Against Celsus, Book IV · §64 · Origen of Alexandria

One nature does not mean a fixed amount of evil

From these things and others like them, how can Celsus fail to look ridiculous when he thinks that evils could never become more or fewer? For even if the nature of the whole is one and the same, it does not at all follow that the origin of evils too is always the same.

For take a particular man. His nature is one and the same, yet things are not always the same with his ruling part, his reason and his actions. At one time he has not yet taken on reason; at another he has taken on vice along with reason, and this vice spreads further or less far. And there are times when he has been turned toward virtue and advances further or less far; and sometimes he even reaches virtue itself, which is found in more contemplations or in fewer.

So it is possible to say all the more of the nature of the whole that, even if it is one and the same in kind, the same things, or things of the same kind, do not always happen in the whole. For there are not always good harvests, nor always failed ones, nor always heavy rains, nor always droughts. So, too, the plenty or the dearth of better souls is not fixed, nor is the spread of worse souls, further or less far.

Indeed, for those who wish to examine everything as precisely as they can, the account of evils is necessary: evils do not always remain in the same state, because of providence, which either preserves what is on earth or cleanses it with floods and conflagrations; and perhaps not only what is on earth but also what is in the whole world, which needs cleansing whenever vice grows great in it.

Greek

Πῶς ἐκ τούτων καὶ τῶν παραπλησίων οὐ καταγέλαστος φαίνεται Κέλσος, οἰόμενος τὰ κακὰ μήτε πλείω μήτε ἥττω γενέσθαι ποτ᾿ ἄν; εἰ γὰρ καὶ μία τῶν ὅλων φύσις καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ, οὐ πάντως καὶ ἡ τῶν κακῶν γένεσις ἀεὶ ἡ αὐτή. ὡς γὰρ μιᾶς καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς οὔσης τῆς τοῦδέ τινος ἀνθρώπου φύσεως οὐκ ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτά ἐστι περὶ τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς πράξεις, ὁτὲ μὲν οὔτε λόγον ἀνειληφότος ὁτὲ δὲ μετὰ τοῦ λόγου κακίαν, καὶ ταύτην ἤτοι ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἢ ἐπ᾿ ἔλαττον χεομένην, καὶ ἔστιν ὅτε προτραπέντος ἐπ᾿ ἀρετὴν καὶ προκόπτοντος ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἢ ἐπ᾿ ἔλαττον καὶ ἐνίοτε φθάνοντος καὶ ἐπ᾿ αὐτὴν τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐν πλείοσι θεωρίαις γινομένην ἢ ἐν ἐλάττοσιν. οὕτως ἔστιν εἰπεῖν μᾶλλον καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς τῶν ὅλων φύσεως ὅτι, εἰ καὶ μία ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ τῷ γένει, ἀλλ᾿ οὐ τὰ αὐτὰ ἀεὶ οὐδ᾿ ὁμογενῆ συμβαίνει ἐν τοῖς ὅλοις· οὔτε γὰρ εὐφορίαι ἀεὶ οὔτ᾿ ἀφορίαι ἀλλ᾿ οὐδὲ ἐπομβρίαι οὔτε αὐχμοί· οὕτω δὲ οὐδὲ ψυχῶν κρειττόνων εὐφορίαι τεταγμέναι ἢ ἀφορίαι, καὶ χειρόνων ἐπὶ πλεῖον χύσις ἢ ἐπ᾿ ἔλαττον. καὶ ἀναγκαῖός γε τοῖς ἀκριβοῦν πάντα κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν βουλομένοις ὁ περὶ τῶν κακῶν λόγος, οὐ μενόντων ἀεὶ ἐν ταὐτῷ διὰ τὴν ἤτοι τηροῦσαν τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς πρόνοιαν ἢ κατακλυσμοῖς καὶ ἐκπυρώσεσι καθαίρουσαν, καὶ τάχα οὐ τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ. δεομένῳ καθαρσίου, ὅταν πολλὴ ἡ κακία γένηται ἐν αὐτῷ.

Report a mistake in this passage

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.

Printed text used

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

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

Report a mistake