Origen of Alexandria and Late Antique Gift-Giving: The Integration of Benefaction with Christian Theology and Experience

In late antiquity, the social world played an important role in the way Christians understood their Christianity. Specifically, the Graeco-Roman institution of benefaction included language and ideology that influenced the way Christians conceived of and discussed God and the divine-human relationship. This article demonstrates three levels of engagement with benefaction language and ideology within the works of Origen of Alexandria. It demonstrates that he was aware of benefaction, that he participated in it, and it describes how its ideology ordered aspects of his theology and experience. The language and structures of benefaction identified within Origen’s works, notably Against Celsus, reveal three aspects of his Christianity that analogically reflected benefaction among late antique people: God is a patron-benefactor who gives significant gifts, Christians are clients who owe God loyalty, and the divine-human relationship is governed by certain relational contours and expectations. In addition, benefaction reveals important facets of the realities underlying terms like φιλανθρωπία that theological perspectives have overlooked. Social benefaction also offers new angles on Origen’s theology, identifies underappreciated motifs in early Christianity, and unearths new contours of early Christian thought and practice.