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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 77
If, then, on the one hand, you suppose them not to exist, we shall have to prove the doctrine of the soul's immortality, which is to us a doctrine of pre-eminent importance; [3496] if, on the other hand, they do exist, we have still to prove [3497] the doctrine of immortality, not only by what the Greeks have so well said regarding it, but also in a manner agreeable to the teaching of Holy Scripture. And we shall demonstrate that it is impossible for those who were polytheists during their lives to obtain a better country and position after their departure from this world, by quoting the histories that are related of them, in which is recorded the great dissoluteness of Hercules, and his effeminate bondage with Omphale, together with the statements regarding Aesculapius, that their Zeus struck him dead by a thunderbolt. And of the Dioscuri, it will be said that they die often--
"At one time live on alternate days, and at another
Die, and obtain honour equally with the gods." [3498]
How, then, can they reasonably imagine that one of these is to be regarded as a god or a hero?
[3496] ton proegoumenon hemin peri psuches kataskeuasteon logon.
[3497] Bohereau conjectures, with great probability, that instead of apodekteon, we ought to read apodeikteon.
[3498] Cf. Homer, Odyssey, xi. 303 and 304.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/contra-celsum.asp?pg=77
