There are many websites online that suggest that Origen used the word “theotokos”, “Mother of God”, to refer to Mary the mother of Jesus. Often the same references float around, or none are given. The term “theotokos” was a controversial one in the 5th century, and the determination of some people to use it was responsible for the Nestorian dispute that came to a head in the Council of Ephesus in 433 AD.
One lengthy example of the genre by E. Artemi may be found here. This is valuable because it does include some sort of references for the claims to ancient sources.[1]
The primary authority for the claim that Origen used the term “theotokos” is not in fact Origen himself. The works of Origen are poorly preserved anyway. Instead we have a passage in the 5th century writer Socrates. In his Historia Ecclesiastica book 7, chapter 32, we read as follows (NPNF translation online here):
Origen also in the first volume of his Commentaries on the apostle’s epistle to the Romans,108 gives an ample exposition of the sense in which the term Theotocos is used.
108. Cf. Origen, Com. in Rom. I. 1. 5.
This sounds good. Origen’s Commentary on Romans (CPG 1457) is extant, but poorly preserved. The majority of it is in the ancient Latin translation of Rufinus. There are also extracts of the Greek text, and a chunk that was found in a papyrus at Tura in 1941. But if we go to the text as we have it, we find no such use of the term. In the Fathers of the Church 103 translation, p.17, we find the plain statement by the editor in n.73:
The quotation is from Book 1 of the Commentary but does not correspond to Rufinus’s translation. Socrates is discussing the Nestorian controversy and claims that Origen had used the title theotokos, “mother of God” with reference to Mary in his Commentary. To Socrates this was proof of two things: The tradition supported the controversial title for Mary and Nestorius was not very well read in ecclesiastical literature.
Indeed book 1, chapter 1, has nothing at all about Mary. Likewise if we look at the Sources Chrétiennes 532 edition, and examine book 1, chapter 1, section 5, there is nothing about Mary.
Yet the Artemi article states:
Origen also in the first volume of his Commentaries on the apostle’s epistle to the Romans, gives an ample exposition of the sense in which the term Theotokos is used.8
8. Origen of Alexandria, Commentary in Romans, I, 1. 5. See Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastic History, 7, 32, 2.
The reference given derives, no doubt, from the NPNF translation. The same reference is often given. But plainly it is false.
But Artemi is not done. She then goes on to offer another reference, in a different work.
Origen underlines that the name Mariam is the name of Mary, who will be called Theotokos.6
6. Origen of Alexandria, Homily on Luke, fragment 26,1, 41,1, 33, 2
This looks like it refers to three fragments rather than one. The reference seems to be to CPG 1452, the Commentarii in Lucam which is fragmentary, and the CPG says that the material may be found in found in the PG 13:1901-1909, and PG 17:312-369, with modern Latin translation.
The CPG helpfully adds that “Fragment 26” is Eusebius, PG23:1341D-1344A. PG 23 is Eusebius’ Commentary on the Psalms. Here is the passage, in the commentary on Ps. 109, with the modern Latin parallel translation:
There is no mention of Origen in this. Indeed whether this material is even by Eusebius may be questioned, for it is assembled out of catena fragments by a pre-modern editor. Only the material on Ps.51-100 is certainly Eusebian.
Aliquo autem narrante novi, Hebraicam vocem hic Mariam meminisse: nam illud, “Mariam”, Mariae nomen significat; ita ut his nominatim Deipara commemoretur.
But I know in saying this, that we must keep in mind the Hebrew word “Mariam”: for that “Mariam,” signifies the name of Mary; so that the Mother of God should be remembered in this by name.
The last clause, referring to Theotokos, does seem a bit tacked on, subjectively.
The CPG tells us that Rauer in his GCS 49 edition of Origenes Werke IX (2nd ed., 1959), p.227-336, collected the fragments. Unfortunately I have no access to this.
But I did have access to the first edition (1930). This was mainly concerned with the homilies – not the commentary – on Luke, preserved in an ancient Latin translation by St Jerome. So I looked up “theotokos” in the list of words on p.320, and it gave me two references; to page 44. line 10 – which turned out to be the very same passage as before, here assigned to Homily 6 (!); and p.50, line 9, where a chunk of Greek in homily 7 again does include the word. In neither case does the passage appear in the parallel ancient translation by Jerome. So it looks as if, for each homily, the editors have started by extracting Latin material from the manuscripts preserving Jerome’s translation, and then included whatever catena material parallelled it. In both cases they have continued the catena extract beyond the end of the Latin version, because it may belong.
The edition is very hard to follow: what bit comes from what source? I hope the second edition is better, but as I say, I don’t have access to it.
What do we make of this? Well, very little. This is the problem with catena fragments: they were extracted at a date not earlier than the 6th century, and adapted to fit into the “chains” of quotations. The authorship of every one is doubtful, and it is often very unclear where the quote ends and another writer begins. Also the catenas were edited at precisely the period when using the word “theotokos” was a mark of loyalty and failure to do so made a writer suspect.
To conclude, as far as I can see, there is no reliable evidence that Origen referred to Mary as the “Mother of God”. The references offered are either non-existent, or based on texts composed from the 5th century onwards.
Update (21 Aug. 2023): Post title modified to link it to the other “Theotokos” posts.
- [1]Eirini Artemi, “The Modulation of the Term THEOTOKOS from the Fathers of 2nd Century to Cyril of Alexandria”, International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research 2 (2014), 27-30. Online here. The “journal” looks like a fake journal to me, but we are not using this as an authority, but a witness to the claims being made.”↩
Hi Roger,
Socrates Scholasticus is a well informed author so his testimony should not be dismissed too lightly. He could have easily just misattributed the reference to the wrong work of Origen. He was leaving himself open to a lot of criticism if he was just lying.
The term ‘Theotokos’ easily predates the Council of Ephesus (431) by a century or more. Rylands Papyrus 470 might even take it back to the 3rd century.
http://theoblogoumena.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-rylands-papyrus-470.html
If I’m not mistaken St. Athanasius and St. Gregory the Theologian both used the term.
In 1994 the leaders of the Ancient Church of the East (the current reiteration of the Nestorians) were more than happy to sign an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church giving their approval to the term ‘Theotokos’ after all these centuries.
Regards
Stefano
“To conclude, as far as I can see, there is no reliable evidence that Origen referred to Mary as the “Mother of God”. The references offered are either non-existent, or based on texts composed from the 5th century onwards.”
Hrm… why do you not consider Socrates’ statement reliable? I wasn’t under the impression that Socrates was considered an unreliable source. Yes, it is from the 5th century, but there are various times when we accept information on lost works that only survive through references in later ones (such as, for example, all of the quotations Eusebius offers to us from works we no longer have). While Origen’s Romans commentary is not strictly “lost” because we do have a translation by Rufinus, Rufinus’s translation was an abridgment and it is entirely plausible that the applicable section was left out.
I’m sorry if I was unclear. Socrates is a perfectly decent historian.
The problem is that we have two pieces of data, which contradict:
1. Origen’s Commentary on the Romans, as it has reached us, does not contain the word Theotokos.
2. Socrates in the 5th century says that it does.
So one of them is wrong. That is what casts doubt on the statement of Socrates.
We can imagine problems with the text of Origen:
1. We don’t have the original Greek for a lot of it, which means that we are relying on the translation of Rufinus.
2. The translation is probably not word-for-word, so a single word, not relevant to the argument, might get lost. [Update: indeed the preface tells us that Rufinus was asked to omit half the text, to condense it.]
3. Rufinus was accused by St Jerome of omitting heretical material. Possibly this got edited out (although Theotokos was already in use by that date, ca. 400).
4. So we could easily infer that perhaps the text that has reached us is simply damaged. Maybe.
But we can also imagine problems with the statement of Socrates:
1. Socrates does not quote Origen. So we don’t actually know where Origen is supposed to say this, which makes checking the claim harder still.
2. The claim is made in a political context; it’s actually a vicious political jeer, not a piece of history. Socrates is not reporting history any more – he’s screaming an insult at Nestorius, as part of a vicious dispute in which a lot of people died.
3. The rancid politics of the East Roman Empire at this period involved every form of lying and deceit. No lie was too low, or too obviously false, to be said. Chrysostom was accused at the Synod of the Oak of cutting off the hand of a man; he produced the man who still had both hands! His successor Macedonius was accused of buggering choirboys, and eye-witnesses were produced; yet he was actually a eunuch, unknown to his accusers, and physically lacking the means, so the “eye-witnesses” were just paid liars. And so on.
4. Forgery and interpolation was common as a way to get the better of the hated foe. The Apollinarists forged any number of documents in the name of the fathers. This is the period when the letters of Ignatius of Antioch were interpolated.
5. People compiled dossiers of “quotations” from the fathers, and not all of these were quite honest.
6. So we could infer that Socrates had not seen the text himself, but was relying on one of these dodgy dossiers for his statements. Maybe.
Which is true? We cannot say. Both, maybe. Neither. The point is that there’s a problem, and it means we cannot rely on the statement of Socrates. We *would* rely on it if Origen was not preserved; but that is not the case.
The other obvious point is that the word Theotokos does not actually appear in any third-century text, as far as we know; unless we believe the statement of Socrates, in which case this would be the first. In my opinion that won’t do. It’s way more likely that someone tampered with the text, or there is some other mistake, in the 5th century, than that Socrates is right.
So I avoided judgement, and instead simply indicate that this isn’t the reliable evidence that it otherwise would be.
Rylands Papyrus 470 may actually come from the 5th-8th centuries
https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-GREEK-P-00470/1
Other evidence adduced for the early use of the Theotokos are in the writings of Dionysus of Alexandria (c. 260 A.D.), but the one letter (epistle to Paul of Samosata) in which he is said to use this term is spurious, see Eduard Schwartz, Eine fingierte Korrespondenz mit Paulus dem Samosatener (Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1927).
Pierius (300-310 A.D.) he said to use the term by Philip of Side, but we only have access to Phillip’s works through a convoluted manuscript tradition that is unreliable, and Philip himself also seems to have been unreliable.
Hence, the word Theotokos was rarely used if ever before the year 300. If in the future some stray reference comes to light, one would still have to discuss what was meant by the term. in all probability when it was first deployed it was simply used as an honorific title for Mary to designate that she gave birth to the God-man Jesus, and was not in any way meant to indicate that she was somehow sinless or the queen of heaven, or some such thing.
That’s what I’m reading too (Schwartz was one of the articles I got yesterday). I’ll write about all these people in time. I’d not heard of the Pierius – thank you.
It looks from the articles I’ve seen (although I can’t access Stegmüller) rather as if the early date for the Papyrus Rylands 470 was a freak dating by one Romanian chap, which nobody much liked at the time, and so the date has kept gradually moving later ever since. Trismegistos suggests the most recent writers think 8th century.
I think it is certainly important to distinguish between the term and the doctrines for which it became a badge, and just implicitly assume the two go together.
Interesting article here:
https://www.academia.edu/42654729/DIsis_%C3%A0_la_Theotokos_Quelques_r%C3%A9flexions
Thank you, very interesting Roger. Another crux of the debate over Theotokos is not whether one may use the term, but whether one may force others to use it even if their conscience is against it. It is of course one thing to use the term and another to make someone use it. However, not understanding this, the first anathema Cyril of Alexandria, promulgated by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD anathematized anyone who refused to use the term “Theotokos.”
To many in the ancient world and today, the term implies that Mary is superior to God and indeed many non-Christians, such as Muslims, also consider that the term makes Mary superior to God as well. Further, the apostle Paul pointedly mandates that we allow Christians to follow their conscience in matters that are not inherently moral or heretical — and clearly the early church got by just fine without the term Theotokos as did the apostles themselves, so why make all Christians, everywhere use the term even if they believe it communicates something blasphemous and also when their non-Christian neighbors believe it does too?
I fear that the answer is the corrupt politics of the time. Greek theological arguments are often a vehicle for politics in the medieval period. Creating a term and demanding all adopt it or else is a power play.
In our own unhappy day we have seen the wicked choose something as revolting to everyone as they can find and then force everyone to endorse it. It’s a way to force out the honest and demonise and marginalise them. It’s a way for a minority to seize power and disempower and humiliate everyone else.
Cyril and his friends managed to demonize half the empire. But… it brought them power.
In my humble opinion any term that causes a schism lasting 15 centuries is a very bad idea. I fear today we can understand the politics, far better than perhaps our predecessors.
Hi Roger (and Tom),
I would argue that you are both victims of Post-Reformation Maryphobia. You are reacting to the late Medieval excesses of Roman Catholicism.
I personally don’t see a difference between the Council of Nicaea using ‘Homousious’ and Ephesus using Theotokos. Is that “Creating a term and demanding all adopt it or else is a power play.” I can say the same thing for ‘physis’ for Chalcedon and loads of non-Biblical theological terms.
Cyril did not demonize half the empire. Within two years the Antiochians recognised the legitimacy of the term and signed the Formula of Union in 433. The Nestorians were the ones driven by the political agenda as the Persian kings did not want the Christians in the Persian Empire to be in communion with the Roman Christians.
As a lifelong Orthodox Christian I can say I have never met anyone who confuses the term Theotokos to make Mary superior to God. Even the Reformers had no problem with the term. Muslims accuse Christians of making Mary part of the trinity (from the mention in the Quran), which is more about their ignorance than reality.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, of course. I don’t like at all what happened in the disputes of the 5th century, and regardless of the theological truth, I hope we can agree that it was bad stuff, characteristic of the decaying empire. But what I want to do here is verify some raw facts of about 3rd century history, rather than to write polemic.
Hi Stefano
Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, many Protestants use the term Theotokos (Anglicans, Lutherans, etc.), and I think it is a fine term to use if one means that Mary gave birth to the God-man Jesus. But the difference between Theotokos and Homousious (and Physis) is that Theotokos can obviously imply to some people that Mary existed before God and is therefore superior to God as, by definition, all human mothers are when compared to their children. It’s okay if you differ on this matter, I think you are entitled to follow your conscience, I just don’t think one should be allowed to bind the consciences of others who disagree about such an ambiguous term.
In response to the above, the University of Manchester’s website mentioned above does state that some scholars have suggested a later date-range for Papyrus Greek P470. Nevertheless, what is not stated is that they still have its “date of creation” listed officially as 3rd-4th century CE. So, . . .
Thank you.