駁瑟蘇斯 第 1 章 第 17/42 段

And these things too came upon them from having misheard those [doctrines]: that in accordance with long cycles of time and the returns and conjunctions of the stars, conflagrations and floods come about, and that after the last flood in the time of Deucalion the cycle, according to the alternation of the universe, demands a conflagration;

these things made them say, in mistaken opinion, that God will come down bearing fire like a torturer.

And to these things we shall say that I do not know how Celsus, who has read much and shown that he knows many histories, did not attend to the antiquity of Moses—who is recorded by certain Greek writers to have lived in the times of Inachus son of Phoroneus;

and he is acknowledged to be most ancient also by the Egyptians, and likewise by those who have dealt with Phoenician matters;

and let whoever wishes read the two books of Flavius Josephus on the antiquity of the Jews, that he may know in what way Moses was more ancient than those who said that floods and conflagrations come about in the world according to long cycles of time;

of which Celsus says that the Jews and Christians, having misheard them and not understanding the things concerning the conflagration, said that God will come down bearing fire like a torturer.

Now whether there are cycles, and floods or conflagrations according to cycles, or whether there are not, and whether the [scriptural] word knows these things too—this is dealt with in many places, and in those where Solomon says:

What is it that has been? The very thing that shall be;

and what is it that has been done? The very thing that shall be done, and what follows—it is not for the present time to discuss.

For it suffices only to note this: that Moses and certain of the prophets, being most ancient men, did not receive from others the things concerning the conflagration of the world; but rather—if one must speak after attending to the times—others, having misheard these men and not accurately grasped what was said by them, fabricated, according to cycles, recurrences identical and indistinguishable in their proper qualities and in their accidents.

But we attribute neither the flood nor the conflagration to cycles and the periods of the stars, but we say that the cause of these is wickedness spreading abroad to excess and being purged by a flood or a conflagration.

And if the prophetic voices say that God comes down—the One who said:

Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord—we interpret it figuratively.

For God comes down from His own greatness and height whenever He administers the affairs of men, and especially of the worthless;

[Scripture] using the term according to custom, and in the same way also 'to ascend.'

But since Celsus, mocking, says that we say God comes down bearing fire like a torturer, and compels us at an inopportune time to examine deeper discourses, we shall, having said a few things—just enough to give the hearers a taste of a defense that overturns Celsus' mockery against us—turn to what follows.

Now the divine word says that our God is a consuming fire, and that He draws rivers of fire before Him, but also that He Himself enters in like the fire of a smelting-furnace and like fullers' lye, in order that He may smelt His own people.

When therefore He is said to be a consuming fire, we inquire what it is fitting for God to consume, and we say that it is wickedness, and the things done from it, and the things figuratively called 'wood and hay and stubble'—these God consumes like fire.

At any rate, the worthless man is said to build upon the rational foundation already laid down 'wood and hay and stubble.'

If then someone can show that these things were understood otherwise by the one who wrote them, and can establish in a bodily sense that the worthless man builds wood or hay or stubble, then it is clear that the fire too will be conceived as material and perceptible;

but if the works of the worthless man are plainly spoken of figuratively, being called wood or hay or stubble, how does it not at once present itself [to ask] what kind of fire is taken up, in order that such 'wood' may be consumed? For he says: The work of each, of what kind it is, the fire itself will prove.

If anyone's work remains—the work which he has built—he shall receive a reward;

if anyone's work shall be burned up, he shall suffer loss. And what kind of work being burned up could be spoken of in these words, except everything done from wickedness? Therefore our God is a consuming fire, as we have explained, and thus He enters in like the fire of a smelting-furnace, to smelt the rational nature, filled with the lead from wickedness and with the other impure materials of those who have adulterated the gold-like (so to call it) nature of the soul, or the silver-like.

And thus too rivers of fire are said to be before God, who will make to vanish the wickedness mingled throughout the whole soul.

But these things suffice as a reply to the statement that 'these things made them say, in mistaken opinion, that God will come down bearing fire like a torturer.'

But let us see also what Celsus next says, with great profession, in this manner:

Furthermore, he says, let us take up the discourse from the beginning with more proofs.

And I say nothing new, but things long since decided.

God is good and beautiful and blessed, and is in the most beautiful and best [state];

if then He comes down to men, He needs change—a change from good to bad, from beautiful to shameful, from happiness to unhappiness, and from the best to the most wretched.

Who then would choose such a change? And indeed it is the nature of the mortal to be altered and remolded, but of the immortal to remain the same and in the same manner.

God therefore would not accept even this change.

Now it seems to me that the necessary things have been said in reply to these matters by one who has expounded the descent of God toward human affairs spoken of in the scriptures;

for which descent He needs no change, as Celsus supposes us to say, nor any turning from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from happiness to unhappiness, or from the best to the most wretched.

For remaining unchanged in His essence, He condescends by providence and dispensation to human affairs.

We therefore also bring forward the divine writings, which say that God is unchangeable, both in 'But You are the same' and in 'I have not been altered;'

but the gods of Epicurus, being composite of atoms and, so far as concerns their constitution, dissoluble, busy themselves to shake off the destructive atoms.

But also the god of the Stoics, inasmuch as he is a body, at one time has the whole substance as his governing principle, when the conflagration occurs;

and at another time comes to be in a part of it, when the ordered arrangement [of the cosmos] exists.

For these men have not been able to make clear the natural conception of God as altogether incorruptible, simple, uncompounded, and indivisible.

[Out of] love for men He emptied Himself, in order that He might be able to be contained by men.

But surely no change from good to bad came about for Him, for He did no sin; nor from beautiful to shameful, for He knew no sin; nor did He come from happiness to unhappiness, but He humbled Himself, and was none the less blessed even when He humbled Himself beneficially for our race.

Nor did any change from the best to the most wretched come about for Him;

for where is the kind and benevolent the most wretched? Or is it time to say also that the physician, when he looks upon dreadful things and touches loathsome things in order to heal the sick, comes from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from happiness to unhappiness?

And yet the physician, looking upon dreadful things and touching loathsome things, does not altogether escape the possibility of falling into the same [diseases];

but He who heals the wounds of our souls, through the Word of God that was in Him, was Himself incapable of receiving any wickedness.

But if, because the immortal God the Word took up a mortal body and a human soul, He seems to Celsus to be altered and remolded, let him learn that the Word, remaining the Word in essence, suffers nothing of what the body or the soul suffers; but condescending at times to the one who is unable to look upon the rays and the brilliance of His deity, He becomes as it were flesh, being spoken of in a bodily manner, until the one who has so received Him, being gradually lifted up by the Word, is able to behold even His, so to speak, original form.

For there are, as it were, different forms of the Word, according as the Word appears to each of those who are being led to knowledge, in proportion to the condition of the one being initiated—whether he is making little progress, or more, or is already near to virtue, or has even come to be in virtue.

Hence it was not, as Celsus and those like him wish, that our God was transformed and, having gone up into the high mountain, showed His own form, far better than that which those who remained below and were unable to follow Him up to the height beheld.

For those below did not have eyes able to see the transfiguration of the Word into the glorious and more divine [form];

but they were scarcely able to receive Him as He was, so that it might be said of Him by those unable to see His better [aspect]:

We saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty, but His form was dishonored, failing beyond the sons of men. And let these things be said with reference to Celsus' supposition, since he did not understand the changes or transfigurations of Jesus that are spoken of as in narratives, nor His mortal or immortal [aspect].

But will not these things, and especially when they are understood in the way they ought to be, appear far more venerable than Dionysus being deceived by the Titans, and falling from the throne of Zeus, and being torn to pieces by them, and after these things being put together again and as it were coming back to life and ascending into heaven? Or is it permitted to the Greeks to refer such things to the doctrine concerning the soul and to interpret them figuratively, but to us the door of a consistent interpretation is shut—one that everywhere chimes and accords in the scriptures that come from the divine Spirit, which has come to be in pure souls? In no way, then, did Celsus see the intention of our writings;

wherefore he assails his own conception and not that of the scriptures.

But if he had considered what is consequent upon a soul that is to be in eternal life, and what one ought to think concerning its essence and its principles, he would not have so disparaged the immortal coming into a mortal body—not according to Plato's transmigration, but according to some other higher contemplation.

And he would also have seen one extraordinary descent, out of great love for men, for the sake of turning back what the divine scripture mystically named the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and which came down from the mountains to which the shepherd, in certain parables, is said to have come down, having left in the mountains those that had not gone astray.

But Celsus, dwelling on things he has not understood, becomes for us a cause of repetition, since we are unwilling to leave anything said by him, even in appearance, untested.

[He asks whether] God truly changes, as these men say, into a mortal body—and the impossibility [of this] has been stated beforehand;

or whether He Himself does not change, but makes those who see Him think [that He has], and deceives and lies.

But deceit and falsehood are otherwise evil, and one would only use them as in the manner of a medicine, either toward friends who are sick and out of their minds, in healing them, or toward enemies, taking forethought to escape danger.

But no one who is sick or out of his mind is a friend of God, nor does God fear anyone, that He should deceive in order to escape danger.

And to this it may be said, partly concerning the nature of the divine Word, who is God, and partly concerning the soul of Jesus:

concerning the nature of the Word, then, that just as the quality of foods is changed into milk in the nursing mother in proportion to the nature of the infant, or is prepared by the physician for the benefit of health for the sick man, or is made ready in this way for the stronger as being more capable;

so God changes the power of the Word, whose nature it is to nourish the human soul, for men, each according to his worth.

And to one it becomes, as the scripture named it, rational guileless milk; to another, as to one weaker, as it were vegetables; to another, the perfect, solid food is given.

And surely the Word does not falsify His own nature, becoming nourishing to each as each is able to receive Him, and He neither deceives nor lies.

But if someone takes the change with reference to the soul of Jesus, when it came into a body, we shall inquire in what sense he speaks of a change.

For if [a change] of essence, this is not granted, not only in that case but not even concerning any other rational soul;

but if [the change is] that it suffers something from the body with which it is mingled, and from the place into which it has come, then what absurdity meets the doctrine that, out of great love for men, brings down a Saviour for the race of men? Since none of those who previously professed to heal was able to do so much as that soul itself demonstrated by what it did, having voluntarily come down into the deaths that befall men for the sake of our race.

And the divine word, knowing these things, says many things in many places of the scriptures.

But for the present it suffices to set down one saying of Paul which runs thus:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him a name which is above every name. Let others, then, grant Celsus that He does not change but makes those who see Him think that He has changed;

but we, being persuaded that in the coming of Jesus to men there was not appearance but truth and clear reality, are not subject to Celsus' accusation.

Nevertheless we shall make our defense thus: do you not say, O Celsus, that it is sometimes granted to use, in the manner of a medicine, both deceiving and lying? What absurdity then is there, if something of that kind was going to save, that something of that kind came to pass? For indeed some discourses, when spoken to such characters rather according to falsehood, turn them back—just as the discourses of physicians too are sometimes of this kind toward the sick, rather than according to the truth.

But let these things be said by us in defense concerning other matters.

For it is not absurd that he who heals friends who are sick should heal the friendly race of men by such means as one would not use primarily but only out of necessity.

And the race of men, being out of its mind, needed to be healed by methods which the Word saw to be useful to those out of their minds, that they might come to a sound mind.

And he says that one also does such things toward enemies, taking forethought to escape danger.

But God does not fear any, so as to escape danger by deceiving those who plot against [Him].

And it is altogether superfluous and irrational to make a defense against what is said by no one concerning our Saviour.

But it has been said beforehand, in our defense concerning other matters, in reply to the statement 'no one who is sick or out of his mind is a friend of God;'

for he who made the defense says that such a dispensation came about not for the sake of those who are already friends but sick or out of their minds, but for the sake of those who, on account of disease of soul and a derangement from natural reasoning, are still enemies, that they may become friends of God.

Jesus is said to have taken up all the things of sinners, in order that He might deliver them from sin and make them righteous.

Then, since he represents in character, on the one side the Jews giving as their reason for the coming of Christ that is to be among them, and on the other side the Christians speaking of the already-occurred coming of the Son of God into the life of men;

come, let us also consider these things, so far as is possible, in brief.

The Jews, then, in his account say that the life [of men] having been filled with all wickedness, there was need of one sent down from God, in order that the unrighteous might be punished and all things purged, analogous to the first flood that befell.

And since the Christians too are said to add other things to these, it is clear that he means these things are spoken by them as well.

And what absurdity is there, that upon the outpouring of wickedness there should come One who will purge the world and deal with each according to his worth? For it is not in keeping with God not to halt the spreading of wickedness and to renew things.

And the Greeks too know that the earth is purged by cycles, by flood or by fire, as Plato somewhere says thus:

But when the gods, purging the earth with waters, flood it, those who are in the mountains, and so on.

It must therefore be said: if, when those men assert these things, what is reported is venerable and worthy of discourse, but when we ourselves establish certain things praised even by the Greeks, are these no longer fine doctrines? And yet, those who care about the articulation and accuracy of all things written will try to demonstrate not only the antiquity of those who wrote these things, but also the venerableness of what is said and its consistency with itself.

But I do not know how he supposes that, similarly to the flood which purged the earth (as the doctrine of the Jews and Christians holds), the casting down of the tower also came about.

For granting that the narrative concerning the tower, lying in Genesis, hints at nothing but is, as Celsus supposes, plain, even so it does not appear that this happened for the purging of the earth;

unless indeed he supposes that the so-called confusion of tongues is a purging of the earth;

concerning which the one who is able will give a more opportune exposition, whenever the matter set before him is to establish both what reasoning the narrative according to the passage may have, and the matters of its higher (allegorical) interpretation.

But since he supposes that Moses, who recorded the things concerning the tower and the confusion of dialects, corrupting the things narrated concerning the sons of Aloeus, recorded such things concerning the tower, it must be said that the things concerning the sons of Aloeus, I think, no one stated before Homer, but the things concerning the tower—being much older than Homer, and even older than the invention of Greek letters—I am persuaded Moses recorded.

Who then rather corrupt whose [accounts]? Is it those who narrate concerning the sons of Aloeus [who corrupt] the things concerning the tower, or [is it] he who wrote the things concerning the tower and the confusion of dialects [who corrupts] the things of the Aloeidae? But to impartial hearers Moses appears to be more ancient than Homer.

And the things concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, narrated by Moses in Genesis—how on account of sin they were destroyed by fire—Celsus compares to the narrative concerning Phaethon, having done everything consistently, with one error: that of not having observed the matters of Moses' antiquity.

For those who narrate the things concerning Phaethon seem to be even later than Homer, who was much later than Moses.

We do not therefore deny the purifying fire and the destruction of the world for the removal of wickedness and the renewal of the universe, saying that we have learned these things from the prophets out of the sacred books.

When, however—as we have said in the foregoing—the prophets, speaking many things concerning things to come, are demonstrated to have spoken truth concerning many things now past, and to give proof that a divine Spirit has been in them, it is clear that one ought to believe them also concerning things to come, or rather to believe the divine Spirit in them.

And the Christians too, according to Celsus, adding certain words to those said by the Jews, say that on account of the sins of the Jews the Son of God has already been sent, and that the Jews, having punished Jesus and given Him gall to drink, drew upon themselves God's wrath.

Whoever wishes [may say] that this is spoken as a falsehood—if the whole nation of the Jews was not made desolate, and that not even a whole generation after they had done these things to Jesus.

For I think it was forty-two years from when they crucified Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem.

And it has never been recorded, from the time the Jews have existed, that they were cast out for so long a time from their venerable worship and service, being overpowered by stronger [nations];

but even if they once seemed to be forsaken on account of sins, none the less they were watched over, and returning they received back their own, performing without hindrance the things appointed by law.

One of the things, therefore, that establish that Jesus was something divine and sacred is this very fact—that on His account so many and such great things have now for so long a time befallen the Jews.

And we shall say with confidence that they will not even be restored.

For they committed the most unholy crime of all, plotting against the Saviour of the race of men in the city where they performed to God the appointed symbols of great mysteries.

It was therefore necessary that that city, where Jesus suffered these things, should utterly perish, and that the nation of the Jews should be made desolate, and that the calling of God unto blessedness should pass over to others—I mean to the Christians, to whom has come the teaching concerning the sincere and pure worship of God, who have received new laws fitting to the polity everywhere established;

since the laws formerly given as to one nation, ruled by those of its own household and of like custom, were not such that all of them could now be fulfilled.

After these things, laughing as is his custom at the race of the Jews and Christians, he has compared them all to a swarm of bats, or to ants coming forth from a nest, or to frogs holding council around a marsh, or to worms convening assembly in a corner of mud and quarreling with one another as to which of them are the greater sinners, and saying that 'God reveals and announces all things to us beforehand, and abandoning the whole world and the heavenly motion and overlooking this great earth, He conducts His polity with us alone and sends heralds to us alone and does not cease sending and seeking how we may ever be with Him.'

And in his own fabrication he makes us resemble worms, saying that 'God exists, then after Him we, who have come into being by Him, are altogether like God, and all things have been subjected to us—earth and water and air and stars—and all things are for our sake, and have been appointed to serve us.'

And the worms—that is to say, we—he further makes say that 'now, since some among us transgress, God will come, or will send His Son, in order to burn up the unrighteous, and the rest of us may have eternal life with Him.'

And he adds to all this that these things are more tolerable [coming] from worms and frogs than from Jews and Christians quarreling with one another.

To these things, then, we inquire of those who accept what is thus said against us, and we say:

do you suppose that all men are a swarm of bats, or ants, or frogs, or worms, on account of God's supereminence? Or do you not include other men in the image set forth, but, on account of their reason and the established laws, you keep them as men, while you have compared Christians and Jews, on account of their doctrines that do not please you, to these animals, degrading them? And whichever of these you say in reply to our inquiry, we shall answer, trying to demonstrate that such things are not properly said either concerning all men or concerning us.

For grant that you first say that all men, as compared to God, are likened to these worthless animals, since their littleness is in no way comparable to the supereminence of God.

What sort of littleness do you mean? Answer me, you people.

For if it is the littleness of bodies, hear that the superiority and the deficiency, with respect to truth that judges aright, are not judged in body;

for in that case griffins and elephants would be better than us men, for these are larger and stronger and longer-lived;

[but] the [scriptural] word raises the rational above all the irrational—but not above the diligent and blessed [beings], whether, as you say, the good daemons, or, as it is our custom to name them, the angels of God, or whatever natures there are surpassing men;

but [it does so] because the rational element in them has been perfected and has been qualified according to every virtue.

But if you degrade the littleness of man not on account of the body but on account of the soul, as being inferior to the rest of the rational beings, and especially the diligent ones, and inferior for this reason, that wickedness is in it—why are the worthless among Christians and those who live badly among Jews more a swarm of bats or ants or worms or frogs than the depraved among the rest of the nations? So that, according to this, anyone whatever, especially one given to widely-poured-out wickedness, is a bat and a worm and a frog and an ant, as compared to the rest of men.

So even if one is a Demosthenes the orator, with wickedness like that man's and the deeds done by him from wickedness, and even if another is an Antiphon, reputed to be an orator, who also did away with providence in the writings entitled 'On Truth'—similar to Celsus' title—

none the less these are worms wallowing in a corner of the mud of ignorance and want of knowledge.

And yet, of what sort the rational being is, it could not reasonably be compared to a worm, having starting-points toward virtue.

For these very dispositions toward it [virtue] do not permit those who potentially possess virtue, and who are unable utterly to lose its seeds, to be compared to a worm.

It is therefore made evident that neither could men in general be worms as compared to God;

for the [scriptural] word, having its beginning from the Word that is with God, does not permit the rational living being to be reckoned altogether alien to God;

nor [could] the worthless among Christians and Jews—who in respect to truth are neither Christians nor Jews—rather than the rest of the worthless be compared to worms wallowing in a corner of the mud.

But if the nature of the [scriptural] word does not permit even this to be admitted, it is clear that we shall not insult human nature, which has been constituted toward virtue, even though it sins through ignorance, nor shall we liken it to such animals.

But if, on account of the doctrines of Christians and Jews that do not please Celsus—which he seems not even to know in the first place—these are worms and ants while the rest are not such, come, let us examine the doctrines of Christians and Jews that are self-evidently displayed to all, alongside those of the rest of men, to see whether it will not be made evident to those who once admit that some men are worms and ants, that worms and ants and frogs are those who have fallen away from a sound conception concerning God and who, with a phantom of piety, worship either irrational animals or images or even the works of creation—when they ought, from the beauty of these, to admire the Maker and to worship Him—while men, and anything more honorable than men, are those who have been able to ascend, following the [scriptural] word, from stones and wood, and even from what is reckoned to be the most precious of material, silver and gold, and having ascended also from the beautiful things in the world to Him who made all things, and having entrusted themselves to Him as alone sufficient for all that exists and able to oversee the reasonings of all and to hear the prayers of all, sending up their prayers to Him, and doing all things as in the sight of Him who beholds what is done, and guarding themselves, as before a hearer of what is said, from speaking what is not pleasing to God.

Unless indeed such great piety—not overcome by toils, nor by the danger of death, nor by rational plausibilities—is of no help to those who have taken it up, toward their no longer being compared to worms, even if they were compared [to them] before such great piety;