{"id":45276,"date":"2023-08-09T17:03:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T16:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=45276"},"modified":"2023-08-09T17:03:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T16:03:39","slug":"did-origen-use-the-term-theotokos-for-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2023\/08\/09\/did-origen-use-the-term-theotokos-for-mary\/","title":{"rendered":"Theotokos: Did Origen use the term “Theotokos” for Mary?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many websites online that suggest that Origen used the word “theotokos”, “Mother of God”, to refer to Mary the mother of Jesus.\u00a0 Often the same references float around, or none are\u00a0 given.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

One lengthy example of the genre by E. Artemi may be found here<\/a>. This is valuable because it does include some sort of references for the claims to ancient sources.[ref]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.\u00a0 Online here<\/a>. \u00a0The “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.”[\/ref]<\/p>\n

The primary authority for the claim that Origen used the term “theotokos” is not in fact Origen himself.\u00a0 The works of Origen are poorly preserved anyway.\u00a0 Instead we have a passage in the 5th century writer Socrates.\u00a0 In his Historia Ecclesiastica<\/em> book 7, chapter 32, we read as follows (NPNF translation online here<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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Origen also in the first volume of his\u00a0Commentaries<\/i>\u00a0on the apostle’s epistle to the Romans,108<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0gives an ample exposition of the sense in which the term\u00a0Theotocos<\/i>\u00a0is used.<\/p>\n

108. Cf. Origen,\u00a0Com. in Rom.<\/i>\u00a0I. 1. 5.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This sounds good.\u00a0 Origen’s Commentary on Romans <\/em>(CPG 1457) is extant, but poorly preserved.\u00a0 The majority of it is in the ancient Latin translation of Rufinus.\u00a0 There are also extracts of the Greek text, and a chunk that was found in a papyrus at Tura in 1941.\u00a0 \u00a0But if we go to the text as we have it, we find no such use of the term.\u00a0 In the Fathers of the Church <\/em>103 translation, p.17, we find the plain statement by the editor in n.73:<\/p>\n

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The quotation is from Book 1 of the Commentary but does not correspond to Rufinus\u2019s translation. Socrates is discussing the Nestorian controversy and claims that Origen had used the title theotokos, \u201cmother of God\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed book 1, chapter 1, has nothing at all about Mary.\u00a0\u00a0Likewise if we look at the\u00a0Sources Chr\u00e9tiennes<\/em> 532 edition, and examine book 1, chapter 1, section 5, there is nothing about Mary.<\/p>\n

Yet the Artemi article states:<\/p>\n

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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<\/p>\n

8. Origen of Alexandria, Commentary in Romans, I, 1. 5. See Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastic History, 7, 32, 2.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The reference given derives, no doubt, from the NPNF translation.\u00a0 The same reference is often given.\u00a0 But plainly it is false.<\/p>\n

But Artemi is not done.\u00a0 She then goes on to offer another reference, in a different work.<\/p>\n

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Origen underlines that the name Mariam is the name of Mary, who will be called Theotokos.6<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Origen of Alexandria, Homily on Luke<\/em>, fragment 26,1, 41,1, 33, 2<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This looks like it refers to three fragments rather than one.\u00a0 The reference seems to be to\u00a0CPG 1452, the\u00a0Commentarii in Lucam<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

The CPG helpfully adds that “Fragment 26” is Eusebius, PG23:1341D-1344A.\u00a0 PG 23 is Eusebius’\u00a0Commentary on the Psalms<\/em>.\u00a0 Here is the passage, in the commentary on Ps. 109, with the modern Latin parallel translation:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no mention of Origen in this.\u00a0 Indeed whether this material is even by Eusebius may be questioned, for it is assembled out of catena fragments by a pre-modern editor.\u00a0 Only the material on Ps.51-100 is certainly Eusebian.<\/p>\n

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Aliquo autem narrante novi, Hebraicam vocem hic Mariam meminisse: nam illud, “Mariam”, Mariae nomen significat; ita ut his nominatim Deipara commemoretur.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The last clause, referring to Theotokos, does seem a bit tacked on, subjectively.<\/p>\n

The CPG tells us that Rauer in his GCS 49 edition of Origenes Werke IX <\/em>(2nd ed., 1959), p.227-336, collected the fragments. Unfortunately I have no access to this.<\/p>\n

But I did have access to the first edition (1930).\u00a0 This was mainly concerned with the homilies – not the commentary – on Luke, preserved in an ancient Latin translation by St Jerome.\u00a0 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\u00a0 before, here assigned to Homily<\/em> 6 (!); and p.50, line 9, where a chunk of Greek in homily 7 again does include the word.\u00a0 In neither case does the passage appear in the parallel ancient translation by Jerome.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In both cases they have continued the catena extract beyond the end of the Latin version, because it may belong.<\/p>\n

The edition is very hard to follow: what bit comes from what source?\u00a0 I hope the second edition is better, but as I say, I don’t have access to it.<\/p>\n

What do we make of this?\u00a0 Well, very little.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The authorship of every one is doubtful, and it is often very unclear where the quote ends and another writer begins.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

To conclude, as far as I can see, there is no reliable evidence that Origen referred to Mary as the “Mother of God”.\u00a0 The references offered are either non-existent, or based on texts composed from the 5th century onwards.<\/p>\n

Update (21 Aug. 2023): Post title modified to link it to the other “Theotokos” posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many websites online that suggest that Origen used the word “theotokos”, “Mother of God”, to refer to Mary the mother of Jesus.\u00a0 Often the same references float around, or none are\u00a0 given.\u00a0 The term “theotokos” was a controversial one in the 5th century, and the determination of some people to use it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[265,1232,1651],"class_list":["post-45276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-bad-history","tag-origen","tag-theotokos"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}