Against Celsus 3.80
Summary: If Christian hope of blessed life is empty, so are the hopes of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle about the soul; only an Epicurean, who expects the soul to perish, could say so, and his own hope rests on pleasure of the flesh.
Greek text · Koetschau 1:270–271
Ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ κούφαις ἐλπίσι φησὶν ὑπάγεσθαι τοὺς χριστιανίζοντας ὁ Κέλσος, φήσομεν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐγκαλοῦντα τῷ περὶ τῆς μακαρίας ζωῆς λόγῳ καὶ τῷ περὶ τῆς πρὸς τὸ θεῖον κοινωνίας ὅτι ὅσον ἐπὶ σοὶ, ὦ οὗτος, κούφαις ὑπάγονται ἐλπίσι καὶ οἱ τὸν Πυθαγόρου καὶ Πλάτωνος παραδεξάμενοι περὶ ψυχῆς λόγον, πεφυκυίας ἀναβαίνειν ἐπὶ τὴν ἁψῖδα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ ὑπερουρανίῳ τόπῳ θεωρεῖν τὰ τῶν εὐδαιμόνων θεατῶν θεάματα. κατὰ σὲ δὲ. ὦ Κέλσε, καὶ οἱ παραδεξάμενοι τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐπιδιαμονὴν καὶ βιοῦντες, ὥσθʼ ἥρωες γενέσθαι καὶ μετὰ θεῶν ἕξειν τὰς διατριβὰς, κούφαις ἐλπίσιν ὑπάγονται. τάχα δὲ καὶ οἱ πεισθέντες περὶ τοῦ „θύραθεν“ νοῦ ὡς (ἀ)θανάτου, καὶ νοῦ διεξαγωγὴν ἕξοντος. κούφαις ἂν ὑπάγεσθαι λέγοιντο ὑπὸ Κέλσου ἐλπίσιν. ἀγωνισάσθω οὖν μηκέτι κρύπτων τὴν ἑαυτοῦ αἵρεσιν ἀλλʼ ὁμολογῶν Ἐπικούρειος εἶναι πρὸς τὰ παρʼ Ἕλλησι καὶ βαρβάροις οὐκ εὐκαταφρονήτως λεγόμενα περὶ τῆς ἀθανασίας τῆς ψυχῆς ἢ τῆς ἐπιδιαμονῆς αὐτῆς ἢ τῆς τοῦ νοῦ ἀθανασίας, καὶ παραδεικνύτω ταῦτα μὲν εἶναι λόγους, κούφαις ἐλπίσιν ἀπατῶντας τοὺς συγκατατιθεμένους αὐτοῖς. τοὺς δὲ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ φιλοσοφίας καθαροὺς εἶναι κούφων ἐλπίδων καὶ ἤτοι προσάγοντας ἐλπίσιν ἀγαθαῖς ἢ. ὅπερ μᾶλλον ἀκόλουθόν ἐστιν αὐτῷ, οὐδεμίαν ἐμποιοῦντας ἐλπίδα διὰ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς εὐθέως παντελῆ φθοράν. εἰ μὴ ἄρα Κέλσος καὶ οἱ Ἐπικούρειοι οὐ φήσουσι κούφην εἶναι ἐλπίδα τὴν περὶ τοῦ τέλους αὐτῶν τῆς ἡδονῆς, ἥτις κατʼ αὐτούς ἐστι τὸ ἀγαθὸν, τὸ τῆς σαρκὸς εὐσταθὲς κατάστημα καὶ τὸ περὶ ταύτης πιστὸν Ἐπικούρῳ ἔλπισμα.
English · Claude translation
And since Celsus says that those who become Christians are led on by empty hopes, we shall say to him, since he finds fault with the teaching about the blessed life and about fellowship with the divine: As far as you are concerned, sir, those who have accepted the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato about the soul, that it is by nature able to ascend to the vault of heaven and in the place beyond the heavens to behold the sights seen by the blessed spectators, are also led on by empty hopes. And according to you, Celsus, those who have accepted the survival of the soul and live so as to become heroes and to spend their time with the gods are led on by empty hopes. And perhaps those persuaded that the mind that comes “from outside” is immortal and will have a life of its own as mind might be said by Celsus to be led on by empty hopes. Let him, then, no longer concealing his own school but confessing that he is an Epicurean, contend against the teachings, not easily despised, among Greeks and barbarians about the immortality of the soul, or its survival, or the immortality of the mind; and let him show that these are words that deceive with empty hopes those who assent to them, but that the words of his own philosophy are free of empty hopes and either lead to good hopes or (which is more consistent with it) produce no hope at all, because of the immediate and complete destruction of the soul. Unless, perhaps, Celsus and the Epicureans will not say that their hope concerning their end, pleasure, is empty, which according to them is the good: “the stable condition of the flesh and the confident hope concerning it,” as Epicurus says.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The allusions are Plato, Phaedrus 247b–c (the vault of heaven and the place beyond the heavens), Aristotle's “mind from outside” (Generation of Animals 736b28), and Epicurus, fragment 68 Usener (the stable condition of the flesh). “School” renders αἵρεσις in its neutral sense.
Cite this passage
Origen, Cels. 3.80 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/3/80/).
Plain text
Origen, Cels. 3.80 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/3/80/).
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