Against Celsus 6.81 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Celsus says an all-knowing God would not have sent his Son to men who would kill him, forgetting that the prophets foretold Christ's sufferings; Origen ends his sixth book here.

Greek text · Koetschau 2:152

Οὐκ οἶδα δʼ ὅπως φησὶ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι ὁ πάντα εἰδὼς τοῦτο οὐκ ἠπίστατο, ὅτι κακοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἁμαρτησομένοις καὶ κολάσουσιν αὐτοῦ τὸν υἱὸν πέμπει. ἀλλʼ 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 ὑφʼ ἡμῶν λέγεσθαι. ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ αὐτάρκη περιγραφὴν εἴληφεν ὁ ἕκτος ἡμῶν τόμος, αὐτοῦ που καταπαύσαντες τὸν λόγον ἀρξόμεθα θεοῦ διδόντος ἑβδόμου· ἐν ᾧ ἀπαντᾶν νομίζει πρὸς τὸ ὑφʼ 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.

English · Claude translation

I do not know how he says of God: He who knows all things did not understand this, that he was sending his Son to wicked men who would sin and punish him. But he seems now to have deliberately forgotten the teaching that says that God's prophets foresaw by the divine Spirit and prophesied everything that Jesus the Christ would suffer; from which it does not follow that God did not know that he was sending his Son to wicked and sinful men who would punish him. Immediately he says that our statement that these things were foretold long ago is made as a defence. But since our sixth book has reached an adequate length, let us stop the discussion here and, God granting, begin the seventh, in which Celsus thinks he answers our statement that the prophets foretold everything about Jesus. Since these matters are many and need a longer argument against them, we did not wish to break them off, compelled by the size of the book, nor, to avoid breaking off the argument, to make the sixth book very long and beyond due proportion.

About this passage

Source

Koetschau 2:152 · Paul Koetschau, ed., Origenes Werke 1–2: Gegen Celsus, GCS 2–3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899) · Greek text: P. Koetschau, Origenes Werke 1–2 (GCS 2–3, 1899), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Koetschau, GCS 2–3. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Koetschau, GCS 2–3; made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Christology

Cite this passage

Origen, Cels. 6.81 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/6/81/).

Plain text

Origen, Cels. 6.81 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/6/81/).