Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VIII/Chapter XLIX

Chapter XLIX.

Let us see in what terms Celsus next addresses us:&#160; &#8220;Besides, is it not most absurd and inconsistent in you, on the one hand, to make so much of the body as you do&#8212;to expect that the same body will rise again, as though it were the best and most precious part of us; and yet, on the other, to expose it to such tortures as though it were worthless?&#160; But men who hold such notions, and are so attached to the body, are not worthy of being reasoned with; for in this and in other respects they show themselves to be gross, impure, and bent upon revolting without any reason from the common belief.&#160; But I shall direct my discourse to those who hope for the enjoyment of eternal life with God by means of the soul or mind, whether they choose to call it a spiritual substance, an intelligent spirit, holy and blessed, or a living soul, or the heavenly and indestructible offspring of a divine and incorporeal nature, or by whatever name they designate the spiritual nature of man.&#160; And they are rightly persuaded that those who live well shall be blessed, and the unrighteous shall all suffer everlasting punishments.&#160; And from this doctrine neither they nor any other should ever swerve.&#8221;&#160; Now, as he has often already reproached us for our opinions on the resurrection, and as we have on these occasions defended our opinions in what seemed to us a reasonable way, we do not intend, at each repetition of the one objection, to go into a repetition of our defence.&#160; Celsus makes an unfounded charge against us when he ascribes to us the opinion that &#8220;there is nothing in our complex nature better or more precious than the body;&#8221; for we hold that far beyond all bodies is the soul, and especially the reasonable soul; for it is the soul, and not the body, which bears the likeness of the Creator.&#160; For, according to us, God is not corporeal, unless we fall into the absurd errors of the followers of Zeno and Chrysippus.