Against Celsus 1 part 39/42

'If meat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to stumble.' Yet one must know that, while the Jews supposed they understood the law of Moses and observed, concerning foods, the partaking of those reckoned clean for them but abstaining from the unclean, and also not using the blood of an animal for food, nor things torn by beasts, and others (concerning which there is much discourse, and therefore it is not now opportune to examine them), the teaching of Jesus, wishing to call all men to pure worship of God, and not to hinder, under the pretext of the heavier legislation concerning foods, many of those able to be benefited in their characters by Christianity, declared that 'Not the things that enter into the mouth defile the man, but the things that come out of the mouth;'

for the things that enter into the mouth, He says, go into the belly and are cast out into the privy, but the things that come out of the mouth are evil thoughts spoken, and murders and adulteries and fornications and thefts and false witnessings and blasphemies.

And Paul also says that 'Food will not commend us to God;

for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.'

Then, since these things have a certain obscurity, unless they should chance to be articulated, it seemed good to the apostles of Jesus and to the elders gathered together in Antioch, and (as they themselves named it) also to the Holy Spirit, to write a letter to the believers from among the nations, forbidding as necessary only those things, as they named them, to eat;

and these are either things offered to idols, or things strangled, or blood.

For the thing offered to an idol is sacrificed to demons, and the man of God ought not to become a partaker of the table of demons;

and as for things strangled, the blood not having been drained off—which they say is the food of demons, who are nourished by the exhalations from it—the word forbids them, that we may not be nourished with the food of demons, lest perhaps certain such spirits should feast together with us, if we partake of things strangled.

And from what has been said concerning things strangled, the matter concerning the abstinence from blood can be clear.

And it is not improbable that, having come into these regions, I was reminded of a most graceful maxim, which also many of the Christians come upon, recorded in the Maxims of Sextus, running thus:

'The use of living things is a matter of indifference, but abstinence is more reasonable.' Not simply, then, do we abstain, according to some ancestral custom, from the things reckoned to be sacrificial victims and sacrificed to the so-called gods or heroes or demons, but for many reasons, some of which I have set forth in part.

But it is not the case that, just as one must abstain from all wickedness and from the things that come from wickedness, [one must abstain] also from the eating of all animals.

Yet one must abstain not only from the eating of animals but also from anything whatsoever, if we should use the foods out of wickedness and the things from wickedness;

for one must abstain from eating in gluttony, or from being led by pleasure apart from the purpose towards the health of the body and its tending.

By no means, however, saying that there is a transmigration of the soul and its descent even into the irrational animals, clearly we shall not, like Pythagoras, even if we should sometimes abstain from animals, [do so on the ground that] we will not use their flesh.

For we know to honour the rational soul alone, and to deliver up its instruments with honour to burial according to custom;

for it is fitting that the dwelling of the rational soul should not be cast away dishonourably and as it chances, like that of the irrational animals, especially when the Christians have believed in the honour of the body, where a rational soul dwelt, and that it [the soul], having nobly contended through such an instrument, has reached [Him] who received it.

But concerning 'How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?' we have set forth briefly in the foregoing, as the Scripture demanded.

...dedicated to the God who is over all;

We, then, as far as concerns foods and drinks, know no other ways of feasting together with demons than those according to which one eats the things called by the many 'offerings in sacred rites' and drinks the wine of the libations made among the demonic ones;

but Celsus thinks that one feasts together with demons even by partaking of grain and by drinking wine however come by, and by tasting fruits, nay even if one partakes of water alone, and in this too he says the drinker feasts together with demons.

And he adds to these that even the one breathing this air receives it too from certain demons, since the demons appointed over the air bestow upon living things the air of respiration.

Let him, then, who wishes set forth this argument of Celsus and demonstrate how it is not certain divine angels of God, but demons, whose whole race is base, that are appointed to administer all the aforesaid things.

For we too say that, not apart from the superintendence of invisible (so to speak) husbandmen and other stewards, not only of the things growing from the earth but also of all running water and air, does the earth bear what are said to be administered by nature, and the water in the springs and the native rivers rains down and is borne along, and the air is kept uncorrupted and becomes life-giving to those who breathe it.

Nevertheless we do not say that the invisible ones are demons;

but if one must venture to say what, if not these things, are the works of demons, we shall say that famines and barrenness of vine and fruits and droughts, and also the corruption of the air to the ruin of the crops, and sometimes also the death of animals and the pestilence against men.

All these things the demons work as executioners, having received by a certain divine judgment authority to perform these in certain seasons, whether unto the turning back of men who have run aground on the flood of wickedness, or also unto the exercise of the rational race;

that those who remain pious even amid such great things and become in no way worse may for the present be made manifest to the invisible and visible spectators who do not see their state, while those disposed contrariwise, but stealing the display of their wickedness, being convicted by what befalls of what sort they themselves are, may both perceive themselves and become manifest to the (so to speak) spectators.

And the psalmist bears witness to the fact that by a divine judgment the more dismal things are wrought by certain wicked angels, in the saying:

'He sent upon them the wrath of His fury, fury and wrath and tribulation, a sending by evil angels.'

But if something other besides these things also comes to pass when the demons are permitted—ever wishing to do these things but not ever able, because they are hindered—let him who is able examine it, picturing to himself, as far as is possible for human nature, the divine judgment concerning the sudden release of many souls from the body, of those who use such roads as lead to a common death.

For great indeed are the judgments of God, and because of their greatness not containable by a mind still bound to a mortal body, wherefore they are hard to expound, and to untrained souls are not even to any degree contemplable;

wherefore the more rash, by their ignorance concerning these things and by their officious meddling towards the Divine through rashness, increase the impious doctrines against providence.

We do not, then, receive each of the things for the needs of life from demons, especially those of us who have learned to use them rightly, nor do those who partake of grain and wine and fruits and water and air feast together with demons;

but rather with the divine angels appointed over such things, who are as it were called to the hearth of the pious one who has heard the teaching Word saying such things as these:

'Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.' And again in another place it stands:

'Whether you eat or drink, do all in the name of God.' When, then, we eat and drink and breathe to the glory of God and do all things according to the Word, we feast together with none of the demons, but with the divine angels.

For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

But it would neither be good nor capable of being sanctified, if, as Celsus supposes, these things had been assigned by appointment to demons.

From these considerations it is clear that we have also answered what he has said next, which runs as follows:

"Either, then, one must by no means and in no way live, nor enter into this life at all; or, having come into this life under such conditions, one must give thanks to the demons who have been allotted the things upon the earth, and render them first-fruits and prayers as long as we live, that we may find them kindly disposed toward men."

We must therefore live, and live according to the word of God, as far as it is possible and granted us to live according to it;

and it is granted us also when, whether we eat or drink, we do all things to the glory of God.

And we need not refuse to use, with thanksgiving to the Creator, the things which He has made for our sake.

And it was for these ends rather that we were brought by God into this life, and not for those which Celsus supposes; and we are not subject to demons, but to the God who is over all, through Jesus Christ who has brought us near.

And according to the laws of God no demon has been allotted the things upon the earth;

but through their own lawlessness they have perhaps divided among themselves the places where there is a desert of the knowledge of God and of the life according to Him, or where there is much that is alien to the divine; or perhaps, as fit overseers and punishers of the wicked, they were appointed by the Word that administers all things to rule over those who have subjected themselves to vice and not to God.

And for such reasons let Celsus, as one who is ignorant of God, render his thank-offerings to demons; but we, giving thanks to the Creator of all, also eat the loaves that are presented with thanksgiving and prayer over the things given, having become through the prayer a body that is holy and that sanctifies those who use it with a sound purpose.

But Celsus also wishes us to dedicate first-fruits to demons; we, however, dedicate them to Him who said:

"Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass, sowing seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind, upon the earth." And to Him to whom we render the first-fruits, to Him also we send up our prayers, having a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God; and we hold fast our confession as long as we live, finding God and His Only-begotten, who is made manifest to us in Jesus, kindly disposed toward us.

And if we long for a multitude of those whom we wish to find kindly disposed toward us, we learn that "thousand thousands stood beside Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand ministered to Him"; and these, beholding as kinsmen and friends those who imitate their piety toward God, cooperate in the salvation of those who call upon God and pray genuinely, appearing to them and considering that they ought to hearken to them, and, as if at a single signal, to come to the help and salvation of those who pray to God, to whom they themselves also pray.

For indeed, "They are all ministering spirits, sent forth for service for the sake of those who are about to inherit salvation."

Let the wise among the Greeks, then, say that demons have been allotted the human soul from birth;

but Jesus taught us not to despise even the little ones in the Church, saying that "Their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven"; and the prophet too says, "The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them."

We therefore do not deny that there are many demons upon the earth, but we say that they exist and are able to act among the wicked because of their wickedness, but can do nothing against those who have put on the whole armour of God and have taken up strength to withstand the wiles of the devil, and who ever practise themselves against their wrestlings, since they have come to know that "our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies."

Let us also consider another statement of Celsus, which runs thus:

"...a steward; and moreover even those who hold the lesser offices or charges or services could do great harm if neglected, while the satraps and ministers of the air and of the earth would do but little harm if insulted?" See, then, how he brings in the human satraps and prefects and generals and stewards of the God who is over all, and those holding lesser offices and charges and services, as doing great harm to those who insult them—not seeing that not even a wise man would wish to harm anyone, but rather, so far as he is able, to turn back and improve those who insult him;

unless indeed the satraps and prefects and generals of the God who is over all, according to Celsus, are worse than Lycurgus the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians and Zeno of Citium;

for Lycurgus, having gained authority over the man who had struck out his eye, not only did not take revenge but did not cease to charm him with persuasion until he prevailed on him to take up philosophy; while Zeno, to the man who said:

"May I perish if I do not punish you," replied, "And may I perish if I do not make you my friend."

And I have not yet spoken of those who have been formed according to the teaching of Jesus and have heard the saying, "Love your enemies and pray for those who treat you spitefully, that you may become sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust."

And in the prophetic writings too the righteous man says such things as these:

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

let the enemy then pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life down to the earth." But it is not, as Celsus supposes, that the true satraps and prefects and generals and stewards of God—the angels—harm those who insult them;

and if any demons do harm—those whom Celsus also fancied—they harm as being wicked and as having been entrusted with no satrapy or generalship or stewardship of God, and they harm those who are subject to them and have subjected themselves to them as to masters.

For perhaps it is also for this reason that those in each place who break the rule by eating foods deemed unfit to be eaten are harmed, if they belong to those under those demons;

but if some of those who are not under those demons, having neither subjected themselves to the demon of the place, are free from suffering at their hands, having bidden a long farewell to such demons, yet through ignorance about other matters have subjected themselves to others, they can suffer at the hands of those others. But the Christian—the true Christian, who has subjected himself to God alone and to His Word—would not suffer anything at the hands of the demons, inasmuch as he is mightier than demons;

and he would not suffer, since "the angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear Him and delivers them"; and his angel, who always beholds the face of the Father in heaven, ever bears up his prayers through the one High Priest to the God of all, and himself joins in prayer with the one over whom he has charge.

Let not Celsus, then, try to frighten us like children, threatening us with the harm that will come from the demons if we neglect them;

for demons, when neglected by us, could do nothing to us who are devoted to Him who alone is able to help all the worthy, and who none the less sets His own angels over those who are godly toward Him, so that none of the opposing angels, nor the one said to be the ruler of this age, may be able to do anything against those devoted to God.

Then, forgetting that he is speaking to Christians, who pray to God alone through Jesus, and confounding the doctrines of others and irrationally attaching them to Christians, he says:

"If one names them in a barbarian tongue, they will have power, but if in Greek or Latin, no longer."

Let him then point out whom we name in a barbarian tongue as calling upon him for help; and let him be convinced that Celsus has said this against us in vain—he who observes that the majority of Christians do not even use in their prayers the names that are set down in the divine Scriptures and appointed for God.

...in Latin; and thus each one prays to God in his own language and praises Him as he is able;

and the Lord of every language hears those who pray in every language as one, hearing, so to speak, a single voice according to the things signified, made plain out of the various languages.

For the God who is over all is not one of those who has been allotted some single language, barbarian or Greek, and who knows no longer the rest, or who no longer cares for those who speak in other languages.

Then after this, either having heard no Christian, or having heard some lawless and uninstructed person from among the multitude, he says that the Christians say:

"Behold, standing before the image of Zeus or Apollo or any god whatever, I blaspheme and strike it, and it does nothing to avenge itself against me"—not seeing that in the divine legislation there is also the command, "You shall not revile the gods," so that our mouth may not be habituated to revile anyone, since we hear:

"Bless and do not curse"; and we are taught that "the revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Who among us is so foolish as to say these things and not see that such conduct can do nothing toward overthrowing the belief about the so-called gods? Since even those who are utterly atheistic, who have done away with Providence and have begotten a system of so-called philosophers by their depraved and impious doctrines, have themselves suffered none of the evils that the multitude suppose, nor have those who embraced their doctrines; but rather they are wealthy and sound in body.

And if anyone seeks for harm among such people, let him see that they are truly damaged in their understanding.

For what greater harm is there than not to understand the Maker from the order of the world? And what worse misery than to have the mind blinded so as not to behold the Creator and Father of every mind? Having attributed such sayings to us and slandering Christians, who do not say such things, he thinks he is providing himself with a defence—one that proves to be a plaything rather than a defence—in which he says, as if addressing us:

"Do you not see, then, my good sir, that one who stands by your own daemon not only blasphemes it but proscribes it from all land and sea, and binds you who have been consecrated to it like an image and leads you away and crucifies you;

and the daemon, or, as you say, the Son of God, does nothing to avenge him?" This defence would have had a place if we used such language as he has recorded us speaking;

and yet even so he was not speaking the truth, in calling the Son of God a daemon.

According to us, then, who say that all daemons are wicked, He who has turned so many to God is not a daemon but God the Word and the Son of God;

but according to Celsus, who has indicated nothing about wicked daemons and has, I know not how, forgotten himself, Jesus is called a daemon.

Later, however, what is said about the impious will reach, after all the remedies which they did not accept, those who are caught in what one might call an incurable wickedness.

And whatever we say about punishment, we turn many from their sins through the teaching about punishment;

but let us consider what sort of answers the priest of Apollo or of Zeus, according to Celsus, gives:

"Late," he says, "do the mills of the gods grind," and "Even unto the children's children, who shall be born hereafter."

See, then, how much better than this is the saying: "The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the sons die for the fathers;

each one shall die in his own sin"; and this: "The teeth of him who has eaten the sour grape shall be set on edge"; and this: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son;

the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the lawlessness of the lawless shall be upon him."

And if anyone says that the saying "Even unto the children's children, who shall be born hereafter" is like the saying "Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me," let him learn that in Ezekiel such a thing is said to be a parable, when God blames those who say:

"The fathers have eaten the sour grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge"—to which is added:

"As I live, says the Lord, surely each one shall die in his own sin."

...to explain what the parable about the sins being requited unto the third and fourth generation signifies.

Then, reviling us like the old women, he says:

"You, deriding their images, mock them; but if you had reviled Dionysus himself or Heracles when present, you would perhaps not have got off rejoicing;

yet those who stretched out and punished your god when present have suffered nothing, neither at the time nor afterward in so long a life."

"What new thing has happened since that time, by which one might believe that he was not a man and a sorcerer, but the Son of God? And He who sent the Son for the sake of certain messages—the Son who was so cruelly punished that the messages perished along with Him—did He overlook it, and, though so long a time has passed, has He not turned to take notice?

What father is so impious? He, indeed, perhaps even willed it, as you say, and for this reason was so grossly outraged."

"But of those whom you blaspheme, one might say that they too are willing, and for this reason endure being blasphemed;

for it is best to compare like with like;

yet these at any rate vigorously avenge themselves on the blasphemer, either making him flee for it and hide, or be caught and perish."

And to this I would reply that we revile no one, being persuaded that "revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God," and reading the saying, "Bless those who curse you, and bless and do not curse," and knowing also the saying, "Being reviled, we bless."

And if reviling has any defensive purpose for one who thinks he has been wronged, the Word of God does not permit us even this;

how much more, where reviling displays great folly, ought we not to revile? And it is equally foolish to revile a stone or gold or silver shaped into the form of gods supposed to belong to those who are far from divinity.

In this way neither do we mock the lifeless carved images, but rather, if anything, those who worship them.

But even if there were some demons established in certain images, and one of them were supposed to be Dionysus and another Heracles, we do not revile even these;

for such a thing is futile, and by no means in keeping with one who is gentle and peaceable and serene in soul, and who has learned that one ought not to revile anyone, whether man or demon, even on account of his wickedness.

And I do not know how Celsus, against his will, has fallen into this: that those whom a little before he hymned as demons or gods, he now in fact shows to be utterly base, and to avenge themselves rather defensively than to punish correctively, whenever anyone reviles them.

"As if, had you reviled Dionysus himself or Heracles when present, you would perhaps not have got off rejoicing."

But how a thing not present hears anything, let whoever wishes explain; and why it is sometimes present and sometimes not present; and what business the demons have in migrating from place to place.

Next to this he says—supposing that we call God the body of Jesus which was stretched out and punished, and not the divinity in Him, and that we held it to be God when it was being stretched out and punished—that "those who stretched out and punished your god when present have suffered nothing."

Having said more about the human things which He suffered in the earlier sections, we now willingly pass over the discussion, that we may not seem to be repeating ourselves.

But since he says that even afterward, in so long a life, those who punished Jesus have suffered nothing, we shall show him and all who wish to learn that the city in which the Jewish people demanded that Jesus be crucified, saying:

"Crucify, crucify Him"—for they preferred that the robber, who had been cast into prison for sedition and murder, should be released, while Jesus, who had been delivered up through envy, should be crucified—that city, not long after, was warred against and besieged for so long a time that it was made desolate from its foundations and laid waste, since God judged the inhabitants of that place unworthy of the common life.

And sparing them, as I may say paradoxically, and seeing that they were incurably disposed toward change for the better and were daily increasing in the outpouring of wickedness, He delivered them over to those who warred against them.

...the plot against them upon their own land, which could no longer contain those who had dared so great a pollution against Jesus.

A new thing, then, has come to pass from the time when Jesus suffered, namely that concerning the city, and all that concerns the nation, and the sudden birth, as it were, of a nation of Christians brought forth all at once; and new too is the fact that those who were strangers to the covenants of God and aliens from the promises, who were far from the truth, have received it by some divine power.

These things were not the work of a human sorcerer, but works of God, who for the sake of His own messages sent His own Word in Jesus—so cruelly punished that the cruelty of those who unjustly punished Him is condemned—and who endured most manfully and with all meekness;

but His punishment did not destroy the messages of God; rather, if one may so put it, it brought them to knowledge;

as Jesus Himself also taught, saying:

"Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone;

but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Jesus, then, the grain of wheat, having died, bore much fruit; and the Father always provides for the fruits that have come, and are still coming, and shall yet come, out of the death of the grain of wheat.

Holy, then, is the Father of Jesus, who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, being His own Lamb, that He might take away the sin of the world—the Lamb of God who dies on behalf of the whole world;

for whom He endured, not under compulsion but willingly, the things brought upon Him by the insolent.

Then after this Celsus, taking up again his argument against those who blaspheme the images, says:

"But of those whom you blaspheme, one might say that they too are willing, and for this reason endure being blasphemed;

for it is best to compare like with like;

yet these at any rate vigorously avenge themselves on the blasphemer, either making him flee for it and hide, or be caught and perish."

The demons, then, suppose that the Christians avenge themselves on them—not by blaspheming, but by driving them away from the carved images and from human bodies and souls.

For not understanding what is happening, Celsus has said something true concerning this passage;

for it is true that the souls of those who condemn the Christians, and of those who betray them, and of those who approve of waging war against Christians, are filled with wicked demons.