The Origin of Satan (26 page)

rulers whom they secretly control.75

We know almost nothing about Tatian’s life or what this

conviction meant for him in practice; but we do know what it

meant to the young Egyptian Christian named Origen, who was

seventeen years old when he saw his beloved Christian father,

Leonides, arrested and summarily executed for refusing to

sacrifice to the gods. Thereafter Origen, later nicknamed

Adamantius (“the adamant,” or “the indomitable”), resolved to

be a warrior on God's side against the forces of Satan. From

childhood, as we shall see, Origen witnessed bitter conflict—and

then the most astounding series of shifts and reverses—in the

relationship between Christians and imperial power. He

remained wary of those in power all his life. Though he believed

that Christians benefited from the peace the Roman empire

provided, he became the first Christian to argue publicly that

people have an innate moral right to assassinate tyrants.

Born in the year 185 to a Roman father and an Egyptian

mother, both baptized Christians, Origen was seven years old

when the reigning emperor, Lucius Commodus, the sole

surviving son of Marcus Aurelius, was murdered in his bath.76

Rumor blamed a palace conspiracy involving Commodus’s

athletic trainer and Marcia, his concubine; but masses of people,

hearing that the emperor was dead, poured into the streets to

celebrate, for Commodus had rebelled against everything his

distinguished father stood for. By the time he was strangled,

Commodus was widely despised as a madman and a tyrant; he

had shocked his constituents by pretending to be a gladiator,

engaging in public combats in the arena, effectively abdicating

his imperial responsibilities by playing the role of a slave. He had

also neglected to persecute Christians: Marcia apparently favored

Christians and had encouraged Commodus to leave them alone.

The battles of succession lasted three years. Septimius Severus

emerged as victor, and seven years later, in 202 C.E., initiated

new

136 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

measures to purge his empire of Christians. It was then that Ori-

gen saw his father arrested along with others, charged with

professing Christianity, and sentenced to beheading; apparendy

he was protected by Roman citizenship, as Justin had been, from

slow torture and public execution.

While Leonides was in prison, Origen impulsively tried to

join the group of martyrs and escaped death, it was said, only

because his mother hid his clothes so that he could not leave the

house. But Origen passionately urged his father not to lose heart

out of concern for his wife and their seven children: “Be careful

not to change your mind because of us.”77 His father stood firm;

but his execution left the family destitute, since the state

confiscated his property as that of a condemned criminal. Origen

never forgot that imperial forces, however benign they later

seemed to many Christians, might at any moment show their

demonic origins.

Origen was rescued from destitution by the generosity of a

rich Christian, who invited him into her household and

supported him for several months while he continued studying

literature and philosophy. The following year, already

recognized, at the age of eighteen, for his brilliance and learning,

Origen began to teach on his own, supporting himself, his

mother, and her six younger children. The persecution that had

cost Leonides his life continued in Alexandria under several

changes of administration; several of Origen’s own students

were arrested and executed for professing Christianity, and he

himself lived under suspicion. More than once, angry crowds

threatened his life, especially when he ignored fears for his own

safety and publicly embraced a condemned friend, a man named

Plutarch, and attended his execution. So far, Origen himself

escaped arrest and interrogation, probably because Severus’s

persecution had targeted upper-class converts, especially Roman

citizens, like Origen’s father and many of his students. Origen

was protected, apparently, by having inherited from his

Egyptian mother the low status Roman law accorded to native

noncitizens.

When Origen was twenty-six, and still teaching, writing, and

interpreting the Scriptures, Septimius Severus died and was suc-

SATAN’S EARTHLY KINGDOM / 137

ceeded by two sons, one of whom, Caracalla, promptly

assassinated his brother Geta but left the Christians alone. For

the moment the government seemed almost benign. One day in

215, during Caracalla’s reign, soldiers arrived in Alexandria with

a letter from the governor of Arabia (present-day Jordan),

summoning Origen to appear at the palace. The governor had

heard of Origen’s brilliance and wanted to meet the young man;

and Origen agreed. But after Caracalla had ruled for six years, he

was assassinated by Macrinus, who reigned for only a year before

he, too, was killed. He was succeeded by Heliogabalus,

Caracalla’s cousin, a reclusive, fanatical young worshiper of the

sun god, a man whom many people regarded as insane.

Four years later, another cousin, Alexander Severus, replaced

Heliogabalus on the throne, and now, for the first time in Roman

history, members of the imperial house not only tolerated

Christians but even favored them. Severus's mother, the empress

Julia Mammea, who gathered many distinguished people at her

court, sent soldiers to invite Origen to join them; when he

arrived, she discussed with him, among other things, the

possibility of reconciling Christians to Roman civilization.

Christians of the time would have been astonished to hear a

rumor circulating in the empire—whether true or not—that the

emperor himself had set up statues of Abraham and Jesus along

with those of Socrates and other holy men in his private palace

sanctuary!

Hopes for a new age of tolerance were shattered, however,

when Maximinus, a rough peasant from Thrace, assassinated

Severus, took over the throne, and immediately renewed the

persecution of the Christians. Origen followed with great

concern the threatened arrest of several of his close friends and

associates, including Ambrose, his rich and influential patron

and friend, and the priest Protoctetus. Origen, who was not

arrested, wrote to them in a passionate “exhortation to

martyrdom,” warning them not to waver, nor to be deceived by

apparently genuine pleas to renounce their faith in order to save

their lives. To give in, he said, would be to capitulate to Satan;

for those arrested for Christ’s sake, only death brings victory.78

138 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

In the struggle for the throne that followed Maximinus’ death,

the young emperor Gordian III prevailed, and he, too, left

Christians alone. Assassinated by his own soldiers after ruling

for four years, he was succeeded by his own chief general. The

newly acclaimed emperor, Philip, the first Arab to achieve that

position, immediately secured his rule by killing Gordian’s

young son.

Philip the Arabian may have been the first Christian emperor.

At least three witnesses attest that he performed public penance

for that murder in view of the astonished congregation, during

the huge gatherings that attended the Easter vigil the following

spring—penance imposed on the emperor by the Christian

bishop of Antioch. During Philip’s reign, thousands of new

converts filled the churches. Now Origen complained in a

sermon that conversion had become so common and even

fashionable that it was no longer dangerous.

But Origen’s suspicions of government power were confirmed

when Decius killed Philip, seized power, and initiated a new and

more aggressive persecution of Christians. This time, however,

Origen, now in his mid-sixties and more renowned than ever,

was arrested and brutally tortured; the governor hoped to gain a

useful recantation from his most famous prisoner, but the

attempt failed.

Origen knew that pagan opposition to Christianity was often

based on more than superstition and prejudice. Years before his

arrest, Origen had read a tract, “The True Word,” which charged

that Christian “atheism” masked a rebellion against everything

society and government upheld. Only a few years before his

arrest, Origen had decided to respond to these charges, for this

was one of the most incisive and devastating attacks on

Christians ever written.79

Celsus, who wrote the tract around 180 C.E., was a religiously

inclined Platonic philosopher. He begins by charging that “the

cult of Christians is a secret society, whose members hide

together in corners for fear of being brought to trial and

punishment.” Citing their refusal of the magistrates’ orders to

sacrifice to the gods, Celsus says that if everyone adopted the

Christians’ attitude, there would be no rule of law.80 Celsus lived

at a time

SATAN’S EARTHLY KINGDOM / 139

when the Christian movement was growing rapidly, especially

among the illiterate. He writes that the Christians' refusal to

obey certain laws and to cooperate with local or imperial officials

threatens to “destroy legitimate authority, and return the world

to chaos and barbarians”—even to “bring down the empire, and

the emperor with it.”

Origen’s defiant reply opens by challenging the moral

legitimacy of imperial rule:

It is not irrational to form associations contrary to the existing

laws, if it is done for the sake of the truth. For just as those

people would do well who enter a secret association in order to

kill a tyrant who had seized the liberties of a state, so

Christians also, when tyrannized . . . by the devil, form

associations contrary to the devil’s laws, against his power, to

protect those whom they succeed in persuading to revolt

against a government which is barbaric and despotic.81

Origen stops short of identifying imperial law directly with

the devil, and elsewhere he even praises the pax Romana for

having providentially kept the peace during Jesus' lifetime.

Nevertheless Origen characterizes as demon-inspired all laws

and persons hostile to Christians. Christians, however, will

triumph over their enemies; Jesus died, he explains, “to destroy

a great
daimon
—in fact, the ruler of
daimones
, who held in

subjection the souls of humanity.”82 Whoever considers

empirical evidence will have to admit, he says, that the spread of

Christianity, although unanimously opposed by human

authorities, governmental and military, proves that some

enormous, previously unknown power is now at work in the

world:

Anyone who examines the matter will see that Jesus attempted

and successfully accomplished works beyond the range of

human capacity. For everything opposed the spread of his

teaching in the world—including the rulers in each period, and

their chief military leaders and generals, everyone—everyone,

to speak generally—who possessed even the slightest

influence,

140 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

and in addition to these, the rulers of all the various cities, and

the armies, and the people.83

Origen admits that the astounding success of the Christian

movement has occurred principally among the poor and

illiterate, but only because “the illiterate necessarily outnumber

the educated.” Yet “some persons of intelligence and education”

—he might have mentioned Justin, Tatian, even himself—have

committed their lives to the Christian faith. So, against all odds,

Origen continues,

our Jesus, despised for being born in a rural village—not even a

Greek [that is, civilized] one, nor belonging to any nation

widely respected; and being despised as the son of a poor

laboring woman, [nevertheless] has been able to shake the

whole civilized world.84

Jesus’ impact surpasses that of “even Pythagoras or Plato, let

alone that of any ruler or military leader in the world.”

Astonishing turns of events in world history offer empirical

proof that God’s spirit, acting in Jesus, is conquering Satan.

Origen agrees with Matthew and Luke that

one fact which proves that Jesus is something divine and sacred

is this: that the Jews have suffered because of him for a very

long time such terrible catastrophes. . . . For what nation is

exiled from its own capital city, and from the place sacred to

the worship of its ancestors, except the Jews alone? . . . It was

fitting, then, that the city where Jesus underwent sufferings

should utterly perish, and the Jewish nation be overthrown. . . .

And we can say with confidence it never will be restored to its

former condition.85

If the suffering of the Jews proves that God is punishing

them, what does that say about the suffering of Christians? And

what about those innocent people who suffer disease,