Against Celsus, Book IV · §37 · Origen of Alexandria

The hands and the breath of God

He charges us with bringing in a man moulded by the hands of God, although the book of Genesis speaks of God’s hands neither at the making of man (Genesis 1:26–27) nor at his moulding (Genesis 2:7). It is Job and David who said, “Your hands made me and moulded me” (Job 10:8; Psalm 119:73). On these words “there is much to say” (Hebrews 5:11) in order to bring out what those who spoke them meant, not only about the difference between making and moulding but also about the hands of God.

Those who have not understood these hands, or similar expressions of the divine Scriptures, think that we ascribe to the God over all a shape such as the human shape. On their reasoning it would follow that we also think there are wings on God’s body, since the Scriptures about our God, taken literally, say this too (see Psalm 17:8; 91:4). But the present treatise does not require us to explain these things now; for we have examined them as our main subject, as far as we could, in our commentaries on Genesis.

Next, see Celsus’s malice in what follows. Our Scripture says of the moulding of man: “And he breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). But he, wishing maliciously to mock “he breathed into his face the breath of life”, though he has not even understood in what sense it was said, wrote that they put together “a man moulded by the hands of God and blown into”. He did this so that someone might suppose “blown into” was said in the way wineskins are blown up, and laugh at “he breathed into his face the breath of life”. Yet this was said figuratively and needs an explanation, one showing that God gave man a share of the incorruptible Spirit, as it is said: “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things” (Wisdom of Solomon 12:1).

Greek

Ἐγκαλεῖ δ᾿ ἡμῖν ὡς ὑπὸ χειρῶν θεοῦ πλασθέντα εἰσαγαγοῦσιν ἄνθρωπον. τοῦ μὲν τῆς Γενέσεως βιβλίου οὔτ᾿ ἐπὶ τῆς ποιήσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὔτ᾿ ἐπὶ τῆς πλάσεως χεῖρας παραλαβόντος θεοῦ. τοῦ δὲ Ἰὼβ καὶ τοῦ Δαυὶδ εἰπόντων τό· „αἱ χεῖρές σου ἐποίησάν με καὶ ἔπλασάν με,“ περὶ ὧν „πολὺς“ „ὁ λόγος“ εἰς τὸ παραστῆσαι τὰ νενοημένα τοῖς ταῦτα εἰρηκόσιν οὐ μόνον περὶ διαφορᾶς ποιήσεως καὶ πλάσεως ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ χειρῶν θεοῦ· ἃς οἱ μὴ νοήσαντες καὶ τὰς τοιαύτας ἀπὸ τῶν θείων γραφῶν φωνὰς οἴονται ἡμᾶς τοιοῦτον σχῆμα περιτιθέναι τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεῷ ὁποῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, καθ᾿ οὓς καὶ πτέρυγας ἀκόλουθον νομίζειν ἡμᾶς εἶναι ἐν τῷ σώματι τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐπεὶ καὶ ταῦτα λέγουσιν αἱ κατὰ τὸ ῥητὸν περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν γραφαί. ταῦτα δὲ νῦν ἑρμηνεύειν οὐκ ἀπαιτεῖ ἡ προκειμένη πραγματεία· προηγουμένως γὰρ ἐν τοῖς εἰς τὴν Γένεσιν ἐξηγητικοῖς ταῦθ᾿ ἡμῖν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἐξήτασται. εἶθ᾿ ὅρα κακοήθειαν τοῦ Κέλσου ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς. τῆς γὰρ γραφῆς ἡμῶν λεγούσης ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πλάσεως· „καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς. καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν,“ ὁ δὲ κακοήθως διασύρειν βουλόμενος τὸ „ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν (ζωῆς) ,“ ὅπερ οὐδὲ νενόηκε τίνα τρόπον λέλεκται, ἀνέγραψεν ὅτι συνέθεσαν ἄνθρωπον ὑπὸ χειρῶν θεοῦ πλασσόμενον (καὶ ἐμφυσώμενον) , ἵνα τὸ ἐμφυσώμενον παραπλησίως τις νομίσας λελέχθαι τοῖς ἐμφυσωμένοις ἀσκοῖς γελάσῃ τὸ „ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς“ τροπικῶς εἰρημένον καὶ δεόμενον διηγήσεως, παριστάσης μεταδεδωκέναι τὸν θεὸν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου πνεύματος τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ· καθὸ λέλεκται· „τὸ δὲ ἄφθαρτόν σου πνεῦμά ἐστιν ἐν πᾶσιν.“

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Origen answers Celsus’s scorn for the belief that God or his Son comes down to the world, showing that the Word comes down without change and that God’s threats and punishments are a cure, not a fit of temper. He then defends the stories of Genesis and the patriarchs, read in their deeper sense, against the charge that they are silly tales, and rejects Celsus’s claim that the world was made no more for man than for the animals, which Celsus thought nearer to God than men.

Translated from the Greek of Koetschau, GCS 2–3 (1899), via the Perseus digital text, which serves as the base text. Each chapter was translated from the Greek and then checked clause by clause against it in a separate review. No earlier English translation was consulted.

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Translated from Koetschau GCS 2 – 3 (1899) — Greek (Greek · Book IV, chapters 1 – 99)

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