction between Alexandria and Egypt was common currency.” Philostratus in the third century C.E. made the distinction even sharper in Life of Apollonius of Tyana 3.32. He described a scene in which a group of the Egyptians spoke ill of the Greeks to the Indian king as “lawbreakers, immigrants, totally ungovernable, peddlers of stories and miracle, destitutes who flaunt their poverty not as something honorable but as an excuse to steal.” Ronald Heine, Origen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 7. See also Heine, Origen, 3–4 for more historio-sociological backgrounds. See Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (London: Penguin, 1993), 72. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, 63. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, 16; 63–64. See Chadwick, The Early Church, 152.

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and who died from the after-effects of the Decian persecution, which occurred in 249–251 C.E. Porphyry’s indictment against Origen in particular – and his followers by extension – should be understood in light of common convictions in a locative worldview. It was particularly aimed at a method of scriptural interpretation, which he attributes to Origen as its head-agitator or outstanding exemplary, which he designates as “the method of allegorical interpretation [τὸν μεταληπτικὸν τρόπον].” Porphyry states, [Some Christian interpreters] boast that the things said plainly by Moses are [enigmas], [conjuring] them as divine oracles full of hidden mysteries, and bewitching the mental judgment by their own pretentious obscurity; and so they put forward their interpretations…. But this kind of absurdity [i.e. the Christian method of allegorical interpretation] must be traced to a man whom I met when I was still quite young…. I mean Origen, whose fame has been widespread among the teachers of this kind of learning.25

Yet, a close reading of Porphyry’s statement discloses that the primary cause of such criticism is found in Origen’s elevation of the Hebrew Bible from its given (supposedly, lowly) location up to the one exalted as “enigmas/riddles [αἰνίγματα].” Then, subsequently, in their methodological manner of “conjuring [ἐπιθειάσαντες]” it, as if they expect to invoke the presence of their deity and receive the “divine oracles [θεσπίσματα]” from him.26 In so doing, Origen’s one-time student who ultimately became one of his fiercest rivals, Porphyry drew a connection among three key cosmological terms that address how the human world is related to the divine world: enigma, oracle, and allegory. Based on Porphyry’s use of these terms, enigma and oracle synonymously indicate the way in which a sacred text – the Hebrew Bible for Origen – encodes divine mysteries in letters or words. Then, allegory is the interpretive method employed to decode the enigmatic text and reveal the hidden mysteries. According to Crystal Addey’s study on Porphyry, Oracles are closely connected with allegory and mystery rituals within Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles: all three are viewed as tools for the attainment of divine vision and privileged understanding and thus aid the salvation of the soul…. Oracles are thus conceived of as “enigmas” which need to be decoded 25 26

Porphyry, as quoted by Eusebius, HE 6.19; LCL 265, 56.4–58.5. The Greek verb ἐπιθειάζω/ἐπιθειάσαντες signifies a ritual or magical action “to call upon in the name of gods” or “to lend inspiration,” as its Latin counterpart connotes “obtestari per deos” (Lindell-Scott). However, Origen himself never uses this verb and its noun (ἐπιθειασμός), nor applies it to Scripture and its interpretation.

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allegorically; they are implicitly assimilated with mystery rituals, since the divine vision available within oracles and mystery rituals requires an “initiation.”27

In this clarifying statement, Addey provides more depth for Porphyry’s use of three key terms in describing Origen’s interpretive task by situating them within ritual or divinatory contexts. That is to say, the ritual context makes the semantic connection between enigma, oracle, and allegory integral and effective for a certain group of interpreters to participate in divine society by means of certain acts in a certain sequence. In other words, for Porphyry, an allegorical reading of enigmatic oracles is in itself “a ritual, like a mystery rite … bestowing insight upon those with the capacity to understand and acting as a link with the divine realm.”28 Into this context another term is introduced to the collective semantic matrix of these three terms: σύμβολον. Peter Struck notes, “some time in the second half of the fourth century B.C.E., the notion of the symbol steps in as a synonym for enigma”29 and forms its cultic or ritualistic association with allegory through its cognate link with enigma, which is “the real conceptual engine of allegorism.”30 If the world Origen lived in was one that is characterized by sacred symbols, even pervading popular and secular places, such as the market port of Alexandria, and if these symbols did something for certain soteriological purposes, then the semantic development of the term σύμβολον ought to be traced from its origin, focusing on how it came to be associated with αἴνιγμα, θέσπισμα, and ἀλληγορία in a semantic family to do such significant and meaningful jobs. 3.3

Semantic Origins of Σύμβολον

In the LXX, the term σύμβολον was originally used to signify “token,” “sign,” or “seal.”31 However, its verbal forms (συμβάλλω/συμβάλλειν) provide a critical clue to the visual and narrative aspect of σύμβολον. As a verb it means “to compare 27

28 29 30 31

Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 80–81. For the literary evidence for the cognate association between enigma and oracle, see Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 177: “The association of αἴνιγμα and oracular speech recurs in many later sources, including the writings of the Hellenistic poet Lycophron (before 320 B.C.E.), the historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. 60–30 B.C.E.), and in the sophist Philostratus (fl. 200 C.E.).” Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 81. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 24. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 39. Bernard Taylor, Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009), 510.

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something with another” or “to set up something against something” in the LXX, and, “to throw together,” “to bring together,” or “encounter” in the New Testament.32 Thus, the verb narrates a sequence of actions: breaking of what was one, bringing and throwing the two halves together, and comparing them. According to Eugenio Trías’s description, The sym-ballic event constitutes a highly complex process or progression in which the two fragments may combine and fit together. The fragment in one’s possession may be thought of as the “symbolizing” component of the symbol. The other fragment, not in one’s possession, represents the other half, in the absence of which even the first half lacks any established meaning. It is to this second fragment that the first refers to gain significance and meaning.33

Therefore, the semantic notion and function of σύμβολον as a visible token, sign, or seal can be understood in any given narrative context. In this way, a thing functions as σύμβολον when the narrative unfolds in sequence from one event of breaking-apart to another event of reuniting “what is symbolizing” with “what is symbolized,” a reuniting of the symbolizing fragment with the symbolized fragment. In this sense, the semantics of σύμβολον entails a teleological aspect too. Wherever there is σύμβολον there is a teleological drama unfolding, from beginning to end, from breaking to reuniting. On this point, clarifies Trías, “to be a symbol” is not to be “a thing or an object,” but to participate in “this or that symbolic event” or “the process of symbolization.”34 Given that, one can see how the semantics of σύμβολον inherently developed in this religious zenith, especially when a religion bases its teachings on the tension and reconciliation between humanity and divinity, or between this world and the world above. Thus, Hans Gadamer points out how the religious form of σύμβολον corresponds to the original semantics of the Greek term – i.e. “the dividing of what is one and reuniting it again.”35 He remarks that, unlike a sign or metaphor, a symbol is “the coincidence of sensible appearance and supra sensible meaning, and this coincidence is, like the original significance of the Greek σύμβολον and its continuance in the terminology of various religious denominations.”36 32 33 34 35 36

For the LXX lexis, see Taylor, Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint, 510; for the New Testament lexis, see Joseph Thayer, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 595. Trías, “Thinking Religion,” 103. Trías, “Thinking Religion,” 106–107. Hans Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Continuum, 2006), 67. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 67.

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By tying the visual, narrative, teleological, and religious aspects of σύμβολον to the soteriological concerns of people, one can imagine a scene where a particular religious group may come to reconciliation with their god(s) through a set of prescribed actions bringing and displaying the best available symbols. What gives σύμβολον its significance is “not its own ontological content,” but “an act of institution, an installation, a consecration.”37 Therefore, the semantics of σύμβολον assumes a ritual context that “imposes such order on movement” from sin to redemption, from this world to the other world.38 Greco-Roman funerary rites are a good example of these semantic aspects of σύμβολον. According to Donovan Ochs, the Greco-Romans performed distinctive symbolic actions in their funeral rituals to make the transition into death.39 For the Greco-Romans (and also for humanity in general), funeral rituals were a rite of passage for the reception of the dead into a new society. In this respect, the sacrament of Baptism parallels a funeral ritual in dying to the old world and being born into the new world. Both are linked by the ritualistic process of passage as a “transition” from “death to life,” from the old identity to the new identity.40 From archaic Greece (750–500 B.C.E.) through the Classical period (500– 332 B.C.E.) to Greco-Romans of the first century B.C.E., symbolic actions in funerary rituals maintain a tripartite structure as the rite of passage for the dead to another world. One can label the tripartite structure in three ways: “wake-procession-burial,” according to Margaret Alexiou; “Separation -marginalization-aggregation,” according to Donovan Ochs; or “separationliminality-incorporation,” according to Arnold van Gennep.41 No matter the terms used, they all refer to the same symbolic drama of breaking what is one and then reuniting into one through a sequence of actions. Through this symbolic drama, which unfolds in tripartite, the dead person returns to and reunites with the next world. The Greco-Roman funeral traditions exemplify in this way how the semantic genealogy of σύμβολον coherently developed out of its origin. 37 38 39 40 41

Gadamer, Truth and Method, 148. Angus Fletcher, Allegory, the Theory of a Symbolic Mode (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1964), 178–179. Donovan Ochs, Consolatory Rhetoric (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1993), 27–31. The other two subordinate aims are 1) to restore the damaged relationship by the death of a former member and 2) to redirect the future of the participants. Eugene Gallagher, “Conversion and Community in Late Antiquity,” JR 73.1 (1993), 2–3. See Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Ochs, Consolatory Rhetoric, 46; Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 21.

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The ritualistic use of the term σύμβολον is introduced by Pythagoras to the Greco-Roman world. Porphyry recounts that Pythagoras learned three ways of writings and speaking from Egyptian priests: In Egypt Pythagoras resided with the priests and learned the wisdom and tongue of the Egyptians, and three kinds of writing: the epistolographic [ἐπιστολογραφικῶν], the hieroglyphic [ἱερογλυφικῶν], and the symbolic [συμβολικῶν] – some of which are interpreted literally by mimesis [τῶν μὲν κυριολογουμένων κατὰ μίμησιν], or allegorically by certain enigmas [τῶν δ᾽ ἀλληγορουμένων κατά τινας αἰνιγμούς].42

Porphyry’s account is relevant for reconstructing the semantic genealogies of σύμβολον that reached Origen and his interlocutors, thus catalyzing a great deal of intra- and intergroup dialogues among them concerning the reconstruction of the cosmos via reinterpretations of the archaic, sacred texts. It indicates that a sacred inscription or text was considered symbolic in nature even before Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.E. Also, it alludes to the ritualistic context, created and facilitated by the Egyptian priests, as a proper time and space in which a sacred text plays its symbolic function, as omens or oracles, by being composed and interpreted literally and, then, allegorically. When discussing Pythagorean symbols, Clement of Alexandria adds a set of subtypes to the symbolic of Egyptian sacred writings: “Of the Symbolic, one kind speaks literally by imitation; and another writes as it were figuratively; and another is quite allegorical, using certain enigmas.”43 To explain each subtype, he organized them by resemblance; the more the subtype resembles the described object the sooner he dealt with it.44 With the variations and supplementary evidence Clement reinforces another significant point Porphyry will make for the Pythagorean symbolism: the enigmatic form of symbolic writings is the highest medium for communicating what is incomparable and incommunicable with anything existing in the human world, i.e., the divine. Thereby Clement underlines this explicitly, and applies it universally to any sort of communication of divine truth throughout human history – Greek or not: 42 43 44

Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae 11–12; Places 41.10–15. Stromata 5, 4.20; GCS 52, 339.16–17. See Stromata 5, 4.20–21; GCS 52, 339.18–26: “Wishing to express Sun in writing, they make a circle; and Moon, a figure like the Moon, like its proper shape. But in using the figurative style, by transposing and transferring, by changing and by transforming in many ways as suits them, they draw characters. In relating the praises of the kings in theological myths, they write in anaglyphs. Let the following stand as a specimen of the third species – the Enigmatic. For the rest of the stars, on account of their oblique course, they have figure like the bodies of serpents.”

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All then, in a word, who have spoken of divine things, but Barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and metaphors, and such like tropes. Such also are the oracles among the Greeks…. But those, taught in theology by those prophets, the poets, philosophize much by way of a hidden sense [δι᾽ ὑπονοίας]. I mean Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, and those in this fashion wise, the persuasive style of poetry is for them a veil for the many. Dreams and signs [σύμβολα] are all more or less obscure to men … but in order that research, introducing to the understanding of enigmas, may haste to the discovery of truth.45

In these ways, Clement and Porphyry together sketch out the genealogy of σύμβολον as sacred writings from its ancient origins up to the second and third centuries C.E., and its semantic clustering with other interpretive terms, such as enigma, allegory, metaphor, and oracle. Both interpreters infer that its genealogy plays a key role for the priests, prophets, poets, and philosophers across the pan-Mediterranean in reinterpreting the cosmological structures and determining an epistemological way to arrive in divine society through certain revelatory medium. Other interpreters of the late Greco-Roman period agree regarding the connection between Egyptian hieroglyphs and Pythagorean symbols, as Peter Struck demonstrates: Many later sources draw a linkage between the two. Pseudo-Justin claims that Pythagoras’s symbols befitted Egyptian ways of thought; Plutarch says that Pythagoras copied his symbolic style from the Egyptians, explicitly identifying the symbols with hieroglyphs; and Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a hagiographic biography of a Pythagorean hero, tells us that symbols were especially an Egyptian mode of representing the divine.46

This testifies to Egyptian influences on the Pythagorean way of perceiving the cosmos-world. Why then spend expensive ink to document it? A simple and yet relevant answer is that because this lineage of syncretistic tradition is still enriching and even reinforcing how they and their contemporaries should understand the cosmos and the profound mysteries in their own context. Indeed, the crucial transition and transformation that took place in the semantic history of σύμβολον was spurred by its Pythagorean connection with certain ancient mystical religions and cultic traditions, from Greek and 45 46

Stromata 5, 4.21–24; GCS 52, 340. 5–341.4. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 200. See also Pseudo Justin, Cohortatio ad Graecos 18B; Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 354E; Philostratus Vita Apollonii 6, 19.41; Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 249.11–250.4.

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non-Greek backgrounds, in the pan-Mediterranean world. As Burkert suggests and Struck affirms, the Pythagorean symbols share abundant similarities with “worshipers at Eleusis, Haloa, Delos, and Lycosura, and in the Trophonius cult, at the temple of Asclepius, and in the Hippocratic corpus” – this ties the semantic origins and genealogies of σύμβολον to ritual and divinatory contexts.47 Retracing the semantic origins of σύμβολον, therefore, refers to Pythagoras’s tradition as the most prominent transmitter, synchronizer, and catalyzer for its extensive and pervasive spread throughout the pan-Mediterranean world until Origen’s time and beyond. 3.4

Semantic Genealogies of Σύμβολον

3.4.1 The Pythagorean Genealogy of Σύμβολον From its appearance in Anaximander’s Interpretation of the Pythagorean Symbols (fourth century B.C.E.), the Greek term σύμβολα meant “omens” for the Pythagoreans and was used this way by Philochorus and Androcydes, and later by Alexander of Miletus. In the first century B.C.E., Cicero translated this Greek term from the Pythagorean sayings into Latin as omina, meaning “omens” (De Divinatione 1.102). These Pythagoreans associated σύμβολον with senseless utterances and chance sneezes made in the context of divinations and prophecies, and reckoned them as divine omens and oracles, which require careful interpretation for discerning their hidden meaning and significance.48 This Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον is also recapitulated in Philo’s wordings: a Jewish Pythagorean saying “that is spoken enigmatically through a symbol [αἰνιττόμενος διά συμβόλου]” is considered “a precept that is equivalent to an oracle [δὲ θεσμὸν ἰσούμενον χρησμῷ].”49 This formulaic characteristic of the Pythagorean genealogy will be transmitted to later generations through Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria, Numenius, Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and so on.50 By the time of Iamblichus’s reception, the Egyptian hieroglyphic origin still signaled its arcane vitality and significance in directing

47 48 49 50

See Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 176–177; Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 105. See Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 98–99, 107–109. Philo, Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit 2–3. Origen also should be included in this reception tradition. An example from PA 4.1.2, Origen regards Jesus’s sayings as “oracles [χρησμούς]” because he uttered them “idly [μάτην],” meaning they did not pertain to the given moment, but rather to some later fulfillment.

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the Pythagorean methodological approach to profound mysteries.51 Thus, Proclus recounts it in his commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus, [According to Iamblichus] the Pythagoreans had the habit of placing before their scientific instruction [τῆς ἐπιστημονικῆς διδασκαλίας] the revelation of the subjects under enquiry through similitudes and images [διά τῶν ὁμοίων καὶ τῶν εἰκόνων], and after this of introducing the secret revelation [τῆν ἀπόρρητον] of the same subjects through symbols [διά τῶν συμβόλων], and then in this way, after the reactivation of the soul’s ability to comprehend the intelligible realm and the purging of its vision, to bring on the complete knowledge of the subjects laid down for investigation.52

According to this epistemological (ἐπιστημονικῆς) model, an investigator should start from the basic method of sensorial comparing things that resemble each other, and move toward the advanced method dealing with secret and enigmatic symbols. Echoing the Egyptian interpretive approaches to the sacred writings, such methodological movement ties σύμβολον once again to the highest category of revelatory medium (as compared to ὁμοῖον and εικών) for receiving the inexpressible and ineffable mysteries. In Iamblichus’s reception of the Pythagorean genealogy, symbols encode “the principles of reality [τά πράγματα]” in the form of a storied-myth.53 From its Egyptian origin to its later reception by the Neoplatonists in late antiquity, the Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον pulls the term, as Struck notes, “from its strict classical role of authentication over into its role as a label for enigmatic language that carries a hidden significance,” while transforming it from a commercial or legal context into a ritualistic and divine one.54 Berchman has aptly evaluated the Pythagoreans’s general contribution to Middle Platonism as providing a synopsis of its transition from Classic Platonism toward Neoplatonism.55 His evaluation can be applied specifically

51 52 53

54 55

See Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae 11–12; Clement, Stromata 5, 4.20. Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 30.4–10 – translations are by John Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy,” The Significance of Neoplatonism (Norfolk: International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Old Dominion University, 1976), 248. Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 30.14–15. Iamblichus’s view of a myth as a storied σύμβολον echoes Proclus’s comments that the narrative aspect of σύμβολον is seeded in its semantic origin. Furthermore, in myths Proclus himself integrated the narrative aspect of the word with the religious aspect by highlighting mystical rites and ceremonies as a context in which such myths are constantly being told. See Proclus, Rem Publicam Commentarii 83.18–. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 90. See Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 104.

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to the semantic genealogy of σύμβολον in transition and transformation during the first three centuries C.E. 3.4.2 The Stoic Genealogy of Σύμβολον The strong affiliation of symbol with enigmatic sounds and words attained in the Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον naturally relies on the vital role that interpretation plays: nonsensical sounds and words become meaningful only when properly interpreted. Another line of the genealogy of σύμβολον that highlights its interpretive aspect is introduced by a Stoic allegorist of the first century C.E., Cornutus. In the closing statements of Compendium of Greek Theology, Cornutus makes an explicit connection between symbol and enigma, The ancient writers were no ordinary men, but they were able to understand the nature of the cosmos and to make philosophical statements about it through symbols and enigmas [οὐχ οἱ τυχόντες ἐγένοντο οἱ παλαιοί, ἀλλὰ καὶ συνιέναι τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν ἱκανοὶ καὶ πρὸς τὸ διὰ συμβόλων καὶ αἰνιγμάτων φιλοσοφῆσαι περὶ αὐτῆς εὐεπίφοροι].56

The semantic bond of symbol with enigma should be considered significant not only because it will endure in later traditions of allegorical interpretation throughout late antiquity, but also because, as Cornutus is inferring here, such semantic coupling between the two terms has endured throughout the preceding centuries, particularly in the Stoic tradition of allegorical interpretation.57 In fact, Cornutus acknowledges in the following lines that he offered only a compendium of what previous philosophers had said in greater length and detail “through symbols and enigmas [διὰ συμβόλων καὶ αἰνιγμάτων].”58 In the text of Compendium, symbols refer to the accouterments and characteristics of the deities and to the constituting principles of the world. Struck analyzes, In this text a “symbol” seems especially to mark the accouterments of particular deities, which are interpretable codes of their qualities…. Asclepius’s staff is a symbol of something like “caring” (70.13); each of Hercules’s traditional emblems is a symbol of strength and noble birth (63.19). The more general characteristics of deities are also “symbols”… that the Muses are female is a symbol of the fact that erudition comes from being indoors (15.11). We also find elements of ritual praxis called symbols: people place stones on a herm as a symbol that the world is made up of small parts (25.1).59 56 57 58 59

Cornutus, Compendium 35, 76.3–5. See Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 90. Cornutus, Compendium 35, 76.6–9. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 145–146.

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However, from a Stoic perspective, all of these symbolic referents regarding the deities should be understood as about “the nature of the cosmos [τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν].” Cornutus’s closing statements thus represent a typical way in which the Stoic tradition has dealt with ancient poetic and mythic literature, especially when interpreting any description or expression that the mainstream Classists – meaning the followers of Plato and Aristotle – might have regarded as unacceptable and blasphemous being attributed to deities.60 “The obscenities of myth and Orphic song will cease to trouble us,” Mark Edwards remarks for the Stoic allegorists, “if we let the natural world and the human faculties supply more decorous substitutes for the gods.”61 Therefore, the allegorical method employed by the Stoics to decode what the sacred poets had encoded through obscure symbols and enigmas is physiological, “which seeks the meaning of the fable in some natural phenomenon or event.”62 What matters, even for later centuries, is the nature of the connection between symbols and the cosmos world when applying the classic definition of ἀλληγορία as a literary trope. According to Heraclitus’s definition of this firstcentury neologism, “the trope which says one thing but signifies something other than what it says receives the name ‘allegory’ precisely from this.”63 By giving a series of examples from Archilochus and Mytilene, Heraclitus underlines ἀλληγορία works in principle by comparison.64 On what basis did Cornutus and his prior allegorists compare, for example, the female names of the Muses to the fact that education matures inside the home?65 Are they interrelated to one another whether based on any literary or moral convention peculiar only to a certain group of interpreters, or based on something natural and universal to all interpreters in general?

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61 62 63 64

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This explains why allegorical interpretation has been considered a marginal phenomenon within Greco-Roman traditions, and also how ἀλληγορία develops only in the first century C.E. as a neologism to replace ὑπόνοια (‘under-meaning’) – appearing not yet in Cornutus’s Compendium, but frequently used in Heraclitus’s Homeric Problems. See Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 7–8; Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 120; Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 42 n. 1. Mark Edwards, Origen against Plato (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 126. Edwards, Origen against Plato, 126. Heraclitus, Homeric Problems 5.2: “ὁ γὰρ ἄλλα μὲν ἀγορεύων τρόπος, ἕτερα δὲ ὧν λέγει σημαίνων, ἐπωνύμως ἀλληγορία καλεῖται.” See Homeric Problems 5.3–6: “Thus Archilochus, for example, caught up in the perils of Thrace, compares the war to a surge of the sea as follows…. Again, we shall find the lyric poet of Mytilene often enough using allegory. He likewise compares the disturbances of a tyranny to a stormy sea.” See Cornutus, Compendium 14, 15.11–13.

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The Stoic genealogy of σύμβολον developed predominately by means of allegorical comparison to its cosmological referent συμπάθεια, i.e., “the presence of the divine logos through all things, that is, the material basis of the connection of every part of the existing cosmos.”66 According to this Stoic notion, everything existing within each ontological level of the cosmos is materialized and connected with each other by the logos. That one truth is concealed simultaneously through different symbols having been scattered throughout each ontological level of the cosmos, and it can be expressed through allegorical interpretation in multiple forms appropriate to each ontological level. Therefore, in the Stoic practice of allegorical interpretation, the connection between “one thing” signifying and “something other” signified is meant never to be conventional (and so evanescent), but rather natural (and so permanent) as it is generated by the generative (σπερματικός) logos. A shared worldview throughout the Mediterranean enabled the Stoic allegorists to envision a cosmos in which a symbolic part is connected to the whole, and in which the whole is expressed diversely through each part. This cosmological view, constructed and rationalized by the concepts of συμπάθεια and σύμβολον, “encapsulates and contains the microcosm-macrocosm idea which is so vital to allegory in the sense that the ‘microcosmic’ text corresponds with the ‘macrocosmic’ cosmos.”67 In another sense, it is therefore indispensable for allegorical interpretation of symbolic texts to express multiple senses of the truth – each sense corresponding to each ontological level of reality, while, simultaneously, joining a connected whole to comprise the single truth. In summary, the Stoic genealogy of σύμβολον incorporated ἀλληγορία into its semantic family to decode what the logos had encoded through symbols, especially poetic and mythic ones. 3.4.3 The Platonic Genealogy of Σύμβολον Names were a prominent type of literary symbol for the Stoic allegorists in their development of etymological theory. The Stoic etymological theory on names – for which Cornutus is well known – is largely based on their understanding of the nature of language in combination with the doctrine of cosmic συμπάθεια: language is ontologically natural and there is a coherent connection with the referent. Likewise, a name contains the cosmological truth through συμπάθεια, 66 67

Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 189. See also Cicero, De Divinatione 2.23; Alexander of Aphrodisais, De Mixtione 223.25, 226.34; Plutarch, De Fato 574d. See also Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 69–70. Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 69–70.

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disclosing it only when decoded through allegory and etymological science. As Origen notes in his Contra Celsum, the Stoic view of language became popular in late antiquity, laying down common ground for philosophers, priests, and magicians across the Mediterranean and beyond.68 The Platonists adapted the Stoic genealogy of σύμβολον believing that divine names as symbol unite humans to their respective god(s).69 According to John Dillon, Stoic etymological theory, which is largely derived from an interpretation of Plato’s Cratylus, and which was borrowed back from the Stoics by later, dogmatic Platonists, provided an excellent theoretical basis for a theory of the magical power of names, especially in combination with the doctrine of cosmic sympathy.70

Σύμβολον’s rise to real prominence began and was catalyzed during its Platonic genealogy. This is due to the revisionary and syncretistic features of Platonism that characterizes its transition from Classic Platonism to Neoplatonism. Middle Platonism was a reformed Platonic approach to address “questions that Plato had left unanswered” and explore “further ideas that he had suggested,” and eventually reaffirming Plato’s teaching over their cosmological interlocutors, especially the Stoics.71 In their revisionary stance toward Classic Platonism with the key cosmological questions, the Middle Platonists adapted the Pythagorean and Stoic genealogies of σύμβολον into their own. According to Dawson, “Middle Platonists embraced certain features of Stoic ethics and physics, Aristotelian logics, and Pythagorean metaphysics and number speculation as ways of giving fuller and more accurate expression to their understanding of Plato.”72 Furthermore, the works of Philo and Clement of Alexandria should be regarded as a source that enriched the phenomenon by contributing Jewish 68

69 70

71 72

See CC 1.24–25; 5.45. Especially in CC 1.24, Origen includes the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Indians in as those following the Stoic view of language and name as opposed to the Aristotelian and Epicurean views. The Hellenistic Jews represented by Philo should also be included (see Philo, Legum Allegoriae 2.15). See Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 257.1–260.2. Dillon, “Magical Power of Names,” 207. The abundance of etymological analyses in Origen’s works is based on this common cosmological ground. For lists of Origen’s etymologies, see F. Wutz, Onomastica Sacra (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1914–1915), 739–748; Ronald Heine, “Appendix” to Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 389–396. Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 189. Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 189.

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and Christian dynamics, thus elevating their Scriptures to the level of divine oracles.73 The Aristotelian (or, Peripatetic) commentators are another unique source in the development of the topic for the following intra- and intergroup discussions. Their initial role continued in their mediatory role that catalyzed and pushed the discussions in a whole new direction. The Peripatetic line of thought filled the middle between the Stoics and the Pythagoreans, reconciling the immanency and transcendence of the divine to the mundane by serving as a buffer. It suggested a revisionary view to the cosmological structure that is neither monistic nor dualistic but triadic.74 In this way, it pushed the interlocutors to apply a revised fundamental approach to every subordinate question, which would result in the rise of Neoplatonism. Thus, in this reconstructed model of the cosmos, the beings in the middle sphere – such as the Logos or Nous – came to play the key role as agents maintaining the dynamic balance between distinctiveness and connectedness, between division and union among the higher and lower beings. Therefore, the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον should be understood within the groundbreaking shift of the dynamic context of the first three centuries C.E., particularity in light of the mediating role of the Logos. In the revisionary tripartite view of the cosmos structure, Dawson notes, “the Middle Platonists reinterpreted the material energy of the Stoic logos as an immaterial force, which they then identified with the mediating entity, sometimes referred to as the ‘second’ god.”75 In the reinterpretation of the Platonic hierarchical worldview, Plotinus, a forerunner of Neoplatonism and Origen’s colleague at Ammonius’s school in Alexandria, put emphasis on “the conjunctive and 73 74

75

See Koch-Schmidt, Pronoia und Paideusis, 225–235, 243–280; C. Andresen, Logos und Nomos (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1955), 373–400; Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 23–82. According to Berchman, Alexander of Aphrodisias is the first source from the second century C.E., who accepts Aristotle’s postulate of three different spheres of being with amendment (From Philo to Origen, 83–86). Yet, particularly in the mind of Origen, Albinus in Didakalikos is a crucial link of the Peripateticized Platonic theoretic to the Alexandrian Middle Platonists, for at least three reasons: 1) one of the sources of Albinus’s metaphysic was Clement; 2) Albinus provided a paradigm for Origen’s metaphysic, and set up the schemata for Origen’s evaluation and understanding of the earlier theoretics taught to Origen by his teacher, Ammonius Saccas at Alexandria; 3) Albinus proposed a thoroughly Peripateticized Platonic theoretic, which at least in the case of Origen, resulted in the final shift of Christian Middle Platonism from the Pythagorean-Platonic axis of Philo to the Aristotelian-Platonic axis of Origen. See R. Witt, Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 32–41; Koch-Schmidt, Pronoia und Paideusis, 243–268 (especially 252, 255); Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 187, 204–205. Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 189.

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dynamic attraction between an entity on a superior ontological level and its manifestation on an inferior one.”76 Although he did not use σύμβολον as a technical term to refer to the attraction or συμπάθεια, he frequently used “trace [ἵχνος]” or “image [εἰκών]” of the One, embedded within the individual souls, in parallel to the notion of σύμβολον as developed in its Pythagorean and Stoic genealogies. These terms fit into Plotinus’s metaphysics and soteriology referring to the ontological links through which one may unite with the One by contemplation (θεωρία). In Ennead VI, Plotinus states that the links are given by the One as a type of “grace [χάριτας],” “love [ἔρωτας],” or “warmth [θερμασία],” through which the inactive soul gains strength to get “lifted by the giver of its love” and fly upwards to the presence of the One.77 By portraying the One both as the source and the end of the connecting links, he continues to illustrate the soul’s ascending journey as a tripartite movement from below through the Intellect

76

Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 203. Plotinus was, according to Hierocles, one of the two most “remarkable [ἐπιφανέστατοι]” disciples of Ammonius Saccas, along with Origen the Christian (Photius, Bib Cod 214; Henry 3, 129.20–21). The rival between Origen and Plotinus over which one was the legitimate successor of Ammonius remained, and Porphyry bore witness to it as he transferred his educational affiliation from Origen’s school in Palestine (Vita Plotini 20.37–39) to Plotinus’s one in Rome (Vita Plotini 4.8–14). Plotinus ascribed the task of critical refutation against foreign religions to his gifted students, including Porphyry who wrote against Zoroaster (Vita Plotini 16.15–20) and he probably also assigned Christianity, as evidenced in his Against the Christians (see C. Schmidt, Plotins Stellung zum Gnostizismusund Kirchlichen Christentum (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1901), 85ff). On Origen’s side, according to Porphyry’s (of course, biased) testimony transmitted by Proclus, a radical criticism was made against Plotinus in That the King is the Only Maker (most probably Origen’s last work) concerning the Plotinian cosmology with regards to the ineffable transcendence of the One beyond “every intellect and every being,” even including the Logos. Origen ascribed the originality of Plotinus’s thought not to Ammonius (nor, even back to Plato) but to Numenius, and considered Plotinus’s the One (transmitted through Porphyry (Vita Plotini 4.10ff) to Proclus) just as a name without existence and substance (Theologiam 2.4). Firing back at Origen from the Plotinian side, Proclus devalued Origen’s view of the One as a corruption of Plato’s pure doctrine for admitting “the intellectual kingdom [τὴν νοερὰν βασιλείαν]” but denying “the ineffable transcendence of the One [τὴν…τοῦ ἑνὸς ἅρρητον ὑπερόχην]” by implementing too much “Peripatetic innovation” to his interpretation of Plato (Theologiam 2.4). See also PA 1.2.2; Numenius, Fragments 12 and 21; Aujoulat, Le Neo-Néoplatonisme Alexandrine, 55–; Rowan Williams, “The Son’s Knowledge of the Father in Origen,” Origeniana Quarta (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1987), 148; Robert Berchman, “Origen on ‘The Categories’: A Study in Later Platonic First Principles,” Origeniana Quinta (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), 232; Beatrice, “Porphyry’s Judgment on Origen,” 361–362; Böhm, “Origenes, Theologe und (Neu-)Platoniker?”, 10–12. 77 Plotinus, Enneads 6, 7.22.1–20.

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(νοῦς) to the Good (καλός).78 Such trace or image of the One bestowed to the soul in the below reality is thus to Plotinus’s view “what is lovable [τὸ ἐράσμιον]” for the sake of the soul’s salvation.79 Plotinus’s theoretics of the ontological and soteriological links were added to the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον by his pupils and successors. In Porphyry’s earlier works, On Philosophy from Oracles and On Status, the term σύμβολον marks “a point of intersection between divine and mundane realms” – either as a material entity standing in for the deity (like a wax statue for Hecate) or a divine thing standing for a natural entity (like Hera for the air).80 Porphyry considers oracles as another type of σύμβολον in their interrelation to allegory and mystery rituals. By incorporating the term σύμβολον into Plotinus’s tripartite hierarchies, he claims that oracles become the link connecting the soul to the One when allegorically interpreted. For Porphyry, σύμβολον as an oracle is received “in a ritual manner methodologically analogous to initiation into mystery cults.”81 ἀλληγορία as an interpretive approach to oracles is practiced in the same ritual manner to empower the interpreter achieving divine contemplations and even higher into union with the One.82 In the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον, therefore, ἀλληγορία is a ritualistic approach to contemplating divine truths concealed in divine symbols.83 The term θεωρία originally refers in Classical Greek culture to either a religious pilgrimage to a sanctuary or festival in order to see sacred spectacles, or a philosophical journey to a teacher to learn the master’s wisdom.84 In this way, the 78

79 80 81 82 83

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See Plotinus, Enneads 6, 7.22.21–25: “It rises above Intellect, but cannot run on above the Good, for there is nothing above. But if it remains in Intellect it sees fair and noble things, but has not yet quite grasped what it is seeking. It is as if it was in the presence of a face which is certainly beautiful, but cannot catch the eye because it has no grace playing upon its beauty.” Plotinus, Enneads 6, 7.22.27. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 218. Struck’s citations are to Porphyry, Philosophi Fragmenta 326F; 328f; 356f; 358f. Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 283. See Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum 6.14, 22; 8.5, 20, 29, 31; 10.25; 12.4, 9; 14.27, 30, 31; 16.3, 20, 31; 18.21, 25; 20.5, 19, 25; 22.2; 26.12; 28.17; 30.2, 14, 23, where Porphyry notes that ‘symbol/ symbols’ is meant to be interpreted allegorically. In another respect, the symbol as an enigmatic oracle is identical to the encoded password (σύνθημα) that needs to be decoded through allegorical contemplations for a devotee to be present and allowed to see the ultimate good and beauty of the One. See Iamblichus, De Vita Pythagorica Liber 103.5–; Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 30.4–10. Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 200. As Addey cites, Andrea Nightingale relates three senses of the original term used in Classical Greek culture to the form of journeying and seeing: 1) pilgrimage to religious sanctuaries and festivals; 2) pilgrimage to Panhellenic sanctuaries and festivals; 3) and journeys to foreign lands in search of wisdom. See

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fourth-century philosophers incorporated in the term a ritual mode of seeing the spectacle of divine truths in their utilization of the two core images of the terminology – i.e. journeying and seeing – from their predecessors such as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus.85 Therefore, the semantic genealogy of θεωρία as imagined in the Platonic tradition deeply intersects and resonates with the semantic genealogy of σύμβολον, sharing the dramatic narrative of reuniting what is originally one. That is to say, the Platonic philosophical theory and practice of θεωρία draws σύμβολον and ἀλληγορία into a ritualistic context, that a pilgrim may see all the beauties and goodness of divine truth, which is scattered throughout the cosmos in the enigmatic form of symbols, as she/he is journeying through each ontological level up to the One. As Mazur summarizes, many arguments have been made to place Plotinus’s approach to θεωρία and the union with the One by means of the purely internal and rational methods in contrast with Iamblichus’s theurgic approach by means of the external and ritualistic methods.86 This traditional dichotomist view on philosophical and ritualistic methodologies is supported by evidence found in a letter written by Porphyry, Plotinus’s pupil and Iamblichus’s teacher. In this letter sent to an Egyptian priest, named Anebo, Porphyry called for censure of those who have tried in vain to invoke the magical power of divine names through their theurgic practices.87 If Porphyry relies on Aristotle’s theory of language as social convention for his arguments made to Anebo (i.e. Iamblichus disguised), in reply Iamblichus appeals to the Stoic theory of language for Anebo’s Egyptian master.88 At one point Iamblichus remarks that divine names are “[conjoined to] the nature of real beings,” so that certain names “that are better adapted to this” will be “more precious to the gods.”89

85 86 87

88 89

also Andrea Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3–4, 40–71. See Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 201; Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth, 69–70. See Mazur, “Unio Magica,” Dionysius 22 (2004), 30–31. Porphyry’s critical questions or statements, as cited in Iamblichus’s De Mysteriis, are as follows: “what is the point of meaningless names?” (7, 254.11–12); “why, of meaningful names, do we prefer the barbarian to our own?” (256.3–4); “But a listener looks to the meaning, so surely all that matters is that the conception remains the same, whatever the kind of words used” (7, 257.1–2); “whether he who is invoked is either an Egyptian, or uses Egyptian speeches … all these things are sorcerer’s tricks” (7, 258.2–5). See Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 1.1–2: “The reply of the master Abamon to the letter of Porphyry to Anebo, and the solutions to the questions it contains [Αβάμμωνος διδασκάλου πρὸς τὴν Πορφυρίυ πρὸς Ανεβώ ἐπιστολὴν ἀπόκρισις καὶ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῇ ἀπορημάτων λύσεις].” Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 257.5–6: “But if they are dependent on the nature of real beings, then those that are better adapted to this will be more precious to the gods [εἰ δὲ τῇ φύσει συνήρτηται τῶν ὄντων, τὰ μᾶλλον ἀυτῇ προσεοικότα καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς ἐστι δήπου προσφιλεστέρα].”

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Yet, the highlight of his reply is found when wrapping up all his arguments for the theurgic approach, and also, more importantly, when disclosing his quintessential understanding of σύμβολον as having developed within its Platonic genealogy through generations. Iamblichus makes a lucid statement that the divine symbols are the things “most especially [united/συνηνωμένα] to the gods” and “[conjoin/συνάπτοντα] us to them” through the powers “all but equal to theirs.”90 Iamblichus thus puts forth an extremely radical conclusion, “No sacred work could happen without them [ὧν χωρὶς οὐδὲν ἱερατικὸν ἔργον γίγνεται].”91 Based on our reconstruction of the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον, one must conclude that Plotinus and his two successors are incorporated into a continuum along an axis of what a symbol is and does. Their use of the term θεωρία within the narrative, with both visual and ritualistic connotations, stands as a supporting evidence for this conclusion. Yet this Platonic σύμβολον continuum is broad enough to allow plenty of space for each philosopher to take various methodological approaches to the union with the One, as exemplified in the distinction between Plotinus’s internalized contemplation or Iamblichus’s externalized one. It also contains the flexibility to have different views on whether divine names should be considered a symbol, as exemplified in Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’s appeals to the Egyptian holy priests. Their common cosmological convictions are that which integrate the continuity and discontinuity into the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον. In the next generation after Iamblichus, Proclus in the fifth century C.E. will add more kindred terms than his predecessors to the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον to be used interchangeably with it. In his commentary on Plato’s Timaeum, Proclus does not strictly follow the Pythagorean distinctive use of σύμβολον from εἰκών as received by Iamblichus.92 Rather, he uses “the terms eikon and symbolon, together with analogia” interchangeably with each other and “in combination with a good many other terms (e.g. ἐκφαίνειν, μιμεῖσθαι, ἀπεικαςειν)” when articulating the relation between the surface meaning and 90

91 92

Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 258.5–6. On Iamblichus’s similar view of σύνθηματα, which exemplifies his synonymous use of it with σύμβολον, De Mysteriis 2, 96.13–97.7: “It is … the power of the unutterable symbols [τῶν…συμβόλων ἀφθέγκτων δύναμις], understood solely by the gods, which establishes theurgic union [ἐντίθησι τὴν θεουργικὴν ἕνωσιν]…. For even when we are not engaged in intellection, the tokens [συνθήματα] themselves, by themselves, perform their appropriate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these tokens relate, itself recognizes the proper images [εἰκόνας] of itself, not through being aroused by our thought.” Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 258.8. See Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 30.4–10.

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the divine meaning of the text.93 For example, he combines σύμβολον and εικών together in a phrase like “through symbols as if in images [ὡς ἐν εἰχόσι διά τινων συμβόλων]” to investigate the causal principles of creation encoded in the Atlantis Myth.94 In the commentaries on Plato’s Cratylum, he uses ἄγαλμα (‘image’ or ‘statue’) connotatively with σύμβολον and σύνθημα (‘password’) as a revelatory medium to receive divine illuminations.95 These citations to Proclus thus indicate that Iamblichus’s reception of the Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον was not only transmitted to him, but also reinterpreted by him. As such, they exemplify how the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον was being formed and transformed as it continued to interact with the Pythagorean and the Stoic genealogies while taking the Peripatetic stance toward reinterpreting the cosmological structure and the relation between each level of reality. The Stoic notion of συμπάθεια should not be ignored as an underlying principle that visualizes for the Platonic genealogy of σύμβολον how the triadic cosmos is divided into distinctive ontological levels while maintained as a connected whole, how the diverse parts represent the whole in harmonious relation with one another. Therefore, all preceding attempts at reconstructing the major Greco-Roman genealogies of σύμβολον demonstrate this point: they are not an independent tradition, but rather they interdependently belong to the broader interpretive traditions concerning the most profound mysteries of gods and their society. Thus Proclus claims that Plato “scientifically” put forth the divine knowledge he received, first, from Orpheus who had promulgated it “mystically and symbolically,” and then, from Pythagoras who had disseminated it “enigmatically through images.”96 Yet, the formation and transformation of the Greco-Roman genealogies of σύμβολον was collectively a pan-Mediterranean phenomenon, 93 94 95

96

Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy,” 257–258. Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 94.26–28. See Proclus, Cratylum Commentaria 19.12–18: “Just as the telestic makes the divine statues, we have here [τὰ τῇδε ἀγάλματα], similar to gods and suitable to receiving divine illuminations by means of certain exact symbols and secret tokens [διὰ δή τινων συμβόλων καὶ ἀπορρήτων συνθήματα], so the nomothetic sets names, according to the same faculty of assimilation [κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἀφομοιωτικήν δύναμιν], as the images of things [ἀγάλματα τῶν πραγμάτων] by means of representing the nature of their beings through such and such sounds” – translations are by the author. In the ninth century C.E., John Scotus Eriugena had a great deal of freedom and privilege in extending the semantic association of σύμβολον with other terms to an extent that none of his Platonic predecessors ever reached: signification, typus, allegoria, velamen, visio, imagination, agalma, figura, figuration, forma, umbra, enigma (Expositio in Ierarchiam Coelestem 1.3). Thomas Taylor’s summary note – in the “Introduction” to The Platonic Theology (London: Law and Co, 1816), ix – on Proclus’s Theologiam 1.5; Saffrey-Westerink 1, 25.24–26.4.

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evolving with more extensive and exotic sources around the common cosmological questions and convictions. Having been anticipated in the origin of the Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον and attested by the Platonist Porphyry and many others, the major Greco-Roman genealogies of σύμβολον have grown out of their connection with foreign traditions and backgrounds.97 3.4.4 The pan-Mediterranean Genealogy of Σύμβολον Since the widespread of Eastern religions and mystery cults characterized the first three centuries C.E., there are other genealogies of σύμβολον to be considered with Egyptian and Chaldean-Syrian among the most significant.98 Porphyry admits the vitality of the Egyptian σύμβολον genealogy for the Greco-Roman one when he is appealed to an Egyptian priest to censure Iamblichus. This is also the case with Iamblichus, who appeals to even a higher Egyptian authority – Abammon, master of the priest Anebo – in his reply to his own Greek master, Porphyry. Moreover, by ascribing the source of Abammon’s “rational discourse” to a divine (or, semi-divine) Egyptian figure (deliberately with the same name as the Greek god Hermes) Iamblichus appeals tactically to a higher and also universal authority for his defense of theurgic practices.99 By disguising himself as the Egyptian Abamon in his dialectical reply, Iamblichus aligns himself with “Pythagoras and Plato and Democritus and Eudoxus and many other of the Hellenes of old,” who learnt the first principles of their philosophies from the ancient Egyptians.100 From this point of view, and as recent scholarship suggests, the De Mysterii should be read as a traditional attempt to “transmit [παραδώσομεν]” his receptive opinion concerning “the ancestral doctrines,” and, furthermore, as a contemporary attempt to “reveal [ἀποκαλύψομεν]” his own revisionary interpretations by “reasoning [ἀναλογιζόμενοι] some from the innumerable writings of antiquity.”101

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See Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5, 4.20–21; Pseudo Justin, Cohortatio ad Gentiles 18B; Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 354E; Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 6, 19.41; Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae 11–12; Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 249.11–250.4. 98 See Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, 63. 99 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 1.3–2.3. For the syncretistic attributions of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thot to Abamon’s Hermes (-Trismegistus), see Emma Clarke’s “Introduction” to Iamblichus on the Mysteries, xxxii and n. 2; to the Egyptian (or Pseudo-Egyptian) backdrop to the De Mysteriis, see Clarke, “Introduction,” xxxiii–xlviii and n. 68. 100 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 2.8–3.2; see also 7, 2.250; 8, 4.266. All of these legendary sages are bound to a tradition of visiting Egypt in their search of wisdom and revelation. See Clarke, Iamblichus on the Mysteries, 5 n. 5 for literary references. 101 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 5.7–11.

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The Hermetica, collected probably during the first three centuries C.E., should be counted in those “innumerable writings of antiquity” as an earlier Egyptian-Greek collaboration. In the corpus, there are a number of relevant references to the term σύμβολον, and the term is used, as Struck aptly notes, only in the sense of an omen or oracle.102 In a prominent example from Corpus 12, a deity speaks to people through “symbols [διὰ συμβόλων]” in the daytime and through “dreams [δι’ ὀνείρων]” at night as well as through “manifold ways [διὰ πάντων],” such as “the flight of birds,” “the inward parts of beasts,” “inspiration,” or “the whispering oak-tree.”103 Resonating with the Pythagorean genealogy of σύμβολον in this particular sense, this Egyptian genealogy of σύμβολον also intersects with the Platonic genealogy in that the ultimate function of the symbol as an omen is designed to (re)unite deities with humans. In the same Corpus, Hermes speaks to Tat, “But more than all the rest, man [sic] is immortal; for he can receive God [τοῦ θεοῦ δεκτικός], and hold intercourse with God [τῷ θεῷ συνουσιαστικός]. With man alone of living creatures God associates [ὁμιλεῖ].”104 Furthermore, the term σύμβολον frequently appears in the contexts where Hermes articulates ritualistic practices of statue divination that “bear a detailed resemblance to the theurgic rites,” and that “the theurgists will later center on their notion of the symbol.”105 Hermes even refers to all hieroglyphic discourses as “the holy symbols of the cosmic elements [τὰ ἱερὰ τῶν κοσμικῶν στοιχείων σύμβολα],” through studying them one may be able to depart to “heaven” with the aid of prayer.106 In the prolegomena of De Mysteriis, Iamblichus addresses a critical methodological issue regarding what presupposed epistemological basis he will build his discourses and arguments, which his interlocutor(s) ought to be familiar with as well. Thus he refers to “the speculations of the philosophers,” but only after “the tradition of the sages of Chaldaea” and “the teaching of the prophets of Egypt.”107 He also appeals to “the ancestral doctrines of the Assyrians” for a presupposed epistemological basis.108 Regarding the Chaldean-Assyrian traditions, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus wrote extensive commentaries on (though now lost to history) the Chaldean Oracles, for they regarded it as 102 103 104 105 106 107

See Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 216. Hermetica 12, 19.23–28. Hermetica 12, 19.22–24. See also Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 7, 258.5–6. Struck, Birth of the Symbol, 217. See also Hermetica 23–24; 37–38. Hermetica Excert 23, 7.6–9 (Walter Scott, n. 3 ad loc.). Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 4.10–5.1. Note that Clarkes inarguably refers to the Chaldean Oracles as the Chaldean tradition and mostly to the Hermetica as the Egyptian tradition in Iamblichus on the Mysteries, 7 n. 9. 108 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 5.7–11.

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“authoritative literature equal in importance only to Plato’s Timaeus.”109 In the extant fragments of the Chaldean Oracles, the term σύμβολον appears only once in Fragment 108: “For the Paternal Intellect has sown symbols through the cosmos [σύμβολα γὰρ πατρικὸς νοὸς ἔσπειρεν κατὰ κόσμον].” This limited information on the Chaldean notion of σύμβολον is enriched by its cognate term σύνθημα, which associates it with “a word” spoken for the speaker to be received by the Paternal Intellect. Fragment 109 reads, “But the Paternal Intellect does not receive the will of (the soul) until (the soul) emerges from forgetfulness and speak a word [ῥῆμα λαλήσῃ], remembering the pure, paternal token [πατρικοῦ συνθήματος ἁγνοῦ].” Moreover, Fragment 2 sets this series of actions in tripartite: ascending to the Empyrean realm from the Material realm through the Ethereal realm. The “entire token” or symbol, scattered through the triad, empowers the ascenders with “a triple-barbed strength [ἀλκῇ τριγλώχινι].” This ascending movement requires intense concentration, because the symbolic passwords consist of enigmatic and insensible forms like voces mysticae.110 A story is told when synthesizing the three relevant fragments into narrative form. It goes like this: The Paternal Intellect has sown his seed-symbols in the form of secret passwords (σύνθηματα) through each realm of the triadic cosmos; some wise ones collect and remember them as they ascend from the Material realm through the Ethereal realm by reciting the passwords with intense concentration; eventually, they enter the Empyrean realm and encounter the Paternal Intellect, the sower of the symbols. In this sort of a pilgrimage story, the symbols function as the passwords, reciting them allows a pilgrim to progress into the presence of the benevolent giver of them. Simply put, this Chaldean σύμβολον genealogy reunites the pilgrim to the highest god through its divine powers that come from the deity. This is an iteration of what Iamblichus will argue later in De Mysteriis as well as an echo of what the original Greek term σύμβολον signified in the commercial and legal contexts centuries ago.111 Apparently, one of the proper contexts for this pilgrimage story is the ritual context of proceeding over rites of passage.112 109 Ruth Majercik’s “Introduction” to The Chaldean Oracles (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 2–3. See also Damascius, Parmenidem 1, 154.14–25; Marinus, Vita Procli 26, quoted in the below. 110 Lewy-Tardieu equates σύνθημα and σύμβολον with the voces mysticae, one type is nomina Barbara (e.g. Fr. 150), that is hidden divine names. See Lewy-Tardieu, Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy (Paris: É tudes Augustiniennes, 1978), 189–196; especially, 192 n. 56 and n. 58. 111 See Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 2, 96.13–97.7; 7, 258.5–6. 112 Hans Lewy assumes the Chaldean use of σύμβολον in the ritual context, in part, based on the synonymous use of σύμβολον with σύνθημα and voce mysticae in common by the Neoplatonic theurgists and the Egyptian magicians in such contexts. See Lewy, Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy, 192 n. 56.

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Some textual evidences, along with external commentaries, make (or, perhaps, claim) a connection to the East – encompassing Babylonia, Assyria, and Syria – as the source of wisdom and revelation. Fragment 67 appeals directly to “the theology of the Assyrians” to legitimize the Creation doctrine postulated by the Oracles.113 Two Syrian divine names appear in the text as Proclus equates “the Once Transcendent [ὁ ἅπαξ ἐπέκεινα]” (e.g. Fr. 69) with Ad and “the Twice Transcendent [ὁ δὶς ἐπέκεινα]” with Adad.114 According to Lydus of the Byzantine period, Porphyry extends the background world of the Oracles farther by identifying the Creator God of the Jews with the Twice Transcendent [τὸν δὶς ἐπέκεινα], whom the Chaldeans “theologizes [θεολογεῖ]” to be “the second after the Once Transcendent [τὸν δεύτερον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἅπαξ ἐπέκεινα],” a demiurgic being.115 With regard to invoking divine names ritually, its background could encompass the East as far as India.116 The Chaldean Oracles’s view of the cosmos as a tripartite structure and the relation among each level of reality is shared with Middle Platonism, represented by Numenius, from Apamea in Syria, and with the Hermetica and the Sethian Gnosticism of Greco-Egypt.117 Beyond the speculations about its murky origin and content, such wide affinities demonstrate why eastern thought was embraced by Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus along with the Oracles and other similar Chaldean writings (not to mention how it was transmitted to later generations through these interpreters’s commentaries on those works).

113 For example, see Fr. 67: “Moreover, the theology of the Assyrians teaches the same doctrines, which were revealed to them by the gods. For in that theology, the Demiurge is said to have made the entire world.” 114 Proclus, Parmenides Commentaria 7, 512.1–7. See also Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles, 205. 115 Lydus, Liber de Mensibus 4, 110.18–22. 116 See CC 1.24, where Origen includes the Indians with the Stoic view of language and name, as opposed to the Aristotelian and Epicurean views. According to Augustine, Porphyry referred not only to the domestic philosophical traditions, but also to other foreign traditions, such as “the moral ideas and practices of the Indians [Indorum moribus ac disciplina]” and “the initiation [induction Chaldaeorum],” in seeking of “a universal path to the liberation of the soul” (Augustine, City of God, 405). Since the invasion of India by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C.E. and the discovery of the monsoon, the appearance of Indians and their thought in the Mediterranean are undeniable. For the historical references to the Indian-Greco interaction, see C. L. Tripathis, “The Influence of Indian Philosophy,” Neoplatonism and Indian Thought (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992), 286–287. Although scholarly concerns are focused on the parallel characters between Indian thought and other traditions, this does not rule out the possibilities of its isolated developments nor its cross-fertilizations. 117 See Majercik’s “Introduction” to The Chaldean Oracles for the scholarly views and references in details.

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Marius describes the reception history of the Chaldean Oracles to the fifth century C.E. like in what follows: Therefore Proclus had received from [Iamblichus] only the first principles; but he studied the master’s notes on the Orphics, and also the very numerous works of Porphyry and Iamblichus on the Oracles and other kindred Chaldean writings. Thus imbued with the divine Oracles, he achieved the highest of the virtues which the divine Iamblichus has so magnificently called the “theurgic.” So Proclus combined the interpretations of his predecessors into a compendium that cost him much labor, and which he subjected to the most searching criticism, and he inserted therein the most characteristically Chaldean hypotheses, as well as the best drawn from the preceding commentaries written on the Oracles communicated by the divinities.118

Marinus is hereby focusing on the vital role of the Chaldean textual sources, but also of the Platonic reinterpretations of them and other like sources, such as the Orphic materials, in the Middle Platonic shift toward the theurgic approach to salvation, as is fully developed in Neoplatonism. The dynamics of the Chaldean Oracles’s reception history by its Neoplatonic interpreters are recapitulated in Michael Psellus’s introduction of “the Julians, who lived by the time of Marcus Aurelius [οἱ ἐπὶ τοῦ Μάρκου Ἰουλιανοί].” According to this Byzantine writer of the eleventh century C.E., the Chaldean Oracles began appearing before the second century C.E. when Julian the Chaldean-Father “united [συνέστησε]” Julian the Theurgist-Son with all the gods through Plato’s soul, which “dwells together with Apollo and Hermes [Ἀπόλλωνι συνδιαγούσῃ καὶ τῷ Ἑρμῇ],” and received some nuclear oracles.119 Just as the origin of the Chaldean Oracles was introduced in a hagiographical manner, as father-son teamwork emerging out of Chaldean-Greco syncretism, it was reckoned to be monumental East-West teamwork from late antiquity. Therefore the most comprehensive context to locate the Chaldean Oracles and its genealogy of σύμβολον is the pan-Mediterranean world of late antiquity. It flowed and converged into the Mediterranean textual Sea of “the innumerable writings of antiquity” and “the limited corpus,” out of which the interpreters 118 Marinus, Vita Procli 26. 119 Philosophica Minora 46, 166.43–51. See also Suda 1.433–435; Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 3, 20.22; Rem Publicam Commentarii 2, 123.9–11. After Proclus, who believed that his soul belonged to the chain of Hermes (Marinus, Vita Procli 28), Psellus discloses a popular belief that Plato’s soul belongs to the chain of souls that proceeds from one of those gods, and thus, could connect the theurgist to those gods through his soul (see Lewy, Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy, 225 n. 195). On Psellus’s reliance on Proclus as a referential source, see E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 283–285.

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of later generations have tirelessly pulled and gathered “the totality of their knowledge of things divine [τὴν ὅλην περὶ τῶν θείων εἴδησιν].”120 3.5 Conclusion The reconstruction of several major σύμβολον genealogies demonstrates their interconnectedness over space and time in the pan-Mediterranean world in the first three centuries C.E., which overflowed with sacred symbols. They serve the soteriological role of divine symbols by uniting people with their patron deities through the intrinsic links that are suspended from the divine realm to the human realm. In this way, the pan-Mediterranean genealogy of σύμβολον still adheres to the semantic origin of the Greek term derived from a commercial or legal context: reuniting what was originally one by comparing and matching. In an ascending drama of pilgrimage, the pan-Mediterranean genealogy of σύμβολον uses symbols in the ritual context making rites of passage take place throughout the tripartite reality of the cosmos. Since the genealogy applies sacred symbols as oracles and omens to the enigmatic forms of secret names of deities, unintelligible sounds, and sequences of vowels, any symbolic event is inherently driven by interpretation as a ritual action of brining, comparing, and matching in any sequential order.121 The interpreters, as pilgrims, are required to display their allegorical ability of comparing and matching the right password-keys to the gate-locks of each ontological reality to further their journey until they reach the final destination. Indeed, allegorical interpretation is an art of comparing and matching for any symbolic event of passage to occur and consummate. Having said these, Porphyry’s note on Origen’s curriculum vitae in Philosophy is worth revisiting because Origen’s interlocutors are those who contributed to the formation and transformation of the pan-Mediterranean genealogy of σύμβολον. This places Origen in the semantic history of the term σύμβολον as a distinctive contribution from the Christian perspective. Borrowing Porphyry’s words, Origen considered the Hebrew Bible the Christian σύμβολον, written in hieroglyphic “riddles/enigmas” by “conjuring” this barbaric literature in view 120 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1, 2.8–3.2. 121 In this way, the verb συμβάλλω also came to mean, in an extensive sense, “to conclude/ infer from a comparison of facts” or “to interpret” (Liddell-Scott). For examples, see Pindarus, Nemean 11.3; Plato, Cratylus 384a; 412c; Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1474; Euripides, Orestes 1394; Medea 675; Aristoteles, Fragmenta 532 (Rose).

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of the erudite Greeks as “divine oracles,” and he applied “the method of allegorical interpretation” to it as it was “full of hidden mysteries” – though it all looked “absurd” to Porphyry.122 This reading of Origen’s curriculum vitae with particular concern for his symbolic approach to scriptural interpretation, locates him in the panMediterranean world of the third century C.E. For example, in Contra Celsum 4.33–34 addressed to his pan-Mediterranean contemporaries, particularly to “all those who deal in magic and spells [τοὐς τά τῶν ἐπῳδῶν καί μαγειῶν πραγματευόμενος],” Origen asked: “We ask all those who use such invocations of God: Tell us, sirs, who Abraham was, and how great a man was Isaac, and what power was possessed by Jacob, that the name of ‘God’ when attached [ἁρμοζομένην] to their name performs such miracles?”123 In this question, where he assumes the expected answers in reply, Origen discloses that he shares with his pan-Mediterranean contemporaries a common cosmological and hermeneutical understanding of how a sacred symbol works in order to do something miraculous, and achieves even greater things when it unites with other symbols (as if in a marital bond).124 In the next chapter, this study will thus turn to reconstructing Origen’s Christian genealogy of σύμβολον out of the pan-Mediterranean genealogy by focusing on his allegorical interpretation of Scripture.

122 HE 6.19; LCL 265, 56.4–58.5. 123 CC 4.33–34; SC 136, 268.20–5. 124 The Greek verb ἁρμόζω – meaning in the active voice ‘to join,’ ‘to fit together,’ ‘to put together’ or ‘to adapt’ – also means in the middle voice ‘to betroth oneself to someone’ or ‘to marry to someone,’ referring to a strong ontological bond in harmonious unity (Liddell-Scott).

CHAPTER 4

“One Complete Body of the Word”: Christian Genealogy of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed from Origen’s Contra Celsum [Some Christian interpreters] boast that the things said plainly by Moses are [enigmas], [conjuring] them as divine oracles full of hidden mysteries, and bewitching the mental judgment by their own pretentious obscurity; and so they put forward their interpretations…. But this kind of absurdity [i.e. the Christian method of allegorical interpretation] must be traced to a man whom I met when I was still quite young…. I mean Origen, whose fame has been widespread among the teachers of this kind of learning.1

4.1 Introduction The third century was an epochal period in which “symbolic language enjoyed a mature development” and “a general tendency toward visual communication in symbolic language” was widespread across the pan-Mediterranean world.2 Christians gradually developed liturgy, sacrament, and visual art from this century on.3 In his Peri Pascha, Origen encourages one to reread, reenact, and remember the Passover narrative of Exodus 12 in a manner proper to the sacraments (σύμβολα), befitting the temporal gospel (e.g. through water for the sacrament of baptism and through Scripture for the sacrament of the Eucharist). In every true interpretation of Scripture, he claimed, Christ comes and transfers Christians from the law to the eternal gospel through the temporal gospel. For Origen, scriptural interpretation is a task of facilitating the symbolic act (πράξις) or drama (δράμα) of passage that takes place in a tripartite narrative structure and movement. For this symbolic drama to begin, Christ as the Logos-Word came first in his Incarnation to meet his scriptural body of the Old Testament and to give it the meaning and significance as testified in the New Testament. Likewise, he shall come in his second advent to meet his scriptural body of both the Old and New Testament and to give it the meaning 1 Porphyry, as quoted by Eusebius, HE 6.19; LCL 265, 56.4–58.5. 2 Angelo Di Berardino, ed., Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), 663. 3 Pierre Du Bourguet, “The First Biblical Scenes,” The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1997), 300.

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and significance of the eternal gospel. When the Word of God comes back and become permanently united with the words of Scripture, Christ shall finally transfer Christians from the law to the eternal gospel for all time, to eternal fellowship with the Father. This Christian drama of passage, as narrated in Origen’s revisionary reading of Exodus 12, corresponds with the pan-Mediterranean notion of σύμβολον reconstructed from its ancient origins and genealogies – reuniting what was originally one by comparing and matching. Origen’s envisioning of Scripture as the “flesh and blood” of the Logos and scriptural interpretation as having “Christ” interweaves Scripture and its interpreter into a single drama of the Logos-Christ.4 To give a synopsis of Christ’s symbolic drama, Christian interpreters unite Scripture with the Logos, so that they as the ecclesiastical body may unite with Christ, its head – and, eventually, with the Father through the Son. Such a synopsis gives Origen the methodological rationale for taking Paul’s instruction in 1 Cor 2.13 as his principium method of scriptural interpretation: comparing a text with other texts to make Scripture a connected whole, and furthermore, comparing the whole Scripture with the Logos.5 As a task of comparing and matching, scriptural interpretation is a symbolic act that makes the symbolic drama of passage take place in the lives of its interpreters on a daily basis.6 In this symbolic act or drama, what gives a text (i.e. a symbolizing fragment) its due meaning and significance is the entire Scripture (i.e. the symbolized), and, in turn, the whole Scripture gets its due meaning and significance from the Logos-Christ.7 This synopsis elevates Christian Scripture as the mediatory σύμβολον for divine revelation, and, more importantly, postulates the Logos-Christ as the divine interpreter, as the one who gives the entire Scripture its ultimate meaning and significance (see PA 1.2.3; 1.2.7; 4.2.2; 4.2.4). Porphyry criticized Origen for his view of Scripture and his method of allegorical interpretation as displayed in this synopsis.8 Therefore, Origen was working out of the pan-Mediterranean semantic genealogy of the term σύμβολον when constructing its distinctive Christian genealogy. What follows is an attempt to

4 See PP 33.19–23; Sur la Pâque 218.19–23: “[H]is flesh and blood, as shown above, are the divine Scriptures, eating which, we have Christ [οὗ σάρκες καὶ ὀστέα καὶ αἷμα, ὡς προαπεδείχθη, αἱ θείαι εἰσίν γραφαί, ἅς ἐὰν τρώγωμεν, χριστὸν ἔχομεν].” 5 See Phil 2.3; SC 302, 244.9–10: “to find the [right] keys and match them to the rooms [εὑρίσκειν τε τὰς κλεῖς καὶ ἐφαρμόζειν αὐτὰς τοῖς οἴκοις].” 6 See HGen 10.3; HLev 5.8.2 7 See Trías, “Thinking Religion,” 103. 8 See HE 6.19; LCL 265, 56.4–58.5.

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reconstruct the Christian genealogy of σύμβολον as Origen narrates out of the synopsis. 4.2 Origen’s Contra Celsum as a Site for Reconstruction Origen’s Contra Celsum is probably the best work to achieve this goal for several reasons. In the preface, he names “those entirely without experience of faith in Christ” (such as Celsus) and those who are undecided as his theological interlocutors.9 Though the identity of Celsus is unclear even to Origen, Celsus’s leading charge against Christianity is certain. By transforming the local deities into idols and daemons, a result of worshipping of the crucified Jew, Christians have corrupted, according to Celsus, “the same doctrine” concerning the nature of the gods and their relation to the supreme God, “which has always been maintained by the wisest nations and cities and wise men.”10 Celsus includes in the wisest ancient traditions those of “the Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Persians, Odrysians, Samothracians, and Eleusinians,” but excludes the Jews for denying the traditional polytheistic worldview. In expressing his most profound concern for keeping the harmonious order of the locative cosmos from a rootless and foolish – rebellious and dangerous – sect, Celsus discloses his identity as a pan-Mediterranean of the second century C.E. who highly regards any tradition that shares an affinity with his own eclectic type of Middle Platonism (similar to Albinus) in believing the universal doctrines existed “from the beginning.”11 9 10

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CC preface.6. CC 1.14; SC 132, 112.42–114.32. In CC 7.62, for instance, Celsus charged Christ with corrupting (not, abolishing) a universal doctrine and practice of honoring the deities, particularly, with regards to the sacred images/symbols. Celsus states, “But, although [Christians] will agree that these [temples and altars and images] are intended for the honour of certain beings [ἐπὶ τιμῇ τινων], whether they resemble their shape or not, yet they think that those to whom they are dedicated are not gods but daemons, and that no one who worships God ought to serve daemons” (CC 7.62; SC 150, 160.26–29). About pagan customary practices with idols and images testifies Origen in HEx 8.3; GCS 29, 223.2–3: “For it is the custom with these who care about such things to invoke demons with these forms and likenesses either for repelling or even calling down evils.” See also HEx 8.2 for Origen’s understanding of gods and lords as the angels, to whom God entrusted the nations to rule over (see Deut 32.8–9, LXX). See Dio Chrysostom, Orations 12, 27: “Now concerning the nature of the gods in general, and especially that of the ruler of the universe, first and foremost an idea regarding him and a conception of him common to the whole human race, to the Greeks and to the barbarians alike, a conception that is inevitable and innate in very creature endowed with reason, arising in the course of nature without the aid of human teacher and free from the

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To highlight his disdain for Christianity, Celsus uses a Jew as his mouthpiece. Having omitted the Jews from his list of the wisest races and attacking Christians through an imaginary Jew (as only an illegitimate branch derived from Judaism), he tactically devalues Christianity as the most irrational and worst cosmological and theological system. This fundamentally shaped the way in which Origen composed his reply to “everything up to [Celsus’s dramatization] of the Jew against Jesus” in Contra Celsum.12 That is, to present Christianity to this theological other as something rational and beneficial for the sake of the pax of the entire human race below and the divine above.13 Because Origen perceived signs of up-coming persecutions against Christians and thought these were “responsible for the rebellion,” he writes with a tone of denial as his best means to prevent them.14 Origen carries out this intention by explaining the contents of Christian Scripture and the derivative Christian doctrines “intelligently” from a methodological point of view by presenting them in the relevant vocabulary his contemporary interlocutors commonly used. In Origen’s time, the term σύμβολον was a kind of lingua franca, arising to its prominence along with αἴνιγμα and ἀλληγορία. These kindred terms collectively had opened a new hermeneutical horizon that enabled the interpreters

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deceit of any expounding priest, has made its way, and it rendered manifest God’s kinship with man and furnished many evidences of the truth, which did not suffer the earliest and most ancient men to doze and grow indifferent to them.” For a handy reference to the background of Celsus’s critique and Origen’s response, see Robert Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), especially 94–125. CC preface.6; SC 132, 74.1–3: “πάντα τὰ μέχρι τῆς παρὰ Κέλσῳ τοῦ Ἰουδαίου πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν προσωποποιΐας.” The Greek term “dramatization/impersonation [προσωποποιία]” refers to a mode of argument where the orator or writer’s words are put into the mouth of a fictional character in a drama or play. Just as Proclus associates The Republic with drama in regard to Plato’s constant uses of προσωποποιία, Celsus’ treatise against Christianity should be considered a drama for the same reason (see Proclus, Timaeum Commentaria 1, 14). In reply to Celsus and his dramatic Jewish character, Origen also discloses his familiarity with this traditional “dramatic” mode of demonstration throughout Contra Celsum (see CC 1.28; 1.32; 1.34; 1.43; 1.47; 1.49; 1.50; 1.71; 2.1; 2.76; 4.20; 4.71; 6.66; 7.36; 7.37), especially in CC 7.37, where Origen attributes the consistency of the personal identity of a “dramatized” character in deeds and speeches to a moral virtue of the writer. See CC preface.6. CC 3.15. However, as he opens the preface, Origen’s initial desire was to keep silent about the false accusations against Christians and to suffer, in the manner of Christ before the courts that resulted in his crucifixion (see CC preface.1). Even after having reluctantly accepted his patron’s request to write the reply and finished the writing, he notes: “[W]e have tried our best to reply to each particular point in Celsus’s book and to refute it as it seemed fitting to us, although his arguments cannot shake the faith of any true Christian” (CC preface.3).

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of the first three centuries C.E. to reinterpret the universal doctrines, which existed from the beginning of history concerning the primary origins of the cosmos. It is worth noting that Origen uses the term most extensively and most technically in his interlocutions with Celsus.15 Thus, Origen’s Contra Celsum – composed at the end of his career, before the breaking out of the Decian Persecution in 249 C.E. – stands as an iconic work that represents how the term σύμβολον played a vital role for this public theologian in his matured (more than 60 years of age) presentation of Christian truths.16 4.3

Origen’s Christian Genealogy of Σύμβολον, Reconstructed by its Kindred Terms

After attacking Jesus through a dramatized Jewish interrogator, Celsus turns toward Jesus’s followers as Origen recounts in Book 2 of Contra Celsum. Yet, the charge is similar to the one against Jesus: leaving the Mosaic tradition of the ancestral fathers. As Origen quotes Celsus’s own words in CC 2.1, “What was wrong with you, citizens, that you left the law of our fathers, and, being deluded by that man whom we were addressing just now, were quite ludicrously deceived and have deserted us for another name and another life?”17 In reply, Origen draws on Jesus’s teaching in John 16.12–13 and juxtaposes it with the Mosaic law to discuss the true significance of the law. He explicates what Jesus meant by “many things” (Jn 16.12) concerning the Mosaic law, stating: Perhaps because the apostles were Jews and had been brought up in the literal interpretation of the Mosaic law, he had to tell them what was the true law, and of what heavenly things the Jewish worship was a pattern and shadow [ὑποδείγματι καὶ σκιᾷ], and what were the good things to come of which a shadow was provided by the law about meat and drink and feasts and new moons and sabbaths.18

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In Contra Celsum, Origen uses σύμβολον/σύμβολα approximately thirty times (see CC 1.60; 2.48; 2.55; 2.69; 3.18; 3.33; 3.40; 3.51; 4.22; 4.31; 5.30; 5.42; 5.44; 5.49; 6.14; two times in 6.22; 5 times in 6.31; two times in 6.35; 6.68; 6.79; 8.57). When including other cases, such as the adjectival form of the word, the number increases. The second work in which Origen uses the noun most extensively is, not surprisingly, his commentaries on John’s Gospel. See HE 6.36; LCL 265, 88.1–90.2. Contra Celsum is, probably, Origen’s second to last work. His final work, a philosophical treatise, is known only by its title, That the King is the only Maker, composed by 253 C.E. in the reign of Gallienus (see Porphyry, Vita Plotini 3.30–33; Proclus, Theologiam 2.4). CC 2.1; SC 132, 276.15–19. CC 2.2; SC 132, 282.12–18.

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According to Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics, the Mosaic law is a shadow and pattern of the true law and the heavenly things to come. Likewise, it is a “type [τύπος]” of the ultimate reality about which “the Holy Spirit was to teach” Jesus’s disciples.19 In this way, Origen uses “type” synonymously with “shadow” and “pattern” among “many things” in referring to “the method of explanation and exegesis of the law according to the spiritual sense [τῆς τοῦ νόμου κατὰ τὰ πνευματικὰ διηγήσεως καὶ σαφηνείας].”20 Moreover, in the rest of CC 2.2, Origen adds another term, ἀλληγορία, to “many” methodological terms, when he draws on Paul’s instructions in Gal 4.21–24 and 1 Cor 9.8–10 to instruct one how to spiritually interpret Mosaic law. While the Galatians passage has been regarded as “distinctly typological” by modern interpreters, Origen designates it as allegorical.21 At least in Contra Celsum, Origen seems to make no technical distinction between allegory and type, but uses them interchangeably along with other terms like pattern and shadow.22 In fact, seemingly remote from modern typology, Origen uses the term τύπος to refer to the spiritual reality in a vertical sense, not to a historical event or reality in a horizontal sense. Yet, just as Christ’s second advent assumes his first advent, the ultimate reality that will be manifested by his second advent is prefigured in the temporal (i.e. historical) gospel, which is manifested by his first advent. Thus, according to Origen’s tripartite view of the cosmos reality, the Old Testament law is able to prefigure the eternal gospel since it has been fulfilled in the historical gospel of the New Testament.23 So, when Origen applies the term τύπος to the Mosaic law to prefigure the ultimate reality, he already assumes it to have prefigured the historical gospel of the New Testament, and to have been fulfilled in it. Therefore, in his use of the term τύπος, Origen not

19 20 21

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CC 2.2; SC 132, 284.37–38. In Contra Celsum, Origen uses the term τύπος only twice all in CC 2.2. CC 2.2; SC 132, 284.33–34. In HJer 1.7.3, “τῆς…διηγήσεως” refers to “the words of the interpretation [τὰ ῥήματα τῆς ἑρμηνείας].” See Willem Den Boer, “Hermeneutic Problems in Early Christian Literature,” VChr 1.3 (1947), 161. See also Jon Whitman, “From the Textual to the Temporal,” NLH 22.1 (1991), 164: “The account of such prefiguration is now often called typology, but in early Christianity, at least in the Latin tradition, the term most frequently associated with this alignment of events is allegory.” See Martens, “Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction,” 296–306. For example, see PA 4.3.13; GK 772.1–3: “[J]ust as by his present coming he has fulfilled that law which has a ‘shadow of the good things to come,’ (Heb 10.1) so also by that glorious coming the shadow of his first coming will be fulfilled and brought to perfection” – Rufinus’s Latin translation.

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only draws a vertical relation between a referencing type and its referent, but also a horizontal relation, echoing modern typology in that respect. Indeed, according to certain classicists and New Testament scholars, “a number of ancient writers such as Origen and Augustine, applied what has generally been identified as typology alongside indisputably allegorical techniques without ever commenting on the differences.”24 Heine aptly suggests that, instead of a distinction between typological and allegorical meanings, the early Christian teachers often referred to a distinction between literal and spiritual meanings.25 As a result, some patristic scholars have proposed to place typology as a subtype under the broad category of allegory. For example, Richard Hays considers it “a particular species of the genus allegorical interpretation” that is distinguished “by its propensity for representing the latent sense of a text as temporally posterior to its manifest sense.”26 Frances Young suggested that Origen used allegory “to make a ‘type’ prophetic” in an historical respect to narrative.27 One should wonder whether or not Origen would have added the term σύμβολον into this pre-existing cluster of technical terms that he used to explain how scriptural words are related to divine reality and applied accordingly to his methodological approach to scriptural interpretation. Indeed, the cases are strong and pervasively present throughout Contra Celsum. Examples are: CC 4.22 that “the Jewish customary rites” were “symbols of profound mysteries [σύμβολα μεγάλων μυστηρίων]”;28 CC 5.44 (as well as in CJn 6.76) that sacrificial laws were symbols of truths;29 CC 5.49 (as well as in CJn 10. 85) that dietary laws were symbols of certain and yet veiled truths given before the first advent of Jesus – the truths that will maintain and strengthen souls in the heavenly place;30 and CC 8.57 that the Eucharistic bread is a symbol of Christian thanksgiving to God as well as in CMt 11.14 that it is “the typical and symbolical body [of the Word].”31 In his commentaries on John’s Gospel, Origen explicitly equates “allegory” with “symbol.”32 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Stefan Svendsen, Allegory Transformed (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 56–57. See Ronald Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 77. Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 215 n. 87. Young, Biblical Exegesis, 152. CC 4.22; SC 136, 236.21–24. CC 5.44; SC 147, 128.14–16. And CJn 6.276; GCS 10, 162.13–14. CC 5.49; SC 147, 140.4–7. And CJn 10.85; GCS 10, 185.29–31. CC 8.57; SC 150, 304.18–19; CMt 11.14; GCS 40, 58.8–9: “ταῦτα μὲν περὶ τοῦ τυπικοῦ καὶ συμβολικοῦ σώματος.” See CJn 20.67, 69, 74.

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Besides type, allegory, shadow, and pattern, Origen uses even more terms interchangeably with σύμβολον. In CC 3.40 he ties εἰκών (image) together with σύμβολον as something incomparable with the Creator and worth little beside the supreme God.33 In CC 6.31 commenting on the Gnostic use of symbols in the Ophites’s liturgical tradition, Origen parallels σύμβολον to συνθήματα (passwords), which allow their possessor to pass through the seven gates of Archons.34 In comparison to the Ophites symbols, however, Origen suggests in CC 6.23 that the Christian Scripture contains true symbols, “the deeper truths about the way [τῆς μυστικωτέρας περὶ εἰσόδου ψυχῶν εἰς τὰ θεῖα θεωρίας]” in which one can enter into the divine realms.35 Thus, Origen draws Ezek 48.30– 35 and Revelation 2 into his reading of the Pentateuch, and demonstrates that one shall enter the heavenly city by properly reading the symbols in the biblical narrative of Israel’s journey toward the Promised Land. In summary, Origen adds “type,” “allegory,” “image,” “shadow,” “pattern,” and “password” into the Christian genealogy of σύμβολον as its close semantic relatives. Origen’s synonymous use of these cosmological and hermeneutical terms with σύμβολον demonstrates that he contributed to the semantic development 33

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See CC 3.40; SC 136, 94.8–10: “[W]e do not think of God … that He is honoured when men make images of Him in lifeless material objects, as though they were made ‘in his image’ or were symbols of Him [κατ’ εἰκόνα ἤ τινα σύμβολα ἐκείνου γινομέναις].” In CC 7.62, Origen articulates his understanding of the divine images when replying to Celsus’s understanding. These lengthy discourses show that Celsus and Origen do not disagree with one another over the basic nature and function of divine images; they both agree, explicitly or implicitly, that divine images connect people and deities through their divine nature to some degree. The fundamental disagreement between the two is their different theological commitments either for polytheism (Celsus) or biblical monotheism (Origen, see Exod 20.3–5), which demotes all traditional deities venerated by nations and races for centuries, to evil demons (CC 7.65, 67) and all their sacred images as powerless idols (CC 7.66). Celsus explains, “But, although [Christians] will agree that these [temples and altars and images] are intended for the honour of certain beings [ἐπὶ τιμῇ τινων], whether they resemble their shape or not, yet they think that those to whom they are dedicated are not gods but daemons, and that no one who worships God ought to serve daemons” (CC 7.62; SC 150, 160.26–29). Thus, Origen’s entire argument to Celsus can be summarized as God, who reveals himself in the Son, is the only one who deserves all the honors offered through the divine images/symbols that he created. According to Origen, One Christian kind that is created in the image/symbol of God is “the rational soul which has the capacity for virtue [ἐν ψυχῇ λογικῇ, τῇ ποιᾷ κατ’ αρετήν]” (CC 7.66; SC 150, 168.26–28). Another kind is Christian Scripture, which is indispensable for the rational soul of a person to grow in virtue through spiritual interpretation. In Origen’s hermeneutics, these two images/ symbols of God are interrelated with one another through the Logos-Christ, partaking in the symbolic drama of his passage into eternal fellowship with the Father. See CC 6.31; SC 147, 254.32–258.44. CC 6.23; SC 147, 236.5.

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of the term during the third century C.E. Origen’s contribution is attested by Porphyry to the extent in which Origen applies the prominent terms of his time and their relevant notions – albeit to something underserving, the Christian Scripture.36 In CC 7.10, Origen uses the similar vocabulary to Porphyry, when he applies these terms to the prophetic texts of the Old Testament and to his methodological approach to interpretation. Origen elaborates, But all the more mysterious and esoteric truths, which contained divine ideas [θεωρίας] beyond the understanding of everyone, the biblical prophets expressed [by enigmas/δι’ αἰνιγμάτων] and allegories and what are called dark sayings [τῶν καλουμένων σκοτεινῶν λόγων], and by what are called parables or proverbs. Their purpose was that those who are not afraid of hard work but will accept any toil to attain [ἀναδεχόμενοι] to virtue and truth might find out their meaning by study [ἐξετάσαντες], and after finding it might use [οἰκονομήσωσιν] it as [the Logos grasps/ὡς λόγος αἱρεῖ].37

Origen employs “enigma,” “allegory,” “dark saying,” “parable,” and “proverb” in the same context where he has employed the term σύμβολον along with its other kindred terms to address the relation of the scriptural words to “all the more mysterious and esoteric truths.”38 The term ἀλληγορία, commonly found in CC 2.2 and CC 7.10, serves a nexus that adapts these terms into the semantic family of σύμβολον, thus converting them into something interpretive in character, which address the relation of one thing to “something other [ἕτερα].”39 36 37

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See Porphyry, as stated by Eusebius, HE 6.19; LCL 265, 56.4–58.5. CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.20–25. Chadwick translated “ὡς λόγος αἱρεῖ,” (followed by Borret’s “comme la raison l’exige,”) “as reason demands,” which is totally acceptable. Yet, an alternative reading of “as the Logos grasps/holds” is no less possible than it when perceiving the end (τέλος) of scriptural interpretation for Origen is the interpreter’s union with the Logos-Christ. This alternative translation makes even more sense with Origen’s following explanation regarding the methodological approach to interpretation, especially regarding the necessity of divine aid and guidance. In his commentaries on Proverbs (PG 13.20C–25C), Origen divides the sayings contained in Proverbs, based on Prov 1.6, into three subtypes (i.e. parables or proverbs, darks sayings, and riddles or enigmas), and explains each subtype by mimesis or resemblance, from greater to lesser degree of “transference/transferability (μετάληψις)” to the referent or signified. Thus, Origen regarded riddles/enigmas, in line with Clement of Alexandria (see Stromata 5, 4.20–21) and Porphyry (see Vita Pythagorae 11–12), as the highest medium for communicating what is “ineffable (ἀπόρρητον)” or divine. See Heraclitus, Homeric Problems 5.2: “[T]he trope which says one thing but signifies something other than what it says receives the name ‘allegory’ precisely from this [ὁ γὰρ ἄλλα μὲν ἀγορεύων τρόπος, ἕτερα δὲ ὧν λέγει σημαίνων, ἐπωνύμως ἀλληγορία καλεῖται].” It is noteworthy that the Greek term παραβολή (“parable” in general) connotes “juxtaposition” or “comparison,” the common procedure both for symbolic events and allegorical interpretations.

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By uniting, especially, αίνιγμα and ἀλληγορία in kinship to σύμβολον, Origen demonstrates that his notion of σύμβολον more than likely is grounded in the pan-Mediterranean semantic genealogy of the term. Out of that common ground, he constructs the Christian genealogy of σύμβολον distinctively from his theological interlocutors, particularly by construing Scripture as the source of true symbols (CC 6.23), and the norm to judge whether a symbol legitimately represents reality (CC 4.31; 4.88). 4.4

Interpretation as a Symbolic Act of Comparing and Matching

Thus, in Origen’s hermeneutics, one’s interpretation of Scripture should be regarded as a symbolic act that determines the relation between the words of Scripture, often cryptic, to something spiritually other in reality. Then, it is meant to be, in principle, an art of comparing and matching, for ἀλληγορία was employed to work by the basic principle of juxtaposition and comparison.40 This working principle of allegorical interpretation resonates with the panMediterranean notion of σύμβολον (i.e. reuniting what was originally one by comparing and matching), which explains how ἀλληγορία came to be kindred to σύμβολον. 4.4.1 Contra Celsum 2.69 In CC 2.69, Origen deals with a methodological question regarding how to read Scripture in a manner proper to σύμβολον. For example, he defines the Crucifixion narrative as a “symbol of something [σύμβολόν τινος],” for he believes that “the truth of the events” that happened to Jesus cannot be “fully seen in the mere text and historical narrative [ἐν ψιλῇ τῇ λέξει καὶ τῇ ἱστορίᾳ].”41 Then, Origen focuses on identifying what “something [τινος]” is. In other words, the Crucifixion is, in Origen’s view, only the symbolizing fragment that needs to be reunited with the symbolized fragment in order to discover its full meaning and significance.42 Origen finds “something” in other New Testament texts: “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal 2.20); “the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world” (Gal 4.14); and, “For we are buried together with him 40

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For example, see Heraclitus, Homeric Problems 5.3–6: “Thus Archilochus, for example, caught up in the perils of Thrace, compares the war to a surge of the sea as follows…. Again, we shall find the lyric poet of Mytilene often enough using allegory. He likewise compares the disturbances of a tyranny to a stormy sea.” CC 2.69; SC 132, 446.3–7. Notice he did not say the Crucifixion itself is a symbol, but the text of the Crucifixion is a symbol.

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by baptism” (Rom 6.4). Accordingly, Origen concludes what is signified in this symbolic text is that because Christ died, his followers have died with him to sin, and because he is risen, they have risen together with him in righteousness. Origen further clarifies his method of “spiritual” interpretation by contrasting it with the literal one. Origen notes, The text would be literally interpreted in this way by saying that it was consistent with his determination to be hanged on a cross that he also kept to the results of his decision so that as he had been killed as a man and had died as a man, he might also be buried as a man.43

According to Origen, literal interpretation is an approach to the text within its own given historical (or, narrative) context. In contrast, Origen places the Crucifixion in a larger context, which he created by juxtaposing it with a few Pauline texts, and finding different (and yet related) meanings from the literal one through comparison. The context where the spiritual meaning dwells is the one the interpreter participates in by stepping away from the historical or narrative context of the Crucifixion, as recorded in the Gospels.44 Thus, in Origen’s hermeneutics, the newly created intertextual context is where the epistemological matter for divine truth encounters the soteriological matter for the interpreter. 4.4.1 Contra Celsum 7.10–11 In CC 7.10, Origen describes Celsus as a representative of those who practice literal interpretation, and therefore, cannot comprehend the sayings and deeds of the prophets in the Old Testament.45 For a literal interpreter, according to Celsus’s own words, the prophetic texts merely look “incomprehensible, incoherent, and utterly obscure utterances [ἄγνωστα καὶ πάροιστρα καὶ πάντῃ ἄδηλα]” and, thus, provide “a chance for any fool or sorcerer to take the words in whatever sense he likes.”46 In contrast for a spiritual interpreter, they contain “all the more mysterious and esoteric truths” in the obscure forms of “riddles and allegories and what are called dark saying [δι’ αἰνιγμάτων καὶ ἀλληγοριῶν καὶ τῶν καλουμένων σκοτεινῶν λόγων]” as well as “parables or proverbs [τῶν ὀνομαζομένων παραβολῶν ἢ παροιμιῶν]” – in short, symbolic forms. Due to the formidable chasm between the hidden content and the visible form, (between the spiritual reality for the mysterious meaning and the historical reality for 43 44 45 46

CC 2.69; SC 132, 446.7–448.19. See CC 2.69; SC 132, 450.45–49. See CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.26–28. CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.28–32.

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the literal meaning), the interpreters must accept “any toil” to cross the chasm to find the truer meaning. Yet, Origen claims any toil is worth paying for the meaning from divine reality for it edifies and transforms the interpreters, causing them to grow in “virtue and truth,” when they apply it to their lives as “the Logos grasps [ὡς λόγος αἱρεῖ]” and leads them.47 From a methodological point of view, Origen, in CC 7.11, teaches literal interpreters how to interpret a prophetic text in a manner proper to σύμβολον in order for finding out its true meaning and making a progress in wisdom, virtue, and truth. According to Origen, interpreters need to be able to interpret any obscure passage by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor 2.13). Origen adds a technical explanation to Paul’s instruction, noting, “by explaining each he found in the text from the common usage of that phrase elsewhere in scripture [κατασκευάζων ἀπὸ τῆς συνηθείας τῶν γραφῶν ἕκαστον τῶν εὑρισκομένων].”48 Paul’s instruction provides Origen with “one of his most used and most important techniques for discerning the spiritual meaning in a text” – that is, the allegorical method.49 According to Heine, To discover this spiritual meaning in the Biblical texts, Origen applied the allegorical method long used by philosophers to find symbolic meaning in the texts of Homer and the other poets…. The practice of comparing texts within the corpus of an author’s own works to determine what was meant in a particular text was a common procedure among exegetes of all types in the ancient world.50

Heine once again finds Origen in the pan-Mediterranean world of late antiquity sharing the common methodological approach to a symbolic text with his interlocutors. On the other hand, it also raises a critical question as to what then makes Origen distinctive from them. Origen himself replies that true interpreters of Scripture ought to be “in Christ [ἐν Χριστῷ]” to become truly wise and virtuous, so they can appropriately compare the obscure prophetic texts with other scriptural texts and to conjoin them and all of Scripture “as a connected whole [τὸν εἱρμὸν πάντα].”51 In summary, Origen portrays Christian scriptural interpretation as an art of comparing and matching scriptural texts that can only be masterfully achieved under the divine guidance and paideia of the Logos-Christ, who unifies Scripture in him. This is, indeed, what Origen meant 47 48 49 50 51

CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.20–25. CC 7.11; SC 150, 40.18–19. Ronald Heine, “Reading the Bible with Origen,” The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 136. Heine, “Reading the Bible with Origen,” 135–136. CC 7.11; SC 150, 40.17–18.

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by saying that Scripture is “the flesh” or “the one complete body” of the Logos in the manner proper to σύμβολον, and what makes Origen fundamentally distinctive from his interlocutors.52 Christ is the decoding key for Origen and Christian interpreters to unlock the obscure text of Scripture. For Origen, scriptural interpretation has to be done as the Logos “grasps” and leads his interpreters in discipleship or παιδεία.53 Since the Logos is the one who “gave the law and the prophets” in the obscure forms of parables and dark sayings, he is the one who makes them “intelligible” only to those who are in him.54 So, the interpreters need to pray, as Origen frequently exhorts, by lifting their eyes and hands up to exalt their souls and by requesting in a prophetic manner to receive divine aids: “Open my eyes, and I will understand thy wonders out of thy law” (Ps 119.18).55 After finding out the meaning by “study [ἐξετάσαντες]” of the text, they should “use [οἰκονομήσωσιν]” it in order to attain “virtue and truth.”56 Origen suggests two methodological ways through which the interpreters may elevate their souls and attain “moral reformation [ἠθῶν ἐπανορθώσει]”57 and eventually “fellowship with God,” all that is possible ἐν Χριστῷ.58 Origen notes in CJn 6.103, 52

53

54 55 56 57 58

For the “flesh,” see PP 26.5–8; Sur la Pâque 204.6–8: “If the lamb is Christ and Christ is the Logos, what is the flesh of the divine words if not the divine Scriptures [Εἰ δὲ τὸ πρόβατον ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ λόγος ἐστίν, τίνες τῶν θείων λόγων αἱ σάρκες εἰ μὴ αἱ θεῖαι γραφαί]?” For the “one complete body,” see HJer 39; SC 302, 368.18–20: “Notice for me that the Scriptures are in this way … one complete body of the Word [νόει μοι τοίνυν τάς γραφάς τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον…ἓν τέλειον λόγου σῶμα].” See also CJn 10.107; GCS 10, 189.9–13: “We must, however, approach all the Scripture as one body [ὡς ἑνὶ δὲ σώματι τῇ ἁπάσῃ προσελθετέον γραφῇ], and not break or cut through the most vigorous and firm bonds in the harmony of its total composition [ἐν τῇ ἁρμονίᾳ τῆς πάσης συνθέσεως]. This is what they have done who have, so far as it is in their power, broken the unity of the Spirit in all the Scripture [τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς πνεύματος].” In this passage, as in Peri Pascha, by “they” Origen is referring to either the Jewish literal readers or the Gnostic readers. CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.225. For Origen’s personal testimony about his mystical encounters with Christ through scriptural reading, see HSong 1.7; GCS 33, 39.17–22: “God is my witness that I have often perceived the Bridegroom drawing near me and being most intensely present with me; then suddenly He has withdrawn and I could not find Him, though I sought to do so. I long, therefore, for Him to come again, and sometimes He does so. Then, when He has appeared and I lay hold of Him, He slips away once more; and, when He has so slipped away, my search for Him begins anew. So does He act with me repeatedly.” CC 2.6; SC 132, 294.1–16. CC 2.6; SC 132, 294.15–16. CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.20–25. CC 7.10; SC 150, 36.16–38.19. CC 3.56; SC 136, 130.1–8: “Our teachers of the gospel [are those] who try to elevate the soul in every way to the Creator of the universe [τῶν ὅλων δημιουργὸν παντὶ τρόπῳ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀναβιβάζειν πειρωμένους], and who show how men ought to despise all that is sensible and

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Chapter 4 Now the way of the Lord is made straight in two ways: by contemplation [κατά τε τὸ θεωρητικόν] which is clarified by truth unmixed with falsehood, and by activity [κατὰ τὸ πρακτικόν] which follows sound contemplation of the appropriated action to be taken which is conformed to the correct sense of these things to be done.59

By contemplating and practicing God’s will just as the Logos concealed in Scripture and gradually reveals it through its interpretation, Origen makes a strong appeal in CC 2.6 against Celsus’s primary charge against Christians. He claims that Christians “do not leave” the tradition of Moses and the prophets, but only avoid “the mythologies of the Jews” – that is, their misinterpretations of the Hebrew Bible and their malpractices of it.60 4.4.2 Contra Celsum 6.68–69 In CC 6.68, while replying to Celsus’s two main charges, which reflect the central concerns of pan-Mediterranean citizens in the first three centuries C.E., Origen concludes, “the Logos of God is sufficient [ἱκανός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος].”61 The first charge was an epistemological one regarding how one knows God. The other a soteriological one regarding how he saves. While alluding to Matthew 17 in dealing with the first issue, Origen connects Jesus’s glorious form and the radiance of his clothing with his noetic revelation of the invisible Father by citing John 1.14, “We beheld his glory, a glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” As for the second, he links Jesus’s leading of the selected disciples up the mountain to his soteriological leading of Christians to the supreme God. Therefore, Origen has come to such a bold conclusion that the Logos-Christ alone is sufficient to reveal the Father and save his children.62 When the Logos-Christ mediates the encounter with the Father and his disciples, Origen draws attention to this crucial scriptural play, partaking in this symbolic event. On Matthew 17.1–5, he annotates:

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temporary and visible, and who urge them to do all they can to attain to fellowship with God [τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ κοινωνίας] and contemplation of intelligible and invisible things [τῆς τῶν νοητῶν καὶ ἀοράτων θεωρίας], and to reach the blessed life with God and the friends of God [μακαρίας μετὰ θεοῦ καὶ τῶν οἰκείων τοῦ θεοῦ διεξαγωγῆ].” CJn 6.103; GCS 10, 127.29–32. CC 2.6; SC 132, 294.5–8: “We of the church do not leave this out. But while we have avoided the mythologies of the Jews, yet we are made wise and are educated by mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets [σωφρονιζόμεθα δὲ καὶ παιδευόμεθα τῇ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν μυστικῇ θεωρίᾳ].” CC 6.68; SC 147, 348.3. See CC 6.68; SC 147, 348.3.

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After leading us up to the spiritual “high mountain,” he showed us his glorious form and the radiance of his clothing, and not that of himself only, but also that of the spiritual law, which is Moses who appeared in glory with Jesus. He also showed us all prophecy, which did not even die after his incarnation, but was received up into heaven, of which Elijah was a symbol.63

Also in his commentaries on Matthew’s Gospel, Origen continues narrating this symbolic event in which the law (represented by Moses) and the prophets (represented by Elijah) entered “in the way of synecdoche [συνεκδοχικῶς]” into heaven and dialogue with the Logos-Christ.64 On Matthew 17.6–8, Origen elaborates, “after the touch of the Word, lifting up their eyes they saw Jesus only and no other. Moses, the law, and Elijah, the prophet, became one only with the Gospel of Jesus; and not, as they were formerly three, did they so abide, but the three became one.”65 Moses and Elijah, who became united with the Logos-Christ as the Gospel text testifies about this symbolic event, signifies (in an allegorical sense) that the law and the prophets have become one with the eternal gospel and the historical gospel mediates this symbolic event. The Logos is seen by those who have ascended with him in his “primary form [πρώτης μορφὴν]” but not without his garment, that is, according to Origen, the four Gospels and the New Testament, which also become gloriously white, no longer obscurely dark.66 While highlighting the epistemological and soteriological function of the Old and New Testaments as revelatory medium, Origen visualizes scriptural interpretation as a symbolic act or drama through which the entire Scripture becomes one with the Logos, and through which Christians have fellowship with the Father in Christ. In this twofold symbolic drama, it is a matter of course that each jot, word, or text of Scripture becomes one with another to make Scripture a complete body for the Logos. The overarching principle under which Origen employs such techniques of scriptural interpretation is to make all the parts of Scripture, even the dots and jots, harmonious of “its total composition” as the “one body” of the divine Logos.67

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CC 6.68; SC 147, 348.22–350.29. CMt 12.38; GCS 40, 155.8–17. CMt 12.43; GCS 40, 168.4–12. For Origen’s reference to the “primary form,” see CC 6.68; SC 147, 348.19–350.26. See also CC 4.15; SC 136, 220.22–27. For Origen’s reference to the Gospels and the New Testament, see CMt 12.38; GCS 40, 159.19–26. CJn 10.107; GCS 10, 189.9–13: “We must, however, approach all the Scripture as one body [ὡς ἑνὶ δὲ σώματι τῇ ἁπάσῃ προσελθετέον γραφῇ], and not break or cut through the most vigorous and firm bonds in the harmony of its total composition [ἐν τῇ ἁρμονίᾳ τῆς πάσης

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Therefore, in Origen’s hermeneutics, Scripture, as the symbol of the Logos, depends its form and function on the Logos-Son, who is the image of the Father.68 Moreover, since the Logos-Son is the image/symbol of the Father, the symbolic relation of the Father-Son determines that of Scripture to the Logos-Son. In this way, the Logos-Son is, for Origen, the revelatory nexus that connects Scripture (and its interpreters) to the Father. In CC 6.69, Origen articulates the Father-Son relation by “the image” in two respects: their obscurity in form and greatness in power. According to him, The God and Father of the universe is not the only being who is great; for He gave a share of Himself and His greatness to the only-begotten and firstborn of all creation [Col 1.15], that being himself an image of the invisible God he might preserve the image of the Father also in respect of His greatness…. Yet He is not the only being hard for a person to perceive. For the divine Logos is hard to perceived; and the same is true of the wisdom in which God has made all things [Ps 103.24].69

This obscure aspect of the Logos matters so much for Origen, especially when he discusses the Incarnation of the Logos and people’s different perceptions of him in various forms. In the conclusion for CC 6.69 Origen remarks, “the Son also is hard to perceive, seeing that he is divine Logos through whom all things were made, who tabernacled among us.”70 Since the Logos tabernacled among people in his visible body, it was not impossible, but merely hard to perceive him as he truly is. The incarnate Logos was seen in his divine greatness only to those capable of following him to the high mountain, but not to the people below the mountain (i.e. the corporeal realm) with no form or beauty (see Isa 53.2–3). Yet, the Logos is powerful enough to life those who have accepted him “in his humble form [κατὰ βραχὺ],” so that they can eventually “look even upon, so to speak, his absolute form [προηγουμένην μορφήν].”71 According to Origen, the Logos still tabernacles among people in another kind of his body, i.e., Scripture. Like the often-misunderstood perceptions of the incarnate Logos in his human body, the Logos in the form of Scripture

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συνθέσεως]. This is what they have done who have, so far as it is in their power, broken the unity of the Spirit in all the Scripture [τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς πνεύματος].” Origen uses “image” interchangeably with “symbol,” for example, in CC 3.40; SC 136, 94.8– 10: “[W]e do not think of God … that He is honoured when men make images of Him in lifeless material objects, as though they were made ‘in his image’ or were symbols of Him [κατ’ εἰκόνα ἤ τινα σύμβολα ἐκείνου γινομέναις].” CC 6.69; SC 147, 350.6–352.21. CC 6.69; SC 147, 352.28–30. CC 4.15; SC 136, 220.22–27.

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is articulated in Origen’s theoretical delineation of the tripartite sense of meaning according to the flesh, soul, and spirit of Scripture.72 As Elizabeth Dively-Lauro concluded from her through study of Origen’s pattern in exegetical practice, Origen applies this tripartite-hermeneutical theory consistently to his interpretations from his early career in Alexandria to its end in Palestinian Caesarea.73 Origen’s hermeneutical theoretics resonates a popular cosmological theoretics of his time, according to which ἀλληγορία cooperates with συμπάθεια as to express the same truth in corresponding expressions to each reality of the tripartite cosmos.74 From the most divine realm of the Father down to the created realm, the Logos stretches his power and economy in many forms befitting to each reality of the tripartite cosmos. Never undergoing any change from his original form, the Logos is thus perceived in many different forms according to the individual’s capacity to see him, “whether he is a beginner, or has made a little progress, or is considerably advanced, or has nearly attained to virtue already, or has in fact attained it.”75 As the Logos gradually leads the interpreters of Scripture from the literal sense to the spiritual sense epistemologically, he lifts them from historical reality to divine reality through intelligible reality soteriologically, and purifies their hearts enabling them to see the invisible God (see Matt 5.8). This twofold symbolic drama of Scripture and its interpreter is all made possible by the Logos, who is the σύμβολον of the Father, and who unites scriptural interpreters with the Father by his divine power, which is equal to that of the Father.76 72 73

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Primarily in Book IV of Peri Archon (e.g. PA 4.2.2; 4.2.4). In opposition to a dominate scholarly view that claims Origen’s theoretical approach to threefold interpretation is not consistent because of the frequent absence of the psychic sense from his exegetical practice, Dively-Lauro concludes in The Soul and Spirit of Scripture within Origen’s Exegesis (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005), 130; see also pp. 131–194 for the exegetical evidence for this conclusion. For Origen, the soul is the formative principle of a being, the source of perception and movement, as well as the medium between the corporeal and the divine (or, between the flesh and the spirit). Its judgment and desire move the being either toward what belongs to the corporeal or incorporeal (or, to vice or virtue), and it plays the key role in determining the cosmic location of the being, placing them nearer or farther from the fullness of divinity (see PA 1.7.4; 2.6.3; 2.8.2; 3.4.2; CJn 32.218; CRm 1.18). Thus, in Origen’s hermeneutics, the psychic sense of interpretation targets the soul for its ability to move the interpreter up-toward what is spiritual and divine. See Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 69–70. CC 4.16; SC 136, 220.3–5. See also CC 2.64; 2.65; 6.69; 6.77. On Iamblichus’s similar view of the divine symbol with Origen’s in respect to its greatness and obscurity, see De Mysteriis 2, 96.13–97.7: “It is … the power of the unutterable symbols [τῶν…συμβόλων ἀφθέγκτων δύναμις], understood solely by the gods, which establishes

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4.4.3 Summary Case studies from Contra Celsum indicate how Origen consistently applies the common allegorical method to a scriptural text by comparing and matching it with other texts and, furthermore, by comparing and matching the whole Scripture with the divine Logos. In other words, from the viewpoint of the notion of σύμβολον in development for the first three centuries, Origen reads a scriptural text as the symbolizing fragment of the whole body of Scripture that is, in turn, the symbolizing fragment of the divine Logos. He understands a part to be in total harmony with the whole within the popular notion of συμπάθεια. Origen, therefore, construes scriptural interpretation as a symbolic act or drama of comparing and matching that drives the interpreters’s epistemological enterprise to perceive the primary form of the Logos at the end. By comparing and matching the entire Old and the New Testaments with the Logos, Origen narrates another symbolic drama in which the Logos grasps and leads the interpreters to fellowship with the Father. In this way, Origen presents Christian life as a continuous passage with Christ from “the affairs of this world” toward God and his holy city, explicitly in CC 8.22: Furthermore, if a man has understood that “Christ our Passover was sacrificed,” and that he ought to “keep the feast” by eating the flesh of the Logos, there is not a moment when he is not keeping the Passover, which means offerings before making a crossing. For he is always passing over in thought and in every word and every deed from the affairs of this life to God and hastening towards His city.77

Therefore, scriptural interpretation is, for Origen, a symbolic drama unfolding on a soteriological level, in which Christian interpreters unite with Christ by “eating the flesh of the Logos” and eventually with the Father in Christ. To make this symbolic drama of passage take place in the soul of the interpreter, Origen employs ἀλληγορία as a “mode of symbolizing,” that can be “eliminated once it has done its job.”78 It is a temporal tool used to unite Scripture and its interpreter with the Logos-Son, and with the Father through the Logos-Son.

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theurgic union [ἐντίθησι τὴν θεουργικὴν ἕνωσιν]…. For even when we are not engaged in intellection, the [tokens/συνθήματα] themselves, by themselves, perform their appropriate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these symbols relate, itself recognizes the proper images [εἰκόνας] of itself, not through being aroused by our thought.” CC 8.22; SC 150, 224.11–16. For the reference to “a mode of symbolizing,” see Fletcher, Allegory, The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, 358. For the reference to the provisionary aspect of allegory, see Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 56.

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In responding to Celsus’s key epistemological concern regarding how to know God and soteriological concern regarding how to be saved by him, Origen describes the Logos as the image/symbol of God, who takes lead in the symbolic drama of Scripture and its interpreters. As the Logos created both the cosmos and Scripture under the same principle of συμπάθεια, scriptural interpretation aims to perceive the primary form of the Logos expressed in various forms corresponding to each ontological level of the tripartite cosmos. Thus, as the interpreters progress the somatic, psychic, and pneumatic sense of Scripture on a micro scale, they are gradually climbing from historical reality through intellectual reality to divine reality on a macro scale, all by the aid of the Logos who transforms them to his likeness in virtue, wisdom, and truth. Origen’s symbolic view of Incarnation of the Logos in the person of Jesus is consistently applied to his view of Scripture as the symbolic body of the Logos and thus to his methodological approach to scriptural interpretation. 4.5

Interpretation as a Symbolic Act for Θεωρία

Origen synthesizes the twofold symbolic drama of Scripture and its interpreters into his theory and practice of θεωρία where noetic knowledge becomes transforming and saving. In CC 2.6, Origen equates scriptural interpretation with “mystical contemplation” of the law and the prophets [τῇ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν μυστικῇ θεωρίᾳ].”79 In the practice of contemplation, according to Origen, true philosophers may receive not only the aid of the Logos, who makes the obscure words of Scripture intelligible as well as the subsequent reward of wisdom and virtue, but the Logos-Christ himself. Origen in his commentary on John’s Gospel notes: It is wisdom which is understood, on the one hand, taken in relation to the structure of the contemplation and thoughts of all things, but it is the Word which is received, taken in relation to the communication of the things which have been contemplated to spiritual beings [κατὰ μὲν τὴν σύστασιν τῆς περὶ τῶν ὅλων θεωρίας καὶ νοημάτων τῆς σοφίας νοουμένης, κατὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς τὰ λογικὰ κοινωνίαν τῶν τεθεωρημένων τοῦ λόγου λαμβανομένου].80

For Origen, divine contemplation is an ascending journey, beginning with receiving the Logos in his “humble form” (that is, the lowly words of Scripture), and ultimately seeing his “absolute form” in the end. Just as Jesus led the 79 80

CC 2.6; SC 132, 294.6–8. CJn 1.111; GCS 10, 23.22–24.

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disciples up to the mountain of transfiguration, the Logos gradually leads and elevates the interpreters.81 In a sense, it is a healing process of opening one’s eyes to see what has been previously invisible. Thus, in Origen’s depiction of true philosophers, they use the created things “that are becoming [τοῖς γενέσεως]” as “steps [ἐπιβάθρᾳ]” to “the contemplation of the nature of intelligible things [πρὸς τὴν κατανόησιν τῆς τῶν νοητῶν φύσεως].”82 They do not stop there, but use the intelligible things to access “the eternal power of God” and “his divinity [ἐπὶ…τὴν θεότητα αὐτοῦ].”83 They are made intelligible and then divine by what they are seeing in this gradual progress.84 In trying for themselves to “elevate the soul in every way to the Creator of the universe,” the true philosophers show how they ought to leave “all that is sensible and temporary and visible” and teach how they can reach “the blessed life with God and the friends of God” through contemplation of “intelligible and invisible things.”85 Eventually, Origen identifies the true philosophers with Jesus’s disciples on the mountain of transfiguration to whom “the garments of Jesus have become white as the light,” when they gained “a thorough understanding of the theology concerning Jesus,” and when “making clear every expression of the Gospels [τὴν λέξιν τῶν εὐαγγελίων πᾶσαν σαφηνίζοντα],” in particular, and the entire Scripture, by extension.86 They construct their philosophy by demonstrating true doctrines with “proofs of all kinds, taken both from the divine scriptures and from [logical conclusions/τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἀκολουθίας].”87 81 82

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See CC 4.15; SC 136, 220.22–27. CC 7.46; SC 150, 124.34–36. Origen’s use of the technical term “becoming” (as opposed to “being”) reflects two novel notions Albinus introduces into the tripartite cosmological structure: the distinction between actuality and potentiality, between the essential and the accidental, or between being and becoming (see Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 86). For Albinus’s metaphysical influence over Origen, see Koch-Schmidt, Pronoia und Paideusis, 243–268. CC 7.46; SC 150, 126.39–42. See CJn 32.338; GCS 10, 472.29–31: “[T]he mind that has been purified and has ascended above all material things … is made divine by what it contemplates.” CC 3.56; SC 136, 130.1–8. CMt 12.38; GCS 40, 155.2–8. CC 4.9; SC 136, 206.10–13. In the given context, “τοῖς λόγοις ἀκολουθίας” might refer to “the demonstrative way of proving by means of questioning and answering [ἡ ἀπόδειξις δι’ ἐρωτήσεων καὶ ἀποκρίσεων],” which is used by Origen cognitively with “the discursive way [ἡ διάνοια]” in CC 6.7 or with “the rational proofs of the faith [τῆς πίστεως ἀπο δείξεσιν]” in CC 7.4. Thus, it is likely that “τῆς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἀκολουθίας” here in CC 4.9 involves the task of scriptural interpretation. For instance, see CC 6.10: “[B]ut with others we do all we can to approach them with rational [demonstrations] by questions and answers [ἄλλοις δὲ ὅση δύναμις ἀποδεικτικῶς δι’ ἐρωτήσεων καὶ ἀποκρίσεων προσερχόμεθα].”

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For Origen, these true philosophers are identical to the true interpreters of the sacred books, “some of which are Jewish and are read in their synagogues, and in which Christians also believe, and some of which are only Christian.”88 In CC 6.23 Origen describes Scripture as a multi-faceted way to God, guiding or confusing its interpreters with enigmatic symbols scattered from Genesis to Revelation. Origen states, If anyone should want to have suggestions of the deeper truths about the way in which the soul enters into the divine realm [lit., divine contemplation/εἰς τὰ θεῖα θεωρίας], derived not from the most insignificant sect which he has mentioned, but from the books, some of which are Jewish and are read in their synagogues, and in which Christians also believe, and some of which are only Christian, let them read the visions seen by the prophet Ezekiel at the end his prophecy where different gates are depicted, conveying in veiled form certain doctrines about the various ways in which the more divine souls enter into the higher life. Let him also read from the Apocalypse of John about the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and about its foundations and gates. And if he is also able to learn by means of symbols the way indicated for those who will journey to the divine realm [ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα], let him read the book of Moses entitled Numbers; and let him ask anyone competent to initiate him into the statements about the encampments of the children of Israel, of what nature were those fixed on the eastern side which are mentioned first, and on what sort were those on the south-west or south, and what were those which faced the sea, and what were those on the north side which are mentioned last. For he will perceive truths of considerable profundity in the passages and not, as Celsus thinks, matters only fit for fools and slaves to listen to.89

In this way, for Origen, scriptural interpretation as true divine contemplation is a task of drawing, comparing, and matching a symbol with other matching symbols, a text with other matching texts, to construct an integrated way toward God as the interpreters follow the divine guidance of the Logos. At the end of this pilgrims’s journey, the true interpreters will see the Logos transfigured in his primary form, becoming one with Scripture. This divine spectacle is possible for them to see, only if the Logos-Son prays to the Father “for such things as the true High-Priest might pray for to the only true God.”90 So, by this divine aid and grace, they will be able to see the eternal power and divinity of God in their worship of God through the Son in the Spirit that gives life, no longer in the letter that kills – no longer in the symbols, types, shadows, and examples of earthly realities, but in the truth of heavenly realities.91 Yet, 88 89 90 91

CC 6.23; SC 147, 236.2–4. CC 6.23; SC 147, 236.1–238.21. CMt 12.39; GCS 40, 156.9–11. See also Luke 9.28–29. See CJn 13.146; GCS 10, 248.18–27.

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this “saving worship [σωτηρίας λατρείας]” is still limited to the soteriological need of the interpreters, which is meant to be fulfilled in the Son.92 Origen’s God, the Father dwelling in the holy of holies, is the one who “engages in self-contemplation of himself on the basis of that knowledge and contemplation of himself,” and who is pleased, satisfied, and glorified “in a greater manner” in himself than in the Son, his symbol/image.93 God’s selfcontemplation and self-glorification could be also understood as the highest symbolic event, being the Unity (μόνας) and the Oneness (ἑνάς), of “no addition whatever” only except the Son and the Holy Spirit.94 Based on the Son’s common “nature” and “substance” and similar “power” and “works” to the Father, Origen states, the Son is always partaking in the unity and oneness with this invisible being as his invisible image.95 The Holy Spirit is also “united” with “the Father and the Son,” who transcend all substances and beings in “honour and dignity” – or, in “dignity and power.”96 92 93 94 95

CJn 13.46; GCS 10, 248.27. CJn 32.350–351; GCS 10, 478.23–34. PA 1.1.6; GK 110.10–14 – Rufinus’s Latin translation. For Origen’s reference to “nature” and “substance,” see PA 1.2.6; GK 132.23–24. For Origen’s reference to “power” and “works,” see PA 1.2.8; GK 140.7–8. 96 For Origen’s reference to “honour and dignity,” see PA 1.pref.4; GK 90.3–4 – italics added for emphasis. By comparing PA 1.pref.4 with CJn 2.75–76, one can generally notice the development of the Trinitarian doctrine in Origen, especially with regard to the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Son. Origen subordinates the Son to the Father as the begotten one, as the mediating Logos between the Father and the created realities, and the Spirit to the Son as “the most honored of all things made through the Logos” (CJn 2.75), so as the soteriological agent between the Logos and other creatures. Origen’s Trinitarian doctrine therefore consists of two principles and three hypostases (see Berchman, From Philo to Origen, 141). This hierarchical order of the three hypostases and their relation to one another demonstrates that Origen engaged with his theological others in the development of their collective understanding of the cosmological structure as, according to Berchman, having been synthesized by Albinus and Ammonius from the Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Pythagorean traditions during the first three centuries C.E (116–118). For Origen’s reference to “dignity and power,” see CJn 13.123; GCS 10, 244.21–22. One of Origen’s remarkably distinctive cosmological views regarding the first principle is laid in his elevation of the Logos-Son into the category of the first principle, thus understanding the dignity and power of the Son as quasi-equal to those of the Father. The other distinctiveness of Origen is related to his notion of the Father as the supreme Intellect/ Mind (e.g. PA 1.1.6; 4.4.1), following Aristotelian thought, as opposed to Plotinus’s the One, which surpasses all noetic knowledge. For this reason, Origen considers Plotinus’s the One as “non-existant [ἀνύπαρκτον]” and “non-substance [ἀνυπόστατον]” in his regard to “intellect [ὁ νοῦς]” as “the best [τὸ ἄριστον]” and “primary [τὸ πρώτως]” form of all things (see Plotinus, Theologiam 2.4). Origen’s notion of the Father is grounded, in part, on the distinctive relation of the Father to the Son, who as the Word and Wisdom of God

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For Origen, scriptural interpretation is therefore a symbolic act of divine contemplation, as the term θεωρία was used in late antiquity connotatively with a ritual drama of journeying to a holy place and seeing the spectacle of divine truths and oracles.97 Yet, Origen uses the allegorical interpretation of Scripture as the primary engine (and prayer as the supplementary one) to give the interpreters propulsion for their ascent from the low realm through the middle to the most high. Regarding Origen’s distinctive practice of θεωρία compared to his interlocutors, Mark Edward notes, The heights and depths of mind are not plumbed by reading, although reading may inform the exploration; while contemplation may prepare a man for social conduct, it is exercised at its purest in the society of friends. Very different is the theoria of Origen, which begins with the juxtaposition of like passages from scripture, so that one decree of God may be illumined by another…. Theoria, the vision of the Good, may be the terminus of a quest for the philosopher; for Origen theoria is the vision of one’s duty within the text, and thus the prelude to a new task which ends not in an act of seeing, but in in union with Christ.98

To read Porphyry’s caricature of Origen makes even more sense in this context. Though one educated in the most advanced philosophies, Origen applied the allegorical method of interpretation to an unworthy collection of plain texts for divine contemplation. Moreover, as one of the most famous teachers of the Christianity, he misled many of his followers in this erroneous way. 4.6 Conclusion Celsus’s employment of clever tactics to devalue Christianity as a rootless and irrational sect – even a dangerous one threatening the order and peace of the cosmos – shapes the fundamental way in which Origen responded in his

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interprets “the secrets of wisdom and the mysteries of knowledge” and presents them also to rational beings, including humans (PA 1.2.7; see also John 14.9: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”) – who wholly connects the cosmos and the beings within it to the Father. Regarding the common drawings on Plato’s the Good by Origen and Plotinus for their different notions of the Father or the One, see H. Crouzel, “Le Dieud’ Origène et le Dieu du Plotin,” Origeniana Quinta (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), 411, 416 n. 57; D. O’Brien, “Origène et Plotin sur le Roi de l’Univers,” Sophiês maiêtores/Chercheurs de sagesse (Paris: É tudes Augustiniennes, 1992), 319, 324–325; Böhm, “Origenes, Theologe und (Neu-)Platoniker?”, 10–12. See Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth, 3–4, 40–71, 69–70; Addey, Divination and Theurgy, 200–201. Edwards, Origen against Plato, 137.

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negating and, furthermore, boastful reply. Using the relevant vocabulary and rhetoric of the erudite during his time, Origen presented Christianity as the most rational and beneficial theology and philosophy. Since Celsus dramatized an imaginary Jew to denigrate Christianity as inferior to Judaism (a religion excluded from Celsus’s list of the wisest religions), Origen had to start with the Hebrew Bible to deal with the core epistemological and soteriological questions Celsus had posed in mockery. Origen found the key to demonstrating both Christian adherence to the ancient tradition of Moses and the prophets and its superiority to Judaism through an alternate way of reading the Hebrew Bible (from the Jewish literal one), which also fit Celsus’s and his followers’s rationalism. Throughout Contra Celsum, scriptural interpretation plays the crucial and primary role in forming Origen’s rational arguments through dialectical questions and answers. Origen employed interpretive methodologies using the tripartite hermeneutic to make each text part of the whole by comparing and matching it with other biblical texts. For Origen, scriptural interpretation is a symbolic act or drama in which a text reunites with Scripture, and Scripture with the Logos. Since the teleological end of interpretation is Scripture’s union with the divine Logos above, this drama heads not downward toward the deeper textual (or, the more accurate historical) meaning, but upward seeking the higher cosmological meaning. In summary, Origen’s methodological approach to scriptural interpretation is grounded in his principle understanding of what Scripture is in its relation to the Logos – the textual σύμβολον of the Logos in its entity. Thus, ἀλληγορία, as an interpretive term in correlation with σύμβολον, refers to a methodological technique of comparing and matching to decode the encoded texts of Scripture through divine symbols, and for extracting the somatic, psychic and, pneumatic meanings from Scripture corresponding to the historical, intellectual, and most mysterious reality of the cosmos. Thus, true interpreters will be able to connect to the Logos in the highest divine realm, as they move through every cosmological level using each meaning they have discovered as the basis for their next discovery. Therefore, allegorical interpretation of Scripture, as a “mysterious divine science,” reveals nothing, but the tripartite structure of the cosmos, and helps the interpreters recognize which cosmological location they currently belong, while challenging them to live accordingly in their gradual progress and passage with the Logos.99 99

Since Origen understood philosophy as an interpretive inquiry into the cosmos and the divine cause of it, he accordingly divides it, by the common convention of his time, into the tripartite branches and describes one’s progress as a tripartite movement. For examples,

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As this twofold symbolic drama of Scripture and its interpreters runs in parallel to their union with the Logos, the interpreters become wise and virtuous and even divine by what they see/contemplate in each stage of the cosmological reality – by seeing the transformation of Scripture from the humble letter through the intellectual mind into the glorious spirit. However, this symbolic drama is possible only when the Logos takes possession of them and guides their contemplative journey, and when he prays to the Father for their final passage into eternal fellowship with and worship of him. Since the Logos is the beginning and end of both Scripture and its true interpreters, the divine aid and guidance from him is absolute and sufficient, according to Origen, for anyone’s epistemological quest to know the supreme God and her/his soteriological one to be saved by God. For Origen, the Logos-Christ is the divine teacher and interpreter of Scripture, who leads the divine paideia (παιδεία) of his disciples in a tripartite-narrative by presenting them “the secrets of wisdom and the mysteries of knowledge.”100 Origen explained the Christian epistemological approach to scriptural interpretation and the soteriological approach to moral reformation in terms of Christian contemplation. In so doing, he pervasively utilized the notion of σύμβολον with its kindred terms – such as ἀλληγορία, τύπος, αἴνιγμα, σύνθημα, εἰκών, and θεωρία. – a popular approach to any reinterpretation of the archaic cosmological doctrines in the pan-Mediterranean world of late antiquity. In them he saw a ritual drama of reuniting what was originally one by comparing and matching. Extending it to Trinitarian relationships and the very nature of God, Origen therefore demonstrated how the term σύμβολον plays a crucial role for his rational presentation of the most profound truths of Christianity to his theological interlocutors.

see CSong pref.3; HGen 6.2–3, 11.2, 14.3; HEx 3.3; CMt 17.7; Phil 14.2. For further discussion on this theme, see also Koch-Schmidt, Pronoia und Paideusis, 247–248; Crouzel, Origène et la “Connaissance Mystique,” 50–52, 62–63, 65, 249–251; P. Hadot, “Les Divisions des Parties de la Philosophie dans l’Antiquité,” MH 36 (1979), 218–231; Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe, 79–84. 100 PA 1.2.7; GK 138.10–13. See also HPs 81.1 (GCS NF 19, 509–512) and 81.6 (GCS NF 19, 516), where Origen claims that the goal of paideia is to become alike in spirit, soul, and even body what the teacher already is. For Origen’s remarks on the tripartite division and progress of the Greek παιδεία to become a spiritual interpreter/philosopher of Scripture, see HGen 6.2–3, 11.2, 14.3; HEx 3.3; CMt 17.7; Phil 14.2; Gregory’s Address 8, 9, 13, 15.

CHAPTER 5

“Linking up the Words of the Torah with One Another”: Origen’s Witness to Rabbinic Literal Allegory Carried Out in a Symbolic Manner Inspired Scripture taken as a whole was on account of its obscurity like many locked-up rooms in one house. Before each room he supposed a key to be placed, but not the one belonging to it; and that the keys were so dispersed all round the rooms, not fitting the locks of the several rooms before which they were placed. It would be a troublesome piece of work to discover the keys to suit the rooms they were meant for.1

5.1 Introduction When Septimius Severus became Roman emperor at the turn of the third century, Palestinian Jews, who had supported him in his war against Pescennius Niger (Severus’s rival in the region) began to recover imperial favor, which they had lost in the First Jewish War against Rome (66–73 C.E.) and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 C.E.). Due to this, great numbers (and varieties) of Jews immigrated from Judaea to the major cities on the coast and north of Palestine, where they took advantage of their advanced socio-political status and thrived economically, mainly in commerce.2 Among the Jewish merchants, rabbis were a prominent and wealthy group, who were involved in almost every branch of trade and maximized their extensive commercial networks that connected Caesarea Maritima in the West and Babylon in the East, two key points.3 Considering the commercial ties between Caesarea, Alexandria, and Rome, the rabbinic economic beltline should be extended westward as Caesarea became the nexus between Rome and Babylon. Through this extensive trade route, rabbis traded not only goods, but, more importantly, their beliefs about God’s relationship to Israel and Israel to God, which were shaped primarily through reinterpretations of the Torah. Palestinian rabbis manufactured, produced, and circulated their version of

1 Phil 2.3; SC 302, 244.1–10. 2 See Lee Levine, Caesarea Under Roman Rule (Leuven: Brill, 1975), 54. 3 See Levine, Caesarea Under Roman Rule, 55–55.

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ideal Judaism from the local school-factories.4 Major rabbinic texts repeatedly tie rabbinic schools to the local regions of Palestine, and Caesarea Maritima was one of the prominent rabbinic centers due to ‘the Rabbis of Caesarea.’5 Palestinian rabbis contributed to the formation of Judaism with the canonization of the Mishnah following its final redaction around 200 C.E. and later the halakhic midrashim.6 Herman Strack notes, “Aside from the late compendia, almost all midrashim originated in Palestine.”7 In their interactions with theological and religious interlocutors, Palestinian rabbis often served as spokespeople for the Jewish communities toward the other factions of Pagans, Christians, and Samaritans. In dealing with internal issues, they adjudicated even in cases of capital punishment with governmental authority. Exercising extensive influence over nearly all aspects of Jewish life – economic, political, civil, and religious – they gradually and yet decisively became “an organized and distinctive group” between Origen’s first visit in 215 and when he moved there in 232 C.E.8 5.2

Origen and the Rabbis

In the city, Origen faced not only Celsus’s imaginary Jew, but also real and prominent rabbis to a much greater extent than in Alexandria. Privately, he often consulted “not a few Jews” regarding Hebrew words and their meanings because of his scholarly interests in interpretation.9 This was what he also did in Alexandria with “a learned Hebrew,” who had been trained to succeed his father, a rabbi; in fact, they discussed many subjects.10 Yet, in public, he 4 5

6 7 8

9 10

See Irving Levey, “Caesarea and the Jews,” Studies in the History of Caesarea Maritima (Missoula: Scholars for the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1975), 44, 55, 57. See Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, 10. Interestingly, the normative authority of the rabbis of Caesarea is attested by Babylonian rabbis, which indicates the strong connection between the two cities, as in BT Hullin 141a–b: “[R. Zira saying] Have I not told you that every Baraitha [gloss] that was not taught in the school of R. Hiyya and R. Oshaia is not authentic, and that you should not put it forward as a refutation in the Beth Hamidrash?” See Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, 109, 139, 250–251. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, 240. Levine, Caesarea Under Roman Rule, 62. At the same time, Palestinian rabbis in certain locales enjoyed exceptional privileges among the Jews, such as, “preference in selling goods, financial support for the poor among them, and exemptions from various local and governmental taxes” (Levine, Caesarea Under Roman Rule, 94). LA 6; SC 302, 536.9–14. See also HGen 2.1–2; HEx 5; HJer 20.2.2. LA 7; SC 302, 538.1–3.

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often debated with “some Jews, who were alleged to be wise” (i.e. rabbis) over scriptural interpretation.11 In his letter sent to Africanus, he bore witness to competitive Christian interactions with rabbinic Jews by discussing the exegetical necessity to thoroughly prepare for public debates. Origen once wrote, “For if we are so prepared for them in our discussions, they will not, as is their manner, scornfully laugh at Gentile believers for their ignorance of the true reading as they have them.”12 In several instances, Origen mentioned the Jewish ambivalent attitude toward Gentiles with favors but toward Christians with hatred and their spreading of invidious rumors regarding Christian beliefs and practices in mischief-making.13 Both in private and public, Origen dealt with the rabbinic Jews of Palestine mainly about scriptural interpretation, about “a factor which caused sects to begin.”14 In Origen’s view, scriptural interpretation was the primary weapon for both Palestinian Christians and Jews to disclaim the other as true Israel and to win proselytes from the middle.15 Origen dealt with the rabbinic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible like he had done in Alexandria. Origen consistently used “literal reading” or “literal interpretation” as “an effective rhetorical reduction ad absurdum” to oppose the approach of these scriptural and theological interlocutors.16 Thus, he used a typical anti-Jewish maneuver that he inherited from the Christian 11 12 13 14 15

16

CC 1.45; SC 132, 192.1–3. For some references where Origen mentions rabbis in respect to scriptural interpretation, see CC 1.55, 56; 2.31; LA 5. LA 5; SC 302, 534.15–19. For examples, see HPs 36.1; CMt 15; CC 1.45; 6.27. CC 3.12; SC 136, 36.21–23. See CC 3.50; SC 136, 118.11–14. See also HNum 13.5; HJer 19. 2; HEzk 9.4; 13.3, where Origen mentions about the Christians converted from the Judaism. The Jewish side, especially Rabbi Yohanan, a Palestinian contemporary of Origen, emphasized the Oral Torah over the Written Torah as grounds for true Israel (see BT Gittin 60b and PT Peah 2.6 17a) and warned Gentiles that studying the Torah, should result in severe punishment (BT Sanhedrin 38b), while affirming missionary effort toward the proselytes (see BT Nedarim 32a). Richard Kalmin observed that Palestinian rabbis used scriptural interpretation in a more apologetic and polemical manner against minim (‘heretics’) than Babylonian rabbis, and focused it on the subjects such as 1) the identity of the true Israel; 2) the nature of God; 3) the importance of halakhic laws (see Kalmin, “Patterns and Developments in Rabbinic Midrash,” 288). This characteristic of Palestinian rabbis is connected with the contribution of Alexandrian Homeric/philological tradition to the development of rabbinic hermeneutics and literature toward a more scholastic and systematic approach to the Hebrew Bible (than the customs of the Second Temple period) in the manner of questioning and answering for the textual problems and matters. Thus, it attests to the rabbinic interaction with their Pan-Mediterranean neighbors in their hermeneutical response to the crisis of the Temple and the Torah. Paul Blowers, “Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible,” Origen of Alexandria (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1988), 109. For Origen’s use of the designation and the likes, see PA 4.3.2; CC 2.4–6; HGen 6.3; HEx 5.1; HLev 3.3; PP 28.

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tradition of scriptural interpretation.17 In the Peri Pascha, an example from his later Palestinian works, Origen still describes the Jews as those who “rely on just the letter of the Scriptures,” rather than on the Holy Spirit.18 Origen challenges them by questioning how it is possible to literally interpret and observe the Passover sacrifice as an eternal ordinance without the Temple that was destroyed in 70 C.E.19 Instead of a literal approach, he suggests “a manner proper to the σύμβολον” as an alternative approach to the Passover narrative and to the entire Scripture.20 To clarify, in third-century Palestine, rabbinic Judaism was not the only form of Judaism. Various Jewish sects formed according to how each sect responded to the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. (and the hope for its restoration in 135 C.E.) and fundamentally to the Jewish history of estrangement between the ideal world of the Torah under YHWH’s rule and their current world under Roman hegemony.21 By the first century C.E., in response to the crisis of the Torah’s authority and relevancy, the Jews began “a long process of standardization and development” of Jewish interpretation.22 This process entailed intergroup dialogues and competitions that led the rabbis to deny both the apocalyptic fantasy of Qumran and the Gnostic dualism of some mystics. Seeing the biblical writers as the first biblical interpreters, the rabbis claimed their hermeneutical techniques and procedures to be biblical (and so legitimate) founded and developed by Moses and the prophets.23 According to the Mishnah Aboth 1.1, Moses received the Law [Torah] from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue. They said three things: be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Law [Torah].24

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24

See Blowers, “Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible,” 116. PP 28.[-]5–29.1; Sur la Pâque 208.[-]5–210.1. Origen used the destruction of the Temple along with their expulsion from the holy land as evidence of God’s judgment against the Jews. For examples, see CC 2.8; 4.22. PP 4.29–32; Sur la Pâque 160.29–32. See Roger Brooks, “Straw Dogs and Scholarly Ecumenism,” Origen of Alexandria (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1988), 70–75. Yaakov Elman, “Classical Rabbinic Interpretation,” The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1844. See Ex Rab (Bo) 15.22: “Moses wrote many things in the Torah without explaining them; it was left to David to clarify them.” On the overall ways in which the biblical writers interpret and use the earlier biblical materials from a Jewish perspective, see Benjamin Sommer, “Inner-Biblical Interpretation,” The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1829–1835. Mishnah Aboth 1.1.

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Palestinian rabbis sought the reworking of Scripture and the producing of textual polysemy by means of “comparison of texts, inference according to established procedures, and intense argument over approaches and outcomes,” which became a hallmark of Jewish interpretation from the biblical to the modern era.25 Thus, it is most likely that compared to Qumran and other Gnostic sects, rabbinic Judaism was the closest to Origen’s designation of “literal reading” in terms of methodological approach to scriptural interpretation.26 The way in which a religious group retold the story of the Passover post70 C.E. was a quintessential part of the Christian-Jewish interactive process in the formation of distinctive group identity as the true Israel.27 With his different reading of the Passover narrative in development, thus, Origen stands as a witness to the Jewish rabbinic tradition of “literal reading” as opposed to the Christian tradition of “spiritual reading.” While generally agreeing upon Origen’s contact with some of Palestinian rabbis, scholars are divided as to how familiar Origen really was with rabbinic midrash or did he paint it all with a wide brush of “literal reading.” Roger Brooks has concluded that the Jews were Origen’s “straw dogs,” meaning “he had no attachment to them, and sacrificed them as a set up for his own allegorical understanding of Scripture.”28 Taking a different approach, Paul Blowers admits that Origen, as a leader in the Caesarean church, tended to idealize the Jews according to the New Testament images (see Matt 23; 2 Cor 3.14; Gal 4.21–30), and as a scholar asserted his “deeper appreciation for the rabbinic hermeneutics.”29 Reuven Kimelman demonstrated Rabbi Yohanan’s awareness of Origen’s bias against rabbinic scriptural interpretation by comparing their comments on Song of Songs 1.1–6. Yet, as Kimelman’s approach illustrates, in the absence of direct textual evidence, is to invest “the possibility” based on inference from their exegetical works.30

25 26

27 28 29 30

For the analysis of rabbinic hermeneutical procedures and methods, see Elman, “Classical Rabbinic Interpretation,” 1844. For the historical description of the characteristic of Jewish interpretation, see Sommer, “Inner-Biblical Interpretation,” 1835. According to Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 56 n. 55: “The Pesher Habakkuk from Qumran, which has often been adduced as a congenial forerunner of rabbinic exegesis, belongs to the altogether different field of prophetic exegesis and employs oneirocritical methods, as shown by Nitzan.” Niehoff’s citation is to B. Natzin, “The Pesher Scrolls from Qumran,” The Qumran Scrolls 1 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2009), 225–260. See Yuval, “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” 98. Brooks, “Straw Dogs and Scholarly Ecumenism,” 92. Blowers, “Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible,” 109. Kimelman, “Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs,” 573.

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Having reconstructed Origen’s Christian genealogy of σύμβολον within the pan-Mediterranean world of the first three centuries C.E., this study can assess the midrashic “literal” approach (particularly, to the Passover narrative of Exodus 12) in counter light of Origen’s symbolic approach. To demonstrate Origen’s awareness of rabbinic hermeneutics, two of the earliest midrashim become relevant: 1) the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael and 2) the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon. As the commentaries on selected verses of Exodus, they contain compiled midrashic material that belongs to “the Tannaitic period from about the first to the third Christian centuries.”31 Thus, how the symbolized fragment for the rabbis is “literal” one – as opposed to Origen’s “spiritual” Logos of a symbolic drama designed to reunite it with Exodus – is the focus. 5.3

Rereading the Passover Narrative with the Mekiltot

In Exod 12.1–30 of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, the first middah of Hillel and Rabbi Ishmael (i.e. kal-vahomer/ ‫ )קל וחומר‬is the most used middot. This hermeneutical principle is found in combination with the following formulaic phrases: “It is but a logical inference that [‫“ ;”]דין הוא שלא‬Is it not logical to conclude/assume such and such [‫ ”;]אינו דין שלא‬or, “How much more should Israel do such and such [‫]צל אחת כמח וכמה‬.”32 At least two instances where the kalvahomer is not specifically mentioned but one of these associated formulaic phrases appears should be added.33 This first rule, employed when inferring a logical conclusion from Exodus, represents “older simple exegetical rules and logical hermeneutical principles” used in most parts of the Mekhilta.34 The basic principle that guides how this middah infers a logical conclusion from the text is comparison, like that of ἀλληγορία.35 For instance, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael applies the kal-vahomer to the reading of “until the morning” to draw instruction from Exod 12.22: “This is to teach you that you should come in to a place or leave it only in the daytime.” It relates the text to the conclusion 31 32 33 34 35

Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), viii. See for examples, Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 1.38–42; 3.28–42; 4.6–10; 4.15–19; 6.72–75; 7.114–121; 11.70–73. See for examples, Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 6.105–112 [‫ ;]אינו דין שלא‬also, 7.108–114 [‫]אינו דין שלא‬. Jacob Lauterbach in the “Introduction” to Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976), xvii. Since kal-vahomer literally means “light and heavy,” it works basically by comparing the less significant law or stipulation to the more significant, and by applying the principle of the more significant to how to practice the less significant in any situation (see Elman, “Classical Rabbinic Interpretation,” 1853, 1856).

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by putting the significant biblical ancestors in the vahomer (heavy or significant) and general Jews in the kal (light or insignificant) and comparing them: Now by using the method of Kal vahomer you reason: If the patriarchs and the prophets, who went to carry out the will of him by whose word the world came into being, observed this as accustom, how much more should all other people observe it [‫?]שאר בני אדם צל אחת כמח וכמה‬36

In this way, the kal-vahomer works by comparing the less significant law or example to the more significant, and by applying the principle of the more significant to how to practice the less significant in any situation. While an art of comparison, it is also an art of classification in which those who are classified more significant (e.g. “the patriarchs and the prophets”) determine the deeds of those who are classified less significant (e.g. “all other people”). In Exod 12.1–30, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael applies this rule to the paschal sacrifice in three instances out of (at least) eleven: two comparing the paschal sacrifice to burnt offerings (see Lev 12.6); one comparing it to the Mezuzah (see Deut 6.4–9). In all of these cases, it classifies the paschal sacrifice as less significant than the other two according to the rabbinic order of classification.37 This means that, from the rabbinic point of view reflected in the Mekhilta, the burnt offering and the Mezuzah determine the scriptural and ritualistic significance of the paschal sacrifice. Thus, for “the Lord will passover the door” (Exod 12.13), the Mekhilta emphasizes how the Mezuzah is more important and effective than the blood from the paschal sacrifice for the protection of God’s people. It displays a series of parallels comparing the paschal sacrifice to the Mezuzah in terms of temporality versus permanency. To follow the logic of the kal-vahomer to its conclusion, the Mezuzah is more important than its counterpart because its protective effect is permanent, (even after the destruction of the Temple) due to God’s name being contained in it ten times.38 On the other hand, the blood of the paschal sacrifice is less important, for its protective effect is temporal (only for one night and one generation in Egypt). In an interpretation of Exod 12.23, “when He sees the blood,” the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael also indicates the paschal sacrifice has less significance than the offering of Isaac. By drawing on Gen 22.8 as the primary intertext (and 36 37 38

Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 11.70–73. See Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 15.79–80: “Peace offering belongs to the class of minor sacrifices and the paschal lamb also belongs to the class of minor sacrifices.” See Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 11.100–103. According to Lauterbach’s note, 88 n. 6: “In the biblical verses contained in the Mezuzah [Deut 6.4–9 and 11.13–20], the Name of God occurs ten times, the tetragrammaton seven times and ‫ אלהים‬with a suffix three times.”

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1 Chron 21.15 as the subordinate intertext) to answer the question “‘What did he behold’ on Passover?” it responds that the blood God beheld that night on the doorposts was “the blood of the sacrifice of Isaac [‫]רם צקדתו של יצחק‬,” the same blood he would see in the future when he stopped the calamity against David and his people.39 Despite not mentioning the kal-vahomer, the phrase is interpreted under the same principle of classification and comparison by drawing this pre-70 (or, even earlier, pre-Temple) narrative of Isaac’s sacrifice into a post-70 reading of the Passover narrative. For the parallel clause found in Exod 12.13, “when I see the blood,” the Mekhilta just reiterates the same interpretation in almost the exact words, except with a change of personal pronoun (“He” to “I” for God).40 This repetition may be intended to elevate the significance of Isaac’s sacrifice and by comparison lower the significance of the blood spilt from the paschal sacrifice in the rabbinic order of classification.41 In a reading of “you are to celebrate it [as a permanent ordinance]” from Exod 12.14, Rabbi Shimon in his Mekhilta highlights the power of the blood even more through comparison between the paschal meat to eat and the blood to be sprinkled for the remission of sin. He interprets the blood as more effective than the meat, A. One might think that he has not satisfied the requirement [for the paschal offering] until the eating of the meat. B. Scripture states, [however,] “(You shall celebrate) it” (Exod 12.14), and later Scripture says, “He shall sprinkle it” (Lev 16.15). C. Just as [the sacrifice] stated later [is fulfilled through the sprinkling of] the blood, and not [the eating of the] meat, this one sated here [is fulfilled through] the blood, and not the meat.42

By pulling Lev 16.15 out of its textual context (regulating sin offerings) and applying it to the Exodus text (B), the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon concludes that the Passover celebration is fulfilled by means of sprinkling the blood, instead of eating the paschal meat (C). A textual clue – the only one – to making sense of the midrashic way of connecting the two verses lies in clause B, the singular 39 40 41

42

Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 11.94–95. Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 7.70–77. In the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, repetitions are used to emphasize the seriousness of a commandment and thus the strict observance of it according to the exact words of prescription. For examples, see Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 3.70–71: “Scripture has purposely repeated this command about the paschal lamb in order to declare it ritually unfit if the command be transgressed”; see also Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 6.95–97: “Why is “until the morning” repeated? Scripture aims thereby to fix its limit only up to the very break of morning.” Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Pisha) 9.5.6.

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pronoun “it” is commonly used in the two verses, and this clue does not resolve one’s puzzlement. The rabbis must have had an unwritten rule that applies logic to this connection, like the kal-vahomer. If the rabbinic classification from the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael is applied in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon, then the sin offering that works by means of blood instead of bread determines the way in which the paschal sacrifice brings about the remission of sin and God’s favor upon the children of Abraham. By the same logic as the kal-vahomer, the efficacious blood of the paschal sacrifice must be that of Isaac’s which is flowing down from the top of Mt. Moriah through the lower classified sacrifices. The logical conclusion of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon is to read Exod 12.14 with Exod 12.8, “they shall eat it (with unleavened bread and bitter herbs).” The key to this reading is to determine what the antecedent for “it” is. The Exodus text apparently refers to the paschal lamb as “it,” as does the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael.43 Yet, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon strikingly refers to either one of the paschal lambs, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs for the fulfillment of the ordinance as “it.” According to the practice of Hillel, “it” creatively refers to all three wrapped as one and eaten together at once.44 If the paschal meat can be substituted by unleavened bread or bitter herbs, this means that in the rabbinic order of classification significance of the meat is equal to these other foods, and that sacrificial meat is no longer essential for the fulfillment of the Passover celebration post-70. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon explicitly announces that the celebration of the Passover is “[fulfilled through] the blood, and not the meat.”45 Menahem Kahana claims the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon is a secondary redaction of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael with a more lofty literary and creative interpretive style. If so, it illuminates the way in which rabbinic midrash developed, as demonstrated by the rereading of the Passover in a consistent and yet creative way during the first three centuries C.E.46 By classify43

44 45 46

See Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 6.52–64. The voice of the Mekhilta concludes that eating the lamb alone without eating the other two is enough to fulfill the ordinance, but eating the others without eating the lamb goes against what Scripture says in Exod 12.8. In addition, it chronologically distinguishes the ceremony of eating the paschal lamb from eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs by reading the Hebrew word ‫על‬, usually translated as “with” as “after” here, which is interpreted as, “The paschal lamb alone must be eaten only after one is already satiated.” See Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Pisha) 8.3.8. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Pisha) 9.5.6. See Menahem Kahana, The Two Mekiltot on the Amalek Portion (Ph.D. Dissertation [in Hebrew]: Hebrew Union College, 1999). See also Nelson’s note in the “Introduction” to Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, xxv: “In Kahana’s opinion, the Mekhilta de-Rabbi

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ing the blood from Isaac’s sacrifice higher than the blood and meat from the Passover sacrifice, both Mekiltot ascribe Isaac’s blood to the assurance of God’s redemption as permanently effective for all subsequent generations, even after the destruction of the Temple and the hope for its restoration. In other words, Palestinian rabbis see Isaac as the true lamb of the Passover narrative, whose blood is powerful enough to benefit the children of Israel in all generations, past and future. Yet, does the Akedah of Genesis 22 recount that Isaac shed any blood? The Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon preserves the position of Rabbi Joshua who reads in Genesis 22 that Isaac actually shed “a fourth [of a log] of blood [‫]רביעית דם‬,” which is the minimum amount in mishnaic law to judge the body of a person as dead and ritually impure.47 On one hand, this mishnaic amount of the minimum blood identifies the sacrifice of Isaac as a death, representing his descendants who are, in light of Ps 79.11, “condemned to death” with the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.48 On the other hand, it also spares Isaac from actual death as recounted in Genesis, and so will spare his descendants as Ps 79.11 praises, “Because of your great strength, those condemned to death will be retrieved.”49 In Rabbi Joshua’s reading Ps 79.11 into the Akedah, Nelson notes “your great strength” refers not to God’s strength, but to Abraham’s. When the Akedah then is applied to Passover Abraham’s strength delivered his descendants from bondage to freedom, or, in a post-70s context that it restores the Jews from ritual impurity to purity.50 From the perspective of the “Merit of the Forefathers [‫]זכות אבות‬,” the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael also draws Abraham into the Passover narrative.51 Connecting Ezek 16.8 to Exod 12.6 Rabbi Matia remarks, “The time has arrived for the fulfillment of the oath which the Holy One, blessed be He, had sworn

47 48 49 50 51

Shimon b. Yohai is a secondary redaction by early Rabbinic editors attempting not only to develop a more lofty literary style for the midrashic traditions, but also to loosen the strict reliance of the text’s interpretation on the wording of Scripture.” See Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Sanya) 2.2.2; Mishnah Ohalot 2.2. This is also evidence of a rabbinic connection between Mishnah and the midrashic Mekhiltot. Psalm 79 is traditionally read as a lament for the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. See Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon (Sanya) 2.2.2. See Nelson, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, 6 n. 19. See Nelson’s note on “Merit of the Forefathers” in Mekhilta de-Shimon bar Yohai, 6 n. 18: “Moreover, as a result of Abraham’s obedience and faithful performance of God’s decree to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, Rabbinic tradition holds that he accrued merit on behalf of the subsequent generations of Jews, from which they could benefit and receive forgiveness for future transgressions and protection in times of trouble or danger. This Rabbinic theological concept is typically referred to as ‘Merit of the Forefathers.’”

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unto Abraham [lit. our Father/‫]אבינו‬, to deliver his children.”52 Using Ezek 16.6 and Zech 9.11 as the intertextual nexus, Rabbi Matia connects God’s oath to Abraham with the Passover by uniting his circumcision with the paschal sacrifice as the two duties through which the children of Abraham of all generations earn their redemption.53 With regard to circumcision, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael classifies it as more important than the Passover sacrifice in its original reference to Abraham. Furthermore, by identifying Isaac as the true paschal lamb it classifies Abraham as more important than Isaac in the rabbinic order of “Merit of the Forefathers” because he was obedient as a doer.54 According to the Exodus Rabbah, a later midrashic work on Exodus, circumcision is still considered the precondition for redemption, allowed only to true Israel, those who have “the seal of Abraham” on their bodies. In the Exodus Rabbah (Bo) 19.5, “God ordained a feast for them, flesh roast with fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, to commemorate their deliverance from trouble; but He commanded: ‘Unless the seal of Abraham is inscribed on your flesh, you cannot taste thereof.’”55 In this way, Palestinian rabbis, according to the Mekiltot and the later midrashic works, consistently reinforced the theological concept of “Merit of the Forefathers,” but in a creative way by juxtaposing the Akedah with the Passover and claiming that Isaac actually bled. They have incorporated their readings of the Passover narrative into a soteriological expectation and eschatological hope that Isaac’s blood is powerful and effective enough even in a small dose to fulfill God’s oath to Abraham for the redemption of his children in all subsequent generations. In their midrashic way of rereading the Passover narrative, both the Mekiltot of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon have referred the Passover sacrifice not forward in time but backward to Isaac and Abraham to assure its fulfillment. They built a road between the Passover and the Akedah with biblical texts from the Psalms and the prophets, so that they might journey from Egypt up to Mount Moriah/Sinai and watch the most dramatic spectacle in Jewish history. 52 53 54

55

Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 5.4–6. See Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 5.8–9: “Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, assigned them two duties, the duty of the paschal sacrifice and the duty of circumcision, which they should perform so as to be worthy of redemption.” Reuven Kimelman demonstrates how Abraham is signified in Son of Songs Rabbah as the Jewish counter figure for Christ. In some midrashic works cited by Kimelman, Abraham is someone for whom the world was created (see Gen Rab 12.9.107), who came to make amends for the sin of Adam (see Gen Rab 14.6.130), and, finally and most significantly, who was worthy of atoning for all the sins of Israel (see Lev Rab 29.8.679). See Kimelman, “Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs,” 583–585. Ex Rab (Bo) 19.5.

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As long as the source of redemption is secured in the merit of Abraham and hope for redemption is sustained in the bloody sign of circumcision for his children, the Mekiltot consistently and creatively downgraded the Passover sacrifice in rabbinic classification as temporal and obsolete. They reclassified the paschal meat over the course of time from the lofty status of “eating the paschal meat alone can suffice the requirement of Seder” to the low status of “eating any of three foods just suffices.” As Bokser remarks, The Passover sacrifice thus has a purpose – if only to give the Israelites merit. The implication might be that the blood of the sacrifice, like the blood of circumcision, would continue to give Israel merit. While Jews may no longer be able to have the blood from that sacrifice, they can still perform circumcision.56

Thus, the two Mekiltot opened a way for circumcised Jews, post-70, to reread the Passover narrative not in the Temple and Jerusalem, but in their homes and towns without the sacrifice, but still with the “blood.” In so doing they reinforced the scriptural formation of their, the rabbinic Jews residing in the pan-Mediterranean world of the first three centuries C.E., distinctive group identity as true Israel (i.e. the children of Abraham). The Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon questions how one can know whether the commandment in Exod 12.18 to eat the unleavened bread is still in effect “when the Temple does not exist.”57 Responding by taking the repetition of “mazzah” (Exod 12.15 and 12.18) as a textual extension, the Mekhilta broadens “the scope of what is permissible” from the Temple through Jerusalem and the land of Israel to “all your dwellings” (Exod 12.20).58 In this way, the Mekhilta reflected the rabbinic reality in which local villages and homes are a mirror image of the Temple, (i.e. the center of the entire cosmos, or a substitute for it to celebrate the Passover ceremony).59 Given the connection between the Mekiltot and the Mishnah regarding the amount of blood shed by Isaac, the way in which the Mekiltot reread the Passover narrative should intersect with the way in which the Mishnah codifies how to reenact it at home post-70 – if they share

56 57 58 59

Bokser, The Origins of the Seder, 97. Mkt Shim (Pisha) 12.1.4. Mkt Shim (Pisha) 12.1.5–12.3.6. See Brooks, “Straw Dogs and Scholarly Ecumenism,” 82. Also Jacob Neusner noted that the world organized by the Mishnah is a mirror image of the world in the time to come “when the Temple is rebuilt” (see Neusner, Judaism, 183). Yet, as 2 Chron 30.10 indicates, even in biblical times when the Temple existed, the home and villages presumably functioned as an alternative center for the Passover celebration (see Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 96–97, 103).

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a similar locative view of the cosmos in accordance with the rabbinic order of classification. 5.4

Reenacting the Passover Narrative with the Mishnah

Regarding the practical aspects of the Passover ceremony, the Mishnah Pesahim 10.3 bears witness to the continuous process of legal adaptation for post-70. As Bokser notes, the passage accounts for the loss of the Passover sacrifice from the ceremony. Several glosses and changes to the Mishnah can be traced to the Palestinian Talmud (PT) and later the Babylonian Talmud (BT). An example of this comes from clause B of the PT and B’ of the BT, B. They served him unleavened bread and lettuce and haroset [a mixture, e.g. of nuts, fruit, and vinegar pounded together] even though the haroset is not a [biblical] commandment.60 B’. They set before him mazzah, lettuce, and haroseth and two dishes, though the haroseth is not compulsory.61

The Mishnah passage alludes to the loss of the Passover sacrifice either by omitting the mention about the paschal meat in a passive manner (B), or by adding the mention of “two dishes” instead of it in an active manner (B’). An anonymous voice teaches further that one of the two dishes is to be eaten as “a remembrance of the Passover offering” and the other as “a remembrance of the festive offering.”62 This gloss substitutes the non-sacrificial foods for the paschal meat. In following the PT as its precursor and basis, the BT Pesahim 10.3 goes on listing the various food possibilities for the two dishes, suggested by several rabbis with or without rationale: beets and rice; fish with egg on it; two kinds of meat to remember the Passover-offering and the festive offering; or, even a bone and its broth.63 In this way, the Mishnah Pesahim, as received in the PT and BT with some slight or significant changes, testifies to a revisionary process in which the paschal meat has been downgraded and substituted by non-sacrificial foods. Particularly, clause C-C’ of the Mishnah Pesahim 10.3 takes the destruction of

60 61 62 63

PT Pesahim 37c. BT Pesahim 114a. PT Pesahim 37d. See BT Pesahim 114b.

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the Temple into the account for this degradation and substitution process of the paschal meat: C. And in the Temple they serve him the carcass of the Passover offering.64 C’. And in the Temple they used to bring the body of the Passover offering before him.65

The BT Pesahim no longer recognizes the Passover sacrifice as current but relegates it to the past, not for post-70, but belonging to pre-70. Nevertheless, the PT Pesahim still recognizes the blood element of redemption in the haroseth, instead of the paschal meat, as current and relevant: “There are those who teach, ‘It is required to be murky [or soft].’”66 This suggests that the haroset “is a remembrance of the blood” of redemption, either of the first plague or the last one, when blood was put on the doorposts as a sign to protect Hebrew homes.67 Therefore, the Mishnah Pesahim as codified in the PT and BT illuminates a rabbinic way of reenacting the Passover narrative as one without sacrifice, but not without the blood of redemption for Abraham’s children. Further evidence for this substitution process for the paschal sacrifice is reflected in Gamaliel’s instruction from the Mishnah Pesahim 10.5: Whosoever has not said [the verses concerning] these three things at Passover has not fulfilled his obligation. And these are they: Passover, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs: “Passover” – because God passed over the houses of our fathers in Egypt; “unleavened bread” – because our fathers were redeemed from Egypt; “bitter herbs” – because the Egyptians embitters the lives of our fathers in Egypt.68

David Daube claims the key elements of the Passover ceremony in this instruction are those three symbols that set in motion and steer the direction of all that follows in the Seder.69 According to Bokser, As has been seen, the narration of the Exodus experience is not novel. But now it becomes a central part of the ceremony. The sacrifice and its rituals no longer elicit an explanation of past history; but rather their actions and symbols are designed to exemplify and lead into the narrative.70 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

PT Pesahim 37c. BT Pesahim 114a – italics added for emphasis. PT Pesahim 37d. PT Pesahim 37d. Mishnah Pesahim 10.5. See Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, 194. Bokser, The Origins of the Seder, 77.

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The meaning of each of the three central symbols is manifested by the participants in the Passover through the symbolic action of eating. Yet, with no mention of paschal meat or any other food, the symbolic meaning of “Passover” is left ambiguous as to which kind of symbolic action ought to be taken for the reenactment of the first symbol. The PT Pesahim 10.3.C (37d) suggests the haroseth as the alternative food to the paschal meat for the symbol of Passover because of its blood-like murkiness and softness. In the PT and BT, the Mishnah text has been transmitted in a revisionary way that has gradually downgraded the sacrificial meat of the paschal lamb and elevated other non-sacrificial foods in the rabbinic shift of the Seder’s ceremonial order from “meal-question-telling” to “question-telling-meal.” With this the rabbis have delivered a provocative theological message to the Jews post-70 (living in the absence of the Temple) as Gamaliel instructs: “In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth himself out of Egypt.”71 Therefore, particularly with regards to the lower status of the Passover sacrifice and the promotion of its non-sacrificial substitutes in the rabbinic order of classification, one can conclude that the ways in which the Mishnah reenacts the Passover narrative profoundly resonates with the ways in which the midrashic Mekiltot of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon reread it. 5.5

“To Make a Fence around the Torah”

When considering the significance and prominence of the Hebrew Bible for the Jews, which increased after the destruction of the Temple, the affinity between the Mishnah and the two Mekiltot is assumed to be a result of employing a common methodological approach to scriptural interpretation. David Kraemer notes, When the Mishnah did actually read Scripture, the methods it employed were largely the same as the early midrashim. Thus, though the Mishnah may have been redacted earlier, it is clear that the sorts of readings to which the midrashim give voice were developing at the same time as the Mishnah. Therefore, whatever the agenda of the halakhic midrashim as redacted documents, it is reasonable to suppose that, in limited instances, the rabbinic methods of reading indeed yielded the laws to which they are attached.72 71 72

Mishnah Pesahim 10.5 – italics added for emphasis. David Kraemer, “Scriptural Interpretation in the Mishnah,” Hebrew Bible/Old Testament I/1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 279. Also, Kraemer has shown some examples for some midrashic methods that are employed in the Mishnah (see Kraemer, “Scriptural Interpretation in the Mishnah,” 282): (1) “a fortiori” (or “Kal vahomer”) reasoning (e.g.

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Yet, it is more important to note that such common methods of interpretation should be derived from the common rabbinic understanding of the nature of the Hebrew Bible as the authoritative revelation of God for Israel. If a major theological concern of Palestinian rabbis was to differentiate the Hebrew Bible from other scriptures or myths, such as the New Testament and the Homeric epics, their midrashic task undertaken during the first three centuries should be understood as protecting and extending its authority – or, in a famous rabbinic phrase, “making a fence around the Torah [‫]לעשות סייג לתורה‬.”73 In interpreting Exod 12.10, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael uses the phrase before a rabbinic teaching regarding the decree to not leave any part of the paschal lamb until dawn the following day. This provides a rabbinic rationale for forbidding any of the lamb to be left after midnight to eliminate even the slightest chance of violation. By observing the decree more strictly, the Mekhilta means “to prevent the possibility of transgression of the law” by putting “a fence around the Torah.”74 The previous example uses this phrase in a narrow and sensible way, the Mishnah rather uses it to see the formation of the Hebrew Bible as an ongoing process of interpreting the Torah. According to the Mishnah Aboth 1.1, Moses received the Law [Torah] from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue. They said three things: be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Law [Torah].75

73 74 75

Mishnah Pesah 6.2); (2) “the derived case be no more expansive than the case upon which the poof rests” (e.g. BT Qam 1.1); (3) “the equation of common scriptural terms used in different contexts” (e.g. Mishnah Sotah 6.3); (4) “The construction of a general category from specified scriptural example” (e.g. BT Mes 2.5); (5) “Equation of principles or cases” (e.g. Mishnah Mak 1.6); (6) “Derivation based upon the juxtaposition of scriptural discussions” (e.g. Mishnah Hul 8.4); (7) “A lesson based upon a specific example which already would have been subsumed under a general ruling” (e.g. BT Mes 2.5); (8) “The reconciliation of two apparently contradictory Scripture” (e.g. Mishnah Seqal 6.6). See Rivka Kern-Ulmer, “Theological Foundations of Rabbinic Exegesis,” Encyclopedia of Midrash (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 952. Here and henceforth meaning ‘the first five books of Moses’ by the Torah. Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 6.36–37. Mishnah Aboth 1.1. See also Mkt Ishm (Pisha) 6.37–40. On another instance of the phrase used by R. Akiba in Mishnah Aboth 3.14, “The tradition is a fence around the law [Torah]”, David Daube has viewed the Masoretic tradition as a rabbinic effort to place a fence around the Torah, concerning the exact state of the sacred text (see D. Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” HUCA 22, (1949), 242 n. 10).

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In describing the reception history of the Torah from Moses to the rabbis, this mishnaic passage portrays those who contributed to the formation of the Hebrew Bible as the construction workers building fences around the Torah. This means they could judge and discern God’s divine will and plan for Israel. In this way, the Torah is the center, and the Nevi’im and Ketuvim are fences built by the prophets’s interpretations of the Torah to set its boundaries and protect the center. It also indicates that, despite of the destruction of the Temple, this Torah is still expanding as the rabbis continue to build more fences around it by interpreting it in their current contexts, which are quite different from the contexts of the biblical writers. In rabbinic hermeneutics, a different historical context requires a different interpretation, but all for a single purpose: to make a fence around the Torah. Living with the absence of the Temple forced the post-70 rabbis to pursue alternative theological interpretations of the Temple-based sacrificial system and these naturally differed from the ones given by pre-70 interpreters. Yet, the sacred history of Israel as recounted in the Hebrew Bible teaches them that the post-70 context is not new at all, though perilously striking to them. It demonstrates that there were times when the Temple did not exist: the conquest period, the early monarchic period, and the exilic period, but, more importantly, there was no time when the task of making a fence around the Torah was stopped, not even for a moment. Therefore, as a history of making a fence around the Torah, the sacred history of Israel, running through various historical and socio-political contexts, provides a rationale for multiple interpretations that sometimes appear contrary to one another. For instance, the Passover regulation regarding how to cook the paschal lamb explicitly states not to boil it in water (Exod 12.9), but this is a direct contradiction to Deut 16.7, which says to boil in a stew and eat it. Yet, rabbinic interpreters of these two Torah texts offer “several ways of showing that they do not really disagree with each other,” but rather comprise a harmonious voice for the Torah as a connected whole.76 In so doing, they follow 2 Chron 35.13, which reports how the people maintained both regulations in a single practice as Moses prescribed: “So they boiled the Passover animals on the fire according to the [singular] ordinance.” The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael contains both positive and negative interpretations about the condition of the Israelites while wondering in the wilderness, for a midrashic example.77 The dual voice of the Mekhilta is just an echo of the dual voice of the Hebrew Bible displayed by the prophets Jeremiah 76 77

Sommer, “Inner-Biblical Interpretation,” 1833. See, for example, BT Pesahim 7.1.74a–75b. See Mkt Ishm (Pisah) 11.61–84.

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(Jer 2.2) and Nehemiah (Neh 9.17–18) whose judgements differ from one another. The heterogeneity of the Hebrew Bible mirrors the polysemic heterogeneity of midrashic interpretations.78 Indeed, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael presents multiple interpretations – whether prefaced by the formula ‫דבר אהר‬ (“another interpretation”) or not – as the “most ubiquitous feature, almost a kind of stereotype or commonplace” for the midrashic heterogeneity or polysemy.79 David Stern notes, The midrashic phenomenon is the conception of Scriptural polysemy and its consequent habit of presenting multiple interpretations for Scriptural verses or phrases…. The idea of Scriptural polysemy … does not appear to have changed or developed perceptibly through the classical Rabbinic period [i.e. 2nd–4th century C.E.].80

James Kugel delineates that in rabbinic hermeneutics the Hebrew Bible is construed as “a fundamentally cryptic text,” containing multiple interpretations of the Torah, however, it contains “no contradictions or mistakes,” but rather “lessons directed to readers in their own day,” for it is “essentially a divinely given text.”81 In an interpretation of the verse “All these words” (Exod 20.1), the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael reflects the rabbinic view of the Torah and the whole Hebrew Bible as containing many words and commandments, but still in unity with “one utterance [‫ ”]בדיבור אחד‬from God.82 Regarding this multiplication process of God’s single utterance that eventually formed the Hebrew Bible, the school of Rabbi Ishmael taught a metaphoric image: “Just as the rock is split [by a hammer] into many splinters [Jer 23.29], so also may one biblical verse convey many teachings [by the single utterance of God].”83 Thus, for rabbinic hermeneutics every stroke embedded in the Hebrew Bible has divine significance as a textual and semantic link to the original utterance of God. Kugel suggested the term “omnisignificance” to sum up rabbinic fundamental assumptions about the nature of divine Scripture. According to him, the term indicates the basic assumption underlying all of rabbinic exegesis is that the slightest details of the biblical text have a meaning that is both comprehensible and 78 79 80 81 82 83

See Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, 48. Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” 137. Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” 134–136. James Kugel, How to Read the Bible (New York: Free Press, 2007), 14–16. See Mkt Ishm (Bahodesh) 4.102–112. BT Bablio Sanhedrin 34a.

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Midrash – the rabbinic approach to interpretation – should be understood as a rabbinic endeavor to connect the textual links to hear the single utterance of God from Mt. Sinai.85 Stern states, Following the Temple’s destruction … midrash became a kind of conversation the Rabbis invented in order to enable God to speak to them from between the lines of Scripture, in the textual fissures and discontinuities that exegesis discovers. The multiplication of interpretations in midrash was one way, as it were, to prolong that conversation.86

As long as the dialogue between the Torah and the midrashic interpreters prolongs the multiplication of scriptural interpretation, all the derived interpretations, often in dispute and contrast with one another, are meant to be reckoned as “the words of the living God” – that is the Oral Torah.87 As Rivka Ulmer notes, the midrashic task of interpretation is, therefore, a rabbinic attempt to mediate between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, “which is recreated in midrash,” and to present “the complete Torah” as a connected whole.88 In rabbinic hermeneutics, the Oral Torah as the polysemic fence is connected to the Written Torah in a dense weave, and, at the same time, is the multithreaded barricade protecting it from unworthy outsiders – like Christians. The dialogues among the rabbis are their communal efforts to connect those who contributed to the formation of the Hebrew Bible with Torah interpretations, and from there access the single utterance of God where they are in their socio-religious context. By building polysemic fences around the Written Torah – to mean, by preventing the possibility of transgression in a narrow sense and interpreting it in a much broader sense – Palestinian rabbis of the first three centuries tried to construct a Torah kingdom where God rules 84 85 86 87

88

James Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 104. See David Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1863. Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” 153. BT Bablio Eruvin 13b. At a halakhic practical level, it seems that a dispute between two interpretations may be judged according to the majority. For examples, see PT Sanhedrin 4.2, 22a–b and BT Mezi’a 59b. For the mishnaic references to the Oral Torah, see BT Pesahim 21b; Kethuboth 22a; Hullin 114b; Niddah 25a. Rivka Kern-Ulmer, “Hermeneutics, Techniques of Rabbinic Exegesis,” Encyclopedia of Midrash (Leiden: Brill), 946.

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Abraham’s descendants by speaking to them afresh from Mt. Sinai. Their Torah kingdom is not a physical space, like the Roman Empire, but rather something textual because its center is the Written Torah and its boundary is set by the Oral Torah. Its center shall never perish, unlike the Second Temple that was destroyed in 70 C.E.89 Probably, the most significant consequence of the ongoing dialogues of the Oral Torah is the divine affirmation of rabbinic authority – with divine joyful laughter – as true Israel dwells in the Torah kingdom.90 Elman explains, for the rabbis, the Hebrew Bible is the abiding link to God’s continuing presence and favor even under the hegemony of the Romans and the challenge of the Christians.91 For Palestinian rabbis of the first three centuries, scriptural interpretation is a symbolic act or drama that actualizes their union with God through certain hermeneutical procedures and textual links. By connecting every stroke, letter, phrase, verse, and book to the meaningful relationship of God to Israel, the rabbis allegorized the biblical texts in their constant making of “another interpretation [‫]דבר אהר‬.”92 5.6

Rabbinic Literal Interpretation Carried Out in a Symbolic Manner

In the preface to his commentary on Psalms 1–25, Origen introduces “a very beautiful tradition” of the rabbis that can be applied “generally to the entire divine Scripture” for interpretation. The son of a Palestinian rabbi from Alexandria explained the tradition to Origen in this way: Inspired Scripture taken as a whole was on account of its obscurity like many locked-up rooms in one house. Before each room he supposed a key to be placed, but not the one belonging to it; and that the keys were so dispersed all round the rooms, not fitting the locks of the several rooms before which they were placed. It would be a troublesome piece of work to discover the keys to suit the rooms they were meant for.93

89 90

91 92 93

In this sense, the Torah is the new permanent Temple (see Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” 153). See BT B. Mezi’a 59b: “R. Nathan met Elijah [the Prophet] and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour [for the prolonged dialogues between the rabbis over the Torah]? – He laughed [with joy], he replied, saying, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.’” See Elman, “Classical Rabbinic Interpretation,” 1861. See Elman, “Classical Rabbinic Interpretation,” 1861; Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Inter­ pretation”, 1871, 1874. Phil 2.3; SC 302, 244.1–10 (see also CRm 5.1.9; Bammel 2, 365.130–143). For another biographical reference to this son, see HJer 20.2.2; SC 238, 256, 13–16.

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In this rabbinic comparison of the obscure Hebrew Bible to a large house with many locked rooms, scriptural interpretation is described essentially as a “troublesome” task “to discover the right keys and match them [εὑρίσκειν τε τὰς κλεῖς καὶ ἐφαρμόζειν αὐτάς]” to the texts.94 In this way, it is compatible with allegory as an art of comparing and matching. This “very beautiful tradition” is also described in a passage of the Song Songs Rabbah that narrates a romantic experience Ben ‘Azzai had with the Hebrew Bible around the fireplace at night. As he was reading and interpreting, the fire flashed and played around him. He reckoned the dance of the fire along with the sounds and rhythms produced from his scriptural interpretation as a recapitulation of the moment when all the words of the Hebrew Bible had come forth in fire out of the single utterance of God from Sinai (see Deut 4.11). He eventually tasted the sweetness of the original utterance by means of “linking up the words of the Torah with one another and then with the words of the prophets, and the prophets with the Writings.”95 Since all the words of God in the Hebrew Bible spring from the single utterance of God through the Decalogue and the Torah, he was able to reach back to this sweet source through the links he made with the scriptural “words” by means of midrash. Rabbi Levis concludes all midrashic techniques and procedures for rabbinic interpretation can be summarized as “linking and penetrating”96 or “making connections and also getting at the heart of matters.”97 In rabbinic scriptural interpretation (as portrayed in the experiences of Ben ‘Azzai and transmitted to a rabbi’s son in Alexandria) the keys to match and unlock the rooms of the Torah house are the linguistic and textual components that are found outside the given text (“none of them matching the room by which it is placed”) but inside the Hebrew Bible (“the keys are scattered about beside the rooms”). As an allegorical art, rabbinic midrash is a task of linking and comparing both the biblical texts (the doors) and the divine-logical meanings (the keys). Boyarin notes it is essentially an art of placing the textual and linguistic components out of their own scriptural context into a new

94

95 96 97

Phil 2.3; SC 302, 244.9–10. In HJer 1.6–7, Origen uses the cognate forms of the verbs ἐφαρμόζω and ἁρμόζω each over 6 times, all referring to the divinely-given relation of the text to the Logos as opposed to the humanly-invented relation. The verb ἁρμόζω even means in the middle voice ‘to betroth oneself to someone’ or ‘to marry to someone,’ referring to a strong ontological bond in harmonious unity (Liddell-Scott). See also CC 1.24; 1.25; 3.44; 4.52; 6.9. Song Rab 1.10.2. Song Rab 1.10.1. Song Rab 1.10.1 – Neusner edition, 119.

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“semiotic” context created by the correspondence between the text and God’s eternal will toward Israel.98 The Mekiltot of Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon display ample evidence of this methodological principle of rabbinic interpretation: Mekhilta De-Rabbi Ishmael

Text 1 (door)

Text 2 (key)

Divine Meaning (indoor)

Pisha 4.11–19

Exod 12.5: “From the sheep and from the goats.”

Lev 1.10: “And if his [burnt] offering be of the flock whether of the sheep or of the goats for a burnt offering.”

“Is it not but logical to assume that the less important Passover sacrifice may surely be brought from one species alone?”

Pisha 5.1–6

Exod 12.6: “And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month.”

Ezek 16.8: “Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, and, behold, thy time was the time of love.”

“This means, the time has arrived for the fulfillment of the oath which the Holy One, blessed be He, had sworn unto Abraham to deliver his children.”

Pisha 5.7–14

Exod 12.6: “And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month.”

Ezek 16.6: “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee wallowing in thy blood, I said unto thee: In thy blood live.” Zech 9.11: “As for thee also, because of the blood of thy covenant I sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.”

“Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, assigned them two duties, the duty of the paschal sacrifice and the duty of circumcision, which they should perform so as to be worthy of redemption.”

98

See Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, 26.

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Text 1 (door)

Pisha 11.65–73 Exod 12.22: “(None of you shall go outside the door of his house) Until the morning.”

Text 2 (key)

Divine Meaning (indoor)

The deeds of the patriarchs and the prophets: Gen 22.3; 28:18; Exod 34.4; Josh 3.1; 1 Sam 15.12.

“This is to teach you that you should come in to a place or leave it only in the daytime.”

“He beheld the blood Gen 22.14: “And Pisha 11.92–96 Exod 12.23: “When He sees the “Abraham called the of the sacrifice of Isaac.” name of that place blood.” Adonai-jireh (the Lord will see).” 1 Chron 21.15: “And as He was about to destroy, the Lord beheld and He repented Him.” Gen 22.8: “God will Himself see the lamb for a burnt-offering.” Mekhilta De-Rabbi Shimon

Text 1 (door)

Text 2 (key)

Divine Meaning (indoor)

Sanya 2.2.2

Exod 6.2: “And God spoke to Moses.”

Ps 79.11: “Because of your [Abraham’s] great strength, those condemned to death will be retrieved.”

“But now, as the [obligation to fulfill] the oath [that I swore to your forefathers] to bring the Children of Israel out from Egypt is incumbent upon me, and I am requesting [of you] to bring them out.”

Linking up the Words of the Torah with One Another

Mekhilta De-Rabbi Shimon

Text 1 (door)

Pisha 9.5.6.

Exod 12.14: “You Lev 16.15: “He shall are to celebrate it.” sprinkle it.”

Text 2 (key)

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Divine Meaning (indoor) “Just as [the sacrifice] stated later [is fulfilled through the sprinkling of] the blood, and not [the eating of the] meat, this one sated here [is fulfilled through] the blood, and not the meat.”

By applying the kal-vahomer, the biblical text that contains a more significant revelation (i.e. God’s oath to Abraham) becomes one with text that contains a less significant revelation (i.e. the Passover celebration), and the meaning of the less significant text is determined by the logic of the significant text. By applying gezerah shavah or hekesh, the biblical text that contains a sacrificial law in the minor class (i.e. the peace offering) becomes one with the text that contains another minor sacrificial law (i.e. the paschal offering), and determines its logical conclusion from the latter text. In fact, the middot (i.e. rabbinic methodological principles for doing midrash) of Hillel and Rabbi Ishmael – and others – all basically work by the principles of classification and comparison.99 Thus, midrash can be understood as a symbolic act of reuniting what was originally one by linking and comparing the Torah with biblical texts and God with Israel. Midrash as a symbolic mode of rabbinic interpretation is epitomized in the petihta, a midrashic literary form that exists “precisely in the gray area” between scriptural commentaries and synagogue homilies.100 A petihta on Leviticus 24.2 reads,

99

See Kern-Ulmer, “Hermeneutics, Techniques of Rabbinic Exegesis,” 291. Kern-Ulmer has spelled out Israel’s relationship with God as the ultimate end of rabbinic classification and comparison (see Kern-Ulmer, “Theological Foundations of Rabbinic Exegesis,” 958). 100 Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” 1873.

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Chapter 5 Bar Kapprah (d. 230 C.E.) recited a petihta: “It is You who light my lamp; the lord, my God, lights up my darkness” (Ps 18.29). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to man: your lamp is in my hand, as it is said, “The lifebreath of man is the lamp of the Lord” (Prov 20.27). And my lamp is in yours: [this is the meaning of the phrase] “so as to maintain lights regularly” (Lev 24.2). To which the Holy One, blessed be He, added: If you light my lamp, I will light yours. That is the meaning of “Command the Israelite people.” (Lev 24.2).101

In the newly created semiotic space by the homiletic event, the petihta puts the Psalms text into the congregation’s mouth and the Leviticus text into God’s mouth to facilitate the dialogue between the two interlocutors through the homilist. The most striking feature about this petihta is its depiction of God as the interpreter of the Torah. God, the divine model for all human interpreters to exemplify and follow, pulls the Proverbs text out of its own context then links and compares it to the Psalms text to give a new meaning to the verse in Leviticus that addresses the reciprocal relationship between God and Israel. Neusner gets to the heart of rabbinic midrash: “[T]he key to deciphering symbolic discourse must lie in knowing the secret of the combinations: why this with that? Why this not with that?”102 Rabbinic secrets of midrash refer to the presence of Jewish allegory across the pan-Mediterranean world of late antiquity. According to Stern, Generally speaking, the underlying interpretive assumptions that the Rabbis brought to midrash were not different from those of their nonrabbinic contemporaries, Jewish or Gentile. As scholars have shown repeatedly over the last century, the Rabbis shared hermeneutical techniques and procedures with their Greco-Roman neighbors as well as with the larger and more ancient Near Eastern culture into which ancient Judaism was born. Midrash dealing with halakhah … uses many of the same hermeneutical principles used by Greek and Roman jurists…. In the realm of aggadah … midrash applied to the Bible techniques known to be used in ancient literary and dream interpretation.103

Stern, denying a major scholarly view of midrash as an alternative mode of interpretation to allegory, defined midrash explicitly as a form of allegory, “a form of interpretation that seeks to show how the text means something other than what it says” – but still distinct from philosophical allegory.104 Given Origen’s 101 As quoted in Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” 1873. 102 Neusner, Symbol and Theology in Early Judaism, 14. 103 Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” 1866. Stern refers to gematria and notarikon as the most notorious type of hermeneutical techniques in midrash that are attested in ancient handbooks for dream interpreters, and, kelal uferat to the most general type of hermeneutical principle that are shared in common with ancient jurists in general. 104 Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” 1871.

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awareness of Jewish allegorical traditions, his critique of the Jews as literal readers is all the more puzzling.105 Origen’s praise for their “very beautiful tradition” of allegorical reading and his critique of their literal reading tradition remains a “major paradox” of Origen scholarship, according to Guy Stroumsa.106 Peter Martens persuasively suggested that Origen attacked not Jewish methodological approaches and hermeneutical procedures in general, but particular literal interpretations that bothered him (and the Palestine Christians) as the new Israel. Martens concludes, What elicited Origen’s censure was a handful of literal interpretations that squarely confronted and undermined central Christian convictions, namely the denial that Jesus was Israel’s prophesied Messiah and the continuance of Jewish liturgical and ceremonial customs.107

105 In HGen 3.5, for instance, Origen refers to some Jewish allegorical approaches regarding the circumcision of lips (see Exod 6.30), ears (see Jer 6.10), or flesh (see Jer 9.25). When challenging their strict (and inconsistent) demand only for a literal reading and observance of foreskin circumcision, he says: “But if you refer circumcision of lips to allegory and say no less that circumcision of ears is allegorical and figurative, why do you not also inquire after allegory in circumcision of the foreskin?” Also, in the same passage, Origen distinguishes Jewish allegories from Christian by calling the latter “our allegories” rather than “yours.” For a mishnaic reference to the rabbinic allegorical reading over the circumcision of the flesh, see Mishnah Nedarim 3.11 (by Rabbi Elʿazar ben ʿAzariah of the second century C.E.). However, Gen Rab 46.5 contains rabbinic responses to Christian challenges such as Origen’s using the personas of Rabbi Ishmael, Rabbi Aquiva, and an unknown sage Nagdah, who all concluded for different logical reasons that cutting must be applied only to foreskin. See also Maren Niehoff, “Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen 17:1–14,” JSQ 10.2 (2003), 89–123; Menahem Kister, “Allegorical Interpretation of Biblical Narratives,” New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 172–176. On scholarly demonstration of Origen’s awareness of the presence of Jewish allegory in rabbinic and Hellenistic traditions, see Nicholas De Lange, Origen and the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 82–83; Marguerite Harl, “Introduction” to Philocalia (Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1983), 1–20, 51; Martens, Origen and Scripture, 138–140; Kister, “Allegorical Interpretation of Biblical Narratives,” 133–183. For Origen’s reference to the allegories of the law in Philo, Aristobulus, and Numenius to justify his allegorical interpretations, see CC 4.21, 4.48–49, 4.51, 6.21, 6.49, 7.20. For Origen’s use of Philo, see David Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 157–183. 106 Guy Stroumsa, “Clement, Origen, and Jewish Esoteric Traditions,” Origeniana Sexta (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995), 60. Origen’s high regard for the literal sense as a means to reach the higher senses makes the case even more complicated, see PA 4.2.4; 4.2.8; 4.3.4; CJn 13.38–39. 107 Martens, Origen and Scripture, 160.

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Since his final move to Caesarea Maritima, Origen had to witness some of the local Christians observing Jewish ceremonial customs, as the Jewish majority did and compelled others to do.108 Does “allegorical” automatically mean “spiritual,” “philosophical” or “abstract,” as Harl, Stroumsa, and Martens somewhat uncritically assumed? Or, can allegorical be “literal” and “logical,” depending on how one links a text with other texts and makes Scripture a connected whole?109 This “literal” allegory is to what Stern alluded. Given the similar but distinctive ways the Passover narrative has been retold and reenacted by Origen (Ch. 2) and Palestinian rabbis (Ch. 5), their employment of the common allegorical method highlights their distinctive Christian or Jewish principles of reuniting what was originally one. They committed their task of scriptural interpretation to promote their own doctrines and practices, as well as to undermine the ones of their scriptural and theological interlocutors.110 In Origen’s view, rabbinic allegorical interpretation could still look too “literal” to be considered “spiritual” when regarding the principal ways in which their middot drive it to its doctrinal conclusions and practical applications. According to Daniel Boyarin, rabbinic interpretation is linguistic and logical in terms of the ways in which certain intertextual links are made for comparison between “texts and other texts, between signifiers and signifiers” – not between “signifiers and [extra-textual] signifieds,” as is the case with Origen.111 Rabbinic allegory thus avoids any extrinsic information or data to the Hebrew Bible due to a rabbinic belief “that everything is in the Bible and that by linking lemmata theological truths are yielded” – namely, a rabbinic belief of omnisignificance of Hebrew Bible.112 As long as an allegorical connection is intertextual and linguistic limited to the textual and linguistic boundary set by the Hebrew Bible, it can be regarded as “literal” rather than “spiritual.” Origen’s spiritual allegory is a tripartite hierarchical order between the Old Testament (the signifier/symbolizing) and the New Testament (the signified/symbolized), and between the whole Scripture (the signifiers/symbolizing) and the Logos (the signified/symbolized). To sum up, rabbinic “literal” allegory is a prolongation of 108 See, for examples, HJer 12.13.1; SC 238, 46.25–34. For overviews to this complex relation between Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity, see Becker-Reed, The Ways That Never Parted (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); James Dunn, The Partings of the Ways (London: SCM, 2006). 109 See Stern, “Midrash and Jewish Interpretation,” 1871. 110 See Menahem Kister, “Allegorical Interpretation of Biblical Narratives,” 176. 111 Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, 110. 112 Kern-Ulmer, “Theological Foundations of Rabbinic Exegesis,” 954.

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the dialogues between the jots, letters, words, verses, and texts to build a fence around the textual Torah.113 By placing the linguistic and textual components of the Hebrew Bible into a new semiotic context, and by linking and comparing them according to certain middot rules, Palestinian rabbis desired to expand and manifest the Torah kingdom of YHWH, in which true Israel was called to live out new theological interpretations of the Torah. Since the center of the kingdom is the Written Torah and its boundary is set by the Oral Torah, any interpretation (however radical or revolutionary) is bound to its linguistic and logical nexus, the Written Torah, which is an earthly textual entity, unlike Origen’s Logos in the most divine. Some rabbis warn against delving too much into the world above or below, the past or the future, as their intensive focus on the present life is based on their pursuit of earthy holiness.114 In fact, the rabbis of late antiquity were well aware of the Greek metaphysical cosmologies, adapting some of them and other external sources in constructing their own cosmology.115 Yet, they focused on the micro-scaled procreation of the human embryo, juxtaposing and comparing it with the macro-scaled creation of the vast cosmos as no less wonderful and mysterious to give honor and glory to the Creator of all.116 By applying the principal method for scriptural interpretation (i.e. linking and comparing) to understanding the cosmos through the human embryo, they constructed their lives and world anew through their ongoing interpretation of the Torah. Gwynn Kessler notes, Rabbinic traditions about the creation of the embryo recorded in Lev. Rab. 14 (and elsewhere), however, repeatedly juxtapose the creation of the embryo with the creation of the cosmos, suggesting that creation is not something in the past that one may or may not choose to investigate, but it is something that is constant, in the present, making speculation about it nearly impossible to resist.117

113 See Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, 15. 114 For a midrashic reference to this, see Gen Rab 1.10: “Why was the world created with a beth [‫ ב‬as in ‫ ?]בראשית‬Just as the beth is closed as the sides but open in front, so you are not permitted to investigate what is above and what is below, what is before and what is behind.” For a prominent mishnaic reference, Mishnah Hag. 2.1: “Whosoever gives his mind to four things it were better for him if he had not come into the world – what is above? what is beneath? what was beforetime? and what will be hereafter?” 115 See Moshe Simon-Shoshan, “The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of God,” BDD 20 (2008), 96; Levine, Caesarea Under Roman Rule, 77–78. 116 See Midrash Hagigah 2.1; Lev Rab 14.2. 117 Gwynn Kessler, “Constant Creation,” Jewish and Christian Cosmogony in Late Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 137–138.

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In rabbinic cosmology, the world is created ever anew as they participate in the Torah kingdom by means of constantly building another fence around the Torah, by means of constantly linking and comparing the textual and linguistic components in each newly created context for their daily lives. In their attempts to make the Hebrew Bible a connected whole, the rabbis understood the present moment as a corresponding manifestation of God’s blueprint over the cosmos concealed and revealed in the Torah. According to Brooks, “The Jews’ situation as a defeated people forced them to retreat into a systematic never-never land, in which Rome played little or no part whatsoever…. In short, through study of Torah they reconstructed the world taken away from them.”118 To read the Torah is thus equal to constructing the present world and making sense of contemporary life.119 The rabbinic reality of the cosmos is neither a physical nor a metaphysical world, but an intertextual world created by the never-ceasing dialogue between the Written and Oral Torah. In parallel with Origen and other cosmopolitans of the pan-Mediterranean world, Palestinian rabbis combined their view of the cosmos with revelatory medium that fundamentally shapes the way they interpret it – recognizing their location in the cosmos as God’s chosen ones and living a harmonious life with the divine will of the Creator among his creation.120 For both Origen and Palestinian rabbis, a scriptural meaning ends not in itself, but in revealing a corresponding reality of the cosmos upon which the interpreters dwell. If rabbinic interpretation can be designated overall as “literal,” it is primarily because the cosmos reconstructed by the rabbis is an intertextual world based on the Torah, as opposed to the tripartite cosmos reconstructed from the sensible through the sacramental to the divine in Origen’s interpretation of Christian Scripture. 5.7 Conclusion In conclusion, rabbinic activity of Torah study – midrash – can be understood as a rabbinic literal approach to the Hebrew Bible carried out in a symbolic (συμβολικός) manner. It is a way of reuniting the Oral and Written Torah with the single utterance of God according to certain middot, whereas Origen’s 118 Brooks, “Straw Dogs and Scholarly Ecumenism,” 84–85. 119 In PA 2.11.2; GK 442.22-25, Origen notes that to read the Hebrew Bible in “a Judaistic sense” means to compare/correspond “every detail” of its letters only to “the course of this life” – italics added for emphasis. 120 See Simon-Shoshan, “The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of God,” 67.

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allegory is a way of reuniting the Old and New Testaments with the Logos according the rule of Christian faith.121 It leads interpreters backward and little upward to earthly Mt. Sinai through multithreaded textual and linguistic links, whereas Origen’s allegory leads them forward and upward to heavenly Jerusalem through multileveled Christological steps.122 Through midrashic readings of the Hebrew Bible in a symbolic manner, Palestine rabbis of the first three centuries C.E. were able to contribute to the formation of Jewish identity as true Israel by rereading and reenacting the Passover narrative without sacrifice, but with blood, once a year. By contrast, through sacramental readings in another symbolic manner, Origen was able to do that for the Palestine Christians by rereading and reenacting the Passover narrative without blood, but with sacrifice, every day.123 Both Origen and the rabbis understood the Hebrew Bible as a connected whole, but in different ways, through the New Testament and the Logos for Origen, and as the Written Torah for the rabbis.124 Although both sought a common end through scriptural interpretation (i.e. to be affirmed as true 121 See Gerald Bruns, “Midrash and Allegory,” The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 642–643. Origen used the expressions such as κανών (see PA 4.2.2), κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικός (see HJer 5.14.1; CCor 74) or κανών τῆς ἐκκλησίας (see PA 4.2.2) in a narrower sense than his Latin translators, referring to the principle of allegorical interpretation. This is reflected in the structure and flow of his Peri Archon. Origen arranges the whole contents of the treatise in order of explaining each article of Christian faith – from the doctrine of the Trinity to the doctrine of eschatology – he has listed down in the preface; then, he commits the last book to explaining the principles of scriptural interpretation, while concluding the whole treatise with recapitulating the doctrine of the Trinity. 122 In this respect, David Stern defined the role midrash played for the rabbis as “to recapture the fullness of divine presence, even if partially and only momentarily” (see Stern, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” 161). 123 Ruth Clements shows how Origen in Peri Pascha relocates the Passover sacrifice within the wider sacrificial system of Mosaic law and uses this relocation to draw his reader’s attention to their identity as those who sacrificed Christ. See Ruth Clements, “τέλειος ἄμωμος: The Influence of Palestinian Jewish Exegesis,” The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 285–311. 124 In contrast to rabbinic pursuit of the inner oneness of the Hebrew Bible, Origen’s allegory pursues the external oneness of the OT and the NT in reference to the Logos. See Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius (Albany: State University of New York, 1996), 22: “Jews and Christian battled over the question, Who is the true Israel? Both religions clung to the Bible in Hebrew or Greek and interpreted it, each according to its own method…. Whereas the Oral Law was unique to the Jews, Christianity saw its singularity in its belief in Jesus as the Messiah and his grace to humanity. Within this context, each of these religions turned to interpret the Bible and persuade each other, their own believers, and the pagan onlookers that it was the true Israel.”

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Israel standing in the presence of God), the symbolic manner by which they linked scriptural words as a connected whole and penetrated divine revelation deviated “as high as the heavens are above the earth” (Ps 103.11), as much as the New Testament is different from the midrashim. If Origen was aware of rabbinic hermeneutical methods and procedures for scriptural interpretation, while not venturing too much into its “labyrinth,” he could have named their symbolic (συμβολικός) way of linking and comparing the biblical texts as “literal reading” (not just certain troubling interpretations that bothered rival Christians).125 If it is the case, which seems more than likely, it is fair for Origen to describe Palestinian rabbis of the third century C.E. as those who “rely on just the letter of the Scriptures.”126 Therefore, Origen’s use of “literal reading” as a label for rabbinic interpretation is not only an effective rhetorical reduction ad absurdum, but also a relevant and valid evaluation of his scriptural and theological interlocutors. By engaging in private dialogues and public interlocutions with the rabbis about scriptural interpretation, Origen stood in a little Rome or Alexandria of Palestine as a third-century Christian witness to rabbinic literal allegory carried out in a symbolic manner.

125 See Blowers, “Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible,” 115 n. 89: “Origen admired the rabbis’ sense of the mystical depth of scripture, and sometimes borrowed isolated pieces of Haggadah, but he did not venture, beyond his means, into the labyrinth of rabbinic hermeneutics.” 126 PP 28.[-]5–29.1; Sur la Pâque 208.[-]5–210.1. ”

CHAPTER 6

Conclusion: Symbol, Scripture, and the World We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Begotten of the Father as only-begotten, that is, out of the being of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father, through whom all things are made, things in heaven and things on earth, who, for us humans and for our salvation came down and became flesh, becoming human, he suffered, and he rose on the third day, and having gone into the heavens, is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit…. Those who say, “There was a time when he was not” and “before he was begotten he was not” and that he was made from what was not, or that he was of another being or substance or a creature … let the universal church consider them anathema.1

6.1

Symbol, Creed, and Sacrament

In conclusion, Origen envisions scriptural interpretation as a symbolic drama or rite of passage, in which the somatic letters of Scripture are brought up, compared, and matched with the pneumatic Logos in the psychic mind and life of the reader. Since this symbolic drama is taking place in the reader’s soul, Origen narrates another symbolic drama of the reader’s union and passage with the Son into eternal fellowship with the Father. “To be sure, if someone can … bring together [conferre] Scripture with Scripture, and compare [comparare] divine Scripture, and fit together [coaptare] ‘spiritual things with spiritual (cf. 1 Cor 2.13),’ thus instructs Origen, then their souls “will find a marriage worthy of God” when “the Word of God” may “take up [assumat]” and “unite [conjugat]” them with himself in one spirit.2 Therefore, Origen summarizes the essence of Christianity as the drama of passage “from circumcision to faith, from the letter to the Spirit, from shadow to truth, from fleshly observance to spiritual observance.”3 For him, the main 1 Nicene Creed (325 C.E.); Luke Johnson, The Creed (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 35. 2 For Origen’s reference to “bring together,” “compare,” and “fit together,” see HGen 2.6; GCS 29, 38.23–25. For Origen’s reference to “marriage,” “take up,” and “unite,” see HGen 10.5; GCS 29, 99.26–100.16. 3 CRm 9.1.1; Bammel 3, 710.1–5.

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actor of this drama is the Logos-Christ in the divine action (δράμα) of gradually leading his bride (i.e. the church) through reading and explaining Scripture till she may fully become one with him, fully one in mind and understanding. These conclusions are united in this study’s thesis statement: the semantic notion and genealogy of σύμβολον, having become the prominent theological and ritualistic term in the first three centuries C.E., enabled Origen to construe the cosmos as a tripartite reality, set by Christ’s two advents, and narrate the divine drama of salvation as a tripartite passage with the Logos-Christ through allegorical interpretation of Scripture. In early Christianity, from its origin through late antiquity, no evidence for this statement would be more remarkable than the origin and development of Christian proto-creeds that gave rise to the Nicene Creed/Symbol (Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας) in the fourth century C.E. In fact, following its proto-creeds, the Nicene Symbol is the story of the Father, Son, and Spirit, a summarized form of Christian Scripture.4 This σύμβολον is striking in two aspects, according to Luke Johnson, “for its concise rendering of the Christian story and the structure of the Christian vision of reality.”5 Thus, while the full story condensed in this σύμβολον can be gleaned from Scripture, the cosmological reality concealed in it can be experienced through the enactment of this creedal σύμβολον. This is achieved by professing the concise story, uniting the sacramental σύμβολα (washing, anointing, or eating) and the scriptural σύμβολον (interpreting allegorically) in the liturgical context.6 By performing these symbolic actions on the liturgical stage, the worshippers partake in the tripartite passage with the Logos-Christ, from the present historical reality, through the intermediary liturgical reality, to the teleological divine reality. They “set out the ancient symbols,” one thing next to another, and the new meaning occurs through the liturgical pattern (or, ordo) of this juxtaposition; this meaning is but “holiness,” i.e. the presence of God.7 Yet, their dramatic acts are mimetic representation of the Logos-Christ, who is the main actor in the Nicene σύμβολον as well as in all of Scripture, as most of this symbolic story (plus the 4 According to Luke Johnson, the proto-creeds are 1 Cor 15.3–8; Rom 1.3–4; and Gal 4.4–7; Ignatius’s Letter to the Trallians 9; Justin Martyr’s The First Apology 61; Hippolytus of Rome’s The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition; and Origen’s preface to Peri Archon (The Creed, 11–32). 5 Johnson, The Creed, viii. 6 The Latin terms symbolum or symbolus indicate how σύμβολον as the creed developed semantically to signify ‘profession of faith,’ which highlights action, while its original socialcommercial significance has been preserved in the action of comparing and matching what is originally one. See Stelten, Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 263; P.G.W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 1895. 7 Gordon Lathrop, Holy Things (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 5, 11.

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appendix, “Those who say …”) describes his actions out of his divinity.8 In this way, Christian enactment of the instituted symbols in any worship context can be understood as the dramatization (προσωποποιία) of Christ. Early Christian creeds often link a creedal profession of faith to Christian initiatory sacraments (σύμβολα) – baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist – through certain scriptural texts, such as Exodus 12.9 According to Jean Daniélou, the first Eucharistic link to Exodus 12 was made in the second century C.E. by Hippolytus of Rome (170–236 C.E.) – the baptismal link to the passage having been made earlier – and not fully developed until two centuries later by Cyril of Alexandria (378–444 C.E.).10 Origen fits within this third-century development, as in Peri Pascha he urges his audience to read and enact the Passover narrative and ceremony in a manner proper to the σύμβολα of baptism and the Eucharist (in the form of scriptural interpretation), for their time within the temporal gospel. Also, Origen’s contribution to the development of Christian creedal symbolism is glimpsed in his preface to Peri Archon, where he describes the divine actions of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with a form and structure similar to those of the Nicene Symbol.11 In this way, Origen fits within the gradual development of Christian creedal and sacramental symbolism during the third century C.E.12 Comparing with his little early predecessor, Clement of Alexandria, Origen uses the term σύμβολον more extensively and more distinctively – Christologically rooted and ecclesiastically oriented.13 From a quantitative perspective, the development of Christian symbolism can be perceived by the increased number of sacraments over the course of late antiquity. Cyril of Jerusalem (313–386 C.E.), to teach in Mystagogical Catecheses on the three (not two) initiatory sacraments, began with each figure or type’s Old Testament roots, and then moves through “the symbolism of the [sacramental] rites,” and finally “the dogmatic explanations,” which

8 9

10 11 12 13

See Johnson, The Creed, 21, 35. For second-century Greek examples, see Justin Martyr, The First Apology 61; and for Latin examples, see Hippolytus of Rome, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition. According to Jean Daniélou, main texts are Exodus 12, Psalm 23 and the Song of Songs. See Jean Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1956), 163, 168–169. See Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 169. See Johnson, The Creed, 28–29. On the development of Christian symbolic art depicting Christ as the main protagonist, see Bourguet, “The First Biblical Scenes Depicted in Christian Art,” 299–326. See Louis Roberts, “Unutterable Symbols of (Gē)-themis,” HTR 68.2 (1975), 75; Laeuchli, “Origen’s Conception of Symbolon,” 103–105; Berardino, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, 662.

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casts his teaching within a tripartite structure.14 In the fourth-century Latin world, Ambrose of Milan (337–397 C.E.), despite his different catechetical teaching order, retained Cyril’s emphasis on the scriptural roots of the three initiatory sacraments in De Mysteriis and De Sacramentis.15 By the time of Pseudo Dionysius in the sixth century C.E., Byzantine Christians were already celebrating nearly six sacraments: baptism; Eucharist; confirmation; priestly ordination; consecration of virgins; and the rite of betrothal.16 If they believed that even graphic illustrations or decorations of scriptural events depicted on church walls granted them “increasing access” to divine reality, then how much stronger would their convictions have been about sacramental symbols – not to mention Scripture itself – and their soteriological potency and efficacy for reuniting them with God through Christ?17 Over the course of late antiquity Christian sacraments and creeds, as well as visual art, evolved around the Christian notion of σύμβολον, which denotes that Scripture constituted the foundation that gave “true significance” to them not only in their original institutions but also in their developments.18 In this way, the early development of Christian symbolism ties Scripture to the source σύμβολον of God that produced and empowered the sacramental, creedal, and visual symbols. Then, the generative relation of Scripture to these symbols is one in which Origen substantially contributed to its thirdcentury development with his understanding of Scripture as the symbolic body of the Logos-Christ, and his envisioning of scriptural interpretation as a symbolic drama of Scripture and its interpreters journeying with him to the Creator of all. In Contra Celsum, for instance, Origen states Scripture is both the source that contains “countless symbols,” and the norm that makes judgments whether a symbol legitimately presents reality as God created it.19 To put it the other way around, the generated (and subordinated) relation of the sacramental and creedal symbols to Scripture – their source and end – refers back to what Scripture is ultimately doing for its readers; it unites the partakers with God and one another in Christ, which gives them a distinctive communal identity from those who do not partake in the drama.

14 15 16 17 18 19

Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 11. See Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 12. See Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 15–16. Du Bourguet, “The First Biblical Scenes,” 319. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 7. See CC 4.31; SC 136, 262.27–31, 47–48.

Conclusion

6.2

125

Symbol, Allegory, and the World

As early Christian symbolism developed in late antiquity, ἀλληγορία and τύπος arose with σύμβολον and αἴνιγμα as prominent terms for symbolic approach to scriptural interpretation. However, the semantic bond between allegory and symbol formed even before the first century C.E. is ironically demonstrated by later attempts (during the Reformation, or, even earlier in the twelfth century) to destroy the bond.20 Protestants gradually and yet decisively moved away from allegorical models, popular in late medieval exegesis, in their quest for “strictly historical, literal, and grammatical models.”21 During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it became “almost impossible to maintain” in line with the Reformers both the unity of Scripture (and the subsequent doctrinal conclusions), and the methodological drive toward the historical-literal sense of meaning.22 To cope with this problem, some of them dethroned Scripture in the name of the scientific and historical facts, no longer viewing it as the Word of God, and dismissed allegory from its service for Scripture.23 However, to reconcile the tension, some other (aka. ‘the Protestant orthodox’) had taken away the temporal or narrative aspect from allegory and given it over to typology instead. As a result, “allegory ceases to be story and becomes prepositional” whereas “typology, on the other hand, retains the narrative and sequence,” notes Francis Young.24 The Enlightenment gave rise to a sharp dichotomy between allegory and typology separating what is spiritual (or, timeless) from what is historical (or time-bound), so too with allegory and symbol dividing what is artificial from what is natural.25 According to Hans Gadamer, “the semantic trends at 20

21 22 23 24 25

See Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2003), 61: “Similarly, the drive toward the letter of the text and its grammatical or even grammatical-historical meaning, begun in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the Victorines and Thomas Aquinas, reinforced by Nicholas of Lyra and by the exegetes and philologist of the Renaissance, exerted enormous pressure on exegesis and theology in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the theologians of the orthodox era, unlike the early Renaissance philologists, attempted to carry forward the churchly tradition of theological exegesis as well as the critical labors of the textual scholars.” Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics 2, 206. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics 2, 206. See John Sandys-Wunsch, What They Have Done to the Bible (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005), 153; Kugel, How to Read the Bible, 31–32. Young, Biblical Exegesis, 161. See also Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 2, 24. See S. Svendsen, Allegory Transformed, 56; W. A. Bienert, Allegoria und Anagoge bei Didymos dem Blinden von Alexandria (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1972), 42; Sidney Sowers, The Hermeneutics of Philo and Hebrews (Richmond: John Knox, 1965), 89.

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the end of the eighteenth century led to contrasting the symbolic (conceived as something inherently and essentially significant) with the allegorical, which has external and artificial significance.”26 As a consequence, due to the Enlightenment preference of what is natural and logical to what is artificial and arbitrary, based on Aristotelian rationalism, symbol came to have a positive connotation compared to allegory. Still it carries this connotation only in the narrow confinement of poetry, art or, so-called, symbolic books, such as the Formula of Concord, the Westminster Confession, and the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles.27 The synchronic appearance of these symbolic books (i.e. “a term that comes from the ecclesiastical use of σύμβολα in Greek to describe creedal statement”) in the eighteenth century was not an accident but consistent with the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries hermeneutical and exegetical movement away from what is artificial and ambiguous toward what is natural and historical.28 However, while allegory suffered in favor of symbolism and typology, symbols were not unscathed by negative connotations in terms of their disassociation with time. Eventually, both allegory and symbol became disregarded, according to Jon Whitman, “as if they were virtually timeless categories of analysis.”29 For example, Robert Wilken notices that the Harper Collins’ Bible Dictionary, which was published in the 1980s, does not even have an entry for “allegory.”30 In line with this hermeneutical trajectory, the modern descendants of Celsus have devalued Origen as an anti-literal and anti-historical allegorist, meaning a “fool or sorcerer” who takes the words of Scripture in “whatever sense he likes,”31 or, according to Frei, in “a temporally free-floating meaning

26 27 28

29 30 31

Gadamer, Truth and Method, 64. See Fletcher, Allegory, The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, 13. Fletcher also observes the modern tendency to praise myth for its narrative aspects at the expense of allegory. See Sandys-Wunsch, What They Have Done, 253. Along with the appearance of these symbolic books, Muller notes, “the Protestant orthodox” moved its doctrine of Scripture from “kerygma” to “dogma,” its exegetical method “from textual study” to “doctrinal statement,” and the scopus of Scripture from Christ to the redemption and praxis of believers (see Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 79, 223). See also Bakhuizen van den Brink, “Bible and Biblical Theology in the Early Reformation,” SJT 15 (1962), 50–65; Robert Kolb, “Teaching the Text,” BHR 49 (1987), 571–585. Whitman, “From the Textual to the Temporal,” 161. See also Gögler, Zur Theologie des Biblischen Wortes, 371. See Robert Wilken, “How to Read the Bible,” FTh 181 (2008), 24. CC 7.10; SC 150, 38.28–32.

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pattern.”32 In so doing, they have not only set aside Origen and his method, but also, more critically, the unity of Scripture.33 Yet, given what has been demonstrated in this study, the semantic genealogy and relation between σύμβολον and ἀλληγορία in Origen’s notion inherently embeds temporal aspects in his narration of a symbolic drama of passage from the sensible through the sacramental to the divine. On the symbolic mode of meaning-making, Paul Ricoeur notes: Yet for the one who participates in the symbolic signification there are really not two significations, one literal and the other symbolic, but rather a single movement, which transfers him from one level to the other and which assimilates him to the second signification by means, or through, the literal one.34

By the late first century C.E., allegory signified “not just a shift in language and thought, but a transition in time” as found in Apostle Paul’s exemplary use of it in Galatians 4.35 A fourth-fifth century example is Augustine of Hippo, who maintained historical aspects within allegory by codifying both a distinction and reconciliation between allegoria in verbis (words) and allegoria in facto (fact).36 Origen’s allegory then fits a third-century tradition that retained historical reality as the springboard used to soar to divine reality by means of allegorical interpretation of Scripture in a symbolic manner.37 32 33 34 35 36

37

Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 24. See Wilken, “How to Read the Bible,” 24. Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 55. Whitman, “From the Textual to the Temporal,” 162. See also Jon Whitman, Allegory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 61, 65–68, 266. See Whitman, “From the Textual to the Temporal,” 164–167. See also Augustine’s De Trinitate 15.9: “But when the apostle talked of allegory [in Galatians 4], he did not find it in words but in a fact, arguing that the two testaments are to be understood from the two sons of Abraham, one born of the slave woman, the other of the free; this was not just said – it happened.” See Gögler, Zur Theologie des Biblischen Wortes, 370; Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure, 142, 144. In fact, Origen never used “typology” (τυπολογία) as a hermeneutical mode of exegesis and interpretation, since the term itself is a Protestant invention. However, Origen included a modern Protestant typological sense in his allegorical interpretation. The early Christian teachers in general did not distinguish allegorical and typological sense. Rarely would they use these terms, instead they referred to the spiritual sense, apostolic sense (e.g. PA 2.11.3), or sense of Christ (e.g. CRm 2.14). See Boer, “Hermeneutic Problems in Early Christian Literature,” 160; Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 215 n. 87; Whitman, “From the Textual to the Temporal,” 164; Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 16; Young, Biblical Exegesis, 152, 186–213; Ronald Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 77; Svendsen, Allegory Transformed,

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Thus, contrary to Frei’s belief, Origen’s allegory is not “without any intrinsic connection between sensuous time-bound picture and the meaning represented by it.”38 For Origen, only Christ through the Incarnation and Parousia can permanently create and preserve the intrinsic connection between the symbolizing sensible and the symbolized insensible/divine. It is his dwelling in the midst of his people that makes such symbolic connection present and powerful for their enactments of scriptural interpretation, sacramental celebration, or creedal profession. In other words, Origen’s Christ is the main actor of any Christian symbolic drama of passage; he created the divine symbols and is accomplishing their purpose through his actions.39 Then, as a stageequipment in the grip of Christ’s hands, allegory is a “mode of symbolizing” through comparing and matching that can be “eliminated” once it has done its job.40 In this respect, it is a temporal means utilized by Christ to bring his people back to the Father through the symbolic links, which are suspended from “the fullness of divinity [ἁπὸ πληρώματος].”41 As such, Origen’s understanding of symbol and allegory is radically different than its modern counterparts. This is quintessentially because Origen used the cosmological notion of σύμβολον to determine the relation not of the text and its meaning(s), but rather of the sensible and insensible realities of the cosmos. Also, it is because he applied the interpretive notion of ἀλληγορία by comparing and matching the sensible Scripture to the divine Logos-Christ, according to the intrinsic connection or sympathy (συμπάθεια) between them. Just as Origen’s cosmological view of the tripartite and yet all-connected reality defines the way in which he rereads and reenacts the Passover narrative in a “manner proper to the σύμβολον,” it shapes the extended way in which he rereads and reenacts the metanarrative of Christ’ passage (ὑπέρβασις) with his people in a “different manner” from his contemporary others, as well as from his later (Protestant) others.42 Therefore, when one refutes “the belief in a real

38

39 40 41 42

56–57; Peter Martens, “Origen Against History? Reconsidering the Critique of Allegory,” Heaven on Earth? (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 53–74. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 24. For Peter Martens, this can be added to the cases of unsuspectingly “imposing a different definition of ‘allegory’ or ‘typology’ onto Origen’s discussion of an ἀλληγορία or a τύπος” and foisting “any of the literature’s discrepant definitions of ‘allegory’ and ‘typology’ back upon Origen’s discussions of an ἀλληγορία and a τύπος” (see Martens, “Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction,” 308 and n. 96). See CMt 11.17; 16.20; CJn 10.138. For the reference to “a mode of symbolizing,” see Fletcher, Allegory, The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, 358. For the reference to the provisionary aspect of allegory, see Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 56. HJer 28.2.3/Phil 1.28; SC 302, 202.24–25. PP 39.23–24; 4.29.

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presence of what is symbolized,” which Origen assumed as a matter of course, Gögler has warned, “arbitrariness will play its game with allegory” in that person’s puzzled view of Origen’s allegorical interpretation. 6.3

Concluding Remarks

In summary, Origen lived in a radically different cosmological world than those who believe that the true and full sense of any Scripture is not manifold but one. To insist on only one “true and full sense” of meaning – whether historical, grammatical or something else – is therefore equal to insisting on the monophasic reality of the world as opposed to the multiphasic one, represented, for instance, in Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics by the somatic/corporeal, psychic/incorporeal, and pneumatic/divine sense of scriptural meaning.43 Thus, the central questions – questions that had fully occupied Origen and the collective mind of his contemporaries in the second and third centuries C.E. – remain still relevant and vibrant: what an integrated vision of reality do we retain? and how coherently do we engage in it? Engaged in these questions collaboratively and competitively with his cosmological and theological interlocutors, Origen demonstrated in his theory and practice of scriptural interpretation a Christian alternative (so, allegorical) way which shows how the Platonian dualistic model and the Aristotelian monistic model of construing the cosmological structure could or should be integrated. Origen did so as a public theologian of his time, and it was all because of his belief in the Incarnation of the Logos-Christ in the textual body (i.e. Scripture) and the ecclesiastical body (i.e. the church), the community of distinctive scriptural interpretation under the paideia of the Logos-Christ.

43

Westminster Confession of Faith I.9 (Phillipsburg: P&R Pub, 2004), 24–.

Bibliography

Origen’s Primary Works1

Origen, and George Lewis. The Philocalia of Origen [Phil]. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1911; Origène, M. Harl, and N. R. M. De Lange. Sur les Ecritures: Philocalie, 1–20. SC 302. Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1983. ——, and George W. Butterworth. On First Principles [PA]. Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973; Origenes, H. Görgemanns, and H. Karpp. Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien [GK]. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976. ——, Rowan A. Greer, and Hans U. Balthasar. Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom: Prayer, First Principles: Book IV, Prologue to the Commentary on the Song of Songs, Homily Xxvii on Numbers [ExMar]. New York: Paulist Press, 1979; Origenes, and Paul Koetschau. Origenes Werke 1: Die Schrift vom Martyrium, Buch I–IV Gegen Celsus. GCS 2. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1899. ——, and H. Chadwick. Contra Celsum [CC]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980; Origène, and M. Borret. Contra Celse. SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227. Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1967–1976. ——, and Ronald E. Heine. Homilies on Genesis and Exodus [HGen]. FCP 71. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1982; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 6: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. Part 1: Die Homilien zu Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. GCS 29. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1920. ——, and Ronald E. Heine. Homilies on Genesis and Exodus [HEx]. FCP 71. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1982; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 6: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. Part 1: Die Homilien zu Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. GCS 29. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1920. ——, and R P. Lawson. Commentary and Homilies on the Song of Songs [CSong; HSong]. ACW 26. New York: Newman Press, 1988; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 8: Homilien zu Samuel I, zum Hohelied und zu den Propheten: Kommentar zum Hohelied in Rufinus Hieronymus’ Ü bersetzung. GCS 33. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1925. ——, P. and M. Nautin. Homèlies Sur Samuel [HSam]. SC 328. Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1986. ——, and Ronald E. Heine. Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1–10 [CJn]. FCP 80. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1989; Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 13–32. FCP 89. Washington, D.C.: Catholic

1 This study applies the overall numeration in the GCS series to the GCS volumes, not the specific one in the “Origenes Werke” series.

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University of America, 1993; Origenes, and E. Preuschen. Origenes Werke 4: Der Johanneskommentar. GCS 10. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1903. ——, and Gary Wayne Barkley. Homilies on Leviticus [HLev]. FCP 83. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1990; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 6: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. Part 1: Die Homilien zu Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. GCS 29. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1920. ——, and Robert J. Daly. Treatise on the Passover [PP]. ACW 54. New York: Paulist Press, 1992; Origène, O. Guéraud, and P. Nautin. Sur la Pâque: Traité Inédit. Paris: Beauchesne, 1979. Other Text/Translation: Sgherri, Giuseppe. Origene, Sulla Pasqua: II Papiro Di Tura. Milan: Figlie di San Paolo, 1989. ——, and F. Crombie. A Letter from Origen to Africanus [LA]. ANF 4. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995; Origène, M. Harl, and N. R. M. De Lange. Sur les Ecritures: Philocalie, 1–20. SC 302. Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1983. ——, and J. Patrick. Commentary on Matthew, Books 1, 2, and 10–14 [CMt]. ANF 9. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995; Origenes, E. Klostermann, and E. W. Benz. Origenes Werke 10: Origenes Matthäuserklärung, 1. Die griechisch erhaltenen Tomoi. GCS 40. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1935. ——, and Joseph T. Lienhard. Homilies on Luke: Fragments on Luke [HLk]. FCP 94. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996; Origenes, and M. Rauer. Origenes Werke 9: Die Homilien zu Lukas in der Ü bersetzung des Hieronymus und die Griechischen Reste der Homilien und des Lukas-Kommentars. GCS 35. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1930. ——, and John Clark Smith. Homilies on Jeremiah; Homily on 1 Kings 28 [HJer]. FCP 97. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1998; Origène, and Pierre Nautin, Homélies Sur Jérémie. SC 232, 238. Paris: É ditions du Cerf, 1976–1977. ——, and Thomas P. Scheck. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 1–10 [CRm]. FCP 103–104. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2001–2002; Origène, and Bammel C. P. Hammond. Der Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes: Kritische Ausgabe der Uebersetzung Rufins [Bammel]. 3 Vols. Freiburg: Herder, 1990, 1997, 1998. ——, Barbara J. Bruce, and Cynthia White. Homilies on Joshua [HJsh]. FCP 105. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2002; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 7: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. Part 2: Die Homilien zu Numeri, Josua und Judices. GCS 30. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1921. ——, Thomas P. Scheck, and Christopher A. Hall. Homilies on Numbers [HNum]. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009; Origenes, and W. A. Baehrens. Origenes Werke 7: Homilien zum Hexateuch in Rufins Übersetzung. Part 2: Die Homilien zu Numeri, Josua und Judices. GCS 30. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1921.

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General Index Abammon 58 Akedah 99–100 Albinus 52 n. 74, 67, 84 n. 82, 86 n. 96 Alexandria 38–41, 52, 81, 90–92 allegory [ἀλληγορία] 1, 4, 11–14, 40–41, 49–51, 54, 70–73, 110, 114–116, 119–120, 125–129 Ambrose of Milan 124 Ammonius Saccas 37, 46, 52 n. 74, 53 n. 76 Anebo 55, 58 Archilochus 49, 74 n. 40 Aristotle 9 n. 28, 37, 49, 52 n. 74, 55 Augustine of Hippo 61 n. 116, 71, 127 Basilides 11 Caesarea Maritima    10, 16, 33, 37 n. 8, 81, 90–91, 94, 116 Celsus 1, 7, 67–69, 72 n. 33, 75, 78, 83, 85–88, 91, 124, 126 Chaldean Oracles 59–62  circumcision 100–101, 111, 115 n. 105, 121 Clement of Alexandria 37, 44, 46, 51, 58 n. 97, 73 n. 38, 123 contemplation/theoria [θεωρία] 4–5, 8 n. 25, 9 n. 27, 53–54, 56, 78, 83–87, 89      Cornutus 1 n. 3, 12, 35, 37, 48–50      cosmology 53 n. 76, 117–118 cosmos 1–2, 5–6, 11, 21, 25, 44–45, 48–50, 52, 55, 57, 60–61, 63, 67, 69–70, 81, 83, 87–88, 101–102, 117–118, 122, 128    creed 4, 11, 29, 121–124 Cyril of Alexandria 123 Cyril of Jerusalem 123 Decian persecution 40, 69 divination 59  drama 1, 6, 9–11, 15, 22, 42–43, 63, 65–66, 68 n. 12, 79, 81–83, 87–89, 95, 109, 121–124, 127–128 dramatization/impersonation 68, 123 enigma/riddle [αἴνιγμα] 1, 40–41, 44–45, 48–49, 63, 65, 73, 75 Eusebius of Caesarea 12–13 

gnostic/gnostics/gnosticism 11 n. 32, 61, 72, 77 n. 52, 93–94 gospel (temporal, eternal) 7, 9, 20–28, 31–33, 65–66, 70, 77 n. 58, 79, 123 haroseth 102–104  Hebrew Bible 10, 17–20, 40, 63, 78, 88, 92, 104–110, 116–119  Heraclitus 49, 73 n. 39, 74 n. 40 heretics 11, 17, 18 n. 9, 27, 92 n. 15  Hermetica 59, 61 heterodoxies 11, 17 hieroglyph/hieroglyphic 44–46, 59, 63 Hippolytus of Rome 16 n.3, 123 Homer/Homeric 8 n. 24, 45, 76, 92 n. 15, 105 Iamblichus 46–47, 55–63, 81 n. 76 identity 1, 3–5, 11–12, 15, 18 n. 9, 33, 43, 67–68, 92 n. 15, 94, 101, 119, 124 image/eikon [εἰκών] 21, 33, 36, 47, 53–57, 67 n. 10, 72, 80–83, 86, 94, 101, 107  incarnation 7, 21, 65, 79–80, 83, 128–129 Judaism 3, 68, 88, 91–94, 114, 116 n. 108  juxtaposition 38, 73 n. 39, 74, 87, 105 n. 72, 132 kal–vahomer 95–98, 113 knowledge 8 n. 23, 12, 31, 35, 37, 47, 57, 63, 83, 86, 89 law 2 n. 6, 3 n. 11, 7–10, 15 n. 45, 17–27, 31–33, 65–66, 69–71, 77–79, 83, 92–93, 95–96, 99, 104–105, 113, 119 n. 123–124  Logos–Christ 3 n. 12, 5–6, 8–11, 15, 23, 26, 66, 72 n. 33, 73 n. 37, 76–79, 83, 89, 122, 124, 128–129  Marcion 11 mazzah/unleavened bread 3 n. 11, 98, 100–103 mezuzah 96 middot 10, 14, 95, 113, 116–118  midrash/midrashic 17, 91, 94–95, 98, 100, 104, 107–114, 118–120

146

General Index

mishnah 10, 19 n. 13, 91, 93, 101–105  Mithras cult 2 mystery 2, 12, 20–29, 32–33, 35, 37, 40–41, 45, 47, 54, 57–58, 64–65, 71, 89 Mytilene 49, 74 n. 40

proverb 73, 75 Pseudo Dionysius 124 Pythagoras/Pythagorean/Pythagoreanism  12, 13 n. 38, 35, 37, 44–48, 51–59, 86 n. 96

Nicene Symbol/Creed 121–123 Numenius 12, 35, 37, 46, 53 n. 76, 61, 115 n. 105

Rabbi Aquiva 115 n. 105 Rabbi Elʿazar 115 n. 105 Rabbi Ishmael 10, 19 n. 13, 95–100, 104–107, 111–115  Rabbi Joshua 99 Rabbi Levis 110 Rabbi Matia 99–100 Rabbi Shimon 10, 95–101, 104, 111–113 Rabbi Yohanan 18 n. 9, 92 n. 15, 94 reality 2, 6, 8–9, 11, 21, 23, 36, 38, 47, 50, 54, 57, 61, 63, 70–71, 74–76, 81, 83, 88–89, 101, 118, 122, 124, 127–129

omen 44, 46, 59, 63 Ophite 72 oracle 8 n. 25, 40–41, 44–46, 52–54, 59, 62–65, 87 Origen’s trinitarian doctrine 86 n. 96 Origen’s tripartite hermeneutics 21–25, 27, 32–33, 70, 81, 88, 129 Orpheus 45, 57 paideia [παιδεία] 5, 76, 89, 129  parable 73, 75, 77  parousia 7, 21, 128 passage 6–9, 11, 15–17, 26, 30, 33, 43, 60, 63, 65–66, 76, 82, 85, 87–89, 121–123, 127–128 Passover 3, 6–7, 10, 16–20, 22–27, 29–34, 65, 82, 93–106, 111, 113, 116, 119, 123, 128 Passover/paschal sacrifice 16 n. 3, 19, 29, 31–32, 93, 96–99, 100–104, 111, 119 n. 123 password [σύνθημα] 54 n. 83, 57, 60, 63, 72 pattern 69–70, 72, 122, 127 Peripatetics 13 n. 37, 37–38, 52–53, 57, 86 n. 96 petihta 113–114 Philo of Alexandria 13 n. 38, 37, 51, 115 n. 105 philology/philologist 4 n. 16, 14 n. 41, 17 n. 4, 92 n. 15, 125 n. 20 philosophy 7, 8 n. 23, 12, 37, 40, 84, 88 Philostratus 39 n. 19, 41 n. 27, 45 pilgrimage 8 n. 25, 54, 60, 63 Plato/Platonist/Platonism 5 n. 18, 12, 13 n. 37, 35, 37–38, 47, 49–63, 67–68, 86–87, 129 Plotinus 52–56, 86 n. 96 Plutarch 5 n. 18, 45–46 polysemy/polysemic 94, 107–108 Porphyry 5 n. 18, 12–13, 36–37, 40–41, 44–46, 53 n. 76, 54–56, 58–59, 61–66, 73, 87 Proclus 13 n. 38, 37 n. 10, 47, 53 n. 76, 56–62, 68 n. 12

sacrament 4, 6, 11, 25–29, 33–34, 43, 65, 118–119, 121–124, 127–128 scriptural interpretation 3–8, 10–11, 17–18, 21, 27–31, 34, 37 n. 8, 40, 64–66, 71, 73 n. 37, 76–79, 82–89, 92–94, 104, 108–110, 116–125, 128–129 seder 101, 103–104 Septimius Severus 39, 90 shadow 21, 69–72, 85, 121 Stoic/Stoicism 12–13, 35–38, 48–55, 57, 61 n. 116, 86 n. 96 symbol/symbolon [σύμβολον] 1–11, 13–15, 25, 29, 34–35, 41–77, 81–89, 93–95, 103–104, 122–128 symbolism 2, 13 n. 38, 14 n. 40, 44, 123–126 sympathy [συμπάθεια] 8, 37, 51, 128 syncretism 37, 62 Talmud 102–109 Temple of Jerusalem 18–22, 26, 31, 35, 67 n. 10, 72 n. 33, 92–93, 96–109 theurgist 59–60, 62 token 41–42, 56–57, 60, 82 n. 76 Torah 10, 18, 90, 92–93, 104–110, 113–119 type/typology 17, 22, 50, 53–54, 70–72, 85, 123 Valentinus 11 Zoroastrianism 2

Scriptural Index Genesis 17.1–14 115 n. 105 22.3 112 22.8 96, 112 22.14 112

Joshua 3.1

Exodus 6.2 112 6.30 115 n. 105 12.1–11 24 12.1–30 95–96 12.2 25 12.5 32, 111 12.6 26, 99, 111 12.7 26–27 12.8 27, 98 12.9 27–28, 106 12.10 105 12.13 96 12.14 18, 97–98, 113 12.15 101 12.18 101 12.20 101 12.22 95, 112 12.23 96–97, 112 12.24 18 20.1 107 20.3–5 72 n. 33 34.4 112

1 Chronicles 21.15

Leviticus 1.10 111 6.19–23 18 12.6 96 16.15 97, 113 23.5 32 24.2 113–114 Deuteronomy 4.11 110 6.4–9 96 11.13–20 96 n. 38 16.5–6 18 16.7 106 32.8–9 67 n. 10

112

1 Samuel 15.12 112 97, 112

2 Chronicles 30.10 101 35.13 106 Nehemiah 9.17–18 107 Psalms 1–25 109 18.29 114 23 123 n. 9 79 99 n. 48 79.11 99, 112 103.11 120 103.24 80 119.18 77 Song of Songs 1.1–6 94 Isaiah 53.2–3 80 53.7 32 Jeremiah 2.2 107 6.10 115 9.25 115 13.17 3 23.29 107 Ezekiel 16.6 16.8 48.30–35

100, 111 99, 111 2, 72

148 Zechariah 9.11

Scriptural Index 100, 111

Matthew 5.8 81 5.17 25 16.27 21 17 23 17.1–5 78 17.6–8 79 23 94 Luke 9.28–29 85 22.50 28 John 1.14 78 1.16 32 3.20–21 26 14.9 87 16.12–13 69 Romans 1.3–4 6.4

122 n. 4 75

1 Corinthians 2.1 18 2.13 24, 66, 76, 121 5.7 24 5.7–8 31 9.8–10 70 10.11 6 n. 21, 16, 25, 32 11.25 28

13.12 28 15.3–8 122 n. 4 2 Corinthians 3.14 94 Galatians 2.20 74 3.28 39 4 127 4.4–7 122 4.9 3 4.14 74 4.21–24 70 4.21–30 94 Philippians 2.7

21

Colossians 1.15

80

1 Timothy 1.10 30 Titus 3.5

26

Hebrews 1.3 10.1

39 21, 70 n. 23

Revelation 2 14.6 21

72 20, 22 2