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| Chapter XV
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Chapter XV.
And with respect to His having descended among
men, He was “previously in the form of God;”3743
and through benevolence, divested Himself
(of His glory), that He might be capable of being received by
men. But He did not, I imagine, undergo any change from
“good to evil,” for “He did no
sin;”3744
nor from
“virtue to vice,” for “He knew no
sin.”3745
Nor did He
pass from “happiness to misery,” but He humbled Himself,
and nevertheless was blessed, even when His humiliation was undergone
in order to benefit our race. Nor was there any change in Him
from “best to worst,” for how can goodness and benevolence
be of “the worst?” Is it befitting to say of the
physician, who looks on dreadful sights and handles unsightly objects
in order to cure the sufferers, that he passes from “good to
evil,” or from “virtue to vice,” or from
“happiness to misery?” And yet the physician, in
looking on dreadful sights and handling unsightly objects, does not
wholly escape the possibility of being involved in the same fate.
But He who heals the wounds of our souls, through the word of God that
is in Him, is Himself incapable of admitting any wickedness. But
if the immortal God—the Word3746
| 3746 [Gieseler cites this
chapter (and cap. xix. infra) to show that Origen taught
that the Logos did not assume a human body. Could words be
stronger to the contrary? “He becomes, as it were,
flesh,” is used below to guard against
transmutation.] | —by
assuming a mortal body and a human soul, appears to Celsus to undergo a
change and transformation, let him learn that the Word, still remaining
essentially the Word, suffers none of those things which are suffered
by the body or the soul; but, condescending occasionally to (the
weakness of) him who is unable to look upon the splendours and
brilliancy of Deity, He becomes as it were flesh, speaking with a
literal voice, until he who has received Him in such a form is able,
through being elevated in some slight degree by the teaching of the
Word, to gaze upon what is, so to speak, His real and pre-eminent
appearance.3747
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