Greek original · 148 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:3469–1:3616 (5793 verses in all)
(They were given) so that we might have an example of a heavenly city, which Plato too sought to delineate, though I do not know whether he was able to do so to the degree that Moses and those after him had power—nurturing a chosen race and a holy nation, dedicated to God, on pure teachings free from all superstition.
He does not see that, just as the Jews knew of one God, so they had one holy house of prayer, one altar for whole burnt offerings, one altar of incense for the incense-offerings, and one high priest of God.
There was, then, nothing in common between the Jews and the Persians, who ascend the highest of their mountains—which are many—and offer sacrifices having nothing resembling those according to the law of Moses;
according to which (law) the priests of the Jews served a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, expounding in secret the intention of the law concerning the sacrifices and the things of which these were symbols.
Let the Persians, then, call the whole circle of heaven 'Zeus'; but we say that the heaven is neither Zeus nor God, since we know that even some beings inferior to God have risen above the heavens and all sensible nature.
And it is thus that we understand the verse: 'Praise God, you heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens; let them praise the name of the Lord.'
'Let them praise the name of the Lord.' But since Celsus thinks it makes no difference whether one calls Zeus 'Most High' or 'Zen' or 'Adonaios' or 'Sabaoth' or, as the Egyptians do, 'Amun', or, as the Scythians, 'Papaeus', come, let us also discuss these matters briefly, at the same time reminding the reader of what has been said above on such a problem, when Celsus's words called us to such topics.
For the languages in use among men do not have their origin from men, as is clear to those who are able to attend to the nature of incantations, which are appropriated, according to the different languages and the different sounds, to the names belonging to the founders of those languages.
Concerning these things we have treated briefly above, saying that those names which have an innate power in a particular language, when transferred into another language, no longer accomplish anything as they accomplished in their own native sounds.
For if a certain man called by such-and-such a name from birth in the Greek language were to have it transferred into the language of the Egyptians or the Romans or of some other people, we could not make him suffer or do the things which he would suffer or do if called by the original assignment of his name.
But neither, if we were to transfer into the Greek language one originally called by a Roman name, could we accomplish what the incantation professes to do, which keeps the name first given to him.
But if these things said about human names are true, what must one think concerning those names which, for whatever reason, are referred to the divine? For something, let us say, is conveyed by being transferred into the Greek tongue from the name 'Abraham', and something is signified from the appellation 'Isaac', and something is made clear from the word 'Jacob'.
And if the one who invokes or the one who adjures names 'the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob', he would accomplish this or that, either because of the nature of these names or also because of their power, with demons being conquered and made subject to the one who speaks these things;
(but if he says) 'the God of the chosen father of the echo' and 'the God of laughter' and 'the God of the supplanter' (i.e. the translated meanings), then the thing named accomplishes nothing, just as nothing else does which has no power.
but if we keep it, attaching it to those things which the experts in such matters have thought fit to combine it with, then something might come to pass according to the profession of such invocations made by means of such an utterance.
And we shall say the like also concerning the word 'Sabaoth', which is taken up in many of the incantations: that if we transfer the name into 'Lord of the powers' or 'Lord of hosts' or 'Almighty'—for those who interpret it have rendered it variously—we shall accomplish nothing;
(So could the name) accomplish nothing, nor have any power, among those who think it makes no difference to call Zeus 'Most High' or 'Zen' or 'Adonaios' or 'Sabaoth'? Knowing these and analogous secret things, Moses and the prophets forbid naming the name of other gods with the mouth—a mouth trained to pray to the one God who is over all alone—and forbid calling them to mind in the heart, which is taught to keep itself pure from all vanity of thoughts and words.
For we do not suppose Zeus and Sabaoth to be the same, nor that Zeus is anything divine at all, but rather some demon who delights in being so named—one not friendly to men nor to the true God.
And even if the Egyptians put forward 'Amun' to us, threatening punishment, we shall sooner die than proclaim Amun to be God—he who is, as is likely, invoked in certain Egyptian incantations that call upon this demon.
but we shall not be persuaded; for while we set up the God who is over all, we do not, out of friendship to the one allotted the desert of the Scythians and their nation and their language, name God by the name 'Papaeus' as if it were his proper name.
And just as the one who sacrifices does not sacrifice to the same being, even if he seems to sacrifice in like manner, and the one who prays does not pray to the same being, even if he requests the same things in his prayers,
But in order that what concerns this point may be understood still more clearly, it must be said that the name 'justice' is indeed the same among all the Greeks;
yet it is already demonstrated that the justice according to Epicurus is one thing, that according to those of the Stoa—who deny the tripartite division of the soul—is another, and that according to those of Plato—who assert that justice is the proper functioning of the parts of the soul—is yet another.
And so likewise the courage of Epicurus is one thing—since he endures hardships for the sake of escaping greater hardships—and that of the Stoic is another, since he chooses every virtue for its own sake, and that of the Platonist is yet another, since he asserts that it is the virtue of the spirited part of the soul and assigns to it the region about the chest.
And so, according to the different doctrines of those who are circumcised, the circumcision would be different—concerning which it is not necessary now to speak in a work of this kind;
for whoever wishes to see what moved us regarding this topic, let him read concerning it in the treatises we have composed on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.
If, then, the Jews pride themselves on circumcision, they will distinguish it not only from the circumcision of the Colchians and Egyptians, but also from that of the Ishmaelite Arabs, even though Ishmael, born of their forefather Abraham, was circumcised together with him.
and perhaps this (latter circumcision) was accomplished on account of some angel hostile to the Jewish nation, who had power to harm those of them who were not circumcised, but was rendered powerless among those who were circumcised.
Someone will say that this is shown from the things written in Exodus, in which the angel was able, before the circumcision of Eliezer, to work against Moses, but once he had been circumcised, the angel prevailed in nothing.
And having learned such things, Zipporah took a pebble (flint) and circumcised her own child, and according to the common manuscripts she is recorded as saying:
'You are to me a bridegroom of blood.' For she knew the account concerning such an angel, who had power before the (shedding of) blood but ceased on account of the blood of the circumcision;
For this angel, I think, had power against those of the people who were not circumcised, and in a word against all who worshipped the Creator only; and he had power to such a degree as Jesus had not yet taken up a body.
But when he (Jesus) had taken it up, and his body was circumcised, all his (the angel's) power against those who were uncircumcised in this religion was abolished;
'If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.' But neither do the Jews pride themselves on abstaining from swine as on some great thing, but rather on having learned the nature of clean and unclean animals, and on having known the cause of this, and that the swine has been ranked among the unclean.
And these things too were symbols of certain matters, until the coming of Jesus, after which it was said to his disciple—who did not yet understand the account concerning these things and who declared:
What God has cleansed, do not call common. Therefore neither against the Jews nor against us is it relevant that the priests of the Egyptians abstain not only from swine but also from goats and sheep and oxen and fish.
But since it is not the things that enter the mouth that defile a person, and food will not commend us to God, we do not think highly of ourselves when we abstain from eating, nor do we come to eating out of gluttony.
as it is said, "And who, lifting up his dear son, would slay him, praying loudly—great fool that he is?" But if we too do anything of this sort, we do it because we buffet the body and bring it into subjection, and wish to put to death our members that are upon the earth—fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, passion, and evil desire;
"Nor is it likely that these people are held in special esteem by God and loved differently from the rest, and that angels are sent from there to them alone, as though they had been allotted some land of the blessed; for we see what sort of people they are, and of what kind of land they have been deemed worthy."
We shall therefore refute this too, saying that the high standing of this nation before God is shown also from the fact that the God who is over all is called the God of the Hebrews even by those who are strangers to our faith.
And inasmuch as they were in high favor, they were almost never forsaken, but—although few in number—they continued to be guarded by a divine power, so that not even under Alexander the Macedonian did they suffer anything at his hands, even though they had refused, on account of certain covenants and oaths, to take up arms against Darius.
At that time, they say, the high priest of the Jews, having put on his priestly robe, was reverenced by Alexander, who declared that he had seen someone clothed in this very vesture, who in his sleep had promised that he would subject all Asia to him.
We Christians, then, say that to be in high favor with God and to be loved in a special way beyond others did indeed befall those people, but that this dispensation and grace has now passed over to us, since God has transferred the power that was among the Jews to those from the nations who have believed in him through Jesus.
Wherefore, though the Romans have often wished to do much against the Christians in order to prevent their continued existence, they have not been able;
for there was a divine hand fighting on their behalf, willing that the word of God should be sown from one corner of the land of Judea over the whole human race.
We hearken to Moses as to one of God, and we have received Jesus, who is testified to by him, as the Son of God, hoping for the best things when we live according to his word.
We will willingly pass over saying again the things we set forth earlier, teaching whence we have come and what founder we have, and what is the law that derives from him.
And if Celsus wishes us to be no different from the Egyptians who worship the goat, the ram, the crocodile, the ox, the hippopotamus, the dog-faced baboon, or the cat, he himself must know it, and whoever shares his opinion on this matter.
But we, to the best of our ability, have at great length in the preceding passages made our defense concerning the honor we render to Jesus, showing that we have found something better;
and we alone, declaring that the truth in the teaching of Jesus Christ is pure and unmixed with falsehood, establish not ourselves but the teacher, who has been testified to by the God who is over all through many witnesses—both the prophetic words among the Jews and the very evidence of the facts.
"But did he come as the first and only one, or did others come before him? If they should say he alone, they would be convicted of lying in a way that contradicts themselves;"
"And moreover, an angel came to the very tomb of this man—according to some, one angel; according to others, two—who answered the women that he had risen."
"And again, on behalf of Mary when she was with child, an angel came to the carpenter; and on behalf of carrying off the infant to flee, yet another angel came."
"And what need is there to be so precise about everything and to enumerate those said to have been sent to Moses and to others of them? If, then, others too were sent, it is plain that this one too was sent from the same God."
"But let it be supposed that he announces something more—come now—as though the Jews were committing some transgression, or counterfeiting piety, or doing unholy things;"
but so that we may not seem to be willingly passing over some place in his writing, as though unable to answer it, come, even if we are going to repeat ourselves—since Celsus himself provokes us to this—let us, to the best of our ability, cut the discussion short, in case anything should turn up concerning these same matters that is either clearer or newer.
He says, then, that he passes over all that the Christians dispute about concerning the teacher—though he did not pass over anything he was able to say;
But that we are not refuted concerning our Savior, great as he is—even if the accuser thinks he is refuting us—will be plain to those who, in a truth-loving and inquiring spirit, take up all that has been prophesied and written about him.
Next, since he is thought to speak concessively about the Savior when he says, "Let it be granted that this one is truly an angel," we say that we do not take this as something conceded by Celsus, but, looking to his very work, we see that he sojourned among the whole human race according to his own word and teaching, as each of those who came to him was able to receive.
for he announced to men the great counsel of God, the Father of all things, concerning them: that those who yield to living in pure godliness ascend through great deeds toward God, while those who do not yield are removing themselves far from God and are journeying toward destruction through their unbelief concerning God.
And he supposes that both of these happen through many—although no one who is truly a Christian says that Christ alone has sojourned among the human race; yet Celsus says that others too have appeared to men, supposing that they might say he alone came.
Thus he has not been recorded as the only one who sojourned among the human race, inasmuch as those who, on the pretext of the teaching of the name of Jesus, have apostatized from the Demiurge as an inferior being and have gone over to some greater god and father of the one who sojourned, assert that even before him certain ones from the Demiurge had sojourned among the human race.
But since we examine the matters concerning this passage in a truth-loving way, we shall say that Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, who became the father of a certain heresy and regarded the writings of the Jews as a myth, asserts that this one alone has sojourned among the human race.
Therefore, against that man—who says that Jesus alone has sojourned from God among men—Celsus could not reasonably bring forward the matters about others also having come, since that man disbelieves, as we said before, the Jewish scriptures that report rather paradoxical things;
No one, then, convicts us of lying and of setting forth contradictory things—both that our Savior alone came and that, since others, many of them, have often come.
Quite confusedly, in his examination of the angels who have come to men, he sets down things which came to him obscurely from what is written in Enoch;
things which he plainly has not even read, nor recognized that in the churches the books inscribed with the name of Enoch are not at all regarded as divine;
But that we may even more fairly grant him the things he has not seen from what is written in Genesis—namely that the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, took to themselves wives from all whom they chose;
nonetheless, even concerning these things, we shall persuade those who are able to hear the prophetic intent that one of those before us also referred these matters to the doctrine concerning souls—souls that came to be in desire of the bodily life of men—which things, interpreting figuratively, he said were spoken of as the daughters of men.
But however the matters concerning the sons of God who desired the daughters of men may stand, the argument contributes nothing to him toward proving that Jesus is not the only one who sojourned among men as an angel—he who manifestly became Savior and Benefactor of all who turn away from the flood of wickedness.
Then, mixing and confounding the things which he somehow heard with the things written wherever it may be—whether deemed divine among Christians or not—he says that the sixty or seventy who descended together are being punished, having been cast under bonds in the earth.
And if one must jest in reply to the things Celsus zealously urges against us, it must be said that no one would have said the hot springs—most of which are sweet—are the tears of the angels, since the nature of tears is salty;
Then, next, mixing the unmixable and the unlike and likening them to one another, he appends to the account about the sixty or seventy angels who, as he says, came down and—according to him—wept springs of hot water, the fact that to the very tomb of Jesus angels are recorded as having come—according to some, two; according to others, one;
But to demonstrate now that each of these things both came to pass and is indicative of a certain figurative interpretation—concerning the things that appear to those who are prepared to behold the resurrection of the Word—does not belong to the present treatise, but rather to the expositions of the Gospel.
That paradoxical things have at times appeared to men, even among the Greeks, was reported not only by those who might be suspected of fabricating myths, but also by those who in many respects showed themselves to philosophize genuinely and to set forth in a truth-loving manner the things that had come to them.
Such things we have read in Chrysippus of Soli, and some in Pythagoras, and indeed also in some of the more recent writers who lived but yesterday or the day before—as in Plutarch of Chaeronea in his works On the Soul, and in the Pythagorean Numenius in the second book On the Incorruptibility of the Soul.
Or shall it be that, if the Greeks narrate such things—and especially those among them who philosophize—what they say is neither mockery nor laughable nor fictions and myths; but if those who are dedicated to the God of all, and who endure every torture even unto death rather than utter so much as a single false word about God, report as eyewitnesses the appearances of angels, they are judged unworthy of belief, and their words are not ranked among things true? But it is not reasonable to judge in this way about those who speak truth or falsehood.
For those who practice freedom from deception, with much careful inquiry and examination of the matters in their various places, pronounce slowly and securely that such-and-such people speak the truth while such-and-such people lie in the paradoxical things they relate—since neither do all display what is worthy of belief, nor do all manifestly prove that they have handed down fictions and myths to men.
Further, concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, this too must be said: that at that time one or two angels appeared, announcing that he had been raised and that he takes thought for those who believe such things to their own benefit, is not astonishing;
and that always those who thus believe that Jesus has been raised—showing forth a fruit of believing that is not to be despised, namely a vigorous life and a turning away from the flood of evils—do not come to this apart from angels who help them in their conversion to God, this seems to me not unreasonable.
Celsus also accuses the account which says that an angel rolled away the stone from the tomb where the body of Jesus was, treating it as a lad would in a debate, taking it up so as to make some local criticism, and he says, as though having found something clever against the account, that "the Son of God, it seems, was not able to open the tomb, but needed another to roll away the rock."
And so that I may not busy myself overmuch with the matters of this passage, nor, by setting out a figurative interpretation at present, seem to be philosophizing about these things out of season, I will speak about the narrative itself: that it appears of itself more dignified that the lesser one, the servant, should have rolled away the stone, than that the one who was rising for the benefit of men should have done this.
I do not say that those who plotted against the Word and wished to kill him and to show all that he was dead and amounted to nothing, by no means want his tomb to be opened, lest anyone after their plot should behold the Word alive;
but the one who sojourns for the salvation of men—the angel of God, fellow worker with the angel, being stronger than those who plot—rolls away the heavy stone;
in order that those who think the Word has died may be persuaded that he is not among the dead but lives and goes before those who wish to follow him, that he may show forth the things that follow upon what he showed forth before, to those who cannot yet contain things greater than these, at the earlier time of their initiation.
Then, I do not know how, after these things he throws in—I do not know how it is supposed to be useful to his purpose—the matter of the angel coming to Joseph concerning Mary when she was pregnant, and again concerning those who, snatching away the child that had been born and was being plotted against, fled into Egypt.
But what does Celsus intend by the fact that, according to the Scriptures, angels are recorded as having been sent both to Moses and to the others? For it seems to me to contribute nothing to him for what he wants, and especially since none of those men contended on behalf of the human race so as to turn it back, so far as possible, from its sins.
So let others also have been sent from God; let this one too announce something greater; and when the Jews were transgressing and corrupting true religion and doing what was unholy, let him have handed over the kingdom of God to other husbandmen—namely, to those who everywhere in their churches take care and do all things so as to bring still others, through the opportunities afforded by the teaching of Jesus, by means of a pure life and a manner of speech consistent with that life, to the God of the universe.
"Clearly those of the great church confess this, and accept as true the cosmogony current among the Jews, at least concerning the six days and the seventh, on which—as the Scripture says—God rested from His works and withdrew into His own watchtower; but as Celsus says, who neither attended to what is written nor understood it, God 'took His ease,' which is not written."
Now concerning the creation of the world and the sabbath rest that remains for the people of God after it, there could be much to say—a discourse that is mystical, profound, and difficult to interpret.
Then, it seems to me, wishing to fill up his book and to make it appear weighty, he randomly adds certain things, such as also what he says about the first man—that we say he is the same as the Jews do, and that we trace the succession from him by genealogy just as they do.
Let it be granted, too, that we speak of the same migration into Egypt as they do, and of the return thence—and that it was a return, not a flight, as Celsus supposes.
What, then, do these things contribute toward an accusation against us or against the Jews? Indeed, where he thought he could mock us, in his discussion concerning the Hebrews, he called it a flight;
but where it was a matter of examining the substance of the issue—concerning the recorded plagues that came upon Egypt from God—there he deliberately kept silent.