Against Celsus 4.62
Summary: Celsus claims the amount of evil in the world never changes, paraphrasing Plato's Theaetetus, but Plato's Timaeus implies that evils diminish after the earth is purified by flood.
Greek text · Koetschau 1:333–334
Ἑξῆς τούτοις τὰ διὰ πολλῶν καὶ οὐκ εὐκαταφρονήτων λόγων ποικίλως ζητηθέντα περὶ φύσεως κακῶν καὶ διαφόρως ἑρμηνευθέντα διʼ ὀλίγων λεξειδίων οἴεται δύνασθαι ἡμᾶς μαθεῖν, φάσκων· κακὰ δʼ ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν οὔτε πρόσθεν οὔτε νῦν οὔτε αὖθις ἥττω καὶ πλείω γένοιτʼ ἄν· μία γὰρ ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ, καὶ κακῶν γένεσις ἀεὶ ἡ αὐτή. ἔοικε δὲ καὶ ταῦτʼ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν τῷ Θεαιτήτῳ παραπεφράσθαι, ἐν οἷς ἔλεγεν ὁ παρὰ Πλάτωνι Σωκράτης· „ἀλλʼ οὔτε τὰ κακὰ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσθαι δυνατὸν οὔτε παρὰ θεοῖς αὐτὰ ἱδρύσθαι“ καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. καὶ δοκεῖ μοι μηδὲ Πλάτωνος ἀκριβῶς ἀκηκοέναι ὁ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐκπεριλαμβάνων ἐν τῷ ἑνὶ τούτῳ συγγράμματι καὶ ἐπιγράφων ἀληθῆ λόγον τὸ καθʼ ἡμῶν ἑαυτοῦ βιβλίον. ἡ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ λέξις φάσκουσα· „ὅταν δʼ οἱ θεοὶ τὴν γῆν ὕδατι καθαίρωσι“ δεδήλωκεν ὅτι καθαιρομένη ἡ γῆ τοῖς ὕδασιν ἥττονα ἔχει τὰ κακὰ παρὰ τὸν πρὸ τοῦ καθαίρεσθαι χρόνον. καὶ τοῦτό φαμεν κατὰ Πλάτωνα, τὸ ἥττονα εἶναί ποτε τὰ κακὰ, διὰ τὴν ἐν τῷ Θεαιτήτῳ λέξιν, φάσκουσαν μὴ δύνασθαι „ἀπολέσθαι ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τὰ κακά.“
English · Claude translation
Next after this he thinks that we can learn, through a few petty phrases, what has been variously investigated through many not contemptible arguments about the nature of evils and differently interpreted, saying: “Evils among beings could be neither fewer nor more, either before, or now, or again; for the nature of the universe is one and the same, and the origin of evils is always the same.” He seems to have paraphrased this too from the Theaetetus, where Socrates in Plato said: “But it is not possible for evils to perish from among men, nor for them to be established among the gods,” and so on. And it seems to me that he who includes the truth in this one treatise and entitles his book against us The True Word has not even listened to Plato accurately. For the passage in the Timaeus which says, “When the gods purify the earth with water,” has shown that the earth, when purified by the waters, has fewer evils than in the time before it was purified. And we say that according to Plato evils are at times fewer, because of the passage in the Theaetetus which says that “evils cannot perish from among men.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Plato, Theaetetus 176a, and Timaeus 22d.
Cite this passage
Origen, Cels. 4.62 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/4/62/).
Plain text
Origen, Cels. 4.62 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/4/62/).
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