Theophilus of Alexandria and the First Origenist Controversy: Rhetoric and Power

Abstract

In the age of the Theodosian dynasty and the establishment of Christianity as the only legitimate religion of the Roman Empire, few figures are more pivotal in the power politics of the Christian church than archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria (385-412). The present monograph pioneers a contextualized literary-historical approach in offering new insights into the life and reputation of this remarkable figure. It examines the Festal Letters of Theophilus and identifies the importance of classical rhetorical theory as a methodological tool for the interpretation of relevant historical data. The discussion is focused on the so-called First Origenist Controversy, the condemnation of Origen in AD 400 in Alexandria, and the punishment and expulsion of his monastic followers from the Egyptian desert. The long historical record which fills the time separating scholars today from these past events is populated by friends and enemies of Origen’s who have bequeathed to posterity numerous, radically different accounts seeking either to defend or to condemn him. As is well known, the historian Eusebius had remembered him as an exemplary Christian who had died as a result of the ‘dreadful cruelties he endured for the word of Christ’ during the Decian persecution (c. 251). In the early fifth century, however, this positive appraisal was reversed and Origen received a formal condemnation for heresy at a pan-Egyptian council presided by the archbishop Theophilus. Far from being the ‘orthodox and believing Christian’ carefully reconstructed by modern scholars, Origen was condemned here in exactly the opposite light, as the teacher of every theological error or, in the words of Theophilus, as the ‘hydra of all heresies’.