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Translated from the Greek original by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 125
Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey,
In airy circles wings his painful way,
Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries;
Amidst the host, the fallen serpent lies.
They, pale with terror, mark its spires unrolled,
And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold." [4042]
Did the eagle, then, possess the power of divination, and the serpent (since this animal also is made use of by the augurs) not? But as this distinction can be easily refuted, cannot the assertion that both were capable of divination be refuted also? For if the serpent had possessed this knowledge, would not he have been on his guard against suffering what he did from the eagle? And innumerable other instances of a similar character may be found, to show that animals do not possess a prophetic soul, but that, according to the poet and the majority of mankind, it is the "Olympian himself who sent him to the light." And it is with a symbolical meaning [4043] that Apollo employs the hawk [4044] as his messenger, for the hawk [4045] is called the "swift messenger of Apollo." [4046]
[4042] Homer, Iliad, xii. 200 sq.
[4043] kata de ti semeion.
[4044] hierax.
[4045] kirkos, "the hen-harrier," "Falco," or "Circus pygargus." Cf. Liddell and Scott, s.v.
[4046] Cf. Homer, Odyssey, xv. 526.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum-2.asp?pg=125
