Origen and the Story of the Mother and Her Seven Sons: Reimagining Third-Century Caesarean Horizons

Anna-Liisa Rafael

doi:10.1515/opth-2020-0180

Abstract

AbstractThis article employs Galit Hasan-Rokem’s notions of vertical and horizontal axes of transmission for the study of biblical reception history, presenting the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen’s writings as a case study. I suggest that Hasan-Rokem’s vertical axis of intergenerational transmission corresponds to reception history: it also involves us and thus demands our critical awareness. The horizontal axis of intergroup transmission, then, calls for our sensitivity toward the diverse interpersonal and intercultural exchanges that reception history presents less frequently as authoritative or even manifest. My analysis scrutinizes Origen’s pronouncedly bookish relation to the story of the mother and her seven sons, and I provide a reading of this relation as entailing both (inter)personal and intercultural encounters. I use both Eusebius’ biography of Origen and recent studies on late antique rabbinic discourse as means by which to broaden our perspective on Origen’s horizon of expectation. In conclusion, I suggest that Origen’s portrayal of the mother indicates some ambivalence toward this figure: her words of wisdom have undisputed authority over Origen, while her embodied wisdom makes him reserved. Thus, the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen’s writings could strengthen the prospect that the story was a living reality for Origen as well as for others in third-century Palestine.

Highlights

This article employs Galit Hasan-Rokem’s notions of vertical and horizontal axes of transmission for the study of biblical reception history, presenting the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen’s writings as a case study
The relevance of biblical reception history unfolds, in particular, through “its mediation between historical and aesthetic approaches.”[3]. By this mediation, I mean that the scholarly orientation in the study of biblical reception history is – or has the potential to be – engaged with the more traditional aims of historical reconstruction, while it embraces the interpretative involvement of the scholar in the process, which is characteristic of literary approaches
The acknowledgment of the horizontal axis of transmission, along with the vertical, opens up prospects of interpersonal and intercultural exchange that are not limited to those whom we hold responsible for the surviving literary sources and whom we identify as author(itie)s

Summary

Theorizing Origen’s Caesarea

Origen is one of the better-known early Christian writers and characters, known to us through both his writings and the writings of others. In his Exhortation to Martyrdom, Origen takes up the story of the mother and her seven sons in direct sequence with the story of Eleazar This manner of presentation follows that of 2 Maccabees, in which the two stories are given in the same order and as two separate accounts without establishing any explicit historical connection between them. 2 Maccabees does not especially entail such a connotation if the stories of Eleazar and the mother and her seven sons are read as part of the broader historical narrative of the Maccabean Revolt that is concerned with “worldly” matters, such as the occupation of the land Such use of the speeches of biblical figures is not limited to this case, but similar cases can be found in other Origen’s exhortative texts. I shall suggest that Origen’s close association with Eleazar and his bookish distance from the story of the mother and her seven sons might reflect the ways in which both these stories interconnected with the story of his own early life

Origen’s near-martyrdom as a further insight into his reception

Miraculous mothers

Conclusion