Page 142 convinced that the passage in the Dialogue can be used as evidence of this or as even hinting to this. It may imply that a Hebrew copy of Scripture was actually kept.
I do not argue that Justin knew Hebrew (the accepted scholarly view is that he did not, although the evidence is not conclusive), but that he had found out that the verse in question (Jeremiah 11:19), also appears in the tests of the Jews. See the previous note in A. L. Williams' edition, indicating that the verse appears in all Hebrew and Greek versions.
Chapter 7. Passover and the Exodus in Origen's Writings and Rabbinic Midrashim
1. See the charming and interesting book by de Lange, Origen, p. 133.
2. On the Hexapla, see Encyclopaedia Biblica [Hebrew], vol. 2, pp. 812–813.
3. See de Lange, Origen, pp. 123–132.
4. Two biographies of Origen appeared in the 1980s, one in English and one in French (later translated into English), both entitled Origen. See the books by Trigg and Crouzel. On Origen's last days, of which several versions exist, see Trigg, Origen, pp. 241–243, and Crouzel, Origen, pp. 34–36.
5. Nautin analyzed the occasions of the various sermons (the daily prayer; the Eucharist on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) and concluded that Origen had begun the cycle of his sermons on the Bible with the wisdom literature, continued with the prophets, and concluded with the historical books, Genesis—I Samuel. This was a threeyear cycle, the time required for novices to prepare for conversion to Christianity (Trigg, Origen, p. 177). See Nautin, Origène, pp. 390–405. D. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot, has contested Nautin's findings (pp. 337–338). See also the next note.
6. I have not as yet found a solution for this deviation. It is still possible to say that the homilies on the book of Exodus do appear to create a full cycle. Halperin (Chariot) pointed out that the division in the book of Genesis is not as methodical. "three quarters of homilies for one fifth of the text" (p. 338), and as he shows, the story of Abraham and Isaac, told in Genesis 17–26, is the subject of twelve out of sixteen of Origen's homilies on this book. Nautin seems to have tried to reconcile
these questions in his excellent introduction to Origen's homilies on the book of Jeremiah, which, incidentally, are among the few preserved in the original Greek. In this introduction, Nautin suggests several explanations for the fact that there are only fortyfive homilies for the sixtytwo chapters of the book of Jeremiah. One of them is that we have no evidence showing that Origen was the community's only preacher. At times, Origen even turns to the bishop and asks him which passage from the scriptural reading should be expounded. See Husson and Nautin, Origène: Homélies sur Jérémie, pp. 45–46, 105–106.
7. The description of this sermon follows Ch. 2, "Origen the Preacher," in Nautin's introduction, Origène, pp. 100–130, especially p. 110 and n. 3.
8. See Heine's English translation, Origen, pp. 275–276. See also the French translations by Fortier, Homélies, pp. 134–136, and Borret, Origène. Note that these are translations from the Latin version, which are themselves translations from Origen's Greek writings.
9. Heine's translation, Origen, p. 279. See also Fortier's translation, Homélies, pp. 139–140.
10. See Husson and Nautin, Origène, pp. 136–137.
11. See Crouzel, Origen, pp. 61–84. On p. 80 he cites the method of de Lubac, who claims that Origen's approach relies on the literal level as well as on allegory.
Allegory supplies evidence that Jesus is the central key to the understanding of Scripture. In his view, exegesis can either yield a moral meaning, valid for the time being, between the time of Jesus' first revelation and his second coming at the end of days, or a mystical meaning [anagoge], intimating an eschatological reality.
12. Several scholars have examined the sources used by Origen when explaining biblical names. See de Lange, Origen, pp. 119–121, and the appendix to Heine's translation, Origen.
13. Heine, Origen, p. 277; Fortier, Homélies, p. 137.
14. See Husson and Nautin Origène, pp. 136–138.
15. Heine, Origen, p. 277; Fortier, Homélies, p. 137.
16. Heine, ibid., p. 369.
17. See ibid. p. 283, n. 58. Heine quotes C. Kraeling, The Synagogue: The Excavations at DuraEuropos (New Haven, Conn., 1956), pp. 84–85,
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who directs the reader to the Mekhilta on Exodus 14:16; Targum Jonathan on Exodus 14:21; and Genesis Rabbah 74:5, 8. See also Esther Rabbah 7.
18. Heine, ibid., p. 283.
19. On Origen's style, see Lienhard, "Origen the Homilist," pp. 36–52.
20. A whole body of literature is available on Origen's use of allegory. See the interesting description by Torjesen, Hermeneutical, p. 142.
21. The feature of "movement" in Origen's sermons was particularly stressed in Torjesen's illuminating study, ibid., pp. 133–134. Origen's first homily on the Song of Songs, for instance, also opens with the Exodus from Egypt and the song of the sea, and it describes the progress required until reaching the tenth and most sublime song in Scripture (a notion originating in Jewish tradition)—the Song of Songs.
22. The evidence about the stenographers who transcribed Origen's sermons is from Eusebius; see Lienhard, "Origen the Homilist," p. 40.
23. Heine, Origen, p. 301.
24. Ibid., p. 305.
25. This is Clark's conclusion in her interesting essay, "The Uses of the Song of Songs," pp. 396–399.
26. See note 13 to Chapter 1.
27. Mekhilta, Vayass'a Ch. 1. On the "allegorists," see D. Boyarin, Intertextuality, p. 143, n. 7.
28. Published in 1932. No English translation is available.
29. J. Heinemann in his studies on the petihta [proem], and in his short book, Public.
30. Two works that explore this direction in the research of this question are Boyarin, Intertextuality, and Fraade, Tradition.
31. J. Fraenkel has made a crucial contribution in his studies on the aggadic story, published over the last twenty years, and in his book The Spiritual World, which stress the extent to which rabbinic midrashim are edited and stylized. See now Fraenkel, Methods.
32. On preaching in postrabbinic times, in the medieval period, see Saperstein's useful book, Jewish Preaching.
33. Greek, pp. 161–162. For my own comments on this source, see "Preacher," pp. 108–110.
34. See his seminal article "Tanna Hekha Kaeh," pp. 186–188. See also Rosenthal, "Reading," pp. 146–148.
35. The wording follows Oxford Ms. 164.
36. See M. Kosovsky, Concordance to the Talmud Yerushalmi, vol. 1, pp. 185–186— "my brother," "our brothers," and so forth. Compare the usage in Bar Kokhba's letters "You do not care for your brethren," cited in Kutscher, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, p. 55. Compare Acts 13:15.
37. This point was stressed in Nissim's M.A. dissertation, "Rules." See especially Chs. 4 and 5. Fraade, Tradition, uses the word dialogical for describing this phenomenon; see his notes, pp. 182–183.
38. See also the "entreaties" of the "old man," which precedes the address to the people during fasts. See M. Ta'anyiot 2:1.
39. See also the parallel version in Wayyikra Rabbah 7:11 edited by Margulies, pp. 191–193, and the notes there.
40. See Genesis Rabbah 35:3 and Pesikta deRav Kahana, Braude trans., 214–215.
41. Pt Bava Metsiah 2:11. See also Hirshman, "Preacher."
42. Jerome is cited by S. Krauss in "The Jews," pp. 235–236.
43. On this passage compare D. Stern, "Indeterminacy," pp. 157–161, and his reference to S. Abramson in n. 52. We also found this pattern in Tosefta Yadayim 2:16. J. Heinemann relied on the version of this source appearing in TB Hagiga 3:1 because his study focused on proems, and only in this version does this source appear in a proem. It seems more plausible that this example further confirms that proems do not appear in tannaitic literature, and only in the reformulation of this source in the Babylonian Talmud did it become a proem. See Heinemann "Tannaitic," pp. 126–129, who notes that Stark and Billerbeck had already paid attention to this homily in their own discussion of the subject (n. 27).
44. J. N. Epstein, Prolegomena, pp. 426–427, explains that sabbath means "week." See his other remarks there, on the gathering at Yavneh, which seem to support my interpretation of the story here. Lieberman apparently preferred the view that "Sabbath means Sabbath." See Tosefta Kifshutah, part 8 Sotah, p. 680, s.v.
Shabbat. R. Joshua's question—"What
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was new in the study house today?"—would seem to confirm Epstein's view, and it seems implausible that these events took place on the sabbath.