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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 56
And was there no motive which induced them to class with the books of Moses, which were held as sacred, the words of those persons who were afterwards deemed to be prophets? And can those who charge the Jews and Christians with folly, show us how the Jewish nation could have continued to subsist, had there existed among them no promise of the knowledge of future events? and how, while each of the surrounding nations believed, agreeably to their ancient institutions, that they received oracles and predictions from those whom they accounted gods, this people alone, who were taught to view with contempt all those who were considered gods by the heathen, as not being gods, but demons, according to the declaration of the prophets, "For all the gods of the nations are demons," [3444] had among them no one who professed to be a prophet, and who could restrain such as, from a desire to know the future, were ready to desert [3445] to the demons [3446] of other nations? Judge, then, whether it were not a necessity, that as the whole nation had been taught to despise the deities of other lands, they should have had an abundance of prophets, who made known events which were of far greater importance in themselves, [3447] and which surpassed the oracles of all other countries.
[3444] Ps. xcvi. 5, daimonia, "idols," Auth. Vers. We have in this passage, and in many others, the identification of the daimones or gods of the heathen with the daimones or daimonia, "evil spirits," or angels, supposed to be mentioned in Gen. vi. 2.
[3445] The reading in the text is automolein, on which Bohereau, with whom the Benedictine editor agrees, remarks that we must either read automolesontas, or understand some such word as hetoimous before automolein.
[3446] Ps. xcvi. 5, daimonia, "idols," Auth. Vers. We have in this passage, and in many others, the identification of the daimones or gods of the heathen with the daimones or daimonia, "evil spirits," or angels, supposed to be mentioned in Gen. vi. 2.
[3447] to meizon autothen.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum.asp?pg=56
