Chapter 23

ChapterLXV.

And since Jesus, in teaching His disciples not to be guilty of rashness, gave them the precept, “If they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another; and if they persecute you in the other, flee again into a third,”[1243]to which teaching He added the example of a consistent life, acting so as not to expose Himself to danger rashly, or unseasonably, or without good grounds; from this Celsus takes occasion to bring a malicious and slanderous accusation,—the Jew whom he brings forward saying to Jesus, “In company with your disciples you go and hide yourself in different places.” Now similar to what has thus been made the ground of a slanderous charge against Jesus and His disciples, do we say was the conduct recorded of Aristotle. This philosopher, seeing that a court was about to be summoned to try him, on the ground of his being guilty of impiety on account of certain of his philosophical tenets which the Athenians regarded as impious, withdrew from Athens, and fixed his school in Chalcis, defending his course of procedure to his friends by saying, “Let us depart from Athens, that we may not give the Athenians a handle for incurring guilt a second time, as formerly in the case of Socrates, and so prevent them from committing a second act of impiety against philosophy.” He further says, “that Jesus went about with his disciples, and obtained his livelihood in a disgraceful and importunate manner.” Let him show wherein lay the disgraceful and importunate element in their manner of subsistence. For it is related in the Gospels, that there were certain women who had been healed of their diseases, among whom also was Susanna, who from their own possessions afforded the disciples the means of support. And who is there among philosophers, that, when devoting himself to the service of his acquaintances, is not in the habit of receiving from them what is needful for his wants? Or is it only in them that such acts are proper and becoming; but when the disciples of Jesus do the same, they are accused by Celsus of obtaining their livelihood by disgraceful importunity?

ChapterLXVI.

And in addition to the above, this Jew of Celsus afterwards addresses Jesus: “What need, moreover, was there that you, while still an infant, should be conveyed into Egypt? Was it to escape being murdered? But then it was not likely that a God should be afraid of death; and yet an angel came down from heaven, commanding you and your friends to flee, lest ye should be captured and put to death! And was not the great God, who had already sent two angels on your account, able to keep you, His only Son, there in safety?” From these words Celsus seems to think that there was no element of divinity in the human body and soul of Jesus, but that His body was not even such as is described in the fables of Homer; and with a taunt also at the blood of Jesus which was shed upon the cross, he adds that it was not

“Ichor, such as flows in the veins of the blessed gods.”[1244]

We now, believing Jesus Himself, when He says respecting His divinity, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,”[1245]and employs other terms of similar import; and when He says respecting His being clothed with a human body, “And now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth,”[1246]conclude that He was a kind of compound being. And so it became Him who was making provision for His sojourning in the world as a human being, not to expose Himself unseasonably to the danger of death. And in like manner it was necessary that He should be taken away by His parents, acting under the instructions of an angel from heaven, who communicated to them the divine will, saying on the first occasion, “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost;”[1247]and on the second, “Arise, and take the young child, and His mother, and flee into Egypt; and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy Him.”[1248]Now, what is recorded inthese words appears to me to be not at all marvellous. For in either passage of Scripture it is stated that it was in a dream that the angel spoke these words; and that in a dream certain persons may have certain things pointed out to them to do, is an event of frequent occurrence to many individuals,—the impression on the mind being produced either by an angel or by some other thing. Where, then, is the absurdity in believing that He who had once become incarnate, should be led also by human guidance to keep out of the way of dangers? Not indeed from any impossibility that it should be otherwise, but from the moral fitness that ways and means should be made use of to ensure the safety of Jesus. And it was certainly better that the child Jesus should escape the snare of Herod, and should reside with His parents in Egypt until the death of the conspirator, than that Divine Providence should hinder the free will of Herod in his wish to put the child to death, or that the fabled poetic helmet of Hades should have been employed, or anything of a similar kind done with respect to Jesus, or that they who came to destroy Him should have been smitten with blindness like the people of Sodom. For the sending of help to Him in a very miraculous and unnecessarily public manner, would not have been of any service to Him who wished to show that as a man, to whom witness was borne by God, He possessed within that form which was seen by the eyes of men some higher element of divinity,—that which was properly the Son of God—God the Word—the power of God, and the wisdom of God—He who is called the Christ. But this is not a suitable occasion for discussing the composite nature of the incarnate Jesus; the investigation into such a subject being for believers, so to speak, a sort of private question.

After the above, this Jew of Celsus, as if he were a Greek who loved learning, and were well instructed in Greek literature, continues: “The old mythological fables, which attributed a divine origin to Perseus, and Amphion, and Æacus,and Minos, were not believed by us. Nevertheless, that they might not appear unworthy of credit, they represented the deeds of these personages as great and wonderful, and truly beyond the power of man; but what hast thou done that is noble or wonderful either in deed or in word? Thou hast made no manifestation to us, although they challenged you in the temple to exhibit some unmistakeable sign that you were the Son of God.” In reply to which we have to say: Let the Greeks show to us, among those who have been enumerated, any one whose deeds have been marked by a utility and splendour extending to after generations, and which have been so great as to produce a belief in the fables which represented them as of divine descent. But these Greeks can show us nothing regarding those men of whom they speak, which is even inferior by a great degree to what Jesus did; unless they take us back to their fables and histories, wishing us to believe them without any reasonable grounds, and to discredit the Gospel accounts even after the clearest evidence. For we assert that the whole habitable world contains evidence of the works of Jesus, in the existence of those churches of God which have been founded through Him by those who have been converted from the practice of innumerable sins. And the name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of men, and expel demons, and also take away diseases; and produce a marvellous meekness of spirit and complete change of character, and a humanity, and goodness, and gentleness in those individuals who do not feign themselves to be Christians for the sake of subsistence or the supply of any mortal wants, but who have honestly accepted the doctrine concerning God and Christ, and the judgment to come.

But after this, Celsus, having a suspicion that the great works performed by Jesus, of which we have named a few out of a great number, would be brought forward to view, affects to grant that those statements may be true which aremade regarding His cures, or His resurrection, or the feeding of a multitude with a few loaves, from which many fragments remained over, or those other stories which Celsus thinks the disciples have recorded as of a marvellous nature; and he adds: “Well, let us believe that these were actually wrought by you.” But then he immediately compares them to the tricks of jugglers, who profess to do more wonderful things, and to the feats performed by those who have been taught by Egyptians, who in the middle of the market-place, in return for a few obols, will impart the knowledge of their most venerated arts, and will expel demons from men, and dispel diseases, and invoke the souls of heroes, and exhibit expensive banquets, and tables, and dishes, and dainties having no real existence, and who will put in motion, as if alive, what are not really living animals, but which have only the appearance of life. And he asks, “Since, then, these persons can perform such feats, shall we of necessity conclude that they are ‘sons of God,’ or must we admit that they are the proceedings of wicked men under the influence of an evil spirit?” You see that by these expressions he allows, as it were, the existence of magic. I do not know, however, if he is the same who wrote several books against it. But, as it helped his purpose, he compares the [miracles] related of Jesus to the results produced by magic. There would indeed be a resemblance between them, if Jesus, like the dealers in magical arts, had performed His works only for show; but now there is not a single juggler who, by means of his proceedings, invites his spectators to reform their manners, or trains those to the fear of God who are amazed at what they see, nor who tries to persuade them so to live as men who are to be justified[1249]by God. And jugglers do none of these things, because they have neither the power nor the will, nor any desire to busy themselves about the reformation of men, inasmuch as their own lives are full of the grossest and most notorious sins. But how should not He who, by the miracles which He did, induced those who beheld the excellent results to undertake the reformation of their characters, manifestHimself not only to His genuine disciples, but also to others as a pattern of most virtuous life, in order that His disciples might devote themselves to the work of instructing men in the will of God, and that the others, after being more fully instructed by His word and character than by His miracles, as to how they were to direct their lives, might in all their conduct have a constant reference to the good pleasure of the universal God? And if such were the life of Jesus, how could any one with reason compare Him with the sect of impostors, and not, on the contrary, believe, according to the promise, that He was God, who appeared in human form to do good to our race?

After this, Celsus, confusing together the Christian doctrine and the opinions of some heretical sect, and bringing them forward as charges that were applicable to all who believe in the divine word, says: “Such a body as yours could not have belonged to God.” Now, in answer to this, we have to say that Jesus, on entering into the world, assumed, as one born of a woman, a human body, and one which was capable of suffering a natural death. For which reason, in addition to others, we say that He was also a great wrestler;[1250]having, on account of His human body, been tempted in all respects like other men, but no longer as men, with sin as a consequence, but being altogether without sin. For it is distinctly clear to us that “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; and as one who knew no sin,” God delivered Him up as pure for all who had sinned. Then Celsus says: “The body of God would not have been so generated as you, O Jesus, were.” He saw, besides, that if, as it is written, it had been born, His body somehow might be even more divine than that of the multitude, and in a certain sense a body of God. But he disbelieves the accounts of His conception by the Holy Ghost, and believes that He was begotten by one Panthera, who corrupted the Virgin,“because a God’s body would not have been so generated as you were.” But we have spoken of these matters at greater length in the preceding pages.

He asserts, moreover, that “the body of a god is not nourished with such food [as was that of Jesus],” since he is able to prove from the Gospel narratives both that He partook of food, and food of a particular kind. Well, be it so. Let him assert that He ate the passover with His disciples, when He not only used the words, “With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you,” but also actually partook of the same. And let him say also, that He experienced the sensation of thirst beside the well of Jacob, and drank of the water of the well. In what respect do these facts militate against what we have said respecting the nature of His body? Moreover, it appears indubitable that after His resurrection He ate a piece of fish; for, according to our view, He assumed a [true] body, as one born of a woman. “But,” objects Celsus, “the body of a god does not make use of such a voice as that of Jesus, nor employ such a method of persuasion as he.” These are, indeed, trifling and altogether contemptible objections. For our reply to him will be, that he who is believed among the Greeks to be a god, viz. the Pythian and Didymean Apollo, makes use of such a voice for his Pythian priestess at Delphi, and for his prophetess at Miletus; and yet neither the Pythian nor Didymean is charged by the Greeks with not being a god, nor any other Grecian deity whose worship is established in one place. And it was far better, surely, that a god should employ a voice which, on account of its being uttered with power, should produce an indescribable sort of persuasion in the minds of the hearers.

Continuing to pour abuse upon Jesus as one who, onaccount of his impiety and wicked opinions, was, so to speak, hated by God, he asserts that “these tenets of his were those of a wicked and God-hated sorcerer.” And yet, if the name and the thing be properly examined, it will be found an impossibility that man should be hated by God, seeing God loves all existing things, and “hateth nothing of what He has made,” for He created nothing in a spirit of hatred. And if certain expressions in the prophets convey such an impression, they are to be interpreted in accordance with the general principle by which Scripture employs such language with regard to God as if He were subject to human affections. But what reply need be made to him who, while professing to bring forward credible statements, thinks himself bound to make use of calumnies and slanders against Jesus, as if He were a wicked sorcerer? Such is not the procedure of one who seeks to make good his case, but of one who is in an ignorant and unphilosophic state of mind, inasmuch as the proper course is to state the case, and candidly to investigate it; and, according to the best of his ability, to bring forward what occurs to him with regard to it. But as the Jew of Celsus has, with the above remarks, brought to a close his charges against Jesus, so we also shall here bring to a termination the contents of our first book in reply to him. And if God bestow the gift of that truth which destroys all falsehood, agreeably to the words of the prayer, “Cut them off in thy truth,”[1251]we shall begin, in what follows, the consideration of the second appearance of the Jew, in which he is represented by Celsus as addressing those who have become converts to Jesus.

MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.

Footnotes

1.Jerome is the person alluded to.

2.Cant.i.4.

3.Johnxiv.6.

4.Heb.xi.24-26.

5.2Cor.xiii.3.

6.Dominationes.

7.Virtutes.

8.Species.

9.Johni.3.

10.Innatus. The words which Rufinus has rendered“natus an innatus”are rendered by Jerome in his Epistle to Avitus (94alias59),“factus an infectus.”Criticising the errors in the first book of thePrinciples, he says: “Origen declares the Holy Spirit to be third in dignity and honour after the Father and the Son; and although professing ignorance whether he were created or not (factus an infectus), he indicated afterwards his opinion regarding him, maintaining that nothing was uncreated except God the Father.” Jerome, no doubt, readγενητὸς ἢ ἀγένητος, and Rufinusγεννητὸς ἢ ἀγέννητος.—R.

11.Substantia.

12.1Cor.xv.42.

13.Virtutes.

14.Sacramentorum.

15.Eusebius (Eccles. Hist.iii.c.36), treating of Ignatius, quotes from his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna as follows: “Writing to the Smyrnæans, he (Ignatius) has also employed words respecting Jesus, I know not whence they are taken, to the following effect: ‘But I know and believe that He was seen after the resurrection; and when He came to Peter and his companions, He said to them, Take and handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.’” Jerome, in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, says the words are a quotation from the Gospel of the Nazarenes, a work which he had recently translated. Origen here quotes them, however, fromThe Doctrine of Peter, on which Ruæus remarks that the words might be contained in both of these apocryphal works.

16.Dæmonium.

17.Subtile.

18.Hos.x.12. The words in the text are not the rendering of the authorized version, but that of the Septuagint, which hasφωτίσατε ἑαυτοῖς φῶς γνώσεως. Where the Masoretic text hasוְעֵת(et tempus) Origen evidently read דַּעַת (scientia), the similarity ofVauandDalethaccounting for the error of the transcriber.

19.Deut.iv.24.

20.Johniv.24.

21.1 Johni.5.

22.Ps.xxxvi.9.

23.Johnxiv.23.

24.2Cor.iii.6.

25.2Cor.iii.15-17.

26.Disciplina.

27.Subsistentia.

28.Johniv.20.

29.Johniv.23, 24.

30.“Inæstimabilem.”

31.“Simplex intellectualis natura.”

32.“Natura illa simplex et tota mens.”

33.Some read “visible.”

34.“Substantia quædam sensibilis propria.”

35.Col.i.15.

36.Johni.18.

37.“Constat inter Patrem et Filium.”

38.Matt.xi.27.

39.Matt.v.8.

40.Cf.Prov.ii.5.

41.Prov.viii.22-25. The reading in the text differs considerably from that of the Vulgate.

42.Col.i.15.

43.1Cor.i.24.

44.Aliquid insubstantivum.

45.Substantialiter.

46.Ad punctum alicujus momenti.

47.Omnis virtus ac deformatio futuræ creaturæ.

48.This work is mentioned by Eusebius,Hist. Eccles.B.iii.ch.iii.andxxv., as among the spurious writings current in the church. TheActs of Paul and Theclawas a different work from theActs of Paul. The words quoted, “Hic est verbum animal vivens,” seem to be a corruption fromHeb.iv.12,ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ.

49.Or, “and the Word was God.”

50.“Quoniam hi qui videntur apud nos hominum filii, vel ceterorum animalium, semini eorum a quibus seminati sunt respondent, vel carum quarum in utero formantur ac nutriuntur, habent ex his quidquid illud est quod in lucem hanc assumunt, ac deferunt processuri.”Probably the last two words should be“deferunt processuris”—“and hand it over to those who are destined to come forth from them,”i.e.to their descendants.

51.Subsistentia. Some would read here,“substantia.”

52.Per adoptionem Spiritus.The original words here were probably εἰσποίησις τοῦ πνεύματος, and Rufinus seems to have mistaken the allusion toGen.ii.7. To “adoption,” in the technical theological sense, the words in the text cannot have any reference.—Schnitzer.

53.Col.i.15.

54.Heb.i.3.

55.ἀπόῤῥοια.

56.Wisd.vii.25.

57.Gen.v.3.

58.Subsistentia.

59.Johnxiv.9.

60.Heb.i.3.

61.Lukevi.42.

62.Heb.i.3.Substantiæ vel subsistentiæ.

63.Wisd.vii.25, 26.

64.“Hujus ergo totius virtutis tantæ et tam immensæ vapor, et, ut ita dicam, vigor ipse in propriâ subsistentiâ effectus, quamvis ex ipsa virtute velut voluntas ex mente procedat, tamen et ipsa voluntas Dei nihilominus Dei virtus efficitur.”

65.1Cor.i.24.

66.Ps.civ.24.

67.Johni.3.

68.Rev.i.8.

69.Johnxvii.10.

70.Phil.ii.10, 11.

71.Johnv.19.

72.Abusive.

73.Ps.li.11.

74.Dan.iv.8.

75.Johnxx.22.

76.Lukei.35.

77.1Cor.xii.3.

78.Actsviii.18.

79.Cf.Matt.xii.32 and Lukexii.10.

80.Cf.Hermæ Past.Vis.v.Mandat. 12.

81.Per quem Spiritus Sanctus factura esse vel creatura diceretur.

82.Gal.v.22.

83.Gal.iii.3.

84.Isa.xlii.5.

85.Isa.vi.3.

86.Hab.iii.2.

87.Lukex.22.

88.1Cor.ii.10.

89.Cf.Johnxvi.12, 13, andxiv.26.

90.Johniii.8.

91.Ex.iii.14.

92.Rom.x.6-8.

93.Johnxv.22.

94.Jas.iv.17.

95.Lukexvii.20, 21.

Back to Index Next