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49 q Chapter 2 Origen as a Student of Ammonius A liminal, hybrid figure whose shadow looms over the third and fourth centuries, Origen of Alexandria is key to understanding both the wide-ranging influence of Ammonius’s “philosophy without conflicts”and the new pressures that contributed to the Great Persecution two generations later. Scholars have not appreciated Origen’s role in this regard for one of two reasons: either they assumed that he studied with an Ammonius other than Plotinus’s teacher, an error addressed in chapter 1, or they downplayed the significance of the Christian theologian’s education under Ammonius, assuming that a different philosopher, “Origen the Platonist ,” was the true heir of his mentor’s philosophy. I have argued elsewhere that, like the two Ammonii, the two Origens are an artifact of scholarship conjured by misreading the heated exchange between Eusebius of Caesarea and Porphyry of Tyre embedded in the former’s Ecclesiastical History (6.19).1 1. See Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, “Origen on the Limes: Rhetoric and the Polarization of Identity in the Late Third Century,” in The Rhetoric of Power in Late Antiquity: Religion and Politics in Byzantium, Europe, and the Early Islamic World, ed. Robert M. Frakes, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, and Justin Stephens (London:I. B. Tauris,2010),197–218. As chapter 1 noted,in HE 6.19,Eusebius refers to Porphyry’s “third treatise ()” against Christians, not just to condemn its criticisms of Origen, but also to use it as evidence for the theologian’s eminence as a philosopher (6.18–19; see chapter 1 for the text). In 1659, Henri de Valois, in his commentary on this work, was the first to use this passage to distinguish between a so-called Platonist Origen and a Christian theologian of the same name. F. H. Kettler, “War Origenes Schüler des Ammonius Sakkas?” in Epektasis: Mélanges 50 A THREAT TO PUBLIC PIETY The contradictory portraits painted by these two antagonists in their efforts to define him led modern historians to conclude wrongly that two Origens flourished in the third century, a Platonist Hellene and a Christian theologian and martyr. I will not advance the claim for their unity here, since sufficient evidence testifies to the depth of the “theologian’s” Ammonian heritage and the problems that he posed for the next generation of Christians and Hellenes working within his tradition. Analysis of Origen’s career and writing shows that his early contact with Ammonius influenced his exegetical methodology and goals. In particular, Origen used some of Ammonius’s techniques for handling texts to set out his own “theology without conflicts.” Applying these techniques and this goal to Hebrew and Christian scripture,while developing the figural exegesis and conception of Jesus as the incarnate divine logos that he learned from Clement of Alexandria, Origen not only countered the view of Jesus as a patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean Daniélou, ed. J. Fontaine and C. Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 327. Valois’ commentary is preserved in Migne’s edition of Eusebius (PL 20). Valois followed Porphyry in granting that Origen Adamantius, as he called the Christian, had been Ammonius’s student. But, he continued, “there was at that same time another Origen, a fellow student of Plotinus and Erennius,” who is discussed by “Porphyry in the Vita Plotini, Longinus in De fine, Eunapius, and Hierocles in De providentia” (Eus. HE 6.1–7.1; Porph. Chr. ap. Eus. HE 6.19; Or. Ep. ap. Eus. HE 6.19.12–14; Hierocl. Prov. ap. Phot. Bibl. 214, 251; Porph. Comm. Tim. ap. Procl. Comm. Tim. 1.63; Long. De fine ap. Porph. Plot. 20.35; Porph. Plot. 3.24–33; 14.21; Eun. VS s.v. “Porphurios”). Although Valois did not consider whether any discernable doctrinal differences existed between “their” ideas, his distinction between a pagan and a Christian Origen so readily conformed to the adversarial relationship between “paganism” and Christianity constructed in the exchange between Porphyry and Eusebius that most subsequent historians simply took his assumption for granted, perpetuating the ancient rhetoric without much question. And so the Platonist Origen was born. Accepted by Fabricius fifty years later ( J. A. Fabricius,Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 4 [Hamburg,1723],97, 160; cf. P. F. Beatrice, “Porphyry’s Judgment on Origen,” in Origeniana quinta, ed. Robert J. Daly [Leuven: Peeters, 1992], 352, 363 n. 6), Valois’ arguments gained momentum in the late nineteenth century with Eduard Zeller. Still without comparing Origen’s doctrines as presented in the two...

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