{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p class=\"c006\">The illustrious<a id=\"r490\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f490\"><sup>[490]</sup></a> Celsus, taking occasion I know not from\r\nwhat, next raises an additional objection against us, as if we\r\nasserted that “God Himself will come down to men.” He\r\nimagines also that it follows from this, that “He has left His\r\nown abode;” for he does not know the power of God, and that\r\n“the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world, and that which\r\nupholdeth all things hath knowledge of the voice.”<a id=\"r491\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f491\"><sup>[491]</sup></a> Nor is\r\nhe able to understand the words, “Do I not fill heaven and\r\nearth? saith the Lord.”<a id=\"r492\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f492\"><sup>[492]</sup></a> Nor does he see that, according to\r\nthe doctrine of Christianity, we all “in Him live, and move,\r\nand have our being,”<a id=\"r493\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f493\"><sup>[493]</sup></a> as Paul also taught in his address to the\r\nAthenians; and therefore, although the God of the universe\r\nshould through His own power descend with Jesus into the life\r\nof men, and although the Word which was in the beginning\r\nwith God, which is also God Himself, should come to us, He\r\ndoes not give His place or vacate His own seat, so that one\r\nplace should be empty of Him, and another which did not\r\nformerly contain Him be filled. But the power and divinity\r\nof God comes through him whom God chooses, and resides\r\nin him in whom it finds a place, not changing its situation, nor\r\nleaving its own place empty and filling another: for, in speaking\r\nof His quitting one place and occupying another, we do\r\nnot mean such expressions to be taken <i>topically</i>; but we say\r\nthat the soul of the bad man, and of him who is overwhelmed\r\nin wickedness, is abandoned by God, while we mean\r\nthat the soul of him who wishes to live virtuously, or of him\r\nwho is making progress [in a virtuous life], or who is already\r\nliving conformably thereto, is filled with or becomes a partaker\r\nof the Divine Spirit. It is not necessary, then, for the descent\r\nof Christ, or for the coming of God to men, that He should\r\nabandon a greater seat, and that things on earth should be\r\nchanged, as Celsus imagines when he says, “If you were to\r\nchange a single one, even the least, of things on earth, all\r\nthings would be overturned and disappear.” And if we must\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_167\">167</span>speak of a change in any one by the appearing of the power of\r\nGod, and by the entrance of the word among men, we shall\r\nnot be reluctant to speak of changing from a wicked to a\r\nvirtuous, from a dissolute to a temperate, and from a superstitious\r\nto a religious life, the person who has allowed the word\r\nof God to find entrance into his soul.</p>","headings":["The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2","BOOK IV.","Chapter V."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg70693-paragraph-224"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"0e20257746647fdbccf37333f42501edf7dcef82c1f11a5a93a5755dbdbd0c6a","edition_title":"The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 (of 2)","edition_translators":["Frederick Crombie","W. H. Cairns"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"JER","chapter":23,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Jer. xxiii. 24","verse":24,"verse_end":24}],"headings":[],"id":"pg70693-f492","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":"f492","source_ebook":70693,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\" id=\"f492\">\n<p class=\"c007\"><span class=\"label\"><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#r492\">492</a>. </span><abbr class=\"spell\">Cf.</abbr> <abbr title=\"Jeremiah\">Jer.</abbr> <abbr title=\"twenty-three\">xxiii.</abbr> 24.</p>\n</div>","source_sha256":"76ed9a9fd752c1d5095189e38fe3dcbbea0fd23d6be719db17360e4da14552fa","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70693/pg70693-images.html#f492","text_sha256":"2b1b84ea4b2dda4b45fcbc1a305faaa903024b4be88cdfc836195762a6771bbb","verified":false,"work_id":null}