Against Celsus, Preface · §3 · Origen of Alexandria

No argument can part us from God’s love

I venture, then, to say that the defence you ask us to make weakens the defence that lies in the facts themselves, and the power of Jesus, which is plain to all who are not without perception. Still, so that we may not seem to shrink from the task you have laid on us, we have tried, as far as our present strength allows, to dictate in reply to each thing Celsus wrote whatever seemed to us to overturn his arguments, which can shake no believer. And may no one be found whose love of God “in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39) is of such a kind that his resolve could be shaken by the words of Celsus or of anyone like him.

Paul lists a vast number of things that commonly separate people “from the love of Christ” (Romans 8:35) and from “the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39), and the love within him was stronger than all of them; yet among the things that separate he did not set argument. For notice that he first says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being put to death all the day long; we were counted as sheep for the slaughter’ (Psalm 44:22). But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35–37).

Second, setting out another order of things that by nature tend to separate those who have no ballast in godliness, he says: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Greek

Τολμῶ μὲν οὖν καί φημι ὅτι ἣν ἀξιοῖς ποιήσασθαι ἡμᾶς ἀπολογίαν ὑπεκλύει τὴν ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν ἀπολογίαν καὶ τὴν ἐπιφανῆ τοῖς οὐκ ἀναισθήτοις δύναμιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. ὅμως δ᾿ ἵνα μὴ δοκῶμεν ὀκνεῖν πρὸς τὸ ἐπιταχθὲν ὑπὸ σοῦ, πεπειράμεθα ὑπαγορεῦσαι κατὰ τὴν παροῦσαν δύναμιν πρὸς ἕκαστον τῶν ὑπὸ Κέλσου γεγραμμένων τὸ φανὲν ἡμῖν ἀνατρεπτικὸν τῶν πιστὸν οὐδένα δυναμένων σεῖσαι λόγων αὐτοῦ. καὶ μὴ εἴη γε εὑρεθῆναί τινα τοιαύτην ἀνειληφότα ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ „ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ“, ὡς ὑπὸ τῶν ῥημάτων Κέλσου ἤ τινος τῶν ὁμοίων σεισθῆναι τὴν προαίρεσιν αὐτοῦ. ὁ δὲ Παῦλος μυρία ὅσα καταλέγων τὰ εἰωθότα χωρίζειν „ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ“ καὶ „ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ“, ὧν πάντων κρείττων ἦν ἡ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀγάπη. λόγον οὐ κατέταξεν ἐν τοῖς χωρίζουσι. πρόσχες γὰρ ὅτι πρότερον μέν φησι· „τίς ἡμᾶς χωρίσει ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ; θλῖψις ἢ στενοχωρία ἢ διωγμὸς ἢ λιμὸς ἢ γυμνότης ἢ κίνδυνος ἢ μάχαιρα; καθάπερ γέγραπται ὅτι ἕνεκεν σοῦ θανατούμεθα πᾶσαν τὴν ἡμέραν, ἐλογίσθημεν ὡς πρόβατα σφαγῆς. ἀλλ᾿ ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν ὑπερνικῶμεν διὰ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς.“ δεύτερον δὲ ἄλλο τάγμα ἐκτιθέμενος τῶν πεφυκότων χωρίζειν τοὺς ἀνερματίστους ἐν θεοσεβείᾳ λέγει· „πέπεισμαι γὰρ ὅτι οὔτε θάνατος οὔτε ζωὴ. οὔτε ἄγγελοι οὔτε ἀρχαὶ, οὔτε ἐνεστῶτα οὔτε μέλλοντα. οὔτε δυνάμεις οὔτε ὕψωμα, οὔτε βάθος οὔτε τις κτίσις ἑτέρα δυνήσεται ἡμᾶς χωρίσαι ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν.“

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About this text

Origen tells his patron Ambrose that Jesus met false witness with silence, that the lives of Christ’s true disciples are his defence, and that no argument can separate a believer from the love of God. He writes a reply to Celsus’s “True Doctrine” all the same, for those who have had no taste of faith in Christ and for those who are weak in faith.

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 an independent review. No earlier English translation was consulted.

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Translated from Koetschau GCS 2 – 3 (1899) — Greek (Greek · Preface, chapters 1 – 6)

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