Against Celsus 1 part 34/42

But if Celsus had read the Law of Moses, it is likely that the saying "You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow," which is spoken to the one who keeps the Law, he supposed to be such that it is said by way of promise to the righteous man that he will so abound in blind wealth that, on account of the multitude of his possessions, the righteous man will lend not only to Jews but not merely to one other nation, or a second, or a third, but to many.

How great, then, would be the possessions the righteous man had acquired—receiving them according to the Law as the wages of his righteousness—in order that he might lend to many nations? And consistent with such an interpretation is also the supposition that the righteous man never borrows, since it is written:

But you shall not borrow. Did the nation, then, remain for so many ages in the worship of God according to Moses, while manifestly seeing—so far as Celsus is concerned—that the lawgiver was lying? For no one is recorded as having become so wealthy as to have lent to many nations.

But it is not credible that they, being so instructed, listened to the Law as Celsus supposed, and, manifestly seeing the promises of the Law to be false, contended on behalf of the Law.

But if anyone should bring forward the recorded sins of the people as an example of their having despised the Law—perhaps because they had condemned it as lying—it must be said to him that one ought also to read the times in which the whole people is recorded, after having done what was evil in the sight of the Lord, to have turned toward the better and to have changed back to the worship of God according to the Law.

But moreover, even if the Law promised them dominion, saying:

You shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you, and nothing deeper is indicated through these words, it is clear that the people would all the more have condemned the promises of the Law.

Celsus paraphrases certain expressions which indicate that the whole earth would be filled through the Hebrew seed;

which, as regards the literal history, came about with God, so to speak, being angry, after the coming of Jesus, rather than as bestowing blessings.

But also concerning its being said by way of promise to the Jews that they should slay their enemies, it must be said that, if anyone reads carefully and attends closely to the words, he would find the interpretation according to the literal sense to be impossible.

But it suffices for the present to cite from the Psalms in what manner the righteous man is introduced as saying, among other things, this also:

Every morning I would slay all the sinners of the land, to cut off from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity. Now attend to the literal text and to the disposition of the speaker, whether—having first narrated mighty deeds, which lie open for whoever wishes to read—he could append what is possible according to the literal wording: that at no other hour of the day than the morning did he slay all the sinners of the land, so as to leave none of them alive;

and whether he cut off from Jerusalem absolutely every single man who works iniquity.

And you would find many such things in the Law also, such as the words: We left none of them alive.

and that those who do not obey the Law shall suffer the same things which they did to their enemies.

And before Celsus, setting these things alongside, makes use of what he thinks to be the contradictions to the Law drawn from the teaching of Christ, something must be said concerning the things mentioned above.

We say, then, that the Law is twofold: the one according to the letter, the other according to the deeper meaning, as some of those before us also taught.

And the Law according to the letter is said to consist of ordinances that are not good and commandments that are not good—not so much by us as by God speaking in one of the prophets;

but the Law according to the deeper meaning is said, by the same prophet from the person of God, to consist of good ordinances and good commandments;

for the prophet does not manifestly say contradictory things in one and the same place.

Consistently with which, Paul too said that the letter kills, which is equivalent to "according to the literal sense";

but the spirit gives life, which is equivalent to "according to the deeper meaning."

There is, at any rate, something analogous to be found in Paul to what would be reckoned the contradictions in the prophet.

For just as in one place Ezekiel says:

I gave them ordinances that are not good and commandments that are not good, by which they shall not live; while in another place:

I gave them good ordinances and good commandments, by which they shall live—or something equivalent to these;

so also Paul, where he wishes to disparage the letter of the legal text, says:

But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being abolished, how shall the ministry of the Spirit not be in greater glory? But where he marvels at the Law and accepts it, he calls it spiritual, saying:

We know that the Law is spiritual; and he accepts it in the words:

So then the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. If, therefore, the wording of the Law promises wealth to the righteous, let Celsus, according to the killing letter, suppose that blind wealth is spoken of by way of promise;

but we suppose it to be the keen-sighted wealth, insofar as one is rich in all utterance and all knowledge, and insofar as we charge the rich in this present age not to be high-minded nor to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God, who supplies all things richly for enjoyment, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share.

For indeed, wealth in true goods is, according to Solomon, the ransom of a man's soul, while poverty—the opposite of this—is destructive, for the poor man cannot withstand a threat.

And in a manner analogous to what has been rendered concerning wealth, something must be said also concerning dominion, according to which one righteous man is said to put to flight a thousand, and two to remove ten thousand.

And if these things have been understood in the matters concerning wealth, see whether it is not consistent with the promise of God that the one who is rich in all utterance and all knowledge and all wisdom and in every good work should lend, out of the wealth that is according to word and wisdom and knowledge, to many nations—as Paul lent in a circuit from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, fulfilling the gospel of Christ to all the nations among whom he sojourned.

And since the divine things were made known to him by revelation, his soul being enlightened by the divinity of the Word, on this account he himself did not borrow nor have need of any man to minister the word to him.

And since it is also written:

"You shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you" — by the dominion that comes from the word he ruled those of the nations whom he subjected to the teaching of Christ Jesus, and was never in any region subjected to men as though they had become his superiors;

and in this way too he filled the earth.

But if one must also give an account concerning the slaying, together with the righteous man's power over all things, it must be said that when he declares:

admired by all who behold her.

So then, when the rays of the Sun of righteousness shone upon his soul, being as it were empowered and strengthened by them, he destroyed every mind of the flesh — which is called "the sinners of the earth" — and rooted out from the city of the Lord within his own soul all the reasonings that work iniquity and the thoughts that are hostile to the truth.

And in this way the righteous also destroy every captive-band of the enemies that come from wickedness, so that not even an infant or a newly-sprouting evil is left behind.

We understand in this way also the saying in the hundred and thirty-sixth psalm, which runs thus:

"O wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed shall he be who repays you the recompense you have repaid us;

blessed shall he be who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock." For the little ones of Babylon — which is interpreted "confusion" — are the confusing reasonings, springing from wickedness, that have just sprouted and are rising up in the soul;

and he who masters them, so as to dash their heads against the firmness and vigour of the word, dashes the little ones of Babylon against the rock, and thereby becomes blessed.

Let God therefore command that the offspring of wickedness be slain in their youth and utterly with all their kind, teaching nothing contrary to what Jesus proclaimed; and let God carry out, in the eyes of the inward Jews, the destruction of the enemies and of all that comes from wickedness.

And let it be of such a kind that those who do not obey the law and word of God, having become like the enemies and made akin to wickedness, suffer these things — the very things that those who have departed from the words of God deserve to suffer.

It is clear, then, even from these things, how Jesus the man of Nazareth does not legislate contrary to the sayings about wealth and about those who are bewildered — concerning the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of God — whether one takes "rich" in the simpler sense, of one distracted by wealth and, as if hindered by its thorns, unable to bear the fruits of the word, or also of one rich in false doctrines, concerning whom it is written in Proverbs:

"Better is a poor man who is righteous than a rich man who is a liar." It is likely that Celsus took his notion that Jesus forbade love of rule from the sayings, "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be servant of all," and "The rulers of the nations lord it over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors" — a forbidding which must not be thought contrary to "You shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you," especially in view of the explanations already given of that text.

Next after these things Celsus throws in a remark about wisdom, supposing that Jesus teaches that the wise man may not approach the Father.

What kind of wise man? For if it is the man who has been made wise according to the so-called wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God, then we too will say that the man who is wise in this way may not approach the Father;

but if one understands Christ as wisdom, since Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, then we not only say that the man who is wise in this way may approach the Father, but we also affirm that one adorned with the gift called "the word of wisdom," given through the Spirit, far surpasses those who are not such.

Again, that one should lay claim to glory among men is forbidden, we say, not only according to the teaching of Jesus alone, but also according to the ancient scripture.

At any rate, one of the prophets, calling down a curse upon himself if he should be guilty of those sins, says that worldly glory would befall him in place of the greatest evil.

"O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have requited evil to those who repaid me with evil, then may I fall back empty before my enemies;

let the enemy then pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life to the ground, and lay my glory in the dust." But neither does the saying "Do not be anxious about what you shall eat or what you shall drink,"

"Consider the birds of the air" or "Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, and yet our heavenly Father feeds them,"

and "Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field," and what follows — none of this is contrary to the blessings in the law, which teach that the righteous man eats and is filled, and to what Solomon said in this manner:

"The righteous eats and fills his soul, but the souls of the wicked are in want." For one must see that it is the nourishment of the soul that is signified in the blessing according to the law;

with which not the composite man is filled, but the soul alone.

From the gospel one must perhaps take something deeper, and perhaps also something simpler — namely, that one ought not to let the soul be distressed with anxieties about food and clothing, but, practising frugality, to be persuaded that one is cared for by God, if one is concerned only about the necessities.

Now Celsus, without setting in opposition the apparently contradictory things from the law against those from the gospel, also says this:

"To him who has struck you once, offer yourself to be struck again."

But we shall say that we know indeed the saying "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," spoken to the men of old, and that we have also read "But I say to you:

to him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." But since I think Celsus, having his ears filled by those who separate the Godhead of the gospel from the Godhead of the law, sets down such things, it must be said in reply to his argument that he also knows the ancient writings contain "To him who strikes you on the right cheek, offer the other also."

At any rate, in the Lamentations of Jeremiah it is written:

"It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth; he shall sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken it upon himself.

He shall offer his cheek to him who strikes him, and shall be filled with reproaches." The gospel, then, does not contradict the God of the law, not even concerning the blow on the cheek taken according to the letter;

nor does either of them lie — neither Moses nor Jesus — nor did the Father, when he sent Jesus, forget what he had commanded Moses;

nor did he, condemning his own laws, change his mind and send the messenger on contrary terms.

But if we must say even a few words about the different polity by which the Jews formerly lived according to Moses, and that which Christians now wish to carry out rightly according to the teaching of Jesus, we shall say that it was neither fitting for the calling of the nations — who were placed under the Romans — to live politically according to the letter of the law of Moses, nor was it possible for the Jews of old to keep their political constitution undestroyed, if, by hypothesis, they had obeyed the polity according to the gospel.

For Christians could not, according to the law of Moses, make use of the slaying of enemies or of those who had acted against the law and were judged worthy of death by fire or stones — seeing that not even the Jews, though willing, are able to carry out such things against those people as the law enjoined.

And again, if you take away from the Jews of that time — who had their own political system and country — the going forth against enemies and waging war for their ancestral institutions, and the slaying or otherwise punishing of adulterers or murderers or those who had done anything similar to such things, nothing remains but that they should perish utterly, all together at once, when the enemies attacked the nation, since by their own law they would have been unnerved and prevented from defending themselves against the enemies.

And since the Providence which of old gave the law, but now wishes the gospel of Jesus Christ to prevail, was unwilling that the institutions of the Jews should continue, it destroyed their city and their temple, and the worship of God offered at the temple through sacrifices and the prescribed service.

And just as it destroyed those things, no longer willing that they should be carried out, in the same way it caused the affairs of the Christians to grow and to increase daily in number, and by now also in boldness of speech, even though countless hindrances had arisen against the sowing of the teaching of Jesus throughout the world.

But since it was God who willed that those of the nations too should be benefited through the teaching of Jesus the Christ, every human counsel against the Christians was overthrown; and the more that kings and rulers of nations and peoples everywhere humbled them, by so much the more did they become more numerous and grew exceedingly strong.

Next after these things Celsus, setting forth at considerable length, as though said by us, things which are not said by us about God — as being by nature a body and a body of human form — wishes to overturn things not laid down by us, which it is superfluous to set forth, or to overturn.

For if we did say about God the things he alleges we assert, and if he were taking his stand against them, it would be necessary for us to set down his words and establish our own position while refuting his;

but if he strings together for himself things which he either heard from no one, or — even granting that he heard them — heard from certain simple, innocent people who do not know the meaning of the word, then we ought not to trouble ourselves over things that are not necessary.

For the scriptures plainly declare that God is incorporeal;

wherefore also "no one has ever seen God," and the firstborn of all creation is said to be "the image of the invisible God" — as if it said, of the incorporeal God.

And in the passages before this we have moderately treated also concerning God, examining how we understand "God is Spirit," and that those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

And after the matters concerning God, in which he slanders us, he inquires of us:

"Where are we destined to depart to? And what hope do we have?" And, as though we had answered, he sets down what are supposedly our utterances, running thus:

To another land, better than this one.

A blessed life for blessed souls has been recounted by the divine men of old.

Some named them the Isles of the Blessed, others the Elysian Plain, from the release (lysis) from the evils of this world, as Homer also does.

But the immortals will send you to the Elysian Plain and the ends of the earth, where life is easiest for men.

Plato, holding the soul to be immortal, plainly named that region to which it is sent a 'land,' in these words:

Saying that it is exceedingly vast, and that we who dwell from the Phasis to the Pillars of Hercules inhabit only a small portion of it, like ants or frogs dwelling around a marsh by the sea, and that many others dwell elsewhere in many such places.

For there are everywhere about the earth many hollows of all kinds, varying in shape and size, into which the water and the mist and the air have flowed together;

but the true earth itself lies pure in the pure heaven. Celsus therefore supposes that we have taken our teaching about the other, better land, far surpassing this one, from certain men whom he reckons divine and ancient, and especially from Plato, who in the Phaedo philosophized about a pure earth lying in pure heaven;

not seeing that Moses, who is far more ancient even than the Greek writings, introduced God promising to those who lived according to His law a holy, good, and spacious land flowing with milk and honey—not, as some suppose, that good land, the Judaea reckoned to be below, which itself also lies in the earth that was from the beginning cursed by the deeds of Adam's transgression.

For the words 'Cursed is the ground in your labors;

in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life' are spoken concerning the whole earth, which every man who has died in Adam eats in sorrow—that is, in toils—and eats all the days of his life.

And as the whole earth is cursed, it shall bring forth thorns and thistles all the days of the life of him who in Adam was cast out of paradise, and in the sweat of his face every man eats his bread, until he returns to the earth from which he was taken.

Now the whole matter concerning this passage admits of much discussion, which could be developed to clarify the meaning of the words;

but for the present we have been content with a few remarks, wishing to free ourselves from the distraction caused by the one who supposes that the words about the good land which God promises to the righteous were spoken concerning the land of Judaea.

If, then, the whole earth itself is cursed by the deeds of Adam and of those who died in him, it is clear that all its parts also share in the curse, among which is the land of Judaea as well;

[but the promise refers to] a good and spacious land lying in pure heaven, in which is the heavenly Jerusalem;

concerning which the apostle, having discoursed as one risen with Christ and seeking the things above, and having found a mind that holds to no Jewish mythology, says:

'But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.' And that no one may think we speak about the good and spacious land mentioned by Moses contrary to the intent of the divine Spirit, let him attend to all the prophets, who teach the return to Jerusalem of those who have wandered and fallen away from it, and who are wholly restored to the place and city of God called such by Him who said, 'In holy peace is His place,' and who also said:

'Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain, with firm-rooted exultation of the whole earth.' And for the present it is enough to set down the words from the thirty-sixth psalm, which speak thus concerning the land of the righteous:

'But those who wait for the Lord, they shall inherit the land'; and a little after:

'But the meek shall inherit the land, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace'; and a little after:

'Those who bless Him shall inherit the land'; and again:

'The righteous shall inherit the land, and shall dwell upon it for ever and ever.' And see whether it is not made plain to those able to hear, by what is thus said in the same psalm, that the land is pure and lies in pure heaven:

'Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land.' And it seems to me also that what is said about the stones here reckoned precious—said to have a certain efflux from the stones in that better land—was taken by Plato from what is recorded in Isaiah concerning the city of God, of which it is written:

'I will make your battlements of jasper, and your stones stones of crystal, and your wall choice stones'; and again:

'I will make your foundations of sapphire.' Now the myth told by Plato is expounded allegorically by those who have understood the philosopher's words in a more reverent sense; but the prophecies, from which we conjecture that Plato also took his teaching, will be set forth by those who have lived in kinship with the prophets and in divine inspiration, and who have devoted all their time to the examination of the sacred writings, to those who are fitted for it by purity of life and love of learning concerning divine things.

Our purpose was to show that we have not taken our teaching about the holy land from the Greeks or from Plato;

but that they, being later not only than the most ancient Moses but also than most of the prophets, have either heard from some who spoke in riddles about such things, or having come upon the sacred Scriptures, have altered them and so said some such things about the better land.

And Haggai clearly shows that the dry land is one thing and the earth another, calling that on which we are 'the dry land':

'Yet once more I will shake the heaven and the earth and the dry land and the sea.'

And just as he himself sets down the narration of the myth in Plato, found in the Phaedo, saying these things:

'But what he reveals through these things is not easy for everyone to understand;

except for one who is able to perceive what that is which he speaks of:

namely, that by reason of weakness and slowness they are not able to pass through to the uttermost limit of the air;

and that if their nature were able to endure the contemplation, they would know that that is the true heaven and the true light.'

In the same way we too, holding that the things concerning the holy and good land and the city of God in it are not to be clarified in accordance with the present undertaking, defer them to the commentaries on the prophets, having in part, so far as we were able, expounded concerning the city of God in the works we composed on the forty-fifth psalm and the forty-seventh psalm.

And the discourse of Moses and the prophets, most ancient of all, knows that all true things are homonymous with these more general things here below—such as the true light, and a heaven other than the firmament, and the sun of righteousness other than the perceptible sun.

And in short, by way of contrast with the perceptible things, none of which is true, it says:

'God—true are His works,' ranking the works of God among the true things, but the so-called works of His hands among the lesser ones.

Reproaching certain men through Isaiah, He says:

'They do not regard the works of the Lord, nor consider the works of His hands.' And let this much suffice on these matters.

But since the doctrine of the resurrection—a great one, hard to interpret, and requiring, if any teaching does, a man who is wise and has advanced far, so as to present what is worthy of God and the grandeur of the doctrine, which teaches that what is called in the Scriptures the 'tent' (tabernacle) of the soul has the principle of a seed, in which the righteous, while they are in it, groan being burdened, not wishing to put it off but to be further clothed upon—since Celsus, not understanding it, having heard about it from simple folk unable to present it with any reasoned account, mocks what is said, it is useful, in addition to what we have said above on this, to note this one thing only with regard to the doctrine: that it is not, as Celsus supposes, through misunderstanding the doctrine of transmigration that we speak of the resurrection, but because we know that the soul, which by its own nature is incorporeal and invisible, whenever it is in any bodily place, needs a body suited by nature to that place;

and this body, in the place where it bears it, having put off the former one, which was necessary but superfluous in relation to the latter conditions; and in the place where it puts on, in addition to what it had before, needing a better garment for the purer, ethereal, and heavenly places.

And it put off, when coming to birth here, that which was useful to it for its formation in the womb of her who was pregnant, as long as it was in her—namely, the chorion (afterbirth);

and it put on, beneath that, what was necessary for the one about to live out his life on earth.

Then again, there being a certain earthly house of the tent, necessary somehow to the tent, the Scriptures say that the earthly house of the tent is indeed dissolved, but that the tent puts on, in addition, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

And the men of God say that this corruptible puts on incorruption, which differs from the incorruptible, and that this mortal puts on immortality, which is other than the immortal.

For the relation which wisdom bears to the wise, and righteousness to the righteous, and peace to the peaceable—this same relation incorruption bears to the incorruptible, and immortality to the immortal.

See, then, to what the doctrine exhorts, when it speaks of putting on incorruption and immortality, which, as garments to the one who has put them on and is encompassed by such garments, do not allow the one wearing them to be corrupted or to die.

And let these things have been ventured by us on account of the one who did not understand what we mean by the resurrection, and who on this account laughs at and mocks a doctrine he does not know.

Supposing that we, because of knowing and seeing God, hold our doctrine concerning the resurrection, he strings together for himself whatever he pleases and says such things as these:

Whenever they are driven into a corner on every side and refuted, they once again, as though they had heard nothing, come back to the very same question:

How then are we to know and see God? And how are we to go to him? Let anyone who wishes understand this: that even if for other purposes we need a body, because we exist in a bodily place and in such a place as the nature of bodily space is, and being in need of a body we put on over ourselves, as a tent, the things already mentioned — yet for the knowledge of God we have absolutely no need of a body.

For that which knows God is not the eye of the body but the mind, which sees that which is according to the image of the Creator and which by God's providence has received the power to know God.

And that which sees God is a pure heart, out of which there no longer come evil thoughts, nor murders, nor adulteries, nor fornications, nor thefts, nor false witnessings, nor blasphemies, nor an evil eye, nor any other of the unseemly things;