In this paper I argue that the lost, late fourth/fifth-century exemplar of Codex von der Goltz (1739)—well-known for transmitting a text expressly transcribed from an ancient copy containing an Origenian text—participated in struggles to define Origen’s legacy. Although this ms has been extremely important for scholars interested in its ancient text that rivals the great fourth-century majuscules, it also provides some of the earliest evidence for the use and development of early Christian scholia—in this instance, sundry marginal notes, variant readings, or comments predominantly from the writings of Origen, as well as other early Christian fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Basil. The scholion examined in this paper invoked Paul of Samosata in relation to 1 Cor. 10:9 that, according to this scholion, was adduced by those who condemned Paul as a heretic—a fact attested by the actual letter sent to Paul before his censure. This scholion then continued and refuted Paul’s allegedly deficient exegesis by citing an interpretation of 1 Cor. 10:9 from Origen’s lost Stromateis. Such a juxtaposition would be understandable if, as often suggested, the council that accused and deposed Paul was composed of Origenists. In his defense of Origen, however, Pamphilus notes that some actually accused Origen of espousing a low Christology like Paul of Samosata himself. While both Paul and Origen suffered ecclesiastical reprobation and were sometimes deployed to discredit reputations in late antique struggles for orthodoxy, I argue that this scholion invoked Paul so as to distance Origen from him; furthermore, along with the rest of the scholia, it sought to forge a chain of tradition linking Origen to the “holy fathers,” who condemned Paul. Thus, at least two ambivalent Origenist trajectories intersect and are negotiated on the margins of this ms: Origen’s alleged (and thus heretical) connections to Paul of Samosata’s low Christology; and his brilliant and important exegetical legacy claimed by many later patristic writers. Such paratextual deployment engaging with heresiological discourse hints at the possible uses and functions of early Christian material culture—in this case a ms produced and deployed with a scholion to rehabilitate an ambivalent reputation by further marginalizing another.
It is interesting that W.H.C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (NY: Anchor 1967)p.325 speaks of "the anti-Origenist Christology of Paul of Samosata".
ReplyDeleteIn Jean Danielou-Henri Marrou, The Christian Centuries, The First Six Hundred Years (NY: McGraw-Hill 1964) p.217 we read "He (Paul of Samosata) condemned hymns in honor of Christ as an innovation, and attacked Origen (HE,VII,30,9). His nomination (as bishop) evidently aroused opposition in the more Hellenized circles of Antioch, influenced by Greek philosophy. The leaders of this group were Lucian and Malchion. The attacks of Paul's theology led to the convocation of a Synod, which the whole crowd of Origenists attended.
In F. Cayre, Manual of Patrology (Tournai Belgium: Desclee, 1940) p.176 Cayre says that Friedrich Loofs tries to rehabilitate Paul of Samosata by theorizing that he was a victim of Origen's school.
H.J. Carpenter, Popular Christianity and the Early Theologians, History Series #2, ed. Clarence Lee (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966) p.27 At Antioch between 260 and 270 AD there appears the significant figure of the sophist Malchion, without whose assistance even a body of Origenist bishops could not confute Paul of Samosata.
I do not understand how Paul's Christology is defined (in opposition to Origen's or is it in opposition in the sense of "low" and "high"?) as "low Christology"?
In A New Eusebius, ed. James Stevenson (NY: Macmillan, 1957) p.279 we read:
Paul's opponents (according to C.E. Raven in Apollinarianism) were the forerunners of Apollinarius' heresy for (they held) 'the God-Logos...in (Christ) was what the inner man is in us. Paul would not admit ((to the Origenists at the synods)) that the Logos took the place of the human soul in Christ. Athanasius "On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia" (45) said, 'For they who deposed the Samosatene took homoousios in a bodily sense, because Paul had attempted sophistry and said, 'Unless Christ has of man become God, it follows that he is homoousios with the Father; and if so, there are of necesity three ousiai, one of the previous ousia, and the other two from it', and, therefore, guarding against this, they said with good reason, that Christ was not ((in this way)) homoousios.
It is interesting that any credibility could be given to any scholia which might attempt to compare Origen's Christology in any way to that of Paul of Samosata.