Against Celsus, Book IV · §5 · Origen of Alexandria

God does not leave his seat

After this the most noble Celsus, taking it from I know not where, raises a difficulty against us, as though we said that God himself comes down to men; and he thinks it follows from this that he leaves his own seat. For he does not know the power of God, nor that “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of what is spoken” (Wisdom of Solomon 1:7). Nor can he understand the words, “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24). Nor does he see that, according to the Christians’ teaching, “in him we all live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), as Paul too taught in his speech to the Athenians.

So even if the God of the universe, by his own power, comes down with Jesus into the life of men, and even if the Word who was “in the beginning with God,” and who is himself “God” (John 1:1–2), comes to us, he is not displaced, nor does he leave his own seat, as though one place were empty of him and another, which did not have him before, were full. The power and divinity of God comes to dwell through whom he wills and in whom it finds room, while he neither changes place nor leaves his own place empty and fills another.

For even if we should say that he leaves one and fills another, we shall not be declaring this about place. Rather, we shall say that the soul of the wicked man, dissipated in vice, is forsaken by God, while we shall declare that the soul of one who wishes to live according to virtue, or is making progress, or already lives according to it, is filled with the divine Spirit or shares in it.

There is no need, then, for the descent of Christ, or for God’s turning toward men, that a greater seat be left behind and the things here be changed, as Celsus thinks when he says: “For if you were to change even one thing here, the very least, everything would be overturned and gone.” But if we must speak of anyone being changed by the presence of God’s power and the coming of the Word to men, we shall not hesitate to say that whoever has received the coming of the Word of God into his own soul is changed from wicked to good, from licentious to self-controlled, and from superstitious to reverent.

Greek

Μετὰ ταῦθ᾿ ὁ γενναιότατος Κέλσος οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὁπόθεν λαβὼν ἐπαπορεῖ πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὡς λέγοντας ὅτι αὐτὸς κάτεισι πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ὁ θεός· καὶ οἴεται ἀκολουθεῖν τούτῳ τὸ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἕδραν αὐτὸν καταλιπεῖν. οὐ γὰρ οἶδε δύναμιν θεοῦ καὶ „ὅτι πνεῦμα κυρίου πεπλήρωκε τὴν οἰκουμένην, καὶ τὸ συνέχον τὰ πάντα γνῶσιν ἔχει φωνῆς,“ οὐδὲ συνιέναι δύναται τὸ „οὐχὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν ἐγὼ πληρῶ; λέγει κύριος,“ οὐδὲ βλέπει ὅτι κατὰ τὸν Χριστιανῶν λόγον οἱ πάντες „ἐν αὐτῷ ζῶμεν καὶ κινούμεθα καὶ ἐσμὲν,“ ὡς καὶ Παῦλος ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους δημηγορίᾳ ἐδίδαξε. κἂν ὁ θεὸς τοίνυν τῶν ὅλων τῇ ἑαυτοῦ δυνάμει συγκαταβαίνῃ τῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς τὸν τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίον, κἂν ὁ „ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν“ λόγος. „θεὸς“ καὶ αὐτὸς ὢν, ἔρχηται πρὸς ἡμᾶς. οὐκ ἔξεδρος γίνεται οὐδὲ καταλείπει τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἕδραν. ὡς τινὰ μὲν τόπον κενὸν αὐτοῦ εἶναι ἕτερον δὲ πλήρη, οὐ πρότερον αὐτὸν ἔχοντα. ἐπιδημεῖ δὲ δύναμις καὶ θειότης θεοῦ δι᾿ οὗ βούλεται καὶ ἐν ᾧ εὑρίσκει χώραν. οὐκ ἀμείβοντος τόπον οὐδ᾿ ἐκλείποντος χώραν αὐτοῦ κενὴν καὶ ἄλλην πληροῦντος. ἵνα γὰρ καὶ ἐκλείπειν αὐτὸν φῶμεν καὶ ἄλλον τινὰ πληροῦν, οὐ περὶ τόπου τὸ τοιοῦτον ἀποφανούμεθα· ἀλλὰ τὴν μὲν τοῦ φαύλου καὶ κεχυμένου ἐν τῇ κακίᾳ ψυχὴν φήσομεν καταλείπεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, τὴν δὲ τοῦ βουλομένου ζῆν κατ᾿ ἀρετὴν ἢ καὶ προκόπτοντος ἢ καὶ ἤδη ζῶντος κατ᾿ αὐτὴν ἀποφανούμεθα πληροῦσθαι ἢ μετέχειν θείου πνεύματος. οὐ χρεία οὖν εἰς τὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ κάθοδον ἢ εἰς τὴν πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ἐπιστροφὴν τοῦ θεοῦ καταλείπεσθαι ἕδραν μείζονα καὶ μεταβάλλεσθαι τὰ τῇδε, ὡς ὁ Κέλσος οἴεται, λέγων· εἰ γὰρ ἕν τι τῶν τῇδε τοὐλάχιστον μεταβάλοις, ἀνατραπέντα οἰχήσεταί σοι τὰ πάντα. εἰ δὲ χρὴ λέγειν μεταβάλλειν παρουσίᾳ δυνάμεως θεοῦ καὶ ἐπιδημίᾳ τοῦ λόγου εἰς ἀνθρώπους τινὰ, οὐκ ὀκνήσομεν λέγειν μεταβάλλειν ἐκ φαύλου εἰς ἀστεῖον καὶ ἐξ ἀκολάστου εἰς σώφρονα καὶ ἐκ δεισιδαίμονος εἰς εὐσεβῆ τὸν παραδεξάμενον τὴν τοῦ λόγου τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιδημίαν εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχήν.

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About this text

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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