Letter to Africanus

Contents

Reading pages: 1–15 · 16–18

1. 1Origen opens his reply to Julius Africanus about the story of Susanna, apologizing for its brevity.
2. 2Origen points out that the Greek Daniel contains much not in the Hebrew, including Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the hymn of the three young men.
3. 3Origen begins to give examples of books in which the Greek copies are longer or shorter than the Hebrew.
4. 4Origen lists additions in the Greek Job, such as the longer speech of Job’s wife.
5. 5Origen notes passages missing from the Greek Job, the different order of Jeremiah, and differences in Genesis.
6. 6Origen asks whether Providence, which gave the churches their Scriptures, would have neglected those for whom Christ died.
7. 7Origen urges respect for the churches’ inherited Scriptures while explaining why he also studies the Hebrew text.
8. 8Origen reports that Jewish scholars he consulted could not say whether the Greek wordplay in Susanna has a Hebrew equivalent.
9. 9Origen identifies the two elders with Ahab and Zedekiah of Jeremiah 29 and explains their sawing and splitting as punishment in the judgment after death.
10. 10Origen reports a Jewish tradition that the two elders seduced women by claiming they would father the Messiah.
11. 11Origen argues that Jewish leaders removed passages discrediting elders and judges from public Scripture, citing the sawing of Isaiah, Jesus’ words on the prophets, Stephen, and Paul.
12. 12Origen answers that prophets received revelation in several ways, as Jacob did by dreams, visions, and inspiration.
13. 13Origen answers the charge that Daniel’s cross-examination is farcical by comparing it with Solomon’s judgment between the two women.
14. 14Origen begins a further remark on wordplay in the Scriptures.
15. 15Origen answers that some captives, like Tobit, Achiacharus, Mordecai, and Nehemiah, were wealthy and influential, so Joakim’s house and garden are not implausible.
16. 16Origen answers that captive peoples could keep their own courts, as the Jews under Rome did under their ethnarch.
17. 17Origen answers that prophets often repeat one another’s words, as Isaiah and Micah, or Chronicles and the Psalms, show.
18. 18Origen closes his reply, sending greetings from Ambrose and his household.