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Contra Celsum

37.

Ἐγκαλεῖ δ' ἡμῖν ὡς ὑπὸ χειρῶν θεοῦ πλασθέντα εἰσαγαγοῦσιν ἄνθρωπον, τοῦ μὲν τῆς Γενέσεως βιβλίου οὔτ' ἐπὶ τῆς ποιήσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὔτ' ἐπὶ τῆς πλάσεως χεῖρας παραλαβόντος θεοῦ, τοῦ δὲ Ἰὼβ καὶ τοῦ Δαυὶδ εἰπόντων τό· «Αἱ χεῖρές σου ἐποίησάν με καὶ ἔπλασάν με», περὶ ὧν «πολὺς» «ὁ λόγος» εἰς τὸ παραστῆσαι τὰ νενοημένα τοῖς ταῦτα εἰρηκόσιν οὐ μόνον περὶ διαφορᾶς ποιήσεως καὶ πλάσεως ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ χειρῶν θεοῦ· ἃς οἱ μὴ νοήσαντες καὶ τὰς τοιαύτας ἀπὸ τῶν θείων γραφῶν φωνὰς οἴονται ἡμᾶς τοιοῦτον σχῆμα περιτιθέναι τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεῷ ὁποῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, καθ' οὓς καὶ πτέρυγας ἀκόλουθον νομίζειν ἡμᾶς εἶναι ἐν τῷ σώματι τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐπεὶ καὶ ταῦτα λέγουσιν αἱ κατὰ τὸ ῥητὸν περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν γραφαί. Ταῦτα δὲ νῦν ἑρμηνεύειν οὐκ ἀπαιτεῖ ἡ προκειμένη πραγματεία· προηγουμένως γὰρ ἐν τοῖς εἰς τὴν Γένεσιν ἐξηγητικοῖς ταῦθ' ἡμῖν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἐξήτασται.

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Origen Against Celsus

Chapter XXXVII.

He charges us, moreover, with introducing "a man formed by the hands of God," although the book of Genesis has made no mention of the "hands" of God, either when relating the creation or the "fashioning" ¹ of the man; while it is Job and David who have used the expression, "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me;" ² with reference to which it would need a lengthened discourse to point out the sense in which these words were understood by those who used them, both as regards the difference between "making" and "fashioning," and also the "hands" of God. For those who do not understand these and similar expressions in the sacred Scriptures, imagine that we attribute to the God who is over all things a form ³ such as that of man; and according to their conceptions, it follows that we consider the body of God to be furnished with wings, since the Scriptures, literally understood, attribute such appendages to God. The subject before us, however, does not require us to interpret these expressions; for, in our explanatory remarks upon the book of Genesis, these matters have been made, to the best of our ability, a special subject of investigation. Observe next the malignity ⁴ of Celsus in what follows. For the Scripture, speaking of the "fashioning" ⁵ of the man, says, "And breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul." ⁶ Whereon Celsus, wishing maliciously to ridicule the "inbreathing into his face of the breath of life," and not understanding the sense in which the expression was employed, states that "they composed a story that a man was fashioned by the hands of God, and was inflated by breath blown into him," ⁷ in order that, taking the word "inflated" to be used in a similar way to the inflation of skins, he might ridicule the statement, "He breathed into his face the breath of life,"--terms which are used figuratively, and require to be explained in order to show that God communicated to man of His incorruptible Spirit; as it is said, "For Thine incorruptible Spirit is in all things." ⁸