Against Celsus 3.6
Summary: Origen argues that the Hebrews cannot have been rebel Egyptians, since they had their own language and script before going to Egypt, in which Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
Greek text · Koetschau 1:207
Ὁ τοίνυν Κέλσος, οὐ γενόμενος δίκαιος ἐξεταστὴς τῶν λεγομένων παρʼ Αἰγυπτίοις ἑτέρως καὶ παρʼ Ἑβραίοις ἄλλως, ἀλλὰ προκαταληφθεὶς ὡς ὑπὸ φιλτέρων τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, τοῖς μὲν ἀδικήσασι τοὺς ξένους συγκατέθετο ὡς ἀληθέσι τοὺς δʼ ἀδικηθέντας Ἑβραίους στασιάζοντας εἶπε τὴν Αἴγυπτον καταλελοιπέναι, οὐχ ὁρῶν τίνα τρόπον οὐ δύναται τηλικοῦτο στασιῶδες πλῆθος Αἰγυπτίων. ἀρχὴν ἔχον τὴν στάσιν, γενέσθαι ἔθνος ἅμα τῷ στασιάζειν καὶ τὴν διάλεκτον ἀμεῖβον, ἵνʼ οἱ τέως τῇ Αἰγυπτίων φωνῇ χρώμενοι αἰφνίδιον τὴν Ἑβραίων διάλεκτον συμπληρῶσιν. Ἔστω δὲ καθʼ ὑπόθεσιν καταλιπόντας αὐτοὺς τὴν Αἴγυπτον μεμισηκέναι καὶ τὴν σύντροφον φωνήν· πῶς οὖν τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο οὐχὶ μᾶλλον τῇ Σύρων ἐχρῶντο διαλέκτῳ ἢ τῇ Φοινίκων, ἀλλὰ τὴν Ἑβραΐδα ἑτέραν παρʼ ἀμφοτέρας συνεστήσαντο; τοῦτο δέ μοι βούλεται ὁ λόγος συνάγειν ὅτι ψεῦδος τὸ Αἰγυπτίους τὸ γένος ὄντας τινὰς ἐστασιακέναι πρὸς Αἰγυπτίους καὶ τὴν Αἴγυπτον καταλελοιπέναι καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν Παλαιστίνην ἐληλυθέναι τήν τε νῦν καλουμένην Ἰουδαίαν ᾠκηκέναι. Ἑβραίων γὰρ καὶ διάλεκτος πάτριος πρὸ τῆς εἰς Αἴγυπτον αὐτῶν καθόδου ἦν, καὶ Ἑβραϊκὰ γράμματα ἕτερα παρὰ τὰ Αἰγυπτίων ἦν, οἷς Μωϋσῆς χρησάμενος ἔγραψε τὰς παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις πεπιστευμένας εἶναι ἱερὰς πέντε βίβλους.
English · Claude translation
Celsus, then, not being a fair examiner of what the Egyptians say one way and the Hebrews another, but prejudiced in favor of the Egyptians as dearer to him, agreed with those who wronged the strangers, as though they spoke the truth, and said that the wronged Hebrews left Egypt after rebelling. He did not see how so great a rebellious multitude of Egyptians, beginning in rebellion, could not become a nation at the same time as it rebelled and changed its language, so that those who until then spoke the Egyptian tongue suddenly completed a Hebrew language. Suppose, for argument's sake, that having left Egypt they came to hate the language they had grown up with: why then did they not afterward use the Syrian or the Phoenician language, but establish Hebrew, different from both? My argument means to conclude that it is false that some who were Egyptians by race rebelled against the Egyptians, left Egypt, came to Palestine, and settled in what is now called Judea. For the Hebrews had an ancestral language before their descent into Egypt, and Hebrew letters were different from those of the Egyptians; Moses used them to write the five books believed by the Jews to be sacred.
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Cite this passage
Origen, Cels. 3.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/3/6/).
Plain text
Origen, Cels. 3.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/3/6/).
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