Letter to Africanus 1–15

Origen to Africanus, a beloved brother in God the Father, through Jesus Christ his holy Servant: greetings. Your letter, from which I learned what you think about Susanna, which is read in the churches as part of Daniel, seems a short one; but in few words it holds many problems, each of which needed no ordinary working out but so much that it would go beyond the character of a letter and take on the compass of a treatise. As for me, when I consider, as far as I can, the modest measure of my own understanding, so as not to be blind to myself, I see that I fall short of the precision required to answer your letter, all the more since not even a few days of my stay in Nicomedia were enough for me to write to you, even in the present style, about what you inquired into and asked of me. Therefore, making allowance for my modest ability and for the shortness of the time, read the letter with all goodwill, supplying anything I have left out.

First, you said that when I was in discussion with our friend Bassus and made use of the Scripture in which Daniel, while still young, prophesied about the affair of Susanna, I did so as though it had escaped me that this part of the book is spurious. You said that you praised the passage in a way, as something charming, but found fault with it as a recent composition and a fabrication; and that the writer, in a way that not even Philistion the mime-writer would, made up the little work out of the likeness of the names: prinos (holm oak) with prisis (sawing), and schinos (mastic tree) with schisis (splitting). These seem to be such in the Greek language, but not at all in Hebrew. Know, then, in reply, what we ought to do, not only about the story of Susanna, which is read in the Greek used by the Greeks in every church of Christ but is not found among the Hebrews; nor only about the two other passages at the end of the book, as you said, which record the stories of Bel and the dragon, and which likewise are not written in the Hebrews’ Daniel; but also about countless other things which, as far as our modest ability went, we found in many places when we compared our copies with the Hebrew ones. For in Daniel itself, at the burning furnace, we found “bound”; but in our copies there are not a few verses over and above those in the Hebrew, which, according to some of the copies read in the churches, began thus: “Hananiah and Azariah and Mishael prayed and sang hymns to the Lord,” down to “Bless, all who worship the Lord, the God of gods. Sing hymns and give thanks, for his mercy is forever, and to the ages of ages. And it came to pass, when the king heard them singing hymns, he saw them alive.” According to other copies: “And they walked in the midst of the flame, singing hymns to God and blessing the Lord,” down to “Bless, all who worship the Lord, the God of gods. Sing hymns and give thanks, for his mercy is for all the ages.” But in the Hebrew there followed directly the words, “And those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, fell into the midst of the fire, bound,” and “King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, and rose in haste, and answered and said to his nobles.” For so Aquila, who is a slave to the Hebrew wording, has rendered it; he has the reputation among the Jews of having translated the Scripture with particular care, and those who do not know the Hebrew language are most accustomed to use him, as the most successful of all. Of the copies we have, whose wording I have set out, one was according to the Seventy, the other according to Theodotion; and just as the so-called fabrication about Susanna, as you call it, and the final passages of Daniel stood in both, so too did these verses, amounting, to put it by estimate, to two hundred and more.

And in many other holy books also we found some things fuller in our copies than among the Hebrews, and some things lacking. I will set out a few for the sake of example, since it is not possible to include everything …

… and when “the angels of God came to stand before God, and the devil came with them,” the words “Having gone about the earth and walked about in it.” Again, after “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away,” the Hebrew did not have “As it seemed good to the Lord, so it came to pass.” And our copies have more than the Hebrew where Job’s wife spoke to him, from “How long will you hold out, saying, Look, I will wait a little longer, expecting the hope of my salvation,” down to “that I may rest from my labors and my pains, which now hold me”; for in the Hebrew only the woman’s words are recorded: “But say some word to the Lord, and die.”

Again, a great many things throughout the whole of Job are found among the Hebrews but not in our copies, often four or three verses, sometimes even fourteen, nineteen, and sixteen. And why need I list what we gathered with much labor, so that the difference between the copies of the Jews and ours should not escape us? We noticed many such things in Jeremiah too, in which we also found much transposition and alteration of the wording of the prophecies. In Genesis also, “God saw that it was good,” at the making of the firmament, is not found among the Hebrews; and among them this is no small problem. Other things too can be found in Genesis, to which [I] attached signs …

… in the holy Scriptures, having given edification to all the churches of Christ, took no thought for “those bought with a price, for whom Christ died,” whose Son, though he was his Son, “God,” who is love, “did not spare, but gave him up for us all, that with him he might freely give us all things”?

In view of this, consider whether it is not good to remember the words, “You shall not remove the everlasting boundaries which those before you set.” I say this not from reluctance to search the Scriptures as the Jews have them as well, and to compare all of ours with theirs and see the differences in them. Indeed, if it is not tiresome to say so, we have done this to a great extent, as far as we were able, exercising our mind in all the editions and their differences, while devoting ourselves somewhat more to the translation of the Seventy, so that we might not seem to put anything counterfeit into circulation in the churches under heaven, and give pretexts to those who seek occasions, wishing to slander those in our midst and to accuse those who are conspicuous in the community. We also take pains not to be ignorant of their readings, so that in discussion with Jews we may not bring before them what is not in their copies, and may make use of what is current among them, even if it is not in our books. For when our preparation for discussions with them is of this kind, they will not despise us, nor laugh, as is their habit, at believers from the Gentiles as ignorant of the true readings recorded among them. Let this much be said, then, about the story of Susanna not being found among the Hebrews.

Let us look also at the charges you bring against the story. And first let us begin with what might have made one reluctant to accept the story: the play on words, prinos with prisis, and schinos with schisis. About this you declared, as one who had understood the matter, that such words happen to sound alike in Greek, whereas in Hebrew they are entirely different. But I am still in doubt. For being concerned about the passage, since I myself had been perplexed by it, I consulted not a few Hebrews, asking how prinos is named among them and how they say “to saw”; and further what they render schinos, the plant, by, and how they name “to split.” They said they did not know the Greek words prinos and schinos, and asked to be shown the trees, so that they might know which names they themselves give them. And (for truth is dear) I did not hesitate to set the wood before their eyes. Another said that he could not affirm how something not named in the Scriptures is called in Hebrew, and that it was rash for someone at a loss to use a Syriac word instead of the Hebrew; and he said that even among the very learned certain words are sometimes a matter of inquiry. “If, then,” he says, “you can show schinos or prinos named anywhere in some Scripture, from that we might find what is sought and the play on words that goes with it; but if it is named nowhere, this escapes us too.” Since, then, this is what the Hebrews with whom I spoke said, as far as their knowledge went, I am cautious about declaring whether the equivalence of these plays on words is preserved among the Hebrews or not; but how you came to affirm it, you yourself perhaps know.

I remember, however, conversing on many subjects with a learned Hebrew, who was called among them the son of a wise man and had been brought up to succeed his father. From him, as one who did not reject the story of Susanna, I learned also the names of the elders, as they occur in Jeremiah, in this way: “May the Lord make you as he made Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire because of the lawlessness they committed in Israel.” How, then, is one sawn by an angel and the other split? It must be said that these things are not prophesied for them in the present age, but for the judgment by God after their departure from here. For just as the master will come and “cut in two” the wicked steward who says, “My master is delaying his coming,” and therefore gives himself to drunkenness, eating and drinking with the drunken and beating his fellow servants, “and will put his portion with the unfaithful,” so too with these men, who held the title of elders but administered their stewardship badly: certain angels appointed over punishments will deal with them in a way corresponding to the cutting in two of the wicked steward there. One will split the man “grown old in wicked days, who judged unjust judgments, condemning the innocent and letting the guilty go free”; the other will saw the one who was “the offspring of Canaan and not of Judah, deceived by beauty, his heart perverted by desire.”

I know another Hebrew, too, who related traditions about these elders of this kind: that to those in the captivity who hoped to be freed from slavery under their enemies through the coming of Christ, these elders pretended to know how to explain the things concerning Christ; and each of them separately would tell any woman he came across and wished to corrupt, as a secret, that it had been granted him by God to beget the Christ. Then the woman, deceived by the hope of bearing the Christ, gave herself to the deceiver; and in this way the elders Ahab and Zedekiah committed adultery with the wives of their fellow citizens. That is why the one is rightly called by Daniel “grown old in wicked days,” while the other heard the words, “This is how you treated the daughters of Israel, and they, out of fear, had intercourse with you; but a daughter of Judah did not endure your lawlessness.” For perhaps deceit and fear, which have power over women, made them yield their bodies to these so-called elders.

But you will probably ask in reply why, if their wise men hand down such traditions about it, as you say, the story is not found among them in Daniel. To this it must be said that whatever passages contained accusations against elders, rulers, and judges they removed, as far as they could, from the knowledge of the people; and some of these are preserved in apocryphal writings. As an example of this we will give what is related about Isaiah and attested by the Epistle to the Hebrews, though written in none of the public books. For the writer to the Hebrews, going through the prophets and what they suffered, says: “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they died by the sword.” We will ask, then, to whom “they were sawn in two” refers, said in the plural of one person according to an ancient usage, not only Hebrew but also Greek. It is clear that the traditions say Isaiah the prophet was sawn in two; and this is found in a certain apocryphal work, which the Jews have perhaps deliberately tampered with, inserting certain unfitting expressions into the writing so that the whole might be disbelieved. But someone hard pressed by the proof of these things may perhaps make use of the view of those who reject the Epistle as not written by Paul; against him we need other arguments, separately, to prove that the epistle is Paul’s. For the present, then, I will set out from the Gospel what Jesus Christ testifies about the prophets, and a story told by him but not found in the old Scriptures, since it too contains an accusation against the lawless judges in Israel. The Savior’s words run as follows: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in the blood of the prophets. So you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. Serpents, brood of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, look, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from city to city, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood poured out on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” And what follows these words is not out of keeping with the subject before us; it runs thus: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.” And let us see whether we must not say in these matters that the Savior speaks the truth, but that the Scriptures which would show what the Savior relates are not found. For those who build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, condemning what was done by the elders … and he says this: “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.” Everyone who accepts the Acts of the Apostles will admit that Stephen speaks the truth; but to show from the Old Testament how he rightly blames the fathers of those who disbelieved in Jesus as having persecuted and killed the prophets is not possible from the books in circulation. And Paul, in the first epistle to the Thessalonians, bears this witness about the Jews: “For you became imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus, because you too suffered the same things from your own fellow countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord and the prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and are opposed to all people, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved.” And I think I have shown in what precedes that there is nothing absurd in supposing that the story happened, that the elders of that time dared this cruelty, with great licentiousness, against Susanna, and that it was written by the providence of the Spirit but removed by “the rulers of Sodom,” as the Spirit might call them.

Besides this, you said that Daniel is said by this writing to have cried out, seized by the Spirit, that the sentence was unjust, whereas the writing acknowledged to be his presents him as prophesying in another way, namely by visions and dreams and the appearance of an angel, but nowhere by prophetic inspiration. But you seem to me not to have quite observed the words that “God spoke of old to the fathers by the prophets in many portions and in many ways,” not only to all of them together but also to each one individually. If you look carefully, you will find that the same saints had divine dreams, angelic appearances, and inspirations. For the present it is enough to use as testimony what is written about Jacob. About divine dreams he relates this: “And it came to pass, when the sheep conceived, I saw them with my eyes in sleep, and look, the he-goats and the rams were mounting the sheep and the goats, white-spotted and speckled and ash-colored, sprinkled. And the angel of God said to me in sleep, Jacob. And I said, What is it? And he said, Look up with your eyes and see the he-goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the goats, white-spotted and speckled and ash-colored, sprinkled; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a pillar to me and vowed a vow to me. Now then, arise and go out of this land, and go away to the land of your birth.” About an appearance while awake, which is greater, this is said of him: “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. And he saw that he could not prevail against him, and he touched the broad part of his thigh, and the broad part of Jacob’s thigh grew numb while he wrestled with him. And he said to him, Let me go, for the dawn has come up. But he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said to him, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, for you have prevailed with God and are mighty with men. And Jacob asked and said, Tell me your name. And he said, Why do you ask my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Form of God, for I have seen God face to face, and my life was preserved. And the sun rose as the form of God passed by.” That he also prophesied by inspiration is clear from these words: “Jacob called his sons and said, Gather together, that I may tell you what will befall you in the last days. Assemble and hear, sons of Jacob; hear Israel your father. Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my children, hard to bear and hard, self-willed. You ran riot; do not boil over like water; for you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled the couch where you went up.” Likewise the blessings to the rest, being prophecies, were spoken by inspiration. It is no wonder, then, that Daniel too at one time spoke by inspiration the conviction of the elders, and at another by dreams, as you yourself say, or by a vision, and that at other times an angel appeared to him.

Your other objections seemed to me to be said rather irreverently, and not to keep the reverence that befits you. It is not a bad idea to set down what you wrote in your very words: “Then, after this marvellous outburst, he convicts them in a most extraordinary way, such as not even Philistion the mime-writer would use; for the rebuke through the Spirit was not enough, but setting each of them apart he asks where he had seen her committing adultery. And when one said ‘under a holm oak (prinos),’ he answers that the angel will saw him (prisein); and he threatens the one who said ‘under a mastic tree (schinos)’ with being split (schisthēnai) in the same way.” It is time, then, to compare with Philistion’s mime another passage much like this, told in the Third Book of Kingdoms, which you yourself will admit to be soundly recorded. The passage from Kingdoms runs thus: “Then two women who were prostitutes appeared before the king and stood before him. And the one woman said, Hear me, my lord. I and this woman live in one house, and we gave birth in the house. And on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were together; there is no one in our house except the two of us in the house. And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. And she rose in the middle of the night and took my son from my arms, while your servant was sleeping. And she laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. And I rose in the morning to nurse my son, and he was dead. And look, I looked at him closely in the morning, and look, it was not my son whom I bore. And the other woman said, No, the dead one is your son, and the living one is mine. And the other likewise said, No, the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son. And they spoke before the king, and the king said to them, You say, This is my son, the living one, and this woman’s son is the dead one; and you say, No, the living one is my son, and your son is the dead one. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought the sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half of it to this one and half of it to that one. And the woman whose son was the living one answered the king, for her womb was stirred over her son, and said, Hear me, my lord: give her the living child, and by no means put it to death. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor hers; divide it. And the king answered and said, Give the child to the one who said, Give her this child, and by no means put it to death; for she is its mother. And all Israel heard the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared before the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.” For if we must pass mocking verdicts on what is read in the churches, one ought rather to have likened the story of the two prostitutes to Philistion’s mime than that of the chaste Susanna. And just as it was not enough to persuade the people for Solomon to say, “Give the living child to this woman, for she is its mother,” so Daniel’s rebuke of the elders was not enough without the further conviction from their own mouths, when they said they had seen her lying with the young man under some tree but did not agree about what tree it was. And since you said, as one who had understood, that Daniel judged the matter of the elders by inspiration (perhaps convicting them in this way, perhaps otherwise), notice this too: what concerns Daniel seems to me similar to the judgment of Solomon, of whom Scripture testifies that the people saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice. This could be said of Daniel too: that, since the wisdom to do justice was in him, the things recorded about the elders took place.

And this too almost escaped me, which must be set down about prinos and prisein, schinos and schisein: that in our Scriptures also there are certain etymologies, so to speak, which in [Hebrew] …

Besides this, you raise the difficulty in these very words: “How could they, being captives in Babylon, gambled away at dice and thrown out unburied in the streets, as is related of the former captivity of Israel, their sons torn away to be made eunuchs and their daughters to be concubines, as had been prophesied, sit in judgment on capital cases, and that against the wife of their own king Joakim, whom the Babylonian king had made to share his throne? And if it was not this man but another Joakim of the people, where did a captive have such a residence, and a spacious garden?” Where did you get the words “gambled away at dice and thrown out unburied in the streets”? Was it, as far as I know, from Tobit? About this we ought to know that the Hebrews do not use Tobit, nor Judith; for they do not have them even among the apocrypha in Hebrew, as we have learned from them themselves. But since the churches use Tobit, it should be known that even in the captivity some of the captives were rich and prospered. Tobit himself says: “Because I remembered God with all my soul, the Most High gave me favor and good appearance before Enemessar, and I was his buyer; and I went into Media and deposited ten talents of silver with Gabael, the brother of Gabrias, at Rages in Media.” And he adds, as a rich man: “In the days of Enemessar I gave many alms to my brothers. I gave my bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked; and if I saw any of my people dead and thrown out behind the wall of Nineveh, I buried him; and if King Sennacherib killed any, when he came fleeing from Judea, I buried them secretly; for he killed many in his anger.” And consider whether so long a list of Tobit’s good deeds does not show great wealth and abundant property, especially since he adds: “Learning that I was being sought to be put to death, I withdrew in fear, and all my possessions were seized.” Another captive too, Achiacharus son of Ananiel, the brother of Tobit, was appointed over all the accounts of the kingdom of King Acherdon and over all the administration; and it is said that “Achiacharus was cupbearer, keeper of the signet, administrator, and accountant.” Mordecai too spent his time at the king’s court and had such freedom of speech with him that he was recorded among the benefactors of Artaxerxes. Further, in Ezra, Nehemiah, the king’s cupbearer and his eunuch, a Hebrew by race, made a request about the building of the temple and obtained it, so that he was permitted to go with many others and restore the temple. What wonder, then, that a certain Joakim had a garden, a house, and an estate, whether it was costly or modest? For Scripture does not show this clearly.