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Abstract
This dissertation develops a theoretical model for analyzing a notion, scripturalizing, first introduced by Wilfred Cantwell Smith. It then applies that model to the third-century C. E. Christian philosopher, Origen of Alexandria. The theoretical component of the dissertation fills a gap in the sociological study of scriptures and religion; the historical component provides an ideologically critical interpretation of Origen and his writings from a sociological perspective.
Scripturalizing is explicated here as an ongoing, multi-layered process that includes social formation, mythmaking, and symbolic labor. Social formation pertains to how people live in terms of social practices and hierarchies; mythmaking refers to the ever-evolving narrative identities shared by members of a group; and symbolic labor includes the techniques by which those identities, practices, and hierarchies are all made to seem natural or even divinely ordained.
Chapter One draws from various fields to explain scripturalizing from a theoretical perspective, explaining how mythmaking, social formation, and symbolic labor together help us understand how scriptures function in a community. After this, a chapter is devoted to each of the three components of scripturalizing as exemplified in the life and works of Origen of Alexandria. Chapter Two argues that Origen is best understood as a Christian philosopher based on his practices, values, and textual production. Categorizing him as such helps us to identify the hierarchies that pervade his theology. Specifically, it helps to explain Origen's view that Christians like himself who could study scripture philosophically were the most virtuous and closest to salvation. Chapter Three shows how these values are thoroughly intertwined with Origen's theology, ecclesiology, and soteriology, i.e., his mythology. In the final chapter, examples from Origen's homilies are used to show various ways by which Origen grafted his values into an already venerated set of texts. Chapter Four thus focuses on aspects of Origen's sybmolic labor through which he sought to naturalize the ideology of philosophical education in the ancient world as the Christian ideal.
