Jews and Others
interpretation. In reality, as the story of Origen’s exchanges with Beryllus
of Bostra makes clear, the church in ‘‘Arabia’’ was Greek-speaking like that
elsewhere in the eastern Roman Empire.^58
It is none the less in the mid-third century, and in the writings of Ori-
gen, that the question of the historic religious identity of the ‘‘Ishmaelites’’
began to make its appearance in Christian writings. Thus, for example, in
theContra CelsumOrigen notes that the Jews distinguished their custom of
circumcision from that of the ‘‘Ishmaelite Arabs,’’ although Ishmael was the
son of their father Abraham and had been circumcised with him.^59 Similarly,
but selecting a slightly different aspect, Eusebius in thePraeparatio Evangelica
notes that among the Ishmaelites of ‘‘Arabia’’ all are circumcised at age thir-
teen, ‘‘for this is recorded of them.’’ His dependence on Josephus (direct or
indirect) is clear.^60 None the less, even in this period, while the presumptions
of a common descent, or the (partially) common custom of circumcision
can be alluded to, no positive conclusions are drawn from it. Such a deduc-
tion began to appear only when the extension of Christianity beyond the
area of direct Roman control came in question. We see a version of it, for
instance, in the account by Philostorgius of a Christian mission sent by Con-
stantius II (..–) to ‘‘the Sabaeans, now called Homeritai’’ (the inhabi-
tants of Arabia Felix, or Himyar, that is the Yemen): ‘‘this race is descended
from those born to Abraham by Keturah’’ (text to n. above). Philostorgius
goes on to say that they carried out circumcision on the eighth day, while
also being pagans who worshipped the Sun, Moon, and local deities; ‘‘but a
not inconsiderable number of Jews is intermingled with them.’’^61
Though Philostorgius does not offer any such explicit interpretation, it
was thus possible for Christians to see peoples living in the Arabian penin-
sula as having largely but not wholly lapsed from their ancestral Jewish cus-
toms and as having adopted paganism. It was to be precisely this presump-
tion, based on Josephus’ equation of ‘‘Arabs’’ with the descendants of Ishmael,
which was to be so important in the fifth century.
Before that, however, two other significant applications of collective no-
menclature have to be noted. Firstly, as early as Strabo, a tribe or people called
. See Eusebius,HE, . The title of the article by G. Kretschmar, ‘‘Origenes und die
Araber,’’Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche (): , is thus potentially misleading. If
there was in reality anything distinctively ‘‘Arab’’ in the heresies concerned, there is as yet
no way of demonstrating it.
. Origen,C. Cels.,,.
. Eusebius,PE, , (/b).
. Philostorgius,HE, .