Against Celsus, Book IV · §59 · Origen of Alexandria

Bodies differ by those who dwell in them

For it is absurd that stones should be thought purer or more defiled than other stones, and buildings than other buildings, according as they were built for the honour of the divine or to receive the most dishonoured and accursed bodies, while bodies are held not to differ from bodies according as those who have dwelt in them are rational or irrational, and, among rational beings, according as they are the more virtuous or the worst of men. Indeed, this is what has led some to dare to deify the bodies of eminent men, as having received a virtuous soul, and to cast out or dishonour the bodies of the worst. Not that this has been done altogether soundly; but it took its beginning from a sound notion. Or will the wise man, after the death of Anytus and Socrates, take the same care over the burial of the body of Socrates as over that of Anytus, and build a like mound or tomb for both?

We have said these things because of the phrase “none of which is a work of God.” The “which” refers to the body of a man, or to the serpents that come from that body; to the body of an ox, or to the bees that come from an ox’s body; and to the body of a horse or an ass, and to the wasps that come from a horse and the beetles that come from an ass. Because of these words we were compelled to take up again the saying too: “The soul is the work of God, but the body is of another nature.”

Greek

Καὶ γὰρ ἄτοπον λίθους μὲν λίθων καὶ οἰκοδομήματα οἰκοδομημάτων νομίζεσθαι εἶναι καθαρώτερα ἢ μιαρώτερα παρὰ τὸ εἰς τιμὴν τοῦ θείου κατεσκευάσθαι ἢ εἰς ἀτιμοτάτων σωμάτων καὶ ἐναγῶν ὑποδοχὴν, σώματα δὲ σωμάτων μὴ διαφέρειν παρὰ τὸ λογικὰ εἶναι τὰ ἐνοικήσαντα ἢ ἄλογα, καὶ λογικῶν τὰ σπουδαιότερα ἢ τοὺς φαυλοτάτους ἀνθρώπους. τὸ τοιοῦτόν γε πεποίηκε τολμῆσαί τινας ἀποθεῶσαι μὲν τὰ τῶν διαφερόντων σώματα ὡς δεξάμενα ψυχὴν σπουδαίαν. ἀποῤῥίψαι δὲ ἢ ἀτιμάσαι τὰ τῶν φαυλοτάτων· οὐχ ὅτι πάντως τὸ τοιοῦτον ὑγιῶς γεγένηται, ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι ἀπό τινος ἐννοίας ὑγιοῦς ἔσχε τὴν ἀρχήν. ἢ ὁμοίως ὁ σοφὸς μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν Ἀνύτου καὶ Σωκράτους φροντίσει τῆς ταφῆς τοῦ Σωκράτους σώματος καὶ τῆς Ἀνύτου καὶ τὸ παραπλήσιον ἀμφοτέροις κατασκευάσει ἠρίον ἢ τάφον; καὶ ταῦτα δὲ διὰ τὸ ὧν οὐδὲν ἔργον θεοῦ, τοῦ ὧν ἀναφερομένου ἐπὶ τὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου σῶμα ἢ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ὄφεων καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ βοὸς ἢ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος βοὸς μελισσῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἵππου ἢ ὄνου καὶ τῶν ἐξ ἵππου μὲν σφηκῶν ἐξ ὄνου δὲ κανθάρων, δι᾿ ἃ ἠναγκάσθημεν ἐπαναλαβεῖν καὶ τὸ ψυχὴ μὲν θεοῦ ἔργον, σώματος δὲ ἄλλη φύσις.

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About this text

Origen answers Celsus’s scorn for the belief that God or his Son comes down to the world, showing that the Word comes down without change and that God’s threats and punishments are a cure, not a fit of temper. He then defends the stories of Genesis and the patriarchs, read in their deeper sense, against the charge that they are silly tales, and rejects Celsus’s claim that the world was made no more for man than for the animals, which Celsus thought nearer to God than men.

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 a separate review. No earlier English translation was consulted.

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Translated from Koetschau GCS 2 – 3 (1899) — Greek (Greek · Book IV, chapters 1 – 99)

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