Origen of Alexandria and the History of Racism as a Theological Problem

Abstract

Introduction

Racism is often regarded as a relatively recent invention. Introductory discussions of the history of racism routinely point out that the word itself dates from the early twentieth century, while the related term ‘race’ first came into common usage in a variety of European languages around the middle of the sixteenth century, which was, not coincidentally, also when European colonialism commenced in earnest. From that time onward, racist theories developed, but it was only in the nineteenth century that racism fully took shape as a ‘scientific’ mode of thought that divided human beings into separate categories (‘races’) based primarily on a number of phenotypical markers that were thought to correlate directly with mental qualities. These qualities were understood to be inherited and unchangeable, which allowed for the ranking of ‘races’ from superior to inferior.¹

In his 2004 monograph on racism in classical antiquity,² Benjamin Isaac argued that this common account of racism’s historical development is misleading inasmuch as it purports that this sort of thinking was without substantial precedent in earlier centuries.³ Isaac recognized that new developments took hold in modern Europe but suggested that it is better to view the resulting discourse as a particular iteration of racism. He argued that racism can already be identified in Hellenistic and classical texts.⁴ In so doing, Isaac was one of the harbingers of a broader ‘recent trend in . . . scholarship to argue for the existence of racism in premodernity’.⁵

The persuasiveness of such a perspective depends to a considerable degree on one’s definition of ‘racism’.⁶ When distinctions based on phenotypical markers, such as skin colour, are posited as a sine qua non for racism, this category is not particularly pertinent to Greco-Roman antiquity.⁷ Yet a substantial body of recent scholarship argues that racist discourses, both in the past and in the present, frequently assume forms that do not prioritize phenotypical markers, and that a broader conceptualization of racism is required. As Isaac put it, ‘racism could exist just as well where physical differences are insignificant’.⁸ What distinguishes racism, according to Isaac, is not a focus on phenotypical markers, but that racism attributes to ‘individuals and groups of peoples collective traits, physical, mental, and moral, which are constant and unalterable by human will, because they are caused by hereditary factors or external influences, such as climate or geography’.⁹

Denise Kimber Buell, while expressing general agreement with Isaac’s argument, has objected that this emphasis on immutability and fixity is problematic.¹⁰ She invokes Ann Laura Stoler’s influential argument that ‘the force of racial discourse is precisely in the double-vision it allows, in the fact that it combines notions of fixity and fluidity in ways that are basic to its dynamic’.¹¹ Likewise influenced by Stoler, Susannah Heschel has recently argued that

Characterizing modern racism as promoting a notion of immutable essence is . . . misleading. It is simply not accurate to claim that biological immutability differentiates modern racism from earlier forms of prejudice. It is the instability of race, not its immutability, that lies at the heart of its invention.¹²

This instability becomes particularly visible in the fear of contamination and racial degradation. and vice versa, there is also the possibility of ‘improvement’, as in the cases of the Irish and the Jews, who ‘became white’ over the course of American history, having first been racially marked as non-white.¹³It is precisely this combination of fixity and fluidity that has rendered race such a useful tool to exclude and marginalize certain groups or to force them to adapt to dominant culture.

Much more could be said about the vexed question of how to define the historically shape-shifting categories of ‘race’ and ‘racism’, but that would take us far beyond the compass of the present article. My aim in what follows is not to try to solve the definitional quandaries, nor to adjudicate whether Origen or early Christianity was or was not ‘racist’. I do not think that is a particularly productive way of framing the question, in part because the answer depends so much on the definitional framework of choice. What I propose to explore instead is the extent to which precursors of later racist discourses can be identified in early Christian sources. Whether such precursors are sufficient to speak of (proto-)racism depends on one’s construal of that category, but they are certainly pertinent for understanding the historical development of racism. An analogy with the history of Christian anti-Semitism may be instructive: the answer to the question of whether Paul’s, John’s, and Matthew’s statements about ‘the Jews’ are anti-Semitic is largely a function of how one defines anti-Semitism, but there can be no doubt that these New Testament passages are relevant for understanding the historical development of anti-Semitism.

In contrast to the study of anti-Semitism, scholarship has not seriously attended to the possible role of early Christian texts in the history of racism. This is surprising because modern Europe was indebted not only to the Greco-Roman texts studied by Isaac; it was arguably even more deeply influenced by early and medieval Christianity (itself the recipient of a range of cultural constructs from the Hellenistic world). The modern West was in many respects a thoroughly Christian world, claims to be secular notwithstanding. and some of racism’s staunchest spokespeople, ministers and theologians included, have been Christians.

Yet only relatively recently have scholars started to probe this intersection of modern racism and Christian theology.¹⁴ While much valuable work has been accomplished in a relatively short time span, the question of the extent to which modern racist notions find parallels in early Christian literature remains a largely unexplored question. Isaac has demonstrated that classical Greek and Latin literature had a part to play in the history of racism, but if and how early Christian literature did as well remains unclear. Isaac himself did not pursue this question, although he was certain that ‘this would be important and interesting’,¹⁵ and only limited work has been done by others. Scholars have mostly restricted their attention to two specific instances of possibly racist discourses: anti-Semitism in early Christian literature, and, to a more limited extent, disparaging references to African peoples and ‘black’ skin colour.¹⁶ There has also been a great deal of recent discussion about the role that ethnic terms play in the context of how early Christians construed and presented their own group.¹⁷ Yet despite this important work, pejorative claims about ‘other’ ethnicities in early Christian texts and their similarity to and possible relationship with later racist discourses have for the most part remained unanalysed.

I suggest that closer attention to this set of questions may improve our understanding of the historical development of racism and also aid our analyses of early Christian constructions of ethnic difference. The work of Isaac and others who have looked at possible precursors of racism offers clear evidence that juxtaposing ancient and modern discourses to explore their convergences and divergences harbours the promise of rich explorations of ancient texts.

Origen of Alexandria

This essay seeks to contribute to this effort by considering Origen of Alexandria’s statements about ‘other’ ethnicities. It contends that Origen, one of the most important Christian thinkers of the first three centuries ce, assumes a number of positions in his writings that are notably similar to and compatible with later racist discourses. I do not wish to suggest that these are perfect parallels or that here is a direct, let alone linear or causal, relationship between Origen’s claims and post-Darwinian racist discourses. Nor do I claim unicity or exclusivity for Origen vis-à-vis other late antique authors.¹⁸ Moreover, it is important to note that Origen did not set out to argue or defend the inferiority of certain ethnicities; the positions he defends that bear similarity to later racist notions are unintended side effects of ideas he developed in response to unrelated concerns. Nonetheless, the claims that Origen makes are significant for understanding the history and development of racist thinking within the Christian matrix. Christianity is sometimes viewed as anti-racist in essence and/or origin, and ethnic prejudice and racism in Christian contexts are accordingly cast as relatively late ‘infections’ of a previously innocent tradition.¹⁹ Origen’s claims about ‘other’ ethnicities complicate this assessment and show that theories of ethnic inferiority have a long history in the context of Christian thought.

This essay’s argument accordingly moves in a very different direction from earlier assessments of Origen that portrayed him as a champion of ‘the equality of men’,²⁰ or even as a figure engaged in the ‘refutation of racism’.²¹ Such assessments are difficult to reconcile with some of Origen’s statements about Ethiopians and Egyptians,²² but what I am particularly interested in here are moments where Origen offers an argument or line of reasoning in support of a position that bears similarity to modern racist thinking, as opposed to instances where he simply says something disparaging about a given ethnic group. I argue that a number of such moments can be detected in Origen’s work. Specifically, Origen formulates arguments in support of the following four claims:

1. There are superior and inferior peoples in the world.

2. Individuals who belong to an inferior people are in this position as a result of their own sinfulness; they have fully merited their inferior status.

3. Some inferior peoples have objectively wicked customs. These were instituted as punishment for their sins.

4. Geographical location and ethnic inferiority are interrelated.

In what follows, I demonstrate how these four claims are supported in Origen’s work by means of a close reading of passages in First Principles and Against Celsus.

First Principles

A fundamental aspect of Origen’s theology,²³ and one that he mentions especially frequently in First Principles (c.229 ce²⁴), is that rational beings are assigned a place in the cosmos according to merit. The position of rational beings in the world is not the result of blind fate but is based on their conduct in a previous stage of existence. In what follows, I will argue that Origen not only assumes, along with many of his contemporaries, that there are inferior and superior peoples in the world, but that he explains why individuals are assigned to inferior peoples by appealing to this merit-based argument. Individuals who belong to such ethnic groups have personally merited their unfortunate position (cf. claims 1 and 2 above).

Only in the Trinity, Origen explains, does goodness exist ‘essentially’ (substantialiter); in all other beings, goodness is ‘accidental’ (accidens) and therefore variable (Princ. 1.5.5, 1.6.2). Rational beings are, even before they are embodied as one of three genera (angels, humans, or demons), endowed with free will, so they can choose to behave in such a way that there is an abundance of goodness or so that little goodness remains. The determining factor is the degree to which rational beings continue to ‘participate in holiness and wisdom and in divinity itself’ (Princ. 1.6.2).²⁵ Those who were ‘negligent and careless about such participation . . . become—one more quickly, another more slowly, one to a greater extent, another to a lesser—the cause of their own lapse or fall’ (Princ. 1.6.2).²⁶ As a result, they end up in more or less desirable positions in the cosmos.²⁷ Those who have remained closest to the primordial state of complete unity with the divine became good, powerful supernatural forces (angels, ‘powers’, ‘principalities’, etc.). Those who ‘have been removed from their state of primal blessedness, yet not removed irremediably’ (Princ. 1.6.2), have been placed under the governance of these good supernatural agents. To this category belongs humanity, which, through the remedial efforts of these good forces, can still be redeemed.²⁸ Finally, those that fell away even further became ‘the devil and his angels and the other orders of wickedness’ (Princ. 1.6.3). Whether these can ‘in some future age be converted to goodness’ Origen here leaves up to the reader to decide, a position that would provide a great deal of ammunition to his detractors.²⁹

Within these three main categories (good powers, human beings, evil powers) there are subdivisions, which likewise correspond to the merit of each individual being. Origen explains that there is a hierarchy among the angels: ‘this or that kind of office was assigned to each in the order of archangels, while others deserved to be enrolled in the order of angels and to act under this or that archangel, or under that leader or ruler of his order’ (Princ. 1.8.1). As Origen does not grow tired of repeating, these arrangements were made not ‘accidentally nor indiscriminately, but by the most appropriate and righteous judgment of God and were disposed by merit’ (Princ. 1.8.1).

The reason for Origen’s stress on this point becomes clear shortly:

These functions . . . were conferred by God, the most just and impartial ruler of all things, according to the merits and virtues and according to the activity and ability of each, lest we fall into the silly and impious myths of those who imagine a diversity of spiritual natures, both among the heavenly beings and also between human souls, and on this basis [imagine] that they were established by different creators . . . They say that it does not seem logical that one and the same creator, with there being no grounds for merits, should confer upon some the power of domination and subject others to domination, that he should bestow principalities on some and make others subject to principalities. (Princ. 1.8.1–2)

Origen’s theory that diversity in the world is based on the merit of each individual rational being avoids the problem that God would seem unjust because he gave some intellects better or worse stations than others for no good reason. Moreover, it removes the need to posit multiple creators, each of whom created a different kind of rational being. As we will see shortly, Origen refers to these rival theories elsewhere as well, and a plausible case has been made that the views of his opponents were the primary impetus for Origen’s protology.³⁰

God has not randomly treated some beings better than others, Origen argues, but he has treated all impartially on the basis of their own prior conduct. He makes this point once more in Princ. 1.8.4, where he cites Rom. 2:11 in support: ‘There is no respect of persons with God.’ For Origen, God’s impartiality means not that everyone is equal at present, but rather that all started out as equals, were treated in the same way, and were given ‘everything in accordance with the merit and progress of each’ (Princ. 1.8.4). That rational beings are at present in unequal positions is the point of departure of Origen’s argument; it is this perceived inequality that he sets out to explain and justify.

Origen returns to the question of the diversity in creation in Princ. 2.9. Crucially important for our purposes, at this point he explains that among the beings that ‘are called earthly’ (cf. 1 Cor. 15:40), that is ‘among human beings, there is no small difference; for some of them are barbarians, others Greeks, and of the barbarians some are wilder and fierce, and others are more gentle’. He goes on: ‘Some of them use laws that are most highly approved, others more common and severe, and yet others have inhuman and savage customs rather than laws’ (2.9.3). Thus, Origen believes that there are major differences between ethnic groups. and these differences are not morally neutral. His entire argument assumes a ranking between different positions. Among angels, some merited a position as archangels, whereas ‘others deserved . . . to act under this or that archangel’. Similarly, among human beings, some have merited to be Greeks, whereas others deserved to become barbarians. and among the latter, further distinctions of inferior and superior can be made: ‘some are wilder and fierce, and others are more gentle. Some of them use laws that are most highly approved, others more common and severe, and yet others have inhuman and savage customs rather than laws’. There is a clear ranking among the barbarians, and those who belong to the most inferior group are shading into the territory of the subhuman with their ‘inhuman and savage [or ‘beastly’] customs’ (inhumanis et ferinis moribus).³¹ To which group a rational being is assigned is, of course, based on merit. Accordingly, Origen not only assumes that there are inferior and superior peoples, but also that all individual members of an inferior people have merited this fate.

It should be stressed that Origen ends up arguing this point somewhat incidentally. That is to say, he did not set out to defend the existence of superior and inferior ethnic groups or to argue that members of less civilized peoples were morally inferior to others. The impetus was rather the need to defend the view that ‘God is both good and just and most equitable’ (Princ. 2.9.5) against its critics. Origen specifies those critics in what follows as ‘those coming from the schools of Marcion, and Valentinus, and Basilides, who assert that the natures of souls are diverse’ (Princ. 2.9.5).³² They objected to the retrospectively orthodox understanding of God by asking ‘how is it consistent with the justice of God in creating the world that . . . he should make some of a higher degree and others of second or third or of many still inferior and worse degrees?’ It was they, according to Origen, who first introduced the question of inferior and superior peoples:

They object regarding those who dwell upon earth . . . that one person is born among the Hebrews, with whom he finds instruction in the divine Law, another among the Greeks, themselves also wise and a people of no small learning, and again another among the Ethiopians, who are accustomed to feed upon human flesh, others among the Scythians, with whom parricide is practiced as if by law, or among the Taurians, where strangers are sacrificed . . . If then, they say, this is not caused by a diversity in the natures of souls, that is, a soul of an evil nature is destined for an evil nation and a good one for a good nation (mala natura animae ad gentem malam destinetur, bona autem ad bonas), what alternative remains than that these things must be supposed to be the result of accidence and chance? (Princ. 2.9.5)

According to Origen, it was his opponents who introduced various ethnic groups into the discussion and divided them into ‘evil’ and ‘good’ nations (the Hebrews and the Greeks being examples of ‘good nations’, the Ethiopians, Scythians, and Taurians presumably exemplifying the ‘evil’ ones). Given how widespread ideas of ethnic inferiority and superiority were in the ancient world, there is little reason to doubt that Origen’s opponents accepted such notions, nor should it occasion much surprise that Origen does not dispute them. He shares his opponents’ understanding that there are superior and inferior, good and evil nations in the world. What Origen questions is their explanation of this state of affairs.³³Whereas they are said to have appealed to ‘a diversity in the natures of souls’, Origen argues that all rational beings were created equal and alike and that diversity only came about in a subsequent stage.

This is a fundamental point for Origen, because otherwise one must assume the existence of multiple creators or of injustice and variability on the part of the one Creator. As Origen states:

God, the Creator of the universe is good and righteous and almighty. When, in the beginning, he created those beings that he desired to create, that is rational beings, he had no other reason for creating them other than his own goodness. As, then, he himself, in whom was neither variation nor change nor inability, was the cause of all those things which were to be created, he created all whom he created equal and alike, since there was in himself no ground for variety and diversity. (Princ. 2.9.6)

Origen maintains that God only created good rational beings and that therefore all were ‘created equal and alike’. It would be a mistake, however, to think that this refers to the present world, because our current reality, including its ethnic diversity, came about after the primordial fall.³⁴As he reiterates in what follows, rational beings started out equal and alike, but this does not mean that they remained in that state:

But since these rational creatures . . . were endowed with the faculty of free will, this freedom of will either incited each one to progress by the imitation of God or drew him to defection through negligence. and this . . . is the cause of the diversity among rational creatures . . . God, to whom it forthwith seemed just to arrange his creatures according to merit, drew these diversities of intellects into the harmony of one world, that with these diverse vessels or souls or intellects he might adorn, as it were, one house, in which there ought to be ‘not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of clay, and, indeed, some unto honour and others unto dishonour’. (Princ. 2.9.6, quoting 2 Tim. 2:20)

There is diversity in creation—with respect to human beings: superior and inferior peoples, good and evil nations (Princ. 2.9.5)—as a result of the free choice made by each individual rational being.³⁵Those who chose to withdraw from goodness into wickedness became ‘vessels . . . unto dishonour’ (2 Tim. 2:20, cf. Rom. 9:21). God was not unjust in giving them such a lowly position; this is what they deserved. God created all ‘equal and alike’, but some developed into vessels of honour, and others into vessels of dishonour. As we will see momentarily, Origen connects this figurative speech directly with ethnic identities later on in First Principles.

Origen develops his argument about the vessels of honour and dishonour, and their own personal responsibility for their relative position, in Book 3 of First Principles on the basis of the next verse in 2 Timothy: ‘If anyone purges himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and useful to the master, prepared for every good work’ (2 Tim. 2:21, quoted in Princ. 3.1.21). In Origen’s view, this verse indicates that the ‘vessel’ is itself ultimately responsible for its fate:

The Creator makes ‘vessels of honour’ and ‘vessels of dishonour’, not from the beginning, according to his foreknowledge, since he does not, according to it, condemn or justify beforehand; but [he makes] ‘vessels of honour’ those who purged themselves and ‘vessels of dishonour’ those who negligently remain unpurged; so that it is from causes older than the fashioning of ‘vessels unto honour and unto dishonour’ that one came to be ‘unto honour’ and another ‘unto dishonour’ (Princ. 3.1.21).³⁶

According to Origen, 2 Tim. 2:21 not only implies that the vessel itself determines whether it will be ‘unto honour’ or ‘unto dishonour’ but also that a vessel that has become ‘unto honour’ can later be changed into a vessel ‘unto dishonour’ and vice versa. How this works on the level of rational creation, Origen explains:

It is . . . possible for one who, from certain former righteous deeds, has become now a ‘vessel of honour’, but has not been doing similar things nor such as befits a ‘vessel of honour’, to become in another age a ‘vessel of dishonour’; as, on the other hand, it is possible for one who, on account of things older than this life, became here a ‘vessel of dishonour’, to become, when corrected in ‘the new creation’ (Gal. 6:15), ‘a vessel of honour, sanctified and useful to the master, prepared for every good work’. (Princ. 3.1.23)

Origen reckons with multiple ‘ages’ (αἰῶνες/saecula), and in those different ages the station in life of any given rational being will be based on its actions in the previous age.³⁷Rational beings can accordingly move up or down the honour scale.

Origen then directly connects this language of honourable and dishonourable vessels with different ethnic groups:

and perhaps those who are now Israelites, not having lived worthily of their nobility (εὐγένεια), will be cast out from their race (γένος), being changed from ‘vessels of honour’ into a ‘vessel of dishonour’; while many of the present Egyptians and Idumaeans who have come near to Israel, when they shall have borne more fruit, ‘shall enter into the Church of the Lord’, no longer being accounted Egyptians and Idumaeans, but becoming Israelites, so that, according to this view, through their [diverse] purposes some advance from worse things to better ones (ἐκ χειρόνων εἰς κρείττονα προκόπτειν), while others fall from better things to worse ones; some again are preserved in good things (ἐν τοῖς καλοῖς τηρεῖσθαι) or ascend from good things to better ones, while others remain in wicked things (τοῖς κακοῖς παραμένειν), or, as their wickedness flows on, from wicked become worse. (Princ. 3.1.23)

As in Princ. 2.9, a clear hierarchy is assumed: the Israelites are ‘vessels of honour’, whereas the Egyptians and Idumeans are ‘vessels of dishonour’. The former constitutes a ‘race’ (γένος) marked by ‘nobility of birth’ (εὐγένεια), the latter do not. The Israelites exemplify what is ‘better’, the others what is ‘worse’ and ‘wicked’.

Origen alludes in this paragraph to LXX Deut. 23:7–9: ‘You shall not abhor an Idumean, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a resident alien in his land. If sons are born to them in the third generation, they shall enter into the assembly of the Lord.’³⁸ The passage is useful for Origen because it indicates that Idumeans and Egyptians can, over time, become part of the Israelite community. Origen reads ἐκκλησία κυρίου not as a reference to the historical Israelite assembly, but as a reference to the Christian ‘church of the Lord’. It is by becoming part of the church that these ‘vessels of dishonour’ can be redeemed.

In Origen’s system there is, then, clearly the possibility and even expectation of change and rehabilitation. He believes that all human beings, regardless of station in life or ethnic identity, have the capacity to improve.³⁹ Origen famously took this considerably further than other Christian thinkers by suggesting that ultimately all rational beings will return to unity with God. Yet ‘entering the church’ is the only truly meaningful way towards improvement for Origen. Like other Christian authors, he allows for the possibility of change, but only through faith in Christ. In practice, this suggests that those members of ‘inferior’ peoples like the Ethiopians, Scythians, and Taurians, who have become part of the Christian community, who have ‘entered the Church of the Lord’, are on the way to rehabilitation, but that all other members of those peoples remain in the sin that led to their unenviable ethnic status in the first place, at least for now, in the present αἰών.

The possibility of change is again inflected ethnically in a complicated passage in Princ. 4.3.10:

For perhaps, just as those who, departing from this world by that common death, are arranged according to their actions and merits, as they have been deemed worthy, some in the place which is called the ‘lower regions’, others in the bosom of Abraham, and throughout various places and stages, so also from those places, as if dying there, if one may so speak, they descend from the upper regions to this lower one. For that lower region, to which the souls of those who die here are led away, is, I believe, on account of this distinction, called the ‘lower Hades’ by Scripture, as it says in the Psalms, ‘You have delivered my soul from the lower Hades’. Everyone, therefore, of those who descend to earth is arranged, in accordance with his merits or with the position that he had had there, to be born in this world in a particular place or nation or walk of life or infirmity, or to be begotten from parents who are religious, or not, so that it may sometimes happen that an Israelite descends among the Scythians and a poor Egyptian is brought down to Judaea.⁴⁰

Origen begins this passage by stating that those who die on earth will have a different fate in Hades, depending on their merit. The same happens, he suggests, in the case of those beings who descend from the upper regions of the celestial world to the earth (‘as if dying there’). Based on their merit in the upper world, their position on earth is determined. Some will have merited religious or devout (religiosus) parents, whereas others do not; some will have deserved infirmity, while others will be rewarded with good health, and so on. Part of this merit-based calculus is where and among which nation one is born. Some are born among the Scythians and others among the Israelites, in Judaea. The former is no doubt meant by Origen to denote a form of punishment, the latter a reward.⁴¹Because one’s position is merit-based, there is the possibility of change: it ‘may sometimes happen’ that someone who was an Israelite in the upper world becomes a Scythian on earth (i.e. descends to a lower station) or that someone who was a lowly Egyptian gets the honour of being born in Judaea.

The ‘Israelite’ who descends is not to be taken as a historical Israelite. A few paragraphs earlier, in Princ. 4.3.8, Origen distinguished between Israel according to the flesh and Israel according to the Spirit and explained that ‘Israel consists in a race of souls’ (ψυχῶν γένος/genus animarum). There is a heavenly Israel, Origen claims, just as there is a heavenly Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 4:26). He further extends this spiritual geography by arguing that biblical prophecies about Babylon, Sidon, Tyre, and Egypt also refer to spiritual realities (Princ. 4.3.9; cf. Com. Matt. 14.13). It is in this spiritual sense that Origen uses the words ‘Israelite’ and ‘Egyptian’ when he speaks about those who descend to earth. These are beings who were in a very high and in a very low position, respectively, in the celestial realms, but whose stations are reversed upon their descent to earth.⁴²

It is far less clear that Origen is thinking about spiritual identities when he speaks of the place where they end up—the ‘Israelite’ among the Scythians and the ‘Egyptian’ in Judaea. There are several reasons for thinking that he is talking about Scythians and Judaea in a more literal, historical sense. First, Origen is evidently speaking of earthly realities when he refers to the Scythians and Judaea. This is where rational beings might end up after they ‘descend to earth’. There is a Jerusalem in heaven, but also a Jerusalem on earth, and Origen is speaking here about earthly, not about heavenly or spiritual realities. This is confirmed by the very concrete, this-worldly context in which Origen mentions the Scythians and Judaea. These are specific examples of the general statement made immediately before, that ‘everyone, therefore, of those who descend to earth is arranged . . . to be born in this world in a particular place or nation or walk of life or infirmity, or to be begotten from parents who are religious, or not’. There is no indication that any of this is meant symbolically or spiritually.

Second, the Scythians do not appear in the Hebrew Bible and are mentioned a handful of times in the LXX, and only in passing (Judg. 1:27; Judith 3:10; 2 Macc. 4:47; 12:29–30; 3 Macc. 7:5). Origen bases his claim that there are spiritual Babylonians, Sidonians, Tyrians, and Egyptians on his conviction that Scripture contains prophecies about these peoples that cannot be applied to them or their rulers in a historical sense (Princ. 4.3.9). The Scythians do not appear in prophetic texts and the few passages in the LXX in which they are mentioned en passant hardly encourage a spiritual reading, so it seems unlikely that Origen would use ‘Scythians’ in that manner. If he had wanted to refer to spiritual realities, it would have made more sense to say that a spiritual ‘Israelite’ could become a spiritual ‘Babylonian’ or ‘Egyptian’ upon his descent to the lower realm.

Third, as we have seen, the Scythians appeared before in a similar context (some people have good stations in life, others do not) and in that case Origen was certainly thinking of actual Scythians (Princ. 2.9.5). As in the present passage, being born among the Scythians was regarded in that passage as the just desert for a sinful rational intellect. Elsewhere, Origen also uses ‘Scythian’ in this literal sense (Cels. 1.1, 5.27, 5.41, 6.39).⁴³

In summation, at various points in First Principles, Origen argues that ethnic identity is based on merit. Those who acted well in an antecedent stage of existence were rewarded by being born among the Israelites or Greeks, while those who did not ended up among such barbarian peoples as the Scythians, Ethiopians, and Taurians. Origen accordingly not only subscribes to the notion that there are superior and inferior peoples, but he also argues that those who belong to these inferior peoples have ended up in this lowly state as a result of their own moral failures (claims 1 and 2 in our listing). For Origen there is, nonetheless, the hope and even expectation of rehabilitation. Individuals can and ultimately presumably will change for the better in the long process towards recapturing the state of original unity with the divine (what has become known as the doctrine of apokatastasis).⁴⁴ During the in-between, however, in our present world(s), the degree of progress souls have made towards God is indexed by their ethnic identity. Those who are still far removed from the divine live among the barbarians, while those who have moved closer to God, or were never all that far removed from God to begin with, are Israelites or Greeks.

Against Celsus

Origen reiterates much of this line of argument in his later treatise Against Celsus (c.249 ce).⁴⁵ This is worth noting, because it suggests a certain level of consistency in Origen’s statements on this point over the span of some twenty years and across different genres and rhetorical contexts. Yet, due to the different questions Origen seeks to address in Against Celsus, he also develops a number of new arguments in connection to ethnic identities. In First Principles, the key problem Origen had faced was the diversity in the world: why is the fate of some beings better than that of others? In the passages from Against Celsus to be discussed below, the central question to which Origen responds is: why do different customs and different laws obtain among different peoples?

This question comes up because Origen’s opponent Celsus had criticized the Christians, among many other things, for abandoning their ancestral customs (Cels. 5.25; cf. 5.35, 41). Celsus argued that regardless of what exactly those ancestral customs are, one should stay true to one’s cultural and religious heritage. Celsus was, in modern terms, a cultural relativist (or at least, that is the position he assumes in the present section).⁴⁶ He argues that different cultures have different norms, laws, and conventions ‘not only because it came into the head of different people to think differently and because it is necessary to preserve the established social conventions, but also because it is probable that from the beginning the different parts of the earth were allotted to different overseers (ἐπόπται), and are governed in this way by having been divided between certain authorities (ἐπικρατείαι)’ (Cels. 5.25).⁴⁷ Because every ethnic group has laws that accord with the ‘overseers’ and have long ago been established, they must be upheld: ‘in fact, the practices done by each [nation] are right when they are done in the way that pleases the overseers; and it is impious to abandon the customs which have existed in each locality from the beginning’ (Cels. 5.25).

Origen agrees with Celsus that different peoples have different laws because ‘it came into the head of different people to think differently’ and because different powers rule the various nations. But he vehemently opposes Celsus’ view that whatever is done in agreement with established customs and the will of the overseers is right. Origen finds the cultural and moral relativism implied by this notion unacceptable. He begins his response by arguing that there must be some higher power behind these overseers who allotted them their regions in the first place, which would mean that there is ultimately only one authority that determines right and wrong (Cels. 5.26). He then quickly moves to another line of attack by appealing to the common-sense argument that certain behaviours are simply despicable. He offers a range of traditional examples:⁴⁸

Let him [Celsus] also inform us how the practices that are done by each nation are right when they are done in the way that pleases the overseers, and whether for example the Scythians’ laws are right which allow parricide, or the Persians’ laws which do not prohibit mothers from being married to their own sons or fathers or their own daughters . . . and how is it impious to break laws such as those for example among the Taurians, where strangers are offered as victims to Artemis, or among some Libyans, where they sacrifice children to Kronos? (Cels. 5.27)

Origen argues that some traditional practices and acts prescribed by local laws are self-evidently unacceptable and indefensible. Moreover, he goes on to suggest, it is deeply problematic that according to Celsus’ logic some things are considered good in one culture but wrong in another. If this is the case, ‘the same person will be making things to be pious by the standard of one set of laws and impious by another, which is the most monstrous thing of all’ (Cels. 5.27). In addition, if one follows Celsus’ argument that what is good and bad is ultimately arbitrary, does it not also follow that virtues such as self-control, courage, intelligence, and knowledge are relative rather than inherently good? ‘Nothing could be more absurd than this’, Origen concludes (Cels. 5.28).

These thrusts against Celsus’ argument are sufficient, Origen believes, to fatally wound it: ‘What has been said is enough as a simple and ordinary argument against the remarks of Celsus which we have quoted’ (Cels. 5.28). But Origen would still like to venture a bit deeper into this territory: ‘Let us take the risk and give an account of a few of the more profound truths which have a mystical and secret conception of the way in which different regions of the earth were divided from the beginning among different overseers’ (Cels. 5.28). While Origen thus introduces what follows as something of a bonus section for the discerning reader, a more profound response to Celsus’ point is in fact required, because if it is true, as Origen maintains, that right and wrong are divinely ordained and hence absolute categories, how is it possible that there are entire peoples, like the Scythians and the Persians, who conduct themselves in ways that all reasonable people can agree are shameful and impious?

In order to answer this question, Origen first explains how and why humanity was divided into different ethnic groups. Two biblical passages are crucially important for him in this connection. The first is LXX Deut. 32:8–9: ‘When the Most High was apportioning nations, as he scattered Adam’s sons, he fixed boundaries of nations (ὅρια ἐθνῶν) according to the number of angels of God (ἀγγέλων θεοῦ⁴⁹) and his people Iakob became the Lord’s portion, Israel a measured part of his inheritance.’ The passage offers crucial proof for Origen that each ethnic group has its own angel (cf. Celsus’ statements quoted above about the ‘overseers’).⁵⁰

The second biblical passage on which Origen draws is Gen. 11:1–9, the story of the Tower of Babel.⁵¹ With an allusion to 2 Cor. 10:5, Origen characterizes the tower and city as ‘high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God’ (τὰ ὑπεραιρόμενα ὑψώματα κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως τοῦ θεοῦ) and that therefore invited divine punishment (Cels. 5.30). Reading the two texts in conjunction, Origen argues that each ἔθνος received its particular angel at the moment that God scattered the people to punish them for their sins in building the city and tower of Babel.⁵²

Humanity was scattered from ‘one race’ (γένος ἕν [LXX Gen. 11:6, Cels. 5.29]) into many different groups, Origen goes on to argue, because not all humans contributed to the building of the tower (and hence, sinned against God) to the same degree:

and each one is handed over to angels who are more or less stern and whose character varies in proportion to the distance that they moved from the east (cf. Gen. 11:2), whether they had travelled far or a little way, and in proportion to the amount of bricks made into stones and of clay into asphalt and to the size of the building made out of them. Under them they remain until they have paid the penalty for their boldness. (Cels. 5.30)

People were grouped together and handed over to a specific angel based on the extent to which they contributed to the tower and city of Babel, i.e. based on the degree to which they sinned against God. The variety of ethnic groups is therefore directly correlated with the various degrees of sinful conduct.⁵³

The argument then takes another, important turn by introducing geography into the equation. The location in which individual ethnic groups are placed is also based on merit:

Each one is led by angels . . . to the parts of the earth which they deserve. Some are led to parched land, for example; others to country which afflicts the inhabitants by being cold; and some to land that is difficult to cultivate; others to land that is less hard; and some to country full of wild beasts, and others to country that has them to a lesser degree. (Cels. 5.30)

Here we once see again the importance of merit in Origen’s thinking. People did not randomly end up in climates that rendered life difficult, they deserved to live under these harsh circumstances. It follows that one can derive the relative degree of sinfulness of at least some peoples from their geographical location. Peoples like the Scythians, who lived in the far north, in ‘country which afflicts the inhabitants by being cold’ are particularly sinful according to Origen’s logic, and this is also the case for people like the Ethiopians, who lived in the far south, in ‘parched land’.⁵⁴

Origen was by no means the first to map ethnic inferiority and superiority spatially. It was widely thought that the perfect climate in the centre of the world (i.e. Greece and Rome), where it is neither too cold nor too hot, produced the perfect people (Greeks and Romans). Correspondingly, the excess of cold and heat in the north and south respectively produced people who were excessive in certain respects and defective in others (peoples like the Scythians and Ethiopians).⁵⁵Origen adds a new dimension to this traditional view by arguing that moral failure preceded their being placed in these difficult climates. It is not just that their ‘national character’, with all its shortcomings, was shaped by their particular environment, but, according to Origen, these peoples ended up in these environments because of their shortcomings.

Origen’s understanding of certain ethnic groups as collectives of sinners also helps explain why some of them have offensive customs and laws, despite the fact that the behaviour these laws and customs call for is objectively wicked. It stands to reason that a people made up entirely out of sinners of the worst kind would think it a good idea to devise and follow such customs. Why did it ‘come into the head of different people to think differently’, as Celsus put it (Cels. 5.25)? Because some ethnic groups were made up of deeply sinful people, whereas others had only sinned moderately, Origen suggests.

There is another reason for this behaviour as well. The superintending angels allow or even encourage it, according to Origen, because the peoples were given into their charge ‘for the purpose of punishment’, as he reiterates multiple times (Cels. 5.31, 5.32).⁵⁶ These beings punish the nations not only by placing them in harsh climates, but also by allowing them to indulge in sinful behaviour. The ultimate goal in doing so is remedial. Origen explains that the sinners ‘were given over “to a reprobate mind” and “to passions of dishonour” and “to impurity in the lusts of their hearts”, in order that being sated with sin they might hate it’ (Cels. 5.32, alluding to Paul’s indictment in Rom. 1:24–8). Origen elucidates the logic behind this more fully in Prayer 29.14, where he comments on the story of the meat that God gives in response to the Israelites’ complaining. Origen offers the following commentary on Num. 11:18 (‘[You shall eat it] for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you’):

But the merciful and good God, in granting their desire, did not wish to grant it in such a way that their desire might continue in them . . . Since he willed that they should be surfeited with it, he utters what, to anyone who understands, is actually a threat, though it seemed gratifying to them: ‘. . . you shall spend a whole month eating meat, until that which you thought so good is coming out of your nostrils, together with your loathsome passion, and your culpable and base desire. In this way will I release you from desires in your lives, so that when you emerge you may be pure from all desires, and remember the suffering that you underwent in order to be released from it.’⁵⁷

Following this logic, people like the Scythians are allowed and even encouraged to engage in immoral behaviour so that they will eventually become sick of it and turn to a better way of life. This is God’s ultimate goal, Origen argues. God has the power ‘to take chosen men from the portions of all the others, and to deliver them from the beings who had received them for the purpose of punishment, and to bring them to laws and to a life which helps them to forget the sins that they previously committed’ (Cels. 5.32).

Origen does not envisage that the Scythians, to remain with that example, will improve themselves as a people, but rather that individual Scythians (‘chosen men’) will be moved over from the ‘portion’ of the ruler of the Scythians to God’s own ‘portion’.⁵⁸ Origen is presumably thinking here of the church, which is made up of those who remained faithful among God’s original ‘portion’, i.e. Israel (cf. Deut. 32:9), supplemented with those among the Gentiles who turned to a better life and were therefore released from their original rulers.⁵⁹ The upshot of this passage is that with the exception of the Christians among them, certain peoples are entirely made up of sinners. How sinful these peoples are can be determined on the basis of the wickedness of their laws and customs, as well as on the basis of their geographical location (claims 3 and 4 in our listing).

Conclusion

This essay has identified a number of points of overlap between modern racist notions and claims in Origen’s extant oeuvre about a variety of ethnic groups. This is not to deny that certain divergences can also be readily identified. There are, for instance, only few instances where Origen prioritized phenotypical markers in dividing groups of human beings.⁶⁰ This certainly constitutes a difference vis-à-vis some forms of modern racism, but as noted in the introduction, substantial recent scholarship argues that a focus on phenotypical markers is not a necessary or sufficient condition for racism.

Perhaps a more unambiguous difference, then, is that Origen argued that members of allegedly inferior peoples ended up in this position because of prior conduct. This is an argument quite different from the logic underlying modern racist theories: for Origen, the conduct of individuals is not entirely determined by their ethnic identity, but their ethnic identity is rather determined by their conduct in an antecedent stage of existence. Origen’s model accordingly retains room for individual freedom of will in the present and allows for the possibility of positive change, albeit only or at least primarily through faith in Christ.⁶¹ Given this possibility of change, Origen’s views do not comfortably fit Isaac’s definition of racism, which requires that certain traits are thought to be ‘constant and unalterable by human will’.⁶² Yet if we accept Ann Stoler’s influential argument that ‘the force of racial discourse is precisely in the double-vision it allows, in the fact that it combines notions of fixity and fluidity in ways that are basic to its dynamic’,⁶³ it is less clear that Origen’s claims differ very much from modern racist notions on this point. Origen combines essentialism (only certain people became, e.g., Scythians and they accordingly have something fundamental in common) and fluidity (everyone can and therefore should improve) in ways that map quite closely onto Stoler’s ‘double-vision’ understanding of race and racism. It is important to note, moreover, that while Origen evidently believes in the rehabilitation of individuals, he does not ascribe this possibility to ‘inferior’ peoples like the Scythians and Egyptians.⁶⁴ These ἔθνη are inherently inferior, but individual members can improve themselves so that in a future age they no longer belong to such peoples (see Princ. 4.3.10).⁶⁵

Origen evidently shares with modern racist discourses (as well as with a great many others in the ancient world) the conviction that peoples qualify as ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’. In addition, it is clear that for him ethnic identity and individual status are closely linked. Those who belong to inferior ethnic groups are far removed from the divine (with the exception of those among them who are newly come to faith), whereas those who are closer to the divine have merited their status as members of superior ethnic groups. Indeed, there are many different ethnic groups in the world, Origen argues, because human beings were grouped together based on their relative degree of distantiation from God. This also explains why different ethnic groups developed different customs, and why particularly inferior peoples like the Scythians engaged in conduct that is objectively wicked; they are collectives of extraordinary sinners.

Another key point of overlap is that for Origen, ethnic status is interrelated with geographical location; those who live in undesirable locations like the hot south (traditionally associated with the Ethiopians) or the cold north (often associated with the Scythians) ended up there as a result of divine punishment. It follows that, at least in some cases, one can draw conclusions about the relative worth and status of ethnic groups and their individual members based on their geographical location.

While Origen nowhere advocates the unequal treatment of particular ethnic groups (although he does suggest that the Egyptians are particularly fitted for slavery),⁶⁶ it is easy to see how this reasoning could have very real effects for the treatment and perception of members of allegedly inferior peoples.⁶⁷ This remains the case also if some of the passages that have been interpreted above as referring to actual ethnic groups are understood in a metaphorical sense. Metaphors have the power to shape perceptions and influence actions, so even if it is only a ‘metaphorical Scythian’ who is consistently denigrated, such rhetoric is not thereby rendered innocent.⁶⁸

In the light of all this it is untenable to regard Origen as repudiating racism or as championing the equality of human beings, as some previous scholarship has done. While Origen does insist that God created all rational beings ‘equal and alike’, he applies this only to their original creation, not to the state in which these beings ended up after the primordial fall. Because some intellects departed from God to a much more significant degree than others, they ended up in unequal positions on earth. Biblical passages that refer to God’s impartial treatment of all human beings (e.g. Rom. 2:11, Acts 10:34–5) are accordingly interpreted by Origen as referring primarily to God’s creation of the rational intellects under the same conditions and to God’s extending of grace and therefore the possibility of redemption and restoration to all rational beings. God’s impartiality does not mean that all human beings are currently on the same level. Some were rewarded by birth among a superior people like the Greeks, while others merited inclusion among an inferior ethnic group such as the Scythians.

In conclusion, then, I suggest that on a number of key points precursors to modern racist discourses can be identified in the work of Origen. I should stress again that Origen did not set out to provide an argument in defence of the inequality of ethnic groups; he made these claims in the service of other rhetorical goals. Moreover, as noted earlier, I do not wish to claim that Origen was unique in making such claims. I have offered a close reading of select passages in Origen’s work as a case study to explore the extent to which parallels to modern racist ideas can be identified in early Christian literature. His oeuvre offers clear evidence that theories of ethnic inferiority have a long history within the Christian theological matrix, and accordingly deserves the attention of anyone interested in the historical development of racist discourses.⁶⁹

I would like to thank Paula Fredriksen, Fred Ledegang, Peter Martens, Margaret Mitchell, and Riemer Roukema for trying their best to save me from my worst mistakes. This article has been much improved thanks to their comments and criticisms; they bear none of the blame for the problems that remain.

Footnotes