Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VII/Chapter XLIII

Chapter XLIII.

Observe that when Plato says, that &#8220;after having found out the Creator and Father of the universe, it is impossible to make Him known to all men,&#8221; he does not speak of Him as unspeakable, and as incapable of being expressed in words.&#160; On the contrary, he implies that He may be spoken of, and that there are a few to whom He may be made known.&#160; But Celsus, as if forgetting the language which he had just quoted from Plato, immediately gives God the name of &#8220;the unspeakable.&#8221;&#160; He says:&#160; &#8220;since the wise men have found out this way, in order to be able to give us some idea of the First of Beings, who is unspeakable.&#8221;&#160; For ourselves, we hold that not God alone is unspeakable, but other things also which are inferior to Him.&#160; Such are the things which Paul labours to express when he says, &#8220;I heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,&#8221; where the word &#8220;heard&#8221; is used in the sense of &#8220;understood;&#8221; as in the passage, &#8220;He who hath ears to hear, let him hear.&#8221;&#160; We also hold that it is a hard matter to see the Creator and Father of the universe; but it is possible to see Him in the way thus referred to, &#8220;Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;&#8221; and not only so, but also in the sense of the words of Him &#8220;who is the image of the invisible God;&#8221; &#8220;He who hath seen Me hath seen the Father who sent Me.&#8221; &#160; No sensible person could suppose that these last words were spoken in reference to His bodily presence, which was open to the view of all; otherwise all those who said, &#8220;Crucify him, crucify him,&#8221; and Pilate, who had power over the humanity of Jesus, were among those who saw God the Father, which is absurd.&#160; Moreover, that these words, &#8220;He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father who sent Me,&#8221; are not to be taken in their grosser sense, is plain from the answer which He gave to Philip, &#8220;Have I been so long time with you, and yet dost thou not know Me, Philip?&#8221; after Philip had asked, &#8220;Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.&#8221;&#160; He, then, who perceives how these words, &#8220;The Word was made flesh,&#8221; are to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God, the first-born of all creation, will also understand how, in seeing the image of the invisible God, we see &#8220;the Creator and Father of the universe.&#8221;