Against Celsus, Book IV · §68 · Origen of Alexandria

The Stoic doctrine of worlds that return

Celsus, then, says that only the cycle of mortal things, according to the appointed revolutions, by necessity always has been, is, and will be. But most of the Stoics say that it is not only the cycle of mortal things that is of this kind, but also that of immortal beings and of those they hold to be gods. For after the conflagration of the universe, which has happened countless times and will happen countless times, the same order of all things from beginning to end has come about and will come about.

Yet the men of the Stoa, trying somehow to remedy the absurdities, say, I do not know how, that in each cycle all will be indistinguishable from those of the earlier cycles, so that it is not Socrates who comes into being again but someone indistinguishable from Socrates, who will marry a woman indistinguishable from Xanthippe and be accused by men indistinguishable from Anytus and Meletus. But I do not know how the world is always the same, and not one world indistinguishable from another, while the things in it are not the same but indistinguishable.

However, the principal argument against both Celsus’s words and those of the Stoa will be examined more suitably elsewhere, since at the present time, and for the task now before us, it is not fitting to dwell at length on these matters.

Greek

Ὁ μὲν ουν Κέλσος μόνην τὴν θνητῶν περίοδον κατὰ τὰς τεταγμένας ἀνακυκλήσεις ἐξ ἀνάγκης φησὶν ἀεὶ γεγονέναι καὶ εἶναι καὶ ἔσεσθαι· τῶν δὲ Στωϊκῶν οἱ πλείους οὐ μόνον τὴν τῶν θνητῶν περίοδον τοιαύτην εἶναί φασιν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν τῶν ἀθανάτων καὶ τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτοὺς θεῶν. μετὰ γὰρ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἐκπύρωσιν, ἀπειράκις γενομένην καὶ ἀπειράκις ἐσομένην, ἡ αὐτὴ τάξις ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς μέχρι τέλους πάντων γέγονέ τε καὶ ἔσται. πειρώμενοι μέντοι θεραπεύειν πως τὰς ἀπεμφάσεις οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως ἀπαραλλάκτους φασὶν ἔσεσθαι κατὰ περίοδον τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν προτέρων περιόδων πάντας, ἵνα μὴ Σωκράτης πάλιν γένηται, ἀλλ᾿ ἀπαράλλακτός τις τῷ Σωκράτει. γαμήσων ἀπαράλλακτον τῇ Ξανθίππῃ καὶ κατηγορηθησόμενος ὑπὸ ἀπαραλλάκτων Ἀνύτῳ καὶ Μελήτῳ. οὐκ οἶδα δὲ πῶς ὁ μὲν κόσμος ἀεὶ ὁ αὐτός ἐστι καὶ οὐκ ἀπαράλλακτος ἕτερος ἑτέρῳ, τὰ δ᾿ ἐν αὐτῷ οὐ τὰ αὐτὰ ἀλλὰ ἀπαράλλακτα. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ὁ προηγούμενος καὶ πρὸς τὰς Κέλσου λέξεις καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς λόγος εὐκαιρότερον ἐν ἄλλοις ἐξετασθήσεται, ἐπεὶ μὴ κατὰ τὸν παρόντα καιρὸν καὶ τὴν ἐνεστηκυῖαν πρόθεσιν ἁρμόζει ἐν τούτοις πλεονάσαι.

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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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