Against Celsus, Book IV · §58 · Origen of Alexandria

Which soul is God’s work?

We say this further to Celsus, who said, “The soul is the work of God, but the body is of another nature,” and who tossed out so great a doctrine not only without proof but also without drawing distinctions; for he did not make clear whether every soul is God’s work or only the rational soul. So we say to him: if every soul is God’s work, then clearly the souls of irrational and utterly worthless creatures are so too, so that every body as well is of another nature than the soul. And indeed in what follows, where he says that irrational animals are dearer to God than we are and have a purer notion of the divine, he seems to represent not only the soul of men but much more the soul of irrational animals as God’s work; for this follows from saying that they are dearer to God than we are.

But if only the rational soul is God’s work, then, first, he did not make this clear; and second, from his having spoken of the soul without distinction, taken to mean that not every soul but only the rational soul is God’s work, it follows that not every body is of another nature either. And if not every body is of another nature, but the body of each living creature corresponds to its soul, clearly the body of a creature whose soul is God’s work would differ from a body in which there dwells a soul that is not God’s work. And so it will be false that the body of a bat or a maggot or a frog will differ in nothing from that of a man.

Greek

Ἔτι δὲ καὶ τοῦτό φαμεν τῷ Κέλσῳ εἰπόντι· ψυχὴ μὲν θεοῦ ἔργον, σώματος δὲ ἄλλη φύσις καὶ οὐ μόνον ἀκατασκευάστως τὸ τηλικοῦτον δόγμα ῥίψαντι ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀδιορίστως· οὐ γὰρ ἐσαφήνισε, πότερον πᾶσα ψυχὴ θεοῦ ἔργον ἢ μόνη ἡ λογική· φαμὲν τοίνυν πρὸς αὐτόν· εἰ μὲν πᾶσα ψυχὴ θεοῦ ἔργον, δηλονότι καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων καὶ εὐτελεστάτων, ἵνα καὶ παντὸς σώματος ἄλλη φύσις ᾖ παρὰ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς. ἔοικε μέντοι ἐν τοῖς ἑξῆς. ἐν οἷς καὶ θεοφιλέστερα τὰ ἄλογα ζῷά φησιν ἡμῶν καὶ τοῦ θείου τὴν ἔννοιαν ἔχειν καθαρωτέραν, παριστάνειν ὅτι οὐ μόνον ἡ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον καὶ ἡ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων ψυχὴ ἔργον ἐστὶ τοῦ θεοῦ· τοῦτο γὰρ ἀκολουθεῖ τῷ θεοφιλέστερα λέγεσθαι ἐκεῖνα ἡμῶν. εἰ δὲ μόνη ἡ λογικὴ ψυχὴ θεοῦ ἔργον ἐστὶ, πρῶτον μὲν οὐκ ἐσαφήνισε τὸ τοιοῦτον· δεύτερον δὲ ἀκολουθεῖ τῷ ἀδιορίστως εἰρῆσθαι περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς, ὡς οὐ πάσης ἀλλὰ μόνης τῆς λογικῆς οὔσης θεοῦ ἔργον. τὸ μηδὲ παντὸς σώματος (ἄλλην) εἶναι φύσιν. εἰ δὲ μὴ παντὸς σώματος ἄλλη φύσις, ἀλλ᾿ ἑκάστου ἐστὶ τὸ σῶμα ζῴου ἀνάλογον τῇ ψυχῇ, δῆλον ὅτι οὗ ψυχὴ θεοῦ ἔργον ἐστὶ, διαφέροι ἂν τὸ ταύτης σῶμα σώματος, ἐν ᾧ οἰκεῖ ψυχὴ οὐκ οὖσα ἔργον θεοῦ. καὶ οὕτω ψεῦδος ἔσται τὸ μηδὲν διοίσειν νυκτερίδος ἢ εὐλῆς ἢ βατράχου σῶμα παρὰ τὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.

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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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