Against Celsus 1 part 31/42

Next after these things, as though against us who confess that this world is not of some alien and strange god, he says such things as these:

"But if these are his works, how did God make evil things? And how is he unable to persuade and admonish? And how does he repent over them, when they have become ungrateful and wicked, and find fault with his own craft, and hate and threaten and destroy his own offspring? Or where ever does he lead them off out of this world which he himself made?" Now he seems to me, in these things too, not making clear what the evils are—although even among the Greeks many heresies arose concerning goods and evils—to snatch up, as though it followed for us who say that this world too is a work of the God who is over all, that according to us God is the maker of evils.

But I marvel if he does not think that the same thing follows for us, who assert that this world too is a work of the God who is over all, concerning God having made evils, as follows, so far as concerns the things he himself says.

For one might say to Celsus:

if these are his works, how did God make evils? And how is he unable to persuade and admonish? But the greatest wickedness is in words, when someone accuses those of differing opinions concerning certain doctrines as unsound, while he himself, much more than they, holds the charges in his own doctrines.

Let us, then, look briefly at the things concerning goods and evils according to the divine Scriptures, and what we must say in reply to:

How did God make evils? And how is he unable to persuade and admonish? Properly, then, according to the divine Scriptures, goods are the virtues and the actions done according to them, just as, properly, evils are the things contrary to these.

And we shall be content for the present with the words from the thirty-third Psalm, which presents this thus:

"But those who seek the Lord shall not be lacking in any good thing."

"Come, children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord."

"What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile."

"Depart from evil, and do good." For the words "Depart from evil, and do good" are spoken neither of bodily goods or evils—so called by some—nor of external things, but of the goods or evils that pertain to the soul.

For he who has departed from such evils and done such good things, as one desiring the true life, would come to be in it; and "he that loveth to see good days"—of which the word of righteousness is the sun—would attain unto them, since God delivers him from the present evil age and from the evil days, concerning which Paul said:

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." One might also find, in a looser sense, that bodily and external things are called good when they are reckoned to contribute to the life according to nature, and evil when they are opposed to it.

For thus Job says to his wife:

"If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil?" Since, then, it is found in the divine Scriptures that in one place, from the person of God, there is "I am he that maketh peace and createth evil," and in another place again, concerning Him, "that evils came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem, the noise of chariots and of horsemen"—words which have troubled many readers of Scripture who could not discern what is signified in it concerning goods and evils—

it is likely that hence Celsus, either himself raising the difficulty, said:

How then did God make evils? Or, having heard someone treating the matters of that passage in too uneducated a fashion, he set down the foregoing statement.

But we say that evils—namely wickedness and the deeds proceeding from it—God did not make.

For how could the preaching concerning judgment have any boldness, teaching that the base are punished for deeds done according to wickedness in proportion to their sins, while those who have lived according to virtue, or done deeds according to virtue, are blessed and shall obtain the rewards from God, if God had made things that are truly evil? I know well that those who wish to dare to assert that even these things came to be from God will take up certain sayings of Scripture, being unable to demonstrate a single tenor of Scripture, which accuses sinners and accepts those who do well, and nonetheless also says those things which seem to perplex—not a few in number—those who read the divine writings ignorantly.

But to set forth now the perplexing passages, which happen to be many, and their interpretations, which need much elaboration, I did not think fitting to the present treatise.

...builders seem to make what lies beside their buildings, like the rubble that falls from the stones and the mortar.

But if someone says that those things loosely so named—bodily evils and external evils—do exist, let it be granted that God has sometimes made some of these, that through them He might turn some men back.

And what absurdity can the argument have? For just as, if—when we understand in a loose sense as "evils" the pains brought upon those being disciplined by fathers and teachers and tutors, or upon those who are cut or cauterized by physicians for the sake of healing—we say that the father does evil to his sons, or the tutors or teachers or physicians do so, yet those who strike or cut would not be accused of anything;

so, if God is said to bring such things upon those needing such pains, for the sake of turning them back and healing them, the argument would have nothing absurd in it;

nor would there be, if evils come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem—evils which have their substance in the pains inflicted by enemies, brought upon them for their conversion; nor if He visits their iniquities with a rod, the iniquities of those who have forsaken the law of God, and their sins with scourges; nor if He says:

"Thou hast coals of fire; sit upon them; they shall be a help to thee." In this same manner we also expound the words "He that maketh peace and createth evils":

for He creates bodily or external evils, purging and disciplining those who were unwilling to be disciplined by reason and sound teaching.

"How then did God make evils?" And as to "How is He unable to persuade and admonish?"—it has been said before that, if such a thing were a charge, the saying of Celsus could be brought against all who accept providence;

but one might reply that God is not unable to admonish, for He admonishes through all Scripture and through those who by grace teach His hearers;

unless indeed some peculiar sense be understood for "to admonish," namely also to succeed with the one admonished and that the word of the teacher be heard—which is contrary to the notion of the meaning worn smooth by common usage.

And as to "How is He unable to persuade?"—this too, were it brought against all who accept providence, these things must be said.

Since being persuaded is, as it were, one of the so-called correlatives—analogous to a man's being shorn, who acts by offering himself to the one who shears—

for this reason it requires not only the activity of the one persuading but also, so to speak, the submission toward the persuader, or the acceptance of what is said by the persuader.

For this reason, it is not on account of God's inability to persuade that those who are not persuaded must be said not to be persuaded, but on account of their not receiving the persuasive words of God.

And one would not err in saying this even in the case of men called "craftsmen of persuasion";

for it is possible that one who has supremely grasped the principles of rhetoric and uses them properly may do everything toward persuading, yet, failing of the free choice of the one who ought to be persuaded, may seem not to persuade.

And that, even if the persuasive words come from God, yet the being persuaded is not from God, Paul clearly teaches when he says:

"This persuasion is not of him that calleth you." Of such a kind also is: "If ye be willing and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land;

but if ye be not willing nor hearken unto me, the sword shall devour you."

For in order that one may be willing to do what the admonisher says, and having hearkened to it may become worthy of the promises of God, there is need of the free choice of the hearer and of his assent to what is said.

Wherefore in Deuteronomy it seems to me to be emphatically said:

"And the Lord God, seeing that the wickednesses of those upon the earth were multiplied, and that everyone diligently devises in his heart toward evil things all the days, God took thought that He had made man upon the earth;

and He considered in His heart, and God said:

I will blot out man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, from man to beast, and from creeping things to the fowls of heaven;

for I am grieved that I have made them"—setting forth the things not written as being made plain from the things written.

For repentance is not named in these words as belonging to God, nor that He blames and hates His own work.

But if God seems to threaten the things of the flood and to destroy in it His own offspring, it must be said that, since the soul of men is immortal, the supposed threat means to turn the hearers back, while the destruction of men in the flood is a purgation of the earth—as even those Greeks who philosophized not contemptibly have said in the line:

"When the gods cleanse the earth." And concerning the so-called anthropopathic expressions referred to God, not a few things have been said by us in the foregoing as well.

But Celsus, suspecting in what follows—and perhaps himself perceiving—what could be said by those defending the matter concerning those destroyed in the flood, says:

But if He does not destroy His own offspring, whither does He withdraw them out of this world which He Himself made? And to this we say that, of the whole world, composed of heaven and earth, He does not at all withdraw those who suffered the flood, but He frees them from the life in the flesh and, having released them from their bodies, frees them at the same time also from being upon the earth—which in many places of the Scriptures it is customary to name "world."

Especially in the Gospel according to John one may often find "world" used to name the earthly place, as also in "There was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," and "In the world ye have tribulation;

but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

If, then, one understands the "withdraws out of this world" of the earthly place, nothing absurd meets the argument;

but if one names "world" the system composed of heaven and earth, then those who suffered the flood are by no means withdrawn from the world so named.

And yet one might say, having understood the words "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen," and "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," that, coming to be among the invisible things and those simply called "not seen," such a one withdrew from the world, the Word withdrawing him from here and transferring him to the supercelestial place for the contemplation of the beautiful things.

After the examined statement, having as it were the aim of somehow filling up his book with many words, he says in other words things nearly the same as those a little above which were examined, in which he said:

But far more foolish is it even to apportion certain days to the creation of the world before days existed;

for, heaven not yet having come to be, nor earth yet set firm, nor the sun yet borne along here, how were there days? For how does this differ from the saying: "But taking it from yet higher up, let us consider how the first and greatest God would not be absurd, commanding:

let this come to be, and another this, or this; and on one day fabricating so much, on the second again so much more, and on the third and fourth and fifth and sixth?" In effect we have also spoken with regard to the "commanding:

let this come to be, and another this, or this," when we adduced the verse "He spake, and they came to be; He commanded, and they were created," saying that the immediate Demiurge is the Son of God, the Word, and as it were the direct craftsman of the world, while the Father of the Word, by having commanded His own Son the Word to make the world, is the primary Demiurge.

...the stars, and on the fifth the swimming creatures, and on the sixth the land creatures and man—we have spoken according to our ability in the works we composed on Genesis;

and in the foregoing too, when we accused those who, according to the more superficial interpretation, said that the times of six days had elapsed in the world-making, we adduced "This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when it came to be;

in the day that God made the heaven and the earth."

Then again, not heeding the words "And God finished on the sixth day His works which He made;

and He rested on the seventh day from all His works which He made."

"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His works which God began to make"—and supposing it to be the same thing, "He ceased on the seventh day" and "He rested on the seventh day," he says:

After this, like some utterly bad workman who, having tired out, even needed rest for relief from his idleness.

For neither does he know what is the day of the Sabbath and of the rest of God which comes after the world-making that is wrought for as long as the world subsists—the day in which those who have done all their own works in the six days, and through having left nothing undone of what falls to them, ascend to contemplation and to the festal assembly therein of the righteous and blessed, shall keep festival together with God.

Then, as though the Scriptures so spoke, or as though we ourselves so expounded concerning God, that having tired He rested, he says that it is not lawful for the first God to grow weary, nor to work with His hands, nor to give commands.

Now Celsus says that it is not lawful for the first God to grow weary;

but we would say that neither does God the Word grow weary, nor do any of those who already belong to the better and more divine order;

for growing weary belongs to those in a body.

And you will inquire whether it belongs to those in any body whatsoever, or to those in the earthly body and one a little better than it.

But neither is it lawful for the first God to work with His hands;

and if you understand "working with the hands" strictly, then neither does the second, nor any other of the more divine beings.

But let "working with the hands" be said loosely or figuratively, so that we may also expound "The firmament declares the work of His hands" and "His hands established the heaven" and whatever is said similarly to these, we taking "hands" and "members" of God in a figurative sense;

what then is absurd in God's so working with His hands? And as it is not absurd for God so to work with His hands, so neither is it absurd for Him to give commands, that the things accomplished by the one commanded may be good and praiseworthy because it is God who has commanded concerning them.

And again in turn Celsus, perhaps having misheard "For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things," and perhaps also from the laymen who rashly ventured upon the exposition of such things, and not having understood with respect to what things the words for bodily members are applied to the powers of God, says:

Neither has He a mouth nor a voice.

For truly there will be no voice for God, if indeed voice is air that has been struck, or a striking of air, or a form of air, or whatever those skilled in such matters define voice to be;

but the so-called voice of God, as God's voice, is said to be seen by the people in "All the people saw the voice of God," "to be seen" being taken—that I may name it according to the custom of Scripture—spiritually.

But he says there is nothing else to God of the things we know;

but of what things we know, he does not make clear.

For if he means members, we agree with him, understanding besides those which we know in a bodily and more common sense;

but if we understand the "of what things we know" universally, many are the things of which we have knowledge that are heard;

for to Him belong virtue, and blessedness, and divinity.

But if one understands "of what things we know" in a loftier sense, since all things which we know are inferior to God,

it is nothing absurd that we too should admit that there is nothing to God of the things we know.

For superior to all things which it knows is not only the nature of man, but also the attributes belonging to God surpass even those beings that have ascended above man.

But if he had read the sayings of the prophets, of David saying:

"But Thou art the same," and of Malachi, I think:

"For remaining the same, He administers the changeable things, as it is their nature, and reason itself takes it that they be so administered."

Then Celsus says—not having looked into the difference between that which is according to the image of God and the image of Him itself, namely that the image of God is the firstborn of all creation, the self-Word and the self-Truth, and moreover the self-Wisdom, being the image of His goodness, while man is made according to the image of God, and further that every man, of whom Christ is the head, is the image and glory of God—

and not having attended to in what part of man the "according to the image of God" is characterized—namely that it is in the soul which either never had, or no longer has, the old man with his deeds, being designated, from not having these, "according to the image of the Creator"—he says:

"Neither did He make man His image;

for God is not of such a kind, nor like to any other form."

But what a thing it is to suppose that the "according to the image of God" inheres in the worse part of the composite man—I mean the body—and, as Celsus has taken it, that this is itself the "according to His image"! For if the "according to the image of God" is in the body alone, the better part, the soul, is deprived of the "according to the image," and it is in the corruptible body—which none of us says.

But if the "according to the image of God" is in both together, it is necessary that God be composite and, as it were, Himself constituted of soul and body, so that the "according to the image" which is the better part be in the soul, and the lesser, that according to the body, be in the body—which none of us says.

It remains, then, that the "according to the image of God" be understood as in what we call the inner man, which is being renewed and is by nature able to become according to the image of the Creator, when one becomes perfect, as the heavenly Father is perfect, and hears that "Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy," and, learning "Become imitators of God," takes up into his own virtuous soul the characters of God;

and then the body of him who has such a soul, and in the soul has God through the "according to the image," is also a temple of God dwelling, through the "according to the image," in the one who has received the things of God.

And again in turn he strings together for himself more things, saying them as given by us, which none of those among Christians who have understanding grants.

For none of us says that God partakes of shape or color; nor indeed does He partake of motion, He who, on account of standing firm and His nature being stable, calls forth the righteous man also to the like, saying:

"But stand thou here with Me." And if certain expressions seem to present, as it were, some motion of Him, as also the one saying:

"They heard the Lord God walking in the garden at the cool of the day," such things must be understood as God being conceived as moving toward those who have sinned, or such things must be understood as also "sleep" of God is figuratively spoken, or "anger," or some of the like.

But neither does God partake of substance;

for He is partaken of rather than partakes, and He is partaken of by those who have the Spirit of God.

And our Savior does not partake of righteousness, but being righteousness itself is partaken of by the righteous.

And the discourse concerning substance is large and hard to contemplate, especially if substance in the strict sense be that which stands firm and is incorporeal;

in order that it may be found out whether God is beyond substance in dignity and power, imparting substance to those to whom He imparts it according to His own Word and by the Word itself, or whether He too is substance, except that He is said to be by nature invisible in the discourse concerning the Savior, which declares:

"Who is the image of the invisible God"—and the incorporeal is signified by the "invisible" expression.

And it must also be inquired whether the Only-begotten and firstborn of all creation is to be called substance of substances and idea of ideas and beginning, while His Father and God is beyond all these.

Now Celsus says concerning God that "from Him are all things," having let go, I know not how, the "all things are His";

but our Paul says "From Him and through Him and unto Him are all things," presenting the beginning of the subsistence of all things in the "from Him," and their cohesion in the "through Him," and the end in the "unto Him."

And truly God is from nothing.

"...attainable"—I distinguish what is signified and say:

if by the reason that is in us, whether the inward or also the uttered reason, then we too shall say that God is not attainable by reason;

but if, having understood "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," we declare that by this Word God is attainable, being apprehended not by it alone but also by him to whom it itself reveals the Father, we shall falsify the statement of Celsus who says:

"nor is God attainable by reason."

And the "not nameable" also needs distinction.

For if it means that nothing among words and significations can present the properties of God, what is said is true, seeing that even many qualities are not nameable.

For who can give by names the difference of the quality of the sweetness of a date and the sweetness of a dried fig? And who can by a name distinguish and present the proper quality of each? No wonder, then, if God is not nameable in this way.

But if you take "nameable" according as it is possible by names to present something of the things concerning Him, so as to lead the hearer by the hand and make him conceive concerning God, as far as is attainable to human nature, some of the things concerning Him, it is nothing absurd to call Him nameable.

And in the same way we shall distinguish also the "for He has suffered nothing apprehensible by a name."

And it is also true that God is outside of all passion.

Let us see also his next statement, through which he, as it were, personifies someone, after this one has heard such things saying:

"How then shall I know God? And how shall I learn the way thither? And how wilt thou show Him to me? For as it is now, thou castest darkness before my eyes, and I see nothing distinct."

Then, to the one who has so raised the difficulty, he as it were answers, and he thinks to render the cause of the darkness having been poured over the eyes of the one who said the foregoing, saying:

"Those whom one leads from darkness into brilliant light, being unable to withstand the dazzling rays, have their sight punished and harmed, and think themselves blinded."

And to these things we shall say that all those who gaze into the bad arts of painters and modelers and statue-makers, and are unwilling to look up and ascend with the mind from all visible and sensible things to the Demiurge of all, who is light, sit in darkness and are settled in it;

but in light is everyone who has followed the rays of the Word, which has shown from how great an ignorance and impiety and unlearnedness concerning the Divine these things were worshipped in place of God, and which has led by the hand the mind of the one willing to be saved toward the unbegotten and over-all God.

For "the people that sat in darkness," the people of the nations, "saw a great light, and to them that sat in the region and shadow of death light arose"—the God Jesus.

No Christian, then, answers Celsus or any of those who accuse the divine word, saying:

"How shall I know God?" For each of them has known God, as far as is possible.

"How shall I learn the way thither?"—inasmuch as he has heard the one who said:

"I am the way and the truth and the life," and has tasted, in journeying, the benefit that comes from journeying.

And no Christian would say to Celsus:

"How wilt thou show me God?" But this Celsus said truly in the foregoing, that one who has heard his words answers, but seeing that his words are words of darkness, says: "thou castest darkness before my eyes."

Celsus, then, and those like him, wish to cast darkness before our eyes, but we, by the light of the Word, make to vanish the darkness of impious doctrines.

And the Christian would say to Celsus, who says nothing distinct and striking:

"I see nothing distinct in thy words."

Celsus, therefore, does not lead us from darkness into brilliant light, but wishes to remove us from light into darkness, setting darkness to be light and light to be darkness, and falling under what was well said by Isaiah in this manner:

...we choose in every way to stand, and in no way do we wish to attach ourselves to darkness.

And being ensouled, the true light knows to whom it must show the dazzling rays and to whom the light, not presenting its own brilliance because of the weakness still inhering in the eyes of that one.

But if it is at all necessary to say that sight is punished and harmed, of what else should we say the eyes suffer these things than of the one held fast by ignorance concerning God and hindered by the passions from seeing the truth? Christians, then, by no means think themselves blinded by the words of Celsus or of any other stranger to godliness;

but those who perceive themselves being blinded by following crowds of wanderers and nations keeping festival to demons, let them come to the Word that bestows eyes, that, like the poor and blind cast beside the way and healed by Jesus because they had said to Him:

"Son of David, have mercy on me," having been shown mercy, they may receive eyes new and beautiful, such as the Word of God would fashion.

Wherefore if Celsus asks us how we suppose we shall come to know God, and how we shall be saved unto Him,

we shall answer that the Word of God is sufficient—having come to those who seek Him or who receive Him when He appears to them—to make known and to reveal the Father, who before His coming was not seen.

And who else can save and bring the soul of man to the over-all God, than God the Word? Who, being in the beginning with God, on account of those joined to the flesh and become what flesh became, became flesh, that He might be contained by those unable to behold Him as He was Word and was with God and was God.

And being spoken of bodily and proclaimed as flesh, He calls to Himself those who are flesh, that He may first make them be formed according to the Word who became flesh, and after this lead them up to behold Him as He was before He became flesh;

so that they, having been benefited and ascended from the introduction according to the flesh, may say:

"Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer." He became flesh, then, and having become flesh He tabernacled among us, not becoming outside us; and having tabernacled and become in us, He did not remain at the first form, but having led us up to the rational high mountain, He showed us His glorious form and the brilliance of His garments—and not of Himself alone, but also of the spiritual law, which is Moses seen in glory together with Jesus.

And He showed us also all prophecy, not dying even after the incarnation but being taken up into heaven, of which Elijah was a symbol.

And he who has beheld these things would say: