N.R.M De Lange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) 40.
The fullest discussion concerns the rules for the observance of the Sabbath. Pointing out the impossibility of observing literally the injunction in Exodus xvi.29, ‘Let no man go out from his place on the Sabbath day’, Origen adds, ‘Therefore those of the circumcision, and those who will admit nothing beyond the literal meaning…say that “every man’s place” means a distance of 2,000 cubits.’ This is a reference to the ‘erub, the Sabbath-limit, within which, with certain limitations, the life of a city could continue on the Sabbath.
De Lange’s reference for this is Origen’s Princ. IV.iii.2. On New Advent’s site, the reference is IV.17 (see here). Fans of my blog may know that I discuss this chapter in my post, Origen on the Literal Sense.
This quote interested me for two reasons:
1. According to De Lange, Origen often accuses the Jews of being “literal” in their interpretation of Scripture. This was also a common medieval claim about Jewish exegesis: it focused on the text’s fleshly, “literal” meaning rather than its inner “spiritual” meaning. This puzzled me because Jewish exegesis has more than the literal sense, which is referred to in Judaism as the “peshat” (though this word can have other meanings in rabbinic literature). Jews also sought to delve beneath the literal surface of the text through midrash.
Origen may have known this. I don’t know. One of De Lange’s arguments is that Origen was familiar with Jewish interpretations of Scripture, since he was able to interact with Jews. And De Lange points out that Origen isn’t always negative about Jewish exegesis. By “literal,” therefore, Origen probably meant a literal interpretation of the Torah, as opposed to a “spiritual” reading that saw Christ in the text. Indeed, mainstream Jews did try to observe the Torah literally, even if they read deeper meaning in the text.
One more point: Could Origen be misrepresenting Jewish exegesis? Maybe ”misrepresenting” is too strong a word, but De Lange does show that Origen could be pretty selective about the details he chose to mention on particular occasions, depending on his agenda at the time. For example, we know from some of his writings that he was aware of Hellenistic Jewish teachings about the “logos”: that it was a representative of God that created the cosmos and interacted with humanity. When Celsus says Jews believe this, however, Origen says that’s nonsense, for Jews only believe in one God, who cooperated with no one in the creation of the cosmos. In a sense, Origen is right, for rabbinic Judaism opposed the “two powers in heaven” concept. But Celsus is also right, in the sense that the logos was a popular idea in Hellenistic Judaism. Origen focuses on the rabbis to argue that Celsus doesn’t know what he’s talking about in the area of Judaism. People have tried this kind of bait-and-switch technique on me!
2. Origen’s overall argument is that a literal interpretation of Scripture is ridiculous in certain cases, and those are the times when readers should only go with the text’s deeper spiritual meaning. Why did God include seemingly ridiculous details in Scripture? For Origen, it’s so we will dig deeper.
I wonder about Origen’s view of the Old Testament law. Did he believe that Jews prior to the coming of Christ had to observe it literally? Or, like the author of the Epistle of Barnabas (late first-early second centuries C.E.), did he think that many Mosaic laws (e.g., food laws) at the outset were symbolic of something spiritual, but Jews misinterpreted them as literal? I wonder this because Origen argues that the law against going out of one’s home on the Sabbath is impossible to observe. So did he maintain that God never intended for the Jews to literally observe it, but expected them to obey its spiritual meaning?
I’ve not read everything Origen has written about the law, though that would be a good project for me! My impression from De Princ. 4 is that he viewed the law as a shadow of Christ, and held that most Israelites were unaware of its deeper spiritual meaning. That implies for me that he thought the Jews’ literal observance of the Old Testament rituals foreshadowed Christ. But I could be wrong on this.