-
Origen's Death
- The Catholic University of America Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
24 ORIGEN It should be noted that everything in Nautin's scheme depends on previous conclusions he has reached. He has constructed a house of interlocking arguments from a few scraps of evidence. It is an ingeniously constructed edifice put together from "gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw."126 Undoubtedly portions will perish in the heat of future debates, but it seems doubtful that the whole building will be lost. Origen's Death In 249 Decius became emperor and undertook to revive the ancient paganism.127 An edict was issued demanding that all people offer sacrifices to the gods. Fabian, bishop ofRome was executed. Alexander ofJerusalem and Fabius of Antioch were imprisoned for refusing to offer sacrifice; both died in prison. Chaeremon of Nilopolis, Cyprian of Carthage and Gregory Thaumaturgus of Pontus fled their cities. In Caesarea, Origen was imprisoned and tortured. He did not, however, die in prison. Decius was killed in 251. The persecution continued sporadically until 253 when Valerian came to power and a brief peace returned to the Church. Origen probably died early in the reign of Valerian. Photius reports two traditions about Origen's death.128 The one, coming from Pamphilus, said he was a martyr in the persecution of Decius. This would have made his death ca. 250-51 at about sixty-six years of age. The other tradition says he died at Tyre at age sixty-nine, i.e. ca. 254 or 255. Grant has shown that Eusebius originally described Origen's death as a martyrdom in the reign of Decius.129 He thinks that Eusebius, later became aware of Origen's tomb at Tyre and rewrote the 126 1 Cor 3.13. 127 See Grant, Augustus to Constantine, 168-70; H.E. 6.39-46. 128 See Grant, "Eusebius and His Lives of Origen," 647-49; Grant, Eusebius, 78-79. 129 "Eusebius and His Lives of Origen," 647-48; H.E. 6.39.5. INTRODUCTION 25 ending of Origen's life, but without removing all the traces of his earlier view.130 The Preservation of Origen's Works Origen's literary output was truly prodigious.131 Epiphanius estimated his works to number six thousand.132 Jerome, basing his statement on the list of Origen's works Eusebius had inserted in Book 3 of his Life of Pamphilus,133 puts the number under two thousand.134 There is a list of 786 titles of Origen's works in Jerome's letter to Paula.130 A number of titles of Origen 's works can also be found in Eusebius, Church History 6. The largest portion of this vast literary production has perished. Some perished, no doubt, because of the vastness of the work itself. There was simply too much to copy.136 Jerome 130 Ibid.; H.E. 7.1. 131 B. Altaner, Patrology, trans, H. Graef, 2nd ed. (New York; Herder and Herder, 1961), 225 says the quantity of his literary output surpasses "that of all other writers of Christian antiquity." For the most recent German edition of this work, see B. Altaner, A. Stuiber, Patrologie (Freiburg: Herder, 1978). 132 Haereses 64.63. 133 This work has perished. 134 Adv. Ruf 2.22. 135 Ep. 33. 136 Rufinus, in the preface to his translation of the Commentary on Romans, mentions that he had been asked to abbreviate as well as translate the commentary, and that even at that time some books of the lengthy work were missing. Jerome, Ep. 34, laments that Origen's notes on Psalm 127 are no longer extant. In the prologue to his Commentary on Isaiah Jerome notes that the twenty-sixth book of Origen's Commentary on Isaiah is missing. It is quite probable that the huge Hexapla was never copied in its entirety (See Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol 2 [Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1953],44). Of the thirty-two books of his Commentary on John, only eight have been preserved, and of the twenty-five on Matthew, only eight have been preserved in Greek plus a larger portion in a Latin translation. In both cases it is more likely that it was their size rather than their contents which caused these works to be preserved in abbreviated form. P. Courcelle, Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources, trans. H. Wedech (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 103-4, notes the difference in the number of Origen's works referred to in Jerome's Adv. Ru{. where he says the catalogue in the Life ofPamphilus "came to almost...