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orion Origen
On the chance that someone may have an explanation:
Why does Origen--in his extant writings anyway--never mention Essenes or
Therapeutae?
Origen had read at least some of Philo and Josephus. The mentions
of Origen's Hexapla have renewed this question. While I have a differing
view than F. Cryer of the relationship of the Hexapla second column (which
gives Hebrew Bible vocalized transliterations in Greek letters) to the
etymological question, it was, of course, appropriate that he mentioned
(last October) the monographs by Einar Broenno (1943) and Gerard Jannssens
(1982). J.A. Emerton, "The Purpose of the Second Column of the Hexapla,"
JTS 7 (1956) 79-87, raised interesting questions, but I think we can now
exclude Emerton's suggestions that Origen may have learned Hebrew himself
sufficiently to have written that column. Studies such as Nicholas de
Lange, Origen and the Jews (Cambridge U.P., 1976 show Origen had some
conversations or correspondence (presumably in Greek) with some rabbis. And
he reluctantly wrote against the text of Celsus (who, I suggest, wrote in
Pergamum several decades earlier).
So, is it probably merely happenstance that we have no extant
comments of Origen on Essenes or Therapeutae, or can someone suggest why he
would differ so much on this from, say, Eusebius?
sincerely,
Stephen Goranson
goranson@duke.edu