Against Celsus 1 part 36/42

but rather, having exercised themselves sufficiently in those things and having understood them, they ascend to the eternal power of God and, in a word, to his Godhead, knowing that the God who loves mankind has made manifest the truth and what may be known of himself not only to those devoted to him but also to some who stand outside pure worship of God and reverence toward him.

But some of those who by the providence of God had ascended to the knowledge of such great things, doing what is unworthy of that knowledge, act impiously and "hold the truth in unrighteousness," and they can no longer find any room for excuse before God concerning the knowledge of such great things.

At any rate, those who have grasped the matters set forth in Celsus and profess to philosophize according to these doctrines are testified against by the divine word—that, "though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and after so great a light of the knowledge of the things God had made manifest to them, their pressing, senseless heart was darkened."

Indeed, one can see in what manner those who claim to be wise display tokens of great folly, when, after such great discourses in their schools concerning God and intelligible realities, they "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things."

they are "given up by God" to wallow in the lusts of their own hearts to uncleanness, and their bodies are dishonored in shameful and licentious acts, in return for which they "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator."

But those who are despised by them for their simplicity and called fools and slaves, even if they only entrust themselves to God, having received the teaching of Jesus, are so far removed from licentiousness and uncleanness and all the shamefulness found in sexual relations that many of them keep themselves entirely pure—not only from all intercourse—after the manner of perfect priests who have turned away from all intercourse.

And there is, perhaps, a single hierophant among the Athenians who, not even being trusted to be master of his own male desires and to control them as much as he wishes, is castrated by hemlock in his male parts and is thereby reckoned pure for the rite customary among the Athenians;

but among Christians one may see men who have had no need of hemlock in order to serve the divine in purity, but who are content with reason in place of hemlock, so that, having driven out every lust from their minds, they may serve the divine with prayers.

And among others reckoned to be gods, the virgins are very few in number—whether guarded by men or not (for it is not now proposed to examine this)—who seem to persevere in purity for the sake of honor toward the divine;

but among Christians it is not for the sake of honors among men, nor for wages and money, nor for a little glory, that they practice complete virginity; and inasmuch as they have approved holding God in true knowledge, they are kept by God in a tested mind and in the doing of what is fitting, being filled with all righteousness and goodness.

These things I have said not out of any wish to contend with what has been well thought even among the Greeks, nor to accuse sound doctrines, but desiring to show that these very things—and indeed things still greater and more divine than these—have been spoken among the divine men, the prophets of God and the apostles of Jesus, and are examined by those who wish to be Christians more perfectly and who know that "the mouth of the righteous will meditate on wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment;"

"the law of his God is in his heart." But also among those who—whether through much simplicity, or through guilelessness, or even through the lack of any who could urge them on to rational piety—have not had these things made clear, yet God who is over all is believed in, together with his only-begotten Son, the Word and God; there might be found a certain dignity and purity, and often a simplicity and singleness of character superior to that which those who claim to be wise, not having taken hold of it, wallow with boys in things not lawful, men working shamefulness with men.

Now he did not make clear how there is error along with becoming, nor did he set forth what indeed he meant, so that we might understand it by comparing his statements with ours;

but the prophets, hinting at something wise concerning the matters of becoming, say that a sacrifice for sin is to be offered, even concerning the newly born, as not being clean from sin:

"I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me." And they also declare that "the wicked are estranged from the womb," saying paradoxically also this:

"They go astray from the belly, they speak lies." And thus our wise men so disparage the whole nature of sensible things, that in one place bodies are called "vanity" in the passage, "For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope," and in another place "vanity of vanities," which Ecclesiastes spoke:

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And who has so disparaged this present life of man's soul as the one who said:

"Surely all things are vanity, every man living"? For he did not doubt concerning the difference between the life of the soul here and outside the things here, nor did he say:

"You have brought me down to the dust of death;"

in this same sense both "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" is spoken, and "who will transform the body of our humiliation."

A prophet too is the one who said this:

"You humbled us in a place of affliction," calling the place of affliction this earthly region, into which Adam—that is, man—came when he was cast out of paradise on account of wickedness.

And the one who says that "now we see through a mirror, in an enigma, but then face to face," and furthermore this:

"While we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord; therefore we are well content rather to be away from the body and at home with the Lord"—see how greatly he had contemplated concerning the differing life of souls.

And why need I set side by side at greater length against the language of Celsus, since these things were stated among us long before his time, when even from what has been said our intention is clear? In these words he also as it were proposes a thesis, saying that a divine spirit, descending from God, foretells divine things; this would be the spirit that proclaims these things, filled with which men of old announced many good things.

But he did not perceive the distinction made precisely among us by those who say that "your incorruptible spirit is in all things, wherefore you reprove little by little those who fall away," and who affirm other things too; and that "Receive the Holy Spirit" indicates that the quantity of what is given is different from that indicated by "You shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

It is a task, for one who has carefully understood these things, to see the distinction between those who at considerable intervals have arrived at the apprehension of the truth and a brief conception of God, and those who have been more fully borne along by God and who stand ever with God and are continually led by the divine Spirit;

and if this had been examined and understood by Celsus, he would not have charged us with ignorance, nor commanded us not to say that those who are blind are the men engaged in the material arts—those concerned with statues—who suppose they are demonstrating piety.

For no one who sees with the eyes of the soul worships the divine in any other way than after the manner of him who shows us to gaze ever upon the Maker of all and to refer every prayer to him and to do all things as in the sight of God, before a Spectator who looks upon us even in our reasonings.

We therefore pray both that we ourselves may see and that we may be guides of the blind, until, drawing near to the word of God, they may recover the sight of their souls which had been blinded by ignorance.

And if indeed we also do things worthy of him who said to the disciples:

"You are the light of the world," and of the Word who taught that "the light shines in the darkness," we shall be a light to those in darkness, and shall instruct the foolish and teach the simple.

Let not Celsus be indignant when we call lame, and maimed in the foundations of the soul, those who hasten to the supposed sacred places as though they were true sanctuaries and do not see that nothing made by handicraftsmen can be sacred.

But those who are devout according to the teaching of Jesus also run, until, having reached the end of the course, they may say with a robust and truthful disposition:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith;"

"henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness." And each of us thus runs not as uncertainly, and thus boxes against wickedness not as one beating the air, but against those who are under the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.

Let Celsus call us those who live in the body that is dead, while we hear:

"For if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die;"

"but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live," and while we learn this: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit."

And may it be ours by our deeds to show that he who says of us that we live in the body that is dead is lying.

After these things, then—to which we have responded as far as we are able—he says to us:

"You men of old who were held in honor had Orpheus, a man who confessedly used a holy spirit and himself also died a violent death."

"But perhaps he had been anticipated by others."

"Take Anaxarchus, at any rate, who, having been thrown into a mortar and being most lawlessly pounded to pieces, utterly despised the punishment, saying:

'Pound, pound the sack of Anaxarchus, for him you do not pound;'

this was truly the voice of some divine spirit."

"But certain natural philosophers also followed, coming after this man as well."

What of Epictetus, then? When his master was twisting his leg, he said with a smile, unflinchingly:

"You are breaking it"; and when it was broken he said, "Did I not tell you that you were breaking it?" What comparable word did your God utter while being punished? Yet you might more reasonably have set up the Sibyl, whom some of you make use of, as a child of God;

as it is, you can rashly interpolate into her writings many blasphemous things, yet you set up as God one who lived a most notorious life and met a most pitiable death.

How much more suitable for you than this man was Jonah with his gourd, or Daniel rescued from the wild beasts, or others even more marvelous than these? Since then he refers us to Heracles, let him produce for us memorable sayings of his, and let him defend Heracles' shameful servitude under Omphale, and let him show whether one was worthy of divine honor who took the farmer's ox by violence and like a robber, devoured it as a feast, and took delight in the things over which that man, as he watched him eat, cursed him, saying:

—so that even to this day it is recorded that the daemon of Heracles receives his sacrifice along with certain curses.

He next summons us to repeat the same things about Asclepius, of whom we have already spoken; but we are content with what was said about him.

Why too, in admiration, does he say that Orpheus is admittedly one who used a holy spirit and lived nobly? I am astonished if Celsus does not, out of his contentiousness against us and in order to disparage Jesus, now sing the praises of Orpheus—whereas, when he came upon his myths that are impious in their talk of the gods, he did not turn away from those poems as deserving even more than Homer's to be expelled from the ideal commonwealth;

for indeed Orpheus said far worse things about the so-called gods than Homer did.

Noble, to be sure, was Anaxarchus, who said to Aristocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus:

"Pound, pound away at the sack of Anaxarchus"—

but the Greeks know that this admired deed of Anaxarchus is unique to him; on which account, even if, as Celsus thinks fit, one ought to revere a man for his virtue, it would still not be reasonable to proclaim Anaxarchus a god.

He also refers us to Epictetus, admiring what was nobly said by him; yet not so as that his saying about the breaking of his leg should be compared with the wonderful works of Jesus, which Celsus disbelieves, and with his words—for these too were spoken by divine power, and to this day are turning to conversion not only some of the simpler folk but also many of the more intelligent.

Since, after the catalogue of so many men, he says:

"What comparable word did your God utter while being punished?"—we would say to him that, by his silence amid the scourges and the many tortures, he displayed more endurance and patience than anyone among the Greeks who, when caught in dire straits, uttered any word;

if indeed Celsus is willing in this matter too to believe what has been candidly recorded by men who love the truth—men who related the marvels without falsehood and who reckoned his silence amid the scourges among those marvels.

But even when he was mocked, and clothed with the scarlet robe, and had the crown of thorns set about his head, and was given the reed in his hand instead of a scepter, he exercised the utmost gentleness, saying nothing base or resentful against those who dared to do such things to him.

It was not, then, characteristic of one who, out of fortitude, kept silent amid the scourges and out of gentleness endured all that was brought upon him by his mockers, to have said out of cowardice—as some suppose—even this:

"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me";

But that we may understand what was said in a simpler way, consider whether the prayer was not uttered together with reverence toward God, by one who considered the circumstantial lot of any man whatsoever not to be the primary thing, but who endured what came upon him not as a thing of first intent, whenever the occasion called for it.

But the voice was not that of one who had given in; rather, it was the voice of one well pleased with what was happening and preferring the circumstances that came from providence—the voice that says:

"Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt." Then, I know not how, he preferred that we should proclaim the Sibyl a child of God rather than Jesus, declaring that we interpolated into her writings many blasphemous things, yet without proving even what we interpolated.

He would have proved it, had he shown that the more ancient copies were purer and did not contain what he supposes to have been interpolated;

but without proving even that these things are blasphemous, he then again—not twice nor thrice but indeed many times—called the life of Jesus most notorious, without taking his stand on each of the things done in his life that are reckoned to be most notorious; so that, by saying this, he might appear not only to be making an undemonstrated assertion but also to be reviling one whom he does not know.

For if he had set forth the kinds of that most notorious life as they appear in his deeds, we too would have contended against each of the things that seemed to him to be most notorious.

But to say that Jesus also met a most pitiable death—this might equally be said of Socrates, and of Anaxarchus whom he mentioned a little before, and of countless others.

Or is the death of Jesus most pitiable, but not theirs as well? Or is theirs not most pitiable, while that of Jesus is? You see, then, even here, that Celsus's aim was to revile Jesus—moved, I think, by some spirit that was overthrown and abolished by Jesus, so that it might no longer have the savor of fat and the blood by which it was nourished while it deceived those who sought God in the images upon the earth and did not look up to the truly supreme God over all.

Then next, as though his aim were merely to fill up his book, he wished us rather to deem Jonah a god than Jesus—Jonah, who preached repentance to a single city, Nineveh—preferring him to Jesus, who preached repentance to the whole world and accomplished far more than Jonah.

And the one who marvelously and beyond expectation spent three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster, he wished us to proclaim a god; but the one who undertook to die on behalf of men, attested by God through the prophets, Celsus refused to acknowledge as worthy of the honor second after the God of all, on account of the heroic deeds he performed in heaven and on earth.

And Jonah, fleeing so as not to preach what had been commanded by God, was swallowed up by the sea-monster; but Jesus, since he had taught what God willed, undertook death on behalf of men.

Next he says that we ought rather to worship Daniel, who came up from the lions, than Jesus—Jesus, who trampled down the ferocity of every opposing power and gave us authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.

Then, having no others to mention, he says:

"Or others even more marvelous than these"—at the same time so as to revile both Jonah and Daniel;

for the spirit in Celsus did not know how to bless the righteous.

After this, let us look also at his next statement, which runs as follows:

"They have also a precept of this kind: not to retaliate against one who insults them;

"and if anyone strikes you," he says, "on the one cheek, offer him the other also."

"This too is ancient, having been very well said before, but they reported it in a more boorish fashion."

For indeed in Plato, Socrates is represented as discoursing with Crito as follows:

"Then one must not, even when wronged, return wrong for wrong, as most people think, since one must in no way do wrong."

"What then? Must one do evil, Crito, or not?" "Surely one must not, Socrates."

"And what of this? Is it just to do evil in return when one is ill-treated, as most people say, or not just?" "By no means."

"For doing evil to men differs in no way from doing wrong,"

"whatever one may suffer from them." These things Plato says, and again the following:

"Consider then, you also, very carefully, whether you share in this view and agree with me, and let us begin our deliberation from this point: that it is never right either to do wrong, or to return wrong for wrong, or, when one is ill-treated, to defend oneself by doing evil in return;

"or do you stand aloof and not share in the principle? For my part, this has always seemed so to me, and still seems so now." Thus, then, it pleased Plato; yet these things had also been determined before by divine men.

But concerning these matters, and the others that they corrupt, let what has been said suffice;

and whoever wishes to inquire further into them will be able to find out.

In reply to this, and to all the things that Celsus made common—being unable to look the truth of them in the face, alleging that they too were said among the Greeks—this must be said:

if the doctrine is beneficial and its intention sound, and it has been said among the Greeks by Plato or by some one of the Greek sages, and among the Jews by Moses or some one of the prophets, and among the Christians in the recorded sayings of Jesus or in things said by some one of his apostles—

one must not suppose that what is said among the Jews or among the Christians stands condemned merely because the same things were also said among the Greeks—especially if it can be shown that the Jewish writings are older than the Greek.

Nor again must one suppose that, on account of the beauty of the Greek diction, the same thing said is altogether superior to what is expressed more plainly and in simpler language among the Jews or Christians;

and indeed the original Jewish tongue, in which the prophets, using it, left us their books, has been recorded in the Hebrew dialect and with the wise composition of the things in that dialect, according to their manner.

But if it is necessary also to show that the identity of the doctrines—even though the assertion may seem paradoxical—is better expressed among the Jewish prophets or in the writings of the Christians, the argument must be constructed by means of an illustration drawn from foods and their preparation.

Suppose there is some wholesome food, capable of producing strength in those who eat it; and suppose this, when so prepared and seasoned with such relishes, is taken not by the untaught rustics and those reared on farms and the poor, who eat such fare, but only by the rich and those who live daintily;

but if it is prepared not in that way—and not as it seems good to those reckoned more refined—but as the poor and the more rustic and the great mass of mankind have learned to eat, then whole multitudes may eat it.

If, then, it should be granted that from the one kind of preparation only those reckoned more refined are made healthy, none of the masses partaking of such foods, while from the other kind the multitudes of mankind live in better health—

which providers of wholesome foods shall we, for the sake of the common good, the more approve? Those who prepare them serviceably for the cultured few, or those who do so for the multitudes? Since equal health and good condition—let it be granted—results from the foods prepared the one way or the other, surely it is plain that love of mankind and concern for the common good suggest that the more publicly useful physician is the one who has provided for the health of the many, rather than the one who provided for that of only a few.

If, then, the illustration has been understood, it must be transferred to the quality of the rational nourishment of rational beings.

And consider whether Plato and the sages of the Greeks, in the fine things they say, are not like those physicians who provided only for those reckoned to be more refined, but despised the multitude of mankind;

whereas the prophets among the Jews and the disciples of Jesus, who bade a long farewell to the elaborate composition of phrases and to what Scripture calls the wisdom of men and the wisdom according to the flesh—hinting thereby at language—would be like those who provided the same most wholesome quality of foods, prepared and made ready with a composition of words that reaches the multitudes of mankind and does not estrange their dialect, nor, through its strangeness, turn them away from listening to such discourses as if they were unfamiliar.

the one who ate it—how would a teaching not be better constructed if it makes multitudes patient and gentle, than one that turns only a very few, easily numbered men toward these virtues—granting even this much, that it makes them patient and gentle? For just as, if Plato had wished to benefit people speaking Egyptian or Syrian by sound doctrines, being a Greek he would have taken care to learn the languages of those who were to hear him and would rather, as the Greeks say, 'speak like a barbarian' for the improvement of the Egyptians and Syrians, than, remaining a Greek, be able to say nothing useful to Egyptians and Syrians;

so also the divine nature that exercises providence condescended, not only to the simplicity of the multitude among those reckoned educated in Greek learning, but also of all the rest of the hearers, in order that, using the expressions familiar to them, it might invite the multitude of the unlearned to a hearing—a multitude able, after the initial introduction, readily to aspire even to grasp the deeper of the meanings hidden in the Scriptures.

For it is plain even to any ordinary reader of these Scriptures that they are able to contain a meaning much deeper than what appears on the surface—a meaning made manifest to those who devote themselves to the examination of the word, and made manifest in proportion to the leisure given to the study of the word and to one's eagerness in its practice.

It has therefore been established that Jesus, when he said—as Celsus puts it, 'expressing himself rather crudely'—

'To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and to him who wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well'—set the teaching in motion in a way more useful for life, and presented it more effectively by speaking thus, than as Plato does in the Crito, which ordinary people cannot even understand, but scarcely those who have learned the preliminary studies before the august philosophy of the Greeks.

But it must also be observed that the meaning concerning patient endurance of wrongs is not spoiled by the lowliness of the wording; yet even in this Celsus slanders the teaching, saying:

'But concerning these matters and others which they corrupt, let what has been said suffice;

and whoever cares to investigate them further will find out.'

But come, let us look also at what follows, in which he says this:

'They cannot bear the sight of temples and altars and images.'

'For neither can the Scythians, nor the nomads among the Libyans, nor the godless Seres, nor other most impious and lawless nations.'

'That the Persians too hold this view, Herodotus records in these words:'

'I know that the Persians observe these customs: it is not their practice to set up images and altars and temples, but they actually charge those who do so with folly;'

'in my opinion, this is because they did not consider the gods to be of human form, as the Greeks do. Moreover, Heraclitus too declares somewhat as follows:'

'And they pray to these images, as if one were to chatter to houses, not knowing what gods and heroes are.' What, then, more wise than Heraclitus do they teach us? He at least, in a very cryptic manner, hints that it is foolish to pray to images, if one does not know what gods and heroes are.

'But these people [the Christians] directly dishonor the images.'

'If it be on the ground that stone or wood or bronze or gold, which this or that craftsman has fashioned, cannot be a god—their wisdom is laughable.'

For who else, unless he be utterly childish, regards these things as gods, rather than as votive offerings and images of the gods? But if it be on the ground that one ought not even to suppose them to be likenesses of God—for God's form is something other, as the Persians too hold—

they unwittingly refute themselves, when they say that God made man as his own image, and the form like to himself.

'But they will agree that these things exist in honor of certain beings, whether like or unlike in form, yet that they are not gods to whom these are dedicated, but demons, and that whoever worships God ought not to serve demons.'

In reply to this it must be said that even if the Scythians, the nomads among the Libyans, and the Seres—whom Celsus calls godless—and other most impious and lawless nations, and even the Persians, cannot bear the sight of temples and altars and images, it does not follow on that account that their refusal to bear these is the same as our refusal to bear them.

For [it is necessary to examine] the doctrines from which those who cannot bear temples and images set out in refusing to bear them;

so that, if it is from sound doctrines that one refuses to bear them, the one who refuses is to be praised; but if from mistaken ones, he is to be blamed.

For it is possible for the same thing to proceed from different doctrines.

For example, by way of illustration: those who follow the philosophy of Zeno of Citium avoid committing adultery, but so also do some who follow that of Epicurus, and some too of the wholly unlearned.

But observe how great a divergence there is, among all these, concerning the avoidance of committing adultery:

some [avoid it] because of the social bond, and because it is contrary to nature for a rational animal to defile a woman already taken under the laws by another, and to ruin another man's household; but those of Epicurus do not abstain from adultery for this reason, when they do abstain, but because they hold pleasure to be the goal, and because many things hindering pleasure befall the man who yields to the single pleasure of adultery—sometimes imprisonments or exiles or deaths, and often, before these, dangers as well, in watching for the husband's departure from the house and from those who share his interests;

so that, if hypothetically it were possible for the adulterer to escape the notice of both the woman's husband and all his household and those in whose eyes one is disgraced by committing adultery, then the Epicurean would indeed commit adultery for the sake of pleasure.

And if the uneducated man too, when opportunity to commit adultery is present, does not commit it, he would sometimes be found not committing adultery because of the present fear arising from the law and its punishments; and such a man would abstain from adultery not because he is pursuing greater pleasures.