Against Celsus, Book IV · §95 · Origen of Alexandria

God speaks through prophets, not birds

What is truly divine does not use irrational animals, nor just any men, for the knowledge of the future, but the holiest and purest souls of men, which it fills with God and makes prophets (Wisdom of Solomon 7:27). Therefore, if anything else in the law of Moses is wonderfully said, sayings like these must also be counted among them: “You shall not practise augury, nor watch birds” (Leviticus 19:26); and elsewhere: “For the nations, whom the Lord your God will destroy from before you, will listen to omens and divinations; but to you the Lord your God has not granted it so” (Deuteronomy 18:14); and then, next, he says: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

And once, when God wished to turn people away from augury through an augur, He caused a spirit in the augur to say: “For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel; in due time it will be told to Jacob and to Israel what God will accomplish” (Numbers 23:23).

Knowing these things, and others like them, we wish to keep the commandment spoken in a mystical sense: “Keep your heart with all watchfulness” (Proverbs 4:23), so that none of the demons may set foot on our ruling faculty, and no spirit of the opposing powers may turn our imagination to what it wishes. And we pray that “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” may shine “in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 4:6), while the Spirit of God dwells in our imagination and shapes in us images of the things of God; since “all who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

Greek

Τὸ δ᾿ ἀληθῶς θεῖον εἰς τὴν περὶ τῶν μελλόντων γνῶσιν οὔτε τοῖς ἀλόγοις χρῆται ζῴοις οὔτε τοῖς τυχοῦσι τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ ψυχαῖς ἀνθρώπων ἱερωτάταις καὶ καθαρωτάταις, ἅστινας θεοφορεῖ καὶ προφήτας ποιεῖ. διόπερ εἴ τι ἄλλο θαυμασίως εἴρηται ἐν τῷ Μωϋσέως νόμῳ, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις κατατακτέον· „οὐκ οἰωνιεῖσθε οὐδ᾿ ὀρνιθοσκοπήσετε,“ καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ· „τὰ γὰρ ἔθνη, οὓς κύριος ὁ θεός σου ἐξολοθρεύσει ἀπὸ προσώπου σου, οὗτοι κληδόνων καὶ μαντειῶν ἀκούσονται· σοὶ δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἔδωκε κύριος ὁ θεός σου“· εἶθ᾿ ἑξῆς φησι· „προφήτην ἀναστήσει σοι κύριος ὁ θεός σου ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν σου.“ βουληθεὶς δέ ποτε ὁ θεὸς δι᾿ οἰωνοσκόπου ἀποτρέψαι ἀπὸ τῆς οἰωνιστικῆς πεποίηκε πνεῦμα ἐν τῷ οἰωνοσκόπῳ εἰπεῖν· „οὐ γάρ ἐστιν οἰωνισμὸς ἐν Ἰακὼβ, οὐδὲ μαντεία ἐν Ἰσραήλ· κατὰ καιρὸν ῥηθήσεται τῷ Ἰακὼβ καὶ τῷ Ἰσραὴλ, τί ἐπιτελέσει ὁ θεός.“ ταῦτα δὴ γινώσκοντες ἡμεῖς καὶ τὰ τούτοις παραπλήσια τηρεῖν βουλόμεθα μυστικῶς εἰρημένην ἐντολὴν τήν· „πάσῃ φυλακῇ τήρει σὴν καρδίαν“· ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβῇ τι τῶν δαιμονίων τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ ἡμῶν, ἢ πνεῦμά τι τῶν ἐναντίων πρὸς ἃ βούλεται τρέψῃ τὸ φανταστικὸν ἡμῶν. εὐχόμεθα δὲ λάμψαι „ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν“ τὸν „φωτισμὸν τῆς γνώσεως τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ,“ ἐπιδημοῦντος ἡμῶν τῷ φανταστικῷ πνεύματος θεοῦ καὶ φαντάζοντος ἡμᾶς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ· ἐπεὶ „ὅσοι πνεύματι θεοῦ ἄγονται, οὗτοι υἱοί εἰσι θεοῦ.“

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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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