Celsus mocks our hope for the body
Let us look also at what Celsus says to us next, which runs as follows: “And further, how is this not absurd of you, to long for the body and to hope that this very body will rise again, as though nothing in us were better or more precious than it, and then again to cast it into punishments as a thing without honour? But with those who are persuaded of this and are wedded to the body it is not worth reasoning about this matter; for these are people who are boorish and unclean in other respects too, and who, without reason, share in the sickness of faction. But those who hope that the soul or the mind (whether they wish to call it spiritual, or an intellectual spirit, holy and blessed, or a living soul (Genesis 2:7), or the incorruptible offspring, from beyond the heavens, of a divine and bodiless nature, or whatever name they like to give it) will be theirs for ever with God, with these I will reason. They are right at least in believing this: that those who have lived well will be happy, while the unjust will be held wholly in the grip of eternal evils. And from this doctrine let neither these nor any other man ever depart.”
As to the resurrection, even if he himself has already reproached us with it many times, we have set forth, as best we could, what seemed reasonable to us on that subject, and we do not intend to make our defence many times over against one charge made many times over. But Celsus slanders us when he says that we think nothing in our make-up better or more precious than the body. For we say that the soul, and above all the rational soul, is a thing more precious than any body, since the soul can receive what is “according to the image of Him who created” it (Colossians 3:10), while the body cannot at all. For in our view God is not a body either, and so we do not fall into the absurdities into which those fall who follow the philosophy of Zeno and Chrysippus.
Greek
Ἴδωμεν δὲ καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς οὕτως λεγόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ Κέλσου πρὸς ἡμᾶς· ἔτι δὲ πῶς οὐκ ἄτοπα ὑμῶν ταῦτα, τὸ μὲν σῶμα ποθεῖν καὶ ἐλπίζειν ὅτι αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἀναστήσεται ὡς οὐδὲν ἡμῖν τούτου κρεῖττον οὐδὲ τιμιώτερον, πάλιν δ᾿ αὐτὸ ῥίπτειν εἰς κολάσεις ὡς ἄτιμον; ἀλλὰ τοῖς μὲν τοῦτο πειθομένοις καὶ τῷ σώματι συντετηκόσιν οὐκ ἄξιον τοῦτο διαλέγεσθαι· οὗτοι γάρ εἰσιν οἱ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἄγροικοι καὶ ἀκάθαρτοι καὶ χωρὶς λόγου τῇ στάσει συννοσοῦντες· τοῖς μήν γε τὴν ψυχὴν ἢ τὸν νοῦν (εἴτε πνευματικὸν τοῦτον ἐθέλουσι καλεῖν εἴτε πνεῦμα νοερὸν ἅγιον καὶ μακάριον εἴτε ψυχὴν ζῶσαν εἴτε θείας καὶ ἀσωμάτου φύσεως ἔκγονον ὑπερουράνιόν τε καὶ ἄφθαρτον εἴθ᾿ ὅ τι καὶ ὅ τι χαίρουσιν ὀνομάζοντες), τοῖς τοῦτο ἐλπίζουσιν ἕξειν αἰώνιον σὺν θεῷ, τούτοις διαλέξομαι. τοῦτο μέν γε ὀρθῶς νομίζουσιν, ὡς οἱ μὲν εὖ βιώσαντες εὐδαιμονήσουσιν, οἱ δὲ ἄδικοι πάμπαν αἰωνίοις κακοῖς συνέξονται· καὶ τούτου δὲ τοῦ δόγματος μή θ᾿ οὗτοι μήτ᾿ ἄλλος ἀνθρώπων μηδείς ποτε ἀποστῇ † ἀποτείνοντες. περὶ ἀναστάσεως δὴ εἰ καὶ αὐτὸς ἤδη πολλάκις ὀνειδίζει, ἀλλ᾿ ἡμεῖς τὸ κατὰ τὸν τόπον ἡμῖν φανὲν εὔλογον, (ὡς) οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν, παραστήσαντες οὐ μέλλομεν πρὸς ἓν ἔγκλημα πολλάκις λεγόμενον πολλάκις ἀπολογεῖσθαι. συκοφαντεῖ δ᾿ ἡμᾶς ὁ Κέλσος ὡς οὐδὲν τοῦ σώματος κρεῖττον οὐδὲ τιμιώτερον ἐν τῇ συστάσει ἡμῶν ἡγουμένους· ψυχὴν γὰρ παντὸς σώματος καὶ μάλιστα τὴν λογικήν φαμεν εἶναι πρᾶγμα τιμιώτερον, εἰ καὶ τὸ „κατ᾿ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος“ ψυχὴ μὲν χωρεῖ οὐδαμῶς δὲ τὸ σῶμα. οὐδὲ γὰρ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς σῶμα ὁ θεός· ἵνα μὴ περιπέσωμεν οἷς περιπίπτουσιν ἀτόποις οἱ τὰ Ζήνωνος καὶ Χρυσίππου φιλοσοφοῦντες.