Origen Theory of Language 2 Columns Hexapla

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Origen’s Theory of Language and theFirst Two Columns of the HexaplaMatthew J. Martin

Melbourne College of Divinity

Origen’s primary aim in compiling the Hexapla has been the subject of much specu-lation. The Hexapla has been seen as an ideologically neutral source of comparativetext-critical data, as a weapon in polemical struggles against Judaism and its claimson Scripture, even as a textbook for learning Hebrew. 1 In Comm. Matt .15.14, Origenhimself describes the aim of his text-critical work: to heal the dissonances betweenthe manuscripts of the Old Testament. In Ep. Afr . 9, Origen implies that a majormotivation for the compilation of the Hexapla was to facilitate the comparison of the Jewish Scriptures with the Septuagint so that Christians disputing with Jewswould know whether certain passages and phrases were common to both. 2 Therewere, then, both scholarly and polemical motives for the compilation of the Hexa-pla. 3 The Hexapla was a complex document and it should not surprise us that itsfunction was equally complex and multiplicitous.

If the function of the Hexapla has been open to question, then we might expectthat the intended functions of the individual Hebrew and Greek columns withinOrigen’s great text-critical work have also been the subject of speculation. Ourinterest here is in the role of the Hebrew text and its transliteration into Greekcharacters contained in the rst two columns of the Hexapla but, obviously, thefunction of individual columns within the Hexapla is to some extent in uenced bythe overall function, or functions, for which the synopsis as a whole was intended.Joachim Schaper has contended that the aim of Origen’s textual work was thecreation of a reliable Greek text based on the traditional Septuagint of the church,and that the basis for the text-critical operation involved in achieving this aim was

a comparison of available Greek versions. The function of the Hebrew was onlyto indicate quantitative differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts, or to

HTR 97:1 (2004) XXX–XXX



2 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

provide corroboration of a particular Greek reading where there was disagreementamong the Greek versions. Thus, the Hebrew text was not of primary importancein the Hexapla—that position was occupied by the Septuagint and the variousGreek versions. 4

We would suggest that Origen’s estimation of the relative role of the Greekand Hebrew Scriptures is not so clear-cut as Schaper’s arguments would imply.Origen’s thought on this issue betrays contradictory tendencies. On the one hand,Origen’s own descriptions of the Hexapla and the text-critical program behind itevince considerable concern for the integrity of the Septuagint Bible of the Chris-tian Church, for harmonizing potential sources of dispute between the Septuagintand the minor versions, and for protecting Christianity’s Greek Scriptures fromcriticisms originating from without the Church, particularly in the case of plusesand minuses in the Greek Bible vis à vis the Hebrew. On the other hand, the veryconstruction of the Hexapla implies a far more signi cant and determinative rolefor the Hebrew Scriptures in Origen’s thought than simply as a check for the Greekversions. There is but one Hebrew text cited in the Hexapla, against at least fourGreek versions. There is no indication of the existence of variant Hebrew tradi-tions. Furthermore, the Hebrew text contained in the rst (two) column(s) appearsto provide the ordering principle around which the Hexapla is structured.

The Hexapla allows the comparison of versions of the biblical text in twolanguages, Hebrew and Greek. Of central relevance to the whole design of theHexapla is the issue of translation. The columnar construction of the Hexaplaallows the reader to observe, for any given Hebrew word in the rst two columns,the range of Greek renderings—including absence of any equivalent—representedin the various versions which Origen reproduces. 5 There would seem to be littleroom to doubt that the facilitation of such comparison was a primary function of the Hexapla. Yet, if the issue of translation is a principal interest of the Hexapla,it must be deemed noteworthy that very little modern commentary on the Hexaplahas concerned itself with Origen’s theory of language. Language theory is directlyrelevant to the problem of translation and, as such, Origen’s thought in this areacan cast light on the nature of the Hexapla and its construction, and, more speci -cally, highlight the complexity of the role played by the Hebrew in this work.

Origen’s Theory of LanguageOrigen’s thought on language is striking to the modern reader because it recog-nizes that language may contain elements which are nonreferential in character;that is, Origen knows of the use of language which is empty of semantic sense,but is nevertheless possessed of contextually construed meaning. In a compara-tive analysis of the theories of language evidenced in the thought of Origen and of Pseudo-Dionysius, Naomi Janowitz argues that, for Origen, language is of divine,



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not human, origin.6

Names do not represent or imitate for Origen—names pointto the deepest meanings of objects, signifying their nature. Origen considers thatdivine names are “a summing up denomination which gives the real essence of thenamed object”—they manifest divine power. 7 Origen attributes the power of divinenames to a nonarbitrary correspondence between the signi er and the signi ed, thename and the divinity. Moreover, Origen accepts that the power of a divine nameis automatic and not based on the intention of the speaker. Thus, although Zeusmay be but a daimon and not a god, a Christian must not utter the word “Zeus,” forto do so might automatically produce a miracle. 8 This nonarbitrariness of divinenames is especially true for Origen with regard to the divine names contained inScripture. This, Janowitz argues, is connected with Origen’s estimation of the specialqualities of the Hebrew language. 9 Hebrew is, for Origen, natural language, andthe language of creation. Hebrew names, and the prayers which contain them, losetheir ef cacy in translation. They must be uttered in Hebrew or they will be “weakand ineffective” and “no different from the names which have no power at all.” 10 A corollary of this attribution of special effectiveness to the Hebrew language isOrigen’s opinion that it is not the signi cation of the name, per se, which imbuesit with power; instead, it is the very sounds of the word which are effective. 11

Origen’s elevation of Hebrew to the status of natural language is also indica-tive of a more speci c in uence on his thought by Jewish theories of language, anin uence to which Origen himself makes speci c reference. 12 Jewish theories of language admitted of inherent, automatic power attributed to the names of God. 13 A variety of Jewish exegetical traditions attributed the creation of the world to Godspeaking his own name, and pronunciation of the divine name was forbidden inJewish tradition because of the name’s automatic, effective power. 14 As with Origen,the language theory of the Jewish exegetes attributed power to the very sounds of the divine name. But, for the Jewish exegetes, the problem of translation was notthe pressing concern that it was for Origen: they, after all, worked with the JewishScriptures in Hebrew, not, as did Origen—a Christian—in Greek.

It is clear that Origen’s ideas concerning effective, nonreferential language re-semble the theories of automatic language encountered in so-called magical ritualtexts of the Greco-Roman period. But, as Janowitz argues, we must resist labelingOrigen’s appeal to the automatic power of divine names as “magical.” Origenhimself very carefully distinguishes between the use of effective language, suchas healing in the name of Jesus, and acts of “magic.” 15 Such an analysis involveslargely modern categories—with an aesthetic preference for referential models of language and a condescension for any other, nonreferential, language theory—and

is ultimately unhelpful in describing native ideas about magic and religion. 16 Janowitz observes that, for Origen, the presence of the divine name in a text

imbues that text with effective power. Origen gives expression to the idea thatHebrew Scripture, by virtue of the divine names it contains, is possessed of the




power to effect transformation in the hearer, even when comprehension of whatis being heard might be absent. 17 This point is of importance. Origen appears toexplicitly extend the automatic, effective power of the divine names found inScripture to the scriptural texts as a whole. To hear Scripture was, through theagency of the divine names it contained, to be subject to inner transformation,whether or not what was heard was consciously comprehended or not. BecauseOrigen, under the in uence of the Jewish scholarly traditions with which he haddialogue, considered Hebrew as natural language, translation of Hebrew Scripturefor Origen presented something of a problem. The automatic power of Scriptureto effect transformation in the hearer—a function of the Hebrew divine namespresent in the text—was lost when these texts were translated out of their nativeHebrew into Greek.

The First Two Columns of the HexaplaThe relationship of the transliterated Hebrew text found in the second column of theHexapla to the Hebrew text in Jewish script recorded in the rst column, and therelationship of both of these two columns to the remaining columns, which containa selection of Greek translations of the Hebrew, are problems which have been thesubject of much debate. Origen’s thought on automatic, ef cacious language, asdescribed by Janowitz, has the potential to cast some light upon these issues. Theissue of translation looms large in the background of the Hexapla—the comparisonof the biblical text in Hebrew and Greek versions makes this quite clear. This accordswith what we have observed about various aspects of Origen’s thought on language.Translation of Scripture from Hebrew into Greek represented an issue of somesigni cance for Origen’s language theory. The ef cacious sounds of the languageof Scripture lose their power if translated out of the Hebrew. This importance of Hebrew as natural language is re ected in the structure of the Hexapla. The rsttwo columns of the Hexapla determine the shape of the rest of the work. Insofar aswe may consider the evidence of the Milan Codex (Rahlfs 1098) representative of the original arrangement of the text of the Hexapla, the Hebrew columns—Jewishscript and transliteration—appear to have been arranged on the basis of a singleword per line. 18 The text of the Greek columns is manipulated to align with theHebrew text. The importance of Hebrew in Origen’s ideas concerning language isalso evidenced by the fact that the Hexapla employs a single Hebrew text as thebasis for comparison with multiple Greek versions. If Origen was aware of formsof the Hebrew text other than the proto-Masoretic text which appears to be re ectedby the transliterations contained in the Milan codex, he gives no indication of this.This may be a consequence of Origen’s apparently limited practical knowledge of Hebrew. 19 But it may also be seen as a re ection of Origen’s estimation of Hebrewas natural language—if Hebrew was natural language, Origen could hardly have



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allowed the ready admission of a multiplicity of Hebrew textual traditions. Muchhas been made of the centrality to Origen’s biblical hermeneutics of the concept of oijkonomiva . This theory embodies the belief that there is “some form of providentialor divine guiding spirit present in the translation.” 20 Thus, Origen considers boththe correct reading and the variant reading of a text legitimate objects of exegesis. 21 This belief explains why Origen designed the Hexapla to facilitate comparison of theGreek versions. Though they differ one from the other, each of the Greek versionsembodies the action of some divine providence at work in the process of translationwhich produces a Greek text from the unique, original Hebrew text.

The assertion that the Hexapla presents only a single Hebrew text assumes, of course, that the second column of transliterated Hebrew formed an integral unitwith the preceding column of untransliterated Hebrew text—that is, that bothcolumns re ect the same Hebrew text presented in different forms. That suchwas the case has been argued by both Norton and Emerton. 22 Their arguments arebased upon the contention that, in one fashion or another, the essential functionof the second column transliteration was to provide a pronunciation guide for theunpointed Hebrew consonantal text of the rst column. Emerton in particular ar-gued strongly for this position. He claimed that the imperfect nature of the Greektransliteration’s reproduction of Hebrew phonology would have meant that, readaloud, a transliterated Hebrew text would have been incomprehensible to anyonewho actually understood Hebrew. On the other hand, Emerton argued, there wouldbe little purpose in the reading of a transliterated Hebrew text in a congregationwhere knowledge of Hebrew had entirely lapsed—it would make far more sensesimply to read a Greek translation. Instead, Emerton contended, the transliteratedHebrew texts were designed to be read in conjunction with the Hebrew consonan-tal text. In effect, the Greek transliteration of the second column functioned as avocalization aid for the Hebrew consonantal text found in the rst column. Thisnecessarily implies that the second column’s transliteration was derived from theparticular Hebrew consonantal text preserved in the rst column.

Emerton’s arguments were largely framed as a refutation of the claims madeby a number of earlier scholars that the transliterations contained in the secondcolumn of the Hexapla represented an example of a type of text which may havecirculated in Jewish circles as independent documents from a relatively early pe-riod. 23 It became a point of contention whether Origen had himself composed—orhad commissioned collaborators better versed in Hebrew to compose—the secondcolumn of the Hexapla, or whether he merely employed an example of a type of document readily available from Jewish sources and, consequently, whether the

rst and second columns represented two different of cial versions of the Hebrewtext. But, if we consider this question in the light of Origen’s thought on lan-guage—and the position occupied by Hebrew in his thinking—we will see that itis highly unlikely that the rst and second columns of the Hexapla could represent




two independent versions of the Hebrew text. As the Hebrew text of the Hexaplaseems to provide the organizational principle which determines the arrangement of the Greek translations, and as Hebrew was, in Origen’s estimation, the ef caciouslanguage of creation, the rst two columns of the Hexapla must, it would seem,bear witness to two different methods of recording the one Hebrew text.

The Function of the Second ColumnIf the rst two columns of the Hexapla preserve two modes of representing a singleHebrew text, we still nd ourselves left with the question of what the functionof the second column’s transliteration might have been. In other words, why didOrigen provide two different forms of his Hebrew text? Emerton’s explanation of the second column as a vocalization aid to the Hebrew consonantal text of the rst

column is not entirely satisfying. As it is framed, this explanation is dependent upona modern preference for wholly referential language theory. It is founded uponthe assumption that a listener’s ability to comprehend a Hebrew text read aloudwas of paramount importance. But as we have observed, according to Janowitz,Origen’s theory of language encompassed nonreferential elements, particularlywhere Hebrew was concerned. A listener’s comprehension of the oral performanceof a Hebrew text cannot be assumed to have been a priority.

In this regard, it is useful to consider the grammatological issues surrounding atext like the transliterations in the second column. As Clarisse Herrenschmidt hasrecently argued, the Greek alphabet embodies a theory of writing entirely differentfrom that represented by Semitic consonantal alphabets. 24 The unique innovationrepresented by the Greek alphabet lies in the fact that it accomplishes the severanceof phonetic from semantic information. The Greek alphabet conveys only phoneticdata. With the Greek alphabet, for the rst time, it becomes possible to producetrue transliterations—to read a text and reproduce the sounds of a language with-out the reader understanding what is being read. It is not possible to derive suchpurely phonetic information from a Semitic consonantal alphabet without a priorunderstanding of the language which is being recorded.

In the light of the nonreferential elements in Origen’s language theory, therelevance of a Greek transliteration’s ability to record the sounds of a language—independently of whether a reader can understand the meaning of what is beinguttered—should be obvious for understanding what must have been at least apart of the function of the Hexapla’s second column. Origen attributed automaticef cacy to Hebrew divine names. The reading of Scripture in Hebrew, whetheror not the language of the text was actually understood by either reader or audi-ence, was capable of effecting a transformation in those who heard the divinelyempowered sounds of the language. The second column transliteration made pos-sible the reproduction of the sounds of Hebrew Scripture, even for those readers



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who knew no Hebrew. In fact, Origen’s own citations of the Hebrew Bible in hisother writings appear to rely exclusively upon transliterations. 25 The signi cance,then, of the text of the second column for Origen is emphasized. If Origen wasnot able to adequately and independently engage with the Hebrew text as repre-sented in the rst column of the Hexapla, the second column transliteration wouldhave provided both a means of locating speci c points in the text when engagedin dialogue with Jewish interlocutors, as well as access to the ef cacious soundsof the divine language. In this way, the Hexapla’s very structure is a re ection of the role of Hebrew as natural and divine language. Languages other than Hebrewmay exist, but Hebrew remains uniquely ef cacious, its very sounds possessed of automatic power derived from its origins in divine speech and the divine nameswhich it embodies. This may also be seen to dictate the form in which the Hebrewtext is presented in the Hexapla. The Hebrew text in Hebrew characters is notsuf cient on its own. The second column, with its inscription of the sounds of theHebrew language, records—particularly for readers with little or no Hebrew—theessential, effective element of the Hebrew text.

The Function of the First ColumnAs a nal question, we might ask: if Origen possessed only a passing knowledgeof Hebrew, and if the second column’s transliteration provided access to the effec-tive sounds of this language, why did Origen bother to include the rst column of Hebrew consonantal text? Here again, ideas concerning nonreferential language,such as those evidenced by Origen, might provide part of the answer. While wedo not wish to deny that the inclusion of the Hebrew text in Jewish characterswould have been an important element of the Hexapla if it were to be usefullyemployed in polemical contexts with Jewish interlocutors, we would suggest thatthere may have been other considerations at work. Janowitz has suggested that thevocabulary of the semiotic analysis of Charles Pierce can be usefully applied to thenotions involved in Origen’s conception of divine names. Janowitz suggests that,in Peircean terms, Origen’s conception of divine names may be termed “iconic.”Peirce de nes an icon as “a sign which would possess the character which rendersit signi cant, even though the object had no existence; such as a lead pencil streakin representing a geometrical line.” 26 As in the example of the pencil line, whereits form is crucial to its function as a sign, when a divine name is seen as iconic,its form—that is, the very arrangement of the letters, their shapes, their sounds—isvital. The term “icon” articulates the late antique understanding that divine namesare not arbitrary words used to refer to gods but that they actually embody, in theirshape and in the pattern of their sounds, the deity’s power. 27 As Janowitz writes:“The term ‘icon’ helps us delineate many issues which emerge in the Jewish circlesknown to Origen, such as the need to preserve the shape exactly, the obsessive




quality with which it is copied, and the treatment afforded to the scrolls whichcontain it.” 28 Insofar as Origen appears to extend the automatic character whichhe attributes to divine names to the texts in which those names are embedded, wemight suggest that the iconic character of those names is similarly extended to thetexts. 29 Thus, the Hebrew text of Scripture shares in the iconic aspects of the divinenames which it contains. The shape of the Hebrew text—the very arrangement of theletters—recorded in the rst column of the Hexapla is possessed of a signi canceequivalent to that of the ef cacious sounds of the language recorded in the secondcolumn. As the foregoing demonstrates, the pro le of nonreferential elements inOrigen’s language theory outlined by Janowitz is able to shed new light on thestructure of the Hexapla and the function of the rst two columns.

1Harry Orlinsky, “The Columnar Order of the Hexapla,” JQR 27 (1936–1937) 137–49.2See Sebastian Brock, “Origen’s Aims as a Textual Critic of the Old Testament,” in Papers

presented to the Fifth International Conference of Patristic Studies held in Oxford 1967 (ed. FrankCross; Studia Patristica 10; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970) 215–18.

3The inclusion of older, obscure versions, such as the Quinta, Sexta and purported Septima, forsome portions of the Hexapla can only have been for scholarly purposes—such noncurrent versionscan have served little or no polemical purpose.

4Joachim Schaper, “The Origin and Purpose of the Fifth Column of the Hexapla,” in Origen’s Hexapla and Fragments (ed. Alison Salvesen; Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 58;Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 3–15.

5That the Hexapla originally contained two columns of Hebrew, the rst in Jewish script, thesecond in Greek transliteration, appears today to be accepted by a majority of commentators, contraPierre Nautin, Origène: sa Vie et son Oeuvre (Christianisme antique 1; Paris: Beauchesne, 1977).On the structure of the Hexapla, see R. Geoffrey Jenkins, “The First Column of the Hexapla: TheEvidence of the Milan Codex (Rahlfs 1098) and the Cairo Genizah Fragment (Rahlfs 2005)” inOrigen’s Hexapla and Fragments , 88–102; and Gerard Norton, “Observations on the rst twocolumns of the Hexapla,” in Origen’s Hexapla and Fragments , 103–24.

6Naomi Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names in Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius,” History of Religions 30 (1991) 359–72

7Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names,” 361.8Ibid., 362.9Ibid., 363.10Ibid.11Ibid.12Contra Celsum (CC) 4.34. See Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names,” 364–65.13On Jewish theories of ef cacious speech, see Naomi Janowitz, The Poetics of Ascent (Albany:

State University of New York, 1989).14Ibid., 25, and 135 n. 20, with literature cited there.15Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names,” 361.16Ibid., 370.17Ibid., 363.18Note that the Milan Codex may only be representative for the Hexapla of the Psalms. There are

also occasional exceptions to the one Hebrew word per line principle. See Norton, “Observationson the rst two columns of the Hexapla,” 115–23.



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19Origen’s rudimentary pro ciency in Hebrew raises the further question of who composed thesecond column transliteration. As it stands, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew text found in thesurviving Hexaplaric materials is a work of some sophistication. It demonstrates an awareness of theshortcomings of the Greek script in representing Hebrew phonology and evidences attempts to compen-sate for these inadequacies. See Einar Brønno, Studien über hebräische Morphologie und Vokalismus (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1943) 146–47, 275–77, 326; Alexander Sperber, “Hebrew Based on Greekand Latin Transliterations,” HUCA 12–13 (1937–1938) 114–15; and William Staples, “The SecondColumn of Origen’s Hexapla,” JAOS 59 (1939) 74–75. At the very least, the transliteration demonstratesa fairly sound knowledge of an established tradition of vocalization of the Hebrew consonantal text.This would require a level of knowledge of the Hebrew language far in excess of that which Origenappeared to possess. All of these observations lead to the conclusion that the transliterations weremost probably the products of Jewish scholarship.

20Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible. A Study of the Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim (Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 14.

21James Carelton Paget, “The Christian Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Alexandrian Tradi-tion,” in From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Part 1: Antiquity (vol. 1, pt. 1 of

Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation ; ed. Magne Sæbø with ChristianusBrekelmans and Menahem Haran; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 478–542. See alsoMarguerite Harl, “La Septante et la pluralité textuelle de l‘Ecriture: le temoignage des pères grecs,”in idem, La Langue de Japhet (Paris: CERF, 1992) 253–66.

22John Emerton, “The Purpose of the Second Column of the Hexapla,” JTS 7 (1956) 79–87;Norton, “Observations on the rst two columns of the Hexapla,” 112–14.

23Ludwig Blau, Zur Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift (Budapest: n.p., 1894) 80–83; Joseph Halevy,“L’origine de la transcription du texte hébreu en caractères grecs dans les Hexaples d’Origène,”

Journal Asiatique 17 (1901) 335–41; Paul Kahle, The Cairo Genizah (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1959) 157–64; and Franz Wutz, Die Transkriptionen von der LXX bis zu Hieronymus (BWAT2.9; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933).

24Jean Bottero, Clarisse Herrenschmidt and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Ancestor of the West: Writing, Reasoning, and Religion in Mesopotamia, Elam and Greece (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2000) 96–101.

25See Nicholas De Lange, Origen and the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976)

21–23.26Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names,” 371; quoting Justus Buchler, ed., Philosophical

Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover, 1955) 104.27Janowitz, “Theories of Divine Names,” 371.28Ibid.29On the Jewish ideology of the power of the written text see Janowitz, The Poetics of Ascent ,

102–3.

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