Against Celsus 1 part 24/42

For God is not the leader of disordered appetite nor of erring disorder, but of right and just nature.

And He could indeed furnish an eternal life to the soul;

but corpses, says Heraclitus, are more to be cast out than dung.

But flesh, full of things which it is not even decent to name, to declare eternal contrary to reason, God will neither will nor be able.

For He Himself is the Reason of all things that are;

He is therefore able to do nothing contrary to reason nor contrary to Himself.

See, then, from here, from the very beginning, how, deriding with mockery the conflagration of the world introduced not contemptibly by some even among the Greek philosophers, he wishes to represent us as bringing in the matters concerning the conflagration by making God, as it were, a cook;

not perceiving that, just as it seemed good to some of the Greeks—perhaps having received it from the most ancient nation, the Hebrews—fire is brought upon the world as a purifier, and it is likely also upon each one who needs the justice and at the same time the healing that is through fire;

the fire burning but not consuming those who do not have material needing to be expended by that fire, but burning and consuming those who have built, in the building figuratively spoken of as through deeds and words and thoughts, wood, hay, or stubble.

And the divine words say that the Lord will visit, like the fire of a refiner's furnace and like the fuller's herb, each one of those who need it, on account of there having been mixed in, as it were, a base molten material from wickedness—I mean those who need fire, as one smelting those mingled with copper and tin and lead.

And these things one who wishes can learn from the prophet Ezekiel.

And that we do not say that God brings the fire as a cook, but as a God who is a benefactor of those who need toil and fire, the prophet Isaiah too will testify, in whom it is written to have been said to a certain sinful nation:

'Because you have coals of fire, sit upon them;

these shall be a help to you.'

And the word, being dispensed in a way fitting for the multitudes who will encounter the Scripture, speaks concealedly with wisdom the gloomy things, for the fear of those unable otherwise to turn from the flood of their sins;

yet even so, he who observes will find disclosed the end which is brought, out of the gloomy and painful things, upon those who suffer.

But it suffices for the present to set down from Isaiah this:

'...you, that I may not utterly destroy you.' But we were compelled to hint obscurely at the things not fitting for those who believe more simply and need the simpler dispensation in words, lest we should seem to leave the accusation of Celsus unrefuted, when he says:

'When God, like a cook, applies the fire.'

And from what has been said, it is plain to those who hear more intelligently how one must answer also this:

'All the rest of the race will be roasted, but they alone will remain.'

And it is no wonder if he has so conceived of the things in us which are named by the Word foolish things of the world and base and despised and things that are not—which through the foolishness of the proclamation God was pleased to save those who believe in Him, since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God—being unable to articulate the matters concerning these places, nor willing to give leisure to the searching of the Scripture, although Jesus says:

'Search the Scriptures,' and he has assumed such things concerning the fire brought by God and concerning what shall befall those who have sinned.

And perhaps, just as it is fitting that certain things be said to children, suited to their infancy, in order to turn them, as quite infant children, toward the better; so for those whom the Word named the foolish things of the world and the base and the despised, the ready-to-hand understanding concerning the punishments is fitting, since they admit no other turning than that through fear and the imagination of the punishments, and abstinence from their many evils.

The Word, then, says that those alone shall remain untasting of the fire and the punishments who are utterly cleansed in their doctrines and morals and their governing faculty;

but those who are not such, needing according to their desert the dispensation of punishments through fire, He says shall be in these, at a certain end, which it is fitting for God to bring upon those made according to His image and who have lived contrary to the purpose of the nature according to the image.

'All the rest of the race will be roasted, but they alone will remain.'

Then, mishearing what follows these things—either of the sacred writings, or of those who have not understood the sacred writings—he says that it is said by us that those alone shall remain, at the time of the purifying fire to be brought upon the world, not only those then living but also those long ago dead;

not having supposed that with a certain ineffable wisdom it was said by the apostle of Jesus:

'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;

for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' He ought to have considered with what understanding the one who says these things, as in no way being dead, separating himself from those and calling those like himself, said after 'And the dead shall be raised incorruptible':

And for confirmation that the apostle wrote, having conceived such things, what I cited from the first to the Corinthians, I will set down also the things from the first to the Thessalonians, in which Paul, as one living and awake and being other than those who have fallen asleep, says such things:

'For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall by no means precede those who have fallen asleep, because the Lord Himself, with a command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven.' Then again, following these things, knowing others, the dead in Christ, as distinct from himself and those like him, he adds, saying:

'The dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, shall together with them be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.' But since he has more extensively made comedy of the resurrection of the flesh, which is preached in the churches but is understood more clearly by the more intelligent, and there is no need again to set forth his statement once already cited;

let us set forth and establish a few things, conjecturally, for the sake of those who will encounter them, as far as is possible for us.

Neither we, then, nor the divine writings say that those long ago dead shall live in those very same fleshes, having taken on no change for the better, rising up from the earth;

but Celsus slanders us in saying these things.

For we hear many Scriptures too speaking of resurrection worthily of God, and it suffices for the present to set down Paul's statement from the first to the Corinthians, where he says:

'How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come? Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies;

and what you sow, you do not sow the body that shall be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of some of the rest;

but God gives it a body as He willed, and to each of the seeds its own body.' For see in what manner in these words he says that not the body which shall be is sown, but that from the sown and bare thing cast upon the earth, God giving to each of the seeds its own body, there comes as it were a resurrection, an ear being raised from the sown seed in some kinds, and a tree in others, as in the mustard, or a yet greater tree in the kernel of an olive or in one of the stone-fruits.

God, then, gives to each a body as He willed, just as in the case of the things sown, so also in the case of the things, as it were, sown in dying and at a fitting time taking up, from the things sown, the body clothed upon each according to its desert by God.

And we hear too of the Word teaching through many passages the difference of the, as it were, sown thing from the, as it were, raised thing from it, and saying:

'It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption;

it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory;

it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.' And let him who is able further apprehend what was conceived by the one who says:

'As is the man of dust, such also are those who are of dust;

and as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly.

And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so let us also bear the image of the heavenly.' And yet, though the apostle wished to hide the ineffable things concerning this place, not fitting for the simpler and for the common hearing of those who are led by believing toward the better, nevertheless he was afterwards compelled, lest we should mishear his words, to say, after 'let us bear the image of the heavenly,' this: 'But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.'

Then, knowing something ineffable and mystical concerning this place, as it was fitting for one leaving in writing to those after him the things conceived as expressed, he adds and says:

'Behold, I tell you a mystery,' because it is customary for what is deeper and more mystical and fittingly hidden from the many to be brought in;

as also it is written in Tobit:

'It is good to hide the mystery of a king, but it is glorious to reveal gloriously the works of God'—with a view to what is glorious and fitting for the many, together with what is economically true.

Our hope, then, is not of worms, nor does our soul long for the rotted body, but, even if it needs a body on account of its local transitions, the soul that has practised wisdom—according to 'the mouth of the righteous shall meditate wisdom'—understands the difference between an earthly house in which is the tent, being dissolved, and the tent, in which the righteous who are in it groan, being burdened, not wishing to put off the tent but to be further clothed upon over the tent, that by being further clothed upon, the mortal may be swallowed up by life.

For, since every nature of body is corruptible, this corruptible tent must put on incorruption, and its other part, being mortal and capable of the death that follows upon sinning, must put on immortality;

of the sting itself, with which, by stinging the soul not wholly fenced about, it produces in it the wounds from sin.

But since our doctrines concerning the resurrection have, as far as was possible, been stated in part for the present—for we have composed a treatise concerning the resurrection elsewhere, having examined the matters of this place more extensively—and since the things of Celsus must now be taken up reasonably, he having neither understood what is written among us nor being able to judge that one ought not to think that the purpose of those wise men is championed by those who, professing nothing more of faith, do so toward the doctrine of the Christians;

come, let us show that things exceedingly inconsistent, in respect of logical contemplation and dialectical inquiries, have been said by men not to be despised.

And if one must scoff at them as low and old-wives' tales, one ought rather to scoff at those than at ours.

Now those of the Stoa say that a conflagration of the universe takes place by periodic cycles, and after it an ordering of the world, having all things in no way different as compared with the former ordering.

But those of them who were ashamed of the doctrine said that a slight and exceedingly small difference comes about in each cycle, compared with those in the cycle before it.

These men, then, say that in the next cycle the same things shall be, and that Socrates shall again be the son of Sophroniscus and an Athenian, and that Phaenarete, having married Sophroniscus, shall again bear him.

And even if they do not name the name of resurrection, they at least make plain the matter—that Socrates, beginning from seeds, shall rise again from those of Sophroniscus, and shall be fashioned in the womb of a later Phaenarete, and being reared at Athens shall philosophize, as it were the former philosophy too rising again and being likewise in no way different from the former.

And Anytus and Meletus shall rise again as accusers of Socrates, and the council of the Areopagus shall condemn Socrates.

And what is more laughable than these things—Socrates shall put on garments in no way different from those in the former cycle, being in poverty in no way different and in a city in no way different—Athens—from that of the former cycle.

And Phalaris shall again tyrannize, and his brazen bull shall bellow from the voice of those within, who are in no way different from the men condemned in the former cycle.

And Alexander of Pherae shall again tyrannize, having a cruelty in no way different from the former, and condemning men in no way different, as also the former ones.

And why need I recount the doctrine concerning such things philosophized by those of the Stoa, and not laughed at by Celsus, but perhaps even revered, since Zeno seems to him to be wiser than Jesus? And those of Pythagoras and Plato, even if they seem to keep the world incorruptible, yet fall into things closely similar.

For the stars, according to certain appointed cycles, taking on the same configurations and relations to one another, they say that all things on earth are in the same state as they were when the cosmos held the same figure of the relation of the stars.

It is necessary, therefore, according to this argument, that when the stars, after a long cycle, come to the same relation to one another as they had in the time of Socrates, Socrates shall again come to be from the same things and suffer the same things, being accused by Anytus and Meletus and condemned by the council of the Areopagus.

And the learned among the Egyptians, transmitting such things, are august and not laughed at by Celsus and the like, while we, saying that the universe is administered by God according to the analogy of the relation of the things in our power for each one, and is ever led, as far as is possible, toward the better, and knowing the nature of what is in our power as admitting what it admits—for it cannot contain the wholly unchangeable quality of God—do we not seem to say things worthy of testing and examination? But let no one suppose that, in saying these things, we are of those so-called Christians who reject the doctrine concerning the resurrection according to the Scriptures.

they can in no way establish it, as far as concerns what is pleasing to themselves;

but we, being persuaded that what is sown is not made alive unless it dies, and that the body which shall be is not sown—for God gives it a body as He willed, after it has been sown in corruption raising it in incorruption, and after it has been sown in dishonour raising it in glory, and after it has been sown in weakness raising it in power, and after it has been sown a natural body raising it spiritual—keep both the purpose of the church of Christ and the greatness of the promise of God, establishing also its possibility not by mere assertion but also by argument;

knowing that even if heaven and earth pass away and the things in them, yet the reasons concerning each thing, being as parts in a whole, or as species in a genus, of the Word of God who was in the beginning with God, shall by no means pass away.

For we wish to listen to Him who said:

'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall by no means pass away.' We, then, do not say that the destroyed body returns to its original nature, just as neither does the destroyed grain of wheat return to the grain of wheat.

For we say that, just as in the case of the grain of wheat an ear is raised, so a certain principle is implanted in the body, from which, not being corrupted, the body is raised in incorruption.

The Stoics, however, say that the wholly destroyed body returns to its original nature, on account of their doctrines concerning the things in no way different by cycles, and they say that that very first constitution out of which it was dissolved shall again be constituted, establishing these things by dialectical—as they suppose—necessities.

And we do not retreat into a most absurd evasion in saying that everything is possible to God;

for we know how to understand the 'everything' as not extending to the non-existent nor to the inconceivable.

And we say also that God cannot do shameful things, since then God would be one able not to be God;

for if God does something shameful, He is not God.

And since he posits that God also does not will the things contrary to nature, we distinguish what is said:

that if one calls wickedness contrary to nature, we too say that God does not will the things contrary to nature, neither those from wickedness nor those done irrationally;

but if one calls the things done according to God's reason and His will, it is necessarily forthwith the case that they are not contrary to nature;

for the things done by God are not contrary to nature, even if they be paradoxical or seem to some to be paradoxical.

But if one must speak with a forced expression, we shall say that, as regards the more commonly conceived nature, there are certain things above nature which God might at some time do, raising man above human nature and making him change to a better and more divine nature, and keeping him such, so long as he who is kept shows by what he does that he wills it.

And having once said that God wills nothing unbefitting to Himself, since it would be destructive of His being God, we shall say that, if a man should will something abominable according to his own depravity, this God will not be able to do.

But we are so far from being contentious toward the things said by Celsus that, examining them in a truth-loving way, we will agree that God is not the leader of disordered appetite nor of erring disorder, but of right and just nature, inasmuch as He is the leader of everything good;

and the other point, that He is able to furnish to the soul an eternal life, we confess, and not only is He able but He also furnishes it.

And nothing especially, on account of what was said before, grieves us, not even the saying of Heraclitus, which Celsus has taken over, that 'corpses are more to be cast out than dung';

and yet one might say even concerning this, that dung is to be cast out, but the corpses from a man, on account of the soul that has dwelt in them—and especially if it be the more worthy—are not to be cast out.

For according to the more worthy of the laws they are deemed worthy of burial with the honour possible in respect of such things;

in order that we may not, by our power, do despite to the soul that has dwelt in them, casting away the body after that soul has gone out, as we do also the bodies of beasts.

but that which is raised from it in incorruption.

But also the Reason of all things is, according to Celsus, God Himself, but according to us, His Son;

concerning whom, philosophizing, we say:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' But also, according to us, God is able to do nothing contrary to reason nor contrary to Himself.

Let us see also the next statement of Celsus, which runs thus:

'The Jews, then, having become a peculiar nation and having established laws according to local custom, and still even now maintaining these among themselves, and guarding a worship of whatever kind—ancestral, at any rate—do the like to other men, in that each people observe their ancestral things, of whatever sort they happen to have been established.'

'And it seems thus also to be expedient, not only because it came into men's minds to reckon differently in different ways and one ought to guard what has been ratified for the common good, but also because it is likely that the parts of the earth, having from the beginning been apportioned to different overseers and divided according to certain spheres of rule, are administered in this way.'

'And indeed the things among each people would be rightly done if done in this way, in whatever manner is dear to those overseers;

but it is not holy to dissolve the things ordained from the beginning according to places.'

In these things, then, Celsus indicates that the ancient Egyptians, the Jews, afterwards became a peculiar nation, and having established laws, maintain these.

And, that we may not repeat the cited statements of Celsus, he says that it is also expedient for these to observe their ancestral religion, like the other nations who observe their own.

And he sets forth a certain deeper cause for its being expedient for the Jews to observe their ancestral things, hinting that those allotted to be overseers of the earth established the laws of each people, cooperating with the lawgivers of those for whom laws were enacted.

He seems, then, to make clear that someone or some ones oversee the land of the Jews and the nation upon it, by whom or under whose cooperation the laws of the Jews were established together with Moses.

And one must, he says, keep the laws, not only because it came into men's minds to reckon differently in different ways and because one ought to guard what has been ratified for the common good, but also because it is likely that the parts of the earth, having from the beginning been apportioned to different overseers and divided according to certain spheres of rule, are administered in this way.

Then Celsus, as if having forgotten what he said against the Jews, now in his general praise of all who keep their ancestral things includes these too, saying:

'And indeed the things among each people would be rightly done if done in this way, in whatever manner is dear to those overseers.'

And see whether he does not outright wish the Jew, as far as in him lies, living in his own laws, not to depart from them, as doing something unholy if he should depart;

for he says that it is not holy to dissolve the things ordained from the beginning according to places.

But I should have wished to inquire of him, or of those who think with him, who, then, might be the one who from the beginning apportioned the different parts of the earth to different overseers, and, clearly, the land of the Jews and the Jews to the one or to those who were allotted it.

For did, as Celsus would name him, Zeus apportion the nation of the Jews and their land to some one or some ones, and did he wish the one allotted Judea to establish such laws among the Jews? Or did such a thing come about contrary to his will? For whichever way he answers, you see that the argument will be hard pressed.

But if the parts of the earth have not been apportioned by some one to their overseers, then each one apportioned the earth at random and without any superintendent, as it chanced;

but this too is absurd and not moderately destructive of the providence of the God over all.

And how, and according to what spheres of rule, the divided parts of the earth are administered by those who oversee them, let him who wishes explain;

and let him report to us also how the things done among each people are rightly done, in whatever way is dear to the overseers, and whether, for example, the laws of the Scythians concerning the killing of fathers are rightly held, or those of the Persians who do not forbid mothers to be married to their own sons nor daughters by their fathers.

to dissolve ancestral laws concerning the marrying of mothers and daughters, or concerning its being blessed to depart from life by hanging, or that those wholly purify themselves who deliver themselves to the fire and to release from life through fire;

and how it is not unholy to dissolve the laws which, for example, exist among the Tauri concerning offering strangers as sacrifices to Artemis, or among some of the Libyans concerning sacrificing their children to Cronus.

However, it follows for Celsus that it is not holy for the Jews to dissolve the ancestral laws concerning their not having to revere any other god besides the Maker of all things.

And, according to him, the holy will be not by nature but by some convention and notion divine;

for it is holy among these to revere the crocodile and to eat what is worshipped among others, and holy among others to revere the calf, and among others to reckon the goat a god.

And thus the same man will be one who does holy things in relation to these laws, but unholy things in relation to others.

which is the most absurd thing of all.

But it is likely that in reply to this they will say that the man who keeps his ancestral customs is holy and by no means unholy, since he does not observe the customs of others;

and again, that the man who is considered unholy by certain peoples is not in fact unholy whenever, in accordance with his ancestral customs, he reveres his own things while making war upon and feasting upon the things prescribed by those who hold contrary laws.

But consider whether this does not reveal a great confusion concerning the just, the holy, and piety—as though piety had no clear definition, no particular nature of its own, and no power to mark out as pious those who act according to it.

If, then, piety and holiness and justice belong to the category of relatives—so that the same act is both holy and unholy according to differing relationships and laws—consider whether self-control, too, will consequently be a relative, and likewise courage, prudence, knowledge, and the remaining virtues;

than which nothing could be more absurd.

Now for those who take a simpler and more common stand against the statements set forth by Celsus, what has been said is sufficient;

but since we suppose that some of the more inquiring readers will also come upon this writing, let us venture to set forth a few of the deeper matters, which contain a certain mystical and secret contemplation concerning the fact that from the beginning the regions of the earth were apportioned, different ones to different overseers;

and as far as we are able, let us set forth a pure account, free of the absurdities that have been enumerated.

It seems to me that Celsus has misheard certain rather mystical accounts concerning the apportionment of the things on earth—accounts which Greek history, too, somehow touches upon, when it introduces certain of the so-called gods as having contended with one another over Attica, and represents, in the poets, certain of the so-called gods as agreeing that certain regions are more proper to them.

And barbarian history too, and especially that of the Egyptians, indicates some such things concerning the division of what are called the nomes of Egypt, saying that Athena, who obtained Sais by lot, is the same one who also possesses Attica.

And the learned among the Egyptians will tell countless other such things; though I do not know whether they include the Jews and their land in such an apportionment to some power.

But concerning the things spoken outside the divine word, what has been said on these matters is enough for the present.

We say, however, that our prophet of God and his genuine servant, Moses, in the Song of Deuteronomy sets forth concerning the apportionment of the things on earth, speaking thus:

"When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, the lot of his inheritance Israel." And concerning the apportionment of the nations the same Moses, in the book entitled Genesis, says in the manner of a narrative as follows:

"And the whole earth was one lip, and there was one voice to all."

"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there."

"The Lord," it says, "came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built."

"Behold, they are one people and all have one lip;

and this they have begun to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, of all that they may purpose to do;

(let us confound) their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech, each that of his neighbor."

"And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city and the tower."

"Therefore its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord God confounded the lips of all the earth, and from there the Lord God scattered them over the face of all the earth." And in the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, concerning wisdom and the matters connected with the confusion of tongues—in which the apportionment of the things on earth took place—the following is said concerning wisdom:

"She also, when the nations in their wicked concord were confounded, recognized the righteous man, and kept him blameless before God, and preserved him strong against his tender compassion for his child." Long and mystical is the discourse concerning these matters, to which the saying fits:

"It is good to keep hidden the secret of a king;"