|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE | LIBRARIES | BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | FREEWARE | BOOKSTORE |
|
|
Translated from the Greek original by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
|
This Part: 128 Pages
Page 51
Chapter XXXI.
After this, wishing to prove that there is no difference between Jews and Christians, and those animals previously enumerated by him, he asserts that the Jews were "fugitives from Egypt, who never performed anything worthy of note, and never were held in any reputation or account." [3817] Now, on the point of their not being fugitives, nor Egyptians, but Hebrews who settled in Egypt, we have spoken in the preceding pages. But if he thinks his statement, that "they were never held in any reputation or account," to be proved, because no remarkable event in their history is found recorded by the Greeks, we would answer, that if one will examine their polity from its first beginning, and the arrangement of their laws, he will find that they were men who represented upon earth the shadow of a heavenly life, and that amongst them God is recognised as nothing else, save He who is over all things, and that amongst them no maker of images was permitted to enjoy the rights of citizenship. [3818] For neither painter nor image-maker existed in their state, the law expelling all such from it; that there might be no pretext for the construction of images,--an art which attracts the attention of foolish men, and which drags down the eyes of the soul from God to earth. There was, accordingly, amongst them a law to the following effect: "Do not transgress the law, and make to yourselves a graven image, any likeness of male or female; either a likeness of any one of the creatures that are upon the earth, or a likeness of any winged fowl that flieth under the heaven, or a likeness of any creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, or a likeness of any of the fishes which are in the waters under the earth." [3820]
[3817] out' en logo out' en arithmo autous pote gegenemenous.
[3818] epoliteueto.
[3820] Cf. Deut. iv. 16-18.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum-2.asp?pg=51
