Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p class=\"c006\">Celsus in the next place, producing from history other than\r\nthat of the divine record, those passages which bear upon the\r\nclaims to great antiquity put forth by many nations, as the\r\nAthenians, and Egyptians, and Arcadians, and Phrygians, who\r\nassert that certain individuals have existed among them who\r\nsprang from the earth, and who each adduce proofs of these\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_199\">199</span>assertions, says: “The Jews, then, leading a grovelling life<a id=\"r620\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f620\"><sup>[620]</sup></a>\r\nin some corner of Palestine, and being a wholly uneducated\r\npeople, who had not heard that these matters had been committed\r\nto verse long ago by Hesiod and innumerable other\r\ninspired men, wove together some most incredible and insipid\r\nstories,<a id=\"r621\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f621\"><sup>[621]</sup></a> viz. that a certain man was formed by the hands of\r\nGod, and had breathed into him the breath of life, and that a\r\nwoman was taken from his side, and that God issued certain\r\ncommands, and that a serpent opposed these, and gained a\r\nvictory over the commandments of God; thus relating certain\r\nold wives’ fables, and most impiously representing God as weak\r\nat the very beginning [of things], and unable to convince even\r\na single human being whom He Himself had formed.” By\r\nthese instances, indeed, this deeply read and learned Celsus,\r\nwho accuses Jews and Christians of ignorance and want of\r\ninstruction, clearly evinces the accuracy of his knowledge of\r\nthe chronology of the respective historians, whether Greek or\r\nBarbarian, since he imagines that Hesiod and the “innumerable”\r\nothers, whom he styles “inspired” men, are older than\r\nMoses and his writings—that very Moses who is shown to\r\nbe much older than the time of the Trojan war! It is not\r\nthe Jews, then, who have composed incredible and insipid\r\nstories regarding the birth of man from the earth, but these\r\n“inspired” men of Celsus, Hesiod and his other “innumerable”\r\ncompanions, who, having neither learned nor heard of\r\nthe far older and most venerable accounts existing in Palestine,\r\nhave written such histories as their Theogonies, attributing,\r\nso far as in their power, “generation” to their deities, and\r\ninnumerable other absurdities. And these are the writers\r\nwhom Plato expels from his “State” as being corrupters of the\r\nyouth,<a id=\"r622\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f622\"><sup>[622]</sup></a>—Homer, viz., and those who have composed poems of\r\na similar description! Now it is evident that Plato did not\r\nregard as “inspired” those men who had left behind them such\r\nworks. But perhaps it was from a desire to cast reproach upon\r\nus, that this Epicurean Celsus, who is better able to judge than\r\nPlato (if it be the same Celsus who composed two other books\r\nagainst the Christians), called those individuals “inspired”\r\nwhom he did not in reality regard as such.</p>","headings":["The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2","BOOK IV.","Chapter XXXVI."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg70693-paragraph-255"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"60bd48ca6e17987cacea38ab06566c641885fb9f69ebb943785dd93b704be969","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-f622","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":"f622","source_ebook":70693,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\" id=\"f622\">\n<p class=\"c007\"><span class=\"label\"><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#r622\">622</a>.  </span><abbr class=\"spell\">Cf.</abbr> Plato, <i>de Repub.</i> Book <abbr title=\"two\">ii.</abbr> etc.</p>\n</div>","source_sha256":"76ed9a9fd752c1d5095189e38fe3dcbbea0fd23d6be719db17360e4da14552fa","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70693/pg70693-images.html#f622","text_sha256":"0590aa38544f15bede5b48064a82a34aeb09431c5dd22112bcea4b57787216ff","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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