Sophia Scriptura

Against Celsus 2.43

Origen · Against Celsus · ca. 248 · Caesarea · Read in context

Summary: Origen affirms that Jesus persuaded many during his life and that after death, as a soul without a body, he preached to the souls of the dead.

Greek text · Koetschau 1:166

Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα λέγει πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὅτι οὐ δή που φήσετε περὶ αὐτοῦ ὅτι μὴ πείσας τοὺς ὧδε ὄντας ἐστέλλετο εἰς ᾅδου πείσων τοὺς ἐκεῖ. κἂν μὴ βούληται οὖν, τοῦτό φαμεν, ὅτι καὶ ἐν σώματι ὢν οὐκ ὀλίγους ἔπεισεν ἀλλὰ τοσούτους. ὡς διὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν πειθομένων ἐπιβουλευθῆναι αὐτὸν, καὶ γυμνὴ σώματος γενόμενος ψυχὴ ταῖς γυμναῖς σωμάτων ὡμίλει ψυχαῖς, ἐπιστρέφων κἀκείνων τὰς βουλομένας πρὸς αὐτὸν ἢ ἃς ἑώρα διʼ οὓς ᾔδει αὐτὸς λόγους ἐπιτηδειοτέρας.

English · Claude translation

After this he says to us: “Surely you will not say of him that, having failed to persuade those who were here, he went to Hades to persuade those there.” Even if he does not wish it, we say this: that while he was in the body he persuaded not a few but so many that he was plotted against because of the number of those persuaded; and that, having become a soul stripped of the body, he conversed with souls stripped of bodies, turning to himself those of them that were willing, or those he saw to be more fit for reasons he himself knew.

About this passage

Source
Koetschau 1:166 · Paul Koetschau, ed., Origenes Werke 1–2: Gegen Celsus, GCS 2–3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899) · Greek text: P. Koetschau, Origenes Werke 1–2 (GCS 2–3, 1899), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Koetschau, GCS 2–3. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Koetschau, GCS 2–3; made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture
Topics
Christology, Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The descent to Hades alludes to 1 Pet 3:19.

Cite this passage

Origen, Cels. 2.43 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/2/43/).

Plain text
Origen, Cels. 2.43 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/origen-celsum/2/43/).

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