Origen: Against Celsus
The Plainspoken Classics - Scriptorium Press (First Edition, 2026)
An original AI translation made directly from the source language.
https://openscriptorium.com


======== Against Celsus, Book 1 ========

Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, when falsely accused, "kept silent," and when charged, "made no answer," persuaded that his whole life and his deeds among the Jews were stronger than any voice that might refute the false testimony, or any words that might defend him against the charges. But you, God-loving Ambrose, I do not know why, wished us to make a defense against Celsus's false accusations against the Christians in his writings, and against the charges brought in his book against the faith of the churches.
as though there were no clear proof in the facts themselves, and no argument stronger than all writings—one that both dispels the false accusations and leaves the charges not even a shred of plausibility to carry any weight. Concerning Jesus, that he "kept silent" when falsely accused, it suffices for the present to set out the words of Matthew, for what Mark wrote amounts to the same thing. The text of Matthew runs thus:
"Now the chief priest and the council sought false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put him to death, and found none, though many false witnesses came forward. But afterward two came forward and said, This man declared, I have power to tear down the temple of God and raise it up again within three days. And the chief priest stood up and said to him,"
"You answer nothing? Is it not this that these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent." And that he also did not answer when accused, the following is written: "Now Jesus stood before the governor; and he questioned him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? To this Jesus replied, You say so. And while accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then"
Pilate says to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? And he did not answer him a single word, so that the governor marveled greatly." And indeed it was a thing worthy of wonder, to those capable of even moderate reflection, that one who was accused and falsely testified against, though capable of defending himself and demonstrating that he was liable to no charge, and to recount the praiseworthy things of his own life and of his powers, since these
had come to be from God, so as to give the judge occasion to declare something more favorable about him, did not do this, but rather looked down upon his accusers with contempt and a certain greatness of soul. And that if he had defended himself the judge would have released Jesus without even hesitating is clear from what is recorded about him, where it says: "Which of the two do you wish me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus"
"who is called Christ?" and also from what the scripture adds, saying: "For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over." Jesus, then, is always falsely accused, and there is no time, so long as wickedness exists among men, when he is not charged. And even now he himself keeps silent before these things and makes no answer in speech, but he defends himself in the life of his genuine disciples, which proclaims aloud
the things that set him apart, and which is stronger than every false accusation, refuting and overturning the false testimonies and the charges. I venture, then, to say that the defense you ask us to compose weakens the defense that lies in the facts themselves, and the manifest power of Jesus to those who are not without perception. Nevertheless, so that we may not seem to shrink from what has been enjoined upon us by you, we have undertaken to dictate, in accordance with
the power at hand against each of the things written by Celsus, whatever appeared to us capable of overturning arguments of his that can shake no one who is faithful. And may there never be found anyone who has embraced such love of God "in Christ Jesus" as to have his resolve shaken by the words of Celsus or of anyone like him. Paul, listing countless things that are apt to separate
"from the love of Christ" and "the love of God in Christ Jesus," greater than all of which was the love within him, did not rank reason among the things that separate. Notice that he first says: "What shall part us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or hardship, or persecution, or hunger, or want of clothing, or peril, or the sword? As it is written,
'For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we were reckoned as sheep for slaughter.' Yet amid all this we prevail completely, through him who loved us." Then, setting out a second list of the things by nature apt to separate those not firmly rooted in the worship of God, he states: "For I am convinced that death itself cannot, nor life, neither messengers nor powers, neither what now stands nor what is to come, neither might nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature shall have power to sunder us from the love God bears us in Christ Jesus our Lord." And it is truly fitting for us to take pride over tribulation that does not separate, or over the things listed after it — though not for Paul and the apostles. And if anyone has become like them, because he is, as Paul says, very far above such things, saying: "In
amid all this we prevail completely, through him who loved us" — which is a greater thing than merely conquering. But if the apostles too must take pride in remaining unsundered "from the love God bears us in Christ Jesus our Lord," they might take pride in this: that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers," nor anything else that follows, has power to "sunder them (from) the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Accordingly, I take no pleasure in someone who has believed in Christ in such a way that his faith could be shaken by Celsus — who no longer even lives an ordinary life among men but has already long been dead — or by any persuasive argument. I do not know into what category one ought to place a person who needs arguments to answer the accusations Celsus has set down in books against Christians,
in order to restore him from the shaking of his faith to a firm standing in it. Nevertheless, since among the multitude of those reckoned believers there might be found some so disposed as to be shaken and overturned by Celsus's writings, yet healed by the defense made against them — provided what is said here has some character capable of demolishing Celsus's claims and of establishing the
truth — we resolved to be persuaded by your instruction and to dictate a reply to the treatise you sent us; a treatise which I do not think anyone who has made even a little progress in philosophy would agree is a true account, as Celsus has entitled it. Now Paul, perceiving that in Greek philosophy there are things, not easily despised by the many, that are persuasive and present falsehood as truth,
After that he says: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ." And seeing that there is a certain greatness apparent in the arguments of worldly wisdom, he said that the arguments of the philosophers are "according to the elements of the world." No one
of sound mind, however, would say that Celsus' own writings are also "according to the elements of the world." And those he named a deceit having something delusive in it, and an empty deceit, perhaps to distinguish it from a deceit that is not empty—the deceit which Jeremiah, having beheld it, dared to say to God: "You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed." But Celsus' writings seem to me to contain no deceit at all,
and therefore not an empty one either, of the sort possessed by the writings of those who have founded schools of thought in philosophy and who have adopted no ordinary intelligence in doing so. And just as one would not call every mistaken diagram in geometrical demonstrations a false drawing, nor record it as such, when it is done for the sake of exercise arising from such things, so too the thoughts of those who have founded schools in philosophy must be regarded as comparable,
and what is going to be said, in a manner similar to theirs, should not be called empty deceit and "the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world." Now it seemed good to us to place this preface before the beginning, after we had dictated everything up to the point of the character Celsus assigns to the Jew speaking against Jesus, so that whoever is about to read what we have dictated against Celsus may first encounter it and see that this book has not been written for
those who are altogether firm in faith, but rather for those entirely untasted of faith in Christ, or for those who, as the apostle called them, are "weak in faith." For he spoke thus: "But the one who is weak in faith, receive." Let this preface serve as an apology, on the ground that we dictated the beginning of our reply to Celsus with one purpose, and what comes after the beginning with another. For at first we intended
to note down the chapter-headings and briefly what is said in reply to them, and then afterward to give the discourse body; but later the subject matter itself led us, sparing of time, to be content with what had been dictated in that manner at the beginning, while in what follows to contend, as far as we are able, in a more literary fashion against the charges Celsus brings against us. For this reason we ask forgiveness for the beginning,
as distinct from what comes after the preface. But if you are not moved usefully even by what follows in dictated form, then, asking the same forgiveness for that as well, I send you on—if indeed you still wish the refutations of Celsus' arguments to be given to you through dictated words—to those among us who are more intelligent and capable, able through composed speech and books to overturn the charges Celsus brings against us. Yet better
is the one who has not needed, from the very beginning, even if he has come upon Celsus' treatise, any defense against it at all, but who has looked down upon everything in his book as things reasonably despised even by an ordinary believer in Christ, because of the spirit within him. The first chapter for Celsus, wishing to slander Christianity, is that Christians make secret compacts with one another contrary to what is lawfully established,
That of agreements, some are open, namely those made according to law, while others are secret, namely those concluded contrary to what is lawful. And he wishes to slander the so-called love of Christians for one another, as arising from a common danger and capable of leading to oath-breaking. Since, then, he keeps harping on the common law, saying that the agreements of Christians go against it, we must say to this that just as if someone
who found himself among the Scythians, who have lawless customs, and had no opportunity to withdraw, were compelled to live among them, this person would reasonably, on account of the truth's own law—which, relative to the Scythians, would count as lawlessness—also make agreements with those who thought as he did, contrary to what was customary among the Scythians; so too, in the judgment of truth, the laws of the nations concerning images and their godless
polytheism are laws of Scythians, or of something even more impious than Scythians. It is not unreasonable, then, to make agreements contrary to what is customary for the sake of truth. For just as, if certain people were secretly making agreements to destroy a tyrant who had seized control of the city, they would be acting rightly, so too Christians, since the one called the devil among them, along with falsehood, plays the tyrant, make agreements contrary to what
is customary for the devil, against the devil, and for the salvation of others—those whom they are able to persuade to withdraw from the law of, so to speak, the Scythians and of the tyrant. Next he says that the doctrine is barbarian from of old, meaning obviously Judaism, from which Christianity has its origin. And to his credit he does not reproach the doctrine for its barbarian beginning, praising the barbarians as capable of discovering doctrines; but he adds
to this that the Greeks are better able to judge, confirm, and put into practice for virtue's sake what was discovered by barbarians. This, then, from what he himself says, serves us for a defense concerning the things laid down in Christianity, since they are true: that someone who came to the word from Greek doctrines and training would not only judge them to be true but, by practicing them, would also supply
whatever seemed lacking as measured against Greek proof, thereby establishing the truth of Christianity. But we must say further to this that there is a proof proper to the word, more divine than the Greek proof from dialectic. This more divine proof the apostle calls the proof "of spirit and of power"—the element "of spirit" resting on the prophecies, which are adequate to persuade the reader who attends especially
to the matters concerning Christ, and "of power" on account of the marvelous powers, which must be shown to have occurred, both from many other things and from the fact that vestiges of these still survive among those who live according to the will of the word. After this, having said that Christians do and teach what pleases them in secret, and that they do this not without reason, since they are avoiding
the sentence of death hanging over them, he likens their danger to the dangers that befell others on account of philosophy, as with Socrates; he could also have spoken of Pythagoras and other philosophers. To this we must say that with Socrates, the Athenians repented right away, and nothing bitter remained with them concerning him, nor in the case of Pythagoras either; at any rate the Pythagoreans continued their schools for a long time in Italy,
what was called Magna Graecia; but against the Christians, the Roman senate and the emperors of each period and the armies and the populace and even the relatives of believers, waging war on the word, would have prevented it from being victorious over the plotting of so many, had it not, by divine power, risen above and surmounted them, so as to conquer a whole world plotting against it. Let us also see how
he thinks he can discredit the ethical topic on the ground that it is common to the other philosophers as well, and not some solemn and novel teaching. To this it must be said that if all people did not possess, according to common conceptions, a sound preconception concerning the ethical topic, then justice for those who commit sins would have been closed off to those who introduce a righteous judgment of God. It is therefore not at all surprising that the same
God should have sown into the souls of all human beings the very things he taught through the prophets and the Savior, so that every person may be without excuse at the divine judgment, having the intent "of the law written" in his own heart — which the word hinted at through what the Greeks take to be a myth, when it represented God as having written the commandments with his own "finger" and given them to Moses, which
the wickedness of those who made the calf "shattered," as if it said, the flood of sin swept over them. And a second time, having written again, God gave them to Moses after he had hewn the stones, as though the prophetic word were preparing the soul, after the first sin, with a second writing of God. As for what he sets out about idolatry as though it were peculiar to those of the word, he also lays the groundwork for this by saying that they hold this view for this reason —
that they do not consider them gods made by hand, since it is not reasonable that things fashioned by the most worthless craftsmen, wicked in character, should be gods, often even made by unjust men. Wishing next to show this to be common property, as not first discovered by this man, he sets out a saying of Heraclitus which runs: "it is like as if one were to converse with houses, so do those approach as though
to gods who are lifeless." On this point too, then, it must be said that, just as with the rest of the ethical topic, conceptions were sown into human beings, from which both Heraclitus and any other of the Greeks or barbarians who thought of establishing this drew. For he also sets out the Persians as holding this view, citing Herodotus as recording it. But we for our part will add that Zeno of Citium too, in his Republic,
says: "temples will need no building at all; for nothing ought to be reckoned sacred, or of great worth, or holy, that is the product of builders and common artisans." It is clear, then, that concerning this doctrine too it has been written "in the hearts" of human beings, in God's own writing, what is to be done. After this, Celsus, moved by I know not what, says that Christians seem to have power through the names of certain demons and through incantations —
as I think, hinting at those who chant over demons and drive them out. But he clearly seems to be slandering the word falsely. For they do not seem to have power through incantations, but through the name of Jesus together with the recitation of the histories concerning him. For these, when spoken, have often caused the demons to be separated from human beings — most of all when those who speak them do so from a sound disposition and with genuine belief in them
however they may put it, the name of Jesus has such power against demons that at times it accomplishes its effect even when spoken by base people. Jesus himself taught this when he said, "Many will say to me on that day, 'In your name we cast out demons and performed mighty works.'" I do not know whether Celsus has willfully overlooked this and acted maliciously, or whether he simply does not know it.
In what follows he also accuses the Savior of having accomplished, by sorcery, what seemed to be his marvels, and of having foreseen that others too, once they had learned the same techniques, would be able to do the same things and would boast of doing them by the power of God—men whom Jesus drives out from his own citizenship. And he accuses him of this: that if he rightly drives them out even though he himself is guilty of the same things, he is base;
but if he himself was not base in doing these things, then neither are those who act as he did. But directly—even if the question of how Jesus did these things seems to admit of no refutation—it is clear that Christians make use of no practiced incantations at all, but rely on the name of Jesus together with other words that are believed according to the divine Scripture. Then, since he repeatedly calls the doctrine secret, on this point too
he must be refuted, since virtually the whole world has come to know the proclamation of the Christians better than the doctrines that please the philosophers. For to whom is the virgin birth of Jesus unknown, or his crucifixion, or his resurrection, believed by many, or the judgment that is proclaimed, which punishes sinners according to their desert and deems the righteous worthy of reward? Even the mystery
concerning the resurrection, though not understood, is bandied about, mocked by unbelievers. Given all this, then, to say the doctrine is secret is quite absurd. But that there should be certain things beyond the exoteric teachings, not reaching the multitude, is not peculiar to the Christian message alone, but belongs also to the philosophers, among whom there were some exoteric teachings and others esoteric. And
some, on hearing Pythagoras, were content with "he himself said it," while others were taught in secret matters not fit to reach ears that were profane and not yet purified. And all the mysteries, everywhere, both among the Greeks and among the barbarians, being secret, have not thereby been discredited. It is therefore in vain that Celsus, without even understanding accurately what is secret in Christianity, discredits it. He seems, with some cleverness, to be pleading a case
somehow on behalf of those who bear witness to Christianity even unto death, saying: and I do not say this, that one who holds fast to a good doctrine, if he is going to be endangered on account of it among men, ought to abandon the doctrine, or pretend that he has abandoned it, or deny it. And indeed he condemns those who hold the beliefs of Christianity but pretend not to hold them, or who deny them, saying that the one who holds the
doctrine ought not to pretend that he has abandoned it or to deny it. He must, then, be refuted as one who contradicts himself. For it is found, from his other writings, that he is an Epicurean; but here, because he thinks it more plausible to accuse our doctrine this way, he does not admit to holding Epicurus's views, and pretends that there is in man something superior to the earthly, akin to God, and says that for those in whom this is well disposed,
that is, the soul reaches out in every way toward what is akin to it—he means toward God—and longs always to hear and to be reminded of something concerning him. Notice, then, how spurious his own soul is in this: having said beforehand that a man who holds a good doctrine, even if he is going to be endangered by it among men, ought not to abandon the doctrine, nor pretend that he has abandoned it, nor deny it, he himself
falls into every one of the contrary practices. For he knew that if he confessed to being an Epicurean, he would have no credibility in accusing those who in whatever way introduce providence and set a god over the things that exist. Now we have learned that there were two Celsuses who were Epicureans: the earlier one under Nero, and this one under Hadrian and later still. After this he urges people to accept doctrines by following reason and a rational guide,
as though it were altogether a case of deception when someone does not give assent in this way to certain things; and he likens those who believe without reason to begging priests of the Mother of the Gods, to fortune-tellers from portents, to devotees of Mithras and Sabazius, and to whatever apparition of Hecate or some other daemon or daemons a person might encounter. For just as in those cases wicked men, preying on the ignorance of the easily deceived, lead them wherever they wish, so too, he says, it happens among the
Christians. He says that some, unwilling even to give or receive a reason for what they believe, employ the maxims "Ask no questions, only trust," and "Your trust is what will rescue you." And he says they say: "Wisdom in the world is a bad thing, but folly is a good thing." To this it must be said that if it were possible for everyone, having left behind the business of life,
to devote themselves to philosophizing, no other path ought to be pursued by anyone than this alone. For one will find within Christianity—not to put it too strongly—no lesser an examination of what is believed, along with an account of the riddles found among the prophets, the parables set within the Gospels, and countless other matters enacted or legislated in symbolic form. But if this is impracticable, in part because of life's
necessities and in part because of human weakness, so that very few indeed apply themselves to reasoned study, what better method could be found for helping the many than the one handed down from Jesus to the nations? And we do inquire concerning the multitude of believers, who have laid aside the great flood of wickedness in which they formerly wallowed: which is better—
that they, believing without reason, should have their characters somehow restrained and should be benefited through their faith concerning those punished for their sins and honored for their good deeds, or that their conversion should not be accepted along with mere faith until they have submitted themselves to a searching examination of arguments? For it is plain that virtually all of them, except for very few, would not even receive that benefit which they have received from simply believing, but would remain in
the worst kind of life. If, then, there is any other proof that the loving-kindness of the word has not visited the life of men without divine agency, this too must be counted among the proofs. For a cautious person will not suppose that even a physician of bodies, who has brought many who were sick to a better state, has visited cities and nations without divine agency; for nothing good comes about among men without divine agency. And if the one who has healed the bodies of many
or by leading it forward to what is better, heals it not without God's help — how much more the one who has cured the souls of many, turned them, and made them better, and has bound them fast to the God over all things, and has taught them to refer every act to his approval, and to turn away from everything displeasing to God, down to the very least of what is said or done or even comes into the mind? Then, since
they keep chattering about faith, it must be said that we, for our part, taking it up as useful to the many, openly admit that we teach people to believe — even without argument — those who are unable to abandon everything and follow a rational inquiry, whereas those others, without admitting this, do the very same thing in practice. For who, having been urged toward philosophy and having thrown himself, as if by lot, into some particular school of philosophers, or because he happened to have found such-and-such a
teacher, comes to this in any way other than by believing that that school is the better one? For he does not wait to hear the arguments of all the philosophers and of the various schools, and the refutation — the overturning of these and the establishment of others — and only then decide to belong to the Stoics, the Platonists, the Peripatetics, the Epicureans, or any philosophical school whatsoever; rather, by some irrational impulse, even if they are unwilling
to admit this, they arrive, carried along by an impulse, at practicing — let us say — the Stoic teaching, abandoning the rest; or, looking down on the Platonic teaching as more lowly than the others, or on the Peripatetic as extremely human and, more than the rest of the schools, honestly acknowledging the goods that belong to humanity. And some, disturbed from their very first encounter with the argument about providence, on account of the things that happen on earth to the wicked
and to the good, gave their assent too rashly to the view that there is no providence at all, and chose the teaching of Epicurus and of Celsus. If, then, one must believe — as the argument has shown — in some one of those who introduced schools of thought among the Greeks or the barbarians, how is it not more reasonable to believe instead in the God who is over all, and in the one who teaches that he alone must be worshiped, while the rest are, either as not existing, or as
existing but not worthy of prostration and worship, though worthy of honor, to be passed over? Concerning these things, the one who not only believes but also examines the matters rationally will state the proofs that occur to him and that are discovered by thoroughgoing inquiry. And how is it not more reasonable, since all human affairs depend on faith, to believe in God rather than in those others? For who sails, or marries, or
has children, or scatters seed on the earth, without trusting that a better outcome will follow — though it is possible for the opposite to happen, and it sometimes does? And yet the belief that better things, the things one prays for, will come about makes everyone dare even what is uncertain and could turn out otherwise. And if, in every action, it holds life together
though the outcome is uncertain, hope and the more auspicious faith concerning what is to come — how will this not, more reasonably, be embraced by the one who believes — beyond the faith involved in sailing the sea, sowing the earth, marrying a wife, and the rest of human affairs — in the God who fashioned all these things, and in the one who, with surpassing greatness of mind and divine magnanimity, dared to set forth this teaching before
everywhere in the inhabited world, amid great dangers and a death considered disgraceful, which he endured on behalf of human beings, having taught also those who were persuaded from the outset to serve his teaching to dare, amid all dangers and the deaths always expected, to travel abroad everywhere in the world for the salvation of humankind? Then, since Celsus says, in these very words: "If indeed they will be willing to answer me,"
not as to one testing them (for I know everything) but as to one caring equally for all, it would be well; but if they are unwilling and instead say, as they are accustomed, 'Do not examine,' and so on, then, he says, they must be made to teach what sort of things these are that they say, and where they flowed from, and so on. It must be said, in response to "for I know everything" — a most boastful thing ventured by him —
that if he had actually read the prophets, admittedly full of riddles and of sayings obscure to most people, and had he encountered the gospel parables and the remaining scripture of the law and of the history of the Jews, together with the apostles' own recorded words, and, having read them, had wished in good faith to enter into the meaning of the words, he would not have been so brazen, nor would he have said, "for I know
everything." Not even we, who have spent our time on these matters, would say: "for I know everything" — for truth is dear to us. None of us will say: "for I know everything of Epicurus," nor will anyone be confident that he knows everything of Plato, given how many disagreements there are even among those who expound him. For who is so brazen as to say: "for I know everything of the Stoics," or everything of the Peripatetics? Unless
perhaps he heard "for I know everything" from some uneducated, senseless laypeople who did not perceive their own ignorance, and thought that by relying on such teachers he had come to know everything. It seems to me he has done something like this: as if someone visiting Egypt, where the wise among the Egyptians, following their ancestral writings, philosophize at length about the things held sacred among them, while the laypeople, hearing certain myths
whose meaning they do not understand, take great pride in them — this person thought he had come to know everything about the Egyptians, having become a disciple of their laypeople and having mingled with none of the priests nor learned from any of them the secret things of the Egyptians. What I have said about the wise and the laypeople among the Egyptians one may also see concerning the Persians, among whom there are initiation rites, conducted with rational meaning by
their own learned men, but carried out symbolically by the many among them who are more superficial. The same must also be said concerning the Syrians and Indians and all who possess both myths and sacred writings. Since Celsus put forward, as something said by many Christians, "wisdom in this life is evil, but folly is good," it must be said that
he misrepresents the argument, not setting out the very statement found in Paul, which reads as follows: "If any among you supposes himself wise in this present age, let him turn fool, so as to attain wisdom; since the wisdom belonging to this world is, before God, mere folly." The apostle, then, does not say simply, "wisdom is foolishness with God," but "the
the wisdom of this world." And again, it does not say "if anyone among you seems to be wise" that he should simply "become foolish," but that he should "become foolish in this age, so that he may become wise." We call "the wisdom of this age," then, all the falsely reputed philosophy that is, according to the scriptures, being nullified; and we call foolishness a good thing not without qualification, but only when someone becomes "foolish" with respect to this age.
as if we should say that the Platonist too, trusting that the soul is deathless and holding what is said about it regarding reincarnation, has taken on foolishness in the eyes of the Stoics, who mock their assent to these views, and in the eyes of the Peripatetics, who scoff at Plato's "warblings," and in the eyes of the Epicureans, who charge with superstition those who introduce providence and set a god over the universe. And further, that it also, according to
what is pleasing to reason, makes a great difference to assent to these teachings with reasoning and wisdom rather than with bare faith, and that it was because of circumstance that the Word willed this too, so as not to leave people wholly without benefit — this Jesus' genuine disciple Paul makes clear when he says: "for since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through
wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the proclamation." Clearly, then, it is shown through these words that God ought to have been known in the wisdom of God. And since this did not happen so, God was pleased, in the second place, to save those who believe, not through foolishness taken absolutely, but through foolishness so far as concerns the proclamation. For Jesus Christ crucified, when proclaimed just as he is,
is foolishness of proclamation — as Paul too, being aware of this, says: "yet we proclaim a crucified Christ Jesus — for Judeans an offense, for the nations foolishness, but for the summoned themselves, Judean and Greek alike, Christ as God's power and God's wisdom." Celsus, supposing there to be a kinship among many of the nations regarding the same doctrine,
names all the nations as having originated this sort of teaching; but I do not know why he slanders the Jews alone, not reckoning their nation among the rest, as though it had either worked together with them and shared their thinking, or had held similar doctrines on many points. It is worth asking him, then, why in the world he has believed the histories of barbarians and Greeks concerning the antiquity of those he has named, while falsifying the histories of this nation alone.
For if each people set forth their own affairs with love of truth, why do we distrust the Jews' prophets alone? And if Moses and the prophets, out of partiality, wrote down many things in their own account concerning their own people, why shall we not say the same about the writers among the other nations as well? Or are the Egyptians, in their own histories,
trustworthy when they speak ill of the Jews, while the Jews, saying the same things about the Egyptians — recording that they themselves suffered many injustices, and saying for this reason that the Egyptians were punished by God — are lying? And this need not be said of the Egyptians alone; for we shall find an entanglement of the Assyrians with the Jews, and this too recorded in the Assyrian antiquities. Thus the Assyrians too were recorded as enemies to themselves by
Jewish writers, lest I seem to be jumping ahead by saying "the prophets." Observe, then, right away the self-love of a man who trusts certain nations as wise while condemning others as utterly foolish. For hear Celsus saying that there is an ancient doctrine from long ago, with which the wisest nations, cities, and wise men have always been concerned. And
he was unwilling to call the Jews a wise nation even in a way comparable to the Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Persians, Odrysians, Samothracians, and Eleusinians. How much better than Celsus is the Pythagorean Numenius—who has shown himself in many respects to be most learned, has examined a great many doctrines, and has gathered from many sources what he supposed to be true—when, in the first book On the Good, speaking
about the nations, he lists among all those who have held that God is incorporeal the Jews as well, not hesitating in his treatise to make use of prophetic sayings and to interpret them allegorically. It is also said that Hermippus, in the first book On Lawgivers, recorded that Pythagoras brought his own philosophy to the Greeks from the Jews. And a book about the Jews is also attributed to Hecataeus the historian,
in which the nation is credited, in a manner, with being so wise that Herennius Philo devotes his treatise On the Jews first to doubting whether the work belongs to the historian at all, and second to saying that, if it is indeed his, it is likely that he was carried away by the persuasiveness found among the Jews and gave his assent to that very argument. I am amazed, though, how Celsus ranked the Odrysians and
Celsus placed the Samothracians, Eleusinians, and Hyperboreans among the nations most ancient and most wise, yet he refused to grant the Jews standing among either the wise or the ancient—even though many writings survive among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Greeks attesting to Jewish antiquity, which I have judged unnecessary to lay out here. Anyone so inclined may instead read what Flavius Josephus wrote about
the antiquity of the Jews, in two books, where he assembles a great collection of writers testifying to the antiquity of the Jews. There is also current the Address to the Greeks by the younger Tatian, who most learnedly sets forth those who have written about the antiquity of the Jews and of Moses. It seems, then, that Celsus says these things not truthfully but out of spite, with the aim of accusing the origin of Christianity as dependent on the Jews. But
he declares Homer's Milk-Drinkers, the Gallic Druids, and the Getae to be nations both wise in the extreme and ancient, treating of matters related to Jewish teachings—though whether writings of theirs survive I cannot say; the Hebrews alone, however, he strips, so far as it lies in his power, of both antiquity and wisdom. Again, moreover, when drawing up a catalogue of ancient and wise men who benefited
those of their own time, and through their writings those who came after them, he cast Moses out of the catalogue of the wise. And as for Linus, whom he placed first among those Celsus named, neither laws nor sayings of his survive that turned and healed nations; but the laws of Moses an entire nation carries, scattered throughout the whole inhabited world. Consider, then, whether he has not, quite plainly and out of malice, cast him out of the catalogue of the wise
...and Moses. He says that Linus, Musaeus, Orpheus, Pherecydes, the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras gave accounts concerning these matters, and set down their own doctrines in books, and that these have been preserved until now. And he deliberately forgot the myth about the so-called gods as subject to human passions, a myth recorded above all by Orpheus. And in what follows, accusing the...
...history of Moses, he blames those who give it a tropological or allegorical reading. One might say to this most noble fellow, who titled his own book The True Word: Why in the world, my good man, do you solemnly claim it has been written that the gods fell into misfortunes as great as those your wise poets and philosophers record, engaging in unholy unions, making war on their own fathers, and cutting off their genitals—that they dared, did, and suffered such things...
...but when Moses says nothing of the kind about God, nor even about holy angels, but says far lesser things about human beings (for among his people no one is credited with daring what Cronus did against Uranus, or what Zeus did against his father, nor that 'the father of men and gods' had intercourse with his own daughter), do you suppose that those given laws by him are being deceived, led astray?
It seems to me that Celsus does something very like what Plato's Thrasymachus does: he does not allow Socrates to answer about justice as he wishes, but says, 'See that you do not say the just is the advantageous, nor the necessary, nor anything else of that sort.' For Celsus too, having accused, as he supposes, the histories found in Moses, and having censured those who...
...allegorize them—while also granting them some praise as being the more reasonable ones—in effect, having leveled his accusation as he pleases, he prevents those who are able from defending themselves according to how the matters actually stand. We might, in turn, propose comparing books with books, and say: Come now, my good man, take the poems of Linus, Musaeus, and Orpheus, and the writing of Pherecydes, and examine them side by side with the laws of Moses—history against history...
...and ethical discourses against laws and commandments—and see which of them is better able to turn even ordinary hearers toward itself on first encounter, and which of them can even wear its hearer down; and observe how the whole company of your writers gave little thought to those who would meet them directly, and wrote their own philosophy, as you say, only for those capable of reading it tropologically and allegorically. Moses, by contrast...
...composed his five books after the manner of a noble orator practicing rhetorical figure, everywhere carefully preserving the double sense of his language—neither giving the mass of Jews under his laws occasions for harm in the ethical sphere, nor, for the few capable of reading with more understanding, setting forth a text lacking in contemplation for those able to search out his intention. As for your wise...
...poets, it seems that not even their books are still preserved—books that would have survived had their readers perceived some benefit in them. But the writings of Moses have moved many, even among those foreign to the Jewish way of life, to believe that, in accordance with the promise contained in those writings, the one who first legislated them and gave them to Moses was the God who created the world. For indeed it was fitting that the...
...as craftsman, having set laws for the whole cosmos, to supply the arguments with power able to prevail everywhere. And I say this not yet examining the case concerning Jesus, but still demonstrating that Moses—far inferior to the Lord, as the argument will show—differs greatly from your wise poets and philosophers. Next, Celsus, wishing covertly to slander the cosmogony according to Moses, by implying that the cosmos does not yet
have a count of ten thousand years but falls far short of this, adds on, stealing his intention, to those who say the cosmos is uncreated. For the fact that there have been many conflagrations from all eternity and many floods, and that the flood in the time of Deucalion is more recent, having occurred not long ago, makes clear to those able to understand him that, in his view, the cosmos is uncreated. Let him then tell
us—he who accuses the faith of Christians—on what demonstrative grounds he found himself forced to accept that numerous conflagrations and numerous floods have occurred, and that of all of these the flood under Deucalion, and the conflagration under Phaethon, are the most recent. But if he brings forward Plato's dialogues on these matters, we shall say to him that we too are permitted to believe, with a pure and pious soul, in Moses, who has risen above everything created
and has attached himself to the creator of all things—that a divine spirit had taken up residence within him, presenting the realities of God with far greater clarity than the sages of the Greeks, the barbarians, or Plato himself. And if he demands from us arguments for such a faith, let him first give arguments concerning the things he himself declared without proof, and then we shall in turn establish that our claims stand thus. Yet even unwillingly Celsus has fallen into
testifying that the cosmos is more recent and not yet ten thousand years old, saying also that the Greeks consider these things ancient because, on account of the floods and conflagrations, they have not observed or do not remember things more ancient. Let the teachers of Celsus's myth about conflagrations and drainings-away of water be, according to him, the wisest of the Egyptians—the traces of whose wisdom are irrational animals worshipped, and accounts
presenting as reasonable that such a service of God is somehow withdrawn and mystical. And if the Egyptians, in dignifying their account concerning the animals, bring forward theology, they are wise; but if the man who has agreed with the law and lawgiver of the Jews refers everything to the creator of all, the one God alone, he is judged by Celsus and those like him to be inferior to those who
bring divinity down not only into rational and mortal creatures but also into irrational ones, beyond the mythical transmigration—the account of the soul falling from the vaults of heaven and descending as far as irrational animals, not only tame ones but also the most savage. And if the Egyptians tell myths, they are believed to have philosophized through riddles and secret things, but if Moses, writing histories and laws for an entire
nation, leaves them these, his accounts are considered empty myths that do not even admit of allegory; for this is what seems true to Celsus and the Epicureans. This word, then, he says, which he had heard from the wise nations and distinguished men, gave Moses a divine name. And to this too it must be said, granting to him that Moses heard an older account, and that this
handed down to the Hebrews, that if it was after hearing a false account, one neither wise nor solemn, that he accepted it and handed it on to those under him, he is culpable; but if, as you yourself say, he assented to teachings that are wise and true and educated his own people by means of them, what has he done that deserves accusation? Would that Epicurus too, and Aristotle, who is less impious than he toward providence,
and the Stoics who said that God is a body, had listened to this account, so that the world might not be filled with an account that either denies providence, or cuts it off, or introduces a corruptible bodily first principle — the very principle by which, for the Stoics, God is a body, since they are not ashamed to say he is changeable and alterable throughout and subject to transformation, and altogether capable of being destroyed if he has
that which destroys him, and escapes destruction only by good fortune, because there happens to be nothing that destroys him. But the teaching held by Jews and Christians alike, guarding as it does the unchanging and immutable nature of God, has been judged impious, precisely because it will not share in the impiety of those whose notions of God are impious, when it declares in its prayers addressed to the divine, "Yet you remain the same." And it is believed that God himself has said,
"I have not changed." After this, Celsus, without actually attacking the circumcision of the genitals as practiced by the Jews, says that it came to them from the Egyptians; here he places more confidence in the Egyptians than in Moses, though Moses states that Abraham was the very first human being to undergo circumcision. And it is not Moses alone who records the name of Abraham, claiming him for God, but indeed many of those who chant incantations to demons also use, in their
formulas, the phrase "the God of Abraham," doing so because of the name and its kinship with the God of the righteous man — which is why they take up the expression "the God of Abraham" — without knowing who Abraham is. The same must be said also concerning Isaac and Jacob and Israel, names which, though admittedly Hebrew, have in many places
been sown into the incantations of the Egyptians who profess to work some power by means of them. As for the doctrine of circumcision, which began with Abraham and was forbidden by Jesus, who did not wish his own disciples to do the same thing — it is not my present purpose to explain it. For the present occasion is not for teaching about these matters, but for a contest that demolishes the charges brought by Celsus against the doctrine of the Jews, since he thinks
he will more quickly prove Christianity false if, by attacking its origin — which lies in the Jewish writings — he shows that origin too to be false. Next after this Celsus says that goatherds and shepherds, following the one who led them, namely Moses, were led astray by rustic deceptions and came to believe there is one God. Let him show, then, how — when, as he supposes, goatherds and shepherds irrationally abandoned the worship of the gods —
he himself can establish the multitude of gods held by the Greeks or the rest of the barbarians. Let him show the subsistence and essence of Mnemosyne bearing the Muses from Zeus, or of Themis bearing the Hours, or let him demonstrate that the Graces, forever naked, are able to subsist according to essence. But he will not be able to embody the fictions of the Greeks, which merely seem, from the events, to point to gods. For why should the myths of the Greeks about the gods
Are they true — or shall I say, are the Egyptians' names true, who in their own dialect know nothing of Mnemosyne as mother of the nine Muses, nor of Themis as mother of the Seasons, nor of Eurynome as one of the Graces, nor the rest of their names? How much more effective, then, and better than all these fabrications, is the belief which, persuaded by the things that are seen, worships the craftsman of the world according to the good order of the cosmos — a craftsman who is one, since the cosmos is one
and breathes together as a whole with itself, and for this reason cannot have come into being through many craftsmen, just as the entire heaven is not sustained by many souls in motion; for one soul suffices to carry the whole fixed sphere from east to west and to enclose everything within it. The things the world needs are things that are not self-sufficient. For all things are parts of the world, but no part
of the whole is god; for god must not be incomplete, just as a part is incomplete. But perhaps a deeper argument will show that, properly speaking, god is neither a part, nor likewise a whole, since a whole is composed of parts; and argument does not allow us to accept that the god over all is composed of parts, of which each is incapable of what the other parts are.
After this he says that the goatherds and shepherds conceived of one god, whether Most High, or Adonai, or the Heavenly One, or Sabaoth, or however and by whatever name they are pleased to call this world — and they knew nothing more. And next he says it makes no difference whether one calls the god over all by the name current among the Greeks, Zeus, or by that of the god, let us say,
among the Indians, or that of the god among the Egyptians. To this too it must be said that a deep and hidden argument falls within the subject before us — that concerning the nature of names: whether, as Aristotle supposes, names exist by convention, or, as those of the Stoa hold, by nature, the first utterances imitating the things they name, in accordance with which they even introduce certain elements
of etymology — or, as Epicurus teaches, differently from what those of the Stoa suppose, names exist by nature, the first human beings having burst out with certain utterances directed at the things. If, then, we are able in a preceding discussion to set forth the nature of effective names, some of which the wise men among the Egyptians use, or the learned among the magi among the Persians, or those among the Indians
who philosophize, the Brahmans or the Samanaeans — and so among each of the nations — and if we are able to establish that what is called magic is not, as those of the school of Epicurus and Aristotle suppose, a thing wholly without coherence, but, as those skilled in these matters demonstrate, a coherent thing, possessing principles known to very few — then we shall say that the name Sabaoth, and
Adonai, and whatever other names are handed down among the Hebrews with great solemnity, are not applied to ordinary, created things, but to a certain hidden theology referring to the maker of all things. That is why these names, when spoken together with the sequence proper to them, have power. But other names, current in the Egyptian tongue, are applied to certain demons — those which have power over these things alone
and other names in the Persian language for other powers, and so on for each of the nations, are taken up for certain uses. And in this way it will be found that among the daimones on earth, who have been allotted different regions, the names in use correspond appropriately to the local and national dialects. So anyone of somewhat greater discernment, even if he has grasped only a little of these considerations, will be cautious about fitting names belonging to one thing onto another, for fear he may
suffer something like what happens to those who, in error, attach the name "god" to matter devoid of soul, or who pull the designation "the good" down from its first cause—or away from virtue and nobility of character—applying it instead to blind wealth, or to a well-balanced state of flesh, blood, and bone in health and vigor, or to what people count as noble birth. And perhaps the danger is no less
for one who drags the name of God, or the name of the Good, down to what it ought not be applied to, than for one who interchanges the names belonging to a certain hidden system of reasoning, applying the names of the lesser powers to the greater and those of the greater to the lesser. And I do not mean merely that the name Zeus immediately brings to mind the son of Cronus and Rhea,
the husband of Hera, the brother of Poseidon, the father of Athena and Artemis, and the one who had intercourse with his own daughter Persephone; or that the name Apollo brings to mind the son of Leto and Zeus, the brother of Artemis, and the brother by the same father of Hermes, and all the other things that the wise fathers of Celsus's doctrines and the ancient theologians of the Greeks report. For what is the basis for the arbitrary rule that Zeus
is used in its proper sense while it is not also proper to say that his father is Cronus and his mother Rhea? The same must be done for the other so-called gods as well. But this charge does not touch in the least those who, following a certain hidden system of reasoning, apply the name Sabaoth to God, or Adonai, or one of the remaining names. And whenever someone becomes capable of reasoning philosophically about names in light of their hidden meanings,
he would find much also concerning the invocation of God's angels — one bears the name Michael, a second Gabriel, a third Raphael — names fittingly assigned to the tasks each performs throughout the universe under the purpose of the God who governs all things. And our Jesus too holds to a similar philosophy concerning names, for his name
has already been seen, in countless clear instances, driving daimones out of souls and bodies, and working effectively upon those from whom they were driven out. Further, on the subject of names it must be said that those skilled in the use of incantations report that the same incantation, spoken in its own proper language, is able to produce the effect which the incantation promises; but if it is translated into any other language whatsoever, it can be seen to be
powerless and capable of nothing. It is therefore not the meanings attached to things but rather the qualities and peculiar properties belonging to the sounds themselves that carry a certain power toward this or that effect. And it is by such considerations that we shall also give our defense concerning why Christians contend even unto death not to proclaim Zeus as God, nor to name him by any other dialect's word for God. For either it is used without qualification
they acknowledge the common name "god," or even with the addition of the phrase, "he who fashioned everything that exists, who built the sky and the earth, who sent down to the human race these particular wise men" — as though the name "god," when applied to it, accomplishes some power among men. Much more could be said touching this matter of names, against those who
suppose one need not be careful about their use. And if Plato is admired for saying in the Philebus, "My own fear, Protarchus, concerning the names of the gods is not small" — since it was Philebus, conversing there with Socrates, who had named pleasure a god — how much more should we approve the caution of Christians, who attach none of the names taken up in mythmaking to the maker of the universe?
But enough of these matters for the present. Let us see in what way Celsus, who professes to know everything, slanders the Jews, saying that they worship angels and are devoted to sorcery, of which Moses became their expounder. For where in the writings of Moses did he find the lawgiver handing down the worship of angels? Let him who professes to know the affairs of Christians and Jews say how sorcery
exists among those who have accepted the law of Moses — have they not read, "You shall not cling to enchanters, to be defiled by them"? He promises next to teach how the Jews too were led astray by ignorance and deceived. And if he had found ignorance among the Jews concerning Jesus the Christ — their not heeding the prophecies about him — he would truly have taught how the Jews were led astray. But as it is,
without even wishing to imagine what are not in fact errors of the Jews, he assumes them to be errors of the Jews. And Celsus, having promised to teach about the Jews later, first makes his discourse about our Savior, as though he had become the leader, with respect to our birth as Christians, of our origin. And he says that he took the lead in this teaching only a very few years before, and was considered by Christians to be the son of God. And
concerning him, as having come into being only a few years before, we shall say this: is it not the case that, though he wished to sow his own word and teaching in so few years, Jesus was able to do so much that, in many parts of our inhabited world, no small number of Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, were so disposed toward his word that they contended even unto death on behalf of Christianity, so as not
to renounce him under oath — a thing which no one is recorded to have done on behalf of any other doctrine — that this came about without divine agency? I, then, not flattering the doctrine but attempting to examine matters with due consideration, would say that not even those who heal many ailing bodies attain the goal of bodily health without divine agency. And if someone were able to free souls from the outpouring of vice, from licentiousness,
and from wrongdoing, and from contempt for the divine, and could give proof of such a work by pointing to a hundred people made better by it (let the argument stand at that number), would anyone reasonably say that not even this word, which produced deliverance from so many evils in a hundred people, came about without divine agency? And if the one who considers these things fairly will agree that nothing better has come about among men without divine agency, how much more...
will confidently declare so much about Jesus, comparing the more ancient lives of the many who come to his word with their more recent lives, and observing in how many acts of licentiousness, injustice, and greed each of them lived before, as Celsus says (and those who think as he does), they were deceived and accepted a word that corrupts, as those people put it, the life of men — from the time when
they received the word, in what way have they become more decent, more dignified, and more steady, so that some of them, out of love for surpassing purity and for worshiping the divine more purely, will not even touch the acts of intercourse permitted by the law? But anyone who examines the facts will see that Jesus dared something beyond human nature, and having dared it, accomplished it. For although from the beginning
everyone opposed the sowing of his word over the whole inhabited world — the kings of each period, and the generals and governors under them, and virtually everyone, so to speak, entrusted with any authority whatsoever, and further the rulers of cities and the military commanders and the populations — he prevailed, since, being the word of God, he was not the sort of thing that could be hindered. And having proved stronger than so many opponents,
he mastered the whole of Greece, and still more of the barbarian world, and won over countless souls to the reverence for God that comes through him. It was inevitable that, among the multitude mastered by the word, since the uneducated and more rustic are many times more numerous than those trained in reasoned discourse, the uneducated and more rustic should turn out many times more numerous than the more intelligent. But Celsus, unwilling to take this into account,
thinks that the word's love for humanity, reaching every soul "from the rising of the sun," is a vulgar thing — because of its vulgarity and because it is in no way capable, in matters of reasoning, of mastering anyone but the uneducated — even though he himself does not claim that only the uneducated were brought by the word to the reverence for God that comes through Jesus; for he even admits that among them are some who are moderate, decent, intelligent, and ready for allegory. Since
he also creates a character, imitating in a way a child brought forward by an orator, and introduces a Jew speaking to Jesus, saying certain things childishly and unworthy of a philosopher's grey hairs — come, let us examine this too as best we can and prove that he has not even kept the character altogether fitting for the Jew throughout what is said. After this he creates the character of a Jew conversing with Jesus himself and refuting him about many things —
so he supposes — but first, as though Jesus had fabricated his birth from a virgin. He also reproaches him for having been born in a Jewish village, from a woman of that country who was poor and worked with her hands. And he says that she was even driven out by the man who had married her, a carpenter by trade, after being convicted of adultery. Then he says that, having been cast out by her husband and wandering about,
she bore Jesus in disgrace, in secret; and that he, because of poverty, hired himself out for wages in Egypt, and there, having gained experience of certain powers in which the Egyptians take pride, returned thinking highly of himself because of those powers, and on account of them proclaimed himself a god. All this seems to me to hang together for anyone who is unable to leave unexamined anything said by unbelievers, but who instead investigates the origin of the matters.
that it was fitting for the prediction concerning God that Jesus should be his son. For among human beings, that one of them become distinguished and renowned, and his name become a household word, is aided by lineage, when it so happens that his parents occupy a place of eminence and prominence; and by the wealth of those who raised him and were able to spend it on their son's education; and by a homeland that is great and
notable. But when someone possessing everything opposite to these is nevertheless able, by rising above the obstacles to his being known, to shake those who hear about him and to become manifest and evident to the whole inhabited world -- which says contradictory things about him -- how can one not marvel at such a nature as one that, from the very outset, is great by nature and takes hold of great matters and possesses a boldness of speech not to be despised? And if
one examines still further the circumstances of such a man, how would one not inquire in what way, though raised in meanness and poverty, and having received no general education, nor having learned the words and doctrines from which he might at least have become persuasive enough to converse with crowds, to play the demagogue, and to draw in ever more hearers, he gives himself over to teaching new doctrines, introducing to the human race an account that
abolishes the customs of the Jews -- while at the same time treating their prophets with reverence -- and overturns the laws of the Greeks, especially those concerning the divine? And how could such a man, so raised, and having learned nothing venerable from any human being (as even those who speak ill of him admit), have been able to speak, not contemptibly, such things about the judgment of God, about the punishments meted out against wickedness, and about the honors bestowed for
the good -- so that not only rustics and simple folk were led along by what he said, but also not a few of the more intelligent, who were capable of discerning, concealed beneath what were taken to be rather ordinary things, something -- so to speak -- more secret contained within? Now the Seriphian in Plato, reproaching Themistocles, who had become renowned for his generalship, as one who had won
his fame not from his own character but from the good fortune of a homeland that was the most eminent in all Greece, heard from the fair-minded Themistocles, who recognized that his homeland too had contributed to his renown, that "had I myself been born on Seriphus I would never have grown so renowned, and had you not had the luck to be born Athenian, you would never have become Themistocles." But our Jesus, even when reproached as having come from
a village -- and one not even Greek, nor belonging to any nation held in esteem among the many -- and ill spoken of besides for being the son of a poor woman who worked with her hands, and for having, on account of poverty, left his homeland to hire himself out for wages in Egypt: as it were, set against the example just taken, he was not only a Seriphian, from the smallest and most obscure island, but, one might say, even
the most ignoble of the Seriphians, and yet he has had the power to set the whole inhabited world of humankind in motion -- not only surpassing Themistocles the Athenian, but also Pythagoras and Plato and certain others among the sages or kings or generals of the world, whoever they may be. Who, then, examining the nature of these matters not carelessly, would not be astonished at him, who conquered and was able to rise above in reputation the poetic
of ill repute — all of them, and all who have ever been renowned? And yet it is rare for men of renown to be able to attain more than one kind of glory at the same time. One is admired for wisdom, another for generalship; certain barbarians for their remarkable powers derived from incantations; and others for other things — not many at once — and so they have become famous. But this man,
besides everything else, is admired both for wisdom and for powers and for his capacity to rule. For he did not, like a tyrant, persuade certain people to revolt against the laws along with him; nor, like a bandit, did he anoint his followers to move against other men; nor, like a rich man, did he supply resources to those who came to him; nor did he act as one of those who are acknowledged to be blameworthy. Rather, he acted as a teacher of the doctrine concerning the God of the universe and of the worship due
to him and of every kind of moral conduct — a doctrine able to make familiar with the God over all whoever lives according to it. And to Themistocles, or to any other of the famous, nothing arose that ran contrary to their reputation; but for this man, in addition to what has been said — things quite capable of burying the soul of even a very well-endowed man in obscurity — there was also the death that seemed dishonorable, that of crucifixion, which was enough to blot out
even the fame that had already gone before and taken hold in advance, and to make those who, as those who do not assent to his teaching suppose, had been previously deceived, abandon their deception and condemn the one who had deceived them. Besides this, one might well wonder where it occurred to his disciples — as those who speak ill of Jesus claim — since they had not seen him risen from the dead nor been persuaded that anything divine was in him,
beyond not fearing to suffer the same fate as their teacher, to go to meet the danger head-on and to leave their homelands in order to teach, in accordance with the will of Jesus, the doctrine he himself had entrusted to them. In my view, anyone examining the matter fairly would not say that these men handed themselves over to a life of persecution for the sake of Jesus' teaching without some great conviction
which he instilled in them, teaching them not only to be so disposed themselves in accordance with his teachings but also to dispose others likewise — and to dispose them even though it was obvious that ruin, as far as human life is concerned, awaited anyone who dared everywhere and before everyone to introduce innovations and to keep no man for himself as a friend among those who remained attached to their former beliefs and customs. For did the disciples of Jesus not perceive, daring not only
to demonstrate to the Jews from the prophetic writings that this was the one prophesied, but also to the rest of the nations, that the one crucified only yesterday or the day before had willingly undergone this death on behalf of the human race — comparable to those who have died for their homelands to quench plagues that had taken hold, or famines, or dangers at sea? For it is likely that in the nature of things,
according to certain hidden accounts, difficult for the many to grasp, there is such a nature that one righteous man, dying willingly on behalf of the common good, produces the averting of evil spirits at work causing plagues or famines or dangers at sea or something of the sort. Let those, then, who wish to disbelieve that Jesus died on behalf of mankind by the manner of the cross say whether they will also refuse to accept the many Greek and barbarian stories concerning
that some have died for the common good, to overthrow the evils of those who had seized cities and nations beforehand; or that those things have indeed happened, but that the man they suppose has nothing plausible about him with regard to dying for the overthrow of a great daemon and ruler of daemons, who has subjected to himself all the souls of men that have come upon earth. But when the disciples of Jesus saw these things, and other things more numerous than these, which
it is likely they learned from Jesus in secret, and moreover were filled with a certain power — since it was not some poetic maiden who granted them vigor and boldness, but God's own genuine understanding and wisdom — they hastened, that they might become manifest not to the Argives alone but to all Greeks and barbarians together, and win noble renown. But let us return
to the impersonation of the Jew, in which it is written that the mother of Jesus was cast out by the carpenter betrothed to her, having been convicted of adultery and bearing a child fathered by a soldier called Panthera; let us examine whether those who concocted the story of the virgin's adultery with Panthera, and of the carpenter driving her out, did not fabricate all this blindly, in order to undermine the extraordinary
conception by the Holy Spirit. For they could have falsified the story in some other way, given how utterly extraordinary it was, rather than conceding, as it were unwillingly, that Jesus was not born from marriage in the ordinary human manner. And it would have followed that those who would not concede the extraordinary birth of Jesus should fabricate some falsehood; but that they did not do this plausibly, but rather in a way that preserved the fact that
it was not from Joseph that the virgin conceived Jesus — this was, to those capable of hearing and detecting fabrications, an obvious lie. For is it reasonable that the one who ventured so much on behalf of the human race, so that, as far as lay in him, all Greeks and barbarians, expecting a divine judgment, might turn away from wickedness and do everything pleasing to the Maker of the universe, should have had, instead of an extraordinary birth,
the most lawless and shameful of all births? I will speak as to Greeks, and especially to Celsus — whether he believes it or not, since he at any rate cites the words of Plato — is it not so that he who sends souls down into human bodies would not have thrust the one who was to venture so much and teach so many, and turn many men away from the flood of wickedness, into the most shameful of all births, without
bringing him into human life through a legitimate marriage? Or is it more reasonable that each soul, according to certain secret principles (I speak now according to Pythagoras and Plato and Empedocles, whom Celsus has often named), is introduced into a body worthy of it and in accordance with its former character? It is likely, then, that this soul too — since I do not wish to seem to be sweeping it in with many, or rather
with all souls — being more beneficial to human life than that of all other men who have sojourned in it, had need of a body, not merely one distinguished among human bodies, but the best of all. For if this soul, having become worthy according to certain secret principles neither to enter altogether into the body of an irrational creature, nor yet purely into that of a rational one, puts on a monstrous body, so that not even the reasoning power could be brought to completion
is able, for the one who has been born in such a way and has a head disproportionate to the rest of the body and far too short, while a different soul takes on such a body as to be a little more rational than that one, and yet another still more so, as the nature of the body resists the apprehension of reason to a greater or lesser degree — why then will there not also be some soul that takes on an altogether extraordinary body, having
something in common with human beings, so that it might be able to live among them, but also having something exceptional, so that the soul might be able to remain untasted by wickedness? And if the claims of the physiognomists also hold good — whether of Zopyrus, or Loxus, or Polemon, or whoever else has written such things and professed to know something remarkable — namely that all bodies are proper to the characters of the souls
then for the soul that was to sojourn extraordinarily in this life and do great things, the body that had to come into being (not, as Celsus supposes, from Panthera the adulterer and a virgin who committed adultery — for from such impure unions there would have had to come into being some foolish person, harmful to human beings, a teacher of licentiousness and injustice and the rest of the vices, and not of self-control and justice and the rest of the
virtues) — but rather, as the prophets also foretold, from a virgin, who according to the promise of a sign gives birth to the one named after the matter, showing that at his birth God would be among human beings. And it seems fitting to me, in relation to the Jew's impersonation, to set beside it the prophecy of Isaiah, which says that Emmanuel would be born from a virgin — a prophecy that he did not set out, whether Celsus, who professes to know
everything, did not know it, or whether he read it but deliberately kept silent, so that he might not appear, against his will, to be constructing an argument opposed to his own purpose. The passage runs thus: "And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. (And
he said:) Listen now, house of David: do you count it a slight matter to weary men, that you weary my God as well? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin will conceive in the womb and will bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel" — which is translated "God with us." That it was through malice that Celsus did not set out the prophecy is clear to me
from the fact that, though he set out many things from the Gospel according to Matthew — such as the star that rose at the birth of Jesus and other extraordinary things — he made no mention at all of this one. And if some Jew, quibbling, should say that "behold, the virgin" was not written, but instead "behold, the young woman," we shall say to him that the word "almah,"
which the Seventy rendered as "the virgin" while others rendered it as "the young woman," occurs, as they say, also in Deuteronomy in reference to a virgin, running thus: "But if there is a young girl, a virgin betrothed to a man, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, you shall bring both of them out to the gate of their city, and they shall be stoned with stones, and they shall die: the young woman
concerning the word, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man concerning the word, because he humbled the wife of his neighbor." And next: "But if a man finds the betrothed girl in a field, and the man forces her and lies with her, you shall put to death only the man who lay with her, and you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is
no sin of death for the young woman." But so that we may not seem, to those who do not understand it, to be relying on a point of Hebrew wording — whether or not one ought to agree with it — in order to bring forward a defense concerning the prophet's having said that this one would be born of a virgin, of whom it is said at his birth, "God with us," come, let us offer our defense of what is said on the basis of the wording itself. The Lord is recorded as having said to Ahaz:
"Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height," and next comes the sign that is given: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son." What sort of sign, then, would it be for a young woman, not a virgin, to give birth? And to whom is it more fitting to give birth to "Emmanuel," that is, "God with us" — to a woman joined with a man in intercourse and conceiving through the ordinary experience of women,
or to one who is still pure and chaste and a virgin? For it befits her to bring forth that offspring, of whose birth "God with us" is spoken. But if he still quibbles in this way, saying that it was said to Ahaz, "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God," we shall answer: who was born in the days of Ahaz, of whose birth it is said, "Emmanuel, which
is, God with us"? For if no one is found, it is clear that the word spoken to Ahaz was addressed rather to David's house, since the Savior is recorded to have sprung from David's seed, according to the flesh. Yet this "sign," too, is said to reach "to the depths or to the heights," inasmuch as "he who descended is the very one who also ascended far above all the heavens, so that
he might fill all things." I say these things as addressed to the Jew who agrees with the prophecy. But let Celsus, or someone of his company, tell us with what mind the prophet speaks about future things — whether these or the other things recorded in the prophecies. For does he speak with foreknowledge of the future, or not? For if with foreknowledge of the future, the prophets possessed a divine spirit; but if
not with foreknowledge of the future, let him set forth the mind of the man who dares to speak about future things and is admired among the Jews for prophecy. But since we have once come to the discussion concerning the prophets, for the Jews, who believe that they spoke by a divine spirit, what will be added will not only be useful, but also for those of the Greeks who are fair-minded. To them we shall say
that it is necessary to grant that the Jews also had prophets, if they were going to be held together in the lawgiving given to them and to believe in the Creator, just as they had received him, and, so far as depended on the law, to have no occasion to fall away into the polytheism of the nations. And we shall establish the necessity of this as follows. "The nations," as it is written even in the Jews' own law, "listen to omens and divinations,"
...they will hear." But to that people it was said: "But the LORD your God has not given to you in this way." And to this is added: "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." If, then, while the nations make use of divinations, whether by "omens" or by auguries or by birds or by ventriloquists, or even by those claiming expertise in the art of sacrifice,
or even by Chaldeans who cast nativities — all of which were forbidden to the Jews — the Jews, if they had no consolation from the knowledge of things to come, would, driven by that very human craving for the knowledge of what was to happen, have despised their own institutions as having nothing divine in them, and would not have received a prophet after Moses nor recorded his words, but would have deserted to
the divinations and oracles of the nations and gone over to them, or would have attempted to establish something of that kind among themselves as well. So it is nothing strange that their prophets, concerning even chance matters, foretold things for the consolation of those who longed for such things, so that Samuel prophesied even "concerning asses that had been lost," and the one recorded in the third book of Kingdoms prophesied concerning the illness of the king's son.
And how would those among the Jews who championed the requirements of the law have rebuked a man wishing to obtain divination from idols? Just as Elijah is found rebuking Ahaziah, saying: "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you go to seek an answer from Baal, fly-god of Ekron?" It seems to me, then, that it has been adequately established not only that our savior
would come into being from a virgin, and further that prophets arose among the Jews, foretelling not only the general matters of what was to come — the matters concerning Christ, the matters concerning kingdoms of the world, what would befall Israel, the nations destined to trust in the savior, and many further things spoken about him — but also matters concerning single individuals, such as the asses belonging to Kish that had gone missing,
how they would be found, and concerning the illness which the son of the king of Israel suffered, or whatever else of this kind is recorded. Further, it must be said to the Greeks, who refuse to accept that Jesus was born of a virgin, that the Creator, in bringing into being the various kinds of animals, showed that it lay within his power, had he so willed, to do in the case of one creature what he did in the case of others, and even in the case of human beings themselves.
For it is found that some female animals have no union with a male — as those who have written on animals say concerning vultures; and this creature preserves the succession of its kind without any mating. What, then, is strange if God, wishing to send some divine teacher to the human race, brought it about that, instead of the seminal principle that comes from
the union of males with women, the account of the one who was to be born should come about in another way? Indeed, even according to the Greeks themselves, not all human beings came from a man and a woman. For if the world had a beginning, as has been the view held by many of the Greeks, it is necessary that the first human beings came into being not from intercourse but from the earth, seminal principles having come together in the earth — which I think
...more paradoxical than for Jesus to have come into being in a way similar to the rest of men, from a half-share. There is nothing strange about our appealing to Greeks and making use of Greek stories, so that we may not seem to be the only ones who have made use of this paradoxical account. For it has seemed good to some to record, not only concerning certain ancient and heroic stories but also concerning things that happened only yesterday or the day before, as far as possible, that even Plato was born from...
...Amphictione, after Ariston had been prevented from coming together with her until she should bear the child sown by Apollo. But these are truly myths, which prompted people to fabricate something of this kind about a man whom they considered to possess wisdom and power greater than most, and to have received the beginning of the formation of his body from better and more divine seeds, as being fitting for one greater than...
...an ordinary man. But since Celsus has brought in the Jew conversing with Jesus and ridiculing, as he supposes, the pretense of his birth from a virgin, citing the Greek myths about Danae and Melanippe and Auge and Antiope, it must be said that such language befits a buffoon, not someone speaking in earnest. Further, having taken from the account written in...
...the Gospel according to Matthew concerning Jesus' having journeyed to Egypt, he did not believe the marvelous elements involved—neither that an angel gave this oracle, nor whatever it was that Jesus, after leaving Judea and residing in Egypt, was hinting at; instead he fabricated something else. He grants, in a way, the marvelous powers that Jesus performed, by which he persuaded the many to follow...
...him as the Christ, but wishing to discredit them as having come about through magic and not through divine power. For he says that Jesus, raised in obscurity, hired himself out in Egypt, and having gained experience of certain powers there, returned from there proclaiming himself a god on account of those powers. Now I do not see how a magician could have striven to teach a doctrine that persuades people to do everything on the assumption that God judges each person for all...
...that has been done, and to bring his own disciples into this disposition—the very ones he intended to use as ministers of his teaching. Did those disciples, then, taught in this way, perform powers that won over their hearers, or did they perform no powers at all? To say that they performed no powers whatsoever, but that, having believed with none of the argumentative skill comparable to the dialectical wisdom of the Greeks, they gave themselves to teaching a new doctrine to whomever...
...they happened to visit, is altogether unreasonable. For on what basis did they teach this doctrine and introduce such innovations, with any confidence at all? But if they too performed powers, what plausibility is there in magicians exposing themselves to such dangers for the sake of a teaching that forbids magic? This does not seem to me worth contending against as a serious argument, since it was spoken not in earnest but in mockery: that if indeed the mother of Jesus was beautiful, and it was because she was beautiful that...
...the god had intercourse with her, though he is not by nature inclined to love a corruptible body; or that it was not even likely that the god would fall in love with her, since she was neither prosperous nor of royal birth, given that not even her neighbors knew her. He jests also in saying that, though she was hated by the carpenter and cast out, no divine power nor persuasive word saved her. None of this, then, he says, has anything to do with the...
the kingdom of God. How, then, would these differ from people who hurl abuse at one another in the streets and say nothing worth taking seriously? Next, taking material from Matthew — and perhaps from the other Gospels as well — about the dove that flew down upon the Savior as he was being baptized by John, he wants to discredit what is said as a fabrication. Having ridiculed, as he thought,
the account of our Savior's birth from a virgin, he does not set out what follows in proper order, since anger and hostility have nothing orderly about them; rather, those who are enraged and hostile speak evil of the people they hate just as it occurs to them, not allowing themselves, because of their passion, to state their charges with deliberation and in proper sequence. For if he had kept to the order, he would have taken the Gospel,
and, having set out to accuse it, he would have finished denouncing the first narrative before proceeding in order to the next, and likewise on through the remainder. But as it is, after the birth from a virgin, Celsus — who professes to know everything — brings his accusation against our account of the Holy Spirit that appeared at the baptism in the form of a dove, and then after that attacks the claim that our Savior's coming was prophesied,
and after that runs back to what is recorded next after the birth of Jesus, the story of the star and of the magi, who had traveled from the east, coming to "do homage" to the child. And if you yourself keep watch you would find much in Celsus stated in confusion throughout the whole book, so that by this very fact he may be shown up, by readers skilled at tracking sequence and searching it out, as acting with great
rashness and pretension in having entitled his book A True Account — something none of the reputable philosophers did. Plato, for instance, says that it is not the mark of a sound mind to insist dogmatically on such obscure matters; and Chrysippus, though he often sets out what led him to his views, refers us on to those we might find arguing better than himself. This man, then, who claims to be wiser
than these and than the rest of the Greeks, in keeping with his claim to know everything, entitled his book A True Account. But so that we may not seem willingly to pass over his chapters for lack of an answer, we have decided to resolve, as best we can, each of the points he puts forward, attending not to the order and connection things have in nature but to the sequence of what is written in
his book. Come, then, let us see what he says in trying to discredit the Holy Spirit that appeared, as it were bodily, to the Savior in the form of a dove. It is a Jew he brings forward as the speaker of these words, still directed at the one we confess to be our Lord, Jesus: "While you were bathing beside John," he says, "you claim that an apparition of a bird flew down to you out of the air." Then, inquiring further, the Jew he introduces
says: "Who saw this apparition — what trustworthy witness? Or who heard a voice from heaven proclaiming you God's son? Except that you say so, and you bring forward one of those who were punished along with you." Before we begin our defense, it must be said that virtually every history, even a true one, wishes to be established as having actually happened and to produce in its readers a conviction that grasps it as such,
is extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible. For suppose someone were to say that the Trojan war never happened, mainly on the ground that an impossible story has been woven into it—that a certain Achilles came from the union of a sea goddess, Thetis, with a mortal man, Peleus, or that Sarpedon sprang from Zeus, that Ascalaphus and Ialmenus were begotten by Ares, or that Aeneas was born of Aphrodite. How could we establish such a thing, especially when we are hard pressed by the fact that we do not
know how a fabrication has somehow been woven, alongside the opinion that has prevailed among everyone, into the belief that the war between the Greeks and the Trojans at Troy truly happened? Or again, suppose someone were to disbelieve the story of Oedipus and Jocasta and their children Eteocles and Polynices, because a certain half-maiden Sphinx has been woven into the account—how could we prove such a thing? So too with the story
of the Epigoni, even if nothing of that sort has been woven into the account, or with the return of the Heraclidae, or with countless other cases. But whoever reads such histories fair-mindedly, and wishes to keep himself free from deception even in dealing with them, will judge which points he will accept and which he will interpret figuratively, searching out the intention of those who invented such things, and which points he will disbelieve as having been written down to gratify certain people.
And it is with this principle taken up in advance that we have spoken about the entire narrative concerning Jesus that is found in the Gospels—not summoning the more discerning readers to a bare and irrational faith, but wishing to show that fair-mindedness is needed by those who encounter it, along with much careful examination, and, if I may put it this way, entry into the intention of the writers, so that it may be discovered with what understanding each thing was written. We shall say, then,
first, that if the man who disbelieves the vision of the form of a dove belonging to the Holy Spirit had been recorded as being one who followed Epicurus, or belonged to the school of Democritus, or was a Peripatetic, the statement would have had a place consistent with the character being portrayed. But as it is, this most wise Celsus has not even noticed that it is upon a Jew—one who believes many things even more paradoxical drawn from the prophetic writings than the account of the form of the dove—that he has placed such an argument.
For one might say to the Jew who disbelieves the vision and thinks he is accusing it of being a fabrication: "But friend, where would you get your proof that the Lord God spoke these words to Adam, to Eve, to Cain, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, or to Jacob—the things
that are recorded as having been said by him to these men?" And to set narrative against narrative, I would say to the Jew: "Your own Ezekiel likewise set down in writing, 'The sky split open, and before me appeared a vision from God,' and having recounted this he continues, 'Such was the vision of a shape resembling the Lord's glory; and he spoke to me.' For if the things written about Jesus are false, since we cannot,
as you suppose, demonstrate clearly that these things are true, having been seen or heard by him alone and, as you thought you had observed, also by one of those who suffered punishment—why should we not instead claim that Ezekiel too, putting on a display of marvels, uttered the words 'The heavens were opened' and what follows? But then too, if Isaiah says, 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting upon a high throne, and'"
raised up; and the Seraphim stood around him, six wings for the one and six wings for the other," and so on—how does he know that he has truly seen this? For you, Jew, have believed these things as free from falsehood and as not merely seen by the prophet under a more divine spirit but also spoken and recorded by him. But whom is it more worthy to believe—one who says the heavens were opened to him
and that he heard a voice, or one who says he saw "the Lord Sabaoth seated upon a throne, exalted and raised on high"—Isaiah and Ezekiel, or Jesus? For no work of that magnitude is found among those men, whereas the valorous deed of Jesus did not occur only in the time of his embodiment; rather, even to this day the power of Jesus is at work, bringing about the turning
and the improvement of those who through him believe in God. A clear proof that these things happen by his power is this—as he himself says, and as is understood—that although there are no laborers working the harvest of souls, so great a harvest is nonetheless being gathered in and brought together into God's threshing floors and churches everywhere. And I say these things to the Jew, not because the Christian disbelieves
Ezekiel and Isaiah, but because I press him, on the basis of what is believed in common by us both, that this man is far more worthy than they to be believed when he says he has seen such things and, as is likely, handed on to his disciples the vision he saw and the voice he heard. But someone else might say that not all who wrote down the things concerning the
form of a dove and the sound from heaven heard Jesus himself recount these matters; rather, the spirit that instructed Moses in his earlier record, beginning from the world's coming-into-being down to the era of Abraham his father, this same spirit likewise instructed those who composed the gospel account of the marvel that occurred when Jesus was baptized. And he who was adorned with the gift called "the word of wisdom" will also explain the reason
for the opening of the heavens and for the form of the dove, and why it was in the shape of that one creature alone, and none other, that the holy spirit showed itself to Jesus. But our argument does not now require us to explain this matter; for what lies before us is to refute Celsus, who has unsoundly attributed to a Jew, along with words of this sort, disbelief concerning a matter which, according to probability, is more likely
to have happened than the things believed by him. And I recall that once, in a certain debate with those called wise men among the Jews, when a good many were present as judges of what was said, I made use of an argument of this kind: "Tell me, sirs—of two men who sojourned among the human race, concerning whom things extraordinary and beyond human nature have been recorded—I mean Moses, your lawgiver, who wrote about himself, and Jesus, our
teacher, who left behind no writing at all about himself but is instead attested to by his disciples in the gospels—what is the basis for allotting belief to Moses as one who speaks truly, even though the Egyptians slandered him as a sorcerer and one who seemed to have performed his powers by magic, while Jesus is disbelieved, since you yourselves accuse him? For nations testify on behalf of each: to Moses stand the Jews, and to Jesus the Christians, who do not deny"
...the prophecy of Moses, but by demonstrating the things concerning Jesus even from that source, they accept as true the paradoxical things about him recorded by his disciples. For if you demand from us an account concerning Jesus, give first an account concerning Moses, who lived before him. Then, next, we will give the account concerning this one; but if you shrink back and flee the proofs concerning that one, as...
...for the present, doing the same thing you do, we offer no proof. Nonetheless, admit that you have no demonstration concerning Moses, and hear the proofs concerning Jesus drawn from the law and the prophets. Indeed the paradox is demonstrated from those proofs concerning Jesus: within the law and among the prophets it is shown that Moses himself, together with the prophets, belonged among God's prophets.
Full of paradoxes akin to what was recorded about Jesus at his baptism are the law and the prophets, concerning the dove and the voice from heaven. I think that the miracles worked by Jesus are a sign of the holy spirit that showed itself then in a dove's shape — the very things which Celsus, slandering him, says he learned among the Egyptians and performed. And I will not...
...rely on those examples alone, but also, as is reasonable, on what the apostles of Jesus did. For they would not have moved, apart from powers and wonders, those who heard new words and new teachings to abandon their ancestral customs and to accept, at the risk of death itself, the teachings of these men. And traces of that holy spirit, which appeared...
...in the form of a dove, are still preserved among Christians. They charm away demons, perform many healings, and see certain things about the future according to the will of the word. And even if Celsus should mock what is about to be said, or the Jew whom he introduced should mock it, it will nevertheless be said that many have come to Christianity as though unwillingly, some spirit having suddenly turned their guiding mind from hating the word to being ready to die for...
...it, presenting them with an apparition, whether waking or in a dream. For we have recorded many such things ourselves; and if we, having been present ourselves and having seen them, write them down, we will draw broad laughter from unbelievers, who will suppose that we, like those they imagine to have fabricated such things, are ourselves inventing them. But God is witness of our conscience, which wishes to establish the divine teaching of Jesus not through false reports but through a certain manifold clarity.
Since it is a Jew who is at a loss over what is recorded — that the holy spirit came down onto Jesus taking the shape of a dove — one should say to him: My good man, who is the speaker in Isaiah's text: "And now the Lord, and his spirit, has sent me"? Since the saying here is ambiguous — whether the Father and the holy spirit...
...sent Jesus, or the Father sent both the Christ and the holy spirit — the second is true. And since the Savior was sent, and then the holy spirit, in order that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled — and it was necessary that the fulfillment of the prophecy be known also to those who came after — for this reason the disciples of Jesus recorded what had happened. I would wish...
To Celsus, who has represented the Jew as accepting, in a way, that John was a baptist who baptized Jesus, one might reply that the fact of John's having been a baptist, baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, was recorded by one of those who lived not long after John and Jesus. For in the eighteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, Josephus bears witness that John was a baptist and promised purification
to those who were baptized. This same man, though he disbelieved that Jesus was the Christ, when seeking why Jerusalem had fallen and its temple been torn down—when he should rather have stated that it was the plot devised against Jesus which brought these calamities upon the people, since they had killed him who was prophesied to be the Christ—instead says, as if unwillingly and not far from the truth, that these things came to
pass for the Jews in vengeance for James the Just, who was the brother of "Jesus who is called Christ," since they had killed him, though he was a most righteous man. And this James, Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says he saw as "the brother of the Lord"—not so much because of blood kinship or their common upbringing as because of his character and teaching. If, then,
Josephus says that what happened to the Jews concerning the desolation of Jerusalem came to pass because of James, how is it not more reasonable to say that it happened because of Jesus the Christ? Of his divinity, so many churches bear witness—churches of those who have turned from the flood of evils, who are devoted to the Creator, and who refer everything to what pleases him. And even if the Jew
does not offer a defense concerning Ezekiel and Isaiah, when we point out in common what is said about the opening of the heavens in the case of Jesus and the voice heard by him, and find similar things recorded in Ezekiel and in Isaiah or in some other prophet as well—we, at least, will set forth the argument as best we are able, saying that, just as it is believed that many, as in a dream, have had visions of some things that are
more divine, and of some things concerning matters of daily life yet to come, announced either plainly or through riddles—and this is evident to all who admit providence—so what is strange in the mind's governing faculty being able to be shaped in a dream and to shape waking perception as well, for the benefit of the one in whom it is shaped or of those who will hear from him about it? And just as we get the impression in a dream of hearing
and of the sense of hearing being struck, and of seeing through the eyes, though neither the eyes of the body nor the hearing is actually struck, but the governing faculty undergoes these experiences—so it is nothing strange that such things happened among the prophets, given that it stands written that they perceived matters more astonishing than this, whether catching words from the Lord's own voice or gazing upon heavens thrown open. Indeed I do not take it that the perceptible heaven was opened and its body
was split apart and thrown open, so that Ezekiel might record such a thing. Perhaps, then, in the case of the Savior too, one who hears the Gospels wisely ought to understand the matter in a like manner, even if this offends the more simple-minded, who because of great simplicity set the world in an uproar, splitting apart so vast a body—the whole heaven united as one. But whoever examines the matter more deeply will say that, since
Scripture named it, of a certain divine generic perception, which the blessed man alone finds, already in accordance with what is said in Solomon as well: "for you will find divine perception," and since there are kinds of this perception—sight, whose nature is to see the realities greater than bodies, in which the cherubim or the seraphim are made manifest; and hearing, apprehending sounds whose substance is not in the air; and
taste, using bread that lives, having descended out of heaven, giving life to the world; and likewise also smell, perceiving such things as these, in accordance with which Paul says that "the fragrance of Christ" is "to God"; and touch, in accordance with which John says he has felt with his hands "concerning the word of life"—these blessed prophets, having discovered a divine perception, seeing in a divine way, and hearing in a divine way, and
tasting likewise, and smelling too, if I may so call it, with a perception that is not perceptible by the senses, and touching the Word with faith, so that an emanation from him came to them and healed them—thus they saw the things they record having seen, and heard the things they say they heard, and underwent things similar to what they wrote, as when they ate the "little scroll" given to them of a book. So too Isaac "smelled the fragrance of" his son's
more divine "garments," and pronounced with spiritual blessing the words: "see, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." In a similar way to these, and more intellectually than sensibly, Jesus "touched" the leper, in order to cleanse him, in two ways as I think—freeing him not only, as most people hear it, from perceptible leprosy by means of perceptible touch, but also from the
other kind, by means of his truly divine touch. Thus, then, "John testified, saying: I have beheld the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained upon him. And I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize in water, he said to me: the one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who
baptizes in the Holy Spirit; and I have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God." And indeed for Jesus the heavens were opened; and at that time, apart from John, no one is recorded as having seen the heavens opened. And regarding this opening of the heavens—which the Savior foretold to his disciples as something that was going to happen, that they themselves would see—he says: "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heaven
opened, and God's angels going up and coming down upon the Son of Man." And thus Paul was caught up into the third heaven, having earlier beheld it open, given that he was a follower of Jesus. But to explain now why Paul states: "whether in the body I do not know, or apart from the body I do not know, God knows," is not the business of the present
occasion. I will further add to my argument this too, which Celsus supposes—that Jesus himself said the things concerning the opening of the heavens and the Holy Spirit that descended upon him in the form of a dove beside the Jordan—whereas Scripture does not establish this, that he himself said he had seen this. And this most noble fellow did not perceive that it is not in accordance with
the one who said to the disciples, concerning the vision on the mountain, "Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man rises from the dead," had told the disciples about what John saw and heard beside the Jordan. One can also observe in the character of Jesus that he everywhere avoided self-praise, and for that reason said, "Even if I speak concerning
myself, my testimony is not true." And he everywhere avoided self-praise, and wished to show by his works rather than by his own word that he was the Christ; for this reason the Jews say to him, "If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." Now since the figure in Celsus who speaks to Jesus is a Jew, concerning the things relating to the
holy Spirit, descending in the shape of a dove, saying: "except that you claim, and bring forward some one of those punished along with you" — it is necessary to point out to him that this too he did not fittingly attach to the Jewish persona. For the Jews do not link John to Jesus, nor John's punishment to that of Jesus. And in this too the one who boasted to know everything is convicted of not
having known what words he ought to attach to the Jewish persona in addressing Jesus. After this — I do not know how — he willingly passes over the greatest point concerning the establishment of Jesus, namely that he was prophesied by the prophets among the Jews, by Moses and those after him, or even before Moses, because, I think, he is unable to answer the argument, since not even the Jews, nor any of the
sects, are willing to concede that Jesus was prophesied. Perhaps he did not even know the prophecies concerning Jesus; for otherwise, having set aside what is said by Christians — that many prophets foretold the coming of the Savior — he would not have attached to the Jewish persona words that fit a Samaritan better than a Sadducee to say; and no Jew in that assumed role would have said this, but rather would have said,
"my prophet once said in Jerusalem that the son of God would come, judge of the holy and punisher of the unjust." For it was not one prophet who prophesied the things concerning Christ; and even if the Samaritans or Sadducees, who accept only the books of Moses, claim that Christ was prophesied in those books, it was certainly not in Jerusalem — a city not yet named in the time of Moses — that the prophecy
had been spoken. So then, let all the accusers of our teaching be shown to be in such ignorance, not only of the facts but even of the bare text of scripture, and to accuse Christianity in such a way that their argument does not have even the slightest plausibility — the kind that could turn away the unstable, those who believe only "for a time," not from faith itself but from a weak faith. A Jew would not admit that
some prophet said the son of God would come; for what they say is that the Christ of God will come. And indeed they often ask us directly about a son of God, as though there were no such thing and it had never been prophesied. And we do not say that a son of God is not prophesied, but that it was not fittingly attached to the Jewish persona, which does not confess any such thing, when he made it say
"My prophet in Jerusalem once said that a son of God would come." Then, as if this alone had not been prophesied — that he would be judge of the righteous and punisher of the unjust — and as though no prediction had touched the site of his birth, or the torment he was destined to suffer from Jewish hands, or his rising again, or the astonishing feats of power he would perform, he says: "Why should this apply more to you than to the countless others who, after the
prophecy, have come along? About whom were these things prophesied?" And somehow, though wishing to attach to others as well the possibility of being suspected of being the ones prophesied about, he says that some, being inspired, and others, begging, claim that a son of God has come from above; for, he says, "we have not found this recorded as agreed upon among the Jews to have happened." It must be said, then, first, that many prophets in all sorts of ways foretold the things
concerning Christ, some through riddles, others through allegory or in some other manner, and some in plain words. And since, further on, in the persona of the Jew addressing those of the people who believe, he says that the prophecies referring to matters about him could also be applied to other events — saying this cleverly and maliciously — we shall set out a few examples from among many.
Concerning these, let whoever wishes state something compelling to overturn them, something capable of skillfully turning believers away from their faith. Now, concerning the place of his birth, it has been said that the leader would come forth from "Bethlehem," in this way: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, you are too small to be among the thousands of Judah; out of you shall come forth for me one who is to be
a ruler in Israel, and whose goings-forth are from the beginning, from the days of old." This prophecy could not fit any of those, as the Jew in Celsus's work puts it, who are inspired and who beg and who claim to have come from above, unless it is clearly shown that he was born in Bethlehem, or, as someone else might put it, came from Bethlehem to take up the leadership of the
people. As for Jesus having been born in Bethlehem, if anyone wishes, beyond Micah's prophecy and the account recorded in the gospels by Jesus's disciples, to be persuaded from another source as well, let him consider that, in keeping with the gospel's account of his birth, the cave in Bethlehem where he was born is pointed out, and the
manger in the cave, the place where his infant body was bound in strips of cloth. And this thing that is pointed out is well known in those parts even among those who are strangers to the faith — that in this cave was born Jesus, the one worshipped and admired by Christians. I myself think that, before Christ's coming, those set over the priesthood and the people's scribes, because of how plain and unmistakable the
prophecy, taught that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. And this report reached even the majority of the Jews; hence Herod too is recorded as having inquired of those set over the priesthood and the people's scribes and heard from them that the Christ would be born "in Bethlehem of Judea," from where David was. Furthermore, it is also stated in John's account that the Jews
having said that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, from which David came. But after Christ's coming, those who worked to overturn the belief about him — that he had been prophesied from of old regarding his birth — removed such teaching from the people, doing something akin to those who had persuaded the soldiers guarding the tomb, who had seen him risen from the dead, to
report to those who had seen them, saying, "Say that his disciples stole him by night while we were asleep. And if this is heard by the governor, we will persuade him and set your minds at ease." For rivalry and preconception make it difficult even to look the plain facts in the face, so as not to abandon doctrines that have dyed them through, doctrines to which they have somehow grown accustomed and which have colored their soul. And
a person would more readily abandon habits concerning other things, even if hard to tear away from, than those concerning doctrines. Yet not even those do the accustomed easily disregard; so too they are not willing easily to abandon houses, cities, or villages, or the people they are used to, once they have become attached to them. This, then, became for many of the Jews at that time the cause of their refusing to look in the face the plain evidence both of the prophecies and of the
wonders which Jesus is recorded to have both performed and suffered. That human nature has undergone something of this kind will be clear to those who consider that people who have once been given over to preconceptions, even in the most shameful and frivolous traditions of their fathers and fellow citizens, do not readily change their minds; at any rate, one could not quickly persuade an Egyptian to despise what he has received from his fathers, so as not to regard
this irrational animal as a god, or to refrain, even at the cost of death, from tasting the flesh of that animal. If, then, we have pursued at some length this line of argument concerning Bethlehem and the prophecy about it, we consider that we have done so out of necessity, in defense against those who would say that, if the prophecies about Jesus among the Jews were so plain, why then,
when he came, did they not assent to his teaching and turn instead to the things Jesus demonstrated to be better? But let none of us reproach believers with a similar charge, seeing that no contemptible arguments are brought forward by those who have learned to advocate them concerning faith in Jesus. And if there is need for us to bring forward also a second prophecy that appears to us clear concerning Jesus,
we will set out the one recorded by Moses a great many years before Jesus' coming, where he says that Jacob, as he was departing from life, prophesied to each of his sons, and said to Judah, along with the others, this: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until what is laid up for him comes." Now if someone comes upon this prophecy —
which in truth is much older than Moses, but which, as one of the unbelieving might suppose, was spoken by Moses — he would marvel at how Moses was able to foretell that those of the Jews who would reign, there being twelve tribes among them, would descend from the tribe of Judah in order to rule the people; for which reason the whole people are also named Jews, being called after the ruling tribe. And
Second, anyone who reads the prophecy with an open mind would marvel at the way it, having said that the rulers and leaders of the people would come from the tribe of Judah, also set the end point of that rule, saying that a ruler "from Judah" and a leader "from his loins" would not fail, "until the things laid up for him come, and he himself is the expectation of the nations." For he came,
the one for whom "the things laid up" are meant, the Christ of God, "the ruler" of God's promises. And clearly this one alone, beyond all who came before him — and I would confidently say beyond all who came after him too — has become the "expectation of the nations." For out of all the nations people have come to believe in God through him, and in accordance with what was said by Isaiah concerning his name,
that nations hoped, as he said: "in his name will nations hope." And this one also said to "those in bonds," that is, to each person bound by the cords of his own sins, "come out," and to those in ignorance, that they should come into the light — and this was so prophesied: "and I have given you as a covenant of the nations, to establish the land and to inherit a desolate inheritance, saying to those in
bonds, come out, and to those in darkness, be revealed." And one can see, at this one's coming, on account of those everywhere throughout the inhabited world who believe with simple faith, the fulfillment of: "and in all the ways they will be fed, and on all the paths will be their pasture." But since Celsus, who professes to know everything about our doctrine, reproaches the Savior for his suffering, as one who was not
helped by the Father, or who was unable to help himself — we must set beside this the fact that his suffering was prophesied, together with its cause: that it was beneficial to human beings that he should die on their behalf and suffer the bruising that came from being condemned. It had also been foretold that those from the nations, among whom the prophets had not arisen, would "understand" him, and it had been said that he would be seen having
a "dishonored appearance" as he showed himself among men. The passage runs thus: "Behold, my servant will understand, and he will be exalted and glorified and lifted up exceedingly. Just as many will be astonished at you, so will your appearance be without honor before men, and your glory before men. So will many nations marvel at him, and kings will shut their mouths; for
those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We proclaimed him, before him, like a young child, like a root sprung from parched soil; there is in him no shapeliness nor splendor. And we looked upon him, and he possessed no comeliness or beauty, but his appearance was scorned and diminished
beyond all men — a man in suffering, and knowing how to bear infirmity, for his face has been turned away; he was dishonored and not esteemed. It is he who carries our offenses and grieves on our behalf, while we ourselves supposed him to be caught up in torment, in suffering, and under affliction. Yet he was pierced through on account of our offenses, and he has been broken because of our lawless deeds;
the chastening that brought us peace fell upon him. By the wound he bore we were made whole. All of us wandered like sheep, each going astray along his own path; and the Lord gave him over on account of our sins. And having been mistreated, he refrains from opening his mouth; led like a sheep to the slaughter, and voiceless as a lamb before its shearer, so he refrains from opening his mouth. In
his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth; because of the transgressions of my people he was led to death." I recall once, in a certain inquiry with those called wise men among the Jews, having made use of these prophecies, in response to which the Jew said these things had been prophesied as concerning one
of the whole people, one who had come to be in the dispersion and had been struck, so that many might become proselytes on the pretext that Jews had been scattered among the rest of the nations. And in this way he explained "your form shall be without honor before men" and "those to whom it was not announced concerning him shall see" and "a man being in affliction." Many things, then, were said at that time in the inquiry
refuting the idea that these things, prophesied concerning some one individual, are unreasonably referred by them to the whole people. And I asked whose persona it might be that says, "this one carries away our sins, and is pained on our behalf," and, "he was wounded because of our sins, and has been made sick because of our transgressions," and whose persona it was that declares, "by his
bruise we were healed." For clearly those who had come to be in sins and were healed by the Savior's having suffered - whether from that people or those from the nations - say these things, spoken through the prophet, who had foreseen them and, by the Holy Spirit, had put them into that persona. And we thought it especially pressing to press the point from the phrase that says, "because of the transgressions of my people he
was led to death." For if the people, on their account, are the ones being prophesied of, how can it be said that this one "was led to death because of the transgressions of the people" of God, unless he is someone other than the people of God? And who is this, if not Jesus Christ, by "whose bruise" those who believe in him "were healed," he having stripped off the "rulers and
authorities" within us, and "made a public example" of them "openly" on the wood? But to clarify each point in the prophecy and to leave none of them unexamined belongs to another occasion. And these things have been said at greater length, I think, of necessity, on account of the passage set forth by the Jew in Celsus's work. Celsus, however, along with his Jewish spokesman and everyone who
have not believed in Jesus, that the prophecies say there are two comings of Christ: the first more subject to human suffering and humbler, so that Christ, being among men, might teach the way that leads to God and leave no one in human life any excuse, as though he had not known concerning the judgment to come; and the other glorious and alone more divine, with nothing
interwoven with divinity while containing something that suffers as a human does. It would take a great deal to cite the prophecies as well; but for the present it suffices to quote from the forty-fourth psalm, which is also inscribed, among other things, as "a song for the beloved," where he is also clearly proclaimed God through these words: "Grace has been poured out upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you"
forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, mighty one, in your splendor and your beauty; bend your bow and ride on prosperously, and reign for the sake of truth and gentleness and righteousness, and your right hand will guide you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharpened, mighty one; peoples will fall beneath you, into the heart of the king's enemies." Pay attention
carefully to the verses that come next, where he is addressed as God: "Your throne," he says, "O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." And observe that the prophet, addressing a God whose "throne"
is "forever and ever," and whose kingdom's scepter is "a scepter of uprightness," says that this God was anointed by God, who was his God — anointed because he loved "righteousness" beyond "his companions" and hated "lawlessness." And I recall pressing hard, on this very text, a Jew who was reputed to be wise, and who, at a loss for a reply,
said what followed from his own Judaism: he said that "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom" was spoken of the God of all things, but that "You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you" and what follows was spoken of the Christ.
Further, the Jew in his work says to the Savior that if you mean this — that every man who has come into being by divine providence is a son of God — how then would you differ from anyone else? To him we shall reply that everyone who, as Paul termed it, is no longer schooled by fear but chooses what is good for its own worth, thereby counts as a child of God; yet this one differs by far,
and by a great measure, from everyone who bears the name "son of God" on account of virtue, since he is, so to speak, a spring and source of such people. Paul's own words run thus: "For you did not again receive a spirit of slavery leading back to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry, Abba, Father." And some will also refute, as the Jew in Celsus's work says,
the countless people who claim that these things said of Jesus were prophesied about themselves, the very things that were prophesied of him. We do not know, then, whether Celsus knew of certain persons who had lived in the world and wished to do something similar to Jesus, proclaiming themselves sons of God, or a power of God. But since we examine these matters, place by place, in a truth-loving spirit, we shall say that Theudas arose
a man among the Jews who called himself "someone great"; and when he died, those who had been deceived by him were scattered. Following him, during the period of the enrollment—about when Jesus appears to have been born—a certain Judas the Galilean drew many of the Jewish people away with him, as a wise man and an innovator of a sort; and when he too paid the penalty, his teaching was almost entirely destroyed, surviving among only a very
small number. And even after the time of Jesus, Dositheus the Samaritan wanted to convince his fellow Samaritans that he himself was the Christ foretold by Moses, and he seemed to have won some over to his teaching. But it is not unreasonable to set beside this the very wise statement made by Gamaliel, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, to show how those men were strangers to the promise,
being neither sons of God nor his powers, whereas the Christ, Jesus, truly was the Son of God. Gamaliel said there: "if this plan and this undertaking is of men, it will be overthrown," just as their movements were overthrown once they died; "but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow this man's teaching, lest you even be found
fighting against God." Simon the Samaritan magician also wanted to steal followers away by his magic. And at the time he did deceive some, but now, in the whole inhabited world, one cannot find Simonians numbering, I think, even thirty—and perhaps I have said more than there actually are. Around Palestine they are exceedingly few, and in the rest of the inhabited world his name is nowhere found, in the fashion he wanted
to spread a reputation about himself. For where he is mentioned at all, it is from the Acts of the Apostles that he is mentioned; and it is Christians who say these things about him, and plain fact bore witness that Simon was nothing divine. After this, the Jew in Celsus's work says that, instead of the magi in the Gospel, Chaldeans were said by Jesus to have come, moved by his birth,
to worship him while still an infant, as a god, and that they revealed this to Herod the tetrarch; and that he, having sent them, killed those born at the same time, thinking to destroy this child along with them, lest he live long enough to reign as king. Observe, then, in this the mishearing of a man who does not distinguish the magi from Chaldeans, and who has not noticed that their professions are different,
and who for this reason has misrepresented the Gospel writing. And I am at a loss to see why he has likewise kept silent about what stirred the magi, failing to state that it was a "star" they beheld "in the east," in accordance with what stands written. Let us see, then, what should be said about this too. We hold that the "star seen in the east" was new, and unlike any of the familiar ones,
neither those in the fixed sphere nor those in the lower spheres, but was of the kind that comes to be from time to time—comets, or beams, or bearded stars, or jar-shaped stars, or whatever else the Greeks are fond of calling their various forms. We establish the matter in this way. It has been observed that at the time of great events and the greatest changes on earth, such stars rise,
signifying either the change of kingdoms or wars or whatever else can happen among human beings — things capable of shaking what is on earth. Now we have read, in the treatise of Chaeremon the Stoic on comets, in what way comets have sometimes even risen at the coming of good things, and he sets out the history concerning these matters. If, then, at new kingships or other great occurrences on earth a
so-called comet, or one of the similar stars, rises, what is astonishing about a star having risen at the birth of one who was about to introduce something new among the human race and bring in a teaching not only to the Jews but also to many Greeks, and even to nations of barbarians? For my part I would say that concerning comets no prophecy is on record to the effect that, under such-and-such
a kingship or at such-and-such a time, a comet of such a kind would rise; but concerning the star that rose at the birth of Jesus, Balaam prophesied, as Moses recorded, saying: "A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel." And if it is also necessary to examine what has been recorded about the magi at the birth of Jesus and about the star's having been seen, we would say things of the following kind,
some directed toward the Greeks, others toward the Jews. To the Greeks, then, that magicians, consorting with demons and summoning them to the things they have learned and wish for, do indeed produce such an effect, to the degree that nothing more divine or more powerful than the demons and the incantation that summons them appears or is said to appear; but if some more divine manifestation occurs, the workings of the demons are brought low, being unable
to look back at the light of that divinity. It is likely, then, that at Jesus' birth as well, since "a host of heavenly troops," as Luke recorded—and I accept his account—praised God, declaring, "Glory to God among the highest, and upon earth peace, favor toward men," the demons for this reason grew faint and powerless, their sorcery exposed and their power dismantled,
brought low not only by the angels who came to dwell in the region around the earth on account of Jesus' birth, but also by the soul of Jesus and the divinity within him. The magi, then, wishing to do their accustomed practice, which they had formerly done by means of certain incantations and spells, sought out the cause, conjecturing it to be something great, and having seen a sign from God in the sky, wanted to see
what was signified by it. It seems to me, then, that having the prophecies of Balaam which Moses also recorded, since he too had proved formidable in such matters, and having found there, concerning the star, also the words "I will show him, but not now; I bless him, but he does not draw near," they conjectured that the man prophesied together with the star had come to dwell among the living, and, having taken him in advance as superior to all demons
and to the things that customarily appeared to them and worked through them, they wished "to worship" him. They came, then, into Judea, persuaded that a certain "king" had been born, and knowing where he would be born, but not knowing what kind of kingdom he was to reign over; bringing "gifts," which — if I may put it this way — they "offered" to one composite of God and mortal man, as symbols: "gold" as to a king,
and "myrrh" for him as one about to die, and frankincense for him as God; and they "offered" these gifts after discovering where he had been born. But since the one who was the savior of the human race, existing beyond the angels who help human beings, was God, an angel replaced the magi's reverent worship of Jesus with a warning, instructing them by revelation to avoid returning to Herod and instead travel home by a different route
to their own country. And if Herod plotted against the child who had been born, it is not surprising that the Jew in Celsus's dialogue does not truly believe this happened. For wickedness is a kind of blindness, and in wishing to be stronger than what is fated, it wants to conquer it. This is exactly what happened to Herod: he came to be convinced a Jewish king had come into the world, yet he held an assent to this conviction that contradicted itself, failing to see that
either he is altogether king and will reign, or he will not reign and will be killed for nothing. So he wanted to kill him, holding judgments that conflicted with one another because of his wickedness, moved by the blind and evil devil, who from the beginning had also plotted against the savior, imagining him to be someone great, and that he would become so. An "angel," then, gave an oracle to Joseph, watching over the sequence of events, even if Celsus does not believe it, telling him to
withdraw together with the child and his mother "to Egypt"; while Herod "put to death" all the children "in Bethlehem" and "throughout its region," intending to destroy along with them the one born as king of the Jews. Yet he failed to perceive the ever-watchful guardian power that watches over and keeps safe those worthy of protection for the salvation of humankind, among whom Jesus held first place, greater in honor and in every form of preeminence,
since Jesus was going to be a king not as Herod supposed, but as it was fitting for God to give a kingdom for the benefit of those ruled, not one who would confer some middling and indifferent benefit, so to speak, on his subjects, but one who would truly instruct them by God's laws and lead them under those laws. Jesus, knowing this, and denying that he was king in the sense that most people understand it, taught instead
the distinctive character of his own kingdom, saying: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought, so that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not from this world." If Celsus had seen these words, he would not have said what he said; but if he had, he would have said: so that you, once grown, might not
reign in his place, why, now that you have grown, do you not reign, but instead, son of God that you are, so ignobly go about gathering followers, cowering in fear and being worn down every which way? But it is not ignoble for one who circumvents dangers through careful management, not going to meet them head-on, to do so not out of fear of death but for the sake of benefiting others by remaining usefully present in life, until
the fitting time arrives for the one who has taken on human nature to die a human death, having something beneficial for human beings in it — which is clear to anyone who understands that Jesus died on behalf of human beings, a matter we have addressed as fully as we were able earlier in this treatise. After this, since he does not even know the number of the apostles, having said that Jesus had gathered ten or eleven disreputable men and attached them to himself,
tax collectors and sailors, the most wicked sort, and that with these he had run about from place to place, shamefully and meanly gathering food — come, let us also discuss this to the best of our ability. It is plain to those who read the gospel accounts, which Celsus does not even appear to have read, that Jesus chose twelve apostles, of whom Matthew was a tax collector, and of those he calls, confusedly, sailors, presumably James
and John are meant, since they left the boat and "their father Zebedee" and followed Jesus. As for Peter and his brother Andrew, who used a fishing net for their necessary food, they must be counted not among sailors but, as the scripture recorded, among fishermen. And let it be granted too that Levi was a tax collector who followed Jesus; but he was not at all counted among the number
of his apostles, except according to some copies of the Gospel according to Mark. As for the rest, we have not learned their occupations, from which they provided for themselves before becoming disciples of Jesus. I say, then, in reply to this too, that to those able to examine the matters concerning the apostles of Jesus with sound judgment and good will it is apparent that these men taught
Christianity by a divine power and succeeded in bringing people over to the word of God. It was not, in fact, skill in speaking or an orderly manner of delivery, of the sort found in the dialectical or rhetorical arts of the Greeks, that was at work among them to win over their hearers. It seems to me rather that if Jesus had chosen and made use as ministers of his teaching some who were wise, as judged by the estimation of the many, and capable of understanding in a way pleasing to the crowds and of speaking accordingly,
he would very reasonably have been suspected of having proclaimed a way of life similar to that of the philosophers, who stand at the head of some school; and the claim that the word was divine would no longer have appeared credible, inasmuch as the word and the preaching would then have relied on the persuasiveness of wisdom in the phrasing and arrangement of words; and "faith" would have been like
the faith which the philosophers of the world place in their doctrines, resting "in the wisdom of men" and not "in the power of God." But as it is, who, seeing fishermen and tax collectors who had not even learned their first letters (as the gospel records concerning them, and Celsus, in agreement with this, has believed them, tells the truth about their lack of education),
speaking boldly not only to Jews about faith in Jesus but also proclaiming him among the rest of the nations and succeeding in this, would not ask where their power of persuasion came from? For it was not the kind reckoned ordinary among the many. And who would not say that Jesus, through some divine power at work in his apostles, brought to fulfillment the words "Follow after me, and fishers of men is what I will make you"? This power Paul too,
setting it forth, as we said above, states: "and my word and my preaching lay not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but rested on a showing forth of spirit and of power, so that our faith would stand not upon human wisdom but upon the power of God." For in accordance with what was said by the prophets, they announce beforehand, by way of foreknowledge, the preaching of the gospel,
"The Lord gave a word to those who proclaim good news with great power, the sovereign over the hosts of the beloved one," so that the prophecy which says, "his word will run with speed," might also be fulfilled. And indeed we see that the utterance of Jesus's apostles "went out into all the earth" and "their words reached the farthest bounds of the inhabited world." For this reason those who hear the word
that is proclaimed with power are filled with power — power which they display both in their disposition and in their way of life, and in contending for the truth even unto death. But some are empty, even if they claim to put their trust in God by way of Jesus, since they do not have the divine power they seem to bring to bear through the word of God. And although I mentioned above a gospel saying spoken by the Savior,
nonetheless I will make use of it again now, at the fitting moment, setting forth both the foreknowledge of our Savior concerning the proclamation of the gospel, revealed in a most divine way, and the strength of the word, which prevails over believers without the need of teachers, through persuasion accompanied by divine power. Jesus says: "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore,"
"that he may send out workers into his harvest." Since Celsus also called the apostles of Jesus infamous men, calling them tax collectors and most wicked sailors, we will say about this too that it seems he believes the scriptures wherever he wishes, in order to bring an accusation against the word; but in order not to accept the divinity that shines forth and is proclaimed in these same books, he disbelieves the gospels. Yet it was necessary
having seen the writers' love of truth from their record concerning the worse things, also to believe concerning the more divine things. Indeed it is written in the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas — from which Celsus, perhaps taking his cue, said that the apostles were infamous and most wicked — that Jesus "chose his own apostles, who were more lawless than all lawlessness." And in the Gospel according to Luke he says
that Peter said to Jesus: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord." But Paul too, in his letter to Timothy — he himself having later become an apostle of Jesus — says that "the saying is trustworthy," namely that "Christ Jesus entered the world in order to rescue sinners, and among these I hold the first place." How he came to forget this, or failed to give thought to it, when speaking of Paul, I cannot say,
who, after Jesus, established the churches in Christ. For it is likely that he saw that the account concerning Paul would require a defense on his part — how, after persecuting the church of God and contending bitterly against the believers, to the point of wishing to hand the disciples of Jesus over to death, he later changed so greatly that he could say he had "fulfilled, from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum,"
"the gospel of Christ," and being "ambitious to preach the gospel" in such a way as not to build "on another man's foundation," but rather where God's gospel in Christ had never once before been announced. What, then, is strange in the fact that Jesus, wishing to show the human race what great skill he has in healing souls, chose out infamous and most wicked men and advanced them to such a degree that they became an example of the purest character
...those who are brought through them to the gospel of Christ? But if we are going to reproach those who have changed on account of their former life, it is time for us to accuse Phaedo as well, though he became a philosopher, since, as the story tells, Socrates transferred him from the roof of a [brothel] into philosophical study. But then we shall also reproach philosophy for the profligacy of Polemo, the successor of Xenocrates — though there too we ought to credit this to her account. That...
the argument, in those whom it has persuaded, has had the power to remove from such great evils those who had previously been gripped by them. And among the Greeks there was one Phaedo — and I do not know whether there was a second — and one Polemo, who, having changed from a profligate and utterly wretched life, became philosophers; but with Jesus it was not only the twelve at that time but always many times more, who, having become a chorus of the sound-minded, say
concerning their former state: "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our days in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another; but when the kindness and love for mankind of God our savior appeared," "through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Spirit, which he poured out on us richly," such we have become. For God "sent forth his
word and healed them and rescued them from their corruptions," as the one who prophesied in the psalms taught. And I would add this too to what has been said: that Chrysippus, in his Therapeutic treatise on the Passions, attempts, for the sake of calming the passions within human souls, without committing himself to any particular doctrine of truth, to treat according to the different schools
those who have been previously seized by the passions, and says that, even if pleasure is the end, the passions must be treated in such and such a way; and even if there are three kinds of goods, by this same reasoning no less must those caught up in the passions be freed from them in this way. But the accusers of Christianity do not see how many people's passions, and how great an outpouring of vice, are checked, and how many savage characters are tamed on the pretext of the
word. For this they ought, while boasting of their own communal spirit, to acknowledge their gratitude, since by a new method it has turned people away from many evils, and to bear witness to it, even if not to its truth, then at least to its benefit for the human race. Now since Jesus, teaching his disciples not to be rash, said to them, "Should they pursue you within one town, escape to another;
and if they persecute you in that one, flee again to yet another" — and by this teaching he became for them an example of a stable life, one that arranges things so as not to rush headlong into dangers rashly, untimely, and without reason — this again Celsus maliciously distorts, and the Jew in his work says to Jesus that he runs off here and there with his disciples in flight. Similar to the slander made against
Jesus and his disciples, we shall say, is also what is reported about Aristotle. For when he saw that a court was about to be convened against him as an impious man on account of certain doctrines of his philosophy, which the Athenians considered impious, he withdrew from Athens and held his lectures in Chalcis, defending himself to his acquaintances and saying, "Let us depart from Athens, so that we may not give occasion
let the Athenians incur a second guilt like the one against Socrates, so that they may not sin a second time against philosophy." He claims that Jesus traveled about with his disciples, gathering food in a shameful and stingy fashion. Let him say where he got this notion of the shamefulness and stinginess of the gathering; for in the Gospels it is women who had been healed of their various infirmities—one of whom was
Susanna as well, provided the disciples with food out of their own possessions. And which of the philosophers, along with those disciples devoted to their benefactor's welfare, did not receive from them what was needed? Or did they do this properly and well, while, when the disciples of Jesus do the very same thing, they are accused by Celsus of gathering their food shamefully and stingily? Next, after this,
the Jew in Celsus says to Jesus: "Why, when you were still an infant, did you have to be carried off to Egypt, so that you would not be slaughtered? For it was unbecoming for one who is a god to fear death. But an angel came from heaven, commanding you and your household to flee, lest, being left behind, you should die. Could not that same being, who dispatched a pair of angels already for your sake,
keep watch over you there himself — the great God over his own son? Celsus supposes, in saying this, that there is nothing divine in a human body and soul in the case of Jesus, but that his body too came to be of the sort that Homer's myths describe. So, mocking, he says that the blood that flowed from Jesus on the cross was not ichor, such as
flows in the blessed gods. We, however, trust Jesus when he speaks of the divinity within him, saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and whatever else is like this; and also when, concerning the fact that he was in a human body, he says these words: "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you." We say that he became something composite —
that is what we affirm he became. And it was necessary that the one who took thought for his own visitation, as a man, into human life should not rashly rush headlong into mortal danger. And so he also had to be guided by those who raised him, being directed by a divine angel — first when the one delivering the oracle said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which
is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit," and second, "Get up, take along the child with his mother, escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod intends to search for the child in order to kill him." In these things, what is recorded does not seem to me at all extraordinary. For in each place of the text it is said that an angel spoke these things to Joseph in a dream;
and that a dream reveals to some people that they should do this or that also happens to many others, whether it is an angel or something else that puts an image into the soul. What, then, is strange about the one who once became human also being guided, according to human ways, so as to avoid dangers — not because it was otherwise impossible for such a one to come to be so, but because what was possible had to proceed, by way and by order, regarding salvation
of Jesus have been arranged by providence? And was it better for the child Jesus to escape Herod's plot and travel abroad with those raising him "into Egypt" "until the death" of the one plotting against him, than for the providence concerning Jesus to prevent what was within Herod's power when he wished to kill the child—or than to do something like the "cap of Hades" spoken of among the poets, or something similar,
around Jesus, or to strike down those who came to kill him, as happened to the men of Sodom? For the utterly extraordinary character of the help given to him, if made too openly manifest, would not have been useful for his purpose of teaching that a man attested by God possesses something more divine within the man who is seen—which was precisely the true Son of God, God the Word,
God's power and God's wisdom, the one termed Christ. But this is not the occasion to explain the matters concerning the composite being, and the elements of which Jesus, having become man, was composed�since there is a certain inquiry proper, if I may call it so, to this topic for those who believe. After this the Jew in Celsus's dialogue says, like some Greek fond of learning and trained in Greek culture, that the
old myths, though they assigned divine begetting to Perseus and Amphion and Aeacus and Minos—and we did not believe even them—nevertheless displayed their great and truly superhuman deeds, so that they would not seem incredible. But you—what fine or wondrous deed have you done, in action or in word? You showed us nothing, even though we challenged you in the temple to provide some clear proof
that you were the son of God. To this it must be said: let the Greeks show us, of those they have listed, some brilliant deed beneficial to life, extending to later generations, and so great a work as to lend credibility to the myth told about them—that they came from a divine begetting. But in fact they will show nothing, not even slightly inferior, concerning the men they wrote about, compared with those whom Jesus presented.
unless indeed the Greeks lead us off into myths and their own stories, wishing us to believe those irrationally while disbelieving these even after great manifest evidence. We ourselves, then, say that the whole inhabited world of men holds the work of Jesus, in which the churches of God through Jesus dwell as resident aliens, made up of those who have turned from countless evils. And
further still, the name of Jesus removes derangements of the mind from men, and also, even now, demons and diseases, and it produces a certain wondrous gentleness and composure of character, and love of humanity, and goodness, and mildness, in those who do not merely feign it for the sake of livelihood or some human need, but who have truly embraced the teaching about God, about Christ, and about the judgment yet to come.
Next after this, Celsus, suspecting the great deeds that would be shown to have been done by Jesus—about which we have said a little out of many—pretends to concede that the things recorded about healings, or resurrection, or the few loaves that fed many, from which many fragments were left over, are true, or whatever other things he supposes the disciples reported as wonder-working, and he adds to this: come, let us believe that these things happened
...done these things to you. And he immediately links these to the deeds of sorcerers, as though they promised even more marvelous things, and to what those who learned from Egyptians accomplish—selling their solemn teachings in the middle of marketplaces for a few obols, driving daemons out of people, blowing away diseases, calling up the souls of heroes, and displaying costly banquets and tables and pastries and dishes that...
...do not exist, and making them move as though they were living creatures, though they are not truly living creatures but only appear so as far as illusion goes—and he says: 'Since those men do these things, must we then consider them to be sons of god? Or should it rather be said that these are the practices of wicked and ill-starred men?' You see how, through these words, he as good as concedes that magic exists—though I do not know whether he is the same man who wrote...
...several books against magic. Still, since it serves his purposes, he likens what is recorded about Jesus to the deeds of magicians. And they would indeed be alike, if he had only gone so far as to demonstrate a resemblance to conjurers up to the point of proof; but as it stands, none of the sorcerers, through what he does, calls those who watch him to the correction of their character, nor does he train those who are struck with fear at the spectacles into the fear of god, nor does he...
...try to persuade those who have seen him to live in such a way that they will be justified by god; and sorcerers do none of these things, because they are neither able nor even willing, nor do they wish, to concern themselves with the correction of human beings, seeing that they themselves are full of the most shameful and most notorious sins. But he, by the marvels he worked, called those who observed what...
...was happening to the correction of their character—how is it not likely, then, that he presented himself as a pattern of the best life, not only to his own genuine disciples but to the rest as well? So that the disciples might be prompted to teach people according to the will of god, and the rest, having learned more from his teaching, or indeed from his character and his marvels, how they ought to live, might do everything...
...with reference to pleasing the god who is over all. But if such was the life of Jesus, how could anyone reasonably compare him to the purpose of sorcerers, and not rather believe, in keeping with the promise, that he is god who appeared in a human body for the benefit of our race? After this, confusing the argument, and bringing what is said by some sect...
...forward as though it were a charge common to all Christians, brought against those who come from the divine word, he says that god could not have a body such as yours. But in reply to this we say that he assumed a body, having come to dwell among human life from a woman, a human body, and one capable of receiving human death. For this reason, among other things, we say that he also became a great contender, because of his human body...
...'having been tempted' like all human beings 'in every respect,' yet no longer, as human beings are, with sin, but entirely 'apart from sin.' For it is plain to us that 'he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth'; and god delivered him up, him 'who knew no sin,' as pure, on behalf of all who had sinned. Then Celsus says that it would not be...
a body sown in the way that you, Jesus, were sown. Yet he suspects that if, as it is written, he had been begotten in that way, his body could somehow be more divine than that of most people and, in some sense, could be called the body of a god. But in fact he disbelieves what is written about his conception from the Holy Spirit, and believes instead that he was conceived after a certain Panthera corrupted the virgin.
For that reason he said that a body sown in that way could not be the body of a god, sown as you were sown. But we have already said more about these matters above. He also says that the body of a god does not eat such food as he claims he can show, from the Gospel writings, that he ate — and what sort of food he ate. But let it stand — let him say that Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples, and not only said,
Let Celsus note he said, "I have greatly longed to eat this Passover with you," yet he really did eat it; and let him likewise say that he grew thirsty and drank from Jacob's well. What does this have to do with what we say about his body? He clearly appears to have eaten fish after the resurrection, for according to us he took on a body inasmuch as he was born "of a woman." But, he says, the body of a god
does not employ such a voice, nor such a means of persuasion. And these objections too are cheap and thoroughly contemptible; for it will be said to him that the one believed by the Greeks to be a god, the Pythian and the Didymean, employs just such a voice as that of the Pythia or of the prophetess who arose at Miletus, and the Pythian or
the Didymean, or any other such Greek god fixed in a single place, is not for that reason charged with not being a god. It would have been far better for the god to employ a voice that instilled, by being delivered with power, a certain ineffable persuasion in his hearers. Then, reviling Jesus, he — who on account of his impiety and wretched doctrines is, if I may put it so, hateful to God — says that these were the teachings of some hateful-to-god and wretched
sorcerer. And yet, if names and things are examined properly, it will be impossible for a man to be "hateful to God," since God loves all things that exist and abhors nothing that he has made — for he did not fashion anything he hated. And if certain prophetic expressions say such a thing, they will find their explanation by this general rule: that Scripture uses expressions about God as though he were subject to human passions.
But what need is there to speak in our own defense against one who thinks that in words that profess to inspire belief he must use slanders and abuse, as though Jesus were wretched and a sorcerer? For this is not the work of one who demonstrates something, but of one who has succumbed to a vulgar and unphilosophical passion, when he ought instead to set out the matter fairly and examine it, and say what can reasonably be said about it, as far as possible. But
since the Jew in Celsus's work here brings his speech to Jesus to an end, we too shall bring to an end, at about this point, the compass of our first book against him. And with God granting the truth that destroys false arguments, in keeping with the prayer that says, "In your truth destroy them," we shall begin, in what follows, a second impersonation, in which the Jew
is made by him to address, to those who had been persuaded by Jesus, what follows.

======== Against Celsus, Book 2 ========

In the first volume of what has been dictated by us against the discourse of Celsus entitled True Word, having concluded with the character he creates of the Jew addressing Jesus, once it had received an adequate delimitation, we resolve to compose this one, defending against the charges he brings against those from the Jewish people who have come to believe in Jesus. And this very point we note first of all: why in the world
once Celsus has decided to create a character, does he not create a Jew speaking to those who believe from among the nations, but rather to those who come from the Jews? Indeed the discourse would have seemed most persuasive to him had it been written against us. But perhaps the one who professes to know everything did not know what was fitting in the matter of this character. What, then, he says to those who believe from among
the Jews must be examined. He says that they, having abandoned their ancestral law under the delusion of having had their souls led astray by Jesus, have been quite ridiculously deceived and have deserted to another name and another way of life—not even having noticed this, that those from among the Jews who believe in Jesus have not abandoned their ancestral law. For they live according to it, having become known by the name derived from the poverty entailed by their interpretation of the law.
For among the Jews the poor man is called "Ebion," and those from among the Jews who have accepted Jesus as the Christ are known as Ebionites. And Peter too appears to have kept for a long time the Jewish customs pertaining to the law of Moses, as one who had not, by that time, taken from Jesus the lesson of rising from the letter of the law to its spirit—a lesson we ourselves have received from the
Acts of the Apostles. For "on the next day" after an angel of God had been seen by Cornelius, instructing him to send "to Joppa" for Simon called Peter, "Peter went up onto the housetop to pray, around the sixth hour, and hunger came over him, and he wanted something to eat. But while they were making it ready, a trance fell upon him, and he beholds heaven opened and a certain vessel coming down, like
a great sheet, let down to the earth by its four corners, in which were all the four-footed creatures and reptiles of the earth and birds of the sky. And a voice came to him: 'Rise, Peter, kill and eat.' But Peter said, 'By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean.' And the voice came to him a second time: 'What God
has cleansed, do not call common.'" Observe, then, in this passage the manner in which it is shown that Peter still kept the Jewish customs concerning clean and unclean things. And what follows makes clear that he needed the vision so as to share the words of the faith with Cornelius—a man not of Israelite descent by birth—and with those accompanying him, since Peter was still living as a Jew and by Jewish custom,
looking down on those outside Judaism. And in the letter to the Galatians, Paul makes clear that Peter, still fearing the Jews, having stopped eating together with the Gentiles when James came to him, "separated himself" from the Gentiles, "fearing those of the circumcision"; the other Jews did likewise, and so did Barnabas. And it followed that not
those who were sent to the circumcision did not depart from Jewish customs, when "those reputed to be pillars extended to Paul and Barnabas the right hand as a sign of partnership," "they themselves going to the circumcision," so that those others might preach to the Gentiles. But why do I say that those who preached "to the circumcision" withdrew themselves from the Gentiles and kept apart, when Paul himself became "a Jew to the Jews,"
"so that he might win Jews." For this reason, as is also written in the Acts of the Apostles, he brought forward an offering at the altar, so that he might persuade the Jews that he was not an apostate from the law. But if Celsus had known all this, he would not have put into the mouth of the Jew, speaking to those who believed after coming from Judaism, the words: "What has happened to you, fellow citizens, that you have abandoned the ancestral law and"
by that man, with whom we have just now been conversing, having had your souls led astray, been most ridiculously deceived, and deserted from us to another name and another manner of life? Since we have once come to speak about Peter and about those who taught Christianity to those of the circumcision, I do not think it out of place to set alongside this a certain saying of Jesus from the Gospel according to John, together with the
account belonging to it. For it is written that he said: "There is still much for me to tell you, yet you are unable to carry it at present; but once that one arrives, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into the whole truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak whatever he hears." And we ask, at this point, what were the "many things" that Jesus had "to say" to his
own disciples, but which they were not able to "bear" at that time. And I say: was it not, perhaps, that since the apostles were Jews, raised from childhood within the law according to the letter of Moses, that he had things to "say" about what the true law was, and of which "heavenly things" the worship carried out among the Jews was "a copy and shadow," and of which "good things to come" the law concerning food and drink and
feasts and new moons and sabbaths held "a shadow"? And these were the "many things" he had to "say" to them; but seeing that it is very difficult to overturn, from the soul, doctrines that had been all but born and bred together with a man up to his manhood, and to persuade those who had taken them up that, while these things are divine, to disturb them is impious, and this in the superiority of the knowledge that pertains to
Christ, that is, of the truth, so as to expose them as "refuse" and "loss," so that his hearers might be persuaded, he put it off to a more fitting time, the time after his suffering and resurrection. For indeed the remedy would truly have been applied untimely to those not yet able to receive it, and would have overturned the estimation concerning Jesus which they had already come to hold, as concerning the Christ and Son of the living
God. And observe whether it does not carry a meaning not to be despised, to hear in this way the words "There is still much for me to tell you, yet you are unable to carry it at present"; for "many" were the things belonging to the explanation and clarification of the law according to its spiritual sense; and the disciples, having been born among Jews and reared there, were somehow not able to "bear" them at that time. And I think that, since
Those things were a type, but the truth was what the Holy Spirit was about to teach them, which is why it is said: "When that one comes, the Spirit of truth—he will guide you into the whole truth" — as if he were saying: into the complete truth of the matters of which, being still in the types, you thought you were rendering true worship to God. And according to the promise of
Jesus, "the Spirit of truth" came upon Peter, saying to him concerning the four-footed animals and creeping things of the earth and birds of heaven: "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." And it came to him while he was still caught in superstitious scruple, for he says in reply to the divine voice: "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean." And it taught the doctrine concerning
true and spiritual foods in the words "What God has cleansed, do not call common." And afterward, in that vision, "the Spirit of truth," guiding Peter "into all the truth," told him many things which he could not "bear" during the time Jesus remained present with him in bodily form. Yet regarding these matters, another occasion will arise for
giving an account of the interpretation of the law of Moses. For now, our task is to refute the ignorance of Celsus, in whose work the Jew says to the citizens and Israelites who have believed in Jesus: "What has happened to you, that you have abandoned the ancestral law?" and so on. But how have they abandoned the ancestral law, who rebuke those who do not listen to it and say, "Tell
me, you who read the law, do you not listen to the law? Scripture itself declares that Abraham had two sons," continuing down to "which things are spoken allegorically," and what follows. And how have they abandoned the ancestral law, who constantly recall the ancestral things in their own words and say, "Does not the law also say this? For in the law of Moses it is written: You shall not
muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Is it oxen that God cares about? Or does he say this entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake," and so on. And how confusedly the Jew in Celsus's work says these things, when he could have spoken more persuasively, saying that some of you have abandoned the customs on the pretext of narratives and allegories, while others, even while interpreting them spiritually as you profess, nonetheless
keep the ancestral customs no less, and others, without even offering an interpretation, are unwilling either to accept Jesus as the one prophesied or to observe, in accordance with ancestral custom, the law given through Moses, on the ground that they possess in the letter the whole mind of the Spirit. But how could Celsus make this matter clear, when among the things he went on to mention were godless sects wholly estranged from Jesus
and others that abandon the Creator, yet he failed to notice Israelites who believe in Jesus and have not abandoned the ancestral law? For it was not his purpose to examine the whole matter as a lover of truth, so that, if he found anything useful, he might accept it; but, being from the moment he heard of such things an enemy wholly bent on overturning them, he wrote them down. Then the one in his work says
a Jew, addressing those from among his people who have come to believe, saying: yesterday and the day before, at the very time we were punishing this man for leading you astray, you deserted the ancestral law—knowing nothing accurate about the things he said, as we have shown. After this, it seems to me a piece of cleverness to ask: how is it that you begin from our own scriptures, yet as you advance you dishonor them, having no other starting point to name for your
teaching than our own law? For truly, for Christians the introduction is from the scriptures of Moses and the writings of the prophets; and after this introduction, in the exposition and clarification of them, there is progress for those being introduced, as they seek out the mystery "according to revelation," kept silent "for ages eternal" (but "now" made manifest) in the prophetic utterances and in the appearing of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It is not, as you claim, that those who advance dishonor what is written in the law; rather they invest it with still greater honor, by demonstrating what depth of wise and hidden sayings those writings possess—writings not perceived by the Jews, who read them in a more superficial and mythical manner. And what is strange about the beginning of our teaching, that is, of the gospel, being
the law? Seeing that our Lord himself says to those who do not believe him: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" But also Mark, one of the evangelists, writes: "The gospel of Jesus Christ has its start, just as stands written in Isaiah the
prophet: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you"—showing that the beginning of the gospel is anchored in the Jewish writings. What, then, is being said against us by the Jew in Celsus's text, where he says: even if someone foretold to you that the son of God would come among men, this
was our prophet, and of our God? And what charge is it against Christianity if the one who baptized Jesus, John, was a Jew? For it does not follow, because he was a Jew, that everyone who believes—whether he comes to the word from the nations or from the Jews—must, according to the letter, observe Moses' law. After this, Celsus even repeats himself
concerning Jesus, saying for a second time now that he had committed an offense and paid the penalty among the Jews; but we shall not resume the defense, being content with what has already been said. Then, since the Jew in his text belittles as stale the doctrines of the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of God, honor for the just, and fire for the unjust, claiming that Christians are taught
nothing new in these matters, and thinks by this to overturn Christianity, it must be said to him that our Jesus, seeing that the Jews were doing nothing worthy of the teachings found in the prophets, taught by means of a parable that God's reign would be taken away from them and given instead to those from the nations. For this reason one can truly see that all the myths and nonsense of the Jews of the present time
(for they do not have the light of the knowledge of the scriptures), while the truth of the Christians can lift up and elevate a person's soul and mind and persuade them to have a certain "citizenship" not like that of the Jews below—below in some sense—but rather "in the heavens"; and this is evident to those who observe the greatness of the thoughts held within the Law and the Prophets, and are able to make it plain to others as well.
Let it even be granted that Jesus performed all the Jewish customs, down to and including their sacrifices; what does this contribute toward the claim that one need not believe in him as Son of God? Jesus, then, is Son to the God who granted the Law and the Prophets; and those of us who belong to the church do not step beyond this, but rather
we have fled the mythologies of the Jews, while it is the mystical study of the Law and the Prophets that disciplines and instructs us. For those same prophets, since they do not confine the meaning of what is said to the plain historical narrative, nor to the legislation as it stands in its wording and letter, in one place say that they are indeed setting forth history, saying: "I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter dark sayings from the beginning." And in another place, praying concerning the Law as something obscure and requiring God's help to be understood, they say in prayer: "Open my eyes, and I will perceive the wonders from your law." Let them show, then, where any hint of arrogant speech is to be found proceeding from Jesus. For how is he arrogant who says, "Learn from me, for
I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls"? Or how is he arrogant who, "when supper was being held," undressed before his disciples, girded himself with "a towel," poured "water into the basin," and washed the feet of each one, rebuking the one who did not wish to offer his feet and saying, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me"? Or
how is he arrogant who declares, "I too came to be among you, not as one who reclines at table, but as one who serves"? Let someone prove what he lied about, and set forth great and small lies, so as to show that Jesus told great lies. But there is also another way to refute this: that just as one lie is not more of a lie than another,
so too one truth is no more true than another, nor is it true to a greater degree. As for what unholy things Jesus did, let him report them—especially the Jew in Celsus's dialogue. Is it unholy to turn away from bodily circumcision and bodily sabbath and bodily festivals and bodily new moons and clean and unclean things, and to transfer the mind to a law of God that is worthy and true and spiritual, along with
one who, as an ambassador "on behalf of Christ," knew how to become as a Jew "to the Jews, in order to win the Jews," and "to those under the law, as one under the law, in order to win those under the law"? He says that many others besides could be found of the sort that Jesus was, for those who wish to be deceived. Let the Jew in Celsus's dialogue show, then, not many, nor even a few, but even a single one such as this,
what sort of man Jesus was, bringing in a message and teachings, along with the power at work in him, beneficial to the human race and turning it away from the flood of sins. He says that this is a charge brought against the Jews by those who believe in Christ, since the Jews have not believed in Jesus as God; and we have already offered a defense on this point above, showing at the same time in what sense
we regard him as God, and in what sense we speak of him as man. "But how," he says, "could we, who declared to all mankind that one would come from God to punish the unrighteous, have dishonored him when he came?" To offer a defense against this, since it is quite foolish, does not seem to me reasonable. It is as if someone else were to say, "How could we, who taught others to be temperate, have done anything intemperate, or
how could we, who advocated for justice, have committed injustice?" For just as such things are found among human beings, so too it was a human failing that those who claimed to have believed the prophets who speak of a Christ who was to come should nevertheless have disbelieved the one who came in accordance with what was prophesied. But if we must add another reason as well, we will say that the prophets themselves foretold this very thing. Isaiah, at any rate, says plainly: "You will hear with hearing and not understand, and seeing you will see and not"
perceive; since the heart of this people has grown dull," and so forth. Let them tell us what it is that the Jews hear and what it is that the Jews see, if it is prophesied of them that they will not understand what is said, nor see in the way they ought to see what is seen. But surely it is clear that, though they looked upon Jesus, they failed to recognize who he was, and though they heard him speak, they failed to grasp, from
what was said the divinity within him, which was transferring God's oversight from the Jews to those from the nations who believe in him. One can therefore see that after the coming of Jesus the Jews have been utterly abandoned, and possess nothing of what was formerly regarded by them as sacred, nor any sign that any divinity remains among them. For there are no longer prophets among them, nor wonders,
traces of which are found to some degree among Christians, indeed some "greater" ones; and if we are to be believed when we say so, we ourselves have seen them. The Jew in Celsus's work says: "Why did we dishonor the one whom we proclaimed beforehand? Or so that we might be punished more than others?" To this too one can reply that the Jews, more than others, on account of their unbelief toward Jesus and
all the other outrages they committed against him, will suffer not only according to the judgment that is believed to be coming, but have already suffered. For what nation has been exiled from its own metropolis and from the place proper to its ancestral worship, except the Jews alone? And they have suffered this as utterly ignoble people—even though they sinned much—for no other reason so much as for what they dared against our Jesus.
After this the Jew says: "How were we supposed to consider this man god, when, among other things, he did not, as was reported, perform any of what he promised, and when, after we had convicted and condemned him and thought him deserving of punishment, he was caught hiding and fleeing most disgracefully, and was betrayed by those very men he called his disciples? And yet, being god, he says, he ought neither to have fled nor to have been led away in chains. Least of all"
by those who were with him and by everyone who had personally shared his company and made use of him as teacher, considered a savior and the child and messenger of the greatest God, was abandoned and handed over. To this we will say that we ourselves do not suppose the visible and perceptible body of Jesus at that time to be God. And why do I say the body? Not even the soul, of which it has been said,
"My soul is deeply grieved, even to death." But just as, in the account given by the Jews, the one who says, "I am the LORD, God of all flesh," and, "Before me no other god existed, and after me there will be none," is believed to be God, using as an instrument the soul and body of the prophet, so too among the Greeks the one who says, "I know"
the sand's number and the sea's dimensions, and I comprehend the mute, and I hear him who utters no speech," is deemed a god, speaking and heard through the Pythia. In the same way, among us the Word — God, and the Son of the God over all things — declared in Jesus, "I am the road and the truth and the life," and, "I am the door," and
"I am the bread of life, come down out of heaven," and whatever else is similar to these. We therefore fault the Jews for not recognizing this one as God, though he was witnessed to in many places by the prophets as a great power and as God, in accordance with the God and Father of all. For we say that it was to him that the Father, in the account of the world's creation according to Moses, spoke his commands and said,
"Let light come to be," and "Let a firmament come to be," and the rest of what God commanded to come into being; and that it was to him he said, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness"; and that the Word, having been commanded, made everything that the Father enjoined upon him. And we say these things not thrusting them forward on our own authority, but trusting the prophecies current among the Jews, wherein it is said concerning God and
his works of creation, in these very words, things that stand thus: "For he himself spoke, and they came to be; he himself commanded, and they were created." For if God commanded, and the works of creation were created, who could it be, in accordance with what pleases the prophetic spirit, who was able to fulfill so great a command of the Father, if not the one who, so to name him, is the Word ensouled and who happens to be "the truth"? And that the
one who said in Jesus, "It is I who am the way, the truth, the life," the Gospels themselves do not know to have been circumscribed as having come to be nowhere outside the soul and body of Jesus, is clear from many passages, and evident from the few that we will set forth here, which stand thus. John the Baptist, prophesying that the Son
of God was about to appear at almost any moment, not confined to that body and soul but rather present everywhere, says of him, "He stands among you, whom you do not know, the one coming after me." If, then, he had understood the Son of God to be only there, where the visible body of Jesus was, how could he have said, "He stands among you, whom you do not know"?
And Jesus himself, lifting the mind of those who were his disciples to think more greatly about the Son of God, says: "Wherever two or three have gathered in my name, there am I among them." Such too is his promise to the disciples when he says: "And behold, I am with you all the days, until the
completion of the age." We say this without separating the Son of God from Jesus; for above all, after the incarnation, the soul and the body of Jesus became one with the Word of God. For if, according to the teaching of Paul, who says, "whoever cleaves to the Lord becomes a single spirit with him," everyone who understands what it is to be joined to the Lord,
and having cleaved to him becomes a single spirit joined to the Lord, how much more divinely and greatly is that which was once composite one with the Word of God? This man, indeed, showed himself among the Jews to be "the power of God" through the wonders he performed—wonders which Celsus supposed came about by sorcery, while the Jews of that time, I know not from where, having learned the things
about Beelzebul, said he cast out "the demons" "by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." Our Savior refuted them there for saying something most absurd, on the ground that the kingdom of evil does not yet have its end—a point that becomes plain to anyone who reads the gospel writing with good sense, though this is not the occasion to explain it. But as for what Jesus promised and did not do, let Celsus set it forth and demonstrate it.
But he will not be able to, especially since it is either from things half-heard, or from readings of the gospels, or from Jewish tales that he supposes he derives what he says against Jesus or against us. But since, again, the Jew says that "having convicted him and condemned him, we thought he deserved to be punished," let them show how those who sought to fabricate false testimonies against him convicted him—unless indeed the great
conviction against Jesus was the one his accusers stated, that "this man said: the temple of God I can tear down and raise it again in three days"; whereas he himself "spoke about the temple of his body." But they supposed, not knowing how to hear according to the intention of the speaker, that his word concerned the stone temple,
which was held in greater honor among the Jews—rather than as it ought to have been honored, the true temple of God, of the Word and of wisdom and of truth. But let someone say how it was that Jesus, in the most disgraceful way, fled and hid himself—let someone show what is worthy of reproach in this. But since he also says that he was captured, I would say that, if being captured is something involuntary, Jesus was not captured;
for he did not prevent himself from coming into the hands of men at the fitting time, as "the lamb of God" — so as to lift from it "the sin of the world." "Knowing, then, all the things that were coming upon him, he went out and said to them: Whom do you seek? And they answered: Jesus the Nazarene. He says to them: I am he. And Judas, who was betraying him, was standing with them. So then, when
he said to them, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. So he asked them again, "Whom are you seeking?" Once more they answered, "Jesus of Nazareth." To this Jesus replied, "I told you that I am he. If then you are seeking me, let these men go." But also to the one who wanted to help him and struck "the servant of the high priest" and cut off
"his ear," he said, "Put your sword back into its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I am not able to call upon my Father even now, and he will provide me here more than twelve legions of angels? How then would the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?" But if someone supposes that these things are inventions of those who wrote the
gospels, on this basis how is it not rather the case that the inventions belong to those who speak out of hostility and hatred toward him and toward Christians, while the truth belongs to those who demonstrated the genuineness of their disposition toward Jesus by enduring absolutely everything for the sake of his words? For that Jesus' disciples had taken up such great endurance and steadfastness even unto death
with a disposition that fabricated things about their teacher that were not so — . . . . . ; and it is quite clear to fair-minded people, from the fact that they endured such great and so many things for the sake of him whom they held to be God's own Son, that they were persuaded of the things they wrote down. Next, that he was betrayed by the disciples he named — the
Jew in Celsus' work learned this from the gospels, and though he said that Judas was one of many disciples, in order that the accusation might appear to be magnified, he did not go on to examine carefully everything written concerning Judas — namely, that Judas, having fallen into conflicting and opposing judgments concerning his teacher, neither turned against him with his whole soul, nor with his whole soul kept the reverence a disciple owes a teacher. "For the
one who betrayed him gave" to the crowd that had come to seize Jesus "a sign," saying, "Whomever I kiss, he is the one; seize him" — thereby preserving something of his reverence for him; for if he had not preserved it, he would have handed him over openly, without the pretense of a kiss. Now this will not persuade everyone concerning Judas' moral choice, that alongside his love of money
and his wicked choice to betray his teacher, he had something mixed into his soul that had come to be in him from Jesus' words, bearing the trace — if I may call it so — of a remnant of goodness. For it is written that "when Judas, who betrayed him, saw that condemnation had been passed, was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins, handing them to the elders and chief priests, saying, 'I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.' But they said,
"What is that to us? See to it yourself." And throwing the silver pieces into the temple, he turned away, went off, and hanged himself." But if the money-loving Judas, who used to steal from what was put into "the money box" on behalf of the poor, "repented and returned the thirty silver coins to the ruling priests and the elders," it is clear that Jesus' teachings had been able to work some repentance in him, not being altogether despised by
of the traitor and one who was spat out; but also his confession, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood," belonged to one confessing the sin. And see how burning and violent the grief that came upon him from remorse over his sins, such that he could no longer bear even to go on living, but throwing the silver "into the temple" he withdrew and departed and hanged himself. For he condemned himself, showing as much as he could
even in the sinner Judas, the thief and traitor, that Jesus's teaching was present, since he was not able entirely to despise what he had learned from Jesus. Or will Celsus and his followers say that the things indicating that Judas was not entirely apostate are fabrications added even after the deeds dared against the teacher, and that the only true thing is that one of the disciples betrayed him, and
will they add to what is written that he betrayed him with his whole soul? Which is implausible, to treat everything from the same writings as hostile, both the believing and the disbelieving parts. But if we must also set forth some persuasive argument concerning Judas, we shall say that, within the collection of Psalms, the entirety of Psalm one hundred and eight contains the prophecy concerning Judas,
whose beginning is: "O God, do not pass over my praise in silence, for the mouth of a sinner and the mouth of a deceitful man have opened against me." And it is prophesied in it also that Judas, on account of his sin, cut himself off from the company of the apostles, and that a different man was confirmed in his place; and this is shown in the words "and let another take his office of oversight." But
come, suppose he had been betrayed by one of the disciples in a manner worse than Judas, one who had, as it were, poured out all the words he had heard from Jesus — what does this contribute toward an accusation against Jesus or against Christianity? And how does this prove the account to be false? We have already given a defense concerning the sequel even earlier than this, showing that Jesus was not caught while fleeing but
willingly handed himself over on behalf of all of us. And it follows from this that even if he was bound, he was bound willingly, teaching us not to undertake such things for the sake of piety unwillingly. And such arguments as these also seem to me childish, namely that a good general who has led many tens of thousands has never been betrayed, nor even a wicked bandit-chief ruling over utterly wicked men, who seems to be beneficial to those with him; while he himself, having been betrayed
by those under him, neither ruled as a good general, nor, even by deceiving his disciples, produced in those deceived the goodwill one has toward a bandit-chief, if I may so call him. For one could find many accounts of generals betrayed by their own men and of bandit-chiefs captured because of those who did not keep their agreements with them. But suppose that no general or bandit-chief has ever been betrayed;
what does this contribute toward the case against Jesus, that one of his followers became his betrayer? And since Celsus puts forward philosophy, we might ask him whether it was an accusation against Plato that Aristotle, after twenty years of listening to him, departed and accused his account of the immortality of the soul, and called Plato's Forms "twitterings."
And raising a further difficulty, we might put it this way: was Plato no longer competent in dialectic, no longer able to set forth his own thoughts, once Aristotle had left him, and did that make Plato's doctrines false? Or is it possible, even with Plato being true, as those who philosophize in his school would say, that Aristotle became wicked and ungrateful toward his teacher? But Chrysippus too—
in many places in his own writings—can be seen attacking Cleanthes, introducing innovations contrary to what Cleanthes had held, though Cleanthes had been his teacher while he was still young and just beginning philosophy. And yet Aristotle is said to have studied with Plato for twenty years, and Chrysippus too spent no small time pursuing his studies under Cleanthes; but Judas spent not even three years with Jesus. Now from
what is written in the lives of the philosophers one could find many such cases, of the sort for which Celsus accuses Jesus on account of Judas. The Pythagoreans used to build empty tombs for those who, after being drawn toward philosophy, ran back again to the life of ordinary people; and this did not make Pythagoras and his followers weak in argument and in proofs. After this
the Jew in Celsus says that, though he has much to say about the things that happened concerning Jesus, and things that are true and not like what was written by Jesus' disciples, he willingly leaves those things aside. What, then, are the true things—not like what is written in the gospels—that the Jew in Celsus leaves aside? Or is it that, employing a seeming rhetorical cleverness, he pretends
to have something to say, while in fact he had nothing to bring forward from outside the gospel capable of striking the hearer as true and as manifestly accusing Jesus and his teaching? He accuses the disciples of having invented the claim that Jesus foreknew and had foretold everything that happened to him. And this, even if Celsus does not wish it, being true, we will demonstrate from many other things
spoken prophetically by the Savior, among which he foretold what would happen to Christians in the generations that came afterward. And who would not marvel at the prediction, "You will be led away before rulers and kings on my account, as a witness to them and to the nations," and whatever else he foretold about his disciples being persecuted? For on account of what teaching among those
that have arisen among human beings are others also punished, such that one of Jesus' accusers might say that, seeing impious or false doctrines being accused, he thought to lend this too a certain dignity by pretending to foretell it about himself? For if it were necessary for people to be brought "before governors and kings" on account of doctrines, whom would it be necessary to bring but Epicureans, who do away with providence altogether, and also
the followers of the Peripatos, who say that prayers and sacrifices offered toward the divine accomplish nothing? But someone will say that Samaritans too are persecuted on account of their own worship of God. To this we will say the following: the Sicarii are executed because of circumcision, since by mutilating themselves they act against the established laws and against what has been granted to the Jews alone. And one cannot hear of a judge inquiring whether, according to this
the piety that is customarily observed, and the bandit who struggles to keep himself alive: if he abandons his position he will be released, but if he persists in it he will be led away to death. But of course it is enough to show that circumcision leads to the destruction of the one who has undergone it. Christians alone, however, in keeping with what their savior said, namely, "For my sake you will be led before rulers and kings," are permitted by their judges, right up to their last breath, to be released if they renounce Christianity, and
to sacrifice and swear according to the common customs, and so go home and live without danger. But consider whether it is not said with great authority: "Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I too will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before others," and so on. And
come up with me in reasoning to Jesus as he says these things, and see that, since these were not yet accomplished when they were prophesied, you could only say either that you disbelieve him, on the ground that he is talking nonsense and speaking idly (since the things said will not come to pass), or that you are in doubt about assenting to his words — unless it should be that, if these things are fulfilled and the teaching of Jesus's words is established, so that
governors and kings take care to put to death everyone who confesses Jesus, only then shall we be convinced that he speaks these things as one who received from God great authority to scatter this word among mankind and who was confident he would prevail. And who would not marvel, coming up in reasoning to that man teaching then and saying, "This gospel will be preached in the whole
world as a testimony to them and to the nations," when he sees that, in keeping with what was said by him, the gospel of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed, under the sky, to "Greeks and barbarians alike, both wise and foolish"? For the word spoken with power has prevailed over every nature of human beings, and there is no race of human beings to be seen that has escaped receiving the teaching of Jesus. Let
the Jew in Celsus's work who disbelieves concerning Jesus, on the ground that he foreknew everything that would happen to him, take note of the manner in which, while Jerusalem still stood and the whole Jewish worship was still being carried on in it, Jesus foretold what would happen to it at the hands of the Romans. For surely they will not say that Jesus's own acquaintances and hearers handed down the teaching of the gospels apart from writing, and that
the disciples left behind no written records concerning Jesus. It is indeed written among them: "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has drawn near." And at that time there were not yet any armies surrounding Jerusalem, encircling it, and besieging it. For this began while Nero was still reigning, and extended until the
reign of Vespasian, whose son Titus destroyed Jerusalem — as Josephus writes, because Jesus's brother James the Just (called "the Just") had been put to death, this Jesus being the one termed Christ; but as the truth establishes, on account of Jesus the Christ of God. Celsus, however, could have accepted or granted that he foreknew what would happen to him, and yet could still have thought to belittle this — which he has done in the case of the
...of powers, claiming that they had come about through sorcery, and he could indeed have said that many, through forms of divination—whether from omens of birds, or from sacrifice, or from the casting of horoscopes—came to know the things that would befall them. But he was unwilling to grant this as being something greater, while seeming, having somehow conceded that Jesus had performed these powers, to have slandered it under the pretext of sorcery. Phlegon, however, in the thirteenth or, I think, fourteenth book of his Chronicles,
also granted foreknowledge of certain future events to Christ—though confused, in what he said about Peter, into thinking it was about Jesus—and testified that events came to pass in accordance with what had been foretold by him. Yet even he, unwillingly, through his account of this foreknowledge, declared, as it were, that the doctrine handed down among the fathers of these teachings was not empty of a more divine power. And Celsus says
that the disciples of Jesus too, having nothing to object to concerning a matter plain for all to see, invented this device: saying that he had foreknown everything—failing, or being unwilling, to attend to the truthfulness of those who wrote, who indeed acknowledged that Jesus had told the disciples beforehand, "You will all fall away this night," and that this proved true when they did fall away, and that he had also prophesied to Peter, "That
before the cock crows, you will deny me three times." And that Peter did indeed deny him three times. For if they were not truthful men but, as Celsus supposes, were recording fictions, they would not have written that Peter denied him, or that the disciples of Jesus fell away. For who, even if these things happened, would have refuted the account by pointing out that this is how it turned out? And yet, as a matter of likelihood, men wishing to teach those
who read the gospels to despise death for the confession of Christianity ought to have kept silent about such things. But as it stands, seeing that the word would prevail over men by its power, they set down these things too—which, I cannot see how, would fail to harm their readers or give occasion for denial. And he says, quite foolishly, that the disciples wrote such things about Jesus as an excuse for what happened to him—just as, he says, if someone
were to say that a man is just, and then shows him doing wrong, or says he is holy, and then shows him committing murder, or says he is immortal, and then shows him dead, adding to all these that he had happened to foretell them. But his comparison is dissimilar from the outset, since there is nothing absurd in one who had taken up the purpose destined for men, concerning how one ought to live, having shown by his own example that one must die for the sake of piety—apart from the fact that it was also of use
to the whole universe that he died on behalf of mankind, as we showed in the discourse before this one. Then he supposes that the entire confession of the Passion confirms his refutation rather than dissolves it; for he did not see how much has been reasoned philosophically about this both by Paul and has been said by the prophets. And it escaped his notice that someone among those in the heresies had said
that Jesus suffered these things in appearance, not in reality. For he said this without knowing the facts—for you did not say this, that it merely seemed to impious men that he suffered these things while he did not actually suffer, but rather you openly confess that he suffered. But we do not apply "seeming" to his suffering, so that his resurrection too should not be false but true. For the one who truly died, if...
he rose, truly he rose; but the one who seemed to have died did not truly rise. Since the unbelievers mock the matter of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we will adduce Plato too, saying that Er, son of Armenius, was raised up from the pyre twelve days later and reported the things concerning those in Hades—and, addressed to unbelievers, also the things concerning the woman who lay breathless in Heraclides'
account will not be entirely useless for this matter. Many, too, are recorded as having come back from their tombs, not only on the very day but even on the following one. What, then, is astonishing if the one who did many things beyond ordinary paradox and beyond human capacity, and so plainly that those unable to look the facts in the face—since they had actually happened—reviled them by lumping them together with sorceries, also concerning
his own death had something more: that the soul willingly left the body, but, having arranged something outside it, returned again—whenever it wishes? Such a saying is recorded in John as spoken by Jesus, in the passage: "No man takes this soul away from me; rather, I myself set it down of my own will. I hold the authority to set it down, and likewise the authority
to take it up again." And perhaps it was for this reason that he went out from the body ahead of time, so that it might be preserved and his legs not broken, as were those of the robbers crucified with him. "For as to the first man, the soldiers broke his legs, and likewise those of the second one crucified alongside him; yet reaching Jesus, once they saw he had already breathed his last, his legs they did not break
legs." We have spoken, then, also to this: whence, then, is it credible that he foretold it? And whence is the dead man immortal? Let whoever wishes learn this: immortality belongs not to the dead man, but to the one who rose from the dead. Not only, then, is the dead man not immortal, but not even the composite Jesus, before he was dead, was immortal, since he was indeed going to die. For no one who is going to die
is immortal, but becomes immortal when he will no longer die. "But Christ, once raised up from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him"� even if those who cannot grasp how these things are said are unwilling to understand them. Utterly foolish, too, is this: what god or demon or sensible man, foreknowing that such things would happen to him, would not, if indeed he were able, have avoided them, rather than falling in with what he had already foreknown?
Socrates, at any rate, knew that he was going to drink the hemlock and die, and could have, had he been persuaded by Crito, escaped from the prison and suffered none of this; but he chose, in accordance with what seemed reasonable to him, that dying philosophically was preferable to living unphilosophically. And Leonidas too, the general of the Lacedaemonians, knowing that he was on the very point of dying along with the men at Thermopylae, did not contrive to live shamefully,
but said to those with him: "Let us breakfast as men who will dine in Hades." Those who care to collect such accounts will find many. And what is astonishing if Jesus, knowing what would happen, did not avoid it but fell in with what he too had foreknown—seeing that even Paul his disciple, on hearing what would happen to him when he went up to Jerusalem, went to meet the dangers head-on, rebuking even those who wept
about him and prevent him from going up to Jerusalem. And many of our own people, knowing that if they confess Christianity they will die, but if they deny it they will be released and recover their possessions, have despised life and willingly chosen death for the sake of piety. Next, the Jew in Celsus makes another foolish remark: how is it, he says, that if he had indeed foretold both
the one who would betray him and the one who would deny him, they would not have feared him as a god, so as no longer to betray the one or deny the other? And the most wise Celsus did not see the contradiction in this point: that if he foreknew as a god, and it was not possible for his foreknowledge to prove false, then it was not possible either for the one known to be
a betrayer not to betray, or for the one shown to be a denier not to deny; but if it were possible for this one not to betray and that one not to deny, so that the not-betraying and the not-denying could have come about in those who had learned these things beforehand, then he who said that this one would betray and that one would deny was no longer speaking the truth. For indeed, if he foreknew the one who would betray him, he saw the
wickedness from which he would betray him, which was not at all overturned by that foreknowledge. Again, if he had grasped the one who would deny him by seeing the weakness from which he would deny, he foretold that he would deny; and this weakness was not going to be so suddenly overturned by the foreknowledge. And where does this come from: 'but they themselves betrayed and denied him, giving him no thought at all'? For it has been shown concerning
the betrayer that it is false that he betrayed him while giving his teacher no thought at all; and no less is this shown concerning the one who denied him, who, after 'going out,' 'wept bitterly' after denying him. And this too is superficial: for indeed a man who is being plotted against, if he perceives it beforehand and forewarns those who are plotting, they turn back and are on their guard; yet many have plotted against
those who perceived it beforehand, all the same. Next, adding what amounts to a conclusion to his argument, he says: it did not happen because these things had been foretold — for that is impossible; but since it did happen, the foretelling is proven false. For it is altogether impossible for those who had heard beforehand still to betray and deny. But once the premises have been overturned, the conclusion is overturned along with them, namely that: (it is not the case that) because these things had been foretold, they happened. But we say that they did happen, as is possible, and since
it happened, the foretelling is shown to be true; for truth concerning future things is judged by outcomes. False, then, is what has been said by him in this way. Since it is proven false that the foretelling is false, it has also been said in vain by Celsus that: it is altogether impossible for those who had heard beforehand still to betray and deny. After this let us see what he says: these things, he says, being god, he foretold, and what had been foretold necessarily had to happen.
He is a god, then, who took his disciples and prophets — the men he ate and drank alongside — and brought them to such a pass that they became impious and unholy — the very men he ought above all to have benefited, and especially those who shared his table. Or would someone who shared a table with a man no longer have plotted against him, yet, having feasted together with a god, became a plotter? And what is even more absurd, the god himself, for the
he plotted against his fellow diners at table, making them traitors and impious men. But since you also wish us to respond to what seem to me the trivial arguments of Celsus on this point, we will say the following. Celsus supposes that a thing comes to pass because it was foretold by some foreknowledge, since it was foretold; but we, not granting this, say that the one who foretold it is not the cause of what is going to happen, on the ground that he foretold it would happen, but rather
the thing that is going to happen — even had it not been foretold, it would still happen — has furnished the cause to the one who foreknows it, for his foretelling it. And this whole matter, in fact, lies within the foreknowledge of the one who foretells it: given that a certain thing is capable of happening and equally capable of not happening, one or the other of these will be the actual case. And we do not say that the one who foreknows, by removing the possibility of its happening and
not happening, says something to this effect: this will happen absolutely, and it is impossible for it to happen otherwise. And this applies to every case of foreknowledge concerning something within our power, whether according to the divine scriptures or according to the histories of the Greeks. And what is called among the logicians the "lazy argument" is, in fact, a sophism. It will not be a sophism so far as Celsus is concerned,
but by healthy logic it amounts to a sophism. So that this may be understood, I will use, from scripture, the prophecies concerning Judas, or our savior's foreknowledge concerning him as one who would betray him; and from the Greek histories, the oracle given to Laius, granting for the present that it is true, since this does no harm to the argument. Concerning
Judas, then, it is said, spoken in the person of the savior, in the hundred and eighth psalm, whose beginning is: "God, keep not silence over my praise; a sinner's mouth, yes, a deceiver's mouth, has opened itself against me." And if you observe carefully what is written in the psalm, you will find that, just as he was foreknown to be about to betray the savior, so too he was the cause of the betrayal and deserving
of the curses spoken in the prophecy on account of his wickedness. For let him suffer these things: "because," it says, "he did not remember to show mercy, and pursued a poor and needy man." He could, then, have remembered "to show mercy" and not pursued the one he pursued; but although able to do so, he did not, but betrayed him instead, so that he is deserving of the curses spoken against him in the prophecy. And
in addressing the Greeks we will use in this same way what was said to Laius, whether the tragedian recorded the very words or their equivalent. It is said to him, then, by the one who indeed foreknew what was to come: "Sow no furrow of children in defiance of the gods' will; should you father a child, that offspring will slay you, and your entire house will pass through streams of blood." And in
this, then, it is clearly shown that it was possible for Laius not to sow "the furrow of children" — for the oracle would not have enjoined upon him something impossible — and it was equally possible for him to sow it, and neither of the two was compelled by necessity. But because he did not guard against sowing "the furrow of children," there followed, from his having sown it, the sufferings that befell Oedipus and Jocasta and their sons
...tragedy. But there is also the so-called "idle argument," which is a sophism, spoken in this form as a case put to a sick person, and as a sophism it dissuades him from using a doctor to regain his health. The argument runs like this: if it is fated for you to recover from your illness, then whether you call in the doctor or do not call him in, you will recover; but also, if it is fated for you
not to recover from your illness, then whether you call in the doctor or do not call him in, you will not recover. But it is fated either for you to recover from your illness or for you not to recover; therefore it is pointless to call in the doctor. But something like this is cleverly set up against this argument in reply: if it is fated for you to father a child, then regardless of whether you lie with a woman or refrain from lying with her, you will father a child;
but also, if it is fated for you not to father a child, then regardless of whether you lie with a woman or refrain, you will not father a child. But it is fated either for you to father a child or not to father one; therefore it is pointless to have intercourse with a woman. For just as in this case, since it is impossible and unachievable for one who has not had intercourse with a woman to father a child, having intercourse with a woman is not adopted pointlessly, so too, if recovery from illness comes about by the route
that proceeds from medicine, the doctor is necessarily adopted, and the statement "it is pointless to call in the doctor" is false. Now we have set out all this because of what the very wise Celsus put forward when he said: being God, he foretold it, and what was foretold absolutely had to happen. For if by "absolutely" he means "of necessity," we will not grant it to him, for it was possible for it not to happen. But if
he says "absolutely" instead of "it will be" — which is not prevented from being true even if it is possible for it not to happen — this does nothing to harm our argument. For it did not follow, from Jesus having truly foretold the things concerning the betrayer or the things concerning the one who denied him, that he himself was the cause of their impiety and unholy act. For our Lord, seeing his depraved character,
and knowing "what was in the man," and seeing what he would dare to do both from his being a lover of money and from his not thinking firmly and rightly about his teacher as he ought, said, along with much else, also this: "He who has dipped his hand with me in the dish, that one will betray me." But observe also the superficiality and the outright falsehood of this statement of
Celsus, in which he declares that one who has shared a table with a man would not plot against him; and that if he would not plot against a man, much more would one who has feasted together with a god not become a plotter against him. Yet everyone knows that many who have shared salt and table have in fact plotted against their fellow diners. And the history of both Greeks and barbarians is full of such examples. And indeed the
iambic poet of Paros, reproaching Lycambes for having broken his agreements after "salt and table," says to him: "and you cast off aside the great oath, both the salt and the table." And those who care for learning drawn from histories, having devoted themselves wholly to it and abandoned the more necessary lessons about how indeed one ought to live, will produce more examples still, showing that those who have shared a table with certain people have plotted against them. Then, as though he had gathered together
He stated the argument with fitted proofs and sequences of reasoning, and — what is even more absurd — God himself plotted against his own table-companions, making them betrayers and impious men. For he would not be able to show how Jesus either plotted against them or made his disciples betrayers and impious, except by the sequence of reasoning he supposed — a sequence which even the first person one meets could most easily refute. After this he says
that if this had been resolved by him, and he was punished while obeying the Father, then clearly, since he was God and willing it, the things done according to his own intention were neither painful nor distressing. And he does not see that he has contradicted himself right at his own feet. For if he granted that Jesus 'was punished,' since this had been resolved by him, and he submitted himself in obeying the Father, then clearly he was punished, and
it was not possible for the things inflicted by his punishers not to be painful, for suffering is not a matter of choice. But if the things inflicted were neither painful nor distressing to one who willed them, how did he grant the word 'he was punished'? He has not seen that, once he had taken up the body that comes through birth, he took it up as something capable of suffering and of the distressing things that happen to bodies — provided we do not understand 'distressing' as something chosen.
Just as, then, having willed it, he took up a body not altogether of a different nature from human flesh, so together with the body he also took up its pains and its distresses. In the face of these he was not so much master as to avoid suffering, since it lay with those who inflicted them to bring the distressing and painful things upon him. And we have already defended above the point that, having willed
not to come into the hands of men, he would not have come. But he came, since he willed it, on account of what had already been granted beforehand — that his dying on behalf of men would be beneficial to the whole. Next, wishing to establish that what happened to him was painful and distressing, and that it was not possible, once he had willed to bring it about, for it to be otherwise, he says: 'Why then does he wail piteously and
lament, and pray that the fear of destruction pass him by,' speaking words something like these: 'Father, if this cup can pass away'? And in this too observe the malice of Celsus, in that he did not acknowledge the truth-loving character of those who wrote the gospels — who, though able to pass over in silence the things that, as Celsus supposes, are open to accusation, did not remain silent about them, for many reasons which one will render in due season
when giving an account of the gospel. He accuses the wording of the gospel, exaggerating it tragically and setting down things that are not written; for nowhere is it found how Jesus 'wailed piteously.' And he paraphrases the words 'Father, if this can be done, take this cup away from me,' but no longer also what is recorded next to it, which of itself shows his piety and greatness of soul toward the Father — setting it down as follows:
'yet not as I will, but as you will.' But he does not even pretend to have read the ready obedience of Jesus to the Father's will concerning the things determined for him to suffer, shown in the words 'if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done' — doing something similar to those impious people who hear the divine scriptures in a more malicious way, and who twist 'injustice into
...speak of "loftiness." For they too seem to have heard "I will kill," and they often throw this at us as a reproach, but they do not even remember "I will make alive" — though the whole saying shows that those who live for the common harm and act according to wickedness are killed by God, while a better life is brought in for them instead, the life which God would grant to those who died in sin. Thus
they too have heard "I will strike," but they no longer see "and I will heal" — which is like what is said by a physician who cuts into bodies and inflicts severe wounds in order to remove from them what is harmful and hinders health, and does not stop at the pains and the incisions but restores the body through treatment to the health set before it.
But neither have they heard the whole of "For he himself causes pain and restores again," but only "he causes pain." So too the Jew set forth in Celsus's work has cited, "O Father, if only this cup could pass," but not what follows, nor what shows Jesus's readiness and steadfastness for the suffering. And these things too,
having a lengthy account drawn from the wisdom of God, would reasonably be handed down to those whom Paul called "the perfect," when he says, "But we speak wisdom among the perfect." For the present we set this aside and briefly recall what is useful to the matter before us. We said also above that some sayings belong to the firstborn "of all creation" who is in Jesus, such as: "I am
the road and the truth and life itself," and sayings like these, while others belong to the man conceived in connection with him, such as: "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth I heard from the Father." And here too, then, he depicts in his human aspect both the weakness of the human flesh and the
readiness of the spirit. The weakness is in: "Father, if it is possible, may this cup pass from me." As for the readiness of the spirit, it is shown in: "Yet not as I will, but as you will." And if one must also observe the order of what was said, notice that first is spoken what one might call, in accordance with the weakness of the
flesh, a single saying; but afterward, those belonging to the readiness of the spirit are more numerous. For one is: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me," but more numerous are: "not as I will, but as you," and: "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done."
One must also observe that it was not said, "Let this cup depart from me," but this whole statement was spoken devoutly and with qualification: "Father, if it is possible, may this cup pass from me." I know too of a certain account on this passage, that the Savior, seeing what the people and Jerusalem would suffer for the vengeance to be exacted for the deeds against
...acts dared against him by the Jews, for no other reason than that, out of love for humanity toward them, wishing that the people should not suffer what they were about to suffer, he says, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me" — as if he were saying: since, by my drinking this cup of punishment, an entire nation will be abandoned by you, I pray, if it is possible,
for this cup to pass from me, so that your portion, which has dared to act against me, may not be utterly abandoned by you. But even if, as Celsus says, nothing painful or distressing happened to Jesus at that time, how could those who came after him have used Jesus as an example for enduring the hardships that come through piety, if he had not suffered
the things human beings suffer, but only seemed to have suffered? Further, the Jew in Celsus's work says to the disciples of Jesus, as though they had invented these things, "Not even in your lying could you plausibly conceal your fabrications." To this it will be said that there was in fact an easy way to conceal such things — namely, not to record them at all in the first place. For which of the
gospels, had it not contained these things, could have reproached us for the fact that Jesus said such things in the course of the dispensation? Celsus failed to see that it is not possible for the same people both to have been deceived about Jesus as god and as one prophesied, and also to have invented things about him while clearly knowing that their inventions were not true. Either, then, they did not invent them but truly believed them, and
wrote them down without lying, or they wrote them down after lying, in which case they did not believe them and did not, having been deceived, regard him as god. After this he says that some of the believers, as if coming to their senses out of drunkenness, altered the gospel from its original written form three times, four times, and many times over, and reshaped it, so that they might have grounds to deny it in the face of refutation. Now as for those who altered the gospel, I know of none
but the followers of Marcion and the followers of Valentinus, and I think also the followers of Lucan. But this charge, when made, is not an accusation against the doctrine but against those who dared to tamper unscrupulously with the gospels. And just as the sophists, or the Epicureans, or the Peripatetics, or whoever else may hold false opinions, are no accusation against philosophy, so those who tamper with the gospels and introduce foreign heresies contrary to the intent of Jesus's teaching are no
accusation against true Christianity. Since, after this, the Jew in Celsus also reproaches Christians for making use of the prophets who had proclaimed beforehand the things concerning Jesus, we shall say, in addition to what has already been said on this point, that he ought — as he claims, out of consideration for his readers — to have set out the prophecies themselves and, having argued in favor of
their plausibility, to have set out the refutation, as it appeared to him, of their application to Jesus. For in that way he would have seemed not to snatch up so great a topic by means of a few little phrases, especially since he says the prophetic texts could be applied with far greater plausibility to countless others than to Jesus. And he ought indeed, in the face of this proof which has prevailed among Christians as the strongest, to have taken his stand carefully and examined each prophecy
...set forth, how it can be applied to others much more plausibly than to Jesus. But he did not even understand that this, even if it were plausible when said by someone against Christians, would perhaps have been plausible if said by those alien to the prophetic writings; but as it stands, Celsus has fitted onto the person of the Jew what a Jew would not have said. For the Jew will not concede that the prophetic sayings can be applied to countless others
much more plausibly than to Jesus. But in offering, for each point, the interpretation that seems right to him, he will try to stand his ground against the Christian understanding — not speaking with full persuasiveness, but attempting to do something of the sort. We have already said above that Christ was prophesied to make use of two comings to the human race; and so there is no longer any need
for us to answer the statement made as though by the Jew, that the prophets say the one who is to come will be great, a ruler, and lord of all the earth and of all nations and armies. I think he spoke in a Jewish manner, and in keeping with their bile, reviling Jesus plausibly enough yet without proof — namely, that they did not proclaim such a destruction. And yet
neither the Jews nor Celsus nor anyone else can demonstrate with proof that a destruction turns so many people away from the flood of evils toward a life according to nature accompanied by self-control and the rest of the virtues. Celsus also flung out this: 'No one establishes a god or a son of god from such tokens and mishearings, nor from such ignoble evidences.'
But he ought to have set out the mishearings and refuted them, and presented the ignoble evidences by argument, so that if the Christian seemed to be saying anything plausible, he might try to contend against it and overturn the argument. But what he said about Jesus he answered as though about something great, yet he did not wish to see that this is exactly what the clarity concerning Jesus establishes. For just as
the sun, he says, illuminating everything else, shows itself first; so too the son of God ought to have done. We would say, then, that he did do this: for 'righteousness dawned in his days, and an abundance of peace' came about, beginning from his birth, as God prepared the nations through his teaching, so that they might come under a single king of the Romans,
and not, because of the pretext of the many kingdoms and the lack of intercourse among the nations with one another, find it harder for the apostles of Jesus to do what Jesus commanded them when he said, 'Go and make disciples of all nations.' And it is clear that Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, who — if I may call him so — leveled through a single kingdom the many peoples upon
the earth. And it would have been an obstacle to the spreading of Jesus' teaching throughout the whole inhabited world if there had been many kingdoms, not only for the reasons already stated but also because everywhere people would have been compelled to do military service and fight wars for their homelands — which used to happen before the time of Augustus and still earlier, when there was need, as with the Peloponnesians and the Athenians
war exists in this way among others as well. How, then, could this peaceful teaching, which does not even permit its adherents to defend themselves against enemies, have prevailed, unless the affairs of the inhabited world had everywhere been changed toward a gentler state by the coming of Jesus? After this he charges the Christians with sophistry, on the ground that they call the Son of God the very Word itself, and he thinks he strengthens the
accusation, since, although we profess that the Word is the Son of God, we point not to a pure and holy Word but to a man led away and beaten to death in the most dishonorable fashion. We have already spoken about this above, as it were in summary, against Celsus's accusations; there it was shown that the "firstborn of all creation" had taken on a human body and soul, and that God gave commandment concerning so many things
in the world, and it was created. And that the one who received the command was God the Word. And since it is a Jew who says these things in Celsus, it will not be inappropriate for us to apply the text, "He dispatched his word and cured them, and rescued them from their ruin" — which we also mentioned above. I myself, having met with many Jews, even ones professing to be wise,
have never heard any of them praising the idea that the Word is the Son of God, as Celsus has claimed, attaching this to the persona of the Jew who says, "If indeed the Word is your Son of God, then we too praise it." We have already said that Jesus could be neither a charlatan nor a sorcerer; there is therefore no need to repeat what has been said,
lest we too fall into repetitions in response to Celsus's repetitions. In attacking the genealogy, he named none of the points that are actually raised even among Christians and brought forward by some as objections concerning the disagreement of the genealogies. For Celsus, that truly boastful man who claims to know everything, did not know how to raise difficulties against the scripture with any prudence. He says that those who traced the genealogy of Jesus back
from the first man and among the kings of the Jews had behaved with sheer arrogance. And he thinks he is contributing something noble by saying that the carpenter's wife, had she belonged to so great a lineage, would not have been ignorant of it. Yet what does this have to do with the argument? Suppose she was not ignorant of it — how does that harm the case before us? But suppose she was ignorant — how does it follow, from her ignorance, that her lineage
did not descend from the first man and was not traced back to those who reigned as kings among the Jews? Or does Celsus think it necessary that the poor be descended from ancestors poor in every respect, and kings only from kings? It seems to me pointless, then, to dwell on this argument, since it is obvious that even in our own times some have become poorer than Mary though descended from the rich and famous, while others, from the most obscure of nations, have become
even kings. "But what noble deed," he says, "did Jesus do, worthy of a god — despising human beings, mocking them, and treating what happened to him as a game?" When he asks this, from what source shall we answer him? Even if we are able to point out what was noble and extraordinary in what happened to him — whether from the gospels — that "the earth was shaken and the rocks were split and the tombs were opened" and
"The curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom," and "there was darkness" during the daytime, "the sun having failed"? But if Celsus believes the Gospels where he thinks he can accuse the Christians, yet disbelieves them where they establish the divinity in Jesus, we shall say to him: My good man, either disbelieve everything and stop making accusations at all, or, believing everything, marvel at
God's Word becoming man and wishing to benefit the entire human race. It is a noble work of Jesus that even to this day, those whom God chooses to heal are cured through his name. As for the eclipse under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, during which Jesus is thought to have been crucified, along with the great earthquakes that then took place, Phlegon also recorded these, I believe, in either the thirteenth or the fourteenth book of his
Chronicles. The Jew in Celsus's dialogue, mocking, as he supposes, has written that Jesus knew Euripides' Bacchus saying, "the god himself will free me, whenever I wish." But Jews are not in the least devoted to Greek literature. Still, let it be granted that some Jew had become learned in this way; how then did Jesus, since he did not
free himself when bound, fail to have the power to loose himself? Let him believe, from my own writings, that Peter too, bound in prison, went out when an angel loosed his chains, and that Paul with Silas at Philippi in Macedonia, bound in "the stocks," was freed by divine power, at which time also the prison's "doors" "were opened." Yet it is likely that Celsus either laughs at these things or else has not
read the history at all; for he would seem to be saying against it that certain sorcerers too loose bonds and open doors by incantations, in order to lump together what is told of sorcerers with what is recounted among us. But not even the one who condemned him, he says, suffered anything, as Pentheus did when he went mad or was torn apart. He did not see that Pilate had not condemned him in that way, since he
"knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over," the Jews, that is — just as the nation of the Jews, condemned by God's judgment, was torn apart and, worse than the tearing of Pentheus, scattered across the whole earth. And why did he willingly pass over in silence the matter of Pilate's wife, who had seen a dream and was so moved by it that she sent word to her husband, saying, "Have nothing to do with
that righteous man; for today I have suffered much because of him in a dream"? Again, too, Celsus, keeping silent about the things in the Gospel that show forth the divinity of Jesus, reproaches him on the basis of what is written there about Jesus, citing those who mocked him and put a purple robe on him and the crown of thorns and the reed in his hand. Where then,
Celsus, did you learn these things, if not from the Gospels? Did you then see these as worthy of reproach, while those who recorded them did not perceive that you would laugh at them, and others like you, but that others would take from them an example of despising those who laugh and mock at piety, directed at one who died willingly for its sake? Rather, then, marvel at their love of truth and at the fact that they recorded these things voluntarily,
he suffered for the sake of human beings and endured these things with all forbearance and patience; for it was not recorded that he lamented, or uttered anything ignoble on the supposition that he had been condemned, or cried out. But as to the objection, why, if not before, does he not now at least display something divine, and rescue himself from this disgrace, and bring justice upon those who heap insult on both himself and his father?
it must be said that a similar thing could be said to the Greeks as well, who introduce providence and accept that divine signs have occurred. Why in the world does God fail to punish the ones who insult what is divine and deny providence? For whatever answer the Greeks might give to this, we too will say the same, or even something stronger. And indeed a certain divine sign did occur from heaven: the sun was eclipsed, and
the other extraordinary events, making it plain that the crucified man possessed something divine and greater than the many. Then Celsus says: What does he say even while his body is being impaled — "what kind of ichor, such as flows in the blessed gods"? He, then, is jesting; but we, from the serious gospels, even if Celsus does not wish it, will show that the mythical and Homeric ichor did not
flow from his body. Rather, after he had already died, "one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water came out; and the one who saw it has testified, and his testimony is true, and that man knows that he speaks the truth." Now with corpses in general, "blood" sets solid and no clean "water" issues forth from them, whereas with Jesus'
dead body the extraordinary thing was that even around the dead body there was "blood and water" poured out from the side. But if, in order to accuse Jesus and the Christians, he brings forward from the gospel expressions not even correctly interpreted, while passing over in silence those that establish the divinity of Jesus, and wishes to hear about the divine signs, he should turn to the gospel himself and observe how "the centurion
and those with him who were guarding Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that happened, were greatly afraid, saying, 'Truly this was the Son of God.'" After this, the man who takes expressions from the gospel which he thinks he can accuse, reproaches Jesus for the vinegar and the gall, as though he had rushed greedily to drink and had not held out against his thirst, as even an ordinary person
often holds out. Now this belongs properly to an account by way of allegorical interpretation; but for now, a more general answer to the difficulties raised would hold, namely, that the prophets foretold this as well. For it is written in the sixty-eighth psalm, in the person of Christ: "And they gave gall for my food, and to quench my thirst they offered me vinegar."
Let the Jews, then, name whoever it is that utters these words in the prophet, and let them show from history the one who took "gall" for his "food" and was given "vinegar" to drink; or else let them dare to say that the Christ whom they suppose is going to come will experience these things — so that we may say: what then is the trouble in its having already happened, this very thing that was spoken so many years
is sufficient, together with the other prophetic foreknowledges, to move someone who examines the whole matter fair-mindedly to assent that Jesus is the Christ who was prophesied and the Son of God. After this the Jew still says to us: is this, then, what you accuse us of, most faithful ones—that we refuse to regard this man as a god, and do not concur with you that mankind's benefit is why he underwent these things, so that
we too might despise punishments? To this we shall say that we accuse the Jews, who were raised on the Law and the Prophets who foretold Christ, since they neither refute what we bring forward as proof that this man is the Christ, thereby securing an excuse for not believing by refuting it, nor, since they do not refute it, do they believe the one who was prophesied, who plainly demonstrated it in those who became his disciples
even after the time when he took on a body—that mankind's benefit was why he underwent these things, his first coming aimed not at judging the affairs of men, nor, before teaching and bearing witness about what must be done, at punishing the wicked and saving the good, but rather at sowing his own word in an extraordinary way and, with a certain more divine power, for the whole
human race, as the prophets also attested to these things. We accuse them further, because although he displayed the power he possessed, they did not believe him but said that it was "by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons," that he had cast the demons out of men's souls. And we accuse them because of his love for mankind as well, in that he overlooked not even a village of Judea, let alone a city, so that everywhere he might announce
the kingdom of God—yet slandering him, they accuse him of wandering and roaming about in a base body. For it is no base thing to have endured such labors for the benefit of all who were able, anywhere, to hear. And how is it not a plain falsehood, what is said by the Jew in Celsus, that he persuaded no one while he lived—he who did not win over even his own disciples—and was punished and endured such things
as he endured? For where did the envy stirred up against him by the chief priests and elders and scribes among the Jews come from, if not from the fact that crowds were persuaded to follow him even into the wilderness, held not only by the coherence of his words, which always suited those who heard them, but also struck with astonishment by his miracles—even those who did not believe on account of the coherence of his teaching?
And how is it not a plain falsehood that he did not even persuade his own disciples—who indeed experienced something human, out of cowardice, at that time (for they were not yet trained toward courage), yet did not set aside the convictions they had formed concerning Christ? For Peter, after denying him, realizing what evil he had fallen into, "went outside and wept bitterly"; while the rest, struck by
despondency over him (for they still marveled at him), were confirmed through his appearing to them, so that their belief grew even stronger and firmer than it had been previously, in his identity as the Son of God. And Celsus, suffering from something unphilosophical, imagines that superiority among men lies not in saving reason and a pure character, but in the position, contrary to the very case he has undertaken,
...to make a face and, having taken on what is mortal, not die — or rather to die, but not the kind of death that could become an example, for those who would come to know it from the very deed itself, of dying for the sake of piety and speaking boldly in its defense against those who err on the subject of piety and impiety, and who suppose that the pious are the most impious of all, while those who wander concerning God and
who fit the notion they have of him to anything rather than to God, unperverted as that notion may be, suppose themselves to be the most pious — and this above all when they set out to destroy those who, with their whole soul, have devoted themselves "even unto death" to the plain manifestness of the one God who is over all. Further, Celsus, speaking through his Jewish persona, accuses Jesus of not having shown himself free of every evil.
Let Celsus's argument tell us: of what evils, exactly, did Jesus fail to show himself free? For if he means that Jesus was not free of evils in the proper sense, let him set forth clearly some deed of wickedness in him. But if he counts poverty, the cross, and the plotting of depraved men as evils, then it is plain that he must say the same evils befell Socrates too, who was likewise unable to prove himself clear
of such evils. And how great, besides, is the chorus of other poor men among the Greeks who practiced philosophy and willingly took up poverty — as most Greeks know from the records concerning Democritus, who let his property go to pasture for sheep, and concerning Crates, who freed himself by giving the Thebans the money paid him for the sale of his entire estate; and Diogenes too, because of his
extreme simplicity of living, dwelt in a storage jar, and among no one possessed of even middling sense was Diogenes ever counted among the wretched on this account. Further, since Celsus wishes that Jesus not even have been beyond reproach, let him demonstrate it. Which of those pleased by his argument has written down some genuine, reproachable fault of Jesus? Or, if he does not accuse him of these things as reproachable, let him show from what source he learned
that he was not beyond reproach. Jesus, then, accomplished what he promised, making it credible through the very things by which he benefited those who gave heed to him. And seeing continually the fulfillment of what he had said, before it came to pass — that "the gospel would be preached" in the whole world, and that his disciples, having gone out to "all the nations," would proclaim his word, and further concerning being led "before governors
and kings" for no other cause than his teaching — we are struck with awe at him, and day by day we confirm our faith in him. I do not know from what greater and more evident signs Celsus wished the things aforesaid to be made credible — unless, as it appears, not understanding the reasoning, he wished that Jesus, having become man, should suffer nothing human, nor
become for mankind a noble example of how to bear what befalls one — even though these things seem to Celsus most pitiable and most reproachful of all. For in his judgment pain ranks as the worst of evils and pleasure as the supreme good — a position that no philosopher who posits providence and grants that courage, endurance, and greatness of soul are virtues has ever embraced. He did not, then, discredit faith in him by the
...Jesus, through what he endured, but rather he strengthened those who wished to embrace courage, and taught them that the truly and properly blessed life is not here but "in" what is called, according to his own words, "the age to come," while living in what is called the present age is a misfortune, or rather the first and greatest contest of the soul.
After this he says to us that presumably you will not claim that, without having persuaded those here, he set out for Hades to persuade those there. And even if he does not wish it, this is what we say: that even while in the body he persuaded not a few but so many that, on account of the multitude of those persuaded, he was plotted against; and having become a soul stripped of body,
he conversed as a soul with the souls of the dead who had likewise been stripped of their bodies, turning to himself both those among them who were willing, and those whom he saw to be more receptive, for reasons he himself knew, to the arguments he offered. Next after this he says something exceedingly foolish, I do not know how, namely that if, by discovering absurd pretexts by which you were laughably deceived, you suppose that you are truly making a defense, what prevents others as well—all those who, having been condemned, departed in a still more wretched state—from being reckoned
greater and more divine than these angels? But that Jesus, who suffered what is recorded, has nothing at all clearly or plainly in common with those who departed in a more wretched state through sorcery or any other charge whatsoever, is evident to anyone. For no one can point to a work of sorcerers that has turned souls away from the many sins found among human beings and from the outpouring that comes with wickedness. But since the Jew in Celsus, comparing him to robbers,
says that someone could, with equal shamelessness, say even of a robber or a murderer who had been punished that this man was no robber but a god, since beforehand he had told his fellow bandits that he was going to undergo such things as he in fact did undergo—it may be said, first, that it is not on the basis of his having foretold that he would suffer these things that we form our conception of Jesus, of the sort
we hold and openly declare when we think of him as one who descended to us from God. Second, we also say that these very things were in some way foretold in the gospels, since God "was reckoned among the lawless" by the lawless, when they preferred that the robber thrown into prison "for insurrection" "and murder" be released, but wished Jesus to be crucified—and they crucified him between two robbers. And always, among
his genuine disciples, those who bear witness to the truth, Jesus is crucified together with robbers, and suffers among men the same condemnation as they do. And we say that, if these who suffer for the sake of piety toward the Creator—enduring every outrage and every form of death in order to preserve that piety sincere and pure according to the teaching of Jesus—have something in common with robbers, then it is clear that
Jesus too, the father of such teaching, is reasonably compared by Celsus to a robber-chief. But neither did he die in the manner of a partner in crime, nor do these who suffer such things for the sake of piety—being, alone among all men, plotted against on account of the way of honoring the divine that was revealed to them—perish unjustly; nor was Jesus plotted against in an impious way. But observe also the superficiality of the...
...concerning the discourse about the disciples of Jesus at that time, in which he says: Then those who at that time were with him while he was alive and heard his voice and used him as a teacher, when they saw him being punished and dying, neither died with him nor died on his behalf, nor were persuaded to despise punishments, but even denied being his disciples; yet now you die with him. And in these matters, on the one hand, what was done wrong by the disciples while they were still being introduced to the faith and were still imperfect,
and was written down in the Gospels, he believes really happened, so that he may find fault with the teaching; but what they rightly accomplished after that sin, when they spoke boldly before the Jews, and suffered countless things at their hands, and in the end died for the teaching of Jesus, he passes over in silence. For he was unwilling to hear Jesus foretelling to Peter: 'But when you grow old, you will stretch out your'
'hands,' and what follows, to which the Scripture adds: 'This he said, signifying by what death he would glorify God'; nor that James, the brother of John, an apostle who was the brother of an apostle, was put to death by Herod with the sword because of the word of Christ; nor indeed all that Peter and the rest of the apostles did in speaking boldly for the word, and how they went out 'from the presence of the'
'council' after being scourged, 'rejoicing,' 'because they had been counted worthy to be dishonored for the sake of the name,' surpassing by far many of the things recorded among the Greeks about the endurance and courage of those who practiced philosophy. From the beginning, then, this above all was the teaching of Jesus that took firm hold among those who heard him, teaching them to despise the life that is cherished by the many, and to be zealous for a life resembling the life of God—
the life of God. How is the Jew in Celsus not lying when he says that, when present, he won over only ten sailors and tax collectors, the most depraved of men, and not even all of these? For it is clear that even the Jews would admit that he won over not ten only, nor a hundred, nor a thousand, but all at once—at one time five thousand, at another four thousand; and to such a degree
did he win them over that into the deserts they went on following him, spaces that could hold only a sudden gathering of those who, through Jesus, had come to believe in God, and in which he displayed to them not only words but also deeds. By repeating himself he forces us to do something similar, since we are on guard against being thought to have passed over any of the charges he makes. And so in the present discourse,
following the order we have kept in his writing, he says: If, while he himself was alive, he persuaded no one, but after he died those who wished persuaded so many, how is this not utterly absurd? He ought to have said, preserving consistency, that if, after his death, those who wish—not simply anyone who wishes, but those who wish and are able—persuade so many, how much more reasonable is it that he himself, while he dwelt among the living, persuaded far more people,
and with a more powerful word and deeds? He takes for himself, as if it were our answer to his question, when he said: By what reasoning were you led to consider this man the Son of God? For he has made us answer that we were led to this because we also know that his punishment took place for the destruction of the father of evil. For we were led to it by countless other things as well, of which we set forth a small fraction in what precedes, and
With God's help we will set this out not only in dealing with what is supposed to be Celsus's true account, but also in countless other matters. And when we say that we regard him as God's own Son, since he was punished, Celsus says: What then? Were not many others also punished, and no less shamefully? In this Celsus behaves just like the most servile of the
enemies of the word, who suppose that it follows from the story about the crucified Jesus that we worship crucified men. Celsus, being unable to face up to the powers Jesus is recorded to have performed, has often already resorted to slandering them as sorcery; and we have often answered him with argument as best we could. And now he says, as if we were to answer that we considered him
because he cured lame and blind persons, he is the Son of God. He adds also this: as you say, he raised the dead. That he cured lame and blind persons—and that this is precisely why we hold him to be Christ and Son of God—is plain to us from the fact that it stands written likewise among the prophecies: "On that day the eyes of blind men shall be opened, and the ears of deaf men shall hear; on that day the lame one shall bound like a stag." And that
he also raised the dead, and that this is not a fiction of those who wrote the gospels, is established from the fact that, if it were a fiction, many would have been recorded as having risen, including those who had already been in their tombs for a considerable time; but since it is not a fiction, only a very few are mentioned—the synagogue ruler's own daughter (about whom I do not know why he said, "she has not died but
is sleeping," saying something about her that did not apply to all who had died), and the only son of the widow, over whom he was moved with compassion and raised him, having stopped those carrying the corpse, and thirdly Lazarus, who had already been four days in the tomb. And we will say further, concerning these matters, to those more fair-minded, and especially to the Jew, that just as lepers were numerous in the days of
Elisha the prophet, none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian," and "widows were numerous in the days of Elijah" the prophet, "and Elijah was sent to none of them but to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon"—for she had become worthy of the miracle the prophet worked concerning the bread, according to a certain divine judgment—so too there were many dead
in the days of Jesus, but only those rose whom the Word knew to be fit for the resurrection, so that what was done by the Lord might not only be a symbol of certain things, but might also of itself draw many to the wondrous teaching of the gospel. And I would say that, according to the promise of Jesus, the disciples have also done "greater" works than the perceptible ones Jesus did.
For always the eyes of the blind in soul are opened, while ears that had gone deaf to words of virtue now hearken eagerly to talk of God and of the blessed life found in him. And many too, lame in the footsteps of what scripture calls the "inner" man, now that the Word has healed them, do not merely leap but leap "like a deer," an animal hostile to serpents and superior to every
the venom of vipers. And these lame people, once healed, receive from Jesus "authority to tread" with the very feet that had once been lame, treading "above" the serpents and scorpions of wickedness, and in short over all the strength the enemy possesses; and though they tread on it they suffer no harm, for they too have grown mightier than every wickedness and than the venom of the demons. Jesus, then,
in turning his disciples away, does so not from paying no attention at all to sorcerers and to those who profess to work marvels by some means or other (for his disciples had no need of that), but from those who proclaim themselves to be the Christ of God and who try, by means of certain apparitions, to turn Jesus' disciples toward themselves. This is what he meant where he said, "Then if anyone says to you,
'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!'—do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness'—do not go out; 'Look, he is in the inner rooms'—do not believe it. For just as the lightning comes out from the east and flashes
as far as the west, so shall the presence of the Son of Man be." And where he says, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not eat in your name, and drink in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works?' And then I will say to them, 'Depart from me, for you are workers of iniquity.'" Now Celsus, wishing to lump together
the marvels of Jesus with sorcery practiced among men, says in these very words: "O light and truth! In his own voice he plainly confesses—just as you yourselves have set it down in writing—that others too will come to you wielding powers like his, wicked men and sorcerers, and he names a certain Satan as the one who devises such things; so that not even he himself denies that these deeds are in no way divine, but are the works of wicked men."
He is compelled by the truth to expose, at one and the same time, both the deeds of the others and to convict his own. How, then, is it not outrageous to consider one of them a god on the basis of the same works, and the others sorcerers? For on what grounds are we to think the others wicked rather than this man himself, when he uses that very man as his witness? This, at any rate, he himself has admitted, that these are not
marks of a divine nature but of certain deceivers and thoroughly wicked men. Now see whether Celsus is not clearly convicted here of maliciously distorting the argument, since Jesus says one thing about those who will do "signs and wonders," and the Jew in Celsus' work says another. For had Jesus merely instructed his disciples to be wary of those who claim to perform wonders,
without specifying what such people would claim to be, his suspicion might perhaps have had some ground. But since Jesus tells us to be on guard precisely against those who profess to be "the Christ"—which sorcerers do not do—while he also says that some who live wickedly will, in the name of Jesus, work certain powers and cast demons out of people; or rather, if one must put it this way, such a person is indeed disowned,
the trickery associated with the place and every suspicion attaching to those events, while the divinity of Christ and the divinity of his disciples is brought forward, on the ground that it is possible for someone who has made use of his name, and who has been empowered somehow by some power — I do not know how — to pretend that he himself is the Christ, to seem to accomplish deeds similar to those of Christ, and for others too, using the
name of Jesus, to accomplish what seem to be similar deeds to those of his genuine disciples. Paul too, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, declares the manner in which he will someday be disclosed — "the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, the one opposing and exalting himself above everything called god or an object of worship, so that he seats himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be
God." He also tells the Thessalonians once more: "and now you know what restrains, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only there is one who restrains at present, until he is removed from the midst; and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord God will destroy with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the manifestation of his
coming — his coming, whose presence accords with Satan's working, displaying every kind of power together with false signs and wonders, and all wicked deceit among those who are perishing." And setting forth also the reason why the lawless one is permitted to dwell among the living, he says: "because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God sends upon them"
a working of error, so that they may believe the lie, in order that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness." Let someone, then, tell us whether anything in the gospel or in the apostle's writings can give room for a suspicion of trickery being foretold with reference to the place. And whoever wishes may also
take the prophecy about the antichrist from Daniel. But Celsus falsifies the words of Jesus, since it was not Jesus who said that other men would come using powers similar to his own, evil men and sorcerers — Celsus himself claims that Jesus said such a thing. For just as the power of the enchanters in Egypt was not similar to the extraordinary grace at work in Moses, but the outcome proved that the deeds of the Egyptians were
trickery while those of Moses were divine, so too the deeds of the antichrists and of those who pretend to powers as though they were disciples of Jesus are said to be signs and wonders "of falsehood," prevailing "with all deceit of wickedness among those who are perishing," whereas what Christ and his disciples did bore, as fruit, not deception but the rescue of souls. For who would reasonably say that the better life, one that daily
curtails the effects of wickedness more and more, comes about from deceit? Celsus grew suspicious of what he had made Jesus say from scripture, that some satan would contrive such things. But he also distorts the argument by claiming that Jesus does not deny that these deeds have nothing divine about them but are the works of wicked men, as though he had made things of one kind out of things that are actually of a different kind. And just as
A wolf is not of the same kind as a dog, even though it may seem to have something similar in bodily shape and voice; nor is a wood-pigeon the same as a dove. In the same way, what is accomplished by the power of God has nothing in common with what comes about through sorcery. But we will say this too against Celsus's malicious arguments: are powers indeed produced through sorcery by evil demons, while no power at all is accomplished
from the divine and blessed nature — but human life has admitted only the worse things and made no room whatever for the better? This too seems to me something that must be laid down as applying in every case: that wherever something worse pretends to be of the same kind as something better, there is certainly, on the opposite side, something better as well. So it is also with those who accomplish things through sorcery — that
there must, without question, also be things that come about in life from divine activity. And it belongs to the same reasoning either to do away with both and say that neither occurs, or, if one posits the one — and especially the worse — to acknowledge the better as well. But if someone should posit that the things from sorcery occur, yet not posit the things from divine power, he seems to me
comparable to a man who posits that there are sophistries and persuasive arguments that miss the truth while pretending to present it, but holds that truth and reasoning free of sophistry has no place at all among men. And if we once grant that it follows, from magic and sorcery being real and worked by evil demons — men being charmed by curious invocations and submitting to sorcerers — that what comes from divine power too
must likewise be found among men, then why should we not, with careful scrutiny, examine those who profess these powers by their life and character and by what follows upon their powers — whether harm to human beings or the correction of character — asking who it is that, serving demons through certain incantations and magical devices, produces such things, and who it is that, having become, in his own soul and spirit — and I think in body too — a pure and holy place for
God, and having received a certain divine spirit, does such things for the benefit of human beings and as an inducement to believe in the true God? And if we must, once for all, inquire — without being swept away by the powers themselves — who accomplishes such things from the better source and who from the worse, so that we may neither speak ill of everything nor marvel at and accept everything as divine —
will it not then be plain from what happened in the case of Moses and of Jesus, whole nations having come together after their signs, that these men did by divine power the very things recorded of them? For wickedness and trickery could not have brought together a whole nation, one that rose above not only the images and
things set up by human hands, but every created nature as well, ascending to the uncreated first principle of the God of all things. Now since it is a Jew, in Celsus's text, who says these things, we might say to him: But you, sir, why is it that you have believed the things written among you as accomplished by God through Moses to be divine,
and he tries to argue against those who denounce these things as having come about through sorcery, in the same way as the deeds performed by the wise men of the Egyptians. But then you, imitating the Egyptians who accuse you, accuse as not divine the things that even by your own admission happened through Jesus. For if the outcome, and the whole nation gathered together through the marvels done in Moses, establishes the clear proof that the one who did these things was God—
the one who accomplished them—present in Moses, how will not the same be shown all the more in the case of Jesus, who did something greater than the work of Moses? For Moses took those from the nation descended from the seed of Abraham who by succession had kept circumcision and had become zealous followers of Abraham's customs—men more readily disposed—and led them out of Egypt, setting before them the divine laws which you yourself have believed.
But this man, daring something greater, introduced into a way of life already established beforehand, and into ancestral customs and upbringings shaped according to the laws already laid down, the way of life according to the gospel. And just as it was necessary for Moses to be believed not only by the elders but also by the people, through the signs that stand recorded as his doing, why should the same not hold for Jesus—that he too should be believed by those from
the people who had learned to demand "signs and wonders"? He will need such powers as, because of their being greater and more divine in comparison with those performed through Moses, were capable of drawing people away from Jewish mythology and from the human traditions among them, and of making them accept the one who taught and accomplished these things, on the ground that he surpassed the prophets. For how could he not have surpassed the prophets, he who
was proclaimed by the prophets to be the Christ and savior of the human race? And indeed all the things which the Jew in Celsus says against those who believe in Jesus can equally well be turned into an accusation against Moses; so that it comes to the same thing, or something very similar, to call the sorcery of Jesus and that of Moses alike, since both, so far as the wording of what the Jew in
Celsus says is concerned, can be brought under the same charges. For example, concerning Christ, the Jew in Celsus says: "But O light and truth, Jesus himself expressly declares with his own voice, just as you yourselves have also written, that others too will come to you making use of similar powers, wicked men and sorcerers." But concerning Moses, one who disbelieved might say to the Jew, using the very same
words about Moses, whether an Egyptian or anyone else: "But O light and truth, Moses himself expressly declares with his own voice, just as you yourselves have also written, that others, evil men and deceivers, will come to you employing powers like these. For your law contains this text: 'But if a prophet, or someone who dreams a dream, should arise among you, and he gives you a sign or portent, and that sign
or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying: Let us go and follow other gods, whom you do not know, and let us serve them—you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or of the one who dreams that dream,' and so on." And the one who slanders the words of Jesus says that he calls such a person some kind of satan devising such things by contrivance, while the one who makes the charge common applies it to
He will say that Moses too was a prophet who, dreaming, contrived such things and gave them names. Just as Celsus's Jew says of Jesus that even Jesus himself does not deny that these things are not divine but the works of wicked men, so the man who disbelieves Moses will set forth the same statements about him as were said before, and will say the same thing: "so not even Moses himself denies that these
things are not divine but rather deeds of wicked men." And in this instance too he will act identically: compelled by the truth, Moses simultaneously uncovered the works of others and stood convicted by his own. And when the Jew also says: "How then is it not outrageous, from the same works, to consider the one a god and the others sorcerers?" — someone might say
to him, on account of the words set forth by Moses: "How then is it not outrageous, from the same works, to consider the one a prophet of God and his servant, and the others sorcerers?" And since Celsus, dwelling further on the passage, added to what I have already set out and made public, this also: "For why should one consider the others, on this basis, more wicked than this man, using him as a witness?" — we for our part will add
to what has been said something of the same kind: "For why, on this basis, should those be considered more wicked whom Moses forbids people to trust when they display signs and wonders, rather than Moses himself, on the grounds by which he discredited others in the matter of signs and wonders?" And saying more to the same effect, so as to seem to strengthen his argument, he says: "These things, then, he himself admitted to be marks not of a divine nature but of certain deceivers
and thoroughly wicked men." Who then is he? You, Jew, say it is Jesus; but the one who accuses you, since you are liable to the same charges, will turn the very word "he" back upon Moses. After this, Celsus's Jew says — to preserve the order originally set for the Jew — to those of his own citizens who have
come to believe, speaking as it were to us: "By what, then, were you led, except by the fact that he foretold that after dying he would rise again?" This too will likewise be applied, in the same way as the previous points, to the case of Moses. For we shall say to him: "By what, then, were you led, except by the fact that he wrote such things about his own death: 'And there Moses, servant of the Lord, came to his end, in the land of Moab, by the Lord's word; and they buried him in the land of Moab, near
the house of Phogor. And no one knows his burial place to this day'"? For just as the Jew makes it a reproach that he foretold that after dying he would rise again, so the one who says the like about Moses, in answer to the man who says these things, will say that Moses too wrote — for the Deuteronomy is indeed his — that "No one knows his burial place to this day," thereby dignifying and exalting
his burial as something unknown to the human race. After this the Jew says to his own fellow citizens who believe in Jesus: "Come now, let us also believe that this has been truly said by you. How many others perform such wonders, for the sake of persuading those who listen credulously, profiting from their delusion? Such as they say Zalmoxis too did among the Scythians — the slave of Pythagoras — and Pythagoras himself among
in Italy and Rhampsinitus in Egypt: this last man even "dicing" in Hades "with Demeter" and coming back up bearing "a gift" "from her, a golden hand-towel"; and indeed Orpheus in the land of the Odrysians, and Protesilaus among the Thessalians, and Heracles at Taenarum, and Theseus. But this is the point to examine: whether anyone who truly died has ever risen again in that very body — or do you suppose that the stories of the others
are both fictions and appear so, while for you the denouement of the drama has been devised with decorum or plausibility — his voice upon the stake as he breathed his last, and "the earthquake," and the darkness? Because, forsooth, while alive he could not help himself, but dead he rose and displayed the marks of his punishment [and his hands, how they had been pierced through] — who saw this? A woman
out of her mind, as you say, and perhaps some other of that same band of sorcery, either dreaming in some state and, through his own wish, deluded by a wandering fancy — which has already happened to countless people — or, which is more likely, wishing to astonish the rest with this marvel-mongering and, through such a lie, to furnish an opening for other charlatans. Since, then, it is a Jew who says these things,
we shall answer as to a Jew concerning our Jesus, making the argument about Moses common ground as well, and saying to him: how many others perform such wonders as Moses did, plying their trade for persuasion's sake on those who listen credulously, out of their delusion? And it is more possible to set beside the man who disbelieves Moses the figures of Zalmoxis and Pythagoras, who worked wonders, than to set the Jew there, since he is not exactly devoted to learning about
the histories of the Greeks. And the Egyptian, for his part, disbelieving the marvels told of Moses, will plausibly set beside them Rhampsinitus, saying that it is far more plausible that this man went down into Hades and diced with Demeter and, having snatched a golden hand-towel from her, displays it as a token of having been in Hades and having come back up from there, than that Moses, who wrote of himself, entered "into the thick darkness where God was." And that
he alone drew near to God, beyond the rest. For he wrote it thus: "And Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the rest shall not draw near." We, then, the disciples of Jesus, shall say to the Jew who says these things: come, defend yourself to us concerning faith in Jesus, since you accuse it, and say to the Egyptian and to the Greeks: what will you say to the charges
you have brought against our Jesus, once they have already been brought against Moses as well? And however hard you contend to defend Moses — just as he does have a forceful case and clear facts about him — you will not notice, in the very points by which you defend Moses, that you have unwittingly established Jesus as more divine than Moses. Now since the Jew in Celsus's text calls the heroic stories about those said to have descended into Hades and to have come back up from there
marvel-mongering — on the ground that the heroes became invisible for a certain time and stole themselves away from the sight of all men, and afterward showed themselves again, as though they had come up from Hades (for such, it seems, is the story told about Orpheus in the land of the Odrysians, and Protesilaus among the Thessalians, and Heracles at Taenarum, and further also about Theseus
his own words make that plain), come, let us show that what is reported concerning Jesus—that he was raised from the dead—cannot be compared with these. For each of the heroes said to exist in various places could, had he wished, have stolen himself away from the sight of men and then, after deciding, have returned again to those he had left; but before the eyes of all the Jews Jesus underwent crucifixion, and his body itself was taken down
in the sight of their people. How, then, could it be possible for him to fabricate something similar and say of himself, as is told of those heroes, that he had gone down to Hades and had come back up from there? We say that perhaps such a claim might be made as a defense of the fact that Jesus was crucified, especially because of what is told concerning the heroes who are believed to have gone down to Hades by force—namely, that if, on this supposition,
Jesus had died an obscure death, not one such as to be plainly known by the whole Jewish people, and had then afterward truly risen from the dead, the suspicion held about the heroes would have had room to be said also about him. Perhaps, then, among the other reasons for Jesus's being crucified, this too can be reckoned as contributing: that he died in a conspicuous way, on the cross,
so that no one could say that he had, of his own will, withdrawn from human sight, and that he only seemed to have died but had not died, and that later, when he wished, he appeared again and made a show of the resurrection from the dead. And I think the argument drawn from his disciples is clear and evident, since they gave themselves to a teaching that was dangerous with respect to human life—a teaching they would not have taught so forcefully
about Jesus having been raised from the dead, if they had been fabricating it, seeing that they themselves, far from merely preparing others to hold death in contempt, had done this very thing themselves long before. Consider, too, whether the Jew in Celsus is not being altogether blind in speaking, as though it were impossible for anyone to rise from the dead in his very body; rather, this is what must be examined: whether anyone who has truly died has ever risen
at some point in his very body. For the Jew would not have said this, believing as he does what is recorded in the third book of Kingdoms and in the fourth concerning the boys, of whom the one Elijah raised and the other Elisha. For this reason, I think, Jesus too made his dwelling among the Jews and no other people, since they alone had grown accustomed to extraordinary things,
by the comparison of what they had believed with what was done by him and reported concerning him, so that they might accept that this man, about whom greater things happened and by whom more extraordinary deeds were accomplished, was greater than all those others. But since, after the stories the Jew set forth, he cites Greek accounts of those who supposedly worked wonders and of those said to have risen from the dead, and says to those from among the Jews who believe in Jesus:
"Or do you think that the tales of the others are, and are recognized as, myths, while for you the denouement of the drama has been devised with propriety or plausibility—the cry uttered on the stake as he breathed his last?" We shall say to the Jew that we too have judged the tales you set forth to be myths. But as for the writings common to us and to you, in which not you alone but also
We take it seriously; we do not say at all that these are myths. That is why we believe the writers who told of those who rose from the dead there, as not indulging in fanciful tales, and likewise the one who rose here, as one both foretold and prophesied and risen. But this one, who rose from the dead, is more astonishing than those others, because those were raised by prophets, Elijah and Elisha, while this one was raised by no prophet but by the Father who is in
the heavens. That is why his resurrection accomplished something greater than theirs. For what so momentous has ever come to the world from the children raised by Elijah and Elisha, as has come through the proclaimed resurrection of Jesus, believed to be by divine power? He thinks the earthquake and the darkness are also fabricated marvels; concerning these we have defended ourselves as best we could above,
citing Phlegon, who recorded that such things occurred at the time of the Savior's suffering. And he says that although living he did not help himself, when dead he rose and Jesus showed the marks of his punishment and his hands, how they had been pierced with nails. And we ask him, what does 'help himself' mean? For if it means with regard to virtue, we will say that indeed he helped himself very greatly;
for he neither spoke nor did anything improper, but was truly "led like a sheep to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent"; and the gospel testifies that "thus he did not" open "his mouth." But if he takes 'help himself' in terms of ordinary and bodily things, we say that we have shown from the gospels that he came to these things willingly. Then, next after
these things, having stated what comes from the gospel, that he showed the marks of his punishment after rising from the dead, and his hands, how they had been pierced with nails, he asks and says: who saw this? And slandering the account concerning Mary Magdalene, who is recorded as having seen him, he said: a hysterical woman, as you claim. And since it is not she alone who is recorded as having seen Jesus risen but others also, and
in reviling these things Celsus's Jew says: and if anyone else of those from the same sorcery. Then, as though this could happen — I mean, that some fantasy occurs to someone concerning the dead person, as though he were alive — he adds, speaking as an Epicurean, and says that someone, in a certain state of mind, having dreamed, or having been deluded by a wandering fancy according to his own wish, reported such a thing. Which, he says, has already happened to countless
people. But this, even if it seemed to have been said very cleverly, nonetheless does nothing less than establish an unavoidable teaching: namely, that the souls of the dead continue to exist, and that whoever has embraced this teaching has not believed in vain regarding the soul's immortality, or at minimum its persistence — just as Plato, in his work concerning the soul, states that certain "shadow-like apparitions" have been seen near tombs by some of those
already dead. Now the phantoms that occur concerning the soul of the dead arise from some underlying reality, namely the soul which subsists in what is called the luminous body. But Celsus, not wishing this, wants people to hallucinate even while awake, and to be deluded by a wandering fancy according to their own wish; which it is not unreasonable to believe happens in a dream, but for it to happen while awake
is not persuasive unless she was completely out of her mind, delirious, or melancholic. And foreseeing this too, Celsus called the woman "frenzied"—which the recorded account does not indicate; he took this up from somewhere and uses it to accuse the events. So then Jesus, after death, was, as Celsus supposes, sending forth an apparition of the wounds he received on the cross, without truly being wounded in that way;
but as the gospel teaches—which Celsus believes in some parts, wherever he wishes, in order to make an accusation, but disbelieves in others—Jesus summoned one of the disciples who disbelieved and thought the marvel impossible. That disciple had in fact agreed with the woman who claimed to have seen him, on the grounds that it was not impossible for the soul of a dead person to be seen; but he no longer considered it true that
Jesus had been raised in a solid, tangible body. Hence he said, "unless I see," "I will not believe," and he added further, "unless I put my hand into the mark of the nails and touch his side, I will not believe." These things were said by Thomas, who judged that a soul's body can appear to the eyes of sense—having "all" the features of its former form,
"the size and the beautiful eyes and the voice," and often "even the same kind of garments about the body." And Jesus, calling Thomas to him, said, "Bring your finger here and see my hands; and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believing." And this was indeed consistent
with everything that had been prophesied about him—among which this too was included—and with what had been done to him and what had befallen him: that this should happen, marvelous beyond all else. For it had been spoken beforehand in the person of Jesus, in the prophet: "My flesh will dwell in hope; you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption." And
at his resurrection he was, as it were, at a certain boundary between the solidity of the body he had before the suffering and the condition of a soul appearing naked in such a body. Hence, when "his disciples, and Thomas" with them, were together "in the same place, Jesus comes, though the doors were shut, and took his place in their midst, saying, Peace to you. Then he says to
Thomas, Bring your finger here," and so on. And in the Gospel according to Luke, while Simon and Cleopas were conversing "with one another about all the things that had happened" to them, Jesus came up to them and "went along with them. And their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him; and he said to them, What are these words that you are exchanging with
one another as you walk?" And once "their eyes were opened, and they recognized him," the Scripture then states, word for word: "and he became invisible to them." So even if Celsus wishes to lump together, with other apparitions and other people who imagined things, what concerns Jesus and those who saw him after the resurrection, still, to those who examine the matter fairly and sensibly, it will appear
the more paradoxical point. After this, Celsus, disparaging what is written in no negligible way, says that if Jesus really wanted to display divine power, he ought to have appeared to the very men who had insulted him, and to the one who had condemned him, and simply to everyone. For to us too it truly appears, according to the gospel, that after the resurrection he was not seen in such a way as he had previously appeared publicly and to everyone. But
in Acts it is written: "appearing to them over forty days," he announced to the disciples "the things concerning the kingdom of God"; whereas in the gospels it is not the case that he was always with them. Rather, at one point he appeared after eight days "with the doors having been shut," in their midst, and at another point in certain other such ways. And Paul too, in the last part of his first letter to the Corinthians,
writes such things — as though he had not appeared publicly in the same manner as in the time before the passion: "For among the first things I handed on to you was what I myself had received: that the Christ died on behalf of our sins, just as the scriptures foretold," "and that he was seen by Cephas, and afterward by the twelve. Following that he was seen by upward of five hundred brothers at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, though a few have fallen asleep. Then
he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all, as to one untimely born, he was seen by me also." Now I suppose that the matters concerning this passage are something great and marvelous, and greater than the worth not only of the many among believers but even of those who are quite advanced in progress. Among these the reason could be shown why he, having risen from the dead, was not seen
in the same way as in the earlier time. But since there are many considerations, as befits a treatise of this kind written against the argument leveled at Christians and their faith, let us see whether, by setting out a few points reasonably, we shall be able to reach those who are going to hear this defense. Jesus, while being one, was, in conception, more than one, and not all who looked upon him beheld him in the same way. And that he was, in conception, more than one is clear
from the saying "I am the road, and the truth, and the life," and "I am the loaf," and "I am the gate," and countless others. And that, even when seen, he did not appear in the same way to those who looked upon him, but according to what those who looked were able to receive — this will become evident to those who carefully weigh why, at the moment he was on the verge of being transfigured atop the high mountain, he took not all
the apostles with him, but only Peter and James and John — as being the only ones able to receive the sight of his glory at that time, and able also to perceive Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and to hear them conversing with him, and the voice that came from heaven out of the cloud. And I think that even before going up onto the mountain, where
the disciples alone came to him and he taught them the things concerning the beatitudes — at that time, being somewhere below the mountain, "when evening had come," he healed those brought to him, freeing them from every disease and every infirmity — he did not appear the same to those who were sick and in need of his healing as he did to those who, because they were healthy, were able to go up the mountain with him. But even if, in accordance with
He interpreted the parables privately to his own disciples, though they had been spoken with concealment to the crowds outside. Just as, in respect of hearing, those who heard the resolution of the parables were superior to those who heard the parables without their resolution, so too, in respect of sight — entirely with regard to the soul, and, I think, also with regard to the body. This is shown by the fact that Judas is not shown as always appearing the same.
When he was about to betray him, he had spoken as though to the crowds going along with him who did not recognize him: "The one I kiss, he is the one." I think the Savior himself also indicated something of this sort through the words: "Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me." Since we, then, hold such a view about Jesus, not only with respect to the inner and hidden divinity
concealed from the many, but also with respect to the body that was transfigured, when he wished and before whom he wished, we say that all were able to see the Jesus who had not yet stripped off "the rulers and the authorities" and had not yet died "to sin," but that all those who had previously seen him were not able to see the one who had stripped off "the rulers and the authorities" and no longer had anything capable of being seen by the many
who had previously seen him. Hence, sparing them, he did not appear to all after rising from the dead. And why say "to all"? For he was not even always with the apostles and disciples themselves, nor did he always appear to them, since they were unable to contain the sight of him continuously. For once he had completed the dispensation, his divinity was more radiant — the very divinity which Cephas, Peter, as it were the "firstfruits" of the
apostles, was able to see, and after him the twelve, Matthias having been enrolled in place of Judas, and after them "to five hundred brothers at once." "Then he appeared to James, then to" the other "apostles" besides the twelve, "all of them" — perhaps to the seventy. "And last of all," to Paul, as it were to "one untimely born," who also understood how he could say: "To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given." And
perhaps "the very least" is equivalent to "untimely born." Just as, then, no one could easily find fault with Jesus for taking up the high mountain not all the apostles but only the three already named, when he was about to be transfigured and to display the brightness of his garments together with the glory of Moses and Elijah conversing with him, so too no one could
reasonably find fault with the apostolic writings for reporting that Jesus was seen after the resurrection not by all, but by those whom he saw had received eyes capable of seeing his resurrection. And I think it is also useful for the defense of the matters before us that it is said of him in this way: "For Christ died and rose again for this very purpose, so that he would be sovereign over both the living and the dead." For observe in these words that
Jesus "died," "so that he might rule the dead," "and rose," so that he would be sovereign not merely "over the dead" but "over the living" as well. And the apostle knows dead people over whom Christ is lord — those enumerated in this way in the first letter to the Corinthians: "For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable." And he knows living people, those who will be changed, who are different from the dead who will be raised. And he also has
The wording about these things is as follows: "and we shall be changed," said next after "the dead will be raised first." But also in the first letter to the Thessalonians, in different words, he presents the same distinction, saying that some are those who are asleep and others those who are alive: "We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as also the
rest do, who have no hope. For if we trust that Jesus died and rose again, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep. This we tell you by a word from the Lord: we who are alive and remain until the Lord's coming will not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep." As for the account that appeared to us concerning the places,
we set it out in the commentaries we dictated on the first letter to the Thessalonians. And do not be surprised if not all the crowds who have come to believe in Jesus see his resurrection, since Paul, writing to the Corinthians as to people who cannot take in more, says: "But I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Of the same kind is also this:
"For you were not yet able; but indeed not even now are you able, for you are still fleshly." So then, the Word, doing everything by divine judgment, recorded concerning Jesus that before the passion he appeared without qualification to the majority, and this not always; but after the passion he no longer appeared as before, but rather with a discernment that measured out to each what was fitting. Just as it is recorded that
"God appeared to Abraham," or to one among the holy ones, and this "appearing" did not happen continually but at intervals, and was not visible to everyone — so understand likewise that the Son of God appeared, by a comparable judgment, to those he was said to have shown himself to. We have therefore defended the matter, as far as we are able in a work of this kind, against what
would have been necessary, if he had really wished to display divine power, to appear to the very ones who had abused him and to the one who had condemned him, and in short to appear to everyone. It was not necessary, then, that he appear to the one who had condemned him, nor to those who had abused him. For Jesus spared both the one who had condemned him and those who had abused him, so that they might not be struck with "blindness," of the sort with which the men in Sodom were struck, when they were plotting against the hour of those entertained as guests by Lot, namely the
angels. And this is made clear by the following: "And the men stretched out their hands and pulled Lot in to themselves, into the house, and shut the door; and those stationed at the entrance of the house, both small and great, they struck with blindness, so that they grew weary searching for the door." Jesus, then, wished to display his power, which is divine,
to each of those able to see it, and to see it in the measure that each could take in. And it was for no other reason that he took care not to appear except on account of the capacities of those who could not take him in when seen. And Celsus' remark was taken up in vain, that he no longer feared any man once dead and, as you say, being god, nor was he sent for this purpose in the first place, that
escape notice. For he was sent not only to be known, but also to escape notice — for not everything that he was was known even by those who knew him; something of him escaped their notice, while there were others to whom he remained entirely unknown. And it was to those who had become sons of "darkness" and "night," yet had given themselves over to becoming sons of "day" and "light," that he threw open the gates of "light." And the savior, the Lord, came to us more as a good physician to those full of sins than to the righteous.
Let us see, then, in what way the Jew in Celsus's work says: if indeed this much at least was owed as a display of divinity, then at any rate he ought to have vanished immediately from the stake. This too seems to me to resemble the argument of those who set themselves against providence and
sketch out for themselves alternatives to what actually exists, saying that it would have been better if the world were as they have sketched it. For where they sketch out things that are possible, they are shown to be making the world worse, so far as lies in them, by their sketching; and where they seem to depict things no worse than what exists, they are shown to be wishing for what is impossible by nature — so that either way they are made ridiculous.
So here too, that it was not impossible for him, since his was the more divine nature, to become invisible whenever he wished, is evident of itself, but it is made clear also from what has been written about him — for those, at least, who do not accept some of the things written, in order that they may bring accusations against the doctrine, while supposing others of them to be fabrications. Now it is written in the Gospel according to Luke that after the
resurrection, Jesus, "taking the bread," "blessed it and, breaking it, gave it" to Simon and to Cleopas; and once the bread had been taken by them, "their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he became invisible to them." Now we wish to show how it would not have been more useful for the whole economy for him to have become bodily invisible immediately from the stake. For the things
recorded as having happened to Jesus do not, in the bare wording and the historical narrative, contain the whole contemplation of the truth; for each of them is shown, by those who read the scripture more intelligently, to be a symbol of something as well. Just as, then, his being crucified holds the truth signified in "I have been crucified with Christ," and in what is meant by "but may it never be mine to boast except in
the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" — and his death was necessary because of "for the death he died, he died to sin once for all," and because the righteous man says, "being conformed to his death," and "for if we died together with him, we shall also share his life" — so too his burial reaches to
those who are conformed to his death, who were crucified together with him and who died alongside him, just as it was also said to Paul: "for we were buried with him through baptism" and we were raised with him. But as for the things recorded about the burial, the tomb, and the one who buried him, we shall discuss them more fittingly at greater length elsewhere, where it will be appropriate to speak chiefly of these matters. For now, what has been said is sufficient.
the clean linen cloth in which Jesus' clean body had to be wrapped, and the new tomb "which Joseph had cut in the rock," "in which no one had yet ever been laid," or, as John says, "in which no one had yet been placed." And consider whether the agreement of the three evangelists, who took care to record the hewn or quarried
tomb in rock, can move anyone — so that the person examining the wording of what is written may see something worth noting both about this and about the newness of the tomb, which Matthew and John report, and about the fact that no one had ever been dead there, according to Luke and John. For it was necessary that he who was not to be like the rest of the dead, but was to show signs of life even in
deadness — showing water and blood, and being, if I may so put it, a new kind of dead man — should come to be in a new and clean tomb; so that, just as his birth was purer than every other birth, in that he was born not from union but from a virgin, so too his burial should have this purity, signified symbolically by the fact that his body was laid in
a newly constructed tomb, not built up out of selected stones with a joining that was not natural, but hewn and cut out of a single rock united throughout. Now, as for the narrative and the ascent from the things recorded as having happened to the realities of which the events were signs — someone could recount these matters more grandly and more devoutly, setting them out at a more fitting opportunity
in a treatise devoted to them; but as for the wording, one might account for it in this way as well: that in keeping with the one who chose to undergo being hung upon the stake, it was fitting also to preserve what follows from that premise, so that, having been taken down as a man, by dying as a man he should also be buried as a man. But even if it had been written in the gospels, on the same premise, that from the stake
he immediately became invisible, Celsus and the unbelievers would have found fault with what was written, and would have leveled this charge too, saying: Why on earth did he become invisible after the cross, rather than arranging this before his suffering? If then, having learned from the gospels that he did not immediately become invisible from the stake, they think they have grounds to accuse the account —
though it did not invent, as they saw fit to demand, that he immediately became invisible from the stake, but reported the truth — how is it not reasonable for them to believe also in his resurrection, and how, when he wished, "with the doors shut," he "stood in the midst" of the disciples, and at another time, after giving bread to two of his acquaintances, he immediately "became invisible to them" following certain words he had spoken to them? And where did
Celsus's Jew get the idea that Jesus was hiding? For he says of him: what messenger, once sent, when he ought to announce the things he was commanded, hides himself? For he was not hiding, he who said to those seeking to seize him: "Day after day I was in the temple, teaching openly, and you did not lay hold of me." As for what follows, being a repetition by Celsus, having already answered it once we will be content with what
as previously stated. For it has also been written above, with respect to the objection: was it that, while distrusted in the body, he preached openly to all, but when he would have furnished strong proof by rising from the dead, he appeared secretly to one woman alone and to his own companions? But it is not even true that he appeared to one woman alone; for it is written in the Gospel according to Matthew that “Late on the Sabbath,
as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and came and rolled away the stone.” And shortly after, Matthew says: “And behold, Jesus met them” (clearly the aforementioned Marys), “saying, Greetings. And they came up”
and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.” This too has been said with respect to the point that while being punished he was indeed seen by all, but having risen he was seen by one only — which is what we were addressing when we defended against the charge that not everyone beheld him. And now too we shall say that his human aspects were visible to all, but the more divine ones (I mean not those that stand in relation to other things, but those that concern
an inner distinction) are not able to be grasped by all. But observe also Celsus's contradiction of himself right at his own feet. Having just said beforehand that he appeared secretly to one woman alone and to his own companions, he immediately adds: while being punished he was indeed seen by all, but having risen, by one only — the very opposite of what ought to have been. And what does he even suppose “ought to have been”? Let us hear. The opposite of his being seen by all while being punished, but by one only having risen —
for as far as his own wording goes, he meant something both impossible and absurd: that while being punished he was seen by one, but having risen, by all. Or how else will you explain “the opposite of what ought to have been”? Now Jesus taught us also who it was who sent him, in the saying “No one has known the Father except the Son,” and in “No one has ever seen God; but the only-begotten,
God — he who dwells within the Father's bosom has declared him” — that one, speaking as a theologian, reported the things concerning God to his genuine disciples; and finding traces of these in the writings, we have grounds for speaking as theologians ourselves — in one place hearing, “light is what God is, and darkness has no place in him at all” — while elsewhere: “God is spirit, and those who worship him are to worship him in spirit and”
in truth.” But also there are countless things bound up with why the Father sent him. Let whoever wishes learn these, partly from the prophets who proclaimed him beforehand and partly from the evangelists; and not a few things he will learn as well from the apostles — Paul above all. Moreover, this one leads the pious to the light, but will punish sinners — which Celsus, not having seen,
has done; whereas in fact he will guide the pious toward the light, and will have mercy on sinners, or on those who repent. After this he says: if he wished to remain hidden, why was the voice heard from heaven proclaiming him son of God? But if he did not wish to remain hidden, why the punishment, and why the death? And he supposes that in this he is exposing an inconsistency in what is written about him, not seeing that neither
he wanted everything about himself to be known to everyone, even to those who happened to be nearby, and none of what concerned him to remain hidden. At any rate, the voice out of heaven that declared him God's own son, saying, "Here is my son, the one I love; my favor rests on him," is not recorded as having occurred within the hearing of the crowds, as Celsus's Jew supposed; rather, even the voice at the
very high mountain, coming from the cloud, could be perceived only by his fellow climbers. Indeed such is the nature of the divine voice — audible solely to those the speaker intends to hear it — and I do not even mean to say that what is recorded as the voice of God is in every case simply air that has been struck, or a percussion of air, or whatever it is that is said in treatises on sound; rather, such a voice reaches a hearing
more excellent than the perceptible kind, and more divine. And whenever the speaker wishes his own voice not to be audible to all, the one who "has" the better "ears" hears God, while the one whose hearing has been deafened in soul is insensible to God speaking. So much, then, for why the voice from heaven proclaiming him Son of God was heard [by only a few]. As for whether he did not want to remain hidden, why then did punishment come upon him, or why did death overtake him? What has been said at greater length above about the suffering
is enough for us. After this, Celsus's Jew sets forth as though it were a logical consequence something that is not a logical consequence. For it does not follow, from the fact that he wanted to teach us through the punishments he suffered to despise even death, that he should have summoned everyone plainly into the light, once risen from the dead,
and taught them the reason for which he had come down. For he had already, earlier, called everyone into the light, saying, "Come to me, all you who toil and carry heavy burdens, and I will grant you rest." And the reason for which he had come down is recorded among the words he spoke at length in the beatitudes and the sayings that follow them, in the parables, and likewise in his discourses with the scribes and Pharisees. As for the Gospel according to John,
it sets forth all that he taught, presenting the majesty of Jesus's speech not in mere wording but in substance; and it is clear from the gospels that "his word was spoken with authority," at which people also marveled. And to all this Celsus's Jew adds: this, then, is what we have from your own writings, for which we need no other witness; for you
contradict yourselves. But we have shown that, in comparison with our own gospel writings, much nonsense has been spouted in the Jew's words, whether directed against Jesus or against us. And I do not think he has actually demonstrated how we contradict ourselves — he only supposes so. But since the Jew adds to all this, that in general, what god, O most exalted and heavenly one, who is present among
men goes disbelieved? — we must say to him that even according to the law of Moses, God is recorded as having come to the Hebrews most manifestly — not only through the signs and wonders in Egypt, and further the crossing of the Red Sea and the pillar "of fire" and the cloud of light, but also when the ten commandments were declared to the whole people, and were disbelieved by
knowing this; for they would not, if they trusted what had been seen and heard, have made the calf, nor would they have "exchanged their glory for the likeness of a calf that eats grass," nor would they have spoken to each other concerning the calf, "These, Israel, are the gods who brought you up out of Egypt's land." And see whether these are not the very same people who, confronted with such great wonders and so many manifestations
of God, both earlier disbelieved throughout the whole wilderness, just as the law of the Jews records, and also, at the astonishing coming of Jesus, were not won over either by the words spoken with authority by him or by the astonishing things done by him in the sight of the whole people. And I consider these things sufficient for anyone who wishes to establish the Jews' unbelief toward Jesus, since
this unbelief followed consistently from what was written from the beginning about the people. For I would say to the Jew who speaks in Celsus's work: what god, present among human beings, is disbelieved, and that too by those who hope for him? Or why on earth do those who have long been awaiting him fail to recognize him? What do you people wish to answer to our inquiries? What deeds seem to you, as far as your own supposition goes, to be greater—
those in Egypt and in the wilderness, or those which we say Jesus performed among you? For if those are greater than these, in your view, how is it not immediately shown that it belongs to the same character, both to disbelieve the greater and to despise the lesser? For that is what is supposed concerning the things we say about Jesus.
But if the things concerning Jesus are said to be equal to those recorded by Moses, what strange thing has befallen a people that disbelieved at both beginnings of these events? For the beginning of the lawgiving was under Moses, in which the sins of the unbelieving and sinning among you are recorded; and it is agreed that the beginning of the second lawgiving and covenant came to be for us according to Jesus. And you bear witness,
by the very things through which you disbelieve Jesus, that you are sons of those who disbelieved the divine manifestations in the wilderness; and what was said by our Savior will be said to you as well, since you have disbelieved him, namely, "So then you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers"; and the prophecy that says, "Your life shall hang before your eyes,
and you shall not believe in your life," is fulfilled in you; for you did not believe in the life that had come to dwell among the human race. Now Celsus, in fashioning the persona of the Jew, did not find such things to put in his mouth as could not be brought against him from the legal and prophetic scriptures. For he finds fault with Jesus, saying such things about him: he threatens and reviles lightly,
whenever he says, "Woe to you" and "I tell you beforehand." For in these he openly admits that he is unable to persuade—something which neither a god nor even a sensible man would experience. But see whether this does not turn directly back upon the Jew. For God threatens in the legal and prophetic scriptures, and reviles, whenever he says—no less than the "woe" in the gospel—
Consider what is said in Isaiah in this vein: "Woe to those who join house to house and bring field near to field" and "Woe to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink" and "Woe to those who haul their sins behind them as though with a long cord"; also "Woe to those who call the evil good and the good evil" and "Woe to those among you who are strong, who drink
wine." And you could find countless others besides. How are these not similar in their threats to the things he says Jesus said—"Woe, sinful nation, people full of sins, evil offspring, lawless sons" and what follows, upon whom such great threats are brought down—threats no less severe than those he claims Jesus uttered? Or is it not a threat, and a great one at that, which says, "Your land
is desolate; your cities lie burned by fire; foreigners devour your land before your very eyes, and it has been laid waste, overthrown by foreign peoples"? And how are the words spoken to the people in Ezekiel not abuse as well, where the Lord says to the prophet, "You dwell in the midst of scorpions"? Have you noticed, Celsus, what you have done in making the Jew say about
Jesus that he threatens and reviles lightly, whenever he says, "Woe to you" and "I forewarn you"? Do you not see that the very things your Jew says in accusing Jesus could equally be said against him concerning God? For the God found in the prophets is caught, on the Jew's own reckoning, in exactly the same charges, as though unable to persuade otherwise. And further, I would
say to those who think that Celsus's Jew is right to bring this charge against Jesus, that there are also a great many curses recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy; and if the Jew, standing by the scripture, would offer some defense concerning these, we shall offer this same defense, or an even better one, concerning what are held to be the reproaches and threats spoken by Jesus. And concerning
the law of Moses itself, we will be able to offer a defense better than the Jew's, since we have been taught by Jesus to hear the words of the law with more understanding than he has. But even the Jew, if he sees the intent of the prophetic words, will be able to show that God does not threaten and revile lightly when he says "Woe" and "I forewarn you," and how a God who speaks
such things for the sake of turning people back would say them—things which Celsus thinks not even a sensible man would say. And Christians too, knowing one God, the God in the prophets and in the Lord, will show the reasonableness of what are taken to be the threats and, as Celsus calls them, reproaches. And a few words will be said on this point to Celsus, who professes to be both a philosopher and to know our teachings—namely, that
my friend, if in Homer the Hermes character says to Odysseus, "Why is it, unhappy man, that you go alone over the heights?"—do you accept the defense that says the Homeric Hermes speaks to Odysseus in this way for the sake of turning him back (since flattery and saying pleasant things belong rather to the Sirens, beside whom lies a heap of bones, and who say, "Come here, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans")—
But if my prophets, and Jesus himself, speak the word "woe," and what you regard as insults, for the sake of the conversion of their hearers, is nothing thereby arranged for the benefit of the hearers through such words, and does he not bring such a word to them as a healing remedy? Unless, that is, you wish to hold that god, or the one who shares in the divine nature and converses with men, considers the
things that belong to his own nature and what is fitting to his own dignity, but no longer looks to what is fitting to promise to the men who are being arranged and led by his word, and to converse with each according to his underlying character. And how is it not ridiculous, this claim that Jesus is said to be unable to persuade — a claim made common not only against the Jew — when there are many such things in the
prophecies; yet even among the Greeks, where each person who won great renown for wisdom proved unable to persuade those plotting against him, or his judges, or his accusers, to cease from wickedness and travel through philosophy toward virtue? After this the Jew says to him — clearly speaking in accordance with what pleases the Jews — that we hope, of course, to rise again in the body and to have
eternal life, and that the one sent to us will be the example and originator of this, showing that it is not impossible for someone to be raised by god together with the body. We do not know, then, whether the Jew would call the expected Christ a pattern of resurrection displayed in his own person; well, suppose we grant that this is indeed what he thinks and says — we will answer the one who said, from our
own writings, that he has spoken to us: My good man, did you read those passages in which you suppose you are accusing us, and yet not go through the resurrection of Jesus, and the fact that he is "firstborn from the dead"? Or is it, since you do not wish these things to have been said, that they were not said at all? But since the Jew, in Celsus, still speaks and admits the resurrection of bodies, I do not think
it opportune now to go through this matter with someone who holds both the belief and the assertion that bodies rise again, whether he works out this position clearly for himself and can give a good account of the doctrine, or not, but rather assents to the doctrine in a more mythical fashion. Let this, then, be said in this way to Celsus's Jew. But since after this he says: "Where is he, then, so that we may see"
and believe" — we will say to him: Where, then, is he now who spoke in the prophets and who performed wonders — so that, seeing him, our belief in his being a portion of god would follow? Or is it permitted to you to make a defense as to why god has not always appeared to the race of the Hebrews, while the same defense is not granted to us concerning Jesus, who once
rose and persuaded his disciples concerning his own resurrection, and persuaded them to such a degree that, through what they suffer, they show to all that, because they see eternal life and the resurrection demonstrated to them both in word and in deed, they treat as play all the hardships of this life? After this the Jew says: "Or did he come down for this purpose, that we should disbelieve?" To whom it will be said: not
He came for this reason, that he might bring about unbelief in the Jews; but foreknowing that this would happen, he foretold it and made use of the Jews' unbelief for the calling of the nations. For "by their trespass salvation came to the nations," concerning whom the Christ who speaks in the prophets says: "A people I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me," and "I was found
by those who did not seek me, I became manifest to those who did not ask for me." And it is clear that the Jews were also punished in this life after they had done to Jesus what they did. Let the Jews say, if they bring charges against us and declare: How admirable, in your view, is God's providence and love for humanity, seeing that you have been punished and deprived both of Jerusalem and of what is called the sanctuary and of the
most holy worship! For whatever they say in defense concerning God's providence, we shall establish it all the more, and speak even better of it, saying that God's providence proved admirable in making use of that people's sin so that those from the nations might be called through Jesus — strangers to "the covenants" and estranged from the promises — into the kingdom of God. And these things too
the prophets foretold beforehand that, because of the Hebrew people's sins, God would choose not a nation but individuals gathered from everywhere, and that having chosen "the foolish things of the world" he would cause the unintelligent nation to come to be among the divine words, God's kingdom being taken up from the former and given to the latter. For the present it is enough to set forth, out of many passages,
the prophecy from the song of Deuteronomy concerning the calling of the nations, which runs as follows, spoken in the person of the Lord: "For they stirred my jealousy with what is not god, they angered me with their idols; so I too will stir their jealousy with what is not a nation, with a senseless nation I will anger them." Then, as an epilogue to all this, the Jew says concerning Jesus: he then
was a man, and of such a kind as the truth itself makes plain and the account shows. But I do not know whether a man, having dared to sow throughout the whole inhabited world reverence for God and teaching after his own pattern, is able to do what he wishes without God's help, and to prove stronger than all who fight against the spread of his teaching — kings and rulers and the senate of the Romans and
the rulers and the people everywhere. How, moreover, can human nature, having nothing superior within itself, turn so great a multitude? And it is no wonder if it turns the prudent, but also the most irrational and those given over to their passions, and those who, so far as their irrationality goes, are hardest to bring over to greater self-control. But inasmuch as Christ constituted God's power and the Father's wisdom,
for this reason he has done these things and still does them, even if neither Jews nor Greeks wish it — those who disbelieve his word. We, then, shall not cease trusting in God as Jesus Christ instructed, and shall not cease seeking to turn those blind to reverence for God, even if those who are truly blind revile us as blind, along with those who lead people astray, whether Jews or Greeks — we shall not cease turning those who agree with them
they charge us with herding people like cattle — a fine sort of herding indeed, that turns the licentious into the self-controlled, or at least sets them advancing toward self-control, and the unjust into the just, or at least advancing toward justice, and the foolish into the prudent, or at least making their way toward prudence, and the cowardly, ignoble, and unmanly into brave and steadfast men, displaying this above all in their struggles on behalf of piety toward
the God who created all things. So Jesus Christ came proclaimed beforehand not by one prophet only but by all of them. And this too was a mark of Celsus's ignorance, to attribute to the Jewish character the claim that a single prophet had foretold the Christ. And since Celsus's Jew is introduced saying these things, as though supposedly in accordance with his own law, he too, somewhere thereabouts, brought
his speech to a close, having also said other things not worth remembering. And I too will here bring to a close the second of the books dictated by me in reply to his treatise. And with God granting it, and the power of Christ visiting our soul, we will attempt in the third book to deal with what Celsus wrote next in sequence.

======== Against Celsus, Book 3 ========

In the first of our books against Celsus’s boastful title — for he entitled the book he composed against us "True Word" — as you instructed, most faithful Ambrose, to the best of our ability we went through his preface and then, taking up each of the things he said in turn, examined them, until we came to the speech he puts in the mouth of the Jew, fabricated as though addressed to Jesus. And in the second book we took up the whole of it.
As best we could, we answered the points made against us—against those who through Christ believe in God—in the speech of that Jew of his. We now take up this, the third book, in which our task is to contend against what he sets out as though speaking in his own person. He says that Christians and Jews argue with each other most foolishly, and claims that our dialogue with one another about
Christ is no different from what the proverb calls "a fight over a donkey's shadow," and he supposes there is nothing dignified in the mutual inquiry of Jews and Christians, given that both believe that some savior was prophesied by a divine spirit as one who would come to dwell among the human race, yet no longer agree about whether the one prophesied has already come or not. For we Christians have believed that Jesus is the one who has come in accordance with what was prophesied,
whereas the majority of Jews remain at such a distance from trusting him that those alive at that time went so far as to conspire against Jesus, while those living now, endorsing what the Jews back then presumed to do against him, likewise continue to slander Jesus—claiming he had, through some form of sorcery, invented the notion that he was the one heralded by the prophets as coming to dwell among them, summoned according to Jewish ancestral custom
the Christ. Let Celsus, then, and those who are pleased with what he says against us, tell us whether it resembles a donkey's shadow that the Jewish prophets foretold beforehand the place of birth of the one who would lead those who have lived well and who form the portion belonging to God, and that a virgin would conceive Emmanuel, and that there would be such signs and wonders performed by the one prophesied, and that "with such
swiftness his word will run," and that the sound of his apostles would go out "into all the earth," and what he would suffer when condemned by the Jews, and how he would rise again. Did the prophets, then, say these things at random, with no plausibility at all moving them not merely to say them but even to judge them worthy of being written down? And is it likewise the case that so great
a nation as the Jews, who long ago took possession of a land of their own to inhabit, proclaimed some as prophets and rejected others as false prophets with no plausibility at all behind it? And was there nothing among them prompting them to number the words of those reckoned to be the later prophets together with the sacred books of Moses, trusted as they were? And can those who charge Jews and Christians with foolishness show us how it was possible for the
nation of the Jews to hold together, if there had been no promise of foreknowledge among them at all? And that while the surrounding nations each, according to their own ancestral customs, believed they received oracles and divinations from those they reckoned to be gods, these people alone, taught to despise all the so-called gods of the nations as not gods but demons (since their prophets said of them that
"every god of the nations is but a demon"), they had no one who promised to prophesy and who was able to draw away those who, out of desire for foreknowledge of the future, wished to desert to the demons found among the others. Consider, then, whether it is not necessarily the case that a whole nation, taught to despise the gods worshiped by the rest, should have been well supplied with prophets, who from the very outset display something greater and surpass the oracles found everywhere. Then
powers were at work everywhere, or in many places, as he himself cites further on, mentioning Asclepius as benefiting people and foretelling the future to whole cities devoted to him, such as Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos, and Pergamum; and Aristeas of Proconnesus, and a certain man of Clazomenae, and Cleomedes of Astypalaea. But it is only among the Jews, they claim, that devotion is offered to the God of the universe.
was there no sign or portent that cooperated with and confirmed their faith in the creator of the universe, together with the hope of living a greater life concerning something else? But how could such a thing be possible? For they would immediately have turned to worshiping the demons who gave oracles and received service, abandoning the God who was believed, only in word, to help them, but who in no way demonstrated his own manifestation.
But if this did not happen — if instead they endured countless sufferings rather than renounce Judaism and the law that goes with it, suffering now in Assyria, now in Persia, and now under Antiochus — how is it not established, on reasonable grounds, for those who disbelieve the extraordinary histories and prophecies, that these things were not fabrications,
but that some divine spirit, present as it were in the pure souls of the prophets — men who had taken on every labor on behalf of virtue — moved them to prophesy, some things for their own contemporaries and other things for those who came later, and especially concerning someone who would come to dwell among the human race as its savior? But if this is so, why do Jews and Christians dispute with one another about a donkey's shadow,
examining, on the basis of the prophecies which they both hold in common, whether the one who was prophesied has come or has not yet come at all but is still awaited? And even if it be granted to Celsus, as a hypothesis, that Jesus is not the one whom the prophets proclaimed, even so the inquiry into the meaning of the prophetic writings is no less something other than a dispute about a donkey's shadow — so that it might be clearly demonstrated
what sort of person the one heralded in advance was prophesied to be, and what he would do, and, if possible, also when he would come to dwell among us. Above, we already stated, citing a few prophecies out of many, that Jesus is the Christ who was prophesied. Neither the Jews, then, nor the Christians are mistaken in accepting that the prophets spoke by inspiration from God; rather, those who are mistaken about the one prophesied and awaited
hold false beliefs as to who he is and of what sort he has been proclaimed to be according to the true meaning of the prophets. Next after this, Celsus, supposing that the Jews, being Egyptian by race, abandoned Egypt after rebelling against the Egyptian community and scorning the customary religious practices of Egypt, says that they suffered, at the hands of those who attached themselves to Jesus and believed in him, the very things they themselves had done to the Egyptians.
as against Christ, and that for both the cause of the innovation was rebellion against the common order. Now what has Celsus done at this point? It must be examined. The ancient Egyptians treated the race of the Hebrews very badly in many ways, when they had come to sojourn in Egypt because famine had struck Judea. They then suffered, at the hands of divine providence, as an entire nation acting in concert, what a whole people that had wronged strangers and suppliants ought to suffer, having wronged
the whole race of those who had come to sojourn among them, though that race had done them no wrong at all. And when they had been struck by God's scourges, only with difficulty and not long after did they let go, to wherever they wished, those whom they had been enslaving unjustly. Being self-loving, then, and preferring in every way their own kin even over more just strangers, there is no accusation the Egyptians have left unmade that they have not spoken against Moses and the Hebrews — not denying outright the marvelous powers worked through Moses, but claiming
that these came about by sorcery and not by divine power. But Moses, since the events show him to have been not a sorcerer but a pious man devoted to the God of all and partaking of a more divine spirit, both established laws for the Hebrews as the divine voice spoke within him, and recorded the events as they truly happened. Celsus, then, not having become
a fair examiner of what is said one way among the Egyptians and another way among the Hebrews, but having been won over beforehand as by a fondness for the Egyptians, agreed with those who wronged the strangers as though they spoke truly, and said that the Hebrews, the ones who were wronged, left Egypt because they were rebelling — not seeing in what way so vast a rebellious multitude of Egyptians, if rebellion were its origin, could have become a nation while at the same time rebelling and also
changing its language, so that those who up to then used the Egyptian tongue should suddenly have come to speak fully the Hebrew dialect. But let it be granted, for the sake of argument, that in leaving Egypt they had come to hate even their native language along with it — how then, after this, did they not rather use the dialect of the Syrians, or that of the Phoenicians, but instead formed the Hebrew tongue as something distinct from both? What this argument wants
to establish for me is that it is false that people who were Egyptian by race rebelled against the Egyptians and left Egypt and came into Palestine and settled what is now called Judea. For the Hebrews had their own ancestral dialect before their descent into Egypt, and Hebrew letters were different from those of the Egyptians, and it was these that Moses used in writing the five books that are believed among the Jews
to be sacred. Likewise it is false that the Hebrews, being Egyptians, took their origin from rebellion, and that others, being Jews in the time of Jesus, rebelled against the common body of the Jews and followed Jesus. For Celsus, or those who agree with him, will not be able to point to any deed of rebellion on the part of the Christians. And yet if rebellion had been the
cause of the formation of the Christians, who took their origin from the Jews, for whom it was permitted both to take up arms in defense of their own and to kill their enemies, then the lawgiver of the Christians would not have forbidden altogether the killing of a human being — never teaching that it is just for his own disciples to venture violence against a human being, however wicked that person might be (for he did not think it fitting to his own divinely inspired legislation to allow
the killing of any person whatsoever), nor would Christians, if they had begun from insurrection, have accepted laws so gentle that they made it their lot to be killed "like sheep" and never to be able to defend themselves against their persecutors. And yet, examining the matter more deeply, one can say of those who came out of the land of Egypt that the whole people miraculously received all at once, as it were a gift of God,
the dialect called Hebrew, all together; as even one of their prophets said, that "when they went out of the land of Egypt, he heard a language which he did not know." And it must further be shown that those who left Egypt in the company of Moses were not Egyptian in stock; had they been Egyptians, their names ought to have been Egyptian names, since each language yields names akin to itself;
but since it is clear from the fact that their names are Hebrew that they were not Egyptians (for the scripture is full of Hebrew names, even of those given by people in Egypt to their sons), it is plain that what is said by the Egyptians is false—that though they were Egyptians they were driven out with Moses from Egypt. And it is quite evident that, being of Hebrew ancestors
according to the history recorded by Moses, they had their own dialect, from which they also gave names to their sons. As for the Christians, since, having been taught not to defend themselves against their enemies, they kept to the gentle and humane legislation, for this very reason—something they would not have accomplished had they taken up the right to wage war, even if they had been very capable of it—they have received this from God,
who has always fought on their behalf and, at the appointed times, has restrained those who set themselves against Christians and wished to destroy them. For as a reminder—so that, seeing a few contending for piety, others might become more approved and despise death—a few, at various times, and very easily numbered, have died for the reverence of God held by Christians, God preventing their whole nation from being utterly warred down; for he willed that it should be established and fill
the whole earth with this saving and most pious teaching; and again, so that the weaker might catch their breath from anxiety about death, God took forethought for those who believed, scattering by his will alone every plot against them, so that no king, no local ruler, and no populace could stir up lasting hostility toward them. This much, then,
in reply to what was said by Celsus about there having been an insurrection at the beginning—long ago in the case of the founding of the Jews, and later in the case of the Christians' coming into being. But since in what follows he plainly lies, come, let us set forth his own words, where he says: if all men wished to be Christians, these would no longer wish it. That this is false is clear from the fact that
as far as it depends on themselves, Christians do not neglect to sow the word everywhere in the inhabited world; some, at any rate, have made it their business to go about not only cities but also villages and farmsteads, in order to make others too devout toward God. And no one could say that they do this for the sake of wealth, since sometimes they do not even accept what is needed for food, and if ever they do,
they would be compelled by this scarcity to be content with mere necessity, even if they wished to share more with others and to give away what was beyond their needs. Now, then, perhaps — since, because of the multitude of people coming to the word, both wealthy people and some in positions of honor, and women of delicate and noble birth, welcome those who come from the word — someone will venture to say that, on account of
the little glory involved, certain people set themselves at the head of the teaching that concerns Christians. Yet it was not reasonable to suspect any such thing at the beginning, when the danger was greatest, above all for those who taught. And even now the disrepute among the rest outweighs the reputed glory among the like-minded, and even that is not shared by all. It is therefore a plain falsehood that, if all people wished to be
Christians, these men here would no longer wish to be. But see also what he says is the proof of this: that at the beginning, he says, they were few and of one mind, but once scattered into a multitude they are again cut apart and split, and each group wants to have its own faction; for this, he says, was what they wanted from the start. That in comparison with the multitude that followed, the Christians were few at the beginning is plain,
and yet they were not few in every sense, for the very thing that stirred envy against Jesus and provoked the Jews to their plot against him was the multitude of those who followed him into the deserted places — four and five thousand men following him, apart from the number of the women and children — so great, indeed, was a certain drawing power in the words of Jesus, that not only men
wished to follow him into the wilderness but women too, not making an excuse of feminine weakness or of what following the teacher into the wilderness would seem to involve; and quite unaffected children, either following their parents or perhaps also being led by his divinity, so that divinity might be sown in them, followed along with those who had begotten them. But let it be granted that they were few at the beginning;
what does this contribute toward showing that Christians would not have wished to produce persuasion about the word in all people? He also says that they were all of one mind, not seeing even in this that from the beginning there arose disagreements among believers concerning how the books held to be divine were to be understood — indeed, while the apostles were still preaching and the eyewitnesses of Jesus were still teaching his
teachings, no small inquiry arose among those who believed from the Jews concerning those coming to the word from the nations: whether they must observe the Jewish customs, or whether the "burden" concerning clean and unclean foods should be lifted as not being incumbent on those who, among the nations, had abandoned their ancestral ways and believed in Jesus. But indeed also in Paul's
letters — Paul having lived at the time of those who had seen Jesus — one finds certain statements suggesting that questions had arisen concerning the resurrection and whether it had "already occurred," and concerning the day of the Lord, whether it "is at hand" or not; and moreover the phrase "avoiding the profane babblings and contradictions of the falsely named knowledge, which some professing" "have made shipwreck concerning the faith" shows that from the beginning there arose
certain misapprehensions, not yet, as Celsus supposes, of many believers having arisen. Then, since he reproaches us, as if accusing the doctrine, concerning the sects that exist within Christianity, saying: "But having been scattered abroad into a multitude, they are again split and cut apart, and each wishes to have its own faction"; and he says that, being separated again on account of their numbers, they refute one another, still sharing, so to speak, in one thing
— the name, if indeed they still share even that — and this alone they are nevertheless ashamed to abandon, while the rest of their views are arranged differently by different people. To this we shall reply that heresies have arisen in no subject whose origin is not serious and useful to life. For medicine, being both needful and beneficial to mankind, has much that is disputed within it concerning
the manner of treating bodies, for this reason more numerous sects are admittedly found in medicine among the Greeks — and I think among the barbarians as well, as many of them as profess to practice medicine. Again, since philosophy, professing truth and knowledge of what exists, lays down how one ought to live and attempts to teach what is beneficial to our race, and the matters it inquires into involve much
protracted dispute, for this reason a very great many sects have arisen within philosophy, of which some are more well-known and others less so. But even Judaism had, as an occasion for the origin of sects, the differing interpretation of the writings of Moses and the words of the prophets. So then, since Christianity appeared to men to be something venerable — not only, as Celsus supposes, to the more slavish sort,
but also to many literary men among the Greeks — sects necessarily arose, not at all on account of factions and love of strife, but because many of the literary men as well were eager to understand the teachings of Christianity; and this followed from it: since they interpreted differently the divine words believed by all in common, sects arose named after those who admired the origin of the doctrine but were moved,
in whatever way it might be, by certain plausible arguments toward disagreements with one another. But no one would reasonably flee medicine on account of the sects within it, nor would anyone aiming at what is fitting hate philosophy, using its many sects as a pretext for hating it. So too, the holy writings of Moses and the prophets ought not to be condemned on account of the sects that exist among the Jews. But if
these things hold together logically, how shall we not likewise offer a defense also concerning the sects among Christians? Concerning which Paul seems to me to have spoken quite admirably: "For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become manifest among you." For just as the one approved in medicine is the one who, through having trained himself amid various schools and having fairly examined most of them, has chosen
the one that excels; and just as the one who makes great progress in philosophy does so by coming to know more, having trained himself among the various schools and attached himself to the argument that prevails — so too I would say that the one who has carefully examined the sects of Judaism and of Christianity becomes the wisest Christian. But whoever accuses the doctrine on account of its sects would also have to accuse the teaching of Socrates, from whose school many
schools that do not hold the same views. Indeed one might charge even Plato's doctrines with fault on account of Aristotle, who departed from his school to make innovations — a matter we have also discussed above. Now Celsus, it appears to me, has come to know of certain sects that do not even share with us the name of Jesus. For he had probably heard reports about the so-called Ophians and Caians, and if
there is any other such school that arose out of a complete falling away from Jesus — none of this, however, has any bearing on making the Christian teaching itself liable to blame. After this he says: 'And all the more remarkable is their agreement, the more it would be shown to have arisen from no worthy foundation.' But the worthy foundation is their sedition, and the benefit that comes through it, and the fear of outsiders; these are
what confirm their faith. To this too we shall reply that our agreement arises not in this way from a mere foundation — or rather, not from a foundation at all, but from a divine working — so that its origin is God, teaching human beings through the prophets to hope for the coming of Christ, who would save mankind. For to this extent it is not refuted as untrue, even if it seems to be refuted by unbelievers. To this extent
the message is established as the message of God, and Jesus, being Son of God, is shown to be so both before he became man and after he became man. And I maintain that even after he took on flesh, those whose souls possess the keenest sight still find him ever most fitting to God, truly one descended to us out of God — his origin, and all that follows from that origin, springing not from human understanding but from
the manifestation of God, who by manifold wisdom and manifold powers established first Judaism and after it Christianity. And the supposition that sedition, and the benefit that comes through sedition, is the origin of a teaching has likewise been refuted — a teaching that has converted and improved so many. And that the fear of outsiders is not what sustains our agreement either is clear from the fact that this too
was willed by God to have already ceased for a considerable time. And it is likely that the freedom from fear which has arisen in believers with respect to this present life will cease again, once those who in every way slander the teaching come to suppose that the cause of the sedition, now grown so great, lies in the multitude of believers not being warred against by the rulers in the same way as in former times. For we have learned from
the teaching neither to grow slack in peace and give ourselves over to relaxation, nor, when warred against by the world, to lose heart and fall away from love toward the God of all in Jesus Christ. We openly declare the dignity of our origin instead of concealing it, contrary to what Celsus supposes, since even for those newly being introduced we produce contempt for idols
and for all images, and beyond this, by raising their thinking up from serving created things instead of God, we bring them up to the Creator of all things; setting forth openly the one who was prophesied, both from the prophecies concerning him (and these are many) and from the accounts, examined with care, handed down to those able to hear more intelligently, of the Gospels and of the apostolic voices.
But as for what sorts of terrors, of every kind, we conjure up, or what fears we fabricate — as Celsus writes without any proof — let whoever wishes demonstrate it. Unless, that is, Celsus means to call "fabricated terrors" the teaching, built up with varied argument, partly from the scriptures and partly from plausible reasoning, about God as judge and about human beings being judged for everything they have done. And yet
(for truth is dear) Celsus says, near the end, that neither these people nor I nor anyone else should abandon the doctrine that the unjust will be punished and the just deemed worthy of rewards. What terrors, then, do we fabricate and use to draw people in, if you take away the doctrine of punishment? But also, when he says that the
misheard fragments of the ancient account, fabricating these, we pipe people up in advance and indoctrinate them beforehand, like those who buzz around people undergoing Corybantic frenzy — we will say to him: misheard fragments of which ancient account? For whether it is the Greek account, which also taught about the tribunals beneath the earth, or the Jewish account, which, among other things, also prophesied about the life that follows this present one, he would not be able to show that we, having fallen into misheard fragments
of the truth — at least those of us who try to believe with reason — live by such doctrines. He wants to compare the matters of our faith to the affairs of the Egyptians, among whom, for one approaching, there are splendid precincts and groves, and gateways magnificent in size and beauty, and marvelous temples, and stately pavilions all around, and rites full of superstition and mystery; but then, for one entering and
going further within, one finds a cat being worshipped, or perhaps an ape, a crocodile, a goat, or else a dog. For what among us corresponds to the things that appear so solemn to those approaching the Egyptians, and what corresponds to the irrational animals worshipped within, after the solemn gateways? Or are the prophecies and the God who is over all and the arguments against the images
solemn even by his own reckoning, while Jesus Christ crucified corresponds to the worshipped irrational animal? But if this is what he means (for I do not think he would say anything else), we will answer that more has been said above by us in support of the case concerning Jesus — that even the things which seem to have happened to him in a merely human way have proved useful for the universe as a whole and salutary for
the whole world. Then, as for the Egyptians' claims — when they speak solemnly even about the irrational animals and assert that they are certain symbols of God, or however their prophets who traffic in such things prefer to name them — he says that these send forth an impression to those who have learned about them, since their initiation has not, after all, been pointless; but as for the things in our own writings that arise from what is called by Paul the gift given "through
the Spirit" in the word of wisdom, and in "according to the Spirit" in the word of knowledge, which are presented to those well versed in learning within Christianity — Celsus seems to me not to have formed any impression of these at all, not only from these remarks but also from what he says next, when in accusing the Christian community he says that they drive away every wise person from the reasoning of their faith and admit only the foolish and the slavish
who are called, about which we shall learn in due course, when we come to that topic. And he says that we mock the Egyptians, even though they offer many riddles that are not trivial, when they teach that such things are honors paid to eternal forms and not, as most people suppose, to short-lived animals; and that we are foolish for introducing, in our
accounts about Jesus, nothing more dignified than the goats and dogs found among the Egyptians. To this too we shall reply: is it not so, my good man, that while you rightly praise the Egyptians for offering many riddles that are not trivial, and obscure accounts about the animals among them, you do wrong in accusing us, as though you were convinced that we say nothing worthwhile but everything without reason and cheap, when the matters concerning Jesus
we set forth according to the wisdom contained in the word, to those who are perfect, as it were, in Christianity. Concerning such people, as ones fit to hear the wisdom found in Christianity, Paul, teaching, says: "We speak wisdom among the perfect, a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; rather, it is God's wisdom we speak, hidden within a mystery, wisdom kept concealed, which
God foreordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has known." And we say to those who share Celsus's opinion: was it then no surpassing wisdom that Paul had in view when he promised to speak "wisdom" "among the perfect"? And when, in keeping with his own rashness, he claims that Paul had nothing wise in mind when he made these promises, we shall answer him in turn, saying: first clarify
the letters of the man who says these things, and, having fixed your gaze on the intent of each expression in them — take, for instance, the letter to the Ephesians, and to the Colossians, and to the Thessalonians, and to the Philippians, and to the Romans. Show us both things: that you have understood Paul's words, and that you can point out certain foolish or silly points in them. For if he devotes himself to reading with attention, I know well
that he will either admire the man's mind, as it conceives great things in ordinary language, or, failing to admire it, he himself will appear ridiculous — whether recounting the matter as one who has understood the man's intent, or attempting to contradict and overturn what he merely imagined he had understood him to mean. And I am not yet speaking of the care shown in the Gospels regarding everything that is written, each item of which contains a meaning that is hard to discern in depth, not only
for the many but even for some of the intelligent — containing the deepest exposition of the parables which Jesus spoke to those "outside," while keeping their clarity for those who have gone beyond the outward hearing and come to him privately "in the house." He will marvel, once he understands, at what reason there is for some to be called "outside" while others are named as being "in the house." And once more, who would not
be astonished, among those able to perceive Jesus's transitions — going up a mountain for such words or deeds, or for his own transfiguration, while below he heals the sick and those unable to go up to where his disciples follow him? But to expound now the truly solemn and divine matters of the Gospels, or the Christ who is in Paul — that is, of the wisdom
and of the argument, this is not the moment to consider. But even this much is sufficient against Celsus's unphilosophical mockery, when he likens the inner and mystical things of God's church to the cats, monkeys, crocodiles, goats, or dogs of the Egyptians. Leaving no form of ridicule and derision against us untried, the buffoon Celsus in his treatise against us names the Dioscuri,
Heracles, Asclepius, and Dionysus — men whom the Greeks held to have risen from humanity into godhood. And he says that we cannot bear to consider these to be gods, on the ground that they were men, and men to begin with, even though they performed many noble deeds on behalf of humanity; whereas we say that Jesus, after dying, was seen by his own followers. He further charges us with saying that he was seen, and that this too was a mere shadow.
To this we shall reply that Celsus has terribly failed either to state clearly that he himself does not revere these figures as gods (for he was wary of the opinion of those who would encounter his writing, lest they suppose him godless, if he openly professed the view he himself held to be true), or, on the other hand, to pretend that he too considers them gods; for we would have answered him differently depending on which position he took. Come then, let us say this
to those who do not consider them to be gods. Do these figures not exist at all from the start, but rather — as some suppose concerning the human soul, that it perishes at once — has their soul likewise perished? Or, according to the view of those who say it persists, either as immortal or as persisting in some other way, do these persist, or are they immortal, and not gods but heroes?
Or perhaps not even heroes, but merely souls? Suppose, then, you hold that they do not exist — in that case we must set forth our own leading argument concerning the soul. But suppose they do exist; even so, the doctrine of immortality must be accepted, not only from those Greeks who have spoken well concerning it, but also according to what is agreeable to the divine teachings. And we shall show that it is not possible for these figures, having become gods among many,
to have come into a better place and portion after their departure from this life here, bringing with us the accounts written about them, in which is recorded much licentiousness on Heracles's part, and his womanish servitude to Omphale, and the story of Asclepius, how he was struck by his father Zeus with a thunderbolt. And we shall also speak of the Dioscuri, how at one time they live on alternate days, and at another time again they are dead;
and that these, who die again and again, have been allotted honor equal to the gods. How then, by reasonable account, do they suppose that any of these should be considered a god or a hero? But as for us, when we demonstrate the things concerning our own Jesus from the prophetic writings, and after this compare the history concerning him with the histories concerning those figures . . . . . that no licentiousness at all is reported of him. For not even
his own plotters, who sought "false testimony" against him, found even a plausible pretext for "false testimony" against him, by which they might accuse him on the ground of licentiousness; but even his death came about through a plot of men, and had nothing at all resembling the thunderbolt against Asclepius. And what gravity does the frenzied Dionysus possess, arrayed in a woman's attire, such that divine worship should be paid him? If
And if those who defend these matters take refuge in allegories, one must examine separately whether the allegories are sound, and separately whether they can have any substance and be worthy of reverence and worship — beings torn to pieces by Titans and cast down from the heavenly throne. But our Jesus, who appeared to his own initiates (for I will use the term found in Celsus),
was seen in truth, but Celsus slanders the account by saying he was seen as a shadow. Let the stories told about those others be examined alongside the one concerning Jesus. Or does Celsus want those to be true, while these — written down by people who had seen him and who by their very actions displayed the vividness of their perception of what they had witnessed, and made plain the disposition
in which they willingly suffered for the sake of his word — are to be fictions? And who, wishing to act reasonably in everything, would arbitrarily agree with the accounts about those others but, rushing unexamined toward the accounts about this one, disbelieve what is said about him? And again, whenever it is said about Asclepius that a great multitude of people, both Greeks and barbarians, admit that they have often seen him
and still see him — not a mere apparition, but one who heals and benefits and foretells the future — Celsus asks us to believe this and does not blame those who put their faith in these things. But when we, seeing the guilelessness of the disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus' wonders — insofar as one can perceive conscience from writings — assent to them and to the fair-mindedness they clearly display in their own conscience,
we are called simpletons by Celsus, though he himself is unable to point to, in his own phrase, an innumerable host of Greeks and barbarians who acknowledge Asclepius. For we, if he counts this a mark of dignity, are able plainly to show an innumerable host, of both Greeks and barbarians, acknowledging Jesus. And some display signs of having received, through this faith, something rather beyond the ordinary,
in the healings they perform, calling upon nothing else over those in need of healing than the God over all and the name of Jesus together with the account concerning him. Indeed, through these very things we ourselves have witnessed many people delivered from grievous afflictions, derangements, madness, and countless other conditions, which neither men nor demons had healed. But in order also to grant that some healing demon called Asclepius
heals bodies, I would say to those who marvel at such a thing, or at the divination of Apollo, that if the medical treatment of bodies is a middling matter, one that falls not only to the refined but also to the base, and if foreknowledge of the future is likewise a middling matter (for foreknowledge by no means indicates refinement in the one who foreknows), then show us how those who heal or those who foreknow are in no way base
but are proved in every way to be refined, and not far from being supposed to be gods. Yet proving that those who heal or foretell are refined is something they will be unable to do, since many reputed to be healed are unworthy of life — persons whom even a wise physician would not have wished to treat, given how improperly they live. And in the oracles of the Pythian god
you would find some commands that are not reasonable. Of these I will set out two for the present: that he ordered Cleomedes—the boxer, I believe—to be honored with honors equal to a god's. I do not know what solemn thing he ever saw in his boxing, yet he honored neither Pythagoras nor Socrates with the honors of a boxer. But he also called Archilochus "a servant of the Muses"—a man who displayed his poetry in the basest and most licentious subject matter
and exhibited a licentious and impure character. Insofar as he was a "servant of the Muses," who are supposed to be goddesses, he pronounced him a pious man. I do not know whether even an ordinary person would say that the pious man is not adorned with every moderation and virtue, or whether a decent person would say the sorts of things contained in the not-so-solemn iambics of Archilochus. But if nothing
divine is evident on its own from the medical art of Asclepius and the prophetic art of Apollo, how could anyone reasonably—even granting that these things are so—worship them as gods who are in some sense pure? Especially since, through the Pythian aperture, as the so-called prophetess sits around it, the prophetic spirit enters through her female organs—Apollo, that is, the pure one, free from an earthly body! We hold nothing of the sort
about Jesus and his power. For the body which came to be from the virgin was made up of human substance, able to receive human wounds and death. Let us also look at what Celsus says after this, setting out marvels from histories that in themselves resemble things not to be believed, but that, at least as far as his own wording goes, he does not disbelieve.
And first, the account concerning Aristeas of Proconnesus, about whom he says this: then Aristeas of Proconnesus, who vanished from among men so demonically and again plainly appeared, and after a long time visited many places of the inhabited world and announced marvelous things, and whom Apollo commanded the people of Metapontum to honor as a share of the gods—this Aristeas no one
any longer regards as a god. He seems to have taken the story from Pindar and Herodotus. It suffices now to set out Herodotus's own wording, taken from Book Four of his Histories, running concerning him thus: "And I have said where Aristeas, who said these things, was from; but I will tell the account concerning him that I heard at Proconnesus and Cyzicus. For they say that Aristeas, being inferior to none of the citizens in birth,
went into a fuller's shop at Proconnesus and died; and the fuller, locking up his workshop, went off to tell those related to the dead man. And once word that Aristeas had perished was already circulating throughout the city, a man from Cyzicus, arriving from the city of Artace, came to dispute with those who said this, claiming that he had met him going toward Cyzicus and had come to speech with him. And
this man disputed the matter vehemently, while those related to the dead man came to the fuller's shop with what was needed, intending to carry him off; but when the room was opened, Aristeas appeared neither living nor dead. And afterward, in the seventh year, he appeared at Proconnesus and composed those verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspeia, and having composed them he vanished a second time." This, then
These cities say this. But this is what I know happened to the people of Metapontum in Italy two hundred and forty years following Aristeas's second disappearance, a conclusion I reached by comparing the accounts at Proconnesus and at Metapontum. The Metapontines say that Aristeas himself appeared to them in their country and ordered them to set up an altar of Apollo and to place a statue beside it, inscribed with the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus. For he told them
that Apollo had come to their land alone among all the Italiotes, and that he himself—the one now known as Aristeas—had accompanied him; but at that time, when he was accompanying the god, he was a crow. Having said this, he vanished, and the Metapontines say that they sent to Delphi to ask the god the meaning of the man's apparition. The Pythia told them to obey
the apparition, and that if they obeyed it would be better for them. They accepted this and carried it out. And now there stands a statue bearing the name of Aristeas right beside the very image of Apollo, and around it are laurel trees; the image is set up in the marketplace. Let this much be said about Aristeas." Now, with regard to this account of Aristeas, it must be said that if Celsus
had set it forth simply as a piece of history, without showing his own assent to it, as though accepting it as true, we would have answered his argument differently. But since he says that Aristeas vanished by supernatural agency and then plainly reappeared, and had visited many parts of the inhabited world and announced marvels, and moreover an oracle of Apollo commanded the Metapontines to honor Aristeas with a share of divine rank, as
he sets this out on his own authority and with his own assent — [this is] the argument against him: how is it that, while supposing the extraordinary things written about Jesus by his disciples to be fabrications, and blaming those who believe them, you do not think these things to be either portents or fabrications? And how is it that, while accusing others of believing without reason the extraordinary things about Jesus, you yourself show that you have believed so many things,
bringing no proof or demonstration whatsoever that they actually happened? Or is it that Herodotus and Pindar are, in your judgment, considered free of falsehood, while those who practiced dying for the teachings of Jesus, and who left to those who followed them writings about the things of which they had been persuaded — things that are, as you suppose, about fabrications and myths and portents — struggle so hard for them that they even live under persecution and die violently for their sake?
Set yourself, then, in the middle between what has been written about Aristeas and what is recorded about Jesus, and see whether one may not say, from the outcome and from the benefit gained toward the correction of character and toward reverence for the God over all, that what is recorded about Jesus must be believed as not having come about apart from God, while what is recorded about Aristeas of Proconnesus
must not. For what did providence intend in bringing about the marvels concerning Aristeas, and what benefit did it intend for the human race in displaying, as you suppose, things of such magnitude? You cannot say. But we, when we recount the things concerning Jesus, do not offer just any ordinary defense for their having happened, namely that God willed to establish, through Jesus, [a way] as
the saving message for human beings — confirmed by the apostles as by foundations of the building of Christianity now being laid, and continuing to grow in the times that followed, in which not a few healings performed in Jesus's name, along with certain other epiphanies not to be despised, are still being accomplished. But what sort of thing is this Apollo, who charges the people of Metapontum to number Aristeas among the gods? And to what end does he do this,
and what benefit is he arranging to come to the Metapontines from the honor paid to him as to a god, if they should now reckon as a god a man who a little before was merely human? But if the pronouncements concerning Aristeas — from Apollo, that spirit of ours who has obtained as his prize "libation and burnt-fat savor" — seem to you worth taking seriously, while those concerning the God over all and his holy angels, delivered through
the prophets — not after Jesus had come to be, but foretold before he sojourned among the life of human beings — do not move you to marvel, neither at the prophets who received the divine spirit nor at the one prophesied by them? His sojourn into human life happened to be proclaimed, many years beforehand, through so many voices that the whole Jewish nation, hanging upon the expectation of the one
hoped for, who was to come, fell into disputing among themselves once Jesus had come; and a great multitude of them confessed Christ and came to believe that he was the one prophesied, while those who did not believe, scorning the gentleness of those who, because of Jesus's teachings, were unwilling to rebel even to the smallest degree, dared such things against Jesus as his disciples, in love of truth and fair-mindedness, recorded —
not concealing, from the paradoxical account concerning him, whatever seemed to most people to bring shame upon the word of the Christians. For Jesus himself wished, and so did his disciples, that those who came to him should believe not only in his divinity and his paradoxical deeds, as though he had not shared in human nature nor taken up the flesh that exists among human beings, which desires "against the spirit" — but rather
they saw that the power descending into human nature and into human circumstances, and taking up a human soul and a human body, was, through being believed in together with the more divine elements, contributing to the salvation of those who believe — seeing that from that point on the divine and the human nature began to be woven together, so that the human, through communion with what is more divine, might become divine — not in Jesus alone,
but also in all those who, along with believing, take up the life that Jesus taught, which leads up to friendship with God and to communion with him, for everyone whose life follows the precepts Jesus set down. Now the Apollo of Celsus wishes the people of Metapontum to number Aristeas among the gods. But since the Metapontines, having in view the manifest reality of Aristeas as a man
and perhaps not even a worthy one, considered it stronger evidence than the oracle concerning him, that he counted as a god or merited divine honors, and for this reason were unwilling to be persuaded by Apollo — and so no one thinks Aristeas a god. But concerning Jesus we would say that, since it was beneficial to the human race to receive him as the Son of God, God who had come in a human soul —
...and body, and this did not seem advantageous to the gluttony of the body-loving demons and of those who consider them to be gods. For this reason the demons on earth—regarded as gods by those uneducated about demons—[opposed the teaching]. But those who worship them also wished to hinder the spread of Jesus's teaching, for they saw the libations and the savory smoke of sacrifice, in which
they took gluttonous delight, being diminished as the teachings of Jesus gained mastery. But the God who sent Jesus, having dissolved every plot of the demons, brought it about that throughout the whole inhabited world, for the conversion and correction of humanity, the gospel of Jesus should prevail, and that everywhere there should arise churches set in opposition to the assemblies of the superstitious, the licentious, and the unjust—for such are the people who everywhere make up the citizenry
of the masses of the cities. But the churches of God that have been made disciples of Christ, when compared with the assemblies of the peoples among whom they dwell, are 'as lights' 'in the world.' For who could deny that even the worse members of the church—those who fall far short by comparison with the better—are nevertheless far superior to the assemblies found among the peoples? For the church of God, let us say, at Athens is a gentle
and stable one, since it wishes to please the God who is over all; but the assembly of the Athenians is factious and in no way comparable to the church of God there. You could say the same about the church of God in Corinth and the assembly of the people of Corinth, and, let us say, about the church of God in Alexandria and the assembly of the people of Alexandria.
And if the one who hears this is fair-minded and examines the matter with a love of truth, he will marvel at the one who both planned and was able to accomplish the founding, everywhere, of churches of God, dwelling alongside the assemblies of the peoples in each city. And likewise, setting the council of God's church side by side with the council belonging to each city, you would discover which of the church's councilors are truly worthy, if any such there be
anywhere in the whole world a city of God, to be citizens there; whereas the councilors found everywhere bear nothing in their own characters worthy of the superiority their rank seems to give them over the other citizens. And in like manner one ought to set the ruler of each city's church alongside the ruler of that same city's other inhabitants, so that you may perceive that even among the most disappointing councilors and rulers of the church of God
and those who live more carelessly than those who live more vigorously, one can nonetheless find, no less, a general superiority in progress toward the virtues over the characters of those who serve as councilors and rulers in the cities. And if this is so, how is it not reasonable to hold, concerning Jesus, who was able to accomplish so much, that no ordinary divinity was in him—no longer
in Aristeas of Proconnesus either, even if Apollo wishes to assign him a place among the gods, nor in those figures Celsus lists when he says that no one considers Abaris the Hyperborean a god, though he possessed such power as to travel borne along on an arrow. For what did the divinity that granted this to Abaris the Hyperborean intend in bestowing on him so great a gift—being borne along on an arrow—except that he might derive some benefit
...the race of mankind? Or what benefit did that man himself gain from being struck by an arrow? — even granting that these things are in no way fictions but came about through some cooperation of a divine power. But if my Jesus is said to be taken up 'in glory,' I see the design in this: that the God who brought this about commended the teacher to those who witnessed it, so that, as contending not for human teachings but for divine
teaching, they might devote themselves, insofar as their power allowed, to God who reigns over all things, and do everything for the sake of pleasing him, since they will receive, according to their merit, in the divine tribunal, whatever they have done well or badly in this life. Since after this Celsus also spoke about the man of Clazomenae, adding, following his own account of him: 'Do they not say this,
that his soul often left his body and wandered about incorporeal? And yet men did not consider even him a god.' And to this we shall say that perhaps certain wicked demons contrived to have such things recorded (for I do not think it was they who brought about the events themselves), so that the things prophesied concerning Jesus and the things said by him might either be discredited as fictions similar to those, or
as having nothing more than others, not be greatly admired. Now my Jesus spoke concerning his own soul—not as parting from the body by human necessity, but according to the extraordinary authority given to him in this matter as well—these words: 'It is not another who removes my soul from me—rather, I myself set it down of my own will. I have authority to lay it down, and again
I have authority to take it up.' For since he had 'authority to lay it down,' he laid it down when he said, 'Father, why have you forsaken me?' and 'having cried out with a loud voice, he gave up his spirit,' getting ahead of the executioners in charge of those impaled on the stake, who cut the legs of the crucified—and cut them for this reason, so that they might not suffer punishment any longer. And he took up 'his soul' again when he showed himself to the disciples,
having foretold this beforehand to the Jews who disbelieved him: 'Destroy this temple, and within three days I will have it raised up again.' And 'he said this about the temple of his body.' And the prophets had proclaimed this very thing in advance through many passages, and also through this one: 'Moreover, my flesh also will dwell in hope; for you will not abandon my soul to
Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption.' Celsus showed that he had read a great many Greek histories, citing also the story of Cleomedes of Astypalaea, whom he recounted as having descended into a chest, and, though caught inside it, was not found within, but had flown out beyond by some demonic dispensation, when certain people broke open the chest in order to seize him. And this, if
it is a fiction, as it does seem to be a fiction, is not comparable to what concerns Jesus, since in that man's case no token whatever of the reported divinity is found in the life of men, whereas in the case of Jesus there are the churches of those who have benefited, the prophecies spoken concerning him, the healings performed in his name, the knowledge accompanied by wisdom that comes through him, and
This is a rationale found among those who have taken care to rise above bare faith and to search out the meaning in the divine scriptures, following the counsel Jesus gave when he said, "Search the scriptures"; it likewise follows what Paul intended in teaching that each of us must know the proper way to give an answer to every person. But also of him who said: "always ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you
an account concerning the faith that is in you." But if he himself wishes it to be conceded that it is not a fabrication, let him say it. What purpose did the power beyond man have in making him fly out of the chest by some demonic fate? For if he can present something noteworthy, and a will of God worthy of having granted such a thing to Cleomedes, we shall judge what must be said to him; but if he will be at a loss even
to say something plausible on the matter, then clearly, to the extent that no rational account is found, we shall either join those who do not accept the story and charge it with being untrue, or we shall say that some demon, similar to those who by sorcery display deceptions of the eyes, did this also in the case of the man of Astypalaea, about whom Celsus thinks he uttered some divine oracle - that he flew off from the chest by some
demonic fate. Now I for my part think that Celsus knew only these examples, and, so that he might seem to be deliberately passing over similar ones, he said, "one could mention many other such cases." Well then, let it be granted and conceded that many more such cases occurred, which brought no benefit to the human race - what would each of these be found to amount to, compared with the work of Jesus
and the wonders concerning him, about which we have spoken at greater length? After this he thinks that we, who worship one who, as Celsus says, was captured and died, have done something similar to the Getae, who revere Zamolxis, the Cilicians, who revere Mopsus, the Acarnanians, who revere Amphilochus, the Thebans, who revere Amphiaraus, and the Lebadeans, who revere Trophonius. And on these points too we shall refute him for not reasonably
comparing us to those just mentioned. For those people built temples and statues for the figures they listed, whereas we, having stripped away honor of that kind from the divine - as being more fitting for demons, which have somehow settled in a given place, a place they either seize beforehand or, drawn by certain rites and sorceries, come to inhabit as if it were their home - we stand in awe of Jesus, who has turned our mind away from
everything perceptible to the senses, as being not only corruptible but destined for destruction, and who leads us, together with an upright life, up to the honor of the God over all, with prayers that we offer to him as one who stands between the nature of the unbegotten and the nature of all begotten things, who both brings us the benefits that come from the Father and conveys, in the manner of a high priest, our
prayers to the God over all. I should like to engage, in a manner fitting to him, in some such idle chatter with the man who says such things - I do not know how he says them - and ask: are these, then, whom you have listed, nothing at all? Is there no power at Lebadea connected with Trophonius, nor at Thebes around the temple of Amphiaraus, nor in Acarnania around Amphilochus, nor in Cilicia around
...Mopsus? Or is there among such figures either a daemon or a hero or even a god, accomplishing something greater than is possible for a human being? For if he says that there is nothing else, neither daemonic nor divine, connected with these figures, let him now at least confess his own opinion — since he is an Epicurean, and does not think the same things as the Greeks, and neither acknowledges daemons nor even worships gods as
the Greeks do, then let him be refuted for having pointlessly brought forward, as though accepting them as true, both what he said before and what he adduces in what follows. But if he says that those he has listed are either daemons or heroes or even gods, let him see that by what he has said he will establish the very thing he does not want — namely, that Jesus too was something of this kind, and that this is why he has been able to present himself
to no small number of people as having come down from God to the human race. But once he grants this, consider whether he will be compelled to admit that this being is stronger than those he has counted him among. For none of those others prevents the honors paid to different gods, whereas this one, confident in himself as more powerful than all of them, forbids the acceptance of honors paid to those others, as being wicked daemons who have seized beforehand places
"upon the earth — since they cannot lay hold of the purer and more divine region, where the coarsenesses that come from the earth and its countless evils do not reach. And since after this he also brings up the matter of Hadrian's favorite (I mean the affair of the youth Antinous and the honors paid to him by the people of Antinoöpolis in Egypt), thinking that it falls short in nothing
of the honor we pay to Jesus, come, let us refute this too, spoken as it is out of sheer hostility. For what has the life lived among Hadrian's favorites in common — a man who did not even keep his manhood free from a woman's disease — with our revered Jesus, whom not even those who have leveled countless accusations against him, saying whatever falsehoods they please about him, have been able to charge with even the slightest
taste of licentiousness, however small? But indeed, if one examined the matter of Antinous with love of truth and without partiality, one would find that the causes of his seeming to do something in Antinoöpolis even after his death were Egyptian trickeries and rites — a thing which is also recorded to have happened, by Egyptians and by others skilled in such matters, in connection with other temples, in certain places,
where they establish daemons of divination or of healing, and often also torment those who seem to have transgressed in some way regarding ordinary foods, or regarding the touching of a human corpse, so that they may seem to terrify the common, uneducated crowd. Such is also the one who has been reckoned a god in Antinoöpolis of Egypt, whose virtues some, living rather like gamblers, falsely claim, while others
are deceived by the daemon established there, and yet others, convicted by a weak conscience, suppose they are paying a penalty driven by God on account of Antinous. Such too are the mysteries performed for him, and the seeming oracles, from which the things concerning Jesus are very far removed. For it was not that sorcerers came together to do a favor for some king who commanded it or governor who ordered it, and so made him seem to be a god, but
The creator of all things himself, in keeping with the persuasive power that is wondrously effective in his speaking, established him as worthy of honor, not only to those human beings who are willing to think rightly, but also to demons and other invisible powers, who to this very day show either that they fear the name of Jesus as something greater than themselves, or that they accept it reverently as the name of one who rules according to their own laws. For if it were not
a constitution given to him from God, demons too would not, simply by yielding to his name when it is pronounced, withdraw from those whom they are attacking. Since the Egyptians were taught to worship Antinous, they will tolerate a comparison of Apollo or Zeus to him, for they glorify Antinous precisely by counting him among those gods; and here too Celsus is plainly lying when he says: even if you compare to him
Apollo or Zeus, they will not tolerate it. But Christians have learned that eternal life for them consists in knowing "the only true God over all" and "him whom" that God "sent, Jesus Christ," and they have also learned "that every god among the nations is but a demon," greedy for sacrifices and blood and for the
portions carried off from the sacrifices, wallowing in these things to deceive those who have not fled for refuge to the God over all things; while God's angels, holy and divine, differ in nature and purpose from every demon on earth, and are known to very few — only to those who have searched into such matters with intelligence and care. So that if you were to compare Apollo and Zeus, or any of those worshiped with the smoke of fat and
blood and sacrifices, to him, such people will not tolerate it — some because of their great simplicity, not knowing how to give an account of what they do, yet faithfully keeping what they have received; others with arguments that are not to be despised but are in fact quite profound and, as a Greek might put it, esoteric and belonging to the higher mysteries, in which there is much discussion of God and of those who have been honored by God
through the only-begotten God, the Word, by participation in deity, and for this reason honored in name as well. And there is much discussion too about the divine angels, and about those who stand against the truth yet have themselves been deceived, and who, led by that deception, proclaim themselves gods, or messengers of God, or benevolent demons, or heroes arising from the transformation of a virtuous human soul. Such beings
are Christians in truth — just as many in philosophy suppose themselves to be so in truth, having either beguiled themselves with persuasive arguments, or having rashly assented to arguments put forward and devised by others — so too there are, among the souls that exist apart from bodies, and among angels and demons, some who, drawn by such persuasive appearances, have proclaimed themselves gods. And because of such
arguments, which cannot be found among human beings in a wholly exact and precise form, it was judged safe to entrust oneself, being human, to no one as to a god, except to the one alone who presides over all as arbiter — Jesus Christ, who both contemplated these things most profoundly and handed them down to a few. Concerning Antinous, then, or anyone else of that kind, whether among the Egyptians or among the Greeks, there is belief,
so to call her, unlucky. But concerning Jesus she would either seem to be lucky, or she has been examined with rigorous scrutiny — seeming lucky to the many, but examined with rigorous scrutiny by a very small few indeed. And even if I grant that there is a kind of faith which the many would call "lucky," I refer the account of it back to the God who knows the causes of the things
apportioned to each person during his sojourn in life. The Greeks too will say, even among those reputed wisest, that in many respects good luck is the cause — for instance, in the matter of one's teachers and of encountering the better sort, since there are also those who teach the opposite schools of thought, and in the matter of an upbringing among better people. For many have had their upbringing amid such circumstances that
they were not even allowed to catch a glimpse of the better things, but were always, from their earliest years, either among licentious men as children, or under licentious masters, or hemmed in by some other misfortune that kept the soul from looking upward. The causes underlying these things surely belong, in all likelihood, among the discussions of providence, but they are not easy for human beings to grasp. It seemed to me
worth saying this in passing, as a digression, because faith of a certain kind, once it has taken prior hold, accomplishes so much. For it would have been necessary, on account of the differing upbringings, to point out the differences among the kinds of faith found among human beings — some believe more luckily, others less luckily — and from this to rise to the conclusion that even to the more astute, precisely in their seeming to be more rational, what is called good luck and what is
called bad luck would seem to cooperate in their assenting, for the most part, more rationally to doctrines. But enough on these matters. We must now turn our attention to what follows in Celsus. In this passage he says that faith produces in us — having taken prior hold of our soul — this sort of assent concerning Jesus. For faith does indeed truly produce in us such assent; but see whether faith itself does not, from the outset, present something praiseworthy, when we believe ourselves to
the God over all, acknowledging our gratitude to the one who guided us to such faith and declaring that he did not dare and accomplish so great a thing without God's help. And we believe also in the purposes of those who wrote the Gospels, judging by conjecture from their piety and their conscience, as displayed in their writings, that they had nothing spurious, deceitful, contrived, or unscrupulous about them. For indeed it is plain to us that
souls that had not learned such things as the unscrupulous sophistry taught among the Greeks — which possesses great persuasiveness and sharpness — and the rhetoric that wallows about in the law courts, could not have been capable of fabricating matters able, of themselves, to produce faith and a way of life corresponding to that faith. And I think that Jesus, for this very reason, chose to employ teachers
of his teaching who were of this sort, so that there might be no room for the suspicion of persuasive sophistries, but that it might shine forth clearly to those capable of understanding that the guilelessness of purpose in those who wrote — possessing, if I may put it this way, a great plainness — was deemed worthy of a more divine power, one accomplishing far more than an elaborate display of words, a composition of phrases, and a sequence following the divisions and technical artistry of Greek rhetoric seems able to accomplish. Consider
...unless the doctrines of our faith, which from the beginning agree with the common notions, transform those who listen to what is said with good will. For even if depravity has managed, with a great deal of instruction supporting it, to implant in the masses the notion about statues, that they are gods, and the notion about things fashioned from gold, silver, ivory, and stone, holding them worthy of worship — yet
the common notion demands that we understand that God is in no way corruptible matter, nor is he honored when he is shaped by human beings in lifeless materials, as if these were made "in his image" or as certain symbols of him. That is why it is immediately said of statues, "that they are not gods," — and regarding such manufactured things, that they are not comparable to the Creator, and a little is said about the God
over all things, who created and sustains and governs the universe. And immediately, as if recognizing its own kin, the rational soul casts away what until then it had supposed to be gods, and takes up a natural affection toward its Creator, and because of that affection for him it also warmly receives the one who first set these things before all the nations through the disciples whom he formed, whom he sent out with divine
power and authority to proclaim the message concerning God and his kingdom. Since he accuses us — I do not know how many times by now — concerning Jesus, that we consider one who came from a mortal body to be God, and that in doing this we suppose we are acting piously, it is superfluous to say more on this point, for a great deal has already been said above; nevertheless let those who bring the accusation know
this: the one whom we suppose and have been convinced from the beginning to be God and Son of God, he is the very Word himself and Wisdom itself and Truth itself; but as for his mortal body and the human soul within it, we say that through not only fellowship with him but also union and intermingling with him, it received the greatest gifts, and having shared in his divinity, was changed
into God. And if anyone takes offense at our saying this about his body as well, let him attend to what the Greeks say about matter, which in its own account is without quality, and receives whatever qualities the Creator wishes to place upon it, and often lays aside its former qualities and takes on better and different ones. For if such things are sound, what is astonishing about the quality of the mortal
body in the case of Jesus being changed, by the providence and will of God, into an ethereal and divine quality? Now Celsus did not speak as a dialectician when he set the human flesh of Jesus alongside gold, silver, and stone, claiming it is more corruptible than they are. For according to strict reasoning, neither is the incorruptible more incorruptible than the incorruptible, nor the corruptible more corruptible than the corruptible. But even if it were, in fact, more corruptible, nevertheless
we shall say this in reply as well: if it is possible for the matter that underlies all qualities to exchange its qualities, how is it not also possible for the flesh of Jesus, having exchanged its qualities, to have become such as it needed to be in order to dwell among the ether and the realms above it, no longer having the properties peculiar to fleshly weakness, which Celsus called more defiled? This too is not spoken philosophically
...doing this. For what is properly defiled comes from vice; such is its nature. But the nature of body is not defiled, for it is not insofar as it is the nature of body that it possesses the source that generates defilement, but rather vice does. Then, since, suspecting our defense concerning the transformation of his body, he says, "But then, having put these aside, he will be a god" -- why then not rather Asclepius and
Dionysus and Heracles? We will say: what so great a thing did Asclepius or Dionysus or Heracles accomplish? And what people will they be able to point to who were improved in character and became better because of their teachings and their manner of life, such that they should become gods? For after reading the many stories told about them, let us see whether they kept themselves free of self-indulgence, wrongdoing, folly, or cowardice. And should nothing of that kind be found,
of this sort were found in them, Celsus' argument would be strong in placing the men just mentioned on equal footing with Jesus. But if it is clear -- even granting that something more favorable is reported about them -- that they are recorded as having done countless things contrary to right reason, how then will you still say with any reason that it is more likely they, rather than Jesus, became gods by putting off the mortal body? After this he says about us
that we mock those who worship Zeus, since his tomb is shown in Crete, and yet we no less worship the one who came from a tomb -- not knowing how and in what sense the Cretans do this. Observe, then, that in these remarks he is defending the Cretans and Zeus and his tomb, hinting at figurative meanings according to which the myth about
Zeus is said to have been composed; but he accuses us, who confess that our Jesus was buried and also assert that he was raised up from the tomb -- something the Cretans no longer relate concerning Zeus. Since he appears to be speaking in defense of the tomb of Zeus in Crete, saying that he does not know how and in what sense the Cretans do this, we shall say that even Callimachus of Cyrene, who read a great many
poems and gathered together almost the whole of Greek history, knows of no allegorical interpretation regarding Zeus and his tomb. That is why he even reproaches the Cretans in the hymn he wrote to Zeus, saying: "Cretans are always liars; for indeed a tomb, O lord, the Cretans built for you -- but you did not die, for you are forever." And the one who said, "You
did not die, for you are forever," having denied the burial of Zeus in Crete, nonetheless relates that the beginning of death occurred with respect to Zeus. And the beginning of death is birth upon the earth; for he says as follows: "and it was in Parrhasia that Rhea bore you, after lying with him." He ought, since he denied the birth of Zeus in Crete because of his tomb, to have seen that
the dying of the one who was born followed upon his birth in Arcadia as well. Callimachus says such things also about these matters: "Zeus, some say you were born among the mountains of Ida; Zeus, others say in Arcadia. Which, father, were the liars? 'Cretans are always liars' -- " and so on. It is to these matters that Celsus has led us, being unfair toward Jesus while at the same time agreeing
the written accounts, that he died and was buried, while regarding as fiction that he also rose from the dead — and this despite countless prophets having foretold this very thing, and there being many signs of his appearance after death. Next after this Celsus brings forward the things said by a very few who are considered Christians, not the more sensible ones, as he supposes, but the most uneducated,
and he says such things are prescribed by them: "let no one educated approach, no one wise, no one sensible; for these qualities are regarded among us as evils. But if anyone is uneducated, if anyone is foolish, if anyone is untaught, if anyone is a simpleton, let him come with confidence." By openly acknowledging that such people are worthy of their god, they make it clear that it is only the stupid, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves,
little women, and children whom they wish to persuade, and are able to. To this we reply: just as if someone, when Jesus was teaching about self-control and saying, "whoever looks upon a woman with desire for her has, in his heart, already made her an adulteress," were to observe that a few out of so many who are considered Christians live licentiously, he would most reasonably be bringing an accusation against them
because their lives go against what Jesus taught, yet he would be acting quite unreasonably if he attached the charge against them to the teaching itself — so likewise, if it is found that the Christian doctrine is, no less than any other, one that summons people to wisdom, then the charge must fall upon those who plead for their own ignorance and say — not the things Celsus has recorded (for not even the uneducated and unlettered, however uncultivated some of them may be, would speak so shamelessly),
but other, far lesser things, which discourage the pursuit of wisdom. That the doctrine wishes us to be wise must be shown both from the ancient Jewish writings, which we too make use of, and no less from the writings composed after Jesus and believed in the churches to be divine. It is written, then, in the fiftieth psalm, where David says in his prayer
to God: "the hidden and secret things of your wisdom you have made known to me." And if anyone were to read through the psalms, he would find the book full of many wise teachings. Solomon too, since he asked for wisdom, was granted it; and traces of his wisdom can be seen in his writings, which contain great depth of thought in brief compass. In them
you would find many praises of wisdom and exhortations to acquire wisdom. And Solomon possessed such wisdom that, upon hearing of "his fame" "and the fame of the Lord," the queen of Sheba journeyed "to try him with hard questions." She "told him everything that was on her mind, and Solomon gave answer to all her inquiries;
there was no matter hidden from the king that he did not explain to her. And Sheba's queen observed every bit of Solomon's wisdom" and all that concerned him: "and she was overcome with amazement, and to the king she declared: what I heard in my own country concerning you and your wisdom proves true; and those who spoke of it to me, I did not believe, until
I came and my eyes have seen it, and behold, it is not as they reported to me — the half was not told. You have surpassed, with wisdom and good things, everything I had heard reported." Concerning this same man it stands written that "the LORD gave Solomon understanding and exceedingly great wisdom, and breadth of heart like the sand that is by the sea. And Solomon's wisdom increased
very greatly, surpassing the understanding of all the men of old and outstripping every sage of Egypt in wisdom. He proved wiser than every man alive, wiser than Gethan the Ezarite, than Emad, Chalkad, and Arada, sons of Mad; and his name was known throughout all the nations round about. Solomon uttered three thousand parables, while his songs numbered five thousand. Furthermore he spoke
concerning trees, beginning with the cedar found in Lebanon and extending to the hyssop springing from the wall. And he spoke concerning fish and cattle; and all the peoples came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, as did all the kings of the earth who heard of his wisdom." This, then, is how the Word wishes the faithful to be wise —
so much so that, in order to train the perception of those who heard him, he spoke certain things in riddles, certain things in what are termed "obscure sayings," certain things through parables, and yet others by means of problems set for solving. And indeed Hosea, one of the prophets, declares near the close of his own utterance: "Who is wise enough to understand these things? Who has the insight to know them?" As for Daniel
and those taken captive along with him advanced so greatly, even in the studies which the king's wise men in Babylon pursued, that they proved to surpass all of them "tenfold." And it is also said in Ezekiel, to the ruler of Tyre, who thought highly of himself for his wisdom: "Are you wiser than Daniel? Has nothing hidden been disclosed to you?" But if
you go on to the books written after Jesus, you will find the crowds of believers listening to the parables as people who are outsiders and worthy only of the outward teachings, while the disciples learn the explanations of the parables privately; for "privately" Jesus "explained everything to his own disciples," preferring, above the crowds, those who laid claim to his wisdom.
To those who believe in him he pledges that he will dispatch "sages and scribes," declaring: "Behold, I am sending among you sages and scribes; some of these they shall kill and crucify." And Paul likewise, in cataloguing the gifts bestowed by God, ranked the word of wisdom in the first place, and, as ranking beneath it, set in second place the word
of knowledge, and third, somewhere further down, faith. And since he valued reasoned speech above the wonder-working powers, for this reason he places "workings of powers" and "gifts of healings" in a lower rank than the gifts of reason. And Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, testifies to the broad learning of Moses, having drawn this entirely from ancient writings not accessible to many.
For he says: "And Moses was educated in the whole wisdom of the Egyptians." And for this reason, in the case of the miraculous acts too, it was suspected that perhaps he was not performing them according to the promise of having come from God, but according to the teachings of the Egyptians, since he was wise in them. For with such suspicions about him, the king summoned the enchanters of the Egyptians, and the sophists, and the sorcerers,
who were exposed as amounting to nothing in comparison with the wisdom in Moses, which surpassed all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But it is likely that what is written in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, addressed as it is to Greeks who greatly prided themselves on Greek wisdom, has stirred up some people, as though the word did not want people to be wise. But let the one who thinks such things hear this: just as,
in denouncing base men, the word says that they are not wise concerning intelligible, invisible, and eternal things, but have occupied themselves only with things perceptible to the senses, and, positing all things among these, are wise of this world; so too, since there are many doctrines, some champion matter and bodies, declaring that bodies are the primary existing things and that there is nothing else besides these,
whether it be called invisible or named incorporeal, he says this is "the wisdom of the world" that is being nullified and rendered foolish, and the wisdom of this age; while other doctrines, which transfer the soul from the affairs here to the blessedness that is with God and to what he calls his kingdom, and which teach one to hold in contempt everything perceptible and visible, as being merely temporary, but to press on toward the invisible and
to fix one's gaze on what is not seen—these he calls "the wisdom of God." And Paul, being a lover of truth, speaks concerning certain wise men among the Greeks, in the matters where they speak truly, saying, "that, having known God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks." And he testifies that they had known God; and he further says that this did not come about in them apart from God, where he writes, "for God made it manifest to them."
hinting, I think, at those who ascend from things seen to things understood, when he writes that "God's unseen nature, ever since the world was made, has been perceived and clearly known through the things he fashioned—his everlasting power and deity alike—leaving them without excuse, since, though they knew God, they did not honor him as God nor render him thanks." And perhaps also from "consider your calling,
brothers, that not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many well-born; yet the foolish things of the world were chosen by God, to put the wise to shame, and the base and despised things of the world—the things that are not—God chose, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh should boast in his presence"—some people have been moved to suppose
that no one educated, or wise, or prudent approaches the word. But to such a person we shall reply that it is not said that no one is wise "according to the flesh," but "not many wise according to the flesh." And it is clear that, in describing the defining traits of those called bishops—what kind of person a bishop must be—Paul also included the teacher, saying that he must be
able "also to refute those who contradict," so that he may silence the idle talkers and deceivers by the wisdom within him. And just as it chooses the man married once rather than the man married twice for the office of overseer, and "blameless" rather than one open to reproach, and "sober" rather than one who is not, and "self-controlled" rather than one who is not self-controlled, and "orderly" rather than one who is even slightly disorderly, so it wishes the man who is going to be appointed to the office of overseer, first and foremost, to be able to teach and
able "to refute those who contradict." How then can Celsus reasonably charge us with saying: let no one educated approach, let no wise man approach, let no sensible man approach? On the contrary, let the educated, the wise, and the sensible man approach if he wishes; but no less let anyone approach who is uneducated, unintelligent, untrained, and simple. For the word promises to heal such people too when they come to it,
making all of them worthy of God. It is also false that those who teach the divine word wish to persuade only the foolish, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves, women, and children. For the word summons these people as well, so as to improve them; yet it likewise summons others who far surpass them, since Christ "is the savior of all people," and "especially of believers,"
whether they are intelligent or simpler folk, and he "is a propitiation" "before the Father" "for our sins, and not only for ours but also for those of the whole world." It is therefore excessive to wish, after this, to defend ourselves against Celsus's words, which run as follows: for what else is bad about being educated and having attended to the finest teachings and being, or appearing to be,
prudent? What does this hinder toward knowing God? Is it not rather advantageous, and a means by which one might better attain truth? Now, being truly educated is not a bad thing, for education is a road toward virtue; but as for counting among the educated those who hold mistaken beliefs, not even the wise men of the Greeks would say that. Again,
who in turn would not agree that attending to the finest teachings is good? But what shall we call the finest teachings, if not those that are true and that summon one to virtue? And being prudent is indeed a fine thing, but not merely appearing to be so, which is what Celsus said. And being educated does not hinder one from knowing God but rather helps toward it, as does
attending to the finest teachings and being prudent. And it is more fitting for us to say this than for Celsus, especially since he stands convicted of being an Epicurean. Let us now look at what he says next, which runs as follows: but we see, I think, that even those who display the most vulgar tricks in the marketplaces and go about gathering crowds would never come forward into an assembly of prudent men, nor would they dare to display their own
tricks among such people. But wherever they see young boys, a crowd of household slaves, and a throng of senseless people, there they push their way in and show off. Observe here too the manner in which he slanders us, likening us to those who display the most vulgar tricks in the marketplaces and gather crowds. What vulgar tricks, pray, do we display? Or what do we do resembling these people, we who through readings and through
for the readings of narratives, urging them toward piety toward the God of all things and the virtues that share its throne, and turning them away from contempt for the divine and from everything done contrary to right reason; and philosophers too would pray to gather so many hearers of speeches urging toward the good — which some of the Cynics especially have done, publicly
conversing with those who happen to be present. Will they then say that these too — who do not gather together those reputed to be educated, but call people in from the crossroads and gather hearers — are similar to those who display the most scandalous things in the marketplaces and collect crowds? But neither Celsus nor anyone who shares his views finds fault with those who, out of what appears to them to be philanthropy, stir up discourses even before the common
populace. But if those men are not culpable for doing this, let us see whether Christians are not rather summoning the multitudes to nobility of character even better than these do. Public-lecturing philosophers, after all, do not screen their hearers, but whoever wishes stands and listens; whereas Christians, so far as lies within their power, first put to the test the souls of would-be hearers, instructing them beforehand in private, and once
the hearers seem to have made sufficient progress toward wanting to live well, before entering the common assembly — at that point they bring them in, having formed privately one order of those just beginning and being introduced, who have not yet taken up the token of having been purified, and another order of those who have shown, so far as possible, that their purpose is to want nothing other than what Christians hold. Among
them there are certain persons appointed to inquire closely into the lives and conduct of those who approach, so that they may keep those who do shameful things from coming to their common assembly, while welcoming with their whole soul those who are not such, and making them better day by day. And what sort of treatment they give to sinners, and especially to the licentious, whom the followers of
Celsus, similar to those who display the most scandalous things in the marketplaces, expel from the community — is this: whereas the solemn school of the Pythagoreans used to set up empty tombs for those who abandoned their philosophy, reckoning that they had become dead men, these people instead mourn as dead, as though lost to God, those who have been overcome by licentiousness or some other outrageous thing. And as raised from the dead, if they show a notable change,
they admit them back, at some later point, after a longer time than those first introduced; assigning to no office or leadership in the so-called church of God those who, after having come to the word, have previously stumbled. Now observe next what is said by Celsus: we see, I suppose, that even those who display the most scandalous things in the marketplaces and collect crowds — unless this is flatly falsely stated and
compared in a way that does not fit. These men, then, to whom Celsus likens us — to those who display the most scandalous things in the marketplaces and gather crowds — he says would never pass into an assembly of sensible men, nor dare to display their wares among them, but that wherever they see young boys, a crowd of household slaves, and a throng of foolish people, there they push their way in and show off, and in doing so
doing nothing other than reviling us, in the manner of women at the crossroads whose aim is to speak evil of one another. For we, to the extent of our power, do everything for the sake of making our assembly one of prudent men, and only once our audience of discerning listeners has grown ample do we dare to bring forward, in our discussions before the community, the things among us that are most beautiful and divine;
but we hide and pass over in silence the deeper matters (whenever we observe that those who come together are rather simple people and need what is figuratively called "milk." For it is written in our Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who were Greeks but not yet purified in their characters: "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able. But not even now are you able, for you are still fleshly. For where there is among you jealousy
and strife, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?" This same man, knowing that some food belongs to the more perfect soul, while the food of those being introduced is compared to the milk of infants, says: "and you have come to have need of milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk has no experience of the reasoned word of uprightness, for he is an infant; but solid food belongs to the perfect,
to those who, through habit, have their perceptive faculties trained for the discernment of good and evil." Would those, then, who trust these words as well spoken suppose that the beautiful things of the discourse would never be spoken to an assembly of prudent men, but that wherever they see young lads and a crowd of household slaves and a company of foolish people, there they would bring the divine and solemn things forward
and preen themselves over such matters before people of that sort? But it is clear to anyone who examines the whole intent of our writings that Celsus, hating the Christian race just as he does the uneducated masses, says such things without examination and falsely. We confess that we want to educate everyone by the word of God, whether Celsus wishes it or not, so as to impart even to young lads the exhortation suited to them,
and to show household slaves as well how, by taking up a free mind, they might be ennobled by reason. And those among us who champion Christianity readily declare themselves obligated "to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish"; for they do not deny that the souls even of the foolish must be tended, so that, laying aside ignorance to the extent of their power, they may hasten toward greater understanding, hearing also Solomon saying: "You
who are foolish, take heart to yourselves"; and: "whoever among you is most foolish, let him turn aside to me; and to those lacking sense wisdom urges, saying: 'Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have mixed for you; leave behind foolishness, that you may live, and set your understanding right in knowledge.'" I would say this too, on account of the matters bearing on Celsus's argument: do not those who philosophize invite
young lads to their lectures? And do they not summon young people from the worst manner of life toward better things? And why should they not want household slaves to philosophize? Or are we going to blame philosophers for exhorting household slaves toward virtue—Pythagoras for exhorting Zamolxis, Zeno for exhorting Persaeus, and, just yesterday and the day before, those who exhorted Epictetus toward philosophy? Or is it, O Greeks, that for you
It is permitted to call young boys and household slaves and foolish people to philosophy; and when we do this, we are not acting without love for humanity, since we wish to heal every rational nature by the medicine that comes from reason, and to make it akin to the God who fashioned all things. This much would have sufficed as an answer to Celsus's abuse rather than accusation. But since, taking pleasure in his speech of abuse against us,
he added still more, come, let us set these things out too and see whether it is the Christians who behave shamefully, or Celsus, in what he says. He writes: We see, indeed, that in private houses wool-workers, cobblers, and washermen, and the most uneducated and rustic people, dare say nothing in front of their elders and more sensible masters; but once they get the children alone, along with a few foolish little women,
they pour out astonishing things, saying that one should not pay attention to one's father and teachers, but obey them instead; and that the former talk nonsense and are out of their minds, and in truth know nothing good and are capable of doing nothing good, being preoccupied with empty chatter, while only they themselves understand how life should be lived, and that happiness awaits the children if they yield to them
and will make their household blessed. And as they say this, if they see one of the teachers of learning approaching, or one of the more sensible people, or even the father himself, the more cautious among them grow frightened, while the bolder ones incite the children to unruliness, whispering such things as that, with the father and the teachers present, they themselves will neither wish nor be able to explain anything good to the children,
for they shrink from the folly and boorishness of those men, who are utterly corrupted and gone far in wickedness, and who punish them; but if the children are willing, they must leave their father and their teachers and go off with the little women and the children who play with them, to the women's quarters, or the cobbler's shop, or the fuller's shop, so that they may attain perfection. And by saying such things they persuade them. Now observe
in this too the manner in which he mocks those among us who teach the word and who try in every way to lead the soul up to the maker of all things, showing also that one must despise all sensible, temporary, and visible things, and do everything for the sake of attaining fellowship with God and the contemplation of things intelligible and invisible, and of the
blessed way of life with God and those who belong to God; he compares them to the wool-workers and cobblers and fullers found in households, and to the most rustic of men, who entice utterly infant children and little women toward base things, so that they may abandon father and teachers and follow them instead. Let Celsus show and set side by side, from what father possessed of sound sense, or from what teachers who taught more dignified things, do we draw away
the children and the little women; let him compare, among those who come to our teaching, children and women, whether any of the things they used to hear were better than ours, and in what way, by drawing children and little women away from certain fine and dignified studies, we entice them toward worse things. Yet nothing of the sort will he be able to prove against us; the little women, quite to the contrary,
We keep them away from licentiousness and the corruption that comes from their companions, and from all theater-madness and dance-madness and superstition. And the boys who are just reaching puberty and swelling with desire for sexual pleasures we bring to their senses, setting before them not only the shame in what is done wrong but also what the soul of the base will become because of such things, and what penalties it will pay and how it will be punished.
Which teachers do we say are foolish and deranged, on whose behalf Celsus takes his stand as though they taught the better things? Unless, that is, he thinks it fine teachers of little women, and not foolish, who call people to superstition and to licentious spectacles, and further that those who lead and drag the young into everything disorderly that we know is done by them in many places are not deranged.
We, then, so far as we are able, also call those who hold to the doctrines of the philosophers to our reverence for God, presenting its distinctive and unmixed character. But since, by what he was saying, Celsus made it appear that we do not do this but call only the foolish, we would say to him: if you were accusing us of turning away from philosophy those who
were already committed to it beforehand, you would not be speaking the truth, but your argument would have had some plausibility. But as it is, when you say we turn those approaching good teachers away from them, point to teachers apart from those who teach philosophy, or from men who have achieved something useful in some field. But you will have nothing of the kind to show. We promise that those will be blessed, openly and not in secret,
who shape their lives by the word of God, keeping him in view in everything, and doing whatever they do as though before God, the one who beholds them. Are these, then, lessons fit for wool-workers and cobblers and fullers and the most uneducated country folk? But this he will not be able to show. Those who side with Celsus are like the wool-workers found in households, and similar also to
cobblers and fullers and the most uneducated country folk, who, he says, in the presence of father and teachers will neither wish nor be able to interpret anything good to the children. To this too we shall reply: what sort of father, my good man, and what sort of teacher do you mean? If it is one who welcomes virtue and turns away from vice and embraces the better things, hear that we shall speak our teachings to the children very boldly indeed, as men held in good repute before
a judge of that kind. Yet if we keep silent when a father famed for virtue and nobility of character is present—and likewise before those who teach the opposite of sound reasoning—do not hold this against us either, for you have no good ground to accuse us of it: you yourself, at any rate, hand over the mysteries of philosophy to the young, to sons whose fathers consider philosophy an idle and useless pursuit, and you do not
speak of it before the base fathers themselves; rather, wishing to separate the sons who have been drawn toward philosophy from their wretched fathers, you watch for opportunities so that the arguments of philosophy may reach the young. And about teachers we will say the same things: for if we turn people away from teachers who teach the indecent parts of comedy and the licentious iambic verses and whatever else does not benefit the one speaking it
does not benefit its hearers when they do not know how to listen to poems philosophically and to select, for each of them, what contributes to the benefit of the young — in doing this we are not ashamed to admit what is done. But if you can present to me teachers who give preliminary instruction toward philosophy and who train people in philosophy, I will not turn the young away from them; rather, once they have been given this preliminary training, as in the general course of studies, and in the
philosophical disciplines, I will try to raise them up to the solemn and lofty grandeur of the Christians' eloquence, which has escaped the notice of the many, as they discuss and demonstrate and show, concerning the greatest and most necessary matters, that these very things have received philosophical treatment among God's prophets and among the apostles who followed Jesus. Then, after this, Celsus, sensing that he has reviled us rather bitterly, says the following as though defending himself: that I bring no charge more bitter than
the truth itself compels — let this too serve someone as evidence. Those who call people to the other mystery rites make proclamations of this sort beforehand: "Whoever has clean hands and an intelligible voice," and again others: "Whoever is unstained by any defilement, whose spirit carries the burden of no wrongdoing, and whose life has been conducted rightly and with justice." Such are the proclamations made in advance by those pledging to cleanse people of their sins. Let us now attend to
whom these people call instead. "Whoever," they say, "is a sinner, whoever is without understanding, whoever is a child, and, simply put, whoever is unfortunate — this one the kingdom of God will receive." Is that not what you mean by "sinner" — the unjust man, the thief, the housebreaker, the poisoner, the temple-robber, the grave-robber? Whom else would a bandit call, if he were making a proclamation? And to this we reply that it is not the same thing
to call those who are sick in soul to treatment as it is to call those who are healthy to the knowledge and understanding of more divine matters. And we, aware of both of these, at the outset issue an invitation aimed at the healing of people: we urge sinners to come to those who teach words that keep one from sinning, the unintelligent to those who produce understanding in them, and children to rise in their thinking
to the stature of a grown man, and the simply unfortunate to happiness — or, to put it more properly, to blessedness. Then, when those among the ones so urged who make progress demonstrate that the word has purified them and that they have, so far as possible, lived a better life, at that point we invite them to our own rites. For "we speak wisdom among the perfect." And, teaching "that wisdom will not enter
a soul devised for evil, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin," this is our claim: let the one whose hands are clean, and who therefore raises "holy hands" to God and, besides performing lofty and heavenly deeds, can declare, "my uplifted hands are an evening offering," come forward to join us; and let the one whose voice shows understanding, gained by pondering the Lord's law "night and day," and by having his senses trained through practice
"for the discernment of good and evil," let him not hesitate to approach solid, rational food, fitting for athletes of piety and of every virtue; since "the grace" of God likewise rests "with all those who love, in incorruption," the teacher of the teachings of immortality — whoever is pure not merely from every defilement but also from the lesser
of what are reckoned as sins, let him confidently be initiated into the mysteries of the worship of God according to Jesus, which are reasonably entrusted only to the holy and pure. Now Celsus's mystagogue says: "Let him come whose soul is conscious of no evil"; but the one who initiates people according to Jesus will say to those whose soul has been purified: "Let him come whose soul has been conscious of no evil for a long time, and especially since he came forward"
to the therapy of the word. Let this person also hear the things spoken privately by Jesus to his genuine disciples. So then, even where he sets side by side the practices of the Greek initiators with the teachers of Jesus's teaching, he does not know the difference between those who are summoned for the healing of the wicked and those who are summoned to the more mystical teachings, being already among the purest. It is not, then, to mysteries and a sharing of wisdom "in
a mystery," hidden away, "which God foreordained before the ages for the glory" of his righteous ones, that we summon the unjust man, the thief, the housebreaker, the poisoner, the temple-robber, the grave-robber, and whatever other names Celsus, exaggerating the matter, might apply, but we summon them to healing. For in the divinity of the word there are, on the one hand, remedies that heal those who are "sick," concerning whom
the word said: "Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." And on the other hand, there are other teachings that display to those who are pure in soul and body "the revelation of the mystery kept silent for eternal ages but now made manifest, both through the prophetic writings" and through "the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ," appearing to each of the perfect and illuminating, for a true knowledge of the realities, the
guiding faculty. But since, exaggerating the charges against us, he adds to the names he called us among the most polluted of men the question: whom else did the herald, when proclaiming beforehand, call a robber? To this too we shall reply that he calls such people robbers, making use of their wickedness against men whom he wishes to murder and plunder; but the Christian, even if he calls those whom the robber calls, calls them by a different summons, so that he may
bind up "their wounds" with the word, and pour upon the soul inflamed by evils the medicines that come from the word, corresponding to the wine and oil and poultice and the rest of the remedies used for the healing of the soul. Then, misrepresenting the things said and written for the sake of exhortation toward those who have lived wickedly, and which call them to repentance and the correction of their soul, he says that we
say that God has been sent to sinners. And he does the same sort of thing as if he were to bring a charge against those who say that, on account of those living wickedly in the city, a physician was sent by a most benevolent king. God the Word, then, was sent as physician to sinners, but as instructor in sacred mysteries to those already purified and no longer sinning. But Celsus, unable
to distinguish these things (for he had no wish to learn), says: "But why was he not sent to those without sin? What harm is there in not having sinned?" To this we reply that if by "those without sin" he means those who no longer sin, our Savior Jesus was sent to these as well, but not as a physician; but if he means those who have never sinned at all (for he did not make this distinction in his own wording), we shall say
that it is impossible for a human being to be sinless in this way, but we say this while excepting the human being conceived of in reference to Jesus, "who committed no sin." Celsus speaks maliciously about us here, as though we said that if the unjust man humbles himself on account of his wickedness, God will receive him, but the just man, if from the beginning he looks upward toward him with virtue, this man
God will not receive—for we say it is impossible for a human being to look upward toward God from the beginning with virtue; for wickedness must necessarily first arise in human beings, as Paul also says: "but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, and I died." But neither do we teach concerning the unjust man that it is sufficient for him, on account of his wickedness, to humble himself so as to
be received by God; rather, if he proceeds by condemning himself for his former deeds, being "humble" with respect to those, and "adorned" with respect to the latter, this is the man God will receive. Then, not understanding how it is said, "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled," nor even having learned from Plato that the noble and good man proceeds "humble and adorned," not knowing
this either—as we say: "be humbled, then, beneath God's mighty hand, so that in due season he may raise you up"—he says that men who preside rightly over justice silence with wailing speeches those who lament over their wrongdoings, so that they may not be judged with a view to pity rather than to truth; but God, it seems, judges not with a view to truth but to flattery. For what flattery,
and what sort of wailing speech is found, according to the sacred writings, when one who has sinned addresses God in prayer, saying: "I made known my sin, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, I will confess against myself my iniquity to the Lord," and so on? But can he show that such a thing is not conducive to the turning of sinners, who humble themselves before God
in their prayers? And thrown into confusion by his impulse to accuse, he contradicts himself, at one point implying that he knows of a sinless and just man who looks upward toward God from the beginning with virtue, and at another accepting what is said by us, that "what man is perfectly just, or who is sinless?"—for as though accepting this he says: this indeed is fairly true,
that the human race is by nature somehow disposed to sin; then, as if not all are called by the Word, he says: they ought therefore simply to call everyone. If indeed all sin—and we showed above that Jesus said: "come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." All humans, then, are termed "laboring and burdened" because of the nature of sin
to the rest that is found with the Word of God; for God "dispatched his own word, healing them and delivering them out of their corruptions." And since he also says this: what, then, is this preference for sinners? and adds things similar to these, we shall answer that a sinner is never preferred to one who is not a sinner; but there are times when
a sinner who is conscious of his own sin and for this reason proceeds toward repentance, humbled over what he has done wrong, is preferred over the one who is thought to be a lesser sinner, but who does not think himself a sinner at all and instead is puffed up over certain things in which he seems to himself to be conscious of superior qualities, and is inflated over them. And this is made clear, to those willing to read the gospels with a fair mind, by the parable concerning the tax collector who said,
"Be merciful to me, a sinner" — and concerning the Pharisee who boasted with a certain wretched conceit, saying, "I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — grasping, unjust, adulterers — or even like this tax collector." For Jesus adds, concerning the statement about both, "It was this one, not the other, who went back down to his house set right before God; for everyone"
"who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted." We are therefore not blaspheming God, nor speaking falsely, when we teach that everyone whatsoever should become conscious of the smallness of humanity as measured against the majesty of God, and should always ask from him for what is lacking in our nature, since he alone is able to supply what is deficient in us. But Celsus supposes that we say such things as an inducement to those who are sinning,
as though we were unable to bring in any man who is truly good and just, and that for this reason we open our gates to the most impious and utterly depraved. But we, if anyone should examine our assembly with a fair mind, have more people to present who have not come from a particularly harsh life than those who have turned from utterly depraved sins. For it is the nature of those who are conscious in themselves of better things, praying
that the things proclaimed about the reward given by God to the better sort are true, to assent more readily to what is said than do those who have lived in an especially wretched manner — men who are kept, by their very conscience, from accepting that they will be punished with the punishment of the judge over all. Which punishment would indeed be fitting for one who has sinned so greatly, and would not be brought upon him by the judge over all contrary to right reason. But there are times
when even those who are utterly depraved are willing to accept the teaching about punishment, yet, having been steeped persistently in the hope resting on repentance, are held back from the habit of sinning, as though dyed through by wickedness and no longer able readily to depart from it toward the settled life lived according to right reason. Now Celsus, having also thought of this, says next — I do not know how —
the following: "And indeed it is surely plain to everyone that those who are by nature disposed to sin, and habituated to it, no one could ever change completely, not even by punishing them — much less by showing mercy; for to change one's nature entirely is a very difficult thing indeed — whereas the sinless are better companions in life." And in these words too Celsus seems to me to be very much mistaken,
in not granting to those who are by nature disposed to sin, and who are habituated to doing so, complete change — he who supposes that they are not even healed by punishments. For it is clearly evident that all of us human beings are by nature disposed to sin, and some are not only so disposed but are also habituated to sinning; yet not all human beings are incapable of receiving complete change. For there are, in every school of philosophy, and according to the divine
...word, they being reported to have changed so much that they themselves stand as an example of the best kind of life. Some cite, among heroes, Heracles and Odysseus; among later men, Socrates; and among those who lived just yesterday and the day before, Musonius. So it is not only in our case that Celsus lied when he said it is obvious to everyone that those who are by nature disposed and habituated to sin could, by no
means, even if punished, be brought at all to a change for the better. But rather, following the example of those who philosophized nobly and did not despair of recovering virtue, such a change is possible for human beings. But even if he did not establish with precision what he wanted to establish, we will nonetheless listen to him fairly and even so refute him for not speaking soundly. For he said: those who are disposed by nature to sin
and habituated to it, no one could ever completely change, not even by punishing them; and we have overturned what can be heard in that statement as far as possible. It is likely that he means to indicate something of this sort: that no one, by punishing them, could ever completely change those who are prone, not only by nature but also by habit, to the kinds of sins committed by the most depraved. And this claim, too, the historical record proves false, concerning certain
men who practiced philosophy. For who among men would not rank among the most depraved the one who at some point submitted to yielding to a master who set him up on a roof, so that he might let in anyone who wished to disgrace him? Such things are recorded of Phaedo. And who would not say that the man who burst in with a flute-girl and the revelers who shared his debauchery into the school of the most venerable Xenocrates, in order to insult a man whom
even his own companions admired, was not the most vile of all men? Yet reason had such power that, having turned even these men, it made them advance so far in philosophy that the one was judged by Plato worthy to narrate at length Socrates's discourse on immortality and to portray his steadfastness in prison, unconcerned about the hemlock but proceeding fearlessly and with complete
calm of soul through so many and so great matters, which even those who are altogether composed and troubled by no circumstance can scarcely follow; and the other, Polemo, having become from a debauchee a most self-controlled man, succeeded to the school of the renowned-for-dignity Xenocrates. It is therefore untrue, this claim of Celsus, that no one, not even by punishing them, could ever completely change those disposed by nature to sin and habituated to it. But
as for the order and composition and phrasing of the philosophical arguments, that such men produced these effects on those mentioned above, even though they had otherwise lived wickedly, is not at all astonishing. But when we consider what Celsus calls 'vulgar words,' as though filled with the power of incantations, and observe how these words swiftly urge multitudes on from a licentious life to the most stable life, and from
unjust to a more decent one, and from cowardly or unmanly to one so vigorous that, because of the piety that appeared in them, they even despise death - how could we not rightly marvel at the power within it? For 'the word' of those who first proclaimed these things and labored, so that they might establish churches of God - but also 'their proclamation' was, in persuasion,
has come about, but not of the sort of persuasion found among those who profess the wisdom of Plato or of any of the philosophers, since they were human beings possessing nothing beyond human nature. But the proof given by God in the case of Jesus' apostles was full of conviction, coming from "spirit and power." That is why their word — or rather, the word of God working through them — ran most swiftly and most sharply, transforming
many of those who were by nature and by habit given to sin — people whom no human being could have transformed even by punishing them, but whom the word remade, shaping and molding them according to its own purpose. And Celsus, drawing the conclusion that follows for him, says that to change one's nature completely is exceedingly difficult. But we, knowing that there is a single nature belonging to every rational soul, and asserting that none was made wicked by the one who
fashioned the universe, but that many have become bad because of their upbringing, their perversions, and the influences surrounding them, so that in some people wickedness has even become second nature — we are persuaded that for the divine word to change a wickedness that has become second nature is not only not impossible but not even very difficult, so long as one accepts that one must trust oneself to the God over all and do everything
with reference to pleasing him — in whose sight there is not one honor for the bad man and another for the good; "nor does the idle man die in the same way as the man who has done much." But if for some people changing is exceedingly difficult, one must say that the cause lies in their assent, which is reluctant to accept that the God over all is for each person
a just judge concerning everything done in life. For choice and practice have great power, even against things that seem most difficult and — to speak in hyperbole — nearly impossible. Has not human nature, when it wished to walk a rope stretched aloft through the middle of a theater, managed, while carrying such great weights, to accomplish this through practice and
attentiveness — and yet, when it wishes to live according to virtue, is it powerless to do so, even if it had previously been utterly base? But see whether the one who says such things is not rather accusing the nature that fashioned the rational animal than the one who has come to be. For if it has made human nature capable with regard to things so difficult that they are of no use at all, yet incapable with regard to
its own blessedness — well, even this is enough to answer the claim that to change one's nature completely is exceedingly difficult. Next he says that the sinless are better companions in life, without making clear whom he means by the sinless — those who are so from the beginning, or those who have become so through change. Now those who are sinless from the beginning are impossible to find, while those who become so through change are rarely found — people who become such
from having come to the saving word. They do not come to the word already being of such a character; for apart from the word — and a perfect word at that — it is impossible for a human being to become sinless. Then he raises, as if it were something said by us, the objection that there is nothing God's power cannot accomplish, without even seeing how this has been said, what "all things" is taken to mean here, and in what way he is able. About these matters it is not necessary to speak now, for he himself does not either, although he is able
...to take a stand against it plausibly. He took his stand—perhaps not even grasping the plausible objection that could be raised against this position, or grasping it but also seeing the reply to what is said. Now according to us, God can do all things which, though he is able to do them, do not make him depart from being God, from being good, and from being wise. But Celsus speaks as one who has not understood how it is said that
God can do all things—namely, that he will not want anything unjust—granting that he is indeed able to do the unjust thing too, but does not want to. But we say this: just as what is naturally suited to sweeten cannot, by that very fact of being sweet, make bitter on that same ground alone, nor can what is naturally suited to give light, by being light, cause darkness, so too God cannot do injustice; for
the power to do injustice is opposed to his divinity and to all the power that accords with it. But if any existing thing can do injustice because it is by nature also disposed toward injustice, it can do injustice precisely because it does not have it in its nature to be wholly incapable of injustice. After this he takes for granted something that is not granted by those who hold their beliefs more rationally, though perhaps it is supposed by certain foolish people—namely that
God, enslaved to pity for those who are pitied just as those enslaved to pity are, thereby lightens the burden of the wicked, while casting off the good who do nothing of the sort—which is most unjust. In our teaching, however, God lightens no wicked person's burden unless that person has already turned toward virtue, and he rejects no one who has already become good; nor for that matter does he lighten anyone's burden or show mercy to anyone merely because that person is an object of pity—to use the term
'mercy' in its more common sense. Rather, God receives, for the sake of their repentance, those who have severely condemned themselves for their sins, so that on this account they, as it were, mourn and lament themselves as lost with respect to their former deeds, and who show a noteworthy change—and likewise those who turn from a most wicked life. For virtue grants amnesty to such people, taking up residence in their souls and casting out the vice that had previously taken hold.
But even if what comes to be in the soul is not virtue but a noteworthy progress, this too is sufficient, in proportion to the degree of progress involved, to drive out and make vanish the flood of vice, so that it comes near to no longer being present in the soul at all. Then, as though speaking in the person of one who teaches our doctrine, he says the following: 'for the wise turn away from what is said by us,'
led astray and hindered by wisdom. We shall say in reply to this too that, if wisdom is knowledge of 'divine' and 'human' matters and of their causes, or, as the divine word defines it, 'a breath of God's own power, a pure outflowing of the Almighty's glory,' and 'a radiance of eternal light, and a spotless mirror of the working of God,'
'and an image of his goodness,' then no one who is truly wise would turn away from what is said by a Christian versed in Christianity, nor would he be led astray or hindered by it. For it is not true wisdom that leads astray but ignorance, and knowledge alone is stable among existing things, along with the truth that comes from wisdom. Yet should someone depart from wisdom's own definition, the
Whatever wise doctrine, then, you say he teaches with certain sophistries, we shall reply that the man who is truly wise, in the sense of wisdom you speak of, turns away from the words of God, being led astray by plausibilities and sophistries and tripped up by them. And since, according to our own account, "wisdom is not the knowledge of wickedness," while "wickedness" — to call it so — is a kind of "knowledge" among
those who hold false opinions and have been deceived by petty sophists, for this reason I would call it ignorance rather than wisdom in such cases. After this he again reviles the advocate of Christianity, and declares of him that he expounds ridiculous things, yet he neither proves nor clearly sets forth what he says is ridiculous. And in his abuse he says that no sensible person is persuaded by the doctrine, being distracted by the crowd of those who come to him.
He does the same thing also in this claim, that because of the multitude of ordinary people led by the laws, no sensible person, one might say, obeys Solon or Lycurgus or Zaleucus or any of the rest — especially if he takes as sensible the person of a certain quality according to virtue. For just as, in the case of these lawgivers, in accordance with what appeared useful to them, they made it their aim to surround the people with such
a way of life and with laws, so too God, legislating in Jesus for people everywhere, leads even those who are not sensible, insofar as it is possible for such people to be led toward what is better. This — as we have also said above — the God who is in Moses, knowing it well, says: "They provoked me to jealousy with what is not God, they angered me with their idols;
I also will provoke them to jealousy with what is not a nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding." And Paul too, knowing this, said: "It was what the world counts foolish that God selected, so as to bring shame upon the wise," calling "the wise" in a more general sense all those who seem to have advanced in learning but have fallen into godless polytheism. Since "claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles." He also accuses the teacher of seeking out senseless people. To him we would say: whom do you mean by the senseless? For strictly speaking, every base person is senseless. If, then, you call the base senseless, are you, in bringing people to philosophy, seeking to bring base people or refined ones? But it is not
possible to bring refined people, for they have already practiced philosophy; base people, then. But if base, then senseless. And you seek to bring many such people to philosophy; so you too are seeking the senseless. And I, even if I seek those who are called senseless in this way, do the same thing — as if a humane physician sought out the sick, so as to bring them remedies and restore their strength. But if by senseless you mean
not the unskilled but people more monstrous than ordinary human beings, I will answer you that I try to improve even these as far as possible, yet I do not wish to form the assembly of Christians out of them. For I seek rather the more skillful and the sharper, as able to follow the clarity of the riddles and of the things spoken with concealment across the law, the prophets, and the gospels, as containing nothing of value
...you have despised, without testing the mind within them, nor having tried to enter into the intention of those who wrote them. Since after this he also says that the one who teaches the doctrines of Christianity does something similar to a man who promises to make bodies healthy but turns people away from attending to skilled physicians, for fear that his own ignorance would be exposed by them, to this too we shall reply: which physicians do you mean,
from whom we turn away the uneducated? For surely you do not suppose that we direct our exhortation to reason toward those who practice philosophy, as though you should think that these are the physicians from whom we turn away those whom we call to the divine word. Either, then, he gives no answer, having nothing to say as to who these physicians are, or he is forced to take refuge among the uneducated, who themselves also babble in a servile way about
the many gods and whatever else uneducated people might say. Either way, then, he will be shown to have been refuted in vain for having brought into his argument someone who turns people away from skilled physicians. And if indeed we should turn away, from the philosophy of Epicurus and from the so-called Epicurean physicians of his school, those who are being deceived among them, how would we not be acting most reasonably in delivering them from the grievous sickness produced by the physicians of Celsus —
the sickness consisting in doing away with providence and bringing in pleasure as the good? But grant that we turn these people away, as from physicians, from other philosophers whom we exhort toward our own reasoning — namely those of the Peripatetic school, who abolish providence toward us and the relation of the divine to human beings — how would we not thereby be making pious and healing those who have turned to us, winning them over to a life devoted to the God who rules over all,
while freeing those who obey us from the deep wounds that arguments of the so-called philosophers had inflicted? But let it also be granted that we turn people away from other physicians — the Stoics, who introduce a perishable god and say that his substance is a body wholly mutable, alterable, and changeable, and who at some point destroy all things and leave only god remaining — how would we not, in this way too, be freeing those who
obey us from evils, and bringing them instead to the pious teaching about devoting oneself to the Craftsman and marveling at the Father of the Christian teaching, who has most benevolently, in a manner conducive to conversion, ordained teachings for souls to be sown throughout the whole human race? But even those afflicted with the folly concerning the transmigration of bodies, by physicians who drag the rational nature down, at one time into every irrational creature, and at another even
into that which lacks imagination altogether — should we not heal them? How would we not thereby be making those persuaded by our reasoning better in their souls — a reasoning that does not teach that, as a portion of punishment, the wicked person is reduced to insensibility or irrationality, but rather shows that there are certain remedial medicines in the toils and punishments brought upon the wicked by God? For this is what Christians who live and think prudently administer to the simpler folk, just as fathers do to
their quite infant children. For we do not, then, take refuge among infants and foolish rustics, saying to them, 'Flee the physicians,' nor do we say, 'See that none of you ever lays hold of knowledge,' nor do we claim that knowledge is something evil, nor have we gone mad enough to say that knowledge leads people astray from health of soul. But neither would we ever say that anyone has been destroyed by wisdom — we who
nor do you attend to me. Even if we teach, we say, no—attend to the God of the universe, and to Jesus the teacher of the lessons concerning him. None of us is so arrogant as to say to his acquaintances what Celsus has put into the mouth of the teacher: "I alone will save you." See, then, how much he falsely charges against us. But we do not even say that true
physicians destroy those whom they profess to heal. And he brings forward a second example against us, claiming that our teacher does something similar—as if a drunken man, coming among drunkards, were to abuse the sober as though they were drunk. Let him show, then, from Paul's own writings, for instance, that Jesus' apostle was drunk and that his utterances lacked the mark of a sober mind, or from what
John wrote, that his thoughts do not breathe the spirit of one who is sober-minded and free from the drunkenness that comes of vice. No one, then, who is sober-minded and teaches the doctrine of the Christians is drunk. But Celsus says these things while abusing us in an unphilosophical manner. And whom do we, who advocate the teachings of the Christians, abuse as though they were sober? Let Celsus say. For according to us all who speak to lifeless things as if to a god are drunk—
and why do I say drunk? For they are rather mad—rushing to the temples and bowing down to statues or to animals as though they were gods. And no less mad than these are those who suppose that things constructed by vulgar and, at times, utterly base men have been made in honor of the true gods. After this he likens the teacher to a man with diseased eyes, and the learners to those with diseased eyes as well, and
he says that this man, among those with diseased eyes, accuses the sharp-sighted of being blind. Who, then, shall we say are the Greeks who among us do not see, or those who, from the very greatness of the things in the world and the beauty of the works of creation, are unable to look up and perceive that it is fitting to worship and admire and revere only the one who has made these things, and none of the
things constructed by men and taken up for the honor of the gods could rightly be worshipped, whether apart from the creator God or together with him? For to compare things that admit no comparison at all with the infinite one, who surpasses in surpassing excellence every created nature, is the work of a mind blind in its understanding. We do not, then, say that the sharp-sighted are the ones with diseased eyes or the blind, but rather those who, in ignorance of God, grovel before the
temples and the statues and the so-called sacred festivals—these we declare to be blinded in mind, and this above all when, alongside their impiety, they also live in licentiousness, not even seeking out what deed is worthy of reverence, but doing everything worthy of shame. After this, having brought so many charges against us, he wishes to show that he has yet other things to say but passes over them in silence. His words run thus:
These charges I bring, and others like them, that I may not enumerate them all, and I say that they do wrong in leading men astray concerning God, so that they entice wicked men with vain hopes and persuade them to despise better things, on the ground that it will be better for them if they abstain from them. But to this it might also be said, on the basis of the actual conduct of those who come to Christianity, that they are not led astray as wicked men at all—
the word as much as the simpler people and (as most would call them) unrefined people do. For these, moved and driven by fear of the punishments that are announced, to abstain from the things for which the punishments exist, try to devote themselves to the piety of the Christian religion, so mastered by the word that, through fear of the eternal punishments named in accordance with the word,
they come to despise every torment devised against them by human beings, and death together with countless pains — which no sensible person would say is the work of wicked purposes. For how could self-control and moderation, or the sharing and fellowship of goods, be practiced from a wicked purpose? Nor indeed is the fear of the divine, to which the word summons the many as useful,
directed at those not yet able to see and choose what is choiceworthy for its own sake, and to choose it as the greatest good, surpassing every promise; from which it is not natural for such a thing to arise in one who chooses to live in wickedness. But if someone imagines that there is superstition rather than wickedness among the majority of those who believe the word, and blames our word for making people superstitious,
we will say to him that, just as one of the lawgivers said to the person asking whether he had established the finest laws for the citizens, that he had established not the laws that were finest without qualification but the finest of those they were capable of — so it might also be said on behalf of the father of the Christian word, that I established, for the improvement of character, the finest laws and teaching that the many were capable of, threatening not
false punishments and torments for sinners, but ones that are true and necessary, brought to bear for the correction of those who resist — though not that they altogether understand the intention of the one who punishes and the purpose of the sufferings; for this too is spoken usefully, in accordance with the truth, and with a certain concealment for their benefit. Still, on the whole, those who profess Christianity are not led into wickedness.
Nor indeed do we do violence to the divine; for we speak about it things that are both true and, while seeming clear to the many, are not clear to them as they are to the few who practice philosophy in accordance with the word. Since Celsus also says that those who become Christians are led on by empty hopes, we will say to him, who blames the teaching about the blessed life and
about fellowship with the divine, that as far as you are concerned, sir, those who have accepted the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato about the soul are also led on by empty hopes — the soul being by nature able to rise up to heaven's vault and, in the region above the heavens, to behold the sights beheld by the blessed spectators. But according to you, Celsus, those too who have accepted the soul's
continuance, and who live so as to become heroes and to have their dwelling with the gods, are led on by empty hopes. And perhaps also those who have been persuaded about the mind "from outside" as immortal, and as destined to have an independent existence, would be said by Celsus to be led on by empty hopes. Let him then contend, no longer hiding his own sect, but confessing himself an Epicurean, against what is held among Greeks and barbarians not
things said contemptibly about the immortality of the soul, or its continued survival, or the immortality of the mind, and let him show that these are mere arguments deceiving those who assent to them with empty hopes, while the doctrines of his own philosophy are free of empty hopes and either lead to good hopes, or—which better fits his position—produce no hope at all, because of the soul's
immediate and total dissolution. Unless, of course, Celsus and the Epicureans will refuse to call it an empty hope, the hope concerning the end that is their pleasure, which according to them is the good—the settled, stable condition of the flesh, and the confidence Epicurus places in that. Do not suppose that I have inappropriately brought in, against Celsus, on behalf of the Christian argument, those
who have philosophized about the immortality or continued survival of the soul; since we have certain things in common with them, we will show at a more fitting opportunity that the coming blessed life will belong only to those who have accepted the reverence for God that follows Jesus, together with a sincere and pure piety toward the maker of all things, unmixed with anything created whatsoever. But let whoever wishes show what better things we are persuading people to despise.
and let him set against it what belongs to us before God in Christ, that is, in the word and wisdom and every virtue—the blessed end that will befall those who have lived blamelessly and purely and have taken up an undivided and unsplit love toward the God of all, and that will be met by a gift of God—against the end promised by every philosophical school among Greeks or barbarians, or by any mystery-cult's
promise; and let him show that the end according to some other school is better than ours, and that it follows as true, while ours is unsuited to what God gives as a gift, nor to those who have conducted their lives well—or that these things were not spoken by a divine spirit that filled the souls of pure prophets. And let whoever wishes show that human arguments, acknowledged as such by all, are better than the
things demonstrated as divine and announced through inspiration. But of what better things do we teach those who accept them that they will be freed? For if it is not too offensive to say, it is self-evident that nothing can even be conceived as better than entrusting oneself to the God over all and devoting oneself to a teaching that draws one away from everything created, while leading one, through a living and animate word—who is also
living wisdom and Son of God—to the God over all. But since these remarks have taken on a sufficient scope, and the third volume of what has been dictated by us in reply to Celsus's treatise has thereby reached its natural limit, we will bring our discourse to a close at this point, and in what follows we shall contend against what Celsus wrote after this.

======== Against Celsus, Book 4 ========

Having gone through, in the three books before this one, our thoughts on Celsus's treatise, holy Ambrose, we now dictate a fourth, praying to God through Christ concerning what follows. May words be given to us of the kind written about in Jeremiah, where the Lord says to the prophet: "See, I have put my words as fire in your mouth. See, I have set
you today over nations and kingdoms, so that you may root out and pull down, may destroy and throw down, may build and plant." For we too now need words that root out, from every soul, what has been said against the truth and harmed by Celsus's treatise or by notions like his. And we also need thoughts that pull down every structure of false opinion, including the structure Celsus himself
built in his treatise, resembling the structure raised by those who declared, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach to heaven"; but we also need a wisdom that throws down every height that raises itself up "against the knowledge of God," including the "height" of arrogance that Celsus "raises up" against us. Then, since we must not stop at "rooting out and pulling down" the
things already mentioned, but must plant, in the place of what has been uprooted, the planting of God's own husbandry, and build, in the place of what has been thrown down, a building of God and a temple of God's glory — for this reason we too must pray to the Lord who gave what is written in Jeremiah, that he give us words also for building up the things of Christ and for planting
the spiritual law and the prophetic words that correspond to it. And we especially need, for what Celsus says next after what has already been discussed, to establish that the things concerning Christ were well prophesied. For Celsus, taking a stand against both sides at once — Jews who deny that Christ's coming has happened but hope it will be, and Christians who confess that Jesus is the
Christ who was prophesied — says: "And that some Christians and some Jews — the one group saying a god or a son of god has come down to the earth, the other that he will come down — as a judge of the people here, this is most shameful, and the refutation does not even need a long argument." And he seems to speak precisely about the Jews, not some of them but all, saying that they think someone will come down to the
earth, and about the Christians, that some of them say he has already come down. For he indicates those who establish, from the Jewish scriptures, that Christ's coming has already happened, and he appears aware that certain sects exist which deny that Jesus Christ is the one prophesied. Now, we have already, in the earlier books, treated as fully as we could the prophesying of Christ, and so we do not repeat here most of what could be said on that point, so as not to say the same things twice. Observe, then, that
if Celsus wished, with even some semblance of coherence, to overturn the belief concerning the prophecies about Christ's coming or having come, he ought to have set out the very prophecies which we Christians and Jews use when arguing with one another; for in that way he would have seemed at least to
drawn about by what he thinks is plausibility, seeming to overturn assent to the prophetic writings and, on account of the prophetic writings, faith that Jesus is the Christ. But as it now stands, either being unable to answer the prophecies concerning Christ, or not even knowing from the outset what the things prophesied about him are, he cites no prophetic text at all, even though
there are countless ones concerning Christ, yet he supposes he is accusing the prophetic writings without even setting out whatever plausible objection he might have raised against them. He does not know, however, that the Jews do not really say that it is God, or the Son of God, who is to come down as the Christ, as we have also said above. And having said that we call him one who has come down, while the Jews say a righteous judge is to come down,
he thinks he is thereby accusing what is said of being utterly shameful and not even needing a lengthy refutation, and he says: "What is the point of such a descent for God?" not seeing that on our view too there is a point to the descent. Its primary purpose is what the gospel states, to bring back "Israel's stray sheep," and secondarily, because of their disobedience, to take away from them
the kingdom of God, so called, and to give it to "other tenant farmers" — Christians, as opposed to the Jews of old — who will render its "fruits" to God "in their" appointed "seasons," every deed being a fruit of the kingdom. We, then, have said a few things out of many in reply to Celsus's question, when he asks: "What is the point of such a descent for God?" But Celsus
sets forth for himself things said by neither the Jews nor by us, saying: "Or was it so that he might learn what goes on among men?" For none of us claims that Christ takes up residence among the living so as to discover human affairs. Then, as though some had said "so that he might learn what goes on among men," he raises against himself in reply: "Does he not then know everything?" Then, as though we would answer
that he does know, he again raises a difficulty, saying: "So does he know, yet not correct it, being unable by divine power to correct it?" And all this too he says foolishly. For God, through his own Word, passing down through the generations into holy souls and making them friends of God and prophets, is always correcting those who hear what is said; and in the coming of Christ too
he corrects, through the teaching in keeping with Christianity, not people who are unwilling, but rather those who have selected the finer life, the one that pleases God. And I do not know what sort of correction Celsus wanted to occur when he raised the difficulty, saying: "Is it not possible for him to correct by divine power, unless he sends someone for this purpose by natural means?" For did he want the correction to happen for men who merely imagine it,
while God, having all at once taken away wickedness and implanted virtue, brought the correction about wholesale? Someone else may inquire whether such a thing is consistent, or possible, for nature; but we would say: granted, let it even be possible — where then is what is up to us, and where is the praiseworthy assent to the truth, or the acceptable turning away from falsehood?
But even if this were granted—both that it is possible and that it happens fittingly—why would one not rather inquire into the origin of the matter, saying something analogous to Celsus, that it was not possible for God by divine power to make human beings not in need of correction but good and perfect from the start, evil not even having arisen in the first place to begin with? These arguments can carry away the uninstructed and
the unintelligent, but not one who looks closely at the nature of things—because if you remove the voluntary from virtue, you have removed its very essence along with it. A whole treatise is needed for these matters, about which the Greeks too have said not a little in their works on providence—Greeks who would not have said what Celsus has set out, saying: he knows, but he does not correct,
nor is it possible for him to correct by divine power. We too have spoken about these matters in many places, as far as we were able, and the divine scriptures have set them before those able to hear them. So we shall say back to him what Celsus brings against us and the Jews, and turn it against him: does the God who is over all know what is in human beings, or does he not know? But
if indeed you hold that God and providence exist, as your treatise indicates, then he must necessarily know. And if he knows, why does he not correct? Perhaps we must give an account of why, though he knows, he does not correct—but for you, who do not entirely show yourself an Epicurean through your treatise, but rather pretend to acknowledge providence, the same question will not be put on equal terms: why, knowing what is in human beings,
does God not correct everything, nor by divine power free everyone from evil? But we are not ashamed to say that he is always sending those who will bring correction; for the arguments that call people toward what is best are present among human beings, since God has given them. Already there are many differences among those who serve God, and few are those who proclaim the things of truth in every respect and purely,
accomplishing complete correction—such as Moses and the prophets were. But beyond all of these, great is the correction brought through Jesus, who did not wish only those in one corner of the inhabited world to be cared for, but, as far as it depended on him, those everywhere; for he came as "savior of all people." After this the most noble Celsus, taking up an objection from I do not know where, raises a difficulty against
us, as though we said that God himself comes down to human beings, and he supposes that this entails his abandoning his own seat. For God's power is unknown to him, along with the truth that "the spirit of the Lord fills the whole inhabited world, and that which binds all things together perceives what is spoken," nor can he grasp, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," nor
does he see that according to the teaching of the Christians all people "live and move and have their being in him," as Paul also taught in his speech before the Athenians. So then, even if the God of the universe, by his own power, condescends together with Jesus into the life of human beings, and even if the Word—"in the beginning with God," and "God" himself—comes to
...us. He does not leave his seat, nor abandon his own throne, as though one place were left empty by him and another filled which did not have him before. Rather, the power and divinity of God visits whomever he wills and finds room wherever he finds it, without changing place or leaving his own place empty and filling another. For even if we were to say that he leaves and...
...fills someone else, we will not be declaring any such thing about place; rather, we will say that the soul of the base person, dissolved in wickedness, has been forsaken by God, while we will declare that the soul of one who wishes to live according to virtue, or is progressing in it, or is already living by it, is filled with, or partakes of, the divine spirit. There is therefore no need, for the descent of Christ,
or for God's turning toward mankind, that a greater seat be left behind and that the things here below be changed, as Celsus supposes when he says: "For if you were to change even the smallest of the things here, everything would be overturned and gone for you." But if one must speak of someone being changed by the presence of God's power and the visitation of the Word among men, we will not hesitate to say that he is changed from base to
refined, from licentious to self-controlled, and from superstitious to pious — namely, the one who has received the visitation of the Word of God into his own soul. But if you also want us to respond to the most laughable of Celsus's claims, hear him saying: "But surely, since God is unknown among men and on this account seems to be at a disadvantage, he would wish to be known, and to put to the test
both those who believe and those who do not, just like men newly rich among mankind making a show of themselves?" Indeed, they bear witness to a great and thoroughly mortal love of honor on God's part. We say, then, that when God is unknown to base men, it is not because he himself seems to be at a disadvantage that he would wish to be known, but because the knowledge of him frees the one who knows him from misery. Nor is it because he wishes to put to the test those who believe or
those who do not, that he himself visits certain people by an ineffable and divine power, or sends his Christ; but rather so that those who believe and grasp his divinity may be freed from all misery, while those who do not believe no longer have any room for an excuse, as though they had not believed on account of not having heard and been taught. What argument, then, establishes that it follows for us that God, according to
our account, is like the men newly rich among mankind making a show of themselves? For God does not make a show of himself before us, wishing us to understand and perceive his surpassing excellence; rather, wanting to implant in us the blessedness that arises in our souls from knowing him, he works through Christ and the ever-continuing visitation of the Word to bring us back into kinship with himself. No
mortal love of honor, then, does the teaching of the Christians bear witness to on God's part. It puzzles me, though, how he can babble so pointlessly against what we set forth, and then, further along, state that God, not needing to be known for his own sake but for the sake of our salvation, wishes to grant us knowledge of himself, so that those who receive it, having become good, may be saved, while those who do not receive it, having been shown to be wicked, may be punished. And having set this forth,
He raises this sort of difficulty, saying: has God only now, after so long an age, remembered to set human life right, while neglecting it before? To this we shall say that God never was without the wish to set human life right; rather he was always caring for it, giving occasions for virtue by which the rational creature could correct itself. For in every generation the wisdom of
God, passing into souls that it finds holy, makes them friends of God and prophets. And one could find in the sacred books, generation by generation, those who were holy and receptive of the divine spirit, and how they turned their contemporaries back, as far as they were able. It is nothing to marvel at that in certain generations there arose prophets who surpassed others in their reception of the divine, on account of a life that was
more vigorous and robust than that of other prophets, some contemporaries of theirs, others earlier or later. So it is not to be wondered at that there also came a certain moment when something exceptional visited the human race, differing from those who came before it or even after it. But the account of these matters holds something more mysterious and deeper, and one that cannot fully
reach the ears of the common crowd. And it is necessary, in order that these things be made clear and a reply given to what is said about the coming of Christ - namely, has God only now, after so long an age, remembered to set the human race right, while neglecting it before? - to take up the account concerning the portions and to make it clear why, "as the Most High apportioned out the nations, as he scattered abroad the sons of
Adam, he set the nations' boundaries to match the number of God's angels; and the Lord's portion came to be his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance." We must next explain why each boundary's peoples arose under the one to whom that boundary was allotted, and why it was fitting that "the Lord's portion came to be his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance," and why formerly it was "the Lord's portion,
his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance," while concerning the later peoples it is said to the Savior by the Father: "Request this from me, and I will grant you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession." For there are certain connections and sequences, ineffable and indescribable, concerning the varied dispensation exercised over human souls. He came, then,
even if Celsus does not wish it, after many prophets who set right the affairs of that Israel, as the one who set right the whole world - Christ - who, under the former dispensation, had no need to make use of scourges and bonds and instruments of torture against human beings; for the teaching sufficed, when "the sower went out to sow," that he might sow the word everywhere. But if a certain time is fixed, which circumscribes the
world with the circumscription that necessarily follows from its having had a beginning, and a certain end is fixed for the world, and following that end there comes a just judgment concerning all things, then it will be necessary for the one who philosophizes to establish the substance of the account with proofs of every kind, both from the divine writings and from the sequence found within the arguments themselves, while it will be necessary for the great mass of people, who are simpler and unable
to follow the most varied contemplations of the wisdom of God, entrusting himself to God and to the savior of our race, is content with this "he himself said" more than with anyone else's. After this, again, as is his custom, Celsus, having established and demonstrated nothing, as though we spoke of God neither piously nor reverently, says: that we do not do so piously
nor reverently prattle on about God is obvious, and he supposes that we do this to strike the uneducated with astonishment, not because we speak the truth about the punishments necessary for those who have sinned. For this reason he makes us out to resemble the people who, during the Bacchic rites, bring forward apparitions and terrors beforehand. Now as for the Bacchic rites, whether there is some plausible account of them or none at all,
let the Greeks say, and let Celsus and his fellow-initiates listen; but we make our defense concerning our own affairs, saying that our aim is to set right the human race, whether through threatening punishments we hold to be unavoidable for the universe as a whole—and perhaps not without benefit even to those destined to undergo them—or through promises given to the ones who have led good lives, which encompass
the blessed manner of life in the kingdom of God for those worthy to be ruled by him. After this, wishing to show that we say nothing paradoxical or new about the flood or the conflagration, but that we, having overheard what is said among Greeks or barbarians on these matters, have come to believe our own scriptures about them, he says this: this too occurred to them from having overheard those accounts,
namely that according to vast cycles of time and the recurring returns and alignments of the stars, conflagrations and floods occur, and that after the last flood, the one in the time of Deucalion, the cycle, according to the periodic exchange of all things, requires a conflagration; this led them, through a mistaken opinion, to say that God will come down bringing fire, like a torturer. To this we shall reply that I do not know
how it is that Celsus, who has read much and shown that he knows many histories, paid no attention to the antiquity of Moses, though it is recorded by some Greek historians that he lived during the era of Inachus, son of Phoroneus; and among the Egyptians too he is acknowledged to be most ancient, and likewise among those who have written the Phoenician histories. And whoever wishes may read Flavius Josephus's two books concerning the antiquity of the Jews,
so that he might understand just how much earlier Moses lived than those who said that, according to long periods of time, floods and conflagrations occur in the world—accounts which Celsus says the Jews and Christians overheard and, not understanding them, spoke of the conflagration by saying that God will come down bringing fire, like a torturer. Now whether there are indeed such periods, and floods or conflagrations occurring according to periods, or
whether there are not, and whether reason has knowledge of this too—as it does in many matters, and as Solomon says: "What has come to be? The very thing that will come to be. And what has been done? The very thing that will be done," and so on—it is not for the present occasion to say. For it suffices merely to note that Moses and some of the prophets, being the most ancient of men, did not
They did not take their account of the world's conflagration from others; rather, if we must speak with an eye to chronology, other people, mishearing them and failing to grasp precisely what they said, fashioned a fiction of periodic cycles that are identical and indistinguishable in their own particular qualities and in the events that befall them. We, however, attribute neither the flood nor the conflagration to celestial cycles and the revolutions of the stars, but say that their cause
is wickedness, which pours itself out ever more, and which is purged by a flood or by a conflagration. And if the prophetic voices speak of God descending — he who declared, "Do I not fill the heaven and the earth? says the Lord" — we take this as figurative language. For God descends from his own greatness and height whenever he administers the affairs of human beings, especially the wicked. And just as
it is customary to say that teachers come down to the level of infants, and that the wise, or those who are making progress, come down to the level of the young who have only just been drawn toward philosophy — not by descending bodily — so too, if it is anywhere said in the divine scriptures that God descends, this is to be understood by analogy with this customary use of the word, and likewise with his ascending. Now since Celsus, mocking us, says
that we say God comes down bearing fire like a torturer, and forces us — though it is not the occasion for it — to examine deeper arguments, we will say a little, just enough to give the hearers a taste of a defense that demolishes Celsus's mockery of us, and then move on to what comes next. Sacred scripture calls our God "a consuming fire," and speaks of "rivers of fire" being drawn out before him, and states too that he himself
enters "like the fire of a furnace and like the fuller's herb," in order to smelt his own people. So then, when it is said that he is "a consuming fire," we ask what it is fitting for God to consume, and we say that it is wickedness and the deeds that proceed from it — spoken of figuratively as "wood," "hay," and "stubble" — that God consumes like fire; for the wicked person is said to "build upon" the
rational foundation already laid, "wood," "hay," and "stubble." Now if someone can show that the writer understood these things differently, and can present, in a bodily sense, the wicked person building "wood" or "hay" or "stubble," then clearly the fire too will be understood as material and perceptible; but if the works of the wicked are plainly spoken of figuratively as "wood" or "hay" or "stubble,"
how does it not follow at once what sort of fire is meant, that such "wood" might be consumed? For it says, "Each man's work, of whatever sort it is, the fire itself will test; if anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward; if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss." And what work being burned up could be meant here except everything done out of wickedness? Therefore our God
is "a consuming fire," as we have explained, and thus he "enters like the fire of a furnace," to smelt the rational nature — filled with the lead of wickedness and the other impure materials, of those who have adulterated the nature of the gold, if I may so call it, or of the silver, of the soul. And in this same way "rivers of fire" are described as flowing "before" God, the one who will utterly efface the
...evil mixed into the soul — but these points suffice to show that it was a mistaken opinion that made them say that God will come down like a torturer, bringing fire. Let us also look at what Celsus says next, with great pomp, in this manner: "Further," he says, "let us take up the argument again from the beginning with more proofs. I say nothing new, but things long since held as doctrine: God"
is good and beautiful and blessed, and exists in the most beautiful and best state. If, then, he comes down to men, he needs to change — a change from good to bad, from beautiful to shameful, from blessedness to wretchedness, and from the best to the most wicked. Who, then, would choose such a change? And indeed, it belongs to the mortal's nature
to be altered and reshaped, while it belongs to the immortal's nature to remain in the same state and in like manner. God, then, would not admit even this kind of change. It seems to me that the necessary reply to this has already been given, once we have explained the descent of God to human affairs spoken of in the scriptures — a descent for which he has no need of change, as Celsus supposes us to say, nor of any turning
from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from blessedness to wretchedness, or from the best to the most wicked. For, remaining unchangeable in his essence, he comes down together with his providence and his administration to human affairs. We, then, produce also the divine scriptures declaring God to be unchangeable, both in "But you are the same"
and in "I have not changed." But the gods of Epicurus, formed out of atoms and, insofar as their makeup is concerned, liable to dissolve, labor to shed the atoms that produce decay; and even the god of the Stoics, since he is in fact a body, at one time has his entire substance as ruling faculty, whenever the conflagration occurs, but at another time comes to exist only in part of it, whenever there is
an ordered arrangement of the world. For these thinkers have not been able to articulate clearly the natural conception of God as wholly incorruptible and simple and uncomposite and indivisible. But that which came down to men existed "in the form of God," and through love of humanity "emptied himself," so that he might be able to be contained by men — yet it was certainly not that a change from good to bad occurred in him, for he "committed no sin," nor"
from beautiful to shameful, for "sin he did not know," and he did not descend from blessedness into wretchedness, but he "humbled himself," and was no less blessed even while he was humbling himself for the benefit of our race; nor did any change occur in him from the best to the most wicked — for how could what is good and loving toward humanity be the most wicked? Or is it now time to say also of
the physician who looks upon dreadful things and touches unpleasant things in order to heal the sick, that he goes from good to bad, or from beautiful to shameful, or from blessedness to wretchedness? And yet the physician, in looking upon dreadful things and touching unpleasant things, does not altogether escape the possibility of falling into the same afflictions himself; but he who cures "the wounds" of our souls by means of the
the Word of God was itself incapable of admitting any evil. But if the immortal God the Word seems to Celsus to be altered and transformed by taking on a mortal body and a human soul, let him learn that "the Word," remaining the Word in his essence, suffers none of the things that the body or the soul suffers, but sometimes condescends to the one who cannot see
the flashing brilliance of his divinity, and becomes, so to speak, "flesh," being spoken of in bodily terms, until the one who has received him in this form, being gradually lifted up by the Word, becomes able to behold his primary form as well, if I may call it that. For there are, as it were, different forms of the Word, in that the Word appears to each of those being led toward knowledge in a way proportioned to the condition of the one being introduced, whether making little
progress, or more, or already drawing near to virtue, or already established in virtue. Hence it is not, as Celsus and those like him wish, that our God "was transformed" and, going up "into the high mountain," showed another form of himself, and one far better than what was seen by those left below, unable to accompany him to that height.
for those below did not have eyes able to see the transformation of the Word into something glorious and more divine; but they could scarcely accommodate even so much of him that it could be said of him by those unable to see what is higher in him: "we saw him, yet he possessed neither form nor beauty, but his appearance was dishonored, diminished beyond the
sons of men." Let this much be said in response to Celsus's assumption, since he failed to grasp the changes or transformations that Jesus underwent, as these are recorded in the narratives, and the question of his mortality or immortality. But are these things not far more dignified — especially when understood in the way one ought — than the story of Dionysus being deceived by the Titans and falling from the throne of Zeus and
being torn apart by them, and afterward being put back 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 an account concerning the soul and to read them in a figurative sense, while for us the door of a coherent narrative is shut — one that everywhere agrees and harmonizes in the scriptures that come from the divine spirit, which came to be among pure souls? Celsus, then, has by no means
seen the intention of our writings; and so he slanders his own interpretation, not that of the scriptures. But if he had considered what follows for a soul that is to exist in eternal life, and what one ought to think concerning its essence and its first principles, he would not have so mocked the immortal coming into a mortal body — not according to Plato's transmigration of souls,
but according to some other, loftier understanding. He would have seen, too, a single, extraordinary descent, out of great love for humanity, undertaken in order to turn back what the divine scripture has named mystically "the perished sheep of the house of Israel," and to come down from the mountains to which, according to certain parables, the shepherd is described as descending, having left behind on those heights the sheep that had not strayed. But Celsus, dwelling further on this,
In these things, which he has not understood, he becomes for us a source of repetition, though it is not our wish to leave anything he has said, even seemingly, unexamined. He says next that either God truly changes, as these people claim, into a mortal body — and it has already been said that this is impossible — or he himself does not change, but makes those who see him think he has, and so misleads and lies; and deceit
and falsehood are otherwise evils, and one might use them only as one uses a kind of drug — either toward friends who are sick or mad, in order to heal them, or toward enemies, in order to escape some danger. But no one sick or mad counts as God's friend, and God fears no one such that he would need to deceive in order to escape danger. To this it might be said, on the one hand, concerning the nature of the divine
Word, which is God, and on the other, concerning the soul of Jesus. Concerning the nature of the Word, then: just as the quality of foods changes into milk for the nature of the infant within the one who nurses it, or is prepared by the physician for what is useful to the health of the one who is ill, or is made ready in this way for the stronger person as being more capable — so too
God changes the power of the Word, whose nature it is to nourish, for the human soul, adapting it to each person according to worth: for one it becomes, as scripture named it, "rational milk without guile"; for another, as being weaker, it is so to speak a vegetable; and to one who is mature, "solid food" is given over. And the Word does not in any way falsify its own nature by becoming nourishing to each, in whatever measure each is able to receive it,
and it neither deceives nor lies. But if someone takes the change to refer to the soul of Jesus, in its coming into a body, we shall ask how he means "change." For if he means a change of essence, this is not granted, not only in her case, but in the case of no other rational soul either; but if he means that she is affected in some way by being mingled with the body, and by the place
into which she has come, what absurdity confronts the argument, which out of great love for humankind brings a savior down for the human race? Since none of those who had previously professed to heal was able to accomplish as much as she herself displayed through the things she did, having descended willingly into human miseries for the sake of our race. Knowing these things, the divine Word says much of this, in many places, in the scriptures. It is enough
for the present to cite one saying of Paul, which runs thus: "Let this be your disposition among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking on a servant's form," "and, discovered in outward fashion as a man, he lowered himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also
highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name." Let others, then, grant to Celsus that he does not change, but makes those who see him think that he has changed; but we, believing that it is not appearance but truth and reality in the coming of Jesus among men, are not subject to Celsus's accusation. Nevertheless we shall answer that you do not say, Celsus,
...as it is sometimes granted, in the manner of a medicine, to make use of deceiving and lying? What, then, is strange about this, if something of this kind was destined to save, that something of this kind should have occurred? For indeed some accounts, told rather in terms of falsehood, turn people's characters around, just as the words physicians sometimes speak to the sick do — rather than words spoken according to truth. But let this be our defense concerning...
...other matters. For indeed it is not strange that the one who heals sick friends should heal the human race, which is dear to him, by such means as one would not employ as a first resort but only under the pressure of circumstance. And the human race, being deranged, needed to be treated by the methods that the Word saw were useful for the deranged, so that they might come to their senses. He says that such things...
...someone does against enemies, taking precautions to escape danger. But God fears no one, so as to deceive those plotting against him in order to escape danger. It is altogether excessive and unreasonable to offer a defense against something said by no one concerning our Savior. It has already been stated, in our defense concerning other matters, in answer to the claim that no one who is sick or deranged is a friend of God; for he who...
...offered the defense says that this dispensation comes about not on behalf of those already friends who are sick or deranged, but on behalf of those who, because of the disease of the soul and the derangement of natural reason, are still enemies, so that they may become friends of God. For indeed it is clearly said that Jesus took upon himself everything on behalf of sinners, in order to "free" them from sin and make them "righteous." Then, since he puts words into the mouths of...
...Jews separately, giving reasons for the coming advent of Christ as they understand it, and Christians separately, speaking of the advent of the Son of God into human life that has already occurred — come, let us examine these points too, briefly, as far as possible. The Jews, in his account, say that when life had become full of every kind of wickedness, it required the one sent down from God, so that...
...the unjust might be punished, and everything be purified, corresponding to the flood that occurred at first. And since Christians too are said to add other things to these, it is clear that he says these things too are asserted by them. And what is strange about this: that, at the overflowing of wickedness, the one who will cleanse the world and deal with each person according to his desert should come to dwell among us? For it is not in keeping with God's character to fail to halt the...
...spread of wickedness and to renew all things. The Greeks too know that the earth is purified by flood or by fire in recurring cycles, as Plato somewhere says: "And whenever the gods, cleansing the earth with waters, flood it, those on the mountains..." and so on. It must therefore be said: is it the case that, if they assert these things, they are solemn and worthy of consideration...
...as promises, but if we ourselves construct certain things praised by the Greeks, are these doctrines no longer good? And yet those who care about the coherence and precision of everything written will try to show not only the antiquity of those who wrote these things, but also the dignity of what is said and its consistency with itself. I do not know how, in a manner similar to the flood that purified...
the earth, as the account of the Jews and Christians holds, he thinks that the destruction of the tower also took place. For in order that the story about the tower recorded in Genesis might not be an allegory of any kind but, as Celsus supposes, plainly literal, it does not even appear on this reading to have happened for the purification of the earth—unless perhaps he thinks that what is called the "confusion" of
tongues is a purification of the earth. Concerning this, whoever is able will give a fuller account at a more opportune time, when it is our task to set forth both what account the history at that place might have, and also the elevated sense concerning it. But since he thinks that Moses, who recorded the events about the tower and the confusion of the languages, corrupted the stories told about the sons of Aloeus and wrote them up as this account of the tower,
it must be said that, as regards the stories of the sons of Aloeus, I do not think anyone spoke of them before Homer, whereas the account of the tower, being far older than Homer—indeed older even than the invention of Greek letters—I am persuaded Moses wrote down. Who, then, is more likely to have corrupted whose material? Is it those who tell the story of the sons of Aloeus who corrupted the account of the tower, or is it the writer of the tower and the confusion of languages who corrupted the tale of the Aloadae?
To unbiased hearers it is clear that Moses is older than Homer. And as for the events concerning Sodom and Gomorrah recorded by Moses in Genesis, namely that they were destroyed by fire because of sin, Celsus compares this to the story of Phaethon, making one mistake—that of not having taken note of
the antiquity of Moses—while otherwise proceeding consistently. For those who tell the story of Phaethon appear to be later even than Homer, who is himself much later than Moses. We do not, then, deny the purifying fire and the destruction of the world for the removal of wickedness and the renewal of the whole, saying that we have learned this from the prophets, out of the sacred books. When, however, as we have said above,
the prophets, in speaking much about the future, are shown to have spoken truly about many things now past, and thereby give proof that a divine spirit was at work in them, it is clear that we ought also to trust them concerning the future—or rather, trust the divine spirit within them. And the Christians too, according to Celsus, adding certain statements to what is said by the Jews, say that because of the sins of the Jews
the Son of God has now been sent, and that the Jews, having punished Jesus and given him gall to drink, drew down upon themselves wrath from God. Let anyone who wishes refute this statement as false, unless the whole nation of the Jews was overthrown—and that not even a full generation after they had done these things to Jesus; for forty-two years, I think,
passed from the time they crucified Jesus until the destruction of Jerusalem. And it is never recorded, from the time the Jews have existed, that they were cast out for so long a time from their solemn rites and worship, having been overcome by more powerful nations; but even if at some point they seemed to be forsaken because of sin, none the less they were watched over and, upon returning, received back their own, carrying out their customary observances unhindered. This, then, is one of the things that establish
Jesus had become something divine and holy, and that so many and such great things have already for so long a time befallen the Jews on his account. We will confidently declare that they will not even be restored, for they committed the most unholy crime of all: they plotted against the savior of the human race in the very city where they used to perform for God the customary symbols of the great mysteries. That city, then, ought
where Jesus suffered these things, to have been utterly destroyed, and the nation of the Jews to have been uprooted, and the calling of God unto blessedness to have passed to others — I mean the Christians — to whom the teaching concerning sincere and pure piety toward God has come, since they have received new laws suited to the constitution established everywhere, seeing that the laws formerly given as to a single nation,
ruled by kinsmen of like character, could not now be carried out by everyone. After this, laughing in his customary manner, he has compared the whole race of Jews and Christians to a swarm of bats, or to ants coming out from a nest, or to frogs holding session around a marsh, or to worms convening in a corner of mud and quarreling with one another over which of them are the greater sinners, and saying that God
reveals everything to us beforehand and announces it in advance, and, leaving behind the whole world along with the heavenly motion and overlooking this vast earth, he conducts his affairs with us alone and sends his heralds to us alone and never ceases sending and seeking, so that we may always be with him. And in this fiction of his he makes us like worms, saying that God exists, and then after him we,
having been made by him, are in every way like God, and that earth, water, air, and the stars have all been placed under us — everything existing for our sake and ordained to serve us. And the worms — that is, plainly, ourselves — say among themselves that now, since some among us transgress, God will arrive, or he will dispatch his son, so that he may burn up the unrighteous, and the rest of us,
together with him, may have eternal life. And to all this he adds that these things are more tolerable coming from worms and frogs than from Jews and Christians quarreling with one another. In reply to this we ask those who accept such things said against us, and we say: do you suppose that all human beings are a swarm of bats or ants or frogs or worms, because of God's transcendence? Or
do you exclude the rest of humankind from this proposed image, and on account of their rationality and their observance of established laws regard them as human beings — but Jews and Christians, because of doctrines of theirs that displease you, you disparage and have compared to these creatures? And whichever answer you give to our question, we will reply, attempting to show that it has not been rightly said, either concerning all
human beings or concerning us in particular. For suppose you say first that all human beings, in relation to God, are comparable to these lowly creatures, since their smallness is in no way commensurate with God's transcendence — what smallness, exactly? Answer me, my good fellows. For if you mean smallness of body, hear this: that what exceeds and what falls short, in relation to
is not judged by truth's tribunal on the basis of the body. For if it were, griffins and elephants would be superior to us human beings, since these are larger, stronger, and longer-lived than we are; but no one of sound mind would claim that, because of their bodies, these irrational creatures outrank rational beings (for reason lifts the rational far above every irrational thing in point of excellence). But
neither are the excellent and blessed beings—whether, as you say, the good daemons, or, as we are accustomed to name them, the angels of God, or whatever superior natures there may be, superior to human beings on account of their bodies—but because the rational element in them has been brought to perfection and has been shaped according to every virtue. But if you disparage the smallness of the human being not on account of the body but on account of the soul,
on the ground that it is inferior to the rest of rational beings, and especially to the excellent ones, and inferior for this reason, namely that vice exists in it, why then should the wicked among Christians, or those among the Jews who live badly, be any more a swarm of frogs, ants, worms, or bats, than the depraved among the rest of the nations? For according to this reasoning, anyone at all who indulges most in vice, poured out to excess,
would be a bat and a worm and a frog and an ant with respect to the rest of humankind. And so too if some Demosthenes the orator possessed a vice comparable to that man's, along with the deeds done by him out of that vice, or if some other reputed orator, an Antiphon, likewise did away with providence in a work entitled "On Truth"—similar to Celsus's own title—these people would be no less
worms, wallowing in a corner of the mire of ignorance and unlearning. And yet what sort of rational being could reasonably be compared to a worm at all, since it possesses the resources for virtue? For these very sketches and outlines directed toward virtue do not permit those who possess virtue in potentiality, and who cannot utterly destroy its seeds, to be compared to a worm. It is therefore evident that neither are human beings
worms in any absolute sense in relation to God; for reason, having its origin from the Word that comes from God, does not allow the rational animal to be considered utterly alien to God—nor, all the more, are the wicked among Christians and Jews such, nor, in point of truth, are Christians or Jews, any more than the rest of the wicked, to be compared to worms wallowing in a corner of the mire. But if
the nature of reason does not permit even this to be granted, clearly we shall not insult human nature, which has been constituted for virtue, even if through ignorance it goes astray, nor shall we liken it to such creatures as these. But if it is on account of doctrines of Christians and Jews that do not please Celsus—doctrines which he plainly does not even understand from the outset—that these people are worms and ants while the rest are not, come,
let us also examine those doctrines of Christians and Jews that are self-evidently apparent to everyone, as compared with the doctrines of the rest of humankind, to see whether it will not become clear to those who once admit that certain human beings are worms and ants, that it is rather worms and ants and frogs—those who have fallen away from the sound conception of God and, under the illusion of reverence, give worship to irrational animals, to images, or even to the works of craftsmen, though they ought
from their beauty to marvel at the one who made them and to revere him as well—men, and whatever is more valuable than men, those who have been able, by following reason, to ascend from stones and wood, but also from what is reckoned the most valuable matter, silver and gold. And having ascended also from the beautiful things in the cosmos to the one who made the whole, and having entrusted themselves to him, and as
to him alone, who is able to sustain all things that exist, and to watch over the reasonings of every being, and to hear each one's prayer as they offer it, sending up their prayers to him, and doing everything as before a spectator of what happens, and guarding themselves, as before a hearer of what is said, against saying anything that is reported to god in an unpleasing way. Unless, that is, such great piety, overcome neither by hardships nor by
the danger of death nor by plausible arguments, does nothing to help those who have taken it up, so that they are no longer to be compared to worms, even though they were so compared before attaining such great piety; but as for those who conquer the sharpest craving for sexual pleasure—which has made the spirits of many soft and waxen—and who conquer it for this reason, since they have been persuaded that they cannot be made akin to god in any other way, unless
they also ascend to him through self-control, do they seem to us to be brothers of worms and kin of ants and much like frogs? And what of the brilliance of justice, which preserves toward one's neighbor and kin what is communal and just and humane and kind—does it accomplish nothing toward such a person's not being a bat? But those who wallow about in licentiousness, such as the
majority of people are, and those who go to prostitutes without discrimination, teaching moreover that this need not happen altogether contrary to what is fitting—are they not worms in filth? Especially when set beside those instructed not to remove "the members of Christ," the body the Word makes its home, and turn them instead into "the members of a prostitute," and who have already learned, moreover, that the
body of the rational being, devoted also to the god of the universe, "is a temple" of the god they worship, becoming such from a pure conception concerning the Maker—who, guarding themselves against defiling "the temple of god" through unlawful intercourse, practice self-control as piety toward god. And I am not yet speaking of the other evils found among men, from which not even those who seem to
philosophize are quickly free (for many are counterfeit even in philosophy), nor am I yet saying that many such things exist among those belonging to neither the Jewish nor the Christian fold; rather, either they do not exist at all among Christians, if you examine strictly who the Christian is, or if such a person should even be found, certainly not among those who assemble together and come to the common prayers and
are not excluded from them—unless indeed some such person, rarely escaping notice, should be found among the many. Are we, then, worms—we who gather as a church standing against the Jews on the basis of the sacred writings believed by them, and showing both that the one foretold has already come to dwell among us and that they, because of their greatest sins, have been abandoned, while we, who have accepted the word, have hopes with god?
the best of these come from faith in him and from the life that can make us his own, pure from all wickedness and evil of life. It is not simply the case, then, that if someone proclaims himself a Jew or a Christian, he is thereby saying that God has made the whole world and the heavenly motion especially for us. Rather, if someone, as Jesus taught, is pure
"in heart," and gentle and a peacemaker, and eagerly endures the dangers that come for piety's sake, such a person could reasonably take courage in God, and, understanding also the word in the prophecies, could say this too: God has foretold and announced all these things to us who believe. But since Celsus has made those he regards as worms — namely, Christians — say that the heavenly motion,
leaving God behind, and overlooking so vast an earth, exists as a state only for us, and sends messages to us, and does not cease sending and seeking, so that we may always be with him — it must be said that he attributes to us things we do not say, to us who both read and recognize that God cherishes everything that exists and abhors nothing he has made; for it would not be like him, hating
anything he hated. We have also read this: "You spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord, lover of souls. For your imperishable spirit is in all things; therefore you correct little by little those who fall away, and in the things in which they sin you admonish them, reminding them." How, then, can we say that God has abandoned the heavenly motion and the whole world, and overlooked so vast an earth, to dwell as a state only among us?
We are the ones who have found it necessary in our prayers to affirm, with right conviction, that "the mercy of the Lord fills the whole earth," and "his mercy extends to all flesh," and that God, being good, "makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust," and urges and teaches us, that we may become his sons, to extend our
good deeds to all people as far as we are able — for he himself is called "the Savior of all people, especially of the faithful," and his Christ is said to be "a propitiation for our sins, not for our sins alone but for the whole world's sins." And perhaps these are not the things Celsus recorded, but certain other, more ordinary things
that some Jews might say, but not Christians at all, who have been taught that "God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And yet "scarcely will anyone die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone might even dare to die." But now, for sinners everywhere,
so that they might abandon sin and entrust themselves to God, Jesus has been proclaimed to have come among us, being called, by a certain ancestral usage of these terms, also the Christ of God. But perhaps Celsus has misheard some things, that God is one thing, and then after him we, whom he called worms, are another. And he does the same as those who charge an entire school of philosophy with wrongdoing on account of certain things said by a rash youth, of three days'
having attended the school of some philosopher and being puffed up against the rest as inferior and unphilosophical. For we know that there are many things more honorable than a human being; we have also read that "God took his stand in the assembly of gods" — gods not identical to those the rest worship ("since every god of the nations is but a demon") — and we have read that "God," having taken his stand "in the assembly of gods, judges in the midst of the gods"
— he judges. But we also know that "even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him." And we also know that the angels are
greater than human beings, in such a way that human beings, once perfected, become equal to angels; for "in the resurrection of the dead there is neither marrying nor being given in marriage, but the righteous are like the angels in heaven" and become "equal to angels." And we know that in the ordering of the universe there are beings called thrones, others called dominions, others called powers, and others called rulers. And we see that
we human beings, falling far short of these, have hopes that by living well and doing everything according to reason we may ascend to a likeness of all of them. And finally, since "what we shall be has not yet been disclosed, we know that once it is disclosed, we will resemble God and behold him just as he truly is." But if someone should say, whether repeating what is understood by those who grasp it or
by those who do not comprehend but have misheard a sound teaching, that it is God, and then after him us — I would explain this too: saying "we" in place of "the rational beings," and still more the excellent among the rational beings; for according to us the virtue of all the blessed is the same, so that the virtue of man and the virtue of God are the same. For this reason we are taught to become "perfect,
as your Father in heaven is perfect." No one who is noble and good is therefore a worm swimming in mud, and no one pious is an ant, and no one just is a frog, and no one whose soul is illumined by the bright light of truth could reasonably be compared to a bat. It seems to me that Celsus has also misheard the saying "let us make man according to our image and likeness"
and on the strength of this has invented worms who say that, having come to be by God, we are in every way like him. Yet if he had known the difference between man's having come to be "according to the image" of God and "according to the likeness" — and that it is recorded that God said, "let us make man according to our image and likeness," but that God made man "according to the image" of God, and not
yet "according to the likeness" as well — he would not have made us say that we are in every way like God. Nor do we say that even the stars have been placed beneath us. Since the resurrection of the righteous, as it is called and as understood by the wise, is compared to sun and moon and stars by the one who says: "one glory has the sun, and another glory the moon, and another glory the stars;"
"For one star differs from another star in splendor; such, too, is the resurrection of the dead," a matter Daniel had prophesied about long before. He says that we claim all things have been ordained to serve us — perhaps not having heard the intelligent among us saying such things, or perhaps not knowing how it has been said that the greatest among us is slave of all. And if
the Greeks say, "the sun and the night serve mortals," they praise the saying and expound it; but when such a thing is either not said by us, or said differently, Celsus slanders us on these grounds too. Yet it was we ourselves who said, in Celsus's own presence — we, the "worms" as he terms us — that because some among us go wrong, God will draw near to us, or will dispatch
his own Son, to burn up the unjust, while the rest of us "frogs," together with him, may have eternal life. And see how, like a buffoon, this solemn philosopher has turned the divine proclamation of judgment — the punishment "against the unjust" and the reward for the righteous — into mockery, laughter, and derision. And to all this he adds that these things
are more tolerable when spoken by worms and frogs than when reported by Jews and Christians disputing with one another. But we, at least, will not imitate him, nor will we say anything of the kind about those philosophers who claim to understand the universe's nature and who argue among themselves about how the whole came to be, and how heaven and earth and everything
in them came to be, and how souls — whether unbegotten and not created by God, yet ordered by him and exchanging bodies, or sown together with bodies and either persisting or not persisting. For one could, instead of speaking solemnly and approving the resolve of persons who gave themselves over to inquiring after truth, mock and revile them, saying that they are worms —
these people, not taking their own measure amid the mud in the corner of human life, and for that reason pronouncing on such great matters as though they had grasped them; and that they speak, insisting as though they had beheld things which cannot be beheld without a higher inspiration and a more divine power. "For no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is within
him; so too no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God." But we are not so mad as to compare so great an understanding of men — I use the word "understanding" quite generally — occupied not with the affairs of the many but with searching out truth, to the squirmings of worms or anything else of that sort; rather, we testify truthfully concerning certain Greek philosophers that they came to know
God, since "God revealed it to them," even though they did not "glorify him as God or give thanks, but were made futile in their reasonings," and "claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and reptiles." After this, wishing to establish that none of the beings mentioned above differ at all
He says that Jews and Christians alike are runaways from Egypt, who never accomplished anything of note and never amounted to anything either in reputation or in number. Now, that they were not runaways, and that they were not Egyptians but Hebrews who had sojourned in Egypt, we have already stated above. But if he thinks he can establish that they never amounted to anything in reputation or in
number from the fact that their history is not found to any great extent among the Greeks, we will reply that if one fixes one's gaze on their constitution from the beginning and on the arrangement of their laws, one would find that they were people who displayed on earth a shadow of the heavenly life; among whom nothing else was reckoned to be God except the God who is over all, and none
of the makers of images took part in their political life. For neither painter nor sculptor of images had any place in their constitution, since the law banished all such people from it, so that no excuse might remain for fashioning images, which draws the foolish among men and drags the eyes of the soul down from God to the earth. There was accordingly a law among them of this kind: "You shall not act lawlessly
and make for yourselves a carved likeness—any image, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies beneath the heaven, the likeness of any creeping thing that creeps on the earth, the likeness of any fish, of whatever is in the waters beneath the earth." And the law wished them,
in dealing with the truth of each thing, not to fashion other things contrary to the truth, falsifying what is truly male or truly female, or the nature of beasts, the class of birds, the kind of creeping things, or that of fish. And this too was held solemn and noble among them: "do not look up to heaven and behold sun, moon, and the array of stars,
the whole array of heaven, and go astray and bow down to them and serve them." And what a constitution it was for an entire nation, among whom it was not even possible for an effeminate man to appear! It is also remarkable that the kindling-fuel for the young—courtesans—was removed from their political life. And there were also courts made up of the most just men, men who had given proof of a sound life over a long period of time, and whose
judgments were trusted; because of their pure character and their being above the ordinary human level, these men were called gods, according to a certain ancestral custom of the Jews. And one could see an entire nation practicing philosophy, and because of the leisure devoted to hearing the divine laws, the so-called Sabbaths, and the rest of their observances concerning priests and sacrifices, which contain countless symbols made clear to those who love learning. But since nothing is stable in
human nature, that constitution too was bound, as it gradually decayed, to fall out of use. Providence, however, having fittingly transformed the solemn dignity of their message to suit the needs of people everywhere requiring transformation, has handed down in its place, to those who believe from among people everywhere, the solemn worship of God according to Jesus—who possessed not just discernment but a share in the divine as well, and who cast down the
...concerning demons on earth, who delight in frankincense and blood and the fumes rising from the burnt fat, and who drag men down like the fabled Titans or Giants, away from the conception of God — he himself, giving no thought to their plotting, though they plot especially against the better sort, established laws by which those who live according to them will be blessed, in no way flattering the demons through sacrifices, and...
...utterly despising them because of the Word of God who helps those who look upward and toward God. And since God willed that the word concerning Jesus should prevail among men, the demons have been able to do nothing. And yet they have left no stone unturned, so that Christians might cease to exist; for they stirred up against the Word and against those who believe in it both the emperors and the senate and the rulers everywhere, but also...
...the peoples themselves — who, not perceiving the irrational and wicked activity of the demons, were thrown into turmoil against the Word and against those who believe in it. But the Word of God, more powerful than all things, even when hindered, took the hindrance as food, as it were, for its own growth, and advancing, won over more souls; for this is what God willed. These things have been said by us, even if in a digression. But...
...necessarily so, I think. For we wished to respond to what Celsus said about the Jews, namely that they had fled Egypt as runaways, and that these individuals, despite being dear to God, achieved nothing worth recording. But we also wished to answer the charge that they have amounted to nothing either in reputation or in number, saying that, as a "chosen race" and a "royal priesthood," withdrawing and avoiding intermixture with the many,...
...so that their character would not be corrupted, they were guarded by the divine power — neither desiring, as most men do, to add other kingdoms to their own, nor being left without protection, so that through their smallness of number they might become an easy target for plots and, so far as their smallness went, be utterly destroyed. And this held true for as long as they remained worthy of guardianship from God; but when it was necessary for them, as a whole...
...sinning nation, to turn back to their God through hardships, they were abandoned now to a greater, now to a lesser degree, until, under the Romans, having committed the greatest sin of all in killing Jesus, they were abandoned completely. Next, after this, Celsus, running quickly through what stands in Moses' first book, the one entitled Genesis, says that they undertook to trace their lineage from the first...
...seed of sorcerers and deceivers, calling as witnesses faint and ambiguous voices hidden away somewhere in the dark, and interpreting them to the unlearned and the foolish — and this though the matter had never, in all the long time before, even been disputed. It seems to me that in these words he has expressed rather obscurely what he wished to say. It is likely, too, that he deliberately cultivated obscurity on this point, since he saw...
...that the argument establishing that the Jewish nation descends from such ancestors was a strong one; and yet again he wished not to appear ignorant of a matter concerning the Jews and their race that is not to be dismissed lightly. It is clear, then, that the Jews too trace their lineage from the three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — whose names, joined to that of God,...
the designation, so that it is used, in prayers to God and in incantations against demons, not only by those of that nation but by almost everyone who practices spells and magic — 'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.' For this invocation of God is found in many places in the magical writings,
along with the adoption of God's name as though it were proper to these men for use against demons. This, then — though Jews and Christians bring it forward to prove that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, forefathers of the Jewish people, were holy men indeed — seems to me something Celsus was not wholly ignorant of, even if he failed to state it plainly,
since he was unable to answer the argument. For we ask all who employ such invocations of God: tell us, sirs, who was Abraham, and how great was Isaac, and of what power did Jacob become, that the designation 'God' fitted to their name should produce such great effects? And from whom have you learned, or from whom can you learn, the facts about these
men? And who indeed took the trouble to write down the history concerning them — whether one that of itself exalts these men in secret terms, or one that through hidden meanings hints at certain great and wondrous things to those able to perceive them? Then, when we ask and no one can produce it, from whatever history it might be — whether Greek or barbarian, or not a history at all but some mystical
record — concerning these men, we for our part will produce the writing titled Genesis, containing the deeds of these men and God's oracles to them, and we will say that surely the fact that even you make use of the names of these three patriarchs of the nation — grasping by plain experience that not inconsiderable effects are accomplished through invoking them — this itself demonstrates the divine character
of these men, whom we take from nowhere else than the sacred books among the Jews. Indeed, he who is called the God of Israel, the God of the Hebrews, and the one who submerged the Egyptian king together with the Egyptians in the Red Sea, is frequently named and employed against demons or certain evil powers. And we learn the history concerning these named ones
and the interpretation of the names from the Hebrews, who in their ancestral script and ancestral language extol and recount these things. How then did the Jews, in undertaking to trace their own lineage from the very seed of these men whom Celsus has supposed to be sorcerers and wandering deceivers, shamelessly attempt to derive themselves and their origin from these men, whose names, being Hebrew, testify
to the Hebrews, whose sacred books they have in the Hebrew language and script? Is this nation, then, akin to these men? Indeed, to this very day the Jewish names, adhering to the Hebrew language, were taken either from their writings or, quite simply, from the meanings signified by the Hebrew tongue. And let the reader of Celsus's work observe
Unless this is what he is hinting at: that they also attempted to trace their genealogy back to some original sowing of sorcerers and deceivers, calling as witnesses faint and ambiguous voices hidden away somewhere in the dark. For these names are hidden and not out in the light and knowledge of the many. To us, at any rate, they are not ambiguous, even when they are taken up by people foreign to our religion; but according to Celsus, not...
...establishing the ambiguity of the voices, I do not know how he has thrown this in carelessly. And yet he ought, if he wished fairly to overturn the genealogy which he thought was most shamelessly adopted by the Jews, who boast of Abraham and his descendants, to have set out the whole matter, first arguing for it with whatever plausibility he judged it to have, and only after that nobly overturning, by the truth as it appeared to him and by the oracles concerning it...
...the facts of the matter. But neither Celsus nor anyone else will be able, in discussing the nature of names taken up as powers, to set forth an accurate account of these things and to prove that the people to whom they belong have become contemptible—people whose very names have power not only among their own but also among those outside. He ought to have set out how it is that we...
...deceive our hearers, as he supposes, by misinterpreting to the ignorant and unthinking the truth about these names, while he himself, who boasts of being neither ignorant nor unthinking, gives the true interpretation of them. But in dealing with these names, from which the Jews trace their genealogy, he has thrown out, in passing, the claim that there has never at any time in the past been any dispute about such...
...names, but that now the Jews are disputing about them with certain others whom he did not name. Let whoever wishes point out who these claimants are, and whether they even have any plausibility, arguing against the Jews in order to demonstrate that Jews and Christians fail to give a sound account of these matters, of the people to whom the names belong, but that there are others who have grasped the wisest and truest account of them.
But we are convinced that no one will be able to do any such thing, since it is plain that the names derive from the Hebrew tongue, a language found nowhere except among the Jews. After this, Celsus, setting out the accounts from history outside the divine word concerning the peoples who have laid claim to antiquity—the Athenians, for example, and the Egyptians and the Arcadians and the Phrygians—who say that certain of them were earthborn, and who each offer proofs of this,
says that the Jews, huddled together in some corner of Palestine, utterly uneducated and never having heard before these things long since sung by Hesiod and countless other inspired men, composed a most implausible and tasteless tale: a man molded and breathed into by the hands of a god, and a little woman from his rib, and commands of the god, and
a serpent that opposed these commands and got the better of the god's orders—telling this myth as if to old women, and making the god act most impiously, weak from the very beginning and unable to persuade even the one man he himself had molded. By these arguments, then, the man of much learning and much erudition, Celsus, who charges both Jews and Christians with ignorance and lack of education, clearly shows just how accurately he knew...
the times of each writer, Greek and barbarian—he who imagines that Hesiod and a host of others, men he terms divinely inspired, precede Moses and his writings in time; Moses, who is demonstrated to be much older than the events at Troy. It was not the Jews, then, who composed the most implausible and most tasteless things about the earth-born man, but the men whom Celsus calls inspired, Hesiod and his own countless others,
who neither learned nor heard the far older and most venerable accounts current in Palestine, wrote such histories about ancient matters as theogonies as well, attributing to the gods, so far as lay in their power, an origin, and countless other things besides. It is with good reason, then, that Plato expels from his own republic, as ruining the young, Homer and those who write such poems. But Plato clearly
did not think that the men who left behind such poems had become inspired; whereas the man more capable of judging than Plato, Celsus the Epicurean—if indeed this is the same man who also composed the other two books against the Christians—perhaps, in his rivalry with us, called men inspired whom he did not himself think inspired, applying to them the term "inspired." He charges us with introducing a man molded by the hands of God, whereas the book of Genesis
has taken up "hands" of God neither for the making of man nor for his molding. But since Job and David say, "your hands made me and molded me," concerning which "much" is "the account" needed to set forth what was intended by those who said these things—not only about the difference between making and molding, but also about the hands of God—which
those who have not understood such expressions drawn from the divine scriptures suppose that we attribute to the God over all a form of the sort the human body has, on which reasoning it would follow that we also think there are wings on the body of God, since the scriptures concerning our God also say these things, taken according to the letter. But to explain these matters now is not
required by the task before us; for we have already, so far as was possible, examined them in the first place in our commentaries on Genesis. Now observe Celsus' malice in what follows. For when our scripture says, of the fashioning of man, "he blew into his countenance a breath of life, so that man came to be a living soul," Celsus, in his malicious wish to mock
the phrase "he blew into his countenance a breath of life"—which he has not even understood, as to how it is meant—wrote that they composed a man molded by the hands of God and inflated, so that anyone who supposed "inflated" to be spoken in a manner similar to inflated wineskins might laugh at "he blew into his countenance a breath of life" as spoken figuratively and in need of explanation—an explanation showing that God imparted to man a portion of his incorruptible
spirit; in accordance with which it is said, "your incorruptible spirit is in all things." Then, since his aim was to defame what is written, he also mocked the statement: "God brought a trance down upon Adam, so that he fell asleep; then he took one of his ribs, replacing it with flesh, and from the rib taken out of Adam he fashioned a woman."
and so on, without even setting out the wording that could alert the hearer that it was spoken by way of figurative interpretation. And he was not willing to grant that such things are told allegorically—although further on he says that the more reasonable among both Jews and Christians, ashamed of these passages, attempt somehow to allegorize them. One might say to him: is it, then, that what is said by your inspired Hesiod
in the form of a myth about the woman is to be taken allegorically—namely that this "evil" was given to men by Zeus "in exchange for fire"—while the woman taken from the rib of the one who slept after the "ecstasy," and built up by God, seems to you to have been spoken without any figure and without any concealment at all? But it is not reasonable to refuse to laugh at the one as a myth
and instead to marvel at it as philosophy expressed in the form of a myth, while at the other, fixing one's understanding on the bare wording alone, one sneers and supposes it will be of no account. For if it is on the basis of the bare wording that one must accuse things spoken with hidden meanings, see whether it is not rather Hesiod's words that will incur ridicule—words written, as you say, by an inspired man: "But cloud-gathering Zeus, angered, addressed him: 'Son of Iapetus, knowing counsel beyond all,
you rejoice at having stolen fire and outwitted my mind—a great affliction to yourself and to men still to come. To them I will give, in exchange for fire, an evil in which they will all delight in their hearts, embracing their own misfortune.' So he spoke, and the father of men and gods laughed aloud, and he commanded famed Hephaestus with all speed to mix earth with water, and
to put into it human voice and strength, and to make it resemble in face the immortal goddesses, the fair, lovely form of a maiden; and Athena to teach her crafts, to weave the intricate loom; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace about her head, and painful longing, and cares that consume the limbs; and to put into her a doglike mind and a thievish character (he bade Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argus, do this). So he spoke, and they obeyed lord Zeus, son of Cronus.
At once the famed Lame God molded out of earth something resembling a modest maiden, by the counsels of the son of Cronus; and the grey-eyed goddess Athena girded and adorned her; and around her the goddesses, the Graces, and queenly Persuasion placed golden necklaces upon her skin; and around her the lovely-haired Seasons crowned her with spring flowers; and Pallas Athena fitted every adornment to her skin; and within her breast the guide, the slayer of Argus,
fashioned lies and wily words and a thievish character, by the will of deep-thundering Zeus; and the herald of the gods put a voice within her, and named this woman Pandora, because all who have their homes on Olympus gave her a gift—a calamity for men who live by bread. And ridiculous in itself, too, is what is said about the jar: that before this, the tribes of men lived upon the earth apart
from evils and apart from grievous toil and from painful diseases, which give death to men. But the woman, removing with her hands the great lid of the jar, scattered its contents, and devised grievous sorrows for mankind. Only Hope remained there within, in her unbreakable dwelling, under the rim of the jar, and did not fly out the door; for before that could happen, the lid of the jar closed it in. Against this man, then, who allegorizes these things so solemnly—whether he does so rightly
whether by allegory or not, we will say: is it only to the Greeks that it is permitted to philosophize by way of hidden meaning, and also to the Egyptians, and to as many of the barbarians as pride themselves on their mysteries and their truth—while only the Jews, in your view, and their lawgiver and their writers, seemed to be the most foolish of all men, and this nation alone has partaken of no power of God? That a people so magnificently taught should
ascend to the uncreated nature of God and look to him alone, and expect its hopes from him alone? But since Celsus also makes a mockery of the account concerning the serpent as one who works against God's commands to man, supposing the story to be some myth similar to those handed down to old wives, and deliberately named neither God's "paradise" nor
the fact that it is said that "God" planted it "toward the east, in Eden," and thereafter made "every tree that is pleasant to look upon and good to eat" spring up "from the ground, along with the tree of life set in the midst of the garden, and the tree bearing knowledge of good and of evil," together with what is said following these—matters capable by themselves of stirring a reader who comes to them with goodwill, since all these things
are interpreted tropologically in no unworthy manner. Come, let us set alongside them, from Plato's Symposium, what is said about Love, put into the mouth of Socrates, and how it is set forth more solemnly than everything said about him by all the other speakers in the Symposium, and attributed to Socrates. Plato's text runs thus: "At Aphrodite's birth, the gods gathered for a banquet, Poros son of Metis among them. And when the meal was finished,"
"Penia came to beg, as was natural when there was a banquet, and she was about the doors. Now Poros, having gotten drunk on nectar—for wine did not yet exist—went into the garden of Zeus and, weighed down, fell asleep. So Penia, plotting because of her own lack of resources to have a child by Poros, lay down beside him and conceived Love. For this reason too"
"Love became a follower and attendant of Aphrodite, having been born at her birthday feast, and at the same time being by nature a lover of the beautiful, since Aphrodite too is beautiful. Being then the son of Poros and Penia, Love finds himself in such a condition as this. First, poverty is his constant state, and he is nowhere near tender and beautiful, as most people imagine, but instead"
"he is rough and squalid and unshod and homeless, always lying on the ground without a bed, sleeping in the open at doorways and along roads, having his mother's nature, always dwelling together with need. But in turn, after his father, he schemes against what is beautiful and good, being courageous and impetuous and intense, a formidable hunter, always weaving contrivances, a lover of practical wisdom and resourceful,"
"philosophizing throughout the whole of his life, a formidable sorcerer and drug-mixer and sophist. And he is by nature neither immortal nor mortal, but on the same day he now flourishes and lives, whenever he has resources, and now he dies, and again comes back to life on account of his father's nature. And what is procured for him always flows away, so that Love is never without resources nor ever rich. Of wisdom"
...and again is in the midst of ignorance." For will those who come upon these things, if they imitate Celsus's malice — which be far from Christians — laugh the myth to scorn and hold so great a man as Plato up to mockery? But if, examining philosophically what is said in the form of a myth, they are able to discover Plato's intention . . . , in what way he was able to
hide, for the sake of the many, the doctrines that seemed great to him, in the guise of a myth, while saying that those who understood ought to discover from myths the intention, concerning the truth, of the one who composed them. I set out this myth found in Plato on account of "the garden of Zeus" in him, which seems to have something similar to the paradise of God, and Poverty,
who is compared there to the serpent, and Resource, who is plotted against by Poverty, to the man plotted against by the serpent. It is not at all clear, however, whether Plato happened upon these things by coincidence, or whether, as some suppose, having encountered on his journey to Egypt those who philosophize according to the ways of the Jews, and having learned certain things from them, he preserved some and altered others,
taking care not to offend the Greeks by preserving the wisdom of the Jews in every respect, since it was disparaged by the many on account of the strangeness of its laws and the peculiar constitution they had. But this was not the moment to recount either Plato's myth or the narrative touching the serpent, God's paradise, and everything set down there as having taken place; for we have already discussed these matters at length, to the extent we were able, in
the commentaries on Genesis, where such matters are our proper business. And when he says that Moses' account most impiously introduced God as weak from the very beginning and unable to win over so much as one human being of his own making, we shall say in reply to this that what is said is like the case of someone who charged God with the origin of vice,
a thing God has proven powerless to avert in even one human being, such that not a single man since the beginning could be found free of vice's touch. For just as those who are concerned to make a defense concerning providence on this point make their defense with no small or contemptible arguments, so too those who have understood that Adam, in the Greek tongue, means
"man," will philosophize concerning Adam and his sin, and in what appears to be said about Adam, Moses is giving a physical account of human nature. For "in Adam," as scripture states, "all die," and condemnation came upon them "after the pattern of Adam's trespass" — the divine word speaking thus not so much of one particular man as of the whole race. For indeed in
the sequence of what is said as though about one person, the curse of Adam is common to all; and there is no woman of whom what is said against the woman is not said. And the man cast out of paradise along with the woman, clothed in "garments of skin," which God made for the sinners on account of the transgression of human beings, has a certain hidden and mystical
it makes some sense, beyond Plato's account of the soul's descent, shedding its wings and being carried down here, "until it takes hold of something solid." Next he says something like this: then some flood and a strange ark, holding everything within it, with a dove and a crow serving as messengers, twisting and tampering with the Deucalion story. For I do not suppose they expected these tales to be exposed to scrutiny, but told them simply as stories for little children,
they made them into myths. And in this, observe the unphilosophical hostility of the man toward the most ancient writing of the Jews. For since he was unable to find fault with the account of the flood, nor had he examined what he might have been able to say against the ark and its measurements, and how it was impossible, taken in the sense most people take it, that the ark, which was said to be "three hundred" cubits in length,
"and fifty" cubits in width, "and thirty" in height, could have held all the land animals—clean animals in groups of fourteen, unclean in groups of four—he simply called it outlandish, containing everything inside. For what is outlandish about it, when it is recorded as having been made over a hundred years and assembled with a length of "three hundred" cubits and a width of "fifty,"
until the thirty cubits of height come down to a single cubit of length and width? And how would it not have been far more astonishing for the construction to be described, in terms of its capacity, as resembling a vast city—its length at the base being ninety thousand units and its width two thousand five hundred? And how could one not marvel at the design, that it was made
sturdy enough and able to withstand a storm capable of producing a flood? For indeed it was coated firmly not with pitch nor any other such material, but with bitumen. And how is it not astonishing that living sparks of every kind were brought in inside it, by the providence of God, so that the earth might again have the seeds of every animal, God having made use of a most righteous man, who was to become the father of those after the flood? Celsus threw out
the matter concerning the dove, so as to appear to have read the book of Genesis, though he was unable to say anything to demonstrate that the account of the dove is fictitious. Then, as is his habit, translating what is written into something more ridiculous, he has changed "the raven" into a crow, and thinks that Moses wrote these things, playing tricks with the story of Deucalion current among the Greeks—unless indeed he does not even think
the writing is Moses's, but that of several people. For that is what "falsifying and playing tricks with the story of Deucalion" indicates, and also this: "for I do not think they expected these things to come to light." But how is it that those who gave writings to an entire nation did not expect them to come to light—they who even prophesied that this worship of God would be proclaimed to all the nations? And Jesus, saying to the Jews, "the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits"—what else was he arranging than to bring forward, himself by divine power, into the light the whole Jewish scripture, which contains the mysteries of the kingdom of God? Then, if they read the Greeks' accounts of the birth of the gods along with the twelve gods' legends, they treat them reverently with allegories, but if they read the
want to disparage our writings, they say outright that these things were made up as myths for little children. He calls the begetting of children absurd in the extreme and out of season—though he does not name names, it is plain he means Abraham and Sarah. And when he flings out the plots of brothers against one another, he means either Cain plotting against Abel, or, besides him, Esau against Jacob; and a father's grief—perhaps
Isaac's, over Jacob's journey abroad, or perhaps Jacob's, over Joseph being sold into Egypt. And by recording the schemings of mothers, I think he means to point to Rebecca, who arranged that Isaac's blessings should fall not on Esau but on Jacob. Now if we say that God is a close associate in all these affairs, what absurdity
are we committing in believing that his own divinity never departs from those devoted to him who live nobly and with strength of purpose? He also mocked Jacob's acquiring of property while with Laban, not understanding what the statement refers to: "And the unmarked animals belonged to Laban, but the marked ones to Jacob." And he says that God gave the sons little donkeys and little sheep and camels—
and he did not see that "all this befell them by way of a pattern, and it was set down on account of us, on whom the culmination of the ages has arrived": among whom the various characters, becoming "marked" by the word of God, conduct their lives—given as a possession to the one figuratively called Jacob. For by what is recorded concerning Laban and Jacob, those from the nations who believe in him were signified. Far indeed
is he from grasping the intent of what is written when he says that God also gave wells to the righteous. For he failed to notice that the righteous do not dig cisterns but dig "wells," seeking to find the inherent spring and source of drinkable goods, since they also take up, in a figurative sense, the commandment that says: "Drink water from your own vessels, and from the spring of your own wells. Let not
your waters overflow beyond your own spring, but let your waters pass through into your own streets. Let them belong to you alone, and let no stranger share in them with you." In many places the word made use of things that actually happened, and recorded them to represent greater matters signified beneath the surface—such as the matters concerning wells, and concerning the marriages and various unions
of the righteous, about which one will attempt to give a clearer explanation more fittingly in the commentaries devoted to those very passages. And that wells were indeed constructed in the land of the Philistines by the righteous, as is recorded in Genesis, is plain from the wells still shown at Ashkelon, which are wondrous and worthy of note on account of how strange and different their construction is compared with other wells.
As for brides and maidservants being interpreted allegorically—it is not we who teach this, but something we have received from the sages of old, one of whom said, rousing his hearer to allegorical reading: "Tell me, you who read the law, do you not listen to the law? Scripture records that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. Now the one by the slave woman"
...has been born according to the flesh, but the other, from the free woman, through the promise. These things are spoken allegorically; for these are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar"; and shortly after: "but the Jerusalem above," he says, "is free, and she is our mother." Whoever wishes to take up the letter to the Galatians will know in what way
the matters concerning the marriages and unions with the maidservants have been treated allegorically, since the argument wants us too not to emulate the bodily acts, as they are reckoned, of those who did these things, but rather those which Jesus' apostles are in the habit of calling the spiritual acts. And it was necessary that he, having accepted the truth-loving character of those who wrote down the divine scriptures — who did not conceal even the incongruous things — should have proceeded also concerning the rest
and more paradoxical matters as not having been fabricated; but he has done the opposite even in the case of Lot and his daughters, having examined it neither according to the letter nor inquired into according to its deeper sense, and called it more lawless than the evils of Thyestes. Now it is not necessary at present to speak of the tropological interpretation regarding the place — what Sodom is, and what the word of the angels was to the one being saved from there
who said, "Do not look back, nor stand anywhere in the surrounding region; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them" — and who Lot was, and who his wife was, who turned into "a pillar of salt" precisely because she looked back, and who his daughters were, who made their father drunk so that children might be born to him through them. But let us
console, in a few words, the seeming incongruity in the narrative. The Greeks too sought the nature of good things, bad things, and indifferent things; and those among them who arrive at it place the good and the bad in choice alone, and say, according to their own reasoning, that all things examined apart from choice are indifferent; and that choice, in its use of these, is rightly praiseworthy when used rightly, but not
rightly, blameworthy when used wrongly. I said, then, in the section on indifferent things, that to have intercourse with one's daughters is, by their own reasoning, indifferent, even though it is not proper to do such a thing in established societies; and for the sake of a hypothesis, to establish that such a thing is indifferent, they have taken as their example the wise man left alone with only his daughter, the whole human race having perished, and they inquire
whether it would be fitting for the father to unite with his daughter so that, according to this very hypothesis, the whole human race might not perish. Is it, then, that among the Greeks these things are spoken of soundly, and the sect of the Stoics — no contemptible one — argues in their favor; but when a young girl, having learned about the conflagration of the world but not having clearly grasped it, having seen fire engulfing their city and
their land, supposing that a spark of the human race had been left in her father and in herself, should wish, on account of such a supposition, to repopulate the world — will she be inferior to the wise man of the Stoic hypothesis, who fittingly, in the destruction of all mankind, unites with his daughters? I am not unaware that some, taking offense at the intention of Lot's daughters, call it unholy
they have supposed it to be his work, and they say that from unholy unions were born accursed nations, the Moabites and the Ammonites — and indeed it is not to be found that divine scripture has plainly approved this as having happened well, or has blamed and censured it either; still, however the event stands, it is referred to an allegorical meaning, and it also has a defense of its own on its own terms. Celsus casts about
the enmity, I suppose, of Esau toward Jacob, a man acknowledged by scripture to be worthless; and without clearly setting out the matter of Simeon and Levi, who avenged the outrage of their sister when she was violated by the son of the king of the Shechemites, he blames them; and he says that the sons of Jacob sold their own brother, and that Joseph was a brother sold into slavery,
and that Jacob was a father deceived, since, suspecting nothing about his sons when they displayed the "many-colored tunic" of Joseph but trusting them, "he mourned for Joseph as lost," though he was actually a slave in Egypt. But see in what a hostile and truth-hating manner Celsus has gathered his material from the history: so that wherever the history seemed to him to contain an accusation, he sets it out, but wherever
a notable display of self-control occurred — Joseph not yielding to the passion of the woman reputed to be his mistress, who at one moment coaxed him and at another threatened him — of that history he made no mention at all. For we might see Joseph as far superior to what is told of Bellerophon, choosing to be shut up in prison rather than to lose his self-controlled mind; for though he was able to defend and justify himself against his accuser, he magnanimously kept silent,
entrusting his own affairs to God. After this, Celsus, for the sake of piety, recalls with a great deal of obscurity the dreams of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker and of Pharaoh, and their interpretation, through which Joseph was brought up from prison and given, by Pharaoh's trust, the second throne over the Egyptians. What then was there absurd in the account
of the history, considered on its own, that he who entitled his work True Account — a work which does not set forth doctrines but accuses Christians and Jews — placed these things among his accusations? And of the brothers who sold him, when they were starving and were sent on a trading mission with the donkeys, he says that the one who had been sold treated them kindly, doing things that Celsus did not even set forth; and he mentions the recognition scene too, though I do not know what
he intends, or what absurdity he means to point out from the recognition. For not even Momus himself, one might say, could reasonably bring an accusation against these things, which, apart even from their allegorical sense, have great power to draw one in. He also mentions that Joseph, sold into slavery though he had been, was set free and returned in a procession to his father's grave, and he thinks the account contains an accusation when he says
this: that by him — clearly meaning Joseph — the splendid and marvelous race of the Jews, having multiplied greatly in Egypt, was ordered to dwell apart somewhere and to herd flocks among the despised. And he added, out of his own hostile disposition, the claim that they were ordered to herd flocks among the despised, without showing how Goshen, the Egyptian district, is despised, nor the exodus from Egypt
he called it a flight of the people, without even recalling from the start what is written in Exodus about how the Hebrews came out of Egyptian land. But we have set these things out too, to show that Celsus assigned to the category of accusation and nonsense even things that did not appear worthy of accusation according to their plain sense, without demonstrating by argument what he supposes to be corrupt in our scripture. Then,
as though he had devoted himself only to hating and being hostile to the teaching held by Jews and Christians, he says that even the more reasonable among Jews and Christians allegorize these things; and he says that, being ashamed of them, they take refuge in allegory. One might say to him that if the things according to the first, literal sense must be called worthy of shame, as myths and fabrications—whether
written with an underlying meaning or in whatever other way—of whom should this be said rather than of the Greek stories? In these, son-gods castrate father-gods, and father-gods swallow son-gods, and a goddess mother gives back to the father, in exchange for her son, a stone "of men and gods," and a daughter is taken by her own father in intercourse, while a wife ties her husband down, enlisting helpers for the binding
the brother of the one bound and his daughter—and why should I need to list the absurd Greek stories about the gods, which are shameful on their very face and yet are allegorized? Seeing that even Chrysippus of Soli, who is thought to have adorned the Stoa of the philosophers with many learned writings, misinterprets the painting at Samos, in which Hera was depicted performing an unspeakable act upon Zeus. For that solemn philosopher says in
his own writings that matter, having received the seminal principles of god, holds them within itself for the ordering of the universe; for the Hera and the god Zeus in the painting at Samos are matter and god. And it is on account of these myths, and countless others like them, that we are unwilling even so much as to use the name
"Zeus" for the god over all things, or "Apollo" for the sun, or "Artemis" for the moon; but practicing pure piety toward the Creator and speaking well of his beautiful works, we do not defile things divine even in name, accepting Plato's statement in the Philebus, where, unwilling to admit pleasure as a god, he says: "For my own, Protarchus," he says, "awe concerning the
names of the gods is of this kind"—we, then, truly have "awe" concerning the name of God and his beautiful works, so as not to admit some myth even on the pretext of allegorical interpretation, to the harm of the young. But if Celsus had read the scripture without bias, he would not have claimed our writings were incapable of bearing an allegorical sense. For from the prophecies, in
which the historical events are recorded, it is possible to proceed—not as from mere history—also to the histories themselves, as written with a view to allegorical interpretation and arranged most wisely, aimed both at the multitude of those who believe more simply and at the few who wish or are able to examine matters with understanding. And whether those regarded today, according to Celsus, as the more reasonable among Jews and Christians
...they were allegorizing what is written, perhaps Celsus might be suspected of saying something plausible. But since the very fathers of these doctrines and their authors give such passages a figurative interpretation, what else is one to infer than that they were written in such a way as to be interpreted figuratively according to their primary sense? We will set out a few examples from a great many, to show that Celsus slanders our scriptures in vain, as though
they were not capable of admitting allegory. It is the apostle of Jesus, Paul, who states: "Within the law stands written: do not muzzle an ox as it treads the grain. Is it oxen that concern God? Or does he say this entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake, because the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who threshes, in hope of sharing in the crop." And elsewhere the same man says: "For it is written
that for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh; this mystery is great, but I speak it as pointing to Christ and to the church." Elsewhere too he writes: "We would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers, every one of them, were beneath the cloud, and
all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses within the cloud and within the sea." Next, in explaining the story of the manna and the report that water came forth wondrously out of the rock, he speaks something to this effect: "And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from a spiritual
rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." And Asaph, showing that the narratives in Exodus and Numbers are "riddles" and "parables," as recorded in the book of Psalms, when he is about to bring these things to mind, prefaces them in this manner: "Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth;
I will unlock my mouth with parables, I will speak forth riddles from ancient days, things we have heard and come to know, which our fathers recounted to us." But even if the law of Moses contained nothing written that was disclosed through hidden meanings, the prophet, in his prayer, would not have said to God: "Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive the wonders of your law." As it stands,
however, he knew that a certain "veil" of unknowing rests over the hearts of those reading who fail to grasp what is expressed figuratively; and this "veil is taken away" as a gift of God, whenever one heeds him who made all things by himself and who, for the sake of that disposition, trained the senses to discern good and evil, and who very often said in prayer: "Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive
the wonders of your law." Now who, reading of the serpent living in the river of Egypt, and the fish nesting in its scales, or of the mountains of Egypt being filled "from the excrements" of Pharaoh, is not led at once to ask who it is that fills the mountains of the Egyptians with so many foul-smelling "excrements" of his, and what the mountains of the Egyptians
And what are the rivers in Egypt about which the aforementioned Pharaoh boasts, saying, "The rivers are mine, and I made them"? And what is the dragon that corresponds to the rivers that will be shown from the interpretation, and what are the fish among its scales? And why should I go to greater lengths establishing what needs no establishing? Concerning which it is said,
"Who is wise, and will understand these things? Or who is intelligent, and will know them?" I have extended the discussion further because I wanted to show that Celsus has not spoken soundly in saying that the more reasonable among Jews and Christians attempt somehow to allegorize these things, when in fact they are not such as to admit of any allegory but have quite plainly been mythologized in the silliest way. For the Greek myths have been fashioned not only far more silly but also far more impious,
for our own writings have also taken aim at the multitude of the simpler folk—something the makers of the Greek fictions did not guard against. That is why Plato, not without good reason, expels from his republic myths of this sort and poems of this kind. It seems to me too that I have heard there are treatises containing the allegories of the law, which, had he read them, he would not have made this claim; for at any rate the
allegories that are supposed to have been written about them are far uglier and more absurd than the myths, joining together things that can in no way whatsoever be fitted together, by some astonishing and utterly senseless folly. He seems to be speaking here about the writings of Philo, or even of still older writers, such as those of Aristobulus. I conjecture that Celsus has not read these books, since in many places it appears to me that he has been so ill-informed,
that even those among the Greeks who practice philosophy would be captured by the things he says. Among them not only is the diction well-crafted, but also the thoughts and doctrines and the use of what Celsus supposes to be myths taken from the scriptures. I myself know also Numenius the Pythagorean, a man who expounded Plato far better and championed the doctrines of the Pythagoreans, in many places of his writings
setting forth the sayings of Moses and the prophets and interpreting them figuratively in no unpersuasive way, as in the treatise called The Hoopoe and in his works on numbers and on place. And in the third book On the Good he also sets forth a certain story about Jesus, without saying his name, and interprets it figuratively; whether successfully or unsuccessfully is a matter for another occasion
to discuss. He also sets forth the story about Moses and Jannes and Jambres. But we do not take pride in that account; rather, we welcome him all the more than Celsus and the other Greeks, because he was willing, out of love of learning, to examine our writings as well, and was moved as by writings that admit of figurative interpretation and are not foolish. Next after these, having selected from all the writings
containing allegories and narratives, composed in language not to be despised, he says that the cheaper sort—capable of contributing something toward belief for the many and the simpler, but not able to move the more intelligent—is the kind of thing he recognized in the dispute of a certain Papiscus and Jason, worthy not of laughter but rather of pity and hatred. For my part, it is not my purpose to refute these things; for they are plain to everyone, I think, and especially if
...someone would endure and put up with hearing their writings. But I want rather to teach nature this: that God made nothing mortal, but the works of god are all immortal, and mortal things belong to those others. And soul is a work of god, but body is of another nature. And in this respect the body of a bat or a worm or a frog or a human will differ not at all; for the matter is the
same. And their corruptibility is alike. Nonetheless I would wish that anyone whatsoever, having heard Celsus talking grandly and asserting that the treatise entitled the Dispute of Jason and Papiscus concerning Christ is worthy not of laughter but of hatred, would take the little book in hand and endure and put up with hearing what is in it, so that from this very fact he might condemn Celsus, finding nothing worthy of hatred in
the book. And if one reads it without partisanship, he will find that the book does not even provoke laughter, in which is recorded a Christian debating with a Jew from the Jewish scriptures and showing that the prophecies about Christ apply to Jesus, even though the other party maintains the Jewish role in the argument not ignobly nor unbecomingly. I do not know how the
incompatible things, which by nature cannot occur together in human nature, he brought together and said that book was worthy of both pity and hatred. For everyone will agree that the one who is pitied is not hated, when he is pitied, and the one who is hated is not pitied, when he is hated. But Celsus says that he does not propose to refute these things for this reason, since he supposes them to be obvious to everyone, even prior to the
logical refutation, as being worthless and worthy of both pity and hatred. We urge the reader of this defense, written against Celsus's accusation, to bear with it and to listen to our writings, and, as far as possible, to conjecture from what has been written the intention of those who wrote it, and their conscience, and their disposition; for he will find men arguing fervently about what they have come to believe, some of them also displaying
also the recording of a history that has been seen and grasped as extraordinary and worthy of writing for the benefit of those who will hear it. Or let someone dare to say that believing in the God of the universe, and doing everything with reference to pleasing him in every matter, and thinking nothing displeasing to him, is not the source and origin of every benefit — as though not only words and deeds
but also thoughts are to be judged. And what other account could turn human nature more attentively toward living well than faith, or the conviction that the God over all watches over everything we say and do, and even think? For let whoever wishes compare another path, one that turns and improves not merely one person, or a
second, but as many as possible, so that by setting the two paths side by side one may accurately discern which account disposes toward the good. Since, in the passage of Celsus that I set out, which paraphrases certain things from the Timaeus, it is written that god made nothing mortal but only immortal things, while what is mortal is the handiwork of others, and
The soul, indeed, is the work of God, but the body has a different nature, and a human body differs in no respect from the body of a bat or a worm or a frog: the matter underlying them is identical, and their liability to decay is equal. Come, let us discuss these points too briefly, refuting the man who either does not acknowledge his own Epicurean opinion or, as one might say, later changed to better views,
or, as someone else might say, is merely the namesake of the Epicurean. For it was such things he ought to have declared, and to have argued the contrary — proposing this not only to us but also to the not ignoble school of philosophers descended from Zeno of Citium — namely, to demonstrate that animal bodies owe nothing to God's workmanship, and that the great skill evident in them has not come from the
primal mind. And regarding the many kinds of plants too, governed by an inherent, unperceiving nature, and having come into being for use — not something to be despised in the universe as a whole — for the benefit of human beings and of the animals that serve human beings, however else they might exist, he ought not merely to have declared but also to have taught that no perfect mind produced such great and varied qualities in the matter of the
plants. But if he once made gods the craftsmen of all bodies, on the ground that soul alone is the work of God, how was it not the next step for him, who was dividing up so many works of craftsmanship and assigning them to many, to construct — with some argument not to be despised — distinctions among the gods: these fashioning human bodies, others, let us say, the bodies of cattle, and others of wild beasts? And he ought, seeing gods as craftsmen of serpents and
asps and basilisks — and that there are certain craftsmen for each individual species of these, and others for the species of each plant and each herb — to state the causes of these divisions. For perhaps, had he devoted himself to the precision of the inquiry proper to this subject, he would either have maintained one god as craftsman of all things, who made each thing for some purpose and for the sake of something, or, if he did not maintain this,
he would have seen what defense he ought to offer regarding a matter that is, to his own view of nature, a matter of indifference — namely, that of what is perishable — and that it is nothing absurd for a world composed of dissimilar things to have come into being through a single craftsman, who fashions the differences among the species to the advantage of the whole. Or at the very least he ought not even to have made a pronouncement at the outset about so weighty a doctrine, if he was not going to demonstrate what he professed to teach; unless,
of course, the man who reproaches those who profess mere belief himself wanted us to believe the things he had merely declared — even though he professed not to declare but to teach. I am not yet even saying that he would have noticed, had he put up with and consented to listen to the writings, as he calls them, of Moses and the prophets, why it is that 'God made' is used with reference to heaven and earth, and
of the so-called firmament, and further also of the lights and the stars, and after these of the great sea creatures and of every living soul among the 'creeping things which the waters brought forth according to their kinds,' and of every winged bird 'according to kind,' and next, after these, of the beasts 'of the earth according to kind,' and of the cattle 'according to kind,' and of all the creeping things 'of the
...their kind, and last of all in the case of man. But since "he made" is not said concerning the other things, the text is content, in the case of light, with "let there be light," and in the case of the single gathering together of all the water under the whole of heaven, with "and it was so"; and likewise also in the case of the things that sprouted from the earth, when "the earth brought forth vegetation, grass sowing seed according to its kind
and according to likeness, and a fruit-bearing tree producing fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind, upon the earth." And he would have asked whether the written commands of God concerning the coming into being of each part of the world were spoken to someone or to several persons, and he would not so readily have accused as unintelligible, and as possessing no hidden understanding, the things written either by Moses
in these passages, or, to put it in our own words, by the divine spirit residing in Moses, from which he also prophesied — since he knew, better than those among the poets who are said to have learned such things from seers, the things that are, the things that will be, and the things that were before. Further, since Celsus says that the soul is a work of God, while the body is of a different nature, and that in this respect
the body of a bat, a maggot, a frog, or a human being will differ in no way, since the matter is the same and their corruptibility alike — we must also say in reply to this argument of his that if a bat's body, a maggot's, a frog's, and a human being's all rest upon identical matter, so that these bodies will not differ from one another, then clearly the bodies of these will not differ from those
of the sun, the moon, the stars, the heaven, or of anything else whatsoever termed among the Greeks a perceptible god. For the same matter, which underlies all bodies, is in its own proper account without quality and without shape, and I do not know, on Celsus's principles — since he does not wish anything corruptible to be a work of God — by what it is that it receives its qualities. For whatever is corruptible must necessarily, in every case,
since it has come to be out of the same underlying matter, be, according to Celsus, of like character to its own account. Unless, that is, Celsus, hard-pressed at this point, will leap away from Plato, who makes the soul out of a certain mixing-bowl, and take refuge instead with Aristotle and the Peripatetics, who say that the aether is immaterial and that it is of a fifth nature besides the four elements — a position on which
both the Platonists and the Stoics have taken their stand, and not without reason. And we too, despised though we are by Celsus, will take our stand, when we are called upon to explain and to establish what is said in the prophet thus: "The heavens will perish, but you will remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up [like a garment], and they will be changed. But you are the same,
you are." Still, it is enough to answer Celsus, even granting this much, that though the soul is a work of God while the body is of a different nature, the logical consequence of his own position is that the body of a bat, or a maggot, or a frog does not differ at all from an ethereal body. See, then, whether one ought to side with someone who accuses the Christians on the basis of such doctrines, while abandoning his own argument by granting that there is a difference among bodies owing to the qualities attached to them, and
concerning bodies. For we too know that there are "both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies," and that the "glory" of "heavenly" bodies is one thing and that of "earthly" ones another, and that not even "heavenly" bodies share the same glory; for the sun's splendor is one thing, and the splendor belonging to the stars another, and even among the stars themselves "one star outshines another in splendor." Therefore also the resurrection "of the dead"
we accept, we say that changes occur in the qualities present in bodies; since some of them, though put into the ground perishable, come up imperishable, and put in dishonor are raised in glory, and put in weakness rise again in power, and natural bodies, when sown, are raised as spiritual bodies. As for the underlying matter being receptive of the qualities the creator wishes, all of us who accept providence maintain this;
and when God wills it, the quality now present regarding this matter is of a certain kind, and afterward, let us say, of another kind — better and different. And since there are also ordered paths of the changes that occur in bodies, from the time the world exists and for as long as it exists, I do not know whether, once a new and different path has taken over after the destruction of the world — the very path which our own
discourses call the consummation  it would not be surprising if, in the present case, a snake, transformed from a dead human being, as most people say, arises from the spinal marrow, and a bee arising from an ox, a wasp born of a horse, and a beetle springing from a donkey, and, quite simply, worms out of most bodies. Celsus supposes this shows that none of these creatures is God's work, but rather that
the qualities  I do not know from where  being thus ordered, come to be these from those, are not the work of some divine reason altering the qualities in matter. Further, we say this too to Celsus, who asserted: the soul stands as God's work, whereas the body belongs to another nature  and who has thrown out so great a doctrine not only without preparation but also without definition; for he did not make clear whether every
soul is a work of God, or only the rational one. We say to him, then: if every soul without exception is God's work, this plainly takes in even the souls of irrational and most worthless creatures, so that for every body too there would be a nature different from that of the soul. Yet he seems, in what follows — in which he even says that irrational animals are dearer to God than we are and have a purer conception of the divine —
to be establishing that not only the soul of human beings but much more also that of irrational animals is the work of God; since that is what follows once one calls those creatures dearer to God than ourselves. But if only the rational soul is the work of God, then first, he did not make this clear; and second, it follows from his having spoken without definition about the soul that it is not every soul
but only the rational soul that is the work of God — and that not every body has a different nature. But if not every body has a different nature, but rather the body of each animal is proportionate to its soul, it is clear that wherever the soul is the work of God, its body would differ from the body in which dwells a soul that is not the work of God. And thus it would prove false
the body of a bat, or a worm, or a frog would differ not at all from that of a human being. For indeed it would be absurd for stones to be considered purer or more polluted than other stones, and buildings than other buildings, on the ground that they were constructed in honor of the divine or for the reception of the most dishonorable and accursed bodies, while bodies did not differ from bodies according to whether the beings dwelling in them were rational or irrational, and
among rational beings, whether they were the more excellent or the basest of men. It is just such a notion that has emboldened some to deify the bodies of distinguished persons, on the ground that they received a noble soul, and to cast away or dishonor the bodies of the basest, not because such a practice is altogether sound, but because it took its origin from some sound conception. Or will the wise man, in like manner, after the death of Anytus and
Socrates, concern himself with the burial of Socrates' body and that of Anytus, and build a similar mound or tomb for both alike? And this too, because none of these things is the work of a god — the same god who is said to be responsible both for the human body and for the snakes that come from that body, and for the body of an ox and the bees born from an ox's body, and for the
body of a horse or of an ass, together with the wasps born from a horse and the beetles born from an ass — on account of which we were compelled to take up again the point that soul is the work of god, but body is of a different nature. Then next he says that the nature of all the aforesaid bodies is common, and one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And it is clear from what has already been said in reply to this too that
the nature is common not only to the bodies previously enumerated but also to the "heavenly" bodies. And if this is indeed so, it is clear that, according to him — though I do not know whether it is also so in truth — the nature of all bodies is one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And it is clear that this holds according to those who hold that the world is corruptible; but
even those who do not hold the world to be corruptible, while refusing to admit a "fifth body," will try to show that according to them too the nature of all bodies is one, going out into a reciprocal exchange and returning again. And in this way even that which perishes persists into change; for the substrate, matter, persists when the quality perishes, according to those who introduce it as ungenerated. If, however,
some argument should be able to demonstrate that it is not ungenerated but came to be for some particular need, plainly it does not share, as regards permanence, the same nature supposed for that which is ungenerated. But it does not lie before us now, as we meet Celsus' accusations, to discourse on natural philosophy. He says that nothing born of matter is immortal. And in reply to this it will be said that, if in truth nothing sprung from matter is immortal, then one alternative is that the whole
world is immortal, and not as being born of matter, or it too is not an immortal thing. If, then, the world is immortal — a view also welcomed by those who hold that god's work is the soul alone, itself said to have arisen from a certain mixing-bowl — let Celsus show that it did not come to be out of qualityless matter, while holding to the principle that nothing born of matter is immortal; but if
Since the world is the offspring of matter, the world is not immortal; the world is mortal. Is it, then, also subject to destruction, or not? For if it is subject to destruction, it will be, as the work of God, subject to destruction; and then, in the destruction of the world, what will the soul, which is God's work, do? Let Celsus say. But if, twisting the concept of "immortal," he says that
though it is destructible it is nevertheless not destroyed, and is thus immortal, as being receptive of death yet not in fact dying—clearly on his view something will be at once mortal and immortal, by being receptive of both; and there will be a mortal thing that does not die, and what is not immortal by nature will, contrary to "not dying," be called immortal in its own peculiar sense. By what meaning, then, does he distinguish and say that
nothing born of matter is immortal? And you see that these notions, when pressed and put to the test, are refuted by the very letters that contain them, since they do not admit of anything noble or unassailable. Having said this, he adds that on this subject so much is sufficient; and if anyone is able to hear and inquire further, he will know. Let us, then, who by his reckoning are unintelligent, see what follows for one who is able even
to hear a little of him and to inquire. Next, what has been investigated in various ways, through many arguments not to be despised, concerning the nature of evils, and explained in different ways, he thinks we can learn through a few little phrases, saying: "Evils in existing things have neither in the past nor now nor in the future been less or more; for the nature of the whole is one
and the same, and the coming-to-be of evils is always the same." This too seems to have been paraphrased from the passages in the Theaetetus, where the Socrates of Plato says: "But it is not possible for evils to be destroyed from among men, nor can they be established among the gods," and so on. And it seems to me that he has not even heard Plato accurately—this man who claims to encompass the truth in this one
treatise of his and who entitles his book against us True Doctrine. For the passage in the Timaeus which says, "whenever the gods cleanse the earth with water," has shown that the earth, once cleansed by the waters, has fewer evils than it had in the time before its cleansing. And we say this, in agreement with Plato, that evils are at some times fewer, because of
the passage in the Theaetetus which says that it is not possible for "evils to be destroyed from among men." But I do not know in what way, positing providence, he says, so far as the wording of this book goes, that evils are neither more nor fewer but as it were fixed in number—thereby doing away with the excellent doctrine that vice, and evils, are indeterminate and, by their own nature, unlimited.
And it seems to follow from the claim that evils have neither become nor are nor will become fewer or more, that just as, according to those who hold the world to be indestructible, the equal balance of the elements comes about through providence, which does not allow any one of them to gain the advantage, lest the world be destroyed—so likewise a kind of providence, as it were, stands guard over evils, which happen to be just so many, so that they may become neither more nor
...lesser. And Celsus's account of evils is refuted in another way as well, from the philosophers who have examined and set forth the truth about goods and evils, and from history: that at first the courtesans, wearing masks, hired themselves out to those who wanted them outside the city, but later, growing contemptuous, they set aside the masks, and since the laws did not permit them to enter the cities, they stayed outside them.
But as depravity increased day by day, they eventually dared even to enter the cities. Chrysippus reports this in his Introduction on Good and Evil Things. From this one can grasp that, as evils become more numerous or fewer, those called "ambiguous" once held a leading position, both suffering and inflicting, and enslaved to the desires of those who came in to them; but later
the market officials drove them out. And one could speak of countless things that entered human life from vice once it had spread abroad, of which it can be said that they did not exist before. The most ancient histories, at any rate, for all that they accuse wrongdoers of countless things, know nothing of people who commit unspeakable acts. How, from these examples and others like them, does Celsus not appear ridiculous, in thinking that evils never become either more
or fewer? For even granting that the universe's nature is single and unchanging, it hardly follows that the origin of evils remains forever identical. For just as, although the nature of this or that particular man is one and the same, the state of his governing faculty, his reason, and his actions is not always the same — at one time
he has not yet taken up reason at all, at another time he has vice along with reason, and this vice is poured out either more or less; and there are times when, having been turned toward virtue and making progress, he advances either more or less, and sometimes he even reaches virtue itself, which occurs in a greater or lesser number of areas of contemplation — so it can be said, all the more, also concerning the nature of the universe,
that even granting it is single and uniform in kind, the same things, or things of the same kind, do not always occur in the whole. For there are not always good harvests, nor always failed harvests, nor always heavy rains, nor always droughts; and in the same way there are not fixed abundances or scarcities of better souls, and there is a greater or lesser outpouring of worse ones. And this account of evils is necessary for those who wish
to examine everything as precisely as possible, since things do not always remain in the same state, on account of the providence that either preserves what is on earth or purifies it by floods and conflagrations — and perhaps not only what is on earth but also what is in the whole cosmos, when it stands in need of purification, whenever great vice has arisen within it. After this Celsus says:
"What the origin of evils is, is not easy for one who has not studied philosophy to know, but it is enough for the general public to be told that evils do not come from God, but are attached to matter and dwell among mortal beings; and from its beginning to its close, the round of mortal existence stays uniform, so that by the ordained recurring cycles the same things must, of necessity, have occurred before and occur again."
...and will be. Celsus says that the origin of evils is not easy to know for one who has not philosophized, since the one who philosophizes can easily know their origin, while the one who does not philosophize is not able to observe the origin of evils easily — except that, though with effort, it is nonetheless possible to know it. We, however,
also say to this that the origin of evils is not easy to know even for the one who has philosophized, and perhaps it is not possible for these to know it purely either, unless by God's inspiration it is made clear both what the evils are, and it is shown how they came to subsist, and it is understood in what manner they will be done away with. Since, then, ignorance about God is itself among the evils, and since
not knowing the manner of the service owed to God and of piety toward him is also the greatest evil, certainly, even by Celsus's own account, some of those who have philosophized did not know this, which is clear from the differing schools within philosophy; but among us no one who has not come to know that it is an evil to suppose that piety is preserved by abiding in the laws established according to constitutions conceived in the more common way will be able
to know the origin of evils. And no one who has not grasped the matters concerning the one called the devil and his angels — who this being was before he became the devil, and how he became the devil, and what the cause was of his so-called angels revolting along with him — will be able to know the origin of evils. And the one who is going to
know this must also have made a more precise determination concerning demons: that they are not, insofar as they are demons, creations of God, but only insofar as they are certain rational beings; and whence they came to become such that their ruling faculty came to subsist in the condition of demons. If, then, there is any other subject among the matters concerning human beings requiring investigation that is by nature hard to track down for our nature, among these would also be reckoned
the origin of evils. Then, as though he had certain more esoteric things to say about the origin of evils but was keeping silent about those and saying instead what suits the multitude, he says that it is enough, as far as the multitude is concerned, to have said about the origin of evils that evils do not come from God, but are attached to matter and dwell among mortal beings. Now it is true, then, that
evils do not come from God; for according to our Jeremiah too it is clear that "evils and good will not go out from the mouth of the Lord." But that matter, dwelling among mortal beings, is the cause of evils is not true according to us. For each person's ruling faculty is the cause of the vice that comes to subsist in it, and this vice is the evil; and evil too are
the actions that proceed from it. And nothing else, strictly speaking, is evil according to us. But I know that this account requires much elaboration and careful construction, by the grace of God who illuminates the ruling faculty, for those judged by God worthy of it and capable also of attaining the knowledge concerning this subject. I do not know, however, how it seemed useful to Celsus, writing against us, to toss out
a doctrine that requires a great deal of proof, even though it seems to demonstrate, as far as possible, that mortal existence runs a uniform round from its start to its close, and that by the ordained recurring cycles the same things must, of necessity, always have occurred and be occurring and be destined to occur. But if this is true, what is up to us is abolished. For if according to the fixed recurrences it is necessary that the same things always
have happened and be happening and be going to happen within the cycle of mortal things, then it is clear that it is necessary that Socrates will always philosophize and always be accused over strange divinities and the corruption of the young, that Anytus and Meletus will always accuse him, and that the council of the Areopagus will always condemn him to die by drinking hemlock; and by that same logic it must always be, according to the fixed cycles,
Phalaris will be a tyrant and Alexander of Pherae will commit the same acts of savagery, and that those condemned to Phalaris's bull will always bellow within it. If these things are granted, I do not know how what is up to us will be preserved, or how praise and blame will make sense any longer. Against such a hypothesis it will be said to Celsus that, if indeed the cycle of mortal things is the same
from beginning to end forever, and according to the fixed recurrences the same things must always both have happened and be happening and be going to happen, then it is necessary that always, according to the fixed cycles, Moses went out of Egypt with the people of the Jews, and that Jesus will again come to dwell among the living to do the same things, things he has done not once but infinitely many times according to the cycles; and moreover that the Christians themselves
will be the very same people in the fixed recurrences, and that Celsus will again write this very book, having already written it infinitely many times before. Celsus, then, says that only the cycle of mortal things has, by necessity, according to the fixed recurrences, always come to be and be and will be; but most of the Stoics say that it is not only the cycle of mortal things that is like this, but also that
of the immortals and of the gods according to their teaching. For after the conflagration of the universe, which has occurred infinitely many times and will occur infinitely many times, the very same order has come to be and will come to be from beginning to end of all things. Yet, in trying somehow to remedy the absurdities of this, the Stoics say — I do not know how — that in each cycle all will be indistinguishable from those of the earlier cycles, so that
Socrates will not come to be again, but rather someone indistinguishable from Socrates, who will marry someone indistinguishable from Xanthippe and will be accused by men indistinguishable from Anytus and Meletus. But I do not know how the world is always the same and not a distinct one indistinguishable from another, while the things within it are not the same but merely indistinguishable. But the argument that takes precedence, both in reply to Celsus's words and
in reply to the Stoics, will be examined more fittingly elsewhere, since it is not appropriate, given our present occasion and purpose, to dwell at length on these matters. After this he says that visible things have not been given to man, but that each thing comes to be and perishes for the sake of the preservation of the whole, according to the exchange I mentioned before, from one thing into another; but it is superfluous to spend more time
in their refutation, which we have set out as far as possible. It has also been said with a view to this: that neither the good things nor the bad things among mortals could be fewer or more numerous than they are. It has also been said with a view to this: that God has no need of any newer correction. But God does not, like a man who has built something deficiently and produced it rather unskillfully, bring correction to the world by purifying it
with a flood or a conflagration, but by preventing the spread of wickedness from pouring out any further; and I think, moreover, that he does away with it altogether, in an orderly way, for the advantage of the whole. But whether, after the disappearance of wickedness, it makes sense for it to arise again or not, such matters will be examined in their proper place. Does God, then, wish always to take up failures by means of an ever-newer correction?
For even if all things have been arranged by him in the finest and most secure way, in keeping with the creation of the universe as a whole, nonetheless he had no less need of a kind of medical art for those who are diseased with wickedness, and for the whole world, defiled as it were by it; and nothing whatsoever has been neglected by God, nor will be, since at every moment he does precisely what it was fitting for him to do in a world subject to turning and change.
And just as a farmer, according to the different seasons of the year, performs different farming tasks upon the earth and the things growing on it, so God administers, as it were, certain years - if I may call them that - and manages whole ages, doing in each of them whatever is demanded by the very rational principle concerning the universe, which is grasped in its clearest form, as truth, by God alone,
and brought to completion. Celsus put forward an argument of this kind about evils: that even if something seems evil to you, it is not yet clear that it is evil, for you cannot know what serves your own good, or another's, or that of the whole. And the argument has a certain caution to it, but it also implies that the nature of evils is not entirely bad, because
it is possible for what is reckoned an evil among particular things to be advantageous to the whole. Yet, so that no one, by mishearing what is said, may find in it an occasion for depravity - as though his own wickedness too happened to be useful to the whole, or at least capable of being useful - it will be said that, provided what is within our own power is preserved in each person, even if God makes use of the wickedness of the wicked for the ordering of the whole,
arranging them for the use of the whole, such a person is no less blameworthy for that; and, blameworthy as he is, he has been arranged for a use that is undesirable for the individual but useful to the whole. It is as if someone, speaking about cities, were to say that a certain man who has committed such-and-such offenses, and who on account of his offenses has been condemned to certain public works useful to the whole, does something
useful to the whole city, while he himself has come to be in an undesirable situation, one that no one of even moderate sense would wish to be in. And Paul, the apostle of Jesus, teaching us that even the basest people will contribute something to the need of the whole, but will themselves be among the undesirable things, while the most excellent will also prove most useful of all to the whole,
who will be assigned, on their own account, to the finest place, he says: "A great household holds vessels not merely of gold and silver, but also ones made of wood and of earthenware, and while some serve honorable use, others serve dishonorable use; so if anyone purifies himself, he becomes a vessel fit for honor, made holy, useful to its master, made ready for every good work." And these things, too,
I suppose were necessarily set forth so that even if something seems bad to you, it is not yet clear that it is bad; for you do not know what is beneficial either to yourself or to another, lest anyone take occasion from what pertains to his place to sin, on the ground that he will be useful to the whole through his sin. But since after this, not understanding the expressions in the scriptures about God that are
framed as if he had human feelings, Celsus ridicules those in which words of wrath are spoken against the impious and threats against those who have sinned, it must be said that just as we, when speaking with quite young children, do not aim at our own capability in speaking, but adapt ourselves to the weakness of those we are addressing and say these things, and indeed do what appears to us useful for
the correction and improvement of children as children, so too the Word of God seems to have arranged the things that are written, measuring what was fitting in the telling by the capacity of the hearers and by what was useful to them; and generally, concerning this manner of speaking about God, it is said thus in Deuteronomy: "The LORD your God bore with your ways, as
if a man should bear with his son." As it were bearing human ways for what is profitable to human beings, the Word speaks in this fashion; for the many had no need of God fashioning a persona and adapting to himself what would be said to such people. But whoever cares about the clarity of the divine writings will find in them the things called spiritual said to those who are called spiritual, comparing the intent of what is said
to the weaker with what is announced to the more discerning, since often both are contained in the same wording for the one who knows how to hear it. We call it, then, the wrath of God, but we do not say that it is a passion of his, but something adopted for the instruction, through rather severe methods, of those who have committed such and so many sins. For that the so-called wrath of God
and his so-called fury do indeed instruct, and that this pleases the Word, is clear from the fact that it is said in the sixth Psalm: "Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor discipline me in your wrath," and in Jeremiah: "Discipline us, Lord, but in judgment and not in fury, lest you make us few." And if someone, reading in
the second book of Kingdoms of the "wrath" of God that persuaded David to number the people, and in the first book of Chronicles of the "devil" doing so, and examines the two statements together, he will see under what heading the wrath is classed; and Paul says that all men were "children" of this wrath, saying: "We were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest were." And that it is not a passion of God
...is anger, but that each person prepares it for himself through the things by which he sins, Paul will make clear in this passage: "Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you toward repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath against yourself, to be unleashed on that day of wrath and revelation
of God's righteous judgment." So how can each person "store up wrath for himself on the day of wrath," when "wrath" is understood as a passion? And how can the passion of wrath serve to educate anyone? But also, the reasoning that instructs us never to give way to anger, declaring in the thirty-sixth psalm, "Cease from anger and forsake wrath," also says through Paul, "You too must put away all these
things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, foul talk" — this reason would not have attached the passion to God himself, from whom he wishes to free us entirely. And it is clear that the statements about God's anger are to be taken figuratively, from the fact that his sleep too is recorded, from which the prophet, as though rousing him from sleep, says, "Arise, why do you sleep, Lord?" And again he says, "And the Lord awoke as one asleep, like a mighty man
recovering from the stupor of wine." If, then, sleep signifies something other than what the ready sense of the word indicates, why will anger not be understood in the same way? And the threats are announcements about what will befall the wicked, just as if one were to say that a physician's words too are threats, when he says to the sick, I will cut you and
apply cauteries to you, if you do not obey my instructions and do not follow this regimen and conduct yourself in this way. We therefore do not attach human passions to God, nor do we hold impious opinions about him, nor, going astray, do we set forth the accounts concerning him without examining them against one another from the scriptures themselves; nor is what is proposed by those among us who intelligently expound the word anything else
than, so far as possible, to free the hearers from foolishness and make them sensible. Consequently, because he has not understood what is written about the wrath of God, he says: Or is it not ridiculous — if a man, angered at the Jews, destroyed all of them, young and old, and burned them, this would have been nothing out of the ordinary; but the greatest God, as they say, growing angry and enraged and threatening, sends his
son, and he suffers such things? If, then, the Jews, after doing what they dared against Jesus, were destroyed young and old and burned, they have suffered this from no other anger than the one they stored up for themselves, the judgment of God against them having come about through a settled disposition of God, called "anger" by a certain ancestral custom of the Hebrews. And the son of the greatest God does indeed suffer, having willed it
for the salvation of mankind, as has been said by us above so far as possible. After this he says: But so that the argument may concern not the Jews alone (for that is not what I am saying) but the whole of nature, as I promised earlier, I shall set out what has already been said with greater clarity. Who, encountering these things, if moderate and perceiving human weakness, would not
...would the burdensome character be avoided of one who promised to give an account concerning the whole of nature, and boasted just as he dared to write in the title of his book? Let us see, then, what it is he promises to say concerning the whole of nature, and what he will make plain. And through many things in what follows he charges us with saying that God made everything for the sake of man. And he wants, from the account concerning animals
and the shrewdness apparent in them, to show that all things came to be no more for the sake of humans than for the sake of irrational animals. And it seems to me that he says something similar to those who, out of hatred toward the people they hate, accuse them of the very things for which those persons' dearest friends are praised. For just as in these cases hatred blinds them so that they do not see that they are also accusing dearest friends
through the very things by which they think they are speaking ill of their enemies. In the same way Celsus too, his reasoning confused, has not seen that he is also accusing the philosophers of the Stoa - who are not wrong to place man first, and in general the rational nature above all the irrational, and who say that Providence made everything primarily for the sake of this. And rational beings do have reason, being
the primary ones - as when children are born, while the irrational and inanimate things come into being alongside, as the afterbirth is created together with the child. And I consider that, just as in cities those who take forethought for the goods for sale and for the marketplace take forethought for no other reason than for the sake of the people, yet dogs too and other irrational creatures share as a side-benefit in the abundance - so too Providence takes forethought primarily for the rational,
but it followed as a consequence that the irrational too enjoy the things that come to be for the sake of humans. And just as the one errs who says that market officials take forethought no more for humans than for dogs, since dogs too enjoy as a side-benefit the abundance of goods for sale, so much more do Celsus and those who think as he does act impiously toward the God who takes forethought for the rational - when they say: 'Why
do these things come to be for food any more for humans than for plants, trees, grasses, and thorns?' For he supposes, first, that thunder and lightning and rains are not works of God - already more openly playing the Epicurean; and second he says that, granting for argument's sake that these are works of God, they still come to be for food no more for us humans than for plants,
trees, grasses, and thorns - giving them by chance, and not according to Providence, holding, truly as an Epicurean would, that these things happen so. For if these things prove no more useful to humans than they do to plants, trees, grasses, and thorns, it is clear that they do not come from Providence at all, or else they come from a Providence that takes no more forethought for us than for trees and grass and thorn. And each of these positions
is impious on the face of it. And for one to stand opposing us with such things while charging us with impiety is foolish; for it is clear to everyone from what has been said who the impious one is. Then he says that even if you claim these things grow for the sake of humans (clearly meaning the plants and trees and grasses and thorns), why will you say they grow for humans any more than for the wildest of the irrational animals? Clearly
Let Celsus, then, claim that so vast a variety among earth's growing things owes nothing to providence, and that instead some chance combination of atoms has produced so many qualities, and that by chance so many species of plants and trees and grasses resemble one another; and that no rational design gave them their existence, nor do they have their origin from mind—a claim that surpasses all wonder. But we
Christians, who are devoted to the God who alone created these things, give thanks also to him who is the maker of these very things, because he has prepared so great a dwelling place for us, and for our sake for the animals that serve us: "who makes grass grow for the cattle, and green plants for the service of man, to bring forth bread from the earth, and that wine may gladden the heart of man, and that his face may shine
with oil, and that bread may strengthen the heart of man." And if he has also prepared food for the wildest of animals, that is nothing to wonder at; for other philosophers too have said that these animals exist for the training of the rational animal. And a sage from among our own people remarks in one place: "Ask not, what is this thing, or for what purpose? For everything has been made to serve some use,"
and, "Do not say, what is this? To what end is this? For all things will be sought out in their time." Next after this, Celsus, wishing to argue that providence has not made the things that grow on the earth for us any more than for the wildest of animals, says: We indeed toil and struggle and are fed only with difficulty and hardship, while for them "all things grow unsown and unploughed"—not seeing that
since God wishes human understanding to be exercised everywhere, so that it may not remain idle and without invention of the arts, he made man needy, so that on account of his very neediness he might be compelled to discover arts, some for the sake of food and others for the sake of shelter. For indeed it was better for those who were not going to seek and philosophize about divine things to be in want, so that they might
use their understanding for the discovery of arts, rather than neglect understanding altogether through having everything in abundance. It is, at any rate, the want of the necessities of life that gave rise to farming, and to viticulture, and to the arts concerned with gardens, and to carpentry and metalworking, arts that produce the tools for the arts that serve the provision of food; and the want of shelter gave rise to
weaving, along with carding and spinning, and to building. And thus understanding has ascended even to architecture. And the lack of necessities has also caused the things produced in other places to be carried by seafaring and navigation to those who do not have them, so that on this account too one might admire providence, which has made the rational animal needy to its advantage, in contrast to
the irrational animals. For the irrational animals have their food ready at hand, since they have no resource for arts, and they have natural covering as well, for they are covered with hair, or feathers, or scales, or shells. Let this too be said in our defense against the statement made by Celsus: We indeed toil and struggle and are fed only with difficulty, while they
and "all things grow unsown and unplowed." Next, forgetting that his stated aim is to accuse Jews and Christians, he brings against himself a line of iambic verse from Euripides that runs counter to his own opinion, and, closing with what has been said, he accuses it as badly spoken. Celsus's text runs as follows: "But if you will also cite the line of Euripides, that 'the sun and the night are slaves'
to mortals,' why should this hold any more true of us than of ants and flies? For with them as well night arrives to bring rest, and day to make seeing and working possible." It is clear, then, that it is not only certain Jews and Christians who have said that the sun and the things in heaven are slaves to us, but also the man who, according to some, was a stage-poet and a hearer of the natural philosophy of
Anaxagoras. He says that, from the one case of the rational being, man, the things arranged in the universe are said, by synecdoche, to be slaves to all rational beings — again indicated by synecdoche through the phrase "the sun and the night." Or perhaps the tragedian, taking the name from the sun which makes the day, called it "day," teaching that the things most in need of day and night are those under the moon,
and not otherwise, but as the things on earth are. Day, then, and "night are slaves to mortals," having come about on account of rational beings. And should ants and flies happen to share, incidentally, in the benefit — working by day and resting at night — of things brought about because of human beings, it does not follow that day and night must likewise be said to have come to be because of ants and flies, nor for no purpose at all; rather, one must
suppose that these have come about by providence for the sake of human beings. Next, he brings against himself the arguments made on behalf of human beings, that the irrational animals have been made for their sake. And he says: if someone should call us rulers of the animals, since we hunt the other animals and feast on them, we shall reply: why should it not rather be that we came to be for their sake, since they hunt us and eat us? But
we need nets and weapons and a good number of human helpers and dogs against the creatures we hunt, whereas to them nature has straightway given weapons of their own, readily subjecting us to them. And here too you see in what way understanding has been given to us as a great aid, better than any weapon, which the beasts seem not to possess. We at any rate, though far
weaker in body than some of the animals, and in the case of others far smaller, master them through our understanding, and we even hunt elephants of such great size, subjecting those that are naturally tame to our gentle rule, and against those not naturally so, or those that seem to offer us no use through taming, we stand secure by our own resources; so that, whenever we wish,
we keep such great beasts penned up, and whenever we need food from their bodies, we kill them just as we do the animals that are not wild. All things, then, the Creator has made slaves of the rational animal and of its natural understanding. And for some purposes we need dogs, for instance, for guarding flocks or herds of cattle or goats or houses, for
and others for oxen, as for farming; for other purposes we use beasts of burden as pack animals. So too, he says, the class of lions and bears and leopards and pigs and creatures of that sort has been given to us as training ground for the seeds of courage within us. Then he speaks of the human race as those who perceive their own superiority over the irrational animals, in that
to what you people say — that God has given us the power to catch and make use of wild beasts — we shall say that this is likely: before there were cities and crafts and such gatherings together, and weapons and nets, human beings were being seized and eaten by wild beasts, while wild beasts were scarcely ever caught by human beings. But observe, in reply to this, that even if human beings now catch wild beasts, and wild beasts
seize human beings, there is a great difference between those who prevail by intelligence over creatures that get the upper hand through savagery and cruelty, and those who make no use of intelligence to avoid suffering anything at the hands of wild beasts. As for the claim "before there were cities and crafts and such gatherings together," I think this forgets what he said further above — that the cosmos is ungenerated and indestructible, and that only the things upon the earth undergo floods and
conflagrations, and not all of them fall victim to these at the same time. So then, for those who suppose the cosmos to be ungenerated, it is not possible to name a beginning of it, nor likewise a time when there were as yet no cities at all, nor had crafts yet been discovered. But let us grant even this to him — consistently with our own view, though no longer consistently with him and with what he himself said further above — what, then, does this have to do with the claim that altogether
in the beginning human beings were seized and eaten by wild beasts, while wild beasts were no longer caught by human beings? For if indeed the cosmos came into being by providence, and God stands over the whole of it, it was necessary that the sparks of the human race, once they had begun, should have come to be under some guardianship from beings superior to them, so that in the beginning there came to be an intermingling of the divine nature with
human beings. This is indeed what the poet of Ascra had in mind when he said: "for then there were shared feasts, and shared seats, for the immortal gods and for mortal human beings." And the divine account according to Moses likewise introduced the first human beings as hearing a more divine voice and oracles, and as sometimes seeing visits of the angels of God taking place to them. For it is likely that at the beginning of the cosmos
human nature was helped to a greater degree, until, once progress had been made toward understanding and the rest of the virtues and the discovery of the crafts, people should be able to live by themselves, no longer needing those who continually oversee and manage them by means of an extraordinary manifestation of beings who serve the will of God. And it follows from this that it is a falsehood that in the beginning human beings were seized and eaten by wild beasts,
while wild beasts were scarcely ever caught by human beings. From this, then, it is clear that what is said by Celsus in this way is also false — that in this respect God subjected human beings to wild beasts rather than the reverse. For God did not subject human beings to wild beasts; rather, he gave it to human intelligence that wild beasts should be capable of being caught, and to the animals subsisting on the basis of intelligence
the crafts of those creatures. For it was not without divine aid that human beings contrived for themselves safety from the wild beasts and mastery over them. Yet this noble fellow does not see how many philosophers introduce providence and say that it does everything for the sake of rational beings, and he is destroying, so far as he is able, doctrines useful to the agreement of Christians with philosophy on these points, nor does he see how much harm is done in hindering
piety by accepting that a human being differs in no way from ants or bees in God's sight. He says that if human beings seem to differ from irrational animals because they have settled in cities and make use of civic government, magistracies, and leaderships, this is nothing to the point, since ants and bees behave no differently. Bees, at any rate, have a leader, and there is
among them following and service, wars and victories, and the flight of the defeated, and cities, and suburbs too, and a succession of works, and punishments against the idle and the wicked - at any rate they drive off and punish the drones. But not even in these things has he seen in what respect deeds accomplished by reason and rational nature differ from those that come about from irrational nature and mere constitution,
without any reason residing in the beings that produce them (for they do not possess it), while the eldest, who is the Son of God and king of all subject things, has made an irrational nature to help, as an irrational thing, those not deemed worthy of reason. So among human beings cities came into being together with many crafts and the ordering of laws; but civic governments, magistracies, and leaderships
among human beings are either, properly speaking, certain excellent states and activities so called in the strict sense, or else they are so named more loosely, by way of imitation, so far as possible, of those excellent states; for it was by looking to those excellent states that the most successful lawgivers established the best forms of civic government and the best magistracies and leaderships. None of this can be found among irrational creatures, even if Celsus transfers the rational names
assigned properly to rational beings - city, forms of civic government, magistracies, leaderships - to ants and bees as well. On this basis ants or bees are in no way to be admitted as possessing these things (for they do not act with reasoning), but the divine nature is to be marveled at, for extending even to irrational creatures something like an imitation of what belongs to rational beings, perhaps in order to put rational beings to shame, so that by observing ants
they might become more industrious and more careful stewards of what is useful to them, and by studying bees they might learn to obey their leaders and to divide among themselves the useful tasks of civic life for the preservation of their cities. And perhaps even the wars, as it were, of the bees are set before us as a lesson toward just and orderly wars, should the need ever arise, occurring among human beings. And it is not that there are cities and suburbs among bees, but rather
the hives, the hexagonal cells, and the works of the bees, and the succession of these among them, exist for the sake of human beings, who have great need of honey both for the healing of afflicted bodies and as pure nourishment. But the actions carried out by the bees against the drones are not to be compared to the judgments against the idle and the wicked in human cities, nor to the judgments against
...their punishments. But, as I said before, while nature is to be admired in these things, the human being — who is capable of reasoning about all things and ordering all things, since he cooperates with providence — is to be esteemed as accomplishing not only the works of God's providence but also his own. Now Celsus, having spoken about bees, in order to belittle, as far as he is able, not only us Christians
but also the cities, constitutions, governments, and leadership of all human beings, and the wars fought for their homelands, next proceeds to deliver a eulogy of ants, so that by this praise of them he may, in his account of the ants, cast down the human management of provisions as amounting to nothing more than the irrational providence he supposes exists among the ants — and so demolish, by the argument, mankind's foresight in storing up food for winter.
For he thinks it no greater than the irrational providence found among the ants. And what simpler people, who do not know how to discern the nature of all things, would Celsus not turn away, so far as it lies in his power, from helping those burdened by loads and sharing in their labors, when he says of ants that they take hold of one another's burdens whenever they see one of their number
struggling? For the one who needs instruction through reason, and does not grasp it at all, will say: since, then, we differ in no way from ants, and yet we help those who struggle under carrying the heaviest loads, why do we do such a thing pointlessly? And the ants, since they are in fact irrational creatures, would not be puffed up to think highly of themselves on account of their works being compared to those of human beings —
but human beings, who are able to hear this by means of reason, learn in what way their sense of fellowship is being cheapened. They would be harmed, so far as it depends on Celsus and his arguments, since he does not see that, wishing to turn away his readers from Christianity, he is also turning away, from those who are not Christians, their compassion toward those who carry the heaviest of burdens. He ought,
if indeed he were even a philosopher with a feeling for fellowship, not only to refrain from destroying, along with Christianity, what is useful among human beings, but also to cooperate, if it were possible, with the good things common to Christianity toward the rest of mankind. And if the ants also bite off the sprouts of the seeds they store away, so that they do not sprout, but remain throughout the year as food for them, this is not to be supposed the effect of reasoning in ants,
but of all-mothering nature, which has ordered even the irrational creatures in such a way as to leave out not even the smallest thing, bearing not the slightest trace of reason derived from nature — unless, then, Celsus wishes covertly through these examples (for indeed in many things he wishes to play the Platonist) to suggest that every soul is of the same kind, and that the soul of a human being differs in no way from that of ants and
of bees — which would be the view of one who drags the soul down from the vaults of heaven, not only to the human body but also to the rest of creatures. But Christians will not be persuaded of this, holding beforehand that the human soul has come into being "according to the image" of God, and seeing that a nature fashioned "according to the image" of God cannot possibly have its features utterly effaced, and made to serve as the image of others...
I do not know whose images he thinks they have come to be in the case of the irrational animals. But since he says that living ants also set apart a certain place for their dead, and that this is for them an ancestral burial ground, it must be said that the more praises he heaps upon the irrational animals, the more — even against his will — he magnifies the achievement of the reason that arranged all things, and displays the shrewdness present in human beings,
which is able to bring under its account, by means of reason, even the advantages found in the nature of irrational creatures. (But why do I speak of "irrational" creatures at all,) since Celsus does not even think that the things called irrational by the common notions of all people are actually irrational? Certainly the man who professed to speak about nature as a whole, and who boasted of truth in the very title of his book, does not consider even ants to be irrational. For he says
the following about ants, as though they conversed with one another: "And indeed, when they meet one another, they converse, which is why they do not even lose their way; therefore among them there is a completion of reasoned speech, and common notions of certain universal things, and voice, and both the objects referred to and the things signified." For to converse with another occurs by means of a voice that makes clear some signified thing. And often, too, concerning things called
actual, reporting on them — and to say that these things too are present among ants, how could this not be the most laughable of all things? And he is not ashamed, in going on to add to this — so that he might display to those who come after him the indecency of his own doctrines — saying: "Come then, if someone were to look down from heaven upon the earth, what difference would he suppose there to be between the things done by us and the things done by ants and"
bees? He who, according to Celsus's own supposition, looks down from heaven upon earth at the things done by human beings and the things done by ants — does he indeed perceive the bodies of humans and of ants, but fail to discern the rational governing faculty that is moved by reasoning, and again, on the other hand, the irrational governing faculty that is moved irrationally by impulse and imagination, together with a certain natural underlying constitution?
But it is absurd that the one looking down from heaven upon the things on earth should wish to discern the bodies of humans and of ants from so great a distance, and yet not much rather see the natures of their governing faculties and the source of their impulses, whether rational or irrational. And if he once sees the source of all impulses, it is clear that he would also perceive the difference and the superiority of the human being, not
only over ants but also over elephants. For the one who looks down from heaven, in the case of the irrational animals — even if their bodies are large — will see no other governing principle than, so to call it, irrationality; but in the case of rational beings he will see the reason common to human beings in relation to things divine and heavenly, and perhaps even God himself who is over all,
This is the reason the human being is said to have come to be "according to the image" of God; for his Word is the "image" of him who presides as God over the universe. Next after these things, as though striving to bring the human race down still further and to make it like the irrational animals, and wishing to leave out nothing among the things recorded of irrational animals that displays their superiority, he says that even the practices of sorcery
in some of the irrational animals, so that human beings should not take special pride in this, nor wish to hold their superiority over the irrational animals. And he says this: "But if human beings pride themselves on sorcery, in this respect too serpents and eagles are wiser: at any rate they know many antidotes and remedies against harm, and indeed the powers of certain stones for the preservation of their young."
whatever of these humans happen upon, they consider a marvelous possession. Now, in the first place, I do not know how he came to call the animals' experience—or some natural apprehension—regarding natural antidotes "sorcery"; for the term "sorcery" is worn smooth from being applied elsewhere, unless perhaps, as an Epicurean, he wishes covertly to slander every use of such things as lying within the profession
of sorcerers. Still, let it be granted to him that human beings pride themselves greatly on the knowledge of these things, whether they are sorcerers or not. How is it that in this respect serpents are wiser than human beings, using fennel for sharpness of sight and swiftness of movement—grasping this by nature alone, not from reasoning but from their very constitution? Whereas human beings do not come to
such a thing in the same way as serpents do, from bare nature; rather, in part from experience, in part from reasoning, and sometimes from calculation and according to knowledge. Likewise, if eagles too, for the preservation of the nestlings in their nest, find the so-called eagle-stone and bring it to the nest, on what basis is it that eagles are wise, and wiser than human beings, who by experience
find the natural aid given to eagles, and who employ it through reasoning and with understanding? But let it be granted that other antidotes too are known by animals. What then does this have to do with its not being nature but reason that discovers these things among the animals? For if it were reason that discovered them, this one particular thing alone would not be found fixed and unchanging only among serpents; there would also be a second and
a third, and something else in the eagle, and so on among the rest of the animals. But there would be as many as there are among human beings. As it is, however, it is plain from the fact that the remedies incline in a fixed and unchanging way toward the particular nature of each animal, that there is in them no wisdom or reason, but a certain natural constitution directed toward such ends for the preservation of the animals, brought about by Reason.
And yet, if I wished to meet Celsus head-on on these very points, I would have used a saying of Solomon from the Proverbs, which runs thus: "Four things are least upon the earth, and yet they surpass the wise in wisdom: the ants, a folk without strength, who make ready their food in summer; and the rock badgers,
a people not mighty, who make their houses in the rocks; the locust has no king, yet it marches out in good order at a single command; and the lizard, supporting itself with its hands, and easily caught, yet dwells in the fortresses of a king." But I do not employ these as clear-cut statements; rather, in keeping with the title—for the book is entitled Proverbs—I seek them out as riddles. For it is the custom of these men to say one thing that is plain on its face, but to mean another
speaking in a hidden sense, is divided into many kinds, one of which is proverbs. That is why it is written in our Gospels that our Savior said: "These things I have told you by way of proverbs; an hour comes when I shall no longer speak to you in proverbs." So it is not the ants perceived by the senses who are wiser and "wiser than the wise," but rather those pointed to as under the guise of proverbs. Thus
one must also speak concerning the rest of the animals. But Celsus thinks that the books of the Jews and Christians are entirely simple and unsophisticated, and supposes that those who allegorize them do so by doing violence to the intention of those who wrote them. Let Celsus, then, be refuted on these points too, since he slanders us in vain; and let his argument about serpents and eagles also be refuted, in which he declared them to be
wiser than human beings. And wishing, at still greater length, to show that conceptions concerning the divine are not the exclusive privilege of the human race among all mortal creatures, but to declare that some of the irrational animals too have understanding of God—concerning whom such disagreements have arisen even among the sharpest-minded people everywhere, both Greeks and barbarians—he says that if, because
a human being has grasped a conception of the divine, he is thought to surpass the rest of the animals, let those who say this know that many of the other animals will lay claim to this as well, and quite reasonably; for what could one call more divine than foreknowing and foretelling what is to come? This, then, is what human beings learn from birds above all, and from the other animals as well; and all who grasp the meaning of their signals
are diviners. But if birds, then, and whatever other animals are prophetic, foreknowing from God and teaching us through signs, then they seem to that same degree to be by nature closer to communion with the divine, and to be wiser and more beloved of God. And the intelligent among human beings say that these creatures too have communion with the divine—evidently more sacred than ours—and that they themselves somehow recognize what is said and demonstrate by their actions that
they do recognize it, whenever, having foretold—because the birds had indicated—that they would go somewhere and do this or that, they then show them having gone there and doing exactly what they had foretold. And nothing seems more true to its word or more trustworthy toward the divine than elephants, entirely, I suppose, because they possess knowledge of it. Observe, in these matters, how many questions those who practice philosophy dispute over - and not the Greeks alone, but also
those among the barbarians—whether they discovered these things themselves or learned them from certain demons—concerning omens and the other animals from which certain forms of divination are said to occur for human beings; yet he snatches these up and presents them as though they were agreed upon. For, first, it has been disputed whether there is any art of augury, and, in general, whether divination through animals exists at all or not; and second, among those who have accepted that divination through
birds does exist, there is no agreement on the cause of the manner of the divination; since some say that the movements occur in the animals from certain demons or prophetic gods—in birds, movements into various flights and various cries, in the other animals, movements of this sort or that—while others say that their souls are more divine and, for this purpose, well suited,
which is most implausible. Celsus, then, since through what he had set out he wished to show that irrational animals surpass human beings in divinity and wisdom, should first have established at greater length, and with more evidence, that such divination actually exists, and after that to have demonstrated the defense more clearly, and to have refuted, in demonstrative fashion, the arguments of those who deny such divinations, and to have overturned, in demonstrative fashion, the arguments of those who said that
the movements toward divination in animals come from daemons or gods, and after this to have established that irrational creatures possess a soul more divine than ours. For in that way, in response to his persuasive claims, once he had displayed a philosophical command of such weighty matters, we would have opposed him as far as we were able - overturning, on the one hand, the claim that irrational animals are wiser than human beings, and disproving, on the other, that
it has more sacred conceptions of the divine than we do, and that its members hold certain sacred communications with one another. But as things stand, the man who accuses us of believing in the God over all demands that we believe that the souls of birds hold conceptions more divine and more distinct than those of human beings. And if this is true, birds have more distinct conceptions of God than Celsus does; and it is no wonder if
than Celsus, who debases the human being to such a degree. But indeed, so far as Celsus is concerned, the birds hold greater and more divine conceptions - I do not say than we Christians, or than the Jews who share the very same scriptures we do, but even than the theologians found among the Greeks - for these too were merely human. On Celsus's reckoning, then, the race of so-called divinatory birds has grasped the nature of the divine more fully
than Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. And indeed we ought to enroll the birds as instructors of us, so that, just as on Celsus's supposition they teach us future events by divination, so too they might free human beings from doubting about the divine, handing down the distinct conception of it which they have grasped. Celsus, then, is being consistent, since he holds that birds surpass
human beings, in using birds as his teachers, and none of those who philosophized among the Greeks so highly. But we must say a few things, out of many, in reply to what has been proposed, refuting this ungrateful false opinion held against the one who made him: for Celsus too, being "a human being held in honor, did not understand," and therefore was not even "compared" with birds and the remaining nonrational creatures that he supposes to be capable of divination,
but instead, yielding the first place to those animals, has ranked himself below the Egyptians, who worship irrational animals as gods - so far as it depends on him, he has ranked the whole human race too, as thinking worse and less about the divine than irrational animals do. Let it first be asked, then, whether the divination through birds and the rest of the animals believed to be divinatory actually exists
or does not exist. For the argument attempted on either side is not to be despised: at one point deterring us from accepting such a thing, so that the rational being should not, abandoning the oracles of daemons, resort to birds instead; at another point establishing, through evidence attested by many, that many escaped the gravest dangers by trusting divination through birds. For the present, however
Let it be granted that augury is a real thing, so that in this way too I may show those who have already been won over that even when this is granted, the superiority of the human being over the irrational animals — even over the animals capable of divination themselves — is great and in no way comparable to theirs. It must be said, then, that if there really was in them some divine nature foreknowing future events, and so abundantly rich in it that out of its surplus
it could also reveal what was to come to any human being who wished it, then clearly they would have known long beforehand the things concerning themselves; and knowing the things concerning themselves, they would have taken care not to fly up over this particular place, where men had set snares and nets against them, or where archers, using them as targets, shot arrows at them as they flew. In every case, if eagles had foreknowledge of the plot against their
nestlings — whether from snakes climbing up to them and destroying them, or from certain men taking the young either for sport or for some other use and care — they would not have nested where they were going to be plotted against; and in short, not one of these animals would ever have been caught by men, seeing that it was more divine and wiser than men. But even if birds of omen
fight with birds of omen — and, as Celsus says, the birds skilled in divination and the other irrational animals, possessing a divine nature and notions of the divine and foreknowledge of the future, foretold such things to others — then neither would Homer's sparrow have nested where a serpent was going to make her and her young vanish, nor would the serpent, in the same poet, have failed to guard itself
against being seized by the eagle. For Homer, that wonder in poetry, says the following about the first case: 'There a great sign appeared: a serpent, blood-red on its back, terrible, which the Olympian himself sent up into the light, darting out from beneath the altar and rushing to the plane tree. There were the nestlings of the sparrow, helpless young, cowering beneath the leaves on the topmost branch, eight of them. And the mother, who had borne the young, was the ninth. There
he pitiably devoured them as they squealed, while the mother fluttered about, mourning for her dear young; and coiling himself, he seized her by the wing as she shrieked around him. But when he had eaten the young along with the sparrow herself, the god who had revealed him made him a marked sign; for the son of crooked-counseling Cronos turned him to stone. And we, standing by, marveled at what had come to pass. So then, when these dread portents of the gods intruded upon
the hecatombs — and concerning the second case, that a bird came upon them as they longed to cross, a high-flying eagle, driving the host back on the left, carrying in its talons a blood-red serpent, monstrous, still alive and struggling; it had not yet forgotten its fighting spirit, for it struck the one holding it on the breast beside the neck, twisting back, and the eagle let it fall from itself to the ground, in pain from the wounds, and cast it down in the midst of the throng; and it itself
flew off screeching on the blasts of the wind. And the Trojans shuddered when they saw the writhing serpent lying in their midst, a portent of aegis-bearing Zeus. Was the eagle, then, skilled in divination, while the serpent — since diviners of birds also make use of this creature — was not skilled in divination? And further, since the practice of casting lots is easily refuted, would it not likewise be refuted that both are skilled in divination? Surely not
For being a serpent gifted with divination, did it not guard itself against suffering this at the hands of the eagle? And one could find countless other examples of this kind, showing that it is not that the animals themselves possess a divinatory soul in themselves; rather, in the view of the poet and of most men, the Olympian himself came bringing light, while according to a certain sign Apollo too makes use of a messenger.
a hawk; for the "kirkos" is said to be "Apollo's swift messenger." But according to us, it is certain base spirits, or, to give them a name, Titanic or gigantic ones, that have become impious toward what is truly divine and toward the angels in heaven, and having fallen from heaven, now wallow on earth about the grosser and unclean kinds of bodies, possessing a certain power of foresight concerning things to come, inasmuch as
they happen to be stripped of earthly bodies, and busy themselves about such work, wishing to steer the race of men aside from the true God, they insinuate themselves into the more rapacious and savage of the animals, and others more cunning still, and set them in motion toward whatever they wish, whenever they wish; or else they turn the imaginations of such animals toward particular flights and movements of this kind, so that men, being caught
by the divination that operates through irrational animals, might not seek the God who encompasses the universe, nor examine pure piety toward God, but might fall in their reasoning to the level of the earth, and to birds and serpents, and further foxes and wolves. For indeed it has been observed by those skilled in these matters that the clearer foreknowledges come about through such animals, since
the demons are not able to work these things to the same degree in the tamer animals as they are able to in these, on account of a certain likeness to their own wickedness—not that wickedness is present, as it were, in such animals, but something resembling wickedness that enables the demons to act through these particular creatures. For this reason, if I have admired anything else about Moses, I would declare this too worthy of admiration: that having discerned the differing natures of animals, whether
he learned about them and about the demons akin to each animal from God, or whether he himself, ascending by wisdom, discovered this, in his ordinance concerning animals he pronounced unclean all the creatures which the Egyptians and other peoples regard as oracular, while for the most part those that are not of this kind he declared clean. And among the unclean animals in Moses are the wolf and the fox
and the serpent, the eagle and the hawk, and creatures like these; and for the most part you would find these creatures cited as instances of the worst things both in the law and among the prophets alike, and never is the wolf or the fox named in connection with anything good. It seems, then, that there is a certain kinship between each kind of demon and each kind of animal,
and just as among men some men are stronger than other men, not entirely on account of character, in the same way demons would be more powerful than other demons among themselves; and some of these, making use of these particular animals to deceive men according to the will of the one called in our writings "the ruler of this age," while others make their disclosures through another kind of sign, and
See how impure demons are, to such a degree that even weasels are taken by some people as a means of revealing future events. Judge for yourself which is better to accept: that the God over all and his Son move the birds and the other animals toward divination, or that those who move such animals, and not
in the presence of human beings, are base demons and, as our sacred writings named them, "unclean." But if the soul of birds is divine because future events are foretold through them, how is it not all the more true — wherever omens are taken from human beings — that we should say the soul of those through whom the omens are heard is divine? Divine, then, according to such people, was
the "grinding-woman" in Homer, who said of the suitors: "May they now sup here for the last and final time." And she was divine; but was Odysseus, so great a man, the friend of Homer's Athena, not divine? Yet, understanding the omen spoken by the divine grinding-woman, he rejoiced, as the poet says: "and godly Odysseus rejoiced at the omen." Now see further, whether the
birds have a divine soul and perceive God — or, as Celsus names them, the gods — then clearly we too, when we sneeze, sneeze because of some divinity within us and some power of divination concerning our soul. For this too is attested by many; hence the poet also says: "and he sneezed at the very moment of the prayer." Hence too Penelope says:
"Do you not see that my son sneezed at your words?" But what is truly divine, for knowledge concerning future things, makes use neither of irrational animals nor of ordinary human beings, but of the most sacred and purest souls of men, whom it inspires and makes prophets. For this reason, if anything else is said marvelously in the law of Moses, such things too should be classed among matters of this kind:
"You shall not divine by omens nor watch for signs among birds," and elsewhere: "For the nations whom the Lord your God will destroy before you listen to omens and divinations; but the Lord your God has not allowed this to you"; then next it says: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." And when God once wished, through a diviner of birds, to turn
the man away from the practice of augury, he made a spirit within that diviner of birds say: "For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel; in due season it will be told to Jacob and to Israel what God will accomplish." Knowing these things, then, and others similar to them, we wish to keep the commandment spoken mystically: "Keep your heart with all vigilance," so that none of the
demons may set foot upon our governing faculty, nor may any hostile spirit turn our imaginative faculty toward what it wishes. And it is our prayer that, within our hearts, there may shine the "illumination that comes from knowing God's glory," while God's Spirit takes up residence in our imaginative faculty and shapes within us the things of God; for it is written, "those who are guided by God's Spirit are God's own sons." But it is necessary to know
That foreknowledge of future things is not in every case something divine: in itself it is a neutral thing, and it falls to base people and to decent ones alike. Physicians, at any rate, foreknow certain things from medical skill, even if they happen to be base in character; and pilots do likewise. Even if they happen to be depraved, they foreknow signs and the violence of winds and shifts in the surrounding air, from a certain experience and observation.
And surely no one will say, on that account, that they are divine, if they happen to be depraved in character. So what is said in Celsus is false, namely: what could one call more divine than foreknowing and foretelling future things? And it is also false that many of the animals lay claim to a divine understanding; for none of the irrational creatures has any understanding of God.
It is also false that the irrational animals are nearer to converse with the divine; since even among human beings, those who are still base, however far they may advance, are far from converse with the divine. So it is only those who are truly wise and unfeignedly pious who are nearer to converse with the divine — such as our prophets and Moses are. To him, on account of his great purity, the word bore witness when it said: "Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the rest shall not draw near."
How is it not impious for the very man who accuses us of impiety to say that the irrational animals are not only wiser than human nature but also more beloved of God? And who would not be repelled, on hearing a man say that the serpent and the fox and the wolf
and the eagle and the hawk are more beloved of God than human nature? It follows for him to say that, if these animals are more beloved of God than human beings, then clearly Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, and the theologians he praised shortly before are also less beloved of God than these animals. And one might well pray for him, saying: if these animals are indeed more beloved of God
than human beings, then may you come to share in their favor with God, and grow to resemble those among your contemporaries who stand higher still in God's regard. And let him not suppose that this is a curse; for who would not pray to become altogether like those whom he believes to be more beloved of God, so that he too might become beloved of God as they are? Wishing the converse of the irrational animals to be more sacred than ours, Celsus
does not entrust this account to just anyone, but to the intelligent. And the truly intelligent are, in reality, the virtuous, for no base person is intelligent. He speaks, then, in this manner: the intelligent among human beings say that there is also converse with those creatures — clearly more sacred than ours — and that they themselves somehow recognize what is said and show by their deeds that they are not ignorant of it, whenever, after foretelling
that the birds said they would go somewhere and do this or that, they show them, having gone there, doing what they had already foretold. In truth, however, no intelligent person has recorded any such thing, and no wise person has said that the converse of irrational animals is more sacred than that of human beings. But if we examine the matter to test the consistency of Celsus's argument, it is clear that...
the conversations of irrational animals are more sacred than the dignified discourses of Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Pherecydes, and the philosophers. This is on its face not only absurd but utterly out of place. But even if we were to grant that some people, from the meaningless sound of birds, have learned that the birds are going off somewhere and will do this or that, and that this
foretells something, we will say that this too has been made known to human beings by the demons symbolically, with a view to deceiving humanity and dragging its mind down from heaven and God to earth and to things still lower. I do not know how Celsus also came to hear of an oath of elephants, and that these creatures are more faithful toward the divine than we are and have knowledge
of God. For I myself know many marvelous things reported about the nature of this animal and about its gentleness, but I am not aware that any oath of elephants has been spoken of by anyone — unless perhaps he has given the name of "oath-keeping" to the gentleness they show and to the kind of agreement they seem to form with human beings once tamed, whereby they are said to keep faith with them. But this too is false. For even if
rarely, it is nonetheless recorded that after their apparent gentleness elephants have turned savage against men (and committed murders), and for this reason have been condemned to be killed as no longer useful. Since after this he goes on, as he supposes, to make the case for storks being holier than mankind, drawing on what is reported about this creature — that it returns the care given it and brings food to its parents in return — it must be said that
storks do this not from any reasoned understanding of duty, nor from calculation, but from nature — nature that formed them wishing to set forth, in an irrational animal, an example capable of putting human beings to shame regarding the repayment of gratitude to their parents. But if Celsus knew how much it differs to do these things by reason from doing them irrationally and by mere natural instinct, he would not have called
storks more pious than human beings. Further, Celsus, as though standing up for the piety of irrational animals, brings forward the Arabian creature, the phoenix, which after many years visits Egypt bearing its dead father, wrapped inside a globe of myrrh, and sets it down where the sanctuary of the sun stands. This too has been recorded, but it is possible, if indeed it is true, that
this very thing is also natural, since divine providence has been generous enough to display to human beings, even in the differences among animals, the variety of the world's constitution extending even to the birds — and it has caused to exist a certain "only-begotten" creature, so that this too might bring about wonder not at the animal but at the one who made it. Since, then, upon all this Celsus adds the statement:
"not all things, then, have been made for man, any more than for lion or eagle or dolphin, but so that this world, as the complete and perfect work of God, might come to be out of all things together. For this reason all things have been measured out, not in relation to one another, but, except as incidental, in relation to the whole. And God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons it, nor does it grow worse,"
God does not turn back to himself over time, nor does he grow angry for the sake of human beings, any more than for monkeys or mice; nor does he threaten these creatures, each of which has received its own allotted portion in turn. Come, let us answer this, even if briefly. I think I have shown from what has already been said how all things have been made for the sake of man and of every rational being; for it is chiefly on account of the rational
living being that all things have been fashioned. Let Celsus, then, say that this is not so for man, any more than for the lion or the other creatures he names; but we will say: the Creator did not make these things for the lion, nor for the eagle, nor for the dolphin, but everything was made for the sake of the rational living being, and so that this world, as being a work of God, might become whole and complete out of all its parts. For to this
one must give assent, as a claim well stated. And God cares not, as Celsus supposes, for the whole alone, but beyond the whole, especially for every rational being. And providence will never abandon the whole, for it administers it—even if some part of the whole grows worse because the rational part in it sins—so as to purge that part and, in time, turn the whole back to himself. But he is not
angry for the sake of monkeys or of mice; rather, upon human beings, since they have transgressed the natural starting-points given them, he brings judgment and punishment, and he threatens them through the prophets and through the Savior who came to dwell among the whole human race—so that through this threat those who listen might be turned back, while those who disregard the words that call them to turn might pay the penalties they deserve, penalties which it is fitting for God to impose according to
his own will, for the benefit of the whole, upon those who need such demanding care and correction. But since the fourth volume has now reached an adequate length, let us bring our discussion to a close at this point. And may it be granted by God, through his Son — who is himself God, the Word and Wisdom, Truth and Righteousness, and everything else the sacred scriptures call him when they speak theologically of him,
that we may also begin the fifth volume for the benefit of those who will read it, and bring that one too to a good conclusion, together with the coming of his Word into our soul.

======== Against Celsus, Book 5 ========

It is not in pursuit of the forbidden much-speaking — in which there is no escaping "sin" — that we now begin our fifth book against Celsus’s treatise, holy Ambrose; rather, we are trying, as far as we are able, to pass over nothing that he has said without examination, especially where he might seem to some to have made an intelligent accusation against us or against the Jews. And if it were possible, having entered along with the argument
into the conscience of each and every reader of his treatise, to draw out each dart that wounds the one not entirely fenced about with the whole armor of God, and to apply the rational remedy that heals the wound inflicted by Celsus, so that those who attend to his words no longer remain unsound "in the faith", this we would have done. But since this is God's work — to be present invisibly, according to his own spirit together with the spirit of Christ, with those whom he judges it right to visit — while our task, since we try through words and writings to make people believe, is to do everything we can in order to be accredited as unashamed workers, rightly dividing "the word of truth",
it appears to us that one thing among all these is, as far as we are able, to refute Celsus's plausible arguments, faithfully doing what has been commanded by you.
Come then, having set out the continuation of Celsus's words, to which we have already responded above (the reader will judge whether we have also refuted them), let us add our replies to them. And may God grant that our mind and reason attain the object before us not by a bare and naked show of divinity, so that the faith of those we pray may be benefited "may not rest in the wisdom of men", but, having received the "mind" of "Christ"
from his Father who alone gives it, and being helped toward participation in the word of God, we might pull down "every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" — including the conceit of Celsus, raised up against us and against our Jesus, and further against Moses and the prophets — so that, through the one who gives "a word to those who proclaim good news, with great power," supplying this to us as well
and granting the great power, faith may come to be in those who read, through the word and power of God. Our task, then, is now to refute his statement, which runs as follows: no god, O Jews and Christians, nor child of a god, either came down or would come down. But if you speak of certain angels, whom do you mean by these — gods, or some other kind of being? Some other kind, in all likelihood — the demons.
There is no need to argue at greater length against Celsus as he repeats these points (for they have already been said to him many times above); what has been said by us on this matter will suffice. But we shall set forth a few points, out of many more that could be made, which we think are in harmony with what has already been said, though not entirely of the same import as those; in which we shall show that, by declaring in general terms that no god
has come down to men, he does away also with the child of a god, and with what is believed by the many concerning a divine manifestation, and what was said above even by Celsus himself. For if the statement made universally by Celsus — that no god and no child of a god either came down or would come down — is true, then clearly it does away with there being gods on earth who have come down from heaven, whether in order to give oracles to
people, or heal them through oracles, then neither Pythian Apollo nor Asclepius nor any other of the gods reputed to do such things could be a god who has come down from heaven; he would rather be a god who has been allotted always to dwell on earth, a kind of exile from the region of the gods, or else he would be one of those who have no share in fellowship with the divine beings above.
Or else Apollo and Asclepius and all the others believed to accomplish something on earth are not gods at all but certain demons, far inferior to the wise among men who ascend to the vault of heaven through their virtue. Now observe that in his wish to destroy our doctrines, this man—who nowhere in the whole treatise admits to being an Epicurean—
is caught deserting to Epicurus's side. It is time, then, for you who read Celsus's arguments and assent to what he has proposed, either to deny that God visits the earth in his providential care for individual human beings, or, if you grant such a thing, to expose Celsus's argument as false. If, then, you deny providence altogether, you will falsify his own arguments, in which he posits gods and providence, so that you may claim these things are true; but if
you nonetheless posit providence, without agreeing with Celsus when he says that neither God nor a child of God has come down or comes down to human beings, why will you not carefully examine, from what has been said among us about Jesus and from what has been prophesied about him, which one it is more fitting to regard as God or a child of God having come down to human beings—the one who has arranged and accomplished such great things, namely Jesus, or those who under the pretext
of oracles and divinations do not correct the characters of those they serve, but in addition depart from the sincere and pure reverence owed to the maker of all things, and split the soul of those who attend to them—under the pretext of honoring a multitude of gods—away from the one and only manifest and true God? Since after this, as though Jews or Christians would answer
concerning those who come down to human beings that they are angels, he says: "But if you say there are certain angels," and he further asks, saying, "Whom do you mean by these—gods, or some other kind of being?" Then again, as if answering on our behalf, he leads us to say that they are, as is likely, something else—demons. Come, let us examine this point too. We do indeed admit and affirm that there are angels, being "ministering spirits" and "sent out to serve"
those who are to inherit salvation—ascending to bring before God the petitions of human beings in the purest regions of the world, the heavenly ones, or even the ones purer still, the regions above heaven, and in turn descending from there to bring to each, according to his worth, whatever service has been ordered for them from God to those being benefited. Having come to know, from what they do, that these beings are to be called angels, we find that they are also
sometimes named "gods" in the sacred scriptures, because they are divine—but not in such a way that we are commanded to worship and venerate as God those who minister to us and bring us the things of God, in place of God. For every petition, prayer, intercession, and thanksgiving must be sent up to the God over all, through the agency of the high priest set over every one of the angels, who is himself the ensouled Word, God. But we shall make our petitions
and of the Word itself, and we will entreat him and give him thanks, and we will also pray to him, if we are able to grasp the proper and the extended senses of the term 'prayer.' For it is not reasonable to invoke angels without having acquired a knowledge of them that surpasses human capacity. And even granting, for argument's sake, that this knowledge of them, being something marvelous and ineffable, were grasped, this very knowledge, by making plain their nature
and the offices to which each of them is assigned, will not allow one to venture to pray with confidence to anyone other than the God who is sufficient for all things over all, through our savior, the Son of God, who is 'Word' and wisdom and truth and whatever else the scriptures of God's prophets and of the apostles of Jesus say about him. It is enough, with a view to his being gracious
toward us, that the holy angels belong to God and do everything on our behalf, for our own disposition toward God, so far as human nature is capable, imitating their resolve, they themselves imitating God; and our conception of his Son the Word, to the extent attainable by us, not opposed to the clearer conception of him held by the holy angels, but ever pressing on
day by day toward that clearer and more articulate conception. So it is that Celsus, not having read our sacred scriptures, answers on our behalf, as though speaking for us, that we say the beings who descend for the benefit of mankind are some race other than God's, and he says that it would be reasonable for them to be called by us 'daimons' — not seeing that the term 'daimons' is not even
a middle term the way 'human beings' is, among whom some are decent and some base, nor yet a fine term such as 'gods' is, which is applied not to base things but to daimonic beings or images or animals; rather, by those who know the things of God it is applied to beings that are truly more divine and blessed. The name 'daimons,' by contrast, is always applied to base powers outside the coarser body
who lead men astray and distract them and drag them down away from God and the realms above heaven to the affairs of this place. After this he sets out the following statement about the Jews: 'First of all, then, it is worthy of wonder in the case of the Jews that, while they worship heaven and the angels in it, they pass over its most majestic and most powerful parts — sun
and moon and the other stars, both fixed and wandering — they send these on their way, as though it were possible for the whole to be a god while its parts are not divine. Or that those who through some crooked sorcery are blind in some darkness, or who dream through dim apparitions, and are said to cling to them, should be reckoned as worshipping quite properly, while those who prophesy to everyone so plainly and so brilliantly
— through whom rains and warmth and clouds and thunder (which they worship) and lightning and fruits and every act of generation are dispensed, through whom God is unveiled to them, the most manifest heralds of the beings above, the truly heavenly angels — these they should count as nothing: in all this it seems to me that Celsus has grown confused, and has written from mishearings which he did not rightly know.'
For it is clear, to anyone who studies the practices of the Jews and sets these side by side with the practices of Christians, that Jewish observers, following the law which speaks in God's own person — "You shall have no other gods besides me; you shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any image of what exists in the sky above, or on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not"
bow down to them or serve them" — worship nothing other than the God over all things, who made heaven and everything else. It is plain that persons whose conduct follows the law, while worshiping the maker of heaven, do not thereby include heaven itself as a fellow object of worship alongside God; and further, none of those who serve the law of Moses worship the angels who are in heaven either.
In the same way that they do not worship the sun, the moon, and the stars, "the ordered array of heaven," they likewise refrain from worshiping heaven and the angels within it, obeying the law that says, "and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and, upon seeing sun, moon, and stars, the whole array of heaven, be led astray and bow down to them and serve them,
which the LORD your God has allotted to all the nations." But Celsus, taking it upon himself to claim that the Jews therefore consider heaven a god, brings this forward as something absurd, accusing those who worship heaven but not also the sun, the moon, and the stars, on the grounds that the Jews do this as though it were possible for the whole to be a god while its parts
are not divine. And he seems to mean that heaven is the whole, while the sun, the moon, and the stars are its parts. Now neither the Jews nor the Christians say plainly that heaven is a god. But let it be granted, on his own terms, that heaven is said by the Jews to be a god, and let the sun, the moon, and the stars also be parts of heaven (which is not
altogether true — for neither are the living creatures and plants on the earth parts of the earth). Where, then, is it true, even by Greek reckoning, that if some whole is a god, its parts are therefore also divine? It is the Stoics who plainly say that the whole cosmos is a god — the first kind, as they reckon it — while the followers of Plato call it the second kind, and some among them a third kind instead.
Is it then to be granted, on the reasoning of such people, that since the whole cosmos is a god, its parts are also divine, so that not only human beings but also all the irrational animals are divine, given that they form parts of the world — and the plants too, besides these? And if the mountains and the rivers and the seas are also parts of the cosmos,
then, since the whole cosmos is a god, are the rivers and the seas also gods? But not even the Greeks will say this. Rather, they would say that the beings set over rivers and seas — whether demons or gods, as they call them — are the gods in question. And so Celsus's universal claim turns out false even by Greek standards, among those who introduce providence: that if something is a whole...
...is god. In any case, its parts are divine. But it follows from Celsus's argument that, if the cosmos is god, everything in it must be divine, since they are parts of the cosmos. And on this reasoning, flies and gnats and worms and every kind of snake will be divine animals — but also every kind of bird and every kind of fish; which
not even those who say that the cosmos is god would assert. But those Jews whose life follows Moses' law, even if they know nothing of how to grasp the hidden meaning intended by the law and the secret sense it points to, will say that neither heaven nor the angels are god. Since we claim that he has been confused by certain mishearings, come, let us also, as far as we are able,
clarify these matters and show that, although Celsus supposes it to be Jewish to worship heaven and its angels, such a practice is not Jewish but a transgression of Judaism, just as worshiping the sun and moon and stars — and also images — is. You will find, especially in Jeremiah, the word of God, through the prophet, reproaching the people of the Jews
for worshiping such things and sacrificing 'to the queen of heaven' and 'to all the host of heaven.' The words of the Christians also make this clear, when they accuse the Jews of the sins committed among them, saying that God abandoned that people because of certain sins, and that these very sins were committed by them. For the Acts of the Apostles records concerning the Jews that 'God turned away'
and gave them up to serve the host of heaven, as the book of the prophets has it recorded: 'Did you offer me slain victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel, and did you take up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship them?' And in Paul, who was precisely trained in the ways of the Jews and later, through a marvelous appearance of Jesus, became a Christian —
such things are said in the letter to the Colossians: 'let no one disqualify you, insisting on it in humility and worship of angels, taking his stand on what he has seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, supplied and joined together through joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God.' These things,
which Celsus neither read nor learned, he has, I do not know how, represented the Jews as not transgressing the law in worshiping heaven and the angels in it. Moreover, being somewhat confused and not having examined the passage carefully, he thought that the Jews had been led, by certain apparitions appearing through the tricks and sorceries of those who chant incantations, to worship the
angels in heaven — not perceiving that this too was against the law for those who do such things, since it says: 'you shall not follow ventriloquists, and you shall not attach yourselves to enchanters so as to become polluted through them; it is I, the Lord your God.' He ought, therefore, either not to attribute these things to the Jews at all, keeping the Jews as observers of the law and saying that they are the ones who according to
to live according to the law, or to point out and refer to the fact that it was the lawless Jews who did such things. But again, those who worship in some dark place and by sorcery are transgressing the law just as much—blind, dreaming through dim apparitions, bowing down to those said to draw near in such practices; so too those who sacrifice to the sun, moon, and stars are transgressing the law quite thoroughly. And it was not consistent to say that
the same people, the Jews, both kept themselves from bowing down to sun, moon, and stars, and yet did not keep themselves from the same thing with respect to heaven and angels. But if we must offer a defense—since we equally do not bow down to angels, sun, moon, or stars—regarding the fact that we do not even bow down to those called by the Greeks visible and perceptible gods, we will say that the law of Moses too
knows that these were allotted by God "to all the nations under heaven," but not to those who were taken as a special portion for God beyond all the nations on earth. For it is written in Deuteronomy: "and lest, looking up to heaven and seeing sun, moon, and stars — the whole array of heaven,
you be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, which the Lord your God allotted to all the nations under the whole of heaven. But the Lord God took us and brought us out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of inheritance to him, as we are this day." A "chosen race," then, and "a royal priesthood," "a holy nation," and
a "people for his possession"—these the Hebrew people were called by God to be, concerning whom it had earlier been told to Abraham, from the voice the Lord spoke to him: "Look up to heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them. And he said to him: So shall your seed be." He was not about to have this hope so that he would bow down to those stars in heaven
as to beings to whom, by understanding and keeping the law of God, they were destined to become like. For indeed it is said to them: "The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude." And in Daniel too such things are prophesied concerning the resurrection: "And at that time your people shall be saved,
everyone found written in the book; and many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth shall rise up, some into eternal life, and some into reproach and eternal shame; and those who understand shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and some of the many righteous like the stars, forever and ever." Hence Paul too, taking this up in
his discussion of the resurrection, says: "there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly another. The sun has one glory, the moon another, and the stars yet another; for one star differs from another star in brightness. So it is also with the resurrection of the dead." It was hardly reasonable, then, that those who had been taught in so exalted a fashion should transcend all the
works of craftsmanship, and to hope for the best things concerning themselves from God on the basis of the most excellent life, and, having heard "You are the world's light" and "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens," to practice and possess that shining and unfading wisdom, or
and having received it, being as it is a "radiance" of "eternal light," to be so overwhelmed by the perceptible light of the sun, moon, and stars in such measure that, owing to that perceptible light, they should consider themselves to be somewhere down below, even though they possess so great an intelligible light of knowledge, and "true light," and "light of the world," and "light of men" — and should worship those bodies instead. But if indeed they had to be worshiped, it should not be
on account of the perceptible light admired by the many that they ought to be worshiped, but on account of the intelligible and true light — supposing indeed that the stars in heaven are living beings, rational and virtuous, and were illumined with the light of knowledge by wisdom, which is the "radiance" of "eternal light." For their perceptible light is a work of the Maker of all things, while their intelligible light
has perhaps come also from themselves, from the free will within them. But this too ought not to be worshiped by the one who sees and understands the true light, by participation in which these very bodies have accordingly been illumined, nor by the one who sees the Father of the true light, God — concerning whom it has rightly been said, "God is light, and darkness has no place in him
at all." And just as those who worship the sun and moon and stars because they are perceptible and heavenly light would not worship a spark of fire or a lamp on earth, seeing how incomparably superior are the things they judge worthy of worship compared to the glow given off by sparks and lamps, in the same way those who have understood in what sense "God is light," and have grasped in what sense the Son
of God is "true light," "which enlightens every man coming into the world," and who likewise understand in what sense this one declares, "I myself am light for the world," would not sensibly bow down to what is, so to speak, a small spark set beside the light of God's true light in the sun and moon and stars. And it is not that we dishonor such great
works of craftsmanship of God, nor do we, in Anaxagoras's fashion, say that the sun and moon and stars are "a fiery mass" — we do not say such things about the sun, moon, and stars — but rather, perceiving that the divinity of God surpasses them with an ineffable superiority, and further that his only-begotten also surpasses the rest, and being persuaded that the sun and moon and stars themselves pray to the God over all through
his only-begotten, we judge that we ought not to pray to those who pray. For they themselves wish us rather to send our prayer up to the God to whom they pray, than to draw it down to themselves, or to divide our power of prayer between God and themselves. And I will use, on this point too, this example concerning them, suited to the topic: our Savior and Lord, having once heard, "Teacher,
good one," referring the one who says this to his own Father, saying: "Why do you call me good? No one is good except the one God, the Father." But if the Son, being rightly an "image" of the goodness of God, has spoken this as the Son "of the love" of the Father, how would it not have been far more reasonable for the sun to say to those who worship it: Why do you worship me? For "the Lord your
God you shall worship, and him alone you shall serve" — whom I too, and all who are with me, worship and serve. And even if someone is not so great as this, let such a person nonetheless direct his prayer to God's Word, capable of bringing him healing, and even more to that Word's Father, who likewise "sent forth his word to the righteous of former times and healed them and
delivered them from their corruptions." God, then, according to his goodness, condescends to human beings not locally but providentially. And the child of God is present not only at that time but always with his own disciples, fulfilling the saying, "Behold, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age." And if "a branch cannot bear
fruit" "unless it remains in the vine," it is clear that the disciples of the Word too, being the intelligible "branches" of the true vine, the Word, cannot bear the fruits of virtue unless they remain within that true vine, God's own Christ, who is also with us here below on earth in a bodily sense, being present with all those everywhere who are grafted onto him,
and being now also with those who do not know him, he is everywhere present. And this is what John, who wrote the gospel, shows through the person of John the Baptist, who says: "There stands among you one whom you do not know, who comes after me." It would be absurd, then, that the one who fills heaven and earth, and who has said, "Do I not
fill heaven and earth? says the Lord" — who is with us and stands close beside us (since I trust him when he declares, "I am a God nearby, not a God far off, says the Lord") — should be sought in prayer to the sun or the moon or one of the stars, which does not reach all things at once. But let it be, to use Celsus's own words, that sun, moon, and stars possess the gift of prophecy over rains and warmth and clouds and
thunder. Well then, if these prophesy such great things, ought we not much rather to worship and revere the God whom they serve in their prophesying, than his prophets? Let them then also prophesy lightning and crops and every kind of birth, and let them dispense all such things; but we shall not for this reason worship those who worship, any more than we worship Moses and those after him
who prophesied from God things greater than rains and warmth and clouds and thunder and lightning and crops and every kind of perceptible birth. But even if the sun and moon and stars are able to prophesy prophecies greater than those of rain, not even so shall we worship them, but rather the Father of the prophecies within them, and their minister, the Word of God. But let there also be heralds
his, and truly heavenly angels, how then should not the god proclaimed by them, and the one they announce, be worshiped rather than their heralds and angels? Celsus takes it upon himself to claim that we consider sun and moon and stars to be nothing. Concerning these we confess that they too "await the revelation of the sons of God,"
having been "subjected" for the present to the "futility" of material bodies, "because of him who subjected them in hope." Yet had Celsus read the countless other things we say about sun and moon and stars, and "praise him, all you stars and light," and "praise him, you heavens of heavens," he would not have declared about us that
we say such great things, greatly praising God, while holding it to be nothing. Celsus does not even know the verse, "for the earnest expectation of creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For creation was subjected to futility—not by its own will, but through him who subjected it—in hope, that creation itself also will be set free from the slavery of decay into
the freedom belonging to the glory of God's children." With this, then, let our defense concerning our not worshiping sun, moon, and stars come to its conclusion. Let us set out the next passage as well, so that afterward, God granting it, we may say in reply to it what will be given us from the light of truth. He says this: "It is foolish of them, too,
to suppose that, when God, like a cook, brings on the fire, every other race will be roasted, while they alone will remain — not only the living, but also those who died long ago, rising up from the earth in those very same flesh: it is simply the hope of worms. For what human soul would still long for a rotted body? Since not even you all hold this doctrine
in common — some of the Christians themselves declare it to be both utterly foul and repugnant, and at the same time impossible. For what body, once wholly destroyed, could be restored to that first composition, out of which it was dissolved, and to its original nature? Having nothing to answer, they take refuge in a most absurd retreat: that everything is possible for God. But surely
God cannot do shameful things, nor does he will what is contrary to nature; nor, if you should desire something loathsome in keeping with your own depravity, will God be able to do this, and one must at once believe that it will happen. For God is the founder not of faulty desire nor of wandering disorder, but of right and just nature. And he could indeed grant the soul an eternal life;
but "corpses," says Heraclitus, "are more fit to be thrown out than dung." Flesh, then, full of things not even decent to name, God will neither absurdly wish nor be able to declare eternal. For he himself is the reason (logos) of all things that exist; he is therefore not capable of doing anything irrational, or contrary to himself. See, then, from this point on how...
Slandering with mockery the conflagration of the world, he wants to portray us as introducing God's role in the conflagration as though he were a cook — not realizing that, just as it seemed to some of the Greeks (perhaps having taken the idea from the most ancient nation, the Hebrews), a purifying fire is brought upon the world, and it is likely that it also comes upon each person who needs the justice, and at the same time the healing, that comes through fire — burning
but not consuming those who have no material needing to be destroyed by that fire, while burning and consuming those who have built, in the figuratively-called edifice constructed of deeds and words and thoughts, with "wood, hay, or stubble." The divine oracles say that the Lord will come to dwell with each one who needs it "like the fire of a smelting-furnace and like fullers' soap," because of
the base, molten material from wickedness that has been mixed in — I mean, with those who need fire, as it were smelting those who have been mixed with "bronze," "and tin and lead." Whoever wishes can learn this from the prophet Ezekiel. And that we do not say God brings the fire as a cook would, but as a God who benefits those who are in need of toil and fire, the
prophet Isaiah too will testify, in whom it is written to have been said to a certain sinful nation: "For you have coals of fire, sit upon them; these will be a help to you." And Scripture, arranged to suit the multitudes who will encounter it, speaks with wisdom, in a veiled manner, of grim things meant to instill fear in those who cannot otherwise be turned back from the flood of their sins; yet even so, one who watches closely will find made evident
the end brought upon those who suffer, arising out of the grim and painful things. For the present it is enough to cite from Isaiah: "For the sake of my name I will show you my wrath, and I will bring my glorious deeds upon you, so that I may not utterly destroy you." We have been compelled to speak in riddles of matters unsuited to those who believe more simply and who need the simpler management of these things in words,
so that we should not seem to leave Celsus's accusation unrefuted, where he says: whenever God, like a cook, brings on the fire. The foregoing remarks make plain enough, to those who listen more intelligently, how one must answer also the claim that the whole rest of humankind will be roasted, while they alone will remain. It is not surprising if he has understood in such a way the things among us that are called "foolish
of the world" and "base" and "despised" and "things that are not" — things which, "through the foolishness of the preaching, God was pleased to save those who believe in him, since the world through its wisdom did not know God by wisdom" — being unable to articulate matters of interpretation, nor willing to devote leisure to the searching of Scripture, even though
Jesus says, "Search the Scriptures" — and has formed such notions about the fire brought by God and about what will happen to sinners. And perhaps, just as it is fitting that certain things be said to children suited to their infancy, so as to turn them, as utterly small children, toward what is better, so too for those whom Scripture has called the fools of the world and the base and
For those who have been reduced to nothing, the ready-at-hand interpretation of punishments is fitting, since they cannot receive any other conversion than the one produced through fear and the imagination of punishments, along with abstention from most evils. Reason, then, says that only those remain untasting of the fire and of the punishments who have thoroughly purified their doctrines, their character, and their governing faculty; but those who are not such, in proportion to
their desert, will need the dispensation of punishment by fire, and among these he says there will be some end, which it is fitting for God to bring upon those made "according to the image" of himself, yet who have lived in defiance of what that image-bearing nature intends. And this bears on the point that the whole rest of the race will be burned up, while these alone will remain. Then, next in order, having misheard either the sacred
writings, or those who have not understood the sacred writings, he says that we assert that only those will remain — at the time when the purifying fire is to be brought upon the world — not only those then living but also those who died long ago; not grasping that a certain hidden wisdom lay behind what Jesus's apostle declared: "sleep will not claim us all, yet a change will come upon every one of us, in
an instant, in an eye's twinkling, at the final trumpet; for a trumpet-call will sound, and the dead will rise imperishable, and we ourselves shall be changed." He ought to have paused to consider what the one who says these things had in mind, when — by no means separating himself from the dead as though he were dead — he spoke of himself and those like him after saying "and the dead will rise imperishable": "and we ourselves shall be changed." And as confirmation that the apostle had
understood some such things when he wrote this, the passages I cited from the first letter to the Corinthians, I will also set alongside them those from the first letter to the Thessalonians, in which Paul, speaking as one living and awake and other than those who have fallen asleep, says such things as: "For this we declare to you by the Lord's own word, that those of us still living, remaining until the Lord's coming, shall by no means go before
those who have fallen asleep, because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God." Then again, next after these, knowing that the dead in Christ are others besides himself and those like him, he adds, saying: "the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who remain, will together with them be caught up in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air." Since he has made even more of a mockery of the resurrection of the flesh — proclaimed in the churches but understood more clearly by those of greater discernment — and since it is not necessary to set out again his statement already given once, come, let us also speak concerning this problem, as in the defense addressed to one alien to the faith, written for the sake of those still infants and
tossed about and carried around "by every wind of teaching, in the cunning of men, (in craftiness) for the scheming of error," let us set forth and present a few points, aimed as best we can at those who will read this. Neither we ourselves, then, nor the divine writings say that those who died long ago will live in these very flesh, having undergone no change for the better, rising up out of the earth just as they were;
Celsus slanders us by saying this. For we hear many scriptures speak of resurrection in terms befitting God, but for the present it is enough to cite Paul's words from the first letter to the Corinthians, where he says: "But someone will say, how are the dead raised? With what body do they come? Fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies; and what you sow,
you do not sow the body that will come to be, but a bare kernel, of wheat perhaps, or of one of the other grains; and God gives it a body as he wished, and to each of the seeds its own body." Notice, then, in what manner he says here that it is not the body that will come to be that is sown, but from what is sown and cast naked upon the ground, he says, God gives
"to each of the seeds its own body," so that a kind of resurrection takes place, an ear of grain rising from the seed that has been cast down in such cases as these, whether in a mustard seed, or, on a larger tree, in an olive stone, or in some other fruit-tree seed. "God, then, gives" "to each" "a body, as he wished," just as in the case of things sown, so also in the case of things that are, so to speak, sown in dying, and,
at the fitting time, receive from among the things sown the "body" fitted to each according to its worth by God. And we hear the reasoning that teaches at greater length the difference between what is, so to speak, sown and what is, as it were, raised from it, saying: "Sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; sown in dishonor, it rises in glory; sown in weakness, it rises in power;
it is sown a soulish body; what is raised is a spiritual body." Let whoever is able still grasp what is meant by the one who says: "As is the man of dust, such also are those of dust; and as is the heavenly man, such also are the heavenly. And just as we bore the image of the man made of dust, so let us likewise bear the image of the heavenly one." And yet, although the apostle wished to keep hidden the secrets belonging to this subject
and things not fitting for the more simple and for the common hearing of those being led toward what is better through believing, he was nevertheless compelled afterward, so that we might not fail to heed his words, to add, following the phrase "let us also carry the image of the heavenly one," these words: "this I declare, brothers: flesh and blood are unable to obtain the kingdom of God as an inheritance, nor can decay inherit what does not decay."
Then, knowing that there was something secret and mystical involved in this subject, as was fitting for one leaving in writing to those who came after him the thoughts he had conceived, he adds and says: "Behold, I tell you a mystery," which is just the phrase customarily added by the deeper and more mystical writers, and rightly kept hidden from the many; just as it is also written in Tobit: "It is good to keep hidden the mystery of a king,"
but as for what is glorious and fitting for the many, together with what is true in a manner suited to God's economy, "it is good" "to reveal gloriously the works of God." Our expectation is thus not one shared with worms, and our soul does not yearn for the rotted body; yet, should it require a body for the sake of transitions from place to place, the soul that has cultivated "wisdom," according to the saying "the mouth of the righteous will meditate on wisdom," perceives the distinction between an earthly house
in which is the tent, when the tent too is dissolved, in which "those who are" righteous groan "being burdened," not wishing to strip off the tent but to "put on" the tent over it, so that from this "putting on over" "the mortal may be swallowed up by life." "For it is necessary," since every bodily nature is corruptible, that "this corruptible" tent "put on incorruption," and that its other part, which is "mortal" and
receptive of the death that follows upon sin, "put on immortality"; so that, when "the corruptible" "shall put on incorruption and the mortal shall put on immortality, then shall come about" that which was long ago foretold by the prophets: the destruction of death's victory, by which, having conquered us, it subjected us to itself, and of the sting that comes from it, with which, stinging the soul that is not entirely fenced about, it inflicts on it the
wounds of sin. But since our own views concerning the resurrection have been stated, so far as was possible, in part, for the present occasion (for we have composed a treatise on the resurrection elsewhere, examining more fully the matters bearing on the subject), we must now take up Celsus's remarks as reason requires, since he neither understood what has been written by us nor was able to judge that one ought not
to suppose that the intention of those wise men is being invoked as an authority by people who profess nothing more credible than the Christian doctrine. Come, let us show that things quite discordant with logical inquiry and dialectical investigation have been said by men not to be despised. And if it is necessary to sneer at certain accounts as lowly and old-womanish, it is those accounts, rather than ours, that deserve it. For the Stoics say that
a periodic conflagration of the whole universe occurs, and after it an ordering of the world, with everything exactly the same as in the previous ordering. And those of them who felt some shame at the doctrine said that a small and very slight variation occurs, period by period, relative to those of the preceding period. But these men say that in the following period such things will happen: that Socrates will again be the son of Sophroniscus
and an Athenian, and that Phaenarete, married to Sophroniscus, will again bear him. And even if they do not use the name "resurrection," they nonetheless indicate the very thing, namely that Socrates, beginning from the seed of Sophroniscus, will rise again and be formed in the womb of Phaenarete, and having been raised at Athens will practice philosophy, as though the former philosophy too were rising again and would be exactly the same as the former. And
Anytus and Meletus will again arise as Socrates's accusers, and the council of the Areopagus will condemn Socrates. And what is more ridiculous than this, Socrates will put on garments exactly the same as those of the former period, being in exactly the same poverty and in exactly the same city, Athens, as in the former period. And Phalaris will once more rule as tyrant, and his brazen
bull will bellow with the voice of those inside it, men exactly the same as those condemned in the former period of humanity. And Alexander of Pherae will again play the tyrant, having the same cruelty as before and condemning the same men as before. And why should I catalogue the doctrine on such matters philosophized by the Stoics, which is not laughed at by Celsus but
Perhaps he even boasts of this, since he thinks Zeno wiser than Jesus. And the followers of Pythagoras and Plato, even though they seem to maintain that the world is imperishable, nevertheless fall into similar difficulties. For they say that, since the stars, in certain fixed periods, take on the same configurations and relations to one another, everything on earth is likewise similar to what it was
when the world contained the same configuration of the stars' relation. It is therefore necessary, according to this account, that once the stars have come round, after a long period, to the same relation to one another that they had in Socrates' time, Socrates will again be born from the same parents and suffer the same things, being accused by Anytus and Meletus and condemned by the
council from the Areopagus. And the learned among the Egyptians, who hand down such teachings, are held in reverence and are not laughed at by Celsus and his like — while we, saying that the whole is governed by God in accordance with the analogy of the relation of what is within each person's own power, and that it is always led, so far as is possible, toward what is better, and knowing the nature of what is within our power, that it admits of whatever it admits
(for that which is wholly unchangeable in God cannot be contained by it), do not seem to be saying things worthy of scrutiny and examination. But let no one suppose that in saying this we belong to those who are called Christians but reject the doctrine of the resurrection according to the scriptures. For they are utterly unable to point to the ear of grain or tree that rises, as it were, from a grain of wheat or of any of the other seeds,
so far as their own preferred view goes. We, however, are persuaded that what is sown "is not made alive unless it dies," and that "it is not the body that shall be" that is sown (for "God gives it a body just as he willed," raising it, after it is sown "in corruption," "in incorruption," and after it is sown "in dishonor," raising it "in glory," and after
it is sown "in weakness" and raised "in power," and what is sown as a "natural body" is raised as "a spiritual" one) — we hold fast both to the will of the church of Christ and to the greatness of God's promise, establishing its possibility not by mere assertion but also by argument, knowing that even if "heaven and earth" and what is in them should pass away, yet the
"principles" concerning each thing, being as it were parts within a whole or species within a genus of the Logos who existed "in the beginning" "with God," the Word of God, will in no way pass away. For we wish to heed him who said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." We, then, do not say that the corrupted body returns to its original
nature, just as neither does the corrupted "grain" of "wheat" return to the "grain" of "wheat." For we say that, just as an ear of grain rises up from the grain of "wheat," so too a certain principle is implanted in the body, from which, since it is not destroyed, the body "is raised" "in incorruption." The Stoics, however, say that the body, though wholly corrupted, returns to its original nature
because of their doctrines about the unvarying recurrences that occur in each cycle, and they say that that very first configuration, from which it was dissolved, will again be constituted, presenting these things by dialectical necessities (as they suppose). And we are not withdrawing into the most absurd of retreats when we say that everything is possible for God; for we know that 'everything' is not to be understood of things that do not exist, nor of things that are unthinkable. But we say
also that God is not able to do shameful things, since then God would be capable of not being God; for if God does something shameful, he is not God. But since he also lays it down that God does not will the things that are contrary to nature, we make a distinction in what is meant: if by 'contrary to nature' one means vice, we too say that God does not will the
things contrary to nature, neither those that arise from vice nor those that happen irrationally. But if the things that happen according to God's reason and his will are meant, it is immediately necessary that they not be contrary to nature; for what is done by God is not contrary to nature, even if it is paradoxical or seems paradoxical to some. But if one must give it a forced name, we will say that, relative to the more commonly
understood nature, there are certain things beyond nature which God might at some time do, raising a person above human nature and making him change into a better and more divine nature, and keeping him such, to the degree that the one so kept shows, through what he does, that this is what he wills. And having once said that God wills nothing unbefitting himself, since this would be destructive of his
being God, we will say that if a person, out of his own depravity, wills something disgusting, God will not be able to bring this about. In this way we are not being contentious toward what is said by Celsus, but examining it with a love of truth we will agree that God belongs not to disordered desire nor to wandering disorder, but to right and just nature, since he is the source
of everything good. And we further confess that he is able to grant the soul eternal life, and not only is he able but he also grants it. And because of what has already been said, nothing troubles us at all, not even the saying of Heraclitus that Celsus has taken up, that 'corpses are more fit to be thrown out than dung.' And yet one might say about this too, that dung indeed is fit to be thrown out, but
the corpses that come from a human being, because of the soul that dwelt in them, and especially if it was a more refined one, are not fit to be thrown out. For according to the more refined laws they are deemed worthy of burial with whatever honor is possible in such matters, so that we may not insult, in the very power that dwelt there, the soul that dwelt there, by throwing the body away once that soul has departed, as if it were the body of a beast. Let God, then, not will
unreasonably to declare eternal neither the 'grain' of 'wheat,' but rather the ear that comes from it, nor the thing that is sown 'in corruption,' but the thing that is raised from it 'in incorruption.' But also the Word of all things is, according to Celsus, God himself, but according to us, his Son; concerning whom, philosophizing, we say: 'In the beginning was'
the Word, and the Word existed alongside God, and God was what the Word was." But even in our view God is incapable of doing anything irrational or contrary to himself. Let us now look at the next passage of Celsus, which reads as follows: The Jews, then, having become a distinct nation and having established laws according to their own local custom,
and still observing these among themselves even now, and keeping a form of worship, whatever it may be, but at any rate their ancestral one, do the same thing as other peoples, in that each group cherishes its own ancestral customs, whatever they happen to be. And this seems to be advantageous, not only because it occurred to different peoples to hold different beliefs, and it is necessary to preserve what has been established for the common good, but also because it is likely that the regions of
the earth were from the beginning allotted, each to different overseers, and were divided according to certain spheres of authority, and are governed accordingly. And indeed the customs practiced by each people would be rightly performed if done in the way that is pleasing to those overseers; and it would not be pious to abolish what has been established from the beginning according to each region. In these words Celsus indicates that the Jews, once Egyptians, later became a distinct nation, and,
having established laws, now observe them. And so as not to repeat the passages of Celsus already quoted, he says that it is also advantageous for them to practice their ancestral worship, just as other nations cherish their own. And he sets forth a somewhat deeper reason why it is advantageous for the Jews to cherish their ancestral customs, hinting that the laws of each people were established by the overseers who were allotted the earth, working together with the lawgivers,
in cooperation with them. He seems, then, to be indicating that some one or several beings oversee the land of the Jews and the nation dwelling in it, and that the laws of the Jews were laid down with that being, or those beings, cooperating with Moses. And, he says, one must keep the laws, not only because it occurred to different peoples to hold different beliefs, and because it is necessary to preserve what has been established for the common good, but
also because it is likely that, from the beginning, each region of the earth was assigned to a different overseer, apportioned according to certain spheres of authority, and so administered. Then, as though forgetting what he had said against the Jews, Celsus now, in his general praise of all who keep their ancestral customs, includes them as well, saying: And indeed the customs practiced by each people would be rightly performed if done in the way
that is pleasing to those overseers. And observe whether he is not, quite openly, insofar as it lies in his power, wanting the Jew who lives by his own laws not to depart from them, on the ground that he would be acting impiously if he did depart; for he says that it would not be pious to abolish what has been established from the beginning according to each region. Now I should like to ask him, or those who share his views, on this point, who then
is the one who from the beginning allotted the regions of the earth, each to different overseers, and clearly assigned the land of the Jews and the Jews themselves to whoever was allotted it, or to whoever were allotted it. For was it, as Celsus would presumably name him, Zeus, who allotted the Jewish nation and their land to some one being or several beings, and who wished the one allotted Judea to establish such people in it
...Jewish laws? Or has this come about against his will? Let him answer however he likes—you can see that his argument will be hemmed in. But if the regions of the earth have not been apportioned by some single being to their respective overseers, then it follows that each region was divided up by lot, at random and without any overseer presiding, as chance would have it. But this too is absurd, and would to a considerable degree do away with the providence of the God who rules over all.
Let whoever wishes explain how and by what spheres of authority the regions of the earth, once divided up, are administered by those who oversee them; and let him tell us as well how what is done among each people is done rightly, in whatever way is pleasing to their overseers—and whether, say, the Scythian laws permitting the killing of parents are right, or the Persian laws, which place no prohibition on
sons from marrying their own mothers, nor fathers from marrying their own daughters. And why should I go on raising further difficulties, drawing on those who have written treatises on the laws found among the various nations, asking how the laws practiced rightly among each people—rightly, that is, as is pleasing to their overseers—can be so? Let Celsus tell us how it is not impious to abolish ancestral laws permitting marriage with mothers
and daughters. Or the belief that it is a blessed thing to depart from life by hanging, or that those who deliver themselves over to fire are altogether purified by that fiery release from life. And how is it not impious to abolish the laws found, for instance, among the Taurians concerning the sacrifice of strangers as victims to Artemis, or among certain Libyans concerning the sacrifice of their
children to Cronus? Yet it follows from Celsus's own position that it is not impious for the Jews to abolish the ancestral laws forbidding the worship of any god other than the Creator of the universe. And so, on his account, what is pious will not be so by nature but by some convention and custom regarded as divine—since among some it is pious to worship the crocodile and to eat what among others
is an object of reverence, and pious for others to worship the calf, while among yet others the goat is held to be a god. In this way the same person will be acting piously with respect to these laws and impiously with respect to those—which is the most absurd thing of all. But no doubt they will say in reply to this that the one who keeps his ancestral customs is pious, and in no way impious, simply because he does not
also observe the customs of others; and conversely, that the one judged impious by certain peoples is not impious at all, when, in keeping with his ancestral customs, he reveres his own gods while making war on and devouring those who hold opposing laws. But consider whether this does not reveal a great confusion regarding justice and piety and reverence—since reverence is not being clearly defined, nor shown to possess
some nature of its own that marks out as pious those who act in accordance with it. If, then, piety and holiness and justice are relative terms, such that the same act is both pious and impious depending on differing circumstances and laws, then consider whether temperance too will not likewise turn out to be relative, and courage as well
prudence, and knowledge, and the rest of the virtues — nothing could be more absurd than that. Now for those who take a simpler and more general stand toward the passages Celsus has set out, what has been said is sufficient; but since we suppose that some of the more discerning readers will also encounter this treatise, come, let us venture to set forth briefly a few of the deeper points, which contain a certain mystical and unspeakable theory concerning the
apportionment from the beginning of different regions of the earth to different overseers; and among the absurdities that have been listed, let us present the argument as clean as we are able. Now Celsus seems to me to have half-heard something from certain people about the distribution among nations of the earth in these more mystical accounts, which Greek history too somehow touches upon, when it introduces certain of the so-called gods as contending with one another over Attica, and represents
among the poets certain of the so-called gods as acknowledging that certain places are more their own. Barbarian history too, and especially that of the Egyptians, shows forth certain such things concerning the division of the so-called nomes of Egypt, saying that the same Athena who obtained Sais by lot also holds Attica. The learned among the Egyptians will say countless such things — I do not
know, however, whether they also include the Jews and their land in some such distribution to one deity or another. But concerning what is said outside the divine word, let this suffice for the present. We say that Moses, the prophet of God recognized among us and his true servant, sets forth in the Song of Deuteronomy the apportionment of those upon the earth
words such as these: "When the Highest apportioned out the nations, when he dispersed abroad the sons of Adam, he fixed the borders of every nation to match the number of God's angels, and Jacob became the LORD's own share, Israel the measured portion of his inheritance." And regarding how the nations were divided, this same Moses, in the book called Genesis, writes in historical style as follows: "Now the whole earth had one
lip, all sharing a single language. And it came to pass that, as they journeyed from the east, they discovered a plain in Shinar's land, where they settled"; and shortly after: "The LORD descended," it says, "to view the city and tower the sons of men had raised. Then the LORD declared: Behold, they are one people, one language among them all; this is but the start of what they intend, and henceforth"
nothing they set out to do will be beyond them. Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue there, so that each may not understand the voice of his neighbor. And the LORD scattered them from there across the whole face of the earth, and they ceased building the city and the tower. Therefore its name was called Confusion, because there the LORD confused
the lips of all the earth, and from there the LORD God scattered them over the face of all the earth." And in the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, concerning wisdom and the events of the confusion of tongues, in which the apportionment of those upon the earth took place — of the earth. Such things are said about wisdom: "She, even in the union of wickedness"
of nations having been thrown into confusion, he knew the righteous one, and kept him blameless before God, and kept him strong even upon the inward parts of a child." Much is the account concerning these things, and mystical, to which the saying fits: "It is good to hide the secret of a king" — so that the account concerning souls not being clothed in a body by transmigration might not be flung out to chance hearers, nor the holy things be given to "
the dogs," nor the pearls be thrown before swine. For such a thing is impious, involving a betrayal of the hidden sayings of God's wisdom, concerning which it is well written: "wisdom will not enter into an evil-contriving soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin." It is enough to set forth, in the manner of a history, the things spoken in a hidden way as though in the manner of a history, so that those who are able may work out for themselves
the matters concerning this passage. Let all who are upon the earth, then, be conceived as using one divine language, and insofar as they agree with one another let them be kept within the divine language; and let them remain unmoved "from the risings," so long as they are thinking the things of the light and of the radiance from the "eternal light." And these, whenever they move "from the risings," thinking things foreign to "the risings,"
let them find "a plain in the land of Sennaar," which is interpreted "a shaking out of teeth," as a symbol of their destroying the very things by which they are nourished, and let them dwell there. Then, wishing to gather the things of matter and to fasten together things not naturally fitted to be fastened to heaven, so that through material things they might plot against the immaterial, let them say: "Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire." So then, as ones hardening and fixing the
clay and material things, and wishing to make the brick into stone and the clay into bitumen, and through these to build "a city and a tower, whose head," so far as their supposition goes, "will reach unto heaven" — corresponding to the heights lifted up against the knowledge of God — let each be handed over according to the proportion of the movement "from the risings" that has taken place in them, whether more or less,
as has occurred in their case, and according to the proportion of the making of the bricks into stones and of the clay into bitumen and of the building constructed from these, let them be handed over to angels, harsher or milder in greater or lesser degree, and of one sort or another, until they pay the penalty for what they have dared; and let each be led by the angels who formed for them their own peculiar language, into the parts of
the earth according to their own worth — these to, say, a scorching region, others to one that punishes its inhabitants through extreme cold, and some to a land more difficult to farm, others to one less so, and some to a land full of wild beasts, others to one having fewer of them. Then, if anyone is able, as in
the form of a history — a history which has something true in itself, but also displays something hidden — let him also observe those who kept the language from the beginning, by not having moved "from the risings," remaining in the east and in the eastern language; and let him understand that these alone became "the Lord's portion and his people," the one called "Jacob," and that there also came to be "the measuring-line of his inheritance, Israel";
And let these alone be overseen by a ruler who has not taken charge of those under him for the sake of punishment, as the others have. And let whoever is capable of it observe how, as among human beings, in the commonwealth of those assigned to the portion that specially belongs to the Lord, the sins that occur are at first tolerable, of such a kind that those who commit them do not altogether deserve to be abandoned; but later they become more numerous, yet still...
...tolerable. And observing this happening over a longer time, with treatment continually being applied and these people turning back at intervals, let him see them being abandoned in proportion to their sins, just as happened to those allotted the other regions: at first punished only to a lesser degree, paying the penalty as though being disciplined, and returning to their own lands; but later let him see them being handed over to harsher rulers, whom...
...the scriptures would name Assyrians, and then Babylonians. Then, as further remedies are applied, let him see them nonetheless increasing their sins, and for this reason being scattered abroad among the other portions by the rulers of the remaining nations who plunder them. And let their own ruler deliberately overlook their being plundered by the rulers among the remaining nations, so that he himself, with good reason, as though avenging himself, taking...
...the authority to draw off from the remaining nations whomever he is able, might do this very thing, setting laws for them and showing them a way of life by which they must live, so as to lead them up to the same goal to which he used to lead those who had not sinned from the former nation. And through this let those capable of seeing such great matters learn that the one allotted those who had not previously sinned is far more powerful...
...than the rest, since he has been able, taking chosen ones out of the portion belonging to all, to remove them from those who had taken them for punishment, and to bring them over to laws and a way of life that contributes toward an amnesty for their former sins. But, as we said before, let these things be spoken by us only in veiled terms. They set forth things which those men failed to heed properly who said that the parts of the earth were from the beginning apportioned to different overseers, divided according to certain spheres of dominion,...
...and administered accordingly; and it was from these that Celsus, taking his cue, spoke the words quoted above. But since those who were stirred up "from the east," on account of what they had sinned, were handed over "to a debased mind" and "to dishonorable passions" and, "in the desires of their hearts, to uncleanness," so that, having had their fill of sin, they might come to hate it, we will not submit to what pleases Celsus when he claims that, because of the overseers allotted to the parts of the earth, whatever is done among each people is done rightly. Rather, we wish...
...not to do things the way it happens to please those overseers, but to do what belongs to them only as far as is right. For we see that it is a holy thing to dissolve the customs established from the beginning according to localities by better and more divine laws — the laws which, as the most powerful one, Jesus established, having rescued us from the present evil age and from the rulers of this age,...
...who are being brought to nothing; but it is an unholy thing not to cast oneself upon the one who has appeared and been shown to be more powerful than all rulers. To him God spoke, as the prophets foretold many generations beforehand: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." For indeed "he himself" has become our "expectation." Of the...
from "nations" who have believed in him and in the God who is over all, his Father. Now this has been said not only in reply to what has been laid out concerning the mystic initiates, but it also fairly well anticipates what Celsus goes on to say against us. There he says: "Let the second come forward: I shall ask them where they have come from, or who is the founder of their ancestral laws." They will say, no one,
since they set out from that same place, and they too derive their teacher and choir-leader from nowhere else; and yet they have broken away from the Jews. We, then, each of us have come "in the last days," when our Jesus made his sojourn among us, to "the mountain of the Lord that is manifest," the Word who stands "above" every word there is, and to the household "of God"—the household which "is the assembly of the living God,
a pillar and foundation of the truth." And we see in what manner this house is built "on the tops of the mountains," of all the prophetic words, which are its foundation. This "house" is raised up "above the hills," above those things which seem among men to promise something exceptional in wisdom and in truth. Toward it "every nation" makes its way, and the many peoples advance, and
we say to one another, urging one another on toward the reverence for God that has shone forth "in the last days" through Jesus Christ: "Come, let us go up to the Lord's mountain, to the house of Jacob's God. He will teach us his own way, and in it we will walk." For "the law" went out from those in "Zion" and passed over to us in spiritual form. But also "the word of the Lord"
went out from that "Jerusalem," so that it could be spread everywhere and could render judgment "in the midst of the nations," choosing those whom it sees to be obedient, but reproving the "many people" who are disobedient. And indeed we say to those who ask us where we have come from or who is our founder, that we have come, in accordance with the instructions of Jesus, to beat our warlike rational "swords" and our insolent ones "into ploughshares,"
and we are reworking "our" former warlike "spears into sickles." For no longer do we lift up "sword against nation," nor any longer do we "practice for war," since through Jesus we became sons of peace — he who is our leader — instead of our ancestral ways, in which we had once been "strangers to the covenants." We have taken up a law, and for it we render thanks, confessing to the one who rescued us from error, we say: "As false
idols our fathers acquired, and there is among them no one who sends rain." Our choir-leader and teacher, then, having come out from the Jews, distributes to himself, by the word of his teaching, the whole inhabited world as his portion. Having anticipated these points, we have refuted, to the best of our ability, the lengthy statement of Celsus that follows, joining it to the passages of his that were set out. But so that we may not pass over what was said in between
by Celsus, come, let us set this out as well. One might also use Herodotus as a witness on this point, who speaks as follows: "For those who dwell in the city of Marea and in Apis, in the part of Egypt bordering on Libya, considering themselves to be Libyans and not Egyptians, and being burdened by the observance concerning sacred rites — wishing not to be barred from female cattle — sent to Ammon, saying
that they had nothing in common with the Egyptians, for they lived outside the Delta and did not agree with them, and wished to be permitted to eat of everything. But the god did not permit them to act in this way, saying that this was Egypt, which the Nile waters as it floods, and that those were Egyptians who, dwelling below the city of Elephantine, drink from this river." This is what Herodotus
has recorded. And Ammon was no worse at conveying divine messages than the messengers of the Jews, so that it is no wrong for each people to worship according to their own customs. Indeed we shall find that the greatest difference among them runs by nation, and yet each people themselves seem to consider their own practices best: among the Ethiopians, those who dwell at Meroe worship "Zeus and Dionysus alone," while the Arabians worship Urania and Dionysus
these two alone. All the Egyptians worship Osiris and Isis, but the people of Sais worship Athena, and the people of Naucratis, who began only recently, worship Sarapis, and the rest according to their districts, each as they see fit. Some abstain from sheep, holding them sacred, others from goats, others from crocodiles; others abstain from female cattle, and shun pigs with abhorrence. Among the Scythians, on the other hand, it is thought fine even to feast on human beings,
and some of the Indians consider it a holy act even to eat their own fathers. And somewhere this same Herodotus says—I will again use his own words for the sake of credibility; he records it thus: "For if one were to set before all mankind a choice, bidding them select the finest customs from among all customs there are, each people, upon consideration, would choose its own; so completely do they all believe"
"their own customs to be by far the finest. It is therefore not likely that anyone but a madman would make sport of such things. That all mankind hold this view about their own customs can be established by many other proofs, and by this one in particular: Darius, during his own reign, summoned the Greeks who were present at his court and asked them for what price they would be willing"
"to eat their fathers when they died. They replied that they would do this for no price whatsoever. Darius then afterward summoned those of the Indians called the Callatiae, who do eat their parents, and asked them, in the presence of the Greeks, who learned what was said through an interpreter, for what price they would agree to burn their dead fathers with fire. And they cried out loudly and bade him say nothing so ill-omened. Such, then, is how these matters"
"stand by custom, and Pindar seems to me to have spoken rightly when he called custom king of all." Through these citations Celsus's argument seems to move toward the conclusion that all people ought to live according to their ancestral customs, and would not be blamed for doing so, but that Christians, having abandoned their ancestral customs and not being some single nation as the Jews are, deserve blame for adhering to Jesus's teaching. Let him then
tell us whether those who pursue philosophy and are taught not to be superstitious rightly abandon their ancestral customs, to the point even of eating what is forbidden in their own countries, or whether in doing this they act contrary to what is proper. For if, on account of philosophy and teachings against superstition, people do not keep their ancestral customs and would even eat of what is forbidden to them by their fathers, why should not Christians too,
since reason chooses not to fuss over the images and shrines, or even over the works of God's craftsmanship, but to rise above them and to present the soul to the Craftsman himself, then in doing so, proportionately, they would be acting just as philosophers do, without reproach. But if Celsus, or those who approve of his views, will say, in order to safeguard the position he has set for himself, that even a person who has taken up philosophy will still keep
his ancestral customs — it would be time to say that the most ridiculous philosophers, for instance, would have arisen among the Egyptians, taking care not to eat onion, so as to keep their ancestral customs, or not to eat certain parts of the body, such as the head or the shoulder, so as not to transgress what had been handed down to them by their fathers. Nor am I yet speaking of those who shudder at the nonsensical taboos of the body concerning the genitals among the Egyptians — that if someone should take up philosophy on the basis of such things
and yet keep the ancestral customs, he would be a ridiculous philosopher doing unphilosophical things. In just this way, then, the person led by reason to the worship of the God of all, yet remaining, on account of ancestral custom, down below among the images and the human-made shrines, and unwilling in his purpose to ascend to the Craftsman, would be similar to those who have learned the doctrines
of philosophy but fear things that are not to be feared, and consider it impiety to eat such-and-such foods. And of what sort is Herodotus's Ammon, whose words Celsus has taken up as if for a proof that each person ought to keep his ancestral customs? For their Ammon does not allow those who dwell in the regions bordering Libya, from the city of Marea and from Apis,
to be indifferent about the use of female cattle — a matter which is not only in its own nature indifferent, but which also does not prevent someone from being noble and good. And if their Ammon had forbidden the use of female cattle because of the animal's usefulness for farming, and moreover because it is especially through the females that their
stock is increased, the argument would perhaps have some plausibility. But as it stands, he simply wants those who drink from the Nile to keep the Egyptians' laws concerning female cattle. And in mocking this, Celsus, regarding the angels among the Jews who serve as ambassadors of God's affairs, said that Ammon was no worse at conveying the messages of the daimones than the angels of the Jews — whose
arguments and manifestations he did not examine, to see what they intend. For had he looked closely, he would have recognized that in the passage where he seems to be legislating about cattle or irrational animals, it is not "cattle" that God is concerned with, but rather that what was written for the sake of human beings, under the guise of dealing with irrational animals, contains a certain natural philosophy. Celsus, then, says that no one does anything unjust in wishing to practice the customary rites of his own people;
and it follows, on his view, that the Scythians do nothing unjust, since according to their ancestral custom they feast on human beings. And among the Indians, those who eat their fathers consider that they are doing something holy � and, according to Celsus, they are, at any rate, not doing anything unjust. He accordingly sets out a passage of Herodotus supporting the view that each people rightly keeps to its own ancestral customs, and seems to commend the Indians called Callatiae under Darius, who ate their parents
who eat their own dead — since, when Darius asked them for what price they would be willing to set aside this custom, they cried out loudly and told him to hold his tongue. Since two laws stand before us in general, the one being the law of nature, which God himself would have legislated, and the other being the written law found in cities, it is a good thing, wherever the written law is not opposed to the law of God, not to trouble
the citizens on the pretext of foreign laws. But where the law of nature — that is, of God — commands things opposed to the written law, see whether reason does not require us to bid a long farewell to what has been written and to the intention of the lawgivers, and to give ourselves over to God as lawgiver, and to choose to live according to his reason, even if this must be done amid dangers and countless hardships
and deaths and disrepute. For it is indeed absurd that, when the things that please God are other than the things that please certain of the laws found in cities, and when it is impossible to please both God and those who champion such laws, one should despise the actions by which one would please the maker of all things, and choose instead those by which one will indeed be displeasing
to God, yet pleasing to those who are not really laws at all, and to their friends. And if, in other matters, one ought to give precedence to nature's law—which is God's law—over a written statute enacted by human beings contrary to God's law, how much more must this hold true in matters that concern God directly? And we shall not, like the Ethiopians,
— that is, those who dwell around Meroë — worship Zeus and Dionysus alone, as pleases them, nor shall we honor Ethiopian gods in the Ethiopian manner at all; nor shall we, like the Arabians, consider Urania and Dionysus alone to be gods, but shall not consider them gods at all — gods among whom the female and the male are glorified (for the Arabians worship Urania as female and
Dionysus as male); nor, like all the Egyptians, shall we reckon Osiris and Isis among the gods, nor shall we place Athena beside them as the people of Sais imagine. And if it also pleased the elders of Naucratis to worship other gods, while those who began only yesterday or the day before worship Sarapis, a god who never existed at all, we shall not for this reason say that the one who was newly
— who did not exist before and was not known to human beings — is a god either. For the Son of God, the "firstborn of all creation," even though he seems to have become human only recently, is not for this reason new. For the divine scriptures know him to be older than all created things, and know that God said to him concerning the making of man, "Let us make man according to our image and"
likeness." Now I want to show in what way it is not reasonable for Celsus to say that each people should worship its own ancestral gods. For he says that the Ethiopians who dwell around Meroë know only two gods, Zeus and Dionysus, and worship only these; and that the Arabians likewise know only two, Dionysus, as the Ethiopians do, and Urania as their own — according to the account.
his — neither do the Ethiopians worship Ourania, nor the Arabians Zeus. If, then, some Ethiopian, coming to be among the Arabians through some circumstance, is judged impious for not worshiping Ourania, and on this account comes into danger of death, will it be fitting for the Ethiopian to die rather than act against his ancestral customs and worship Ourania? For if it is fitting for him to act against ancestral customs
— it will not be a holy act, so far as Celsus's arguments are concerned; but if he is led away to death, let him set forth the reasonableness of choosing death. I do not know whether the Ethiopian's reasoning teaches philosophy about the immortality of the soul and the honor due to piety, if they worship, according to their ancestral laws, the gods that are so reckoned. The same thing can be said also concerning the Arabians
who through some circumstance have come to dwell among the Ethiopians around Meroe. For these too, having been taught to worship only Ourania and Dionysus, will not worship Zeus along with the Ethiopians; and if, being judged impious, they were led away to death, what would they be doing reasonably? Let Celsus say. As for the myths about Osiris and Isis, it is superfluous for us to recount them now, and not the right occasion.
And even if the myths are given an allegorical turn, they will teach us to worship lifeless water and the earth that underlies human beings and all living creatures. For that, I suppose, is how they interpret Osiris as water and Isis as earth. Concerning Sarapis there is a great deal of conflicting report, since it was only yesterday or the day before that he came into public view through certain contrivances, when a certain Ptolemy wished to display him as it were manifest
to the people of Alexandria as a god. We have read in Numenius the Pythagorean about his fabrication, how he partakes of the substance of all things governed by nature, both animals and plants — so that he might seem, along with the imperfect rites and the incantations that summon daemons, to have been fashioned not only by makers of images but also by magicians and sorcerers and by the daemons charmed by their spells.
One must therefore inquire what is fitting, for a rational and gentle creature that does everything by reasoning, to eat and not to eat, and not to worship sheep or goats or female cattle by mere lot. To abstain from these is a moderate practice, for much benefit comes to human beings from these animals; but to spare crocodiles as well, and to hold them sacred, I do not know
in honor of what mythical god — how is this not the most foolish thing of all? For it is the mark of the utterly senseless to spare animals that do not spare us, and to cherish creatures that devour human beings. Yet Celsus is pleased with those who, in accordance with some ancestral custom, worship and cherish crocodiles, and he has written no argument against them; but Christians appear blameworthy to him, though they are taught to abhor vice and to turn away from the deeds that come from vice
and to worship and honor virtue as having come into being from God and as being the Son of God. For one must not, because of the feminine gender of the word, think that wisdom and righteousness are, in their essence, female — which, according to us, is the Son of God, as his true disciple showed when he said of him: "who became for us wisdom from"
"the righteousness and sanctification and redemption of God." So even if we speak of a second God, let them understand that by "second God" we mean nothing other than the virtue that comprehends all virtues, and the reason that comprehends every reason whatsoever of the things that have come into being according to nature and by way of precedence, and that tends toward the useful reason of the whole; and we say that this reason has been made most closely one's own to Jesus, and united to him, above every soul,
since he alone has been able to receive perfectly the utmost participation in the very Reason itself, and in Wisdom itself, and in Righteousness itself. Now since after saying such things about the various laws Celsus adds that Pindar seems to him to have spoken rightly in calling law "king of all," let us also discuss this. What law, sir, do you say is king of all? If you mean the laws
that hold in each city, that claim is false; for not all people are ruled by the same law. And in that case one ought rather to have said: laws are kings of all, for over each of all the nations some law is king. But if you mean law in its proper sense, this is the one who is by nature king of all — even if some, like brigands, having deserted from the law,
deny him and live out their lives in the manner of robbers and wrongdoers. We Christians, then, having come to know the law that is king of all by nature — the very law that is identical with the law of God — try to live according to it, having bidden a long farewell to laws that are not laws. Let us also look at what Celsus says next. Among these things very little indeed concerns Christians, while most concerns the Jews. He says:
"Now if the Jews observe their own law according to these things, they are not to be blamed for it — rather those are, who have abandoned their own ways and taken up the ways of the Jews. But if, as though they knew something wiser, they pride themselves on it and turn away from association with others, on the ground that others are not equally pure, they have already heard that even their doctrine about heaven is not their own but, to leave everything else aside,
had also long been held, as Herodotus somewhere shows, by the Persians. For he says, "they are accustomed to go up to the highest peaks of the mountains and offer sacrifices to Zeus, calling the whole circle of the heaven Zeus." I think it makes no difference, then, whether one calls Zeus "the Most High," or Zeus, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or Amoun, as the Egyptians do, or Papaeus, as the Scythians do. Nor indeed on this account
would they be any holier than others. That they are circumcised — the Egyptians and Colchians did this before them; that they abstain from pork — the Egyptians do this too, and moreover from goats, sheep, and cattle, and fish as well, and Pythagoras and his disciples abstain even from beans, and from everything that has a soul. Nor indeed is it likely that they are especially esteemed by God and loved beyond
other peoples, or that messengers are sent from there to them alone, as if some blessed country had fallen to their lot; for we can see for ourselves both these people and the land they have been judged worthy of. Let this chorus, then, go its way, having suffered the penalty of its own arrogance, not knowing the great God but seduced and deluded by the sorcery of Moses, having become a pupil of that sorcery to no beneficial end."
It is clear that in these remarks he is accusing the Jews of falsely supposing themselves to be a portion chosen, above all the nations, by the God who is over all things. And indeed he charges them with arrogance, on the ground that while they boast of the great God, they do not actually know him, but were led astray by the sorcery of Moses and deceived by him, having become his disciples not to any good end.
Now we have already said in part, in what precedes, something about the venerable and exceptional constitution of the Jews, at the time when there still existed among them the token representing God's city, his temple, and the priestly service carried out there at the altar. But if someone were to fix his mind on the intention of the lawgiver and, examining their affairs in the light of the constitution that accords with him,
were to compare it with the present manner of life of the other nations, he would find no people more worthy of admiration for having, among human beings, stripped away everything not useful to the human race while retaining only what is genuinely beneficial. This is why there were among them no athletic, theatrical, or equestrian contests, nor women selling their bloom to any man who wished to sow seed in vain and to do violence to the nature of
human seed. And what a thing it was, that from their tenderest years they were taught to rise above the whole sensible world and never to suppose that God was situated anywhere within it, but to seek him above and beyond bodies! And how great a thing it was that, almost from birth and from the very completion of reason, they were taught the immortality of the soul, and the tribunals of judgment beneath the earth,
and the honors due to those who have lived well! These things were proclaimed to them, while they were still children and thought as children, in a more mythic form; but for those who now seek reason and wish to make progress in it, the things that were until then myths, so to call them, were transformed into the truth hidden within them. And I think it fitting for those who are called a portion of God that they should have utterly despised all divination, as vainly bewitching
human beings, and coming rather from wicked demons than from any superior nature; and that they should seek the knowledge of things to come in souls that, through extreme purity, have received the spirit of the God who is over all. But as for the rule that one who starts from the same doctrines may not be kept as a slave for more than six years, how is that not something well reasoned, and doing injustice neither to the master nor to the slave?
What need is there to say more? The Jews would not, then, observe their own law in the same manner as the rest of the nations do theirs; for it would be a matter of blame to them, and would bring upon them a charge of insensibility, regarding the superiority of their laws, if they supposed their laws to have been written in the same way as those written for the other nations according to their several customs. And even if Celsus does not wish it, the Jews know something wiser than not only the multitude
but also than those who are reputed to practice philosophy — namely, that those who philosophize, after their solemn discourses in philosophy, fall down before images and demons, while even the least of the Jews fixes his gaze solely on the God above all things; and rightly, so far as this goes, they take pride in it and shun fellowship with others as unclean and irreligious. Would that they had not
had sinned in transgressing the law, first by killing "the prophets" and later even by plotting against Jesus—so that we might have an example of a heavenly city, which Plato too sought to sketch out, though I do not know whether he was as capable of it as Moses and those who came after him, who nurtured a certain "chosen race" and "holy nation" devoted to God with pure teachings free from all superstition. But since
Celsus wants to make out that the sacred practices of the Jews are held in common with the laws of certain other nations, come, let us examine this too. He thinks, then, that the doctrine concerning heaven is no different from the doctrine concerning God, and he says that, like the Jews, the Persians offer sacrifices to Zeus, climbing up onto the highest of the mountains—not seeing that the Jews knew of one God. In the same way, one
sacred house of prayer, a single altar for whole burnt offerings, a single altar for incense, and a single high priest of God. There was therefore nothing shared between the Jews and the Persians, who, being many, ascend the highest of the mountains and perform sacrifices bearing no resemblance to those laid down by the law of Moses, under which the priests of the Jews performed service to "a pattern and shadow" of "the heavenly things,"
the priests of the Jews, who explain in secret what the law intends concerning the sacrifices, and what these sacrifices symbolized. Let the Persians, then, call the whole circuit of heaven Zeus; but we say that heaven is neither Zeus nor God, since we know that even certain beings lesser than God have risen above the heavens and all sensible nature. And it is in this way
that we understand the verse: "You heavens of heavens, praise God, and you waters above the heavens; sing praise unto His name, the Lord." But since Celsus supposes it makes no difference whether one calls him Zeus Hypsistos, or Zeus, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or, as the Egyptians do, Amoun, or, as the Scythians do, Papaios, come, let us discuss these matters briefly as well, at the same time reminding the reader
of what was said above concerning this same problem, when Celsus's own words called us to such considerations. So now we say that the nature of names is not a matter of laws laid down by convention, as Aristotle supposes. For human languages do not have their origin from human beings, as is clear to those capable of grasping the natural power of incantations, which belong properly to the different dialects,
and to the different sounds of names belonging to the founders of those dialects—matters we have already treated briefly above, where we said that even names transferred into another dialect, though by nature capable of accomplishing something in the dialect to which they belong, no longer accomplish anything, as they did in their own proper sounds. This is already found to be true even among human beings: for someone called from birth by a certain name in the Greek dialect,
if we transferred him into the dialect of the Egyptians or the Romans or some other people, we would not thereby make him suffer or do what he would suffer or do when called by the original form of his name. Nor indeed, if we transferred someone called from the outset by a Roman-sounding name into the Greek dialect, would we achieve what the incantation professes to achieve, since it preserves the name given to him
the first name. But if these things said about human names are true, what should we think about names that are applied to the divine for whatever reason? For instance, when translated into the Greek tongue, something is conveyed from the name Abraham, and something is signified from the appellation Isaac, and something is made clear from the word Jacob. And if the one calling upon God
or the one who swears an oath invokes him as "Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and Jacob's God," he would bring something about—whether through the very nature of those names themselves or through their inherent power—demons being defeated and subjected to the speaker; but if he says instead, "the god of the elect father of resonance, and the god of mirth, and the god of the supplanter," then in this way
what is named accomplishes nothing, no more than anything else that has no power at all. Likewise, should we render the name Israel into Greek or some other tongue, we will accomplish nothing; but if we keep it as it is, attaching to it what those skilled in these matters have thought fit to combine with it, then something would come about, according to the promise attached to such invocations, from that particular sound. The
same we will say also about the word Sabaoth, which is employed in many incantations: that if we translate the name as "Lord of powers" or "Lord of hosts" or "Almighty" (for those who have interpreted it have understood it in various ways), we will accomplish nothing; but if we keep it in its own native sounds, we will accomplish something, as those skilled in these matters say. And we will say the same
about Adonai as well. If, then, neither Sabaoth nor Adonai, when translated into what they are thought to signify in the Greek tongue, accomplishes anything, how much less could it accomplish anything, or have any power, among those who suppose it makes no difference whether one calls Zeus Hypsistos or Zeus or Adonaios or Sabaoth? Knowing these things, then, and other secret matters analogous to them, Moses and the prophets
forbid naming "the name of other gods" with the mouth, since one has trained oneself to pray to none but the God who presides over all things, and to call him to mind in the heart, a heart taught to keep itself pure from every vanity of thoughts and words. And because of such things we choose to endure every torment rather than to confess Zeus as god. For we do not suppose that Zeus and Sabaoth are the same, but rather that Zeus
is not divine at all, but some demon who delights in being called by that name, one who is no friend to human beings nor to the true God. And even if the Egyptians hold out Amoun to us, threatening punishment, we will die rather than proclaim Amoun to be god, since he is, as is likely, invoked in certain Egyptian incantations that call upon this demon. And let the Scythians say too that Papaios is the god who is over all things; but we will not
be persuaded, while positing the God who is over all. But as it is pleasing to the one who has been allotted the desolate land of the Scythians, and their nation and their language, we do not err by naming God, not by the proper name Papaios, but by the appellative term for God in the Scythian tongue, and in the Egyptian, and in every language in which each person has been raised. The cause of the Jews' circumcision is not
is the same as the cause of the circumcision of the Egyptians or the Colchians. Hence the same circumcision would not be reckoned identical. And just as one who offers sacrifice does not thereby sacrifice to the identical god, even if the manner of sacrifice looks alike, and one who offers prayer does not thereby pray to the identical god, even if he requests the same things in his prayers—so too, if someone is circumcised, it does not at all follow that this is indifferent to being circumcised for someone else.
For the intention, the law, and the will of the one who circumcises make the act a different thing. And so that what is meant on this point may be understood still more, it must be said that the name "justice" is the same among all Greeks; yet it is shown that the justice according to Epicurus is one thing, and that according to the Stoics, who deny the
tripartite division of the soul, is another, and that according to the followers of Plato, who say that justice is each part of the soul doing its own proper work, is yet another. So too the courage of Epicurus is one thing—enduring hardships in order to escape greater hardships—and that of the Stoic is another, who chooses every virtue for its own sake; and that of the Platonist is another, who says that courage is the proper virtue
of the spirited part of the soul, and assigns it a place around the chest. In the same way, circumcision would differ according to the differing doctrines of those who are circumcised—a matter it is not necessary to discuss now in a work of this kind; for whoever wishes to see what has moved us on this point may read what we have written about it in our treatise on Paul's Letter to the Romans.
If, then, the Jews pride themselves on circumcision, they will have to distinguish it from the circumcision practiced by the Egyptians and Colchians alike, and also from that of the Ishmaelite Arabs, even though these are descended from Abraham, their forefather, through Ishmael, and were circumcised along with him. The Jews say that circumcision on the eighth day is the primary form, while circumcision performed otherwise is due to circumstance; and perhaps because of a
certain angel hostile to the Jewish nation, this rite was performed—an angel able to harm those of them who were not circumcised, but powerless against those who were circumcised. This, one might say, is shown by what is written in Exodus, where the angel was able to act against Moses before the circumcision of Eliezer, but once he was circumcised the angel had no power at all. And having learned such things, "Zipporah took
a stone and circumcised" her child—according to the common copies she is recorded as saying, "the blood of my child's circumcision has stopped," but according to the Hebrew itself, "you are a bridegroom of blood to me." For she knew the account concerning such an angel, who could act before the blood but was stopped by the blood of the circumcision; and it was on this account that it was said to her,
"you are a bridegroom of blood to me." But let these things, which seem to be somewhat overly curious and not risked to the extent that the common hearing of the multitude would expect, be said only up to this point; and adding one thing more, as befits a Christian, I will move on to what follows. For this angel, I think, was able to act against those among the people lacking circumcision, and, quite simply, against all who worshiped only the Creator,
And he had power to this extent, that Jesus had not yet taken on a body. But when he had taken on a body, and that body of his was circumcised, all his power against those who are circumcised within this worship of God was destroyed; for by an ineffable divinity Jesus brought him down. That is why his disciples are forbidden to be circumcised, and it is said to them: "if you are circumcised, Christ will benefit you nothing." But
the Jews do not take pride in abstaining from swine as though it were some great matter; rather they take pride in this, that they have come to understand which animals are clean and which unclean, have grasped the reason behind that distinction, and know the pig to be ranked among the unclean ones. And these things too were symbols of certain matters until the coming of Jesus, after whose arrival a word was spoken to his disciple, who as yet grasped nothing of the teaching concerning them and was saying,
"nothing common or unclean has entered my mouth," the word: "what God has cleansed, do not you call common." So it applies neither to Jews nor to us when Egyptian priests keep away not merely from swine but also from goats, sheep, cattle, and fish. Rather, since "it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person." And "food
will not commend us to God," it is not for lack of eating that we grow proud, nor have we turned to eating out of gluttony. Therefore, so far as it concerns us, let the followers of Pythagoras who abstain from ensouled creatures rejoice in doing so. But observe also the difference between the reason for abstinence from ensouled creatures among the followers of Pythagoras and among our own ascetics. For they abstain because of the
myth about the soul being transmigrated into other bodies, and abstain from ensouled creatures; and "who, taking up his own dear son, would slay him praying — what a great fool!" But we, even if we do such a thing, do it because we "buffet the body" and bring it into subjection, and wish to put to death "the members that belong to the earth: fornication, uncleanness, wantonness, passion, evil desire"; and indeed we do everything so that we may put to death "the deeds of the body." Further, concerning
the Jews, declaring his view, Celsus says: it is not likely that they should be held in high esteem by God and be loved differently from others, and that to them alone messengers should be sent from there, as if some tract of the blessed had fallen to them as their portion; since we can observe both them and the sort of region they have been thought worthy of. We shall refute this too, saying that this nation's being held in esteem by God is shown also from the fact that
the God over all is called God even by those foreign to our faith, the Hebrews. And that, being held in esteem, they were as good as never abandoned, though few in number, they continued to be guarded by a divine power, so that not even under Alexander the Macedonian did they suffer anything at his hands, even though, because of certain treaties and oaths, they were unwilling to take up arms against
Darius. At that time, they say, the Jewish high priest, having put on his priestly robe, was even bowed down to by Alexander, who declared that he had appeared to him in this very garb — [that he had] seen someone who promised him "in his sleep" that he would subject the whole of Asia. We Christians, then, say that being held in esteem by God and being loved differently from others has happened to them in the highest degree, this
the plan of management and the grace have shifted to us, since he transferred the power that was among the Jews to those from the nations who believed in Jesus. This is why the Romans, though they wished many things against the Christians in order to stop them from continuing to exist, have not been able to; for a divine hand was fighting on their behalf and wished the word of God to be sown from a single corner of the land of Judea
over the whole race of humankind. But since we have said, to the extent possible for us, what needed to be said in reply to Celsus as he accuses the Jews and their doctrine of the things set out, come, let us set forth what follows and show that we neither boast in claiming to know the great God, nor, as Celsus supposes, have we been led astray by sorcery, whether that of Moses or even of our savior Jesus himself, but rather
toward a good end, and we both hear the God who is in Moses, and have received as Son of God the God testified to by him, namely Jesus, hoping for the best things, whenever we live according to his word. But we will willingly pass over saying anything about what we have already set out beforehand, teaching from where we have come and what founder we have, and what law follows from him. And even if Celsus wants us to differ in no way from those
who worship the goat, the ram, the crocodile, the ox, the river-horse, the dog-headed one, or the cat, as the Egyptians do, Celsus himself would know, and so would anyone who shares his opinion on this. But we, to the extent of our power, have made our defense at length in what came before concerning the honor we give to Jesus, showing that it is better
we have found; and we alone, declaring that what is purely and without admixture of falsehood true is found in the teaching of Jesus Christ, commend not ourselves but the teacher, who was attested by the God over all through many things, both through the prophetic words among the Jews and through the very evidence of the facts themselves; for it is shown that he was not without God's help when he was able to accomplish such great things. Now, the passage we wish to examine
of Celsus reads as follows: "And indeed we pass over whatever they say in refutation concerning the teacher, and let someone be regarded as truly an angel. But did this one come first and alone, or did others come before him as well? If they should say that he alone came, they would be refuted, lying in contradiction of themselves. For they say that others too came, often, and indeed together sixty or seventy of them; and these, they say, became
evil, and were punished by being cast into bonds in the earth, and that is why the hot springs are the tears of those beings. And indeed, they say that an angel came to this man's very tomb as well — one, according to some, or two according to others — and it was this angel, or these angels, who told the women he had risen. For the son of God, it seems, was not able to open the tomb himself, but needed another to roll away
the stone. And further, on behalf of Mary, while she was pregnant, an angel came to the carpenter, and on behalf of those who had to snatch up the infant and flee, another angel came. And what need is there to go through everything in detail and enumerate those reportedly sent to Moses and to the others among them as well? If, then, others too were sent, it is clear that this one also came from the same God. But to announce something greater"
let it be assumed, if you like, that the Jews are somehow at fault, or falsifying their piety, or doing unholy things — for this is what these words hint at. Now what has already been said above, in our examination of the points about our savior Jesus Christ in particular, in reply to Celsus's words, would have been enough; but so that we should not seem to be deliberately passing over some passage of his writing, as though unable to answer it, come, if
we are indeed going to say the same things again, since Celsus provokes us to this, let us cut the discussion as short as we can, in case something more vivid or more novel about the same matters should turn up. He says that he is passing over the points on which Christians are refuted concerning their teacher, without in fact passing over anything he was able to say — which is plain from what he has said above; rather, he does this by way of a rhetorical device, following his usual practice.
But that we are not in fact refuted concerning so great a savior as ours — even though the one bringing the charge may seem to refute us — will be clear to all who read, with a love of truth and a spirit of inquiry, everything that has been prophesied and recorded about him. Next, since he is supposed to be speaking concessively about the savior, saying, 'let someone suppose that he really is an angel,' we say that we do not take this
as a concession granted by Celsus; rather, we discern it in his very work, since he has come to dwell among the whole human race in accordance with his own reason and teaching, to the extent that each of those who received him could make room for it. And this was the work not, as the prophecy about him named it, simply of 'an angel,' but of the angel of 'great counsel'; for he was announcing to men the great
counsel of God, the father of all things, concerning them — for those who yielded to living in pure reverence toward God, as ascending to God through great deeds; but not receiving those who, as it were, distanced themselves from God and were journeying toward destruction through unbelief concerning God. Then next he says: 'even if this one came to men as an angel, did he come first and alone, or did
others come before him as well?' And he thinks he answers both alternatives at length, though no genuine Christian says that Christ alone has come to dwell among the human race; and Celsus says that others too have appeared to men — supposing, that is, that they should say he alone did. Then he answers himself, as he wishes: 'in that case he is not recorded as the only one to have come to dwell among the human race.' just as
those who, under pretext of the teaching that bears the name of Jesus, have abandoned the creator, treating him as a lesser being, and have turned instead to some superior deity, as though he were father of the one who visited us, claim that even prior to him, others too had visited the human race, sent from the creator. Since we are examining the point at issue with a love of truth, we shall say that Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, who became the father of a certain heresy and
regarded the writings of the Jews as myth, says that this one alone has come to dwell among the human race. So not even against him, who says that Jesus alone has come to men from God, could Celsus reasonably bring the charge of disbelieving the claim that others too have come — as we said above — from the scriptures of the Jews, which report things rather more extraordinary; much less will he accept what appears
having misheard something, Celsus has, it seems, set it down from what is written in Enoch. No one, then, convicts us of lying and asserting contraries — both that our savior alone came, and that many others have come many times — since we never said any such thing. In his inquiry concerning the angels who have come to men he sets down, in a very confused way, things that reached him indistinctly from what is written in
Enoch — writings which he does not even appear to have read himself, nor to have recognized that in the churches the books entitled 'of Enoch' are not at all widely accepted as divine. Hence one might suppose that he has flung out the claim that sixty or seventy together came down, having become evil. But, so that we may deal with him more fairly, let us grant him what he has not seen from what is written in Genesis, that 'the sons of
God, seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they chose.' Nonetheless, concerning this too we shall show those able to hear the prophetic intention that one of those before us referred this passage to the doctrine concerning souls, souls that had come to desire a life in a human body — which, interpreting figuratively, he said was what was meant by 'daughters of men.' Still, however
matters may stand concerning the sons of God who desired the daughters of men, this account contributes nothing toward showing that Jesus was not the only one to have visited mankind as an angel, having plainly become a savior and benefactor to all who turn away from the flood of wickedness. Then, jumbling and confusing whatever he happened to have heard and whatever was written wherever,
whether held to be divine among Christians or not, he says that the sixty or seventy who came down together are being punished, thrown into bonds in the earth. And he brings forward, as though from Enoch, without naming him, the claim that the hot springs are the tears of those angels — a thing never spoken of nor heard among God's churches. For no one was so foolish
as to give bodily form to tears resembling those of men, attributing them to the angels descended from heaven. Yet if indeed one must jest in response to what Celsus so earnestly presses against us, it must be said that no one would call the hot springs — most of which are sweet — the tears of the angels, since the nature of tears is salty; unless, then, the
angels of Celsus weep sweet tears. Then, next, mixing together things unmixable and dissimilar and treating them as alike, he adds to the account of the sixty or seventy angels who, as he says, came down and, according to him, wept the springs of hot water, the further point that at the very tomb of Jesus it is recorded that angels came — by some accounts two, by others one — not, I think, having noticed
that Matthew and Mark recorded one, while Luke and John recorded two. These were not contradictory. For those who wrote of one say that this was the one who rolled away 'the stone' from the tomb, while those who wrote of two mean the two who stood by 'in dazzling clothing' before the women who had come to the tomb, or the ones seen within 'sitting in white.' Each of these
Now it is possible to point out that this too has actually happened, and is indicative of a certain figurative interpretation, concerning the things that appear beforehand to those who are prepared to contemplate the resurrection of the Word — but that is not the business of the present work, but rather of commentaries on the Gospel. That extraordinary things have sometimes appeared to human beings has been recorded even among the Greeks, not only by those who might be suspected of myth-making but also by those who
showed themselves to be genuinely devoted to philosophy and to setting forth, in a truth-loving way, what had come to their attention. Such accounts we have read in Chrysippus of Soli, and some in Pythagoras, and by now also in certain more recent writers, of only yesterday and the day before, as in Plutarch of Chaeronea in his work On the Soul, and in the Pythagorean Numenius in the second book On the Incorruptibility of the Soul. Are the Greeks, then,
if they relate such things, and especially those among them who philosophize — are their words not mockery nor laughter nor fabrications and myths, while if those devoted to the God of the universe, who in order never to speak even a single false word about God accept every kind of outrage up to death, report as eyewitnesses the appearances of angels, are they not judged worthy of belief, nor
are their accounts classed among the true ones? But it is not reasonable to judge the matter of who is speaking truly or falsely in this way. For those who practice avoiding deception, after much careful inquiry and examination of the particulars, pronounce more slowly and cautiously on the question of which sort of people speak truly and which sort speak falsely among the extraordinary things they report, since neither do all who put forward a claim deserve to be believed, nor
have all who demonstrate clearly handed down fabrications and myths to mankind. Further, concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, this too must be said: that at that time one or perhaps two angels were seen, announcing that he had risen and that he was caring for those who, for their own benefit, believe this — that is not surprising. But that those who always believe in the raising of
Jesus, showing as the fruit of their belief a by no means negligible thing — a robust life and a change away from the flood of evils — do not come to this without the touch of angels who assist them in their turning toward God, does not seem to me unreasonable. Celsus also attacks the account which says that an angel had rolled away 'the stone' from the tomb where the body of Jesus lay,
like a schoolboy seizing on it to level a local accusation in a rhetorical exercise, and he says, as though he had discovered something clever against the Word, that the son of God, it seems, was not able to open the tomb, but needed someone else to move the stone away. And so that I not busy myself excessively with matters concerning the place, nor, by setting out a figurative interpretation at this point, seem to be philosophizing on these things out of season,
I will speak about the narrative itself: that it appears, on the face of it, more fitting for the lesser figure, a servant, to have rolled away 'the stone,' than for the one who rises for the benefit of mankind to have done this himself. I do not mean, however, that those who plotted against the Word and wished to kill him and to show everyone that he was dead and amounted to nothing wanted the tomb to be opened at all,
so that no one would see the Word alive after their plot against him. But he who came to dwell among men for their salvation, an angel of God stronger than those who plotted against him, and a fellow-worker with the angel, rolls away the heavy stone, so that those who suppose the Word to be dead might be persuaded that he is "not" "among the dead" but lives and "goes before" those who wish to follow him, in order that he might display the things that follow to those
to whom he had earlier displayed things, those who at the earlier time of their instruction were not yet able to receive greater things than these. Then I do not know how, after this, he tosses in—I do not know to what end he thinks it useful for his purpose—the matter of the angel who came to Joseph concerning Mary's being pregnant, and again the matter of those who, to save the infant once born and being plotted against, snatched him up and fled into Egypt.
We have already discussed these matters above, in reply to what he said. But what does Celsus intend to achieve by pointing out that Moses and the others record, in the scriptures, the sending of angels? For it seems to me to contribute nothing at all toward what he wants, especially since none of those angels struggled on behalf of the human race, to turn it, as far as possible,
away from its sins. Let others, then, be sent by God as well, and let this one too proclaim something more, and, when the Jews were transgressing and corrupting true piety and doing unholy things, let him have handed over the kingdom of God to "other tenants," to those everywhere in their own churches who take care of these things and do everything to bring forward the resources that come from the teaching of Jesus, through a life
that is pure and a reasoned account that follows that life, toward the God of all things. Then next Celsus says: So then, the same god belongs both to the Jews and to these people—clearly meaning the Christians; and as though gathering together something that could not be granted, he says this: it is clear, at any rate, that those of the great church confess this, and accept as true the account of the world's creation current among the Jews, concerning at least
regarding the seventh day following the six, on which, as scripture says, God "rested" "from his works," withdrawing into his own watch-post—whereas Celsus, not attending to what is written nor understanding it, says "having taken his rest," which is not what is written. But concerning the making of the world and the sabbath-keeping that remains after it for
the people of God, the account would be "lengthy" and mystical and deep and "hard to explain." Then it seems to me that, wanting to fill out his book and make it appear to be something great, he adds certain things at random, of the kind found also in what concerns the first man—namely, that we say he is the same man as the Jews say, and that we trace the succession from him by genealogy in the same way as they do. But also
we know of no plotting of brothers against one another except that Cain plotted against Abel, and Esau against Jacob; for Abel did not plot against Cain, nor Jacob against Esau. Had that been so, Celsus would have been consistent in saying that we record the same mutual plots of brothers against each other as the Jews do. Let it also be granted that our account of the flight into Egypt
that they mean the same thing by "sojourn abroad" as those others do, and the same return from there, and not a flight, as Celsus supposes. What, then, does this contribute to the accusation against us or against the Jews? Where he thought he would mock us in his account of the Hebrews, he called it a flight; but where it was a matter of practical inquiry into the plagues recorded as having come upon Egypt
from God, he deliberately kept silent about this. But if we are to speak precisely to Celsus, who supposes that we hold the same views as the Jews about the matters set forth, we will say this: both of us agree that the books were composed by a divine spirit, but concerning the interpretation of what is in the books we no longer say the same things, since we do not even live as the Jews do, in that we do not think that
the literal interpretation of the laws is what contains the intention of the legislation. And we say that "whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over the heart" for those who have not welcomed the way through Jesus Christ, because the intention of the law of Moses has been hidden from them. And we know that "if anyone turns to the Lord" ("and the Lord
is the spirit"), once "the veil" has been removed, that person, "with unveiled face," gazes as in a mirror upon the "glory of the Lord" that lies in the hidden meanings according to the letters, and partakes of what is called the divine glory, transforming it into his own glory (the word "face" being used figuratively, or, as one might put it more plainly, meaning the mind). In this is the face "according to the inner man," filled with light
and glory from the truth concerning the laws. Next after this he says: let no one suppose me ignorant that some of them will agree that the god they hold is the same as the Jews', while others hold that he is different, opposed to that one, and that the Son came from that other one. But if he supposes that the existence of several sects among Christians is an accusation against Christianity,
why should not the disagreement among the sects of philosophers likewise be reckoned, by the same reasoning, an accusation against philosophy—a disagreement not about small and incidental matters but about the most essential ones? It would then be time also to accuse medicine on account of the sects within it. Let there be, then, among us those who do not call the god they speak of the same as the God of the Jews; but they are not
on that account to be accused who, from those same scriptures, demonstrate that there is one and the same God of the Jews and of the nations—just as Paul too says plainly, having come to Christianity from among the Jews: "I owe gratitude to my God, in whose service I stand, following my ancestors, with an unstained conscience." And let there also be a third class, of those who call some people "soul-bound" and others "spiritual"; I suppose
he means by this the followers of Valentinus. And what has this to do with us who belong to the church, who accuse those who introduce natures that are saved or destroyed by their very constitution? And let there be also some who profess to be Gnostics, corresponding to those who proclaim themselves philosophers among the Epicureans. But neither can those who do away with providence truly be philosophers, nor can those who fashion strange and monstrous inventions and
those who introduce what is not pleasing to the successors of Jesus would not really be Christians. But suppose there are some who accept Jesus and on this ground boast of being Christians, while still wishing to live according to the Jewish law, just as the Jewish masses do — these are the two kinds of Ebionites, who confess either that Jesus was born of a virgin, as we do, or that he was not born
in this way but as the rest of humankind. What accusation does this bring against those from the church, whom Celsus named after the multitude? He also said that there are some called Sibyllists, perhaps having overheard some who accuse those who suppose the Sibyl to have been a prophetess, and who have called such people Sibyllists. Then, heaping up a great pile of names for us, he says he knows also of Simonians, who honor Helen —
or, revering their teacher Helenus, are called Helenians. But it escapes Celsus's notice that the Simonians nowhere confess that Jesus is the Son of God; rather they call Simon the power of God, telling marvelous tales about him, since Simon supposed that if he made a pretense of things similar to what Jesus was thought to have done, he too would be able to gain as much standing among people as Jesus has among the many. But neither Celsus nor Simon was able
to understand how Jesus, as a good "farmer" of the word of God, has managed to scatter seed across most of Greece and most of the barbarian world alike, filling them with his teachings, transforming the soul away from every evil and leading it up to the maker of all things. Celsus, then, knows also of Marcellians named after Marcellina, and Harpocratians named after Salome, and others named after Mariamme, and others named after Martha; but we —
who, out of our love of learning as far as we are able, have examined not only the matters within our own teaching and the differences among them, but have also inquired, so far as we have had power, into the doctrines of those who philosophized in love of truth — have never had any dealings with these people. Celsus also mentioned the Marcionites, whose leader is Marcion. Then, so as to seem to know still others besides those he has named, he says, in his usual manner, that
different people follow different teachers and demons, wandering badly and wallowing about in deep darkness, more lawlessly and foully than the devotees of Antinous in Egypt. And it seems to me that, touching lightly on the facts, he has said something true — that certain people, wandering badly after one demon or another, have found for themselves a patron amid the great darkness of ignorance. But as for the matters concerning Antinous,
whom he compares to our Jesus, we will not repeat what we have said about them earlier. And he says that these people utter against one another all sorts of terrible things, both speakable and unspeakable, and that they would not yield in any respect toward concord, hating one another in every way. To this too we have replied, that even in philosophy one can find sects warring against sects, and likewise in medicine. Those, however, who
follow the word of Jesus, and have practiced thinking, speaking, and acting according to his words, "when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat"; and we would not speak things speakable and unspeakable against those who hold opinions different from what we have supposed. Rather, if we are able, we would do everything to bring them over to what is better, through attending solely to the Maker and doing everything
to act as those who are going to be judged. But if those who hold different opinions are not persuaded, we keep the word that commanded us concerning them: "Reject a heretical person after a first and second admonition, knowing that such a one has been perverted and sins, being self-condemned." Moreover, those who have understood "blessed are the peacemakers" and "blessed are the gentle" would not utterly loathe those who falsify the teachings of Christianity, nor would they call the deceived "Circes" and
"seductive brews." He seems to me to have misheard, both the apostolic saying which states, "in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose own conscience has been seared, forbidding marriage, requiring abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful" — he has misheard this — and also misheard those who have used these very
words of the apostle against those who falsify the teachings of Christianity. That is why Celsus said that certain people among Christians are called "brands upon the hearing." He himself also says that some are called "riddles," which we have not found recorded. But truly the word "stumbling-block" occurs a great deal in these writings, which we are accustomed to use concerning those who turn aside from sound teaching the more simple and easily deceived. As for certain "Sirens"
who dance wildly, and sorceresses who seal up ears and turn those who trust them into swine — we do not know of any so named, and I think that no one else either, among those versed in the doctrine or among the sects. But this man who professes to know everything says such things as this too: you will hear, he says, from all of them, distant from one another as they are, and refuting one another most shamefully in their quarrels, all alike saying
this: "To me the world has been crucified, and I to the world." For this seems to be the only thing Celsus has remembered from Paul. Why then do we not also mention countless other things that are written, such as: "for while we walk about in flesh, our campaign is not conducted according to flesh; the weapons with which we campaign are not of flesh but are mighty through God to tear down fortified strongholds, tearing down calculations and every
height that is raised up against the knowledge of God"? But since he says that you will hear, from all who are so far apart from one another, the saying "to me the world has been crucified, and I to the world," we will also refute this as false. For there are certain sects that do not accept the epistles of the apostle Paul, such as both kinds of Ebionites and those called Encratites. Those who do not make use of the apostle as
someone blessed and wise, then, would not say "to me the world has been crucified, and I to the world" — and so in this too Celsus lies. And he lingers on, accusing the disagreement among the sects; but he does not seem to me to articulate very clearly what he says, nor to have examined it carefully, nor to have understood how those Christians who are advanced in reasoning claim to know more than the Jews, and whether
they agree with the Jews' books while interpreting the meaning differently, or do not agree with those writings at all — for we would find both cases among the sects. After this he says: come then, even if they have no basis at all for their doctrine, let us examine the teaching itself; but first we must state how much they corrupt through ignorance of what they have misheard, presumptuously asserting from the outset, and without due care, things about which they know nothing.
These are as follows. And straightaway he sets certain expressions—ones repeatedly used by those who trust the Christian message—alongside statements drawn from the philosophers, wishing to show that the good things Celsus supposes are said among Christians have been said better and more clearly by those who philosophize, so that he might draw off, toward philosophy, those who are captivated by the goodness and piety that appear directly in the doctrines themselves. And so, having brought the fifth
book to a close at this point, let us begin the sixth from what follows.

======== Against Celsus, Book 6 ========

As we open this sixth book against Celsus's accusations of the Christians, holy Ambrose, what we need to contend against in it is not, as one might suppose, the material he sets out from philosophy. For Celsus has cited a great many passages, mostly from Plato, publicizing what is capable of persuading someone intelligent, drawn from the sacred writings, claiming that these things are better said among the Greeks, and without the exaltation
and the promise made as if from God or the Son of God. We say, then, that if the aim of those who champion the cause of truth is to benefit and win over, as far as possible, out of love for humanity, everyone whatsoever — not only the quick-witted but also the unintelligent — and again, not the Greeks only but also the barbarians, and above all
gentleness, if one is able to turn even the most rustic and untutored to it, then it is clear that such a person must give thought to a style of speaking that is of common benefit and capable of drawing in every kind of hearer. But those who bid a hearty farewell — as if to slaves — to the untutored, who cannot follow the coherence of words in their phrasing and the order of what is delivered, and who have taken thought only for those raised
on literature and learning, these have narrowed the common good down to something cramped and small indeed. I have said this in defending against the charge, made by Celsus and others, of plainness in the wording of the scriptures, which seems to be dimmed by the brilliance of artful composition — since our prophets, Jesus, and his apostles saw fit, in their manner of proclamation, not
only to contain the truth, but also to be capable of drawing in the many, until each, having been urged on and led in according to his capacity, might rise up to what is spoken in secret within words that seem plain. And if I may venture to say it, few, if any, have been benefited by the beautifully wrought and studied diction of Plato and those who wrote in a similar style; whereas more have been helped by those who taught and wrote in a plainer, yet at the same time
more practical and purposeful way for the many. One can see, at any rate, that Plato is in the hands only of those who are thought to be lovers of literature, while Epictetus is admired even by ordinary people with an inclination toward self-improvement, who perceive the betterment that comes from his words. And we say this not in reproach of Plato (for the great mass of humankind
has profited from him too, in its own useful way), but rather to show the intent of those who said: "and my word and my proclamation were not delivered in wisdom's persuasive speech, but through a display of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not stand upon human wisdom but upon the power of God." And the divine word says that what is spoken is not sufficient, even if
it is in itself true and utterly credible, to reach the human soul, unless some power is also given to the speaker from God, and grace blossoms upon what is said — and this grace does not arise apart from God in those who speak to good effect. The prophet, indeed, states in Psalm sixty-seven that "the Lord shall grant an utterance to those bringing good tidings, with great power." So that it might be given to certain people
the doctrines are the same for the Greeks and for those who follow our reasoning, yet by no means do they have the same power to win over souls and dispose them accordingly. This is why the disciples of Jesus, uneducated men as measured against Greek philosophy, went about through many nations of the inhabited world, disposing each of their hearers, as the word intended, according to his worth—and these hearers, in proportion to
the inclination of their free will toward accepting what is good, became far better people. Let ancient and wise men, then, be brought forward for those capable of understanding, and in particular let Plato, the son of Ariston, declare his views on the first good in one of his letters, saying that the first good is in no way "expressible in words," but comes to be "only after much shared inquiry," and "suddenly, as a light kindled from a leaping fire"
is set ablaze in the soul"—words which we too have heard and assent to as well spoken, for "God" has "made" these things and everything else well said "manifest to them." For this reason we say that those who grasped the truth about God, yet did not practice a reverence worthy of that truth, are subject to the punishments due to sinners. For Paul says, in these very words, concerning
such people: "from heaven God's wrath stands revealed against every ungodly and unjust act of men, those who hold the truth captive in unrighteousness, since what may be known about God lies plain among them; God himself made it plain to them. For his unseen qualities, ever since the world's creation, are perceived by the mind through the things he has made—both his eternal power and divinity—so
that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles." And indeed they hold fast to "truth," as our own
reasoning too attests, those who think that the first good is "in no way expressible in words," and who say that "after much shared inquiry about the thing itself and living together with it, suddenly, as a light kindled from a leaping fire, coming to be in the soul, it now nourishes itself." But those who wrote such things about the first good go down "to Piraeus" to pray as to a god
to Artemis, and to watch the festival celebrated by common people. And though they philosophized to such a degree about the soul, and set forth at length the manner of life of a soul that has lived well, they abandon the greatness of what "God" "made manifest" "to them," and think cheap and petty thoughts, rendering "a cock" "to Asclepius"; and though they conceived "the invisible things" of God, and the forms, "from the creation of the world" and of
sensible things, from which they ascend to things understood by the mind—having seen, not ignobly, both his eternal power and divinity—they nonetheless "became futile in their reasonings," and their "senseless" heart "wallows" in darkness and ignorance regarding the worship of the divine. And one can see those who pride themselves greatly on wisdom and theology exchanging it for "the likeness of an image of corruptible man"
...worshipping them in his honor, he says, and sometimes even descending, along with the Egyptians, to birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. But even granting that some seem to have risen above these things, they will still be found to have exchanged "the truth of God for a lie" and to be worshipping and serving "the creation rather than the Creator." This is why, while the wise and learned among the Greeks were erring in their works concerning
...the divine, "God chose" "the world's foolish things," "to put the wise to shame," "and the base things," "and the weak things," "and the despised things," and "the things that are not, so that he might bring to nothing the things that are" — and truly, so that "no flesh might boast before God." Our own wise men, first Moses, most ancient of all, and the prophets who came after him, though "in no way" possessing "expressible"
...knowledge of the first good, nevertheless wrote — since God himself was manifesting himself to those worthy and fit — that God "appeared," for instance, to Abraham, and likewise to Isaac and Jacob. Yet who it was that appeared, of what nature, in what manner, and to which faculty within us, is a question they left for investigation to those able to render themselves like the men to whom God appeared, having appeared
...to them not with the eyes of the body but with a pure heart. For indeed, as our Jesus put it, "those pure in heart are blessed, since it is God they will see." And as for the light that is kindled "suddenly, as if leaping up from a fire," "in the soul," the divine word knew this before, saying through the prophet: "kindle for yourselves a light of knowledge." And John too, coming after him,
...says that "what had come to be" in the Word was "life"; and that "life" served as "the light of mankind," a "true light" which "gives light to every man arriving into" the true and intelligible "world," rendering him "the light of the world." For this light indeed "shone forth" "within our hearts, unto the illumination of the recognition of God's glory, in"
...the face of Christ." This is why that most ancient of prophets — prophesying, as he did, long ages before Cyrus came to the throne, for he preceded him by upward of fourteen generations — declares: "the Lord is my light and my savior; whom shall I fear?" and: "your law is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths," and: "the light of your face has been marked upon us, O Lord," and: "in
...your light we shall see light." And urging us toward this very light, the word in Isaiah says: "be enlightened, be enlightened, Jerusalem; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." And this same prophet, prophesying about the coming of Jesus, who turns people away from the worship of idols and images and demons, says that
..."upon those sitting in a land and shadow of death, light has risen for them," and again: "the people sitting in darkness have seen a great light." Observe, then, the difference between what was well said by Plato about the first good and what has been said in the prophets about the light of the blessed; and observe that the truth in Plato about this amounts to nothing
as far as genuine piety is concerned it profited its readers nothing — nor even the man himself who philosophized in this way about the first good — whereas the plain style of the divine scriptures has made those who engage with it in good faith inspired. Among them this light is nourished by the oil spoken of in a certain parable, the oil that kept the lamps burning among the five prudent virgins. Since
Celsus also sets out another passage of this kind from Plato's letter: "But if it seemed to me that these things could be adequately written for the many and could be spoken, what finer thing could we have done in life than to write something of great benefit to mankind and bring nature into the light for all?" Come, let us discuss this briefly too, whether
Plato had something more solemn than what he wrote, and more divine than what he left behind, or not. Let us leave that for each person to examine as far as possible, while pointing out that our own prophets too had in mind things greater than the writings they did not write. For Ezekiel takes a "scroll of a book," written "on the front" and on the back, in which there was "lamentation and song and woe," and when the word commanded him
he eats the scroll, so that he would not write it down and betray it to the unworthy. And John too has recorded that he saw and did something similar. Paul, moreover, "heard unspeakable words, which it is not permitted for a man to utter." And Jesus, who surpasses all of these, is said to have "spoken" the word of God "to the disciples" "privately," and especially during
his times of withdrawal — yet what it was that he said has not been recorded. For it did not seem to them that these things were "adequately writable" "for the many," nor "speakable." And if it is not tiresome to state the truth about such great men, I say that these men, from the understanding they received by the grace of God, saw more than Plato did — which things were "writable," and how they were "writable," and which were not at all
"writable" for the many, and which were "speakable" and which were not. Again, John too, teaching us the distinction between what is writable and what is not, says he heard seven thunders concerning certain things, which instructed him and forbade him to commit their words to writing. Many such things could likewise be discovered in Moses and the prophets, whose antiquity exceeds not merely Plato's but even Homer's
and older than the invention of writing among the Greeks — things full of matters worthy of the grace of God toward them and of great understanding. These men did not, as Celsus supposes, speak in this way because they had overheard Plato. For how could it be possible for them to have heard him when he did not yet exist? But so that someone may also apply Celsus's argument to the apostles of Jesus, who came later than Plato, consider whether
it is not on its face implausible that Paul, who made tents, along with Peter, who caught fish, and John, the one who abandoned his father's fishing nets, might have overheard something Plato said in his letters and passed down such teachings about God. But Celsus, having already repeated over and over that we demand immediate belief, now says it again as though it were something new beyond what had been said before. It is enough
what we have said with a view to this. But since he also quotes another passage of Plato in which he says that wisdom shines forth in those who philosophize in his way "through the use of questions and answers," come, let us show from the sacred writings that the divine word too urges us toward dialectic — in one place where Solomon says, "instruction that is not put to the test goes astray," and in another where the writer of the book
he left us, Jesus son of Sirach, says, "the knowledge of the fool is words never examined." Refutations among us, then, are on the whole benevolent, given to those who have learned that the one who presides over the word must be able "to refute those who contradict." But if some are lazy, not training themselves to attend to the divine readings and to search "the scriptures," and, as Jesus commanded, to seek out the meaning of the scriptures,
and to ask God about them, and to knock at what in them is shut, that is no reason why the word should be empty of wisdom. Then, after other Platonic passages showing that the good is knowable "to few," since the many, filled with "an unwarranted contempt" and "a lofty and hollow hope," having learned certain things "as if they were solemn," say them as though they were true — since Celsus
has already said this, Plato nonetheless neither works wonders nor, for one who wishes to choose whatever that thing is which he promises, stops the mouth of his tongue, nor does he from the outset order people to rush ahead and believe that God is of such a kind and has such a son, and that this son came down and conversed with him. To this I say that concerning Plato, Aristander, as I recall, put on record that Ariston was not truly his father, and that a phantom was, which
came to Amphictione in the form of Apollo; and many other Platonists have said such things in the Life of Plato. As for Pythagoras, who worked so very many wonders — who showed his ivory thigh at a Greek festival, and said he recognized the shield he had used when he was Euphorbus, and was said to have appeared on the same day in two cities — what need is there even to speak of it?
And whoever wishes to bring the charge that marvels are recorded of Plato and Socrates will also set forth the swan that appeared to Socrates in his sleep, and the teacher who, at the birth of the young man, said, "so this was the swan." But he will also seize upon as a marvel the third eye which Plato saw himself as having. And there will be no lack of malicious people wishing to speak ill of the things
that appeared to men of higher standing beyond the many — slander and defamation; such people will even mock Socrates' divine sign as a fabrication. We, then, are not working wonders when we recount the things concerning Jesus, nor did his genuine disciples write such accounts about him. But Celsus, who professes to know everything and quotes many things from Plato, deliberately, I think, keeps silent about the passage concerning the Son of God,
spoken by Plato in his letter to Hermeias and Coriscus. The passage of Plato runs thus: "and swearing by the god who is guide of all things that are and are to be, and by the lord and father of the guiding and causing principle, whom, if we truly philosophize, we shall all know clearly, so far as is possible for happy human beings." And another passage of Plato
Celsus sets it out as follows: "But I have it in mind to say still more about these matters at greater length; for perhaps what I am speaking of would be clearer if these very things were said. For there is a certain true account, opposed to anyone who dares to write anything at all of this kind, which has often been stated by me before, but seems that it must be stated now as well. There is"
"for each of the things that exist, three things through which knowledge must necessarily arise, and this is a fourth, and a fifth must be posited, which is the knowable and the true; of these, one is the name, the second is the account, the third is the image, and the fourth is the knowledge." And in accordance with this we might say that John is introduced before Jesus as "a voice of one crying in the wilderness," analogous to the name in Plato, and second after John,
pointed out by him, is Jesus, to whom fits the phrase "the word became flesh," being analogous to the account in Plato. Plato, then, calls the third thing the image. But we, assigning the name "image" to something else, will say more clearly that what comes to be in the soul after
the account is the impression of the wounds, and that this is the Christ in each person, coming from Christ the Word. And whether the wisdom that is "among the perfect" in our teaching—namely Christ—is also analogous to the fourth thing, which is knowledge, let whoever is able consider it. Then he says: do you see how Plato, although he affirmed that it is not "speakable," nevertheless, so as not to seem to retreat into the irrefutable, offers a reasoned account
to meet this difficulty—for perhaps even nothing at all might turn out to be "speakable." But since this serves to establish that one ought not simply to believe, but to give a reasoned account of the things believed, we too will make use of Paul's statement, which rebukes the one who believes rashly, where he says: "unless you believed in vain." As far as it is up to him, Celsus, by repeating himself, forces us to repeat ourselves as well,
since Celsus, after the aforesaid boasts of what are, so to speak, boasters, says that Plato does not boast and lie by claiming that he himself has discovered something new, or that he is present to announce it from heaven, but rather acknowledges where these things come from. One might say to this too, wishing to answer Celsus, that Plato also boasts in the speech of Zeus in the Timaeus, when he says:
"Gods of gods, of whom I am the maker and father," and so on. But if anyone will offer a defense of these things on account of the mind of the Zeus who delivers the speech in Plato, why will not the one who examines the meaning behind what the Son of God says, or what the Creator declares through the prophets, say something even more than can be said of the speech of Zeus in the
Timaeus? For what characterizes deity is the announcement of things to come, not spoken according to human nature, and judged by their outcomes to show that it was a divine spirit that announced them. We do not, then, say to everyone who comes to us: "First believe that this one whom I present to you is the Son of God," but to each according to what is fitting to his character and
to the situation we bring our argument, having learned "to know how we must answer each one." And there are some for whom, since they are unable to do more than be urged toward belief, we preach this; but to others, so far as we are able, we approach the matter demonstratively, through questions and answers. But we do not say what was said mockingly by Celsus: that "believe that this man I am introducing to you is the son of god, even if"
he has been bound most dishonorably or punished most shamefully, even if only yesterday and the day before he was rolling about most disgracefully before the eyes of everyone." Nor do we say: "believe all the more for that reason." For on each point we try to say even more than what we set out above. After this Celsus says that, if these people (meaning Christians) put forward this one, and others put forward another, and yet common to all and ready to hand is
"believe, if you want to be saved, or go away" — what will those who truly want to be saved do? Will they cast dice and divine where they should turn and to whom they should attach themselves? To this too, starting from what is plain, we will say the following: if there were more people reported, similarly to Jesus, to have come to dwell among mankind as sons of god, and each of them, drawing some people to himself,
so that it would be genuinely disputed, because of the similarity of the claim, which one testified to by his believers was truly the son of god — then there would be room for "if these people put forward this one, and others another, and it is common to all and ready to hand: believe, if you want to be saved, or go away," and so on. But as things stand, Jesus has been proclaimed to the whole inhabited world,
having come to dwell among the human race as the only son of god. For those who, like Celsus, supposed that this had been fabricated as a marvel, and who therefore wished to work marvels of the same kind themselves, so that they too might similarly gain mastery over people, were exposed as amounting to nothing — Simon the Samaritan magician, and Dositheus, who came from the same region as he did. For the one claimed to be himself the power of god called
"great," while the other likewise claimed to be himself son of god. Yet nowhere in the inhabited world are there any Simonians — even though, in order to win over more followers, Simon removed from his disciples the danger of death that Christians were taught to embrace, teaching them instead to be indifferent toward idolatry. Nor, in fact, were the Simonians ever even plotted against at the outset; for the evil demon behind the plot knew that through Simon's teachings
nothing of his own purpose would be undone by Jesus's teaching. As for the Dosithean sect, it never flourished even earlier, and now it has died out entirely, so that their whole reported number does not reach thirty. And "Judas the Galilean," as Luke wrote in the Acts of the Apostles, wanted to call himself someone great, and before him "Theudas"; but since
their teaching was not from god, they were destroyed, "and all who were persuaded" by them were immediately scattered. We do not, then, cast dice to divine where we should turn and to whom we should attach ourselves, as though many people were capable of drawing us away by the claim of having come from god to dwell among the human race. But enough of these matters. So we move on to another accusation of Celsus. Nor do we
not knowing it, but saying from some half-heard scraps that we claim the wisdom found among men is foolishness with God, since Paul says: "Worldly wisdom counts as folly in God's sight." And Celsus says that the reason for this has already been stated earlier. He supposes the reason is that by this expression we wish to attract only the uneducated and the foolish. But,
as he himself noted, he said the same thing above, and we responded to that argument as best we could. All the same, he wanted to show that this too had been fabricated by us and taken over from the wise men among the Greeks, who said that human wisdom is one thing and divine wisdom another. And indeed he sets out sayings of Heraclitus, one of them being where he says: "For human
character does not possess understanding, but the divine does," and another: "A man is deemed childish by a divinity, just as a boy is by a man." He also sets out this passage from Plato's written Apology of Socrates: "For I, men of Athens, have gotten this name for no other reason than through a certain wisdom. What kind of wisdom is this? It is, perhaps, human wisdom; for in
reality I run the risk of being wise in this."" These, then, are the things Celsus sets out. But I will also cite the following from Plato's letter to Hermias, Erastus, and Coriscus: "To Erastus and Coriscus, in addition to that fine wisdom concerning the forms, I say — though I am an old man — that they need also the wisdom that guards against wicked and unjust men,
and some capacity for defense as well. For they are inexperienced in this, because they have spent a great deal of their life with us, who are moderate and not wicked men. This is why I said they need these things, so that they will not be forced to disregard true wisdom while attending more than they should to the human and necessary kind." According to this, then, there is a certain divine wisdom, and a human one.
And the human wisdom is what is called, in our terms, "worldly wisdom," which stands as "folly before God"; while the divine wisdom, being distinct from the human, if indeed it is divine, comes by the grace of God, who bestows it on those who have made themselves fit to receive it — and especially on those who, from having come to know the difference between the two kinds of wisdom relative to each other, say in
their prayers to God: "For even if someone is perfect among the sons of men, if the wisdom that comes from you is absent, he will be counted as nothing." And we say that human wisdom is a training-ground for the soul, while the divine is its end — which is also called the soul's "solid food," in the words of the one who said: "But solid food belongs to the mature, to those who through practice have
their faculties trained for distinguishing good and evil." And this opinion is indeed truly ancient — not, as Celsus supposes, with its antiquity traced back to Heraclitus and Plato. For the prophets, who are earlier than these men, already distinguished between the two kinds of wisdom; but for the present it is enough to cite, from the words of David, what concerns
the one who, in accordance with divine wisdom, is said to be wise, who says, "he will not see corruption," whenever he sees the wise dying. Divine wisdom, then, being distinct from faith, is first among what are called the "gifts" of God, and after it, second, for those who understand such things with precision, comes what is called knowledge, and third — since even the simpler people who approach according to their ability must be saved —
in reverence for God, comes faith. That is why it is said in Paul: "to one is given through the Spirit an utterance of wisdom, to another an utterance of knowledge by that same Spirit, and to another faith within that same Spirit." For this reason you would not find just anyone who has come to share in divine wisdom, but rather those who surpass and are distinguished above all who devote themselves to Christianity, nor does anyone expound the matters of divine wisdom to the most uneducated, or
to slaves, or to the most ignorant. And yet Celsus says that others are most uneducated and slaves and most ignorant — namely, those who do not know his own precepts, nor have been trained in the learning of the Greeks — whereas we say that the most uneducated are those who are not ashamed to converse with lifeless things, invoking their weakness on behalf of health, and
beseeching what is dead on behalf of life, and imploring what is utterly helpless on behalf of aid. And even if some say that these are not really the gods but imitations of the true ones and symbols of them, these people are no less so; imagining that the imitations of divinity exist in the hands of craftsmen, they too are uneducated and slaves and ignorant — so much so that even the least among us are free of this lack of education and
this ignorance, and we say that the divine hope is conceived and grasped by the most intelligent. And we also say that no one can pass over into the more divine wisdom without first being exercised in the human kind, and we grant that, set beside the divine, human wisdom is nothing but folly. Then, though he ought to contend about the argument itself, he instead calls us charlatans and says that we flee from the
more refined people headlong, as not being ready to be deceived, but that we ensnare the more rustic. For he failed to notice, from the outset and from the beginning, that those counted wise among us had themselves been schooled in outside learning — Moses was schooled in every discipline the Egyptians possessed, while Daniel, Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael were schooled in the whole of Assyrian letters, so that they were found ten times superior to every sage there. And even now the
churches have, in proportion to their numbers, a few wise people who have come over even from what is called among us wisdom "according to the flesh," and they also have those who have crossed over from that to divine wisdom. Then after this Celsus, as though he had merely heard some echo about humility and had not carefully understood it, wishes to speak ill of the humility found among us, and supposes it to be a garbled version
of Plato's words, where he says somewhere in the Laws: "God, then, just as also the ancient account has it, holding the beginning and the end and the middle of all things that exist, proceeds in a straight line, going about according to nature; and justice, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law, always follows with him, and whoever is going to be happy follows closely, clinging to her, humble and adorned" — not
He sees that among writers much older than Plato it is said in a prayer: "Lord, my heart was not lifted up, nor were my eyes raised on high, nor did I walk among great things, nor among things too marvelous for me, unless I was of humble mind." And at the same time it is shown by this that the one who is humble-minded is not by any means humbled in an unseemly and dismal way, thrown down on his knees and lying prostrate on the ground,
clothing himself in the garb of the wretched and heaping dust upon himself. For the one who, according to the prophet, is humble-minded, walking "among great things and marvelous things" beyond himself—among truly "great" doctrines and "marvelous" thoughts—lowers himself "under the mighty hand of God." But if some, on account of their lack of learning, fail to make clear the doctrine concerning humble-mindedness and do such things, one must not blame the doctrine itself,
but rather one must pardon the lack of learning of those who set out after the better things but fail on account of their unlearnedness. For more truly "humble and adorned" than Plato's "humble and adorned" person is the one who is adorned because he walks "among great things" and "marvelous things" beyond himself, and yet humble, because even while being among these he humbles himself willingly—not under any chance thing, but "under the mighty
hand of God"—through the teacher of such lessons, Jesus: "who did not think equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, assuming a slave's form," "and appearing in the likeness of a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross." And so great is the doctrine concerning humble-mindedness that it does not have any chance teacher for it, but our savior himself, so great as he is,
says: "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." After this, concerning Jesus's pronouncement against the rich, where he said: "A camel passing through a needle's eye is a lighter task than a rich man entering the kingdom of God," he says this was said straight out of Plato, with Jesus corrupting the Platonic saying, in
which Plato said that "it is impossible for one who is exceedingly good to also be exceedingly rich." Who, even if only moderately capable of attending to the facts, would not laugh at Celsus—not only those who believe in Jesus but also the rest of humankind—when hearing that Jesus, raised and born among the Jews, reputed to be the carpenter Joseph's son,
and who had not learned letters, not only the Greeks' but not even the Hebrews', as the truth-loving writings about him themselves testify, read Plato, and being pleased with his saying that pronounces about the rich, that "it is impossible to be exceedingly good and rich," corrupted it and turned it into: "sooner could a camel pass through a needle's eye than a rich man enter the kingdom
of God"? But if Celsus, in reading the Gospels, had not done so with hatred and hostility, but had been a lover of truth, he would have paused to ask why on earth a camel was chosen, an animal that, as far as its build goes, is crooked, to be compared to the rich man, and what he meant by the narrow opening "of the needle," when he says that the way leading "into
"life," and that this animal is recorded in the law as "unclean," having one thing acceptable, namely that it chews the cud, but also one thing blameworthy, namely that it does not have a divided hoof — he would have examined as well how often the camel is taken up in the divine scriptures and in connection with whom, so as to discern the intention of the text concerning the rich. Nor would he have left unexamined the fact that
the poor are called blessed by Jesus while the rich are called wretched — whether he means this of the perceptible... poor and rich, or whether the word knows some poverty that is blessed without qualification and some wealth that is blameworthy without qualification. For not even an ordinary person would have praised the poor indiscriminately, since the character of most of them is rather base. But let this stand as it is,
for the present. Since, next, wishing to belittle what has been written among us concerning the kingdom of God, he set forth none of it, as though it were not even worth recording in his own work — perhaps because he did not even know it — but instead sets out sayings of Plato drawn from the Letters and from the Phaedrus, as though these were spoken by divine inspiration while nothing of the sort is found in our writings, come, let us compare a few things
for the sake of setting them beside what Plato has said, not implausibly indeed, yet not in a way that the philosopher conducted himself in a manner worthy even of the reverence he himself displayed toward the maker of the universe — a reverence which he ought not to have adulterated or defiled with what we call idol-worship, or, as the many too would say, using their own term, with superstition. In a certain Hebrew manner
it is said concerning God, in the seventeenth psalm, that "God made darkness his hiding place," so as to show that whatever could rightly be thought about God is unseen and unknown, since God has hidden himself, as it were, in darkness from those who cannot bear the flashing brightness of the knowledge of him, nor are able to see him — partly because of the defilement of their mind, bound as it is within a body of "humiliation"
belonging to human beings, and partly because of the lesser power their minds have for comprehending God. And so as to show how rarely the knowledge of God reaches human beings and how it is found in very few, Moses is recorded as having entered "into the thick darkness, where God was"; and again, concerning Moses: "Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the rest shall not draw near."
And again, in turn, so that the prophet might set forth the depth of the teachings concerning God, unattainable for those who do not possess the "spirit" that searches all things and searches also "the depths of God," he said: "the abyss is his covering, like a garment." But our Savior and Lord too, the Word of God, setting forth how vast the Father's knowledge truly is, says
that it is grasped and known properly, according to its worth, first and foremost by him alone, and secondarily by those whose ruling faculty is illumined by the Word and God himself, saying: "No one knew the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son, and whoever the Son reveals him to." For no one can know, according to its worth, either the unbegotten one or the firstborn of all begotten nature,
...is able, as the father who begot him is, nor can he know the father as does the living Word, who is his wisdom and truth — by participation in whom, removing from the father the thing called 'darkness,' which 'he made his hiding place,' and the thing called his 'covering,' the abyss, he thus reveals the father, so that whoever is able to know him, knows him. I thought it right to set forth these few things, briefly, from
the very many conceptions concerning God held by the sacred men, in order to show that the sacred writings of the prophets possess something more majestic — for those who have eyes able to see the majestic things in scripture — than the Platonic sayings admired by Celsus. The passage of Plato that Celsus set out runs in this way: 'Around the king of all are all things, and for his sake'
'all things exist, and he is responsible for all things good. The second god is concerned with the second things, and the third with the third things. The human soul, then, longs to learn about these, what sort of things they are, looking to what is akin to itself, none of which it possesses adequately. But concerning the king and the things I have spoken of, there is nothing of that sort.' I could also have set forth what is said among the Hebrews about
those called 'seraphim,' recorded in Isaiah, who cover 'the face' and 'the feet' of God, and what is said about those named 'cherubim,' whom Ezekiel described, and their forms, so to speak, and how it is said that God rides upon the cherubim. But since these things are spoken in a very hidden way, on account of those who are unworthy and lacking in reverence, unable to follow the greatness of thought and the majesty
of theology, I did not think it fitting to discuss them in this treatise. Next after this Celsus says that some Christians, having misheard Platonic expressions, boast of a supracelestial god, rising above the heaven of the Jews. But in saying this he does not make clear whether they also rise above the God of the Jews, or only above the heaven by which they swear. Now it is not our present purpose to speak about those who proclaim a god other than
the one also worshiped by the Jews, but rather to defend ourselves and to show that the prophets of the Jews among us could not have taken anything from Plato, for they were older than he. We have not, then, taken from Plato the saying that runs, 'Around the king of all are all things, and for his sake all things exist,' but we have learned things said better than these from
the prophets, since Jesus and his disciples clarified what was meant by the spirit at work within the prophets (which was no other spirit than that of Christ). The philosopher, moreover, was not the first to set forth the doctrine of the supracelestial place; rather David long ago set forth the depth of the abundance of contemplations concerning God among those who have risen above things perceptible to the senses, saying in
the book of Psalms: 'Praise God, you heavens of heavens, and the water lying above the heavens; let his name, the name of the LORD, be praised.' For my part, I do not rule out that Plato learned these words found in the Phaedrus from certain Hebrews, and, as some have recorded, having also encountered the prophetic writings, set out what he says in them, where he said: 'the supracelestial place neither'
"...no poet of this world has hymned it, nor will hymn it worthily," and so on, among which is also this: "for the colorless and shapeless and untouchable substance, being truly real, is visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul, and it is around this that the class of true knowledge has its place." And it was from words of that very kind that our Paul was trained, and longing
for the things above the world and above the heavens, and doing everything for the sake of those things, so that he might attain them, he says in the second letter to the Corinthians: "for our momentary, light affliction is producing for us, beyond all measure, an eternal weight of glory, because we do not fix our gaze on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal." Plainly, then,
to those able to hear, he shows this, calling the perceptible things themselves "the things that are seen," and naming the intelligible things, graspable by mind alone, "the things that are not seen." And this same man knows the perceptible and "seen" things to be "temporary," but the intelligible and "unseen" things to be "eternal"; and wishing to arrive at the sight of those things, aided by his longing for them, he counted the whole of affliction as nothing
and as something light; and at the very moment of "the affliction" and of his labors he was by no means weighed down by them, but he lightened every hardship because of his gaze fixed on those things. For we too possess a "great high priest" — one who by the vastness of his power and of his mind "has passed through the heavens," namely Jesus, the son of God — who promised those who genuinely learned
the things of God and lived worthily of them that he would lead them on to the things above the world; for he says: "so that where I am going, you may be also." For this reason we, after the labors and struggles here, hope to come to be at the very heights of the heavens, and, having received springs of "water leaping up into eternal life" according to the teaching of Jesus, and having made our way through rivers of contemplation together with the
waters said to be "above the heavens," we shall praise "the name of the Lord." And to the extent that we praise him, we shall not be swept along by the revolution of the heavens, but we shall always be occupied with the vision of the invisible things of God, no longer understood by us "from the creation of the world, through the things that are made," but as the genuine disciple of Jesus named it, saying: "but then face to face," and
this: "when the perfect comes, that which is partial will be done away with." As for seven heavens, or any strictly limited number of heavens at all, the writings received in the churches of God make no report of this, but they seem to teach of heavens — whether the spheres of what the Greeks call the planets, or something else more hidden — and that there is a road for souls to travel to earth
and from earth, Celsus says, following Plato, that this happens by way of the planets; but Moses, our most ancient prophet, says that our patriarch Jacob, in a vision, beheld a divine dream: a ladder stretching "to heaven," with "God's" angels moving up and down along it, and the Lord fixed firmly upon its topmost rungs — whether this was what he saw, or something still greater than this
alluding to this in his discourse about the ladder — concerning which Philo too has composed a book, worthy of a careful and intelligent examination by lovers of truth. Next, wishing to display his own erudition in his discourse against us, Celsus sets forth certain Persian mysteries as well, in which he says: "The Persian account also hints at these things, and so does the rite of Mithras,
which is practiced among them. For there is in it a certain symbol of the two revolutions in heaven — the fixed one, and the one in turn allotted to the planets — and of the soul's passage through them. The symbol is of this kind: a ladder with seven gates, and above it an eighth gate. The first gate is lead, the next is tin, the third bronze, the
fourth of iron, the fifth of an alloyed coinage, the sixth silver, and gold for the seventh. They assign the first to Cronus, taking the lead as evidence of the star's slowness; the second to Aphrodite, comparing to it the brightness and softness of tin; the third to Zeus, the bronze-founded and solid gate; the fourth to Hermes, for iron, like Hermes, is enduring for every task, and money-making, and much-toiling
— both iron and Hermes are such; the fifth to Ares, the one made of an alloy, uneven and varied; the sixth, the silver one, to Selene; the seventh, the golden one, to Helios, imitating their colors." Next he examines the reason for the order of the stars thus enumerated, which is indicated through symbols in the names of the remaining material, and he attaches musical ratios to the theology of the Persians as he expounds it,
and beyond these he takes the further trouble to set out a second account as well, again concerned with musical theorems. It seemed to me that Celsus's setting forth of this text at this point is out of place, and resembles a practice he himself follows elsewhere: bringing inappropriately into his accusation against Christians and Jews not only the doctrines of Plato, as though those alone did not suffice him, but also, as he calls them, the Persian mysteries of Mithras
and their narrative. However these things may stand — whether falsely or truly — for those who hold Mithras and the Persians in honor: why, then, did he set these forth rather than any of the other mysteries along with their narrative? For the rites of Mithras do not seem, among the Greeks, to be more distinguished than the Eleusinian mysteries, or those handed down to the initiates at Aegina concerning
Hecate. And why should he do so all the more, if he wished to set forth barbarian mysteries along with their narrative, rather than set forth those of the Egyptians instead, in which many take pride, or those of the Cappadocians concerning Artemis at Comana, or the Thracian rites, or indeed the Roman ones, in which the most nobly born members of the senate are initiated? But if he thought it inappropriate to bring in any of those, as contributing nothing to the accusation against Jews or Christians, how did it not seem to him equally inappropriate in the case of setting forth the Mithraic mysteries?
But if someone should wish to draw his starting points not from the most obscure sect from which he took them, but instead from books — partly Jewish ones, read also in their synagogues, which Christians accept, and partly belonging to Christians alone — for the
a more mystical contemplation concerning the entry of souls into the divine realm, let him read what the prophet saw at the end of Ezekiel's prophecy, in which various gates are recorded, hinting at something concerning the differing entrance of the more divine souls into the better things. And let him also read, from John's Apocalypse, what is said concerning the heavenly city, Jerusalem above, and its foundations
and its gates. And if he can also learn, through symbols, the path marked out for those who will journey toward the divine, let him read the book called Numbers of Moses, and let him seek out the person able to initiate him into the meaning of what is written concerning the camps of the sons of Israel — which were stationed toward the eastern regions as the first, and which toward the southwest,
or toward the south, and which were toward the sea, and which were last, toward the north. For he will see there considerations not to be despised, nor, as Celsus supposes, ones requiring only foolish hearers and slaves. For he will come to distinguish which tribes are named among them, and what is meant by the nature of the numbers enumerated there and applied to each tribe — matters which
it did not seem opportune for us to set forth at present. But let Celsus and those who read his book know that nowhere in the genuine and divinely trusted scriptures are seven heavens spoken of; neither do our prophets, having taken this from the Persians or the Cabiri, say any such thing, nor do Jesus' own apostles say it, nor does the Son of God. Next, after the argument he drew from the Mithraic mysteries,
Celsus proposes that whoever wishes should compare a certain rite of the Christians with the aforementioned rite of the Persians, setting them side by side and laying bare also the rites of the Christians, and thus observe the difference between them. And where he knew how to name the sects, he did not hesitate to set out those he thought he knew; but where it was more necessary — if indeed he understood the matter — to do this and to teach which sect makes use of the diagram he had described,
this he has not done. It seems to me that even these things were set out, in part, from mishearings of an utterly obscure sect, that of the Ophites, I think. We ourselves, out of our love of learning, have come across this diagram, in which we found the fabrications of men — as Paul called them — who worm their way "into households and" take captive "little women heaped up with sins, led about by various desires, always learning and never able to arrive at"
"a knowledge of the truth." And the diagram had so little plausibility that not even the easily-deceived "little women," nor the most rustic people, nor those most readily led by any plausible speaker, would have agreed to accept it. At any rate, though we went about through many regions of the earth and sought out everywhere those who professed to know something of it, we found no one who championed the contents of the diagram. In it there was a depiction of circles,
ten in number, separated from one another yet bound together by a single ring, said to represent the soul of the universe, called Leviathan — the very creature which the scriptures of the Jews, whatever it is they hint at by it, say was fashioned by God as a plaything. For in the Psalms we found: "You made all things in wisdom; the earth is filled with your creation. This is the great and"
"...spacious; there ships pass through, small creatures together with great ones, this dragon which you fashioned to mock him." Instead of "dragon," in the Hebrew it was Leviathan. The impious diagram, then, said that the one so clearly denounced in the prophet under the name Leviathan was the soul that has wandered through the universe. We also found in it a figure named Behemoth, stationed as it were next to...
the lowest circle. This Leviathan the man who devised that abominable diagram inscribed upon the circle and at its center, setting out its name twice. Further, Celsus says the diagram is divided by a thick black line, and he claimed that this was called by them Gehenna, which is also Tartarus. As for Gehenna, we, having discovered that the Gospel speaks of it as a place where punishment is inflicted, inquired whether it was named anywhere in the ancient writings, especially since the Jews too make use of the name.
We found that in one place it is named in Scripture "the Valley of the son of Hinnom," and we learned that in the Hebrew, in place of "Valley," the same referent was called both the Valley of Hinnom and Gehenna. Attending closely to the readings, we find...
also, within the allotment of the tribe of Benjamin, Gehenna or the Valley of Hinnom listed, where Jerusalem too was located. And examining the sequence by which Jerusalem is heavenly, proceeding from the allotment of Benjamin and the Valley of Hinnom, we find something bearing on the subject of punishments, in that such souls as these are transferred, through torment, to purification, according to: "Behold, the Lord enters like...
the fire of a smelting-furnace, and like the herb of those who wash; and he will sit smelting and purifying the gold and the silver" — and according to the punishments that take place around Jerusalem upon those being smelted, who have taken up into the substance of their own soul the things that come from wickedness, figuratively named, somewhere, lead; hence lawlessness, in Zechariah, sat upon "a talent of lead." But as for how much...
might be said on this subject, it is not for everyone, nor for the present occasion, to set forth; indeed, it is not even safe to entrust the plain clarity of such matters to writing, since the many have no need of further instruction beyond that concerning the punishment of sinners. For it is not profitable to ascend beyond this point, on account of those who, scarcely restraining themselves through fear of eternal punishment, hold back to some degree...
the outpouring of wickedness and the sins that arise from it. Neither the diagram, then, nor Celsus knows the true account concerning Gehenna; for otherwise those people would not have solemnized paintings and diagrams as though presenting the truth through them, nor, writing against the Christians in his own work, would Celsus have inserted into his accusations against Christians things said not at all by Christians but by certain others — people who perhaps no longer even exist, but have altogether...
vanished and been reduced to a very few, easily counted individuals — inserted into the charges against Christians. And just as it is not fitting for those who philosophize according to Plato to offer a defense on behalf of Epicurus and his impious doctrines, so neither is it fitting for us to offer a defense concerning the contents of the diagram and what is said against it by Celsus. We therefore leave aside, as superfluous and set forth in vain, the things put forward by Celsus regarding...
these are the words he has spoken; for we will accuse him of them more than Celsus does, before those who have been overpowered by such arguments. Next, after his remarks about the diagram, without even having overheard properly what is said among the church people about the so-called "seal," he sets out for himself certain bizarre and reciprocal utterances, as though the one who places the seal is called the father, and the one being sealed is called the young one and son, and answers: I have been anointed
with a white ointment from the tree of life" — a thing we have never heard occurring even among those from the heresies. Then he also fixes a number, said by the angels who hand over the seal, of seven, standing on either side of the soul of the departing body, some belonging to the light, others called the "ruling" ones, and he says that the ruler of the so-called "ruling" ones is called an accursed god. Then, seizing upon the
expression, he reasonably accuses those who dare to say this; and for this reason we too join in the indignation of those who blame such people. If indeed there are some who say that the god of the Jews is accursed, the one who sends rain and thunders and fashioned this present cosmos, being also the deity of Moses and of the account of creation he gives. But Celsus seems by this to have intended something not fair-minded but, out of a wholly unphilosophical hatred toward us, most unreasonable.
For he wished those of our people unfamiliar with these matters, on encountering his writing, to be set at war against us, as though we said that the good maker of this world is an accursed god. And it seems to me he has done something similar to the Jews, who at the beginning of the teaching of Christianity spread abroad slander about the message, namely that after sacrificing a child they partake of its
flesh, and again that those who wish to do the deeds of darkness that come from the message put out the light, and each one has intercourse with whoever happens to be at hand — a slander which unreasonably, in former times, prevailed among a great many, persuading those alien to the message that Christians are of this sort, and even now still deceives some, turning them away because of such things from coming even into a simpler fellowship of discourse
with Christians. Something of this sort, then, seems to me to be what Celsus is contriving to set forth, namely that Christians call the maker an accursed god, so that the one who believes him when he says these things against us might, if possible, also be roused to take up arms against Christians as the most impious of all. And confusing the matters together, he sets out the reason for the god of the cosmogony according to Moses being called accursed,
saying that he is of such a kind and deserving of a curse, according to those who hold such opinions about him, since he cursed the serpent for introducing to the first human beings the knowledge of good and evil. But it should have been plain to him that those who take the serpent's part, treating him as one who gave good counsel to the first human beings, and who surpass even the mythical Titans and Giants, and are for this reason called Ophians, fall so far short
of being Christians that they accuse them no less than Celsus does—accuse the followers of Jesus—and do not admit anyone into their assembly unless he first pronounces curses against Jesus. Observe, then, how utterly unreasonable a thing Celsus has done in his arguments against Christians, by taking as Christians those who are not even willing to hear the name of Jesus, even if such a person is wise in some way or
moderate in character, or he was some kind of human being. What, then, could be more foolish or more insane, not only among those who wanted to make the serpent the source of good things, but also in Celsus, who thought that the accusations against the Ophians were accusations against Christians? Long ago the Greek philosopher who loved frugality and set forth an example of the happy life, on the ground that he was not prevented
from being happy by complete lack of possessions, proclaimed himself a Cynic. But these impious people, taking their name from the serpent that is most hostile and most terrifying to human beings — not because the serpent is their enemy and they remain human, but rather because they have made themselves into serpents — pride themselves on being called Ophians, boasting of a certain Euphrates as the one who introduced their impious doctrines. Then next, as though reviling Christians and accusing those who said that the god of Moses and of
the law according to him was accursed, and thinking that Christians are the ones who say these things, he says: What could be more foolish or more insane than this senseless wisdom? For in what did the lawgiver of the Jews err? And how is it that you take his account of the world's creation for yourself through some kind of allegory of a figurative sort, as you claim, or the law of the Jews, yet unwillingly, most impious one, you praise the craftsman of the world,
who promised them everything, who pledged to multiply their offspring until they filled every corner of the earth, and to raise them from the dead in this very flesh and blood, and who inspired the prophets? And again you revile this same god. But whenever you are pressed by these people, you agree to worship the same god; but whenever your teacher Jesus and the Jews' Moses legislate opposite things, you seek some other god
instead of this one and the Father. And in these very words the most noble philosopher Celsus clearly slanders Christians, saying that the same people, whenever the Jews press them, confess the same god as theirs; but whenever Jesus legislates the opposite of Moses, they seek another god instead of this one. For whether conversing with Jews or being by ourselves, we know one and the same god,
whom the Jews worshipped of old and now profess to worship, in no way being impious toward him. But neither do we say that god will raise the dead in this very flesh and blood, as has been said above; for we do not say that what is sown "in corruption" and "in dishonor" and "in weakness" rises again as a "soul-formed body" of the same kind as it was sown. But we have spoken about these matters
adequately above. Then next he takes up again the matter of the seven ruling demons, which are in no way named, I think, by Christians but are adopted by the Ophians. And indeed we found, in a diagram we ourselves had acquired because of them, the arrangement set out in a manner similar to what Celsus set out. Celsus, then, said that the first was shaped in the form of a lion, without setting out what
name the truly most impious ones give him. But we found that the one honored in the sacred scriptures as the angel of the creator was the one that vile diagram called Michael, the lion-shaped one. Again, in turn, Celsus said that the next, the second, was a bull; but the diagram we had said that the bull-shaped one was called Suriel. Then Celsus said the third
an amphibious creature, hissing dreadfully; and he said the third diagram was serpent-shaped, calling it Raphael. Again, Celsus claimed that an eagle's shape belonged to the fourth; but the diagram called the eagle-shaped one Gabriel. Then Celsus said the fifth had a bear's face; but the diagram said the bear-shaped one was Thauthabaoth. Then Celsus
said the sixth was recorded among them as having a dog's face; but the diagram said this one was Erathaoth. Then Celsus said the seventh had the face of a donkey, and was named Thaphabaoth or Onoel; but we found in the diagram that this one is called Onoel or Tharthaaoth, being donkey-shaped. It seemed good to us also to set out these things
accurately, so that we should not seem to be ignorant of what Celsus professed to know, but also so that we Christians, having learned them more accurately than he, might show that these sayings belong not to Christians at all but wholly to people estranged from salvation, who in no way attach the name of Jesus, or savior, or god, or teacher, or son of god to themselves. But if anyone wishes also to learn the fabrications of those sorcerers, by which they wished to lead
people under their own teaching, as though possessing certain secret doctrines—though they were not fully able to do so—let him hear what they are taught to say after passing through what they call "the barrier of evil," the gates of the archons bound to the age: "I greet the sole-formed king, the bond of blindness, careless forgetfulness, the first power, kept safe through wisdom and the spirit of forethought; whence I am sent forth pure, already a part of the light of son and father; may grace be with me, yes,
Father, may it be with me." And they say the origins of the ogdoad are from there. Then, next, as they pass through the one they call Ialdabaoth, they are taught to say: "But you, having come to be, with confidence, both first and seventh, to hold power, Ialdabaoth, an archon who are the word of a pure mind, a perfect work for son and father, bearing the symbol of the character of the type of life, which you shut for your own age, having opened a gate for the world—I pass through your
authority once more, set free; may grace be with me, yes, Father, may it be with me." And they say that the star Phainon shares in feeling with the lion-shaped archon. Then they suppose that the one who has made his way past Ialdabaoth and come to Iao must speak thus: "But you, archon of the hidden mysteries of son and father, night-shining second Iao and first master of death, a portion of the innocent one—already bearing my own beard as a symbol, passing through your
realm, ready—you have overpowered the one who came into being from you by the living word; may grace be with me, Father, may it be with me." Then, next, comes Sabaoth, to whom they suppose they will say: "Archon of the fifth power, mighty Sabaoth, advocate of the law of your creation, which is being dissolved by grace through a more powerful pentad, let me pass, since I behold the unimpeachable symbol of your art, preserved in the image of the type, a body dissolved by the pentad; may grace be with me, Father, may it be with me."
Next after him comes Astaphaios, to whom they believe they will say such things: "Astaphaios, ruler of the third gate, guardian over the first source of water, let me pass, since I see a single initiate, purified by the spirit of a virgin, beholding the substance of the world; may grace be with me. Father, may it be with me." And after him comes Ailoaios, to whom they suppose they say such things: "Ailoaios, archon of the second gate, let me pass, bringing you the symbol of your mother,
'grace hidden by the powers of the authorities; may grace stand by me, Father, may it stand by me.' And last of all they name Horaios, and imagine themselves saying to him: 'You who have crossed the wall of fire fearlessly, you who have obtained the rule of the first gate, Horaios, let me pass, since I behold the symbol of your power set down in the figure of the tree of life, taken as an image after the likeness of the innocent one; may grace stand by me, Father, may it stand by me.' To these things the
supposed erudition of Celsus — though it is rather officious meddling and nonsense — has driven us, wanting to show to whoever meets his writing and what we have written against it that we are not at a loss regarding the doctrines of Celsus, on account of which he falsely accuses Christians, who neither hold nor know any such things, even though we ourselves wished both to become acquainted with these matters and to set them out, so that the
charlatans might not deceive, by their profession of knowing something more than we do, those who are carried away by the fancy of the names. I could have set out still more in order to show that we know the practices of the deceivers but reject them as foreign and impious and not coexisting with the words we, as true Christians, confess even unto death. One must know, however, that those who compiled these things had understood
neither the matters of magic nor made distinctions among the divine scriptures. They mixed everything together: from magic they took Ialdabaoth and Astaphaios and Horaios, and from the Hebrew scriptures the one named among the Hebrews Iaoia, and Sabaoth, and Adonaios, and Elouaios. But the names taken from the scriptures are surnames of one and the same God;
and not understanding this, these enemies of God, as they themselves also confess, supposed that Iao was one being, Sabaoth another, and third besides these Adonaios, whom the scriptures call Adonai, and yet another Elouaios, whom the prophets name in Hebrew Eloai. Then next Celsus sets out other myths, as though certain souls return to the ruling forms,
so that some become lions, others bulls, and others serpents or eagles or bears or dogs. In the diagram we possessed we also discovered what Celsus called the square figure, along with what those wretched people say concerning the gates of paradise. It was painted as the diameter of a certain fiery circle: the flaming sword, as though guarding both the tree
of knowledge and the tree of life. Now Celsus was either unwilling or unable to set out the speeches which, at each gate, according to the myths of the impious, are spoken by those passing through them; but we have done this too, in order to show to Celsus, and to those who read the treatise, the outcome of this uninitiated initiation, and to make known how foreign it is to the piety of Christians
toward the divine. After setting out the things said above and their counterparts — which we ourselves have added — Celsus says such things as these: 'And others still add other things upon others — sayings of prophets, and circles upon circles, and emanations of an earthly church and of circumcision, and a certain flowing power of a virgin called Prounikos, and a living soul, and a heaven that is slain so that it may live, and'
earth slaughtered with a sword and many slaughtered so that they may live, and death coming to an end within the world once the sin belonging to the world has died, and again a narrow descent and gates that open of themselves; and everywhere there stands the tree of life, along with flesh raised again from a tree, because, I suppose, their teacher had been fastened to a cross, and by trade he was a carpenter. As if that man happened
to have been thrown from a cliff, or pushed into a pit, or strangled by a noose, or had been a leatherworker or a stonecutter or a blacksmith - then above the heavens there would be a cliff of life, a pit of resurrection, a rope belonging to immortality, a blessed stone, love forged in iron, or a piece of leather deemed holy. What old woman, singing a tale to lull a child to sleep, would not have been ashamed to whisper such things?
In these matters Celsus seems to me to be jumbling together things he has half heard. For it is likely that, whenever he heard some little phrase from some sect or other, without making it clear even according to that sect's own intention, but simply heaping the little words together, he made a show before people who understood nothing either of our teachings or of those of the sects, as if he knew everything about the Christians. And the passage before us makes this plain as well.
For drawing upon the sayings of the prophets belongs to us - we who show that Jesus is the Christ they proclaimed beforehand, and who demonstrate from the prophetic writings the things fulfilled in the gospels concerning Jesus. But to speak of "circles upon circles" perhaps belongs also to the sect already mentioned, which encloses within a single circle what they call the soul of the universe
and Leviathan, the seven circles of the rulers. Perhaps too it is a mishearing of Ecclesiastes, which says: "the spirit goes round in circles, and upon its circuits the spirit returns." And the expression "an effluence of circumcision and of an earthly church" perhaps derives from what some claim, namely that the church on earth is an effluence of a certain heavenly church and a greater age, and
that the circumcision prescribed in the law is a symbol of a certain circumcision that took place there, in a certain purification. Now the followers of Valentinus name a certain Wisdom "Prounikos," in keeping with their own deluded wisdom, of which they wish the woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years to be a symbol; and it was in mishearing this that the man who jumbles together everything of the Greeks and the barbarians and of the sects said, "a certain power of Prounikos"
"flowing from a virgin." "Living soul" is perhaps a term used in secret by some of the followers of Valentinus for what they call the "psychical Demiurge," but perhaps too, by way of contrast with a dead soul, some not unfittingly call the living soul the soul of the one being saved. But as for "slaughtered," I do not know of heaven being called slaughtered, or earth being slaughtered with a sword, and many being slaughtered so that they may live.
And it is not unlikely that Celsus produced these things on his own. As for "the world's death coming to an end once the world's sin has died," we would explain this by setting out the apostle's mystical teaching, which goes thus: once he has put "every enemy" beneath "his feet," then comes the moment when "the last enemy, death, is done away with." And it is also said, "when this corruptible...
"puts on incorruption," "then the word that is written will come to pass: death has been swallowed up in victory." But perhaps those who introduce the doctrine of reincarnation will speak instead of a narrow way back down. It is not implausible that the gates opening of their own accord were spoken of by some in a riddling way, referring to the passage: "Throw open for me the gates of justice, so that entering by them I may offer praise to the Lord; this is the Lord's gate, through which the righteous shall enter
through it." And again in the ninth psalm it is said: "you, the one lifting me up out of death's gates, so that I may proclaim all your praises within the gates of the daughter of Zion." And the text says that the "gates of death" are the sins that lead to destruction, just as, conversely, the "gates of Zion" are good deeds; and likewise
the "gates of righteousness," which amounts to the same thing as "the gates of virtue"; these stand open at once for the one who pursues deeds in accordance with virtue. As for the tree of life, someone will discuss it more fittingly when interpreting the account in Genesis of the paradise of God, planted by him. Now Celsus has often mocked a resurrection that he did not understand; but
here, not content with what has already been said, he claims that a resurrection of the flesh is spoken of on the basis of a tree — having misheard, I think, the symbolic statement that through a tree came death and through a tree came life, death in the case of Adam, life in the case of Christ. Then, playing on the matter of the tree, he mocks it from two angles, saying that it is brought in for this reason: either because our
teacher had been fastened to a cross — or, since carpentry was his trade, failing to notice that the tree of life is recorded in the writings of Moses, and equally failing to notice that nowhere among the Gospels circulated within the churches does it stand written that Jesus himself worked as a "carpenter." He also supposes that we, allegorizing about the cross, have fabricated the tree of life, and, in keeping with his own error about this,
he says that if that man had happened instead to be thrown down a cliff, or shoved into a pit, or strangled by a noose, there would have been fashioned above the heavens a cliff of life, or a pit of resurrection, or perhaps a rope of immortality. Again he says that if the tree of life has been fabricated because he was a carpenter, it would follow that, had he been a cobbler, something
would be said about holy leather, or if a stonemason, about a blessed stone, or if a blacksmith, about iron of love. Who, then, does not see straightaway the cheapness of his accusation, as he heaps abuse on people whom he professed to want to convert, on the grounds that they are deceived? Next he says things that would suit those who fashioned the lion-shaped, ass-headed, and dragon-shaped rulers, and anyone who told myths similar to those, but not at all
those who belong to the church. For truly even a drunken old woman lulling a child to sleep would be ashamed to croon such a myth and whisper it to the child as the sort that those who fashioned the ass-headed figures did, along with their so-called public speeches assigned to each gate. But Celsus does not know the doctrines of the church, which very few have trained themselves to understand — those who have devoted their whole life
having devoted themselves, in accordance with Jesus's command, to searching "the scriptures," and having labored more than the Greeks who philosophized about some supposed science over the examination of the meaning of the sacred writings. But the noble fellow, not content with what comes from the diagram, wished, in order to increase the accusations against us — which have nothing in common with that diagram — to say certain other things in between,
taking up their statements as though they were ours. For he says: "And this too is not the least remarkable thing about them: they expound certain things inscribed between the circles above the heavens, others as well, and in particular two, one greater and one smaller, of son and father." We found, in this diagram, the greater circle and the smaller, on whose diameter was inscribed "father and
son," and between the greater circle, within which was the smaller, and another composite made of two circles, the outer one tawny and the inner one dark blue, there was inscribed a partition shaped like an axe-head, and above it a small circle touching the greater of the previous ones, having inscribed on it "love"; and below, touching the circle, was written "life"; and on the second circle
was inscribed — a circle interwoven with and enclosing two other circles and another figure shaped like a rhombus — "providence of wisdom," and within their common intersection, "nature of wisdom," while above their common intersection was a circle in which was inscribed "knowledge," and below it another in which was inscribed "understanding." We have set these things down as well in our reply to Celsus, so that we might show our readers more clearly
that we have known it firsthand and are not repeating the charges we bring merely from hearsay. As for whether those who pride themselves on such things also promise some magical sorcery, and whether this is for them the sum of their wisdom, we ourselves do not affirm it — for we have not investigated any such thing. But Celsus, who has already been caught out many times in false testimony and irrational accusations, would know whether
he is lying in these matters too, if in setting out in his own treatise something of the sort about certain people who are strangers and foreign to our faith, he has grasped it correctly. Next, against those who employ, as he says, a certain magic and sorcery and who invoke barbarian names of certain demons, he says that these people do something similar to those who, over the same underlying things, work wonders before people who do not know that their names are one thing
among the Greeks and another among the Scythians. Then he sets out, taking it from Herodotus, that the Scythians call Apollo Goitosyrus, Poseidon Thagimasadas, Aphrodite Argimpasa, and Hestia Tabiti. But let whoever is able examine whether, on this point too, Celsus, along with Herodotus, is not lying, since the Scythians did not hold the same conceptions as the Greeks about their so-called gods.
For what plausibility is there in saying that Apollo is called Goitosyrus among the Scythians? I do not suppose that Goitosyrus, translated into the Greek tongue, yields the etymology of Apollo, or that Apollo means Goitosyrus in the Scythian dialect. Nor will he say anything of the same sort about the rest either; for the Greeks, starting from different circumstances and etymologies of their own, so named the gods among themselves
regarded as gods, and the Scythians from others still, and likewise the Persians from others, the Indians from others, or the Ethiopians or the Libyans, or however each people likes to name them, because they did not remain with the first and pure conception of the maker of all things. We have said enough about this in what came before, when we wanted to show that Sabaoth is not the same as Zeus,
since we were also citing something about the dialects from the divine writings on that occasion. We therefore willingly pass over these points, in which Celsus accuses us of needless repetition. Then again, mixing in matters from magical sorcery and attaching them, perhaps to no one, on the ground that there are no practitioners of such trickery under the pretext of piety of this particular kind, but perhaps to some who make use of such things against those who are easily deceived,
so that they might seem to be doing something by divine power, he sets out a list, saying: "Why should I enumerate all those who have taught purifications, or redemptive chants, or banishing utterances, or knockings, or demonic figures, or amulets made of garments or numbers or stones or plants or roots and, in general, all kinds of protective charms made of every sort of material?" About these things reasonableness does not require us to give a defense, since we are not implicated in such suspicions to any degree at all."
After this he seems to me to be doing something very like those who, out of great hostility toward Christians, assert to people who know nothing whatever about Christian affairs that they have discovered by experience that Christians eat the flesh of children and indulge without restraint in intercourse with the women among them. For just as these claims, already made even by the many and by people wholly
alien to our religion, are condemned as lies fabricated against Christians, so too such statements would be found to be lies told by Celsus, in which he claimed to have seen, among certain elders of our persuasion, barbarian books containing the names of demons and monstrous nonsense; and he said that these (the supposed elders of our persuasion) promised nothing good but everything for the harm of human beings.
And would that everything said by Celsus against Christians were of this kind, so that it might be refuted by the great majority who have learned by experience that such things are false, from having lived together with the majority of Christians and having heard nothing of the sort about them. After this, as though forgetting that his task is to write against Christians, he says that a certain Dionysius, an Egyptian musician, who had been his acquaintance, told him about
matters concerning magic: that it has power over the uneducated and over those corrupted in character, but is unable to have any effect on those who have practiced philosophy, since they have taken care for a healthy way of life. Now if it had been our purpose to discuss magic at present, we might have added a little to this from what we said about it above; but since it is necessary to speak to the more pressing points
of Celsus's treatise, we say concerning magic that whoever wishes to examine whether philosophers too are liable to be caught by it or not should read what Moiragenes wrote in his Memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, the magician and philosopher; in which he, who was not a Christian but a philosopher, said that some philosophers of no mean repute were caught by the magic in Apollonius, having approached him as though he were a mere charlatan.
Among these, I think, he also related things about the famous Euphrates, and about a certain Epicurean. But we, having also learned by experience, affirm that those who, in accordance with Christianity, worship through Jesus the God who is over all and live according to his gospel, employing the prescribed prayers continually and duly by night and day, are captured neither by magic nor by demons. For truly
"the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him and will deliver them" from every evil; and "the angels" set over the little ones within the assembly, appointed to stand guard over them, are said without ceasing to see "the face of the Father who is in heaven" - whatever the face is, and whatever the seeing is. Next, following these, from
another point Celsus says the following against us: they err in some most impious ways also concerning this, the greatest ignorance, likewise led astray from divine riddles, making a certain being opposed to God, calling him the devil, and in the Hebrew tongue naming the same one Satan. In any case it is altogether a mortal and not even a pious thing to say - that the greatest God, wishing to
benefit human beings in some way, has one working against him and is powerless. The child of God, then, is overcome by the devil, and through the punishment he suffers at the devil's hands he also teaches us to hold those same punishments in contempt, foretelling that Satan too will in like manner appear and exhibit great and astonishing works, seizing for himself the glory belonging to God; and that those unwilling to be deceived by these displays ought not to turn aside toward that one, but should
trust in him alone. These things are plainly the words of a sorcerer, one working for hire and guarding in advance against those who hold opposing views and rise up against him. Then, next, wishing to set forth the riddles from which he supposes that we, having misheard them, introduce our teachings about Satan, he says that the ancients hinted at a certain divine war - Heraclitus speaking thus: "one must know that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come to be
according to strife and are so apportioned"; and that Pherecydes, who was born much earlier than Heraclitus, made a mythical account of an army arrayed against an army, setting Cronus over one side as commander and Ophioneus over the other, and relating their challenges and contests; and that a covenant was made between them, that whichever of them should fall into Ogenus would be the defeated ones, while those who drove them out and won would hold heaven.
He says that the mysteries concerning the Titans and the Giants also hold to this same intent, being reported as waging war against the gods, as well as the Egyptian accounts concerning Typhon and Horus and Osiris. Then, having set out such things and without explaining in what way those belong to a superior account while these are mishearings of them, he heaps abuse on us, saying that those are not similar to our accounts about the devil,
the demon, or (as they say more truly) about the sorcerer who holds opposing views. And he understands Homer in the same way, as hinting at things similar to Heraclitus and Pherecydes and those who introduce the mysteries about the Titans and the Giants, in these words of Hephaestus to Hera, where he says: "for once before, when I was eager to defend you, he seized me by the foot and hurled me from the divine threshold," and to those
of Zeus to Hera, as follows: "Do you not remember when you were hung on high, and from your feet I hung two anvils, and about your hands I fastened a golden, unbreakable bond? And you hung in the air and the clouds, while the gods were vexed throughout long Olympus. But they were not able to release you by standing near; and whomever I caught, I would seize and hurl him from the threshold, until he reached the ground"
faint with weakness. And in explaining these Homeric verses he says that the words of Zeus to Hera are the words of God to matter, and that the words spoken to matter hint that, since matter was from the beginning disordered, God took hold of it and bound it together by certain proportions and adorned it, and that the demons around it, as many as are insolent, he casts down, punishing
them by this journey to the world below. And these Homeric verses, understood in this way, he says Pherecydes spoke of when he said: "Below that region is the Tartarean region; it is guarded by the daughters of Boreas, the Harpies and Thyella, where Zeus casts out any of the gods whenever one grows insolent." And he says that the robe of Athena, displayed to all in the
procession of the Panathenaea, holds to the same kind of ideas. For it shows, he says, that a certain motherless and undefiled deity holds sway over the earthborn ones as they grow bold. Having accepted these Greek fabrications, he then adds, accusing our teachings of the following: that we teach the Son of God to be chastised at the hands of the devil, so that, chastised in turn by that same one, we might endure. And these things are altogether ridiculous; for it was fitting, I think,
to punish the devil, not to threaten the people he had slandered. Consider, then, whether the one who charges us with erring most impiously and with having wandered from divine mysteries is not himself clearly in error, failing to notice that writings far older not only than the works of Heraclitus and Pherecydes, but even older than Homer — namely the writings of Moses — introduced the account of this evil one who fell from the heavens.
For the "serpent," from whom the Ophioneus in Pherecydes derives, became the reason man was cast out of God's paradise, and in this he hints at something of this sort: by the promise of divinity and of greater things he deceived the female sex, whom the man is said to have followed as well. And who else could the destroyer in Moses' Exodus be than the one who causes ruin for those who obey him
and do not resist his wickedness and do not struggle against it? Further, the scapegoat in Leviticus, whom the Hebrew scripture named Azazel, was no other; he had to be sent away and driven off, holding his lot in the wilderness, for all who belong to the worse portion because of wickedness are opposed to those from God's lot, and are destitute
of God. But also the sons of Belial in Judges are said to be sons of whom else but this one, on account of their wickedness? And clearly, distinct from all these, in the still more ancient book — more ancient even than Moses himself — Job, "the devil" is recorded as standing before God and asking for authority against Job, so that he might surround him with the heaviest circumstances, first with that concerning all
the destruction of his possessions and his children — and the second by encompassing him with a savage "elephant," as the disease is called, over the whole body of Job. For I pass over what the gospels say about the devil who tempted the Savior, so that I may not seem to bring what is relevant to the question at hand, against Celsus, from more recent writings. And in the closing chapters
of Job, in which the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and the clouds — the words recorded in the book that bears his name — there is no small amount said about a dragon that one might take up. I am not yet speaking of what comes from Ezekiel concerning "Pharaoh," or "Nebuchadnezzar," or the ruler of "Tyre," or what comes from Isaiah, in which the king of Babylon is lamented; from
which one could learn no little about evil — what beginning and origin it had, and that it arose from certain beings who shed their wings and followed the one who first shed his wings. For it was not possible for what is good by accident and by later addition to be like what is good in its essence — a thing which, for the one who takes up the living bread, if I may call it so,
for the keeping of himself, could never happen. But if it happens to someone, it happens because of that person's own fault, since he grew careless about partaking of the living bread and the true drink; by being nourished and watered from these the wing is repaired, according to the wisest Solomon, who said of the man who is truly rich that "he furnished for himself wings like an eagle, and
he returns to the house of the one set over him." For it was fitting that God, who knows how to make use of whatever is needed, should also assign, somewhere within the whole, a place for those who become evil through their own choosing, and should set out, as a training ground for virtue, a contest lying open to those who wish to compete "lawfully" for the sake of attaining it — so that, like gold tested in fire by the evil of these things, and having done everything so that
they may bring nothing counterfeit to their own rational nature, they may be shown worthy and be drawn up by the Word to the ascent toward things divine, to the highest blessedness of all and, if I may so name it, the mountain-peak of the good things. But he who in the Hebrew tongue is called Satan, and by some, in more Greek fashion, Satanas — when translated into the Greek language, means "adversary." And everyone who chooses evil and
the life that goes with it, acting in opposition to virtue, is a Satan, that is, an adversary of the Son of God, who is himself righteousness, truth, and wisdom entire. But in the stricter sense the adversary is the first of all those living in peace and passing their days in blessedness who shed his wings and fell from blessedness — who, according to Ezekiel, walked "blameless" in all his ways, until lawlessness was found in
him; and though he was "the seal of likeness and the crown of beauty," set within God's own paradise, having, as it were, become sated with good things, he came to ruin, in accordance with the word spoken to him mystically: "you have become destruction, and you shall not exist forever." These, then, are a few things we have set out with some daring and risk, trusting to this scripture — perhaps to no purpose at all; but if anyone, having taken the trouble to examine it closely
Anyone who is able to embody, from every part of the sacred writings, the account concerning evil — how it first came into being and in what way it is destroyed — would see that neither Celsus nor any of those whom this wicked demon has dragged down and torn away from God, from the right conception of him, and from his word, had even dreamed of what Moses and the prophets meant concerning Satan.
But since Celsus also tosses off some remarks about the one called Antichrist — without having read what is said about him in Daniel, or in Paul, or what was prophesied by the Savior in the Gospels concerning his coming — we too must say a few words about this. "For as faces are not alike to faces,"
so too hearts are not alike to the hearts of men." It is clear that there would be, among "the hearts of men," differences even among those inclined toward the good — not all being shaped and formed toward it equally and in the same way — and differences among those who, through neglect of the good, rush toward its opposite; for among these too there are some in whom
evil is spread very widely, and others in whom it is less. What, then, is strange in there being, so to call them, two extremities among human beings — one of the good, the other of its opposite — such that the extremity of the good is found in the man conceived of according to Jesus, from whom such great conversion, healing, and
improvement flowed to the human race, while the extremity of the opposite is found in the one called Antichrist? God, having embraced all things in his own foreknowledge and having seen the matters concerning both of these, willed to make them known to human beings through the prophets, so that those who understood their words might attach themselves to the better and guard themselves against the opposite. And it was fitting that the one
of the two extremes, the best, should be proclaimed Son of God because of his preeminence, while the one diametrically opposed to him should be called son of the wicked demon, and Satan, and the devil. Then, since evil is most sharply characterized precisely when it is at the height and outpouring of its wickedness, at the point where it counterfeits the better, for this reason there occur around the worse one, through the cooperation of
his father the devil, signs and wonders and false powers. For beyond the cooperations that come from demons to sorcerers, for the deceiving of the basest of men, there occurs a cooperation from the devil himself for the deceiving of the human race. Paul speaks of this so-called Antichrist, teaching and setting forth, with a certain concealment, in what manner he will come to dwell
among the human race, and when, and for what reason; and consider whether Paul does not set these matters out with the utmost gravity, not deserving even the slightest mockery. He speaks thus: "Now we ask you, brothers, regarding our Lord Jesus's coming, that is Christ's, and our being gathered together to him, that you not be quickly shaken in mind, nor"
be shaken, either by a spirit or by a word or by a letter alleged to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has arrived. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, the one who opposes and exalts himself above everything called god or an object of worship, so that
he takes his seat in the temple of God, showing himself to be god. Do you not recall that, while still among you, I used to tell you these things? Even now you know what is restraining him, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only the one who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed,
whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the breath of his mouth and will bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming — the one whose coming, by Satan's working, arrives with every kind of power, false signs and wonders, and with all the deceit of wickedness for those who are perishing, because they did not accept the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason
God sends them a working of error, that they may believe the lie, so that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness." To explain each of these points is not fitting for the present undertaking. The prophecy concerning him has been spoken in Daniel, and it is capable of leading the reader who approaches it thoughtfully and with good will to admire the words
as truly inspired and prophetic, words in which is spoken what pertains to the kingdoms that were to come, beginning from the times of Daniel down to the destruction of the world. It will be possible for anyone who wishes to consult it; but as for what concerns the Antichrist, consider whether it is not something like this: "And at the last stage of their kingdom, when their sins are being completed, there will arise a king insolent of face and skilled in
understanding riddles. And his strength will be mighty, and he will destroy marvelous things, and will succeed, and will act, and will destroy the strong, and the holy people too. His collar's yoke will prosper; deceit is in his hand, and in his heart he will be exalted, and by deceit he will destroy many, and he will stand for the destruction of many, and he will crush them like eggs in his hand." Now what is said in Paul,
in the wording I set out above, which states, "so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, showing himself to be god" — this too has been said in Daniel in the following manner: "and upon the temple, the abomination of desolations, and until the completion of the age a completion will be given upon the desolation." This much, then, drawn from a larger number of passages, seemed reasonable for me to set out,
so that the hearer might understand, even if only in part, the intent of the divine words that teach what concerns the devil and the Antichrist. Content with these for that purpose, let us now look also at another statement of Celsus and contend against it as far as we are able. After the passages set out above, he went on to say something like this: I will explain how it came about that they were led to call this figure the son of God.
the ancients called this world, since it came into being from god, his child and a youthful god. So this one and that one are certainly quite alike: a child of god. Celsus supposed, then, that we call Jesus the son of god by distorting what is said about the world—that it came into being from god and is both his son and god. For he was unable, by attending to the dates of Moses and the prophets, to see
that in general the existence of a certain son of god was prophesied, before the Greeks and before the ancient men Celsus speaks of, by the prophets among the Jews. Nor was he willing to cite what is said by Plato in the letters—which we mentioned above—about the one who set this universe in order, as being a son of god, lest he himself, on account of
Plato, whom he often extolled with great reverence, be forced to admit that the craftsman of this universe is son of god, and that the one who is first and over all is his father, and god. And if, in saying that the soul of Jesus has been united to so great a son of god by the utmost participation in him, we no longer separate it from him, that is nothing to wonder at. For the sacred words of the divine
scriptures know that other things too, though two by their own nature, are reckoned and indeed are one with each other. For instance, concerning man and woman it is said, "they are no longer two but one flesh," while concerning the person who has reached perfection and cleaves to the genuine lord—wisdom itself, truth itself, and reason itself—scripture states: "whoever cleaves to the lord becomes a single spirit with him." And if "whoever cleaves"
is a single spirit with him"—whose soul has cleaved to the lord, to reason itself and wisdom itself and truth itself and righteousness itself, more fully, or even in comparable measure, than the soul of Jesus? Supposing that is so, then the soul of Jesus is not two in relation to the god-word who is firstborn "of all creation." Now if, when the philosophers of the
Stoa say that man and god have the same virtue, they do not thereby say that the god over all is happier than the sage among men according to their teaching, holding instead that both possess equal happiness—Celsus does not ridicule or scoff at this doctrine. But if the divine word declares that the one who is perfect is joined by virtue and united to the very-word, so that, having thereby ascended, we do not separate the soul of Jesus
from the firstborn "of all creation." He mocks the claim that Jesus is called son of god, failing to see what is said concerning him, in hidden and mystical terms, within the divine scriptures. But in order to bring the one who wishes to follow the logical sequence of doctrines and profit from it to accept what is said, we say that the divine words call the body of Christ—ensouled by the son of god—the whole church of god, and
that the members of this body, as of a whole, are these, namely those who believe. For just as the soul gives life to the body and moves it, though the body is not by nature able to move itself with life, so the word, moving the whole body—the church—toward what is needed and acting within it, moves it and each member belonging to the church, nothing being done apart from the word
acting. If, then, this consequence is not to be despised, as I think, what is difficult about the soul of Jesus, and Jesus altogether without qualification, not being separated, by the highest and unsurpassable communion, from the very Word himself, being none other than him who is the only-begotten and firstborn of "all creation"? But so much for this. Let us look also at what follows, in which, having declared a single statement, and
not even offering anything plausible, he accuses the Mosaic account of the creation of the world, saying: "Moreover, the cosmogony too is quite silly." Now if he had put forward the way it appears to him to be silly, along with certain plausibilities, we would have contended against those; but it does not seem reasonable to me to construct a case against his mere assertion, showing in what way it is not silly.
But if anyone wants to examine what has moved us, along with the demonstration we have set forth, concerning the Mosaic account of the creation of the world, let him take up what we have worked out on Genesis, starting at the book's opening and continuing through to "this is the record of humanity's origins," in which we have attempted, from the divine writings themselves, to establish what the heaven and earth were that came to be "in the beginning," and
what the earth's being "invisible and unformed" was, and what the abyss was, and the darkness resting over it, and what the water signified, and the "spirit of God" that was borne upon it, and what the created "light" was, and what the "firmament" was, in distinction from the heaven that came to be "in the beginning," and so on with what follows. And he declared that the account of the origin of human beings, too, was quite silly,
setting forth no proofs and offering no argument against it; for he had, I think, no arguments capable of overturning the statement that man was made "according to the image of God." Nor, indeed, did he understand the "paradise" planted by God, and the life man lived in it at first, and the life that came about from his circumstances after being cast out because of sin and settled opposite "the paradise of delight."
But let the one who says these things were spoken quite sillily first consider this passage as well: "He stationed the cherubim and the fiery sword that turns every way, to guard the way to the tree of life." And if, then, Moses wrote these things without understanding anything, but doing something similar to what the poets of the Old Comedy wrote in jest — "Proetus married Bellerophon, and
Pegasus was from Arcadia" — well, those poets composed such things wishing to raise a laugh; but it is not plausible that a man who left writings for an entire nation, concerning matters about which he wished to persuade those being given laws that they were from God, should have written things unfitting to argument and spoken without any sense at all in the words "He stationed the cherubim and the fiery sword that turns every way, to guard the way to the tree of life," or any other
of the things said about the origin of mankind and philosophized upon by the sages among the Hebrews. Next, after this, having heaped together in bare assertions the disagreements among some of the ancients concerning the origin of the world and of mankind, he says that those who left us our writings, Moses and the prophets, did not know what the nature of the world and of human beings really is,
to compose a profound piece of nonsense. Now if he had told us the way it seemed to him that the divine writings were a profound piece of nonsense, we would have tried to refute the plausible-seeming arguments that appeared to him to show that they were a profound nonsense. But as it is, doing something similar to him, and playing along, we too will declare what in fact is the nature of the mind and of the discourse found in the
prophets — a nature Celsus, having no knowledge of it whatsoever, composed a profound nonsense about, boastfully entitling it True Account. But since he brings forward, as though he had understood them clearly and precisely, the matters concerning the days of the creation of the world for his accusation — some of which had passed before light and heaven came to be, along with sun, moon, and the stars, while others came after these had been brought into being — we will note only this
against him: is it possible that it escaped Moses's notice that he had already said beforehand that the world, as it was being fashioned, was completed in six days, and that, forgetting himself, he then adds, "This is the book of the origin of humankind, in the day that God made heaven and earth"? But there is no plausibility in supposing that Moses, having understood nothing, said after the account of the six days, "in the day that God made"
"heaven and earth." And if someone thinks these words can be referred back to "In the beginning God fashioned heaven and earth," let him take note that before "Let light come to be, and light came to be" and "God called the light Day," it had already been said, "In the beginning God fashioned heaven and earth." Now
it is not our present purpose to expound the account of intelligible and sensible things, and the manner in which the natures of the days have been distributed between the two kinds, nor even to examine the matters relating to these topics; for a treatise devoted entirely to it would be needed for the exposition of the Mosaic account of the world's creation — which, to the extent we were able, we composed a considerable time before the present treatise against Celsus,
drawing on the capacity we then had, from many years earlier, when we discussed the six days of the creation of the world according to Moses. One ought, however, to know that through Isaiah the word promises the righteous that they will be in a state of a day in which it will not be the sun but the Lord himself who will be their "everlasting light," and God their "glory." Having, I think, misheard
some wicked school of thought that gave a bad account of "Let there be light," as though it were spoken by the creator in the form of a wish, he said this; for the creator did not, like people who light their lamps from a neighbor's, make use of light from above. And having also misheard another impious school of thought, he said this too: if the one who did these things, contrary to the will of the great god, was some cursed god opposed to him,
why did he lend him the light? To such things we are so far from needing to offer any defense that we would rather more plainly accuse the opinion of those people as mistaken, and take our stand not, as Celsus does, against things we do not know about them, but against what we know accurately — partly having followed them ourselves, partly having carefully studied their writings. After this Celsus
He says: "As for the origin and destruction of the world—whether it is unoriginated and indestructible, or originated yet indestructible, or the reverse—I say nothing about this at present, for the treatise before us does not require it. But neither do we say that the spirit of the God over all came to be in this world as in something alien,
in accordance with the text, 'the spirit of God was borne above the water,' nor do we say, as though certain people wickedly contrive it, that it was as though by another craftsman opposed to the great God that his spirit had need of removal, the God above tolerating this. So let those who say such things, and Celsus too, who does not accuse them on any factual basis, take themselves far off and good riddance. It was necessary that he either leave such matters wholly unmentioned,
or, in whatever way seemed to him humane, to have set them out carefully and contended against what is said by them impiously. We have likewise never once heard that the great God, having granted the craftsman the spirit, afterward reclaims it. Then, next, foolishly bringing accusations against impious doctrines, he says: "What god bestows a thing meaning later to reclaim it? Reclaiming belongs to one who lacks something, and God lacks nothing." And to this
he adds, as if saying something rather clever against certain people: "Why, when he was lending, did he not know he was lending to an evil man?" And he also says: "Why does he overlook a wicked craftsman working against himself?" Then, I think, mixing sects together with sects and not noting that this belongs to one sect and that to another, he brings forward the objections we raise against Marcion, having perhaps overheard even these, badly and unprofessionally,
from certain people who bring charges in [words that are] second-rate and unschooled. Not, indeed, very intelligently. So, setting out the things said against Marcion, and not noting that he is speaking against him, he says: "Why does he send secretly and corrupt this one's creatures? Why does he force his way in secretly and persuade and deceive? Why does he lure away, as though performing the office of a kidnapper, those whom this one has condemned or cursed, as you say,
and spirit them off? Why does he teach them to run away from the Lord? Why to flee the Father? Why does he himself adopt them, when the Father does not consent? Why does he claim to be the father of things belonging to another?" And he adds, as though in wonder, this: "A fine god indeed, to desire to be father of sinners condemned and disinherited by another, and, as they themselves say, of refuse!"
And when the one he sent out—spiriting him off from that other god—was caught, he was unable to avenge him. Next, as though addressing us who confess that this world does not belong to some alien and foreign god, he says such things as this: "But if these are his works, how did God make evil things? How is he unable to persuade and admonish? How does he, over creatures that turned out ungrateful
and wicked, feel remorse, and find fault with his own craft, and hate it, and threaten it, and destroy his own offspring? Or to where does he ever spirit them away, out of this world which he himself made?" It seems to me that here too, without making clear what the evils actually are—even though among the Greeks many sects have arisen concerning good things and evil things—he snatches up as though it followed
for us, who say that this world too is a work of the God over all, that according to us God is the maker of evils. Well then, let the matter of evils stand however it in fact stands, whether God has made them or not, but rather they came about as a consequence attending upon the primary things — but I wonder whether it is not the very thing that, for us, who say that works
of the God over all this world too is, he thinks follows, regarding God's having made the evils — whether it follows just as much on the basis of what he himself says. One could respond to Celsus thus: granting these are his works, in what way did God produce evils? And in what way is he powerless to persuade and to admonish? The greatest wickedness in argument
occurs when someone accuses those who hold different views on certain doctrines of being unsound, while he himself is guilty of these very charges in his own doctrines, and far more so. Let us, then, briefly examine the matter of good and evil things according to the divine scriptures, and what we must say in reply to: how did God make evil things? And how is he unable to persuade and admonish?
Properly speaking, then, according to the divine scriptures, the good things are the virtues and the actions in accordance with them, just as, properly speaking, the evil things are the opposites of these. For the present we will content ourselves with the words of the thirty-third psalm, which establish this as follows: "But those who seek out the Lord will lack no good thing. Come, children, hear me; I will instruct you in reverence for the Lord. Who is
the man who desires life, who loves to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good." For "turn away from evil and do good" is said neither of bodily goods or evils, as some call them, nor of external goods, but of those pertaining to
the goods or evils of the soul. For the one who turns away from evils of this kind and does good things of this kind, as one who desires the true life, would come to be within it — "loving to see good days," the days whose word is the sun of "righteousness" — and would arrive at those days, God rescuing him "from the present evil age" and from the evil
days—the same days Paul had in mind when he wrote: "buying back the opportunity, since the days are wicked." One would also find, though in a looser sense, that bodily things and external things too are called good or evil — those contributing to life according to nature being reckoned goods, and those opposed to it being reckoned evils. Job speaks in just this way to his wife: "If good we have taken from
at the Lord's hand, must we not likewise endure the bad?" Since, then, it is found in the divine scriptures, in one place spoken from the person of God, "I am the one who makes peace and creates evils," and elsewhere again about him: "for calamity descended, sent by the Lord, upon Jerusalem's gates — the clatter of chariots and horsemen," — sayings which have troubled many of those who read the scripture, unable to discern the matters concerning
what is meant by "goods" and "evils" themselves; it is likely that either Celsus, raising this as a difficulty, said something like: how did God make evils? or that, having heard some rather uneducated person expounding on the passage in question, he set down the wording he cites. We, however, say that God did not make evils in the sense of wickedness and the actions that arise from it. For how could it be
that the proclamation concerning judgment could speak with boldness—teaching that the wicked are punished for their wicked deeds in proportion to their sins, and that those who have lived according to virtue, or who have performed virtuous deeds, are blessed and will obtain the rewards that come from God—if God had made evils in the true sense? I know well that certain people will seize upon particular sayings of scripture
and, wishing even in these cases to dare to assert that they came from God, will be unable to point to a single consistent tenor in scripture, which blames sinners while approving those who act rightly, and yet no less speaks those other things which seem—being not a few—to trouble those who read the divine writings without understanding. But to set out now the troubling passages, which are numerous, and their interpretations, which require much elaboration,
I did not think fitting to the composition now before us. Evils, then, if one understands by the term those things properly so called, God has not made; rather, a few things followed upon his primary works, as incidental to the ordering of the universe as a whole—just as the spiral shavings and sawdust follow upon the carpenter's primary work, and just as to builders there seem to fall away, alongside the buildings,
things like refuse dropping from the stones and the mortar. But if one means by "evils" those things so called only in a loose sense—what are termed bodily and external evils—who denies that God has at times brought about some of these, in order that through them he might turn certain people back? And what absurdity can this account possibly contain? For just as, if we hear in a loose sense the hardships imposed as "evils" upon those being disciplined
by fathers and teachers and tutors, or upon those cut or cauterized by physicians for the sake of treatment—we say the father does evil to his sons, or the tutors, or the teachers, or the physicians—yet those who strike or those who cut would not be blamed at all for it—so too, if God is said to bring on such things for the sake of turning back and treating those who need such hardships, there would be
nothing absurd in the account. Nor, then, would it be absurd that "misfortune falls, dispatched by the Lord, upon Jerusalem's gates," these having their substance in the hardships inflicted by enemies, brought upon them for the sake of turning them back; nor that he "punishes with a rod the lawless deeds" of those who have abandoned God's "law" "and their sins with whips"; nor that it says: "you have coals of fire, sit upon
them; they will be a help to you." And in this same way we explain also "he who makes peace and creates evils": for he creates bodily or external evils, purifying and disciplining those who were unwilling to be disciplined by reason and sound teaching. This, then, concerns the question how God made evils. As for how he persuades and admonishes—
...is unable to? It has already been said that if this were truly a charge, Celsus's statement would apply equally to all who accept providence. But one could answer in God's defense that he is not unable to admonish. For he admonishes throughout all of scripture, and through those who by God's grace teach those who listen—unless indeed some particular meaning is to be heard in "admonish," one that includes also
succeeding with the person admonished and his actually hearing the teacher's word—which lies outside the sense of the term as worn smooth by ordinary usage. But as to how he is unable to persuade—this too must be addressed, once it has likewise been brought before all who accept providence. It is because being persuaded is, so to speak, one of the things called reciprocal states, analogous to a man being shorn, where the one acting is the one who presents himself to the shearer.
For this reason it requires not only the activity of the one who persuades but also—if I may coin the word—a submission to the persuader, or an acceptance of what is said by the persuader. For this reason one must not say that those who are not persuaded fail to be persuaded because God is unable to persuade, but because they do not accept God's persuasive words. And that this is
the case even among human beings—among those called craftsmen of persuasion, as one might say—one would not be wrong to note. For it is possible for someone who has grasped the principles of rhetoric to the fullest and applies them properly to do everything toward persuading, yet, failing to secure the consent of the one who is supposed to be persuaded, seem not to persuade. And that even if the persuasive words are said to come from God, the being-persuaded itself
is not from God—this Paul teaches clearly when he says: "the persuasion is not from him who calls you." Of the same kind is also the saying: "If you are willing and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you are not willing and do not listen to me, the sword will devour you." For in order that someone may will what the one admonishing says, and having listened to it become worthy of God's promises, the listener's own choice is needed, along with his assent to what is said.
That is why it seems to me that Deuteronomy states with emphasis: "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, and to go about in every one of his paths, and to hold him in love, and" "to observe his commandments?" Next
in order it is necessary to answer the question of how, when they turn out ungrateful and wicked, he repents and finds fault with his own handiwork and hates it and threatens it and destroys his own offspring. In this he also slanders and falsely misrepresents what is written in Genesis, in this manner: "And the LORD God, seeing that the wickednesses of those on the earth had multiplied,
and that everyone was scheming in his heart intently toward evil all his days, God took thought regarding man's having been made upon the earth; and he pondered in his heart, and God said: I will wipe out man, whom I made, from the face of the earth, from man to beast, and from creeping things to the birds of the sky;"
"...that I was angered, that I made them"—setting out what is not written as though it were disclosed by what is written. For in these passages no repentance is named of God, nor is it said that he finds fault with and hates his own craftsmanship. But if God seems to threaten the events of the flood and to destroy in it his own offspring, it must be said that, since the soul of human beings is immortal, the
threat that is supposed wishes to turn back those who hear it, while the destruction of human beings in the flood serves as a cleansing of the earth, just as those among the Greeks who philosophized not contemptibly have said in the phrase: "whenever the gods purify the earth." Concerning the expressions that are, so to speak, ascribed to God after the manner of human passions, we have said not a little above as well. Suspecting
what would follow next—perhaps also himself perceiving what could be said by those who defend the case of those destroyed in the flood—Celsus goes on to say: "Yet should he refrain from destroying his own offspring, to what place, then, does he remove them from this world, the very one he made?" To this too we say that he does not altogether spirit away, out of the whole world composed of heaven and earth,
those who suffered the flood; rather he frees them from life in the flesh, and having released them from their bodies he releases them at the same time from being upon the earth, which in many places in the scriptures it is customary to call "world." Especially in the Gospel according to John one can often find "world" used to name the terrestrial place, just as also in the passage: "the true light was that
which enlightens every man coming into the world," and "in the world you have affliction; but take courage, I have conquered the world." If, then, one understands "spirits them away" as meaning away from this world, the terrestrial place, nothing absurd confronts the argument; but if someone names "world" the system composed of heaven and earth, it is not altogether the case that those who suffered the flood
are spirited away from the world so named. And yet one might say, on grasping the saying, "while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen," and "for his invisible attributes, ever since the creation of the world, are perceived, being understood through the things that are made," that, in addition to the invisible things and those called simply unseen, one who happens to be among them has spirited himself away from the world, reason itself removing him from here and transferring him
to the place above the heavens, for the contemplation of what is beautiful. After the passage just examined, as though aiming somehow to fill the book with a multitude of words, Celsus says, in other words, things similar to what was examined a little above, where he said: "It is far more foolish still to apportion certain days to the process of world-formation, before there were days at all; for since heaven had not yet come to be, nor"
had the earth yet been made firm, nor the sun yet been carried along its course, how could there have been days? For how does this differ from—but let us also take the matter up from further back and examine it—how could the first and greatest God not be absurd, commanding: 'let this come to be, and another thing, or this,' fashioning so much on one day, and again as much more on the second, and on the third and..."
...fourth and fifth and sixth day? We also spoke of it in the sense of a command—'let this and that or the other come to be'—when we cited: "he himself spoke and they came to be, he himself commanded and they were created," saying that the one who is properly the craftsman is the Son of God, the Word, and as it were the one who works the world with his own hand, while the Father of the Word, by having commanded the Son to make the world with his own word, is properly the primary maker.
As for the light having come to be on one day, the firmament on the second, and on the third the things under the heaven (the waters) having been gathered into their gatherings, and the earth thus having sprouted forth what is governed by nature alone, and on the fourth the luminaries and the stars, and on the fifth the swimming creatures, and on the sixth
the land creatures and man, we have spoken as far as was possible for us in our work on Genesis; and above, in rebuking those who, following the more superficial reading, said that six days' worth of time passed in the making of the world, we cited: "This is the book of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came to be, in the day that God fashioned the heaven and the
earth." Then again, not having heard, "And on the sixth day God completed the works he had made, and on the seventh day he rested from all the works he had made; God then blessed the seventh day, sanctifying it, since on that day he had rested from all the works that"
God had begun to make"—and having supposed that "he rested on the seventh day" and "he took his ease on the seventh day" are one and the same thing, he says—after this, indeed, as though some utterly incompetent workman had grown tired and needed a rest from his labor. For he does not even know what the day of the Sabbath and of God's rest is, coming after the world-making that was carried out for as long as the world has taken to be established—
the day of God, on which those who have done all their own works in the six days will keep festival together with God, and, because they have left out nothing of what was required, will rise up to the contemplation and to the gathering held within it of the righteous and the blessed. Then, as though either the scriptures said this, or we ourselves gave such an account of God—that having grown weary
he rested—he says that it is not right for the first God to grow weary, nor to work with his hands, nor to give commands. Celsus, then, says that it is not right for the first God to grow weary; but we would say that not even God the Word grows weary, nor do any of those who already belong to the better and more divine order, for weariness belongs to things that are in a body. And you may inquire whether it belongs to things
in any body whatsoever, or to those in the earthly body and one only slightly better than this. But, he says, it is not right for the first God to work with his hands either; yet if you take "work with his hands" in its proper sense, then not even the second God, nor anything else among the more divine beings, does so. But let "work with his hands" be said in a loose or figurative sense, so that we may also explain "the firmament proclaims the work of his hands" and "the
"his hands established the heaven," and if anything similar to this is said, we allegorize the hands and limbs of God. What, then, is absurd about God working in this way with hands? And just as it is not absurd for God to work in this way with hands, so too it is not absurd for him to command, so that the things accomplished by the one commanded are good and praiseworthy, because it is God who has commanded concerning them. And again...
Celsus, perhaps having misheard the phrase "it was the mouth of the Lord that spoke these things," and perhaps also because ordinary people have rushed heedlessly into their account of such matters, and without understanding of whom the names of bodily members are used when spoken of the powers of God, says: he has neither mouth nor voice. And indeed there will truly be no voice for God, if...
voice is struck air, or a blow of air, or a form of air, or whatever those skilled in such things define voice to be; yet the phrase "voice of God" is spoken of as something the people perceive as though it were God's own voice, in "the whole people looked upon the voice of God," "seeing" being understood there - so that I may name it in keeping with the custom of...
scripture - spiritually. But he also says that God has nothing of the things we know; yet of what "we know" he gives no clarification. For if he means bodily members, we agree with him, understanding along with it those things known by us in a bodily and more common sense; but if we are to hear it universally - "of what we know" being taken to mean the many things we know - for virtue, blessedness, and divinity belong to him. But if one should hear it...
in a loftier sense, "of what we know," since everything we know falls short of God, it is not at all strange for us likewise to grant that God possesses none of the things we know. For what belongs to God surpasses everything known, not only by human nature, but also by the things that surpass it. But if he had read the words of the prophets...
David saying, "but you are the same," and Malachi, I believe: "and I have not changed," he would have seen that none of us says there is change in God, either in deed or in thought. For remaining "the same," he governs the things subject to change, as is their nature, and his reason chooses that they be governed. Then Celsus says, not having perceived the difference between "according to...
the image of God" and "his image," that the "image" "of God" is the "firstborn of all creation," who is the Word itself and the Truth itself, and moreover also Wisdom itself, serving as "image" "of his goodness"; man, by contrast, was shaped in the likeness "of God." And moreover also that any man over whom "Christ" stands as head bears the standing of "the image and glory of God"; but...
he has not even considered in what part of man the "according to the image" of "God" is characterized, and that it is in the soul which either never possessed or has since shed "the old man together with his practices," and which, precisely by lacking these, is termed "according to the image" of its creator, that he says: nor did he fashion man as his own image; for such is not God's nature, nor for another...
...similar in form to nothing. But what sense does it make to suppose that the "according to the image" of "God" resides in the worse part of the composite human being, I mean in the body — as Celsus has taken it, that this itself is his "according to the image"? For if the "according to the image" of "God" is in the body alone, then the better part, the soul, is deprived of the "according to the image," and
it is in the corruptible body — which none of us says. But if the "according to the image" of "God" resides in both together, then it follows that God has to be composite and, as it were, himself made up of soul and body, so that the better part, the "according to the image," would be in the soul, while the lesser part, corresponding to the body, would be in the body —
which none of us says either. It remains, then, that the "according to the image" of "God" is to be understood as present in what we call the inner man, who is being renewed and whose nature it is to come to be "according to the image of the one who created him" — when someone becomes "perfect," "as the heavenly Father is perfect," and hears, "Holy shall you be, since I, the Lord your God, am myself holy," and
learning "Become imitators of God," takes up into his own virtuous soul the characteristic marks of God. Then the body too is a "temple" — the body of the one who, in the "according to the image," has taken up the things of God, who has such a soul, and who, through the "according to the image," has God within the soul. Again he strings together for himself yet more assertions, claiming they are
given by us — assertions which none of the Christians who have any sense actually makes. For none of us says that God partakes of shape or of color; nor indeed does he partake of motion, he who, because his nature is fixed and stable, summons the righteous man to the same condition, saying, "But stand here with me." If, however, some
expressions seem to present some kind of motion belonging to him, such as the one that says, "They caught the sound of the LORD God as he moved about in the garden when the day had grown cool," such expressions must be understood in the sense that God is conceived as moving toward those who have sinned; or else they must be understood in the way that God's "sleep" is spoken of figuratively, or his "wrath," or something similar. But God does not even partake of being; rather he is partaken of
rather than partaking, and it is by those possessing the "spirit of God" that he is partaken of. And our savior likewise does not partake of righteousness; rather, being "righteousness" himself, he is partaken of by the righteous. The discussion concerning being is a lengthy one, and hard to see clearly, especially if being properly speaking is that which is fixed and incorporeal — so that it may be discovered whether God is beyond being in seniority and power,
imparting being to those to whom he imparts it according to his own Word and to that very Word itself, or whether he too is being — except that he is said, by nature, to be invisible, in the passage concerning the savior which states, "he who bears the likeness of the God none can see," and by the word "invisible" the incorporeal is signified. It must also be inquired whether one ought to speak of him as the being of beings, and the form
of forms, and beginning of the only-begotten and firstborn "of all creation," and beyond all these his Father and God. Now Celsus says of God that all things come from him, releasing all things from him in some manner I cannot fathom; but our Paul declares that all things proceed from him, are brought into being through him, and are directed to him, setting forth the beginning
of the subsistence of all things in the phrase "from him," and their coherence in the phrase "through him," and their end in the phrase "to him." But in truth God is from nothing. Since he says that he is not even attainable by reason, I distinguish the meaning and say: if by the reason within us, whether the inward reason or the uttered reason, then we too will say that
God is not attainable by reason. But if, understanding "At the outset the Word existed, and the Word was present with God, and the Word was itself God," we declare that God is attainable by this Word, not being grasped by it alone but also by whomever it reveals the Father to, then we shall be making Celsus's statement false, when he says: God is not
attainable by reason. And the claim that he is not nameable also needs distinguishing. For if what is meant is that nothing among words and their meanings can represent the properties of God, this statement is true, since indeed many qualities are not nameable. For who can give names that mark the difference between the quality of sweetness in a date and the quality of sweetness in a dried fig? And who by a name
can distinguish and represent the particular quality of each? It is therefore nothing surprising if God is not nameable in this way. But if you take "nameable" in the sense that it is possible by names to represent something concerning him, so as to guide the hearer and make him understand, in whatever measure human nature can attain, certain things about God, there is nothing absurd
in calling him nameable. And in this way we shall also make the distinction on the point that nothing is comprehended by a name in respect of what it has undergone. It is also true that God is beyond all passion. So much, then, for this. Let us next look at his following statement, in which he puts words, as it were, into the mouth of someone who, after hearing these things, speaks as follows: how then am I to know God? And how am I to learn
the way there? And how do you show him to me? For as it is now, before my eyes you cast darkness, and nothing do I see clearly. Then, to the one who has raised this difficulty, he replies, as it were, and thinks he is giving the cause of the darkness upon the eyes of the one who spoke the foregoing, saying: those whom someone leads out of darkness into bright light are unable to withstand
the glare, and so their sight is punished and harmed, and they suppose themselves to be blinded. To this too we shall reply that all those who gaze upon the base craft of painters and sculptors and image-makers sit and are settled in darkness, unwilling to look up and ascend in mind from visible and all sensible things to the maker of the universe, who is
...light. And everyone who has followed the rays of reason comes to be in the light, since he has shown from what great ignorance and impiety and lack of understanding concerning the divine these things were worshiped in place of God, and has led by the hand the mind of the one wishing to be saved toward the God who is unbegotten and over all. For "the people who sat in darkness," that is, the nations, "saw a great light,"
"and to those sitting in the region and shadow of death a light has dawned" — God Jesus. So no Christian answers Celsus or any of those who bring accusation against the divine word by saying, "How am I to know God?" For each of them, so far as is possible, has known God. And no one says, "How am I to learn the way there?" since he has heard the one who said, "I am the way
and the truth, and the life," and tasted, in walking that road, the good that comes of walking it. And no Christian would say to Celsus, "How do you show me God?" Yet this much Celsus said truly in the passage before us: that someone who has heard his words answers him, but seeing that darkness fills his utterances, says, "You cast darkness over my eyes."
Celsus, then, and those like him, want to cast darkness over our eyes, but we, by the light of reason, dispel the darkness of impious doctrines. And the Christian might say to Celsus, who says nothing clear or striking, this: "I see nothing clear in your words." It is not, then, from darkness into a brilliant light
that Celsus leads us forward, but he wishes to remove us from light into darkness, laying it down that "darkness is light and light is darkness," and thereby falling under what was well said by Isaiah in this way: "Woe to those who call darkness light and light darkness." But we, once reason has opened the eyes of our soul, seeing the difference between light and darkness,
choose in every way to stand in the light, and wish to have no part whatever in darkness. And the true light, being alive, knows to whom its rays must be shown and to whom light must be shown, not withholding its own brightness on that person's account, but because of the weakness still present in that person's eyes. And if one must speak at all of eyesight being punished and harmed, to what
else shall we attribute the eyes suffering this than to the one held fast by ignorance of God and hindered by the passions from seeing the truth? Christians, then, in no way suppose themselves maimed by the words of Celsus or of any alien form of piety; but let those who perceive themselves being maimed by following wandering crowds and nations that keep festival to demons come forward to the Word who freely grants eyes,
so that, just as the poor and blind who lay by the road, cured by Jesus after crying out to him, "Son of David, take pity on me," obtained through that pity eyes made new and whole, of a kind only the Word of God could form. For this reason, should Celsus ask how we claim to know God, and by what means we expect to be saved through him, we will answer that the
the Word of God, having become, to those who seek him or to those who accept him when he appears, one who makes the Father known and reveals him, since the Father was not seen before the Word's coming. Who else has power to save man's soul and lead it to the God over all, but the God who is the Word — he who was "with God in the beginning," for the sake of those who clung fast to the flesh and
had become what "flesh" is, "became" "flesh," so that he might be received by those unable to see him as he was, namely as "Word," and as being "with God," and as "being God." And, spoken of in bodily terms and announced as "flesh," it is to himself that he summons those who exist as flesh, so that he may first shape them according to the Word made flesh, and thereafter lift them up to behold
him such as he was prior to becoming "flesh" — so that they, having profited and climbed up out of the introduction given through the flesh, might declare: "even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him in that way now." He "became" "flesh," accordingly, and upon becoming "flesh" he "pitched his tent among us," without remaining apart from us; and having pitched that tent and taken up existence among us, he did not stay fixed in his original form, but
having brought us up onto the rational "high mountain," he displayed to us his own glorious form together with the brightness of his garments — and not his form alone, but also that of the spiritual law: namely Moses, who appeared "in glory" together with Jesus. And he showed us also all prophecy, which does not die even after the becoming man, but is taken up into heaven, of which Elijah was the symbol.
And whoever has beheld these things might say: "we beheld his glory, a glory befitting an only-begotten son from a father, brimming with grace and truth." Celsus, for his part, has rather crudely invented what he imagines we would say in response to his question: how do we suppose we shall come to know God, and how shall we be saved and brought to him? But we would say what has already been set out above. Yet, Celsus says,
we answer by plausible guesswork, and he claims to record our answer as running thus: since God is great and hard to behold, he sent down to us here, having put his own spirit into a body like ours, so that we might be able to hear from him and learn. But the God and Father of all is not the only one who is great in our regard; for he has imparted also of himself and of his greatness to his
only-begotten and firstborn "of all creation," so that, being himself the "image" "of the invisible God," he might also preserve the image of the Father in his greatness. For it was not possible for something to be a well-proportioned, if I may so call it, and beautiful image "of the invisible God" without also representing the image of his greatness. But our God too, in that he is not a body,
is invisible; yet to those able to see with the heart he is visible, that is, with the mind — and not with just any heart, but with a pure one. For it is not right for a defiled heart to look upon God; rather, that which is capable, as is fitting, of beholding the pure must itself be pure. Let it be granted, then, that God is also hard to behold; but he is not the only one hard for anyone to behold — his only-begotten is too. For God is hard to behold
...word, and in this way wisdom too is hard to behold, the wisdom in which God has made all things. For who is able to behold the wisdom in each single one of all things, the wisdom by which God has made each of all things? It is not, then, because God is hard to behold that he sent the Son as one easy to behold. Celsus, not understanding these things, spoke as though from the person
of us: "because it was hard to behold, [God] cast his own spirit into a body like ours and sent it down here, so that we might be able to hear from him and learn." But as we have shown, the Son too, though hard to behold, inasmuch as he is the Word, God, through whom all things came into being, "also tented among us." But if Celsus understood what we say about the spirit of God, and that "as many as
are guided by God's spirit, these are sons of God," he would not have asserted, as if speaking for us, that God took a spirit belonging to himself, placed it within a body, and dispatched it to this place. For God is always imparting a share of his own spirit to those able to partake of it, and it does not come to be present in those who are worthy by way of cutting off or division. For the spirit that belongs to us is not a body, just as
fire is not a body either — the fire that is said to be God in the phrase, "our God is fire that consumes." All these expressions, indeed, are used figuratively, to represent, by means of familiar and bodily names, the intelligible nature. And just as, if sins are said to be wood and grass and stubble, we will not say that sins are bodies, and if acts of manly virtue are said to be gold and
silver and precious stone, we will not say that acts of virtue are bodies — so too, even if God is said to be a "consuming fire" of the "wood" and the "grass" and the "stubble" and every substance of sin, we will not think of him as a body. And just as, when he is called "fire," we do not think of him as a body, so too, when God is called "spirit," we do not say that he is a body. For
it is the custom of Scripture, in contradistinction to things perceptible by the senses, to call intelligible things "spirits" and "spiritual"; as, for instance, when Paul says, "but our competence comes from God, who made us competent to serve a new covenant — a covenant not bound to writing but to spirit; for the writing brings death, while the spirit brings life" — by "letter" he named the sense-perceptible understanding of the divine writings, and by "spirit"
the intelligible understanding. So it is, then, also in the phrase "God is spirit." Since both Samaritans and Jews carried out what was commanded by the law in a bodily and typological way, the Savior said to the Samaritan woman: "a time is approaching when it will be neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem that they worship the Father; God is spirit, and those who worship him are bound to worship in spirit and"
truth." By these words he taught that one must "worship" God not "in flesh" and with fleshly sacrifices, but "in spirit." For indeed, by analogy with "in spirit," one might understand that to serve him in an intelligible way is itself, in a sense, to be "spirit." But also, one must "worship" the Father not "in types" but "in truth," which "came into being through Jesus Christ" after the giving
the law "through Moses." For "as soon as one turns to the Lord" ("and the Lord is that Spirit"), "the veil" lying "on the heart" "is stripped away, whenever Moses is read." Since Celsus has failed to understand what is said concerning God's Spirit ("for a merely natural person does not accept what belongs to God's Spirit; it is folly to him, and he cannot"
to know them, because they are examined spiritually"), he links this to his own idea, supposing that when we say God is "Spirit" we differ in no way from the Stoics among the Greeks, who say that God is a spirit permeating everything and holding all things within its embrace. For while the oversight and providence of God does pervade all things, it is not like the spirit of the Stoics; and
providence embraces and contains all the things it oversees, yet it does not contain them the way a body contains, in which case what is contained is itself also a body, but as a divine power that has embraced what it contains. Now according to the Stoics, who say that the first principles are corporeal and therefore corrupt all things, and thereby risk corrupting even the God who is over all
— unless this seemed to them altogether too absurd a consequence — even the word of God that descends as far as men and the very least of things is nothing other than a corporeal spirit. But we, on the contrary, endeavor to show that the rational soul surpasses every bodily nature, being an incorporeal and invisible substance; and so the divine Word, through whom all things
came to be, could not be a body — he who arrives first, so that all things might come to be through the Word, extending not only to men but even to what are reckoned the very smallest things and governed by nature. The Stoics, then, consume all things by fire; but we do not know of any incorporeal substance that is consumed by fire, nor do we hold that the soul of a man, or the being of angels, thrones, dominions, principalities, or
powers, is dissolved into fire. Hence it is said in vain by Celsus, as one ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God, that since the Son, who has come to be in a human body, is a spirit from God, the Son of God himself could not be immortal. Then again he confuses his own argument, as though some among us would not agree that God is spirit but rather that his
Son is, and he thinks he has met the point by saying that spirit has no such nature as to endure forever — just as if, when we call God a "fire" that "consumes," he were to answer that fire has no such nature as to endure forever — not seeing in what sense we say our God is "fire," and of what things he is a consumer, namely of sins and of wickedness. For it befits a good God
— once each person has been shown to be the kind of contender he has proven himself in the contest — to consume wickedness with the fire of punishments. Then again he takes up for his own purposes what is not said by us: that it is necessary that God should have breathed out his spirit, and that from this it follows that a bodily resurrection was impossible for Jesus; since God would not have taken back, stained by the
of the body by nature. It is foolish, then, for us to respond to arguments as if they were ours when they are not ours. Then, going on to repeat himself, after saying a great deal above and mocking the birth of the god from a virgin — to which we responded as far as we were able — he says: "But if the god wished to send down a spirit from himself, what need did he have to breathe it into a woman's womb? He was already able"
to fashion human beings, since he knew how, and to mold a body around this one too, without casting his own spirit into so great a defilement. Done that way, it would not have been disbelieved, if it had been sown from above at once." And he says this because he does not understand the virginal and pure begetting, and the coming-to-be, free from any corruption, of the body that was going to serve for the salvation of human beings. But the man who sets out the Stoic
doctrine, while not even pretending to have learned the teaching about indifferent things, supposes that the divine nature has been cast into defilement and has been defiled — whether it came to be within a woman's body until the body was molded around it, or whether it took on a body — doing something rather like those who suppose that the sun's rays are polluted by the mud and foul-smelling bodies they touch, and do not remain pure even there. And if,
according to Celsus's own hypothesis, the body had been molded around Jesus apart from any begetting, would those who saw the body not immediately have believed that it was not from a begetting? For what is seen does not report its nature either, nor whence it came to be. For instance, if, by hypothesis, there were some honey that was not from bees, no one could tell this from taste or from sight,
that it is not from bees — just as what is from bees does not show its origin to sense-perception either, but experience shows that this is from bees. Likewise, experience also teaches that the vine gives rise to wine; taste alone does not reveal that it came from a vine. In the same manner, then, the perceptible body does not report the manner of its coming-into-being,
but you will be led to what is said by means of the things in the heavens, whose existence and brightness we perceive by seeing them, yet perception surely gives us no clue as to whether they are things that have come to be or things that have not come to be. Indeed, sects have arisen even about these matters; and even those who say they have come to be do not agree among themselves about how they have come to be — for perception does not suggest this about them either,
even if reason, forcing the issue, discovers that they have come to be — concerning the manner in which they have come to be. Then, next, he goes back over what he has already said many times about Marcion's opinion, and in part sets out Marcion's views truly, and in part has misheard them; and it is not necessary for us to respond to this or even to refute it. Then again he brings against himself both the arguments for Marcion and those against him,
saying which of the charges they escape and which they fall into; and when he wishes to plead for the argument that claims he was prophesied, so as to accuse Marcion and his followers, he says plainly: "How will it be shown that one who was punished in this way is a son of God, unless this has been foretold about him?" Then again he jests and, as is his custom, mocks, introducing two sons of gods, one of the demiurge,
and another god according to Marcion, and he depicts their single combats, saying they are like those of quails, and the theomachies of the ancients; or that, being useless through old age and given to raving, they do nothing to one another, but let their children fight. What then he said above, this we will say back to him: what old woman singing a child to sleep would not be ashamed to say such things,
as this man says in the book entitled The True Word? For he ought to have engaged the arguments in earnest, but instead, abandoning the substance, he plays around and clowns, thinking he is writing mimes or some jokes, not seeing that such a manner of arguing works against his own purpose, since he wants us to abandon Christianity and attend to his own doctrines — which, had he set them forth with dignity,
would perhaps have been more persuasive. But since he mocks and plays and clowns, we will say that it was from a lack of dignified arguments (for he neither had them nor knew them) that he fell into such great nonsense. Next after this he says that, since a divine spirit was in the body, it certainly ought to have differed from the rest in some way — either in size or beauty or strength or voice or striking impressiveness or persuasiveness.
For it is impossible that one who possessed something divine beyond the rest should differ from others in nothing; yet this man differed from no one else, but was, as they say, small and ill-formed and ignoble. It is clear also in these matters that, whenever he wants to accuse Jesus, he speaks as one who trusts the scriptures that seem to him to provide grounds for accusation, citing what comes from them; but wherever, according to those very
same scriptures, one might think the opposite is said to what is taken up for accusation, these things he does not even pretend to know. It is indeed written, admittedly, concerning the body of Jesus having become ill-formed, but certainly not, as he has stated it, ignoble as well. Nor is it clearly shown that it was small. The passage stands thus as recorded in Isaiah, prophesying that he would come to dwell among the many not
in comely form, nor with any surpassing beauty: "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We proclaimed him in his presence as a little child, like a shoot rising from parched earth; there is no form to him, no glory — we looked upon him, and form he had none — nor was there beauty in him; rather his appearance was held cheap, falling short beside the sons of men."
Did Celsus, then, hear these words, since he thought they would be useful to him for accusing Jesus, but no longer paid attention to what is said in the forty-fourth psalm, in what manner it is said: "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, in your comeliness and your beauty; and bend your bow, and prosper, and reign"? But let it be granted that he had not
read this prophecy, or that, having read it, he was led astray by those who misinterpret it as not being prophesied concerning Jesus Christ; what will he say, then, also concerning the gospel, in which, having gone up "onto a high mountain," he "was transfigured before" the disciples, appearing to them clothed in glory, at the moment when "Moses and Elijah," "having appeared in glory, spoke of his exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem"? Or
If a prophet says, "We looked upon him, and form he had none, nor beauty," and so on, and Celsus accepts that this prophecy refers to Jesus, then he is blind in accepting what is said, and does not see that it is powerful evidence that the one who seemed formless was the son of God, since it had been prophesied many years before his birth
that his very appearance would be so — but if a different prophet says that comeliness and beauty belonged to him, does he no longer want that prophecy to refer to Jesus Christ? And if the gospels made it plainly evident that "no form was his, nor any beauty, and his appearance carried no honor, being lesser than the sons of men," one might say
that Celsus had said this not on the basis of the prophetic text but on the basis of the gospel; but as things stand, given that it is neither the gospels nor even the apostles who show "no form was his, nor any beauty," it is clear that he is compelled to accept what comes from the prophecy as being true of Christ — which no longer allows his accusations against Jesus to proceed. Again, too, the one who says: since a divine
spirit was in a body, it surely ought to have differed from the rest in some way, whether in size, or voice, or strength, or the power to astonish, or persuasiveness — how did he fail to see the way in which his body's difference lay in what was possible for those who saw it, and for that reason appeared in whatever form was useful and fitting for each person to behold? And it is not surprising that matter, which is by nature changeable and alterable and capable of becoming
whatever the craftsman wishes, is receptive of every quality the artisan wants it to have — at one time bearing the quality by which it is said that "no form was his, nor any beauty," and at another time being so glorious and astonishing and wondrous that the onlookers who went up with Jesus fell "on their faces" at the sight of such beauty — three apostles. But he will say these things are fictions
and no different from myths, like the rest of the wonders concerning Jesus. To this point, then, we have already given a defense at greater length earlier; but the account also has a more mystical dimension, declaring that Jesus's different forms should be traced back to the very nature of the divine word, which does not appear the same way to the many as it does to those able to follow it "up"
onto the "high mountain," as we have explained. For to those who are still down below and not yet prepared to make the ascent, the word "has no form nor beauty"; for to such people "his form" is "without honor and deficient" beyond the words produced "by men," who are figuratively called in these passages "the sons of men." For we would say that the words of philosophers appear far more comely,
being "sons of men," than the word of God proclaimed to the many, which also displays the foolishness "of the proclamation"; and because of the apparent foolishness "of the proclamation," those who look only at this say, "We beheld him, and he possessed neither shape nor comeliness." Yet to those who have received the power to follow him and, in following, to go up with him "onto the high mountain," a more divine
has a form which people see, if someone is "Peter," having received within himself the church's building from the Word and having attained such a condition that no gate of Hades will prevail against him, since he has been raised up through the Word "from the gates of death," so that he might announce "all the praises" of God "in the gates belonging to the daughter of Zion"; and if there are some
who have taken their origin from great-voiced words, who fall short in no way of intelligible "thunder." And "his garments" below are other than these — they are not "white," they are not "like the light"; but if you go up "onto the high mountain," you will see his light and "his garments." "The garments" of the Word are the wordings of Scripture; these sayings are the clothing of the divine thoughts.
As, then, he himself appears otherwise below and, once he has gone up, is transfigured and "his face becomes like the sun," so also his clothing, so also "his garments": when you are below, they are not radiant, they are not "white"; but if you go up, you will see the beauty and "the light" of the garments, and you will marvel at the "face" of Jesus
once transfigured. But observe whether the same thing is not also to be learned about the savior in the Gospels. For the things concerning his birth — as he is traced by genealogy from Abraham and "begotten from David's seed according to the flesh" — belong to "the book of the genesis of Jesus Christ"; but the more divine and greater of the things that would be said about him, even those reported by himself, John declares, so that
indeed I do not think the world itself could contain the books that would be written. For this failure of the world to "contain the books that would be written" must not be understood, as some suppose, on account of the sheer quantity of writing, but on account of the magnitude of the matters — the magnitude of the matters being such that it is not only incapable of being written but cannot even be reported through a tongue of flesh, nor signified in human languages and voices.
Hence Paul too, when he is about to learn the more divine things, passes outside our earthly world here and is caught up into the third heaven, so that he might be able to hear the "unspeakable words" from that place. For the things spoken here, and reckoned to be the word of God, are reported once the Word has been made flesh and, insofar as he is "God" "with God," has emptied himself. This is why the Word of God, upon
the earth, since he has become man, we see in human fashion; for always in the Scriptures "the Word became flesh," that he might make his dwelling "among us"; but if we recline upon "the breast" of the Word made flesh and are able to follow him as he goes up "onto the high mountain," we will say: "We beheld his glory" — though perhaps some others, apart from those who reclined upon his breast
and followed him "onto the high mountain," will say "we beheld his glory," but will no longer add "glory as of an only-begotten from a father, full of grace and truth" — for this utterance befits John and those like him. And according to another, loftier account, those who have been able to follow closely in the footsteps of Jesus, as he ascends and is transfigured away from his condition on earth
they will see his transfiguration according to each scripture — as it were, the Jesus who appears to the many being the plain sense of the text, while the one who goes up "into a high mountain" and is transfigured is seen only by the very few of the disciples, and by those able to follow him up to the heights of the topmost and loftiest mind, which contains the sayings of the hidden wisdom "in a mystery," "which God foreordained before
the ages, for the glory" of his righteous ones. But how could Celsus and those hostile to the divine word, examining the claims of Christianity with no love for truth, grasp what was intended by the different forms of Jesus? I mean also the different ages, and whatever was done by him both before his suffering and after his rising from the dead. Next Celsus says something
of this sort: moreover, if God, like the Zeus of the comic poet who wakes from his long sleep, wanted to rescue the human race from evils, why on earth did he send this spirit — as you call it — into one single corner? He ought to have breathed it into many bodies alike and sent it out over the whole inhabited world. But the comic poet, playing the fool
in the theater, wrote that Zeus, once woken up, sent Hermes to the Athenians and the Spartans; but do you not think it more ridiculous still that the son of God should have been sent to the Jews? Notice here too the tastelessness of Celsus, who unphilosophically takes a comic poet playing the fool and compares the God who fashioned the whole universe, our God, to the Zeus in his play who, once woken up, sends Hermes. We have already said,
in what came before this, that God did not send Jesus to the human race as though rousing himself from a long sleep, but rather, having now allotted for good reasons the plan concerning the incarnation, he has forever been benefiting the human race. For nothing good has ever come about among men without the divine word visiting the souls of those who were able, even for a short
time, to receive such workings of the divine word. But even the visitation of Jesus which appears to have been confined to one corner took place for good reason, since it was fitting that the one foretold by the prophets should come to those who had learned of the one God, who read his prophets, and who were being taught of the Christ that was proclaimed — and that his coming should fall at the moment the word was destined to spread outward from a single corner across the whole inhabited world.
For this reason there was no need for many bodies to appear everywhere, nor many spirits like that of Jesus, so that the entire inhabited world of men might be lit up by God's word. That single word was sufficient, rising like "the sun of righteousness," to dispatch from Judea the rays that reach the souls of those willing to accept it. But if someone longs to see many
bodies filled with the divine spirit, serving — after the pattern of that one Christ — the salvation of men in every place, he should consider those everywhere who teach the word of Jesus soundly and with an upright life, who are themselves also called Christs by the divine scriptures, in the text "touch not my Christs, and do no evil among my prophets." For indeed, as we have heard, "that
"An antichrist is coming," and we have learned no less that "many antichrists" are in the world; likewise, since we know that Christ has appeared among us, we perceive that many christs have arisen because of him in the world, who, in a manner analogous to him, have "loved righteousness and" hated "unrighteousness; and for this reason God, his God," has "anointed" them too "with the oil of gladness." But he himself
having loved "righteousness and" hated "lawlessness" beyond "his companions," has received the firstfruits of the anointing, and, if one may call it so, the whole anointing of the oil of "gladness"; while his companions, each according to his capacity, have shared also in his anointing. For this reason—Christ being the "head" of "the church"—Christ and the church together form one body,
the "oil upon the head" has come down "upon the beard," the symbols of the perfect man "Aaron," and this "oil" has gone on "coming down" "to the hem of his garment." And I have said these things in response to the indecent statement of Celsus, who said that God ought likewise to have breathed out many bodies and sent them into every part of the inhabited world. Now the comic poet, making sport,
has depicted Zeus sleeping and being roused from sleep and sending Hermes to the Greeks; but let reason, which knows that the nature of God is sleepless, teach us that God administers the affairs of the world according to the seasons, as reasonableness demands. And it is no wonder if, because the judgments of God are great and hard to expound, "untaught" souls go astray,
and Celsus along with them. There is therefore nothing laughable in the fact that among the Jews, among whom the prophets arose, the Son of God was sent, so that, beginning from there, he might rise up in body, in power, and in spirit for the inhabited world of souls, which no longer wished to be without God. Next, after this, Celsus thought it especially inspired from the beginning to speak of the Chaldeans as a nation, from whom the deceptive science of casting nativities has been distributed among
mankind. But Celsus also ranks the Magi among the most inspired nations, from whom the magic that takes its name from their nation has come, to the corruption and ruin of the rest of the nations who make use of it. As for the Egyptians, earlier on, even according to Celsus himself, they were shown to be in error, since they have solemn enclosures for what are reckoned sacred, but inside them nothing
but monkeys, crocodiles, goats, asps, or some other creature; yet now Celsus has thought fit to call the Egyptian nation too most inspired, and inspired from the beginning—perhaps because they have made war on the Jews from the beginning. And the Persians, who marry their mothers and have intercourse with their daughters, seem to Celsus to be a god-filled nation; and so too the Indians, some of whom he said earlier
had even tasted human flesh. Yet none of this kept him from saying not only that the Jews—especially those who acted in ancient times—were not most inspired, but that they would perish immediately. This he already says about them as if he were a prophet, not seeing the whole of the venerable ancient constitution of the Jews as God's dispensation, and how "by their trespass salvation" has come "to the
"to the nations," and "their trespass is the wealth of the world, and their failure is the wealth of the nations," until "the fullness of the nations comes in," so that after this "all" — whom Celsus does not understand — "Israel" may be saved. But I do not know how he can say of God that the all-knowing one did not know this, that he sends his son to evil men who would sin and would punish him.
But he seems, for the moment, to have willfully forgotten the argument which says that Jesus Christ foresaw by the divine spirit all that he would suffer, and that God's prophets had prophesied it; and these facts imply no ignorance on God's part—he knew perfectly well that he was dispatching his son to wicked men bound to sin and to punish him. Yet immediately he says that this very point had long ago been stated by us in our defense, as something foretold.
But since our sixth volume has now reached an adequate scope, let us bring the argument to a close at this point and begin, God granting it, the seventh, in which he thinks he is answering our claim that the prophets foretold everything concerning Jesus. Since these matters are numerous and require a longer treatment than can be given to them here, we were unwilling to break off the discussion, being pressed by the size of the book,
nor, in order to avoid breaking off the argument, were we willing to make the sixth volume excessively large and beyond due measure.

======== Against Celsus, Book 7 ========

In the six books before this one, holy brother Ambrose, we have contended to the best of our ability against Celsus's accusations against Christians, leaving nothing unexamined and untested as far as we were able, and we have replied to each point as best we could, calling upon God through Jesus Christ himself, whom Celsus accuses, that the truth, since it is God, might shine in our hearts,
overturning falsehood — we now begin the seventh book as well, speaking that prophetic word in prayer to God: "In your truth destroy them," clearly meaning the arguments opposed to "the truth"; for these are destroyed by the truth of God, so that, once they are destroyed, all people, freed from distraction, may say the words that follow: "I will sacrifice to you willingly," offering a rational and smokeless
sacrifice to the God of all. Celsus now sets out to accuse the argument which holds that the things concerning Christ Jesus were prophesied by the prophets among the Jews. And first, at the outset, we examine those points by which he supposes that people who introduce some other god besides the god of the Jews are utterly unable to answer his objections, whereas we, who have kept to the same
god, take refuge in the defense drawn from the prophecies concerning Christ. And he says in reply to this: let us see how they will find an excuse — those who introduce another god will have none, while those who hold to the same god will again say the same thing, that clever point, that it had to happen this way; and the proof is that this was foretold long ago. We shall reply to this that what has been
said about Jesus and the Christians a little before this is so weak that even those who introduce another god, and do so impiously, could most easily answer what Celsus says. And were it not improper to give the weaker-minded occasion to accept worse doctrines, we too would have done this, in order to refute as false the claim that those who introduce another
god have no defense against what Celsus has said. But for now, let us make our defense concerning the prophets, in addition to what has been said above. He says, then: the things foretold by the Pythia, or the priestesses of Dodona, or the Clarian oracle, or at Branchidae, or at the shrine of Ammon, and by countless other givers of oracles, by whom practically the whole earth was populated with settlers — these they hold in
no regard; but the things said, or not said, by those in Judea in their own manner — just as even now those around Phoenicia and Palestine are accustomed to do — these they consider marvelous and unalterable. Let us say, then, concerning the oracles he has listed, that it is possible for us, gathering material from Aristotle and those who philosophized on the doctrines of the Peripatetics, to say not a little toward
the overturning of the account concerning the Pythia and the rest of the oracles; and it is also possible, by setting forth what has been said by Epicurus and those who embrace his teaching on these same matters, to show that even some among the Greeks overturn the oracular sayings believed and admired throughout all Greece. Yet suppose it granted that the matters touching divine possession are neither inventions nor pretenses of men, the
the Pythia and the other oracles. Let us see, then, whether it cannot also be demonstrated in this way to those who examine matters as lovers of truth that, even for one who grants that these oracles exist, it is not necessary to accept that there are gods among them, but rather, on the contrary, that there are certain base demons and spirits hostile to the human race, hindering the ascent of the soul
and its journey through virtue, and the restoration of true piety to God. Now it is recorded concerning the Pythia—which seems to be the most illustrious of the other oracles—that the prophetess of Apollo, sitting around the mouth of the Castalian spring, receives a spirit through her womanly parts; and once filled with it, she utters what are held to be solemn and divine prophecies. Consider, then, from these facts whether
it is not made plain that that spirit is impure and profane, entering the soul of the woman who prophesies not through porous and invisible passages far purer than a woman's womanly parts, but through those parts which it was not even lawful for a decent person, let alone a man, to look upon, much less to speak of or touch—and doing this not just once, it seems, nor twice (for perhaps such a thing might have seemed more tolerable),
but as many times as she has been believed to prophesy from Apollo. Moreover, the very fact of bringing the one who supposedly prophesies into a state of ecstasy and frenzy, such that she is in no way self-possessed, is not the work of a divine spirit; for it would have been necessary for one possessed by the divine spirit to be, far more than anyone taught anything by the oracles, benefited in what contributes to a life lived in the open and
according to nature, whether for advantage or for what is expedient, and to be more clear-sighted precisely at that time when the divine is present with him. For this reason we demonstrate, gathering evidence from the sacred writings, that the prophets among the Jews, being illumined by the divine spirit to just the extent that was useful even to those prophesying themselves, enjoyed in advance the benefit of the visitation of the greater power
upon them; and through a contact with their soul—if I may call it so—of what is called the Holy Spirit, they became more clear-sighted in mind and more radiant in soul, and their body too, no longer at all working against a life lived according to virtue, since it was put to death, as we would say, with respect to what is called "the mindset of the flesh." For by a more divine spirit, we are persuaded that "the deeds of the body" and
the hostilities that begin from the mindset "of the flesh," which is hostile toward God, are put to death. But if the Pythia is beside herself and not in possession of herself when she prophesies, what sort of spirit must we suppose it to be—one that pours darkness over the mind and reasoning—except one of the same kind as the race of demons, which not a few Christians drive out from those who suffer from them, without any curious
or magical or drug-based practice, but by prayer alone and quite simple adjurations—such as even a very simple person could offer? For it is generally ordinary people who accomplish this, since the grace present in the word of Christ demonstrates the paltriness and weakness of demons, which by no means require, in order to be defeated and yield and withdraw from the soul and body of a person, someone wise and powerful
...in the rational proofs concerning faith. But indeed, granting that Christians and Jews are not alone in this conviction, and that a great many Greeks and non-Greeks likewise hold that the human soul goes on living and remains in existence once parted from the body, and it is established by reason that the pure soul, not weighed down by the leaden weights of vice, is borne aloft
to the regions of the purer, ethereal bodies, leaving behind the coarse bodies of this world and the defilements within them, while the base soul, dragged down to the earth by its sins and unable even to breathe, is carried about here below and rolls about—one such soul among "the tombs," where indeed "phantoms" of shadowy souls have been seen, another simply around
the earth—what sort of spirits must we suppose these to be that have been bound, whole ages, so to call them, to certain places, whether by some kind of sorceries or by their own wickedness, to buildings and locations? Reason indeed prefers to regard such beings as base, using an intermediate power of foreknowledge to deceive men and to draw them away from God and
from pure piety toward him. And this very fact shows that these are the same beings whose bodies are nourished by the vapors rising from sacrifices and by the exhalations from blood and burnt offerings—beings that delight in such things, arriving thereby at something like a love of life, corresponding to base men who do not embrace the purer life apart from bodies, but who cling, on account of the
pleasures of the body, to the life lived in an earthly body. But if the Apollo at Delphi was truly a god, as the Greeks suppose, whom should he rather have chosen as his prophet than the wise man—or, failing to find such a one, at least a man making progress toward wisdom? And how would he not have wished a man to prophesy rather than a woman? But if he wanted a female after all, as perhaps
he was unable, or took no delight in anything other than the bosoms of women, why should he not rather have chosen a virgin than a woman to declare his will as prophetess? But as it is, the Pythian god, for all the reverence paid him among the Greeks, deemed not one wise man — indeed not a single human being — fit to receive the divine possession the Greeks suppose he confers; nor again, among the female sex, did he choose any virgin
or a woman wise and benefited by philosophy, but rather some ordinary woman; for perhaps the better sort of men were too good for the working of his possession. And if he really was a god, he ought also to have used his foreknowledge as a kind of bait, so to call it, to bring about the conversion, healing, and moral improvement of men. But as it is, history hands down nothing of the kind
about him. For even though he declared Socrates the wisest of all men, he blunted his own praise by what he said about Euripides and Sophocles in the line: "Sophocles is wise, but Euripides is wiser." So Socrates, though judged superior to tragic poets whom this god himself called wise, was in fact judged better than men who contended on the stage and in the orchestra for some ordinary prize, and where
On the one hand producing griefs and pity in the spectators, on the other unseemly laughter (for that is what the satyr-dramas aim at), does not at all display, on account of philosophy and truth, the kind of gravity that gravity would make praiseworthy. And perhaps he did not call him the wisest of all men so much on account of his philosophy as on account of the sacrifices and the savory smoke he offered up to Apollo himself and the rest of the daimons.
For these reasons the daimons seem more likely to do what is requested by those who bring offerings to them than because of works of virtue. That is why Homer, the best of the poets, in describing what happens and teaching what it is above all that persuades the daimons to do what those who sacrifice wish, brought in Chryses, who for the sake of a few garlands and the thigh-pieces of bulls and
goats obtained what he asked against the Greeks on his daughter's account — that after suffering plague they should give Chryseis back to him. I recall reading, in the work of one of the Pythagoreans who wrote about the things said by the poet with hidden meaning, that Chryses' words to Apollo and the plague sent by Apollo against the Greeks teach that Homer knew of certain wicked daimons who delight
in the savory smoke and the sacrifices, and who repay those who sacrifice to them with the reward of destroying others, if that is what those who sacrifice pray for. And he who is called "lord of wintry Dodona," among whom the prophets are "unwashed of foot, sleeping on the ground," having rejected the male sex for prophecy, makes use of the women of Dodona, as Celsus himself pointed out. And let there be someone similar to these at Clarus, and another at Branchidae,
and another at the shrine of Ammon, or wherever on earth they give oracles — from what, then, will it be shown whether they are gods, or rather certain daimons? But among the prophets found among the Jews, some were wise even before their prophecy and the divine possession, while others became such as they were only from the very illumination of their mind by the prophecy, having been chosen by providence to be entrusted with
the divine spirit and the words that come from it, on account of the inimitable character of their life, exceedingly vigorous and free, and utterly undismayed in the face of death and dangers. For reason itself demands that the prophets of the God over all be of just this kind — men who made the vigor of Antisthenes and Crates and Diogenes look like child's play. It was indeed for truth's sake, and for freely
reproving sinners, that "they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they died by the slaughter of the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes in the ground — men such as the world had no claim to possess"; ever fixing their gaze on God and on the invisible things of God, things not perceived by the senses and therefore
eternal. The life of each of the prophets has been recorded. For the present it is enough to set alongside this the life of Moses (for prophecies of his too are handed down, recorded in the Law), and that of Jeremiah, handed down in the prophecy that bears his name, and that of Isaiah, who went about surpassing every discipline of asceticism, "naked and unshod," for three years. Consider too the young men, Daniel's
and of those with him — the vigorous life, having read of their water-drinking and that their food was pulse, since they abstained from living creatures. But if you can, look also at what came before these: Noah prophesying, and Isaac praying prophetically over his son, and Jacob saying to each of the twelve, "Gather round, and let me disclose what is destined to happen in days still to come." These, then,
and countless others prophesied to God and foretold the things concerning Jesus the Christ. For this reason we hold in no esteem whatsoever the things spoken beforehand by the Pythia, or the women of Dodona, or the Clarian oracle, or at Branchidae, or at the shrine of Ammon, or by countless other so-called soothsayers; but we stand in awe of the things spoken by those who prophesied in Judea, seeing that the vigorous
and disciplined and dignified life of the spirit of God was worthy of them, prophesying in a new manner and having nothing resembling the divinations that come from demons. I do not know how Celsus, having said this, went on to add that the things spoken by those in Judea were spoken in their manner — or perhaps not spoken at all, since, being incredulous, he claims it is possible that they were not even spoken, but perhaps written down as things that were never spoken. For he did not
take note of the times, nor of the fact that many years beforehand, having foretold countless things, they spoke also concerning the coming of Christ. Again, wishing to slander the ancient prophets, he says that they prophesied in this manner, which, he says, even now those around Phoenicia and Palestine are accustomed to do — without making clear whether he means certain people foreign to the teaching of the Jews and Christians, or those prophesying in a Jewish manner according to the
character of the prophets. But whatever he means by what he says, it is shown to be false. For neither have any who are strangers to the faith done anything resembling the prophets, nor are any recorded among the Jews who prophesied as newer figures after the coming of Jesus — for it is agreed that the Holy Spirit had abandoned them, since they committed impiety against God and against the one foretold by their own
prophets. Signs of the Holy Spirit were shown more abundantly at the beginning of Jesus' teaching and after his ascension, but fewer thereafter; yet even now traces of it remain among a few, whose souls have been purified by the word and by conduct in keeping with it. "A holy spirit belonging to instruction shuns deceit and rises up away from senseless reasonings." Since, moreover,
Celsus promises to describe the manner of the oracles in Phoenicia and Palestine, as one who has heard of it and thoroughly learned it, come, let us examine this too. First, then, he says there are several kinds of prophecy, without setting them out — for he did not have them, but was making a false boast beyond his knowledge. But let us look at what he says is the most perfect among the men there. Many, he says, both nameless persons, quite readily, from some chance
occasion, both within temples and outside temples; and some, gathering crowds and going about to cities or camps, are moved as though delivering oracles. And it is a ready and customary thing for each of them to say: "I am god," or "a child of god," or "a divine spirit. And I have come; for already the world is being destroyed, and you, O men, are perishing because of your wrongdoings. But I wish to save you—"
'And you will see me coming again with heavenly power. Blessed is the one who now worships me, but on all the rest I will cast eternal fire, both on cities and on lands. And people who do not know their own punishments will repent in vain and groan; but those who obey me I will keep forever.' Then, next after these words, he says: Having made these threats, they go on to add things unknown, frenzied, and utterly
obscure, whose meaning no one with any sense could discover; for they are unclear and amount to nothing, but they give any fool or charlatan an opening to appropriate what has been said for whatever purpose he wishes. Now he ought, if he were being fair-minded in his accusation, to have set out the prophecies word for word — whether those in which the God who spoke declared himself to be the Almighty, or those in which
it was the Son of God, or again those in which it was believed to be the Holy Spirit who spoke; for that was how he could really have struggled to overturn what was said and show that the words were not divinely inspired, containing as they do a turning away from sins, a demonstration of things that once were, and foreknowledge of things to come. This is why those among their own people who wrote down their prophecies preserved them,
so that later generations too, reading them, might marvel at them as the words of God, and being benefited not only by the reproving and converting passages but also by the predictive ones, persuaded by their fulfillments concerning the divine spirit that had foretold them, might continue to practice the piety in accordance with the word, obeying the law and the prophets. The prophets, then, spoke without any concealment, according to the will of God, whatever things could be understood directly by their
hearers as useful and contributing to the correction of morals, but whatever things were more mystical and more fit for higher vision and belonging to a contemplation beyond common hearing, these they declared 'through riddles' and allegories and what are called dark sayings, and what are termed parables or proverbs; so that those who do not shirk toil but undertake every toil
on behalf of virtue and truth, having examined them, might discover them, and having discovered them, might put them to use as reason directs. But that noble fellow Celsus, as though angered at not having understood such words of the prophets, reviled them, saying that having made these threats, they go on to add things unknown, frenzied, and utterly obscure, whose meaning no one with any sense could discover; for they are unclear and
amount to nothing, but they give any fool or charlatan an opening to appropriate what has been said for whatever purpose he wishes. And it seemed to me that he said this cunningly, wishing, as far as lay in his power, to prevent those who encounter the prophecies from testing and examining their meaning; and he has suffered something similar to those who, concerning a certain prophet who had come to someone and foretold to him the things that were to come,
said: 'Why did this madman come in to you?' It is likely, then, that there are words far wiser than our capacity, able to show that Celsus is lying in these matters and that the prophecies are divinely inspired; nevertheless we too, as far as was possible for us, have done what we could, expounding word for word, as Celsus puts it, the things that are frenzied and utterly obscure, in the works we composed on the
Isaiah, into Ezekiel, and into some of the Twelve. And as God grants progress in his word, at whatever times he wishes, either what is still lacking in what has already been set out on these matters will be added, or whatever we manage to clarify. And others too who wish to examine the scripture, if they have understanding, would be able to discover its meaning, since it is
in truth in many places obscure, but by no means, as Celsus says, nothing at all. But no fool or charlatan can smooth it over or twist what has been said to his own advantage in any way he pleases. Only the person who is truly wise in Christ could give the whole connected sense of what has been spoken with concealment by the prophets, comparing "spiritual things with spiritual" and constructing, on the basis of the customary usage
of the scriptures, the meaning of each thing that is found. One ought not credit Celsus's claim that he personally heard such people speak. For in Celsus's own time no prophets have arisen who resemble the ancient ones — otherwise their prophecies too would have been written down in succession, in a manner similar to the ancient writings, by those who received and admired them. It seems to me altogether plain that Celsus is lying, in that the
so-called prophets he claims to have personally heard, once refuted by Celsus, admitted to him whatever he demanded of them, and that they were fabricating things, saying whatever came to mind. He ought also to have given the names of those he claimed to have heard in person, so that from the names — if indeed he could have named any — it would be apparent to those capable of judging whether what he said was true or false. He also supposes that those who offer a defense on behalf of the prophets concerning matters relating to
Christ can say nothing to the point whenever something appears to be spoken about the divine that is wicked, shameful, unclean, or polluted. That is why, as though there were no defense at all, he strings together countless charges about things that are not even granted. One must know that even those whose purpose is to conduct their lives by the sacred writings, and who understand that "the knowledge of the senseless is words without examination," and who
have read "always ready to give a defense to everyone who asks us an account of the hope that is in us," do not take refuge merely in the fact that certain things have been said beforehand, but rather try to resolve the apparent inconsistencies and to show that there is nothing wicked in the words, nor shameful, nor unclean, nor polluted, but rather that they turn out to be such as ought to be understood by those who do not comprehend
the divine scripture. He ought to have set out, from the prophets, what appeared to him wicked in them, or what seemed to him shameful, or what he considered unclean, or what he supposed to be polluted, if indeed he saw such things said in the prophets; for his argument would then have been more forceful and more effective toward what he intended. But as it is he has cited nothing, but merely threatens,
claiming that such things appear in the scriptures, thereby falsely accusing them. So against empty noises of names, no argument compels a defense to show that there is nothing wicked or shameful or unclean or polluted in the words of the prophets. But neither does God do or suffer the most shameful things, nor is he made a servant of evil, as Celsus supposes; for nothing of the sort has been said beforehand about any of the
of such things. And if he himself says it was foretold that God would be made to serve evil, or would do or suffer the most shameful things, he ought to have set out the words of the prophets to that effect, rather than wishing to pollute his hearers to no purpose. As for what Christ was to suffer, the prophets foretold it, and stated the reason why he would suffer it; and God knew what Christ was going to suffer.
suffer. But where does he get that these things were most polluted and most impure, as Celsus says? He will seem to be teaching us how utterly polluted and impure the things he actually endured were, since he says: for what else was it for a god but to eat sheep's flesh and drink gall or vinegar, if not to eat dung? But according to us, God did not eat the flesh of sheep. For in order that
he might even seem to have eaten, Jesus ate as one bearing a body. But as for the gall and the vinegar, seeing that these were foretold in the passage "for my food they gave me gall, and vinegar they poured out for me to drink in my thirst," we already discussed this above, and Celsus now forces us to go over the same ground again. For those who scheme against the word of truth always bring the gall that arises
from their own wickedness, and the vinegar that comes from their own turning toward baseness, to the Son of God, Christ — who "tasted it and refused to drink." Then after this, wishing to overturn the faith of those who accepted the things concerning Jesus because they had been prophesied, he says: suppose the prophets declared beforehand that the great God — to put it no more offensively than that — would be enslaved, or fall ill,
or die, then it will be necessary that God either die, or be enslaved, or fall ill. Was it foretold in order that, by dying, he might be believed to be God? But the prophets would not have foretold this; for it is evil and impious. Therefore we must not consider whether they foretold it or did not foretell it,
but whether the deed is worthy of God and good. For what is shameful and evil must be disbelieved, even if all people, going mad, seem to foretell it. How then are the things done concerning this man, as though concerning a god, holy? It appears from this that he has suspected the argument about Jesus having been prophesied to have some strong power of persuasion over his hearers, and is trying to overturn the argument by another plausible move, saying: therefore we must not consider whether they foretold it or did not foretell it. But he ought,
if he wished to attack what is said not by sophistry but by demonstration, to have said: therefore it must be demonstrated either that they did not foretell it, or that the things said concerning Christ have not been fulfilled in Jesus in the way they foretold them — and then to bring forward the proof that seemed convincing to him. For in that way it would have become clear which prophecies we refer to Jesus,
and how he falsifies our interpretation; and it would have been found whether he nobly overturns what we bring forward from the prophets concerning Jesus, or is caught shamelessly trying to force the clear evidence of the truth to appear as not the truth. But since he lays down certain things as impossible and unbecoming to God, by way of hypothesis, he says: if these things were prophesied concerning the God over all, would it be necessary, since it was foretold, to believe the
...such things about God? And he thinks it is thereby established that, even if the prophets had truly foretold such things about the Son of God, it would still have been impossible for him to have suffered or done them, so that one ought to believe what was foretold. We must say that his premise, being absurd, would produce a chain of conditionals ending in mutually contradictory conclusions, which is shown as follows. If the true prophets of the God over all say that he will serve, or...
...that God will always be sick, or that God will die, these things will hold true of God, for it is necessary that the prophets of the great God not lie. But also, if the true prophets of the God over all say these very things, then, since things impossible by nature are not true, what the prophets say would not hold true of God. But whenever two...
...conditionals end in conclusions that contradict one another, by the theorem called 'through two conditionals,' the antecedent common to both conditionals is refuted—which in this case is the prophets' foretelling that the great God would serve, or be sick, or die. It is therefore concluded that the prophets did not foretell that the great God would serve, or be sick, or die, and the argument proceeds in this fashion:
if the first, then the second; if not the first, then not the second; therefore not the first. The Stoics apply this same pattern to the case of matter as well, saying: suppose you are aware that you have died — then you have died; suppose you are aware that you have died — yet you have not died; from this it follows that you are not aware you have died. And in this way...
...they construct the conditionals: suppose you are aware that you have died — that is something you are aware of, so 'having died' holds true. And again: suppose you are aware that you have not died, and that is something you are aware of — then you have not died; but since one who has died is aware of nothing, it is plain that if you are aware you have died, in fact you have not died. And, as I said before, both conditionals together lead to the conclusion that awareness of having died is not something you possess.
Something of this sort holds also for Celsus's premise, in the passage we quoted earlier, where he says: 'But not even what we have taken as our premise resembles the prophecies about Jesus.' For the prophecies did not foretell that a god would be crucified—those, I mean, that speak of the one who took death upon himself: 'Him did we behold, possessing neither form nor comeliness; his appearance was without honor, diminished beyond the...'
...sons of men; a man in suffering and in pain, and knowing how to bear sickness.' Observe, then, how plainly they have called the one who suffered human things a man. And Jesus himself, knowing precisely that the one who was to die was a man, says to those plotting against him: 'But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth I heard from God.' But if...
...there was something divine in the man conceived in his case, which was the only-begotten of God and 'the firstborn of all creation,' who says: 'I am the truth' and 'I am the life' and 'I am the door' and 'I am the way' and 'It is I who am the living bread, descended out of heaven'—then someone else indeed...
somewhere the account of this and of his substance differs from the account of the man conceived of according to Jesus. This is why not even the very simplest Christians, untrained in the reasoning of critical inquiry, would say that the truth has died, or the life, or the way, or the bread, living and descended out of heaven, or the resurrection. For he says that he himself is the resurrection,
the one who, in the visible man according to Jesus, taught "I am the resurrection." No one among us is so senseless as to say "life" has died, or "the resurrection" has died. Celsus's hypothesis would have some standing if we asserted that the prophets had foretold that God the Word, or the truth, or the
life, or the resurrection, or any of the other things which the Son of God is said to be, would die. Celsus is right about the point only in this respect: the prophets would not have foretold this, for it is evil and unholy. But what is this, other than that the great God will be enslaved or will die? What is worthy of God is what has been prophesied by
the prophets: that a certain radiance and imprint of the divine nature would come to dwell in this life together with the soul made human, the sacred soul of Jesus, in order to sow a word that makes akin to the God of the universe the one who receives it into his own soul and cultivates it and brings it through to completion — a word which has within itself the power of the God
who is to come to be in a man's body and soul. And it will be such that its rays are not shut up in that one man alone, nor is it to be said that the light which provides these rays exists nowhere else, since it is God the Word. The things concerning Jesus, then, insofar as they are understood as done by the deity within him, are holy and not at odds with our conception of the divine; but insofar as he was a man, more than any man
whatsoever, adorned with the highest participation in the Word itself and Wisdom itself, he endured, as a wise and perfect man, what one had to endure who acts on behalf of the whole race of men, or indeed of all rational beings. And there is nothing strange in the man's having died, with his death set forth not merely as an example of dying for piety, but also
as having accomplished the beginning and advance of the destruction of the evil one and the devil, who has been allotted the whole earth. Signs of his overthrow are those who, because of the coming of Jesus, have everywhere fled the demons that held them, and, having been freed from slavery to them, have dedicated themselves to God and to the purer piety toward him that is possible for them, day by day.
Next after this Celsus says the following: "Will they not consider this too? If the prophets of the Jews' God foretold that this one would be his son, how is it that that God, through Moses, legislates for wealth and power and filling the earth and slaughtering enemies of every age and killing whole families, which he himself did, as Moses says, before the eyes of the Jews,
and against these, if they do not obey, he expressly threatens that he will treat them as enemies. But is his son, the man from Nazareth, legislating against this—that a rich man, or a man ambitious for power, or one who lays claim to wisdom or reputation, should not even be allowed to approach the Father, while it is necessary to be no more concerned about food and storerooms than "the ravens" are, and less concerned about clothing than
"the lilies" are, and to offer oneself again to the one who has already struck once, and be struck again? Which is lying, Moses or Jesus? Or did the Father, in sending this one, forget what he had prescribed to Moses? Or did he condemn his own laws, change his mind, and send the angel to command the opposite? In all this Celsus—who professes to know everything—has suffered a most amateurish error concerning the meaning of the scriptures, having supposed
that there is no deeper meaning in the Law and the Prophets beyond the words taken according to the letter. He does not see that reason would never have promised bodily wealth so implausibly, and so openly, to those who lived rightly, when the most righteous are shown to have lived in the most extreme poverty. The prophets, at any rate, precisely because they lived purely and so received the divine spirit, "went about in sheepskins, in"
goatskins, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth"; for "many are the afflictions of the righteous," as the psalmist says. If Celsus had actually read the Law of Moses, it is likely that the saying "you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow," spoken to the one who keeps the Law, he took to mean something like this: that it was said as a promise to the righteous man that he would grow so
blindly wealthy that, because of the sheer quantity of his money, the righteous man would lend not only to Jews but to no fewer than a second or third nation, but to many. How much money, then, would the righteous man have possessed, receiving it according to the Law as the wage of his righteousness, in order to lend "to many nations"? And it follows, on such
a construal, to suppose also that the righteous man never borrows at all, since it is written, "but you shall not borrow." Did the nation, then, remain for so long a time in the worship of God according to Moses, while plainly seeing—so far as Celsus is concerned—that the lawgiver was lying? For no one is recorded as having grown so wealthy as to have lent "to many nations." But it is not plausible that they, being taught in this way, understood
the Law as Celsus supposed, and that, while plainly seeing the promises of the Law to be false, they nevertheless contended earnestly for the Law. And if someone brings forward the recorded sins of the people as proof that they held the Law in contempt—perhaps because they had judged it to be lying—one must say to him that he ought also to read the times in which the whole people is recorded as having, after
doing evil in the sight of the Lord, changed for the better and turned back to the worship of God according to the Law. But even if the Law did promise them dominion, saying, "you shall rule many nations, but they shall not rule you," and nothing deeper is signified by these words, it is plain that the people would have far more grounds to condemn the promises of the Law. And he paraphrases certain
Celsus quotes words indicating that the whole earth was to be filled through the Hebrew seed — which, as far as the historical record goes, happened after Jesus' coming through what I might call the wrath of God rather than through his bestowing a blessing. But we must also speak about what was promised to the Jews — namely, that they would slaughter their enemies. If one reads through the words carefully and attends to them, one would find it
impossible to take them as they stand read literally. For the present it will suffice to cite from the Psalms how the righteous man is introduced saying, among other things, this: "In the mornings I put to death all the sinners of the land, to cut off from the city of the Lord all who work lawlessness." Now pay attention to the saying and to the disposition of the speaker, whether
having first recounted brave deeds — which lie there for anyone who wishes to read them — he could then add, taking the words literally as they can be taken, that at no other time of day but the early morning did he destroy "all the sinners of the land," so as to leave not one of them alive; and whether he wiped out from Jerusalem absolutely every single person who worked "lawlessness." You would find many such things also in the law,
such as: "we left none of them alive to be taken captive." Celsus also brings up the point that it was foretold to them: should they fail to keep the law, the very things they had done to their enemies would be done to them in turn. But before setting these things alongside what Celsus takes to be contradictions between the law and the teaching of Christ, we must speak about what has already been said. We say, then, that the law is twofold,
one aspect pertaining to the letter, the other to the meaning, as some before us have also taught. And the one pertaining to the letter is said — not so much by us as by God himself speaking through one of the prophets — to consist of "statutes not good" and "ordinances not good"; while the one pertaining to the meaning is said, according to the same prophet, speaking in the person of
God, to consist of "good statutes" and "good ordinances." For the prophet does not, in one and the same passage, plainly say contradictory things. In keeping with this, Paul too said that the "letter" kills, which is equivalent to what pertains to the letter, while "the spirit" gives life, which is equivalent to what pertains to the meaning. One can indeed find in Paul something analogous to what would be regarded, according to the prophet, as
contradictions. For just as in one place Ezekiel says, "I gave them statutes not good and ordinances not good, by which they shall not live," while in another place, "I gave them good statutes and good ordinances, by which they shall live" — or something equivalent to these — so too Paul, where he wishes to disparage the letter of the law,
says: "But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, a glory now being brought to an end, how shall not the ministry of the spirit be even more in glory?" But where he marvels at the law and accepts it, he calls it spiritual, saying: "We know"
...that the law is spiritual." He also accepts the passage: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good." If, then, the wording of the law promises wealth to the righteous, let Celsus, following the "letter" that kills, suppose that blind wealth is what is meant by the promise; but let us understand the sharp-sighted wealth, in accordance with which one is rich "in..."
...every word and all knowledge," and in accordance with which we instruct "the rich in the present age not to be arrogant, nor to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God, who richly provides all things for our enjoyment, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, and to share." For indeed "wealth" in true goods "is a ransom for a man's life," according to Solomon, whereas the opposite, poverty, is ruinous, for which reason "the poor man cannot withstand a threat." In proportion to...
...what has been said about wealth, the same must be said about power, in accordance with which "one" righteous man is said to pursue "a thousand, and two" to put "ten thousand" to flight. If this is how these things are understood in the case of wealth, consider whether it is not consistent with God's promise that the one who is rich "in every word...
...and all knowledge," and in all wisdom and in every good work, should lend—from the wealth of reason, wisdom, and knowledge—"to many nations," just as Paul lent "in a circuit" "from Jerusalem" as far as "Illyricum," fulfilling "the gospel of Christ" to all the nations among whom he had traveled. And since divine things were made known to him by revelation, his soul being illuminated...
...by the divinity of the word, for this reason he himself did not borrow, nor did he need any man to minister the word to him. And since it is also written, "You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you," by the power that comes from reason, subjecting those from the nations to the teaching of Christ Jesus, he ruled over them, and was never in any region subjected to men as though...
...they had become his superiors; and in this way he also filled the earth. But if it is also necessary to explain the matter of slaying, together with the righteous man's capability in all things, it must be said that in declaring, "In the mornings I destroyed all the sinners of the land, to cut off from the city of the Lord all who work lawlessness," he spoke of "the land" figuratively as the flesh, whose "mind"...
..."is enmity toward God," and by "the city of the Lord" he meant his own soul — the dwelling within which stood "the temple of God," once it had received glory and a right conception of God, marveled at by all who beheld it. So then, together with the rays of the sun "of righteousness" shining upon his soul, being as it were empowered and strengthened by them, he destroyed all "the mind of the flesh," which is called "the sinners of..."
...the land," and he cut off from the "city of the Lord" within his own soul "all who work lawlessness"—that is, the reasonings and thoughts hostile to the truth. In this way, too, the righteous destroy the entire "captivity" of their enemies and of the things that come from vice, so that not even an infant, a newly sprouting evil, is left remaining. This is how we also understand the verse in the hundred and thirtieth...
and of the saying in the sixth psalm, which reads: "O wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed is he who repays you the payment you have paid us; blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock." For "the infants of Babylon"—Babylon being interpreted as confusion—are the confusing thoughts arising from wickedness that are just now sprouting up and rising in the soul. Whoever takes hold of them, so as also
to dash their heads against the firm and vigorous force of reason, dashes "the infants" of "Babylon" "against the rock," and thereby becomes "blessed." Let God, then, command that the things of wickedness be slain root and branch, in their whole generation, teaching nothing contrary to what Jesus proclaimed; and let God bring about, before the eyes of the Jews "in secret," the destruction of the enemies and of everything
that comes from wickedness. And let this be the sense: that those who do not obey the law and word of God, having become like the enemies and having taken on the color of wickedness, suffer these things—which it is fitting that those who have fallen away from the words of God should suffer. It is clear enough, then, even from these things, how Jesus the man "of Nazareth" does not enact laws contrary to what has been said about wealth and about those who are amazed at how hard it is
for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God—whether one takes "rich" in the simpler sense, of one distracted by wealth and hindered, as if by a thorn, from bearing the fruits of the word, or also the one who is rich in false doctrines, concerning whom it is written in Proverbs: "better a poor righteous man than a rich liar." And it is likely that from "whoever wishes
to be first among you, let him be servant of all," and "the rulers of the nations lord it over them," and "those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors," Celsus has understood that Jesus forbade love of rule—which one must not consider contrary to "you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you," especially in view of what has been said about the wording. Next after this Celsus throws out something about wisdom, saying that
Jesus taught that the wise man is not to be admitted to the Father. Let us say to him: what sort of wise man? For if it is the one who has taken on the color of the wisdom called "of this world," which is folly "before God," we too will say that such a wise man is not to be admitted to the Father. But if one should understand the
Christ as wisdom, seeing that Christ is God's power and God's wisdom, we say not merely that so wise a being may be brought near the Father, but also that whoever is graced with the endowment termed "wisdom," bestowed through the Spirit, stands far apart from those lacking it. Again, further, we say that grasping after glory among men is barred not solely through Jesus's own teaching
but also by the ancient scripture. At any rate, one of the prophets, calling a curse upon himself if he were guilty of such sins, says that even worldly glory would come upon him instead of the greatest evil. He speaks thus: "O LORD my God, should I have done such a thing, should wrongdoing be found in my hands, should I have paid back with harm the one who dealt harm to me, then may I fall before my foes"
my life is void — let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life to the ground, and lay my glory in the dust." But neither does he cite: "Do not be anxious about what you will eat or what you will drink. Consider the birds of the sky, or consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, and yet our heavenly Father
feeds them — how much more are you worth than the birds?" and "Why are you anxious about clothing? Observe the lilies of the field," and what follows, as though these were opposed to the blessings found in the law, which teach that the righteous man who eats is satisfied, and to what is said by Solomon in this fashion: "The righteous man, eating, fills his soul, but the souls of the impious are in want." For one must recognize
that the nourishment of the soul is what is meant in the blessing according to the law — a blessing that fills not the composite human being but the soul alone. From the gospel, on the other hand, one must take something perhaps deeper and perhaps also something simpler: that the soul ought not to be preoccupied with anxious concern over food and clothing, but, while practicing frugality, ought to be persuaded that God
provides for it, if it is concerned only with what is necessary. Celsus, then, without setting side by side what seems contrary between the law and the gospel, also cites this: that one should offer oneself again to be struck by the one who has already struck once. We shall reply that we do indeed know that "eye for eye and tooth for tooth" was spoken to the people of old, but we have also read
"but I say to you": "to the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." But since Celsus, I think, has been influenced by those who separate the deity of the gospel from the deity of the law, and sets down such things on that basis, it must be said in answer to his argument that even the ancient scriptures know: "To the one who strikes you on the right cheek, offer
the other also." For in the Lamentations of Jeremiah it is written: "It is good for a man, when he bears a yoke in his youth, that he sit alone and be silent, because he has taken it upon himself. He will give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be filled with reproaches." The gospel's God is not set in opposition to the God of the law, not even concerning the blow on the cheek understood literally; nor is either one a liar,
neither Moses nor Jesus, nor did the Father, in sending Jesus, forget what he had commanded Moses; nor, having condemned his own laws, did he change his mind and send the angel with contrary instructions. But if it is necessary to say even a little about the difference in polity — the one the Jews formerly practiced according to Moses, and the one Christians now wish to set right according to the teaching of Jesus — we shall say
that it was not fitting for the calling of the nations to conduct their polity according to the law of Moses taken literally, since they were placed under Roman rule; nor was it possible for the Jews of old to keep the framework of their polity undisturbed, had they, hypothetically, obeyed the polity of the gospel. For the destruction of enemies, or of those who had acted against the law and been judged worthy of
it was not possible for Christians to make use of killing by fire or by stoning in accordance with the law of Moses — since not even the Jews, though they wish to act according to that law, are able to carry out these things as the law prescribed. And again, if you take away from the Jews of that time — who had their own system of government and their own territory — the going out against enemies and the waging of war on behalf of their ancestral customs, and
the killing, or the punishing in whatever way, of those who had committed adultery or murder or done something similar to these, nothing is left except that they should perish altogether, all at once, when their enemies attack the nation, since they have been enervated by their own law and prevented from defending themselves against their enemies. And since Providence — which long ago gave the law, but now no longer wishes it, but rather the gospel of Jesus
Christ, to prevail — has torn down the city of the Jews and their temple, and the worship of God carried out at the temple through sacrifices and the prescribed ritual service. And just as, no longer wishing those things to be carried out, it tore them down, in the same way it has caused the affairs of the Christians to grow, and day by day has already given them increase into a multitude, and now also into boldness of speech. And yet, though countless
obstacles arose to prevent the teaching of Jesus from being sown throughout the inhabited world, nevertheless, since it was God who willed that those from the nations too should be benefited through the teaching of Jesus Christ, every human plan against the Christians was brought to nothing; and the more that kings and the leaders of nations and peoples everywhere humbled them, the more they increased in number "and grew exceedingly strong." Next
after this, Celsus, at considerable length, sets down as being said by us things that are not said by us concerning God — as though he were by nature a body, indeed a body of human shape — and wishes to overturn things that have not been posited by us, which it would be superfluous to set out, let alone to refute. For if we actually said the things he claims we assert about God, and he took his stand against those,
it would have been necessary for us to set out his words and to establish our own position while refuting his. But if he is stringing together for himself things he heard from no one, or — granting even that he did hear them — heard them from certain simple and unsophisticated people who did not understand the intent of the teaching, we ought not to busy ourselves over matters that are not necessary. For clearly, incorporeal
our teachings declare God to be. Hence also "no one has ever seen God," and the firstborn of all creation is said to be an "image" "of the invisible God," as if he had said "of the incorporeal." We have already, in what precedes this, adequately discussed the question of God as well, when we examined how we understand that "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." After
the matters concerning God, in which he slanders us, he asks us: "Where do we intend to go away to?" And "what hope do we have?" And, as though we had answered, he sets down, supposedly, words of ours running as follows: "to another land, better than this one." And to this he says: "it has been recorded by divine men of old that a happy life exists for happy souls; some named them the Isles of the Blessed, others the Elysian Plain," from
the release from the evils that are here, as Homer too says: "but the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain and the ends of the earth, where life is easiest." Plato, holding the soul to be immortal, called that region to which it departs outright "earth," speaking as follows: he said that it is "something exceedingly vast, and that we who dwell from the Pillars of Heracles to the Phasis inhabit a small portion of it,
as ants or frogs dwelling around a marsh dwell around the sea, and that many others dwell elsewhere in many such places. For everywhere around the earth there are many hollows of every sort, both in shape and in size, into which the water and the mist and the air have flowed together; but the earth itself lies pure in a pure
heaven." Celsus, then, supposes that we have taken our account of that other, better earth, far superior to this one, from certain men whom he regards as divine men of old, and above all from Plato, who philosophized in the Phaedo about a pure earth lying in a pure heaven; not seeing that Moses, who is far more ancient even than Greek letters, introduced God promising
the holy land, "good and abundant, flowing with milk and honey," to those who should live according to his law—not, as some suppose, the "good land" being the Judea reckoned as lying below, itself too situated in the earth cursed from the beginning because of the deeds of Adam's transgression. For the words "cursed is the earth in your works; in toil shall you eat of it
all the days of your life" are said concerning the whole earth, which every person who has died "in Adam" eats "in toils"—that is, in labors—and eats it "all the days" of his own "life." And how "cursed" the whole earth is, that it "will bring forth thorns and thistles" "all the days of the life" of the one cast out of paradise in Adam, and
"in the sweat of" his own "face" every person eats his own bread, "until he returns to the earth from which he was taken." Now the whole passage bearing on this subject affords much matter capable of being worked out for the clarification of the wording; but for the present we have contented ourselves with a few points, wishing to free the reader from the distraction of supposing that what is said about the good land was spoken concerning the land of Judea.
concerning the good land which God promises to the righteous. If, then, the whole earth itself stands "cursed in the works" belonging to Adam and to all who perished within him, it follows plainly that every one of its parts likewise shares that curse, the land of Judea included; so that the phrase "into a good and abundant land,
into a land where milk and honey flow" is unable to apply to it, even though Judea and Jerusalem may be shown symbolically to be a shadow of the pure good and abundant land set in a pure heaven, wherein lies the heavenly Jerusalem; concerning which the apostle, speaking of himself as one raised together with "Christ" and seeking "the things above," and having discovered a sense bound to no Jewish mythology, says: "but you have come to Mount Zion
"...unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of a God who lives, a Jerusalem in the heavens, and unto myriad angels gathered in festival." And so that someone may be persuaded that we do not speak of the good and abundant land in Moses against the intention of the divine Spirit, let him attend to all the prophets, who teach the return to Jerusalem of those who have wandered and fallen away from it, and are, quite simply, restored to the place that is called both
the city of God, in the words of the one who said, "His place is in peace," and who also says, "The Lord is great, worthy of abundant praise, within the city of our God, upon his sacred mountain, firmly established, the delight of all the earth." It will suffice for the present to set out what is said in the thirty-sixth psalm concerning the land of the
righteous: "But those who wait upon the Lord shall inherit the land," and shortly after: "But the meek shall inherit the land, and shall delight in abundance of peace," and shortly after: "Those who bless him shall inherit the land," and again: "The righteous shall inherit the land, and shall dwell upon it forever." Consider whether it is not shown to those able to hear such sayings, spoken in the same psalm, that the earth is
pure because it is in a pure heaven: "Wait for the Lord, hold fast to his path, and he shall raise you up to possess the land." It seems to me also that what is said about the stones held precious here below, which are said to have some effluence from the stones in the better land, was taken by Plato from what
is written in Isaiah concerning the city of God, of which it is written: "I will make your battlements jasper, and your stones stones of crystal, and your wall precious stones," and again: "I will lay your foundations with sapphire." Now the myth in Plato is allegorized and recounted by those who have taken up the philosopher's teachings in a more dignified way. But the prophecies, from which
we conjecture that Plato too took his material, will be vindicated by those who have lived a life kindred to the prophets and inspired by God, and who have devoted their whole time, through purity of life and love of learning in divine things, to the examination of the sacred writings, for those fit to judge. Our purpose has been to show that we, for our part, did not take what we say about the holy land from the Greeks or from Plato; whereas they,
being later not only than the most ancient Moses but also than most of the prophets, either overheard something from those who spoke in riddles about such matters, or, having encountered the sacred scriptures, altered them and said certain things of this sort about the better land. Haggai clearly shows that "the dry land" is one thing and "the earth" another, calling this land, on which we are, the dry land. He
says thus: "Once more, yet again, I will make the heaven quake, and the dry ground, and the sea besides." Just as he himself refers the account to the myth in Plato, set out in the Phaedo, saying this: what he means by these words is not easy for everyone to grasp, unless someone is able to understand what it is he means when he says: "because of weakness"
and slowness, they are not able to traverse the air all the way to its outer limit": "and if nature were strong enough to endure the sight, it would know that this is the true heaven and the true light." In the same way we too, when we discuss the holy and good land and the city of God within it, do not think it belongs to the present
treatise, and so we defer explaining it, reserving it for our commentaries on the prophets, having already discussed the city of God in part, as far as we were able, in the works we composed on the forty-fifth and the forty-seventh Psalm. Now the most ancient discourse of Moses and the prophets recognizes that all the true realities share their names with the more general things here below, as for instance "true light" and
a "heaven" distinct from "the firmament," and a sun "of righteousness" distinct from the one perceived by the senses. And in short, [Scripture] says, in contrast to the objects of sense, none of which is true, the phrase "God, his works are true," assigning the "works of God" in some places to the higher realities, and elsewhere the things called the "works of his hands" to the lesser ones. So, finding fault with certain people through
Isaiah, it says: "they do not gaze upon the works of the Lord, and they do not understand the works of his hands." So much, then, for this. Now, since the account of the resurrection (a lengthy matter, hard to explain, and requiring a wise teacher, if any doctrine does, one who has advanced further still, in order that he may set forth what is worthy of God and the sublimity of the doctrine, since [Scripture] teaches
that what is called, according to the scriptures, the "tent" of the soul has the character of a seed, and that in this tent the righteous, while they are in it, groan under its burden, not wishing to strip it off but to put on another over it) — Celsus, not having understood this, and having heard about it from uneducated people who are unable to set it out with any reasoned account, mocks the doctrine. Beyond what has already been stated above regarding this matter, it is worth adding just this single remark in reply to his
argument: that it is not, as Celsus supposes, from having misunderstood the doctrine of the transmigration of bodies that we speak of the resurrection, but rather because we know that the soul, which by its own nature is bodiless and invisible, and which finds itself in every bodily place, needs a body suited by nature to that place. This body, wherever it is worn, once the soul has stripped off the former one — necessary before, but now superfluous in view of what comes next — and put on the new one in its place
instead of what it had before, requires a better garment for the purer, ethereal, and heavenly regions. And indeed the soul stripped off, on coming to birth here, the covering that had been useful for its existence in the womb of the one bearing it — the chorion, while it remained within her — and it put on, in place of that, what was necessary for the one who was about to live out life on earth. Then again, since there is a certain "tent," an earthly dwelling,
necessary in some way for the tent, the scriptures say both that the earthly house "of the tent" is dissolved, and that the tent puts on over itself "a dwelling not fashioned by hands, everlasting in the heavens." And the men of God say that "the" corruptible "puts on" incorruption — which is distinct from the incorruptible — and that "the" mortal "puts on" immortality, which is distinct from the immortal. For the same reasoning that wisdom follows
in relation to the wise, and righteousness in relation to the just, and peace in relation to the peaceable, so this word — incorruption — stands in relation to the incorruptible, and immortality in relation to the immortal. Observe, then, toward what the word exhorts, when it says we must "put on" "incorruption" and "immortality," which, like garments, do not allow the one who has put them on and is clothed in such garments to be corrupted or to die,
the one wearing them. Let us be permitted to venture these remarks on account of the man who has not understood what we mean at all by the resurrection, and who for this reason laughs at and mocks a doctrine he does not know. Supposing that we hold our views about the resurrection because we know and have seen God, he strings together for himself whatever he wishes and says something like this: whenever they are refuted from every side and their arguments are demolished, once again,
as if they had heard nothing, they return to the same question: how then are we to know and see God? And how are we to go to him? Let anyone who wishes know that even if for other purposes we need a body in order to exist in a bodily place, and one of such a kind as befits the nature of that bodily place, and though needing the body we put on over it, as a tent, the things spoken of above, still for
the knowledge of God we have no need whatever of a body. For it is not the body's eye but the mind that knows God, seeing the "image" of its Creator and having received, through God's providence, the power to know God. And that which sees God is a pure heart, from which no longer "come forth evil thoughts," no "murders," no "adulteries," no "acts of sexual immorality," no "thefts," no "false testimonies," no
"blasphemies," no "evil eye," nor anything else out of place; for which reason it is said, "Happy are those clean of heart, since they will look upon God." But since our own resolve is not sufficient to have the heart wholly "pure," but we need God, who creates it to be such, for this reason it is said by the one who prays with understanding: "Create in me a clean heart,
O God." But neither shall we ask anyone, as though God existed in a place, nor say: how are we to go to him? For God is greater than every place and encompasses everything whatsoever, and there is nothing that encompasses God. To go to God, then, is not enjoined upon us in a bodily sense — "you shall walk after the Lord your God" — nor did the
prophet, when he clung to God, speak in a bodily sense in his prayer: "My soul has clung to you." Celsus, then, speaks falsely of us, claiming that we anticipate beholding God with bodily eyes, hearing his voice with our ears, and touching him with hands perceptible to sense. But we know that eyes are spoken of by the divine words in a sense sharing the name with the eyes of the body, and likewise also the ears and
hands, and, stranger still than these, a perception more divine and different from that which is customarily so named by most people. For whenever the prophet declares, "Open my eyes, so that I may perceive the wonders found in your law"; or again, "Clear and bright is the Lord's commandment, giving the eyes light"; or, "Give my eyes light, lest I fall asleep unto death," no one who is not utterly senseless
that one should think that the "wonders" of the divine "law" are perceived with the eyes of the body, or that the Lord's commandment gives light to the eyes of the body, or that a sleep bringing death happens to the eyes of the body. But even when our Savior says, "let the one who has ears to hear, hear," even an ordinary person understands these words to be spoken about more divine ears—even if it is said
that "the word of the Lord" came to be by the hand of Jeremiah the prophet or of someone else, or that the law came "by the hand" of Moses, or that "with my hands I sought after God, and I was not disappointed," surely nobody is so witless that he fails to grasp that certain hands are here spoken of figuratively—hands of which John likewise says, "our hands have felt out the matter concerning the word of life." But if
you also wish to learn from the sacred writings about the superior, non-bodily perception, hear Solomon saying in the Proverbs, "you will find divine perception." There is therefore no need for us, who seek God in this way, to go where Celsus sends us—to Trophonius, and to Amphiaraus, and to Mopsus—where, he says, gods in human form are seen, and, as Celsus puts it,
not deceptively but visibly, in plain sight. For we know that these are demons, fed on the fumes of burnt fat and on blood and on the vapors rising from sacrifices, and thus held fast within the prisons built by their own desire—which the Greeks have taken for temples of gods. But we know that such dwellings belong to deceiving demons. After this Celsus maliciously says about the
aforementioned human-formed gods, as he calls them, that one will see them not slipping past just once, like the one who deceived those disciples, but always conversing with whoever wishes it. And by this he seems to have supposed that Jesus was a phantom, who, having appeared to the disciples after the resurrection from the dead, merely flitted past so as to be seen by them; whereas those he named, calling them human-formed gods, he thinks converse always with whoever
wishes it. But how can a phantom—as he himself says, one that flitted past to deceive those who saw it—after that single sighting accomplish so much, and turn the souls of such people, and instill in them the conviction that they must do everything pleasing to God, as ones who are going to be judged? And how does something called a phantom drive out demons and perform other not inconsiderable works, not confined to one
allotted place, as his human-formed gods are, but extending over the whole inhabited world, gathering and drawing by its own divinity whomever it finds inclined toward the good life? After this, in response to what we have said so far as we were able, Celsus again says the following: and again they will be asked, how will they know God without being grasped by sense-perception? What
is it possible to learn apart from sense-perception? Then, answering this, he says: it is the voice not of a human being, nor of the soul, but of the flesh. All the same, let them hear, if they are capable of understanding anything, being a cowardly, body-loving race: if you close your senses and look up with the mind, and turning away from the flesh raise the eyes of the soul, only in this way will you see God. And if you take a guide for this path
...you should seek, you must shun the deceivers and sorcerers who commend idols to you, so that you are not utterly ridiculous — blaspheming the other gods, the ones set forth, as idols, while worshipping one more wretched than even those true idols, no longer even an idol but a truly dead thing, and seeking a father like him. And first something must be said about his personification.
...attributing to us words as if spoken by us in defense of the resurrection of the flesh, on the ground that it is the mark of skill in one composing a speech-in-character to preserve the intention and disposition of the person being represented, and a fault when one attaches to the speaker's mouth words that do not fit him. And equally blameworthy are those who, in composing such speeches, attribute them to barbarians and the uneducated, or to home-bred slaves, and to people who have never...
...heard philosophical arguments and would not have spoken them well, fitting them out with a philosophy which the one composing the speech had learned but which it was not plausible for the person represented to know; and again those who, to people posited by hypothesis as wise and versed in divine things, attribute what is said out of vulgar passions by the uneducated and reported out of ignorance. This is why Homer is admired in many respects, for having kept the...
...characters of his heroes as he had established them from the start — that of Nestor, say, or of Odysseus, or of Diomedes, or of Agamemnon, or of Telemachus, or of Penelope, or of any of the rest; whereas Euripides is mocked by Aristophanes as speaking out of season, because he often fitted, into the mouths of barbarian women or household slaves, speeches full of doctrines drawn from the teaching of Anaxagoras or some other sage. If, then, such is...
...the skill in composing speeches-in-character, and such the fault, how could one not fairly laugh at Celsus for attaching to Christians things not said by Christians? For if he was inventing the words of uneducated people, how could people of that sort be capable of distinguishing sense-perception from intellect, and objects of sense from objects of intellect, and of holding doctrines resembling those of the Stoics who abolish intelligible substances, on the ground that whatever is apprehended is apprehended by the senses...
...and that all apprehension depends on the senses? And if he is inventing the words of people practicing philosophy and examining, as far as they are able, the things of Christ with care, he has not made even these consistent. For no one who has learned that God is invisible, and that there are certain invisible creations — that is, intelligible ones — would say, as though defending the resurrection, 'How will they know God if they are not apprehended by the senses?' or...
'What is it possible to learn apart from sense-perception?' And it is written — not in works set apart and read only by the few who love learning, but in the more popular writings — that 'the invisible things of God are perceived, being understood through the things he has made, from the creation of the world.' From this one can know that even though people in this life must begin from the senses and sensible things, since they are going to ascend to...
...the nature of intelligible things, they need not remain among sensible things; nor will they say it is impossible to learn intelligible things apart from sense-perception. And using the saying 'Who is able to learn apart from sense-perception?' they will show that it is not reasonable for Celsus to add to it, 'not the voice of a man, nor even of a soul, but of flesh.' Speaking, then, of mind, or of that which is beyond mind and being...
the God of all things is simple, invisible, and incorporeal, we will say that God is apprehended by nothing other than that which comes to be after the image of that mind — for now, to use Paul's expression, "through a mirror and in a riddle," but then "face to face." And if I say "face," let no one slander the mind signified by the word on account of the expression,
but let him instead learn from the saying that with face unveiled we behold, as in a mirror, the Lord's glory, and are transfigured into that very likeness from one glory to another, that no perceptible face is intended in such passages, but rather a figurative sense, just like eyes and ears, and all the terms we set forth above that share their names with the parts of the body. And so "man,"
that is, the soul that makes use of a body, called "the inner man" but also "soul," answers not what Celsus has written down, but what the man of God himself teaches. A Christian would never use the word "flesh" as Celsus does, having learned, by the Spirit, to put to death "the deeds of the body," and to bear about "always the dying of Jesus in the body," and to "put to death the members that are upon the
earth," and knowing what is signified by the words "my spirit shall not remain in these men forever, because they are flesh," and understanding also that "they that are in the flesh are unable to please God," and for this reason doing everything so as to be no longer at all "in the flesh," but "in the spirit" alone.
Let us see, then, to what Celsus summons us, so that we may listen to him, and by what means we shall come to know God — words after which he supposes no Christian is able to understand what he says. For he says: "Nevertheless, let them listen, if they are able to understand anything at all." We must consider, then, what he wants us to listen to from him. The philosopher ought to teach us; instead he heaps up abuse.
And whereas he ought to show goodwill toward his hearers in the preface of his discourse, he instead speaks to people who are dying unto death rather than renouncing, even in word alone, Christianity, and who are prepared for every torment and every kind of death — as though we were a cowardly race. He says we are a race that loves the body too, people who say, "even if we once knew Christ
according to the flesh, yet now we know him no longer," and who so readily set the body forward for the sake of piety that a philosopher would not so easily take off his cloak. He says to us, then, that if, closing our senses, we look up with the mind, and turning away from the flesh, awaken the eye of the soul, only so shall we see God. And he supposes that these notions — I mean what he says about the two kinds of eyes — were taken from
the Greeks, and had not been philosophized about beforehand among us. But it must be said that Moses, in setting down the making of the world, presents man, prior to the transgression, as in one way seeing and in another way not — seeing, insofar as it is said of the woman that "she saw the tree to be good as food, and that it was a delight to look upon, and lovely to
...to understand," not seeing this only in the statement made about the eyes as blind, spoken by the serpent to the woman, "For God knew that in whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened," but also in "they ate, and the eyes of the two were opened." Their eyes, then, "were opened" — the eyes of sensation, which they had
rightly shut, so that, undistracted, they might not be hindered from seeing with the eye of the soul. But the eyes of the soul, which until then they had open and which rejoiced in God and in his paradise, these, I think, they shut because of sin. That is why our Savior too, knowing this twofold kind of eyes in us, says, "For judgment I came into
this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind" — hinting by "those who do not see" at the eyes of the soul, which the Word makes to see, and by "those who see" at the eyes of the senses; these the Word blinded, so that the soul might see without distraction what it must see. In everyone, then, who is a Christian in the proper manner, the eye of the soul has been roused, and
the eye of sensation has closed; and in proportion to the rousing of the better eye and the closing of the eyes of sensation, each person perceives and beholds the God over all things and his Son, who is Word and Wisdom, and the rest. Next, after what has been examined, Celsus directs a speech as though to all Christians which it would have been fitting to address to those wholly estranged from
the teaching of Jesus, if indeed it was fitting to say it at all. For the Ophites, as we said above, who deny Jesus altogether — or if there are others who hold similar views to theirs and court idols — are deceivers and charlatans; and it is they who wretchedly learn by heart the names of the doorkeepers. In vain, then, does he say to Christians: even if
you seek a guide for this road, you must flee the deceivers and charlatans and those who court idols. And not knowing that such people, no less than Celsus himself, speak evil, as charlatans, of Jesus and of the whole worship of God that follows him, he says — confusing us with them by his own argument — "so that you may not be altogether ridiculous, while you revile the others, the
gods that are shown forth, as idols, yet worship one who is truly more wretched than idols themselves and no longer even an idol but in fact a corpse, and seek a father like him." That he does not know what Christians say and what those who fabricate such myths say, but supposes that the charges brought against those people belong to us, and says these things against us though they do not belong to us, is plain from what follows:
"such deceit, and those astonishing counselors, and the demonic sayings addressed to the lion and the amphibious one and the ass-shaped one and the others, and the marvelous doorkeepers, whose names you wretches wretchedly learn by heart while you rave madly and are impaled." And he did not see that none of those who worship the lion-shaped one and
those who think the donkey-shaped one and the amphibious one are gatekeepers of the ascent — he stands firm even to the point of death for the truth as it appears to him. But when we, through piety, so to speak, go beyond this — offering ourselves to death in every form — and when impalement is inflicted on us who suffer none of these things he mentions, and we ourselves are impaled for the sake of piety, he reproaches us with their mythmaking about the
lion-shaped one and the amphibious one and the rest. It is not on account of Celsus, then, that we shun the account of the lion-shaped figure and the others, for indeed we never received any such thing from the beginning; rather, following the teaching of Jesus, we say the opposite of what they say, not agreeing that Michael has this particular appearance, and that some other of those previously listed has that one. But whom does
Celsus want us to follow, as though we would not be at a loss for ancient leaders and holy men? He sends us off to inspired poets, as he calls them, and wise men and philosophers, without naming them, and though he promises to point out guides, he indefinitely declares that the poets, sages, and philosophers are inspired. But if he had named each of these, it would have seemed reasonable to us to contend the matter, on the grounds that
he is giving us guides who are blind about the truth, so that we might go astray — or, even if not altogether blind, at least mistaken about many doctrines of the truth. So whether he wants Orpheus to be an inspired poet, or Parmenides, or Empedocles, or even Homer himself, or Hesiod, let whoever wishes show how those who use such guides will travel better and be helped in matters concerning
life, in comparison with those who, for the sake of the teaching of Jesus Christ, have abandoned all images and shrines, and indeed all Jewish superstition as well, and look up, through the Word of God, to none but the Father of the Word, God alone. And who are these wise men or philosophers from whom Celsus wants us to hear many divine things, abandoning the servant of God,
Moses, and the prophets of the Creator of all things — men who truly spoke countless things by divine inspiration, and who themselves shone upon the human race and proclaimed the way of the worship of God, and left no one, so far as it depended on them, untasted of their own mysteries, but through surpassing love of humanity gave to the more discerning a theology able to lift the soul above the affairs of this world? And nonetheless
he also condescended to the weaker capacities of ordinary men and simpler women, of household servants, and in short of all those helped by no one but Jesus alone, so that, as far as possible, they might live better, with such doctrines about God as they were able to grasp. Then after this, as though to a more effective teacher of matters of theology, he sends us off to Plato, citing his own words from the
Timaeus, which run thus: "Now to find the maker and father of this universe is a task, and having found him, to declare him to all is impossible." Then he adds to this, saying: See how the way of truth is sought by those who declare the divine, and how Plato was aware that no one whatever could "walk" this road through to its end. But since for this reason it has been discovered by wise men, as being of the unnameable and first
we might gain some notion of him, made manifest either by composition applied to other things, or by analysis from them, or by analogy, wishing to teach what is otherwise ineffable. And I would be amazed if you were able to follow — bound entirely to the flesh as you are, and seeing nothing pure. Plato, then, brings forward the passage before us in a grand and by no means contemptible manner. But observe whether the
divine word does not introduce, in a more humane way, the God who was "in the beginning with God" — the Word — becoming flesh, so that the Word might be able to reach all people, the very Word whom Plato too says it is "impossible to speak of to all" once one has found him. Let Plato, then, say that it is the task of finding "the maker and father of this universe," showing that it is "impossible" for human nature to find God in a manner
worthy of him — or if not worthy, at least more fully than the many find him. But if this were true, and God had truly been found by Plato or by any Greek, they would not have worshipped anything else and called it and revered it as God, either abandoning this God or taking on together with him things that ought not to be taken together with so great a God. We, however, declare that
human nature is not by any means sufficient of itself to seek God and find him purely, without being helped by the very one being sought — who is found by those who confess, after doing what lies in their power, that they need him, revealing himself to those he judges it reasonable to be seen by; for it is God's nature to be known by man, while a human soul, still being in the body, is able to know God. But even when
Plato says that it is "impossible to speak of" the one who has found "the maker and father of the universe" "to all," he does not say that this maker is ineffable and unnameable, but rather that, being namable, he can be spoken of only to a few. Then, as though forgetting the very words of Plato which he himself had quoted, Celsus says that God is unnamable to these people — since it is for this reason that wise men have discovered a way, as it were, to gain some notion of
the unnamable and first being. We, however, say not only that God is ineffable, but also that certain things after him are as well — things which Paul, forcing himself to signify them, says: "he heard words beyond speech, sayings no human tongue may repeat," using "heard" in place of "understood," in a manner analogous to "let the one who has ears to hear, hear." We indeed say that we have seen the work of "the maker and father of
the universe." And this is seen not only according to the saying, "how blessed are those clean of heart, since it is God they will see," but also according to what is said by the image "of the invisible God" in the words, "whoever has seen me has seen the Father who sent me." For in these words no one of sound mind would say that Jesus,
in referring these things to his perceptible body seen by men, said, "whoever has seen me has seen the Father who sent me" — for on that reading, everyone who cried, "away with him, away with him to the cross," along with Pilate, who held authority over his human body, would likewise have seen the Father God, which is absurd. That the saying "whoever has seen me has seen
"the Father who sent me" is not referred to in the more common sense — this is clear from what was said to Philip: "So long a time am I with you, and you have not known me, Philip?" And he said this to him when Philip had asked, saying, "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us." So then, if someone understands how one ought to hear this concerning the only-begotten God the Son of God, the firstborn
"of all creation," inasmuch as "the Word" became "flesh," he will see how, having seen the image "of the invisible God," one will come to know "the Father and maker of this whole universe." Celsus, then, supposes that God is known either by the composition analogous, with respect to other things, to what geometers call "synthesis," or by analysis from other things, or again by an analogy analogous to the
analogy used by those same geometers — reaching only as far as the outer doors, if indeed one capable of the good could even come this far by such a route. But the Word of God, having said, "No one has known the Father, save the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him," by a certain divine grace — one that arises in the soul not apart from God but with a kind of inspiration — declares that God is known. And this is reasonable,
for the knowledge of God is likely to be greater than is proportionate to human nature (which is why there are so many errors among human beings concerning God), yet by the goodness and love of humankind that belong to God, and by an extraordinary and more divine grace, the knowledge of God reaches those who have been laid hold of beforehand by God's foreknowledge, because they will live in a manner worthy of the one they have come to know — in no way falsifying their piety toward him,
neither so that they might be led away to death by those who do not know what piety actually is, and who fashion piety to be whatever they please rather than what piety truly is, nor so that they might be thought utterly ridiculous. And God, I think, seeing also the arrogance, or the contempt for others, of those who think great things of themselves because
they have come to know God and have learned divine matters from philosophy — while behaving in a manner much like the most uneducated, devoting themselves to statues and their temples and the much-talked-of mysteries — "chose" "the foolish things of the world," the simplest people among the Christians, who live more moderately and more purely than many philosophers, "in order that he might put the wise to shame" — people who are not ashamed to converse with lifeless things as if they were gods, or
with images of gods. For who that has any sense will not laugh at someone who, after such great and so many philosophical discourses about God or the gods, fixes his gaze on statues and either sends up his prayer to them themselves, or, through the sight of these, ascends to the one he imagines he must ascend to — carrying up from what is seen, which is a symbol, to what is thought? But the Christian,
even the ordinary one, is convinced that every place in the world is part of the whole, since the whole world is a temple of God; and praying "in every place," having closed the eyes of sense-perception and opened those of the soul, he rises above the whole world. And he does not even come to rest at the vault of heaven, but having arrived, in thought, at the place beyond heaven, being guided by
of the divine spirit, and being as it were outside the world, sends up to God a prayer not about ordinary things; for he learned from Jesus to seek nothing small, that is, nothing perceptible by the senses, but only the great and truly divine things, whatever contributes, when given by God, toward journeying to the
blessedness that is with him through his son, who is the Word, God's. But let us also look at what he says he will teach us, if indeed we shall be able to follow it, in which he says that we are utterly bound to the flesh — we who, if we live rightly and according to the teaching of Jesus, hear the words, "you exist not in flesh but in spirit, given that God's Spirit truly makes its home in you." He says also that we see nothing pure — we who try
not to be defiled, even in our reasonings, by the imaginings of wickedness, and who say in prayer, "God, fashion in me a pure heart, and set a steadfast spirit anew within my depths," so that with the heart alone, which by nature can see God, we may behold him with that same purity of heart. What he says is something like this: substance and becoming — intelligible, visible; with substance is truth, but with
becoming, error. Concerning truth, then, there is knowledge; concerning the other, opinion. And of the intelligible there is intellection, of the visible, sight. The intellect knows the intelligible, the eye the visible. What the sun is among visible things — being neither eye nor sight, but the cause to the eye of seeing, and to sight of being constituted through it, and to visible things of being seen,
and to all perceptible things of coming to be, and indeed to itself of being seen — this is what that one is among intelligible things, being neither intellect nor intellection nor knowledge, but the cause to the intellect of thinking, and to intellection of existing through him, and to knowledge of knowing through him, and to all intelligible things and to truth itself and to substance itself of being, being beyond all things, intelligible by some ineffable
power. These things have been said for people who have intellect; but if you too understand something of them, it is well for you. And if you suppose that some spirit descending from God foretells divine things, this would be the spirit that proclaims these things, filled with which men of old announced many good things; and if you cannot comprehend these, be silent and
cover your own ignorance, and do not say that those who see are blind and that those who run are lame — you who are yourselves utterly crippled in soul and maimed, and who live by the body, that is, by the corpse. To this we shall reply, we who have made it our practice to be hostile to no one who speaks well, even if those outside the faith speak well, not to contend with them out of rivalry nor to seek to overturn what is sound,
because those who revile people who wish, according to their ability, to be pious toward the God of all — who accepts the faith of the uneducated and the reasoned piety of the more intelligent, who offer up prayers with thanksgiving to the maker of the universe, offering them as through a high priest, the one who has presented sincere reverence for God to mankind — and who call them crippled in soul, and
They call "mutilated" also those who, living in body with the corpse, practice saying from their disposition: "though we live in flesh, our campaign is not waged by fleshly standards, for the arms we bear in this campaign are not of the flesh but are mighty for God" — let them see whether, by this very act of speaking ill of men who pray to belong to God, they render their own souls lame and mutilate their "inner"
"man," cutting off, through their slanders against others, those who wish to live well — along with the fairness and steadiness naturally implanted by the Creator in rational nature. But those who, besides other things, have learned from the divine word, and who also practice "blessing when reviled," "enduring when persecuted," "exhorting when slandered" — these would be the ones who have set upright the foundations of the soul, and
purified and prepared the whole soul — not so that they might, by words alone, separate being from becoming and the intelligible from the visible, and join truth to being while fleeing in every way the error that accompanies becoming, looking, as they have learned, not at the things of becoming (things that are "seen" and, for that reason, "temporary") but rather toward the better things, whether one wishes to call them being,
or "invisible," because they happen to be intelligible, or "not seen," because their nature lies outside sense-perception. And so the disciples of Jesus also look upon the things of becoming, in such a way as to use them as a kind of stepping-stone toward the understanding of the nature of intelligible things: since God's "unseen realities," that is, the intelligible things, have been "understood through the things he made," "ever since the world's creation," in the
act of being perceived, "are clearly seen." And indeed, having ascended from the created things of the world, they do not stop among the invisible things of God; rather, having sufficiently trained themselves in these and understood them, they rise up to God's everlasting power and, in short, to his deity, knowing that the God who loves mankind has "manifested" "the truth" and "what" "is known" of himself, not only to those devoted to him,
but also to some who are outside sincere piety and reverence toward him. But some of those who, by God's providence, have ascended to the knowledge of such great things, act unworthily of that knowledge, are impious, and "hold the truth in unrighteousness," no longer able to have any place for defense before God on account of their knowledge of such great things. Indeed, they are testified against by the divine word —
those who have grasped the doctrines set out by Celsus and profess to philosophize according to these teachings — that "though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and," after so great a light of the knowledge of the things God had manifested to them, "their senseless heart," pressing on, "was darkened." One can indeed see in what way those
"who claim to be wise" display evidence of great folly, when, after such lofty discourses in their schools about God and the intelligible things, they "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and reptiles." For this reason they themselves were abandoned by providence, as not having lived worthily of the things God had manifested to them,
They wallow "in the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness," and "their bodies" are dishonored in shameful acts and licentiousness, in exchange for which they "exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and reverenced and served the creation rather than the creator." But those whom they despise for their lack of learning, and call foolish and mere slaves, believe in God, if nothing else.
Having accepted the teaching of Jesus, they fall so far short of licentiousness and uncleanness and all the shamefulness found in sexual intercourse that, after the manner of perfect priests, having turned away from all intercourse, many of them keep themselves entirely pure, and not only from every kind of union. There is, I believe, among the Athenians a certain hierophant who, not even trusting himself to be master of his own male desires and able to control them as much
as he wishes, is rendered impotent by hemlock in his male parts, and is thereby considered pure for the rite customarily observed among the Athenians. But among Christians one can see men who had no need of hemlock in order to serve the divine in purity, but who are content with reason in place of hemlock, so that, having driven every desire out of their minds, they serve the divine with prayers. Among others who are reputed to be gods there are virgins, quite few in number,
whether guarded by men or not (for it is not our present purpose to examine this); they seem to persist in purity for the sake of honoring the divine. But among Christians it is not for the sake of honors among men, nor for wages and silver, nor for petty glory, that they practice complete virginity; rather, as those who "have approved of having God in full knowledge," they are kept
by God with an approved mind and by "doing what is fitting," being filled with all righteousness and goodness. I have said these things not out of a wish to quarrel with what has been nobly conceived even among the Greeks, nor to accuse sound doctrines, but because I wish to show that not only these things, but things even greater and more divine than these, have been spoken by the divine men, the prophets of God
and the apostles of Jesus, and are put into practice by those who wish to be Christians in the fullest sense and who understand that "a righteous man's mouth utters wisdom, and his tongue pronounces judgment; God's law dwells within his heart." Yet even among those in whom, whether through great lack of learning, or through simplicity, or through the absence of anyone to exhort them to a rational piety, these things
have not been articulated, yet the God who is over all is believed in, along with his "only-begotten Son," the Word who is also God — there one would often find a plainness and simplicity of dignity, purity, and character better than that possessed by those who "claim to be wise" but, not having grasped it, wallow among boys with whom it is unlawful, "males working shamefulness with males." He, then, did not make clear how
error attaches to a person after birth, nor did he set forth exactly what he meant, so that we might understand it by comparing his statements with our own. But the prophets, hinting at what is wise concerning the circumstances of birth, say that a sacrifice "for sin" is offered even on behalf of those newly born, as not being pure from sin. And they also say: "I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother craved for me"
my mother." But they also declare that "sinners are estranged from the womb," saying, remarkably, this too: "they have gone astray from the womb, they have spoken falsehoods." In this way our sages so thoroughly discredit the whole nature of sensible things that at one point the body is called "vanity" in the text, "since it was to futility that the creation was made subject - not by its own choice, but on account of the one who subjected it, in hope,"
and at another point it is called the "vanity of vanities," which the Ecclesiast spoke of: "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And who has discredited the life of the human soul here as thoroughly as the one who said: "yet all things are vanity - every man that lives"? For he did not doubt about the difference between the soul's life here and its life outside of the things here, nor did he simply say: who knows whether
living itself is dying, and dying is living? Rather he is bold enough to speak the truth in saying, "our soul was brought low to the dust," and "you have brought me down to the dust of death" - which is why it is also said, "who shall rescue me out of this body doomed to die?" and it is also said, "who will transform the body of our humiliation." And a prophet is also he who
said this: "you have humbled us in a place of affliction," calling the earthly realm the "place of affliction," to which Adam - that is, humanity - came after being cast out of paradise on account of wickedness. And he too, who says, "we see now through a mirror, in a riddle, but then face to face." And further also this: "so long as we dwell within the body, we remain exiles far from"
the Lord," for which reason "we are content to be away from the body and to be at home with the Lord" - see how great a view he had come to hold concerning the differing life of souls. And what need is there for me to set out at greater length Celsus's wording, when these things have already been said by us long before this, and it is already clear from what has been said what our intention is? In these words he as it were also grants the point,
saying that a divine spirit coming down from God foretells divine things, and that this would be the spirit that proclaims these things - filled with which, men of old announced many good things. But he did not see the difference among the things carefully worked out among us by those who say also that "your incorruptible spirit is in all things; therefore he corrects those who fall away little by little" - God does this, they say - while others state other things,
and that "receive holy spirit" indicates a different quantity of what is given than that shown by "you shall be baptized in holy spirit not many days from now." It takes careful thought to perceive the difference between those who, at various intervals, have arrived at only a brief grasp of the apprehension of truth and knowledge of God, and those who have been more fully inspired by God and who stand continually with God
and are led at all times by the divine spirit. Had this been examined and understood by Celsus, he would not have charged us with ignorance, nor would he have instructed us not to say that those men are blind who practice the material arts, the ones concerned with images, and who suppose that by this they display piety. For no one who beholds with the eyes of the soul worships the divine in any other way than the one who points to always beholding it with the
the maker of the universe, and to refer every prayer to him, and to do everything as in the sight of God, before a witness, one who watches even our reasonings. We pray, then, both that we ourselves may see and that we may be guides of the blind, until they come forward to the word of God and recover the eyes of their soul that had been blinded by ignorance. And if we also do things worthy of him who said to his
disciples that "you are the light of the world"; and since he also taught, "the light shines in the darkness," we too will be a "light" to those in darkness, and we will instruct the foolish and teach the infants. Let Celsus not be indignant when we call lame, and maimed in the feet of the soul, those who hasten to what are held to be sacred places as though they were truly sacred, and
do not see that no work of vulgar craftsmen can be sacred. But those who live piously according to the teaching of Jesus run their race, until, arriving at the finish, they say with a firm and truthful disposition, "I have contended the noble contest, I have completed the course, I have preserved the faith; from now on the crown of righteousness is reserved for me." And each of us likewise "races" in such a way "as
not uncertainly," and so "fights" against vice "as one not beating the air," but rather those under "the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience." Let Celsus say that we are living with a dead body, while we hear: "If you live according to the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live," and while we learn the saying, "if we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit"; and may it be ours to show by our deeds that the one who says of us that we live by the dead body is lying. After this, then, in response to what we have answered as best we could, he says to us: how much better it would have been for you, since you desired to introduce some innovation, to have taken pains over some other of those who died nobly and
were capable of receiving a divine myth. Come now, if Heracles and Asclepius and those glorified of old did not please you, you had Orpheus, a man who by common agreement made use of a holy spirit, and who himself died by violence. But perhaps he had already been taken up by others. Take Anaxarchus, then, who, thrown into a mortar and crushed in the most lawless manner, utterly despised his punishment, saying: "Pound, pound the sack of Anaxarchus, for it is not he
you are pounding" — a saying of a truly divine spirit indeed. But others too, natural philosophers, who came before, followed this same course — was there not Epictetus? He, while his master twisted his leg, remarked with a faint, undismayed smile, "You are breaking it," and when it broke, said, "Did I not tell you that you were breaking it?" What such thing did your god utter when being punished? You, on the other hand, if you made use of the Sibyl, as some of you do, would more reasonably have set her up as
the child of God; but as it is, while you are able recklessly to interpolate into her sayings many blasphemous things, you set up as god the one who lived a most disreputable life and died a most pitiable death. How much more fitting for you would Jonah have been "under the gourd," or Daniel who escaped from the beasts, or others still more marvelous than these? Since, then, he refers us to Heracles, memoirs of the accounts
let him show us this himself, and let him give a defense of Heracles' shameful slavery under Omphale, and let him demonstrate whether the man was worthy of divine honor who violently and like a robber seized the farmer's ox, slaughtered it, and feasted on it with delight, even while the man kept cursing him as he ate — so much so that it is recorded that even to this day the spirit of Heracles receives his sacrifice together with curses. He calls
upon us to repeat ourselves about Asclepius, though we have already spoken about him too. But we are content with what we said there. And why is it that he admires Orpheus and says that, by common consent, he lived well because he made use of a holy spirit? I am amazed that Celsus, out of sheer contentiousness toward us and in order to belittle Jesus, now sings the praises of Orpheus, when — at the time he was reading through
Orpheus's impious myths about the gods — he did not turn away from those poems as ones which, even more than Homer's, deserved to be banished from his fine republic. For indeed Orpheus said far worse things about the so-called gods than Homer did. Noble, then, was Anaxarchus, who said to Aristocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus: "Pound away, pound away at the sack that holds Anaxarchus!" The Greeks know that this is the one unique thing admired about Anaxarchus, on account of which, if
even as Celsus supposes, some ought fittingly to have honored a man on account of virtue, it would still not have been reasonable to proclaim Anaxarchus a god. And he sends us on to Epictetus as well, admiring what was nobly said by him — yet not so as to be compared with what Epictetus said at the breaking of his leg, set beside the extraordinary deeds of Jesus which are disbelieved by Celsus, along with his words — because they were spoken with divine power,
and to this day they turn not only some of the simpler people but also many of the more intelligent toward him. And since, after his catalogue of so many men, he says: "What such thing did your god say while being punished?" — we would say to him that, by his silence under the whips and the many acts of cruelty, more than anyone in Greece who has spoken out amid such circumstances, he
displayed endurance and patience — if indeed Celsus is willing to trust even this account, faithfully recorded by truth-loving men, who told the extraordinary deeds without falsehood and who reckoned his silence under the whips among those very deeds. But moreover, while being mocked and clothed in the "scarlet robe," and having the "crown of thorns" placed upon his head, and taking the "reed" in his hand in place of
a scepter, he showed the utmost gentleness, saying nothing ignoble or resentful toward those who dared such things against him. It was not, then, out of ignobility, as some suppose, that one who kept silent under the whips out of endurance, and who bore with gentleness everything brought upon him by his mockers, should also have said: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet
not as I will, but as you will." There is, then, an account to be given of what appears to be a kind of qualified request to be excused from the so-called cup, which we have examined more fully elsewhere and have given our answer. But so that we may hear what was said more simply, consider whether the prayer was not spoken together with piety toward God, by one who does not think that any circumstance whatsoever should take precedence, but rather that it should be endured
...which does not happen as the primary thing, but whenever the occasion calls for it. But the voice was not one of yielding; rather it was the voice of one content with what was happening and preferring the circumstances that come from providence, the voice that says, "Yet not what I want, but what you want." Then—I do not know how—he wanted us to proclaim the Sibyl as child of God rather than Jesus, declaring that we had interpolated many
blasphemous things into her oracles, without demonstrating even what it was that we had interpolated. He would have demonstrated it, had he shown that the older texts were purer and did not contain what he supposes was interpolated; but having demonstrated neither that nor that these things are blasphemous, he then again—not twice or three times, but indeed many times—called the life of Jesus utterly disgraceful, without pausing over each of the things done in his life
that are also considered most disgraceful, so that in saying this he might appear not only to be making an unproven assertion but also to be reviling one he does not know. For if he had set out the specific forms of the most disgraceful life as they appeared to him in Jesus's actions, we would have contended against each of the things that seemed to him most disgraceful. But that Jesus suffered a most pitiable death could equally be said about
Socrates and about Anaxarchus, whom he mentioned a little earlier, and about countless others. Is the death of Jesus most pitiable, but not theirs as well? Or is theirs not most pitiable, while that of Jesus is most pitiable? You see, then, here too, that Celsus's aim was to revile Jesus, moved, I think, by some spirit that had been overthrown
by Jesus and brought down, so that it might no longer have the savory smoke and blood on which it fed, by which it deceived those who sought God among the images on earth and did not look up to the God who is truly over all things. Then next, as though he had set himself the aim of filling out his book, he wanted us to consider Jonah a god rather than Jesus—Jonah, who preached repentance to a single city, the
city of Nineveh, preferring him to Jesus, who preached repentance to the whole world and accomplished far more than he did. And he wanted us to proclaim as god the one who did the marvelous and paradoxical thing of being "in the belly of the sea monster" "three days and three nights," while Celsus did not want the one who undertook to die on behalf of humanity—though he is attested by God through the prophets—to be worthy of the honor that is second after
the God of the universe, on account of the valiant deeds he did in heaven and on earth. And Jonah, in order not to preach what had been commanded by God, was swallowed by the sea monster, while Jesus, since he taught what God wanted, undertook death on behalf of humanity. Next he says that Daniel, having come up from among the lions, ought rather to be worshiped
by us than Jesus, who trampled down the ferocity of every opposing power and gave us "power to trample serpents and scorpions, and upon all the strength of the enemy." Then, having no others to name, he says: "or those still more monstrous than these," at the same time so as to revile both Jonah and Daniel; for the spirit in Celsus did not know how to speak well of the righteous.
After this, let us also look at his next statement, which runs as follows: "They also have a precept of this kind, that the one who is insulted should not defend himself; and if someone strikes, he says, the one cheek, you should offer the other as well." This too is old, and was said very well before, but they have recorded it in a cruder form. For Plato has represented Socrates conversing with Crito as follows: "One must never do wrong at all."
"Certainly not. Then neither must one who is wronged do wrong in return, as the many suppose, since one must never do wrong at all. It does not appear so. What then? Must one do evil, Crito, or not? Surely not, Socrates. What then? Is it just, or not just, to do evil in return when one has suffered evil, as the many say? Not at all. For to do evil to men differs in nothing...
...from doing wrong." "You speak truly." "Therefore one must neither do wrong in return nor do evil to any person, whatever one may suffer at their hands." This is what Plato says, and again the following: "Consider then, you too, very carefully, whether you share this view and agree, and let us begin our deliberation from this point: that it is never right either to do wrong, or to do wrong in return, or, when suffering evil, to defend oneself by doing evil in return...
...or do you withdraw and not share in this starting point? For to me it has seemed so both long ago and still now." This, then, is what pleased Plato; but these things had also been resolved even earlier by divine men. But concerning these matters, and the other things that they corrupt, let what has been said suffice; and whoever cares to inquire into them further will know how. Now, in answer
to this, and to everything that Celsus has made common property—since he was unable to look the truth of these matters in the face—claiming that they too were said among the Greeks, the following must be said: if the doctrine is beneficial and its intent is sound, and it was said among the Greeks by Plato or one of the Greek sages, and among the Jews by Moses or one of the prophets, and among Christians in
the recorded words of Jesus, or in sayings spoken by one of his apostles, one must not suppose that what is said among the Jews or among the Christians is discredited by the fact that it was also said among the Greeks—especially if it can be shown that the Jewish sayings are older than the Greek ones. Nor, again, must one suppose that the same thing, when said with the beauty of Greek diction, is altogether better than what is reported in a more common style and simpler words among the Jews or Christians,
even though the earliest language of the Jews—which the prophets used, and in which they have left us books—was written down, according to their custom, in the Hebrew dialect and in a wise composition of the words within that dialect. And if it is necessary also to show the identity of the doctrines—even if the statement seems paradoxical—namely that it is better expressed among the Jewish prophets than in the words of the Christians, the argument must be built up from some example drawn from foods and their preparation.
Let there be some healthy food, one that produces strength in those who eat it. Let this, prepared in one way and seasoned with such-and-such condiments, be eaten not by the uneducated country folk, raised on farmsteads, and the poor, who are unaccustomed to eating such things, but by the rich and those of luxurious habits,
alone — not prepared in that manner, the way it seems to those who are reckoned more refined, but as the poor and the more rustic and the majority of people have learned to eat. Let tens of thousands eat. Suppose, then, it were granted that from a preparation of that sort only those reckoned more refined are made healthy, with none of the multitude partaking of such foods, while from a preparation of this other sort the masses
of humankind live in better health — which physicians should we approve of more, for the sake of the common good, on account of healthy foods? Those who prepare them usefully for the learned, or those who prepare them for the multitudes? Given that equal health and well-being arise from foods prepared this way or that (let that much be granted), it is nevertheless plain that philanthropy itself, and the sense of common good, suggest that the doctor who has taken thought for the health of the many is more beneficial to the community than the one who has taken thought for the health of
only the few. Now if the illustration has been grasped, it must be carried over to the quality of the rational food of rational beings, and you should observe whether Plato and the wise among the Greeks, in the fine things they say, are not much like those doctors who took thought only for the ones reckoned more refined, while holding the mass of humankind in contempt;
whereas Jewish prophets and the disciples of Jesus, who bade a long farewell to the elaborate arrangement of words and to what scripture calls "the wisdom of men" and "wisdom according to the flesh" — hinting thereby at mere language — would be like those who took thought that the same quality of food, the most healthful, be composed and made ready with an arrangement of words that could reach the masses of humankind,
without making the way they spoke seem foreign to them, and without that foreignness turning them away from listening, as though to discourses they were unaccustomed to. For indeed, if the aim of what I might call rational food is to make the one who eats it patient under wrong and gentle, how would a discourse not be better prepared if it produces multitudes who are patient under wrong and gentle — or at least advancing toward these virtues — rather than doing so in only
a very small and easily counted number (granting even this much), making them patient under wrong and gentle? It is just as if Plato, wishing to benefit those who spoke Egyptian or Syriac with sound doctrines, being himself a Greek, would have taken care beforehand to learn the languages of his hearers and, as the Greeks put it, to "talk like a barbarian," for the sake of improving Egyptians and Syrians, rather than remain a Greek and be able to say nothing useful to Egyptians
and Syrians. In just this way the divine nature that exercises providence came down, not only to those reckoned educated in Greek learning, but also to the rest of the Greeks, to the plainness of the multitude of hearers, so that by using words familiar to them it might draw the crowd of ordinary people to listen — people who, once the introduction had been made, could easily go on to aspire to grasp even the deeper of the hidden thoughts
contained in the scriptures. For it is clear even to an ordinary reader of these texts that they can hold a meaning far deeper than what appears on the surface, a meaning that becomes evident to those who give themselves over to the examination of the text — and becomes evident in proportion to the leisure devoted to that study and the eagerness applied to its practice. It has therefore been established that, as Celsus says, putting it rather crudely, Jesus said...
"To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also," and "to the one who wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well" - this has stirred the argument in a way more beneficial to life, and has set it forth by speaking thus, than as Plato does in the Crito, which private individuals cannot even follow, but only, with difficulty, those who have completed the general course of studies before the dignified philosophy of the Greeks. And one must also observe
that the thought concerning patient endurance of wrong is not corrupted by the plainness of the wording. But even here Celsus slanders the argument, saying: "But concerning these matters, and others which they corrupt, let what has been said suffice; and whoever wishes to inquire into them further will find out for himself." Let us, then, go on to see what follows, in which he says this: "Let us take our stand
from this point: temples, altars, and images are more than they can endure to look upon. For neither do the Scythians do this, nor the Nomad Libyans, nor the godless Seres, nor any of the other most impious and lawless nations. But that the Persians too hold this view, Herodotus records in the following passage: 'I know that the Persians follow these customs: it is not their custom to set up images, altars, and temples,
but they even charge those who do so with folly - as it seems to me, because they did not, like the Greeks, consider the gods to have human form.' And indeed Heraclitus declares something along these lines: 'And they pray to these images, as if one were to converse with a house, not knowing at all who the gods or heroes really are.' What, then, do they teach us that is wiser than Heraclitus? For he,
in a rather cryptic way, hints that it is foolish to pray "to images" if one does not know "who the gods and heroes are." So says Heraclitus; but these people dishonor the images outright. If it is because it is stone or wood or bronze or gold, which so-and-so fashioned, and therefore could not be a god - that is ridiculous wisdom. For who else,
unless he were an utter fool, would consider these things to be gods rather than dedications and images of gods? But if it is because one ought not to suppose them to be images of the divine either, on the ground that the form of god is different - as the Persians too suppose - they fail to notice that they are refuting themselves, whenever they say that "god made man" in his own "image," and that his form is like his own. But they will grant that these things exist in honor
of certain beings, whether like or unlike them in form, yet that the beings to whom these things are consecrated are not gods at all but daimons, and that no one who worships god should serve daimons. To this too it must be said that, if the Scythians, and the Nomad Libyans, and the Seres, whom Celsus calls godless, and the other most impious and lawless nations, and even the Persians, cannot bear the sight of temples
altars, and images, it does not follow from this that their failure to tolerate these things is the same as our failure to tolerate them. For one must examine the doctrines from which those who do not tolerate temples and images set out - those, that is, who do not tolerate them - so that, if it is from sound doctrines that one does not tolerate them, the one who does not tolerate them may be praised, but if from mistaken ones, he may be blamed.
For it is possible for the same thing to come about from different doctrines. To take an example, those who follow the philosophy of Zeno of Citium avoid committing adultery, but so do some who follow Epicurus, and some who are utterly untrained in philosophy at all. But observe how great a disagreement there is, among all these, about the avoidance of adultery: the one group avoids it because it is a violation of the social bond and contrary to nature for a rational being
to corrupt a woman already claimed by another under the laws and to ruin another man's household; but the followers of Epicurus refrain from adultery not for this reason, when they do refrain from it, but because they have set down pleasure as the goal, and because many things arise to hinder the pleasure of the one who yields to the single pleasure of adultery — sometimes imprisonment or death, and often,
even before these, dangers as well, in watching for the husband's departure from the house and for those who share his sentiments — so that, on the hypothesis that it were possible for the adulterer to escape the notice both of the woman's husband and of all his household and of those among whom a person incurs disgrace from committing adultery, the Epicurean would in fact have committed adultery for the sake of the pleasure.
And if even the untrained person, when adultery is available, does not commit it, this would sometimes be found to be due to fear arising from the law that is in force, and the punishments — not committing adultery — and not because he is pursuing greater pleasures would such a person refrain from adultery. You see, then, that what is thought to be a single deed — abstention from adultery — turns out, depending on the intentions of those who abstain,
to be not the same thing but different: for it proceeds either from sound doctrines, or from the corrupt and most impious doctrines found among the Epicureans, or from such an untrained person. Just as, then, this one thing, abstention from adultery, though it seems to be one thing, is caught being many, occurring as it does according to differing doctrines and intentions, so also with those who do not tolerate, at altars and temples
and images, the worshiping of the divine — the Scythians, or the Nomads among the Libyans, or the godless Seres, or the Persians do this from other doctrines than those which Christians and Jews do not tolerate, namely such supposed service rendered to the divine; none of those peoples, out of turning away from and dragging down and debasing the reverence due to the divine to such matter fashioned in such a way,
fails to tolerate altars and images, nor is it because they have understood concerning demons that such beings station themselves beside such shapes and places, either having been made to settle there by certain sorceries, or having otherwise been able to seize such places in advance for themselves, in which, greedily partaking of the exhalation of the things sacrificed, they will hunt after unlawful pleasure and unlawful things. But Christians and Jews, because of "You shall fear the Lord your God and"
serve him alone," and because of "You shall have no other gods besides me," and "You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything, of what is in heaven above, or what is on the earth below, or what is in the water beneath the earth; you shall not bow down to them, nor shall you serve them," and because of "You shall worship the Lord your God"
and him alone you shall serve" — and many other similar sayings — lead them not merely to shun temples, altars, and images, but even to go willingly to death, when death is required, rather than taint their understanding of the God of all things by any such transgression. It has been said above, concerning the Persians, that they do not build temples,
but worship the sun and the works fashioned by God — a practice forbidden to us, who are taught not to serve "what is made in place of the Maker," yet to understand that "creation will itself be released from its slavery to corruption, into the liberty belonging to the glory of God's children," and that "creation's eager watching awaits the unveiling of the sons of God," and
that "the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but because of him who subjected it, in hope." And it is surely not necessary that beings subjected to the bondage of decay and to futility, and who do these things in a better hope, should be honored in the place due to God, who lacks nothing, or to his Son, the firstborn of all creation. Enough, then, has been said in addition to what precedes,
concerning the Persian nation, who avoid altars and images but worship "the creation rather than the Creator." Since he also cited a saying of Heraclitus — recounting it as implying that it is foolish to pray "to images" if one does not know "what gods and heroes are" — it must be said that it is possible to know God, and his only-begotten, and those honored by
God with the title "god" and who share in his divinity, being distinct from all the gods "of the nations," who are "demons"; yet it is not possible both to know God and to pray "to images." And not only is praying "to images" foolish, but so is pretending, in accommodation to the multitude, to pray "to images," as is done by
those who philosophize according to the Peripatetic school, and those who embrace the teachings of Epicurus or Democritus; for nothing spurious ought to exist in the soul of one who is truly reverent toward the divine. We do not honor images also because we do not wish, so far as it lies with us, to fall into the notion that images are other gods. For this reason we also bring a charge against Celsus and
against all who agree that these are not gods, namely that among those who are reputed wise there is also this apparent honor paid to images; and the multitude, following this example, err not only by supposing that they worship them merely by way of accommodation, but also by falling in soul into the belief that these are gods, and by not even enduring to hear that the things worshiped by
them are not gods. Celsus, then, says that he does not consider them gods but offerings to the gods, without demonstrating how these are not offerings of men but, as he termed them, offerings belonging to the gods themselves. It is plain that these are in fact offerings made by men who have strayed in their thinking about the divine. But we do not suppose the images to be likenesses of the divine either, since we do not depict the form of a God who is invisible and incorporeal. Since
According to Celsus we lapse into inconsistency, since we say the divine has no human shape, yet also believe that "God made man" in his own "image" and fashioned him in the image of God. It must be said, as has also been said above, that we hold the phrase "according to the image of God" to be preserved in the rational soul, in its quality with respect to virtue. And where
Celsus, however, does not see the difference between the image of God and "according to the image of God," and claims we assert that "God made man" as his own "image," a form resembling himself; but this too has been addressed above. Next he goes on to say about Christians that they will agree that these things exist in honor of certain beings, whether similar or dissimilar in form,
but that the beings to whom these things are consecrated are demons rather than gods, and that one who worships God should not minister to demons. And if indeed he had understood the account concerning demons and what each of them accomplishes, whether summoned by those skilled in such matters or willingly giving himself over to whatever activity he wishes and is able to perform, and had grasped the account concerning demons, which is extensive and
difficult for human nature to comprehend, he would not have brought this charge against us, namely that we say one ought not to serve demons if one worships the God over all. And we are so far from serving demons that we even drive them out, by prayers and by the teachings drawn from the sacred writings, from human souls and from the places
in which they have established themselves, and sometimes also from animals; for the demons often work certain effects for the harm even of such creatures. Because of the many things said above about Jesus, there is no need now to repeat them in order to show that they themselves are clearly refuted as worshipping not a god, nor even a demon, but a corpse. Let us, then, set this aside for the moment and look at the words of Celsus that follow, in which he says:
"But first I will ask: why should demons not be served? Is not everything administered according to the plan of God, and does not all providence come from him? And whatever exists among all things, whether it be the work of God or of angels or of other demons or of heroes, all these have their law from the greatest God, and each has been
allotted power over each particular thing, whoever has been deemed worthy of it. Will not, then, the one who worships God rightly serve this being who has obtained authority from that source? For it is not possible, he says, for the same person to be a slave to several masters." See here too how much he sweeps together, matters that require no trivial examination but rather a deeper and more esoteric knowledge concerning the administration of the affairs of the universe. For how it is said that everything
is administered according to the plan of God must be examined, and whether this administration extends even to sins or not. For if the administration extends even to sins, not only among men but also among demons, and among whatever else outside bodies is by nature capable of sinning, let the one who says this see the absurdity of holding that everything happens according to the plan
is administered by God. For it follows from this account that even sins, and everything that comes about through wickedness, are administered by God according to his will—which is not the same as saying they happen because God does not prevent them. But if one takes "administered" in its strict sense, he means that the things administered by wickedness are administered (that is, obviously, everything is administered according to God's will), and no one who sins
acts against the administration of God in doing so. The same distinction must be drawn concerning providence, and it must be said that the statement "all things come from providence" signifies something true when the providence in question is a good providence; but if we shall say without qualification that everything that happens is (according to) providence, then even when something evil happens, the statement "all things come from providence" will be false—unless
one says that even the things that follow as consequences of what comes from God's providence are themselves from God's providence. He also declares that whatever exists in the universe, whether it is the work of God or of angels or of other daimons or of heroes, all these things possess a law derived from the greatest God—and in saying this he does not declare a true account. For things that transgress the law do not
transgress the law that comes from the greatest God by following it. Reason shows that not only wicked human beings transgress the law but also wicked daimons and wicked angels. And we are far from alone in speaking of wicked daimons; nearly everyone who holds that daimons exist says the same. Not everything, then, possesses a law derived from the greatest God. For whatever, through its own carelessness, wickedness, or depravity
or ignorance of what is good, has fallen away from the divine law, does not possess the law of God but, to give it a new name—and one drawn from scripture—possesses the law "of sin." Now according to most of those who hold that daimons exist, even the wicked daimons do not possess the law that comes from God but transgress it; but according to us, all
daimons have fallen away from the path toward the good, not having been daimons to begin with; and the class of daimons is a species of those who have fallen away from God. For this reason, whoever worships God ought not to serve daimons. The truth about daimons is also made clear by those who invoke daimons for the sake of the so-called love-charms or hate-charms, or to hinder actions, or for countless other such purposes—things done by
those who have learned, through incantations and sorceries, to summon and bring on daimons for whatever ends they wish. For this reason the service of all daimons is foreign to us, who worship the God who is over all things. And the service of what are reckoned to be gods is the service of daimons; for it is written, "the nations' gods, every one, are but daimons." This is also made clear by the fact that, at the places reckoned most potent among the so-called
temples, elaborate incubation-rites have arisen, and at the founding of such carved images and shrines, rites of incubation which those devoted to the service of daimons through sorceries have instituted. For this reason we have resolved to flee, as destruction itself, the service of daimons; and we say that the service of daimons is the whole of the worship reckoned among the Greeks as offered at altars, statues, and temples of the gods. There is need
and unto that — for it is appointed, and each has received power over some particular thing from the greatest God, whoever has been deemed worthy of any task whatsoever — this requires a very deep knowledge, one able to establish it. Whether, then, just as the public executioners in the cities, and those appointed over the grim but necessary business of the state, are so appointed — in the same way there are wicked demons appointed over certain things by the one who administers the
whole by the word of God; or whether, just as men who go robbing in desolate places set up one particular man to rule over them, so too the demons, forming as it were bands according to the regions of the earth, have made for themselves a certain ruler to lead them in the deeds they have chosen, for the sake of stealing and plundering the souls of men. Now one who intends to speak well on these matters needs, in order that concerning
the Christians he may offer his defense — since they turn aside from worshiping anything besides the God over all and his Word, the firstborn of "all creation" — to relate also the saying, "all who came before me are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not listen to them," and "the thief does not come except to steal and to slaughter and to destroy," and whatever else
is said to similar effect in the sacred writings — as also, "see, authority is granted to you to trample serpents and scorpions underfoot, together with every force the enemy holds, and in no way whatsoever shall anything do you harm," and "you will set your foot upon asp and basilisk, and lion and dragon you will crush beneath you." But Celsus knew none of this whatsoever; for if he had known it, he would not have said—
and whatever there may be among all things, whether it be the work of God, or of angels, or of other demons, or of heroes, these have their law from the greatest God, and each has been appointed, having received power, whoever has been deemed worthy of it. Shall not, then, the one who worships God rightly do service also to this being who has obtained authority from that source? To these words he adds that it is not possible
for the same person to be "enslaved" to several "masters" — a matter we shall take up in the next book, since the seventh volume that we have written against the treatise of Celsus has now attained an adequate compass.

======== Against Celsus, Book 8 ========

I have already reached the completion of seven books, and I wish to begin an eighth as well. May God, and his "only-begotten" Word, be present with us, so that Celsus's falsehoods may be nobly refuted—falsehoods vainly entitled True Word—and so that the teachings of Christianity may be powerfully demonstrated, so far as lies in these dictated pages. We pray that we may say, "we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ, since God is appealing through us,"
to speak with Paul's own disposition and to "act as ambassador on behalf of Christ" to human beings, just as the Word of God appeals to friendship with himself, wishing to draw into intimacy with righteousness and truth and the remaining virtues those who, before accepting the teachings of Jesus the Christ, had spent their time in darkness concerning God and in ignorance concerning their Creator. And again
I will say that may God grant us the noble and true word—the Lord who is mighty and powerful "in war" against wickedness. And now we must proceed to the next passage of Celsus and to our response to it. In what precedes this he raised the difficulty against us: why do we not worship the demons? And to what
he said about the demons we replied according to what seemed to us to be the intention of the divine word. Then, following upon that, he introduces us as saying, in response to his difficulty, when he wants us also to worship the demons, that it is not possible for the same person to "be enslaved" to more "masters." This, he supposes, is the voice of faction on the part of those who, as he himself put it, wall themselves off and break away from the rest of humankind.
He thinks that those who say this are, so far as lies in their own power, imprinting their own personal feeling onto God. Hence he supposes that among human beings it makes sense that one who is enslaved to someone could not reasonably also "be enslaved" to another person, since the other party is harmed by the divided servitude, nor could one who has already sworn allegiance to one person swear allegiance also to another as though harming him—and there is
reason in not being enslaved at the same time to different heroes and such demons; but in the case of God, whom neither harm nor grief ever touches, he considers it unreasonable to be as guarded about worshiping several gods as one would be in matters concerning men and heroes and such demons. He also says that one who worships several gods, by worshiping any one thing that belongs to the great God, is thereby also doing
that very thing for him, and he adds that it is not even permitted for anyone to be honored to whom this has not been granted by that God. For, he says, one who honors and reveres all the beings that belong to that God does not grieve the God to whom they all belong. Let us see, then, before proceeding further, whether we do not reasonably accept the saying "No one can be enslaved to two masters," to which is added, "for either he will
will despise the one and love the other, or he will cling to the one while holding the other in contempt," and next comes "You cannot be enslaved to God and to mammon." This defense calls us to a certain deeper and hidden discourse concerning gods and lords. For the divine scripture knows that the great one is Lord above "all the gods"; and among these "gods" it does not mean the
we hear that they are worshipped among the nations, having learned that "every god of the nations is a demon," but also "gods," of whom the prophetic word knows a certain assembly. And the God over all distinguishes these and assigns to each his proper task. For "God stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst he will judge the gods." And indeed he is "God, the Lord of gods."
who through his Son summoned the earth into being, from where the sun rises to where it sets. And we are bidden to offer praise to "the God who rules the gods," having learned also that "God belongs not to the dead but is God of the living" — things said not only through the passages set out but also through countless others. Such things the divine words teach us to examine and think concerning lord and lords,
saying in one place: "Praise the God who reigns over the gods, for his mercy is everlasting; praise the Lord who reigns over the lords, for his mercy is everlasting," and in another that God is "King of those who reign and Lord of those who rule." And the word knows gods, some merely called so and others actually being so, whether
called so or not; teaching the same thing also concerning lords, both those that exist and those that do not, Paul says: "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords." Then, since "the God of gods" calls "from the rising" and "the setting" to his own portion through Jesus
whomever he wishes, and the Christ of God, being Lord, shows through the fact that he has advanced to the boundaries of all things, and calls to himself from all boundaries, that he differs from all who rule; because of this, knowing these things, Paul says after what I have already cited: "but for us there is a single God, the Father, source of all things, and a single Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom are all things, and we through him." And perceiving a certain marvelous and mysterious word in that passage, he adds to them: "but not in all is there knowledge." And when he says: "but for us there is a single God, the Father, out of whom the universe exists, and a single Lord Jesus Christ, on whose account the universe exists," he says "for us" referring to himself and all of those who
have ascended to the God who is over all, the God "of gods," and to the Lord who is over all, the Lord "of lords." And he has ascended to the God who is over all who worships him without division, without separation, and without partition, through the only Son who brings one near to him, the Word of God and Wisdom beheld in Jesus — that is, those who by every means try to make themselves, through exceptional words
and deeds and thoughts [and reasonings], at home with God, the craftsman of the universe. But apart from these things, and things resembling them, I think it is the ruler "of this age," the one who reshapes himself "into an angel of light," who has produced the saying: "and there follows him an army of gods and demons, arranged according to eleven divisions." Among these, concerning himself and those who have practiced philosophy, he says: "with Zeus we go,
...others together with other daemons." Since many gods, or so-called gods, are spoken of, and likewise many lords, we do everything so that we may rise not only above the things worshiped as gods among the nations on earth, but also above those whom the scriptures call gods, concerning whom those "foreign to" the covenants given through Moses and our savior Jesus know nothing—foreign, that is, to the
covenants of God, and alien to the promises of his that are made known through them. Now the one who does nothing pleasing to daemons rises above the slavery owed to all daemons, and the one who fixes his gaze, whether it is as those men say or however the matter really stands, not "on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen," rises above the portion of those whom Paul calls gods; and one who sees in what
way "the eager expectation of creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God," "not of its own will but because of him who subjected it in hope," speaking well of creation and watching in what way all of it "will be set free from the slavery of corruption" and will arrive "at the freedom belonging to the glory of God's children," is not drawn aside into serving both God and someone else
together with him, nor into "serving two masters." It is therefore not the voice of sedition when those who have understood such things and are unwilling to "serve" a plurality of "masters," and are for this reason content with the Lord Jesus Christ, who trains under himself those who serve him, so that once they have been trained he may hand them over, become a "kingdom" worthy of God, to God the Father. Rather, they cut themselves off and tear themselves away from
those estranged from God's "commonwealth" and foreign to "his covenants," so that they might hold citizenship in "the citizenship that is in the heavens," drawing near to the living God "and to God's city, heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels gathered in festival, and to the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven." But it is not because God is harmed—as a man seems to be harmed by someone who serves another besides him—that we turn away from serving
anyone else but God through his word and his truth; rather, it is so that we ourselves may not be harmed by cutting ourselves off from the portion belonging to the God who is over all, living as befits his blessedness by the special "spirit of adoption"—the spirit that belongs to the sons of the Father who is in heaven—crying out, not in mere little words but in deed, loudly, according to what is hidden, "Abba,
Father." Now the envoys of the Lacedaemonians did not bow down before the king of the Persians, even though his bodyguards pressed them hard to do so, because they feared their one lord, the law of Lycurgus; but those who serve as envoys "on behalf of Christ" in a far greater and more divine embassy would bow down before neither the ruler of the Persians, nor of the Greeks, nor of the Egyptians, nor of any nation whatsoever, even if the daemons who are the bodyguards of the
rulers, and the angels of the devil, wish to compel them to do this and try to persuade them to bid a long farewell to the law that is greater than every law on earth. For the lord of those who serve as envoys "on behalf of Christ" is Christ himself, on whose behalf they serve as envoys—he who was the Word "in the beginning," and was "with God," and was "God." Then, since it seemed necessary to him to examine more deeply what appeared to him among the visible things...
Celsus raises a certain argument about heroes and certain daimons, saying, after his argument about servitude toward men, that the first master, whom someone wishes to serve, is harmed if that person also wishes to serve a second master, and that the same would hold for heroes and such daimons as well. He must be asked what he means by "heroes," and what sort of beings he says these daimons are.
so that the one who serves this hero must not serve another, and the one who serves this daimon must not serve another either — on the ground that, in a manner analogous to men who are harmed, the first daimon is harmed by those whom someone served before the second ones. But let him also show what harm he supposes there to be to heroes or to such daimons. For he will be forced either, having fallen into a sea of nonsense, to take back his statement and set aside what he has said, or, unwilling to talk nonsense, to admit that he understands the nature neither of heroes nor of daimons.
And as for the argument about men — that the first masters are harmed if someone serves a second one — this must be said: what harm does he claim comes to the first man, if the one who serves him wishes to serve another too? For if he means it
as a layman would, and means by "harm" the unphilosophical sort that has to do with external possessions of ours, he would be refuted simply by attending to what was well said by Socrates: "Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me; for it is not permitted that the better be harmed by the worse." But if he means by "harm" a movement or disposition toward vice, it is clear that no
harm at all comes about with regard to wise men when someone serves two wise men who are in separate places. And if this too is not reasonable, then his example has been taken up in vain, since it argues against the saying "no one can serve two masters." And the argument about servitude to the God of all will prevail all the more, since it comes about solely through his Son who brings us to God. But we shall not
serve God as though he were in need, nor as one who is grieved if we do not serve him, but rather as ourselves benefiting from our service to God, and becoming free from grief and free from passion by serving, through his only-begotten Word and Wisdom, the God who is over all. Observe, then, how untested is the statement: "For if you serve any other of the beings within the whole
you will serve one in whom is manifested the service of God" — that we should be brought, without any harm to ourselves, quite simply to some one of the things belonging to God. But as though sensing that he had not put this soundly — "for if you serve any other of the beings within the whole" — he then takes it back and offers a correction to what he had said in this: "nor is it permitted to honor anyone to whom this has not been granted by that God."
Let us also ask Celsus concerning those who are honored as gods or daimons or even heroes: from where, my good man, can you demonstrate that the honoring of these has been granted by God, and not that it arises from human ignorance and lack of learning, when people wander astray and fall away from the one who is properly to be honored? At any rate, as you yourself said a little earlier, Celsus, the boy-favorite of Hadrian is honored, and not
You will say somewhere that it has been given by the God over all things that Antinous be honored as a god. We will say the same thing about the others too, demanding proof that it was given to them, by the God over all, to be honored. But if he brings against us a similar objection about Jesus, we will show that being honored has been given to him by God: "so that all
may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father." For the prophecies before his birth were attestations of his honor. But also the wonders performed by him had, not by trickery as Celsus supposes, but by a divinity foretold by the prophets, testimony from God — so that the one who "honors the Son," who is the Word, doing nothing irrational, might profit from
honoring him. And by honoring him, who is Truth, he becomes better from honoring Truth; and so too from honoring Wisdom and Righteousness and everything that the divine words say the Son of God is. That the honor paid to the Son of God results in a healthy life — and likewise also the honor paid to God and
Father — see whether we are not taught this both from "you who boast in the law, through transgression of the law dishonor God," and from "how much worse a punishment do you suppose he will be deemed worthy of who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has regarded as common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace." For if "through transgression
of the law" the one who transgresses the law dishonors God, and the one who does not trample underfoot the Word tramples underfoot "the Son of God," it is clear that the one who keeps the law honors God, and the one adorned with the word of God and his works reveres God. But if Celsus knew who belong to God, and that
only the wise do, and who are the strangers, and that all the base are those who incline in no way toward the recovery of virtue, he would have seen how one ought to say it: someone, then, honoring and revering all who belong to that God — how does this grieve God, whose they all are? Next after this he says: and indeed the one who says that one Lord has been spoken of, in speaking about God, commits impiety
by dividing the kingdom of God and causing sedition, as though there were a faction and some other rival power set against him. This would have had force if he had established by geometric proofs that those worshiped as gods by the nations really are gods, and had established that those thought to reside about the images and the temples and the altars are not certain base demons. But also
the kingdom of God, spoken of and written among us continually — we for our part pray both to understand it and to become such that we may be ruled by God alone, and that the kingdom of God may come to be in us too. But he, teaching us to worship many gods, ought rather — if he considers what follows from his own position — to speak of a kingdom of gods than of God. There are, then, no factions with God
nor is there any god who takes up arms against him, even if some Giants or Titans, on account of their own wickedness, should wish to wage war on the gods alongside Celsus and those who have taken up war against the one who, through countless witnesses, has set forth the truth about Jesus, and against the very one who, for the salvation of our race, has given himself all at once to the whole world as the Word, as each is able to receive him. It would seem
that someone might next say something plausible against us along these lines: if these people worshipped no one else besides one God, there would perhaps be some argument in their favor, unyielding against the others; but as it is, they excessively venerate this one who has recently appeared, and yet think they commit no offense against God, even if his servant is also worshipped. But it must be said in reply to
this too, that had Celsus grasped the saying "I and the Father are one," together with what the Son of God spoke in his prayer—"even as you and I are one"—he would never have imagined us to be worshippers of some being distinct from the God over all. For "the Father," he says, "is in me, and I am in the Father." But if
anyone is going to be pulled aside by these words into somehow deserting to those who deny that there are two hypostases, Father and Son, let him fix his attention on "the heart and soul of all who believed were one," so that he may see what "I and the Father are one" means. It is one God, then, as we have shown, whom we worship, the Father and the Son. And the argument that stands unyielding against
the others remains ours, and it is not the case that we excessively venerate one who only lately came into view as if he had not existed previously. We rely instead on his own word, "before Abraham came to be, I am," and his declaration, "I am the truth"; and none of us is so servile as to suppose that the essence of truth did not exist before the times of Christ's manifestation. We worship, then,
the Father who is truth and the Son who is truth itself, these being two things distinct in hypostasis, but one in like-mindedness and harmony and identity of will; so that whoever has beheld the Son, who is the "radiance of the glory" and the stamp "of the substance" of God, has beheld God in him, since he is the image of God. Then he supposes that from our
worshipping the Son along with God, it follows for us that not only God but also his servants are worshipped by us. Now if he meant the true servants of God after the only-begotten of God — Gabriel and Michael and the rest of the angels [archangels] — and said that these too ought to be worshipped, perhaps we would, after clarifying
the sense in which he means "worship" and the actions of the one who worships, have said on the point, as people discussing such great matters, whatever we were able to understand about them; but as it is, since he supposes the demons worshipped by the nations to be servants, he does not draw us along by any logical consequence into worshipping such beings — beings that reason proves to be servants of the evil one and of the ruler of
of this age, who separates from God whomever he can. So it is not that we decline to worship and serve, as servants, all those whom the rest of mankind worship; for if we had been taught that they were servants of the God over all, we would not have called them daimons. Therefore we worship the one God and his one Son and Word and Image with such
supplications and petitions as are possible for us, bringing our prayers to the God of all through his only-begotten; to whom we first offer them, asking him, who is the "propitiation for our sins," to present, as high priest, our prayers and sacrifices and petitions to the God over all. Our faith in God, then, is through his
Son, who confirms this faith in us, and Celsus is unable to point to any faction among us concerning the Son of God. And we do indeed venerate the Father, marveling at his Son as Wisdom and Word, Truth and Justice, and all else that we have come to know the Son of God to be, and equally at the one begotten from so great a Father. So much for this. But since
Celsus says again that if you were to teach them that this one is not the child of that one, but that that one is the father of all, whom alone one must truly worship, they would no longer be willing, unless this one too, who for them is the author of the faction, were worshipped. And they have named this one the Son of God, not because they greatly worship God, but because this one they greatly
exalt. We, then, having come to know who the Son of God is, and that he is the "radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his substance," and "a vapor of God's power, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty," and further a "radiance of eternal light, and a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness," we know that this one
is a son from that one, and that one is the father of this one. And there is nothing unseemly in the doctrine, nor unfitting for God, in his bringing into being such an only-begotten Son. And no one shall talk us out of the conviction that such a one is indeed the son of the unbegotten God and Father. But if Celsus has overheard some who do not confess the Son of God to be the son of the one who fashioned this
universe, he himself would know it, along with those who assent to such a doctrine. Jesus, then, is not the author of faction but of all peace, he who told his disciples: "My own peace I leave you, this peace I give to you." Then, since he knew that the men of the world, and not of God, would make war on us, he added to those words: "Not as the world gives peace do I give it to you."
And we take courage on his account, even if we are afflicted in the world, since he said: "In the world you have affliction, but take courage, I have overcome the world." And this one we say is the Son of God; of God whom, if we must follow Celsus's own words, we greatly worship, and we know his Son to have been greatly exalted by the Father. Let there be some, as in a multitude of believers,
and admitting a discrepancy, because of their rashness, they suppose the savior to be the greatest God over all — but we are certainly not of that sort. Trusting him as he declares, "The Father who sent me is mightier than I am," we would therefore not subordinate to the Son of God the one whom we now call Father, as Celsus slanders us by saying. After this Celsus says that—
I am not forming this opinion at random; I will use their own words. For somewhere in the heavenly dialogue they say, in words something like these: "If the Son of God is stronger, and the Son of Man is his lord — and who else will lord it over the ruling God? — how is it that many are around the well, and no one is in the well? Why, though traveling so great
a road, are you fainthearted? It escapes you: courage and a sword are at my disposal." Thus their proposed object is not this — the God above heaven — but the one whom they supposed to be his father, around whom they have gathered to worship, so that, under the pretext of the great God, they might worship only this one whom they set at their head, the Son of Man, whom they declare to be stronger and lord "of the ruling God." From this comes for them
that command, not to "serve two masters," so that their allegiance may be kept fixed on this one alone. And here again — taking these things, I know not from what utterly obscure sect, he brings charges against all Christians on their basis. And I say "utterly obscure" because even we, who have often trained ourselves against those from the sects, do not have a clear notion of the opinion from which Celsus
has taken this — if indeed he has taken it, and not fabricated it or added a fitting sequel of his own. Indeed we, who hold that even the perceptible world belongs to the maker of all things, plainly affirm that the Son is weaker than the Father, subordinate to him. We say this in obedience to his own statement: "It is the Father, who sent me, that is greater than I." None among us is so senseless as to
say that "the Son of Man" is "lord" of God. We say that the savior rules chiefly when we understand him as God's Word, Wisdom, Righteousness, and Truth — ruling, insofar as he is these things, over all that is subject to him, but not over the Father and God who rules him. Then, since the Word does not rule the unwilling, and there still are some base beings, not only
men but also angels and all demons, we say that he does not yet rule over these, since they do not yield to him willingly; but in another sense of "rule" he rules over them too — just as we say that man rules over irrational animals without having subjected their governing faculty, in the way he rules, by taming them, over certain lions and domesticated beasts — nevertheless he does everything so that
he might also, by persuading those who now do not obey him, come to rule over them as well. So in our view what Celsus says, as though reported by us, is a falsehood: "Who else will lord it over the ruling God?" Then, I think, once again confusing matters, he brings in from another sect the saying, "How is it that many are around the well, and no one is in the well?" and "Why, though traveling so great"
"...traveling the road, are you without courage? It escapes you," and "for I have courage and a sword" — of these we, who belong solely to the church named after Christ, say that none is true. Having said this in advance, he seems to be saying things consistent with himself, but they have nothing to do with us. For our aim is not to worship some god on the basis of a hypothesis, but the maker of this
universe, and of anything else whatever that is neither perceptible nor demonstrable. And those who walk "another road" and "other paths," denying this maker and giving themselves over to some newly-fashioned figment and to the name only of a god, as though it were greater than the creator, will find this out — and if indeed there is anyone who says that the Son and Lord is stronger than "the God who rules," he too will find it out. We have given the reasoning that appears to us
to show why one must not "serve two lords," since we have also demonstrated that no division can be shown to exist with regard to Jesus and the Lord among those who confess that he has surpassed every lord, while serving as lord only the Son of God, the Word of God. After this Celsus says that we avoid setting up altars, statues, and temples, because he supposes our conviction
to be a token of a hidden and secret fellowship — not seeing that our altars are the governing faculty of each righteous person, from which are sent up, truly and intelligibly, fragrant "incense offerings," "prayers" arising from a pure conscience. That is why it is said in John's Apocalypse: "the incense offerings are the prayers of the saints," and in the psalmist: "let my prayer rise"
"like incense before you." And our statues and offerings fitting for God are not fashioned by vulgar craftsmen, but are given clear shape and form within us by the Word of God: the virtues, which are imitations of the firstborn "of all creation," in whom are the patterns of justice, self-control, courage, wisdom, piety, and the rest of the virtues. It is present, then, in all who according to
the divine Word have fashioned for themselves self-control, justice, courage, wisdom, piety, and the other constructions of the virtues — statues, by which it is fitting, we are convinced, to honor the archetype of every statue, the image "of the God who cannot be seen," the only-begotten God. But also those who strip off "the old self together with its deeds and put on the new,"
"being renewed unto knowledge according to the image of the one who created him," taking up the being "according to the image of the one who created" — these make statues within themselves, of the sort the God over all wills, statues of him. And just as among the makers of statues some achieve the work admirably — Phidias, say, or Polyclitus, or the painters Zeuxis and Apelles — while others make statues of lesser quality than these,
and still others of lesser quality than these second-rank ones, and in short there is a great difference in the making of statues and images — in the same way, some make statues of the God over all better, and according to perfect knowledge, such that there is no comparison between the Olympian Zeus fashioned by Phidias and the statue fashioned "according to the image of the creator" God; of all
But that which is in all creation is far better and more excellent in our Savior, who says, "The Father is in me." And in each of those who, according to their power, imitate him in this respect too, there is an image, "according to the image of the one who created," which they fashion by beholding God with a pure heart, having become "imitators of God." And absolutely all Christians
try to set up altars such as we have described and images such as we have presented — not lifeless and insensate things, nor things capable of receiving greedy demons lying in wait for lifeless objects, but things receptive of the Spirit of God, who dwells, as in what belongs to him, in the aforementioned images of virtue and in "the image of the one who created." And in this same way the Spirit of Christ settles upon those who are, if I may put it so, conformed to him. And wishing to set forth such things
the Word of God recorded God as saying, in a promise to the righteous, "I will make my home among them and move about among them; I will become their God, and they will become my people," and the Savior as saying, "If anyone hears my words and does them, I and the Father will come to that person and make our home there." Let
whoever wishes, then, compare the altars I have described with the altars Celsus speaks of, and the images in the soul of those who worship the God of the universe with the images of Phidias and Polyclitus and their like; and he will clearly know that the latter are both lifeless and destroyed by time, while the former remain in the immortal soul for as long as the rational soul
wishes to remain. And if temples too must be set beside temples, so that we may show those who accept Celsus's claims that we do not shrink from establishing shrines fitting for the images and altars described, but that we turn away from building lifeless and dead shrines for the giver of all life — let whoever wishes hear in what way we are taught that our bodies are "a temple of God," and "if anyone"
through licentiousness or sin "destroys" "the temple of God," this person, as one truly impious toward the true temple, will himself be destroyed. But of all the things thus called temples, better and more excellent than any shrine was the holy and pure body of our Savior Jesus, who, knowing that the temple of the God within him could indeed be plotted against by the impious, yet not
so that the purpose of those plotting against it should prove stronger than the divinity that built the temple, said to them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days." And this "he said concerning the temple of his body." And in another sense too the divine words, teaching mystically about the resurrection to those able to hear the words of God with a more divine hearing, say that they will be rebuilt
with living and most precious stones, hinting that each of those who breathe together through the same word into piety in keeping with it is a precious stone of the whole temple of God. In this respect it is said by Peter, "And you yourselves are being built up as living stones, a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices well-pleasing to God through Jesus Christ," and by Paul
the text, "raised upon a foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone." The passage in Isaiah carries a similar mystical sense, addressed to Jerusalem as follows: "Behold, I am preparing for you a stone of carbuncle, and your foundations of sapphire, and I will make your battlements
of jasper, and your gates stones of crystal, and your surrounding wall choice stones, and all your sons taught by God; and in great peace shall your children be, and you shall be built up in righteousness." There are, then, some among the righteous who are a stone of carbuncle, others who are sapphire, others jasper, others crystal; and in this way every kind of choice and precious stone
the righteous are. Now to explain the meaning that concerns stones and the reasoning about their nature, and to what sorts of souls the name derived from a precious stone can be applied, is not something for the present occasion to set out; only it was needful to be reminded, briefly, of the intent behind our own temples, and of the one temple of God built from precious stones. For just as,
if each people took pride, over against the others, in the temples reckoned sacred according to their own cities, those who prided themselves greatly on the more honored temples would cite the special features of their own to the reproach of the lesser ones, so too, against those who accuse us — since we do not think it right to worship the divine among senseless temples — we bring forward in reply our own temples, and we show to those who are
not senseless, nor comparable to their own senseless gods, that there is no comparison at all — neither of our images to the images of the nations, nor of our altars and, so to call them, our incense to their altars and the fat and blood offered at theirs — nor even of the temples that have been consecrated to us compared with the temples of
senseless things, marveled at by senseless people who have never even conceived in imagination the divine perception by which one perceives God and his images and temples and altars, such as are fitting for God. It is not, then, for the sake of gaining credit for some hidden and secret fellowship, or for such a token, that we avoid setting up altars and images and temples, but because, having discovered through the teaching of Jesus the manner of
true piety toward the divine, we flee from those things that, under a mere appearance of piety, render impious those who have strayed from the piety that comes through Jesus Christ — who alone is the "way" of piety, truly saying, "I am the way, the truth, and life itself." Let us now look also at what Celsus goes on to say about God, and how he urges us toward the
use — in reality — of food sacrificed to idols, or, to put it another way, sacrificed to demons; or as he himself would call it, not knowing what is truly sacred, and what sort of sacrifices are offered among these people, food sacrificed to what he considers holy. What he says is this: God, at any rate, is common to all, good, and free of need, and beyond envy; what, then, prevents those who are especially devoted to him, even at the public
...share in the festivals? I do not know what he imagines makes it follow, from God's being good and free of need and beyond envy, that those consecrated to him should share in the public festivals. And I say that it would indeed follow, from God's being good and free of need and beyond envy, that they should share in the public festivals themselves, if it could be shown that the public festivals have nothing
amiss in them, but were established by law on the basis of true doctrine about God, as being consonant with the service and reverence owed to him. If, however, the public festivals, down to their very names, have no demonstrable rationale that fits them for the service of the divine, but are exposed instead as fabrications by whoever happened to legislate them on account of certain human events, or even on account of theories of nature concerning water,
earth, or the fruits believed to come from it, then it is evident that those wishing to worship the divine with precision would be acting reasonably in not sharing in the public festivals. For "festival," as one of the Greek sages well says, "is nothing other than doing what is required"; and the one who truly keeps festival is the one who does "what is required," praying continually,
and offering at all times, in his prayers to the divine, the bloodless sacrifices. This is why, I think, Paul put it with singular brilliance: "You observe days and months and seasons and years; I fear for you, that I may somehow have labored over you in vain." But if someone objects with the matter of our Lord's days, or Fridays, or Passover,
or Pentecost, which fall on fixed days, we must say to this as well that the perfect person, being always in the words and works and thoughts of the Word of God who is Lord by nature, is always among his days and always keeps the Lord's days; and also, always preparing himself for true life and abstaining from the
pleasures of life that deceive the many, and not feeding "the mind of the flesh" but "beating his body" and enslaving it, he always keeps Fridays. Further, the one who has understood that "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed," and that one must keep festival by eating the flesh of the Word, never fails to keep the Passover — which is translated "crossing over" — always crossing over in reasoning and in every word and every deed from the affairs of life to God,
and hastening toward his city. Beyond these, the one who can say with truth, "we rose together with Christ," and also, "he raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ," is always in the days of Pentecost, and especially when,
having gone up "into the upper room" as the apostles of Jesus did, he devotes himself to supplication and "to prayer," so as to become worthy of the "mighty rushing wind" borne from heaven, which rushes to blot out the wickedness in human beings and what comes from it, and worthy too of some portion of a tongue of fire from God. But the great many of those who seem to believe, and who do not need so weighty a reminder,
not wishing, or not able, to observe all such days by means of perceptible examples, lest he slip away completely. I think Paul had something of this sort in mind when he called the festival kept on days appointed apart from others a "part of a festival," hinting by the way he put it that our life is, not "in part a festival," but wholly and unceasingly a festival, according to the
divine word. Look again, then, at what has been said about the festivals kept among us, set alongside the public festivals of Celsus and of the nations, and see whether these festivals of ours are not far more solemn than the public ones, in which "the mind of the flesh," as it keeps festival, runs riot, turning aside into drunkenness and licentiousness. It would take too long now to say why the
festivals kept according to God's law teach us to eat "the bread of affliction" or "unleavened bread with bitter herbs," or why they say, "humble your souls," or something similar to this. For it is not possible for the composite human being, so long as "the flesh still desires in opposition to the spirit, even as the spirit is opposed to the flesh," to keep festival with his entire self; for either one who keeps festival in the spirit afflicts
the body, which is not naturally suited to keep festival together with the spirit on account of "the mind of the flesh," or one who keeps festival according to the flesh has no room also for the festival according to the spirit. But this is enough, for the present, on the subject of festivals. Let us now look at the arguments Celsus uses to urge us to make use of food offered to idols and the public sacrifices at public
festivals. What he says is something like this: if these idols are nothing, what harm is there in sharing in the general feast? But if there are indeed certain spirits, clearly these too belong to God, and one ought to trust them, offer them proper sacrifice under the laws, and pray so that they may be favorable. It would be useful, for these matters, to take in hand the whole discussion "concerning food offered to idols" spoken by Paul
in his first letter to the Corinthians, and to clarify it; in which, answering the point that "no idol truly exists within the world," he set out the harm that comes from making use of food offered to idols, showing to those able to hear such things that the one who partakes of food offered to idols does something no less bad than a murderer, destroying his own brothers, for whom "Christ died."
And after this, laying it down that the things sacrificed are sacrificed to demons, he establishes that those who partake of "the table of demons" become "partners with demons"; and he establishes that no one can "share both the Lord's table and that of demons" at once. But since the account of these matters in the letter to the Corinthians requires a whole treatise, demonstrated at greater length, we will be content with what has been given briefly; from which
it will be clear to anyone who examines them that, even if the idols are nothing, it is nonetheless just as terrible to share in the general feast of idols. We have said, then, in moderation, also this: that even if there are indeed some spirits to whom the things sacrificed are sacrificed, we who understand how "the Lord's table" differs from "that of demons" ought not to partake of them, and because we know this,
doing everything so that we may always share in "the table of the Lord," but guarding ourselves in every way so that we may never become partners in the "table" of the "demons." Since Celsus says in this passage that the demons too belong to God, and that for this reason they are to be trusted, and sacrifices are to be offered to them in accordance with the laws, and prayers are to be made to them so that they may be well-disposed toward us, we must also teach those who wish to learn about this,
that the word of God does not wish to proclaim any of the wicked to be a possession of God, judging it unworthy of so great a Lord. For this reason not all human beings are called "men of God," but only those worthy of God — such as Moses and Elijah were, and anyone else recorded as a "man of God" or resembling those so recorded. In the same way, not all angels
only the blessed ones are called "angels of God"; those who have turned aside into wickedness bear the name of the devil's angels, just as wicked human beings are termed men of sin, or sons of pestilence, or sons of injustice. Since, then, among human beings some are excellent and some are base, some are therefore said to belong to God while others are reckoned the devil's own; but likewise
among the "angels" some belong "to God" and others to the evil one, whereas among demons this is no longer a twofold matter, for all of them are shown to be base. For this reason we will say that Celsus's statement is false when he says: "and if there are certain demons, clearly these too belong to God" — or let anyone who wishes show that the division we have made between men and angels is not sound reasoning, or that a similar
line of reasoning can be shown to hold for demons as well. But if this is impossible, it is clear that the demons do not belong to God either — for God is not their ruler, but, as the divine scriptures say, "Beelzeboul" is. Nor should the demons be trusted, even though Celsus urges us toward them; rather, one must die before being persuaded by demons, and one must endure absolutely anything while remaining persuaded by God. In the same way,
sacrifice ought not to be offered to demons either; for it is impossible to offer good sacrifice to those who are base and who work harm upon human beings. But according to which laws does Celsus want us to sacrifice to the demons? For if according to those established in the cities, let him demonstrate that they harmonize with the divine laws; but if he cannot do this (for the laws of the many cities do not even agree with one another),
it is clear that they are not, properly speaking, laws at all, but the laws of base men, which are not to be trusted; for it is God, rather than men, whom "one must obey." So away with Celsus's advice, when he says that prayer must be offered to demons — not even the smallest part of it should be heeded; for prayer belongs only to the God who rules over everything, and prayer is indeed to be offered to the only-begotten and firstborn "of all creation," the Word of God. And he is to be asked,
as high priest, to carry up to his God, who is also our God, and to his Father, who is also the Father of all who conduct their lives by God's word, the prayer that has reached him on our behalf. For just as we would not wish to have well-disposed toward us those men who want us to live according to their own wickedness, if they happen to be well-disposed toward none of those who choose the opposite course to them.
since their goodwill makes us enemies of God — unless perhaps he is not favorable toward those who wish to keep such beings favorable to themselves. In the same way, those who have understood the nature, purpose, and wickedness of demons could never wish to have the demons favorable to them. For even if the demons are not favorable to them, they could suffer nothing at their hands, being guarded by the
one who is favorable to them because of their piety toward the God over all, who sets his divine angels over those worthy of being guarded, so that they may suffer nothing from the demons. And the one who has the God over all favorable to him because of his piety toward him, and because he has accepted as Lord Jesus, the angel of God's "great counsel," being content with God's favor shown through
Christ Jesus, would say with confidence, expecting to suffer nothing from the entire host of demons: "The Lord is the light of my salvation; whom should I dread? The Lord shields my life; before whom should I tremble?" And he will say further: "Should a camp be arrayed against me, my heart will feel no fear." So much, then, on the question of whether there are certain demons; clearly
these too belong to God (or: to whom), and one must trust them, offer sacrifices to them in the manner the laws prescribe, and pray to them, so that they may be favorable. Having set out the next passage as well, come, let us again examine it as far as we are able; it runs as follows: "If, then, in accordance with some ancestral custom they abstain from certain sacrificial animals of this or that kind, they must altogether abstain from eating all animals whatsoever" — which is indeed the view of Pythagoras, who honors
the soul and its instruments. "But if," as they say, it is so that they may not feast together with demons — I congratulate them on their wisdom, that they are so slow to understand, though they are forever fellow-diners with demons; and it is only at that one point that they guard against this, whenever they see a sacrificial victim being slaughtered. But when they eat grain and drink wine and taste fruits from trees, and breathe the very water and the very air, do they not then receive each of these things from certain
demons, to each of whom the care of some particular portion has been assigned?" I do not know how it seemed good to him to conclude, from these premises, that those whom he named as abstaining, in accordance with some ancestral custom, from certain sacrificial animals ought to abstain from eating all animals. And we do not say this on the ground that the divine word suggests nothing of the kind, since for the sake of a safer and purer life it too has said: "It is good
not to eat meat nor to drink wine, nor to do anything that trips up your brother," and again: "Do not destroy, for the sake of food, the one on whose behalf Christ died," and once more: "If meat causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever, so that I may not cause my brother to stumble." One should know, however, that, whereas the Jews suppose they understand
the law of Moses and observe, with regard to foods, the practice of partaking of what is reckoned clean to them while abstaining from what is unclean, and moreover not using the blood of any animal for food, nor animals killed by wild beasts, nor other such things — about which there is much discussion, and it is therefore not opportune to examine them now — the teaching of Jesus, wishing to call all people to pure worship of God and
so as not to use the pretext of the heavier legislation concerning foods to hinder, from Christianity, many of those who could be benefited toward good character, he declared: "it is not the things that enter the mouth that defile a person, but the things that go out from the mouth." For the things "entering the mouth," he says, "pass into the stomach and are cast out into the latrine," but the things going out from the mouth
are evil "thoughts" once spoken, and "murders" and "adulteries" and "fornications, thefts," and "false testimonies" and "blasphemies." Paul too says that "food will not commend us to God; for neither if we eat do we have more, nor if we do not eat do we have less." Then, since these statements carry some obscurity unless they receive clarification, the apostles of Jesus, together with "the elders," resolved as follows —
elders gathered together for this purpose in Antioch, together with — as they themselves called it — "the Holy Spirit," resolved to send a letter, addressed to the believers drawn from the nations, forbidding only what they called the "necessary" things to eat: namely, food sacrificed to idols, or strangled meat, or blood. For what is sacrificed to idols is sacrificed to demons, and the man of God ought not to become a partaker
of "the table of demons"; and strangled meat, since the blood has not been drained out of it — and this, they say, is the food of demons, who are nourished by the vapors rising from it — the word forbids, so that we not be nourished on the food of demons, since perhaps certain such spirits would come to be nourished together with us, were we to partake of strangled meat. And from what has been said about "strangled meat," the matter of abstaining from "blood" can be made clear as well. And
it is not out of place, now that I have arrived at this subject, to call to mind a most graceful maxim — one that many Christians also come across, recorded among the Sentences of Sextus — which runs as follows: "the use of living creatures is a matter of indifference, but abstinence is the more rational course." It is not, then, simply in keeping with some ancestral custom that we abstain from what are reckoned sacrificial victims and are offered to beings termed gods, heroes, or demons — rather, our reason is
a good many reasons, some of which I have set out in part. But it is not the case that, just as one must abstain from all vice and from what arises from vice, so too one must abstain from eating any living creature at all. Rather, one must abstain not only from eating living creatures but from anything whatsoever, if we would be using foods out of vice or out of what arises from vice; for one must abstain from eating out of gluttony, or insofar as one is led by pleasure apart from the purpose
of bodily health and its care. Yet we by no means hold that there is a transmigration of the soul, a falling of it down even into the irrational animals — certainly not, at any rate, in the manner of Pythagoras. And even if we do at times abstain from living creatures, it is not because we refuse to make use of their flesh. For we know how to honor only the rational soul, and to hand over its organs for burial with honor, according to established custom; for it is fitting
the body in which a rational soul makes its home ought not be cast aside dishonorably and at random, as though it were the same as that of the irrational creatures — especially since Christians have believed that the honor due the body, in which a rational soul has dwelt, extends even to reaching the one who receives, in due course, the soul that has fought its good fight through such an instrument. But concerning "how are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?" I have spoken above through
of few things. As the text required, we have set it out. After this Celsus states what is admittedly said by Christians and Jews when they defend their abstinence from food sacrificed to idols, saying that those devoted to the God over all must not feast together with demons; to which he replied with what follows. We, then, so far as concerns food and drink, know of no other ways of feasting together with demons than
these: by which someone eats what most people call "sacred offerings" and drinks the wine of the libations poured out to demons. But Celsus thinks that even the one who partakes of grain, and drinks wine of whatever kind, and tastes tree-fruits, feasts together with demons — indeed, even if someone partakes only of water, he says that in this too the one drinking feasts together with demons.
He adds to this that the one who breathes this air also receives it from certain demons, since the demons appointed over the air grant living beings the air for breathing. Let whoever wishes, then, set this out in support of Celsus's argument and show how it is not certain divine angels of God but demons — whose whole race is base — who are appointed to administer all the things just mentioned.
For we too say that it is not without the oversight of invisible — if I may call them so — farmers and other stewards, not only of what grows from the earth but also of every spring of water and of the air, that the earth is said by nature to bear what it bears, and that water falls as rain and flows in springs and native rivers, and
that the air is kept uncorrupted and becomes life-giving to those who breathe it. We do not, however, say that these invisible beings are demons; but — if one may venture to say it — if indeed these things are the works of demons, we shall say that famines, failures of the vine and of tree-fruits, droughts, and also the corruption of the air to the ruin of crops, and sometimes also the death of animals
and pestilence against human beings — all these things are worked directly by demons acting as executioners, who by some divine judgment receive authority to bring them about at certain times, either for the conversion of people who have run aground into the outpouring of wickedness, or else for the training of the rational race; so that some, remaining devout even amid such trials and becoming in no way worse, may for a time become manifest — to unseen and visible spectators alike — to those who do not see
their true disposition; while others, disposed to the contrary and concealing the display of their wickedness, being exposed by what befalls them for what they themselves really are, may both become conscious of themselves and become manifest to the spectators — if I may so call them. The hymn-writer testifies to this, that by divine judgment the harsher things are worked directly by certain wicked angels, in the verse
"He sent against them the wrath of his anger, wrath and indignation and affliction, a mission of wicked angels." But if anything else besides these things occurs, it is when the demons are permitted to act — always wishing to do these things, but not always able, because they are hindered. Let whoever is able examine this, picturing the divine judgment, so far as is possible for human nature, concerning the massing together of many
...souls' release from the body, using such paths as lead to the middle death. For indeed "great are the judgments of God," and because of their greatness they are not comprehensible to the mind that is still bound to a mortal body; hence they are also "hard to explain," and to uneducated souls they are not perceptible even to the smallest degree. Hence too the more reckless, through their ignorance of these matters and their...
...recklessness, through their heedlessness toward the divine, increase impious doctrines against providence. We do not, therefore, get each of the things needed for life's necessities from demons — especially not 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 who are appointed over such things. These angels...
...are, as it were, invited to the hearth of the pious person who has heard the teaching word say such things as: "Whether you eat or drink or do anything, do all things to the glory of God." Elsewhere too it stands written: "Whether you eat or drink" — do everything "in the name" of God. Since, then, it is "to the glory of God" that we take food, take drink, draw breath, and, according to the word...
...we do all things, we feast with none of the demons but with the divine angels. For indeed "every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is made holy by God's word and by entreaty." It could not, however, be "good," nor could it possibly be sanctified, if, as Celsus supposes, these things had been assigned to demons. From this it is clear that we have also answered...
...what he says next, which runs as follows: "Therefore one must either not live at all, in any way whatsoever, nor even come forward to this life, or else, having entered upon life on these terms, one must give thanks to the demons who have been allotted the things of earth, and render firstfruits and prayers, for as long as we live, so that we may obtain their kindness." We must, then, indeed go on living — and our life must follow the word of God — so far as...
...it is possible, and so far as it is granted, to live according to him; and this permission extends to every occasion, for whether eating or drinking, we do "all things to the glory of God." And we must not refuse to use, with thanksgiving to the Creator, the things he has made for our sake. And it was for these reasons, rather than for those Celsus supposes, that we were brought by God into life, and we are not subject to demons...
...but to the God over all, through Jesus Christ who has brought us to him. And by the laws of God, no demon has been allotted the things of earth; but because of their own lawlessness they have perhaps divided the regions among themselves, where knowledge of God lies utterly barren, together with the life lived according to him, or where there is much that is alien to divinity. Or perhaps, as...
...being fit overseers and chastisers of the wicked, they were appointed by the word that governs the universe to rule over those who have subjected themselves to wickedness and not to God. And for such reasons, let Celsus, as one ignorant of God, render his thank-offerings to demons; but we, giving thanks to the Maker of the universe, and bringing forward, with thanksgiving and prayer over what has been given...
We eat loaves that have become, through the prayer, a body that is holy and sanctifies those who use it with a sound purpose. But Celsus wants first fruits to be dedicated to demons; we, however, dedicate them to the one who said, "Let the earth bring forth green growth, plants bearing seed according to their kind and their form, and fruit-bearing trees yielding fruit whose seed is within it according to its kind, upon"
the earth. To him to whom we render the first fruits, to him likewise do we direct our prayers, since we "have a great high priest, one who has passed through the heavens—Jesus, Son of God," and we hold fast to "the confession" for as long as we live, receiving the benevolence of God and of his only-begotten, made manifest to us in Jesus. And if we also long for a multitude of those benevolent ones whose favor we wish to obtain, we learn "that a thousand thousands
stood in attendance before him, while ten thousand times ten thousand rendered him service" — beings who, seeing those who imitate their own piety toward God as kinsmen and friends, join in working for the salvation of those who call upon God and pray sincerely, appearing to them and thinking it right to hear them, and coming down, as it were at a single signal, for the benefit and salvation of those who direct their prayers to the very God whom these beings also worship. For
indeed "they are all ministering spirits, sent out to serve for the sake of those who are going to inherit salvation." Let the wise among the Greeks say, then, that the human soul has been allotted demons from birth; but Jesus instructed us that we must not look down upon the "little ones" who belong to the church, saying that "their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven," and
the prophet says that "the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him and will deliver them." We too, then, do not deny that there are many demons upon the earth; but we say that they exist and have power among the base, on account of the wickedness of those men, yet have no power at all against those who have put on "the whole armor of God" and taken up strength "to"
stand firm against "the schemes of the devil," continually studying the tricks used against them in this wrestling match, knowing "that our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Let us also consider another passage of Celsus, which runs as follows: either
the satrap of the king of the Persians or of the Romans, or a viceroy, or a general, or a governor — indeed even those who hold lesser offices or superintendencies or services — could do great harm if neglected, while the aerial and earthly satraps and servants would do little harm if treated with contempt? See now how he brings in human satraps of the God over all, and viceroys
and generals and governors and those holding lesser offices and superintendencies and services, as doing great harm to those who treat them with contempt — not seeing that not even a wise man would wish to harm anyone, but would use whatever power he has to turn those who insult him toward what is better and to improve them; unless, indeed, the satraps according to Celsus are worse than Lycurgus the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians and Zeno of Citium.
and viceroys and generals serving the God who rules over the universe — that Lycurgus, when he got power over the man who had knocked out his eye, not only did not take revenge but did not stop working on him with persuasion, until he convinced him to take up philosophy; and 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." Nor am I yet speaking of those who, according to
the teaching of Jesus, have been shaped by it and have heard, "Love your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you, so that you may become sons of your Father in the heavens, who makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." And in the prophetic words too the righteous man says such things as: "Lord my God,"
if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands, if I have repaid those who repaid me evils, then let me fall away empty from my enemies; let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life into the ground." But it is not, as Celsus supposes, that the true satraps and viceroys and generals and stewards of
God's angels harm those who insult them; but if certain demons do harm — the ones Celsus too imagined — they harm as base beings, entrusted with no satrapy or generalship or stewardship from God, and they harm those subject to them, those who have subjected themselves to them as to masters. Perhaps indeed for this very reason those who, in each place, transgress by not eating the foods that are customarily forbidden,
if they belong to those under those demons, are harmed; but if some, not being under them nor having subjected themselves to the deity of that place, are free from suffering at their hands, having bidden such deities a distant farewell — yet, having subjected themselves to others through ignorance about other matters, can suffer at the hands of those others. But not the Christian — the true Christian, who has subjected
himself only to God and to his Word, could suffer anything at the hands of demons, being in fact superior to demons; and indeed he would not suffer, since "the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and rescues them," and it is his angel who, gazing "continually" upon "the face of" the "Father" "in the heavens," ever brings his prayers up through the sole
high priest to the God of the universe, joining in prayer himself with the one entrusted to his care. So let Celsus not try to frighten us, threatening harm from demons on the grounds that we neglect them; for demons, though neglected, could do nothing to us, who are devoted to the one alone who is able to help all who are worthy, and who stations, no less, his own angels over those who worship him,
so that neither the opposing angels nor the one called their "ruler" "of this age" may be able to work anything against those devoted to God. Then, forgetting that he is speaking to Christians, who address their prayers to God alone through Jesus, and blending together the affairs of others, joining them irrationally to Christians, he says: if someone names them in barbarian fashion, they will have power, but if in Greek or
...in the Roman manner, no longer. For let him show what name we call upon in barbarian fashion when we invoke him for help, and let him be persuaded that Celsus has said these things against us in vain — pointing out, as he does, that the rest of Christians do not even use the names laid down and appointed for God in the divine scriptures when they pray; but the Greeks pray in Greek terms and the Romans in Roman ones,
and thus each one prays to God according to his own dialect and praises him as best he can; and the Lord of every dialect hears those who pray in every dialect as though it were one voice, if I may call it that, hearing the sense that is signified, made plain through the various dialects. For the God over all is not some one of those allotted to a particular dialect,
barbarian or Greek, no longer understanding the rest, or no longer caring for those who speak in other dialects. Then after this, having heard this from no Christian at all, or from some lawless and uneducated person among the crowd, he says that Christians say: 'Look, standing before the statue of Zeus or Apollo or whatever god it may be, I blaspheme it and strike it, and nothing defends it.' He does not
see that in the divine legislation it is also commanded, 'You shall not speak evil of gods,' so that our mouth may not grow accustomed to speaking evil of anyone at all, since we hear, 'Bless and do not curse,' and are taught that 'the abusive' 'will not inherit' 'the kingdom of God.' Who among us is so foolish as to say such things and not see that nothing of this kind can do anything toward overthrowing the
opinion held concerning the so-called gods? Seeing that even those who are utterly godless and have done away with providence, and who have formed a school of so-called philosophers through wicked and impious doctrines, neither they themselves have suffered anything of what most people count as evils, nor have those who have embraced their doctrines — rather, they are wealthy and healthy in body. But if one seeks harm in those people,
let him see that they are indeed the ones who have been harmed. For what greater harm is there than failing to perceive, from the order of the world, the one who made it? And what worse misery than to have the mind blinded and not to see the maker and father of every mind? Having pinned such statements on us and slandering Christians, who do not say such things, he thinks he is providing himself a defense — a jest
rather than an actual defense, in which he speaks as if addressing us: 'Do you not see, then, my good man, that when someone stands before your daimon he not only blasphemes him but proclaims him banished from every land and sea, and binds you, who are devoted to him as if you were his statue, and leads you away and impales you? And the daimon, or as you say, the son of God, does nothing to ward it off'?
This defense would have had some standing if we used the sort of statements he has recorded us as saying; and yet not even so did he speak the truth, in calling the Son of God a daimon. According to us, then, who say that all daimons are wicked, it is not a daimon that has turned so many toward God, but rather the divine Word, God's own Son; but according to Celsus,
having shown nothing about wicked demons, somehow forgetting himself, calls Jesus a demon. Later, however, the statements about the impious will come, after all the remedies that they did not accept, upon those caught, as one might say, in incurable wickedness. And we, whatever we say about punishment, and through our teaching about punishment,
turn many away from their sins. But let us consider what sort of answer the priest of Apollo or of Zeus gives, according to Celsus: "Late," he says, "grind the mills of the gods, and it comes upon children's children, whoever are born hereafter." See how much better than this is: "Fathers shall not die for their children, nor shall sons die for their fathers; each shall die for his own sin," and
this: "the teeth of him who ate the sour grape shall be set on edge," and: "a son will not carry his father's guilt, nor will a father carry his son's guilt; each righteous man's righteousness rests upon himself, and each lawless man's lawlessness rests upon himself." But if someone should say that it resembles the line "and it comes upon children's children, whoever are born hereafter" the verse "repaying the fathers' offenses upon their children, to the third
and fourth generation of those who hate me," let him learn that in Ezekiel such a thing is called a "parable," spoken against those who say: "the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge," to which it is added: "As I live, says the Lord," "but each shall die for his own sin." It is not, however, the present occasion to explain what the passage about
assigning "sins" to "the third and fourth generation" signifies as a parable. Then, reviling us like old women gossiping, he says: you mock and revile their images. Yet if you had reviled Dionysus or Heracles himself in person, you would perhaps not have gotten off rejoicing; but when they abuse and punish your god present among them, those who do these things suffer nothing, not even afterward
in all the rest of their lives. What new thing has come of it to the one who believes that he was not a deceiving man but the son of God? And the one who sent his son, for the sake of certain messages, so cruelly punished—so that even the messages perished along with him—overlooked it, and though so much time has passed, has not turned back to avenge it. What father is so unholy? He, then, perhaps wished, as
you say, to be so mistreated for this reason. But these others, whom you blaspheme, one might say also wish it and therefore endure being blasphemed—for it is best to compare like with like. But in fact these gods take strong vengeance on the one who blasphemes, either making him flee and hide because of it, or having him caught and destroyed. And to this I would reply that we
we abstain from reviling anyone, convinced as we are that those who hurl abuse will find no share in the kingdom of God, and we take to heart the words: "speak well of those who curse you," and "speak well, and do not curse." We likewise know the saying: "when reviled, we answer with a blessing." And even if reviling has some justification as a defense for one who seems to have been wronged, the word of God does not permit us even this; how much more, then, where reviling displays great foolishness, not
Why must one revile them? It is equally foolish to revile stone or gold or silver, shaped into the form conventionally attributed by those far from divinity to the gods. In the same way, we do not mock the lifeless carved images themselves, but at most those who worship them. But not even if certain daimons are established within certain statues, and one of them is supposed to be Dionysus and
another Heracles, do we revile even these; for such a thing is vain, and in no way consistent with one who is gentle and peaceable and calm of soul and has learned that one ought not to revile anyone for their wickedness, whether man or daimon. I do not know how Celsus unwittingly stumbled into this: that those whom shortly before he hymned as daimons or gods, he now demonstrates in fact to be utterly base, and to punish more out of vengeance than to correct by chastisement, whenever someone reviles them.
For he says: as if, had you reviled Dionysus or Heracles himself in his presence, you would perhaps not have come away rejoicing. But how one hears anything when not present, let whoever wishes explain, and why he is present at one time and not present at another, and what business
the daimons have in migrating from place to place. Next he says this, supposing that it is the strained and punished body of Jesus, and not the divinity within it, that we call God, and that when it was strained and punished it was believed to be God — that the very ones who strained and punished your God, though he was present, suffered nothing for having done these things. But concerning what he suffered
in his human experiences we have spoken at greater length above, and now willingly pass the matter by, so as not to seem to repeat ourselves. But since he says that not even afterward, in the long span of their lives, did those who punished Jesus suffer anything for it, we shall show him and all who wish to learn that the very city where the people of the Jews insisted Jesus be crucified, crying, "Crucify, crucify him" (for they preferred
the robber, who had been thrown "into prison" "for insurrection and murder," to be released, and "Jesus," who had been handed over "out of envy," to be crucified) — not long afterward was plunged into war, and was besieged for so long a time that it was overthrown from its foundations and laid utterly waste, God judging the inhabitants of that place unworthy of the common life they shared with others; and sparing them, if I may put it in this surprising way,
and seeing that they were incurably disposed against change for the better, and were increasing day by day in the outpouring of their wickedness, he handed them over to those making war on them. And this came about because of the blood of Jesus, shed through their plot upon their land, which could no longer bear those who had dared so great a defilement against Jesus. A new thing, then, has come about since
the time Jesus suffered — I mean both what happened to the city and everything concerning the nation, and everything concerning the sudden birth of the nation of the Christians, as though begotten all at once; and new too is the fact that strangers to God's "covenants," and aliens from the promises, far removed from the truth, receive it by some divine power. These things are not the work of a human
...was not that of a sorcerer, but the works of God, who sent his own message by means of his own word in Jesus, punished though he was so cruelly that the cruelty of those who unjustly punished him stands accused, while he endured it most courageously and with complete gentleness. His punishment did not destroy God's message, but rather, if one may put it so, brought that message to full recognition. As Jesus himself taught, saying
"Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Jesus, then, the "grain of wheat," having died, brought forth "much fruit," and the Father continually watches over the fruits that have come, are still coming, and will yet come from the death of the "grain of wheat."
Holy, then, is the Father of Jesus, who did not spare "his own Son" but "gave him up on behalf of us all," his own lamb, so that this "lamb of God," dying for the sake of the whole world, might lift away "the world's sin." On its account he endured, not under compulsion but willingly, what was inflicted on him by his abusers. After this, Celsus, resuming his argument concerning
those who blaspheme the images, says: "As for these gods you blaspheme, one might say that they themselves are willing, and for that reason tolerate being blasphemed—for it is best to set like against like. But in fact they defend themselves vigorously against the one who blasphemes, whether he flees and hides on that account, or is caught and destroyed." The demons, then, believe that Christians are avenging themselves not by blaspheming but by turning away from
the carved images and from human bodies and souls. For Celsus, not understanding what actually happens, has spoken something true at this point without realizing it—true in the sense that the souls belonging to those who condemn Christians, together with those who betray them and those who take pleasure in warring against Christians, are filled with base demons. But because the souls of those who die for Christianity, dying for piety's sake,
depart from the body with glory, and so strip away the power of the demons and render their scheming against human beings weaker, I think it is for this reason—having learned by experience that they are overcome and mastered by the martyrs of the truth—that the demons have grown afraid to come again to take revenge; and so, until they forget the sufferings they have undergone, it is likely that the world will have peace with
Christians. But when they have gathered their strength again and, blinded by wickedness, wish once more to take revenge and persecute Christians, they will again be brought down; and then again the souls of the pious, stripping off their bodies for piety's sake, will overthrow the camp of the evil one. I think that the demons, perceiving that those who conquer and die for piety's sake bring down
their dominion, while those who are overcome by their sufferings and deny their reverence for God become subject to them, at times contend eagerly over the Christians who are handed over for punishment—being brought low, as it were, by their confession, but finding rest in their denial. And indeed traces of this can be seen even among the judges, who are brought low by those who endure outrages and torments, yet exult
...whenever a Christian is defeated. Indeed they do not even do this out of a humaneness that only seems such to them, seeing clearly that 'the tongue' of those overcome by pain 'has sworn,' but 'the mind is unsworn' — and these things unto the... but these men themselves take vigorous revenge on the one who blasphemes, whether he flees because of this and hides, or is caught and destroyed. And if
some Christian flees, he does not flee out of cowardice, but by keeping his teacher's commandment and guarding himself pure for the salvation of others who will benefit. Let us also look at what follows, which runs thus: 'What need is there to list all that, on the one hand from oracles — prophets and prophetesses — and on the other from other possessed persons, both men and women, who foretold things with inspired voice? Or all the wonders that were heard from the very shrines? Or all
that was made clear to those who consulted through victims and sacrificial offerings, or all that came through other portentous signs? To some, manifest apparitions appeared. The whole of life is full of these things. How many cities were set upright by oracles and put away diseases and famines, while how many others, neglecting or forgetting these things, were wretchedly destroyed? How many were sent out as colonies and, having followed what was ordained, prospered? How many
rulers, and how many private persons, fared better or worse on this account? How many, distressed at their childlessness, obtained what they had asked for [and how many] escaped the wrath of the daimons? How many were healed of bodily mutilations? How many, again, who committed outrage at the shrines, were at once seized — some overpowered there and driven out of their minds, others who confessed openly what they had done, others who did away with themselves, and others bound fast by incurable diseases?
And before now a heavy voice out of the very shrines has struck some down. And I do not know how Celsus can put these things forward as manifest, and yet count as myths the marvels recorded among us — whether Jewish, or those concerning Jesus and his disciples. For why should our accounts be true, but what Celsus says be mythical fabrications,
which not even the sects of the Greek philosophers have believed — such as that of Democritus, and that of Epicurus, and that of Aristotle — though they might perhaps have believed our accounts because of their manifest clarity, had they encountered Moses, or one of the prophets who worked wonders, or Jesus himself? It is recorded that the Pythia once even gave a corrupted oracle; but our prophets were not only
admired by their contemporaries because of the manifest clarity of what was said by them, but also in the times that followed. For from what the prophets foretold, both cities were set upright, and men were healed, and famines ceased. Moreover, the whole nation of the Jews clearly came as a colony from Egypt into Palestine in accordance with oracles — a nation which, having followed
what was commanded by God, prospered, but having failed, repented. And what need is there to say how many rulers and how many private persons, according to the histories of Scripture, fared better or worse by attending to the prophecies or by neglecting them? And if one must also speak of childlessness, on account of which some who became fathers or mothers were distressed, and who sent up their prayers concerning this to the Creator of all things, let him read
Let him read what concerns Abraham and Sarah, from whom Isaac was born when they were already old — Abraham, who fathered the entire Jewish people and others beyond them as well. And let him read too what concerns Hezekiah, who not only received release from his disease according to the prophecies of Isaiah but also spoke with confidence, saying: "For it is from this time forward that I will raise up children, and they shall make known your righteousness."
And in the fourth book of Kingdoms, the woman who received Elisha, who by God's grace had prophesied concerning the birth of a son, became a mother in accordance with Elisha's prayers. But also countless disabilities were healed by Jesus. And others who dared, at the temple in Jerusalem, to insult the Jewish religion suffered what is recorded in the books of the Maccabees. But the Greeks will say these are myths.
And yet these are attested as true by two whole nations. Why should the myths of the Greeks not be regarded this way rather than these? But if someone, taking a stand against the argument, in order not to seem to accept his own people's accounts arbitrarily while disbelieving those of others, should say that even the accounts of the Greeks came about through certain demons, and those of the Jews either through God by means of the
prophets, or through the angels, or through God by means of the angels, and those of the Christians through Jesus and the power of his that worked in the apostles — come, let us set them all beside one another and see the end result of the intention of those who produced them, and the benefit or harm, or neither, that came from this to those who received what are regarded as the benefits — unless he will see that the Jewish nation was philosophical
of old, before they behaved insolently toward the divine — by whom, because of their great wickedness, they were forsaken; while Christians, who came together in an astonishing way, were drawn in particular at the beginning by miraculous events rather than by exhortatory speeches, so as to abandon their ancestral ways and choose things foreign to their ancestral ways. For indeed, if one must also make use of a plausible argument concerning
the origin of the Christian community from the beginning, we will say that it is not credible either that the apostles of Jesus, men unlettered and untrained, would have trusted in anything else to proclaim Christianity to human beings than the power given to them and the grace present in their word for the matters being made known, or that those who heard them changed from their ancestral customs of long standing without some considerable power and
miraculous events moving them toward things so foreign and alien to the doctrines they had grown up with. Then, somehow, Celsus, after citing the eagerness of those who struggled even unto death rather than renounce Christianity, adds — as though equating our practices with what is said by the priests who perform initiations and mysteries — and says: Above all, my good fellow, just as you believe in eternal punishments,
so too do the interpreters and initiators of those sacred rites and mystery-guides — punishments which you threaten others with, and they threaten you with. It is possible to consider which of the two is truer or more prevailing. For in argument each of you asserts with equal confidence about your own claims; but if proofs are needed, they display many clear works, both of certain demonic powers and of oracles.
and bring them forward out of every kind of divination. So by these he wants us and the mystagogues to speak on equal terms about eternal punishments, and wants an inquiry into which of the two speak the truth more. I would say that those speak the truth who are able to dispose their hearers, in the way they live, to act as though these things were so. Jews and Christians are disposed in this way concerning what they call the age to come and the
rewards in it for the righteous and the punishments for sinners. Let Celsus, then, or whoever wishes, show which people have been disposed concerning eternal punishments by the mystery-initiators and the mystagogues. For it is likely that the intention of the father of these sayings was not merely to perform a ritual duty and speak about punishments, but to dispose the hearers, so far as
lies in their power, to guard against and themselves work against the causes of punishment. But the prophecies too, for those who read them not carelessly but attend to the foreknowledge in them, seem to me sufficient to persuade the person who reads with both understanding and fairness that a divine spirit rested upon those men — a foreknowledge such that none of the works displayed by demons, nor any of the powers from oracles, nor any of the divinations,
can be compared, even to a small degree. Let us look also at what Celsus goes on to say to us next: 'And further, how are these views of yours not absurd — that the body should long for and hope that this very thing will rise again, as though nothing were better or more valuable to us than it, and yet that you should turn around and cast it into punishments as something dishonorable? But
it is not worth arguing this point with those who are persuaded of this and are wasted away with the body — for these are people who are also boorish in other respects, and unclean, and who share in the sickness of sedition without reason. But to those who hope to have the soul, or the mind (whether they wish to call this a spiritual thing, or a holy and blessed intelligent spirit, or a living soul, or an offspring of a divine and bodiless nature, supracelestial and incorruptible,
or whatever else they take pleasure in naming it) — to those who hope to have this eternally with God, to them I will address my argument. This much they think rightly, that those who have lived well will be happy, while the wholly unjust will be bound fast by eternal evils; and let neither these people nor anyone else ever depart from this doctrine' — so extending his remarks. Now concerning the resurrection, even if
he himself has already reproached it many times, we, having set forth as best we could what seemed reasonable to us on the topic, are not going to keep defending ourselves against one accusation repeated again and again. Celsus slanders us as though we thought nothing better or more valuable than the body in our constitution; for we say that the soul of every body, and especially the rational soul, is a thing
more valuable, even though it is the soul that is capable of 'the image of the one who created it,' and not at all the body. For God is not, in our view, a body — lest we fall into the absurdities that those who philosophize after Zeno and Chrysippus fall into. And since he reproaches us also as though we longed for the body, let him know that if the longing is a base one, we long for nothing of the kind; but if
in between, we desire everything that God promises to the righteous. So then we also desire and hope for the resurrection of the righteous. But Celsus thinks that we contradict ourselves, in that in one place we hope for the resurrection of the body as worthy of honor from God, while in another we cast it into punishments as dishonorable. But nothing that suffers for the sake of piety and
chooses hardships for the sake of virtue is dishonorable. Rather, everything that is consumed in wickedness among pleasures is dishonorable. For the divine word says: "What kind of seed is honorable? The seed of man. What kind of seed is dishonorable? The seed of man." Then Celsus thinks that one ought not converse with those who hope for things concerning the body, as though they were people who had irrationally wasted away over something impossible to attain, calling them rustic and
unclean, and people who cling without reason to their position, when instead, as one who loves humanity, he ought to help even the more rustic. For the capacity for community has not been cut off from the more rustic sort of people the way it has from irrational animals; rather, he who made us has made us sociable toward all people equally. It is worthwhile, then, to converse even with rustic people, and, so far as one is able, to lead them over to
something more refined, and to converse even with the unclean, and to make them, as far as possible, purer—and to help those who think whatever they think without reason and are sick in soul, so that they may no longer act without reason nor be sick in soul. After this he accepts those who hope to have the soul, or the mind, or what is called among them the spiritual or rational spirit—intelligent, holy, and
blessed—or a living soul, and to have it eternally, and that it will be with God; and he rightly accepts as sound the doctrine that those who have lived well will be happy, while the unjust will be altogether bound fast by eternal evils. And indeed, among everything Celsus says, I have marveled at what he adds in this way to what has just been said, where he states: and
from this doctrine may neither these people nor anyone else among men ever depart. Yet he ought to have seen, since he was writing against Christians—for whom the whole substance of their faith is God, and the promises through Christ concerning the righteous, and the teachings concerning punishment for the unjust—that it is likely that a Christian overturned through accepting the arguments against
Christians made by Celsus will, once he has cast aside the reasoning, cast aside along with it the very doctrine as well—the doctrine which he himself says neither Christians nor anyone else among men should ever abandon. But I think Chrysippus acted more kindly than Celsus in his Treatise on the Therapy of the Passions, wishing to heal the passions, since they press hard upon and trouble the human soul, relying first of all on the arguments that seemed to him sound, but secondly and thirdly also
on doctrines that do not even please him. "For even if," he says, "there are three kinds of goods, the passions must still be healed in this way, without meticulously scrutinizing, at the moment when the passions are inflamed, the doctrine already held beforehand by the one troubled by the passion, lest, through the ill-timed leisure spent overturning the doctrines that had previously taken hold of the soul, the treatment that was still possible be lost." And he says
That "even if pleasure is the good, and the one mastered by passion believes this too, he must nonetheless be helped, and it must be shown to him that every passion is in disagreement even with those who posit pleasure as the good and the end." Celsus, then, having once granted, in speaking of it, the doctrines concerning those who lived well — that they will be happy — and concerning the unjust — that they will be bound entirely to eternal punishments —
ought consistently with himself to have done the same, and, if it were possible, after the argument that seemed to him primary, to have gone on to build a further case and to demonstrate at greater length that the unjust really will be bound entirely to eternal punishments and that those who lived well will be happy. For we too, first of all, because of the many countless things that have persuaded us to live according to Christianity, wish, so far as we are able, to win over all people with the whole
body of Christian teaching to make it their own. But wherever we find people already gripped in advance by slander against Christians, so that they will not even lend an ear to the notion that Christians are not even pious — because of certain persons who profess to teach the doctrines of the divine word — there, out of love for humanity, we take our stand as far as we are able, so that, even if we do nothing else, by establishing the doctrines concerning eternal punishment for the impious we may bring even
those unwilling to become Christians to accept our reasoning. In the same way we wish to instill conviction also concerning those who have lived well, since we see that many things pertaining to a sound life are said in the same way even by those alien to the faith; for one could not find that they have utterly lost the common notions about what is noble and shameful, and just and unjust. All human beings, then, seeing the world and the
order established within it — the motion of heaven and of the fixed stars, and the arrangement of those called planets, which move in a direction contrary to the motion of the world — and seeing too the blending of the airs suited to the benefit of living creatures, and especially of human beings, and the abundance of the things that have been made for the sake of human beings — let them beware of doing anything displeasing to the maker of the universe and of their own souls
and of the mind within them, and let them be convinced that they will be punished for their sins, and will be brought, in proportion to their right actions, or to the deeds duly rendered, to rewards corresponding to those right actions or duly rendered deeds, by the one who administers to each according to merit; and let all human beings be convinced that they will depart well if they have done better, but that the wicked will be handed over to toils and torments
for their wrongdoings, their licentiousness and intemperance, and further for their cowardice and timidity, and for every form of folly. Having said this much on this point as well, let us look also at another passage of Celsus, which runs as follows: "Since human beings, bound to a body, have come into being — whether for the ordering of the universe, or paying the penalty for sin, or because the soul, weighed down by certain
sufferings, must be purified until it completes its appointed cycles — for, according to Empedocles, it must wander thrice ten thousand seasons away from the blessed, becoming, in the course of time, every kind of mortal form — one must therefore believe that they have been handed over to certain overseers of this prison-house." Observe here too how many matters he raises human doubts about, setting out the doctrines of a good many thinkers concerning the cause of our coming into being,
he shows a certain caution, not daring to declare that any of these things is false. Was it not fitting, then, for such a man, having once judged the matter, neither to assent to it at random nor rashly to set aside what the ancients had held? And concerning the account of the Jews declared by their prophets, and concerning Jesus, even if he was unwilling to believe, he might at least have hesitated and considered how likely it
was that those who served the God of all things, and who for the sake of their honor toward him and toward the things entrusted to them by him had established laws, and had often faced countless dangers and deaths, were not overlooked by God, but that some manifestation had come to them too — men who despised the human craft that goes into making images, but who, when they tried to raise their reasoning up to the God who is over all,
succeeded? What he should instead have weighed is this: the common father and maker of all things, who watches over all and hears all, judging each person's purpose according to its worth — a purpose that seeks him and wishes to be pious — grants to such people as well some fruit of his providence, so that they might increase all the more the conception of him which they had once received. For if Celsus and those who hate
Moses and the prophets among the Jews, and Jesus, and those of his genuine disciples who have suffered for the sake of his teaching, had reasoned in this way, they would not have poured such abuse on Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and his apostles; nor would they, alone among all the nations on earth, have rejected the Jews, calling them worse even than the Egyptians, who, whether out of superstition
or for whatever other cause or error, had at least, so far as lay in them, brought down honor toward the divine even to irrational animals. We have said these things not to urge anyone toward doubt concerning the Christian message, but to show that for those who revile the Christian message in every respect, it would be preferable even to entertain doubt about these matters rather than to speak so recklessly about Jesus or
his disciples about things they do not understand, and to make pronouncements not in accordance with what the Stoics call "cognitive impression," nor by any other criterion, concerning which each philosophical school has constructed what appears to it, as it has seen fit. Then, since Celsus says: "one must therefore believe that they are handed over to certain overseers of this prison," it must be said to him that a serious soul,
once freed from the bonds of wickedness and, in this life, from the bonds of what Jeremiah called "the earth" of prisoners, because of Jesus who spoke — as the prophet Isaiah foretold long before his coming — for what did he foretell but "come out, you prisoners, and you who are in darkness, be revealed"? And this is indeed that Jesus, just as the same Isaiah foretold concerning
him: "upon those seated in a region and shadow of death a light has dawned," so that on account of this we say: "let us break their bonds asunder and cast off from us their yoke." But if Celsus and those disposed like him against us could have heard the depth of the gospels, he would not have advised us to obey those he called overseers of the prison. And it is written,
in the Gospel, that there was "a woman bent double and unable to straighten up completely." Jesus saw her, and seeing why she was bent double, not permitted to straighten up "completely," said: "But this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound, look, eighteen years, was it not necessary that she be loosed from this bond on the
day of the Sabbath?" And how many others now, bound by Satan, are bent double, unable because of him to "straighten up completely," since he wants us to look downward? And no one straightens them upright except the Word who came to dwell in Jesus, and who had also inspired prophets before. And Jesus indeed came to set free "all who were being oppressed by the devil." And
speaking of that one with a depth fitting to him, he said: "Now the ruler of this world has been judged." We do not therefore revile the demons in this realm, but we expose their activities, which work toward the destruction of the human race, since under the pretext of oracles and the healing of bodies and certain other things they wish to separate from God the soul that has fallen into "the body of humiliation"; which
those who have understood it cry out: "Wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from the body of this death?" But it is not without purpose that we offer up our body to be racked and beaten on the wheel; for he does not offer his body to these things without purpose, who is plotted against by the earthbound demons and by those who worship them, on behalf of preventing the demons from being proclaimed gods. And we have indeed considered it dear to God
and reasonable to hold that being beaten to death for the sake of virtue, being racked for the sake of piety, and dying for the sake of holiness are things we have judged reasonable. For "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones"; and we say that not clinging to life is also a good thing. But Celsus, likening us to criminals who reasonably endure what they suffer on account of robbery, and not ashamed to do so, declares so great a purpose as ours to be similar to the disposition of robbers, making himself a brother
in this to those who reckoned Jesus among the lawless. Concerning whom the scripture that says, "He was reckoned among the lawless," has been fulfilled. Next after this Celsus says: reason takes one of two options. If they refuse to worship those set as overseers of the things suited to this life, then they must neither go to a husband nor take a wife nor raise children nor do anything else in life,
but must depart from here altogether, leaving no offspring behind, so that such a race would be utterly wiped from the earth. But if they will marry wives and have children and taste the fruits of the earth and share in the things of this life and endure the evils appointed to it (for it is the nature of things that all men experience evils; for evils must exist of necessity, and there is no other place
for them to go), then they must render the honors due to those who have been entrusted with these things, and perform for this life the services that are fitting, until they are released from their bonds, lest they be seen as ungrateful toward these beings. For it is indeed unjust to share in what these beings provide while contributing nothing to them in return. But we say in reply to this too that no departure seems reasonable to us except that which comes through piety and
virtue alone. Whenever one of the two is put before us by those thought to sit in judgment, or by those who seem to hold power over our life — either to live by acting against what Jesus commanded, or to die by obeying his words. But God has also permitted us to marry, since not everyone makes room for what is superior, that is, what is entirely
pure, and to those who marry, to raise without exception the children born to them and not to destroy the children given by providence. And none of this is at odds with our refusal to obey the demons who have divided the earth among themselves; for having armed ourselves with the full armor of God, we take our stand as champions of piety confronting the tribe of demons that schemes against us. And even if by his own argument Celsus should banish us altogether
from life, so that, as he supposes, our kind might be utterly wiped from the earth, we for our part will order our lives by God's own statutes among the ordinances of him who created us, in no way willing to be enslaved to the laws of sin. And we will take wives, if we wish, and receive the children given to us in our marriages. And if need be, we will also
take part in the affairs of life, enduring the hardships laid upon us as trials of the soul. For this is the customary way the divine scriptures name what happens among human beings: circumstances in which the soul of a person, tested like gold in fire, is either exposed or shown to be admirable. And it is for the very evils Celsus speaks of that we have so prepared ourselves that we even say: "Examine me, Lord,
and test me; try my kidneys and my heart." For indeed no one "is crowned unless he competes lawfully," here, on earth, in the body of "humiliation." Beyond this, we do not render the honors thought due to those whom Celsus says have been entrusted with the affairs here below. For it is the "Lord" our "God" whom we worship, and him "alone" we serve, praying to become imitators
of Christ, who, to the devil who said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me," replied, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone you shall serve." And for this reason we do not render the honors thought due to those whom Celsus says have been entrusted with the affairs here below, since "no one can serve two masters," and we cannot at once "serve God and
mammon," whether that is called one thing or several. But if, by "transgressing the law," one dishonors the lawgiver, this much appears plain to us: since two laws stand opposed to one another, that of God set against that belonging to mammon, it is the better course, in transgressing mammon's law, to dishonor mammon, so that by
keeping the law of God we may honor God, rather than dishonoring God by transgressing his law, so that by keeping the law of mammon we might honor mammon. Celsus, then, thinks he is rendering the proper service to life until people are freed from their bonds, whenever, according to what is customary among the many, one offers sacrifices to each of
the gods reckoned according to city, not understanding what is truly fitting as grasped by exact piety. But we say that the one who serves life properly is the one who remembers who the maker is and what things are dear to him, and who does everything with a view to what is dear to God. And again, Celsus does not want us to be ungrateful toward the local daemons,
supposing that thank-offerings are owed to them by us. Yet we, spelling out plainly our doctrine of gratitude, say that toward those who confer no benefit but rather stand opposed to us, we do nothing ungrateful when we do not sacrifice to them nor pay them service. Rather, it is toward God that we take care not to be ungrateful, since we are full of his benefits, being both his creations and objects of his providence,
judged by him to exist in whatever way we do, and awaiting from him our hopes even beyond this life. And we have as a symbol of our thanksgiving toward God the bread called "the eucharist." But the daemons do not, as we said above, have charge of the things created for our needs; hence we do no wrong in partaking of what is created while not sacrificing to those
to whom it does not belong. And even if we should suppose them to be, not daemons, but angels set in charge over the earth's produce and the coming-to-be of animals, we speak well of them and call them blessed, since they have been entrusted by God with what is useful to our race; yet we do not assign to these the honor owed to God, for neither does God wish this, nor do
they themselves who have been entrusted with such offices. And indeed they approve of us when we refrain from sacrificing to them, or even when we do sacrifice; for they have no need of the vapors rising from the earth. After this Celsus says the following: that indeed among these things, down to the smallest, authority is given to one or another. One may learn this from what the Egyptians say:
that having divided the human body into thirty-six parts, certain daemons or ethereal gods (some say there are far more) have been assigned, each one to govern some part of it. And they know the names of these daemons in the local tongue, such as Chnoumen and Chnachoumen and Knat and Sikat and Biou and Erou and Erebiou and Ramanor and Reianoor, and whatever other names they call them by in their own language; and
by invoking these they heal the afflictions of the several parts. What, then, prevents someone who pays court to these and to the others, if he wishes, from being healthy rather than sick, and fortunate rather than unfortunate, and from being freed, as far as possible, from torments and punishments? And by these arguments Celsus, trying to draw our soul down
to the daemons, declaring that they have obtained our bodies by lot and that each one presides over a part of our body, wants us to believe the deities he speaks of and to serve them, so that we may be healthy rather than sick, and fortunate rather than unfortunate, and, so far as possible, freed from torments — and thereby he has so far condemned the undivided and indivisible honor owed to the God of the universe, that he does not
believing that God alone, when worshipped and glorified aloud, is sufficient to furnish the one who honors him, out of his very act of reverence, with a power that wards off the demons' plotting against the holy man — for he has not seen how the name of Jesus, when invoked by those who believe genuinely, has healed not a few people of diseases, demonic possessions, and other afflictions. It is likely that
the one who embraces Celsus's arguments will laugh when we say that "in Jesus' name every knee shall bend, of beings heavenly, earthly, and beneath the earth, and every tongue shall openly own Jesus Christ as Lord, unto the honor belonging to God the Father"; yet having laughed, he will accept as sounder demonstrations that these things stand thus, the stories he tells of the names Chnoumen and Chnachoumen and Knat
and Sikat and the rest of the Egyptian catalogue, on the grounds that they are invoked and heal the afflictions of the various bodily parts. And observe how, while turning us away from believing in the God of all things through Jesus Christ, he summons us to faith in thirty-six barbarian demons for the healing of our body — demons which only the magicians of Egypt invoke, and I do not
know how they promise us anything better by doing so. It is time, then, on Celsus's reckoning, for us to practice sorcery and wizardry rather than to be Christians, and to put our trust in a countless multitude of demons rather than in the God who is manifest of himself, living and evident, the God over all, through the one who by great power has sown the pure word of the reverence of God throughout the whole inhabited world of men. And I will not lie by
adding and saying that the same is true of other rational beings who need correction, healing, and a change away from wickedness. Celsus, then, suspecting the slide into magic on the part of those who have learned such things, and being somewhat aware of the harm that will come to his hearers, says: this, however, must be guarded against — that no one who associates with these beings, becoming absorbed in the ritual attendance upon them, should, having grown attached to the body
and turned away from the better things, be seized by forgetfulness. For it is perhaps necessary not to disbelieve wise men, who claim that the greater part of the earthbound demons, being fused to the process of coming-into-being and nailed fast to blood and the savor of sacrifice and to melodies and certain other such things, could be capable of nothing better than healing a body and foretelling the coming fortune of a man or a city, and whatever else
concerns mortal affairs — these things they know and are able to do. Since, then, so great a slide lies about this subject — as even the enemy bears witness to the truth of God — how much better it is, without any such suspicion, instead of becoming absorbed in such demons, or growing attached to the body and turning away from the better things and being seized by forgetfulness of them, to entrust oneself to the God over all, through
Jesus Christ, who has laid down for us this teaching, and to ask from him all help and the guarding protection of holy angels and righteous men, that they may deliver us from the earthbound demons, fused to the process of coming-into-being, nailed fast to blood and the savor of sacrifice, led about by outlandish melodies, and bound to certain other such things — demons which, admittedly, even on Celsus's own reckoning, are capable of nothing better than
...to heal the body. But I would say that it is not even clear that these daimons, however they are cattered to, are able to heal bodies. Rather, the healing of bodies must be carried out—if one wishes to live a simpler and more common life—by the medical approach; but if one wishes to live better than the many, by piety toward the God over all and by prayers to
him. For you yourself should consider, on your own, which character the God over all is more likely to welcome—since he is able to do what no one else can, for everything, and for the benefit of human beings, whether concerning the soul or the body or external things—whether it is the one who has devoted himself to him in all things, or the one who busies himself with the names, powers, and deeds of daimons, and with incantations, and
herbs proper to daimons, and stones and the engravings on them, matched to the forms—whether symbolic or however they are—that are handed down for daimons. But it is clear to anyone able to follow even a little that the unaffected and uncontrived character, precisely because it is devoted to the God over all, will be acceptable to God and to all who are made his own; whereas the character that, for the sake of bodily health
and love of the body and success in the midst of worldly affairs, busies itself with and seeks out the names of daimons—how will it charm the daimons with certain incantations?—since God will abandon it, as base and impious and more demonic than human, to the very daimons it has chosen when it utters such things, to be torn apart by the reasonings that each of them insinuates, or by other evils as well. For it is likely that they, being base,
and, as Celsus himself admitted, riveted to blood and the savor of fat and melodies and certain other such things, do not even keep faith—so to speak, a pledged right hand—with those who gratify them with these. For when others call upon them, against the very ones who have served them, and purchase their servitude with more blood and fat and whatever service they require, they would plot against the one who served them just yesterday and shared with them their beloved
feast. Celsus, having said many things before this, sent us as far as the oracles and their divinatory shrines, as though to gods; but now he has done something better, admitting that those who foretell coming fortune for a man or a city, and all who are earthbound daimons concerned with mortal affairs, are fused to their birth-genesis and riveted to blood and the savor of fat and melodies and certain other such things,
bound fast, able to do nothing greater than these. And it is likely that, when we stood against Celsus as he theologized the oracles and the forms of service among those reckoned gods, someone supposed us impious for saying these were the works of daimons dragging down the souls of human beings into the affairs of birth-genesis; but now let the one who supposed this about us be persuaded by the things rightly said, as proclaimed by Christians,
seeing that even the very man who writes these things against Christians has now, at the end, as though overcome by the spirit of truth, written them down. So then, even if Celsus says we must show some deference to these things, insofar as it is expedient—for reason does not allow doing this in every respect—we must not show deference to daimons fused with the savor of fat and with blood, nor, so far as lies in our power, defile the divine by dragging it down to base daimons. If
But if Celsus had grasped precisely the notion of what is beneficial, and had seen that what is beneficial in the proper sense is virtue and action in accordance with virtue, he would not have applied the phrase "to the extent that it is beneficial" to such beings — beings which, as he himself admitted, are demons. We, then, choose: if health and good fortune in the affairs of life were bound to come to us through the service of such demons, we would rather be sick
and unfortunate in the affairs of life while keeping a conscience purely pious toward the God of all things, than be healthy in body and enjoy greater good fortune in the affairs of life while being split off and fallen away from God, and while the soul is diseased and ill-starred in the utmost degree. And one must draw near to him who is in need of nothing whatsoever except the salvation of human beings and of every rational being — not to those who crave the savor of fat
and blood. Celsus, then, I think, after so many words he has spoken about demons needing the savor of fat and blood, as if coming round to a recantation of his own error, says that we ought rather to suppose that the demons need nothing at all and want for nothing, but rejoice in those who act piously toward them. But if he thought this to be true, he ought not to have set down those earlier statements, but to have struck them out. But
in fact human nature is not utterly abandoned by God and by the truth that is his only-begotten. That is why Celsus, in his discussion of the savor of fat and blood which the demons need, spoke the truth at one point; and then again, through his own wickedness, slipped down into falsehoods, and makes the demons out to be like men who do righteous deeds in a wholly just manner even though no one shows them any gratitude for it.
But in fact they do good to those who repay them with gratitude. It seems to me that on this point he is confused, saying at one moment that our governing faculty is thrown into disorder by the demons, and at another that, sobering up from the irrationality caused by them, it sees a little of the truth for a moment. For again he adds: "One must never, in any way, abandon God, neither by day nor by night, neither"
in public nor in private, but in every word and deed continually. But indeed, whether in company with these things or apart from them, let the soul always be stretched out toward God." I take "in company with these things" to mean: in company with public life, and with every deed, and with every word. Then again, as though wrestling in his reasoning against the fits of frenzy caused by the demons,
and mostly getting the worse of it, he adds and says: "If this is how things stand, what is so terrible about propitiating the rulers here below — the other powers, and among men the potentates and kings as well, since even these have not been allotted their place here without demonic power?" In the passages above, then, as far as lay in his own power, he was dragging our soul down toward the demons; but now he wants us
to propitiate the potentates and kings among men as well — of whom, since life and the history books are full, I have not thought it necessary here to set out examples. We must, then, propitiate the one God who is over all, and pray that he be gracious to us, being made gracious by piety and every virtue. But if he also wants us to propitiate certain others besides the God who is over all, let him consider that, just as...
Just as the motion of a shadow follows the moving body, in the same way, when the God who is over all is made propitious, it follows that all his friends—angels, souls, and spirits—become propitious to us as well. For they perceive along with him those who are worthy of God's favor, and they not only become favorable themselves toward the worthy, but also work together with those who wish to
worship the God who is over all: they are made propitious, they join in prayer, and they join in petitioning together—so that we dare to say that for people who, by deliberate choice, set the better things before themselves and pray to God, countless holy powers, unbidden, pray along with them, coming to the aid of our perishable race and, so to speak, sharing its anguish because of the demons they see arrayed and contending against the salvation especially of those who have dedicated themselves to God and give no
thought to the hostility of the demons, should those demons grow savage against a person—a person who flees their worship by means of fatty smoke and blood, and who by every means of word and deed hastens to make himself akin to, and united with, the God who is over all, through Jesus, who overthrew countless demons when he went about "healing" and turning back "those oppressed by the devil." We, however, must hold in contempt the propitiation
of human beings and kings—not only when we would win their favor through bloody murders, debauchery, and the most savage acts, but also when we would do so through impiety toward the God of the universe, or through some servile and abject speech that is foreign to men of courage and greatness of soul, men who are willing to take up endurance, as the greatest virtue, along with the rest. Yet in this we do nothing contrary to the law and
word of God; we are not mad, nor do we set ourselves in motion to stir up against ourselves the wrath of a king or ruler, bringing upon ourselves outrages, torments, or even deaths. For we have read also this: "Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God; so that whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God" and
stands against it. In our commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans, so far as it was possible for us, we examined these very words at greater length and in various ways; but here, for the present purpose, we have taken them up more simply, according to the more common interpretation, since Celsus says that these men too were not deemed worthy of their position in this world apart from demonic power. And since there was much to say about
the establishment of kings and rulers, and much inquiry was called for on this point on account of those who have ruled more savagely and tyrannically, or who, from ruling, have run aground upon dissipation and luxury, for this reason we have for the present deferred examining the problem. We do not, however, swear by the Fortune of the king, any more than by any other supposed god. For whether, as some have named it,
Fortune is merely an expression for what appears and for the way things stand, we do not swear by that which in no way exists as though it were a god, or as though it were something wholly subsistent and capable of doing anything, lest we take up the power of an oath for things we ought not to; or whether, as it has seemed to some who say that those who swear by his Fortune swear by the demon of the Roman emperor, the so-called Fortune of the emperor is a demon, and
So we must rather die than swear by a wicked and untrustworthy daemon, one who often sins along with the man to whose lot he has fallen, or even sins more than that man does. Then again Celsus, like those who sometimes rally from a fit of demon-possession and then again collapse, saying something as if he were sober, speaks in this vein: 'If, however, someone orders a person — say, one who is worshiping a god — either to act impiously or to say something else shameful...'
'...shameful, one must in no way whatsoever believe it, but before doing so must hold out under every torture and endure every kind of death, rather than — I will not say say, but even give a thought to — anything unholy concerning God.' Then again, out of ignorance about our doctrine, and besides that out of a habit of muddling everything together, he says things of this sort: 'But if someone orders you to speak well of the Sun or of...'
'...Athena, be most eager to speak well of them too, with a fine hymn of praise; for in this way you will seem to revere the great God all the more, if you also sing hymns to these as well; for piety toward God, carried through all things, becomes the more complete.' We say, then, that we do not wait for the Sun to command us before we speak well of it — we who have learned to speak well not only of those set beneath the [divine] ordinance but also of our enemies. We speak well of the Sun, then, as a fine work of God...
'...and one that keeps the laws of God and hearkens to "Praise the Lord, sun and moon," and, to the extent of its power, hymns the Father and Maker of the universe. Athena, however, ranked together with the Sun, the myths of the Greeks fashioned into a story, whether speaking with hidden meanings or without them, declaring that she was born fully armed from the head of Zeus; and that she was then pursued by...'
'...Hephaestus, who wished to violate her virginity; that he failed to catch her, and that she, when his seed fell to the ground out of his desire, took it in with affection and raised it, calling it Erichthonius — "whom once," they say, "Athena reared, the daughter of Zeus, and the grain-giving earth bore him." And we see that for the one who accepts Athena as the daughter of Zeus, many myths and fabrications must also be accepted along with her — myths that a person who flees...'
'...myths but seeks the truth would not accept. And in order that she may also be given a figurative reading, and be said to be Wisdom — that is, Athena — let someone set forth her subsistence and essence, as existing according to this figurative reading. But if Athena, having once been some ancient woman, has been honored — with those who wished her name to be sung among men as a god's having handed down mysteries and initiation rites to their subjects...'
'...far more, then, one ought not to hymn Athena or glorify her as a god, if indeed it is not even lawful for us to worship so great a thing as the Sun, even while we speak well of it.' Celsus, then, says that we would seem to honor the great God more if we also hymn the Sun and Athena, but we know the opposite: for we address our hymns to God alone, who is over all, and...
'...to his only-begotten God, the Word. And indeed we hymn God and his only-begotten, just as the whole heavenly host does — "the moon and sun" and "the stars" alike. For all these, being a divine chorus, together with the righteous among men, hymn the God who is over all and his only-begotten. Now we have already said earlier that one must not swear by the king among men...'
or his so-called fortune. For that reason we have no need to defend ourselves again against the point that even if some human king should order you to swear an oath, this too is nothing terrible. For to him have been given the things on earth, and whatever you receive in life, you receive from him. But we say that the things on earth have not all been given to him without qualification, nor is it the case that whatever
we receive in life, we receive from him. For when we receive rightly and well, we receive from God and his providence — for instance, the cultivated fruits and bread, which "strengthens the heart of man," and the pleasant vine and the wine that "gladdens the heart of man." And also the fruits of the olive we have from the providence of God, "to make the face shine with
oil." Next Celsus says that one must not disbelieve a man of old, who long ago declared: "Let there be one king, to whom the son of crooked-counseled Cronus gave" the scepter. And he adds that if you dissolve this maxim, the king will justly take vengeance on you. For if everyone did the same as you, nothing would prevent him from being left alone and desolate, and the things on earth from falling to
the most lawless and savage barbarians, and no renown for either your religion or true wisdom would any longer be left among men. Let there indeed be one ruler, one king — not the one to whom the son of crooked-counseled Cronus gave the scepter, but the one to whom he gave it who sets up "kings and" removes them, and raises up the one who is useful in due season upon the earth. And it is not the son
of the one cast down into Tartarus, as the myths of the Greeks say, who, having driven him from his rule, establishes kings — nor need one allegorize the matters concerning these regions — but rather the God who administers all things knows what he is doing at any given time in the matter of the establishment of kings. We therefore dissolve the maxim: "to whom the son of crooked-counseled Cronus gave" the scepter, since we are persuaded that neither crooked nor devious is the will of
God, or the Father of God. But we do not dissolve the doctrine concerning providence and the things that come to be through it, whether as its primary intention or as consequences following upon other things. Nor would a king reasonably take vengeance on us for saying that it was not the son of crooked-counseled Cronus who gave him his kingship, but rather the one who removes "kings and" establishes them. And let everyone do the same as I do, in this respect:
dissolving the Homeric maxim while keeping the divine teaching concerning the king, and observing the precept "honor the king." And in such a case, the king will neither be left alone, nor will he be desolate, nor will the things on earth fall to the most lawless and savage barbarians. For if, as Celsus says, everyone did the same as I do, clearly even the
barbarians, once they draw near to God's word, will turn most law-abiding and most gentle; and every other religion will be dissolved, and only that of the Christians will prevail — the one that indeed alone will one day prevail, since the word ever gains for itself more souls. Then Celsus, not listening to himself, having said things inconsistent with "for if everyone did the same as you," says: "but surely you will not say this." As though—
if Romans, persuaded by you, should neglect their customary observances toward gods and men and call upon your Most High—or whomever you wish—he will come down and fight on their behalf, and no other strength will be needed. For indeed the same god, in earlier times, promising these things and far greater things than these, as you yourselves say, to those devoted to him—see how much he benefited both them and you.
of whom, instead of being masters of the whole earth, not a single clod of soil or a hearth remains; while of you, even if someone still escapes notice while wandering about, he is nevertheless hunted down to face the death penalty. Since he asks hypothetically whether, if the Romans, persuaded by the teaching of the Christians, having neglected the customarily recognized gods and the earlier laws concerning human affairs, should worship the Most High—
what would come of it? Hear what we hold to be true about this. We say that, if indeed—"if two" of us "agree on earth about any matter, whatever they ask will be done for them" by the Father "in heaven"—of the righteous, for God takes pleasure in harmony among beings endowed with reason, and shrinks from discord itself—what must we think, if not only
very few agree now, but the whole empire ruled by the Romans? For they will pray to the one who also once said to the Hebrews when they were being pursued by the Egyptians, "The Lord will fight on your behalf, and you shall be silent"; and having prayed in complete unanimity, they will be able to overcome far more numerous pursuing enemies than those whom the prayer of Moses, crying out to God, and of those with him, destroyed.
But if the things God promised to those keeping the law have not come about, this is not because God lies, but because the promises rested on covenants—covenants concerning observance of the law and a life shaped by the law. And if neither clod of soil nor hearth remains to the Jews, who received the promises on the basis of covenants, one must blame
the whole of their lawlessness, and especially their offense against Jesus. But as for those Romans who, on Celsus's hypothesis, would all be persuaded and, praying, would either overcome their enemies or not be warred upon at all, guarded by a divine power that had pledged, for the sake of fifty righteous men, to keep five whole cities from ruin—for the men of God are a preserving salt for the arrangements of things on earth, and
the things on earth hold together only so long as the salt is not spoiled; "for if the salt loses its savor," it is "no longer of use, neither for the earth nor for the manure heap," but "being thrown out" it will be trampled underfoot "by men." "Let the one who has ears hear" how these things are said. And we too, when God permits the tempter, giving him authority to persecute us, are persecuted; but when
God does not want us to suffer this, then even in a world that hates us we unexpectedly have peace and take courage in him who said, "Take courage, I have conquered the world." And he has truly conquered "the world"; therefore the world has strength only to the extent that he, having conquered it, allows, having received from the Father the power to conquer "the world." And we take courage in his victory. If
But if he wants us again to strive and contend for piety, let opponents come forward, against whom we will say: "I have strength for all things in Christ Jesus our Lord, who empowers me." For indeed, when two sparrows are sold, as scripture named it, for "an assarion," "not one falls into a snare without the Father who is in the heavens." And to such an extent does divine providence embrace all things, that
not even the hairs "of our head" have escaped being numbered by him. Then again, as is Celsus's habit, he muddles things in what follows, saying things that none of us has ever written; for he speaks as follows: nor indeed is that tolerable which you say, that if our present rulers, persuaded by you, are captured, you will persuade those who rule in turn, and then others, if those too are captured, and
others upon others, until, when all who are persuaded by you have been captured, some ruling power that has come to its senses and foreseen what would happen will destroy all of you utterly, root and branch, before it is itself destroyed first. It is not reasonable to speak of these things, for none of us says concerning the present rulers that, if they are persuaded and captured, we will again persuade those after them, and when those too are captured, we will again persuade those who follow.
And where did he even fling out the idea that, by a succession of ever-later people being persuaded by us and captured because they fail to defend themselves against enemies, some ruling power that has come to its senses and foreseen what would happen will destroy us utterly, root and branch? But he seems to be stringing together absurdities one after another and to have blurted this out on his own authority. After this, having voiced a certain wish, namely: if indeed it were possible
for the Greeks and barbarians throughout Asia and Europe and Libya, scattered to the ends of the earth, to come to agreement under one law, having judged this to be impossible he adds that whoever supposes so knows nothing. But if this too must be addressed, a few things will be said on the topic, though it requires much examination and elaboration, in order to show that what is said is not only possible but also true
concerning every rational being coming to agreement under one law. Now those of the Stoa, once the stronger of the elements has prevailed as far as possible, say there will be a conflagration, as all things change into fire; but we say that the Word will at some point master the whole rational nature and transform every soul into his own perfection, once each person, exercising his bare power of choice,
chooses what he wishes and comes to be in what he has chosen; and we say that it is not likely, just as in the case of bodily diseases and wounds, that some of the things that occur are stronger than the whole art of medicine, that likewise in the case of souls there is something arising from wickedness that cannot be healed by the Reason and God who is over all things. For being
more powerful than all the evils in the soul, the Word, and the healing that is in him, applies itself to each person according to the will of God, and the end of things is that wickedness be abolished; but whether it is abolished in such a way that it can never in any way be permitted to arise again or not, it is not for the present discussion to teach. Many, then, are the prophecies concerning the complete abolition of evils and
the correction of every soul is spoken of in secret sayings, but for the present it is enough to set down the text from Zephaniah, which runs as follows: "Prepare yourself, rise early; all their gleanings are destroyed. Therefore wait for me, says the LORD, until the day of my rising up as a witness; for my judgment is to gather the nations, to receive kings, to pour out upon them all my fierce anger,"
for the whole earth shall be consumed in the fire of my jealousy. For then I will change over upon the peoples a tongue for her generation, so that everyone may invoke the LORD's name and serve him beneath a single yoke. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia they will bring me offerings. In that day you shall not be put to shame for all the deeds by which you have sinned impiously against me; for
then I will remove from you the disdainful acts of your arrogance, and you shall no longer boast proudly upon my holy mountain. And I will leave in you a meek and humble people, and the remnant of Israel shall stand in awe of the name of the LORD, and they shall do no wrong and speak no vain things, and there shall not be found in their mouth
a deceitful tongue; because they themselves shall graze and take their rest, with no one left to make them afraid." Let whoever is able set forth an understanding of the whole clarity of this prophecy, and let him examine above all what it means that, when the whole earth is consumed, "a tongue is turned to the peoples for her generation," corresponding to the state of affairs before the confusion of tongues; and let him consider what it means that all "should call upon"
the LORD's name, so as to be his servants beneath a single yoke," so that "the disdainful acts of arrogance" are taken away, and there is no longer any "wrongdoing," nor vain words, nor a deceitful tongue. These things it seemed to me fitting to set down moderately, and not with a precise exposition, on account of Celsus's statement, since he thinks it impossible for the Greeks and barbarians who inhabit Asia, Europe, and Libya to come to agreement.
And perhaps it is indeed true that such a thing is impossible for those still in bodies, yet it is not impossible for those who have been released from them. Then next Celsus urges us to help the emperor with all our strength, and to labor together with him for what is just, and to fight on his side, and to serve as soldiers with him if he presses us, and to hold command jointly with him. To this too we must reply that we do at the proper time offer
to emperors a divine help, so to speak, taking up the "whole armor" of God. And we do this in obedience to the apostolic voice which says: "I urge you therefore first of all to make petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all people, for kings and all who are in positions of authority." And the more pious a person is, the more effective he is in helping those who rule than are the soldiers
who go out to the battle lines and kill as many enemy soldiers as they are able. And further, we would say this too to those outside the faith who ask us to fight on behalf of the common good and to kill human beings: that your own priests of certain images and the temple-wardens of the gods you recognize keep their right hand unstained for the sake of the sacrifices, so that with unbloodied hands
and offer the customary sacrifices, with hands clean of bloodshed, to the gods you speak of; and surely you do not, when war breaks out, also conscript the priests into military service. If, then, this is done reasonably, how much more, when others are serving as soldiers, do these men also serve as soldiers—as priests and attendants of God—keeping their right hands clean while they contend, through prayers offered to God, on behalf of those who serve justly in the army,
and on behalf of the one who reigns justly, so that everything hostile and opposed to those who act justly may be brought down? We, by our prayers, overthrow all the demons who stir up wars, who violate oaths, and who disturb the peace; and in doing so we give more help to those who rule than do those who seem to be soldiering. We labor together for the common good, we who offer up our prayers with righteousness, together with the disciplines and
the exercises that train us to scorn pleasures rather than be governed by them. We fight for the king all the more; and although we do not campaign alongside him, even when he presses for it, we do wage war for his sake, assembling our own encampment of piety through our prayers to the divine. And if Celsus also wishes us to serve as generals for our homeland, he should know that we do this as well, though not for the sake of being watched
by men and to gain empty glory from doing so; for in secret, in the very seat of our governing faculty, prayers are offered, sent up as if by priests, on behalf of our fellow citizens. Christians benefit their countries more than do the rest of mankind, since they instruct the citizens and teach them to be pious toward the God of the city, and they take up into a certain divine
and heavenly city those who have lived well in the smallest of cities; to such a one it might be said: in the smallest city "you proved faithful," come now also into the great one, where "God has taken his stand in the assembly of the gods, and in their midst he judges the gods," and he numbers you among them, provided you no longer die as a mere man, nor fall "like one of the princes." Celsus also urges us
to take up rule over our country, if it should also be necessary to do this for the preservation of the laws and of piety. But we, in each city, recognizing a different system of "country," founded by the word of God, urge those who are capable in speech and of sound life to take up rule—rule over the churches; not welcoming the power-hungry, yet compelling by force those who, out of great modesty, are unwilling rashly to take upon themselves the common care of
the church of God; and those among us who rule well do so under compulsion, constrained by the great King, whom we are persuaded to be the Son of God, the Word, God. And if those who rule well hold rule in the church of the country that is according to God—I mean the church—whether they are said to rule, or are compelled to, they rule according to what has been ordained by God, and in this they defile none of the established laws.
And Christians, far from shirking the ordinary public duties of life, do not avoid such things at all; rather, reserving themselves for a more sacred and more essential service—that of God's church, directed toward saving mankind—they govern both out of necessity and with justice, caring for everyone: for those inside, so that they may live better each day, and for those who appear to be outside, so that they may come to belong among the honorable
of true worship of God in word and deed, and so, worshiping God in truth and teaching many others to the extent of their power, they may be blended together with the word of God and the divine law, and thus be united to the God who is over all through his Son who unites them to him — at once Word, Wisdom, Truth, and Righteousness of God — every one who is turned toward living, in all things, according to God. You have,
then, in these books, holy Ambrose, the completion, so far as our present strength allows and as was granted to us, of what you enjoined. And we have set down within eight books everything that we judged fitting to dictate against the work entitled the True Word of Celsus. It falls to the reader to take up his treatise together with what we have dictated against it, and to judge which of the two breathes more of the true God
and of the manner of piety owed to him, and of sound teachings reaching toward humankind that urge them on to the best life of truth. Know, however, that Celsus promises to compose another treatise after this one, in which he has undertaken to teach how those who wish and are able to be persuaded by him ought to live. If, then, he did not write the second discourse he promised, it would be well for us
to be content with the eight books dictated against his discourse; but if he did begin that one too and brought it to completion, seek it out and send us the work, so that, dictating a reply to that as well — whatever the Father of truth may grant us — we may overturn the false opinion contained in it, while wherever something true is said, we may bear witness to it without contentiousness, as something well spoken.