And perhaps it is truly impossible for such a thing for those still in bodies, but it is by no means impossible for those who have been released from them.
Then next Celsus exhorts us to aid the king with all our might, and to labor with him in just causes, and to fight on his behalf, and to serve as soldiers with him, if he should press for it, and to share in command with him.
And it must be said in reply to these things too, that we do at the fitting time render to kings a divine aid, so to speak, taking up the whole armor of God.
1:5771
Καὶταῦταποιοῦμενπειθόμενοιἀποστολικῇφωνῇλεγούσῃ·
我們行這事，是遵從那使徒所說的話：
And we do this in obedience to the apostolic utterance which says:
"I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority." And the more pious anyone is, the more effective he is in aiding those who reign than the soldiers who go out into the battle-lines and slay as many of the enemy as they can.
And then we would also say this to those who are strangers to the faith and require us to serve as soldiers for the commonwealth and to slay men: that even among you the priests of certain images and the temple-keepers of those you regard as gods keep their right hand undefiled for the sake of the sacrifices, so that with hands unstained by blood and pure from slaughter they may offer the customary sacrifices to those you call gods;
If, then, this is done with good reason, how much more, while others serve as soldiers, do these men also serve as soldiers, as priests and ministers of God, keeping their right hands pure, while contending through their prayers to God on behalf of those who fight justly and on behalf of the one who reigns justly, that all things opposed and hostile to those who act justly may be cast down? And we, by our prayers casting down all the demons who stir up wars, who violate oaths, and who disturb the peace, are of more help to those who reign than those who seem to fight as soldiers.
And we labor together for the common affairs, we who offer up prayers with righteousness, together with exercises and disciplines that teach us to despise pleasures and not to be led by them.
1:5777
Ἡμεῖςκαὶμᾶλλονὑπερμαχοῦμεντοῦβασιλέως·
我們甚至比別人更為君王爭戰；
We even fight on the king's behalf more than others;
and we do not indeed go out as soldiers with him, even should he press for it, yet we do serve as soldiers on his behalf, mustering a peculiar army of piety through our intercessions to the Divine.
And if Celsus wishes us also to lead armies on behalf of our country, let him know that we do this too, not doing these things in order to be seen by men or to win empty glory among them;
And Christians benefit their countries more than the rest of men, instructing the citizens and teaching them to be pious toward the God who watches over the city, taking up into a certain divine and heavenly city those who have lived nobly in the least of cities;
"You were faithful in a least city; come also to the great one, where God stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst He judges among gods," numbering you also among them, if you no longer die as a man, nor fall as one of the rulers.
But we, knowing that in each city there is another country-system founded by the word of God, call upon those who are capable in word and use a sound manner of life to take up the rule of the churches; we do not accept the lovers of office, but we constrain those who, through great moderation, are unwilling rashly to take up the common care of the church of God;
1:5785
ἀναγκάζοντος, ὃνπεπείσμεθαεἶναιυἱὸνθεοῦλόγονθεόν
那勉強他們的，就是我們所深信為神的兒子、那道、那位神的。
the one who constrains them being He whom we are persuaded to be the Son of God, the Word, God.
And if those who rule in the church of the country that is according to God—I mean the church—rule well, whether by being called or by being constrained, and they rule according to what has been ordained by God, they in no way thereby defile any of the laws of God.
And it is not by fleeing the more common public services of life that Christians avoid such things, but by keeping themselves for a more divine and more necessary service—that of the church of God—for the salvation of men; deeming it both necessary and just at once to take the lead, and being mindful of all: of those within, that day by day they may live better, and of those who seem to be without, that they may come to be among the venerable words and works of godliness, and thus, truly worshiping God and instructing as many as they can, may be blended into the word of God and the divine law, and so be united to the God who is over all things, through the Son of God who unites men to Him—the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness—every one who has been turned toward living, in all things, the life that is according to God.
And it is for the reader to judge, both of his treatise and of what we have dictated against him, which of the two breathes more of the true God, and of the manner of piety toward Him, and of the truth that reaches to men, exhorting them, by sound doctrines, to the best life.
Know, however, that Celsus announced he would compose another work after this, in which he promised to teach how those who are willing and able to be persuaded by him ought to live.
If, then, having promised the second treatise, he did not write it, it would be well for us to be content with the eight books dictated in reply to his discourse;
but if he both began and completed that one too, seek it out and send the treatise, that against it also we may dictate whatever the Father of truth may grant us, and may overturn the false opinions in it; but if anywhere something true is said, to that we may, without contentiousness, bear witness as having been well stated.