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

by Origen

Chapter XVIII.

But since he has ridiculed at great length the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, which has been preached in the Churches, and which is more clearly understood by the more intelligent believer; and as it is unnecessary again to quote his words, which have been already adduced, let us, with regard to the problem^[1] (as in an apologetic work directed against an alien from the faith, and for the sake of those who are still “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive”^[2]), state and establish to the best of our ability a few points expressly intended for our readers.  Neither we, then, nor the holy Scriptures, assert that with the same bodies, without a change to a higher condition, “shall those who were long dead arise from the earth and live again;” for in so speaking, Celsus makes a false charge against us.  For we may listen to many passages of Scripture treating of the resurrection in a manner worthy of God, although it may suffice for the present to quote the language of Paul from the first Epistle to the Corinthians, where he says:  “But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?  Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.  And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.”^[3]  Now, observe how in these words he says that there is sown, “not that body that shall be;” but that of the body which is sown and cast naked into the earth (God giving to each seed its own body), there takes place as it were a resurrection:  from the seed that was cast into the ground there arising a stalk, e.g., among such plants as the following, viz., the mustard plant, or of a larger tree, as in the olive,^[4] or one of the fruit-trees.

1. περὶ τοῦ προβλήματος τούτου.
2. Cf. Eph. iv. 14.
3. Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 35–38.
4. ἐν ἐλαίας πυρῆνι.