Ilaria Ramelli gives a working paper on 'Philosophical Exegesis of Scripture: Origen, ‘Pagan’ Platonists, and Jews'

This chapter will address Origen’s polemics against some ‘pagan’ intellectuals about the allegoresis of Scripture and will argue for the role of Origen’s allegoresis as a philosophical task (as it was in Stoicism and Middle Platonism), and how this relates to the notion of Scripture as embodiment of Christ-Logos. Structural continuities will be pointed out between Origen and the Stoic allegorical tradition, as well as the struggle with Middle-Platonic allegorists for the definition of which authoritative traditions were to be allegorised. Scriptural allegoresis was a heritage of Philo, although ‘pagan’ Platonists such as Celsus and Porphyry failed—or refused—to recognize this, while Origen, as will be pointed out, acknowledged his debt to Jewish Hellenistic allegorists. Indeed, it will be suggested that Origen’s attitude toward Jewish exegesis was less ambivalent, or even hostile, than generally represented.