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

The law of nature stands above written law

There are, then, two laws set before us in general terms. One is the law of nature, the law God would lay down; the other is the written law in cities. Where the written law does not oppose the law of God, it is right not to trouble the citizens on the pretext of foreign laws. But where the law of nature, that is, of God, commands things contrary to the written law, consider whether reason does not require us to bid a long farewell to what is written and to the intention of the lawgivers, and to give ourselves to God the lawgiver and choose to live according to His word, even if this must be done amid dangers and countless toils, deaths and disgrace.

For it is absurd, when the things that please God are different from those that please some of the laws in cities, and when it is impossible to please both God and those who uphold such laws, to despise the actions by which one will please the Creator of the universe and to choose those by which one will be displeasing to God, but pleasing to laws that are no laws and to their friends. And if in other matters it is reasonable to prefer the law of nature, since it is the law of God, to the law that is written and enacted by men contrary to the law of God, how much more must this be done in the laws that concern God?

So we will not, like the Ethiopians who live around Meroe, worship Zeus and Dionysus alone, as pleases them; no, we will not honour Ethiopian gods in Ethiopian fashion at all. Nor, like the Arabians, will we regard Urania and Dionysus alone as gods; no, we will not regard them as gods at all, gods in whom female and male have been glorified (for the Arabians worship Urania as female and Dionysus as male). Nor will we, like all the Egyptians, hold Osiris and Isis to be gods; nor will we rank Athena with them, as the people of Sais think fit. And if the older people of Naucratis saw fit to revere other objects of worship, while those who began only yesterday or the day before chose to worship Serapis, who never at any time was a god, we will not on that account say, for our part, that there is a new god, one who did not exist before and was not known to men.

For the Son of God, “the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15), even if He was seen to have become man only lately, is not for that reason new. For the divine words know Him as the most ancient of all the works of creation, and know that it was to Him that God said concerning the making of man, “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

Greek

Δύο τοίνυν νόμων προκειμένων γενικῶς, καὶ τοῦ μὲν ὄντος τῆς φύσεως νόμου, ὃν θεὸς ἂν νομοθετήσαι, ἑτέρου δὲ τοῦ ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι γραπτοῦ, καλὸν ὅπου μὲν μὴ ἐναντιοῦται ὁ γραπτὸς νόμος τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ μὴ λυπεῖν τοὺς πολίτας προφάσει ξένων νόμων· ἔνθα δὲ τὰ ἐναντία τῷ γραπτῷ νόμῳ προστάσσει ὁ τῆς φύσεως τουτέστι τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅρα εἰ μὴ ὁ λόγος αἱρεῖ μακρὰν μὲν χαίρειν εἰπεῖν τοῖς γεγραμμένοις καὶ τῷ βουλήματι τῶν νομοθετῶν, ἐπιδιδόναι δὲ ἑαυτὸν τῷ θεῷ νομοθέτῃ καὶ κατὰ τὸν τούτου λόγον αἱρεῖσθαι βιοῦν, κἂν μετὰ κινδύνων καὶ μυρίων πόνων καὶ θανάτων καὶ ἀδοξίας τοῦτο δέῃ ποιεῖν. καὶ γὰρ ἄτοπον, τῶν ἀρεσκόντων τῷ θεῷ ἑτέρων ὄντων παρὰ τὰ ἀρέσκοντά τισι τῶν ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι νόμων, καὶ ἀμηχάνου τυγχάνοντος ἀρέσκειν θεῷ καὶ τοῖς πρεσβεύουσι τοὺς τοιούσδε νόμους, καταφρονεῖν μὲν πράξεων, δι᾿ ὧν ἀρέσει τις τῷ τῶν ὅλων δημιουργῷ, αἱρεῖσθαι δὲ ἐκείνας, ἐξ ὧν ἀπάρεστος μέν τις ἔσται τῷ θεῷ, ἀρεστὸς δὲ τοῖς οὐ νόμοις νόμοις καὶ τοῖς τούτων φίλοις. εἴπερ δὲ εὔλογον ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων τὸν τῆς φύσεως προτιμᾶν νόμον, ὄντα νόμον τοῦ θεοῦ, παρὰ τὸν γεγραμμένον καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐναντίως τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ θεοῦ νενομοθετημένον. πῶς οὐχὶ τοῦτο μᾶλλον ἐν τοῖς περὶ θεοῦ νόμοις ποιητέον; καὶ οὔτε ὡς Αἰθίοπες, [ὡς] οἱ τὰ περὶ τὴν Μερόην οἰκοῦντες, Δία καὶ Διόνυσον, ὡς ἐκείνοις ἀρέσκει, μόνους προσκυνήσομεν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὅλως Αἰθιοπικοὺς θεοὺς Αἰθιοπικῶς τιμήσομεν· οὔθ᾿ ὡς οἱ Ἀράβιοι τὴν Οὐρανίαν καὶ τὸν Διόνυσον μόνους ἡγησόμεθα θεοὺς, ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὅλως θεοὺς. ἐν οἷς τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ ἄῤῥεν δεδόξασται (ὡς θήλειαν γὰρ Ἀράβιοι τὴν Οὐρανίαν προσκυνοῦσι καὶ ὡς ἄῤῥενα τὸν Διόνυσον)· ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὡς πάντες Αἰγύπτιοι θεοὺς νομίσομεν Ὄσιριν καὶ Ἶσιν. οὐδὲ τούτοις συγκατατάξομεν κατὰ τὰ τοῖς Σαΐταις (δοκοῦντα) τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν. εἰ δὲ καὶ Ναυκρατίταις ἄλλα μὲν ἔδοξε σέβειν τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις. τὸν Σάραπιν δὲ τοῖς χθὲς καὶ πρώην ἀρξαμένοις. τὸν οὐ πώποτε γενόμενον θεὸν, προσκυνεῖν· οὐ παρὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμεῖς νέον τὸν οὐ πρότερον ὄντα θεὸν οὐδὲ γνωσθέντα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις φήσομεν εἶναι. ὁ γὰρ τοῦ θεοῦ υἱὸς, ὁ „πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,“ εἰ καὶ νεωστὶ ἐνηνθρωπηκέναι ἔδοξεν. ἀλλ᾿ οὔτι γε διὰ τοῦτο νέος ἐστί. πρεσβύτατον γὰρ αὐτὸν πάντων τῶν δημιουργημάτων ἴσασιν οἱ θεῖοι λόγοι, καὶ αὐτῷ τὸν θεὸν περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου δημιουργίας εἰρηκέναι· „ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾿ εἰκόνα καὶ ὁμοίωσιν ἡμετέραν.“

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About this text

Origen answers Celsus’s claim that no God or Son of God has come down to men, shows why Christians worship God alone and not angels or the stars, and defends the hope of the resurrection against the charge that it is “the hope of worms.” He then rejects Celsus’s case that each nation should keep its own ancestral laws, and answers his mockery of the angels at Jesus’ tomb and of the many Christian sects.

Base text: Paul Koetschau's Greek, GCS 2–3 (1899), via the Perseus digital text. All 65 chapters of Book V were translated from the Greek in two passes (a literal gloss with key Greek words, then reading English), and every clause was then checked against the Greek in a separate review. Doubtful readings in the Greek are recorded in the translator's notes.

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Translated from Koetschau GCS 2 – 3 (1899) — Greek (Greek · Book V, chapters 1 – 65)

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