Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p class=\"c006\">Having said so much on this subject, let us proceed to another\r\nstatement of Celsus: “Since men are born united to a\r\nbody, whether to suit the order of the universe, or that they\r\nmay in that way suffer the punishment of sin; or because the\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_537\">537</span>soul is oppressed by certain passions until it is purged from\r\nthese at the appointed period of time,—for, according to Empedocles,\r\nall mankind must be banished from the abodes of the\r\nblessed for 30,000 periods of time,—we must therefore believe\r\nthat they are entrusted to certain beings as keepers of this\r\nprison-house.” You will observe that Celsus, in these remarks,\r\nspeaks of such weighty matters in the language of doubtful\r\nhuman conjecture. He adds also various opinions as to the\r\norigin of man, and shows considerable reluctance to set down\r\nany of these opinions as false. When he had once come to the\r\nconclusion neither indiscriminately to accept nor recklessly to\r\nreject the opinions held by the ancients, would it not have\r\nbeen in accordance with that same rule of judging, if, when he\r\nfound himself not disposed to believe the doctrines taught by\r\nthe Jewish prophets and by Jesus, at any rate to have held\r\nthem as matters open to inquiry? And should he not have\r\nconsidered whether it is very probable that a people who faithfully\r\nserved the Most High God, and who ofttimes encountered\r\nnumberless dangers, and even death, rather than sacrifice the\r\nhonour of God, and what they believed to be the revelations of\r\nHis will, should have been wholly overlooked by God? Should\r\nit not rather be thought probable that people who despised the\r\nefforts of human art to represent the Divine Being, but strove\r\nrather to rise in thought to the knowledge of the Most High,\r\nshould have been favoured with some revelation from Himself?\r\nBesides, he ought to have considered that the common Father\r\nand Creator of all, who sees and hears all things, and who duly\r\nesteems the intention of every man who seeks Him and desires\r\nto serve Him, will grant unto these also some of the benefits of\r\nHis rule, and will give them an enlargement of that knowledge\r\nof Himself which He has once bestowed upon them. If this\r\nhad been remembered by Celsus and the others who hate Moses\r\nand the Jewish prophets, and Jesus, and His faithful disciples,\r\nwho endured so much for the sake of His word, they would not\r\nthus have reviled Moses, and the prophets, and Jesus, and His\r\napostles; and they would not have singled out for their contempt\r\nthe Jews beyond all the nations of the earth, and said\r\nthey were worse even than the Egyptians,—a people who, either\r\nfrom superstition or some other form of delusion, went as far\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_538\">538</span>as they could in degrading the Divine Being to the level of\r\nbrute beasts. And we invite inquiry, not as though we wished\r\nto lead any to doubt regarding the truths of Christianity, but\r\nin order to show that it would be better for those who in every\r\nway revile the doctrines of Christianity, at any rate to suspend\r\ntheir judgment, and not so rashly to state about Jesus and His\r\napostles such things as they do not know, and as they cannot\r\nprove, either by what the Stoics call “apprehensive perception,”<a id=\"r1653\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1653\"><sup>[1653]</sup></a>\r\nor by any other methods used by different sects of philosophers\r\nas criteria of truth.</p>","headings":["The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2","BOOK VIII.","Chapter LIII."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg70693-paragraph-600"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"5fd7b04e92801df23b2c54870e406abe1adad27d7de9f7d167127886c5baea92","edition_title":"The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 (of 2)","edition_translators":["Frederick Crombie","W. H. Cairns"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg70693-f1653","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Project Gutenberg metadata: Public domain in the USA. Existing 1872 English edition; listed translators died 1889 and 1872. Electronic transcription subject to Project Gutenberg reuse terms.","source_anchor":"f1653","source_ebook":70693,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\" id=\"f1653\">\n<p class=\"c007\"><span class=\"label\"><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#r1653\">1653</a>.  </span><span lang=\"grc\">καταληπτικὴ φαντασία.</span></p>\n</div>","source_sha256":"76ed9a9fd752c1d5095189e38fe3dcbbea0fd23d6be719db17360e4da14552fa","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70693/pg70693-images.html#f1653","text_sha256":"cdde6ecefbfa9dfdee1c0bd4828a45a9584fb683ba135a5f7fa7e7b372d9d3bf","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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