Against Celsus 7.60
Summary: The prophets and apostles, like Plato learning a foreign tongue to help foreigners, spoke plainly so as to reach the multitudes, while their words still hold deeper meanings for those who study them.
Greek text · Koetschau 2:209–211
Εἰ νενόηται δὴ τὸ παράδειγμα. μεταβιβαστέον αὐτὸ ἐπὶ τὴν ποιότητα τῆς τῶν λογικῶν ζῴων λογικῆς τροφῆς. καὶ ὅρα εἰ μὴ Πλάτων μὲν καὶ οἱ Ἑλλήνων σοφοὶ ἐν οἷς λέγουσι καλῶς παραπλήσιοί εἰσι τοῖς προνοησαμένοις ἰατροῖς τῶν καθαριωτέρων εἶναι νομιζομένων μόνων, τοῦ πλήθους (δὲ) τῶν ἀνθρώπων καταφρονήσασιν· οἱ δʼ ἐν Ἰουδαίοις προφῆται καὶ οἱ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ μαθηταὶ, οἱ μακρὰν χαίρειν εἰπόντες τῇ ποικίλῃ τῶν λέξεων συνθέσει καὶ τῇ, ὡς ὠνόμασεν ἡ γραφὴ, „σοφίᾳ ἀνθρώπων“ καὶ „σοφίᾳ“ „κατὰ σάρκα, “ τὴν γλῶσσαν αἰνισσομένη, ὁμοιωθεῖεν ἂν τοῖς τὴν αὐτὴν τῶν βρωμάτων ποιότητα ὑγιεινοτάτην προνοησαμένοις συνθέσει λέξεων σκευάσαι καὶ εὐτρεπίσαι φθανούσῃ ἐπὶ τὰ πλήθη τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ μὴ ξενιζούσῃ τὴν διάλεκτον αὐτῶν μηδὲ διὰ τοῦ ξενισμοῦ ἀποστρεφούσῃ ἀκούειν ὡς ἀσυνήθων τῶν τοιῶνδε διαλέξεων. καὶ γὰρ εἴπερ πρόκειται τῷ, ἵνʼ οὕτως ὀνομάσω, λογικῷ βρώματι ἀνεξίκακον καὶ πρᾷον ποιῆσαι τὸν ἐμφαγόντα, πῶς οὐ βέλτιον συνεσκευασμένος εἴη ἂν λόγος ὁ πλήθη ἀνεξικάκων καὶ πρᾴων κατασκευάζων ἢ προκοπτόντων γε ἐπὶ ταύτας τὰς ἀρετὰς παρὰ τὸν πάνυ ὀλίγους καὶ εὐαριθμήτους, ἵνα (καὶ τοῦτο) δοθῇ, ἀνεξικάκους καὶ πρᾴους ποιοῦντα; ὥσπερ δὲ εἰ ὁ (Πλάτων) τοὺς αἰγυπτιάζοντας ἢ τοὺς συριάζοντας ὠφελεῖν ὑγιέσι δόγμασιν ἐβούλετο, Ἕλλην τυγχάνων, προενοήσατο ἂν μαθεῖν τὰς τῶν ἀκουσομένων διαλέκτους καὶ, ὡς Ἕλληνες ὀνομάζουσι, βαρβαρίζειν μᾶλλον ὑπὲρ τῆς Αἰγυπτίων καὶ Σύρων βελτιώσεως ἢ Ἕλλην μένων μηδὲν δύνασθαι χρήσιμον λέγειν Αἰγυπτίοις καὶ Σύροις· οὕτως ἡ προνοουμένη θεία φύσις οὐ τῶν πεπαιδεῦσθαι νομιζομένων μόνον τὰ Ἑλλήνων ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν Ἑλλήνων συγκατέβη τῇ ἰδιωτείᾳ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν ἀκροωμένων, ἵνα ταῖς συνήθεσιν αὐτοῖς χρησαμένη λέξεσι προκαλέσηται ἐπὶ ἀκρόασιν τὸ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν πλῆθος, δυνάμενον ἐξ εὐχεροῦς μετὰ τὴν ἅπαξ γενομένην εἰσαγωγὴν φιλοτιμήσασθαι πρὸς τὸ καὶ βαθύτερα τῶν κεκρυμμένων νοημάτων ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς καταλαβεῖν. καὶ τῷ τυχόντι γὰρ δῆλον, ταύτας ἀναγινώσκοντι, ὅτι πολλὰ βαθύτερον τοῦ αὐτόθεν ἐμφαινομένου ἔχειν δύναται νοῦν, τοῖς ἀνατιθεῖσιν αὑτοὺς τῇ ἐξετάσει τοῦ λόγου φανερούμενον. καὶ φανερούμενον> κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς εἰς τὸν λόγον σχολῆς καὶ εἰς τὴν ἄσκησιν αὐτοῦ προθυμίας.
English · Claude translation
If the example has been understood, it must be transferred to the quality of the rational food of rational beings. And see whether Plato and the wise men of the Greeks, in what they say well, are not like the physicians who cared only for those thought more refined and despised the multitude of mankind; while the prophets among the Jews and the disciples of Jesus, who bade a long farewell to elaborate arrangement of words and to what Scripture called “the wisdom of men” and wisdom “according to the flesh” (hinting at mere language), might be compared to those who have taken care to prepare and make ready the same quality of food, most wholesome, in an arrangement of words that reaches the multitudes of mankind, does not seem foreign to their speech, and does not by its foreignness turn them away from listening to such discourses as unfamiliar. For indeed, if the aim of rational food, so to call it, is to make the one who eats it patient and gentle, how could the teaching not be better prepared that produces multitudes of patient and gentle people, or at least of people advancing toward these virtues, than that which (granting this too) makes very few, easily counted, patient and gentle? Just as, if Plato, being a Greek, had wished to help Egyptians or Syrians with sound doctrines, he would have taken care to learn the languages of those who were to hear him, and, as the Greeks call it, rather to speak like a barbarian for the improvement of Egyptians and Syrians than, remaining a Greek, to be unable to say anything useful to Egyptians and Syrians; so the divine nature, which cares not only for those thought educated in Greek learning but for the rest of the Greeks too, came down to the simplicity of the multitude of its hearers, so that by using the words familiar to them it might call to listening the multitude of the simple, who after being once introduced can easily strive to grasp even the deeper of the thoughts hidden in the Scriptures. For it is clear even to an ordinary reader of them that many passages can hold a meaning deeper than what appears at first sight, a meaning made plain to those who devote themselves to examining the Word, and made plain in proportion to their leisure for the Word and their zeal in its practice.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are 1 Cor 2:5 and 1 Cor 1:26. The words “and made plain” at the end appear in the digital text with a stray closing angle bracket, probably marking an editorial supplement.
Cite this passage
Origen, Cels. 7.60 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/7/60/).
Plain text
Origen, Cels. 7.60 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/7/60/).
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