A tongue of gold

This is a translation of Church Father Origen's homilies on the Book of Joshua in the Bible. Origen (who lived circa 185 – 254 in Egypt and the Levant, then under Roman control) is a slightly controversial figure in Church history, due to his real or perceived Platonic influences (including a belief in reincarnation), his claim that even the Devil will be saved at the end, and his heavy allegorizing of Scripture. Centuries after his death, Origen was condemned as a heretic by the Church, but inevitably there is some controversy about this, too! The whole thing is complicated by the fact that prominent Church Father, Jerome, accused Origen's Latin translator Rufinus of Aquileia of tampering with the texts in order to prove that Origen wasn't a heretic, while Rufinus claimed that real heretics had already tampered with Origen's manuscripts, and that he as a translator was simply setting things right. “Homilies on Joshua” exists only in a Latin translation by said Rufinus (except for a few extracts in Greek), but the editor of this series feels that at least in this particular case, the rogue translator didn't take any liberties with the text!

I read about half of the material included in this volume. Origen believed that events in the New Testament were mysteriously prefigured in the Old Testament, a popular notion within the Catholic and Orthodox Churches known as “typology”. The NT itself sometimes interprets the OT in this manner, but strict Protestants don't really like it, fearing it may downplay the plain and literal meaning of the Biblical text. The Book of Joshua must have been of considerable interest to somebody like Origen, since the Hebrew name “Joshua” is identical to the Greek “Iesous” (Jesus). Joshua, the son of Nun, therefore prefigures Jesus, the Son of God.

Origen's scriptural interpretations are often ingenious. Why did Joshua rather than Moses lead the Israelites into the Holy Land? Moses symbolizes the Jewish Law, which is dead, while Joshua is Jesus, the true savior. Tribes headed by first born sons received their parts of Canaan from Moses before his death, while tribes headed by younger sons received their inheritance from Joshua, who actually conquered the Promised Land. The first born are the Jews, the others are Christians. The passage across the river Jordan is compared to the Christian baptism, Jericho symbolizes the world with its sins, and the walls of Jericho fell down miraculously to show that our salvation is also miraculous. The harlot Rahab is the Church, and the red cloth she used as a signal prefigures the crucifixion and the blood shed for our salvation. The Canaanites symbolize sins or demons, the king of Ai is the devil, and his execution on a wooden cross foreshadows how Jesus nailed our sins to his cross.

At other times, the uninitiated reader gasps at Origen's interpretations, as when he claims that the gold ingot stolen by an Israelite soldier at Jericho symbolizes heretics like Valentinus, Marcion and Basilides! In Latin, the ingot is called “linguam auream”, which literally means “tongue of gold”. Heretics have sweet golden voices, but their message is anathema. (Note the irony that Origen anathematizes the Gnostics only to posthumously suffer the same fate. Note also the further irony that modern Gnostics consider Origen one of their forebears alongside the golden-tongued Valentinus & Co. But I'm digressing.) Origen has an extremely convoluted reasoning concerning the fact that the people of Israel were divided into two groups, one consisting of nine and a half tribes, and the other of two and a half tribes. This is somehow connected to the fact that the mystery of the Trinity was yet to be revealed?!

As far as I understand, Origen's typological reading of the OT isn't the main thing “the Church” has against him. I think the problem is that many suspect Origen of not really believing in the literal meaning of the Old Testament text. It's one thing to suggest that the historical narrative of the Conquest has a hidden spiritual dimension. It's another thing entirely to suggest that it didn't happen at all. Many also suspect that Origen doesn't believe in the literal truth of the New Testament either. Finally, doctrines such as metempsychosis, the pre-existence of souls and “apokatastasis panton” (the restoration of all things, including a certain Lucifer) are controversial in their own right. It's not entirely clear from the homilies I've read whether or not Origen believes that Joshua's Conquest happened as narrated, although I suspect that he does. However, it's also obvious that he isn't interested in the purely historical aspect of the text, at one point wondering aloud why such a lofty holy scripture such as the Bible narrates seemingly irrelevant events like the siege and destruction of Ai, which taken by itself isn't much different from that of any other town hit by a war. Origen's answer is that the narrative must have a deeper meaning. Of course, a critic may wonder how Origen can know this deeper (and sometimes well hidden) meaning without the recourse to special gnosis…or purely subjective speculations.

Golden tongue, anyone?