Against Celsus 8.51
Summary: Celsus agrees that the righteous will be happy and the wicked punished for ever, yet his attack on Christianity would destroy that belief in Christians; Chrysippus more wisely healed people using even doctrines he rejected.
Greek text · Koetschau 2:266–267
Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἀποδέχεται τοὺς τὴν ψυχὴν ἢ τὸν νοῦν ἢ τὸ καλούμενον παρʼ αὐτοῖς πνευματικὸν ἢ λογικὸν πνεῦμα νοερὸν ἄγιον καὶ μακάριον ἢ ψυχὴν ζῶσαν ἐλπίζοντας ἕξειν αἰώνιον, καὶ σὺν θεῷ αὐτὸ ἔσεσθαι, προσίεται δὲ ὀρθῶς νομιζόμενον καὶ τὸ μὲν περὶ τῶν εὖ βιωσάντων ὡς εὐδαιμονησόντων δόγμα περὶ δὲ τῶν ἀδίκων ὡς πάμπαν αἰωνίοις κακοῖς συσχεθησομένων. καὶ τεθαύμακά γε τοῦ Κέλσου παρὰ πάντα τὰ λεγόμενα παρʼ αὐτῷ τὸ οὕτως ἐπιφερόμενον τοῖς προειρημένοις, ἐν ᾧ φησι· καὶ τούτου δὲ τοῦ δόγματος μήθʼ οὗτοι μήτʼ ἄλλος ἀνθρώπων μηδείς ποτε ἀποστῇ. καὶ ἐχρῆν γε αὐτὸν ὁρᾶν κατὰ Χριστιανῶν γράφοντα, οἷς ἡ πᾶσα ὑπόθεσίς ἐστι τῆς πίστεως ὁ θεὸς καὶ αἱ διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περὶ τῶν δικαίων ἐπαγγελίαι καὶ περὶ τῶν ἀδίκων αἱ περὶ κολάσεως διδασκαλίαι, ὅτι τὸν ἀνατραπέντα Χριστιανὸν ἐκ τοῦ παραδέξασθαι τοὺς κατὰ Χριστιανῶν τοῦ Κέλσου λόγους εἰκός ἐστιν ἀποβαλόντα τὸν λόγον συναποβαλεῖν καὶ τὸ δόγμα, (οὗ), φησὶ. μήτε Χριστιανοὶ ἀποσταῖεν μήτε μηδεὶς ἄλλος ἀνθρώπων. ἀλλὰ φιλανθρωπότερον οἶμαι Κέλσου Χρύσιππον πεποιηκέναι ἐν τῷ περὶ παθῶν θεραπευτικῷ, βουλόμενον θεραπεῦσαι τὰ πάθη ὡς κατεπείγοντα καὶ ἐνοχλοῦντα τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ψυχὴν προηγουμένως μὲν τοῖς δοκοῦσιν αὐτῷ ὑγιέσι λόγοις δευτέρως δὲ καὶ τρίτως κἂν τοῖς μὴ ἀρέσκουσι τῶν δογμάτων· „κἂν γὰρ τρία, “ φησὶν, „ᾖ γένη τῶν ἀγαθῶν, καὶ οὕτω θεραπευτέον τὰ πάθη, οὐ περιεργαζόμενον ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς φλεγμονῆς τῶν παθῶν τὸ προκαταλαβὸν δόγμα τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ πάθους ἐνοχλούμενον, μή πως τῇ ἀκαίρῳ περὶ τὴν ἀνατροπὴν τῶν προκαταλαβόντων τὴν ψυχὴν δογμάτων σχολῇ ἡ ἐγχωροῦσα θεραπεία παραπόληται.“ φησὶ δὲ ὅτι, „κἂν ἡδονὴ ᾖ τὸ ἀγαθὸν, καὶ τοῦτο φρονῇ ὁ ὑπὸ τοῦ πάθους κρατούμενος, οὐδὲν ἧττον αὐτῷ βοηθητέον καὶ παραδεικτέον ὅτι καὶ τοῖς ἡδονὴν τἀγαθὸν καὶ τέλος τιθεμένοις ἀνομολογούμενόν ἐστι πᾶν πάθος.“ ἐχρῆν τοίνυν καὶ τὸν Κέλσον, ἅπαξ παραδέξασθαι λέγοντα τὰ περὶ τῶν εὖ βιωσάντων δόγματα ὡς εὐδαιμονησόντων καὶ περὶ τῶν ἀδίκων ὡς πάμπαν αἰωνίοις κακοῖς συσχεθησομένων, ἀκολούθως ἑαυτῷ ποιεῖν καὶ, εἰ οἷόν τʼ ἦν, μετὰ τὸν φαινόμενον αὐτῷ προηγούμενον λόγον ἐπικατασκευάσαι καὶ διὰ πλειόνων ἀποδεῖξαι ὅτι ἀληθῶς οἱ ἄδικοι πάμπαν αἰωνίοις κακοῖς συσχεθήσονται καὶ οἱ εὖ βιώσαντες εὐδαιμονήσουσι.
English · Claude translation
After this he accepts those who hope that the soul or the mind, or what they call the spiritual or rational spirit, intelligent, holy, and blessed, or the living soul, will have eternal life and be with God; and he admits as rightly held the doctrine that those who have lived well will be happy, and that the unjust will be held altogether in eternal evils. And I have been amazed at Celsus, beyond everything he says, for what he adds to the words above, where he says: “And from this doctrine let neither they nor any other man ever depart.” He ought to have seen, since he was writing against Christians, for whom the whole foundation of faith is God, and the promises through Christ concerning the righteous, and the teachings about punishment concerning the unjust, that a Christian overturned by accepting Celsus's arguments against Christians would probably, in throwing away the teaching, throw away also the doctrine from which, he says, neither Christians nor any other man should depart. But I think Chrysippus acted more humanely than Celsus in his Therapeutics of the Passions, wishing to heal the passions as pressing on and troubling the human soul, first with arguments that seemed sound to him, but secondly and thirdly even with doctrines he did not approve: “For even if there are three kinds of goods,” he says, “one must heal the passions on that basis too, not busying oneself, at the time the passions are inflamed, with the doctrine that has already taken hold of the one troubled by passion, lest by untimely attention to overturning the doctrines that have taken hold of the soul, the possible cure be lost.” And he says: “Even if pleasure is the good, and the one mastered by passion thinks this, none the less one must help him and show that every passion is inconsistent even for those who make pleasure the good and the end.” Celsus too, then, having once accepted the doctrines about those who lived well being happy and the unjust being held altogether in eternal evils, ought to have acted consistently with himself and, if possible, after the argument that seemed to him primary, to have established by further argument and proved at greater length that the unjust will truly be held altogether in eternal evils and those who have lived well will be happy.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- Chrysippus's Therapeutics (the fourth book of his On the Passions) is lost; this is a fragment (SVF 3.474). “Three kinds of goods” is the Peripatetic view (goods of soul, body, and external things). The digital text marks an unreadable word after “soul”; “or” is certain from Celsus's words quoted in 8.49.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (unreadable word marked in the digital text; the reading is certain from Celsus's words in 8.49): ψυχὴν (??) τὸν νοῦν → ψυχὴν ἢ τὸν νοῦν.
Cite this passage
Origen, Cels. 8.51 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/8/51/).
Plain text
Origen, Cels. 8.51 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/8/51/).
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