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Euhemerism and Christology in Origen: Contra Celsum Iii 22-43

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Euhemerism and Christology in Origen: Contra Celsum Iii 22-43 EUHEMERISM AND CHRISTOLOGY IN ORIGEN: CONTRA CELSUM III 22-43 BY HARRY Y. GAMBLE In the attacks of early Christian apologists upon the polytheism of their pagan environment we repeatedly encounter the charge that the many gods of Graeco-Roman worship are in reality not gods at all but only men long-since deceased who, on account of their exploits and benefac- tions, were sanctified and rendered divine by the eager but misguided piety of the societies in which they had lived This polemical motif did not, of course, originate with Christian writers; like so much else, it was derived by them from Hellenistic philosophy where it had functioned as an aspect of the philosophical critique of popular religion. In the doxographic tradition the notion that the gods were but dead men is commonly attributed to Euhemerus of Messene, after whom it is designated "euhemerism".2 Euhemerus' "Sacred Chronicle" (iEpa &vu7PaY?), composed early in the third century B. C., survives only in fragmentary excerpts, but these suffice to show that it was a utopian romance in the form of a travel 1 The theme is prominent in Greek and Latin writers from the second through the fifth centuries. See, e. g., Theophilus, Ad Autol. 1, 9-20; 2, 2-8; Athenagoras, Leg. 28, 1-30,4; Clement Alex., Protr.2, 28-31; Eusebius, Prep. Evang.2,2; Athanasius, Contra gentes 9-10; Tertullian, Apol. 10,2-12, 1; Minucius Felix, Oct. 20, 5-21, 12; Lactan- tius, Inst. 1, 11-15; Augustine, C. D. 6, 7; 8, 26. 2 Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 23; Sextus Emp., Adv. Math.9, 17; 9, 51; Cicero, De nat. deor.1, 119, etc. On Euhemerus and his work see the useful surveys of F. Jacoby, Euemeros, RE 6, 952-972, K. Thraede, Euhemerismus, RAC 6, 877-890, as well as the monographs of G. Vallauri, Euhemero di Messene (Torino 1956), and F. van der Meer, Euhemerus van Messene (Amsterdam 1949). Pertinent remarks will also be found in M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen ReligionII, 269-274, T. Brown, Euhemerus and the Historians, HTR 39 (1946)259-274, and P. Decharme, La critique des traditions religieuseschez les grecs des origines au temps de Plutarque (Paris 1904)371-393. On the enduring significanceof euhemerism in the medieval period see J. D. Cooke, Euheme- rism: A Mediaeval Interpretation of Classical Paganism, Speculum 2 (1927) 396-410, and J. Seznec, The Survivalof the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (ET New York 1953). 13 narrative.3 Prominent in it was a historicizing interpretation of the mythic tradition which represented the Greek gods as mortal members of an archaic royal dynasty whose extraordinary achievements and services to civilization caused them to be reckoned divine by their subjects and beneficiaries. This "historical theogony" was not highly innovative. It presupposes some basic features of Greek piety, especially the worship of heroes - men who had lived and died and whose legends passed in antiquity for ancient history - and the view that the gods were not eternally existent but had come into being. The approach, moreover, falls well within the established tradition of the rational criticism of mythology, and owes a debt to sophistic theories in particular.4 At the same time, the "Sacred Chronicle" of Euhemerus, like the "Aegyptiaca" of his near contemporary Hecataeus of Abdera, is truly a product of its own age, revealing the impact of Alexander's achievements and of the Ptolemaic ideology of enlightened and beneficent kingship, which gave new and forceful substance to the notion of apotheosis for benefaction. 5 Combining 3 The fragments, preserved mainly in Diodorus (5, 41-46; 6, 1) and Lactantius (Inst. 1, 11-15, drawing on the Latin translation of Euhemerus by Ennius), are con- veniently accessible in Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischenHistoriker (rpr. Leiden 1957), I/A, 300-313, surpassing G. Nemethy, Euhemeri Reliquiae (1889). The Latin fragments of Ennius' edition are also given by E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, I (Loeb Class. Libr. 1935) 414-431. 4 The theory that some gods, at least, were deified benefactors seems to have originated with Prodicus, who is sometimes credited only with the idea that primitive man deified those impersonal forces of nature on which his life depended. That Prodicus maintained both views in a two-stage theory of religious evolution has been most recently and cogently argued by A. Hinrichs, Two Doxographical Notes: Democritus and Prodicus on Religion, HSCPhil 79 (1975) 93-123, esp. 107-123, on the basis of PHerc cols. ii-iii, despite the fact that in the doxographic tradition the deification of human benefactors is increasingly associated with Euhemerus alone. "Euhemerus represents only one point, though a notable one, along the line of a rationalizing interpretation of mythology which we can follow from Hecataeus of Miletus and Stesimbrotus onward. A similar line runs from the sophists to Euhemerus" (Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, 781). 5 There were, to be sure, instances of divine honors paid to benefactors prior to the time of Alexander (on which see M. P. Charlesworth, Observations on the Ruler Cult, Especially in Rome, HTR 28 [1935] 5-44), but the Alexandrian age gave new impetus to this form of adulation and, so far as theological reflection was concerned, tended to shift emphasis "from the divine ευρε�τςto the royal ευεργ�της(Hinrichs," art. cit., 110, n. 65). That some genuine religious sentiment was associated with the deification of rulers, at least in the early period, ought not be denied, a point rightly stressed by U. Wilcken, Zur Entstehung des hellenistischen Königskultes, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. 30 (1938) 298-321, esp. 304, and E. Schwartz, Hekatäos von Teos, RhMus, n. F. 40 (1885) 223-262, esp. 256ff., as well as by Charlesworth. For the many narrative and ideological affinitiesbetween Hecataeus and Euhemerus .
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