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.
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