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

by Origen

Chapter X.

In the next place, Celsus, as is his custom, having neither proved nor established anything, proceeds to say, as if we talked of God in a manner that was neither holy nor pious, that “it is perfectly manifest that they babble about God in a way that is neither holy nor reverential;” and he imagines that we do these things to excite the astonishment of the ignorant, and that we do not speak the truth regarding the necessity of punishments for those who have sinned.  And accordingly he likens us to those who “in the Bacchic mysteries introduce phantoms and objects of terror.”  With respect to the mysteries of Bacchus, whether there is any trustworthy^[1] account of them, or none that is such, let the Greeks tell, and let Celsus and his boon-companions^[2] listen.  But we defend our own procedure, when we say that our object is to reform the human race, either by the threats of punishments which we are persuaded are necessary for the whole world,^[3] and which perhaps are not without use^[4] to those who are to endure them; or by the promises made to those who have lived virtuous lives, and in which are contained the statements regarding the blessed termination which is to be found in the kingdom of God, reserved for those who are worthy of becoming His subjects.

1. [The word “reliable” is used here.  I cannot let it stand, and have supplied an English word instead].
2. συνθιασῶται.
3. τῷ παντί.
4. οὐκ ἀχρήστους.  On Origen’s views respecting rewards and punishments, cf. Huet’s Origeniana, book ii. question xi.