Hort's Lecture on Origen

Fenton John Anthony Hort

            In 1890, Fenton John Anthony Hort (half of the Westcott-Hort duo) delivered a series of six lectures on ante-Nicene fathers.  They were published in 1895, a few years after his death.  What follows here, with slight adjustments, is the sixth lecture in the series.

LECTURE VI:  ORIGEN

            In the last two lectures the Fathers who have come before us have all belonged to Africa. It will be the same today.  We return now from North Africa, and the two great Fathers whom at this early time it brought forth for Latin theology, to Egypt and to the most characteristically Greek theology.

            If the influence of Clement of Alexandria over the later times of early Christianity was less than we might have expected, the same cannot be said of his great pupil Origen.  Not only had he the veneration of devoted disciples for several generations, but the theologies built up in the succeeding centuries of the age of the Fathers would, as far as we can see, have been very different from what they actually were, had it not been for the foundations laid by him.  Above all, his influence as an interpreter of the Bible, direct and indirect, has been both wide and lasting.  In the ancient Church three men stand out above all others as having left a deep mark by their independent interpretation of Scripture.  The other two are Theodore of Mopsuestia (late in the fourth century), the highest representative of the School of Antioch, and (a generation later) Augustine the North African, the primary teacher of the Latin West.  Not the least interesting fact however in the history of the influence of Origen as an interpreter is the way in which his thoughts and often his words were appropriated and handed on by Latin Fathers, and especially the three greatest Latin Fathers of the fourth century, Hilary of Poitiers (theologically the greatest of them all), Ambrose and Jerome.

            In this manner, as well as by direct translations of some of Origen’s works, Origenian ideas, penetrating down through various channels, supplied a by no means insignificant element in the very miscellaneous body of traditional interpretation which prevailed till the fresh and open study of the meaning of Scripture was restored, chiefly by the Revivers of learning just before the Reformation and by some of the Reformers themselves.  The permanent value of his interpretation of Scripture is much lessened by the fact that, in common with most ancient interpreters outside the School of Antioch, he shows an excessive devotion to allegorical senses; yet along with this mere fancifulness we find in him evidence of a genuine and profound study of the words of Scripture.  For all his great and lasting influence, Origen’s name has been by no means surrounded with the halo of conventional glory which has traditionally adorned Fathers inferior to him in every way.  Some of his speculations were doubtless crude and unsatisfactory, but these are but trifles beside the vast services which he rendered to theology; and accordingly, every now and then, from Athanasius onwards, he has received cordial words of vindication from men who were able to recognize goodness and greatness, in spite of an unpopular name.

            Unlike the Fathers whom we have been lately considering, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen had the blessing of Christian parentage, and received from his father Leonides a careful education both in the ordinary Greek culture of the day and in the study of Scripture, becoming the pupil of Clement.  He was not seventeen when that persecution of about the year 202 under Septimius Severus occurred which drove Clement from Alexandria, and Leonides was thrown into prison. Origen himself, being restrained by a device of his mother’s from rushing to join him in the anticipated martyrdom [she hid his clothes – JSJ], wrote to him entreating that no care for his family should be allowed to shake his constancy.  On his father’s martyrdom, with confiscation of goods, he provided for his own and his mother's and six brothers’ wants by teaching, except that he was lodged by a lady of wealth.

            Some heathens came to him for instruction, including Plutarchus, who was martyred, and Heraclas, who became Bishop of Alexandria; and thus he was led to take up, though in an informal way, the dropped work of the Catechetical School.  After a time he was placed formally at its head by the Bishop Demetrius.  For some twelve years he went on without other interruption than a short visit to Rome and another to Arabia, lecturing to large audiences as a layman, living a sternly rigorous and self-denying life.  To this time belongs the rash act of self-mutilation always associated with his name, suggested to him by a misunderstanding of the real drift of one of our Lord’s sayings.  Meanwhile he labored to fit himself for his work more and more.  On the one hand he studied Hebrew; on the other he attended the lectures of the most eminent heathen philosophers, that he might be ‘better able to understand the thoughts of those’ who came to him for help.  The work increased so much that he associated with himself his convert Heraclas.

            At length about the year 215 he was driven by tumults to leave Alexandria, as Clement had done, and took refuge for a considerable time at Caesarea, the Greek or Roman capital of Palestine.  Alexander, now Bishop of Jerusalem, of whom we heard a fortnight ago, and the Bishop of Caesarea joined in inviting him to preach (homilein) to the assembled congregation. On receiving a remonstrance from Demetrius at their permitting a layman to preach before bishops, they cited various precedents in defense of their action.  But Demetrius refused to give way, and fetched Origen back to Alexandria in a peremptory way.  After his return he was persuaded by Ambrosius, now a friend, formerly a convert of his from some Pseudo-Gnostic sect, to undertake commentaries in writing, for which purpose Ambrosius provided short-hand writers.

            But after Origen had taught at Alexandria for about a quarter of a century, his career there came to a painful end.  The Churches of Achaia, being much distracted by what were called heresies (of what kind, is not related), invited him to come to their help.  He started without obtaining license from Demetrius (but under what circumstances we do not know), and took his way through Palestine.  There he was ordained presbyter by the Bishop of Caesarea, with Alexander’s knowledge and approval.  He then completed his journey to Greece, making sojourns at Ephesus and Athens, and at length returned home.  His reception there is a sad one to read of.  Demetrius assembled “a synod of bishops and of certain presbyters,” by whom he was forbidden to teach or even reside in Alexandria.  They did not agree to reject his ordination, as apparently Demetrius wished, but this too he obtained from a subsequent smaller meeting of bishops alone.

            Our too fragmentary authorities do not tell us quite clearly the ground of condemnation. Apparently it was the ordination of one who was mutilated, though it is also possible that doctrinal differences and it may be even personal jealousies were unavowed motives of action. There is reason to believe that the Roman Church supported the action of Demetrius, but it was entirely ignored by the Bishops of Asia; those of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia (i.e. probably North Syria) and Achaia being specially mentioned.  Origen left Alexandria for ever, and though beloved disciples of his own succeeded Demetrius as bishop, apparently no attempt was made to undo the banishment.

            Gentlest, humblest, and most peace-loving of men, Origen would be the last to disturb the peace of the Church for his own sake.  Accordingly for the third time he betook himself to the friendly Caesarea, and there in the great seaport beside the Mediterranean he made his permanent home for the rest of his life, above twenty years.  Being welcomed and cherished by the two Palestinian Bishops of whom we heard before, he carried on his literary work as a Christian theologian with the help of Ambrosius, and at the same time resumed oral instruction, partly by expository sermons of a comparatively simple kind in Church, partly by more advanced lectures to students and philosophical enquirers, as at the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

            With this period are specially connected the names of two illustrious disciples, Firmilianus and Gregory of Neocaesarea.  Firmilianus was apparently already bishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea, the capital of the inland regions of Eastern Asia Minor, when this recorded intercourse with Origen took place, though it may well have begun at an earlier time. Sometimes he used to get Origen to come to visit him in Cappadocia to instruct his Churches; sometimes he used to make stays in Palestine to have the personal benefit of hearing Origen discourse.  A man of still greater eminence in the years after the middle of the third century was Gregory Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus.  According to his own narrative he had traveled to Palestine to educate himself as an advocate by study at Beirut, where there was a famous School of Roman Law; but before fixing himself there, he had traveled on to Caesarea with his sister, whose husband held an official post there.  Beirut however was soon given up.  He fell (with his brother) under the spell of Origen’s teaching and personal presence, and remained under his instruction for five years.

            On his departure he delivered an address in expression of his gratitude, and this address is still extant.  In it he describes how he first came under Origen, and how Origen dealt with him and with other pupils.  First came a training in the faculties of the mind, a pruning away of wild growths of opinion for opinion’s sake, an enforcement of clear thinking and exact speaking.  Then came the study of the visible order of nature, founded on the study of geometry.  Thirdly came Christian ethics as founded on godliness, which he called the beginning and the end of all the virtues. Having passed through these preliminary stages of mental discipline, Origen’s pupils were encouraged to read freely in the works of Greek poets and philosophers, and then, thus prepared, to enter on the study of Christian theology proper, more especially in its primary source, the Bible.

            Such was the method of Origen’s regular teaching at Caesarea.  But he did not refuse invitations to leave home for a while, and give help to other Churches.  Some time, we know, he spent at Athens.  Twice he was asked to come into Arabia to help in neutralizing false doctrines which had arisen there.  In each case, instead of using declamation and anathemas, he sought quiet conference with the men who had propounded these doctrines; and in each case succeeded in persuading them that they had been in error.  If later controversies had been dealt with in the same spirit, what a different Christendom and a different world would now be meeting our eyes!

            Our first glimpse of Origen was as a boy, encouraging his father to face martyrdom without hesitation, undistracted by any anxieties for his helpless family. A third of a century later a similar task fell to his lot.  The emperor Alexander Severus, who had been friendly to the Christians, and with whose mother Mamsea Origen had had some intercourse, had come to a violent end, and his murderer and successor Maximinus entered on a persecution of such Christians, it would seem, as had stood in special favor with Alexander.  Origen was apparently saved by a Christian Cappadocian lady, Juliana, who kept him out of harm’s way.  But Ambrosius and a presbyter of Caesarea were imprisoned, and to them Origen wrote an Exhortation which we still possess.

            But fifteen years later, or less, he had to suffer grievously in his own person.  In that persecution of Decius in which his old fellow-student and supporter Alexander died in prison, he too was cast into prison, and had to undergo a succession of tortures.  Decius’ reign was a short one; and on his death Origen was released from prison, shattered by the treatment which he had received, and two years later he died at Tyre, being not far from 70 years of age.  His tomb in the Cathedral of Tyre is several times in the early Middle Ages noticed as then still visible, and the inscription of it still later; and a tradition of his place of burial is still said to be current in the neighborhood.  Though he does not bear the conventional title of Saint, no saintlier man is to be found in the long line of ancient Fathers of the Church.

            One of the best known sentences of Butler’s Analogy, occurring in the Introduction, is to this effect:  “Hence, namely from analogical reasoning, Origen has with singular sagacity observed, that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from him who is the Author of Nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it, as are found in the constitution of Nature.”  These few words are characteristic of the subjects of Origen’s writings.  He was deeply and reverently occupied in meditation on all things in heaven and earth of which the human mind can take any cognizance; but the Bible was the center of all his thoughts and of all his studies.  He wrote commentaries or preached homilies, taken down by rapid writers, on a large proportion of books of both Testaments.  What is lost was far more than what is preserved: but we still have much, large portions of the commentaries on St. Matthew and St. John, that on the Romans in a too free Latin condensed translation, some Homilies on Jeremiah, many Greek fragments on various books, and many Latin translations of Homilies, chiefly on the Old Testament.

            A biblical work of another kind was what is called Origen’s Hexapla, an arrangement of the books of the Old Testament in (for the most part) six parallel columns, each containing a distinct text, the Hebrew, the same in Greek letters, the Septuagint, and three other Greek translations.  Numerous detached readings copied from it have been preserved, but hardly more. By this combination of texts Origen hoped to throw light on the meaning of many passages in which a Greek reader would be either bewildered or misled if he had only the Septuagint before him.  Besides the Exhortation to Martyrdom mentioned before, we possess a very interesting little treatise of Origen’s on Prayer. Very little unhappily remains of his letters, of which a collection was made some time after his death. But we fortunately possess in one shape or other what were probably his two greatest works, the systematic doctrinal treatise on First Principles, written before his departure from Alexandria, preserved for the most part only in a too free Latin version; and the eight books against Celsus in the original Greek, written near the end of his life. In connection with Origen’s writings it is worth while to mention the Philocalia, a small collection of extracts from them chiefly bearing on the interpretation of Scripture, made late in the fourth century by Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus.  It was from this source that Butler made his quotation, and the little book deserves to be better known.

            As an easy specimen of the book on First Principles, which chiefly consists of somewhat difficult speculative meditations, we may take a passage on the thirst for Divine knowledge implanted in the heart of man, and, however little he may know in this life, intended to render him capable of even higher levels of knowledge in the stages of the future life.

            “Therefore, as in those crafts which are accomplished by hand, we can perceive by our understanding the reason which determines what a thing is to be, how it is to be made and for what purposes, while the actual work is accomplished by the service of the hands, so in the works of God which are wrought by His own hand, we must understand that the reason and designs of the things which we see made by Him, remain unseen.  And just as, when our eye has seen things made by the craftsman, the mind, on observing something made with especial skill, is forthwith anxious to enquire in what fashion or manner or for what purposes the thing has been made, so much more and in an incomparably higher degree the mind is anxious with an unspeakable longing to recognize the reason of the things which we behold made by God.  This longing, this ardent desire, has we believe without doubt been implanted in us by God, and, just as the eye naturally requires light and object of vision, and our body by nature demands food and drink, so our intellect is possessed with a fit and natural desire for knowing the truth of God and discovering the causes of things.  Now this desire we have received from God not in order that it should never be satisfied or be capable of satisfaction; otherwise vainly will the love of truth appear to have been implanted in our intellect by God the Creator, if it is made never capable of satisfying its longing.

            “Wherefore even in this life those who have laboriously given their attention to godly and religious meditations, even though they obtain but a small amount from the great and infinite treasures of the Divine wisdom, yet just because they keep their minds and attention turned towards these subjects and outstrip themselves in this desire, receive much profit from the very fact that they are directing their minds to the search and love of discovering truth and making them more ready to receive future instruction, just as, when a man wishes to paint a portrait, if a pencil sketch in bare outline first marks out the plan of the coming picture, and prepares marks on which the features may be laid, the rough outline doubtless is found more ready to receive the true colors, so may a mere sketch, a rough outline by the pencil of our Lord Jesus Christ, be traced on the tablets of our heart.  And perhaps it is for this reason that it is said, ‘For to everyone that hath shall it be given, and it shall be added to him.’  Whence it is certain that to those who possess in this life a sort of rough outline of truth and knowledge shall be added in the future the beauty of the perfect picture.  Such, I imagine, was the desire indicated by him who said, ‘But I am constrained in two ways, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, for it is far better,’ knowing that when he had returned to Christ, he would recognize more clearly the reasons of all things which are done on earth.” [From Origen, ii. IV. p. 236.       Redep. (ii. xi. 4, 5).]

            The Books against Celsus contain at once the best and the most comprehensive defense of the Christian faith which has come down to us from the days of the Fathers.  They defend it not against popular prejudice and malice only, as the early Apologists had done, but against the careful and powerful indictment laid by an earnest though scoffing heathen philosopher who was also apparently an accomplished Roman lawyer, writing in the name of the highest philosophy of the time, and passionately devoted to the welfare of the Roman Empire.  A long time had passed between the writing of Celsus’ “True Account,” as he called his literary onslaught on the Christians and their faith, and its coming into Origen’s hands.  He had no real knowledge about the author, but he evidently felt that if he could answer him successfully, he would practically have effectually upheld the cause of the Gospel at all points.  If he sometimes fails to understand on what this or that smart saying of Celsus’ really rested, he never shows the unfairness of the mere partisan.  The candor and patience of his treatise are among its brightest qualities.

            The whole treatise amply repays reading and re-reading; one passage however must now suffice.  It is the reply to Celsus’ scoff about the lateness of the Incarnation and its limitation to an obscure corner of the world, a scoff in form, but covering a serious question.  As regards the time, Celsus compared it to the comic poet’s representation of Zeus as waking out of sleep and suddenly sending Hermes to men. As regards the place, he asked why God did not breathe souls into many bodies and send them all over the earth. Here is the answer.

            “Observe here too Celsus’ want of reverence when he most unphilosophically brings in a comic poet, whose object is to raise a laugh, and compares our God the Creator of the Universe with the god in his play who on awaking dispatches Hermes. We have said above that, when God sent Jesus to the human race, it was not as though He had just awoken from a long sleep, but Jesus, though He has only now for worthy reasons fulfilled the divine plan of His incarnation, has at all times been doing good to the human race.  For no noble deed among men has ever been done without the Divine Word visiting the souls of those who even for a brief space were able to receive such operations of the Divine Word.  Nay, even the appearance of Jesus in one corner of the world (as it seems) has been brought about for a worthy reason, since it was necessary that He of whom the prophets spoke should appear among those who had learnt one God, who read His prophets and recognized Christ preached in them, and that He should appear at a time when the Word was about to be diffused from one corner to the whole world.

            “Wherefore also there was no need that many bodies should be made everywhere, and many spirits like to that of Jesus, in order that the whole world of men might be illumined by the Word of God.  For it sufficed that the one Word rising like the Sun of Righteousness from Judea should send forth His speedy rays into the soul of them that were willing to receive Him.  And if anyone does wish to see many bodies filled with a divine Spirit, ministering like Him the one Christ to the salvation of men in every place, let him take note of those who in all places do honestly and with an upright life teach the word of Jesus, who are themselves too called ‘Christs’ (‘anointed ones’) in the passage, ‘Touch not mine anointed ones and do my prophets no harm.’  For even as we have heard that antichrist comes and nevertheless have learnt that there are many antichrists in the world, even so, when we recognize that Christ has come, we observe that owing to Him many Christs have been born in the world, to wit, all those that like Him have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and for this reason God, the God of Christ, anointed them too with the oil of gladness.  But He however, having loved righteousness and hated iniquity to a higher degree than those who are His partners, has also received the first-fruits of the anointing, and, if we may so term it, has received the entire unction of the oil of gladness, while they that were His partners partook also in His unction, each according to his capacity.

            “Wherefore, since Christ is the head of the Church, so that Christ and His Church are one body, the ointment has descended from the head to the beard (the symbol of the full-grown man Aaron), and this ointment in its descent reached to the skirts of his clothing. This is my answer to Celsus’ impious speech when he says that ‘God ought to have breathed His Spirit into many bodies in like manner and to have sent them forth throughout the world.’  So then while the comic poet to raise a laugh has represented Zeus as asleep and as waking up and sending Hermes to the Greeks, let the Word which knows that the nature of God is sleepless teach us that God with regard to seasons orders the affairs of the world as reason demands.  But it is not to be wondered at, if, seeing that the judgments of God are sublime and hard to interpret, uninstructed souls do err, and Celsus among them.

            “There is then nothing absurd in the fact that to the Jews, with whom were the prophets, the Son of God was sent, so that beginning with them in bodily form He might arise in power and spirit upon a world of souls desiring to be no longer bereft of God.” [Origen, adv. Celsum, vi. 78 foll.]

            At Origen’s death in the year 253 we are still nearly half a century from the end of the first three centuries, and nearly three-quarters of a century from the Council of Nicea.  If time permitted, it would not be difficult to give some account of Fathers belonging to this interval who are quite worthy of being known.  At the same time it is true that we have only fragments, sometimes hardly that, of the men who seem as if they had been best worth knowing.  Moreover, with the exception of the almost forgotten Lucianus of Antioch, they seem to have been less original and important Fathers than nearly all those who have come before us this term.  The most attractive group is formed by the disciples of Origen, not only the two already spoken of, but Heraclas, and Pierius, and Dionysius of Alexandria of whom we can obtain a tolerably vivid and very pleasant image from the fragments of his letters preserved by Eusebius, showing how a great bishop trained by Origen would deal with the difficult questions raised by persecution without and false doctrine within.  Then would come Pamphilus, the loving collector of memorials of Origen and zealous champion of his good name against the detractors who were beginning to assail it; himself a martyr in the terrible last persecution at the beginning of the fourth century.  And Pamphilus in turn leads to his younger friend Eusebius the historian, who lived and wrote in the fourth century, and yet might in some ways be called the last of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

            But we must be content with this very hurried glance at that most important but most obscure time between the death of Origen and Cyprian and the Council of Nicea.  A better break than at the death of Origen we could hardly desire.  Not to speak of the men of later days, looking only at those other Fathers who have come before us this term, we cannot help recognizing that they had often work given them to do which he could not do, and that they were enabled to see some truths which he could not see.  But he is for us practically the last and most characteristic of the early Fathers, properly so called, the Fathers who lived while Christian thought could still be free, and while Christian faith still embraced the whole world.  From all these early Fathers taken together, you will, I trust, have gained the feeling, if you had it not already, that Christian pastors and teachers in this nineteenth century can ill afford to neglect the thoughts and aspirations of those earliest Christian ages, though, like the thoughts and aspirations of all intervening times, they must remain a dead letter to us till they are interpreted by the thoughts and aspirations of our own time as shone upon by the light of the Spirit who is the teacher of Christ’s disciples in every succeeding age.

The Date of Easter and Early Lection-Cycles

         

Constantine

  In the year 325, Roman Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea.  This council, attended by 318 bishops from all over the empire, focused on the subject of the nature of Christ. (The number 318, drawn from Genesis 14:14, was considered to have a special meaning, since in Greek gematria the letters ΤΙΗ (tau, iota, eta) have a total value of 318, and are also, visually, the shape of a cross plus the first two letters in Jesus’ name.) 

The result of this council was the Nicene Creed, which declared, among other things, that Jesus was “very God of very God, begotten, not made.”  This meant that Arius – the Egyptian cleric whose controversial teachings had elicited the council – was wrong in his insistence that there was a time when the Logos did not exist.

            Something else was also addressed at the Council of Nicea.  It was not the New Testament canon, contrary to the fictitious gobbledegook that has been spread by The Da Vinci Code and similar books.  It was the date of Easter.

            When the early church first celebrated the resurrection of Christ, their celebration coincided with the Jewish Passover.  A vestige of this arrangement can still be found in the King James Version in Acts12:4:  the Passover-festival is referred to as Easter.  In this passage the KJV’s translators did not intend to convey that the Jewish ruler Herod was celebrating the Christian holy day of Easter or that he was celebrating some pagan holiday.  They simply retained the rendering that had been made almost 90 years earlier by William Tyndale, who also coined the term “Passover,” a term which eventually caught on and facilitated the recognition of the two holidays as separate events.  (Tyndale’s English version repeatedly refers to the Passover as “Easter,” even in episodes in the Gospels that precede the death and resurrection of Christ.)  

            Some Christians had a special annual celebration of the Lord’s resurrection on the same day as the Jewish Passover.  Others, though, celebrated Holy Week annually with the Lord’s resurrection always observed on a Sunday.  This difference had persisted for a long time – ever since the days of the students of the apostles.  In Ignatius’ closing comments in his Letter to the Philippians, he stated that whoever observes the Passover with the Jews or receives the emblems of their feast is a partaker with those who killed the Lord and His apostles - quite a heavy denunciation, though it is unclear if Ignatius was referring to merely celebrating the Lord’s resurrection at the same time the Jews celebrated Passover, or to participating in the Judaic Passover observance itself. 
            Hippolytus, in Book 8 of his lengthy composition Refutation of All Heresies, firmly opposed those who celebrated Easter on the 14th of the month; yet even though he called them heretics, he acknowledged that in other regards they kept the apostolic faith and traditions. 

Hippolytus

            Eusebius of Caesarea (a participant in the Council of Nicea who tended to sympathize with Arius, but not too vocally) described the controversy that arose in the 100’s, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book 5, chapters 24-25.

            Congregations in Asia (i.e., western Turkey), Eusebius reported, customarily observed a tradition that the resurrection of Christ corresponded annually with the Jewish Passover (the 14th day of the month Nisan), whether it was a Sunday or not.   But in other places, including Jerusalem and Rome, it was customary to always celebrate the resurrection of Christ on a Sunday – and the leaders of those places wrote to the churches in Asia, appealing to them to alter their custom.

               Polycrates, a leader in the Asian churches, responded with a letter – Eusebius cited it specifically and presented its contents – in which he stated that Philip the evangelist, John the apostle, Polycarp the martyr, Melito of Sardis, and others (including relatives of Polycrates) had all observed the resurrection of Christ on the 14th of the month – and he had no intention of deviating from that tradition. 

             In 193, Victor, bishop of Rome, initially resolved to excommunicate Polycrates and everyone who agreed with him.  This course of action was averted, though, by advice given by several other bishops – one of whom was none other than the renowned Irenaeus of Lyons. 

            Eusebius presented a snippet of Irenaeus’ letter, which has a remarkably conciliatory tone.  Irenaeus advised Victor of Rome that the disagreement involved not only the annual date, but also details about the length of the fast that preceded it.  To excommunicate people over such details would not look good.  In addition, Irenaeus pointed out, earlier generations of Christians had not condemned one another over this issue; their inactivity implied that they did not consider it something worth separating about:

            “This variety in its observance,” Irenaeus wrote, “has not originated in our time, but long before in that of our ancestors.  It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode.  Yet all of these lived nonetheless in peace, and we also live in peace with one another.”

            And there is more.  In the composition by Irenaeus presented by Eusebius, Irenaeus mentions that Polycarp, when he was at Rome, disagreed with Anicetus (apparently about when to celebrate Easter), and neither could persuade the other – so they agreed to disagree.

              The agreement to disagree effectively ended, though, at Nicea.  The Quartodecimanians – those who observed Easter on the 14th of the month – were summarily denounced.  The exact wording of the decree at Nicea about this is unknown, but in 341 at the the Council of Antioch, a decree was issued which, in the course of affirming the Council of Nicea, stated that bishops who observed the Lord’s resurrection at the same time as the Jews (that is, on the 14th of Nisan) were to be relieved of duty. 

            With the Quartodeciman tradition thus rejected, a consensus emerged that Easter was to be observed annually on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox.  The details of this approach were probably based on the Paschal Canon of Anatolius of Alexandria (from A.D. 270).  Alas, even this objective calculation has not resulted in uniformity among all churches, due to the effects of the different calendars that have been retained as the basis for the calculation.  This year (2018), Passover-week is March 31- April 6, and Easter Sunday is April 1 (although for the Orthodox Churches it is April 8).  (Panos Antsalkis of the University of Notre Dame explains it all in a detailed essay.)

            “Fascinating,” you may be thinking, “but what does all that have to do with the text of the New Testament?”

            The thing to see is that an annual cycle of Easter-observance emerged very early, and became entrenched very quickly, in the first half of the 100s.  It seems very likely that other annual observances spread at the same time and that this elicited the early emergence of lection-cycles.  In the case of the annual feast of Pentecost, Christian observance of Pentecost is mentioned not only in the New Testament book of Acts, but also in the anonymous second-century composition Epistula Apostolorum (which also mentions the Easter celebration). 

Tertullian, writing in Latin in North Africa in the late 100’s or early 200’s, mentioned Christians’ observance of Pentecost in chapter 23 of his composition On Prayer:  “We, however – just as we have received – only on the day of the Lord’s resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil.  Similarly, to, in the period of Pentecost, which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation.”

Not only was the Day of Pentecost a special occasion from the sub-apostolic era onward, but the whole fifty-day period from Eastertime to Pentecost was considered a special period of celebration.  Evidence of this is provided in Tertullian’s allusion to Pentecost in the third chapter of his composition On the Soldier’s Crown, in the course of referring to activities which in his time were already regarded as traditional practices:  “We consider fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s Day to be unlawful.  We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Pentecost.” 

Slightly later, Origen mentioned Christians’ annual observance of Pentecost too, in Against Celsus, Book 8, chapter 22:

“If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as for example the Lord’s Day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost, I have to answer that to the perfect Christian, who is constantly in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord’s, and he is always keeping the Lord’s Day.”

He continued in chapter 23:  “But the majority of those who are accounted believers are not of this advanced class; but because they are either unable or unwilling to keep every day in this manner, they require some sensible memorials to prevent spiritual things from passing altogether away from their minds.”

The early establishment of annual Christian festivals provided a setting in which it was almost inevitable that specific passages were assigned to be read on specific days.  This established the basic building-blocks of what eventually became annual cycles of lectionary-readings – reading-cycles that were initially independent and localized (like the manner in which Easter was observed), but which gradually became more uniform.

John Burgon, in his 1871 book The Last Twelve Verses of Mark Vindicated, pointed out some readings in early manuscripts which, he proposed, are early adaptations of the text made at the beginning or ends of lections to either introduce, or to round off, the episode.  Not all of his examples seem persuasive, but the following are interesting and suggestive:    

● Matthew 8:13.  A small assortment of manuscripts has an extra sentence attached to this verse:  “And the centurion returned to his house, and in that hour the servant was made whole.”  If these manuscripts were all medieval, this reading would likely be dismissed as a harmonization to the parallel in Luke 7:10, intended to round off a lection.  And, indeed, this verse concludes the lection for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost in the Byzantine lectionary-cycle.  But that small assortment of manuscripts includes Codex Sinaiticus (from the mid-300s) and several other uncials. 

● Mark 14:3.  Codex D (05, Codex Bezae) inserts Jesus’ name.  Codex Bezae’s text includes so many little expansions that one might argue that it is a mere coincidence that this one occurs at the beginning of the lection for the seventeenth Friday after Easter.  

● Luke 7:1.  Codex D basically rewrites the verse, which happens to begin the lection for the fifth Saturday after Pentecost.

● Luke 4:16.  Codex D (and F and G and 579) insert Jesus’ name in the first part the verse; this happens to be the beginning of the lection for first Thursday after Pentecost. 

● Luke 5:17.  Codex D rewrites the verse, which happens to begin the lection for the second Saturday after Pentecost.

● Luke 16:19.  Codex D reads “And He spoke another parable,” which could be an arbitrarily made harmonization, but which interlocks snugly with Burgon’s idea that the purpose for the harmonization at this particular point was to serve as a lection-incipit, that is, one of the brief phrases with which lectors introduced the daily reading.

● John 14:1.  Codex D begins the verse with “And He said to His disciples,” which looks very much like an lection-incipit, that is, one of the brief phrases with which lectors introduced the daily reading.  As it turns out, a lection does indeed begin at this exact point; in the Byzantine lectionary John 14:1-10 is the lection for the sixth Friday after Easter.      

Lectionary 152,
       from the 900s.

Burgon also proposed, in the same book, an interesting theory about Codex Bezae’s unusual reading in Mark 14:41, το τέλος και (between ἀπέχει and ηωρα):  “Nothing else has happened here,” Burgon proposed, “but that a marginal note, designed originally to indicate the end (το τέλος) of the lesson for the third day of the second week of the Carnival, has lost its way from the end of verse 42, and got thrust into the text of verse 41.”  Burgon noted that this reading is supported by the Peshitta, by the Old Latin, and by the Philoxenian version – which would mean that this quarter of witnesses echoes a yet-earlier ancestor; Burgon proposed that such an ancestral text came from the 100s.

Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels confirms that το τέλος Or its non-Greek counterparts) is in the text of Mark 14:41 not only in Codex D but also in Codex W (ἀπέχει το τέλος ἰδου ηλθεν) and Codex Θ (ἀπέχητο· το τέλος ηλθεν), as well as 0233, family 13 (a small cluster of MSS that share an earlier ancestor-copy), 565, 713, 1071, lectionary 844, and the Armenian version and one Georgian copy, and that it is not only supported by the Peshitta but also by the Siniatic Syriac and the Harklean Syriac – plus several Old Latin manuscripts including Codex Vercellensis (which probably was produced in the 370s). 

Willker also observes that in the margin of Codex Vaticanus at this point there is a distigme (that is, a symbo resembling an umlaut which conveys that the person who added it was aware of a textual variant in the line of text that it accompanies – though there is some debate about the date at which this person worked) and that not only Burgon, but also Scrivener advocated the theory that το τέλος had first entered the margin to signal the end of a lection before being blended into the text of Mark 14:41, and that later copyists and translators tackled it in their own ways. 
A consultation of a footnote on page 76 of the first volume of the 1894 edition of Scrivener’s Plain Introduction confirms that Scrivener regarded Codex D’s readings in Luke 16:19 and John 14:1 as lection-incipits, and he also says that the το τέλος in Mark 14:41 “probably has the same origin.”  Yet Burgon, in chapter 12 of Causes of Corruption (written some time after his defense of Mark 16:9-20), explained the presence of το τέλος as a slight expansion, rather than as an insertion of stray marginalia, stating in a footnote that he retracted unreservedly what he had proposed in The Last Twelve Verses of Mark regarding this variant.      

Hort, in his 1881 Notes on Select Readings, proposed that το τέλος was added not as a lost lection-ending note, but as an attempted harmonization drawn from Luke 22:37, where Jesus – still in the upper room – states that the prophecies about Him are being fulfilled, that is, reaching their end (καὶ γαρ το περι εμου τελος εχει).  This seems unlikely, inasmuch as a harmonizer would have no motive to be so frugal.

Metzger resorted to the guess that a copyist was puzzled by the somewhat rare ἀπέχει (or thought that the readers of their manuscripts would be puzzled) and added το τέλος to add clarity – but it seems to me that this would be far down any clarity-prioritizing copyist’s list of options. 

The presence of such phenomena in Codex Bezae and in the Old Latin copies is especially interesting because these particular witnesses tend to echo the Western text that circulated widely in the latter half of the 100s.  The case that the variants in the list just given show the influence of early lection-cycles might not be irresistible, but it is strong, and the inference from this is that the influence of basic lection-cycles involving the main annual Christian feasts should not be casually dismissed as a possible cause of textual variants that emerged as early as the 100s, when the bishop of Rome, until cooler heads prevailed, was willing to excommunicate fellow Christians because they would not celebrate Easter at the same time he did. 
            C. R. Gregory – the scholar whose name is recalled whenever textual critics refer to manuscripts by their Gregory-Aland numbers – theorized that specific passages were assigned for Sundays “at an extremely early date.”  Although it was a matter of centuries before lections were collected into  separate volumes, nothing precludes the idea that on the major Christian feasts, and particularly for the period from the beginning of Easter-week to Pentecost, specific passages were assigned to specific days.  (This may have even been the custom in the time of Justin Martyr, who mentioned in the 67th chapter of his First Apology that Christians gathered on the day called Sunday and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets were read, as long as time permitted, before a sermon and the observance of the Lord’s Supper.)    
This factor – the influence of lection-cycles – should be considered not only when evaluating the variant-units mentioned earlier, but also some other variant-units, including Luke 22:43-44 and John 7:53-8:11.


[Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this essay which lead to additional resources.]

The Text of Phoebadius

            Today’s subject requires some historical background.

            Following the Council of Nicea in 325, Arius – who promoted the view that there was a time when the Word did not exist, and was the first created thing – was declared a heretic and was sent into exile.  But in the years that followed, Athanasius – Arius’ most vocal opponent, who promoted the orthodox view that the Word is uncreated and worthy of worship – was also sent into exile, and then was restored to his office, and then was exiled again; this happened repeatedly.  If emperor Constantine’s purpose for organizing the Council of Nicea had been to reduce disharmony in the Christian churches, he did not succeed.  Eventually, just before dying, Constantine was baptized (or sprinkled) by Eusebius of Nicomedia (not to be confused with Eusebius of Caesarea) – a bishop who was in the minority that favored Arianism. 

            The bishops at the Council of Nicea had established the divinity of Christ and issued the Nicene Creed – but some other important subjects were not addressed (particularly, the subject of which books were to be considered authoritative was not covered, contrary to widespread claims that may be traced to the fictitious Da Vinci Code) and in the decades that followed the leaders of the Arians managed to stretch the vocabulary of the creed in such a way that it seemed to the emperors that their theology could fit through it.

Julian the Apostate
(Emperor, 361-363)

            Constantius II (co-emperor from 337 to 350, and sole emperor from 350 to 361) favored Arian theology, and just before he died, he was baptized (or sprinkled) by Euzoius, the Arian bishop of Caesarea.  His successor Julian (reigned 361-363) was neither orthodox nor Arian; he attempted to revive paganism and for this reason is known as Julian the Apostate.

            In the middle of this chaotic stage entered Phoebadius of Agen in what is now southwestern France.  He was a bishop from sometime before 357 to sometime after 392 (when Jerome, in his Lives of Illustrious Men, mentioned that Phoebadius was still living).  In the mid-300’s, when the Arian bishops of Caesarea were busy transferring texts from papyrus onto parchment to remedy the destructive natural effects of humidity, Phoebadius boldly and busily defended orthodox theology, participating in councils and writing letters against the slippery word-games used by his Arian contemporaries. 

            Phoebadius wrote in Latin, and thus the Scripture-quotations in his sole extant composition – Against the Arians – provide a glimpse at the Old Latin text that he used.  R. P. C. Hanson has observed that Phoebadius was well-acquainted with at least some of the writings of Tertullian, and that Phoebadius “certainly had Hebrews in his canon.”  Phoebadius also quoted from the book of Tobit.  His work was influential in the theological disputes of the mid-300’s.  Against the Arians was translated into English by Keith C. Wessel in 2008 and this English translation can be downloaded for free.  Using that resource, let’s take a look at some of Phoebadius’ citations and utilizations of the New Testament in the first 12 chapters of his composition Against the Arians, remembering that this was composed in 357 and thus represents a witness as old as Codex Sinaiticus.  I list them in the order in which they appear.

●  John 20:17b

●  Philippians 2:9

●  John 17:3

●  Matthew 19:17 or Mark 10:19 or Luke 18:19 – “Why do you say that I am good?  No one is good except God alone.”

●  John 5:44 – “Why do you not seek honor that comes from the one and only God?”

●  Matthew 24:36 – “Concerning that day and hour no one knows except the Father alone.”  (Notice that Phoebadius’ text does not include the phrase “nor the Son.”)

●  John 11:35 – Phoebadius does not quote this verse but mentions that Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus.

●  Luke 19:41 – Phoebadius does not quote this verse but mentions that Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

●  John 3:6

●  Matthew 26:41 or Mark 14:38 – “The flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing.”  (Notice the transposition.)

●  First John 3:7 (a snippet) – “The one who has the substance of the world”

●  Luke 19:8 (a snippet) – “Look, I am giving half of my substance.”

●  Colossians 1:27

●  First Corinthians 1:24 – “Christ is the power (virtus) of God”

●  Romans 11:34 (snippet)

●  First Corinthians 2:16 (snippet)

●  First Corinthians 2:11 (snippet, twice) – “from him and with him and in him”

●  John 9:29

●  John 16:28 – “I have come forth from the Father and from the bosom of the Father”

●  (20) Matthew 11:27

●  John 16:13

●  First Corinthians 2:10-11

●  Matthew 7:7 or Luke 11:9 (notice the transposition)

●  Matthew 11:25

●  Matthew 13:11 or Mark 4:11 (Byz) or Luke 8:10

●  Ephesians 3:5

●  Colossians 1:27 (an allusion)

●  John 8:14-15

●  John 4:24 (snippet)

●  (30) First Corinthians 15:28 (allusion)

●  Revelation 13:11 (adaptation) – “having horns like lambs but speaking as dragons” 

●  John 14:28 (snippet)

●  John 5:23 (snippet)

●  John 1:18 – Phoebadius specifies that he is citing from John, and quotes, “No one has ever seen God except the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.”  We see here a defender of Christ’s divinity using the reading “only begotten Son.” 

●  John 17:10

●  John 5:19

●  John 6:38

●  John 8:29 (snippet)

●  John 14:10

●  Second Corinthians 1:20

We thus see that in these 12 chapters, 40 verses are used, mostly from the Gospels.  Let’s continue, covering the remainder of Phoebadius’ composition.

●  Matthew 16:27 – Phoebadius specifically quotes from Matthew:  “The Son is going to come in the glory of his own Father.”

●  Luke 9:26 – Phoebadius specifically quotes from Luke:  “When the Son of Man comes with his own glory and that of his Father.” 

●  Colossians 2:9

●  John 16:15 (snippet)  

●  First John 5:11 – “We proclaim to you eternal life, life that was with the Father, and he adds, and in the Son.” 

●  John 14:10

●  John 5:19

●  John 1:3

●  John 10:30

●  John 7:28-29 – “You neither know me or where I am from, nor that I have not come on my own.  But the one who sent me is true, the one you do not know.  But I know him because I am with him, and he has sent me.”  (Notice the rendering of the first part)

●  John 8:16b 

●  John 10:15a

●  John 3:35b

●  (15) John 5:43a

●  Revelation 1:8 or parallels – “He who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”  (Notice the transposition.)

●  First John 1:1-2

●  John 16:27 (snippet)

●  John 10:30

●  John 14:9-10 (snippets)

●  John 8:29a

●  Romans 11:36 (snippet)

●  John 5:37 (allusion)

●  John 8:19

●  John 4:24a

●  Second Corinthians 13:4 

●  Matthew 26:41 or Mark 14:38 – “The flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing.”  (Notice the transposition, which also occurred the first time Phoebadius quoted the sentence.)

●  First Corinthians 1:18 (snippet)

●  First Corinthians 15:3 (snippet)

●  (30) John 10:30

●  John 14:10

●  John 10:30

●  John 14:9

●  John 4:24a

●  First Corinthians 2:11

●  Romans 11:34

●  John 1:3

●  Philippians 2:6-7

●  Romans 11:33

●  Romans 11:36

●  John 14:16

●  Galatians 1:8

            Taking all 28 chapters of Phoebadius’ Against the Arians into consideration, we see that in this composition he used material from the New Testament 82 times.  He used a few passages – particularly Matthew 26:41 (or Mark 14:38), John 4:24a, and John 10:30 – more than once.  All in all, no less than 70 passages from the New Testament are utilized in this composition.  If it had never been discovered until today, we would announce a rather significant discovery, equivalent to the discovery of 70 little manuscript-fragments as old as Codex Sinaiticus.    

            Yet Phoebadius is hardly known, and lately it seems that the entire category of patristic evidence is being unfairly and unscientifically minimized.  No patristic evidence of any kind appears in the apparatus of the recently published Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament.  And in the “textual flow diagrams” in Tommy Wasserman and Peter Gurry’s A New Approach to Textual Criticism, intended as an introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, I did not see any patristic writers at all. 

            Recently apologist James White claimed that “The citations of Scriptural material from patristic sources are notoriously vague,” but I welcome him to go through the list presented here and see where, aside from the parallel-passages and the three instances specifically described as allusions, there are any grounds for not affirming that Phoebadius used the passage that is listed.  He also said, “I do not believe that patristic citations can overcome the actual manuscript evidence.”  But where the patristic citations are clear and there is no reason to question the contents of the patristic text itself, they should have the same weight as the owners’ manuscripts.  What does Dr. White think the patristic writers were citing?

            Even relatively little-known patristic compositions can provide significant text-critical data.  Those who would minimize or dismiss patristic testimony run a high risk of investing a lot of effort in a method that is doomed to produce inaccurate results, like a recipe in which the cooks have chosen to omit important ingredients.
            In other news:  Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Comma Johanneum and Christian Doctrine

          It is practically a matter of routine among Christian apologists – defenders of Christianity against objections – to insist that no textual variants have a decisive impact on any of the core beliefs of Christianity.  I consider that claim to be an oversimplification.  The doctrine of inerrancy, though not part of the major creeds of Christendom, is an important Christian belief.  Some evangelical seminaries even refer to the doctrine of inerrancy as an essential, without specifying what it is essential for.  Several textual variants which have considerable manuscript-support, if adopted, would draw the doctrine of inerrancy into question.  I am thinking specifically of textual variants in Matthew 13:35, Matthew 27:49, Mark 6:22, and a few other passages.

          Textual variants also have a potential impact on doctrines involving the role of women in the church, fasting, divorce, granting forgiveness to those who have not expressed repentance, Mary’s perpetual virginity, the physicality of Christ’s body after His resurrection, the specificity of confessions, Christ’s involvement in human history before the Incarnation, and some other issues.  These are not trivial matters.  Today, though, I want to address just one question:  Was the Christian concept of the Trinity developed as a result of the presence of the Comma Johanneum in the text?

          The answer is, “No.”  In the course of the previous two posts, we reviewed some evidence which very strongly supports the position that the Comma Johanneum is not part of the original text of First John.  It appears to have originated as an explanatory note in the Latin text, subsequent to the creation of another variant, namely the transposition of the words “the spirit, the water, and the blood,” so that the three witnesses became “the water, the blood, and the spirit.”  The Greek manuscript-support for the Comma Johanneum is extremely weak.  Although it was apparently a widely circulated reading in the Latin text that was in use in North Africa in the late 400’s, at the church-councils that sorted out Christological controversies (such as the Council of Nicea and the Council of Chalcedon), the Comma Johanneum was not invoked for any purpose.

             In the late 1700’s, a public exchange of letters between Edward Gibbon and George Travis drew public attention to the controversy about the Comma Johanneum; Gibbon was sure that it was a “pious fraud,” while Travis argued vigorously in favor of its genuineness.  This was followed in 1790 by a book by Richard Porson, a Cambridge professor, in which Porson made a detailed and hard-hitting critique of Travis’ research, his arguments, and his motives.  Travis, of course, wrote a response, which Porson considered so weakly argued as to be self-refuting.  

          Adamant refusal to acknowledge that the Comma Johanneum was not part of the original text was, to an extent, caused by something other than the manuscript-evidence and the patristic evidence.  In England, the people writing and arguing the loudest and longest against the genuineness of the Comma Johanneum tended to be Unitarian, and those who agreed openly and enthusiastically on this point ran the risk – no matter how orthodox their views were on other subjects – of becoming the lightning-rods of heresy-hunters and alarmists, just as Erasmus had been accused of planting the seeds of Arianism by excluding the passage from his first and second editions of the Greek New Testament.  

          Yet when we visit the patristic writings of those who established and disseminated the worship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the 300’s and 400’s, the use of this passage is, as we have seen, extremely sparse.  In 258 (over a century before Priscillian), the unknown author of De Rebaptismate cited First John 5:6-8 without the Comma Johanneum:  For John says of our Lord in his epistle, teaching us: “This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood:  and it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.  For three bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one.” 

          And later, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Leo the Great likewise quoted from First John 5, referring to the testimony of the blessed apostle John:  “‘Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?  This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.  And it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.  For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are one.’  That is, the Spirit of sanctification, and the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism . . . .”

 

The earliest Greek form of the Comma Johanneum
in the text of a manuscript of First John:
GA 629, fol. 105v
(Ottobianus 298 at the Vatican Library)

         For at least the first 500 years of the existence of the Christian church, the only Christians who used the Comma Johanneum were those who used the Old Latin text that circulated in North Africa and Spain.  The creedal formulations of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon were all achieved without the use of the Comma Johanneum.   It would be wrong, then, to think that it is necessary to retain this passage in order to maintain now what was maintained then regarding the deity of Christ.  Yet, when the Comma Johanneum is rejected, it is not because we can afford to reject it, but because the evidence compels its rejection.  No Greek manuscript before the time of Erasmus exactly corresponds to the Comma Johanneum as printed in the Textus Receptus (and nor does minuscule 61).  The true words of Scripture do not need assistance from an interpolation, even one that summarizes explicitly what is expressed elsewhere in Scripture implicitly.