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Translated from the Greek original by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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128 Pages
Page 37
The Seriphian, in Plato, who reproaches Themistocles after he had become celebrated for his military skill, saying that his reputation was due not to his own merits, but to his good fortune in having been born in the most illustrious country in Greece, received from the good-natured Athenian, who saw that his native country did contribute to his renown, the following reply: "Neither would I, had I been a Seriphian, have been so distinguished as I am, nor would you have been a Themistocles, even if you had had the good fortune to be an Athenian!" And now, our Jesus, who is reproached with being born in a village, and that not a Greek one, nor belonging to any nation widely esteemed, and being despised as the son of a poor labouring woman, and as having on account of his poverty left his native country and hired himself out in Egypt, and being, to use the instance already quoted, not only a Seriphian, as it were, a native of a very small and undistinguished island, but even, so to speak, the meanest of the Seriphians, has yet been able to shake [3121] the whole inhabited world not only to a degree far above what Themistocles the Athenian ever did, but beyond what even Pythagoras, or Plato, or any other wise man in any part of the world whatever, or any prince or general, ever succeeded in doing. [3122]
[3121] seisai.
[3122] [This striking chapter is cited, as a specimen of Christian eloquence, in the important work of Guillon, Cours d' Eloquence Sacree, Bruxelles, 1828].
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/against-celsus.asp?pg=37
