The Oxford handbook of Origen. Edited by Ronald E. Heine and Karen Jo Torjesen. Pp. xxviii + 596. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. £110. 978 0 19 968403 8

Abstract

(he remains ambivalent on this point) with a first edition of the Toledoth is surely an overly-ambitious conclusion on the basis of the evidence, even if the current reviewer is broadly sympathetic to that thesis (inter alia it is also notable in this respect that for whatever reason the claims of Celsus’ Jew, let alone his own work, finds very little imprint in later anti-pagan polemic – if it was a first edition of the Toledoth, it was a generative work and we might expect more reference to it). In arguing his case, not only does Tijsseling make some false assertions (for instance, the earliest manuscripts of the Toledoth are not fourth-century [p. ], but date from some six centuries later) but he also fails to take sufficient account of the objections some have raised to this kind of a thesis (there is no clear presentation of Schäfer’s arguments on this matter, though Schäfer and Meerson’s work is cited). His decision to focus on the Toledoth for parallels to what the Jew says about Jesus is valid (specific and exclusive parallels are not as great as he maintains, however) but he barely mentions other anti-Jesus traditions found in the rabbinic literature, which are similar to claims we find attributed to Celsus’ Jew but often distanced by scholars from the Toledoth stream. Finally, it was not entirely clear to me what was added by the chapter on Plato. The criticisms of Jesus Celsus derives from Plato are generally of a different order to those we find mentioned by the Jew (the Jew does appear Hellenised, even if his criticisms of Jesus by and large are not of a philosophical kind); and few would doubt now that Celsus is some kind of a Platonist. In spite of these criticisms, this volume remains a useful addition to the burgeoning literature on Celsus’ sources for his account of Jesus. Its achievement, however, lies more in the systematic presentation of the evidence than in the originality of the conclusions reached.