Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 37

It seems to me that the case has been reasonably established: not only will our Savior be born of a virgin, but there were also prophets among the Jews who foretold far more than just the broad outlines of the future. They spoke of Christ, of worldly kingdoms, of what would befall Israel, of the nations that would believe in the Savior, and of many other matters concerning him. Beyond these general predictions, they also foretold specific details—how Kish’s lost donkeys would be found, the illness that struck the son of Israel’s king, and anything else of that sort that stands recorded.

We must also address the Greeks, who refuse to believe in Jesus’ virgin birth. The Creator demonstrated in the generation of various animals that He could accomplish whatever He willed—not only for a single species, but for others and for human beings themselves. Certain female animals, as naturalists report, reproduce without any male partner; vultures, for instance, preserve their kind without mating. So what is so paradoxical if God, intending to send a divine teacher to humanity, caused the Logos of the one to be born to come into being by a different means instead of the seminal word that comes from the union of male and female?

Even according to the Greeks’ own accounts, not all humans originated from a man and a woman. If the world was generated, as many Greeks held, then the first human beings could not have come from sexual union; they had to arise from the earth, constituted by seminal logoi implanted in it. That strikes me as far more paradoxical than Jesus being born of a virgin in a manner essentially like that of other humans.

There is nothing out of place in appealing to Greek histories when speaking to Greeks, so that we do not appear to be the only ones relying on a paradoxical story. Some writers thought it worth recording not only ancient and heroic tales but also events of the very recent past—for example, that Plato was born of Amphictione after Ariston was prevented from lying with her until she gave birth to the child sown by Apollo. But these are plainly myths, invented to glorify a man they believed surpassed others in wisdom and power, crediting his bodily origin to superior, more divine seed—as if such a pedigree befitted those greater than ordinary mortals.

Now Celsus introduces a Jew who confronts Jesus and mocks, as he supposes, the claim of his virgin birth by dragging in the Greek myths about Danaë, Melanippe, Auge, and Antiope. The response must be that such talk suits a buffoon, not someone who is serious in his proclamation.