駁瑟蘇斯 第 1 章 第 22/42 段

But Christians will not be persuaded by these things, having grasped beforehand that the human soul has come to be in the image of God, and seeing that it is impossible for the nature created in the image of God to obliterate its characters altogether and to take on others—I do not know in the images of what—coming to be in the irrational creatures.

...wishes, [man] increases the work of the Word that has set all things in order, and shows the resourcefulness in men, which is able by reason to set in order even the natural advantages of the irrational creatures.

But why do I speak of the irrational creatures, since to Celsus it seems that even the things called irrational according to the common notions of all are not irrational? For he who promised to speak about the whole nature, and who boasted of the truth in the inscription of his book, does not think even the ants to be irrational.

For he says concerning the ants, that they converse with one another such things as these:

"And moreover, when they meet one another, they converse, whence they do not even miss their ways;

therefore there is among them also a completeness of reason, and common notions of certain universals, and voice, and things that happen [referents], and things signified [meanings]."

For one's conversing with another takes place by means of a voice that makes clear some meaning, and often also announcing concerning the so-called referents;

and to say that these exist also among ants—how would this not be the most ridiculous of all? And he is not even ashamed to add to these things—so that he may display the unseemliness of his own doctrines even to those who will come after him—saying:

"Come now, if someone should look down from heaven upon the earth, what would seem to differ between the things done by us and those done by ants and bees?" Now the one who, according to his hypothesis, looks from heaven upon the earth at the things done by men and the things done by ants—does he discern the bodies of men and of ants, but fail to perceive the rational governing faculty moved by reasoning, and again, in turn, the irrational governing faculty moved irrationally by impulse and imagination together with a certain natural sub-structure? But it is absurd that the one who looks from heaven at the things on earth should wish to discern the bodies of men and ants from so great a distance, yet not much rather behold the natures of governing faculties and the source of impulses, whether rational or irrational.

And if once he beholds the source of all impulses, it is clear that he would also see the difference and the superiority of man, not only over the ants, but even over the elephants.

For the one who looks from heaven, in the case of the irrational creatures—even if their bodies be great—will see no other principle [in them] than, if I may so name it, irrationality;

but in the rational creatures he will see reason, the [faculty] common to men with the divine and heavenly things, and perhaps even with God Himself who is over all—wherefore [man] is said to have come to be in the image of God;

for the image of the God who is over all is His Word.

And next to these things, as one striving, as it were, to bring down the race of men still further and to make them like the irrational creatures, and wishing to leave nothing of the things recorded among the irrational creatures that exhibit the greater [endowment], he says that even the matters of sorcery exist among some of the irrational creatures;

so that not even in this should men pride themselves exceptionally, nor wish to have superiority over the irrational creatures.

"And if men also pride themselves on sorcery, then in this respect too serpents and eagles are wiser;

for they at least know many antidotes and counter-charms, and indeed also the powers of certain stones for the preservation of their young—which, if men chance upon them, they think they possess some wonderful acquisition."

And first, I do not know how he named 'sorcery' the experience—or some natural apprehension—of the animals concerning natural antidotes;

for the name of sorcery has been worn into use for something else;

unless perhaps he secretly wishes, as an Epicurean, to slander all use of such things as lying within the profession of sorcerers.

Nevertheless, let it be granted to him that men pride themselves greatly on the knowledge of these things, whether they be sorcerers or not;

how are serpents wiser than men in this respect, using fennel for keen-sightedness and swiftness of motion, apprehending this one thing as natural, not by reasoning but by constitution? But men do not come to such a thing from bare nature, in the way serpents do;

but partly from experience, partly from reason, and sometimes from inference and according to knowledge.

...wiser than men—those [men] who from experience discovered, through reasoning and using mind, the natural remedy given to the eagles? But let it also [be granted] that other antidotes are known by the animals; what then does this [contribute] toward [showing] that it is not nature but reason which discovers these things among the animals? For if it were reason that discovered them, this one particular thing would not be found exclusively among serpents—let there be a second and a third—and some other thing in the eagle, and so on among the rest of the animals; but there would be as many as there are also among men;

but as it is, it is manifest, from the fact that the remedies have been allotted exclusively toward the particular nature of each animal, that there is no wisdom nor reason in them, but a certain natural constitution toward such things, for the sake of the animals' preservation, brought into being by the Word [Reason].

And yet, if I had wished to come to grips with Celsus on these matters, I would have used a saying of Solomon from the Proverbs that runs thus:

"There are four things that are least upon the earth, and these are wiser than the wise:

the ants, which have no strength, yet prepare their food in the summer;

and the rock-rabbits [conies], a nation that is not strong, who have made their dwellings in the rocks;

the locust has no king, yet it marches forth in good order at one command;

and the lizard [or gecko], supporting itself with its hands and easily caught, yet dwells in kings' strongholds." But I do not employ these utterances as if they were plain; rather, consistently with the inscription—for the book is inscribed 'Proverbs'—I seek out these things as riddles.

For it is the custom of these men [the inspired writers] to divide into many kinds the things which, while indicating one thing directly, announce another by implication—of which one kind is the proverbs.

Wherefore also in our Gospels it is written that our Savior said:

"These things I have spoken to you in proverbs [figures];

the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs." Therefore it is not the perceptible ants that are wiser than the wise, but those signified as in the form of proverbs.

And one must speak in this way also concerning the rest of the animals;

but Celsus thinks the books of the Jews and Christians to be utterly simple and unlettered, and supposes that those who allegorize them do so by forcing the intent of the writers.

Let Celsus, then, be refuted also through these things, as one who vainly slanders us;

and let his argument about serpents and eagles also be refuted, which declared them to be wiser than men.

And wishing still, through more [arguments], [to maintain] that not even the notions concerning the divine are exceptional, among all mortal things, in the race of men, but [wishing] to declare that some of the irrational animals too have notions concerning God—concerning whom there have arisen so many disagreements even among the keenest of men everywhere, both Greeks and barbarians—he says that, if it is because man has laid hold of a divine notion that he is thought to surpass the other animals,

"let those who say this know that many of the other animals also will lay claim to this;

for what would one call more divine than to foreknow and foreshow things to come? This, then, men learn from the other animals, and especially from birds;

and as many as understand the indications of those [birds], these are diviners."

"And if birds, then, and as many other animals as are prophetic, foreknowing from God, teach us by signs, those [creatures] seem to be so much the nearer to divine converse, and to be wiser and more dear to God.

And the understanding among men say that there are also conversations among those [animals]—manifestly more sacred than ours—and that they themselves somehow recognize the things said, and show by deed that they recognize them, when, having foretold that the birds said they would go off somewhere and do this or that, they show [them] having gone off there and doing the very things they foretold."

"And nothing seems to be more true to its oaths, or more faithful toward divine things, than elephants—doubtless because they have knowledge of [the divine]."

But observe in these things how many matters that are subjects of inquiry among the philosophers, not only of the Greeks but also among the barbarians—whether they discovered, or learned from certain demons, the things concerning omens and the other animals from which certain divinations are said to come to men—he snatches up and sets forth as agreed upon.

...whether there is a certain art of augury and, in short, divination by means of animals, or there is not;

and secondly, among those who have accepted that divination by birds exists, the cause of the manner of divination is not agreed upon;

since some say that the motions occur to the animals from certain divinatory demons or gods—to birds, into different flights and into different cries, and to the rest, into such-and-such motions or such others—while others [say] that their souls are more divine and suited to this, which is most implausible.

Celsus, then, since he wished, through the foregoing, to prove the irrational animals more divine and wiser than men, ought to have established at greater length that such divination exists, and after that to have demonstrated the explanation more clearly, and demonstratively to have rejected the arguments of those who do away with such divinations, and demonstratively to have overturned the arguments of those who said the motions occur to the animals from demons or gods for the purpose of divining, and after these things to have established, concerning the soul of the irrational animals, that it is more divine.

For thus, against his plausible arguments—he having displayed a philosophical disposition concerning such great matters—we would have stood our ground as far as we were able;

overturning the [claim] that the irrational animals are wiser than men, and proving false also [the claims] that [the animal] has notions of the divine more sacred than ours, and that it has certain sacred conversations with one another.

But as it is, he who charges us with believing in the God who is over all demands that we believe that the souls of birds have more divine and clearer notions than men.

And if this is true, the birds have clearer notions concerning God than Celsus;

and it is no wonder if [clearer] than Celsus's, seeing that he debases man to such a degree.

But indeed, so far as it depends on Celsus, the birds have greater and more divine notions—I do not say than us Christians, or than the Jews who use the same Scriptures as we, but indeed even than the theologians among the Greeks;

so that, according to Celsus, the race of the supposedly prophetic birds has apprehended the nature of the divine more than Pherecydes and Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato.

And we ought to resort to the birds as our teachers;

so that, just as according to Celsus's supposition they teach us divinatorily the things to come, so also they may deliver men from doubting concerning the divine, by handing on the clear notion concerning Him which they have apprehended.

It follows, then, for Celsus, who holds that birds surpass men, to use birds as teachers, and none of those who have philosophized among the Greeks;

but for us, against the matters set forth, a few things out of many must be said, which expose his ungrateful false-opinion toward the One who made him;

for being a man, and being Celsus, though in honor, he did not understand; therefore neither was he compared [favorably], but rather he likened himself to the birds and the other irrational animals which he thinks to be prophetic; nay, yielding to them the first place above the Egyptians—who worship the irrational animals as gods—he subjected himself, and, so far as it depended on him, the whole race of men as well, to the irrational animals, as thinking worse and less concerning the divine.

First of all, then, let it be inquired whether the divination by means of birds and the rest of the animals believed to be prophetic exists or does not exist.

For indeed the argument is not to be despised, attempted in either direction;

in the one case shaming [us] into not accepting such a thing, lest the rational [creature] should use birds instead of the demonic oracles, abandoning those; in the other case, by means of an evidence attested by many, establishing that many have been saved from the greatest dangers, having trusted divination by birds.

But for the present let it be granted that augury exists, in order that thus too I may show to those who have been prepossessed [by this view] that, even granting this, great is the superiority of man over the irrational animals, even over the prophetic ones themselves, and in no way comparable to them.

...the things to come, [the birds] clearly would much earlier have known the things concerning themselves;

and, knowing the things concerning themselves, they would have guarded against flying up over this spot, upon which men set snares and nets against them, or where archers, using as their mark the flying [birds], loosed their arrows at them.

And eagles, certainly, foreknowing the plot against their young—whether of serpents climbing up to them and destroying them, or of certain men taking them either for sport or for some other use and service—would not have nested where they were going to be plotted against;

and, in short, none of these animals would ever have been capable of capture by men, as being more divine and wiser than men.

But indeed, if birds of omen fight against birds of omen, and—as Celsus says—the prophetic birds and the other irrational animals, having a divine nature and notions of the divine and foreknowledge concerning things to come, foreshow such things to others;

then neither would the sparrow in Homer have nested where the serpent was destined to make away with it and its young, nor would the serpent in the same poet have failed to guard against being seized by the eagle.

For Homer, marvelous in poetry, says concerning the former [the sparrow] such things as these:

"a serpent, blood-red on the back, terrible, which the Olympian himself sent into the light, darting out from beneath the altar, rushed toward the plane tree."

"There were the sparrow's nestlings, helpless young, on the topmost branch, cowering beneath the leaves—eight, and the mother that bore the young was the ninth."

"There the serpent devoured them, piteously twittering;

and the mother fluttered about, bewailing her dear young ones;

and it [the serpent], coiling about, seized her by the wing as she shrieked around [it]."

"But when it had eaten the sparrow's young and the sparrow herself, the god who had revealed it made it conspicuous;

for the son of crooked-counseling Cronos turned it into a stone."

"And we, standing there, marveled at the thing that had come to pass."

"So when these dread portents entered into the hecatombs of the gods..."

And concerning the latter [the eagle], that: "For a bird came upon them as they were eager to cross over: an eagle of lofty flight, skirting the host on the left, bearing a blood-red serpent in its talons, a monster, alive, still struggling;"

"For it [the serpent] struck him [the eagle], who held it, on the breast beside the neck, bending itself backward;

and he [the eagle] cast it from himself to the ground, smarting with pains, and threw it into the midst of the throng;

and he himself, crying out, flew off on the blasts of the wind."

"And the Trojans shuddered when they saw the gleaming serpent lying in their midst, a portent of aegis-bearing Zeus."

Was the eagle, then, prophetic, but the serpent—since the augurs use this animal too—not prophetic? But [consider]: since the alternative is easily refuted, would it not also be refuted [to suppose] that both were prophetic? For would not the serpent, being prophetic, have guarded against suffering certain things from the eagle? And one could find countless other such examples, establishing that it is not the animals that have in themselves a prophetic soul;

but, according to the poet and the many among men, 'the Olympian himself sent it into the light,' and according to a certain sign, Apollo too uses the hawk as a messenger;

for the hawk is said to be Apollo's swift messenger.

But according to us, certain wicked demons and—if I may so name them—titanic or giant-like, having become impious toward the truly divine and toward the angels in heaven, and having fallen from heaven and rolling about the grosser and impurer bodies on earth, possessing some power of discerning concerning things to come, inasmuch as they are stripped of earthly bodies, and being occupied with such work, wishing to lead away the race of men from the true God, slip into the more rapacious and savage and otherwise more cunning of the animals, and move them toward what they wish, when they wish, or turn the imaginations of such animals toward such-and-such flights and motions;

so that men, ensnared by the divination [obtained] through the irrational animals, may not seek the God who encompasses all things, nor examine the pure worship of God, but may fall down in their reasoning to the earth and to the birds and the serpents, and further to foxes and wolves.

...come to pass, inasmuch as the demons are not able [to operate] in the gentler of the animals to the degree they can [in the others], because of the likeness of vice—and what is not vice but is, as it were, a kind of vice—in such animals, to work these things [through] these animals.

Wherefore, if there is anything else of Moses' that I have marveled at, I will declare this too to be worthy of marvel: that, having understood the differing natures of animals, and whether learning from the divine the things concerning them and the demons kindred to each animal, or himself ascending in wisdom and discovering [it], in his ordinance concerning animals he declared all those reckoned among the Egyptians and the rest of men to be prophetic, to be unclean, while on the whole those that are not such [he declared] to be clean.

And among the unclean things, with Moses, are the wolf and the fox and the serpent and the eagle and the hawk and the like.

And on the whole you would find these animals, not only in the Law but also in the prophets, taken as an example of the worst things, and never named for a good thing—a wolf or a fox.

There seems, then, to be a certain fellowship of each kind of demons toward each kind of animals.

And just as among men some men are stronger than [other] men, not at all on account of character, in the same way demons would be more powerful than [other] demons in their midst;

and these [demons], using these animals for the deception of men according to the will of the one called in our writings 'the ruler of this age,' and others, foreshowing through another kind [of animal].

And see to what extent the demons are foul, in that even weasels are employed by some toward making clear things to come.

And judge for yourself, with yourself, which of the two it is better to accept: that the God who is over all, and His Son, move the birds and the other animals to divination, or that those who move such animals—and, men not being present, [move them] as men [do not]—are wicked demons and, as our sacred writings have named them, unclean.

And if the soul of birds is divine because things to come are foretold through them, how is it not all the more [the case] that, where omens [from voices] are taken from men, we shall declare the soul of those, through whom the omens are heard, to be divine? There was, then, according to such [reasoning], a certain divine grinding-maid in Homer, who said concerning the suitors:

"For the very last and uttermost time may they now dine here."

And the great Odysseus, friend of the Homeric Athena, was not divine, but, understanding the omens uttered by the divine grinding-maid, he rejoiced, as the poet says:

"And godlike Odysseus rejoiced at the omen."

And now observe: if birds have a divine soul and perceive God, or, as Celsus names [them], the gods,

then clearly we men too, when we sneeze, sneeze from a certain divinity and prophetic power present in our soul.

For this too is attested by many;

wherefore also the poet says this:

"And he sneezed while [Penelope] was praying;" wherefore Penelope too says:

"Do you not see that my son sneezed at all my words?" But the truly Divine, for the knowledge of things to come, uses neither the irrational animals nor ordinary men, but the most holy and purest souls of men, whom it inspires and makes prophets.

Wherefore, if anything else has been wondrously said in the Law of Moses, such things too must be ranked among the like:

"You shall not practice augury, nor observe birds," and elsewhere:

"For the nations, which the Lord your God will utterly destroy from before your face, these will hearken to omens and divinations;

but to you the Lord your God has not so granted," and then next He says:

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren." And God, wishing once to turn [a man] away from augury by means of an augur, made a spirit in the augur to say:

"For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel;

in due season it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God will accomplish." Knowing these things, then, and the things akin to them, we wish to keep the commandment mystically spoken:

"Keep your heart with all diligence;"

And we pray that there may shine in our hearts the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God, the Spirit of God sojourning in our imaginative faculty, and imaging in us the things of God.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

But one must know that to foreknow what is to come is not in every case divine;

for in itself it is something neutral, falling to the lot of both the base and the worthy.

Physicians, at any rate, foreknow certain things from the medical art, even though they may happen to be of base character;

and so likewise pilots, even if they happen to be worthless men, foreknow signs of weather, the violence of winds, and changes in the atmosphere, from a certain experience and observation;

and surely no one will say on this account that they are divine, if they happen to be base in character.

False, therefore, is what is said by Celsus, namely:

'What could anyone call more divine than foreknowing and foreshowing things to come?' And false too is the claim that many of the animals lay claim to a divine conception of God;

for none of the irrational creatures has a conception of God.

False also is the claim that the irrational animals are nearer to converse with the divine;

since even those men who are still base, though they advance to the highest degree, are far from divine converse.

Only those, then, who are truly wise and unfeignedly pious are nearer to converse with the divine;

such as are our prophets and Moses, to whom, on account of his great purity, the Word bore witness, saying:

'Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the rest shall not draw near.' How impiously is it said by one who charges us with impiety, that the irrational animals are not only wiser than the nature of men, but also more beloved of God! And who would not turn away from a man who says that the serpent, the fox, the wolf, the eagle, and the hawk are more beloved of God than the nature of men? It follows for him to say that, if these animals are more beloved of God than men, clearly they are more beloved of God than Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras and Pherecydes and those theologians whom he praised a little before.

And one might pray for him, saying:

If indeed these animals are more beloved of God than men, may you become beloved of God along with them, and be made like to those whom you reckon more beloved of God than men.

And let him not suppose such a thing to be a curse;

for who would not pray to become wholly like those whom he believes to be more beloved of God, that he himself, like them, might become beloved of God? But Celsus, wishing the converse of the irrational animals to be more sacred than ours, attributes this account not to ordinary people but to the intelligent.

But the intelligent are, in truth, the earnest; for no base man is intelligent.

He speaks, then, in this manner, saying: 'The intelligent among men say that these creatures have converse'—clearly more sacred than ours—'and that they themselves somehow recognize what is said, and show by deed that they are not ignorant of it, when, having foretold that the birds said they would go off somewhere and do this or that, they show them having gone off there and doing the very things they had foretold.'

Now in truth no intelligent man has ever recorded such things, and no wise man has said that the converse of the irrational animals is more sacred than that of men.

But if, in order to examine Celsus's statements, we consider what follows from them, it is plain that, according to him, the conversations of the irrational animals are more sacred than the august discourses of Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the philosophers;

which is in itself not only absurd but most preposterous.

But that we may also believe some who, having learned from the inarticulate cries of birds that the birds will go somewhere and do this or that, foretell it, we will say this too—that it has been signified symbolically to men by the demons, with the aim that man should be deceived by the demons and have his mind dragged down from heaven and God to earth and to things yet lower.

I do not know how Celsus also heard of an 'oath of elephants,' and that these are more faithful toward the divine than we, and have knowledge of God;

unless perhaps he named the tameness and the kind of compact with men of those once brought under their control a 'keeping of oath'—which itself too is false.

For even if rarely, yet it has been recorded that, after their seeming tameness, elephants have grown savage against men and committed slaughters, and were on this account condemned to be destroyed as no longer useful.

And since he afterwards adduces, to establish, as he thinks, that storks are more pious than men, the things recorded about that creature—that it requites the stork in turn and brings food to its parents—

it must be said that the storks do this not from any contemplation concerning what is fitting, nor from reasoning, but from nature—the nature that fashions them willing to set forth among the irrational animals an example capable of shaming men, concerning the rendering of gratitude to those who have begotten them.

But if Celsus knew how much it differs to do these things from reason rather than to perform them irrationally and naturally, he would not have called the storks more pious than men.

Further, as if championing the piety of the irrational animals, Celsus adduces the Arabian creature, the phoenix, which after many years visits Egypt and carries its dead father, embalmed in a ball of myrrh, and lays it where the precinct of the Sun is.

And this too has been recorded; and it can be, if indeed it is true, itself also a natural thing, the divine providence having lavishly displayed, even in the differences among animals, the variety of the construction of things in the world, extending even to the birds;

and He brought into being a certain unique creature, in order that by this too He might cause to be admired, not the creature, but Him who made it.

Since, then, to all these things Celsus adds the following:

'All things, then, have not been made for man, any more than for the lion or the eagle or the dolphin, but so that this world, as being God's work, might come to be whole and complete out of all things;

for this reason all things have been measured, not in relation to one another, but in relation to the whole, except incidentally—that is, in relation to the whole.'

'And God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons it, nor does it become worse, nor does God after a time turn it back to Himself, nor is He angered on account of men, any more than on account of apes or mice;

nor does He threaten these, each of which has received its own portion in its part.'

Come, let us at least briefly meet these points.

I think, then, that I have shown from what was said before how all things have been made for man and for every rational being;

for it is principally on account of the rational creature that all things have been created.

Let Celsus, then, say that thus they were made not for man, any more than for the lion or for those he names;