Origen, AGAINST CELSUS, Part V, Complete

Translated from the Greek original by Frederick Crombie.

Origen Resources OnLine & in Print

This Part: 128 Pages

Page 55

For it seems that the demons pay more regard in distributing their favours to the sacrifices which are offered them than to deeds of virtue. Accordingly, Homer, the best of the poets, who describes what usually took place, when, wishing to show us what most influenced the demons to grant an answer to the wishes of their votaries, introduces Chryses, who, for a few garlands and the thighs of bulls and goats, obtained an answer to his prayers for his daughter Chryseis, so that the Greeks were driven by a pestilence to restore her back to him. And I remember reading in the book of a certain Pythagorean, when writing on the hidden meanings in that poet, that the prayer of Chryses to Apollo, and the plague which Apollo afterwards sent upon the Greeks, are proofs that Homer knew of certain evil demons who delight in the smoke of sacrifices, and who, to reward those who offer them, grant in answer to their prayers the destruction of others. "He," that is, Jupiter, "who rules over wintry Dodona, where his prophets have ever unwashed feet, and sleep upon the ground," [4687] has rejected the male sex, and, as Celsus observes, employs the women of Dodona for the prophetic office. Granting that there are oracles similar to these, as that at Clarus, another in Branchidae, another in the temple of Jupiter Ammon, or anywhere else; yet how shall it be proved that these are gods, and not demons?

[4687] Homer, Iliad, xvi. 234, etc.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Origen - AGAINST CELSUS

Origen Home Page ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum-4.asp?pg=55