Against Celsus, Book VI · §81 · Origen of Alexandria

Did God not know, and the close of the sixth book

I do not know how he can say of God: “He who knows all things did not understand this, that he was sending his Son to wicked men, who would sin and would punish him.” But it seems that here he has deliberately forgotten our teaching, which says that the prophets of God foresaw by the divine Spirit everything that Jesus Christ would suffer, and foretold it. From this it does not follow that God did not know that he was sending his Son to wicked men, who would sin and would punish him. Yet in the very next breath he says that our claim that these things were foretold long ago is something we say in self-defence.

But since our sixth book has reached a sufficient length, we will end the argument about here, and, if God grants it, we will begin the seventh. In it Celsus thinks he is answering our statement that the prophets foretold everything about Jesus. These matters are many and need a longer reply, and so we did not wish either to break the discussion off, forced by the size of the book, or, so as not to break off the argument, to make the sixth book very long and out of proportion.

Greek

Οὐκ οἶδα δ᾿ ὅπως φησὶ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι ὁ πάντα εἰδὼς τοῦτο οὐκ ἠπίστατο, ὅτι κακοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἁμαρτησομένοις καὶ κολάσουσιν αὐτοῦ τὸν υἱὸν πέμπει. ἀλλ᾿ ἔοικε νῦν μὲν ἑκὼν ἐπιλελῆσθαι τοῦ φάσκοντος λόγου πάντα, ἃ πείσεται Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς, προεωρακέναι θείῳ πνεύματι, καὶ πεπροφητευκέναι τοὺς τοῦ θεοῦ προφήτας· οἷς οὐχ ἕπεται τὸ μὴ ἐγνωκέναι τὸν θεὸν ὅτι κακοῖς καὶ ἁμαρτησομένοις ἀνθρώποις πέμπει τὸν υἱὸν καὶ κολάσουσιν αὐτόν. εὐθέως δὲ λέγει τὸ πάλαι ταῦτα προειρῆσθαι ἐν ἀπολογίᾳ ὑφ᾿ ἡμῶν λέγεσθαι. ἀλλ᾿ ἐπεὶ αὐτάρκη περιγραφὴν εἴληφεν ὁ ἕκτος ἡμῶν τόμος, αὐτοῦ που καταπαύσαντες τὸν λόγον ἀρξόμεθα θεοῦ διδόντος ἑβδόμου· ἐν ᾧ ἀπαντᾶν νομίζει πρὸς τὸ ὑφ᾿ ἡμῶν λέγεσθαι τοὺς προφήτας πάντα τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ προειρηκέναι. ἅπερ ἐπεὶ πλείονά ἐστι καὶ πλείονος λόγου δεῖται τοῦ πρὸς αὐτὰ, οὔτε διακόψαι ἐβουλήθημεν ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγέθους ἀναγκαζόμενοι τοῦ βιβλίου οὔτε ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ διακόψαι τὸν λόγον μέγιστον ποιῆσαι καὶ ὑπὲρ τὸ σύμμετρον τὸν ἕκτον τόμον.

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About this text

Celsus claims that the best Christian teachings were taken from Plato and said better by the Greeks, and he charges Christians with the diagram of an obscure sect and with a crude reading of Genesis. Origen answers that the plain speech of Scripture serves everyone, that the prophets spoke before Plato, and that the God of the Christians is spirit, not body, and is made known through His Word.

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 an independent review. No earlier English translation was consulted.

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Translated from Koetschau GCS 2 – 3 (1899) — Greek (Greek · Book VI, chapters 1 – 81)

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