Against Celsus, Book IV · §4 · Origen of Alexandria

The same question falls on Celsus

So what Celsus brings against us and the Jews shall be said to him as well: Well, my good man, does the God who is over all know what goes on among men, or does he not know? If you hold that there is a God and a providence, as your treatise shows, he must know. And if he knows, why does he not set things right? Or are we obliged to give an account of why, knowing, he does not set things right, while you, who in your treatise do not altogether show yourself an Epicurean but profess to acknowledge providence, are not to be asked the same: why God, knowing all that goes on among men, does not set things right, nor by divine power free all men from vice?

But we are not ashamed to say that God always sends those who are to set things right; for the words that call men to what is best are present among men, since God has given them. Yet among those who serve God there are many differences, and few are those who uphold the truth wholly and purely and bring about complete correction, such as Moses and the prophets were. But beyond all these, great is the correction brought through Jesus, who did not wish only those in one corner of the world to be healed, but, as far as it lay with him, those everywhere; for he came as “Savior of all men” (1 Timothy 4:10).

Greek

Λελέξεται οὖν ὅπερ ἡμῖν καὶ Ἰουδαίοις προσάγει ὁ Κέλσος καὶ πρὸς αὐτόν· ὅτι ἆρα, ὦ οὗτος, οἶδεν ὁ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεὸς τὰ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἢ οὐκ οἶδεν; ἀλλ᾿ εἴπερ τίθης εἶναι θεὸν καὶ πρόνοιαν, ὡς ἐμφαίνει σου τὸ σύγγραμμα, ἀναγκαῖον αὐτὸν εἰδέναι. εἰ δ᾿ οἶδεν, διὰ τί οὐκ ἐπανορθοῖ; ἢ ἡμῖν μὲν ἀναγκαῖον ἀπολογεῖσθαι. διὰ τί εἰδὼς οὐκ ἐπανορθοῖ· σοὶ δὲ, μὴ πάνυ ἐμφαίνοντι διὰ τοῦ συγγράμματος τὸν Ἐπικούρειον ἀλλὰ προσποιουμένῳ πρόνοιαν εἰδέναι, οὐκ ἐπ᾿ ἴσης λελέξεται, διὰ τί εἰδὼς τὰ ἐν ἀνθρώποις πάντα ὁ θεὸς οὐκ ἐπανορθοῖ οὐδὲ θείᾳ δυνάμει ἀπαλλάσσει πάντας τῆς κακίας; ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ αἰσχυνόμεθα λέγειν ὅτι ἀεὶ μὲν πέμπει τοὺς ἐπανορθωσομένους· οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ τὰ βέλτιστα προκαλούμενοι λόγοι, θεοῦ αὐτοὺς δεδωκότος. εἰσὶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις· ἤδη δὲ τῶν διακονουμένων τῷ θεῷ πολλαί εἰσι διαφοραὶ, καὶ ὀλίγοι εἰσὶν οἱ πάντῃ καὶ καθαρῶς πρεσβεύοντες τὰ τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὴν παντελῆ ἐπανόρθωσιν ἐργαζόμενοι, ὁποῖοι ἦσαν Μωϋσῆς καὶ οἱ προφῆται. παρὰ δὲ τούτους πάντας μεγάλη ἡ διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐπανόρθωσις, οὐ τοὺς ἐν μιᾷ γωνίᾳ τῆς οἰκουμένης βουληθέντος μόνους θεραπεύεσθαι ἀλλὰ τὸ ὅσον ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ καὶ τοὺς πανταχοῦ· „σωτὴρ“ γὰρ ἦλθε „πάντων ἀνθρώπων.“

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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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