Against Celsus 1 part 33/42

It is related, then, concerning the Pythia—which seems to be the most illustrious of the other oracles—that Apollo's prophetess, seated over the mouth of the Castalian spring, receives a spirit through her female parts;

and being filled with it she utters what are reckoned to be solemn and divine prophecies.

Consider, then, by these things whether the impure and profane nature of that spirit is not made manifest, when it enters the soul of her who prophesies not through hidden and unseen passages, far purer than the female parts, but through these—which it was not even lawful for a chaste man to look upon, let alone to touch;

and to do this not once perhaps nor twice—for perhaps such a thing might have seemed more tolerable—but as many times as she is believed to prophesy from Apollo.

Moreover, the very fact that it brings the supposed prophetess into ecstasy and a frenzied condition, so that she is in no way aware of herself, is not the work of a divine spirit;

for it was fitting that one possessed by the divine spirit should profit far before anyone whatever who is taught by oracles concerning what contributes to a moderate and natural life, whether toward what is advantageous or toward what is profitable, and should be especially more clear-sighted at that very moment when the divine is present with him.

Whence we demonstrate, gathering from the sacred scriptures, that the prophets among the Jews, being illumined by the divine spirit to such a degree as was useful to the prophesying ones themselves, enjoyed beforehand the indwelling of the Superior One coming to them;

and through the touch, so to speak, of the so-called Holy Spirit upon their soul, they became both more clear-sighted in mind and more radiant in soul, and indeed in body too—their body no longer in any way opposing the life of virtue, inasmuch as it was being mortified according to what among us is called the mind of the flesh.

For we are persuaded that by a more divine Spirit the deeds of the body, and the enmities against God that spring from the mind of the flesh, are put to death.

...to be overcome and to yield and to withdraw from the soul and body of some man wise and powerful in the rational demonstrations concerning the faith.

But also, if indeed it is believed—not among Christians and Jews alone, but also among many others, both Greeks and barbarians—that the human soul lives and subsists after its separation from the body, and reason establishes that the soul which is pure and not weighed down by the leaden weights of vice is borne aloft to the regions of the purer and ethereal bodies, leaving behind the gross bodies here and their defilements, while the soul that is base and dragged down by sins toward the earth, unable even to breathe freely, is carried about here and rolls about—one such soul going to the tombs, where indeed phantoms of shadowy souls have been seen, and another simply roaming about the earth;

what sort of spirits must we suppose those to be which have been bound, so to speak, for whole ages—whether by certain sorceries, or even through their own wickedness, to buildings and places? Reason indeed concludes that such beings are something base, using their power of foreknowledge, which is of a middling sort, for the deception of men and for drawing them away from God and from pure piety toward Him.

And it shows that they are of this sort, that their bodies are nourished by the exhalations from sacrifices and by the steam from blood and whole burnt offerings, since they delight in such things—their state being that of a kind of clinging to life, analogous to base men who do not embrace the purer life apart from bodies, but cling, for the sake of bodily pleasures, to the life in the earthy body.

But if the Apollo at Delphi were a god, as the Greeks suppose, whom rather ought he to have chosen as prophet than a wise man, or, if no such one were to be found, at least one making progress toward wisdom? And how would he not have wished a man rather than a woman to prophesy? And if he wanted even the female, as though perhaps unable, or unable to take pleasure in anything other than the female parts of women, how was it not rather fitting for him to choose a virgin than a married woman to declare his will? But as it is, the Pythian one, admired among the Greeks, judged no wise man, nay not even any man at all, worthy of the divine possession, as the Greeks suppose it to be.

But neither even within the female sex did he choose some virgin, or one wise and benefited by philosophy, but a certain common, uneducated woman;

for perhaps the better ones among men were too good for the working of his possession.

And it would have been necessary too, if indeed he were a god, that he should use his foreknowledge as a bait, so to speak, toward the conversion and healing and moral reformation of men;

but as it is, the history hands down nothing of this sort concerning him.

For even if he said that Socrates was the wisest of all men, the praise of him was blunted by what was said by him concerning Euripides and Sophocles in the line:

"Wise is Sophocles, but wiser is Euripides."

Now since Socrates was reckoned by him to be superior to the tragic poets called wise—men who contend on stage and in the orchestra for the sake of some chance prize, and who in one place stir up grief and lamentations in the spectators, and in another unseemly laughter (for such is the aim of the satyric dramas)—this does not at all display anything august by reason of philosophy and truth, and praiseworthy by reason of its augustness.

And perhaps he called him the wisest of all men not so much on account of philosophy as on account of the sacrifices and the savour of fat which he offered up to him and to the rest of the demons.

And for these reasons the demons seem to do what is asked of them by those who bring offerings to them rather than on account of works of virtue.

Wherefore Homer, the best of the poets, in delineating the things that happen and teaching what especially are the things that persuade the demons to do what those who sacrifice wish, brought in Chryses, who, for the sake of a few garlands and the thighs of bulls and goats, obtained what he had asked against the Greeks on behalf of his daughter—namely, that being smitten with plague they might give back to him Chryseis.

...spoken by the poet; for one who has read that the verses of Chryses addressed to Apollo, and the plague sent upon the Greeks by Apollo, teach that Homer knew of certain wicked demons who, delighting in the savour of fat and in sacrifices, render as wages to those who sacrifice the destruction of others, if those who sacrifice should pray for such a thing.

And he who rules over wintry Dodona, with whom are the prophets of unwashed feet who sleep upon the ground, having rejected the male sex for prophecy, makes use of the priestesses of Dodona, as Celsus also set forth.

And let there be others similar to these—a Clarius, and another at Branchidae, and yet another at the shrine of Ammon, or wherever upon earth they give oracles—whence then shall it be shown whether they are indeed gods and not certain demons? But of the prophets among the Jews, some before their prophesying and the divine possession were already wise, while others, being enlightened in mind by the very act of prophesying, became such as they were—being chosen by Providence to be entrusted with the divine spirit and the words proceeding from it, on account of the inimitable, exceedingly strenuous, free, and altogether undismayed conduct of their life in the face of death and dangers.

For reason too concludes that such ought the prophets of the God who is over all to be—men who made the strenuousness of Antisthenes and Crates and Diogenes appear but child's play.

For the sake of truth, then, and of freely reproving those who sinned, they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they died by the slaughter of the sword;

for they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth, of whom the world upon earth was not worthy;

ever looking unto God and unto the invisible things of God, which are not perceived by the senses and are therefore eternal.

Now the life of each of the prophets has been recorded;

but it suffices for the present to set forth the life of Moses—for indeed prophecies of his are extant, recorded in the law—and that of Jeremiah, contained in the prophecy bearing his name, and that of Isaiah, who walked, surpassing all asceticism, naked and unshod for three years.

And behold too the vigorous life of those youths, Daniel and those with him, when you read of their drinking of water and that their food was pulse, while they abstained from things that had life.

And if you are able, consider also the things before these: how Noah prophesied, and how Isaac prophetically blessed his son, and how Jacob said to each of the twelve:

"Come together, that I may declare to you what shall befall you in the last days." These then, and countless others, having prophesied to God, also foretold the things concerning Jesus the Christ.

Wherefore we reckon of no account the things foretold by the Pythia, or by the priestesses of Dodona, or by Clarius, or at Branchidae, or at the shrine of Ammon, or by countless others called deliverers of oracles;

but the things spoken by those who prophesied in Judaea we have held in awe, seeing that their vigorous, strenuous, and august life was worthy of God's spirit, which prophesied in a manner that was new and had nothing resembling the oracles that come from demons.

But I do not know how Celsus, after saying:

"The things said after their manner by the people in Judaea," added...

or things not actually spoken—talking like an unbeliever who claims that these things could indeed not have been spoken, but that perhaps what was never spoken was written down.

For he did not consider the dates, nor that many years beforehand they uttered countless predictions, speaking also concerning the coming of Christ.

Again, wishing to disparage the ancient prophets, he says that they prophesied in this manner, which, he says, those in the region of Phoenicia and Palestine are still accustomed to use even now.

He did not make clear whether he means certain people foreign to the teaching of the Jews and Christians, or those prophesying in the Jewish manner according to the character of the prophets.

But however his statements may stand, they are proved to be false.

For neither have any of those foreign to the faith done anything resembling the prophets, nor have any later persons, after the coming of Jesus, been recorded as having prophesied among the Jews.

having acted impiously toward God and toward the one foretold by the prophets among them.

Signs of the Holy Spirit were displayed in greater number at the beginning, in the teaching of Jesus and after his ascension, but afterward in lesser number;

yet even now there are still traces of it among a few whose souls have been purified by the Word and by actions in accordance with it.

"For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will rise up from foolish thoughts." Now since Celsus also promises to set forth the manner of the oracles in Phoenicia and Palestine, as one who has heard them and thoroughly learned them, come, let us examine these things too.

First, then, he says that there are several kinds of prophecies, without setting them out;

for indeed he could not, but was making a false pretense.

But let us look at what he says is the most perfect kind among the men of that region.

"Many," he says, "and nameless persons, on the slightest pretext, both in temples and outside temples, and some also begging and roaming about cities or camps, are moved as though uttering oracles."

"And it is ready and customary for each to say:"

"I am God, or a son of God, or a divine spirit;"

"for the world is already perishing, and you, O men, are being destroyed because of your iniquities."

"And you shall see me coming again with heavenly power."

"Blessed is he who has now worshiped me, but upon all the rest I will cast eternal fire, both upon cities and upon countries."

"And men who do not know their own punishments will repent in vain and groan;

but those who have obeyed me I will preserve forever."

"Having held out these threats, they add next things unknown and frenzied and altogether obscure, the meaning of which no one of sound mind could discover;

for they are unclear and amount to nothing, but they give every fool or charlatan an occasion concerning anything to appropriate what is said in whatever sense he wishes."

But he ought, if he were dealing fairly with his accusation, to have set forth the prophecies in their very words—whether those in which the one speaking professed to be God Almighty, or those in which he professed to be the Son of God, or those in which the Holy Spirit was believed to be speaking;

for thus he might even have striven to refute what was said and to show that the words were not divinely inspired, words which contain a turning from sins, a rebuke of those then living, and foreknowledge concerning things to come.

Therefore those of their time who recorded them preserved their prophecies, so that even later generations, reading them, might marvel at them as words of God, and being benefited not only by the reproving and converting passages but also persuaded by the predictive ones through their fulfillments concerning the Spirit who foretold them being divine, might continue practicing the godliness that accords with the Word, obeying the law and the prophets.

Now the prophets, in accordance with the will of God, spoke without any concealment whatever could be immediately understood by the hearers as useful and conducive to the reformation of morals; but whatever was more mystical and more contemplative and contained a vision beyond the common ear, this they set forth through riddles and allegories and what are called dark sayings, and through what are named parables or proverbs;

so that those who do not shun toil, but undertake every labor for the sake of virtue and truth, might by searching find, and having found, might administer them as reason requires.

But the noble Celsus, as if angered that he had not understood such sayings of the prophets, reviled them, saying that, having held out these threats, they add next things unknown and frenzied and altogether obscure, the meaning of which no one of sound mind could discover;

for they are unclear and amount to nothing, but they give every fool or charlatan an occasion concerning anything to appropriate what is said in whatever sense he wishes.

And it seemed to me that he said these things cunningly, wishing, so far as in him lay, to prevent those who come upon the prophecies from testing and examining their meaning;

and he has experienced something similar to those who told a story about a certain prophet, who came in to someone and foretold to him the things to come;

to prove that Celsus is lying in these matters, and that the prophecies are divinely inspired;

nevertheless we too, so far as was possible for us, have done so, having expounded literally those things which, as Celsus says, are frenzied and altogether obscure, in the works we have composed on Isaiah and on Ezekiel and on some of the Twelve.

And God granting progress in his Word at the times he wills, there shall be added to those things already dictated on these matters either what is lacking or whatever we may manage to clarify.

And others too, who wish to examine the Scripture, having understanding, would be able to find its meaning, since it is truly in many places unclear, yet not, as Celsus says, nothing.

But neither can any fool or charlatan smooth it out, or in any way appropriate what is said;

rather, only and every one who is truly wise in Christ could render the whole connected sense of the things said with concealment in the prophets, comparing spiritual things with spiritual and establishing each of his findings from the customary usage of the Scriptures.

But Celsus is not to be believed when he says that he was an eyewitness and earwitness of such men.

For neither in the times of Celsus did there arise any prophets resembling the ancient ones, since otherwise prophecies in succession would have been recorded, similar to those written of old, by those who accepted and marveled at them.

And it seems to me wholly evident that Celsus is lying, namely that the so-called prophets, of whom he was an earwitness, when refuted by Celsus, confessed to him whatever he wished, and that they fabricated things, speaking inconsistent and contradictory things.

But he ought also to have given the names of those of whom he claimed to have been an earwitness;

so that from the names, if indeed he had any to give, it might be evident to those able to judge, whether he was speaking the truth or falsehood.

He thinks also that those who defend the prophets concerning the matters relating to Christ can say nothing to the point whenever something wicked or shameful or unclean or foul appears to be said concerning the Deity.

Therefore, as though there were no defense, he strings together for himself countless things concerning matters that are not granted.

But one must know that those who wish to live according to the divine Scriptures, and who understand that "The knowledge of the foolish is words not subjected to examination," and who have read "Be always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks of us a reason concerning the hope that is in us," do not take refuge merely in the fact that these things were foretold, but indeed they also attempt to resolve the apparent incongruities and to show that there is nothing wicked in the words, nor shameful, nor unclean, nor foul, but that such an impression arises in those who do not understand the divine Scripture as it ought to be received.

But he ought to have set down from the prophets the wickedness appearing in them, or what seemed to him shameful, or what he reckoned unclean, or what he supposed to be foul, if indeed he saw such things stated in the prophets;

for thus his argument would have been more forceful and more effective toward what he intended;

but as it is, he did not set it down, but holding out a threat he menacingly asserts that such things appear in the Scriptures, falsely accusing them.

Therefore against empty noises of words no reason calls for making a defense to show that there is nothing wicked or shameful or unclean or foul in the words of the prophets.

But God neither does nor suffers anything most shameful, nor is he made subservient to evil, as Celsus supposes; for nothing of the kind was foretold.

For nothing of this sort had been previously foretold.

And if he claims that it had been foretold that God would be made subservient to evil, or do or suffer most shameful things, he ought to have cited the passages from the prophets to this effect, and not to have wished idly to defile his hearers.

Now what Christ was to suffer the prophets foretold, also setting forth the reason on account of which he was to suffer;

and God knew beforehand the very things that his Christ would suffer.

But whence does it follow that these things were most foul and most impure, as Celsus asserts? Yet he will appear to be teaching how the things which he endured were certain most foul and most impure matters, since he says:

For what else was it for God to eat the flesh of sheep and to drink gall or vinegar than to feed on filth? But God, according to us, did not eat the flesh of sheep.

For even granting that it should appear that he ate, it was as one bearing a body that Jesus ate.

Having already discussed earlier the words, 'They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink,' we are compelled by Celsus to repeat ourselves.

For those who plot against the word of truth always bring to the Christ of God the gall that comes from their own wickedness, and the vinegar that comes from their own turning aside to evil; but he, having tasted it, will not drink.

Then after this, wishing to overthrow the faith of those who accepted the things concerning Jesus because they had been prophesied, he says:

Come now, if the prophets had foretold that the great God—to say nothing more offensive—would become a slave, or fall sick, or die, would it then have been necessary for God to die or to be enslaved or to fall sick, simply because it had been foretold, in order that, having died, he might be believed to be God? But the prophets would never have foretold this;

for it is evil and impious.

Therefore one must not consider whether they foretold it or did not foretell it, but whether the deed is worthy of God and good.

But what is base and evil, even if all men in their madness should seem to predict it, must not be believed.

How then are the things done concerning this man, as concerning a god, holy? Now it appears from these words that he has suspected the chapter concerning Jesus having been prophesied to be something strong for persuading his hearers, and that he tries to overthrow the argument by another plausible device, asserting:

Therefore one must not consider whether they foretold it or did not foretell it.

But if he wished to oppose what was said not fallaciously but demonstratively, he ought to have said:

It must therefore be demonstrated either that they did not foretell it, or that the things spoken concerning Christ have not been fulfilled in Jesus as they were foretold—and then to bring forward what he regards as his proof.

For in this way it would have become apparent what the prophecies say which we apply to Jesus, and how he falsifies our interpretation;

and it would have been found out whether he nobly overthrows the things which we bring forward from the prophets concerning the account of Jesus, or whether he is caught shamelessly wishing to do violence to the plain evidence of the truth as though it were not truth.

But since, laying down hypothetically certain things impossible and unbecoming to God, he says:

If these things should be prophesied concerning the God who is over all, must we then, because they are foretold, believe such things concerning God? And he thinks it is established that, even if the prophets truly had foretold such things concerning the Son of God, it was impossible for him so to suffer or to do, and that one ought not to believe what was foretold;

it must be said that his hypothesis, being absurd, would make conditional propositions issue in things contradictory to one another, which is shown thus.

If the true prophets of the God who is over all should say that God would be enslaved, or fall sick, or even die, these things will come to pass concerning God; for it is necessary that the prophets of the great God do not lie.

But again, even if the true prophets of the God who is over all say these very same things, since things by nature impossible are not true, the things which the prophets say would not come to pass concerning God.

Now whenever two conditional propositions issue in things contradictory to one another, by what is called the theorem 'through two hypothetical premises' (dia duo tropikon), the antecedent which is common to both conditionals is annulled—which here is the prophets' foretelling that the great God would be enslaved, or fall sick, or die.

It is therefore concluded that the prophets did not foretell that the great God would be enslaved, or fall sick, or die; and the argument is reduced in some such fashion as this:

if the first, then also the second;

if the first, then not the second.

And those of the Stoa also bring forward this mode of argument with a concrete instance, saying:

If you know that you are dead, you are dead;

if you know that you are dead, you are not dead;

there follows the conclusion: therefore you do not know that you are dead.

And in this way they construct the conditional propositions:

if you know that you are dead, there is something which you know; therefore the 'you are dead' exists.

If you know that you are dead, then the 'you know that you are dead' also exists.

But since the dead man knows nothing, it is clear that, if you know that you are dead, you are not dead.

And there follows, as I said before, from both conditionals the conclusion: therefore you do not know that you are dead.

Something of this kind holds also with regard to Celsus' hypothesis, when he states the passage which we set forth above.

For the prophecies did not foretell that God would be crucified—those prophecies which say concerning him who accepted death:

And we saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness; but his form was dishonoured, failing beyond the sons of men;

a man in stripes and in pain, and acquainted with bearing weakness. See then how clearly they have called him a man, who suffered things human.

And Jesus himself, knowing accurately that what was dying was a man, says to those who were plotting against him:

But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. But if there was something divine in the man understood according to him—which was the Only-begotten of God and the First-born of all creation, the one who says:

I am the truth, and I am the life, and I am the door, and I am the way, and I am the living bread which came down from heaven—

then surely the account concerning this one and concerning his essence is other than the account concerning the man understood in the case of Jesus.

Therefore not even the very simplest of Christians, untrained in searching arguments, would say that the truth, or the life, or the way, or the living bread which came down from heaven, or the resurrection, had died;

for he who taught, in the visible man according to Jesus, the saying 'I am the resurrection,' declares himself to be the resurrection.

But neither is any one of us so thunderstruck out of his wits as to say:

Celsus's argument would have had some ground, if we were asserting that the prophets had foretold that God the Word, or the Truth, or the Life, or the Resurrection, or any of the other things which the Son of God is said to be, would die.

Celsus, then, speaks truly in this passage only in the words:

But the prophets would never have foretold this;

for it is evil and impious.

But what is this, except that the great God will become a slave or will die? Now what was prophesied by the prophets is worthy of God: namely, that an effulgence of the divine nature, a certain stamp of it, would together come to dwell in this life within the holy soul of Jesus, made human, so as to sow a word that would reconcile to the God of all things the one who receives him into his own soul, cultivates him, and brings all to completion—a word which has in itself the power of God the Word who was to be in the body and soul of a man.

And it will be so, that his rays are not shut up in him alone, nor is it to be supposed that the light which gives forth these rays—being God the Word—exists nowhere else.

The things concerning Jesus, then, insofar as they are understood as performed by the divinity in him, are holy and not in conflict with the conception of the Divine;

but insofar as he was man, adorned beyond every man with the highest participation in the Word-itself and Wisdom-itself, he endured, as one wise and perfect, what it was fitting for him to endure who does all things on behalf of the whole race of men, indeed of all rational beings.

And there is nothing absurd in the man's having also died, and in his death having been set forth not only as an example of dying for the sake of piety, but as having effected a beginning and an advance in the destruction of the evil one and devil, who had distributed the whole earth among himself.

And the signs of his overthrow are those who, on account of the coming of Jesus, have everywhere fled from the demons that held them, and who, through having been freed from the slavery under those demons, devote themselves to God and to the purest piety toward him of which they are capable, daily growing therein.

Next after these things Celsus says as follows:

that one ought to be concerned about food and storehouses no more than the ravens, and about clothing less than the lilies, and to offer himself to be struck again by the one who has struck him once. Which of them is lying—Moses or Jesus? Or did the Father, when he sent this one, forget what commands he had given to Moses? Or did he condemn his own laws, change his mind, and send the messenger for the opposite purposes? Now in saying these things Celsus, who professes to know everything, has fallen into a most amateurish error, supposing concerning the meaning of the Scriptures that there is no account deeper, in the Law and the Prophets, than the literal words.

He does not see that the Word would not so manifestly and implausibly have promised bodily wealth to those who live rightly, when the most righteous are shown to have lived in the utmost poverty.

The prophets, at any rate—because they had lived in purity and had received the divine Spirit—went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth;

for many are the afflictions of the righteous, according to the psalmist.