Origen’s Contra Celsum, Josephus, and the Testimonium Flavianum

The text of Antiquities, written by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, contains, as it stands, two references to Jesus. The first and most important, often referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum, appears in Antiquities 18.63 (Whiston: 18.3.3) and is translated as follows in the Loeb Classical Library (LCL) edition:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. [1]

The first Christian author to quote the above passage is Eusebius of Caesarea. He does so at the beginning of the 4th century in his Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7.[2]  Many have wondered why it would take so long for such an important passage to be quoted. Mythicists often feel sure that Eusebius made it up himself, a view most scholars would dismiss, and something in any case that can’t be proved either way. Part of the mythicist argument is that several earlier Christian authors cited Josephus, but without mentioning this passage, which they surely would have if it had existed. In the process they frequently exaggerate how often Josephus was actually mentioned in earlier Christian writers, and especially in one in particular, Origen of Alexandria (d. c. 254). A classic example of this in relation to Origen is given to us by ex-Christian music man turned angry Atheist apologist Dan Barker:

The paragraph [i.e., the Testimonium] is absent from early copies of the works of Josephus. For example, it does not appear in Origen's second-century version of Josephus, in Origen Contra Celsum where Origen fiercely defended Christianity against the heretical views of Celsus. Origen quoted freely from Josephus to prove his points, but never once used this paragraph, which would have been the ultimate ace up his sleeve (italics in the last sentence mine).[3]

As is typical of Barker when venturing out beyond what he knows, this passage bristles with errors in every line, implying perhaps that Barker has no direct familiarity with the work. These, in the interest of clarity and correctness, I briefly take note of before returning to my main point:

(1) The Testimonium was not “absent from early copies of the works of Josephus.” Rather “the manuscript tradition...is unanimous in including it.”[4]

(2) Does Barker imagine that Origen produced an edition of Josephus? If so, he is wrong. Origen never did.

(3) Following up on the first two, Barker can’t know that the Testimonium did not appear in the version of Josephus that Origen knew. Nobody can.

(4) Origen didn’t write Contra Celsum in the second century, but in the middle of the third.[5]

(5) It is not true that Origen “quoted freely” from Josephus in Contra Celsum. Strictly speaking he quotes him at most only one time in the entire work (see below). He does however cite him four times.

(6) Celsus wasn’t a heretic, i.e., a “Christian” teacher propounding unorthodox doctrines, he was a Platonist Philosopher.

 

In the line that I have italicized in Barker’s quote, he gives the impression (1) that Origen frequently quotes Josephus against Celsus, which, as we have seen, is not true, and (2) that had Origen known of the existence of the Testimonium he would have certainly quoted it, as the “ultimate ace up his sleeve.” 

But the question there is “ace up his sleeve” for proving what?  Mythicists often make the anachronistic assumption that the early Church was eager to prove the existence of Jesus, when in fact, that was something they simply took for granted, as did their opponents.[6] As Bart Ehrman has noted: “The idea that Jesus did not exist is a modern notion. It has no ancient precedents."[7]  The fact is that there is nothing in the Testimonium that Celsus denied.  He didn’t doubt that Jesus existed, nor that Christians believed him to be the Messiah, [8] nor that he was condemned and crucified by Pontius Pilate.[9] He also accepted that Jesus, as the Testimonium attests, “wrought surprising feats,” but he accounts for them by asserting that Jesus had mastered the magic arts in Egypt.[10]

Contra Celsum is a large work in which Origen cites Josephus by name only four times in four of his 622 chapters.  Twice he refers the reader to “two books” by Joseph which prove the greater antiquity and therefore also the priority of the Mosaic teachings over those of other nations (Against Celsus 1:16 and 4:11).[11]  Twice again, to the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple being punishment for the murder James the Just, the brother of “Jesus (called Christ).” (Contra Celsum 1.47, 2.13 = Antiquities 20.200 [Whiston: 20.9.1]).[12] In one of the latter two passages, Origen also briefly alludes to the fact that Josephus described John as a baptizer (Against Celsus 1:47 = Josephus, Antiquities 18:116 [Whiston: 18.5.2]). 

All together Origen cites Josephus eleven times in his extant works.[13] Of these Alice Whealey argues that only one really qualifies as a quotation.[14] Nevertheless she grants that Origen’s ho adelphos Iēsou tou legomenou Christou (Contra Celsum 1.47 and Commentary on Matthew 10.17) is so close to Josephus’s ton adelphon Iēsou tou legomenou Christou / “James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ.” (Antiquities 20.200 [Whiston: 20.9.1]), “that there must be some sort of literary dependence on Josephus.”[15]

Eleven times quoting Josephus really isn’t that often given Origen’s voluminous output. Yet it is more frequent than all the other Christian authors before Eusebius combined. Apart from Origen, Josephus is cited by name only seven times in six passages by six other pre-Eusebian authors.[16] In only one of these cases is he actually quoted.[17] The rest are general allusions to, or paraphrases and summaries of what Josephus said. All together then Josephus is inconspicuously quoted on any subject only four times prior to Eusebius. Two of these have to do with “James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ.”

The question is: given how infrequently Josephus is referred to at all by the early Church, is it really a reasonable surmise to suppose that the early Christian writer Origen somehow had to have cited or quoted the Testimoniam Flavianum if it had existed in his day? Since Jerome, who was the second to quote the Testimonium after Eusebius,[18] cited Josephus no less than 90 times but the Testimonium only once,[19] is it really realistic to expect Origen to certainly cite it along with his eleven other citations in his all his extant works? Probably not.

It is always possible to posit that a passage didn't exist prior to the earliest recorded quotation of or allusion to it. And so too here. But such arguments from silence are never definitive. In addition, even supposing that the Testimonium Flavianum did was invented by someone other than Josephus then the question would become: invented by whom? And the argument often advanced by mythicists is that Eusebius made it up. This argument can be advanced both very crudely (as in the case of dabbler-dilettantes like Barker) or with some measure of scholarly refinement. But the question ultimately comes down to whether we are ready to believe that Eusebius was given to inventing the material he quotes. From what we know of his many other quotations that would seem very unlikely.

But then finally, even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that the Testimonium Flavianum was invented by Eusebius or someone prior to him, what would really be gained for the mythicist argument that Jesus never existed?   Nothing it turns out in the direction of proving that Jesus never existed. Josephus speaks of Jesus and his brother James in Antiquities 20.200 [Whiston: 20.9.1], and therefore reveals his belief in Jesus' existence.[20]  Furthermore, in contrast to Origen's not making reference to the Testimonium Flavianum, 3 of his 11 references to Josephus quote or allude to Antiquities 20:200 which speaks of both Jesus and his brother James (Contra Celsum 1.47, 2:13, and Commentary on Matthew 10.17).

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[1] Josephus, Antiquities 18.63 (ET: Louis H. Feldman, Josephus (volume 9 of 10; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1965), 49 and 51.

[2] See also his Demonstration of the Gospel 3.5 and Theophania 5.44.

[3] Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (fwd. Richard Dawkins; Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2008), 255; also the almost identical passage in idem, Losing Faith in Faith (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1992), 362.

[4] Louis H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980) (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), 690.

[5] Origen, Contra Celsum (trans. & ed. Henry Chadwick; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1953), xv.

[6] Sometimes mythicists attempt to deny this by imposing contextually dubious readings on Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho 8 and Contra Celsum 2:26, as Robert M. Price does, for example, in his 21 October 2016 debate with Bart D. Ehrman.

[7] Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exit (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 96.

[8] Contra Celsum, 4.2.

[9] Contra Celsum 2.34, 8.41.

[10] Contra Celsum 1.28

[11] In each case Origen gives the impression that he is referring to the Antiquities, but the arguments in the “two books” referred appear in the two books of Against Apion.  

[12] Curiously, our current editions of Josephus do not blame the fall of Jerusalem on the murder of James.

[13] Contra Celsum 1.16, 47; 2.13; 4:11; Selecta et fragmenta in Ieremiam 22:24-26 (Die griechischenchristlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte = GCS 3, pp. 204-205, Nr. 14); Fragmenta in Lamentationes 4:10 (GCS 3, p. 273, Nr. 105), 4:14 (GCS 3, p. 274, Nr. 109) 4:19 (GCS 3, p. 275, Nr. 115), Commentarii in Canticum Canticorum 1:5 (Lib. 2, GCS 8, p. 116); Commentarii in Matthaeum 10.17 (GCS10, p. 22); Fragmenta et selecta in Psalmos 73:5-6 (LXX), (Migne’s Patrologia Graeca 12,1529 D). See Wataru Mizugaki, “Origen and Josephus,” Josephus, Judaism and Christianity (eds. Louis H. Feldman &Hata Gohei; Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 1987), 328.

[14] Frag. 109 on Lamentationes 4:14 = War 6.299-300 [Whiston: 6.5.3]).

[15] Alice Whealey, “Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Testimonium Flavianum,” in Josephus und das Neue Testament: Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen: II. Internationales Symposium zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisicum 25.-28. Mai 2006, Greifswald (WUNT 209; eds. Christfried Böttrich & Jens Herzer with Torsten Reiprich; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007): 75, n. 9.

[16] Josephus is named seven times in six other pre-Eusebian authors: (1) Theophilus of Antioch (2x in one passage), Ad Autolycum 3.23 (ANF 2.119); (2) Irenaeus (1x), Frag. 33 (ANF 1.573) = (Antiquities 2.238-53?); (3) Clement of Alexandria (1x), Stromata 1.147.2 (1:21 in ANF 2.324). = War 6.435-442 [Whiston: 6.10.1] and Antiquities 8.61-62 [Whiston: 8.3.1] cf. perhaps Antiquities 7.389. [Whiston: 7.15.2]; (4) Tertullian (1x), Apology 19.6 (ANF 3.33); (5) Minucius Felix (1x), Octavius 33.4-5 (ANF 4.193-194); (6) Methodius of Olympus (1x): De resurrectione 3:9 (2:18 in ANF 6:377) = Josephus, War 6:435-437 (Whiston: 6.10.1) (See Heinze Schreckenberg, “Josephus in Early Christian Texts,” in Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity (intro. David Flusser; ed. Heinze Schreckenberg & Kurt Schubert; Assen/Maastricht, NL: Van Gorcum / Minneapolis, MN Fortress, MN, 1992), 51-63. Other examples of possible dependence are sometimes mentioned, but in places where Josephus isn’t directly named or indisputably quoted.

[17] Methodius of Olympus, De resurrectione 3:9 (2:18 in ANF 6:377) = Josephus, War 6:435-437 (Whiston: 6.10.1).

[18] De Viris Illustribus 13.

[19] According to Louis H. Feldman, “On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum Attributed to Josephus,” New Perspectives on Jewish Christian Relations: In Honor of David Berger (eds. Elisheva Carlebach & Jacob J. Schacter Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2011): 16.

[20] To be sure some mythicists have attempted to cast doubt on the reference to the historical Jesus and his brother in Antiquities 20:200. See, for example, Richard Carrier, "Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012): 489-51. But this falls outside the scope of the present note. We merely point out that that passage cannot be as easily dispensed with as the Testimonium Flavianum by appealing to Origen's non-quotation of it.