beneficent activity of the Son of God began at His incarnation. For the Son of God, the first-born of every creature,' though He seemed to become incarnate recently, is not at all on that account new."1 We do not excessively reverence "Him who lately appeared," as if He had not existed before. "He called Himself 'the Truth,' and none of us is so stupid as to suppose that the substance of truth did not exist before the times of the manifestation of Christ." 2 He has always been a benefactor to mankind. For nothing beautiful has ever been done among men without the entrance of the divine Word into the souls of those who are able though only for a little to receive His energy. The coming of Jesus into one corner was in accordance with reason. It was necessary that He who had been the subject of prophecy should come to those who had learned of the true God, and by reading His prophets had been taught about the Christ who was proclaimed.3 For the enlightenment of the whole world by the Word of God there was no necessity for many bodies and many spirits like that of Jesus. For, being the "Sun of Righteousness," the one Word sufficed; rising in Judea it was able to send its rays to the souls of all who were willing to receive Him.1 Neither then, in the time nor in the method of the incarnation, was anything capricious or arbitrary. Not then for the 1 v. 37. 2 viii. 12. 3 vi. 78. 4 vi. 79. first time did God seek men. The energy of the divine Word is the source of all enlightenment and moral culture. Christ is not the first manifestation of the divinity, but the culminating point in a series which found in Him its completion and consummation. 181 CHAPTER IV. THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. As, on the principles of Celsus, an incarnation was impossible, it followed that the divinity of Christ was a myth or an invention. It was asserted, no doubt, in the Gospels; but the Gospels were untrustworthy records there were many contradictory versions: much had been invented by the disciples. God could not become incarnate without a pollution of His nature. Christ then was not born in any supernatural way, but was the offspring of an adulterous intercourse. The ascription of divinity to Him had many parallels in Greek mythology. For a God to do and suffer what He is reported to have suffered, was unworthy of Deity. I. On the general question of the credibility of the Gospel narrative Origen points out the extreme difficulty of proving the truth of any historical event or presenting an intelligible conception of it. If a man denied, for example, that there had been a Trojan war, because of the interweaving of impossible events in the history, how would we convince him? The fair reader will guard against deceit, and judge to what he will give credence, what he will explain allegorically, what he will disbelieve as being written with a purpose. So with regard to the Gospel history Origen does not demand from men of skill a bare and unreasonable faith, but maintains that the readers require to be impartial, and to investigate carefully, and to enter into the spirit of the writer, in order to know the purpose for which each Gospel was written.1 He dismisses the idea of an oral tradition as incredible. They would not surely allege that the friends and pupils of Jesus transmitted the teaching of the Gospels without writing, and left His disciples without written memoirs of Him.2 Though the Marcionites and the Valentinians have altered the text of the Gospels, that is no ground of accusation against the Word, but only against those who have dared to corrupt it. Just as the existence of Sophists or Epicureans or Peripatetics or any other false teachers is no charge against philosophy, so the action of those who alter the Gospels and introduce heresies foreign to the doctrine of Jesus furnishes no ground of accusation against true Christianity.3 1 i. 42. 2 οὐ γὰρ δὴ τοὺς αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ γνωρίμους καὶ ἀκροατὰς φήσουσι χωρὶς γραφῆς τὴν τῶν εὐαγγελίων παραδεδωκέναι διδασκαλίαν—ii. 13. 3 ii. 27. Forgetful, perhaps, for the moment of his own canon of historical criticism, Origen calls upon Celsus either to disbelieve or believe all the statements in the Gospels. Instead of refusing to believe in the miraculous portions of the Gospels, he ought to have marked the truthful spirit of the writers, and believed them when they recorded things divine as well as matters of less moment.2 In their love of truth and honesty they have recorded insults against Jesus; they have not omitted in their miraculous history what might thus seem to bring disgrace on the doctrine of the Christians. So far as writings reveal the conscience, the disciples and eyewitnesses of the miracles of Jesus clearly show their sincerity and freedom from guile.* This internal testimony is confirmed by their actions. Men do not die for myths or fictions.5 The disciples showed the genuineness of their disposition towards Jesus by enduring all hardships because of His words. Such resolution and endurance even unto death are not consistent with the theory that they invented what they narrate about their teacher, and clearly evince that they were persuaded of the truth of what they wrote. In con 1 ii. 33. 2 δέον τὸ φιλάληθες ἰδόντα τῶν γραψάντων ἐκ τῆς περὶ τῶν χειρόνων ἀναγραφῆς πιστεῦσαι καὶ περὶ τῶν θειοτέρων—i. 63. 3 iii. 28; ii. 34. 4 ὁρῶντες τὸ ἀπάνουργον αὐτῶν, ὅσον ἔστιν ἰδεῖν συνείδησιν ἀπὸ γραμμάτων—iii. 24. 5 iii. 27. 6 ii. 10. |