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Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter VI

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Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV, Origen, Origen Against Celsus, Book II
by Origen, translated by Frederick Crombie
Chapter VI
156278Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV, Origen, Origen Against Celsus, Book II — Chapter VIFrederick CrombieOrigen

Chapter VI.

But let it be granted that Jesus observed all the Jewish usages, including even their sacrificial observances, what does that avail to prevent our recognising Him as the Son of God?  Jesus, then, is the Son of God, who gave the law and the prophets; and we, who belong to the Church, do not transgress the law, but have escaped the mythologizings[1] of the Jews, and have our minds chastened and educated by the mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets.  For the prophets themselves, as not resting the sense of these words in the plain history which they relate, nor in the legal enactments taken according to the word and letter, express themselves somewhere, when about to relate histories, in words like this, “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hard sayings of old;”[2] and in another place, when offering up a prayer regarding the law as being obscure, and needing divine help for its comprehension, they offer up this prayer, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.”[3]

  1. μυθολογίας.
  2. Ps. lxxviii. 2.
  3. Ps. cxix. 18.