Chapter XIV.
But let us look at what Celsus next with great ostentation announces in the following fashion: "And again," he says, "let us resume the subject from the beginning, with a larger array of proofs. And I make no new statement, but say what has been long settled. God is good, and beautiful, and blessed, and that in the best and most beautiful degree. [3736] But if he come down among men, he must undergo a change, and a change from good to evil, from virtue to vice, from happiness to misery, and from best to worst. Who, then, would make choice of such a change? It is the nature of a mortal, indeed, to undergo change and remoulding, but of an immortal to remain the same and unaltered. God, then, could not admit of such a change." Now it appears to me that the fitting answer has been returned to these objections, when I have related what is called in Scripture the "condescension" [3737] of God to human affairs; for which purpose He did not need to undergo a transformation, as Celsus thinks we assert, nor a change from good to evil, nor from virtue to vice, nor from happiness to misery, nor from best to worst. For, continuing unchangeable in His essence, He condescends to human affairs by the economy of His providence. [3738] We show, accordingly, that the holy Scriptures represent God as unchangeable, both by such words as "Thou art the same," [3739] and" I change not;" [3740] whereas the gods of Epicurus, being composed of atoms, and, so far as their structure is concerned, capable of dissolution, endeavour to throw off the atoms which contain the elements of destruction. Nay, even the god of the Stoics, as being corporeal, at one time has his whole essence composed of the guiding principle [3741] when the conflagration (of the world) takes place; and at another, when a rearrangement of things occurs, he again becomes partly material. [3742] For even the Stoics were unable distinctly to comprehend the natural idea of God, as of a being altogether incorruptible and simple, and uncompounded and indivisible.
[3736] O Theos agathos esti, kai kalos, kai eudaimon, kai en to kallisto kai aristo.
[3737] katabasin.
[3738] te pronoia kai te oikonomia.
[3739] Ps. cii. 27.
[3740] Mal. iii. 6.
[3741] hegemonikon.
[3742] The reading in the text is, epi merous ginetai autes, which is thus corrected by Guietus: epimeres ginetai autos.
Chapter XV.
And with respect to His having descended among men, He was "previously in the form of God;" [3743] and through benevolence, divested Himself (of His glory), that He might be capable of being received by men. But He did not, I imagine, undergo any change from "good to evil," for "He did no sin;" [3744] nor from "virtue to vice," for "He knew no sin." [3745] Nor did He pass from "happiness to misery," but He humbled Himself, and nevertheless was blessed, even when His humiliation was undergone in order to benefit our race. Nor was there any change in Him from "best to worst," for how can goodness and benevolence be of "the worst?" Is it befitting to say of the physician, who looks on dreadful sights and handles unsightly objects in order to cure the sufferers, that he passes from "good to evil," or from "virtue to vice," or from "happiness to misery?" And yet the physician, in looking on dreadful sights and handling unsightly objects, does not wholly escape the possibility of being involved in the same fate. But He who heals the wounds of our souls, through the word of God that is in Him, is Himself incapable of admitting any wickedness. But if the immortal God--the Word [3746] --by assuming a mortal body and a human soul, appears to Celsus to undergo a change and transformation, let him learn that the Word, still remaining essentially the Word, suffers none of those things which are suffered by the body or the soul; but, condescending occasionally to (the weakness of) him who is unable to look upon the splendours and brilliancy of Deity, He becomes as it were flesh, speaking with a literal voice, until he who has received Him in such a form is able, through being elevated in some slight degree by the teaching of the Word, to gaze upon what is, so to speak, His real and pre-eminent appearance. [3747]
[3743] Cf. Phil. ii. 6, 7.
[3744] Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 22.
[3745] Cf. 2 Cor. v. 21.
[3746] [Gieseler cites this chapter (and cap. xix. infra) to show that Origen taught that the Logos did not assume a human body. Could words be stronger to the contrary? "He becomes, as it were, flesh," is used below to guard against transmutation.]
[3747] proegoumenen.