Christians, know who your allies are.

Origen Defends Jewish Antiquity

Sectarians, Judaism, and Friendly Fire

Sometimes I wonder if my Catholic and Orthodox brethren view me, a Protestant, as a sister in Christ. We all read the same New Testament, have 39 Old Testament books in common, and—with the exception of the post-ecumenical addition of the filioque by the Western church—adhere to the Nicene creed. But we diverge on our understanding of sacraments, mariology, the significance of Matthew 16:18, the solae, and many other points. As an apologist, I value respectful debates amongst Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox believers which aim at the identification of an absolute truth.

That said, sectarian conflict is incredibly counter-productive to convincing a nonbeliever that Christianity is Truth. Would you want to be adopted into a family plagued by incessant infighting? To this end, I urge my brothers in Christ (from all sects) to present a united front in evangelism. There is a time and place for sectarian debate, but when speaking to a nonbeliever, we need not muddle our efforts with friendly fire. We need not waste our ammunition on our brothers either: people who do not know Jesus at all need our help and attention more than people who already accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

The Battle of Chancellorsville where Stonewall Jackson was famously killed by friendly fire.

Origen, whose theology we discussed in a prior post, takes us a step beyond sectarian concerns. In his apologetic work, he responds to a number of attacks on Judaism which aim to undermine the historicity of the Old Testament and the leadership of Moses. Origen recognizes that, while Christianity is a distinct religion from Judaism, it nonetheless rests on the foundation of the Old Testament, and any charges against Judaism will influence beliefs about Christianity and about the reliability of the Bible as a whole.

Elsewhere, Origen tackles minute points of Christian theology (and wades into several heresies of his own), but when he plays the apologist, his focus is rightfully on upholding Christianity in its entirety. Neither does he splinter his defense by undermining Judaism in addition to pagan philosophy.

Origen’s Apologia to the Nonbeliever

Last month, I wrote an introductory post to Origen addressing his major life events and some of the controversies surrounding him. In summary, Origen was a prolific writer, teacher, and priest with a deep yet imperfect understanding of Christian theology. We can learn much from his apologia if we keep in mind that he was not a paragon of orthodoxy.

Origen’s apologetic work, titled Contra Celsus, was written to refute a philosopher Celsus’s objections to Christianity and Judaism at the request of Origen’s friend. Origen wrote his apologia “not for those who are thorough believers, but for such as are either wholly unacquainted with the Christian faith, or those who, as the apostle terms them, are weak in the faith.” As a result, although Origen debates Judaism elsewhere, he does not attack Judaism here.

I attribute this to his nonbeliever audience. According to one theologian, Origen “even glorifies Judaism, noting how much Jews and Christians have in common in that they share the belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible” and “constantly couples the Christians and the Jews, emphasizing their common theology and morality.” For example, when Celsus states that the Jews learned circumcision from the Egyptians, Origen replies that circumcision “began with Abraham and was stopped by Jesus” but that “it is not now the right time to explain his teaching on the matter, but rather to endeavor to destroy the accusation brought about by Celsus against the doctrine of the Jews.”¹

Obviously, Judaism and Christianity are distinct religions, though they share the Old Testament. Their differences are many, including creed (the identity of Jesus and the route to salvation) and the connection of religious belief with nationality (Judaism to Israel vs. Christianity to disciples of all nations). Christianity was often criticized by the pagan world because it lacked a connection to a nationality or to the past. Origen argued that Christianity had a historical basis in Judaism, and that it was a “philosophic […] revolt against Judaism, not a break with the Jewish people.”² Origen calls out Celsus’s desire to undermine Judaism and to deem its patriarchs as “uneducated and stupid” and “sorcerers and deceivers” is rooted in “his desire to undermine the claim to antiquity of Christianity, ‘which depended on the Jews.’”³

So why does Celsus, whose ultimate aim is to denounce Christianity, target the Jews, and specifically the antiquity of the Jews? Because Celsus, and other Greek philosophers, equated antiquity with wisdom. A similar phenomenon is observed in the modern day, where many who acknowledge the wisdom of ancient Greek philosophers simultaneously dismiss the Bible as out-of-date and therefore irrelevant. In response, Origen focuses on establishing the antiquity of Moses, noting that several anti-Jewish Greek writers (Ptolemy priest of Mendes, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Pseudo-Justin, and Apion) wrote that Moses did indeed exist.

In contrast to other scholars (and to Origen), these Greek writers suggest that Moses lived during the time of Inachus, a Greek mythological god (c. 750 BC). Interestingly, one of Inachus’ great-great grandsons (Lycaon) was said to cause a great flood due to his wickedness. This timeline doesn’t make sense with the Bible and is obviously based on mythical characters, but Origen is bringing it up for the sake of argument: he is using anti-Jewish Greek writers as a trustworthy source (from Celsus’s perspective) to make a general argument in support of the antiquity of the Jews.

In a further attempt to undermine Old Testament history, Celsus states that Moses is an exiled Egyptian priest and that the Jews were simply rebel Egyptians. This was a dangerous charge in Origen’s time, when Romans were afraid of another Jewish rebellion. Celsus has three main points to his argument; a summary of Origen’s replies are below each point in italics:

1. The Jews were runaway Egyptian slaves escaped from Egypt

   1. If the Jews had been Egyptians, they would have retained some of their customs.

   2. It isn’t likely for a band of rebels to suddenly become their own nation and to change their national language to Hebrew upon their rebellion.

   3. The Jews’ names are Hebrew names, not Egyptian names. Mosaic history records their descent from Hebrew ancestors.

2. The Jews were of “low intellectual order” and didn’t contribute anything to mankind (read: to the Greeks)

   1. Several Greek philosophers borrowed from the Old Testament, including Pythagoras and Plato (i.e. Plato’s statement “the way for the souls to and from the earth passes through the planets” is thought to derive from Genesis 28:12-13).

   2. Several Biblical figures (Moses, Daniel, Ananias, Azariiah, Mishael) were found to be tenfold wiser than their countrymen.

   3. The Jews deliberately withdrew to avoid contact with others and avoid a corruption by sin, thus their advancements were fairly contained. To that end, the Jews were not focused on conquering other nations, neither were they easy prey for attack.

   4. Other nations, such as Egypt, are not so lofty as Celsus deems; despite its achievements, Egypt irrationally observes animal worship, treating man-made idols and lower creatures as holy and powerful.

3. Moses, leader of the Jews, was a sorcerer and he plagiarized the Old Testament from Greek myth

   1. Moses lived much earlier than Homer, who is the source of the story of Otus and Ephialtes (the story which Moses is accused of plagiarizing). Moses also predates Hesiod and the Greek poets.

   2. Moses was an effective leader, inducing an entire nation to obey his laws.

   3. Moses did perform miracles, but that was by divine power rather than sorcery.

      

      Otus and Ephialtes, Greek Mythology. Source: Gustave Doré's illustrations to Dante's Inferno, Plate LXV: Canto XXXI: The titans and giants. "This proud one wished to make experiment / Of his own power against the Supreme Jove" (Longfellow).

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Two Final Questions…

In closing, I have two questions for you:

First, how would you modify or add to Origen’s response to Celsus?

Second, has Origen convinced you of the need to properly identify your allies and defend the foundations on which Christianity rests when facing an attack from an outsider?

I use a lot of battle metaphors when discussing apologetics, but oftentimes it’s not really a battle; I have met just as many nonbelievers who hate Christianity as those who are indifferent and simply want to ask a few questions and move on. In either case, we must remember that we are not evangelizing as Calvinists or Intelligent Design advocates or lovers of old hymns; we are evangelizing as believers in Christ and each of us represents one point in a lineage of God’s people.

1. Feldman, L. H. (1990). Origen’s “Contra Celsum” and Josephus’ “Contra Apionem”: The Issue of Jewish Origins. Vigiliae Christianae, 44(2), 105–135. https://doi.org/10.2307/1584328

2. Ibid., 108.

3. Ibid., 109.

Source of Chancellorsville painting image: By Publisher - Kurz and Allison in Chicago, IL. - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID cph.3g01760.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12624728