75. Following this he says that if a divine
spirit was in a body, it must certainly have differed from other bodies in size
or beauty or strength or voice or striking appearance or powers of persuasion.
For it is impossible that a body which had something more divine than the
result should be different from any other. Yet Jesus’ body was no different
from any other, but, as they say, was little and ugly and usdistinguished. Here
too it seems that if he wants to criticize Jesus he quotes the scriptures that
seem to him to provide opportunities for criticism as though he believed them.
But where by the same scriptures someone might think that statements were made which
contradicted those use for the purposes of criticisms, he would pretend not
even to know them.
Admittedly it is written that the body
of Jesus was ugly, but not, as he asserted, that it was also undistinguished;
nor is there any clear indication that he was little. The passage written in
Isaiah, when he was prophesying that Jesus could come to the multitude not with
a beautiful form, or with any surpassing beauty, reads as follows: ‘Lord, who
has believed our report? And to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We
proclaimed before him as a child, as a root in a thirsty land; there is no form
nor glory in him. And we saw him, and he had not form or beautify; but his form
was dishonourable and deserted more than the sons of men.’ Celsus paid heed to
these words, since he thought they would be useful to him with a view to attacking
Jesus; but he did not pay any attention to the words of the forty-fourth Psalm
where it is said: ‘Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, mighty one, with thy beauty
and fairness; and exert thyself and ride on the rule.’
76. let us assume that he had not read the prophecy
or, if he had done so, that he was led astray by those who misinterpret it as
though it were not a prophecy about Jesus Christ. What would he say about the gospel
in which after ascending a high mountain he was transfigured before his disciples
and appeared in glory, when also Moses and Elijah appeared n glory and spoke of
his death which he would fulfil at Jerusalem? If a prophet says ‘We saw him and
he had not form or beauty’ and so on, Celsus accepts this prophecy as referring
to Jesus, although he is blind in spite of his approval of the saying and odes
not see that the belief in Jesus as Son of God, even if he seemed to be without
form, finds considerable support in the fact that many years before his birth
even his form was a subject of prophecy. But if another prophet says that there
is ‘beauty and fairness’ about him, is he no longer wiling to believe that the
prophecy refers to Jesus Christ? And if it were possible to find clear evidence
in the gospels that ‘he had not form or beautify, but his form was dishonourable,
deserted more than the sons of men’, someone might say that Celsus did not base
his statements on the prophecy but on the words of the gospels. In fact,
however, neither the gospels nor even the apostles give any evidence that he
had no form or beauty. Obviously, then, he must necessarily accept the words of
the prophecy as being true of Christ. and this puts his criticisms of Jesus out
of court. (Origen, Contra Celsum 6.75-76, in Origen: Contra Celsum [trans.
Henry Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953], 388-90)
