Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 1.48

Even if the Jew offers no defense for Ezekiel and Isaiah, we are making common ground of the passages about the heavens opening to Jesus, the voice he heard, and the parallel accounts found written in Ezekiel, Isaiah, or any other prophet. For our part, we will present our case as fully as we can. We argue that just as many people believe dreams have appeared to them—some more divine, others foretelling everyday future events, whether plainly or through riddles—and this is evident to everyone who has acknowledged divine providence, so what is absurd about the idea that the ruling faculty in a dream can imprint itself and prove useful either to the dreamer or to those who hear his report? In the same way we accept that in a dream we seem to hear and our sensory hearing is struck, and we seem to see through eyes—not the body’s eyes, nor is the bodily hearing struck, but the ruling faculty undergoes these experiences—so there is nothing absurd in such things happening to the prophets, when Scripture records that they saw things more paradoxical than hearing the Lord’s words or seeing the heavens opened. I for one do not suppose the physical heaven was actually split open and Ezekiel’s body torn apart so that he could write such things. Therefore we should not expect the same sort of thing to happen to the Savior either, even if this offends the simple-minded, who in their extreme simplicity shake the world by splitting apart the vast unified body of the whole heaven. But the one who examines this more deeply will say that, since there exists—as Scripture has named it—a certain divine general sense, which only the blessed person finds, just as Solomon says, ‘for you will find divine sense’ (Proverbs 2:5 LXX), and since this sense has modes: a sight strengthened to see the more excellent realities beyond bodies, in which the cherubim or seraphim are revealed; a hearing that apprehends voices not existing in air; a taste that partakes of living bread come down from heaven and giving life to the world; and likewise a smell that perceives such things, as Paul says Christ’s fragrance is ‘to God’ (2 Corinthians 2:15); and a touch, by which John says he handled ‘the word of life’ with his hands (1 John 1:1)—the blessed prophets, having found this divine sense, saw divinely, heard divinely, tasted similarly, smelled (so to speak) with a non-sensory perception, and touched the Word by faith, so that its effluence reached them and healed them. Thus they saw what they wrote they saw, heard what they say they heard, and underwent similar experiences, as they recorded, eating a ‘scroll’ given to them as a book (Ezekiel 3:1–3; Revelation 10:9–10). So too Isaac ‘smelled the smell’ of his son’s ‘garments,’ more divine, and pronounced a spiritual blessing: ‘Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed’ (Genesis 27:27). In a similar way, yet more intellectually than sensibly, Jesus ‘touched’ the leper to cleanse him—as I think, in two ways: removing not only the sensory leprosy through sensory touch, as most people hear it, but also the other leprosy through his truly divine touch. Accordingly, ‘John testified, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. And I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize in water told me: ‘On whomever you see the Spirit descending and remaining, he is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God”’ (John 1:32–34). And to Jesus the heavens were opened; and at that moment, apart from John, no one is recorded as having seen the heavens opened. Yet the Savior, foretelling this to his disciples as something they would later see, said: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man’ (John 1:51). And so Paul was caught up to the third heaven, having first seen it opened, because he was a disciple of Jesus (2 Corinthians 12:2). To explain now why Paul says, ‘Whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know—God knows,’ is not the task of the present moment. I will add, however, the points that Celsus thinks Jesus himself spoke about the opening of the heavens and the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove by the Jordan; but Scripture does not attest that Jesus himself said he saw this. Celsus failed to notice that this does not accord with the one who told the disciples on the mountain of the vision: ‘Tell no one the vision until the Son of Man has risen from the dead’ (Matthew 17:9)—meaning the things seen and heard by John at the Jordan were not then told to the disciples. It is also evident from Jesus’ character, which everywhere avoids self-praise, and therefore he says, ‘Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is not true’ (John 5:31). He avoided self-praise in his works as well, preferring to demonstrate by deeds that he is the Christ rather than by words; for this reason the Jews said to him, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us plainly’ (John 10:24). And since, in Celsus’ account, it is a Jew who speaks to Jesus about the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove—‘except that you say this and bring up one of those punished with you’—it is necessary for Celsus to show that this too is not properly attributed to a Jewish persona. For the Jews do not link John with Jesus, nor John’s punishment with Jesus’. And so in this Celsus is refuted, he who boasted that he knew everything while not knowing what words to put in the mouth of a Jewish character addressing Jesus.