Against Celsus, Book V · §6 · Origen of Alexandria

Celsus misreads Jewish worship

After this he sets out a passage about the Jews, as follows: “First, then, one may well wonder at the Jews, that they revere heaven and the angels in it, yet pass over the most venerable and most powerful parts of it, the sun and the moon and the other stars, both fixed and wandering; as if it were possible for the whole to be a god while its parts are not divine. Or that they worship most devoutly beings who are said to draw near, somewhere in the dark, to people blinded by a crooked sorcery or dreaming through dim phantoms, while those who prophesy so plainly and so brilliantly to all, through whom rains and heat and clouds and thunders (which they worship) and lightnings and fruits and every kind of offspring are dispensed, through whom God is revealed to them, the most manifest heralds of the world above, the truly heavenly angels, these they count as nothing.”

In these remarks Celsus seems to me to be confused, and to have written, from things he heard amiss, about matters he did not know. For it is clear to those who examine the ways of the Jews and set those of the Christians beside them that the Jews follow the law, which says in the person of God: “You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. You shall not worship them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:3–5). Following this law, they revere nothing but the God over all, who made heaven and everything else.

And it is plain that those who live by the law, revering the One who made heaven, do not revere heaven together with God; nor does anyone who serves the law of Moses worship the angels in heaven either. Just as they do not worship the sun and the moon and the stars, “the array of heaven,” so they abstain from worshipping heaven and the angels in it, obeying the law which says: “And do not, when you look up to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the array of heaven, be led astray and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations” (Deuteronomy 4:19).

Greek

Μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ τοιαύτην ἐκτίθεται περὶ Ἰουδαίων λέξιν· πρῶτον οὖν τῶν Ἰουδαίων θαυμάζειν ἄξιον, εἰ τὸν μὲν οὐρανὸν καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῷδε ἀγγέλους σέβουσι, τὰ σεμνότατα δὲ αὐτοῦ μέρη καὶ δυνατώτατα, ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀστέρας ἀπλανεῖς τε καὶ πλανήτας, ταῦτα παραπέμπουσιν· ὡς ἐνδεχόμε νον τὸ μὲν ὅλον εἶναι θεὸν, τὰ δὲ μέρη αὐτοῦ μὴ θεῖα. ἢ τοὺς μὲν ἐν σκότῳ που ἐκ γοητείας οὐκ ὀρθῆς τυφλώττουσιν ἢ δι᾿ ἀμυδρῶν φασμάτων ὀνειρώττουσιν ἐγχρίμπτειν λεγομένους εὖ μάλα θρησκεύειν, τοὺς δ᾿ ἐναργῶς οὕτως καὶ λαμπρῶς ἅπασι προφητεύοντας, δι᾿ ὧν ὑετούς τε καὶ θάλπη καὶ νέφη καὶ βροντὰς, ἃς προσκυνοῦσι, καὶ ἀστραπὰς καὶ καρποὺς καὶ γονὰς ἁπάσας ταμιεύεσθαι, δι᾿ ὧν αὐτοῖς ἀνακαλύπτεσθαι τὸν θεὸν, τοὺς φανερωτάτους τῶν ἄνω κήρυκας, τοὺς ὡς ἀληθῶς οὐρανίους ἀγγέλους, τούτους ἡγεῖσθαι τὸ μηδέν, ἐν τούτοις δὲ δοκεῖ μοι συγκεχύσθαι ὁ Κέλσος καὶ ἀπὸ παρακουσμάτων ἃ μὴ ᾔδει γεγραφέναι· σαφὲς γὰρ τοῖς τὰ Ἰουδαίων ἐξετάζουσι καὶ τὰ Χριστιανῶν ἐκείνοις συνάπτουσιν ὅτι τῷ μὲν νόμῳ ἀκολουθοῦντες Ἰουδαῖοι, λέγοντι ἐκ προσώπου θεοῦ· „οὐκ ἔσονταί σοι (θεοὶ) ἕτεροι πλὴν ἐμοῦ, οὐ ποιήσεις σεαυτῷ εἴδωλον οὐδὲ παντὸς ὁμοίωμα, ὅσα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἄνω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τῇ γῇ κάτω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς· οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῖς,“ οὐδὲν ἄλλο σέβουσιν ἢ τὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεὸν, ὃς ἐποίησε τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα, δῆλον δ᾿ ὅτι οἱ κατὰ τὸν νόμον βιοῦντες σέβοντες τὸν ποιήσαντα τὸν οὐρανὸν οὐ συσσέβουσι τῷ θεῷ τὸν οὐρανόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἀγγέλους οὐδεὶς τῶν δουλευόντων τῷ Μωϋσέως νόμῳ προσκυνεῖ· ὁμοίως δὲ τῷ μὴ προσκυνεῖν ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας, „τὸν κόσμον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ“, ἀπέχονται τοῦ προσκυνεῖν οὐρανὸν καὶ τοὺς ἐν αὐτῷ ἀγγέλους, πειθόμενοι τῷ λέγοντι νόμῳ· „καὶ μὴ ἀναβλέψας εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ ἰδὼν τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας, πάντα τὸν κόσμον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, πλανηθεὶς προσκυνήσῃς αὐτοῖς καὶ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῖς, ἃ ἀπένειμε κύριος ὁ θεός σου αὐτὰ πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν.“

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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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