Origen
ORIGEN - ORIGENES ADAMANTIUS  Macroknow Library
   

   
Origen: Contra Celsum.

". . . [I]t is not wrong to form associations against the laws for the sake of truth. For just as it would be right for people to form associations secretly to kill a tyrant who had seized control of their city, so too, since the devil, as Christians call him, and falsehood reign as tyrants, Christians form associations against the devil contrary to his laws, in order to save others whom they might be able to persuade to abandon the law which is like that of the Scythians and of a tyrant."a RAWLS

". . . [T]the entire Jewish nation was destroyed less than one generation later on account of these sufferings which they inflicted upon Jesus. . . We will go so far as to say that they will not be restored again."b

". . . [J]ust as robbers in deserted places advance one individual to be their chief, so the daemons have formed, as it were, confederacies in various parts of the earth and have made one individual their chief, to lead them in doing the deeds which they have chosen to do in order to steal and rob the souls of men."c PAINE

". . . [W]e worship the Father of the truth and the Son who is the truth; they are two distinct existences, but one in mental unity, in agreement, and in identity of will. Thus he who has seen the Son, who is an effulgence of the glory and express image of the Person of God, has seen God in him who is God's image."d

". . . [I]f there are two laws opposed to one another, the law of God and the law of mammon, it is preferable for us to dishonour mammon by the transgression of the law of mammon in order to pay honour to God by keeping God's law . . ."e


  
   
  

* Italics in the original.

Origen (c. 185-c. 254). Origen: Contra Celsum. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Henry Chadwick. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1953. (Reprinted with Corrections 1965.)
a BOOK I, at 7,
b BOOK IV, at 198-199,
c BOOK VII, at 453,
d BOOK VIII, at 460-461,
e Ibid., at 495.

MK-BOOK-ORIGEN-20050608