Nathan Betz: Origen against Nepos? Reidentifying Origen’s Millennialist Opponent in Princ. 2.11

• Centre for Advanced Studies
• Open Talk

Origen is famous for his blistering take-down of those who taught of a coming physical kingdom of Christ in a rebuilt Jerusalem (Princ. 2.11.2). Scholars have typically presumed that Origen was responding to the exegesis of the earlier authors Irenaeus and Papias. Origen’s opponents, however, might have been closer to home. Nepos of Arsinoë, not far to the south in Upper Egypt and around the same time, seems to have propounded a literal reading of Revelation in Against the Allegorists, thereby causing “schisms and defections of whole churches” throughout the region (Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 7.24.6). Varying regional exegetical approaches and the ensuing ecclesiastical strife make it conceivable that Origen's direct but unnamed opponent(s) in Princ. 2.11 was not Irenaeus or Papias directly, but rather Nepos and those with him. In this paper, I will lay out a case based on the surviving witness of Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria (apud Eusebius). In so doing, I will introduce a new historical and geographical context to a well-known passage of Origen.