But who would not be instructed toward compassion and goodness, when he understands that even those things in the Law which are thought by some to be grievous—I speak of punishments, battles, the destruction of nations, and threats against peoples through the prophets—are remedies rather than penalties? A For the Lord will not be angry forever. When these things are opened to us, we shall have a more reasonable faith, and temperance will accompany our corrected morals, followed by continence and chastity; and after all these things, the Law will begin to exist for us.
ON THE BOOKS OF FIRST PRINCIPLES
ADMONITION.
A 1. Eusebius, in Book VI of his *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 24, while reviewing which works Origen composed at Alexandria, enumerates the books *On First Principles* among others with these words: *Moreover, he also wrote the books On First Principles before his departure from Alexandria.* We know, therefore, only this: that they were written before the year of Christ 231, when he left Alexandria to take up residence in Caesarea of Palestine. The Greek text of these books has long since perished, and very few Greek fragments remain, which you will find below in their proper places, appended to Rufinus's translation. Photius, who happened to read these four books in Greek, briefly explains their contents in codex VIII of his *Bibliotheca* with these words: B *Four books of Origen's On First Principles were read. The first of these deals with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; in this book he writes many blasphemies, saying that the Son was made by the Father, and the Spirit by the Son; and that the Father extends through all things that exist, the Son only through those endowed with reason, and the Spirit only through those who have been saved. He also says other most absurd things full of impiety: he prattles about the transmigration of souls, that the stars are animate, and other things similar to these. In the first book, he discourses fabulously about the Father, and, as he calls him, about Christ and the Holy Spirit; furthermore, about rational natures. The second book is about the world and the creatures in it; furthermore, that there is one God of the Law and the Prophets; that the God of the Old and New Testaments is the same; about the incarnation of the Savior; that the same Spirit was in Moses and the other prophets and holy apostles; in addition, about the soul, the resurrection, punishments, and rewards. The third book is about free will; how the devil and the opposing powers, according to the doctrine of the Scriptures, war against the human race; that the world is created and subject to corruption, having had a beginning in time. The fourth book is about the end; that the Scriptures are divine; and finally, how the Scriptures ought to be read and understood.*
2. Furthermore, of all Origen's works, there was none that brought upon him greater odium for crimes than this *On First Principles*, as is evident even from this testimony of Photius. Pamphilus the martyr openly C confesses this in his *Apology for Origen*, where he says: "Beginning, therefore, to show by the evidence of his own writings what he thought about each subject, we shall gather testimonies especially from those books which his accusers most vehemently criminate, that is, those which he wrote in secret during a time of peace and quiet: for they assert that these differ most from ecclesiastical preaching: from these books especially, which he titled, in which very many things are accused by his calumniators." How much this work displeased Marcellus of Ancyra, Eusebius teaches in the first book against the same Marcellus, chapter 4, where he brings forward these words of his: *And yet, if the truth must be told about Origen, it is proper to say this: that having just departed from philosophical studies, and choosing to occupy himself with divine words, before he had attained an accurate understanding of the Scriptures, because of the abundance and ambition of his secular education, he began to write sooner than he ought, and was led astray by philosophical arguments, and wrote some things not correctly. It is clear: for still mindful of the dogmas of Plato, and of the difference of principles in him, he wrote a book On First Principles, and gave this title to the work. A very great proof of this is that he did not derive the beginning of his words or the title of the book from anywhere else than from the words spoken by Plato. For he begins thus: 'Those who believe and those who are believed.' You would find this statement, spoken in this way, in Plato's Gorgias.* But Eusebius contends that this judgment of Marcellus is unjust D in these words: *Neither, if it were carried, would it have brought reproach upon Origen for saying: 'Those who believe or are believed,' and for connecting immediately thereafter that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and that Christ is the truth, according to what was said by him: 'I am the truth.' For what communion could there ever be with Plato in these things? Nothing of Plato's.*
Πλάτωνος περὶ ἀρχῶν μνημονεύεται βιβλίον, οὐδὲ Ὠριγένης ὁμοίως περὶ ἀρχῶν ἐδόξασε Πλάτωνι, ὁ μίαν μόνην τὴν ἀγέννητον, καὶ ἀναρχον, καὶ ἐπέκεινα τῶν ὅλων εἰδὼς ἀρχὴν, ταύτην τε εἶναι Πατέρα ἑνὸς μονογενους Υἱοῦ, δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα γέγονε. A *Let that which is conceded to be so not bring a calumny upon Origen, since he immediately added the words: "To those who believe, and in whom they believe," that grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ, and that Christ is the truth, according to what was said by Him: I am the truth.* For what communion could Plato ever have with these things? No book is recorded as having been written by Plato on Principles. Nor did Origen think about Principles as Plato did, who, while recognizing a single principle, unbegotten, without beginning, and beyond all things, established it to be the Father of one only-begotten Son, by whom all things were made. See, moreover, what Marcellus argues in these books, and what Eusebius replies in the same place, page 21. It would be tedious were I to enumerate how many errors Methodius, Eustathius, Theophilus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and others have claimed to see in them. Of Jerome’s works, it is especially worth reading Epistle 38 (alias 61), Epistle 40 (alias 64), the three books *Against Rufinus*, and Epistle 94 (alias 69) to Avitus, in which he teaches what must be avoided in the books *De Principiis*; likewise, the letter of Emperor Justinian to Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople. Conversely, Didymus, in the short commentaries or brief scholia published on these books, defended Origen as holding orthodox views everywhere, and as thinking differently from the Arians, as attested by Jerome in Epistle 41 (alias 65), and at the end of Book II *Against Rufinus*. B Rufinus, however, abandoned this method of excusing and defending Origen; he did not deny that many things in the books *De Principiis* were contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the Trinity, but he contended that they had been inserted by heretics and malevolent men. But see how he is refuted in the notes to his booklet *On the Adulteration of the Books of Origen*, just as he is by the ancient author of the *Apology* concerning which Photius speaks in codex 117.
3. In the year of Christ 398, following the exhortation of Macarius, a noble Roman, and at his prayers, Rufinus had translated into Latin the apologetic book of the martyr Pamphilus for Origen, and he set out to interpret these books *De Principiis* as well. He worked with such fervor that, after the days of Lent had passed, he had already completed the first two books, urged on, of course, by Macarius, who was living in his neighborhood at that time. But when, a few days after Easter, Macarius changed his residence to a remote part of the city, and from there could visit him less frequently to urge him on, Rufinus proceeded more slowly with the rest of the work, so that by the end of this year, he had not yet put the finishing touches to it. C When the work was finally completed, he attached this preface which still survives, and from which the seedbed of discord and the huge fire that arose between him and Jerome were born—a matter discussed at length in *Origeniana*, Book I, chapter 4, section 1. I wish to note here, above all, what is in this preface: Rufinus asserts, 1st, that if he found something in these books contrary to what had been piously defined by Origen in other places regarding the Trinity, he omitted it as adulterated and foreign, or corrected it according to that rule he had frequently found affirmed by Origen himself; that is, he reduced it to a Catholic sense by removing some things and adding others from elsewhere. 2nd, where Origen had written more obscurely, he added things he had read more clearly in his other books so that the passage might become more manifest; yet he stated nothing of his own, but restored to Origen sentiments that were his own, though expressed elsewhere. From this it is clear enough that Rufinus's interpretation is neither faithful nor accurate. "He added," says Jerome in Book I *Against Rufinus*, "things that were not there, asserting they were argued by the same Origen in other places. Which, unless he points out the very places from which he says he translated them, he cannot prove." Moreover, when Jerome had read copies of this translation and compared them with the Greek, "he immediately observed," as he notes in the same book, "that what Origen had said impiously about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and which Roman ears could not bear, had been changed by the interpreter for the better; D but the other dogmas—concerning the ruin of the angels, the fall of souls, the deceits regarding the resurrection, the world or the inter-mundane spaces of Epicurus, the restitution of all things to an equal state, and much worse things than these, which it would be long to repeat—he had either translated as he found them in the Greek, or, from the commentaries of Didymus, who is Origen's most open defender, he had placed them there in exaggerated and firmer terms." Rufinus therefore errs in asserting that he said nothing of his own in translating, but merely restored to Origen what was his own, though said elsewhere, when Jerome testifies that he inserted many things from Didymus into his own version. The same Jerome says in Book II *Against Rufinus*: "In the first book of *De Principiis*, where Origen with sacrilegious tongue blasphemed that the Son does not see the Father, you even provide reasons as if from the person of him who wrote, and you interpret the *scholion* of Didymus, in which he labors in vain to defend someone else's work, which Origen indeed said well, but we, simple men and Ennian captives, are unable to understand either his wisdom or yours as you interpret it."
4. In the year of Christ 599 [sic—error for 409], Jerome, having been made certain both by the letters of his friends Pammachius and Oceanus and by his own eyes that the books *De Principiis* had been translated fraudulently by Rufinus, and that the reader had not been sufficiently warned what he ought especially to guard against in them, fearing, moreover, that due to the scattered praises with which he had been adorned in Rufinus’s preface, he might be thought to favor Origen’s errors, he undertook another version of this work in accordance with the fidelity of the Greek text. "I, however," he says in Book I *Against Rufinus*, "expressed in the books *De Principiis* what was in the Greek: not so that the reader might believe what I was translating, but so that he might not believe those things you had translated before. My work had a double utility, in that the heretical author is revealed, and the faithless interpreter is exposed. And lest anyone think that I agree with what I translated, I fortified the necessity of the interpretation with a preface, and taught what the reader should not believe. The former translation contains praise of the author; the second, blame. The former invites the reader to believe; the latter moves him not to believe. There, even I, against my will, am assumed to be a praiser of Origen; here, I so far do not praise him whom I translate that I am forced to accuse the one who praises him. The same thing was not done with the same intent; or rather, one journey had diverse outcomes." When this interpretation was first completed and sent to Pammachius, the saintly doctor himself describes its condition in Epistle 94 (alias 59) to Avitus, written in the year 409. "About ten years ago," he says, "the holy man Pammachius sent me some sheets which contained the translated volumes—or rather, the corrupted volumes—of Origen's *De Principiis*, urgently requesting that the translation preserve the Greek truth in Latin, and that, whether the author of the work said well or ill, he who wrote might be known in the Roman tongue without the protection of an interpreter. I did as he wished, and sent him the books; when he had read them, he shrank in horror; and he shut them in his desk, lest, if published, they should wound the minds of many. Being asked by a certain brother, who had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, to hand them over to be read—as if he would return them at once—because of the shortness of time, he could not suspect the fraud. He who received them to be read, using stenographers, transcribed the whole work, and much faster than he had promised, he returned the codex, and with the same rashness, and—to speak more lightly—stupidity, he trusted to another what he had secretly stolen. And because it is difficult for large books arguing on mystical matters to preserve the abbreviations of notes, especially when they are dictated secretly and quickly, everything in them is so confused that they lack both order in most places and sense." For this reason, he sent to Avitus the very exemplar which he had long ago translated himself, and which had been handed to no one else, which had been perversely edited by the aforementioned brother, but...
[Avitus warns what must be especially avoided in these books, saying that you must know that there is very much in them to be detested, and that, according to the word of the Lord, one must walk among scorpions. Presently he brings forward from each book those passages that were most obnoxious to reproach. You will find these appended in their appropriate places to the interpretation of Rufinus. Moreover, the complete interpretation of Jerome has long since perished through the injury of time.]
PROLOGUE OF RUFINIUS THE PRESBYTER TO THE BOOKS ON FIRST PRINCIPLES BY ORIGEN THE PRESBYTER
I know that very many of the brethren, provoked by a desire for the knowledge of the Scriptures, have requested of certain men skilled in Greek letters that they make Origen accessible to Roman ears and bestow him upon Latin readers. Among these, our brother and colleague, having been entreated by Bishop Damasus, when he had translated from Greek into Latin two homilies on the Song of Songs, prefaced that work with such ornate and magnificent language that he stirred in everyone a desire to read and most avidly inquire into Origen, saying that that which was said of his soul was fitting: "The king has brought me into his chamber,"—asserting that, whereas he surpasses all others in his other books, in the Song of Songs he has even surpassed himself. Indeed, in that very preface, he promises that he will bestow upon Roman ears both those books on the Song of Songs and very many other works of Origen. But he, as I see it, taking pleasure in his own style, pursues a matter of greater glory, that he might be a father of the Word rather than an interpreter. We, therefore, follow the task begun and approved by him, yet we cannot adorn the sayings of so great a man with equal powers of eloquence; whence I fear that it may fall out through my failing that the man whom he deservedly approves as a teacher of the Church in knowledge and wisdom, should appear, through the poverty of our speech, to be far inferior. I, often considering this, held my peace, and did not consent to the brethren who frequently entreated me in this matter; but your strength, most faithful brother Macarius, is such that even lack of skill cannot resist it. Wherefore, lest I should suffer you to be a persistent taskmaster, I have yielded, even against my intention, yet upon this condition and in this order, that as much as possible I shall follow in translating the rule of my predecessors, and especially of that man of whom we have made mention above: who, when he had translated into Latin more than seventy of Origen’s books, which he called homiletic, as well as some of his writings on the Epistles to the Apostles; and in which, although some stumbling blocks are found in the Greek, he so refined and purged everything in translating that a Latin reader finds nothing in them that disagrees with our faith. This man, therefore, we also follow in as far as we can—if not with the powers of eloquence, then at least with the rules of discipline—observing, of course, lest those things...
which are found in the books of Origen to be at variance and contrary to themselves, we should put forward. The cause of this diversity I have explained more fully to you in the *Apologeticus* which Pamphilus wrote on behalf of the books of Origen himself, in a very short appended booklet, in which I have shown by clear proofs, as I think, that his books have been corrupted in very many places by heretics and malevolent men, and especially those which you now require me to translate, that is, *On Principles*, which may be called either *De principiis* or *De principatibus* A, which are indeed otherwise both most obscure and most difficult. For he discourses there on such matters as the philosophers in all their ages, having spent their efforts, could find nothing. This man of ours, however, has done what he could, so that he might convert the faith of the Creator and the reasoning of his creatures, which they had dragged off to impiety, back to piety. If, therefore, we find in his books anything contrary to that which he himself had defined piously as to the Trinity in other places, we have either omitted this as adulterated and alien, or we have set it forth according to that rule which we frequently find him affirming. If, indeed, as if speaking to those already experienced and knowledgeable, he has set forth something more obscurely while wishing to pass over it briefly, we, so that the passage might be clearer, have added those things which we had read more openly in his other books, being studious of explanation; we have said nothing B of our own, but have rendered back to him what was his. This, however, I have warned of in the preface, so that calumniators might not again [D, top of col. 114] think they have found material for accusing. But let them see what perverse and contentious men do. For us meanwhile, such a labor—if, however, God helps through your prayers—has been undertaken not that we might close the mouths of the calumniators (which cannot be done, although perhaps even this God will do), but that we might provide material for those who wish to advance in the knowledge of things. Truly, I adjure and convene any man C who is about to transcribe or read these books, in the sight of God the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, by the faith of the future kingdom, by the mystery of the resurrection from the dead, by that eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels (may he not possess that place in eternal inheritance where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and where their fire shall not be extinguished, and their worm shall not die), that he add nothing to Scripture, that he take nothing away, that he insert nothing, that he change nothing, but that he compare it with the exemplars from which he has written, and that he amend it according to the letter, and distinguish it, and that he not possess an unamended or undistinguished codex; lest the difficulty of the meanings—if the codex be not distinguished—generate greater obscurities for the readers.
Note on the adjuration
(41) "Truly, I adjure," etc. Irenaeus had subjoined a similar formula of adjuration at the end of his book *On the Ogdoad*, in these words: "I adjure you, who shall transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by his glorious advent, in which he comes to judge the living and the dead, that you compare what you shall have transcribed, and correct it toward this exemplar from which you have transcribed, carefully; and that you shall likewise transcribe this oath. And you shall place it in the copy." "I adjure you who shall have transcribed this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious advent, in which he is to judge the living and the dead; that you compare what you have transcribed, and diligently amend it according to the exemplar from which you have transcribed: and that you likewise transcribe this adjuration, and insert it into your codex." Eusebius, referring to this formula, in book V, ch. 20 of his *Ecclesiastical History*, calls it a "most gracious note," and adds: "And these things have been useful when said by him and recorded by us, so that we may always have those ancient and—without controversy—most holy men before our eyes as a most beautiful example of exact diligence." So indeed did this please Eusebius, that he also attached a similar adjuration to his own books, such as is read even today at the beginning of the *Chronicle* translated by Jerome, which more ancient codices exhibit in larger letters.
ORIGEN'S ON FIRST PRINCIPLES (ΠΕΡΙ ΑΡΧΩΝ) FOUR BOOKS TRANSLATED BY RUFINUS THE PRESBYTER OF AQUILEIA. BOOK FIRST.
1. All who believe and are certain that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and know that Christ is the truth, according to that saying of His own, "I am the truth," A receive the knowledge that leads men to a good and blessed life from no other source than the very words and teachings of Christ. But by the words of Christ we do not mean only those which He taught when He became man and dwelt in the flesh; for before that time, Christ, the Word of God, was in Moses and the prophets. For without the Word of God, how could they have prophesied about Christ? To prove this, it would not be difficult to show from the holy Scriptures how either Moses or the prophets, filled with the Spirit of Christ, spoke or did all that they did, were it not that we are intent on condensing this present work with all possible brevity. Wherefore I think it enough to make use of this one testimony of Paul from the Epistle which he writes to the Hebrews, in which he says: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." And after His assumption into heaven, Paul indicates in this way that He spoke in His apostles: "Or do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?"
2. Since many of those who claim to follow Christ differ from one another, not only in small and trivial matters, but also in great and most important subjects—that is, either concerning God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit; and not only concerning these, but also concerning other creatures, that is, either concerning the Dominions or the holy Virtues—it seems necessary on this account first to establish a certain and manifest rule for each of these, and then afterwards to inquire into the other subjects. For as we, while many among the Greeks and barbarians promised the truth, ceased to seek it among all those who asserted it by false opinions, after we had believed that Christ is the Son of God and had convinced ourselves that it was to be learned from Him; so, since there are many who think they hold things of Christ, and some of them think differently from those who preceded them, yet the ecclesiastical preaching handed down by the order of succession from the apostles and remaining in the Churches even to the present day is to be preserved: that alone is to be believed as the truth which in no respect departs from the ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition. B
3. Now it is right to know that the holy apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, very clearly handed down—regarding those things which they believed to be necessary—all things even to those who seemed slower to investigate divine knowledge, leaving the reason for their assertion to be inquired into by those who would merit the gifts of the Spirit, and especially those who had received the grace of speech, wisdom, and knowledge through the Holy Spirit Himself; but concerning other things, they said indeed that they were, but how or whence they are, they were silent, surely so that C those more studious of their successors, who might be lovers of
wisdom, could have an exercise in which they might display the fruit of their own genius; namely, those who prepared themselves as worthy and capable of receiving wisdom.
4. The matters that are manifestly handed down through the apostolic preaching are these: First, that there is one God, who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing existed, made all things to be; A God from the first creation and foundation of the world, the God of all just men, Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noe, Sem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets; and that this God in the last days, just as he had promised beforehand through his prophets, sent our Lord Jesus Christ, first to call Israel, and secondly also the Gentiles after the treachery of the people of Israel. This God is the just and good Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who himself gave the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels, and who is the God of the Apostles and of the Old and New Testaments. Then, furthermore, that Jesus Christ himself who came was born of the Father B before all creation. Who, having ministered to the Father in the creation of all things, for "through him all things were made," in the last times, emptying himself, became man and was incarnate while he was God, and being made man, he remained what he was, God. He assumed a body like our own, differing only in that it was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit. And because this Jesus Christ was born and suffered in truth, and did not sustain this death by a common phantasy, he died indeed; for he truly rose from the dead, and after his resurrection, having conversed with his disciples, he was taken up. Then, furthermore, they handed down that the Holy Spirit is associated in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son. In this, it is not yet clearly discerned whether he is to be considered as born or unborn, or even as the Son of God himself C as regards the holy Scripture and sagacious investigation. It is most manifestly preached in the churches that this Spirit inspired each one of the saints, or prophets, or apostles, and that it was not one Spirit in the ancients and another in those who were inspired at the coming of Christ.
5. Regarding this, that the soul, having a substance and life of its own, when it shall have departed from this world, will be disposed of according to its merits—whether it is to inherit eternal life and bliss, if its deeds have earned this for it, or to be consigned to eternal fire and punishments if the guilt of its crimes has turned it aside—but also that there will be a time of the resurrection of the dead, when this body which is now sown in corruption shall rise in incorruption; and that which is sown in ignominy shall rise in glory. It is moreover defined in ecclesiastical preaching that every rational soul is possessed of free will and volition; that it also has a struggle against the devil and his angels and the opposing powers, from the fact that they contend to burden it with sins, whereas we, if we live rightly and prudently, by understanding D that we are not subjected to necessity, are not compelled to do either evil or good, even if we are unwilling. For if we are of our own will, some powers can perhaps tempt us to sin, and others help us toward salvation; yet we are not compelled by necessity to act either rightly or wrongly: which they consider to happen, who say that the course of the stars and their movements are the cause of human affairs, not only those things that happen outside the liberty of our will, but also those which are placed in our own power. Concerning the soul, whether it is derived from the transmission of the seed, so that its reason or substance is inserted into the seeds themselves...
or whether it has some other beginning: and if this beginning itself is begotten or unbegotten; or indeed whether it is inserted into the body from without or not: this is not distinguished with sufficient manifest preaching.
6. Concerning the devil and his opposing powers, ecclesiastical preaching has taught that these exist; but what they are, or how they exist, it has not explained with sufficient clarity. Among many, however, this opinion is held: that this devil was an angel, and having become apostate, he persuaded very many of the angels to decline with him, who even until now are called his angels.
7. Furthermore, it is in ecclesiastical preaching that this world was made, and began at a certain time, and is to be dissolved on account of its own corruption. Yet what was before this world, or what will be after the world, has not become known to many as a manifest thing. For no evident statement concerning these matters is brought forth in ecclesiastical preaching. A
8. Finally, that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God and possess a meaning, not only that which is in the manifest, but also another that is hidden from many. For these which are described are the forms of certain sacraments and are images of divine things (59). Concerning this, there is one opinion of the whole Church (60), that the entire law is indeed spiritual; yet that which the law breathes is not known to all, except to those only to whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is conceded in the word of wisdom and knowledge. The term *asōmaton*, that is, incorporeal, is not only unusual and unknown among many others, but even among our own Scriptures. But if any one wishes to produce for us from that book which is called the *Doctrine of Peter* (61), where the Savior seems to say to the disciples: "I am not a bodiless demon," it should first be answered to him that that book is not held among ecclesiastical books; and it must be shown that neither is the writing itself Peter's, nor that of any other who was inspired by the Spirit of God. Even if that itself were granted, not the same sense is indicated there by that expression *asōmaton* as is shown by Greek and Gentile (62) authors when the incorporeal nature is discussed by philosophers. For in this book he called the demon "incorporeal" for the reason that that very thing, whatever it is—the habit or the circumscription of a demonic body—is not similar to this crass and visible body of ours: but according to the sense of him who composed that writing, it must be understood what he said; that is, that he does not have such a body (63) as demons have, which is naturally subtle, and thin like a breeze, and for this reason is either thought by many, or called, incorporeal, but that he has a solid and palpable body. In the usage of men, however, everything that is not such is named "incorporeal" by the simpler or more ignorant; just as if someone were to call this air which we enjoy "incorporeal," since it is not such a body that it can be grasped and held, and resist one who urges it. B
9. We shall inquire, however, if the thing itself which Greek philosophers call *asōmaton*, that is, incorporeal, is found in the holy Scriptures. How God himself ought to be understood (64) must also be inquired: whether [He is] corporeal, and formed according to some habit, or of a different nature than bodies are—which certainly is not manifestly designated in our preaching. The same must also be inquired concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit, but it must be inquired no less concerning every soul and every rational nature. C
10. It is also in ecclesiastical preaching that there are certain angels of God and good powers who minister to Him (65) for the salvation of men D
but when these were created, or what they are, or how they are, is not sufficiently declared. Regarding the sun, moon, and stars, whether they are living beings or without soul, it is not clearly handed down. It is necessary, therefore, to use these things as elements and foundations according to the command which says: "Break up for yourselves the light of knowledge," that one who desires to complete a certain sequence and body from the reasoning of all these things may, by manifest and necessary assertions, examine into each individual point as to what it is in truth, and—as we have said—make one body out of examples and affirmations, whether those which he finds in the holy Scriptures or those which he discovers from an investigation of consequence itself and the tenor of what is right.
Chapter I. Of God.
1. I know that some, even according to our Scriptures, will claim that God is a body A, because they find it written in Moses: "Our God is a consuming fire," and in the Gospel according to John: "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." Now, those people will think that fire and spirit are nothing other than a body. I wish to ask them what they say concerning that which is written, that God is light, just as John says in his Epistle: "God is light, and there is no darkness in him." This is surely the light which illuminates every sense of those who are able to grasp the truth, as it is said in the thirty-fifth Psalm: "In thy light we shall see light." For what else is the light of God to be called, in which one sees light, if not the power of God, through which one, being illuminated, perceives the truth of all things, or recognizes God Himself, who is called truth? Such is therefore what is said: "In thy light we shall see light"—that is, in thy Word and thy wisdom, who is thy Son, in Him we shall see Thee, the Father. And because He is called light, is He to be thought similar to the light of this sun? And how would anyone even provide a slight opening for the intellect, so that from this bodily light one might catch the cause of knowledge and find the understanding of truth?
50 2. If, therefore, they acquiesce to this assertion of ours, which reason itself has demonstrated concerning the nature of light, and they admit that God cannot be understood as a body according to the understanding of light, a similar reason will also be given B concerning the consuming fire. For what will He consume, according to this, in that He is fire? Is it to be thought that He will consume bodily matter, such as wood, or hay, or stubble? And what is said to be worthy of God’s praises in this, if God is a fire consuming matters of this sort? But let us consider that God indeed consumes and destroys, but He consumes the evil thoughts of minds, He consumes shameful deeds, He consumes the desires of sin, when He inserts Himself into the minds of those who believe, and, inhabiting those souls which are made capable of His Word and wisdom together with His Son, according to what has been said: "I and the Father will come, and we will make our home with him," He renders them pure and a temple worthy of Himself, with all their vices and passions consumed.
But also to those who think God is a body because it is said that God is Spirit, I consider that a response should be made in this way: it is the custom of holy Scripture, when it wishes to designate something contrary to this thicker and more solid body, to call it spirit, just as it says: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." In this, without doubt, by the letter it signifies bodily things; by the spirit, intellectual things, which we also call spiritual. The Apostle also says: "To this day, C when Moses is read, a veil is placed over their heart; but when one has turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." For until one turns to spiritual intelligence, a veil is placed over his heart, by which veil—that is, the thicker intelligence—the Scripture itself is said or thought to be veiled; and this is what it means by saying that a veil was placed over Moses' face when he spoke to the people—that is, when the law was read to the common people. But if we turn ourselves to the Lord, where there is also the Word of God, and where the Holy Spirit reveals spiritual knowledge, then the veil will be taken away, and then with unveiled face we shall behold in the holy Scriptures the glory of the Lord.
3. Yet, concerning the Holy Spirit, it is not at all the case that the Holy Spirit can be understood as some body, which, divided into bodily parts, each of the saints might perceive; but He is indeed a sanctifying power; D and all who have become worthy to be sanctified through His grace are said to possess His participation. And that what we say may be understood more easily, let us take an example from things that are unequal. There are many who participate in the discipline or art of medicine, and is it to be thought
that all those who participate in medicine, as though it were some middle-placed body, take for themselves particles of it, and thus assume a participation in it? Or is it rather to be understood that whoever, with ready and prepared minds, perceives the understanding of the art itself and its discipline, these are said to participate in medicine? But these examples are not to be thought of as altogether similar when compared to the Holy Spirit regarding medicine; but they are to be compared only to prove this: that we are not to think that that which is participated in by many must necessarily be a body. For the Holy Spirit differs greatly from the rationale or discipline of medicine, for the reason that the Holy Spirit is an intellectual substance, and it subsists and exists in its own right, whereas medicine is nothing of this kind. B
Chapter One - On God
4. But we must now pass on to the argument of the Gospel, where it is written 22 that "God is spirit," and it must be shown how this ought to be understood consistently with what we have said. For let us ask when our Savior spoke these words, or to whom, or when some question was being asked. We find without doubt that He spoke these things while talking to the Samaritan woman, to her who thought that God ought to be worshipped in accordance with the opinion of the Samaritans on Mount Garizim, saying that 23 "God is spirit." For the Samaritan woman was asking Him, thinking He was one of the Jews, whether God ought to be worshipped in Jerusalem or on this mountain; and she spoke thus: "Our fathers all worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is fitting to worship 24." To these things, therefore, which the Samaritan woman opined, thinking because of the prerogative of corporal places that God was worshipped—albeit less rightly or properly—either by the Jews in Jerusalem or by the Samaritans on Mount Garizim, the Savior answered that he who wishes to follow the Lord must depart from the presumption of corporal places, and He speaks thus: "The hour is coming when the true worshippers will worship the Father neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth 24." And see how consistently He linked truth to spirit, so that, to distinguish it from bodies, He might name spirit; and to distinguish it from shadow or image, He might name truth. Those who worshipped in Jerusalem were worshipping in shadow or images, not in truth nor in spirit; and likewise those who worshipped on Mount Garizim. C
5. Therefore, having refuted the view that suggests anything corporal can be understood concerning God as far as we have been able, we say that according to the truth God is indeed incomprehensible and inestimable. For if that which we have been able to feel or understand concerning God is anything at all, it must be believed that He is better in many ways 51 than what we have felt. For just as if we were to see someone who could barely look upon a spark of light or the light of a very small lamp, and he whose sharpness of sight is unable to grasp more light than what we have said above, if we wished to instruct him about the clarity and splendor of the sun, would it not behoove us to say to him that the splendor of the sun is ineffably and inestimably better and more excellent than all this light which you see? So when our mind is enclosed within the prison walls of flesh and blood, and is rendered duller and more obtuse due to the participation of such matter, although it is held to be far excelling compared to a corporal nature, nevertheless, while it strives toward incorporeal things and probes into the intuition of them, it barely attains the place of some spark or lamp. But what in the totality of intellectual things, that is, bodiless things, is so excellent to all, so ineffably and inestimably excelling, as God? Whose nature, therefore, the sharpness of the human mind, even if it be most pure and limpid, cannot intend and behold.
6. But it does not seem absurd, if for a clearer manifestation of the matter we use another likeness. Sometimes our eyes cannot behold the very nature of light, that is, the substance of the sun; but we can behold its splendor, or its rays poured into windows and any brief receptacles of light, and consider how great the source of corporal light itself is. Thus, therefore, the works of divine providence and the art of this universe are, as it were, certain rays of God’s nature, by comparison to His substance and nature. Because, therefore, our mind is not able to behold God Himself as He is, in and by Himself, from the beauty of His works and the D
of the universe, and understands the Parent of all created things. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as any body, nor as existing in a body, but as a simple intellectual nature, admitting into Himself no addition whatsoever. Thus, it should not be believed that there is anything greater or lesser within Him; rather, He is in every respect a monad, and, if I may so speak, a unity, and mind 84, the fountain from which the origin of all intellectual nature or mind springs. Now, for the mind to move or operate, it does not require a corporeal location, nor sensible magnitude, nor bodily A habit or color, nor does it require any other of those things which are proper to body or matter 85. For this reason, that simple nature and whole mind, in moving or operating anything, can have no delay or hesitation; lest through such addition the simplicity of the divine nature should appear to be in any way circumscribed or hindered, and lest that which is the principle 86 of all things should be found to be composite and diverse, existing as "many" and not as "One"—a quality which, being alien to all bodily admixture, ought, as I have said, to consist in one single species of divinity. Furthermore, that the mind does not require a location to move according to its own nature is proven even from the contemplation of our own mind 87. For if this remains within its own measure, and no impairment occurs to it from any cause, it will never be slowed by the diversity of places from performing its movements; nor, again, does it acquire any increase or augment in mobility from the quality of places. But if someone should object 88, for example, that the mind is somewhat less vigorous when navigating or tossed by the waves of the sea than it is wont to be on land, it should be believed that it suffers this not from the diversity of place, but from the agitation or disturbance of the body, to which the mind is joined or inserted. For it seems to be in a manner contrary to nature for the human body to dwell in the sea, B and on that account, as if by a certain inequality, to receive the motions of the mind 89 in a disordered and uncoordinated fashion, and to dispense the sparks of its keenness through a blunter medium, no less than someone who, even on land, is afflicted by fevers. And if the mind does not fulfill its office when weakened by the force of fevers, the cause is not in the location but in the sickness of the body, through which the body, being troubled and confused 90, no wise provides the mind with its wonted services according to its known and natural lines; since we men are an animal composed of the concurrence of body and soul. For in this way it was possible for us to dwell upon the earth. But God, who is the principle of all things, is not to be thought of as composite, lest perhaps elements should be found prior to the principle itself, from which everything that is called composite is composed. Nor does the mind require bodily magnitude in order to act or move, just as the eye, while it expands when looking upon larger bodies 91, is contracted and narrowed when looking at small and minute ones. The mind, indeed, requires intelligible magnitude, because it does not grow corporeally, but intelligibly. For the mind does not, with corporeal growth, increase along with the body until one's twentieth or thirtieth year; but by applying learning and exercises C 52, the keenness of the intellect is sharpened, and the things that are innate within it 92 are stirred toward understanding, and it is rendered capable of greater intellect, not by being increased with corporeal growth, but by being refined through the exercises of learning. Which, for that reason, it cannot receive immediately from childhood or birth, because the structure of the limbs, which the mind uses as tools for its exercise, is still invalid and weak, nor is it able to sustain the power of operating, nor does it suffice to provide the faculty for receiving discipline.
7. But if there are those who think that the mind itself is a body, I would like them to answer me how it receives the reasoning and assertions concerning so many D matters 94, so difficult and so subtle. Whence comes its power of memory? And whence its contemplation of invisible things? Whence, certainly, does the intellect of incorporeal things reside within a body?
Unless, perhaps, someone thinks that just as this corporeal form, and the very habit of the ears or eyes, contributes something to hearing and seeing—and as the individual members which were formed by God have a certain opportunity 95, even from the quality of the form itself, for that which they are naturally instituted to do—so also the habit of the soul or mind should be thought perfectly and appropriately formed for this, that it may perceive or understand individual things, and that it may be moved by vital 96 movements. But what sort of color of the mind, according to this, that it is mind and is moved intelligibly, one could describe or tell, I do not perceive.
Furthermore, for the confirmation and explanation of those things which we have said concerning the mind or soul, because it is more excellent than the whole corporeal nature 97, these things may also be added: for every corporeal sense, a certain sensible substance lies beneath, which is proper to it, and toward which the corporeal sense itself is directed. By way of example, to the sense of sight lie beneath colors, shapes, magnitude; to hearing, voices and sounds; to smell, scents, good or bad odors; to taste, flavors; to touch, hot or cold things, hard or soft, rough or smooth 98. But that the sense of the mind is much better than these senses of which we spoke above, is clear to everyone. How, therefore, does it not seem absurd that, for those things which are inferior, there are substances lying beneath to be perceived, but for this faculty which is better—that is, the sense of the mind—nothing substantial lies beneath at all, but rather that it is a virtue of an intellectual nature which is accidental or consequent to bodies? Those who say this, without a doubt, bring insult to that substance which is better in them A. They advance this: nay, rather, from this even injury is brought to God Himself, when they think He can be understood through a corporeal nature, where, forsooth, according to them 99, body is both that which can be understood or perceived through a body; and they do not wish this to be understood, that there is a certain proximity of the mind to God—of which the intellectual mind itself is an image—and through this it could perceive something of the nature of the Divinity, especially if it be more purged and more separated from corporeal matter.
8. But perhaps these assertions seem to have less authority among those who wish to be instructed in divine matters from the Holy Scriptures, and who also seek to be approved thereby, as to how the nature of God B surpasses the nature of bodies. See, therefore, if the Apostle does not say the same thing when he speaks of Christ, saying: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature" 26. For not, as some think, is the nature of God visible to some and invisible to others 1; for the Apostle did not say "the image of God invisible to men" or "invisible to sinners," but with great constancy proclaims concerning the very nature of God, saying: "the image of the invisible God." But also John in the Gospel, saying: "No man hath seen God at any time" 27, manifestly declares to all who can understand that there is no nature to which God is visible; not as if He were visible by nature and escaped the sight of a more fragile creature, C but because it is impossible by nature to be seen. But if you ask of me what I think even concerning the Only-Begotten Himself, if I say that the nature of God is not visible even to Him, which nature—D [alt-version omitted]
[LATIN COLUMN]
129 LIBER PRIMUS. 130 nari that the Holy Spirit could see the Son, let it not seem to you immediately impious or absurd: for we shall provide the reason subsequently. It is one thing to see, another to know; to be seen and to see is a matter for bodies, to be known and to know is a matter for an intellectual nature. Whatever, therefore, belongs properly to bodies must not be supposed to pertain to the Father or the Son. But what pertains to the nature of the Godhead, this holds true between the Father and the Son. Finally, he himself did not say in the Gospel that no one has seen the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, but he says: "No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son." From this, it is manifested that whatever in corporal natures is said to be seen and to see, this between the Father and the Son is said to be known and to know, through the virtue of knowledge, not through the fragility of visibility. Since, therefore, it is said that for an incorporeal and invisible nature, it is not properly said to see or to be seen, for this reason it is not said in the Gospel that the Father is seen by the Son, or the Son by the Father, but that he is known.
9. What is proposed to us, why it is said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; much more also from this, as I believe, will our assertion be confirmed: for what else is it to see God with the heart, unless, according to what we explained above, to understand and know him with the mind? For frequently the names of sensible members are referred to the soul, so that it is said to see with the eyes of the heart, that is, by the virtue of intelligence to grasp something intellectual. So too it is said to hear with the ears, when it attends to the sense of a deeper intelligence. So too we say it can use teeth, when it chews and eats that bread of life which descends from heaven. Similarly, it is said to use the other functions of the members, which, transferred from corporal designation, are adapted to the virtues of the soul, just as Solomon also says: "You will find a divine sense." For he knew that there were two kinds of senses in us, one kind of human, corruptible, mortal senses, the other kind an immortal and intellectual one, which he now called divine. By this divine sense, therefore, not of the eyes, but of the pure heart, which is the mind, God A can be seen by those who are worthy. You will find abundantly in all the new and old Scriptures that the heart is named for the mind, that is, for the intellectual faculty. Therefore, in this way, although far less than is worthy, as befits the infirmity of human intelligence, understanding the nature of God, let us now see what the name of Christ means.
CHAPTER II. On Christ.
1. First, it is necessary to know this, that in Christ there is his nature of divinity, which is the only-begotten Son of the Father: and another human nature which he assumed in the last times for the sake of the dispensation. Therefore, we must first see what the only-begotten Son of God is, who is addressed by many and diverse names on account of the things or opinions of those who call him. For he is called Wisdom, just as Solomon also said: "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways, for his works, before he made anything, before the ages he founded me. In the beginning, before he made the earth, before he produced the fountains of waters, before the mountains were firmed, before all the hills he generated me." He is also called the firstborn, as the Apostle said: "Who is the firstborn of every creature." Yet the firstborn by nature is not other than wisdom, but is one and the same. Finally, the Apostle Paul also says: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
2. Let no one suppose it to be something unsubstantial when we name him the Wisdom of God; that is, for the sake of example, let us imagine that we do not understand him as some kind of wise animal, but as some thing which makes men wise, offering itself and inserting itself into the minds of those who become capable of his virtues and intelligence. If, therefore, it is once rightly accepted that the only-begotten Son of God is his Wisdom, subsisting substantially, I do not know if our sense ought to wander further to suspect that perhaps his very B hypostasis, that is, his substance, has something corporal, since everything that is corporal is designated either by shape, or by color, or by magnitude. And who of sound sense would ever [attribute] shape, or color, or the magnitude of measure
A to God, considering that [God] is supposed to have sought in wisdom, by the fact that it is wisdom, to have [it] as a kind of species in Himself and as the beginnings of all the pre-formed and containing creature? And in this way also the Word of God is to be understood, by the fact that it reveals to all others—that is, to the whole creature—the rationale of those mysteries and arcana which are contained within the wisdom of God. And for this reason it is called the Word, because it is as it were the interpreter of the arcana of the mind. Whence that saying which is written in the Acts of Paul also seems to me to be rightly stated, that this is the Living Word. B John, however, speaks more loftily and clearly in the beginning of his Gospel, defining God by a proper definition as the Word, saying: And the Word was God, and this was in the beginning with God. Whoever gives an origin to the Word of God, or to the wisdom of God, let him see whether he is not casting his own impiety upon the unbegotten Father Himself, in that he denies that He was always Father and had begotten the Word, and had wisdom in all preceding times, or ages, or whatever that is which can be named.
4. Therefore, the Son is also the truth and the life of all things that are. C For how would those things that are made live, unless they were from life? Or how would those things that are consist by truth, unless they descended from truth? Or how could rational substances exist, unless the Word or reason preceded them? Or how would they be wise, unless wisdom existed? But since it was to come to pass that some would even fall away from life, and would bring death upon themselves by the very fact that they departed from life (for death is nothing else than to depart from life), and since it would certainly not follow that those things which had once been created by God for the purpose of living should utterly perish, it was necessary that before death there should be such power as to D dissolve [both; whereas it is both absurd... that is, as if either from this—] either, or else that it would have been able to produce, and—which it is a crime to say of God—had been unwilling to generate: that both are absurd and impious is plain to everyone; that is, either that God would have progressed to be able to [generate] from the fact that He was not able, or that, while He was able, He would have dissembled and delayed in generating wisdom. Wherefore, we know God the Father to be always the Father of His only-begotten Son, born indeed from Him, and drawing what He is from Him, yet without any beginning, not only in that which can be distinguished by any intervals of time, but not even in that which the mind is wont to contemplate by itself, and, if I may so say, in bare intellect and spirit. Therefore, wisdom is to be believed to have been generated before any beginning that can be either spoken or understood. In this, therefore, the subsistence of wisdom—because every virtue and the future formation of the creature, or of those things which exist primarily, or of those which follow consequently by the power of foreknowledge, were pre-formed and disposed for these very creatures which were as it were described and prefigured in wisdom itself—it says of itself through Solomon that it was created as the beginning of the ways of God, for it contains in itself in truth the beginnings, or forms, or species of the whole creature.
A It fears death, and it was formed in our Lord and Saviour, which resurrection consists in the very Wisdom of God and in the Word and in the Life. Then, since it was to happen that some of those who were created—because the good was not in them naturally, that is, substantially, but accidentally, not wishing to remain always inconvertible and immutable, and always to endure in the same goods with an equal and moderate balance, but having turned and changed—would fall from their state B, the Word of God and Wisdom became a way. Which way is called such for the reason that it leads those who travel along it to the Father. Therefore, whatever we have said concerning the Wisdom of God, these things will be fittingly applied and understood also for the reason that the Son of God is life, and for the reason that He is the Word, and because He is truth, and because He is resurrection: for all these appellations are named from His works and virtues, and in none of these can anything corporeal be understood, even by light opinion, which might seem to designate either magnitude, or habit, B or color; since those who are seen among us as sons of men, or of other animals, correspond to the seed of those by whom they were sown, or of those in whose womb they are formed and nourished, and have from them whatever it is that they bring forth into this light. But it is unspeakable and illicit to equalize God the Father, in the generation of His only-begotten Son and in His subsistence, to anyone among men or any other beings who beget; but it is necessary that there be something excepted and worthy of God, to which no comparison at all can be found, not only in things, but not even in thought or in sense, so that human thought might be able to apprehend how the unbegotten God the Father is made of the only-begotten Son. For it is an eternal and everlasting generation, just as splendor is generated from light. For the Son does not become so from without through the adoption of the Spirit, but He is Son by nature.
5. Nevertheless, let us see how these things that we say are supported by the authority of the divine Scripture. The apostle Paul says that the only-begotten Son is the image of the invisible God, and that He is the firstborn of every creature. Writing to the Hebrews, he says of Him that He is the splendor of glory, and the express image of His substance. C We find, nonetheless, also in the Wisdom which is called Solomon's, a description of the Wisdom of God written in this manner: "For it is the vapor of the power of God, and a most pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty. Therefore, nothing defiled can fall into it. For it is the splendor of eternal light, and an unspotted mirror of the operation of God, and the image of His goodness." We speak of Wisdom, as we said above, as having subsistence nowhere else than in Him who is the beginning of all things; from whom also every wisdom is born, because He Himself is the one who is alone Son by nature, and for this reason He is also called only-begotten.
6. Let us see, then, what must be understood also by this: that He is called the image of the invisible [God], so that by this we may perceive how God is rightly called the Father of His Son; and let us consider first from those things which are accustomed to be called images by the custom of men. D Sometimes that which is formed in some matter, that is, of wood or stone, is called an image, to be painted or carved. Sometimes that which is born of the one who begot is called an image, when the lines of the begetter do not lie in the one who is born in any likeness. I think, therefore, that the first example can be adapted to him who was made to the image and likeness of God, man, concerning whom we shall see, God favoring, when we have begun to expound the passage itself in Genesis. But to the second comparison, the image of the Son of God, of whom the discourse is now, can be compared even according to this, that the image of the invisible God is invisible, just as according to history we say that the image of Adam is his son Seth. For it is written thus: "And Adam begot Seth, according to his own image, and according to his likeness." Which image also contains the unity of the nature and substance of the Father and the Son. For if the Father does all things, the Son does these things similarly, in that the Son does all things just as the Father, the image of the Father is fashioned in the Son, who is indeed born from Him as a certain will of His proceeding from His mind. And therefore I believe that the will of the Father ought to suffice for the subsisting of that which the Father wills. For the One who wills does not use another way than that which is brought forward by the counsel of His will. Thus, then, the subsistence of the Son is also generated from Him. Which it is necessary in the first place to be accepted by those who confess that nothing is unbegotten, that is, innate, except only God the Father. For it must be observed that no one should incur those absurd fables of those who [imagine] certain emanations for themselves...
to divide the divine nature into parts, and so far as in them lies to divide God the Father, since to suspect even lightly that this could be the case with an incorporeal nature is not only an extreme impiety, but also an extreme folly, nor does it follow at all for our understanding that a substantial division of an incorporeal nature can be understood. More truly, therefore, just as the will proceeds from the mind, and neither cuts off any part of the mind nor is separated or divided from it, in such a way must we think that the Father begat the Son, namely, His image, so that just as He Himself is invisible by nature, so He also begat an invisible image. For the Son is the Word, A and therefore nothing sensible is to be understood in Him. He is Wisdom, and in Wisdom nothing corporeal is to be suspected. He is the true Light, which illumines every man coming into this world, but He has nothing in common with the light of this sun. Our Savior is therefore the invisible image of God the Father, in relation to the Father Himself indeed the truth; but in relation to us, to whom He reveals the Father, He is the image through which we come to know the Father, whom no one else knows except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Moreover, He reveals Him by the fact that He Himself is understood. For from whom He Himself has been understood, the Father is consequently understood, according to what He Himself said: "He who has seen Me, has seen the Father."
7. But since we have included the statement of Paul regarding Christ, where he says that "He is the splendor of God's glory, and the express image of His substance," let us see what must be understood from this. "God is light," according to John. The Son, therefore, is the splendor of this light, proceeding inseparably from Him as splendor from light, and illuminating the whole creation. For according to these things which we have set forth above, how He is the way and leads to the Father, and how He is the Word, interpreting and bringing forth the mysteries of the hidden wisdom and knowledge to a rational creation, and how also He is the truth and the life and the resurrection, we ought consequently to understand B also [this matter] of the splendor; for through the splendor it is understood and felt what light itself is. This splendor, offering itself more calmly and gently to the fragile and weak eyes of mortals, and gradually as it were teaching and accustoming them to endure the brightness of the light, when it has removed from them everything that obscures and hinders the sight, according to what the Lord said: "Cast the beam out of your eye," makes them capable of receiving the glory of the light, acting even in this as a certain mediator between men and the light.
8. But since [29] He is called by the Apostle not only the splendor of God's glory, but also the express image of His substance or subsistence, it does not seem to me to be idle for the intellect to notice how something other than the substance of God Himself, whatever that substance and subsistence is called, can be said to be the image of His substance. And see if perhaps, because the Son of God, who is called His Word and Wisdom, and alone knows the Father, and reveals Him to whom He wills—that is, to those who are capable of His word and wisdom—He is said to express the image of His substance and subsistency in accordance with this very fact that He makes God to be understood and recognized: that is, since He first describes Himself as the wisdom which He wills to reveal to others, from which God is recognized and understood by them, and this is said to be the express image of the substance of God. But that it may be more fully understood how the Savior is the image of the substance or subsistence of God [30], let us also use an example, which, although it does not fully or properly signify the matter of which we speak, yet seems to be assumed for this purpose alone, that the Son who was in the form of God, emptying Himself, through this His own emptying, strives to demonstrate to us the fullness of the divinity. For the sake of argument, if there were some statue such that by its size it filled the entire world, and because of its immensity it could be considered by no one; but another statue were to be fashioned, similar in the habit of its limbs and C countenance, and matter, in all respects... D [The remainder of the text is a scholarly note on the Greek term *agennetos*.]
immensity of magnitude; so that those who could not contemplate and behold that A immense being, by seeing this one, might confess that they had seen that one, because it preserved every feature of its limbs and countenance, and even the appearance and matter itself, in a resemblance entirely indistinguishable. By a certain such likeness, the Son of God emptying Himself from the equality of the Father, and showing us the way to the knowledge of Him, is made the express image of His substance; so that we—who could not gaze upon the glory of the wonderful light placed in the magnitude of His deity—by this, that He is made a splendor for us, might grasp the way of contemplating the divine light through the aspect of the splendor. The comparison, indeed, concerning the statues B set, as it were, in material things, is accepted for no other purpose than this: that the Son of God, inserted into the very brief form of a human body, indicated by the likeness of His works and power the immense and invisible magnitude of God the Father; through this, that He said to His disciples: "He who sees me, sees also the Father," and: "I and the Father are one." To which also that similar saying must be understood, which He says, namely: "The Father is in me, and I in the Father."
9. Let us now see also how we are to understand what we read written in the Wisdom of Solomon, which speaks thus concerning Wisdom: "For it is a vapor C of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; and the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of the operation or power of God, and the image of his goodness." Therefore, what it defines here concerning God, it signifies by every single point that there are certain things in the Wisdom of God. For it names the power of God, and glory, and eternal light, and operation, and goodness. But it says that Wisdom is a vapor, not of the glory of the Almighty, nor of the eternal light, nor of the operation of the Father, nor of His goodness; for it was not fitting for a vapor to be ascribed to any of these; but with every propriety D it is said to be a vapor of God’s power. Wisdom, therefore, must be understood as the power of God, by which He flourishes, by which He institutes, contains, or governs all things, both visible and invisible; which is sufficient for all things, provides for them, and is present to all—to each as if to one. Of this whole power, so great and so immense, Wisdom is the vapor—and, if I may so speak, the very vigor—produced in its own subsistence. Although it proceeds from this power just as a will proceeds from the mind, nevertheless, the will of God is also none the less the power of God. It is made, therefore, another power, existing in its own property, as the word of Scripture says, a certain vapor of the first and unbegotten power of God, drawing its existence from thence; yet there is no time when it was not. For if anyone wishes to say that it did not exist before, but later came into subsistence, let him say the cause why the Father, who caused it to subsist, did not do so before this. But if He once gave it some beginning, from which beginning this vapor proceeded from the power of God, we shall again ask why He did not also produce it before that which He called the "beginning." And thus, always inquiring about the things prior, and ascending by the word of interrogation, we shall arrive at that understanding: that since God was always able and always willing, it was never necessary, nor could any cause exist, that He did not always have that which He willed as good. From which it is shown that this vapor of the power of God always existed, having no beginning except God Himself. Nor was it fitting that there should be any other beginning, except God Himself, from whom it both is and is born. According to the Apostle, moreover, saying that Christ is the power of God, He must now be called not only a vapor of the power of God, but power from power.
10. Let us see also concerning what was said: "For it is a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty"; and first, indeed, let us consider what is the glory of the almighty God, then we shall also perceive what its emanation is. Just as the Father cannot be who He is if the Son does not exist, nor the Lord...
be who He is without something to be lord over A; so likewise, it cannot be said that God is almighty if there are no beings over whom He may exercise His power. And therefore, for God to be shown as almighty, it is necessary that all things exist.
For if anyone wishes to suggest that there were certain ages or intervals of time before the things which have been made were made, he will undoubtedly show that in those ages or intervals God was not almighty, and that He subsequently became almighty from the moment He began to have beings over whom He could exercise His power. And by this, He will be seen to have received a certain A advancement and to have progressed from lower things to better things, since it is not doubted that it is better for Him to be almighty than not to be.
B 58 And how will it not appear absurd that, when God did not have some of the things that it was worthy for Him to have, He subsequently, through a certain advancement, came to have them? But if there is never a time when He was not almighty, it is necessary that those things by which He is said to be almighty must necessarily exist, and that He always had things over whom He exercised His power, and which were governed by Him as by a King or Ruler—of which we will discourse more fully in the proper places in which it is necessary to discuss His creatures. But even now I think it necessary briefly to admonish, since the question before us B concerns Wisdom, how Wisdom is the purest emanation of the glory of the Almighty, lest it appear to anyone that the title of "Almighty" is prior in God to the birth of the Wisdom by whom He is called Father, since it is said to be an emanation of the Almighty.
Neque ergo ab Adam... [[alt-version omitted]] C Nor therefore did man, not having existed before, come into the world as the first of all, as some affirm, nor did the world, on the other hand, begin to be made before the six days in which Adam was created. But if anyone should desire to examine these things, let him first consider whether, according to Moses, to those who interpret Moses in this way, time is not easily calculated? A prophetic voice also proclaims this here: "From age to age Thou art; for a thousand years in Thy sight are as yesterday, which has passed, and a watch in the night" (Ps. LXXXIX, 2, 4). For best calculators affirm that six days have passed from the creation of the world until our rest, these thousand years being concluded into one day in the eyes of God. They say that the six-thousandth year extends from Adam to us. For they say that the judgment will arrive in the seventh millennium of the world. Therefore, thirteen days are counted from us to the beginning in which God created heaven and earth, during which time—as you yourselves absurdly say—God did nothing and created nothing, and was deprived of the name of Father and Creator. But if there are thirteen days in the eyes of God from the foundation of the world, how does Wisdom say in Jesus Sirach: "Who shall number the sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the age?" (Eccl. I, 2)? See regarding these things in the second book of the *Origenianorum* questions, 12, no. 4.
If there is no maker without a work, no poet without poems, and no ruler without subjects (for it is necessary that a maker be named from his work, a poet from his poems, and a ruler from his subjects), it is necessary that the things created by God were made from the beginning, and that there is no time in which these did not exist. For if there was a time in which there were no works, then, since there were no works, there was not a maker. See what impiety follows from that. But also it follows that the immutable and unchangeable God is altered and changed. For if He did not create all things from eternity, it is manifest that He passed from not creating to creating. But this, along with the things mentioned before, is absurd; therefore, it cannot be said that this universe lacks a beginning or is not co-eternal with God. Origen, after he had spoken at length about the eternity of the universe, also inferred this, Melodius himself bearing witness in the same place: D [[index: entries preserved]]
A that the Wisdom which is the Son of God is most pure. Let him who wishes to suspect such things hear what Scripture most manifestly proclaims, saying: "All things in wisdom You have made" (Ps. CIII, 24); and through the Gospel it is taught: "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made" (John I, 3); and let him understand from this that there cannot be in God an appellation of the Almighty that is older than that of Father; for through the Son the Father is Almighty. But since he said that the glory of the Almighty is that whose efflux is Wisdom, it is given to be understood that Wisdom also has a share in the glory of the Almighty, through whom God is called Almighty. For through Wisdom, which is Christ, God holds the lordship of all things, not only by the authority of a ruler, but also by the spontaneous service of those subject to Him. But in order that you may know that the omnipotence of the Father and the Son is one and the same, just as God and Lord are one and the same with the Father, hear John in the Apocalypse saying in this manner: "Thus says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty" (Apoc. I, 8). For who is "He who is to come" (46), if not Christ? And just as no one should be offended that when God is Father, the Savior is also God; so also, when the Father is called Almighty (47), no one should be offended that the Son of God is also called Almighty. For in this way, that which He Himself says to the Father will be true: "All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them" (John XVII, 10). But if all things which are the Father's are Christ's, and yet among all things which exist the Father is also Almighty, without doubt the only-begotten Son must also be Almighty, so that the Son may also have all things that the Father has. And, He says, "I am glorified in them. For in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil. II, 10, 11). Therefore, the efflux of the glory of God, according to this—that He is Almighty—is Wisdom herself, pure and limpid, glorified (48) just as an efflux of omnipotence or glory. But so that it may be more manifestly understood what the glory of the Almighty is, we add this also. God the Father (49) is Almighty, in that He holds the lordship of all things, that is, of heaven and earth, sun and moon and stars, and all things that B are in them. He exercises the lordship of these through His Word, since "in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things celestial, and terrestrial, and infernal." And if every knee bows to Jesus, without doubt it is Jesus to whom all things are made subject, and He is the one who exercises lordship over all, and through whom all things are made subject to the Father (50); for through Wisdom, that is, the Word and Reason, not by force and necessity, have all things been made subject. And therefore, in that very thing by which He possesses all things, there is His glory; and this is the purest and most limpid glory of omnipotence, since with reason and wisdom, not by force and necessity, have all things been made subject. But the purest and most limpid glory of Wisdom is very fittingly stated in distinction to that glory which is not said to be glory purely or sincerely. For every nature (51) that is convertible and mutable, even if it is glorified in works of justice or wisdom, precisely through the fact that it has justice or wisdom as an accident, and that which happens can also fall away, its glory cannot be sincere and most limpid. But the Wisdom of God, which is His only-begotten Son, since He is in all things inconvertible and immutable, and every good in Him is substantial—which certainly can never be changed or converted—therefore His glory is proclaimed to be pure and sincere.
11. Thirdly, Wisdom is said to be the splendor (52) of eternal light; the power of which thing we have already expounded C in the preceding [pages], when we introduced the likeness of the sun and the splendor of its rays and showed according to our strength how this ought to be understood. We shall, however, add this one thing. Sempiternal or eternal is properly said to be that which has neither had a beginning to be, nor can ever cease to be what it is. This, however, is designated in John when he says that "God is light" (1 John I, 5). The splendor of His light is His Wisdom, not only according to the fact that He is light, but also according to the fact that He is sempiternal light, so that His Wisdom is the splendor of the eternal and of eternity. If this is understood in its entirety, it manifestly declares that the subsistence of the Son descends from the Father Himself, but not temporally, nor from any other beginning, except, as we have said, from God Himself.
A 12. And the immaculate mirror of the activity of God is what is named Wisdom. Therefore, the activity of the virtue of God [which it is] must first be understood, which is a certain vigor, if I may so speak, through which the Father operates, whether He creates, or provides, or judges, or orders and dispenses each thing in its time. Just, therefore, as in a mirror, all the movements by which he who looks into the mirror is moved or acts, the same image which is formed by the mirror is also moved and acts by [the same] actions and movements, declining in no respect whatsoever; so also does Wisdom wish to be understood concerning herself, when she is named the immaculate mirror of the paternal virtue and activity; just as the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, pronounces of Himself, saying: "The works which the Father does, these also the Son does in like manner." And He says again: "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing." Since, therefore, the Son is in no way whatsoever changed or different from the Father in the power of His works, nor is the work of the Son other than that of the Father, but one and the same, to such an extent that I may say there is even one movement in all things, therefore He named Him the immaculate mirror, so that through this no dissimilarity of the Son to the Father might be understood. For surely those things which have been said by some concerning the "likeness" or "imitation" of a disciple to a master, and that in material things these are done by the Son in the way in which they were first fashioned by the Father in spiritual substances, how can they agree, when in the Gospel the Son is said not to do "like things," but the "same things in like manner"?
13. It remains to inquire what is the image of His goodness; in which, I think, it is appropriate to understand the same things which we expressed above concerning the image which is fashioned by a mirror. B Principal goodness, without doubt, is that from which the Son is [born]; who in all things is the image of the Father, and without doubt also [the image of His goodness]; and so the Son is conveniently said to be the image of His goodness. For no other secondary goodness exists in the Son, besides that which is in the Father [(57)]. Whence also the Savior Himself rightly says in the Gospel: "No one is good except one, God the Father"; by which it is to be understood, of course, that the Son is not of another goodness, but of that alone which is in the Father; of whom He is rightly called the image, because He is from nowhere else than from the very principal goodness itself; lest another goodness than that which is in the Father be seen in the Son. Nor is there any dissimilarity or distance of goodness in the Son. For which reason it ought not to be thought any kind of blasphemy in that it is said: "No one is good except one, God the Father"; nor should it therefore be thought that either Christ or the Holy Spirit is denied to be good; but as we said above, principal goodness is to be understood in God the Father, from whom both the Son is born, or C the Holy Spirit proceeds, and without doubt He refers to Himself the nature of His goodness, which is in that fountain from which the Son is either born or the Holy Spirit proceeds. But now if any other "goods" are spoken of in the Scriptures, whether angel, or man, or servant, or treasure, or good heart, or good tree, all these are called [good] abusively, containing in themselves an accidental, not a substantial goodness. Moreover, it is a great matter, and of another work or time, to gather together all the appellations of the Son of God: for the sake of example, how the D true light is, or the door, or justice, or sanctification.
true light, or the door, or righteousness, or sanctification, or redemption, and countless others, and *for what reasons each of these is named, to explain. But, content with the points we have discussed above, let us consequently inquire into the remaining matters.
CHAPTER III. On the Holy Spirit.
1. It follows, therefore, that we must now briefly inquire into what we can regarding the Holy Spirit. And indeed, all who in any way hold that providence exists, confess that God is the unbegotten One who created and ordered all things, and they acknowledge Him to be the parent A of the universe. Yet that there is a Son to Him, we do not alone proclaim, although this seems sufficiently strange and incredible to those who appear to be wise among the Greeks and barbarians; nevertheless, they confess that all things were created by the Word of God or by reason. But we, according to the faith of His doctrine, which we hold to be divinely inspired for certain, believe that it is not possible to unfold and bring into human knowledge a more eminent and divine notion concerning the Son of God other than that which is held by the writings alone that were inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is, the evangelical and apostolic, as well as the law and the prophets, as Christ Himself asserted. But as for the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, no one could have had any suspicion at all, except those who are well versed in the law and the prophets, or those who confess themselves to believe in Christ.
B ...that which is created, the third. These three he called by as many names, calling them grand-father, son, grandson, [Greek: πάππον, ἔκγονον, ἀπόγονον]. Thus he numbered as a third god the world itself, that is, the soul of the world, or that which, from the soul and the vast body of the universe, becomes, in the opinion of the Platonists, one animal. But indeed, as Petau most excellently observes in *De Trinitate*, lib. 1, cap. 1, num. 4, Plato did not intend them to be equal, and, as the Greeks say, [Greek: ὁμοτίμους], three gods, as the Catholic faith professes three persons to be equal and peer in one God; but one among them is the highest, and content with Himself, looking to no other, and, as they call it, free/absolute from every [Greek: σχέσει], that is, distinct relation and respect, whom he called [Greek: τ' ἀγαθὸν], that is, the Good itself, and the same he called the cause or principle of all essence, and established above all that which exists. To this they subordinate a second, to whom the management of the whole universe pertains, which part is, in a way, lesser than Himself. For inasmuch as He looks to the one who is superior and better, and is fed by his contemplation and as if by a draught, He is far more happy and divine. Therefore, that later god yields much to the former, by whom He is also said to be begotten; not in the way in which we believe the Son to be begotten by the Father: that is, from His substance, so that He is [Greek: ὁμοούσιος], but clearly in the same way as Arius and his disciples affirmed the Son to be begotten by the Father only in word, but in reality created and made. Furthermore, the third god is manifestly considered created by these same Platonists, whom they call [Greek: ποίημα]. For which reason, Macrobius, lib. 1, in *Somn. Scip.*, cap. 14, affirms that both were considered created by the Supreme God according to the opinion of Plato, in these words: 'God,' he says, 'who is and is called the first cause, is the one prince and origin of all things that are and that appear. Out of the superabundant fecundity of His majesty, He created from Himself a mind. This mind, which is called [Greek: νοῦς], as it looks upon the Father, maintains the full likeness of its author; but it creates the soul from itself, looking back to the things that follow. Again, the soul is clothed with that part by which it looks; and as if it gradually retreats in its respect toward the fabric of the bodies, the incorporeal entity itself degenerates. Thus the trinity of the Platonists was far removed from the Trinity of the orthodox Christians.'
C ...opinion. Plato and his disciples formed a certain appearance of a Trinity, and distinguished two and three gods in the universe, of whom the first is the parent D of the rest; the second is the artificer and principle of all things; the third is obscurely signified by Plato, and is said by most to be the soul of the world. In his second letter to Dionysius it is written: 'It behooves you to hear through riddles, so that if the letter should suffer anything on the sea or land, the reader may not know. For it is thus. Around the King of all are all things, and for His sake all things, and He is the cause of all good things; and a second about the second things, and a third about the third.' To these words, Eusebius in book XI of *Praep. evangel.* thought that the three persons of the divinity were signified: 'These words of Plato,' he says, 'who have undertaken to explain the mind of the philosopher, refer to the first God, and the second principle, and none other than the third, whom they are also wont to call the soul of the world and the third God.' The same Plato in his sixth letter to Hermias, Erastus, and Coriscus, signifies the two gods, Father and Son, more explicitly, when he commands them to read his letter, adjuring them... [Greek omitted] ...with elegance and the discipline that is the sister of this study: 'testifying to the leader of all things, which are and which shall be; and the Father and Lord of the leader and principle.' Plotinus (*Enn.* V, lib. 1, ch. 6 and 7) considers the first of these three Platonic gods to be the highest and perfect, whom he calls [Greek: κρείττονα νοῦν], that is, the better mind. The second he calls [Greek: νοῦν δεύτερον], the posterior mind, begotten by the former and its image. Further, the third is the soul which is begotten by the second mind, and is its reason. Proclus, in lib. II of his *Commentary on the Timaeus*, reports the opinion of Numenius the Pythagorean briefly and clearly: 'Numenius, having sung of three gods, calls the first the father; the second, the maker; and the third, the made; for the world, according to him, is the third god. So that the maker according to him is twofold, once as the first, and once as the second god, and that which is made is the third.' Numenius preaches three gods, calling the first the father, the second the maker, but the third the work. For the world, in his opinion, is the third god. And thus a dual artificer is constituted by him, the first and second god.
A For although no one can speak about God the Father as he deserves, it is yet possible for the human intellect to grasp something from the vantage point of visible creatures and from those things which the human mind naturally senses; furthermore, it is possible for this to be confirmed by the Holy Scriptures. And likewise concerning the Son of God, although no one knows the Son except the Father, the human mind is nevertheless formed from the divine Scriptures regarding how even He ought to be understood, not only from the New, but also from the Old Testament, through those things which were done by the saints and which refer figuratively to Christ, from which it is possible to discern either his divine nature or the human nature which was assumed by him.
2. Concerning the Holy Spirit, what he is, many things have been taught to us by the Scriptures, as David says in the 50th Psalm: "And take not thy holy Spirit from me." And in Daniel it is said: "The holy Spirit which is in thee." In the New Testament, however, we are taught by abundant testimonies, when the Holy Spirit is described as having descended upon Christ, and when the Lord himself breathed upon the apostles after the resurrection, saying: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." And regarding Mary, it is said by the angel: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee." Paul, moreover, says "that no one can say the Lord Jesus except in the Holy Spirit." And in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit was given in baptism through the laying on of the apostles' hands. From all of which we have learned B of what authority and dignity the substance of the Holy Spirit is, so that salutary baptism is not completed except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of all—that is, by the naming of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—and the name of the Holy Spirit is also joined to the unbegotten God the Father and to his only-begotten Son. Who then would not be struck with awe at how great the majesty of the Holy Spirit is, when he hears that whoever has spoken a word against the Son of man may hope for forgiveness, but that he who has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness, neither in this age nor in the age to come?
3. That all things were created by God, and that there is no creature which has not received its very being from him, is proven by many assertions of Scripture, after those things which are falsely maintained by some have been rejected and refuted—whether concerning matter co-eternal with God, or concerning unbegotten souls, to which they attribute not so much a nature of subsisting, as C an equality and order implanted by God. For indeed in the book which is called the Shepherd, of the angel of repentance, which Hermas wrote, it is recorded thus: "First of all believe that there is one God who created and composed all things; who, when there was nothing before, made all things to be; who contains all things, but is himself contained by none." But also in the book of Enoch similar things are described. Nevertheless, up to the present, we have not been able to find any discourse in the Holy Scriptures through which the Holy Spirit would be called a work or a creature, not even in the way in which we have taught above that Solomon speaks of Wisdom, or those things which we have discussed as to be understood concerning Life or the Word and other appellations of the Son of God. Therefore, the Spirit of God who was borne over the waters, as it is written in the beginning of the creation of the world, I think is none other than the Holy Spirit, according to what I am able to understand, as we also showed when we were explaining those very passages, not according to the history, but according to the spiritual understanding.
4. Certain ones indeed among our predecessors, in the New Testament, have observed that wherever the Spirit is named without an addition that specifies what kind of spirit it is, it ought to be understood as the Holy Spirit, as for example: "But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy and peace," etc. Likewise also there: "When you have begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?" We, however, think that this distinction can also be maintained in the Old Testament, as when it says: "Who gives spirit to the people who are upon the earth, and spirit to those who tread upon it." For without doubt everyone who treads the earth—that is, upon earthly and corporeal things—is a partaker of the Holy Spirit, receiving him from God. D *The Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim who are described in Isaiah with six wings, calling one to the other and saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts," were to be understood as the only-begotten Son of God and the Holy Spirit. We, however, think that that which is said in the Canticle of Habakkuk, "In the midst of two animals," or "of two lives," should be understood as referring to Christ and the Holy Spirit.*
A For all knowledge concerning the Father is known through the revealing Son in the Holy Spirit, so that both these things which, according to the prophet, are called either "animals" or "lives," act as the cause of the knowledge of God the Father. For just as it is said of the Son, because "no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him," these same things are also said by the Apostle concerning the Holy Spirit, when he says: "But to us God has revealed them through His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." B And again, in the Gospel, when the Savior is recounting divine and deeper doctrines which His disciples were not yet able to grasp, he says thus to the apostles: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, comes, He will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you." And thus it is to be understood that just as the Son, who alone knows the Father, reveals Him to whom He wills, so the Holy Spirit, who alone searches even the deep things of God, reveals God to whom He wills. C For "the Spirit breathes where He wills." Nor must it be thought that the Spirit also learns by the Son revealing it. For if the Holy Spirit learns of the Father by the Son revealing it, then He comes from ignorance to knowledge; which, indeed, is both impious and foolish to confess—to attribute ignorance to the Holy Spirit. For it is not the case that, when He was something else before He was the Holy Spirit, He came through progress to be the Holy Spirit; such that one might dare to say that while He was not yet the Holy Spirit, He was ignorant of the Father, but afterwards, when He received knowledge, He became the Holy Spirit. If that were so, He would never be held in the unity of the Trinity—that is, of God the Father, who is unchangeable, and of His Son—unless He Himself had always been the Holy Spirit.
But whatever other such name of temporal signification we may adopt, it is to be received simply and with indulgence; since the significations of these names are indeed temporal, but those things of which we speak, while they are named temporally in the discourse of speech, by their nature transcend all intelligence of temporal sense.
5. Yet it seems proper to inquire what the cause is D why he who is regenerated through God unto salvation has need of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and will not receive salvation unless the Trinity be whole; nor is it possible to become a partaker of the Father or of the Son without the Holy Spirit. In discussing these, it will undoubtedly be necessary for us to describe the special operation of the Holy Spirit and the special operation of the Father and of the Son. A I think, therefore, that the operation of the Father and of the Son extends to both the holy and the sinners, to rational men and to mute animals; but also to those things which are without soul, and to all things that exist at all; whereas the operation of the Holy Spirit does not reach at all to those things which are without soul, nor to those which, though living, are mute; nor indeed is He found in those who, though rational, are placed in malice and have not at all turned to better things.
A I deem that the work of the Holy Spirit is only for those who are already turning themselves to better things, and are walking along the paths of Jesus Christ—that is, those who are engaged in good deeds and abide in God. B It is evident, furthermore, how men are said to have sin through their participation in the Word or reason; namely, ever since their intellects and capacities for knowledge, once the distinction between good and evil was suggested to them by the reason implanted within, began to realize what is evil, for if they do it, they become liable to sin. This is what is meant by the statement that men have no excuse for their sin, once the divine word or reason has begun to show them, in their heart, the distinction between good and evil, so that by this they might flee and avoid what is evil; for "to one who knows the good and does not do it, it is a sin." Furthermore, that not all men are outside the communion of God, the Gospel teaches in this way, when the Savior says: "The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, 'Look, here!' or 'There!'; for the kingdom of God is within you." But it must also be seen whether this perhaps signifies the same as what is written in Genesis, when it says: "And He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." If this is understood to have been given generally to all men, then all men have a participation in God.
6. But that the operation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exists in sinners as well, is manifest from the fact that all who are rational are partakers of the Word, that is, of reason, and through this they bear as it were certain seeds of wisdom and justice implanted in them, which is Christ. Moreover, everything that is, participates in Him who truly is, who said through Moses: "I am who I am," which participation in God the Father extends to everyone—just and sinners alike, rational and irrational, and everything at all that exists. The Apostle certainly also shows that everyone has a participation in Christ, saying: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'—that is, to bring Christ down; or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'—that is, to bring Christ up from the dead? But what does the Scripture say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.'" From this he signifies that Christ is in the heart of all, according to that in which He is the Word or reason, by whose participation they are rational. But also, regarding what is said in the Gospel: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin," it is manifest to those who know reason up to what time a human being is without sin, and from what age he becomes liable to sin.
But if this is to be understood about the Spirit, since Adam is also found to have prophesied C about certain things, then it cannot be taken as given generally, but to each of the saints. Finally, even in the time of the flood, when all flesh had corrupted the way of God, it is written as concerning the unworthy and sinners that God said: "My Spirit shall not remain in these men forever, because they are flesh." In which it is manifest by implication that the Spirit of God is taken away from any of the unworthy. In the Psalms it is also written: "You will take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and return to their ground. You shall send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth;" which is manifestly designated regarding the Holy Spirit, who, when sinners and the unworthy have been removed and extinguished, creates for Himself a new people and renews the face of the earth, when through the grace of the Spirit D among the Hebrews there were prophets by the virtue and inspiration of God; before the Law, Adam indeed, concerning the woman and the naming of the animals, signifying things to come.
A laying aside the old man with his deeds, they have begun to walk in the newness of life. And therefore it is aptly said of him that the Holy Spirit will not dwell in all, nor in those who are flesh, but in those whose earth has been renewed. In short, it is for this reason that the grace and revelation of the Holy Spirit were delivered through the laying on of the apostles' hands after baptism. But our Savior also, after the resurrection, when the old things had already passed away and all things had become new, himself being the new man and the firstborn from the dead, renewed through the faith of his own resurrection, says to the apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). This is, of course, what the Lord Savior himself was signifying in the Gospel, when he denied that new wine could be put into old wineskins, but ordered new wineskins to be made (Matt. 9:16, 17), that is, for men to walk in the newness of life, so that they might receive the newness of the wine, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit. In this way, therefore, the operation of the virtue of God the Father and the Son is extended indiscriminately over every creature; but we find that the participation of the Holy Spirit is had by the saints alone. For which reason it is said: "No one can say 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). And the apostles themselves are scarcely ever considered B worthy to hear: "You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you" (Acts 1:8). For which reason I also think it follows that he who has sinned against the Son of man is worthy of pardon; because he who is a participant of the Word of God or reason, if he ceases to live rationally, seems to have fallen into ignorance or folly, and on account of this to deserve pardon; but he who has already been deemed worthy of the participation of the Holy Spirit and has turned backward, this one is said in very deed and work to have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. Lest anyone, indeed, should think that because we have said the Holy Spirit is bestowed upon the saints alone, while the benefits or operations of the Father and the Son reach the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, we have on this account favored the Holy Spirit over the Father and the Son, or asserted a greater dignity for him—which is surely very inconsequent—we have described the property of his grace and work. Moreover, nothing in the Trinity is to be called greater or less, since the fountain of one divinity holds all things by his Word and reason, but sanctifies those things that are worthy of sanctification by the spirit of his mouth, as is written in the Psalm: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth" (Ps. 32:6). There is also a certain operation of God the Father, principal, beyond that by which he naturally bestowed upon all that they might exist. There is also the Lord Jesus Christ’s own special ministry C to those to whom he imparts, inasmuch as they are naturally rational, that by which it is granted to them that they might exist well. There is also another grace, even of the Holy Spirit, which is bestowed upon the worthy, ministered indeed through Christ, but performed by the Father according to the merit of those who are rendered capable of it. Which the apostle Paul indicates most manifestly, explaining one and the same virtue of the Trinity in that place where he says: "There are divisions of gifts (1 Cor. 12:4), but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God who works all things in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit according to what is expedient" (1 Cor. 12:4, 5, 6, 7). From which it is most manifestly designated that there is no division in the Trinity, but this which is called the gift of the Spirit is manifested through the Son, and is performed by God the Father. "But one and the same Spirit works all things, distributing to each as he wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).
8. Therefore, from these things concerning the unity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let us now return to that order which we had begun to discuss. God the Father grants to all that they exist; but participation in Christ, according to that which is the Word or reason, makes them to be rational. From which it follows that they are D worthy of either praise or blame, because they are capable of virtue and vice. For this reason there is consequently present also the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that those things which are not substantially holy might be made holy by participation in him. Since therefore, first, that they may exist, they have from God the Father; second, that they may be rational, they have from the Word; third, that they may be holy, they have from the Holy Spirit; again, according to that which is the justice of God, those things which have already been sanctified by the Holy Spirit are rendered capable; and those who have merited to advance to this degree through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit will nonetheless obtain the gift of wisdom according to the virtue and operation of the Spirit of God. And this I think Paul says when he states that to some is given the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit. And designating each distinction of gifts, he refers all things to the fountain of the universe, and says: "There are divisions of operations, but one God who works all things in all" (1 Cor. 12:6). Whence also the operation of the Father, which provides existence to all, is found more evident and more magnificent, since each one through participation in Christ, according to that which is wisdom, and according to that which is knowledge, and sanctification...
[LATIN COLUMN]
155 ORIGENIS ΠΕΡΙ ΑΡΧΩΝ 156 tion is, it progresses and arrives at higher degrees of advancement; and by this, that one has been made purer and more sincere through the participation of the Holy Spirit, he becomes worthy to receive the grace of wisdom and knowledge, so that, with all spots of pollution and ignorance cast off and purged away, he may receive such an advancement of sincerity and purity that that which he has received from God to be may be such as is worthy of God, who provided purely and perfectly for his being; that what is, may be as worthy as He is who made it to be. For thus he who is such as He who made him willed him to be, shall perceive from God that virtue also exists always and remains for eternity. And that this may happen, and that those things which were made by Him may be present to him incessantly and inseparably, it is the work of wisdom to instruct and train them, and to lead them to perfection through the confirmation and incessant sanctification of the Holy Spirit, through whom alone they can contain God. So therefore, with the work of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit A being incessantly renewed for us through every individual degree of advancement, it is with difficulty that we can perhaps at some time look upon the holy and blessed life: in which, when after many struggles it can be attained, we ought so to endure that no satiety of that good may ever B seize us; but the more we perceive of that blessedness, the more may its desire either be dilated or increased in us, while we always the more ardently and capaciously contain or hold the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If, however, satiety ever seizes any one of those who have stood in the highest and perfect degree, I do not believe that one is evacuated and falls suddenly: but it is necessary that he should decline little by little and by degrees: so that it may happen sometimes that, if some brief lapse occurs, and he quickly repents and returns to himself, he does not fall utterly, but can draw back his foot and return to his state, and again restore that which had been lost through negligence.
CHAPTER IV.
Concerning diminution or lapse.
1. But in order that we may show this diminution or lapse of those who have conducted themselves too negligently, let us use the likeness of some example; for it does not seem absurd. C Therefore, if there be someone who, by skill or art, for example geometry or medicine, has little by little been imbued until he has arrived at perfection, having trained himself over a long time with instructions and exercises so as to assume the discipline of the aforesaid art in its entirety: it will certainly never happen to him that, when the expert sleeps, he wakes up an unskilled person. For it is not convenient now to bring forward or mention those things which happen through some lesion or weakness; for they do not fit the proposed likeness or example. Following, therefore, that which we have proposed, that geometer or physician, as long as he exercises himself in the meditations of his art and in rational principles, the knowledge of the discipline also remains with him. But if he is remiss in his exercises, and neglects his industry, little by little first through negligence D a few things fall away, then subsequently even more, and so over a long time all things pass into oblivion, and all things are utterly wiped from memory. It can indeed happen that, when he begins to fall from the beginning and small things are still being corrupted by negligence, if he be revived and returns more quickly to himself, he may repair those things which have been lost only recently, and recall those things which had been removed from him by only a slight abolition. Let us transfer these things now to those who have devoted themselves to the science and wisdom of God, whose learning and industry supereminently surpass all other disciplines, and let us contemplate, according to the shape of the proposed likeness, either what the assumption of knowledge is, or what its loss is; especially when we hear from the Apostle what is said of the perfect, that they behold the glory of the Lord face to face from the revelations of the mysteries.2. But we, wishing to demonstrate the benefits which are provided to us through the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which Trinity is the fountain of all holiness, have spoken these things using a certain digression, and we thought we must touch briefly, though we were discussing the nearby subject of rational nature, upon the word regarding the soul which had fallen into our discourse. It is, however, more appropriate in its own place to discuss every rational nature.
rational nature which is distinguished into three genera and species, God granting us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we shall discuss.
CHAPTER V
On rational natures.1. After that dissertation which we briefly produced regarding the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as far as we were able, it follows that we should also discuss the rational natures, and their species and orders, or the offices of both the holy and also the malignant powers, but also of those who are midway between these good and evil ones and are still 10 placed in struggle and contest. For we find in the holy Scriptures very many names—both of certain holy orders and offices and also of contrary ones—which 11 we shall first set forth, and then attempt to discuss, to the best of our ability, what the meaning of these names signifies. There are certain holy angels of God whom Paul calls ministerial spirits, destined for ministry on account of those who obtain the inheritance of salvation. A Likewise, in the blessed Paul himself, I know not whence he takes it, but he names certain thrones, and dominations, and principalities, and powers, and after the enumeration of these, sensing that there are still certain other rational offices and orders besides those which he had mentioned above, he says concerning the Savior: "Who is above every principality, and power, and virtue, and domination, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the future." 12 From which he clearly shows that there are certain things besides these which he has commemorated, which are indeed named in this age, though they may not have been enumerated by him now, and perhaps were not understood by any other; or indeed that there are other things which are not named in this age, but will B be named in the future.
2. Now it must be understood that everything that is rational, and turns aside from the bounds and statutes of reason, undoubtedly becomes sinful through the prevarication of the right and the just. Therefore, every rational creature is capable of praise and blame: of praise, if it progresses toward better things according to the reason which it possesses within itself; of blame, if it declines from the reason of the right and the tenor of what is just: on account of which it is rightly subject even to penalties and punishments. This must also be understood concerning the devil himself and those who are with him and are called his angels 15. However, their appellations must also be explained, so that we may know what these things are about which discussion is to be moved for us. For the name of the devil, and of Satan, and of the malignant one is designated in many places of Scripture, who is also described as the enemy of God. Moreover, certain angels of the devil are named, but also "the prince 14 of this world," concerning whom it has not yet been manifestly declared whether he himself is the devil or some other. Certain "princes of this world" are also spoken of, having a certain wisdom which is being destroyed; but whether they themselves are these princes—who are also the principalities against whom our wrestling is—or whether they are others, it does not seem to me easy for anyone to pronounce. After principalities, however, certain powers are named against whom our wrestling is, and the contest is fought, but also against the princes of this world, and the rulers of this darkness; certain "spiritual things of wickedness in the celestials" are also named by Paul himself. But what must be said concerning the malignant spirits 15 and the unclean demons who are named in the Gospels? Then, they are called also by a similar name "celestial," but who are said to bend their knee, or to be a "bending" in the name of Jesus, but also earthly and infernal, which Paul enumerates in order 16. In that place, indeed, where we are discussing rational natures, it is not fitting to keep silent about us men, who are certainly said to be a rational animal; but neither should that be passed over in vain, that even concerning us men ourselves certain different orders are named, when it is said: "The Lord's portion is his people Jacob, the cord of his inheritance Israel." The other nations are called the portion of the angels, because indeed "when the Most High divided the nations and dispersed the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God." 17 And therefore, along with the other rational natures, the reason of human souls must also be perceived.
3. Therefore, with so many orders and offices named, beneath which it is certain that substances reside, it must be sought whether God, the founder and creator of all things, made some of them holy and blessed, so that they could not receive anything
A exactly contrary; or whether He made some so that they are capable of becoming both virtuous and wicked; [(19)] or whether it must be thought that He made others in such a way that they were altogether incapable of virtue, and others entirely incapable of receiving wickedness, but only capable of remaining in blessedness; while others perform in such a way that they can receive both. But that even from the names themselves the first inquiry may be stirred in us, let us consider whether the holy angels, since they are, have always been holy and are holy, and will be holy, and have never received, nor could they have received, a place for sin. Then, furthermore, regarding those who are called holy principalities, let us consider whether, immediately after they were created by God, they began to exercise principality over certain ones who were subject to them, and whether they were created as such, and were made specially to be submitted and subject. [(20)] Similarly, also, regarding those who are called powers, whether they were created as such and for this very purpose, that they might exercise power; or whether this is some merit and reward of virtue, through which they have attained to this power and dignity. Likewise, also, concerning those who are called thrones, or seats, whether they earned this seat and stability of blessedness together with the derivation of their own substance, so that they possess this by the sole will of the Creator; or whether, as for those which are called dominions, the fact that they dominate was not added to them through the merit of their progress, but was granted by the prerogative of their condition, and therefore is in some way inseparable from them and natural. [(21)] If, indeed, we accept this in such a way that the holy angels, and holy powers, and blessed seats, and glorious virtues, and magnificent dominions are thought to possess these powers and dignities and glories substantially, then it will without doubt seem to follow that those also which are named in reference to contrary offices ought to be understood in this same way; so that those principalities against whom we have a struggle—that very purpose of theirs which struggles and resists every good—are not thought to have received it later by declining from the good through freedom of the will [(22)], but that it existed together with them substantially; and similarly also the powers and the virtues, and that the malice in them is not subsequent and later than their substance. Those also whom he called rulers of the darkness of the world and principalities, that they rule and possess the darkness [(23)], not from a perversity of purpose, but are said to descend from a necessity of their condition. The same reasoning must also be understood to follow regarding spiritual wickedness, and regarding the evil spirits [(24)] and unclean demons. But if this seems absurd when understood in this way regarding the malignant and contrary powers—as it certainly is absurd that the cause of their malice, being removed from the purpose of their own will, must be ascribed to their Creator—how are we not compelled to confess the same things regarding the good and holy virtues? That is, that the good is not substantial in them, which we have clearly shown exists only in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, and without doubt also B in the Father. For the nature of the Trinity has not been shown to have anything of composition, such that these things should be thought to happen to it consequently. Whence it remains that in every creature of His handiwork and of its own movements it has been that these virtues which are seen either to exercise principality in others, or to exercise power, or to exercise dominion, are preeminent and set above those over whom they are seen to preside or upon whom they exercise power, because of their merit, and not through the prerogative of their condition.
4. C But lest, being invited by the reasoning of such difficult matters alone, we may seem to assert, and to force our listeners into assent merely by conjectures, let us see if we can also assume any assertion from the Holy Scriptures, by whose authority these things might be more credibly established. And first, indeed, we shall bring forth what the Holy Scripture contains regarding the evil powers; then afterwards we shall also investigate the rest, according to what the Lord has deigned to enlighten us, so that we may obtain, in matters so difficult, what is closer to the truth, or what ought to be expected according to the rule of piety. For we find in the prophet Ezekiel two certain prophecies written to the prince of Tyre [(25)], of which the first will perhaps seem to someone, before he hears the second, to be spoken of some man who was a prince of the Tyrians. And therefore we shall for the time being take nothing from that first one; but the second, since it is most evidently such that it ought to be understood not at all of a man, but of some higher power which had fallen from the higher realms and in
ferior and worse states A (26), we shall draw an example from this, by which it is most clearly demonstrated that these contrary and malignant powers were not created or fashioned as such by nature, but that they have come from better to worse, and have been turned to a baser state; and also that those blessed powers are not of such a nature that they cannot receive the opposite if they so will, and neglect, and do not guard with all caution the blessedness of their own state. For if he who is called the prince of Tyre is reported to have been among the holy ones and to have been immaculate, and to have been established in the paradise of God, and also to have been adorned with a crown of comeliness and beauty (28), how can he who was such be thought to have been inferior to any of the saints? For he is himself described as having been the crown of comeliness and beauty, and as having walked immaculate in the paradise of God; B and how can it be thought by anyone (29) that this same one was not one of those holy and blessed powers, which are certainly to be believed to have been endowed with no other honor than such as is theirs, placed as they are in blessedness? But let us see, finally, what the very words of the prophecy teach us. "And the word of the Lord," he says, "came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lamentation over the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Thou wast the seal of resemblance, and the crown of comeliness in the delights of the paradise of God; thou wast adorned with every good stone or gem, and clothed in the sardius, the topaz, and the emerald, the carbuncle, and the sapphire (30), and the emerald, with silver and gold inserted (31), and with the agate, the amethyst, and the chrysolite, and the beryl, and the onyx, and thou hast also filled thy treasures and thy storehouses with gold within thyself. From the day that thou wast created with the cherubim, I set thee in the holy mount of God. Thou wast in the midst of the fiery stones; thou wast immaculate in thy days, from the day thou wast created, until iniquities were found (32) in thee; from the multitude of thy trading thou hast filled thy storehouses with iniquity, and thou hast sinned, and thou hast been wounded from the mount C of God. And he cast thee out from the midst of the fiery stones (33); and thy heart was lifted up in thy comeliness, thy discipline was corrupted with thy beauty (34); by reason of the multitude of thy sins I have cast thee into the earth before kings; I have given thee to be a show and an object of mockery by reason of the multitude of thy sins (35), and of thine iniquities; by thy trading thou hast polluted thy holy things. And I will bring forth fire from the midst of thee, and it shall devour thee, and I will make thee ashes and cinders upon the earth in the sight of all those who see thee, and all who knew thee among the nations shall mourn over thee. Thou art become perdition, and thou shalt not be anymore for ever time."* Since these things are said, who is there who, upon hearing: "Thou wast the seal of resemblance, and the crown of comeliness in the delights of the paradise of God," or upon hearing that "from the day thou wast created with the cherubim, I set thee in the holy mount of God," can lower his mind so far as to suspect that these things are said of any man, or of the saints, let alone of the prince of Tyre? Or what fiery stones will he think there are, in the midst of which any man (36) could walk? Or who can be understood to be immaculate from the very day he was created, in whom later at some time injustices were found, and then is said to have been cast down to the earth? Which certainly signifies that it is said of him who, when he was not on earth, was cast down to the earth (37); whose holy things also are said to be polluted. These things, indeed, regarding the prince of Tyre from the prophet Ezekiel which are referred to the adverse power, we have shown, by which it is most clearly demonstrated that this power was holy and blessed before (38), from which blessedness, from the moment iniquity was found in it, it fell, and was plunged into the earth, and did not exist as such by nature and constitution. We believe, therefore, that these things are said of a certain angel, who has been allotted the office of administering the race of the Tyrians (39) and to whom also their souls have been entrusted.
Whether we should understand this Tyre, or the souls of the Tyrians, as referring to this city here in the regions of the Phoenician province, or to some other city whose form the one we know on earth reflects; and whether these souls belong to this Tyre or to those who are domestic to that Tyre which is understood spiritually, does not seem to require examination in this place; lest perhaps, while we are passing through subjects so great and so hidden, we appear to search into things which require their own proper work or labor.
5. Yet again, concerning the other opposing power (40), certain things are taught by the prophet Isaiah. For he says: "How has Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning, fallen (41) from heaven? He who sent to all nations has been broken and dashed to the ground. But thou saidst in thy heart (42): I will ascend into heaven; I will place my throne above the stars of heaven; I will sit on the high mountain, above the high mountains which are towards the North (43); I will ascend above the clouds; I will be like the Most High. But now thou shalt be brought down to hell, and to the foundations of the earth. Those who see thee shall be amazed at thee, and shall say: This is the man who stirred up the whole earth, who moved kings, who made the whole world a desert, who destroyed cities, and did not release those who are in bonds? All the kings of the nations have slept in honor, every one in his own house; but thou shalt be cast out on the mountains like an abominable corpse, with many dead who have been pierced with swords and have descended into hell. As a garment clotted with blood and defiled will not be clean, so neither shalt thou be clean, for thou hast destroyed my land and killed my people; thou shalt not remain for the eternal time, thou evil seed. Prepare thy children for slaughter for the sins of thy father, that they may not rise and inherit the earth, and fill the earth with wars, and I shall rise up against them, saith the Lord Sabaoth, and I will cause their name to perish, and their remnants, and their seed." By these words it is most manifest that he who was formerly Lucifer, and who used to rise in the morning, has fallen from the heavens. For if, as some think, his nature (44) was one of darkness, how is he said to have been Lucifer before? Or how could he have risen in the morning who had nothing of light in himself? But even the Savior C teaches us concerning the devil, saying: "I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning." For he was light at one time. And even our Lord, who is the Truth, nevertheless compared the power of His glorious coming to lightning, saying: "For as the lightning shines from the highest heaven even to the highest part of it, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." And yet He compares him to lightning, and says that he fell from heaven; so that he might show by this that he himself was also at one time in heaven, and had a place among the holy ones, and had partaken of this light, in which all the holy ones partake, from which the angels of light are made, and the apostles are called by the Lord the light of the world. In this way, therefore, he too was light at one time before he transgressed and fell into this place, and his glory was turned into dust, which is the proper state of the ungodly, just as the prophet also says, from which he is also called the prince of this world, that is, of this earthly habitation; for he exercised authority over those who followed his malice, since, indeed, this whole world (for I now call this earthly place the world) lies in the evil one, and in this he is an apostate. But that this one is an apostate, that is, a fugitive, the Lord also says in Job: "Moreover, you shall lead the dragon by a hook as an apostate," that is, as a fugitive. It is certain, however, that by the dragon the devil himself is understood. If, therefore, the opposing powers are named, and are said to have been at one time immaculate—but that it is immaculate exists substantially in no one except the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but holiness is an accidental thing in every creature, and what is accidental can also fall away, and these opposing powers were at one time immaculate, and among them there were certainly those who still remain immaculate—by this it is shown that neither is anyone immaculate by substance or nature, nor is anyone polluted by substance: D and therefore it is a consequence that it is in our power, and in our movements, whether we be blessed or holy, or turn from blessedness to malice and destruction through carelessness and negligence.
HIERON. INTERPR. By these disputes (50) we think that some are of their own accord in the number of the holy ones and in the service of God; others, because of their own fault, are [fallen] from the holy...
to such a degree of progress—or, I might say, of malice—that if anyone has neglected himself so far, he might descend to that state in which he is made what is called the contrary virtue. A
Chapter VI. On the End or Consummation.
1. The end and consummation of all things seems to be the indication of things completed. This matter also reminds us at this point that if there is anyone who has conceived a desire for reading these things and learning of such subjects, he must bring to bear a perfect and learned mind; lest perhaps, if he has had no experience in questions of this kind, he might see these things as vain and superfluous; or if he already brings to them a mind prejudiced and preoccupied by others, he might deem these things heretical and contrary to the ecclesiastical faith, defining them not so much by convincing reasoning as by his own prejudice. These matters are indeed said by us with great fear and caution, as we are discussing and examining them rather than ordaining them as certain and defined. For it has been indicated by us in the preceding pages which things are to be determined by manifest dogma—a task which I think we have performed to the best of our ability when we were speaking of the Trinity. But now we are exercising our powers of debate under the form of inquiry rather than of definition, as far as we are able. The end, therefore, of the world and the consummation will be given, when each one B will be subjected even to punishment according to the merit of his sins; that time God alone knows, when each one will expend what he deserves. We think, indeed, that the end is one, toward which the goodness of God through His Christ will recall the whole creation, with even the enemies being subdued and subject. For the holy Scripture says: "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." But if it is less manifest to us what the prophetic language indicates in this regard, let us learn from the Apostle Paul, who says more openly that "He (Christ) must reign, until He puts all enemies under His feet." But if we are not sufficiently instructed by this clear statement of the Apostle as to what it means for enemies to be put under His feet, let us listen further to what he says in the following: "For He must put all things in subjection under His feet." What, then, is this-subjection whereby all things C must be subject to Christ? I think that this is the very subjection by which we also desire to be subject to Him, by which the apostles and all the saints who have followed Christ are subject to Him. For the name of subjection, by which we are subjected to Christ, indicates the salvation of those who are subjected; just as David also said: "Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from Him is my salvation."
2. Since, therefore, we see all enemies will be subject to Christ, and when the last enemy, death, will be destroyed, and when the kingdom will be surrendered by Christ, to whom all things are subject, to God the Father—from this state, I say, let us contemplate the beginnings of things from such an end. For the end is always like the beginnings; and therefore, just as there is one end of all things, so one beginning of all things must be understood; and just as there is one end of many, so from one beginning many differences and D varieties, which are again recalled through the goodness of God and the subjection of Christ, and the unity of the Holy Spirit, into one end which is like the beginning: namely, all those who, bending the knee in the name of Jesus, have declared by this very act the signs of their subjection; who are those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; in which three designations all the universe is indicated—namely, those who from that one beginning were dispensed through different orders according to their merits for their own various movements and varieties; for goodness did not exist in them substantially, as it does in God and His Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. For in this Trinity alone, which is the author of all, goodness exists substantially; but others have it as an accident and something falling away, and they are in beatitude then, when they participate in holiness, wisdom, and divinity itself. But if they neglect and are indifferent toward such participation, then by their own fault—the cause being their own, because they do not give heed to themselves—they become, [original-script column: see facsimile] some sooner, others later, some more, others less.
And because this fall, or lapse, by which each one declines from his status, contains in itself a very great diversity according to the motions of the mind and purpose, because one declines to lower things more lightly and another more heavily, in this there is a just judgment of God’s providence, so that to each one, according to the diversity of his motions, it may happen according to the merit of his departure and commotion. From these, indeed, who remained in that beginning which we described as being similar to the future end, some in the ordering and dispensation of the world obtain the angelic order, others that of virtues, others that of principalities, others that of powers—obtaining power over those who need to have power over their heads—others the order of thrones, that is, of judging or ruling those who require this duty; others dominion over servants; all of which things divine providence bestowed with equal and just judgment upon them according to their merit and their progress, by which they had advanced in the participation and imitation of God. B
But those who were indeed moved from the state of primary blessedness, yet not moved irremediably, are subjected to and ruled by the holy and blessed orders we described above, whose aid they use, and being reformed by their wholesome institutions and disciplines, they may be able to return and be restored to the state of their blessedness. From which I suppose, as far as I can perceive, that this order of the human race has been instituted, which in any case in the future age, or in the ages coming after, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth according to Isaiah, will be restored into that unity which the Lord Jesus promises, saying to God the Father concerning his disciples: “I do not pray for these only, but also for all who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us.” And again where he says: “That they may be one, as we are one; I in them, and you in me, that they themselves also may be consummated in one.” And as the apostle Paul also confirms, saying: “Until we all come into the unity of faith, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” And as the same Apostle invites us who are already—even in the present life—placed in the Church, in which indeed is the form of the future kingdom, to this same likeness of unity, saying: “That you may all say the same thing, and there may be no schisms among you, but that you be perfect in one and the same sense, and in one and the same opinion.” C
3. It must be known, however, that some who fell from that one principle which we mentioned above gave themselves over to such indignity and malice that they were deemed unworthy of this institution or education by which the human race is instructed and educated through the flesh by the aid of celestial virtues, but on the contrary exist even as adversaries and opponents of those who are instructed and imbued.
All this life of mortals involves certain agonies and struggles, with those who without any regard for a better state have slipped away resisting and fighting against us—those who are called the devil and his angels, and other orders of wickedness, which the Apostle has named from their contrary virtues. Now, if some of these orders who act under the leadership of the devil and obey his malice can at some time in future ages be converted to goodness, because the power of free will is in them; or if, on the contrary, a lasting and inveterate malice is converted, as it were, into a kind of nature through habit, do you, who read, approve whether in any way this part will differ from that other, final unity and concord, neither in those things which are seen in temporal ages, nor in those which are not seen and are eternal. Meanwhile, both in those things which are seen B and in temporal ages, and in those which are not seen and are eternal, all these are dispensed according to order, reason, measure, and the dignity of their merits; so that some in the first, others in the second, and some even in the last times, and through greater and more severe 71 punishments, as well as prolonged and, if I may say so, for many ages endured, harsher emendations, being repaired and restored, they are instructed, first by angelic teachings, then afterward also by the virtues of superior C degrees, and thus, step by step, they advance to higher things, until they arrive at those which are invisible and eternal, having traversed each one, that is to say, by a certain process of instruction in the offices of the heavenly virtues. From which, as I suppose, this very consequence seems to show that every rational nature can pass from one order to another, through each to all, and from all to each, while each one experiences, according to the faculty of free will, various approaches of gains or losses for its own movements or strivings.
4. Since, indeed, he says some things are visible and temporal, while others besides these are invisible and eternal, we ask how these things which are visible are temporal; whether it is because there will be nothing at all after them in all those future ages A of cycles, by which that dispersion of the one principle and division is repaired to one and the same end and likeness: or whether it is that the habit of those things which are seen passes away, not, however, that their substance is altogether destroyed. And Paul indeed seems to confirm what we said later, when he says: "For the habit of this world passes away." But David also, when he says: "The heavens shall perish, but thou shalt remain, and all shall wax old as a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed," seems to show the same thing. For if the heavens shall be changed, certainly that which is changed does not perish; and if the habit of the world passes away, it is not shown that there is an absolute extermination or perdition of material substance, but a certain change of quality takes place, and a transformation of habit. Isaiah also, when he says through prophecy that "there shall be a new heaven and a new earth," suggests without doubt a similar understanding. For the innovation of heaven and earth, and the transmutation of the habit B of this world, and the change of the heavens, will without doubt be prepared for those who, traveling the path which we showed above, tend toward that end of blessedness, to which indeed the very enemies are said to be about to be subjected, in which end God is said to be all and in all. In this end, if anyone thinks that material—that is, corporeal—nature will utterly perish, it cannot in any way at all occur to my understanding how so many and such great substances can live and exist without bodies, since it is the property of the nature of God alone—that is, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—to be understood as existing without material substance and without any association of corporeal addition. Another perhaps will say that in that end every corporeal substance will be so pure and purged that it can be understood as being in the manner of ether and a certain celestial purity and sincerity. However, God alone knows the more certain way the matter will be, along with those who are His friends through Christ and the Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER VII. Concerning the incorporeal and the corporeal.
1. These matters, which have been digested in our general discourse, are by C consequence—
more a matter of intellect than of defined dogma, after that subject which we have set forth to the best of our ability regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, therefore, let us see what those things are which it is fitting to discuss in the following, in accordance with our dogma, that is, in accordance with the faith of the Church. All souls and all rational natures have been made or created, whether they be holy or whether they be wicked; and all of these are incorporeal according to their own nature; but for this very reason, that they are incorporeal, they have nonetheless been made; A seeing that all things were made by God through Christ, just as John teaches generally in the Gospel, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made." Describing the things that were made according to their species and numbers and order, the Apostle Paul discourses in this way, by which he shows that all things were made through Christ, saying: "And all things in Him were created, that are in heaven and that are on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created through Him and in Him, and He is before all, and He is the head." Clearly, therefore, he declares that all things were created and made in Christ and through Christ, whether visible things, which are corporeal, or invisible things, which I deem to be nothing other than incorporeal and spiritual virtues. B Concerning these things which he had spoken of generally as either corporeal or incorporeal, as it seems to me, he enumerates their species in what follows, that is, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, virtues. But let these things we have said serve those who wish to arrive, by way of order, at an investigation of the sun and moon, or the stars by consequence: whether it is fitting that they themselves be considered among the "principalities" because they are said to be made *en archais*, that is, in the principality of the day or of the night; or whether it should be thought that this sun alone has the principality of the day and [the moon that of the] night, in which they perform the office of illuminating, yet are not themselves the princes of that order of principalities.
2. Moreover, when it is said that all things were made through Him and in Him were all things created, whether those that are in heaven or those that are on the earth, it cannot be doubted that even those things which are said to be placed in the firmament are to be numbered among the celestial things. Then, subsequently, when our discourse has evidently C discovered that all things have been made, or created, and that among these things which have been made, there is nothing that does not receive both good and evil, and is capable of both; how will it be thought to follow, as some of ours opine concerning the sun and moon, or the stars, that they are unchangeable and incapable of opposites? Some have thought this even concerning the holy angels, and heretics indeed even concerning souls, which are called "spiritual natures" among them. Let us, therefore, see first what reason itself finds concerning the sun and moon and stars, if it is correct what some think, that they are alien to changeability, and let the assertion be supported, as much as possible, by the Holy Scriptures. For Job seems to show thus, that not only can the stars be subject to sins, but actually that they are not clean from the contagion of sin. For thus it is written: "The stars also are not clean in his sight." Which is certainly not meant of the splendor of their body: for example, as if we were to say that a garment is not clean; for if it is understood in this way, it is D without doubt referred to the injury of the Creator, if anything unclean were to be accused in the splendor of their body. For if, through their own industry, they are unable to assume a cleaner body for themselves, nor, through sloth, a less pure one, why are the stars blamed as if they were not clean, if, because they are clean, they will not be praised?
3. But that these things may be understood more clearly, we must first inquire if it is right to understand that these are living and rational beings; then, subsequently, whether the souls of these existed equally with their bodies, or whether they are seen to be prior to their bodies; but also if, after the consummation of the age, it is to be understood that they are to be released from their bodies; and, just as we cease from this life, whether even they will cease from the illumination of the world. Although to inquire into this may appear to be of a certain audacity, yet because we are prompted by the desire to grasp the truth, it does not seem absurd to examine and probe what is possible for us to know according to the grace of the Holy Spirit. We think, therefore, that it is possible to be signified by this that they are living beings, because they are also said to receive commands from God, which, of course, no one but rational conscious beings...
A are accustomed to receive. He says, therefore: "I have given a commandment to all the stars." And what are those commandments? Clearly that each star should provide to the world the splendor of the quantity granted to it, in its own order and by its own courses. For some, which are called planets, are moved in certain orders, while others are those which they call [Greek: ἀπλανεῖς] (fixed stars). In this, it is manifested most clearly that neither can the movement of that body be effected without a soul, nor can those that are living beings exist at any time without motion. But since the stars are moved with such order and with such reason that in nothing at all has their course ever been seen to be hindered, how is it not beyond all stupidity to say that such an order, and such an observance of discipline and reason, is demanded from or fulfilled by irrational beings? Among Jeremiah, indeed, the moon is even called the queen of heaven. But if the stars are living beings, and rational living beings, without a doubt B some progress and decline will appear among them. For this which Job says: "The stars are not clean in his sight," seems to indicate to me a certain understanding of this kind.
4. Now, as to what is living and rational, the consequence of the argument discovers whether they are seen at the same time as the bodies to be endowed with a soul, when Scripture says that "God made two great lights, and the greater light for the dominion of the day, and the lesser light for the dominion of the night, and the stars"; or whether He did not insert the spirit with the bodies themselves, but having made the bodies, He inserted the spirit from without; this must be looked into. I, for one, suspect that the spirit was inserted from without, but it will be worth the effort to demonstrate this from the Scriptures. For by conjecture, the assertion will seem easy, but it is certainly more difficult to affirm it by the testimonies of the Scriptures. For by conjectures it is thus possible to be shown: if the human soul, which is certainly inferior, while it is a human soul, is proved not to be created with the bodies, but to be properly inserted from without, this is much C more the case for those living beings which are designated as celestial. For as far as humans are concerned, how will the soul of him who supplanted his brother in the womb—that is, Jacob—be seen to be created at the same time as the body? Or how was the soul created or fashioned at the same time as the body of him who, while still placed in his mother’s womb, was filled with the Holy Spirit? I speak of John, leaping in his mother’s womb and exulting with great joy D because the voice of Mary’s salutation had reached the ears of his mother. How was his soul created and fashioned at the same time as his body, he whom God says He knew before he was formed in the womb, and who was sanctified by Him before he proceeded from the womb? Lest perhaps God might appear to fill some with the Holy Spirit, and to sanctify them without merit, not by judgment nor for merits. And how shall we escape that voice which says: "Is there injustice with God? Far be it." Or that other: "Is there respect of persons with God?" For this follows that defense which asserts that souls exist at the same time as bodies. Therefore, since the human status can be conceived by comparison, I think it is consequent that these things should be understood much more regarding celestial beings, which also in humans the reason itself and the authority of Scripture seems to show. That is: that the soul is older than its attachment to the body, has already been concluded from the comparison of man; but I think it can be demonstrated from the Scriptures.
5. But let us see if we can find any significance regarding these celestial beings already in the Holy Scripture. The apostle Paul says thus: "For," he says, "the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." To what, I pray you, was the creature made subject to vanity, or what creature, or how not willingly, or under what hope? And how will the creature itself be delivered from the servitude of corruption? But also elsewhere the Apostle himself says: "For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God." And again elsewhere he says: "But not only we, but the creature also groaneth and travaileth in pain even until now." Whence it must be inquired what is the groaning, or what are its pains. And let us first, therefore, see what is the vanity to which the creature is subjected. I for one think there is no other vanity than bodies; for although the body of the stars may be ethereal, yet it is material. Whence also to me, Solomon [seems to deem] all bodily nature as in some way burdensome, and as a hindrance to the vigor of spirits.
appears to be what is indicated by the expression: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," says Ecclesiastes. "All is vanity; for I looked," he says, "and saw all things that are under the sun, and behold, all is vanity." To this vanity, therefore, the creature is subjected, especially that creature A which holds the greatest and most distinguished principality of its work in this world, that is, the sun, the moon, and the stars are said to be subjected to vanity, because they are placed in bodies and appointed to the office of lighting the human race. "And not," he says, "willingly is this creature subjected to vanity." For it did not undertake the service to vanity of its own will, but because he who subjected it willed it, on account of him who subjected it, promising to those who were not willingly subjected to vanity that, when the service of this magnificent work is completed, they will be freed from this servitude of corruption and vanity, when the time of the glory of the children of God arrives. Having accepted this hope, and hoping for the fulfillment of this promise, all creation groans and travails together even now, as it also has affection for those whom it serves, and sympathizes, hoping through patience for what has been promised. Observe also this, whether perhaps that saying of Paul can be applied to those who, although not willing, were nevertheless subjected to vanity by the will of him who subjected them, and for the hope of the promises, where he says: "I desire to be dissolved, or to depart, and to be with Christ; for it is much better." I think that in a similar way the sun could also say that "I desire to be dissolved or to depart and to be with Christ; for it is much better." And Paul indeed adds: "But to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." But the sun can say: "But to remain in this celestial and lucid body is more necessary, for the sake of the revelation of the children of God." B The same things must also be thought and said concerning the moon and the stars.
Let us now see what the freedom of the creature is, or what the release from servitude is. When Christ shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father, then those animate beings, since they were previously the kingdom of Christ, will be handed over to the Father at the same time with all the kingdom, so that when God shall be all in all, they too, since they are from all, may have God in them as he is in all.
CHAPTER VIII. Of the angels.
1. In like manner also, I think concerning the angels, nor must we suppose that it happens by chance that such an office is assigned to that angel: for example, that the work of caring for and healing belongs to Raphael, the providence of wars to Gabriel, and the caring for the prayers and supplications of mortals to Michael. For we must not think that they earned these offices in any other way than by the merits and the studies and virtues which each one practiced before the foundation of this world. Then, in the archangelic order, this or that kind of office was assigned to each one; but others were described as having earned their place in the order of angels, and they act under this or that archangel, or this or that leader or prince of their order. All of which things, as I have said, were not ordained by chance or indiscreetly, but by the most suitable and most just judgment of God, and arranged according to merits, with Him judging and testing; so that to one angel, indeed, the Church of the Ephesians should be committed, to another that of the Smyrnæans, and one angel should be C for Peter, another for Paul; then at last, the angels who should be ascribed to the individual "little ones" who are in the Church, who also daily behold the face of God; but also who ought to be the angel who surrounds those who fear God. All of which things are by no means to be believed to happen by chance or fortuity, nor because they were naturally made such—lest in this, too, the inequality of the Creator be accused—but it must be believed that these are conferred by the most just and most equitable moderator of all things, God, according to the merits and virtues and the vigor and genius of each one.
2. But concerning those who affirm that there are diverse spiritual natures, let us say something, D lest by chance we fall into those foolish and impious fables of theirs.
That they imagine diverse spiritual natures, and on that account created by different creators, as well in celestial beings as among the souls of men; while they attribute, moreover, to one and the same Creator diverse natures of rational creatures: this appears absurd, as it truly is absurd, and yet they remain ignorant of the cause of its diversity. For they say that it is not consistent that one and the same Creator, with no cause of merits existing, should assign to some the power of domination, and subject others to those who dominate, or grant to some pre-eminence, and make others subject to princes. All these things, as I suppose, are refuted and confuted by the consequence of that reasoning which we have expounded above, by which the cause of diversity and variety in every single creature is shown to arise from their own movements, whether more ardent or more slothful, according to virtue or according to malice, and not to descend from an inequality in the Dispenser. B But that these things may be more easily recognized as being so in heavenly beings, let us bring forward examples from those things which have occurred, or are occurring, among men, so that we may consequently contemplate even invisible things from visible ones. They confirm that Paul or Peter, without doubt, were of a spiritual nature. Since, therefore, Paul is found to have acted against piety, in that he persecuted the Church of God; and since Peter committed a sin so grave, that when the portress questioned him, he affirmed with an oath that he did not know who Christ was; how did these men, who according to them are spiritual, fall into sins of this kind? Especially since they are frequently wont to assert and say that "a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit." And if a good tree truly cannot bring forth evil fruit, and according to them Peter and Paul were from the root of a good tree, how are they to be thought to have brought forth such evil fruits? But if they answer with those things which they are wont to invent, namely, that it was not Paul who persecuted, but someone else, I know not whom, who was in Paul; and that it was not Peter who denied, but someone else who denied in Peter: why, if Paul had committed no sin, did he say, "I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God"? Why also, when it was another who sinned, did Peter himself weep most bitterly? From which all their ineptitudes are indeed refuted. C
3. According to us, however, there is nothing in any rational creature which is not as much capable of good as of evil. But it does not follow, because we say that there is no nature which cannot receive evil, that we therefore confirm that every nature has received evil—that is, has been made evil. Just as it is to say that the nature of every man has received the capacity to be able to navigate, yet it does not follow from this that every man will indeed navigate; and again, it is possible for every man to learn the art of grammar or medicine, yet it is not therefore shown that every man is a physician or a grammarian: so if we say that there is no nature which cannot receive evil, it is not therefore immediately designated that it has also received evil. For according to us, not even the devil himself was incapable of good; D yet it is not therefore the case, because he could receive good, that he also willed it or gave himself to virtue. For just as through these examples which we have brought forth from the prophets, he is taught to have been at one time good, when he moved in the midst of the cherubim in the paradise of God. As, therefore, he indeed had in himself the capacity either to receive virtue or malice, and declining from virtue, he altogether turned his mind to evil: so, too, other creatures, since they have the capacity for both, by the liberty of their will, fleeing evil, adhere to good. There is, therefore, no nature which does not receive good or evil, except the nature of God, which is the fountain of all goods, and of Christ; for He is wisdom, and wisdom can in no wise receive folly; and He is justice, and justice will never indeed receive injustice; and He is the Word, or reason, which can in no wise be made irrational. But He is also light, and it is certain that darkness does not comprehend the light. In like manner, also, the nature of the Holy Spirit, which is holy, does not receive pollution; for it is holy substantially or by nature. But if any other nature is holy, it has it by the assumption or inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that it should be sanctified, not possessing this from its own nature, but as an accident to itself, for which reason it can also fall from what is adventitious. Likewise, also, anyone can have adventitious justice, from which it is possible to fall from it. But one also has wisdom as adventitious, nonetheless; although it has been placed within our power, by our study and
the merit of our life, if we devote ourselves to wisdom, we become wise, and if we always carry out this study, we always participate in wisdom; and this happens to us more or less, whether according to the merit of life or the quantity of study. For the kindness of God, according to what is worthy of Himself, provokes all things and draws them to that blessed end where every pain, A sorrow, and groaning flees and passes away.
4. I think, therefore, according to what seems to me, that the preceding discourse has sufficiently shown that the other orders do not hold their position by some indiscriminate or fortuitous case, nor does each one obtain its office by chance, but they have attained this degree of dignity according to their merits, although it is not for us to know or to inquire what those deeds were by which they merited to come into this order. But this much is sufficient to know for demonstrating the equity and justice of God, because according to the sentiment of the apostle Paul, "there is no respect of persons with God,"* who rather dispenses all things according to the merits and progress of each individual. Therefore, neither does the office of angels consist but by merit, nor do the powers exercise power unless by their own progress, nor do those who are called thrones—that is, powers of judging or ruling—administer their offices unless by merits, nor do the dominions rule against merit; and this one is the highest and most excellent order arranged in the heavens, with a glorious variety of offices for rational creatures. Likewise, indeed, one must also think concerning the opposing powers, which have presented themselves in that place and office, so that this fact—that they are principalities, or powers, or world-rulers of darkness, or spiritual hosts of wickedness, or malignant spirits, or unclean demons—does not come to them substantially, nor because they were created such, but they have received these [titles] of malice due to their own movements and the B progress by which they proceeded in wickedness. And there is another order of rational creature that has delivered itself so headlong into wickedness that it is unwilling to be recalled, even if it might be, while the madness of crimes is already a desire, and brings delight. But the third order of rational creature is of those who are judged by God as fit to fill up the human race, that is, the souls of men, assumed also through progress into that order of angels; from among whom we see some being assumed, namely, those who have become sons of God, or sons of the resurrection, or those who have left behind the darkness and loved the light, and have become sons of light; or those who, overcoming every struggle and becoming peaceful, have become sons of peace and sons of God; or those who, mortifying their members which are upon the earth, and transcending not only C bodily nature, but also the ambiguous and fragile movements of the soul itself, have joined themselves to the Lord, made spirit in their entirety, that they may be one spirit with Him always, discerning each and every thing with Him, until they arrive at this: that, having become perfectly spiritual, they discern all things by this, that, being illuminated in all holiness of sense by the Word and wisdom of God, they can be distinguished by no one at all.
Chapter VIII – On Angels
[(44)] Greek text: "Ἡ ψυχὴ ἀποῤέουσα τοῦ καλοῦ, καὶ τῇ κακίᾳ προσκλιναμένη, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἐν ταύτῃ γινομένη, εἰ μὴ ὑποστρέφοι, ὑπὸ τῆς ἀνοίας ἀποκτηνοῦται, καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς πονηρίας ἀποθηριοῦται. Καὶ μετ' ὀλίγα· Καὶ αἱρεῖται πρὸς τὸ ἀλογωθῆναι, καὶ τὸν ἔνυδρον, ἵν' οὕτως εἴπω, βίον· καὶ τάχα κατ' ἀξίαν τῆς ἐπὶ πλεῖον πτώσεως..." 76 Those things, indeed, we deem by no means to be received, which are commonly required or asserted by some as a superfluity, that is, that souls come to such a degree of their own decline that, forgetting their rational nature and dignity, they even degenerate into the order of irrational living creatures, or beasts, or cattle. D Indeed, Jerome makes this a matter of faith, who says in his epistle to Avitus: "At the end (of the first book) he (Origen) argued with a very lengthy discourse that an angel or a soul, or certainly a demon—which he asserts are of one nature, but of different wills—could be made a beast due to the magnitude of negligence and stupidity; and because of the pain of punishments and the heat of fire, would rather choose to be a brute animal and dwell in the waters and the depths; and to assume the body of this or that beast; so that we must fear not only the bodies of quadrupeds, but also of fishes." And at the end, lest he be held guilty of the Pythagorean dogma, which asserts metempsychosis, after so nefarious a disputation by which he wounded the reader's mind, he says: "These things, according to our sentiment, are not dogmas, but only questions proposed, lest they appear completely unexamined." If these things are so, there is almost no room for doubt that the interpretation of Rufinus, from these words, "those things, indeed, we by no means deem to be received," down to the end of this book, lacks all faith entirely and passes off spurious things as genuine. It must be admitted, however, that Origen, in his other treatises, utterly abhors Pythagorean transmigration. See the *Origenianorum* book II, quest. 6, 17, 18, and 19.
[...of the soul] clothed with the vices of wickedness, and not even [f. liquid/weak] that of a brute animal. It means: The soul falling away from the Good, and inclining toward wickedness, and remaining for too long in the same state, unless it repents, is carried away by its own senselessness and, on account of its depravity, behaves like a brute. And a little later: And it chooses, so that it becomes brutish, to live even, if I may say so, an aquatic life, and perhaps for this reason A it assumes a watery body, like that of this or that brute animal, and even assumes on account of the greater merit of its fall the body of such a brute animal.] Or, because Balaam’s ass spoke, with God opening its mouth, and answered in human voice, it refutes the madness of the prophet. These things we not only do not accept, but we refute and reject all these assertions of theirs that come against our faith. Nevertheless, in their own place and time, having refuted and repelled this perverse dogma, we shall show how those things which are brought forward by them from the Holy Scriptures ought to be understood.
From the first book "On First Principles," as interpreted by the divine Jerome in his Epistle to Avitus
It is a sign of great negligence and sloth for each person to fall away and be emptied to such a degree that, coming to the vile things of irrational beasts, he can be bound by a gross body.From the same book "On First Principles," as interpreted by the same divine Jerome in his Epistle to Avitus
When at the end and consummation of the world, minds and rational creatures have been sent forth by the Lord, some of them move more slowly on account of their sloth, while others fly with a rapid course on account of their diligence. And since all have free will, and can of their own accord grasp either virtues or vices, those will be in a much worse condition than they are now, while these will arrive at a better state; because diverse motions and various wills will receive a diverse state in either direction—that is, so that angels become humans or demons, and again from these, humans or angels become [what they were before].BOOK SECOND
77 CHAPTER ONE
1. It now seems to follow, although everything has been discussed in the previous book regarding the world and its ordering, that we should nevertheless repeat a few things about the world itself, that is, about its beginning and end, or those things which, between the beginning and the end, are dispensed by divine providence, or about those things which are thought to have been made before the world or to be brought about after the world. In which this first clearly appears, that every state of it, which is various and diverse, consists not only of rational and more divine natures, and of diverse bodies, but of mute animals, that is, wild beasts, beasts of burden, cattle, and birds, and all those things which live in the waters; then next of places, that is, of the heaven or the heavens, and of earth or water; but also of that which is in the middle, the air, or B that which they call the ether, and of everything that proceeds from or is born from the earth. For since there is such a great variety in the world, and such diversity even in the rational living creatures themselves, on account of which all the rest of the variety and diversity ought to be thought to have arisen—what other cause will it be necessary to name for the world’s having come into being, especially if we look at that end through which all things are to be restored to the state of their beginning, in the earlier book...it was discussed? But if that which was said logically seems to follow, we may think that the cause of this great diversity of this world is nothing other than the diversity and variety of the motions and lapses of those who fell from that original unity and concord in which they were created by God, and, having been moved and distracted from that state of goodness, and agitated thereafter by diverse motions and desires of their souls, brought down that one and indistinct good of their own nature into various qualities of minds, according to the diversity of their own intention.
2. Moreover, God, by the ineffable art of His wisdom, transforms and repairs all things that happen in any way B toward something useful and toward the common progress of all, so that He calls back these very creatures, which had drifted apart by such a great variety of their own minds, into a certain unity of work and purpose, so that, although they are moved by diverse motions of their souls, they nonetheless finish out the fullness and perfection of one world, and the variety of minds itself tends toward the one aim of perfection. For there is one power that binds and contains the entire diversity of the world, and drives its various motions into one work, so that such an immense work of the world might not be dissolved by the dissensions of minds. And for this reason we think that God, the parent of all, for the salvation of all His creatures, through the ineffable reason of His Word and wisdom, has C so dispensed these individual things that each and every spirit, or mind—or whatever these rational subsistences are to be called—would not, against the freedom of their own will, be forced by violence into anything other than the motions of their own mind, and that by this the faculty of free will, which certainly would have changed the quality of their nature itself, would not seem to be taken away from them; but that their various motions of purpose were competently and usefully adapted to the harmony of one world, while some stand in need of being helped, others are able to help, and others provide struggles and contests for those who are progressing, in which their industry might be judged more acceptable, and a surer status of their restored rank after victory might be held, which would have been established through the difficulties of those laboring.
3. Since, therefore, it is ordered in diverse D offices, yet the status of the whole world is not to be understood as dissonant and discordant with itself; but just as our body is composed of many members and is held together by one soul, so I think that the whole world should be thought of as a certain immense and huge animal, which is held together as if by one soul, [by the power and reason of God. Which I think is also indicated by holy Scripture through that which was said by the prophet: “Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord?” (Jer. xxiii, 24) and again: “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool” (Isa. lxvi, 1), and what the Savior said, when He says not to swear by heaven, because it is the throne of God; nor by earth, because it is His footstool (Matt. v, 34). But also that which Paul said when he was preaching among the Athenians, saying that “in Him we live, and move, and are” (Acts xvii, 28). For how do we live, and move, and are in God, unless because He binds and contains the whole world by His power? But how is heaven the throne of God, and earth His footstool, as the Savior Himself pronounces, unless because His power fills all things both in heaven and on earth, as the Lord also says? How, therefore, God, the parent of all, fills and contains the whole world with the fullness of His power, I do not think anyone could find hard to agree with, based on the things we have shown. Now, indeed, since the sermon of the previous discussion has shown that the diverse motions of rational creatures and their various opinions gave cause for the diversity to this world, we must see whether perhaps just such an end might be suitable for this world as its beginning. For there is no doubt that its end is still to be found in much diversity and variety, which variety, indeed, when detected at the end of this world, will provide the causes and opportunities for the diversities of another world to come after this one.
4. But if this order of argumentation seems consistent, since it appears that the diversity of the world cannot exist without bodies, we must discuss the account of corporeal nature. It is apparent from the things themselves that corporeal nature receives a diverse and varied transformation, so that it can be transformed from all things into all things; just as, for example, I might say, wood is turned into fire, and fire into smoke, and smoke into air. But even the liquid of oil is changed into fire...
Do not the foods themselves, whether of men or of animals, declare the same cause of change? For whatever it is that we have taken as food is turned into the substance of our bodies. But also how water is changed into earth, or into air, and air in turn into fire, or fire into air, or air into water, although it is not difficult to explain, yet in the present place it B suffices merely to have mentioned these things for one desiring to discuss the rationale of corporeal matter. We understand matter, therefore, as that which is subject to bodies, that is, that from which bodies subsist when qualities have been added and inserted. We speak of four qualities: hot, cold, dry, moist. These four qualities, ὕλη, that is, inserted into matter—because matter in its own proper definition is found to be outside these qualities that we have mentioned above—produce the diverse species of bodies. Yet this matter, although, as we said above, it is according to its own proper definition without qualities, is nevertheless never found to subsist outside of a quality. This matter, therefore, which is so great and of such a kind that it is able to suffice for all the bodies of the world which God willed to exist, and to serve the Creator in all things for whatever forms and species He might wish, receiving into itself the qualities which He Himself would have wished to impose; I know not how such great and such men have thought it to be unbegotten, that is, not made by God Himself the Creator of all things, but have called its nature and power a certain fortuitous thing. And I wonder how they blame those who deny either God as the Artisan or the providence of this universe, and argue that they think impiously, because they suppose that so great a work of the world consists without an Artisan or Provider; when they themselves also incur a similar charge of impiety, saying that matter is unbegotten and co-eternal with the unbegotten God.
If, therefore, we posit according to this reasoning that there was no matter—as these men assert, saying that God could not make anything when there was nothing—He would undoubtedly have been idle, having no matter from which He might work, which they feel was present to Him not by His own providence, but fortuitously; and it seems to them that this which was found fortuitously could have sufficed for the bulk of so great a work, and for the power of His virtue, which, receiving the rationale of all His wisdom, would be distinguished and formed into the world. Which seems to me completely absurd, and the view of those men who are utterly ignorant of the power and intelligence D of an unbegotten nature. But that we might view the order of things more clearly, let it be granted for a little while that there was no matter; and [let us ask] whether God, when there was nothing before, made things to be as He wished; what shall we think? That God was going to create a matter better, or greater, or of a different kind than that which He brought forth from His own virtue and wisdom, so that it might be what had not been before? Or an inferior and worse one? Or one similar and the same as that which those men call unbegotten? And I think it is most easily patent to any man's intellect, that neither a better nor an inferior [matter] could have received the forms and species of the world, unless it had been such as A this one is which has received them. And how then will it not seem impious to call that unbegotten, which, if it is believed to have been created by God, is found without doubt to be such as that which is also called unbegotten?
5. But that we may believe that these things are so also by the authority of the Scriptures, hear how in the books of the Maccabees, where the mother of the seven martyrs exhorts one of her sons to endure torments, she is confirmed regarding this dogma; for she says: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and seeing these, know that God made these all, when they were not." But also in the book of the Shepherd, in the first mandate, it says thus: "First of all, believe that one is God who created and composed all things, and made all things from that which was nothing, so that they might be." Perhaps to this also looks that which is written in the Psalms, that "He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created." For that which he says, that "He spoke, and they were made," seems to show the substance of those things which exist; but what he says: "He commanded, and they were created," seems to be said of the qualities by which the substance itself is formed.
CHAPTER II. On the perpetuity of corporeal nature.
1. In this place some are accustomed to ask whether, just as the Father generates an unbegotten Son, and brings forth the Holy Spirit, not as one who was not before, but because the Father is the origin and fountain of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, and nothing can be understood as earlier or later in these; so also between rational natures and corporeal matter a certain similar society or C proximity can be understood. And that they may investigate this matter more fully and intensely, they are accustomed to bend the beginning of the disputation to this, that they might inquire if this very corporeal nature which carries the lives of spiritual and rational minds and contains their motions, [can] with equal...
in its eternity, or will it absolutely perish? In order that this may be examined more searchingly, we must first ask if it is possible for rational natures to remain utterly incorporeal when they have attained the height of holiness and beatitude—a thought that seems to me most difficult and nearly impossible—or if it is necessary for them to be always joined to bodies. If, therefore, anyone could show a reason whereby it were possible for them to be in every way devoid of bodies, it would seem to follow that the corporeal nature, created from nothing through intervals of time, just as it was brought into being when it was not, so too would cease to be when the use of its service had passed.
2. If, however, it is impossible to affirm this in any way, namely that any nature other than the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can live apart from a body, the necessity of consequence and reason constrains us to understand that rational natures were indeed created as primary; but that material substance is separated from them only in opinion and intellect, and is seen to have been formed for them or after them, yet they have never lived or do live without it; for it will be rightly thought that the life of the Trinity alone exists incorporeally. As we said above, this material substance of the present world, having a nature that is transformed from all things into all things, when it is drawn down to the lower regions, is formed into a coarser and more solid state of body, so that it distinguishes these visible and various species of the world; but when it ministers to more perfect and blessed beings, it shines in the radiance of celestial bodies, and adorns either the angels of God or the sons of the resurrection with the garments of a spiritual body. From all these things, the diverse and varied state of one world is completed. B But if one wishes to discuss these things more fully, it will be necessary to examine the divine Scriptures more attentively and diligently with all the fear of God and reverence, to see if by chance some arcane and hidden sense concerning such things can be revealed in them—if anything can be found in the abstruse and hidden discourses (as the Holy Spirit demonstrates to those who are worthy), once many testimonies concerning this very subject have been gathered.
CHAPTER III.
Of the beginning of the world, and its causes.
1. It remains that we inquire whether before this world which now is, another world existed; and if it did, whether it was such as this one which now is, or slightly different, or inferior, or if there was no world at all, but something existed such as we understand that which will be after the end of all things, when the kingdom is delivered to God and the Father: which nevertheless was the end of another world, specifically that after which this world began; but various falls of intellectual natures provoked God to this varied and diverse condition of the world. But I also think it must be similarly inquired whether, after this world, there will be some correction and amendment, sharper indeed and full of pain for those who have refused to obey the word of God; but by instruction and rational training, through which they could progress to a more abundant understanding of the truth, just as those who in the present life gave themselves to these studies, and having been made purer in their minds, have passed on, already capable of divine wisdom from this point; and after this the end of all things will immediately follow, and for the correction and amendment of those who are in need of such things, there will again be another world, either similar to this one which now is, or better, or much worse; and whatever that world after this one will be, how long it will endure; and if there will ever be a time when there is no world at all, or if there was ever a time when a world did not exist; or if there were several, whether they will exist, or if it happens at some time that one world becomes equal and similar to another in all respects and indistinguishable.
[... ] corporeal might subsist through intervals, and just as it did not exist before it was made, it might again be resolved so as not to be; let us first see if it is possible for anyone to live without a body. If, indeed, any one can live without a body, then all things can be. C D
JEROME'S INTERPRETATION
"If all things, as the order of his own disputation compels, consist of many and similar things, but after the end of one world, [there is] the principle of another; and before this world of ours, another world existed; and after this one, another is to be, and after that another; and again others after others. And he is in doubt whether the world that is to be will be in every respect so similar to another world that they might seem to differ in nothing between them; or certainly whether a world will ever be entirely indistinguishable and similar to another world."A for that which is mortal is, by that very fact, also corruptible; yet it does not follow that if anything is corruptible, it can also be called mortal. For example, we call stone or wood corruptible, but we would not consequently call them mortal. A body, however, because it participates in life—from the fact that life can be separated and is separated from it—is consequently called mortal, and according to another understanding, we also call it corruptible. With a wonderful logic, therefore, the holy Apostle, looking toward the primary general cause of bodily matter—the matter of which the soul always makes use in whatever state it is placed, now indeed in a carnal state, but afterwards in a more subtle and pure one, which is called spiritual—says: "For this corruptible body must put on incorruption." But truly, looking in the second place to the specific cause of the body, he says: "And this mortal body must put on immortality." But what else will incorruption and immortality be, if not the Wisdom, the Word, and the Justice of God, which form, clothe, and adorn the soul? And so it comes to be said that the corruptible shall put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality. For now, even if we make great progress, nevertheless, because we know only in part and prophesy in part, and see through a glass and in a riddle those very things which we seem to understand, this corruptible body has not yet put on incorruption, nor is the mortal surrounded by immortality; and because without doubt this our instruction within the body is protracted into a longer time: namely, until our very bodies, by which we are surrounded, may deserve incorruption and immortality on account of the Word of God and wisdom and perfect justice; therefore it is said: "For this corruptible body must put on incorruption, and this mortal body must put on immortality."
And how shall we understand that which the Apostle said in those places where he disputes about the resurrection of the dead, when he says: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then the saying which is written shall come to pass: Death is swallowed up in victory; O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" The sting of death, however, is sin, and the power of sin is the law. The Apostle seems to suggest a certain meaning of this kind. For what he says—"this corruptible, and this mortal"—with the feeling of one touching and pointing, to whom else does it apply if not to bodily matter? B This matter of the body, therefore, which is now corruptible, will put on incorruption when the soul, perfect and instructed in the doctrines of incorruption, begins to make use of it. And do not wonder if we call the perfect soul the garment of the body, which, because of the Word of God and His wisdom, is now called incorruption; since He who is the Lord and Creator of the soul, Jesus Christ, is said to be the garment for the saints, just as the Apostle says: "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." As therefore Christ is the garment of the soul, so, by a certain intelligible reasoning, the soul is also said to be the garment of the body. For it is its ornament, veiling and covering its mortal nature. Such, therefore, is what is said: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption," as if he were saying that this corruptible nature of the body must receive the garment of incorruption, having in itself incorruption because it has been clothed with Christ, who is the Wisdom and Word of God. But when this body, which we shall one day possess more gloriously, has participated in life, then it will approach that which is immortal, so that it might even become incorruptible. If anything C HIERONYM'S TRANSLATION: But if, as by reason and the authority of the Scriptures it is shown, this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and the mortal shall have put on immortality, and that death is swallowed up in the end, D those who think that rational creatures can ever exist outside of bodies can move such objections in this place.
A. It will seem necessary, therefore, that if the corporeal nature has been exterminated, it must be repaired and created a second time; for it seems possible that the rational natures, from whom the faculty of free choice [(10)] is never taken away, could again be subject to certain movements, the Lord granting this, lest perhaps, if they always maintained an immobile state, they should be ignorant that they were established in that end of blessedness by the grace of God [(11)] and not by their own virtue; which movements, without doubt, the variety of bodies and diversity will follow, by which the world is always adorned, nor can the world ever consist except from variety and diversity; which can be brought about by no means [(12)] outside of corporeal matter.
(6), he declares that nothing other than the material nature is to be exterminated, in which death could work something while, for those who are in the body, the sharpness of the mind is seen to be blunted by the nature of corporeal matter [(7)]. But if they are outside the body, then they will altogether escape the trouble of such perturbation. But since they will not be able to escape every corporeal garment suddenly, they are to be considered as first dwelling in more subtle and purer bodies, which are able neither to be overcome by death nor to be stung by the goad of death; so that thus at length, as the material nature gradually ceases, death may be absorbed and even exterminated in the end, and every goad of it may be blunted thoroughly by divine grace, of which the soul has been made capable, and has deserved to obtain incorruption and immortality [(8)]. And then it will rightly be said by all: Where is, O death, thy victory? Where is, O death, thy sting? The sting of death, however, is sin 31.
If, therefore, these things seem to have a logical consequence, it remains to be believed that our state will sometime be incorporeal; which if it is accepted, and all are said to be about to be subjected to Christ, it is necessary that this also be deferred to all, to whom the subjection of Christ reaches; because all who are subjected to Christ will in the end also be subjected to God the Father, to whom Christ is said to be about to deliver the kingdom, and thus it appears that then even the use of bodies will cease B. But if it ceases, it returns to nothingness just as it was not before. But let us see what may occur to those who, in this way [HIERON. INTERP.] if these things are not contrary to the faith [(9)], perhaps we shall live at some time without bodies. But if he who is perfectly subjected to Christ is understood without a body; and all are to be subjected to Christ; then we shall be without bodies when we have been perfectly subjected to Him. If all have been subjected to God, all are to lay aside their bodies, and then the whole nature of corporeal things will be dissolved into nothingness. Which, if necessity should require it a second time, will exist again on account of the fall of rational creatures C. For God indeed left the conflict and struggle to souls, so that they might understand that they have obtained the full and finished victory not by their own strength but by the grace of God. And for this reason I judge that, because of the variety of causes, different worlds are made, and the errors of those who contend that worlds similar to their own exist are refuted D.
4. But indeed [(15)] those who confirm that worlds dissimilar to one another will someday occur in all respects, I know not by what documents they can assert this. For if the world is said to be similar in all things, it will come about that again Adam or Eve will do the same things which they did; there will again be the same flood, and the same Moses will again lead a people numbering nearly six hundred thousand out of Egypt: Judas also will betray the Lord twice; Paul will again keep the garments of those stoning Stephen; and all things that have been done in this life will be said to be destined to be done again [(15)]; which I do not think can be supported by any reason, if souls are moved by the liberty of their own will, and sustain their own progress or decline by the power of their own volition. For souls are not driven in some course, revolving themselves into the same circles after many ages [(16)], so that they do or desire this or that, but wherever the liberty of their own ingenuity 82 has inclined, thither they direct [(17)] the course of their actions. For such is what is said by them, as if one should wish to assert that if a measure of grain is poured onto the ground, it is possible that the same and entirely identical accidents should happen to the grains a second time, so that each grain should lie a second time in the place where it was first cast, and in the same order, and dispersed by the same
signs by which it had been spread at first; and this, surely, is impossible to occur with the countless grains of a measure, even if they were poured out ceaselessly and continually for vast ages. Therefore, it seems impossible to me that the world 19 could be restored a second time in the same order and by the same methods; nevertheless, it is possible that different worlds exist through not insignificant changes, such that for certain manifest causes one world may have a better state, another a worse, and another a state that is intermediate. But what this number or method may be, I confess I do not know. If anyone could show it, I would gladly learn.
B 5. Yet the end of many ages is said to be this world, which is itself also called an age. The holy Apostle 20 teaches that Christ did not suffer in the age that was before this one, nor even in the one that was before that; and I do not know if I could even enumerate how many prior ages there were in which He did not suffer. I shall bring forward the passage of Paul from which I came upon the occasion of this understanding; for he says 21: "But now once, in the consummation of the ages, He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." For he says that the sacrifice was made once, and that in the consummation of the ages He was manifested to put away sin. But that after this world, which is said to have been made for the consummation of other ages, there will be other ages supervening, we have learned C clearly from Paul himself, who says: "That He might show in the supervening ages the superabundant riches of His grace in goodness toward us." He did not say "in the supervening age," nor "in the two supervening ages"; whence I think that many ages are signified by the indication of that statement. If, indeed, there is something greater than the ages, so too in the creatures may certain ages 22 be understood, while in others there may be those that exceed and transcend visible creatures (which will perhaps be in the restitution of all things, when [they] shall reach the perfect end D of the ages, which perhaps is something more than the age in which will be the consummation of all things). I am moved, however, 23 in this matter by the authority of Holy Scripture which says: "Into the age, and beyond." For that "beyond" also, which it says, undoubtedly wishes us to understand something more than the age, and see whether that which the Savior says, "I wish that where I am, they also may be with Me; and as I and You are one, so also they may be one in Us 24," may seem to show something more than an age and ages, perhaps even more than the ages of ages, namely, when all things are no longer in an age, but God is in all things 24.
6. Since the reasons of the world have been discussed according to our capacity, B it does not seem incongruous to also inquire what the very appellation "world" signifies; which appellation is frequently shown in the Holy Scriptures to signify various things. For that which we call "world" in Latin is called *kosmos* in Greek; and *kosmos* signifies not only "world," but also "ornament." Finally, in Isaiah, where the word of rebuke is directed to the princes of the daughters of Zion, it says: "For the ornament of the golden head you shall have baldness because of your works," an ornament there by that name by which he called the world, that is, *kosmos* 25. It is said also that the pattern of the world is contained in the pontifical vestment, as we find in the Wisdom of Solomon when it says, because "in the vestment of the long robe was the whole world." Our world with its inhabitants, the terrestrial globe, is also called "world," just as when Scripture says: "The whole world is seated in wickedness 27." Certainly, Clement, the disciple of the apostles, also makes mention of those whom the Greeks have termed *antichthonas* and other parts 26 of the terrestrial globe to which neither can anyone of our people have access, nor can anyone from those who are there cross over to us—whom he also called worlds when he said: "The Ocean is impassable to men 27, and the worlds that are beyond it, which are governed by these same dispositions of the Lord God."
beyond it, the same providence of the highest God signifying also that they are set in motion and governed. He seems to scatter some seeds of such an understanding for us, whereby the entire aggregate of things that are and exist—celestial, super-celestial, terrestrial, and infernal—is thought to be generally called one perfect world, within which or by which the others (if there be any) are to be thought to be contained. Hence, he indeed wished the sphere of the moon or of the sun, and of the others whom they call planets, to be named worlds individually. But they also wish that supereminent sphere which they call the fixed C sphere to be properly called a world nonetheless. Finally, they even cite the book of the prophet Baruch as testimony to this assertion, because therein a sevenfold number of worlds or heavens is indicated more evidently. They wish, however, that above that sphere which they call fixed [ἀπλανῆ], there is another, which, just as with us the heaven contains all things that are under heaven, so they say that it contains with an immense magnitude of its own and an ineffable complex of the circumference of all the spheres in a more magnificent way; so that all things are within it just as this earth of ours is under heaven: which also is believed in the Holy Scriptures to be called the good earth and the land of the living, having its own heaven—that higher one, in which heaven the names of the saints are said to be written or to have been written D by the Savior; by which heaven that earth is contained and enclosed, which the Savior in the Gospel promises to the meek and gentle. For indeed from the name of that earth, they wish this one of ours, which formerly had the name "dry land," also to be named, just as this firmament [of ours] is called by the name of that heaven.
But we have discussed these opinions more fully in that place where we were inquiring what it was that God created in the beginning (heaven and earth). For another heaven and another earth are indicated than that firmament which is said to have been made after two days, or the dry land which is afterwards called earth. Indeed, what some say concerning this world—that it is corruptible from the fact that it was made, and yet it is not corrupted, because the will of God who made it and holds it together, lest corruption should master it, is stronger and more powerful than corruption—can more rightly be understood of that world which we have called the sphere [ἀπλανή] above, because by the will of God it is in no way subject to corruption, for the fact that it has not received the causes of corruption. For that world belongs to the saints and to those who are purified to clearness, and not to the impious as this one of ours does.
However, we must see whether perhaps, looking to this, the Apostle said: "For us who look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." We know, moreover, that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, we have an edifice from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For when he says elsewhere: "For I shall see the heavens, the works of thy fingers," and God said through the prophet concerning all invisible things: "For my hand has made all these things," he declares that this eternal house which he promises to the saints in the heavens is not made by hands, showing without doubt the distinction between the creatures that are in the things which are seen and those that are in the things which are not seen. For that which he calls "the things which are not seen" is not understood B as the same thing as that which he declares is not made by hands.
things that are invisible. For those things which are invisible are not only not seen, but do not even have the nature to be seen, which the Greeks called *asōmata*, that is, incorporeal; however, these things, concerning which Paul spoke: "The things which are not seen" 66, indeed have the nature to be seen, yet they are not yet seen by those to whom they are promised, as he explains.
7. From these three opinions regarding the end of all things and the supreme blessedness, sketched out as we were able, let each reader judge for himself more carefully and scrupulously, if any of them can be approved or chosen. 84 For it has been said that an incorporeal life could be envisioned, after all things have been subjected to Christ and through Christ to God the Father, when God will be all in all 40; or, since notwithstanding this, all things have been subjected to Christ and through Christ to God, with whom also is one spirit, according to the fact that spirits are rational natures, they become 41; then the corporeal substance itself also, joined to the best and purest spirits, will be transmuted into an ethereal state according to the quality or merits of those who assume it 42, according to what the Apostle says: "And we shall be changed" 67, and it will shine forth. Or certainly, that with the form of those things which are seen passing away, having been shaken off and purged of all corruptibility, and with this whole state of the world in which the spheres of the planets are said to be, having been surpassed and overcome, above that which is called *aplanēs* 43, the station of the pious and blessed A is placed, as if in a good land, and the earth of the living, which the meek and mild will inherit 45; whose is that heaven which with a more magnificent circuit surrounds and contains that earth itself; which is truly and chiefly called heaven, in which heaven or earth the end of all things and their perfection can remain in a safe and most faithful station, to the effect that those who, after the correction and punishment which they had borne for their sins, with the excuse of purification, all things having been completed and paid, merit the dwelling of that earth; but those who have been obedient to the Word of God and have already from that time shown themselves capable and compliant to His wisdom, they are said to merit the kingdom of that heaven or heavens; and thus may that be more worthily fulfilled which was said: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" 68; and: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" 68; and what he says in the Psalm: "He shall exalt thee, and thou shalt inherit the earth" 69 46. For it is said that one descends to this earth, but that one is exalted to that which is on high B. In this way, therefore, it seems as though a certain journey is opened for the progress of the saints from that earth to those heavens, so that they may not seem so much to remain in that earth as to dwell there, being destined to pass on, when they shall have progressed to that point also 47, to the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.
CAPUT IV.
That there is one God of the Law and the Prophets, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Since these things have been briefly set forth in order, it follows, according to what we proposed from the beginning, to refute also those who think that there is another God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, besides Him who gave the responses of the Law to Moses, or sent the prophets, who is the God of the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For it is necessary that we first be confirmed in this reasoning of faith. Therefore, one must consider what is frequently said in the Gospels, and is added to each of the deeds of our Lord and Savior: "That it might be fulfilled which was said by such and such a prophet," when it is manifest that those prophets belong to the God who made the world. From this sequence, therefore, it is concluded that He who sent the prophets, He Himself foretold things that were to be preached regarding Christ. And there is no doubt that these things were foretold not by anyone alien to Him, but by His own Father. But also, that examples from the Old Testament C are frequently brought forward by the Savior, or by His apostles, not otherwise— D
A than by the authority of the ancients, is indicated to anyone of even slight intelligence, suggesting the meaning that He does not propose to His disciples another God to be imitated than the Creator of heaven and provider of rain. But when He says that those who pray ought to say, "Our Father who art in heaven," what else does this seem to indicate than that God is to be sought in the better parts of the world, that is, in His own creation? And again, when, defining certain excellent institutions regarding oaths, He says that one ought not B to swear, neither by heaven, because it is God’s throne, nor by the earth, because it is the footstool of His feet, does this not most clearly seem to harmonize with the prophetic words where it is said: "Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet"? But also, when He drives from the temple those who were selling sheep and oxen and doves, pouring out the tables of the money-changers, and saying, "Take these things hence, and do not make the house of my Father a house of merchandise," He was without doubt calling Him Father whose name Solomon had built a magnificent temple. And that remark which He makes, "Have you not read what was said by God to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; but God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," most clearly teaches us that He was calling the God of the patriarchs the God of the living—inasmuch as they were holy and alive—He who had spoken in the prophets, "I am God, and there is no God besides me." For the Savior knew that the God of Abraham is He who is written of in the Law, and that He is the one who says, "I am God, and there is no God besides me"; indeed, He acknowledges Him to be the Father who is ignorant of any God above Himself, as the heretics suppose. Absurdly, then, do they call Him Father who is ignorant of a more eminent God. If, however, He is not ignorant, but deceives, saying there is no God besides Himself, it is much more absurd to acknowledge one's Father as a liar. From all these considerations, the mind is led to the conclusion that He knows no other Father than God, the framer and creator of all things.
2. It would be a long undertaking B if we were to gather testimonies from all the parts of the Gospels by which the same God of the Law and of the Gospels is shown to be one. Nevertheless, we shall briefly touch upon the Acts of the Apostles, where Stephen and the apostles direct their prayers to that God who made heaven and earth, and who spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets; calling Him the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who led His people out of the land of Egypt. These sentiments, without doubt, most clearly direct our understanding toward faith in the Creator and implant love for Him in those C who have learned these truths piously and faithfully; just as the Savior Himself, when asked what was the greatest commandment of all in the Law, replied, saying: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." And the second is like to this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And to these He added, "because on these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets." How then could He, whom He was instructing and leading into discipleship, commend this commandment before all others—through which, without doubt, the love of the God of the Law was reconciled—since these very words had been preached by the Law? But let it be conceded, against all these most evident proofs, that the Savior is speaking of some other God I know not whom, when He says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," and the rest of what is said. How then, if the Law and the prophets are of the Creator and—as they say—of another God besides Him whom He calls good, will what He added appear consistent, namely that the Law and the prophets hang upon these two commandments? For how can that which is alien and foreign to God hang upon God? But Paul, saying: "I thank my God, to whom I serve in my spirit from my forefathers in a pure conscience," clearly shows that he came not to some new God, but to Christ. For what other forefathers of Paul could it be appropriate to understand than those of whom he himself says: "They are Hebrews, and I; they are Israelites, and I"? But also, does not the preface itself of his Epistle to the Romans—to those who know how to understand Paul’s writings—diligently show which God Paul preaches? For he says: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel D of God, which he had promised before by his prophets."
In the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead of Christ Jesus our Lord, etc. But also that which he says: “You shall not muzzle the ox that is treading out the corn; is it for the oxen that God cares? Or does he say it altogether for our sakes? For it was written for our sakes, that he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope of partaking of the fruit.” In which he shows evidently that God, who gave the Law, speaks for our sakes, that is, for the A sake of the apostles; whose care was not for oxen, but for the apostles who were preaching the Gospel of Christ. In other places also, Paul himself, embracing the promise of the Law, speaks thus: “Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may live long upon the earth, the good land which the Lord your God will give you.” Through which, without doubt, he declares that the Law and the God of the Law and his promises are pleasing to him.
5. But since those who assert this heresy are wont at times to deceive the hearts of the simple with certain deceptive sophisms, I do not think it absurd if we also refute those things which they are wont to bring forward in their assertions, proposing their subreptions and lies. They say, therefore: "It is written: 'No man has seen God at any time'; but that God whom Moses preaches, and who was seen by Moses himself, and before him by his fathers; and he who is announced by the Savior, has never been seen at all." Let us ask them, therefore, and ourselves: concerning this one whom they confess as God, and say is a different one from the Creator God, do they say he is visible or invisible? And if indeed they say that he is visible, besides the fact that they are argued to come against the sense of Scripture, which says of the Savior that "he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature," they will also fall into that absurdity, that they must say God is corporeal. For nothing can be seen otherwise than through form, and B magnitude, and color, which are properties of bodies. And if God is pronounced to be a body, since every body is from matter, God will be found to be from matter; which, if it be from matter, but matter is without doubt corruptible, then according to them God will be corruptible. Again, also, we shall ask them: was matter made, or is it unbegotten, that is, unmade? And if indeed they shall say that it is unmade, that is, unbegotten, we shall ask them if one part of matter is God, and another part is the world. If, however, they answer concerning matter that it is made, without doubt it will follow that they must confess that he whom they call God is made; which certainly neither their own reasoning nor ours admits. But they will say: "God is invisible." And what will you do? It remains that God is invisible; but if he is invisible by nature, he will not be visible to the Savior either. If you say that he is invisible by nature, he ought not to be visible to the Savior. Nay, even God the Father of Christ is said to be seen, since “he who sees me,” he says, “sees also the Father.” Which certainly presses you vehemently, but by us it is more correctly understood not as seeing, but as understanding. For he who has understood the Son will understand the Father also. In this way, therefore, C Moses is also to be thought to have seen God, not beholding him with carnal eyes, but understanding him with the vision of the heart and the sense of the mind, and this in some part. For it is manifest that he says, "You shall not see my face" (to wit, he who was providing answers to Moses), "but my back parts." Which things, indeed, are to be understood with him in a sacrament, by which it is fitting that divine sayings be understood, with those old wives' fables cast away and spurned, which are fashioned by the ignorant and those who came later concerning the prior things of God. Nor, indeed, let anyone think that we hold any impious thing because we have said that God the Father is not visible even to the Savior: let him consider with what distinction we act against the heretics. For we have said that it is one thing to see and be seen, and another to know and be known, or to recognize and be recognized. Therefore, to see and be seen is a matter of bodies; which certainly will not fitably be adapted to the Father, nor to the Son, nor to the Holy Spirit among themselves. For the nature of the Trinity exceeds the mode of vision, indulging mutual vision among themselves to those things which are in a body, that is, to all other creatures; but to an incorporeal and D principal-intellectual nature, nothing else is fitting except to know or be known, just as the Savior himself.
by proclaiming, saying, "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son is willing to reveal him." A It is manifest, therefore, that he did not say, "No one has seen the Father except the Son," but "No one knows the Father except the Son."
4. But if, on account of those things said in the Old Testament, where God is described as being angry or repenting, or any other such passion of human affection, they think that grounds are provided for them to refute us, affirming that God is entirely impassible and must be understood as lacking all these affections; it must be pointed out to them that similar things are found even in the evangelical parables, when it says that the one who planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants, who killed the servants sent to him, and in the end killed even the son who was sent to him—he is said to be angry, to have taken away the vineyard from them, to have miserably destroyed those wicked tenants, and to have handed the vineyard over to other tenants who would give him the fruit in its season. Or again, as for those citizens who did not want the householder to receive the kingdom over them, and sent messengers after him saying, "We do not want him to reign over us," the householder, having obtained the kingdom, returned and in his anger commands them to be killed before him, and burns their city with fire. But we, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, when we read of the anger of God, do not understand what is said according to the letter, but seek the spiritual sense in such matters, so that we may think in a way that is worthy of the understanding of God. Concerning these, according to the limitation of our understanding, when we were expounding that verse in the second Psalm in which he says, C]] "Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his fury he will disturb them," we showed, to the best of our ability, how this ought to be understood.
CHAPTER V. Of the Just and the Good.
1. Indeed, because the leaders of this heresy seem to have made for themselves a certain division, by which they said that the just is one thing and the good is another, and have even used this division within the divinity itself, affirming that the good God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and is not just, but that the God of the Law and the Prophets is just, yet not good—I think it is necessary to respond to this question as briefly as I can. They believe, therefore, that goodness is a kind of affection such that a benefit must be done to all, even if the one to whom the benefit is given is unworthy and does not deserve to receive a benefit; but, as it seems to me, they have not properly used that definition, thinking that something harsh or sad is brought to the one.
But they have thought that justice is such an affection that it rewards each according to his deserts. But here, too, they do not interpret the sense of their definition correctly. For they think that what is just does evil to the wicked and good to the good—that is, that according to their sense, the just does not seem to wish well to the wicked, but is, as it were, carried by a kind of hatred against them; and they collect instances wherever they may chance to find in the Scriptures of the Old Testament a history reporting such things, for example, concerning the punishments of the flood, and those who are reported to have perished in it, or when Sodom and Gomorrah are laid waste by the destruction of fire and brimstone rains, or when in the desert all fall on account of their sins, so that no one of those who had set out from Egypt is found to enter the promised land, except Joshua and Caleb. From the New Testament, moreover, they gather words of mercy and piety by which the disciples are instructed by the Savior, and by which it seems to be announced that no one is good except one, God the Father; and through this, they have dared to name the Father of the Savior Jesus Christ as good, but they say that the God of the world is another, whom it pleased them to call just, not also good.
2. From these, one must first demand that, if they can show according to their definition that the Creator is just, punishing according to merit those who perished at the time of the flood, or the Sodomites, or those who had set out from Egypt, since we see sometimes much worse and more wicked crimes being committed than those for which those who were destroyed, as we said above, were punished, yet we do not see everyone currently guilty paying the price of their deserts—will they say that he is a good effect who was once just? Or will they rather think that the one who is just is indeed so now, but patiently bears human offenses, while at that time he was not even just, he who extinguished innocent infants and nursing children along with the monstrous and impious giants? But they think these things because they know not how to hear anything beyond the letter; otherwise, let them show how it is just, according to the letter, that the sins of parents be rendered into the bosom of children and of the children of their children after them unto the third and fourth generation. But as for us, such things are not understood according to the letter, but as Ezekiel taught by the parable, saying, we seek what the parable itself signifies within. But they must also show how he is just, and—
A rendering to each according to their merits, who punishes the earth-born and the devil, although they have committed nothing worthy of punishment. For they could not—if according to these men they were of an evil and lost nature—do anything good. For even the fact that they call him a judge seems to be a judge not so much of deeds as of natures; indeed, if a bad nature cannot do good, neither can a good one do evil. Then afterwards, if the one whom they call good is good to all, he is without doubt good even to those who are about to perish; and how does he not save them? If he does not want to, then he will not be good; if he wants to but cannot, he will not be omnipotent. Rather, let them listen in the Gospels to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ preparing fire for the devil and his angels. And how will that work, as painful as it is sad, be seen according to the sense of these men as the work of a good God? But even the Savior himself, the Son of the good God, protests in the Gospels and says: "For if the signs and wonders had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes." And when he had approached the cities themselves, and had entered their borders, why, I ask, did he decline to enter those cities and provide them with an abundance of signs and wonders, if it was certain that given those deeds they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes? Which surely, as he does not do it, he leaves them without doubt for perdition, though the very discourse of the Gospel indicates that they were not of an evil and lost nature by designating that they could have repented. C But even in a certain parable of the Gospel, the king entering to see the guests who had been invited, saw someone not clothed in wedding garments, and said to him: "Friend, how did you enter here not having a wedding garment?" Then he said to the servants: "Binding his hands and feet, cast him out into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Let them tell us who is this king who entered to see the guests, and finding among them someone in sordid garments, orders him to be bound by his servants and dragged into outer darkness. Is he, perhaps, the one whom they call just? And how had he ordered good and bad to be invited, and had not ordered their merits to be inquired into by the servants? By which, surely, not the affection of some just one, as they say, who compensates according to merits, is indicated, but one of indiscriminate kindness toward all. D If, however, it is necessary that this be understood of the good God, that is, either of Christ or of the Father of Christ, what else is it that is thrown up against the just judgment of God B or rather, what is such that it is charged as a crime against God in the law C—which is to order him who had been invited from among those servants whom he had sent to call both the good and the bad, to be cast into outer darkness bound hand and foot because of more sordid garments?
§ 3. And these things, which we have assumed by the authority of the Scriptures, ought to be sufficient to refute those things which heretics are accustomed to object. Yet it will not seem indecorous if we also deal with them in a few words from the reason of the consequence itself. We ask them, therefore, if they know what reason is held among men regarding virtue and malice, and if it seems consistent that we should speak of virtues in God, or, as it seems to them, in these two gods. Let them answer this too: if it seems to them that goodness is some kind of virtue, which I think they will without doubt admit, what will they also say about justice? Never, indeed, as it seems to me, will they be so foolish as to deny that justice is a virtue. Therefore, if the good is a virtue and justice is a virtue, then without doubt justice is goodness. If, however, they say that justice is not good, it remains that it is either evil or indifferent. And indeed, I think it foolish to answer those who say that justice is evil. For I would seem to be answering either insane discourses or people who are out of their minds. For how will that which can render to the good what is good—as even they themselves admit—be seen as evil? If, however, they say it is indifferent, it follows that since justice is indifferent, temperance and prudence and all the remaining virtues are also held to be indifferent. And what shall we answer to Paul, who says: "If there is any virtue, if there is any praise, think on these things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me"? Let them therefore learn, by searching the divine Scriptures, what the individual virtues are, and let them not slip into this, which they say: that the God who renders to each according to their merit renders evil to the evil out of hatred of the wicked, and not on account of the fact that those who have sinned need to be cured by more austere medicines, and for that reason he applies to them those things which, with a view to amendment, seem for the present to bring some pain. They do not read what is written about the hope of those who perished in the flood, of which hope Peter himself in his first Epistle says thus: "Because Christ also died once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; being put to death indeed in the flesh, but brought to life by the spirit: in which also he went and preached to those spirits who were in prison, who had been unbelieving at one time, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was being built, in which a few,
A that is, eight souls, were saved through water. As you too, with a similar form, are now saved by baptism. But if they believe that the prophetic voices—that is, those concerning the rain of fire and sulfur that is said to have been poured upon them—are those of the Creator God, let them say to us what the prophet Ezekiel says about them: "Sodom will be restored," he says, "to its former state." And what is it that scourges those who are worthy of punishment, if it does not scourge them for some good? He who also says to Chaldaea: "You have coals of fire, sit upon them; they will be a help to you." But let those who fell in the desert hear what is reported in the B 77th Psalm, which is inscribed to Asaph; for it says: "When He slew them, then they sought Him." He does not say that when some were killed, others sought Him, but he says that the destruction of those who were being killed was such that, being put to death, they sought God. From all these things it is clear that the God of the Law and of the Gospels is one and the same, both just and good, and that He does good with justice and punishes with goodness; for the divine power can manifest its dignity neither as good without being just, nor as just without being good. We will add this further point, since their cunning compels us: If "just" is something other than "good," since evil is the contrary of good and unjust is the contrary of just, then without doubt "unjust" will be something other than "evil." And just as, according to you, C the just man is not good, so neither will the unjust man be evil; and again, just as the good man is not just, so the evil man will not be unjust. But to whom does it not seem absurd that, while evil is the contrary to the good God, yet to God, who is just—whom they say is inferior to the good one—no one is contrary? For there is not, as there is the one who is called evil, namely Satan, another who is called unjust. What then? Let us cut away what we defend. For they will not be able to say that an evil man is not also unjust, and that an unjust man is not evil. But if in these contraries injustice adheres inseparably to evil, or evil to injustice, without doubt the good will also necessarily D adhere to the just, and the just to the good; so that just as we call the wickedness of evil and of injustice one and the same, so we speak of the virtue of goodness and of justice as one and the same.
4. But they recall us again to the Scriptures, bringing forward that very famous question of theirs. For they say: "It is written that an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruits; for the tree is known by its fruit." What then, do they say? That the tree indicates what the Law is, by its fruits—that is, by the words of its commandments. For if the Law is found to be good, without doubt the God who gave it is believed to be a good God. If, however, it is just rather than good, the legislator A will be thought to be a just God. The Apostle Paul, using no circumlocution, says: "The Law is therefore good, and the commandment is holy and just and good." From these things it is manifest that Paul had not learned from those who separate the just from the good, but had been instructed by that God, and had been illuminated by the Spirit of that God, who is at once holy, and good, and just; through whose Spirit he was speaking when he said that the commandment of the Law is holy and just and good. And in order to show more evidently that goodness, more than justice and holiness, is present in the commandment, he repeated the phrase, bringing forward only goodness for these three, saying: "What then, is the good B death to me? God forbid." For, knowing that goodness is the genus of virtues, while justice or holiness are species of that genus, he, when he had mentioned the genus along with the species in the preceding words, turned his speech back to the genus alone. But in what follows: "Sin," he says, "wrought death in me through the good." In which he concludes by the genus what he had explained above by the species. For in this way we must also understand what was said: " A good man brings forth good from the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings forth evil." For here, too, he has taken the genus in the C good or evil, showing without doubt that in the good man there is both justice, and temperance, and prudence, and piety, and everything that can be called or thought good. Similarly, he also spoke of the evil man, who would without doubt be unjust, and impure, and impious, and all things which in their parts deform an evil man. For just as no one thinks any man evil without these wickednesses, nor can he be, so too without those virtues it is certain that no one will be thought to be good. It still remains for them, furthermore, to bring forward that which they think of as a shield given to them, namely what the Lord said in the Gospel: "No one is good except one, God the Father," saying that this is the proper title D of the Father of Christ, who is nevertheless different from the Creator God of all things, to which Creator he gave no title of goodness. Let us see, therefore, if in the Old Testament the God of the prophets and the Creator of the world and the Lawgiver is not called good. And what is this which is said in the Psalms: "How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart"? And: "Let Israel now say that He is good, that His mercy is forever." And in the Lamentations of Jeremiah it is written: "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him." Just as, therefore, God is frequently called good in the Old Testament, so also He is called just in the Gospels of the Lord.
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, in the Gospel according to John, our Lord Himself, praying to the Father, says: "Righteous Father, and the world has not known Thee" (John xvii, 25). Lest they perchance say that He called the Father the creator of the world on account of the assumption of flesh, and named Him "righteous" as such, they are excluded from that line of reasoning by what immediately follows; for He says: "And the world has not known Thee." For according to them, the world is ignorant only of the good God. But it recognizes its creator most truly, according to the Lord Himself, as the world loves what is its own. Openly, therefore, He whom they consider the good God is called righteous in the Gospels. It will certainly be possible, by taking some leisure, to gather more testimonies, wherever in the New Testament the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is called righteous, and even in the Old Testament the creator of heaven and earth is called good, so that, being convicted by many testimonies, the heretics may perhaps one day blush.
CHAPTER VI.
On the Incarnation of Christ.
1. B It is time for us to return to the course of the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior, and to how or why He was made man. Therefore, after considering, to the extent of our very meager powers—more from the contemplation of His works than from our own sense—the divine nature, and notwithstanding our contemplation of His visible creatures through faith as well as the invisible ones—since human frailty cannot see all things with the eyes nor comprehend them with the reason, for we humans are the weakest and most fragile animal of all rational beings; for those things which are held in heaven or above the heavens are more excellent—it remains that we should seek the medium, that is, the mediator between all these creatures and God, whom the Apostle Paul declares to be the firstborn of all creation. C Seeing also the things which are recorded of His majesty in the Holy Scriptures, and observing that He is called "the image of the invisible God, and the firstborn of all creation" (Coloss. i, 15), and that "in Him all things were created, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through Him and in Him; and He is before all, and all things consist in Him" (Coloss. i, 16-17), who is the head of all, having as His only head God the Father; for it is written: "The head of Christ is God" (I Cor. xi, 3); perceiving also what is written, that "no one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except the Father" (Matt. xi, 27); (for who can know what wisdom is, except He who begat it? Or who knows clearly what truth is, except the Father of truth? Who certainly D was able to investigate the nature of His Word, and of God Himself which is from God, unless God alone with whom the Word was?) we must hold for certain that this Word, or reason as it should be called, this wisdom, this truth, no other than God alone to whom I believe the books that would be written could not even contain the world (John xxi, 25), concerning, of course, the glory and majesty of the Son of God. For it is impossible to put into writing those things which pertain to the glory of the Savior. Having therefore considered such great and such things concerning the nature of the Son of God, we are struck with the highest admiration that such a nature, excelling all things, emptying itself from the state of its own majesty, was made man, and conversed among men, as the grace poured out upon His lips testifies, and as the Father bears witness to Him from heaven, and as 90 it is confirmed by the signs and wonders and various virtues wrought by Him. And He, even before His presence which He showed in the flesh, sent His prophets as forerunners and messengers of His advent; but after His ascension into heaven, He filled the holy apostles with the power of His divinity, and made them, men who were unlearned and ignorant, whether from among publicans or fishermen, travel throughout the world, that they might gather from every race and from all peoples a people of the pious who believe in Him.
2. But among all His miracles and magnificences, this one deeply exceeds human admiration, and the frailty of mortal intelligence does not find how it can sense or understand that that supreme power of divine majesty, that very Word of the Father, and the very wisdom of God in which all visible and invisible things were created, should be believed to have been within the circumscription of that man who appeared in Judea; but also that the wisdom of God entered the womb of a woman, and was born an infant, and emitted a cry in the likeness of weeping infants; then afterwards that He is reported to be troubled in death, as He Himself also confesses, saying: "My soul is sorrowful unto death" (Matt. xxvi, 38); and at last that He was brought down to the death which is considered most ignominious among men, although He rose again after the third day. Since, therefore, we see in Him some things so human that they seem to differ in nothing from the common frailty of mortals, and some things so divine that they befit none other than that primary and ineffable nature of the Godhead, the narrowness of the human intellect is beset, and, struck by the stupor of such admiration, does not know whither it may turn, what it may hold, or to what it may betake itself. If it perceives God, it sees a mortal; if it perceives man...
it sees Him returning from the dead with the spoils of the conquered empire of death. Wherefore, it is to be contemplated with all fear and reverence, so that in one and the same Person the truth of both natures may be demonstrated, in such a way that neither anything unworthy or indecent be felt concerning that divine and ineffable substance, nor, on the other hand, that what has been done be thought to have been an illusion of false images. To bring these things to human ears and to explain them in speech exceeds the powers of our merit, or of our intellect and discourse. I think, indeed, that it exceeds even the measure of the holy apostles; nay, it is perhaps even higher than the explanation of this mystery by the whole creation of celestial powers. Concerning this we shall speak, not out of any rashness, but because the order of the place A demands it, stating those things which our faith contains rather than what the assertion of human reason is accustomed to vindicate, and offering our conjectures rather than any manifest affirmations.
3. Therefore, the discourse of our disputation has taught in the preceding books that only the Firstborn of God, through whom all things were made, according to the opinion of Scripture, both made all things and loves what He has made. For since He Himself is the invisible image of the invisible God, He has invisibly provided participation in Himself to all rational creatures, so that each one might receive as much of this participation as they had clung to Him with an affect of love. But because, through the faculty of free will B, there was a variety and diversity of souls in each one, such that one was held by a more ardent, another by a thinner and more meager love towards their Creator, that soul of which Jesus said, "No one shall take my soul from me" [John x, 18]; from the beginning of its creation and thenceforth, inseparably and indissolubly clinging to Him, as being the Wisdom and Word of God and the truth and the true light, and as a whole, it received the Whole, and being itself transformed into His light and splendor, it was made with Him, in a primary way, one spirit, just as the Apostle promises to those who ought to imitate Him, saying, "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" [1 Cor. vi, 17]. This substance of the soul, therefore, being a mediator between God and flesh (for it was not possible for the nature of God to be mixed with a body without a mediator) is born, as we have said, God-man, that intermediate substance existing, for which, indeed, it was not contrary to nature to assume a body. But neither, on the other hand, did that soul, as a rational substance, have it contrary to nature to receive God, into whom, as we have said above, as if into the Word and Wisdom and the Truth, the whole C already ceased to reside in the Godhead, the narrowness of the human intellect, struck by the stupor of such admiration, knows not whither to decline or whither to turn itself.
Hence it is also deservedly held that, for His sake, either because the whole soul was in the Son of God, or because it received the whole Son of God into itself, even it, together with the flesh which it had assumed, is called the Son of God and the Power of God, Christ and the Wisdom of God; and again, the Son of God, through whom all things were created, is called Jesus Christ and the Son of Man. For it is said that the Son of God died, for that nature, namely, which could indeed receive death; and He is called the Son of Man, who is announced as about to come in the glory of God the Father with the holy angels. And for this reason, throughout all Scripture, the divine nature is called by human names, just as the human nature is adorned with the insignia of divine naming. For more can be said of this than of any other thing, which is written: "Because the two shall be in one flesh, and now they are not two, but one flesh" [Gen. ii, 24; Marc. x, 8]. For it is to be believed that the Word of God is more in one flesh with the soul than a husband with a wife. But also, who is more fitting to be described as one spirit with God than this soul which has so joined itself to God through love that it is deservedly called one spirit with Him?
Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἄνθρωπος γέγονε Χριστὸς, ἐξ ἀνδραγαθήματος τούτου τυχών, ὡς μαρτυρεῖ ὁ Προφήτης λέγων· «Ἠγάπησας δικαιοσύνην, καὶ ἐμίσησας ἀνομίαν· διὰ τοῦτο ἔχρισέ σε ὁ Θεὸς, ὁ Θεός σου ἔλαιον ἀγαλλιάσεως παρὰ τοὺς μετόχους σου.» Ἔπρεπε δὲ τὸν μηδέποτε κεχωρισμένον τοῦ μονογενοῦς συγχρηματίσαι τῷ μονογενεῖ καὶ συνδοξασθῆναι αὐτῷ That is: Therefore, Christ also became man, having obtained this through his own merit, as the Prophet testifies saying: "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows" [Psal. xliv, 8]. It was fitting, however, that he who was never separated from the Only-Begotten should be named with the Only-Begotten and be glorified with Him.
It was the perfection of love, and the sincerity of his affect of merit, that made for him an inseparable unity with God, such that it was not accidental, nor a taking up of his soul by a mere assumption of person, but one bestowed upon him by the merit of his virtues, hear the Prophet saying to him: "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." By the merit of love, therefore, he is anointed with the oil of gladness, that is, the soul of Christ is made Christ with the Word of God. For to be anointed with the oil of gladness signifies nothing other than to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the fact that He said "above thy fellows" indicates that the grace of the Spirit was not given to him just as it was to the prophets, but that the very [presence] of the Word of God...
A substantial, as the Apostle also said: "In whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Therefore, for this reason he not only said, "Thou hast loved righteousness," but added, "And hated iniquity." For to hate iniquity is what the Scripture says concerning Him, because "He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth," and what it says: "Tempted in all things according to the likeness, without sin." But the Lord Himself also says: "Which of you will convict me of sin?" And again He says of Himself: "Behold, the prince of this world cometh, and in me he finds nothing." All of which indicate that no sense of sin existed in Him. That the prophet might designate this more evidently—that a sense of iniquity never entered into Him—he said: "Before the child knows to call father or mother, he turns himself away from iniquity."
5. If it should seem difficult to anyone, because we have shown above that the soul in Christ is a rational soul, since we have frequently demonstrated throughout all our disputations that the nature of souls is capable of both good and evil, in this way the difficulty of this matter will be explained. The nature of that soul, indeed, which was the same as the nature of all souls, cannot be doubted; otherwise, it could not be called a soul if it were not truly a soul. But because the faculty of choosing good and evil is present to all, this soul which belongs to Christ B chose to love righteousness in such a way that, on account of the immensity of its love, it cleaved to it inconvertibly and inseparably, so that the firmness of its purpose, the immensity of its affection, and the inextinguishable heat of its love cut off every sense of conversion and mutation; and what was positioned in the power of choice had, by the affection of long use, already been turned into nature. Thus, it is to be believed that the soul in Christ was indeed human and rational, and it is not to be thought that it had any sense or possibility of sin.
6. Further, for a fuller explanation of the matter, it does not seem absurd if we use some similitude, although on a matter so arduous and so difficult, there is not an abundance of suitable examples. Nevertheless, that we may speak without any prejudice: the metal of iron is capable of cold and heat. If, therefore, some mass of iron were always placed in the fire, receiving the fire in all its pores and all its veins, and becoming entirely fire, if neither does the fire ever cease from it, nor is it ever separated from the fire, should we not say that this mass, which by nature is indeed iron, D is able to receive cold at times? Rather, what is more true, we perceive with our eyes that as it often happens in furnaces, we say it has become entirely fire, since nothing else is seen in it but fire; but also if anyone attempts to touch and handle it, he will feel not the force of iron, but the force of fire. In this way, therefore, that soul also which, like iron in the fire, is thus always placed in the Word, always in the wisdom, always in God, acts, feels, and understands everything as God; and therefore it cannot be called convertible or mutable, as it possessed irrevocability from the unity of the Word of God, being incessantly ignited. Finally, some heat of the Word of God is to be thought to have reached all the saints; but in this soul, the divine fire itself is to be believed to have rested substantially, from which some heat came to the others. Finally, what He said, because "God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows," shows that this soul is anointed with the oil of gladness—that is, with the Word of God and wisdom—in one way, and the partakers of Him—that is, the holy prophets and apostles—are anointed in another. For they are said to have run in the odor of His ointments: but this soul was the very vessel of the ointment, from whose fragrance all the worthy prophets and apostles became partakers. As, therefore, the substance of the ointment is one thing, and its odor is another, so Christ is one thing, and the partakers of Him are another. And as the vessel itself, which contains the substance of the ointment, can in no way receive any stench, while those who partake of its odor, if they remove themselves a little further from its fragrance, it is possible for them to receive a stench upon them; so it was impossible for Christ, as the vessel itself in which the substance of the ointment was, to receive a contrary odor. But His partakers, the closer they shall have been to the vessel, the more they will be partakers and capable of the odor.
9 7. I indeed think that the prophet Jeremiah also, understanding what the nature of the wisdom of God is which is in Him, which also is this same one that He took up for the salvation of the world, said: "The spirit of our countenance is Christ the Lord, to whom we said that we will live in His shadow among the nations." For I think that by "the shadow of our body" being inseparable from the body, and inseparably receiving and carrying the motions and gestures of the body, he wanted to show that he called this the shadow of Christ the Lord, which is the work and movement of the soul of Christ which cleaved to Him inseparably, and through whose motion and will He performed all things, in which...
we might live as a shadow among the nations. For the nations live in the sacrament of this assumption, who, imitating this through faith, come to salvation. But since David also says: “Remember the reproach of my servant, O Lord, which they have reproached me with in the exchange of your Christ,” A it seems to me to suggest similar things. And what else does Paul feel when he says, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God?” And in another place he says: “Do you seek a proof of Christ, who speaks in me?” And now he calls Christ hidden in God. Unless some understanding of this matter is indicated, such as we have said above was signified by the prophet through the shadow of Christ, perhaps this meaning itself exceeds the human mind. But we also see many other things inserted in the divine Scriptures concerning the significance of a shadow, as that which is in the Gospel according to Luke, when Gabriel says to Mary: “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” B And the Apostle says concerning the law, that “they serve the likeness and shadow of heavenly things,” those who have carnal circumcision. And elsewhere it is said: “Is not our life upon the earth a shadow?” If, therefore, the law which is upon the earth is a shadow, and we live in the shadow of Christ among the nations, it must be seen lest the truth of all these shadows be known in that revelation when now, not through a glass and in a riddle, but face to face, all the saints will merit to behold the glory of God and the causes of things and the truth. Having already received the pledge of this truth through the Holy Spirit, the Apostle used to say: “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him no longer.” C These things, for the present, could occur to us as we dispute about matters so difficult, that is, about the incarnation and the deity of Christ. If anyone can truly find anything better, and confirm what he says with clearer assertions from the Holy Scriptures, let those be received rather than these.
Chapter VII. De Spiritu sancto.
1. Since therefore we have explained the first discourses that were necessary about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the beginning, as the matter had demanded, it seemed that we should repeat them again, and show that God is the same, the creator of the world, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, of the law and the prophets and the D Gospels; then furthermore also concerning Christ, that he who was shown above to be the Word and wisdom of God, it was also necessary to demonstrate in the following how he became man; it remains that we also repeat as briefly as we can concerning the Holy Spirit. The time is therefore now for us to discourse to the best of our ability about the Holy Spirit, whom our Lord and Savior in the Gospel according to John called the Paraclete. For as the same God is the same, and the same Christ is the same, so also the same Holy Spirit is the same who was in the prophets and in the apostles, that is, whether in those who believed in God before the coming of Christ, or in those who through Christ have fled to God. And while we have heard that heretics dared to speak of two gods, and two Christs, yet we have never heard of two Holy Spirits being preached by anyone. For how could they affirm this from the Scriptures, or what difference could they provide between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit? If, however, any definition or description of the Holy Spirit can be found. For even if we were to grant to Marcion or Valentinus that they could introduce differences of deity, and describe one nature as that of the good, and another as that of the just, what will they devise, and what will they find, to introduce a difference in the Holy Spirit? I think, therefore, that they can find nothing to serve as proof of any difference whatsoever.
2. But we believe that the rational creature in its entirety assumes participation in him, in like manner as in the wisdom of God and the Word of God, without any difference. I see, however, that the preeminent arrival of the Holy Spirit to men after the ascension of Christ into the heavens is declared more than before his arrival. For previously the gift of the Holy Spirit was provided only to the prophets, and to a few, if anyone by chance in the people had merited it; but after the arrival of the Savior, it is written that that which was said in the prophet Joel has been fulfilled, because “It shall be in the last days, and I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy;” which is certainly such as that which he says: “All nations shall serve him.” Therefore, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, along with many other things, that most magnificent thing is also demonstrated, that those things which are written in the prophets, or by the law of Moses, few at that time, that is, the prophets themselves, and scarcely where one from all the people could surpass the corporeal understanding, and could understand something greater, that is, something spiritual in the law or
prophets; but now there are numberless multitudes of believers, who, though they cannot all explain the consequence of spiritual understanding in order and with clarity (32), yet all have the persuasion that neither ought circumcision to be understood corporally, nor the rest of the Sabbath, nor the shedding of the blood of animals, nor that responses were given by God to Moses concerning these things: a sense which, without doubt, it is suggested to all by the power of the Holy Spirit.
3. But just as there are many understandings of Christ, who although He is Wisdom, yet does not act in all with the force of wisdom, nor attain it, except in those who study wisdom in Him: nor, when He is called a physician, does He act towards all as a physician, but only towards those who, having understood the languor of their own sickness, flee to His mercy, that they may be able to obtain health; so I think it is also with the Holy Spirit, in whom is every nature of gifts. For to some is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, to others faith (34), and thus through each one who is able to receive it, this is accomplished, or this Spirit B Himself is understood, of whom he who has merited to participate stands in need. Those who do not notice these divisions and differences, when they hear Him called the Paraclete in the Gospel, nor consider from what work or act the Paraclete is so named, have compared Him to I know not what base spirits, and through this have attempted to disturb the Churches of Christ, so as to generate no small dissensions among the brethren. But the Gospel shows Him to be of such power and majesty, that it says the apostles were not yet able to receive those things which the Savior wished to teach them, until the Holy Spirit should come (33), who, infusing Himself into their souls, would be able to illuminate them regarding the reason and faith of the Trinity. But these men, on account of the lack of skill of their own intellect, because not only are they unable to explain consecutively what is right, but cannot even give audience to those things which are said by us, thinking less than is worthy of His divinity, have surrendered themselves to errors and deceptions, depraved rather by an erratic spirit than instructed by the institutions of the Holy Spirit, according to what the Apostle said: "Following the doctrine of demons, of those who forbid marriage to the destruction C and ruin of many, and command to abstain from foods, so that by an ostentation of stricter observance they may seduce innocent souls (43)."
4. It behooves us to know that the Holy Spirit, teaching things greater than can be expressed by voice (34), and, if I may so say, things that are ineffable, and "things which it is not permitted for man to speak," that is, which cannot be indicated in human language. But that he says "it is not permitted," we understand it as "it is not possible," spoken by the Apostle, just as also where he says (35): "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify." For those things the power of which is within us, because we can have them, he says are lawful for us. But the Paraclete, because He is called the Holy Spirit, is named from consolation. For *paraclesis* in Latin is called consolation. For if anyone has merited to participate in the Holy Spirit, having recognized the ineffable sacraments, he undoubtedly assumes consolation and the joy of the heart. For when he has recognized the reasons of all things that happen, why or how they happen, with the Spirit indicating, his soul can in no way be disturbed, or receive any sense of grief (36); nor is he terrified by anything, since cleaving to the Word of God and His wisdom, he calls Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit (37). But since we have made mention of the Paraclete, and have explained according to our strength how one ought to think about Him; but our Savior is also called Paraclete in the Epistle of John when it says: "If anyone of us has sinned, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and He Himself is (38) the propitiation for our sins"; let us consider whether perhaps this appellation of Paraclete might signify one thing here concerning the Savior, and another concerning the Holy Spirit. For Paraclete seems to be said of the Savior as an intercessor. For Paraclete in Greek signifies both, an intercessor and a comforter. Therefore, on account of the word that follows, where he says: "And He himself is the propitiation for our sins," the name of Paraclete seems likely to be understood more in the Savior as an intercessor; for He is said to intercede with the Father for our sins (39). Concerning the Holy Spirit, Paraclete ought to be understood as comforter (40), for the reason that He provides consolation to souls to whom He openly reveals the sense of spiritual knowledge.
CHAPTER VIII. On the soul.
1. After these things, the order now requires us also to inquire about the soul generally, and to ascend from lower things to higher ones. For that there are souls in each and every animal, even in those which dwell in the waters, I think is doubted by no one. For even the common opinion of all preserves this,
and the confirmation of the authority of Holy Scripture is added, when it is said, "God made the great whales and every soul of creeping creatures which the waters brought forth after their kind. A" Even from common rational intelligence, this is confirmed by those who determine the definition of the soul with certain words. For the soul is defined in this way, that it is a *phantastikē* and *hormētikē* substance, which in Latin, although it cannot be explained as properly, can yet be called sensible and mobile. This, indeed, is appropriate to say of all animals, and of those which dwell in the waters; but the same definition of the soul is also conveniently shown in birds.
Indeed, Scripture has added the authority of another opinion, when it says: "You shall not eat blood, because the soul of all flesh is its blood, and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh B," in which it most evidently designates the blood of all animals as their soul. But if someone should inquire how it is said that the soul of all flesh is its blood, regarding bees, wasps, and ants, and those things which are in the waters, the oysters and snails, and whatever else exists that lacks blood and is most evidently shown to be living creatures, it must be answered that in living creatures of this kind, the vigor of the red blood has power, and this vigor is possessed in them by that humor which is within them, even if it is of a different color. For it does not matter what the color is, provided the substance be vital.
Regarding beasts of burden or cattle, that they are living creatures, there is no doubt even according to common opinion. Yet the pronouncement of divine Scripture is evident, when God says: "Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to its kind, quadrupeds and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kind C." But now, concerning man, although there is no doubt for anyone, nor could anyone ask [about it], yet divine Scripture also designates that "God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul D."
It remains to inquire concerning the angelic order, whether they themselves have souls, or are souls, or [if this applies] to the rest of the divine and celestial powers, but also to the contrary powers. We find no authority of divine Scripture anywhere that either angels, or if there are any divine spirits who are ministers of God, have souls or are called souls; yet they are felt by very many to be living creatures. Concerning God, however, we find it written thus: "And I will set my soul against that soul which has eaten blood, and I will root it out from its people [n]; and elsewhere: "Your new moons and your sabbaths and your feast days my soul hates [o]." And in the twenty-first Psalm concerning Christ (for it is certain that this psalm is ascribed to the person of Christ, just as the Gospel confirms), it is thus said: "But you, Lord, do not make your help far from me; look to my defense, deliver my soul from the sword, O God, and my darling from the hand of the dog [p]." Although there are many other testimonies concerning the soul of Christ while placed in the flesh.
2. But the reason concerning the incarnation occurs, which removes the question. For as he truly had flesh, so he truly had a soul. But concerning the fact that God's soul is named in the Scriptures, how it ought to be understood, it is difficult both to feel and to express; for we profess once for all that that nature is simple and without the mixture of any addition; yet in some way or other it is felt that God's soul is named; but there is no doubt concerning Christ. And therefore it does not seem absurd to me also to say or feel something of the sort concerning the holy angels and the rest of the celestial powers. Since that definition of the soul seems to fall upon them as well. For who could reasonably deny that they are sensible or mobile? But if this seems to be the correct definition, that the soul is called a rationally sensible and mobile substance, this same definition seems to pertain to the angels as well. For what else is in them than reasonable sense and motion?
For those who have one rationale of definition, of these without doubt the substance is the same. Paul indeed signifies that there is a certain animal man, whom he declares unable to receive those things which are of the Spirit of God; but he says that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit seems foolish to him, nor can he understand what is spiritually discerned. But also in another place he says that an animal body is sown, and a spiritual body rises, showing that in the resurrection of the just, nothing animal will exist. And therefore we inquire lest by chance there be some substance which, according to what it is as soul, is imperfect. But whether it is imperfect for that reason, because it has lapsed from perfection, or it has been made such by God, when we have begun to discuss each thing in order, we shall inquire. For if the animal man does not receive those things which are of the Spirit of God, and because he is animal, he cannot receive the intelligence of a better nature—that is, a divine one—perhaps for this reason, Paul wishing to teach us more evidently what the man is, [continues]...
A that we are able to understand things which are of the spirit—that is, spiritual things—joins and associates the mind rather than the soul with the Holy Spirit. For I think he shows this when he says: "I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind." He does not say, "I will pray with the soul," but "with the spirit and with the mind"; and he does not say, "I will sing with the soul," but "I will sing with the spirit and with the mind."
JEROME'S INTERPRETATION
Wherefore, it must be treated with infinite caution, lest by chance, when souls have obtained salvation and have arrived at a blessed life, they cease to be souls. B It is asked: If the mind is what prays and sings with the spirit, and it is the same thing that perceives perfection and salvation: how does Peter say, "Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls"? If the soul neither prays nor sings with the spirit, how shall it hope for salvation? Or if, when it has arrived at blessedness, it will no longer be called "soul"? But let us see whether perhaps it is possible to answer this in such a way, because just as the Savior came to save what was lost, C even when it is saved, it is not lost what was previously said to be lost; so perhaps this which is saved is also called "soul"; but when it has been made safe, it will be named by the appellation of its more perfect part. But it seems that it can be added by some that, just as this which is lost was without doubt, before it perished, something else I know not what than "lost," as it will certainly be when it is now no longer lost: so also the soul which is said to have perished will be seen to have been something at some time when it had not yet perished, and for this reason it would be called "soul," which again from a state D of being liberated can once again be that which it was before it perished and was called "soul." [alt-version omitted]But even from the very meaning of the name "soul," which it indicates in Greek, it has seemed to some who inquire more curiously that a not inconsiderable understanding can be suggested. For the divine word said that God is fire, when it says: "Our God is a consuming fire." But also concerning the substance of the angels, it says thus: "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire," and elsewhere: "The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire in the bush." Moreover, we have also received the command to be "fervent in spirit," by which without doubt the fiery and hot Word of God is shown. But also the prophet Jeremiah hears from Him who gave him answers: "Behold, I have given my words in your mouth as fire." Just as, therefore, God is fire, and the angels are a flame of fire, and all the saints are fervent in spirit; so in contrast, those who have fallen from the love of God have without doubt cooled in His charity and are to be said to have become cold. For the Lord also says, that "because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold." But also all things whatsoever that are compared to the adverse power in the Holy Scriptures are always said to be found cold: what is found colder than the devil? But he is also said to reign in the sea. For the prophet designates the serpent and the dragon—which is certainly turned back to one of the evil spirits—as being in the sea. And elsewhere the prophet says: "I will bring my holy sword upon the fleeing serpent, upon the perverse serpent dragon, and shall kill him." And again he says: "Even if they should depart from my sight, and descend into the depths of the sea, there I will command the dragon and it will bite them." But also in Job he himself is called the king of all that are in the waters. But the prophet declares that evils are kindled from the North upon all who inhabit the earth. But the North is designated in the Holy Scriptures as a cold wind, as is written in Wisdom: "Cold is the wind of the North." Which itself also should without doubt be understood concerning the devil. If, therefore, those things which are holy are named both fire and light and fervent, but things which are contrary are called cold, and the charity of many is said to grow cold, it is to be inquired whether perhaps the name of the soul, which in Greek is called *psyche*, may have been spoken and transferred from cooling down from a more divine and better state.
A For it seems to have cooled down from that natural and divine heat, and thus it remains in this state and in this name. Finally, inquire if you can easily find the term "soul" used in a praiseworthy sense in the Holy Scriptures; more frequently, however, it occurs in a culpable sense, as where it is said: "An evil soul destroys him who possesses it" (Eccli. vi. 4), and "The soul that sins, it shall die" (Ezech. xviii. 4). For after it was said, "All souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine," it would certainly seem appropriate that he should have added, "The soul that does justice, it shall be saved; and the soul that sins, it shall die." But now we see that he has added the attribute of culpability to the soul, while he has remained silent regarding what was praiseworthy. B 96 We must therefore see whether, as we have said, it may be declared by the very name itself, based on the fact that it has cooled down from the fervor of the just and from participation in the divine fire (63) — that *psyche*, that is, soul, has been so named—without, however, having lost the ability to return to that state of fervor in which it was from the beginning. Whence the Prophet also seems to point to something of this sort when he says: "Return, O my soul, into thy rest" (Ps. cxvi. 7). From all of which it seems to be shown that the mind, declining from its state and dignity, has been changed into and called soul; and if it is repaired and corrected, it returns to being a mind. C
* The mind, then, becomes soul, and a soul, once corrected, becomes mind. From the fact that it fell and cooled down from the spiritual life, it became a soul, which can also return to that which it was from the beginning. And I conceive this to be signified by the Prophet when he says: "Return, O my soul, into thy rest," so that this might be the whole meaning.
Hieronymian Version
* *Nous*, that is, the mind, falling, became soul, and again, the soul instructed by virtues shall become mind. This we can also discover by inquiring into the soul of Esau, who, because of ancient sins, was condemned to a worse life. And concerning the heavenly bodies we must inquire whether it began to exist—not at the time when the world was made—as a soul alone, or whatever else it ought to be called, but before it entered that light-giving and burning body. Let us think similarly concerning the moon and stars, that for the aforementioned reasons, D though they were compelled against their will to be subject to vanity, because of the hope of future things, they act not for themselves, but for the will of the Creator, by whom they have been distributed into these offices.4. But if this is so, it seems to me that the departure of the soul itself should not be considered equal in all, but that it is changed into a soul in greater or lesser measure, and that some minds preserve something even of their former vigor, while others preserve nothing, or some very small amount. Whence it is found that some are born with a keener intellect from their very infancy, while others are slower, and some are very dull and utterly unteachable. Nevertheless, let him who reads more diligently discuss with himself and weigh what we have said (65)—that the mind is changed into a soul, or whatever else may seem to be aimed at in this—but let these things not be thought by us to be put forth as dogmas, but as matters to be discussed and inquired into in the manner of an investigation. But let him who reads also add this to the discussion: that even concerning the Savior's soul, it is observed from those things which are written in the Gospel that there are things which are ascribed to him under the name of soul, and others which are deputed under the name of Spirit. For when he wishes to indicate some passion or perturbation of his own, he indicates it under the name of soul, as when he says: "Now is my soul troubled" (Joan. xii. 27), and "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matth. xxvi. 38), and "I lay down my soul" (Joan. x. 18); but I lay it down myself. But he commends into the hands of the Father not his soul, but his spirit; and when he says the flesh is weak, he does not call the soul prompt, but the spirit; whence the soul seems to be a sort of medium between the weak flesh and the prompt spirit.
5. But perhaps some one may occur to us from those whom we have warned in our propositions, and say: Why then is the soul of God also spoken of? To whom we shall respond in this manner: because as all things which are spoken of God corporally (67)—that is, either fingers, or hands, or arms, or eyes, or feet, or mouth—we say that not these human members, but certain virtues of his are indicated by these appellations of bodily members; so also it is to be thought that there is something else which is indicated by this appellation which is called the soul of God. And if it is lawful for us to dare to say something more in such a matter (69), perhaps the soul of God may be understood as his only-begotten Son. For just as the soul inserted through the whole body moves everything and stirs what it works throughout the whole, so also the only-begotten Son of God, who is his Word and wisdom, reaches and arrives at every virtue of God, being inserted into it. And perhaps on account of the indication of this sacrament...
God is called or described in the Scriptures as a body. A One must certainly consider whether it may perhaps also be understood that the Only-Begotten of God is the soul in this case, since He Himself came into this place of affliction, and descended into the valley of weeping, and into the place of our humiliation; as it says in the Psalm: "For Thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction." Finally, I know that some, interpreting that which was said by the Savior in the Gospel: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death," have interpreted it as referring to the apostles, whom He called His soul, as being better than the rest of the body. For since the multitude of believers is said to be His body, they have said that the apostles ought to be understood as the soul, as being better than the rest of the body. These things, as far as we were able, we have brought forward concerning the rational soul, to be discussed rather by the readers than as things established and defined. But as for the souls of animals and other mute creatures, those things which we have said above absolutely should suffice.
97 CHAPTER IX.
On the world and the motions of rational creatures, whether good or evil, and the causes thereof.
1. But now let us return to the order of our proposed discussion, and let us contemplate the beginning of creation, whatever that beginning was which the mind of the creating God could behold. In that beginning, B it must be thought, God made as great a number of rational creatures, or intellectual beings, or whatever else they are to be called, which we have termed minds above, as He foresaw He could suffice for, or hold under His providence; just as He also prepared such a quantity of matter as He could adorn. For it is certain that He made them according to some number fixed beforehand with Himself: for it is not to be thought, as some desire, that they have no end; because where there is no end, there can be no comprehension, nor any circumscription. But if that were so, then that which is made could neither be contained nor dispensed by God. Assuredly, in its nature, whatever is infinite will be incomprehensible. Furthermore, as Scripture says: "God hath created all things in number and measure," and for this reason, number will rightly be applied to rational creatures, or minds, so that they may be as great as can be dispensed, ruled, and contained by the providence of God. But measure will consequently be applied to corporeal matter, C which is certainly to be believed to have been created by God in such quantity as He knew would suffice for the adornment of the world. These, therefore, are things which are to be thought to have been created by God in the beginning, that is, before all things. And this, indeed, we think is implied even in that beginning which Moses introduced more obscurely when he says: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." For it is certain that this is spoken not of the firmament, nor of the dry land, but of that heaven and earth whose names the heaven and earth which we see later inherited.
2. But since these rational natures, which we said were made in the beginning, were made when they did not previously exist—by this very fact that they were not, and began to be—they necessarily remained convertible and mutable, D because whatever virtue was in their substance did not reside in them naturally, but was effected by the grace of the Creator. What they are, therefore, is not their own, nor is it everlasting, but was given by God. For it did not always exist; and everything that is given can also be taken away and recede. The cause of receding, however, will lie in whether the motion of the minds is not rightly and appropriately directed. For the Creator allowed voluntary and free motions to the minds created by Him, so that what was a good in them might become their own, since it was maintained by their own will; but sloth and the weariness of labor in maintaining the good, and aversion and negligence of better things, gave the beginning of receding from the good. To recede, however, from the good...
is nothing else than to be formed in evil. For it is certain that evil is to be lacking in good. From which it happens that in the measure anyone might turn back from the good, to that same measure they would arrive at malice. In which, indeed, each mind, whether more or less A neglecting the good on account of its own movements, was drawn toward the contrary of the good, which is without doubt evil. From which it appears that the Creator of all things received certain seeds and causes of variety and diversity, so that according to the diversity of minds—that is, reasonable creatures—which diversity we have said above they must be thought to have conceived, He might create a varied and diverse world. And what we mean by "varied and diverse," this is what we wish to indicate.
3. We call the world, now, everything that is above the heavens, or in the heavens, or upon the earth, or in those things which are called below B or whatever places there are anywhere at all, and those who are named as dwelling within them. All this, therefore, is called the world. In which world some things are said to be supercelestial, that is, placed in happier dwelling-places and clothed in more celestial and splendid bodies, and in these very things many differences are displayed; just as, for example, the Apostle also says, that "there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory." C But some things are called earthly, and among them also there is no small difference; that is, among human beings; for some of them are barbarians, others Greeks; and some of the barbarians are fierce and wild, others milder. And some indeed use highly approved laws, others inferior or harsher ones, and others also use customs that are more inhuman and bestial than laws. And some are indeed humbled immediately from the beginning of their birth, and are subject, and are reared servilely, whether placed under masters or under princes or tyrants; D while others are reared more freely and reasonably. Others are born with healthy bodies, some with sickly ones immediately from their earliest age; others are deprived of sight, others of hearing and speech, some born so, others deprived of such senses immediately after birth, or certainly having suffered some such thing in adult age. And what does it matter to unfold for me all the human calamities and to enumerate them, from which some are free and others involved, when each one can also consider and weigh these things for himself? There are also certain invisible powers, to whom the things that are upon the earth have been committed to be dispensed; and no small difference must be believed to exist also among them, just as A it is found also among men. Indeed, the Apostle Paul designates that there are also certain infernal powers, and in them in like manner the cause of variety must without doubt be sought. But as for mute animals and birds, and those things that inhabit the waters, it seems superfluous to inquire, since it is certain that these ought to be accepted not as primary, but as consequent.
4. Since, therefore, it is said that all things that were made, were made through Christ and in Christ, just as the Apostle Paul most clearly designates, saying: "For in Him and through Him all things were created, whether they are in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or powers, or principalities, or dominions; all things through Him and in Him were created." But John also in the B Gospel demonstrates the same, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made." But it is also written in the psalm: "You have made all things in wisdom." Since therefore Christ, as He is the Word and wisdom, is also justice, it will without doubt be consequent that those things which were made in the Word and wisdom are also said to be made in the justice which is Christ; with the result that in those things which were made, nothing unjust, nothing fortuitous may appear, but everything is taught to be just as the rule of equity and justice demands. How therefore such great variety, and such great diversity of things can be understood as most just and most equitable, C I am certain cannot be explained by human intellect or speech, unless we, prostrate and suppliant, entreat the Word Himself and the wisdom and justice who is the only-begotten Son of God, who through His grace, infusing Himself into our senses, may deign to illuminate the obscure, to open the closed, and to reveal the hidden things: if indeed we be found sufficiently worthy to ask, or to seek, or to knock, so that we may merit either to receive, being those who ask, or to find, being those who seek, or to have it opened, for those who knock. Not relying, therefore, on our own intellect, but on the help of that Wisdom who made all things, and His justice which we believe to be in all creatures, meanwhile, even if we are not able to assert it, we shall nevertheless attempt, trusting in His mercy, to inquire and D search into how this such great variety and diversity of the world may be seen to consist with every justice and reason. I mean, however, only a general reason; for to seek the special reason of individuals is the mark of an inexperienced person, and to wish to render it is that of a madman.
A 5. But to those who say to us that this world is placed in such variety, which we explained above, was made by God, whom we call God, and good, and just, and most equitable, many are accustomed to object—especially those coming from the school of Marcion, and Valentinus, and Basilides, who have heard that there are diverse natures of souls—how it is consistent with the justice of God, who makes the world, to offer a habitation to some indeed in the heavens, and not only to provide a better dwelling for them, but also to grant them a certain higher and more remarkable degree, to indulge some with principalities, to assign powers and dominations to others, to grant to others the most ample seats of heavenly tribunals, for some to shine more radiantly and to sparkle with sidereal splendor, and for others to have the glory of the sun, for others the glory of the moon, for others the glory of the stars; for star to differ from star in glory; and, in a word, to say everything at once, if to God the creator there is wanting neither the desire for a supreme and good work, nor the faculty of perfecting it, what cause could have existed that, while creating rational natures—that is, those for whose existence He Himself was the cause—He should make some higher, and others secondary, or third, and others already inferior by many degrees and procreate them as worse?
Then they further object regarding those things which are on earth, that a happier lot of birth had fallen to some, so that one, for example, is generated from Abraham, and is born from the promise, and another from Isaac and Rebecca, and he who, while still placed in the womb, supplants his brother, and before he is born is said to be loved by God. Or this very thing, that one is born among the Hebrews, among whom he might find the learning of the divine law; but another among the Greeks, and among the wise men themselves, and men of no small learning; B now indeed another among the Ethiopians, with whom the custom of eating human flesh prevails; or among the Scythians, with whom parricide is committed as if by law; or among the Tauri, where guests are sacrificed. They say to us, therefore: If such a great diversity of things, and a condition of birth so varied and so diverse, in which case the faculty of free will certainly has no place (for no one chooses for himself either where, or among whom, or in what condition he is born); if, therefore, they say, this is not caused by the diversity of the nature of souls, that is, that these are destined for an evil nation, and others for good ones, what else remains, unless these things are thought to be done by chance and accident? Which, if it were accepted, then it would be believed that the world was neither made by God, nor ruled by His providence, and consequently, neither would the judgment of God seem to be awaited regarding the actions of each person. In which matter, what the truth of things is to a certainty, it belongs to Him alone to know who searches all things, even the deep things C of God.
6. We, however (not to nourish the insolence of heretics by keeping silent), regarding those things which, to the extent of our ability, can occur to us in reply to what they have presented, shall answer in this way. We have frequently shown by the divine Scriptures, as far as we have been able, that the creator of all things is a good, and just, and omnipotent God. When He, in the beginning, created those things which He wished to create, that is, rational natures, He had no other cause for creating except for His own sake, that is, His own goodness. Since, therefore, He Himself was the cause of those things that were to be created, in whom there was neither any variety, nor change, nor impossibility, He created all those He created equal and similar, since indeed no cause for variety and diversity existed for Him.
But since rational creatures themselves, as we have frequently shown, and as we shall show nonetheless in their own place, have been gifted with the faculty of choice, the liberty of each one’s own will provoked them either to progress through the imitation of God, or to descent through negligence. And this was the cause, as we have already said above, of the diversity among rational creatures, not drawing its origin from the will or judgment of the Creator, but from the arbitration of one’s own liberty. But God, to whom it seemed just to dispense His creature according to its merit, brought the diversities of minds into the consonance of one world, that he might adorn it, as if it were a single house in which there ought to be not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthen, and some indeed to honor, but others to dishonor, from these diverse vessels, whether souls or minds; and this world, as I judge, received those causes for its diversity, while divine providence, in accordance with the variety of their motions, or the purposes of their souls, D distributes each.
And through this, neither will the Creator appear unjust, since He distributes to each according to preceding causes, based on merit; A nor will the happiness or unhappiness of birth for anyone, or whatever condition may happen to befall them, be considered fortuitous, nor will different creators or different natures of souls be believed.
7. But lest it seem that the Holy Scripture has kept silent about the reason for this deep mystery B—as when the apostle Paul, disputing about Jacob and Esau, says: "For when they had not yet been born, and had done nothing good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said that the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau" 87; and after this he answers himself and says: "What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God?" 80; and in order to provide us with an opportunity of inquiring about these things and examining how they might not happen without reason, he answers himself and says—the same question, as it seems to me, which is proposed concerning Jacob and Esau, can also be held concerning all celestial and terrestrial creatures and those of the underworld. And similarly it seems to me, just as it is said there: "For when they had not yet been born, and had done nothing good or evil," so also it can be said of all other things: "For when they had not yet been created, and had done nothing good or evil 11 that the purpose of God according to election might stand" (as some think), "some indeed were made celestial, others terrestrial, and others of the underworld, C not of works (as they think), but of him who calls." What then shall we say, if these things are so? "Is there therefore injustice with God? God forbid." Therefore, just as when the Scriptures are diligently examined regarding Esau and Jacob it is found that there is no injustice with God, such that before they were born, or had done anything in this life, it was said "because the elder shall serve the younger," and that it is found not to be an injustice that Jacob supplanted his brother in the womb, if we understand that because of the merits of a previous life he was rightly loved by God, so that he deserved to be preferred to his brother; so also concerning celestial, terrestrial, and infernal creatures, if we note that this diversity of theirs is not from the beginning of the creature, but from preceding causes due to the dignity of merit, a different office is prepared for each by the Creator, D flowing from the fact that each one, in that it was created a mind by God or a rational spirit, had prepared for itself, according to the motions of the mind and the senses of the soul, more or less merit, and had become either lovable or hateful to God; yet some among those who are established with better merits are ordered to adorn the state of the world by being compassionate to the rest and to provide service to the lower ones, by which they themselves also exist as participants in the patience of the Creator; according to what the Apostle himself says: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope" 89. Observing, therefore, this judgment 90 which the Apostle, explaining the birth of Esau and Jacob, stated: "Is there injustice with God? God forbid"; I judge that this same judgment ought to be kept in all creatures as well; for, as we said above, the justice of the Creator must appear in all things. Which, as it seems to me, will be revealed more clearly if the causes of the diversity of each one, whether of celestial, terrestrial, or infernal things, are said to have existed in themselves before their corporeal birth. For by the Word of God and his wisdom all things were created, and were ordered unto justice by him. But through the grace of his mercy he provides for all, and encourages all, by whatever remedies they can be cured, and calls them to salvation.
8. As therefore there is no doubt that in the future judgment the good shall be separated from the bad, and the just from the unjust, and that each one shall be distributed according to their merit through those places of which they are worthy, as we shall show by God's will in the following; I think that something similar was already done even before. For all things indeed must be believed to be managed and dispensed by God with judgment. That also which the Apostle teaches, saying: "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthen, and some indeed unto honor, but others unto dishonor," and what he adds, saying: "Because if any man shall cleanse himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor" 20, sanctified...
[LIBER SECUNDUS.]
to the Lord, as useful for every good work; this shows without doubt that he who has purged himself, having been placed in this life, will be prepared for every good work in the future; but he who has not purged himself will be, according to the extent of his impurity, a vessel for reproach, that is, unworthy. Thus, therefore, it is possible to understand that there were also beforehand reasonable vessels, either purged or less purged—that is, those which either purged themselves or did not purge themselves—and from this each vessel, according to the measure of its purity or impurity, received its place or region, or condition of being born, or of accomplishing something in this world; all of which God, up to the smallest detail, foreseeing and knowing by the power of His wisdom, disposes all things by the governance of His judgment with the most just retribution, so that to each one, according to his merit, support or counsel should be given. In this, truly, the entire logic of equity is shown, while the inequality of things serves the equity of the retribution of merits. The reasons for which merits, in respect to each individual according to truth and to clarity, the Lord alone recognizes with His only-begotten Word and His wisdom and the Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER X. On the resurrection and judgment, on the fire of hell and punishments.
1. But since our discourse has reminded us of the future judgment and of retribution, and of the punishments of sinners, according to what the Holy Scriptures threaten and ecclesiastical preaching contains, regarding the fact that at the time of judgment eternal fire and outer darkness and the prison and the furnace, and other things similar to these, are prepared for sinners; let us see what one ought to think about these things as well. But in order to arrive at these in coherent order, it seems to me that the discourse should first be started concerning the resurrection, so that we may know what it is that will come either to punishment, or to rest, or to blessedness; concerning which, in other books which we have written about the resurrection, we have disputed more fully, and have shown what we thought about this. But even now, because of the coherence of the treatise, it does not seem absurd to repeat a few things from it: especially because some take offense at the ecclesiastical faith, as if we believed in the resurrection foolishly and entirely without wisdom; especially heretics, to whom I think one must reply in this way. If they themselves also confess that the resurrection of the dead exists, let them answer us what it is that has died. Is it not the body? Therefore, the resurrection of the body takes place. Then, next, let them say if they think we ought to use bodies or not. I think that since the Apostle Paul says, “It is sown a soulish body, it will rise a spiritual body,” it is impossible for them to deny that a body rises, or that we use bodies in the resurrection. What then? If it is certain that we must use bodies, and the bodies which fell are preached to rise again (for nothing is properly said to rise again, unless it is that which fell before), there is no doubt that they rise for this reason, that we might be clothed in them again through the resurrection. Therefore, one thing follows from another. B For even if bodies rise, they rise without a doubt for the clothing of our resurrection; and if it is necessary for us to be in bodies, as it is certainly necessary, we must be in no others than our own bodies. If it is true that they rise and rise as spiritual bodies, there is no doubt that, having cast off corruption and laid aside mortality, they are said to rise from the dead; otherwise, it would seem vain and superfluous for anyone to rise from the dead, only to die again. This can only be understood more clearly if one diligently observes what the quality of the soulish body is, which, sown into the earth, repairs the quality of the spiritual body. For from the soulish body, the very power of the resurrection and grace draws out the spiritual body, when it transforms it from unworthiness to glory.
2. Because, therefore, these most learned and wisest heretics think themselves to be such, we will ask them if every body has some shape, that is, is formed by some habit. And if they should say that there is a body which is not formed by any habit, they will seem the most ignorant and most foolish of all. For no one will deny this, unless he were entirely alien to all learning. But if, according to what is consequent, they say that every body is formed by some certain habit, we will ask them if they can demonstrate and describe for us the habit of the spiritual body; which, in any case, they will not be able to do. But we will also ask them about the differences of those who rise. How will they show true that which was said, that “one is flesh of men, another of beasts, and celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one, while that of the terrestrial is another, one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory,” so also
A if they try by any means to devise some theory based on the differences of heavenly bodies, we shall ask them to assign differences for the resurrection in accordance with the comparison of earthly bodies as well. For our part, we understand that the Apostle, wishing to describe how great the difference would be among those who will rise in glory—that is, the saints—took the comparison of heavenly bodies, saying: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.” And again, wishing to teach the differences of those who come to the resurrection without being purified in this life—that is, sinners—he takes an example from earthly things, saying: “There is one flesh of birds, another of fish.” For B rightfully heavenly things are compared to the saints, and earthly things to the sinners. Let these things be said against those who deny the resurrection of the dead, that is, the resurrection of the bodies.
3. But now we turn our discourse to some of our own, who, either from smallness of intellect or from poverty of explanation, introduce a very vile and abject sense of the resurrection of the body. We ask them how they understand the animal body to be changed by the grace of resurrection and to become spiritual; and how they can feel that what is sown in weakness will rise in power; what is sown in dishonor, how it arises in glory; and what is sown in corruption, how it is transferred to incorruption. If they believe the Apostle, that the body rising in glory and power and incorruptibility has already become spiritual, it seems absurd and contrary to the sense of the Apostle to say that it is again entangled in the passions of flesh and blood, since the Apostle clearly says: “For flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God; neither shall corruption possess incorruption.” But how do they accept what the Apostle says: “We shall all indeed be changed”? For this change is to be expected according to the order that we have taught above; C in which, without doubt, it is right for us to hope for something through divine grace; which we believe will be in the future in this order: as the Apostle describes a “naked grain of wheat or of some other things” sown in the earth, to which God gives a body as He wills, when the grain of wheat itself has first died. For our bodies too must be thought to fall into the earth like a grain; to which an implanted principle that contains the corporeal substance, even though the bodies have died and are corrupted and dispersed, yet by the Word of God that same principle which is always safe in the substance of the body, raises them from the earth and restores and repairs them, just as that power which is in the grain of wheat, after its corruption and death, repairs and restores the grain into the body of a stalk and an ear. And so to those who will merit to obtain the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, that D principle of repairing the body, which we mentioned above, by the command of God repairs the spiritual body from the earthly and animal body, which can dwell in the heavens; but for those who are of lower merit, or more abject, or even latest and most hidden, according to the dignity of each one's life and soul, the glory and dignity of the body is also given; yet so that even the bodies of those who are destined for the eternal fire, or for punishments, through the very transformation of the resurrection, are such that they are incorrupt, 102 so that they cannot be corrupted or dissolved even by punishments. If, therefore, the quality of that body which will rise from the dead is thus, let us now see what the threatening of eternal fire means.
...we find indeed in the prophet Isaiah sign-posted that each one’s own fire is that by which he is punished; for he says: “Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled.” By these words it seems indicated that each one of the sinners kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not submerged into some fire which had been kindled beforehand by another, or which had existed before him. The matter and fuel of this fire are our sins, which the apostle Paul calls wood, and hay, and stubble. And I think that just as in the body the fuel...
A of fevers is collected according to that measure which the intemperance of food provides and supplies to the material, the quality of which material, gathered from diverse intemperance, exists as the cause of either a more bitter disease or one more prolonged; so also when the soul has gathered into itself a multitude 47 and abundance of sins, at the fitting time all that gathering of evils ferments for punishment, and is kindled 48 into torments; when the mind itself, or the conscience, receiving into its memory by divine power all things—of which it had impressed upon itself certain signs and forms when it was sinning—and [when] it sees exposed before its eyes a certain history of the individual crimes it had committed either foully and shamefully, or even impiously; then that very conscience is agitated and pricked by its own stings, and becomes its own accuser and witness. This, I think, the apostle Paul also perceived when he said: "Their thoughts one with another accusing, or also defending, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my Gospel through Jesus Christ." B From which it is understood that certain torments are generated against the soul's very substance from the harmful affections of sins themselves.
5. And lest the understanding of this matter appear difficult to you, it is possible to consider from these passions and vices which are accustomed to befall souls—that is, when the soul is burned by either the flames of love 49, or is macerated by the fires of jealousy or envy; or when it is agitated by anger, or consumed by the immensity of madness or sadness—how those who carry the excess of these evils sometimes find it more tolerable to undergo death than to suffer such torments. One should indeed inquire if, for those who are entangled in these evils of vices which we have mentioned, and who, while still placed in this life, were unable to obtain any amendment for themselves, and thus departed from this world, it is sufficient for their punishment that they are tormented by those very harmful affections that persist in them, that is, by anger, or fury, or madness, or grief, the deadly poison of which is—in this life—mitigated by no medicine of amendment; or if they are to be vexed by the general C stimulants of punishment while these affections remain unchanged. But I also judge that there is another 51 species of punishment that can be understood; for just as we feel that the limbs of the body, when loosened and torn apart from their own joints, generate the torture of immense pain, so, when the soul is found outside the order and frame—or that harmony in which it was created by God to do well and to feel usefully—and [finds itself] not to be in accord with the frame of rational movements, it must be thought to bear the penalty and torment of its own discordance, and to feel the punishment of its own inconstancy and disorder. And when this dissolution and tearing apart of the soul has been examined in relation to the applied fire, without doubt it will be given D to a firmer frame and restoration.
6. There are also many other things which lie hidden from us, which are known to Him alone who is the physician of our souls. For if, for the health of the body, we sometimes have need of the care of a harsher and more biting 52 medicine for those vices which we have gathered through meat and drink; and sometimes, if the quality of the ailment requires it, we have need of the rigor of the iron and the harshness of the incision; and if the mode of the disease has even exceeded these, at the last the fire consumes the chronic vice; how much more must we understand this Physician of ours, God, wishing to wash away the vices of our souls—which had collected from the diversity of sins and crimes—as using such punitive cures, and furthermore, even applying the punishment of fire to those who have lost the health of the soul? Images 103 of this matter are also recorded in the sacred Scriptures. Finally, in Deuteronomy, the divine word threatens sinners that they will be punished 3 with fevers and chills, and with jaundice, and with vacillations of the eyes, and with alienation of mind, and with paraplegia, and with blindness, and with the debility of the loins. If anyone, therefore, should collect from his leisure among all the Scripture all the commemorations of maladies which are mentioned in the threatening 53 against sinners under the names of bodily diseases, he will find that either the vices or the punishments of the souls are figuratively indicated through this. But that we may understand that by the same reason by which physicians apply aids to the languishing in this life, in order that they may restore health through the remedy of care, etc.
and, as God also acts toward those who have fallen and lapsed into sin, there is evidence for this in what is said by the prophet Jeremiah, that the cup of the wrath of God is commanded to be given to all nations to drink, so that they may drink, and go mad, and vomit. In this He threatens, saying, A that whoever refuses to drink will not be cleansed. From this it is clearly understood that the wrath of God's vengeance contributes to the purification of souls. Now, that the punishment which is said to be inflicted by fire is also understood to be applied for the sake of assistance, Isaiah teaches, who says of Israel: "The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons or daughters of Zion, and will purge the blood from their midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." Regarding the Chaldeans, he says: "You have coals of fire, sit upon them, they will be of assistance to you." And in other places he says: "The Lord will sanctify in burning fire." And in the prophet Malachi it is said: "The Lord sitting will smelt, and will purge, and will pour out the purified B sons of Judah."
7. But that which is said in the Gospel about the servants who are to be divided, and their portion is to be placed with the unbelievers, as if that portion which was not properly their own were to be sent elsewhere, indicates without doubt some kind of punishment for them, among whom, as it seems to me, the spirit is indicated as being separated from the soul. If this spirit is indeed to be understood as of the divine nature, that is, the Holy Spirit, we shall feel that this refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit; which, whether through baptism, or through the grace of the Spirit—when to someone the word of wisdom, or the word of knowledge, or any other gift has been given, and it has not been rightly administered, that is, has either been buried in the ground or tied up in a napkin—the gift of the Spirit will surely be taken away C from the soul, and the remaining part which is left, that is, the substance of the soul, will be placed with the unbelievers, divided and separated from that Spirit with whom it ought to have been one spirit when joining itself to the Lord. But if this is to be understood not of the Spirit of God, but of the nature of the soul itself, that part of it will be called better which was made in the image and likeness of God; the other part, however, is that which was afterward, through the lapse of free will against the nature of its primary condition D and purity, assumed, which is indeed a part, as being friendly and dear to the substance, that suffers punishment with the lot of the unbelievers.
It can also be understood in a third sense concerning this division, that, because for every one of the faithful, even if he be the least in the Church, an angel is said to be present, who is also reported by the Savior to always behold the face of God the Father, and this one was surely one with the one who presided over him; if he is rendered unworthy through disobedience, the angel of God is said to be taken away from him, and then his portion, that is, the part of human nature torn away from the part of God, is reckoned with the unbelievers, because he did not faithfully guard the admonitions of the angel appointed to him by God.
8. But I do not think that the outer darkness is some air that is obscure and without any light, but rather those who, immersed in the shadows of profound ignorance, have become B devoid of all light of intelligence. It should also be seen whether perhaps this passage signifies that just as the saints will receive at the resurrection their bodies, in which they lived holy and pure lives in the habitations of this life, as luminous and glorious, so also will the impious, who in this life loved the darkness of errors and the night of ignorance, be clothed with dark and black bodies after the resurrection, so that that very gloom of ignorance which had besieged their inner minds in this world might appear in the future as an outer covering of the body. Likewise, this is also to be understood regarding the prison. C But let these things suffice for the present place, which for now have been said as briefly as possible so that the order of discourse might be preserved.
104 Chapter XI. On the promises.
1. Let us now see briefly what is to be thought concerning the promises. It is certain that no
animal can be in any way idle or immobile, but it desires to be moved and to act and to wish for something in every kind of way; and I think it manifest that this nature is in all living beings. Much more, therefore, is it necessary for the rational animal, that is, the nature of man, always to move or to act. And if indeed he be unmindful of himself, and ignorant of what is becoming to him, his whole intent is moved about bodily uses, and through all his motions he is occupied with his pleasures and the lusts of the body; but if he be such a one as studies A to care for or provide something in common—either consulting for the republic, or obeying magistrates, or exercising whatever it is that may certainly seem to profit the community—he applies himself to these. But now, if anyone be such that he understands something better than these things which are seen bodily, and has a zeal for wisdom and knowledge, without doubt he will direct all industry toward such studies as these, so that he may be able to learn the causes and the reason of the things he has sought for. Therefore, just as in this life one person judges pleasure to be the supreme good of the body, another to consult for the common good, and another to apply himself to studies and intelligence; so let us seek in that life which is true, which is said to be hidden with Christ in God, that is, in that eternal life, if there will be for us any such order or status of living.
2. Those, therefore, who refuse labor in intelligence, and pursue a certain surface of the letter of the Law, and in a way indulge more in their own delight and lust, being disciples of the letter alone, think that the future promises are to be expected in bodily pleasure and luxury; and therefore they especially desire after the resurrection such fleshly things as would never fail the power of eating, and drinking, and doing all things that are of flesh and blood, B not following the opinion of the apostle Paul concerning the resurrection of the spiritual body. To these they consequently add, that there will be marriages and the procreation of children even after the resurrection, feigning for themselves that the earthly city of Jerusalem is to be rebuilt with precious stones for its foundations, and its walls raised from the stone jasper, and its battlements from the stone crystal; and that it will have a surrounding wall from choice and various stones, that is, jasper and sapphire, and chalcedony, and emerald, and sardius, and onyx, and chrysolith, and chrysoprase, and hyacinth, and amethyst. Furthermore, they even think that aliens will be given to them as ministers of their delights, whom they suppose to be either their plowmen or builders of walls, by whom the collapsed city may be rebuilt; and they think that the faculties of the gentiles shall be received for eating, and that they shall rule in their riches, so that even the camels of Madian and Cedar shall come, and bring them gold, and incense, and precious stones. And they attempt to confirm these things by prophetic authority from those things which were written concerning the promises of Jerusalem; C where it is also said that they who serve the Lord shall eat and drink, but sinners shall hunger and thirst, and that the just will rejoice, but mourning shall possess the impious. Also from the New Testament they bring forth the voice of the Savior, by which He promises to His disciples concerning the joy of wine, saying: "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father." They add also that which the Savior says, that those who now hunger and thirst are blessed, promising them that they shall be filled; and they bring forward many other examples from the Scriptures, the force of which they do not perceive ought to be understood figuratively. But then, according to the form which is in this life, and according to the dispositions of dignities of this world, or of orders, or of the eminences of powers, they judge that they shall be kings and princes, just as those earthly ones are, on account of that which, evidently, was said in the Gospel: "Thou shalt have power over five cities." And, to speak briefly, according to the conversation D of this life they wish all things that are expected concerning the promises to be in all things similar, that is, that this which is, may be again. Thus they feel this, who, though believing in Christ, yet understanding the divine Scriptures in a certain Jewish sense, have presumed nothing from these things worthy of divine promises.
5. But those who receive the theory of the Scriptures according to the sense of the apostles, hope that the saints shall indeed eat, but the bread of life, which may nourish the soul with the foods of truth and wisdom, and illuminate the mind, and give it to drink from the cups of divine wisdom, just as divine Scripture says: "Wisdom hath built her house, she hath killed her victims, she hath mingled her wine in a cup, and she cries with a loud voice: Turn in to me, eat the bread which I have prepared for you, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you." By which foods of wisdom the mind, nourished to the whole and perfect state, just as man was made from the beginning, may be restored to the image and likeness of God; so that even if anyone from this life less
erudite, he may nevertheless be brought forth to fruit, he will be able to be instructed in that Jerusalem, the city of the saints, that is to say, to be taught 78 and modeled, and to be made a living stone, a precious and elect stone, because he will have firmly and constantly endured the agonies of life and the contests of piety; and there he will know more truly and manifestly that which has already been predicted here, that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. 17 But also the princes and rulers are to be understood as those who rule over the inferiors, and educate, and teach, and instruct 79 in divine things.
4. But if these things seem to strike little desire into those who hope, we shall inquire, repeating a little, although the natural and innate desire of the soul is for the thing itself, so that at last 80 we may describe, with the sequence of theory, the very species of the bread of life and the quality of its wine and the property of the principalities. Therefore, just as in those arts which are accustomed to be accomplished by hand, the theory indeed of what is done, or in what manner, or for what uses it is done, dwells in the sense, but the efficacy is explained by the ministry of the labor of the hands; so in the works of God which were made by Him, it must be perceived that the theory and intelligence of those things which we see made by Him remains in the hidden. And just as when our eye has seen the things that have been made by a craftsman, if it has glimpsed something especially well-wrought, the mind burns to inquire into how, or in what manner, or for what uses it was made; much more, and beyond all comparison, does the mind burn with an ineffable desire to know the reason of those things which we perceive to have been made by God. Which desire, which love, we doubt not is implanted in us by God; and just as the eye naturally seeks light and sight, and our body desires food 81 and drink by nature; so our mind carries a proper and natural desire for knowing the truth of God and the causes of things. Moreover, we have received this desire from God, not for this purpose, that it should neither need to be, nor be able to be, satisfied; otherwise the love of truth would seem to have been inserted into our mind 82 by God the creator in vain, if it never attains the object of its desire. Whence also in this life, those who with the highest labor have devoted themselves to pious and religious 83 studies, although they take only a few things from the many and immense treasures of divine science, yet this very thing, that they occupy their spirits and mind with these things, and anticipate themselves in this desire, they receive much utility from this very fact, that they turn their minds to the study and love of seeking the truth, and make them more prepared A to receive the capacity for future erudition; just as when someone wishes to paint an image, if a thin outlining of the style 84 first designates the lineaments of the future form, and prepares the marks capable of receiving the faces to be superposed, without doubt, by the outlining, the pre-formatting imposed for receiving those true colors is found already more prepared; so in the same way let the very outlining and deforming of the style 85 of our Lord Jesus Christ be written in the tablets of our hearts. And for this reason it is perhaps said, because to every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance 18. Whence it is evident that for those who have a certain deforming of truth and science in this life, the beauty of the perfect image is also to be added in the future.
5. Such, I think, was indicated by that desire of his B who said: *I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; for it is far better* 19; knowing that when he had returned to Christ, he would more manifestly know the reasons of all things that are done on earth, whether concerning man or the soul of man, or the mind, or from among all those things, what is the spirit that works, and what is also the vital 86 spirit, or what is the grace which is given to the faithful by the Holy Spirit. Then also he will understand what he may seem to be for Israel, or what is the diversity of the nations, what also the twelve tribes of Israel may mean for him, and what individual peoples through individual tribes. Then he will understand also about the priests and Levites, and the reason concerning the various priestly orders, and whose form it was in Moses, and nonetheless what is the truth C among God of the jubilees, and the weeks of years 87; but he will also see the reasons for the feast days and holidays; and he will behold the causes of all sacrifices and purifications; he will also note what is the reason for the cleansing of leprosy, and what are the various kinds of leprosy, and what purification is for those who suffer a flow of seed; and he will also recognize which and how great and what kind the virtues are that are good, and what are nonetheless the contrary ones, and who may have either a contentious emulation against these men or those. He will also behold what is the reason for souls, and what is the diversity of animals, or of those things which live in the waters, or of birds, or of wild beasts, and what it is that individual kinds are led into so many species, what is the prospect of the Creator, or what sense of His wisdom is covered through each D of these things. But also he will recognize by what reason certain virtues are associated with certain roots or herbs, and by others they are driven away from the contrary herbs or roots; what is the reason of the apostate angels, and what is the cause why to those who…
do not embrace them with entire faith, they might A either flatter in certain things, or exist on account of error and deception. But one shall also learn the judgment of divine providence concerning individuals, regarding the things that happen to men, that they do not happen by chance or accident, but by a certain plan, so sifted and so arduous, that it extends not only to the saints, but perhaps to all men, so that not even the number of their hairs shall pass away; the reason of whose providence is led even to the two sparrows which are sold for a denarius, whether these sparrows are understood spiritually or even according to the letter. For now it is still being investigated in the meantime, but then it will be clearly seen there. From all of which it is to be thought that in the meantime no small amount of time passes until the reason of those things which are on the earth is shown to those who are worthy and deserving after the departure of life, so that by the knowledge of them all and the grace of full understanding, they may enjoy ineffable joy. Then furthermore, if this air which is between heaven and earth is not empty of living beings, and of rational living beings, as the Apostle also said: "In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, the spirit that now works in the children of disbelief," and again he says: "We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord."
6. It is therefore to be thought that the saints remain there for so long, B until they recognize the reason for the dispensation of both types of things, which are carried on in the air. But as to what I said, of both types, this is: for example, when we were on the earth, we saw animals or trees, and we beheld the differences of them, but also a very great diversity among men; but seeing these, we did not understand their reason, but this was only suggested to us from the very diversity which we saw, that we should inquire and search out by what reason all these things were either diversely created, or variously dispensed, and once such knowledge has been conceived on the earth by either study or love, there will be given to us after our departure also the cognition and intelligence of it; if, however, the matter proceeds according to our desire. When therefore we have understood its reason entirely, then in both ways we shall understand those things which we saw upon the earth. A similar thing, therefore, is also to be said concerning the aerial seat. For I think that C all the saints, departing from this life, will remain in some place situated on the earth, which Divine Scripture calls paradise, as in a certain place of instruction, and, if I may so say, an auditorium or school of souls, in which they may be taught about all these things which they had seen on the earth, and also receive certain tokens concerning the things which follow and are future, just as, though placed in this life also, they had conceived to some extent certain tokens of future things, although through a glass and in riddles; which are revealed more manifestly and clearly to the saints in their own places and times. If anyone indeed were pure of heart, and purer in mind, and more practiced in understanding, making progress more swiftly, he will quickly ascend to the place of the air, and will arrive at the kingdoms of the heavens through the mansions, so to speak, of the individual places; which the Greeks indeed called spheres, that is, globes, but Divine Scripture calls them heavens; in each of which he will first perceive those things which are done there, and secondly he will also recognize the reason why they are done; and so he will proceed in order, following Him who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, saying: "I will that where I am, they also may be with me." But he also indicates concerning these diversities of places when he says: "There are many mansions with my Father." Yet He Himself is everywhere, and runs through all things. Nor let us understand Him any further in that smallness in which He was made for our sake on our account; that is, not in that limitation which He had while placed on the earth among men in our body, whereby He might be thought to be enclosed in some one place.
7. When therefore the saints have arrived at D the celestial places, then by now they will perceive the reason of the stars one by one, and whether they are living beings, or whatever that is, they will comprehend. But they will also understand other reasons of the works of God which He Himself will reveal to them. For He will now show, as to children, the causes of things and the power of their condition; and He will teach them why that star is placed in that location of heaven, and why it is separated from another by so great a distance; for example, if it were closer, what would be the future result of this; if indeed further, what would happen; or if that star were larger than that one, how the universe would not be kept similar, but all things would be changed into some other form. Thus, therefore, having run through all things which are in the reason of the stars and in these revolutions...
that which is contained in the heavens, will come even to those things which are unseen, or to those whose names alone we have now heard, and to invisible things: which the Apostle Paul taught to be many, but what they are, or what difference they may have, we cannot conjecture with even the slightest degree of understanding. And thus A growing, the rational nature 1, not as in flesh or body and soul in this life did it grow, but increased by mind and sense to perfect knowledge, the mind now led to perfection, no longer hindered by these carnal senses, but increased by intellectual growth, always seeing toward the pure, and, if I may so speak, face to face the causes of things, it possesses perfect B action: first that by which it ascends to this, second that by which it remains, having as food upon which it may feed, the theorems and intellect of things and the reasons of causes. For just as in this life our bodies in the first instance grow into this very thing which we are, bodily, in the first age the sufficiency of food providing us with an increase; but afterwards when the height of growing to the measure of its own self has been fulfilled, we use foods no longer that we might grow, but that we might live and be preserved in life through sustenance: so I think that the mind also, when it has come to the perfect, feeds nevertheless and uses its own proper and fitting foods in that measure, to which there ought to be neither lack of anything, nor abundance. In all things, however, this food is to be understood as the theory and intellect of God, having proper and fitting measures for this nature which has been made and created; which measures it is fitting for each and every one—beginning to see God, that is to understand through purity of heart—to observe.
BOOK THREE. PREFACE OF RUFINUS.
You who read this, be mindful of me in your holy prayers, that we too may deserve to become emulators of the spirit. I have interpreted the two previous books *On First Principles* not only at your urging, but even at your compelling, during the days of Lent. But because in those days you also, religious brother Macarius, were dwelling nearby, and were more at leisure, I also worked more; but these two later ones we have explained more slowly, while you as a rarer exactor approach us from the extreme and furthest part of the city. But if you remember what I warned in the previous short preface, that some would be indignant if they heard us not speaking *some* evil of Origen, you forthwith, I think, approved of that which I pursued. But if in that work those demons who excite the tongues of men to speak evil were so inflamed, in which he had not yet fully disclosed their secrets; what do you think will happen in this one, in which he will reveal all their blind and hidden ways, by which they creep into human hearts and deceive weak and fragile souls? You will see everything immediately disturbed, seditions stirred up, and clamors spread through the whole city, calling to condemnation him who has attempted to dispel the dark shadows of diabolical ignorance with the light of an evangelical lamp. But let him who desires to be exercised in divine learning while keeping the rule of the Catholic faith intact, make little account of these things; but I must necessarily warn you of this, as we did in the previous books, that we have also observed in these, not to interpret those things which seemed contrary to his other opinions and to our faith, but to pass over them as if they had been inserted there by others and adulterated. But if he has seemed to say anything new concerning rational creatures, because the summit of faith is not in this, for the sake of knowledge and exercise, when perhaps we must necessarily respond in such order to some heresies, I have not omitted it in these books, nor in the previous ones, unless perhaps he himself wished to repeat in these latter ones what he had already said in the previous ones, and for the sake of brevity I decided it was convenient to prune some of these. If, however, anyone reads these with the desire of making progress and not of detracting, he will do better if he wishes to have them explained to him by those more skilled. For it is absurd that the feigned poems of poets and the ridiculous fables of comedies should be explained by grammarians, and those things which are said either about God, or about the heavenly powers, and about the entire universe, in which all
of philosophers, or the corrupt error of heretics, to think that anyone can learn without a master and expositor; and thus it happens that men prefer, through rashness and ignorance, to condemn difficult and obscure matters rather than to learn them through diligence and study.
Chapter I. Concerning the liberty of the will.
A 1. We believe that certain things must be held concerning divine promises, while we direct our understanding toward the contemplation of that eternal age, which is closed by no end, and contemplate its ineffable joy and blessedness. But since there is also present in ecclesiastical preaching faith concerning the future just judgment of God, which belief in judgment provokes men and urges them to live well and honorably, and to flee from sin in every way, and by this it is without doubt indicated that it is placed in our power to yield ourselves either to a life worthy of praise, or one worthy of blame, therefore I think it necessary to discuss briefly also B concerning the liberty of our will, for the reason that this question also is not unworthily agitated by very many. But in order that we may more easily understand what the liberty of the will is, and what the nature of the will and volition itself signifies, let us inquire.
2. Of things that are moved, some carry the causes of their motions within themselves, others receive them from without; for instance, all things that are without life are moved only from without, such as stones and wood, and whatever things of this kind consist only by the habit of their matter or bodies. C But let that question be omitted now which thinks that there is also a motion when bodies are dissolved through corruption; for these things in no way contribute to the present matter. But other things have the cause of motion within themselves, as animals, or trees, and all things which consist through natural life or through a soul: among which it has seemed to some that even the veins of metals are to be reckoned; but fire also is to be thought to have its own motion, and perhaps also the springs of waters. D Now, these things which have the cause of their motions in themselves are said to be moved in one way "from themselves" (ex se), and in another way "by themselves" (a se), and they divide it thus: that those things which indeed live, 109 yet are not living creatures (animantia), are moved "from themselves"; but living creatures are moved "by themselves," when to them a phantasy, that is, ...
New Interpretation. Chapter I.
C Regarding free will; also, the solution and interpretation of the sayings of Scripture which seem to take it away.1. ...the ecclesiastical preaching contains the word concerning the just judgment of God, which, when believed to be true, also calls those who hear it to live well, and in every way to flee sin, inasmuch as they confess that those things which are worthy of praise and blame are placed in us; come then, let us also discuss separately a few things concerning free will, a question necessary in the first place. And that we may understand what the liberty of the will is, its notion must be explained, so that, this being accurately declared, the question may be established.
2. Of those things which are moved, some have the cause of motion within themselves; others are moved only from without. Therefore only those things are moved from without which are carried, such as wood and stones and all matter which is contained by habit alone. Now, let that be passed over which is wont to be said, that there is a motion of the dissolution of bodies; which contributes nothing to the present subject. But animals and plants, those indeed all things which nature and...
A its own constitution regularly incite to this very thing; and no other thing is trusted to the animal after its phantastic nature, and in the bee B for the construction of honeycomb. However, the rational animal possesses reason also, in addition to its phantastic nature—a reason which judges the phantasies, and rejects some while accepting others, so that the animal may be led according to them. Whence, since in the nature of reason there are principles for contemplating the honorable and the base, by following which we contemplate the honorable and the base, we choose the honorable and decline the base; we are praiseworthy when we have given ourselves to the practice of the honorable, and blameworthy according to the contrary. One ought not, however, to be ignorant that that which is beyond the nature ordered for all things exists to some degree in animals, and to a greater or lesser extent, so that it is, if I may so speak, near to being the rational, like the working in hunting dogs C and in war horses. Therefore, the falling of some external thing upon us, which creates such or such a phantasy, is admittedly not within our own power. But to judge how to make use of that which has occurred, whether in this way or otherwise, is the work of nothing else than the reason which is within us, which either acts upon the principles that incite us toward the honorable and toward the impulses of duty, or turns us toward the contrary. But if someone says that the external thing itself is of such a sort that it is impossible to resist it when it has become such, let him consider his own passions and movements, if D some kind of urge or incitement has been present, which moved or provoked it to be moved toward something. Finally, in some living beings there is such a phantasy, that is, a will or sense which, by a certain natural instinct, provokes and impels them to ordered and composite motions: as we see spiders doing, by which phantasy, that is, by a certain will and study of weaving, they are most orderly excited to the work of weaving, without doubt by a certain natural motion provoking the intention of such a work; yet the animal is not found to have any other sense than the natural study of weaving, just as bees are found to have the study of forming honeycombs, and, as they say, of gathering those of the air.
3. But when the rational animal has these natural motions in itself, it has indeed more than other animals the force of reason, by which it can judge and discern concerning natural motions, and indeed reject and cast away some, while proving and accepting others; by the judgment of which reason, the motions of man can be directed and governed toward an upright life. Whence it follows that since the nature of this reason which is in man has in itself the power of discerning good or evil, and when it discerns this, there is in it also the faculty of choosing that which it has approved, it is rightly judged laudable in choosing that which is good, and culpable in following that which is base or evil. This indeed ought by no means to escape us, that in some mute animals a more ordered motion is found than in other animals, as in sagacious dogs or war horses, so that they seem to some to be moved as if by a certain rational sense. But this is to be believed to be done not so much by reason as by a certain incitement and natural motion more generously bestowed for uses of this kind. But as we had begun to say, since the rational animal is thus constituted, some things can indeed fall upon us humans from without and occur, whether to the sight or to the hearing or to other senses, which might stir and provoke us to good or contrary motions: which, in that they fall upon us from without, it is not placed in our power that they should not fall or occur. But to judge and to prove how we ought to make use of these things that occur is the business of no one else nor the task of anything but the reason which is in us, that is, of our own judgment; by the judgment of which reason we make use of the external incitements that occur to that which reason itself has approved, our natural motions being governed by its nod either toward good or toward contrary things (14).
4. But if anyone says that things which occur from without are such that it is not possible to oppose them, whether for good or for evil, let him consider his own passions and motions.
NEW INTERPRETATION
...constantly in the soul, among which some count even metals. Furthermore, fire is moved by itself, and perhaps fountains. But of those things which have the cause of motion in themselves, they say that some are moved from themselves, others by themselves: from themselves, indeed, are the inanimate, but by themselves are the animate. For animate things are moved by themselves, with the phantasy implanted in them provoking the impetus; and again, in certain animals there are phantasies provoking an impetus; for the faculty which is the artificer of images provokes that [impetus] by a certain sure and definite order: thus in the spider there is a phantasy of weaving, which the appetite for weaving follows, with nature as the artificer of images, in an orderly way impelling it to that, beyond which nothing else is believed to be in the living being, not even in the bee for forming honeycombs. 3. But the animal endowed with reason, over and above the imagining nature, has reason by which it judges images, some indeed rejecting, others truly so accepting that the animal is led by them. Whence since, in the nature of reason, there are certain aids for contemplating the honorable and the base, by the help of which, having observed both, we choose the honorable and avoid the base, we are certainly worthy of praise while we have given ourselves to honesty; and of blame, while we slip into the contrary. Nor should it be ignored that in the nature which is distributed into all things, there is in some way a greater force in animals for performing either greater or lesser things, so that the sagacity of dogs in tracking prey, and the dexterity of war horses, approach close to the force of reason, if I may so speak. Therefore, that something should fall upon us from without, which moves this or that thought in us, is not in our power, as all confess: but to judge how to use this or that, is the work of our one reason which, when external incitements occur, either provokes us to the impulses of the right and the honest, or averts us to the contrary. 4. But if anyone says that it is of such a kind that it moves from without, and that no one can stand against that impulse...let him for a little while turn his mind upon himself, and diligently examine his own motions, unless he find that, when the enticement of some desire pulsates, nothing happens before the assent of the mind is accommodated, and the will indulges the perverse suggestion. So that even against plausible causes, an assertion appears to be brought forward before the tribunals of our heart as if to a judge sitting on either side, so that, the causes having been first set forth, the sentence of acting is brought out from the judgment of reason. For it is not, to say it by way of example, that for a man who has determined to live temperately and chastely, and to refrain from all female contagion, if perchance a woman appears, provoking him and enticing him B to do something against his resolution, there exists a perfect and absolute cause, or a necessity for transgressing: since he can, mindful of his resolve, restrain the incitements of lust, and coerce the enticements of the irritant by the more austere rebukes of virtue, so that, every sense of luxury being put to flight, the firmness and constancy of his purpose may persevere. Finally, if such incitements come to more learned men, and those strengthened in divine institutions, they, mindful of themselves, calling to memory the things which they have long meditated upon and in which they have been instructed, and fortifying themselves with the stays of holier doctrine, reject and refute every enticement of incitement, and drive away adverse concupiscences by the objection of the reason implanted in them.
5. Since, therefore, these things are proven to be so by certain natural testimonies, how is it not superfluous that the causes of our deeds should be retorted onto those things which happen extrinsically, and that the blame, in which all the cause lies, should be removed from us, which is to say that we are like wood or stones which have no motion within themselves, but suffer the causes of their motion from without? Which is surely neither truly said, nor decently, but is taken refuge in only to deny the freedom of the will: unless we think that the freedom of the will can indeed only consist if there is nothing which, coming upon us from without, provokes us to good or to evil. But if anyone refers the causes of sins to the natural intemperance of the body, it is shown by the whole of C erudition to be against reason.
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let such a person turn his attention to his own affections and motions; and let him see whether or not consent and the inclination of the principal part of the soul tends toward this thing, led by these probable arguments. For, to speak by way of example, to him who has decreed to live temperately and to refrain from intercourse, the sight of a woman—even if she invite him to do something against his purpose—is not a perfect cause why he should deflect from his purpose. For he who is altogether delighted by the titillation and enticement of pleasure, when he is unwilling to resist it and strengthen his resolve, falls into intemperance. On the other hand, to another who has been instructed in many disciplines and has exercised himself in them, the same titillations and enticements occur; but reason, inasmuch as it has been more vehemently strengthened and educated in meditation and confirmed by doctrines in the study of virtue, or has been brought close to that firmness, shakes off the enticements and dissolves the lust.5. That it is not right nor consonant with truth to declare that we are like wood and stones drawn by an external mover is something that can be said only by one who desires to adulterate the notion of free will. For if we ask him what free will is, he will answer that it consists in this: that while I propose some object to myself, nothing from without should occur to provoke me to the contrary. Again, to accuse the feeble constitution of the body is altogether absurd. For whomsoever discipline catches, even if they be intemperate and most savage, if they follow its admonitions, it so converts and changes them into something better that often those who were most incontinent become better than those who previously did not seem to be of such a nature, and those who were most savage come to such meekness that those who have never lived a savage life appear savage in comparison with him who has been changed unto meekness. Against others we see most composed and honest men, from a composed and honest life, turned to...
B worse habits by the subversion of that composed and honest state, so that they fall away into licentiousness, often beginning such licentiousness in the middle of their life, and falling into disorder after that which, so far as nature is concerned, is the instability of youth has already passed. Reason therefore shows that while those things which come from without are not in our power, it is our own work to use them either in this way or otherwise, having taken reason as a judge and examiner of how one ought to meet each of these things that come from without. C That it is our own work to live well, and that God asks this of us—as not being His own, nor coming from some other source, or, as some think, from fate, but as being our own work—the prophet Micah will testify, saying: "If it has been announced to you, O man, what is good, or what the Lord requires of you, other than to do judgment and to love mercy?" And Moses: "I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death, to choose what is good and to walk in it." And Isaiah: "If you will and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth; but if you will not, nor hear me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." And in the Psalms it is written: "If my people had heard me, and Israel had walked in my ways, at nothing I would have humbled their enemies, and I would have laid my hand upon those who afflict them," by which he shows that it was in the power of the people to hear and to walk in the ways of God. And the Savior also, saying: "But I say to you, do not resist the wicked one," and, "Whoever is angry with his brother, shall be liable to judgment."
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...to deflect their worse behavior so that they fall into intemperance in mid-life, after the instability of youth, as nature brings about, has passed. From these things, therefore, it is clear that events from without are not in our power, but to use them in this way or the contrary way, with reason as a guide and as one that discerns and judges how one ought to use external things, is placed in our power. D ...nor, as some think, from fate, but as our own work—God requiring it—the prophet Micah will testify, saying: "If it has been indicated to you, O man, what is good, or what the Lord requires from you? Is it not to do judgment and to love mercy?" And Moses: "I have set before your sight the way of life and the way of death, that you may choose what is good and walk in it." And Isaiah: "If you will and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth; but if you will not, and do not hear me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." And in the Psalms: "If my people had heard me, and if Israel had walked in my ways, I would have humbled his enemies to nothing, and I would have sent my hand against those who afflict him." By which he shows that it was in the power of the people to hear and to walk in the ways of God. And the Savior also, saying: "But I say to you not to resist the evil one," and: "Whoever shall have been angry with his brother, shall be liable to judgment," and: "Whoever shall have looked at a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart"; and when He gives all other commandments, He gives them as if it were entirely within our power to keep them, so that we may justly be liable to judgment in the future if we break them: whence also "Every..."
A He says, "who hears these words of mine and does them, will be likened to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock," and so forth; "and he who hears and does not, is like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand," and so forth. And saying to those on the right: "Come, you who are blessed of my Father," and so forth, "for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink," He shows very clearly that the promises are given as to those who are responsible for being praised. And from the contrary, B to others, as being blameworthy before Him, He says this: "Go, you cursed, into eternal fire." Let us also see how Paul also speaks to us as having free will, and as being the authors of our own destruction or salvation: "Or do you despise the riches of his goodness," he says, "and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works: to those who by patient continuance C in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to every one who does what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." There are, therefore, thousands of things in the Scriptures which very clearly demonstrate free will. D
NEW INTERPRETATION
He who hears these words of mine and does them, he says, is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, etc. But he who hears these things and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand, and the rest; and when He says to those who are on his right hand: "Come, blessed of my Father, etc.; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink," He evidently shows that He promises these things to those who have done what is worthy of praise of their own accord. Contrariwise, to others, as if they were worthy of blame of their own accord, He says: "Depart, you cursed, into eternal fire." But let us see how Paul speaks to us as if we were masters of our own law and will, and were ourselves the cause of either our destruction or our salvation. "Do you despise," he says, "the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his work; to them who, by patience in a good work, seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who are contentious and do not acquiesce to the truth, but believe in iniquity, wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and of the Greek; but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek." There are, therefore, numberless places in the Scriptures which most clearly demonstrate the freedom of the will.Otherwise, it would be contradictory that commands should be given to us, by the keeping of which we might be saved, or by the transgression of which we might be condemned, if the power to observe them were not within us.
7. But since there are found in the Divine Scriptures certain words so placed that from them something contrary may seem to be understood, let us bring them forward and, discussing them according to the rule of piety, let us provide their explanations, so that from these few which we set forth, a clear resolution may become evident regarding other things also that have been said in a similar way, in which the power of the will seems to be excluded. A Many, therefore, are moved by those things which are said by God concerning Pharaoh, when He says frequently: "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh." For if he is hardened by God, and because he is hardened he sins, he is not himself the cause of his own sin. And if this is so, Pharaoh will not seem to have the freedom of the will, and it will now consequently be asserted by this example that not even the others who perish receive the cause of their perdition from the liberty of their own will. But that also which is said in Ezekiel, when he says: "I will take away their stony hearts, and will put in them hearts of flesh, that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my ways," might move someone, because it seems that it is given by God either to walk in His commandments or to keep His justifications; B since, if He Himself takes away the stony heart, which stands in the way of keeping the commandments, and puts in and inserts a better and more sensitive heart, which is now called heart of flesh, (this might move one to think so). See also what in the Gospel the Lord and Savior answers to those who asked Him why He spoke to the crowds in parables; for He says: "That seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear and may not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and it should be forgiven them." C Furthermore, also, that which is said by the apostle Paul: "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy," and in other places: "And both to will and to do is of God." And again in another place: "Therefore, He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth. Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why then does He yet find fault? For who resisteth His will? O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" These things and others like them seem not a little to be able to deter many, lest anyone think that he has the liberty of his own will, but that it seems some are saved and some perish from the will of God.
NEW INTERPRETATION
But since, on the contrary, it would not be whole for us to keep the commandments and be saved, or to break them and perish, some sayings of the Old and New Testament seem to deflect; come then, and with these set forth severally, let us look into their solution, so that from the likeness of those which we propose, he who wishes may perceive the solution of all those which seem to take away the liberty of the will. Indeed, very many are moved by those things which are said concerning Pharaoh, about whom God, answering, says frequently: "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh." For if he is hardened by God, and because he is hardened he sins, he is not himself the cause of his sin, and thus neither is Pharaoh under his own jurisdiction. Hence, from a similar case, one will say that those who perish are not free, nor do they perish by their own selves; and that which in
A truth is said concerning Pharaoh is that he is hardened by God, so that he might not send forth the people. Alongside this, we shall examine also the apostolic text: “Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.”
Book Three
And certain of the heretics seize upon these words, almost entirely doing away with free will, in that they introduce natures that are perishing, incapable of being saved, and others that are being saved, having no capacity to perish. B They say that Pharaoh, being of a perishing nature, is for this reason hardened by God—who has mercy on the spiritual, but hardens the earthly. Come then, let us see what it is that they say. We shall ask these people if Pharaoh was of an earthly nature; and if they answer in the affirmative, we shall say that one of an earthly nature always disobeys God; and if he disobeys, what need is there for his heart to be hardened, and this not once, but repeatedly? Unless, perhaps, because it was possible for him to be persuaded—and he would surely have been persuaded, since he was not of an earthly nature, being moved by wonders and signs—and God has need of him, in order to manifest His greatness for the salvation of many, even while he disobeys more and more; and for this reason He hardens his heart. These things are said first against them in order to overturn what they assume, namely, that Pharaoh was of a perishing nature. The same must be said to them concerning that which is mentioned by the Apostle. For whom does God harden? Those who are perishing as if they would have been persuaded had they not been hardened, or is it clear that they were going to be saved, because they were not of a perishing nature? And whom does He have mercy upon? Surely those who are going to be saved? But what need is there for a second mercy for them, having already been fashioned to be saved, and being in every way destined to be blessed by their nature? Unless, perhaps, because they are prone to perishing if they are not shown mercy, they are shown mercy, so that what they are prone to—perishing—they may not receive, but rather become among the number of the saved? And these things we say to them. CNew Interpretation
It is said in Ezekiel: “I will take away their heart of stone, and I will put in them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments.” It might trouble someone that God seems to give someone the ability to walk in His commandments or keep His judgments, while He takes away the heart of stone that stands in the way of keeping the commandments and inserts a better one—namely, a heart of flesh. Let us also look at that which the Savior answered in the gospel to those who asked Him why He spoke to the crowds in parables: “That seeing,” He says, “they may not see, and hearing they may hear and may not understand, lest perhaps they be converted and it be forgiven them.” Furthermore, that which was said by Paul: “It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” And elsewhere: “It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish.” Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me, therefore: “Why then does He still blame? For who resists His will?” Obedience is of the caller, not of us. “O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Does the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus? Or has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?” These things, taken by themselves, can trouble many, as if man were not under his own will, but that God saves and damns whom He wills. D I shall begin, therefore, from the things said concerning Pharaoh, as being hardened by God so that he might not send forth the people; and with this, the Apostle’s discourse will also be treated: “Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.” For certain heretics abuse these words, since they nearly do away with free will, when they introduce natures that are perishing which cannot be saved, and others which are being saved and which can in no way perish.A And now we must respond to those who think they have understood the words, "He hardened." Why do they say that God works to harden the heart, and what is His purpose in doing so? Let them hold fast to the concept of God—according to a sound understanding, as both just and good; but if they do not wish to do this, let us for the present grant their view, namely that He is just—and let them show how the good and just God, or even the one who is just alone, appears just when He hardens the heart of someone who is perishing because of that hardening; and how the just one becomes the cause of destruction and the disobedience of those whom He punishes because they were hardened and disobeyed Him. Why does He also blame him, saying: "But you do not wish to let my people go? See, I will strike all the firstborn in Egypt, and your firstborn," and whatever else is written as spoken by God to Pharaoh through Moses? For it is necessary for anyone who believes that the Scriptures are true and that God is just, if he is fair-minded, to struggle to understand how in such expressions He is clearly understood to be just. For if someone were to openly and candidly stand up to declare that the Creator is evil, another sort of argument would be needed for him.
B They say that Pharaoh was of a nature that was to be destroyed, and therefore he was hardened by God, who shows mercy to spiritual natures and hardens earthly ones. Let us see, therefore, what they mean by this. For we shall ask them whether Pharaoh was of an "earthly" nature. If they answer that he was, we shall say: since he was of an earthly nature, he was clearly able to resist God—but if he resists, what need is there for his heart to be hardened, and not once, but repeatedly? Unless it is perhaps that, since it was possible for him to obey, and he would have been likely to obey, having been struck by so many wonders and signs, as someone not at all "earthly," but one who resisted all the more, God needed to harden his heart in order to display His own greatness for the salvation of many. Let this be said first, to overturn what they imagine: that Pharaoh was of a perishing nature. And the same must be answered to them concerning the Apostle’s statement. For whom does God harden? The perishing, who would have obeyed, however, if they had not been hardened; or certainly those to be saved, because they are not of a perishing nature? And whom does He show mercy to? To those to be saved? But what need is there for a second mercy for those who are saved by their nature, and are about to enjoy blessedness? Unless perhaps it is because they can perish if mercy is withdrawn, they receive mercy so that they do not fall into the destruction into which they could fall, but may be in the company of those who are saved. And let these things be said against them.
9. But we must ask those who think they understand what it means to be "hardened," and what is provided when He hardens a heart. Let them observe the notion of God—as truly just and good, or, if they are unwilling, and if this is conceded to them for the moment, let them observe Him as just alone—and let them show how the good and just one, or even the one who is just alone, appears just while hardening the heart of one who perishes because he has been hardened; and how the just one is the cause of the destruction and contumacy of those whom He punishes because they were hardened and they themselves resisted. Why does He then complain against him, saying: "But you do not wish to let my people go; see, I will strike all the firstborn in Egypt, and your firstborn," and whatever else is attributed to God in the Scriptures when He speaks to Pharaoh through Moses? For it is necessary that he who believes the Scriptures are true and that God is just, if he has a good faith, should carefully demonstrate how such statements do not at all hinder Him from being understood as openly just. For if someone were to professedly, earnestly, and argumentatively declare that the Creator of the world is evil, it would have to be dealt with in another way.
A Since they say that we must treat of Him as just, and we too treat of Him as both good and just, let us examine how the good and just God could be said to harden Pharaoh's heart. See, then, if by means of some example that the Apostle used in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we might be able to show how, with one single operation, God shows mercy to one and hardens another—not intending to harden, but because, through a good purpose which follows, and because of the matter of wickedness that lies within those people themselves, He is said to harden the one who is hardened. "For earth," he says, "which has drunk the rain that comes upon it, and brings forth vegetation fit for those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near to a curse, whose end is to be burned." B Therefore, the operation of the rain is one. But since the operation of the rain is one, the land that has been cultivated brings forth fruit, while that which has been neglected and lies waste brings forth thorns. And it would be considered blasphemous to say of the One who sends the rain, "I have made both the fruits and the thorns that are in the earth." Yet, even if it is blasphemous, it is nevertheless true; for if the rain had not occurred, neither fruits nor thorns would have come into being. But because it fell opportunely and in due measure, both were produced. Thus, the land that, having drunk the rain that comes upon it, brings forth thorns and thistles many times, becomes rejected and near to a curse. So then, the good of the rain has come even upon the poorer land, but the ground that lies neglected and uncultivated has brought forth thorns and thistles. In the same way, the mighty works done by God are, as it were, rain; but the diverse inclinations are, as it were, the cultivated land and the neglected land, although they are of one and the same nature. C
10. But we, since we confess that God—who spoke through Moses—is not only just but also good, let us examine more diligently how it is consistent for a just and good God that Pharaoh's heart is said to be hardened; and let us see if we can perhaps, by following the Apostle Paul, solve the difficulty of the matter with certain examples and comparisons, if we show that by one and the same work God indeed has mercy on one and hardens another, not doing this or wishing that the one who is hardened should be hardened: but while that person makes use of His kindness and patience, those who take His kindness and patience as an occasion for contempt and insolence find their heart hardened while the punishment for their crimes is deferred; whereas those who take His kindness and patience as an occasion for their own repentance and amendment obtain mercy. But in order that we may demonstrate more evidently what we are saying, let us use the example which the apostle Paul used in the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying: "For the earth which drinks the rain that frequently comes upon it and germinates vegetation fit for those by whom it is cultivated, will receive a blessing from God; but that which brings forth thorns and thistles is rejected and near to a curse, whose end is for burning." Therefore, from these words of Paul which we have taken up, it is evidently shown that by the same work of God by which He grants rain to the earth, some land, being diligently cultivated, brings forth good fruits; but other land, which is negligently left uncultivated, brings forth thorns and thistles. And if someone were to speak as if in the person of the rains, saying: "I, the rain, have made good fruits, and I have made thorns and thistles"; although it seems harsh to say this, it is yet truly said; for if there were no rain, neither fruits nor thorns nor thistles would be born; but with the rain supervening, the earth produced both. But although by the benefit of the rain the earth produced both growths, the diversity of the growth is not rightly ascribed to the rains, but the blame for the bad seed is justly reflected back upon those who, when they could have cut through the earth with a frequent plow, and turned the sluggish clods with heavy rakes, and pruned and cut down all the useless roots of noxious grass, and prepared the fallow land—cleansed and cultivated—for the coming rains, neglected to do this; and they reap as the most fitting fruits of their own laziness, thorns and thistles; so it happens that the goodness and equality of the rains comes equally upon all the earth, but by one and the same work of the shower, that land which is cultivated is useful D NEW INTERPRETATION.
10. But when they say that they believe Him just, we confess Him to be both good and just at the same time; let us see how the good and just God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. See, therefore, whether by some example which the Apostle used in the Epistle to the Hebrews we can show how, by one and the same work, God has mercy on this one and hardens that one, not because He proposes to anyone that he should be hardened, but because when the wickedness of the vice that is inherent in him abuses His good proposal, hardening follows, and so he who is hardened is said to be hardened: "For the earth," he says, "drinking the rain that frequently comes upon it and generating vegetation fit for those by whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God; but bringing forth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near to a curse, whose consummation is for burning." One
should therefore understand that the signs and wonders that were performed by God were like the rain sent down from above by God, while the purpose and will of men are like the soil, either cultivated or uncultivated, which, though all of one nature—as all soil is—is not of one and the same cultivation. From this it happens that the intention of each individual is either hardened by the wonders and miracles of God, if it is uncultivated, wild, and savage, becoming itself more harsh and thorny, or it becomes A more mild, and with its whole mind surrenders itself to obedience, if it has been purged of its vices and cultivated.
It will not be superfluous to use another comparison: for example, if someone were to say that the sun is that which restricts and that which dissolves, though dissolution and restriction are opposites, he would not be saying anything false regarding the underlying thing, since by one and the same power of heat, the sun melts wax but dries out and hardens mud. This is not because its power acts differently in the mud than in the wax, but because the quality of mud is one thing and the quality of wax is another, even though by nature they are one, since both are of the earth. So, therefore, the one and same operation of God, which was performed through Moses in signs and wonders, proved the hardness of Pharaoh, which he had conceived by the intention of his own malice; yet it declared the obedience of the rest of the Egyptians who joined themselves to the Israelites, and who are even reported to have left Egypt together with the Hebrews.
But as to what is written, that the heart of Pharaoh was gradually softened so that he would sometimes say, "Do not go far, you shall walk a journey of three days, but leave your wives and your infants and your flocks," and whatever else he said in response to the wonders while yielding little by little, what else is indicated by this than that the power of the signs and wonders was indeed acting on him, but was not accomplishing everything? For B even these things would not have happened if that which is understood by the many—"I will harden the heart of Pharaoh"—were performed by God himself. Nor is it absurd to explain such matters from common usage; for often kind masters say to servants who, on account of the kindness and patience of their C masters, become more insolent, "I have made you wicked, and I have become the cause to you of such great sins." For one must listen to the *ethos* and the power of what is said, and not cavil by failing to heed the meaning of the discourse. Paul, at any rate, having clearly examined these things, says to the one who sins, "Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." For what the Apostle says to the one who sins
let it be said to Pharaoh, and these things reported to him may be understood very fittingly in accordance with his hardness and impenitent heart, as he treasures up for himself wrath; for the hardness would not have been revealed in such a way, nor would it have become manifest, had not the signs occurred, or if they had A occurred, they would not have been so many and so great.
But since such accounts are difficult to accept and are thought to be harsh, let us see also from the prophetic word what those who have experienced the great goodness of God and have not lived rightly, but have sinned after these things, say: "Why, O Lord, have you caused us to wander from your way? Why have you hardened our heart so as not to fear your name? Return for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes of your inheritance, that we may inherit a little of your holy mountain." And in Jeremiah: "You have misled me, O Lord, and I was misled; you held me fast and prevailed." For the utterance, "Why have you hardened our heart so as not to fear your name?" spoken by those praying to receive mercy, is meant in a moral sense to be: Why have you spared us to such a degree, not visiting us for our sins, but leaving us until our offences reached a great magnitude? He abandons the majority, not punishing them, so that the character of each may be tested by what depends on us, and the better B ones may be revealed by the trial that has taken place; while the rest, not escaping—not God, for He knows all things before their birth, but the rational beings themselves—may later obtain a path of healing; for they would not have known the benefit, had they not condemned themselves.
12. New Interpretation.
12. Now if the proofs we have mentioned seem less than full, and the assertion seems to have little support from the apostolic likeness, let us add the assent of prophetic authority, and see what the prophets also declare about those who, having first lived rightly, deserved to have very many experiments of God's goodness, but later sinned like men; with whom, making Himself one, the Prophet says: "Why, O Lord, have you caused us to wander from your way? And why have you hardened our heart so C as not to fear your name? Return for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes of your inheritance, that we also may possess a small portion of your holy inheritance." But Jeremiah similarly says: "You have seduced us, O Lord, and we were seduced: you held us and prevailed." Therefore, what he says: "Why, O Lord, have you hardened our heart so as not to fear your name?" is a statement from those who were praying for mercy and must be accepted in a moral sense; just as if one were to say: Why have you spared us to such an extent and not sought us out when we were sinning, but left us so that through this the evil might increase, and the license to sin be propagated while punishment ceased? Thus [it is]… D
it is beneficial for each person to realize his own peculiar state and the grace of God. But he who does not perceive his own weakness and the grace of God, even if he be benefited, since he has not made trial of himself nor condemned himself, will think that the good deed which was granted to him from heavenly grace is his own; and this pride, having produced haughtiness, will be the cause of a fall; which we believe to have happened also in the case of the devil, who attributed to himself the advantages he possessed when he was blameless; for "everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled," and "everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted." Understand also that for this reason divine things are hidden from the wise and prudent, so that, as the Apostle says, "no flesh may boast before God," and that they are revealed to babes, to those who after their infancy have advanced toward better things, and who are mindful that they have not arrived at such a great degree of blessedness so much by their own cause as by the ineffable beneficence [of God].
If it does not suffer the iron-shod heel of the persistent rider and is worn down by iron bits, it becomes hard. Thus, a childish age A if it is not cured by the persistence of the rod, will render a youth insolent and at the same time headlong into vices. God therefore leaves and neglects those whom He has judged unworthy of correction. "For whom the Lord loves, He corrects, but He scourges every son whom He receives." From this it must be thought that those are received into the order and affection of sons who have deserved to be scourged and corrected by the Lord, so that, of course, through the patience of temptations and tribulations, they might also be able to say: "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword?" For through all these things the purpose of each individual is manifested and revealed, and the firmness of perseverance is indicated, not so much to God—who knows all things before they come to pass—as to the reasonable and celestial powers, who have obtained the task of watching over human salvation as certain helpers and ministers of God.
Those, however, who do not yet offer themselves to God with such constancy, nor with such affection, and are not prepared as they approach the service of God to prepare their souls for temptation, are said to be left by God—that is, not to be instructed—because they are not prepared to be instructed, their time for dispensation or healing being without doubt deferred for the future. They, at any rate, are ignorant of what they will obtain from God, unless they first arrive at a desire for obtaining the benefit: which will happen only if one first recognizes himself, and feels what is lacking to him; and understands from whom he ought to, or can, seek what is missing. For he who has not first understood his own infirmity or sickness does not know how to seek a physician; or at least, when he has received health, he will not be grateful to the physician if he has not first recognized the danger of his own malady. So also, if one has not first recognized the vices of his soul and the evils of his sins, and has not revealed them by the confession of his own mouth, he cannot be cleansed and absolved, lest he be ignorant that what he possesses was granted to him by grace, and might think that the divine liberality is his own good; which thing, without doubt, again generates arrogance B of soul and elation, and again becomes for him a cause of ruin. Which is also to be understood concerning the devil, who believed that his own primacies were his own and not given by God, which he had then when he was immaculate; and that sentence which says, "everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled," was fulfilled in him. Whence it seems to me that for this reason divine mysteries have been hidden from the more prudent and wise, just as Scripture says, "that no flesh may boast in the sight of God"; and have been revealed to the little ones—that is, those who afterwards
NEW INTERPRETATION
"Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes of your inheritance, that we may take a small portion of the inheritance of your holy mountain." And in Jeremiah: "You have deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; you have prevailed and been stronger." For that saying, "Why did you harden our heart so that we would not fear your name?" which is said by those who implore mercy, is just as if they were saying: Why did you spare us so much and not visit us in our sins, but left us until our offenses had reached their height? He leaves many unpunished, however, so that the characters of individuals may be inquired into by free will, and the better ones become manifest from that examination; but the others, who are not hidden from God (for He knows all things indeed before they come to pass), but [are hidden] from the rational creature and from themselves, may afterward find the way of salvation; those who would not have recognized the benefit unless they had condemned themselves; which indeed confers upon each one that he might feel his own condition and the grace of God. But he who does not feel his own imbecility and the grace of God, even if he is helped, unless he has taken an experiment of his own powers and condemned himself, will think it is his own crime which, by divine bounty, was granted to him. Which opinion generates elation of spirit and becomes a cause of ruin: which we think also happened to the devil, who arrogated to himself that excellence which he had then when he was immaculate. "For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humb-"humbles himself shall be exalted." A And for this cause, understand that the divine mysteries are hidden from the wise and prudent, so that, as the Apostle says, "no flesh may glory in the sight of God"; and that they are revealed to the little ones who, after infancy, have attained to better things, and remember that they have reached that state of happiness not so much of themselves as by the ineffable benefit of God.
13. Therefore, he who is abandoned is abandoned by a divine judgment, and God is patient with some of those who sin, yet not without a sure reason. And even this very fact of His being patient acts to their benefit, since the soul for which He exercises care and providence is immortal; and that which is immortal and eternal, even if it is not cured quickly, is nevertheless not excluded from salvation, which is deferred to more opportune times. For it is perhaps to the advantage of those who have been infected with the poisons of deeper malice to attain salvation more tardily. For just as physicians, when they are able to close up the scars of wounds more quickly, sometimes dissimulate and defer the healing with a view to a better and more lasting health, knowing that it is better to cause a delay in the swellings of the wounds and to allow the flows of malignant humor to escape for a little while than to hasten to the appearance of health and include the fuel of the poisoned humor, which has been shut out from its accustomed passages, deep within the veins; this, without a doubt, will creep into the inner parts of the limbs and penetrate the vital organs, bringing not now mere disease to the body, but destruction to life; B in this same way, God, who knows the secrets of the heart and foreknows the future, through much patience allows certain things to happen, which, by occurring to men from without, provoke the passions and vices that are hidden within to be brought forth and to come to light; so that, through them, those who through much negligence and carelessness have received the roots and seeds of sins within themselves may be purged and cured, so that having been cast forth and provoked to the surface, they may in a certain sense be vomited out and digested; so that even if a man seems to be afflicted with more grievous evils, while he endures the convulsions of all his limbs, he may yet be able to cease at some time and desist and take his fill of evils, and thus, after many hardships, be restored to his own state. For God does not dispense our souls for this short time of our life alone, which is concluded within almost sixty years or a little more, but for everlasting and eternal time, as He Himself is eternal and immortal, holding also the providence of immortal souls. For He has made the rational nature incorruptible, and to it...
A there is not excluded by the brevity of this present life of ours the care and divine remedies of the soul which is immortal.
14. But let us also adopt the likenesses from the Gospels which we mentioned, where it is reported that there is a certain rock having a small and shallow soil, into which if the seed should fall, it is quickly said to spring up, but when it has sprung up, because it did not give root into the depth, as the sun rises it is scorched and withered because that which has sprung up. B And this rock is the human soul, hardened by negligence and turned to stone by wickedness—for no one was created by God with a heart of stone; rather, it becomes such through wickedness. Just as, then, if someone were to blame the farmer for not having cast the seeds more quickly upon the rocky ground, seeing another rocky piece of ground that had received the seeds and was flourishing, the farmer might answer that "I will sow this ground more slowly, having applied the things that can retain what is to be sown, since for this ground the slower and safer way will be better than that which received it more quickly and superficially"; if he were persuaded that the farmer spoke reasonably and acted skillfully, C so also the great farmer of every nature delays the favor that might have been thought to come more quickly, so that it might not be merely superficial. But it is likely that someone might raise an objection to us regarding this: "Why then does some of the seed fall upon the ground that has soil only at the surface, which is, as it were, a rocky soul?" It must be said in response to this that it is better for someone who desires the better things too hastily, and who has not traveled the path toward them, to obtain what he has desired, in order that, having condemned himself in this, he may show patience in receiving, after a long time, the cultivation that is according to nature. For countless, as one might say, are the souls to us, and countless are their characters, and most numerous are their movements, and purposes, and intentions, and impulses, of which there is one excellent dispenser, who knows the seasons and D the appropriate aids, and the leadings, and the ways, the God and Father of all, who knows by what way He leads. [index: entries preserved]
14. But come, let us also use this evangelical likeness: there is a certain rock whose surface is covered with very little soil, in which seeds falling sprout quickly, but because they have no root, when the sun rises they are scorched and perish. And this rock is the human soul, hardened by negligence and turned into stone through depravity; for God did not create a heart of stone for anyone, but wickedness makes it so. Just as, therefore, if someone seeing seeds cast into rocky ground being conceived and blooming, were to reproach the farmer for not having cast the seeds more quickly into the rocky ground, and the farmer were to answer that he would do the sowing in this ground later, after he had brought into it what might hold the seed, since a better and safer crop is produced from such ground later than from that which accepts more quickly and only on the surface; one would believe the farmer who both spoke truly and acted skillfully and wisely; so the great farmer of the whole of nature defers his beneficence, which might seem to be bestowed more quickly, until another time, lest it be only on the surface. But perhaps someone will object: "Why then does a part of the seeds fall into that which has soil only on the surface, which is, as it were, a rock—the soul?" To this it must be answered that for this one, who was carried away too precipitately toward good but did not proceed toward it with reason, it was more profitable to obtain what he desired, that by knowing and condemning himself from that very thing, he might patiently bear the cultivation that is by nature to be applied to him afterwards after a long time; for countless, if I may say so, are the souls we have, countless are their habits, their movements very numerous, their counsels likewise, their impulses, and appetites, of which one is the excellent dispenser, God, who knows both the times and the appropriate aids, and the leadings and the ways, the God and Father of all, who knows by what way he leads Pharao.
A For not because he was drowned, did he perish; for in the hand of God are both we and our words, and all prudence and knowledge of works. And these things indeed we have said moderately by way of an apology concerning the hardening of Pharao's heart, and concerning that text: "He hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth." B Let us look also at the passage from Ezechiel which says: "I will take away their stony hearts, and I will put in hearts of flesh, that they may walk in my justifications, and keep my commandments." For if, whenever God wills, he takes away stony hearts and puts in hearts of flesh, so that his commandments may be kept and his precepts observed, then it is not in our power to put away wickedness; for the taking away of stony hearts is nothing else than that the wickedness by which one is hardened should be removed by Him whom God wills. And the producing of a heart of flesh, so that one may walk in the commandments of God, and C keep his precepts, what else is it than to yield, and not to resist the truth, but to pursue virtues? But if God promises that he will do these things, and if we do not put away these stony hearts before He himself takes them away, it is evident that it is not placed in our power to put away wickedness; and if we accomplish nothing so that a heart of flesh is within us, but it is the work of God, then it will not be our work to order our life according to the standard of virtue, but clearly a divine benefit. This is what one would say who, from the bare words of Scripture, takes away the liberty of the will; but we shall answer that these things are to be understood in the same way as an unskilled and unlearned person, conscious of his own evils, moved either by a master's exhortation or by some other source, gives himself up of his own accord to him by whom he thinks he will be led to discipline and virtue; to whom, when he has given himself up, the master promises that he will take away his lack of skill and will instill D expertise into him: not because he who has committed himself to be cared for by him contributes nothing toward attaining learning and fleeing from lack of skill, but because he promises healing to one who is willing. Thus the divine word promises that it will take away from those who have approached it the wickedness which it calls a stony heart, not indeed from those who are unwilling, but from those who have surrendered themselves as patients to a physician; just as we read in the Gospels that the sick approached the Savior, praying that they might receive health, and were cured. And when the blind, for example, recover their sight, it is indeed, in so far as they prayed, the work of those who believed that they could be cured; but in so far as their sight is restored to them, it is the work of our Savior. Thus also the word of God promises that it will instill knowledge into those who approach it, by taking away the hard and stony heart, that is, wickedness, so that they may walk in the divine commands and keep the divine precepts.
A to be made obedient and not resisting against the truth, and performing the works of virtue? If, therefore, God promises that He will do these things, and if we cannot lay aside the stony heart before He Himself removes it, it follows that the casting off of wickedness is not in our power, but in God’s. And again, if it is not in our action that a heart of flesh should be made in us, but the work of God alone, it will not be our work to live according to virtue, but it will seem to be entirely the work of divine grace. These things, indeed, are said by those who wish to argue from the literal text that nothing is placed in our power; to whom we shall respond that these things ought not to be understood in such a way, but rather just as if there were someone ignorant and unlearned, who, feeling the mark of his own ignorance—whether urged by the exhortation of someone else, or struck by the emulation of prudent men—should entrust himself to someone by whom he trusts he can be diligently instructed and competently taught: this person, therefore, who had already hardened himself in ignorance, if he gives himself—as we said—with every intention of heart to the teacher, and promises that he will obey in all things, the teacher, having perceived the intention of his purpose, will also competently promise that he will take away from him all ignorance and instill skill; not that he promises to accomplish this for a disciple who refuses or resists, but for one who offers himself and gives himself over to every obedience. So too does the divine word promise to those who approach it B that it will take away the heart of stone—not, certainly, from those who do not listen to it, but from those who receive the precepts of its doctrine; just as we find in the Gospels that the sick approach the Savior, asking to receive health, and only then are they cured. And indeed, for example, that the blind should recover their sight is, in the fact that they prayed to the Savior and believed that they could be cured by Him, the work of those who were cured; but in the fact that their sight is restored to them, it is the work of the Savior. Thus also in this, the divine word promises that it will provide instruction by removing the heart of stone, that is, by wiping away wickedness, so that they may be able through this to walk in the divine precepts and keep the mandates of the Law.
16. Further, it is set before us also that passage from the Gospel where the Savior said: C "That seeing...
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16. It follows from the Gospel that the Savior says he speaks in parables to those outside, "that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand, lest perhaps they should be converted and their sins be forgiven them." Having seized upon this, the adversary will object: "If, when clearer words are heard, some are converted in such a way that they become worthy of the forgiveness of sins, and yet it is not within their power that they should hear clearer words, but lies with the teacher who on that account does not teach them more openly, lest perhaps they should see and understand, it is not in them to be saved." But if this is so, it is not in our power whether we are saved or perish. And indeed, if it had not been added, "lest perhaps they should be converted and their sins be forgiven them," we would probably have answered that the Savior did not wish those who were not going to be good and honest to understand the more recondite mysteries, and for that reason he had spoken to them in parables; but since it is added, "lest perhaps they should be converted and their sins be forgiven them," the defense of this passage is more difficult. First, therefore, this place is to be noted against the heretics, who are wont to hunt out certain sayings from the Old Testament from which it might seem, as they themselves dare to say, that there is a certain cruel plan of vengeance and punishment in the Creator—or by whatever other name they prefer to designate it—in order to show that there is no goodness in the Creator; but not with the same reasoning nor with candor in the Law
[...and] seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. A And he who is of the opposite opinion will say: "If absolutely some of those who hear more clearly are converted, so that they become worthy of the remission of sins, and the power to hear these clearer words does not lie with them, but with him who teaches, and for this reason he does not announce them more clearly to them, lest they should see and understand, then it is not in their power to be saved; but if this is so, we are not masters of our own will for salvation or destruction." Now, there would be a plausible defense against these things, if there were not added the clause, "lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them"—that is, that the Savior did not wish those who were not going to be good and noble to understand the more mystical matters, and for this reason spoke to them in parables. But now, with the phrase, "lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them," B the defense is more difficult.
First, therefore, it must be noted concerning this passage with regard to the heretics, who are wont to hunt for words from the Old Testament of this kind, where it appears, as they themselves dare to say, that there is cruelty in the Creator, or a vindictive and retributive disposition toward the worse, or whatever they wish to call such a thing, only so that they may say that there is no goodness in the One who created; yet they do not judge with the same mind, nor with the same fairness, those things which occur in the New Testament, but ignore things similar to those which they think are reprehensible in the Old. For clearly, even according to the Gospel, the Savior C is shown, as they themselves claim, not to speak clearly for this reason, that men might not be converted, and by being converted become worthy of the remission of sins; which in itself is in no way less than those things accused in the Old Testament. But if they seek a defense for the Gospel, it must be said to them: if they do not act reprehensibly by standing in a dissimilar way toward similar problems, and not finding fault according to the New, but seeking a defense, while concerning the Old they act as accusers regarding similar things, although they ought to defend them just as those from the New—from which we shall constrain them, through these similarities, to believe that all are God’s scriptures. Come then, and let us, as far as we are able, provide a defense for the matter at hand. D
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. ...they are occupied with the New Testament, but pass over similar things in those which they think should be criticized in the Old. For openly, the Savior in the Gospel, as they themselves say, is shown by the former words not to speak clearly for this reason: that men might not be converted, and by being converted become worthy of the remission of sins; which itself is in no way inferior to those things which are criticized in the Old Testament. But if they seek a defense for the Gospel, they must be asked whether they are not worthy of criticism, who act in a dissimilar way toward similar questions, and since they find nothing of offense to themselves in the New Testament, but seek a defense for it, yet criticize similar things in the Old, whose explanation should also have been sought. Whence we shall bring them by a comparison of the passages to believe that both Testaments are of one and the same God. Come then, let us answer the question at hand to the best of our ability.A 17. We were saying earlier when discussing Pharaoh that sometimes a quicker recovery does not turn out for the good of those being healed, especially if they have fallen into serious [(68)] ailments and might easily be delivered from those into which they have fallen; for, despising the illness as easily curable, they do not take care a second time to avoid falling into it, and will find themselves back in it. For this reason, in such cases, God, the eternal One, who is the knower of hidden things, who knows all things before they come to pass, in His kindness defers a swifter assistance for them, and, if I may so say, by helping them He does not help them, since this is what is advantageous for them. It is likely, therefore, that those who are "outside," about whom the discourse is, being seen by the Savior in the context before us as not being steadfast in their conversion if they were to hear the things spoken more clearly, were managed by the Lord not to hear the deeper things more plainly, lest, having converted and been healed too quickly and obtained the remission of sins—as though the wounds of their wickedness were easy to heal—they should despise them and fall into them again more quickly. Perhaps, too, they are paying the penalty for their former sins, for which they had not yet fulfilled the time: because they were left alone by the divine oversight and became further filled with the specific evils they had sown, they are to be called later to a more steadfast repentance, not quickly falling back into those things into which they had previously fallen while despising the dignity of good things and giving themselves over to worse.
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17. We were saying above when discussing Pharaoh that a quicker cure does not always turn out to be useful to those who are being healed, if, as soon as they fall into illness, they are easily relieved of it. For humans easily despise an illness that is easily cured, and fall again into the very thing they do not guard against. Wherefore the eternal God, who is the knower of hidden things and knows all things before they come to pass, defers the swifter healing of such as these, and, if I may so say, cures them by not curing them, since that is what is expedient for them. When, therefore, the Savior saw those who are "outside," and of whom the discourse now treats, would not be stable in their conversion if they heard His words more openly, it is probable that the Lord dealt with them in such a way that they would not clearly understand higher things, lest, having converted more quickly and been healed by the acceptance of the forgiveness of sins, they might despise the wounds of their vices as if they were very easy to cure and fall more quickly into the same. Perhaps, too, they had not yet fulfilled the time appointed for them to wash away the sins they had committed after abandoning virtue. Divine care had indeed left them alone, so that, sated by the evils they had themselves perpetrated, they might at length be called to a firmer repentance, and not easily fall afterward into their former sins, by which they had corrupted the dignity of their honor and given themselves over to wickedness. Those who are compared with those who are "inside," and are said to be "outside," are not far removed from those who are inside; for while those who are inside hear the word openly, these hear it obscurely, being as it were wrapped in parables: yet they do hear. But others from among those who are "outside," called Tyrians, even though the Savior foreknew that they would have done penance in sackcloth and ashes long before, if He had approached their borders, do not even hear those things which the others who are "outside" hear, because, as is likely, they were by far beneath the dignity of the latter, so that at another time, after it has been more tolerable for them than for those who did not receive the word—among whom He also mentions the Tyrians—they might hear more opportunely and repent more firmly. But see whether we ought not, even beyond the zeal for inquiry, endeavor to preserve in all things our piety toward God and His Christ, since we strive with all our might, as is proper in such great and difficult questions, to prove that God provides for the immortal soul in various ways. If, therefore, anyone should ask, concerning those who are blamed, why, seeing miracles and hearing the divine word, they become no better, while the Tyrians would have done penance if such words and deeds had taken place among them; if, I say, anyone should ask with these words: Why did the Savior preach to them for their own destruction, so that a graver sin might be imputed to them? We will answer that God, who knows how all those are affected who blame His providence as if it were the cause of their failure to believe—in that it did not give them to see what it gave others to behold, nor did it dispose them to hear what it profited others to have heard—wishing to show that they do not possess a just excuse, grants them the things for which the accusers of His providence had asked, so that, having received them and nonetheless being convicted of the utmost impiety because they perceived no utility from them, they might lay aside such audacity, and thus, having been set free, might learn that God sometimes delays and lingers in bestowing benefits, and does not grant those things to be seen and heard by which, through the very seeing and hearing, the guilt of those who have been led to faith by neither the one nor the other might be argued to be the more grave.
A Those who are called "those without"—it is clear, in comparison with those within, and not being altogether far removed from those within—hear those who clearly hear from within, but they hear unclearly, because it is spoken to them in parables; nevertheless, they do hear. But others of those without, who are called Tyrians, even though it was foreknown that they would long ago have repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes had the Savior drawn near their borders, do not even hear what those without hear, being, as is likely, further removed from the worthiness of those without, so that in another time, after it has become more tolerable for them than for those who did not receive the word (of whom he also made mention with the Tyrians), they may hear more opportunely and repent more firmly.
B See, however, whether we are not rather striving to preserve, alongside a spirit of investigation, the piety that is altogether due toward God and his Christ, endeavoring to make an apology for everything, as in such great and such important matters, regarding the manifold providence of God, who provides for the immortal soul. If, then, anyone should inquire regarding those who are reproached, that while they see wonders and hear divine words they are not benefited, whereas the Tyrians would have repented if such things had happened and been spoken among them—and if, inquiring, someone should say, "Why on earth did the Savior preach to such people to their own detriment, so that their sin might be reckoned as heavier?"—we must say to him that the One who understands the dispositions of all those who blame His providence (as though it were because of it that they did not believe, seeing that it did not grant them to see what it graced others to look upon, and did not manage for them to hear these things which, having heard, others have been benefited), wishing to refute the apology that is not reasonable, gives those things for which those who complain of His governance asked, so that after receiving them, and being no less refuted as being most impious for not having even then applied themselves to being benefited, they may cease from such audacity, and by this very thing, being set free, may learn that God sometimes intends to benefit some, yet delays, not granting them to see and hear such things upon which—once seen and heard—the sin is proven to be heavier and more grievous for those who would not have believed even after such great and such things.
The human dispensation does not conclude within this life of the age, but the state of merits that was prior always provides the cause for the future state; and thus, by the immortal and eternal law of justice and the moderation of divine providence, the immortal soul is led to the height of perfection. If, however, it should occur to us, because we say that the word of preaching is deliberately deferred from those who are worse and more wicked, why the word was preached to those who were preferred to the Tyrians, who are certainly despised—whereby evil was indeed increased for them and their condemnation made graver, in that they heard the word who were not going to believe—it seems that the answer should be: God, who is the Creator of all minds, foreknowing the complaints against His providence, especially from those who say, "How could we believe when we have neither seen the things that the others have seen, nor heard the things that have been preached to others?"—insofar as the fault is outside of us, since those to whom the word was announced and signs were shown have delayed not at all, but rather have been stunned...
A by the very power of the miracles; desiring to refute the occasions for complaints of this sort, and to show that it is not the dissimulation of divine providence, but the free will of the human mind that exists as the cause of its own perdition, He bestowed His grace even upon the unworthy and the incredulous through His benefactions, so that every mouth might truly be stopped and the human mind might recognize that nothing is lacking to itself from God, and simultaneously that he who has despised the divine benefits conferred upon him is more severely condemned than he who has not deserved to obtain or hear them. Let him understand and acknowledge that it belongs to divine mercy and His most equitable dispensation even this very fact, that He occasionally dissimulates in presenting to some the mysteries of divine virtue, so that they might either see or hear them, lest if they saw the power of these signs and heard the mysteries of His wisdom, and then despised and neglected them, they might be punished with a graver retribution of impiety.
18. Let us see now concerning that which is said: B "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." For those who are of a different opinion say: "If it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, it is not in our power to be saved; for either our nature is such that we can either be saved or not be saved, or certainly it is solely in the will of Him who, if He wills, shows mercy and saves." To whom we first inquire: Is to will what is good, good or evil? And is for the one who runs to hasten so that he may arrive at the end of the good, praiseworthy? If indeed they say that it is blameworthy, they are clearly insane; for all the saints both will what is good and run toward what is good, and yet they are certainly not blameworthy. How then, if he who is not saved is of a bad nature, does he will what is good and run toward what is good, but does not find what is good? For they say that a bad tree does not bring forth good fruits; for a good fruit is to will what is good. And how is the fruit of a bad tree good? But if they say that to will what is good and to run toward what is good is intermediate, that is, neither good nor evil; we will say to them: If to will what is good and to run toward what is good is intermediate, then that which is contrary to these will also be intermediate, that is, to will what is evil and to run toward what is evil. But it is certain that to will evil and to run toward evil is not intermediate; therefore, neither is to will what is good and to run toward what is good intermediate.
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18. Let us look at this: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." For they thus assume: "If it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, our salvation does not depend on our free will, but on the nature granted to us by Him who created us such, or on the will of Him who, when He wills, shows mercy." To whom this must be asked: Is to will what is good, good or evil? Then, is the course of him who wills to attain the end by hastening toward what is honorable, worthy of praise or of blame? If they say the latter, they will answer altogether absurdly, since the saints will and run, and yet do nothing on that account worthy of blame. If they say that it is good to will what is good and to run toward what is good, we will ask how a lost nature wills what is good. For it is the same as if a bad tree were to bring forth good fruits, if indeed it is good to will what is better. If they answer a third thing, that to will what is good and to run toward what is good is something intermediate, which is neither good nor evil, we will reply: If to will what is good and to run toward what is good is something intermediate, then that which is the contrary of these will be intermediate, that is, to will what is evil and to run toward what is evil. But to will what is evil and to run toward what is evil is not intermediate; therefore, neither will to will what is good and to run toward what is good be intermediate. In this way, therefore, I believe this passage can be defended: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." Solomon in the book of Psalms (for it is his song of ascents, whose words we quote), says: "Unless the Lord build the house, they have labored in vain who build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watches in vain who keeps it"; not that He discourages us from building, or teaches us not to watch for the keeping of the city which is in our soul, but showing that whatever things are built without God, and which are not protected by His guardianship, are built in vain and kept in vain; since the Lord of the building and the Prince of the keeping of the city must rightfully be ascribed to God of all things. Just as, therefore, if we were to say: "It is not the builder's, but God's work that is this building; and not the watchman's, but God of all things who has rendered this city immune from the injuries of enemies," we would not be wrong, since it is understood that something was accomplished even by human efforts, but the whole work is to be referred to God as the perfecter, out of gratitude of mind...
B towards the one who brought it to completion. Thus, since human volition is not sufficient for attaining the end, nor is the running of those who are, as it were, athletes sufficient to receive the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus—for these things are accomplished while God assists—the statement is well made: «It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.» C Just as if, regarding farming, what is also written were said: «I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase; so that neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.» And the fact that the fruits have become full, we would not piously say is the work of the farmer.
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...accepted; thus, since the will of man does not suffice to attain the end, nor does the course of athletes suffice to win the prize of the heavenly calling in Christ Jesus: for these things are brought to perfection by God’s assistance; it is truly said: «It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.» Just as if what is written concerning agriculture were said: «I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.» Thus, neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God who gives the increase. Nor would we piously say that the rich and mature fruits were the work of the farmer or of him who watered, but the work of God: so our perfection is not accomplished by us doing nothing, nor is it completed by us alone, but God brings about the principal part of it. D That this may be more manifest, we take an example from the art of navigation. For among the blowing of the winds, the temperance of the air, and the brightness of the stars, each of which contributes something to the safety of those navigating, what place shall we say the art of navigation holds in arriving at the desired port, when often even the sailors themselves do not dare to declare that the ship was saved by them, but attribute whatever there is to God as the author, not because they themselves did nothing, but because that which is done by Providence is far greater than art? Thus, in our salvation, that which is from God is far greater than that which is from our free will. For which reason I think it was said: «It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.» For if this passage of Paul, «It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy,» is to be understood in the way that these men think, the commandments are superfluous; in vain does Paul rebuke some because they have collapsed; others, because they have acted well, he approves; in vain he gives laws to the Churches; in vain we embrace better things, in vain we run; but neither does Paul give these commands in vain, nor does he rebuke those and approve these in vain; nor do we embrace good things and strive for better in vain. These, therefore, interpret this passage wrongly.
A It is not the work of the one who waters, but the work of God; thus, also, our perfection does not come about without our doing anything, but God accomplishes the greater part of it. And that this may be believed more clearly as being what is meant, let us take an example from the art of navigation: for against the blowing of the winds, and the temperateness of the air, and the brightness of the stars, which contribute to the safety of those sailing, how great an account could be named of the art of navigation for the restoration into the harbor, when not even the navigators themselves, out of piety, often dare to confess that they have saved the ship, but refer the whole to God, not B because they have performed nothing, but because the contribution of providence is greater by an excessive amount than that of the art! And in the case of our own salvation, the contribution from God is greater by an excessive amount than that which is within our power; for which reason I think it is said, "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." For if we must interpret "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy," as they assume, the commandments are superfluous, and Paul himself rebukes some in vain as having fallen, and approves others as having acted rightly, and gives laws to the Churches, and we too offer ourselves in vain to the will for better things, and in vain to run; but Paul does not advise these things in vain, nor does he rebuke these and approve those in vain; nor do we offer ourselves in vain to the will for C better things, and to strive for what is excellent. Therefore, those have not understood the things concerning this passage well.
In addition to these, there was [the saying]: "To will and to work is of God." And some say: If to will is from God, and to work is from God, then even if we will or perform something badly, these things have happened to us from God. But if this is so, we are not free. And again, when we will good things and perform more excellent things, since both to will and to work is from God, we have not performed more excellent things, but we have appeared to perform them; these, however, God has given; wherefore we are not free in this either. We must respond that the Apostle did not say that to will evil or to will good, and likewise to do better or worse things, is from God, but universally to will and universally to run. For just as we have from God that we are animals, that we are human beings, so also [we have] that we, generally speaking, as I might say, will, as [we have from Him] that we
are moved. Just as, when we have the [power to] be animals, to be moved, and, for instance, to move these specific limbs—hands or feet—we would not reasonably say that we have the specific [power] from God, that is, the moving *to* strike, or to kill, or to take away the property of others; but rather, we received the generic [power] to be moved from God, while we ourselves use this movement for better or for worse; so, we received the [power of] acting, in that we are animals, from God, and we received the [power of] willing from the Creator; but we use this willing for the best or for the contrary, and likewise with the [power of] acting.
B Furthermore, [they say] that the apostolic text perplexes us by denying that we have free will, in which [the Apostle], raising an objection against himself, says: "So then He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?' Nay but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me thus?' Or does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" C For someone will say, "If the potter from the same lump makes some vessels for honor and others for dishonor, so God [makes some] for salvation and others for destruction; it is not up to us to be saved or to perish, and we are not endowed with free will." One must reply to the one who uses these [words] in such a way, if it is possible that the Apostle can
NEW INTERPRETATION
be understood to be saying things contradictory to himself... [But] we must refer to God that we are moved generally. Just as, however, although we have received that we are animals, that we are moved, that we move these or those limbs—our hands, for example, or our feet—one would not rightfully say that this specific movement was given to us by God in order that we might strike, or kill, or plunder the property of others; since, while God is the author of movement in general for us, we ourselves use that movement for worse or better ends; so, God has bestowed upon us that faculty of action by which we are animals, and we have received the [power of] willing from God, but we ourselves bend that faculty of willing, and likewise of acting, toward honest or contrary ends."So then He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then: Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will? O man, who are you that replies against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?" For someone will say: "If, just as the potter makes some vessels from the same clay for honor and others for dishonor, so God also [makes some] for salvation and others for perdition; it is not up to us to be saved or to perish, nor are we free." But let us ask the one who receives [the words] in this way, would he dare to think that the Apostle speaks contradiction? I do not think anyone would have such audacity to say so. If, therefore, the Apostle does not speak contradiction, how, according to such a person's interpretation, does he justly accuse him who had fornicated at Corinth, or those who had sinned, and who had not repented of their own lust and intemperance? Also, by what path does he bless those whom he praises as if they acted rightly—the house of Onesiphorus, for example—with these words: "The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus; for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out diligently and found me. The Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord in that day." Therefore, it does not belong to the same Apostle to [regard] him who has sinned as worthy of reproach,
and to accept him who has done well as praiseworthy; and again, as if nothing were in our power, to say that it is the cause of the Creator that one vessel is for honor and another for dishonor. How does that statement stand, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil"? For what retribution of good is there for the one who could not do evil, having been formed by the Creator for this very thing? Or what punishment will be justly inflicted upon him who could not do good by the very creation of his Maker? Then, furthermore, how is it not contrary to this assertion what he says elsewhere: "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, some for honor, but some for dishonor. If therefore anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work"? B Therefore, he who has cleansed himself is made a vessel for honor; he, however, who has neglected to purge his own impurities becomes a vessel for dishonor. From these sentences, by no means, in my opinion, is the Creator the cause of the deeds.
NEW INTERPRETATION
to reproach, and him who has acted rightly to approve as worthy of praise; and again, as if nothing were in our power, to say that the Maker of the world is the cause why one vessel is for honor and another for ignominy? In what way will that [statement] stand: C "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may refer back what he has done in the body, whether good or evil," since those who have done evil have arrived at that point because they were created as vessels of ignominy, and those who have lived according to the norm of virtue have acted well because from the beginning they were prepared for this and made vessels of honor? Furthermore, how is the opinion which they conceived from the words we have adduced not repugnant to the fact that it is said elsewhere: "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware; and some indeed for honor, but some for ignominy. If therefore anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work"? For if whoever has purified himself becomes a vessel for honor, but he who has neglected to wipe away the filth of his own vices becomes a vessel for ignominy, D as far as can be gathered from these words, the Maker of the world is not the cause of this matter. For He makes vessels of honor and vessels of ignominy, not from the beginning according to foreknowledge, because by it He neither pre-condemns nor pre-justifies; but He makes them vessels of honor who have purified themselves, and vessels of ignominy those who have neglected to wipe away the filth of their own vices, so that, before they were fashioned as vessels for honor and vessels for ignominy, there existed more ancient causes why one should be made for honor and another for ignominy. But if we once admit that from certain preceding causes one is a vessel of honor and another a vessel of ignominy, what absurdity would it be, recurring to the place concerning the soul, to say that from preceding causes Jacob was beloved before he assumed a body, and Esau was hated before he was in the womb of Rebecca.A For it is possible to refer this thereto. For the Creator God does indeed make one vessel for honor, and He makes other vessels for contumely; but that vessel which has cleansed itself from all impurity, He makes a vessel unto honor; while that which has stained itself with the filth of vices, that vessel He makes unto contumely. And thus it is concluded that it precedes, and that for its own merits each one furnishes to the Creator the causes and occasions for being formed by God either as a vessel unto honor or unto contumely.
If this assertion seems just, as it certainly is just, and consonant with all piety, that from preceding causes each vessel is prepared by God either for honor or for contumely, it does not seem absurd—discussing with the same order and the same consequence as we did the earlier causes—that we should think the same concerning the nature of souls, and that this should be the cause why Jacob was beloved before he was born into this world, and Esau was hated while he was yet in his mother’s womb. B And let us understand that she acted of old for that reason, whereby she was beloved in the one and hated in the other before she supplanted in Jacob’s body, and before the plant was held by the brother in Esau.
C But it is clearly shown that, so far as concerns the underlying nature, just as clay lies subject to the potter, from which mass vessels are made for honor and for contumely, so, all souls being of one nature subject to God, and—if I may so say—one mass of rational substances, God has caused certain prior reasons to make these to be for honor, and these for contumely. But if the Apostle’s speech is rebuke, saying: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" D I think that he teaches that he who possesses boldness before God, and is faithful and has lived well, would not hear, "Who art thou that repliest against God?" Such as was Moses; for Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice. And as God answers to Moses, so the saint answers to God. But he who has not acquired such boldness, clearly having either lost it, or not seeking concerning these things with the zeal of learning but of contention, and therefore saying: "Why does He yet find fault? For who resists His will?"—he surely will have been worthy of this rebuke: A "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" But to those who introduce diverse natures and use the saying of the Apostle, these things must be said: If they hold that those who perish and those who are saved are of one and the same mass, and that one and the same is the Maker of both; if He is good who makes not only the spiritual but also the earthly (for hence this follows), it can surely happen that he who now, through certain past good works, has been made a vessel of honor, if he...
does not perform deeds similar and consistent with the vessel of honor, may become in another age a vessel of dishonor; just as, conversely, it is possible for one who through causes prior to this life has become a vessel of dishonor here, by amending himself, to become in the new creation a vessel of honor, sanctified, and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work. And perhaps the Israelites of the present time, not having lived worthily of their nobility, shall fall away from their lineage, transformed as it were from vessels of honor into a vessel of dishonor; and many of those who are now Egyptians and Idumeans, having approached Israel, when they have brought forth more abundant fruit, shall enter into the Church of the Lord, no longer reckoned as Egyptians and Idumeans, but becoming Israelites; so that in this way, according to the varying inclinations of the will, some may advance from worse to better, others may fall from better to worse, while others may be kept in their good state or ascend from good to better, and others again may remain in their evils or, as their wickedness is poured forth from evils, become worse.
ORIGEN ON FIRST PRINCIPLES
A ...responded to him with a voice; and as God responds to Moses, so does every holy person respond to God. But he who is unfaithful, and loses before God the confidence to answer due to the unworthiness of his own life and conduct, and who does not seek these things in order to learn and improve, but out of contentiousness and to resist; and to speak more clearly, he who is such a person as can say the things which the Apostle signifies when he says: "Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" [Rom. IX, 19] — to such a person this rebuke of the Apostle is rightly directed: "O man, who are you to answer back to God?" [Rom. IX, 20]. Therefore, this rebuke is intended not for the faithful and the saints, but for the unfaithful and the impious.
To those, however, who introduce diverse natures of souls and drag this apostolic discourse to the assertion of their own dogma, one must respond in this way: If it is certain even among them that, as the Apostle says, those who are being destroyed and those who are being saved are made from one lump, and that the Creator of those who are saved is also the Creator of those who are destroyed, and if he who makes the spiritual is also good—and not only the spiritual but also the earthly (for this follows for them)—it can surely happen that he who now, through prior good works, has become a vessel of honor, if he has not done deeds that are equal or consistent with the vessel of honor, may become in another age a vessel of dishonor. B Just as, conversely, it is possible that one who, through causes prior to this present life, has become a vessel of dishonor here, having amended himself, may in the new creation become a vessel of honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work. And perhaps the current Israelites, not having lived worthily of their nobility, shall fall away from the race, transformed as if from vessels of honor into a vessel of dishonor; and many of those who are now Egyptians and Idumeans, having approached Israel, when they have brought forth fruit more abundantly, shall enter into the Church of the Lord, no longer considered as Egyptians and Idumeans, but becoming Israelites.
Thus, according to this, through various inclinations of the will, some progress from worse to better, others fall from better to worse, and others are kept in their good qualities, or ascend from good to better, while others again remain in their evils, or from evils—as their wickedness overflows—become worse.
C 136 According to our own assertion, by which we say that from preceding causes God makes vessels either to honor or to dishonor, the approval of God’s justice is in no way restricted. For it is possible that this vessel which, from prior causes, has been fashioned in this world to honor, if it acts more negligently, may, according to the merits of its conduct, be made in another age a vessel to dishonor; and conversely, that vessel which from prior fault received the name of dishonor, if it should wish to be corrected in the present life, in the new creation shall become a vessel sanctified and useful to the Lord, and ready for every good work. So also, if anyone, because of preceding causes in this life, has been fashioned by the Creator as a vessel of dishonor, and has amended himself and purged himself from all filth of vices, he can be made in that new age a vessel to honor, sanctified and useful, prepared for every good work. Finally, those who in this age were fashioned by God to be as Israelites, and have led a life unworthy of the nobility of their race, and have fallen from all the generosity of their family, these, in a certain manner, because of their unbelief, shall pass from being vessels of honor into dishonor in another age.
NEW INTERPRETATION
...does something worthy of dishonor, in another age he may become a vessel of ignominy: just as, conversely, it is possible that one who, because of causes older than this life, has been made here a vessel of dishonor, if he amends himself, may in the new creation become a vessel sanctified, useful to the Lord, and prepared for every good work. Thus also, perhaps, those who are now Israelites, if they have led a life unworthy of their nobility, shall fall from it, transformed as from vessels of honor into a vessel of ignominy; and many of those who are now D Egyptians and Idumeans, having accepted the faith of the Israelites, when they have given abundant fruit, shall enter into the Church of the Lord and shall not be numbered among the Egyptians and Idumeans, but among the Israelites: so that, according to the various motions of the will, some proceed from worse to better, others fall from better to worse; others remain in the good, or from good advance to better; others, on the contrary, persist in evils, or from evils, through the profusion of wickedness, become worse.B Hence, one must also believe it possible that some who first began with small sins spread into such wickedness and arrive at such a stage of evil that they become equal to the powers of malice and the opposing forces; and, on the other hand, if through many severe inflictions of punishments they attempt to recover and gradually seek a remedy for their wounds, it is possible for them, once their malice ceases, to be restored to good. From this we opine, since, as we have frequently said, the soul is immortal and eternal, that in many and endless spaces throughout vast and various ages it is possible that it might descend from the highest good to the lowest evils, or be restored from the ultimate evils to the highest goods. C
Version of St. Jerome
I believe that it is possible for some men, beginning from small vices, to arrive at such great wickedness (if, however, they are unwilling to turn to better things and amend their sins through penitence) so that they even become opposing strengths; and again, that others, from being enemies and opposite virtues, might for a long time apply medicine to their wounds and bind up their previously flowing offenses, so that they pass over to the place of the best. We have often said that in the infinite and perpetual ages in which the soul subsists and lives, some of them thus fall to worse states, so that they hold the ultimate place of malice; and some thus progress, so that from the ultimate grade of malice they come to a perfect and consummate virtue.
A 22. But since the Apostle’s discourse, in those things which he says regarding vessels of honor or dishonor—because "If any man purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and useful to the Lord, and prepared unto every good work" (II Tim. II, 21)—appears to have placed nothing in God, but the whole in us; yet in those things where he says, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor," he appears to have referred everything to God; these things are not to be taken as contrary to each other, but both senses are to be called to one, and from the two, a single understanding must be fashioned: that is, that we should neither think that those things which are in our own power can be brought about without the help of God, nor that those things which are in the hand of God can be brought to completion without our own actions, and studies, and purpose. That is to say, neither is our willing or effecting anything so within our own power that we should not know that this very thing—that we are able to will or to effect—has been given to us by God according to that distinction which we mentioned above. Or again, when God fashions the vessels, some indeed to honor and others to dishonor, it must be thought that the causes of honor or dishonor are not, as it were, the matter...
New Interpretation
22. But since the Apostle sometimes does not ascribe to God what the vessel is, whether for honor or dishonor, but refers the whole to us when he says: "If any man therefore shall have purged himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, and prepared unto every good work"; and sometimes does not grant it to us, but appears to ascribe the whole to God when he says: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel indeed for honor, and another for dishonor," B and the things said by him are not contradictions; both are to be brought together, and one complete account is to be rendered from both. Neither does that which is in our power, without the knowledge of God, nor does the knowledge of God compel us to progress, unless we also contribute something of our own toward the good; nor does that which is in our power, without the knowledge of God and the use of that which is in our power according to merit—which makes one to become for honor or for dishonor—nor does the One at God’s disposal alone construct one for honor or for dishonor, unless it finds some material of difference in our own resolve, inclining toward the worse or toward the better. And let these things be sufficiently set forth for us concerning free will.
certain wills, purposes, or merits of our own, from which it fashions the vessel of each of us either for honor or for dishonor, while the very impulse of the soul or the purpose of the mind suggests to Him who is not unaware of the heart and thought of the soul, whether its vessel ought to be fashioned for honor or for dishonor. But let these things suffice us, as we have been able to discuss the questions of free will.
Chapter II. Of Contrary Powers.
1. We must now see, according to the Scriptures, how contrary powers, or the devil himself, struggle against the human race, provoking and inciting them to sin. And first, indeed, in Genesis, the serpent is described A as having seduced Eve; concerning whom, in the *Ascension of Moses*, which scroll the Apostle Jude mentions in his Epistle, the Archangel Michael, disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, says that the serpent, inspired by the devil, was the cause of the transgression of Adam and Eve. But it is also asked by some, who is the angel that speaks from heaven to Abraham, saying: "Now I know that you fear God, and have not spared your beloved son, whom you loved for my sake." For he is manifestly described as an angel, who says he knew at that time that Abraham feared God and would not have spared his beloved son, just as the Scripture says: yet he did not declare that it was for God, but for himself—that is, for him who was saying this. We must also inquire about that which is said in Exodus, that he wished to kill Moses because he was going into Egypt. And again, who is the angel called the "exterminator"? And who is he who in Leviticus is written as the *Apopompaeus*, that is, the "sender away," of whom the Scripture speaks thus: "One lot for the Lord, and one lot for the *Apopompaeus*, that is, for the sender away"? Further, in the first book of Kings, an evil spirit is said to stifle Saul. And in the third book, Micaiah the prophet says: B "I saw the Lord, the God of Israel, sitting upon His throne, and all the host of heaven standing about Him on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, 'Who shall seduce Ahab, king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?' And this one said this, and that one said that. A spirit went forth and stood before the Lord and said, 'I will seduce him.' And the Lord said to him, 'By what means?' And he said, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And He said, 'You shall seduce him, and indeed you shall prevail. Go out, therefore, and do so.' And now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all your prophets; the Lord has spoken evil concerning you." By this it is manifestly shown that it was by his own will and purpose that a certain spirit chose to seduce, and acted with deceit, by which God allowed him to be abused for the death of Ahab, who was worthy to suffer this. In the first book of Chronicles, too, it is said: "The devil, Satan, rose up in Israel and incited David to number the people." In the Psalms, moreover, an evil angel is said to afflict certain ones. In Ecclesiastes also, Solomon says: C "If the spirit of one having power rise up against you, do not leave your place, for healing will suppress many sins." In Zechariah, indeed, we read of the devil standing at the right hand of Jesus and resisting him. Isaiah also says that the sword of the Lord rises up against the dragon, the perverting serpent. But what shall I say of Ezekiel, in the second vision, who prophesies most manifestly against the prince of Tyre regarding the contrary power, who he even says dwells in the rivers of Egypt? Moreover, what else does the whole book which is written about Job contain but the story of the devil requesting that power be given to him over all that Job has, and his children, and further over his body? Yet he is defeated by his patience. In which book the Lord taught many things in His responses concerning the power of this dragon that opposes us. These things, for the present,
New Interpretation
something for honor, and something for dishonor, and these do not fight with each other: both must be reconciled, and from them one perfect sense is to be fashioned. Neither does our freedom exist without the knowledge of God, nor does the knowledge of God compel us to profit unless we contribute something of our own to the good; since neither does our freedom work without the knowledge of God and the use of the dignity of our free will, so that one may happen to be for honor or dishonor; nor does the will of God alone make anyone for honor or dishonor unless it has some matter of difference, [namely] our own will, which inclines toward the worse or the better. But let these things suffice us regarding the freedom of the will.
1
BOOK THREE
From the Old Testament, as far as my memory can now reach, let these things suffice concerning that which is mentioned regarding the contrary powers, or those said to be adversaries to the human race, to be weighed afterward. Let us look also at the New Testament, where Satan approaches the Savior, tempting Him. But the evil spirits and unclean demons, who had possessed some, were put to flight by the Savior from the bodies of the sufferers, who are said to have been delivered by Him. And even Judas, when the devil had already put it into his heart that he should betray Christ, later received the whole of Satan into himself: for it is written that after the morsel, Satan entered into him. The apostle Paul, indeed, teaches us that we ought not to give place to the devil, "but put on," he says, "the armor of God, that you may be able to resist the deceits of the devil"; designating that our wrestling is not "against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places." And he says that the Savior was also crucified by the princes of this world who will be destroyed, whose wisdom he also says he does not speak. Through all these things, therefore, divine Scripture teaches us that there are certain invisible enemies battling against us, and it commands that we must be armed against them. Whence also any simpler among those who believe in the Lord Christ suppose that all sins, whatsoever men have committed, happen because these contrary powers are pressing upon the mind of the offenders, for the reason that in this invisible struggle these powers are found to be superior. Because if, for example, the devil did not exist, no one at all among men would sin.
2. We do not, however, think that this is so, if we look at those things which manifestly descend from bodily necessity. For are we to think that the devil is the cause of our hungering or thirsting? No one would dare to affirm this. If, therefore, he is not the cause of our hungering and thirsting, what else is it, when each person’s age reaches the time of manhood, and it suggests the incentives of natural heat? It follows without doubt that, just as the devil is not the cause of hungering and thirsting, so too he is not the cause of those motions which are naturally suggested to an adult age, that is, the desire for the appetite of intercourse. Since it is certain that this cause is not always moved by the devil, so one must not think that if the devil did not exist, bodies would not have the desire for such intermingling. Then let us next consider whether, as we showed above, food is sought by men not from the devil, but by a certain natural appetite, and whether it could happen that if the devil did not exist, human experience would use such discipline in taking food that it would never thoroughly exceed the measure—that is, that it would never take more than the situation required, nor more than reason allowed, and it would never happen that men would fail in keeping the mode and measure of their food. I, for my part, do not think that this could have been kept by men in such a way, even if no instigation of the devil had provoked it, that no one would have exceeded the mode and discipline in taking food, before they had learned it by long use and experience. What is it, therefore? In food and drink, indeed, it was possible to sin even without the devil's incitements, if perhaps we were found to be less continent or less industrious; but in desiring intercourse, or in tempering natural desires, it must be thought that the same result would not have occurred? I think, however, that the same consequence of reason can also be understood in other natural motions: of greed, or anger, or sadness, or in everything at all that exceeds the mode of natural measure through the vice of intemperance. It is evident, therefore, that the reason is this: just as in good things human intent by itself is imperfect for the consummation of the good, for it is led to all perfect things by divine aid; so also, in contrary things, we receive certain beginnings and, as it were, certain seeds of sins from those things which are naturally in use. But when we have indulged more than is sufficient, and have not resisted, an enemy power, taking the place of the first transgression, instigates and presses on in every way, striving to spread sins more profusely, and indeed while we ourselves, as human beings, provide the occasions and beginnings of sins, the enemy powers propagate them more widely and at greater length, and if it is possible, without any end. And so, finally, a lapse into avarice occurs, when at first men desire a little bit of money, then as the vice grows, the greed increases. After this, when a blindness of mind from the passion has also followed, with the enemy powers suggesting and pressing on, money is no longer desired, but is snatched, and is sought by force, or even by the shedding of human blood. Lastly, for a more certain assurance of the matter, that these immensities of vices come from demons, it can be easily contemplated from the fact that those who are physically vexed by demons suffer nothing less than those who are pressed by immoderate loves, or the intemperance of anger, or the excess of sadness. For it is reported in some histories that some have fallen into insanity out of love, others out of
irascibility, and some from sadness or excessive joy; which I think happens because those contrary powers, that is, the demons, having found a place for themselves in their minds, which intemperance has previously laid open, have taken complete possession of their senses; especially when no glory of virtue urges them to resist.
3. But that some sins do not come from contrary powers, but take their beginning from the natural movements of the body, the Apostle Paul declares most clearly when he says: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; these are what resist one another, so that you do not do the things that you would." If, therefore, the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, we sometimes have a struggle against flesh and blood, that is, when we are human and walk according to the flesh, and when we cannot be tempted by greater temptations than human ones, as it is said of us: "No temptation has overtaken you except what is human. And God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above what you are able [to bear]." For just as those who preside over the games do not allow those who come to the contest to enter the lists just anyhow or by chance, but by diligent examination—as they observe either their bodies or their ages—pairing them with one another in the most equitable comparison, for example, boys with boys, men with men, who match in terms of age or strength; so it must be understood also of divine providence, that He dispenses to all who have descended into these struggles of human life with the most just moderation, according to the reason of each person's virtue, which He alone, who alone beholds the hearts of men, knows. Thus, one person contends against such flesh, another against such, and one for such a time, another for such a time, and so that one is instigated by the flesh for this thing or that, and another for another; and then that one resists this or that hostile power, while another resists two or three simultaneously, or now against one, now again against another, and at a certain time against one, and at a certain time against another, or after what deeds they fight against which ones, and after which ones against others. For observe whether by any chance something of this kind is indicated by what the Apostle says: "God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able," that is, for the reason that each is tempted according to the measure of his virtue or possibility. B Yet, because we have said that each is tempted according to the measure of his virtue, it should not therefore be thought that he who is tempted ought to conquer in every way; just as that person who competes in the contest, though matched with his adversary with equal moderation, will not be able to conquer in every way. But unless the virtue of the contestants is equal, the victory will not be a just prize, nor will the vanquished be justly blamed, because He indeed permits us to be tempted, yet not above what we can endure; C for we are tempted according to our strength; nor, however, is it written that He will make in the temptation even an exit of endurance, but an exit [of such a nature] that we may be able to endure. But the fulfillment of this, to carry it out either strenuously or sluggishly, depends upon us, for which He Himself gave us the ability. For there is no doubt that in every temptation, the virtue of endurance is present for us, if only we use the granted virtue appropriately. For it is not the same thing to have the virtue of conquering and to conquer, just as the Apostle himself signaled in very careful language, saying that "God will give the exit so that you may be able to endure," not "so that you may endure." For many do not endure, but are conquered in the temptation. It is given by God, however, not that we may endure—otherwise the struggle would seem to be nothing—but that we may be able to endure. But we use that virtue that has been given to us so that we may be able to conquer, according to the faculty of free will, either industriously and we conquer; or sluggishly, and we are overcome. For if this whole thing were given to us so that we might conquer in every way, and in no way be conquered, what cause for striving would remain for him who cannot be conquered? Or what merit of the prize is there, where the faculty of resisting and conquering is taken away? But if the possibility of conquering is provided equally to all of us, but it is placed in our power how we ought to use this possibility—that is, either industriously or sluggishly—the fault of the conquered or the prize of the victor will be just. Therefore, from these things which have been argued according to our strength, I think it has evidently appeared that there are certain sins which we do not commit by the pressing of malignant powers, while others there are by which we are provoked to a certain excess and immoderation at their instigation. Whence it is consequent now to inquire how these contrary powers themselves work these very incitements in us.
4. Thoughts that proceed from our own hearts, either from the memory of any deeds or the contemplation of any affairs, we find sometimes proceed from ourselves, sometimes are stirred up by contrary powers; D sometimes also they are sent by God or by the holy angels. But that these things are so will perhaps seem fabulous, unless it has been proved by the testimonies of the divine Scripture. That a thought, therefore, may arise from ourselves, David...
A testifies in the Psalms, saying: "For the thought of man will confess to you, and the remnants of the thought will keep a holy day to you." That it also commonly happens from contrary powers, Solomon testifies in Ecclesiastes in this way: "If the spirit of the one having power rise up against you, do not leave your place; for health restrains many sins." And the apostle Paul will give testimony concerning the same, saying: "Destroying thoughts, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ." That it happens from God, David nevertheless testifies in the Psalms, saying: "Blessed is the man whose support is with you, O Lord, his ascent is in his heart." And the Apostle says that "God gave" into the heart of Titus. Indeed, that certain things are suggested to human hearts, whether by good or evil angels, is designated B by Tobias being accompanied by an angel, or the word of the prophet saying: "And the angel who spoke in me answered;" but also the book of the Shepherd declares these same things, saying that two angels accompany every individual person; and if good thoughts rise up in our heart, it says they are suggested by the good angel; if, however, they are contrary, it says they are the instinct of an evil angel. Barnabas also declares the same in his Epistle, when he says there are two ways, one of light, the other of darkness, over which he also says certain angels preside: the angels of God over the way of light, and the angels of Satan over the way of darkness. Nevertheless, one must think that nothing else happens to us from these things that are suggested to our heart by good or evil spirits, except for a mere commotion and incitement provoking us either C to good or evil. It is, however, possible for us, when an evil power begins to incite us to evil, to cast away from us the depraved suggestions, and to resist the worst persuasions, and to do nothing at all in a blameworthy way. D And again, it is possible that when a divine power has provoked us to better things, we might not follow, with the power of free will preserved in both cases. We were indeed saying in what preceded that certain things are suggested to our memory, whether of good or evil things, whether through divine providence or through contrary powers; as is shown in the book of Esther, when Ahasuerus had not remembered the kindnesses of the most just Mordecai, and, fatigued by nocturnal vigils, had received from God the memory to seek the records of deeds committed to writing; in which, being admonished of the kindnesses of Mordecai, he ordered his enemy Haman to be hanged; but to the man himself he conferred magnificent honors, and safety to the people now threatened with danger. On the other hand, through the contrary power of the devil, one must think that it was suggested to the memory of the chief priests and scribes what they said coming to Pilate: "Lord, we have remembered how that seducer said, while he was yet alive, that, After the third day I will rise again." But also what Judas thought regarding the betrayal of the Lord Savior did not come from the malice of his own mind alone. For Scripture has testified that "the devil had already put into his heart to betray him." On account of which Solomon also rightly gave orders, saying: "With all diligence keep your heart." And the apostle Paul says: "We ought to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip." And when he says: "Do not give place to the devil," showing by this that by a certain work, or by a certain sloth of mind, a place is given to the devil, so that if once he has entered our heart, he either takes possession of us, or certainly at least defiles the soul if he cannot possess it completely, when he throws his fiery darts at us; by which we are sometimes wounded with the wound descending deep, while at other times we are only inflamed. Certainly, these his fiery darts are extinguished in few and rarely, so that they do not find a place for a wound, that is, when one has been covered with the most fortified and strongest shield of faith. But what was said in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "For we do not have a struggle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places;" it will be necessary to understand what he said: "to us"—that is, to me, Paul, and to you, Ephesians, and to whosoever there is no struggle with flesh and blood. For their struggle is against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, not as it was for the Corinthians, for whom the struggle was still against flesh and blood, whom temptation had not seized except that which is human. [There are those] who struggle against all these things. For I judge it impossible for any of men, however holy he may be, that he could have a struggle against all these things at once. But if by any means that could happen, which certainly cannot happen, it is impossible that human nature could bear it at all without its greatest subversion; but just as, for example, if some fifty soldiers were to say that there threatened them certain...
others, fifty in number, it is not to be understood that one of them is to fight against fifty, but each one of them rightly says that the contest we have is against fifty, yet all of them against all; so also must it be understood what the Apostle says, that for all the athletes and soldiers of Christ the struggle and contest is against all those things that have been enumerated; both for all collectively, and yet for each individually, whether in the future contest, or surely as it shall have been approved by the just arbiter of the struggle itself, God. For I think that there is a certain measure to human nature, even if it be that Paul of whom it is said: "He is a chosen vessel unto me"; or Peter, against whom the gates of hell do not prevail; or if it be Moses, that friend of God, no one of whom could at all endure the whole array of hostile powers at once without some injury to himself, unless the virtue of that One alone were working in him who said: "Take courage, I have overcome the world." Because of whom Paul also confidently said: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, Christ." And again: "But I have laboured more abundantly than they all, but not I, but the grace of God with me." Because of this virtue, therefore, which certainly is not human, working and speaking in him, Paul said: "For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor virtue, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." For I do not think that human nature by itself could have a contest against angels, and things high and low, and other creatures; but when it has perceived the Lord present in it and dwelling within, confident in the divine aid it will say: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked approach upon me to eat my flesh, my enemies who trouble me, they themselves were weakened and fell. If camps should stand against me, my heart shall not fear; if battle should rise against me, in this I will hope." Whence I think that perhaps a man can never of himself overcome a hostile power, unless he has used divine aid. Whence also the angel is said to have wrestled with Jacob. Which we indeed understand in this way, that it is not the same thing for the angel to have wrestled with Jacob as it is to be against Jacob; but he who was present for the sake of his salvation, who also, B having known his progress, even gave him the name Israel, he is the one who wrestles with him; that is, he is in the struggle with him, and helps him in the contest; since there was without doubt another against whom he was fighting, and against whom the contest was being waged for him. Finally, Paul did not say that we have a struggle against princes or against powers, but "against principalities and powers." Whence, even if Jacob wrestled, he doubtless wrestled against some of these virtues, which Paul declares to be hostile to the human race, and especially to the saints, and to stir up contests. Therefore, Scripture finally says of him that he "wrestled with an angel, and prevailed unto God"; so that, indeed, the struggle of the contest might be supported by the angel's aid, but the palm of perfection might lead the victor to God.
C 6. And it should not be thought that contests of this kind are carried out with the strength of bodies and exercises of the art of wrestling, but that it is a battle of spirit against spirit, just as Paul denotes that the struggle for us is against principalities, and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world. But the very nature of the contests is to be understood in this way: when losses, when dangers, when reproaches, when accusations are stirred up against us, it is not that we suffer these things only because of the hostile powers acting upon them, but that through them we may be provoked to great anger, or to excessive sadness, or to final despair; or, what is even more serious, that we may be compelled, weary and overcome by tedium, to complain against God, as if He were not moderating human life fairly and justly; so that through this we may be made weak in faith, or fall from hope, or be forced to be carried away from the truth of the dogmas, and be persuaded to think D something impious concerning God. For such things indeed are written concerning Job, when the devil had asked of God the power over his goods. By which we are also taught that we are not assailed by any chance incursions, if at any time such losses of possessions strike us, nor does it happen by chance that any of our own is led away captive, or that the ruins of houses in which any of our dear ones are crushed, occur; in all of which every one of the faithful ought to say, because "You would not have power against me, unless it were given you from above." See, indeed, that the house of Job would not have fallen upon his children unless the devil had first received power against them; nor would the horsemen have rushed in in divided ranks to seize his camels, or oxen, and other animals, unless urged on by that spirit to whom they had enslaved themselves by the obedience of their own intent. But not even he who seemed
fire, or what is thought to be lightning, had fallen upon the flocks of Job, before the devil said to God: "Hast Thou not hedged about all things that are without, and the rest? But now put forth Thy hand, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face."
7. From all of which it is shown that all things which occur in this world, which are considered middle things, whether they be sad or in whatever way they exist, do not indeed come from God, yet they do not occur without God; for while God does not only not forbid, but even permits the malignant and contrary powers to effect such things, yet He does so at certain times and for certain persons; just as it is said in the case of Job himself, that at a certain time he was prepared to fall under the power of others, and for his house to be despoiled by the unrighteous. Therefore, Divine Scripture teaches us to receive all things that happen to us as if brought by God, knowing that without God nothing happens. But how can we doubt that these things are so—that is, that nothing happens without God—when the Lord and Saviour proclaims and says: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them shall fall upon the ground without your Father who is in heaven"? But necessity has led us to wander somewhat further in discussing the struggle of the adverse powers, which they wage against men, and concerning those sadder things which happen to the human race, that is, the temptations of this life, as Job says: "Is not the whole life of man upon earth a temptation?" so that it might be more clearly manifested how these things occur, and how piously one ought to feel concerning them. Now let us see how men fall even into the sin of false knowledge, or with what design the contrary powers are accustomed to stir up battles against us even concerning these things.
CHAPTER III. Concerning threefold wisdom.
1. Desiring to teach us something great and hidden concerning knowledge and wisdom, the holy A Apostle says in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: "But we speak wisdom among the perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world who come to naught; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." In which, wishing to show the differences of wisdoms, he writes that there is a certain wisdom of this world, and B that there is a certain wisdom of the princes of this world, and that there is another C wisdom of God. But when he says, "The wisdom of the princes of this world," I do not think he means some common wisdom of all the princes of this world, but rather the particular wisdom of individual princes seems to me to be indicated. And again when he says: "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory," we must inquire if he calls this the same wisdom of God which was hidden from other times and generations, and was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets, which was also the wisdom of God before the advent of the Saviour, by which Solomon was wise; and that there is something more than Solomon, the discourse of the Saviour Himself teaches, when it says: "And behold, D more than Solomon is here." In which it is shown that those who were taught by the Saviour were taught something more than Solomon had known. For if someone should say that the Saviour indeed knew more, yet did not teach other more numerous things than Solomon, how will it be fitting, and consequently it will be thought that even that which He says in the subsequent verses is stated: "The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgment, and shall condemn the men of this generation, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, more than Solomon is here." There is, therefore, a wisdom of this world; there is also a wisdom belonging, perhaps, to the individual princes of this world. But concerning that one wisdom of God, we judge it to be indicated that it operated indeed less in the earlier and ancient times, but was revealed more fully and clearly through Christ. Truly, we shall inquire concerning the wisdom of God in its proper places.
2. Now, since there is at hand a treatise on the contrary powers, regarding how they also move those struggles by which false knowledge is inserted into human minds, and souls are seduced while they think they have found wisdom, I think it necessary to state and distinguish what the wisdom of this world is, and what the wisdom of the princes of this world is, so that through this we may be able to discern who are the fathers of this wisdom, nay rather, of these wisdoms. I believe, therefore, as we have said above, that the wisdom of this world is something other than those wisdoms which are of the princes of this world, through which wisdom those things are seen to be understood and comprehended which are of this world. Which, however, has nothing in itself, so that it might be able to [comprehend] anything either of the Divinity or of the reason of the world.
A For when the leaders of a heresy themselves first receive an error of false doctrine in place of truth, and have judged this to be the truth among themselves, then at last they try to persuade others also of the same things which they have deemed to be true among themselves; so it must be thought that the princes of this world also do, in which world certain spiritual virtues have received the principality of certain [(62)] nations, and for this reason have been called princes of this world. There are, moreover, other particular 144 certain [(63)] energies [(64)] of this world besides these princes, that is, certain spiritual virtues, working certain things which they themselves, according to the liberty of their own will, chose to perform; B from among whom are these princes who work the wisdom of this world, or [who work] concerning any higher matters, or concerning the institution of a good and happy life; but it is of such a nature, for example, as is every art, whether poetical, or grammatical, or rhetorical, or geometrical, or musical, with which perhaps medicine should also be counted. In all these, the wisdom of this world must be understood to exist. But we understand the wisdom of the princes of this world to be, for example, the secrets of the Egyptians, as they say, and their occult philosophy, and the astrology of the Chaldeans and of the Indians [(58)], who make promises concerning the knowledge of the Most High, but also the multiple and varied opinion of the Greeks concerning the Divinity. Therefore, in the holy Scriptures, we find that there are princes over individual nations, just as we read in Daniel of a certain prince of the kingdom of the Persians [(59)], and another prince of the kingdom of the Greeks, and that they are not men, but certain virtues, C is clearly shown by the consequence of the reading itself. But also in the prophet Ezekiel, the prince of Tyre is most manifestly designated as a certain spiritual virtue [(21)]. These, then, and others of this kind, each holding their own wisdoms and building up their own dogmas and varied opinions, when they saw our Lord and Savior promising and preaching that He had come into this world for this purpose, to destroy all those things which were dogmas of the knowledge falsely so-called, for fear that they might be inwardly covered, not knowing, they laid snares for Him: "For the kings of the earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and against His Christ [(22)]." When their snares were known, and those things which they had plotted against the Son of God were understood, when they crucified the Lord of glory, the Apostle says: "We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world who are coming to nothing, which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory [(23)]."
3. It should indeed be inquired whether these wisdoms of the princes of this world, with which they try to imbue men, are introduced to men by adverse virtues with a design of ensnaring and harming, or whether they are employed only for the sake of causing error; that is, not with the intention of harming a man, but because these princes of this world *themselves* judge these things to be true, and therefore desire to teach others also what they themselves think to be true [(61)]; which, indeed, I rather think. For just as, for example, authors of the Greeks, or any D of the princes of this world with which they try to imbue men, are introduced to men by opposing virtues with a design of ensnaring and harming, or whether they are employed only for the sake of error; that is, not with a view to harming a man, but because these princes of this world themselves judge these things to be true, and therefore desire to teach others what they themselves think to be true, for example, that there might be a certain proper energy and virtue, which might inspire poetry, another which might inspire geometry, and so each might urge on each of the individual arts and disciplines of this kind [(65)]. Finally, very many of the Greeks have opined that the poetic art cannot exist without madness: whence also it is related in their histories that those whom they call prophets were suddenly filled with the spirit of a certain madness. But what, then, is to be said of those also whom they call divine, by whom, through the inoperation [(66)] of the demons who rule over them, responses are produced in verses of artistic meter? But even those whom they call magi or malefics, with demons invited, have sometimes made those verses, by invoking the demons over boys who are still of tender age, to speak amazing and stupendous poems to everyone. These things must be thought to be done in this way, because just as holy and immaculate souls, if they have vowed themselves to God with all affection and all purity, and have kept themselves from all contagion of demons, and have purified themselves through much abstinence, and have been imbued with pious and religious disciplines [(67)], they acquire for this reason a participation in the Divinity, and deserve the grace of prophecy and of other divine gifts; so it must be thought that those also, who show themselves opportune to contrary virtues, that is, by industry of life, or by a study friendly and acceptable [(68)] to them, receive their inspiration, and become participants of their wisdom and doctrine. From which it comes about that they are filled with the inoperations of those whose service they first subjected themselves to. The rule of the Scriptures allows [it], and it is not idle to observe whether they are moved by an insidious design against the Christ—
Chapter IV - Concerning Human Temptations
A ...fable-like and impious dogmas have been fabricated by the contrary powers, while supporting their own faith; or if indeed, even having heard the word of Christ, being unable either to vomit it forth from the secrets of their own conscience or to retain it purely and holily, they have introduced various errors against the rule of the Christian truth through vessels that were opportune for them, and, so to speak, through their own prophets. And it is more to be thought that those apostate and fugitive powers, which have retreated from God, out of the very wickedness of their own mind and purpose, or out of envy toward those to whom the truth is known—from that rank from which they themselves have fallen—prepare ascents in order to hinder progressions of this kind, and fabricate these errors of false doctrine and deceptions.
Manifestly, therefore, and by many proofs it is demonstrated that the human soul, while it is in this body, can receive various energies, that is, operations of diverse spirits, both evil and good. And of the evil ones, there is a twofold species, that is, either when they possess the mind thoroughly and entirely, such that they do not permit those whom they have obsessed to understand or feel anything at all—as is the example of those whom the common people call possessed, whom we see to be mad and insane, such as those who are reported in the Gospel to have been cured by the Savior; or when they deprave the sensing and intelligent soul with various and sinister persuasions through an inimical suggestion: as for example is Judas, who was provoked to the crime of betrayal by the injection of the devil, just as the Scripture declares, saying: *“When the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot that he should betray him.”*
B But one receives the energy, that is, the operation, of good spirits when one is moved and provoked to good things, and is inspired to heavenly or divine things; just as holy angels and God himself has worked in the prophets, provoking and encouraging them with holy suggestions toward better things; so indeed that it might remain in the free will and judgment of man whether he wishes to follow or not follow the one prompting him toward heavenly and divine things. Hence, from this manifest discernment, it is known how the soul is moved by the presence of a better spirit, that is, if it incurs absolutely no confusion or alienation of mind from the imminent aspiration, and does not lose the free judgment of its own will; as are the examples of all the prophets or the apostles, who ministered to divine responses without any confusion of mind.
A Therefore, we have already taught in the preceding pages, when we made mention of Mordecai and Artaxerxes, that the human memory is provoked to the remembrance of better things by the suggestions of good spirits.
5. But this also, I think, should be consistently sought: from what causes the human soul is moved now by these, now by other virtues, toward different things. B Whose causes I suspect to be certain ones existing even before this corporeal birth, just as John denotes, bounding and exulting in the womb of his mother when the voice of the salutation of Mary reached the ears of Elizabeth his mother; and as Jeremiah the prophet declares, who before he was formed in his mother's womb was known to God, and before he proceeded from the womb was sanctified by him, and yet a child, he received the grace of prophecy.
145 And conversely, it is manifestly shown that some are possessed from the first stage of life, that is, some are born with the very demon, while others are declared by the faith of histories to have practiced divination from childhood. Others have suffered from the first age that which they call the Python, that is, a ventriloquist. For all these, by those who assert that all things in the world are governed by God's providence, as our faith also maintains, as it seems to me, no other answer can be given—so that providence may be demonstrated to be free from all blame of injustice—unless it is said that there were certain prior causes for them, by which, before they were born in the body, souls contracted some fault in their own senses or motions, for which they were judged by divine providence to suffer this deservedly. For the soul is always of free will, even when it is in this body, and even when it is outside the body; and the freedom of the will is shown to be always toward good, or toward evil.
A For it is also reasonable that rational sense—that is, the mind or the soul—can never exist without some movement, whether good or evil. It is probable that these movements supply the causes of merits even before they perform any act in this world, so that for these merits or causes, they may be dispensed, by divine providence, immediately from the first birth—nay, even before birth, if I may so say—to suffer or experience something either good or evil. And these things may be said of those which appear to happen to men either immediately from their first birth or even before they burst forth into this light. But regarding those things that are suggested to the soul—that is, to human thought—by various spirits, which provoke us either toward good or toward the contrary, sometimes indeed there must be thought to exist certain causes prior to bodily birth. At other times, however, the waking mind, casting off from itself things that are evil, invites the help of good spirits toward itself; or, on the contrary, being negligent and slothful, while it is less cautious, it gives a place to those spirits who, like thieves lying in wait in secret, strive to rush into human minds when they see a place given to them through sloth, as the apostle Peter says, for "our adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." For this reason, our heart must be guarded with all care day and night, and no place should be given to the devil; but all things must be done so that the ministers of God—those spirits, namely, who are called to the inheritance of salvation—may find a place in us, and may be pleased to enter the lodging of our soul, and, dwelling with us, may guide us with their counsels, if indeed they find the dwelling-place of our heart adorned with the cultivation of virtue and holiness. B But let these things, which have been discussed by us as far as our strength allows regarding those virtues which oppose the human race, be sufficient.
Chapter IV. Of human temptations.
1. Now I think we must not be silent even about those human temptations which sometimes arise from flesh and blood, or from the wisdom of the flesh and blood, which is said to be an enemy to God. And after we have set forth those temptations which are called more than human—that is, those which we wage against principalities and powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places, or those that are waged against us by malignant spirits and unclean demons—I think we must consequently inquire in this matter whether, in us men who consist of soul and body, there is also some other thing that has its own proper C motive and provocation to evil; just as a question is usually raised by some of this kind: whether we are to speak of two souls in us, one of which is more divine and heavenly, and the other inferior; or whether, from the very fact that we cling to bodies (which bodies, according to their own nature, are indeed dead and completely lifeless, because the material body is vivified from us—that is, from our souls—which is surely contrary and hostile to the spirit), we are drawn and provoked to these evils which are pleasing to the body; or whether it is a third thing, as some of the Greeks have supposed, namely, that our soul, while it is one in substance, consists nevertheless of several parts, and one part of it is called rational, but the other part irrational, and that this part which they call irrational is divided again into two affections: desire and irascibility. We find, therefore, that these three opinions about the soul, which we have mentioned above, are held by some. Of these, I do not see that the one which we have said seemed to some Greek philosophers—that the soul is tripartite—is very strongly confirmed by the authority of divine Scripture; D but regarding the other two, which remain, some things can be found which seem to be able to be adapted from the divine Scriptures. Some are accustomed to argue that there is in us one soul that is good and heavenly, and another that is inferior and earthly; and that the one which is better is infused from heaven, such as that which, when Jacob was still placed in the womb, gave the palm of victory to supplant his brother; and which is sanctified in Jeremiah from the womb, and filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb in John. But the other, inferior soul, which they say is from bodily seed, they assert is sown at the same time as the body; and therefore they deny that it can live or subsist apart from the body, for which reason they often say it is called "flesh." For they do not interpret what is written, "The flesh lusts against the spirit," as being said of the flesh, but of this soul which is properly the soul of the flesh. But they strive no less to confirm from these things what is written in Leviticus thus: "The life [soul] of all flesh is its blood." For from the fact that blood, diffused through the whole flesh, provides life to the flesh, they say that this soul, which is called the soul of all flesh, is present in the blood. But this very thing itself, that it is said that the flesh resists the spirit, and the spirit in turn the flesh; and that which is said: "The soul/life..."
A ...is by another name said by them to be called the wisdom of the flesh, which is a certain material spirit, which is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be subject, because it has earthly wills and bodily desires. About this they think that the Apostle also said that which he says: 'But I see another law in my members, resisting the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members' (Rom. VII, 23). If, however, anyone objects to them that this is said concerning the nature of the body, which truly indeed according to the propriety of its nature is dead, but is said to have a sense or wisdom which is hostile to God, or which resists the spirit, for this reason—as if one were to say in a certain way that this is the voice of the flesh itself, which cries out that it must not be hungry, must not be thirsty, must not be cold, and does not wish to suffer trouble in any way either from abundance or from penury—they will endeavor to resolve and refute these points by showing that there are very many other passions of the soul which in nothing at all draw their origin from the flesh, and yet the spirit resists these, such as ambition, avarice, emulation, envy, pride, and things like these. Since they see that there is a certain conflict between these and the human mind or spirit, they therefore posit as the cause of all these evils nothing else but this one that we spoke of above, like a corporeal B soul generated from the transmission of seed. They are also accustomed to bring forward for the assertion of these things that testimony of the Apostle as well, which says: 'But the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft (Gal. V, 19-21), enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, sects, envies, drunkenness, revellings, and such like,' saying that not all these draw their origin from the use or pleasure of the flesh, so that it might be thought that these movements exist from that substance which has no soul, which is to say, the flesh. But also that which he says: 'See, brothers, your calling, that not many among you are wise according to the flesh' (I Cor. I, 26); to this it will seem to be inclined, so that a certain proper carnal and material wisdom might appear to exist, while another is wisdom according to the spirit, which indeed cannot be called wisdom, unless there be a soul of the flesh, which is wise in that which is called the wisdom of the flesh. To these things they also say that: 'If the flesh resists the spirit, and the spirit resists the flesh (Gal. V, 17), so that we do not do those things that we will, which are those things of which he says that we do not do what we will?' It is certain, they say, that it is not said concerning the spirit: for the will of the spirit is not prohibited. But neither is it concerning the flesh, because if it does not have its own soul, without doubt it will have no will. It remains, therefore, that it is said concerning the will of this soul, which can have its own will, which indeed resists the will of the spirit. And if it is so, it is clear that the will of this soul is a certain mean between the flesh and the spirit, serving and obeying without doubt one of the two, whichever it has chosen to obey. When it has subjected itself to the delights of the flesh, it makes men carnal; but when it has joined itself to the spirit, it makes men to be in the spirit, and for this reason to be called spiritual. C This the Apostle seems to designate when he says: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit' (Rom. VIII, 9). It must be asked, therefore, what is entirely this very will between the flesh and the spirit, besides that will which is said to be of the flesh or of the spirit. For it is held for certain that whatever things are said to be of the spirit, the will is of the spirit; and whatever works are said to be of the flesh, the will is of the flesh. What, then, is this will of the soul, besides these, which is named outwardly, which the Apostle says we do not wish to do: 'So that you do not do those things that you will' (Gal. V, 17)? In which this seems to be designated, that it ought to adhere to neither of these two, that is, neither to the flesh nor to the spirit. But someone will say that, just as it is indeed better for the soul if it does its own will than that it do the will of the flesh; so again it is better to do the will of the spirit more than its own will. How, then, does the Apostle say: 'So that you do not do those things that you will'? Because in that battle which is waged between the flesh and the spirit, there is not altogether a certain victory for the spirit. For it is manifest that the flesh prevails in very many things. D 5. But since we have fallen into a deep dispute, in which it is necessary to discuss from each and every part that can be moved; let us see if by chance in this place such a thing can be treated, because just as it is better for the soul to follow the spirit, when the spirit has overcome the flesh, so also if it seems to it to be worse to follow the flesh when it is resisting...
A and desiring to recall the soul to itself, yet perhaps it may appear more useful for the soul to be obtained by the flesh than to reside in its own proper wills. For since it is said to be neither hot nor cold, but enduring in a certain lukewarm state, it might find a slow and sufficiently difficult conversion. But if it adheres to the flesh, through those very evils which it suffers from the vices of the flesh, being at some time satiated and filled, or fatigued as if by the heaviest burdens of luxury and lust, it can more easily and quickly be converted from material filth to the desire of heavenly and spiritual grace. And this is what we must consider the Apostle meant when he said that the spirit fights against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit, that we may not do whatever we wish, meaning undoubtedly those things which are determined against the will of the spirit and against the will of the flesh; as if we were to say in other words that it is better for a man to be either in virtue or in vice than in neither of these. But the soul, before it converts to the spirit and becomes one with it, while it adheres to the body and thinks of carnal things, seems to be neither in a good state B nor manifest in a bad one, but, if I may so speak, similar to an animal. But it is better that, if it is possible, adhering to the spirit, it should become spiritual. But if that is not possible, it is more expedient for it to follow even the malice of the flesh, than, placed in its own wills, to hold the state of an irrational animal. But we have discussed these things wishing to set forth the opinions of individual assertions, using a wider digression than we had intended, so that it might not be thought that those questions usually raised by those who inquire escape us, namely, whether there is another soul in us besides this heavenly and rational one, which naturally opposes it, and is called either flesh, or the wisdom of the flesh, or the soul of the flesh.
4. Now let us see what also is wont to be answered to these things by those who defend that there is one motion in us, and one life of one and the same soul, [324] to which, whether its salvation or perdition, according to its acts, is properly ascribed. And first let us see of what kind those passions of the mind are B which we suffer when we feel ourselves, as it were, drawn into parts within ourselves; when a certain struggle of thoughts occurs in our hearts, and certain likelihoods are suggested to us, by which we are now inclined to this, now to that, and by which we are now reproved, and now we embrace ourselves. Nor is it a great thing to say that evil minds have a varied and self-repugnant judgment, since it is found the same in all men, if at any time deliberation on an uncertain matter comes to a counsel, and it is foreseen or deliberated what ought to be chosen as more right or useful. It is no wonder, therefore, if two likelihoods, meeting each other and suggesting contrary things, drag the mind in different directions. For instance, if a thought invites someone to the faith and fear of God, then it cannot be said that the flesh fights against the spirit; but when it is uncertain what is true and useful, the mind is dragged in different directions. So also, when it is thought that the flesh is provoking to lust, but the better counsel resists such C incitements, it is not to be thought that there is some other life which resists the other, but [it is] the nature of the body, which, when filled, desires to empty the places of the vital humor and to flow forth; just as neither some opposing virtue, nor the life of another soul, is to be thought [to be that] which excites thirst in us and provokes [us] to drink, or which makes us hungry and irritates [us] to food. But just as these things are either sought or evacuated by the natural motions of the body, so also the natural humor of the seed, gathered for a time in its proper places, desires to be expelled and cast out: a thing which is not in the least caused by the impulse of any other provocation, to such an extent that it is sometimes wont to be discharged even spontaneously. When, therefore, it is said that "the flesh lusts against the spirit" [Gal. V, 17], these men interpret it thus: that the practice, or necessity, or delight of the flesh, by provoking man, draws and leads [him] away from divine and spiritual things. For because of the D necessity of the body, we are not allowed to be free for divine and eternally profitable things. So, in turn, the soul, being free from divine and spiritual things and joined to the spirit, is said to fight against the flesh, while it does not allow it to be dissolved in delights and to float in the pleasures in which it is naturally delighted. In this way also they assert what was said: "The wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God" [Rom. VIII, 7], not that the flesh truly has a soul or its own wisdom, but just as we are accustomed to say abusively that the earth is thirsty and wants to drink water—this which we call "wanting," we do not express properly, but abusively—just as if we were to say again that a house wants to be repaired, and many other things similar to these; so also the wisdom of the flesh is to be received, or what was said: "The flesh lusts against the spirit." They are also accustomed to add what was said: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground" [Gen. IV, 10]. For what is cried...
to the Lord; for that which was poured out is not strictly blood, but is said to cry out as blood A figuratively, while vengeance is demanded for the one who shed the blood. And as for what the Apostle says: "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind," they interpret this as if he had said that one who wishes to be free for the word of God is distracted, torn apart, and hindered by bodily needs and uses, which exist in the body like a certain law, so that he cannot, while free for wisdom, gaze more intently upon divine mysteries.
5. They also interpret those things written about heresies, envy, contentions, and the rest, to mean that when the soul has become thick of sense, from the fact that it subjects itself to the passions of the body, oppressed by the weights of vices, and perceiving nothing subtle or spiritual, it is said to have become flesh, and from that it draws its name, in which it bears more eagerness or purpose. They add also by inquiring into these things: who will be found, or who will be called the creator of this evil sense, which is called the sense of the flesh? Since they defend that no other creator of soul and flesh is to be believed than God. And if we say that God, who is good, created in his own condition something hostile to himself, it will certainly seem absurd. If, therefore, it is written that "the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God," and this is said to have been done from the creation, it will seem that God himself made a nature for himself that is hostile, which cannot be subject to him or to his law; for if it is thought to be an ensouled being, of which these things are said. But if it is accepted in this way, what will it now seem to differ from those who say that diverse natures of souls were created, which are naturally either to perish or to be saved? What, at any rate, pleases only those heretics who, while they cannot assert the justice of God by a pious argument, compose figments of such impiety. And we, for our part, as we have been able, have brought forward into our midst, according to the persons of each, what can be said in the manner of a disputation about each of the dogmas; but let the reader choose from these which argument is more to be embraced.
CHAPTER V. That the world began in time.
1. Since after these things one thing is held chiefly according to the faith of our history, that this world was made and began at a certain time, and according to B the consummation of the age promulgated to all, that it must be resolved for its corruption, it does not seem absurd to repeat a few things also about this. And as far as the faith of the Scriptures is concerned, the assertion about this seems very easy. Finally, although heretics are distracted in many other things, in this, however, they have been seen to agree by yielding to the authority of Scripture. Therefore, what other Scripture could better teach us about the condition of the world than that which was written by Moses concerning its origin? Which, although it may contain within itself things greater than the narrative of history seems to show, and contains a spiritual understanding in the highest matters, and uses a certain veil of the letter in mystical and profound things; yet nonetheless the discourse of the narrator indicates this, that all things which are seen were created from a certain time. Concerning the consummation of the world, Jacob first indicates this when he testifies to his sons, saying: "Gather yourselves together to me, O sons of Jacob, that I may announce to you what will be in the last days," or "after the last days." If, therefore, there are last days, or [there is a time] after the last days, it is necessary that the days which have begun should cease. David also says thus: "The heavens shall perish, but thou shalt remain, and they all shall grow old like a garment; and as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." Our Lord and Savior, however, when he says: "He who created from the beginning made them male and female," he testifies that the world was also made; and again saying that "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," he designates it as corruptible and to be ended. But also the Apostle, saying: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God," C manifests that he declares the end of the world; and when he says again: "The fashion of this world shall pass away." But in that very fact that he said that the creature was made subject to vanity, he also shows its beginning; for if the creature was made subject to vanity on account of some hope, it was surely subjected for a cause; and that which is for a cause, it is necessary that it should have begun; for the creature could not have been subject to vanity without any beginning, and hope to be delivered from the servitude of corruption which it had not begun to serve. But also one will find very many other sayings of this kind in the divine Scriptures if he searches. D
2. If, therefore, there is anyone who opposes this or the authority of our Scripture, or our faith, we shall question him whether he says that God is able to comprehend all things, or is not able? And indeed to say that He is not able is manifestly impious. But if he says, as he must, that He comprehends all things, it remains that by that very fact—that they can be comprehended—they must also be understood to have a beginning and an end. For that which is entirely without any beginning at all cannot be comprehended at all. For to whatever extent A the intellect extends itself, to that extent the faculty of comprehending is withdrawn and deferred without end, where there is no beginning.
3. But it is customary for men to object to us, saying: "If the world began in time, what was God doing before the world began?" For to call the nature of God idle and immobile is impious as well as absurd, or to think that goodness at some time did not do good, and omnipotence did not exert power. Men who say that this world began at a certain time B and who calculate the years of its age according to the faith of Scripture are accustomed to object this to us. To these objections I do not think any of the heretics can easily answer according to the reason of their dogma. We, however, shall answer accordingly, observing the rule of piety, and saying that it is not the case that God only then began to work when He made this visible world, but just as after the corruption of this world there will be another, so too before this one existed, we believe there were others. And both facts will be confirmed C by the authority of divine Scripture. For that there will be another world after this one, Isaiah teaches, saying: "There shall be a new heaven and a new earth, which I make to remain in my sight." And that there were also others before this world, Ecclesiastes shows, saying: "What is it that has been made? The same thing as that which will be. And what is it that has been created? This same thing as that which is to be created, and there is nothing at all new under the sun. But who will speak and say, Behold, this is new? D It has already been in the ages that were before us." By these testimonies it is proven both at once, that ages existed before, and that others will follow afterward. However, one should not think that several worlds exist at the same time, but that after this one, the beginning of others will follow; concerning which it is not now necessary to speak in detail, since we have already done so in the preceding pages.
4. It is indeed not idle to think that the holy Scriptures have called the condition of the world by a new and proper name, saying *katabolē* of the world, which they have called *constitutio mundi* in Latin, though translated inaccurately; for *katabolē* in Greek actually signifies "to cast down," that is, to throw downward, which (as we have said) they have inaccurately interpreted as "constitution of the world," just as in the Gospel according to John when the Savior says: "And there shall be tribulation in those days such as has not been from the *constitutio mundi*," here *constitutio* is what was spoken as *katabolē*: which is to be understood in the way we explained above. And the Apostle also in the Epistle to the Ephesians used the same expression when he says: "Who chose us before the *mundi constitutio*," and here he said *katabolē* of the world, to be understood in the same sense as we interpreted above. Therefore, it seems worthy to inquire what it is that is indicated by this new term: and I think, since indeed the end and the consummation of the saints will be in those things which are not seen and are eternal, that from the contemplation of his own end...
those rational beings inhabiting that realm, A before they descended to the lower places and migrated from the invisible to the visible, and, falling, stood in need of gross bodies for the earth, were enjoying their ancient blessedness. Whence the Creator God made for them bodies suitable to the lowly places, and fashioned this visible world, and sent into the world ministers for the salvation and correction of those who had fallen; of whom some obtained specific locations and obeyed the necessities of the world, while others, with a diligent mind, carried out the duties enjoined upon them, each at the times known to God, the Artificer. And from these the sun, the moon, and the stars, which by the Apostle are called "creature," received the more sublime places of the world. Which creature was made subject to vanity in that it is surrounded by gross bodies and is manifest to sight; and yet it was not subjected to vanity of its own will, but because of the will of him who subjected it in hope. And again: "But others in individual places and times, which the Artificer alone knows, serve the government of the world, whom we believe to be angels." And a little further on: "Whom the Providence of the whole world rules, while some powers fall from the more sublime heights, B others little by little slip down to the earth; these descend voluntarily, others are precipitated against their will; these undertake ministries to reach out to those falling, that they might offer assistance; those are compelled, though ungrateful, to persevere for so long a time in the office they have received. And again: From which it follows that, on account of various movements, various things are created, and after this world which we inhabit, another world much different is made. And no other being, through diverse events and advancements, and either rewards of virtues or punishments of vices, both in the present and in the future, and in all things both back and forth, and in earlier times, can dispense merits, and draw all things back again to one end, except God alone, the Creator of all, who knows the causes for which he permits some to gratify their own will, and to slip down from the greater to the last, and others he begins to visit, and by degrees, as if by a hand reached out, to drag them back to their prior state, and place them in the heights. C And they fulfilled their offices in this world, which God, the Artificer of all, alone knows. Truly, however, such and so great must he be considered to have been made, this world, which might either receive all those souls which are ordained in this world to be exercised, or all those virtues which are prepared to be present to them, and to dispense them, and to help them. For that all rational creatures are of one nature is proven by many assertions; by which solely the justice of God can be defended in all their dispensations, while each one within itself has the causes for which it has been placed in this or that order of life.
5. This disposition of God, therefore, which he later ordained, already then from the origin of the world, when the reasons and causes of those who either deserved to come into bodies on account of a defect of mind, or of those who were snatched by the desire for visible things, but also of those who, whether willing or unwilling, were compelled to perform certain duties for those who had fallen into this state, by Him who subjected them in hope, were foreseen—some, not understanding and not noticing that this variety of disposition had been instituted by God from the preceding causes of free will, have thought that all things which happen in this world are moved either by fortuitous movements or by fatal necessity, and that there is nothing in our own choosing. Whence they could not assign an irreproachable providence to God.
6. But as we have said, that all the souls which have lived in this world needed many, or few, or rulers, or helpers: so in the final times, when the end to the world was already pressing near, and the whole human race was verging toward final perdition, for those who were weakened—not only those who were being ruled, but also those to whom the concern of ruling had been committed—there was no longer need of such aid, nor of such defenders like themselves, but
rather they implored the help of their own Author and Creator, who might restore the corrupt and profane discipline of both those who were being ruled and those who were doing the ruling. Hence the only-begotten Son of God, who was the Word and Wisdom of the Father, when He was in that glory with the Father which He had before the world was, emptied A Himself, taking the form of a servant, and was made obedient even to death, that He might teach obedience to those who could not otherwise attain salvation except through obedience; and He also restored the corrupt laws of ruling and reigning, while He subjected all enemies under His feet, that by this—since it is necessary that He reign until He puts His enemies under His feet and destroys the last enemy, death—He might teach the rulers themselves the manner of ruling. Since, therefore, He had come not only to restore the discipline of ruling or reigning B (29), but also of obeying, as we have said, fulfilling in His own person first what He wished to be fulfilled by others, therefore He was made obedient to the Father not only until the death of the cross, but even in the consummation of the age, gathering into Himself all whom He subjects to the Father and who come to salvation through Him, he is said also to be subjected to the Father together with them and in them: while all things remain in Him, and He is the head of all, and in Him is the fullness of those who obtain salvation (30). This therefore is what the Apostle says of Him: *When all things shall have been subjected to Him, then shall the Son Himself also be subject to Him who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all* (I Cor. xv, 28).
7. But I do not know how heretics (31) do not understand the sense of the Apostle which is contained in these words, and slander the name of subjection in the Son; for if one asks for the proper meaning of this term, it can easily be discovered from its opposites. For if to be subject is not good, it remains that what is contrary to it is good, that is, not to be subject. For the argument of the Apostle, according to what they wish, seems to show this, when he says: *But when all things shall have been subjected to Him, then shall the Son Himself also be subject to Him who subjected all things to Him,* as if He who is not now subject to the Father will be subject then, when the Father has first subjected all things to Him. But I wonder how this can be understood, that He who is not Himself subject while all things are not yet subjected to Him, will then, when all things have been subjected to Him, be subject to the Father, A and will have held power over all things, then they think He must be subjected, when He was not subject before; not understanding that the subjection of Christ to the Father shows the blessedness of our perfection, and declares the palm of the work undertaken by Him, when He offers to the Father the institutions of the human race, not only corrected and repaired regarding the sum of ruling and reigning which He amended in the whole of creation, but also regarding obedience and subjection (32). If therefore that subjection is accepted as good and salutary, by which the Son is said to be subject to the Father (35), it is highly consequent and consistent that the subjection of the enemies which is said to be to the Son of God, should be understood as something salutary and useful; so that just as when the Son is said to be subject to the Father, the perfect restoration of the whole creation is declared, so when the enemies are said to be subjected to the Son of God (34), the salvation and reparation of the lost of those who are subjected is understood in Him.
8. But this subjection will be completed in certain ways and modes and at certain times; not by any necessity compelling them to subjection, lest the whole world be made subject to God by force, but by the Word, by reason, by doctrine, by the provocation of better things, by excellent institutions, and also by worthy and competent threats, which justly hang over those who contemn the care and health of their own salvation and utility. Finally, when we men educate either slaves or children, while they are still incapable of reason through their age (35), we coerce them with fears and threats; but when they have come to the understanding of what is good, useful, and honest, then, with the fear of stripes ceasing, they agree, persuaded by word and reason, to all that is good. How, however, the freedom of the will C being preserved in all rational creatures, each one ought to be dealt with—that is, whom the Word of God may find and teach as if already prepared and capable, whom it may meanwhile defer, from whom it may truly be hidden entirely, and whose hearing it may move far away from itself, and whom, again, it may urge to salvation by certain corrections and punishments brought upon them, and in some way demand and extort their conversion; and to whom also it may present certain occasions of salvation, so that sometimes even from a response alone, the faith being proved
undeniable salvation, or from what causes or occasions these things happen, or what the divine wisdom looks into in these matters, or what movements of their purpose it sees when it dispenses all these things, is known to God alone and to his Only-Begotten, through whom all things were created and restored, and to the Holy Spirit through whom all things are sanctified, who proceeds from the Father himself, to whom be glory for everlasting ages. Amen.
CAPUT VI. Of the consummation of the world.
1. Concerning the end of the world and the consummation of all things, we have already discoursed to the best of our ability in the preceding books, according as the authority of the divine Scriptures has permitted, which we think to be sufficient for instruction, though we offer a few further admonitions now, since the order A of our inquiry has led us to this place. Therefore, the supreme good to which all rational nature hastens, which is also said to be the end of all things, is defined by very many of the philosophers in this way: that the supreme good is, as far as possible, to be made like unto God. But I think this is not so much an invention of theirs as something they have assumed from the divine books. For Moses indicates this before all others, when he narrates the first condition of man, saying: "And God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness." Then he adds: "And God made man, in the image of God he made him, male and female he made them, and he blessed them." This, therefore, which he said, "in the image of God he made him," and was silent about the B likeness, indicates nothing else but that [man] received the dignity of the image in his first condition; but the perfection of the likeness is reserved for the consummation; namely, that he should acquire it for himself by the efforts of his own industry through the imitation of God, with the possibility of perfection given to him in his beginnings through the dignity of the image, until finally, at the end, he might consummate for himself the perfect likeness through the fulfillment of his works. But the apostle John states that these things are so more openly and evidently, pronouncing in this way: "Little children, we do not yet know what we shall be; but if it is revealed to us concerning the Savior, you will say without doubt, We shall be like him." By which he most certainly indicates both the end of all things, which he says is still unknown to him, and the likeness of God which is to be obtained, which will be provided according to the perfection of merits. The Lord himself also in the Gospel signifies these same things C not only as future, but also as future through his own intercession, while he himself deigns to obtain this from the Father for his disciples, saying: "Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me; and as I and thou are one, so they also may be one in us." In which it is now seen that the very likeness, if it can be said, is progressing, and from a likeness is already becoming a unity, for the reason, without doubt, that in the consummation or end, God is all in all.
In which it is inquired by some, if the nature of a corporeal substance, even if purged and made entirely spiritual, does not seem to stand in the way of either the dignity of the likeness or the property of unity; because the divine nature, which is certainly incorporeal, would seem to be unable to be called a corporeal nature, nor can it be truly and worthily D designated as one with it, especially since the truth of the faith teaches that what is one is the Son with the Father, which is to be referred to the property of nature.
INTERPRETATION OF ST. JEROME
Because, as we have already said frequently, the beginning is again generated from the end, it is questioned whether at that time bodies will exist, or whether life is to be lived without bodies, since they will have been reduced to nothing; and [whether] the life of incorporeal beings should be believed to be incorporeal, such as we know God to be. Nor is it doubtful that if all bodies pertain to this sensible world, which are called visible by the Apostle, the life of incorporeal beings will be incorporeal.And a little later: That which is said by the same Apostle: "Every creature will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God," we understand in such a way that we say the primary creature of rational and incorporeal beings is one that does not serve corruption, because it is not clothed with bodies; and wherever bodies are, corruption immediately follows. But afterwards [that creation] will be freed from the servitude of corruption when they have received the glory of the children of God, and God shall be all in all.
And in the same place: That we may believe that the end of all things is incorporeal, that prayer of the Savior invites us in which he says: "That as I and thou are one, so they also may be one in us." For we ought to know what God is, and what the Savior is to be in the end; and how the likeness of the Father and the Son is promised in the saints; [and] that as those are one in themselves, so these may be one in them. For either we must accept that the God of the universe is clothed in a body, and that, as we are surrounded by flesh, so he is surrounded by some matter, *so that* the likeness of the life of God can be equaled in the end by the saints; or if this is indecent, especially among...
those who desire even in the smallest degree to perceive God A and to suspect the glory of the ingenerate and all-transcending nature; we are compelled to accept one of two things: either that we should despair of the likeness of God, if we are to have the same bodies forever, or, if the blessedness of the same life with God is promised to us, we must live under the same condition by which God lives. 2. But when it is promised that in the end God will be all things and in all things, just as is consequent © , it must not be thought that animals, or cattle, or beasts, come to that end, so that God should be designated as being in animals, or cattle, or beasts; nor even that God is said to be in woods or stones. For this reason, not even a single trace of malice A must be thought to arrive at that end, lest, while God is said to be in all things, He should also be said to be in some vessel of malice. For even if we say that God is now everywhere and in all things, on the ground that nothing can be empty of God, yet we do not say that He is "all things" in those in which He is. Hence it must be more carefully observed what this phrase is that signifies the perfection of blessedness and the end of all things: that God is said to be not only "in all things" B but also "all things in all things." Let us therefore inquire what these "all things" are that God is to be in all things.
*New Version.* But when it is said that God becomes all things in all things, just as we cannot assert wickedness, so neither does God become all things in all things, nor that which is brute, lest God should also be in malice and in brute animals; but neither does He become that which is inanimate, lest He should also be in those things, when He becomes all things. So neither does He become that which bodies are, which by their own nature are inanimate.
For God is said to be "all things in all things," so that it signifies that in each one He is all things. But to each one He will be all things in this way, that whatever the rational mind, purged of the dregs of all vices and completely cleansed of every cloud of malice, can perceive, understand, or think, God is all things, and it sees nothing else beyond God, nor holds onto anything but God; the mode and measure of its every movement is God; and thus God will be all things. For there will no longer be any distinction between good and evil, because nowhere will there be evil; for all things are God, to whom evil no longer attaches; nor will it any longer desire to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for it is always in the good, and for it, God is all things. Thus, therefore, the end being repaired to the beginning, and the outcome of things being brought to the start, He will restore that state which the rational nature held at that time when it did not need to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; so that all sense of malice having been removed, and it having been cleansed to that which is sincere and pure, He alone who is the one good God becomes all things to it, and not in a few things or in more, but in all things He Himself is all things A. When now there is nowhere death, nowhere the sting of death, nowhere any evil at all, then truly will God be all in all.
Verily B this perfection and blessedness of rational creatures, or natures, is such that some think they remain in the same state which we have described above, that is, that they have God as their all, and God is all to them, if only the association of bodily nature does not remove them. Otherwise, they think that the glory of the highest blessedness is hindered if an admixture of material substance intervenes. Concerning which matter we have spoken more fully C in... [D (text continues below)]
Interpret. Hieronymi
There is no doubt that after certain intervals of time, matter again subsists, and bodies are made, and the diversity of the world is constructed on account of the various wills of rational creatures who, after perfect blessedness, having gradually slid down to lower things until the end of all things, received such malice that they were turned to the contrary, since they did not want to preserve their beginning and possess incorrupt blessedness.A Furthermore, it should not be ignored that many rational creatures serve the beginning of the Third and Fourth world, and afford no place for change within themselves; but others will be so little destined to lose their pristine state that they appear to have lost almost nothing, while some, through a great fall, are to be cast down into the ultimate abyss. And God, the dispenser of all things, knows how to use individual things in the conditioning of worlds according to their merit and the opportunities and causes by which the world's governance is sustained and initiated; so that he who has conquered all by malice, and has utterly leveled himself with the earth, may become the devil in another world that is to be fashioned thereafter—the beginning of the Lord’s workmanship—so that he may be mocked by the angels who have lost the virtue of their origin.
4. But now, since we find a mention of a spiritual body in the Apostle, let us seek only, to the extent we can, how we should also conceive of this. As far as our sense can grasp, we feel that the quality of a spiritual body is of such a nature that it is suitable for not only holy and perfect souls to inhabit, but also all that creation which shall be liberated from the servitude of corruption. Regarding the body, the Apostle also said: “We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (II Cor. v, 1), that is, in the mansions of the blessed. From this, therefore, we can conjecture how great in purity, how great in subtilty, and how great in glory the quality of that body is, if we make a comparison of it to those things which now—though they be celestial and most splendid bodies—are nevertheless “made with hands” and are visible. But of the former it is said that the house is “not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens.” Since, therefore, “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (II Cor. iv, 18), that which is neither visible nor made with hands, but is eternal, excels by a very long measure all these bodies which we see either on earth or in the heavens, and which can be seen and were made with hands, and are not eternal. From which comparison it can be conjectured how great the grace, how great the splendor, how great the brilliance of the spiritual body is; and that it is true which has been said: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor. ii, 9). Nor should it be doubted that the nature of this body of ours, by the will of God who fashioned it such, can be led by the Creator to that quality of a most subtle, most pure, and most splendid body, as the state and merit of the rational nature shall require. Indeed, when the world stood in need of variety and diversity, it offered itself with every service to the Creator through diverse aspects and species of things, just as to its Lord and Creator, that He might draw from it diverse forms of celestial and terrestrial things. But when things begin to hasten toward that end, that all may be one, just as the Father with the Son is one, it is consequently given to be understood that where all are one, there will no longer be diversity.
5. Therefore, even the “last enemy” (53), who is called death, is said to be destroyed, so that there may no longer be anything sad where death is not, nor anything adverse where there is no enemy. Truly, the last enemy is to be understood as destroyed not in such a way that his substance, which was made by God, should perish, but that the hostile purpose and will, which proceeded not from God but from himself, should perish. He will be destroyed, therefore, not so that he may not exist, but so that death and the enemy may not exist. For nothing is impossible to the Almighty, nor is anything incurable to its Maker; for He made all things so that they might exist, and things that were made so that they might exist cannot but exist. On account of this, they will indeed receive change and variety, so that they may be held in a state either better or worse according to their merits; but substantial destruction those things which were made by God so that they might exist and endure cannot receive. For the things which are believed by the opinion of the masses to perish do not straightway consent to perish by any logic of faith or truth. Finally, our flesh is thought by the unlearned and infidels to perish so utterly after death that nothing of its substance is believed to remain. But we (54), who believe in its resurrection, understand that only a change is wrought by death, but we are certain that its substance remains, and by the will of its Creator and at a fixed time is again restored to life, and that its permutation occurs again, so that that which was first flesh from the earthly earth, then dissolved by death, and again made ash and earth—"For dust you are," it says, "and to dust you shall return" (Gen. iii, 19)—is again resurrected from the earth, and after this, according to what the merit of the indwelling soul shall require, proceeds into the glory of a spiritual body.
6. To this state, therefore, it is to be thought that all our corporal substance is to be led, when all things are restored, that they may be one, and when God shall be all in all. Which, however (55), is understood to come to pass not suddenly, but little by little and by degrees, through the passing of infinite and immense ages.
A as the amendment and correction is carried out bit by bit and person by person, with some outstripping others and tending toward the heights with a swifter course, while others follow at a space close behind, and then others again further behind; and so, through the many and countless orders of those advancing and reconciling themselves to God from their state as enemies, one arrives even at the last enemy that is called death, that even he may be destroyed so that he is an enemy no longer.
When, therefore, all reasonable souls have been restored to a state of this kind, then the nature of this body of ours will also be brought to the glory of a spiritual body. For just as we see regarding reasonable natures that it is not the case that there are some who have lived in indignity on account of sins and others who have been invited to blessedness on account of their merits, but rather that we see these very same ones who had previously been sinners transformed and reconciled to God and recalled to blessedness; so too must it be thought regarding the nature of the body, that it is not the case that there is one body which we now use in ignominy and in corruption and in infirmity, and another that will be that which we shall use in incorruption, and in virtue, and in glory; but this same body, once those infirmities in which it now exists have been cast off, will be transmuted into glory as a spiritual effect, so that what was a vessel of indignity may itself, once purged, become a vessel of honor and a dwelling-place of blessedness.
In which state it is also to be believed that it will remain forever and immutably by the will of the Creator, with the conviction of the Apostle confirming the faith of the matter, saying: "We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." For the faith of the Church does not accept, as some of the Greek philosophers do, that beyond this body which is composed of four elements there is another fifth body which is in every respect different and distinct from this body of ours; since one can neither adduce any suspicion of these things from the holy Scriptures, nor does the very consequence of things allow them to be accepted, especially since the holy Apostle defines clearly that it is not the case that some new bodies are given to those rising from the dead, but that they receive these very ones which they had while living, transformed from worse to better. For he says: "It is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body; it is sown in corruption, B it rises in incorruption; it is sown in infirmity, it rises in virtue; it is sown in ignominy, it rises in glory."
As, therefore, a certain progress exists for man, so that when he is first an animal man, and does not understand the things that are of the Spirit of God, he comes through instruction to this, so that he may be made spiritual, and may judge all things, while he himself is judged by no one; so also is it to be thought regarding the state of the body, that the very same body which is now called animal from its service to the soul, through a certain progress, when the soul has been joined to God and made one spirit with Him, will then advance into a spiritual state and quality, especially since, as we have often shown, such a corporeal nature was made by the Creator that it easily follows in whatever quality He might will, or the circumstances might demand.
7. This reasoning, therefore, contains this: that God created two general natures, a visible nature, that is, a corporeal one, and an invisible nature, which is incorporeal. These two natures, however, receive their various permutations. Indeed, that invisible nature which is reasonable is changed by purpose and resolve because it has been endowed with the freedom of its own will; and through this it is found at one time in good, at another time in the contrary. But this corporeal nature receives a substantial permutation; whence also, for everything that the Artificer of all, God, might wish to devise, or to construct, or to alter, the matter of this has in all things a servitude, so that whatever forms or species He wishes, as the merits of things demand, He may transmute and transfer the corporeal nature. Which the prophet designating clearly says: "God who makes all things and transmutes them."
8. Surely this must be asked: if then God shall be all in all, in the consummation of all things, the whole corporeal nature will consist in one species, and every quality of the body will be that one alone which will shine in that ineffable glory, which is to be understood as being that of a future spiritual body. For if we understand rightly what Moses writes at the beginning of his book, saying: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." For this is the beginning of the whole of creation; it is to this beginning that the end and consummation of all things must be recalled: that is, that that heaven and that earth may be the dwelling and rest of the righteous; so that first all the holy and meek may take possession of the inheritance of that earth, since this is what even the law, and the prophets, and the Gospel teach. In which earth I think exist those true and living forms of that observance which Moses was transmitting through the shadow of the law. Regarding which it was said that they serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things; these, namely, who were serving in the law. But it was also said to Moses himself: "See that you make all things C according to the form and similitude which was shown to you on the mount." Whence it seems to me that as in D
this earth, the law was a certain schoolmaster for those who were to be led by it to Christ, being educated and instructed by it so that they might more easily be able, after the instruction of the law, to receive those more perfect institutions of Christ; so also, another earth, receiving all the saints, may first imbue and inform them with the institutions of the true and eternal law, so that they might more easily also obtain the institutions of heaven, when they are perfected and to which nothing more can now be added; in which will truly be that which is called the eternal Gospel, and the Testament that is ever new, which will never grow old.
9. In this way, therefore, at the consummation of all things, it is to be thought that, gradually progressing and ascending in mode and order, they arrive first at that land, and at the instruction which is therein, in which they are prepared for better things, and for those institutions to which nothing more can now be added. For after the agents and procurators, Christ the Lord, who is King of all, A will receive the kingdom; that is, after the instruction of the holy virtues, He himself shall instruct those who are able to receive Him according as He is wisdom, reigning in them so long as until He may also subject them to the Father who hath subjected all things to Himself, that is, that when they have become capable of the things of God, God may be all things in all. (63) Therefore, consequently, even the nature of the body, that supreme being, to which nothing more can now be added, will receive its condition. Thus far we have discussed the reason of the corporeal or spiritual nature, and we leave it, at the choice of the reader, to choose from both which he shall have judged to be better (64). We, however, reach the end of our third book here. B
That the Scriptures are divinely inspired.
1. Truly, because in such great and such matters it does not suffice to commit the sum of the thing to human senses and common understanding and, if I may so say, to pronounce visibly concerning invisible things, we must assume as testimony for the confirmation of these things which we say, the testimonies of the divine Scriptures. Which testimonies, that they may provide certain and indubitable faith—whether in those things which are to be said by us, or those which have already been said—it seems necessary first to show that the Scriptures themselves are divine, that is, inspired by the Spirit of God (67). Therefore, as briefly as we can, let us also— C
NEW INTERPRETATION. Scripture Divinely Inspired: How this is to be read and understood. What is the reason for the obscurity in it. Why some things in it are according to the letter impossible or alien to reason.
1. Since, in the investigation of such great matters, we are not content with common notions and the evidence of those things which fall under the eyes, we assume testimonies—both from that which is called the Old, and from that which is called the New Testament—from the Scriptures which we believe to be divine, in order to prove those things which we say, and then we strive to confirm our own faith by reason; but not yet have we discussed the Scriptures as divine: come, let us also dispute briefly and summarily concerning these matters, proposing those things which move us to [believe] those things for the divine letters D
And first of all, it must be determined regarding those things which are made clear from the scriptures themselves and the things indicated within them, A concerning Moses and Jesus Christ, the legislator of the Hebrews and the initiator of the saving dogmas according to Christianity. For although there have been very many legislators among the Greeks and barbarians, and teachers proclaiming dogmas while promising [to reveal] the truth, we have not heard of any legislator who was able to inspire a zeal in other nations to accept his teachings. B Indeed, although those who profess to philosophize about truth have brought forth much preparation, along with a seemingly logical demonstration, none has been able to instill the truth considered to be his own into different nations, or even into significant multitudes of a single nation. And yet those legislators would have wished, if it were possible, to establish the laws that appeared to them to be good among the entire human race; and the teachers would have wished for the truth which they imagined to be disseminated everywhere throughout the inhabited world. But as those who were unable to invite people from different languages and many nations to the observance of their laws and the acceptance of their doctrines, they did not even attempt to do this from the beginning, not unadvisedly considering that it was impossible for them to achieve such a result. C But all Greece and the barbarian world throughout our inhabited earth have myriad zealots who have abandoned their ancestral laws and the gods they once considered such, for the observance of the laws of Moses and the discipleship of the words of Jesus Christ; and this, despite being hated by those who worship idols—both those who attach themselves to the law of Moses, and even risking the penalty of death, in addition to being hated, are those who have received the word of Jesus Christ.
NEW INTERPRETATION
Let us have this. But before we produce testimonies from the Scriptures themselves and from those things which are declared in them concerning Moses and Jesus Christ—of whom the one is the legislator of the Hebrews, and the other the author of the saving documents of the Christian religion—these things must be said by us. For although there have been very many legislators among the Greeks and barbarians, and likewise teachers who promised in their precepts the knowledge of the truth, we have not learned of any legislator who was able to generate in other nations a zeal for accepting their laws. And although philosophers came forward with much apparatus of demonstrations, which seemed to be drawn from reason and possessed much probability, there was no one among them who could persuade diverse peoples, or even the significant multitude of a single nation, of the truth he had proven to himself. And yet legislators and teachers would have dearly wished that the whole human race, if it could be done, should be subject to the laws they thought were good, and that the truth which they had conceived in their minds should be disseminated everywhere throughout the earth; but as they were not fit to lead men of another language and many nations to the observance of their laws and to the adoption of their discipline, they did not even attempt to effect this, for they had prudently foreseen that they could in no way attain it. But all Greece, and likewise the barbarian world which extends throughout our earth, has innumerable people who, having abandoned their ancestral laws and received gods, keep the Mosaic laws and the discipline of the words of Jesus Christ with the greatest zeal, although those who adhere to the Mosaic law are an object of hatred to the worshippers of idols, and those who have accepted the doctrine of Jesus Christ are exposed to the danger of their lives, in addition to this hatred.A And if we consider how, in very few years, the word has been able to be preached throughout the whole inhabited world—even though the teachers are not numerous—among those who are plotting against Christianity, and among those who are being put to death for this reason, and others who are losing their possessions, so that Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, have attached themselves to the piety toward God through Jesus; we do not hesitate to say that this matter is greater than human. For Jesus Himself taught with all authority and persuasiveness that His word would not be overcome; so that one might reasonably consider His pronouncements as oracles, such as that: "You will be brought before kings and governors for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations." And: "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not eat in Your name, and drink in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons?' And I will say to them, 'Depart from Me, you who work iniquity; I never knew you.'" For indeed, if He had said these things in vain, so that they would not come to pass as true, it might perhaps have been probable; but since what was spoken with such authority has come to pass, it manifests that God truly became man and delivered saving doctrines to men. B
What must we also say regarding the fact that it was prophesied D that Christ would then cause the princes and leaders from the seed of Judah to fail, when He to whom it pertains—that is, the kingdom—shall come, and the expectation of the nations shall arrive? For it is clearly evident from history, and from what is seen today, that from the times of Jesus there have no longer been kings of the Jews. All those Jewish matters in which they prided themselves—I mean those concerning the temple, and the altar, and the worship performed, and the vestments of the high priest—these have been abolished.
NEW INTERPRETATION
Christianos, some of whom have been killed, and others fined of their goods, [concerning how] this doctrine has been able to be preached everywhere in the world—although there is not otherwise a great abundance of teachers—so that Greeks and barbarians, the wise and the foolish, have joined themselves to the worship of God through Jesus Christ, we will not hesitate to say that it is a matter greater than human strength, especially since Christ taught with supreme power and confidence that His doctrine would never be overcome. Therefore, His words are rightly to be held as oracles, such as these: "You will be led before kings and governors for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations." And: "Many will say to Me in that day: 'Lord, Lord, did we not eat in Your name, and in Your name drink, and in Your name cast out demons?' And I will say to them: 'Depart from Me, you who practice iniquity. I have never known you.'" For if these things had been spoken rashly, and consequently were not true, it might perhaps have once seemed likely; but since those things which had been spoken with such authority have subsequently come to pass, it is evident that God truly became man and delivered a saving doctrine to men. C3. As for what concerns the prophecy that Christ would be [the end of the line], that is, that the princes from the seed of Judah would cease, when He to whom it belongs—that is, the kingdom—had come, and the expectation of the nations had appeared.
For the prophecy has been fulfilled which said, A “For many days the children of Israel shall sit, there being no king, nor ruler, nor sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood, nor manifestations.” We use these scriptural testimonies against those who appear to assert regarding those things spoken by Jacob in Genesis to Judah, that they were said of Judah; and they say that a prince from the lineage of Judah still remains, namely this person who is the prince of their nation, whom they call the patriarch, and that those from his seed cannot fail, who remain until the advent of that Christ whom they themselves describe. But if it is true, as the prophet says, that “for many days the children of Israel shall sit, there being no king, nor prince, nor sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood,” and certainly since the temple was overthrown, no sacrifices are brought forth, nor is any altar found, nor does a priesthood exist, it is most certain that the princes from Judah have failed, just as it is written, “and a leader from his loins, until He comes B to whom it is reserved.” It is certain, therefore, that He has come to whom it is reserved, in whom is the expectation of the nations. Which is manifestly seen to be fulfilled by the multitude of those who, through Christ, have believed in God from diverse nations.
4. And in the canticle of Deuteronomy, it is prophetically declared regarding the sins of the former people that there would be a future election of an unwise nation, which occurred through no other than Jesus; for thus it says: “They have provoked me with their idols, and I will provoke them with a nation that is not a nation, and with an unwise nation I will provoke them.” It is therefore possible to recognize quite evidently in what way the Hebrews, who are said to have provoked God C in those things which are not gods, and to have irritated Him with their idols, have themselves been provoked to jealousy by [alt-version omitted]
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by that which is not a nation? For from history and from those things which are seen today, it is manifest that since the times of Christ no kings of the Jews have existed, when all things Jewish in which they gloried were broken and dissipated, namely the temple, the altar, the customary rite of divine worship, and the vestments of the priest. Indeed, the prophecy is fulfilled which says: “For many days the children of Israel shall sit without a king, without a prince, without sacrifice, without an altar, without priesthood, without manifestations.” We use these words against those who, while being pressed by those things which were spoken in Genesis by Jacob to Judah, assert that there remains even now a prince from the lineage of Judah who dominates over the people, and that leaders would not be lacking from his seed until that advent of Christ which they imagine in their minds. For if “for many days D the children of Israel shall sit without a king, without a prince, without sacrifice, without an altar, without priesthood, without manifestations,” and since the time the temple was overturned, there is no sacrifice, no altar, no priesthood, it is clear that the prince from Judah and the leader from his thigh have failed. Since, therefore, the prophecy says: “A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thigh, until He comes to whom it is reserved,” certainly He has come to whom it was reserved, the expectation of the nations. And this is manifest from the multitude of the nations which have believed in God through Christ. 4. In the canticle of Deuteronomy, the future election of an unwise nation on account of the sins of the former people is prophetically declared, which was accomplished through no one other than Jesus. “For they themselves,” it says, “provoked me in that which was not God, and they irritated me with their idols; and I will provoke them in that which is not a nation, and with an unwise nation I will provoke them.”A For this people, which God chose by the advent of Jesus Christ and his disciples. For thus the Apostle says: “For consider your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble, but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame the wise; and the base things and the despised things that existed previously, that he might bring to nothing; B and that carnal Israel might not glory,” being called “flesh” by the Apostle, “in the sight of God.”
What must we say also about the prophecies in the Psalms concerning Christ, of a certain ode inscribed “for the beloved,” whose tongue is said to be “the pen of a ready writer; beautiful in appearance beyond the sons of men, because grace has been poured out upon his lips”? For the proof of the grace poured out upon his lips is this, that although the time of his teaching had passed in a short duration—for he taught for about a year and a few months—nevertheless the whole habitable world has been filled with his teaching and the piety through him. For “righteousness and a multitude of peace have sprung up in his days,” C remaining until the completion, which is called “the taking away of the moon,” and he remains ruling “from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” And “a sign is given to the house of David: for the virgin conceived, and had in her womb, and brought forth a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.” It is fulfilled, as the same prophet says: “God with us; know, O nations, and be vanquished; O mighty ones, be vanquished.” For we have been vanquished and have been conquered, we who are from the nations, having been captured by the grace of D his word. But also the place of his birth was foretold in the prophet Micah: “And you,” he says, “Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the governors of Judah; for from you shall come forth a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.” And the seventy weeks were fulfilled until Christ as the prophet Daniel had foretold. There is present, nevertheless, and
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And it is possible to perceive altogether clearly in what way the Hebrews, who are called [the people of] God, in him who was not God, provoked [Him] to emulation, and irritated Him by their idols; and [how] they were incited to emulation by a non-nation and by an unwise nation, which God chose by the advent of Jesus Christ and his disciples. We see, therefore, our calling, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble, but God chose the foolish things of the world that He might confound the wise; and God chose the ignoble and the contemptible and the things that were not, that He might bring to nothing the things that existed previously; and that he who is Israel according to the flesh—called "flesh" by the Apostle—might not boast before God. 5. What need is there to speak of those things which are predicted of Christ in the Psalms where the canticle is inscribed “for the beloved,” whose tongue is said to be the pen of a ready writer; he who is beautiful in appearance beyond the sons of men, because grace has been diffused in his lips? For the proof of the diffused grace in his lips is this, that although he taught in a short time (for he taught for a year and some months), nevertheless the whole earth has been filled, etc.A And he came, according to the book of Job, to consume the great whale, and has given power to his own genuine disciples to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, being harmed by them in nothing. But let anyone also observe the sojourn in every place of the apostles sent by Jesus to herald the Gospel, and he shall see that both their daring was not human and the command was divine. And if we examine how men, hearing new teachings and strange words, accepted the men—being overcome, in their desire to plot against them, by a certain divine power watching over them—we shall not disbelieve that they also performed wonders, God bearing witness to their words, and through signs and wonders and various powers.
Proving, therefore, as in an epitome, concerning the divinity of Jesus, and using the prophetic words concerning him, we demonstrate at once that the Scriptures prophesying about him are divinely inspired, and the writings and teaching that proclaim his sojourn were spoken with all power and authority; and for this reason they have prevailed in the choosing of the nations. And it must be said that the divine nature of the prophetic words and the spiritual nature of the law of Moses shone forth when Jesus arrived. For clear examples that the ancient Scriptures were divinely inspired before the sojourn of Christ were not entirely possible to present; but the sojourn of Jesus…
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the whole world has been filled with his doctrine, and through him with the worship of God. For justice has arisen in his days, and an abundance of peace, remaining until the consummation, which is called the removal of the moon; and he shall have dominion from sea even to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth. Moreover, a sign was given to the house of David. For a virgin hath conceived and brought forth a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which is "God with us." That which the same prophet said has been fulfilled: "God with us; know, O nations, and be overcome; O ye mighty, yield." For we have been overcome and vanquished, we whom he gathered from the nations by the grace of his doctrine. But also the place of his nativity was predicted at Bethlehem: "For thou, saith he, Bethlehem, land of Juda, art by no means least among the princes of Juda; for out of thee shall come forth a leader who shall rule my people Israel." And seventy weeks have been fulfilled unto Christ the leader, according to Daniel; and he has come who in the book of Job is said to have subdued the great whale, and who gave power to his true disciples to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and so to crush every power of the enemy that they are harmed by them in nothing. Furthermore, to one considering the journey through the whole world of the apostles whom Jesus sent to publish the Gospel, the task will appear greater than human strength, undertaken by the command of God. And if we weigh how men, hearing the new doctrine and strange discourses, attached themselves to the apostles, and how they laid aside their will to plot against them, being conquered by a certain divine power that cared for the salvation of these men, we shall not doubt that they also performed miracles, God bearing witness to their words by signs and prodigies and various powers.6. Having briefly demonstrated the divinity of Jesus, and that the Scriptures which foretell him are divinely inspired, and that those which announce his advent and doctrine are letters standing in all power and authority, we show that it is for this reason that the election of the nations has followed. Add to this the divinity of the prophetic sermons and that the spirit of the Mosaic law shone forth with the advent of Jesus: for before Christ's advent it could not be shown by manifest arguments that the ancient Scriptures had been divinely inspired; but the advent of Christ clearly declared to those who could suspect that the law and the prophets were not divine, that they were written by heavenly grace. But he who will have busied himself diligently and attentively in the reading of the prophets shall feel the trace of divine inspiration, and thence will have the most certain persuasion that the discourses which we hold as divine are not of men. Therefore, the light inherent in the law of Moses, which was veiled, shone out upon the arrival of Jesus Christ, the veil being removed, and the goods of which the letter had the shadow gradually coming into knowledge.
A It would be a great task now to gather together the most ancient prophecies regarding every future event, so that through them, whoever doubts might be struck by the fact that they are divinely inspired, and laying aside every wavering and distraction, might give themselves completely to the words of God. And if the meaning appearing in the letters does not seem to the unlearned to be above human capacity in every detail, there is no wonder. For even in the works of that providence which touches the whole world, some things appear most clearly as acts of providence, while others are so hidden that they seem to provide room for disbelief regarding the God who governs all things with ineffable art and power. For the artful reason of one who provides is not as clear in the things upon the earth as it is in the sun, moon, and stars; nor is it as manifest in human casualties as it is in the souls and bodies of animals—in which the "to what end" and "for what purpose" are found by those who study their impulses, their imaginations, the natures of the animals, and the construction of their bodies. But just as providence is not bankrupt because of those things that are not understood by those who have once rightly accepted it, so too the divinity of Scripture extending to alBl its parts...
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C It would now be a great task to recount the most ancient predictions of individual future events, that he who doubts, being struck by them as divine, might lay aside all doubt and wavering of mind, and give himself with his whole soul to the words of God. If the meanings in individual passages do not seem to the unlearned to be greater than human grasp, there is no wonder; for in the works of that providence which embraces the whole universe, some of His works are clear, while others are so abstruse and hidden that they seem to provide an opening for doubting whether God administers all things with ineffable art and power. For the artful reason of a providing God is not as manifest in the things above the earth as it is in the sun, moon, and stars; nor is it as clear in human events and accidents as in the soul and body of living creatures—since those who apply diligence to investigating these things have clearly discovered why and for what cause these impulses exist, these species in the mind, these natures of living creatures, and this fabric of bodies. But just as providence, among those who have rightly perceived it, suffers no loss of credibility from those things which are not understood; so neither is anything detracted from the divinity of Scripture, which is perceived through the whole, because the weakness of our intellect in every single diction is by no means able to arrive at the secret splendor of the meanings hidden within the humble and abject locution: "For we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the sublimity of the power of God may shine, and not be thought to be of us men." For if the paths of demonstration common among men had brought our books to convert the human race, one might rightly have suspected that our faith was placed in human wisdom, and not in the power of God. Now, however, to anyone lifting up his eyes, it is clear that the power of the discourse and the preaching unto the multitude,
A has not resided in persuasive words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of spirit and power. Wherefore, since a heavenly or even super-heavenly power strikes us so that we may worship Him alone who created us, let us endeavor, having left behind the word of the beginning of Christ, that is, the elementary teaching, to be borne on toward perfection, so that the wisdom which is spoken among the perfect may be spoken also to us. For he who possesses this wisdom promises that he speaks it among the perfect—a wisdom other than the wisdom of this age, and the wisdom of the rulers of this age which is being brought to nothing. But this wisdom shall be clearly imprinted upon us, and will effect an B unveiling of the mystery which had been kept secret for eternal ages, but which has now been revealed through the prophetic Scriptures and the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for all the ages. Amen.
After having spoken as it were in passing about the fact that the divine Scriptures are divinely inspired, it is necessary to proceed to the manner of reading and understanding them; for very many errors have arisen because the way to approach the holy readings has not been found by the many, lest they be discovered to be alien to the beauty of the doctrines hidden in simple and despicable language A—for "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the exceeding greatness of the power of God may shine forth, and not be thought to be from us as men." For if the trodden paths of the proofs current among men had prevailed over men in the books, our faith would reasonably have been supposed to be in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God. But as it is, to one who has lifted up his eyes, it is clear that the discourse and the preaching among the many has not availed through persuasive words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of spirit and power. Wherefore, since a heavenly or even super-heavenly power strikes us to the worship of Him who alone created us B, let us endeavor, having left behind the word of the beginning of Christ, that is, of the elementary teaching, to be borne on to perfection, so that the wisdom which is spoken to the perfect may be spoken also to us; for he promises that he who has attained this wisdom speaks it among the perfect, being distinct from the wisdom of this age and the wisdom of the rulers of this age which is being brought to nothing. And this wisdom shall be clearly imprinted in us, and will cause the unveiling of the mystery which had been kept silent for eternal ages, but which has now been manifested through the prophetic Scriptures and the epiphany of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for all the ages. Amen.
Because many, not understanding the Scriptures spiritually and C understanding them incorrectly, have declined into heresies.
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8. Since we have briefly indicated that the divine Scriptures are divinely inspired, the Holy Spirit meant that they were not placed in persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of spirit and power. Wherefore, since the heavenly power—nay, that which is superior to the heavenly—urges us to worship Him alone who created us, let us, having left behind the discourse of the beginnings of Christ, which are the first elements, be borne with all the contention of our soul toward perfection, so that that wisdom which is discoursed upon for the perfect may be set forth for us also. For he who has attained it promises that he speaks wisdom among the perfect, clearly another wisdom than the wisdom of this age and the wisdom of the rulers of this age which is destroyed. D With this wisdom we shall be openly informed, which will also reveal the mystery hidden from eternity, but now made manifest by the writings of the prophets and by the advent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: to whom be glory for all ages. Amen.8. After we have proven that the divine Scriptures are divinely inspired, it is necessary that we examine the method of reading and understanding them; since many errors and lapses have occurred from this.
A For the hard-hearted and the unlearned from the circumcision have not believed in our Savior, thinking that they must follow the literal sense of the prophecies concerning Him, and not seeing that He visibly proclaimed release to the captives, nor that He built the city which they truly conceive to be the city of God, nor that He destroyed the chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, nor that He ate butter and honey, and that before He knew or chose the evil, He chose the good. Furthermore, believing that the four-footed animal, the wolf, was prophesied to graze with the lamb, and the leopard to rest with the kid, and that the calf, the bull, and the lion would be fed together, led by a little child, and that the ox and the bear would pasture together, their young being reared B with one another, and that the lion would eat straw like the ox; because they saw none of these things happen literally during the sojourn of the Christ in whom we have believed, they did not receive our Lord Jesus; but because He proclaimed Himself Christ contrary to what they thought right, they crucified Him.
And those from the heresies, reading what is written: “Fire is kindled from my anger,” and: “I am a jealous God, repaying the sins of fathers upon children unto the third and fourth generation,” and: “I regret having anointed Saul as king,” and: “I am the Lord who makes peace and creates evils,” and in other places: “There is no evil in the city which the Lord has not made,” and also: “Evils have come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem,” and: “An evil spirit from C God was choking Saul,” and countless other things similar to these, have indeed not dared to disbelieve that they are Scriptures of God, but, believing them to be of the Creator whom the Jews worship, they have thought that the Creator is imperfect and not good, and that the Savior who came announced a more perfect God; whom they say is not the Creator—tossed about in various ways concerning this, and having once departed from the Creator, who is the only unborn God, they have given themselves over to fictions.
A And, inventing hypotheses for themselves, they imagine that some things are visible, and other things invisible, which their soul has fashioned into idols. Moreover, even the simpler folk among those who claim to belong to the Church have held that there is none greater than the Creator—acting soundly in this—yet they entertain such notions about Him as ought not to be imagined even of the most cruel and unjust man.
9. The cause of all the aforementioned false beliefs and impieties B—or of those unlearned discourses about God—clearly appears to be nothing else than that the Scripture is not understood according to the spiritual sense, but is taken according to the naked letter. For this reason, to those who are convinced that the sacred books are not the writings of men, but that they were recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by the will of the Father of all through Jesus Christ, and have come down to us, we must point out the paths that appear to us, keeping to the rule of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ—received through the succession C of the apostles. And that there are certain mystical dispensations declared through the divine Scriptures, all, even the simplest of the believers, have believed; but what these are, the prudent and humble confess that they do not know. If, then, anyone should raise a question D concerning the incest of Lot and his daughters, and the two wives of Abraham, and of two sisters being married to Jacob, and the two maidservants who bore children to him, they will say nothing else but that these are mysteries which are not understood by us. And even when the construction of the tabernacle is read, being convinced that the things written are types, they seek what they can apply to each of the things spoken about the tabernacle; as far as trusting...
in there being a type, they are not wrong, but as far as applying the expression A of which the tabernacle is a type to some specific thing in a manner worthy of Scripture, they sometimes fail. And they declare that all narratives commonly supposed to recount marriages, or the procreation of children, or wars, or any other histories whatsoever that might be told among the masses, are types; but as to of what things they are types—sometimes because their habit of mind is not very well-disciplined, and sometimes through rashness; or even if one should happen to be well-disciplined and capable, B because of the exceedingly difficult discovery of these matters for human beings—the discourse concerning each of these is not very clearly explained. And what need is there to speak of the prophecies, which we all know are filled with riddles and dark sayings? And if we should also reach the Gospels, even there the accurate sense, being the sense of Christ, requires the grace granted to him who said: C "But we have the mind of Christ, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God; which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit." And who, upon reading the things revealed to John, would not be struck with amazement at the concealment of the ineffable mysteries, and the things that appear D to one who does not understand what is written? Or to whom among those skilled in examining discourses would the Epistles of the apostles seem to be clear and easily understood, since they, too, furnish no small occasion for a multitude of great and manifold doctrines, as if through a crack? Wherefore, as these things...
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...concerning the two wives of Abraham, concerning the two sisters who were wed to Jacob, concerning the two handmaids who bore children by him, they will answer nothing else than that these are mysteries not understood by us. But also when they read the construction of the tabernacle, believing that the things which are written are figures, they seek what they can accommodate to each of the parts of the tabernacle. And they are not wrong in the fact that they believe the tabernacle to be a figure of some thing, but when they wish to adapt the reason for which the tabernacle is a type to some specific thing, just as the dignity of Scripture demands, they sometimes err; and they declare that every narrative which seems to regard either marriages, or the procreation of children, or wars, or any other histories that can be circulated among the common people, are figures, but of what things they be figures, sometimes because of a not altogether well-composed habit, sometimes because of rashness, and sometimes also because it is beyond measure difficult for men to explore matters of this kind—however exercised and keen-sighted one may be—does not appear so evidently, nor can the rationale of each particular be brought forward. And if we approach the Gospels, their accurate sense also, being as it is the sense of Christ, stands in need of the grace which was given to him who said: "But we have the mind of Christ, that we might know the things that have been given to us by God, which also we speak, not in words of human wisdom, but in the doctrine of the Spirit." Who also, upon reading the things revealed to John, would not be struck with amazement at the concealment of the mysteries which, even to one who does not understand what is written, seem to contain some hidden and secret thing? But to what keen and expert judge of discourses would the Apostles' Epistles seem clear and easy to understand, since there are almost infinite things therein which...being misunderstood, are not without danger to interpret lightly, especially regarding those matters that require the key of knowledge A which the Savior says is with the lawyers? And let those who are unwilling to admit that the truth existed among those who lived before the coming of Christ declare how the key of knowledge is said by our Lord Jesus Christ to be in the possession of those who, as they themselves say, did not have books containing the secrets of knowledge and the complete mysteries; for the passage goes thus: "Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering."
B The path, therefore, that seems to us to be the right one for studying the Scriptures and grasping their meaning is to be sought out from the oracles themselves. We find among Solomon, in the Proverbs, such a command given concerning the written divine dogmas: "And do you describe these things for yourself in threefold counsel and knowledge, so that you may answer words of truth to those who propose them to you." Therefore, one must describe the meanings of the holy Scriptures in one's own soul in a threefold way: so that the simpler person may be edified by the, so to speak, body of the Scripture, by which name we designate the straightforward interpretation; he who has ascended a little way, by its soul; and he who is perfect and like those of whom the Apostle speaks: "We speak wisdom among those who are mature (perfect), yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing, C but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ages for our glory," by the spiritual law.
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...so as to afford, as if through an aperture, a vast and abundant subject matter for understanding? Since these things are so, and nearly countless numbers stumble, it would not be without danger for anyone to declare that he understands by reading those things which require the key of intelligence that the Savior says is with the lawyers. Indeed, let those who do not wish to admit that the truth existed among those who preceded the coming of Christ declare how the key of knowledge is said by our Lord Jesus Christ to be with those who, as they themselves say, lacked books containing the arcana of knowledge and mysteries of every kind. For the words are these: "Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and those who were entering you hindered."
11. The path, therefore, which we insist upon for reading and understanding the Scriptures is of this kind, sought out from the very oracles of the Scriptures themselves. Among Solomon, in the Proverbs, such a command is given regarding the divine sentences consigned to writing: "But do you describe these things for yourself in counsel and knowledge, that you may answer words of truth to those who propose them to you." It is necessary, therefore, for the sentences of the holy letters to be described in the mind in a threefold way: so that the simpler one, indeed, is edified by the very flesh, as it were, of the Scripture, by which name we call its obvious meaning; he who has ascended somewhat, by its soul, as it were; but the perfect one, similar to those of whom the Apostle speaks: "We speak wisdom among the perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world who are destroyed, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery which is hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory," be edified by the spiritual law which has a shadow of future good things. For just as a man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so also does the Scripture which was given by divine dispensation for the salvation of men. Hence, what is said in the book which...
is despised by some, the A *Shepherd*, regarding the command for Hermas to write two books and after that to announce to the presbyters of the Church what he had learned from the Spirit, we explain in this way. For the expression is this: "You shall write two books, and you shall give one to Clement and one to Grapte. And Grapte will admonish the widows and the orphans, but Clement will send to the cities abroad; you, however, shall announce to the presbyters of the Church." For Grapte, who admonishes the widows and the orphans, is the bare letter itself, instructing those who are children in soul, and who are not yet able to claim God as their Father, and are for this reason called orphans. It also admonishes those who no longer consort with the unlawful spouse but live as widows, because B they are not yet worthy to have been joined to the true Spouse. But Clement, who is already transitioning away from the letter, is said to send these things to the cities abroad; as if we were to say [he sends them] to souls that are outside of bodily things and lower thoughts. But no longer through letters, but through living words, the disciple of the Spirit himself is commanded to announce to the presbyters of the whole Church of God, who have been whitened by wisdom.
But since there are some Scriptures that do not possess the bodily element at all, as we shall show in the following, one must seek the soul and spirit of the Scripture. And perhaps it is for this reason that the water-pots, which are said to be placed for the purification of the Jews, as we have read in the Gospel according to John, hold two or three measures; C hinting at...
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[We explain] the passage in which it is written that the *Shepherd* is inscribed and is despised by some, and that it was commanded to Hermas to write two books and afterwards to announce to the presbyters of the Church what he had learned from the Spirit, in this manner. It is read word for word as follows: "You shall write two books, and you shall give one to Clement and another to Grapte; and Grapte will admonish the widows and the orphans, and Clement will send to the external cities; but you shall announce to the presbyters of the Church." For Grapte, who instructs the widows and orphans, is the naked letter itself, teaching those who are children in mind, and who cannot yet claim God as Father for themselves, and are therefore called orphans; and instructing those who no longer serve an evil husband, but are widows, because they have not yet been made worthy of the Spouse. But Clement, who has already gone beyond the letter, is said to send what has been written to the external cities, that is, to those souls who dwell outside of bodily and earthly thoughts; but as a disciple of the Spirit, he is commanded to announce—no longer through letters, but through living sermons—to the presbyters of the whole Church of God, who are aged with wisdom. 12. Truly, for since there are some parts of Scripture which have nothing bodily, as we shall show hereinafter, in some places only the soul and spirit are to be sought. Therefore, perhaps, that which is said about the water-pots placed for the purification of the Jews, as we read in the Gospel of John, which hold two or three measures, under which...A I say, the soul and the spirit are contained, and sometimes three, when the reading can also preserve the bodily understanding—which is history—for edification. Six water-pots are consequently mentioned for those who inhabit the world and are being purified; for we read that this world and all things in it were completed in six days, which is a perfect number. Now, of the first interpretation, which is useful in this respect in that it can be believed, the multitude of those who have believed sincerely and more simply bears witness; and it requires no great argument, because it is manifest to all. B But of that understanding which we said above is as the soul of Scripture, the apostle Paul has given us very many examples, as in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. For it is written, says he: "You shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." Then, explaining how this law ought to be understood, he adds, saying: "Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that plows should plow in hope, and he that threshes should thresh in hope of partaking." And very many other interpretations of this kind, which are circulated among the multitudes and edify those who are unable to hear higher things, have in some way the same character.
But the spiritual interpretation is for him who can demonstrate of what heavenly things those C who are Jews according to the flesh served as a pattern and shadow, and of what future good things the law has a shadow. And simply, in all cases, according to the apostolic promise, one must seek for the wisdom hidden in a mystery, "which God ordained before the world unto our glory; which none of the princes of this world knew." The same Apostle speaks somewhere, using certain passages from Exodus and Numbers, that "these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." And he provides us with the occasion to notice of what things those were patterns, saying, D "For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." And also the things concerning the tabernacle, describing them in another Epistle, he used...
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By this covering it is signified that those who are Jews in secret, according to the Apostle, are purified by the Scriptures; sometimes receiving two measures, that is, if I may so say, soul and spirit; sometimes three, when, besides the aforementioned, they also have the body, which can edify. And the six water-pots are rightly for those who are purified in the world, which was created in six days, a perfect number. That the first exposition is also useful in itself, the multitude of those who have believed honestly and simply testifies; but of that which may be referred to the soul, an example is that which is held by Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. "For it is written," he says, "You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn." Then, explaining this law, he adds: "Does God care for oxen? Or does He say this altogether for our sakes? For it was written for our sakes, that he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes, in hope of participating." Then many interpretations that are circulated, adapted for the multitude, and edifying those who cannot understand higher things, are of almost the same form and character.
15. But the spiritual exposition of that is proper to demonstrate of what heavenly things the shadow and type served those who were Jews according to the flesh, and of what future good things the law has a shadow. And, to speak summarily, in all things, according to the Apostle's precept, wisdom must be sought in the my-
- A stery hidden [from ages], "which God predestined before the worlds unto the glory of the just, which none of the princes of this world knew."
And elsewhere the same Apostle says, using certain words from Exodus and Numbers, because "these things happened to them in a figure, and they were written for us, upon whom the ends of the worlds have come." And he provides an occasion for understanding of whom those things were a figure, saying: "They drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."
And concerning the tabernacle, he makes mention in another Epistle of that which had been commanded to Moses: "You shall make," he says, "all things according to the form which was shown to you on the mount." But also, in writing to the Galatians, and as if reproaching certain ones who seem to themselves to read the law, but yet do not understand it, on the ground that they are ignorant B that there are allegories in those things which have been written, he says to them with a certain rebuke: "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman, and one by the free. But he who was born of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was born of the free woman was born through the promise: which are said by allegory. For these are the two testaments," and what follows.
For it is to be noted in each of the things spoken by him, that he says, "those who desire to be under the law," not "those who are under the law"; and, "do you not hear the law?" where "to hear" is judged as equivalent to "to perceive and know."
And in the Epistle to the Colossians, also, briefly compressing the meaning of the whole law, he says: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come."
And furthermore, writing also to the Hebrews, and discoursing about those who are of the circumcision, he writes: "Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things."
But perhaps, on account of these things, it will not seem to be a matter of doubt, by those who once receive the writings of the Apostle as if spoken divinely, regarding the five books inscribed to Moses. But if they wish to learn about the rest of the history, whether that also happened typically, it is to be noted from the Epistle to the Romans, that the C passage, "I have left to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal," which is contained in the third book of Kings, was taken by Paul to signify the Israelites who are according to election, because not only have the Gentiles received fruit from the advent of Christ, but some also who were born of divine lineage.
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14. Since these things are so, we must sketch out how divine Scripture ought to be understood by us, by way of example and paradigm, as far as we have been able to encounter them, first repeating and demonstrating that 172 the Holy Spirit, by the providence and will of God, through the power of his only-begotten Word, who was in the beginning with God, God, illuminated the ministers of truth, the prophets and apostles, for the knowing of the mysteries of those things or causes which are transacted among or concerning men. By "men," however, I now mean souls placed in bodies, which, having those mysteries known and revealed to them through Christ, described them figuratively, narrating them as though they were certain human deeds or certain legal observances and ordinances; so that those who wished might not have these things laid out before them as if to be trampled underfoot, but that he who had devoted himself to such studies with all chastity and sobriety and vigils might, through these things, be able to investigate the sense of the Spirit of God which perhaps lies hidden in the deep, and by a context 51 looking again to another narrative of the discourse, might become a fellow-participant in the science of the Spirit and partaker of the divine counsel; for the soul cannot otherwise come to the perfection of science unless it has been inspired by the truth of divine wisdom. Therefore, what is primarily designated by these men who were filled with the divine Spirit is concerning God, that is, concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; then indeed concerning the sacraments of the Son of God, how the Word was made flesh, and for what cause B even unto the form of human flesh 53 he descended, and assumed man entirely; what also his operation 54 is; and to whom, and when it is accomplished. And it was necessary, as concerning kin and other rational beings—both those more divine and those who have fallen from blessedness, and the causes 55 of their fall—that this should be included in the discourses of divine teaching; likewise concerning the difference of souls, and whence these differences have come; what C the world is, and why it subsisted. Furthermore, that it is necessary for us to learn whence evil is so great and of such a kind upon the earth, and whether it is not only upon the earth, but also elsewhere.
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Now, first, that which must be demonstrated is that the Spirit, who by divine providence illuminated the ministers of truth, the prophets and apostles, through the Word which was in the beginning with God, looked principally to the arcane mysteries of those things which pertain to men. I mean by "men" now, souls using bodies, so that one who can be taught, surrendering himself to the depth of senses hidden under the words, becomes a participant in the counsel of all his doctrines. But among those things which pertain to souls, since they cannot attain perfection except through the rich and wise and true knowledge of God, it was necessary that those things which look to God be placed as the primary ones, then those which concern his Only-begotten: of what nature he is; how he is the Son of God; what the cause is why he descended even to human flesh, and assumed man entirely; what his operation is, to whom it reaches, and when. It was also necessary, because of a certain relationship, as it were, with these, that the divine teaching should discuss the other rational creatures, both the more divine and those that have fallen from blessedness, and the causes of their fall; but also concerning the difference of souls, and whence these differences arose; then also what this world is, and why it was made. Furthermore, it is necessary to learn whence so great and such a kind of evil is on earth, and whether it is not only on earth, but also elsewhere. When he who illuminates the minds of the holy ministers of truth has set forth these and like things for himself, in the second place, it is proposed to him, for the sake of those who cannot bear the necessary labor of discovering such great things, to hide the reason for the aforesaid in words which narrate the works of God presented to the senses, the creation of man, and the generation of those who have increased into a multitude by succession from the first parents. He has also performed the same in other histories which set forth the deeds of the just, together with the sins of the same as men, as well as the wickedness, lusts, and desires of the unjust and impious. And what is truly marvelous, even in the histories of wars, where the vanquished and the victors are commemorated, there exist certain arcane mysteries which are declared only to those who can search these things out. And what is even more wonderful, the very [text continues]BOOK FOUR. That the Scriptures are divinely inspired.
A With these and similar subjects set before the Spirit who illuminates the souls of the holy ministers of the truth, the second purpose was, for the sake of those who are unable to bear the toil of searching out things of such great magnitude, to hide the doctrine concerning the aforementioned matters in expressions that contain a narrative and account of the sensible creations, the forming of man, and the generations that followed in succession from the first men down to the many who came after. And [it was hidden] in other histories that declare the deeds of righteous men, as well as the sins which they themselves sometimes committed as men, and the wickedness, intemperance, and greed of the lawless and ungodly. And, most paradoxically, through the history of wars, of victors and the vanquished, certain unspeakable things are clarified for those who are able to examine them. And what is even more wonderful, the laws of truth are protected through written legislation, with all these things recorded in a sequence consistent with wisdom that is truly worthy of God. B For it was also proposed to make the clothing of the spiritual truths—I mean the bodily [aspect] of the Scriptures—not unhelpful in many respects, and capable of improving the many, as far as they are able to receive it.
15. But since, if the usefulness of the legislation were clearly apparent in every part, and the sequence of the history were consistent and elegant, we would suspect that there could be nothing else in the Scriptures beyond what is readily perceived; for this reason, the Word of God has arranged that certain stumbling blocks, obstacles, and impossibilities be inserted into the middle of the law and the history. This is so that we might not, by being drawn entirely by the letter—which has a continuous flow of its own—either learn nothing worthy of God and fall away completely from the doctrines, or—by not moving at all from the letter—learn nothing more divine.
It is necessary to know, moreover, that the laws of truth are contained in the written law, with all these things described in a precise order and series, with the authority that truly befits divine wisdom. For it was the intention that even the spiritual clothing itself, that is, what is corporeal in the Scriptures, should not be useless in many cases, but should be able to make many people better, insofar as they are capable.
15. But since, if in all parts of this clothing—that is, the history of the law—the coherence and order had been preserved, we would have had a continuous course of understanding and would certainly not have believed that there was anything else contained inwardly in the holy Scriptures beyond what was indicated at first glance; for this reason, divine wisdom saw to it that certain stumbling blocks, or interruptions to the historical understanding, should be created, by inserting certain impossible and inconvenient things into the midst. This was so that the very interruption of the narrative might, like certain barriers, stand in the way of the reader, so that by these [obstacles] this common way of understanding might... C
be denied and shut out, and it might call us back to the start of another path, so that it might open up the immense breadth of divine knowledge through the entrance of a narrow path A of a certain higher and more eminent way. We should also know, however, that since the principal concern of the Holy Spirit is to maintain the sequence of spiritual understanding, both in those things which ought to be done and in those which have already transpired, wherever He finds occurrences that happened according to history which can be adapted to this spiritual understanding, He has woven together the text of both orders [(63)] into a single narrative, always hiding a deeper secret meaning. But where the history of things done could not accord with the spiritual sequence, He has sometimes intermixed certain things, either that were less than fully accomplished, or that could not have been done at all, and sometimes even things that could indeed have been done, yet nevertheless were not done. And sometimes He does this with a few words which, according to the literal understanding, do not appear able to preserve the truth, and sometimes by inserting many. This is found to be particularly frequent in legislation, where there are many things which are manifest to be useful in the literal precepts themselves, yet there are some in which no reason for utility is shown at all; and sometimes indeed even impossible things are ordained. All of these things, as we have said, the Holy Spirit has provided so that, since the things that appear on the surface cannot be true or useful, we might be called back from them to a deeper search for truth, and might seek out a sense worthy of God in the Scriptures, which we believe to be inspired by God.
16. Moreover, the Holy Spirit has provided not only for those things that were written up to the advent of Christ, but because He is one and the same Spirit proceeding from one God, He has done the like also in the case of the Gospels and the Apostles. For He did not compose those narratives which He inspired through them without creating such artifice of wisdom as we have explained above. Hence, even in them, He has mingled not a few things by which the historical order of the narrative is interpolated or interrupted by impossibility, B
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so that the Word of God might particularly fix its gaze on declaring the sequence in spiritual matters, both in things done and things to be done. Where He found historical facts that could be accommodated to these secret meanings, He used them, concealing a more abstruse sense with many [layers]. But where the practice of certain things—which might have been written beforehand for the sake of more hidden truths—did not follow in the explanation of that spiritual connection, Scripture subjoined to the history something that did not happen; or rather, something that could not happen; and sometimes what could indeed happen, but yet did not. It also happens sometimes that a few words are inserted which, if you look at the body of the text, are not consistent with the truth. There are places where many of this kind are found. The same judgment should be passed upon the law, where you may often find what is in itself useful and appropriate to the times of the law, but sometimes no utility appears. Nay, sometimes impossible things are commanded, and this indeed with the intent that those who are sharper and more keen in the investigation of things, by giving themselves to the consideration and examination of the things written, might most firmly persuade themselves that a sense worthy of God should be sought in these things.[I] provide the same for the one and the same Spirit of God, [who] has done the same in the Gospels and the writings of the apostles; for they do not hold a history entirely naked according to the literal sense of those things that are woven together, inasmuch as they were not done; nor do they have laws and precepts in every case consistent with reason. Who then of sound mind would think that the first, second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, were without sun, moon, and stars, and that day which was as it were the first, had been a day without heaven? Who is so foolish as to think that God followed the manner of a hu-
human husbandman in planting a paradise in Eden towards the dawn, and in placing within it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that he who tasted of the fruit with his bodily teeth might receive life, and again, by participating in A the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, might acquire something else from that which was taken from such a tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise at the time of the evening, and Adam to hide himself under the tree, I do not think that anyone doubts that these things are indicated figuratively through what appears to be a history, and not as having taken place in a bodily sense, to signify certain mysteries. But even Cain’s going out from the presence of God is clearly seen by those who have given it attention to move the one who encounters it to inquire what the face of God is, and what it means for someone to depart B from it. And what need is there to say more, for those who are not altogether dull, who are able to collect countless such things that are written as having occurred, but have not occurred according to the letter? But even the Gospels are filled with the same kind of accounts, such as the devil taking Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, that from thence he might show Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. For who, among those who do not read such things cursorily, would not condemn those who suppose that with the eye of the flesh, which requires height in order to be able to discern the things below and spread out beneath it, there could be C seen the kingdom of the Persians, and of the Scythians, and of the Indians, and of the Parthians, and how those who reign are glorified among men? Similar to these, there are countless other things in the Gospels which the one who examines accurately may observe, so as to agree that things that did not occur are interwoven with the histories that are related according to the letter.
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...of a husbandman planting a garden in Eden towards the dawn, wherein He placed a tree of life that might fall under the eyes and senses, so that anyone who had tasted the fruit with bodily teeth might receive life from it, and again, by having eaten the fruit plucked from this other tree, might become a participant in good and evil? And when God is said to walk in the paradise at midday, and Adam to hide under a tree, I do not think anyone doubts that certain mysteries are indicated by these things figuratively through an apparent history which, however, did not occur corporally. Cain also, withdrawing from the sight of God, manifestly moves the prudent reader to inquire what the face of God is and in what sense anyone can depart from it. But what does it avail to say more, when anyone, provided he is not a complete blockhead, can collect countless things of this kind, which are written as having been done, but were not done as the letter sounds? But the Gospels also are full of the same kind of words, when the devil takes Jesus into a high mountain that he might thence show Him the kingdoms of all the world and their glory. For who, unless he has read these things quite listlessly, would not disapprove of those who think that with the eye of the body, which needs a high place to see things that are lower and subject to it, the kingdoms of the Persians, Scythians, Indians, and Parthians, and the glory of kings among the peoples, could have been viewed? Six hundred other such things may be observed in the Gospels by one who reads them more attentively; whence he will gather that to those things which were done according to the letter, other things are appended which did not occur.A If we come to the legislation of Moses, many of the laws, as far as their literal fulfillment is concerned, appear irrational, and others impossible. That which is irrational—that the eating of vultures is forbidden, although in the greatest famines no one has ever been forced by need to resort to this animal; and that eight-day-old children, if uncircumcised, are ordered to be cut off from their people—is indeed irrational; for if anything at all needed to be legislated about these matters according to the letter, it should rather have been ordered that their parents or those by whom they are being raised should be put to death. Yet the Scripture says: "Every male who is uncircumcised, who will not be circumcised on the eighth day, shall be cut off from his people." And if you wish to see impossible things being commanded as law, let us consider that the tragelaph (goat-stag) is an animal that cannot exist at all, yet Moses orders us to offer it as a clean animal B. And the gryphon is not recorded as having ever been taken by man, yet the lawgiver forbids it to be eaten. And even the famous Sabbath, to one who examines it strictly—"Sit every one of you in your houses; let no one sally forth from his place on the seventh day"—is impossible to be kept according to the letter; for no living creature can sit for the whole day and remain immobile from that sitting. Wherefore some, who are of the circumcision and who wish for nothing more to be understood in the holy Scriptures than what is indicated by the letter, do not even bother to inquire about the tragelaph, the gryphon, and the vulture, but invent certain empty and foolish fables, bringing forward from I know not what traditions concerning the Sabbath, saying that each person’s place is reckoned at two thousand cubits. C Others, among whom is Dositheus the Samaritan, condemning such an exposition, think that in whatever habit, in whatever place, and in whatever position one is found on the Sabbath day, he must remain until evening. But also, what is said—that it is not permitted to lift a burden on the Sabbath day—is impossible. Hence the teachers of the Jews have arrived at infinite fables, saying that a burden is this shoe, but not that one; likewise, sandals spiked with nails, but not those without nails; thus, that what is carried on one shoulder is to be considered a burden, but not that which is carried on both. D
A If, then, we come to the Gospel and raise similar questions, what could be more absurd than that which is said: "Salute no man by the way"? For the simpler sort think that our Saviour commanded this to the apostles. But also the command to be struck on the right cheek is most unlikely, for every man who strikes, unless he has some physical deformity, strikes the left cheek with his right hand. Moreover, it is impossible from the Gospel to take a right eye that causes scandal. For if we grant that someone can be scandalized by seeing, how, when both eyes are seeing, is the cause to be attributed to the right one alone? And who, having condemned himself for desiring a woman upon seeing her, attributing the cause to the right eye alone, would reasonably cast it away? But the Apostle also gives a ruling, saying: "Is any one called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised." First, anyone who wishes can declare that he says these things apart from the discourse before him. For how, when he is giving a ruling concerning marriage and chastity, would these not seem to have been inserted B heedlessly? Second, who would say that he who, if it were possible, gives himself over to being uncircumcised because of the indecency thought by many to attend circumcision, is doing wrong? All these things have been said by us to show that the goal of the divine power which has bestowed the Holy Scriptures upon us is not to have us accept only what is indicated by the letter—since sometimes these things, as far as the literal sense is concerned, are not only untrue, but also irrational and impossible—and to show that there are some things intertwined [with the historical narrative, and with those laws] which, according to the letter, provide useful instructions.
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18. But let us come to the Gospel and inquire about similar things: what is more alien to reason than "Salute no one by the way," which the simpler sort think the Saviour commanded to the apostles? And when it is said that one is struck on the right cheek, it is a thing entirely abhorrent to probability, since everyone who strikes, unless he is maimed by nature, strikes the left cheek with his right hand. Nor can it be gathered from the Gospel how the right eye can be an offense. C For even if we concede that someone can be scandalized by seeing, why, when two eyes see, is the crime transferred to the right one? And who, angry with himself because he saw a woman and desired her, would attribute the cause to his one right eye, and deservedly tear it out? Furthermore, the Apostle commands, saying: "Is any one called being circumcised? Let him not draw forth the foreskin." In the first place, anyone will see that the Apostle is saying these things beside the point and outside his purpose. For how, when he is prescribing concerning marriage and chastity, does it not appear that he has inserted these things at random? Then, who would say that he sins who, for the sake of avoiding the indecency which the common people believe is inherent in circumcision, attempts to recall the foreskin, if it be possible? All these things have been said by us to demonstrate that it was not the intention of the divine power that gave us the Holy Scriptures to explain only those things which the letter exhibits; for they are sometimes D not at all true according to the letter, but are even absurd and impossible; then, that some things are interwoven with the history of events and with those laws which, according to the letter, instruct us in useful things.
19. But lest anyone should suspect that we say these things in such a way as to suggest that no history in Scripture ever happened, because we suspect that some of these things did not occur; or that no precepts of the Law should be kept according to the letter, because we say that some things cannot be observed according to the letter, in which neither reason marks them as possible nor the nature of the matter admits it; or that we do not believe that what is written regarding the Savior was also fulfilled in a sensible way; or that his precepts should not be followed according to the letter: we must respond by stating clearly that it is evident to us that in most cases the truth of the history can and ought to be observed. For who can deny that Abraham was buried in the double cave at Hebron, as were Isaac and Jacob, and each of their wives? Or who doubts that Shechem was given to Joseph as his portion? Or that Jerusalem is the metropolis of Judea, in which the temple of God was built by Solomon? And [there are] A innumerable other such things. For there are far more things that stand firm according to history than there are those which contain a naked spiritual sense. Then again, who would not affirm that this commandment which enjoins, "Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you," is useful and necessary to be observed by those who follow it, even without any spiritual interpretation, especially since the Apostle Paul himself, repeating the same words, confirmed this commandment? What, indeed, must be said of that which is written: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness," and other things of this kind? Moreover, regarding the commands that are written in the Gospel, there can be no doubt that many ought to be observed according to the letter, as when He says: "But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother," and the following; and, "But I say to you, do not swear at all." And that command of the Apostle must also be observed: "Admonish the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all men." And even if those who examine matters more deeply can reconcile the height of God's wisdom with the literal sense of the commandments, those who read more attentively [are] B—
NEW INTERPRETATION 19. But lest anyone suspect that we say in regard to all of them that no history occurred, because some things prescribe according to the letter either things that are absurd or impossible; or that things written about the Savior are not true according to the literal sense; or that no law or commandment of His ought to be kept: we say that it is manifest that in some cases the truth of history appears to us, for example, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were each buried with their one wife in the double cave at Hebron; that Shechem was attributed to Joseph as his portion; that Jerusalem is the metropolis of Judea, in which the temple of God was built by Solomon, and six hundred other things. For there are many more things that are true according to history than are those purely spiritual ones interwoven with them. Again, who would deny that this commandment: "Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you," is useful and to be observed even without a deeper understanding, especially since Paul commended it using the same words? What need is there to speak of the rest: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, C you shall not bear false witness"? Again, there are certain commands written in the Gospel regarding which it is not asked whether they should be observed according to the letter or not. Of such a kind is that which says: "I say to you, whoever shall have been angry with his brother," and what follows. And: "I say to you, do not swear at all." And that of the Apostle is to be kept: "Admonish the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all men"; even if those who scrutinize things more deeply can combine the height of the wisdom of God with the literal sense of the commandments. Nevertheless, those who read them more attentively—
A and when He says: "But whoever looks at a woman to lust for her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart," and the things that are prescribed by the apostle Paul: "Warn the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient toward all," and very many other things. Yet if anyone reads more attentively, I do not doubt that in very many cases he will be in doubt as to whether this or that history should be thought true according to the letter, or less true; and whether this or that commandment should be observed according to the letter or not. Because of this, it is necessary that with all reverence each of the readers should understand that he is handling divine, not human, words which are inserted into the holy books.
20. We therefore consider it to be of this kind, which we see ought to be observed worthily and consequently in Holy Scripture. They proclaim that a certain nation on earth has been elected by God, B which they have called by very many names: for sometimes this whole nation is called Israel, sometimes Jacob; and especially after this nation itself was divided by Jeroboam the son of Nabat into two parts, the ten tribes which were brought under him were called Israel; the other two, however, with which was also the Levitical tribe and that which descended from the royal line of David, were named Judah; and all the locations which that nation held, which it had received from God, were called Judea, in which Jerusalem was the metropolis: metropolis, however, is called, as it were, a certain mother of very many cities. The names of which cities you will find frequently mentioned one by one in other divine books; C but they are contained all joined together in the book of Joshua.
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...bears, one might hesitate and not be able to declare without much examination whether this which is thought to be history happened according to the letter or not, and whether the words of this law should be observed or otherwise. Wherefore it is necessary that an accurate reader, having observed this precept of the Savior, "Search the Scriptures," should diligently investigate when that which the letter sounds is true, and when it is impossible, and by a comparison of similar words, should search out with his powers the sense of that which is impossible according to the letter, diffused everywhere through the Scriptures.
20. Since it is manifest to those who read that the series according to the letter is impossible, but indeed the series and principal connection is true, the whole sense of Scripture must be earnestly investigated, so that whatever is stated as impossible according to the letter may be connected with things which are not only not impossible, but are true according to history, and which, along with those things which did not take place according to the letter, cover an interior sense and are said through allegory. For thus we determine concerning the whole of Scripture that a spiritual sense is everywhere held, but not everywhere a corporeal one. For often that which is corporeal is convinced to be impossible. Wherefore it is necessary that he who has religiously read the sacred books as divine letters, whose form of understanding seems to us to be such, should apply very much attention. They proclaim that a certain nation on earth has been elected by God, which they do not call by one name. For that whole nation is called Israel, and is also called Jacob. But when in the times of Jeroboam the son of Nabat it was divided, the ten tribes that obeyed him were called Israel; the remaining two and the Levitical, over which kings of the line of David presided, were named Judah. But the whole space of territory which that nation occupied, ceded to it by God, is called Judea, whose metropolis is Jerusalem, the mother, clearly, of many cities, whose names are frequently found repeated, dispersed in other books of Scripture, but they are collected into one in the book of Jesus the son of Nave.
A 21. Since, then, these things are so, the holy Apostle, wishing to raise our intelligence from earthly things, says in a certain place: "Behold Israel after the flesh" (1 Cor. x, 18). By this he signifies that there is another Israel—one that is according to the spirit. And again, in another place, he says: "For they are not all Israel that are of Israel" (Rom. ix, 6). And further: "Neither is he a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter" (Rom. ii, 28-29). For if the judgment of the Jew is taken from that which is hidden, it must be understood that just as there is a corporeal race of Jews, so there is a certain nation of those who are Jews in the hidden sense, the soul possessing this nobility by B some secret reasons. But also, many prophecies are uttered concerning Israel and Judah, relating what is to happen to them. And surely, such promises written for them—insofar as they are humble in the letter, and present no great dignity or majesty of a divine promise—do they not require a mystical and more sublime intelligence? But if spiritual promises are announced through things subject to the senses, those to whom the promises are made are also not corporeal. And that we may not dwell too long on the discourse concerning the Jew in the hidden sense, and the inner man who is an Israelite—as these things are sufficient for those who are not C sluggish—let us return to the matter at hand and say that Jacob is the father of the twelve patriarchs, these are [the fathers] of the princes of the people, and those [in turn] of the following Israelites. Are we to say, then, that the corporeal Israelites have their origin traced back to the princes, and the princes to the patriarchs, and the patriarchs to Jacob and those even higher? But the intelligible Israelites, of whom the corporeal were a type, are not from "peoples." For the peoples have come from tribes, and the tribes from one individual who has a lineage—not one that is corporeal, but a better one—born of that Isaac who descended from that Abraham, all being referred back to D Adam, in whom the Apostle says Christ is? For every origin of clans, insofar as it relates to the God of all, began below [the level of God] from Christ, who is, next to the God and Father of all, the father of every soul just as Adam is the father of all men. And if the Apostle has happily referred Eve to the Church, it is not wonderful if Cain, who was born of Eve, and thereafter all who are referred to Eve, should be figures of the Church, since all have been born from the Church in a primary sense.
22. But if the things said by us concerning Israel and his tribes and his peoples are striking, if the Savior says: "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." We do not accept this as the Ebionites, who are destitute of mind and take their name from this poverty of mind (for "Ebion" in Hebrew means "poor"), do, so as to think that [it refers] to carnal...
Israelites that Christ primarily came. "For not the children of the flesh, these are the children of God." Again, the Apostle teaches certain things about Jerusalem, that B "the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother." And in another Epistle: "But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, [and to] the festive gathering, [and to the] Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in the heavens." If, therefore, Israel is in the class of souls, and there is a certain city, Jerusalem, in heaven, it follows that the cities of Israel use that Jerusalem in the heavens as their metropolis, in accordance with the earthly Judaea. C Whatever, therefore, is prophesied about Jerusalem, and is said concerning it, if we hear it as from God and as speaking of wisdom, we must understand the Scriptures to be announcing [these things] about the heavenly city and the whole place that encompasses the cities of the holy land. For perhaps the Savior, leading us up to those cities, gives to those who have excelled in managing the minas well, the charge of five or ten cities. If, therefore, the prophecies about Judaea and about Jerusalem and Israel and Judah and Jacob, when we do not understand them carnally, reveal certain mysteries of this kind, it would be consistent that the prophecies D about Egypt and the Egyptians, and Babylon and the Babylonians, and Tyre and the Tyrians, and Sidon and the Sidonians, or the rest of the nations, should be understood not only concerning those physical Egyptians and Babylonians and Tyrians and Sidonians, but about spiritual ones. For if the Israelites are spiritual, it follows that the Egyptians and Babylonians are also spiritual. For in no way does it befit those things which are spoken in Ezekiel concerning Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to be said of some man who has ruled or is to rule over Egypt, as will be clear to those who observe; thus, those things written about the prince of Tyre cannot be understood of some man who has held the principality of Tyre. Nor can the things that are said about Nebuchadnezzar in many places, especially in Isaiah, be taken of that man. For he neither fell from heaven, nor was he Lucifer, nor did he rise in the morning over the earth as a man, Nebuchadnezzar. But not even what is held in Ezekiel concerning Egypt—that it is to be reduced to solitude for forty years so that not even a trace of a man is found there, and to be so devastated by war that blood should flow through the whole of it up to the knees of a man—could anyone of sound mind understand of that Egypt which lies near the Ethiopians, scorched and blackened by heat.
A But we must keep in mind, in our desire to be stirred toward a higher understanding, to promise those who have faithfully dispensed the money entrusted to them by their Lord that they will have authority over ten cities or over five. If, therefore, B the prophecies concerning Judea and Jerusalem, and concerning Judah and Israel and Jacob, are not, when interpreted carnally by us, to be understood merely as they stand, but signify certain divine mysteries, it follows by all means that those prophecies also which are uttered concerning Egypt or the Egyptians, or Babylonia or the Babylonians, or Sidon and the Sidonians, are not to be understood as referring to that Egypt which is situated upon the earth, or to Babylon, or to Tyre, or to Sidon. C For neither can those things which the prophet Ezekiel prophesied concerning Pharaoh, king of Egypt, apply to any man who appears to have reigned in Egypt, as the text of the reading itself makes manifest. Similarly, those things which are said concerning the prince of Tyre cannot be understood as spoken of any man as king of Tyre; and as for the things said in many places, and especially in Isaiah, concerning Nabuchodonosor, how is it possible for us to accept them as spoken of a mere man? For he neither fell from heaven, nor was he the morning star, nor did he rise in the morning on the earth, this man Nabuchodonosor. Nor, again, could anyone of sound mind understand what is said in Ezekiel concerning Egypt—that it should be desolate for forty years, so that the foot of man should not be found therein, and that it should be fought over to such an extent that blood should flow through the whole of it up to the knees—as referring to that Egypt which lies near the Ethiopians, whose bodies are blackened by the sun.
B And after other things: Perhaps, just as those who die here according to the common death are disposed according to the things they have done here, if they are judged worthy of the so-called place of Hades, obtaining different localities according to the proportion of their sins; so also those who die there, if I may so say, descend into this hell, being judged worthy to dwell in different domiciles of the whole terrestrial region, whether better or worse, and to be born from these or those fathers; so that it may happen that an Israelite may sometimes fall among the Scythians, and an Egyptian may slip into Judea.
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And with other things interposed: 23. For perhaps, just as those who depart from this world by a common death are disposed according to their works, just as those who leave this world according to the common death are disposed, if they are judged worthy of the place called Hades, obtaining different places in proportion to their sins, so those who, if I may say so, die there, descend into this hell, being judged worthy to dwell in various domiciles of the whole earthly region, whether better or worse, and to be born of these or those fathers; so that it may at times happen that an Israelite may fall among the Scythians, and an Egyptian may slide down into Judea.A Nevertheless, the Savior came to gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel. B And since many of Israel did not yield to his teaching, those from the nations (Gentiles) are called.
Unde consequens videbitur—it will seem consequently that the prophecies which are put forth concerning individual nations are to be referred rather to souls, and to their diverse celestial mansions. But also with regard to the histories of past events, which are said to have happened either to the nation of Israel, or to Jerusalem, or to Judea, when these or those nations were warring against them, it must be pondered and sought, since in very many cases these things do not stand firm as physically having occurred, how much more properly they would befit those nations [25*] of souls which dwell in this heaven, which is said to be passed through, or are even now thought to dwell there. If, however, anyone should demand from us evident and sufficiently manifest assertions of these things from the Holy Scriptures, our answer is that it was the counsel of the Holy Spirit to hide these things rather, in the things which appear to be histories of past events, and to cover them at a deeper level—events in which some are said to descend into Egypt, or to be carried captive into Babylon, or within these very regions some to be humiliated excessively and made subservient to masters, while others, in the very places of their captivity, were held as renowned and magnificent, so that they held powers and principalities, and presided over the governing of peoples 26.
Κέκρυπται δὲ, ὡς ἡγούμεθα, ἐν ταῖς ἱστορίαις ταῦτα. C Καὶ γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ὁμοία ἐστὶ θησαυρῷ κεκρυμμένῳ ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, ὃν εὑρὼν ἄνθρωπος ἔκρυψε, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς χαρᾶς αὐτοῦ ὑπάγει, καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἔχει πωλεῖ καὶ ἀγοράζει τὸν ἀγρὸν ἐκεῖνον. — For the kingdom of the heavens is like treasure hidden in a field, which when a man has found it, he hides it, and for joy thereof he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. Let us consider, therefore, whether the visible aspect of the Scripture and the D
VERSION OF ST. JEROME
And because we have compared the souls going from this world to the infernal regions 27 with those souls which, coming from the upper heaven to our habitations, are in a way dead, it must be examined with prudent investigation whether we can say this same thing also in the case of the birth of individuals; so that, just as those souls born in this earth of ours are either receiving better things from the infernal regions and coming to the higher places, and assuming a human body, or are descending to us from better places; so also, as regards those places which are above in the firmament, other souls possess them, which are progressing from our seats to better things; while others, which have fallen down as far as the firmament from celestial things, have not committed so much sin that they should be thrust down to the places we inhabit. All which things, as we have said, are hidden and concealed in the histories of Holy Scripture, because
the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy thereof goes, and sells all that he has, and buys that field.
In which [the man] more diligently considers...NEW INTERPRETATION
Nevertheless, the Savior came for the gathered sheep which had perished from the house of Israel. And when many from Israel did not receive his doctrine, those who are from the Gentiles are called. These things seem to us to lie hidden in the histories; "for it is like the kingdom of heaven to a treasure hidden in..."
A a field, which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes, and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Let us consider, therefore, whether that which is obvious—which is discerned by the eyes in Scripture and which is, as it were, its surface—is not the whole field, full of plants of every kind; but that those things which are recondite and not visible to all, but, as it were, buried beneath those plants that are seen, are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden away, which the Spirit through Isaiah calls dark, invisible, and hidden treasures; for which, that they may be found, there is need of the help of God, who alone can break the brazen gates that enclose them and break in pieces the iron bars placed upon the gates, so that all those things may be found which are written and veiled in Genesis concerning the diverse genera of souls and concerning those seeds and generations that pertain either to the nearness of Israel or to those that are segregated further from his progeny. And also what that descent of seventy souls into Egypt is, which seventy souls become in Egypt like the stars of the heaven in multitude. But because not all who were of them are the light of this world—"for not all who are of Israel, these are Israelites"—from those seventy souls some become even as the sand which is at the seashore, innumerable.
24. This descent of the holy fathers into Egypt can be seen as having been granted by the providence of God to this world for the illumination of others and the instruction of the human race, that by them other souls might be illuminated and helped. For to them first were the oracles of God granted, since this alone is the race which is said to see God; for this is what the name Israel means when interpreted. Now, it follows that, in accordance with these, that which is written—how Egypt is struck with ten plagues that it might allow the people of God to depart, or those things which are done in the desert with the people, or that the tabernacle is constructed from the contribution of the whole people, or the priestly garment is woven, or whatever is said concerning the vessels of ministry—should be adapted and interpreted, because they truly, as it is written, contain in themselves the shadow and form of heavenly things. For Paul clearly says of them, that "they serve the shadow and example of heavenly things." In this same law, there is also contained B by what laws and by what comminations those who have transgressed the law are placed, and also those who were in need of purification, diverse kinds of purifications, such as those who were to be defiled more frequently, are handed down, so that through these they might at length come to that one purification, after which it is not permitted to be defiled any further. And the people themselves are led to a number, though not all; for childish souls do not yet have the time to be counted according to the divine precept; nor even those souls which cannot become the head of another, but are themselves subject to others as to a head; whom he called women, who certainly are not brought C into that number which is commanded by God; but those only are counted who are called men, so that it might be shown that they cannot be counted extrinsically, but are included in those who are called men. Yet, especially, those who are prepared to proceed to Israelite wars come to the holy number, those who are able to fight against those enemies and adversaries who D [are seated]...
NEW INTERPRETATION
. ...a field, which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes, and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Let us attend, therefore, whether that which is obvious, that which is discerned by the eyes in Scripture, and which is, as it were, its surface, is not all of it a field full of plants of any kind; but that those things which are recondite, and not open to all, but, as it were, dug beneath those plants which are seen, are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden away, which the Spirit through Isaiah calls dark, invisible, and hidden, since God alone can break the brazen gates which enclose them, and crush the iron bars placed upon the gates, so that all those things may be found which are contained in Genesis concerning the diverse and true genera of souls and, as it were, seeds which are near Israel or far off; and also the descent into Egypt of seventy souls, so that there they might be increased to the multitude of the stars of heaven. But since not all who are of them are the light of the world—"for not all who are of Israel are Israelites"—from the seventy, some are also multiplied like the sand which is at the shore of the sea, innumerable.A The Father subjects to the Son at his right hand, so that He may destroy every principality and power; so that through these numbers of His soldiers, who, serving God, do not entangle themselves in worldly affairs, He may subvert the kingdoms of the adversaries; from whom the shields of faith are carried about, and the darts of wisdom are vibrated, even those in whom the helmet of hope [(31)] and salvation shines, and the breastplate of clarity [(51*)] fortifies the breast filled with God. Those who in the divine books are commanded by God’s precept to be numbered seem to me to be indicated as such soldiers, and prepared for such wars as these. But of these, those whose very hairs of the head are said to be numbered are designated as much brighter and more perfect. Truly, those who have been punished for their sins, whose bodies have fallen in the desert, seem to have a likeness to those who had indeed progressed not a little, but were unable in any way to arrive at the end of perfection for various reasons—because they are said to have murmured, or to have worshipped idols, or to have committed fornication, or some such thing as it would not be right even to conceive in one’s mind. But I do not deem it devoid of sacramental meaning that some, who had many flocks and many animals, anticipate and seize the place apt for pastures [(32)] and the nourishment of the flocks, which the right hand of the Israelite army had first defended. Seeking this place 188 from Moses, they are separated beyond the currents of the Jordan and are cut off from the possession of the holy land. Which Jordan can be seen, according to the pattern of heavenly things, to irrigate and inundate thirsty souls and the senses adjacent to them. Where not even this is seen to be idle, C that Moses indeed hears from God those things which are described in the law of Leviticus, but the people in Deuteronomy become hearers of Moses, and learn from him those things which they could not hear from God [(33)]. For this reason, Deuteronomy is called the second law, because to some it will seem to signify this very thing: that with the cessation of the first law, which was given through Moses, it appears that a second legislation is formed, which is specially handed down by Moses to Jesus, his successor—who is indeed believed to keep the form of our Savior, by whose second law, that is, by evangelical precepts, all things are brought to perfection.
A 25. But it must be seen lest perhaps that should appear more significant, which is declared more evidently and clearly in the legislation of Deuteronomy than in those things which were written first [(34)]; so also from that advent of the Savior which He completed in humility, when He took the form of a servant, is that second and more glorious advent in the glory of the Father indicated, and in it the form of Deuteronomy is completed, when in the kingdom of heaven all the saints shall live by the laws [(35)] of that eternal Gospel, and just as the one now coming fulfilled the law which has a shadow of future good things, so also through that glorious advent [(36)] will the shadow of this advent be fulfilled and brought to perfection. For thus said the prophet concerning Him: "The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord," to whom we said that we live in His shadow among the nations [*], since He shall transfer all the saints more worthily from the temporal Gospel to the eternal Gospel, according to what John marked out in the Apocalypse concerning the eternal Gospel [**].
D
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As indeed through the shadow of the Gospel [(57)], He fulfilled the shadow of the law; so, because every law is an example and shadow of heavenly ceremonies, it must be sought more diligently whether we rightly understand also the heavenly law and the ceremonies of supernal worship as not having the fullness, but needing the truth of the Gospel, which we read in the Apocalypse of John as the "everlasting Gospel," in comparison, that is, of this Gospel of ours, which is temporal and preached in the passing world and age.VERSION OF HIERONYMUS
"But even if someone should inquire as far as the passion of the Lord Savior, although it might seem bold and rash to search for His passion in heaven; yet if there are spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places, and we are not ashamed to confess the crucified One here for their destruction, which He destroyed by suffering, so too we shall not fear to concede that something similar happens there in the following, even unto the consummation of the whole age." [(38)]Verily, if anyone should inquire even unto the passion, it will certainly seem more bold to inquire about it in heavenly places. But if in the heavenly places there are "spiritual wickednesses," just as certainly we are not ashamed here to confess the Crucified One to destroy them, which He destroyed by suffering, so also there we shall not fear to concede that something similar happens in the following, all the way to the consummation of the whole age.
A
26. But in all these matters, it is sufficient for us to adapt our perception to the rule of piety, and so to think of the words of the Holy Spirit, that the discourse is not composed to shine according to the manner of human frailty, but as it is written, "All the glory of the king is from within," and the treasure of divine meanings is contained enclosed within the fragile vessel of vile parchment. Furthermore, if anyone who is curious seeks an explanation of individual points, let him come and listen with us together to how the apostle Paul, through the Holy Spirit who searches even the deep things of God, searching the height of divine wisdom and knowledge, yet not being able to arrive at the end, and, if I may so speak, to an intimate knowledge, cries out in desperation of the matter and in astonishment, saying: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" And that he proclaimed this out of despair of perfect comprehension, hear him saying himself: "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" For he did not say it is difficult to be able to examine the judgments of God, but that it is entirely impossible; nor did he say that it is difficult to be able to investigate His ways, but that they cannot be investigated. For however much one may advance in searching and may profit with more intent study, being also aided by the grace of God and enlightened in his mind, he will not be able to reach the perfect end of the things that are required, B nor does any mind that is created have the ability to comprehend in any way, but as it has found some of the things that are sought, it again sees other things that must be sought. And even if it arrives at those, it will again perceive many more from among them which must be required. On account of which also the most wise Solomon, observing the nature of things through wisdom, says: "I said, I will be wise, and wisdom itself is made far from me, far more than it was, and who shall find the deep height?" But Isaiah also, knowing that the beginnings of things cannot be found by mortal nature, nor even by those natures which, although they are more divine than the human, are nevertheless made and themselves created; knowing therefore that from none of these—nor C is there any end to be found—he says: "Tell the things that are to come, and we know that ye are gods; or do the latest things that are announced, and then we shall see that ye are gods." For even the Hebrew doctor taught thus: for the reason that the beginning or end of all things cannot be comprehended by anyone, except solely by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, he said that Isaiah had declared by the figure of the vision that two seraphim alone are they who with two wings cover the face of God, and with two they cover his feet, and with two they fly, crying to one another and saying: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, the whole earth is full of Thy glory." That therefore the seraphim alone have both their wings upon the face of God and upon his feet, it must be ventured to declare that neither the army of the holy angels, nor the holy seats, nor the dominations, nor the principalities, nor the powers can fully know the beginning of all things and the ends of the universe. But it is to be understood that these holy ones whom the Spirit enumerated are indeed the closest to the beginnings themselves, and attain as much as the rest are not able to achieve: nevertheless, whatever that may be which these powers have learned by the revelation of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, while they will be able to attain to a great deal, and those who are prior to reach much more than the inferior ones, it is nevertheless impossible for them to comprehend all things, because it is written: "Very many of the works of God are in secret." Whence it is also desirable that each one, according to his strength, should always extend himself to those things which are before, forgetting those that are behind, both to better works and also to a purer sense and understanding through Jesus Christ our Savior, to whom is glory for ever.
27. Therefore, let everyone who has a care for the truth care little about names and words, because among individual nations there are different customs of speaking; and let him intend rather what is signified, than by what words it is signified; especially in matters so great and so difficult; as when it is asked, for example, if there is some substance in which neither color nor shape nor touch nor magnitude is to be understood, perceivable by the mind alone, which as one wishes, so he names; for the Greeks called it *asōmaton*, that is, incorporeal, while the divine Scriptures declare it to be invisible: for Paul says that Christ is the image of the invisible God. But also, again, he said that all things visible and invisible were created through Christ. By which it is declared that D
A even in creatures there are certain substances invisible according to their own property. But although these are not themselves corporeal, they nevertheless use bodies, even if they themselves are better than corporeal substance. That substance of the Trinity, however, which is the principle and cause of all things, from whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and in whom are all things, is to be believed to be neither a body nor in a body, but is altogether incorporeal. But this is said through a certain excess, yet for the sake of showing the thing itself, that there are certain things whose signification can by no means be explained by the words of any human tongue, but are understood more by a simpler perception than by any properties of words. To which rule the understanding of the divine Scriptures must also be held, so that, namely, these things which are said may be valued not for the lowliness of the speech, but for the divinity of the Holy Spirit who inspired them to be written. B
Recapitulation concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and other things which were said above.
It is time now, these things having been run through as we have been able, which were mentioned above, for the sake of caution to recapitulate each point, and first of all to repeat concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. C God the Father, since He is invisible and inseparable from the Son, the Son was not begotten by Him through "prolation," as some think. For if it is a prolation, and the Son is from Him as are the fruits of animals, the one who brings forth and the one who is brought forth must necessarily be a body [(45)].
For we do not say, as heretics think, that some part of God’s substance was turned into the Son, or that the Son was created by the Father from nothing, that is, outside of His own substance, so that there was a time when He was not; but, excluding every corporeal sense, we say that the Word and Wisdom were begotten from the invisible and incorporeal Father without any corporeal passion, just as if will were to proceed from the mind. Nor will it seem absurd, when the Son is called charity, if He is thought of in this way also as will. But also John indicates that "God is light," and Paul designates that
NEW INTERPRETATION.
It is time that we repeat some things concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and pursue a few things which we then omitted; concerning the Father, who, although He cannot be divided into any parts, yet becomes the Father of the Son, not "emitting" Him, as some think. For if the Son is a prolation of the Father who begets Him from Himself in the manner in which animals beget from themselves, it is necessary that he who emits and he who is emitted are a body. D [28.] Now it is time, having recapitulated, to examine a few of those things which were then left out concerning the Father, how He becomes the Father of the Son, being indivisible and unparted, not "projecting" Him, as some think. For if the Son is a projection from Him, just as things are... necessitated by the body of the one projecting and the one projected. ...not having been previously said by another, to dare to declare in the Church that the Son of God was made from things that do not exist, and that there was a time when He was not. If He is the image of the invisible God, He is an invisible image; and I would dare to add that, being a likeness of the Father, it is not the case that there was a time when He was not. For when did God, who according to John is called light (for God is light), not have the radiance of His own glory, so that anyone should dare to assign a beginning to the Son as having not previously existed? And when was the Word, the character and image of the ineffable and unnameable and unspeakable substance of the Father, the Word who knows the Father, not in existence? For let him who dares to say "There was a time when the Son was not" consider that he will also say that Wisdom was not, and the Word was not, and Life was not. Nor is it free from danger, because of our weakness, as far as it lies with us, to deprive God of the only-begotten Word who is always with Him, being the Wisdom in which He delighted; for in this way it will not even be understood that He was always delighting.
A
The Son is the splendor of eternal light. Just as light could never exist without splendor, so the Son cannot be understood without the Father, who is also called the express image of His substance, the Word, and the Wisdom. How, then, can it be said that there was a time when the Son was not? To say this is nothing other than saying that there was a time when truth was not, when wisdom was not, when life was not, since in all these the substance of God the Father is perfectly reckoned. For these cannot be taken away from Him, nor ever separated from His substance. Although these are said to be many in thought, in reality and substance they are one, in which is the fullness of divinity. But this very thing which we say—that there was never a time when He was not—must be heard with indulgence. For these very names carry the meaning of temporal vocabulary, that is, "when" or "never"; but those things which are spoken concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit must be understood as being above all time, and above all ages, and above all eternity. For this is the only Trinity which surpasses all sense of understanding, not only temporal but even eternal. But other things which are outside the Trinity must be measured in ages and in times. Therefore, no one, consequently, will think that this Son of God, according to that which is the Word—which was in the beginning with God—is contained in any place, nor according to that which is wisdom, nor according to that which is truth, nor according to that which is life, or justice, or sanctification, or redemption. For all these things do not need a place in order to be able to do or effect anything, but these individual things are to be understood for those who participate in His virtue and operation.
29. But if anyone says regarding those who are participants in the Word of God, or His wisdom, or truth, or life, that the Word and Wisdom Himself is seen to be in a place; it must be answered to him that there is no doubt that Christ, according to what He is the Word and Wisdom or all other things, was in Paul, for which reason he said: "Do you seek a proof of Christ, who speaks in me?" 56 And again: "But I now live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." 57 Therefore, when He was in Paul, who will doubt that He was similarly in Peter, and in John, and in each of the saints, and not only in those who are on earth, but also in those who are in heaven? For it is absurd to say that in Peter A Christ was, but in Michael the archangel He was not, and in Gabriel He was not. From which it is clearly perceived that the divinity of the Son of God was not confined to any place; otherwise He would have been in it alone, and would not have been in another; but because He is not confined by any place according to the majesty of His incorporeal nature, it is understood that He is not absent from anything, in turn. But that unique difference is to be understood, that even if He is in different ones, as we have said, in Peter, or Paul, or Michael, or Gabriel, He is not, however, in all in the same way. For He is more fully and more clearly, and, so to speak, more openly in the archangels than in other 47 holy men. Which is manifest from this: that when all the saints reach the highest perfection, they are said to be made like or equal to the angels, B according to the evangelical declaration. 58 Whence it is evident that Christ is made in each individual only as much as the measure of merits shall have permitted.
30. Having briefly repeated this regarding the nature of the Trinity, it is also necessary to briefly admonish that through the Son all things are said to be created which are in heaven and which are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him, and He is before all, and all things consist in Him, who is the head. 59 Consistent with this, John also says in the Gospel that "all things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing." 60 David, indeed, signifying the mystery of the whole Trinity in the creation of the universe, 48 says: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the spirit of His mouth." 61 After this, we shall suitably C admonish 49 regarding the bodily arrival and incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God: in which it is not to be thought that all the majesty of His divinity was shut up within the confines of a most brief body, so that the whole Word of God and His wisdom and substantial truth and life was either divided from the Father, or coerced and written within the brevity of His body, D and not thought to have worked anywhere else; but between both there should be a cautious confession of piety, that neither is any part of the divinity thought to have been wanting in Christ, nor is there thought to be any division at all from the paternal substance, which is everywhere. For John the Baptist indicates something of this kind also, when, with Jesus bodily absent, he said to the crowds: "There stands in your midst one whom you do not know, who comes after me, the thong of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose."
mentum. This is something which certainly could not be said of him who was absent, in so far as bodily presence is concerned, because the Son of God stood in the midst of those among whom he was not corporeally present.
31. Yet, do not let anyone suppose that I am affirming by this that some part of the deity of the Son of God was in Christ, while the remaining part was elsewhere or everywhere: this is something that can only be felt by those who are ignorant of the nature of an incorporeal and invisible substance. For it is impossible for a part to be spoken of concerning an incorporeal being, or for any division to take place; rather, he is in all things, through all things, and above all things, in the way we have explained above—that is to say, as wisdom, or the Word, or life, or truth is understood; by which understanding every local limitation is without doubt excluded. B Desiring, therefore, for the salvation of the human race, to appear to men and to converse among men, the Son of God took on not only a human body, as some think, but also a soul—one similar to our own souls in nature, but in purpose and virtue similar to himself, and such a one as could indeclinably fulfill all the wills and dispensations of the Word and Wisdom. That he possessed a soul is most clearly designated in the Gospels by the Savior himself, saying: "No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay down my soul, and again I have the power to take it up." And again: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." And again: "Now is my soul troubled." For the soul that is sorrowful and troubled is not to be understood as the Word of God, who says by the authority of his divinity: "I have the power to lay down my soul." Nor yet do we say that the Son of God was in this soul just as he was in the soul of Paul, or Peter, and the rest of the saints, in whom Christ is believed to speak in the same way as he does in Paul. But concerning all those, one must hold what Scripture says, that "no one is clean from filth, not even if his life on earth has lasted but a single day." But this soul, which was in Jesus, before it knew evil, chose the good: and because it loved righteousness and hated iniquity, for that reason God anointed it with the oil of gladness C above its fellows. It is anointed, therefore, with the oil of gladness, when it is joined to the Word of God in an immaculate union, and through this it alone of all souls was incapable of sin, because it was well and fully capable of the Son of God; and therefore it is one with him, and is called by his D names, and is named Jesus Christ, through whom all things are said to have been made. Regarding this soul, since it had received into itself the whole wisdom of God and the truth and the life, I also believe the Apostle spoke, who says that "our life is hid with Christ in God; but when Christ shall appear, who is our life, then shall you also appear with him [together in glory]." For who else is to be understood here as Christ, who is said to be hidden in God and afterward to appear, if it be not he who is said to be anointed with the oil of gladness—that is, substantially filled with God, in whom he is now said to be hidden? For Christ is also set as an example to all believers, because just as he always, even before he knew evil at all, chose the good and loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and for that reason God anointed him with the oil of gladness; so too let everyone, after a fall or after a mistake, cleanse himself from stains, and with the proposed example, and having the guide of the journey, walk the arduous path of virtue; that so perhaps, through this, insofar as it is possible by the imitation of him, we may be made partakers of the divine nature, just as it is written that "he who says he believes in Christ, ought to walk just as he walked." This Word, therefore, and this wisdom, by the imitation of whom we are called either wise or rational, becomes all things to all men, that he might gain all; and he becomes weak to the weak, that he might gain the weak; and because he is made weak, for this reason it is said of him: "Even if he was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives by the power of God." Finally, to the Corinthians who were weak, Paul declares he knows "nothing but Christ Jesus, and him crucified."
32. But there are some who wish this to be understood as regarding the soul itself, when first it assumed a body from Mary, even that which the Apostle says: "Who, when he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"; since beyond doubt he was restoring it into the form of God with better examples and instructions, and recalling it into that fullness from which it had emptied itself. Just as by participation in the Son of God one is adopted into the status of a son, and by participation in wisdom one is made wise in God, so also by participation in the Holy Spirit one is made holy and spiritual. For it is one and the same thing to receive the participation of the Holy Spirit, which is the participation of the Father and of the Son.
C For the nature of the Trinity is one and incorporeal. Verily, what we have said concerning the participation of the soul is to be understood in a similar way concerning souls, as well as concerning angels and the heavenly virtues; since every rational creature has need of participation in the Trinity. But as regards the reason for this visible world—since this is the very question that is most frequently raised concerning these matters, and how it stands, as we have been able, we have spoken in the preceding pages for those who seek to provide a rationale for believing within our faith, and for those who stir up heretical contentions against us, and who are accustomed to ventilate the name of "matter" more frequently, of which even they themselves have not yet been able to understand what kind of thing it is: it is necessary, I think, to give a brief reminder of this even now.
33. And first of all it must be known that we nowhere find the name of "matter" itself, as it is used for that substance which is said to underlie bodies, in the canonical Scriptures up to the present. For that which Isaiah says: "And he shall eat like hay" (which signifies matter), he said of those who were placed in punishments, using "matter" for sins. But even if in some other place the name of matter happens to be written, nowhere, I think, will it be found to signify that which we are now seeking, unless perhaps in the Wisdom which is called Solomon's, which book, however, is not held in authority by all. Yet we find it written there in this way: "For," he says, "the omnipotent hand did not fail to send upon them a multitude of bears or fierce lions." Many indeed think the very matter of things is signified in that which is written by Moses at the beginning of Genesis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth; but the earth was invisible and unformed." For Moses seemed to them to point to nothing other than inform matter by the invisible and unformed earth. But if this is truly matter, it is evident from this that the beginnings of bodies are not unchangeable. For those who have posited atoms, or those things which cannot come into parts, or those things which come into equal parts, or some one element as the principles of corporeal things, could not establish the name of matter—that is, that which primarily signifies matter—among their principles. For neither when they posit matter as underlying every body as a substance convertible in every way, or mutable, or divisible, do they posit it outside of qualities according to its property. To which we also acquiesce, who deny in every way D that matter ought to be called unbegotten or uncreated, according to these things which we have shown in the previous pages, when we taught that even from water, earth, air, or heat, different fruits are produced through different kinds of trees; or when we taught that fire, air, water, and earth change into one another and are resolved, one into another element, by a certain mutual kinship; but also when we proved that the substance of flesh exists from foods, whether of humans or animals, or that the humor of natural seed is converted into solid flesh and bones. All of which are proof that corporeal substance is mutable, and passes from every quality into every quality.
34. However, it must be known that there is no substance that subsists without quality, but that it is by the intellect alone that we discern that which underlies bodies and is capable of quality as being matter. Certain people, therefore, wishing to inquire more deeply into these things, have dared to say that the corporeal nature is nothing other than qualities. For if hardness and softness, hot and cold, moist and dry, are quality, and if, once these or others of this kind are removed, nothing else is understood to underlie them, they will seem to be all qualities. Whence those who assert these things have tried to maintain that, since all who call matter uncreated confess that qualities are made by God, it might be found by this that, according to them, neither is matter uncreated: since qualities are everything, which in any case are pronounced by all to be made by God without contradiction. But those who wish to show that qualities are added extrinsically to a certain underlying matter use examples of this kind, for instance: Paul is undoubtedly either silent or speaking, sitting or standing, or sleeping, or certainly exists in some bodily habit; for he either sits, stands, or lies down. For these are accidents to humans, without which they are almost never found. Yet our sense does not clearly define anything of this from him, but we understand or consider him through these things in such a way that we do not fully comprehend the rationale of his status, either in the fact that he is awake or in the fact that he is asleep, or in that he is speaking or silent, and whatever other things of necessity happen to humans. Therefore, if anyone were to consider Paul without all these things that can occur to him, just so could one understand that which underlies [all things] without qualities. When, therefore, our sense has removed every quality from its intellect, it [seeks] the point, so to speak, of the underlying nature alone...
and it will seem to look upon matter stripped of all these qualities.
35. But perhaps someone will require whether we can also receive any occasion for this understanding from the Scriptures. It seems to me that something of this kind is signified in the Psalms, when it is said by the Prophet: "Thine eyes saw my A imperfect substance" (Ps. cxxxviii, 16). In this, the mind of the Prophet seems to be scrutinizing the beginnings of things with a sharper gaze, and dividing matter by sense alone and by reason from its qualities, to have perceived the imperfectum of God, which is indeed understood to be perfected when qualities are added. But also in his book, Enoch says thus: "I walked even unto the imperfect," which I think can be understood in a similar way, namely, that the mind of the prophet has walked, examining and discussing each of the individual things of the visible world B until it has arrived at that beginning in which it thoroughly discerned the imperfect matter without qualities: for it is written in the same book, with Enoch saying: "I beheld all the matters." Which is indeed felt in such a way as if [I said], "I beheld all the divisions of matter, which were broken up from the one into each and every species, that is, of men, or of animals, or of the heaven, or of the sun, or of all things which are in this world." After these, I have already shown, as we were able in the preceding, that all things which exist were made by God, and that there is nothing that was not made outside the nature of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: and that God, who is by nature good, willed to have those to whom he might do good, and who might rejoice, having attained his benefits, he had made worthy creatures—that is, those who could worthily receive him, whom he also says he has fathered as sons. Moreover, he made all things in number and measure. For nothing to God is either without end or without measure. For by his virtue he comprehends all things, and he himself is comprehended by the sense of no creature. For that nature is known to itself alone. For only the Father knows the Son, and only the Son knows the Father, and only the Holy Spirit searches even the deep things of God. C
VERSION OF HIERONYMUS
For if the Son knows the Father, he seems in that he knows the Father, [to be] able to comprehend him: as if we say we know the measure of an artisan's art. Nor is there doubt, that if the Father is in the Son, he is also comprehended by him in whom he is. But if someone seeks whether it is true that [the Father] is known in the same way by himself as he is known by the Son, he will show that what is said, "The Father who sent me is greater than I," is true in all things. So that even in knowing, the Father is known by himself [as] greater and more clearly and more perfectly, than by the Son. D For if the Father comprehends all things, and the Son is among all things, it is clear that [he also] comprehends the Son. Let the curious reader inquire, whether the Father is known by himself in the same way as he is known by the Son; and knowing that which is written: "The Father who sent me is greater than all," he will contend that it is true, so as to say that even in knowledge the Father is greater than the Son, while he is known more perfectly and purely by himself than by the Son.Every creature, therefore, is distinguished within a certain number and measure, that is, either the number of the rational [beings], or the measure of corporeal matter: so that, since it was necessary for the intellectual nature to use bodies—which is also found to be mutable and convertible by that very condition by which it was made (for that which was not, and began to be, is also designated by this very thing as of a mutable nature)—therefore it has neither substantial virtue nor malice, but as an accident. Since, therefore, as we have said, the rational nature was mutable and convertible, so that according to its merits it might also use a different garment of the body—of this or that quality—it was necessary that, just as God foresaw the future diversities of souls or of spiritual virtues, so also he should make a corporeal nature, which might be changed by the permutation of qualities into all things which the judgment of the Creator might require. How long is it necessary for it to remain? As long as those things remain which are in need of its garment. But there will always be rational natures which are in need of a corporeal garment: therefore there will always be a corporeal nature whose garment it is necessary for rational creatures to use; unless someone thinks he can show by any assertions
A that the rational nature can live without any body. But how difficult this is, and how almost impossible it is for our intellect, we have shown in the preceding discussions; it is certain that bodies do not subsist primarily, but stand forth at intervals and because of the various motions of rational creatures, so that those who need them may be clothed; and again, when those creatures have corrected their depravity and fall, they are dissolved into nothingness and are always changed in this succession.
36. I truly believe that it does not seem contrary to this work of ours even if we briefly repeat what we can concerning the immortality of rational natures. Everyone who participates in anything together with one who participates in the same thing, is without doubt of one substance and of one nature (67). For instance, all eyes participate in light, and therefore all eyes which participate in light are of one nature. But although every eye participates in light, yet since one sees more acutely and another more obtusely, not every eye participates in light equally. And again: every ear receives a voice or sound, and therefore every ear is of one nature. But according to the quality of a pure and sincere hearing, each one hears more quickly or more slowly. Let us, therefore, pass from these sensible examples to intellectual contemplation.
Every mind which participates in intellectual light, along with every mind which in a similar way participates in intellectual light, is without doubt of one nature.
VERSION OF JEROME
The intellectual and rational nature (68) perceives God and His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit: Angels and Powers perceive Him, and the rest of the Virtues; the interior man, who was created in the image and likeness of God, perceives Him. From which it is concluded that God and these are, in a certain way, of one substance.B Furthermore, not only this, but since the very nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—of which alone every creature draws its participation in intellectual light—is incorruptible and eternal, it is very consequent and necessary that every substance that draws its participation from that eternal nature should also endure always, and be incorruptible and eternal, so that the eternity of the divine goodness may also be understood in it, since those who follow His benefits are also eternal. But just as the diversity of perceiving light is preserved in examples, when either a duller or a keener gaze of the one looking is designated: so also regarding the participation of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the diversity must be observed according to the intention C of the sense or the capacity of the mind. Otherwise, let us consider if it does not even seem impious that a mind which is capable of God should receive a substantial destruction: as if this very thing, that it can understand and perceive God, were not sufficient for it for perpetuity, especially when, even if through negligence the mind falls so that it does not purely and integrally receive God, it nevertheless always has within itself as it were the seeds of restoring and renewing a better intellect, since the interior man, who is also called rational, is renewed to the image and likeness of God who created him. On account of which the prophet also says: ‹All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship in his sight (Ps. XXII, 27).›
37. But if anyone dares to claim substantial corruption for him who has been made according to the image and likeness of God, as I think, he extends the cause of impiety even to the Son of God Himself. For the image of God (71) is also called such in the Scriptures. Or at any rate, let him who wishes these things to be so accuse the authority of Scripture which says that man was made to the image of God: in which even manifest signs of the divine image are known, not through the likeness of the body which is corrupted, but through the prudence of the mind, through justice, through moderation, through virtue, through wisdom, through discipline, and finally through the whole choir of virtues, which, though they exist in God by substance, can exist in man through industry and through imitation of God, just as the Lord designates in the Gospel, saying: ‹Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful (Luc. VI, 36).› And, ‹Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matth. V, 48).› Whence it is evidently shown that while these virtues always exist in God, and can D never approach or recede...
and gradually withdrawing from men, and everything at once is sought after. 195 Whence also they seem to have a certain consanguinity through these things toward God; and since God knows all things, and nothing of the intellectual order is hidden from Him—for only God the Father and His only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit hold not only the knowledge of those things which He created, but also of Himself—yet a rational mind, progressing from small to greater things and from visible to invisible, can attain to a more perfect understanding. For it is placed in the body, and from these very sensible things which are corporeal, it progresses toward the intellectual. But lest it seem to anyone that it is said indecently that intellectual things are invisible, we shall use the example of the sentence of Solomon who says: "Thou shalt find also a divine sense" (Prov. 11:5). In which he shows that it is not by a corporeal sense, but by another certain sense which he calls "divine," that those things which are intellectual are to be sought. But by this sense we must also look into those individual things which we mentioned above regarding rational beings, and by this sense those things which we speak are to be heard, and those things which we write are to be considered. For the divine nature knows even those things which we revolve silently within ourselves. But regarding those things which we have spoken, or the rest which are consequent, one must understand them according to this form which we have set forth above.
ADMONITION REGARDING ORIGEN’S TRACTATE ON PRAYER
196 1. That the tractate *On Prayer* was written by Origen is testified to by the martyr Pamphilus in his *Apology for the Same Origen*: "In so many and such diverse books of Origen, there is never found one book written properly on the soul; just as he has one on martyrdom, or on prayer, or on resurrection." Furthermore, that this book *On Prayer* is the very one which was first brought to light at Oxford in the year 1686 in the Sheldonian Theatre, I believe no one who has tasted even a little bit of critical salt will deny. Besides the fact that the Colbertine manuscript 3607, which exhibits a notable fragment of this work from number 31 to the end, attributes it to Origen, certainly almost every page of this little book proclaims our author, Adamantius. The same piety is perceived there as in his other works, the same humility, the same style, and finally the same things which require either censure or forgiveness: singular opinions on the prayer which is called *proseuche* [prayer], which is not to be directed toward the Son, but to the Father alone through the Son; on animated stars; on the free will to do good or evil, by which he teaches that souls, having attained any status, always continue to enjoy it; on the perpetual ascent of souls to higher places and their fall to lower ones; on the future restoration of all things in the end, and consequently that the salvation of the devil perhaps and the other demons is not to be despaired of if they should wish to be converted; on the spherical shape of bodies in the resurrection, etc. Furthermore, just as most of Origen's works are inscribed under the name of Ambrose, so too this little book is written at the exhortation of Ambrose and Tatiana.
2. Who Ambrose was is known to all who have heard anything about our Origen, and he has spoken of him already above in the first fragment of Origen's letters. But who Tatiana was can scarcely be reached by conjectures. The eulogies which she shares with Ambrose, the common instructions for both, and the obedience rendered by them both at once to Origen would suggest that there was a supreme connection between them, and that they were husband and wife, had it not appeared otherwise from the letter to Africanus, where Ambrose's wife is called Marcella. It seems, therefore, to remain that we should rank Tatiana in the next degree of connection, namely that of a sister: especially since it is established from Origen's *Exhortation to Martyrdom*, which is addressed to Ambrose when he was in chains, that he had not only sons and brothers, but also sisters. Furthermore, Tatiana is described by Origen in number 2 of this book, *On Prayer*, as being of advanced age, and she herself and Ambrose are called *gnēsiōtatoi adelphoi* (dearest siblings) at the end of the work. But although these things are quite probable, I would not wish them to be held as certain. For nothing forbids Ambrose's wife, who is called Marcella in the letter to Africanus, from also having had the name Tatiana. Nor is it of great moment that in number 2 of the book *On Prayer* Tatiana is described as being of advanced age, and at the end of the work she and Ambrose are addressed as *gnēsiōtatoi adelphoi*. For in both places the expression can be figurative, and perhaps they are called "dearest siblings" in no other way than in Christ, in almost the same way as Origen calls Ambrose himself his brother at the beginning of Book II of the *Commentary on John*.
3. Regarding the year in which this tractate *On Prayer* was written, nothing certain can be established. We learn from number 23 that it was written when the books on Genesis had already been published. But since only the first eight books on Genesis were written before the year 231, in which Origen departed from the city of Alexandria, and similarly the four books *On Principles* were written after the first book on Genesis, we rightly conclude that the book *On Prayer* was produced after Origen’s departure from Alexandria, and is later than the four books *On Principles*.
...not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the taught words of the Spirit. A Since those things which are the greatest and are situated above humanity and, by a wide interval, surpass our frail nature, are impossible for the rational and mortal race to grasp; yet, by the many and immense graces of God which are poured out upon men by God through Jesus Christ, the minister of the infinite grace toward us, and the Holy Spirit who works with Him, they become possible by the will of God. It is impossible, therefore, for human nature to acquire the wisdom by which all things have been fashioned (for, according to David, "God has made all things in wisdom"); yet it becomes possible from being impossible through our Lord Jesus Christ, who "is made unto us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption." For what man shall know the counsel of God? Or who shall reflect on what the Lord wills? For the thoughts of mortals are fearful, and our providence is uncertain. For the corruptible body burdens the soul, and the earthly dwelling suppresses the mind that thinks many things. And we guess with difficulty at the things that are on earth; but who has searched out the things that are in heaven? Who would deny that it is impossible for man to search out the things that are in heaven? B Yet this impossible thing becomes possible by the exceeding grace of God; for he who was snatched up to the third heaven perhaps searched out the things in the three heavens, since he had heard hidden words which it was not permitted for a man to speak. And who can say that it is possible for the mind of the Lord to be known by man? But even this God grants through Christ. ...the will of their Lord; no longer when He teaches them to be willing of the will of the Lord, C but when He changes Himself into a friend of those to whom He was formerly Lord. Furthermore, just as no one of men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him; so also no one has known the things of God, except the Spirit of God. But if no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God, it is impossible for man to know the things of God. But mark how this becomes possible. "But we," he says, "have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things that have been given to us by God; which also we speak, D not in words taught by human wisdom, but in the teachings of the Spirit.
A Yet it is likely, most godly and hardworking Ambrose, and most seemly and courageous Tatiana—from whom, I now rejoice, feminine things have already ceased, just as they had ceased for Sarah—that you might wonder why, since the subject of prayer has been set before us, I should have premised these remarks in the introduction concerning things that are impossible for men but become possible by the grace of God. I am convinced that one of these impossibilities, so far as our weakness is concerned, is to treat the whole matter of prayer accurately and in a manner worthy of God, and to make clear and teach what and how one must pray, what things must be spoken to God in prayer, and what times are suitable for prayer. ... He who, because of the excess of his revelations, was afraid that someone might think of him more than what he saw or heard from Him, confesses that he does not know how one must pray. For "what we ought to pray for," he says, "we do not know as we ought." It is necessary, however, not only to pray, but also to pray as one ought, and to pray for what one ought. For even if we were able to grasp what one ought to pray for, it would be incomplete unless we added "as one ought." But what would it profit us to pray as one ought, if we were ignorant of what we ought to pray for? The one of these, namely praying for what B one ought, is the content of the prayer; the other, praying as one ought, is the state of the one praying itself. For example, these are the things one ought to pray for: "Ask for great things, and the small will be added to you"; and, "Ask for heavenly, and earthly things will be added to you"; and, "Pray for those who abuse you"; and, "Beseech the Lord of the harvest, that he may send forth laborers into his harvest"; and, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation"; and, "Pray that your flight may not be in winter, neither on the Sabbath"; and, "When you pray, do not use many words"; and whatever else is similar to these. And as to how one ought to pray: "I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also women in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly clothing; but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works." And that which teaches us the manner in which one ought to pray is also this: "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." For what gift C can be sent up to God from a rational nature that is greater than a sweet-smelling word of prayer offered from a mind that is conscious of no ill-willed sin against anyone? There is also that which concerns the manner in which one ought to pray: "Do not defraud one another, unless it be with consent for a time..."
so that you may have leisure for prayer, and may come together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency." B By these words indeed, the way in which one ought to pray is hindered, unless the nuptial act of that secret, concerning which it is most fitting to be silent—and to act more rarely, with a calm mind, and with less passion—is practiced: for that which is here called "consent" renders the discord of the mind's affections feeble, consumes incontinency, and restrains Satan, who rejoices in our evils.
Moreover, regarding how one ought to pray, it teaches this also: "When you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone." C And that which Paul has, "Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered, dishonors his head; but every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered, dishonors her head," D provides a manner of praying. Knowing all these things, and being able to set forth many more from the Law, the Prophets, and the fullness of the Gospel, and to expound each one variously and copiously, Paul, with a mind not only modest but truthful, seeing after all these things how far he is from knowing what we ought to pray for as we ought, says: "For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought." This he adds to his discourse, whereby that deficiency may be supplied for him who does not know, yet nevertheless endeavors to show himself worthy so that his deficiency may be supplied. For he says: "The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to God."
And that Spirit, who cries in the hearts of the blessed, "Abba, Father," knowing well those who have fallen or transgressed, that they are burdened rather than relieved by the groanings brought forth in this tabernacle, makes intercession to God with groanings that cannot be uttered, He Himself taking up our own groanings for His humanity and mercy. Seeing, moreover, by His own wisdom, our soul humbled to the earth and enclosed in the body of humiliation, He makes intercession to God not with just any groanings, but with certain ones that cannot be uttered, akin, that is, to the secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. This Spirit, however, not content with merely "making intercession," uses a more intense prayer and "makes exceeding intercession," in my opinion, for those who are "more than," such as was Paul when he said: "But in all these things we are more than conquerors." It is probable, however, that He makes intercession for those alone who are neither such that they are "more than" conquerors, nor such that they are vanquished, but who simply conquer. Furthermore, regarding this passage: "We do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself po-
A-stulates for us with inenarrable groanings," B it is the same as: "I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind." For our mind cannot pray unless the Spirit first pray before it, as it were, with it listening; just as neither can we sing rhythmically, melodiously, metrically, and harmoniously to praise the Father in Christ, unless the Spirit, who searches all things, even the depths of God, has first praised and sung of the depths of the mind and, as He has the power, comprehended them.
I for my part imagine that one of the disciples of Jesus, being conscious of how far human imbecility falls short of the proper way to pray—and especially knowing this, after having heard the learned and great discourses which the Savior had delivered in His prayer to the Father—said to the Lord, when He had finished His prayer: "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."
The sequence of the passage runs thus: "And it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray." C For would a man nurtured in legal discipline, a frequent listener to prophetic discourses and assiduous in the synagogues, not know how to pray at all, until he saw the Lord praying in a certain place? But it is absurd to say this; for he was indeed praying according to the Jewish custom, but he saw that he was in need of greater knowledge concerning that which pertains to prayer.
And what was it that John himself taught his disciples regarding prayer, when they came to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about the Jordan to be baptized? Unless we believe that he, seeing that he was more than a prophet, understood certain things concerning prayer, which it is probable he did not deliver to all who were baptized, but secretly to those who had dedicated themselves to be instructed before baptism.
Such prayers as these are truly spiritual, prayed by the Spirit in the hearts of the saints, and are written full of recondite and wondrous doctrine. In the first D book of Kings, the prayer of Hannah is such an instance. For to her, as she multiplied her prayers before the Lord and spoke in her heart, there was no need of writing. In the Psalms, the sixteenth psalm is inscribed "The Prayer of David"; the eighty-ninth, "The Prayer of Moses, the man of God"; and the one hundred and first, "The Prayer of the poor, when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord." Since such prayers were truly formed and recited by the Spirit, they are also full of the precepts of Divine Wisdom, so that of those things which are promised in them, it can be said: "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? Understanding and
knowledge shall discern them?" A Since, therefore, it is such a great thing to discourse about prayer, as to require the Father who illuminates us toward this, and the Firstborn Word Himself who teaches, and the Spirit who works within us to conceive and speak worthily of such a momentous subject, I pray as a man—for I do not claim for myself to be able to contain the prayer of the Spirit before I have obtained the understanding of what prayer is—I pray, I mean, that a most full and spiritual knowledge of it may be granted to us, and that the prayers recorded in the Gospels may be made clear. We must, therefore, begin the discourse on prayer. B 3. The first instance of the name "vow" (*euchē*), as far as I have observed, I find set down when Jacob, fleeing the anger of his brother Esau, was departing for Mesopotamia according to the instructions of Isaac and Rebecca. So it is that the passage itself runs: "And Jacob made a vow, saying: If the Lord God will be with me, and will keep me in this way in which I am walking, and will give me bread to eat, and a garment to put on, and I return prosperously to the house of my father, the Lord shall be my God, and this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be for me the house of God; and of all that you give me, I will tithe it to you." C Where it is also to be noted that the name of a "vow" (*euchē*) is often taken in a different sense than that of "prayer" (*proseuchē*), namely, for one who, with a vow, promises that he will do such things if he obtains such things from God. Yet that word is also used in the customary way of speaking (for prayer), as we find in Exodus after the plague of frogs, which is the second in order of the ten. "And Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them: Pray to the Lord that He may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord." If, however, anyone finds it difficult to believe that, because that voice "pray" is Pharaoh's, it also has the customary meaning of prayer beyond the prior meaning of a vow, he should observe what follows, which is: "And Moses said to Pharaoh: Appoint for me when D I shall pray for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs may be driven away from you and from your people and from your houses and only remain in the river."
We have observed, furthermore, concerning the gnats, which were the third plague, that Pharaoh did not ask for prayer to be made, nor did Moses pray. But concerning the flies, which were the fourth, he says: "Ask for me." When Moses also said: "I will go out from you, and I will pray to the Lord, and the fly will depart from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people tomorrow." And shortly after: "And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God." Again, when, at the fifth and sixth plagues, neither did Pharaoh ask for prayer to be made, nor did Moses pray, at the seventh Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them: "I have sinned this time; the Lord is just, and I and my people are impious. Pray, therefore, to the Lord, and let it cease so that there may be no voices of God, and hail, and fire." And shortly B after: "And Moses went out from Pharaoh outside the city and stretched his hands out to the Lord, and the voices ceased." Why, however, is it not said "he prayed," as in the previous ones, but "he stretched his hands out to the Lord," will be examined more opportunely elsewhere. And regarding the eight plague, Pharaoh says: "And pray to the Lord your God, that He may take away from me this death." And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. We have said in many places that the name of "prayer" is not always used in the common sense, as we saw in the case of Jacob. But also in Leviticus: "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: Whoever makes a vow so that there is a price for his soul to the Lord, the price of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty silver shekels according to the holy measure." And in Numbers: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: A man or a woman, whenever they make a vow so that they may be sanctified and wish to consecrate themselves to the Lord, they shall abstain from wine and everything that can inebriate," and the rest concerning him who was called a Nazirite. Then shortly after: "And he shall sanctify his head on that day on which he was sanctified to the Lord, the days of his vow." And again shortly after: "This is the law of him who has vowed; on whatever day he shall fulfill the days of his vow." And at the end, C of the numbers of the tribes of the sons of Israel, saying: "This is the word which the Lord commanded: a man, whoever shall make a vow to the Lord, or shall swear an oath, or shall define with a definition concerning his soul, he shall not profane his word; all things whatsoever that shall go forth from his mouth...
he shall do. And if a woman shall vow a vow unto the Lord, or define a definition in the house of her father in her youth, and her father hears her vows and her definitions, which she defined against her soul, and her father shall be silent to her; then all her vows shall stand, and all the definitions B which she defined against her soul, shall remain for her. And following these, he gives some legislation concerning such a woman. According to this meaning, it is written in the Proverbs: A snare to a man is to sanctify something of his own in haste; for after he has vowed, it happens that he repents. And in Ecclesiastes: It is better not to vow, than to vow and not pay. And in the Acts of the Apostles: There are with us four men having a vow upon them.
4. It has seemed not unreasonable to me, then, first to distinguish the two meanings that are signified in the Scriptures by the name of "prayer." And likewise, also, of "supplication"; for this word, besides the common and customary usage in which it is often taken, is also set down in the sense in which it is usually used in those things that are said about Anna in the first book of Kings: And Heli the priest was sitting upon a seat by the door-posts of the temple of the Lord, and she being of a bitter soul; and she prayed to the Lord, and wept with weeping, and vowed a vow and said: O Lord of hosts, if looking thou shalt look upon the humiliation of thy handmaid, and shalt remember me, and shalt not forget thy handmaid, and shalt give to thy handmaid a man-child, I will give him to the Lord as a gift all the days of his life; and a razor shall not come up upon his head. Yet someone might not improbably argue, insisting upon these words: "She prayed to the Lord and vowed a vow," to say that if she did both—that is, prayed to the Lord and made a vow—this expression might perhaps be taken for the prayer which we are accustomed to name; C but these words are in the same sense as the one in Leviticus and Numbers. For that which says: "I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall not come up upon his head," is strictly not prayer, but such a vow as Jephthah vowed, where it is said: Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord and said: If thou shalt deliver the sons of Ammon into my hands, whoever shall have first come out from the doors of my house, and shall meet me upon my returning...
in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer him as a burnt offering. A If, therefore, it is necessary after this, as you have requested, to set forth first the plausible arguments of those who think that nothing is achieved by prayers, and who for this reason say that it is superfluous to pray, we shall not hesitate to do this to the best of our ability, having taken the name of prayer in a more common and simple sense.... B Such an opinion is so ignoble, and so destitute of illustrious proponents, that one would scarcely find among those who admit providence and set God over the governance of all things, anyone who would reject prayer. For this sentiment is either of those who are entirely without God and deny that God exists, or of those who acknowledge God in name only, but deny his providence.
Already, however, the opposing power, when it wishes to cloth the most impious of doctrines with the name of Christ and the teaching of the Son of God, has been able to persuade some that one should not pray. The leaders of this opinion are those who destroy sensible things altogether, who use neither Baptism nor the Eucharist, and who twist the Scriptures with their cavils, as if they did not wish for such a prayer, but taught something else with a far different meaning. These, however, can be the arguments of those who reject prayers and yet say that God presides over all and assert providence; for it is not presently our purpose to examine the statements of those who totally remove God or providence: God knows all things before they happen, and nothing, when it comes into existence, becomes known to Him for the first time as if it were not already known beforehand.
What need, therefore, is there C for the mystery of an ineffable and invisible power to be performed through creatures that fall under the senses and are subject to destruction, and for things that do not fall under thought and are devoid of body to be transacted through those things which are sensible and corporeal? These appear to be the Ascodruli or Ascodrupitae, about whom Theodoret writes in book 1 of his *Heretical Fables*, chapter 10: they say that divine mysteries, which are signs of invisible things, ought not to be performed through visible objects, nor incorporeal things through sensible and bodily ones; but that the perfect redemption is the true knowledge of what is. For all things that are seen, since they consist of ignorance and passion, are destroyed through knowledge. Redemption, therefore, must also be spiritual. For this reason, they neither baptize those who approach, nor is the mystery of Baptism performed among them, for they call the knowledge of all things redemption. D They anathematize the laver and the participation of the mysteries, as being done in the name of Sabaoth.
A What need is there, then, to send up prayer to Him who knows what we need even before we pray? For the heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask Him. But it is reasonable that He, being the Father and Creator of all, loving all things that exist and hating nothing of what He has made, should arrange for every one in a saving manner, even if they do not pray, just as a father provides for his young children—he does not wait for their request, either because they are unable to ask at all, or because through ignorance they often desire to obtain things contrary to what is beneficial and advantageous. We humans, moreover, are more distant from the mind of God than any infancy of children is from the mind of parents. B It is credible that God does not merely foresee what things are going to be, but also preordains them, and that nothing happens contrary to what has been preordained by Him. Just therefore as, if someone were to pray for the sun to rise, he would be considered foolish, asking by his own prayers that what would happen even without his prayers might come to pass, so also that man would be senseless who thinks that, because of his own prayer, things come to be that would have come to be even if he had not prayed. Again, surely he would surpass all madness C who, because he is troubled and scorched by the sun when it is at the summer solstice, thinks that by his prayers he can make the sun move to the vernal signs, that he might enjoy a temperate air; so, if anyone thinks that he can avoid the necessary afflictions that happen to the human race through prayer, he would surpass all madness. But if sinners are alienated from the womb, and the righteous is set apart from the mother's womb—if, "when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or bad, in order that the purpose of God according to election might remain," it is said, "not of works, but of Him who calls, that the elder shall serve the younger"—we pray in vain D for the remission of sins, or to receive the Spirit of strength, that we might be able to do all things through Christ who strengthens us. For if we are sinners, we are alienated from the womb; and if we are set apart from our mother's womb, the best things will happen to us even if we do not pray. For what prayer had Jacob offered, concerning whom, before he was born, it was prophesied that he would prevail over Esau, and that his brother would serve him? And what impious deed had Esau committed to be hated before he was even born? Why does Moses pray, as is found in the eighty-seventh psalm, if God is his refuge before the mountains were settled and the earth and the world were formed? But regarding all those who are to be saved, it is also written in the Epistle to the Ephesians that the Father chose them in Him—in Christ—before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined them to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ in Him—
A For if anyone is of those chosen before the foundation of the world, it is impossible for him to fall from that election, and consequently he has no need of prayer; or if he is not chosen nor predestined, he prays in vain, even if he were to pray ten thousand times, since he will not be heard. For those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of the glory of His Son. And those whom He predestined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified. B For why does Josias labor, or why, when praying, is he anxious about whether or not his prayers will be heard, when he was designated by name by the prophet many generations before, and not only was it foreseen what he would do, but it was also predicted to many who heard it? And why does Judas pray, so that even his prayer becomes a sin, when it had been predicted from the days of David that he would lose his episcopacy and another would take it in his place? Hence it is unfitting to pray to God—as if His will could be changed by prayer, or as if He had not disposed all things beforehand but were awaiting the prayers of individuals to beseech Him, so that He might thus arrange each thing as is convenient for the one praying, and then ordain what He had approved as right, having not foreseen it beforehand. I shall set down here in the very words which you inserted into your letter to me. They stand thus: 1st, If God is foreknowing of future things, and they must come to pass, prayer is vain. 2nd, If all things happen according to the will of God, and His decrees are steadfast, and nothing of what He wills can be changed, prayer is vain. These things, I think, may be usefully premised for the sake of dissolving the objections which make a person more sluggish toward prayer.
6. Of those things which are moved, C some have the mover from without, as inanimate objects, and are held together by condition alone; and those which are moved by nature and soul are sometimes moved not as such, but in the same way as those held together by condition alone. For stone and wood which have been cut from the quarry, or which have lost their power to grow, are held together by condition alone and have the mover from without. But even the bodies of animals and the portable parts of plants, when they are transferred by someone, are not transferred insofar as they are animals and plants, but in the same way as stones and logs which, having been cut, can no longer grow and be nourished; and if they are moved, since all bodies are transient, they are corrupted, and that movement which occurs in corruption follows. D There are also, besides these, other things that are moved, those which are moved by...
A a nature or soul existing within; and those who use terms more precisely say that these are moved of themselves. The third is the movement of animals, which is called “movement from itself.” But I think that the movement of rational beings is movement through themselves. And if we were to take away from an animal the movement from itself, 45 it could no longer be thought of as an animal, but would be similar either to a plant moved only by nature, or to a stone carried along by something from without. And if anyone follows along with its own movement—since we have termed this “moving through itself”—it is necessary that this be rational. Those, therefore, who wish for nothing to be in our power must necessarily accept something most foolish: first, that we are not living beings, and second, that we are not even rational; but rather, as if moved by something from without, that we are not moved at all by ourselves, but are said to do those things which we are thought to do. Furthermore, let anyone attend to the things he feels within himself, and see if he can, without impudence, deny that he himself wills, that he himself eats, that he himself walks, that he himself gives assent and accepts any sort of opinions, and that he himself rejects other things as false. As, therefore, there are certain opinions to which a man can never be brought to assent, however many proofs he might use, and however much he might say, seeking to persuade: so it is impossible that anyone should so think regarding human affairs as if nothing remained in our power. For who believes that nothing can be grasped by the mind, or lives in such a way as to doubt regarding all things, whatever they may be? Who does not rebuke a servant when he has perceived in his mind the appearance of a sinning slave? And who is there C who does not accuse a son for not rendering due obedience to his parents? Or who does not complain of and vituperate an adulterous woman, as having acted basely? For the truth itself exerts force and compels, however much one may wish to quibble, to be carried with a kind of impulse toward praises and vituperations, because it is truly the case that something is in our power, and that it is worthy either of praise or of reproach. Therefore, if our free will is preserved, by which we incline in countless ways either toward virtues or toward vices, or toward those things which are becoming or toward those which deviate from duty, or decline from the same: it is necessary that this, with the rest before it exists, be known to God from the creation and constitution of the world, what sort of thing it will be; and in all things that God has foreordained, it follows that as He saw each thing would be in our power, He also foreordained, as the movement of our free will requires, what ought to correspond to it on the part of providence, and what ought to happen according to the connection of future things: not that the foreknowledge of God is the cause of all those things which are to be, and which, by D their own
motion and our free will we shall carry out. For even if (if it be allowed to suppose this) God did not know future things, we should not any the less carry these out, or will these; yet it happens to things, by reason of divine foreknowledge, that by an order most useful for the government of the universe and the state of the world, those things which are in our power are severally disposed. If, therefore, any of those things which are of our free will is known to Him, it is conformable to reason that there should be ordained by providence that which is suitable to each person according to his worth, and that what this or that person will pray for, in what state of mind he will be, how he will believe, and what he will wish to happen to him, is foreknown; and, this being foreknown, something of such a kind is consequently comprehended in the order of providence: A that I shall hear this man praying perseveringly, because of that very prayer which he will pour forth; but that I will not hear that one, either because he is unworthy to be heard, or because he is about to ask for things which it is neither expedient for him to receive nor fitting for me to grant. And in accordance with this prayer of his, for example, I will not hear such a one; but in accordance with that, I shall hear B him. If any one is troubled by the fact that God, having foreknown future things, cannot be mistaken—as if necessity were brought upon things—one must answer such a person that this very thing is necessarily known to God, namely, that this man does not necessarily or firmly will the better things, or will so will the worse things that he will be incapable of a change for the better. And again, God says, "I will do these things for this man who will pray," for it is fitting for me, since he is not about to pray unworthily, nor to be negligent about his C prayer. To him, when he has prayed somewhat, I will grant more abundantly than he asks or understands (cf. Eph. III, 20): for it is fitting for me to overcome him with benefits and to bestow more than he knows how to ask. To this man, since he is about to be such a one, I will send that angel as a minister, who from this time shall begin to labor for his salvation and shall be present with him up to this point; to that man I will send another, for example, one more worthy than the former, since he is about to be better. From this other, who, after he has given himself over to more excellent doctrine, will be broken and will run back to earthly things, I will take away that best helper; and, upon his departing, as he has deserved, a certain most evil power, having found an opportunity to lie in wait for his sloth, will be promptly present and will provoke him to those sins, since he has shown himself prepared to sin. Thus, therefore, he who preordains all things is to be thought of as saying, as it were: D "Amos will beget Josiah, who will not emulate the sins of his father, but, having found this way leading to virtue through the aid of those who will be with him, will be a good man; and he will also tear down the altar badly built by Jeroboam." I know also that Judah, when my Son will dwell among men, will be good at the beginning; but that he will become perverse
A and fall into human sins, for which it will be reasonable for him to suffer certain things. This foreknowledge of his belongs perhaps to all things, but certainly to Judas and other mysteries, and it exists in the Son of God, who, by the contemplation of the test [of what is to come], sees both Judas and the sins that will be committed by him, so that having apprehended him even before Judas was born, [God] said through David: "O God, do not silently pass over my praise," and so forth. Knowing, therefore, the things that are to come, and what tone Paul will have toward piety, [God says]: "Before I create the world, as I set out to the beginning of the world's creation, I will choose him; and as soon as he is born, I will commit him to these powers that assist in the salvation of men, setting him apart from his mother's womb, and permitting him at the beginning, in his youth, to be agitated by a zeal joined with ignorance, under the pretext of piety to persecute those who have believed in my Christ, and to keep the garments of those who were stoning my servant and witness Stephen; so that, after his youthful insolence, having later seized an opportunity and changed for the better, he may not boast before me, but say: 'I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.' And perceiving the benefits I am about to bestow upon him after his lapses in youth under the guise of piety, he may say: 'But by the grace of God I am what I am.' And being restrained by the conscience of the things he did against Christ while he was still a youth, he will not be exalted by the greatness of the revelations which he is to receive by my favor."
7. Concerning the sun rising
C And regarding the prayer concerning the sun when it rises, these things must be said: that there is also something of the sun that is "in our power," and that it too praises God along with the moon. For he says: "Praise him, sun and moon." It is clear that this applies also to the moon, and consequently to all the stars: "Praise him, all you stars and light." Just as we have said that God uses each of those things that are on earth for some need, and has appointed them for a purpose; so it must be understood D concerning the sun, moon, and stars that are "in our power"—that [God], being firm, stable, constant, and wise, has ordered the entire world of the heaven and the harmonious course and motion of the stars for the universe. And if I do not pray in vain concerning that which is "in our power" as to the other [elements], much less [do I pray in vain] concerning the stars that are "in our power"—those that dance savingly for the whole in heaven; even though it is possible to say concerning things on earth that certain appearances arising from the things surrounding us entice our instability, or our leaning toward the better.A What kind of phantasy can arise in heaven that would be able to disturb and move from its course, which is beneficial to the world, each of the souls that is ordered by the Word and possesses the cause of its own being, and uses such an ethereal and most pure body?
8. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to make use of such an example as this to urge men to pray and to turn them away from the neglect of prayer. Just as it is impossible to beget children without a woman and the action that is taken as useful for procreation; so too, one would not attain these things unless he prayed in this way, with such a disposition, believing in this manner, and having lived his life in this way before prayer. B One should not, therefore, babble, nor ask for small things, nor pray about earthly matters, nor should one approach prayer with anger and troubled thoughts. Moreover, it is not possible for one to conceive of a respite occurring in prayer without purity; nor is it possible for the one praying to obtain forgiveness of sins, unless he has forgiven from the heart the brother who has sinned against him and is asking for pardon.
I consider that the benefit which occurs to the one praying in the manner he ought—or one who is hastening toward this as much as he is able—happens in many ways. For one thing, it will certainly be of some use if, when he has settled his mind toward prayer, he has formed himself through the very state of praying to stand before God and speak to Him as if He were inspecting and present; for just as such phantasies and reminders C of certain things, concerning which the reminders have arisen, stain the thoughts that have occurred in these phantasies; in the same way, one must believe that the memory of the God who is trusted—and who discerns the movements in the inmost depths of the soul—is fruitful, when the soul regulates itself to be pleasing to Him, as being present, watching, and reaching into every mind, to Him who tries the hearts and searches the reins. For even if we assume that no other benefit beyond this accrues to the man who has established his mind for prayer, one must understand that he who has thus piously regulated himself at the time of prayer reaps no small fruit. And those who have committed themselves more assiduously to prayer know by experience how often this happens, from how many sins it turns one away, and to how many good deeds it leads. For if the remembrance and reflection upon a man of discernment D and one benefited in wisdom provokes us to emulation and often hinders our impulses toward things that are worse, how much more does the memory of God, the Father of all, conjoined with prayer to Him, benefit those who have persuaded themselves that they stand before and speak to God as one who is present and listening.
9. But the things that have been said must be proven from the divine Scriptures in this way: the one praying must lift up holy hands, by forgiving every one of those who have sinned against him, having extinguished the passion of anger from the soul and...
being angry at no one. Again, it is necessary, in order that the mind not be clouded by other thoughts, to forget all those things outside of prayer during the time in which one is praying. How, then, is such a state not most blessed, as Paul teaches in the first Epistle to Timothy, saying: "I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and disputation" (1 Tim. II, 8). B Furthermore, a woman, especially when she prays, must be composed and adorned in soul and body, and, above all when she prays, must revere God, and banish every intemperate and feminine recollection from the governing part of her soul; and she should not be adorned with braided hair and gold and pearls or with costly clothing, but with that with which it is suitable for a woman who promises godliness to be adorned. I marvel if anyone would doubt in calling blessed, from this state alone, the woman who has presented herself in such a way for prayer, as Paul taught in the same Epistle, saying: "In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works" (1 Tim. II, 9–10). And the prophet David says that the holy man who prays has many other things; and we shall not inopportunely bring these forward, so that it may become manifest to us how very useful—if understood even alone—is the disposition and preparation for prayer of the one who has committed himself entirely to God. He says, therefore: "Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens" (Ps. CXXII, 1); and, "Unto thee, O God, have I lifted up my soul" (Ps XXIV, 1). For when the eyes of the intellect are thus lifted up so as no longer to linger on earthly things, nor be filled with the appearances of those things which consist of matter, and are so high C as to look down on everything corruptible, and to be occupied with this one thing, that they may think upon God and address Him, the hearer, with reverence and modesty—why would those eyes not already have profited greatly, "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord with open face, and being changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Cor. III, 18)? For then they participate in the outflow of a certain more divine intelligence, as is clear from these words: "Lord, the light of thy countenance was marked upon us" (Ps. IV, 7). And if the soul, being lifted up and following the Spirit, and being separated from the body—and not only following the Spirit, but also becoming in it (which is indicated by "Unto thee have I lifted up my soul")—why would it not, having laid aside the nature of a soul, become spiritual? But if the forgetting of injuries is a most excellent achievement, D insomuch that all the Law is, as it were, contained in it in summary, according to the prophet Jeremiah, to whom He says: "I did not speak unto your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, but this I commanded them: Let no one remember in his heart an injury against his neighbor" (Jer. VII, 22–23; Zach. VIII, 9); and when one approaches prayer with the forgetting of injuries
A we keep the command of the Savior, who says: "When you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone" (Mark XI, 25). It is clear that when we stand thus disposed to pray, we have already obtained the best things.
And these things are said as a hypothesis; even if nothing else follows for us who pray, we gain the greatest benefits, having understood and successfully performed how one ought to pray. It is clear that he who prays in this way, even while he is still speaking, shall be heard, fixing his gaze upon the power of Him who listens, saying: "Behold, I am here" (Isa. LVIII, 9), having cast aside before prayer every dissatisfaction with Providence. For this is what is signified by: "If you take away from yourself the chain, and the stretching out of hands, and the word of murmuring" (Isa. LVIII, 9); for he who is well-pleased with what happens B has become free from every bond, and does not stretch out his hands against God, who arranges what He wills for our training; nor does he murmur even through hidden thoughts that cannot be heard by men. This murmuring, which is like that of wicked servants who do not openly blame the commands of their masters, is practiced by those who, while not daring to curse Providence with their voice and soul regarding what occurs, yet seem to wish to hide from the Lord of all those things of which they are dissatisfied. And I think this is also what is said in Job: "In all these things that happened to him, Job did not sin with his lips before the Lord" (Job I, 22); whereas regarding the temptation that preceded it, it is written: "In all these things that happened to him, Job did not sin before the Lord" (Job II, 10). The command which forbids this C says in Deuteronomy: "Take heed lest there be a secret word in your heart, an iniquity, saying: The seventh year approaches" (Deut. XV, 9), and so on.
He who prays in this way, having already received so many benefits, becomes more fit to be blended with the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the whole dispensation, and with Him who has filled all the earth and heaven, as the prophet says: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord" (Jer. XXIII, 24). Furthermore, by the aforementioned purification, and by the prayer of the Word of God who stands in the midst of those who do not know Him, and is absent from no one's prayers, he will share in the prayer, for He prays to the Father D with him for whom He acts as mediator. For the Son of God is the High Priest of our offerings and the Advocate with the Father; He prays for those who pray, and joins in exhortation with those who exhort. Yet He would not pray for those as for familiars, who do not pray through Him assiduously, nor will He be the patron before God for those who do not obey
the teachings which command us to pray always and not to lose heart. For He says, A “He told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart: There was a judge in a certain city,” and so on. And in the preceding passages: “And He said to them, Which of you will have a friend, and will go to him at midnight (89), and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for my friend has arrived on a journey from me, and I have nothing to set before him’?” And a little later: “I say to you, though he will not give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will arise and give him as much as he needs.” Who among those who believe in truth-speaking Jesus would not be incited to pray without sloth, since He says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; for everyone who asks receives”? B For the good Father, when we ask Him for the living bread—and not the stone which the adversary wishes to become food for Jesus and His disciples—gives the good gift from heaven to those who ask Him.
11. Nor does the high priest alone pray with those who pray sincerely, but also the angels who are in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents more than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance; the souls of the saints, too, who have already fallen asleep (91). This is evident from the fact that Raphael offered the rational service of Tobias and Sarah to God. (For, as the Scripture says, after the prayer of both was heard, the supplication of both before the glory of the great Raphael, he was sent C to heal the two.) And Raphael himself, showing his own ministry as an angel according to the command of God toward both, says, “And now, because you prayed (93), you and your daughter-in-law Sarah, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the Holy One.” And a little later: “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One” (94). According to the word of Raphael, therefore, prayer is good with fasting and almsgiving and justice. And regarding Jeremiah, as in the books of the Maccabees, he appeared distinguished by his gray hair and glory, so that a certain wonderful and most magnificent excellence surrounded him; and he extended his right hand and gave to Judas a golden sword (95); D of whom another saint, who had died before, testified: “This is he who prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet.
A For it is indeed absurd that, while knowledge through a glass and in a riddle now appears to the worthy, but will be revealed face to face in the future, we should not understand that the same proportion applies to the other virtues, especially since those things which are cultivated in this life are perfected there.
Now, one of the most important virtues according to the divine word is love for one's neighbor, which we must believe is possessed much more by the saints who have already fallen asleep toward those who are struggling in this life, than by those who are still subject to human infirmity and who assist their inferiors in their struggle. B For not only here does that saying apply to the brotherly, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it”; for it is fitting that this also applies to the love of those outside the present life, “The care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I do not burn?” especially since Christ has professed that in each of the infirm saints he is himself infirm; and likewise that he is in prison, and naked, and a stranger, and hungry, and thirsty. For who, having read the Gospel, is ignorant that Christ refers to himself the things that happen to believers and counts them as his own sufferings?
And the angels of God came and ministered unto Jesus; it is not fitting for us to think that the ministry of the angels toward Jesus was for a short time, during his bodily sojourn among men, and while he was still in the midst of the believers, not as one reclining, but as one serving. C How many angels is it likely are ministering to Jesus, who desires to gather the children of Israel one by one and to collect them from the dispersion, and who saves those who fear and call upon him, and are working more than the apostles for the increase and multiplication of the Church, to the extent that John in the Apocalypse says that certain angels preside over the Churches? For it is not in vain that the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of man, being seen by those whose eyes are illuminated with the light of knowledge. They, therefore, at the very time of prayer, being reminded by the one who is praying of what he needs, perform what they can, as if having received a general command.
We must also use a certain image in this discourse to help us grasp what we have understood. D Let us suppose a doctor who is zealous for justice is present with a sick man who is praying for his health, and who knows in what way he ought to heal the disease for which the man is pouring out his prayers. It is clear that he will be moved to heal him who is praying, suspecting—not perhaps in vain—that this is the mind of God, since he has heard the prayers of him who asks to be freed from his disease. Or let one of those who abound in the necessities of life, being of a liberal spirit, hear the prayer of a poor man.
A who is bringing his petition to God regarding his needs; it is clear that he too will fulfill the things of prayer for the poor man, becoming a servant of the paternal will, which at the time of the prayer brings together the one who is able to provide with the one who is praying, because he who is able to receive help in these certain matters cannot look past the one in need. Just as, therefore, these things are not to be thought to happen by chance when they do happen—since He who has numbered all the hairs of the head of the saints has harmoniously brought together at the time of prayer the one who is to be the servant of the one needing kindness from Him, hearing the one who has faithfully petitioned—so it must be understood that the arrival of the angels who oversee and serve God is sometimes brought about for one of those who are praying, so that they may join in the petition with what the one praying has asked for. But even each man’s angel, and [the angel] of the little ones in the Church, always seeing the face of the Father who is in heaven, and beholding the divinity of our Creator, prays with us and labors together in whatever is possible regarding what we are praying for.
B Furthermore, I believe that the words of the saints' prayer are filled with power, especially when those praying, pray in spirit and with the mind, with a light rising from the intellect of the one praying and proceeding from his mouth, to loosen by the power of God the intelligible [foe] cast by the opposing powers into the directing faculty of those who neglect to pray and do not keep the "Pray without ceasing," which is said according to the exhortations of Jesus by Paul. For just like a dart from the soul of the one praying, it advances by knowledge, and by word, or by faith, from the saint, wounding for the overthrow C and destruction of the spirits hostile to God, which wish to ensnare us in the bonds of sin. And he prays without ceasing who joins to the works of virtue—which are the part of the commandments performed that are taken up into prayer—the prayer, and to the prayer the appropriate actions. For in this way alone can we accept the precept "Pray without ceasing" in the way that it is possible, namely, if we say that the whole life of the saint is one great, continuous prayer, of which that which is habitually called prayer is also a part, and which ought to be performed no less than three times each day—which is manifest D from Daniel, who, when such danger was hanging over him, prayed three times per day. And Peter, ascending into the upper
A chamber to pray at the sixth hour—at which time a vessel coming down from heaven, let down by four 10 corners, also signifies the middle prayer of the three, the one before it called upon by David 13: "In the morning you shall hear my voice; in the morning I will stand before you and look up"—and the last being made manifest through: "The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice." But neither should we properly pass the time of night without this kind of prayer, since David says: "At midnight I rose to acknowledge you regarding the judgments of your righteousness"; and Paul, as it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, prayed and sang hymns to God at midnight together with Silas in Philippi, so that those who were in custody heard them.
B But if Jesus prays, and, not praying in vain, obtains what he asks through praying—since perhaps he would not have received them without prayer—who of us would neglect to pray? For Mark says that "In the morning, rising very early, he went out and departed into a desert place, and there he prayed." And Luke: "And it came to pass that when he was in a certain place praying, as he ceased, one of his disciples said to him"; and in another place: "And he was spending the night in the prayer of God." And John records his prayer, saying: "These things spoke Jesus, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: Father, the hour is come, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you." And the saying: "And I knew that you always hear me," recorded by the same evangelist as spoken by the Lord, shows that he who always prays is always heard.
C And why is there a need to enumerate those who, because they prayed as they ought, attained the greatest benefits from God? For it is easy for anyone to select more for themselves from the Scriptures. For Anna ministered to the generation of Samuel, who is numbered with Moses, because when she was not bearing children, she believed and prayed to the Lord. And Hezekiah, while he was still childless and had learned from Isaiah that he would die, having prayed, was admitted into the genealogy of the Savior. D And when the people were already about to perish under a single decree from the plot of Haman, the prayer of Mordecai and Esther conjoined with fasting was heard, and beyond the feasts established by Moses, it produced the Mordecaic day of gladness for the people. But also Judith, having offered a holy prayer, overcame Holofernes with God aiding, and one woman of the Hebrews inflicted a stain upon the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael were heard, and merited to receive a wind of dew blowing and restraining the powers of the fire.
while the lions in the Babylonian pit are muzzled by the prayers of Daniel. And Jonas, too, not despairing of being heard from the belly of the whale that had swallowed him, fulfilled the prophetic mission to the Ninevites which he had previously begun, once he had emerged from the belly of the whale. And how many things is each of us able to recount, if only with a grateful heart he is mindful of the benefits he has received and wishes to send up praises to God for them? For souls that have long remained without offspring, having perceived the sterility of that part which ought to be the leader within them and the emptiness of their own mind A, having been impregnated by the Holy Spirit through assiduous prayer, have brought forth salvific words filled with the knowledge of truth. And how many of us have often been delivered from myriads of opposing powers that were warring against us and wishing to make us disappear from the divine faith? We, having taken heart that "some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we in the name of the Lord our God"—calling upon Him, we see that "the horse is a fallacious thing for safety." But even the commander-in-chief of the adversary, that deceitful and persuasive speech which strikes terror into many even of those who are thought to have believed, is often slain by him who trusts in the praises of God; for Judith is interpreted as "praise." And how many are there who, when they had fallen into temptations difficult to overcome and hotter than any flame, suffered nothing from them, but emerged entirely unharmed, not even receiving the slightest damage from the scent of the enemy's fire? B What need is there to mention other things, and how many times, encountering beasts raging against us—namely, evil spirits and savage men—they have often muzzled their mouths with their prayers, since they were not able even to bring their teeth toward these limbs of ours that have been made members of Christ? For often for the sake of any of the saints the Lord has broken the molars of the lions, "and they have come to nothing like water that flows away." We also know of many fugitives from the divine commandments who, having been initially conquered and swallowed by death, were saved from such great evil through repentance; even though death already held them in its belly, they did not despair of being able to be saved: "For death, having prevailed, has swallowed," and again "God has taken away every tear from every face." C It seemed necessary to me, after the enumeration of those things in which prayer has availed, to say these things so as to turn away those who desire the spiritual life in Christ from asking in prayer for small and earthly things, and to exhort the readers of this writing toward those mystical things of which the things I have mentioned before were images. For every prayer regarding the aforementioned spiritual and mystical matters is always brought to perfection by him who does not war according to the flesh, but by the Spirit mortifies the deeds of the flesh, and considers those things D
A which the anagogical sense reveals to those who inquire, rather than the benefit which appears to have happened to those who pray according to the letter. For we, too, must take care that our soul is not barren, but that we hear the spiritual law with spiritual ears, so that we may cease to be barren, and that we may be heard, even as Anna and Hezekiah were heard; and furthermore, that we may be delivered from the insidiously attacking spiritual foes of wickedness, just as Mordecai, and Esther, and Judith were. And since Egypt is an iron furnace, being a figure of all earthly places, whoever has escaped the wickedness of human life and has not been inflamed by sin, nor has a heart like an oven full of fire, let him return no less gratitude than those who experienced the dew in the midst of the fire. Moreover, whoever, when praying and saying, "Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to thee," B is heard, and is harmed in no way by the asp and the basilisk, because he has walked upon them by that virtue of Christ, and has trampled down the lion and the dragon, and having used the excellent power given by Christ to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and having suffered no injury from them, let him give more abundant thanks than Daniel, as having been delivered from more terrible and more harmful beasts. Beyond this, he who is persuaded of what whale that which swallowed Jonah was a type, and understands also that it is of that one of whom Job speaks: "Let him who curses that day curse it, he who is able to overpower the great whale," if by any slip of infidelity he should arrive in the belly of the whale, let him pray in repentance, and he will depart from thence; C and having departed, if he persists in obeying the commandments of God, he will be able, by prophesying through the favor of the Spirit, to be an opportunity of salvation even now for the perishing Ninevites; nor, however, will he be vexed at the goodness of God, nor will he wish for Him to retain a will to destroy against those who repent. Furthermore, what Samuel is said to have accomplished in the greatest way through prayer, this any of those who are truly devoted to God can now also perform spiritually, inasmuch as he has become worthy to be heard; for it is written: "But even now stand still and see this great word which the Lord performs before your eyes. Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, and he will give voices and rain." And a little later: "And Samuel," he says, "called upon the Lord; and the Lord gave voices and rain on that day." For it is said by the Lord to all the holy D and legitimate disciples of Christ: "Lift up your eyes and see the regions, for they are already white for harvest. And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto eternal life." In this time of harvest, therefore, the Lord performs a great thing in the sight of those who heed the prophets: for when he who cleaves to the Holy Spirit cries out to the Lord, God gives from heaven
voices and the rain that waters the soul, so that he who was formerly in wickedness may fear the Lord greatly, and may see the minister of God’s bounty revealed as someone to be revered and honored because of the things for which he is heard. Elijah, too, after the heaven had been shut for three years and six months against the impious, opens it hereafter by divine command—a thing that is always accomplished by everyone who, through prayer, receives the rain of the soul, which was previously denied to him on account of sin.
B Now that we have explained what we have concerning the benefits that the saints received through their prayers, let us understand the saying: "Ask for the great, and the small shall be added unto you; and ask for the heavenly, and the earthly shall be added unto you." All signs and images, in comparison with those things that are true and spiritual, are small and earthly. Wherefore, it is fitting that when the Word of God exhorts us to imitate the prayers of the saints, that we might ask in reality for that which they attained only in figures, he calls heavenly and great things those which were foreshadowed by earthly and paltry matters. It is as if he were saying: "You who wish to be spiritual, ask through prayers for heavenly things, so that having attained them, you may be as those who are heavenly, heirs of the kingdom of heaven; and being great, you may enjoy the greatest goods. But as for the earthly and small things for which you have need for the sake of the body's necessities, the Father shall provide them for you according to the measure of your need."
C Since, however, four names referring to four matters akin to this discourse on prayer are mentioned in the Apostle’s first Epistle to Timothy, it will be useful, with the text itself set before us, to look at each of those four, to see if we can rightly perceive how each is properly understood. He speaks as follows: "I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men," and the rest. I consider, therefore, that a *supplication* (deēsis) is a prayer sent forth by someone in a suppliant manner, so that he may obtain that of which he stands in need; that *prayer* (proseuchē) is what one offers regarding greater matters with a loftier
A frame of mind to God glorifying Him; that *postulation* (aitēsis) is a request made to God by one who uses a certain greater confidence; that *thanksgiving* (eucharistia) is a confession of benefits obtained from God, joined with prayers, when the magnitude of the benefit is acknowledged through the confession, or, appearing to him who has received it, it is taken in place of the benefit itself. Examples of the first kind are: that of Gabriel to Zacharias, who, as is likely, had prayed regarding the birth of John; the discourse holds thus: "Do not fear, Zacharias, because your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John"; and what is written in Exodus after the golden calf in this manner: "And Moses besought the Lord God, and said: Why, O Lord, are you indignant with wrath against your people, whom you led out of the land of Egypt with great strength?" And in Deuteronomy: "And I besought before the Lord a second time, just as before, forty days and forty nights, I did not eat bread nor drink water, for all your sins which you have sinned." And in Esther: Mordecai besought God, remembering all the works of the Lord, and said: "Lord, Lord, King Almighty." And Esther herself besought the Lord God of Israel, and said: "Lord, our King." B Examples of the second kind are in Daniel: "And Azarias standing prayed thus; and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire, he said." And in Tobit: "And I prayed with sorrow, saying: You are just, O Lord, and all your works, all your ways are mercy and truth, and true and just judgment you judge for all eternity." But since the passage cited from Daniel is marked with an obelus because it does not exist in the Hebrew, and the Jews reject the book of Tobit as not canonical, I shall adduce that of Hannah from the first book of Kingdoms [1 Kings]: "And she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly and prayed a prayer, and said: Lord of hosts, if regarding you will look upon the affliction of your handmaid"; and the rest. Likewise in Habakkuk: "Prayer of Habakkuk the prophet with a song. O Lord, I have heard your voice, and I feared. O Lord, I contemplated your works, and I was amazed. In the midst of two living beings you shall be known; when the years draw near, you shall be known." But this strongly manifests the definition of prayer, namely that prayer is sent up to the one praying together with C the praises of God. But also in Jonah: "Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the whale, and said: I cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and he heard me; from the belly of Hades you heard the voice of my cry; you cast me into the deeps of the heart of the sea, and the rivers surrounded me." An example of the third kind is with the Apostle, who most rightly assigns prayer and postulation to the Spirit, as the one who is more excellent and [has] confidence. D
toward the One to whom he makes intercession. B For "what we should pray for," he says, "as we ought, we do not know, but the Spirit itself intercedes with sighs too deep for words to God." And He who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because it intercedes for the saints according to God. For the Spirit both intercedes and makes postulation, while we pray.
It seems to me that what was said by Jesus concerning the standing still of the sun against Gabaon is also a postulation: "Then Jesus spoke to the Lord on the day that God delivered the Amorite into subjection to Israel, when He crushed them in Gabaon, and they were crushed before the face of the children of Israel. And Jesus said: Let the sun stand against Gabaon, and the moon against the valley of Elon." And in the book of Judges, I think that Samson, when he made a postulation, said: "Let my soul die with the foreigners," when he shook [the pillars] mightily, and the house fell upon the princes and all the multitude that was in it.
Even though it is not written that Josue and Samson "made a postulation," but only that they spoke, it seems that their speech was a postulation, which we consider to be distinct from prayer, if indeed the terms are understood properly. Furthermore, an example of thanksgiving is that voice of our Lord, saying: "I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones." For that word, "I confess" (*exomologoumai*), is equivalent to "I give thanks."
It is not absurd to offer supplication, postulation, and thanksgiving even to the saints; and two of these—I mean postulation and thanksgiving—not only to the saints but also to [other] men; but supplication only to the saints, if some Paul or Peter be found, that they might help us and make us worthy to enjoy the power given to them to forgive sins. Unless perhaps if we have done an injury to someone who is not a saint, it is also granted to us, when we have become aware of our sin against him, to beseech even him, that he might grant us pardon for the injury. C But if those prayers must be offered to holy men, how much more must thanks be given to Christ, from whom we have received so many and such great benefits by the will of the Father? But one must also make postulation to Him, as Stephen did when he said: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them"; and imitating the father of the lunatic, we shall say: "I beseech You, Lord, have mercy either on my son, or on me myself, or whoever it may be."
15. But if we understand what prayer is, perhaps it should not be offered to any of those who are generated, and not even to Christ D
A himself, but only to the God and Father of all, to whom even the Savior himself prayed, as we have already set forth, and as he teaches us to pray. For when he heard, "Teach us to pray," he did not teach them to pray to him, but to the Father, saying: "Our Father who art in heaven," and so forth. For if, as is shown elsewhere, the Son is B another than the Father according to substance and subject, then we must pray either to the Son and not to the Father, or to both, or only to the Father. Now, that one should pray to the Son and not to the Father, everyone will admit to be most absurd and spoken contrary to evidence. But if one should pray to both, it is clear that we would have to offer our requests in the plural, saying in our prayers, "Grant ye," "Do good ye," "Provide ye," "Save ye," and whatever else of this kind there may be—which is itself also C absurd, nor can anyone point out in the Scriptures that this was said by anyone. It is settled, therefore, to pray only to the God and Father of all; yet not without the high priest who was established with an oath by the Father according to that which is said: "The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." Therefore, when the saints offer thanks to God in their prayers, they render them to him through Christ Jesus. And just as it does not befit him who wants to pray properly to pray to the one who prays, but to him whom our Lord Jesus has taught us to call upon in our prayers—namely, the Father—so there is no prayer to be offered to the Father without him. Which he himself shows clearly when he says: "Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." For he did not say, "Ask me," nor simply "Ask the Father," but "If you ask the Father anything, he will give it to you in my name." For until Jesus taught these things, no one had asked the Father in the name of the Son; and it was true what was said by Jesus: "Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name," but also true was that: "Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." D Now if anyone, thinking that one ought to pray to Christ himself, being confused by the meaning of 'worship' (proskunein), brings forward to us the text, "Let all the angels of God worship him," which is admittedly said concerning Christ in Deuteronomy, we must answer him that the Church also, called Jerusalem by the prophet, is said to be worshipped by kings and queens who are to be her foster-fathers and foster-mothers in these words: "Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and I will raise my standard to the islands; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters they shall carry upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy foster-fathers, and their queens thy foster-mothers. Upon the face of the earth they shall worship thee, and"
thou shalt lick the dust of their feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and thou shalt not be ashamed. B But how is it not the case, according to him who said: "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one God, the Father," that he should say: "Why pray ye to me? Ye ought to pray to the Father alone, to whom I also pray"—which statement you learn through the Holy Scriptures; for to the High Priest who has been appointed for us by the Father, and who has received from the Father to be an Advocate, we ought not to pray, but he should be the one through whom we pray to the Father—he who can sympathize with our weaknesses, having been tempted in all things like us, but, through the gift of the Father, tempted without sin. Learn, therefore, how great a gift you have received from my Father, through the regeneration in me, having received the spirit of adoption, so that you may be called sons of God, and brethren of mine. For you have read the voice spoken by me through David concerning you unto the Father: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Church will I praise thee." C But for those who have been deemed worthy of one and the same Father to pray to a brother is not reasonable; for to the Father alone, with me and through me, must prayer be sent up by you.
16. Hearing Jesus saying these things, let us pray to God through him, speaking the same thing all of us, and not be divided concerning the manner of prayer. For are we not divided if some pray to the Father, and others pray to the Son? Through excessive simplicity, men fall into a foolish kind of sin, who, without weighing or examining the matter, pray to the Son, either with the Father or without the Father. Let us pray, therefore, as to God; let us beseech as to the Father; let us entreat as to the Lord; and let us give thanks as to God and Father and Lord, yet not altogether as to the Lord of slaves. For the Father can rightly be considered Lord of the Son, and Lord of those children who have been made children through him. D As he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, so he is not the Lord of ignoble slaves, but of those who, having been enslaved at first out of fear on account of their infancy, afterwards serve him through love, a slavery more blessed than that which is through fear. For there are in the soul, visible to him alone who beholds the heart, the characters of the slaves of God and of his sons. Whosoever, therefore, asks for earthly and small things from God, disobeys him who commanded to ask for heavenly and great things from him who knows how to bestow nothing earthly. But if anyone objects concerning the body...
given to the saints through prayer, and also A to the voice of the Gospel teaching that earthly things are added to you, and small things also; one must answer him that just as, when someone gives us any body whatsoever, one ought not to say that he gave us the shadow of the body—since he intended not to give two things, body and shadow, but proposed to give only the body, yet with the body given it follows that we receive its shadow as well—so if, with a slightly more noble mind, we consider the gifts conferred upon us by God, we will most fittingly say that things bodily are consequences of the great and heavenly spiritual gifts, given for the utility of the saints either according to the proportion of faith, or as he who bestows wills; and he wills wisely, even if we are not able to assign, for each of the things given, a cause and reason worthy of the giver. Therefore, it is to be thought that the soul of Hannah, healed from a certain sterility, was B more fruitful than her body which was pregnant with Samuel; rather, Hezekiah brought forth divine offspring in his mind than progeny from bodily seed. Esther and Mordecai and the people were released from spiritual snares more than from [the snares of] Haman and those who conspired for their destruction; and (Judith more powerfully) cut down the strength of the prince desiring to corrupt her soul, than that of Holofernes. And who would not confess that the spiritual blessing pronounced by Isaac over all the saints when he says to Jacob, "May God give you of the dew of heaven" (Gen. XXVII, 28), was possessed by Ananias and his companions more abundantly than the bodily dew by which the flame of Nebuchadnezzar was overcome? Daniel stopped the mouths of invisible lions, lest they be able to do anything to his soul, C more than of the visible ones, about which all we who read the Scripture have received [account]. Who so escaped the belly of the whale—that [creature] subdued by Christ our Savior and swallowing all who flee from God—as Jonah, when he became capable of the holy Spirit, insofar as he was made holy himself?
Nor is it to be wondered at if not to all who receive, if I may so speak, the bodies that produce such shadows is a similar shadow given, but to some a shadow is given in the same way, while to others no shadow at all is given; for this is clearly manifest to those who contemplate gnomonic problems and the ratio of shadows to the illuminating body, occurring also in the case of bodies. For there are some [styles of] gnomons that lack a shadow at a certain time; to others, the style has a short shadow, and in others one longer than in others. D
A Nor, therefore, will it be a great thing if, by His counsel, in bestowing upon us the principal gifts according to certain hidden and secret reasons, in accordance with the capacity of the recipient and the time, He brings it about that when the principal gifts are given, no shadows at all follow; at other times they are not for all, but for some, and at other times they are smaller in comparison with greater ones that follow. Just as, therefore, to him who seeks the solar rays, once he has attained them, the shadow of the body is neither pleasant nor troublesome, whether it be present or absent, since he possesses that which is most necessary, irrespective of whether he is deprived of a shadow or has more or less of it; so, if spiritual things are present to us, and we are illuminated by God for the absolute comparison of true goods, we shall not seek after a trifling matter, the shadow, with a small mind. For all material and corporeal things, whatever they may happen to be, have the character of a light and fragile shadow, and are in no way to be compared with the salutary and holy gifts of the God of all. For what comparison can there be of corporeal riches with those by which we are enriched in every word and in all wisdom?* Who, unless he were B mad, would compare the health of flesh and bones with the health of the mind, the steadfastness of the soul, and the proper composition of thoughts? For all these things, if they are tempered by the Word of God, cause all corporeal afflictions to be considered as a slight prick, or if we deem anything lighter than a prick. But he who has conceived in his mind what is the beauty of that bride—whom the bridegroom, who is the Word of God, loves—I mean the beauty of a soul blooming with supercelestial and supermundane beauty, will be ashamed even to honor with the same name of beauty the corporeal beauty of a woman, a boy, or a man; for flesh is not capable of true beauty, being in its entirety a disgrace. For all flesh is like grass, and its glory, which that which is called the beauty of women or children exhibits to the eyes, is compared to a flower, according to the prophetic discourse saying: All flesh is grass, C and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.** Who, moreover, would properly call that nobility which is accustomed to be called nobility among men, if he has once known the nobility of the sons of God? And when the mind has contemplated the unshaken kingdom of Christ, how would it not despise, as of no value, every earthly kingdom? Likewise, when the mind of man, even while still bound to the body, has contemplated, as much as it is able, the army of angels and, among them, the leaders of the hosts of the Lord, the archangels, and the thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and supercelestial powers, and has grasped that it is possible to attain to equal honor from the Father with those—how would it D not deem even a shadow to be more sluggish than these?
A And if all these things were granted, would it not scorn them in order not to miss the true rule and the more divine powers? We must pray, therefore, we must pray for those things which are primary and truly great and heavenly; what pertains to the shadows which follow the primary things must be left to God, who knows what we need for our corruptible body before we even ask him. He knows, before we ask him.
B Now that we have, according to the grace given to us, reached as far as we were able by God through his Christ (would that it were also in the Holy Spirit—and whether or not that is the case, you will judge when you have read through these matters), and have sufficiently considered the argument concerning prayer, we shall now gird ourselves for the next task: to consider with what power the prayer described by the Lord is filled. And first of all, it must be observed that Matthew and Luke might seem to many to have described the same form of prayer that we are to follow. The words of Matthew are of this kind: *Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.* C But those of Luke are these: *Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.* To those who suspect this, it must be said, first, that the words, although they have some things in common, appear in many respects to be different, as we shall show by examining them; and second, that it is impossible that the same prayer was spoken on the mountain—where, seeing the crowds, he went up, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him, and opening his mouth he taught them (for it is in that series of discourse in which the beatitudes are announced and the following precepts are given that this is written in Matthew)—and that it was also spoken when he was in a certain place praying, as he ceased, to one of his disciples who had requested to be taught to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. For how is it possible D that the same words should, without any prior questioning, be spoken in a continuous series, and then be brought forth at the request of one disciple? But perhaps someone might say that those prayers signify the same thing, and that they were spoken as one, both in a more lengthy discourse and to one of the disciples requesting it—assuming that he had not been present when those things were spoken which Matthew recorded, or
that he did not retain the memory of what had been said long ago. Yet perhaps it is better to consider these prayers as distinct, though they possess certain parts in common. And having inquired in Mark whether any prayer of this kind was set down in the same sense, we found not even a trace of one there. A
19. And since, as we have said above, it is necessary first to establish how the one who prays should be disposed, and then to pray, let us see what our Savior had said before the prayer set down in Matthew. The passage runs thus: *When you pray, you will not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having closed your door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees you in secret will repay you. But when you pray, do not speak much, as the Gentiles do. For they think that they will be heard in their much speaking. Therefore, do not be likened to them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Thus, therefore, pray you.* Our Savior seems to have attacked the desire for glory in many places as a B pernicious disease; which He also did here, forbidding us to imitate the deeds of hypocrites during the time of prayer. For it is characteristic of hypocrites to wish to boast among men under the name of piety or generosity. But, being mindful of this sentence: *How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?* we ought to despise all glory that proceeds from men—even if it seems to happen on account of something beautiful—and seek that which is properly and truly glory, which is given by Him who alone adorns what is worthy of glory in a manner worthy of Himself and far above the merit of the one who is adorned. That very thing, therefore, which might have been thought beautiful and worthy of praise is then defiled when it is done by us so that we may be seen by men and receive glory from men. Wherefore, no reward follows from God for this. For since every word of Christ is true, that word is, if it is C right to say, even more true, which He uttered with His accustomed oath. For regarding those who appear to do good to their neighbor for the sake of human glory, or who pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets so that they may be seen by men, He says this very thing: *Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.* For just as that rich man mentioned in D
Luke had received good things in his mortal life, and therefore could not obtain them any longer after the present life, so he who receives his reward, whether by giving something to someone or by praying, since he has not sown in the Spirit but in the flesh, will reap corruption and not eternal life. Now he sows in the flesh who, in the synagogues and streets, in order to be glorified by men, gives alms with a trumpet sounding before him, or he who loves to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, so that, being seen by men, he may be thought by those who see him to be a pious and holy man. B But also, everyone who travels the broad and spacious road that leads to destruction, which has nothing straight and upright, but is entirely crooked and angular (for the straight line is broken in it for the most part), does not stand well in it, praying at the street corners and, through love of pleasure, coming to be not in one, but in many streets; among whom those who die as men, because they have fallen away from the Divinity, end up glorifying and calling blessed those whom they think act piously in the streets. But there are many who, when appearing to pray, are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, acting drunkenly in prayer in the midst of dinner parties and cups, truly standing and praying at the corners of the streets. For everyone who lives according to pleasure and has loved the broad road has fallen away from the narrow and constricted way of Jesus Christ, which does not have even the slightest turn, and has no angle at all.
C Now if there is some difference between the Church and the Synagogue—the Church properly so called having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but being holy and blameless, into which enters neither one born of a harlot, nor a eunuch, whether his testicles are crushed or amputated, nor even an Egyptian or an Idumean, if not that, once children have been born to them, they can barely qualify for the Church by the third generation; nor the Moabite and Ammonite, unless the tenth generation is fulfilled and the age is accomplished; and the Synagogue, on the other hand, being built by the centurion who was doing this in the times before the coming of Jesus, when he had not yet been attested to have such faith as the Son of God did not even find in Israel—then he who loves D to pray in the synagogues is not far from the corners of the streets, and he prays in the corners of the streets for no other reason than out of vainglory.
near the corners of the streets. But the holy man is not of this kind; for he does not merely like to pray, but he loves it; and not in synagogues, but in churches; and not at the corners of the streets, but in the rectitude of the narrow and compressed way; and he does not so perform it that he might appear before men, but that he might be seen in the sight of the Lord God. For he is a male, mindful of the acceptable year of the Lord, A and keeping that commandment: *Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord God.* (Deut. xvi, 16). We must, however, diligently understand that expression, *that they may appear.* For since nothing that appears is beautiful, as if it were beautiful only in appearance and not truly, it deceives the mind with a false and empty image, and does not model things precisely and truly. Just as the actors of certain dramas in the theaters are not what they say they are, nor what they appear to be on account of the mask they wear, so too all those who B adorn themselves with the appearance of good, are not just, but are actors of righteousness, themselves also acting in their own theater—namely, in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets. But he who is not a hypocrite, but has laid aside every foreign ornament and is eager to please himself, in that theater which is far more excellent than those aforementioned, enters into his chamber, where, besides the heaped-up riches, he has enclosed for himself the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. He neither looks outside nor pants for external things; and having locked all the doors of the senses, so that he may not be distracted by them, nor the images of those outward things C be introduced into his mind, he prays to the Father who does not flee from such a hidden place, nor abandon it, but dwells within it, accompanied also by the Only-Begotten. *For I*, He says, *and the Father will come unto him, and will make our abode with him.* (John xiv, 23). It is plain that if we pray in this way, we shall treat with not only God, but also the Father, as children who are not forsaken, but who have Him present in our hidden parts, and seeing that hidden place, and increasing the goods stored up in our chamber, if only we have locked its door.
21. Furthermore, when we pray, let us not speak vainly, but let us speak theologically. We speak vainly when we do not strictly examine ourselves or the words sent forth by us in prayer, D but speak of corrupt things, or bring forth conversations and thoughts that are abject and worthy of reproach, and alien to the purity of the Lord. Now, he who speaks vainly in prayer is in a worse condition than those whom we said above were addicted to the synagogue, and he walks a path more difficult than the corners of the streets, since he does not keep even a trace of good, even by pretense. For only the heathens, according to the Gospel text, speak vainly, not having even a fantasy of great or hea-
heavenly petitions, but making all their prayer about bodily and external things. A Thus, he who asks for lower things from the Lord who dwells in the heavens and above the heights of the heavens is like the heathen who speaks vainly. Furthermore, to speak nonsense seems to be the same thing as to speak much; for nothing is one in matter and in bodies, but whatever is thought to be one, is cut and divided and separated into many things, which have lost their unity. For good is one, but the things that are base are many; truth is one, but the things that are false are many; true justice is one, but many habits simulate it; the wisdom of God is one, but there are many wisdoms of this age and of the rulers of this age, which are being destroyed; and the Word of God is one, but those alien to God are many. For this reason, no one will escape sin by speaking much, and no one who thinks he will be heard because of his much speaking can be heard. Therefore, we should not make our B prayers similar to those of the heathens who speak vainly, or speak much, or do anything whatsoever according to the likeness of the serpent. For the God of the saints, being Father, knows what his children have need of, since these things are worthy of paternal knowledge. But if someone is ignorant of God, he is also ignorant of the things of God, and he is ignorant of the things which he has need of. For the things which he thinks he has need of are faulty. But he who has contemplated those better and more divine things which he needs, will obtain from God and the Father those things which he has perceived, which are known to the Father even before he asks. Since these things have been said regarding what precedes the prayer in Matthew, let us now consider what is declared by the prayer itself.
"Our Father who art in heaven." It is worth observing more carefully the so-called Old Testament, to see if it is possible to find therein a prayer of anyone calling God Father; for in our present, as far as we were able to examine, we have not found it. And we do not say this—that God is not called Father, or that those who are thought to have believed in God have not been named children of God—but that we have nowhere found in C prayer that confidence proclaimed by the Savior of naming God "Father." Moreover, that God is called Father, and those who have approached the Word of God are called children, can be seen in many places, as in Deuteronomy: "You abandoned God who begot you, and forgot God who nourishes you." And again: "Is not this himself your father who possessed you, and made you, and created you?" And again: "Children in whom there is no faith." And in Isaiah: "I have begotten and exalted children, but they have rejected me." And in Malachi: "A son will glorify his father, and a servant his master. And if I am a father, where is my glory? And if I am a master, where is my fear?" Although however, Father is called
God, and they who are born by the word of faith in him are called sons; yet a firm and stable sonship is not found among the ancients. A Indeed, the very passages we have cited show that those who were called sons were in subjection; since, according to the Apostle, "as long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father." Now, the "fullness of the time" is in the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, when those who will may receive adoption, as Paul teaches with these words: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." And in the Gospel according to John: "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." B And because of this Spirit of adoption of sons, we have learned in the Catholic Epistle of John concerning those who are born of God, that "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." If, therefore, we understand what that is which is written in Luke, "When ye pray, say, Father," we shall fear—if we are not legitimate sons—to offer this utterance to him, lest in addition to our other sins we become liable also to the charge of impiety. Now this is what I mean: Paul says in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost; and no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed." For he calls the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God the same thing. C But what it is to say "in the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus," is not altogether clear, since this utterance is put forth by countless hypocrites, by very many heterodox, and sometimes even by demons who are overcome by the power in the name. Therefore, no one would dare to affirm that any of these speaks "in the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus." Wherefore, they indeed would not even wish to say "Lord Jesus," since only those speak "Lord Jesus" who serve the Word of God from the heart, and who—in any matter whatever that has to be done—proclaim no one else as Lord. But if they are such who say, "Lord Jesus," perhaps whoever sins, by his transgression anathematizing the divine Word, cries out by his very deeds, "Anathema Jesus." D As, therefore, such a one says, "Lord Jesus," and he who is disposed in the contrary way, "Anathema Jesus," so every one who is born of God and does not commit sin, because he is a partaker of the divine seed which turns one away from every sin, says by the things that he does: "Our Father who art in heaven," while the Spirit himself bears witness.
A to their spirit that they are children of God, and his heirs, and joint-heirs with Christ, since they suffer with him and rightly hope to be glorified together. But that such persons may not say "Our Father" only in part, their heart—the source and beginning of good works—believes unto righteousness, to which the mouth confesses unto salvation. Therefore every work of theirs, and word, and thought, being formed by the only-begotten Word according to him, has imitated the image of the invisible God and has become according to the image of the Creator, who makes his sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust; so that there is in them the image of the heavenly one, [the Word] himself being the image of God. Since, therefore, the saints are an image of an image—the image being the Son—they express sonship, becoming conformed not only to the glorious body B of Christ, but also to him who is in the body. Moreover, they become conformed to him who is in the body of glory, being transformed by the renewing of the mind. If, then, those who are altogether such as these are say: "Our Father who art in heaven," it is manifest that he who commits sin, as John says in his Catholic Epistle, is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning. And just as the seed of God, remaining in him who is born of God, is the cause of his being unable to sin—which happens to him who is formed according to the only-begotten Word—so in everyone who commits sin, the seed of the devil is present, as much as exists in the soul, not allowing the one who possesses it to be able to accomplish that which is right. But since for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil, it is possible, by the coming of the Word of God into our soul, C when the works of the devil have been destroyed, that the evil seed planted in us should vanish, and we should become children of God. Let us not, therefore, think that we are taught to say these words at some fixed time of prayer; but if we understand what we have previously examined regarding "Pray without ceasing," our whole life—we who pray unceasingly—should say: "Our Father who art in heaven," having our citizenship in no way upon earth, but in every way in heaven, which are the thrones of God, because the kingdom of God is established in all those who bear the image of the heavenly one, and have therefore become heavenly.
When it is said that the Father of the saints D is in heaven, it is not to be supposed that he is circumscribed by a bodily shape and dwells in the heavens; for if he were contained, God would be found lesser than the heavens, since the heavens would be containing him; whereas, on the contrary, it is necessary to believe that by the ineffable power of his divinity he includes and holds all things together. And, in general, those words which, taken literally, seem to the simpler sort to place God in a location
A must be understood worthily according to the great and spiritual conceptions concerning God; such as these are in the Gospel according to John: "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." And after a few things: "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God." And after other things: "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father." And again after other things: "But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?" For if these things are to be accepted as regarding a location, it is clear that B the following must also be accepted in the same sense: "Jesus answered and said unto them, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." But these things do not come to pass through a transition of the Father and the Son to him who loves the word of Jesus, understood as being from place to place; therefore neither are those to be accepted as regarding a location. But the Word of God, accommodating himself to us, and, in accordance with his own dignity, insofar as he is among men, being humbled, is said to depart from this world unto the Father, so that we too might there behold him in his perfection—returned from the emptiness in which he emptied himself among us C back to his own fullness; where, using him as our leader, we ourselves shall be filled and freed from all emptiness. Let the Word of God, therefore, having left the world, depart to him who sent him, and let him go to the Father. And that which is written at the end of the Gospel according to John: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father," let us seek to understand more mystically, and let us conceive the ascension of the Son to the Father in a more divine way with holy clarity, such that it is the mind rather than the body that ascends in that ascension. I have thought it necessary to discuss these things alongside "Our Father who art in heaven," in order to lift the lowly opinion concerning God held by those who think that he is in heaven as if in a place, D and so that no one might suppose God to be in a corporeal place. For it would consistently follow that one must say that he is a body, from which follow the most impious dogmas, namely to believe that he is divisible and material and corruptible; for every body is divisible and material and corruptible. Or let them tell us, if they are not led by vain affections but assert that they clearly understand, how it is possible for him to be of a nature other than material. But since many of those things which were written before the bodily advent of Christ seem to say that God is in a corporeal place, it does not seem alien to my purpose to set forth a few of those as well, so that all doubt may be removed from those who, by reason of their ignorance, conclude that God, who surpasses all things, is contained in a small and narrow place. And first, since
it is said in Genesis: "Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise in the evening, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the tree of paradise," we shall ask those who are unwilling to enter the treasuries of the Scripture, and not even knocking at its door, whether they are able to demonstrate that the Lord God, who fills heaven and earth, is contained by such a small place—if, as they suppose, He uses the heaven as a corporeal throne and the earth as a footstool for His feet—that, in such a brief comparison with the whole of heaven and earth, it is as if the corporeal paradise which they imagine for themselves is not filled by God, but that He is merely so much greater in magnitude that He even contains Him while He is walking, and the sound of the sole of His feet is heard. B Furthermore, it is even more absurd in their opinion that Adam and Eve, fearing God because of their transgression, hid themselves from the face of God in the midst of the tree of paradise; for it is not said that they merely wished to hide themselves, but that they truly hid themselves. And how, according to them, does God question Adam, saying: "Where art thou?" We have discussed these matters more fully when we expounded Genesis; but now, lest we pass over so great a question in total silence, it will suffice to remember this sentence: "I will dwell in them and walk in them," which is spoken by God in Deuteronomy. For whatever his walking is among the saints, such also it is in paradise, when anyone who sins hides himself from God and flees from His inspection and departs from His intimacy; for thus also Cain went out from the face of God and dwelt in the land of Nod, opposite Eden. C As, therefore, He dwells in the saints, so also in heaven, that is, in every saint and one who bears the image of the heavenly one, or in Christ, in whom are all the saved, the lights and stars of heaven; or He dwells there because the saints live in heaven. But what is said: "To Thee have I lifted up my eyes, who dwellest in heaven"; and what is contained in Ecclesiastes: "Be not hasty to utter a word before the face of God; for God is in heaven above, and thou art on earth below," intends to signify how great is the distance from those who are in the body of humility to Him who is with the angels—who themselves are exalted by the aid of the Word—and with the holy powers, or with Christ Himself. D For it is not absurd that He is properly the throne of the Father, and that the heaven is called so more allegorically; while the Church is called the earth and is the footstool of His feet. We have added these few passages from the Old Testament, which are thought to place God in a location, so that we may persuade the reader, by the ability granted to us, to understand Scripture in a higher and more spiritual sense when it appears to teach that God is in a location. It was incumbent upon me to discuss these things regarding the words: "Our Father, who art in heaven," so that we might [understand the divine...]*
*Note: the last bracketed phrase completes the Latin sentence fragment "ut Dei es- sacram" which appears to have been slightly cut off or abbreviated in the source text; the translation here aligns with the intended theological sense of the passage.*
A 491] nature as being separate from all generated things. For those with whom He does not communicate, there is a certain glory of God and His power and, if I may so speak, an efflux of His divinity that reaches them.
24. Hallowed be thy name. Whether [the name] refers to that which has not yet come to pass for which one prays, or whether, if one has already attained it, one asks that that which does not abide may be preserved, it is manifest, as far as the words are concerned, that we are commanded, according to Matthew and Luke, to say: "Hallowed be thy name," as if the name of the Father were not yet hallowed. But, you will ask, how does a man ask for the name of God to be hallowed, as if it were not already holy? Let us understand what the name of the Father is, and what it is for it to be hallowed. A name, therefore, is a concise designation that sets forth the proper quality of the thing named. For example, there is a certain proper quality of Paul the apostle: one is of the soul, according to which he is such as he is; another is of the mind, according to which he is capable of conceiving such things; another is of the body itself, according to which it is such as it is. Therefore, that which is proper to these qualities, and which cannot belong to any other (for there is no other human being in the nature of things who does not differ at all from Paul), is expressed by the name "Paul." However, among men, since those proper qualities are in a certain way changed, their names also are rightly changed according to Scripture; for when the quality of Abram was changed, he was called Abraham; and when the quality of Simon was changed, he was named Peter; likewise, when the quality of Saul, who persecuted Christ, was changed, he was called Paul. But in God, who is Himself always unchangeable and immutable, there is always one and the same name, as it were—that is, "He who is," as it is said in Exodus, or whatever else might be said to be similar. Since, therefore, as often as we think about God, we form for ourselves some notion of Him, but not all of us know what He truly is (for there are few, and, if I may so speak, fewer than few, who can comprehend His property in all things), we are deservedly taught that our notion of God is sound if we look upon the property of Him who creates, provides, judges, chooses, abandons, embraces, rejects, and rewards or punishes each one according to merit. For in these things [D and in those similar to them is expressed, if I may so speak, the proper quality of God, which I believe is called the name of God according to the Scriptures; for in Exodus [it is written]: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," and in Deuteronomy: "Let it be expected,"
A as rain my utterance; let my words descend as dew; as a downpour upon the herb, and as a snow-drift upon the grass; because I have called the name of the Lord." And in the Psalms: "They shall be mindful of thy name in every generation and generation." For he who applies the concept of God to things to which it does not befit, takes the name of the Lord God in vain. But he who is able to utter things which, as rain, conduce to the fertility of the souls of the hearers, and brings forward comforting words like dew, and by the rush of the edification of his discourses brings a most useful downpour to the hearers, or a most effective snow-drift, is able to do these things for this reason. Having devised these things, and knowing himself to be in need of the God who perfects him, he calls upon Him who is the Giver of the aforementioned things in the true sense, and every one who makes clear even what pertains to God, is reminded rather than learning, even if he seems to hear from someone, or supposes he is discovering the mysteries of piety.
And just as it is necessary for him who is praying to understand the things here, [namely] to ask that the name of God be sanctified, so also in the Psalms it is said: "Let us exalt his name together," it being ordered by the Father, with all harmony in the same mind, and in the same opinion, to reach the true and high knowledge of the distinctiveness of God. For this is what it is to exalt the name of God together: when someone, having partaken of the effluence of divinity, because he has been taken up by God and has prevailed over his enemies—who were unable to rejoice at his fall—exalts that very power of God of which he has become a partaker; which is declared in the twenty-ninth B Psalm by the words: "I will exalt thee, O Lord, for thou hast taken me up, and thou hast not made my enemies to rejoice over me." A person also exalts God by dedicating a house to Him within himself, since indeed the inscription of the psalm is thus: "A Psalm of a song of the dedication of the house of David."
Furthermore, concerning the [petition], "Hallowed be thy name," and the rest which follow that are spoken in the imperative mood, it must be said that the interpreters frequently used imperatives in place of optatives; as in the Psalms: "Let the deceitful lips be silenced, which speak iniquity against the righteous," for "may they be silenced," and, "Let the creditor search out all that he has, let there be no helper for him," in the hundred-eighth [psalm] concerning Judas; for the whole psalm is a petition concerning Judas, that certain things of this kind might happen to him. But Tatian, not understanding that the word "let it be" is not always optative, but sometimes imperative, devised most impious things about God when he said: "Let there be light," as if He had wished [it] rather than commanded light to come into being, C therefore... D
A he who says this impiously suggests that God was in darkness; to whom it must be said, how will he be interpreted in the case of: "Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass"; and, "Let the water be gathered together under the heaven"; and, "Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls"; and, "Let the earth bring forth a living soul"? For does He pray in order that the water under the heaven might stand upon a firm footing [to be] gathered into one gathering? Or does He pray, "Let the earth bring forth," in order that He might enjoy those things which the earth germinates? And what similar need does He have, as if He were in need of light, for the aquatic, or winged, or terrestrial creatures, that He should pray concerning these as well? But if, according to him, it is absurd to say that God prayed for these things, which are expressed in imperative terms, why should not the same be said concerning, "Let there be light," that it was spoken not optatively, but imperatively? B It seemed necessary to me, since this prayer was enunciated in imperative terms, to recall his perverse interpretations for the sake of those whom he has deceived, and who have admitted his impious teaching, into which we too have sometimes fallen.
25. THY KINGDOM COME
If the Kingdom of God, according to the word of our Lord and Saviour, "comes not with observation," nor will they say: "Lo here, or lo there; but the Kingdom of God is within us," for "the word is very nigh unto us, in our mouth, and in our heart": without doubt, he who prays for the Kingdom of God to come, prays rightly for the Kingdom of God which he has within himself, that it might arise, and bear fruit, and be perfected. C For in every one of the saints God reigns, and every saint obeys the spiritual laws of God who dwells in him, as in a well-governed city. The Father is present to him, and Christ reigns together with the Father in that perfect soul, according to that which was mentioned a little before: "We will come unto him, and make our abode with him." And I think that the Kingdom of God is to be understood as the blessed state of the superior part of the soul, and its composed and wise thoughts; but the Kingdom of Christ [is to be understood as] the words which are brought forth for the salvation of those who hear, and the deeds of justice and the rest of the virtues which are performed; for the Word and justice is the Son of God. D On the other hand, the prince of this world exercises tyranny over all sinners; for every sinner is enslaved to the present evil world, since he does not give himself to Him who "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, and deliver us according to the will of God and our Father," according to those things which are said in the Epistle to the Galatians. But he who suffers the tyranny of the prince of this world [does so] by the free choice of sin.
For he who is under the tyranny of the prince of this world is also ruled under the tyranny of sin; wherefore we are commanded by Paul no longer to submit to sin as it wishes to reign over us. And through these words we are instructed: A “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” But someone might say regarding both these petitions, “Hallowed be thy name,” and “Thy kingdom come,” that if the one praying, prays in order to be heard, and is indeed heard at some time, it is clear that the name of God, by which the kingdom of God also shall be established, will one day be hallowed for someone, according to the things aforementioned. If, then, these things shall be his, how will he still appropriately pray for things that are present, as if they were not present, saying, “Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come”? If this is the case, would it not be an obligation at some point to cease saying, “Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come”?
To these points it must be said that, just as he who prays to obtain the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom will rightly pray for these things always—since, even if he is heard and receives many notions of wisdom and knowledge, he yet knows only in part whatever he is able to grasp in the present; for that which is perfect, and which does away with that which is in part, shall then be revealed, when the mind, face to face, shall contemplate the intelligible realities without the senses—so too, the perfection of the name of God being hallowed for each of us, and of His kingdom being established, cannot occur unless there shall also come the perfection regarding knowledge and wisdom, and perhaps also the other virtues. We are journeying toward that perfection if, reaching forward to the things that are before, we forget the things that are behind. B Therefore, the kingdom of God shall be established within us as we advance unceasingly toward the summit, when that which was said by the Apostle is fulfilled: that Christ, when all enemies have been put in subjection under Him, shall deliver the kingdom to God and the Father, that God may be all in all. For this reason, praying unceasingly with a disposition made divine by the Word, let us say to our Father who is in heaven: “Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come.”
Regarding the kingdom of God, one must also grasp this: just as there is no participation of righteousness with lawlessness, nor fellowship of light with darkness, nor agreement of Christ with Belial, so also it is impossible for the kingdom of sin to coexist with the kingdom of God. If, therefore, we wish to be reigned over by God, C let sin by no means reign in our mortal body, nor let us obey its precepts, which provoke our soul to the works of the flesh and to things alienated from God; but rather let us mortify our members which are upon the earth, and let us bring forth fruit in the Spirit, so that God may walk in us as in a spiritual paradise, and may reign alone in us, along with His Christ, who sits within us at the right hand of D
A that spiritual power which we pray to receive, and who sits until all His enemies within us are made the footstool of His feet, and every rule, authority, and power is abolished from us. For it is possible for these things to be accomplished in each of us, and for the last enemy, death, to be abolished, so that it may be said by Christ even in us: O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory? Let our corruptible nature then now put on holiness and incorruption in chastity and all purity; and let our mortal nature, once death is abolished, put on the paternal immortality; so that, with God reigning in us, we may already be living in the blessings of regeneration and resurrection.
26. *Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth*. Luke, having omitted this, placed after *Thy kingdom come*: *Give us this day our daily bread*. Since, therefore, the aforementioned words are found only in Matthew, let us examine them in sequence to what has preceded. While we who pray are still on earth, and understand that the will of God is done in heaven by all the household of heaven, let us pray that the will of God may be done by us also who are on earth, in everything, just as it is for them; which will come to pass if we do nothing contrary to His will. But when, as the will of God is in heaven, it shall also be fulfilled by us on earth, then, being made like the heavenly beings—inasmuch as we bear, in like manner to them, the image of the Heavenly One—we shall be heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and those who succeed us on earth will then pray to be made like those of us who have already been received into heaven. B It is also possible, according to Matthew alone, that the phrase *As in heaven, so on earth* should be taken as common to all [the preceding petitions], so that what we are commanded to say in the prayer is of this kind: "Hallowed be Thy name, as in heaven, so on earth. Thy kingdom come, as in heaven, so on earth. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth." For the name of God has been hallowed by those who are in heaven, and the kingdom of God has come to them, and the will of God has been done in them; and all these things are lacking to us who are on earth, yet they can be present if we show ourselves worthy to be heard by God concerning all these matters. One might ask, on account of the phrase, *Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth*, how the will of God is done in heaven, where there are the spiritual hosts of wickedness, by C which the sword of God will be made drunk even in heaven. If we pray for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven, D
A is there not a danger that we might unwarily pray that those things which are contrary to us should remain on earth, since they also come from heaven, because many on earth have fallen into vices through the force of the spiritual hosts of wickedness which are in the heavenly places? Now, whoever, interpreting heaven allegorically, says that it is Christ, and the earth the Church (for who is a throne of the Father as worthy as Christ? And what footstool of the feet of God is like the Church?), will easily resolve the questions by saying that each of those who are of the Church ought to pray to receive the Father’s will in the same manner as Christ received the will of his Father, and brought it entirely to fulfillment. For it is possible for us, by adhering to him, to become one spirit with him, and thus to receive his will, so that, as it is fulfilled in heaven, it may also be fulfilled on earth: for he that is joined unto the Lord, according to Paul, is one spirit. And I think that this interpretation will not be despised by one who examines it with greater care. But if anyone should contradict it, he will adduce what is said by the Lord at the end of this Gospel after the resurrection to the eleven disciples: “All authority has been given to me, as in heaven, so also on earth.” For having the authority of those things that are in heaven, he says that he has additionally received the authority of those things that are on earth: since those things which are in the heavens have already been illuminated by the Word; but at the consummation of the age, those things which are on earth also, through the authority given to the Son of God, imitate those things which are perfected in heaven, and of which the Savior has received the authority. B He wishes, therefore, through prayer to take the disciples as co-workers with himself toward the Father, so that when those things which are on earth have been directed after the likeness of those things which are in the heavens—subjected to the truth and the Word—he may, by the authority which he received as in heaven so also on earth, lead them to the most blessed end of those who are under his authority. But he who wishes the Savior himself to be heaven, and the earth the Church, asserting that the firstborn of all creation, in whom the Father rests as on a throne, is heaven, will assert that the man whom he had put on, having been adorned with his power, because he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, said after the resurrection: “All authority has been given to me, as in heaven, so also on earth”; C since the man who is in the Savior has received the authority of the things that are in heaven, such as those which exist in the Only-begotten, that he might partake of it, and be united to his divinity. Moreover, in the second opinion, D while the question has not yet been resolved as to how the will of God is done in heaven, when the spiritual hosts of wickedness which are in the heavenly places struggle against those who are on earth:
A from this the question may be resolved. Just as someone who is still on earth, not because of his location but because of his disposition, has his citizenship in heaven and treasures up in heaven, having his heart in heaven and bearing the image of the Heavenly One, is no longer of the earth or of the lower world, but of heaven and of this better heavenly world; so too, those spiritual hosts of wickedness which still dwell in the heavenly places, B who have their citizenship on earth and through whom they struggle and plot against men, treasuring up on earth and bearing the image of the earthly man—who is the beginning of the Lord’s creation, made to be mocked by the angels—are not heavenly, nor do they dwell in the heavens because of their wicked disposition. Therefore, when it is said, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth," one must not even reckon that those beings are in heaven, since in their mindset they have fallen with him who fell from heaven like lightning.
And perhaps the Savior, when He taught us to pray that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven, C does not command prayers to be made entirely on behalf of those in the place of earth, so that they may be made like those who are in the place of heaven; but the instruction of the prayer is for Him, desiring that all things that are on earth—that is, the inferior things and those attached to earthly matters—be made similar to the better things, and to those who have their citizenship in heaven, having become heaven in their entirety. For he who sins, wherever the earth may be, if he does not repent, will be dissolved into his kindred earth. But he who does the will of God, and does not disobey the saving spiritual laws, is heaven. Whether, therefore, we are still earth because of sin, we pray D that the will of God may extend to us also for our amendment, just as it has already reached those who became heaven before us, or who are heaven; or whether we have already been accounted by God not as earth but as heaven, we pray that just as in heaven, so also on earth—I mean, in terms of those who are inferior—the will of God may be fulfilled for their, so to speak, "heaven-making," so that there may no longer be earth anywhere, but all things may become heaven. For if, as in heaven, according to the interpretation given, the will of God is thus done on earth, the earth will not remain earth. To speak more clearly [alt-version omitted] using another example: if, just as the will of God is done in chaste men, it were done in the unchaste, the intemperate would be chaste; or if, just as the will of God is done in the just, it were done in the unjust, the unjust would be just. Therefore if, just as in heaven the will of God is done, so it is done on earth...
we shall all be heaven. For flesh, which does not profit, and the blood related to it, cannot possess the kingdom of God; yet they shall be able to possess it, if they are changed from flesh, and earth, and dust, and blood, into the heavenly substance. D
27. Give us our daily bread today, or as Luke says: Give us our daily bread from day to day. Since some suppose that we are bidden to pray for material bread, it is right, having removed their false opinion, to set forth the true view concerning the substantial bread. We must therefore ask them: how can He who says that heavenly and great things are to be requested, and who commands prayers to be offered to the Father for earthly and small things—as if He had forgotten what He had taught—be consistent, when the bread which is consumed into our flesh is neither heavenly, nor is a request for it a great petition? But we, following the Master Himself as He teaches the things that pertain to bread, will explain these matters more fully. He says in the Gospel according to John to those who had come to Capernaum to seek Him: "Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled." For he who has eaten of the loaves which Jesus blessed, and has been filled by them, seeks all the more perfectly to apprehend the Son of God, and hastens toward Him. Wherefore He rightly commands, saying: "Labor not for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains unto eternal life, which the Son of man will give you." To these words, when those who had heard Him inquired and said, "What shall we do that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." Now God sent His Word, and healed them, as it is written in the Psalms, namely those who had been infirm. By that Word, they who believe work the works of God, which are the food that remains unto eternal life. And: "My Father," He says, "gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." D Now the true bread is that which nourishes the true human, he who was made according to the image of God; he who is nourished by it becomes also according to the likeness of the Creator. What, moreover, is more nourishing to the soul than the Word? What is more precious to the mind of him who can grasp it than the Wisdom of God? What is more convenient to a rational nature than the Truth? To these things, if anyone objects—if these things were so, it would not have been that Christ taught us to pray for substantial bread as if it were something different from Himself—
let him hear that even in the Gospel according to John, He speaks A sometimes as if of someone different from Himself, and sometimes as if He Himself were the bread. As of someone else, He says there: *Moses gave you bread from heaven, not the true, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.* But as if of Himself, he says to those who had said to him, *Always give us this bread:* *I am the bread of life; he that comes to me shall not hunger, and he that believes in me shall never thirst.* And a little further on: *I am the bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live B forever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.* Since all food is called bread according to Scripture—as is clear from what is written concerning Moses: *He ate no bread for forty days and did not drink water*—and the nourishment of the Word which can sustain is varied and diverse, since not all are able to be nourished by the solidity and firmness of divine disciplines, therefore, wishing to present the food fitting for the more perfect and athletic, He says: *And the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.* And a little further on: *Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life C in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me.* This food—the flesh of Christ—which, while being the Word, became flesh according to the saying: *And the Word became flesh,* is the true food; when it is eaten by us, then He has dwelt in us. But when it is distributed, that which is written is fulfilled: *And we beheld his glory.* This is the bread which came down from heaven; not as the D fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever. But Paul, speaking to the Corinthians, who were infants and walking according to the flesh, says: *I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able, nor even now are you able; for you are still carnal.* And in the Epistle to the Hebrews: *And you have become such as have need of milk, not of solid food; for everyone that partakes of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for those who are perfect, for those who by custom have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.* Indeed, regarding the passage, *One believes he may eat all things; but he who is weak eats herbs,* I think he did not speak primarily of bodily foods, but of the words of God by which the soul is nourished.
For the most faithful and perfect person is able to partake of all, which he indicates by the phrase, *One believes he may eat all things.* But the weaker and less perfect person is content with simpler teachings that do not produce great intensity; this is whom he wishes to signify when he says, *But he who is weak eats herbs.*
And I think that what is said by Solomon in the Proverbs teaches that it is better for one who cannot grasp more intense and greater doctrines due to simplicity, yet who holds opinions that are not erroneous, than for one who is sharper and more acute and applies himself more vigorously to matters, but who does not clarify the reason for the peace and concord of all. The text goes as follows: *Better is a dinner of herbs with friendship and grace than a stalled ox with enmity.* 48 Often, indeed, we have welcomed a common and simpler meal with a good conscience when hosted by those who could not provide more for us, rather than [welcoming] those who rise up towards the knowledge of God with heights of words, who with great plausibility preach a doctrine foreign to the Father of our Lord Jesus, who gave the Law and the Prophets.
Therefore, that our soul may not grow sick through lack of food, B or die of the famine of the word of the Lord to God, let us ask from the Father for the living bread—which is the same as the *epiousios* (substantial)—by obeying our teacher and Savior, and by believing and living more uprightly.
Now, we must understand what *epiousios* signifies. First, it must be known that the word *epiousios* has been used by none of the Greeks, whether wise men or common people, and it is not worn out by common usage, but appears to have been coined by the evangelists. Matthew and Luke, at any rate, agreed concerning it, bringing it forth without any difference. Those who interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures did the same thing in other cases. For what Greek ever used the expression *“enōtizou”* (give ear) or *“akoutisthēte”* (be heard) instead of “receive into your ears” and “cause to hear” 17?
There is a word of similar formation to *epiousios* written by Moses, spoken by God: *“And you shall be for me a peculiar (periousios) people.”* 49 And it seems to me that each word has been formed from *ousia* (substance); the one indicating the bread that contributes to our substance, 18 and the other [indicating] the people who are about the substance. C And indeed, whatever is properly called *substance* by those who say that it is the principal subsistence of incorporeal things, is considered to reside with those incorporeal beings which have their own fixed existence, and do not admit of addition or suffer diminution; for this is characteristic of bodies, in which there is both growth and corruption, since they are flowing, being in need of something else that enters to support and nourish them—which indeed, if at any time it is more than what has flowed out,
A growth occurs; but if it is less, diminution. Perhaps some even receive nothing of what enters, and are, so to speak, in a state of pure loss. Others, believing the substance of incorporeal things to be merely consequent, while that of corporeal things is primary, define it thus: Substance is the first matter of things, and that from which things are; the matter of bodies, and that from which bodies are; that of those which are named, and that from which those which are named are; or that which first subsists, being devoid of quality; or that which pre-exists things; or that which receives all mutations and alterations, while being itself invariable in its own nature; or that which is subject to every alteration and mutation. According to these, substance is without quality and without figure according to its own nature; nor does B it have a determined magnitude, but it is subject to every quality as if it were a place prepared for it.
They call qualities, in an extended sense, the acts and actions in general by which it comes about that both motions and habits are contained. For they deny that substance participates in any of these according to its own proper nature; yet they declare it to be always so affected that it cannot be separated from any of these, and yet that it is nonetheless apt to receive all the acts of the efficient cause. For there is present in it a certain force that pervades all things, which is the cause of all quality and of every dispensation concerning it. They affirm it to be mutable through all things and divisible through all things, and that any substance can be with any other, namely, as united.
Since, however, we have said these things in our inquiry into substance—on account of the C "substantial" bread and the "peculiar" people—to distinguish the various meanings of substance, and since the bread in the preceding passages was the intellectual bread which we ought to seek: it is necessary to understand the substance as akin to the bread, so that just as corporeal bread, when it is introduced into the body of the one who is nourished, passes into its very substance, so the living bread which descended from heaven, when introduced into the mind and soul, may communicate its own power to the one who has offered himself to it to be nourished. And thus, that which we seek will be the substantial bread. Again: just as according to the quality of the food, which is either solid and suitable for athletes, or resembles milk and vegetables, the powers of the one nourished are different; so also it follows that when the word of God is presented as milk to children, or as a vegetable suitable for the D weak, or as meat useful for those who are struggling, each of those who are being nourished, according to the proportion in which they have presented themselves to the Word, effects this or that, and becomes this or that. Furthermore, some foods are thought to be deadly, some generate diseases, and some cannot even be taken: which
γάλακτος A given appropriately to children, or as a vegetable to those who are weak, or as meat to those 25 who are striving, according to the analogy of each of those being nourished, to whom he offers himself as the Word, to be able to do this or that, and to become this or that. There is, however, some supposed food that is poisonous, and another that is disease-causing, and still another that cannot even be assimilated; all of which must also be transferred by analogy to the differences of the supposed nourishing teachings. The bread that is supersubstantial, therefore, which by nature is most suited to the rational nature, and which is akin to the very substance of truth, provides both health and sound condition and strength to the soul, and communicates its own immortality (for the Word of God is immortal) to the one who eats of it. B This supersubstantial bread seems to me, in the Scripture, to be called by another name: the tree of life, upon which one who extends his hand and takes from it shall live forever 50. And by a third name, this tree is called the wisdom of God by Solomon in these words: It is a tree of life to all who grasp it, and safe 27 for those who lean upon it as upon the Lord 51.
Since angels also are nourished by the wisdom of God, receiving strength from the true contemplation accompanied by wisdom in order to fulfill their own works, it is said in the Psalms that the angels are also nourished, and that men of God—who are called Hebrews—share with the angels and become, as it were, their fellow diners. Such is the saying: “Man ate the bread of angels 52.” Let our mind not be so poverty-stricken as to think that it was some corporeal bread—that which is recorded to have descended from heaven upon those who had gone out of Egypt—that the angels partake of for their nourishment, and that the Hebrews were, at the same time, participants in this with the angels, the ministering spirits C of God.
And as we seek the supersubstantial bread, and the tree of life, and the wisdom of God, and the common food of holy men and angels, it is not irrelevant to attend also to the things written in Genesis: that three men were brought down to Abraham, and partook of three measures of fine flour mixed for the making of hearth-cakes 53. Perhaps these things were said not literally, but figuratively, so that the saints might be able to share spiritual and rational food not only with men, but also with divine powers—either for their benefit, or as a demonstration of the most nourishing things they have been able to procure for themselves. The angels, of course, rejoice and are nourished by such a demonstration, and they become more prepared to cooperate and conspire in every way, so that the one who has been prepared by his previous instruction may conceive more and greater things, D rejoicing in the higher nourishing disciplines which he has acquired, and, so to speak, nourishing them. Nor is it a wonder that the angels are nourished by man, when Christ himself even confesses that he stands at the door and knocks, so that he may enter to the one who has opened to him, and dine with him from the things that he has, intending himself afterward to give from his own goods to the one who first received the Son of God into a feast according to his means 54. Therefore, whoever strengthens his heart through the participation of the supersubstantial bread becomes a son of God; but whoever, from the supper of
the dragon, feeds—he is none other than the intelligible Ethiopian—by transmuting himself, through the snares of the dragon, into a serpent, so that when he is rebuked by the Word, even if he says he wishes to be baptized, he hears: "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" B David also speaks thus regarding the dragon-like body fed upon by the Ethiopians: "You crushed the heads of the dragons upon the water. You crushed the heads of the dragon, you gave him as food to the Ethiopian peoples." If it is not absurd that the Son of God subsists substantially, and the adversary also subsists, why should we hesitate to admit that each of them becomes food for this person or that, and that there is the capacity for every one of us to be nourished by all these powers, whether they be better or worse?
Consequently, when Peter was about to commune with the centurion Cornelius and those gathered with him in Caesarea, and afterwards to share the words of God with the Gentiles, he sees a vessel let down from heaven by four corners in which were all the four-footed animals and creeping things and beasts of the earth. When he is also commanded to rise and kill and eat, being ordered, after he had refused and said, "Lord, for never has anything common or unclean entered my mouth," to call no man common or unclean, because it was not proper for Peter to call common what God had purified. For the text says: "What God has purified, you must not call common." C Therefore, the clean and unclean food, which according to the law of Moses is distinguished by the names of many animals and refers to the various characters of rational beings, teaches that some foods are useful to us and others are the opposite, until God has purified all, or at least some, of every kind and made them useful. Since these things are so, and there is such a variety of foods, there is one bread, besides all those enumerated, the substantial bread, for which we must pray that we may be deemed worthy of it, and, being nourished by that Word which in the beginning was God with God, we may be transformed into God.
Someone might say that *epiousios* ("supersubstantial") is formed from *epienai* ("to approach"), so that we are commanded to ask for the bread of the future age, that God may now bestow it upon us by anticipation, and that what was to be given as if "tomorrow" may be granted "today"; for "today" is received for the present age, "tomorrow" for the future. D But since the former understanding is, in my judgment, better, let us evaluate this "today" which is added to it in Matthew, or what is written in Luke, "day by day." It is the custom of Scripture to call the whole of an age "today" in many places, as in the passage: "This is the father of the Moabites even unto this day."
And: "This is the father of the Ammonites even unto this day." And: "This word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day." And in the Psalms: "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." And in Joshua this is stated most clearly in this way: "Do not depart from the Lord in these days of today." If, then, the whole of this age is "today," perhaps the age which has passed is "yesterday." We assume this from the Psalms and from Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the Psalms it is thus: "A thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is passed." Whatever that famous millennium B may be, or whether it is likened to the yesterday that is distinguished from today. And in the Apostle it is written: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." Nor is it any wonder, if in the eyes of God the whole age is said to occupy the space of one of our days; indeed, I think it is even less. And it must be examined whether the accounts of the feasts or assemblies recorded by days, or months, or seasons, or years, refer to ages. For if the law has a shadow of the things to come, it is necessary that those many Sabbaths should be the shadow of many days, and that the new moons should recur at certain intervals of time, by the conjunction of I know not what moon with a certain sun. C But if the first month, and its tenth day up to the fourteenth, and the feast of unleavened bread from the fourteenth to the twenty-first, contains a shadow of future things, who is so wise and friend of God as to see the beginning of the many months, and its tenth day, and the things that follow? And what need is there for me to speak of the feast of the seven weeks of days, and of the seventh month, whose new moon is the day of trumpets; and the tenth day is the day of atonement: things which are known only to that God who ordained them? Who has grasped the mind of God to such an extent as to perceive the seven years of the freedom of Hebrew slaves, of the remission of debt, and of the rest from the cultivation of the Holy Land? There is also the feast above the seven years, which is called the jubilee; concerning which, to form for oneself a clear representation, or to understand how its laws are to be truly fulfilled, belongs to no one except him who has contemplated the will of the Father concerning the disposition of all ages, according to His inscrutable judgments and untraceable ways. D
Many times it has occurred to me B to be perplexed, clashing two Apostolic expressions: how is it the "end of the ages," at which Jesus has appeared once for the putting away of sins, if there are ages to come after this one? His words are as follows: in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "But now once at the end of the ages he has appeared for the putting away of sins through his sacrifice"; and in the Epistle to the Ephesians, "That he might show in the ages to come the exceeding C riches of his grace in kindness towards us." And speculating about things of such magnitude, I think that just as the last month is the end of the year, after which the beginning of another month sets in, so perhaps the present age is the end of more ages, as if a "year of ages" were being completed, after which some future ages will set in, the beginning of which is the age to come; and in those ages to come, God will demonstrate the riches of His D grace in kindness. The one who is most sinful and who has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit is held by sin in the whole of this present age, and from the beginning until the end, in the age that follows after this one, how he will be dealt with, I do not know. He, therefore, who has seen these things, and has grasped in his mind a week of ages, so as to contemplate a certain holy Sabbath, and a month of ages, so as to see the holy new moon of God, and a year of ages, so as to see the first of many months, and the friend of God, so as to see the feasts of the year, when one must
A appear before the Lord God. And the years proportional to such ages, so that he may reach the seventh holy year; and the seventh weeks of ages, so that he may sing to Him who legislated such things, having examined how one can be pedantic about the least particle of an hour of the day of such an age, and not do everything so that, having become worthy through the preparation here to obtain the substantial bread this day, he may receive it also day by day?
Now, since it has become clear from what has been said before, regarding "day by day"—for to God, who is from infinite to infinite, the one praying to-day, not only regarding this day, but also in some way regarding the "day by day," will be able to receive beyond what we ask or think because of the One who is able to grant it, so that—to speak hyperbolically—he may receive things which eye has not seen, and things which ear has not heard, and things which have not ascended into the heart of man. And these things also seem to me most necessary to have been examined, so that both "today" and "day by day" may be understood, when we pray for the substantial bread to be given to us by His Father. For even if we considered our book last before this—since it is said not, "Give us our substantial bread today," but, "Give us our substantial bread—day by day"—nevertheless, it must be examined how this bread is ours. The Apostle teaches B that, whether life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are the saints'; it is not necessary to speak of this at present.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors; or, as Luke says: And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also have forgiven every one who is indebted to us.
Concerning debts
, the Apostle also says: Render to all their dues: to whom tribute, tribute; to whom fear, fear; to whom taxes, taxes; to whom honor, honor. Owe no one anything, except to love one another. We owe, therefore, having certain duties not only in giving, but also in kind speech and in certain specific acts; but we also owe to have a certain disposition toward them. C Being indebted in these ways, we either pay them by performing the things commanded by the divine law, or, by despising the sound word, we remain in debt by not paying them. A similar thing must be understood regarding the debts toward the brethren, both those who have been reborn with us in Christ according to the word of piety, as well as those born of the same mother or father as us. There is also a debt toward fellow citizens, and another which is common toward all men, a private one toward strangers, and a private one toward those who have the age of fathers; and another toward certain people whom it is reasonable to honor as sons or as brothers. Therefore, he who does not perform what is owed to the brethren remains a debtor for the things he has not done. And thus, if we also fail in the things falling to us from the spirit of the most philanthropic wisdom regarding D human matters, the debt becomes greater. But even in the things that pertain to us ourselves, we ought to use the body thus, nor...A not to wear out the flesh of the body through the love of pleasure; but we owe it also to the soul to bring to bear this care, and to make provision for the sharpness of the mind, and of the word, so that it may be without a sting (61) and useful, and in no way idle. For when we do not perform what is owed by us to ourselves, the debt becomes heavier for us. And above all these things, since we are the greatest work and fabrication of God, we owe it to Him to preserve a certain disposition toward Him (63), and love with all our heart, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; if we do not fulfill these things, we remain debtors to God, sinning against the Lord. And who will pray for us concerning these things? "For if a man sins against a man, he will pray for him. But if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?" as Eli says in the first book of Kings (64). B But we are also debtors to Christ, who redeemed us with His own blood, just as every servant is a debtor to the purchaser who paid so much money for him. There is also a certain debt of ours to the Holy Spirit, which we then repay when we do not grieve Him, in whom we were sealed for the day of redemption; and not grieving Him, we bring forth the fruits that are required of us (65), while He assists us and vivifies our soul. Furthermore, although we do not know precisely who the angel is of each one of us (66) that always beholds the face of the Father who is in heaven, it is nevertheless manifest to anyone who considers it that we are debtors to him also. Likewise, if we are a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men, it must be known that just as one who comes forth to be watched is bound to say or do this or that in the eyes of the spectators, which, if he does not do, he pays the penalty as one who has insulted the whole theater; so also do we owe to the whole world, to all the angels, and to the human race those things which wisdom, if we wish, will teach us. C Besides all these things, which pertain more to all, there is a certain debt of the widow whom the Church cares for; likewise another of the deacon, another of the presbyter; and lastly, the debt of the bishop is very grave, which, if it is not rendered, the Savior of the whole Church will demand in judgment. Now indeed the Apostle has named a certain common debt of husband and wife, when he says: "Let the husband render the debt to the wife; and likewise also the wife to the husband." And he adds: "Do not defraud one another." But what need is there for me to say [more], as to how many debts we are burdened with, by which we shall either be held if we do not pay them, or be liberated if we do pay them, when every reader can collect his own debts from those things which have been said? Indeed, it is certainly impossible that he who is in this life should not be in debt at every hour of the day and night. But when anyone is in debt, or pays the debt, D
in the matter of owing, either someone pays, or he defrauds the debt; and it is indeed possible in this life to pay, and it is also possible to defraud. And some owe nothing to anyone, while others, by paying off the greatest part, owe only a little; and perhaps there is one who pays nothing, but owes everything. Yet he who pays everything, so as to owe nothing, achieves this only in time, needing forgiveness for the debts he owed previously—a forgiveness which he can reasonably obtain if he has striven from a certain time to become such that he owes nothing of the things incumbent upon him as if they were unpaid. These lawless actions B are inscribed in the ruling faculty of our soul and become the handwriting against us, by which we shall be judged, like books written by the hand of all men, so to speak, which shall be brought forth when we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil. Regarding these debts, it is said in the Proverbs: "Give not thyself into pledge, fearing the face of the man; for if thou hast not whereof to pay, they will take thy bed from under thy ribs" (Prov. XXII, 27).
If we are in debt to so many, surely there are also some who are in debt to us. For some owe debts to us as humans, others as citizens, others as fathers; and some as sons; and after these, wives to husbands, or friend to friend. C When, therefore, some of our many debtors conduct themselves rather lazily regarding the payment of their obligations to us, we shall act more humanely, being resentful of no wrongs towards them, and remembering our own debts, which we have frequently omitted paying not only to men, but also to God Himself. For, mindful of those things which, when we were debtors, we did not pay, but instead defrauded our neighbor by letting pass the time in which we should have done certain things, we shall be more gentle toward those who have incurred debts to us and have not paid the debt; and especially if we do not forget the things we have transgressed against the Divine, and the iniquity spoken by us against the Most High, either through ignorance of the truth or D through dissatisfaction with the circumstances that have befallen us.
But if we are unwilling to be gentle toward those who have incurred debts to us, we shall suffer the things of him who did not forgive his fellow servant the hundred denarii. When the debt had been forgiven him, according to the parable set out in the Gospel, the Lord then orders him to be bound, and demands from him what He had previously forgiven, saying: "Thou wicked and slothful servant, oughtest not thou also to have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? Cast him into prison, till he should pay all the debt" (Matt. XVIII, 32). To these things, moreover, the Lord adds: "So also shall My heavenly Father do"
A to you, if you do not forgive each one his brother from your hearts." Nevertheless, one must forgive those who repent of having sinned against us, even if our debtor does this often. For if "seven times in the day he sins against you," He says, "and seven times turns again, saying: I repent, you shall forgive him." But we are not harsh toward those who do not repent, but such people are evil to themselves; "for he who refuses instruction hates his own soul" (Prov. XV, 32). Nevertheless, even in the case of those who do so, we must seek in every way to ensure that a cure is found for one who is so perverted in all things that he does not even perceive his own evils, and is drunk with a drunkenness more destructive than that from wine, blinded by the darkness of malice.
As for what Luke says: "Forgive us our sins" (since sins consist of the fact that we owe things and do not pay them), he says the same thing as Matthew, who does not seem to give room to one who wishes to forgive only those debtors who repent, since the Savior prescribed that we should add to our prayer: "For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us." B We all, therefore, have the power to forgive sins committed against us, as is manifest from these words: "As we also forgive our debtors," and from those others: "For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us." But he into whom Jesus breathed, as He did into the apostles, and who can be known by his fruits to have received the Holy Spirit and to have become spiritual—because he is led by the Spirit of God, after the manner of the Son of God, to all those things which must be done according to reason—he forgives what God would forgive, and retains sins that are incurable, serving (as the prophets served God, speaking not their own words, but those of the divine will) God, who alone has the power to forgive.
C Now, in the Gospel according to John, the words concerning the remission to be granted by the apostles are as follows: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you retain, they are retained" (John XX, 23). But if these things are taken without examination, the apostles will seem to be open to accusation, because they do not forgive all, so that all might be forgiven, but retain the sins of some, so that through them they are retained even before God. It will be helpful to take an example from the law, so that the remission of sins that happens to men by God through men may be understood. The priests according to the law are forbidden to offer sacrifice for certain transgressions, so that the transgressions may be forgiven to those for whom the sacrifices are offered. Nor will a priest, who has D the power of forgiving certain involuntary acts or of offering for sins, ever offer a holocaust or sacrifice for sin in the case of adultery, or voluntary murder, or any other more serious crime. Thus, therefore, the apostles, and those who are priests like the apostles, according to the great high priest, [exercise] the discipline of...
the healing that comes from God, knowing—being taught by the Spirit—for which [sins] it is necessary to offer sacrifices, and when, and in what manner, and they know for which it is not necessary to do this. The priest Eli, for instance, knowing that his sons Ophni and Phinees were sinning, confessed that he was unable to cooperate in the forgiveness of their sins, and [confessed] that he despaired that this would [be possible], saying: "If a man sins against a man, they shall pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who shall pray for him?" I do not know how some take it upon themselves to claim authority beyond their priestly rank, perhaps not even understanding the priestly discipline accurately, and boast as if they were able to grant pardon even for idolatry, adultery, and fornication, as if through their prayer for those who have dared to commit such things, even the "sin unto death" were [to be] loosed. For do they not read: "There is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should ask concerning that"? Nor should the most courageous Job be passed over, who offered sacrifice for his sons, saying: "Perhaps my sons have thought evil things in their minds against God." For he offers sacrifice for those sins which he doubts may have been committed, and which have not even reached to the lips.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. But the phrase, "but deliver us from evil," is omitted in Luke. If the Savior does not command us to pray for impossible things, it seems to me a question worth asking how we are commanded to pray not to enter into temptation, B since the whole life of men upon earth is a trial, for which we are commanded to pray...
not to enter into temptation. For we are on earth, clothed with the flesh that wars against the spirit, whose mindset is enmity toward God, being in no way able to be subject to the law of God, and in this way we are in A temptation. That every human life upon earth is a trial, we have learned from Job through these words: "Is not the life of man upon earth a trial?" And from the seventeenth psalm the same is made clear in the passage: "I shall be rescued from the trial." But Paul, too, writing to the Corinthians—not that we should not be tempted, but that we should not be tempted beyond our strength—says that God grants this, saying: "No temptation has overtaken you except what is human; but God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." For whether our wrestling is against the flesh, which desires and wars against the spirit, or against the soul of all flesh, which is called by the name of the body in which it dwells, the governing part, which is called the heart (which is the struggle for those who are tempted by human trials), or whether it is as for those more advanced and perfect athletes, who no longer wrestle with flesh and blood, nor are they examined by the human trials which they have B trampled underfoot, but our contests are now against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness—we are not immune to temptations. How then does the Savior command us to pray not to enter into temptation, seeing that God in a certain way tempts all? For remember (says Judith, not to the elders of that time only, but to all who would read her book) all that He did with Abraham, and all that He visited upon Isaac, and all that happened to Jacob in Mesopotamia of Syria while he was tending the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban; for not as He tried them in the testing of their hearts does He also avenge us, whom the Lord flagellates for our amendment as we draw near to Him. And David also declares this in general concerning all the righteous, saying: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." And the Apostle in the Acts: "That through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God." And if we understand nothing beyond the common interpretation regarding the prayer [to be kept from] entering into temptation, it would have to be said that the apostles, when they prayed, were not heard, having suffered C countless evils throughout their whole life—in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. And Paul individually received from the Jews forty stripes save one. Thrice he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned, thrice he suffered shipwreck, a night and a day he was in the deep; a man having suffered in all things tribulation, being perplexed, having suffered persecution, cast down, who confesses this: "Even to this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place."
And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat." But since the apostles did not obtain [what they sought] while praying, what hope is there for any of those who are inferior to them to obtain a hearing from God when they pray? B And as for that which is in the twenty-fifth Psalm: "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; purify my reins and my heart," one who does not accurately understand what the intention of the Savior's command is might reasonably surmise that it is contrary to what our Lord taught concerning prayer. But when has anyone thought that men are without the temptations which He knew and which He had calculated? And what time is there in which one has been secure, as if there were no need to fight so as not to sin? Is someone in need? Let him be on his guard, lest perhaps, having stolen, he might blaspheme the name of God. But is he wealthy? Let him not be arrogant; for, being filled, he might become a liar, and, having been exalted, say, "Who sees me?" Even Paul, though rich in every word and in all knowledge, was not exempt from the danger of being exalted because of these things and [thereby] sinning, but had need of a "thorn of Satan" to buffet him, so that he might not be exalted. And if anyone is well satisfied with himself and has escaped evils, let him read what is said in the second book of Chronicles concerning Hezekiah, who is said to have fallen from the height of his heart. C And if, because we have not spoken more about the poor person, someone should despise this, as if poverty were not a temptation, let him know that the ensnarer is plotting to cast down the poor and needy person, especially since, according to Solomon, the poor man does not withstand a threat. And what need is there to speak of as many as, through carnal wealth—not having administered it well—have received the place in punishment with the rich man in the Gospel? And as many as, bearing poverty ignobly, living in a more servile and humble manner than is fitting for the saints, have fallen away from the heavenly hope? Nor are those who are in between these two, wealth and poverty, entirely exempt from sinning in their moderate possessions. But does someone who is healthy in body and in good condition assume that he is outside of every temptation because of that very health and well-being? And whose is the sin of defiling the temple of God, if not that of those who are in good condition and healthy? One would not dare, because it is open to all, to speak clearly about what follows from this. D Yet, who among the sick has escaped the incitements to defile the temple of God, being at leisure at that time, and quite readily receiving thoughts about unclean things? And as for how many there are besides these that disturb him, if he does not with all diligence guard his heart, what is the need to speak? For many, overcome by calamities and not knowing how to bear their illnesses manfully, have been discovered to be more sick in soul than in body. Many also, in order to avoid infamy, have been ashamed to bear the name of Christ generously, and have fallen into everlasting reproach. Does anyone believe that there will be
B rest for him, when he has been honored by men; and that the harsh word, "They have received their reward from men," is not pronounced over those who are puffed up by the estimation of the vulgar, as if by some good thing? How much more stupendous is the word: "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone?" What need is there for me to enumerate the various falls into pride of those who are thought to be noble, or, likewise, of those who are called ignoble, the fawning submission born of ignorance, turning them away from God, by which they prostrate themselves before those who seem to be their superiors—people who indeed possess no sincere friendship, but merely simulate that which is most beautiful in men, charity? C Therefore, as was said above, the whole life of man upon the earth is a trial. Wherefore, let us pray to be delivered from trial, not in such a way that we are not tried (for this is impossible, especially while we are upon the earth), but that we might not succumb while being tried. He who does succumb to trial, I consider to have entered into trial, being caught by its nets; into which nets, for the sake of those who were already ensnared in them, the Savior entered, looking through them as if through lattices, according to what is said in the Song of Songs, and He answers those who are already ensnared and have entered into trial, saying to them as to His own bride: "Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove."
I shall add this also, to show that there is no time for men that is empty of trial: not even he who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night, and strives to fulfill what is said, "The mouth of the just shall meditate on wisdom," is exempt from trial. For how many who are addicted to the study of the sacred books, but have received what was promised in the Law and the prophets incorrectly, and have implicated themselves in impious, foolish, and ridiculous dogmas—what is the need to mention them, when countless people, whom a negligent reading does not seem to reproach, have nevertheless fallen into these same errors? The same thing happens to many with the apostolic and evangelical Scriptures, who, because of their own foolishness, have fashioned for themselves a Son or a Father other than He who is preached by the saints and is understood according to the truth. For he who does not think the truth concerning God or His Christ has fallen away from the true God and His Only-begotten, and does not truly adore the Father and Son whom his own folly has fashioned for him; he has suffered this because he did not notice the trial from which the reading of the sacred books is not free, nor did he stand armed as if for an impending struggle. Therefore, we must pray, D not that we are not tried—for that is impossible—but that we are not circumvented by trial; which happens to those who are held and conquered by it. Since, therefore, it is written outside of the prayer: "That you may not enter into trial," which it will be possible to see is plain from the things said, but in the prayer itself we ought to say to God the Father: "Do not"
A lead us into trial." It is worth investigating how we must understand God involving in trial him who does not pray, or him who is not heard. For it is inconsistent to think, when he who is overcome enters into trial, that God leads anyone into trial, as if giving him over so that he might be defeated; and the same inconsistency meets anyone who might explain the words "Pray that you may not enter into trial" in any other way. For if falling into trial is an evil—something we pray we might not suffer—how is it not absurd to think that the good God, who cannot bear evil fruits, exposes anyone to evils?
Therefore, it is useful to adduce here what was said in the Epistle to the Romans by Paul in this manner: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things; wherefore God gave them up in the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves." And a little later: "For this cause God gave them up unto shameful passions; for even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust," and the rest. And again a little B later: "And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting."
All these things must be pressed upon those who divide the divinity, and it must be said to those who think the good Father of our Lord is different from the God of the Law: if the good God leads him who does not obtain his prayer into trial; and if the Father of the Lord gives them up in the desires of their hearts if they have previously sinned in something, unto uncleanness, so that their bodies are dishonored in themselves; and if, as they themselves say, he (being exempt from judging and punishing) gives them up unto shameful passions and unto a reprobate mind to do things not fitting—then they would not have been in the desires of their hearts without having been given up to them by God; nor would they have fallen into shameful passions had they not been given up by God to them; nor would they have fallen into a reprobate mind without those thus condemned having been given over to it by God.
I know well that these things will trouble them greatly. C For this reason, because they devised another God beside the maker of heaven and earth, since they found many such things in the law and the prophets, they stumbled at this, so that they did not think him good who had uttered such words. But to us, because of the doubts we have raised concerning these words, "Lead us not into trial," for which we have brought forward also the voices of the Apostle, it must be considered whether we find solutions worthy of those things which appear to conflict. I think that God so manages individual rational souls that he looks toward their eternal life; for they always have free choice, and of their own will are either in better things and ascend until they have arrived at the pinnacle D of good things, or by negligence...
A descend in various ways into such a heap of evils. But since a swifter and more compendious healing produces in some a contempt for the diseases into which they have fallen—as if they were easy to cure—so that they fall into the same evils over again after having been healed, it will not be unreasonable if God overlooks their wickedness and allows it to grow and spread until it becomes incurable, so that, by lingering longer in the evil and, having desired the sin, being gorged to the point of nausea, they may at last perceive their loss, and may hate that which they previously embraced, and, once healed, may be able to retain more firmly the recovered health of their souls. Thus, the "mixed multitude" that was among the children of Israel "fell a-lusting," and they sat and wept, and the children of Israel said: "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eyes." B And then, a little later, it is said: "And Moses heard them weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent." And again, after a little, the Lord says to Moses: "And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the Lord which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?" Let us see, therefore, whether we have usefully brought you this history for the solution of those things which seem to conflict in this: "Lead us not into temptation," C and in the words of the Apostle. The "mixed multitude" that was among the children of Israel fell a-lusting, and the children of Israel also wept with them. It is clear that as long as they lacked the objects of their desire, they could not lose their appetite for them, nor be freed from the disease; but the good and kind God, while granting them what they desired, did not wish to grant it in such a way that the desire would remain within them. Wherefore He says they will not eat flesh for one day; for the disease would have remained in their soul, kindled and inflamed, had they been partakers of the flesh for a short time. Nor does He grant their wish for two days, but that he might make the thing loathsome to them, He seems not so much to promise, as to threaten—to one who has the capacity to understand—that He will grant it, when He says: You shall not spend only five days eating D flesh, nor twice that much, nor twice that many again, but—
B only to that extent will you eat, for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils with the choleraic disease—that which you regard as good, and its blameworthy and shameful desire. I shall remove you from life, no longer desiring anything, so that, having departed in such a state—purified, that is, from desire, and mindful through what labors you were delivered from it—you may be able either not to fall into it thereafter, or, if at some point this should happen after long periods of time, having forgotten what you suffered because of desire, if you do not pay attention to yourselves and accept the Word which perfectly delivers from every disease, you might fall into evils. Later, indeed, when the desire for birth comes upon you, you may pray to obtain the desired things again, and, having come to hate what was desired, thus return again to better things and to heavenly food, which you once neglected when you craved worse things.
The same things, then, will be suffered by those who exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, C and of birds, and of four-footed animals, and of reptiles, because they were abandoned and delivered in the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness, to the dishonoring of their bodies—they who, for a body bereft of soul and sense, transferred the name of Him who granted to all perceptive, rational beings not only sense and rational sense, but also to some, even perfect and virtuous sense and understanding. And it is reasonable that such men are delivered by the God who was abandoned by them, being in turn abandoned by Him, unto the passions of dishonor, receiving the just retribution of their error, by which they loved an unclean pleasure. For a more just retribution for error befalls them when they are delivered unto the passions of dishonor, than if D they were purified by spiritual fire, and were being required in prison to pay back every debt even to the last farthing. For when delivered unto the passions of dishonor, they are polluted not only by those which are in accord with nature, but also by very many which are contrary to nature, and they become thickened in flesh, as if they no longer had a soul or a mind, but were entirely flesh. But in the fire and in the lack they do not receive a retribution for error, but a benefit, when they are purified by salutary hardships and are delivered from those evils which follow the lovers of pleasure—namely, the filth and blood by which they were defiled and infected, so that they could not even consider how they might be saved from their destruction. God will therefore wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion; and He will cleanse the blood from their midst in a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. For He enters as a refiner's fire, and as a fuller's herb, washing and cleansing those who require such medicines, because they did not approve of having God in their knowledge; and to those who willingly deliver themselves to such things, they will hate a reprobate mind (for God does not will that good be done by anyone as if by necessity, but by will); since there are perhaps some who, because of long-standing custom in vices, scarcely perceive their own turpitude.
and to such an extent are they deceived by them as by a false appearance of good. A Observe, however, whether this may be the reason why God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, so that he who said "he is not hardened" might be able to say, "The Lord is righteous, but I and my people are wicked." But he requires a greater hardening, and to suffer something more, lest, if the hardening should cease too soon, he should spurn it as if it were a bad thing, and thus become worthy of being hardened the more. Therefore, if nets are not spread unjustly for birds, as is said in the Proverbs, but God rightly leads us into a snare, according to him who said, "You have brought us into the snare," and if without the will of the Father not even the lowliest of winged birds falls into a trap (since he who falls into it falls precisely because he did not correctly use the power granted to him for flying upward), let us pray that we may in no way commit anything for which we might deservedly be led into temptation by the just judgment of God. For he is led into temptation whoever is surrendered by God to the desires of his own heart into impurity, and whoever is surrendered into dishonorable passions, and whoever, just as he did not approve of having God within himself, has been surrendered to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not fitting. B Furthermore, this is the utility of temptation: those things which are received in our soul and are hidden from all but God, and even from ourselves, become manifest through temptations, so that we may no longer remain ignorant of what kind we are, but, knowing who we are, we may perceive if we desire our own evils, and may also give thanks for the good things that are revealed to us through temptations. That temptations come precisely so that it may appear who we are, or that the things hidden in our heart may be known, is declared by what the Lord says in the book of Job, and by what is written in Deuteronomy, which read as follows: "Do you think that I have answered you otherwise than so that you might appear righteous?" And in Deuteronomy: "He afflicted you and let you hunger, and fed you with manna, and he led you in the desert, where there was an attacking serpent and a scorpion and a dipsas, so that those things might be known which are in your heart." If we wish to recall the history, there is no doubt that Eve’s reason was corrupted, and she was not easily deceived only at that time when, having despised God’s edict, she listened to the serpent; but those things which were previously inherent were then made manifest, when the serpent came to her precisely because it had detected her weakness by its own cunning. Nor did Cain begin to be evil only when he killed his brother, for already before that, God, the inspector of hearts, had not looked upon Cain and his sacrifices: his malice only came to light when he slew Abel. Had Noah not drunk the wine he had planted, and had he not been intoxicated and stripped naked, there would not have appeared either the insolence of Ham and his impiety toward his father, nor the C becoming flesh. But in the fire and in the prison, they are not receiving the reward of their deception, but a benefit for the purification of the evils in that deception, along with saving labors following those who are lovers of pleasure; they are stripped of all filth and blood, in which, being dirtied and defiled, they were not even able to think about being saved, because of their own destruction. Therefore, God will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning; for he enters as the fire of a refiner, and as the soap of those who wash, cleansing and purifying those who have been subjected to such poisons, because they did not wish to have God in their knowledge despite being tested; those who abandon them will willingly hate the reprobate mind. God does not wish for good to happen to anyone as if by necessity, but voluntarily; perhaps because some, from having frequently consorted with wickedness, have hardly grasped its ugliness, and are turning away from it because they had falsely assumed it to be good. But consider whether it is for this reason that God also hardens Pharaoh’s heart, so that, what he said [would happen] if he were not hardened, he might be able to say: "The Lord is righteous, but I and my people are wicked." But he needs to be hardened even more, and to suffer something more, so that, lest he should cease from being hardened too quickly and might despise the hardening as a bad thing, he may become worthy of being hardened more often. If, therefore, nets are not unjustly extended for those with wings, according to what is said in the Proverbs, but God reasonably leads them into the snare, according to him who said: "You have brought us into the snare," and without the will of the Father not even the more worthless of winged sparrows falls into the snare (the one falling into the snare falls for this reason, because he did not well use the power given for being lifted up); let us pray that we do nothing worthy of being brought by the just judgment of God into temptation; everything being brought [upon us] which is surrendered by God into the desires of his own heart unto impurity; and everything surrendered unto passions of dishonor; and everything, just as he did not approve of having God in himself, surrendered to a reprobate mind to do things which are not fitting. Such is the need for being tempted. What our soul received, hidden from all except God, and even from ourselves, becomes manifest through temptations, so that we may no longer be ignorant of what kind we ever are, but, recognizing it ourselves, we may also perceive—if we wish—our own evils, and give thanks for the good things manifested to us by temptations. That the temptations which occur are for the sake of our being manifest as to what kind we are, or of diagnosing the things D hidden in our heart, is shown by what the Lord said in Job...
and what is written in Deuteronomy, which read as follows: "Do you think that I have dealt with you otherwise than that you should be shown to be righteous?" And in Deuteronomy thus: "He humbled you and let you hunger, and fed you with manna, and led you through the wilderness, where there is a biting serpent, and a scorpion, and thirst, so that the things in your heart might be known." A And if we wish to be reminded also by history, one must know that the susceptibility to deception and the instability of Eve's understanding did not come into being when, having disobeyed God, she heard the serpent; but rather, that she was proved to be such even before this—the serpent having come to her for this reason—since she took hold of her own weakness in her own conceit. Nor did wickedness begin to exist in Cain when he killed his brother; for even before this, God, who knows the heart, did not pay regard B to Cain and his sacrifices; but his malice was made manifest when he slew Abel. And indeed, had Noah not drunk the wine of which he was the planter, and become drunk and uncovered, neither the rashness of Ham and his impiety toward his father would have been revealed, nor the modesty of his brothers and their reverence toward him who begat them. And the plot of Esau against Jacob seemed to have as its pretext the taking away of the blessing; yet before this, his soul already possessed the roots of being a fornicator and a profane person. And we would not have known the brilliance of the chastity of Joseph, who was prepared not to be overcome by any desire, had his mistress not fallen in love with him. C For this reason, in the intermediate times of the succession of trials, let us stand ready for the things that are upon us, and let us prepare ourselves for all that can happen, so that whatever may come to pass, we may not be proven to be unprepared, but may be revealed as having composed ourselves most diligently. For what is lacking due to human weakness, when we have performed all that is within our own power, God will fulfill, who works all things together for good for those who love him, as he has foreseen, according to his unfailing foreknowledge, whatever they are to be in their own regard.
It seems to me that Luke, by the words, "And lead us not into temptation," has also taught by implication: "Deliver us from the evil one." And it is likely that the Lord spoke more concisely to the disciple, as one who had already made progress, but more clearly to the multitude, who stood in need of a more distinct D teaching. God delivers us from the evil one, not when the enemy in no way approaches us—wrestling against us through whatever methods of his own, and as a minister of his will—but when we conquer by standing bravely against the things that happen. Thus we have also understood the saying: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and from them all he delivers them." For God delivers from afflictions, not in the sense that afflictions no longer occur, since even Paul says, "In every way we are afflicted, as though we were never not afflicted," but when, being afflicted, we are not straitened by the help of God. For "to be afflicted" at a certain ancestral usage among the Hebrews is signified as referring to the external circumstance which happens without our choice, while "to be straitened" is said of the person who voluntarily yields to the affliction and is conquered by it. Hence
the deliverance from the evil one is also properly understood, as Paul well says: "In all things we are afflicted, but not straitened." I think that what is said in the Psalms is similar to this: "In affliction you have made room for me." For by the cooperation and presence of the Word of God, who consoles and saves us, the cheerfulness and joy of our mind in the time of tribulations, which comes from God, is called "enlargement." Therefore, to be delivered from the evil one must be understood in the same way. God delivered Job, B not by not having given authority to certain tempters to cast him into these or those temptations (for He had given it), but because in all the things that happened to him he did not sin at all before the Lord, but appeared righteous. For he who had said, "Does Job reverence the Lord for nothing? Have you not hedged around all that covers the outside of him, and the inside of his house, and everything that is around him on every side? You have blessed the works of his hands, and you have made his cattle many upon the earth. But send forth your hand, and touch all that he has; surely he will curse you to your face." C He was covered with shame, as one who at that time also had lied against Job. For while he had suffered so much, Job did not, as the adversary said, curse God to His face, but even when delivered to the tempter he persevered in blessing the Lord, rebuking his wife who said, "Say some word against the Lord and die," and chiding her by saying, "You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil things?" And a second time the devil said to the Lord concerning Job: D "Skin for skin, all that a man has he will give for his soul. But send forth your hand, and touch his bones and his flesh; surely he will curse you to your face." But having been conquered by this athlete of virtue, he is shown to be a liar; for although he had suffered the most cruel things, he persevered in not sinning at all with his lips before God. Job engaged in two contests and, having been victorious in both, he did not enter into a third contest of this kind; for it was fitting that that threefold struggle should be reserved for Christ, which is described in the three Gospels: for the Savior, whom we understand according to His humanity, conquered the enemy three times. Therefore, since we are to ask God with knowledge not to enter into temptation, but to be delivered from the evil one, after we have examined these things and searched them out within ourselves, having become worthy through listening to God to be heard by Him, let us entreat that when we are tempted we may not be put to death, and that we may not be set on fire by the fiery darts of the wicked one. For all those whose hearts, according to one of the twelve prophets, have become like an oven are set on fire.
but they are not set on fire who, with the shield of faith, extinguish all the fiery darts sent against them by the wicked one, since they have within themselves rivers of water springing up into everlasting life, A which do not allow the things of the wicked one to prevail, but easily dissolve them by the deluge of divine and saving thoughts, which are impressed by the contemplations of truth upon the soul of one who trains himself to be spiritual. B 31. Nor does it seem to me absurd after this, in order to complete the argument regarding prayer, to discuss somewhat more introductively concerning the disposition and posture that he who prays ought to have, and the place where one ought to pray, and the quarter of the world toward which one should look, without any obstacle, and the time suitable and exceptional for prayer, and whatever else is similar to these. The disposition is to be referred to the soul, the posture to the body. Paul, therefore, says, as we mentioned above, describing the disposition: "that men should pray without wrath and doubting," and the posture: "lifting up holy hands," which it seems to me he took from the Psalms, where it is thus: "The lifting up of my hands is as an evening sacrifice." As to the place: "I will therefore that men pray everywhere." And as to the quarter of the world, it is said in the Wisdom of Solomon: "That it might be known that we must prevent the sun to give thee thanks, and at the dayspring pray unto thee." C It seems to me, therefore, that he who is about to come to prayer, if he pauses for a little while and composes himself, becomes more prompt and attentive throughout the whole of the prayer; also if he has cast away all anxieties of mind and perturbations of thoughts, and has reminded himself according to his power of the majesty of Him to whom he approaches, and how impious it is for him to present himself lax and slack and as if contemptuous; if, in short, he has laid aside all things alien, thus to come to pray: to extend—if I may so speak—the soul before the hands, and before the eyes to direct the mind toward God; and before he stands, to rouse the superior part of the soul from the ground, and to station it before the Lord of all; and, in short, to lay aside every memory of injuries that he seems to have suffered from anyone, to such a degree D as one wishes God to be unmindful of the things he himself has done wickedly, and in which he has sinned against many of his neighbors, or whatever things he is conscious of having done in any way contrary to right reason. For one should not doubt that, there being infinite postures of the body, that posture which involves the extension of the hands and the lifting up of the eyes is to be preferred above all; as if it bears in the body as it were an image of those things which the soul through...
during prayer. We say this, however, that it must be done primarily when there is no impediment; for with an impediment it is permitted, when appropriate, to pray while sitting, because of some ailment of the feet that is not to be slighted, or even while lying down because of fevers or such like A infirmities. And also because of an obstacle, for example, if we are sailing, or if business does not allow us to withdraw to perform the required prayer, it is permitted to pray even while not observing any such posture. One must also know that the bending of the knees is necessary when someone is about to confess his own sins before God as a suppliant, beseeching God for healing from them and for their forgiveness; for it is a figure of one who has fallen down and submitted himself, as Paul says: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph. iii, 14). But the Apostle seems to me to indicate the spiritual genuflexion, so named because everything that exists worships God in the name of Jesus and humbly submits itself to Him, in these words: "That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth" (Phil. ii, 10). For one should not by any means think that the bodies of celestial beings are so formed that they have bodily knees, since their bodies have been demonstrated to be spherical by those who have treated these matters accurately. B He who is unwilling to admit this, unless he impudently resists reason, will be compelled to admit also the purpose of the individual members, so that nothing in them may have been made in vain by the supreme Artificer, God; faltering on both sides: whether he says that the parts of the body were given to them by God in vain and not for the proper work of each, or whether he says that the viscera and the rectum perform their own functions in celestial bodies; but he will act most foolishly who thinks that they, like statues, have the human form only on the surface and not also in their inner parts. I have said these things while weighing genuflexion and seeing that: "In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." The same is also true of what is written in the prophet: "Unto me every knee shall bow" (Isa. xlv, 24). Furthermore, regarding place, it should be known that every place is made suitable for prayer by one who prays correctly: for, "In every place incense shall be offered unto me," saith the Lord (Mal. i, 11); C likewise: "I will therefore that men pray every where" (I Tim. ii, 8). Each person may also choose a certain and defined place in their private homes, if there is space, a place "more holy," so to speak, where he might complete his prayers more quietly and with less distraction, and pray there; provided, however, that before that...
he examine the general question regarding this place, and look to see whether any wicked deed has ever been committed therein, or anything done contrary to right reason. For one who has done such a thing has made not only himself, but even the place of his own prayer, such that God turns His gaze away from it. Yet, as I look more fully into the matter, something occurs to me to say regarding that place, which may seem unpleasant, but which, perhaps, when examined more carefully, is not to be despised. One must inquire, namely, whether it is holy and pure to pray to God in a place where intercourse has occurred—not indeed illicitly, but that which is granted "by way of concession, not by way of command," according to the apostolic words (1 Cor. vii, 5). For if one cannot attend to prayer as one ought unless, by mutual consent, one devotes oneself to it for a time, perhaps the question of the place B and whether it is fitting should also be considered. There is, indeed, something pleasant and beneficial about a place of prayer—namely, the place where the faithful gather together for the same purpose; for it is credible that angelic powers are present at the assemblies of the faithful, as well as the power of our Lord and Savior Himself, and indeed also the spirits of the saints, and, I think, even those who have fallen asleep; for regarding those still living, it is manifest, though it is not easy to say how they are present.
And as for the angels, it may be reasoned thus: If "the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him, and shall deliver them" (Ps. xxxiii, 8), and Jacob speaks the truth when, not regarding himself alone but all who are devoted to God, he says to the one who understands, "The angel who redeems me out of all evils" (Gen. xlviii, 16), it is probable that when many are gathered C genuinely for the glory of Christ, the angel of each one encamps round about each of those who fear Him, together with that man whose care and custody has been entrusted to him; so that there is, as it were, a twofold church among the holy ones gathered together, one of men and another of angels. And if Raphael says that he brought the prayer of Tobias alone as a memorial, and then that of Sarah, who had become his daughter-in-law by having been married to Tobias (Tob. xii, 12), what must be said of many who are running together with the same intent and sentiment, and are constituting one body in Christ?
Furthermore, concerning the power of Christ being present with the Church, Paul says: "When you are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor. v, 4); implying that the power of the Lord Jesus is joined not only D with the Ephesians, but also with the Corinthians. But if Paul, while still clothed in the body, thought he could be present in spirit with the Corinthians in their common assembly, it is not to be despaired of that those also who have departed from this life, the blessed ones, might attend the churches in spirit, and perhaps more effectively than he who is in the body. Therefore, the prayers that take place in those gatherings are not to be despised, for they bring something exceptional to those who are gathered according to the law. But just as the power of Jesus and the spirit of Paul and those like him, and the angels of the Lord keeping watch round about each of the saints, run together and convene with those who are gathered in a lawful manner; so too...
we must consider whether anyone, being unworthy of a holy angel, delivers himself up to a devilish angel by the things in which he transgresses by sinning. For one who is such, even if there be few who are like him, will not long escape the providence B of the angels, who, ministering to the divine will, keep watch over the church and bring the transgressions of such a one to the notice of the many. If, however, a multitude of such persons come together in the manner of human associations, and treat of matters more bodily, they will not be watched over; which is declared in Isaiah, the Lord saying: "Not even if you come to appear before me; for I will turn," He says, "my eyes away from you; and if you multiply your prayer, I will not hear you." For perhaps, in place of that twofold company which we have mentioned—of holy men and blessed angels—there is once again a twofold meeting—of impious men and evil angels—concerning which meeting it may be said by holy angels and pious men: "I have not sat with the council of vanity, and with them that act unjustly I will not enter. I have hated the church of the malignant, and with the impious I will not sit." For this reason I think that those peoples who were in Jerusalem and in all Judea, having abandoned the law and being laden with many sins, were delivered into the hands of their enemies, because they were abandoned by God, and by the angels who protect them, and were destitute of the assistance of holy men. For thus, sometimes, complete congregations are permitted to fall into temptations, so that even that which they seem to have may be taken away from them, and, like the fig tree that was cursed and plucked up by the roots C because it did not give fruit to the hungering Christ, they wither, and if they possessed any small amount of life-giving power according to faith, they are deprived of it. These things seem to me to have been necessarily said, when examining the place of prayer, and establishing that the principal place is the gathering of the saints piously meeting together in the church.
32. Now, concerning the part of the world toward which one should face when praying, a few things must be said. Since there are four parts—toward the north, and the south, and the west, and the east—who would not immediately admit that the east clearly indicates that we ought to pray turned that way symbolically, as the soul looks toward the rising of the true light? For if anyone should pray toward any D part, he ought to take care, lest—if he be unworthy of a holy angel—he should deliver himself up to a devilish angel by the things in which he sins and transgresses in contempt of God.
And if Paul, while still encompassed by the body, thought that his own spirit ought to share the labor in Corinth, it is not to be disbelieved that even the blessed ones who have departed reach out with their spirit, perhaps even more than he who is in the body, to the churches. Therefore, the prayers in them are not to be despised, as they possess something special for those who genuinely gather there. And as the power of Jesus, and the spirit of Paul and of those like him, and the angels of the Lord who keep watch round about each of the saints, accompany and concur with those who are genuinely gathered together; so it must be surmised, lest, if anyone be unworthy of a holy angel, he deliver himself to a devilish angel by the things in which he transgresses by sinning; for such a person, even though those like him are rare, will not long go unnoticed by the providence of the angels, who, in the service of the divine will, keep watch over the church, bringing the transgressions of such a one to the knowledge of the many. If, however, a multitude of such people come together in the manner of human societies, and gather while dealing with matters more carnally, they will not be watched over; which is disclosed in Isaiah, the Lord saying: "Not even if you come to appear before me. I will turn away," says He, "my eyes from you; and if you multiply the supplication, I will not hear you." For perhaps, instead of the aforementioned double gathering—of holy men and blessed angels—a double meeting comes together for the same purpose—of impious men and evil angels; and it would be said concerning the congregation of such people, both by holy angels and by holy men: "I have not sat with the council of vanity, and with those who act lawlessly I will not enter; I have hated the church of those who do evil, and with the impious I will not sit." For this reason I think that those who were in Jerusalem and in all Judea, having fallen into many sins, became subject to their enemies, because those who had abandoned the law had been abandoned by God, and by the angels who defend them, and by the salvation of holy men. For thus even whole assemblies are sometimes left to fall into temptations, so that even what they seem to possess may be taken away from them; and, similarly to the cursed fig tree
(of which the Savior spoke)
, being plucked up by the roots because it did not bear fruit for Jesus who was hungry, they wither, and they perish, losing whatever small amount of vital power they had according to faith. But these things seem to me to have been necessarily spoken while examining the place of prayer, and while pointing out the excellence, as in a place, of the assembly of the saints and those who are more devoutly gathered together for the same purpose in the church.32. Now also, regarding the region toward which one ought to look when praying, a few things must be said. Since there are four regions—that toward the north, and the south, and that toward the west, and the east—who would not immediately admit that the east clearly shows that we ought to pray looking thither symbolically, as the soul looks toward the rising of the true light,
A or to make their prayers? If anyone, however, B wishes to offer his supplications rather in the direction of the open door of the house, saying that this view toward the sky entices him more toward itself than does the view of the wall, if it should happen that the openings of the house do not face toward the east, one must reply to him that while the buildings of men are, by design, opened toward these or those regions, the east is naturally preeminent over the remaining regions; therefore, that which is natural must be preferred to that which is by design. Moreover, for one who wishes to pray in a field, what reason is there to pray toward the east rather than toward the west? If, in that place, one must prefer the east for a rational cause, why should this not be done everywhere? And these things concerning this matter are sufficient.
A 53. Since I have still more to say concerning the places of prayer, I think I should bring my discourse to a close in this way. There are four places that seem to me to be noted, which I have found scattered throughout the Scriptures, and for each of these one must construct a prayer. And these are the places B. According to one's ability, glory must be given to God in the beginning and at the opening of the prayer, through Christ C who is glorified together D with Him, and hymned in the Holy Spirit. And after this, each person must set in order their own thanksgivings.
A And those for which he has privately obtained benefits from God. But after the thanksgiving, it seems to me that one ought to become a bitter accuser of one's own sins before God, first asking for the remedy by which one may be freed from the habit that impels one to sin, and secondly, for the remission of past deeds. After the confession, it seems to me that a fourth part should be added: the petition for great and heavenly things, both for oneself and for all, and for one's relatives and friends. And above all these, the prayer ought to end in the glorification of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. We have found these parts, as we have said, scattered throughout the Scriptures; the part concerning glorification in the hundred and third Psalm: "O Lord my God, you have been greatly magnified; you have put on confession and majesty, clothing yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heaven like a curtain; who covers his upper chambers with waters, who makes the clouds his ascent, who walks upon the wings of the winds; who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire; who establishes the earth upon its stability, it shall not be shaken forever and ever. B The abyss is his garment, his covering; waters shall stand upon the mountains. At your rebuke they shall flee; at the voice of your thunder they shall be afraid." And the greatest part of this Psalm contains a glorification of the Father. It is possible for anyone who gathers more for himself to see how this part pertaining to glorification is spread out in many places. Let this be an example of thanksgiving placed in the Second Book of Kings, uttered by David after the promises made to him through Nathan, C when he was astonished at the gifts of God and was giving thanks for them in these words: "Who am I, my Lord, O Lord, and what is my house, that you have loved me up to this point? And I was brought low a little before you, my Lord; and you have spoken concerning the house of your servant into the far future. This is the law of man, my Lord, O Lord. And what more shall David say to you? And now you know your servant, O Lord; because of your servant you have done [this], and according to your heart you have done all this greatness, to make it known to your servant, that you might magnify yourself, my Lord, O Lord." An example of confession: D "Deliver me from all my iniquities"; and in other places: "My wounds have become putrid and corrupt because of my foolishness. I have become miserable and am bowed down even to the end; I went about mourning all the day." And of petitions, in the twenty-seventh Psalm: "Do not draw me away together with sinners, and do not destroy me with the workers of iniquity," and whatever is similar to these. It is right, moreover, that the prayer which began with glorification should end by concluding with glorification, praising and glorifying the Father of all, through
with sinners, and with those who work iniquity, do not destroy me along with them; and if there is anything like these.” It is reasonable, having begun with a doxology, to conclude the prayer with a doxology, hymning and glorifying the Father of all through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory forever. A These things, in accordance with my ability, have been discussed by us regarding the problem of prayer, and the prayer in the Gospels, and those things said by Matthew before it, most learned brothers, and true brothers in piety, Ambrose and Tatiana. But I do not despair that, as you always stretch yourselves toward the things ahead and forget those behind, and meanwhile pray for us, you might be able to receive even more and more divine things from God, the giver of all these things, to work through; and having received them, I might again discuss the same things more grandly, more loftily, and more clearly. In the meantime, however, you will receive these things in good part. B
ADMONITION TO THE EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM
There is absolutely no controversy among the learned regarding the sincerity of this golden little work, which is celebrated everywhere among the ancients. Eusebius not only commemorates the book *On Martyrdom*, but also narrates the occasion on which Origen was moved to write it, in his *Ecclesiastical History*, book VI. Meanwhile, after the death of the Emperor Alexander, who had reigned for thirteen years, Maximinus Caesar succeeds him, who, inflamed with a great hatred against the household of Alexander, in which there were many Christians, having stirred up a persecution, ordered only the leaders of the Churches to be put to death, as being the authors of the teaching according to the Gospel. At that time, Origen composed the book *On Martyrdom*, dedicating the writing to Ambrose and Protoctetus, a presbyter of the parish in Caesarea, because both had been caught in a trial that was by no means ordinary during that persecution, in which it is said that they both distinguished themselves in the confession [of Christ], with Maximinus having survived for no more than three years’ time. Rufinus paraphrases the later words thus: "At that time, therefore, Origen writes the book *On Martyrdom* to Ambrose, who, having reached the most advanced stage, strengthened as if by certain very strong nerves, freely offered himself to the confession of the name of Christ." Pamphilus the martyr, in his *Apology for Origen*, mentions the same book with these words: "Finally, among so many and so diverse books of his, there is never found one book written by him specifically *On the Soul*, as he has *On Martyrdom*, or *On Prayer*, or *On the Resurrection*." Jerome, in *On Ecclesiastical Writers*, under *Ambrose*, says: "Ambrose, he says, was first a Marcionite, then corrected by Origen, a deacon of the Church, and distinguished for the glory of the confession of the Lord, to whom the book of Origen *On Martyrdom* is written *pro* (for) the presbyter Theoctistus." From Origen's own booklet, and from the place of Eusebius cited above, as well as from another soon to be cited from Nicephorus Callistus, it is clear that a serious error of the copyists crept into this text of Jerome, who confused Theoctistus, the Bishop of Caesarea, with Protoctetus, a presbyter of Caesarea; and although the corruption of the copies is very ancient, as is evident from the Greek version of Sophronius, Halloixius rightly observes in his notes to *Origen's Defense*, p. 23, that it should be read entirely: "Cui et Protocteto" (To whom and to Protoctetus), or if one prefers the reading of Freculfus, "cui cum Protocteto" (to whom with Protoctetus), we shall read. Nicephorus Callistus, in his *Ecclesiastical History*, book V, ch. 19, speaks thus about our booklet: Joannes Langus translated it thus: "And so at that time he composed that celebrated oration by which he exhorts to martyrdom, and inscribed it to Ambrose and Protoctetus, presbyters of Caesarea: for great solicitude and anxiety had come upon them on account of the vehemence of that persecution. In which oration both of them had explanations of the reasons why they should bravely sustain and endure the struggle for Christ in the stadium of martyrdom." There is a double fault, if I am not mistaken, in the translator's version of this passage: first, when he renders the words: "and inscribed it to Ambrose and Protoctetus, presbyters of Caesarea." For Ambrose was only a deacon of the Church, as we heard above from Jerome. Therefore Langus should have translated: "to Ambrose and Protoctetus, a presbyter of the Church of Caesarea." The second, when these later words: [alt-version omitted]
to struggle splendidly for the prize of Christ, A he translates: "In which contest both those men had the arguments set forth, so that they might endure and bear the struggle for Christ in the stadium of martyrdom." It ought to have been translated: "In which persecution both are reported to have sustained an illustrious struggle for Christ." For Nicephorus Callistus intends nothing else here than what Eusebius says in the passage lauded above. How useful, indeed, this writing of Origen was even to others, the same Nicephorus Callistus seems to convey in *Hist. eccl.*, book 5: "In Palestine, the struggles and wrestling bouts were no less; most of those who were in them bore the contest by means of the exhortations of Origen’s speeches."
ORIGEN'S EXHORTATORY DISCOURSE ON MARTYRDOM.
B 1. "Those who have been weaned from milk, those who have been pulled away from the breast. Expect tribulation upon tribulation; expect hope upon hope; a little while, a little while, because of the mocking of lips, because of a different tongue" (Isa. XXVIII, 9, 10, 11). And so you, too, according to Isaiah, as ones who are no longer carnal, nor infants in Christ, but have progressed deeply in your intellectual age, O most God-worthy Ambrose and most pious Protoctetus, and who no longer have need of milk but of solid food—listen to how, as ones who have been weaned from milk and pulled away from the breast, the tribulation is foretold for those who have been weaned, just as for athletes, not as a simple tribulation, but as a certain tribulation upon tribulation. But he who does not refuse the tribulation upon tribulation, but, like a courageous athlete, receives it, immediately receives also hope upon hope, by which, after a small tribulation upon hope, he will enjoy it. For this is what it means: "A little while, a little while" (Isa. XXVIII, 10).
A And if foreigners should hold us in contempt, and belittle us, calling us impious or fools, let us remember the discourse according to the Holy Scriptures, that the hope upon hope, which was given to us for a little while, shall be given back through the mocking of lips, through another tongue. And who would not welcome tribulation upon tribulation, so that he might immediately welcome also hope upon hope? Reflecting with Paul that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy" (Rom. VIII, 18), B by which we as it were purchase blessedness, "in comparison with the future glory to be revealed in us" (Rom. VIII, 18); and especially since "the instantaneous lightness of our tribulation" (a lightness which both is, and is called, such by those who are not weighed down by the things encompassing them, as much as it becomes superlative, so much does it work for us in greater and more abundant measure "an eternal weight" (II Cor. IV, 17) of glory), if, when those who afflict us press upon us and wish, so to speak, to weigh down our souls, we turn our ruling faculty away from the grievous things, and gaze not upon the things that are present and grievous, but upon the things laid up by the grace of God for those who have
legitimately struggled in Christ
, God who multiplies His benefits and bestows so many things beyond the worth of the labors of the one who has struggled, that it is fitting not to give begrudgingly, but to the great-hearted and wise God, who magnifies His own graces toward those who, with all their might, have despised this earthen vessel and manifested their whole soul's love toward Him.B I believe that God is loved with the whole soul by those who tear themselves away and stand apart, through their great eagerness to commune with God, not only from the earthly body, but also from every body; for whom it does not happen even with distraction or any dragging about that they "lay aside" (Phil. III, 21) the body of humility, when time gives the opportunity through the presumed death to "put off the body of death" (Rom. VII, 24), and to be heard as they have prayed apostolically, saying, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. VII, 24). For who among those groaning in this tabernacle because they are burdened by the corruptible body would not also give thanks after saying first: "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. VII, 24). Seeing that, by the utterance, he has been delivered from the body of death, he will holily exclaim: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. VII, 25). D But if to someone such a thing seems difficult, he has not "thirsted for God, the strong, the living," nor has he "longed for God, as the deer longs for the fountains of waters" (Ps. XLI, 1-2); nor has he said, "When shall I come, and appear before the face of God?" (Ps. XLI, 2). Nor has he reflected within himself on what the prophet reflected upon when it was said to him, "Where is your God?" (Ps. XLI, 3); he poured out his soul within himself, reproaching it still according to every day...
he poured out his soul within himself, rebuking it as it was still, in its infirmity, becoming sorrowful and troubled, and saying: "For I shall pass over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God, with the voice of joy and confession of one celebrating a feast" (Ps. XLI, 5).
4. I desire, therefore, that you, throughout the whole struggle that lies before you, being mindful of that great reward which is laid up in the heavens for those who suffer persecution and reproaches for righteousness' sake, and for the sake of the Son of man (Matt. V, 11, 12), should rejoice, exult, and leap for joy, just as the apostles once rejoiced, because they were "counted worthy to suffer shame for his name" (Acts V, 41). And if at any time you B feel any anguish in your soul, let the Spirit of Christ, which is in you—whom that soul, as much as it can, seeks to confuse—say to it: "Why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still confess to him" (Ps. XLI, 6). And again... Would that the soul might not be troubled at all, but, even before the tribunals themselves, and before naked swords brought against the throat, might be guarded by "the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding" (Phil. IV, 7), and be tranquil, considering that "those who depart from the body are present with the Lord of all" (II Cor. V, 8). But if we are not such that we can always preserve the tranquility of our soul, let it at least not be poured out, nor let its commotion appear to outsiders, so that a place of defense may remain for us before God, for us to say to Him: "O my God, my soul is troubled within me" (Ps. XLI, 6). C But the word also exhorts us to remember that which is said in Isaiah in this manner: "Fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their reviling" (Isa. LI, 7). For it is absurd, when God is clearly presiding over the movement of the heaven and those things which are in it, and over those things which are brought to completion on earth and in the sea by His divine art, in the generation, constitution, nourishment, and growth of animals and plants of every kind, for us to blink and not look upon God, but to turn our eyes toward men who will die in a short time and be handed over to punishments they deserve, and to fear them.
277 5. To Abraham of old, God said: "Go forth out of thy land" (Gen. XII, 1); and to us, perhaps, it will shortly be said: "Go forth out of the whole earth"; which it is good to obey, so that He may quickly show us the heavens, in which is that which is called the kingdom of heaven. D For we may see that the life of those who struggle for the sake of many virtues is full of contests. For many, even those who are counted among outsiders—many indeed—will seem to have struggled for temperance; and some have chosen to die bravely rather than desert their common master. Those who have excelled in examining and handling matters by reason have likewise dedicated their labor to prudence; and those who have proposed for themselves to live justly have surrendered themselves to justice. Thus, the wisdom of the flesh, or many external things, battle against each individual virtue; but for piety alone fights...
the “chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people for his own possession” [*] — not even to the extent of appearing to show others that, if there be things that oppose the pious, they propose to die for piety, preferring death with piety to living with impiety [(64)]. Therefore, with the heart B God is believed unto righteousness by such people, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; they grasp that they will neither be justified unless they believe in the God of their heart, being thus disposed, nor will they be in salvation unless, as is the disposition, so also the word is. For they deceive themselves who think that it suffices to attain the end in Christ, without adding the other, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness,” even if there be not present, “And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” And one might even say that it is more a matter of honoring with the lips, while having the heart far from God, than to honor Him with the heart, while the mouth does not make confession unto salvation.
And I would say that those who, when brought before a tribunal or even before they are led to a tribunal, abjure the Christian faith, do not indeed offer C worship [latreuo, service] but do offer proskynesis [bowing-down] to idols [(65)], taking the name of the Lord God upon vain and lifeless matter. Yet the people who were defiled with the daughters of Moab offered proskynesis in this way, and did not offer latreia [divine service] to the idols; for it is written in these very words: “They called them to the sacrifices of their idols, and the people ate of their sacrifices, and they offered proskynesis to their idols; and Israel was initiated into Beelphegor” [*]. And observe that it is not said: “And they offered latreia to their idols.” For it was not possible, after so many signs and wonders, in a single moment of time to be persuaded by the women with whom they were committing fornication, to think that the idols were gods. Perhaps in the same way, regarding the calf in Exodus… D [alt-version omitted]
A they worshipped, not worshipping the calf, which they had seen being made. Therefore, we must consider the trial that stood before us to be a test and an examination of our love toward God; for "the Lord your God is testing you," as it is written in Deuteronomy, "to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul." But you, being tested, "shall walk after the Lord your God, and you shall fear Him, and you shall keep His commandments" (and especially, "You shall have no other gods besides Me"), "and you shall hear His voice, and to Him you shall cleave," who takes you from these places and adds you to Himself for, as the Apostle named it, B the growth of God in him.
If then every evil word is an "abomination to the Lord your God," how great an abomination must we consider to be the wicked word of denial, and the wicked speech of proclaiming another God, and the wicked oath by the fortune of men, a thing that has no subsistence at all? When this is proposed to us, one must remember Him who taught: "But I say to you, do not swear at all." For if he who swears "by heaven" transgresses, making God’s throne an object of injury; and he who swears "by the earth" is impious, making that which is called God’s "footstool" into an idol; and he who swears "by Jerusalem" sins, "although it is the city of the great King"; C and he who swears "by his own head" does wrong; how great a sin must we consider it to be, to swear by the fortune of anyone? And then one must remember also: "Of every idle word you shall give an account in the day of judgment."
Furthermore, as to the matter of serving, note how he said: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve." Observe how, to the word "serve," he added "only," but not to the word "worship," because it is permitted to worship others, for worship is a declaration of honor; but to serve, by no means. D
The persecutors often gave orders. The Proconsul of Smyrna, when St. Polycarp was being led to martyrdom, commanded: "Swear by the fortune of Caesar" (see Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, bk. IV, cap. 15, and Nicephorus, bk. III, cap. 35); but neither that holy man nor others among the Christians admitted this impiety. Origen offers very weighty reasons in his *Contra Celsum*, bk. VIII, n. 65: "We do not swear even by the fortune of the king, nor by any other of those considered gods. For if, as some have named it, fortune is only an utterance and exists only in opinion and abstraction, we do not swear by that which in no way exists as a god, or as something existing at all, and capable of doing anything, so that we may not misapply the power of an oath to things not permitted; or if, as it seemed to some who said it, they swear by the demon of the Roman king when they swear by his fortune, the so-called fortune of the king is of the demons; and thus it is better for us to die than to swear by an evil and treacherous demon." Hence Tertullian, *Apologeticum*, cap. 32: "We are accustomed to adjure demons, that is, spirits, so that we may expel them from men; not to swear by them, so as to confer upon them the honor of divinity."
A 279 Or is it necessary to remember this: "You shall give an account for every idle word on the day of judgment." For what other discourse is so idle as an oath joined to a denial? For in no way are creatures to be worshipped when the Creator is present, and one who suffices for the prayers of all, indeed, one who anticipates them. And not even the sun himself would wish to be worshipped by those who are of God’s portion; and it is likely that he would not wish to be worshipped by anyone else either; but, imitating the One who said: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One, God the Father," he would as if say to one wishing to worship him: "Why do you call me God? There is one true God; and why do you worship me? For you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. I also am a creature; why do you wish to worship one who worships? For I too worship and serve the God and Father," and, obeying His commands, "I have been subjected to vanity because of Him who subjected me in hope," and, though I myself am bound to a corruptible body, I shall be freed "from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
8. It is to be expected that there will be some prophet of impiety, perhaps not one, but many. They will speak to us B
EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM
[alt-version omitted]
C Non-doubt that [proskynesis] is to be denied to all creatures whatsoever when it is taken for the external cult by which the supreme authority of the being who is worshipped is recognized in us. But in the notes to the previous number it has already been observed that [proskynesis] is not always used in so strict a sense, but sometimes by that word is denoted a simple cult of honor and observance toward angels and holy men, not as lords and authors of celestial goods, but as friends of God, whose intercession for us before Him avails much. In this sense the Greek Church has for many centuries granted [proskynesis] to men, angels, and saints. Nor is Origen a stranger to such a way of thinking, for in the eighth book against Celsus, no. 57, he says about angels: "We praise them and deem them blessed, to whom the things useful to our race have been entrusted by God; but we do not accord to them the honor due to God." Where you see that it is only the honor due to God that is excluded from the angels. Moreover, the first homily on Ezekiel venerates an angel with prayer without beating about the bush: "All things," he says, "are full of angels. Come, Angel; receive one who has been converted by speech from his pristine error, from the doctrine of demons, from iniquity speaking on high; receiving him as a good physician, warm and instruct him." See the book of the Origenians, quæst. 5, no. 36.
D (71) "Why do you call Me good," etc. On this scriptural place, see the notes to the book *On Prayer*, no. 15, page 223.
(72) "Why do you wish to worship him who worships... I also worship and serve the God and Father." He introduces the sun speaking, whom, as well as all other stars, he has handed down everywhere in his writings as possessing a soul [ἐνδεδεμένην φθαρτῷ σώματι], "bound to a corruptible body," and not only here. See the book of the Origenians, question eight.
A or as a word of the Lord which the Lord did not command, or as a word of wisdom, a word alien to wisdom, that it might kill us with the word of its mouth. But let us then, when the sinner has taken his stand against us, say: "I, however, as a deaf man, did not hear, and as a mute who does not open his mouth; and I became as a man who does not hear." For it is beautiful to be deaf to impious speeches, when we lose hope of correcting those who speak of worse things.
9. It will also be profitable for us, at the times when we are provoked to what is contrary to God, to consider what God wishes to teach us when He says: "I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God." And I think, indeed, that just as a bridegroom who wishes to lead his bride to live chastely, so that she may attach herself entirely to the bridegroom and with all diligence take heed not to pour out herself to anyone else alien to the bridegroom—even if he be wise, he will nevertheless display zeal, using such a display as a medicine for the bride; so B too He who announces—and especially if He appear to be "the firstborn of all creation"—says to the bride, the soul, that God is a jealous God, turning those who hear away from all fornication with demons and those who are thought to be gods. And as God, thus jealous, He says concerning those who have in any way whatsoever committed fornication after other gods: "They have provoked me to jealousy with that which was no god; and I will provoke them with that which is no people; with a foolish nation I will anger them, for a fire has been kindled from my wrath; it shall burn even to the lowest hell."
10. But even if the bridegroom, as a wise and passionless being, does not turn his betrothed away from every defilement for his own sake, he will certainly, for her sake, seeing her defilement and abomination, do everything that can heal and turn her back, employing, as for a nature that is free and self-determining, arguments that deter from fornication. What defilement, therefore, can you conceive to be worse for a soul than to proclaim another God, and not to confess Him who is truly the one and only Lord? And I think, indeed, that just as "he that is joined to a harlot is one body," so D I consider that he who confesses someone, especially at a time of torture and examination of the faith, is mingled and united to the one whom he confesses; while he who denies, by the very act of denial, is divided and separated from Him whom he denies, by the denial itself, as if by a sharp sword. Wherefore observe whether it is said that what happens consequently and necessarily, so that Christ should confess him who has confessed Him, but deny him who has denied Him, is that saying: "Everyone who confesses Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father who is in heaven." And the Word Himself, and Truth Itself, could say to him who confesses and to him who denies: "With what measure you measure, it shall be measured back to you." You, therefore, who have measured
A your confession of me, shall receive the "measure" of my confession of you—"good, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, which shall be given into your bosom." But you, who have measured with the measure of denial and have denied me, shall receive, by the measure of your denial, the corresponding measure of my denial of you.
How the measure of confession is fulfilled, or whether it is not fulfilled but falls short, we may consider in this way. If, during the entire time of examination and temptation, we give no place in our hearts to the devil—who wishes to defile us with evil thoughts of denial, or of double-mindedness, or of any persuasion that seems plausible and invites us to things hostile to martyrdom and perfection—and, in addition to this, if we do not defile ourselves with any word foreign to our confession; and if we bear all the insults, mockery, laughter, defamation, and the pity from those who seem to pity us, thinking us B to be wandering, foolish, and deceived; and furthermore, if we are not pulled away and distracted by love for children, or for their mother, or for any of those things which are regarded as most dear in this life, so that we might cling to possessions or to this life itself, but have turned away from all these and become wholly God’s, and of the life that is with Him and in Him, as those who are to have communion with His Only-begotten Son and those who are His partakers; then we shall be able to say that we have fulfilled the measure of our confession. If, however, we have failed in even one of these things, we have not fulfilled, but have defiled, the measure of our confession. Wherefore, we shall have need of those things of which they have need who "have built upon the foundation wood, or hay, or stubble."
And this also we must know: that we have accepted the so-called covenants of God on the conditions which we made with Him when we accepted to live according to the Christian religion. And in these our covenants with God, the entire evangelical way of life was contained, saying: C "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his soul shall lose it. But whoever loses his soul for my sake shall save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will repay each according to his work." That it is necessary to deny oneself, to take up one’s own cross, and to follow Jesus is recorded not only by Matthew, whose words we have set forth, but also by Luke and Mark. For hear Luke saying: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever D would
save A his life (77) will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" And by Mark: "And calling to him the crowd with his disciples, he said to them: If any one wishes to follow after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses it for the sake of the Gospel, will save it. For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? For what shall a man give as an exchange for his life?" Long ago, then, we ought to have denied ourselves and said: "It is no longer I who live"; and now let it be manifest whether, having taken up our cross, we have followed Jesus: which fact, if Christ lives in us, has come to pass. B If we wish to save our own life, that we may receive it back better than it was (78), let us lose it through martyrdom. For if we lose it for Christ's sake, casting it upon him in death for his sake, we shall provide true salvation for it. But if the contrary, we shall hear that it profits nothing to one who has gained the whole sensible world through his own destruction; and when one has once lost his own life, or forfeited it, even if he gains the whole world, he will not be able to give it as an exchange for the life that is being lost. For that which was created in the image of God is more precious than all things. One alone has been able to give an exchange for our life lost before, he who redeemed us C with his own precious blood.
13. Therefore, if you who are lovers of learning in Christ, and who already desire to pass beyond that which is "through a mirror and in an enigma" (79), hasten to him who has called you, you will know as much as you have never known, namely "face to face," as friends of the Father who is in heaven. For friends learn not in figures and not through enigmas, or by the naked wisdom of words, and expressions, and symbols, and types, but they attain to the nature of intelligible things or the beauty of truth. If it is believed that Paul was caught up D into the third heaven, and heard "unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter," you will consequently understand that of the unspeakable words then revealed to Paul, after which he descended from the third heaven, you will immediately know more and greater things, after which knowledge you will not descend, if ye—
taking up the cross, follow behind Jesus, A who “we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens” (Heb. iv, 14). And you yourselves, not departing from behind Him, will pass through the heavens, not only transcending the mysteries concerning them, but the heavens themselves and the things concerning them. For there are stored up in God sights much greater than these, which no nature that is in a body can grasp unless it is first separated from the body. For I am convinced that what the sun and the moon have seen, and the choir of the stars, B or even the choir of the holy angels which God made “a spirit and a flame of fire” (Psal. civ, 4), God stores up and keeps for Himself much greater things, to reveal them when “the whole creation shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. viii, 21).
But to you, holy Ambrosius, looking closely at the evangelical utterance, it is possible to see that perhaps no one of those who have ever lived, or very few, will attain such an exceptional and greater C kind of beatitude, in which you also shall be, if you unwaveringly complete the struggle. The words are as follows: Peter once said to the Savior, “Behold, we have left all and followed you; what then shall we have?” And Jesus said to them—that is, to the apostles— “Amen I say to you, that you yourselves who have followed me, in the regeneration, when God shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left brothers, or sisters, or parents, or children, or fields, or D houses for the sake of my name, shall receive many times more, and shall inherit eternal life” (Matth. xix, 27-29). On account of these words I would have wished to have acquired so many things on earth, as many as you have, or even more, in order to become a witness in Christ to God, that I might receive many times more, or, as Mark says, “a hundredfold” (Marc. x, 30). Far greater are the things multiplied a hundredfold than the few things we shall leave if we are called to martyrdom. For this reason, if I am a martyr, I would desire even to leave children with fields and houses, in order that before God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. iii, 14-15), I may be called the father of many more and holier children, or, to speak definitely, of a hundredfold.
15. If then one who, as it were, covets the greater gifts, and counts as blessed the rich martyrs, and the fathers who are martyrs who are about to beget a hundredfold children, and to receive a hundredfold fields and houses, asks if it is just that those should have a more abundant possession in spiritual things than those martyrs who in this life were poor, he should seek if those rich ones are about to attain a greater glory in spiritual things than the poor martyrs.
A We must answer him that just as those who have endured torments and sufferings showed forth a virtue in their martyrdom more brilliant than those who have not been tested in such ways, so also those who have broken through and rent asunder the bonds of love for the body and love for life—and they are many—having exercised a great love toward God and having truly taken up the living and active Word of God, and one more cutting than any two-edged sword, have been able, by snapping such bonds and fashioning wings for themselves, to return like an eagle, as it is said, to the house of their Master. Since, therefore, it is right for those who have not been tested in torments and labors to yield the primacy to those who have manifested patience on the rack and in various kinds of tortures and in fire, so also for us who are poor, even if we should be martyrs, reason suggests that we should yield the primacy to you, who for the sake of the love of God in Christ trample upon the deceitful glory sought after by the many, such great possessions, and natural affection for your children.
16. At the same time, also observe the solemnity of Scripture, which promises a manifold increase and a hundredfold of brothers, and children, and parents, and fields, and houses; but a wife is not counted among these. For it has not been said: "Everyone who has left brothers, or sisters, or parents, or children, or fields, or houses, or a wife for my name’s sake, will receive many times more." For in the resurrection of the dead they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, but are as the angels who are in heaven.
17. Therefore, what Joshua said to the people when brought into the possession of the holy land, that the Scripture can say to us now. For this is how the passage reads: C “Now fear the Lord, and serve him in uprightness and in justice.” And as we are being urged toward the worship of idols, it will add the things that follow: “Put away the foreign gods which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” At the beginning, then, when you were about to be catechized, it could reasonably have been said to you: “If it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves whom you will serve, whether the gods whom your fathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.” And the catechist would have said to you: “But I and my house will serve the Lord, for he is holy.” Now, however, there is no place for this to be said to you; for then you said: “Far be it from us that we should abandon the Lord, so as to serve other gods. The Lord our God is he [who...] D
is God.” A Indeed, even in the covenants concerning piety, you answered long ago to those who catechized you: “And we will serve the Lord; for this is our God.” If, therefore, he who breaks covenants made with men is a traitor and alien to salvation, what must be said of those who, by apostatizing, render void the covenants they made with God, and return to Satan, whom they renounced when they were baptized? For it must be said to such people, in the words spoken by Eli to his sons: “If a man sins against a man, they shall pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who shall pray for him?”
B A great theater is assembled for us as we struggle and are called to martyrdom; it is as if we were speaking of such an event happening to certain paradoxical athletes who are supposed to be competing, with countless people gathering to watch the spectacle of the struggle. And you shall be no less than Paul when you struggle: “We have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men.” Therefore, the whole world and all the angels, both those on the right and on the left, and all men—both those who are on God's side and those who are on the others—will hear us struggling. C And whether those in heaven rejoice over which of the two—
D
A whether we ought to deny or confess—a saying may be uttered like this: "How long will you limp on both sides? If the Lord is God, follow him." And the angels in heaven will rejoice over us, and "the rivers will clap their hands together, and the mountains will exult, and all the trees of the field will clap with their branches." But—may it not be so!—the powers below, which delight in evils, will rejoice. It is not out of place to see, from the things written by Isaiah, what will be said to those who have been defeated and have fallen from the heavenly martyrdom by those in Hades, so that we may yet tremble at the impiety found in denying. For I think it will be said to the one who has denied such things: "Hades from beneath was stirred up to meet you; all the giants who ruled the earth rose up against you, who raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All shall answer and say to you." But what will the defeated powers say to the defeated, and those captured by the devil to those who have been captured through denial? "You also have been captured even as we." If, however, someone who possessed a great and glorious hope in God, later being overcome by timidity or the trials presented to him, will hear from God: B "Your glory is brought down to Hades, the sweetness and rot shall be spread under you, and the worm will be your covering." And if someone shone often in the Churches, appearing to them like Lucifer, with his good works shining before men, and after these things, having been committed to the great struggle, fell from such a crown and such a throne, he will hear: "How did Lucifer, who rose in the morning, fall from heaven? He was crushed to the ground." And this too will be said to him, having been made like the devil through denial: "They shall be cast out on the mountains as a corpse loathed, with many who have died; as a garment stained with blood will not be clean, so neither shall you be clean." For how could he be clean, being defiled by the abomination of the sin of denial, as if by slaughter and blood, and stained with such great evil? Let us beware lest even a doubt ever arise in us as to whether we ought to deny or confess; lest the word of Elijah be said to us: "How long do you limp on two sides? If the Lord is God, follow him."
C 19. It is likely that you will also be mocked by some and held in reproach by our neighbors who are round about us, who will shake their heads at us as if at senseless people; but when these things happen, let us say to God: "You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us. You have made us a proverb among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. All the day my shame is before me, and the confusion of my face has covered me, from the voice of him who reproaches and speaks against me, from the face of the enemy and persecutor." But against these things we must use those free words of the Prophet to be said to God: "All these things have come upon us, and we have not forgotten D
thee, and we have not acted unrighteously in thy covenant, and our heart hath not turned back A."
Let us remember, that being placed in this life, and understanding the ways which are outside of life, we say to God: "Thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way 47." It is necessary to remember that this place is a place of the affliction of the soul, in which we have been humbled, so that in our prayers we may say: "Thou hast humbled us in a place of affliction, and the shadow of death has covered us 48." And let us confidently say also this: "If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have stretched out our hands to a strange god, shall not God search these things out 49?"
Let us strive to take up not only the martyrdom that is manifest B, but also that which is in secret, so that we too may speak in apostolic fashion: "For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we have conducted ourselves in this world 50." And let us join to the apostolic word that prophetic one: "And he himself knows the secrets of the heart 51"; and especially when we are being led to death, when we shall say that which is said to God by martyrs alone: "Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we have been accounted as sheep for the slaughter 52." But if at any time the prudence of the flesh suggests to us fear of the judges who threaten us with death, then let us say to them that word from the Proverbs: "My son, honor the Lord, and thou shalt be strong; but besides him, fear no other 53."
And this also is useful for the things lying before us. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes: "I praised all the dead who are dead more than the living, as many as are alive until now 54." But who would more reasonably C be praised as dead than he who of his own free will has undertaken death for the sake of piety? Such was Eleazar, who "embracing a most glorious death rather than an odious life, voluntarily went forward to punishment," and who "taking up a noble line of reasoning, worthy of his ninety years of age and the eminence of his old age and his illustrious gray hair, and his most excellent education from childhood, but rather of the holy and God-established law, said: 'It is not worthy of our age to play the hypocrite, so that many of the young, supposing that Eleazar the ninety-year-old has gone over to the manner of life of aliens, should themselves also, because of my hypocrisy, and for the sake of a small and fleeting life, be led astray for my sake, and I should acquire defilement and a stain for my old age; for even if I should escape the punishment D of men for the present time, yet I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty, either alive or dead. Wherefore, by bravely departing from life now, I shall appear worthy of my old age, and have left behind to the young a noble example for the courageous..."
A I pray that you, standing at the gates of death—or rather of liberty—especially if pains should press upon you, may say to the Lord, who possesses holy knowledge: “It is manifest that although I could be delivered from death, I endure harsh bodily pains while being scourged; but in my soul, for fear of Him, I gladly suffer these things.” Such indeed was the death of Eleazar, who “left behind his own death not only to the young, but to the majority of his nation, as an example of nobility and a memorial of virtue.”
23. Moreover, those seven brothers B who, as the books of the Maccabees report, persevered in their religion despite being tortured by Antiochus with whips and leather thongs, might be for anyone a most beautiful example of the most valiant martyrdom, when one considers whether he would wish to be inferior to children who not only endured their own torments singly, but by beholding the torments of their brothers, exhibited a most keen and intense spirit of devotion. One of them, whom the Scripture has named the first, said to the tyrant: “What do you wish to ask and learn? For we are prepared to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” What need is there to speak of what they endured, in frying pans and bronze pots set ablaze in order to torture them, when each had already suffered various trials? C For the one who is called the first was first deprived of his tongue, then he was scalped; and he bore this scalping just as others would bear the circumcision commanded by divine law, believing that in this also he was fulfilling the word of the covenant of God. But Antiochus, not satisfied with these things, ordered his hands and feet also to be severed, while the rest of his brothers and his mother looked on, punishing the brothers and the mother with this sight and thinking that by these things, which are reckoned so terrible, he would move them from their purpose. Thus, therefore, Antiochus, not satisfied with these, because he had become useless D as to his bodily structure through those things he had first suffered, commanded him, while still breathing, to be brought near to the fire that was in the frying pans and pots, and to be fried. As the odor was exhaled while the flesh of this most noble athlete of piety was being roasted by the inhuman tyrant, the others together with their mother exhorted one another to “die bravely,” and consoled themselves with the thought that God watches these things: for this belief was sufficient for them unto patience, that the eye of God is present with those who suffer. And truly He consoles them; for the athlete of piety, the judge of those of piety, being exhorted, and, if I may so name him, the...
rejoicing over those who rise above such great labors. It would be opportune for us, too, when we are in such straits, to say these same words to ourselves, in this manner: “The Lord God observes, and in His truths He consoles us.”
24. When the first had been tested in this way, “as gold in a furnace,” the second was led off to be mocked, and after his skin together with his hair had been pulled away, the ministers of the tyrannical cruelty called him to repentance, asking if he would eat the sacrificed meats before he should be punished with torture on his body limb by limb. But as he refused to repent, he was led to the next torment, keeping his courage firm even to his last breath. For, in no way broken, nor yielding to the pains, he said these things to that impious man: “You indeed, most wicked one, take from us the present life. But the King of the world will raise us up, who have died for His laws, to the resurrection of eternal life.” B
25. The third also, counting his pains as nothing, and because of his love for God trampling upon them, when asked for his tongue, quickly put it forward, and stretched out his hands courageously, and said: “Because of the laws of God I leave these behind, hoping to receive them back from God,” such as God would return to the athletes of piety toward Him. Likewise also the fourth was tortured, bearing the torments and saying that it is “preferable, when departing from men, to await the hope from God, to be raised up by Him again,” in a resurrection in which the tyrant will not be raised; for he will not rise to life, but to reproach and eternal shame. Next they tormented the fifth; he, looking upon Antiochus, reproached him for the reason that he, a man subject to corruption, nonetheless was arrogant, and thought his tyranny of a few days to be great power. He said also, even while in these straits, that his nation had not been abandoned by God, who in an unusual way was going to torture both Antiochus and his seed. After him the sixth, beginning to die, said: “Do not be deceived; we, paying the penalties for our own sins, in order that we might be purified in our torments, willingly suffer these things.” And he said to him that he must not think he would be unpunished, for attempting to fight against God; for he is a fighter against God who fights against those whom the Word has made gods.
26. Finally, Antiochus, taking the younger one into his hands, and being persuaded that he was the brother of those who made nothing of such great pains, and held the same resolve as they, had recourse A to other ways, thinking he could persuade him by exhortation and by affirming with an oath that he would make him rich and blessed, and that, having transferred him from his ancestral laws, he would have him as a friend and entrust him with royal business. [67. II Mach. VII, 24.] But since he achieved nothing, and the youth did not even pay attention from the beginning, as the words were clearly foreign to his own resolve, he called for the mother and exhorted her to become an advisor to the lad for his salvation [68. Ibid. 25.]. And she, having shown that she would persuade her son to what he wished, and mocking the tyrant, spoke many words to her son about patience, so that the youth, not awaiting the oncoming punishment, but anticipating it, challenged the executioners, saying: "Why do you delay and hesitate? We obey the law given by God; mandates contrary to divine discourses must not be accepted." Furthermore, as if he were some king pronouncing judgment B upon those judged under his authority, he pronounced judgment against the tyrant—judging him rather than being judged—and said that since he had laid hands upon the heavenly boys, he would not escape the judgment of the all-powerful and all-seeing God [70. Ibid. 35.].
27. It was possible then to see the mother enduring the tortures and deaths of her sons with a brave heart on account of her hopes in God; for the dew of piety and the spirit of holiness did not allow that fire of maternal love, which would have enflamed many mothers as if in the most grievous of evils, to be kindled in her inward parts. I think that I have most usefully proposed these things briefly from Scripture for the purpose at hand, so that we may see how much piety C and love for God—which is far more powerful than any other love—can accomplish against the harshest pains and most grievous torments.
28. What kind of martyrdom it is, and how much boldness it creates toward God, can also be understood from this. For the man who is holy is ambitious, and wishing to recompense the benefits that have come to him from God, he seeks what he might do for the Lord in return for all he has received from Him; and he finds nothing else that can be returned to God by a grateful human being as something equivalent to His benefits, other than dying in martyrdom. For it is written: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He has rendered unto me?" [71. Psal. cxv, 12.] And he adds, saying: "I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord." Now, D martyrdom is accustomed to be called "the cup of salvation," as we find in the Gospel. When
A those who wished to sit on the right and on the left of Jesus in his kingdom were seeking greater honor, the Lord said to them: "Can you drink the cup that I drink?" B calling "cup" his martyrdom, which is clear also from the passage: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt." But we learn that he who drinks that cup which Jesus drank shall also sit down with, and reign with, and judge along with the King of kings. This, therefore, is the cup of salvation, which he who receives shall call upon the name of the Lord. For "everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
But it is likely that someone, on account of the words, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," might, by not having explored the intention of the Scripture, imagine that the Savior was in a manner fearful at the time of his passion; and if he was fearful, one might say, who then will be brave? But first we will ask those who suppose these things about the Savior whether he was lesser than the one who said: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, from whom shall I tremble? When those who do evil draw near to eat my flesh, those who afflict me and my enemies, they themselves were weakened and fell; if a camp sets itself in array against me, my heart shall not fear," and what follows. C Perhaps these words spoken by the Prophet relate to no one else but the Savior himself, who, because of the light and salvation he received from the Father, fears no one, and because of the protection with which God guarded him, trembles at nothing. His heart too in no way feared when the whole camp of Satan was arrayed against him; but his heart, filled with holy doctrines, hoped [in God] when war was rising up against him. Therefore, it does not belong to the same [person] both to say fearfully, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me," and to proclaim bravely, "If a camp sets itself in array against me, my heart shall not fear."
A What follows, then, should not escape us in this passage; you will observe the pronoun of the cup referred to, which has been expressed by the three evangelists. For Matthew wrote that the Lord said: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"; Luke on the other hand: "Father, if you are willing, transfer this cup from me"; but Mark: "Abba Father, all things are possible for you; transfer this cup from me." Consider, therefore, if you are able, that when every martyrdom is called a martyrdom by Him, from whatever cause someone might depart this life, you can say that He did not refuse the genus of martyrdom when He said: "Let this cup pass from me" (for He would have said, "Let the cup pass from me"), but perhaps He refused that specific kind. And take note whether it is possible to say that the Savior, looking upon the various species—if I may put it so—of cups, and the things that would result for each, and grasping with a certain deep wisdom the differences, refused this particular kind of exit through martyrdom, but perhaps silently demanded another, more grievous one, so that through a different cup a more universal benefit, extending to more people, might be accomplished. And the Father’s will, which was wiser than the will of the Son, did not yet concede that this should happen, seeing matters regulated, as the Savior saw them, by a path and order. Clearly, in the Psalms, the Savior's cup is the death of the martyrs B. Therefore, to the words, "I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord," these are added: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Death, therefore, arrives for us as something precious, as it does for the holy ones of God and those who are not unworthy; we do not die by a death that is common, if I may so speak, and devoid of piety, but we depart by that preeminent death which is brought about for the sake of the Christian religion and piety.
30. We ought also to remember our own sins; and that it is not possible to receive the forgiveness of sins without Baptism C; and that it is not possible, according to the evangelical laws, to be baptized again with water and the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins; and that according to the evangelical laws, one who endures all things brought upon him by those who mock him, and who, having endured all the things inflicted on him by his revilers, remained silent in his suffering, did not say that out of faint-heartedness, as some opine, but in order to provoke his adversary. For, having said before His death regarding death, even if this was so that He not be found a liar, He could not pray for the cup to pass, but by such a manner He challenges his adversary, so that the adversary, supposing that the Savior feared death, might bring death upon Him, and through this, by the economy of things, He might bring death to death for the salvation of those who are dying. Let us be mindful also of those things we have sinned; and that it is not D possible to receive the forgiveness of sins without Baptism; and that it is not possible...
to be baptized with water and the Spirit for the remission of sins, but that the baptism of martyrdom is given to us. A For so it is named, as is clear from the fact that to the words, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?" it is subjoined, "Or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" Elsewhere also it is said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!" B And consider whether the baptism according to martyrdom, as it was a cleansing of the world for the Saviour, becomes also a healing that cleanses many. For just as those who, according to the law of Moses, were attending to the altar seemed to minister forgiveness of sins to others through the blood of bulls and goats, so the souls of those who have been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus do not attend in vain to the altar in heaven, but minister to those who pray for the forgiveness of sins. At the same time, we also know that, just as Jesus Christ the High Priest offered Himself as a sacrifice, so the priests, of whom He is the High Priest, offer themselves as a sacrifice, through which they are seen near the altar as if in their own place. But of the priests, some, being blameless and offering blameless sacrifices, healed the divine; while those defiled with the blemishes which Moses described in Leviticus were banished from the altar. But who is that blameless priest who offers a blameless sacrifice, if not he who confesses steadfastly, and completes the martyrdom absolute in all its parts, just as we have related above?
C Let us not wonder, however, if such blessedness of the martyrs as is to be in the deepest peace, and in calm, and in quietness, must begin from something thought to be more grim, and, if I may so call it, a wintry condition. For it is necessary that he who is treading the narrow and constricted way in winter should first show forth the guidance that each of the blessed has acquired, so that after these things that which is in the Song of Songs may happen to the bride who has swum through the winter.
A For He answers, He says, "My beloved speaks and says to me, 'Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold, the winter has passed; the storm has gone, it has departed for itself.'" And you also remember that it is impossible to hear that "The winter has passed," unless you have strongly and steadfastly endured the present storm. But when the winter and the storm have passed and departed for themselves, "the flowers will appear." For "those planted in the house of the Lord will blossom in the courts of our God."
32. We also know this: that regarding us having been persuaded by Jesus to abandon idols and the impious worship of many gods, the enemy is unable to persuade us to engage in idolatry, but he wishes to compel us. This is the reason why he exercises such power as is given to him against those over whom he has it, and he will make those who are being tempted either martyrs or idolaters. Often even now he says, "All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me." Let us be on our guard, therefore, lest we commit idolatry and subject ourselves to demons; for the idols of the nations are demons. And what kind of thing is it, having abandoned the sweet yoke of Christ and His light burden, to subject oneself again to the yoke of demons and to bear the burden of a most heavy sin, after we have known that the heart of those serving idols is "ash," and their life is more base than clay, and after we have said that our fathers acquired false idols, and "there is no rain in them."
C Not only long ago did Nebuchadnezzar set up the golden image; nor did he then only threaten Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, that if they did not worship it, he would cast them into the furnace of fire; but also now another Nebuchadnezzar says the same things to us, who are travelers and true Hebrews. But we, that we may experience the heavenly dew which extinguishes all fire from us, and which cools our ruling principle, let us imitate those holy youths. Perhaps even now Aman may wish that you, being other Mardocheis, should worship him; but you say: "I will not set human glory above the glory of the God of Israel." Let us overthrow Bel by the word of God,
and A let us slay the dragon with Daniel, so that, approaching the mouths of the lions, we may be able to suffer nothing from them; but let only those who are the causes of this present struggle for us be devoured by those same lions which cannot devour us.
34. Let us also observe this, that the things regarding martyrdom B are not prophesied by the Savior in the discourses spoken to the multitudes, but in those to the apostles. For after it was said: "These twelve Jesus sent forth, charging them, saying: 'Go not into any way of the Gentiles,'" and the rest, this is added: "But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death; and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the other; and if they persecute you out of this, flee into the next. Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have finished the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." C And Luke also writes similar things: "And when they bring you unto the synagogues and the magistracy and the powers, be not anxious how or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach you what you ought to say." And after other things: "Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay. But ye shall be delivered up even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends; and they shall put some of you to death; and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. And not a hair of your head shall perish. In your patience ye shall win your souls." Similar things also Mark says: "And when they lead you, delivering you up, be not anxious beforehand, nor study; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit. D And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." But these things also in Matthew, being exhortations to martyrdom, are spoken not to others but to the twelve; which it will be our duty to hear, for if we hear them, we shall be brothers of the apostles who heard them, and shall be numbered with the apostles. And the words themselves are as follows: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but"
rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." A Following these, the Lord teaches us that no one comes to the contest of martyrdom without divine providence. For it is said: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father which is in heaven? But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." B To these correspond the words in Luke: "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God." And in another place: "For whosoever shall be ashamed C of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." Those who slay us, kill the life of the body; (for such is the meaning of that: "Fear not them which kill the body," spoken in the same words by Matthew and Luke, and after they have killed the body, though they wish it, they cannot kill the soul; "neither have they any more that they can do.") For how could the soul be killed, which the very confession itself makes to live? When He who encourages us to martyrdom in Isaiah bears joint-witness to it, both He himself and His Son, where it is written: "Be ye my witnesses, and I am witness, saith the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen." D And observe this also, that it is not to the servants of Jesus, but to His friends that the commandment is given: "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." He is therefore to be feared who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. For He alone, after He has killed, has the power to cast into hell. And indeed, He will cast in those who have feared the slayers of bodies, and have not feared Him "who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell," and who, after He has killed, has the power to cast into hell. But if the hairs of the head of any other person are numbered—those, namely, who are cut off for the sake of Jesus—we shall confess the Son of God before God and men, and not before gods, so that He may recompense us in return.
A Since he who has confessed us shall confess us before God and His Father, and he who has confessed the one who confessed him on earth, shall himself confess him in the heavens.
For who, having considered such things, would not exclaim that apostolic word: "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us?" For how should the confession before the Father not be far greater than the confession before men? And how should the confession in the heavens, which He shall make of the one who is confessed, not excel beyond all measure the confession on earth, which the martyrs make of the Son of God? And if anyone who contemplates denying Him before men should remember Him who truthfully said: B "I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven."
It must also be observed that he who confesses the Son before men, as far as lies within him, commends Christianity and the author of this Christianity before those among whom he confesses; but he who is confessed by the Firstborn of all creation and the Son of man, is commended through the confession of the Son of God and the Son of man to the Father in the heavens and the angels of God. And if "not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth," how should one not deem him approved who is judged worthy to be commended before the Father in the heavens and before the angels of God? C And if he, and those who are like him—whom "as gold in the furnace" the Lord has "tried" by tortures and interrogations, and has accepted as a whole burnt offering of sacrifice—are approved, what must one say of those who, having been tested in the furnace of temptation, have denied, whom, as reprobate, He who denies one worthy of denial also denies before the Father in the heavens and before the angels of God?
And we must battle not only so as not to deny, but also not to be ashamed at all, even when the enemies of God think that we suffer shameful things—and especially if thou, D holy Ambrose, having been honorably regarded and received by very many cities, now art led in procession as a victim, bearing the cross of Jesus and following Him who goes before thee unto governors and kings, so that He Himself walking with thee, Himself may give to thee a mouth and wisdom; and thou, Protoctetus, his fellow-combatant, and your sharer in martyrdom, who "fill up what is behind of the afflictions of Christ," may He be with you to the paradise of God, showing how ye may pass by the cherubim and the "flaming sword which turned every way, and kept the way of the tree of life." For both these keep the way of the tree of life, and therefore guard it, lest
lest any unworthy person be permitted, by passing through them, to come to the tree of life. A For the flaming sword will restrain those who have built upon the foundation laid, [1 Cor. iii, 12] which is Jesus Christ, wood, or hay, or stubble—and the most ready and fit fuel to be kindled and burned, the wood, so to speak, of denial. But the cherubim will receive those who are not by nature such as to be curbed by the flaming sword, because they have built upon it nothing akin to it, and will guide them to the tree of life and to all the things [Gen. ii, 8, 9] which God planted in the east, and which he caused to spring from the earth. And as Jesus journeys with you to paradise, you will despise the serpent, who has been conquered and bruised under the feet of Jesus, and through him also under your feet, [Luc. x, 19] "seeing he has given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, that nothing might injure you."
37. Therefore, the Son of God is not to be denied, nor is he nor his words to be treated as a cause for shame; but this must be heard: B "Whoever shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven"; [Matth. x, 33] and that: "For whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words," [Luc. ix, 26] the Son of man shall be ashamed of him, when he comes in his glory, and that of the Father, and of the holy angels. And Jesus once endured the cross, despising shame, and for this reason "sat down at the right hand of God." [Hebr. xii, 2] And his imitators also, as they despise shame, shall sit with him and reign with him in the heavens, with him, I say, who "came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword." [Matth. x, 34] For since C "the word of God is living and effectual, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and reaching even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," [Hebr. iv, 12] he now grants most of all to our souls as a reward that peace which surpasses all understanding, which he bequeathed to his own apostles; but he has cast a sword between the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly, so that while in this present time we have put on our heavenly man, having later become worthy not to be divided, he may make us altogether heavenly. And not only did he come to send a sword upon the earth, but also fire, D of which he says: "What will I, if it be already kindled?" [Luc. xii, 49] Let this fire be kindled therefore in you also, consuming every earthly and body-loving thought of yours; and be baptized with the utmost eagerness with the baptism with which Jesus was straitened until it should be accomplished. And you, indeed, who have a wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, remember this word: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, he cannot be my disciple." [Luc. xiv, 26]
But to both these is added: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate, besides the aforementioned, even his own soul also, he cannot be my disciple." But so hate your own soul, as by this hating to preserve it unto eternal life. "For he who hates," He says, "his own soul, preserves it unto eternal life." Therefore, hate your soul for the sake of eternal life, being persuaded that it is a good and useful hatred that Jesus teaches. But just as the soul must be hated by us in order that it may be preserved unto eternal life, so also, if you have a wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, hate them, that you may benefit those who are hated, gaining by that very act of hating the boldness to perform good deeds for them, having become a friend to God.
B At the same time also, remember him who prayed in the Spirit for the children of the martyrs who had been left behind because of their love for God, and who said, "Take possession of the children of the dead." But you must know only this, "that it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God," and that just as it is said to those who are of the seed of Abraham at that time, "I know that you are the seed of Abraham," and, "If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham," so also it shall be said to your children: "I know that you are the seed of Ambrosius," and, "If you are the children of Ambrosius, do the works of Ambrosius." And perhaps they will do even more, being helped by your departure to such an end more than if you had remained with them; for then you will love them more understandingly, and you will pray for them more wisely, if you know that they are your children, and not just seed. Have now upon your lips this word: "He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," and that, "He who finds his soul shall lose it; and he who loses his soul for my sake shall find it."
C Give place through your forwardness for martyrdom to the Spirit of your Father, who speaks to those who are betrayed for the sake of piety. If you know that you are hated, and held in abomination, and deemed to be impious, then take up this word: "On this account the world hates you, because you are not of this world; for if you were of this world, the world would love its own." Since you have endured many reproaches for Christ and many dangers from the time you believed, persevere until the end in your endurance; for, "He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved." You know that, according to Peter, "You shall rejoice for a little while now, if it is necessary, having been grieved in various trials, so that the testing of your faith, being much more precious than gold which perishes, and is tested through fire, may be found for praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus D Christ." But understand "having been grieved" in place of "having labored," as is clear also from the saying, "In sorrows you shall bring forth children." For a woman does not bring forth entirely in the sadness of a painful affection, but in labor. "For do not love," He says, "the world, nor the things in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not..."
in him; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof." A Do not, therefore, love the things that pass away, but, by doing the will of God, become worthy to be one with the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit, according to the prayer of the Savior, who says: "As I and thou are one, that they also may be one in us." How many days, indeed, shall he gain who has loved the world or the things that are in the world, and has suffered loss to his own soul and destroyed it, and has borne about a conscience oppressed by the crime of denial, which is heavier than any burden? Let us each remember how often we have been in danger of dying by a common death; and let us consider whether we were perhaps preserved for this reason, that, having been baptized in our own blood and cleansed of all sin, we might keep company at the heavenly altar with those who have struggled in like manner.
B 40. But if anyone, yielding either to an excessive love of life or to an impatience with labors, or to arguments that might appear cunningly persuasive when spoken by those who try to lead us to worse things, should deny that there is one God and His Christ, while confessing demons or fortunes, let him know that he, in preparing a table for a demon and filling a cup for fortune, has forsaken the Lord; and since he has forgotten His holy mountain, he will be subject to that rebuke which Isaiah wrote in this manner: "But you who have forsaken me C and have forgotten my holy mountain, and prepare a table for a demon, and fill a mixture for fortune; I will deliver you to the sword; all of you shall fall in the slaughter, because I called you and you did not obey; I spoke and you disregarded, and you did evil in my sight, and you chose the things which I did not desire. Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, those who serve me shall eat; but you shall hunger. Behold, those who serve me shall be glad; but you shall be ashamed. Behold, those who serve me shall exult in gladness; but you shall cry out for the pain of heart, and you shall wail from the breaking of spirit; for you shall leave your name for a satiety to my chosen; but the Lord shall slay you." But if, understanding what is the table D of the Lord, we desire to be partakers of it, let us also know this: "You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of demons." Who, moreover, hearing the son of thunder, John, saying, "Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father; he who confesses the Son also has the Father," would not be afraid, on account of saying he is not a Christian, to deny the Son, so that by denying Him he might not have the Father either? Who rather would not seek, both by works and by words, to show himself a Chri-
Christian, so that he might also have the Father? For those who confess have the Father.
If we have passed A “from death unto life” through passing from unbelief to faith, let us not marvel if the world hates us. For no one who has not passed from death unto life, but remains in death, can love those who have passed from the shadowy house—if I may so call it—of death, into the dwellings filled with the living stones of the light of life. “Jesus laid down His soul for us,” and let us, therefore, lay ours down—I will not say for Him, but for ourselves; though I think even for those who are to be built up by our martyrdom. The time for us to boast as Christians is at hand. “For not only,” he says, “but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope; and hope does not make ashamed; only let the love of God be shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Let Paul say: “If after the manner of men I fought with beasts at Ephesus,” but we shall say: “If after the manner of men I was put to death in Germany.”
If B “as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so by Christ does our consolation also abound,” let us most readily accept the sufferings of Christ, and let them abound in us, if we desire the abundant consolation which all who mourn shall obtain; perhaps not equally: for if the consolation were equal, it would not have been written: “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so does our consolation also abound.” Those who are partners of the sufferings, according to the proportion of the sufferings which they share with Christ, will also be partners of the consolation. This you learn from him who confidently said: “Knowing that as you are partners of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation.” And God says through the prophet: “In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped thee.” What other time then is more acceptable than when, on account of our piety toward God in Christ, we walk under guard C in a procession in the world, and rather than being triumphed over, we triumph as we are led away? For the martyrs of Christ, together with Him, put off the principalities and powers, and together with Him they triumph over them, so that when they have been partners of the sufferings, D and our doctrine stands firm. Such Origen was, as Gregory Thaumaturgus teaches in his Panegyric: “He did not go through the things concerning the virtues for us in words, but he exhorted us rather to works; and he exhorted more by his works than by what he said.” “Desiring to work something, they (the pagans) make an evil thing, a craft of words, and not a demonstration of works,” having done the matter, “they do not commemorate words, but show forth good deeds.” And: “Not by the study of words, but by the demonstration and teaching of works are we to be judged.”
A And they triumph together, as having become fellow-partakers of his sufferings, so also of those courageous deeds of his in his sufferings; from among which is also the triumphing over the principalities and powers, which after a little while you shall see conquered and overpowered. What other day is a day of salvation in the same way as the day of our departure from here in such a manner? But I beseech you, give no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed; but in all things approve yourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, saying: “And now what is my patience? Is it not the Lord?” being persuaded that “many are the afflictions of the righteous,” in necessities, that we may claim as necessary for us that blessedness; in distresses, that, traveling unceasingly the strait and narrow way, we may arrive at life. If there be need, let us approve ourselves in labors, in watchings, in fastings. “For behold the Lord, and the reward is in his hand, to render to each one according as his works are.”
43. Now let us show that we have desired a knowledge through works befitting that knowledge. Let all purity be manifested in us; as sons of a long-suffering God, and brothers of a long-suffering Christ, let us be long-suffering in all things that happen to us. “For a long-suffering man is great in prudence; but the faint-hearted is very foolish.” If it is necessary to commend oneself “by the armor B of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,” having commended ourselves through glory, and not having been puffed up by it, let us now patiently bear dishonor; and although we have ordered our lives in a manner worthy of “a good report” and have been well spoken of, let us now endure the disrepute cast upon us by the ungodly. Furthermore, if as “truthful” we have been admired by those who love the truth, now when we are called “deceivers,” let us smile. On account of the many dangers from which we have been delivered, many have said that we are “known” by God; now let anyone who wishes say that we are “unknown,” when perhaps we are more truly known. Bearing, therefore, what happens, we are “chastened, but not killed,” and we are made like C to those who are sorrowful, yet [are] rejoicing.
44. Paul says somewhere to those who had suffered from the beginning, exhorting them to persevere in accordance with their former patience in bearing second dangers brought on for the sake of the Word: “But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not D away therefore your confidence, which hath great
A remuneration. For you have need of patience. Let us also, therefore, now sustain the contest B of sufferings, being made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men, in reproaches and tribulations, and receiving with joy the spoiling of our goods; for we are persuaded that we have a better substance, not earthly, nor indeed corporeal, but something invisible and incorporeal. C «For we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.»
But since some, not perceiving the doctrine concerning the demons, and D how, for the sake of remaining in this dense and circumjacent air, they have need of nourishment through the exhalations, observe where there is a savor or vapor, A they deny that they are spiritual beings, which fact ought to have been understood even from their food,—blood and smoke, and the putrid funeral pyres of cattle, and the most impure tongues of their own prophets. Hence, 1. *De idol.*, c. 7: "He calls the demon a spirit of the vilest odor." See the same author's book, *Ad Scapulam*, c. 2.
Athenagoras, in *Legatio pro Christianis*, p. 33: "Those who are drawn toward the idols are the aforementioned demons, who are smeared with the blood of the sacrifices and lick it up." And p. 54: "The demons who are around the matter are gluttonous concerning the odors and the blood of the sacrifices." They who dwell around the idols are the aforementioned demons, clinging to the blood of the sacrifices, and licking it up on every side. And: "Those material demons, the lickers of the odors and blood of the sacrifices."
Gregory Nazianzen, *Orat.* 4, *Adv. Julian.*: "The gluttonous and deceitful demons no longer hold sway." And *Orat.* 18, regarding the demon to whose ministry Cyprian resorted to corrupt Justina: "The reward of this procurement was sacrifices and libations, and the intimacy through blood and odor. For such had to be the rewards for those who grant such things." The wages of this pimping were the victims and libations, and that affinity which is contracted with him through blood and the odor of sacrifices. For it was necessary to pay such a reward to those who had rendered benefits of this kind.
Arnobius, l. III, *Cont. gentes*, p. 114: "For unless they receive incense and salted fruits, the gods cannot do good; and unless they see their little altars smeared with the blood of cattle, they desert and cast off their guardian offices." The same, l. V, p. 156: "And what pray was that divine matter which compelled Jupiter to be diverted from the impulse of such great affairs, and to present himself to the denunciations of mortals? Salted meal, incense, blood, the burning of verbenae, and the murmurings of terrible names?" Ibid., p. 169: "Liber, having been cut limb from limb by the Titans and cast into little pots to be boiled, Jupiter, lured by the sweetness of the odor, was invoked and flew down to the meal." But l. VI, p. 212, he discourses on this matter in such a way that he appears to be in doubt: "Could it be that the celestial gods are nourished by these sacrifices, and that there is some need for the substitution of matter to maintain their composition?" A little later, where he has denied it, he proceeds: "For whatever is supported by external causes and things must necessarily be mortal and have a ready path to danger whenever something used for life begins to be lacking. Then, because we see that nothing from these things which are moved to the altars reaches or arrives at the substances of the divinities—the blood is licked up by dogs—unless perhaps God devours the souls of the victims, or hunts for the odor and smokes from burning altars, and feeds on the fat, which the burning entrails vomit forth, still moist with blood and damp with the initial juices. But if God, as is said, is of no body, and is untouched by any contact, how can it be that an incorporeal being is nourished by corporeal things; which...
A they consider to be a matter of indifference, and count for little, where there is soot, and blood, and frankincense? We might reply to this, that if those who provide food to robbers, and murderers, and the barbarian enemies of the great king are punished as those who have committed an offense against the state, how much more shall those who, by sacrificing, give food to the ministers of wickedness—food which keeps them confined to this earthly region—be most justly accused? And this is especially true of those who have learned [the command]: "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed" [Exod. XXII, 20]. I think that those who, by sacrificing, turn towards the demons those who perform acts of wickedness against men, will be held no less guilty than the demons themselves who commit the evils; for it is as if the demons and those who keep them on earth had performed the evils together; for they would not be able to sustain themselves without the fumigations and what are supposed to be the appropriate foods for their bodies B.
Appropriate foods for their bodies.
How is it possible for a demon, being an unclean and incorporeal spirit, to partake of bodies? But if it does partake of bodies and grow, it is no longer a spirit, but a body; and if it is a body, how is it an air? And [how can they] have taken up stations on earth, since they cannot touch the purer and more divine region, where the thickenings from the earth and the myriad evils therein do not reach? "For the sake of a few garlands and the thighs of bulls and goats, obtaining what he asked against the Greeks because of his daughter." And the Lord God smelled a sweet savor. Hence, certainly, it is easy for men of depraved mind...[alt-version omitted]
B It is evident from various places in Scripture that it was thought God desires sweet odors and sacrifices: in particular from Psalm XLIX (according to the LXX, but Hebrew L), 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, where he significantly says: "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee," and "Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" This opinion, which not infrequently occupied the minds of the Jews, God most severely refuted through his prophets; and again and again he removed the whole pomp of sacrifices very far from himself [1 Sam. XV, 22; Isa. I, 11-13, and LXVI, 3; Amos V, 21, 22, etc.]. WETSTENIUS.
Note on the hypothesis, relying on which Origen asserts that demons are nourished: namely, because they have bodies and are corporeal.
And certainly it behooves all those holy men, whose sayings have just been brought forward, to have been of this opinion. For most true is the assertion of Epiphanius (haer. 26): "How can a demon, that impure and incorporeal spirit, be a participant in bodies? But if, however, it does assume and conceive something from bodies, it will not be a spirit, but a body. If, however, it is a body, how can it be invisible and a spirit?" Whatever the case may be, the most learned Huetius observed that bodies are everywhere attributed to demons by Origen. C Origen, book I *Contra Celsum*, num. 34, calls demons *poneroi* (wicked), "impure," and "those who lie in wait" in various places on earth, as they have occupied each one; because they are unable to reach that purer and more divine region, where the earthly and coarse masses, polluted with earthly vices, never arrive. The same author, book I *De Principiis*: "There is no such body as the demons have, which is naturally subtle and thin like air; and on account of this it is either imputed by many, or it is said to be incorporeal." Tertullian, before Origen, asserted in his book *Contra Marcionem* that "all angels consist of a material spirit." Nevertheless, he established that the material—or the body of the demons—is subtle, *Apologeticus adversus gentes*, c. 22: "There is available to them (he is speaking of the demons) toward the assumption of both substances of man their own subtlety and thinness." Minutius Felix, in his *Octavius*, p. 29: "They are," he says, "insincere spirits, wandering, D who from celestial vigor are earth-bound..."A and oppressed by earthly stains and desires; these spirits, therefore, after they had lost the simplicity of their own substance, being weighed down and immersed in vices, do not cease to ruin those already ruined, as a consolation for their own calamity." Plato asserts shortly after that their substance is midway between body and spirit, compounded of the mixture of earthly weight and celestial lightness. Macarius, Hom. 4, 21: "Each one according to its nature is a body, whether it be an angel, or a soul, or a demon; for although these are thin, nevertheless in substance, character, and representation, they are thin bodies in accordance with the subtlety of their nature, just as this body here is thick in substance." Augustine does not seem to have abhorred this opinion (which he proves to have been that of the Platonists from Apuleius' book *On the God of Socrates*). Consult Book VIII of *The City of God*, chapters 14 and 15, and Book XXI, chapter 10, near the end, and especially the commentary of Ludovicus Vives on Book XV, chapter 23, where he is said to have followed all the Platonists, then Origen, Lactantius, Basil, and the consensus of those writing almost in his own time. Isidore, in *Etymologies*, Book VIII, 11: "Demons thrive by the nature of airy bodies; before the transgression they indeed possessed celestial bodies; but having fallen, they were turned into an B airy quality." Bede, in the aforementioned place, does not indeed state that they consist of body, but that demons assume for themselves airy bodies; but in Vol. IV, Book III, on Job, chapter 10, p. 861, by the body of the devil he understands all his associates and the unclean spirits; these, he says, are so joined to him by such consent and conspiracy that they are coupled to him by an indissoluble connection. I marvel at one thing: why St. Jerome, among the errors of Origen recounted in his letter to Avitus, should have included this as well: "That rational creatures have fallen into earthly bodies due to negligence," when we have heard above Jerome himself asserting that demons are fed and fattened on blood; which cannot happen if bodies are taken away from them. I have no doubt that if Rufinus had observed this passage, he would have retorted it against Jerome. WETSTENIUS.
(53) *To worship the first God*. Thus Origen calls the true God, the first God, the God over all. Arnobius, Book I, *Against the Gentiles*, calls God "first God," "superior God." In Book I, he speaks thus: "To perform the worship of divinity, the first God is enough for us; the first God, I say, the Father of things and Lord, the founder and moderator of all things." I deem this worthy of being recorded, that Simon Magus, that detestable father of heretics, not content with the simple name of God, wished to be adored as the "first God," according to the testimony of Eusebius proving it. "First" is the same as "prince" or "superior," even among other authors. Virgil, Book I, *Aeneid*, v. 24: *And mindful of the old Saturnian war,* *The first which she for cherished Argos waged at Troy.* To which Servius says in his commentary: "First, prince C and 46. Again, certain people, thinking that names are by human institution, and have no connection in nature with those whose names they are, think it makes no difference if someone should say: 'I worship the first God, or Zeus, or Jove'; or even if he should say: 'I take up and venerate the sun or Apollo, and the moon or Diana, and the spirit which is contained in the earth,' or that it ought to be accepted. But truly, regarding who the highest God is for the pagans, the same Servius in his commentary on the *Aeneid*, p. 527, hands down this: 'It must be known that for the quality of things or persons, the "highest God" is named, or the "Father." For everyone thinks him to be the highest God whom he worships: as "Highest God, holy guardian of Soractis, Apollo."'" WETSTENIUS.
(54) *Or Zeus, or Jove*. It was an ethnic error to designate, or rather to disgrace, God with the name of Jove. Hence Celsus, "The great God is the highest, Zeus...," [it] differs nothing, Book V *Against Celsus*, no. 41; and Arnobius, Book V *Against the Gentiles*, p. [173]: "Jove, whom you call the prince of God, and the creator of all things that are." And Aristeas, Book *On the translation of the LXX*, page [13]: "naming otherwise Zeus." They (the Jews) worship the same God as the inspector and creator of all, whom also all other men and we in particular [worship], but naming him otherwise, we call him Jove. But Origen, just as he everywhere demonstrated a singular zeal for vindicating the honor of God, did not cease being like himself here; keenly contending that the supreme God should never be called by the name of Jove, or of any other of the gods of the nations; nay rather, one should sooner die and undergo martyrdom. He inculcates this throughout, repeats it, urges it, as a matter of the highest moment. Book IV *Against Celsus*, no. 48: "For these reasons and similar tales, we are offended, and in no way do we tolerate the maximum God being called by the name of Jove, nor the sun by that of Apollo, nor the moon by the word [for] Diana: but by exercising pure piety toward the Creator, and praising his most beautiful works, we do not even by name contaminate divine things." Book IV *Against Celsus*, no. 25: "How much more to be approved is the piety of the Christians, who deem it an unworthy thing to accommodate any word celebrated in the fables of the poets to the Creator of all things?" And a little earlier: "We shall maintain this by reason, even unto death, struggling that we might not call Jove [God], and that we might not name him in another language." He brings forward principally three reasons for this matter: The first is, because these are the names of demons, and so they are by no means to be imposed upon God; and the snare of the devil aims at this, that he may be adored under the name of God. Hence, in the text he says D: "It is no wonder that demons impose their own names upon the supreme God, so that they may be adored as the 'first God'." And in Book V *Against Celsus*, no. 46: "For these things we choose to undergo every torture rather than to confess Jove to be God; for it is not [that it is] the same..."
to believe that Jove and Sabaoth are the same; nay, not even that Jove is God at all, but some demon who delights in being called by this name, who is hostile to men and an enemy to the true God." B Or C Ceres, and whatever other things the wise men of the Greeks say. To whom it must be said that there is also a most profound and recondite discussion concerning names, which he who understands will see that, if names were by convention, the so-called demons would never have obeyed—not that they understand those [names], but, as they are invoked by those who do not know the demons, they are nevertheless named as if the names were set by convention. But now certain sounds and syllables, and names uttered with aspiration or without, with extension or contraction, perhaps lead those who are called by some bond of nature unknown to us. If this is so, and names are not by convention, the most high God must not be called by any other name than those by which His Servant, and the prophets, and the Savior Himself and our Lord name Him; such as Sabaoth, Adonai, Saddai, and again: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. D
The descriptive title by which each nation has been reared to call upon God—one who uses this will not go astray. A We are moved to consider whether the matter is understood in this way also in the case of the *Servant* (56). God has sent a prudent servant, Moses, to them. "He, the servant of God." "Moses indeed was faithful in all His house, as a servant."
[Latin Column commentary and further extracts on the nomenclature of God:] Regarding Ceres and whatever other things the wise men of the Greeks say. To whom it must be said that there is a most deep and hidden disputation concerning names, which whoever has understood, will see that, if names existed by appointment, it would never have come to pass that those who are called demons and other powers invisible to us would obey when invoked by those who, though they do not know them, yet name them, as if they were names set by appointment. But now, names uttered as certain sounds and syllables, and with aspiration, or thinly, or with extension or contraction, perhaps lead those who are called by some bond of nature possibly unknown to us. But if it is so, and names are not from appointment, the supreme God is to be called by no other name than those by which the Servant, and the prophets, and the Savior Himself and our Lord name Him, as for example Sabaoth. Quapropter we endure any tortures whatsoever rather than confess Jove to be God; for we do not believe the same to be Jove and Sabaoth; indeed, we believe Jove is not even God, but a certain demon who delights in this name, hostile to men and an enemy to the true God. Cyril of Alexandria agrees with Origen, *Against Julian*, Bk. VII, p. 256, who, to one naming Jove, Mars, the Muses, Aesculapius, and other gods, answers: "Therefore, let painters ready with their hands and artisans in stone proclaim them gods, who are by no means gods, but rather impure demons or ruined men." Walafriodus Strabo, *On Ecclesiastical Matters*, ch. 1: "We acknowledge that the pagans made temples to their gods, or rather to their demons, their seducers, not only from their own books, but also from the testimonies of Divine Scripture." Secondly, Adamantius urges the power of names and voices, which signify by nature, not by human appointment; and that those which were attributed to God by Moses and holy men, without doubt have a singular efficacy in themselves, and thus a danger arises, lest names inferior be applied to superior things, and superior to inferior (cf. *Against Celsus*, Bk. I, no. 25). He proves that names signify by nature from their efficacy in exorcisms, in which the name of Jesus is seen to have cast out innumerable demons from bodies and souls. Thus, in incantations it is not permitted to change names if they are to be effective. For the rest, with a view to the most shameful deeds and obscene fables falsely attributed by poets and philosophers to their gods, he thought it should by no means be tolerated that the names of these should be given to the most holy God. *Against Celsus*, Bk. IV: "What need is there for me to enumerate the absurd histories of the Greeks concerning their gods, shameful in the first place, even when they are explained allegorically?" Wherefore we, offended by these and similar fables, in no way suffer the greatest God to be called by the name of Jove. D Concerning the Servant: this title is attributed to Moses. I have observed a unique parallel passage where he is simply called thus in the *Excerpts* on Genesis, to ch. 1, et seq.: "He knows us, and whether the matter is understood in this way also in the case of the Servant." Elsewhere he uses the name with an addition: as "prophet of God and his servant"; Bk. I *Against Celsus*, no. 41: "Prophet of God and his servant"; Bk. V *Against Celsus*, no. 29: "Prophet of God and his true servant." Tertullian simply designates Moses by this name, *Against Marcion*, Bk. V, p. 474: "For to this end He said to the Servant: Let me alone that I may destroy them." Apollinarius on Psalm CV: "But to them God sends the prudent servant Moses." Epiphanius, *Heresy* 48, and Chrysostom, Vol. V, from the beginning: "That servant of God." Cassiodorus, *Divine Readings*, ch. 28, p. 917: "He is called the most faithful servant of God." All these imitated the Holy Apostle, Heb. iii, 5, who speaks thus:
Jacob. A For this, he says, is an everlasting name, and a memorial to generations of generations. Now, it is not to be wondered at if the demons refer their own names to the first God, so that He might be worshipped as the first God; a thing which for our Servant, and for the prophets, and for the Christ—the B fulfillment of the law—and for His apostles, is not customary. We have set these matters forth necessarily, so that no one might outwit us, or, to any extent, pollute our reasoning with those things which, if they be carefully heeded, afford no place for the inroads of our adversaries.
Furthermore, man is also a lover of life, having received a conviction concerning the essence of the rational soul, as having something akin to God; for both are intellectual and invisible, and, as B the prevailing argument demonstrates, incorporeal. Moreover, why would the One who fashioned us plant in us a yearning for piety toward Him and for communion with Him—He who preserves even in those who are in error certain traces of the divine will—if it were not possible for those endowed with reason to attain that which is naturally desired? And it is manifest that, just as each of our members is naturally suited to maintain an affinity for something—the eyes for visible things, and the ears for audible things—so the mind C is suited for intelligible things and for God, who is beyond the intelligible. Why, then, do we hesitate and waver, putting aside the corruptible body that hinders us, weighing down the soul, and burdening the mind with excess care—a terrestrial tabernacle—to be freed from these bonds, and to be loosed from the waves of flesh and blood, so that we may, with Christ Jesus, attain the proper [calling] to the testimony of the things spoken?
D As for the name Abraham, it is translated *Pater excelsus* (Father excelsior), and afterwards he was called Abraham, which is translated *Pater multarum* (Father of many). For that which follows "of nations" is not contained in the name. Whence, therefore, Origen drew this is to be questioned. Clement of Alexandria says that Abraham is so named for having become a wise man and a lover of God, in place of one who investigates nature. For it is expounded as "Father, elect sound." For the Word that has come to pass makes a sound to him. Therefore, Origen drew this from his teacher Clement; however, both, as with other things, drew it from Philo Judaeus. Thus, in his book *De Gigantibus*, he says: Abraham is interpreted as "Father elect of sound," i.e., "the intellect of a righteous man." For he is elect, and purged, and "father of the voice" with which we harmonize. As far as I can conjecture, Origen thought the name was compounded from these three words: *Ab*, father; *Bar*, world or pure; *Ram*, purged, elect, and *Ham*, grew noisy, roared. Bede, in *Nominibus Hebraicis*, wants Abraham to mean the same as "father seeing the people," or "father seeing a multitude," or "father of a multitude," or "father of many"—"of nations" is understood, for it is not in the name. The latter was taken from Jerome. The first refers to these Hebrew words: *Ab raah am*, "father seeing the people." The second is derived from these: *Ab raah ham*, "father seeing a multitude." Which of these has truly hit the mark, those skilled in Hebrew letters will easily judge. WETSTENIUS.
A being altogether and in every part contemplating the living Word and being nourished by Him, and laying hold of that most manifold wisdom in Him, and being fashioned by the Truth itself, and having the mind illuminated in the true and unfailing light of knowledge, we are enabled B to gaze at those things which are naturally to be seen by that light, through eyes illuminated by the command of the Lord; let us rest in the rest of blessedness.
48. Long ago we heard the words of Jesus, and for a long time we have been conducting our lives according to the Gospel, and all of us have built ourselves a house. But where have we built? Whether upon the rock—having dug and gone deep—or upon the sand without a foundation, the present struggle will show. For the storm is upon us, "bringing rain and floods and winds," or, as Luke calls it, "an inundation"; and these, when they dash against the house, will not be strong enough to shake it, and therefore the house will not fall, since it is founded upon the rock, Christ. Or, they will demonstrate the weakness of the building, which will collapse when the occasion arises—may this be far from our buildings! For "great" is the ruin in the denial, or, as Luke says, "a great breach" of the building that lacks a foundation. Wherefore let us pray that we may be likened to "a wise man who built his house upon the rock." For let there come upon such a building the rain "sent by the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places," or the rivers of our enemies, the "principalities and powers," or the "harsh winds" from the "world-rulers of this darkness," or the flood of the subterranean spirits, and let them dash themselves against our building founded upon the rock; so that not only may our house not fall, but let it not even be shaken from the beginning, and let them experience our strength rather than inflict their own. Let each of us also say, while striking our adversaries: "So I fight, not as one beating the air."
308 49. Furthermore, since "the sower went out to sow," let us demonstrate that our soul has received his seed, not as those who are "beside the way," nor as the "stony ground," nor as the "thorns," but as the "good earth." If, therefore, the word of Jesus has not come "beside the way," nor "upon the thorns," then, as far as it depends on us, we shall glory in the Lord. For we have understood the word. Wherefore the evil one has not snatched away what was sown in our hearts. C And that it was not sown upon the thorns, many will be witnesses to us, as many as see that neither the care of this age, nor the deceitfulness of riches, nor the pleasures of life have been able to withstand the word of God received in our souls. It remains for men to doubt whether, as far as it was in us, the word of God has come upon the stony ground or upon the good earth. For tribulation and persecution have arisen because of the word, and the time of great D temptation is upon us, when he who is sown upon the stony ground is revealed, and those who have not deepened...
A their roots, nor received Jesus into the deepest parts of their soul. But he who understands the word brings forth fruit, and keeps the word unto the end in patience, making a hundredfold. For we hear in what manner the Scripture represents those who are scandalized in time of tribulation or persecution, after they appeared to have received the holy teachings with joy, and are scandalized because they do not have a root, but believe only for a time. For it says according to Matthew: "But he who is sown upon the stony ground, this is he who hears the word, and immediately with joy receives it; yet he has no root in himself, but is temporal; and when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he is immediately scandalized." According to Mark: "These are they who are sown upon the stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately with joy receive it, and they have no root in themselves, but are temporal; then when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, they are immediately scandalized." According to Luke: "But those upon the rock, who, when they have heard, with joy receive the word; and these have no root; who for a time believe, and in time of temptation fall away." Regarding those who bring forth fruit well, teaching us, the Scripture says: "But he who was sown into the good ground, this is he who hears the word and understands, who indeed brings forth fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Or: "And these are they who are sown into good ground, who hear the word and receive it, and bring forth fruit, one thirty, and one sixty, and one a hundred." Or: "But that in the good ground, these are they who in a good and B honest heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit in patience."
Since, therefore, according to the Apostle, "You are God’s husbandry, God’s building," let there be husbandry in the good ground, and building upon the rock. As the building of God, let us stand unshaken against the storm; and as the husbandry of God, let us not care for the evil one, nor for tribulation or persecution which arise because of the word, nor for the anxiety of this age, or the deceitfulness of riches, or the pleasures of life; but despising all these things, let us take up the care-free spirit of wisdom, and let us hasten toward the riches which have no deceit, and let us hurry toward the pleasures, if I may so call them, of the paradise of delights. Let us reckon in every hardship this: "For our momentary and light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." C And let us know this also, that what is said regarding Abel who was killed by the murderer and unjust Cain, to all these...
whose blood has been unjustly poured out, applies. For that "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," let us deem it to be said also concerning each of the martyrs, whose voice of blood crieth unto God from the earth. Perhaps also, just as we have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, after Jesus received "the name which is above every name," so too might some be bought with the precious blood of the martyrs; and they would have been exalted even more than they were if they had been righteous but had not been martyrs. For it is logical for the death which is specifically in martyrdom to be called "exaltation," as is evident from the passage: "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto myself." Let us therefore also glorify God, having exalted Him by our own death; since he who undergoes martyrdom glorifies B God by his own death. This is also what we have learned from John's statement: "This he said, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God." These things have been dictated to you by me to the best of my ability, as much as was possible, and I pray that they may prove useful to you for the present contest. And if you—most of all now, as being worthy to see more of the mysteries of God—perceive greater and richer things, and things more effective for the task at hand, and should disdain these as childish and trivial, I would indeed pray for this same thing regarding you; for it is proposed C to you that you should be even more exalted than if you had only been righteous. For it is fitting that the death which is undergone in martyrdom should be called an exaltation, as the words "If I be lifted up from the earth" imply, where, instead of "to be crucified," he says "to be lifted up," as if to say, "if I be lifted up on the cross." D
it is not for us that what is in you should be accomplished, but that in some way or other it may be accomplished. And would that it might be accomplished through things more divine and prudent, and exceeding all human nature, the words and wisdom of God!
ADMONITION ON THE EIGHT BOOKS AGAINST CELSUS BY ORIGEN
A It is not unknown to anyone even moderately learned in history that there lived many men of the same name under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Spartianus makes mention of Celsus the jurist, whom the emperor had as an assessor among others, in his Life of Hadrian: “When he sat in judgment,” he says, “he had in his council not only his own friends or companions, but also jurists, and especially Julius Celsus.” The aforementioned author informs us that another Celsus, a man of consular rank, lived in that same period: “Palma and Celsus, always his enemies, came into the bond of adoption.” The same author, in the same place. And elsewhere: “Wherefore Palma at Terracina, Celsus at Baiae, Nigrinus at Faventia, and Aelianus on the road were put to death by order of the senate, against the will of Hadrian, B as he himself says in his Life.” We have received the memory of a third and a fourth from Origen, who in the first book Against Celsus, number 8, provides us with some knowledge of both: “We have received that there were two Epicurean Celsi, the one earlier, in the time of Nero, and the latter one under Hadrian and later.” The most illustrious Baronius is of the opinion that Lucian, one most addicted to the Epicurean sect if anyone ever was, dedicated his Alexander, or False Prophet, to this man (for he wrote it at his urging). No one will doubt this who has read that little book carefully or examined it with eyes not clouded, since in it Lucian has briefly encompassed the life, crimes, ravings, and deceptions of Alexander of Abonoteichos, a most notorious impostor. I believe Celsus was greatly delighted by this C discourse, since all Epicureans are accustomed to dispel and scatter the frauds and impostures of such scoundrels with laughter and hisses. You might object: How can these things be? Since Celsus makes mention of Marcellina (lib. v, num. 62), who was a follower of the Gnostics and, having found an opportunity during the most severe persecution under Anicetus—that is, if I am not mistaken, shortly before the times of Antoninus Philosophus—betook herself to Rome and corrupted many orthodox persons, as Irenaeus testifies (lib. 1, cap. 24), and likewise Epiphanius (hæres. xxvii); yet Lucian flourished while Trajan was emperor: “He is said to have lived in the time of Emperor Trajan, and beyond.” There are many authors of no small repute who hold this view. The most illustrious Vossius replies in lib. II, cap. 15, De hist. Græc.: “It seems otherwise to me; nor is it for a slight reason: for Lucian makes mention of Marcus Caesar and the Marcomannic war waged by him.” D The passage is in his *Alexander*, or *False Prophet*. “He sends forth an oracle when the war in Germany was at its height, when the god Marcus was already engaged with the Marcomanni and Quadi.” You see how he not only mentions the war waged against the Marcomanni and Quadi, but calls Marcus *theos*, that is, divine, which indicates that he had succumbed to nature and had already been placed in heaven. Wherefore it must be posited beyond controversy that Lucian lived at the time of Marcus Antoninus Philosophus, since he relates the dialogues he himself had with Alexander the false prophet, and also under Commodus, the son of Antoninus Philosophus, since he calls Marcus divine. The same judgment must be formed concerning the age of Celsus. Moreover, the most illustrious Baronius, when he had cited this same passage of Lucian concerning the war waged against the Marcomanni and Quadi in the year of Christ 171, infers: “But as concerns Lucian, who wrote these things, although all affirm that he flourished in the times of the Emperor Trajan, yet from the same writings it is clearly evident that he lived on to these times, and even outlived them.” Rightly indeed, Baronius; but I am less pleased with what you have for the year 145: “Furthermore, that the origin of these (that is, the Ophites) was so ancient that they were not later than Valentinus can be easily known from the fact that Celsus, who lived in the times of Hadrian (as Origen himself testifies), and without doubt of Antoninus [as well], being well-versed in their dogmas, was accustomed to cast them up to the Catholics for the sake of reproach, as if they were contrary to all Christians.” Etenim it is by no means credible that either Celsus or Lucian flourished in the times of Hadrian, since the latter mentions the war undertaken with the Marcomanni, and dedicated the aforementioned book to Celsus; between which times, namely the reign of Hadrian and the Marcomannic war, a space of about fifty years intervened. Origen therefore cautiously added “and later.” But you will say, Whence is it certain to you that this intimacy was contracted with this Celsus? I reply: First, the most illustrious men agree with me, Caesar Baronius in *Annal. Eccl.*, for the year of Christ 132, and Gerardus Vossius in his book *On the Sects of the Philosophers*. Second, it is evident from Origen and Lucian that a certain man so named wrote against magic. Third, he is heard of as an Epicurean by both. Fourth, they agree in time. And so much for his age.
As regards his writings, since they seem to breathe forth impiety and erudition in equal measure, if I were to judge whether he is worthy of blame or praise, who (unless you except Lucian, his very good friend) would endure it? And we have the testimony of this thing at hand: the *True Word*, a book divided into two volumes, and most delightful to read; whether you desire to know the disputes of the most ancient philosophers and Christians; or to test your own strength; or if you wish to honor Origen with your praises as he energetically refutes him. Besides this book of Celsus which I have already mentioned, whose title is *The True Word*, he wrote another most erudite work against the much-vaunted arts of the Magi; hear Lucian on this in his *False Prophet*: “And there are many other things devised for this purpose, of which it is not necessary to remember all, lest we seem to be untutored, and especially in those which you have written against the Magi, most excellent and most useful writings, able to bring those who read them to sound-mindedness, of which you have provided enough and many more than these are.” Others besides these many were devised by him for this purpose, of which it is not necessary to remember all, lest I appear foolish, especially since in those commentaries which you wrote on the arts of the Magi, both most beautiful and most useful, and which can make readers modest, you have related abundantly many things, and these...
A many things which are more abundant. Our Origen agrees with this, who in book 1 against Celsus, no. 68, trusting much in his own conjectures, does not hesitate to attribute to him a certain book written against Magic: ‘You see how by these things he supposedly admits that magic exists, I do not know if he is the same person as the one who wrote many books against magic.’ B You see that he is not entirely averse to admitting magic. I do not know, however, if he himself is the one who wrote many books against magic. In book IV, no. 36, he doubts whether he was also the author of the two books which he says were written against the Christians. ‘But the Epicurean Celsus is more able to judge Plato (if indeed this is the same one who also composed two other books against the Christians), perhaps contending with us, he called them divinely inspired, whom he did not think were inspired.’ But that Epicurean Celsus (if indeed he is the one who composed two other books against the Christians), although he could have judged them more soundly than Plato, perhaps he even said they were divinely inspired, whom he considered not at all inspired, so that he might contradict us. C Besides those already mentioned, he promised to give another work On the precepts of living well: whether he himself finished it, or whether it perished after it was finished, I simply do not know. At the end of this work you have Origen as a witness in book VI, no. 76: ‘Know, however, that Celsus promised that after this he would compose another treatise, in which he promised to teach how those who wished and were able to be persuaded by him ought to live.’ Know that another work was promised by Celsus, in which he promised to teach how those who wished and were able to have faith in him ought to live.
To which sect he actually adhered, we understand more certainly and fully from Origen and Lucian: the former of whom objects to him here and there the dogmas and errors of Epicurus, lib. I, no. 8, 10, 21; lib. II, no. 60; lib. III, no. 54, 48, 79; lib. IV, no. 54, 75; lib. V, no. 3. Lucian, however, professes that he wrote his *Pseudomantis* for the reason that he might leave his gratitude towards Celsus attested, and vindicate Epicurus, who was most dear to him: ‘These things, my friend, I thought worth writing for the sake of an example from many things, and both to favor you, as a companion and friend, and one whom I admire most of all for wisdom, and for the love of truth, and for the gentleness of character, and kindness, and the tranquility of life, and for the dexterity toward those who are with him; but the greater part, which is also more pleasing to you, by avenging Epicurus, a man who is truly holy and divine in his nature.’ These things, O friend, I thought I should write, out of many things, for the sake of example, so that I might gratify you, a familiar man and friend, and whom I respect most of all men, both on account of his wisdom, and his pursuit of truth, and the gentleness and moderation of his character, and on account of your tranquility of life, and your kindness toward those familiar to you. Then also, because it was more pleasing to you, that I might avenge Epicurus, a man truly holy and of divine genius. For Alexander was so hostile to Epicurus and those of his sect, that to one inquiring what Epicurus was doing in the underworld: ‘He sits,’ he said, ‘in filth with leaden shackles.’ He burned his books in the forum; he also warned the people of Pontus to drive out the Christians and Epicureans with stones, and he never gave an oracle to an Amastrian, because very many Epicureans lived in that city: ‘For to whom else,’ says Lucian in the same place, ‘would a man who is a conjurer and a lover of wonders, and most hostile to truth, more justly wage war than against Epicurus, a man who has observed the nature of things, and alone knows the truth in them? For the one about Plato, and Chrysippus, and Pythagoras was a friend, and there was deep peace toward them; but the intractable Epicurus (for so he named him) was justly most hostile, ridiculing and mocking all these things.’ For with whom indeed would a man who is a conjurer, a lover of portents, and most hostile to the truth more justly wage war than with Epicurus who perceived the nature of things, and who alone knows what of truth lies in them, most perfectly? But he was a friend of Plato, Chrysippus, and Pythagoras, and cultivated a long peace with them. But that intractable Epicurus (for so he named him) was most odious to him, and not without reason, since he considered all these things ridiculous and ludic. D Finally, Eusebius calls our Celsus an Epicurean, *Hist. Eccles.* lib. VI, cap. 56. I cited all these things for this reason, that I might rouse Hornius from the very deep slumber in which he is held, who, having neglected the credibility of histories, reckoned Celsus among the Stoics. For thus he says in *Hist. Philos.* lib. V, cap. 4: ‘But Origen, who wrote against that sacred head, the Stoic Celsus, having carefully examined all sects, was a most learned philosopher.’
Although indeed Origen frequently thinks that Celsus, the author of the *True Word*, might be that same one who published very many writings against magic, who likewise composed two other books different from the *True Word* against the Christian religion, and was most addicted to the Epicurean sect; yet sometimes he fears to assert that it is altogether one and the same man, because, forsooth, the author of the *True Word* sometimes appears to follow Plato and to admit magic. See book I against Celsus, no. 68, and book IV, no. 36. Nevertheless, in book I, no. 8, he thinks that Celsus is not ignorant that he cannot confess himself an Epicurean without detracting from the faith of the things which he was about to say, and for this reason, he covers up the dogmas of Epicurus, and pretends that he sometimes follows Plato, and that the calumnies which he creates against the Christians might appear more plausible. However it may be, Celsus whom Origen refutes could not have written his *True Word* before the reign of Marcus Aurelius, since, as Origen testifies in lib. V, no. 62, he not only made mention in that work of the Marcionites, who arose only around the year of Christ 142, but also of the Marcellians, who took their name from a certain Marcellina, a woman of the sect of the Carpocratians, who, as Irenaeus testifies in lib. I, cap. 24, came to Rome under Anicetus, after the year of Christ 157. But it is very likely that he composed this work while the persecution of Marcus Aurelius against the Christians was burning, if indeed, as Origen testifies in lib. VII, no. 69, he asserts that the Christians hide everywhere, so that they might escape the danger of death to which they were being sought. This is without doubt the Celsus of whom Chrysostom, *Homil. 6 in Epist. ad Corinthios*, says these things: ‘But those who have spoken against us are also sufficient to bear witness to the antiquity of the books, those who are about Celsus and the Bataneote who was after him. For they did not speak against those things which were composed after them.’ But those who wrote against us are sufficient for attesting the antiquity of our books, namely Celsus and the Bataneote who was after him. For they did not speak against those things which had been composed after them. Augustine, in book *De hæresibus*, tom. VIII, p. 5, commemorates a certain Celsus who had completed the opinions of all philosophers up to his own times in six not insignificant volumes. But by no argument can it be proven that he is the same one whom our Origen refutes.
2. As far as the eight books of Origen against Celsus are concerned, it is clear from book III, no. 14, that they were written at the time when the Church was enjoying profound peace for many years, although there was then the greatest disturbance of affairs in the empire. ‘But that not even the fear from without keeps hold of our covenant, is clear from this also, since it has pleased God that it should have ceased already for a longer time. And it is likely that it will cease, the fear having vanished which had been present to those believing regarding this life; whenever again those who in every way slander the Word think that the cause of the commotion to such an extent now in the multitude of believers is because they are not being fought against by the leaders as in the old times.’ Nor does the fear of outsiders confirm our institution, as is evident from this, that it is already a long time since that fear was removed. Nevertheless, I would have believed that that tranquility, as far as it pertains to this life being led by the faithful, was not to last long. For those who slander our doctrine in every way think the cause of the disturbance of affairs that is occurring now is that the number of the faithful has increased, nor do the governors care to have them defeated, as was done in earlier times. Baronius, at the year of Christ 243, thinks it could have happened very well, that so famous, laborious, and of many
641 ADMONITION. 642
The work of his studies, begun in the time of Gordianus, was continued into the reign of Philip. But since the persecution of Maximinus, which caused the greatest slaughters especially in the East, preceded the reign of Gordianus, how could Origen have written under Gordianus, when the Church had enjoyed tranquil peace for many years? It is better, therefore, that the writing of the books against Celsus be referred to the end of the reign of Alexander, were it not for the authority of Eusebius, who in *Hist. eccl.* lib. VI, cap. 36, clearly states that they were written under Philip, the successor of Gordianus: "In this time also, he composed eight books against the one inscribed *The True Word* of Celsus the Epicurean, which is leveled against us." At the same time he composed eight books against a certain book of Celsus the Epicurean, written against the Christians, which is inscribed *On the True Doctrine*. In truth, in the year of Christ 249, which was the last year of the emperor Philip, the persecution of Maximinus had already ceased for twelve years; and by that great disturbance of the empire which Origen mentions, it seems that there is designated the rebellion of Decius which, as Zosimus testifies in his first book, was preceded by another of Jotapianus in Syria, and another of Marinus in Pannonia.
A ... *Philalethes* ["Lover of Truth"], where he had compared Apollonius of Tyana to Jesus Christ from the history of Philostratus, asserts that a work of this kind had already been refuted in advance by Origen in his eight books against Celsus: "Power has already been overturned before his own writing against them, and has been forestalled in a total of eight books written by Origen against the more arrogant *True Word* of Celsus, inscribed as by a *Philalethes*, wherein... he has forestalled and dissolved the responsibilities in all the things we have spoken, bringing together all that has been and will be said on the same subject... to which, having sent those who can accurately diagnose our affairs with a love of truth, come, let us for the present examine the passage regarding our Lord Jesus Christ from this *Philalethes* word." B Indeed, those things, although not written with a style aimed against them, seem sufficiently overturned by the eight volumes written by Origen against Celsus's oration, which is inscribed *The True* [Word], or even more arrogant and boastful than the *Philalethes* himself. For he there fully embraces all arguments, and whatever has ever been or will be said by anyone on this matter, he dissolves almost by anticipation. Sending us there, therefore, if any are held back by a little greater zeal for knowing our affairs truly and sincerely, come, let us contemplate at this time alone the comparison of our Lord Jesus Christ to Apollonius from the *Philalethes* itself, etc. Basil and Gregory Nazianzenus also held the work against Celsus in such high regard that, from the fragments cited from it, they compiled almost the entire *Philocalia*. Jerome, in *Epist.* 85 (alias 84), says: "Celsus and Porphyry wrote against us: Origen answered the former; Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris answered the latter most strongly." Of these, Origen wrote eight books, Methodius proceeded up to ten thousand verses, and Eusebius and Apollinaris compiled twenty-five and thirty volumes. Read them, and you will find us, in comparison with them, the most unskilled, and after such a long time of leisure, we barely recall, as if in a dream, what we learned as boys. It would be too long to bring forward the judgment of more recent authors concerning the books against Celsus. It suffices to observe that Cl. Huet, in book III of the *Origeniana*, section two, no. 5, asserts that nowhere else does Origen express such abundance of Christian and profane doctrine, and such weight of arguments; likewise, the learned Dupin [observes] that from all the apologies for the Christian religion which were published in the prior centuries of the Church, none seems to be comparable to this *Origeniana*, which is in all respects most absolute. Finally, for the commendation of this work, it is not irrelevant to transcribe here what George Bull says in *Defensio Fidei Nicanae*, p. 168: "If all the writings of Origen, pure and uncorrupted, existed today, they would not all equally serve for the declaring of his true and genuine sentiment. Naturally, the ratio of the author's polygraphous works would be diverse. For he wrote some things secretly to friends, which he hoped would never see the light; in which he argued freely and almost skeptically, and for the most part proposed not so much his own certain and definite opinion, but rather the reasonings of others, or his own scruples and dubitations, toward a clearer elucidation of the truth. He himself published other things, whether against infidels, or against heretics, or finally for instructing the Christian people; in which, walking in a beaten and safe path, he studied to hand down the doctrine received in the Catholic Church. Furthermore, he dictated some things hastily, others he elaborated with more diligent care. Finally, others (to use the words of Huet) the aged Adamantius, with genius more matured by age, polished; others he poured forth in the heat of youth with fecundity. Concerning which Jerome spoke excellently in the prologue to the *Commentaries on Luke*, that Origen in certain treatises plays as it were a child again; others are the serious works of his manhood and old age. However, it cannot be denied that Origen's testimony concerning Catholic doctrine ought to be sought especially from those writings which he himself destined for public use, which he wrote thoughtfully and attentively, and which, finally, already an old man, he composed taught by long use and experience of things. Of this kind are, by common consent, the eight books against Celsus the Epicurean. Indeed, in these he defends the common doctrine of the Christians against a most instructed enemy of our religion: these were elaborated by the author with the highest zeal, with greatest erudition, and by him when he was already over sixty years old." C
ORIGEN'S PREFACE TO THE BOOKS AGAINST CELSUS.
D Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, when he was pressed with false testimonies, held his peace; when he was accused...
A of the crimes brought against him, he answered nothing, being persuaded that his whole life and his deeds among the Jews were more capable of refuting the false testimony than any words of defense against the charges could be. But you, O lover of God, Ambrose, I know not why you wished me to repel the calumnies and accusations which Celsus has published in writing against the Christians and the faith of the Churches: as if the facts themselves did not openly prove them false, and as if the doctrine, more excellent than any writing, did not destroy them—the doctrine which leaves them not even any probability, so that they might have any force. Now, that Jesus held his peace when false testimonies were spoken against him, will be sufficiently clear for the present from the words of Matthew, to which Mark has written things almost similar. The words of Matthew are these: "Now the chief priests, and the elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; but found none, though many false witnesses came. At the last came two, and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus B held his peace." But also, that he answered nothing to those who objected false crimes, these are testimonies: "And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly." C
2. For it was also worthy of admiration, even among those who are able to think with moderation, that he who was falsely accused, and able to defend himself and to show that he was guilty of no crime—who could have recounted the praises and the truly divine virtues of his own life, in order to open to the judge a way to a more equitable judgment—not only did not do these things, but even despised and with a great mind contemned his accusers. For that Jesus would have been acquitted by the judge without delay, if he had said anything to repel the accusations, is clear from those things which Pilate is recorded to have said: "Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" D And from those which immediately follow: "For he knew that for envy they had delivered him." Jesus therefore is always pressed with false testimonies; and because there is always malice in men,
he is always being accused. He is silent indeed even to this day, and makes no answer with his voice, but he is defended by the life of his own genuine disciples. For this is stronger than the perfidy of false witnesses, and refutes and overturns false testimonies and calumnies A.
3. Wherefore, since you ask that a defense be prepared by me, you weaken that defense which consists in things and deeds, and at the same time that power of Jesus which is clearly evident to those who are not insensible. Nevertheless, that I may not seem to shrink from acting upon your command, I have endeavored, according to my present ability, to reply to each of those things which Celsus has written, by suggesting what appears to me B to be a refutation of his arguments, which are unable to shake any of the faithful. And may there never be found anyone who has received such love of God in Christ Jesus, as to be shaken in his own resolve by the words of Celsus or of any man like him! But Paul, though enumerating myriad things accustomed to separate one from the love of Christ and the love of God which is in Christ Jesus—all of which the love that was in him was greater than—did not even count his own speech among things that separate. For pay attention, that first he C says: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we were counted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these things we more than conquer through him that loved us." Second, he sets forth another order of those things which are accustomed to separate those who are not steadfast in piety, saying, "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord D."
And truly it is worthy for us to boast if we are not separated by tribulation, or by the things subsequently recounted with it, but not for Paul and the apostles, and if any other has become like unto them, because he is far above such things, saying, "In all these things we more than conquer through him that loved us," which is greater than to conquer. But if it is necessary for apostles also to boast of not being separated from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, they would boast that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor any one of the things following can separate them from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, it does not at all please me that one whose faith in Christ could be subverted either by the writings of Celsus, who has long since ceased to live this life and is already long dead, or by any persuasiveness of speech. And I do not know in what category one ought to place him who needs A arguments against those accusations of Celsus against Christians which are written in his books, in order to recover himself from the shaking of his faith and to stand firm in it. Nevertheless, since even in the multitude of those who are considered believers, there might be found some of such a sort that they are shaken and overturned by the writings of Celsus, but are healed by an apology against them—if only the answer contains some character proper to Celsus’s arguments and expressive of the truth—we have thought it right to yield to your command, and to dictate for the work I have sent to you, even if we have made but little progress. This is a work which I do not think anyone who has progressed ever so slightly in philosophy would deem a “True Word,” as Celsus has entitled it.
5. Now Paul, observing that there are in Greek philosophy things not to be despised and which [can appear] persuasive to many, presenting the false as true B, says concerning them: “See 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 in the speeches of the wisdom of this world something of a seeming magnificence, he said that the discourses of those philosophers were “according to the elements of this world.” But no one of sound mind would say that the writings of Celsus are “according to the elements of this world.” And those writings of the philosophers, because they bear a deceptive and captious aspect, he called an “empty deceit,” perhaps to distinguish it from a certain deceit that is not empty, which Jeremiah, having observed, dared to say to God: C “You have deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; you were stronger than I, and you prevailed.” But the writings of Celsus seem to me to possess no deceit at all, and therefore not even an “empty” one, such as theirs possess who have established sects in philosophy D and have taken upon themselves opinions that are not common. And just as no one would call the casual error of those who are mistaken in geometric theorems a “false-writing,” or a true word, which is why Celsus’s work might not wrongly be translated as a “true history,” or a “true word.”
A and register them for the sake of practice, as coming from such [souls]; thus, it is necessary that things that are to be said in a way similar to the thoughts of those who have introduced heresies in philosophy be called “empty deception and human tradition according to the elements of the world.”
This preface, after dictating everything up to the personification of the Jew in Celsus (88) arguing against Jesus, we thought fit to set before the beginning, so that the reader might encounter it before the things dictated by us concerning Celsus, and see that this book was written not for the fully faithful, but for those who are completely untasted in relation to faith in Christ, or to those whom the Apostle named “weak in the faith.” For he said as follows: “Receive the one who is weak in the faith.” B Let the preface apologize, because we dictated the beginning of the reply to Celsus with one intention, and the parts following the beginning with another. For at first, we intended to note down the heads, and briefly [summarize] the things said against them, and then afterward to give the discourse a bodily form. Later, however, the matters themselves moved us, out of consideration for time, to be content with what had been dictated thus at the beginning, and in the following parts, to the best of our ability, to contend in a literary manner against Celsus’s charges against us. Therefore, we ask for indulgence regarding the beginning of what follows the preface. And if you are not moved by the things subsequently dictated so as to be satisfied, and ask for similar indulgence for them, I send you—if you still wish to have the solutions to Celsus’s arguments dictated for you—to those among us who are more intelligent and capable, who are able through words and books to overturn Celsus’s charges against us. Yet C he is better who has no need even of the beginning, nor of the apology against Celsus upon encountering his writing; but who despises everything in his book, even as any believer in Christ would, because of the Spirit within him, reasonably despises it.
[The text starting from “ὁ ψευδογραφῶν” and the corresponding Latin “captiose decipit...” contains a lengthy discussion quoting Aristotle's *Sophistical Refutations* regarding the nature of the “pseudographer” (the false writer/geometrician) vs. the “contentious” (eristic) person. Origen notes that as a pseudographer is to a geometrician, so is the contentious to the dialectician.]
D [alt-version omitted]
(88) *Celsus*. Thus in the Royal Codex; Julianus, and two Anglicans whose reading seems better than the other, *Celsus*, which is found in other manuscripts and printed books. (89) Codex Reg., *the reply to him* (τῆς πρὸς αὐτὴν), incorrectly.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS, BOOK ONE
A 1. Celsus, wishing to inflame hatred against Christianity because Christians enter into secret pacts with one another contrary to the laws, says this first: that there are some pacts that take place openly, and others secretly; those are permitted by the laws, while these are prohibited by them. He obviously wishes to excite hatred against that which Christians call the "agape," as if it were instituted because of a common danger.
The first point for Celsus, desiring to slander Christianity, is that Christians make clandestine pacts with one another contrary to established customs, because of these pacts some are manifest, those which occur according to the laws, and others are hidden, those which are accomplished against established customs. And he wishes to slander the so-called "love-feast" of the Christians.
B Three charges are cast against us: impiety, Thyestean feasts, and Oedipean copulations. The fourth the author mentions here is sedition. Celsus noted all these things. But to these and the rest of the crimes, by which the Christian religion seemed to be suppressed, the Fathers respond: and they repel the first charge offered by the unbelievers. Justin, *Second Apology*, and elsewhere; Athenagoras, *Supplication for the Christians*, page 5; Tertullian very often in the *Apologeticus*.
Concerning the second charge, Justin, *First Apology*: "For I myself," he says, "delighting in the teachings of Plato, hearing that Christians are slandered, and seeing that they are fearless in the face of death and all other things considered terrible, considered it impossible that they could exist in vice and lust. For who that is a lover of pleasure and intemperate, and considering the eating of human flesh a good, could be able to embrace death, so that he might be deprived of his own goods, and not rather by every means strive to live this present life always, and to escape notice of the rulers, let alone offer himself to be struck down by denunciation and information?"
... we abstain from blood, so that we may not be contaminated by any blood, or by that which is buried within the vitals. Finally, among the trials of the Christians, you bring forward sausages bloated with gore, well-knowing that to be illicit among them, for which you wish them to stumble. But what kind of thing is it, that those who you believe shudder at the blood of an animal, you would believe to pant for human blood? Unless, perhaps, you have experienced it to be sweeter. The same, chapter 7: We are called the most wicked because of the sacrament of infanticide and the food from it, and after the feast, for incest; because dogs, the overthrowers of lamps, procure darkness, and then the shamelessness of impious lusts. We are always spoken of, yet you do not care to ferret out that which has been spoken of for so long; therefore, either ferret it out, if you believe it, or do not believe it, you who have not ferreted it out. By your own dissimulation it is prescribed to you that it is not, because you yourselves dare not ferret it out. And Minucius Felix in the *Octavius*: "For us, murder is neither lawful to see nor to hear; and we abstain so much from human blood, that we do not know the blood of edible animals in our food."
The third charge, Minucius Felix again: "A great fable of demons has lied against us concerning the incestuous feast, so that it might stain the glory of modesty with the aversion of a shameful infamy." Likewise Justin, who in his *Second Apology* rejects the aforementioned crimes on the disciples of Simon, Menander, and Marcion; and he opines that they gave the gentiles cause for suspicion.
C Even if they do those things which are told in those defamatory myths—the overthrow of lamps, and promiscuous copulation, and the eating of human flesh—we do not know. But we know that they are not persecuted, and not killed by you, and [we know] that it is because of their doctrines.
We also have a work compiled against all the heresies that have existed, which, if you wish to read, we will provide. Some pagan slaves of ours were also arrested (since the governor publicly ordered all of us to be sought out); who, also according to the snare of Satan, D and because they feared the tortures they saw Christians suffering, and were urged by those who were pursuing us to falsely accuse us of eating human flesh and of incestuous copulation, denounced these things against us.
A Since, therefore, he harps on the common law, and says that the covenants of the Christians violate it, we must reply that, just as if someone who found himself among the Scythians—who use wicked laws—and had no opportunity to leave, were constrained to live among them, he would rightly, for the sake of the law of truth, which they deem wicked, enter into covenants with those who thought as he did, against the laws of the Scythians; so, before the truth as judge, those laws of the nations which sanction the cult of images and, by introducing a multitude of gods, remove God from the midst, are Scythian laws, or—if anything is more impious than the laws of the Scythians—those. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to make covenants contrary to what is established, for the sake of the truth. For just as if some were to secretly enter into covenants to remove a tyrant who had occupied the things of the city, they would be acting rightly; so too the Christians, when the devil and falsehood are exercising tyranny among them, rightly make covenants contrary to the things established by the devil, against the devil himself, and for the salvation of others, whom they can persuade to depart from what is, so to speak, the law of the Scythians and of the tyrant.
B Certain of our servants who were Gentiles were also captured, since the governor had publicly ordered that we all be searched for. Urged on by the impulse of the demon, as they dreaded the tortures they saw the saints enduring, and with the soldiers inciting them to this very thing, they falsely accused us of Thyestean feasts and Oedipean unions, and of whatever it is not holy for us even to speak or to think, nor even to believe that such a thing ever happened among men. When these things were bruited about, everyone became savage toward us, so that even if some had previously been lenient toward us on account of kinship, they then became greatly enraged and gnashed their teeth against us.
C Christians have given the kiss; Justin, *Apol.* 2, p. 97; nay, they have called each other brothers and sisters; Tertullian, *Apolog.* cap. 39; Athenagoras, *Legat.*; Clement, *Strom.* v; and from this perhaps the pagans seized an opportunity for calumny. Are you surprised? I will tell you. If any Christians have sinned gravely, the presidents of the Church used to expel them; the latter, moved by grief, beg for pardon, and throw themselves before the knees of the brethren and the feet of the priests; hence phrases of this kind occur here and there in ecclesiastical authors: "to throw oneself before the presbyters," and "by throwing oneself, to wipe the boots of the brethren." Such was the discipline of the ancient Christians; which, however, Caecilius, in Minucius, having seized an opportunity from this bodily gesture, thus slandered: "Others," he says, "report that they worship the genitals of the priest and minister himself." D See Rigaltius on this passage of Minucius.
"This gathering of Christians is surely deservedly illicit, if it is on a par with illicit things; it is deservedly to be condemned, if it is not unlike those that are condemned, if anyone complains of it under the title under which complaint is made against factions. To whose ruin have we ever gathered? We are the same when gathered as we are when dispersed; we are the same as a whole as we are individually; harming no one, saddening no one." When the upright, when the good gather, when the pious, when the chaste congregate, it is not to be called a faction, but a curia (court/assembly). The same, cap. 39: "Looking up to that, Christians, with hands outstretched, because we are innocent, with heads bare, because we do not blush, finally without a prompter, because we pray from the heart, we are always praying for all the emperors; for them a long life, a secure empire, a safe home, brave armies, a faithful senate, an upright people, a peaceful world, whatever are the wishes of a man and a Caesar." Likewise Justin, *Apol.* 1, p. 64.
A Next, he calls the doctrine from of old "barbarian," clearly meaning Judaism, from which Christianity is derived. And he is quite fair-minded, for he does not reproach the Word for its barbarian origin, praising the barbarians as capable of discovering truths. He adds to this that the Greeks are better at judging, confirming, and practicing for the sake of virtue what the barbarians discovered. This, then, represents for us, from his own words, a defense of the truths contained in Christianity: that if someone, having been thoroughly trained in the learning and exercises of the Greeks, were to come to the Word, he would not only judge them to be true, but would also, by practicing them, confirm them, and—as it might seem to lack something in comparison to Greek demonstration—supply the deficiency, thereby establishing the truth of Christianity. B We must also say to this, however, that there is a certain demonstration unique to the Word, which is more divine than the Greek dialectic. This more divine demonstration the Apostle calls "a demonstration of the Spirit and of power" [7 Cor. II, 4]: "of the Spirit" because of the prophecies that are capable of convincing the reader, especially concerning the things of Christ; "of power" because of the prodigious miracles, the reality of which must be established not only by many other things, but also by the fact that their traces still survive among those who live according to the will of the Word.
C And now you can learn from the things that are happening before your eyes. For many throughout the whole world, and in your own city, have had demons cast out of them by many of our own people—the Christians—invoking the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, in cases where all other exorcists, incantators, and sorcerers had failed; and they are still healing them today, disarming and driving out the demons that possess D people. [alt-version omitted]
...has been delivered when being thrown down by a demon; and a kinsman or a little child of some people. And how many honest men (for we do not speak of the common sort) have been healed from demons or from illnesses? Even Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of the Christians; for he sought out Proculus the Christian, who was nicknamed Torpacion, the procurator of Evodia, who had once healed him with oil, and kept him in his palace until his death. The same in the *Apologeticus*, ch. 25: "But so much for words; now for the demonstration of the fact itself, by which we will show that there is one nature to both names [of God or demon]. Let there be brought forward here someone before your tribunals who is clearly possessed by a demon: mandated by any Christian to speak, that spirit will confess itself to be a demon as truthfully as it would else confess it is a god falsely. Equally, let there be brought forward any of those who are thought to suffer from a god, who, inhaling the fumes at the altars, conceive a spirit from the scent, who are cured by belching, who speak out while gasping; this very celestial virgin, the foreteller of rain, this very Aesculapius, the teacher of medicine, who on another day provides life to the dying Socordius and Thannatius and Asclepiodotus—unless they confess themselves to be demons, not daring to lie to a Christian, do you shed the blood of that most insolent Christian. What is more manifest than this work? What is more faithful than this proof? The simplicity of truth is in your midst; its own power assists it; it will not be possible to suspect anything. You will say that it is magic or some such deception, if your eyes and ears allow you. But what can be cast against that which is shown with naked sincerity?" See also the twenty-seventh chapter. Irenaeus also says, book II, ch. 31, Benedictine edition: "So far are they from resurrecting the dead, as the Lord resurrected and the Apostles did through prayer, and in the brotherhood, very often for some necessary purpose, the whole Church in each place requesting it through fasting and much supplication, that the spirit has returned to the dead man, and the man has been granted [to us] through [their] orisons."
A 3223. After he has said that the Christians do whatever they like and teach it in secret, and that they do not do this in vain, since they are avoiding the death penalty hanging over them—a danger equal to the dangers that befell the philosophers, such as Socrates—he could have added that they took for themselves the name "Christian" so that, off account of them, the nations might be repulsed from the utility of the holy Church of God and might reject the announced truth because of their enormous crimes and incredible wickedness; that, I say, having observed their frequent villainies, they might persuade themselves that those who are from the holy Church of God are the same, and thus might turn their ears away from the most true doctrine of God, as we have said, or at any rate, having seen the wickedness of a few, might throw the same insults at all. And that is the very reason why most of the Gentiles, wherever they catch men of this sect, do not wish either to join with us in any exchange or counsel or B to hear the divine word, and cannot even endure to provide their ears, being so dismayed and deterred by their nefarious crimes.
CONCERNING THE WONDER-WORKERS
And Irenaeus teaches this, lib. 1, cap. 22. Secondly, very many have called into doubt the truthfulness of Christ and the apostles, and have believed them to be most skilled in magical arts; for the refutation of whom a long series of miracles seemed very necessary. Celsus slanders not once that Christ learned the art of magic from the Egyptians. The Jews and Simon the Samaritan, the father and master of all heretics, if you believe Irenaeus, lib. 1, cap. 34, suspected the same; and the defenders of heresy and the Gentile cult asserted it with all their might. "But if they also say that the Lord performed such things through phantasms, by reducing them to the prophetic writings we shall demonstrate from them, etc.," Irenaeus, lib. 1, cap. 24. "Wherefore [they say that] he did not suffer, but that a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross for him, C and that this man, being crucified in ignorance and by mistake, was transformed by him so that he would be thought to be Jesus himself, while Jesus himself took the shape of Simon and, standing by, mocked them." Iren. lib. 1, cap. 20; likewise Epiphanius, haer. 24.
Concerning the rest of the enemies of the Christian religion, you may form a conjecture from Julian alone, whom you may hear, in Cyril of Alexandria the sixth book, belittling the miracles of Christ in his own manner: "Jesus, however, having persuaded a few of your own people and the most wretched among them, is celebrated for about three hundred years. During this whole time of his life, he did nothing at all worthy of mention; unless someone regards it as a great feat to cure the lame and the blind, and to exorcise those possessed by demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany." What he thought of Paul, you have in the third book: "But also Paul, who surpasses all the incantators and deceivers that have ever existed." Likewise concerning Peter, in the ninth book; concerning all of them, in the tenth book: "But also your apostles, it is credible that after the death of their master they did those things, and that you who first believed D handed them down to yourselves from the beginning, having yourselves practiced the trickery more skillfully, and then displayed to those after you the workshops of this trickery and filth."
A Socrates (3): he was able to say that, just like Pythagoras (4) and other philosophers. We must say to this, that the Athenians repented immediately regarding Socrates, and nothing bitter remained for them concerning him, nor C regarding Pythagoras (5). Plutarch, in *On the Malice of Herodotus*: "To compare such misfortunes of good and noble men—such as the condemnation of Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras while still alive by the Cylonians, the executions of Zeno by the tyrant Demylus and of Antiphon by Dionysius while they were being tortured—to falling husks is of such levity that I refrain from speaking of it." Laertius and Suidas mention this in *Pythagoras*, as does Arnobius, Book 1, *Against the Gentiles*; Athenagoras likewise in his *Plea for the Christians*; also Plutarch in his book *On the Sign of Socrates*. But Suidas and Laertius report, on the authority of others, that he emerged from the house unharmed before it could be set on fire; however, it came to pass that, while fleeing, he crossed a field full of beans, where, having stopped for the sake of religion, he was caught by his pursuers and slaughtered. Others report that he died due to a faction in Metapontum, as Porphyry does in his *Life of Pythagoras*. Others report that, after the house where they often gathered was consumed by fire, he escaped, having made a bridge out of the bodies of his disciples; but when he saw himself bereft of them, he was so overwhelmed by grief that he took his own life. Laertius, following Hermippus, reports that he brought aid to the Agrigentines; but that he, after the rest had turned to flight, was slaughtered in the plain of the beans, which he was circling (Laert. in *Pythagoras*). You have more on his perils in Porphyry's book *On the Life of Pythagoras*, as well as in Suidas and Laertius; and also in Iamblichus, ch. 35, 36. SPENCER. D Athenians immediately repented, to the point that they closed both the wrestling schools and the gymnasia; they sent some into exile, and condemned Meletus to death. They honored Socrates with a bronze statue, which they placed in the Pompeion—Lysippus having made it. Anytus, who was away at the time, was exiled by the Heracleotes on that very day.
A A Pythagorean school had long existed in that part of Italy which was called Magna Graecia; but as regards the Christians, the Roman Senate, the emperors of various times, the soldiers, the populace, and even the parents of those who believed, conspired against their doctrine; so that, had the Church not been sustained by divine power, it would undoubtedly have been crushed by such manifold snares of enemies from all sides; not only would it have failed to escape and emerge, but it would have been conquered by the whole world which had conspired against it.
Let us also see how he thinks he can disparage the moral teaching, on the grounds that it is common to other philosophers and is no noble or new learning. To this it must be replied that for those who introduce the righteous judgment of God, the penalty for sins would be closed off, if all men did not have a sound preconception of the moral realm imprinted on their minds according to common notions. Therefore, it is no wonder that the same God, B who taught these things through the prophets and the Word, has also imprinted these things on the souls of all men; so that every man might be without excuse in the divine judgment, having the work of the law written in his heart, his conscience also bearing witness and his thoughts one with another accusing or even excusing him. C
(6) *On the Pythagoreans.* Strabo in book IX and Polybius in Book II of his Histories mention the sedition that arose among the Pythagoreans and the Italici. That they repented is clear from Iamblichus, ch. 55, *De vita Pythagorae*: "After many years had passed, when Dinarchus had been killed in another battle with his men, and Litagus, who was the foremost of the seditious, had been extinguished, pity and repentance came upon the citizens, so that they judged that the remaining Pythagoreans should be recalled to their homeland; and so they sought out ambassadors from Achaea, through whom they made peace with the exiles, and they consecrated their oaths at Delphi. The number of those who returned was about sixty, excluding those who were decrepit with age: among whom were found some who devoted themselves to medicine, and cured the sick with a certain regimen of diet; that is, by the method of which they themselves had been the first authors. And it happened that all were finally restored to the same homeland: and this was chiefly through those who had been restored to health, at the time when they were being sung against by the wicked." D SPENCER.
(7) *Which was called Magna Graecia.* Cicero, lib. I, *Tusc.*: "When Pythagoras had come to Italy in the reign of Tarquin the Proud, he held that Magna Graecia in honor for his discipline, and also for his authority; and for many centuries thereafter the name of the Pythagoreans flourished, so that no others seemed learned." Regarding the boundaries by which that Magna Graecia was contained, see Cellarius, *Geographia antiqua*, lib. I, cap. 9.
(8) *Had not divine power, etc.* It seemed to the writer that it should be: *nor had divine power risen and ascended so that it was conquered*. But the received text is sound, and does not need an emendation of that kind.
Nor is it any wonder that God, who taught through the prophets and the Saviour, has impressed the same [truths] upon the souls of all men, so that when God judges, no man may be able to use an excuse; since there is no one who does not have “the sense of the law written in his heart” (Rom. ii, 15). And the Scriptures indicate this obscurely, where they narrate what the Greeks wish to be a fable: that God delivered the commandments written by His own finger to Moses, and that they were broken because of the malice of those who had fashioned the calf (Exod. xxxii, 19); as if to say that they had been obliterated by the flood of their sins. But God, having written them a second time, again gave [them] after Moses had hewn the stones, as if the prophetic word were preparing the soul, after the first sin, with the second letters of God.
B 5. That the Christians have specific views on idolatry, Origen himself explains and confirms, saying that they do not consider manufactured objects to be gods, because it is alien to right reason to count in the number of the gods the works of wicked men, of men with ruined characters, and often even of unjust craftsmen. Then, to show that this opinion is not peculiar to Christians or invented by them, he brings forward the words of Heraclitus, who says: “He who approaches inanimate things as if they were gods, does exactly the same as if someone were to converse with walls.” But these things, as well as others that pertain to ethics, teach us of the notions inherent in the minds of men. From this, Heraclitus—or whoever else among the Greeks or barbarians thought to prove the same thing—drew his own: for he affirms, on the authority of Herodotus, that the Persians also held this same view. To this I add Zeno the Cittiean, who says in his book *On the Republic*: “There will be no need to build shrines. For nothing is sacred, nothing of any value, C statues, nor temples, nor altars are they accustomed to erect. Nay, they even attribute madness to those who do so, for the reason (as is my opinion) that they do not, like the Greeks, think that the gods were born from men.” [Regarding these matters, Herodotus speaks in his *Clio*, and Strabo, in book xv.]
On Idolatry
D As for me, by the Dog, I would have preferred that the disjointed and obscene parts of Zeno’s arguments at some banquet or in jest had been set down in the *Republic*, rather than that they should have been placed in a work of such great seriousness. But this decree of his is recorded by Plutarch in his book *On Stoic Self-Contradictions*. And with a few words changed, you will find it in Theodoret, sermon 3, and in Clement of Alexandria, book v of the *Stromata*. Akin to this is that passage of Plato, book xii of the *Laws*, page 955: “It is fitting that a man of moderate means should offer moderate gifts as votive offerings to the gods. For the earth, to all, is the sacred hearth of the dwelling of all the gods. Let no one, then, dedicate holy things to the gods a second time. Gold and silver in other cities, both privately and in temples, are a possession that arouses envy. Ivory [is not an] easy offering, for it has left the soul of the body; nor is iron or bronze [easy], for they are instruments of war. Of wood, let one dedicate whatever he wishes from a single piece, and of stone, likewise, for common...
A It is manifest, therefore, that concerning this dogma also, it is written in the hearts of men by the finger of God what ought to be done.
6. After this, I know not what moves Celsus to say that the Christians seem to have power through the names of certain demons and incantations—pointing, I suppose, to those who exorcise and cast out demons. But he clearly seems to calumniate the Word. For they do not appear to have power through incantations, but rather by the name of Jesus, along with the recitation of the narratives pertaining to him; for these things, when frequently spoken, have caused demons to depart from people, especially when those who speak them do so from a sound disposition and with a sincerely believing heart. B Indeed, the name of Jesus 18 has such power against demons that it sometimes proves effective even when pronounced by unworthy persons; which Jesus himself, teaching us, said: "Many will say to me in that day: In your name we cast out demons, and did wonders." 81 I know not whether Celsus deliberately overlooked this and acts maliciously, or if he is simply ignorant of it. Furthermore, he accuses the Savior himself, as if he did those things which he appeared to do by magical arts; and because he foresaw that others would come who, having learned these same arts, would do the same, he...
C ...but that he did not entirely forbid the making of images among the Athenians, fearing the populace, is easy to learn from this same source. First, he forbade anyone to construct images of the gods privately; then, he cast out gold and silver as envy-inducing materials that incite to sacrilege. He called ivory a difficult material; and he said that bronze and iron should be reserved for war, not for the making of images of the gods. He ordered them to be carved from wood and stone alone, knowing, I suppose, that this material is worthy of contempt and sufficient to persuade those who see it not to consider them divine, nor to worship things so cheap and base.
D "But mortals think that gods are born, and have sensing, and voice, and body like us. But if oxen or elephants had hands, or were able to draw with their hands, and to perform works as men do, oxen would draw the likenesses of gods, and make bodies like those which they themselves possessed. Horses would draw them like horses, oxen like oxen."
E ...sculpted from wood and stone alone, knowing, I suppose, that the material is subject to contempt, and that it would easily persuade those who see it not to hold them for gods, and to worship things so vile and of no value. This conjecture of a most learned man, if it were my place, I could confirm with countless arguments which the diligent reading of Plato would supply; but another passage—an elegant poem of Xenophanes of Colophon—calls out to me:
"But mortal men imagine gods are generated, And that they have equal sensation, and voice, and body as we do."
Following from the same:
"If bulls or elephants could use their hands, To paint with their hands, or to record deeds as men do, Then horses would see gods drawn like horses, and bulls like bulls, And they would make the bodies of the gods Just like the bodies that they themselves possessed."
Numa, imitating Moses, brought in a similar law, as Clemens Alexandrinus reports in *Stromata*, book 1. Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch agree with this, who gave the same reason for the law being introduced. See Eusebius, *Praeparatio Evangelica*, book 3, chapter 8, and from Plutarch, likewise, book 1, chapter 9. The rest of the testimonies of the ancients, which pertain to this place, I would have gladly added, had I not found them collected with great diligence by the most distinguished Grotius in his *Explanation of the Decalogue*. SPENCER.
A and that they should boast themselves to have done by divine power what he forbade them to do in his company; for if he justly rejects others, he is wicked, being guilty of the same crimes; or if, while he does these things, he is beyond blame, then those who do the same things are also free from blame. However, although the power by which Jesus did these things could not be demonstrated, it is nevertheless evident that no art of incantation is employed by the Christians, but rather the name of Jesus and certain other words, which the divine Scriptures teach are to be believed.
7. But since in what follows he often calls our doctrine secret, he must be confuted in this point also, seeing that it is more known to the whole world than the very tenets of the philosophers. For whom does it escape that Jesus was born of a Virgin, and was nailed to the cross, and—as so many men already believe—that he rose from the dead, and that a judgment will come, in which the unjust ought to be afflicted with fitting punishments, and the just with fitting rewards? And is not the mystery of the resurrection even in the mouths of the unfaithful, to whom it is a mockery, because they do not understand it? After this, he would surely be foolish who would say that our doctrine is hidden. But that there are certain more recondite things, not revealed to all, is a point that Christian doctrine has in common with philosophy, in which there are certain exterior things, and certain others that are interior. For B to some of the disciples of Pythagoras it was sufficient to say, "He himself said it," while others were taught in secret those things which it was not safe to disclose to profane and unpurged ears. C And they were not to busy themselves with inquiries as doubters.
To such an extent did those who succeeded him, if anyone asked for a proof of the things being said, use to reply, "He himself said it," considering it stronger than any proof, and commanding that the voice of Pythagoras be held to the same effect. And if they considered that sufficient for faith, both the speakers and the hearers, when they knew that these were the doctrines and institutions of Pythagoras, who is so foolish, or rather so thunderstruck, as to doubt when God of all things is the teacher, and not to believe the things spoken, and not to accord as much reverence to the God of all things as those who had addicted themselves to his teaching accorded to Pythagoras? D Not without reason, therefore, the beginnings of the mysteries among the Greeks are the purifications, just as the washing is to the barbarians; after these are the small mysteries, having some subject of instruction.
A Yet not even those mysteries everywhere, among Greeks and barbarians alike, which are secret, are to be blamed; therefore, because he has not even understood the secret of Christianity accurately, he speaks against it in vain.
But he seems to speak with some astuteness in favor of those who bear witness to Christianity even unto death, saying: « And I do not say this, that one who holds to a good doctrine, if he is to be in danger among men on its account, ought to depart from the doctrine, or pretend that he has departed, or deny it. » And he indeed condemns those who think the things of Christianity [(24)], yet pretend not to think them, or deny them, saying: « It is not right for one in the doctrine to pretend that he has departed from it, or to deny it. » B Celsus must therefore be refuted as saying things contrary to himself. For he is found from other writings to be an Epicurean; yet here, because it seems more plausible to accuse the [Christian] teaching, while not admitting the things of Epicurus, he pretends that there is something in man superior to the earthly and akin to God, and says that « those for whom this is well, that is, the soul, are in every way longing for the akin [(25)], »—meaning [the akin] of God—« and are always desiring to hear and be reminded of him. » See, then, the insincerity of his soul, that having previously said, « as it is necessary for one who holds to a good doctrine, even if he is to be in danger among men on its account, not to depart from the doctrine, nor to pretend that he has departed, nor to deny it, » he himself falls into all the opposites. For he knew that, by admitting he was an Epicurean, he would not have credibility in accusing those who in any way introduce providence and set God over the things that exist. We have received that there were two Celsuses who were Epicureans; the former lived under Nero, but this one under Hadrian and later.
C It is not without reason, therefore, that in the mysteries also which are celebrated among the Greeks, the first place is held by the expiations and purifications, just as the washing is to the barbarians. After these, however, are the small mysteries, which have some foundation of doctrine and preparation for future things. But in the great mysteries, about the universe, it remains no longer to learn, but to behold and to contemplate both nature and the things themselves. « For it is not permitted for the impure to touch the pure. » Observe him looking around, lest any of the uninitiated overhear. These are they who think nothing to exist other than what they can grasp with their own hands, D saying that to the uninitiated the mysteries are impious.
A Following this, he exhorts us to follow reason and a rational guide, and to accept dogmas; for one who does not thus yield assent to certain things is entirely subject to deceit. He likens those who believe irrationally to the Metragyrtae, B to those who observe omens, to the followers of Mithras and Sabazius, and to anyone who has encountered the phantasms of Hecate or of some other demon or demons. For just as wicked men among them often take advantage of the ignorance 50 of the easily deceived and lead them wherever they wish, so he says this also happens among Christians. C He says that "some of them, not even wishing to give or receive an account for what they believe, use the saying, 'Do not examine, but believe,' and, 'Your faith will save you.'" And he says that they declare: "The wisdom in life is an evil, but foolishness is a good." D To this it must be said that, if it were possible for all men to leave behind their worldly affairs and devote themselves to philosophy, no other path should be pursued by anyone but this one alone; for there will be found, even within Christianity, no less an examination of those things which are believed — indeed, if I may speak somewhat boldly, an examination of the enigmas in the prophets, and of the parables in the Gospels, and of…
ten thousand other things which were done or ordained symbolically. If this is impossible, partly because of the necessities of life, and partly because of the infirmity of men, since very few apply themselves to the study of the word, what other method better adapted to help the multitude could be found than that which was delivered by Jesus to the nations? B And we may inquire with regard to the multitude of those who believe, who have put away the abundant overflow of the vice in which they formerly wallowed, whether it is better for them to have believed without rational argument and somehow to have had their characters restrained and made better by the faith concerning those who are punished for sins and rewarded for good works, or not to have accepted their conversion through simple faith until they had given themselves to the examination of arguments. For clearly, all but a very few would have obtained nothing of that which they have received through simply having believed, but would have remained in the wickedest of lives. Indeed, if another argument is needed to prove that the philanthropic word did not come to the life of men without God, this too must be reckoned to their account. For no pious person would think that even the physician of bodies, who has brought many who were suffering to a better state, has come to cities and nations without the providence of God; for nothing good happens among men without God. If, then, he who has healed many bodies, or has brought them to a better state, does not heal without divine help, how much more ought one to say this of him who has healed many souls, C and converted them, and made them better, and attached them to the God who is over all, and taught them to refer every action to His pleasure, and to shun everything that is displeasing to God, even to the very least of things spoken, or done, or even coming into thought.
Then, since they hold forth on the subject of faith, it must be said that we, indeed, accepting it as useful for the multitude, confess that we teach those who are unable to abandon all things and follow the examination of the word to believe even without rational argument; but they, while not confessing this, do it in their actions. For who, having been prompted toward philosophy D and having cast himself by lot onto some sect of philosophers, or because he happened upon such a teacher, approaches this in any other way than by believing that that sect is better? For he has not waited to hear the arguments of all the philosophers, and of the various sects, and the refutation of which they were able to judge as the best. Then, in the weakest period of life, either having complied with some friend or having been captivated by the discourse of the one whom they first heard, they judge of matters unknown, and, as if carried by a tempest to whatever discipline they arrive at, they cling to it as if to a rock.
A Indeed, one chooses to be a Stoic, or a Platonist, or a Peripatetic, or an Epicurean, or of whatever philosophical sect it may be; but by some irrational impulse, even if they do not wish to admit this, he comes—to use an example—to practice the Stoic discourse, having abandoned the others. Or, having looked down upon the Platonist one as being more lowly than the others, or the Peripatetic one as being too human, and one that candidly acknowledges human goods more than the other sects. And some, from the very first encounter, being disturbed by the discourse concerning Providence, by what happens here to the good and the wicked, have too precipitately agreed that there is no Providence at all, and have chosen the discourse of Epicurus and Celsus.
B If, therefore, one must believe, as the discourse has taught, in one of those who have introduced sects among the Greeks or barbarians, how much more so in the God over all, and in the one who teaches that He alone 45 ought to be worshipped, while other things—either as not existing or as existing—are worthy of honor, yet not of worship and adoration, ought to be disregarded? Concerning these matters, he who does not only believe, but also contemplates things by reason, will bring forward the demonstrations that have occurred to him and have been found through careful investigation. How, then, is it not more consonant with reason to believe in God, since all human affairs depend upon faith? For who sails, or marries, or begets children, or casts seeds upon the earth, without believing 44 that better things will happen, although it is possible for the contrary to occur, as it sometimes does? But nonetheless, that faith that better things and those things prayed for will happen, makes all men bold, and leads them to venture even upon uncertain matters and those with doubtful outcomes. But if, in every action whose outcome is uncertain, hope and the better faith regarding the future sustain life, why should this faith not be adopted more reasonably by him who believes in God, the Creator of all those things, and in the one who, in order to reveal this doctrine to all mortals everywhere, underwent the greatest perils with an C excellence of mind and divine greatness of soul, and for the sake of humanity suffered a death deemed ignominious by the multitude, and taught those whom he persuaded at the beginning to be ministers of his doctrine, D with all the dangers and the deaths that were ever-awaited?
A
Next, Celsus says in these very words: "If indeed they wish to answer me, not as if I were seeking to learn what they think—for I know all things—but because I care equally for all, it were well; but if they do not wish to, but will say, as they are accustomed, 'Do not inquire,' and the rest, it is necessary for them, he says, to teach what kind of things these are which they assert, and whence they have flowed," and the rest. B To this, "For I know all things," I must say that it is a most arrogant thing to have been dared by him; for if he had particularly read the prophets, who are filled with acknowledged enigmas and words obscure to the many; and if he had encountered the evangelical parables, and the rest of the law, and the writing of Jewish history, and the voices of the apostles; and after reading them, had wished with an honest mind to enter into the meaning of the words, he would not have been so bold, nor have said, "For I know all things." Not even we, C who have spent our time in these matters, would say, "For I know all things," for truth is dear. None of us will say, "I know all things," of Epicurus, or will dare to say that he knows all the things of Plato, since there are so many disagreements even among those who interpret them. For who is so bold as to say, "I know all the Stoic things," or "all the Peripatetic things"? Unless perhaps, having heard "For I know all things" from certain senseless, uneducated people who do not perceive their own ignorance, he thought, having used such teachers, that he had known all things. D And it seems to me that he has done something of this kind: just as if one having traveled in Egypt, where the wise men of the Egyptians philosophize much according to their ancestral letters about the divine things customary among them, but the uneducated, having heard some myths of which they do not understand the arguments, plume themselves greatly on these, he thought he had known all the things of the Egyptians, having been a pupil of their uneducated ones, and having met with none of the priests, nor having learned from any of them the hidden things of the Egyptians. And what I have said about the wise men and the uneducated of the Egyptians, it is possible to say also about the Persians, among whom there are mysteries, practiced reasonably by those among them who are learned, but becoming symbolic among the many and more superficial ones among them. The same must also be said about the Syrians, and the Indians, and as many as have both myths and writings.
A 13. But since Celsus sets forth what is alleged by many Christians: "Wisdom in this life is a bad thing, but foolishness is a good thing," it must be said that he slanders the Word, not setting forth the very passage that is in Paul, which says: "If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." Therefore, the Apostle does not say simply, "Wisdom is foolishness with God," but, "The wisdom of this world." And again, he does not say, if any one among you thinks he is wise, let him become a fool, but, "in this age let him become a fool, that he may become wise." We call the wisdom of this age, according to the Scriptures, all philosophy that is full of false opinions and which is rendered useless and superfluous. B Nor do we call foolishness simply good; but we call it so when someone becomes a fool to this age—in the same sense as if we were to say that the Platonist, believing in the immortality of the soul and the things said about it regarding transmigration, has adopted a "foolishness" in relation to the Stoics, who hiss at these dogmas; and in relation to the Peripatetics, who mock the subtleties of Plato; and in relation to the Epicureans, who impute superstition to those who introduce providence and set God over all things. Furthermore, that it is far better, according to that which pleases the Word, to accept dogmas with reason and wisdom than by simple faith alone; and that God the Word wished for this in certain circumstances, so that He might not leave men entirely unhelped, is declared by the genuine disciple of Jesus, Paul, when he says: "For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe." From these things it is clear that God should have been known in the wisdom of God. And since this did not happen so, God secondly pleased to save those who believe, not simply through foolishness, but through the foolishness of the preaching. For that Jesus Christ is preached crucified, this is THE foolishness of the preaching, just as Paul, understanding this, says: "But we preach Jesus Christ, and him crucified; to the Jews indeed a scandal, but to the Greeks foolishness; but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
D 14. Since Celsus supposes that there is a certain kinship of this same doctrine among many of the nations, he names them all.
A I do not know, however, why he should do an injury to the Jews alone, by not ranking their nation with the others, whether on account of their studies, or their opinions, or the similarity of many of their doctrines. I would gladly ask him why he attaches credibility to the histories of the barbarians and Greeks whom he explicitly named concerning their antiquity, but rejects the histories of this nation as fabulous. For if each of them has set forth with love of truth those things which concerned themselves, why should we withhold belief from the prophets of the Jews alone? But if Moses and the prophets, in writing of Jewish affairs, favored their own nation more than was just, why shall we not say that the same thing was done by the writers of those other nations? Do the Egyptians deserve belief when, in their own histories, they assail the Jews with injuries, while when the Jews write that they themselves suffered many things unjustly from the Egyptians, and for that reason say that they were punished by God, they are lying? Nor must this be said of the Egyptians alone, but also of the Assyrians. For B just as their ancient historians narrate what battles they waged with the Jews, so too do the Jewish writers record that the Assyrians were their enemies—I do not say "prophets," lest I should seem to beg the question, but "writers." See, then, how immediately Celsus indulges his own self-love in believing some people, as being wise nations, while condemning others as utterly devoid of common sense. For hear Celsus saying: "There is," he says, "an ancient doctrine, from the beginning, on which indeed the wisest nations, cities, and wise men have always agreed"; yet he did not wish to call the Jews a most wise nation, nor even to rank them in this matter C with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Indians, the Persians, the Odrysians, the Samothracians, and the Eleusinians.
How much better, however, is Numenius the Pythagorean, who by many arguments has shown himself to be most learned, and who has scrutinized many doctrines and gathered from many sources what he imagined to be true. 15. The Pythagorean Numenius, who, in the first book of his *On the Good*, speaking of the matters of the Jews...
Flavius Josephus from Berosus in the work Against Apion:
"...Nabuchodonosor, however, not long after having learned of his father's death, and having settled matters concerning Egypt and the rest of the country, and having entrusted the captives of the Jews, the Phoenicians, and the D Syrians, who had been in Egypt, to certain of his friends to bring to Babylonia with the army and their equipment, he himself set out with a small retinue and arrived in Babylon by way of the desert."ex multis collegit quæ vera sibi visa sunt. Is A in libro primo quem inscripsit *De bono*, loquens de gentibus quæ Deum incorporeum esse judicabant, illis et Judæos annumeravit: quin eum non piguit in hoc suo opere propheticis uti sermonibus, eosque ad figuras deflectere. Fertur ei Hermippus.
72. The Pythagorean Numenius, who, in his first book *On the Good*, speaking of the nations that judged God to be incorporeal, included the Jews among them; nor was he ashamed in this work of his to use prophetic sayings, and to allegorize them. It is said that also Hermippus (73) remembers him. Eusebius mentions him in *Evangelical Preparation*, Bk. IX, ch. 7; and Bk. XV, ch. 17; also the second, Bk. XI, ch. 9; the third, Bk. IX, ch. 8; and even the sixth in these words, *ibid.*; Bk. XI, ch. 18, and elsewhere, being little concerned with the number of the books, he cites him indiscriminately, Bk. XI, ch. 17, 21. That the same author also counted the Jews among the nations that were distinguished for wisdom, and wrote many things according to the sense of Holy Scripture, the aforesaid Eusebius attests, Bk. IX, ch. 7. But it is pleasing to subjoin this further passage from the first book of the same Numenius's *On the Good*: "Whoever B enters upon this argument should seal it with the testimonies of Plato, and returning to the age itself, which came before him, should yoke it with the words and precepts of Pythagoras himself. Nations, moreover, are to be cited that are most renowned, and the sacrifices, rites, and customs of each—which wholly agree with the Platonic teachings—are to be set forth, as many as have been established by the Brahmans, Jews, Magi, and Egyptians." The same, Bk. XI, ch. [ ]: These things [says] Numenius, by which he illustrated not only the doctrine of Plato, but also that of Moses, who was far older than Plato. The same, ch. [ ]: These things [says] Numenius: compare these with the things which long ago the prophet David sang among the Hebrews in these words: "How magnified are thy works, O Lord!" The same, Bk. IX, ch. [ ]: With these words Numenius left the faith in the miracles performed by Moses, and in God's love toward him, confirmed and attested. Porphyry in the book *On the Cave of the Nymphs* (page [ ] of the Cambridge edition, 1655): "We call the Naiades properly the virtues presiding over the waters; but they also used to call all souls generally who were entering into generation by this name; for they thought that souls sit upon the water, which is fanned by a divine Spirit, as Numenius says; for this reason saying that the prophet also indicated that the Spirit of God was carried upon the waters." C
73. It would scarcely be inept to discourse briefly on each of those of the same name who were handed down by ancient writers, so that we may understand who he was, of whom Origen made mention. The most ancient of all, if I am not mistaken, was the Athenian, a poet of the old comedy, and a writer of forty plays, as Suidas in *Hermippus*. Then afterwards Hermippus made [plays] *Against Hyperbolus*. [Of his plays, there are] *The Porters*, *Hermippus in the Demotae*, *In the Soldiers*, *In the Fates*; and *In the Gods*, *In the Iambi*. He also wrote *Parodies*, and Hermippus, the poet of the old comedy, [wrote] *The Basket-Bearers* (in drama), *In the Cecrops*, *In those on Hipponax*, [Bk.] 16; in the third *On the Disciples of Isocrates*, [Bk.] 13; D in *On Gorgias*, [Bk.] 12; in the first *On Aristotle*, [Bk.] 12; in *On Aristotle*, in the *On the Seven Sages*, [Bk. 7]; in *On Isocrates*, [Bk. 2]; in *On Theophrastus*, in the *Lives*, *On Eutheas*, in the second of *Those who Distinguished Themselves in Learning as Slaves*, [Bk.] 2; *Ister*. And a certain Pappus, whose history Hermippus has taken up, in the first of the books *On Pythagoras*; [Bk. 1]; in the second *On Pythagoras*, in the second *On Lawgivers*, [Bk. 1] *On Abstinence*, [Bk. 1] in the first *On the Magi*, in the first *On Aristotle*: Ister the Callimachean in the first [book] of *Ptolemais*. Ister, slave and acquaintance of Callimachus, Callimachean.
A in the first *On Lawgivers* to have recorded that Pythagoras brought his own philosophy from the Jews to the Greeks. And a book *On the Jews* by the historian Hecataeus is also circulated, in which it is added. Hermippus the Berytian also says that Chiron the Centaur became a teacher of justice.
B Hermippus the Berytian calls her Guenna. And the Berytian Hermippus calls Chiron the Centaur wise; *On Lawgivers* in the first *On Lawgivers*... a slip of memory. And most distinguished of these is Hermippus, a man diligent in all history. He says, therefore, in the first of his books *On Pythagoras*, that Pythagoras, upon the death of one of his associates, Calliphon by name, of the race of the Crotoniates, said that the soul of that man continued to spend time with him both night and day; and that he urged [people] not to cross a place where an ass had stumbled, to abstain from thirst-inducing waters, and to refrain from all blasphemy. Then he adds after this these things: He did and said these things, mimicking the opinions of the Jews and Thracians, and transferring them to himself. For it is said that that man truly transferred many of the customary laws of the Jews into his own philosophy.
Hecataeus the Abderite, a philosopher by profession, and also most capable in matters of action, who flourished at the same time as King Alexander, and who was associated with Ptolemy son of Lagus, has written a book, not in passing but specifically about the Jews themselves, from which I wish to run through, in summary, some of the things said.
Hecataeus further also did more than just mention them. C But... being wrapped in the wickedness of all uncleanness and malice, the theologians... D ...more distinguished is Hermippus, a man most diligent in the investigation of all history. Therefore he reports in the first book *On Pythagoras* that Pythagoras, when one of his familiars had died, by the name of Calliphon, of Crotoniate race, used to say that his soul was spending time with him by day and by night; and he used to command that one should not pass by a place where an ass had stumbled, and that he should abstain from murky water, and should refrain from all blasphemy. Then he follows with: These things he used to do and say, imitating the opinions of the Jews and Thracians, and transferring them to himself. It is said in truth that that man transferred many of the laws of the Jews into his own philosophy.
A And Herennius Philo, in his book *On the Jews*, B first expresses doubt whether that writing belongs to the historian; and secondly, he says that, if it is his, it is likely that he was carried away by the persuasiveness found among the Jews, and gave his assent to that doctrine. But I marvel how Celsus considers the Odrysians, the Samothracians, the Eleusinians, and the Hyperboreans to be among the most ancient and wisest nations, yet does not consider the Jews worthy of being accepted either among the wise or among the ancient—even though there are many Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Greeks who testify to their antiquity. It would be useless to bring forward those writers, whom anyone can see in the two books of Josephus *On the Antiquity of the Jews*. For there, many authors are collected by that writer, who bear witness to the antiquity of the Jews. There is also in everyone’s hands the book of Tatian the younger *Against the Gentiles*, in which he most learnedly puts forward historians who testify to the antiquity of the Jews and of Moses. It is clear, therefore, that Celsus did not C accept the faith in the gods, and he claims to have written three books *On the Disputes of the Greeks*, while forgetting the Jews, and calls the Phoenicians and Egyptians the most ancient of the barbarians. He agrees there with their dogma concerning the origin of the world, which completely destroys all divinity. If you were to think these things over with yourself, you would say it is not to be expected that he would treat the praises and encomia of the Jews with a fairer mind, since he so persistently clung to the trifles of the Phoenicians and had rejected all the allegories concerning the Greek deities, from which some grace was bestowed upon his own religion. But you say that it was forged of old by the Hellenists. It is a wonder if this happened around the times of Alexander and Ptolemy Lagus. Certainly, Clearchus the Peripatetic and disciple of the Stagirite lived at that time, and in his book *On Sleep* he mentions Hecataeus and his book *On the Jews*, and recounts many things about him, asserting that he lived in the times of Alexander and stayed with Ptolemy (Fl. Josephus, book 1, *Against Apion*). From which it follows that neither his instruction nor his age prevented him from seeking the truth of the matter; and piety forbids us from regarding as a man of such shameless brow one who would write things the falsity of which everyone would refute. Driven to these straits, perhaps you might slander the book of Clearchus as also being forged. But if you were to say that, you would betray your own stubbornness; and, with the truth shining forth, the whole cause you defend would collapse. For the same reason you would reject Abydenus, Theophrastus, Berosus, Numenius, Eupolemus, Alexander Polyhistor, Demetrian, Artapanus, Theodotus, D Chaerilus, Ezekiel, and many others, who committed to writing more and better things about the Jews than Hecataeus did. You would indeed say that the aforementioned witnesses to Jewish antiquity were forged by the Hellenists, and would pour upon them whatever your lust and splendid bile suggested to you. But if this chastisement of a foolish and inept man (to speak in your fashion) displeases your majesty, I will bring into battle the gods, among whom I have numbered you as well. For it is not clearly enough gathered from this, that it is said Herennius Philo doubted concerning that work, as one who only writes that it is not the work of Hecataeus, or that he approved of the opinions of the Jews. Perhaps, therefore, Hecataeus, persuaded by the Jews, had fallen away from the religion of the Greeks, if not entirely, at least to such an extent that he may appear to have been stationed on the border between darkness and light. These things [belong to] Vossius, book 1, cap. 10, *On Greek Historians*: "For we know from Hecataeus that the Jews served as soldiers under Alexander and his successors." Scaliger in his notes on the fragments of the Greek vets., p. 12: "Josephus from Hecataeus," etc. Ibid.: "For this altar described by Hecataeus was destroyed by Judas Maccabaeus." Ibid., p. 21: "You see how great the city of Jerusalem was, which they could truly call the ornament of the whole East in the century of Hecataeus, that is, at the beginning of the Seleucids." Ibid.: "For there was also another Hecataeus of Miletus, older than Herodotus, who wrote under Darius the son of Hystaspes; but this one was of the race and house of Abdera in Thrace, in the times of Alexander the Great and Seleucus. He wrote a separate book, from which this excerpt is taken by Josephus; which indeed we have proposed the more so, that those things which are written here might be in the sight of all, rather than because they contain any obscurity in themselves." Origen, Book 1, *Against Celsus*: etc. You see, reader, how Josephus waged war with Scaliger. SPENCER. He left behind a great multitude of writings. Among which, that famous book *Against the Gentiles* is praised by the testimony of many: in which, having repeated the times of the previous age, he convinces that Moses and the rest of the prophets of the Hebrews were more ancient than all who were most celebrated among the Greeks. Which book, indeed, seems to be the most elegant and the most useful of all those he wrote.
A It seems, therefore, that Celsus says these things not out of a love for truth, but out of malice, having the intention of accusing the origin of Christianity, which is derived from the Jews. But he calls the Galactophagi of Homer, and the Druids of the Gauls, and the Getae—who profess many things akin to the Jewish doctrine, of whom I do not know if any writings are extant—most wise and ancient nations; but as for the Hebrews alone, as far as it lies in his power, he casts them out both from antiquity and from wisdom. And again, having made a catalogue of ancient and wise men who have benefited those of their own times and, through writings, those who came after them, he excluded Moses from the list of the wise; whereas, of Linus, to whom he assigns the first place, no laws or discourses are reported B to have converted and healed nations; but the laws of Moses are carried about by an entire nation, disseminated throughout the whole inhabited world. See, therefore, whether, while acting altogether maliciously, he did not exclude Moses from the catalogue of the wise, while saying that Linus, and Musaeus, and Orpheus, and Pherecydes, and the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras had discoursed on certain dogmas and committed their own doctrines to books, and that these have been preserved until now. And he willingly forgot the myth concerning the so-called gods, as being recorded by Orpheus especially as subject to human passions [(83)]. And they say that Linus also did things similar to these. But to me, reading them, they appeared altogether spurious. For it is written in the Boeotica: “Since neither Linus, the son of Amphimarus, nor the one who lived later, composed them, and what was composed did not reach those who came after. For the dirges C were composed, O Linus, scattered abroad.” But Orpheus will also bear witness for me, he who introduced the three hundred and sixty gods in the book entitled “The Testaments,” since he appears to repent of this from what he writes: “I shall speak to those for whom it is lawful, but close the doors, O ye profane.” And Onomacritus the Athenian, whose poems are said to be those carried under the name of Orpheus, is found to be in the time of the rule of the Pisistratidae, around the fiftieth Olympiad.
D And without doubt he performed penance, if those poems which are circulated are indeed his. But some ascribe the Orphic poems to Onomacritus the Athenian, who flourished during the reign of the Pisistratidae.
B 17. Afterwards he criticizes the books of Moses and blames those who interpret them by tropology and allegory. Here one might rightly ask of that excellent man, and of his book which he adorns with the title *True Discourse*: "What, my good man! If you pride yourself that your wise poets and philosophers have recorded that gods fell into such misfortunes as they describe—that they engaged in defiled unions, warred against their own parents, and castrated their own fathers—recording that they dared to commit such things, and did them, and suffered them; do you think that those who have submitted themselves to the laws of Moses have been deceived and led into error, even though he has written nothing of the kind concerning God, nor even concerning the holy angels, but has spoken of men in much milder terms? For there is no one in his books who has dared to do such a thing as Saturn did against Caelus, or Jupiter against his father. There is no 'father of gods and men' in his writings who has lain with his own daughter."
It seems to me that Celsus is doing something similar to that Platonic Thrasymachus, who would not allow Socrates to answer as he wished concerning justice, but said to him: "Beware, lest you say that what is beneficial is just, or necessary, or anything of the sort." For indeed he himself, after having attacked—as he thinks—the Mosaic histories, and having blamed those who explain them by allegory, while yet granting them a certain measure of fairness, prevents by his accusations those who could from defending them as they would wish, and as the nature of things demands.
18. But let us invite him to compare book with book. Come, Celsus, bring forward the poetry of Linus, Musaeus, and Orpheus, and the history of Pherecydes. C Compare these writings with the laws of Moses, their histories with his histories, their moral regulations with his laws and precepts. Consider which, by reading alone, is more capable of turning listeners away from vice, and which is more capable of hardening them in evil. And consider within yourself that your writers took almost no account of ordinary readers, but wrote their philosophy—as you call it—for those alone who knew how to interpret it through tropology and allegory. But Moses, like a vigorous orator who has pondered a certain figure of speech and refrains from uttering a single word that cannot bear a double meaning, has done the same in his five books. Neither for the multitude... D
of the Jews who were governed by his laws did he provide an occasion for sin, nor for those more sagacious readers, who are few, and who desire to investigate the intention of the lawgiver, was there a lack of material for examining deeper truths. Add to this that the books of your own wise poets seem to have already perished; they would surely have been preserved had any one who chanced upon them perceived any profit in them. But the writings of Moses have convinced even those who were strangers to the upbringing of the Jews that He who first ordained those laws and delivered them to Moses was the God who created the world. For it was fitting that the Creator of the whole world, who had imposed laws upon the entire world, should impart to his words a power capable of mastering men everywhere. I say this, not yet inquiring into the matter of Jesus, but in order to show that Moses, although far inferior to the Lord—as the argument will demonstrate—is nevertheless far superior to your wise poets and philosophers. But more on this matter later. B
19. Thereafter Celsus, wishing to covertly disparage the account of the world’s creation according to Moses—which shows that the world has not even ten thousand years to its count, but is much more recent than that—conceals what he himself thinks about this matter and sides with those who believe the world to be unbegotten. For his statement that there have been many conflagrations from all eternity, and many deluges, and that the most recent flood was the one in the time of Deucalion, which happened not long ago, clearly reveals to those who can understand him that it is Celsus' opinion that the world was not created. Let him, this accuser of the Christian faith, tell us by what demonstrative proofs he was compelled to believe that many conflagrations and many floods have already occurred; and that the last of these was the one that confounded the earth in the time of Deucalion, and that the last conflagration occurred in the age of Phaethon. If he brings forward the dialogues of Plato, we shall tell him that it is permitted to us C also to believe, in the pure and pious soul of Moses, who raised himself above created D things that this deluge took place under Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops. Clement, in the first book of the *Stromata*, twice asserts that the Deucalion flood and the conflagration of Phaethon occurred in the time of Crotopus. Should we write "in the age of Cecrops"? "If this pleases anyone," says the most learned Potter, "let him have Eusebius as his authority, who in the proemium of his *Chronicon* reports from Tatian and Clement: 'The first was Cecrops Diphyes, in whose time Moses became renowned among the Hebrews, as we shall show in due time; and under the same there occurred the Deucalion flood in Thessaly and the conflagration of Phaethon in Ethiopia.'" The same things occur in the *Epitome of the Kings of Athens*, and they were translated by Scaliger on page 561. Furthermore, regarding the epoch of the Deucalion flood, see Petavius, *Rationarium temporum*, part II, book II, chapter 9. There are great differences of opinion among the ancients concerning the epoch of the Deucalion flood and the fire of Phaethon. An old author, whom Clement of Alexandria mentions in the first book of the *Stromata*, thought these had occurred three hundred and three years before the destruction of Troy. Jerome in his *Chronicon*, Cyril of Alexandria in his book *Against Julian*, and Augustine in the eighteenth book of *The City of God*, refer them to the age of Cecrops, king of Athens. But in the same place Augustine reports and seems to embrace another opinion of Varro, namely, that the conflagration happened long after the beginning.
A
ORIGENIS had raised all things and committed them entirely to God, was the indwelling of the divine Spirit, who set forth things divine far more clearly than Plato or any of the wise men among the Greeks or barbarians. B And if he should demand of us a rationale for this faith, let him first render a rationale for those things which he has asserted without any authority; then we too shall prove that these things of ours are as we say.
20. Moreover, Celsus unwillingly bears witness that the world is more recent, and has not yet completed ten thousand years, when he says that these things are considered ancient by the Greeks because, on account of deluges and conflagrations, no one saw, nor did anyone commit to the records of literature, things more ancient. Let Celsus keep his teachers regarding conflagrations and deluges, the Egyptians, who themselves seem the wisest of all. They have indeed left behind excellent traces of such great wisdom, seeing that they worshipped animals devoid of reason, and have attempted with their arguments to prove that the worship thus rendered to God is consistent with reason and is grounded upon certain arcane and abstruse rationales. And the Egyptians, indeed, are held to be wise when they extol their own mode of worshipping God as residing in the worship of animals; but if any one, assenting to the law and the lawgiver of the Jews, refers all things to the Creator of the universe and the only God, he seems to Celsus and his like to be inferior to them, because he does not extend the divine nature to things devoid of reason—which in its impiety far surpasses the fabulous transmigration from bodies into bodies, by which it comes about that the soul, having slipped down from the vaults of heaven, descends into brute animals, whether tame or wild. When the Egyptians tell fables of this kind, they are considered to be investigating recondite and arcane matters; but when Moses records histories and leaves laws for a whole nation, his words are considered empty fables, nor do they seem to admit of an allegorical sense. C
21. And this is the opinion of Celsus and the Epicureans. For he says: "Having heard this doctrine, which he had received from wise nations and learned men, Moses obtained a divine name." To this I say: Be it so, that Moses delivered a more ancient doctrine which he had heard from other Hebrews. If he received from others a doctrine that was false, or that had nothing of gravity or wisdom in it, and commended it to those whom he governed, he is deservedly to be blamed; but if, as you say, he received wise and true dogmas, and taught them to his own people, what has he done that can justly be criticized? I wish that Epicurus D
A and his even less pious inferior regarding Providence, Aristotle, and the Stoics who say that God is a body, had heard this doctrine! The world by this time would not be full of a doctrine which either abolishes Providence, or confines it within certain bounds, or introduces a perishable principle which is bodily—on account of which the Stoics assert that God is a body, and are not ashamed to say that He is mutable, and through and through subject to alteration 6 and change, and absolutely capable of perishing if there were someone to destroy Him, and fortunate only in that there is nothing to destroy Him. But the doctrine of the Jews and Christians, which guards the immutability and unchangeableness of God, is judged impious because it does not share in the impiety of those who think wrongly about God, saying in the prayers to the Divine: "But You are the same" [Ps. ci, 28]; and it is believed that God has also said, "I do not change" [Mal. iii, 6]. B
After this, Celsus, not blaming the practice of circumcision as it takes place among the Jews, says that "it came from the Egyptians 7"; preferring to believe the Egyptians rather than Moses, who writes that Abraham was the first of men to be circumcised [Gen. xvii, 28]. C
...as for the consideration of even the baser animals, it is by no means worthy of being treated with a childish disgust and annoyance; for there is no aspect of nature in which something worthy of wonder is not contained. And what they report Heraclitus to have said to those who wished to converse with him, but who held back when they saw him warming himself at an oven—for he bade them enter boldly, saying that "there are gods even in this place"—is D to be noted.
Those who are called Stoic philosophers also dogmatize that God Himself is to be dissolved into fire, and again, through a transformation, that the world is to be created. As for the Stoics, he says, we know that they hold an opinion not only regarding daemons, as I have said, but even regarding the gods—that although there are so many of them, they use only one who is eternal and incorruptible, while they consider the others to be both born and destined to perish.
A Indeed, it is not Moses alone who records this name, making it his own; it is used by many of those who cast out demons: "The God of Abraham." By this, they indicate the familiarity that this just man had with God. Therefore they invoke the God of Abraham, even if they do not know who Abraham was. The same must be said of Isaac, and of Jacob [(9)], and of Israel—names which, though it is admitted they are Hebrew, are nonetheless used by the Egyptians in their rites when they promise something miraculous.
As for the matter of circumcision, which Abraham first practiced and which Jesus did not wish his disciples to observe, I do not intend to explain its reasons B now, nor is this the appropriate place for such an explanation. Instead, we must fight against Celsus; and because he thought he could more easily prove Christianity false if he showed that the Jewish religion, to which it owes its origin, was false, it is necessary to overthrow completely whatever calumnies he has cast upon that religion.
[(23)] Celsus says next: "Those who followed Moses, those goatherds and shepherds, deceived by rustic tricks, believed there was only one God." Let him show, then, how, since goatherds and shepherds—in his opinion—illogically abandoned the worship of gods, he himself can prove the existence of the multitude of gods whom the Greeks and other barbarians worship. Let him say what thing it is, what Mnemosyne, who bore the Muses from Zeus, C or Themis, who bore the Horas, is in its nature. Let him demonstrate that the Graces, always naked, can exist in essence. But he will not be able to demonstrate that those figments of the Greeks, which seem to be given bodies, are gods based on their works. For why would the myths of the Greeks about the gods be more true—for example—than those of the Egyptians, who do not know Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine Muses, in their own language, nor Themis, nor the other peoples who adopted the rite of circumcision from the Jews? D Concerning the Ethiopians, Artapanus testifies in *Eusebius, lib. ix, cap. 27*: "The Ethiopians themselves, although they were enemies, were so favorably inclined towards Moses that they also received the rite of circumcision from him. And this was performed by all their priests as well." [Spencer].
A nor did he admit the Muses' mother, the nine [Muses], nor Themis, [mother] of the Hours, nor Eurynome, one of the Graces, nor the rest of their names? How much more clearly then, and better than all these fictions, is the argument for one who, persuaded by the manifest order of the things perceived in the world, worships its creator, who is one, and because he is one and in all respects in agreement with Himself, for that reason could not have been created by many creators, just as the whole heaven, which moves them, cannot be contained by many souls? For one is sufficient, carrying the whole motionless [sphere] from east to west, and enclosing within itself all things which the world needs that are not self-sufficient. For all things are parts of the world, but God is not a part of the whole. For God must not be incomplete, as a part is incomplete. But perhaps a deeper argument will show that God, in the proper sense, is neither a part nor a whole, since a whole is composed of parts; and reason will not permit us to accept that the God over all is composed of parts, of which each cannot do what the others do.
After this he says that "the goatherds and shepherds believed there was one God, whether [they called] him Most High, or Adonai, or Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or in whatever way they delight to name this world; and they knew nothing more." And he continues: "and it makes no difference whether one calls the God over all by the name used among the Greeks, or Zeus, or by such and such [a name] (let us say) among the Indians, or among the Egyptians." B To this we must reply that a deep and secret question enters into our present subject: the question concerning the nature of names, and whether, as is the opinion of Aristotle, names are applied to things by convention, or whether the names of the rest of the barbarians [are natural]. C But after this he says: "the goatherds and shepherds believed there was one God, whether they called him Most High, or Adonai, or Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or by whatever other name they might prefer to call this world; nor did they know anything beyond that." And shortly after: "It makes no difference by what name God is called, whether Zeus, as among the Greeks, or by any other name used among the Egyptians or Indians." To which we must respond that there is another and more arcane question concerning the nature of names: whether, as it pleases Aristotle, words were imposed upon things by convention; or why, among these, one might designate the masculine sex and apply to feminine genders that which follows? These are human decisions, and not altogether necessary for the use of creating language; and shortly after: "Do you not say 'these skins' (hæc utria) in one way, and 'these skins' (hos utres) in another, 'heaven' (cælus) and 'heaven' (cælum), etc.?" Among Plato, the name is an instrument adapted for teaching things, and by which the nature of the things themselves is discriminated. Plato in the Cratylus, page 388. The same [author] in the following [pages] supposes that certain primary words existed which indicated the nature of things,—the fountains of the rest which we use,—but which are buried by the situation of antiquity and escape human comprehension by far (ibid. page 421, 25): "For we have nothing better than this to which we might reduce our disquisition concerning the truth of the first names, unless perhaps, just as the tragic poets, when the matter is most intricate, take refuge in machines and introduce gods, so we too might depart, after we have said that the gods imposed the first names, and for this reason they are correctly instituted." In this way this matter will be best explained by us, or by the other [way] which we noted above, that we received them from certain barbarians. D
A Or, as the Stoics think, names are by nature, imitating the first sounds, from which the objects, to which the names refer, have originated, as they also introduce6 certain elements of etymology; or, as Epicurus teaches, names are by nature, the first men having broken off 19 certain sounds corresponding to the objects. If, therefore, we can in a primary discourse demonstrate the nature of efficient names, which some sages of the Egyptians employ, or the learned among the Magi of the Persians, or the Brachmanes 20 among the philosophers of the Indians, or the Samanaei, and so on for each of the nations; and if we are able to establish that what is called magic is not, as the followers of Epicurus and Aristotle think, a thing entirely B baseless, but, as those skilled in these matters demonstrate, has a certain power greater than human, which first imposed names upon things. "What then? Do you not think it a noble thing to know how it is correct to name that river Xanthus rather than Scamander? Or, if you wish, concerning the bird which he mentions, that the gods call Chalcis, but men Cymindis; do you consider the study a trivial one, in how much more correct it is for the same bird to be called Chalcis than Cymindis? Or [about] the batiea, and the myrine, and many other things of this poet, and of others. But these things perhaps are too great for me and for you to discover." From the prophets, "a stream of words first of mankind." For the Indian state being divided into many parts: there is among them a race of theosophists, whom the Greeks are accustomed to call Gymnosophists. And of these there are two sects; of which the Brachmanes stand at the head of one, and the Samanaei of the other. But the Brachmanes receive this kind of theosophy by inheritance from their ancestors, as if it were a priesthood; but the Samanaei are chosen, and are filled by those who wish to practice theosophy. And the matter concerning them is in this manner, as Bardesanes, a Babylonian man, who lived in the time of our fathers, and who met with those C Indians who were sent to Caesar by Damadamis, has described. D
A Since this teaching is very profound and known to very few, we shall say that the names Sabaoth, Adonai, and others handed down among the Hebrews with many solemnities, do not refer to common and created things, but rather to a certain secret theology that leads and raises up the mind to the Creator of all things. Wherefore, these names, if pronounced in the natural order which they hold among themselves, possess a singular power. Hence it also comes about that certain names pronounced in the Egyptian language have power over certain demons whose authority extends only to these or those particular things; others, in the Persian dialect, over other powers B, and thus they are used for various needs among each of the nations. And in this way it will be found that the demons upon the earth, having been allotted different places, are influenced by names that are appropriate to the dialects of those places and nations. Anyone, therefore, who has taken a somewhat more noble grasp of these things will be cautious about applying names to things in a haphazard manner, lest he suffer an error similar to those who wrongly apply the name of God to lifeless matter; or who drag down the title of the Good from the first cause, or from virtue and what is noble, to blind wealth, or to the symmetry of flesh, blood, and bones in which a good bodily state is situated, or to that which they call nobility of lineage.
And perhaps the danger is no less for the one who brings the name of God or the name of the Good down to those things to which he should not, C than for the one who changes the names that are used in secret disciplines, such that inferior things are fitted to superior, and superior to inferior. And I do not mean that when Zeus is named, there immediately comes to mind the son of Cronus and Rhea, the husband of Hera, the brother of Poseidon, the father of Athena and Artemis, and he who defiled his own daughter, Persephone; or that when Apollo is named, there does not instantly come into the mind the son of Leto and Zeus, the brother of Artemis, and the brother of Hermes by the same father, and whatever other things the wise fathers of Celsus' doctrines and the ancient theologians of the Greeks have invented. For by what lot is he who is properly called Zeus not to have Cronus for his father D and Rhea for his mother? And the same must be done in the case of the other so-called gods. But this reproach in no way touches those who, according to a certain secret reason, apply the name Sabaoth or Adonai or any of the other names to God. Now concerning the appellation of the angels of God, of whom one is named Michael, another Gabriel, and another Raphael.
these are names appropriate to the things which they administer throughout the universe according to the will of the God of all things. Our Jesus also holds to the same philosophy concerning names; his name has already been seen clearly to have cast out countless demons from souls and bodies, exerting its power upon those from whom they were cast out. A Furthermore, regarding the subject of names, it must be said that those skilled in the use of incantations report that an incantation pronounced in its original language is able to perform what it promises, but if changed into any other language, it is found to be ineffective and powerless. Thus, the power to effect this or that result lies not in the meaning of the words relative to the objects, but in the qualities and properties of the sounds themselves. By such arguments, we shall also defend those Christians who choose to die for their religion rather than call God by the name of Zeus or address him in a foreign language. For they either confess him simply by the common name, "God," or with the addition of "the Creator of all things, the maker of heaven and earth," who sent these certain wise men to the human race, to whose name, when the name of God is joined, it produces a certain power among men. Many other things could indeed be said on the subject of names against those who think it makes no difference how we use them. For if Plato is to be admired because, when Philebus was conversing with Socrates and had called pleasure a god, he placed this response in the mouth of Socrates: B "I have a great religious awe regarding the names of the gods"; how much more is the piety of the Christians to be approved, who are unwilling to apply a name celebrated in myths to the Creator of all things? But of these matters, enough for the present.
26. Now let us see how that man Celsus, who professes to know all things, slanders the Jews, saying, "They pay worship to angels, and are addicted to magic arts, of which Moses was their teacher." For let him discover in what passage of the writings of Moses he found the lawgiver teaching them to worship angels, C and let him state it, for he promises to know everything.
Against Celsus, Book I
26. Now let us see in what way Celsus, who professes to know everything, slanders the Jews, saying, "They pay worship to angels, and are addicted to magic arts, of which Moses was their teacher." For let him discover in what passage of the writings of Moses he found the lawgiver teaching them to worship angels; let the man who professes to know everything speak. D You might consider the celestial spheres to be endowed with soul and intelligence, an opinion of R. Moses which David Kimchi explains in his commentary on the nineteenth Psalm in these words: R. Moses, he says, explains that word *enarrant* (they announce) so as to refer it to the celestial spheres; for this is his opinion and that of the philosophers, that the celestial spheres live, and understand, and worship God, and praise Him with the highest hymns. Hence Baronius, in the place cited, thinks that the Jews were called *caelicolae* (heaven-worshippers) by the emperors (in the code *De Judaeis et Caelicolis*), because they worshipped the stars and the heavens; but Scaliger offers another reason for the name, concerning which we shall discuss more opportunely at the final heresy. Moreover, what Celsus objected to the Jews in Origen (book 1), saying "they worship angels," etc., can be referred here. Jerome confirms the conjecture of the most learned men in his response to the question proposed by Algasia: "But God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets." Now the host of heaven is not only called the sun, and the moon, and the glittering stars; but also the whole angelic multitude and their armies, who He-
- A labled as Sabaoth, that is, of virtues, or of hosts; and a little after: "God delivered them, that they might serve the host of heaven, which is now called by the Apostle the religion of angels." The same is argued from the book entitled the *Preaching of Peter*, which Clement of Alexandria praises in the first book of the *Stromata*: "And do not worship as the Jews; for they, thinking that they alone know God, do not understand that they are worshipping angels and archangels, the month and the moon," etc. I would prefer to interpret this passage regarding the Cerinthians, who, for the most part, favored the Jews; as is evident from Epiphanius, *Haer.* 28; Theodoret, *On Heretical Fables*; Augustine, *On Heresies*; Eusebius, *Eccl. hist.*, book III, chap. 25; indeed, if you are to believe Damascenus, *On Heresies*: "There were certain Jews who extolled circumcision," and among other dogmas which they professed, this was not the least significant, namely, that the law was given by angels, and that the God of the Jews was one of the angels who created the world. Tertullian, chap. 48, *On Prescription against Heretics*: "After him, the heretic Cerinthus erupted, teaching similar things; for he himself says that the world was instituted by them, he proposes that Christ was born from the seed of Joseph, contending that he was only a man without divinity, and he also claims the law itself was given by angels, setting forth the God of the Jews, not as the Lord, but as an angel." See Epiphanius, Theodoret, Augustine, Eusebius, in the cited places; and from there you may think Celsus seized the opportunity for calumny. For whom did the Jews (that is, the Cerinthians, according to Celsus) worship besides angels, when they believed that the law was given by the same ones and that the world was created by them?
A of the Christians and the Jews. How can magic arts exist among those who have accepted the Law of Moses, having read: "You shall not adhere to sorcerers, lest you be defiled by them"? He promises that he will teach subsequently how the Jews were also led astray, being deceived by ignorance. And if he had found the ignorance regarding Jesus Christ among the Jews—who did not listen to the B prophecies concerning Him—he would have truly taught how the Jews were led astray; but as it is, not even wishing to imagine these things, he assumes that the faults of the Jews are not faults. Celsus, having promised that he would later teach about the Jews, first makes his discourse concerning our Savior, as having been the leader of our generation insofar as we are Christians, and he says: "That He brought in this teaching a very few years ago, having been considered by the Christians to be the Son of God." And regarding his statement that He occurred only a few years ago, we say the following: "Was Jesus, desiring to sow His own word and teaching, unable in these few years to achieve so much, that in many places of our inhabited world, many Greeks and barbarians, wise and ignorant, were attracted to His teaching and persuaded in such a way—something never heard of regarding any other religion—that they would rather struggle unto death for Christianity than renounce it, C as has been recorded of no one else for any other dogma—unless it has happened godlessly?" For my part, not flattering the word, but attempting to examine things observantly, I would say that not even those who cure many sick bodies obtain the end of the health of bodies without the will of God. But if someone were able to deliver souls from the mire of vice, from licentiousness, from iniquity, and from contempt for the Divine, and could give proof of such a work, having improved a hundred in number (let the discourse be about so many), no one would justly say that he had freed those hundred men from such great vices without God. And if someone, prudently considering these things, grants that no good happens to men D without God, how much more confidently will he affirm this about Jesus, when he compares the former morals with the new ones of those who have adhered to Christ's teaching?
A And if one examines and compares the older lives of many who have come to His Word with their later lives, and observes in what debaucheries, what injustices, and what greed each of these was involved before—as Celsus and those who share his views say—they were deceived and accepted a doctrine which, as they say, ruins human life; from this very Word which they have received, one may see how they have become more gentle and more stable. Indeed, some of them, out of love for a transcendent purity and in order to worship the Divine more purely, even abstain from the sexual satisfactions permitted by the law. B
(37) He who ponders these things will understand that Jesus dared to attempt things greater than human powers, and that what He dared, He achieved. For from the very beginning, no one was not trying to hinder the Word of His doctrine from being sown throughout the whole world: the kings of every age, the commanders and governors of armies, whoever, to put it in a word, possessed any authority, and furthermore those who held power in the cities, the soldiers, and the crowds. C He conquered them all, since the Word was of God and was of such a nature that it could not be hindered and would overcome all its adversaries. It subdued all of Greece and the greater part of the barbarian nations, and brought countless souls to the worship of God which it taught. Now, since there are everywhere more ignorant and rustic people than those trained in the sciences, it was necessary that in such a multitude of those receiving the doctrine, there should be more of the rude and rustic than the lettered. However, Celsus, not wishing to give his mind to these things, nor to consider the kindness of this Word and its advancing... D
A to every soul across the rising of the sun, thinks that it is rude, and because of this rudeness, and [because it is] in no way capable of being in arguments, it has prevailed only among the rude. Nor does he himself say that only the rude have been brought by the Word to the worship of God according to Jesus; for he confesses that there are also among them those who are moderate and gentle, and some who are sensible, and ready for allegory.
Since he also employs personification, having in a way imitated a child introduced in a rhetorician’s [text], and introduces a Jew speaking to Jesus in a somewhat childish manner, and nothing worthy of a philosopher’s gray hairs; come, let us examine these things to the best of our ability and refute them, showing that he has maintained neither the character befitting a Jew in the things said. After this, he personifies a Jew conversing with Jesus himself, and rebuking him for many things, as he thinks—first, that he had fabricated his birth from a virgin B; and he reproaches him also because he was born from a Jewish village, and from a local, impoverished woman, who earned her living by spinning. He says that she was even cast out by the husband who had married her, who was a carpenter by trade, having been convicted of adultery. Then he says that, having been cast out by her husband and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus in secret; and that he, because of poverty, having hired himself out to Egypt, and having there gained experience of certain powers, on which the Egyptians pride themselves, returned, thinking highly of himself because of these powers, and for their sake proclaimed C himself to be God. But all these things, to one capable of not leaving anything said by unbelievers unexamined, but rather investigating the very principle of the facts, seem to me to harmonize with the fact that Jesus was worthy of the prediction that he is the Son of God.
For among men, birth contributes to some being famous and renowned, and their name spread abroad—lineage, when parents happen to be in high standing and advancement, and wealth of the D ancestors—which are doors [that] are open, and to whom none are closed.
29. For the lineage, the dignity and preeminence of parents, their ample means for the liberal education of a son, a splendid and illustrious country, contribute much to the splendor, to the glory,
ad nominis celebritatem; quando vero aliquis, cui hæc omnia secus contigerunt, potest e tot difficultatibus ad claritatem emergere, commovere sui fama audientium animos, fieri celebris et clarus, famaque sui nominis universum orbem implere insolita de ipso prædicantem, quis indolem hujusmodi sponte et ex seipsa generosam, magnis rebus operam dantem, eximia fiducia præditam non admiretur? Si quis autem altius scrutari velit, annon is quæsiturus est, quonam modo ille parce et in paupertate educatus, nullisque liberalibus disciplinis eruditus, rudis et imperitus artium, quæ sunt ad flectendos, demulcendos, conciliandosque sibi plurium auditorum animos accommodæ, aggressus sit nova dogmata promulgare, doctrinamque in genus humanum invehere, quæ et Judæorum ritus, intactis tamen eorum prophetis, abolet, et maxime Græcorum de Numinis cultu leges evertit? Qui fieri potuit, ut idem ille sic institutus, nihilque magnum, ut ipsi ejus obtrectatores confitentur, ab homine edoctus, de Dei judicio, de criminum pœnis, de virtutum præmiis talia tamque non contemnenda dissereret, ut non agrestes modo et illitteratos, sed etiam non paucos ex iis ad se alliceret, qui acutiore ingenio erant et poterant arcana perscrutari, quæ rebus specie vilioribus, ut ita dicam, velut involuta latebant?
C Apud Platonem cum Seriphius quidam exprobrasset Themistocli bellicæ virtutis gloria celeberrimo, quod non propria virtute splendorem esset assecutus, sed quia patria illi contigerat totius Græciæ clarissima, is gratus in patriam, quam ad suum honorem contulisse noverat, respondit: « Nec ego si Seriphius essem, ita clarus: nec tu, si Atheniensis, fuisses Themistocles. » Noster autem Jesus, cui probro datur quod ex vico ortus sit, eoque non Græcanico nec alius gentis celebratæ; qui male audit quod pauperculæ operariæque matris sit filius, quod inopia coactus patriam reliquerit, suamque in Ægypto mercede locaverit operam; Jesus ille, qui non solum Seriphius, ut eodem exemplo utar, ex minima despicatissimaque insula ortus; sed etiam Seriphiorum, ut ita dicam, ignobilissimus erat, D valuit permovere totum orbem, non modo magis quam Atheniensis Themistocles, sed etiam quam Plato, aut Pythagoras, aut quidquid sapientum, regum, imperatorumque toto orbe fuit.
30. Quis igitur, qui naturam rerum haud negligenter consideret, non admiretur eum gloria potuisse vincere et ea omnia, quæ infamiæ esse poterant, et quotquot unquam celebres fuerunt? Nam ex iis qui sibi inter homines nomen fecerunt, paucos B A (being the nurture of those who have been enabled to spend upon the education of a son, and indeed a fatherland that is great and distinguished; but when someone, having all things contrary to these, is able, having surmounted the things that hinder him, to be known and to stir those hearing about him, and to become manifest and clear to the whole inhabited world, which speaks contrary things about him, how is such a nature not to be admired, being from the start great-souled, and set upon great things, and having a boldness not to be despised? And if one were to examine into the things concerning such a one further, how would one not seek to know in what manner, having been reared in poverty and want, and having been taught no encylical education, nor having learned speeches and dogmas from which he might have been able to become persuasive in speaking to crowds, and to lead the people, and to attract the greater number of hearers, he gives himself to the teaching of new dogmas, introducing into the human race a word that both abolishes the customs of the Jews—while treating their prophets with reverence—and most especially overturns the laws of the Greeks concerning the worship of the Divine? And how could such a one, and so reared, and having learned nothing noble from any man (as even those who slander him admit), be able to speak of the judgment of God, and of the punishments for wickedness, and of the rewards for the good, in no contemptible way, so that not only are the unrefined and the common folk led by the things spoken, but also many even of those who are more intelligent and able to gaze into the hidden things—that are deemed to be of a lower order—of that which is being announced, which contains within itself, if one may say so, something more unspeakable? C The Seriphian, then, in Plato, upbraiding Themistocles, who had become famous for his generalship, as having gained his glory not from his own character but from having been fortunate in a fatherland that was the most distinguished in all Greece, heard from the grateful Themistocles, who saw that his fatherland had contributed to his glory, saying: "I would not, being a Seriphian, have been so glorious; nor would you, had you been fortunate enough to be an Athenian, have been Themistocles." But our Jesus, even when being reproached as having come from a village, and that not of Greece, nor of any nation that is held in high esteem by the multitude; and being slandered as the son of a poor, working mother, and for having left his fatherland due to poverty, and for having worked for wages in Egypt; Jesus himself, who not only was a Seriphian, to use the same example, appearing from the smallest and most insignificant island, but also, so to speak, the most ignoble of the Seriphians, has been able to shake the whole inhabited world, not only more than Themistocles the Athenian, but also more than Pythagoras, and Plato, and any others of those who throughout the inhabited world have been wise men or kings or generals.
30. Who then, not negligently investigating the nature of things, would not be astonished at him for having been able to overcome [all] with glory, and all those things that could have been for a reproach, and all those who have ever been famous? For of those who have made a name for themselves among men, few D
one has been wondered at for wisdom, another for generalship, some of the barbarians for their extraordinary power in incantations, and others for other things; but not many of these were wondered at for many things at once, and have become famous. This man, however, is wondered at, in addition to other things, for his wisdom, for his powers, and for his authority. For he persuaded men, not as a tyrant would, to desert their laws with him, nor as a robber would, inciting his followers B against men, nor as a wealthy man would, by showering gifts upon those who approach him, nor as any of those whose manner of acting is notoriously blameworthy; but as a teacher of the discourse concerning the God of the universe, and of the worship of Him, and of every moral way of life that can reconcile to the God over all those who have lived according to his teachings. And for Themistocles, or any of those illustrious men, nothing happened that was contrary to their glory. But for this man, in addition to the things mentioned, which were C sufficient to shroud the soul—even one of a very noble nature—in ignominy, the death that is deemed shameful, by being crucified, was enough to make even his previous glory vanish, and to make those who had already been deceived—as those who do not accept his teaching think—to desist from their deception and to condemn the one who had deceived them.
Furthermore, one might wonder: where did it come from for his disciples—as the slanderers of Jesus say—without having seen him risen from the dead, and not at all convinced that he was something D of a more divine nature, not to be afraid to suffer the same things as their teacher, but to go to meet the danger and abandon their homelands to teach, according to the will of Jesus, the doctrine entrusted to them by him? For I believe that anyone who examines matters with an open mind would not say that they would have committed themselves to a life of such danger for the sake of Jesus’ teaching, without some great persuasion which he instilled in them, teaching not only how to be disposed oneself according to his instructions, but also how to dispose others as well; and this at a time when, as regards the life of men generally, it was obvious that ruin awaited anyone who dared to innovate everywhere and before everyone, and who would not keep any man as a friend if he remained attached to ancestral dogmas and customs. For did not the disciples of Jesus see this, when they dared not only to show the Jews, from the prophetic writings, that this was he who had been prophesied, but also to show the other nations that the one who had been crucified only yesterday and the day before, had willingly accepted this death on behalf of the human race, for this reason being like those who had died on behalf of their homelands in order to extinguish plagues that had gained sway and
A droughts or poor sailing conditions? For it is reasonable, given the nature of things, according to certain accounts that are mysterious and difficult for the majority to grasp, that there is a nature such that one just man, dying voluntarily on behalf of the common good, should create a diversion for wicked demons who are causing plagues or droughts or poor sailing conditions or anything of the like. Let those, then, who are unwilling to believe that Jesus died on behalf of men by the manner of the cross say whether or not they will accept the many Greek and barbarian histories B regarding certain men who have died on behalf of the common good to remove the evils that had taken hold of cities and nations. Or if those things indeed happened, but there is nothing persuasive in the notion that the man who was considered to be a man died for the destruction of a great demon and the prince of demons, C who had brought into subjection all the souls of men that had come upon the earth? Seeing these things, the disciples of Jesus, and many things other than these, which it is likely they learned from Jesus in secret—and having been filled moreover with a certain power (for it was not some poetic maiden who gave them courage and boldness, but the true prudence and wisdom of God)—they strove, D so that they might become manifest to everyone, not only to the Argives, but also to all Greeks and barbarians alike, and might win a noble renown.
32. But let us return to the dramatic presentation of the Jew, in which it is written that the mother of Jesus, having been pregnant, was cast out by the carpenter who had betrothed her, being accused of adultery, [32. 350] and that she gave birth to a child by a certain soldier named Panthera.
A And let us see if those who fabricated the adultery of the Virgin and Panthera, and the carpenter casting her out, did not invent all these things to destroy the belief in the miraculous conception from the Holy Spirit. For they could have slandered the history in another way, due to its being highly miraculous, and not have seemed as if they were forced to concede that Jesus was not born from marriage in the customary way. And it was consistent for those who did not agree to the miraculous birth of Jesus B to invent some falsehood. But for them to have done this unpersuasively—while at the same time preserving the fact that the Virgin conceived Jesus not from Joseph—was a manifest falsehood to those capable of hearing and refuting such fabrications. For is it reasonable that He who dared so much for the human race, in order that, as far as it depended upon Him, all Greeks and barbarians should expect divine judgment, turn away from wickedness, and in all things act in a way pleasing to the Creator of all, should have had a birth that was not miraculous, but the most lawless and shameful of all births?
I will speak as to Greeks, and especially to Celsus, whether he holds these views or not, so long as he puts forward the teachings of Plato: "Does He who sends souls into the bodies of men push into the most shameful of all births him who was destined to dare so much, to teach so many, and to turn many men from the flood of wickedness, without even introducing him into the life of men through lawful marriage?" Or is it more reasonable that each soul, according to certain secret reasons—I speak these things now according to Pythagoras, Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus often names—should be assigned to a body? C And see if those who invented the adultery of the Virgin and Panthera, and [the story of] the carpenter casting her out, did not contrive these fables with a blind mind, so as to remove the unusual conception from the Holy Spirit from the middle. For this history is so contrary to custom that they might have refuted it in another way, and not as if they were unwillingly acceding that Jesus was not born in the common manner from a marriage. It was surely consistent that those who abrogated belief in the unusual birth of Jesus should flee to a lie. But to find a lie that is in no way plausible, and while admitting this, [that] it remains nonetheless true that Jesus was not conceived by Joseph from the Virgin, is a fraud evident to those who know how to hear and refute such fictions. For how is it probable that He who undertook so much for the human race, and gave as much effort as was in Him, so that all Greeks and barbarians alike, out of fear of divine judgment, might refrain from vices, and in all things strive to please the Creator of all things, did not have a miraculous birth, but the wickedest and most shameful of all? I ask the Greeks, and in particular Celsus, who either agrees with Plato or at least adopts Platonic [arguments]: "Does He who sends the souls of men into bodies [introduce] into the life of humans, through the most shameful of all origins and not even through legitimate marriage, him who was about to undertake so much, to instruct so many, and was about to recall so many men from the flood of vices?" Or is it much more probable that the soul [is] assigned to a body by certain hidden reasons (I speak now according to Pythagoras, Plato, and Empedocles, whom Celsus often D mentions)?
A It is likely, therefore, that this soul, being more beneficial to the life of men than many others—not to mention all, lest I seem to be exaggerating—needed a body not only as something superior among human bodies, but as something surpassing them all.
33. Now, if this soul [is] for certain hidden reasons, while not worthy to be included in the body of an irrational animal, is yet not pure enough to occupy the body of a rational animal, it is clothed in a monstrous body, such that reason cannot fully inhabit it—since he who is thus born has a head disproportionate to the rest of the body, and far too small. B Yet another, in this way, takes on a body such that it is, by a little, more rational than the former; and another even more so, as the nature of the body hinders the grasp of reason to a greater or lesser degree. Why, then, should there not be some soul taking on a body altogether marvelous, possessing something in common with men, so that it might be able to live among them, yet also possessing something exceptional, so that the soul might be able to remain untainted by vice? And if one also follows the pronouncements of the physiognomists—whether of Zopyrus, C or Loxus, or Polemon, or whoever else has written such things and claimed to know something wonderful—that all bodies are suited to the characters of the souls, then for one who was about to enter this life in a marvelous way and do great things, there should have been, as Celsus thinks, a body born from Panthera and a woman who had committed adultery? For from such impure unions, there would rather have been born some madman, a plague to men, a teacher of licentiousness, injustice, and the rest of the vices, not D [the one who]...
What sort of things are these that you say, Socrates? As it is likely that those who have practiced gluttonies, insolences, and love of gain, and have not taken heed, are clothed in the form of donkeys and similar wild beasts—the soul being clothed in all manner of forms of animals and plants. For he says: For I was once already a boy, and a girl, And a bush, and a bird, and a bright fish out of the sea.
...a teacher of licentiousness, and injustice, and of the rest of the evils, [rather than]... But to you, Alcibiades, Pericles set over you as a tutor of your servants, one who was the most useless due to his old age, Zopyrus the Thracian.
A and of temperance and justice and the remaining virtues. But, as the prophets also foretold, it was fated that He who bears the name of the thing should be born of a virgin according to the promised sign, indicating that at His birth God would be with men. And it seems appropriate to me, regarding the impersonation of the Jew, to set forth the prophecy of Isaiah, which states that Emmanuel would be born of a virgin; which Celsus did not set forth, whether because he was ignorant of it, though he promises to know everything, or because he read it but deliberately kept silent, so as not to seem to be establishing a case against his own deliberate choice. B The wording is as follows: "And the Lord continued to speak to Ahaz, saying: 'Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, into the depth or into the height.' And Ahaz said: 'I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord.' And he said, 'Hear now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to provide a struggle for men, and how do you provide a struggle for the Lord? Therefore the Lord Himself will give to you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated: God with us.'" That Celsus, acting wickedly, did not set forth the prophecy is clear to me from the fact that, although he set forth many things from the Gospel according to Matthew, such as the star that rose at the birth of Jesus and other miraculous events, he did not even mention this as a beginning. But if a Jew, quibbling, should say that "Behold a virgin" is not written, but instead of it, "Behold a damsel," we shall say to him that the word *Aalma*, which the Seventy have translated as "virgin," and others as "damsel," lies also, as they say, in Deuteronomy C in reference to a virgin, having this form: "But if there be a young maiden betrothed to a man, and a man find her in a city and lie with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of their city, and they shall be stoned with stones and die: the damsel, because she did not cry out when she was in the city; and the man, because he humbled his neighbor's wife." And it is fitting that a virgin be called *Alma*. Many Fathers are concerned about this interpretation, "behold a damsel." He who first blamed Aquila, and at the same time Theodotion, is Irenaeus in book III, chapter 24, where he says: "The interpretation 'behold a damsel,' as Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus have translated it, is not true." From this, the Ebionites say [Jesus] was born of Joseph. Whether Aquila, in order to distort the passage, thus fashioned his version, the most illustrious Montfaucon confesses he does not know, page 49, Preliminary [remarks] to the Hexapla of Origen. It seems likely to him, however, that Aquila deliberately turned away from the word because Christians used this prophecy most especially for the defense of their faith. "Indeed," he says, "nor does he employ the word 'hidden' to express the Hebrew *Alma*, which he desired to use elsewhere; D because perhaps this interpretation expressed a maiden who had remained hidden from the sight of men, and therefore a virgin." There is the word *Alma* in Isaiah, another, *Bethula*, in Deuteronomy. Hence Boherellus concludes that Origen did not know Hebrew. Whether this is true is discussed in the Origenian studies, Book II, chapter 1, number 3.
A Since we should B not appear to rely upon a Hebrew word for those who do not understand whether one should assent to it or not, let us produce a persuasion concerning the fact that the prophet said this man would be born of a virgin, he upon whose birth it is said, "God with us." Come, let us provide the persuasion on the word itself.
The Lord is recorded to have said to Achaz: "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, into the depth or into the height." C Then follows the sign given, namely: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son." But what sort of sign is it for a young woman who is not a virgin to bear a child? And to which woman is it more fitting to have given birth to Emmanuel, that is, "God with us"—to one who has known a man and has conceived in the custom of women, or to one who has conceived as a pure and undefiled virgin? Surely it is more fitting for this one to bring forth the offspring concerning whom it is said, "God with us."
If anyone should cavil that it was said to Achaz, "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God," we shall ask who it was in the times of Achaz who begat the offspring concerning whom it is said, "Emmanuel," which is, "God with us." If no one is found, it is manifest that what was said to Achaz was said to the house of David; because the Scriptures testify that the Savior according to the flesh was born from the seed of David. D Moreover, it is said that this sign is to be sought "into the depth or into the height," because "he who descended is also he who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things."
These things I say as having an argument with a Jew who adds faith to the prophecy. But let Celsus, or any of his companions, say with what mind the prophet declares these things or other things written in the prophecies concerning future events, or whether he is a foreteller of things to come or not. For if they were foreknowing of future events, the prophets had the divine Spirit; but if they were ignorant of future events, let him explain what kind of mind he has who so boldly pronounces upon future matters and who carries away the Jews into wonder at himself by his prophecies.
Since we have once arrived at the discussion concerning the prophets, the things we are about to add will be useful not to the Jews only, who believe that they spoke by the divine Spirit, but also to those among the Greeks who are fair-minded. To them, therefore, we say that it must necessarily be admitted that there were prophets among the Jews; for if they were to be kept within the law given to them and to believe in the Creator, just as they had received it, and not to take from the law an occasion [for error].
abandoning it A in favor of the polytheism of the nations. And we must set forth the necessity of this in the following way. “The nations,” as it is written in the Law of the Jews itself, “shall hearken unto divinations and soothsayings,” but to that people it is said, “But unto thee, the Lord thy God hath not given so.” And it is added to this, “A prophet will the Lord thy God raise up for thee from among thy brethren.” Since, therefore, the nations practiced divination, whether by soothsayings, or by omens, or by birds, or by ventriloquists, or by those who profess the art of sacrifice, or even by Chaldean astrologers—all of which were forbidden to the Jews—if the Jews had had no source of knowledge regarding future events, they would have been driven by that very human craving for knowledge of things to come; they would have despised their own [prophets] as having nothing divine in them, and would not have accepted any prophet after Moses, nor would they have written down their words, but, as deserters, they would have passed over to the divinations and oracles of the nations, or would have endeavored to establish something of the kind among themselves. B Therefore, it is nothing strange that their prophets gave oracles even regarding ordinary matters, for the consolation of those who were held by a desire for such things. Of this kind were the prophecies of Samuel concerning the lost asses, and those concerning the sickness of the king’s son mentioned in the third book of Kings. Otherwise, how could those who heralded the Law of the Jews rebuke one who wished to consult the oracles of idols, as Elias is found rebuking Ochozias with these words: “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Accaron?”
It seems to me, therefore, that it has been reasonably established not only that our Savior was to be born of a virgin, C but also that there were among the Jews prophets D who foretold not only universal matters concerning the future—such as things concerning Christ, and things concerning earthly kingdoms, and things that were to befall Israel, and concerning the nations that were to believe in the Savior, and many other things spoken about Him—but also individual matters, such as where the lost asses of Cis might be found, and the nature of the sickness from which the son of the king of Israel was suffering, or if anything else of such a kind is recorded. Furthermore, it must be said to those Greeks who do not believe in the birth of Jesus from a virgin, that the Creator, in the generation of varied animals, showed that it was possible for Him, had He so willed, to do in the case of others, and even in the case of humans themselves, what He did in the case of one creature. For certain female animals are found that have no union with a male, as those who have written about animals say regarding vultures.
A What is so incredible, then, if God, wishing to send a divine teacher to the human race, has caused the Word of the one to be born to be brought forth in a different manner than the seminal word of males toward females? And even according to the Greeks themselves, not all men were born of a man and a woman. For if the world was created, as it pleased many of the Greeks, it was necessary for the first men not to be born from physical intercourse, but rather from the earth, the seminal reasons being established in the earth. This, I think, is a more paradoxical thing than for Jesus to be born in the same manner as other men, at least in part. B But since we are dealing with the Greeks, it would not be alien to use Greek histories as well, so that we might not appear to be the only ones to rely on such a paradoxical account. For some did not hesitate to write, when they were recounting not ancient and heroic deeds, but things that happened yesterday and the day before, that Plato was born of Perictione, and that Ariston was forbidden from approaching her until she brought forth him who was sown by Apollo. But these are truly myths, which prompted the invention of such a thing about a man whom they considered to have greater wisdom and power than the multitude, and to have received the beginning of the formation of his body from superior and more divine seeds, as if it were fitting for those who are greater than men to be [born] differently. But since Celsus introduced the C Jew conversing with Jesus, and mocking (as he thinks) the pretense of His birth from a Virgin, and bringing forward the Greek myths about Danae and Melanippe and Auge and Antiope, [we note that] this creature preserves the succession of its kind without intercourse.
[Regarding] the sixth book, number eight. However, among profane authors Plato's mother is called Perictione. Aelian, lib. x, cap. 21, *Varia Hist.*; Jerome, lib. i *Adv. Jovin.*; Apuleius, lib. *De dogmat. Platonis*; Suidas in *Plato*; Laertius in *Plato*: Speusippus in *the Funeral Feast of Plato*, and Clearchus in *the Eulogy of Plato*, and Anaxilides in the second book *On Philosophers*, say that there was a rumor in Athens that Ariston, while attempting to force himself upon Perictione, was unsuccessful; and when he refrained from applying force, the appearance of Apollo was presented to her: wherefore she preserved herself chaste from any embrace until childbirth. Apuleius, Jerome, and Suidas, *ibidem*. Plutarch, *Symp.* lib. viii, quæst. 1, says that Ariston heard a voice which forbade him from intercourse for ten months. See the same, if you have the time, for further inquiry. D *Hexaem.*, cap. 20: "We have spoken of the widowhood of birds, and that this virtue first arose among them. Let us now speak of chastity, which is indeed asserted to exist in many creatures to such an extent that it can even be detected in vultures. For it is denied that vultures indulge in copulation, and associate in a certain conjugal usage and the lot of a nuptial bond, and thus conceive without any male seed, and bring forth without any union, and that those born of them reach a great age of long life, so that the series of their life extends to a hundred years; nor does the end of a short life easily overtake them." What do they say, those who are accustomed to mock our mysteries, when they hear that a virgin has given birth, and deem the delivery of an unmarried woman, whose modesty no custom of a man had violated, to be impossible? Is it considered impossible in the mother of God, which is not denied to be possible in vultures? The bird gives birth without a male, and [Celsus] does not refute it; and because Mary gave birth while betrothed to a man, they make it a question of her modesty. Do we not perceive that the Lord, from nature itself, provided many examples beforehand, by which he might prove the beauty of the incarnation undertaken, and establish its truth?
A ...as the Greeks have invented concerning Danae, Melanippe, Auge, and Antiope; this is the act of a buffoon, not of a man writing seriously.
38. Furthermore, from the Gospel according to Matthew, he B takes the history concerning Jesus’ migration into Egypt. But denying faith to the miracles then performed and to the warning given by the angel, and not even inquiring whether this departure from Judea and flight into Egypt might indicate some mystery, he fabricates something else. While giving a sort of assent to the miraculous powers which Jesus performed—by which he persuaded many to follow him as the Christ—he wishes to slander them as having been done by magic, not by divine power. For he says that, having been raised in obscurity and having hired himself out as a laborer in Egypt, where he became acquainted with certain miraculous powers, he returned from there, and on account of those powers, he proclaimed himself to be God. But I do not understand how a magician could have taught men to think, in all their actions, that God would one day be the judge of all, and thus to have instructed his own disciples, whom he intended to use as ministers of his teaching. For would those disciples, instructed in this way to perform miracles, have attracted their hearers, or did they perform no miracles? Now, to say that they performed no miracles at all, but that, without any power of speech—similar to the wisdom of Greek dialectic—they simply entrusted themselves to teach a new doctrine wherever they went, is completely irrational. For in whom were they trusting when they taught the word and introduced innovations? If they did indeed perform miracles, C what plausibility is there in the idea that magicians would have exposed themselves to such great dangers in order to introduce a doctrine that forbids the art of magic?
39. As for the things that have been said not seriously, but merely for the sake of provoking laughter, they do not seem worth refuting. Things of this sort are these: "Was the mother of Jesus beautiful, and was that why God—whose nature does not allow him to be captivated by the love of a human form—embraced her? Or is it not likely that God would have fallen in love with her, given that she was neither wealthy nor royal, since nobody knew her, not even her neighbors?" The trifler proceeds to say: "And she was not saved by divine power or convincing argument so that, being hated by the carpenter, she was expelled." "Therefore," he says, "none of these things D pertain to the kingdom of God." Do you not seem to hear those who insult certain people at street corners, without any regard for honesty or decency?
40. Following these things, taking from the Gospel according to Matthew—and perhaps also from the other Gospels—that which concerns...
the A dove which descended upon the Savior when He was baptized by John, he wishes to have it held as a fiction, this which is said. And by disparaging, as he thought, the history concerning the birth of our Savior from the Virgin, he does not set forth the subsequent things in order; for anger and hatred possess no order. But those who are carried away by such passions pour out against those they detest whatever first comes to their lips, since such emotions do not permit them to prudently arrange the heads of their accusations in their proper place. For if he had preserved order, having taken the Gospel—the subject of which he had decided to attack—he would have proceeded from the refutation of the first history to the refutation of the next, and so on to the rest. But instead, that Celsus who boasts that he understands all our affairs, after the birth from the Virgin, attacks the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at the baptism; then he calumniates the prophecies concerning the advent of our Savior; then he returns to the star which appeared at the birth of Jesus, as it is written, and to the magi who came from the East to worship the child. Thus, you yourself, upon unfolding his book, will find many things confused and heaped together without any order. And this will be evidence to those who know how to seek out and preserve order, with what rash bravado he titled his book *The True Word*, which none of the learned philosophers ever did. For Plato B says that it is not the act of a prudent man to assert anything dogmatically concerning such obscure matters; and Chrysippus often, having set forth the arguments that moved him, sends us to those who might speak better than he. This man, then, wiser than both these and the rest of the Greeks, consistent with his claim to know everything, titled his book *The True Word*.
41. But lest we should be thought to intentionally skip his chapters because we lack a response, we have decided, according to our ability, to refute each of the points raised by him, caring not for the sequence and connection in the nature of things, but for the order of those things inscribed in his book. Let us see, therefore, what he even says when he disparages that which was seen bodily by the Savior—the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. C The Jew is still addressing Jesus, whom we confess to be our Lord, saying: "You say that while you were being washed by John, there flew in from the air a phantom of a bird. Who," the Jew continues to inquire, "who with any faith..." D
A in himself testifies that he saw it? Who, apart from you and those who were punished with you, heard the voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God?"
42. Before we begin our defense, it must be stated that to establish almost any history, even if it is true, as having actually occurred, and to produce a firm conviction regarding it, is extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible. For imagine someone arguing that the Trojan War never B happened, precisely because it is impossible to attach to the account the fact that a certain Achilles was born of the sea-goddess Thetis and [of] the man Peleus, or Sarpedon of Zeus, or Ascalaphus and Ialmenus of Ares, or Aeneas of Venus. By what argument could we establish such a history? How would we extricate ourselves from the myths that have been woven into the accepted belief that a war was truly waged at Troy between the Greeks and the Trojans? Suppose, also, that someone rejects what is told about Oedipus and Jocasta and their children, Eteocles and Polynices, because the mention of a half-maiden Sphinx has been inserted into the account. Do we have any way of demonstrating that those C histories are true? The same must be thought regarding the Epigoni, even though nothing similar may have been added to the narrative, or regarding the return of the Heracleidae, or countless other [events]. Whoever, therefore, reads histories with an open mind, yet does not wish to be deceived by them, will decide which [accounts] are to be believed, which are to be interpreted as allegories according to the intent of those who invented such things, and which are unworthy of belief as having been composed for the sake of flattery. It seemed necessary to us to preoccupy our readers with this regarding the whole history of Jesus Christ—not that we might goad the more acute [among them] toward a bare and irrational faith, but that we might advise those who are about to read this history that they need a candid mind, diligent investigation, and—if it is permissible so to speak—an introduction into the mind of the writers, so that it may be discovered with what intent each thing was written. D
43. We shall say, therefore, first, that if the one who disbelieves in the phantom of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove were an Epicurean, or a follower of Democritus, or a Peripatetic, he might have [some] ground...
A for the speech attributed to the person introduced. But the all-wise Celsus does not notice that he is attributing these words to a Jew, who believes many things from the prophetic Scriptures that are even more paradoxical than what is narrated concerning the form of the dove. For one might say to the Jew, who disbelieves in the phantom and thinks to accuse it as a fabrication: "Whence, my good man, could you prove that the 5 Lord God said to Adam, or to Eve, or to Cain, or to Noah, or to Abraham, or to Isaac, or to Jacob, the things that are recorded as having been said by Him to these men?" And that I may compare history with this history, I would say to the Jew: "Even your Ezekiel recorded, saying: 'The heavens were opened, and I saw a vision of God,' which, after narrating, he adds to it: 'This is the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And He said to me.'" B For if the things recorded about Jesus are false, because we do not have, as you suppose, the means to demonstrate them clearly—since they were seen and heard by Him alone, and, as you appear to have observed, by one of those who were punished with Him—how much more admissible would it be to say they are mere portents? C
A wondrous thing also occurs in this region, as well as in the vast interior territory and in the land beyond the Syrtis. For at certain times, and especially during calm weather, concentrations are seen in the air exhibiting the forms of various living creatures; some of these stay still, while others move, and sometimes flee, and at other times pursue. And since they exhibit a monstrous size, they cause amazing astonishment and terror to those who are inexperienced. They pursue men, and when they overtake them, they envelop their bodies, cold and vibrating, so that strangers, not being accustomed to them, are struck with fear. An absurdity also lies in the fact that [the gods] send them not to the best and most prudent, but to whoever happens to be there. But with the cause from God taken away, no other reasonable cause appears. D
A And as you think you have observed, even by one of those punished; why should we not also say that Ezekiel acted the part of a storyteller when he said, "The heavens were opened," and what follows? But if Isaiah also says, "I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne high and lifted up; and the seraphim stood round about him; six wings to the one, and six wings to the one," and the rest; whence B is it clear that he truly saw it? For you have believed, O Jew, that these things are truthful, and not only that they were seen by the prophet through a more divine Spirit, but that they were also spoken and written down by him. To whom then is it more worthy to give credence—to one who says that the heavens were opened to him, and that he heard a voice, or saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, as Isaiah and Ezekiel say, or to Jesus? For no work of such magnitude is found in the case of those [prophets]; but the noble deeds of Jesus have occurred not only during those times when he walked among men clothed in a body, but even until now the power of Jesus is at work, bringing about the conversion and improvement of those who believe in God through him. A clear proof that these things come to pass by his power is, as he himself says and as experience confirms, that while laborers to work at the harvest of souls are entirely lacking, so many souls are nevertheless brought and gathered into the threshing-floors of God, which are the Churches, everywhere.
And I say these things to the Jew, not because I, a Christian, do not believe Ezekiel and Isaiah, but because I am pleading from those things commonly believed by us, C that he is by far more worthy to be believed than they, when he says he saw such things, and, as is likely, transmitted to the disciples the vision he saw, and the voice he heard. Someone else might perhaps say that not all those who wrote down the account about the appearance of the dove and the voice from heaven heard Jesus describe these things, but that the Spirit who taught Moses the more ancient history, which began from the creation of the world down to Abraham, his father, this same Spirit also taught the writers of the Gospel the wonder that occurred at the time of Jesus' baptism. And he who is 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 the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of this animal and no other. But it is not required by our present argument to explain this; for our purpose is to show that Celsus was wrong D to ascribe to the Jew, with such arguments, the claim that Ezekiel feigned it when he says the heavens were opened.
44. Yet I do not thereby abrogate the testimony of Ezekiel and Isaiah; for I am a Christian; but I used those things which are believed together with me to persuade men that Jesus is more worthy of belief than the prophets, since he told, and as is credible, narrated to his disciples that he saw such things and heard the voice. But perhaps someone else, who has committed to writing the account concerning the form of the dove and the heavenly voice, might say that they were not all present when he related these things to his disciples; but that the same Spirit who taught Moses the history far older than himself, and all that pertains from the creation of the world down to Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish race, revealed to the writers of the Gospels the prodigy that appeared at the time of Jesus' baptism. Why the heavens were opened, why the form of a dove was seen, and why the Holy Spirit made Himself visible to Jesus in the shape of a dove and no other creature, shall be explained by him who is adorned with the gift called the "word of wisdom." It is not our business to explain these things. For this has been our purpose, to show that Celsus has been led astray.
regarding matters A of fact, having happened according to probability rather than what was believed by him.
45. I remember, moreover, once having a discussion with some of those among the Jews whom they call wise, many being present to act as judges, I used this speech: "Tell me, sirs, when two persons have come to the human race, about whom strange things and things exceeding human nature have been written—I speak of Moses, your legislator, who wrote about himself, and Jesus, our teacher, who left behind nothing written about himself, B but who is witnessed to by his disciples in the Gospels—what is this distinction, that Moses is believed as a truth-teller, although the Egyptians accuse him of being a sorcerer and appear to believe that he performed his mighty works by magic, while Jesus is disbelieved because you accuse him? For a nation testifies to both: the Jews to Moses, and the Christians—not denying the prophecy of Moses, but rather proving from it the things concerning Jesus—accept that the things C written about him by his disciples are true and are wonderful things. And if you demand of us an account regarding Jesus, give an account regarding Moses, who came before him, and then we shall give one regarding him. But if you hold back and refuse to prove why you believe him, for the present we shall imitate you and remain silent regarding our arguments. Nevertheless, admit that you have no proofs regarding Moses, and listen to ours regarding Jesus taken from the Law and the Prophets. And, what is truly wonderful, the very arguments D that the Law and the Prophets provide us regarding Jesus serve to demonstrate that both Moses and the prophets were prophets of God."
46. Furthermore, the Law and the prophets are filled with unusual events, which are of almost the same nature as what is written about the appearance of the dove and the voice sent from heaven when Jesus was being baptized. I think that the Holy Spirit, who was seen at that time in the form of a dove, serves to prove the miracles of Jesus, which Celsus, in his attempt to slander them, claims were done by him through arts which he had learned among the Egyptians. Nor will I use only those, but also, as is fitting, those which the apostles of Jesus performed. For they could not have induced those to whom they were delivering new doctrines and new institutions—by abandoning ancestral institutions—without miracles and prodigies.
A And even now there remain among Christians some traces of that Holy Spirit, who appeared in the form of a dove. They cast out demons, they perform many cures, and they foresee the future according to the will of the Word. And even if Celsus, or the Jew whom he has introduced, might mock what is to be said, it shall be said nonetheless: that many have come to the Christian religion almost against their will, some spirit having suddenly turned their reasoning faculty from hating the Word to dying for it, and having presented visions to them, whether awake or asleep. For we have recorded many such things; and if we were to write them down, even though we ourselves have been eye-witnesses of these, we would offer a generous subject for laughter to the unbelievers, who—thinking that we have fabricated these things just as they suspect—would judge that these too were invented by us. But God is a witness of our conscience, which desires to confirm the divine teaching of Jesus not through false reports, but through various and evident proofs. B But since it is a Jew who doubts whether the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, it must be said to him: Who is this who says in Isaiah, "And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit"? In which, the passage being ambiguous—whether the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Jesus, or the Father sent both Christ and the Holy Spirit—the latter is the true interpretation. And since the Savior was sent, first, and then the Holy Spirit, in order that what was said by the prophet might be fulfilled; and since 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 have liked to say to Celsus, who has personified the Jew as having somehow accepted John as a Baptist baptizing Jesus, that one who lived not long after the time of John and Jesus recorded that John had been a Baptist, who baptized for the remission of sins. C For in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who received baptism. The same man, although he did not believe in Jesus as the Christ, while
47. Furthermore, we would wish to remind Celsus that since the Jew whom he introduces admits as much—that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist—a writer who lived close to the age of John and Jesus made mention of John and of the baptism conferred by him for the remission of sins. For Josephus, in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, testifies that John was a Baptist, and promised that to those who received baptism, their sins would be washed away. The same man, although he did not acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, yet D [marginal note omitted regarding source variants]
say—though he ought to have said it—that the plot against Jesus was the cause of these calamities for the people, since they killed the Christ who had been prophesied. But, as though unwillingly and yet not far from the truth, he says that these things happened to the Jews in vengeance for James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus called Christ, because they had killed a man who was most righteous. Now this James is the one whom Paul, a true disciple of Jesus, says he saw as the brother of the Lord, not so much because of their blood relationship or their shared upbringing, as because of his character and his teaching. If, then, he says that the events concerning the desolation of Jerusalem happened because of James, why is it not more reasonable to state that this happened because of Jesus the Christ? His divinity is witnessed to by so many churches of people who, having turned away from the flood of vices, dedicate themselves entirely to the Creator, and direct everything toward pleasing Him.
B 48. Even if the Jew does not defend himself regarding Ezekiel and Isaiah, because we share with him the accounts of the heavens opening to Jesus and the voice that was heard by Him, and we find similar things recorded in Ezekiel and in Isaiah or in some other prophet, we shall certainly, as far as lies within our power, maintain our case, saying this: just as it is believed by all who admit a Providence that in many cases, through dreams, things are impressed upon persons—whether clearly or obscurely—some being divine realities, and some regarding future events pertaining to this life; so too it is not absurd that, by the same power by which it occurs through a dream, visions are also inscribed during the waking state, which are of benefit either to the person to whom they are granted, or to those to whom he is about to recount them. And just as in a dream we seem to hear with struck ears and to see with our eyes, even though neither ears nor eyes, but only the mind, have been moved; C so it would not be absurd if the same thing had occurred to the prophets, as often as they are read to have seen some miraculous things, or to have heard the words of the Lord, or to have perceived the heavens opened.
If that is true, what becomes of Origen and Eusebius, who claim that Josephus did not ascribe the calamities of the Jews to the death of Jesus Christ, but to the death of James? D Josephus is the Hebrew philosopher who wrote these things, having said this as well: that from the time the Jews crucified Jesus, who was a good and righteous man—if indeed one ought to call such a man a human being and not God—pain has not ceased from the land of Judea. And he writes of John... [regarding the] war, and through him he shows that there is no longer a city that was once the metropolis, and he weaves together long speeches of praise regarding him. And he [supposes] that the wise among the Jews judged this to be the cause, that the ruling faculty [is fashioned] toward the benefit of the one in whom it is fashioned.
A Nor do I think it necessary that this sensible heaven or its body should have been cleft, in order for Ezekiel to have been able to write these things. See then whether it is not also in this way that those who read the Gospel with discernment ought to understand what is narrated concerning the Savior; even though this may be a scandal to those who are simpler, who, on account of the simplicity they possess, disturb this world and tear apart the compact body of the whole heaven. But he who examines such things more deeply will say that there is a certain general Divine sense in Scripture, which the blessed man alone knows how to find, as Solomon says: “Thou shalt find a Divine sense” (Prov. II, 5); and since there are species of this sense—sight, which is by nature fitted to contemplate things superior to bodies, such as the cherubim and seraphim; hearing, which catches voices other than those formed in the air; taste, to which the living bread, which has descended from heaven and gives life to the world, has a flavor (John VI, 33); thus also smell, which perceives such things as that of which Paul speaks when he says he is to God the sweet fragrance of Christ (II Cor. II, 15); and touch, according to which John says he has handled with his hands the Word of life (I John I, 1)—the blessed prophets, having found this Divine sense, and seeing Divinely, and hearing Divinely, and tasting likewise, and smelling (if I may so call it) with a sense that is not sensory, and touching the Word with faith, so that an emanation of Him came unto them, bestowing healing upon them, thus B saw what they write they have seen, and heard what they say they have heard, and experienced things similar to these, just as they write that they ate the beginning of the book that was offered to them (Ezech. III, 2). Thus also Isaac smelled the odor of his son’s more Divine garments, and bestowed this spiritual blessing: “Behold, the odor of my son is as the odor of a full field which the Lord hath blessed” (Gen. XXVII, 27). Similarly to these, and more intelligibly than sensibly, Jesus touched the leper, that He might cleanse him (as I suppose) in two ways: delivering him not only, as the many hear it, from the sensible leprosy by a sensible touch, but also from the other leprosy by a truly Divine touch. So therefore John also testified, when he said: “I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not; but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me: Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, the same is He who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John I, 32 sqq.). And indeed the heavens were opened to Jesus; and at that time, besides John, no one is recorded to have seen the heavens opened. But the Savior, predicting to His own apostles that they too would see the heavens opened, said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John I, 51). Thus also Paul was caught up into the third heaven when he had already seen that former one opened, as being a disciple of Jesus. But to explain why He said C
“Whether in the body, I know not; whether out of the body, I know not: God knoweth,” is not the work of the present time.
Furthermore, I shall add to the argument that even the things which Celsus supposes—that Jesus himself told his disciples about the opening of the heavens and the Holy Spirit descending upon him in the form of a dove at the Jordan—are things for which the Scripture provides no evidence, in that it does not show that He himself said He had seen this. A And that noble fellow did not perceive that it is not in accordance with the command given to those disciples at the vision on the mountain, “Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead,” for Him to have told the disciples what was seen and heard by John at the Jordan. Indeed, one can see in Jesus’ character that he everywhere avoided self-laudation, and for this reason He said, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” And because He avoided self-laudation, and wished to show that He was Christ by His works rather than by His words, for this reason the Jews say unto Him, “If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.”
B Since, however, it is a Jew who in Celsus’ work speaks to Jesus concerning the things about the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and says, “Besides, you say this, and introduce someone who was punished with you,” it is necessary to show that this too has been inappropriately attributed to the Jewish persona. For the Jews do not associate John with Jesus, nor do they join John’s punishment with Jesus’ punishment. And in this, therefore, he who boasts of knowing all things is refuted, for he did not know what words should have been assigned to the persona of a Jew addressing Jesus.
49. After this, I know not why, he passes over the greatest C argument by which those things that pertain to Jesus are most confirmed—namely, that He was foretold by the prophets among the Jews, by Moses and those after him, or even before Moses; he omits it, as I think, because he was unable to answer the argument, since neither the Jews nor any heresy anywhere has denied that Christ was foretold. Perhaps he did not even know the prophecies concerning Jesus. For he would not, if he had refuted what is said by Christians—that many prophets foretold the coming of the Savior—have attributed to the persona of the Jew things which would have been more fitting for a Samaritan or a Sadducee to say; and that fictitious Jew would not have said, D “But my prophet once said in Jerusalem that the Son of God would come, the judge of the pious and the punisher of the unrighteous.” For it was not one single prophet who prophesied the things concerning Christ. Even if only those of Moses...
were received by the Samaritans or Sadducees, they might claim that Christ was prophesied in them; yet certainly this prophecy was not uttered in Jerusalem, the name of which city did not even exist in the age of Moses. A Would that all the calumniators of our doctrine were in such ignorance, not only of the facts, but even of the literal text of Scripture, so that their discourse might not have the least probability, which could upset—I do not say the faith, but the little faith—of those who believe but are not firm for a time! Nor, indeed, would a Jew admit that any prophet said that the Son of God would come; for what they say is that the Christ of God will come. And they frequently ask us immediately about the Son of God, as if no such being existed, nor had been prophesied. And we do not say this, that the Son of God is not prophesied, but that it is not fittingly ascribed to the Jewish position, which does not admit this, to say: “My prophet in Jerusalem once said that the Son of God would come.”
B Then, as if only this had been prophesied about Christ, that he would be the judge of the pious and the punisher of the unrighteous, and that the prophets had been altogether silent about his birth, about the suffering which he would endure at the hands of the Jews, about his resurrection, and about the miraculous powers which he would perform, he says: “Who more than you, or ten thousand others who have lived after the prophecy, are those concerning whom these things were prophesied?” And I do not know how, wishing to attribute to others the possibility of being suspected to be those who were prophesied, he says that “some are fanatics, and others are impostors, who claim to have come down from heaven as the Son of God.” For we have not heard that such things are admitted to have happened among the Jews. We must therefore first reply that many prophets predicted the things concerning Christ in many ways: some through riddles, some through allegory, or in another way, and some even in plain words. And since in what follows he says, in the personation of the Jew addressing those from the people who have believed, that the prophecies referring to this can be applied also to other matters—speaking C of this cleverly and wickedly—we shall set forth a few from many, regarding which anyone who wishes may say whatever is compelling for their overthrow, and which is able to easily turn those who believe away from the faith.
It has indeed been said regarding the place of his birth, that the leader will come out of Bethlehem, in this manner: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrath, are not the least to be among the thousands of Judah; for from you will come forth to me one to be a ruler in Israel; and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” D Now this prophecy is not to be applied to any… 51. And regarding the place where it is said he will be born, it is said that he will come from Bethlehem, he who was to be the prince. The words of the prophet are: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, are not the least to be in the thousands of Judah. For from you shall come forth to me one who is to be a ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” This prophecy 367 to no…
fanatic, no impostor, no one of those who claim to have come from heaven, as Celsus’s Jew says, unless he is shown to have been born in Bethlehem, or, as someone else might say, to be coming from Bethlehem to rule the people. And if anyone, after the prophecy of Micah and after the history of Jesus written by his disciples in the Gospels, wishes to be convinced from elsewhere that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, let him consider that, in accordance with the history of his birth narrated in the Gospel, the cave in Bethlehem B is shown where he was born, and the manger in the cave where he was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And this site is famous in those parts and acknowledged even by the enemies of the faith—that in this cave was born the Jesus who is worshipped and admired by Christians. I believe, indeed, that before the coming of Christ, the chief priests and scribes of the people, because of the clarity and evidence of the prophecy, taught that Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Indeed, this rumor had spread among many of the Jews; whence it is written that Herod, inquiring of the chief priests and scribes of the people, heard from them that Christ would be born in Bethlehem of Judea, which was the homeland of David. C Furthermore, it is said in the Gospel according to John that the Jews said that Christ would come “from Bethlehem, where David was.” But after the coming of Christ, those who labored to overthrow the belief about him—as though it had been prophesied from of old concerning his birth—removed such teaching from the people, acting like brothers to those soldiers who guarded the tomb, those eyewitnesses of the resurrection, who to this report of the observers said, “Say that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep. And if this comes to the hearing of the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”
D It will suffice for me to have noted from the words of Matthew II, 1 and Luke II, 4 that such a controversy is extremely difficult to resolve. See how the most learned interpreters explain Joshua V, 13, in Jericho, and X, 10, in Gibeon, X, 17, in Makkedah. Nevertheless, led by the authority of Justin Martyr, who was a Samaritan and not far removed from the borders of Bethlehem, I incline to his opinion, namely, that Christ was born in a certain cave near the village. Epiphanius says, in heresy 20, that Christ was also circumcised in this cave.
A 52. For contention and prejudice have the power to make men refuse to look even at things that are manifest, so that they may not abandon those dogmas which have somehow become customary to them, and which have colored their soul. And it is much easier for a man to abandon habits concerning other matters, even if he is strongly attached to them, than those concerning dogmas. Yet not even those other things do those accustomed to them easily overlook; thus, those who have become attached to them do not easily desire to abandon homes, or cities, or villages, or familiar people. This, therefore, has been the cause for many of the Jews at that time to resist the clarity of the prophecies and of the miracles which Jesus performed, and which it is recorded he suffered. But that human nature is subject to such a state will be clear to those who discern that those who have once been captivated by the traditions of their fathers and fellow citizens, even if these are most disgraceful and foolish, are not easily moved. For one would not quickly persuade an Egyptian to despise the things he has received from his fathers, so as not to consider B this irrational animal a god, or to guard until death against tasting the meat of this animal. Therefore, if we have examined such a subject at greater length, and have gone through the matters concerning Bethlehem and the prophecy about it, we believe we have done so necessarily, apologizing to those who might say that, if the prophecies concerning Jesus among the Jews were so manifest, why, when he came, did they not assent to his teaching and change over to the better things shown by Jesus? Let no one reproach us or those who believe with a similar reproach, seeing that the reasons brought forward by those who have learned to advocate them concerning the faith in Jesus are not to be despised.
If there is also a need for a second prophecy that appears clear to us concerning Jesus, we will set forth that which was recorded many years before the appearance of Jesus by Moses, who says that Jacob, when departing from this life, prophesied to each of his sons, and said to Judah, along with others: «A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there come those things which are stored up for him.» C But anyone reading this prophecy, which is in truth much older than Moses, even if some of the unbelievers might suppose it was spoken by Moses—he would be amazed at how Moses was able to predict that those who would rule the Jews, there being twelve tribes among them, [would arise] from the tribe of Judah, from whence the name of the Jews...
D 53. If there is a need for another prophecy, which clearly appears to us to pertain to Jesus, we shall set forth that which was written many years before Jesus arrived by Moses, who recounts that Jacob, when his life's end was approaching, prophesied to each of his sons, and among other things, said to Judah this: «A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until the things that are stored up for him shall come.» One who reads this prophecy, which, although in reality it is older than Moses, an unbeliever might perhaps suspect was uttered by Moses—this will first be a matter for admiration: how Moses, whereas there are twelve tribes of the Jews, could have predicted that those who would govern the people would arise from the tribe of Judah, from whence the name of the Jews...
A is derived. The candid reader of this prediction will also admire how, after he had said that the princes and leaders of the people would arise from the tribe of Judah, he set a limit to that power with these words: "A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until there come those things which are stored up for him; and he is the expectation of the Gentiles." For he has come to whom those things were stored up, the Christ of God, the prince of the promises of God. He alone, as is manifest, was the expectation of the Gentiles, not only of those who lived before him, but also—I will say it boldly—of those who lived after him. For people from all the nations have believed in God through him, and, according to what was said by Isaiah, the Gentiles have hoped in his name, he having said: "In his name shall the Gentiles hope."
And it is he who said to those who were in bonds (for there is no one who is not bound by the chains of his own sins): "Go forth"; and to those who were in ignorance: "Come into the light." For these things had been foretold in this way: "I have given you for a covenant of the nations, to raise up the earth and to possess the dissipated inheritances, saying to those who are in bonds: Go forth; and to those who are in darkness: Reveal yourselves." And in his advent one can see, because of those throughout the world who believe in simplicity, that this has been fulfilled: "They shall feed on all the roads, and their pasture shall be on all the paths."
54. Since Celsus, who professes to understand everything about the Word, reproaches the Savior C because, while he was suffering, the Father did not bring him aid, nor could he himself find aid, we must reply that his passion was foretold along with the reason for it—namely, that it was for the benefit of men that he should die for them, and endure the stripe of being condemned. It was also foretold that there would be those among the Gentiles, among whom the prophets had not appeared, who would recognize him, and that it would be said that he would be seen among men with an appearance that would seem contemptible to them. Thus the prophetic words run: "Behold, my servant shall understand, and he shall be exalted, and glorified, and shall be lifted up very high. As many shall be astonished at thee, so shall thy appearance be inglorious from among men, and thy glory from among the sons of men. So shall many Gentiles marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths; because they to whom it had not been announced concerning him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We have announced him as a child before him, as a root in a thirsty ground. D He has no appearance, nor glory; and we beheld him, and he had no appearance, nor beauty; but..."
his appearance is dishonored and failing before all men. A man placed in a plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity; because his face is turned away, despised and not esteemed. He carries our sins, and suffers for us; and we accounted him to be in labor, and in a plague, and in affliction; but he was wounded for our sins, and was made weak for our iniquities. The discipline of our peace was upon him, and by his bruise we were healed. All we as sheep have gone astray; the man in his way has gone astray, and the Lord delivered him over to our sins, and he, because he was afflicted, does not open his mouth. [As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before him that shears him, so he does not open his mouth.] In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation? Because his life is taken from the earth, through the iniquities of my people he was led to death. B
I remember once, during a discussion with those called wise among the Jews, I made use of these prophecies. To these the Jew said that these things were prophesied as being about one single chosen people, and one that had come into the dispersion, and had been stricken, that many proselytes might be made by the pretext of the Jews being scattered among the many C nations; and thus he interpreted the passage, "Your appearance shall be dishonored by men," and the passage, "They to whom it was not announced concerning him, shall see," and the passage, "A man placed in a plague." Much was said then in the discussion, however, to refute the point that they do not reasonably apply these things, which were prophesied about some one individual, to the whole people. I would ask, whose person is it that says, "He carries our sins, and suffers for us," and, "But he was wounded for our sins, and was made weak for our iniquities," and whose person was it that said, "By his bruise we were healed"? For clearly those who had become involved in sins, and were healed through the Savior having suffered, whether they be from that people or from the nations, they say these things before the prophet who foresaw them and who, by the Holy Spirit, gave them a dramatic persona. But we especially thought to press them with the quoted D phrase, "Through the iniquities of my people he was led to death." For if the people are, according to them, those who are prophesied about, how is it said that he was led to death through the iniquities 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 we were healed," those of us who believe in him, "having put off from ourselves the principalities and powers, and having put them to an open shame on the tree"? To explain each of the things in the prophecy and to leave nothing undiscussed is not for this present time. These things, however, to the rest.
have been spoken at greater length, as I think, necessarily, on account of the B statement of the Jew provided in Celsus.
56. It escaped both Celsus and the Jew with him—and all who have not believed in Jesus—that the prophecies declare there are two advents of Christ: the first, humble and subject to human infirmities, C that while dwelling among men, Christ might teach the way that leads to God, and might leave no person any place for excusing themselves on the grounds of ignorance of the future judgment; the second, glorious and solely divine, having nothing of human infirmity mingled with his divinity. It would be long to bring forward the prophecies. It shall suffice here to adduce the words from the forty-fourth Psalm, in the title of which, among other things, it is read: *A Song for the Beloved*, where he is evidently called God: D "Grace is poured forth upon thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee forever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, in thy beauty and thy splendor; and bend thy bow, and proceed prosperously, and reign, because of truth and meekness and justice, and thy right hand shall guide thee wonderfully. Thy arrows are sharp, O mighty one; peoples shall fall under thee in the heart of the enemies of the King." Pay close attention to what follows, where he is proclaimed as God: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a rod of equity is the rod of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Observe that the prophet, addressing God, whose throne is for ever and ever, and whose rod of equity is the rod of his kingdom, says that this same God was anointed by God, who was his God; and that he was anointed because, above his fellows, he loved justice and hated iniquity. I remember that I once caused much distress to a Jew who was reckoned wise among his people; and when he had greatly twisted himself, he at length said what I ought to have expected from a Jew, namely: that it is written concerning the God of the universe, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a rod of equity is the rod of thy kingdom"; but concerning Christ, "Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee," and what follows.
57. Furthermore, the Jew says to the Savior in Celsus: "If you say this, that every man who is born according to divine providence is a son of God, in what do you differ from others?" To which we shall reply that he is indeed a son of God, whoever, as Paul teaches, is not led by fear, but embraces virtue for its own sake; but this one differs by a great and wide margin from those who are called sons of God on account of virtue, as one who is
A a fountain and principle of such things. And the text of Paul is as follows: "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." B And some will also refute—as the Jew in Celsus says—countless people, saying that those things which were prophesied concerning Jesus were meant to be taken regarding themselves. We do not know, therefore, if Celsus knew of any who, while they were in this life, desired to do the same things that Jesus did, and to proclaim themselves sons of God or the power of God. But since we examine the things according to their types with a love of truth, we shall say that there was a certain Theudas among the Jews before the birth of Jesus, who called himself a certain great man; and when he had died, those who had been deceived by him were scattered. And after him, in the days of the census, when it seems Jesus was born, a certain Judas the Galilean drew many people away from the Jewish nation, as one who was wise and an innovator of something. But when he also paid the penalty, his teaching was abolished, having remained among very few and very obscure people. And after the times of Jesus, a certain Samaritan, Dositheus, C also wished to persuade the Samaritans that he was the Christ predicted by Moses; and he seemed to have gained some over to his own teaching. But the statement recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, said very wisely by Gamaliel, is not irrational to bring forward to show how those men were strangers to the promise, being neither sons of God nor powers of His; whereas Christ Jesus was truly the Son of God. And Gamaliel said there that, "If this counsel and this work be of men, it will come to nothing," just as the things of those men came to nothing after their death; "but if it be of God, you cannot overthrow this teaching of his, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God." Simon the Samaritan Magus also wished to lead some away by his magic arts. And at that time he deceived them; but now there are not, I think, thirty Dositheans D to be found in the entire world. And perhaps
I have said more than there are in reality A. There are very few in Palestine; but nowhere else in the world is his name found in that glory which he wished to spread about himself. For among those where it is mentioned, it is mentioned from the Acts of the Apostles; and it is the Christians who say these things about him, and the manifest reality has testified that Simon was nothing divine.
58. After this, the Jew in Celsus, instead of the Magi in the Gospel, says that Jesus, moved by his birth, came to adore him while he was still an infant as God; and that they reported this to Herod the tetrarch; and that he, having sent them, killed those who were born at the same time, thinking to destroy him along with them, so that he might ensure he did not reign after having lived for a sufficient time. B Observe, therefore, in this the error of the man who does not distinguish Magi from Chaldeans, nor does he notice how different the professions of both are, and therefore he adulterates the evangelical Scripture. I do not know for what reason he passes over in silence that which impelled the Magi, nor does he say that the star was seen by them in the East, as it is written. Let us see, therefore, what must be answered to these things. We believe that the star which was seen by them in the East was new, and similar to none of those that are in the firmament or in the lower C spheres; but that it was of the kind of those which occasionally arise, and which have names among the Greeks—who designate their differences with their own terms—whether from the semblance of a comet, or a beamed star, or a bearded star, or a jar-shaped star, or however it pleases them to name their differences. We construct our opinion in this way.
59. It has been observed regarding great events and the greatest D changes of things on earth, that such appearances arise.
A Such stars, which portend either the overthrow of kingdoms, or wars, or whatever else can happen among men and shake human affairs, are observed. We read, however, in the booklet of Chæremon the Stoic, *On Comets*, how comets sometimes arise as forerunners of even useful things; and he confirms this with examples. If, therefore, a comet or other similar star is excited at the change of kingdoms or other notable events, what is surprising if, at the birth of him who was about to introduce innovations among the human race and to spread his teaching not only among the Jews, but also among the Greeks and many barbarian nations, a star should have appeared? And as for comets, I would say that no prophecy is extant which signifies that such a comet will rise at this or that time for this or that kingdom; but that the star which appeared at the birth of Jesus, that Balaam had predicted. For thus it is written in Moses: “There shall arise a star out of Jacob, and a man shall rise out of Israel” (Num. XXIV, 17). But if it is necessary to examine also the things written about the Magi and the star seen by them at the birth of Jesus, we would speak in the following manner, using one language with the Greeks and another with the Jews.
60. To the Greeks, indeed, I shall say that the magi, who have commerce with demons and who invoke them for those things B which they have learned and wish for, according to the laws of their art which they have learned, perform such things only as long as nothing more divine and more powerful than the demons and the incantation summoning them appears or is named; but if some more divine power emerges, the powers of the demons are brought to nothing, and they cannot endure the splendor of the Godhead. It is likely, therefore, that at the birth of Jesus, since a multitude of the heavenly host (as Luke wrote, and I believe) praised God and said: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men” (Luke II, 13, 14), that for this reason the power and strength of the demons failed, their trickery being exposed and their efficacy rendered invalid, C destroyed not only by the angels who descended to the regions of earth because of the birth of Jesus, but also by the power of Jesus and the Godhead that was in him. Therefore, the magi, wishing to do their usual practices which they had formerly done through certain incantations and magic arts, sought the reason, inferring that it was great; and having seen a divine sign in heaven, they wished to see what was signified by it. It seems to me, therefore, that having the [prophecies] of Balaam, D which were also written down by Moses,
A and having found therein that passage concerning the star: "I will show him, but not now; I bless him, but he does not draw near," they conjectured that the man heralded by the star had made his appearance in the world. And since they considered him to be superior to all demons and to the phantoms and forces that were accustomed to appear and minister to them, they desired to worship him. They came, therefore, into Judea, convinced that a king had been born, though they knew not what kind of kingdom he would rule, nor where he was to be born. Having taken with them gifts, which—if I may so call them—they offered as symbols to one who was, so to speak, composed of God and mortal man: gold as to a king, myrrh as to one who was to die, and frankincense as to God; and they offered these having learned the place of his birth. But since God, who is the Savior of the human race, is far superior B to the angels who bring aid to men, an angel rewarded the piety of the Magi in worshipping Jesus, by warning them "not to return to Herod, but to depart into their own country by another way."
61. That Herod plotted against the one who was born, although the Jew in Celsus does not believe this to have truly happened, is not at all surprising. For malice is a blind thing, and desires to overcome even fate itself, as if it were stronger than it. Suffering from this malady, Herod believed the Jews that a king had been born, and he conceived a plan in no way consistent with this persuasion. For he did not see that either he was absolutely a king and would reign, or he would not reign and would be slain in vain. C He desired, therefore, to kill him, being led by a wickedness that held conflicting judgments, moved by the blind and wicked devil who had laid snares for the Savior from the very beginning, having imagined him to be someone great and about to be so. The angel, indeed, warned Joseph—observing the sequence of events, even if Celsus does not believe it—to flee with the child and his mother into Egypt. Herod, however, ordered all the infants in Bethlehem and its borders to be slaughtered, as if he would thereby kill the one born King of the Jews. For he did not see the sleepless, protective power D that watches over those worthy to be kept and preserved for the salvation of men, among whom Jesus held the place of prince by dignity and excellence, superior by all honors and eminence. He was to be a king—not, however, as Herod imagined, but as it was fitting for God to grant a kingdom, for the benefit of those being governed, for he would not be one to bestow intermediate and, if I may so speak, indifferent benefits, but one who would instruct and guide those under him by truly divine laws. Knowing this, and denying that he was a king in the sense that most understand, while teaching the pre-eminence of his own kingdom, Jesus says: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would surely fight, that [I might not be delivered to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here]."
A If Celsus had perceived this, he would not have said: "But if, so that you might not reign in his place after you had reached adult age, why, when you had reached it, do you not reign? Instead, you wander about begging, as the Son of God, trembling through fear, and oppressed by miseries?" It is not cowardly to prudently avoid dangers—not from fear of death, but from a desire to benefit others while living a life of service—until the fitting time arrives for Him who took on human nature to undergo the death of a human being, having something profitable to offer to humanity. This is manifest to anyone who has grasped that Jesus died for the sake of humanity, a matter concerning which we have spoken as well as we could in what preceded this.
After this, since he does not even know the number of the apostles, he said: "having attached to himself ten or eleven wretched men, publicans and the most wicked sailors, he fled in their company hither and thither, collecting food in a shameful and grasping manner." Come then, let us also discuss these matters as far as we can. It is evident to those who encounter the evangelical narratives—which Celsus does not even appear to have read—that Jesus chose twelve apostles. He chose Matthew the publican. As for those he indiscriminately calls "sailors," he perhaps means James B and John, because they left their boat and their father Zebedee and followed Jesus; for Peter and his brother Andrew, who used a casting-net for their necessary food, are not to be counted among sailors, but as the Scripture has written, among fishermen. Let it be granted also that Levi was a publican who followed Jesus, yet he was not of the number of His apostles, unless according to some copies of the Gospel according to Mark. As for the rest, we have not learned by what labors they obtained their food before their discipleship under Jesus. I say, then, also in response to these points, that to those who can C prudently and candidly examine the things done by the apostles of Jesus, it is manifest that it was necessary for these men, having been strengthened by divine power, in order to teach
the Christian religion and to subject men to the Word of God. For neither did they possess the faculty of speaking or the art of discourse according to the dialectic or rhetorical methods of the Greeks, by which they might win over their hearers. A And, indeed, if Jesus had chosen and employed as ministers of his doctrine those who are in the opinion of many considered wise, and who are able, by the subtlety of their thoughts or the eloquence of their speech, to capture the applause of the multitude; in my judgment, there would have been a just suspicion that he had used a method and way similar to that of the founders of various philosophical sects, and what was promised concerning the divinity of his doctrine would not have seemed to be fulfilled. For his speech and preaching would have been in the persuasion of that wisdom which affects the allurements of words and the blandishments of apt composition; and this faith of ours, just like that which the philosophers of this world have in their dogmas, would have been in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God 47. But now, who is there who, when he sees fishermen and tax collectors, B even ignorant of the first elements of learning (for Scripture testifies this of them, and Celsus trusts them when they truthfully describe their own ignorance), confidently disputing about the faith to be attached to Jesus, not only among the Jews, but also successfully announcing Jesus among the rest of the nations, would not ask whence they had the faculty of persuasion? For it was not of a common kind. Who would not say that Jesus realized in his apostles by some divine power what he had promised them in these words: "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men 48"? Commending this same power, Paul, as we said above, says: C « And my speech and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that our faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God 49. » For, as it had been predicted by the prophets who announced the preaching of the Gospel, « The Lord gave the word to them that preached good tidings with great power, the king of the powers of the beloved 50 »; that this prophecy also might be fulfilled: « His word runneth swiftly 51. » And indeed, we now see that « their sound hath gone forth into all the earth » 52 the apostles of Jesus, « and their words unto the ends of the world. » Wherefore, those who hear the word preached with power, are themselves filled with power, which shines forth both in their affections and actions, and in their constancy in enduring death for the defense of the truth; but some are empty, even if they profess to believe in God through Jesus, D who by [the] power
of God seem to be drawn to the Word, yet possess no divine power. Although I have previously remembered the Gospel utterance spoken by the Savior, nonetheless I shall use it again now at a fitting time, setting forth both the prescience of our Savior regarding the preaching of the Gospel, which is most divinely manifested, and the strength of the Word, which without teachers takes hold of those who believe through persuasive power that is joined with divine force. Jesus says: "The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send forth laborers into his harvest." B
Since Celsus also called the apostles of Jesus "unspeakable men," naming them tax collectors and most wicked sailors, we shall also reply to this: that he seems, in order to malign the Word, to believe wherever he wishes the things that are written, but where he does not wish to accept the manifest truth, he disbelieves the Gospels; whereas, since he saw the truthfulness of those who wrote, it was his duty to believe, out of their record of the worse things, even concerning the more divine things. It is written, indeed, in the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas (from which Celsus perhaps grasped the chance to say that the apostles were unspeakable and most wicked), that Jesus chose his own apostles who were lawless beyond all lawlessness. And in the Gospel according to Luke, Peter says to Jesus: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But also Paul, who later himself became an apostle of Jesus, says in the epistle to Timothy: "The saying is faithful, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first." C I do not know, however, how he forgot or failed to perceive that he should have said something about Paul, who after Jesus established the Churches in Christ. For it is probable that he saw that the argument concerning Paul required an apology for him: how, after he had persecuted the Church of God and fought bitterly against the believers, to the point of being willing to deliver the disciples of Jesus to death, he later changed so much that from Jerusalem to Illyricum he fulfilled the Gospel of Jesus
gelium Christi evulgaret 57, and fulfilling this duty with such zeal that, unwilling to build upon another man’s foundation, he sought those places where the Gospel of Christ our God had never been proclaimed. What is there absurd, then, in the fact that Jesus, wishing to show the human race what power the remedies have which He applies to the diseases of the soul, chose A the infamous and the most wicked, and advanced them to such a state that they might be an example of the purest life to those who, through their ministry, were brought to the Gospel of Christ?
64. But if we are to be permitted to reproach those who have changed their way of life with their former crimes, it will also be permissible to bring Phædon to trial, even after he betook himself to philosophy; for they say that he was led by Socrates from a brothel into the school of philosophy. Shall we also reproach philosophy with the licentious life of Polemon, who succeeded Xenocrates? Or should it not rather be set down to its credit that, through the power of persuasion which resided in both, they were able to recall from such great vices those who had earlier been enslaved by them? B Indeed, among the Greeks, there is only one Phædon (if there was not another, I do not know), and one Polemon, who, casting off their base and shameful ways, gave themselves to philosophy; but in the school of Jesus, not only were there the twelve at that time, but in every age since there have been many who, being admitted into the choir of the wise, could speak of their former life: "For we ourselves were also some time foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But when the goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared, by the laver of regeneration and C renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us abundantly 58, D we became such as this." For God, as the prophet teaches in the Psalms, "sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions 59." And I would add to what has been said that Chrysippus, in his book *On the Healing of the Passions*, [alt-version omitted]
A attempts to calm the passions of the human soul without professing to know what the doctrine of truth is, yet undertakes to heal those who are caught in their passions according to the different philosophical sects. He says: "Even if pleasure is the final end, in this way the passions must be healed; and even if there are three kinds of good, nonetheless, according to this argument too, those who are caught by the passions must be delivered from them." But the detractors of Christianity do not see how many it has delivered from passions, how many it has freed from a flood of vice, and how many it has tamed from savage characters by the pretext of the Word. They should rather, as men who boast of their commitment to society, be grateful for a new method which has turned so many people away from many evils, and they should bear witness to it, if not as the truth, at least as something most useful to the human race.
B Since, however, Jesus taught his disciples not to be rash, he said to them: "If they persecute you in this city, flee to the other; and if they persecute you in the other, flee again to another," and by teaching this example he was himself a model of a steady life, taking care not to go to meet dangers either heedlessly, or untimely, or irrationally. This, again, Celsus maliciously misrepresents, and the Jew, in his persona, speaks to Jesus, saying: "With your disciples you run away here and there." But we shall say that this slander which he has devised against Jesus and his disciples is similar to the story told about Aristotle. For he, seeing that a court was being brought against him as an impious person C because of certain doctrines of his philosophy which the Athenians judged to be impious, departed from Athens and held his school in Chalcis, having offered this justification to his acquaintances, stating: "Let us depart from Athens, so that we may not give the Athenians the occasion to commit a second crime similar to that against Socrates, and so that they may not again act impiously against philosophy." But he says that "Jesus went about with his disciples, shamefully and greedily collecting food." Let him declare, then, whence he learned of this shameful and greedy collection. For in the Gospels certain women, who had been healed of their infirmities—among whom was Susanna D—provided the disciples with food from their own possessions. What philosopher is there, who was devoted to the benefit of his acquaintances, who did not receive from them what was necessary for his needs? Or is it that for them this was done fittingly, but when the disciples do the same, they are blamed as if they were scraping together food in a shameful and sordid manner?
66. The Jew in Celsus continues to address Jesus: A "What need was there for you, while still an infant, to be carried away into Egypt? Was it for fear you might be slaughtered? For it is not likely that God could fall into fear of death. An angel came down from heaven, ordering you and your family to flee, lest by being seized you should die. And could not the great God, who had already sent two angels for your sake, keep his own Son safe at home?" From this it seems to be Celsus’s opinion that there was nothing divine in the human body and soul of Jesus, and that his body was not such as the Homeric fables describe. Therefore, mocking the blood that Jesus shed upon the cross, he says that it was not:
*Like to the ichor that flows from the blessed gods.* B
But we who believe in Jesus, when he speaks of the divinity that was in him, saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), or something similar, and when he affirms that he has a human body, saying, "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth" (John 8:40), we believe that he was a composite being. Thus it was fitting that he who had decided to live among men in the human manner should not untimely cast himself into the danger of death, but should allow himself to be led by his guardians, whom an angel sent by God had forewarned: first, indeed, with these words: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife; for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit" (Matth. 1:20); C and secondly, thus: "Arise and take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you; for it will come to pass that Herod will seek the child to destroy him" (Matth. 2:13). In these accounts, nothing written seems to me at all strange. For in both places in the Scripture it is related that an angel spoke to Joseph through a dream; and it happens to many others that they are admonished through a dream as to what needs to be done, whether it be an angel or some other power that forms images in the soul. What is absurd, then, in the fact that he who had once taken on human nature should be provided for in human fashion so that he might avoid dangers? D Not because it could not have happened otherwise, but because it was appropriate that the safety of Jesus should be provided for by a way and an order suitable to his state. And certainly it was better for the infant Jesus to avoid the snares of Herod and to depart with his guardians into Egypt until the conspirator should die, than if Providence, taking thought for the affairs of Jesus, had prevented Herod from fulfilling his desire to kill that little child.
Or [would it have been better if] Jesus had been furnished with the helmet of Pluto, as sung by the poets, or some other protection, or if the satellites sent to kill him had been blinded, as the Sodomites A were? For an unusual and extraordinary assistance was not appropriate for Him who, as a man, wished to teach by the testimony of God that there was something more divine within that man whom all saw, namely the Son of God properly so called, the Word of God, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, who is called Christ. But it is not the time now to discourse on that composite being, and of what the Jesus who became man consisted; since for believers, this is a subject of a private, and so to speak, domestic inquiry.
67. After this, the Jew in Celsus says, as if he were someone learned and educated in Greek literature, B "Ancient myths declare that Perseus, and Amphion, and Aeacus, and Minos were born of the gods, yet we do not believe them. Nevertheless, they showed great and admirable deeds, truly beyond human [power], so that they might not seem unbelievable; but what fine or admirable thing have you done in deed or word? You showed us nothing; although the Jews in the temple challenged you to provide some clear sign that you were the Son of God." To this it must be replied that the Greeks should show us something beneficial to life, C brilliant and extending to future generations, from the deeds of those they have enumerated, a work so great as to give credibility to the myth concerning them which says they were born of divine seed. But they will show nothing, not even by a long shot, concerning the men whom they have recorded, which is comparable to the works of Jesus; unless indeed the Greeks wish to drag us toward myths and their own histories, wanting us to believe those things irrationally, but to disbelieve these things D even in the face of abundant evidence. We affirm, therefore, that the work of Jesus is apprehended by the whole inhabited world, in which the Churches of God, established through Jesus, dwell, [comprised] of those who have turned from ten thousand evils. And furthermore, the name of Jesus removes derangement from the minds of men, and casts out demons, and also heals diseases; and it produces a certain admirable gentleness, and propriety of character, and philanthropy, and kindness, and mildness in those who, not for the sake of material things or any human needs, pretend to be Christians, but who have sincerely received the doctrine concerning God and Christ and the coming judgment.
A 68. Then Celsus, suspecting the great miracles that were to be shown as having been performed by Jesus—of which we have spoken a few out of many—pretends to concede that it is true, whatever has been recorded concerning the healings, or the resurrection, or the few loaves that fed so many, from which much remained, or whatever other things he thinks the disciples have reported while acting as wonder-workers; and he adds to them, "Come, let us believe that these things were done by you." He immediately identifies them with the deeds of sorcerers, who promise even greater things, and with those performed by persons trained in Egyptian arts, who in the middle of the market-place sell their venerated tricks for a few obols, cast out demons from men, blow away diseases, call up the souls of heroes, and show expensive banquets, tables, cakes, and dainties that do not exist, and move animals which are not truly animals but merely appear as phantoms of such beings. And he says, B "Because those people do these things, must we believe that they are sons of God? Or must we not rather say that such arts are the practices of wicked and wretched men?" He thus seems, in a way, to acknowledge the existence of magic—I do not know if he is the same person who wrote many books against magic. Nevertheless, because it was convenient for his purpose, he compares the things narrated about Jesus with the effects of magic. And they would be similar if Jesus, like those who profess magic arts, had shown nothing but a vain appearance. But now, no sorcerer, through the things he does, excites the spectators to the amendment of their morals, nor teaches the fear of God to those who are amazed at the spectacles, nor strives to persuade them to live as those who must give an account to God. C None of these things do sorcerers do, because they cannot, or do not have the intention, or do not wish to labor for the correction of men, being themselves full of the most shameful and unspeakable vices. But he who, by the wonders he did, led the spectators of his good deeds to the amendment of their morals, how can he not be thought to have provided himself as an example of an excellent life, not only to those who were properly called his disciples, but also to all the rest? To the disciples, that they might be excited to teach men what the will of God is; to the rest of men, that they might be instructed by his words and morals rather than by his miracles on how they ought to live, in the hope that whatever they did, they might please God in all things. If, however, the life of Jesus was of this kind, with what right could anyone compare him to sorcerers, and not rather believe that, being God, he appeared in a human body D as had been promised, for the benefit of our race?
69. After this, Celsus mixes his argument with things said by some sect, as if they were common charges against all Christians.
A He brings forward a statement to those who follow the divine word, saying, “The body of God would not be such as yours.” But we, by way of reply to these things, say that he assumed a human body, such as one could receive from a woman, and that it was subject to human death. For this reason, among other things, we also call him a great wrestler, because of his human body, which was “tempted in all things,” like other men, yet not, as other men are, with sin, but in every respect “without sin.” For it is clearly evident to us that “he committed no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,” and that God “handed him over for all who have sinned,” as one who “knew no sin,” as one pure. Then Celsus says, “The body of God would not have been sown as thou, O Jesus, wert sown.” However, he suspected that if he had been born as it is written, his body might perhaps be in some way more divine than others, and in a certain sense the body of God. And therefore he denies that what is written is true—that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit—and believes that he was sown from the intercourse of Panthera with the virgin; for which reason he said, “The body of God would not have been sown as thou wert sown.” But we have said more about these things above.
He says also that “neither does the body of God eat such food,” as if he had it in his power to demonstrate from the evangelical writings that he used food, and what kind of food he used. B But be it so; let him say that he ate the Passover with his disciples, not only saying, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you,” but also that he actually ate it. Let him say also that he, being thirsty at the well of Jacob, drank; what does this have to do with what is said by us concerning his body? It is clearly evident that he ate fish after the resurrection; for according to us he assumed a body, as one born of a woman. C “But,” he says, “neither does the body of God use such a voice, nor is it persuaded by such means.” And these things are cheap and highly contemptible; for it will be said to him that the one who is believed by the Greeks to be a god, the Pythian, and the Didymean, uses such a voice, namely that of the Pythia, or of the prophetess who was in Miletus, and yet the Pythian or the Didymean, or any other such Greek god established in one place, is not on that account accused by the Greeks of not being a god. D Much better, however, would it have been for God to use a voice that, because it was proclaimed with power, would persuade the hearers by an ineffable kind of reasoning.
71. Then he proceeds, railing against Jesus, who—on account of his impiety and wicked doctrines, if I may so speak—
hate, he says, that "these things belonged to some God-hated and wicked sorcerer." A Yet, if words and things are strictly examined, it is impossible for a man to be "God-hated"; for God loves all things that exist, and loathes nothing of what He has made. For He would not have created anything had He hated it. But if any prophetic utterances appear to signify such a thing, they must be explained by this general rule, that Scripture speaks about God as if He were subject to human emotions. B But what answer should I make to a man who, in a discourse where he had promised fitting arguments to persuade, thinks he must proceed by insults and reproaches, with which he attacks Jesus as a wicked man and a sorcerer? This is certainly not the work of a philosopher who demonstrates a point, but of one who, like the men of the street, allows himself to be carried away by anger. Whereas, on the contrary, once the subject of the controversy had been set forth, he ought to have weighed it candidly, and to the best of his ability, to have brought forward what came to mind for the achievement of his purpose. But since the discourse that the Jew had with Jesus in Celsus ends here, we too shall put an end to the first book written against him. C And with God granting that truth which destroys false arguments, according to the prayer that says, "In thy truth destroy them," we shall begin in the following pages the second prosopopoeia, in which the Jew, as invented by him, addresses his speech to those who have believed in Jesus.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS, BOOK TWO
D 1. To the first book of those responses dictated by us against the "True Word" inscribed by Celsus—which ended at the prosopopoeia of the Jew addressed to Jesus and which has attained a sufficient length—we have decided to append this one, by which the accusations brought by the same man against those of the Jewish people who have believed in Jesus may be repelled. And first of all, we wonder at this: why did Celsus, when he had decided to invent persons, not bring the Jew to speak rather to those from the Gentiles who have embraced the faith, instead of to those from the Jews? For in this way the discourse composed against us would have appeared much more plausible. But perhaps he who claims to know everything did not know what to attribute to his invented persons in this place.
A What he says to those from among the Jews who believe must be considered. He says that they, having "left their ancestral law, because they were beguiled by Jesus, have been most ridiculously deceived, and have deserted to another name and another life," without noticing that those from among the Jews who believe in Jesus have not left the ancestral law; for they live according to it, having taken their name from the poverty of the law according to the interpretation. For "Ebion" is called "poor" (40) among the Jews; and those from among the Jews who have accepted Jesus as Christ are called Ebionites (41). And Peter also appears for a long time to have kept the Jewish customs according to the Law of Moses; as one who had not yet learned from Jesus to ascend from the law according to the letter B to the law according to the spirit—which we have learned from the Acts of the Apostles. For on the day after the angel of God was seen by Cornelius, he saw [a vision].
The first ones designated these as Ebionites, who dogmatize and glorify the things concerning Christ in a poor and humble way; for they held him to be plain and common, a man justified only through the progress of his character, born from the intercourse of a man with Mary; but they maintained that the legal worship was still absolutely necessary for them, as though they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and the life according to it. Others besides these, being of the same name, while avoiding C the absurd opinion of the former, do not deny that Christ was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit. Yet because they do not confess that he, being God the Word and Wisdom of the Father, pre-existed before all things, they have fallen into the same impiety as the former, especially since they were also zealous, like them, to observe the bodily worship regarding the law. D Those who were anciently surnamed Ebionites, inasmuch as they thought most humbly and abjectly of Christ—for they deemed him to be simply an ordinary man, and nothing other than a man who had become righteous through the progress of virtue; but that he was begotten from the intercourse of a man with Mary. Furthermore, they deemed the observance of the law to be altogether necessary, as if they could not obtain salvation through faith in Christ alone and the life led according to that faith. Others, called by the same name, shunning the absurd opinion of the former, do not indeed deny that Christ was begotten of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit; but the same ones, nevertheless, because they do not confess that Christ, as the Word of God and the Wisdom of the Father, pre-existed before all things, have fallen into the same impiety as the former; especially since, like them, they accurately observed the ceremonies of the Mosaic law.
B From this point begins his evil teaching, whence clearly the lawless Nazarenes were also foreshadowed. For this man associated himself with them, and they with him, and each imparted his own wickedness to the other. And though they differ from one another in some respects, they have smudged off upon each other in these evil notions.
A "To pray about the sixth hour. And he became hungry, and wanted to eat. But while they were preparing, a trance came upon him, and he beholds heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending like a great sheet, held by four corners [(43)] let down to the earth, in which were all the four-footed animals and creeping things 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 or unclean.' And a voice a second time to him: 'What God has cleansed [(44)], you must not call common.'"
Observe, then, in these passages, in what way it is represented that Peter was still keeping the Jewish customs regarding clean and unclean things. And from what follows, it is made clear that he needed a vision, in order that he might share the words of the faith with Cornelius, who was not a Jew according to the flesh, and with those who were with him, since he was still a Jew and living according to the traditions of the Jews, and looked down upon those outside of Judaism. And in the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul also indicates that Peter, still fearing the Jews, ceased to eat with the Gentiles when James had come to him, and "separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision"; and the rest of the Jews and Barnabas did the same thing with him. And it was consistent that those who had been sent to the Jews would not depart from Jewish customs, as "when those who seemed to be pillars gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, they themselves went into the circumcision," in order that the others might preach to the Gentiles. And what am I to say that those who preach to the circumcision withdrew themselves from the Gentiles and separated themselves? Since even Paul himself became a Jew to the Jews, that he might win the Jews. Therefore, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, he even offered a sacrifice at the altar, so that he might persuade the Jews that he was not a deserter of the Law. If Celsus had known all these things, he would not have maligned the believers from among the Jews, nor would the Jew fabricated C by him have addressed them as follows: "What madness drove you, citizens, that you should abandon the law of your fathers, and, lured by him whom we were just speaking about, should act so ridiculously as to pretend to be Christians?"
Until today, throughout all the synagogues of the East, there is a heresy among the Jews which is called that of the Mineans, and which is even now condemned by the Pharisees, whom they commonly call Nazarenes, who believe in Christ as the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and say that he is the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, in whom we also believe; but while they wish to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians. I believe also that they are called Ebionites by Origen for the reason that the Nazarenes have contracted some habit and familiarity with the Ebionites; hear Epiphanius, in his D *Heresies*: "From that source the worst of the preaching of the dogma took its beginning, from which we have taught that the impious Nazarenes also began." For both, having compared their tenets, communicated their impropriety and wickedness to one another. And although in some respects they differ greatly from each other, yet in devising the most depraved dogma they have expressed themselves through one another. And a little before: "For it (the heresy) has affected the impure superstition of the Samaritans. Furthermore, it received its name from the Jews; and from the Ossaeans, Nazarenes, and Nasaraeans it received its dogmas. Finally, it strives to usurp the form of the Cerinthians, the depravity of the Carpocratians, and the name of the Christians."
A [The Jew says] to those who from Judaism believe: "What has come over you, citizens, that you have abandoned the ancestral law, and, being led astray B by the one we have just discussed, have been most ridiculously deceived, and have deserted us for another name and another life?"
Since we have once arrived at the discussion concerning Peter and those who taught Christianity to those from the circumcision, I do not consider it inappropriate to quote a certain saying of Jesus from the Gospel according to John, and to provide an exposition of it. It is written that he said: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear C (45), that shall he speak." And we inquire in this place what were those "many things" that Jesus had to say to his disciples, which they were unable to bear at that time. And I say: Perhaps, because the apostles were Jews and were nurtured in the Mosaic law taken according to the letter, these were the things he had to say to them: what the true law was, and of what heavenly things the Jewish worship consisted in sign and shadow, and what future goods the law concerning food and drink (46) and feasts and new moons and Sabbaths foreshadowed. And there were many such things that he had to say to them. But seeing that it is very difficult to uproot from the soul dogmas that have been, so to speak, born and bred with one up to manhood, and having persuaded those who had received them that these were divine, to realize that it is impious to overturn them; and—in the excellence of the knowledge according to Christ, that is, according to the truth—to expose them as "dung" and loss, so as to persuade the hearers, he deferred this to a more opportune time, namely, after his passion and resurrection. For indeed, the aid, if offered at an inopportune time to those not yet able to contain it, would truly have been able to overturn the opinion they had already conceived in their minds concerning Jesus, that he was the Christ and the Son of the living God. And consider whether the interpretation of this passage is not correct: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." For there are many things in the law that must be expounded and explained by a spiritual sense; and at that time the apostles, born and reared among the Jews, could not in any way understand them. I believe indeed that since those Jewish rites were a type, but the truth was what the Holy Spirit was to teach them, for this reason it was said: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth"; as if he were saying, into all the truth of the things of which, while abiding in the types, you supposed you were offering 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 the creeping things of the earth and the fowls of the air: "Rise, Peter; kill, and eat." And it came to him while he was still laboring under superstition. For in response to the divine voice he answers: "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any—"
anything common or unclean." A And he taught the doctrine concerning true and spiritual foods in the words: "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." And following this vision, the Spirit of truth, guiding Peter into all truth, told him many things which he could not bear while Jesus was still with him in the flesh. But there will be another occasion to discuss these matters when we treat of those things that pertain to the literal sense of the Mosaic Law.
3. Now, however, it is proposed to refute the ignorance of Celsus, in whose work the Jew addresses his fellow countrymen and those Israelites who believe in Jesus, saying: B "What possessed you to abandon the law of your fathers?" and the rest. But how have those who rebuke those that do not hear the Law, and who say, "Tell me, you who read the Law, do you not hear the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons," up to the words, "which things are spoken by allegory," and what follows, abandoned the ancestral law? And how have those abandoned the ancestral law who are always mindful of their fathers' words in their own discourses, and who say: "Does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses: 'You shall not muzzle the ox that treads the grain.' Is it for oxen that God is concerned, or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes it was written," and so forth? And how confusedly the Jew in Celsus says these things, C when he could have spoken more convincingly, saying: "Some of you have abandoned the ancient rites under the pretext of interpretations and allegories; others, while interpreting as you like to say in a 'spiritual sense,' nonetheless observe the ancestral customs; others again, content with the literal sense and believing that the whole spiritual sense is contained therein, wish both for Jesus to be acknowledged as the one whom the prophets foretold, and for the Mosaic Law to be observed according to the institution of their ancestors, as having in its very letter the whole mind of the Spirit." But whence would Celsus have had such discernment in distinguishing these matters, since in the following sections he mentions godless heresies D that are entirely alien to Jesus, and even some that deny the supreme Creator altogether, yet knows nothing of those Israelites who believe in Jesus and have not abandoned the ancestral law? For it was not his purpose to investigate everything in this place with a sincere desire for truth, so that if he found something useful he might accept it; but as an enemy, intent entirely on destroying as soon as he heard, he wrote such things.
4. Then the Jew in his work says to those from the people who have believed: "Yesterday and the day before, when we were punishing him who was leading you astray, you departed..."
from the law of your fathers; and he knew nothing accurately A in what he said, as we have shown. After this, it seems to me that the following point has some force: "How is it that you begin with our sacred rites, and yet, as you advance, you despise them? You have no other beginning to speak of for your doctrine than our law." For it is true that the introduction to the way of life for Christians is from the sacred rites of Moses and the prophetic writings; and after the introduction, the progress for those who are being instructed lies in the discourse and in the understanding of these, while they seek the "mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest" B by the prophetic scriptures and the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. But it is not true, as you say, that those who advance despise the things written in the Law; rather, they accord them greater honor, demonstrating how great a depth of wise and hidden words those scriptures contain—things which were not perceived by the Jews, who encountered them in a more superficial and mythical way. And what is strange about the law being the beginning of our doctrine, that is, of the Gospel? For our Lord Jesus himself said to those who did not believe in him: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" Moreover, one of the evangelists, Mark, says: "The beginning of the Gospel of our Lord C Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you," showing that the beginning of the Gospel is derived from the Jewish scriptures. What then is said against us by the Jew in Celsus' work, in the passage: "For if anyone foretold to you that the Son of God would come among men, he was our prophet and the prophet of our God"? What reproach is it to Christianity if John, who baptized Jesus, 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 Gentiles or from the Jews, must observe the law of Moses according to the letter.
After this, even if Celsus repeats himself D regarding Jesus, saying for the second time that he suffered punishment among the Jews for his transgressions, we will not repeat our defense, being content with the one already given. Then, since he treats as stale the things concerning the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of God, and the reward for the righteous, and the fire for the unrighteous, the Jew in his account treats these with contempt; but...
and declaring that nothing new is taught to Christians in these matters, he thinks he is overthrowing Christianity. We must answer him that our Jesus, seeing that the Jews were performing nothing worthy of the instructions in the prophets, taught by a parable that the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to those from the nations. Wherefore it is truly possible now to see that all things of the Jews of the present time are myths and trifles; for they do not have the light of the knowledge of the Scriptures. But the truth belongs to the Christians, which is able to lift up and raise B the soul and mind of man, and to persuade them to have a citizenship not like that of the earthly, lower Jews, but one in the heavens; which is evident to those who behold the greatness of the thoughts in the Law and the prophets, and are able to set them forth to others.
Let it be the case even that all the customs concerning the Jews, including the sacrifices among them, were performed by Jesus; what does this contribute to the reason why one should not believe in him as the Son of God? Jesus, therefore, is the Son of the God who gave the Law and the prophets; and we who are in the Church do not violate the Law, but having spurned the myths of the Jews, we are corrected and instructed by investigating the secret meaning of the Law and the prophets. For indeed the prophets, as those who do not confine the sense of what they say C to simple history and to the words and letter of the Law, sometimes speak in this way, surely about to narrate histories: "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world"; and sometimes, as they pray concerning the Law because it is obscure and can be understood only with the help of God, they say in their prayer: "Open my eyes, and I will consider wonderful things out of thy Law."
7. Let them show where even a hint of a word spoken by Jesus in arrogance is found. For how could he be arrogant who says: "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls"? Or how is he arrogant who, after the supper had taken place, put off his garment before his disciples, and girded himself with a towel, and having poured D water into a basin, washed the feet of each one, and rebuked the one who refused to offer them, saying these words: "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me"? Or how is he arrogant who says: "I am in the midst of you, not as the one who reclines, but as the one who serves"? Let someone convict him of having stated anything false; and let him prove what his great lies were, and let him state what the great and the small lies are. There is also another way of refuting him. For a falsehood is not one more or less false than another, just as something true is not more or less true than something else. What then [alt-version omitted]
A are the impious acts of Jesus? Let the Jew of Celsus declare them, and especially them. Is it impious to depart from bodily circumcision, and the bodily Sabbath, and bodily feasts, and bodily new moons, and from the distinction between clean and unclean? And to transfer the mind to the law of God, which is worthy, true, and spiritual, while at the same time knowing that he who serves as an ambassador for Christ is to become a Jew to the Jews, that he might gain the Jews; and to those under the law, as under the law, that he might gain those who are under the law?
He says, "Many others might appear to those who wish to be deceived, such as Jesus was." Let the Jew of Celsus point out B not many, nor a few, but even one who has introduced to the human race a teaching and doctrines such as those of Jesus, accompanied by power in them, which are beneficial to life and turn one away from the dregs of sins. He says that this is a charge brought by those who believe in Christ against the Jews, because they have not believed in Jesus as God; and regarding this we have already defended ourselves above, showing at the same time how we conceive of Him as God, and in what sense we call Him man. "But how," he says, "did we, who announced to all men that there would come from God one who would punish the unjust, treat Him with indignity after He had come?" To reply to this C is entirely foolish, and does not seem to me to be reasonable. It is as if someone were to say, "How could we, who have taught self-control, have committed any act of licentiousness? Or, advocating justice, have acted unjustly?" For just as such inconsistencies are found among men, so it was a human thing that those who professed to believe in the prophets who spoke about the coming Christ should not have faith in Him who came in accordance with the prophecies. But if we must add another reason, we shall say that the prophets themselves predicted this same thing. Isaiah clearly says: "Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has waxed gross," and so forth. And let them tell us what it is that the Jews D are prophesied not to understand in what is said, and in what way they are not to see what is seen. But it is manifest that, seeing Jesus, they did not see who He was; and hearing Him, they did not understand from what was said the divinity that was in Him, which was transferring God's oversight of the Jews to those from the nations who believe in Him. Therefore, one can see that after the coming of Jesus, the Jews were altogether forsaken, and have nothing of the things that once seemed to them worthy of veneration; but even no sign of there being any divine
A presence among them. For there are no longer prophets, nor miracles; of which even traces continue to be found to some extent among the Christians, and some that are even greater; and if, as we say, we are believers, we ourselves have seen them. The Jew in Celsus says: "Why did we treat with ignominy the one whom we had previously announced? Was it that we might suffer greater punishments than others?" To this I answer that the Jews will indeed suffer greater punishments than others, both because of their unbelief in Christ and because of the other outrages they heaped upon him; nor will the punishment be deferred to the time of judgment, for which we hope; they have already suffered it. For what nation, except the Jews alone, has been expelled from its own principal city and from the place where its ancestral B worship had been peculiarly established? This they have suffered as the most vile of men, not so much because of their other crimes, which indeed were many, as because of what they dared to do against Jesus.
9. The Jew says later: "How were we to believe that this man was God, who, as was generally reported, performed none of the things which he had promised; and who, after being convicted by us, condemned, and judged worthy of punishment, sought hiding-places and fled most shamefully, being captured and betrayed by those very persons whom he called his disciples? Yet it was not appropriate for one who was God to flee and to be led away in bonds; and it was most unworthy of him who was believed to be a Savior, the Son of the greatest God, and an angel, to be abandoned and betrayed by those with whom he had lived, whom he had made privy to all his private affairs, and who used him as their master." To these C things I will reply that we do not consider that bodily form of Jesus which fell under the eyes and was subject to the senses to be God. And why do I say the body? We do not even consider the soul to be such, concerning which it was said: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt. xxvi, 38). But just as the one who says, "I am the Lord, the God of all flesh" (Jer. xxii, 27), and, "Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none" (Isa. xliii, 10), is believed even by the Jews to be God, using the soul and body of the prophet as an instrument, just as the Greeks also, regarding him who says this of himself: I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea, I understand the mute and hear the one who does not speak, judge him to be God, using the voice and ears of the Pythia; so also among us the Word, who is God and the Son of the God of all things, spoke in Jesus: "I am the way, the truth,
A and the life," and this: "I am the door," and this: "I am the living bread, which came down from heaven," and whatever else is like these. We charge the Jews, therefore, with not believing him to be God, though the prophets have frequently testified that he is a great power and God, second only to the God and Father of all things. For we say that in the creation described by Moses, the Father commanded and said: "Let there be light," and, "Let there be a firmament," and the rest of the things which God ordered to be created; and that to him he said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness," and that the Word, having been commanded, performed all that the Father had ordered him to do. And we say these things not as if led by conjecture, but relying on the very testimonies of the prophets—testimonies also accepted among the Jews—in which it is said concerning God and the things created by him in these very terms: "He spake, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created." For if God commanded B and the things created were made, who could he be, according to the mind of the prophetic Spirit, who was able to fulfill such a command of the Father, if not he who is the Word, and—if I may so call him—the animate Word and the truth?
That the one who says in Jesus, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," is not, as the Gospels also know, some circumscribed being—in such a way that he is not outside the soul and body of Jesus—can be gathered from many places; I shall bring forward only a few, as follows. John the Baptist, prophesying that the Son of God was soon to be manifest, and that he was not circumscribed by that body and that soul, but was present everywhere, says concerning him: "There stands in the midst of you whom you know not, he coming after me." If he had thought the Son of God was only there where the C visible body of Jesus was, how would he have said: "There stands in the midst of you whom you know not"? And Jesus himself, raising the mind of those who were being discipled by him to think greater things concerning the Son of God, says: "Where two D or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Such also is his promise to his disciples, when he says: "And behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." We say these things, however, not separating the Son of God from Jesus. For indeed, especially after the dispensation, he has become one with the soul and body of Jesus. For if anyone understands what it means to cleave to the Lord, and cleaves to him, he is one spirit with him, as Paul teaches in the words: "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
How much more divinely and more profoundly is that which was once compounded with the Word of God one with him! This very A power of God, being such as it was, manifested itself among the Jews through the miracles which it performed—miracles which Celsus indeed considers to have been sorcery, but which the Jews of that time, I know not from what source, attributed to Beelzebul, saying: "By Beelzebul the prince of the demons he casteth out demons." The Savior refuted them, arguing that in this way the kingdom of evil would not have reached its end—a matter which, for those who intelligently read the Gospel passage, will be clear, though this is not the place to expound upon it.
10. But what did Jesus promise that he did not perform? Let Celsus set it forth and prove it. But he will not be able to, especially since he brings forward what he says against Jesus or against us either from misunderstandings, or from improperly twisted passages of the Gospel, or from Jewish fables. But since he says again: "We judged him to be convicted, condemned, and worthy of punishment," let them show us of what crime he was convicted by those who strove to construct false witness against him, unless perhaps B the great proof against Jesus was that which the accusers stated: that he said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to raise it up in three days." For though he "spoke concerning the temple of his body," they, not understanding what the mind of the speaker was, thought it was said concerning the stone temple, which they held in greater honor than the true temple of the Word of God, of wisdom, and of truth, although it was this that particularly ought to have been honored. Let someone say how "Jesus most shamefully hid himself and sought to escape." And what did he do in this matter that could be turned into a reproach for him? But, he says, "he was captured." If capture implies an unwilling subject, then Jesus was not captured. For he allowed himself to come into the power of men at an opportune time, as the Lamb of God, that he might take away the sin of the world. "Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that were coming upon him, went forth and said to them: Whom seek ye? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. He saith to them: I am he. And Judas also, who betrayed him, was standing with them. As soon therefore as he said to them: I am he, they went backward C and fell to the ground. Again therefore he asked them: Whom seek ye? And they said again: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered them: I have told you that I am he; if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way." But also to the man who would
B help him, and who struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear, he said: "Put up thy sword into its place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Or thinkest thou (85) that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" If anyone thinks that these things are inventions of those who wrote the Gospels, why should not those things be inventions which were said out of the hatred and enmity felt against him and the Christians, while those things are true which were written by those who accepted the genuine disposition toward Jesus, in that they endured everything whatsoever for the sake of his words? For the disciples of Jesus undertook such great patience and perseverance even unto death, with a disposition that did not B invent things about their Master that were not true; and it is evident to fair-minded judges that they were convinced of what they wrote, from the fact that they endured so many and such great things for the sake of him whom they believed to be the Son of God.
11. Then, that he was betrayed by those whom he named disciples, the Jew in Celsus learned from the Gospels; by mentioning many disciples but naming only Judas, he sought to increase the accusation; but he did not examine all the things that are recorded about Judas; for Judas, falling into conflicting and opposing judgments about his Master, was neither wholly C in his soul against him, nor did he wholly keep for his Master the reverence due from a student. For he who betrayed him gave a sign to the crowd that had come to arrest him, saying: "Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast," thereby preserving some respect for him; for if he had not preserved it, he would have betrayed him openly, without the pretense of a kiss. This, then, will convince everyone concerning the disposition of Judas, that along with his love of money and his wicked (86) intention to betray his Master, there was something mixed into his soul that had been implanted there by the words of Jesus (87), holding a trace—if I may so call it—of goodness. For it is written that "Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying: I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood (88). And they said: What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed; and went and hanged himself." But if Judas, the lover of money D and thief...
A accustomed to put what was given for the poor into the money-box, moved by repentance, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, it is clear that the teachings of Jesus had the power to produce some kind of repentance in him, having not been altogether despised and rejected by the traitor. And also the statement, B "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood," serves to show that he was confessing his sin. See how inflamed and vehement was the grief that this repentance for his sins produced in him, so that he could not even endure to live longer, but, having cast the money into the temple, he withdrew, went away, and hanged himself. For he condemned himself, showing, as much as he was able—even in the case of the sinful Judas, the thief and traitor—the power of the teaching of Jesus, C for he was not able to despise entirely what he had learned from Jesus. Or will the followers of Celsus say that the things showing that Judas was not entirely apostate, even after the daring deeds committed against his Teacher, are fabrications, and the only true thing is that one of the disciples betrayed Him? And will they add to the written account that he betrayed Him with his whole soul? This is absurd, to make everything from his own writings serve as an enemy, both in believing and disbelieving. But if we must also bring forward a persuasive argument concerning Judas, we shall say that in the Book of Psalms the entire one hundred and eighth Psalm contains the prophecy concerning Judas, the beginning of which is: "O God, hold not thy peace at my praise; for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me" (Ps. CVIII, 1). D It is prophesied in it also that Judas separated himself from the number of the apostles because of his sin, and another was chosen into his place; and this is indicated in the verse: "And let another take his office" (Ps. CVIII, 8). But come now, suppose that He was betrayed by one of the disciples who was worse than Judas, and as it were cast away everything he had heard from Jesus: what does this contribute to the accusation against Jesus or the Christian religion? And how does this prove the doctrine to be false? We have already refuted what follows in the sections prior to this, showing that Jesus was not captured while fleeing, but willingly surrendered Himself for all of us; from which it follows that if He was bound, He was bound willingly—by which He taught us to endure these things willingly for the sake of piety.
12. Such things also seem to me to be childish: "A good general," he says, "and leader of many myriads is never betrayed; nor is even an arch-robber, leader of the most wicked men, if he seems at all useful to those who are with him. Jesus, however, betrayed by those who were subject to Him, neither acted as a good general, nor inspired in the disciples he had deceived by his cunning even such benevolence toward himself as robbers exhibit toward their own, if I may so call it, leader; for there are no lack of historical records...
A of instances where many commanders have been betrayed by their own soldiers, and leaders of robbers even by those who did not keep the pacts made among them. But let it be granted that no commander or leader of robbers was ever betrayed: what does this contribute toward arguing against Jesus because one of His disciples became His betrayer?
Since Celsus puts forward philosophy, I would fain ask him if it is a reproach to Plato that Aristotle, after hearing him for twenty years, departed from his doctrine, disparaged the account concerning the immortality of the soul, and termed the Ideas—those trifles of Plato—mere empty speculations? And further, if we inquire B further, we might say such things as: Was Plato then no longer capable in dialectic, or unable to set forth the things he had conceived, because Aristotle left him, and therefore Plato's dogmas are false? Or is it possible that even while Plato is in the truth, as those who philosophize according to him would say, Aristotle may have been wicked and ungrateful toward his teacher? But even Chrysippus in many places of his writings appears to attack Cleanthes, introducing innovations against the doctrines held by him, although he had been his teacher while he (Chrysippus) was still young and possessed only the rudiments of philosophy. Yet it is said that Aristotle attended Plato for twenty years, and Chrysippus spent no small time in studies with Cleanthes. But Judas spent not even three years with Jesus. From what is written in the lives of the philosophers, one could find many such things as those for which Celsus reproaches Jesus on account of Judas.
The Pythagoreans used to build cenotaphs C for those who, after having been converted to philosophy, returned to the private life; and not on account of this was Pythagoras or his followers weak in reason or proof. They say, indeed, that Hipparchus the Pythagorean was accused of having written down the decrees of Pythagoras clearly, and for that reason was expelled from the school, and a pillar was set up over him as though he were dead. Wherefore even in the philosophy of the barbarians, they call "dead" those who have fallen away from the doctrines and have subjected their mind to the passions of the soul. For they would set up a certain pillar and monument for such a person in the school; just as it is said to have happened to Perialus the Thurian, and to Cylon, the leader of the Sybarites, who, being condemned by them, were driven from the assembly, laden with abundance of gold and silver. D Moreover, someone might speak regarding those things which happened to Jesus and claim they are true, and indeed speak the truth concerning the events of Jesus, and not...
speak in a manner similar to what has been written by the disciples of Jesus; he says that he willingly passes over those things. What then are the truths, and such as are not what has been written in the Gospels, which the Jew of Celsus passes over? Or, having made use of a rhetorical skill that commands respect, does he pretend that he has something to say, yet has nothing B outside of the Gospel to bring forth that could strike the hearer as true, and as something clearly accusing Jesus and his teaching? He further blames the disciples, as having fabricated the claim that he knew and had predicted everything that would happen to him. But we shall demonstrate that this is true, even if Celsus should not wish it. For many are the predictions that Christ delivered concerning things which have come to pass even in the generations of Christians that followed later. And indeed, who would not marvel at that which was predicted: "And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations"; and whatever else he predicted concerning his disciples being persecuted? For on account of what doctrine among those that have existed among men are others punished, so that anyone of those who accuse Jesus could say that, seeing his impious or false dogmas being accused, he thought it would be to his own credit to predict this about himself? For if it were necessary for certain persons to be dragged before kings and governors on account of their doctrine, whom else would it have been necessary to drag there than the Epicureans C who eradicate providence from the midst? Or whom else than the Peripatetics, who say that prayers and the sacrifices offered to the Divinity avail nothing? But perhaps someone will say that even Samaritans are punished on account of their own religion. I reply that the Sicarii are condemned to death for... D first place it should have been placed, the care of divine matters, which they call the priesthood. The same, cap. 9: "It remains from those whom we have enumerated above, the class of priests. And the description and arrangement of these is not obscure. For neither a farmer, nor an illiberal and sordid artisan should be appointed as priest. For it is fitting that the gods be worshipped by the citizens. But since the civil multitude is divided into two parts, that is, the heavy-armed soldiers and the senators, and it is fitting both to pay worship to the immortal gods, and to grant those who are worn out by age and the length of time the license to rest; to these it seems that the priesthoods should be granted." He does not allow them to pray for themselves because they do not know what is useful for them. "Thirdly, that even after the ascension of Jesus to heaven, demons were brought forward by some men claiming themselves to be gods; who not only were not pursued..."
B by you, but were thought worthy of honors. Simon, for instance, a certain Samaritan, etc." Afterward, Justin implored the aid of Caesar against them to restrain them in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, pg. 5: "And I said these things, that I would not, for the sake of anyone or anything, speak anything but the truth, and I do not intend to be intimidated by anyone, even if I must immediately be torn apart by you. For I have not had any concern or regard for my own people—I mean the Samaritans—in writing to Caesar; but I said that they are led astray by believing in the magician among their own people, Simon, whom they declare to be a god above every principality, and power, and virtue."
A being put to death. To whom we shall reply thus: The Sicarii B are executed for the sake of circumcision, as they mutilate themselves contrary to the established laws and that which is permitted to the Jews alone. And it is not possible to hear a judge inquiring whether, if the Sicarius who is struggling to live according to this supposed piety were to change his mind, he would be released, or if he persists, he will be led away to death. But it is sufficient that the circumcision has been shown to be the cause of the destruction of the one who underwent it. Whereas, Christians alone (according to the words spoken by their Savior, saying: "You shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake") are permitted by judges, even until their final breath, if they abjure Christianity and sacrifice according to common customs, and swear, to return home and live without danger. But observe whether it is not stated with great authority: "Everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but everyone who denies B me before men," and what follows. And ascend with me in your thought to Jesus, who says these things, and consider the things foretold that had not yet occurred; unless, perhaps, you will say that, while denying faith in him, he speaks such trifles in vain, and speaks for nothing—for the things mentioned will not come to pass—yet you are doubtful regarding whether or not to assent to his words, saying: If their outcome proves these things, the doctrine of Jesus will be firmly established, and kings and D presidents will be concerned to destroy those who confess Jesus. But then you will believe, as one having received great authority from
God to sow this message among the human race, and believing that he would prevail, he says these things. For who would not feel awe, when ascending in his mind to him who was teaching at that time and saying, A “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations,” and when observing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has indeed been preached, as he said, under heaven to Greeks and barbarians, to wise and foolish? For the Word, preached with power, has overcome every human nature; and there is no race of men to be found that has avoided accepting the teaching of Jesus.
But let that Jew of Celsus who does not believe that Jesus foreknew the things that were to happen to him, consider how, while Jerusalem was still standing and all the Jewish worship was being performed in it, Jesus foretold the evils that would befall that city at the hands of the Romans. For it cannot be said that the acquaintances and hearers of Jesus handed down the teaching described in the Gospels without writing, or that they left their disciples no records in writing from which they might learn the things done by him. But in these writings it is read: B “When you see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” Yet at that time there were no armies compassing, surrounding, and besieging Jerusalem. For this began while Nero was reigning and lasted until the principate of Vespasian, whose son Titus leveled Jerusalem to the ground—which Josephus narrates happened because of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ; but as the truth itself cries out, because of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.
14. Moreover, Celsus could, even if he accepted or allowed that Christ had foreseen the things that were to come upon him, have feigned contempt for this fact, just as he did regarding the miracles, by claiming they were mere trickery; he could have said that many people, by means of divinations—whether by omens, or birds, or the examination of entrails, or by observing one’s birth-day—have divined what was to happen to them. C But he did not wish to concede this, as it is a greater thing; yet, by having in a way accepted that the miracles were performed, he seems to have disparaged even that under the pretext of sorcery. Phlegon, however, in his thirteenth or fourteenth (I think) book, D consists of sixteen books, containing the history of two hundred and twenty-nine Olympiads; the last of these ended in the fourth year of Antoninus Pius.
A the Chronicles, and gave to Christ the foreknowledge of certain future events, being confused in the matters concerning Peter as if they were concerning Jesus. And he testified that what was said happened according to what was foretold by him. However, even he, through those things concerning foreknowledge, unwillingly declared that the Word among the patriarchs of the doctrines was not, as it were, empty of a diviner power.
Celsus says that "even the disciples of Jesus, having nothing to object in a clear matter, devised this, namely, to say that he had foreknown everything." He did not pause—or did not wish B to pause—to consider the love of truth of those who wrote and confessed that Jesus had said to the disciples: "All of you will be scandalized in me this night," and that they had truly been scandalized; and that he had also prophesied to Peter that "Before a cock crows, you will deny me three times," and that Peter did deny him three times. For if they were not lovers of truth, but (as Celsus thinks) were writers of fictions, they would not have written that Peter denied him, or that the disciples of Jesus were scandalized. For who, if these things had even happened, would have tested the account that it so came to pass? And yet, in the nature of things, those who wished to teach the readers of the Gospels to despise death for the sake of the confession of Christianity ought to have kept silence about these things. But now, seeing C that the Word will prevail by its power over men, they set even these things down—though I do not know how they could harm the readers, or provide a pretext for denial.
He says quite sillily, "That the disciples wrote such things about Jesus as a pretext for the things concerning him; just as, he says, if one, while saying that a man is just, shows him doing unjust acts; and while saying he is holy, shows him committing murder; and while saying he is immortal, shows him dead; adding to all these that he had happened to say them beforehand." For his analogy is here inapplicable, since there is nothing absurd in the fact that one who had taken D upon himself to record things that occurred at a particular time. Indeed, I wish the whole of the Chronicle were extant: for much light would undoubtedly accrue from it to the times of the primitive Church; and we think this all the more correct, because among other testimonies of his industry, he also mentions that eclipse which occurred in the time of the Lord's passion, as Vossius says in the same place. But he says that Christ foreknew future events: is it because he predicted the destruction of Jerusalem or other calamities of that kind? Since the books of that author are lost, this would be a matter of conjecture. Concerning the eclipse of the sun, which happened at that time when the Jews crucified Jesus, the testimony exists in the most copious form in the Chronicle of Eusebius, under the year 2040: "Jesus Christ, according to the prophecies that had been spoken concerning him, came to his passion in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, at which time we also find these things written word for word in other pagan commentaries: A defect of the sun occurred; Bithynia was shaken by an earthquake, and many buildings in the city of Nicaea collapsed." All of which things agree with what happened during the Savior's passion. But Phlegon writes about these things too, who is an excellent calculator of the Olympiads, in the thirteenth book, saying: "In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, a great and excellent eclipse of the sun, greater than any that had happened before it, took place. The day became so dark at the sixth hour that stars were seen in the sky, and an earthquake in Bithynia overturned many buildings in the city of Nicaea." And Phlegon indeed wrote in his Chronicles that it happened in the principate of Tiberius Caesar; but he did not indicate that it happened at the full moon.
A Since it is not absurd that he who had set himself up to propose to men an example of how one ought to live, should also have taught how one ought to die for the sake of piety—to say nothing for the moment of the fact that the death of Jesus for the sake of men has brought the greatest fruits to the universe, as has been demonstrated in the previous book—he furthermore thinks that the confession of the passion does not dissolve the accusation, but confirms it. He does not know, in fact, how wisely Paul has written concerning that passion, nor how many things have been predicted about it by the prophets. It also escapes him that a certain heretic said that Jesus only appeared to suffer, and did not suffer in reality. For if he had known all these things, he would not have said: "For you do not say that he appeared to impious men to suffer, not having suffered in reality; but you confess that he openly suffered." B It is far from our intention to say that Christ suffered only in appearance, lest that which is true, the resurrection, should be false. For he who truly died, if he rose again, truly rose again; but he who only seemed to die did not truly rise. But since the unbelievers mock the things we believe concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is useful to adduce Plato. He reports the story of Er, the son of Armenius 15, who, having risen from the pyre after twelve days, reported the things concerning those in Hades; and as to the unbelievers, even the things concerning the soul in Heraclides 16 will not be entirely... C But, I said, I will not tell you the story of Alcinus, but that of a most brave and excellent man, Er the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian. He once died in war, and when, on the tenth day, the dead were gathered up, already decayed, he was found whole and was taken up; and when he was brought home, intending to be buried, on the twelfth day after his death, as he was being laid upon the pyre, he came to life. Having come to life, he told what he had seen there. He said that after his soul had departed from his body, he went with many, and they arrived at a certain divine place, in which there were two chasms of the earth near each other, and two others also in the heaven above, directly opposite. Between these, judges sat; who, when they had given judgment, ordered the just to proceed to the right and upward through the heaven, having attached signs of their judgments in front of them; but the unjust to the left and downward, having these also in the back, signs of all things that they had done. When he himself approached, he said that it was required of him to become a messenger to men of the things there, and they commanded him to hear and observe all things that were in that place... D ...a great gap has been fixed; wild men, fiery to behold, appear; and bound of body, casting them down to the ground, they bend [them]; they order the just to proceed to the right and upward, but the unjust to the left and downward.
useless where they are. 17 And many are recounted who have returned from their tombs, not only on the very day, but even on the following. What is surprising, then, if He who accomplished many things paradoxically, and beyond the nature of man, and even so related that he had remembered what he had seen in the underworld. Nor, in this place, would it be useless to A remind the incredulous of what Heraclides relates of the son of the Armenian, whom he brought back from the funeral pyre after twelve days.
B Hence one will come to wonder why, among others, Grotius and Origen, men of the highest erudition, have used these and similar examples of no weight—by which they could neither confirm the mystery of the resurrection, nor move the pagans from that opinion they had conceived concerning matters of faith, nor refute heretics, nor steady the doubtful and wavering. Even they, from whose writings we have drawn these examples of deep stupor, never dreamed of any special influx of the Divine, or of any power more than human which might now summon back the spirit serving the body, or now restore it to its seat, weary of exile. Hear Pliny, book VII of the *Natural History*, chapter 52: "A boy, exhausted by the heat and the journey, slept in a cave for fifty-seven years, wondering at the change in the appearance of things as if he had awoken on the following day; from here, with an equal number of days, old age encroached, so that he nevertheless lasted to the one hundred and fifty-seventh year of his life." The female sex seems most prone to this malady through the turning of the womb, which, if corrected, the spirit is restored. To this pertains that noble [example], etc. See Galen in the cited place; Suidas on Heraclides; Laertius on Empedocles. Whether, therefore, it was from a magical operation or from skill in preparing medicines that it was brought about that the body should be preserved for a space of thirty days, you will argue most ineptly from either head. For one would confess, who has happened to read the books of either the physicians or the historians, that the soul is sometimes compelled by the intemperance of the body to call back its powers within; sometimes it migrates from the body by the power of magic, to serve the fraud of demons. But no one, from this common operation of diseases and magicians, would attempt to prove the mystery of the resurrection, which presupposes a separation of body and soul, whether effected by force or by the laws of nature. Even they who have reported to us concerning such swoons and unusual incarcerations of souls believed them to be enclosed in the body, constricted by the arteries and the heart, and that the heat of the body generated such faith; for the heat, moderate in leaking here and there through the pores, argued that the same was conglobated within. You will agree with me if you run through Philostratus, book four, chapter sixteen, *On the Life of Apollonius*: "And another miracle of Apollonius was done: A certain girl, at the very time of her wedding, seemed to die, whom, placed upon a bier, the grieving bridegroom followed, complaining much and grieving heavily about the imperfect nuptials; Rome also lamented together with him. The girl, however, was of a consular house. To this funeral, therefore, Apollonius occurring, 'Set down the bier,' he said. 'For I will soothe your tears for the girl.' And at the same time he asked what the girl's name was. Most, therefore, thought that he was about to deliver an oration, of the kind that are funeral discourses and rouse lamentations; but he, touching nothing but her, and whispering something secretly, awakened the girl from her apparent death. And the girl let out a voice, and returned to her father's house, just as Alcestis once restored to life by Hercules. And when the girl's relatives offered him one hundred and fifty thousand drachmas, he said he would give them to the child as an addition to her dowry. Whether, however, he found in her a spark of the soul which had escaped the ministers and physicians, or whether the rain by chance falling and warming the soul, already dispersed and nearly extinguished, gathered it together, is difficult to conjecture, not only for me, but also for those who were present to see the affair." Philostratus, as you see, seems to ascribe the return to life of the new bride to the falling rain, which warmed and excited the exhausted and nearly lost powers of heat, rather than to the magic of that man. Nor ineptly: since Galen, in this place which I have cited, says that it was the custom among physicians to place a glass full of water on the bellies of women laboring under this disease, by the motion or stillness of which they adjudged them to be either alive or inanimate. See Eusebius against Hierocles, in the refutation of the fourth book. SPENCER.
A manifest, as being unable to look back at the things that had happened, to despise them by sharing them with sorceries; and he also had something more concerning his own end, in order that, if the soul left the body willingly, having 19 arranged something outside of it, it might return again whenever it wishes? Such a word as this is recorded in John as having been spoken by Jesus: B "No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and again I have authority to take it up." And perhaps for this reason he preceded 21 him in departing from the body, that he might preserve it, and that his legs might not be broken, like those of the robbers who were crucified with him. "For indeed the soldiers broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he had breathed his last, they did not break his legs." We said, therefore, regarding this: "Whence then is it credible what was said before?" And as to the question, "Whence is the dead man immortal?" let him who wishes learn that it is not the dead man who is immortal, but he who has risen from the dead. Not only, therefore, was the dead man not immortal, but not even Jesus, who was composite, was immortal before he was dead, since he was about to die. For no one who is about to die is immortal; but he is immortal when 22 he is no longer about to die. "But Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him," even if those who cannot grasp in what sense these things were said resist.
C But it is very foolish to say: "What god, or demon, or prudent man, who foresaw that such things were about to befall him, would not, if he were able, evade them, but would instead fall into those things he already knew?" And Socrates, at any rate, knew that if he drank the hemlock he would die, and he could, if he had listened to Crito, have escaped from the prison and so have removed himself from the danger of death; but he preferred, as seemed reasonable to him, to suffer a death worthy of a philosopher rather than lead a life unworthy of a philosopher. But also Leonidas 25, the general of the Lacedaemonians, knowing that he was about to die immediately with those with whom he was prepared to fight at Thermopylae, did not strive to live ingloriously; but he said to those with him: "Let us eat breakfast, as if we are to dine in Hades." D Those who care to collect such histories will find many more. And what is to be wondered at if Jesus, knowing the things that were about to happen, did not evade them, but fell into the things which he already knew were to come, where also
A Paul, his disciple, when he had heard what he was to suffer if he went up to Jerusalem, committed himself to the danger, rebuking those who were weeping over his fate and hindering him from going up to Jerusalem? And many of our own people, knowing that if they confessed Christianity they would die, but if they denied it they would be released and recover their possessions, have nevertheless despised life and willingly chosen death for the sake of piety.
Next to this, the Jew in Celsus says another silly thing: B "If he had predicted both the one who was to betray him and the one who was to deny him, why did they not fear him as God, so that one would not betray him, and the other would not deny him?" The most wise Celsus did not see the contradiction in his own statement here: if, as God, he foreknew them, and it was not possible for his foreknowledge to be falsified, it was not possible that either the one known to be a betrayer should not betray, or the one caught being about to deny should not deny. But if it were possible for the one not to betray and the other not to deny, so that it might even come to pass that they would not betray or deny, C even though they had been warned of these things, then he who said "this one will betray, and this one will deny" was no longer truthful. For if he foreknew the betrayer, he knew the wickedness from which he would betray, which was not altogether abolished by the foreknowledge. Again, if he understood the one who would deny, by seeing the weakness from which he would deny, he predicted that he would deny; but that weakness was not going to be immediately overturned by the foreknowledge. But where does the phrase "But they themselves betrayed and denied, having no concern for him" come from? For it has been shown D that it is false to say of the one who betrayed that he had no concern for his teacher; and it is shown to be no less false concerning the one who denied, who, having gone out after he had denied, wept bitterly.
The following remark is also superficial: "For even now, if a man foresees that he is being plotted against, and warns those who are plotting, they are turned away and take care." For many have plotted against those who even foresaw that they were being plotted against. Next, as if bringing a conclusion to his argument, he says: "Therefore, it is not because these things were predicted that they happened; for that is impossible. But because they happened, it is proven to be false that they were predicted; for it is utterly impossible that those who had been warned should still betray and deny." But given that his previous premises have been overturned, this conclusion is also overturned: "Therefore it is not because they were predicted that they happened." We say that they did indeed happen, as was possible; and since they happened, it is proven that the prediction was true; for the truth concerning future events is judged by their outcomes. Therefore, that which he says, that what was said is proven to be false, is itself false.
A And it is said in vain by Celsus that, "It is entirely impossible for those who have heard beforehand to betray or to deny."
20. A Let us hear, then, what he says afterward: "God, he says, being who He is, foretold it, and it was absolutely necessary that what was foretold should come to pass. God, therefore, led His own disciples and prophets, with whom He ate and drank, to this point, so that they became impious and unholy, He whom it behooved to benefit all men, and especially those who sat at table with Him. Never has a man who shared a table with another plotted against him; but one who sat at table with God became a plotter. And what is more absurd, God Himself plotted against His own table-companions, making them traitors and impious."
B To these things, since you desire that I should answer even the seemingly trivial thrusts of Celsus, I shall say such things as these. Celsus thinks that because something is foretold, it happens for that reason, because it was foretold; but we, not granting this, say that he who foretells is not the cause of the future event simply because he foretold that it would come to pass, but rather that the event, which was to be (even if it had not been foretold), offered the cause to Him who foreknows it to foretell it. And this whole matter rests in the foreknowledge of Him who foretells; for since this or that thing is possible to happen, and also possible not to happen, one or the other of these will come to pass. And what we say is that the foreknower, when he removes the possibility of a thing existing and not existing, says something like this: "This will absolutely happen, and it is impossible for it to happen otherwise."
C And such a concept reaches to all foreknowledge concerning that which is "up to us," whether according to the divine Scriptures or according to the histories of the Greeks. And the argument which is called among the dialecticians the "lazy argument," a sophism that it is, will not be a sophism as far as Celsus is concerned, but according to sound reason it is a sophism. But that such a thing may be understood, I shall use as an example from the Scripture the prophecies concerning Judas, or the foreknowledge of our Savior concerning him as one who would betray Him; and from the Greek histories, the oracle given to Laius, allowing for the present that it is possible for things to happen or not to happen.
D For if the Word of God foretells that certain angels and men will certainly be tormented because He foreknew that they would unchangeably be wicked, He foretold these things. "By the will of One God, through one Lord, He gathers those who are already ordained, whom God foreordained, having known before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous." Origen, in his explanation of chapter 7 of Romans: "For even if we think with common understanding concerning foreknowledge, it will not be that something is because God knows it as future; but rather, because it is future, it is known by God before it comes to pass. For even if, for example, we imagine that God does not foreknow something as future, it will undoubtedly come to pass; just as, for instance, Judas became a traitor, and the prophets foretold that it would be so; therefore, not because the prophets foretold it did Judas betray; but because he was to be a traitor, the prophets foretold the things which he was to do out of the wickedness of his own intent; when Judas certainly had it in his power to be like Peter and John, if he had willed; but he chose the love of money rather than the glory of the apostolic fellowship; and the prophets, foreseeing this future will of his, handed it down in their books."
A Since it does not grieve the argument, let us consider the case of Judas [(36)] in the one hundred and eighth Psalm, which is spoken in the person of the Savior, and which begins: "O God, hold not thy peace at my praise; for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me." And if you observe what is written in that Psalm, you will find that, just as it was foreknown that he would betray the Savior, so he was also the cause of his own betrayal, and deserved the curses mentioned against him in the prophecy because of his own wickedness. For it says: "Let these things happen to him, because he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man." Therefore, he could have remembered to show mercy and not have persecuted whom he did persecute. But though he was able, he did not do so; instead, he betrayed; and thus he was worthy of the curses mentioned against him in the prophecy.
And against the Greeks, we shall also use the argument mentioned regarding Laius [(38)], whether we use those very words or those which the tragic poet wrote with the same meaning. It is said to him, then, by the one who foreknew what was to come:
Ne serito sulcum liberum invitis diis: B Nam si genueris filium, te morti dabit, Et tua refuso sanguine undabit domus.
From this it is made clear that it was possible for Laius not to sow the furrow of children; for the oracle would not have commanded him something that was not in his power. It was possible also to sow, and neither of these was forced upon him. But it happened that he who did not [(40)] beware of sowing the furrow of children suffered the tragic consequences related regarding Oedipus and Jocasta and their sons.
But there is also what is called the "idle argument," which is a sophism of this kind, applied in a hypothetical case to one who is sick, and as a sophism it seeks to deter [(41)] him from using a physician to recover his health. The argument goes like this: If it is fated [(42)] for you to recover from this illness, whether or not you call in a physician, you will recover. C And if it is not fated for you to recover from this illness, whether or not you call in a physician, you will not recover. And in either case, it is useless to call in a physician. D As Cicero says in his book *On Fate*: "If it is fated for you to recover from this illness, whether or not you call in a physician, you will recover. Likewise, if it is not fated for you to recover from this illness, whether or not you call in a physician, you will not recover, and either one is the case: therefore, calling in a physician is of no use." Then he adds: "Rightly has this kind of interrogation been called idle and inert, because by the same reasoning, all action will be taken away from life." And a little later: "This reasoning is refuted by Chrysippus. For some things are simple, others are coupled. It is simple that Socrates will die on such a day. For him, whether he has done anything or has not done anything, the day of dying is fixed. But if it is fated that Oedipus will be born to Laius, it cannot be said: whether Laius has been with a woman or has not been; for the matter is coupled and 'confatal.' For he calls it that, because it is fated both that Laius will have intercourse with his wife and that he will beget Oedipus from her," etc.
A If it is fated for you not to recover from this illness, whether you call the physician or do not call him, you will not recover. But if it is fated for you to recover from this illness, or fated for you not to recover, then you summon the physician in vain. But something of this sort may be wittily contrasted with this argument: If it is fated for you to beget children, whether you sleep with your wife or not, you will beget children. But also, if it is fated for you not to beget children, whether you sleep with your wife or not, you will not beget children. If, however, it is fated for you either to beget or not to beget children, then you sleep with your wife in vain. For just as in this case, since it is impossible and impracticable for one who does not sleep with a woman to beget children, the sleeping with a woman is not taken up in vain; so too, if the recovery from an illness comes about by the way of medicine, the physician is necessarily taken up; and the statement, "You summon the physician in vain," is false. We have brought all these things forward because of that which the most wise Celsus had said: "What God predicted, it was absolutely necessary that it should happen." For if he used the word "absolutely" to mean "necessarily," I do not agree; for it could have not happened. But if with him the word "absolutely" means the same as "will be," which nothing prevents from being true, even if it could also not happen, his argument does nothing against us. Nor does it follow from the fact that Jesus predicted that he would be betrayed by another, or denied by another, that He was the cause of their impiety and nefarious deed. For He who according to us knew what was in man, seeing his wicked character and perceiving whither his cupidity and his unsteady opinion concerning his teacher were going to drive him, said among other things: "He who dips his hand with me in the dish, he will betray me." B
C 21. Now see how vain and how manifestly false is this statement of Celsus, when he declares: "Never would someone who has been a partaker of a man's table plot against him. But if this is so, how much less would one plot against God, who reclined at the same table with God?" For who does not know that there have been many who have plotted against those with whom they shared even salt and table? The history of Greeks and barbarians is full of such examples. This is the very crime which the Parian iambic poet D charged against Lycambes, after he had betrothed his daughter to Archilochus but later repented of the deed and gave her to another.
A He censures him for violating a treaty that salt and a table had reconciled; for thus he sings:
"Broken for you are the laws of the table and the salt."
Those who care for historical learning, and who become entirely devoted to it, yet neglect the studies that are more necessary to know—namely, how one ought to live—will produce many examples by which it is evident that there have been many who laid snares against those of whose table they had partaken. B Then, as though he had gathered his argument with fitting proofs and logical connections, he said: "And, what is still more absurd, God himself lays snares for his own table-companions, and makes them traitors and impious." For by what reasoning could he prove that Jesus either meditated treachery or made his disciples traitors and impious? Someone might perhaps say that this follows from what preceded; but there is no one, even of common intelligence, who would not easily refute it.
After this, he says: "If these things were resolved upon by him, and he was being punished while obeying the Father, it is clear that for one who is God, and who wills it, the things that occurred according to choice were neither painful nor grievous [(49)]." C And he has not perceived that he is contradicting himself. For if he conceded that he was being punished because these things had been resolved upon by him, and he presented himself as obeying the Father, it is clear that he was being punished, and it was impossible for the things brought upon him by the executioners not to be painful [(50)], for pain is an involuntary thing. But if to one who wills it the things being brought upon him were neither painful nor grievous, how did he grant that he was being punished? And he has not perceived that, having once taken up the body that comes through birth, he took it up as being also capable of suffering pains and the grievous things that befall those in the body, if we do not understand "the grievous" as something voluntary [(52)]. D Just as, therefore, he took up a body that was not of a nature entirely other than human flesh, so he also took up along with the body its painful and grievous aspects, which it was not within his power not to experience, it being up to those who were acting to bring the grievous and painful things upon him. But we have already defended ourselves in the preceding pages, saying that if he had wished not to fall into the hands of men, he would not have come. Yet he did come, because he wished to, for the reason previously stated, that his dying for mankind was useful to the whole of creation.
In what follows these points, wishing to demonstrate that the things that befell him were painful and grievous, and that it was not possible for him, even if he had wished it, to make them not be such, he says: "What then, does he lament and wail, and the…"
fear of destruction he prays to escape, saying thus: 'O Father, if this cup can pass away'?" A And in these things observe also the malice of Celsus, that, not having accepted the truth-loving nature of those who recorded the Gospels—who, though they could have passed over in silence things which, as Celsus thinks, offer an opportunity for accusation, yet did not pass them over in silence for many reasons, which someone will duly set forth when expounding the Gospel—he brings charges against the evangelical wording, exaggerating and putting forward things that are not recorded; for it is not found that Jesus laments. And he paraphrases indeed the saying, "O Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away," but he no longer sets forth that which immediately follows this B and which reveals from the very start his piety toward the Father and his magnanimity, which is written right after it, running thus: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." But neither does he pretend to have read the obedience of Jesus toward the will of the Father concerning the things he was decided to suffer, which is manifested in the words, "If this cup cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done," doing something similar to the impious who listen to the divine Scriptures with a wicked mind and "speak wickedness on high." For those people seem to have heard, "I will kill," and they often reproach us with this; but of "I will make to live," they do not even make mention, even though the whole statement signifies that those who live in public destruction and stain themselves with sins are killed by God, but that a better life is introduced in their place, such as is the life which God bestows upon those who have died to sin. Thus, too, those people have heard, "I will strike," but they no longer look at the words, "and I will heal," because it is similar to what is said by a physician who makes incisions in bodies and causes grievous wounds, for the sake of removing the things that are harmful and hindering to health, and who does not stop at the pains and the cutting, but restores by his treatment the body to the health proposed for it. But they have not even heard the whole of the passage, "For he himself causes pain and again restores," but only, "He causes pain." C So, therefore, the Jew set forth by Celsus indeed mentions, "O Father, would that this cup could pass away!" but he is silent about the rest, from which it is known with what mind and with what constancy Jesus endured his passion. In scrutinizing these things, I could say much about the wisdom of God, which would suitably be imparted to those whom Paul calls perfect, when he says, "We speak wisdom among the perfect"; but having deferred these to another time, I shall be content to say in a few words what will seem useful for the present purpose.
25. We were saying also in the preceding pages that some utterances are of the one who was in Jesus, the "firstborn of all creation," such as, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," and those similar to these; but others are of the man understood in him, of which kind is this: "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth which I heard from the Father."
A Here, therefore, He describes in His human nature both the infirmity of human flesh and the readiness of the spirit: the infirmity, in the words, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"; the readiness of the spirit, in the words, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." And if one must observe the order of what is said, notice that the statement which pertains—so to speak—to the infirmity of the flesh is mentioned first, and it is a single statement; but those that represent the readiness of the spirit are subsequent and more numerous. For the one is, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"; but the more numerous ones are, "Not as I will, but as You will," and this: "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done." It should also be noted that He did not say, "Let this cup pass from me," but rather it was said piously and with a qualification: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." I know of another interpretation of this passage that runs as follows: that the Savior, seeing what the people and Jerusalem would suffer in retribution for the outrages they had dared to commit against Him, and desiring—for the sake of His love for them—that the people should not suffer what they were about to suffer, says, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." It is as if He had said: "Since, if I drink this cup of punishment, the whole nation will be abandoned by You, I pray that this cup might pass from me, if it be possible, so that Your portion, having dared to sin against Me, might not be utterly abandoned by You." But if, as Celsus says, no distress or pain was felt by Jesus at that time, how could those who followed afterwards have used Jesus as an example for enduring hardships for the sake of piety, if He had not suffered human things, but only appeared to suffer them?
C Furthermore, the Jew in Celsus says to the disciples of Jesus, as if they had fabricated these things: "Even when lying, you were unable to cover your fabrications in a plausible way." And to this it shall be said that the easiest road to cover such things would have been not to record them at all. For who, if the Gospels did not contain these things, could have reproached us regarding Jesus having spoken such things within the economy D of salvation? But Celsus does not understand that it is impossible for the same persons to be deceived about Jesus as being God and foretold by the prophets, and also to fabricate things about Him while knowing that the fabrications were not true. Either, therefore, they did not fabricate them, but believed them to be so, and wrote them down without any deceit; or they wrote them down while lying, and did not believe them, nor were they deceived into thinking Him to be God.
27. Subsequently, he says that some of the believers, “as if A intoxicated,” alter the first version of the Gospel three, four, or many ways, and reshape it, so that they may have a defense against refutations. I do not know of any others who have altered the Gospel, except the followers of Marcion, Valentinus, and perhaps also those of Lucanus. But this statement is not a charge against the Word, but against those who have dared to tinker with the Gospels. And just as sophists, Epicureans, or Peripatetics, or whoever the purveyors of false opinions might be, are not a charge against philosophy, so those who alter the Gospels and introduce sects foreign to the intent of Jesus’ teaching are not a charge against true Christianity.
28. Since, afterwards, the Jew in Celsus also reproaches the Christians because they use prophets who predicted the things pertaining to Jesus, I shall add to the points already discussed on this matter that he, who claims to spare men B by bringing forth the prophecies themselves, ought also—conceding that the interpretations which Christians apply to them are plausible—to have nonetheless adduced those points which seemed to him to overturn the use of the prophecies. Thus at least he would not have appeared to be seizing for himself a subject of such great weight by means of a few words, especially as he says, “that the prophecies of the prophets can be applied to six hundred other things much more plausibly than to Jesus.” And he really ought to have diligently set himself against this, which is the strongest proof, as Christians hold it to be, and to have set forth, prophecy by prophecy, how it can be applied to others much more plausibly than to Jesus. But he did not even perceive that this argument C might plausibly be made by someone who does not accept the prophetic scriptures against the Christians; whereas, what the Jew would never have said, Celsus has put into the mouth of the Jew. For the Jew will not agree that the prophecies can be applied to six hundred other things much more plausibly than to Jesus; rather, for each one, he will try to provide his own apparent narrative to stand against the interpretation of the Christians. He may not, indeed, say things that carry conviction, but he will strive to do so.
[index: entries preserved]
A We have already stated in the preceding pages that the prophets foretold both of Christ’s advents to the human race. Therefore, it is unnecessary for us to defend against what is said by the supposed Jew, that "The prophets declare that he who is to come is a great and powerful lord of all the earth, and of all nations and armies (68)." He spoke in the Jewish manner, I believe, and according to their bitterness, while at the same time—though here he carries little conviction (69)—he insults Jesus, claiming that "he did not herald such a destruction (70)." Neither the Jews, nor Celsus, nor anyone else can demonstrate with proof that a destruction is what turns so many people from the flood of their wickedness to a life according to nature, adorned with temperance and other virtues.
B Celsus also threw in the point: "No one proves that God or the Son of God is such, by means of such signs and hearsay, nor from such ignoble arguments." He ought to have set forth the purported hearsay, refuted it, and addressed those ignoble arguments with reason, so that if he seemed to be saying anything convincing, the Christian might attempt to contend against it and overturn his argument. Yet as for what he said regarding Jesus, he did indeed offer a response as if toward a great person, but he did not wish to see that his point had been met, even though the evidence clearly demonstrates it regarding Jesus. "For as the sun," he says, "which illuminates all other things, first reveals itself; so it was necessary for the Son of God to have done." We would say, then, that he has indeed done so: "For in his days righteousness has dawned, and an abundance of peace (Ps. LXXI, 7)," beginning from his birth, God preparing the nations for his teaching so that they might be under one Roman emperor, and that it might not be—because of the pretext of many kingdoms (72) and the incompatibility of the nations with one another—more difficult for the apostles of Jesus to accomplish what Jesus commanded them, saying, "Go and make disciples of all nations (Matt. XXVIII, 19)." And it is clear that Jesus was born under the reign of Augustus, who, if I may so term it, unified the many who were on earth through a single empire. C It would have been a hindrance to the dissemination of Jesus' teaching throughout the whole world if there were many kingdoms, not only because of what has already been said, but also because people everywhere were forced to do military service and fight for their homelands. This is what happened (74) before the times of Augustus, and even further back, when there was a need for war to exist, as between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, and similarly for others against others. How then could this peaceful teaching, which does not even permit one to avenge the injuries of enemies, have been able to prevail, had not his coming D occurred while the whole world was held together by a single sovereign authority?
A 31. After this he expostulates with the Christians, because, relying on captious arguments, they assert that the Son of God is the very Word of God; and he thinks he adds force to his accusation when he says that we, “instead of that pure and holy Word which we proclaim to be the Son of God, set forth a most contemptible man, who was scourged and crucified.” But in the preceding pages all these accusations of Celsus have already been briefly refuted. For it was shown there that the firstborn of every creature took upon himself a human body and soul; and that in the creation of the things of this world, God commanded, and they were immediately created; and, finally, that it was God the Word who received the commandment. But since it is a Jew who says these things to Celsus, it will not be inappropriate to use the testimony which I mentioned above: “He sent his Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions” (Ps. CVII, 20), which we also mentioned before. But I myself, although I have had discussions with many Jews and with those B who profess to be wise, have never heard any one of them praise the statement that “the Word is the Son of God,” as Celsus has said, and [he is] attributing this to the person of the Jew, when he says: “If the Word to you is the Son of God, we also agree.” We have previously said that Jesus can be neither an impostor nor a sorcerer; therefore it is not necessary to repeat what has been said, so that we may not, as Celsus constantly sings the same tune, also sing the same tune ourselves.
He then proceeds to the genealogy; here he makes no mention at all of those points which are debated even among Christians, and which some bring forward as accusations because of the discrepancy between the genealogies, and turn into a fault. For that boaster Celsus, who professes to know all the affairs of the Christians, did not know how to extract prudently from the Scriptures those things which he could call into question. He says, therefore, that those who constructed the genealogy of Jesus from the first man and from the kings of the Jews acted most insolently; and he thinks he is bringing forward something weighty when he says: “Nor would the carpenter's wife have been ignorant of having descended from such a lineage.” What has this to do with the matter? Be it so, that she was not ignorant; what does this harm the points at issue? But let her be ignorant; whence does it follow that she did not trace her origin from the first man? And that her lineage was not traced back to those who reigned among the Jews? Or does Celsus think it necessary that the poor must be born of poor parents, or C kings from kings? It seems to me, therefore, that continuing to dwell on this point is vain, since it is clear that even in our own age some have been born who are poorer than Mary, of rich and illustrious parents, and from the most ignoble have come leaders and kings of nations.
33. “What great thing,” he says, “did he perform as if he were God?”
A And did he mock and play at whatever happened to him? But to one asking him thus—even if we can show something bold and unusual in what happened to him, whence should we answer except from the Gospels, which relate that the earth was shaken, and the rocks were rent, and the tombs were opened, and the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, and darkness occurred in the daytime when the sun failed? But if Celsus believes the Gospels where he thinks there is an opportunity to accuse Christians, but disbelieves them where they establish the divinity in Jesus, we shall say to him: "Look here! Either disbelieve them all, and do not think to charge us, or, if you believe all that they contain, marvel at the Word of God who became man and willed to benefit the whole human race." It is a noble work of Jesus that to this day those whom God wills are healed in His name. Regarding the eclipse under Tiberius Caesar, during whose reign Jesus also appears to have been crucified, and regarding the great earthquakes of the earth that occurred then, Phlegon also wrote in the thirteenth or fourteenth, I believe, of his Chronicles.
Playing, as he thinks, at Jesus, the Jew with Celsus is recorded as knowing Euripides' B Bacchus saying: *I / The god himself will release me, when I wish.* Not at all, indeed, do Jews study the literature of the Greeks; but let it be that some one of the Jews was also a lover of learning; how then, since Jesus did not release him when he was bound, could he not even release himself? / For he must either believe from my Scriptures that C just as Peter, being bound in prison, went forth when an angel released his bonds, so also Jesus—but let it be that one of the Jews was curious in these matters; does it follow that, because he did not release himself when bound, Jesus could not have released himself? Let him rather believe from our Scriptures that Peter, being bound in prison, was released by an angel D and went forth, and...
Peter, when bound in prison, went forth after an angel had loosened his bonds; and Paul, together with Silas, when they were bound to the wood in Philippi of Macedonia, were loosened by divine A power, at which time the doors of the prison also were opened. But it is likely that Celsus mocks these things 84, or that he is absolutely unacquainted with the history; for he would have seemed to speak against it, that certain sorcerers also loosen bonds by incantations, and open doors; in order to equate our recorded events with the feats of sorcerers. "But not even he who condemned him," he says, "suffered anything like Pentheus, having become mad or having been torn to pieces." But he does not know that it was not in this manner that Pilate had condemned him, seeing that he knew that it was through envy that the Jews handed him over; just as the nation of the Jews, which has been condemned by God, has been torn asunder and scattered over the whole earth, to a greater degree than the dismemberment of Pentheus. And why did he intentionally pass over the matters concerning Pilate’s wife, who had seen a vision and was so moved by it that she sent to her husband, saying: "Have nothing to do with this B just man; for today I have suffered many things in a vision on his account 86"? And again, on the other hand, while remaining silent concerning those things which manifest the divinity of Jesus, Celsus reproaches him using the things written in the Gospel concerning Jesus, presenting those who mocked him, and the purple robe they placed upon him, and the crown of thorns, and the reed in his hand. From where, then, O Celsus, did you learn these things, if not from the Gospels? Did you, therefore, see these things 87 as worthy of reproach, while those who recorded them did not perceive that you and those like you would mock these same things; but that others would take therefrom an example of showing contempt for those who laugh and jeer at piety, and at him who for its sake died willingly? Rather, therefore, admire their love of truth, and him who willingly suffered all these things for the sake of mankind, and endured them with such patience and such equanimity that it is neither recorded that he lamented, nor is it reported that he did or said anything that could be interpreted as cowardice 88.
35. But to the statement, "Why does he not even now display some divine power, and deliver himself from this disgrace, and avenge those who insult both himself and his Father 89?" it must be said that it is possible to reply similarly to a Greek,
A who admits providence and concedes that prodigies occur, and ask: why does God not punish those who insult the Divine, and who take away providence? For whatever answer the Greeks might give to these things, we too shall say the same, or even better things. Indeed, a certain prodigy did occur from heaven, namely the eclipse of the sun and the other wonders, manifesting that the One crucified possessed something divine and beyond the common run of men.
Then Celsus says: "What kind of ichor flowed from the body being impaled B . . . as it flows from the blessed gods?" He is indeed jesting; but we, from the serious Gospels, even if Celsus does not wish it, will demonstrate that it was not the mythical and Homeric ichor that flowed from His body; but already after He had died, "one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and there came out blood and water. And he who saw it has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth." Now, in the case of other dead bodies, the blood coagulates and clear water does not flow out; but in the case of the dead body of Jesus, it was a marvel that blood and water flowed from the side C after it was struck. But if he, who brings forward from the Gospel words—even if poorly interpreted—for the purpose of accusing Jesus and the Christians, while remaining silent about those things which demonstrate the divinity of Jesus, wishes to hear about divine signs, let him read the Gospel and see that the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus, having seen the earthquake and what had taken place, were greatly afraid, saying: "Truly this was the Son of God."
After this, he who gathers words from the Gospel, which he thinks he can use for blame, reproaches Jesus for the vinegar and the gall, D "as one who was eager to drink greedily, and did not endure the thirst as even an ordinary person often endures it." This, indeed, might be explained in one way in a tropological sense; but now, a more general answer to these charges would be to say that the prophets also foretold concerning this. For it is written in the sixty-eighth Psalm from the person of Christ: "And they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Let the Jews say who it is that says these things in the prophet, and let them demonstrate from history someone who took gall for his food and was given vinegar to drink. Or if they should dare to say that these things are to be understood of the Christ whom they expect to come, we will immediately reply: what prevents this from having happened as predicted by the prophets? Certainly, this prophecy, uttered so many years before the times of Christ, along with the other prophetic predictions, if one is candid
A in examining all things, suffices to persuade one to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ who was prophesied and the Son of God. After this, the Jew says again to us: "You hold it against us, most faithful ones, because we do not consider him God, nor do we agree with you that he endured these things for the benefit of men, that we too might despise punishments." To these things we shall reply that we hold it against the Jews, though they were reared in the Law and the prophets who foretold Christ, that they neither refute the arguments brought forward by us to demonstrate that this one is the Christ—making a defense for their unbelief by saying they are refuting them, when they do not refute them—nor, since they do not refute them, do they have faith in the one who was prophesied and who clearly showed to his disciples B and after the time of his incarnation, that for the benefit of men he endured these things; having as the goal of his first coming not to judge the affairs of men, but before that, to teach and to bear witness concerning what must be done; and not to punish the wicked and grant happiness to the good, but in a truly wondrous way, and by divine power, to sow his own Word into the whole race of men, as the prophets had also declared. We further hold it against them that when he was demonstrating his power, they did not believe, but said that he cast out demons from the soul of men by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons. We hold it against them that they also slander his benevolence, for he did not disdain not only a city, but not even any village of Judea, so that he might everywhere announce the kingdom of God, C accusing him of being a deceiver because he was seized and bound in an ignoble body. For it is not ignoble to endure such toils for the benefit of those everywhere who are able to hear.
But how is it not an absolute falsehood, that which is said by the Jew in Celsus, that "having persuaded no one as long as he lived, nor even his own disciples, he was punished and endured such things"? For whence was the envy on the part of the chief priests and elders and scribes among the Jews stirred up against him, if not from the fact that crowds were persuaded and followed him, and would be constrained even in the deserts, not only by the sequence of his words, which were always fitting to those who heard him, but also by the wonders that astonished those D who were refusing to attach faith to his words? Is it not also an absolute falsehood that "he did not even persuade his own disciples"—those who indeed suffered something human from fear at that time (for they had not yet been tempered toward courage), but who did not, however, hold what they had decided concerning the Christ
A opinion. For Peter had hardly denied Him, when, realizing into what a precipice of evils he had cast himself, he went out and wept bitterly; the others, however, struck by the grief of what had happened to him (for they still admired Him), after He later showed Himself visible to them, were strengthened, and believed more firmly and assuredly than before that He was the Son of God.
And Celsus, having suffered something unphilosophical, does not imagine that the superiority among men consists in a doctrine of salvation B and pure character, but rather in His having acted contrary to the role He had assumed, and in His having assumed a mortal body without dying; or, if indeed He were to die, it should not have been by a death that could serve as an example to others who would learn from Him to die for piety and to profess it freely before those who, not recognizing piety from impiety, consider the pious to be most impious, but consider those who are imbued with false opinions about God, and who accommodate their inner, firm notion of Him to anything rather than to God, to be most pious—and this especially when they are eager to destroy those who, struck by the evidence of the one and supreme God, have devoted themselves with their whole soul even unto death.
Furthermore, Celsus finds fault with Jesus through the Jewish persona, as not having shown Himself to be immune from all evils. C But let Celsus speak: from what evils has Jesus not shown Himself to be immune? For if he means that He has not been immune from what are properly called evils, let him clearly point out an act of wickedness in Him. But if he considers poverty and the cross and the conspiracy of the depraved to be evils, it is clear that he would also say that evils happened to Socrates, who was unable to show himself immune from such evils. For the Greeks' own history teaches them how great a choir of philosophers there were among the Greeks who voluntarily chose a poor condition of life; in which one may read that Democritus let his property be grazed by sheep; that Crates, in order to set himself free and at the same time to do a favor to the Thebans, gave away the money which he had acquired from the sale of his estates. And Diogenes, due to his excessive frugality, lived in a tub, nor would anyone of sound mind say that Diogenes was in evils for this reason.
Furthermore, since Celsus wishes Jesus not to have been beyond reproach, let him point out who among those who have agreed with His doctrine D has written what is truly blameworthy.
A Or, if he has received nothing of the sort from them, let him say whence he snatched this accusation to cast it at Jesus. Jesus kept faith with His promises by benefiting those who cleaved to Him. And since we see all that He foretold already fulfilled—that this Gospel has been announced in the whole world, and His disciples have gone forth to all nations to proclaim His word, and furthermore that they would be led before governors and kings for no other cause than His doctrine—we admire Him, and our faith in Him gathers new strength every day. Indeed, I do not know what firmer or clearer arguments Celsus could have desired to prove that Jesus made good what He had foretold, unless perhaps he wished, as it appears, that He—whom he does not recognize as the Word made flesh—should have experienced nothing human, nor have become a noble example for men in the generous enduring of the hardships of this life. For these things seem pitiable and ignominious to Celsus; for to him, labor is the greatest of all evils, and pleasure the ultimate good; which, indeed, none of those who defend providence and place courage, patience, and magnanimity among the virtues would admit. Faith in Jesus, therefore, has not been diminished by what He suffered; B rather, it has been strengthened in those who are brave and spirited, and whom He has taught that the life which is properly and truly happy is not of this time, but of the future age, as He Himself calls it; and that the life we live in the present age is full of calamities or is the first and greatest contest of the soul.
43. From here, turning the argument to us, he says: « You will not surely claim, » he says, « that when He could not persuade those who dwelt here, He went down to Hades to persuade those who are there. » However much he may dislike it, we shall reply that He persuaded not a few while here, but so great a number that, because of the multitude of those who were persuaded, He was plotted against; and in his nakedness... C
[Following is the continuation of the translation of the Latin apparatus note material provided at the bottom of the page:]
...regarding the nakedness of the soul, and the soul having become naked of the body, it conversed with souls naked of their bodies, and turning them... D [For translation of the Latin footer notes, see the following page, as the apparatus continues across the page break].
nversed with souls naked of their bodies, and turning A them to himself, or such as he saw were more suitable, because of the reasons which he himself knew.
After these things, I do not know how he says something very foolish, that: "If, finding absurd apologies for which [(11)] you have been ridiculously deceived, you think you are defending yourselves truly, what prevents others also, as many as have been judged and have fared worse, from thinking these angels are greater and more divine?" But that what was suffered by Jesus has absolutely and clearly no resemblance to those who fared worse because of sorcery, or whatever other charge it may be, is plain to everyone. For no one can set forth any work of sorcerers that has turned souls from the many sins among men and the flood of wickedness. B But since the Jew in Celsus, comparing him to robbers, says that: "One might, with equal shamelessness, speak also of a robber and murderer who has been punished, that this man certainly was not a robber, but a God; for he predicted to his fellow-robbers that he would suffer such things as he has indeed suffered," one might say, first, that we do not suppose such things about Jesus because he predicted that he would suffer them—[things] which we also now hold and profess freely in Him as having come down to us from God; and second, that we say these things were also foretold in the Gospels in a certain way: since He "was numbered among the lawless" C by the lawless. God, who was with the lawless—or rather the robber who had been cast into prison for sedition and murder, and who, when they wished him to be released, and Jesus to be crucified, did crucify him between two robbers. And Jesus is always crucified among true disciples and those who bear witness to the truth, and suffers at the hands of men the same condemnation as them. And we say that, if these [men] have something in common with the robbers, those who, because of their [(12)] piety toward the Creator, in order that they might keep it pure and undefiled according to the purpose...
D For He descended into death, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised through Him. Death was astonished, having seen a strange One descend into Hades, not held by the bonds therein. Why, O wardens of Hades, seeing this One, did you tremble? What unusual fear is this that possesses you? Death fled, and by its flight its cowardice was convicted. The holy prophets ran up, and Moses the law-giver, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and Samuel, and Isaiah, and John the Baptist, etc. "If He descends into Hades, descend with Him. Know also the mysteries there of Christ; what is the dispensation of the double descent; what is the reason that saves all simply by appearing; or [saves] those there who believe."
A and fear no kind of death, they can be compared with robbers; it is consistent, then, that Jesus, the parent of this doctrine, should be compared by Celsus to the leaders of robbers. But neither is he, dying for the public good, nor are they, punished for the sake of piety—the only ones among men against whom plots are laid on account of the true worship of God—unjustly put to death, nor were the plots against Jesus laid without impiety.
45. See, I implore you, how light is that which he says regarding the disciples who were then present: "Those who lived with him, who heard his voice, who used him as their master, when they saw him tortured and dying with torments, neither lived nor died with him, nor did they despise the punishments; nay, they even denied that they were his disciples; yet you die with him." B Here again Celsus, in order to slander our doctrine, seizes upon the sin which the apostles, being recently initiated and still weaker, committed, and he believes it to be the truth; but what things were rightly done by them after the sin, with what boldness they approached the Jews, what punishments were inflicted upon them by the Jews, with what constancy they met death for the doctrine of Jesus, he hides all these things in deep silence. For he did not wish to hear Jesus prophesying to Peter: "But when you are old, you shall stretch out your hands," etc., to which the Scripture adds: "This he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God." He also counts for nothing that James, the brother of John, an apostle and brother of an apostle, was slain by Herod with the sword on account of the doctrine of Jesus; nor does he value more those things which, on account of the same, Peter and the rest of the C apostles did with the greatest confidence, so that when, after they had been scourged, "they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name," and gave many and far greater proofs of endurance and fortitude than those among the Greeks who excelled in these virtues. Hence, among the auditors of Jesus, this precept of his prevailed from the beginning, that this life, which most people crave, is to be despised, and that one should aspire only to that which is similar to the life of God.
46. Does not also the Jew in Celsus lie, when he says: "While Jesus was present, he won over to himself only ten sailors and publicans, the most wicked, and not even all of those?" D For it is clear that even the Jews themselves would confess that he won not ten only, not a hundred, nor a thousand, but at one time five thousand, and at another time four thousand; and he won them to such an extent that even four thousand.
A in the deserts, he led away the crowds who followed him, crowds which contained a vast number of those who believed in God through Jesus: in which places he showed them teachings, but also works. And he forces us, by repeating himself, to do likewise, since we are careful not to be thought to pass over any of the accusations made by him. Therefore, in the passage before us, following the order of the scripture, he says: “If, while he lived, he persuaded no one, but after his death those who wish to do so persuade so many, how is this not utterly absurd?” He ought to have said, if he wished to speak consistently: “If, upon his death, not those who simply wish to, but those who wish to and are able, persuade so many, how much more reasonable is it that he himself, when he dwelt among men, persuaded many more, both by more powerful speech and by his deeds?”
B He takes for himself, as our answer to his question, what he says: “By what reasoning were you led to think this one is the Son of God?” For he has made us answer that we were led to this, even if we know that his punishment brought about the destruction of the father of wickedness. For we have been led to him by ten thousand other reasons, a small fraction of which we have set forth in the preceding pages, and—God willing—we shall yet set forth, not only while discussing the true word against the one who is supposed to be Celsus, but also in ten thousand other places. And as if we were saying that we consider him the Son of God because he was punished, he says: “What then? Have not many others been punished, and no less ignominiously?” In this, Celsus copies the most servile of the enemies of the Word, who think that it follows, from the history regarding Jesus C having been crucified, that we worship those who have been crucified.
Frequently, indeed, Celsus, unable to gainsay the miracles which it is recorded that Jesus performed, slanders them as sorcery; and we have often spoken against this, as far as we were able. And now, too, he speaks as if we had answered that we thought him to be the Son of God “because he healed the lame and the blind.” And he adds to this: “As you say, he raised the dead.” That he did heal the lame and the blind, and that because of this we consider him Christ and the Son of God, is clear to us from the fact that it is written in the prophecies: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, then the lame shall leap like an D hart.” And that he also raised the dead, and that this is no fiction of those who wrote the Gospels, is shown by this: had it been a fiction, they would have recorded many more who had been raised, and those who had already spent a longer time lying in the tombs; but since it is no fiction, they have mentioned only a very few, since those concerning whom [alt-version omitted]
A he spoke—"She is not dead, but sleeps"—had something peculiar said of her which did not apply to all who had died; and the only son of the widow, whom He raised to life out of compassion, bidding the bearers to stand still; and thirdly, Lazarus, who had been in the tomb four days. And we shall say B concerning these things to the more fair-minded, and especially to our Jew, that just as there were many lepers in the days of Elisha the prophet, and no one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian; and there were many widows in the days of Elijah the prophet, and Elijah was sent to no widow among them except to the one in Sarepta of Sidonia, for she had shown herself worthy, by some divine judgment, of the miracle wrought by the prophet regarding the loaves; so 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 the things done by the Lord might not only be signs of certain things, but might also of themselves draw many to the wondrous teaching of the Gospel. For my part, I would say that, according to Jesus' promise, the disciples have performed even greater miracles than those of Jesus which were perceptible to the senses. For the eyes of those who were blind in their mind are constantly being opened; and ears that were deaf to the words of virtue now listen C eagerly to what is said about God and the blessed life to be enjoyed in Him. And many who were lame with respect to the "inner man," as the Scripture calls it, now that the Word has healed them, do not simply leap, but leap like the stag, an animal hostile to serpents, and superior to the entire brood of vipers. And these who have been healed of lameness receive from Jesus the power to tread with the very feet with which they were previously unable to walk, upon the serpents and scorpions of malice, and in a word, upon all the power of the enemy; and in treading upon them, they suffer no harm, for they themselves have become stronger than all malice and the venom of the demons.
49. Jesus, then, in turning His disciples D away, did not simply bid them not to pay attention to impostors and those who promised to perform miracles by any means whatsoever (for His disciples had no need of such a warning), but from those who proclaimed themselves to be the Christ of God, and sought by certain fantasies to draw the disciples of Jesus to themselves, He sometimes says, "Then if anyone says to you, 'Lo, here is the Christ,' or 'There,' 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; behold, I have told you beforehand. If therefore they say to you, 'Lo, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out; 'Lo, he is in the inner chambers,' do not believe it. For just as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will the…"
A coming of the Son of man be.' And where it says: 'Many will say to me in that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not eat in your name, and in your name drink, and in your name cast out demons, and do many mighty works?" And I will say to them, "Depart from me, for you are workers of iniquity."' But Celsus, wishing to equate the miracles [wonders] of Jesus with human sorcery, says in these very words: 'O light and truth! By his own voice he expressly declares, just as you yourselves have written, that there will be others coming to you who use similar powers, wicked men and sorcerers.' And he names a certain B Satan who contrives such things; so that he himself is not able to deny that these things are nothing divine, but the works of wicked men. Yet, being constrained by the power of truth, he has both exposed the arts of others and at the same time refuted his own. How then is it not inconsistent to judge this one to be God, but those to be sorcerers, from the same works? For why should we consider the others to be wicked [rather than this one], if we are to use his own testimony? These things, indeed, he himself also confessed, that they are not signs of a divine nature, but of certain deceivers and most wicked men. C See then if Celsus is not clearly refuted in these matters for twisting the word; for what Jesus says about those who are going to perform signs and wonders is one thing, and what the Jew in Celsus claims is another. For if Jesus had simply told his disciples to beware of those who promised wonders, without adding what they would claim to be, his suspicion might perhaps have had room; but since those whom Jesus commands us to avoid declare themselves to be the Christ—which sorcerers do not do—and moreover he says that some who live evilly will perform powers in his name and cast out demons D from men, it rather (if one must say it so) banishes sorcery from the region and every suspicion against them; and the divinity of Christ is introduced, and the divinity of his disciples, because it is possible for someone, having used his name, and—I know not how—empowered by some force, to pretend that he himself is the Christ, and to appear to perform things similar to Christ, and for others, by the name of Jesus, to appear to do things like the true disciples.
A And Paul, in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, declares in what manner the man of B sin shall at some time be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every one that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. And again he says to the Thessalonians: "And now you know what withholds, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity does already work; only he who now holds, let him hold until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord C God shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." And explaining also the cause for the wicked one being permitted to reside in this life, he says: "Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Let someone now tell us if there is anything in these testimonies of the Gospel or the Apostle which could provide room for suspecting that the arts of jugglers were predicted as taking place there. Regarding the Antichrist, Daniel also published a prophecy which anyone who wishes may read. But Celsus distorts the words of Jesus. For He never said what Celsus affirms was said by Him, that others would come who would do the same miracles, although they were wicked and jugglers. For just as the power D of the Egyptian enchanters was not equal to that miraculous grace which was in Moses; and just as the outcome proved that the works of those others were mere trickery, while the works of Moses proceeded from divine virtue; so the things which the antichrists do, and those who sell themselves as being equal to the disciples of Jesus in performing miracles, are called "signs and lying wonders," which have their power "with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish"; but the fruit of the miracles of Christ and his disciples is not deception, but the salvation of souls. For who would say that it is brought about by deception that life is improved and that malice is diminished more and more each day?
51. Celsus surmised something from Scripture when he said that Jesus had warned that a certain Satan would perform wonders. But from this he too hastily concludes that this is an admission that these wonders have nothing of divinity in them, but are the works of wicked men. Thus, by the same kind of reasoning, he concludes things that are of a vastly different nature. For just as a wolf and a dog, or a wood pigeon and a dove, are not of the same genus, even though their body and voice may appear to have some similarity...
A that which is accomplished by the power of God has nothing in common with that which occurs through sorcery. Furthermore, we shall say these things in response to the crafty arguments of Celsus: Do miracles occur through sorcery by the agency of evil demons, and yet no miracle is accomplished by the divine and blessed nature, but the life of men has brought forth the worse and has in no way arrived at the better? And it seems to me that this must be assumed in all cases, B that where something worse pretends to be of the same genus as the better, there must necessarily be something better which is the contrary of the evil. So too, regarding those things accomplished through sorcery, there is of necessity also an agency of the divine occurring in life. It follows from the same line of reasoning that either both must be rejected, and one must say that neither occurs, or else, by admitting the one—and especially the worse—one must also acknowledge the better. But if someone were to posit that things occur through sorcery, yet deny those which occur through divine power, he seems to me similar to one who would grant that there are sophisms and plausible arguments which, although devoid of truth, yet present a semblance of truth, but would contend that there is no truth among men C and that no dialectic exists which shrinks from sophisms. But if we once admit that it is a consequence of there being a reality—since magic and sorcery exist, performed by evil demons, charmed by curious incantations and obeying those who practice sorcery—that there must also be found among men something performing miracles by divine power, why should we not also strictly examine those who make promises regarding these powers, based on their life, their character, and the consequences of their deeds—whether they lead to the ruin of men or to the correction of their morals? Who is it that, serving demons, performs such things through certain incantations and sorceries? And who is he that, having become pure and holy D in his own soul and spirit, and I believe also in his body, before God, and having received a certain divine spirit, performs such wonders for the benefit of men and as an incentive to believe in the true God? But if, having put aside all prejudiced opinion regarding miracles, one must seek to know whether someone has done such things with a good or an evil intent, so that we may neither disparage everything nor admire and accept everything as divine, is it not evident from the miracles of Moses and Jesus, by which whole nations were established after their signs, that they accomplished by divine power those things which it is written they performed? For wickedness and sorcery would not have established a whole nation, which rose above not only statues and things set up by men, but even every created nature, and ascended to the unbegotten primal source of the God of all.
A
52. And since it is a Jew who says these things to Celsus, we would say to him: But tell me, good sir, why is it that you have believed that what is written among you, having been accomplished by God through Moses, is divine, and you endeavor to defend it against those who speak against it, ranking it as sorcery similar to that performed by the wise men of the Egyptians, yet you accuse that which was done by Jesus—and which is admitted even by you to have occurred—as not being divine, while imitating your own enemies, the Egyptians? For if the result, that is, the whole nation B established by the wonders of Moses, proves clearly that God was the one who performed these things through him, how would such a thing not be even more clearly demonstrated in the case of Jesus, who did greater works than Moses? For the latter, having found his own people, who were born of the seed of Abraham and who, through a continuous succession, were observers of circumcision and other rituals received from Abraham, already prepared and ready, led them out of Egypt and imposed upon them the divine laws, as you believe them to be. But this one, having dared a greater thing, introduced into the already existing civil structure, and into their ancestral customs and upbringing according to the established laws, a way of life in accordance with the Gospel. And just as Moses needed, in order to be believed by the senate and the people, those signs which it is written he performed, why then would Jesus not also need such powers, in order to be believed by those of the people who had been taught to ask for signs and wonders—powers which, by comparison C with those of Moses, were greater and more divine, being of a nature such as to turn them away from Jewish mythology and the human traditions among them, and to cause them to accept the one who taught these things and performed these works, in that he was greater than the prophets? For how was he not greater than the prophets, he who was proclaimed by the prophets as Christ and the Savior of the human race?
And all the arguments that the Jew of Celsus offers to those who believe in Jesus can be applied to accuse Moses as well; so that it makes no difference D to say that the sorcery of Jesus is similar to that of Moses, since both (as far as the words of the Jew of Celsus are concerned) can be subjected to the same charges. For example, regarding Christ, the Jew of Celsus says, "O light and truth! By his own voice he explicitly declares, just as your own writings attest, that others will come who will perform the same miracles, yet they are wicked men and sorcerers." Regarding Moses, one who did not believe the Jew—whether a Greek, or an Egyptian, or anyone else—might say: "O light and truth! By his own voice he explicitly declares, just as your own writings attest, that others will come who will perform the same miracles, yet they are wicked men and sorcerers." For it is written in your law: "If there shall rise up among me..."
you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and shall give you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder shall come to pass, whereof he spoke unto you, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams," and the rest. A And he who disparages the words of Jesus says that he names some Satan as a past master of such things. And one who applies this to Moses will say: "And he calls a prophet who dreams such things a past master of such things." Just as the Jew in Celsus says concerning Jesus, that "not even he himself denies that there is nothing divine in these things, but they are the works of wicked men," so he who disbelieves the writings about Moses, setting forth the things aforementioned, will use the same words against him: "So not even Moses himself denies that there is nothing divine in these things, but they are the works of wicked men." And he will do the same thing regarding this (46), "being constrained by the truth at once to reveal the things of others, and Moses himself confutes his own deeds." To the Jew who says: "How then is it not wretched, from the same works to consider one to be God, but others to be sorcerers?" one might say to him, because of the quoted words of Moses: "How then is it not wretched, from the same works, to consider one to be the prophet of God and His servant, but others to be sorcerers?" B And since Celsus, dwelling on the topic, added to the things I have set forth and made common: "For why should one from these things rather consider the others wicked, than this one, using him as a witness (47)?" we shall add to what is said, and we likewise ask: For why from these things, which Moses forbids us to obey when they display signs and wonders, should we consider those wicked, rather than Moses, from whose own words he disparaged others concerning signs and wonders? And saying more to the same effect, so that he may seem to strengthen the argument, he says: "These things, indeed, even he himself confessed to be not of a divine nature, but the signs of certain deceivers and most wicked men." Who is "he himself"? You, O Jew, say Jesus; but he who reproaches you, as being subject to the same accusations, will apply "he himself" to Moses. C After these things, he speaks to us, pretending (so that I may maintain what was initially proposed by the Jew) that Celsus' Jew, in the discourse he has with his fellow citizens, says to those who believed: "By what, then, were you persuaded (48), unless it was because he foretold that he would rise again after he had died?" And this, too, will be made common to the case of Moses, similar to the previous ones. For we shall say to him: By what, then, were you persuaded, unless because he wrote concerning his own death such things (49): "And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there D in the land of..." 54. After these things, Celsus' Jew (which I will follow, as I proposed from the beginning) questions us thus in the discourse he has with those of his own people who adhered to Christ: "By what, then, were you persuaded? Is it that he foretold he would rise again after death?" And this is easy to turn back upon Moses, as [we did] the former things. For we shall also say: By what were you persuaded? Is it because he wrote these things about his own death: "And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land..."
of Moab, by the word of the Lord, and he buried him in Moab, near the house of Phogor. And no one knows his sepulchre unto this present day"? A For just as the Jew calumniates, because he predicted that having died he would rise again, so to the one who says these things, one who maintains the same regarding Moses will say that Moses also wrote (for Deuteronomy is also his) that "no one knows his sepulchre unto this present day," honoring and exalting his burial, B as it was unknown to the race of men.
55. After these things the Jew says to those of his own people who have believed in Jesus: "Come, let us suppose that these things were predicted. But how many others, in order to soothe stupid listeners and make profit from error, have abused such prodigies? Thus they say of Zamolxis B among the Scythians, the slave of Pythagoras, and of Pythagoras himself in Italy; and of Rampsinitus in Egypt, whom they report to have played at dice in the underworld with Ceres, and from thence to have brought back a golden napkin accepted from her; and so of Orpheus among the Odrysae, and Protesilaus in Thessaly, and Hercules at Taenarum, and Theseus. But that must be considered: whether any one who was truly dead ever rose again in the same body. Or, while you pronounce that these things about others are fables and seem to be so, do you C seem to yourselves to have found a credible outcome for your own fable, when you thrust upon us the voice emitted from the cross at the final breath, the earthquake, and the darkness that arose; when you add that he who could not help himself while he lived, rose again from the dead, and in his body showed the marks of his punishment, and the traces of the nails in his hands? And who saw these things? A woman, as you say, fanatical, and if any other person addicted to the same magic arts, who either dreamt these things as his disposition was, or was deluded by a wandering opinion D and was lamenting, and they were believing Pythagoras himself to be a certain divine man, so much so that they handed over women to him, as if they would perceive something from his doctrine; whom he also reports to have been called Pythagoreans.
After these things they were saying that this king descended alive under the earth, to where the Greeks suppose the infernal regions to be, and there played at dice with Ceres; and sometimes he won, and sometimes he was defeated; and he returned back up again, obtaining from her a gift, a golden napkin.
A - what indeed has happened to countless others - which, desiring still more to strike the rest with awe by this wonder-working, and by means of such a falsehood to provide an opportunity for other impostors: since, then, it is a Jew who says these things, we reply to the Jew regarding our Jesus, extending the argument likewise to Moses and saying to him: "How many others perform such wonders as Moses does, working upon the gullibility of those who listen foolishly, for the sake of persuasiveness and in aid of their deceit?" Nay more, it is possible for one who distrusts Moses to cite Zamolxis and Pythagoras as wonder-workers, rather than the Jew, who does not have much of a penchant for Greek histories. B And the Egyptian, too, disbelieving the wonders concerning Moses, would plausibly cite Rampsinitus, saying that it is far more credible that he went down into Hades, played at dice with Demeter, and, having snatched a golden napkin from her, showed it as a token of his having been in Hades and having come up again, than that Moses should have written that he himself entered into the thick darkness where God was, and that he alone approached God, to the exclusion of the rest. C For he wrote as follows: "And Moses alone shall approach God, but the rest shall not approach." We, therefore, the disciples of Jesus, will say to the Jew who speaks these things — he who blames us for our faith in Jesus — "Answer on our behalf to the Egyptian and to the Greeks, who can retort against Moses the very things you have brought against our Jesus! And if you should labor much indeed to defend Moses, as you have a stinging and clear argument concerning him, you will unintentionally find yourself, in the very things you say to defend Moses, establishing that Jesus is more divine than Moses."
D 56. Since the Jew of Celsus says that the heroic stories about those who are said to have descended into Hades and returned from thence are impostures — as though those heroes had disappeared for a certain time, having withdrawn themselves from the sight of all men, and after this having shown themselves, as if they had returned from Hades (for such seems to be the meaning of his words regarding Orpheus among the Odrysae, and Protesilaus in Thessaly, and Heracles at Taenarum, and also concerning Theseus) — come, let us demonstrate that the story recorded about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead cannot be compared to these tales. For each one of those heroes, said to be in various places, could, when he wished, withdraw himself from the sight of men, and again decide to return to those whom he had left behind; but Jesus, having been crucified before all the Jews, and whose body, from the cross, in the sight of...
their people, was removed, how is it supposed that he feigned something similar to those heroes who are said to have descended into Hades and returned from thence? We say, perhaps, that as an apology for Jesus having been crucified, such a thing might be said, especially on account of the stories about heroes who were believed to have descended into Hades B by force, because if, by hypothesis, Jesus had died an obscure death, not such as to be clearly manifest to the whole nation of the Jews, and then afterward had truly risen from the dead, there would have been room for what was suspected of the heroes to be said of him also. Perhaps, then, in addition to other causes for Jesus being crucified, this can also contribute: that he died openly on the cross, so that no one might have any excuse to say that he voluntarily withdrew from the sight of men and appeared to have died, yet did not really die, but, appearing again when he wished, prodigiously feigned his resurrection from the dead. But as the disciples gave themselves entirely to a doctrine which they could not profess without the greatest danger, as the life of men was then, they themselves seem to me to be a clear and evident argument for the resurrection. For they would not have announced this doctrine with such constancy, if they had feigned that Jesus rose from the dead, so as not only to instill into others a contempt for death, but also to be the first themselves to undergo it.
57. Now see how inconsiderately the Jew in Celsus speaks C as if it were impossible for anyone to rise from the dead in his own body: "But this must be considered, whether anyone who has truly died has ever risen in his own body." These, in truth, are not the words of a Jew. For he joins faith to those things which are written in the third and fourth books of Kings concerning the children, of whom Elijah raised the one and Elisha the other. Indeed, for this very reason I believe that Jesus did not come to any other nation than the Jews, who had become accustomed to miracles, in order that, by comparing those things which had been believed with the things that were done by Jesus and told concerning him, they might at last acknowledge him, by whom and for whom greater and more incredible miracles were performed, to be greater than all those who had preceded him.
58. But further, after the Jew has brought forward the Greek histories concerning those who are said to have performed wonders, and concerning those who supposedly rose from the dead, he challenges those D of the Jews who have believed in Jesus: "Or do you think that, while the stories of others are considered and seem to be myths, your own story has found a fitting and credible conclusion to the drama by the cry he uttered on the stake when he was breathing his last?" We shall say to the Jew that we have considered the stories which you brought forward to be myths; but as for your own... [index: entries preserved]
as fables; but the ones which the Scriptures, common to us and you and held in equal honor by both sides, commemorate, we deny to be fables. Wherefore, we believe the stories they relate about those who have risen from the dead to be true and not fictitious, and likewise that Jesus was raised from the dead, just as both He Himself and the prophets predicted. And truly, this resurrection from the dead is more worthy of admiration than the others, for the reason that while those were raised by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, He was raised by no prophet, but by the Father who is in heaven. Thus, the fruit of His resurrection has become more abundant than the fruit of those others. For what benefit has the resurrection of the children recalled from the dead by Elijah and Elisha brought to the world which could compare with the blessings that have flowed to the world from the resurrection of Jesus, now that it has been made public and all have come to believe it, by the operation of divine power?
B He thinks the earthquake and the darkness to be mere displays of wonder; regarding these, we have defended ourselves as far as possible in the preceding portion, citing Phlegon, who recorded that such things occurred at the time of the Savior’s passion. To these points, however—where he adds, "And seeing that He who could not help Himself while alive, rose again when dead, and showed in His body the marks of His punishment, and the traces of the nails in His hands"—I ask, what do these words, "could not help Himself," signify? If it is with regard to virtue, we shall say that He helped Himself most thoroughly. For He neither uttered nor did anything improper; but truly He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, for the Gospel testifies that He did not open His mouth. But if he takes the phrase "to help Himself" to refer to indifferent and bodily matters, we say that we have already shown from the Gospels that He came to these things willingly. C Then, following this, having cited from the Gospel that He showed the marks of His punishment after rising from the dead, and the hands as they had been pierced, he questions, and says: "Who saw this?" And slandering Mary Magdalene, who is written to have seen Him, he said: "A woman, as you say, hysterical." And because she is not the only one recorded to have seen Jesus risen, but others also—and Celsus's Jew, reviling these things, says, "and whoever else of those belonging to the same delusion"—
D Then, as if this were a thing that could happen—I mean the idea of one having a phantasm concerning a dead man as if He were alive—he adds, like an Epicurean, and says: "That some person, according to a certain state of mind, has dreamed these things, or by a deluded opinion has imagined that he saw what he wished, and has reported such a thing to others; which, he says, has already happened to countless people." This, even if it might appear to be spoken with great force, is nevertheless just as much a construction of a necessary dogma, as if
one who has accepted this teaching were to believe in the soul's immortality, or at least in its endurance; just as Plato A in his dialogue *On the Soul* says that shadowy phantoms of those already dead have appeared to some around monuments. The phantoms, therefore, that occur regarding the souls of the dead come from a certain underlying substance, that is, the soul which subsists in what is called the "luminous" B body. But Celsus, not wishing this to be so, wants it to be that some people dream while awake, and because of their own desires allow themselves to be deluded by a wandering imagination. That to believe this happens in a dream is not unreasonable, but that it happens to those who are awake—unless they are not entirely in their right minds or are suffering from phrenitis or melancholia—is not credible. And foreseeing this, Celsus described the woman as suffering from a frenzy; which the recorded history does not indicate, C from whence he takes the opportunity to slander the events.
61. Thus Jesus, after his death, as Celsus thinks, was sending forth a phantasm of the wounds he had received on the cross, and was not truly wounded as such. But as the Gospel teaches—Celsus believes those parts of it which he wishes, in order to level an accusation, and disbelieves others—Jesus called unto himself...
74. Plato in Phaedo, p. 81: "It is heavy, my friend, and earthy and visible, that one must think this kind of soul to be; and by possessing this, the soul is weighed down and is dragged back into the visible B place, through fear of the invisible and of Hades, as it is said, wandering around monuments and tombs, around which indeed some shadowy phantoms of souls have been seen, such as those souls provide which have not been purely released, but participate in the visible; wherefore they are also seen." SPENCER.
75. On what is called the "luminous" body. Isidore said he had heard from him also that the soul has a certain "luminous" vehicle, called also "star-like" and eternal. And this star-like body is confined within this body of ours; in some, within the head, in others, within the right shoulder; which no one else is reported to have said.
76. "Not wishing." So correctly Codd. Regius, Basileensis, and the two Vaticani. Hoeschelius, however, and Spencer read simply "wishing." But the published books, etc. This reading is not to be rejected, provided the later "not" is deleted.
77. "But that it happens to those who are not entirely." Codd. Regius, Basileensis, and two Vaticani. The published books, however, read "but in those who are not," etc.
78. "Which does not indicate." The published books read this, from whence it does not indicate.
Irenæus, *Book II, ch. 34*: "The Lord most fully taught that souls not only continue to exist, not passing from body to body, but that they also preserve the character of the body in which they are also adapted, and remember the works which they did here, and from which they have desisted, in that account which is written of the rich man and Lazarus, D of him who was comforted in the bosom of Abraham; in which he says that the rich man knows Lazarus after death, and Abraham likewise."
Tertullian, *On the Soul, ch. 9*: "What now, regarding the fact that we also give an effigy to the soul?" He follows immediately: "But we do not merely inscribe bodily lines upon it, not only from a belief in corporality by estimation, but also from the constancy of grace through revelation; for, since we recognize spiritual charisms, we have deserved to obtain prophecy also after John. There is a sister today, etc." By the vision which was shown to her, he tries to confirm this opinion. "After the services were completed, and the people dismissed, as is the custom for her to report to us what she has seen (for they are examined most diligently, so that they may even be confirmed): Among other things, she says, a soul was shown to me bodily, and it appeared as a spirit, but not of an empty and void quality, nay, a quality that even promised it could be touched, tender, and lucent, and of an airy color, and in form entirely human. This vision—and God is witness, and the Apostle, a fit sponsor for charisms in the Church—do you not believe, even if the matter itself has convinced you of the individual points?" And a little later: "So also conceive of the effigy from your own sense; no other is to be attributed to the human soul than a human one, and indeed that of the body which each one carried about." The same, ch. 22: "We define the soul, born from the breath of God, immortal, corporal, effigied." See Hierocles, on *Pythag.* 67, 68, 69, who calls it [luminous]; *luminous vehicle*, p. 297; *the bodily vehicle of transparency*, p. 501; and which the oracles call the *subtle vehicle of the soul*. Galen, in the end of *Book VII of the Dogmas of Hippocrates and Plato*. SPENCER. See the notes to *Book I of De principiis, ch. 1, num. 7*.
A of the disciples who was unbelieving, and thought the paradox impossible. For he agreed with the woman who said she had seen him, as though it were not impossible for the soul of one who has died to be seen; but he no longer believed it to be true that he had risen in a solid body. Hence he did not say merely, "Unless I see, I will not believe," but also added, "Unless I put my hand into the place of the nails, and touch his side, I will not believe." These things were said by Thomas, who judged that it is possible for the body of a soul to appear to the senses, all according to the former form: ...And in magnitude and eyes like to her And voice. And often, ...And with garments like to her about her skin. And Jesus, having called Thomas, 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 it was consistent with all things told by the prophets about him (among which this also was), and with the things done to him, and with the events that occurred, for this to occur above all paradox. For it had been predicted from the person of Jesus in the prophet: B "My flesh shall dwell in hope; and you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you give your Holy One to see corruption." And after his resurrection he was, so to speak, in a certain intermediate state between the density of the body which he had before the passion, and the state in which the soul appears stripped of such a body. Wherefore, when his disciples and Thomas were together with them, "Jesus comes, the doors being closed, and stood in the midst, and said: Peace to you; then he says to Thomas: Bring your finger here," and the rest. And in the Gospel according to Luke, as Simon C and Cleopas were talking to each other about all that had happened to them, Jesus having stood by them, "walked with them." And their eyes were restrained so that they did not recognize him. And he said to them, "What are these words which you are exchanging with each other as you walk?" And when their eyes were opened and they knew him, then the Scripture says in these very words, "and he himself vanished from their sight." If, therefore, Celsus wishes to equate the things concerning Jesus—and those who saw him after the resurrection—with other phantasms, and with others who have been deluded by fantasies, yet to those who examine matters with a fair and prudent mind, D the event will appear far more paradoxical.
A
63. Subsequently Celsus, not without a certain discernment in his disparagement of what is written, says: "If Jesus truly wished to manifest his divine power, he ought to have appeared to his very detractors, and to him who condemned him, and in short to all people." And indeed, it appears to us also, according to the Gospel, that after the resurrection he did not show himself publicly to all as he had appeared before. But in the Acts it is written: "For forty days he appeared to the disciples and spoke of the kingdom of God"; yet it is clear from the Gospels that he was not always with them, but appeared in their midst "after eight days," when the doors were shut, and at other times in similar ways. B Likewise, Paul, towards the end of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, subtly intimates that Jesus did not appear generally after his passion as he had before: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James; then of all the apostles; and last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." I consider that those things which explain why, when raised from the dead, he did not appear just as he had done before that time, are great and admirable, and of a value exceeding that of the judgment not only of the common believers, but even of those who have made much progress. C But concerning the many arguments which could be brought into this work—written as it is against the discourse that is injurious to the Christians and their faith—see if I am able, by reasonably setting forth a few points, to reach the understandings of those who will hear this defense.
64. Jesus, though one, was more than one in his conception, and did not appear in the same way to all who looked upon him. That he was many things according to the varied mode of considering him is evident from this passage: "I am the way, the truth, and the life"; and from this: "I am the bread"; and from this: "I am the door," and from countless others. D That, even when seen, he did not always appear in the same way to those looking at him, but according to the capacity of the observers, will be evident to anyone who considers why, when he was about to be transfigured on the high mountain, he did not take all the apostles with him, but only Peter, and James, and John: in that they alone were capable of beholding his glory at that time, and were able to witness Moses and Elijah appearing in glory
A and to hear them speaking together, and the voice sent from the clouds from heaven. But I think that even before he ascended the mountain, where the disciples alone came to him and he taught them the things concerning the beatitudes, when he was somewhere below the mountain, as evening had come, and was healing those brought to him, freeing them from every disease and every infirmity, he did not appear the same to the sick and those in need of his healing help as he did to those who, because they were in health, were able to ascend the mountain with him. But also, if he interpreted the parables in private to his own disciples, which were spoken with mystery to the crowds outside, just as those who heard the explanation of the parables were better off by hearing than those who heard the parables without the explanations; so also, I think, they were superior to them not only in the eyes of the soul, but, in my opinion, in the eyes of the body as well. And that Judas, future betrayer that he was, was not always seen as the same person is shown by his saying, as if to those who did not know him among the crowds accompanying him, «Whomever I shall kiss, he is the one.» B Such, I think, the Savior himself also indicates through the words: «Daily I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.» Since, therefore, we hold such an opinion concerning Jesus, not only regarding his divinity, which is inward and hidden from the many, but also regarding his body, the form of which he changed for whom and when he wished; we say that before he stripped off the principalities and powers, and had died to sin, he was able to be seen by all; but after he stripped off the principalities and powers, and no longer had anything capable of being seen by the common crowd, they were not able to see him as all those who had seen him before had done. Hence, sparing them, he did not show himself to all after his resurrection from the dead.
And why do I say to all? For he was not always with his own apostles and disciples, nor did he always appear, as they were not capable of enduring the sight of him continuously. For C after the dispensation was fulfilled, his divinity was even more brilliant; which Cephas, who is Peter, as if he were the first-fruits of the apostles, was able to see, and after him the twelve, with Matthias having been appointed in place of Judas, and after them five hundred brothers at once; then he was seen by James, then by all others besides the twelve apostles, perhaps the seventy disciples, and last of all by Paul, as if by one untimely born, who knew well why he said: «To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given.» And perhaps "the least" is equivalent to "one untimely born." Just as, therefore, no one could reasonably D reproach Jesus for not taking all the apostles up to the high mountain, but only those previously mentioned—
A just so, one might not reasonably reproach the apostolic accounts which introduce Jesus as having appeared after the resurrection not to all, but to those whom He knew to possess eyes capable of seeing His resurrection.
And it is useful, I think, for the defense of the matters at hand, that it is said of Him: "For to this end Christ died and rose, that He might have dominion both of the dead and of the living." [Rom. XIV, 9] See, for in these words, that Jesus died so that He might have dominion over the dead; and He rose so that He might have dominion not only over the dead, but also over the living. And the Apostle knows, indeed, that the dead over whom Christ has dominion are those counted in this way in the first epistle to the Corinthians: B "For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible." [I Cor. XV, 52] The living, however, and those who are to be changed, are distinct from those who are to rise as dead. And the text concerning them runs thus: "And we shall be changed," which immediately follows, "The dead shall rise first."
Indeed, even in the first epistle to the Thessalonians, representing the same distinction in other words, he says that some are "those fallen asleep," and others are "the living," saying: "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so will God bring those who have fallen asleep through Jesus with Him. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep." [I Thess. IV, 13 sqq.] C The interpretation of these passages, such as it appeared to us, we have provided in the commentaries which we composed on the first Epistle to the Thessalonians.
66. Nor should you marvel if not all the multitudes who believed in Jesus see His resurrection, when Paul, writing to the Corinthians as though they were incapable of receiving more, says: "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." [I Cor. II, 2] Similar to this is also the statement: "For you were not yet able, nor even now are you able; for you are still carnal." [I Cor. III, 3] Thus, therefore, the Word, doing all things by divine judgment, set down the record concerning Jesus: that before the passion He appeared to most people indiscriminately, though not always; but after the passion He did not offer Himself to be seen in the same way, but with a certain selection D according to the measure of each person. Just as it is written: "The Lord appeared to Abraham," or to one of the saints; and this "appearing" did not happen always, but at intervals, and He did not appear to everyone: so also consider that the Son of God appeared to them with the same selection with which God appeared to the others, according to judgment.
A We have replied, therefore, as far as we were able in a work of this kind, to the statement: "If he really wished to make his divine power known, he ought to have appeared to his very assailants, to his judge, and to everyone at all." For it was not fitting that he should appear to the one who had condemned him, nor to those who had assailed him; for Jesus spared even the judge and the assailants, so that they might not be struck with blindness, such as that with which the men of Sodom were struck when they plotted against the hour of the angels who were being entertained by Lot. And this is set forth by these words: "But the men extended their hands and pulled Lot to themselves into the house, and they closed the door; and the men who were at the door of the house they struck with blindness, from the small to the great, and they were exhausted searching for the door." Now Jesus wished to make his divine power known to each of those who were able to see it, and to the extent that each could bear to see it. And for no other reason did He refrain from appearing than because He had regard for the limitations of their power to see Him. B And it is to no purpose that Celsus adds: "For he was no longer afraid of anyone among men, having died, and being, as you say, God; nor was he sent initially for this purpose, to remain hidden." For He was sent not only that He might be known, but also that He might remain hidden. For not everything that He was, was known even to those who knew Him; but something of Him escaped them; and to some He was not known at all. But He opened the gates of light to those who had been children of darkness and night, but had given themselves over to becoming children of day and light. And the Savior Lord came to us, as a good physician, rather to those full of sins than to the righteous. C
68. Let us see, then, in what way the Jew in Celsus speaks, that: "But if this was conducive to proving his divinity, he ought at least to have vanished from the cross immediately." And this seems to me similar to the argument of those who are enemies of Providence, and, being not at all content with things as they were created, describe other things, and say that the world would be better if it were as they have described. For where they describe things that are possible, they are shown to be creating worse things, as far as it depends on them and their description, than the world is; but where they seem not to be picturing things worse than they are, they are shown to be desiring things that are impossible by nature: so that on both counts they are ridiculous. Here, therefore, it is evident that it was possible for Jesus, who was God by nature, to vanish whenever He wished, and this is clear from the things written about Him, at least to those who do not accept some parts of the Scriptures to slander the doctrine, while considering the rest to be fabrications. For it is written in the Gospel according to Luke that, after the resurrection, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He gave it to Simon and Cleopas; but when they took the bread, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, and He vanished from their sight. D
A 69. But we wish to show how it would not have been more useful for the whole dispensation if He had suddenly vanished bodily from the cross. The events recorded to have happened to Jesus are not to be considered only in the bare letter and history, as if the whole truth consisted in these; for it is demonstrated to those who read the Scriptures more intelligently that each of them is also a symbol of something. Just as, therefore, His being crucified has its indicated truth in that saying, "I have been crucified with Christ," B and [truth] of that which is signified by the saying, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world," so also His death is necessary because of the saying, "For in that He died, He died unto sin once;" and because of the saying, "Being made conformable unto His death," and, "If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him." So also His burial extends to those who, being conformable to His death, have been crucified with Him and have died with Him. Paul teaches us this in these words: "For we have been buried with Him by baptism, and we have risen with Him." But as for the things which were written concerning the burial, the sepulcher, and him who buried Him, I shall discourse more fully and more opportunely elsewhere, when I shall have to deal with them deliberately. For the present, it will suffice to consider what is meant by the clean linen cloth, in which the pure body of Jesus C had to be wrapped, and the new tomb which Joseph hewed out of the rock, in which no one had yet lain, or, as John says, "in which no man was yet laid." Consider now whether the harmony of the three evangelists, who took care to describe the tomb as hewed or carved in the rock, can compel anyone who searches out the reasons for what is written to inquire whether there be something hidden and abstruse in them, as also in the newness of the tomb, which Matthew and John recorded, and in that observation of Luke and John, that no dead person had been laid there. For it was necessary that He who was not like other dead, but even in death had given signs of life by the shedding of blood and water, and who was, so to speak, a new dead one, should be buried in a new and pure sepulcher: so that just as His birth was purer than any other birth, D inasmuch as He was not born from the union of both sexes, but from a Virgin, so also His burial might have purity, whose sign was that new tomb in which His body was placed, not of [common] stones.
A Now, one might discourse more sublimely and divinely concerning the narration of these places and the manner of ascending from the things that are recorded to have happened to the things of which these events were symbols, if one were to undertake this task at a suitable opportunity and with industry. But as far as the literal sense is concerned, it may be explained thus: it was necessary that He who had judged that He ought to undergo the punishment of the cross should observe those things that were the consequences of such a purpose; accordingly, that He should be buried as a man, just as He had been killed as a man and had died as a man. But let us imagine that it had been written in the Gospels that He had suddenly vanished from the cross: nevertheless, Celsus and other unbelievers would have taken that also in a bad sense. They would have said in a spirit of calumny: “Why did He vanish after the punishment? Why not before He suffered?” If, then, they think they can blame the narrative because they learned from the Gospels that He did not vanish immediately from the cross—whereas the Gospels report what was truly done, and do not invent, as they wish it had been better for Him to have vanished suddenly from the cross—how would it be just for them to withhold B faith from His resurrection; and further to believe [as well] that He, when He willed, stood in the midst of the disciples, although the doors were shut; and at another time, after having given bread to two of His acquaintances and held conversation with them, He vanished from their sight?
Whence is it said by Celsus’s Jew that Jesus hid Himself? For he says concerning Him: “What messenger, being sent, when he ought to deliver his message, ever hides himself?” For He did not hide Himself, who said to those seeking to arrest Him: “I was daily in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me.” But as for what follows, being repeated by Celsus, having once made our defense, we will be content with what has been previously said. For it is written in the preceding [part of the work] against the point: “Is it because, while He was in the body, He persuaded no one, and thrust His sermons upon all until they were nauseated; but because, when He was raised from the dead, He might have persuaded effectively, He showed Himself secretly to only one woman and His own associates?” But it is not even true that He appeared to only one woman; for it is written in the Gospel according to Matthew that, at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, C Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the sepulchre; “and behold, there was a great earthquake: for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and coming, rolled back the stone.” And after a little, Matthew says: “And behold, Jesus met them” [the Maries just mentioned], saying: “Hail.” And they, coming up, took hold of His feet and worshipped Him. It is also said D that
A this is also refuted: “All were witnesses of the punishment, one of the resurrection”; where, indeed, this other claim is refuted: “He was not seen by all.” We add that those things which were human in Him were set before the eyes of all; but those things which were divine (I speak not of those things which relate to other matters, but of those things which differ among themselves), these not all could grasp. Observe, I beseech you, how manifestly Celsus contradicts himself here. For after he said that He showed Himself in secret to one poor woman and His own companions, he immediately adds: “All were witnesses of the punishment, one of the resurrection; which ought to have happened otherwise.” Therefore, if we listen to Celsus, it ought not to have been that all were witnesses of the punishment and one of the resurrection, but the opposite. But as far as these words sound, he desired both that which could not happen and that which is absurd, namely, that there should be one witness of the punishment and all be witnesses of the resurrection. For what other meaning is there to these words: “Which ought to have happened otherwise?”
71. Furthermore, Jesus taught us who it was that sent Him, when He says: “No one knows the Father except the Son”; and: “No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom B of the Father, He has made Him known.” He it is who, discoursing of God before His own genuine disciples, taught them those things which pertained to God: the traces of His words, which we find in the Scriptures, prepare for us a way to discourse concerning God. For here we read: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” And there: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” But there are also innumerable other reasons for which the Father sent Him. These, he who wishes can take either from the prophets, who foretold Him, or from the evangelists. Nor, indeed, will he learn few things from the apostles, and especially from Paul. He is also the one who illuminates those devoted to piety, and takes note of sinners. Ignorant of this fact, Celsus said: “If indeed He were about to illuminate those devoted to piety, and to have mercy on those who sin or who repent of their sins.”
72. After this he says: “Even if He wished to remain hidden, why was the voice from heaven heard, proclaiming Him the Son of C God? But if He did not wish to remain hidden, why was He punished, why did He die?” And he thinks that in these points he exposes a lack of harmony in those things which are written about Him, not seeing that He did not wish all things which concerned Him to be known to everyone and to the crowd, nor, in turn, that all things should remain hidden. The voice from heaven, therefore, proclaiming Him to be the Son of God and saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” is not written to have happened for the hearing of the crowds, as the Jew of Celsus thought. But also the voice from the cloud on the very high mountain was heard only by those who had ascended with Him. For divine things of this D sort
are heard by those alone whom the Speaker wills to hear. I do not yet say that the voice of God, as recorded, is by any means air struck or the striking of air, or whatever else is said in discussions about voice; wherefore it is heard by a hearing superior to the sensible and more divine. And when the Speaker does not will His voice to be audible to all, he who has better ears hears God, while he who is deaf in the hearing of the soul is insensible to God speaking. These considerations are in response to, "Why was the voice from heaven heard, proclaiming Him the Son of God?" And as for, "If He did not wish to remain hidden, why was He punished? Or why did He die?" it is sufficient to refer to what we said at greater length above concerning His passion.
B 73. To this, the Jew of Celsus adds what he considers to be a consequence, but which in no way follows. For because He willed that through the punishments He endured we should learn to despise death, it does not follow that, having been raised from the dead, He ought to have called all men openly to the light and taught them, for the sake of which He had come. For He had already called all to the light, when He said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. xi, 28). And Scripture explains the reason for which He came, whether by recounting the sermon which He gave—and at length—concerning the beatitudes, or what was said after that sermon, or in the parables, or in the conversations held with the scribes and Pharisees. And the Gospel according to John sets forth what Jesus taught, representing his greatness of speech, which lay in deeds more than in words. Indeed, it is clear from the Gospels that He spoke as one having authority, so that all marvelled.
74. The Jew of Celsus concludes all this as follows: "These things, then, we have brought forth to you from your own writings, for which we need no other witness; for you slay yourselves with your own sword." But it has been proved that the Jew has uttered many things against Jesus and against us which he did not draw from our Gospels. Nor do I think he has accomplished what he himself dreams—that we have fought against ourselves. The Jew exclaims a little later: "O highest God of the heavens, what God among men has not secured faith?" To which I respond thus: The Mosaic law relates that God was present to the Hebrews, not only when He was performing signs and wonders in Egypt, when He was opening a passage through the Red Sea, when He was leading them on with a pillar of fire and a luminous cloud, but also when He delivered the Decalogue; yet He did not secure faith from those who were witnessing it. For if they had had faith in Him whom they saw and heard, they would not have fashioned a calf for themselves; "they would not have changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass" (Ps. cv, 20); they would not have said to one another of that calf:
A "These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up from the land of Egypt." Now, consider whether the Jews are not always the same. No matter how great the miracles God performed, no matter how clearly He was present with them, they did not bestow faith upon Him at all during all the time they remained in the wilderness, as it is written in the Law of Moses. And now, neither the wonderful advent of Jesus, nor the discourses held with power, nor the miracles performed in an unusual manner before all the people, could induce them to receive Him.
75. I think this is enough to prove to anyone wishing to demonstrate the unbelief of the Jews towards Jesus, that it was consistent with what was written from the beginning about that people. For I would say to the Jew speaking at Celsus's behest: "What God, having associated with men, has failed to gain faith, especially when He appears to those who were hoping for His arrival? How is He not recognized, who has come after being expected for so long?" I would reply: "What would you have us answer, good sirs, to your questions? Which, in your own judgment, seem to you to be the greater miracles: those which were done in Egypt or in the wilderness, B or those which we say Jesus did among you? For if, in your estimation, the former are greater than the latter, is it not evident that you, having been accustomed to derogate from the faith of the greater, have spurned the lesser? For you consider those things we say about Jesus to be lesser. But if, however, the miracles of Jesus are said to be equal to those which the Scriptures testify were performed by Moses, what is strange in the fact that the same people was equally incredulous here as it was there from the very beginning? For to you, through Moses, was given the first law, in which the sins of you, the unbelievers and transgressors, are recorded; while it is admitted by us that Jesus is the author of a new law and a new covenant. Therefore, in rejecting Jesus, you yourselves bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who, in the wilderness, did not acknowledge God while He was making Himself so openly manifest. And what was said by our Savior aptly applies to your unbelief towards Him: C 'Truly ye bear witness that ye consent to the works of your fathers' (Luc. xi, 48); and in you this prophecy finds its fulfillment: 'And your life shall be hanging before your eyes, and ye shall not believe your life' (Deut. xxviii, 66). For you did not have faith in the Life which has made its abode among the race of men."
76. Nor could Celsus, while personating the Jew, find any way to attribute to him any objection in his argument which would not be brought against him from the legal and prophetic Scriptures. For he finds fault with Jesus, saying these things about him: "He is ready with threats and insults, shouting: Woe unto you, I foretell unto you." For in these things he openly confesses that he is unable to persuade—something which neither in God, D nor even in a wise man, would occur.
A See whether these things do not turn straight back upon the Jew. For God as well in the Law and the prophetic Scriptures threatens and rebukes, no less lightly than Jesus in the Gospel; of such a sort are the things in Isaiah, which go thus: "Woe unto them that join house to house, and lay field to field," and, "Woe unto them that rise up early, and follow strong drink," and, "Woe unto them that draw sins as with a long rope," and, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil," and, "Woe unto them that are mighty, that drink wine." And you could find ten thousand other such things. And are not the threats such as he mentions close to these: "Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, unruly children," and the rest? To these he adds such great threats, which are not less than those which he says Jesus has spoken. Or is not the threat great which says, "Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, overthrown by strange peoples"? And how are there not rebukes also in Ezekiel against the people, where the Lord is saying to the Prophet, "In the midst of scorpions do you dwell"? Therefore, O Celsus, have you not foolishly B made the Jew say concerning Jesus that, "He threatens and rebukes lightly, when he says: Woe unto you, and, I foretell unto you"? Do you not see that the very things which the Jew who is with you says in accusation of Jesus, these things could be said to him concerning God? For the God who is in the prophets is discovered to be liable to the same accusations of which the Jew, as he thinks, finds him guilty, as being unable to persuade. But I would also say this to the Jew who is with Celsus, who thinks that he is rightly finding fault with Jesus in these things, that there are as many curses recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, concerning which, if the Jew should apologize while standing by the Scripture, either in that way or even better, we shall C apologize concerning the rebukes and threats which are supposed to have been spoken by Jesus. And concerning the law of Moses itself, we shall be more able to offer a defense, inasmuch as we have been taught by Jesus to understand the legal writings more wisely than the Jew; although the Jew himself, if he perceives the intention of the prophetic words, will be able to show that God does not lightly threaten and rebuke when He says, "Woe," and, "I foretell unto you"; and how God, for the sake of the conversion of men, would say such things, which Celsus thinks not even a wise man would do. And Christians, indeed, knowing one God, the One in the prophets and in the Lord, will present the reasonableness of the supposed threats and the rebukes mentioned by Celsus. And I shall add a few things on this place to Celsus, who boasts that he is a philosopher and knows our affairs: D Hark you; if Mercury in Homer says to Ulysses:
A *Infelix, quorsum sic solus tesqua pererras?* He bears having an apology spoken by such a one, because the Homeric Mercury converses thus with Ulysses for the sake of his return; for to flatter and speak pleasant things belongs to the Sirens, to whom it is permitted, as they stand over a heap of bones, to say: *Huc ades, o decus et Græcorum splendor, Ulysses.* But if my prophets and Jesus himself, that they might convert their hearers, use the "Woe" or other forms of rebuke as you call them, these things have no bearing on the utility of the hearers, nor does he apply such speech to them as a Paeonian medicine. Unless perhaps you wish that God, or one who is a participant in divine nature, when he speaks to men, should attend only to what is suitable to his own nature and his own dignity, and never consider what is fitting to be promised to the men whom he governs and leads by his word, and in what manner he ought to speak to each one according to the character in question. But how ridiculous it is to say that Jesus could not persuade! For this hits equally not only the Jew, among whom the prophecies are filled with many such examples, but also the Greeks, whose wisest or most famous men could not persuade their own plotters, or judges, or accusers, that, having abandoned vices, they should embrace philosophy for the sake of attaining virtue.
77. After this the Jew says to him, B clearly according to what is pleasing to the Jews: “We hope indeed that we are to rise in the body and to have eternal life; and that he who is to be sent to us will be a pattern and leader of this resurrection, showing that there is nothing which is impossible for God.” I do not know indeed whether the Jew would say that the Christ expected by them was to provide in himself a pattern of the resurrection. But let it be; let it be granted that he both thinks and says this. And we respond to him who says that he deals with us from our own scriptures: “Read, good sir, those things in which you deem us worthy of blame; but have you not read that Jesus has risen, and that he is the firstborn from the dead? Or are these things not written because you do not wish them to be written?” But since the Jew in Celsus continues to speak and admits the resurrection of bodies, C I do not think it is now a suitable time to discourse on that subject to one who both believes and says that there is a resurrection of bodies; whether he provides a reasoned assent to it and is able to discourse well about the doctrine, or not, but rather feigns agreement with it. Let these things, therefore, be said to the Jew of Celsus. But when he adds: “Where is he now? that we may see and believe,” D
A we will say to him: Where, then, is he who spoke among the prophets and performed miracles, that we may see and believe that he is the portion of God? If it is permitted to you to apologize for the fact that God is not always present in visible form to the race of the Hebrews, shall the same apology not be permitted to us regarding Jesus, who, having once risen, persuaded his disciples of his own resurrection; and persuaded them to such a degree that, by what they endure, they demonstrate to everyone that, because they possess the vision of eternal life and the resurrection shown to them both by word and by deed, they treat as a mockery all the hardships of life?
After this, the Jew says: “Did he descend for this purpose, in order that we might disbelieve?” To which it will be said: He did not come for this purpose, that he might work disbelief in the Jews; but, foreknowing that it would happen, he foretold it, and made use of the disbelief of the Jews for the calling of the nations. For by their transgression salvation has come to the nations, regarding whom B Christ in the prophets says: “A people whom 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 of me.” And it is clear that the Jews were also punished for their life here, after they had treated Jesus as they did. Let the Jews, then, tell us if, when we accuse them, we may say: “How wonderful, then, for you is the providence and philanthropy of God, though you are being punished, and have been deprived of Jerusalem, and of the so-called sanctuary, and of the most solemn worship!” For whatever they may say in apology concerning the providence of God, we shall establish it all the more and to a better end, by saying that the providence of God was wonderful in having made use of the sin of that people for the calling of those from the nations through Jesus—those who were strangers to the covenants and aliens C to the promises, into the kingdom of God. And the prophets also foretold these things, that for the sins of the Jewish people God would choose not one nation, but chosen individuals from everywhere; and having chosen the foolish things of the world, he would make the “foolish nation” wise in divine doctrines, the kingdom of God being taken away from them and given to these others. It is sufficient, from many examples, for the present, to cite the prophecy from the Song of Deuteronomy concerning the calling of the nations, which is as follows, spoken in the person of the Lord: “For they have provoked me with those who are no gods, they have angered me with their idols; and I will provoke them with one who is not a people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.”
Then the epilogue of the Jew to all these points says concerning Jesus: “He, therefore, was a man, and such an one as the truth itself declares and reason demonstrates.” But I do not know if he was a man, having dared to scatter throughout the whole world his D religion and teaching.
can do all things at will, and overcome all those who would oppose the propagation of his doctrine: kings, emperors, the Roman senate, the princes of all nations, and the populace. But how could human nature, possessing nothing more excellent in itself, change the minds of so great a multitude? And that not only of the wise—which would not be a matter for wonder—but even of those who are led by no reason, who are addicted to vices, and who are the more difficult to bring to temperance the less they are obedient to reason? Since, however, Christ was the power of God and the wisdom of the Father, he did these things, and still does them, even though the Jews and Greeks who are incredulous of his doctrine may choose not to agree. We therefore, instructed by the teachings of Jesus, never cease to believe in God, and to wish to recall those who are blind concerning the worship of God to a better way of life: although they accuse us of blindness, all the while being truly blind themselves, and charge us with deceiving men when they themselves, whether Jews or Greeks, are merely hearing and deceiving themselves. Truly noble is our "method" of deception, inasmuch as we cause those who are intemperate to become temperate, or to strive after temperance; those who are unjust to be just, or to tend toward justice; the imprudent to become prudent or to follow the path of prudence; and the timid, slothful, and weak to become spirited and brave—a virtue in which they are especially eminent when they contend for the sake of preserving piety toward God, the Creator of all. Jesus Christ came, therefore, not proclaimed by one prophet, but by all. And it was Celsus's ignorance that led him to bring forward the Jewish character saying that Christ had been predicted by only one prophet. And when the Jew in Celsus—speaking as if according to his own law—has added a few other things which are not worth mentioning, he brings his discourse to an end. Here, therefore, I too shall bring the second book against his discourse to a close. With God giving the grace, and the power of Christ flowing into our soul, we shall endeavor in the third book to refute the rest of what was written by Celsus.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS: BOOK THREE
1. In the first volume which we wrote against the book inscribed by Celsus with the title *True Discourse*—which was composed against us—we have, in accordance with your command, most faithful Ambrose, examined in order its preface and what follows, A B C D
examining each of the points mentioned, until we arrived at the speech of the Jew, which he has fabricated against Jesus. In the second book, we replied as best we could to all the points that the Jew in his work brings against us who believe in God through Christ. We now embark upon this third book, in which our intention is to contest what he himself proposes in his own person. A He says, then, that "Christians and Jews contend most foolishly against one another," and he states that the discussion between us concerning Christ differs in no way from the dispute called in the proverb "a fight about an ass's shadow." He thinks there is nothing serious in the inquiry between Jews and Christians, since both agree that it was predicted by the Holy Spirit that a Savior would come to the human race, but they differ as to whether the one who was predicted has come or not. For we Christians believe that Jesus has come according to the oracles of the prophets; but the majority of the Jews are so far from believing in Jesus that even those who were living at that time laid snares for him, while those of the present day, approving of what others formerly dared to do against him, accuse Jesus of having imagined through certain magical arts that he was the one whom the Jews call Christ, and whom the prophets foretold would come.
B Let Celsus and those who are pleased with his arguments against us tell us whether it is like an ass's shadow that the prophets of the Jews predicted the place of birth of the leader of those who live virtuously, who are termed the portion of God; and that a Virgin would conceive Emmanuel; and that the one predicted would perform signs and wonders such as these; and that his word would run with such speed that his sound would go forth into all the earth, through the apostles; what he would suffer being condemned by the Jews; and how he would rise again. For did the prophets say these things by chance, without any persuasiveness that moved them not only to say them, but also to judge them worthy of being recorded? Or did the great nation of the Jews, which long ago received its own land to inhabit, without any plausible reason proclaim some as true prophets, while rejecting others as false prophets? And was there nothing that moved them to number the words of those who were henceforth considered prophets among the books of Moses which they believed to be sacred? Can those who charge the Jews and Christians with folly demonstrate to us that the nation of the Jews could have remained in existence, C had there been no promise of foreknowledge among them? And that the nations surrounding them, each according to its own institutions, believed in prophecies from the gods they supposed to be their own; yet they alone—those instructed in the fear of D God—had no evidence to distinguish between true prophecy and the appearance of it, if they were merely relying on an "ass's shadow"? But these matters have been sufficiently argued.
A and to receive oracles from those whom they deemed gods among them; but those alone, who had been taught to despise all those among the nations who were accounted gods—as being not gods, but demons (since their prophets had said, "All the gods of the nations are demons")—had no one who promised to prophesy to them, and was able to draw away those who, through a desire for foreknowledge of the future, were going to desert to the demons among others? Consider, then, whether it was not necessary that a whole nation instructed to despise the gods of other peoples should be well-provided with prophets who showed forth something greater B than that, and which surpassed absolutely every oracle [found] everywhere.
Moreover, miracles were performed everywhere, or in many places. Celsus himself mentions in the following parts that Asclepius was healing and foretelling future events in all the cities that were sacred to him, for example in Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos, and Pergamon; and [he mentions] Aristeas of Proconnesus, and a certain Clazomenian, and Cleomedes the Astypalaean. And among the Jews alone, who claimed to be sacred to the God of the universe, there was no sign, no prodigy, which could assist and confirm their faith in the Creator of all things, along with the hope of a better life hereafter? How can they imagine such a thing? For they would have immediately turned to the worship of the demons that were prophesying and healing diseases, and would have abandoned the God who was believed to aid them in word indeed, but in reality had never shown Himself present. But if this did not happen, but [they] rather endured innumerable afflictions C so that they might not abjure their Judaism and...
(But) was it possible for such a thing to occur? For (the Jews) would immediately have turned to the worship of the demons that foretold the future and cured diseases, having abandoned the God who was believed to aid them in word merely, but who had in no way demonstrated His own appearance. If this has not come to pass, but they have even endured countless hardships so as not to abjure their Judaism—and, finally, having shattered the wood of the chest, since they found Cleomedes neither alive nor dead, they sent men to Delphi to ask what might be the case regarding Cleomedes. These men, they say, were given this response by the Pythia: *Cleomedes the Astypalaean is the last of the heroes,* *Whom you honor with sacrifices as no longer being mortal.* From this time forth, the Astypalaeans accord honors to Cleomedes as a hero. D They say that in a previous Olympiad, Cleomedes the Astypalaean, while boxing with Iccus the Epidaurian, killed Iccus in the match; and having been condemned by the Hellanodicae for having acted unjustly, and being deprived of the victory, he became deranged from his grief and returned to Astypalaea. Standing there in a school room of some sixty children, he overturned the column that supported the roof; and when the roof fell on the children, being stoned by the citizens, he fled into the temple of Athena. Having entered into a chest lying in the temple, and having pulled the lid over himself, the Astypalaeans labored in vain, seeking to open the chest. But how can such a thing be?
A in Assyria, now in Persia, and now under Antiochus, is it not reasonably demonstrated to those who disbelieve the marvelous histories and prophecies that such things were not fabrications, but that some divine Spirit, dwelling in the pure souls of the prophets who had taken upon themselves every labor on behalf of virtue, stirred them to prophesy some things to their contemporaries, others to those who should come after, and especially concerning some Savior who was to come to the human race?
If this is so, how is it that Jews and Christians dispute with one another "about the shadow of an ass," B inquiring from the prophecies, to which both equally accord faith, whether he who is prophesied has come, or whether he has not yet come but is still expected? Even if it were granted, for the sake of the argument, to Celsus that Jesus is not the one whom the prophets heralded, still no less would it be "about the shadow of an ass" that the investigation of the meaning of the prophetic Scriptures would be, so that what is proclaimed might be clearly manifested: what kind of person it was prophesied he would be, what he would do, and if possible, when he would appear. I have already shown above, however, by citing a few prophecies out of many, that Jesus is the Christ who was prophesied. Therefore, neither Jews nor Christians are in error when they believe that the prophets spoke by the inspiration of God; but they are in error who hold false opinions concerning the Christ whom the prophets said was to be expected, although the true discourse of the prophets has taught us both who he was to be and where he was to be born.
5. After this, Celsus, thinking that the Jews were by birth Egyptians C and had left Egypt because they had rebelled against the Egyptian community and held in contempt the religious rites customary in Egypt, says, "that those things which the Egyptians suffered at their hands, the same things were suffered by the Egyptians at the hands of those who joined themselves to Jesus and believed in him as Christ; and that in both cases, the motive for the innovation was a seditious spirit against the community." It must be observed what Celsus is doing here. The ancient Egyptians, having treated the race of the Hebrews harshly—who had been compelled by famine to enter Egypt D and dwell there—and having inflicted injuries upon them while they were suppliants and guests, paid the penalties which it was fitting should be inflicted by divine providence upon a people who had conspired against guests from whom no injury had been received. Whence, having been chastised by the scourges of God, they with difficulty and after little time granted them permission to depart to wherever they wished, those whom they had unjustly reduced to servitude. Being therefore self-loving, and preferring their own kinsmen of any kind to even the most righteous strangers, they left no slander untried which they could speak against Moses and the Hebrews; so that, not daring entirely to deny the marvelous miracles of Moses...
they ascribed them to magic arts, not to divine power. Moses, however, not as a charlatan, but as a pious man, devoted to God, the Lord of all, and a partaker of the divine Spirit, gave laws to the Hebrews just as God dictated them to him, and recorded the events that had occurred exactly as they had truly taken place.
A 6. Therefore, Celsus was not a fair judge of the matters that are narrated in one way by the Egyptians and in another way by the Jews; but, being preoccupied with a certain love for the Egyptians, he agreed with the oppressors of guests as if they were reporting the truth, while stating that the Hebrews, oppressed by injuries, had departed from Egypt by way of sedition. Nor did he see that it could not have been possible for such a great multitude of seditious Egyptians, who had their origin in a faction, to have coalesced into a nation that at the same time, in the midst of sedition, changed its language, so that those who had until then used the Egyptian tongue could suddenly master the Hebrew. But, even if I were to grant for the sake of argument that, having left Egypt, they abhorred the language in which they had been nurtured, why then did they not speak the language of the Syrians or the Phoenicians1, rather than the Hebrew language, which is far different from both? From all of which it is proved to be false that certain people, Egyptian by race, had stirred up a sedition against the Egyptians, departed from Egypt, come into Palestine, and inhabited that region which is now called Judaea. For the ancestral language B of the Hebrews existed before they traveled into Egypt; and the Hebrew letters, which Moses used in writing the five books that are considered sacred among the Jews, are different from the Egyptian ones.
7. But just as it is false that, «because the Hebrews were of the Egyptian race, their society necessarily had its beginning in sedition,» so also it is not true that «other Jews in the age of Jesus conspired in a sedition against the common body of the Jews, and that they had followed Jesus.» For neither Celsus nor those who share his sentiments can demonstrate that any seditious act was committed by the Christians. And indeed, if the Christian society, which drew its origin from the Jews—those who were permitted to take up arms in defense of their own and to kill their enemies—had been given a place by sedition, certainly the Lawgiver of the Christians would not have utterly forbidden C the killing of any human being. And that this is already established by the patriarchs is evident from the fact that the heap of witness in Genesis (xxxI, 47) is called *Yegar Sahadutha* in Syriac by Laban, while it is called *Galed* in Hebrew by Jacob. But we never read that the Phoenician or Canaanite language was remarkably different from the Hebrew, or that the Jews conducted business with the Canaanites or Phoenicians through an interpreter. On the contrary, the woman of Jericho, Rahab, and the spies sent by Joshua converse with each other as if they were partakers of the same or not very different languages. See Samuel Bochart’s *Sacred Chronology* (Part II, Bk. 1, Ch. 1 et seq.), where he proves by many other arguments that the Phoenician language was closely related to the Hebrew.
A His teaching was that it would never be right to allow his own disciples to offer violence to any man, not even to one who was most unjust. For he did not consider it becoming to his divine legislation to suffer the slaughter of a human being, whatever sort of man he might be. Nor would the Christians, who trace their origin to a sedition, have adopted such peaceful laws that they should be slaughtered like sheep, and that it should not be permitted for them to take vengeance upon their persecutors.
But even one who wishes to examine things more deeply can say regarding those who departed from the land of Egypt that it happened in a marvelous way that the whole people suddenly, as if God had inspired them, adopted the language B which is called Hebrew. To this point pertains what one of their prophets said: «When they went out from the land of Egypt, they understood a language which they had not known.»
8. It must also be argued that they were not Egyptians who departed from Egypt with Moses. For if they were Egyptians, their names ought to have been Egyptian, since every language has its own proper appellations. If, therefore, their names were Hebrew, it is clear that they were not Egyptians. And since Scripture is full of Hebrew names, and of those who imposed such names upon their children, it is clear that what the Egyptians say—that they were Egyptians who were expelled from Egypt with Moses—is false. It is also clearly evident that they were sprung from Hebrew parents, as the history written by Moses testifies, and that they used the language from which they took the names to impose C upon their children.
But as for the Christians, because they have kept the benign and gentle law which they were taught, not to take vengeance upon their enemies, they have attained that which they have attained—and even if they had been given the liberty to wage war, and had been provided with the necessary aids for this purpose, they would not have done so. They received this from God, who has always fought for them, and at opportune times has restrained those who rose up against the Christians and intended to kill them. For by way of reminder (so that, seeing few struggling for piety, others might become stronger and despise death), few have died for the Christian religion, and they were very easily numbered. God blocked the destruction of their entire nation; for He willed that it should stand, and that the whole earth should be filled with this saving D and most holy teaching. Again, so that the weaker might breathe again from the fear of death, God provided for those who believe, dissipating by His will alone every plot formed against them, so that neither kings, nor local governors, nor the common people could be further incited against them.
This, then, concludes our response to what Celsus stated regarding the idea that «at the beginning a sedition occurred, and that the Jews originated from this, and afterward these became Christians.»
A 9. Now, because he clearly tells lies in what follows, come, let us set forth his own words where he says: «If all men wished to become Christians, they would no longer wish it.» That such an assertion is a lie is evident from the fact that Christians, as far as lies in their power, take care that their doctrine be scattered everywhere throughout the world. For which reason some have made it their business to go about not only cities, but even villages and country estates, so that they might win others over to the pious worship of God. Nor could anyone say that they do this for the sake of gain, since at times they do not even accept the necessities of life. And if ever, by reason of this need, they are compelled to accept them, they are satisfied with only as much as is necessary, even if many might wish to bestow more upon them. B But perhaps now, when in the multitude of those who embrace this doctrine there are some who are rich, some who hold positions of authority, and even delicate and noble women who receive those who come from this teaching, one might dare to say that some individuals preach the doctrine of the Christians out of a desire for vainglory. But at the beginning of Christianity, when the danger was greatest for its teachers, this suspicion could have had no place. And even today, the ignominy in which they are held by outsiders is greater than the glory they have among their own, which is not even granted to all. It is evident, therefore, that it is a lie—the claim that if all men wished to be Christians, they would refuse this.
10. Look also at what he claims to be the proof of this: «In the beginning,» he says, «while they were few, they were of one mind. But when their number was scattered abroad, they were immediately divided into sections and split, and each wants to have their own factions; for they desired this from the beginning.» That in comparison to the future multitude the Christians were a few in the beginning is clear; yet they were not altogether few. C For what stirred up envy against Jesus and incited the Jews to lay snares against him was the multitude of those following him into the wilderness, with five thousand and four thousand men accompanying him, besides the number of women and children. For there was such a power of attraction and enticement in the words of Jesus that not only men were willing to follow him into the wilderness, but also women, forgetting their feminine weakness and neglecting their reputation, followed that Teacher into the desert. Children also, who otherwise have no real affection, followed their parents, perhaps even drawn by his divinity so that they too might enjoy his divinity, and made the journey together with their parents. But let it be granted that they were few at the beginning: does this prove that Christians would refuse to persuade all men of their doctrine?
11. He adds: «They were all of one mind.» And he does not see even in this that right from the beginning, concerning the interpretation of the D sacred books and the faith of the believers, there were disagreements.
Even while the apostles were still preaching, and the eyewitnesses of Jesus were teaching His doctrines, no small dispute arose among those who had come to the faith from Judaism concerning the Gentiles who were approaching the Word. For they asked whether it was necessary for them to observe the Jewish customs, or whether they should be freed from the burden of pure and impure foods, as this was not essential for those who had abandoned their ancestral traditions among the Gentiles and believed in Jesus. And in the Epistles of Paul, who lived during the time of those who had seen Jesus, we find mention of some who raised questions about the resurrection, whether it had already taken place, and concerning the day of the Lord, whether it was imminent or not. And also that which says, "Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith," makes it clear that from the beginning there were some misconceptions, not—as Celsus thinks—when a large number of believers had already come to be.
Then, since he blames us, as if accusing the Word, for the sects that exist in Christianity, B saying: "Scattered into a multitude, they are again divided and cut, and each one wishes to have his own faction"; and he says that "again separated by the multitude, they condemn one another, keeping a common name, if indeed they still keep it. For they were ashamed to cast off this alone; but as for the rest, they have different institutions." To this we shall respond that there arise no sects of any matter, unless its beginning is serious and useful for life. For since medicine is useful and necessary for the human race, and there are many questions in it concerning the method of healing bodies, for this reason sects in medicine C are admittedly found among the Greeks; and I believe also among the barbarians, as many as profess to practice medicine. Again, since philosophy promises truth and the knowledge of things that are, and advises how one ought to live, and attempts to teach what is beneficial to our race—but the matters in question have a great deal of difficulty—for this reason, very many sects have been established in philosophy, of which some are more famous, and others not so. Also, Judaism provided an occasion for the birth of sects through the different interpretation of the writings of Moses and the prophetic words. D Therefore, since Christianity appeared to be something noble to men—not only, as Celsus thinks, to the more servile, but also to many of the scholars among the Greeks—sects necessarily arose, not at all through a spirit of sedition and contention, but because very many of those who were learned sought to understand
A the divine words—which all held equally to be divine—and interpreted them in different ways. Thus, sects came to be named after those who, while they admired the origin of the Word, were moved by certain plausible arguments to disagree with one another. Yet one should not reasonably shun medicine because of the sects that have arisen within it, nor should anyone hate philosophy because of the "sects" it has produced, nor should the sacred books of Moses and the prophets be condemned because of the sects that have arisen among the Jews.
13. If this holds true, why should we not likewise make an apology for the sects among the Christians? Regarding these, it seems to me that Paul has said, in a very admirable way: "For there must also be sects among you, that those who are approved may be made manifest" B (I Cor. xi, 19). For just as he is truly "approved" in medicine who has been versed in diverse sects, and has diligently examined most of them, and then chosen the best; and just as he truly makes progress in philosophy who does not cling to a superior doctrine until he has exercised himself in most others; so I would say that he is the wisest Christian who has accurately scrutinized the sects of Judaism and Christianity. Whoever disparages our doctrine because of these sects deserves also to disparage the teaching of Socrates, from whose school many other schools have arisen that do not agree with one another at all; nor would he spare the dogmas of Plato, whose pupil Aristotle abandoned his doctrines in favor of new opinions, as we said above. C Furthermore, it seems to me that Celsus became aware of certain sects that do not even retain the name of Jesus in common with us. Perhaps he may have heard of those called Ophians, and of the Cainians, and of any other such sect that in all things departed from Jesus. But this constitutes no argument against the Christian doctrine.
14. He adds: "Their confederacy is more to be wondered at, in that it is shown to be founded on no solid reasoning. But instead of solid reasoning, there was sedition, and from that, anticipated profit, and the fear of outsiders. These things confirm their faith." And regarding this D...
A we shall say that our creed is based on a hypothesis—or rather, not even on a hypothesis, but on a divine operation—in such a way that its origin is God, who in the prophets taught men to hope for the advent of Christ, who would save mankind. For insofar as this is not truly refuted, even if it may seem to be refuted by the faithless, to that extent the Word stands firm as the Word of God, and Jesus is proven to be the Son of God, both before He became man and after He became man. I say, furthermore, that even after the incarnation, it is always found to be most divine by those who have the eyes of the soul most sharp-sighted, and that it truly descended to us from God, and that it did not derive its origin or its subsequent progress from human ingenuity, but from the manifestation of God, who in His manifold wisdom and manifold powers established first B Judaism, and after it, Christianity. Thus, the idea that it is considered a sedition, and that it is the profit derived from sedition that is the origin of the doctrine which has converted and bettered so many, has been refuted.
15. That our creed is not maintained by the fear of outsiders is also clear from the fact that this, by the will of God, has ceased for a long time now. And it is likely that even that safety which has been born in the believers with regard to this life will cease, whenever those who in every way slander the Word think that the cause of the present C extensive sedition in the multitude of believers lies in the fact that they are not being fought against by the rulers as they were in past times. For we have learned from the Word neither to be slack in peace and give ourselves over to ease, nor, when we are fought against by the world, to lose heart and depart from the love of the God of all things in Jesus Christ. Clearly, then, the
A reverence of our beginning we exhibit, and do not—as Celsus imagines—conceal it, when we instill into those who first come to us a contempt for idols and all statues, and furthermore, lifting up their minds from serving created things instead of God, we raise them toward the Creator of all things; B clearly demonstrating the One who was foretold, both from the prophecies concerning Him (and these are many) and from what is accurately handed down to those capable of hearing more wisely from the Gospels and the apostolic voices.
16. But what kind of manifold bugbears do we drag in, or what terrors do we fabricate, as Celsus writes without proof? Let him who wishes show it. Unless perhaps Celsus considers our teaching—which we affirm with various proofs, both from the Scriptures and from reasonable discourse—that God is a judge and demands from all men an account of what they have done, to be a source of "terrors." And yet (for truth is beloved), Celsus says at the very end: "May the gods forbid that I, or others, or any human being should abandon this dogma, that the unjust shall be punished and the just shall be deemed worthy of rewards." By what, then, are the bugbears—if you remove this opinion concerning punishments—that we use to attract men? And since he also says that "we have invented evil opinions from an ancient doctrine, and first chant them to men, as those who make a din around them who are being initiated into the rites of the Corybantes," we shall ask him: From what ancient doctrine are those evil opinions derived? For whether he says from the Greek, which itself teaches that there are tribunals beneath the earth, or from the Jewish, which among other things prophesies another life after this one; he will never be able to demonstrate that we, who endeavor to believe with reason, having attained the truth incorrectly, C order our life according to such dogmas.
17. Furthermore, he wishes to compare the matters of our faith to the customs of the Egyptians: "If you approach them, at once there are visible splendid shrines, and groves, and great and beautiful vestibules, and admirable temples, and magnificent surrounding enclosures, and religious ceremonies quite full of arcane things; but when you have entered and reached the inner sanctums, you see either a cat, or an ape, or a crocodile, or a goat, or a dog being worshipped." But what is the analogy to these things, which at first sight appear splendid to those approaching the Egyptians, in our own faith? And what is the analogy to those irrational animals worshipped inside, beyond those glorious vestibules? Shall he say that the prophecies, and the God over all, and the contempt for statues are indeed things worthy of veneration; D while Jesus Christ, who was crucified...
is something to be compared with the worshipped brute beast? If he says this—for I do not think he will say anything else—we shall answer A that many things have already been said by us above in support of the matters concerning Jesus, showing that even those things which appear to have happened to Him according to the flesh have come to pass usefully for the universe, and savingly for the whole world.
18. Because the Egyptians, while speaking sublimely B about their irrational animals, claim that they are certain symbols of God—or whatever else it may have pleased those who are called their prophets to name them—he says that "a phantasy is sent to those who have learned these things, so that they may not think they have been initiated in vain." But as for the things in our teachings that are revealed to those who are well-educated in Christianity, through the gift called by Paul "the word of wisdom through the Spirit," and "the word of knowledge according to the Spirit," Celsus does not seem to me to have even formed a conception of them—not only from what he has just said, but also from the things he adds in what follows to discredit the society of Christians; namely, that "they exclude every wise man from their teaching of the faith, and invite only the foolish and those of servile character." Concerning these, we shall see in due time when we come to that passage.
19. He adds: "We laugh at the Egyptians, although they present many riddles that are not to be despised, since they teach that eternal ideas, and not, as the common people think, perishing animals, are to be worshipped; but we are fools, who, in the things that are said by us about Jesus, bring forward nothing nobler than the Egyptian goats and dogs." C To which we reply: Be it so, excellent sir, that you rightly extol with deserved praise the many and not-to-be-despised riddles and the explanations wrapped in mystery that the Egyptians offer about their animals; but you do not act rightly when, in order to defame us, you induce your mind to think that we say nothing, and that all our things are futile and of no value, when we discourse about Jesus to those who are in Christianity as the "perfect," according to the wisdom of our doctrine. Concerning these, as being capable of hearing the wisdom in Christianity, Paul says: "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew" (1 Cor. II, 6 seq.).
And we say to those who agree with Celsus, that if Paul thought there was no D excellent wisdom, he would not have promised to speak wisdom among the perfect. Since, however, according to his own boldness, he says that he has nothing wise... 20. Does Celsus ask, if Paul had no notion of excellent wisdom formed in his mind, would he have promised that he would speak wisdom among the perfect? But since, the things which were his own...
A he promised; we reply to him saying: First explain yourself, you who speak of these Epistles, and having looked intently at the meaning of each word in them (to name, for example, those to the Ephesians, and to the Colossians, and to the Thessalonians, and to the Philippians, and to the Romans), demonstrate both things: that you have understood the words of Paul, and that you have shown some of them to be silly or foolish. For if anyone gives himself to reading with attention, I well know that either he will admire the mind of the man, who expresses great things in common language, or, if he does not admire it, he himself will appear ridiculous, whether he is attempting to explain it as having understood the man's meaning, or is attempting to argue against and overthrow what he has fancied himself to have understood.
21. And I do not yet speak of the deep understanding of everything written in the Gospels, which deserves to be observed. Each of these contains a point that is manifold and hard to discern, not only for the many but even for some among the intelligent; it involves the deepest interpretation of the parables, which Jesus spoke to those outside, keeping their clarity for those who had surpassed the external hearing and who privately joined themselves to Him in the house. A person will also wonder, considering what reason there is for some to be called "those outside" and others to be "in the house." Indeed, for one who is able to grasp it, will the migrations of Jesus—at one time ascending the mountain to say or do certain things, or to be transfigured, and at another time below healing the sick who are not able to ascend where His disciples were following Him—not be a matter of admiration? But this is not the place to relate what is truly august and divine in the Gospels, or to relate the mind of Christ in Paul, that is, the mind of the Wisdom and the Word speaking within him; that would be out of season. But what I have said will be enough to repress the derision of Celsus, which is unworthy of a philosopher, for he dared to compare the inner and mystical mysteries of the Church of God with the cats, or apes, or crocodiles, or goats, or dogs of the Egyptians.
22. And so that the buffoon might leave no form of derision and mockery against us, in his book written against us he names the Dioscuri, and Hercules, and Aesculapius, and Bacchus, who among the Greeks were believed to have been brought from the rank of men into the number of the gods; and he says: "We do not endure it that they should be held as gods, because although they were men, they were the first, even though they displayed many and noble things on behalf of men; yet, we affirm that Jesus, having died, was seen by his own followers." And he adds to this indictment, that when we say "he was seen," we wish for it to be understood as a shadow. We reply to this, that Celsus has craftily neither clearly expressed that he does not worship such gods, for he was afraid that someone who might happen upon his book B C D
A should deem him an atheist if he were to advocate for the truth as it appears to him; nor, indeed, would he have feigned that he himself counts them as gods. For we would have made a response to either case. Come then, let us say the following to those who do not believe them to be gods: Are they not, to begin with, in existence at all? But, just as some people think regarding the human soul that it perishes immediately, has the soul of these beings also perished? Or, according to the opinion of those who say that it endures or that it is immortal, do they also endure, or are they immortal; and are they not gods, but heroes; or are they not even heroes, but simply souls? If you suppose them not to exist, then the argument concerning the soul, which is our primary concern, must be established; but if they do exist, then the argument about immortality must be accepted, not only from those Greeks who have spoken well about it, but also in accordance with what is pleasing to divine teachings. And we shall show that it is not possible for these beings, having become polytheistic, to have come into a better place and portion after their departure from here, by bringing forward the stories about them, in which is recorded the great intemperance of Hercules, and his womanish service to Omphale, and the matters concerning Asclepius, how he was struck by the thunderbolt of their Zeus. It will also be told concerning the Dioscuri, how, B "At times they live, and perish on alternate days, Yet each receives an equal honor with the gods," being those who die many times. How then do they think it reasonable that any one of these should be considered a god or a hero? We, on our part, demonstrate the matters concerning our own Jesus from the prophetic scriptures, and after this we compare the history concerning him with the histories of those beings, to show that no intemperance of his is reported. For not even those who plotted against him, and sought out false testimony against him, were able to find even a probability for their false testimony, so as to accuse him of intemperance; but his death also came about from the plots of men, and it had nothing similar to the thunderbolt against Asclepius. And what is reverend about the raving C Dionysus, clothed in a woman's robe, in order that he should be worshipped as a god? And if those who apologize for these cases take refuge in allegories, we must examine the allegories separately, to see if they contain what is sound; and separately, whether those who have been torn apart by Titans and cast down from the heavenly throne can have any subsistence and be worthy of worship and adoration. But our Jesus, having been seen by his own companions (for I shall use the term current among Celsus), was indeed truly seen; D but it is mere calumny of Celsus that he was seen only as a shadow. Now let them be compared together
with that of Jesus. Does Celsus wish it to be the case that those accounts are true, while these, recorded by men who were eyewitnesses and who demonstrated by their very deeds the clarity of their perception regarding the One they had beheld, and who manifested their disposition in the willing endurance of suffering for the sake of His teaching, are mere fabrications? And who, desiring to act properly in all things, would randomly B give assent to those former accounts, yet, when moving on to the accounts regarding Him, would unbelievingly refuse to examine the testimony concerning Him?
And again, when it is said regarding Asclepius that a great multitude of people, both Greeks and barbarians, confess that they have often seen, and still see, not a phantom, but the very one who heals, confers benefits, and foretells future events, Celsus demands that we believe it; nor does he censure those who believe in Jesus when we believe in these things. But when we assent to the disciples who saw the miracles of Jesus and demonstrated clearly the sincerity of their own conscience—insofar as it is possible to perceive a character from writings—we are termed simpletons by Celsus, who is unable to show us an "innumerable" (as he puts it) multitude of Greeks and barbarians who confess Asclepius. We, on the contrary, if he considers this to be something great, clearly demonstrate an innumerable multitude of Greeks and barbarians who confess Jesus; and some among those whom they heal show that through this faith they have received something marvelous, for they invoke nothing else over those in need of healing than the Suppreme God, and the name of Jesus, together with the history concerning Him. By these means, we too have seen many delivered from grievous afflictions, from states of mental alienation, from madness, and from countless other ills, which neither men nor demons were able to heal.
C 25. But even if one were to grant that a certain demon named Asclepius heals bodies, I would say to those who admire this—or the divination of Apollo—the following: If the art of healing bodies is neither a good nor an evil thing, and falls to the lot of the good just as much as the wicked, and if the power to foresee future events is likewise an indifferent thing (for he who foresees is not necessarily a good man), then prove that those who heal or foresee are not wicked; for it is certain that some are demonstrated to be good, and are little short of being thought gods. But they will not be able to D prove that those who heal or foresee are good. For many are said to be healed who were unworthy of life, and to whom a wise man would...
not have wished to grant the preservation of their life, seeing that they lived in an impure manner. D And in the oracles of the Pythian, you would find certain commands which are far from reasonable. Of these, I will present two examples for the present: first, how he ordered the boxer to be honored with divine honors—I know not what noble quality he saw in his boxing—nor did he honor Pythagoras or Socrates with the honors of a boxer. But also, while calling Archilochus a servant of the Muses, A a man who rendered his own poetry in the most base and most base subject matter, and who displayed an immodest and impure character, insofar as it was possible for a servant of the Muses—who were thought to be goddesses—he proclaimed him to be a certain pious man. Truly, I do not know if even any random person would say that a pious man is not adorned with every moderation, virtue, and decency—things which the not-noble iambics of Archilochus contain. But if nothing divine is revealed there from the medical art of Asclepius and the divination of Apollo, how could anyone reasonably—even if I were to grant that these things are so—worship them as if they were pure gods? B And especially when, through the Pythian mouth, the prophetic spirit—the so-called prophetess sitting in the chasm—a prophetic spirit enters through the female organs.
On Archilochus
Furthermore, one must not permit writing as basely as Hipponax and Archilochus. Cephisidorus, at any rate, the student of the orator Isocrates, in the third book of his work against Aristotle, says that one might find among other poets or sophists one or two things stated badly, such as that in Archilochus: *Everything of a man to strip bare.* For Diphilus the comic poet also wrote in his drama *Sappho* that Archilochus and Hipponax were lovers of Sappho. If someone should blame the subject matter of Archilochus, note that they drove the poet Archilochus out of Lacedaemon as soon as he arrived, because they recognized that he had composed that it is better to throw away one’s arms than to die. C *With my shield, some Sais prides himself, which near a bush I left behind, not wishing it, blameless and beautiful. That shield, let it go. Again, I shall acquire another no less worthy.*
As for the one whom the Pythian also pitied when dead; and this in war, where, to be sure, Enyalius is common. For he who killed Archilochus in battle was called Callondas (as it seems), and he had the epithet "Corax" [Raven]. He was first cast out by the Pythia as one who had slain a man sacred to the Muses, but then, after using certain prayers and entreaties, with some justification for himself, he was ordered to go to the dwelling of the cicada [Tettix] and appease the soul of Archilochus. D *Immortal for you, O Telesicles, shall be your son, and worthy of song among men.* And this son was Archilochus. [/cont]
We, however, feel nothing of the kind concerning Jesus and his power. For the body that was born of the Virgin was composed of human material, and was subject to human wounds and death.
26. Now let us see what Celsus says after this, citing B marvelous stories from histories which, even if they seem incredible in themselves, are believed by him no less, if his words are to be trusted. Such are the things he first relates about Aristeas of Proconnesus, of whom he speaks as follows: “Then, concerning Aristeas of Proconnesus, who, after having thus divinely vanished from the sight of men, appeared again, and many years later visited many places of the world and reported marvelous things, and about whom Apollo commanded the Metapontines to hold him in the number of the gods, no one until now considers him a god.” He seems to have drawn this history from Pindar and Herodotus. C It suffices now to cite the words of Herodotus from the fourth book of his Histories, which are as follows concerning him: “I have already said whence he was who reported these things. But I shall relate the account I heard of him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, being no less noble than any of his fellow citizens, entered a fuller’s shop in Proconnesus and died there; the fuller, having closed the workshop, went away to notify the relatives of the deceased. But when the rumor had spread throughout the city that Aristeas was dead, as the matter was being discussed in various ways, a certain Cyzicene arrived from the city of Artace, who said that he met Aristeas on his way to Cyzicus and held a conversation with him. While he persistently maintained this, the relatives of the D deceased arrived at the fuller’s shop with the things necessary for the funeral; but when the room was opened, Aristeas appeared neither alive nor dead; seven years later, he was seen in Proconnesus, composed there the verses which are now called by the Greeks the Arimaspeia, and after that vanished for a second time. These things, then, those cities say. But I know that these things happened to the Metapontines in Italy three hundred and forty years after Aristeas of Proconnesus had vanished for the second time, as I found by comparing what I heard in Proconnesus and among the Metapontines. For the Metapontines say that Aristeas, having appeared to them in their land, commanded them to set up an altar to Apollo and besides it to erect a statue, which [is named after] Aristeas of Proconnesus.
A For he said that Apollo had come to the lands of the Italians, and he himself, who is now Aristeas, had followed him; when he followed the god, he was a raven. And the man who said these things disappeared; but the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi to ask the god what the apparition of the man might be; and the Pythian commanded them to obey the apparition, and it would be better for them if they obeyed. And they accepted this and performed it. And now there stands a statue bearing the name of Aristeas by the very image of Apollo. And laurels stand around it. And the statue is set up in the market-place. So much, then, for Aristeas.
B We must say to the history concerning Aristeas that if Celsus had set it forth as history without showing his own assent and accepting it as true, we would have met his argument in a different way. But since he says that he miraculously disappeared and became clearly visible again, and visited many parts of the world and reported wonderful things, and, moreover, mentions an oracle of Apollo commanding the Metapontines to hold Aristeas in the number of the gods, and since he recounts these things about Aristeas as if of his own accord and in agreement, I ask: You, who think that the things the disciples have written in their books about the miracles of Jesus are entirely fictions, and who reproach those who place faith in them, how do you not judge such things to be prodigiously crafted fables? C How can you, who blame others for admitting the miracles of Jesus without any reason, appear to admit such things, with no proof or argument cited to show that those events occurred? Or do you think that Herodotus and Pindar do not deceive you with lies, while those who chose to die for the teachings of Jesus, and left behind writings for posterity concerning the things they had closely observed, struggled so much for the sake of what you call fictions and myths and prodigies that they were willing to live miserably and to be forcibly removed from the midst of life? Place yourself, therefore, as a judge between D the things written about Aristeas and those narrated about Jesus, and see if, from the outcome and from what each did to induce moral reformation and piety toward the God over all, one ought not to judge that it must be believed that the things the history of Jesus reports were done not without God, whereas those of Aristeas the Proconnesian were not.
28. For with what purpose did Providence bring about the strange events concerning Aristeas? And wanting to benefit the human race, what such great things—as you think—was it demonstrating? You have nothing to say.
A We, however, when we recount the events concerning Jesus, provide not just any defense for the fact that these things came to pass, namely that God has wished to establish the doctrine given through Jesus as saving for men, confirmed indeed by the apostles as if foundations of the building of Christianity being laid, and increasing also in the following times; in which not a few healings and other prodigies not to be despised are performed in the name of Jesus. What kind of god is this Apollo, who orders the Metapontines to place Aristeas in the number of the gods? With what intent does he do this? And what utility does he arrange for the Metapontines to have from the honor paid to him as a god, if they are to consider him a god who but a moment ago was a man? But while the testimonies regarding Aristeas—given by Apollo, that daemon of ours who has received as his reward the savor of sacrifices and libations—appear to you to be worthy and such as to merit consideration, the testimonies of the Most High God and His holy angels, declared by the prophets not after Jesus had come to be, but before he had descended into the life of mankind, are unable to move you to admire the prophets who were filled with the divine Spirit, and Him who was announced by them? Yet the truth is that His advent was announced by so many men so many years before, that the whole Jewish nation, which hung upon the expectation of Him whom it hoped would come, was divided into two opinions, once Jesus was born. B For very many confessed that He was the Christ, and believed Him to be the one whom the prophets had predicted; but others, incredulous, scorning the gentleness of those who, because of the doctrine of Jesus, would not wish to stir up even the slightest sedition, dared those crimes against Jesus which His disciples, with great love of truth and candor of soul, recorded, without even concealing from His stupendous history those facts which might seem to bring shame upon the doctrine of Christians in the eyes of the multitude. For Jesus Himself and His disciples wished that those who drew near should not have faith in His divinity and miracles as if He had not associated human nature with Himself, and had not assumed the flesh which in men lusts against the spirit. For they knew that it would contribute to the salvation of the faithful if they also believed that the Power—just as it did more divine things—had lowered Itself to human nature and human miseries, and had assumed a human soul and body. For from this they learn that from Him began the conjunction of the divine nature with the human; so that the human, through its society with the more divine thing, might become divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who with faith embrace the life which Jesus taught, and which leads to the friendship of God and to communion with Him, whoever shall have ordered their own ways according to the precepts of Jesus. C D
A Now, as for the Apollo whom Celsus mentions, he wishes the Metapontines to hold Aristeas in the rank of gods. But because the Metapontines thought the evidence regarding Aristeas—that he was a man, and perhaps not a good one—to be more certain than the oracle which proclaimed him to be a god or worthy of divine honors, for this reason they were unwilling to obey Apollo, and thus no one considered Aristeas to be a god. But concerning Jesus we say, since it was profitable for the human race to receive Him as the Son of God, as God having come in a human soul and body, and this did not seem profitable to the voracity of the gluttonous demons and those who consider them to be gods; for this reason the demons on earth, who are considered to be gods by those not instructed about demons, and also those who serve them, wished to hinder the spread of the teaching of Jesus. For they saw the libations and odors, on which they fed greedily, being taken away as the teachings of Jesus prevailed. B But God, who sent Jesus, having dissolved all the plot of the demons, caused the Gospel of Jesus to prevail everywhere on earth for the conversion and correction of men, and caused there to be everywhere Churches, which are constituted with laws entirely different from the assemblies of the superstitious, the intemperate, and the unjust. For such are, for the most part, the masses of people who act in the cities. But the Churches of God, instructed by Christ, if they are compared with the assemblies of the peoples among whom they dwell, are as lights in the world. For who would not admit that even the inferior ones in the Church, and those who are worse by comparison with the better ones, are found to be superior to many of those who live in the popular assemblies? C For the Church of God, to speak of the one at Athens, is gentle and stable, as one that desires to be pleasing to God who is over all; but the assembly of the Athenians is turbulent and in no way to be compared to the Church of God that is there. You would say the same regarding the Church of God that is in Corinth and the assembly of the people of the Corinthians; and, to speak of the Church of God that is in Alexandria, and the assembly of the people of the Alexandrians. And if anyone hears these things with a candid mind and seeks the truth in considering the matters, he will admire His plan, and the fact that He was able to establish Churches of God everywhere, dwelling alongside the assemblies of the people in each city. Thus, even if one compares the council—that is, the senate—of the Church of God with the council of each individual city, D you would find some who are senators of the Church, worthy to govern the city of God, if any human being deserves that title.
A And those who are councilors everywhere bear in their own characters nothing worthy of the superiority of the rank which they seem to hold above their fellow citizens. But if you also compare the ruler of the Church of each city with the ruler of those in the city, you will be able to understand that even among those councilors and rulers of the Church of God who are very mediocre, and more sluggish 42 than those who live more energetically, there is no less superiority to be found, in general, in their progress toward virtues, compared to the character of the councilors 43 and rulers in the cities.
51. If this is the case, is it not reasonable to suppose concerning Jesus, who was able to establish so many things, that it was no ordinary divinity that was in him? B Indeed, it is not in Aristeas of Proconnesus, even though Apollo ordered him to be reckoned among the gods, nor in those whom Celsus enumerates when he says: "That no one judges Abaris the Hyperborean to be a god, who however had such power that he could keep pace with an arrow 44?" For what was the plan of the divinity when it granted to Abaris the Hyperborean to keep pace with an arrow; what utility was to return to the human race from such a great gift bestowed upon him? What did the velocity equal to a missile profit him? Even if I grant that these are not fabrications but proceeded from some divinity. But if Jesus is said to have been taken up in glory 63, I see the cause of this event. C For thus God, by whose agency it happened, designated the teacher to the onlookers, so that those struggling for the sake not of human disciplines, but of divine doctrine, might devote themselves to the most high God with all their strength and accommodate themselves in all things to His will; intending to reward or punish them according to their merits before the tribunal of God, as they have done good or evil in this life.
32. After this he speaks of the history of the Clazomenian, and proceeds thus: "Do they not say that his soul frequently, having left the body, wandered about incorporeal; and yet men did not hold him in the number of the gods?" I answer that perhaps some evil demons took care for these things to be recorded (for I do not believe they took care for them to happen), so that the things which were predicted about Jesus, and the things spoken by him, might either be exploded as fabrications similar to those, or, as having nothing greater, might not be very much admired. D But my Jesus speaks about his own soul (not separated from the body by human fate, but given to him even in this matter as a wonderful power): "No one," he says, "takes my soul"
A from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." For because he had the power to lay it down, he did lay it down when he said, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" And crying with a loud voice, he yielded up his spirit, anticipating the executioners of the crucified, who were breaking the legs of those crucified—and they were breaking them for this reason, that they might not suffer punishment any longer. But he took his soul when he showed himself to the disciples, having previously declared to those of the Jews who were unwilling to believe him: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And he said this about the temple of his body; and the prophets B proclaimed such a thing in many places, and through this: "Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope; because you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption."
Celsus showed that he had read more Greek histories, having also cited those things concerning Cleomedes the Astypalaean, whom he related to have climbed into a chest and, once he was enclosed inside it, not to have been found within; but they perceived that he had flown out by some divine fate when certain persons broke open the chest for the sake of seizing him. C But even if this is a fiction, as it seems to be a fiction, it is not to be compared with the things concerning Jesus. For in the life of these men, no sign of the rumored divinity is found. But there are signs that Jesus is God: the assemblies of people whom he helped, the prophecies uttered concerning him, the healings performed in his name, the knowledge of his wisdom, the understanding of the mysteries which they find who are not content with simple faith but endeavor to search the sense of the Scriptures in accordance with the suggestions of Jesus, who said: "Search the Scriptures"; and in accordance with the will of Paul D who taught that we ought to know how to answer each one as is fitting; but also of him who said: "Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you." And if he wishes it to be granted to him that it is not a fiction, let him say what intention the power that is above man had in doing this—that he should fly out of the chest by some divine fate? For if he can produce some worthy reason and an intention of God that is worthy, as having bestowed such a thing upon Cleomedes, we shall judge what must be said to him. But if he is at a loss to say even anything plausible on the subject, it is clear that, as far as finding a reason is concerned, we shall either disparage it to those who have not accepted it and we shall accuse the history as not being true, or we shall say that some demon imitated magic arts and deceived [e] the eyes.
A regarding the Astypalaean—although Celsus seems to himself to have pronounced as if from a tripod, that he had flown out from the ark by some divine fate.
34. I do indeed believe that Celsus knew only those he mentioned, and that he did not say, "One could name many others of this sort," except that he wished to seem to have left behind similar examples. But let it be so; let it be granted that there were many more of this kind who brought no benefit to the human race; what have any of these in common with the work of Jesus and the marvelous events concerning Him, about which we have spoken at length? Then, because we worship one who was apprehended and died, he says: B "We do something similar to the Getae who worship Zamolxis, the Cilicians who worship Mopsus, the Acarnanians who worship Amphilochus, the Thebans who worship Amphiaraus, and the Lebadians who worship Trophonius." I will demonstrate that we are absurdly assimilated by Celsus to these as well. For they indeed erect temples and statues to those he has enumerated; but we, having removed the honor done through such things from the divine (as being things more appropriate to demons, who I know not how are established in some place, which they either seize beforehand, or dwell in as if brought there by certain rites and magic arts), we stand in awe of Jesus, who transferred our mind from every object which falls under the senses, as being not only subject to corruption, but also destined to be corrupted, and who leads us up to the worship that is to be rendered to God over all, with prayers which we offer to Him through C Him who stands as a mediator between the nature of the unbegotten and the nature of all begotten things, and who, after the manner of a high priest, brings unto us the benefits of the Father, and presents our prayers to the God over all.
35. But against him, who I know not for what reason says such things, I would willingly indulge in such trifles: Are those whom you have enumerated nothing, then? Does Trophonius in Lebadia, or Amphiaraus in his temple at Thebes, or Amphilochus in Acarnania, or Mopsus in Cilicia, do nothing remarkable? Or is there in these some demon, or hero, or god, who accomplishes something that surpasses human strength? For if he says that there is nothing there, neither demon nor any deity, let him at last reveal what his own opinion is, acknowledging that he is an Epicurean, and not holding the same views as the Greeks, neither acknowledging demons nor worshiping the same gods as they do; and let him be refuted, that he has brought forward in vain the things mentioned above, as if he had accepted them as true, along with what follows hereafter. But if he shall say that those whom he has brought into the middle are either demons, or heroes, or gods, D let him see that, which he does not wish, he will succeed in proving that Jesus was something of that sort; and consequently, that he was able to persuade many men that he was divine.
had come from God to the human race. And once this is admitted, observe whether he will not be compelled to say that Jesus was more powerful than those with whom he has classified him; for none of them forbids others from being honored, whereas this one, confident in himself, as being more powerful than all of them, forbids them from being accepted as gods, on the ground that they are evil demons who have taken possession of places on earth, since they are unable to reach a purer and more divine region, where the heavy thickness of the ten thousand evils coming from the earth and from those upon it [is not able] to attain.
B 36. Since after this he [Celsus] brings up the stories about the boy-favorites of Hadrian (I mean the stories about the youth Antinous, and the honors paid to him by the people in the Egyptian city of Antinoöpolis), and thinks that they do not fall short at all of our honor for Jesus, let us take this, too, and refute it as something said out of enmity. For what common element does the life of the one who was among Hadrian’s favorites—who did not even keep the male [person] free from the disease of womanly passion—have with our venerable Jesus, against whom not even those who have brought ten thousand accusations and told as many lies about him have been able to allege that he tasted even the slightest amount of intemperance? But if one were to examine sincerely and impartially the matters concerning Antinous, he would find that it is the Egyptian sorceries and rites that are the causes for his seeming to do something in the city of Antinoöpolis, and after his death—a thing which is also reported by the Egyptians to have happened in the case of other young men, and to those who have suffered such terrible fates, in that they set up oracular or healing demons in certain places, and often punish those who are thought to have transgressed in regard to ordinary foods or in regard to touching a human corpse, in order that they might appear to terrify the common and uneducated multitude. Such, too, is he who is considered to be a god in the city of Antinoöpolis in Egypt, whose virtues some people, living in a more reckless fashion, lie about, while others, deceived by the demon established there, and others still, convicted by a weak conscience, think they are paying a penalty willed by God from Antinous. Such are the mysteries practiced by them, and the apparent prophecies, which are very far removed from those of Jesus. D For it was not a gathering of impostors, courting favor with some king or ruler, that thought he ought to be called God; but the Creator of all things, in accordance with the power of persuasion and authority which belong to Him, declared him worthy to be wor-
honored not only by men who wish to be right-minded, but also by demons and other invisible powers. Even now, these powers, whether fearing the name of Jesus as being superior, or reverently acknowledging it as that of their own lawful Master, manifest their submission. For if He had not been established by God with such authority, the demons would not have departed from those they were afflicting merely at the pronouncement of His name. A
57. As for the Egyptians, they have been taught to venerate Antinous, and if you compare him with Apollo or Jupiter, they will tolerate it, honoring Antinous by ranking him with them. And herein also Celsus clearly lies when he says: "If you compare Apollo or Jupiter to him, they will not tolerate it." B But Christians, who have learned that their eternal life consists in knowing the only true God over all, and Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ; and who have also learned that all the gods of the gentiles are ravenous demons, fluttering about sacrifices, blood, and the emanations of sacrifices, in order to deceive those who have not fled for refuge to the God over all; and who know that the divine and holy angels of God are of a different nature and will than all the demons upon the earth, and that these [angels] are known to very few who have inquired into these matters prudently and diligently—Christians, I say, will not endure to have Apollo or Jupiter, or any of those who are appeased by fat, blood, and victims, compared with Him. Some of these believers, indeed, are unable to provide a reason for this on account of their great simplicity, being content to observe carefully what they have received; but others will provide reasons that are solid, profound, and, as a Greek would say, C internal and drawn from the very vitals of the subject. For they will say many things about God and those upon whom God has bestowed such honor that He made them partakers of divinity, and consequently of the name, through the only-begotten God, the Word. Much can also be said about the divine angels, and much about those who are hostile to the truth and who, having first been deceived themselves, wish out of error to be considered as gods, or as angels of God, or as good demons, or as heroes into which a good human soul had been converted. Furthermore, those Christians will prove that just as in philosophy many seem to hold the truth, yet have either deceived themselves with plausible arguments or have D rashly given their assent to those brought forward and discovered by others; so likewise among the souls that have departed from their bodies, and among the angels and demons, there are some who, having been drawn by the plausibility of their arguments, have induced themselves to be proclaimed gods. And
for such reasons A as these, when it is impossible for things to be found perfectly and accurately among men, it was considered safe for a man to entrust himself to no one as God, except only to Jesus Christ, who, as the arbiter over all, both perceived these deepest things and delivered them to a few.
Regarding Antinous, or anyone else of such a sort, whether among the Egyptians or among the Greeks, the faith—if I may call it so—is unfortunate; but regarding Jesus, it is either fortunate or, rather, has been carefully examined. Indeed, it appears fortunate to the multitude of men, but it has been carefully examined by very few. Even if I say B that there is a certain kind of faith, as most people would call it, that is "fortunate," I still refer the account of this to God, who knows the causes of the things apportioned to each individual in his life among men. Even the Greeks themselves would admit that, even among those considered most wise, good fortune is in many respects the cause, as for instance in the teachers one happens upon—and that in the presence of those who teach contrary doctrines—and in the education one receives among better men. For many have had their upbringing in such circumstances C that they could not even imagine better things, but from their earliest youth they were always the favorites either of licentious men or masters, or were in some other state of wretchedness that did not allow the soul to look up. It is entirely likely that the causes of these things lie in the doctrines of Providence, but for men to understand them is not easy. It seemed good to me to say these things by way of a digression, because of the saying: "So great a power has faith, which takes hold of whatever it first encounters." For it was necessary to explain through the differences in upbringing the differences in the faiths among men, that they believe more fortunately or more unfortunately; and from this to gather that what is called good fortune and what is called bad fortune contribute to the fact that even those who are sharper, to all appearance, and seemingly more rational, appear to assent more rationally to the majority of doctrines. But enough of these matters.
D The subsequent parts of Celsus must be understood, in which he says to us that a faith that has preoccupied our soul is the cause of our giving such assent to Jesus. Truly, indeed, faith does produce such an assent in us. But reflect if this very faith itself does not present something worthy of praise, in that we believe ourselves to the God over all, giving thanks to Him who leads us to such a faith, and saying that it was not without God that he dared and accomplished such a thing; and we believe also in the purpose of those who wrote the Gospels, conjecturing their piety and the candor of their spirits and their
A honesty, as it is manifest in their writings, free from anything spurious or deceitful or fictitious or crafty. For it occurs to us that souls which had not mastered those things taught by the crafty sophistry among the Greeks—which possesses much plausibility and sharpness, and rhetoric rolled about in the law courts—would not have been capable of forging such things, able as they are in themselves to contain that which leads to faith and to a life proportionate to faith. I think, indeed, that it was for this reason that Jesus also wished to employ such men as teachers of his doctrine, so that on the one hand there might be no room for suspicion that it relied on arguments composed to have a semblance of truth, and on the other hand it might become evident to those capable of understanding that this sincerity of the writers, combined with much—if I may use the expression—simplicity, was endowed with divine power, which accomplishes much more than what seems to be accomplishable by the surrounding of words, the composition of diction, and all that Greek apparatus of divisions and ornaments of speech.
40. See also whether the message of our faith, by being adjusted to the common notions implanted in us from the beginning, does not convert those who incline a teachable ear to what is said. For even though perversity, bolstered by doctrine, has been able to persuade many that there are gods, and that those things which are made from gold, and silver, and ivory, and stone, are worthy of worship and adoration, nevertheless the common sense C demands we realize that God is in no way corruptible matter, nor is he honored in inanimate materials fashioned by men as if they were made according to his image or certain symbols of him. Wherefore, it is immediately said concerning images that they are not gods, and concerning such creations that they cannot be compared with the Creator; also a few things are said concerning the God over all who created, sustains, and governs all things. And immediately, as if having recognized that which is akin to it, the rational soul D casts off those whom it had hitherto supposed to be gods, and conceives a natural love for the Creator, and through this love for him also attaches itself to him who first taught all these things to the nations, and for this purpose used disciples whom he sent forth, equipped with divine power and authority, to proclaim the word concerning God and his kingdom.
41. Furthermore, it is objected to us—I do not know how many times already—respecting Jesus, "that we consider a man from a mortal body to be God, and believe that we see godly things in this." Regarding this matter, since it has already been refuted in several places above, it is superfluous to say more. Nevertheless, let these accusers know that the one whom we consider and are persuaded from the beginning to be God and Son of God, this is the Word himself, and Wisdom himself, and Truth himself.
A And we say that his mortal body, and the human soul within it, by their communion—or rather, union and intermixture—with him, have obtained the greatest honors, and having shared in his divinity, have been changed into God. If anyone finds offense in our saying this regarding his body, let him attend to what is said by the Greeks concerning the matter that is in its own nature devoid of quality, yet is clothed in whatever qualities the Creator wishes to bestow upon it, often casting off former qualities and taking on better and different ones. If such things are considered sound, what is wonderful about the fact that the quality of the mortal body of Jesus, the providence of God so willing, was changed into an ethereal and divine quality?
B Celsus does not speak like a dialectician, comparing the human flesh of Jesus to gold, silver, and stone, on the grounds that it is more corruptible than they are. For to speak accurately, no incorruptible thing is more incorruptible than an incorruptible thing, nor is one corruptible thing more corruptible than another. But if it were perhaps more corruptible, even so, we shall say against this that if it is possible for the underlying matter, which is subject to all qualities, to change its qualities, why is it not possible that the flesh of Jesus, having changed its qualities, became such as it was fitting for one to be who exists in the ether and in the regions above, no longer possessing the characteristics specific to the weakness of flesh, and whatever else Celsus called "more impure"—and that too is not done philosophically. For that which is properly impure originates from vice. But the nature of the body is not impure; for in so far as it is the nature of a body, C it does not have within it the vice that is the parent of impurity.
Further, since he anticipates the defense from us and speaks regarding this transformation of his body: "But perhaps, after putting these off, he will be God; why then not rather Asclepius and Dionysus and Heracles?" we shall say: What great thing did Asclepius or Dionysus or Heracles work? And whom can they point to as having had their morals improved and becoming better because of their words and lives, so that they might be called gods? For having read many histories about them, let us see if they lived pure and untouched by licentiousness, or injustice, or folly, or cowardice. And if nothing of the sort were found in them, Celsus’s argument might be strong in equating them to Jesus; D but if it is evident—even if something is reported about them as being more virtuous—that they are recorded as having done countless things against right reason, how can you still reasonably say that they, rather than Jesus, became gods after putting off their mortal body?
A Afterward, he says, "We are mocked by them for worshipping Zeus, since his tomb is shown in Crete; yet we worship, no less than they, one who was buried, not knowing how or for what reason the Cretans do such a thing." Observe, then, that in these matters he offers an apology for the Cretans, for Zeus, and for his tomb, hinting at allegorical meanings according to which the myth about Zeus is said to have been fabricated; yet he accuses us, who confess that our Jesus was placed in a tomb but also assert that he was raised from the tomb, which is something the Cretans no longer report about Zeus.
And since he seems B to support the tomb of Zeus in Crete, saying, "As to how and why the Cretans do this, we do not know," I would say that not even Callimachus of Cyrene, who had read almost every poem and had examined almost the entire history of the Greeks, knew of any allegorical interpretation regarding the tales of Zeus and his tomb. Therefore, in the hymn he wrote to Zeus, he reproaches the Cretans, saying: "Cretans are always liars; for indeed, O Lord, the Cretans Fashioned a tomb for you; but you did not die, for you are forever." But the one who said, "You did not die, for you are forever," having denied the burial of Zeus in Crete, records the beginning of death as having happened to Zeus. And the beginning of death is birth upon the earth; he speaks as follows: "But among the Parrhasians Rhea bore you, having laid you to rest." He ought to have seen that, just as he denied the birth of Zeus in Crete on account of his tomb, it followed that if he was born in Arcadia, then he who was born must also have died. C Callimachus sings of these things in this way: "Zeus, some say that you were born on the mountains of Ida; Zeus, others say in Arcadia. Which of them, Father, lied?" "Cretans are always liars," and what follows.
Celsus drove us to this, being ill-disposed toward Jesus, in that he believes it is true that he died and was buried, yet considers it a fiction that he rose from the dead, even though so many prophets have predicted his resurrection, and it is established that he appeared alive through many signs.
44. Next, Celsus turns to those who are held to be Christians—those who are not, as he thinks, more learned, but most unlearned—who chatter against the teaching of Jesus, bringing forward what he says are their principles: "Let no learned man,” he says, “no wise man, no prudent man draw near to us: for these are considered evils among us. But if any is ignorant, if any is foolish, if any is unlearned, D if any is a child, let him come with confidence."
A For by the very fact that they acknowledge such persons to be worthy of their own God, they plainly show that they desire to persuade, and are only able to persuade, the foolish, the ignoble, the senseless, slaves, women, and little children. To this we reply that, just as if someone—while Jesus is teaching about temperance and saying, "Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart"—were to see a few of the many who are considered Christians living dissolutely, he would most rightly blame them for living contrary to the teaching of Jesus; yet he would act most unreasonably were he to attach the crime of these individuals to the doctrine. Similarly, since the doctrine of the Christians invites men to wisdom, those who acquiesce in their own ignorance must indeed be rebuked, saying not, in fact, what Celsus attributes to them (for however simple and ignorant they may be, they have not progressed to such a degree of impudence as to say those things), but rather things B that, even if they are milder, nevertheless call them away from the pursuit of wisdom.
45. But that the Word wishes us to be wise must be shown both from the ancient Jewish scriptures, which we also use, and no less from those written after Jesus, which the Churches believe to be divine. It is written in the fiftieth Psalm, where David pours out prayers to God, saying: "The hidden and secret things of your wisdom you have made known to me." And if anyone were to turn over the Psalms, he would find this book full of many wise precepts. Solomon also, because he asked for wisdom, received it. And one may see the traces of his wisdom in his writings, which contain great depth in few words, in which you may find many praises of wisdom and exhortations C on the necessity of acquiring it. And Solomon was so wise that the Queen of Sheba, having heard of his fame and the fame of the Lord, came to test him with riddles. And she spoke to him all that was in her heart. And Solomon explained to her all the words she had proposed; there was no word that could escape the king and that he did not answer for her. And the Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and all his greatness, and she had no more spirit in her, and she said to the king: "The word is true which I heard in my own land regarding you and your wisdom; and I did not believe those who told me, until I came myself and saw with my own eyes. And behold, not even the half was told me. Your wisdom and your works are greater than the report D which I heard." Regarding the same king, these things are written: "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart even as the sand that is on the sea shore; and the wisdom of Solomon excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, and he was wiser than all men, and he was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and he was
famous in all the nations round about. And Solomon spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were five thousand: and he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; and he spake of fishes and of beasts. And there came all the people to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and of all the kings of the earth, which heard of his wisdom. A Thus, however, the Word wills that there be wise men among the faithful, in such a way that, for the sake of exercising the intelligence of the hearers, it speaks some things in enigmas, some in what are called obscure sayings, others through parables, and still others through problems. Wherefore Osee, one of the prophets, says toward the end of his discourses: "Who is wise, and shall understand these things? intelligent, and he shall know them?" And Daniel and those who had been led into slavery with him had progressed so much in the branches of learning which the wise men at the Babylonian court professed, that they were shown to be ten times superior to all the rest. Whence also, in Ezechiel, the prince of Tyre, who vaunted himself upon his wisdom, hears: "Art thou wiser than Daniel? No secret was hidden from thee."
46. Now, if you take into your hands the books written after the advent of Jesus, you will find the parables being told to the crowds of the faithful as if they were outsiders, and as if they were worthy only of external discourses; but to the disciples [the parables] are explained privately. For Jesus used to explain everything privately to his own disciples, C preferring those who were possessed by a desire for his wisdom to the crowds. He even promises those who would believe in him that he will send wise men and scribes, saying: "Behold, I send unto you wise men and scribes, and some of them they shall kill and crucify." And Paul, in enumerating the graces which have God as their author, in the first place sets "the word of wisdom," and second, as being inferior to it, he places "the word of knowledge"; below these, in the third place, he places "faith"; and because he valued "the word" more than the operation of prodigies, for this reason he enumerates "operations of powers" and "gifts of healings" last, and deems them inferior to the spiritual gifts. Likewise, Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles, D testifying to the manifold erudition of Moses—which he had drawn from ancient books not generally known—says: "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." On which account the suspicion arose that his miracles were performed by the magic arts of the Egyptians, but the Philocalia correctly omits this.
A For this reason it was even suspected during his miracles, that he did not perform them in accordance with the divine promise, but by the learning of the Egyptians, given that he was wise in those arts. Since the king entertained such thoughts about him, he summoned the sorcerers of the Egyptians, and the sophists and the magicians, who were proven to be nothing in comparison with the wisdom in Moses, which was superior to all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
It is likely that the things written in the first epistle to the Corinthians by Paul, regarding the Greeks and those who B prided themselves greatly on Greek wisdom, moved some to believe that the wise are excluded from our religion. Whoever has taken this into his mind should learn how the Apostle, in reproving wicked men there, states that they are not wise in the things that belong to the understanding—things which do not fall under the senses and are eternal—but because they are occupied only with sensible things and place all things in them, they are "wise" only in this world. Likewise, among the many doctrines, those which advocate for matter and bodies, and argue that all things which first exist are bodies, and that there is nothing else besides these—whether what is called invisible or what is called incorporeal—he claims to be the wisdom of the world which is coming to nothing, and is foolishness, and the wisdom of this age. But those [doctrines] which translate the soul from the things here to the blessedness with God and to what is called His kingdom, and which teach one to despise all things sensible and visible as passing and perishable, and to hasten toward the invisible, and to contemplate the things which are not seen—these things he says are the wisdom of God.
Paul, being a lover of truth, says concerning some of the wise among the Greeks, where they speak the truth: "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor were they thankful." And he bears witness that they did know God, and he says that this did not happen to them without God, in those things where he writes: "For God has manifested it unto them" C—alluding, I think, to those who ascend from objects of sight to objects of thought, when he writes: "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful."
Perhaps some have also been moved by the passage, "For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise after the flesh, not many are mighty, not many are noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the ignoble and despised things, and things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence," to think that no learned or D wise or prudent man is received into our society. This other passage of Paul gives place to that: "But see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many are mighty, not many are noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that He might confound the wise; and the ignoble things of the world and [the weak things of the world has God chosen, to confound the strong; the ignoble]
contemptibilia elegi, God, and those things which are not, to destroy those things which are, that no flesh should boast in His sight. But it is not said, "no man wise according to the flesh," but, "Not many wise according to the flesh." A Certainly, Paul, describing with what gifts he who is called a bishop must be adorned, commands him to be a teacher; for he says it is necessary that he be potential to refute those who contradict, and to stop the mouths of the vain talkers and deceivers by the wisdom that is in him. And just as he prefers a "husband of one wife" B over one who has contracted second marriages, and "blameless" over one who can be blamed, and "sober" over one not so, and "prudent" over one not prudent, and "orderly" over one who is even slightly disorderly; so he wishes the one about to be appointed primarily to the episcopate to be apt to teach, and able to refute those who contradict. How then does Celsus unjustly complain against us, as if we were saying, "Let no one who is educated, let no one who is wise, let no one who is prudent approach us"? Nay, let the educated, the wise, and the prudent approach, if he wishes. But none the less let also the dull, the uneducated, and the child approach. For our doctrine promises to heal even such people as these if they approach, creating them all worthy of God.
49. False also is this, that only "fools, and the ignoble, and the senseless, and slaves, and women, and little children" the heralds of divine doctrine wish to acquire for themselves. For our doctrine calls these, that it may make them better, C but it calls also those who differ far from them; since it is the "Savior of all men."
49. It is false that only "the foolish, and the ignoble, and the senseless, and slaves, and women, and little children" the heralds of the divine word wish to persuade. For the word calls these, that it may make them better, but it calls also those who differ far from them; since He is the "Savior of all men." D The canon of ministry has utterly excluded digamists; to "stop the mouths of those who contradict," the uneducated.
A ...Christ, "and especially of the faithful," whether intelligent or simpler ones; "and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sake of the whole world." It would therefore be pointless after these things for us to offer an apology against the words of Celsus, which are as follows: "For what evil is it to be educated, and to have taken pains with the best arguments, and to be—and to be thought—prudent? And what hinders this for the knowledge of God? And why is it not rather an advantage, and something through which one might more easily arrive at truth?" To be truly educated is not an evil; for education is a path to virtue; yet, on the other hand, even the wise men of the Greeks would not count among the educated those who hold erroneous doctrines. Again, who would not agree that it is a good thing to have taken pains with the best arguments? But whom shall we call the best arguments, if not those which are true and which exhort to virtue? Furthermore, it is a good thing to be prudent; but it is no longer so to *seem* so, which is what Celsus said. And education does not hinder B towards the knowledge of God; rather, it cooperates with it, as does the taking of pains with the best arguments and being prudent. And it is more fitting for us to say this than for Celsus, especially if he is convicted of being an Epicurean.
Let us see also his next remarks, which are as follows: "But we see, of course, both those who in the marketplaces most shamelessly make displays and gather crowds, who would never venture to approach an assembly of wise men, nor in their presence venture to display their own wares; but wherever they see striplings, and a mob of household slaves, and a gathering of foolish people, there they push themselves in and show off." See how in these points he slanders us, C likening us to those in the marketplaces who make such shameless displays and gather crowds. What, pray, are the shameless displays we make? Or what do we do that is similar to these men, we who through readings and the expositions of these readings exhort men to piety towards the God of all and the virtues that share the throne with it, while we turn them away from contempt for the Divine and from all things done against right reason? Would even the philosophers themselves not pray to gather as many hearers as possible to arguments that exhort to the good? Which is what some of the Cynics especially have done, D discoursing publicly to those they happened to meet. Will he therefore say that even these men, although they do not gather together those who are thought to be educated, but call and assemble hearers from the crossroads, are similar to those in the marketplaces who make such shameless displays and gather crowds?
A If those men are not blameworthy in doing this, let us see if the Christians do not even better, and incite the multitudes to virtue. For the philosophers who hold forth in public do not distinguish their hearers; rather, whoever wishes stands and listens. But the Christians B examine, as far as they are able, the souls of those who wish to hear them, and test them privately. And when those auditors appear to have made sufficient progress in the desire to live well before being admitted into the common assembly, they then admit them, having established distinct orders: one of those who have recently begun and have been newly admitted, and have not yet received the symbol of having been purified; and another of those who have, so far as they are able, demonstrated a resolve to desire nothing else but what is pleasing to Christians. Among these, certain persons are appointed to investigate the lives and habits of those coming forward, so that they may forbid those who do shameful things from coming to their common assembly, while those who are not such, they receive with their whole soul and make them better day by day. C And such is their practice concerning those who sin, and especially those who are overcome by licentiousness, whom those men who resemble the followers of Celsus—those in the marketplaces who make such shameless displays—cast out of the common life. And just as the venerable school of the Pythagoreans used to build cenotaphs for those who deserted their philosophy, considering them to have become dead; so too do the Christians mourn as lost and dead to God those who have been overcome by lust or any other crime. Yet, if they show a worthy change, they consider them as if raised from the dead, though they are admitted back only after a longer time than those who were first received; for they do not enroll those who have stumbled after having come to the Word into any office or position of authority in the so-called Church of God, even after they have returned. D
A 52. Now see whether there is not an evident falsehood in the comparison of things most unlike in these words of Celsus: "We see, to be sure, those who in the marketplace display their wicked and charlatan arts." Regarding those "who in the markets display wicked and charlatan absurdities," with whom Celsus compares us, he says that they "never venture to approach an assembly of prudent men, nor do they dare to sell their wares there; but wherever they notice a collection of adolescents, slaves, and fools, they thrust themselves into the midst and hunt for their applause." In this, Celsus does nothing but slander us, like women who pursue one another with mutual abuse at street corners. For we, as far as we are able, do everything so that our assembly may consist of prudent men; and those things among us which are most beautiful and divine, we venture to bring forth into the midst in public congregations only when there is a supply of intelligent hearers present; but the more profound matters we pass over in silence, whenever we see that those who are hearing are simpler and in need of instruction, which in a metaphorical sense is called milk.
53. And indeed Paul, our writer, in his letter to the B Corinthians—Greeks, to be sure, but not yet with purified morals—says: "I fed you with milk, and not with meat; for you were not yet able to receive it, nor even now are you able; for you are still carnal. For while there is among you jealousy and strife, are you not carnal and walking according to the flesh?" And he himself, not ignorant that there is a certain more perfect food for the soul, and that the food of the newly initiated is to be compared to the milk of infants, says: "And you have become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness; for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, for those who by practice have C senses trained to discern both good and evil." Can those, therefore, who believe these things to be well said, suspect that we—
D Epictetus, dealing with Fortunatianus, bishop of Assura, whom he says "after a grave fall of his own ruin, now wishes to act as if faultless, and has begun to lay claim to the episcopate for himself;" and a little later: "He still dares to lay claim to the priesthood, which he has betrayed; as if it were lawful to approach the altar of God after the altars of the devil." And he attempted this, spurning the interdict of Pope Cornelius, by which it was forbidden for lapsed bishops to enjoy the episcopate any longer. Whence we perceive and believe that this censure came from the examination of God, so that he might not continue to stand at the altar and handle—the shame of incest, the faith of a perfidious one, the religion of a profane one, the divine things of an earthly one, the holy things of a sacrilegious one. See Epistle 67, to Stephanus concerning Martianus; and Epistle 52, to Antonianus, where, dealing incidentally with Trophimus, he has this: "A treatment having therefore been held there with very many colleagues, Trophimus was received; for whom the return of the brethren and the restored salvation of many made satisfaction: yet Trophimus was admitted in such a way that he communicates as a layman, not, as the letters of malicious men have reported to you, as if he usurped the place of a priest." The same man, in Epistle 68, wrote back to the clergy and people of the Spains concerning the bishops Basilides and Martialis: of whom the latter confessed that he had frequented the base banquets of the gentiles, and had denied Christ before a ducenarian procurator; the former acknowledged himself to be a blasphemer against God and defiled by a certificate of idolatry: praying to God, and giving thanks enough if it should happen that he could communicate even as a layman.— "Vainly," says Cyprian, "do such men attempt to usurp the episcopate for themselves: since it is manifest that such men can neither preside over the Church of Christ, nor ought to offer sacrifices to God; especially since long ago with us, and with all bishops altogether constituted in the whole world, even our colleague Cornelius, a peaceful and just priest, and one honored by the Lord's favor even with martyrdom, has decreed that such men may indeed be admitted to perform penance; but are to be prohibited from the ordination of the clergy and from priestly honor." SPENCER.
A ...into an assembly of prudent men; but where they see striplings, and a crowd of servants, and a gathering of foolish people, there they bring forward divine and solemn matters, and take pride in themselves before such persons? But it is clear to one who examines the whole intent of our writings, that Celsus, being ill-disposed, just like the common crowds, falsely and inconsiderately B speaks such things against the race of Christians. We confess that we desire to instruct all in the word of God, even if Celsus does not wish it, so as to impart to striplings the exhortation that is fitting for them, and to show and train those who are household slaves, how, by assuming a free spirit, they might be ennobled by the Word. Those of us who advocate Christianity sufficiently declare that we are debtors to Greeks and C barbarians, to the wise and the foolish (for they do not deny that even the foolish need to have their souls healed), so that, as far as possible, laying aside their ignorance, they may hasten toward a more intelligent state, hearing also Solomon saying: "O ye simple, understand wisdom; and ye that are fools, be ye of an understanding heart," and, "Whosoever is among you the most foolish, let him turn to me." Wisdom also exhorts those lacking in mind D saying: "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you; leave foolishness, that ye may live, and rectify your understanding in knowledge." I would also ask these things in relation to what has been said, in response to the discourse of Celsus: Are those who philosophize not calling striplings to hear them? And do they not call young men from a life of ruin to better things? Why, then, do they not wish for household slaves to philosophize? Or are we also to count it a crime for philosophers to incite household slaves to virtue—Pythagoras, for instance, in the case of Zamolxis, Zeno in the case of Persaeus, and, recently and lately, those who urged Epictetus to philosophize? Or is it permitted to you, O Greeks, to call striplings and household slaves and foolish men to philosophy, but when we do exactly this, we are not doing it in a spirit of humanity, desiring to heal every rational nature with the medicine of the Word, and to bring them into fellowship with God, the Creator of all things? These things, then, are sufficient to serve more as a refutation of the insults of Celsus than as a response to his accusations.
A 55. But since he was so delighted by this sort of calumny, he added still more. Come then, having set these forth as well, let us see who brings more shame upon the society of the Christians, or Celsus. He says: «We see even in private homes, wool-workers, cobblers, and fuller—the most unlearned and rustic sort—who would not dare say a word in front of their elders or their wiser masters; but whenever they get hold of the children in private, and with them some women who are as foolish as they are, they speak of certain wondrous things: that one ought not to pay attention to one’s father or teachers, but must believe them; that the others are babbling and are senseless and can neither see nor do anything that is truly good, being preoccupied with empty trifles; but that they alone know how one must live, and if the children believe them, they will be happy, and will render the house prosperous.» And at the same time, if they see some teacher of instruction or someone wiser walking by, or even the father himself, those who are more cautious among them keep silent; B but the bolder ones incite the children to rebel, whispering such things as that in the presence of the father and teachers they would not wish to say anything, nor would they be able to explain any good thing to the children; for they are to shun the stupidity and perversity of these men who are completely corrupt and arrived at the extremity of wickedness, and who punish them; but if they wish to learn anything, they must leave behind the father and teachers and go with the women and the children who play with them into the women's quarters, or into the cobbler's shop, or the fuller's workshop, that they might receive the perfect teaching: and by saying these things, they persuade them.
56. Observe then also here in what way, by deriding those among us who teach the word and who try in every way to raise the soul up to the Creator of all things, and by showing that it is necessary to hold all things that are sensory, transitory, and visible in contempt, and to do everything in order to attain to communion with God, and to the contemplation of things intelligible and invisible, and to a blessed life with God and those who are God's own, C he compared them in private homes to wool-workers, and to cobblers, and to fullers, and to the most rustic of men, as people who entice small children and women to base things, so that they might abandon their father and teachers and follow them. For let Celsus produce what sober father or what teachers of more solemn instruction we draw the children and women away from; and let him compare them with the children and women who are approaching our word, whether D those whom they heard, whether ones better than our own, and in what way from certain noble and solemn teachings we—
A avert children and women toward things that are worse. But he will not be able to demonstrate any such thing against us. On the contrary, we turn women away from debauchery and from perversion caused by those who consort with them, and from all theater-madness, and from dance-madness, and from superstition; and we curb adolescent boys who are becoming wanton and itching for sexual pleasures, warning them not only of how much infamy there is in lust, but also how great a danger threatens the soul of the wicked because of such things, what penalties it will pay, and how it will be punished.
57. And who are those teachers we speak of as talking nonsense and being rejected, whom Celsus defends as though they were teaching better things? Unless perhaps he considers those to be good teachers of women and not nonsensical who urge them toward superstition and lascivious spectacles; or furthermore, that those are not deranged who lead and carry off young people toward everything that we know is frequently committed by them in a disorderly manner. We, on our part, encourage even those who study the doctrines of philosophers, as far as possible, toward the piety according to us, presenting its excellence and purity. But since Celsus, through what he said, suggested that we do not do this, but call only the thoughtless to us, we would say to him: If you were accusing us of turning away from philosophy those who are already preoccupied with it, your statement would have no truth, though it might have plausibility. But now, when you say that we turn children who are approaching the good away from teachers, produce for us other teachers besides the teachers of philosophy, or those who have done something useful. But he will be able to prove nothing of the sort. We promise with boldness, and not in secret, that those will be blessed who live according to the word of God, and who refer everything to Him, and who do everything as if God were an observer and spectator. Are these, then, the teachings of wool-workers, B of cobblers, of fullers, and of the most uneducated rustics? But this he will not be able to show.
58. And those who, according to Celsus, are similar to the wool-workers, and similar to the cobblers, fullers, rustics, and the uneducated, he claims are not willing—or even able—to explain C anything good to children while the father and teachers are present. But I ask him: What father, my good sir, and what teacher are you talking about? If you mean one who pursues virtue, who shudders at wickedness, and who embraces the better things, know that we shall speak our truth to the children in his presence fearlessly, certain, of course, that we shall be approved by such a judge. But we are silent before a father who is an enemy to virtue and honesty, and before teachers who teach things contrary to sound doctrine. Nor is this D to us...
a ground of complaint; for you do not complain with reason. Indeed, if you were to impart the mysteries of philosophy to youths and sons, whose fathers deemed philosophy a vain and useless thing, you would not say that this is done in the case of base fathers; but, wishing to separate the sons who have been won over to philosophy from their evil fathers, you would wait for opportunities that the discourses of philosophy might reach the young. A And we shall say the same things regarding teachers. For if we divert people from teachers who teach the base things of comedy and the most licentious of iambic verses, and whatever else neither improves the one who speaks nor benefits those who listen—and who do not know how to listen to poems in a philosophical manner, nor how to add to each of them what contributes to the benefit of the young—in doing this we are not ashamed to confess what we are doing. But if you were to point out to me teachers who provide a preliminary education in philosophy and exercise their students in philosophy, I would not indeed seek to divert the young from such men, B but I would try, once they had been previously grounded as in the encyclical studies and the subjects of philosophy, to raise them up to the venerable and lofty grandeur of the eloquence of the Christians, which escapes the notice of the masses, dealing as it does with the greatest and most necessary matters, and demonstrating that these have been philosophized by the prophets of God and the apostles of Jesus.
After these things, Celsus, perceiving that he had reviled us more bitterly than he should have, as if in his own defense says the following: “But that I have brought no more bitter charges than what the truth compelled, let one judge by these things as well. C For those who summon others to the other mysteries make this proclamation: ‘Whoever is pure of hands and prudent in speech,’ and again others: ‘Whoever is pure from every defilement, and whose soul is conscious of no evil, and who has lived well and justly.’ These things indeed those proclaim who promise a purgation of sins. But now let us hear whom the Christians summon: ‘Whoever,’ they say, ‘is a sinner, whoever is unintelligent, whoever is a child, and, to speak simply, whoever is miserable, the kingdom of God will receive him.’ Whom do you call a sinner? Is it not the unjust man, the thief, the burglar, the poisoner, the temple-robber, and the grave-robber?” Whom else would one call him who gathers a society of brigands? D To these things we say that it is one thing to call those who are sick in soul to their healing, and another to call those who are healthy to the knowledge and understanding of divine things. And we, knowing the distinction between both of these, in the first place urge men to be willing to be healed; we urge the sinners to come to those who teach discourses on not sinning, and the unintelligent to those who produce intelligence, and the children to advance in understanding to the [manly]
A man, and those who are simply miserable to blessedness, or, more accurately, to happiness; and when those who are progressing from among the invited show that they have been purified by the Word, and, as far as possible, have lived better, then we call them to our mysteries. «For we speak wisdom among the perfect.» B And teaching that «Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins,» we say: Whoever is clean in hands, and on that account lifts up pure hands to God, and, apart from the uplifted and heavenly deeds he performs, is able to say, «Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice,» let him come to us. And we say also: Whoever is wise in voice, because he meditates on the law of the Lord day and night, and through practice has had his senses exercised to the discernment of good and evil; let him not hesitate to approach the solid and spiritual foods which are appropriate to the athletes of piety and all virtue. And since the grace of God is with all who love Him with an incorruptible love, from whom proofs concerning immortality are given, we say: Whoever is pure, not only from every crime, but even from those sins which are considered of a lighter nature, let him approach confidently to be initiated into the mysteries of the religion of Jesus, which are instituted only for the pure and holy. Celsus’s mystagogue says: «Let him whose conscience is stung by no evil come;» but he who initiates into the mysteries of God according to the discipline of Jesus says to those whose soul is already purified: «Whoever has long been conscious of no evil within himself, and especially since he has been healed by the medicine of the doctrine,» let him hear what Jesus taught privately to his genuine disciples. From which it results that Celsus, while contrasting the ministers of Greek religion with the teachers of the religion of Jesus, did not understand what the difference is between these two things: calling the bad to receive remedies, and the pure to the knowledge of more recondite matters.
61. Neither, therefore, the unjust, nor the thief, nor the housebreaker, nor the sorcerer, nor the sacrilegious, nor the spoiler of the dead, nor any others whom Celsus might C list by exaggerating, do we call to the knowledge of the mysteries, or make partakers of the wisdom which is hidden, which God predestined before the ages for the glory of His righteous ones; but we call them to healing. For in our divine doctrine, there are some remedies provided for the ill, of whom the Word says, «They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick;» and others, which show to those who are pure in body and soul D «the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets, and by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,» which coming is clearly revealed to all the perfect, and illuminates the ruling faculty towards the infallible knowledge of things. Since, however, [Celsus] in his exaggeration of our ways...
adds to the men he named the term "vile," saying: "Whom else would the robber call out?" we shall reply to this that the robber calls such persons "robbers," because his own wickedness makes use of them against the men whom he desires to kill and despoil. But the Christian, even if he calls them by the same names as the robber, calls them by a different calling; namely, so that he may bind up their wounds with the Word, and pour into the soul inflamed by the fires of the passions the remedies from the Word, analogous to wine, oil, and soothing balm, and the other healing aids of the soul.
62. Then Celsus, unjustly slandering the things that have been said and written for the purpose of exhortation towards those who have lived wicked lives, and for calling them to repentance and the amendment of their souls, says that we say that God was B "sent to sinners." He does this just as if he were to charge some people with a crime because they affirmed that a physician had been sent by a most humane king to a city on account of those who were laboring under diseases. God the Word, therefore, was sent to sinners as a physician, but as a teacher of divine mysteries to those who, having washed away their former sins, no longer fall back into them. But Celsus, ignorant of this distinction, because he did not wish to inquire, asks: "Why was he not sent to those who are free from sins? What evil is there in not having sinned?" To this we reply, that if by those who are free from sins he means those who no longer sin, our Savior Jesus was sent to them also, but not as a physician; but if by those free from sins he means those who have never C at any time sinned (for he did not distinguish this in his own wording), we shall say that it is impossible for a man to be thus sinless. This we say, with the exception of the man understood as being in accordance with Jesus, who "committed no sin." And Celsus speaks maliciously concerning us, as if we asserted that: "God will receive the unjust man, if he humbles himself because of his wickedness; but the just man, if he has looked up to Him with virtue from the beginning, him He will not receive." For we say that it is impossible for a man to look up to God with virtue from the beginning. For it is first necessary for sin to exist in men. Even as Paul says: "But when the commandment came, sin D revived, and I died." Moreover, we do not teach concerning the unjust man that it is sufficient for him to humble himself because of his wickedness in order to be received by God; but if, condemning himself for his former deeds, he walks humbly on account of those, and is adorned by the latter deeds, this man God will receive.
Then, not understanding how it has been said, "Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled," and not even being instructed by Plato that "the good and noble man walks [among] men," having forgotten what Plato teaches, "a man who is probous and honest" [as he]—
A modeste et composite incedere, and ignorant of what we say: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time"; B he says: "And while men who rightly perform the office of judges forbid defendants to use groans and lamentations before them, so that they may not be moved in judging by mercy rather than by truth; yet God, in judging, has regard not for truth, but for flattery." But what flattery, and what kind of discourse of those lamenting, appearing in the Scriptures, is there when he who has sinned says in his prayers to God: "My sin I have made known to Thee, and my iniquity I have not concealed. I said, I will confess my iniquity against myself unto the Lord," and the rest? Can he prove that such a confession by those who, after having committed a sin, humble themselves before God, does not lead to their correction? But his desire to slander makes him speak against himself. For now he seems to recognize a man who, without sin, just and endowed with virtue, has B from the beginning lifted his eyes unto God; now he approves of what we say: "What man is perfectly just? Or who is without sin?" For he himself says: "It is true that the human race is by nature prone to sin." Then, as if all were not called to our religion, he says: "He ought to have called absolutely all, if indeed all have sinned." And yet, in the preceding pages, that statement of Jesus has been brought forward by us: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." All men, therefore, C laboring and heavy laden through the nature of sin, are called to that rest which the teaching of God promises. For God "sent His Word and healed them, and snatched them from their corruptions."
64. He proceeds: "For what reason, then, is preference given to sinners?" And he adds more of this kind. We respond that a sinner is not simply preferred to one who is not a sinner; but sometimes it happens that the sinner, touched by the consciousness of his own sin, and therefore penitent and humble on account of his sins, is preferred to one who, although he is considered less of a sinner than the other, does not deem himself a sinner at all, but D rather boasts and swells with pride on account of certain goods with which he seems to himself to be adorned. This is what the parable of the publican and the Pharisee shows to those who wish to read the Gospels with candor, of whom the former used to say: "God be merciful to me a sinner"; but the latter, swollen with a great and evil opinion of himself, used to say: "I thank Thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." For Jesus judges thus of the prayer of both: "This one went down to his house justified rather than that one; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalt-
exalted.” We do not, therefore, blaspheme God, nor do we lie, when we teach that every person whomsoever should be conscious of his own human smallness, when compared to the greatness of God; and that he should always ask of Him that which is lacking to our nature A, since He alone is able to supply what we lack.
Celsus thinks that we say such things as an exhortation to sinners because we are unable to bring any man who is truly good and just to us; and that for this reason we open our doors to the most unholy and wicked individuals. But if anyone were to consider our assembly with fairness, he would see that we have more people who have turned from a life that was not very unruly than those who have turned from the most wicked sins. For those who are conscious of having lived better lives, when they pray that what is proclaimed concerning the reward to be given by God to the better sort may be true, are more prepared to give their assent to what is said than those who have lived quite wickedly; for the latter are restrained by their very conscience from admitting that they will be punished by the Judge of all with a punishment befitting one who has committed such great sins, and which is not brought against the sinner B by the Judge of all contrary to right reason. But sometimes even very wicked men, though they may have the desire to accept the doctrine concerning punishment because of the hope of obtaining repentance, are hindered by the habit of sinning; having been, as it were, deeply dyed by wickedness, they are no longer able to depart from it easily toward a settled life that is in accordance with right reason.
This is also what Celsus perceived, though I do not know how he says the following in what follows: "And of course it is manifest to everyone that no one could ever change—neither by punishment, nor even by mercy—those who have a natural inclination and a habit of sinning; for it is quite difficult to change one's nature entirely. But those who are without sin are better companions in life."
C And here, too, Celsus seems to me to be quite mistaken in not granting that those who have a natural inclination to sin and have become accustomed to doing so can undergo a complete change; for he thinks that they cannot be cured even by punishments. For it is clearly evident that, while all men are naturally inclined to sin, some are not only inclined, but also habituated to sinning. Yet not all men are incapable of a complete change; for there are, in every school of philosophy and according to the divine word, those who are reported to have changed so much that they serve as examples of the best life. And some bring forward, of the heroes, Hercules and Ulysses; of those who came later, Socrates; and of those who lived yesterday and the day before, D those who mention Musonius. Not, therefore, do we alone con-
contend that Celsus erred, when he said it is obvious that those who are by nature inclined to sin and have added habit to it cannot even be brought by any punishment to a perfect change for the better; but also all sane philosophers, who do not deny that a return to virtue is possible for men. Let us grant, indeed, that he did not express with enough accuracy what he had in mind; yet, however benevolently we may interpret him, it will still appear true that he is false in saying that those who are naturally inclined to sin and have added the habit of nature cannot, even by punishment, be changed perfectly; and that which is heard from these words, as far as we are able, we have refuted.
67. Perhaps he meant to indicate nothing else [67. B] than that those who are by nature and habit swept into certain crimes, and especially those which the most wicked perform, even by punishments cannot be perfectly corrected. But the history of certain philosophers argues that this too is false. For who among men would not rank in the number of the most wicked him who endures to obey a master who commands him to remain in a brothel, where he might endure whatever anyone pleased? Yet this is told of Phaedo. Who would not say that he had been the most wicked of men, who, with a flute-girl and the most shameful companions of his carousals, broke into the school of the most venerable [67. C] Xenocrates, in order to insult a man whom the other associates admired as most holy?
[67. D] But Seneca, and Rufus the prefect, and certain others of the noble, conspired against Nero. Then Musonius the philosopher was sent into exile for these reasons. And Vespasianus immediately expelled all the philosophers from Rome, except Musonius. Whether this is that Musonius, the learned will see, says Scaliger. They will see, if they look at Tacitus and Xiphilinus in the cited places.
A And yet the word had the power to turn even these and make them advance to such a degree in philosophy, that one was deemed by Plato worthy to recount the discourse of Socrates concerning immortality, and to describe his constancy in prison, when he did not fret about the hemlock, but fearlessly and with all the tranquility of soul discussed such great and sublime things, which even those who are most composed and unburdened by any trial can scarcely follow; and another, Polemo A, who became most temperate from being a profligate, was deemed worthy to succeed to the school of the renowned Xenocrates in point of dignity. Celsus, therefore, does not speak the truth when he says that no one can ever change those who are by nature and habit prone to sin, not even by punishing them.
B Now, that the arrangement, composition, and phrasing of the discourses from philosophy have had such success with the aforementioned, who had previously lived wicked lives, is not at all surprising. But when we consider the discourses which Celsus calls "lowly" and "common," as if they were incantations filled with power, and when we observe the words, which suddenly encourage multitudes from living the most licentious lives to a most stable one, and from unjust to better ones, and from being cowardly to being so stout-hearted as to despise even death for the sake of the piety that was revealed among them—how shall we not justly admire the power within them? For the word of those who first championed these things and labored to establish the Churches of God—but also their preaching—was indeed persuasive, yet not with the kind of persuasion found in those who boast of C the wisdom of Plato or any of the others who have philosophized, being men who possessed nothing other than what belongs to human nature. But the proof given to the apostles of Jesus from God was a demonstration from the Spirit and power. Wherefore their word ran most quickly and sharply; or rather, the word of God, transforming through them many who were naturally and habitually prone to sin—whom no human being could have transformed even by punishing them, but the Word changed, shaping and molding them according to His own will.
And Celsus, saying things consistent with himself, remarks that it is altogether very difficult to change one's nature. But we, knowing that there is one nature for every rational soul, and asserting that no soul was created evil by the Creator of all—but that many have become evil because of their bringing-up, and their corruptions, and their associations, so that in some cases wickedness has been as it were ingrained by nature—we are persuaded that for the divine Word it is not only not impossible, but also not at all difficult to change even wickedness that has become natural, once someone simply accepts that he ought to entrust himself to the God over all, and everything… D
A that he does, he does with reference to pleasing Him, before whom
"Honored alike are the base and the noble," B or "Dying alike are the idle man and he who has wrought much."
If, however, it is truly very difficult for some to change, the cause must be said to be their volition, which refuses to give assent to this truth: that the highest God will be a just judge for everyone regarding all the things they have done in this life. For great is the power of volition joined with discipline, even in regards to things that appear to us most difficult, and—to speak hyperbolically—nearing the impossible. Can human nature, having willed to walk upon a rope, stretched aloft through the middle of a theater, be able, through discipline and C attentiveness, to do such a thing while even bearing such great and heavy burdens; and yet, having willed to live according to virtue, be unable to do so, even if it had previously become most base? But see whether, perhaps, he who speaks such things is bringing a charge not against the person who has been fashioned, but against the Creator of the rational animal. For if He has made human nature capable of such difficult things, which are in no way useful, yet impossible regarding its own blessedness, [that would be absurd]. But let these suffice to address this statement of Celsus, that to change nature completely is a very difficult matter.
He subjoins that "those who are without sin are to be granted a better life." But he does not clarify whom he calls "those without sin"—whether those who have not sinned from the beginning, or those who have changed and do not sin. Those who have not sinned from the beginning, however, cannot exist; but those who have changed and do not sin, and whom our salutary doctrine has rendered such, these are very rare. Nor do even such people come to the doctrine, for without it, and its perfection, no one can be without sin.
D 70. He then raises an objection, as if we were saying: "God can do all things." He does not understand in what sense this is said, nor what these "all things" encompass, nor how He can do them—concerning which it is not necessary to speak for the present. For he himself, even though he might have been able to argue about this matter in a plausible way, did not do so; perhaps because he was not aware of the plausibility that could be brought against him on this point, or because he was aware of it but foresaw the response that would be made to him. Certainly, we profess that God can do all things, yet those things which He can do, He does without any detriment to His divinity, goodness, and wisdom. But Celsus, as one who did not grasp in what sense God is said to be able to do all things, says that "He will not wish anything unjust"—giving the impression that He can indeed do what is unjust, but does not wish to. We, however, say that just as that which is by nature sweet cannot, by the power of its own simple cause, make things bitter—for that would be contrary to its own nature—nor can that which is born to give light darken things, so too God cannot do what is unjust; for the power to do injustice is contrary to His divinity and to all the power that is consonant with it. But if any of existing things can
by its nature do what is unjust, that power arises in it from the fact that its nature is not such that it is unable A to do injustice.
71. Next, he takes for himself a point that is not conceded by those who believe more rationally, though perhaps it is thought to be so by some foolish people, as if "God, humbled like those who are slaves to pity, relieves the wicked, moved by the pity of those who are being pitied; and, seeing nothing of the sort, casts off the good—which is most unjust." For, in our view, God does not relieve any wicked person who has not yet turned to virtue, nor does He cast off anyone who is already good. But He does not relieve or pity—if I may use the word "pity" in a somewhat novel sense—anyone who is simply pitied by others; rather, God receives, for the sake of repentance, those who have severely condemned themselves for their own sins, so that they, as it were, mourn and lament themselves as exiles on account of their past deeds, and show a noteworthy transformation, and those who have changed from a most wicked life. For virtue grants amnesty to such people, dwelling within their souls and having cast out the wickedness that had previously occupied them. But if virtue is not yet present, yet a notable progress has come about in the soul, this too is sufficient, according to the proportion of such progress, to cast out and cause to vanish the flow of wickedness, so that it is nearly B nowhere to be found in the soul.
72. Then, as if speaking on behalf of one who is teaching our doctrine, he says: "For wise men shun what we say, led astray and hindered by their own wisdom." We shall reply to this, therefore, that if wisdom is a knowledge of divine and human things, and of the causes by which these things are held together, or, as the divine Scripture defines it, "a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, and a brightness of eternal light, and an unspotted mirror of the operation of God, and an image of His goodness" (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25-26), I say that no one who is wise would shun what a learned Christian might discuss regarding his own religion, nor would he be led astray or hindered by that wisdom. For true wisdom does not deceive, but ignorance does; and of all things, only knowledge and truth are stable, both of which come from wisdom. But if you style as C wise one who, contrary to the definition of wisdom, dogmatizes about whatever he likes by means of certain sophisms, we shall say that indeed such a person, according to your so-called wisdom, shuns the words of God, being led astray by plausibilities and sophisms, and hindered by them. And since, according to our doctrine, the knowledge of evil is not wisdom—but rather, if I may put it this way, the knowledge of evil is a kind of wisdom among those who hold false opinions—
pien iam vocaverim potius ignorantiam. A and deceived by sophisms; for which reason I would call it ignorance rather than wisdom in such matters. After this, he again rails against him who professes Christianity; and while he speaks of it as ‹ridiculous›, he does not demonstrate, nor does he clearly show, what he says is ‹ridiculous›. And railing, he says, ‹No wise man,› he says, ‹assents to the doctrine, being distracted B by the multitude of those who come over to it.› He does the same thing here, asserting that because of the multitude of simple people who are led by the laws, no wise man, for instance, obeys Solon, or Lycurgus, or Zaleucus, or any of the others; and especially if he takes a wise man to be one who has excelled in virtue. For just as in these cases, according to what appeared useful to them, the legislators made laws to surround them with such conduct, so also God, legislating in Jesus for men everywhere, leads even those who are not wise, as far as it is possible for such people to be led to the better. C Which, as we have said above, God, who was in Moses, knowing, says: ‹They provoked me with that which was not God, they angered me with their idols; and I will provoke them with that which is not a people, I will anger them with a foolish nation.› And Paul also, knowing this, said: ‹God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may confound the wise;› calling ‹wise› in a general sense all those who seem to have made much progress in learning, but have fallen into godless polytheism; for ‹professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God D into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and creeping things.›
74. Furthermore, he accuses our teacher, ‹that he seeks the insane.› To him I would say: Whom, pray, do you call insane? For if you examine the matter diligently, no evil man is without being insane. Therefore, if the evil are insane to you, when you yourself bring men to philosophy, which do you endeavor to bring, the evil or the upright? You certainly cannot bring the latter: for they are already philosophers; therefore, the evil. If the evil, then they are wicked. Yet you seek to bring many such to philosophy: therefore you seek the insane. I, however, even if I sought the insane in this sense, would be acting like a humane physician who seeks out the sick in order to apply remedies to them, and by which he might restore their strength. But if you call those insane who are slow and the most stupid of men, I confess that I also endeavor, as much as I can, to make them better, but I do not want the society of Christians to consist of them. I should prefer to seek the more intelligent and sharper ones, who are able to grasp the interpretation of mysteries, and what is in the Law,
and the things said with concealment in the prophets and the Gospels, which you have despised as though they contained nothing worth mentioning, A having never examined the intelligence within them, nor attempted to enter into the intention of those who wrote them.
75. Afterward he says that the teacher of Christianity does something similar to one who promises to make bodies healthy while discouraging them from attending to skilled physicians, in order that his own ignorance might not be exposed by them. To this we shall respond: Whom do you call physicians, from whom we discourage the simple? You certainly do not suppose that we direct those whom we exhort toward our divine religion to philosophers, so that you might think them to be the physicians from whom we discourage those whom we call to the divine Word. Either, therefore, he does not answer because he cannot say who these physicians are, or he is forced to have recourse to the ignorant, who themselves also babble in a servile way B about many gods and whatever else ignorant persons might say. Both ways, therefore, he will be shown to have taken up in vain, in his argument, the one who discourages from skilled physicians.
But if we also discourage those who are deceived by the philosophy of Epicurus, and by those who are considered physicians according to Epicurus, how shall we not act most reasonably by ridding them of the grievous disease which Celsus’s physicians implanted in them, namely, the denial of providence and the introduction of pleasure as the good? But let it be that we make these people, whom we exhort to our Word, renounce other philosophers—those from the Peripatetics, who do away with providence toward us and the relationship of the Divine to human beings. How shall we not make those we have exhorted pious, and heal those we convince to dedicate themselves to the God over all, delivering those who trust in us from the great wounds inflicted by the doctrines of those supposed philosophers? But let it also be allowed that we discourage them from Stoic physicians, who introduce a corruptible God and say that his substance is a body mutable throughout, and alterable and changeable, and who hold that all things are eventually destroyed, and that only God is left remaining. C How shall we not, in this way as well, deliver those who trust in us from evils, and lead them by a pious argument to dedicate themselves to the Creator and to admire the Father of the Christian teaching, who most humanely converts [souls]?
There is no one, then, of all of them— Chrysippus, according to Antipater. For he thinks that nothing except fire is free from destruction among the gods, but that all are equally both born and destined to perish. These things are said by him everywhere, so to speak. I will append the statement from the third book of *On the Gods*, according to another discourse. For some are generated and perishable; others are ungenerated. I should say that no one, therefore, of all of them... no god is free from destruction, but all are equally both born and destined to perish.
A And if, furthermore, we bring medicinal aid to those who, by the doctors—those who relegate those possessing a nature capable of reason, at one time into that which is entirely devoid of reason, and at another time into that which is without capacity for imagination—have been infatuated by that insane opinion of the transmigration of souls into various bodies; are not their souls rendered better, when we persuade them that he who is wicked is not, when he is punished, deprived of sense and reason, but rather that the labors imposed by God and the penalties inflicted upon the wicked are remedies by which, when corrected, they may turn back to Him? For this is what prudent Christians think; and they instruct the simpler among them as fathers do little children. We do not therefore act as authors of folly for little ones or rustics, so that they might flee from physicians; nor do we say to them, "Take care that none of you grasp at knowledge," nor do we declare that knowledge is an evil; nor have we reached such a pitch of insanity that we should believe that men are removed from the health of the soul by cognition, or that anyone has ever been corrupted by wisdom. Although we teach, yet no one of us has said, "Cleave to me," but rather, "Cleave to the God of all things and to Jesus, the teacher B of the doctrines concerning Him." And no one among us is so arrogant as to say to his associates, what Celsus has nonetheless assigned to one of our teachers, "I alone will save you." Observe, therefore, how many lies he tells against us. Nor has it ever been said by us that "men are killed by true physicians to whom they promise health."
76. "He does the same thing," he says, "as a teacher among them, as if someone, being drunk and moving among the drunk, should accuse those who are sober of being drunk." Let him prove, therefore, from the writings of Paul (to give an example), that the apostle of Jesus was drunk, or that his words were not those of a sober man—or from those things which John wrote, that his thoughts do not breathe of one who is temperate and free from the drunkenness of vices. No teacher of the Christian religion, therefore, is not sober, none can be accused of drunkenness; and the insults which Celsus throws at us regarding this matter are unworthy of a philosopher. Furthermore, let Celsus point out who those sober men are, whom our teachers are supposed to treat with injury. For we call those men drunk indeed, who offer prayers to inanimate things as if to God. And what did I say, drunk? They are rather insane, who run into the temples D and adore statues or animals as if they were gods. And those are no wiser who think that things fashioned by base and sometimes most wicked craftsmen have been constructed in honor of the true gods.
77. After this, he compares the teacher to one who has an eye infection, and the pupils to those likewise afflicted—for those who are suffering from eye infections—and he says, "This man, in the case of those who have eye infections, accuses those who see clearly of being the ones who are blind." Who, therefore, O Greeks, should we say are the ones who seem to us to be blind, except those who, from the great mass of things...
in the world and the beauty of the A works of creation, are unable to look up and perceive that it is necessary to worship, admire, and honor only the one who made these things, and that nothing of the things manufactured among men and taken up for the honor of gods can be properly worshipped, whether without the Creator God or together with Him? For it is the work of minds that are blind to compare things that are in no way comparable with that which surpasses all created nature by an infinite degree of superiority. We do not, therefore, say that those who see clearly are suffering from eye-disease or are blind, but we say that those who are wallowing in ignorance of God, in temples, and statues, and so-called feast days, have had their minds blinded; and especially because, in addition to this impiety, they live in licentiousness, not even seeking what a reverent action might be, but practicing everything worthy of shame. B
After these things, having leveled so many accusations against us, he wishes to intimate that he has other things to say, though he passes them over in silence. His statement is as follows: «Such are the things I blame, and things like these, that I may not recount them all; and I say that they do wrong by abusing God, that they may lead away wicked men with empty hopes, and persuade them to despise the better things, as if, by abstaining from them, it will be better for them.» To these things it might be replied, from the force of that which brings men to the Christian religion, that it is not altogether the most wicked who are led away by the Word, but rather the simpler ones and, if I may so speak, the unrefined. For these, moved by fear of the punishments announced, which urges them to refrain from those things for which the punishments are destined, hasten to devote themselves to the religion according to Christianity; being so overcome by the Word that, for fear of the eternal punishments named in the teaching, they do not hesitate to despise every torture conceived by men against them and death with a myriad of pains, which no one of sound mind would say is the work of a perverse C disposition. For how is self-control and temperance practiced from a perverse disposition, or generosity and social concern? But not even the fear toward the Divine, to which the Word exhorts those not yet able to see that which is to be chosen for its own sake, and to choose it as the greatest good, even beyond every promise — as something useful for the many; from which it is not in the nature of things for this to emerge in one who has chosen to live in wickedness.
If, however, anyone imagines that there is superstition rather than wickedness in the many who believe in the Word, and blames our Word for making them superstitious, we shall answer him that, just as one of the lawgivers D said to one who questioned him—
whether he had given the best laws to his citizens—that he had not given the absolutely best, but the best that they could accept; so also could the Word, the author of the Christian religion, be said to have instituted the best laws and teachings for the improvement of morals of which the many were capable. He threatened punishments, not false ones, but true ones necessary for the correction of those who resist, even if they do not entirely understand either the intention of the one punishing or the purpose of the punishments. This doctrine concerning punishments is both as useful as it is consistent with the truth, and it is obscurely transmitted for the great benefit of men. Moreover, usually, it is not the wicked who are enticed by Christian teachers to religion, nor are we injurious toward God. For we preach true things about Him, which even seem clear to the multitude, although they are not as clear to them as they are to the few who are exercised in the investigation of our doctrines.
80. Since Celsus, looking to what we teach about the blessed life and future communion with God, accuses the Christians of being led by vain hope, I refute him thus: "Hey you, do you therefore think that they are delighted by a vain hope—those who, with Pythagoras and Plato as their authors, have been persuaded that such is the nature of the soul that it [it goes] outside of heaven? No poet B of those here has yet sung, nor will ever sing, of the supercelestial place according to its worth."
The Nature of the Soul and its Ascent to the Supercelestial Sphere
"For there were then many blessed visions and ways within heaven, as the race of those blessed gods performs its turn, each of them performing his own. And the one who always wills and is able follows; for envy stands outside the divine chorus. But when they go to a banquet and a feast, they travel upward toward the summit C to the celestial arch; the vehicles of the gods, being balanced and easy to guide, proceed easily, but the others proceed with difficulty. For the horse that partakes of wickedness is heavy, tending toward the earth and leaning by its own weight, whichever horse has not been well nurtured by its charioteer; where, indeed, labor and the final struggle are set before the soul. For those called immortal, when they arrive at the summit, having gone outside, stand upon the back of heaven; and the revolution carries them around as they stand; D and they contemplate the things outside of heaven.
"But it was possible then to see brilliance, when we were following with that blessed chorus to witness that happy sight and vision—we indeed with Zeus, but others with another of the gods—and were initiated into mysteries which it is proper to call the most blessed of all mysteries: which we celebrated, being ourselves whole and immune and free from those evils which awaited us in later time; and we were initiated into whole and simple and immovable and happy spectacles."
A and into the view of the blessed spectators. But according to you, O Celsus, even those who accept the soul's subsistence beyond, and live so as to become heroes and to have their converse with the gods, are misled by vain hopes. And perhaps Celsus would say that even those who are persuaded concerning the intellect that comes from without, as though it were to have a new departure at death, are misled by vain hopes. Let him therefore enter the contest, no longer concealing his own school, but acknowledging himself an Epicurean in the face of the arguments—not to be despised—which are put forward among both Greeks and barbarians concerning the immortality of the soul, or its subsistence beyond, or the immortality of the intellect; and let him demonstrate that these are indeed doctrines deceiving those who agree with them with vain hopes, while those of his own philosophy are free from vain hopes; and that they either lead to good hopes or—which is more consistent for him—produce no hope at all, because of the immediate and total destruction of the soul. Unless, indeed, Celsus and the Epicureans will deny that the hope concerning their end, pleasure—which according to them is the good, namely the stable condition of the body, and the belief held by Epicurus concerning this—is a vain hope.
Do not imagine that I have inappropriately, for the sake of the Christian argument, adopted to use against Celsus those who have philosophized concerning the immortality or the subsistence of the soul. For having certain common grounds with them, we shall the more opportunely show that the future blessed life will belong only to those who have accepted the piety toward Jesus, and the piety toward the Creator of all that is sincere and pure and unmixed with any created thing whatsoever. Let him who wishes to show what are the better things we persuade men to despise, and let him set in opposition to our end—which is in God, in Christ, that is, in the Word and in Wisdom and in all virtue, a blessed end for those who in an unblamable manner B C D [The remainder of the column 1026 and the subsequent apparatus are treated as: [alt-version omitted]]
and will enjoy the Word, Wisdom, and universal virtue, A by the gift of God, we teach those who have passed a life pure and immune from wickedness, and who have loved the God of all things with a perpetual and constant love; let him, I say, compare that end with that which the individual sects of philosophers among the Greeks and barbarians—or those promising things full of mysteries—teach must be expected; and let him show that end to be as true and as consistent with the kindness of God and with those who have lived good lives, while showing that ours is not so; or that these things were not handed down by the divine Spirit filling the souls of the pure prophets. Let him show, strictly if he likes, documents which no one denies to be human that ought to be preferred to those which we demonstrate to be divine and given by the inspiration of God. Finally, what are those goods for which, if they are relinquished, we promise better things? For, so as not to speak arrogantly, it is clear that nothing more excellent can be conceived than to entrust oneself to the God over all, and to embrace the doctrine which draws us away from every created thing and leads us to the supreme God through the animate and living Word, the living Wisdom, and the Son of God. B But now this third book written against Celsus is long enough. Wherefore I will make an end of speaking here, intending to renew the struggle in what follows against the things he has proceeded to write.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS: BOOK FOUR
1. In the three preceding books, we have set forth, holy Ambrose, what occurred to us against the writing of Celsus; now, having invoked God through Christ, we approach the fourth book in regard to what follows. C And would that there might be given to me words such as those concerning which the Lord, speaking to this prophet in Jeremiah, says: "Behold, I have given my words in your mouth as fire; behold, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pull up, and to build, and to plant." For we too have need of words that may "pull up" out of every soul—damaged by the writing of Celsus or by thoughts similar to his—the lies which have wounded it. We have need also of sentiments that may "pull down" all the building of false opinions, and thus that which Celsus in his D
A composition has constructed, not unlike the building of those who said: "Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower, whose top shall reach unto heaven" (Gen. xi, 4). But we also need the wisdom that "destroys" every "height" that "exalts itself against the knowledge of God" (II Cor. x, 5), and the height of arrogance by which Celsus exalts himself against us. But it would be a small thing to pull up and to destroy; we must, in the place of those things which have been rooted up, plant others which are suitable for "God's husbandry" (I Cor. iii, 9), and in the place of those which have been pulled down, build the building of God and the temple of the glory of God. For this reason, we must pray to the Lord, the bestower of those things mentioned in Jeremiah, that He may give us also words to build up the things of Christ, and to plant the spiritual law and the prophetic oracles referring to it. And there is the greatest need for us, in regard to the things that follow which are said by Celsus, to establish that they have been rightly prophesied concerning Christ. For Celsus stands against both, against the Jews, who deny that Christ’s advent has occurred, although they hope that it will occur, and against the B Christians, who confess that Jesus is the Christ foretold by the prophets. Thus, therefore, he says:
2. "That some of the Christians and the Jews say either that a certain God or the Son of God has descended or will descend unto the earth to justify the inhabitants of this earth—this is most shameful, and its refutation does not require a long discourse." And he seems specifically to say regarding the Jews, not that some, but that all think a certain one will descend upon the earth; but regarding the Christians, that some of them say that one has descended. For he indicates those who prove from the Jewish Scriptures that Christ’s advent has already taken place; and he seems to know that there are some sects that deny that Jesus is the Christ who was foretold. Now, we have already considered according to our ability in the preceding C books that Christ has been foretold; therefore, we shall not repeat most of the things that could be said on this topic, so that we may not be tautologous. Observe, then, that if he had wished, with any apparently consistent reasoning, to overturn the faith concerning the prophecies, or concerning Christ’s intention to descend or having descended, he ought to have set forth the prophecies themselves, which we—Christians and Jews—use when disputing with one another. For thus he might have seemed to turn those away who are troubled, as he thinks, by a probability, away from their assent to the prophetic writings and their faith, through the prophetic writings, in Jesus as being the Christ. But as it is, whether because he is unable to respond to the prophecies concerning Christ, or because he does not even know at all what things are prophesied concerning Him, he puts forward not a single word of prophecy, [even though there are] countless things [recorded] concerning Christ. And he seems to refute them for himself, without even setting forth the probability which he judges to be in them; nor did he even know that it is not...
at all the case that the Jews say that the Christ or the Son of God is to descend, as we have also said before. And having said that he is described by us as having descended, but by the Jews as a justifier who is to descend—he thinks that he is thereby A attacking the prophetic writings, without even putting forward the probability that he would attribute to them, nor even thinking it requires a long refutation.
3. Afterward, he asks, "With what purpose did God descend here?" He is obviously unaware that the purpose of this descent is assigned by us. Primarily, indeed, that the so-called "lost sheep of the house of Israel" in the Gospel might be converted; and secondly, that because of their unbelief, he might take away from them what is called the kingdom of God, and give it to other husbandmen, namely, to the Christians—who, instead of the ancient Jews, would render the fruits of the kingdom of God to God, in the times of each action being the fruits of the kingdom. We, then, have said a few things out of many in response to Celsus’s question, "For what is the purpose for God of such descent?" But Celsus ascribes to himself arguments that were not made either by the Jews or by us, saying, "Or is it so that he might learn what is among men?" For none of us says that Christ dwells in human life in order to learn what is among men. Then, as if some had B said, "So that he might learn what is among men," he objects to himself on this, "Does he not then know all things?" Then, as if they were answering that he does know, he again raises a difficulty, saying: "If he knows, why does he not correct them; or is it not possible for him to correct them by divine power?" And all these things he says foolishly. For God, by his own Word, always descending into holy souls generation by generation and producing friends of God and prophets, corrects those who show themselves teachable; and at the advent of Christ, he uses Christian doctrine to correct not those who do not wish to be corrected, but those who choose a better life, which is pleasing to God. But I do not know what kind of correction Celsus wishes to have taken place, so he raises a difficulty, saying: "Was it not in his divine power to correct them, unless someone were sent for this express purpose?" Or would he want C human wickedness to be suddenly removed by God and virtue to be inserted, so that men would be reformed by new conceptions of images? Another might inquire whether this is consistent with nature or if it can happen; but for my part, I say it can. But what then becomes of free will? How will assent given to the truth be worthy of praise? How will turning away from the lie be placed among things worthy of praise? I indeed admit that it could have been done and that it would have been fitting; but let someone who imitates Celsus ask, could not God, by his divine power, have created men from the beginning so addicted to virtue and so perfect that there would be no wickedness, and thus they would need no correction? These things might perhaps move simple and slow-witted people, but not one who looks into the nature of things. For he knows that virtue is by nature to such an extent D that he [might inquire] if it is consistent or possible for nature as such. But we would say: let it be, and let it be possible for this to exist. Where then is free will? And where is the praiseworthy assent to the truth, or the acceptable rejection of the lie? But even if it were granted once that this is possible and is done appropriately, why would one not rather look to the beginning—arguing somewhat like Celsus—that it was not possible for God by divine power to have made men without even having need of correction, men [who were] not [merely] imagined to be so because God had [by force] removed evil and implanted virtue?
A These things can indeed deceive the unlearned and the weak, but not one who perceives the nature of things; for if you remove the voluntary nature of virtue, you have also removed its essence. A complete treatise on these matters would be necessary, a subject on which the Greeks have spoken not a little in their books on Providence; and they would not have said what Celsus set forth, saying: "He knows indeed, but does not correct, nor is it possible for Him to correct by divine power." And we, too, have spoken on these matters as far as we were able in many places, and the divine words have set them forth to those who are able to hear them.
4. B Therefore, the objection which Celsus brings against us and the Jews will be turned against himself. For tell me, good sir, does God who is over all know the things that are in men, or does He not know? But if you posit that there is a God and Providence, as your writing indicates, it is necessary that He know. But if He knows, why does He not correct? Or is it necessary for us to render an account of why He does not correct human affairs, even though He knows; while you, who in your writing do not openly declare yourself an Epicurean, but pretend to recognize Providence, are not bound to say why God, having a clear view of all things in men, does not correct them, nor by His divine power deliver all from wickedness? But we do not hesitate to say that God always sends those who might correct. C For there are instructions given by God to men among whom they live, by which they may be provoked to the best things; although there is much difference among the ministers whom God employs. Indeed, there are few who teach the truth with absolute purity and work toward the perfect correction of men; such were Moses and the prophets. Yet, in addition to all these, the correction through Jesus is great, since He did not desire that only those in one corner of the inhabited world should be healed, but, as far as it depended on Him, those everywhere as well; for He came as the Savior of all men.
5. D After this, the very noble Celsus, not knowing whence he took it, raises an objection against us as if we were saying that "God Himself descends to men." And he thinks that it follows from this that "He must abandon His own throne." For he does not know the power of God, and that "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of the voice." Nor is he able to understand: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord." Nor does he see that, according to the doctrine of the Christians, we all live and move and have our being in Him, as Paul also taught in his speech to the Athenians. Even if, therefore, the God of the universe, by His own power, descends with Jesus into this human life, and even if the Word who was in the beginning with God, being Himself God, comes to us, He does not become "out of place," nor does He abandon His own throne; so that one place is empty of Him, while another, which did not possess Him before, is filled. But the power and divinity of God are present where He wills and in whom He finds a place, not changing position, nor leaving one place for another.
For when we say that He A leaves one and fills another, we do not mean this in terms of place; rather, we shall say that the soul of one who is base and poured out in wickedness is abandoned by God, while the soul of one who desires to live according to virtue, or is already making progress, or already living according to it, is filled or becomes a participant in the divine Spirit. There is no need, therefore, for Christ’s descent, or for God’s turning toward men, to leave behind a greater seat or for things here to be changed, as Celsus thinks when he says: «For if you were to change even the smallest of things here, everything would collapse and be ruined.» But if we must say that there is a change when a person is transformed by the presence of the power of God and the advent of the Word among men, we shall not hesitate to say that a change occurs from base to noble, from lewd to temperate, and from superstitious to pious, for one who has received the advent of the Word of God into his own soul.
If, however, you wish for us to respond to the most ridiculous points of Celsus, hear him saying: «But because God is unknown among men, and for this reason thinks He lacks something, He wishes to be known, and to put to the test those who believe and those who do not; just as those who have recently acquired great wealth among men are wont to show off, and so they testify against God, that He takes great pleasure in mortal glory.» We say, therefore, that God is unknown by base men, not because He Himself thinks He lacks something and wishes to be known, but so that the knowledge of Him might free the one who B knows Him from misery. Nor is it because He wishes to test those who believe or those who disbelieve that He either visits some in His ineffable and divine power, or sends His Christ, but rather so that those who believe and grasp His divinity might be freed from every misery, and so that the disbelievers might no longer have any room for excuse, as if they did not believe because they had not heard and been taught. What reasoning, then, shows that it follows from our opinion that God is like those who have recently become rich and are wont to show off? For God does not show off to us, wishing us to understand and perceive His superiority; rather, desiring the blessedness which comes to our souls from being known by us to grow within us, He works through C Christ and the constant advent of the Word, that we might receive familiarity with Him. Thus, the faith of the Christians attributes no mortal ambition to God.
7. I do not know how, after having babbled to no purpose on the matters we set forth, later he at some point concludes that «He does not require to be known for His own sake, but for the sake of our salva-
salvation; so that those who accept Him, having become good, may be saved; while those who do not accept Him, having been shown to be wicked, may be punished.” And having set forth such a point, he raises a difficulty, saying: “Why then, after so many ages, has God remembered to justify the life of men, whereas before He was heedless?”
To this we shall reply that there is no time when God did not wish to justify the life of men; rather, He always cared for it, giving to the rational animal opportunities for virtue to be corrected. For in each generation, the wisdom of God, passing into souls which He finds holy, makes them friends of God and prophets. Moreover, one may find in the sacred books those who in each generation were holy and receptive of the divine Spirit; and how they turned those among them, as much as they were able.
But it is nothing B strange that in some generations there have been prophets who excelled in the reception of divinity, on account of a more intense and vigorous life, compared to certain other prophets of their own time, or those before or after them. And so it is not strange that there should have been a certain time when something extraordinary came to the race of men, which was different from those before it or those after it.
But the account concerning these things has something more mystical and deeper, and which cannot altogether reach the more common ear. And it is necessary, in order for these things C to be cleared up, and to meet what is said concerning the advent of Christ (that “Why then, after so many ages, did God remember to justify the race of men, whereas before He was heedless?”), to touch upon the account of the portions, and to explain why, “when the Most High divided the nations, when He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and the portion of the Lord became His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance Israel” (Deut. xxxii, 8, 9). And there will be need to state the cause of the birth into each boundary, under the one who obtained the boundary by lot, and how it came to pass reasonably that the portion of the Lord was His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance Israel; and why at first the portion of the Lord was His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance Israel; but concerning the later times it is said to the Savior by the Father: “Ask of me, and I will give Thee the nations as Thine inheritance, and D the ends of the earth as Thy possession” (Psal. ii, 8). For there are certain linkages and successions, unspeakable and indescribable, concerning the diverse dispensation regarding human souls.
Christ came, therefore, even if Celsus does not wish it, after many prophets who corrected the people of that Israel, as the corrector of the whole world; not needing, according to the former dispensation, the use of scourges, and bonds, and tortures toward the correcting of men. For when
A the Sower went forth to sow, it was sufficient to teach that his doctrine should be disseminated everywhere. But if there be any time appointed, bounding the world with a necessary boundary, because it has had a beginning; and if a certain end is to be appointed for the world, and after the end a just judgment for all things, it will be necessary for him who philosophizes upon the Word to establish these things with manifold proofs, both from the divine Scriptures and from logical consequences. But the common and simpler man, who is unable to follow the most varied contemplations of the wisdom of God, having entrusted himself to God and to the Saviour of our race, ought to be satisfied with this "He himself said" [(15)], rather than with anything else whatsoever.
After this, again, as is his custom, Celsus, without having established or proved anything, as if we do not speak of God holily and piously, says: "That they do not speak of God holily and piously is clear" [(44)]. And he thinks that we do these things to terrify the unlearned, and not because we speak the truth regarding the punishments necessary for those who have sinned. Wherefore he compares B us to those who in the Bacchic mysteries bring forward phantoms and terrors. Now, as to the Bacchic mysteries, whether there is any plausible reason for them or not, let the Greeks speak, and let Celsus and his fellow-initiates listen; but we defend our own position, saying that our purpose is to amend the human race, whether by the threats of punishments, which we are persuaded are necessary for the universe, and perhaps not useless to those who are about to suffer them; or by the promises of a blessed life in the kingdom of God, made to those who will have lived well, and who will be worthy of having God as their king. C
After this, wishing to show that we say nothing paradoxical or new regarding the flood or the conflagration, but rather that we have misunderstood what is said by the Greeks or barbarians regarding these things and attributed it to our own Scriptures, he says: "They have come upon these things also, after having misunderstood them, that according to long cycles of time, and the returns and conjunctions of the stars, conflagrations and floods occur; and that after the last flood in the time of Deucalion, the period requires, according to the vicissitude of all things, that a conflagration should take place. D This is the cause of their error: hence it is that they say that God will descend as a torturer, bearing fire." And to this we shall say, that it is wonderful indeed that Celsus, a man who has read much and shown himself to have read many histories, has not attended to the antiquity of Moses, whom even some among the Greeks report to have lived around the time...
of Inachus, the father of Phoroneus, whom the Egyptians acknowledge to be most ancient, as do the writers of Phoenician affairs. Let him also unfold, if he pleases, the two books of Flavius Josephus Concerning the Antiquity of the Jews. A Hence he will learn how much older Moses is than those who, after long periods of time had elapsed, said that deluges and conflagrations occur in this world; and whom, if Celsus is to be believed, the Jews and Christians misunderstood, such that, in what they taught concerning the conflagration, they said, "God will descend like a torturer armed with fire."
B Whether there are cycles, and whether there are deluges or conflagrations according to these cycles, or whether there are not, and whether the Word understands these things—this is not the time for such a discussion, though it is spoken of in many places, and in this passage of Solomon: "What is that which has been? It is that which will be. What is that which has been made? It is that which will be made," and so forth. It is enough merely to note that the most ancient men, Moses and certain of the prophets, did not receive these things concerning the conflagration of the world from others. Rather, if one must insist on the chronology, it is others who misinterpreted them, and not having accurately weighed what was said by these men, fashioned identical events according to cycles, C and those which did not differ in their own peculiar qualities or in the accidents attending them. For our part, we do not attribute the deluge or the conflagration to the cycles of the stars, but we say their cause is wickedness, which, when it has increased greatly, is purged by deluge or conflagration. But if the prophetic utterances, which say, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," speak of God as descending, we interpret this figuratively. For God descends from His own magnitude and height when He manages human affairs, and especially those of the wicked. And just as common speech says that teachers "descend" to children, and wise men or those who have made progress descend to the capacity of the young, who are just recently brought to philosophy, not by descending in body—so too, if it is said anywhere in the divine Scriptures that God "descends," it is understood analogously D according to this usage, and the same applies to "ascending."
Since Celsus, mocking, says that we claim God descends like a torturer carrying fire, and forces us to enter into deeper questions not at the proper time, we shall say a few things first, as much as is necessary for an apology that removes Celsus’s objection against us.
A Divinely inspired Scripture calls our God "a consuming fire," and says that "rivers of fire flow before Him," and that He even "enters as the fire of a refiner, and as the herb of fullers, that He may refine His own people." Since, therefore, it is said that He is a consuming fire, we ask: what is it fitting should be consumed by God? And we say that it is wickedness and whatever is done out of it B and which are figuratively called wood, hay, and stubble, that God consumes as fire. Thus, the wicked man is said to build upon the previously laid rational foundation wood, hay, and stubble. Now, if the author had meant these things otherwise, and if one could physically demonstrate the wicked man building wood, hay, or stubble, then it would be clear that the fire, too, would be understood as material and sensible. But if the works of the wicked man are explicitly described figuratively—which are called wood, hay, or stubble—how does it not immediately occur to one what kind of fire is being employed to consume such wood? "For each person's work," he says, "whatever it is, the fire will test. If anyone's work remains that he has built upon it, he will receive a reward; if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss." C And what kind of work being burned up could be meant here, if not all that is done out of wickedness? Therefore, our God is "a consuming fire," as we have explained; and so He "enters as the fire of a refiner" to refine the rational nature, which has been filled with the lead of wickedness and other unclean materials that adulterate—if I may put it so—the golden or silver nature of the soul. Thus, rivers of fire are also said to be before God, to cause the wickedness that has become intermingled throughout the whole soul to vanish. But these things are sufficient to address the claim: "Hence comes the cause of error; hence it is that they say God will descend like a torturer armed with fire."
14.
Let us look at what Celsus goes on to say with great pretension: "But," he says, "let us go over the matter again from the beginning and with more arguments. I will say nothing new, but what has long been acknowledged. God is good, and beautiful, and blessed, and is in that which is most beautiful and best. If, then, He descends to men, He requires change; and change is from good to evil, from beautiful to shameful, from happiness to misery, and from the best to the most wicked. Who, then, would choose such a change? D Furthermore, it is the nature of mortal things to be changed and to take on another form, while it is that of the immortal to remain ever one and the same. Such a change, therefore, cannot befall God." Now, it seems to me that enough has been said in response to these points, having explained the sense in which God is said in the Scriptures to descend to human affairs: for in doing this He has no need of change, as Celsus thinks we say—nor of a mutation from good to evil, or from fair to base, or from happiness to misery, or from the best to the most wicked. A For He, while remaining immutable in His essence, descends by His providence and dispensation to human affairs. We, therefore, and the divine Scriptures, maintain that God is immutable, as it is written: “But You are the same,” and, “I have not changed.” But the gods of Epicurus, being composed of atoms, and being—so far as their constitution is concerned—indissoluble, are busy trying to shake off the destructive atoms. The God of the Stoics, moreover, being a body, at one time has His whole essence in a ruling state, when the conflagration occurs; and at another time He becomes “superparticular,” when the ordering of the world takes place. For they have not been able to clarify the natural conception of God as being in all respects incorruptible, simple, incomposite, and indivisible.
B He who descended to men “being in the form of God,” also “emptied Himself” out of love for mankind, so that He might be capable of being contained by men. Nor surely has any change from good to evil happened to Him; “for He committed no sin,” nor from fair to base, “for He knew no sin,” nor did He come from happiness to misery; but He humbled Himself, and none the less was He blessed, even when He humbled Himself for the benefit of our race. Nor did any change occur in Him from the best to the most wicked; for where is the most wicked in that which is kind and benevolent? Or is it time to C say...
that the physician, while seeing dreadful things and touching unpleasant things in order to heal the sick, has fallen from good to evil, or from the fair to the foul, or from happiness to misery? And yet, the physician, while seeing such things A and touching unpleasant things, does not entirely escape the risk of being able to fall into the same state. But He who heals the wounds of our souls through the Word of God that is in Him was Himself inaccessible to any vice. But if the immortal God, the Word, by taking on a mortal body and a human soul, seems to Celsus to be changed and transformed, let him learn that the Word, remaining Word in His essence, suffers nothing of what the body or the soul suffers. But condescending at times to those who are unable to behold the scintillations and the brightness of His Divinity, He becomes, as it were, flesh, speaking in a bodily way, until he who has accepted Him in such a manner, being gradually raised up by the Word, may be able to behold also His (so to speak) primary form. B For there are various forms of the Word, as the Word appears to each of those being led into knowledge, corresponding to the capacity of the beginner, or the one progressing a little, or to a greater degree, or the one nearly already having attained virtue, or having been made perfect in virtue. Hence, our God was not transformed in the way Celsus and those like him desire, and, having ascended the high mountain, showed another form of Himself, and one far better than that which those who remained below, and were unable to follow Him to the height, were beholding. For those below did not have eyes capable of seeing the transfiguration of the Word into a more glorious and divine state; but they could barely contain Him, such as He was, so that it might be said concerning Him by those who could not see the better part of Him: C "We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness, but His form was dishonored, failing before the sons of men." And these things have been said against the assumption of Celsus, who did not understand the changes or transfigurations of Jesus as related in the histories, nor what was mortal in Him and what was immortal.
17. Now are those histories, especially when they are understood as is meet, not far more dignified than the history of Bacchus, who was deceived by the Titans, then driven from the throne of Jove, then torn to pieces by them, and after that reconstituted and, as it were, revived and ascending into heaven? Or is it permitted to the Greeks to refer such things to the soul and to interpret them concerning it, while to us the entrance D to an exposition that is consecutive, consistent, and in every respect harmonious with the Scriptures inspired by the Divine Spirit dwelling in pure souls is completely closed? Celsus, therefore, was entirely ignorant of the intention of our writings. Whence he does not attack the meaning of them, but rather that which he himself attributes to them. If he had understood what follows
regarding the condition of the soul in eternal life, and what it is fitting to think concerning its substance and its principles, it would not have seemed so ridiculous to him that the immortal should have come into a mortal body, not by transmigrating from body to body, as Plato would explain, but by another and far more sublime method. He would also have seen a singular descent, out of great philanthropy, for the sake of calling back the—as the divine Scripture has mystically named them—"lost sheep of the house of Israel," and that he descended from the mountains, to which the shepherd is said in certain parables to have descended, having left behind in the mountains those which had not strayed.
B Celsus, however, lingering on things he has not understood, becomes a cause of tautology to us, though we do not wish it, lest we should seem to have left unexamined anything of what has been said by him. He says, therefore, next: "Either God truly changes into a mortal body, as these men say, and the impossibility of this has previously been stated; or he himself does not change, but makes those who see him think he has changed, and he deceives and lies. But deception and falsehood are otherwise evil, and are only to be used like a drug, either to heal friends who are sick and mad, or to escape a danger threatened by enemies. But no one who is sick or mad is a friend to God; nor does God fear anyone, so as to escape danger by deceiving." To this it may be replied, partly regarding the nature of the divine Word who is God, C and partly regarding the soul of Jesus. Concerning the nature of the Word, we say, just as the quality of food in the nurturer is changed into milk to suit the nature of the infant, or is prepared by a physician for the benefit of the sick in the manner necessary for their health, or is adapted to the stronger as they are better able, so too does God transform the power of the Word, which is naturally suited to nourish the human soul, for men, each according to their worth. And to some it becomes, as the Scripture has named it, "rational unadulterated milk," while to another, as to one weaker, it is as it were "pot-herbs," and to another still, "solid food" D is dispensed. And the Word does not at all belie his own nature by becoming suitable for each one according as he is able to receive him; and he does not deceive, nor does he lie. But if one takes the change to refer to the soul of Jesus, in that it came into a body, we shall ask, in what way do you speak of change? For if you speak of the substance, I deny that either that or any other rational soul is changed; but if you mean that it suffers something by being mixed with the body and from the place into which it has come, what absurdity can be brought against the Word, who out of great philanthropy sent down the Savior to the race of men? Since none of those who have previously professed to heal...
are capable of doing as much as this soul has shown itself to have done through the things it has accomplished, having voluntarily descended to the human infirmities on behalf of our race. The divine writers, knowing these things, have said much about them in many places; but for the present it will be sufficient to cite one statement of Paul, which has it thus: A “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.”*
19. Let others then grant to Celsus that He did not change, but made those who saw Him believe that He had changed; but we, who are fully persuaded that Jesus came to men not in appearance only, but truly and manifestedly, are not subject to the accusation of Celsus. Nevertheless, let us defend ourselves thus: Do you not yourself admit, O Celsus, that you allow the use of deception and falsehood as a remedy? What absurdity is there, then, if some such thing was employed, provided that it was going to contribute to salvation? For it happens that through certain discourses composed for the sake of B falsehood, such as physicians sometimes use towards the sick, you might correct morals more easily than if you had employed the truth. Let these things be said by us in defense of others. For it is not absurd for one who is healing sick friends to relieve the race of men, which is dear to Him, with such remedies, which one would not employ primarily, but out of necessity. And since the race of men was mad, it had to be healed by methods which the Word saw were useful for the mad, so that they might regain their senses. C But he says that "someone does such things towards enemies, fearing to escape danger. But God fears no one, so that he would have to deceive those plotting against Him in order to escape danger." That is entirely superfluous and irrational, for no one has ever said such things about our Savior. But as to the point that "no one who is sick or mad is a friend to God," I have already responded for others. For I said that this dispensation did not take place on account of those sick or mad who were already friends, but so that those who were still enemies on account of the disease of the soul and the alienation of natural reason might be received into friendship with God. D For Jesus is clearly said to have endured all things so that He might free those who had sinned from their sins and make them righteous.*
20. Furthermore, he introduces Jews, who separately bring forward the cause for why they believe that the coming of Christ is yet to be.
* Phil. II, 5. * Hebr. II, 15; Matth. IX, 15.
Let us now consider, as briefly as possible, both these points, as they are matters that actually occurred. Among the Jews, the argument takes this form: "Since life is filled with every kind of vice, it is necessary that God should send someone to punish the wicked and cleanse all things, as happened at the time of the first flood." Since it is said that Christians add other matters to these, it is clear that celsus claims these things are asserted by them as well. And what is absurd in the idea that, when vice floods the earth, One will come to cleanse the world and deal with everyone according to his merits? For it does not befit God to allow spreading wickedness to go unchecked, and not to restore all things. The Greeks also know that the earth is cleansed at certain intervals—either by fire or by flood—as Plato himself says somewhere: B "When the gods, purifying the earth with water, bring about a flood, then those who dwell in the mountains, etc." Must we then say that if the Greeks assert these things, the proposals are solemn and worth discussing, but if we ourselves put forward the same things that are praised by the Greeks, these doctrines are no longer good? Yet those who care for the ordered and accurate consideration of all written texts will try to show not only the antiquity of those who wrote them, but also the solemnity of what was said and how consistent those things are.
I do not know how he thinks the destruction of the tower is in any way similar to the flood that cleansed the earth, as the account of the Jews and Christians desires. For in order that the history concerning the tower, which is recorded in Genesis, might hint at nothing, but rather—as Celsus thinks—be clear, it does not appear that this occurred for the cleansing of the earth; unless perhaps he believes that the so-called confusion of languages served the purpose of a cleansing of the earth. Anyone who is learned will discuss this more opportunely when he proposes to show both what this history means in its obvious sense, and to what more hidden matters it should be referred. C But since Celsus believes that Moses, who recorded the events concerning the tower and the confusion of languages, took his account from the corrupted history of the Aloadae, D and recorded these things about the tower, it must be said that I do not believe anyone spoke of the matters concerning the Aloadae before Homer; whereas the matters concerning the tower, I am persuaded, were recorded by Moses, who was much more ancient not only than Homer, but even than the invention of Greek letters. Who then, rather, corrupted whose work? Is it the writer of the fable of the Aloadae who corrupted the history of the tower? Or was it he who wrote of the tower and the confusion of languages who corrupted the fable of the Aloadae? But any fair person acknowledges that Moses is more ancient than Homer. Thus also the accounts concerning Sodom and Gomorrah
recounted by Moses in Genesis, as having been destroyed by fire on account of sin, Celsus compares to the story of Phaethon; having committed one error, that of not having concerned himself with the antiquity of Moses, he has consequently done everything incorrectly. For those who recount the stories concerning Phaethon appear to be even younger than Homer, who is himself much younger than Moses. We do not, therefore, deny that the world will be consumed by a purifying fire, so that vices may be abolished and this universe may be renewed; on the contrary, we profess to have learned this from the sacred books of the prophets. For when, as has been said before, the prophets are shown to have spoken truly regarding things past as they had prophesied regarding things future, and thus have given proof of the divine Spirit dwelling in them, it is clear that one must believe them also regarding future things, or rather, believe the divine Spirit who was in them. B
22. "Christians," continues Celsus, "adding certain arguments to those things said by the Jews, say that the Son of God has already been sent on account of the sins of the Jews, and that the Jews, having punished Jesus and having offered him gall, brought upon themselves the wrath of God." Let him who wishes expose this statement as a lie, if the entire Jewish nation has not been uprooted, and that within a single generation after they had suffered these things at the hands of Jesus. For it is my opinion that forty-two years after Jesus was nailed to the cross, Jerusalem was destroyed. And it has never been heard, since the time the Jews began to exist, that for such a length of time they have been cast out from the practice of their solemn rites and worship, having been overcome by stronger peoples; but if ever they seemed to have been abandoned on account of their sins, they were nonetheless visited, and having returned to their own lands, they performed their sacred rites without anyone hindering them. C Among all the arguments, therefore, which demonstrate that there was something divine and holy in Jesus, this is one: that the Jews have for so long a time—due to him—been involved in so many and such great calamities. Moreover, we will confidently say that they will not be restored to their former state. For the crime they committed against the Savior was the most atrocious of all. D How they ought now to act, and proceed to bring forth for us a prophet into our midst, one who says that the city will certainly be restored. For it is clear to everyone who has even glanced at the prophetic books that if their present captivity were ever to have an end, it was absolutely necessary for the prophets to have foretold these things. For it was an ancient custom among the Jews for the prophets from of old to announce in advance the evils and goods that were to befall them. And that this is true…
namely that God predicted to them all future events, not only from these things, but also from the very things that befell them, both good and evil, I shall demonstrate. The Jews endured three most grievous slaveries, and God brought none upon them without prediction; but He ensured they were all foretold to them, announcing with precision the place, the time, the person, the nature of the affliction, the return, and all other things. A Next, he uses the testimony of Flavius Josephus, which you will find at the end of the tenth book of his *Jewish Antiquities*: "For since he said those things, hear what he says after this: 'In the same way, Daniel wrote about the Roman empire, and that Jerusalem would be captured by them, and that the temple would be laid waste.' But for your part, observe how, although the man who wrote these things was a Jew, yet he did not deign to emulate your contentiousness; for when he said that Jerusalem would be captured, he did not dare to go further and say that it would be restored again, nor did he write a definite time." B After he said these things, hear what he adds. "In the same way," he says, "Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman power and that Jerusalem was to be taken away by them, and the temple desolated." But for your part, consider that although the one who wrote these things was a Jew, he sought not to imitate your obduracy. For when he had said that Jerusalem was to be subverted, he did not dare add that it was to be restored, nor did he prescribe any certain time. It follows immediately: "That Jerusalem and the temple would be desolated, he wrote; but he did not add that the time of desolation would ever end; because he saw that not even the prophet had added this; but he wrote that Jerusalem was to be reduced to solitude and the temple destroyed. Furthermore, he did not add that there would ever be an end to the desolation, because he saw that not even the prophet had added this."
"But Josephus," says the most famous Grotius, "just as he dared not promise anything certain to his people, so he did not cast away all hope, as is apparent even from this passage, where, lamenting the sins of the city and the punishment due to them, he addresses it thus: 'You might perhaps become better again, if ever you appease the God who is to destroy you.'" Another argument is taken from the event: "And that the things said are not false, come, let us provide the testimony from the events themselves. For if they had not attempted to build the temple, they might have had it to say: 'If we had wished to attempt it and apply ourselves to the building, we would surely have had the power and accomplished it.' But now I show them that not once, not twice, but three times they attempted it and were shattered, just as happens in the Olympic games; so that it is beyond doubt that C the crown of the Church is certain."
Furthermore, so that what has been said thus far may not be empty, come, let us bring forth testimony from the things themselves. For if the Jews had never attempted to build the temple, they could say: "If we had wished to undertake the restoration of the temple, we certainly could have, and would have finished it." But now the thing itself demonstrates that they were not once or twice, but three times driven off, no differently than happens in the Olympic contests, so that it might be impossible for anyone to doubt that the crown of victory belongs to the Church. See the rest, which are most worthy of reading, and with which he endeavors to prove that the Jews are never to be restored to their homeland.
Justin thinks differently in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, p. 306: "Tell me truly," says Trypho, "do you admit that this place, Jerusalem, is to be rebuilt, and do you expect that your people will be gathered and made joyful with Christ together with the patriarchs and the prophets, and those from our race, or even those who became proselytes, before Christ comes? Or have you reached the point of admitting these things so that you may appear to overcome us in debate?" To which Justin answered: "I am not so wretched, Trypho, as to say things other than what I think. I admitted to you before that I myself and many others believe this will happen, as you surely know; but I also signified to you that many of the pure and pious Christian profession do not recognize this. For I have already shown you that those who are called Christians, but are lawless and impious heretics, teach things that are in every way blasphemous, godless, and foolish. That you know I do not say this only concerning you, I shall make a compilation of all the discourses we have had, according to my ability, in which I will also write down this which I admit, just as I admit it to you. For I do not choose to follow human teachings, but God and the teachings that come from Him." See ibid., pp. 245, 249, 259, and *Apology* 2, p. 87.
Besides Justin, other authors of great name held this opinion; a catalog of whom you will find in Jerome in the preface to book XVIII of his *Commentaries on Isaiah*: "Nor am I ignorant of how great a diversity of opinion there is among men: I do not speak of the mystery of the Trinity, D whose right confession is a lack of knowledge, but of other ecclesiastical dogmas: of the resurrection, namely, and of the state of souls and the human flesh, of the promises of future things, how they ought to be received, and in what manner the Apocalypse of John is to be understood; which if we take according to the letter, one must Judaize; if we discuss it spiritually as it is written, we will seem to contradict the opinions of many ancients: of the Latins, Tertullian, Victorinus, Lactantius; of the Greeks, not to mention others, I shall make mention only of Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, against whom the most eloquent man, Dionysius, pontiff of the Alexandrian Church, writes an elegant book, ridiculing the fable of the thousand years, and the Jerusalem on earth made of gold and gems, the restoration of the temple, the blood of sacrifices, the rest of the Sabbath, the injury of circumcision, marriages, births, the education of children, the delights of banquets, and...
were symbols of great mysteries. It was necessary, therefore, that that city, where Jesus had suffered these things, should be utterly destroyed, and the Jewish nation overturned, and that the calling of God to blessedness should have passed to others—I mean the Christians, to whom the doctrine of sincere and pure religion has come, who have received new laws, and such as are adapted to the polity established everywhere. For the commands given formerly, as they were for a single nation governed by its own kindred and like-minded kings, were not such as could now be observed by all.
B 23. After this, Celsus, as is his habit, mocking the race of Jews and Christians, compares all of them either to a flock of bats, or to ants coming out of their nest, or to frogs holding council around a marsh, or to worms assembling in the corner of a dunghill, and disputing with one another as to which of them are the greater sinners, and saying that God shows and announces everything to us beforehand, and that, leaving the whole world and the movement of the heavens, and neglecting so vast an earth, He dwells with us alone 75, and does not cease to send to us, and to be concerned about how we may be united to Him for eternity. C In his fiction, he makes us like to worms who would say: "There is God, but we occupy the place next to Him. He made us entirely like to God. All things have been subjected to us: earth, water, air, and stars; and all things were created for our sake, and everything is destined to serve us." And in his tale, the worms—that is to say, we—say: "Now, since some among us commit sins, God will come or will send His Son, that He may burn up the unrighteous, and that the rest of us may enjoy eternal life with Him." He adds to all these: "These things are more tolerable when said by worms and frogs 76 than when Jews and Christians dispute with one another."
24. To these charges, we inquire of those who accept things spoken in this way against us, and we say: Do you consider all men to be a flock of bats, or ants, or frogs, or worms, because of the excellence of God? Or do you not include other men in the image proposed, D before heaven, but in another state, as befits the time after the resurrection in the thousand years, in the city of divine workmanship, the Jerusalem brought down from heaven; which the Apostle also designates as our mother above, and pronouncing our citizenship—that is, our municipality—to be in heaven, he assigns it to some heavenly city. Ezekiel also knew this, and the Apostle John saw it (Lactant., lib. vii, c. 24). August., lib. xx, cap. 29, *De civitate Dei*: "It is most famous in the words and hearts of the faithful that, through this Elias, the great and wonderful prophet, with the law explained to them, in the last time before the judgment, the Jews are going to believe in the true Christ (that is, in our Christ)." SPENCER. [alt-version omitted]
A And you, while you are using reason and laws, are you to hold them as men, while treating Christians and Jews with contempt on account of doctrines that do not please you, and comparing them to these creatures? And whichever you say in answer to our question, we shall reply by attempting to demonstrate that such things have not been said correctly concerning all men or concerning us.
For let it be for you first to say that all men are compared to these base animals merely in relation to God, since their insignificance in no way bears comparison with the excellence of God. But what insignificance B is it? Answer me, O sirs. For if it is the insignificance of bodies, hear that what is excellent and proper, as measured by truth, is not judged by the body. For by this standard, griffins and elephants would be superior to us men; for they are larger, stronger, and longer-lived than we are. But no one of sound mind would say that these irrational beings are better than rational ones on account of their bodies. For reason raises the rational being far above all irrational things in excellence. Nor even those noble and blessed natures, whether—as you say—the good demons, or, as it is our custom to call them, the angels of God, or any other natures whatsoever that are superior to men, would say this, since the rational principle in them is perfected and adorned with every virtue.
But if you disparage the insignificance of man not because of the body, but because of the soul, as being inferior to the rest of the rational beings, and especially to the holy ones, and therefore inferior because vice is in it: why are those who are wicked among Christians, and those who live ill among the Jews, any more a flock of bats, or ants, or worms, or frogs, than those who are wicked among the other nations? Since, according to this, any one at all, especially one who is steeped in vice, should be a bat, a worm, a frog, or an ant compared to the rest of men. Even if some orator, Demosthenes, were to be found, with the same wickedness as that man and the deeds performed by him from such wickedness; or Antiphon, another orator...
C 25. But if you do not disparage man’s insignificance on account of his body, but on account of his soul, because it is inferior to other natures endowed with reason, and most especially to the holy ones, in that sins corrupt and take possession of it—why are those who are among the Christians wicked, or those who live ill among the Jews, rather a swarm of bats, or ants, or worms, or frogs, than those among any other of the nations who have given themselves up to vices? For if this is assumed, whoever has loosened the reins on his own passions, it would necessarily follow that he should be held as a bat, a worm, a frog, and an ant before all other men. Therefore, even if some other person were a Demosthenes in his power of speaking, but marked by the same wickedness and the same ill-favored deeds as he, even if some other one were… D
A one who was considered to be [a great orator], and who destroyed Providence in those books inscribed *On Truth*, in a title almost the same as that of Celsus—nonetheless, such people are worms wallowing in a corner of mud, of ignorance and folly. Yet, what reasonable person would not be right to say that a rational being, having the capacity for virtue, should not be compared to a worm? For these [(82)] sketches toward it do not allow those who possess the power for virtue, and who are not entirely able to destroy its seeds, to be compared to a worm. Thus, it is manifest that it is not the case that all men generally should be deemed on the level of worms before God. For Reason, having its beginning from the Word [(83)] that is with God, does not allow a rational animal to be deemed entirely alien to God; nor should the wicked among Christians and Jews—who, to speak truly, are neither Christians nor Jews—be any more compared to worms wallowing in a corner of mud than the wicked among other nations. If the nature of reason does not permit this kind of similarity to be admitted, then it is certainly not an injustice to be brought against human nature in regard to virtue, that it should be compared to such creatures, even if it sins through ignorance.
26. But if, because of the doctrines of Christians and Jews which do not please Celsus, and which he does not even seem to have understood from the beginning, these are worms and ants, while the rest are not such, come, let us examine whether the doctrines of Christians and Jews that are openly apparent to all C are not, when compared to the doctrines of the rest of humanity, going to make manifest to those who once accepted that some men are worms and ants, that worms and [alt-version omitted] D [a commentary fragment follows, intermixed with biographical notes on Antiphon] ...concerning those of the Georgic [writings]... (lib. x, cap. 6), in the *Against Alcibiades* (lib. xii, cap. 5), in the *On Agriculture* (lib. xiv, cap. 17); also in the book (lib. x, cap. 12): "Unless perhaps the author of the *Georgics* and the book *On Peacocks* was someone else, which I could easily believe," says Gesner in his *Bibliotheca*. But you would not have believed it so easily if you had read Athenaeus, lib. ix, cap. 12: "Antiphon the rhetor wrote an oration, the title of which is *On Peacocks*." Perhaps you might more correctly attribute *Plexippus* to another, whose tragedies Athenaeus mentions (lib. xv, cap. 4), speaking of Hephaestion, who ascribed to himself the works of others: "Certain things about Plexippus by Antiphon the tragic poet, and many other things about the same Antiphon, all these Hephaestion ascribes to himself. He also ascribes to himself in his *Commentaries* the book on the Antiphon of Xenophon." As if he of whom Xenophon makes mention in the first book of the *Memorabilia* were a different person from Antiphon the tragic poet. But Antiphon the rhetor did write tragedies: "It is said that he composed tragedies, both privately and with Dionysius the tyrant. And while he was still devoted to poetry, he devised an art for the removing of sorrow (Plutarch, *On the Ten Orators*)." Whence he is sometimes called a poet; as in Aristotle (lib. ii, cap. 6, *Rhetoric*): "Whence also Antiphon the poet, when he was about to be put to death by the rack by Dionysius, and saw those who were going to die with him covering their faces as they left the gates, said: 'Why are you covering yourselves? Is it so that one of these might not see you tomorrow?'" The same Antiphon is mentioned by Clement, *Stromata* i; Tully, in *Brutus*; Suidas, in *Antiphon*; Quintilian, *Institutio Oratoria*, lib. xii, cap. 10; Plato, in *Menexenus*; Stobaeus. The book *On Poets* is by some ascribed to the same Glaucus of Rhegium; Plutarch, *On the Ten Orators*. But nowhere, as far as I know, does the book occur in which, if you believe Origen, he attacked Providence. Certainly the fragments and pieces which Stobaeus cites here and there, and the orations which exist, do not convict him of the alleged crime; even the aforementioned authors are silent about atheism; but they accuse him of perfidy and cruelty. Plutarch, in *Demosthenes*: "He convicted him of having promised Philip he would burn the shipyards." Philostratus, lib. *On the Lives of the Sophists*: "He is justly to be considered as a bad man, because he himself dissolved the democracy of the Athenians and reduced the people into slavery."
A for ants and for frogs, as having lost a sound opinion about God, and being deluded by a vain image of piety, either worship irrational animals, or statues, or other notable things of this world, by whose beauty they ought only to have been led to admire and worship the Maker; but those are men, and if there be anything more excellent than men, who, having followed reason as their guide, have been able to raise themselves from stones and wood, from gold and silver held in higher esteem, and from things of this world however goodly, to the Creator of all things; who have committed themselves wholly to Him; who, because they hold it for certain that He alone can suffice for all, perceive the thoughts of all, and hear the prayers of all, direct their prayers to Him, do all things as if He were inspecting them, and take heed, as if He were hearing them, that nothing may escape them which could displease Him. Will this so great piety, which is not weakened by labors, nor by dangers of death, nor by captious conclusions of arguments, profit them nothing, so that they must henceforth be compared with worms, even if they could be compared previously? What of those who restrain the most vehement lust of obscene pleasure, which enervates and softens the spirits, for this reason—that they are persuaded that they cannot attain to the intimacy of God unless they have striven toward Him through temperance; do they seem to you to be the brothers of worms, to have kinship with ants, and to be like to frogs? What of Justice, that splendid virtue which toward a neighbor preserves the rights of society, equity, kindness, and humanity; will it not prevent him who is endowed with it from being reduced to the rank of bats? On the other hand, do not those who engulf themselves in flagitious lusts, as do most men, who approach every available woman of common body without any shame, who teach that these things are not flagitious, act as worms wallowing in mud? Especially if they are compared to those who have been taught not to B "take the members of Christ and the body in which the Word dwells, and make them the members of a harlot"; and who have learned that the body, in which the nature is participant of reason, is "consecrated to the God of the universe," and that it is the "temple" of the God whom they adore, and that it becomes the temple of God when there is a right understanding concerning the Creator; who, finally, shuddering to pollute the "temple of God" with illicit pleasure, deem it to be the practice of their religion to cultivate temperance. C
27. Furthermore, I pass over other crimes that flourish among men, from which perhaps not even those who profess philosophy are immune: for there are many whom philosophy does not recognize as her genuine disciples. I am silent also about the many crimes of this kind found among those who are neither Jews nor Christians. However, I maintain that these things do not exist among Christians, if one should strictly examine who the Christian is; or if such a one were found, he is not at any rate among those who are considered to be D of the body ordered by the Word.
A We are not, therefore, worms forming a B congregation, we who fight against the Jews from the scriptures which they believe to be sacred, and show that he who was foretold has arrived, and that they have been forsaken on account of their greatest sins; but we who have received the Word have placed our best hopes in God, relying on our faith in him and on the manner of life which can lead us to intimacy with him, purified from all wickedness and vice. No one, therefore, of those who profess themselves to be Jews or Christians should simply say: God has created the whole world and the heavenly array chiefly for our sake; but if anyone, as Jesus taught, is pure in heart, and meek, and a peacemaker, and willingly enduring dangers for the sake of piety, such a one could rightly trust in God and say, if indeed he understands the prophecies: "God has foreknown and announced all these things to us who believe."
28. Since Celsus also attributes these words to the Christians, whom he considers to be worms: "To us alone, having abandoned the whole world and the heavenly course, and having neglected all this earth which lies broad before us, God provides and watches; to us he sends heralds, nor does he cease to send them, anxious as to how we might be joined to him eternally;" it must be said here that he attributes to us things that never entered our minds. For we read and know that God loves all things that are, and hates nothing of those which he has made; for he would not have created anything that he hated. We have also read this: "But you spare all, because all things are yours, O lover of souls. For your incorruptible spirit is in all; therefore you correct by little and little those who fall, and admonish and instruct them concerning the things wherein they sin." How then could we say that the course of the heavens and the whole world is abandoned by God, and that he has neglected such vast spaces of earth, and provides and takes thought for us alone? We who know in our prayers that it should be said and thought that "the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord," and that "the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh," and that God being good "makes his sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and rains upon the just and the unjust," and who encourages us, if indeed we wish to be his sons, to follow his examples, and teaches us to embrace all men with kindness as far as we are able. For he himself is called "the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe," and his Christ is "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." And these things, indeed, in reply to what Celsus has written. C But some of the Jews might say other private things, yet these indeed in reply to what... D
Celsus has written do not at all fit the Christians; since these things were said to them: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." But scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. Now, however, it is proclaimed that Jesus—whom we also call the Christ of God, following the custom of speaking of our own Scriptures—has come for all sinners B wherever they may be, that, laying aside sin, they may themselves believe in God.
But perhaps Celsus has over-heard some [saying] that "God is, and then after him we," whom he called worms. And he does the same as those who blame a whole school of philosophy because of certain things said by a headstrong youth who had been a student of a philosopher for three days, and who, on that account, was arrogant toward the rest as being inferior and unphilosophical. For we know that there are many things more honorable than man; and we have read that "God stood in the congregation of the gods,"—but not the gods who are worshipped C by the rest; "for all the gods of the nations are demons." And we have read that "God, standing in the congregation of gods, judgeth among the gods." But we also know that, "though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." And we know also that the angels are so much greater than men that men, when they have been perfected, become like the angels; "for in the resurrection from the dead they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but they are as the angels of God in heaven," and they become like the angels. And we know D that in the order of the universe there are certain ones called thrones, and others dominions, and others powers, and others principalities; and we see that we men, although far behind these, have the hope, from living well and doing all things according to reason, of ascending to the likeness of all these. And finally, since "it doth not yet appear what we shall be; [but] we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like God; for we shall see him as he is." But if anyone, hearing what is said by some—whether those who understand or those who do not understand, but have misheard sound doctrine—should say that "God is first of all, and we occupy the place after him," I would interpret this "we," saying it stands for "the rational beings," and even more [specifically], "the perfect, rational beings." For with us the virtue is the same for all the blessed, such that the virtue itself is the same for both man and God. Wherefore "become" [perfect], even if it be on account of the greatest sins: for we do not, like the Stoics, say that the virtue of man and God is in every way godless.
It seems to me that Celsus has also misheard that passage, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," and because of this has made the "worms" say that, "having been made by God, we are in every way like Him." If, however, he had known the difference between man being made "in the image of God" and "after the likeness," and that it is written that God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," but [if] God made man "in the image of God," and not at that time "after the likeness," he would not have made us say that "we are in every way like unto God."
Nor do we say that even the stars are subject to us; since the so-called resurrection of the just, understood by the wise, is compared to the sun, the moon, and the stars by him who says, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead," and by Daniel, who prophesied of these things long ago. Celsus alleges that we say "all things have been ordered to serve us." Perhaps he has never heard any of the wise men among us say such things; or perhaps he does not know how it is said that he who is greatest B among us is to be the servant of all.
And if the Greeks say: "Then the sun and night serve mortals,"
[The Sun and Night serve mortals]
they praise the statement and illustrate it with commentaries; but when such a thing is either not said by us, or is said otherwise, Celsus slanders us even for these things. We were saying among Celsus’s "worms," as he calls us, that "Since there are some among us who defile themselves with sins, God will come, or will send His Son, that He may burn up the ungodly, and we, the rest, the 'frogs,' may with him enjoy eternal life." And see how C like a buffoon he mocks, ridicules, and hisses at the proclamation concerning divine judgment, and the punishment of the ungodly and the rewards of the just. A serious philosopher indeed!D Finally he concludes: "And that statement of theirs is very bold; for they said that the virtue of man and God is the same."
[Regarding the Sun and Night serving mortals]
The dark eyelid of night and the light of the sun, He ordained to traverse the annual circle equally, And neither of these two, overcome by envy, Envies the triumph of the other; So the sun and night serve men, But you will not endure to have an equal share, And to grant to him his share of the kingdom?
A more endurable is this, if it were said among worms and frogs, than when it is proclaimed among Jews and Christians who are at variance with one another. But we shall not imitate him, nor shall we say anything similar regarding the philosophers who boast that the nature of all things is fully explored by them, and who discuss among themselves how all things were created, how heaven and earth were made, and all that is within them; and whether souls, being unbegotten [(1)] and not created by God, are governed by Him and migrate from body to body; or whether, being sown together with the bodies, they persist or do not persist. For one could, instead of speaking solemnly and accepting the purpose of those who have dedicated themselves to the examination of the truth, also mock and speak ill, saying that these are worms in a corner of the mire of human life, not gauging themselves, and for this reason B making pronouncements about such great things as if they had grasped them; and that they speak as if they had contemplated matters which cannot be seen without the inspiration of a superior and more divine power. "For no one among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him; so also no one has known the things of God, except the Spirit of God." But we are not so mad, nor do we compare to the movements of worms or any other such creatures the understanding of men of such caliber (I use the word "understanding" in the common sense) which, having busied itself not with the things of the crowd, but with the examination of the truth, is engaged in this quest. Nay, rather, we sincerely bear witness to certain Greek philosophers that they came to know God, "because God manifested it to them," C even if they "did not glorify Him as God, nor gave thanks, but became futile in their thoughts. And claiming to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed animals, and of creeping things."
After this, wishing to maintain that Jews and Christians resemble none of the animals he previously mentioned, he says, "That the Jews were runaway slaves who came out of Egypt, having never done anything worthy of note, and never having been significant either in name or in number." Regarding the fact that they were not runaways, nor Egyptians, but Hebrews who had resided in Egypt, we have already spoken in the preceding pages. But if he thinks that their not having been significant in name or in number is proven by the fact that the history of them is not very frequently mentioned D by Greek writers, he shall be refuted. For if one were to examine their form of government established from the beginning, and the arrangement of their laws, he would find that they were men who represented a heavenly life on earth, who recognized none other than the Most High God, and who banished all makers of images. For no painter or sculptor exists in their polity.
A For the Law had banished all such persons from it, so that there might be no occasion for the construction of images, which draws the foolish among men toward itself, and drags down the eyes of the soul from God to the earth. There was, therefore, among them a law such as this: "You shall not commit iniquity, and you shall not make for yourselves any carved likeness, 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 under heaven, the likeness of any reptile that creeps on the earth, the likeness of any fish, whatever is in the waters under the earth." And the Law indeed intended that, by keeping to the truth regarding each thing, they should not invent other things contrary to the truth—things that would lie about what the male, or the female, or the beast, or the bird, or the reptile kind, or the fish really was. B Also illustrious and magnificent among them was this: "Lest, lifting up your eyes to heaven, and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, and all the host of heaven, you be led astray, and worship them, and serve them." What kind of polity was that of the whole nation, among whom it was not even permissible for a effeminate person to appear! And it is also a wonderful thing that harlots, those incitements to youthful lusts, were forbidden from their polity. The most just of all men presided over their courts, those who had over a long time provided proofs of an upright life. Because they were of a character above the human level, they were called gods by the ancestral custom of the Jews. It was possible to see an entire nation devoted to the study of wisdom. C And because of the leisure for hearing the divine laws, what are called Sabbaths, and the rest of the feasts among them, came into being. And what need is there to speak concerning the order of priests among them and the sacrifices, which contained myriad symbols, made clear to those who are lovers of learning? But since nothing is stable in human nature, it was necessary that that polity, gradually decaying from its first constitution, should fall away. But Providence, having fitfully transformed the dignity of their reason to suit those everywhere who are in need of transformation, handed down to those who believe from among all men everywhere the holy piety according to Jesus. D For He, endowed not only with wisdom but also a partaker of the divinity, utterly overturned the religion of the earthly demons, who, while taking delight in the smoke of incense, blood, and the odors of fat, were dragging men away from the knowledge of God, like the Titans or Giants whom the myths celebrate; and He, fearless of the snares which they contrive against the very best, laid down laws, wherefore He drove out from the polity established by Him those celebrated and elegant arts, painting and statuary, because, while lying about the nature of the truth, they manufacture deceits and sophistries through the eyes for souls easily led astray.
A To those who obey these laws, happiness will follow. Nor is there any need now to soothe the demons with sacrifices. Nay, they hold them in contempt, relying on the help through which the Word of God assists those who lift their eyes upward to God. And because it was the will of God that the doctrine of Jesus should prevail among men, all the efforts of the demons were rendered vain, although they set in motion every device to ensure that there should be no more Christians. For they incited the kings, and the senate, and the rulers everywhere, and even the common people themselves—who did not perceive the irrational and wicked activity of the demons—against the Word and those who believe in it. But the Word of God, more powerful than all, even when hindered, took, as it were, food for growth from the hindering itself, and, advancing, it occupied more souls; for God willed this. B Although these things have been said by us by way of digression, I consider them necessary. For we wished to reply to what Celsus said about the Jews, namely, that "they were runaway slaves from Egypt," and that "the people who are dear to God have never achieved anything worthy of note." And against the claim that "they were neither in discourse nor in number of any account," we reply that, as "a chosen race and a royal priesthood," withdrawing and avoiding social intercourse with the multitude, so as not to have their morals corrupted, they were kept safe by the protection of the divine power; neither desiring, as most men do, to bring other kingdoms under their own control, nor being left alone, so that because of their small numbers they might easily fall prey to plots, and for the same reason be utterly destroyed. C And this continued as long as they remained worthy of the protection from God. But when it was necessary that the whole people, having fallen into sin, should be brought back to their own God through sufferings, then, sometimes for a shorter and sometimes for a longer time, they were left without the protection of God, until at length, under the Romans, having committed the greatest sin by killing Jesus, they were totally abandoned.
33. Following these things, Celsus, making an incursion into the first book of Moses, which is inscribed Genesis, says that "they undertook to trace their origin back to the first imposter and deceivers of men, adducing obscure, ambiguous, and dark sayings as testimony, which they explain to the ignorant and foolish; although concerning such a matter there has been no controversy for many centuries." D He seems to me to have expressed his intention very obscurely here. I think he purposely sought out subterfuges, because he saw with what strong arguments the origin of the Jews from those first ancestors is supported. Nevertheless, he did not wish to appear ignorant of those things which are told about the Jews and their origin, and which are worth knowing. And indeed it is manifest that the Jews are sprung from those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac and...
A Jacob: whose names, when conjoined with the name of God, have such power that not only the Jewish race in its prayers to God and in the adjuration of demons uses this: "God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob," but also almost all those who busy themselves with incantations and magical arts. For in magical books, such an invocation of God and the taking up of the name of God, as being familiar to these men for the purpose of acting against demons, is found in many places. This, therefore, in my opinion, which is brought forward by Jews and Christians as proof that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of the Jewish nation, were certain holy men, Celsus has not altogether ignored, yet he has not clearly set it forth, since he was unable to answer the argument.
34. For we ask all those who use such invocations of God: B Tell us, sirs, who is this Abraham, and how great is Isaac, and of what power was Jacob, so that the name "God" being adapted to their name is able to perform such great miracles? And from whom have you learned, or could you have learned, the things concerning these men? And who took it upon himself to record the history concerning them, either by clearly setting forth the men in secret [traditions], or by hinting through allegories at some things great and miraculous to those capable of observing them? And then, when upon our asking, no one is able to produce from any history whatsoever, whether Greek or barbarian, or—if not history—some secret writing, the things concerning these men, we shall bring forward the book inscribed "Genesis," containing the deeds of these men, and the oracles of God to them, and we shall say: that perhaps the very fact that the names of these three patriarchs of the nation are taken up by you, and are seen to be not worthy of contempt by reason of their invocation, demonstrates the divinity of these men, who understood [God] by His manifest power.
These we receive from nowhere else but the sacred books of the Jews. For A indeed, God is often called "the God of Israel," and "the God of the Hebrews," and "the God who drowned the King of the Egyptians and the Egyptians in the Red Sea," and is invoked against demons or certain wicked powers. We learn the history concerning these names and the interpretation of the names from the Hebrews, who honor and explain these things in their native characters and in their native language. How then can the Jews, having undertaken to trace their own lineage from these first men—whom it pleased Celsus to call impostors and wanderers—shamelessly attempt to trace themselves and their own origin back to these men? The fact that their names are Hebrew, and that their sacred books are written in the Hebrew language and script, testifies to the Hebrews that this nation belongs to these men. For even to this day, the Jewish names, being attached to the Hebrew language, were either taken from their letters or simply from the things signified by the Hebrew tongue.
And observe, you who read Celsus's writing, whether these words of his do not hint at this: "And they undertook to trace their lineage from a primary seed of impostors and wandering men, bringing forward in testimony obscure and ambiguous voices, somewhere hidden in the dark." For these names are indeed hidden, and not in the light and in the knowledge of many; to us, however, they are not ambiguous, even though they may be used by those who are strangers to our piety. But according to Celsus, B who does not demonstrate the ambiguity of the sounds, I know not how they are cast aside. And yet, if he wished to refute honestly the genealogy which he most impudently assumed the Jews lay claim to regarding Abraham and his descendants, he should have set out clearly all the facts of the matter, and first have argued in favor of the probability he imagined, and after that, with the truth that appeared to him, and with arguments on its behalf, have bravely refuted the facts of the matter. But neither Celsus nor anyone else will be able, in discussing the nature of the names that are used for [the sake of] powers, to set forth the precise argument concerning them, and to convict these men—whose names alone have great power not only among their own people but also among foreigners—of being contemptible. He ought to have shown how we, misinterpreting the things regarding these names to the ignorant and foolish, deceive those who listen—as he believes—while he himself, who boasts of being neither ignorant nor foolish, should provide the true interpretation concerning them. He has merely cast aside, in regard to those names from which the Jews trace their lineage, the claim that D "there has never, in the long time past, been any controversy concerning such names; but now the Jews [dispute] against certain others," whom [he] did not name.
Let him show who these claimants are, and even if they use probability, against the Jews, regarding the fact that the Jews and Christians do not correctly report the matters concerning these [names], against which the names are laid down; and that others are those who have reasoned most wisely and truly concerning them. But we are persuaded that some will not be able to do such a thing, as it is self-evident that the names are derived from the Hebrew language, which is found only among the Jews.
36. After this, Celsus, setting forth stories from outside the divine word, concerning men of antiquity who claimed [prominence], such as the Athenians and Egyptians, and Arcadians, and Phrygians, and others who claimed that there were some earth-born men among them, and providing arguments for each of these, says B that "the Jews, huddled together somewhere in a corner of Palestine, and being utter ignoramuses, who never heard that these things had long since been sung by Hesiod and countless other men divinely inspired, fabricated these most incredible and most unrefined stories: that a certain man was fashioned by the hands of God and breathed into, and a woman [was taken] from his side; and that God gave commandments, and a serpent opposed these; and that God was overcome by the serpent. They tell an old wives' tale, impiously introducing God as being, from the very beginning, so weak that He could not persuade even one man whom He had fashioned." Through these remarks, indeed, this man of much learning and deep knowledge—Celsus, who charges the Jews and Christians with ignorance and lack of education—clearly C reveals how accurately he knew the times of each writer, Greek and barbarian. For he thinks that Hesiod and countless others, whom he names as men divinely inspired, are older than Moses and his writings; Moses, I say, whom it is established was older than the Trojan war. It is not, then, the Jews who fabricated those most incredible and most unrefined stories concerning the earth-born man; but those men who, according to Celsus, were divinely inspired—Hesiod and his other countless ones—who, having neither learned nor even heard of those most profound and much older histories popular in Palestine, invented such stories about ancient things, such as divine genealogies D and births, attributing also ten thousand other things to the gods, as far as they were concerned. Plato rightly expels them from his own republic, as—
"Therefore, we will not admit," he says, "either Homer or any other poet, [who errs] so foolishly in his account of the gods. 'Unquenchable laughter arose among the blessed gods, As they saw Hephaestus bustling through the house.'"
Is there anything more delightful than the poetry of Homer? Or anything sweeter than that beautiful diction? Nevertheless, the best of the philosophers (you surely recognize the son of Ariston, as I suppose), having anointed him with myrrh, as women do with swallows, sent him away from the city which he had founded, having called [him] a corrupter...
of youth and a teacher of impiety. For, he says, he teaches the young to blaspheme, and sets forth before them evil opinions concerning the gods, and instills evil and corrupted lessons into those who are still tender. For all the good poets of epic verse do not speak all these noble poems out of craft, but because they are inspired and possessed.
A It is manifest that Plato did not think that those who had left behind such poems had become inspired men. But the Epicurean Celsus (if indeed he it is who also composed two other books against the Christians), who is better able to judge than Plato, perhaps, out of contentiousness against us, has called those "inspired," whom he did not think were inspired.
He finds fault with us, saying that we introduce "man as being fashioned by the hands of God"; [he claims] that the book of Genesis has taken up [the idea of] the hands of God neither in the making nor in the fashioning of man; but [that] Job and David have said: "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me." Regarding these [passages], there is much to be said in order to set forth the things understood by those who have said these things, not only concerning the difference between making and fashioning, but also concerning the hands of God. Those who have not understood these, and such expressions from the divine Scriptures, think that we attribute to the God over all a form such as the human one; according to whom it would also be consistent to think that we hold that there are wings in the body of God, since the Scriptures written according to the letter regarding our God say these things also. But the present treatise does not require us to interpret these things now; for these matters have been examined by us as far as possible, primarily, in the commentaries on Genesis.
Then observe the malignity of Celsus in what follows. For while our Scripture says concerning the formation of man, "And He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul," he, wishing maliciously to mock [it], wrote down: "He breathed into his face the breath of life" (which he does not even understand in what manner it is said), [writing] that "they fashioned man as being formed by the hands of God," so that someone, thinking that what was breathed in was said [in a way] similar to things breathed into wineskins, might laugh at the [phrase], "He breathed into his face the breath of life," which is spoken figuratively and requires an explanation, which proves that man was made by God to be a participant in an incorruptible spirit; concerning which it is said, "But thy incorruptible spirit is in all things."
Then, since it was his proposed aim to malign the things that were written, he also mocked the [phrase], "God cast—" B C D
A a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh instead thereof. And He built the rib, which He had taken from Adam, into a woman, etc. He does not even set forth the words, which are of such a nature that the hearer cannot but understand that they were spoken with a figurative meaning. Nor did he wish to pretend that such things are to be allegorized; although, in the following sections, he says that "those among the Jews and Christians who are more modest, being ashamed of these things, attempt to allegorize them in one way or another." To whom I say: Must the fable that your Hesiod, a man inspired by God, invented about the woman whom Jupiter gave to men as an evil, and by which he would avenge the stolen fire, be accepted in an allegorical sense—while that which is recorded about the woman taken from the rib of him who had been lulled into a deep sleep and built by God, seems to you to contain no deeper meaning? Yet, what kind of candor is it not to laugh at those [Hesiodic] things as trifles, but to admire them as a philosophical mystery veiled in fable, while at the same time mocking these [Scriptural] things by fixing the mind only upon the bare letter, and believing that they contain no underlying sense? For if one ought to condemn what is said in hidden meanings merely on account of the naked words, see whether the things of Hesiod—a man, as you say, inspired by God—do not rather deserve ridicule for having written such things:
B The cloud-gathering Zeus, being angered, spoke to him thus: Son of Iapetus, who excellest all in craft, Thou art glad that thou hast stolen fire and deceived my mind, But it shall be a great bane to thee and to men to come. To them I will give an evil in exchange for fire, in which all Shall delight their hearts, embracing their own evil. Thus he spoke, and the father of men and gods laughed. And he bade renowned Hephaestus with all speed Mix earth with water, and to put in it the voice and strength C of a human, and to give it a face like the immortal Virgin goddesses, beautiful and lovely. And he bade Athena Teach her works and to weave the finely-wrought web, And [bade] golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head, And painful longing, and cares that eat away at the heart. And he commanded Hermes, the messenger and slayer of Argus, To give her a shameless mind and deceitful ways. Thus he spoke; and they obeyed King Zeus, son of Cronus. Immediately the renowned Hephaestus fashioned from the earth A form resembling a modest virgin, according to the counsels of the son of Cronus; And the goddess, grey-eyed Athena, girded and adorned her. And the goddess Graces and queenly Persuasion D Placed golden necklaces about her flesh, and the fair-haired Hours crowned her with flowers of spring. Pallas Athena fitted to her body all the adornment; And within her breast, Hermes, the messenger and slayer of Argus, Placed lies and wily words and a deceitful character.
A Migne’s Latin rendering: "He fashioned [her], by the will of Jove the Thunderer; and in her A the herald of the gods placed a voice; and he named this woman Pandora, because all who possess the Olympian dwellings bestowed a gift upon her, which would be a ruin to laborious men."
It is no less ridiculous what he adds concerning the jar: "For before this, the tribes of men lived upon the earth Free from evils and free from difficult labor, And from grievous diseases, which have brought old age upon men. But the woman, having removed with her hands the great lid of the jar, Scattered them, and devised woeful troubles for men. Only Hope remained there within in her unbreakable home, Under the rims of the jar, and did not fly out abroad; For she had previously put the lid back on the jar."
To him who expounds these things solemnly with allegory, whether he attains the mind of the writer or not, we shall say thus: Is it allowed only to the Greeks to practice philosophy through hidden meaning? Shall the same license be granted to the Egyptians, and to those of the barbarians who boast that they possess truth hidden by mysteries; B but do you think that the Jews alone, and their lawgiver, and their writers, are the most stupid of all men? B And that this nation alone has partaken of no power of God, it which has been so nobly taught to ascend to the unbegotten nature of God, to look to Him alone, and to expect hopes from Him alone?
Since Celsus also mocks—as if it were something contradictory to the commandments of God given to man—the matters concerning the serpent, C assuming the story to be a myth similar to those handed down in the Scriptures, C and deliberately has not named the paradise of God, nor how it is said that God planted [a garden] in Eden toward the east, and that after this He caused to sprout from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the paradise, 45 and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the things mentioned after these, which are able of themselves to stir the one who reads them with a favorable mind [to realize] that all these are not indecorously interpreted allegorically—come, let us compare with this the things said in Plato's *Symposium* to Socrates concerning Eros, and how they were assigned to Socrates as more solemn than all the things said by the others in the *Symposium* concerning him 46. And this is how Plato’s passage goes: "When Venus was born, the gods were feasting, and others among them were present, as well as Porus, the son of Metis 47. After they had dined, Penia, knowing that there was a feast, came begging, and was at the doors. Then Porus, being drunk with nectar (for there was not yet any wine [*]), having entered into the garden of Jove, went to sleep, weighed down. Then Penia, plotting D because of her own poverty to have a child from Porus, lies down beside him, D and conceived Cupid. Since, therefore, he was born on the natal day of Venus,
And thus Cupid became the attendant and servant of Venus, A having been born at her birthday feast; and at the same time, by nature, he is a lover of what is beautiful, since Venus herself is beautiful. Being, therefore, the son of Porus and Penia, Cupid is established in such a state. First, he is always poor, and far from being delicate and beautiful, as many think; rather, he is withered, squalid, barefoot, homeless, always sleeping on the ground, without bedding, at doors and in streets, under the open sky; having the nature of his mother, he is always a neighbor to need. But on the side of his father, he is intriguing against the beautiful and the good, being courageous, impetuous, and energetic; a clever hunter, always weaving schemes; B both a seeker of wisdom and resourceful; a philosopher through his whole life; a cunning enchanter, a druggist, and a sophist. And he is by nature neither immortal nor mortal; but on the same day he now flourishes and lives, when he has abundance, and now he dies again, and again comes back to life, due to the nature of his father. But that which is acquired always escapes him, so that Cupid is never in want, nor does he possess wealth. He is, moreover, in the middle between wisdom and ignorance.
"Whoever encounters these things, if they should imitate the malice of Celsus—which may it be far from Christians—will laugh at the fable and receive Plato, that great man, with mockery. But if, in a manner befitting philosophers, they C were to examine these things told in the form of a fable, and were able to find the intention of Plato, [they would see] in what way he was able to hide the great doctrines that appeared to him—for the sake of the many, in the form of a fable—and yet, as was fitting, to make them clear to those who knew how to look through fables at the intention of the author concerning truth."
I have brought forward this fable of Plato because the garden of Jove, of which he speaks, does not seem to differ much from the paradise of God, nor Penia from the serpent, nor Porus, sought after by Penia through intrigue, from man, who was circumvented by the intrigues of the serpent. It is not, however, entirely certain whether these things occurred to Plato by chance, or, as some think, whether, while he was traveling in Egypt, he encountered certain students of the mysteries D of the Jews and learned something from them—retaining some things, while disguising others in figures, for fear of offending the Greeks if he were to preserve the wisdom of the Jews in its entirety; for among the many they were ill-spoken of, both on account of laws different from others and their peculiar form of government.
But now is not the time to discourse either on Plato's fable, or on the serpent, or on the paradise of God, or on all that is recorded to have happened therein. For I have already explained these matters, as diligently as I could, in my commentaries on Genesis.
40. But when he asserts that "it is most impious to represent God as being weak from the very beginning, so that not even..."
A a human being—whom he himself had fashioned—could be persuaded, the word of Moses introduces this. To this we shall reply that what is said is similar to someone complaining about the existence of evil, which God could not prevent even in one single person, so that he might have found at least one human being from the beginning who was untainted by evil. For just as those who care to defend Providence do not do so with few or insignificant arguments, B so too, those who know that in the Greek tongue 55 "Adam" signifies "a human being," will philosophize about Adam and his sin, and realize that in what Moses seems to say about Adam, he is describing human nature. For indeed, "in Adam" (as the Word says) "all die" [I Cor. xv, 22] and were "condemned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam" [Rom. v, 15]; in this way, the divine Scripture speaks not so much about one particular man, but about the whole race. For one can see, in the series of things 95 which are said as if of one, C that the curse is not applied merely to one man, and neither to one human being, being untainted from the beginning. And likewise untainted. In Hebrew, since Adam sinned and subjected the race to death, he made the whole of nature liable to the debt. "And we know that he did not come to the river as if in need of baptism, or of the Spirit who descended in the form of a dove; just as he did not submit to being born and crucified because he was in need of these things, but for the sake of the human race, D which had fallen through Adam into death and the deception of the serpent, while setting aside the individual fault of each one of them who had acted wickedly. 'No one is clean from filth,' says Job, 'not even if his life is but one day long.' Let them tell us, where did the newborn child commit fornication? Or how has it fallen under the curse of Adam, having performed no act? It remains for them, as it seems, consistently to say that birth itself is evil; and not only the birth of the body, but also that of the soul, on account of which there is also the body. And when David saith: 'In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins did my mother bring me forth,' he speaks prophetically of Eve as the mother. But Eve became the mother of the living; and if he was conceived in sins, yet he himself was not in sin, nor was he sin himself."
A Adam is common to all; and what is said regarding the woman is not said of one person only. And the man who is cast out of paradise together with the woman, having put on the garments of skin (which God made for those who had sinned, because of the transgression of men), holds a certain hidden and mystical meaning, superior to that which Plato relates B concerning the soul that has lost its wings and falls to this place, until it finds something solid where it may take its stand.
41. Following this, he says such things as these: "Then they thrust upon us a certain deluge, and a strange ark, containing everything within it, and a certain dove and raven performing the duty of messengers—in which matter they do nothing but interpolate and corrupt the history of Deucalion. For they did not suppose, I think, that these things would come to light, but simply told stories to childish children." B And here, observe the man's unphilosophical aversion toward the most ancient Scripture of the Jews. For he has nothing to say against the history of the deluge; nor was he able to focus on what he could criticize regarding the ark and its measurements. And not as was possible, according to the mind of the many, taking the account of the three hundred cubits of the length of the ark, and fifty of breadth, and thirty of height, to assert that it contained the animals on the earth—fourteen clean C and four unclean—he simply said it was "a strange thing, having everything within." For what is the [absurdity] of its having been reported to have been made in a hundred years, and being gathered from the three hundred cubits of length, and fifty of width, until, should the thirty cubits of height end in a single cubit of length and width? Why was the structure not rather to be wondered at, like a great city?
...resulting in them saying that birth is evil, not only birth of the body, but also of the soul, on account of which the body also is. And when David said, "In sins I was conceived, and in iniquities did my mother conceive me," he speaks prophetically indeed of mother Eve; but Eve was the mother of all living; and if he was conceived in sins, he himself was not in sin, nor was he himself sin. This and other passages which we have already cited, everyone is accustomed to distort as it seems good to them. Similar, not to say more abundant, testimonies occur in other Fathers, both Greek and Latin, which we omit for the sake of brevity. D SPENCER. Consult also the most illustrious Huet, in his *Origeniana*, book II, question 7, number 24, where he investigates Origen's dogma concerning original sin.
(57) "Not of one person only": It seems it should be read "is not of one person only." But I would not wish anything changed. For it is the same as if it were said "is not of one person only," it is said of all.
(58) "Losing its wings": Read "losing its feathers." I admit, it occurs more than once in Plato, as on pages 251, 255; but the passage to which Origen referred, as he warned it should be corrected, page 246: "Every soul takes care of everything inanimate; and it perambulates all heaven, at different times becoming in different forms. When, therefore, it is perfect and winged, it flies aloft and governs the whole world; but the one that has lost its wings is carried until it takes hold of something solid; having found a dwelling place, it assumes an earthly body, and it seems to move it itself because of its power, and the whole is called a living being, soul and body joined, and it has the name mortal. But when, having become unable to follow, it does not see, and having met with some misfortune, filled with forgetfulness and vice, it becomes heavy; and being heavy, it loses its feathers and falls upon the earth, etc." SPENCER. Spencer may confirm his reading from Plato by Origen, book VI, numbers 43 and 44. Moreover, after the word "books," the editions have "Plato," which Boherellus rightly deletes, as it disturbed the sequence of the discourse.
(59) "And not as was possible": It seems it should be "and not how it was possible."
(60) "In the margin": fourteen.
(61) "Having everything within": See Origen on the second book of Genesis.
A is it like a city? For here the discourse is about the measurements according to their power: so that the base may have been ninety thousand cubits long, and two thousand five hundred cubits wide. And how is it not worthy of admiration that it was so firmly constructed that it was in no way damaged by the storms that brought about the flood? For it had not been coated with pitch or any other such material, but had been firmly smeared with bitumen. And is not this also worthy of admiration, that there was introduced by the providence of God the seminary of all animals, so that the earth might again possess the entire genus of them; and that God employed the most righteous man, who was to be the parent of all those who were to be born after the flood?
42. Celsus next finds fault with the story of the dove, so that he may seem to have read the book of Genesis; yet he could not find anything to say to expose as a fabrication the account regarding the dove. Then, as is his custom to turn our Scriptures into a game, he transforms the raven into a crow. He then thinks that Moses, who wrote these things, adulterated and depraved the Greek history of Deucalion; if, indeed, he believes Moses to have been the writer of these things, and not rather several others. For his words indicate this: "In which matter they do nothing but deprave and interpolate the history of Deucalion"; and these: "For they did not think, I suppose, that these things would come to light." But how did they not think that they would come to light, they who gave their scriptures to the whole nation, and who predicted that the same religion would be announced to all the Gentiles? And that word of Jesus to the Jews: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing its fruits,” what else does it signify than that the Jewish Scriptures, which contained the mysteries of the kingdom of God, were to be brought into the light by Him through divine power? Naturally, when they read the genealogy of the gods concocted by the Greeks and the histories of the twelve gods, they gain respect for them through allegories; but when it suits them to mock our matters, they say they are fables told without any art to mere children.
D "A most absurd and untimely procreation of children," he says; and even if he did not name them, it is clear that he is speaking of Abraham and Sarah. In attacking "the plots of brothers," he looks either to Cain plotting against Abel, or to Esau plotting against Jacob; by "the father's grief," he perhaps indicates the grief of Isaac over Jacob's journey abroad, or perhaps he signifies the grief of Jacob on account of Joseph having been sold into Egypt. And by "mothers' plots" I think he indicates Rebecca, who managed things so that the blessings of Isaac would not fall upon Esau, but upon Jacob. If, however, we say that God interjected His own labor in all these things, what absurdity do we commit, when it is certain to us that His divinity never departs from them,
those who consistently adhere to Him by an honest life? A He even mocks the riches acquired by Jacob from Laban, being ignorant of what this refers to: "The sheep of Laban were ignoble, but those of Jacob were noble," and he says that God gave the sons donkeys, sheep, and camels. But he did not see that all these things happened to them by way of a figure, and were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. For our sake, I say, among whom various customs, having become noble, are governed by the Word of God and given as a possession to him who is figuratively called Jacob. For the things written about Laban and Jacob signified those who, from the Gentiles, have embraced faith in Christ.
B Being far removed from the intention of the recorded words, Celsus says that God also gave wells to the righteous. For he did not observe that the righteous do not construct pits for themselves, but dig wells and look deep into the earth for the source of drinkable waters, inasmuch as they interpret this commandment figuratively: "Drink water from your own vessels, and from the fountain of your wells; let not your waters overflow from your fountain, but let your waters be channeled into your streets. Have them for yourself alone, and let no stranger be a participant with you." Scripture often uses true histories so that it may signify matters of greater importance and of a deeper design. Of such a kind are the things recorded about wells, about marriages, and about the various unions of the righteous; all of which he who will compose commentaries on those matters will explain more opportunely. C And that wells were constructed by the righteous in the land of the Philistines, as it is written in Genesis, is clear from the marvelous wells shown in Ascalon, which are worthy of mention on account of the unusual and unique form of their construction compared to other wells. That what concerns legal wives and handmaids must also be accepted in a tropological sense is not our invention, but is taught by the wise men who were before us. One of them, rousing his auditor to tropologies, speaks thus: "Tell me, you who read the law, do you not understand the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the maidservant and one by the free woman; but he who was of the maidservant was born according to the flesh, while he who was of the free woman was born through the promise; which things are spoken by way of allegory: for these are the two testaments. One indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, which is Hagar." D And a little later: "But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother." Whoever wishes to take into his hands the Epistle to the Galatians will know in what manner those things concerning the legitimate wives and handmaids, which Scripture narrates, are to be explained by way of allegory, which [is what] the corporeal [text] appears to be.
A
45. Celsus, moreover, should have embraced the truthfulness of those who recorded the divine Scriptures, who did not even hide things that were offensive, and should have been led to believe that the rest of the more paradoxical events were not fabrications; yet he does the contrary. And as for what is reported concerning Lot and his daughters, having examined it neither according to the literal nor the spiritual sense, he pronounces it "more atrocious than the crimes of Thyestes." But there is no need now to say what this history teaches when received in a tropological sense; nor what Sodom is, nor what the word of the angels was to him who was saved from there, saying: B "Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed"; nor who Lot is, nor who his wife is, who became a pillar of salt because she turned back; nor who his daughters are, who made their father drunken, so that they might become mothers by him. Come, let us mitigate in a few words the offensiveness regarding the history. Even the Greeks inquired into the nature of things good, evil, and indifferent; and those of them who were more successful held that goods and evils are situated in the intention alone, but that all things which are considered apart from intention are, according to their own logic, "indifferent"—and that intention, when it makes right use of these things, is worthy of praise, but when not, is blameworthy. Therefore, they said in the treatise on indifferent things that, by their own logic, lying with one's daughters is "indifferent," even if one ought not to do such a thing in established states. C And for the sake of an argument, to demonstrate that such a thing is indifferent, they have introduced the wise man, with the whole human race destroyed, left surviving with his daughter alone; and they inquire whether it would be permissible for the wise man to have intercourse with his daughter, so that the whole human race might not perish. Now, are these things spoken rightly among the Greeks, and does the school of the Stoics—which is not to be despised by them—advocate this? And when Lot and his daughters, having learned about the conflagration of the world but not having fully understood it, saw fire having overtaken their city and the region, and assumed that a seed of the human race had been left in the father and them, if they, moved by such an opinion, wished to repair the ruins of the world, D will they be worse than that wise man who, as the Stoics posit, could without any crime labor for children with his daughter while the world was perishing? I am not ignorant that some have been offended by the intention of Lot's daughters, and have supposed the act to be unholy, and have said that from such unholy mixtures were born the two execrated nations of the Moabites and the Ammonites. And in truth, divine Scripture neither openly...
accepts such a thing as having been done well, nor does it accuse or blame it. Nevertheless, however the event may stand, it is referred to a tropological sense, and in itself it also possesses a kind of defense. A Celsus also flings in “hatred,” I suppose, of Esau toward Jacob—a man admitted by Scripture to be wicked. And without clearly setting forth the matters concerning Simeon and Levi, who “avenged the outrage upon their sister,” who had been violated by the son of the king of the Shechemites, he blames them. By “brothers selling,” he refers to the sons of Jacob, and by “a brother being sold,” Joseph; and by “a father being deceived,” Jacob—who, when his sons showed him the many-colored coat of Joseph, suspecting nothing evil, gave them credence and lamented for Joseph as though he had perished, while he was in fact serving in Egypt. B Observe, then, in what a hateful manner, and not in love of truth, Celsus has gathered these stories from history; so that where the history seemed to him to contain an accusation, he sets it forth; but where a demonstration of noteworthy temperance has occurred—as when Joseph did not yield to the lust of his supposed mistress, who was at one time entreating him and at another threatening him—he did not even mention the story. For we might see that Joseph was far superior to the stories told of Bellerophon, in that he chose to be shut up in prison rather than to violate the laws of chastity. C Accordingly, though he was able to defend himself and to plead his cause against his accuser, he remained silent with great nobility of soul, entrusting his affairs to God.
After this, Celsus, for the sake of holiness, with complete lack of clarity makes mention of the dreams of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker and Pharaoh, and of their interpretation, through which occasion Joseph was brought forth from prison to be entrusted by Pharaoh with the second throne among the Egyptians. What absurdity, then, did the account of the history have in itself, that it should be numbered among the heads of accusation by the one who, although he entitled his book *The True Word*, nonetheless sets forth no doctrine in it, but does only this, that he might refute Christians and Jews? He adds that he had “kindly bestowed gifts D upon the brothers who had sold him,” and whom famine had compelled to go into Egypt with their asses for trade; and these things he passes over in silence. Nor does he forget the recognition renewed between the brothers; but with what intent, or what absurdity he sees in this affair, I simply do not know. For not even Momus, so to speak, could find what to bite at rightfully in this history, which even without the aid of tropology stirs one greatly toward virtue. He mentions Joseph being freed from the slavery into which he had been sold, and returning with a procession to his father’s tomb, and he thinks he is bringing a charge of...
A contumely against us, saying: "From this person (Joseph, of course), when that splendid and divine Jewish race had spread in Egypt and increased greatly, it was commanded that they dwell elsewhere in low-lying places, by the right of strangers, to graze their flocks." But the remark he makes here, "it was commanded that they graze flocks in low-lying places," suggests the hatred he holds; since he does not prove how the province of Goshen in Egypt was contemptible. Finally, he calls the departure of that people from Egypt a "flight," passing over in silence what is narrated in the book of Exodus concerning that departure of the Hebrews from the land of Egypt. And I have brought these points forward to show that the points which that trifler Celsus chose to accuse us are not even worthy of being criticized in their literal sense; and he does not even indicate what it is in these passages of our Scriptures that he judges to be evil.
48. Then, as if he had given himself over completely to hating and being hostile toward the B doctrine of the Jews and Christians, he says that "even the more reasonable among the Jews and Christians allegorize these things"; and he adds that "they take refuge in allegory because they are ashamed of such things." But someone might say to him, if stories and fictions, whether written for some hidden meaning or for any other purpose, are to be called worthy of shame because of the meaning they first offer, what sort of histories are more deserving of this name than those of the Greeks, in which sons who are gods castrate fathers who are gods, and fathers who are gods devour sons who are gods; and a goddess mother gives to the father of men and gods a stone instead of a son; and a father is joined to his daughter; and a wife casts bonds upon her husband, taking as accomplices in this binding the brother of the one enslaved and his daughter? And why need I recount the absurd histories of the Greeks concerning the gods—histories shameful in themselves, even when they are explained by allegories? Let the example be that Chrysippus of Soli C, who is thought to have graced the Porch [of the Stoics] with many learned works. This serious philosopher, interpreting a painting set up in Samos, in which Hera was depicted yielding to the obscene lust of Zeus, states in his own books that matter receives into itself the seminal reasons of God, and receives into itself for the gratification of nuptials not only those, but also that she performs the unspeakable act through her mouth. There are indeed those who attack Chrysippus, as having written many things shamefully and unspeakably. For in his commentary *On the Ancient Physiologists*, regarding what he hands down about Zeus and Hera, he writes shamefully, composing six hundred lines that no one, even with the most defiled mouth, would write. For he writes that most disgraceful story (even though he praises it as naturalistic) which is more appropriate for prostitutes than for gods.
A Matter—for in the narrative concerning Samos it is Hera, and the god is Zeus—having received into itself the seminal reasons of God, possesses within itself the ordering of all things. And for this reason, B both because of such myths and countless others, we do not wish to call the God over all by the name of Zeus, nor the sun by the name of Apollo, nor the moon by the name of Artemis. But practicing pure piety towards the Creator, and praising His beautiful creations, we do not defile divine things even by a name; accepting the argument from Plato in the *Philebus*, who did not wish to attribute pleasure to the gods: “For my fear,” he says, “O Protarchus, regarding the names of the gods is such.” We therefore truly have a fear regarding the name of God and His beautiful creations, so that we would not, even under the pretext of allegorical interpretation, accept any myth to the detriment of the young.
B 49. But if Celsus had read the Scriptures with an impartial mind, he would certainly not have said that “our writings are not of a sort to admit of allegory.” For it is not from the history itself, but from the prophecies in which the histories are recorded, that one should learn which stories were written with the intention that they might be explained by allegories; a provision most wisely made, so that they might be appropriate both for the simple multitude of believers and for those few who wish to, or are able to, examine things more deeply and prudently. And perhaps it would seem that Celsus was saying something probable if the interpreting of Scriptures by allegories were a recent invention devised by those amongst the Jews and Christians whom Celsus calls the more moderate; but since the very fathers C and authors of the doctrines themselves allegorize such things, what else is to be thought than that they were written in this way so that they might be allegorized according to their primary intent? And to make it plain that Celsus slanders our Scriptures when he says they cannot suffer allegory, I shall select a few examples out of many. Thus Paul, the apostle of Jesus: “It is written in the Law: You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he speak it entirely for our sake? For our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher in hope of partaking.” And in another place he says: “For it is written: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery D is great; but I am speaking in reference to Christ and the Church.” And again in another place: “But we know, for our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Then, interpreting the histories of the manna and of the water which is recorded to have been miraculously brought forth from the rock, he says such things: “And all,” he says, “ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them; but the rock was—
Christ.” A Since Asaph, intending to record the histories related in the books of Exodus and Numbers, uses a preface in the Book of Psalms that teaches that questions are contained in them wrapped in parables, he introduces it in this way: “Attend, O my people, to my law, incline your ear to the words of my mouth; I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter problems from the beginning, all that we have heard and known, and our fathers have related to us.”
But furthermore, if the law of Moses had nothing recorded that was meant to be understood through hidden meanings, the prophet would not have said while praying to God: “Open my eyes, and I will consider wonderful things out of your law.” But he knew that there is a veil of ignorance hanging over the hearts of those who read and do not understand the things that are used figuratively; which veil is removed, by the grace of God, when God hears him who has done all things that he can, and who through habit has trained his senses to discern between good and evil, and who most constantly says in his prayer: “Open my eyes, and I will consider wonderful things out of your law.” B For who, reading of a dragon living in the Egyptian river, and of fish lurking under its scales, or of the mountains of Egypt filled with the excrement of Pharaoh, is not immediately moved to inquire who he might be who fills the Egyptian mountains with his foul-smelling excrement; and what those Egyptian mountains are; and who the Egyptian rivers are, concerning which the aforementioned boastful Pharaoh says: “The rivers are mine, and I have made them”; and who the dragon is, standing in proportion to the rivers that are to be demonstrated by the interpretation; and who the fish are beneath his scales? And what need is there for me to pile up more arguments for things that require no proof, and concerning which it is said: “Who is wise, and will understand these things? Understanding, and he shall know them”? Nevertheless, I have extended the argument at greater length, wishing to demonstrate that Celsus has not spoken soundly in saying that “the more moderate among the Jews and Christians attempt to allegorize these things in some way, but there are some that can in no way admit of an allegory, as they are most foolish fables.” C Rather, those which the Greeks have fashioned into fables are most foolish, and indeed altogether impious. For our accounts are adapted even to the multitude of the simpler folk, but the authors of the Greek fables did not take care to adjust themselves to their capacity. Whence it is not undeservedly that Plato expels such fables and poems from his own republic. D
A It seems to me that he may also have heard that there are writings containing allegories of the Law; had he read these, he would not have said: "The allegories that are seen to have been written about them are much baser and more absurd than the myths, being such as can in no way be harmonized, and connecting them with a marvelous and utterly senseless folly." He seems to be speaking of the writings of Philo, or perhaps of those even more ancient, such as those of Aristobulus. B I suspect, however, that Celsus has not read these books, since it seems to me that he has often been so unsuccessful that even those among the Greeks who philosophize would be repelled by the things said; for in them not only is the diction cultivated, but also the thoughts, the doctrines, and the use of the myths which Celsus imagines are from the Scriptures. I know, too, that Numenius the Pythagorean—a man who explained Plato far better and was well-versed in Pythagorean doctrines—often set forth in his writings the words of Moses and the prophets, and interpreted them not implausibly by means of allegories, as in the book entitled *Epops*, and in his books *On Numbers*, and *On Place*. In the third book *On the Good*, he sets forth also a certain history concerning Jesus, without mentioning his name, and interprets it allegorically; whether he does so successfully or unsuccessfully is a matter for another time to say. He sets forth also the history concerning Moses, and Jannes and Jambres. C Which we do not consider to be for his glory; but yet he is more...
[Regarding the footnote material:]
... Aristobulus, a Jew by birth and a Peripatetic philosopher, is known, who wrote commentaries explaining Moses for Ptolemy Philometor. D ... I, however, consider the whole passage to be read as follows: Origen should be understood as if, by "Scriptures," he had not wished to signify only the canonical books, but also apocryphal writings. Origen, tract 35 on Matthew: "But if anyone, saying this, thinks he is committing an offense, let him see whether this is not prophesied somewhere in the *Secrets of Jeremiah*; knowing that the Apostle also brings forth certain scriptures of the secrets: just as he says somewhere, 'that eye has not seen, nor ear heard': for this is not found written in any canonical book, unless in the *Secrets of the Prophet Elijah*. Likewise, that which he says, 'as Jannes and Mambres withstood Moses,' is not found in the public scriptures, but in a secret book which is inscribed the *Book of Jannes and Mambres*: whence some have dared to reject the Epistle to Timothy, as if it contained the text of some secret writing, but they could not." Ambrose, *Commentary on II Timothy*, chapter 3: "This example is from the apocrypha. For Jannes and Mambres were brothers, magicians and sorcerers of the Egyptians, who by the art of their magic..."
A Celsus and other Greeks are to be commended, who have wished to investigate our Scriptures, and have been moved by them as by things not foolish but covered in allegories.
52. Among all the writings that contain such allegorical explanations and are elegantly written, he chooses a more common one, which, while it might contribute something to the promotion of the faith of the simpler crowd, nevertheless has no weight in persuading those who are more intelligent. Then he says: "What is that which I read—the dispute of a certain Papiscus and Jason, worthy not of laughter but rather of pity and disgust? It is not my intention to refute these things; for their absurdity is plain to all, especially to anyone who can bring himself to listen to the books themselves. It would be better to teach what nature itself teaches, namely, that God made nothing mortal, but that His works—all that are truly His—are immortal, and that it is by these that things which are mortal were created; that the soul is God’s work, but the nature of the body is different, and that in this respect it will differ nothing from a bat, or a maggot, or a frog, or..."
B And in the third book of Moses the same man records the following, saying: "Next, Jannes and Jambres, Egyptian sacred scribes, men deemed second to none in the practice of magic, were prominent at the time when the Jews were being expelled from Egypt. To Moses, who was leading the Jews and who was a man most powerful in praying to God, these men were chosen by the multitude of the Egyptians to stand against him; and they were seen to be powerful in undoing the most vigorous of the disasters which Moses brought upon Egypt." But we do not boast of this. ...I have read this—"seven heavens"—in the dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, written by Aristo of Pella, which Clement of Alexandria in the sixth book of the *Hypotyposes* says the holy Luke recorded. "The curse of God is he who is hanged."
C ...the Deity which was at work through Moses, they thought they could resist it with sham emulation; but when the virtue of Moses increased in his works, they became humble and confessed with the pain of their wounds that God was at work in Moses. You will find the passage of Numenius, to whom Origen refers us, in Eusebius, Book IX, chapter 8 of the *Praeparatio Evangelica*.
And again in the third book he makes mention of Moses with these words: "Next, indeed," he says, "Jannes and Jambres, Egyptian sacred scribes, were prominent at the time when the Jews were cast out from the borders of Egypt, being men who in the judgment of all were second to none in the science of magic matters. For both were chosen by the common consent of the Egyptians to oppose Moses, the leader of the Jews, whose prayers before God were most powerful, and they were able to dissolve and dissipate the most grave of all the calamities which Moses had brought upon Egypt." Artapanus makes mention of the same men in his book *On the Jews*; however, he did not express their names; Eusebius, Book IX, chapter 27. Whether Apuleius attained knowledge of these things from these or similar apocryphal books, or from the holy Scripture and the acquaintance he had with Christians, I truly do not know. Certainly, Augustine speaks of the same matter when he calls him to justice (Book VIII, chapter 19, *De Civitate Dei*): "Finally, was not Apuleius himself accused of magic arts before Christian judges?" Apuleius in his *Apology*: "If you prove any profit soever, may I be as Charinondas, or Damigeron, or that Moses, or Jannes, or Apollonius, or he himself Dardanus, or whoever else is celebrated among magicians after Zoroaster and Hostanes." But these things are trivial and not worth mentioning. Macarius alone saw the monument which the magicians had constructed; he entered the garden, found much gold deposited there, drove away seventy demons with terror, saw a well, a brazen jar, and an iron chain: which, alas, time had so consumed that we, from that narration, and Macarius from the well, to draw forth the truth, seem equally impossible. Hence it comes to wonder how it could have happened that very learned men could place faith in these and similar fables, which are partly feigned and partly blurted out rashly. Indeed, the Jews, being fairer judges in this cause, reported that they were overwhelmed by the waters. But those doctors instilled a far different faith in the simpler folk, while they transcribed this fable, though it was so cunningly composed. For if I should recite the whole of it, those who until now have been held by stupor and admiration would laugh with compressed lips and agitate their lungs. See Palladius, *Hist. Laus.*, chapter 20, *On Macarius of Alexandria*.
D [alt-version omitted]
nature; and for that reason, that the human body does not differ from a bat, a worm, or a frog. For he claims that the material of these and of the human body is the same, and that the principle of corruption is the same in them as in it. A I would wish, however, that whoever hears Celsus arrogantly declaiming that the little book of the disputation of Jason and Papiscus concerning Christ is worthy not of laughter, but rather of hatred, would take the little book into his hands and submit himself to endure and hear the things written in it; so that from that very source he might pass judgment on Celsus, finding nothing in the book worthy of hatred. And indeed, if anyone reads it with an impartial mind, 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 demonstrating that the prophecies concerning Christ apply to Jesus; although the adversary vigorously contradicts and maintains the Jewish persona quite skillfully. B 53. Furthermore, I do not know how Celsus, having gathered together things that are incompatible and not naturally suited to occur simultaneously in human nature, could have said that that little book was worthy of both pity and hatred. For no one will deny that when a person is an object of pity, he is not hated, and no one is an object of pity when he is hated. And Celsus says he does not intend to refute these things because he thinks that their absurdity is manifest to all, and that there is no one who does not see, even before they are refuted by arguments, how worthy they are of pity and hatred. We exhort all, however, who may encounter this defense of ours against the calumnies of Celsus, not to be reluctant to hear our Scriptures, and that, as much as they are able, C they may gather from what the writers report what their purpose was, what their conscience, what the state of their soul; they will perceive that they were men who fervently defended what they had convinced themselves of, and that some declare that they are committing to writing events which they had seen with their own eyes and had confirmed, marvelous things worthy to be entrusted to records for the benefit of future readers. And surely no one would dare deny that the source and principle of all utility is to believe in the highest God, and in all actions to aim at pleasing Him, and not even to think of anything that could displease Him, as He is to be the judge not only of words and deeds, but also of thoughts. D And what other philosophy could more effectively turn the human nature toward living well than belief or the conviction that the God who is over all sees everything that we say and do, and even what we think? For let him who wishes show another way by which not just one or two, but a vast multitude are recalled to a better life; and let him judge by a comparison of one with the other, which doctrine leads to virtue. 54. But since in the words of Celsus just mentioned, where certain things transcribed from the *Timaeus* are cited, this is written, as: "Since, therefore, all who as clearly as they appear, as far as they have willed, have had a birth—" he says to them, "Gods of gods, and
A God made nothing mortal, but B only things immortal, and that mortal things are the works of others; and that the soul is a work of God, but the body has a different nature; and that the body of a man will in no way differ from the body of a bat, or a worm, or a frog; for the matter is the same, and the corruptible part of them is the same. Come, let us also discuss these briefly, refuting him who either feigns that he is not of his own Epicurean opinion, or (as one might say) later changed to better things, or (as another might say) bears a name identical to the Epicurean. For he ought to have explained such things, and when setting himself to speak against not only us, but also against no ignoble school of philosophers, those from Zeno of Citium, he should have established that the bodies of animals are not the works of God, and that such great craftsmanship concerning them did not come from the primary Intellect. And yet he ought, concerning even things so great, and concerning the all-sorts of plants governed by an invisible nature dwelling within them, which have resulted to no contemptible use for men in the universe, and concerning the animals that serve men—no matter how they exist—not only to have declared, but also to have taught that no perfect intellect infused such qualities into the material of plants. But if once he made gods the creators of all bodies, as if the soul alone were a work of God, how was it not incumbent upon one who divides such great creations, and gives them to many, to establish with some not-contemptible argument the differences among the gods? Some of whom produce human bodies, and others, let us say, beasts? C Now, therefore, I say to you, showing you, learn: there are three sorts of mortal beings yet remaining. If these, then, were not to be, the heaven will be imperfect; for it will not contain all the kinds of animals in it, and it needs to be so if it is to be sufficiently perfect. So they having been brought into being by me, and having participated in life, they might become equal to the gods. In order, therefore, that there may be mortal things and that the All may be truly all, do you turn according to nature to the creation of animals, imitating my power regarding your generation. And of divine things he himself becomes the creator; but he commanded his own offspring to create the generation of mortal things. And they, imitating him, having received an immortal principle of soul, afterwards molded the mortal body themselves, and gave the whole body a shape; they also built within it another kind of soul, mortal, having terrible and necessary passions within it. First, pleasure, the greatest bait of evils, is [in it]. D
A and of other beasts; he should have, when seeing gods who are creators of dragons, both of asps, and of basilisks, and of others according to the species of each plant and of each herb, stated the reasons for their divisions. For perhaps, if he had given himself over to the precision of the examination of the things that are according to their place, he would either have kept to one God, the creator of all, who made each thing for some purpose and for the sake of something; or, if he did not keep to this, he would have seen what he ought to have answered concerning a thing which is indifferent to the same corruptible nature; and that it is not at all absurd for the world, consisting of dissimilar parts, to have been made by one craftsman, who, advantageously for the whole, fashions the differences of the species; or at the very least he ought not to have declared his opinion at the beginning concerning such a doctrine if he were not going to construct that which he promised to teach; unless, perhaps, he who reproaches us for our simple faith wished that we ourselves should believe the things that he asserted, even though he promised not merely to assert, but to teach: so that we might assent only to him asserting; although he B promised that he would show, but he should have been, C as he says, among those who read the writings D of Moses and the prophets. He would have observed why it is that, « God made, » is laid down concerning heaven and earth, and the so-called firmament, and furthermore also concerning the luminaries and stars; and after these things concerning the great sea-monsters, and every soul of creeping animals which the waters brought forth after their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind; and following these things, concerning the wild beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and all the creeping things of the earth after their kind; and lastly concerning man. But where it is not stated, « He made, » concerning others, the word is satisfied concerning light with, « Let there be light; » and concerning the gathering of all the water that is under the whole heaven, with, « It was so. » And likewise also concerning those things which sprouted from the earth, when the earth brought forth the herb of grass seeding seed according to its kind and according to likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree producing fruit, whose seed is in it according to its kind upon the earth. And he would have inquired whether the prescribed commands of God for the creation of each part of the world were given to one or to some; and he would not have easily inveighed against them as unintelligent, and as having no secret understanding in the things written in these by Moses, or (as we would say) by the divine Spirit who was in Moses, by whose breathing he also prophesied. Since He rather:
"Knew what is, what was, and what is to come,"
than those divine ones among whom these things are celebrated by the poets as having been explored.
56. Furthermore, since Celsus says that the soul of God is a work, but that of the body is another nature and by this very same nature.
A It is easy to answer that the material is the same, and that the principle of corruption in both is identical. For if, on that account, the bodies of a bat, a worm, a frog, and a man do not differ from one another because the material of all those bodies is the same, then clearly, the bodies of the sun, moon, stars, heaven, or any other god of the Greeks that is said to be an object of sense, will not differ at all from these. For the material of all bodies, being subject to its own principle (λόγῳ), is formless and shapeless—though I do not know how it receives qualities, according to Celsus, who does not wish for anything perishable to be a work of God. B For, according to Celsus's argument, whatever is perishable must necessarily be similar to any other thing that has been brought into existence out of the same underlying material. Unless Celsus, being hard-pressed here, should jump away from Plato—who says that the soul comes forth from a certain mixing bowl—and flee to Aristotle and the Peripatetics, who claim that the ether is immaterial and is of a fifth nature, distinct from the four elements. The followers of Plato and the Stoics have also stood against this argument not ignobly. And we too, who are despised by Celsus, shall stand firm, being required to explain and substantiate what is said in the prophet as follows: "The heavens shall perish, but You remain; and all of them shall grow old like a garment, and as a covering You shall roll them up, and they shall be changed. But You are the same." C Yet these things are sufficient against Celsus, who has declared that "the soul is a work of God, but the body is another nature," for his argument leads to the conclusion that the body of the ether does not differ in any way from that of a bat, a worm, or a frog.
See, therefore, whether one should believe a person who, while accusing the Christians with such dogmas, ought to abandon the doctrine suggesting that there is a difference between bodies due to the qualities pertaining to them and surrounding them. For we also know that there are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; and the glory of the heavenly bodies is one, and that of the earthly is another.
57. Now consider whether, when one posits such dogmas, he is to be trusted, or whether one should reject the doctrine which teaches that bodies differ from each other because they are endowed with different qualities, inside and out. We know indeed that we have celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, and that there is one kind of glory for the celestial bodies and another for the terrestrial. D And insofar as it befits them to be homonymous with the immortals, being called divine, and to hold sway in them over those who always wish to follow justice and you, I shall sow them and, having initiated them, deliver them to you; but for the rest, do you, by interweaving the mortal with the immortal, fashion living beings, and bring them forth, and increase them by providing them with food, and receive them back again when they perish." He said these things; and again, into the former mixing bowl in which He had mixed and tempered the soul of the universe, He poured the remnants of the previous mixture, in a certain way the same, but no longer as pure and according to the same measure, but as second and third. "And it should be, that after they have been sown into the instruments relevant to each, each would grow into the most god-fearing animal. And since the human nature is twofold, the superior race should be such as would hereafter be called man."
A Another glory is of the earthly, and not even of the heavenly. For one is the glory of the sun, and another the glory of the stars, and among the stars themselves, star differs from star in glory [1 Cor. XV, 40-41]. Therefore, because we accept the resurrection of the dead, we say that transformations of the qualities of the bodies take place; since some are sown in corruption, they are raised in incorruption; and sown in dishonor, they are raised in glory; and sown in weakness, they are raised in power; and bodies sown psychical are raised spiritual [1 Cor. XV, 42-44].
Moreover, that the underlying matter is receptive to the qualities which the Creator wills, all of us who admit Providence maintain; and when God wills it, the quality currently about this matter is one thing, and the next is another—to say, better and different. And since there are set paths for the transformations of the things in bodies, from the time the world exists and for as long as it shall exist—I do not know if, when a new and different path has succeeded after the destruction of the world and what our doctrines call the "consummation," it is a matter of wonder if, at the present time, a snake 18 (as many say) is transformed from a dead man and generated from the spinal marrow, and a bee from an ox 19, and a wasp from a horse, and a dung-beetle from an ass, and, simply put, worms from most things. Celsus thinks this is an argument that none of these things is the work of God, but that the qualities—not B C indeed, for God did not create the whole in vain, nor to no purpose, nor for destruction, as those who think things are in vain suppose, but so that it might exist, and be inhabited, and remain. Therefore, it is necessary that both the earth and the heaven shall exist again after the conflagration of all things and the boiling heat [2 Pet. III, 10].
For the creation will indeed be troubled, as if dying during the conflagration, in order that it may be rebuilt, but it is not to be expected that it will perish; so that we who have been renewed might dwell in a renewed world, tasted no more of sorrow; or, as it is written: "Thou wilt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth" [Ps. CIII, 30]—God having henceforth taken charge of the temperate condition of the encompassing air. For since there will be an earth even after this age, it is quite necessary that there shall also be those who will inhabit it. D
A sine ulla divina intelligentia, quae illas mutet materiae qualitates.
58. One thing remains that I must say against this statement of Celsus: "To say that the soul is the work of God, but the body is of another nature," is something he puts forward not only without any proof, but also ambiguously. For he does not declare whether every soul is the work of God, or only that which is rational. We say, therefore, to him, that if every soul is the work of God, then obviously those of the irrational and vilest creatures are as well, so that the nature of every body B is different from that of its soul. Yet, in what follows, where he says that irrational animals are more beloved by God than we are, and possess a purer notion of the Divine, he seems to confirm this very thing, that the soul of irrational animals, just as that of humans—or rather, even more than that of humans—is the work of God. For that conclusion follows from his claim that they are more acceptable to God than we are. If, however, only the rational soul is the work of God, first of all he has not clearly indicated this; and second, since he spoke about the soul without any clear distinction, not stating that not every soul is the work of God, but only that which is rational, it follows then that not every body has a different nature. But if not every body has a different nature, but each animal has a body proportioned to its soul, it is clear that the body of the one whose soul is the work of God would differ from the body in which a soul dwells that is *not* the work of God. Thus it will be false to say that the body of a bat, a worm, or a frog does not differ from that of a human.
C For it is indeed absurd for stones to be considered purer or more impure than other stones, or buildings than other buildings, based on whether they were constructed for the honor of the Divine or as a receptacle for the vilest and most abominable bodies; and yet for bodies not to differ from other bodies, based on whether they are inhabited by rational or irrational souls, or by souls of virtuous or most wicked men. Such reasoning has led some to dare to deify the bodies of those who excelled in virtue, as having received a noble soul, while casting away or treating with contempt the bodies of the most wicked—not that this has always been done D correctly, but that it took its origin from a certain sound conception. For will a wise man, after the death of Anytus and Socrates, be equally solicitous about the burial of both their bodies? Will he construct an equal and similar monument or tomb for both? And this is in reference to that statement of Celsus: "Of which none is the work of God" (by "of which" he understands the body, and the snakes born from the body, or the ox and the bees born from the body of the ox:
*Thy tomb, O Hymettus, may ever drip with the honey of bees born from oxen.*
Likewise, concerning horses:
*Horses are the creation of wasps, and bulls of bees.*
Likewise, concerning the scarab beetle: The scarab is so named from the word *canthon* (ass), and *oros* (seed). For they say that the scarab is generated in this way: when it finds the round dung of an ass, it stays there, digging with its feet, and while digging it emits seed, and from this the animal, the scarab, is born.
And likewise regarding the horse, or the ass, and those [creatures] born from the horse [to wit, wasps], and from the ass [the scarabs]—for which reasons I judged it necessary to repeat also that: "The soul indeed is the work of God, but the body is of another nature." A
60. He says afterwards, "that the nature of all the aforementioned bodies is common, and one, and departs and returns in fixed vicissitudes." From what I have said above, it is manifest that not only the nature of the bodies which Celsus enumerated, but also that of the celestial [bodies], is common. And if this is so, surely from this—whether from the truth, I do not know—that nature of all bodies is one and the same, departing and returning in fixed vicissitudes. It is indeed true that this is the opinion of those who judge the world to be corruptible. But those who hold the contrary opinion concerning the world, will demonstrate that the nature of all bodies is common and one, even without the admission of a fifth body, B departing and returning in fixed vicissitudes, and thus that which appears to perish remains, having been changed. For the subject matter, with the quality perishing, remains the same, as those who wish it to be uncreated assert. And if it could be proven that it is not uncreated, but was made for a certain use, it is clear that its nature would not be the same, so far as permanence is concerned, as if it were posited as uncreated. But these things belong to natural philosophers; our concern, however, is to refute the calumnies of Celsus.
61. He adds, "that nothing of those things which are born from matter is immortal." To which I respond: If nothing of those things which are born from matter is immortal, either this whole world is immortal, and consequently not born from matter, or it is not immortal. If it is immortal—which also pleases those who say that only the soul is the work of God, and that it comes forth from some vessel—let Celsus show that the world was not made from matter devoid of quality, and that the immortality of the world is consistent with that principle of his, C that nothing of those things which are born from matter is immortal. But if the world, because it is made from matter, is not immortal; will that mortal world be susceptible to corruption or not? If the former, then it will be susceptible to corruption because it is not the work of God. But in that corruption of the world, what will become of the soul, which is the work of God? Let Celsus say. Or if, perverting the notion of "immortal," Celsus should say that it is immortal to the corruptible but not-perishing thing, as being susceptible to death but not dying; it is clear that there will be something according to him that is mortal and immortal at the same time, because it is susceptible to both; D and it will be mortal, not dying...
and that which is not by nature immortal is, by the fact that it does not die, specifically called immortal. In what sense, therefore, will he, by distinguishing, say that "nothing born of matter is immortal"? A And you see that when the ideas in the writings are pressed and examined, they are refuted as failing to admit of what is noble and indisputable. Having said these things, he adds: "Regarding this, these things suffice; and if anyone is able to hear and inquire further, he will find out." Let us then, we who are "fools" according to him, see what has followed from our having been able to hear him even for a little while and to inquire.
Following these things, he thinks that we can learn through a few brief words what has been sought in many and not negligible arguments concerning the nature of evils, and interpreted in various ways, saying: "Evils in existing things can neither be fewer nor more, neither before, nor now, nor hereafter. For the nature of the universe is one and the same; and the generation of evils is always the same." And these things also seem to have been paraphrased from those in the *Theaetetus*, in which Socrates in Plato said: "But it is neither possible for evils B to be destroyed among men, nor for them to be established among the gods, and so forth." And it seems to me that the man who encompasses the truth in this one composition, and inscribes his own book against us as a "True Word," has not even heard Plato accurately. For the expression in the *Timaeus* saying, "When the gods purify the earth with water," has revealed that the earth, being purified by waters, has fewer evils than in the time before it was purified. And we say this according to Plato—that there are at times fewer evils—because of the expression in the *Theaetetus* which says that evils cannot be destroyed from among men.
C I do not know, however, in what way he posits Providence. As far as the words of this book go, he says that evils are neither more nor fewer, but as it were defined, destroying the most excellent dogma concerning the fact that wickedness and evils are undefined, and in their own logic infinite. And it seems that with the "neither fewer nor more evils have happened, or are, or will be," it follows that, just as according to those who hold the world to be imperishable, the equilibrium of the elements comes about from Providence, which does not allow one of them to overreach, so that the world may not perish; thus, as it were, a sort of Providence stands over evils, so that they exist in such and such an amount, so that they may become neither more nor fewer. D And Celsus' argument concerning evils is also refuted in another way by the philosophers who have examined the matters of good and evil.
For these, dealing with the question of good and evil, have proved by historical records that harlots formerly accommodated those who wished it, first outside the cities and wearing masks; then, though they remained outside the cities because the laws forbade them to enter, they did so after having cast aside their masks and shame; and finally, as depravity grew day by day, they dared even to enter the cities. Chrysippus says this in his treatise *On Good and Evil*. Where also, as an argument that evils grow and diminish, it may be seen that there were formerly those who were called "ambiguous," who served the lust of those coming to them by suffering or inflicting defilement; whom the aediles later expelled. There are six hundred evils which malice, having poured itself into the life of men, has introduced, of which it can be said that they did not exist before. And even the most ancient histories, although they narrate innumerable crimes of offenders, are silent about those who offer themselves as ministers to unspeakable pleasures.
64. Since these and similar things are so, how is Celsus not ridiculous when he denies that there are ever fewer or more evils? For even if the nature of this universe is one and the same, it does not follow that the generation of evils is always the same. For just as the nature of any given man is one and the same, yet his mind, his reason, and his actions do not always remain in the same state—but at one time he has not yet attained the use of reason, at another time malice is conjoined with reason, and this malice is sometimes greater and sometimes less; at one time he strives for virtue, and in it he makes more or B less progress; at another time he reaches the summit, but with more or fewer contemplations—so too, and much more so, must this be said of the nature of this universe, in which, although its nature is one and the same in its totality, yet the same and similar things do not always happen. For there is not always fertility or sterility, or rains or droughts. So neither is there always a good or bad harvest of good souls; and of vices there is sometimes more, sometimes less. And those who wish to examine all things diligently ought to know this, that evils are not always the same, whether Providence preserves the earth in the state in which it is, or purges it by floods or conflagration. Perhaps it purges not only the earth, D but the whole of this world as well, when, as malice grows, it is in need of this remedy.
65. Afterwards Celsus says: "What is the nature of evils, it is not easy for a man unlearned in philosophy to know. But for the multitude it will suffice to say that evils are not from God, but inhere in matter, and in those who..."
dwell among mortal natures. And the period of mortal things A is the same from beginning to end; and according to the appointed cycles, it is necessary that the same things have always happened, and exist, and will exist. And Celsus says that it is not easy for one who has not philosophized to know the origin of evils; as if it were easy for the philosopher to know their origin, while for the one who has not philosophized, though it is not easy to perceive the origin of evils, yet it is possible to know it, albeit with labor. We, however, say to this that it is not easy even for one who has philosophized to know the origin of evils; and perhaps it is not even possible for them to know it clearly, unless by the inspiration of God it be made clear what evils are, and how it is understood that they have come into being, and in what manner they shall be made to disappear. Since, in any case, ignorance of God is among evils, and the greatest evil is not to know the manner of the service of God and the standard of piety toward Him, it is certain that even according to Celsus some of those who have philosophized did not know it, which is evident from the different sects in philosophy. But according to us, no one who does not know what evil is, and who thinks that piety consists in observing the laws established according to the more commonly understood constitutions, will be able to know the origin of evils. And no one who has not distinguished the matters concerning him who is called the devil and his angels—who this was before he became the devil, B and how he became the devil, and what was the cause of those called his angels departing with him from God—will be able to know the origin of evils. And it is necessary for him who is to know this also to have understood more accurately concerning demons, namely that in so far as they are demons, they are not the works of God, but only in so far as they are rational beings; and whence they have come to be such, so that in the state of their being demons, their governing faculty was established. If, therefore, any other topic among those that require investigation by men is hard for our nature to track down, the origin of evils would be ranked among these.
Then, as if he had something more secret to say about the origin of evils, yet keeping silent on those things and saying what is appropriate for the multitudes, he says: "It suffices to have said to the multitude concerning the origin of evils, that evils are not from God, but inhere in matter, and dwell among mortals." It is indeed true that evils are not from God. For according to our Jeremiah it is clear that "out of the mouth of the Lord shall not go forth evils and good." 35 But that matter, dwelling among mortals, is the cause of evils, is not true according to us. For the governing faculty of each person is the cause of the wickedness that has come into being in him, which is the evil; and the deeds that proceed from it are evils; and nothing else, if we wish to speak accurately, is to be considered evil according to us. But I know that this matter requires much elaboration and construction (by the grace of God enlightening the governing faculty), which things those who are judged by D 66. Deinde Celsus, quasi quid arcanum de illa malorum origine dicere haberet, quod tacet ut nihil proferat nisi vulgi captui attemperatum: "Vulgo satis est dicere," inquit, "mala non esse a Deo, sed in materia hærere et inter mortalia versari." Hoc verum quidem est, mala non esse a Deo. Jeremias enim noster declarat: "Ex ore Domini non egressura nec mala nec bona." Sed materiam naturarum mortalium propriam esse malorum causam, id vero negamus. Nam sua cuique voluntas causa ipsi est malitiæ, quæ malum est, ut et mala sunt actiones ad quas compellit; neque quidquam aliud, si accurate loqui volumus, malum existimandum est. Nec sum tamen nescius hanc quæstionem non nisi magna diligentia exquisitisque argumentis esse pertractandam: quæ argumenta is solus reperire potest, cujus Dei gratia mentem il-
illu- A strates, whom God judges worthy of the knowledge of this question.
67. But I do not know why it seemed expedient to Celsus, writing against us, if he were to seize upon a dogma which has need of much, or at least plausible, proof, to confirm, as far as it can be done, that the conversion of mortal natures is similar to itself from beginning to end, and that from the established order of conversions it is necessary that the past, present, and future are always the same. But if it is so, it is all over with our free will. For if from the established order of conversions it is necessary that the same things have always been, are, and will be in mortal affairs, it is evident that it will be necessary that Socrates always applies himself to philosophy; that he be accused of introducing strange B gods and corrupting the youth; that Anytus and Melitus always bear witness against him, and the Areopagite judges condemn him to drink the hemlock. So also, from the established conversions, it will be necessary that Phalaris always exercises tyranny; that in his bull condemned men always groan; that Alexander of Pherae always emulates his cruelty; with which, if they are granted, I do not know how our free will can stand, and we can be deservedly praised or blamed. Again, if, as Celsus posits, the conversion of mortal natures is always similar to itself from beginning to end; therefore it is necessary that from the established conversions Moses always goes out from Egypt with the Jewish people; that Jesus comes here again to do the same things C which he has already done not once, but infinitely after each and every conversion; that the same Christians are in each conversion; that Celsus writes the same book, which he has already written infinite times, again.
68. And Celsus indeed says that only mortal things, from the established conversions, have necessarily been, are, and will be the same; but most of the Stoics wish such a conversion to be not only of mortal natures, but also of immortal ones, and of their gods. For after the conflagration of this universe, D which has happened infinitely and will happen infinitely, the same order recurs from beginning to end. Nor, indeed, shall I omit the Stoics who say that God pervades all matter, however vile and abject. But the Stoics define the divine substance thus: A spirit endowed with intelligence and fiery, devoid of form, but changing itself into any shape whatsoever, and assimilating itself to any things whatsoever.
A a conflagration which has happened an infinite number of times, and will happen an infinite number of times, all things have been and will be in the same order from beginning to end. The Stoics, however, in attempting to heal these absurdities, I know not how, say that all men return in fixed periods, who are altogether similar to the men of the former periods; so that it is not Socrates who is to come into being again, but someone exactly like Socrates, who will marry a wife exactly like Xanthippe [(47)], and will be accused by men who resemble Anytus and Melitus in every respect. I do not know, however, how the world is always the same, and not one different from another, while the things in it are not the same, but exactly similar. But the deeper argument B regarding both the words of Celsus and the Stoic doctrines [(48)] will more conveniently be examined elsewhere, since it does not suit the present time and the purpose at hand to dwell upon these matters at length.
After this he says, "that those things which are seen are not given to man, but everything is born and perishes for the sake of the salvation of the whole, according to that exchange from one to another which I mentioned before." It is redundant to spend time on the refutation of these points, which we have already set forth to the best of our ability. It has also been said regarding this, "Neither good things nor evil things can be fewer or more among mortal beings." I have also replied to what he said, "that there is no need for God to correct his own works." For God is not like a human who makes something C imperfectly, and, having created it more crudely, brings a correction to the world, cleaning it by flood or conflagration; rather, he prevents the flow of wickedness from spreading further. I, for my part, believe that he wholly destroys wickedness in an orderly manner for the benefit of the whole [(50)]. But whether, after the destruction of wickedness, there is a reason for it to come into being again or not, such matters will be examined in a more comprehensive discourse [(51)]. He wishes, therefore, through new corrections, for God to always be taking up the errors; for even if all things have been ordained by him most beautifully and safely in the creation of all things, nevertheless he stood in need of a certain medicine [(52)] for those who are suffering from the wickedness that is, as it were, polluting the entire world. And D nothing has been neglected by God, nor will it be neglected, as he does in each time what it was appropriate for him to do in a changeable and mutable world. And just as a farmer, according to the differences of the seasons of the year, performs different agricultural works upon the earth and the things growing upon it, so God, as it were (if I may so speak), manages all the ages as years, doing in each of them what the reason concerning the whole demands—a reason which is known and perfectly accomplished by God alone, as it really is.
Celsus also raised a certain argument concerning evils.
A It is of such a nature that, "Even if something seems evil to you, it is not yet clear that it is evil; for you do not know whether it is advantageous to you, or to another, or to the whole." Now, the statement B has something prudent about it; but it also suggests that the nature of evils is not entirely wicked, because it is possible that what is deemed evil in individual cases may be advantageous to the whole. Nevertheless, lest anyone misunderstand what is said and find in it an excuse for his own wickedness, saying that it also happens to be useful to the universe, or at least capable of being useful, it must be said that, even if God—while preserving the freedom of our will—uses the malice of the wicked for the order of the universe and adapts them to its utility, those who perpetrate evil are nonetheless guilty. Insofar as they are guilty, they are indeed ordered toward the utility of the universe, but there is no one who should not detest that utility. Just as if someone were accused of certain crimes and, because of them, were condemned in a city to public works useful to all, he would be said to be doing something that brings utility to the whole city; yet he himself would be seen performing an abominable duty, in which no one with even moderate sense would want to be involved. Hence it is that Paul, the apostle of Jesus, teaches us that even the most wicked will be useful to the universe, though they themselves are to be relegated among those who are to be detested; but that those who strive for virtue will offer the greatest utilities to the universe, and for that reason are to be placed in the most excellent position. He says: "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wooden and earthen; and some for honor, some for dishonor. If someone, therefore, cleanses himself, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work." C And I judge it necessary to have set these things forth in response to the statement, "Even if something seems evil to you, it is not yet clear that it is evil; for you do not know whether it is advantageous to you or to another," so that no one might take from this the occasion to sin, as if that person would be useful to the universe by the very act of sinning.
71. But since, after these things, Celsus derides certain places in the Scriptures which he did not understand at all, and does so for these reasons, because human affections as it were are attributed there to God, while He uses words of wrath against the impious and directs threats against sinners, we must answer that, just as we, when we speak to very small children, do not use our full power of speech, but lower ourselves to the weak understanding of those before us, saying and doing what seems to conduce to their instruction and correction—as children—so the Word of God seems to have managed the things written, having measured out what is fitting in the message D according to the capacity of the hearers and what is useful to them. And generally concerning this mode of delivering what pertains to God, it is written in Deuteronomy thus: "The Lord bore your ways—"
as a man would bear his son." A For the Word speaks such things, as if bearing the ways of a man for the benefit of men; for the multitudes did not require God, in manifesting Himself, to adapt to such people things that would be spoken as pertains to His majesty. But whoever cares for the clarity of the divine Scriptures will find that what are called spiritual things there correspond to those who are called spiritual; and by comparing the sense of what is said to the weaker with the sense of what is addressed to the more acute, he will find that both are often exhibited in the same passage to those who know how to hear it.
We speak, then, of the wrath of God, yet we do not say that it is a B passion of His, but rather a certain procedure adopted for the education of those who have sinned in such and such ways, through harsher discipline. For that the so-called wrath of God, and His so-called fury, educates—and this is what pleases the Word—is evident from what is said in the sixth Psalm: "O Lord, do not rebuke me in Thy fury, nor educate me in Thy wrath," and in Jeremiah: "Educate us, O Lord, yet in judgment, and not in wrath, lest Thou make us few." And if anyone reads in the second book of Kings of the wrath of God persuading David to number the people, and in the first book of Chronicles of the devil being the one to whom the same thing is ascribed, and compares the passages with one another, he will perceive upon whom the wrath is placed, of which Paul says that all men have been born children, saying: "We C were by nature children of wrath, even as the others." And that wrath is not a passion of God, but each one prepares it for himself through the things in which he sins, Paul the same will make plain: "Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." How then can each man store up for himself wrath in the day of wrath, if wrath is understood as a passion? And how can a passion of wrath educate? Moreover, the Word that teaches us by no means to be angry, and which says in the thirty-sixth Psalm, "Cease from wrath, and forsake fury," and which says also in Paul, "Put away also you all—wrath, fury, malice, blasphemy, D foul speech," would not have assigned to God Himself the passion of which He desires us to be entirely free. And it is clear that things concerning the wrath of God are to be understood allegorically, from the fact that sleep is also recorded of Him, from which the prophet, as if waking Him, says: "Arise, why do You sleep, O Lord?" And again he says: "And the Lord was awakened as one sleeping, as a mighty man who has drunk wine." If, therefore, sleep signifies something other than what is immediately
A suggested by the letter, why should not anger also be understood in a similar way? And the threats, too, are announcements of what will befall the wicked; just as if someone were to say that the words of a physician to his patients are threats, when he says: "I shall cut you, and I shall apply cauteries to you, if you do not obey my instructions, and if you do not follow this diet, and if you do not conduct yourself in this way." Therefore, we do not attribute human passions to God, nor do we hold impious opinions about Him, nor are we wandering in error when we interpret those matters by comparing different passages of the Scriptures with one another. Nor do those who wisely perform the office of teaching among us propose to themselves anything other than to remove, as far as possible, naive simplicity from their hearers and to make them intelligent.
73. Consequently, he who has not understood the things written about the anger of God says: "For is it not ridiculous that, if a man, enraged at the Jews, destroyed them all from the least to the greatest and burned their cities with fire, so that they could not resist, the anger and indignation and threats of God, as they call Him, the Most High, have finally come to this, that He sent His own Son, and he suffered such things?" B But if the Jews, after they dared to rage so cruelly against Jesus, have utterly perished and lost their cities, this anger—which they had stored up for themselves—is what has brought these such great punishments upon them; for the judgment of God established against them is called "anger" in the native language of the Hebrews. But the Son of the great God suffered what He suffered willingly and for the sake of human salvation, as I have demonstrated to the best of my ability above. He adds afterwards: "But in order that the discourse may not be about the Jews alone (for I do not mean this), but rather about the whole of nature, as I promised, I shall declare more plainly the things already said." Who of moderate mind, aware of human weakness, would not be offended C when reading this in Celsus—who, with the same boastfulness with which he entitled his book, here promises that he will give an account of the whole of nature? Let us see, then, what those things are that he promises to say about the whole of nature and to declare more plainly.
74. Afterwards he accuses us at great length, because we say that all things were made by God for the sake of man. And he wishes, from the history of animals and the intelligence manifested in them, to show that all things were made no more for the sake of humans than for the sake of irrational animals. And it seems to me that he is like those D who, carried away by hatred, disparage in their enemies that which is praised in their own friends. For just as they, blinded by hatred, do not see that the evils which they think they are bringing against their enemies redound also upon their own friends; similarly, Celsus, with a confused mind, has not seen that he is also disparaging the philosophers of the Stoic school, who do not teach wrongly that man, and generally nature endowed with reason, excels animals devoid of reason.
and that it is for his sake that they say Providence has made all things. A Now, of course, those endowed with reason have a logical standing, in that they are primary, just as children being born are; while animals devoid of reason and inanimate things are, as it were, a peripheral accretion to the child. And I indeed believe that, just as in cities those who are in charge of provisions and the marketplace are in charge for the sake of nothing else but men, while dogs and other animals devoid of reason also enjoy the abundance, so Providence provides primarily for those endowed with reason, but it has followed from this that animals devoid of reason also enjoy the things that come into being for the sake of men. And just as he would be in error who said that the market-overseers do not provide any more for men than for dogs, since dogs also partake of the abundance of the provisions; so too by much more, Celsus and those who think the same things as he, commit impiety against the God who provides for those endowed with reason, by claiming that these things are not made for food for men any more than for plants, trees, shrubs, and thorns. B For he thinks, first, that "thunder, lightning, and rain are not the works of God," already more clearly espousing Epicureanism. Second, he says, that "even if one were to grant that these are works of God, they do not come about any more for us men for food than for plants, trees, shrubs, and thorns," giving these things over to chance and not to Providence, like a true Epicurean. For if these things are not useful to us any more than to plants, trees, shrubs, and thorns, it is clear that they do not come from Providence, for if they were from Providence, it would not be providing for us any more than for trees, shrubs, and thorns. Now, both of these claims are inherently impious; and it would be foolish to argue against such people, standing ready to refute the one who accuses us of impiety. For it is clear to everyone from what has been said, who is the impious one. Then he says, "Even if you say that these things grow for men (meaning plants, trees, shrubs, and thorns), why will you say that they grow for men any more than for animals devoid of reason, the most wild of them?" Let Celsus, then, clearly say that such a great variety of things growing on the earth is not the work of Providence, but that some chance collision of atoms has produced such qualities, and that by chance there are so many species of plants, trees, and shrubs that are similar to one another; and that no technical reason has brought them into being, nor does it have its origin from a mind that surpasses all admiration. C But we, the Christians, who are devoted solely to the God who created these things, know how to give thanks to the Creator of even these things, because He has prepared such a dwelling-place for us, and for our sake, for the animals that serve us: "He who causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men.">
to bring forth bread out of the earth; and that wine may gladden the heart of man, and his face be made cheerful with oil, and bread may strengthen man’s heart." And it is not surprising that God should have provided food even for the most ferocious of animals; for there have been philosophers who said that those animals were born to provide A exercise for the animal that possesses reason. And it has been said by one of our own wise men: "Do not say, What is this, or what is the purpose of this? For all things were created for their use. And do not say, What is this, or what is the purpose of this? For all things shall be sought out in their season."
76. Next to these things Celsus, wishing to show that Providence has not made the things that grow on the earth more for us than for the most ferocious of animals, says: "We indeed, with toil, great labor, and sweat, seek our food; but to animals, the earth produces all things without sowing or tilling." Yet he does not see that God wished to provide from every quarter material for the exercise of human intelligence, so that it might not remain idle and skilled in no arts; and that for this reason He created man in need, so that by his very penury he should be compelled to invent arts—some necessary for food, others for shelter. For it was better for those who were not going to seek out divine mysteries and study philosophy to be in need, in order that they might apply their intelligence to the discovery of arts, than to abound in all good things, leaving their intelligence neglected. B Indeed, from this lack of the necessities of life were born agriculture, viticulture, gardening, carpentry, and metallurgy, the makers of tools for those arts that serve the purpose of food. The lack of shelter introduced weaving—followed by carding and spinning—as well as building; and thus intelligence ascended even to architecture. The need for necessities has also caused goods produced in other regions to be carried by the help of nautical and navigational skill to those who do not possess them; so that for these reasons, too, one might wonder at Providence, which profitably made the rational animal needy, unlike the irrational ones. For the irrational animals have their food ready-made, since they have no capacity for arts. And they have natural shelter; for they are covered with hair, or feathers, or scales, or shells. And let these things be said by us in answer to the words quoted by Celsus: "We indeed, with toil, labor, and sweat, seek our food; but to animals, the earth produces all things without sowing or tilling."
77. Then, forgetting that his C stated purpose is to accuse Jews and Christians, he himself brings forward against his own opinion an iambic line of Euripides, and assailing it, he refutes it as being poorly phrased. The words of Celsus are as follows: "But if you should also oppose me with that line of Euripides, saying: Sun, night, and all things serve mortals,"
why should they serve us any more than they do ants and flies? For they too have the night as a time for resting, and the day arises for them to see and to act." A Hence it is evident that this opinion—that the sun and other heavenly bodies serve us—is not held only by certain Jews and Christians, but also by that person whom some call the "Theatrical philosopher," who had been a student of the physics of Anaxagoras. When he says that the things of this universe serve man, he is using a part to represent the whole, meaning all natures that partake of reason; just as he signifies these same things of the universe with the same rhetorical flourish when he says: *Sun, night, and all things serve mortals.* B Perhaps the tragic poet also used the word "sun" to designate the day, because the sun makes the day, to indicate that those things which are beneath the moon have the greatest need of day and night—for it is not the same with other things as it is with those on earth. Day and night therefore serve mortals, having been brought into existence for the sake of rational beings. If ants and flies also take advantage of this, performing their activities by day and resting by night, it does not follow that we should say the day and night came to be for the sake of ants and flies, nor that they were intended for nothing, but rather we must believe they came to be in accordance with Providence, for the sake of men.
Next, after these points, C he raises an objection against himself regarding what is said to be for the sake of men, namely, that irrational animals were created for their sake. He says: "If someone were to say that we are the masters of the animals, because we hunt and consume other animals, I would reply: Why should it not be that, on the contrary, we were created for them, since they also hunt and devour us? Especially when we need nets, weapons, the help of many men, and dogs, against those we hunt; D while to them nature has spontaneously given weapons, by which they easily subject us to themselves." Here you see how intelligence has been given to us as a great aid, and one superior to any weapon that the wild beasts seem to possess. Indeed, even if animals far surpass us in bodily strength, and although we are vastly inferior to some in size, we nevertheless gain mastery over the wild beasts through our intelligence. We hunt such great elephants, subjecting those that are capable of being tamed to our human gentleness; but as for those that are not so capable, or that do not seem to provide us with any use from being tamed, we place ourselves in such safety from them that, whenever we wish, we keep even such great beasts locked up; and when we are in need of food from their bodies, we kill them as easily as domesticated animals. The Creator, therefore, has subjected all animals to the rational animal and to his natural intelligence. And since [this is so], with regard to the case of dogs, for the sake of the flocks and herds...
or the stalls, or the guarding of houses, we use them; for other ends we use oxen, for example for agriculture A, or beasts of burden for carrying loads. Thus it is said that the lion, the bear, the leopard, the swine, and the species of animals of that kind, have been assigned to us for the exercise of the seeds of courage that are within us.
Then, addressing the race of men who perceive their own superiority, by which they excel the irrational animals, he says: "With regard to that which you say, that the power has been given to you by God to capture and slaughter wild beasts, we shall say that it is likely that, before there were cities and arts and such kinds of associations, and weapons and nets, men were seized and devoured by wild beasts, but wild beasts were by no means seized by men." B Observe here, regarding these points, that even if men do capture wild beasts, and wild beasts also seize men, there is a great difference between those who prevail by intelligence and those who prevail by savageness and cruelty, those who do not use intelligence to ensure they suffer nothing from wild beasts. But when he says, "before there were cities and arts and such kinds of associations," he seems to me to have forgotten what he said earlier: "that the world is uncreated and incorruptible, and only those things on earth suffer floods and conflagrations, and not all of these at the same time." As, therefore, the defenders of an uncreated world cannot indicate an beginning for it, so neither can they indicate a time when there were no cities and no arts had yet been discovered. But let it be conceded that he wishes here to accommodate himself to our principles, and has neglected what he said earlier: where is the proof from this that, in the beginning, men were captured and eaten by wild beasts, but not wild beasts by men? For if Providence founded the world and God presides over all things, C it was necessary that the first parents of men should have been guarded by superior natures, so that from the beginning there might be an intimate association of the divine nature with them. The Ascraean poet, understanding this, said:
For then there were common feasts and common dwellings For immortal gods and mortal men.
80. And the divine word according to Moses has introduced to us the first men hearing a diviner voice and oracles, and sometimes also seeing the visitations of the angels of God made to them. For it is also reasonable that in the beginning of the world the nature of men should have been helped to a greater extent, until, progress having been made in discernment and the other virtues, and the discovery of the arts, they D might be able to live by themselves, not needing to be always supervised and governed by those who, with a miraculous manifestation, presented themselves as ministers to the will of God. From these things, therefore, it follows that it is false that men were, in the beginning, captured and devoured by wild beasts, while wild beasts were not [captured] by men. Hence, it is a consequence of these things that the claim that in the beginning men were seized by wild beasts is false.
A For God did not subject men to wild beasts, but gave men to be able to capture wild beasts, and [gave them] the arts that arise from intelligence against those beasts. For it was not without divine aid that men devised for themselves a defense against wild beasts, and a mastery over them.
B But the noble fellow does not see how many philosophers who introduce Providence and say that it does all things for the sake of the rational, he overthrows—as much as in him lies—[and] with them the useful doctrines [that agree] with the accord of the Christians in these matters toward philosophy; nor [does he see] how much harm to piety arises from acknowledging that there is no difference before God between a human, an ant, or a bee. He says: "If for this reason men seem to differ from irrational creatures, because they dwell in cities, and use a constitution, and magistracies, and governments; this is nonsense. For ants and bees do the very same things. Certainly, bees have a ruler; and there is order, and attendance, and wars, and victories, and slaughters of the defeated, and cities, and even suburbs, and shifts of work, and punishments against the lazy and the wicked; for they drive away and punish the drones."
C But even in these things he has not seen how that which is accomplished by reason and calculation differs from that which is produced by an irrational nature and the simple construction of its make-up. No one who resides in such creatures acknowledges the cause of these [actions]—for they do not possess it—but the most ancient, who is the Son of God and King of all things that are, has crafted an irrational nature that serves, as irrational [serves], those who have been counted worthy of reason. Cities, therefore, have arisen among men with many arts and the ordering of laws; and constitutions, and magistracies, and governments among men are either, in the proper sense, certain earnest moral states and activities so named, or they are those referred to in a more improper sense, for the sake of the, as far as possible, imitation of those [proper] ones. For looking toward those [original] ones, those who wisely acted as lawgivers established the best constitutions, and magistracies, and governments. D None of these is to be found among irrational creatures, even if Celsus applies the rational terms—and those assigned to rational beings—such as city, and constitutions, and magistracies, and governments, even to ants and bees. Concerning which, one must by no means accept the ants or bees, for they do not act with calculation; but one must marvel at the Divine Nature, which has extended a sort of imitation of rational things even to irrational ones. Perhaps it is to create shame for the rational ones, so that by watching ants...
of those things useful to themselves. And by observing bees, they are persuaded to obey a ruler, and they divide the useful works of the state for the safety of the cities. A And so that they may become more industrious and more frugal, instructions are provided. Not cities and suburbs—but hives, and the hexagonal works of the bees, and the succession of their labors, are for the sake of humans who have many needs for honey, both for the remedy of afflicted bodies and for pure nourishment. Nor is the action performed by the bees against the drones to be compared to the judgments against the idle and wicked in cities, and to the punishments against them; but, as I said before, the divine nature in these things is to be admired, while the human—being able to calculate the things concerning all beings and to adorn all things (as one working together B with Providence)—is to be commended; he performs the works not only of God's Providence, but also of his own.
Now, having spoken about the bees, in order that, as far as he is able, he might disparage the cities, and the political systems, and the authorities, and the governments, and the wars on behalf of the fatherlands of not only Christians, but of all humans, Celsus proceeds to deliver an encomium of ants. He does this so that, by the encomium regarding them, he might compare the human economy concerning food to the reason of the ants regarding C what is necessary, and might cast down the foresight of winter quarters, as though it possessed nothing more than the providence of the irrational ants in those matters where he thinks it exists. And whom among the simpler humans—and those unskilled in looking into the nature of all things—would Celsus not avert, as far as he is able, from helping those burdened by loads and sharing in their toils, when he speaks about ants, saying that they "help one another with their burdens when they see any that are D wearying"? For he who is in need of instruction through reason, and is in no wise a disciple of it, will say: "Since, therefore, we differ in nothing from ants when we help those weary from carrying heavy loads, why do we do such a thing in vain?" And while the ants, being irrational animals, would not be puffed up to think highly of themselves because their works are compared to those of humans, humans—able through reason to hear how their own love for others is treated as nothing—are, as far as Celsus’s words are concerned, not prevented from being harmed; nor does he see that, while he wishes to...
divert readers from Christianity, he also deters even those who are not Christians from having compassion for those who are burdened with the heaviest loads. He ought, had he truly been a philosopher sensitive to the social nature of man, not only not to have abolished along with Christianity those things which are useful among men, but also—if it were possible—to have cooperated with the good things common to both Christians and other men. And if ants store up the seeds they gather so that they do not sprout, but remain for their food throughout the year, one must not suppose that there is reason in the ants that is the cause of this; rather, it is all-mothering nature, which has adorned even the irrational animals so that they are not left without at least some trace of the reason that comes from nature. Unless, perhaps, Celsus—who wishes in many things to imitate Plato—intends by this to obscurely suggest that all souls are of the same kind, and that the human soul does not differ from that of ants and bees. This is the argument of one who drags the soul down from the vaults of heaven, not merely into the human body, but into the bodies of other animals as well. B Christians will not be convinced by this, having already grasped that the human soul has been made in the image of God, and seeing that it is impossible for a nature created in the image of God to have its characters utterly effaced, only to take on others—I know not whose images they might be—in irrational animals. And since he also says regarding dying ants that the living assign them a particular place, and that this serves as traditional graves for them: one must say that the more he speaks praises of the irrational animals, so much the more (even if he does not wish it) does he increase the work of the Word who adorned all things; C and he demonstrates the industry in men, which is able to decorate with reason even the advantages of the nature of irrational animals. But why do I say "irrational animals," since in Celsus’s judgment those things which by the common consensus of all are called irrational are *not* irrational? He does not think even ants are irrational—he who promised to speak about the whole of nature and made a boast of "truth" in the very title of his book. For he says the following about ants, as though they were conversing with one another: “And of course when they meet [one another], they converse; whence they do not err from their paths; for from heaven [the signal is given to them]…”
…” A for it is from heaven that one looks down upon the things on earth. But among rational beings, there is a community B of certain universal concepts, and speech, and the things that the words signify. For the act of conversing with another happens in voice, declaring some signified thing, and often they even report on what are called "accidental" things. To say that these things exist in ants—how would that not be the most ridiculous thing of all? And he is not ashamed of adding to these things—so that he might demonstrate the indecency of his own dogmas even to those who come after him—saying: “Come now, if someone were to look down from heaven onto the earth, what difference would he think there to be between the things done by us and the things done by ants and bees?” Would the one looking down from heaven onto the earth, according to his hypothesis, at the acts performed by humans and at the things happening among ants, be looking upon the bodies of humans and ants, and not perceive the rational governing power and the calculation being moved? And again, conversely, the irrational governing power moved irrationally by impulse and imagination together with some natural arrangement? But it is absurd that the one looking from heaven at the things on earth should wish to look upon the bodies of humans and ants from such a distance, and not see much rather the nature of their governing powers, and the source of their impulses, whether rational or irrational. But if he once sees the source of all impulses, it is clear that he would also see the difference, and the superiority of man, not only over the ants, but also over the elephants. For the one looking from heaven will see in the irrational creatures—however great their bodies may be—no other principle than (if I may so call it) irrationality; but in the rational ones, the reason that is common to humans with divine and heavenly things, and perhaps even to God Himself, above all, by Whom he has been named as having been made in the image of God; for the Word of God is the image of the God over all. Proceeding from these things, as if struggling to bring the race of men down further and to make them the equal of the irrational creatures—not wishing to leave out anything that is reported among the irrational creatures that shows something greater—he says that even the arts of sorcery belong to some of the irrational creatures (so that not even for this should men boast excessively, nor wish to have superiority over the irrational creatures), and he says these things: “But if humans flatter themselves also concerning sorcery, nonetheless, even in this regard, snakes and eagles are wiser. For they know many antidotes and remedies against evils, and indeed even the powers of certain stones, for the safety of their nestlings. If humans happen upon these, they think they possess D something wonderful.” And first, indeed, I do not know how [alt-version omitted]
A he has called the natural knowledge that seems to exist in animals by the name of magic—for this name is usually applied in a different sense—unless perhaps he wishes, like an Epicurean, to stealthily discredit the whole use of such things as though it lay in the profession of charlatans. But let it be granted to him that humans boast greatly of the knowledge of these things, whether or not they are charlatans; how are snakes on this account wiser than humans, when they use fennel to sharpen their eyesight and increase their agility, grasping this not as a natural property through reasoning, but by their physical constitution? Humans, however, do not come to such things through mere nature like snakes, but partly through experience, partly through reason, and sometimes through calculation and knowledge. And if eagles finding what is called the eagle-stone, for the protection of their B nestlings, bring it into their nests, why are they on this account wiser than humans, who have discovered, by reasoning and through experience, the natural remedy bestowed upon eagles? Further, let it be allowed that other health-giving remedies are known by animals. What, then, does this contribute to the conclusion that it is not nature, but reason, that discovers these things in animals? For if it were reason that discovered them, it would not have discovered only this one thing in snakes, and perhaps a second and a third, and something else in the eagle, and so on in the remaining animals; rather, it would have discovered as many as exist among humans. But now it is clear, from the fact that remedies have been assigned definitively to the nature of each animal, that it is neither wisdom nor reason that is in them, but a certain natural disposition toward those things that are conducive to the salvation of each creature, brought about C by the Word. Yet, if I wished to join battle with Celsus on these points, I would use the saying of Solomon from the Proverbs, which is as follows: “Four things are the smallest on the earth, but they are wiser than the wise: the ants, which have no strength, yet prepare their food in the summer; and the rock-badgers, a race not strong, yet they make their houses in the rocks; the locust has no king, yet it marches in ordered rank by a single command; and the lizard, supporting itself by its hands, and being easily captured, dwells in the fortresses of kings.” But I do not use these words as if they were clear; rather, I follow the inscription (for the book is inscribed *Proverbs*). I examine these things as riddles; for it is the custom of these men to divide into many categories those things which signify one thing on the surface but proclaim another in their deeper meaning, of which category the Proverbs are one. Hence it is written in our Gospels that our Savior said: “These things have I spoken to you in proverbs, but the hour is coming when no longer in proverbs...” D
shall I speak to you.” B It is not, therefore, the visible ants that are wiser than the wise, but those signified as if in the form of proverbs. The same must also be said concerning the other animals. But Celsus believes that the books of the Jews and Christians were written in a very simple and vulgar manner, and he thinks that those who allegorize them do so by forcing the intention of the writers. Let Celsus, then, be refuted also by these arguments, as he slanders us in vain; let his theory concerning snakes and eagles be refuted as well, which maintains that these are wiser than men. Wishing further in many words to deny that notions about the Divine are unique to the human race, and to assert that some among the irrational animals possess an understanding of God—a subject on which such disagreements have arisen even among the keenest minds of all men, Greeks and barbarians alike—he says: “But if man is thought to surpass other animals because he has reached divine concepts, let those who say this know that many of the other animals will also claim this for themselves. And quite reasonably; for what could one call more divine than to foreknow and declare the things that are to come? This, then, men learn from other animals, and especially from birds; and those who understand their indications are seers. If birds, then, and whatever other animals are prophetic, are taught by God to foreknow and to teach us through symbols, they appear to be that much closer to divine communion, and to be wiser and more beloved of God. C Furthermore, the wise men of mankind say that they have conversations among themselves, which are clearly holier than our own, and that they themselves perceive what is being said, and demonstrate by their actions that they perceive it, when, after having predicted that the birds said they were going somewhere or would do this or that, they show them departing to that place and doing what they predicted. And among elephants, nothing seems more observant of oaths or more faithful to divine matters, entirely, no doubt, because they possess knowledge of it.” Observe in these passages how many questions he brings together—questions debated among philosophers (not only of the Greeks, but also among the barbarians)—as if they were found facts, or as if they had learned the things about omens and other animals—from which certain divinations are said to occur to men—from some demons, and treats them as if they were agreed upon. For first of all, it is debated whether there is an art of augury, and divination through animals in general, or whether it does not exist; and secondly, among those who have accepted that divination through birds exists, there is no agreement on the cause of the manner of the divination; since some say that the movements are caused for the animals by certain demons or prophetic gods—the birds, for instance, into different flights and different cries—to movements of this sort or that D while others (the text is supplied from the Philocalia) hold that they possess their knowledge of these things.
therefore, should have proven through the foregoing arguments that he wished to demonstrate that brute animals are more divine and wiser than humans; he should have established at greater length that such divination exists, and after that, proven his defense more effectively. He should have analytically refuted the arguments of those who abolish such divinations, and analytically overturned the arguments of those who say that the movements for divination in animals occur because of demons or gods; and after these things, he should have established that the soul of brute animals is more divine. For thus we would have stood against his plausible contentions, assuming he had demonstrated a philosophical capacity regarding such great matters; we would have overturned the notion that brute animals are wiser than humans, and would have falsified the claim that they have more holy conceptions of the Divine than we do, and that they possess certain holy forms of communication with each other. A Now, however, the one who accuses us for believing in the God over all demands that we believe that the souls of birds possess more divine and clearer conceptions than humans. If this is true, birds have a clearer conception of God than Celsus does. And it is not surprising if they have a clearer conception than Celsus, who disparages man to such an extent. But indeed, as far as Celsus is concerned, birds possess greater and more divine conceptions, I do not say than us Christians or the Jews who use the same Scriptures as we do, but actually than the theologians among the Greeks, for they were humans. Therefore, according to Celsus, the species of birds supposedly gifted with divination has apprehended the nature of the Divine more than Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. B And we ought indeed to have gone to these birds as teachers, so that, just as according to the assumption of Celsus they teach us by divination the things that are to come, so they might also deliver men from doubting about the Divine, by imparting the clear conception of Him which they have apprehended. Therefore, it surely follows for Celsus, who thinks that birds excel humans, to use the birds himself as teachers, and to use none of the others who have philosophized among the Greeks. But we must say a few things out of many regarding what is before us, exposing his ungrateful and false opinion toward the One who made him; for "man," even while being Celsus, "being in honor, did not understand," C wherefore he was not compared to the birds and the other brute animals which he imagines to be divine, and to others of their kind.
A But by yielding the primacy to those [animals] — even beyond the Egyptians, who worship irrational animals as gods — he has subjected himself, and as far as it depended on him, the whole human race, to brute animals, as though they were worse and inferior in their understanding of the Divine.
First of all, then, let us inquire whether or not there exists a faculty of divination through birds and the other animals believed to be prophetic; for the argument on both sides is by no means to be despised. On the one hand, it is compelling to reject such a thing, so that the rational being may not, instead of divine oracles, resort to birds, leaving the former behind; on the other hand, it is supported by the manifest efficacy testified to by many, who have been saved from the greatest dangers by having trusted in the divination through birds. For the present, however, let it be granted that augury exists, so that even granting this, I may show those who are preoccupied with such views that there is a great excellence in man over irrational animals, and [even] over those very animals that are deemed prophetic, and that such an excellence is in no way comparable to [the animals].
We must say then, that if there were some divine nature in them capable of foreknowing the future — and so rich in it that, out of its abundance, it could reveal future things to any man who wished it — it is manifest that they would have known their own affairs much sooner. And if they knew their own affairs, they would have taken care not to fly toward the very place where men had set traps and nets for them, or where archers, using the flying creatures as a mark, were letting fly their arrows at them. B And if eagles knew beforehand of the conspiracy against their fledglings — whether from snakes crawling up to them and destroying them, or from some men who take them, whether for sport or for some other need or medicinal purpose — they would certainly not have nested where they were destined to be plotted against. Simply put, not one of these animals would ever be caught by men, since they would be more divine and wiser than men.
But further, if birds contend with birds, as Celsus says, [and if we suppose they are] prophetic birds possessing a divine nature, and other irrational animals [likewise], and have conceptions of the Divine, and foreknowledge concerning things to come, and [revealed] such things to others, then neither would the sparrow of Homer have nested where a dragon was about to destroy it and its young, nor would the dragon, according to the same poet, have failed to guard against being taken by the eagle. C For the marvelous Homer in his poetry says of the former [bird] such things as these: "Then there appeared a great sign: a dragon, blood-red upon its back, terrible; and it was sent forth by the Olympian himself..." D and...
A From beneath the altar, it darted to the plane tree. There were the nestlings of a sparrow, helpless children, upon the topmost branch, cowering beneath the foliage: eight, and the mother was the ninth, she who bore the children. There, when he had eaten the piteous chirping young, the mother fluttered about, mourning her dear children; and he, winding about, caught her by the wing as she screamed. But when he had eaten the children of the sparrow and her also, the god who had shown him made him a sign to be wondered at; for the son of crooked-counseled Cronus made him a stone. And we, standing there, marveled at what had come to pass, how such dread portents of the gods had entered the hecatombs.
Concerning the second sign: For a bird came upon them, a high-flying eagle, on the left, shielding the people, carrying a blood-red, monstrous dragon, alive, still gasping; for it had not yet forgotten the fight. For, twisting backward, it struck the eagle on the breast by the neck; and it, in pain, cast it from it to the ground, and dropped it into the midst of the crowd; and it itself, crying out, flew off on the breath of the wind. And the Trojans shuddered when they saw the dappled serpent lying in the midst, a prodigy of Zeus who bears the aegis.
If then the eagle was prophetic, why was not the dragon also, since the augurs use this animal too? What, since the casting of lots is easily refuted, would not the claim that both are prophetic also be refuted? For the dragon, if it were prophetic, would not have avoided suffering these things from the eagle? And one could find ten thousand other such examples, which show that the animals do not have within them a prophetic soul; but, according to the poet and the majority of men, the Olympian himself "sent him forth to the light"; and according to some sign, Apollo also uses a hawk as a messenger; for the hawk is said to be the swift messenger of Apollo.
But according to us, certain base demons—and if I may so name them, Titanic or Gigantic ones, who have become impious toward the truly divine and toward the angels in heaven, and have fallen from heaven, and are wallowing about the denser and impure bodies on earth—having some power of discernment concerning future events, as they happen to be naked of earthly bodies; and being occupied with such work, wishing to lead the race of men away from the true God, they enter into the more rapacious and wilder animals, and others that are more crafty, and move them as they will, and when they will; or they turn the imaginations of such animals toward such-and-such flights and movements; so that men, being ensnared by the divination in irrational animals, may not seek the God who holds the whole together, nor examine pure piety toward God, but may fall in their reasoning to the earth, and to the birds, and snakes, and even to foxes and wolves. For surely, by men B C D
A skilled in these matters, it has been observed that clearer prognostications are obtained from these creatures; for demons do not possess as much power over the more tame animals as they do over others by reason of their affinity to malice—which, however, is not true malice in such animals, but something similar.
Hence, if I have admired anything else in Moses, I shall certainly declare this to be worthy of admiration: that, having considered the diverse natures of living creatures—whether he learned from God the things pertaining to them and the demons kin to each animal, or found it out by his own wisdom—in his legislation concerning animals, he declared all those things which the Egyptians and the rest of men consider mantic to be unclean, while the rest are, for the most part, clean. Thus, among the unclean in Moses are the wolf, the fox, the dragon, the eagle, the hawk, and things similar to these. And you will find, for the most part, not only in the Law but also in the Prophets, that this class of animals is taken as an example of the most wicked things; never is the name of a wolf or a fox used in a good sense.
It seems, therefore, that every species of demon has a certain affinity with every species of animal. And just as among men some humans are stronger than others, not necessarily because of their character, in the same way, some demons might be more powerful than other demons in things indifferent. Some, indeed, use these animals to deceive men, according to the will of him who is called in our Scriptures B the prince of this world, while others reveal things through a different species of animal. And even to the extent that demons are foul, so much so that even weasels are taken by some to reveal the future!
Judge for yourself which opinion is better: that the God over all and His Son move the birds and the other animals toward divination, or that those who move such animals—yet do not move men when men are present—are wicked demons, and as our holy Scriptures have named them, unclean. But if the soul of birds is divine because through them the future is foretold, how, then, shall we not say that the soul is divine—more so where omens are taken by men—through whom omens are heard?
Therefore, according to such people, that woman at the mill in Homer was divine, saying of the suitors: "Ultimates and finalities C they shall dine here now!" And she, indeed, was divine; but the great Ulysses, who found... [the text remains missing...]
D
A such a man friend of the Homeric Athena, was not divine, but understood the omens given from the divine miller-goddess and rejoiced, as the poet says: *And Ulysses, the divine, rejoiced at the omen.* Now observe, if birds have a divine soul and perceive God—or, as Celsus calls them, the gods—it follows clearly that we humans also, when we sneeze, sneeze from some divinity that is within us and a prophetic power regarding our soul. For this, too, is testified to by many; wherefore the poet says: *And he sneezed when he prayed.* Wherefore Penelope also says: *Do you not see that my son sneezed at all my words?* But the true Divine power does not employ irrational animals for the knowledge of future events, nor does it employ ordinary men; rather, it chooses the most holy and pure souls, which it inspires and makes into prophets. Wherefore, if anything else has been wonderfully stated in the law of Moses, such things are to be ranked with these: "You shall not practice augury, nor shall you interpret birds." And elsewhere: "For the nations which the Lord your God will destroy from your face, these shall listen to omens and divinations; but the Lord your God has not granted you such things." Then he continues: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." And God, sometimes wishing to turn one away from augury through an augur, caused the Spirit to say in the augur: "For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. At the proper time it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God shall accomplish." Knowing these things and those similar to them, we wish to keep the commandment spoken mystically: "With all watchfulness guard your heart," so that B no demon may step upon our ruling faculty, nor any spirit of the adversaries turn our imaginative faculty toward that which it desires. We pray that there may shine in our hearts the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God, with the Spirit of God dwelling in our imaginative faculty and imaging for us the things of God; for "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." But one must know that to foreknow future events is not altogether a divine thing; for in itself it is indifferent, and falls to both the base and the noble. For instance, physicians foreknow certain things from medicine, even if they happen to be base in character. So also pilots, even if they happen to be wicked, foreknow the signs, the violence of winds, and changes in the atmosphere from a certain experience and observation; and surely no one would say they are divine on account of this, if they happen C to be wicked in character. Falsity, therefore, is what is said by Celsus, that they are divine—for it is, perhaps, and what will one say is more divine—concerning these things, that they are not by nature divine, but are indifferent, which falls to the bad as much as to the good. Thus physicians, no matter how wicked in their morals, foreknow certain things by their art. Likewise, ship captains, taught by a certain experience and observations, have signs by which they foresee the onsets of winds and the various changes of the air. Nor would anyone, on account of this, call them divine if they are evil-mannered. Falsity, therefore, is that statement of Celsus: "Who would say anything is more divine D concerning the fact that these things are not done for the sake of man—as neither for the lion, nor for the eagle, nor for the dolphin—but for the sake that this world as a work of God might be whole and complete; and for this reason all things have been measured."
Against Celsus, Book IV
A ...towards Celsus when he says: "What could one call more divine than to know and to foretell future events?" But it is also false that "many of the animals lay claim to divine notions," for none of the irrational animals have a notion of God. It is false, too, that "the irrational animals are closer to divine communion," since even those men who are still base, even if they progress to the highest level, are far from divine communion. Only those who are truly wise and sincerely pious are closer to the divine communion; such are the prophets among us, and Moses, to whom the Word has testified because of his great purity, saying: "Moses alone shall draw near to God, but the others shall not draw near." B How, then, is it not impious for him who charges us with impiety to say that "not only are the irrational animals wiser than the human nature, but also more beloved of God"? And who would not turn away in disgust, listening to a man say that a dragon, a fox, a wolf, an eagle, and a hawk are more beloved of God than the human nature? It follows for him to say that, if these animals are more beloved of God than men, it is clear that these animals are also more beloved of God than Socrates, and Plato, and Pythagoras, and Pherecydes, and those who he recently praised as theologians. One might indeed offer a prayer for him, saying: "If these animals are more beloved of God than men, may you become beloved of God along with them, and may you be made like those whom you consider more beloved of God than men." Let him not suppose this to be a curse; for who would not pray to become in every way similar to those he believes to be more beloved of God, so that he himself might become beloved of God, just as they are?
C Wishing the talk of the irrational animals to be holier than our own, Celsus does not attribute this story to ordinary people, but to the "prudent." But the prudent in truth are only the virtuous, for no base person is prudent. He speaks, therefore, in this manner, that "it is said that the prudent among men acknowledge that those animals have also their own talk, clearly holier than ours; and that they themselves know what is being said, and demonstrate by the deed that they are not ignorant of it, when, after they have foretold that the birds said they are going away somewhere, or will do this or that, they demonstrate them going away there and doing what they had already foretold." According to the truth, then, no wise man has recorded such things, and no wise man has said that the talk of the irrational animals is holier than that of men. But if, for the sake of examining Celsus's claims, we look at the logical consequences, it is clear that according to him, the talk of the irrational animals is holier than the solemn dialogues of Pherecydes, and Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, and the philosophers; which is in itself not only absurd, but most of all irrational. Even if we were to believe that some learn by the indistinct sound of birds,
or are led to suppose they will go here or there or do this or that, we should reply that this is demonstrated to mankind by demons in a symbolic way, for the purpose of deceiving man and dragging his mind down from heaven and from God to the earth and to things even lower. A I do not know how Celsus heard of the oaths of elephants, and that they are more faithful to the Divine than we are, and possess a knowledge of God. For while I know that many and wondrous things are recounted concerning the nature of that animal and its gentleness, I am not aware that the matter of an elephant’s oath has been spoken of by anyone. Unless, perhaps, he calls their gentleness and the quasi-covenant they make with men, once they have been subjected to them, a "keeping of oaths"—which itself is false. For even if it is rare, it has indeed been reported that elephants, after their supposed gentleness, have become savage towards men and committed murders, and for this reason were condemned to be killed as no longer B useful. Since he proceeds after this to attempt to prove (as he thinks) that storks are more pious than men, by mentioning what is recounted concerning that animal—that it returns the care of its parents and brings food to those who begat it—it must be said that storks do not perform this action from a recognition of duty or from reasoning, but from nature, the nature which fashioned them having willed to put to shame human beings C through the example of irrational animals, so that they might be instructed about rendering thanks to those who begat them. If Celsus knew how much difference there is between doing these things by reason and doing them irrationally and by natural instinct, he would never have said that storks are more pious than men. Further, as if defending the piety of the irrational animals, Celsus brings in the Arabian animal, the Phoenix, which visits Egypt after many years, carrying its deceased father, D buried in a ball of myrrh, and placing it where the temple of the sun is. This has been reported, it is true; but even if it were accurate, it could still be a natural phenomenon; for divine Providence, having lavished a variety upon the creatures of the world, wished to present to men the diversity of the creation of the world, even extending to the birds; and so it brought into existence a unique creature, that you might admire, not the creature itself, but its Creator. Since, therefore, Celsus adds to all these things that, "Therefore, all things were not made for man, any more than for the lion, or the eagle, or the dolphin; but that this world, as being the work of God, might be complete and perfect in every respect; and for this reason all things have been measured,"
not with reference to one another, but as secondary to the whole, and so the world might be seen as the work of God. A And God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons this, nor does it become worse, nor does God turn toward it after a lapse of time, nor is He angry at humans, just as He is not at monkeys or flies; nor does He threaten these, each of which has received its own portion in its turn. Come, let us answer these points briefly. I think I have demonstrated from what was said before, how all things were made for man and for every rational being; for primarily for the sake of the rational being have all things been created. Celsus, therefore, may say that they were not made for man, just as they were not for the lion, nor for those he names; but we shall say that the Creator did not make these things for the lion, or the eagle, or the dolphin; but all things for the sake of the rational being, so that this world, which is the work of God, might be whole and perfect in all its parts. To this B statement, as well-said, we must assent. But God cares not only for the whole, as Celsus thinks, but beyond the whole, He cares especially for every rational being. And Providence will never abandon the whole; for even if a part should become worse, by reason of the rational being having sinned, it takes care to make a cleansing of it, and over time turns the whole back to itself. Further, He is not angry at monkeys or flies; but He inflicts punishment upon humans who have transgressed the natural foundations, and threatens them through the prophets, and through the Savior who visited the whole race of mankind; so that through the threat, those who hear might turn back, while those who have neglected the exhortatory words might pay penalties according to their desert, which it is fitting for God to impose according to His own will, which is advantageous for the whole, upon those who are in need of such and so laborious a treatment and correction. C But since the fourth volume has reached a sufficient length, let us stay our discourse here somewhere. May God grant, through His Son, who is God the Word, and wisdom, and truth, and justice, and whatsoever the holy Scriptures say in their theology concerning Him, that we may begin the fifth volume, for the benefit of those who will read it, and finish that one as well, with the visitation of His Word to our soul, well and not as a secondary matter.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS, BOOK FIVE
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS, BOOK FIVE
Not pursuing an unauthorized multitude of words, from which it is impossible to escape sin, we now begin the fifth book against the work of Celsus, holy Ambrose; but, as far as our power allows, we attempt to leave nothing of what has been spoken by him unexamined, especially in those matters where it might seem to some that he has intelligently accused us and the Jews. And if it were possible, along with our argument, to enter A into the conscience of anyone who happens upon his work, to pull out each arrow wounding anyone who is not entirely sheltered by the armor of God, and to apply a rational salve, healing the wound from Celsus, which makes those who pay attention to his words not to be healthy in faith; this we would have gladly done. But since this is the work of God, to invisibly visit according to His own spirit, and with the spirit of Christ, those whom He judges worthy of a visit; and since we, attempting to convince men through words and writings, have proposed to do everything to appear as workers needing no shame, rightly dividing the word of truth; it appears to us that one of all these things is, by faithfully obeying your commands, to try to the best of our ability to undo the things that seemed plausible to Celsus; come, let us set forth the things following Celsus's arguments, to which we have already responded (the reader will judge if we have overturned them), and let us bring forward our replies. May God grant that our discourse not be bare and devoid of divinity in this present task, so that the faith of those we pray to benefit might not be in the wisdom of men; but having received the mind of Christ from the only Father who gives it, and being helped toward the participation of the Word of God, we might pull down every height B raising itself against the knowledge of God, and the pride of Celsus rising against us and against our Jesus, and furthermore against Moses and the prophets; so that He who gives a word to those bringing good news with great power, and providing this to us also, and bestowing great power, might bring about faith in those who will read, in the word and power of God. C
5. Verily, to call angels, whose knowledge is beyond humans, to be scrutinized by their nature, is not reasonable. For if that hypothesis concerning knowledge of them, wonderful as it is and hidden, were to be grasped, this knowledge, having set forth their nature and those to whom each is appointed, will not allow anyone to dare to pray to the God who is sufficient for all, through the Savior of all, Jesus Christ, who is the Word, and wisdom, and truth, and whatever else the scriptures of the prophets of God and the apostles of Jesus say of him. It is enough for us that God accounts the holy angels to be God, and that we do all things through Him for our sake, or as our disposition toward God, to the extent of human nature, mimicking their choice, and mimicking them in their imitation of God, and also toward His own Word, D as far as it is possible, not contrary to the clearer—
A understanding of the holy angels, but towards that which is daily hastened in clarity and order. As one who has not read our holy Scriptures, Celsus answers himself as if he were answering us, saying: "If we do not see that we say that the angels descend to benefit humans, and he says: 'As is likely, they might be called demons by us'—yet I do not see that the name of demons is either indifferent or among things either good or evil; or that which is good, such as that of gods, is attributed to idols or to evil demons or to animals; rather, knowledge of divine things is given to those who are truly divine and blessed; but this name of demons is attributed to those evil powers that are freed from a heavy body, which lead men astray and turn them from God and from the heavenly things to these earthly matters."
6. After this, he speaks as follows about the Jews: "First, it is a wonder to me regarding the Jews that, although they worship the angels and the heaven and those who are in it, they nevertheless judge that the sun, the moon, and the other stars—both fixed and wandering—which are certainly the most august and B powerful parts of the heaven, should not be worshipped at all." As if these could exist together, and the whole were God, and the parts of the whole were not God; as if it were fitting to treat with the highest honor those whom they say are blinded by some darkness of evil magic, or appear in the dreams of those in obscure specters; yet they think nothing of those most illustrious heralds of things above, those truly heavenly angels, who emit such clear prophecies for all, through whom also both rain, heat, clouds, and thunder (which they worship!), lightning, and fruits, and all produce are administered—through which God is revealed to them, the most manifest of all heralds, whom they hold to be truly heavenly angels, and for these reasons they hold them to be nothing. C In these things, Celsus seems to me to be confused and to have misinterpreted things through hearsay, or not to have written clearly for the Jews and those who associate with the Christians, since the Jews, following the Law, say by the voice of God: "There shall be no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any likeness of whatsoever things are in heaven above, or whatsoever are in the earth beneath, or whatsoever are in the waters under the earth. You shall not worship them, nor serve them," D and above all, there is God, who made heaven and all the rest. It is clear that those living according to the Law, worshipping the Creator of heaven, do not worship heaven, which is not held in honor by them by the Law of Moses. Just as they do not worship the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the ornaments of the world, so they take refuge from having this honor toward the heaven and the angels who are in it, obeying the law which says: "Do not lift up your eyes to heaven," [and so on].
Book Five
The argument now set forth for him must be overturned: "God, O Jews and Christians, and the Son of God, neither has come down nor will come down. But if you say it is certain angels, who do you say these are—gods, or some other kind? Some other thing, as is likely, the demons." To these things, it is not necessary to speak at length to Celsus, who is repeating himself (for these things have already been said to him many times before); for what we have said on this point will suffice. I will set forth a few things out of many, which we think are in agreement with those said before, but not having exactly the same meaning as those others; in which we will show that, by stating generally that no God or Son of God has come down to men, he also abolishes the things commonly believed by the many regarding the manifestation of God, and those things previously said by himself. For if it is said generally that no God or Son of God has come down, nor would come down, it has been truly said by Celsus; clearly, that which is for the existence of gods upon earth, having come down from heaven in order that they might either prophesy to men or heal through oracles, has been abolished; and neither the Pythian, nor Asclepius, nor any other of those considered to do such things, would be a God who has come down from heaven; either he would be a God, but one who has been allotted to dwell on the earth, and as it were, a fugitive from the place of the gods; or he would be one of those not having the power to participate in the divine things there; or Apollo and Asclepius and as many as are believed to do anything upon the earth are not gods, but rather some demons much worse than those who among men are wise and ascend to the arch of heaven on account of their virtue. See, then, that he who did not admit throughout the whole book that he was an Epicurean, by wishing to abolish our doctrines, is convicted of defecting to Epicurus. It is time for you who read the words of Celsus, and who agree with the things proposed, either to abolish the idea of God visiting, providing for individual men, or by positing such a thing, to prove the word of Celsus false. If, therefore, you abolish Providence entirely, you will prove his words false, in which he posits gods and Providence, so that you might say these things are true; but if you posit Providence nonetheless, as not agreeing with Celsus when he says that neither God nor the Son of God has come down or is coming down to men, why then will you not examine carefully, from those things said by us regarding Jesus and the things prophesied about Him, who rather ought to be considered the God and Son of God who has come down to men—the Jesus who has managed and done so much, or those who, under the pretext of oracles and divinations, do not correct the morals of those being healed, and furthermore have departed from the sincere and pure worship that ought to be paid to the Maker of all things?
A And if, since the Jews or Christians would have replied regarding those who descend to men that they are angels, he asks, “If you say there are angels, who do you say these are? Are they gods, or some other kind of being?”—then he again leads the argument forward as if they had answered that they were something else, namely, demons—come now, let us consider this too. We acknowledge that we speak of angels as “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation;” B at times ascending to offer the petitions of men in the purest places of the world, which are in the heavens, or even in places purer than these, above the heavens; and at other times descending from there, bringing back to each, according to their merit, some of the things they have been ordered to administer to those who receive the benefits. We have learned to call these “angels” from their work, and we find that, because they are divine, they are sometimes called “gods” in the sacred Scriptures; but not so that we might be ordered to worship and adore those who serve us and bring us the things of God, instead of God. For every petition, prayer, intercession, and thanksgiving must be sent up to the God who is over all, through the high priest—the living Word and God—who is above all angels. We shall indeed pray to the Word himself, and we shall intercede with him, and we shall offer thanks to him, and we shall also pray to him, if we are able to grasp the distinction between the proper and improper use of prayer. C For it is not reasonable to call upon angels without having attained knowledge of them that surpasses human understanding. But even if the knowledge regarding them—which is a certain marvelous and secret thing—were to be grasped, this knowledge, by revealing their nature and the tasks to which each is assigned, would not permit one to be so bold as to pray to anyone other than the God over all, who is sufficient for all, through our Savior, the Son of God, who is the Word, and wisdom, and truth, and whatever else the Scriptures of God’s prophets and the apostles of Jesus say regarding him. It is enough for the holy angels of God to be propitious to us and to do everything on our behalf, that our disposition toward God be such as human nature is capable of, imitating their own intent, as they themselves imitate God, and that our understanding of his Son the Word be, as far as is possible for us, not contrary to the clearer
A understanding of him from the holy angels, but rather speeding day by day toward that clarity and precision. For Celsus, not having read our sacred Scriptures, answers himself as if it were from us, that we claim angels—the ones who descend for the benefit of humans—are some kind of race other than gods, and he says, “as is likely, they would be called demons by us.” He does not see that the name of "demons" is by no means neutral—as is the case with "humans," among whom some are noble and others base—nor is it noble, like the name "gods," which is attributed by those who have known the things of God not to base demons, or to statues, or to animals, but to those who are truly more divine and blessed. The name "demons" is always applied to those base powers, freed from a thicker body, which deceive and distract humans, and drag them down from God and the things above the heavens to matters here below.
Post these things, he puts forward this assertion regarding the Jews: “First, therefore, it is worth marvelling at the Jews, if they worship the heaven and the angels in it, but pass over the most majestic and powerful parts of it, the sun, and the moon, and the other stars, both fixed and wandering. As if it were possible B that the whole is God, but its parts are not divine; or as if people, blinded somewhere in darkness by incorrect sorcery, or dreaming of appearing through dim spectres, should duly worship them, while the most manifest and brilliant heralds to all, through whom the heaven reveals God—the truly heavenly angels—are considered to be nothing.” It seems to me that Celsus is muddled in these remarks, and has written from misunderstandings of things he did not know; for it is clear to those who scrutinize the affairs of the Jews, and connect the affairs of the Christians to them, that the Jews, following the Law, say in the person of God: “There shall be no other gods for you besides me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of all that is in the heaven above, and all that is on the earth below, and all that is in the waters under the earth; you shall not worship them, nor shall you serve them.” They worship nothing else but the God over all, who made the heaven and all the rest. It is clear that those who live according to the Law, while worshipping the One who made the heaven, do not join the heaven itself in their worship of God. Moreover, no one who serves the Law of Moses worships the angels who are in heaven; and in the same way that they do not worship the sun, and the moon, and the stars—the ornament of the heaven—they refrain from worshipping the heaven and the angels in it, obedient to the law that says: “And do not, having looked up toward the heaven, C D
A and having seen the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, being led astray, worship them and serve them; which the Lord thy God allotted to all the nations.” But besides this, because the Jews are supposed to consider the heaven to be God, he brings this forward as an absurdity, reproaching those who indeed worship the heaven, but not also the sun and the moon and the stars, because the Jews do this, as if it were possible that the whole should be God, but its parts not divine; and he seems to call the heaven the whole, and the sun and the moon and the stars its parts. Now, neither the Jews nor the Christians indeed clearly say that the heaven is God. But let it be granted, according to him, that it is said by the Jews that the heaven is God; and let the sun, and the moon, and the stars also be parts of the heaven (which is not entirely true; for not even the animals and plants upon the earth are parts of the earth). Whence, then, is it true, even according to the Greeks, that if some whole is God, then its parts are also divine? For the Stoics B clearly say that the whole world is God, and the followers of Plato the second, and some of them the third. Are then, according to such people, since the whole world is God, its parts already divine, so that not only human beings are divine, but also all the irrational animals, being parts of the world, and in addition to these, even the plants? But if rivers, and mountains, and seas be parts of the world, then because the whole world is God, are the rivers and the seas also gods? But the Greeks will not say even this; but they might say that those presiding over the rivers and seas (whether they are demons, or gods, as they name them) are these gods; whence also the universal claim of Celsus becomes false, even according to the Greeks who introduce Providence, that if any whole is God, its parts are altogether divine; and it follows from Celsus' argument that if the world is God, everything in it is divine, being parts of the world; and according to this, animals will be divine. C And God, and the world, and the stars, and the earth, and the mind above all things in the ether. “Determining then to produce a most beautiful work, he made this a begotten God, never to be corrupted by any other cause, except by the God who had composed it, if ever he should wish to dissolve it. But indeed it is not of the good to desire to move toward the destruction of a work that is most beautiful; it remains therefore, being such as it is, incorruptible and imperishable and blessed; and it is the best of begotten things, since it was generated by the best cause.” But let these things be sufficient for us in this regard, and let the things said concerning visible and begotten gods have an end. “And here gods, and the world is God, as it is customary to say, third, and if as far as the moon, each is God.” Whence also the universal of Celsus, whence altogether, the universal of Celsus is false, that if any whole is God, its parts are not altogether divine.
A flies, and gnats, and worms, and every kind of serpent; but also the kinds of birds and fishes. These things, not even those who say that the world is God will affirm. But the Jews who live according to the law of Moses, even if they do not know 20 how to interpret what is said cryptically in the law, or anything it indicates that is hidden, will neither say that the heaven is God, nor the angels. Since, however, we say that he has become confused by certain mishearings, come, let us also clear these up, as far as we are able, and demonstrate B that, while Celsus thinks it is Judaic to worship heaven and the angels in it, such a thing is not Judaic, but is a transgression of Judaism; just as is the worship of the sun, and moon, and stars, and also of idols. You will find, indeed, especially in Jeremiah, the Word of God through the prophet blaming the Jewish people for worshipping such things and sacrificing to the queen of heaven and all the host of heaven. The writings of Christians, accusing those among the Jews who sinned, also show C that when God abandoned 21 that people because of certain sins, these things were committed by them. For in the Acts of the Apostles it is written concerning the Jews: “Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you offer to me slaughtered beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, and the types which you made D to worship them.” But in Paul, who was accurately instructed in the things of the Jews, and who later became a Christian from a paradoxical appearance of Jesus, such things were said in his Epistle to the Colossians: “Let no one disqualify you, wanting in humility and worship of the angels, things which he has not seen, walking idly puffed up by his fleshly intelligence; and not holding fast the Head, from whom the whole body, through joints and ligaments being supplied and knit together, grows with the increase of God.” These things Celsus, having neither read nor learned, I know not how he has made the Jews out as not acting illegally when they worship the heaven and the angels within it. Further, he is also 25 confused, and not having looked carefully at the things regarding this place, he thought that the Jews were induced by the incantations in magic and sorcery—from certain phantoms appearing to those who chant according to the incantations—to worship the angels in heaven; not understanding that even this was against the law for those who did perform such things, which says: “Do not follow ventriloquists, and to the enchanters you shall not [*] resort, to be defiled by them; I am the Lord your God.” It was necessary, therefore, either—
A—altogether not to refer these things to the Jews, who observe the law and are described as living according to the law; or, if he did refer them, to show that those who commit such acts are lawless Jews. But again, just as those who practice religion in the dark and by means of sorcery, blinding themselves and dreaming through dim phantoms, worshiping those who are said to draw near and doing such things, are lawless; so too are those who sacrifice to the sun, the moon, and the stars. And it was not consistent to say that Jews preserve the law while at the same time worshiping the sun, moon, stars, and angels. B If we must defend ourselves regarding why we do not worship angels, nor the sun, moon, and stars—nor even the gods the Greeks call manifest and sensible—we shall say that even the law of Moses understands that these were assigned by God to all the nations under the heaven, but not to those who were chosen as a special lot for God, beyond all the nations upon the earth. It is written, therefore, in Deuteronomy: “And lest, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, you be deceived and worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has assigned to all the nations under all heaven. But the Lord your God has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be to Him a peculiar people, as it is this day.” C The Hebrew people, therefore, who were called by God to be a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a peculiar people, concerning whom it was declared to Abraham by the voice of the Lord coming to him: “Look up to heaven, and count the stars, if you can number them,” and He said to him, “So shall your seed be”—those who had the hope of coming to be as the stars in heaven were not to worship those things to which they were destined to be assimilated through understanding and keeping the law of God. For it has been said to them: “The Lord our God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude.” And in Daniel also, such things are prophesied regarding those who shall rise again: “And at that time your people shall be saved, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and—
some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that understand shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and out of the just of the many as the stars A unto eternities and beyond. Hence also Paul, having taken this in his discourse concerning the resurrection, says: “There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.” It was not, therefore, reasonable that those who had been taught to step beyond all created things in a magnificent manner, and to hope for the most excellent rewards from God for a life well-lived, and who had heard, “You are the light of the world,” and, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” or who were striving to possess that bright and undefiled wisdom, or had already received it as being the effulgence of everlasting light, should be struck with amazement at the sensible light of the sun, and moon, and stars to such a degree that, because of the sensible light of those bodies, they should consider themselves to be somewhere below, while possessing such an intellectual light of knowledge, and the true light, and the light of the world, and the light of men, and should worship them; whom if it were necessary to worship, it should not be on account of the sensible light that is admired by the many, but rather on account of the intellectual and true light; if indeed the stars in heaven are rational and virtuous B beings, and have been illuminated by the light of knowledge by that wisdom which is the effulgence of everlasting light. For their sensible light is the work of the Creator of all things, but the intellectual light they perhaps possess, and it has come about from their own free will. It is therefore not reasonable—even if, “It is not necessary for it to be worshipped even by him who sees and understands the true light, by participation in which these also have been illuminated, nor by him who sees God, the Father of the true light, concerning whom it has been well said, ‘God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.’” And just as those who, because the light is sensible and celestial, worship the sun and moon and stars, would not worship a spark of fire or a lamp upon the earth, seeing the incomparable C superiority of those things which are thought worthy of worship compared to the sparks and lamps, [so we too...] D
A are aware how God is light, and how the Son of God is “the true light that lightens every man coming into the world,” and understanding also how He says, “I am the light of the world”; these would not reasonably worship what is, as it were, a small spark—that is, the sun, moon, and stars—in preference to God, the true light. And we do not dishonor such great works of God, nor do we say, like Anaxagoras, that the sun, moon, and stars are a “red-hot mass,” when we speak thus about the sun, moon, and stars; but rather, perceiving the divinity of God which excels in ineffable superiority, and [knowing] that His Only-begotten also excels the rest, we are persuaded that the sun, moon, and stars themselves pray to the God over all through His Only-begotten. Therefore, we judge that we ought not to pray to those who pray; since they themselves wish to send us rather to the God to whom they pray, than to draw us to themselves, or to divide our faculty of prayer away from God and toward themselves. B I will also use this example regarding them, fitting for the place: Our Savior and Lord, having once heard “Good teacher,” sending the one who said this to His own Father, says: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except one, God the Father.” If, then, the Son of the love of the Father spoke this reasonably, as being the image of the goodness of God, how much more reasonably would the sun say to those who worship it: “Why do you worship me? You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve,” whom I, and all who are with Me, worship and serve. And even if one be not of such C greatness, nevertheless, let such a one pray to the Word of God, who is able to heal him; and much more to His Father, who also sent His Word to the righteous of former times, and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions. God, then, according to His kindness, descends to men, not locally, but through providence; and the Son of God is with His own disciples, not only then, but always, fulfilling the words: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And if a branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, it is clear that the disciples of the Word, who are the intelligible branches of the true vine—the Word—cannot bear the fruits of virtue unless they remain in the true vine, the D Christ of God, who is also with us locally down upon the earth, who, being with those everywhere who are attached to Him, is even now with those who do not know Him, everywhere. For this is the Gospel…
according to John, revealing through the person of John the Baptist, who says: “There stands one among you, whom you do not know; He is the one who comes after me.” But it is absurd, when the One who fills heaven and earth, and who says, “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord,” is with us and close to us—for I believe Him when He says, “I am a God near at hand, and not a God far off, says the Lord”—to seek to pray to the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars, which do not reach unto all things. And let it be granted, that I may use the very words of Celsus, that the sun, and moon, and stars are those who prophecize rain, and heat, and clouds, and thunder; if, then, they do prophecize such great things, should we not rather worship and adore the God for whom they act as ministers in prophesying, than the prophets themselves? Let them even keep predicting lightning, and fruits, and all generations, and store up all such things; yet we will not for this reason worship those who are themselves worshipping—just as we do not worship Moses and those after him who, according to God, prophecized things far better than rain, and heat, and clouds, and thunder, and lightning, and fruits, and all sensible generations. But even if the sun, moon, and stars have the power to prophecize prophecies better than rains, not even so shall we worship them, but rather the Father of the prophecies that are in them, and the Word of God who is their minister. But let them even be His heralds and truly heavenly angels; how, then, should the God who is proclaimed and announced by them not be worshipped by us much more than His heralds and angels?
[We are accused of holding] the stars to be nothing. Concerning these, we confess that they themselves are awaiting the revelation of the sons of God, being subjected for the present to the vanity of material bodies on account of Him who subjected them in hope. And if Celsus had read the countless other things which we say concerning the sun, and the moon, and the stars—such as, “Praise Him, all you stars and light,” and, “Praise Him, you heavens of heavens”—he would not have made a pronouncement against us that we claim such great things, which magnificently praise God, are nothing. Nor does Celsus know this: “For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope.”
For the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And in these words let our defense for not worshipping the sun, moon, and stars reach its conclusion. Let us set forth the next passage as well, so that after this we may, with God’s help, say what the light of truth suggests to us. He says then: “It is foolish of them also to think that, when God like a cook brings in the fire, the whole rest of the creation will be roasted, but they alone will remain, not only those who are alive at that time, but also those who died long ago, rising from the earth in those very bodies; this is A a hope literally fit for worms. For what human soul would still desire a body that has rotted? And this doctrine is not even common among some of the Christians themselves, and they pronounce it to be extremely abominable, detestable, and at the same time impossible. For what kind of body, once completely corrupted, is able to return to its original nature, and to that selfsame primary composition from which it was dissolved? Having nothing to answer, they flee to the most absurd refuge, that all things are possible to God. But God cannot do shameful things, nor does He will what is contrary to nature; nor, if you were to desire something abominable according to your own wickedness, would God be able to do it, and one must believe immediately that it will happen. For God is not the leader of a faulty desire, nor of a wandering disorder, but of a right and just nature. He might indeed be able to provide eternal life for the soul, but corpses, says Heraclitus, are more fit to be cast out than dung. Therefore, to declare that flesh, full of things which are not even decent to mention, is eternal—God will neither wish nor be able to do this, because He is the very Reason of all things that exist, and therefore He can do nothing contrary B to reason, nor contrary to Himself.”
Observe, then, from the beginning, how he tries to bring into ridicule and calumniate the firing of the world—a doctrine introduced by those among the Greeks who did not philosophize in a way to be despised; and he wishes to introduce our views regarding the conflagration as if we were making God a cook. He fails to perceive that, just as it seemed fit to some of the Greeks (who perhaps received from the most ancient nation of the Hebrews that a lustral fire is brought upon the world), it is likely that this fire serves also for each of those who are in need of judgment and healing through fire, burning and not consuming those who do not have material that needs to be destroyed by that fire, but burning and consuming those who have built with wood, hay, or stubble in the building—metaphorically speaking—of their actions, words, and thoughts.
A The divine words say that the Lord will visit each of those in need like the fire of a refiner and like the soap of those who wash, because of the matter which is, as it were, base and molten, mingled with their wickedness—they being in need, I say, of fire, as if refining those mingled with copper, tin, and lead. And this, if one wishes, one may learn from the prophet Ezekiel. That we do not say that God brings the fire as a cook, but as God the benefactor of those needing difficulty and fire, the prophet Isaiah will also bear witness, in whom it is written to be spoken to a certain sinful nation, that: "Thou hast coals of fire, sit upon them; these shall be thy help." The word, acting appropriately for the multitudes B who will read the Scripture, speaks with wisdom in a hidden way of the gloomy things, for the fear of those who cannot otherwise turn back from the nature of their sins; nevertheless, even thus, he who watches will find manifest the end which is brought upon those who suffer through the gloomy and painful things. It suffices for the present to quote from Isaiah: "For the sake of my name I will show thee my anger, and I will bring my glorious things upon thee, that I may not destroy thee." We have indeed been compelled to hint at things not suitable for those who believe more simply and are in need of a simpler economy in words, so that we may not seem to leave the accusation of Celsus unrefuted, who says: "After God has cast in the fire as a cook." From what has been said to those who hear more intelligently, it is manifest how one must also respond to: "The rest of the whole race will be roasted, but they alone will remain." It is no wonder if those C among us who are not understood by the Word—called the foolish things of the world, and the ignoble, and the despised, and the things that are not—because it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe in him, since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom—not being able to articulate the passages, nor wishing to have leisure for the investigation of Scripture, even though Jesus says, "Search the Scriptures." And such are the things they have supposed concerning the fire brought by God, and concerning what will happen to those who have sinned. And perhaps, just as it is fitting for children that things be said to them suited to their infancy in order, as to children who are quite young, to turn them back to what is better; so, for those whom the Word has named the foolish things of the world, and the ignoble, and the despised, this ready-to-hand interpretation concerning punishments is fitting, as they do not contain another conversion than that which is through fear and the imagining of punishments, and the abstaining from many evils. The Word, therefore, [implies that the rest of] those who are untasted of the fire and the...
A punishments, says, remain for those who have been purified to the highest degree in their doctrines and morals and in their ruling faculty. But those who are not such, and who, according to their deserts, require the dispensation of punishment by fire, will be in these for a certain end, which it is fitting for God to inflict upon those who have been made in His image and have lived in a manner contrary to the will of the nature that was made in His image. And these things are also against the statement of Celsus, “The rest of the whole race will be roasted, but they alone will remain.” Then, following these things, having misheard either the sacred scriptures or those who have not understood the sacred scriptures, he says B that it is said by us that we alone will remain at the time of the cleansing fire that shall be brought upon the world, not only those who are alive at that time, but also those who died long ago. He did not suppose that what was said by the Apostle of Jesus was spoken with a certain hidden [(59)] wisdom: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 46 But it was his duty to observe what he who says these things understood, as he was by no means dead [(60)], but separated himself from those [who were], and his fellows from himself, saying after [the words], “And the dead shall be raised incorruptible, C and we shall be changed.” For the confirmation that the Apostle wrote, having understood such things, I have quoted from the first Epistle to the Corinthians; and I shall also quote those from the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which Paul says, as one living and watching, and being other than those who have fallen asleep, such things as these: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” 47 Then again, following these things, knowing that there were others who were dead in Christ beside himself and those like him, he adds, saying: “The dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” D Since he has further mocked the resurrection of the flesh—which is preached indeed in the Churches, but is understood more clearly by the more intelligent—and it is not necessary to set forth again his language once stated, come, let us also, for the sake of those who are still infants, and are tossed to and fro, and are carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness [(61)] unto the wiles of error, 48 set forth, so far as we are able, and present a few things according to the needs of the readers. Therefore, neither do we, nor do the divine scriptures, say that they who have long ago died depart from the earth in the same flesh, without any change
for the better. This is a pure calumny of Celsus. For we read in the Scriptures many things concerning the resurrection, but such as are worthy of God. For the present, it shall suffice to cite that passage from Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he says: "But some man will say: How do the dead rise again? or with what manner of body shall they come? Senseless man, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a naked grain, as of wheat, or of some of the others. But God giveth it a body as he will, and to every one of the seeds a proper body" A. See how he says here that what is sown is not the body that is to be; but that since the naked seed is sown and cast into the ground, and God bestows a proper body upon each of the seeds, a certain sort of resurrection takes place; just as an ear of corn sprouts from certain things, as from mustard; or from others, a tall tree, as from an olive pit or similar fruits. God, therefore, gives a body, as it hath pleased Him, to those who are as it were sown in death, and who, when the opportune time has arrived, shall receive from what was sown that body which God has willed to clothe each with according to their merits. And the Scripture teaches at length what is the difference between the body that is, as it were, sown, and that which, as it were, rises from it, saying: B "It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption; it is sown in ignobility, it shall rise in glory; it is sown in infirmity, it shall rise in power; it is sown an animal body, it shall rise a spiritual body." Let him who is able understand what was meant by the one who said: "As the earthly is, such are the earthy; and as the heavenly is, such are the heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly." Although the Apostle desired to hide the things that are secret in this place, as being less suitable for the simpler sort and for the common ear of those who are led to a better life through faith, yet he was compelled a little later, so that we might not misunderstand his words, after saying "let us bear the image of the heavenly," C to add: "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption possess incorruption." Then, knowing, as one who was to leave behind written records for those after him, the secret and mystical import of this question, he adds what is usually said when dealing with deeper and more hidden matters that are fittingly concealed from the many: "Behold, I tell you a mystery." Just as it is also written in Tobit: "It is good to hide the secret of a king: but honorably to reveal the works of God," when D
it is done prudently, it is beautiful. Our hope, therefore, is not of worms, nor does our soul desire a rotting body; yet if it has need of a body for local transitions, it knows, provided it has studied wisdom according to the text: "The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom," it knows, I say, that a "terrestrial house" is being destroyed, in which the tent is; and that the tent, in which the just "groan, being burdened," does not desire "to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." For since the nature of a body is corruptible, it is necessary that this corruptible tent "put on incorruption," and that its other part, being mortal and subject to the death that attends sin, "put on immortality," so that, when the corruptible "puts on incorruption" and the mortal puts on immortality, then that which was long ago foretold by the prophets shall come to pass: the destruction of the "victory" of death, which as victor had subjected us to itself, and of the "sting" from it, by which, pricking the soul not entirely fortified, it causes therein the wounds from sin.
But since our statements concerning the resurrection have been explained, as far as was possible, in part for the present (for we have composed a treatise on the resurrection in other works, having examined the matters concerning this subject at greater length), it is now right to refute the cavils of Celsus, A who neither understood what was written by us, nor was able to judge that one ought not to deem the intention of those wise men to be represented by those who promise nothing in the way of faith beyond what is brought to the Christian doctrine. Let us show, therefore, that men by no means contemptible for the sake of rational theory and dialectical investigations have spoken of things very incongruous; and if there be things that deserve to be mocked as base and "old wives' tales," these belong rather to them than to us.
The philosophers of the Stoic B school say that according to a cycle, this is what is currently the case, and there is nothing impossible in this; and that we, after having died, shall return again, after certain cycles of time, to the form in which we now exist. For he also knows—having learned this from barbarian philosophy—of the purification through fire of those who have lived wickedly, which the Stoics later called "conflagration"; according to which they dogmatize that even the individual quality will rise again, treating of that very thing—the resurrection.
And the common discourse, having proceeded so far, and the common nature having become greater and more abundant, having finally dried up all [things] and drawn them into itself in the all-essence, becomes [what it was], having returned to the first-spoken reason and to that resurrection which makes the "great year," through which from itself alone to itself every C thing is restored. And when this is so, it is clear that it is not impossible that we, too, after our death, should, after periods of time have elapsed, be restored to the configuration in which we now are. [alt-version omitted] D Better is the opinion of Chrysippus, whom Cicero says props up the porch of the Stoics, who in the books he wrote concerning Providence, when he was speaking about the renovation of the world, brought in these things: "The stars are by nature fiery, and for this reason they are nourished by the vapors of the earth, the sea, and the waters, which are raised by the sun as it warms the fields and from the waters; by which the stars, and the whole ether, being refreshed and renewed, pour forth the same things and draw them back again into the same; so that nothing, or only a very little, perishes, which the fire of the stars and the flame of the ether consumes. From which event our people think it will come to pass, about which Panaetius was said to hesitate, that in the end the whole world would burn, when, the moisture being consumed, neither could the earth be nourished, nor the air return—which could not occur once all water was exhausted—so that nothing would be left except the fire, from which again, by the divine soul, the renovation of the world would be made."
A This occurs, they say, when all water has been consumed, and next in order the restoration is achieved. For, having returned through the sequence from which it began to order things in the same way, according to reason—it again makes the same progression, such periods occurring from eternity without ceasing. They declare the thing itself to be precisely the same as those before it. The world will be shaped and nourished, and it will be doubled and nourished, in the previous fashion, with its ornamentation having everything exactly the same as in the previous arrangement. Those of them who felt shame at this doctrine have said that a slight and very small change occurs in each period compared to those in the period before it. These men say that in the next period such things will be, and that Socrates will again be the son of Sophroniscus, an Athenian, and Phaenarete, having married Sophroniscus, will again B give birth to him. Even if they do not use the term "resurrection," they reveal the reality: that Socrates, beginning from the seeds of Sophroniscus, will rise again, and in the later period will be shaped as Phaenarete’s child, and having been brought up at Athens, he will practice philosophy; as if the previous philosophy were also rising again, and being exactly the same as the previous one. And Anytus and Melitus will rise again, again as accusers of Socrates, and the council of the Areopagus will condemn Socrates. And what is more ridiculous than this, Socrates will put on the same garments as in the previous period, in the same poverty, and will be in the same city, Athens, as in the previous period. And Phalaris will again play the tyrant; and his brazen bull will bellow with the voice of the men who have been enclosed within it, who were completely identical to the people of the previous period. And Alexander of Pherae will again be tyrant, having the same cruelty as in the previous one, and will condemn the same people as he did the former ones. And why must I list the doctrine concerning such things that was philosophized by the Stoics, and which is not ridiculed by Celsus, but perhaps even held in high regard; since Zeno seems to him wiser than Jesus? And those who follow Pythagoras and Plato also hold such doctrines.
C "After," he says, "the common reason and common nature have progressed to such a point, having increased with a new magnitude and new growth, they have finally dried up the universe and gathered it into themselves; it is established in a full and complete substance; for it has returned to that first, as it is called, reason, and to that resurrection which brings about the great year: in which year, it is customary for the restoration to occur again from that one source. Having been called back to that state, in the same order in which it had already begun to ornament the world in a similar way, it again institutes the same disposition and administration of things, as reason demands, such conversions returning from all eternity and without any break." D You may see what Eusebius has in book xv, chapter 15, from the Epitome of Arius Didymus.
(76), even if they seem to maintain the world as incorruptible, still they fall into similar things (77). For with the stars taking on the same configurations and relationships to one another according to certain ordered periods, they say that all things on earth are in the same state as they were when the world contained that same configuration of the relationship of the stars. It is necessary, therefore, according to this argument, that when the stars have come after a long period to the same relationship with one another that they had in the time of Socrates (78), Socrates must be born again from the same causes, and suffer the same things, being accused by Anytus and Melitus, and condemned by the council of the Areopagus. And if the learned men of the Egyptians (79) are held in respect when they hand down such things, and are not mocked by Celsus and those like him, we, however, in accordance with the analogy of the relationship of A things concerning us. Plato says that the earth is purged at certain times by fire and water. "22. Many and various are the destructions of men that have occurred, and will occur; the greatest by fire and water, and others more brief by ten thousand other causes. For that which is also told among you, how Phaethon, son of Helios, having yoked his father’s chariot, because he was unable to drive along his father’s path, both scorched the things on earth and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt; this is a myth, but it signifies a change and variation of the things that move in the heavens and around the earth, and the destruction by great fire of things on earth which occurs through long cycles." And at the thousandth year, both, arriving at the casting of lots and the choice of a second life, choose whichever life each one wishes; where a human soul also arrives at the life of a beast, and not yet ceasing in these modes of wickedness, according to the similarity of the generation of the mode, it is always changed into some such nature of a beast; nor will it cease from toils before, by the period of the selfsame and similar revolving within itself, drawing together the internal crowd, and afterward growing on from fire and water, and air, and earth, having mastered by reason that which was tumultuous and irrational, it might arrive at the form of quality of the first and best. "All these things, in the second period, Nemesis judged together, 'And this is the decree of Adrasteia, that whatever soul, having become an attendant of God, has seen any of the truths, should be unharmed until the other period.' And in all these things, whoever lives justly, possesses a better lot; but whoever lives unjustly, a worse one. For into the same place from whence each soul comes, it does not arrive for ten thousand years (for it does not grow wings before such a time), except the soul of him who has philosophized purely, or loved boys with philosophy; these, in the third millennium period, if they choose this life three times in succession, thus having grown wings, depart in the three-thousandth year. 'And at the thousandth year, both, arriving at the casting of lots and the choice of a second life, each chooses whatever [life] she wishes.'" B Pythagoras also learned the things concerning the "sacred discourse," and the theorems according to geometry, and the things concerning numbers, and furthermore the transmigration of the soul into every animal, from the Egyptians. C D
A ...saying that the whole is governed by God, and is always led according to its potential towards the better, and knowing the nature of that which is in our own power, which is contingent—for the entirely immutable nature of God cannot contain [all things]—we do not seem to say things worthy of trial and examination. Nor let anyone suppose, when we say these things, that we belong to those who are indeed called Christians, but who reject the dogma concerning the resurrection according to the Scriptures. For they, as far as their own pleasure is concerned, have no means of representing the ear or tree of grain rising again as if from a grain of wheat or some other [seed]. But we, believing that that which is sown is not made alive unless it dies, and that it is not the [final] body that is sown—for B God gives it a body as He has willed; after being sown in corruption, raising it in incorruption; and after being sown in dishonor, raising it in glory; and after being sown in weakness, raising it in power; and after being sown a soulish body, raising it a spiritual one—we keep the will of the Church of Christ and the magnitude of the promise of God, representing also its possibility, not by a mere denial, but also by argument. Knowing that even if heaven and earth should pass away, and the things in them, the words concerning each thing, being as parts in a whole, or as species in a genus, of the Word who was in the beginning with God, God the Word, shall by no means pass away. For we wish to hear Him who said: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
We, therefore, do not say that the corrupted body returns to its original nature, just as neither does the corrupted grain of wheat return into the grain of wheat; for we say that just as in the case of the grain of wheat a stalk rises, so a certain principle is implanted in the body, from which, not being corrupted, the body is raised in incorruption. Those, however, from the Stoa say that the body that is entirely corrupted returns to its original nature, because of their dogmas concerning things that are exactly the same by recurrence, and they say that that very first constitution, from which it was dissolved, will again be constituted; C representing these things by dialectical (as they think) necessities. And we do not retreat into the most absurd refuge, saying that "everything is possible for God"; for we know how to interpret "everything" as not extending to non-existent things, nor to unimaginable ones. We say also that God cannot do shameful things, since then God would be able not to be God; for if God does something shameful, He is not God.
But since he posits that God does not even will things that are "contrary to nature," we make a distinction regarding what is said: that if by "contrary to nature" one means wickedness, we also say that God does not will things contrary to nature, neither those originating from wickedness nor those that happen irrationally; but if [he means] those things [done] according to the reason of God and... D
His will, necessarily and directly, they are not contrary to nature. For things done by God, even if they are paradoxical, or seem paradoxical to some, are not against nature. If we must use terms pressed to their limit, we shall say that, relative to what is commonly thought of as nature, there are certain things beyond nature that God might at some time do, elevating man above human nature and causing him to change into a better and more divine nature; and He preserves him, for as long as he who is being preserved manifests by his actions that this is his desire. A Once we have said that God wills nothing unbecoming to Himself—as that would negate His being God—we shall say that if a man, in accordance with his own perversity, desires something filthy, God will not be able to do this. We are not contentious toward the things said by Celsus, but examining them with a love for truth, we shall agree that God is not [the author] of vicious desire nor of misguided disorder, but [is the author] of a right and just nature, inasmuch as He is the source of all that is good. We also confess that He can grant the soul eternal life; and not only can He, but He does grant it. B And nothing [of what has been said] pains us, particularly not the saying of Heraclitus which Celsus has adopted, that "corpses are more fit to be thrown away than dung"; although one might say concerning this too that while dung is fit to be thrown away, human corpses are not, because of the soul that inhabited them, and especially if it was a more respectable one. For according to the more respectable laws, they are judged worthy of burial with such honor as that matter admits, so that we may not insult with force the soul that inhabited the body by casting it away after it has departed, as is done with the bodies of beasts. Let it not be that God would absurdly render eternal not the grain of wheat, but rather the ear [that springs] from it, [or render eternal] that which is sown C in corruption, but rather that which rises from it in incorruption. Furthermore, 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 was with God, and the Word was God" (John I, 1). But according to us, God is not able to do anything irrational or [anything] contrary to Himself. Let us also look at what follows in Celsus’ text, expressed thus: D "The Jews then, having become a peculiar nation and having established laws according to their own custom, and still now observing these among themselves, and keeping their own religion—whatever it may be, but at least a ancestral one—see things in the same way as other men; for each nation cherishes its own ancestral customs, whatever they happen to be established as."
A And it is thought to be advantageous, not only because it happened to enter their minds to think differently one from another, and because it is necessary to guard what has been confirmed for the common good, but also because, as is likely, the parts of the earth, having been distributed from the beginning to different overseers, and being divided according to certain jurisdictions, are governed in this way. And so, the things done among each people would be rightly done in such a way as is pleasing to those [overseers]; for it is not holy to dissolve those things which were established by usage according to place from the beginning. Here Celsus indicates that the ancient Egyptians B later became a peculiar nation, the Jews, and having set laws for themselves, they cherish them. And, so that we may not repeat the words of Celsus already set out, he says that it is advantageous for them too to practice ancestral religion, just as other nations guard their own traditions. And he sets out a deeper reason for why it is advantageous for the Jews to cherish their ancestral customs, hinting that those who by lot happened to be the overseers of the land of those being legislated for, by coordinating with the lawgivers, established them. He seems, therefore, to indicate that both the land of the Jews and the nation upon it are supervised by someone or some ones, by whom or by whom the laws of the Jews were established when their cooperation was given to Moses. “And it is necessary, he says, C to keep the laws, not only because it happened to enter their minds to think differently one from another, and because it is necessary to guard what has been confirmed for the common good, but also because, as is likely, the parts of the earth, having been distributed from the beginning to different overseers, and being divided according to certain jurisdictions, are governed in this way.” Then, as if forgetting what he had said against the Jews, Celsus now includes them, too, in the general praise which he bestows upon all who keep their ancestral customs, saying: “And indeed, the things among each people would be rightly done in such a way as is pleasing to those [overseers].” And observe whether he does not directly wish, as D far as he is concerned, that the Jew while living in his own laws should not depart from them, as doing an unholy thing if he should depart; for he says that “it is not holy to dissolve those things which were established by usage according to place from the beginning.” I would have liked to ask him or those who share his views, who was the one who distributed the parts of the earth from the beginning to different overseers? And clearly, who committed the land of the Jews and the Jews themselves to the one or those who obtained it by lot? For did, as Celsus would love to name him, Zeus distribute the nation of the Jews and their land to someone or some ones? And did he want the one who obtained Judea by lot to impose such laws among the Jews? Or did this happen contrary to his will? Whichever way he answers, you see that the argument will be squeezed into tight straits. But if the parts of the earth were not distributed to their overseers by some one power, then they distributed the earth among themselves by chance and without his authority.
But this A also is absurd, and in some measure subversive of the providence of the God who is over all. As to how the regions of the earth are divided into certain jurisdictions and governed by those who oversee them, let him who wishes explain it; and let him also tell us how those things which are done by each are rightly performed, just as it is pleasing to the overseers. And whether, for instance, the laws of the Scythians concerning the killing of fathers are right; or those of the Persians, which do not prevent mothers from marrying their sons, nor daughters from being married by their fathers. And why need I, by citing from those who have written about the laws in different nations, go on to ask further how the laws are rightly performed among each, according as it is pleasing to the overseers? Let Celsus tell us how it is B not impious to violate the ancestral laws concerning marrying mothers and daughters; or concerning the belief that it is a blessed thing to depart from life by hanging; or that those who cast themselves into the fire and pass from life by way of fire are in all cases purified; and how it is not impious to violate the laws, for example, of the Taurians, concerning the offering of strangers as sacrifices to Artemis; or those of certain Libyans concerning the sacrificing of their children to Cronus. But it follows for Celsus that it is impious for the Jews to violate their ancestral laws, which are about the duty not to worship any god other than the Creator of all things. C And according to him, holiness will not be a thing by nature, but a divine thing by some sort of decree and convention; for it is holy among some to worship the crocodile, while eating something of what is worshiped by others; and it is holy to others to worship the calf; and among others to consider the goat to be a god. Thus, the same person will be doing holy things in relation to these laws, but unholy things in relation to others; which is the most absurd of all things. But it is likely that they will say, in response to this, that it is holy to observe one's own ancestral customs, but in no way impious, since one does not observe those of others; and again, D that he who does not observe them does not [violate them]. For those in authority among the Persians marry their own mothers, and they consider those born from them to be the most noble, and, as the story goes, they deem them worthy of the greatest kingship; what more impious crime could there be than this—to shame the bed of a deceased father, which ought to have been kept untouched as sacred; not to take shame for age or for a mother; for the same man to become both son and husband, and again for the same woman to be at once mother and wife; and for the children of both to be at the same time brothers of their father and grandsons of their mother; and for the one by whom he was born to be both mother and grandmother, and for the one whom he begot to be at once father and brother by the same mother? You see, for the god at Delphi, when someone asks him how he might gratify the gods, answers: "According to the law of the city." These things they do at banquets; but using ancestral laws, they acquire no other.
A And this, consider if it does not reveal great confusion concerning what is just, holy, and pious—nothing being clearly defined, nor having any peculiar nature, nor characterizing as pious those who act in accordance with it. For if piety, holiness, and justice are among those things that exist in relation to something else, so that the same thing is holy and unholy according to different relations and laws, see whether temperance, courage, prudence, knowledge, and the other virtues would not follow suit; than which there could be nothing more absurd.
For those who are satisfied with simpler and more common arguments, what has been said is sufficient against the propositions presented by Celsus; but since we suppose that some of those who are more inquisitive will also encounter this writing, come, let us risk setting forth a few of the deeper matters, which contain a certain mystical and ineffable theory concerning why, from the beginning, different regions of the earth were assigned to different overseers; and let us demonstrate, as far as possible, that our teaching is free from the absurdities mentioned.
B It seems to me that Celsus has heard from some people about the more mystical theories of the distribution of the parts of the earth, which Greek history also touches upon to some degree, introducing some of those who are considered gods as contending with one another over Attica; and causing some of the so-called gods in the poets to acknowledge that certain places are more suited to them. Barbarian history also, and especially that of the Egyptians, shows something similar regarding the division of what are called the nomes of Egypt, saying that the one who drew Sais, Athena, she also holds Attica. And the learned men among the Egyptians will tell myriad such things; though I do not know if they also include the Jews and their land in some such distribution. C But concerning things said outside of the divine word, this is enough for the present. We say, however, that our prophet of God and His genuine servant, Moses, in the song of Deuteronomy, sets forth the following concerning the division of the earth: "When the Most High did divide the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. And the Lord’s portion became His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance, Israel" (Deut. xxxii, 8, 9). D Regarding this distribution of the nations, the same Moses in the book entitled Genesis narrates in the mode of history as follows: "And all the earth was of one lip, and one voice was for all. And it came..."
to pass as they moved from the East, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt there." A And a little after he says: "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men built; and the Lord said: Behold, there is one race and one lip for all; and this they have begun to do, and now all things whatsoever they set themselves to do will not fail them. Come, and let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they may not hear B each one the voice of his neighbor. And the Lord scattered them from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city and the tower. For this reason its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord God confused the lips of all the earth, and from thence the Lord God scattered them upon the face of all the earth." C And in the Wisdom of Solomon, the book inscribed with his name, regarding Wisdom and the events of the confusion of languages, during which the allotment of those upon the earth took place, such things are said concerning Wisdom: "She, when the nations had fallen into a conspiracy of wickedness, knew the righteous man and kept him blameless before God, and preserved him strong in the tender compassion for his child." Much and mystical is the argument concerning these things, to which is appropriate the saying: D "It is good to hide the mystery of a king," so that the doctrine concerning souls—which descend into bodies not through transmigration—may not be cast into random ears, nor that the holy things be given to the dogs, nor pearls be cast before swine. For such a thing is impious, containing a betrayal of the secrets of the oracles of God’s wisdom, regarding which it is well written: "Into a malicious soul wisdom will not enter, nor will she dwell in a body subject to sin." But it shall suffice to present those things which are spoken secretly as in the manner of history, in the manner of history, so that those who are able may work out for themselves the interpretation of the passage. Let all men upon the earth be understood as using one divine language, and insofar as they agree with one another, let them be kept in the divine language; and let them be unmoved from the East, as long as they are thinking the thoughts of the light and of the radiance of the eternal Light. And these, when they move themselves from the East, thinking thoughts alien to the East, let them find a plain in the land of Sennaar (which is interpreted as "the shaking out of teeth," as a symbol of the losing of those things by which they are nourished), and let them dwell there. Then, desiring to gather the things of matter, and to glue together those things not naturally suited to be glued to heaven, so that through material things they may plot against the immaterial, let them say: "Come, let us make bricks and burn them with fire." As then, strengthening and hardening the muddy and material things, and attempting to make the brick a stone and the mud bitumen,
A and from these to build a city and a tower whose top—as far as their assumption reached—would be high, lifting itself up against the knowledge of God; let each [of them], according to the proportion of his movement from the East, whether this was greater or less, and according to the proportion of the preparation of the bricks into stones, and of the mud into bitumen, and of the building erected from these, be handed over to angels more or less burdensome, these or those, until they have paid the penalty for that which they have dared. And let each one of those who have brought about the language peculiar to themselves be led by the angels into the regions of the earth according to their own merit: some to a region, for instance, that is scorching; others to one that punishes its inhabitants by its cold, others to a land difficult to farm, and others to one that is more easily worked; and some into a land full of wild beasts, and others into one that has fewer of them. B Thereafter, if any is able, as in a narrative form—which has something true about it on its own, but which also shows something hidden—let him consider those who have kept the original language by not having moved from the East, remaining in the East and in the Eastern language; and let him understand that these alone became the portion of the Lord, and His people called Jacob, and that [they] became the lot of His inheritance, Israel. And let these alone be governed by a ruler who has not undertaken the charge of those under him for the purpose of punishment, as the others have. And let him who is able look at the life of these men, and see how, among those assigned to the portion that was preeminent for the Lord, sins were committed which were at first tolerable, and of such a kind that they were not entirely worthy of being abandoned; but later, [sins that were] more numerous, yet still tolerable. C And seeing this happening over a long period, and seeing that healing was always being applied, and that they were returning at intervals, let him see them being abandoned in proportion to those sins committed by those who had obtained the other regions—at first indeed punished to a lesser degree and having paid the penalty, having been as it were schooled, returning to their own affairs; but later, let him see them delivered over to harsher rulers, as the Scriptures would call [them], the Assyrians, then the Babylonians; then, with remedies being applied, let him see them nonetheless increasing their sins, and because of this being dispersed by the rulers who plunder them from among the rest of the nations in the other portions. And let their own ruler deliberately ignore their being plundered by the rulers in the remaining nations, so that he himself, also logically, as if avenging himself, might receive such [authority] and do the same, and set down laws for them, and have the power to draw away from the rest of the nations whomsoever he can, and show them a life according to which they ought to live, so that he might lead them to the end to which he had led D those who did not sin from the former nation.
A And by this let those who are able to understand such things learn that he who has been allotted those who did not previously sin is much more powerful than the rest; since he has been able, having taken those who were elect from the portion of all, to remove them from those who had taken them for punishment, and to guide them to laws and a life that contributes to the oblivion of their previous sins. B But, as we have said before, let these things be said by us obscurely, which represent the things they heard who said, "the parts of the earth were from the beginning distributed to different overseers, and were separated according to certain authorities, and are administered in this way," from which Celsus also having taken the expressions laying there, spoke them. But since those who moved from the east, because they had sinned, were delivered "to a reprobate mind and to passions of dishonor, and in the desires of their hearts to uncleanness," so that when they were satiated with sin they might hate it; we shall not submit to the opinion of Celsus, asserting that through the overseers distributed to the parts of the earth, the things among each people are rightly done; but we also wish, not in the way it is pleasing to them, to do their things. C For we see that it is holy to dissolve the laws established from the beginning according to places with better and more divine laws, which Jesus, as the most powerful, established, "having delivered us from the present evil age," and "from the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing"; but it is unholy not to cast oneself upon him who appeared and was shown to be purer and more powerful than all the rulers, to whom God said, as the prophets foretold many ages before: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." For he himself has become the expectation of us who from the nations have believed in him, and in the God over all, his Father. D These things have been said not only regarding the things lying before us about the overseers, but also moderately anticipating the things said against us by Celsus, in which he says: "Let the second come; and I will ask them from where they have come, or whom they have as their leader of ancestral laws. They will name none, since they themselves have originated from there, and they do not bring their teacher and leader from anywhere else; yet they have departed from the Jews." We have therefore arrived, each one of us, in these last days, when our Jesus has visited us, at "the manifest mountain of the Lord," the Word which is above every word, and "to the house of God," which is the "Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth"; and we see in what way this is built upon the tops of the mountains, of all the prophetic words which are its foundation.
A Nations are uplifted, and we say, "Let us go to it," and the many nations are on their way. And just as, if some people were plotting secretly to remove a tyrant who had seized the governance of a city, they would be doing well, so too—perhaps there lies in the wars of the bees a lesson concerning how, if there should ever be a need, just and ordered wars should be waged among men—is this house built above the mountains, those who seem to hold some preeminent position among men in wisdom and truth. B And we, all the nations, come to it, and the many nations are on their way, and we say to one another, encouraging one another toward the piety that has shone forth in these last days through Jesus Christ: "Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will announce to us his path, and we will walk in it." For the law has gone forth from Sion, and a spiritual one has been set up for us. But the word of the Lord has also gone forth from that Jerusalem, C so that it might be distributed everywhere and might judge among the nations, choosing those it sees to be obedient, while rebuking the great multitude of those who are disobedient. And we do indeed say to those who ask us whence we have come or who we have as our leader, that we have come, according to the teachings of Jesus, to beat our war-like logical swords into plowshares, and we transform our previous war-making spears into pruning hooks. For we no longer take up the sword against any nation, nor do we learn to wage war any longer, D having become children of peace through Jesus, who is our leader, in place of those ancestral customs under which we happened to be strangers to the covenants, receiving a law, for which we give thanks to Him who rescued us from our error, saying, "Our fathers possessed false idols, and there is no one among them who can bring rain." Therefore, our choir-leader and teacher, having come forth from the Jews, distributes throughout the whole inhabited world the word of his teaching. And having said these things first, we have to the best of our ability refuted the words brought against us by Celsus, joining them to his preceding arguments. But so that we might not pass over the things stated by Celsus in between, come, let us set forth these as well: "One might also use Herodotus as a witness against this, saying thus: 'For those who dwell in the territory of Mareotis and Apis, on the borders of Libya and Egypt, and who consider themselves to be Libyans and not Egyptians, and are distressed by the religious worship concerning the temples, wishing not to be restricted from female cows, sent to Ammon saying that there was nothing...'"
common between them and the Egyptians; for they dwell outside the Delta, and do not agree with them; and they wish to be allowed to eat of all things. But God does not permit them to do this, A saying that Egypt is that land which the Nile waters as it flows over it, and that Egyptians are those who drink from this river, living below the city of Elephantine. These things are recorded by Herodotus; but Ammon is nothing inferior in acting as a messenger for divine matters than the angels of the Jews; so that it is not unjust for each people to observe their own rites. B Truly, we shall find there is a very great difference among them according to nations; and yet each people seems to itself to think most correctly. Those of the Ethiopians who inhabit Meroe worship only Zeus and Dionysus; the Arabians, only Uranus and Dionysus; all Egyptians, Osiris and Isis; the Saites, Athena; the Naucratites, not having begun long ago, named Serapis; and the others according to the laws as each has them. And some abstain from sheep, C worshipping them as sacred; others from goats; others from crocodiles; others from female cows; but they abstain from swine, abhorring them. Among the Scythians, to feast on humans is honorable. And there are some of the Indians who think it a holy act even to eat their parents; and somewhere the same Herodotus says this. I will use again his own words for the sake of credibility; he records as follows: "For if anyone were to set before all men, commanding them to choose the best laws from all laws, having considered them, each would choose their own; so much do all people believe their own laws to be the best. D It is not therefore likely that any man except a madman would make a mockery of such things. That all men have thus judged concerning laws, it is possible to gauge by many other proofs, and indeed by this one. Darius, in his own reign, having called together the Greeks who were present, asked for what price they would be willing to eat their parents when they died. They answered that they would do this for nothing. Darius, after this, having called those of the Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, asked them, with the Greeks present and learning through an interpreter what was being said, for what price they would accept to burn their parents when they died. But they, calling out loudly, ordered him to speak auspicious words." Thus then these things have been considered established; and Pindar seems to me to have spoken rightly, saying that law is the king of all. Through these arguments, the discourse seems to Celsus to proceed to the conclusion that all men ought to live according to their ancestral customs, and would not be blamed for this; but that the Christians, having left their ancestral customs, and not being a single nation as the Jews are, have injuriously attached themselves to the teaching of Jesus. Let him tell us, therefore, whether it is proper.
A for those who apply themselves to philosophy, and are taught not to be superstitious, to abandon their ancestral customs, even to the point of eating those things forbidden in their own lands, or whether they would be acting against their duty by doing so? For if, on account of philosophy and those teachings that counteract superstition, they do not observe their ancestral customs—and would eat of those things forbidden to them by their fathers—why then should not Christians (since the Word persuades them not to exert themselves about images and foundations, or even about the things created by God, but to transcend them and present the soul to the Creator), while doing the equivalent of those who apply themselves to philosophy, do this without blame? But if Celsus, or those who are well-pleased with his ideas, should say, in order to maintain the premise he has set for himself, that ancestral laws must be kept even by a philosopher, then it will turn out—to cite a most ridiculous example—that those who happen to be among the Egyptians should abstain from eating onions, that they might keep the ancestral customs, or from certain parts of the body, such as the head or the shoulder, so as not to transgress the things handed down to them by their fathers. And I do not yet speak regarding those Egyptians who tremble at the [natural] ventings of the body, so that if anyone were to philosophize from such things and keep the ancestral customs, he would be a ridiculous philosopher, doing things that are unphilosophical. Thus, then, also he who has been brought by the Word to worship the God of all things, but who, because of ancestral customs, remains somehow below among the images and human foundations, and is not willing to rise in his choice toward the Creator, would be nearly equivalent to those who have learned the lessons of philosophy, but who fear what is not to be feared, and think it is impiety to eat of such things. And what of that Ammon B of Herodotus, whose words Celsus has taken up as if for a proof regarding the necessity for everyone to keep their ancestral customs? For their Ammon says to those living near the city of Marea and Apis, in the borderlands of Libya, that it is not lawful for them to be indifferent toward the use of female cattle; a matter which is not only in its nature indifferent, but which also does not prevent anyone from being good and noble. And if their Ammon forbade the use of female cattle because of the usefulness of the animal for agriculture, and, in addition to this, because the breed is best increased through the females, the argument might perhaps have some plausibility; but now he wishes them to keep the Egyptian laws concerning female cattle simply because they drink the water of the Nile. And on this point, Celsus mocks the angels among the Jews who are ambassadors of the things of God, saying that "Ammon is no worse C than the angels of the Jews at carrying messages about demons"—of whom he has not examined the reasons, nor what they wish in their appearances. For he would have seen that there is no care for cattle D on the part of God, nor even when He constitutes laws concerning these or other irrational animals; but these things were written for the sake of men for whom he [God] seems to be legislating concerning oxen or irrational animals; but the things for men...
A written under the pretext of irrational animal matters, contain a certain physiology. Celsus, then, says that each person does nothing unjust, wanting to worship their own customs; and it follows according to him that the Scythians do nothing unjust, since they dine on human beings according to their ancestral rites; and the Indians who think they act piously in eating their parents—these also, according to Celsus, act not unjustly. He displays, therefore, the term of Herodotus, favoring the idea that each one should appropriately make use of their ancestral laws; and he seems to approve of those in the time of Darius, called the Callatiae Indians, who devour their parents; since, when questioned by Darius for what sum they would be willing to cast off this law, they cried out loudly, ordering him to speak auspicious words.
Since there are two laws set forth generally, one of which is the law of nature, which God would legislate, and the other being the one written for cities; it is good, where the written law does not oppose the law of God, not to abandon the citizens under the pretext of foreign laws; but where the law of nature, that is, of God, commands things contrary to the written law, see if reason does not say B to bid a long farewell to the written things and the will of the legislators, and to give oneself over to God the Lawgiver, and to choose to live according to His word, even if it must be done with dangers, and myriad labors, and deaths, and disgrace. For it is absurd, when the things that please God are other than those that please some of the laws in cities, and it is impossible to be pleasing to God and to those who preside over such laws, to scorn the actions through which one pleases the Creator of all things, and to choose those from which one will be displeasing to God, but pleasing to the lawless C and their friends.
If then it is reasonable in other matters to prefer the law of nature, which is the law of God, over the written law enacted by men contrary to the law of God; how much more must this be done in the laws concerning God? And we shall not, like the Ethiopians who dwell about Meroe, worship Jove and Dionysus (as it pleases them) as the only gods; but neither shall we honor Ethiopian gods in the Ethiopian manner; nor, like the Arabs, shall we account only for Urania and Dionysus as gods; nor indeed shall we consider as gods those in whom the female and male are honored (for the Arabs worship Urania as female, and Dionysus as male); nor shall we consider, as all the Egyptians do, Osiris and Isis as gods; nor shall we rank with them, according to that which seems good to the Saites, Athena. And if it seemed good to the elders among the Naucratites to worship one set of gods, but to those who began yesterday and the day before to worship Serapin D who was not a god—we certainly shall not count in the number of gods the recent god who was not previously a god, and who was not known to men before now. Neither for the Son of God, who is the first-born of all...
creation, even if he appeared to have been made man recently, shall we say on that account that he is recent; for the divine Word knows him to be the oldest of all created things, and it is to him that God spoke concerning the creation of man: A «Let us make man according to our image and likeness.» B Therefore, he is not on that account—if we were to say this of those who follow ancestral customs—a new god, who was not previously a god, nor known to men. But I wish to demonstrate in what manner Celsus does not speak reasonably when he says that each person should worship his own ancestral customs. For he says C that the inhabitants of Meroë in Ethiopia know only two gods, Zeus and Dionysus, and worship them alone; and the Arabians also only two, Dionysus, as the Ethiopians do, and Urania, who is their own. According to his history, neither do the Ethiopians worship Urania, nor the Arabians Zeus. Would then, if some Ethiopian, becoming a resident among the Arabians owing to some circumstance, were considered impious because he did not worship Urania, and on this account were in danger of death, would it be fitting for the Ethiopian to die, or to act against his ancestral customs and worship Urania? For if it be fitting for him to act against his ancestral customs, he would not be doing what is holy, so far as Celsus’s arguments are concerned; but if he were brought to death, let Celsus demonstrate the reasonableness of choosing death. I do not know if, of the Ethiopians' reasoning D which instructs them to philosophize about the immortality of the soul and the reward for the pious, they worship gods held to be such according to their ancestral laws. And the same can be said about the Arabians who, due to some circumstance, have come to stay with the Ethiopians of Meroë. For these, too, having been taught to worship only Urania and Dionysus, will not worship Zeus with the Ethiopians; and if they were considered impious, and were to be led away to death, let Celsus say what they should reasonably do. It is superfluous for us now to recount the myths about Osiris and Isis, and it is not opportune. But even if the myths are to be interpreted allegorically, they will teach us to worship the lifeless water, and the earth which lies beneath men and all living creatures. For thus, I believe, they transform them, Osiris into water and Isis into earth. Regarding Serapis, there is a long and divergent history...
and one that came to light some time ago through certain magical arts of Ptolemy, who wished to display him as a god, as it were, manifest to those in Alexandria. We have read in Numenius the Pythagorean concerning his construction, how he partakes of the substance of all things governed by nature, both animals and plants, so that he might appear to be fashioned not only by sculptors, but also by magi and dealers in charms, along with the rituals of the uninitiated and the magical arts that summon demons. But why do I dwell on these things, when it is possible to show you the great demon himself, who he was, whom we hear is judged worthy of worship by all by way of excellence? They have dared to say that this one—the Egyptian Serapis—is not made by human hands. For some recount that he was a gift sent by the people of Sinope to Ptolemy Philadelphus, the king of the Egyptians, who, having sent grain from Egypt to them when they were perishing with famine, had won their gratitude; and that this wooden image was a statue of Pluto; and that Ptolemy, having received the statue, set it up on the promontory which they now call Rhacotis, where the temple of Serapis is also honored. A Others say that the statue of Serapis is from Pontus, and that it was brought to Alexandria with festal honors. Isidorus alone says that the statue was brought over from the Seleucians who are near Antioch, when they too were suffering from a shortage of grain and had been provided for by Ptolemy. Ptolemy Soter removed the colossal statue of Pluto that was in Sinope—not knowing or having seen before what it was like in form—following orders to bring it with all speed to Alexandria. As he was ignorant and at a loss as to where it was established, and while he was relating the vision to his friends, a man of wide travels was found, Sosibius by name, who said he had seen in Sinope just such a colossus as the king had imagined seeing. He sent therefore Soteles and Dionysius, who with much time and difficulty, yet not without divine providence, brought it away by stealth. And when, having been brought, it was seen, those around Timotheus the interpreter and Manetho the Sebennyte, putting their intelligence together and inferring from the Cerberus and the dragon, persuaded Ptolemy that it was the statue of no other of the gods, but of Serapis. For he did not come from there named as such, but, having been brought to Alexandria, he acquired the Egyptian name of Pluto, namely Serapis.
A and of the demons who are charmed by their incantations. B One must therefore seek that which is appropriate for a rational and gentle animal, acting in all things according to reason, as regards what is edible and what is not; and not, as if by lot, to worship sheep, or goats, or female cows; and while it is acceptable to abstain from these, for much utility comes to men from these animals, yet to spare crocodiles and to hold them sacred to some I do not know what fabled god—how is this not the most foolish thing of all? For it is the mark of those who are utterly thunderstruck to spare animals that do not spare them, and to show honor to animals that devour men. But to Celsus, those who observe their ancestral laws in worshiping and honoring crocodiles are acceptable, and he has written no word of blame against them, while Christians appear to be worthy of rebuke, being taught to abhor wickedness and to turn away from the works of wickedness, and to worship and honor virtue as being birthed by God and being the Son of God. For one must not suppose that because the names of wisdom and justice are feminine, they are therefore female in their substance. For we believe that the wisdom of God is his Son, as his genuine disciple bore witness, saying concerning him: "Who was made for us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption." 1 Cor. 1:30. And if, therefore, we call him a second God, let them know that by "the second God" we mean nothing else than a virtue that embraces all virtues, and a reason that contains in itself whatever reason exists in things that have been made according to nature and primarily for the utility of the universe. This reason, we affirm, was more than in any other soul intimate and united to the soul of Jesus, as only he was able perfectly to contain the ultimate participation of the Word himself, and of Wisdom himself, and of Justice himself.
40. Since, however, Celsus, having spoken such things concerning the diverse laws, adds that it seems to him that Pindar spoke rightly in saying that law is the king of all, come, let us discuss this matter also. What law, pray, do you mean, good sir? C D
law that is king of all? If you mean the laws in each city, this is a falsehood; for all men are not ruled by the same law. It would have been necessary to say, "The laws are kings of all," for in every nation, some law is king of all. But if you understand "the law" in its proper sense, this is by nature the king of all—even if some, like robbers fleeing from the laws, deny it and live in a predatory and unjust manner. We Christians, therefore, having recognized the law that is by nature king of all, which is the same as the law of God, attempt to live according to it, while bidding farewell to impious laws.
B Let us look also at the things said next by Celsus, in which the references to Christians are very few, while those about the Jews are very many. He says: "If the Jews maintain their own law in this way, they are not to be blamed, but rather those who have left their own and pretend to follow the Jewish customs; but if they boast as though they know something wiser, and shun the association of others as if it were not equally pure, they have already heard that they do not claim a view about heaven that is peculiar to them, but—to pass over others—even the Persians (as Herodotus somewhere shows) have long held this view." For he says: "They are accustomed, in ascending to the highest of the mountains, to offer sacrifices to Zeus, calling the whole circle of the heaven Zeus." Thus, I think it makes no difference whether one calls him Zeus Most High, or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or Ammon, as the Egyptians do, or Papaeus, as the Scythians do. Nor, again, would they be holier than others on account of these things, because they are circumcised—for the Egyptians and Colchians had this custom earlier—or because they abstain from swine's flesh; for these people, too, the Egyptians, abstain not only from it, but also from the flesh of goats and sheep and oxen and fish; and indeed Pythagoras and his disciples[abstain] from all living things. C And it is not probable that they are esteemed or loved by God differently from others, or that angels are sent to them alone, as if they had been allotted some blissful region; for we see both them and the region [and] what they have been deemed worthy of. Let this chorus, therefore, be gone, having paid the penalty for its arrogance, not knowing the great God, but having been drawn away and deceived by the sorcery of Moses, and having become a disciple of the same, not for a good end.
It is clear that in these things he blames the Jews, as falsely supposing themselves to be an elect portion before all nations of the God who is over all; and D [these words refer to the passage mentioned above, as he has spoken of them before, when he was discussing them, since he compels us to deal with these same things. Here, too, in disputing the nature of names, he does not suggest that they do not depend on the choice of men and their laws; for he did not think that men, by the languages which they use, gave the origin of names; but he makes this evident by the fact that the authors of the languages used [them] for each [person] according to his own language and the different pronunciation of names.]
A
He indeed accuses them of arrogance, inasmuch as they boast of the great God while not knowing Him, but have been led astray by the sorcery of Moses and deceived by him, and have not been disciples of his for any good end. We have already spoken in part, in the preceding, of how noble and excellent the Jewish society was, when the symbol of the City of God, and of His temple, and of the priestly worship performed by Him and at the altar, subsisted among them. And if anyone, fixing his mind upon the intention of the lawgiver and examining their affairs in accordance with his society, were to compare them with the present conduct of the remaining nations, he would admire them more than any others; since they had removed from among [their] men all things that were useless to the human race, and had accepted only those that were useful. Hence there were no athletic, or theatrical, or equestrian contests among them; nor any women selling their beauty to any who desired to sow in vain and to commit outrage against the nature of human seeds. And what sort of thing was it among them to be taught, from their tenderest years, to rise above the whole sensible nature, and not to suppose that God is established anywhere within it, but to seek Him above and beyond bodies? And how great was the importance of the fact that, almost at their birth and the completion of speech, they were taught the immortality of the soul, and B the inquisitions beneath the earth, and the rewards for those who have lived rightly? Which things were preached even more mythically to a child, and to those who thought the thoughts of children; but to those already seeking the Word, and desiring to advance in it, the former myths (to name them so) were transformed into the truth hidden within them. I, for my part, consider it worthy of them, as they are called a portion of God, to have despised all divination, as it leads men astray in vain; and as coming rather from wicked demons than from any superior nature; and to seek the knowledge of things to come in souls that, through extreme purity, have received the Spirit of the God over all. Such were their customs. C And as to the rule that it is not permitted for one who is sprung from the same teachings to continue in slavery for more than six years, how reasonable it is, and what need is there to speak of how it lacks injustice both toward master and slave? The Jews, therefore, would not guard their own law in the same way as the other nations; for it would be blameworthy for them, and an accusation of insensibility D regarding the excellence of the laws, if they thought they were written in the same manner as those of the other nations. And even if Celsus does not wish it, the Jews are indeed possessed of a wisdom greater not only than that of the many, but even than that of those who are considered to be philosophers; for these, while appearing to philosophize, fall after their noble discourses in philosophy into idols and demons; but even the lowest of the Jews looks only to the God over all; and quite rightly, inasmuch as they pride themselves for this, and shun the association of others as impious and profane. And would that they had not erred
in transgressing the law—they who formerly killed the prophets, and later conspired against Jesus! So that we might have an example of a heavenly city, which Plato A sought to delineate, but I do not know if he was able to do so as much as Moses was able, and those after him, a chosen race, and a holy nation, and one dedicated to God, nurturing themselves with words pure from all superstition. But since Celsus wishes to make common the solemn things of the Jews with the laws of certain nations, come, let us also consider these. He thinks, therefore, that the dogma concerning heaven B does not differ from that concerning God, and he says that the Persians perform sacrifices to Zeus on the highest of the mountains in a manner similar to the Jews; not seeing that the Jews, as they knew one God, so they knew one holy house of prayer, and one altar of whole burnt offerings, and one altar of incense, and one high priest of God. Therefore, there was nothing in common between the Jews and the Persians, who ascended the highest mountains—for there were many of these—and performed sacrifices that had nothing similar to those according to the law of Moses, according to which the C priests of the Jews served as a model and shadow of heavenly things, explaining in secret the intention of the law concerning sacrifices, and the things of which these were symbols. The Persians, then, let them call the whole circle of heaven Zeus, but we say that neither Zeus nor the heaven is God; we who know that even some of those inferior to God have ascended above the heavens and all sensible nature. And so we understand: "Praise God, you heavens of heavens, and the water above the heavens, let them praise the name of the Lord." But, since Celsus thinks it makes no difference to call D Zeus 'Highest,' or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or as the Egyptians do, Ammon, or as the Scythians do, Pappaeus; come, let us also discuss these things briefly, reminding the reader at the same time of the things said above concerning such a problem, when the word of Celsus called us to such things. And so now we say, that the nature of names does not have laws from those who gave them, as Aristotle thinks. For not even the dialects among men have their beginning from men, as is clear to those able to observe nature, as the fathers of the dialects were adapted, according to the different dialects and the different utterances of the names; concerning which in the things above…
Plato, indeed, having written one Republic, persuaded no one to use it on account of its austerity.
"Who are governed according to the laws of Plato? Who accepted the Republic written by him?" "He came a second time to the younger Dionysius, asking for land and men to live according to his Republic; but he, although he promised, did not do it." "And we know also the city of Plato is an example lying in heaven."A As we have already shown above in a few words, names which possess power in their own language, if they are converted into another, do by no means perform that which they used to perform in their own. This same thing may also be observed in regard to men. For if anyone has received a Greek name from birth, and you were to try to use an incantation upon him with a name derived from the Egyptian, or Roman, or any other language, you would not affect him in the same way as you would have had you used the name first imposed; nor would the incantation have the same effect if a person called by a Roman name were addressed by a name transferred into Greek, as it would if performed while keeping the first name. Now, if these things are true concerning human names, what ought we to think concerning names which for any reason whatever are attributed to the Divinity? Let us compare examples. The names Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when converted into Greek, have a certain meaning; and whoever, either in incanting or in swearing, names the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, will accomplish certain things through the nature or power of those names, to such an extent that even demons, being conquered, obey his commands. But if you were to say: "God of the father of the chosen sound," and "God of laughter," and "God of the supplanter," you will accomplish nothing at all with these names, just as if you were to pronounce those things which possess no power. Likewise, the name Israel, if it is converted into Greek or any other language, will be of no strength; but if it is preserved and conjoined with those things with which experts are accustomed to conjoin it, it will produce that which those who use incantations declare can be expected from the pronunciation of certain words. The same must be said concerning the word Sabaoth, frequently used in incantations. For if, instead of it, one were to say "Lord of virtues," or "Lord of hosts," B even if this occurs in the *Philocalia* here, and below, a small word is missing: nor do names truly retain the same sense when translated into another language; but they are proper to individual nations, such that they cannot signify through the voice to other nations. Added to this is that, if we are able to interpret the properties of the meanings through another language, they do not, however, preserve the same power when permuted.
C *Nicephorus Gregoras in his Scholion on the book of Synesius, "On Dreams":* (Understand these to be the Chaldaeans, from whose writings he says he collected these things.) "Now truly concerning the names which they use, they give instructions by this formula: 'Do not by any means change barbarian names.' For there are names divinely imposed upon individuals, which have incredible power and efficacy in sacred rites: such as Sabaoth, Adonai, Cherubim, Seraphim, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others of the same kind, whose power and effect you would obscure, as it seemed also to the wise Origen, if you were to express them in the Greek dialect." Moreover, Asclepius, the disciple of Hermes Trismegistus, says in that discourse which he held with the Egyptian king, in these words: "As much as lies in your power, O King, observe the precepts handed down to you by us, lest such arcana and mysteries should reach the Greeks, or the haughty and ornate speech of the Greeks should compress and weaken the gravity and weight of the things, and render the pronunciation of the names less efficacious." For discourses of this kind, explained in the fatherland's vernacular language, contain a clear understanding of the things said; since the very quality of the voice and the power of the Egyptian names comprehend within themselves the effect of the things which are said; but when permuted and converted into another language, they become obscure and inefficacious. D *Spencer.*
A regarding the efficacy of such invocations proceeding from such a voice. We shall say the same also concerning the word Sabaoth, which is frequently used in incantations, that if we translate the name into "Lord of hosts" or "Lord of armies" or "Almighty" (for the interpreters have explained it in various ways), we shall accomplish nothing; but by keeping it in its own proper sounds, we shall do something, as those who are skilled in these matters declare. We shall say the same also concerning Adonai. If, then, neither Sabaoth nor Adonai, when translated into what they appear to signify in the Greek tongue, accomplish anything, how much more would nothing be done, nor could any power be produced, among those who suppose that it makes no difference whether one calls Zeus "the Highest," or Zena, or Adonaion, or Sabaoth? Knowing these and their analogous mysteries, B Moses and the prophets forbid the naming of the names of other gods in the mouth, for one who has practiced praying to the God who is over all alone, and to keep remembrance in a heart taught to be pure from all vanity of thoughts and words. And for such reasons we choose to endure every torment rather than confess Zeus to be God. For we do not suppose that Zeus and Sabaoth are the same; nor do we consider Zeus to be anything divine at all, but some demon who delights in being so named, a friend neither to men nor to the true God. Even if the Egyptians propose Ammon to us, threatening death, we shall choose rather to die than to proclaim Ammon as God, who is, as is likely, invoked as this demon in certain Egyptian incantations. Let the Scythians also say that Pappaeus is God over all; but we shall not be persuaded, while indeed positing the God over all, yet as favoring the one who obtained the Scythian wilderness, and their nation and dialect, we do not name God by the proper name Pappaeus. For whoever calls God by the appellative in the Scythian tongue, or the Egyptian, or in any dialect in which each has been reared, will not err. For the reason for the circumcision of the Jews is not the same as the reason for the circumcision of the Egyptians or the Colchians; wherefore it should not be thought to be the same circumcision. And just as he who sacrifices does not sacrifice to the same, even if he seems to sacrifice in a similar way, and he who prays does not pray to the same, even if he asks for the same things in his prayers; so neither, if someone is circumcised, does he *per se* make no distinction from the circumcision of another. C For the purpose, and the law, and the intention of the one who circumcises makes the matter different. But that the whole matter may be better understood at this point, it must be said that the name of justice is the same among all the Greeks; yet it is already demonstrated that the justice according to Epicurus is one thing, and the justice according to [the others] is another.
they describing the soul as bipartite, having the rational part established in the chest, while the irrational part is dispersed throughout the entire composition of the body. Again, justice is another thing according to the followers of Plato, who maintain that justice consists in each part of the soul performing its own proper work. Likewise, the courage of Epicurus is one thing, as he suffers pains in order to escape greater ones; the courage of the follower of the Stoa is another, who chooses every virtue for its own sake; and the courage of the Platonist is another, who claims that it comes from the irascible part of the soul, and assigns to it a place around the chest. Thus, then, there would be a different circumcision according to the different doctrines of those who are circumcised, though it is not necessary to speak of this now in such a treatise. For whoever wishes to see what moved us to this subject, let him read what we have written in our commentaries on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Even if the Jews boast in the circumcision, they will distinguish it not only from the circumcision of the Colchians and Egyptians, but also from that of the Ishmaelite Arabs, even though Ishmael was born from their forefather Abraham, and was circumcised with him. The Jews say that the circumcision of the eighth day is the primary one, and that which is not of this kind happens only because of some circumstance; and perhaps it was performed on account of some angel hostile to the Jewish nation, who was able to harm those of them who were not circumcised, but was powerless against those who were. This is what someone might say is signified by what is written in Exodus, in which the angel, before the circumcision of Eleazar, was able to exercise power against Moses, but after he was circumcised, he could do nothing. And Zipporah, having learned such things, took a stone and circumcised her child; and according to the common copies, it is written: “The blood of my child’s circumcision stopped him.” And in the Hebrew: “A bridegroom of blood…”
shall you be to me.” For he knew the nature of such an angel, who might have power before the blood, but was restrained by the blood of circumcision; for which reason it was said to him: “A bridegroom of blood shall you be to me.” A But as these things seem somewhat too curious, and not suited to the ears of the multitude, let what has been said with some boldness suffice for now; to this I will add one thing, as is fitting for a Christian, and then I will pass on to the things that follow. For it seems to me that this angel had some power over those of the Jews who were not circumcised, and in general over all who worshipped only the Creator, so long as Jesus had not assumed a body; but after He assumed a body, and that body was circumcised, the power of that angel over those in this religion who were not circumcised was destroyed; for Jesus destroyed it by His ineffable divinity. B Therefore it is forbidden to His disciples to be circumcised, and it is said to them: “If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.” Nor indeed do the Jews boast of the abstinence from swine as if it were a matter of great importance; but because, having learned the nature of clean and unclean animals, they understand the cause of this, and why the swine is classed among the unclean. And these things were symbols of certain truths until the coming of Jesus; after which, when His disciple did not yet understand the reason for these matters, and said: “Nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth,” he was told: C “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” Therefore, the statement of Celsus regarding the Egyptian priests, that they abstain not only from swine, but also from goats, sheep, oxen, and fish, touches neither the Jews nor us. Since that which enters into the mouth does not defile a man, and food will not present us to God, we do not pride ourselves on not eating, nor are we led by gluttony to eat. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, the followers of Pythagoras, who abstain from living creatures, may have their way. But observe how different is the reason for the abstinence from living creatures among the followers of Pythagoras and the ascetics among us. D For they abstain from living creatures because of the myth of the soul migrating into various bodies.
And some fool, bereft of wit, Would slay his own child, offering at the altar.
A We, however, if at any time we abstain, do so in order that the body may be chastened and brought into subjection. For we wish to "mortify our members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, B passion, evil concupiscence"; and we leave nothing untried, that we may mortify the deeds of the flesh. But we, even if we do such a thing, do it... What else? Would it not have been better for the Carthaginians, having taken Critias or Diagoras as a lawgiver from the beginning, to acknowledge neither any god nor demon? Or to sacrifice such things as they sacrificed to Saturn; not as Empedocles says, attacking those who sacrifice living creatures: "The father, having lifted up his dear son who has changed his form, C Slays him, praying—the great fool." But they, knowing and aware, were themselves sacrificing their own children. D Hence these philosophers advised to abstain from living creatures, and said that men were acting impiously, "Reddening the altar of the blessed ones with warm slaughter." And Empedocles somewhere says: "Will you not cease from the harsh-sounding slaughter? Do you not see That you are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your mind?" A And further, pronouncing upon the Jews, Celsus says: "And it is not likely that these are approved by God, and are loved more than others, or that angels are sent to them alone, as if they had obtained some blessed land. For we see them and the land they have been judged worthy of." B We shall therefore refute this too, saying that the approval of this nation by God is shown also from the fact that the God over all is called the God of the Hebrews, even by those who are strangers to our faith. And as they were approved, in that they were not abandoned, although few in number, they continued to be guarded by divine power; so that not even in the days of Alexander the Macedonian did they suffer C anything from him, although they refused to take up arms against Darius because of certain treaties and oaths. It is said that then the High Priest of the Jews, clad in the priestly robe, was worshipped by Alexander, who said that in his sleep he had seen someone in this very garb, promising him that he would subject the whole of Asia. We, therefore, the Christians, say that while the being approved by God, and being loved more than others, happened in the highest degree to them; this dispensation D and grace has moved on to us, after the power that was among the Jews was transferred, moving the divine assistance to those from the nations who have believed in Jesus. Wherefore, although the Romans have often wished to destroy the Christians, they have not been able to bring their purpose to an end. For the hand of God was fighting for them, willing that from one...
corner of the earth, namely Judea, the Word of God should be sown throughout the entire human race.
But since we have replied to the extent of our ability to Celsus, who brought accusations against the Jews and their teaching, as well as against our A own doctrine, come, let us set forth what follows and demonstrate that we are not being overweeningly arrogant when we claim to know the great God; nor were we led into error by the sorcery of Moses or of Jesus himself, our Savior. Rather, we listen to God in Moses for a good end, and we have received Jesus, whom God himself bears witness to as the Son of God, hoping for the best when we shape our life according to his word.
But we will willingly pass over those things we have already set forth, where we teach whence we come, what leader we have, and what law is from him. B And if Celsus wishes to assert that we are no different from the Egyptians who worship a goat, or a ram, or a crocodile, or an ox, or a hippopotamus, or a cynocephalus, or a cat, let him see to that himself, and anyone who agrees with him. As for us, we have defended as best we could, in many places above, the reason for the honor we pay to Jesus, showing that we have found what is better; and we, who declare that it is only in the teaching of Jesus Christ that the truth exists, pure and unmixed with falsehood, do not commend ourselves but our Teacher, who was testified to by the God over all through many things: by the prophetic words among the Jews, and by the manifest facts themselves—for it is shown that such great things could not have been done without God.
The passage of Celsus which we wish to examine now is as follows: C «Let us pass over those things that are brought against the disciples regarding their master, and let us assume that he is truly some kind of angel. But did he come first and alone, or did others come before him? If they should answer that he came alone, they would be refuted by stating things that contradict themselves; for they say that others came often, namely, sixty or seventy at once, who became evil and are being punished, confined in bonds under the earth; and that from their tears the warm springs arise. And they say that an angel came to his very tomb, some saying one, others two, who answered the women that he had risen. For the Son of God, it seems, could not open the tomb, but needed another to roll away D the stone. And furthermore, another angel came to the carpenter regarding Mary being pregnant,
and another angel ordered that the child be taken and a flight undertaken. What is the point of such fastidiousness, and why is there any need to enumerate all those who are said to have been sent to Moses and others of their number? If, therefore, others were sent, it is clear that this one too was sent by the same God. And let it be supposed that he was sent to announce something more important, as if the Jews were somehow transgressing, or falsifying piety, or performing acts that were not holy; for these things are what are hinted at. B 53. Now, the things said above in the discussions held separately concerning our Savior Jesus Christ were sufficient to address the words of Celsus; but in order that we may not seem to be passing over any part of his writing intentionally, as though unable to say anything against him, come—even if we are compelled to repeat the same things at Celsus’s urging—let us condense the argument as much as possible, in case something happens to occur regarding these same topics that is more clear or novel. He says, indeed, that he is "omitting the things for which Christians are refuted regarding their teacher," while in fact not omitting a single thing that he was able to say; C just as is manifest from what has been said by him above. In other respects, we are not refuted by rhetorical technique regarding such a Savior as ours; even if the accuser may appear to be refuting [us], it will be clear to those who are lovers of truth and who examine all that has been prophesied and recorded concerning him. Furthermore, he is thought to speak condescendingly concerning the Savior, saying: "Let it be supposed that this one is truly an angel." We say that we do not accept this as though it were being conceded by Celsus; rather, we gaze at his very work, having visited the whole human race according to his own word and teaching, as each was able to receive him. This work, moreover, was that of [the one] whom the prophecy concerning him termed not simply an angel, but "the angel of the great counsel" D; for he announced to men the counsel concerning them—to those who chose to live in pure godliness, that they would ascend toward God through their great deeds; but to those who did not accept it, that they were distancing themselves from God and were journeying toward destruction through their unbelief concerning God. Then, he says next: "If this angel came to men, did he come first and alone, or did others come before him?" And he believes he is answering both [points] at length. But since no one who is truly a Christian says that Christ alone has visited [the world]—Celsus says, "If indeed they should say that [he] alone [visited]..." [and that others were seen by men].
A Then, he answers himself as he wishes. "And so it is not reported that he alone has visited the race of men, so that even those who, under the pretext of the teaching of the name of Jesus, have abandoned the Creator as being inferior, and have approached [him] as a certain greater God, the Father B of the one who visited, assert that even before this, others from the Creator visited the race of men." Since we examine the matters concerning this subject truthfully, we shall say that Apelles, the acquaintance of Marcion, who became the father of a certain heresy, and who considers the Jewish writings to be a myth, says that he alone has visited the race of men. Therefore, Celsus does not reasonably bring forward the things about others having come against him who says that Jesus alone came from God to men, as he is incredulous (as we previously said) of the Jewish Scriptures that report more paradoxical things; and he will admit even less the things which Celsus seems to have supposed, having misunderstood the things written in Enoch. No one, therefore, proves us to be lying and stating the contrary—that our Savior came alone, and that many others have often come [as well].
Of Marcion the Pontian
Marcion the Pontian, who even now is still teaching those who are persuaded to think of some other God greater than the Creator, who through the cooperation of demons has caused many in every race of men to speak blasphemies and to deny the God who is the maker of this whole universe; and [to profess] that some other one, as being greater, has created things greater than this one. C Not only this, but he also rejects the Law and all the prophets, saying that such persons prophesied by [the agency of] the ruler who made the world. But he says that Christ has descended from above from the invisible and unnameable Father for the salvation of souls, and for the refutation of the God of the Jews, and of the Law, and of the prophets.
A And so, while we investigate the matters concerning this subject truthfully, we acknowledge that Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, the author of a certain heresy, and who holds the Jewish scriptures to be fables, said that he alone came to the race of men. Hence, when Celsus brings forward that others also came, he does nothing against him who says that Jesus alone came from God to men, and who, as I was just saying, denies faith to the Jewish scriptures because they report more incredible things. Much less, indeed, would he admit the things which Celsus adduces from the book of Enoch, having understood them poorly. Wherefore, Celsus says nothing whence he might prove that we are lying and speaking contradictory things, as if we were teaching both that our Savior came alone, and that many others have often come. But as for the part [concerning] the angels who [descended] B to... Marcion the Pontian even today teaches his disciples to think of some other God greater than the workman, who, relying on the help of demons, is the author to very many of speaking blasphemous things and denying the God who is the maker of this universe; and to profess that some other one, as greater, has created greater things than this one. C Marcion has raged furiously against the Creator, and indeed, things even much graver than these; for he has passed over greater blasphemies in silence. I know, however, a certain nonagenarian among them who, rising in the morning, would wash his face with the excrement of his own spittle, and when asked the reason, said that he did not want to have need of the Creator, nor to receive water, which is from his works. When, however, those present said, "How therefore do you eat? How do you drink? And [how] are you clothed, and do you sleep, and do you perform the mysteries that have been instituted?" he said that he did this being induced by necessity. ... Furthermore, he rejects the Law and all the prophets, whom he thinks prophesied by the afflatus of that ruler who founded this world. But he says that Christ descended from heaven from that Father who can neither be seen nor named, so that he might both liberate souls, and refute the God of the Jews and of the Law, and of the prophets. D
[GREEK COLUMN] and that many others have come many times. He proceeds with great confusion in his examination concerning the angels who have come to men, setting forth matters concerning him that are not clearly derived from those written in Enoch; which, indeed, he does not appear to have read himself, nor to have known that the books inscribed with the name of Enoch are not generally accepted in the Churches A as divine; whence one might suppose that he had rashly thrown out the notion that sixty or seventy had descended at once and become evil. 55. But in order that we may grant him a more favorable hearing—even if he has not seen what is written in Genesis, that "the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took them wives of all which they chose"—nevertheless, we shall persuade those who are able to hear the prophetic intent that one of those before us had already referred these matters to a discussion B concerning souls, which, having developed a desire for the life of men in the flesh, were figuratively spoken of as "daughters of men." But, however that may be, as regards the sons of God lusting after the daughters of men, he can infer nothing from this passage.
[LATIN COLUMN] Origen, concerning the angels who have come to men, speaks in a A very confused manner, and cites as testimony what he obscurely learned from the book of Enoch. For he appears neither to have read it, nor to have known that the books of Enoch are not judged to be divine in the Churches: from there, however, I suspect he derived the idea that sixty or seventy descended at once and became evil. But even if, acting more benignly toward him, we were to suggest to him those things which are written in Genesis, and which he himself did not see—namely, that "the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, took to themselves wives from all whom they chose"—nevertheless, we shall persuade those who are able to grasp the prophetic mind, that what appeared to some other predecessor of ours is true: that there is a discourse there B concerning souls desirous of this human life, which, through a figure, he called the daughters of men. Moreover, whatever may be the case regarding the sons of God desiring the daughters of men, he can infer nothing from this passage. Gen. vi, 2.
Tertullian vigorously defends this in his book *De cultu feminarum*, i, 3: "I know the scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order to the angels, is not received by some; because it is not admitted into the Jewish cabinet. I suppose they did not think it could be preserved—having been published before the cataclysm, the destroyer of all things after that catastrophe. If this is the reason, they should remember that Enoch’s great-grandson, Noah, survived the cataclysm; and he certainly had heard, by family name and hereditary tradition, and remembered the grace of his great-grandfather before God, and all his prophecies; since Enoch had commanded his son Mathusaleh to hand down the knowledge of these things to his descendants. Therefore, Noah undoubtedly could have succeeded in the delegation of the prophecy; or, at the very least, he would not have remained silent about the disposition of God his preserver, nor about the glory of his own house. If this should not seem quite so readily acceptable, that other argument would also defend the assertion of that scripture: furthermore, it could have been restored in spirit by him after it had been abolished by the violence of the cataclysm; just as it is certain that, after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian conquest, the entire collection of Jewish literature was restored by Ezra. But since that same scripture of Enoch also prophesied concerning the Lord, nothing at all should be rejected by us that pertains to us. And we read that 'all scripture inspired by God is profitable for instruction' (2 Tim. iii, 16). It may now be seen as rejected by the Jews for this reason, just like almost everything else that speaks of Christ. Nor is it, indeed, surprising that they did not receive some scriptures speaking about him whom they were not about to receive even when he was speaking before their very eyes. Added to this is the fact that Enoch possesses testimony in the Epistle of Jude the Apostle." See the same Tertullian, in his book *De cultu feminarum*, ch. 10, and in the book *De idololatria*, ch. 9 and 15, and *Apologeticus*, ch. 22. One may infer how highly the most ancient Fathers esteemed this book from the fact that Justin, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Tertullian, and others, both Christian philosophers and theologians, learned from reading it the dogma concerning the angels who, having assumed bodies, cohabited with the daughters of men. "It is known in order among the holy letters," says Tertullian, *Apologeticus*, ch. 22, "that is, by the prophecy of Enoch."
Augustine and Jerome disagree: the former in book xv, ch. 23, and book xvi, ch. 38, of *De civitate Dei*; the latter in his *Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum*, under "Jude": "Jude the brother of James left a small epistle, which is one of the seven Catholic ones. And because he assumes testimony from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by many; yet it has earned authority by its antiquity and usage, and is computed among the holy Scriptures." But Origen does not utterly reject it, as is evident from this passage, and from tom. viii on John, and book iv of *De principiis*, and his homily on Numbers, nor does Theodotus, *Epitome*. SPENCER.
Philo, in his book *De gigantibus*, explains the aforementioned verse thus: "Whom other philosophers call genii, Moses is accustomed to call angels. They are souls flying through the air. And there is no reason for anyone to think this is a fable. For it is necessary that the whole world should have living beings in all its parts." Flavius Josephus, book i, ch. 4, *Antiquitates Judaicae*: "For many angels of God, having associated with women, procreated a progeny that was insolent and, in its confidence in its own strength, scorned all right and law: whose wicked deeds, not unlike those which the Greeks recount of the giants, have been handed down to posterity." Justin, *Apologeticus* ii, Athenagoras, *Legatio pro Christianis*, Lactantius, book ii, ch. 15; Clement of Alexandria, *Paedagogus*, book iii, at the end of ch. 2, and *Stromata* v, p. 550, and *Stromata* iii, p. 450; Tertullian, *Apologeticus* ch. 22, and *De idololatria*, ch. 9; likewise...
A to those who desired the daughters of men, the "sons of gods," the argument contributes nothing to the point that Jesus alone appeared to men as an angel, a savior and benefactor clearly to all those who turned from the flow of wickedness. Then, mixing and jumbling everything he has heard, whether written anywhere as a divine doctrine among Christians or not, he says that sixty or seventy descended together and were punished by being bound under the earth. B And he introduces (citing from Enoch, though not naming him) the claim that hot springs originate from their tears—a matter neither spoken of nor heard in the churches of God; for no one was so senseless as to embody tears like those of men in the angels who descended from heaven. And if one must play along with the things Celsus treats with such seriousness against us, it must be said that no one would have called hot springs, most of which are sweet, the tears of angels, since the nature of tears is salty, unless perhaps the angels according to Celsus weep sweet tears. C Then, mixing things that are unmixable and dissimilar and equating them with one another, he adds to the discussion about the (as he says) sixty or seventy angels who descended, and the springs of hot water that he says arose from their weeping, that it is also reported that two angels—or as some say, one—came to the very tomb of Jesus. D I suppose he observed that Matthew and Mark report one, while Luke and John report two—which are not contradictory. For those who wrote of one refer to the one who rolled the stone away from the monument; those who wrote of two refer to those who stood over the women who came to the monument in flashing garments, or those who were seen sitting inside in white robes. It is possible now to demonstrate that each of these things could have happened, and that they are indicative of a certain tropology concerning those who are revealed to the children of God.
A Verily, that these things were revealed, and under these figures something is hidden to be uncovered by those who ponder the aforementioned parts of the resurrection, is truly not the scope of this present undertaking, but belongs rather to one explaining the Gospel commentaries. That paradoxes appear to men was recorded by Greeks, not only by those who might be suspected of being myth-makers, but also by those who displayed themselves as genuinely seeking to philosophize and truthfully to set forth what came to their attention. Such things we have read in Chrysippus of Soli, and some things about Pythagoras—indeed, and among some of the later ones too, who have lived yesterday and the day before; just as in Plutarch of Chaeronea in the books *On the Soul*, and in Numenius the Pythagorean in his second book *On the Incorruptibility of the Soul*. But if the Greeks tell such things, and especially those among them who philosophize, the things being said are not jokes, nor laughter, nor inventions and myths; but if those who are consecrated to the God of all, and who accept every trial unto death so as not to speak even a falsehood about God up to the point of a voice, report that they have seen the appearances of angels, are they not deemed worthy of being believed, nor are their words counted among true things? But it is not reasonable to judge those who tell the truth or those who lie in such a manner. For those who practice being free from deception, after much and accurate research and examination of things in the places, speak more slowly and safely about which ones tell the truth and which ones lie in the paradoxes they record; since not all demonstrate the mark of being worthy of belief, nor do all clearly show that they have handed down inventions and myths to men. Furthermore, concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, these things must also be said: that at that time one or two angels appeared, announcing that he had risen, and providing for those who believed in such a thing for their own benefit, is not surprising; but that those who always believe in those people, because Jesus has risen, displaying as the fruit of their belief an un-scorned, robust life and a transformation from the nature of evils, should have angels—those who assist in their conversion to God—not forsaking them, does not seem unreasonable to me.
A Celsus also brings an accusation against the account saying that an angel rolled away the stone from the tomb where the body of Jesus was, just like a boy might be employed in some task, speaking in a way that aims to discredit the person. "And as if he had found something clever against the account, he says: 'The Son of God, it seems, was not able to open the tomb, but stood in need of another to move the stone.'" And so that I may not busy myself too much about the details of the place, nor seem to philosophize out of season by putting forward an allegorical interpretation at this time, I will speak about the history itself. It appears more dignified, even on the face of it, that a subordinate and servant should have rolled away the stone than that He who was rising for the benefit of mankind should have done this. B I do not say that those who were plotting against the Word, and wishing to kill Him and to show Him to all as dead and brought to nothing, wanted His tomb to be in no way opened, so that no one might see the Word living after their plot; but that the angel of God—who as a helper of human salvation had come into this world, being stronger than those who were plotting—rolled away the heavy stone, so that those who supposed the Word had died might be persuaded that He is not among the dead, but is alive, and that He goes before those who wish to follow Him, in order that He might demonstrate the things that follow to those whom He had shown them before, but who were not yet able to grasp the higher truths during the time of their earlier introduction. Then, I know not how, after this he throws in—though I do not know what benefit it is thought to provide for his purpose—the account about the angel who came to Joseph regarding Mary, and again, regarding the rescuing of the child when He was being plotted against, so that they might flee into Egypt. We have already addressed these points in the preceding sections in response to what he said. What, moreover, does Celsus intend by the fact that it is also recorded C in the Scriptures that angels were sent to Moses and others? For it does not seem to me to contribute anything to his goal, especially since none of those angels exerted themselves to turn the human race away from sins, as far as their power allowed. Let others, then, have been sent from God. But let this One announce something greater; and since the Jews were sinning and corrupting their religion and doing unholy things, let Him have transferred the kingdom of God to other husbandmen, who take care of their own salvation everywhere in the churches, and who do everything to bring to the God of the universe—through a pure life and a discourse consistent with that life—those who draw their starting points from the teaching of Jesus. Then, next, Celsus says: "Therefore, the same God is for the Jews and for these"—clearly meaning the Christians.
A And as if trying to prove a point B that was not conceded, he continues: "For the 'Great Church' C indeed openly confesses this, and admits as true what the Jews recount regarding the creation of the world, concerning the six days, and the seventh in which God, as Scripture says, rested from his works, withdrawing into his own contemplation; but as Celsus—who neither observes what is written nor understands it—says, 'rested,' which is nowhere written." But on the subject of the creation of the world and the Sabbath rest which is reserved after it for the people of God, the discussion is arcane, deep, and difficult to interpret. D Next, Celsus, I suppose wanting to complete his volume and trying to make it appear great, adds many things unnecessarily: for example, that we claim the same first man as the Jews, and that we trace our genealogy from him in the same way. "And we know nothing of the plots," he says, "which brothers prepared against each other"; although we know that Cain laid a plot against Abel, and Esau against Jacob. For Abel did not plot against Cain, nor Jacob against Esau—which, if it had happened, would have given Celsus a consistent basis for saying, "We say the same things as the Jews regarding the plots which brothers laid against one another." I admit, however, that we describe the migration to Egypt and the departure from there in the same way as them, and not as a "flight," as Celsus thinks; but what does this contribute to the accusation against us or the Jews? Where he thought he had an opportunity to ridicule us in the account of the Hebrews, he called it a "flight"; but where the matter required examining the plagues which are recorded to have come upon Egypt from God, he chose to maintain silence.
If, however, we must speak precisely to Celsus, who thinks that we hold the same opinions as the Jews regarding these matters, we shall say that both parties agree that the books were written by the Holy Spirit; but regarding the interpretation of the things contained in the books, we no longer say the same things. For we do not live as the Jews do, denying that the intention of the legislation is contained in the sense that the letter of the law presents. On the contrary, we affirm that "when Moses is read, a veil lies upon their hearts" (2 Cor. III, 15), for the reason that the intention of the Mosaic law is hidden from those who have refused to walk the way shown by Jesus Christ. But we know that when one turns to the Lord ("the Lord is the Spirit" [2 Cor. III, 17]), the veil is taken away, and "with unveiled face" he beholds "as in a mirror" the glory of the Lord in those senses which the letter of the law had concealed, and becomes a partaker of the divine glory into his own glory. For that which is here called "face" by figure of speech is, to speak more plainly, the intellect, in which is the face of the inner man, which, having perceived the truth of the laws, is filled with light and glory.
And after these things he says: "Let no one think that I am ignorant that some of them will agree that the God who is theirs is the same as the one who is the God of the Jews; but others claim there is another, contrary to Him, and that the Son came from Him." But if he thinks the existence of several sects among Christians is an accusation against Christianity, why should not the disagreement in the sects of those who philosophize be considered, by the same analogy, an accusation against philosophy? And this not regarding trivial and chance matters, but regarding the most necessary ones. It is time, furthermore, for medicine also to be accused because of the sects within it. Let there be, then, among us A those who say that the God of the Jews is not the same as the God they worship; but surely those who prove from the same Scriptures that the God of the Jews and of the nations is one and the same are not to be accused on this account—just as Paul, who came over to Christianity from the Jews, clearly says: "I give thanks to my God, whom I serve from my forefathers in a pure conscience." Let there be also a third class B of those who name some as "animal" and others "spiritual"—I suppose he implies the followers of Valentinus. But what is this to us, the people of the Church, who rebuke those who introduce natures that are saved by their constitution, or that are destroyed by their constitution? Let there be also some who profess to be Gnostics, analogous to the Epicureans who style themselves philosophers. But neither could those be truly philosophers who abolish Providence, nor could those be Christians who introduce absurd fabrications that are displeasing to those in the succession from Jesus. Let there be also some who accept Jesus and on this account boast that they are Christians, yet want to live according to the law of the Jews as do the multitudes of the Jews—(these are the twofold Ebionites, either confessing with us that Jesus was born of the Virgin, or denying that he was born in this way, but rather as other men): what crime does this bring upon the people of the Church, whom Celsus called "the crowds"? And he said there were some also called Sibyllists; perhaps he misunderstood some who were reproaching those who think the Sibyl was a prophetess, and who called such people "Sibyllists." C And it was decreed by the power of the evil demons that there should be death for those who read the volumes of Hystaspes, or those of the Sibyl, or those of the prophets, so that by fear they might turn people away from reading them and gaining knowledge of good things, and keep them enslaved to themselves; which ultimately they were not strong enough to do. For not only do we read them without fear, but, as you see, we bring them to you for examination.
knowing that they will appear acceptable to all. And even if we persuade only a few, we shall have gained much. But since, O men of Greece, the matters of true piety are not contained in poetic meters nor in the education that is highly esteemed among you, now that we have put aside the precision of meters and rhetoric, and as you heed without contention what has been said by her, recognize how many good things will be the cause for you of the advent of our Savior Jesus Christ. Just as God wished the Jews to be saved by giving them prophets, so also He separated from the common herd the most distinguished of the Greeks, raising up prophets—those who were able to receive the benefit from God—in their own dialect, as the Apostle Paul indicates in his preaching to Peter, saying: "Take also the Greek books; recognize the Sibyl, how she signifies one God and the things that are to come; and take up Hystaspes, and read, and you shall find written much more clearly and plainly the Son of God, and how many kings shall make battle array against Christ, hating Him, and those who wear His name, and His faithful ones, and His endurance, and His advent."
Then, heaping up against us a pile of names, he says that he knows certain Simonians who honor Helen (or Helenus, as a teacher), and are called Helenians. But he escapes the notice of Celsus that the Simonians do not in any way confess Jesus to be the Son of God, but that Simon for them is the power of God. A And by the operation and incitement of evil demons, the punishment of death has been established against the readers of the books of Hystaspes or the Sibyl or the prophets, so that by fear men might be frightened away from them, and thus not perceive the knowledge of good things by reading those writings, but be kept in their slavery. Which certainly they were not able to effect or lead to their end. For we do not read such writings only without fear, but, as you see, we offer them to you for inspection, knowing that they will be welcome and acceptable to all. And even if we persuade some few, we shall carry away the greatest profit from it. From this place you may understand how much the Fathers esteemed the Sibylline books, which, having spurned the laws of the emperors that threatened a capital penalty for reading them, B they recited—as Justin says—boldly before their own people and the Gentiles. C And he says that he knows certain people who are Simonians, who honor Helen—or Helenus, their teacher—and are called Helenians. But it escapes Celsus's notice that in no way do the Simonians confess Jesus to be the Son of God; rather, for them, Simon is the power of God. D [index: entries preserved]
A They invent many prodigies regarding that man, who had imagined in his mind that if he were to employ similar pretenses to those which he thought Jesus had employed, he would possess as much authority among the people as Jesus did among the multitude. But neither Celsus nor Simon could grasp how Jesus, as a good husbandman of the Word of God, succeeded in causing the greater part of Greece and the greater part of the barbarian lands to be sown with the seed of doctrine, which would lead the soul, having been abducted from every vice, to the Creator of all things. Celsus knows of Marcellians from Marcellina, and Harpocratians from Salome, and others from Mariamne, and others from Martha; but I, who, because of the love of learning as far as I am able, look not only into what is in the Word and the differences of the opinions therein—those, moreover, who oppose the creation of God through their so-called self-control also say those things spoken to Salome which we mentioned earlier. It is recorded, I think, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians; for they say that the Savior himself said: "I came to destroy the works of the female"—of the female, indeed, being desire; the works, the generation and the destruction. B Those who oppose the creation of God through that specious self-control say these things, just as they also relate those things spoken to Salome, which we have previously mentioned. It is current, I believe, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians; for they assert that the Savior himself said, "I came to destroy the works of the female"—of the female, that is, of concupiscence; of the works, that is, of generation and corruption.
Because of this, Cassian says that when Salome asked when the things about which she was inquiring would be known, the Lord said: "When you trample upon the garment of shame, and when the two become one, and the male with the female [is] neither male nor female."
Regarding the refutation of Basilides, for he reveals his arcane doctrines and says C that he composed twenty-four books on the Gospel; and that he named for himself prophets, Barcabas and Barcoph, and others who did not exist, having set them up for himself, and that he bestowed upon them barbarous names for the astonishment of those who are amazed by such things. [He also adds] that he feigned prophets and prophetesses for himself, and imposed names upon them according to his own will. Concerning Basilides, we have as witness Agrippa Castor, a writer very famous in his own time, in Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. Book IV, ch. 7) and Jerome (in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, in the entry for Agrippa). He composed a work in which he refutes the twenty-four commentaries of that heretic which he had written upon the Gospel; he also unmasked the pretenses and the arts of seduction. D While he brings all his secrets into the light, he relates that twenty-four books were written by him on the Gospel, and that he himself feigned for himself prophets, Barcabas and Barcoph, and several others who never existed, and that he imposed upon them certain barbarian names in order to strike terror into the minds of those who are captured by their admiration for such things.
A For example, one Marthus and Marthana, of the race of Constantinus, were two sisters who were worshipped in their own country in place of gods, because they were said to be from the seed of the aforementioned Elxai. Marthus died a short time ago, but Marthana still survives; the misled heretics in that country used to carry off their spittle and the other soils of their bodies, supposedly for the curing of diseases. B Concerning the followers of Marcion, having examined them—but as much as possible, having also truly and piously investigated the accounts of those who have philosophized—we have never had dealings with them. Celsus also makes mention of the Marcionites, who are led by Marcion. Then, so that he may appear to know others besides those whom he already named, he says, in his usual manner, that "others fabricate for themselves another teacher and demon, and grovel in much darkness, more lawlessly and filthily than the initiates of Antinous, who is in Egypt." And it seems to me that, touching upon the facts, he has spoken truly, that some, fabricating C for themselves another demon as master, and groveling, have found a protector in the deep darkness of ignorance. Concerning those who follow Antinous, whom he compares to our Jesus, having spoken of them in the preceding books, we shall not repeat ourselves.
And he says, "These people curse one another with terrible things, both sayable and unsayable; and they would not yield in the slightest toward harmony, entirely detesting one another." And to this we have replied that it is possible to find in philosophy, and in medicine, sects warring against sects. However, those who follow the word of Jesus, and have practiced thinking, D speaking, and acting in harmony with his words, "when reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat"—and we would not say sayable or unsayable things against those who hold different views from what we have believed. But, if we are able, we would do everything to turn them toward the better, through attending only to the Creator and doing all things as those who will be judged. But if the heterodox are not persuaded, we keep the word that commanded such things to them: “A heretical man after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that such a one is subverted and sins, being self-condemned.” Furthermore, those who are truly "blessed the peacemakers," or those who have understood also "blessed the meek," would not detest the corrupters of Christianity, nor would they call those who have been misled "Circes" and "beguiling mixtures."
It seems to me that he has disregarded the apostolic word, which says: “In the latter times some shall depart from the faith…”
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe.” A He seems to have poorly apprehended what he had heard about certain people who used these words of the Apostle against those who corrupted the Christian religion; hence Celsus says that certain people among the Christians are called "cauteries of the ear." B But he says that some are called "enigmas"—a thing which we have not recorded. In truth, the word "scandal" is very common in these writings, being what we are accustomed to say concerning those who turn the simpler and more easily deceived away from the healthy doctrine. As for the "Sirens," whom he describes as dancing and acting as sophists, sealing the ears and turning those who are persuaded into swine, we know of no one being called by such names, and I believe no one else does either—neither among those in the Word, nor among the heretics. But this man, who boasts of knowing everything, says such things as these: "You will hear all those who are so at variance with one another, and who most shamefully refute themselves with quarrels, saying: 'To me the world is crucified, and I unto the world.'" C This is the only point D
from the letters of Paul. For why should we not mention other six hundred things which are written in a similar manner, such as: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds), casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God." And since he says that "you shall hear all those who are so widely separated, yet all saying: 'The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,'" we shall prove this assertion also to be false. For there are sects which do not admit the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, such as both the Ebionites and those called Encratites. Those, therefore, who do not use the Apostle as a holy and wise man will certainly not use this utterance of his: "The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Therefore, Celsus lies in this matter as well. And he indeed spends time in accusing the dissension of the sects, but he does not seem to me to explain at all what he says, nor to have investigated or clearly perceived how it is that those Christians who have made progress in their teachings say they know more than the Jews; whether, namely, it is that they accept the same books but interpret them with a different mind, or whether they do not even accept their writings. For we would find both cases among the sects. After this he says: "Come then, even if they have no foundation for their dogma, let us examine the doctrine itself. But first, we must speak of those things which, through ignorance, they misunderstand and corrupt, boastfully vaunting themselves about matters they do not know. These are the following." And immediately, to certain expressions which are constantly invoked by those who believe in the Christian teaching, he opposes others taken from the philosophers, willing to show that the good things which are thought by Celsus to be taught by the Christians have been said better and more clearly by the philosophers, so that he may draw over to philosophy those who were being captured by the goodness and piety of the doctrines that appear from the very start. And having concluded the fifth volume here, let us begin the sixth from what follows.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS: BOOK SIX
A Since we are undertaking this sixth book, we must defend ourselves against the accusations brought by Celsus against the Christians, holy Ambrose, to fight for the truth as…well as possible, not against the arguments presented by him from philosophy, as one might suppose. B For Celsus has brought forward many things, especially from Plato, making common those things which are able to win over even a person who is intelligent from the Holy Scriptures, saying: "It is better that these things should have been spoken among the Greeks, and without the exaltation and promises from God or the Son of God." We say, therefore, that if those who propagate the things of truth aim at this—to benefit as many as possible, and to bring, as far as it is possible, every person whatsoever to it out of philanthropy, not only the quick-witted, but also the foolish; and again, not Greeks only, but also barbarians, and it is a matter of great kindness if one is able to convert even the most rustic and unlearned—it is clear that one must care for a character in speech that is useful to all and able to win over every hearing. But as for those who have bid a long farewell to the unlearned, as if they were slaves, and who are not able to follow the consistency of the things being announced in the order of discourse, they have cared only for those reared in speeches and learning; these have restricted the social C nature of the truth to a very narrow and small space.
These things I have said in defense of the simplicity of the Scriptures, which is accused by Celsus and others in their words, seeming to be obscured by the brilliance of the words in their composition; because our prophets, and Jesus and his apostles, perceived a manner of announcement, not only containing the truth, but also able to win over the multitudes, until, being exhorted and introduced, each person, according to his power, might ascend to the things spoken ineffably in what seem to be lowly words. And, if it is necessary to dare to say it, the beautiful and studied language of Plato and those who have spoken similarly has benefited few (if indeed it has benefited any), but the language of those who have taught and written more simply, at the same time practically and with an aim toward the many, has benefited more. It is possible, therefore, to see Plato in the hands of those who are considered to be literati only, but Epictetus is admired even by anyone who happens upon him and who has an inclination toward being benefited, D as they feel the improvement from his words. And these things we say, not accusing Plato—for the great world of men has usefully brought forth even him—but showing the intention of those who have said: "And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that our faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor. II, 4). The divine word says that it is not sufficient for what is said (even if it be true and most persuasive in itself) to reach the human soul, unless some power be given from God to the speaker, and grace blooms upon the things being said, and this [grace] does not occur without God in those who speak effectively. The prophet says, in the sixty-seventh Psalm: "The Lord will give the word of the gospel [index: entries preserved]
to those who herald it with great power." A Therefore, even if some of their dogmas are the same as those of the Greeks and those of our Word, they do not have the same power to win over and dispose souls accordingly. For this reason, those who were unlearned in Greek philosophy, as disciples of Jesus, traveled through many nations of the world, disposing each of their hearers according to their worth, as the Word intended; and they, in proportion to the inclination of their own free will toward the acceptance of what is good, became much better.
For those who are able to understand: let Plato, the son of Aristo, signify the things concerning the supreme good in one of his letters, and let him say: "The supreme good cannot be expressed in words, but is produced out of long habituation, and suddenly, like a light kindled from a springing fire, it is ignited in the soul." We, having heard these things, agree that they are well said; B "for God revealed these things to them, and all that has been spoken well." For this reason, we say that those who have grasped the truths concerning God, but have not practiced a religion worthy of the truth concerning Him, are subject to the punishments of those who sin. Regarding such persons, Paul says in these very words: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth; for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse; for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles." C And indeed they hold the truth, as our Word also testifies, when they think that "the supreme good cannot be expressed in words at all," and say that it "comes to pass after much habituation." It cannot be expressed in words at all in the way that other subjects are, but from much... D [Regarding those who have written hitherto or will write hereafter, claiming to know the things in which I am most earnestly engaged — whether they have heard them from me or from others, or have discovered them themselves— of these, I say, I can affirm this one thing: that according to my judgment they know nothing at all of the matter itself. For I have never written about these things, nor shall I ever write, for this subject cannot be expressed in words like other disciplines...]
A, for as if from a fire leaping up, a light becomes kindled in the soul, and it feeds itself from then on. But those who have written such things about the first Good go down to the Piraeus to offer prayers as to a god to Artemis, and to see the festival celebrated by the unskilled multitude; and after having philosophized so greatly about the soul, and having described the way of life of one who has lived well, they abandon the greatness of the things which God manifested to them, and they think lowly and small thoughts, rendering a cock to Asclepius; and they had glimpsed the invisible things of God, and the ideas, from the creation of the world and things sensible, from which they ascend to the things perceived by the mind, having seen clearly enough His eternal power and divinity, yet nonetheless "they became futile in their reasoning, and their B senseless heart" wallows in darkness and ignorance regarding the worship of the Godhead. And it is possible to see those who pride themselves on wisdom and theology bowing down to an image of a perishable man for the sake of the honor of that one, and sometimes descending with the Egyptians to the worship of birds, or quadrupeds, or creeping things. But even if some seem to have ascended above these things, they will be found to have "exchanged the truth of God in the lie, and revered and worshipped the creation rather than the Creator." C And he uncovered himself (for he had been covered) and said what was his final utterance: "Criton," he said, "we owe a cock to Asclepius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it." I, however, think that Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, also ordered the cock to be sacrificed so that he might refute the accusation that had been brought against him. For Anytus and Melitus had written against him as one who did not acknowledge the gods. For that he knew the Godhead to be in need of nothing, he has clearly declared elsewhere. For these things too are his, if indeed Plato wrote down his dogmas: "For God did not make the world because D of any need, so that he might gather honors from men, and from other gods and demons, as if gaining some profit from the generation of things; from us, indeed, vapors, but from gods and demons, their own proper services."
A in error of God in the lie, and worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator. Wherefore, since the wise and learned among the Greeks were drawn into error by their practices concerning the Divine, "God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame the wise, and the base things, and the weak, and the despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are"; and truly, "that no flesh might glory before God." B And our own first wise men, Moses, the most ancient of all, and the prophets after him, knowing that "the supreme good cannot be expressed in words," did indeed write, when speaking of God manifesting Himself to those who are worthy and suitable, that God was seen by Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. But who it was that was seen, and of what sort, and in what manner, and to which part of us, they left it to be investigated by those who can render themselves similar to those to whom God appeared; and He was seen not by the eyes of the body, but by a "pure heart." For indeed, according to our Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they themselves shall see God." The sudden springing up of light in the soul, as if from fire, the Word knew beforehand, saying through the prophet: C "Light for yourselves the light of knowledge." And John, being later than him, says that "that which has been made in the Word was life, and the life was the light of men," which true light "lightens every man coming into the world," the true and intelligible world, and makes him light of the world. "For this light shone in our hearts for the illumination of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ." Whence the most ancient prophet, having prophesied many generations before the kingdom of Cyrus (for he was older than him by more than fourteen generations), says: "The Lord is my light and my savior, whom shall I fear?" and, "Thy law is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths"; and, "The light of thy countenance, O Lord, was signed upon us"; and, "In thy light shall we see light." D And the Word in Isaiah, inciting us to this light, says: "Shine, shine, Jerusalem; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee." And this same one, prophesying about the coming of Jesus, by which men were to be turned away from the worship of idols, and statues, and demons, says that "to those sitting in the region and shadow of death, a light has risen upon them"; and again: "The people that sat in darkness saw a great light." See then the difference between that which was well said by Plato about the supreme good and those things which our prophets...
have said concerning the light of the blessed. And observe that the truth in Plato regarding this was of no benefit as to sincere piety to those who encountered it, nor even to the philosopher himself who had such thoughts about the primary good; whereas the simple language of the divine scriptures has inspired with divine fervor those who truly encounter it—among whom this light is fed by the oil mentioned in a certain parable, which preserves the light for the virgins in the five wise virgins.
Since Celsus also sets forth another passage from Plato’s letter, reading thus: "But if it seemed to me that these things could be adequately written down for the many and spoken, what better deed could have been accomplished by us in life, than to write what is of great benefit to men, and to bring nature forth into the light for all?"—come, let us also discourse briefly on this, whether Plato had anything more solemn than what he wrote, and more divine than what he left behind, or not. We leave it to each one to examine according to his ability, but we shall show that our own prophets also held opinions on certain matters greater than what they wrote, which they did not commit to writing. For Ezekiel receives a scroll of a book, "written within and without, in which were lamentations, and a song, and a woe"; and, the Word having commanded him, he eats the book, so that he might not write it and betray it to the unworthy. And John is recorded to have seen and done the like. But also Paul "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." And Jesus, who is greater than all these, that he spoke the word of God to his disciples in private, and especially during his withdrawals, has been stated; but what the things were which he spoke is not recorded. For "these things did not seem to them to be adequately writeable for the many, nor speakable."
And, if it be not arrogant to speak about the truth concerning such men, I say that these men saw better than Plato, from the thoughts which they received by the grace of God, what things were to be written, and how they were to be written, and what things were not to be written to the many; and what things were to be spoken, and what were not such. And again, John, teaching us of the difference between things writeable and not writeable, says he heard seven thunders instructing him about certain things and forbidding him to hand down their words in writing. Many things might be found in Moses and the prophets—not only older than Plato, but also than Homer, and the invention of letters among the Greeks—full of things worthy of the grace of God toward them and of their greatness of mind; for these men did not, as Celsus thinks, having misunderstood Plato, say such things; for how was it possible for them to have heard him who had not yet been born? But in order that even if one should bring Celsus’ argument to bear upon the apostles of Jesus, who came to be later than Plato, see whether it is not directly improbable that Paul, the tentmaker...
and Peter, the fisherman, and John, who left his father's nets, having misunderstood the remarks in Plato's letters, should have transmitted such things about God. But Celsus, having already frequently harped on the claim that we demand immediate faith, as if it were something new compared with what was said before, says this again: "It is enough for us that what has been said on these matters has been said."
Since he also sets forth another passage of Plato, by which he says he uses questions and answers to shed light on those who follow his philosophy, come, let us show from the sacred scriptures that the divine word also encourages us toward dialectic. Sometimes Solomon says, "Instruction without inquiry leads astray," and another time the son of Jesus, son of Sirach, who wrote the book entitled Wisdom, says, "The understanding of a fool is as inquiry-less words." There are, therefore, among us very kindly proofs for those who have learned that he who presides over the word must be able to refute those who contradict it. But if some are slothful, and are lazy about attending to the divine readings, and searching the Scriptures, and, according to the command of Jesus, seeking the meaning of the Scriptures, and asking God about them, and knocking at their closed doors, the word is not on that account empty of wisdom.
Then he says, after other Platonic remarks, which show that the good is known to few, "Since the many, filled with an unrighteous contempt, and with a high and vain hope, as if they had learned something solemn, say that certain things are true," Celsus adds: "Plato, having prefixed these things, nevertheless does not hawk prodigies, does not obstruct the mouth of one wishing to inquire what it is that he promises, does not command them to believe beforehand that God is such, and has such a Son, who, having descended, told me these things." I reply to these points that, if I am not mistaken, Aristander wrote concerning Plato that he was not the son of Aristo, but of some specter that had appeared to Amphictione in the form of Apollo. And many other Platonists have said these things in the life of Plato. But what should I say about Pythagoras, who boasted so many prodigies about himself, who showed an ivory thigh in the assembly of the Greeks, and fed eagles and tamed them, and whispered into the ear of a Tarentine ox which was eating green beans, after which it never again touched them; he led down an eagle at the Olympic games, and was seen conversing with it; in Sybaris and Tyrrhenia he grabbed a serpent that was killing any person, and warded it off; he foretold to fishermen the exact number of fish they had hauled in; the river Nessus said to him, "Hail, Pythagoras"; and he warded off pestilences, calmed winds, and predicted earthquakes. Six hundred other things, far more admirable and divine, are recorded about the man, uniformly and consistently. [alt-version omitted]
What must one say of him who, in the assembly of the Greeks, showed his ivory thigh, and who said he recognized the shield he used when he was Euphorbus, and who is said to have appeared in two cities on the same day? But whoever wishes to accuse, as though a tall tale were being told about Plato and Socrates, will also set forth the swan that stood by Socrates in his sleep, and the teacher who said upon the introduction of the young man: "This, then, was that swan." A But he will also take the fact that Plato saw himself having a third eye for a tall tale. Nor will there ever be a lack of malicious men wishing to accuse, to whom the things that appeared to those better than the masses serve as pretexts for slander and accusation; these are the very men who will also mock the daemon of Socrates as a mere fabrication. We, therefore, are not fabricating when we recount the events concerning Jesus; nor did his genuine disciples write down such stories about him. But Celsus, who professes to know everything and cites many of Plato's works, deliberately, I suppose, passes over in silence the passage concerning the Son of God. B C D As these things are acknowledged, and it is impossible that these things should happen to one man, they already think it obvious that one must accept what was said of him as belonging to a superior being, and not a mere man, and that this difficulty [itself] indicates this truth. For it is said among them that "Man is a biped, and a bird, and a third thing." For the third thing is Pythagoras. If one wishes to slander [this], [one will find] the opportunity for slander. The cause [of this slander] is what you have often heard me say in many places, that a certain divine and daemonic [voice] comes to me; which Melitus even mocked in his written accusation.
A regarding the one mentioned by Plato 15 in his letter to Hermeias and Coriscus. The words of Plato are as follows: "And call to witness the God of all things, the leader of both things that are and things that will be, and the father and the lord of the leader 14 and cause; whom we shall all clearly know, to the extent of the capacity of blessed men, if we truly philosophize."
Celsus also sets forth another saying of Plato 15, as follows: "And I have it in mind to speak at still greater length about these things; for perhaps, when they are spoken of, what I am saying may be clearer. For there is a true reason, opposed to one who dares to write about such things, or anything whatever 16, which has often been spoken by me in the past, and seems as though it must be spoken even now. For each of the things that exist, through which it is necessary that knowledge should come to pass, there are three, and the fourth is this; but the fifth must be set down as that which is known and is true. The first of these is a name 17; the second, a discourse; the third, an image; the fourth, knowledge."
And with regard to these, we should say that John, heralded as a voice crying in the wilderness 18, was introduced before Jesus, corresponding to the name in Plato; and Jesus, being shown after John by him, is the second, to whom applies the saying, "The Word became flesh," which corresponds to the discourse in Plato. Plato, therefore, calls the third an "image"; but we, setting the name of "image" to something else, will say more clearly that it is the pattern of the wounds B created in the soul after the discourse, and that this is Christ himself, who is in each one of us, from Christ the Word.
Whether also the wisdom in our perfect ones, which is Christ, corresponds to the fourth thing, knowledge 19, he who is able may discern. Then he says: "Do you see how Plato, although he asserted that it cannot be expressed in words, nevertheless, lest he should seem to retreat to that which cannot be tested, provides a reason for this difficulty? For perhaps even nothing can be expressed in words." But since he brings this forward in support of the argument that one should not simply believe, but should provide a reason for what is believed, we shall also use the words of Paul, who reproves the one who believes in vain, where he says, "Unless you believed in vain" 10.
As far as it depends on him, Celsus compels us to repeat ourselves, repeating [his own words] while saying, after the aforementioned boastings, which were like those of boasters: "Plato does not boast and lie, claiming that he himself is discovering something new, or reporting it as if he were present from heaven; but he acknowledges 20 where these things come from." One might, therefore, say even to these things: C D
A wishing to answer Celsus, that Plato also boasts, when in the Timaeus he makes Jupiter speak to the gods: "Gods of gods, 21 of whom I am the creator and father, and the rest." But if anyone will offer an apology for these things on account of the mind of the speaker in Plato’s Jove, why will not he who examines the mind of the words of the Son of God, or of those in the prophets of the Creator, say even something more than the speech of Jove in the Timaeus? For what characterizes divinity is the prediction of future things, not spoken according to human nature and judged by their results, because it was a divine Spirit which was predicting these things. We do not, therefore, say to everyone who approaches us, "First believe that the one whom I introduce to you is the Son of God," but we apply the discourse to each one according as is appropriate to his character and condition; having learned B to know "how we ought to answer each one." 22 There are some to whom, since they can do no more, we preach this in order to exhort them to believe; but others we approach, as far as we have power, demonstratively through questions and answers. But we do not say that which is mockingly attributed to us by Celsus, that "Believe that the one whom I introduce to you is the Son of God, even if he has been most shamefully bound, or most disgracefully punished, even if yesterday and the day before he was treated in the most reproachful manner in the eyes of all"; nor do we say, "For this very reason, believe the more." For we try to say concerning each matter even more than we have set forth above. After these things Celsus says that: "If some (speaking of Christians) introduce this one, and others another, and it is common to all or even ready-made: 23 'Believe if you wish to be saved, or begone,' what will those who truly wish to be saved do? Shall they cast dice and divine whither they should turn and to whom they should attach themselves?" And against this too, moved by C the evidence of the fact, we shall say these things: If there were more who were recorded as having visited the life of men similarly to Jesus, as sons of God, and each of them having drawn 25 some to himself, so that it were a matter of dispute, on account of the similarity of the claim to be the Son of God, to whom those who believe in him bear witness; there would be room for the, "If some introduce this one, and others another, and it is common to all or even ready-made: 'Believe if you wish to be saved, or begone,'" and the rest. But now Jesus has been preached throughout the whole inhabited world, having visited the race of men as the only Son of God. For those who supposed similarly to Celsus that things were done by trickery 26, and for this reason wished to perform wonders, as if they also were going to prevail over men in a similar way, were exposed as being nothing: such were Simon the Samaritan 27, the magician, and Dositheus from the same region as he.
A For the one claimed to be "the power of God," which is called "the Great," and the other claimed to be the Son of God; nowhere in the world are Simonians to be found now. And yet, so that he might draw more people to himself, Simon used to deliver his disciples from the danger of death, which the Christians had been taught to undergo, having taught them to be indifferent toward idolatry. But no snares were laid for the Simonians from the beginning; for the evil demon who was lying in wait for the teaching of Jesus knew that none of his own purposes would be thwarted by the teachings of Simon. The Dositheans did not even flourish earlier; now they have completely disappeared, so that their entire number is reported to be not even thirty. And Judas of Galilee, as Luke wrote in the Acts of the Apostles, wished to call himself someone great, and before him Theudas; but since their teaching was not from God, they were destroyed, and all who believed them were immediately scattered. We do not, therefore, cast lots with dice to determine where we should turn or to whom we should attach ourselves, as if many were able to distract us by the promise that they had been sent from God to the human race. But enough of these matters.
B Therefore let us proceed to another accusation of Celsus, who does not know our words, but speaks from having misunderstood them: "That we say human wisdom is foolishness before God," while Paul says, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God." And Celsus says that "the reason for this was stated long ago." He thinks the cause is that we wish by this expression to draw in only the uneducated and the foolish. But, as he himself noted, he said the same thing earlier; and we have answered the argument as far as we were able. Nevertheless, he wanted to show that this too was invented by us and taken from the wise men among the Greeks, who said that human wisdom is one thing and divine wisdom is another. And he puts forward the words of Heraclitus: one is, where he says, "Human character, indeed, does not possess insights, but divine [character] does," C and another: "A foolish man listens to his genius as a child does to a man." He also sets forth these words from the Apology of Socrates written by Plato: "For I, O men of Athens, have acquired this name through nothing other than wisdom. And what is this wisdom? That which is perhaps human wisdom; for in truth, it is likely that I am wise in this." These things Celsus sets forth, to which I...
shall add the following from Plato’s letter to Hermias, Erastus, and Coriscus: A "I tell Erastus and Coriscus, even though I am an old man, that besides that most beautiful wisdom concerning the forms, they also need another wisdom which guards against the wicked and unjust, and they need a kind of defensive power. For they are inexperienced, as they have spent a great deal of their life with us, who are moderate and not evil. For this reason, I said they need these things, so that they might not be compelled to neglect true wisdom, and to attend more than is fitting to human and necessary things." B Therefore, according to these words, there is one wisdom which is divine and another which is human. Human wisdom is what is called, in our terms, the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness before God; but divine wisdom, which is distinct from the human, provided it is divine, comes to those whom the grace of God makes suitable for receiving it. It comes especially to those who, having known the difference between each of these wisdoms, say in their prayers to God: "For even if one were perfect among the sons of men, if the wisdom that is from Thee is absent, he shall be reckoned as nothing." We say that human wisdom is an exercise for the soul, but divine wisdom is its end. This is also called the solid food of the soul by the one who said: "Solid food is for the perfect, for those who have their senses trained by practice to discern both good and evil." And this opinion is truly ancient, and not, as Celsus thinks, to be traced back to the antiquity of Heraclitus and Plato regarding these things. For the prophets far above them distinguished between these two wisdoms; it suffices, however, for the present to mention what is said in the words of David regarding the one who is wise in divine wisdom: "He shall not see corruption," he says, "when he sees the wise dying." Divine wisdom, then, being distinct from faith, is the first of what are called the gifts of God; and after that, the second, for those who know how to refine such things, is what is called knowledge; and third, since even the simpler ones must be saved as they approach piety according to their ability, is faith. Wherefore it is said by Paul: "For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another, faith in the same Spirit." Thus, you would not find just anyone participating in divine wisdom, but those who are preeminent and surpass all those who pay attention to Christianity. Nor does one set forth for the "most uneducated," or "slaves," or "most ignorant" the matters concerning divine wisdom. C And yet Celsus says some are the most uneducated, and slaves, and most ignorant, namely, those who do not know, as I think, his precepts, nor have they been schooled in the disciplines of the Greeks.
A We say that those are most uneducated who are not ashamed to speak to inanimate objects, and to beg for health from the infirm, for life from the dead, and for assistance from that which is most helpless. And even if some say that these are not gods, but rather B images and symbols of true gods, nonetheless, even these, imagining that the handiwork of craftsmen can represent divinity, are uneducated, slaves, and ignorant; so much so that even the lowliest among us have been freed from this lack of education and ignorance, and we say that divine hope is understood and grasped by the most prudent. We do not say that it is C impossible for one who has not been exercised in human wisdom to contain the more divine; and we confess that all human wisdom is foolishness when compared with the divine. Thereafter, when he ought to have engaged in reasoning, he calls us charlatans, and says that we flee from those who are more refined, as they are not ready to be deceived, but that we ensnare those who are more rustic. D He does not see that from the beginning, there were among us men of wisdom schooled in external disciplines—Moses, indeed, in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and Daniel, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in all the learning of the Assyrians, such that they were found to be ten times wiser than all the sages who were there. And even now, the Churches have, in proportion to their multitudes, a few wise men who have come forth from what we call worldly wisdom; and they also have those who have progressed from that to divine wisdom.
Thereafter, Celsus, as if he had heard about humility but had not carefully understood it, wishes to disparage what is taught among us; he thinks it is a misunderstanding of the words of Plato, who says somewhere in his *Laws*: "God, as also the old tradition says, holding the beginning, and end, and middle of all existing things, proceeds in a straight line according to nature. And justice—the punisher of those who have departed from the divine law—always follows him; whoever is about to be happy, holding fast to her, follows, humble and adorned." He does not see that it was said by men far older than Plato in a prayer: "Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. If I did not humble myself..." By these words, it is at the same time shown that he who is humble does not necessarily humble himself in an unseemly and ugly manner, thrown headlong upon his knees and prostrate, wearing the clothing of the wretched, and heaping dust upon himself. For he who is humble according to the Prophet, while walking in great and marvelous things, and in the doctrines that are truly great and which transcend him, he humbles himself beneath the mighty hand of God.
B But if some, because of their simplicity 45, not understanding the doctrine of humility, act in such a way, the blame is not to be laid upon the doctrine, but we must forgive the simplicity of those who set before themselves the better things, yet through their simple-mindedness fail to reach them. For he is more truly humble and adorned than the one represented by Plato, who is indeed adorned because he walks in great and marvelous things beyond himself; but he is humble, because even while he is in these things, he humbles himself of his own free will—not under just anyone, but under the mighty hand of God, indeed through Jesus, the teacher of such lessons, who 46 "who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And so this doctrine of humility is of such great import that it does not have an ordinary teacher concerning it, but our Saviour himself says: "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
After this, concerning the judgment of Jesus against the rich, saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 45 than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God," he says it was said directly from Plato, and that Jesus corrupted 46 the Platonic view, in those things where Plato said: "That it is impossible for one who is exceedingly good to be also exceedingly rich." But who—even he who can apply his mind, even moderately, to such matters—would not laugh at Celsus, when he hears, not only those who believe in Jesus, but even the rest of mankind, that Jesus, who was born and raised among the Jews, and considered to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, and who had not learned letters—not only those of the Greeks, but not even those of the Hebrews, as the truth-loving Scriptures 47 concerning him testify—had read Plato; and, being pleased with his view pronounced concerning the rich, that "it is impossible to be exceedingly good and rich," corrupted it and made it to be: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God?" If Celsus, in reading the Gospels, had not been possessed by hatred and hostility, and had he been a lover of the truth, he would have considered why a camel was chosen—an animal that is 49 of such size—and why he who said that the way which leadeth unto life is narrow intended by the narrow eye of the needle...
Book Sixth
A ...and why this animal is recorded in the Law as unclean, having indeed something acceptable, that it chews the cud, but also something reprehensible, that it does not divide the hoof. He would have also examined how often and for what reasons the camel is mentioned in the divine Scriptures, so that he might perceive the intention of the Word regarding the rich. He would not have left unexamined the fact that the poor are blessed by Jesus, while the rich are pronounced unhappy—whether he speaks of these poor and rich in terms of the sensible realm, or whether the Word knows a certain poverty that is worthy of all praise and riches that are entirely reprehensible. For not even an ordinary person would praise the poor indiscriminately, among whom many are of most depraved character. But enough of these things in this place. B Indeed, our authors have written concerning the kingdom of God. But Celsus brings forward none of these things, as if judging nothing worthy of being transcribed, or perhaps because he has not read them; rather, he extracts sentences from the epistles of Plato and the *Phaedrus*, as if these were spoken with divine inspiration, and as if our scriptures contained nothing similar. Let us, therefore, set forth a few things to compare with the Platonic ones; though these Platonic notions hold a semblance of probability, they were not able to lead the philosopher himself to worship the Creator of all things with the piety becoming a philosopher. For if he had possessed piety, he should not have adulterated and defiled it with the vice that we call idolatry, or with superstition, as the common people say.
In the seventeenth Psalm, according to a Hebrew manner of speaking, it is said concerning God that C «He made darkness his hiding place,» to signify that the things that ought to be known regarding God according to his merit are obscure and impenetrable, because he hides himself as if in darkness from those who cannot bear the splendor of his knowledge nor contemplate him; partly due to the impurity of the mind, which is bound to this lowly human body, and partly because that [human] power is too narrow to understand God. And so that it might be made manifest how rare and granted to how few it is to know God, it is narrated that Moses «entered into the thick darkness where God was.» Again concerning Moses: «Moses alone shall approach the Lord, but the rest shall not approach.» And again, so that the prophet might show the depth of the dogmas concerning God, which happen to be ungraspable to those who do not have the Spirit that D «searches all things, even the deep things of God,» he said: «Abyss as a garment is his covering.» But also the Savior... [alt-version omitted]
B our Lord, the Word of God, indicating the magnitude of the knowledge of the Father—that it is received and known according to merit primarily by Him alone, and secondarily by those whose ruling faculty is illuminated by the Word Himself and God—says: «No one knows (54) the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.» For neither is anyone able to know the unbegotten (55) and the first-born of every created nature according to merit, as the Father who begat Him, nor the Father as the living Word and His wisdom and truth; by whose participation He removes from the Father what is called darkness, which He set as His hiding-place, and what is called His covering, the abyss; and by thus revealing the Father, as much as one is able to know Him, one knows Him. I have considered it sufficient to set forth these few things out of the many that have been understood by holy men concerning God, showing that the writings of the holy prophets possess something more august than the Platonic arguments admired by Celsus, to those who have eyes capable of seeing the august things of the Scriptures.
The statement of Plato (57), which Celsus set forth, runs as follows: «All things are about the king of all, and all things are for his sake, and he is the cause of all beautiful things. The second about the second things; and the third about the third things. The human soul, therefore, strives to learn what these things are, looking at those things related to itself, of which none C adequately suffices. But concerning the king, and the things of which I have spoken, there is nothing of the sort.»
I could have set forth the matters concerning those called Seraphim among the Hebrews, recorded in Isaiah, covering the face and the feet of God (58); and the matters concerning those named Cherubim, which Ezekiel described, and concerning their quasi-forms, and in what manner God is said to be borne upon the Cherubim. But since these things have been spoken very covertly for the sake of the unworthy and the unrefined, who are unable to follow the grand design and majesty of theology, I did not think it fitting to discuss them in this treatise.
Following these things, Celsus says that «some Christians who have heard Platonic expressions boast of the God who is above the heavens (59), transcending the heaven of the Jews.» In these matters he does not clarify whether they also transcend the God of the Jews, or only the heaven by which they swear. D Regarding those who acknowledge another—
as they promise God, different from Him whom the Jews also adore, it is not our present purpose to speak; A but rather to defend ourselves and to show that the prophets of the Jews, having been before Plato, could not have taken anything from him. We have not, therefore, received from him the saying, “All things are around the King of all, and all things are for his sake”; but we have learned these things from the prophets, who spoke them better, as Jesus and his disciples interpreted the intent of the Spirit that was in the prophets—which was none other than the Spirit of Christ. Nor, moreover, was the philosopher the first to present the matters concerning the supercelestial place; for David long ago presented the depth of the abundance of the contemplations concerning God held by those who have ascended above things sensible, having said in the Book of Psalms: “Praise God, O heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens; let them praise the name of the Lord” (Ps. CXLVIII, 4). And I do not discourage [the view] that Plato, having learned the statements from the *Phaedrus* from certain Hebrews, as some have even recorded, and having encountered the prophetic words, set forth the things in which he said: “The supercelestial place no poet of those here has ever sung, nor will he ever sing according to its worth,” and the rest. Among which is also this: “For the essence, both colorless and formless, and intangible, truly existing, the pilot of the soul, visible to the mind alone, around which the genus of true knowledge has this location.” And, having been instructed by those words, our Paul, longing for things supramundane and supercelestial, and doing everything for their sake so that he might attain them, says in the second Epistle to the Corinthians: “For the present lightness of our affliction works for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, while we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary; but the things that are not seen are eternal” (II Cor. IV, 17–18). For he clearly presents to those capable of hearing that the sensible things are those he calls “things seen,” while he names the intelligible things, and those grasped by the mind alone, “things not seen.” And he knows the sensible and seen things to be temporary, while the intelligible and unseen are eternal; and being desirous of being present at the contemplation of those things, being helped by the longing for them, he considered every affliction to be nothing and light; and even in the very time of affliction and labors B he was in no way weighed down by them, but was lightened because of the vision of those things, C and while in the midst of labors and pains, he was so far from being oppressed by them that he deemed all torment to be light and worthy of contempt. Plato also followed our legislation, and it is evident that he investigated each of the things spoken therein. D “Chief guide” for “chief.”
A Since we are not at all burdened by them, but are instead lightened of every trial by that very vision, for “we have a great High Priest” who, by “the greatness of his power” and his intellect, has “passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,” who has promised to those who have genuinely learned the divine things and have lived in a manner worthy of them, that he will lead them to things above the world; for he says, “that where I go, you may be also.” For this reason, we hope that after the labors and contests here, we shall arrive at the highest heavens, and having received the “fountains of water springing up into eternal life,” according to the teaching of Jesus, and having contained rivers of contemplations, we shall be with the waters that are said to be “above the heavens,” praising the name of the Lord. And so long as we praise him, we shall not be carried about by the rotation of the heaven, but shall always be in the vision of the invisible things of God; no longer known to us from the creation of the world by the things that have been made, but as the genuine disciple of Jesus named it, saying, “But then face to face”; and, “When that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”
B The Scriptures received in the churches of God do not proclaim seven heavens, or any strictly limited number of them at all; but the discourses seem to teach either that the "heavens" are the spheres of what the Greeks call the planets, or something else more secret. And while Celsus says that there is a path for souls to the earth and from the earth through the planets, according to Plato, Moses, our most ancient prophet, in the vision of our governor the prophet, uses a mind that alone is a spectator, concerning which he has this manner. We shall not be carried about by the rotation of the heaven. For the things called immortal, when they reach the summit, having gone outside, stand upon the "back" of the heaven; and its rotation carries them around as they stand. And they contemplate the things outside of the heaven. Regarding the "path for souls to the earth." C When he had constituted the whole, he divided souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to each star, and having mounted them as into a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and spoke to them of the fated laws: that there would be one first and ordered generation for all, so that no one might be diminished by him. Having legislated all these things for them, so that he might be free of blame for their subsequent wickedness, he sowed some into the sun, others into the moon, and others into the instruments of time. D He brought the souls down like a stream, some from the moon, some from the sun, and the others from the rest of the wandering stars, into the lot of the other. Whoever indeed should master these, would live justly; but having been mastered [by them], [would live] unjustly. And he, on the one hand, who had lived the time befitting him, having returned again to the dwelling of his companion star, would have a happy life; but having failed in these things, he would change into a woman's nature in the second birth. At the thousandth year, both arrive at the allotment and choice of the second life, and each chooses whatever life she wishes. As to our patriarch
Jacob, he says that through a dream sent from God, he saw a ladder reaching to the heavens, and angels of God ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord supported by its summits; A whether he is hinting at these things or something greater than these in his discourse concerning the ladder—regarding which a book has also been composed by Philo, worthy of examination by one who is prudent and sensible among those who love the truth.
Next to these, Celsus, wishing to display his own wide learning in his discourse against us, sets forth also certain Persian mysteries, in which he says: «These things are also hinted at by the doctrine of the Persians, and by the initiation of Mithras among them. For there is in it a symbol of the two celestial revolutions—that of the fixed stars and that which takes place among the planets—and of the passage of the soul through these. The symbol is of this kind: a ladder with high gates, and upon it an eighth gate. The first of the gates is of lead, the second of tin, the third of bronze, the fourth of iron, the fifth of composite coinage, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold. They assign the first to Saturn, indicating by the lead the slowness of the star; the second to Venus, comparing to it the brightness and softness of tin; the third to Jupiter, the bronze-based and firm one; the fourth to Mercury, for both iron and Mercury are patient of all labors, profit-seeking, and tireless; the fifth to Mars, uneven and varied because of the alloy; the sixth, the silver one, to the Moon; the seventh, the golden one, to the Sun, imitating the colors of these two.»
Plato also spoke of two openings; and of these, they say that Cancer is the one through which souls descend, and Capricorn the one through which they ascend. Plato says there are two openings: one through which those ascending into heaven pass, and another through which those descending to earth pass. And the theologians also set the Sun and Moon as gates of the soul; and they maintain that they ascend through the Sun and descend through the Moon.
A their colors. Next, he examines the cause of the order of the stars, listed in this way, which is indicated through symbols in the names of the remaining material; he adds or sets forth musical ratios, according to the theology of the Persians. Celsus, however, is not satisfied with these, but adds a second account, again hanging upon musical theories. It seemed to me, however, that to set forth the wording in these matters of Celsus is absurd, and similar to what he himself has done, in having untimely assumed for the accusation of Christians and Jews not only the things of Plato, so as to be content with those, but also the – as he says – mysteries of the Persian Mithras and the account of them. For however these things may be, whether false or true, B to those who profess the things of Mithras and to the Persians we shall leave it to examine. Why, then, did he set forth these things more than any of the other mysteries along with their account? For it does not seem that the things of Mithras are exceptional among the Greeks compared to the Eleusinian mysteries, or those things handed down to those who are being initiated in Aegina to Hecate. But if, indeed, he wished to set forth barbarian mysteries along with their account, why not rather those of the Egyptians, in which many take pride, or those of the Cappadocians concerning Artemis at Comana, or those of the Thracians, or even those of the Romans themselves, when the noblest C of the senate are being initiated? But if it seemed untimely to him to compare any of those, as in no way contributing to the accusation of the Jews or Christians, how did the same thing not seem untimely to him regarding the setting forth of the Mithraic things? But if anyone should wish to take the sources for the more mystical contemplation of the entry of souls into divine things, not from the most obscure sect which he cited, but from books, sometimes Jewish and read in their synagogues, which Christians accept, and sometimes Christian alone; let him read those things seen by the prophet at the end of the prophecy of Ezekiel; in which various gates are inscribed, hinting at something concerning the diverse entry of the more divine souls into higher things; let him read also from the Apocalypse of John the things concerning the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and its foundations and gates. And if he can learn through symbols the way indicated for those traveling to divine things; let him read the numbers inscribed by Moses, and let him seek someone able to guide him into the mysteries concerning the encampments of the sons of Israel that have been recorded; which ones are ranked according to the east, as first, and which ones at the D south…
and which ones at the sea, and which ones are the last at the north. For he will see things worth observing in those places, and not, as Celsus thinks, things that require foolish listeners or base slaves. For one will discern in them A the nature of the numbers that are listed in them, and those which are applied to each tribe; regarding which it does not seem appropriate for us to set forth at this time. Let Celsus, however, and those who study his book, know that nowhere in the genuine and divinely trusted Scriptures are seven heavens spoken of; nor did our prophets receive anything from the Persians or the Cabiri, nor the apostles of Jesus, nor the Son of God himself.
Following the argument taken from the Mithraic mysteries, Celsus promises that one who wishes to compare the initiation of the Christians with the aforementioned initiation of the Persians, by setting these side by side and exposing the Christian matters, will thus see the difference between them. And where he knew how to mention names of sects, he did not hesitate to set forth those he seemed to know; but when he ought rather—if he had the knowledge—to have done so, and to have taught which sect uses the diagram that he has described, this he has not done. It seems to me that even in these matters, he has spoken from hearsay regarding the most undistinguished sect of the Ophites, I believe, and has set forth the content of the diagram B in part. But we, in accordance with our love of learning, have come across it, in which we found the fictions of men whom Paul described as those «who penetrate houses and lead captive silly women weighed down with sins, moved by various desires, always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth.» So utterly devoid of all credibility was the diagram, that not even silly women who are easily deceived, nor the most rustic people, ready to be led by any appearance of credibility, would have agreed with the diagram. At any rate, although we have traveled through many parts of the earth, and have inquired of those who everywhere profess to know something, we have never met anyone who C boasted of understanding it.
A We have, however, encountered [one] who set forth the [doctrines] of the diagram. In it was a diagram of ten circles, separated from one another, yet bound together by a single circle, which was said to be the soul of all things, and was called Leviathan. B Whom the Jewish Scriptures, whatever they may hint at, have said were fashioned by God as a mockery. For we found in the Psalms: "Everything you made in wisdom; the earth is filled with your creation. This sea, great and spacious, there ships pass through, C animals small and great, [and] this dragon which you fashioned to mock it." But for "dragon," *Leviathan* was in the Hebrew. Therefore, the impious diagram called the one so clearly condemned in the prophet as Leviathan the soul that has passed through all things. We found in it also the one named Beemoth D as if set after the lowest circle. And this Leviathan, he who fashioned that little diagram, inscribed it upon the circle and its center, setting forth its name twice. Furthermore, Celsus says the diagram is "marked off by a thick black line," and he claimed that this was said by him to be Gehenna, which is also Tartarus. Finding Gehenna written in the Gospel as a place of punishment, we investigated whether it was called by that name anywhere in the ancient scriptures, and especially since the Jews also use the name. We found that where it is named "the valley of the son of Ennom" in the Scripture, in the Hebrew we have learned that instead of "valley"—
"—A 64 namely, the valley of Ennom and Gehenna; and by observing the readings, we find also in the lot of the tribe of Benjamin Gehenna, or the valley of Ennom, where Jerusalem also was. And by examining the consistency of the heavenly Jerusalem being from the lot of Benjamin and the valley of Ennom, we find something transferred to the place concerning punishments, regarding the purification with torment of certain souls, according to this: "Behold, the Lord enters as a refiner's fire, and as the plant of the washers; and he shall sit refining and purifying as silver and gold." According to this same subject regarding the valley, and the place of punishments. And since punishments of those being refined occur around Jerusalem—those who have taken into the substance of their own soul things from wickedness, which is figuratively called lead in some places (wherefore impiety in Zechariah was seated upon a talent of lead)—as many things as might be said concerning the place, it is not for all, nor is it the present time, to narrate; nor even is it safe to entrust the clarity of such things to writing, since the many do not need more instruction beyond that concerning the punishment of those who sin, for it is not useful to advance into what lies beyond it, on account of those who, with difficulty and through fear of eternal punishment, even so restrain themselves to an extent from wickedness and the flood of sins resulting from it. Neither the diagram nor Celsus knows the discourse concerning Gehenna. Otherwise, neither would those authors have aggrandized their paintings and diagrams as if representing the truth through them, nor would Celsus, in his writing against the Christians, have inserted into his accusations against the Christians things which are in no way said by Christians, but by certain others who perhaps no longer even exist, but have completely vanished and are reduced to very few and easily numbered persons. And just as it does not befit those who philosophize on the teachings of Plato to apologize for Epicurus and his impious dogmas, so neither does it for us concerning those things in the diagram and those things said against it by Celsus. Wherefore, as superfluous and uttered in vain, we leave what Celsus said about these matters. For we would accuse Celsus himself more sharply before those held by such discourses. Following what concerns the diagram, and (not even from hearsay) concerning what is called by those— B C D
A in the ecclesiastical seal, he exposes some strange and mutual utterances for himself: as if the one who applies the seal were called the father, and the one who is being sealed were called the junior and the son, and were responding: “I have been anointed with white ointment from the wood of life,” [(1)] a thing which we have not heard to occur even among those from the heresies. Then he also defines a number [(2)] of the angels being spoken of by those who transmit the seal: “Seven, standing on either side of the soul of the one departing from the body [(3)]; some of the light, others of those being named archontic; and he says that the ruler of those being named archontic is called a cursed God.” B Then, having seized upon the expression, he reasonably accuses those who dare to say this. For this cause we too join in the indignation of those who blame such people, if indeed there are any who call the God of the Jews—the One who rains and thunders, and the creator of this world, and the God of Moses and of the creation according to him—a cursed God. But it seems Celsus has wished to intend something through these things that is not fair-minded, but most ungrateful from the philosopher towards us. For he wished those who are unacquainted with our matters, having encountered his [(4)] writing, to wage war against us, as if we call the beautiful creator of this world a cursed God. And it seems to me that he has done something similar to the Jews, who at the beginning of the instruction of Christianity C spread a defamation of the Word: as if, having slaughtered a child, they partake of its flesh; and again, that those attached to the Word, wishing to do the things of darkness, extinguish the light, and each is joined to whomsoever he encounters. Which defamation, although irrational, long ago held sway over very many, persuading those alien to the Word that such are the Christians; and even now it still deceives some, who, because of such things, are averse even to coming into a simpler communion of discussion with Christians. Such a thing, then, it seems to me, Celsus is contriving to expose [(6)], as if Christians say that D the creator is a cursed God, and he perhaps is to be deleted.
A Indeed, by persuading the reader to be credulous regarding these calumnies against us, he is forced to compel the total extermination of Christians, as men guilty of extreme impiety. B Then, confusing all things so as to provide the cause for why the God of the creation, which Moses described, is called accursed, he says, "according to the opinion of those who think such things about him, he is worthy of being held in execration; since he cursed the serpent, who gave the knowledge of good and evil to the first men." But he ought to have known that those who take the side of the serpent, as if he were an author of good advice to men—and in this matter they far exceed the myths of the Titans and the Giants, and for this reason they are called Ophiani—are so far from being Christians that they slander Jesus no less than Celsus does; nor is anyone admitted into their society unless he has cursed Jesus. C See, therefore, how absurd it was for Celsus, in his books against the Christians, to set forth as Christians men who do not even endure to hear the name of Jesus, not even as one might hear of a man who was wise or of moderate character. What could be more foolish or more insane, not only than those who wish to be named from the serpent as from an author of good things, but also than Celsus, who imagined that the Christians [think] the serpent was charmed or softened into tameness by some sorcery, or that it was rendered harmless by some other work of the devil—for they adore such a creature, and they apply the term "Eucharist" to the bread D that has been wrapped around by it.
CONCERNING THE OPHIANI
Epiphanius, B Heresy 37, which is that of the Ophiani: "For they nurture a serpent by nature in a certain chest; and at the time of their mysteries, having piled breads upon a table, they invite the serpent to the cavern. And when the cavern is opened, it comes forth. And thus, the serpent having ascended according to its own wisdom and craftiness, already knowing their foolishness, it climbs onto the table and wraps itself around the breads. And this they say is a perfect sacrifice. Whence, as I have heard from someone, not only do they break the breads in which the same serpent has been wrapped and distribute them to those who receive them, but each one kisses the serpent on its mouth, or [it is moved] by certain incantations to mildness, or it is rendered harmless by another trick of the demon. The miserable ones adore this, and call it 'Eucharist,' when it has encompassed the breads with its coiled movements." C Theodoret, book *On Heretical Fables*, on the Ophiani: "Some of them say that Christ, having been transformed into the shape of a serpent, entered the womb of the Virgin, and thus the miserable ones understand the saying of the Apostle: 'Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery,' etc." (Spencer).
But Origen is either mistaken in this passage when he says that the Ophiani do not admit anyone into their society unless he has cursed Jesus, nor do they endure to hear the name of Jesus, not even as a man of wise and moderate character; or those impious Ophiani whom he knew were entirely different from the Ophiani of whom Irenaeus writes in Book 1, Chapter 2: "For they indeed said that Jesus was generated from the Virgin through the operation of God, and was wiser, purer, and more just than all men; that Christ descended, united with Sophia, and thus became Jesus Christ." Philastrius, book 1, chapter 1, commemorates the Ophiani who arose before the coming of Christ. Perhaps the Ophiani of whom Origen treats here were branches of these.
A of the Christians to make accusations against the Ophiani? The philosopher of the Greeks, B who loved simplicity and proposed himself as a model of a happy life—in that he was not hindered from being happy by his complete lack of possessions—called himself a Cynic. But these impious ones, who take their name from the serpent, which is most hostile to human beings and most horrifying—not as humans, to whom the serpent is an enemy, but as serpents themselves—boast in being called Ophiani, and they brag about a certain Euphrates as the introducer of those impious teachings.
Next, as if railing at Christians and accusing those cursed ones who call the God of Moses and his law evil, and believing that Christians are the people who say these things, he says: "What could be more foolish or more mad than this senseless wisdom? For what was the Jewish lawgiver at fault? And how is it that you take his creation of the world for yourself through some, as you say, typical allegories, or the law of the Jews, yet you acknowledge, O most impious one, the creator of the world, who promised all things to them, who promised to increase their race to the ends of the earth, and who promised to raise them from the dead with this very flesh and blood, and who was the inspirer of the prophets—and yet you rail at him? But whenever you are hard-pressed by these people, you confess that you worship the same God; but when your teacher Jesus and the Moses of the Jews prescribe contrary things, you seek another God in place of him and the Father."
And in these matters, Celsus, that most noble philosopher, clearly slanders the Christians, saying that when Jews pressure them, they confess that they worship the same God as them; but when Jesus prescribes things contrary to Moses, they seek another in his place. For whether we are conversing with Jews or are among ourselves, we know one and the same God, whom the Jews also formerly worshipped and whom they now profess to worship, in no way acting impiously toward him. Nor do we say that God will raise the dead with this flesh and blood, as it has been said in the preceding pages. For we do not say that the animal body which is sown in corruption, in dishonor, and in weakness, is raised as it was sown. But regarding these points, we have spoken reasonably enough in the preceding pages.
Following this, he repeats the things concerning the seven archons. As for the heresies, some are named from a person, such as that from Valentinus, and Marcion, and Basilides, even if they boast of bringing forth the opinion of Matthias; for the teaching—like the tradition—of all the apostles was one. Others are named from a place, as the Peratici; and others from a nation, as that of the Phrygians.
A of those called—as I think—by the Ophites. And indeed, in the diagram that we ourselves acquired on account of them, we found the order set forth just as Celsus described. Celsus, for his part, said that the first was fashioned in the likeness of a lion, without disclosing the name which those truly most impious people imposed upon him. But we found, from that impious diagram, that the demon with a leonine form is called Michael, a name which in the sacred Scriptures is attributed to the holy angel of the Creator. Again, Celsus claimed that the next, the second, is a bull; but the diagram we held said that Suriel is the one with the form of a bull.
B Furthermore, [they say] that there is an unknown Father, who created powers, principalities, and authorities; and that the angels departed from the higher power, and that seven of them created the world and the things in it; and that the world was allotted to each angel by division.
C Tertullian, *Adversus Valentinianos*, ch. 20: “When He sets the sevenfold stage of the heavens above His own throne: whence it is also called the Sabbath, from the week of His throne.” Irenaeus, lib. 1, ch. 30: “He made also seven heavens, above which they say the Demiurge is, and on account of this they call him the Hebdomad.” And below: “But they say there are seven heavens, and that they are intellectual; they hand down that they are angels, and the Demiurge, and the angel himself, etc.” Irenaeus, lib. 1, ch. 24, on Saturninus: who are entirely unknown to Christians, [but] are usurped, I think, by the Ophites. And indeed, in the diagram that we have endeavored to compare, I find the same order of demons that Celsus exposed. And Celsus says the first has the form of a lion, while remaining silent about the name that was imposed upon him by those truly impious men. But I discovered from that impious diagram that that demon with the leonine form is called Michael, which name is attributed in the holy Scriptures to the holy angel of the Creator. He whom Celsus says is the second, a bull, the diagram names Suriel, the bull-formed. The third, by Celsus’s witness, is of doubtful life and a horrible whistling; and in the diagram that third one is Raphael... D [the following words concern the conjectures of Joannes Croius to be published at the end of this tome; against whom Dionysius Petavius wrote an appendix to the notes on Synesius. I shall here only append those things which pertain to the text of Origen, omitting those which look to explanation and elucidation, to be sought if one wishes from the book of Croius itself. Meanwhile, Spencer notes this:] I believe the Ophites borrowed this fiction from the most ancient heretics, namely the Gnostics, Saturninus, Basilides, and Valentinus. Listen to Epiphanius, heresy 26, which is that of the Gnostics, p. 91: “They relate that these are the names of the greater princes. In the highest sphere, they say, resides Jao. In the second, Saclas, who presides over debaucheries and lusts. In the third, Seth. In the fourth, they place Daden. For they assert there is a fourth heaven, and a third; and again a fifth, in which they place Elox, who is also called Adonaeus. But others maintain that Jaldabaoth occupies the sixth, or others Elif. But some define that there is a seventh, where Sabaoth sits. This is denied by others, who attribute that seventh station to Jaldabaoth. In the eighth they imagine the domicile of Barbelo to be.” To the aforementioned princes they have added others, and as many heavens, until they reached the three hundred and sixty-fifth. Epiphanius, heresy 24; Theodoret, *On Heretical Fables*, on Basilides: “Furthermore, inventing names of angels, they said that some have the first heaven, others the second; and so on in order up to the three hundred and sixty-fifth.” These seven greater princes Irenaeus enumerated differently, lib. 1, ch. 30: “For he who is the first from the Mother is called Jaldabaoth; he who is from him, Jao; and he who is from him, the great Sabaoth; the fourth, Adonaeus; and the fifth, Eloaeus; and the sixth, Oraeus; the seventh, and last of all, Eloaeus.” There is another enumeration of the seven princes, or angels, differing from both, which is found among the Basilidian Gems, table four, in Jo. Chifflet’s *Abraxas Proteus*: MICHAEL GABRIEL OURIEL RAPHAEL ANANAEL. [index: entries preserved]
A Then Celsus speaks of a third, an amphibious power, hissing fearfully; but the diagram says the third is Raphael, dragon-formed. Again, Celsus says the fourth has the form of an eagle; but the diagram says that Gabriel is the eagle-formed one. Then Celsus says the fifth has the face of a bear; but the diagram says that Thauthabaoth is the bear-formed one. Then Celsus says the sixth is recorded among them as having the face of a dog; but the diagram says he is Erataoth. Then Celsus says the seventh has the face of an ass, and is called Thaphabaoth or Onoel; but we have found in the diagram that he is called Onoel or Thartharaoth, being a certain ass-formed being. It seemed good to us also to set forth such matters accurately, so that we might not appear to be ignorant of what Celsus professed to know, but rather that we might demonstrate that we Christians have known them more accurately than he, not as being Christians' doctrines, but as those of men entirely alien to Jesus, or the Savior, or God, or a teacher, or the Son of God. But if any one desires to learn also the fabrications of those sorcerers, by which they wished to entice men to their own teaching as if possessing some secret things, though they were not very successful, let him hear what they are taught to say after having passed through what they call the partition of wickedness: "O thou that art bound by the ruler of the age as a solitary King, a bond of blindness, an unthinking oblivion: I greet the first power, preserved by the spirit of Providence and wisdom. From hence I am sent pure, already a part of the light of the Son and the Father. Let grace be with me, yes, Father, let it be with me." And they say that the princes of the Ogdoad B take their origin from this. Then next they are taught to say, when passing through him whom they call Ialdabaoth: "Thou, having been born first and seventh, to rule with confidence, O ruler, being the word of pure intelligence, a perfect work for the Son and the Father, bearing the symbol of the type of life, having opened the gate to thy world which thou didst close in the age, I pass on again, free from thy power. Let grace be with me, yes, Father, let it be with me." And they say that the star Phaenon sympathizes with the lion-formed ruler. Then they think that one who has passed through those who are alien to salvation, and are in no way inscribed—[I am] Raphael—O ruler, bear-formed—Thauthabaoth—[O]niel—from the tartarus—Tartharaoth. C And they think that the one who has passed through the powers that are alien to salvation—and are in no way inscribed as of the Christians, but are rather powers of the sorcerers who are far from the doctrine of Jesus, which we confess truly even to death—has seen them. It is necessary, however, to know that these were neither composed by us, nor have they discerned the things of the divine Scriptures, but turned everything upside down. From magic D [they derived] Ialdabaoth and Astaphaios and Horaies; and from the Hebrew Scriptures they interpreted Iao. [alt-version omitted]
A Ialdabaoth — and reaching to Iao 50 of those previously mentioned, they glorify Ialdabaoth, saying that he is, as I have said, the first son of Barbelo. And for this reason, they say, one must render honor to him, because he revealed many things. Hence they also fabricate certain books in the name of Ialdabaoth, painting [an image] and [providing] myriad barbarian names of archons and powers, they say, in each heaven, who are opposed to the soul of man. And they command [one] to say at the beard, as a symbol: "O ruler of the hidden mysteries of the Son and Father, night-shining, second Iao, and first lord of death, part of the innocent, offering already my own beard as a symbol under [my] mind, I am ready to pass through your authority; you have overcome [52] him who was born of you by the living Word. Let grace be with me, Father, let it be with me." Then, next, [they address] Sabaoth 55, to whom they imagine they will say: "Ruler of the fifth power, dynast Sabaoth, leader of the law of your own creation, which is being loosened by grace, O power stronger than the pentad, let me pass, seeing the symbol of the craft, [which is] blameless, kept by the image of the seal 34, the body loosened by the pentad. Let grace be with me, Father, let it be with me." They say that Sabaoth has the form of a donkey, and others say of a pig. Wherefore, they say, he commanded the Jews not to eat either of these. They also say that the wretches—thinking that the name Sabaoth is the name of some archon—also say that he has hair like a woman’s. B
On the Jaldabaoth and Iao invocation formula
Now as one proceeds from Jaldabaoth to Iao, they think one must offer this prayer: "You, who preside over the occult mysteries of the Son and Father, who are visible in the night, second Iao, first lord of death, part of the innocent, offering [my] own beard as a symbol, I am ready to pass through your domain; you have confirmed him who was born from you by the virtue of the living Word. Let grace be with me, O Father, let it be with me." Thence one goes to Sabaoth, whom they say is to be addressed thus: "O prince of the fifth domain, Lord Sabaoth, first herald of the law imposed upon the things created by you, which grace has liberated, by the power of the number five, admit me, seeing the symbol of your art C... [alt-version omitted] ... Others also use Hebrew names so that they might inspire stupor or terrify those who are being initiated, thus: *Basyma cacabasa eanaa irraumista dyarbada, cucola bafobor camelanthi.* The interpretation of these is as follows: "That which is above every power I invoke, which is called light and spirit and life; for you have reigned in the body." Still others again proclaim the redemption thus: "The name which is hidden from all deity and domination and truth, which Jesus of Nazareth put on in the zones of light, Christ the Lord who lives through the Holy Spirit unto angelic redemption; the name which is of restoration, *messia ufar magno in scenchaldia mosomeda earcha faronepseha*, Jesus of Nazareth." And the interpretation of these is as follows: "I do not divide the spirit of Christ, [my] heart, and [my] super-celestial power, O merciful one, may I enjoy your name, Savior of truth." D And these things, indeed, are proclaimed by those who initiate; but the one who is being initiated answers: "I have been confirmed, and I have been redeemed, and I redeem my soul from this Aeon, and from all that is from it, in the name of Iao, who redeemed his soul unto redemption in the living Christ." Thereafter, they superadd, saying: "Peace to all, upon whom this name rests."
A Let there next be to him the one for Astaphaios, to whom they believe such things are to be said: "Prince of the third gate, Astaphaios, overseer of the first principle of water, seeing me as one initiated, and purified by the spirit of the virgin, admit me, thou who beholdest the essence of the world. Let grace be with me, Father, let it be with me." After him, Ailoein, to whom they think such things should be said: "Prince of the second gate, Ailoein, admit me, as I bring to thee the symbol of thy mother, namely, the grace hidden by the virtue of the powers. Let grace be with me, Father, let it be with me." Finally, they name Horaeos, and think that they should say to him: "Thou who, having fearlessly crossed the barrier of fire, hast obtained the dominion of the first gate, Horaeos, admit me, as I behold the symbol of thy power, destroyed by the seal of the tree of life, and taken in the image of the likeness of the innocent one. Let grace be with me, Father, let it be with me." B
To these things, the supposed learning of Celsus—which is rather an idle curiosity and chatter—has stirred us, wishing to demonstrate to anyone encountering his writing, and those which we have written in response to it, that we are not at a loss concerning the teachings of Celsus, in which he falsely accuses Christians of neither thinking nor knowing such things. Even if we had wished to know and to set forth these things, it was in order that the sorcerers, by their profession of knowing something more than we, might not deceive those who are carried away by the phantasy of names. I could have brought forward and presented other more numerous instances, so that I might show that we know the ways of the deceivers, but that we reject them as alien, impious, and not coexisting with the words of Christians which are truly confessed by us even unto death. One must know, however, that those who compiled these things, having understood neither the arts of magic nor having discerned the things of the divine Scriptures, have jumbled everything together: from magic C Jaldabaoth, and Astaphaios, and Horaeos; but from the Hebrew Scriptures, the one named among the Hebrews Iao, or Ia, or Iao, "I am who I am." This is said among the Hebrews as Aia, but among the Samaritans as Iabe. And it is written with these letters: Ioth, Alpha, Ouauth, E, through which is signified the unbegun and endless [nature] of God. Ioth, Alpha, Ouauth, E. D
A And the [other] names taken from the Scriptures are epithets of the same and one God; which because the enemies of God—as they themselves also confess—do not understand, they have thought that Iao is one, and Sabaoth another, and that an Adonaus, whom the Scriptures call Adonai, is a third distinct from these; and [they think] the Eloaeus to be another, whom the prophets call Eloi in Hebrew. Next, Celsus sets out other myths, as if some were returning into the powers of the rulers, so that some were called B lions, others bulls, others dragons, or eagles, or bears, or dogs. We found in that same diagram the figure which Celsus calls quadrangular, and that which those miserable people hold concerning the gates of paradise. A flaming sword was depicted there, the diameter of a fiery circle, as if standing guard at the tree of knowledge and of life. Now Celsus either would not or could not set forth the speeches which those who pass through the gates are made to utter by the myths of the impious; but we have done so, that the end of this uninitiated initiation might be made clear to Celsus and to those who encounter the writing, so that they might know it to be alien to the piety of Christians regarding the divine. Iao, Ieuo, Eloai. To breathe, to be born. And [they say] that the ruler who possesses this world is of dragon-like form, and that he swallows the souls that do not possess knowledge, and through his tail sends them back again into the world, and from there into swine C and into other animals, and again they are carried back up through the same. After setting forth the aforementioned [doctrines], and those things analogous to them which we have added, Celsus says such things: "But they further add other things upon other things: words of prophets, and circles upon circles, and emanations of the earthly Church, and of circumcision, and a power flowing from a certain Prunicus virgin, and a living soul, and a heaven slain that it might live, and an earth slain with a sword, and many slain that they might live, and a ceasing of death in the world when the sin D of the world shall die, and [again] a narrow descent, and gates opening of their own accord. And everywhere there [appears] the tree of life, and the resurrection of the flesh through the tree; because—I suppose—their teacher was nailed to a cross and was a carpenter by trade. For if it chanced that he had been thrown from a precipice, or cast into a pit, or strangled by a rope, or had been a leather-worker, or a stone-cutter, or a blacksmith, there would have been a precipice of life above the heavens, or a pit of resurrection, or a rope of immortality, or a holy leather, or a blessed stone, or an iron of charity. Or what old woman [would be said] to be without beginning and end?
murmur such things?» In these words, it seems to me that Celsus is muddling things he has heard incorrectly. It is likely that if he heard a few phrases of any heresy whatsoever, not having grasped its meaning or even its intent, he gathered the snippets together and displayed them to those who know nothing of either our doctrines or those of the heretics, as if he knew everything that Christians believe. This is made clear by the passage before us. For our using the words of the prophets is characteristic of us, as we demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ proclaimed by them and prove from the prophetic writings the things in the Gospels that have been fulfilled concerning Jesus. A But to speak of circles within circles, this perhaps derives from the aforementioned heresy, which includes within one circle—the one they claim is the soul of all things, or Leviathan—the seven circles of the archontic powers. Or perhaps it is a misinterpretation of the Preacher, who says, "The spirit goes in circles, and the spirit returns upon its own circles." That which he says about the emanations of the earthly Church and circumcision was perhaps taken from the claim made by some that the Church on earth is an emanation of a heavenly and superior Aeon, and that the circumcision recorded in the Law is a symbol of a certain circumcision that took place there during some purification. B The followers of Valentinus name a certain "Prunicus" wisdom, in accordance with their own wayward wisdom; they intend this to be the symbol of the woman who suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years. Celsus, having heard this incorrectly—confounding together everything from the Greeks, the barbarians, and the heretics—spoke of "a power of a certain Prunicus flowing from a virgin." A living soul is perhaps mentioned in the secrets of some of the followers of Valentinus concerning the one they name the psychic creator; or perhaps it has been said—not absurdly—by some, simply as a distinction of the living soul from the dead soul of the one who is saved. But as for "slaughtered heaven," or "earth slaughtered with a sword," or "many slaughtered that they might live," I do not know what he means, and it is not unlikely that Celsus invented these things himself.
§ 38. And that energetic man was not satisfied with having railed against the diagram; he desired to heap up more accusations against us, even though they have nothing in common with what he had previously said, by interjecting things from heretics as if they belonged to others. For he says, "And this is not the least surprising among them," and he tells how they explain it: "For between the supercelestial circles are inscribed spheres, which they customarily interpret, and especially these two words, 'greater' and 'lesser,' which they refer one to the Father and the other to the Son." C We have indeed seen in that diagram a larger and a smaller circle, with the diameter inscribed, and "Father" and "Son" written between the larger and the smaller, and where it was smaller, there were others joined together, consisting of two circles—the outer one yellow, and the inner one blue; and the interscribed barrier in the shape of a hatchet. And above its circle, closely connected to the larger of the former ones, was inscribed "Agapa"; below it, adjoining the circle, was written "Zoe." To the second circle it was inscribed, and intertwined and encompassing two other circles, and another shape, rhomboidal, "Sophia's providence"; and within the intersection of these, "Sophia's nature." D And above their common intersection was a circle in which was inscribed "Gnosis," and below it another in which was inscribed, as if one were reading, "Prunicus," and another joined together, which Boherellus proves. [alt-version omitted]
...and when the death of the world has been brought to an end, when the sin of the world has died, we might say, explaining the mystery in the Apostle, in the following way: "When he shall have put all enemies under his feet, then the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed." It is also said, "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, then shall come to pass the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory." Perhaps those who introduce the transmigration of souls might also speak of a narrow descent once again. Nor is it implausible that "gates opening of their own accord" refer to those who hint at and explain the text: "Open to me the gates of justice, that I may enter into them and confess to the Lord; this is the gate of the Lord, the just shall enter into it." And again, it is said in the ninth psalm: "Thou who liftest me up from the gates of death, that I may show forth all thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion." The Word says that the gates of death are the sins that lead to perdition; just as, conversely, the gates of Sion are the good works. Thus, the gates of justice are equivalent to the gates of virtue; these open readily to one who pursues works of virtue.
As for the tree of life, one might more opportunely explain it while interpreting the section in Genesis concerning the paradise of God which was planted by Him. Celsus has mocked many times the resurrection which he did not understand; now, not content with what he has said, he claims that "resurrection of the flesh by means of a tree" is preached by us, having misunderstood, I think, what was said symbolically: "Through a tree, death; and through a tree, life—death through Adam, and life through Christ." Then, playing with the matter of the tree, he mocks it from two points of view, saying that it is invoked for this reason, either because our teacher was nailed to a cross, or because he was a carpenter by trade; he does not see that the tree of life is recorded in the writings of Moses, nor does he see that nowhere in the Gospels current among the Churches is Jesus himself recorded as a carpenter. B And he thinks that we, by interpreting allegorically, have fabricated the tree of life, and consistently with his error regarding this, he says:
A If indeed he had been cast down from a cliff, or plunged into a chasm, or strangled by a noose, they would have undoubtedly fashioned above the heavens a cliff of life, or a chasm of resurrection, or a rope of immortality. B And again he says: If the tree of life was fabricated because he was a worker in wood, it would follow that if he had been a leather-worker, they would have imposed upon us some holy leather; if a stonemason, a blessed stone; if a blacksmith, an iron of charity. But who does not see the worthlessness of the accusation of this man, who insults those whom he promised to convert as if they were deceived? Next to these things he adds what is appropriate to the fabrications (57) of those who mythologize about lion-like and ass-headed and dragon-like rulers, and whatever else resembles their mythological fabrications; but these things do not at all belong to those from the Church. For in truth, not even a drunken old woman would be ashamed to croon or whisper to a child to lull him to sleep such myths as those who have fashioned ass-headed beings and the quasi-orations at each gate. The things of the Church, however, Celsus does not understand, things which very few have been able (58) to comprehend—those who have dedicated their whole life, according to the command of Jesus, to searching the Scriptures, and who have labored more on examining the will of the holy writings than the Greeks who philosophized on the acquisition of some supposed knowledge.
Not content with the things from the diagram, this noble man, in order to increase the accusations against us, wished to insert some things that have nothing in common with it, taking up those of others (59) as if they were ours. For he says: C And this is not the least thing to be wondered at in them; for they interpret certain things inscribed between the supercelestial circles above, and among others, two things, a greater and a smaller, of Son and Father. D We indeed found in this diagram the larger circle and the smaller; on the diameter of which was inscribed Father and Son. And between the larger, in which the smaller was, and another composed (60) of two circles, the outer one yellow, the inner one blue (61), there was the inscribed division in the shape of an axe. And above it was a small circle touching the greater of the former, having inscribed upon it Charity; and below, touching the circle, it had written upon it Life. And on the second circle, which was intertwined and contained within itself two other circles and another rhomboid shape, was inscribed Sapience’s providence (62); and in the common section of them, Sapience’s nature. And above their common section was a circle in which was inscribed Knowledge; and below, another in which [index: entries preserved]
was inscribed Intelligence. And we have dwelt upon these things, given the opportunity by Celsus, that the readers might recognize A that the things which we ourselves censure are better known to us than to him; and not from useless rumors have we received them. Whether, however, those who take pride in such trifles also profess certain magical arts, or whether this is the sum of their wisdom, I do not assert, since I have never apprehended anything of the kind; let Celsus look to that, who has often already been convicted of falsehoods and absurd calumnies, whether he lies here as well, or whether he has truly discovered in his own work what he set forth concerning certain things alien to our faith. B
Next, he speaks regarding those who use magic and trickery, and invoke the names of certain demons as barbaric, saying that they do something similar to those who, regarding the same things, seem to do marvelous things before those who do not know that there are different names for these things among the Greeks than among the Scythians. He sets forth things borrowed from Herodotus, how that the Scythians call Apollo Gongosyrus, and Poseidon Thagimasadas, and Venus Argimpaea, and Vesta Tabiti. The one who is able to examine this will inquire whether Celsus also lies here along with Herodotus; for the Scythians do not know whether those things which they deem to be gods are the same as those among the Greeks. For what probability is there that Apollo should be called Gongosyrus among the Scythians? For I do not think that, if Gongosyrus were turned into the Greek tongue, it could demonstrate the etymology of Apollo, or that Apollo signifies the same as Gongosyrus in the Scythian language. And I do not yet speak of the others; for the Greeks derived the names of the gods they suppose to exist among themselves from one cause and origin, and the Scythians C from another; so too do the Persians from one source, and the Indians, or Ethiopians, or Libyans from another; or as it pleases each to name them, having departed from the primary and pure notion of the Creator of all things. But enough has already been said by us on this head in what preceded, when we wished to demonstrate that Sabaoth is not the same as Zeus; when we also set forth some observations concerning the diversity of languages from the divine Scriptures. I gladly pass over these matters, then, in which I could not follow Celsus without repeating what has already been said.
Then, he again chants to us of magical tricks, and perhaps attributes them to no one, since there is no one who exercises such an art in the religion he attacks; or perhaps he refers to those with whom it is customary to use this artifice before the simple, so that they might appear to accomplish something by divine power. D These, in truth, are his words: “What need is there for me to recount all those who use either expiations, or incantations and voices for casting out and averting misfortunes...”
A or images, or demonic configurations—whether these be made of objects perceived by the senses, or of numbers, or of stones, or of plants, or of roots, and in general of every kind of material—to provide all sorts of antidotes?” Concerning these matters, reason does not require us to make a defense, since we are not in the least measure implicated in such suspicions. After this, he appears to me to be acting like those who, because of their intense hatred for Christians, insist to those who know nothing of the customs of Christians that they have caught them eating the flesh of infants and engaging in promiscuous intercourse with the women in their company. Just as such statements, having been made already by many who are utterly foreign to our religion, are rightly judged to be calumnies against Christians, so too would it be found that these charges by Celsus are nothing but lies, in which he claimed that “he had seen among certain elders of our faith barbaric books containing the names of demons and various incantations,” and he alleged that “these supposedly ‘elders’ of our faith promised nothing good, but everything for the injury of men.” And would that all the things said by Celsus against Christians were of this kind! For then, most people would have refuted them by having experienced for themselves that such things are false, since they have lived their lives alongside Christians and have never even heard anything of the sort about them. After this, as if forgetting that his purpose was to write against Christians, he says: “A certain Dionysius, an Egyptian musician who associated with me, said concerning the art of magic that it has power over the uneducated and those with corrupt morals, but that it is able to accomplish nothing against those who occupy themselves with philosophy, B since they have looked after their wholesome way of life.” If it were our purpose now to discuss magic, we could have added a few things to what we have said above about it; but since it is necessary to speak more pointedly toward the treatise of Celsus, concerning magic we say this: that anyone who wishes to examine whether or not philosophers are susceptible to it should read what was written by Moeragenes in his memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, the magician and philosopher. In these, the author—who was not a Christian, but a philosopher—said that certain philosophers of no low rank were captured by the magic practiced by Apollonius, having approached him as a sorcerer. For we must not place our trust in Moeragenes, who composed four books about Apollonius but was ignorant of many things concerning the man. And let us pass over the matters concerning Musonius, which are more numerous and more wondrous, so that I may not appear to be acting recklessly toward one who related them carelessly. “And [concerning those he says] were captivated by him, I think he even narrated [some things] about the Euphrates (73) and about a certain Epicurean. But [I] will [refute this]...
A We, however, maintain, having also learned by experience, that those who, according to the Christian faith, worship through Jesus the God who is over all, and who live according to His Gospel, and who use the appointed prayers more frequently and properly both by night and by day, are not subject to the power of magic or demons. For in truth, “The angel of the Lord shall encamp around those who fear Him, and shall deliver them from every evil.” And the angels (74) of the little ones in the Church, who are appointed to preside over them, are said at all times to behold the face of the Father who is in the heavens; whatever that face may be, and whatever that beholding may be.
[Regarding the mention] of Euphrates the philosopher, [Celsus] says, “Not I,” said God, “but He who defines equality by mediocrity.” B And these men [Celsus says], were good counselors regarding these things—pointing to Dion and Euphrates—who had not yet come into disagreement with him [Apollonius], [who were] captured by the magic practiced by Apollonius, [those] noble philosophers. Following these things, Celsus sets forth such [arguments] against us from another starting point: “They err most impiously, and are also led astray about this (75) greatest injustice, similarly having been misled by divine enigmas, [by] making for God a certain adversary (76), calling him Diabolos and in the Hebrew tongue, Satanas. C Otherwise, indeed, these things are altogether mortal (77), and it is not even holy to say that the greatest God, wishing to benefit men, has one who acts against [Him], and is unable [to overcome him]. Then the Son of God is defeated by the devil; and, being punished by him, He teaches us also to despise the punishments [inflicted] by him (78), predicting that Satan himself, appearing in like manner, will display great and marvelous deeds, usurping the glory of God; to which one ought not to pay attention, if one wishes to turn away from him, but [one ought] to believe in Him alone. D These things are frankly [the words] of a sorcerer, acting for hire and guarding against those who think differently and rise up (79) in opposition.”
Then following these things, wishing [to interpret] the enigmas, of which he thinks we have heard mistakenly, to introduce [the idea of] Satan, he says that “the ancients hinted at a certain divine war; Heraclitus (80) indeed saying thus, ‘But if one must say that war is common, and justice is strife, and all things are generated according to strife and necessity.’ And Pherecydes (81) [saying]...
A narrating a story of a war between two armies, gives Cronus as leader of one, and Ophioneus of the other, recounting also their challenges and contests; and that there were pacts made between them, so that whichever of them fell into the ocean, those would be the vanquished, and those who had thrust them out and conquered would possess the heaven. He says that the mysteries concerning the Titans and Giants belong to this design, as they are declared to be warring against the gods; as are also the things among the Egyptians concerning Typhon, and Horus, and Osiris.» Then, having set forth such things, and not having explained how, on the one hand, those things contain a deeper meaning, while these are misinterpretations of those, he inveighs against us, saying, B «Those are not like the accounts of the devilish demon, or, what they say is truer, of a sorcerer who contradicts [the truth].» In this way he also interprets Homer, as if he were hinting in those words of Hephaestus to Hera at things similar to Heraclitus, and Pherecydes, and those who introduce the mysteries concerning the Titans and Giants saying: «For already once before, when I was eager to defend you / He threw me by the foot, having grasped it, from the divine threshold.» And to those of Zeus to Hera thus: «Dost thou not remember C when thou didst hang from on high, and from thy feet I cast down two anvils, and around thy hands I put a golden chain, unbreakable; and thou didst hang in the ether and clouds; and the gods were indignant throughout high Olympus.»
And we could find ten thousand things stated enigmatically both by philosophers and by poets; where even whole books demonstrate the author’s hidden intention: as is also the book of Heraclitus, *On Nature*, who for this very reason has been called the "Dark." Similar to this book is the *Theology* of Pherecydes the Syrian. And if he is "dark," [it is because] D all the things which Pherecydes theologized through allegory, he took as his thesis from the prophecy of Ham. «Taking the incentives from the Phoenicians, Pherecydes also theologized concerning the god called by him Ophioneus, and the Ophionidae, concerning whom we shall speak again.»
There is no escape into those pastures and meadows, but they wander about, like those demons of Empedocles who are god-driven and heaven-fallen: «For the force of the sky drives them into the sea; And the sea spews them upon the floor of the earth; And the earth [sends them] to the rays of the unwearied sun, And he casts them into the eddies of the ether.»
A And explaining the Homeric verses, he says that the words of Zeus to Hera are words of God to matter; and that these words to matter intimate that God, having taken hold of matter which from the beginning was in a disorderly state, bound it and adorned it with certain harmonies; and that as many of the demons regarding it as were arrogant, these He cast out, punishing them by the path downward. And he says that Pherecydes, having understood these Homeric verses in such a way, spoke the following: «Below this part of the earth is the region of Tartarus, which Harpyia and Thyella, daughters of Boreas, guard, where Zeus casts out those of the gods, whenever any one commits acts of insolence.» And he says that the veil B of Athena, which is seen by all in the procession of the Panathenaia, holds such meanings. «For it is indicated by it,» he says, «that some motherless and unpolluted demon overcomes those earth-born ones who act boldly.» And having accepted the fictions of the Greeks, he adds, accusing our teachings, that «the Son of God is punished by the devil, and [Christ] teaches us to endure as if we were being punished by the same. And these things are entirely ridiculous. For it were necessary, I think, to punish the devil, instead of threatening the men who have been slandered by him.» See, then, if he who accuses us of wandering most impiously and being led astray from divine enigmas is not himself clearly wandering, C not having understood that the writings of Moses—which are older not only than those of Heraclitus and Pherecydes, but even than those of Homer—introduced the doctrine concerning this wicked one who fell from the heavenly realms. For the serpent—from whom also the Ophioneus in Pherecydes has come to be the cause of the man being cast out of the divine paradise—intimidates such things, having deceived the female genus with a promise of divinity and greater things, to which it is said the man also followed. And who else could the destroyer in the Exodus of Moses be than the one who is the cause of destruction to those who obey him, and do not resist his wickedness, and do not contend against him? And furthermore, the scapegoat in Leviticus, D which the Hebrew scripture called Azazel, could be none other—which it behooves one to send away and to avert from the lot that is in the desert. For all those of the portion of the worse, because of their wickedness, are opposed [to the lot of God], and are desert, being deprived of certain ones who have moulted their feathers...
A and are far removed from God. But what of the sons of Belial in the Book of Judges? Of whose sons are they said to be, on account of their wickedness, if not of that same evil one? Furthermore, in the Book of Job, which is more ancient even than Moses, the devil is described as standing before God and requesting the power to subject Job to the heaviest of trials: first, by the loss of all his possessions and his children; and second, by afflicting Job’s whole body with that savage `elephantiasis’, as the disease is called. I pass over what the Gospels say regarding the devil who tempted the Savior, lest I seem to be using the authority of later writings in the matter being discussed against Celsus. And in the final chapters of the Book of Job, in which the Lord speaks to Job from the whirlwind and the clouds, there is not a little said about the dragon. I do not mention what Ezekiel says, as if speaking of Pharaoh, or Nabuchodonosor, or the prince of Tyre; nor do I cite the lamentation of Isaiah over the king of Babylon B; from all of these, one may learn from where evil took its beginning and origin, and that evil came into existence after the one who first moulted his wings. For it was not possible for that which is good by accident and by subsequent addition to be the same as that which is essentially good; which [good], for the one who—if I may use the expression—receives the living bread for the preservation of himself, would never fall away. But if it does fall away from anyone, it falls away because of that person’s own cause, for having been negligent in partaking of the living bread and the true drink—from which one is nourished and watered, and the wing is prepared; and, according to the wisest Solomon speaking of the man who is truly rich, “He has prepared wings for himself like an eagle,” and he returns to the house of him who is set over him. For since God knows how to use for a good purpose even those who have revolted through wickedness, it was necessary for these evil ones to be placed somewhere in the universe, and for them to be turned into a training ground for those who desire to strive lawfully C for the sake of acquiring virtue; so that, being tested like gold in the fire by the wickedness of these beings, and having done everything to ensure that they put forward nothing counterfeit in their own rational nature, they might appear worthy of the ascent to divine things, and be drawn up by the Word to the highest blessedness of all, and, if I may so call it, the summit of all good things. Now, Satan in the Hebrew tongue, and in Greek—more strictly—is called by some Satanas; it signifies “the adversary.” Whoever chooses wickedness and lives by it, since he acts contrary to virtue, is a Satan D, that is to say, an adversary.
A More properly, however, the adversary is he who, being the first among those who were in peace and living blessedly, shed his wings and fell from his happiness; who, according to Ezekiel, ‹walked blameless in all his ways until iniquity was found in him›; and who, being ‹a seal of likeness, and a crown of beauty in the paradise of God,› having been, as it were, sated with good things, became ‹a destruction› according to the word mystically spoken to him: ‹Thou hast become a destruction, and thou shalt not be for ever.› These few things we have ventured, perhaps not very successfully, to commit to this work, trusting in the Scriptures. But if anyone, devoting his leisure to the examination of the sacred writings, should endeavor to synthesize from every source the doctrine concerning evil, and how it first came to be, and in what manner it is being resolved, he would see that neither Celsus nor any of those who are dragged and hauled away by this evil demon from God and from the right understanding of Him and of His Word, ever even dreamed of the intention of Moses and the prophets concerning Satan.
Since Celsus also makes mention of the one called Antichrist, though he has read neither the things said about him in Daniel, nor the things in Paul, nor the things prophesied in the Gospels by the Savior concerning his coming, it is fitting to say a few things about him also. Just as faces are not similar to faces, so too are hearts not similar to hearts. It is evident, therefore, that there are differences in human hearts, those who have turned toward the good not all being shaped and formed in the same or similar way toward it, and likewise those who, through negligence of the good, have rushed toward the opposite. For among these, in some wickedness is poured out B vehemently, while in others it is so to a lesser degree. What, then, is absurd about there being two, if I may call them so, “extremities,” one of good and one of its opposite, occurring in men, such that the extremity of good is found in the man to be understood according to Jesus—from whom such a great turning, healing, and improvement has flowed to the human race—and the extremity of the opposite is in him who is called Antichrist? God, who encompasses all things with His own foreknowledge and has seen these things concerning both, wished to make them known to men through the prophets, so that those who understand their words might attach themselves to the better [extremity] and guard themselves against the opposite. And it was necessary that the one of the two ends, being the best, should be proclaimed the Son of God on account of His excellence, while the other, being diametrically opposed to Him, should be called the son of the evil demon, of Satan, and of the devil.
Further, since evil is known to be accumulated and to have reached its peak when it assumes the appearance of good, for this reason that evil one, with the cooperation of his father the devil, produces signs, wonders, and lying powers. For beyond the assistance that demons, while deceiving men, provide to sorcerers for the most wicked deeds, there occurs a cooperation from the devil himself to deceive the human race. A Paul also speaks concerning this person called the Antichrist, teaching and setting forth, though with some obscurity, how and when he shall come to the human race, and for what cause. And see whether what he says is not most serious and worthy of not even the slightest derision.
He speaks as follows: «We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him, that ye be not B soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.»
To explain each of these things does not suit the present treatise. There is also, concerning him, a prophecy in Daniel, which is such that it can lead the prudent and candid reader to wonder, so truly does it savor of divine and prophetic inspiration. There, those things which pertain to future kingdoms are foretold, from the times of Daniel even to the destruction of the world. Whoever wishes may read it. But as for the things concerning the Antichrist, see whether they are not of such a kind: «And at the end of their kingdom, when their iniquities have reached their fullness, a king of a brazen face shall arise, who understands riddles, and his power shall be strengthened, and he shall destroy wonders, and shall prosper,
and shall do, and shall destroy the strong and the holy people, and the yoke of his fetters shall prosper. Deceit is in his hand, and in his heart he shall be magnified. And by deceit he shall destroy many, and he shall stand in the destruction of many, and as eggs he shall crush them in his hand. What, moreover, has been said by Paul in the statement which I have quoted, «sojourn in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God,» has been expressed by Daniel in this fashion: «And on the temple, an abomination of the desolations, and even until the completion of the time, shall a completion be given to the desolation.» B And these things I have thought it worthwhile to gather from many others, so that the reader might to some extent understand the intention of the divine Scriptures, which teach those things concerning the devil and the Antichrist. Being content with these things for this matter, let us observe another statement of Celsus and fight against it as far as we are able.
He then said, after the points presented, such things as these: "Suppose, however, it has also occurred to them to call him Son of God, I make note of this. Forsooth, the ancients called this world, as if it had been brought into being by God, the son of God and a youth. There is a great likeness, certainly, between this and that Son of God!" He therefore thought that when we say [Jesus is] the Son of God, we have wrongly borrowed it from those things which were handed down concerning the world, namely, that it was born from God and is his son and is God. For he could not attend to the age of Moses and the prophets, to understand that the Jewish prophets had prophesied concerning a certain Son of God long before the Greeks and those whom he calls the ancients existed. Nor did he even wish to bring forward the testimony which we cited above from Plato’s letters, where he speaks concerning the maker of this universe as being the Son of God; for he feared that he might be forced C by that Plato, whom he often extolled with praise, to admit that the maker of this universe is the Son of God, but that the first and supreme God is his Father.
But that we say the soul of this Jesus is united to such a great Son of God by an intimate participation, and is never to be separated from Him, is not at all strange. For the sacred teachings of the divine Scriptures know of other things, which, although they are two by their own nature, are yet held to be and truly are one. Such is that [teaching] concerning husband and wife: «They are no longer two, but one flesh;» and concerning the perfect man and him who adheres to the true Lord, who is the Word and Wisdom and Truth: «He who adheres to the Lord is one spirit.» If, therefore, he who adheres to the Lord is one spirit, who more—nay, who as much as—the soul of Jesus, adheres to the Lord, who is the Word itself, the Wisdom itself, the Truth itself, and the Justice itself? If however the matter is so constituted, we say [that the soul of the Son is united to Him].
A and that the soul of Jesus and the Word and the Firstborn of all creation are not two. B Consequently, if the Stoic philosophers, while saying that the virtue of man and God is the same, do not say that God who is over all is happier than the wise man among men—according to them—but that the happiness of both is equal, Celsus does not mock, nor does he ridicule the dogma. But if the divine word asserts that the perfect man is agglutinated by virtue and is united to the Word itself—so that those who have ascended to this level do not separate the soul of Jesus from the Firstborn of all creation—he laughs that Jesus is called the Son of God, not seeing what things are spoken mystically about Him in secret within the divine Scriptures. But in order to bring one who wishes to follow the consistency of doctrines and to benefit, to the acceptance of what is said, we say that the divine writings maintain that the whole Church of God is the body of Christ, animated by the Son of God; and that the members of this body, as of a whole, are all those who believe. For just as the soul gives life and movement to the body, which is not of itself naturally moved vitally, so the Word, moving and acting upon the whole body, the Church, toward those things which are necessary, also moves each individual member of those who belong to the Church, so that they do nothing without the Word. If, therefore, this is—as I suppose—not to be despised and hangs together perfectly, what prevents the soul of Jesus, through its supreme and incomparable communion with the Word itself—and, to put it simply, Jesus Himself—from not being separated from the Only-Begotten and Firstborn of all creation, and from not being something other than He? And so much for these matters.
Let us see also what follows, in which, having declared it in a single word, and not even saying anything according to probability, he censures the creation of the world according to Moses, saying: C «Furthermore, the origin of the world is also utterly foolish.» If he had revealed how it seems foolish to him, and had brought forward certain probabilities, we would have fought against them. However, it does not seem reasonable to me to construct a defense against his assertion, when he has provided no reason for it.
D 52. Thereafter Celsus says: «But I, regarding the generation and destruction of the world, whether it is unbegotten and incorruptible, or whether it is begotten and incorruptible, or the reverse, say nothing at all about this.» Therefore, neither do we address [this matter]; for the nature of our undertaking does not require us to do so.
A In what way is this not foolish? If any one desires to contemplate the arguments that have moved us, established along with the visible demonstration concerning the creation of the world according to Moses, let him take what we have discussed on Genesis, from the beginning of the book up to: "This is the book of the generation of men." In these writings, we have endeavored to demonstrate from the divine scriptures themselves what the heaven created in the beginning was, and the earth, and the invisible and unformed state of the earth, and what the abyss was, and the darkness upon it, and what the water was and the Spirit of God moving upon it, and what the created light was, and what the firmament was, distinct from the heaven created in the beginning, and so forth.
He declared that the scripture concerning the creation of men is also utterly foolish, neither putting forward the proofs nor struggling against them; for he had no arguments, I believe, that could overturn the fact that man was made in the image of God. Nor did he understand the paradise planted by God, and the life of man in it before the fall, and the life that resulted from the tribulation after he was cast out because of sin, and was settled opposite the paradise of delight. But let the one who says that these things were said in a very foolish manner consider each point, and first this one: "He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turns, to guard the way to the tree of life." If, then, Moses wrote these things without understanding anything, but doing something similar to the things the poets of the ancient comedy wrote in jest—[that] Proetus slew Bellerophon, or that the Pegasus was from Arcadia—but those men used to compose such things wishing to provoke laughter; it is not, however, credible that he who left scriptures for a whole nation, which he wished to persuade the law-receivers were from God, would have committed to writing absurdities, and have said B without any sense, "He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turns, to guard the way to the tree of life," or any other of the things spoken concerning the creation of men, which the wise men among the Hebrews have philosophized about. C
Following these things, having compiled in naked assertions the differences of the opinions of some of the ancients concerning the creation of the world and of men, he says: "Those who left our writings, Moses and the prophets, not knowing what the nature of the world and of men is, composed deep nonsense." If, then, he had stated the manner which seems to him to make the divine scriptures "deep nonsense," we would have attempted to dismantle the plausibilities that appeared to him concerning their being deep nonsense. But now, acting in the same way as him, and mocking, we too will declare that Celsus, in no way knowing what the nature of the mind and of the discourse in the prophets is, has composed "deep nonsense," arrogantly entitling it "The True Discourse." Since, however, he brings forward, as clear and accurately understood by himself... D
an accusation regarding the days of the creation of the world—some of which he claims passed before there was light, or heaven, or sun, moon, and stars, and others of which followed their creation—we shall note this one point against him: that it surely escaped Moses's notice to have said previously, "In six days the world was finished in its creation," and that, forgetting himself, he added to these words, "This is the book of the generation of men, in the day that God made heaven and earth." But it is in no way plausible that Moses, having spoken about the six days, added without reason, "in the day that God made heaven and earth." If anyone thinks these words can be referred back to the passage, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," let him consider that before the words, "Let there be light, and there was light," and before the words, "And God called the light day," it was said, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." B Now, to discourse about intelligible and sensible things, and in what manner the natures of the days have been distributed into both kinds, is not our present purpose, nor is it to examine the things concerning their places; for we would need entire treatises to narrate the creation of the world according to Moses, a task which we have performed, to the best of our ability, long before the present work against Celsus, having discussed the six days of the creation of the world according to Moses from the habit of study we possessed at that time, many years ago. One must know, however, that the Word promises through Isaiah to the righteous C that there will be a state of days in which "there shall be no sun, but the Lord himself will be an everlasting light to them, and God will be their glory." Celsus, I suppose, having misheard some wicked heresy that interprets the words "Let there be light" badly, as if they were spoken prayerfully by the Creator, said: "For the Creator did not, like those who light their lamps from their neighbors, borrow light from above." And having misheard another impious heresy, he also said, "If there were some cursed god, an adversary to the great God, doing these things against His will, why did he lend him the light?" We are so far from defending these views that we rather wish to condemn their doctrine as erroneous, and we address ourselves not to things we do not know about them, as Celsus does, but to what we accurately know, having followed their reasoning at times, and at other times having carefully read their writings. After this, Celsus says: "I say nothing now concerning the generation and destruction of the world, whether it is unbegotten and incorruptible, or created but incorruptible, or the reverse." Wherefore, neither do we say anything about these matters now; for the D current treatise does not require it.
Nor do we say that the Spirit of the God over all was [present] as in things foreign to Him, according to the passage, "And the Spirit of God was moving over the water," nor do we say that any things are craftily devised against His Spirit by another creator besides the great God, which the higher God A permitted to be in need of destruction. Therefore, let those who say these things be gone, as well as Celsus, who does not truthfully refute them; for he ought either not to have mentioned such matters or, according to the kindness he imagines for himself, to have carefully set them forth and contended against the things impiously spoken by them. Nor have we ever heard that the great God, having given the Spirit to the creator, demands it back again. Then, engaging in foolishly impious B speech, he objects: "What god gives something as if he were about to demand it back? For it is the part of one who is in need to demand, but God is in need of nothing." And to these things he adds, as if saying something quite wise against some: "Why, when he lent, was he ignorant that he was lending to an evil [creator]?" He also says this: "Why does he look on C whilst an evil creator acts in opposition to him?" Then, I think, confusing heresies with heresies, and not noting that some things belong to one heresy and others to another, he brings forward the objections we raise against Marcion. Perhaps, also, having misunderstood these from some vulgar and unlearned arguments, he voices his rebuke—a rebuke which does not demonstrate much wisdom. For setting forth the things said against Marcion—and not noting D that he is speaking against him—he says: "Why does he send [someone] secretly, and destroy the works of this one? Why does he break in by stealth, and persuade, and deceive? Why does he win over the souls of those condemned or cursed by him, as you say, and steal them away like a kidnapper? Why does he teach them to flee from the Lord? Why to flee the Father? Why does he himself adopt them without the Father's consent? Why does he announce himself to be the Father of those who belong to another?" And he adds to them, as if in astonishment: "A noble god indeed, who desires to be the father of sinners, of the wretched, and—as they themselves say—of the offal condemned by another! And who cannot punish the one he sent, who has rebelled against him!" Thereafter, as if acting against us who confess that this world is not [the work] of some alien and stranger God, he says such things: "If these are his works, how did God create evils? How is he unable to persuade and admonish? And why does he repent when they have become ungrateful and wicked? Why does he complain of his own skill, and hate, and threaten, and destroy his own offspring? Or where does he lead them away from this world, which he himself made?" And it seems to me that even in these things he is rebuking the rebukers with an argument, not, however, one that is very wise.
A It is not, therefore, absurd for God to be said to introduce such things for the sake of turning and healing those who have need of such pains, nor would it be absurd for the Word to say that "evil comes down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem," B both because that which is posited in the troubles which enemies were bringing is for the purpose of conversion, and because it is said, "to be visited in the rod of iniquities and in stripes for their sins," and because it is said, "You have coals of fire, sit upon them, they will be an aid to you." C We explain this in the same way: "I am the one who makes peace and creates evil," for he creates the bodily and exterior evils, and purges and instructs those who do not wish to be instructed by the Word and sound doctrine. And these things are in answer to, "How could God perform evils?"
B 57. Now to the point: "How is he unable to persuade and exhort?" I have already said what Celsus objects here, if it is because of this that we can be brought into court by those who admit of Providence. Someone has also replied that God is able to exhort, given that he exhorts through the whole of Scripture, and through those who teach by the grace of God those who listen. Unless perhaps they assign some specific meaning to the word "exhort" (58), and to the attaining of it in the one exhorted, and listening to the one teaching, which is beyond the sense of the term as understood in common usage. And to the point, "How is he unable to persuade;" and how it follows for all who admit of Providence, these things must be said. Since persuading (59) is like those who are said to be convinced, analogous to men being moved, it requires not only the act of the one persuading, but also for the one being persuaded—so-called—to be disposed toward the persuader, or to receive what is said by the persuader. Therefore, it should not be said that God is unable to persuade those who are not persuaded, but rather that they do not receive the persuasive (60) arguments of God. And this, when speaking of men, naming the creators of persuasion, one would not be wrong (61); for it is possible for someone who has perfectly grasped the theories of rhetoric, and properly makes use of them, to not succeed in persuasion, because the choice of the one who ought to be persuaded does not seem to be convinced. For, even if the persuasive (62) arguments come from God, the being persuaded is not from God. Paul clearly teaches this, saying, "And the persuasion is not from him who calls you." (63) It is similar to the saying, "If you are willing, and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land."
C ...and since he is even the one who brings about a result for the sake of higher things, a certain other inconvenience has externally followed: namely, that the head was thinly protected and fragile to blows and slight knockings; accordingly, diseases and sicknesses were also produced while health was being fashioned. "Thus, by Hercules," he says, "while virtue is being generated for men by the plan of nature, vices have been born there by contrary affinity." (64)
the world, 678 which Scripture in many places usually calls "the world." But it is especially in the Gospel according to John that one can find this "earthly world" spoken of, as when it is said: "That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into this world."
as naturally good things to be considered, and those contrary to this as evil. A For thus Job says to his wife: "If we have received good from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil?" Since, therefore, it is found in the divine Scriptures that on the one hand it is said from the person of God: "I am the one who makes peace and creates evil," and on the other hand again concerning Him: "Evil has come down from the Lord unto the gates of Jerusalem, [a] noise of chariots and horsemen,"—things which have troubled many readers of the Scripture, as they were unable to perceive the meaning behind the good and evil mentioned therein—it is likely that from this source Cel- B sus raised his objection and said: "How could God be creating evil?" Or perhaps he said this because he had heard someone interpret the stated words regarding that topic in a somewhat unlearned fashion. We, however, say that God did not create, as evils, either vice or the actions that stem from it. For how could the preaching regarding judgment possess any freeness of speech if it teaches that the base are to be punished according to the proportion of their transgressions, but that those who have lived according to virtue, or have performed actions according to virtue, are to be blessed and to obtain rewards C from God, if God has made those things which are truly evil? I know that those who desire to dare to say even these things will take up certain passages of Scripture; they are unable to demonstrate that the Scripture is consistent as it condemns those who sin and approves those who do well, and yet nevertheless mentions those few things which seem to disturb those who read the divine letters without understanding. To expound now on those disturbing words—which are numerous—and their interpretations, which require much construction, did not seem to me to be appropriate for the present composition. Therefore, if one hears "evil" in the sense of things properly called so, God has not made them. But as regards His primary works, D a few things, as they relate to the arrangement of the whole, have followed in their wake, just as from the primary works of a craftsman there follow spiral shavings and saw-dust, and just as for builders there seem to be produced those things lying about the buildings, like refuse falling from the stones and the mortar—the things called evil by misuse. If one speaks of what are called in a debased sense "bodily evils" and "external evils," we will concede that it has at times come about that God has brought some of these things to pass, in order that through them He might convert some. And what absurdity can this doctrine possess? For just as we, if we call "evil" by misuse the pains that are brought upon those being trained by fathers, teachers, and tutors, or upon those by doctors who are cut or cauterized for the sake of recovery, and we say that the father, or the tutors, or the teachers, or the doctors are doing evil to the sons, still, those who strike would not be accused if he had done such evil things.
A Likewise, God is said to bring such things upon persons for the sake of the conversion and healing of those who have need of such pains, and the argument would contain nothing absurd; nor could it be said that "evil comes down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem," which had its substance in the pains from the enemies, brought upon them for their conversion; nor that he "visits with a rod their iniquities" who have abandoned the law of God, "and with scourges their sins"; nor that it is said, "You possess coals of fire, sit upon them; these shall be a help to you." And in this way we explain also the text, "I am he who makes peace and creates evils," for he creates bodily or external evils, purifying and disciplining those who were not willing to be disciplined by the word and by sound doctrine. And these things are in answer to "How did God make evils?"
But in answer to "How is he unable to persuade and admonish?" it has been said already that, if such a thing is an accusation, the objection of Celsus would apply to all who accept Providence; but one might apologize by saying that God is not unable to admonish; for he admonishes through the whole Scripture, and through those who by the grace of God teach those who hear. Unless, perhaps, some specific meaning is understood in the word "to admonish," namely, that of succeeding in the one being admonished, and that he hears the word of the teacher, which is contrary to the sense of the usage common in language. And in answer to "How is he unable to persuade?" which also might be brought forward against all who accept Providence, these things must be said: Since to be persuaded B is, so to speak, one of those called "reciprocals," analogous to a man being shorn, as he acts in providing himself to the shearer, for this reason it requires not only the act of the one persuading, but also, if I may so name it, the submission to the one persuading, or the reception of the things said by the one persuading. For this reason, if some are not persuaded, it must not be said that this arises because God is not able to persuade, but because they do not receive the persuasive words of God. And anyone speaking of this even in the case of men who are called craftsmen of persuasion would not be wrong; for it is possible that one who has grasped the precepts of rhetoric to an extreme degree, and uses them as is fitting, does everything for the sake of persuading, and yet if he does not attain the volition of the one who ought to be persuaded, he appears not to persuade. And that, even if the saying of persuasive words comes from God, the being persuaded is not from God, Paul clearly teaches, saying, "The persuasion is not from Him who calls you." Such is also the text, "If you are willing and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth; C if however you are not willing, and do not hear me, the sword shall devour you." D
A For in order that anyone might desire what the one exhorting says, and by listening to them become worthy of the promises of God, the choice of the hearer is required, along with an assent to what is being said. Wherefore it seems to me to be emphatically stated in Deuteronomy: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, except to fear the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to keep his commandments?" Next, one must encounter the objection: "How is it that he repents for those who have become ungrateful and wicked, and complains of his own craft, and hates, and threatens, and destroys his own offspring?" He slanders and falsely interprets in this way what is written in Genesis: "And the Lord God seeing that the iniquities of those on the B earth were multiplied, and that every one is meditating diligently in his heart upon evil things all the days, God remembered that he had made man on the earth; and he thought in his heart, and God said: I will blot out man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, from man even to cattle, and from creeping things even to the birds of the air; for I remembered that I made them." He brings forward things that are not written, as if they were indicated by what is written; for in these there is no mention of God's repenting, nor is it read that he complains of his own craft or hates it. But if God seems to threaten the things of the flood, and to destroy in it his own offspring, it must be said that, since the soul of men is immortal, that which is thought to be a threat aims at turning the hearers back; but the destruction of men in the flood is a purgation of the earth, as even those of the Greeks who have philosophized not incompetently have said: "When the gods purify the earth." Regarding places where human affections are attributed to God, not a few things have already been said by us above. C And Celsus, suspecting next, and perhaps having seen for himself, that it could be said by those apologizing for those who perished in the flood, says: "But if he does not destroy his own offspring, where in the world does he cast them away from this world which he himself made?" And to this we say that, as for the whole world, consisting of heaven and earth, he does by no means cast away those who suffered the flood; but he delivers them from the life in the flesh, and by loosening their bodies, he releases them at the same time from having to exist on the earth, which it is the custom of the Scriptures in many places to name "the world." But it is possible to find the earthly world called "world" especially in the Gospel according to John; just as when it is said: "That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world."
And, "In the world you will have tribulation A (49), but have courage, I have overcome the world." If, therefore, one understands by "world" the withdrawal from this current terrestrial place, nothing absurd meets the argument. But if one names as "world" the system of heaven and earth, those who suffered the flood are not altogether led out of the world as thus B (50) named. And yet one might say, having understood the words, "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen," and the words: "For his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made C," that one who applies his mind to the invisible things, and to those that are collectively named "not seen," has gone out of the world, with the Word leading him forth from here and transferring him to the supercelestial place for the vision of beautiful things. After the passage examined, as if having a purpose D to fill the book with many words, he says things similar to those examined a little above, in which he said: "It is far more foolish to divide the creation of the world into certain days, before days existed; for with the heaven not yet made, nor the earth yet established, nor the sun yet being carried about in this place (53), how were there days?" For how do these differ from this: "Let us examine further from above, how the first and greatest God would not be absurd, ordering: Let this be, and another this, or that; and on one day crafting so much, and on the second again so much more, and on the third and fourth, and fifth and sixth." We have already refuted by our power (54) this "Ordering: Let this be, and another this, or that," when we set forth: "He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created," saying that the proximate creator (55) is the Son of God, the Word, and as it were the very craftsman of the world; but the Father of the Word, by commanding his own Word to make the world, is the primary creator. Regarding the fact that light was made on the first day, the firmament on the second, and on the third the waters under the heaven were gathered into their gatherings, and thus the earth brought forth things administered by nature alone, and on the fourth the luminaries and stars, and on the fifth the swimming creatures, and on the sixth the land animals and man, we have spoken according to our ability in those things written in our Commentaries on Genesis; and above, in blaming those who, according to a more superficial interpretation, say that six days of time passed in the creation of the world, we set forth: "This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when it was made; in the day that God made the heaven and the earth."
A Then again, not having understood the text: "And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he had rested from all his works which God had begun to do," and thinking that "he rested on the seventh day" is the same as "he took rest on the seventh day," he says: "After this, he has become like an idle and wicked craftsman who has grown weary, and who needs rest." For he does not know what that Sabbath and cessation of God is, which shall succeed the creation of the world as long as it exists; a day on which all those who have completed their own works in the six days and have left undone nothing that was required of them, shall celebrate a feast with God, ascending to contemplation and to the gathering of the just and blessed in it. Then, as if the Scriptures spoke in this way, or we ourselves explained it thus—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 command [others]." Celsus therefore 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 who belong to the superior and more divine order; for weariness belongs to those who are in a body. You might inquire, then, whether it belongs to those in any kind of body whatsoever, or to those in a terrestrial one, or one slightly better than this. But no, it is not right for the first God to work with his hands; yet if you understand "to work with one's hands" in the literal sense, it is not even right for the second God, nor for anything else among the divine beings. But let it be conceded that the word "to work with hands" is used figuratively or in a tropological sense, so that we may explain the text: "The firmament declares the works of his hands," and, "His hands have established the heaven"; and if anything has been said similarly to these, where we interpret the hands and members of God allegorically, what is absurd about God working with his hands in this sense? Just as it is not absurd for God to work with his hands, so neither is it for him to command; for the things accomplished by the one commanded are noble and worthy of praise, because it is God who has commanded them. B Again, Celsus perhaps having misheard the text: "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things," or perhaps because common people had spoken clumsily concerning the explanation of such things, and not understanding that the names of bodily members are applied to the powers of God, he says: "Neither does he have a mouth, nor is there a voice." For truly, there will not be a voice for God, if voice is [defined as] struck air, or the striking of air, or a species of air, or whatever those skilled in these matters define the voice to be; but the so-called voice of God is of such a kind that it is said to be seen by the people after the way in which the world was founded, as this passage testifies: "All the people saw the voice of God." C D
the word “seen” being taken, to use the customary language of Scripture, spiritually. A But he also says that nothing of the things which we know exists in God. Yet what these things are which we know, he does not specify. For if he speaks of members, we agree with him, understanding that what we know is spoken BODILY and in a more common sense. But if we take the phrase “what we know” generally, we know many things that reside in Him; for there is in Him virtue, and blessedness, and divinity. But if anyone understands the phrase “what we know” in a loftier sense, since all that we know is inferior to God, it will be no absurdity for us to admit that there is in God nothing of the things that we know. For the things that are in Him transcend not only human nature's power of knowledge, but also those natures that excel the human. B If he had read the sayings of the prophets, where David says, “But you are the same,” and Malachi, “I am, and I do not change,” he would have seen that none of us says that there is change in God, either in act or in thought. For, remaining the same, He administers mutable things as is in their nature to be administered, and as His reason directs them to be administered.
Then Celsus, failing to note the difference between “according to the image of God” and “His image”—that the image of God is the “Firstborn of all creation,” the Word Himself, and Truth itself, and Wisdom itself, being the “image of His goodness,” whereas man was made “according to the image of God”; and further, not considering that every man, whose head is Christ, is the image and glory of God; nor observing in what part of man that which is “according to the image of God” is characterized, and that it is in the soul which does not have, or no longer has, “the old man with his deeds,” being for that reason described as being according to the image of the Creator—says, “He did not make man to be His image; for God is not like this, nor is He like any other species.” C Of what kind is this notion of Celsus, to think that in man, who is composed of two parts, the worse part—I mean the body—is that which is made according to the image of God, according to the interpretation of Celsus, or that it is His image? For if that which is “according to the image of God” is in the body only, then the soul, the more excellent part, has been deprived of that which is according to the image, and it resides in the corruptible body—an assertion which none of us makes. But if that which is “according to the image of God” is in the combination of both, then God must of necessity be composite, and as it were standing together Himself of soul and body, so that the more excellent part, that which is according to the image, might be in the soul, and the lesser part, that which is according to the body, might be in the body.
This is something that none of us says. It remains, therefore, that what was made according to the image of God should be understood to be in the "inner man," as we call it, A who is "renewed," and is capable of becoming "according to the image of the Creator." This happens when someone becomes perfect, as the heavenly Father is perfect, and obeys the precept: "You shall be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God," and having learned the command, "Be imitators of God," he receives into his own virtuous soul the characters of God. Indeed, the body B of one who has such a soul—the soul that has received in itself the image of God—is a temple of God, because it has received within the soul the reality of God, according to the image.
Again, Celsus weaves together more things, asserting that they are doctrines of ours, which no one among Christians who has any sense would grant. For none of us says that C God participates in shape or color. Nor does motion pertain to Him, since His nature is stable and steadfast; indeed, He invites even the righteous man to similar things, saying: "But you, stand here with me." If some passages ascribe to Him something like motion, such as the one saying, "They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day," such things must be understood as if God were imagined D to be moving by those who had sinned; or they must be understood in the same way as one speaks allegorically of the sleep of God, or His anger, or anything similar. Furthermore, God is not a participant in substance; for He makes others participants, rather than being a participant Himself; and those who possess the Spirit of God are the participants. Neither does our Savior participate in justice; but being Justice itself, the just are participants of Him.
The discourse concerning substance is long and difficult to discern, especially whether, if there be a substance properly so called—that is, a permanent and bodiless one—it might be found that God, being superior to substance in rank and power, communicates substance to those to whom He communicates it according to his own Word, and by the Word himself; or whether He is Himself substance, although by nature He is called "invisible" in the passage of Scripture concerning the Savior, which says: "Who is the image of the invisible God," by the word "invisible" being signified that He is bodiless. It would be further necessary to inquire whether the Only-Begotten and Firstborn of every creature is to be called the substance of substances, and the idea of ideas, and the beginning; while God, his Father, is superior to all these.
A Celsus, for his part, says of God: "From Him are all things,"—thereby overturning, I know not how, his own principles. Our Paul, however, says: "From Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things," 38, where the phrase "from Him" signifies that it is to Him that all things owe their existence, "through Him" that they are preserved by Him, and "to Him" that He is the end. In truth, God is from no one.
But whereas he says that "He is not even to be grasped by the Word," I must draw a distinction and say: if by "the Word" one means the word within us, whether internal or profered, then we too will say that God is not to be grasped by the Word. But if we consider the passage, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," 39, we declare that by *this* Word God is graspable—and not only by the Word Himself, but also by whomever the Word should reveal the Father. Thus, we prove false the statement of Celsus, who claims: "God is not even graspable by the Word."
And the phrase "not to be named" B also requires distinction. If it is meant that none of the things in language and meaning can represent the properties of God, then what is said is true; for there are many qualities that cannot be named. For who can express in names the difference between the sweetness of a date and the sweetness of a dried fig? Who can use a name to distinguish and represent the individual quality of each thing? It is therefore no wonder if God cannot be named in this way. If, however, you understand "to be named" as whether it is possible, by means of names, to represent something regarding Him in order to lead the hearer and enable him to grasp, according to the capacity of human nature, some things concerning God, then there is nothing absurd in saying that He is nameable. We draw a similar distinction regarding the claim: "For He is not subject to any affection that can be grasped by a name." It is indeed true that God is beyond all affection. And let these things suffice thus far.
B Let us now also look at his next remark, by which he, as it were, introduces someone who, after hearing these things, speaks as follows: "How, then, am I to know God? And how am I to learn the way to Him? And how will You show Him to me? Since You are now casting darkness upon my eyes, and I see nothing clear." Then he, as it were, replies to the one who has thus raised the difficulty, and thinks he is accounting for the cause of the darkness being poured upon the eyes of him who said the aforementioned things, stating: "Those whom one brings out of darkness into brilliant light, their sight is punished by the-splendor, and they are harmed, and they think they are being blinded." C But to these things we shall say that all those who are occupied with the evil works of painters, and potters, and sculptors, and who do not want to lift up their eyes and D [from the darkness towards the light] are sitting and established in darkness...
A and who do not want to lift up their eyes and ascend with their intellect from visible and sensible things to the Creator of all, who is light. But all who follow the rays of the Word are in the light; for He has shown them from what great ignorance and impiety, and from what lack of knowledge concerning the Divine, these things used to be worshipped in place of God. And He has led by the hand the mind of the one who wishes to be saved toward the unbegotten B and supreme God. "For the people of the Gentiles, who were sitting in darkness, saw a great light; and to those sitting in the land and shadow of death, a light has risen," God Jesus. No Christian, therefore, will answer Celsus, or any of those who accuse the divine teaching, by saying, "How shall I know God?" For each one of them has known God as far as is possible. And no one says, "How shall I learn the way thither?" inasmuch as he has heard the One who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," and has tasted, in the journeying, the benefit derived from that journey. And no one among the Christians would say to Celsus, "How do you show God to me?" But to this, in the preceding, Celsus has said what is true: that someone having heard his words answers, but having seen that C his words are words of darkness, that "You are casting darkness upon my eyes." Celsus, therefore, and those like him, wish to cast darkness upon our eyes; but we, by the light of the Word, dissipate the darkness of impious dogmas. A Christian, indeed, would say to Celsus, who speaks nothing clear or true, "I see nothing clear in your words." Celsus does not, then, lead us from darkness into brilliant light, but wishes to transfer us from light into darkness, positing darkness to be light and light darkness, and being subject to that which was well said by Isaiah in this manner: "Woe to those who call darkness light, and light darkness." But we, the Word having opened the eyes of our soul, seeing the difference between light and darkness, choose to stand in the light by every means, and we wish to have no part with the darkness. The true and ensouled light knows to whom the sparks of radiance should be shown, D and to whom the light itself; for He does not display the brilliance of Himself to everyone, because of the infirmity still inherent in their eyes. But if one must speak of the vision [of the unbegotten] being injured and damaged, of whose eyes shall we say that they suffer these things, other than the one who is held fast by ignorance concerning God, and is hindered by the passions from seeing the truth? Christians, therefore, in no way think that they are blinded by the discourse of Celsus or any other person alien to piety; but those who feel themselves being blinded by following erring crowds and nations that celebrate [*] demons, let them approach the Word that grants eyes, so that, just as those poor and blind sitting by the way, [because they cried out...]
to him, "Son of David, have mercy on me," those who received mercy might receive new and beautiful eyes, such as the Word of God would create]. Therefore, if Celsus should ask us how we think we know God, and how we believe we shall be saved by him, we answer that the Word of God—having come to those who seek Him, or to those who accept Him as He manifests Himself—is sufficient to make known and to reveal the Father, who was not seen before His arrival. And who else is able to save and to lead the human soul to the God over all than God the Word? Who, being A in the beginning with God, for the sake of those who have cleaved to the flesh and have become what is flesh, became flesh, so that He might be grasped by those who were unable to see Him as long as He was the Word, and was with God, and was God. And, speaking in a bodily manner, and being heralded as flesh, He calls to Himself those who are flesh, so that He may first cause them to be conformed to the Word, who became flesh, and after this may raise them up to see Him as He was before He became flesh; so that they, having been benefited and having ascended from the introduction that is according to the flesh, might say: "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him no longer." He became flesh, therefore, and having become flesh, He dwelt among us, not becoming something outside of us. But having tabernacled and having become in us, He did not remain in His first form, but having led us up onto an elevated spiritual mountain, He showed us the glorious form of Himself and the brilliance of His garments; and not of Himself alone, but also of the spiritual law, which is Moses, who was seen in glory with Jesus. He also showed us that all prophecy did not die after He became man, B but was being taken up into heaven, of which Elijah was the symbol. He who has seen these things would say: "We beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Celsus has, therefore, foolishly concocted what he thinks we are going to say in response to his question, "How do we think we know God? and how [do we think we shall be saved] by Him?" We, for our part, would say what has been set forth above. Nevertheless, Celsus says that we answer by some conjecture, and he confesses to recording our answer as follows: "Since God is great and difficult to contemplate, He sent down here a spirit of His own, into a body similar to ours, so that we might be able to hear from him and learn." But not only is the God and Father of all great according to us; for He has made the Only-Begotten and First-Born of all creation a partaker of Himself and of His greatness, so that, being Himself an image C of the invisible God, and in His greatness, He might preserve the image of the Father. Not...
A that it were possible to imagine a symmetrical, if I may use the word, and beautiful image of the invisible God, which did not also represent the image of His greatness. But God, according to us, is invisible because He is not a body; yet to those who are capable of contemplation, He is visible to the mind—not, however, to any heart whatsoever, but to the pure heart. For it is not permitted for a contaminated heart to look upon God; but he who would worthily contemplate that which is pure must himself be pure. Let God, then, be difficult to contemplate; yet He is not the only one who is difficult to contemplate; His Only-begotten, God the Word, is also difficult to contemplate, as is the Wisdom in which God made all things. For who is able to contemplate the wisdom in each of all things, in which God made each and every thing? Therefore, it is not because God was difficult to contemplate that He sent the Son, as if the Son were a God easy to contemplate. Celsus, not having understood these things, says as if from our perspective: “Because He is difficult to contemplate, He breathed His own spirit into a body similar to ours, and sent Him down here, so that we might be able to hear from Him and learn.” But, as we have explained, although the Son is also difficult to contemplate, being God the Word through whom all things came to be, He nevertheless dwelt among us. If Celsus understood what we say concerning the Spirit of God, and that “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” he would not have answered himself, as if from us: “God sent His spirit down here infused into a body.” For God always communicates His own Spirit to those B who are capable of partaking of Him, and when that Spirit dwells in those who are worthy of Him, it is neither cut off nor divided. For we do not call the Spirit a body, just as fire is not a body, which is what is meant by the statement, “Our God is a consuming fire.” for all these things are spoken metaphorically to represent the intelligible nature by means of familiar and bodily terms. And just as, if sins are said to be “wood, and hay, and stubble,” we do not say that sins are bodies; and if good deeds are said to be “gold, and silver, and precious stones,” we will not say that good deeds are bodies; so, even if God is said to be a fire consuming the wood, and the hay, and the stubble, and every substance of sin, we shall not conceive of Him as a body; just as, even if He is called fire, we do not think him to be a body. Thus, if God is called Spirit, we do not say that He is a body. For it is the custom of Scripture to name intelligible things “spirits” and “spiritual” in order to distinguish them from sensible things; for instance, as Paul says, “But our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but C as if one said fire, not a body,
the spirit gives life." By "letter," he designates the sensible interpretation of the divinely inspired Scriptures; by "spirit," that which pertains to the intellect. The same judgment, therefore, applies to the passage, "God is Spirit." For since the Samaritans and the Jews were performing what was commanded by the Law in a bodily and typical manner, the Savior said to the Samaritan woman, "A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." By these words He taught that God should not be worshipped in the flesh and with fleshly sacrifices, but "in spirit." For He will be considered Spirit insofar as He is worshipped in spirit and intellectually. Nor is it necessary to worship the Father in types, but in truth, which "came through Jesus Christ," after the Law had been given through Moses. For "whenever we turn to the Lord (and the Lord is the Spirit), the veil is removed from our heart whenever Moses is read."
Since Celsus did not understand these things regarding the Spirit of God—"for the natural (psychical) man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are discerned spiritually"—he draws the conclusion regarding us that, by saying God is Spirit, we differ in no way from the Stoics among the Greeks, who assert that God is a spirit passing through all things and containing all things within Himself. While it is true that the oversight and providence of God permeate all things, it is not as the Stoics' spirit; and while providence contains all things for which it provides and grasps them, it does not do so as a body containing what is also a body, but as a divine power encompassing what it contains.
If, then, one were to believe the Stoics, who say that first principles are corporeal and therefore subject everything to corruption—endangering even the God over all, were it not that this seems entirely absurd to them—the Word of God, which descends even to men and the smallest things, would be nothing other than a corporeal spirit. But according to us, who endeavor to demonstrate that the rational soul excels every corporeal nature and is an invisible and incorporeal substance, God the Word, through whom all things were made, could not be a body—He who reaches forth so that all things might come to be according to the Word, not only to men, but even to things that are considered most minimal and are governed by nature.
Therefore, the followers of the Stoa claim that all things are to be consumed by fire. We, however, do not know of any incorporeal substance being consumed by fire, nor do we believe that the soul of man, or of angels, or of thrones, or of dominations, or of principalities, or of powers, is resolved into fire. Thus, it is in vain that Celsus has spoken...
A because he does not know the things of the Spirit of God, saying: "Since the Son who is born in a human body is a spirit sent from God, not even the Son of God himself could be immortal." Then again, he muddies his own argument, as though some of us did not confess that God is Spirit, but rather his Son, and he thinks that he is replying by saying: "There is no nature of spirit such that it remains forever." It is as if, when we say that our God is a consuming fire, he were to object that there is no nature of fire such that it remains forever; he does not see how we say that our God is a fire, and what things he consumes—namely, sins and vice. For it befits a good God, after every man has shown through his struggle the kind of athlete he has become, to consume B by the fire of punishment his vice. Then again, he takes up that which is not said by us, saying: "It is necessary that God breathed out his spirit when he died; and consistent with this is that Jesus could not have risen with his body. For God would not have taken back the spirit he had given if it had been contaminated by the nature of the body." It is foolish, therefore, for us to answer these remarks as if they were our own, when they are not. Next, he repeats the same things, after having said much in the earlier passages and mocked the birth of God from a Virgin—to which we replied as best we could—and says: "But if he wished to send a spirit from himself, what need was there to breathe it into a woman's womb? For he could already have fashioned men known to him, and could have fitted a body to this, and not have cast his own spirit into such a sink of filth. C And so, had he descended immediately from above, there would not have been such disbelief." And he said these things because he does not understand the pure and virginal birth, and one free from any corruption, of the body that was to serve for the salvation of men. He who displays his Stoic learning, and yet pretends not to have acquainted himself with the teaching concerning "things indifferent," thinks that the divine nature is cast into, and contaminated by, filth—whether it stays in the body of a woman until the body is fashioned for it, or it assumes a body; acting somewhat like those who conceive that the rays of the sun are polluted when they fall upon mud and foul-smelling bodies, and do not remain pure even there. Moreover, even if, according to Celsus’s hypothesis, the body of Jesus had been fashioned without being born, D those who saw the body would not immediately have believed that it had not been born. For that which is seen does not proclaim the nature from which it has descended. For example, if by hypothesis there were some honey not made by bees, neither taste nor sight would tell anyone that it was not from bees; just as that which is from bees does not immediately proclaim [it].
A His appearance, then, was base, and less than that of the sons of men." Celsus heard this, since it seemed to him that these things were useful for calumniating Jesus; yet he by no means attends to the words of the Psalm, where it is said: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one. In thy majesty and in thy beauty, and proceed, and prosper, and reign."
76. But suppose he had not read the prophecy, or had indeed read it, but was deceived by unskilled interpreters who deny that it refers to Jesus; for example, what the Gospel says about his having ascended a high mountain, and having been transfigured before his disciples, and having been seen in glory, where Moses and Elias were seen in glory "saying his departure, which he was about to fulfill at Jerusalem." If then the prophet says: "We saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty," and so on, and Celsus admits that this prophecy is referred to Jesus, he is blind to the noble argument concerning the interpretation of this passage: he does not see that it is a great argument that one who seemed to be a formless Jesus is the Son of God, because it had been prophesied long before what his appearance would be. But if another prophet says that he is endowed with grace and beauty, he does not wish this prophecy to be referred to Christ. And yet, if he clearly takes from the Gospels that "he had no form, nor beauty, but his appearance was base, and less than the sons of men," not because the prophet said these things, as Celsus might say, but according to the Gospel—now, since neither the Gospels nor the apostles declare that he had no form or beauty, it is clear that Celsus is compelled to confess that this prophecy was fulfilled in Christ: a fact which repels the calumnies of Jesus.
77. Then he says: "Since a divine Spirit B was in a body, it was necessary that it should in every way excel the rest in magnitude, or beauty, or strength, or voice, or impressiveness, or persuasiveness; for it is impossible that that in which something divine beyond others was present should differ in nothing from another." And this one, he says, differed in nothing from anyone else; but, as they say, he was small, and ill-favored, and ignoble. It clearly appears in these points also, that if he wishes to accuse Jesus, C he thinks that he should [argue] either by magnitude, or by beauty—yet he [admits] that he differed in nothing from anyone else. And it is wonderful, according to his nature, that the Creator can change matter into all things that he wills, and [is able] to give it any quality whatsoever, according to what is said: "He had no form, nor beauty." But when he is [so] glorious and D impressive, then he should appear as it is fitting for each to see him. But it is not wonderful, even if there is matter, that it is mutable, and can be changed by the craftsman at his will into any quality, provided it is said: "He had no form, nor beauty," yet at other times he has [all qualities].
A Since he attempts to use the Scriptures—acting as one who believes B them—wherever they seem to provide him with an opportunity for accusation, but does not even pretend to recognize the places where, in the same Scriptures, the contrary appears to be said to those adopted for the purpose of accusation, he behaves in this way. It is agreed that it is written that the body of Jesus was deformed, yet not that it was of an ignoble appearance, as Celsus has set forth; nor is it clearly indicated that it was of small stature. The passage stands thus, recorded in Isaiah, prophesying that he would come down to the many not in a graceful form, nor in any superior beauty: "Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We announced in his presence, as a child, as a root in a thirsty ground. There is no form to him, and no glory; and we saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty." C For when the things of the flesh are compared with the glory of the Divinity, they appear to be of no account; for the Son appeared in a form of extreme indecency. And if the prophet says: "We saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty," but there is also [a contrary account], then D the things of the flesh, being compared with the glory of the Divinity, appear to be of no account or value. For the Son appeared in a form that was most uncomely. And he had a form; or even if the prophet says: "We saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty," [it is because] [alt-version omitted]
"his form was uncomely, and failing before the sons of men." Could it be that Celsus heard these things, since he thought them useful to himself for accusing Jesus, but did not attend to the things said in the forty-fourth Psalm, in what way it is spoken: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, in thy splendor and thy beauty; and bend [thy bow], and prosper, and reign"? But suppose he had not read the prophecy, or having read it, was distracted by those who interpret it falsely, as though it were not prophesied concerning Jesus Christ: what will he say concerning the Gospel, in which, having ascended into a high mountain, he was transfigured B before the disciples, and was seen in glory? At which time also Moses and Elias, being seen in glory, "spoke of his departure, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem." Or if, when the prophet says, "We saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty," and the rest, Celsus admits that this prophecy refers to Jesus, while being blind regarding the acceptance of what is said, and not seeing that it is a great demonstration that Jesus, who seemed to be uncomely, is the Son of God, because it had been prophesied many years before his birth even concerning his form; yet when another prophet says there is splendor and beauty C concerning him, does he no longer wish the prophecy to be referred to Christ? And if it were clearly possible to take from the Gospels, "He had no form, nor beauty, but his form was uncomely and failing before the sons of men," perhaps one might say that Celsus did not say these things according to the prophetic [word], but according to the evangelical. But now, since neither the Gospels nor the apostles show that he had no form nor beauty, it is clear that he is forced to accept that which is from the prophecy as being fulfilled D concerning Christ; which no longer permits his accusations against Jesus to proceed. And again, he who says: "Since there was a divine spirit in the body, it ought in every way to differ from the rest, either in size, or voice, or strength, or majesty, or power of persuasion"—how did he not see the variation of his body towards that which was possible for those who saw him, and for this reason useful, appearing in such a way as it was fitting for each one to see? And it is not wonderful that matter, being by nature mutable and changeable, and capable of being transformed into all things that the Creator wishes, and being receptive of every quality that the craftsman desires, should at one time have the quality according to which it is said, "He had no form, nor beauty," and at another time, in such a glorious and...
spectators of such beauty, that the three apostles who had ascended with Jesus fell upon their faces. But Celsus will consider these things, as well as the other wonders regarding Jesus, to be inventions, and to differ in no way from fables—a point we have already refuted at length in the preceding pages. Yet, there is a mystical meaning in the account describing the different forms of Jesus, which are to be referred to the nature of the divine Word, appearing not the same to the multitude as to those who are able to follow Him into the high mountain we have described. For to those who are still below, and not yet prepared to ascend, the Word has no form and no beauty; for to such people His form is inglorious and inferior to the words that arise from men—and for this reason, they are figuratively called "sons of men." Indeed, one could say that the discourses of philosophers, being "sons of men," are far more splendid than the Word of God which, when preached to the multitude, presents the "foolishness of preaching," and therefore gives occasion to those who look only upon this "foolishness of preaching" to say: "We saw Him, and He had no beauty or comeliness." But to those who have received the strength to follow Him as He ascends the high mountain, He has a more divine form. This is beheld by those who, like Peter, have in themselves the building of the Church from the Word, and have attained such a state that no gate of Hades shall prevail against them; those who have been exalted by the Word from the gates of death, that they may declare all the praises of God in the gates of the daughter of Sion; and those who have been born of words of great power, lacking nothing to be "sons of thunder." But how could Celsus and the enemies of the divine Word, who have not honestly examined the doctrines of Christianity, know the intention behind the different forms of Jesus? For my part, I add also the stages of His age, and what He did before He suffered and after He rose from the dead.
Next, Celsus says something like this: "Furthermore, if God desired, like the Zeus in the comedy, to rescue the human race from evils after waking from a long sleep, why did He send this Spirit of yours into one corner? It would have been necessary to breathe Him into many bodies and send Him across the whole world." But the comedian, to raise a laugh in the theater, wrote that Zeus, having been awakened, sent Hermes to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; whereas you, for the sake of the Word, have sent Him into one corner. But you do not think it more ridiculous to have sent Him to the Jews.
A Observe, then, in these matters too, the indecency of Celsus, who, in a manner unbecoming a philosopher, brings in a comic poet to make people laugh, and compares the Creator of the universe, our God, to the one who, in his story, sends Hermes after waking from sleep. We have said, in the preceding pages, that God did not send Jesus to the human race as if awakening from a long sleep, because He had filled the economy according to the incarnation now for reasonable causes, but He has always benefited the human race. For nothing good has ever come about among men without the divine Word having visited the souls of those who, even for a short time, were capable of receiving such operations of the divine Word. But the appearance of Jesus, which seems to have taken place in one corner, also occurred for a good reason; since it was fitting for those who had been taught about one God, and who read His prophets, and learned that Christ was being preached, that the one who was prophesied should appear, and appear at a time when the Word was about to be poured forth from one corner B over the whole inhabited world. And so, there was no need for many bodies to exist everywhere, and many spirits in proportion to Jesus, in order for the whole inhabited world of men to be illuminated by the Word of God. For it sufficed that the one Word, having risen like a sun of righteousness from Judea, should send forth His rays, reaching the souls of those who wished to receive Him. But if anyone desires to see many bodies filled with the divine Spirit, serving in proportion to that one Christ for the salvation of men everywhere; let him consider those who everywhere teach the doctrine of Jesus in a healthy manner and with an upright life—men also called "christs" by the divine Scriptures, in the passage: "Touch not my christs, and do my prophets no harm." For just as we have heard that Antichrist is coming, and yet have learned that there are many antichrists in the world; in the same way, knowing that Christ has come, we perceive that through Him many have become "christs" in the world, who in proportion to Him have loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And for this reason, God—the God of Christ—anointed them also with the oil of gladness. But while He indeed, for having loved righteousness and hated iniquity beyond His fellows, has received the first fruits of the anointing, and, if it is proper to name it so, the whole anointing of the oil of gladness; His fellows, each as he was able to receive it, have shared C in His anointing. Wherefore, since Christ is the head of the Church, so that Christ and the Church are one body, the ointment D descends from the head onto the beard of Aaron, which signifies the perfect man, and onto the hem of his garment. And these things I have said against that indecorous remark of Celsus.
A who says: "It would have been necessary to breathe this into many bodies and send it over the whole earth." But that comic poet, indeed, to provoke laughter, wrote that Jupiter, first asleep and then awakened, sent Hermes to the Greeks; but the Word, knowing that the nature of God is not subject to sleep, teaches us that the affairs of this world are administered by God according to the circumstances of time and as reason demands. But it is no wonder, since "the judgments of God are great and hard to explain," that undisciplined souls, B and Celsus along with them, go astray. It is not, therefore, ridiculous that the Son of God was sent to the Jews, among whom the prophets had been, so that, beginning his course from there, he might arise in body, virtue, and spirit for the lands of souls that no longer wished to be deprived of God.
Moving on from these things, Celsus says that the Chaldeans were most divine from the beginning, from whom the fallacious discipline of astrology was distributed to men. C And in the same place he ranks the magi among the most divine nations, from whom the art named after them originated and spread to other nations for the destruction of those who use it. As for the Egyptians, Celsus formerly judged them to be in error, as those who indeed had more elegant enclosures for the temples they considered sacred, but inside had nothing but monkeys, or crocodiles, or goats, or asps, or some animal. But now he pleases to call them a most divine nation, and most divine from the beginning; I suppose, because they have been hostile to the Jews from the beginning. The Persians, too, who couple with their mothers and mingle their bodies with their daughters, seem to Celsus to be a divine nation; D as also the Indians, some of whom he said above ate human flesh. But the Jews, who commit none of these things, and especially the ancients, he not only does not call most divine, but says they will soon perish; and this he pronounces as if from a tripod. He does not, of course, turn his mind to all the care that God has applied to the Jews, nor to the holy laws he once imposed upon them; he does not see that through their fault salvation has come to the nations, that their transgression is the riches of the world, and their diminution the riches of the nations, until the "fullness of the nations" has come in, so that after this "all Israel," which Celsus does not understand what it is, "might be saved." I know not how he says concerning God that "He who knows all things did not know that he was sending his Son to evil men, who were to sin and punish him." But here he seems intentionally to have forgotten our doctrine which says that the prophets of God, by the divine Spirit, foresaw and foretold whatsoever Jesus was to suffer.
was [the sixth book], and that the prophets of God have prophesied. *To which it does not follow [that God should be ignorant], "that He sends His Son to men who are evil and about to sin, so that they may punish Him."* He immediately says that this, having been predicted long ago, is being put forward as a defense by us. But, since our sixth volume has received a sufficient description, having brought the discourse to a halt somewhere there, we shall begin, God granting, the seventh; in which he thinks he is countering what we say: that the prophets foretold everything concerning Jesus. And since these things are many and require a longer discourse to address them, we were unwilling either to cut the argument short, compelled by the size of the volume, or, in order not to cut the argument short, to make the sixth volume extremely large and beyond [all] proportion.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS: BOOK SEVEN
In the six previous books, holy brother Ambrose, we have struggled, as much as we were able, against Celsus’s accusations against the Christians, and we have left nothing, as far as lay in our power, unexamined and untested, nor have we passed over anything to which we did not, as far as was possible for us, respond, having invoked God through Jesus Christ Himself—the one slandered by Celsus—so that He might shine into our heart, being as He is the Truth, those things which refute the lie. We are now beginning this seventh composition, saying that prophetic prayer in our supplication to God: "In Thy truth, destroy them"—clearly meaning those arguments which are opposed to the truth; for these are destroyed by the truth of God. So that, when they are destroyed, all, being freed from [the] distraction A of mind, may say what follows: "I will willingly sacrifice to Thee," offering a rational and smoke-free sacrifice to the God of all.
Now it is the task before Celsus to slander the argument which asserts that the things concerning Jesus the Christ were prophesied by the prophets among the Jews. And first of all we examine what he thinks: that those who introduce a god other than the God of the Jews are in no way able to counter his problems; but that we, who have maintained the same God, take refuge in the defense [provided] by the things prophesied concerning Christ. He says with regard to these things: "Let us see what sort of defense they will find: none will be found by those who have been pleased to introduce another god."
But regarding the things alleged by Celsus, let us now, if you will, make our defense. A Some [people], when they hear about such things as being foretold, respond with the familiar, wise [remark] that it "had to happen that way." The proof? "Because these things were predicted long ago." We shall reply to these people that the things Celsus just said, a little before this, against Jesus and the Christians are so weak that even those who impiously introduce another god could most easily reply to the things said by Celsus. And if it were not absurd to provide the weaker [of faith] with arguments for embracing worse doctrines, we too would have done this, to prove the falsehood of the claim that those who introduce another god have no defense regarding the prophets, in addition to the things said above.
He says, therefore: "The things foretold by the Pythia, or at Didyma [or] in the Branchidae, or at Ammon, [or] by ten thousand other oracles—by which practically the whole earth was settled—these are [dismissed] by them as of no account, whereas the things [said] in Judea—uttered after their fashion, or not even uttered at all, such as are still current even now among those around Phoenicia and Palestine—these they consider marvelous and unchanging." B Let us say, then, concerning the oracles enumerated, that it is possible for us, by gathering [arguments] from Aristotle and those who have philosophized in the Peripatetic school, to say not a few things for the subversion of the argument concerning the Pythia and the remaining oracles; and it is possible, by citing the things said by Epicurus and those who embrace his doctrine regarding the same matters, to show that even some Greeks subvert the oracles that are thought to be, and are admired as, [divine throughout] all Greece.
But, for the sake of argument, let it be granted that the things concerning the Pythia and the remaining oracles are not fabrications, nor human pretenses regarding divine inspiration. Let us see, then, if even so it cannot be demonstrated to those who examine matters truthfully, that even for one who accepts that these oracles exist, it is not necessary to admit that there are any gods alongside them; rather, quite the contrary: [that there are] certain base demons and spirits hostile to the human race, who hinder the soul's ascent, and its journey through virtue, and its restoration to true piety toward God.
C It is recorded, then, concerning the Pythia, which seems to happen to be more illustrious than the other oracles, that Apollo's prophetess, sitting over the opening of the Castalian [fountain], receives a spirit into her female parts; and filled with this, she gives utterance to the oracles which are supposed to be revered and divine. Observe, then, by these things, whether the impurity and profanity of that spirit is not manifested, moving into the soul of the prophetess not through delicate and obscure passages—and [many] much purer than female parts—but through those which not even a [decent] person would look at, or name, or even touch, and [by which]... [alt-version omitted] D
this not once or twice (since perhaps that might seem more tolerable), but as often as she is believed to prophesy from Apollo. But also A to drive the supposed prophetess into ecstasy and a manic state, so that she no longer follows her own mind, is not the work of a divine Spirit; for it would be required that he who is possessed by the divine Spirit should, far sooner than anyone taught by oracles, be helped in matters contributing to public and natural life, or toward what is advantageous and beneficial, and should be clearer-sighted precisely at the time when the divine power is with him. Therefore, we prove, gathering from the sacred Scriptures, that the prophets among the Jews, being illuminated by the divine Spirit as much as was even useful to the prophets themselves, were the first to enjoy B the arrival of the higher power upon them; and through what I might call the touch of the so-called Holy Spirit upon their soul, they became clearer-sighted in their mind and brighter in their soul; but also the body no longer stood in the way of a life of virtue, as though it were being put to death according to what we call the mind of the flesh. For we are convinced that the actions of the body, and the enmities toward God which arise from the mind of the flesh, are put to death by a more divine Spirit. But if the Pythia is beside herself and not in her own mind when she prophesies, what kind of spirit must we think it is that pours darkness over the mind and reason, if not such as is the race of demons, whom not a few Christians drive out from those who suffer, without any curious or magical or sorcerous art, but by simple prayer and C adjurations, and whatever a simpler person might be able to bring? For generally, laypeople do such things, with the grace of the word of Christ revealing the cheapness and weakness of the demons, not needing, in order to be defeated, yield, and depart from the soul and body of a person, someone who is wise and powerful in his logical demonstrations concerning the faith. But also, if it is believed—not only among Christians and Jews, but also among many other Greeks and barbarians—that the human soul lives and exists after its separation from the body; and if it is demonstrated by reason that, indeed, the pure soul, not weighed down by the leaden weights of vice, is carried aloft D to the places of the purer and ethereal bodies, leaving behind the heavy bodies here and the defilements within them; while the evil soul, dragged down to the earth by sins and unable even to breathe, wanders and wallows here, and it is said that it is dragged about in the vicinity of tombs—where the phantom images of souls, as it were—and one purely about the earth: what manner of spirit must one believe it to be
A which remains bound for entire ages, if I may so speak, to buildings and places, whether this occurs through magic incantations or on account of their own vices? Reason itself requires us to judge such spirits as evil, which abuse the art of divination—a power that is indifferent—for the sake of deceiving men and dragging them away from God and from the pure piety toward Him. From this it also appears that such beings are of this nature: they love to feed their bodies on the vapors of victims and the exhalations of blood and burnt offerings; they take pleasure in such things and are present at them as if they sought to preserve their life therefrom. This is not unlike those perverse men who, neglecting a life that is purer and removed from bodies, are concerned solely, through the desire for bodily pleasures, to live in an earthly body. If that Delphic Apollo was a god, as the Greeks think, whom was it more fitting for him to have chosen as a prophet than a wise man, or, if such a one were not found, at least one who was making progress in wisdom? How would he not have preferred a man rather than a woman to prophesy? And if he even desired a woman, as one perhaps unable to use a male, or not finding pleasure in anything other than the secret parts of women, was it not more fitting for him to have chosen a virgin rather than a married woman to declare his will? But as it is, the Pythian, who is admired among the Greeks, B deemed no wise man—no, nor even any man at all—worthy of, as the Greeks assume, being possessed by his divinity; nor did he choose among the female sex any virgin, or any woman wise and benefited by philosophy, but rather a woman from the common people. Perhaps the excelling men were better than to be acted upon by his possession. Moreover, if he were a god, he ought to have used his foreknowledge as bait, if I may so name it, for the conversion, healing, and moral correction of men. But as it is, history hands down nothing of the kind concerning him; for even if he said that Socrates was the wisest of all men, he obscured this praise by what he added concerning Euripides and Sophocles: Sapiens Sophocles, sed Euripides sapientior. C Since, therefore, he proclaimed the writers of tragedies to be wise, and since Socrates is judged to be wiser than those who were, according to the Pythia, no one is wiser. For the witness of my own wisdom, such as it is, I shall provide you with the god who is at Delphi. For you surely know Chaerephon; he was my companion from his youth, and he was also a popular friend of yours; he fled this exile with you, and returned with you. And you know what kind of man Chaerephon was, how vehement he was in whatever he undertook; and he, having once gone to Delphi, dared to inquire of the oracle concerning this matter; and do not, I pray you, men, raise a tumult because of what I am about to say; for he asked whether there was anyone wiser than I. The Pythian replied that no one was wiser than me. D Sapiens Sophocles, sed Euripides sapientior. Omnium autem virorum Socrates sapientior. Socrates sapientissimus.
A But since he declares that he can explain the manner of the oracles among the Phoenicians and Palestinians—as if he had investigated and scrutinized the matter—let us consider this, too. First of all, he says there are many kinds of prophecy, but he does not explain what they are, nor could he; he merely makes a false assertion. And we may observe the most perfect among these men. He says that many nameless men, on any given occasion, in temples or outside of temples, do this with the greatest ease; others go into cities and army camps and, having gathered a crowd, break out into utterances as if inspired. He says it is easy for everyone to say, "I am God," B or "the Son of God," or "Divine Spirit." "I come, for the world is perishing, and you, O men, are being destroyed for your iniquities. But I wish to save you, and you shall see me coming again with heavenly power. Blessed is he who worships me now; all others I will cast into eternal fire, and both cities and lands. And unto men, if they do not repent, I will bring punishments that shall be in vain and evoke lamentations; those who have believed in me I will save for eternity." And he adds, "To these promises he joins things unknown, fanatical, and utterly dark, for which no wise man can find any meaning." For they are obscure, and any imposter can claim to say them, adjusting them to suit his own purposes.
10. But he ought, if he were well-intentioned, to have quoted the very words of the prophecies, in which the Almighty is introduced speaking, or in which the Son of God or the Holy Spirit is believed to be the speaker. For in this way he would have struggled to refute what was said and shown that these logoi were not from God, but were instead discourses that turned men away from sin, reproved those who then lived, and predicted future events. Therefore, the people of the time wrote down and preserved these prophecies so that those who came later, by reading them as the utterances of God, might admire them and, being benefited, might not only refrain from sins C and the prophets' commandments. Such are Menander. Eus. lib. VI, c. 25, Eccl. hist.; Tertull., De praescriptione adversus haereticos: After him came the disciple of this man, who said the same things that Simon himself said, and that which Simon said, this he said was Menander, denying that anyone could have salvation unless he was baptized in his name. Spencer.
(78) Men. I read with Boherellus, *men*.
(79) The codices Reg. and Basileensis, *gnōma*. Hoeschel in text, *gnōnai*, Spencer, *gnōma*.
(80) Hoeschel and Mss., *legōn* (Spencer, *legōn*) *einai pisteuō*. But this is absent in Guietus.
(81) Here, Guietus thinks one should read *tēs*.
A in caverns of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy; always looking towards God and the invisible things of God, which, since they are not seen by the senses, are necessarily eternal. The life of each of the prophets has been recorded; but it is sufficient for the present to set forth the life of Moses—for there are prophecies of his recorded in the Law—and that of Jeremiah, appearing in the prophecy that bears his name, and that of Isaiah, who walked for three years naked and barefoot, exceeding all asceticism. Consider also the vigorous life of the youths, Daniel and those with him, and read of their water-drinking, and how their food was pulse, abstaining from living things. If you are able, observe also things before these: Noe having prophesied, and Isaac having blessed his son prophetically, and Jacob saying to each of the twelve: "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days." These, and countless others, having prophesied for God, also predicted those things concerning Jesus Christ. On this account, we set no store by the things foretold by the Pythia, or the Dodonids, or at Claros, or in the Branchidae, or those of Ammon, or those of countless others said to be prophets; B but we marvel at the things foretold by those who prophesied in Judea, seeing that their vigorous, strenuous, and solemn life was worthy of a Spirit of God prophesying in a new way, and having nothing similar to the divinations of demons. I do not know how Celsus, having said, "But the things said in Judea after their manner," added, "or not said"—as an unbeliever saying that it was possible that these were not said, but perhaps things not said were recorded. For he does not know the times, nor that many years before, they had predicted countless things and also spoke of the coming of Christ. And again, wishing to slander the ancient prophets, he says they prophesied in this manner, in which, he says, those around Phoenicia and Palestine are still accustomed to do even now, not indicating whether he is speaking of certain people alien to the doctrine of the Jews and Christians, C or of those prophesying in the Jewish manner according to the character of the prophets. But however things may be, what he says is proven false. For neither have any of those alien to the faith done anything similar to the prophets, nor are any prophets among the Jews recorded as having arisen after the time of Jesus. For it is agreed that the Holy Spirit has abandoned them, as they acted impiously against God and against the one who was predicted by their own prophets. Signs of the Holy Spirit did indeed appear at the beginning of Jesus' teaching, and more after his ascension, but later fewer; yet even now there are traces of it among a few, D whose souls have been cleansed by the Word and by the deeds according to Him. For the Holy Spirit...
A of instruction will flee from deceit, and will remove itself from thoughts that are without understanding. Since Celsus also promises to describe the manner of the oracles in Phoenicia and Palestine, as one who has heard and fully learned them, come, let us also consider these. First, he says that there are many kinds of prophecies, without setting them forth; for he could not, but only falsely exaggerated. Let us see what he deems to be the most perfect among these men. "Many," he says, "and unnamed, easily, from any casual cause, both in temples and outside of temples; and others, gathering and visiting cities or military camps, move about as if prophesying." It is easy and habitual for each of them to say: "I am God," B or "a Son of God," or "a divine Spirit." "But I have come, for the world is already perishing, and you, O men, are being destroyed for your injustices. But I wish to save you, and you will see me again returning with heavenly power. Blessed is the one who has worshipped me now; but upon all the others I will cast eternal fire, and upon their cities and lands. And humans, who do not know the punishments that await them, will repent in vain and groan; but those who have believed me I will keep eternal." Then he adds to these: "Making these threats, they add after them things unknown, C and fanatical, and altogether dark, of which no one who has sense could find the meaning; for they are unclear and signify nothing, but to the senseless or to any trickster they provide an opportunity for claiming what is said in whatever way he wishes."
But he ought, if he were fair-minded toward the accusation, to have set forth the prophecies in their very words; whether those in which the speaker was believed to be God Almighty, or those in which it was believed to be the Son of God, or those in which it was believed to be the Holy Spirit. For thus he would have struggled D to refute what was said and to show that the discourses were not inspired, containing as they do a turning away from sins, and a rebuke of those who were then living, and foreknowledge regarding those things which were to come. For this reason, those who were their contemporaries transcribed their prophecies and kept them, so that even those who came after, reading them, might admire them as oracles of God, and, being profited, not only...
from these admonitions but also from the predictions which events taught them had been uttered by a divine Spirit, might practice a piety in conformity with such doctrine and obey the law and the prophets. Now the prophets, whatever was useful to be understood immediately by those who heard them and contributed to the correction of their morals, they declared according to the will of God without any obscurity; but whatever was more mystical and more contemplative, and involved a theory beyond the hearing of the multitude, these they expressed through enigmas and allegories, and what are called dark sayings, and so-called parables or proverbs, so that those who do not shun labor, but undertake every toil for the sake of virtue and truth, might search and find, and having found, might manage them as reason prescribes. But the hardy Celsus, as if angered because he had not understood such words of the prophets A, reviled them, saying: "To these promises they add things successive, unknown, fanatical, and entirely dark, from which no one possessing intelligence could find meaning, for they are unclear and signify nothing; yet they give occasion to any stupid person or impostor to claim the statement for whatever purpose he wishes." And he seemed to me to have said this craftily, wishing, as far as it is in his power, to prevent those who encounter the prophecies from examining and testing their meaning; and he suffers something similar to those who said regarding a certain prophet who had entered in and foretold future things: "Why did this madman come to you?" It is likely, therefore, that there are arguments much wiser than our own condition, which are able to demonstrate that Celsus is lying in these matters and that the prophecies are inspired by God; nevertheless, we too, as far as we were able, have done so, having explained to the letter those things which Celsus calls fanatical and entirely obscure, in the commentaries we have written on Isaiah, and on Ezekiel, and on some of the twelve B. But when God grants the increase in his word, at whatever times He wishes, what is missing will be added to those things already written down on these, or as many as we may succeed in clarifying. And others, too, who wish to examine Scripture, if they possess intelligence, might be able to find its meaning; for it is truly obscure in many places, yet not, as Celsus says, without any meaning. Nor can any stupid person or impostor smooth them over or claim the sense of what is said for whatever purpose he wishes; but the one who is truly wise in Christ alone could render the entire sequence of those things spoken with concealment in the prophecies, comparing spiritual things with spiritual C, and confirming each of the things found from the habit of usage in the Scriptures. And one must not believe Celsus when he says that there is no token of such men. D
A Nor indeed, in the times of Celsus, have there existed any prophets similar to the ancients; for then their prophecies would have been recorded by those who accepted and admired them, in the same way that the prophecies of old were recorded. But it seems to me entirely manifest that Celsus’s falsehood is exposed by the fact that the so-called prophets, of whom he was an auditor, when challenged by Celsus, confessed to him what they lacked—and that they were inventing their words, speaking inconsistently. Yet he ought to have provided the names of those whom he claimed to have heard, so that from the names, if indeed he were able to speak them, it might be apparent to those capable of judging whether what he said was true or false. Moreover, he thinks that those who defend the cause of Christ on the basis of the prophets have no answer when something that is said about God appears base, or shameful, or unclean, or trivial. For this reason, as if no defense remained, he takes for himself as conceded a myriad of things that are by no means conceded. But it is necessary to know that those who desire to live according to the divine Scriptures, and who know that "The knowledge of an unwise man is as words without investigation" (Eccli. XXI, 18), and who have read "Being ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (I Pet. III, 15), do not merely take refuge in the claim that such things were foretold; but they also strive to resolve what appear to be absurdities and to show that there is nothing base, or shameful, or unclean, or trivial in the words, but that they are of such a nature as they must be understood by those who understand the divine Scripture. He should have adduced from the prophets what seemed to him to be base, or what he considered shameful, or what he thought to be unclean, or what he supposed to be B defiled, if indeed he saw such things said in the prophets. For his discourse would thus have been more striking and more effective for what he intended; but as it is, he did not adduce them, but rather, raising a clamor, he threatens that such things appear in the Scriptures, slandering them. Therefore, no argument is needed to respond to mere empty noises of words in order to show that nothing base, or shameful, or unclean, or defiled is in the words of the prophets.
But God does not do or suffer the most shameful things, nor does He serve evil, as Celsus thinks; for none of these things has been foretold, even if he says they have been. He ought to have brought forth from the prophets the expressions pointing to this, if God were indeed to serve evil, or to do or suffer the most shameful things, rather than wishing to defile the ears of his listeners in vain. The prophets foretold what Christ would suffer, even setting forth the cause why He would suffer; and God knew the things that His Christ would suffer. But whence did he conclude that these were most defiled and most unclean, as Celsus says? But he will perhaps appear to teach how these things which Christ endured were most defiled and most unclean, in these words: "For what else," he says, "did it mean..."
A for God to eat sheep’s flesh, and to drink gall or vinegar, than to feed on filth?" But according to us, God did not eat sheep’s flesh; and if Jesus appeared to eat, he ate only insofar as he wore a body. And regarding the gall and the vinegar, which were prophesied as things to be drunk by him in the words, "They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink," we have already spoken in the preceding pages, and we are forced by Celsus to repeat the same things; for those who plot against the word of truth always offer to Christ and the Son of God the gall from their own wickedness and the vinegar from their own inclination toward evil, which, after he tasted, he does not wish to drink.
B Then after this, wishing to overturn the faith of those who have accepted the things concerning Jesus because they were foretold, he says: "Come now, if the prophets had foretold that the great God, that I may say nothing more offensive, would be a slave, or would be sick, or would die; would it then be necessary for God to die, or to be a slave, or to be sick, because it had been foretold, so that he might be believed to be God, having died?" But the prophets would never foretell 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." But to that which is shameful and evil, even if all men, driven by madness, seemed to predict it, no belief should be given. "How, therefore, can the things that happened to him, as if to God, be considered holy?" Hence, it appears through these words that Celsus has perceived that the topic of the things concerning Jesus being prophesied has some strength toward persuading C the hearers, but he attempts to overturn the argument with another plausible point, saying: "Therefore, we need not consider whether they foretold it or did not." But if he had wished to oppose what is said not fallaciously, but demonstratively, he ought to have said: "Therefore it must be demonstrated that they did not foretell it; or that the things concerning Christ do not have their fulfillment in Jesus, as they were foretold," and to bring forward the demonstration that he believes he possesses. For thus it would have appeared which prophecies we refer to Jesus, and how he proves our interpretation to be false; and it would be discovered whether he valiantly overturns what we bring forward from the prophets to the discourse concerning Jesus, or whether he is convicted of impudently wishing to do violence to the evidence of truth, as if it were not truth. Since, however, he poses certain D impossible things and things ill-befitting to God, he says: "If these things were prophesied concerning the God over all, should one, because they are predicted, believe such things about God?" And he thinks he establishes that, even if the prophets had truly predicted such things concerning the Son of God, it is impossible that he should have suffered them, or that one ought to believe those who have predicted it.
We must say that his hypothesis is absurd, being such as would form propositions terminating in mutually contradictory conclusions; which is demonstrated in this way: If the true prophets say that God will die, these things will happen to God; for it is necessary that those who are the prophets of the great God should not lie. But also, if the true prophets of the God over all say these same things, since things that are impossible by nature are not true, what the prophets say would not happen to God. Now, whenever two propositions terminate in mutually contradictory conclusions through what is called the "argument by two conditionals" 94, the antecedent in both conditionals is refuted; which in this case is: "The prophets predict that the great God will serve, or be ill, or die." Therefore, it is concluded that "The prophets did not predict that the great God would serve, or be ill, or die." And the reasoning proceeds in such a way: If the first is true, the second is also true; but if the first is not true, the second is not true; therefore, the first is not true.
A They bring this mode of reasoning to the subject of "being ill," B or "being enslaved." C D
CONTRA CELSUM BOOK VII.
18. These follow the words of Celsus: Will they not observe this again? If the prophets of the Jews of God predicted these things concerning the son of that one, how does he command them to procure riches, to have dominion, to fill the earth, and to spare no enemies, not even those who have not reached puberty—which, as Moses says, he himself did in the eyes of the Jews—and furthermore threatens them that if they do not do so, they shall be treated as enemies? If the son of this one, the man from Nazareth, lays down contrary laws, commanding that one should not turn to the Father who gives riches and delights in them, because wisdom and glory should not be valued more than food and clothing; and that one need not worry more than the ravens, or the one who once smote and who now must smite again? Does he forget Moses, or is he mocking him?
A And if you know that you are dead, you are dead. If you know that you are dead, you are not dead. And there follows, and there is that which you know, you are not dead; you know that you are dead. And there is that [being the case], therefore this [contradiction] follows: you are dead; there follows [instead], Therefore you do not know that you are dead. They construct their hypothetical propositions in this manner: If you know that you are dead, there is that which you know; it is therefore the case that you are dead. And again, if you know that you are dead, and there is that which you know, you are not dead. Since, however, the one who is dead knows nothing, it is evident that if you know that you are dead, you are not dead. And there follows, as I said before, for both of these hypothetical propositions, the conclusion: Therefore you do not know that you are dead. Something similar exists regarding the hypothesis of Celsus, which we have expounded above.
But not even the things we have assumed as a hypothesis
are similar to the prophecies concerning Jesus. For the prophecies did not predict that God would be crucified, since they say of Him who underwent B death: "And we saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty, but his form was dishonored and failing beyond the sons of men; a man in a blow and in pain, and knowing how to bear infirmity." Observe, then, how they have clearly spoken of the one who suffered human hardships as a man. Jesus Himself, when He knew most exactly that that which was about to die was a man, says to those lying in wait for Him: "But now you seek to kill me, a man, who have told you the truth which I heard from God." But if there happened to be something divine in the man who was understood to be in Him—which was the Only-begotten of God, and the Firstborn of all creation, He who says, "I am the truth," and, "I am the life," and, "I am the door," and, "I am the way," and, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven"—surely another argument C is required for this [being] and His essence than for the man understood in Jesus. Wherefore not even the most simple of Christians, nor those not nurtured in sophisticated reasonings, would say that the truth, or the life, or the way, or the living bread which came down from heaven, or the resurrection, is dead; for He who, in the man seen in Jesus, taught the saying, "I am the resurrection," says that He Himself is the resurrection. But neither is any one of us so thunderstruck [*i.e., mindless*] as to say, "The life is dead," or, "The resurrection is dead." The hypothesis of Celsus might have had a place if we claimed that the prophets had predicted that God the Word, or the truth, or the life, or the resurrection, or anything else of those which the Son of God declares Himself to be, would die. Celsus speaks the truth, therefore, D only in this place.A And the prophets would not say this, for it is evil and impious. For what else is this but to say that the great God will be a servant or will die? But that which was prophesied by the prophets is worthy of God, namely that the radiance of the divine nature and a kind of imprint would come in a holy human soul to the life of Jesus, that he might scatter a word reconciling the one who received him into his own soul and cultivated him to the God of the universe, and leading to the end all things, whose power he has in himself who is the Word of God to be in the body and soul of man. And it will be so, that his rays would not be shut up in him alone, nor that the light providing these rays—being God the Word—is believed to be nowhere else. The things concerning Jesus, therefore, inasmuch as they are understood as having been accomplished by the divinity in him, are holy and not at enmity with the conception of God; but inasmuch as he was a man, adorned more than every other man by the highest participation in the Word himself and in Wisdom herself, he endured, as wise and perfect, the things which it was necessary for him to endure who was doing all things for the sake of the whole human race, or also of the rational creatures. And there is nothing absurd in the man having died, and his death serving as an example not only of dying for piety, but also of having wrought the beginning and the progress of the destruction of the evil one and the devil, who had divided the whole earth among himself. And there are signs of his overthrow in those who, through the advent of Jesus, have fled from everywhere the demons who held them, and, having been liberated from the slavery under them, dedicate themselves to God and to the piety that is, according to their ability, purer every day.
B Next to these things, Celsus says such things as these: "Will they not reflect again on that? If the prophets of the God of the Jews foretold that this man would be his son, how is it that he legislates through Moses to be wealthy, and to rule, and to fill the earth, and to slaughter enemies with pleasure, and to slay them entirely—a thing which he himself, as Moses says, does before the eyes of the Jews—and threatens them that, if they do not obey these things, he will treat them exactly as their enemies? Yet his Son, the man from Nazareth, legislates the contrary: that it is not possible for the wealthy man, or the one desiring to rule, or the one laying claim to wisdom or glory, to approach the Father; that one must not care for food and store-houses any more than the ravens, nor for clothing any less than the lilies; and to the one who has once struck him, one must offer himself to be struck again? Whether is Moses or Jesus lying? Or did the Father, when sending him, forget what he had commanded through Moses?"
A Or, having condemned his own laws, did he repent, and send an angel to deliver contrary instructions? With this matter Celsus—he who boasts that he knows everything—has suffered the most ignorant of fates, imagining that there is no deeper meaning in the law and the prophets regarding the mind of the Scriptures than the words themselves suggest. He does not see how clearly improbable it would be for the Word to promise the carnal wealth of this world to those who have lived rightly, when it is established that the most righteous men have lived in extreme poverty. The prophets themselves, for example, who, because they had lived purely, partook of the divine Spirit, "wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth." For "many are the afflictions of the righteous," according to the Psalmist.
If Celsus had read the law of Moses, he would likely have taken the statement, "Thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow," which is spoken to those who keep the law, as if it had been promised to the righteous man that he would be so showered with that blind wealth that, by the abundance of his riches, he would lend not only to Jews—or one, or two, or three other nations—but to many. How much money, then, would the righteous man possess, as a reward for his righteousness, according to the law, such that he might lend to many nations? B It is a consequence of such an interpretation to suppose that the righteous man never borrows; for it is written: "Thou shalt not borrow." Did that nation, therefore, remain for so many ages in the fear of God according to Moses, while evidently seeing that the legislator was lying—insofar as Celsus is concerned? For no one is ever recorded to have become so wealthy as to have lent to many nations. But it is not plausible that such men would continue to hear the law taught in the way Celsus imagined, and, clearly seeing that the promises in the law were false, continue to contend for the law.
And if anyone should bring forward the recorded sins of the people as an example that they despised the law—perhaps because they had concluded that it was lying—one must answer him that one should also read the times in which the whole people are recorded, after having done evil in the sight of the Lord, to have changed for the better and returned to the fear of God according to the law. But furthermore, if the law promised them dominion, C saying, "Thou shalt rule over many nations, and they shall not rule over thee," and nothing deeper is signified by these things, it is clear that the people would have condemned the promises of the law all the more. Celsus misinterprets certain words which signify that the whole earth would be filled through the Hebrew seed; this [corresponds to]
the historical sense, or, if I may so call it, to God who has become B present after the coming of Jesus, who rather bestows blessings. But as to what has been said in the promise to the Jews, that they should slay their enemies, it must be said that if anyone were to read and attend diligently to the words, he would find it impossible that the interpretation should be [taken] according to the letter. It suffices for the present to bring forward from the Psalms [to show] in what manner the righteous man is introduced saying, among other things: "In the morning I slew all the sinners of the earth, to root out from the city of the Lord all those who work iniquity" (Ps. C, 8). Consider, then, the written text and the disposition of the one who speaks: if, after having recounted noble deeds—which are set forth for anyone who wishes to read—he could have added that which is possible according to the letter, [namely] that he destroyed all the sinners of the earth at no other time of day than the morning, so that he left none of them alive; or whether he destroyed from Jerusalem every man whatsoever who was working iniquity. You would find many such things in the law, such as: "We did not leave behind of them anything living" (Deut. II, 34). C And Celsus also brings forward that it was predicted to them that if they did not obey the law, they would suffer the same things which they had inflicted upon their enemies. But before Celsus adds anything to these points, and uses what he considers to be contradictions to the law [drawn] from the teaching of Christ, we must speak concerning what has been said before. We say, then, that the law is twofold: one part is according to the letter, the other according to the spirit, as some before us have taught. And the [law] according to the letter is called by God himself—not so much by us—in one of the prophets, "statutes not good, and ordinances not good" (Ezech. XX, 25); but the [law] according to the spirit is called by the same prophet, on behalf of God, "statutes good, and ordinances good." For the prophet does not explicitly say contradictory things in the same place. And D Paul is in harmony with this, when he says that "the letter," which is equivalent to the [literal sense], "kills," but "the spirit," which is equivalent to the [sense] according to the spirit, "gives life" (II Cor. III, 6). Thus, it is possible to find in Paul something analogous to what might be thought to be contradictions according to the prophet. For just as Ezekiel says, in one place: "I gave them statutes not good, and ordinances not good, in which they shall not live" (Ezech. XX, 25); and in another place: "I gave them statutes good, and ordinances good, in which they shall live" (Ezech. XX, 11)—or at least what is equivalent to this—so also Paul, when he wishes to criticize the literal sense of the law, says: "If the ministration of death, written in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the children of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which was being brought to naught; how shall not the ministration of the spirit be in glory?" (II Cor. III, 7-8). But where he admires and accepts the law, he calls it spiritual: "We know," he says, "that the law is spiritual" (Rom. VII, 14). He also approves it in this place: "Therefore the law"
is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good" (Rom. VII, 12). If, then, the wording of the law promises wealth to the righteous, let Celsus, following the letter that kills, think that this blind wealth is meant in the promise; but we say that它 pertains to the wealth that sharpens the eyes of the mind, and by which one becomes rich in every word and in all knowledge. In this sense we command the rich of this age not to be high-minded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who provides all things abundantly for enjoyment, to do good, to become rich in good works, to be ready to distribute, to communicate (I Tim. VI, 17-18). For, as Solomon says, the wealth of true goods is the redemption of a man’s soul (Prov. XIII, 8). But poverty, contrary to these, is pernicious, on account of which the poor man does not sustain threats. And what we have answered concerning wealth, the same should be said concerning dominion, namely that it is that by which one righteous man is said to pursue a thousand, and two to put to flight ten thousand (Deut. XXXII, 30). Now, if wealth is understood in this way, see whether it is not a consequence of the promise of God that he who is rich in every word, in all knowledge, in all wisdom, and in every good work, should lend from those riches of the word, and wisdom, and knowledge to many nations; just as Paul lent to all the nations to which he came, from Jerusalem in a circuit even to Illyricum, filling the Gospel of Christ (Rom. XV, 19). And since by revelation divine mysteries were made known to him, his mind being illuminated by the divinity of the Word, he did not take a loan, nor did he have need of a man to teach him religion. Thus also, while it was written: "You shall rule over many nations, and they shall not rule over you" (Deut. XV, 6), by subjecting the Gentiles through the power of the word of the teaching of Jesus Christ, he ruled over them, and never for an hour yielded to men, as being more excellent than them. Thus also he was filling the earth.
If it must also be related concerning the killing of enemies and having power over all things, one must say that when he says, "In the morning I slew all the sinners of the earth, to destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity" (Ps. C, 8), he takes "earth" figuratively for the flesh, the mind of which is enmity toward God (Rom. VIII, 7); and the city of God for his own soul, in which was the temple of God, holding a right opinion concerning God; wherefore it was an object of admiration to all who considered it. As soon, therefore, as the rays of the Sun of righteousness flooded his soul with light, as if fortified and strengthened by them, he was slaying all the mind of the flesh, which is designated by "the sinners of the earth," and was destroying from that city of God, which was in his
let them cut off from the city of his soul which is the Lord’s, all thoughts working iniquity and ideas hostile to the truth. Thus do the righteous slay all the capturing of the enemy and of those who come from wickedness, so that not even an infant, just beginning to sprout into evil, is left behind. We hear in this sense also the utterance in the one hundred and thirty-sixth Psalm, which reads: "Daughter of Babylon, you miserable one, blessed is he who will render back to you your retribution, which you paid back to us; blessed is he who will seize and dash your little ones against the rock" (Ps. CXXXVI, 8, 9). For the little ones of Babylon, which is interpreted as "confusion," are those thoughts just sprouting and rising in the soul that cause confusion, those born of wickedness; he who holds them, so as to dash their heads against the firmness and strength of the Word, dashes the little ones of Babylon against the rock, and is blessed for this. Let God, therefore, command that the things of wickedness be utterly slain, root and branch, teaching nothing contrary to what Jesus proclaimed; and in the eyes of those who are Jews in secret, let God effect the destruction of the enemies and of all who come from wickedness. And let it be such that those who do not obey the law and Word of God, having been made like to the enemy and having been corrupted by wickedness, should suffer those things which it is fitting for those to suffer who have departed from the words of God. It is clear, then, even from these things, how Jesus the Nazarene does not, as a man, legislate against what was said regarding wealth and those who perish on account of it (Matth. XIX, 23), regarding the saying that it is difficult for a rich man "to enter into the kingdom of God;" whether one takes "rich man" more simply as one distracted by wealth and hindered as if by thorns from bearing the fruits of the Word; or whether one takes it as he who is rich in false doctrines, concerning whom it is written in Proverbs: "A righteous poor man is better than a lying rich man" (Prov. XXVIII, 6). It is likely that from the passages, "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be the servant of all" (Matth. XX, 26, 27); and "The leaders of the Gentiles lord it over them;" and "Those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors" (Luc. XXII, 25), Celsus has taken it that Jesus forbade the love of rule; which, however, should not be thought to be contrary to: "You shall rule over many nations, and they shall not rule over you" (Deut. XV, 6), especially because of what we have set forth regarding that phrase.
Next, Celsus throws in remarks about wisdom, thinking that Jesus teaches that the wise man is not permitted to approach the Father. Let us say to him: to which wise man? For if he means this one, who has been made wise according to the so-called wisdom of this world, which is foolishness before God (I Cor. III, 19); then we also will say that the way to the Father is not open to such a wise man. But if one understands Christ as wisdom, since Christ is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. I, 24), to such a wise man we say that not only is the way to the Father open, but by much—
by far, we say, he who is adorned with the gift called the Word of wisdom, given through the Spirit, excels those who lack it. A Furthermore, we say that the pursuit of glory among men is forbidden not only by the teaching of Jesus (25), but also by the ancient Scripture. A certain prophet, indeed, invoking a curse upon himself if he were guilty of sins, lays down as equivalent to the greatest evil the glory of this life; he says thus: "O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have rendered evil to those who render evil to me, I would surely fall empty from my enemies! Should the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and trample my life into the earth, may he lay my glory in the dust (26)!" Nor are the words, "Do not be anxious about what you shall eat or what you shall drink. B Observe the birds of the air, or observe the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap; and your heavenly Father feeds them. How much more value do you have than the birds? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field," and the following, contrary to the blessings in the Law, which teach that the righteous man who eats shall be satisfied; and to this statement of Solomon: "The righteous eats and fills (28) his soul, but the souls of the ungodly are in need." For one must see the food of the soul signified in the blessing according to the Law; by which not the composite man is filled, but the soul alone. From the Gospel, however, one must perhaps take something deeper, and perhaps also something simpler: that one ought not to be distraught by anxieties about food and clothing, but, practicing simplicity, be persuaded that provision is made by God, C if only one cares for the necessities. Celsus, then, not having set against the Gospel teachings the things from the Law that seem contrary, mentions also the, "to the one who has struck once, to offer [the other cheek] to be struck again." But we shall say that we know it has been said to those of old, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," but we have also read the, "But I say to you, to him who strikes you on the cheek, offer also the other" (29). But since Celsus, I believe, having been influenced by those who divide the Godhead according to the Gospel from the Godhead of the Law, proposes such things, one must say in reply to his argument that he has seen even the ancient writings: "To him who strikes you on the right cheek, offer the other also." For thus in the Lamentations of Jeremiah: It is good for a man when he has borne D
the yoke from his youth. He shall sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken it upon himself; he will give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and he will be filled with grievances. A The Gospel of God does not war against the God of the Law, nor even regarding the striking on the cheek; nor is either one lying, neither Moses nor Jesus; nor did the Father, in sending Jesus, forget what He had commanded Moses; nor did He, having condemned His own laws, repent and send a messenger to command the opposite. But if it is necessary to say even a few things concerning the different ways of life—the one which the Jews formerly practiced according to Moses, and the one which Christians now wish to perfect according to the teaching of Jesus—we shall say that neither was it suitable for the calling of the nations, while subject to the Romans, to live according to the Law of Moses as regards the letter, nor was it possible for the Jews of old to maintain their system of polity intact if, as a hypothesis, they were to obey the polity according to the Gospel. For Christians could not act according to the Law of Moses, by putting to death enemies or those who had done things B against the Law and were judged worthy of death by fire or stoning; at least, not even the Jews, even if they wished, are able to carry these things out as the Law commanded. Again, if you were to take away from the Jews of that time, who had their own system of government and their own land, the ability to go out against enemies, to wage war for their traditions, and to execute or punish in any way those who committed adultery or homicide, or who had done any of the things similar to these, there would be nothing left for them but to be destroyed altogether and at once, with enemies attacking the nation as if it had been rendered impotent by its own laws, and forbidden to defend itself against those enemies. And the Providence that gave the law of old, and now the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not wishing for the things of the Jews still to prevail, brought down their city, and the temple, and the service of God at the temple by means of sacrifices and the prescribed rites. C Just as He took away those things, not wishing for them to be performed any longer, in the same way He increased the things of the Christians and day by day brought them to a multitude, and has already granted them boldness—although ten thousand obstacles arose against the teaching of Jesus being sown into the inhabited world. But since it was God who wished for the nations also to be benefited through the teaching of Jesus Christ, every human counsel against the Christians was brought down; for the more kings, and rulers of nations, and peoples everywhere humbled them, by that much more did they become numerous, and prevail greatly.
Next, Celsus, by setting forth as if they were asserted by us many things that are not even said by us concerning God—namely, that He is of a corporeal nature and possesses a body in human form—desires to refute things that have not been maintained by us, which it would be superfluous to set forth, or to attempt to refute. For if we were indeed saying what he claims we say concerning God, and he were standing against those very things, it would be necessary for us to set down his words, to establish our own position, and to dissolve his objections. But if he strings together things which he has heard from no one—or, even granting that he has heard them, he heard them from certain simple and unrefined persons who do not know the intent of the doctrine—there is no need for us to be anxious about matters that are not essential. For the Scriptures clearly declare God to be incorporeal; hence, "no man hath seen God at any time," and the "firstborn of every creature" is said to be the image of the invisible God, as if it were said, of the incorporeal God. B But we have already sufficiently discussed the matter of God in the preceding sections, examining how we understand the statement that "God is a Spirit," and that "they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
After his remarks on God, in which he slanders us, he asks us: Whither do we intend to depart, and what hope do we have? And as if we had already answered, he introduces our assertions as if they were thus: "Into another land, better than this one." To this he says: "Ancient men, divine men, have recorded a blessed life for blessed souls. Some have named it the Isles of the Blessed, others the Elysian Plain, so called from the deliverance of evils; just as Homer also says: 'But to the Elysian plain and the ends of the earth, the immortals will send thee,' where there is the most easy C life." Plato also, thinking the soul to be immortal, plainly called that region to which it is sent a "land," stating that it is something vast, and that we, who inhabit the space from the Phasis to the Pillars of Hercules, dwell in a small portion of it, like ants or frogs around a marsh, living around the sea; and that many others dwell elsewhere in many such places. For there are everywhere around the earth many hollows of all shapes and sizes, into which the water and the mist and the air have flowed together; but the earth itself lies pure in the pure heaven. Celsus therefore presumes that we have taken what we say regarding the other D land, which is better and far superior to this one, from certain ancient men whom he considers divine, and especially from Plato, who philosophized in the *Phaedo* about the earth that is pure and situated in the pure heaven; not perceiving that Moses, being much older even than the Greek writings, represents God as promising to those who observe His law a holy land, a good land, a spacious one, flowing with milk and honey. And this good land is not, as some suppose...
the good land which is mistakenly thought to be the lower Judaea, situated itself in the earth which was cursed from the beginning in the works of the transgression of Adam. For the text, "Cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrows you shall eat of it all the days of your life," has been spoken concerning the whole earth, A which every man who has died in Adam eats in sorrows—that is, in labors—and eats throughout all the days of his own life. And since this entire earth is cursed, it shall bring forth thorns and thistles all the days of the life of him who was cast out of paradise in Adam; and in the sweat of his face every man eats his own bread, until he returns to the earth from which he was taken. There is, therefore, a great deal to be said about everything pertaining to this passage, which could be set forth for the clarification of the words; but for the present we are satisfied with a little, wishing to release from distraction the one who supposes that what is said about the good land which God promises to the righteous is spoken concerning the land of Judaea. But since the entire earth belongs to the works of Adam and those who have died in him, it is clear that all its parts also partake of the curse, among which is the land of Judaea; so that it is impossible for the phrase "into a good and spacious land, into a land flowing with milk and honey" to apply to it, B unless Judaea and Jerusalem are shown to be, symbolically, a shadow of that pure, good, and spacious land situated in the pure heaven, in which is the heavenly Jerusalem. Concerning this, the Apostle, having been raised with Christ and seeking the things above, and having found a meaning that holds nothing of Jewish mythology, says: "But you have approached Mount Sion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the myriads of angels, the general assembly." And so that one may be persuaded that we are not speaking contrary to the desire of the divine Spirit concerning the good and spacious land in Moses, let him pay attention to all the prophets, who teach the return to Jerusalem of those who have wandered and fallen away from it, and who are altogether being restored to the place and city called God's by Him who says, "His place is in holy peace," and who also says, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in His holy mountain, rooted in the exultation of the whole earth." It is sufficient for the present to set forth the words from the thirty-sixth Psalm, which are as follows concerning the land of the righteous: "But those who wait for the Lord, they shall inherit the earth"; and after a little: "But the meek shall inherit the earth and delight in the abundance of peace"; and after a little: "Those who bless Him shall inherit the earth"; and again: "The righteous shall inherit the earth, and dwell upon it forever and ever." Consider now whether
by this it is not indicated to those capable of hearing what is meant by such things in the same Psalm, that the earth is pure and is in a pure heaven: "Wait for the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land." A It seems to me that even the account regarding the precious stones, which are thought to be honored here and are said to possess a certain emanation from the stones in the better land, was taken by Plato from what is written in Isaiah concerning the city of God, about which it is written: "I will make your battlements of jasper, and your stones of crystal, and your perimeter of elect stones"; and again: "I will set your foundations in sapphire." Now, those who have interpreted the philosopher’s teachings more seriously give an allegorical explanation of the myth in Plato; but as for the prophecies, from which we conjecture Plato also derived his notions, B those who have lived in a way akin to the prophets and inspired by God, and have devoted their whole time to the examination of the Holy Scriptures, will present them to those who are fit recipients by virtue of their purity of life and their zeal for learning regarding divine things. But our purpose was to show that we did not learn what we believe about the holy land from the Greeks or from Plato; but that they, being younger not only than the most ancient Moses but also than most of the prophets, either have overheard some things hinted about such matters, or, having encountered the sacred Scriptures, have distorted them and said things of this kind about the better land. And Haggai clearly distinguishes the dry land from the earth, calling this place where we are "the dry." C For he speaks thus: "Yet once more I will shake the heaven, and the earth, and the dry land, and the sea." Just as he himself relegates the explanation of the myth in Plato’s *Phaedo* to the following words: "What he means by these things is not easy for everyone to discern, unless one were able to grasp what it is that he says, namely, that due to weakness and slowness we are unable to penetrate to the ultimate air; yet if nature were capable of enduring the contemplation, one would know what that is which is the true heaven and the true light." In the same way, we do not consider it to be part of our present project to explain the holy and good land and the city of God that is in it; we postpone this for our commentaries on the D prophets, since we have already spoken to the best of our ability about the city of God in our treatises on the forty-fifth and forty-seventh Psalms. Moreover, the most ancient writing of Moses and the prophets teaches that all things which are true have the same name as those which are in common use here, for instance, light.
and a heaven other than the firmament, and the sun of justice other than the sensible one. In a word, to distinguish them from sensible things, of which nothing is true, they say: "God, his works are true"; A distinguishing between the works of God and what are called the works of his hands, the latter being inferior. Therefore, finding fault with certain persons through Isaiah, he says: "They do not regard the works of the Lord, and they do not consider the works of his hands." [Isaiah v, 12.] And this is sufficient on this point.
Since the doctrine of the resurrection is vast and difficult to interpret, and requires a wise man—as much as any other doctrine does—and one further advanced, so as to set forth what is worthy of God and the nobility of the doctrine, teaching that what the Scriptures call the "tabernacle" of the soul possesses the principle of a seed, in which the just groan being burdened, not wishing to be unclothed but to be clothed upon; and since Celsus, not understanding this and having heard of it only from uninstructed persons who could not support it with a single argument, mocks what is said: it will be useful, in addition to what we have said above regarding this, to note this one thing in reply to his argument: that we do not say what we do about the resurrection because we have misunderstood the transmigration of souls into bodies, as Celsus thinks; but because we know that the soul, being by its own nature incorporeal and invisible, cannot exist in any corporeal place without needing a body appropriate to the nature of that place. B This body it sometimes carries after having put off a previous one, which was necessary but became superfluous for the following stage; at other times it is clothed upon something beyond what it previously had, needing a better garment to enter the purer, ethereal, and heavenly places. Thus, coming into this birth, it put off the covering useful for the place in the mother's womb, so long as it was within it; but it put on what was necessary for one destined to live upon the earth. Then again, since there is a certain tabernacle and terrestrial dwelling, in a way necessary for that tabernacle, the Scriptures say that the earthly dwelling of the tabernacle is to be dissolved, but that the tabernacle is to be clothed upon with a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. The men of God also say that the corruptible is to put on incorruption—which differs from the incorruptible—and the mortal is to put on immortality, which is distinct from the immortal. C For as wisdom relates to that which is wise, and justice to that which is just, and peace to that which is peaceful, so does incorruption relate to the incorruptible, and immortality to the immortal. Behold, then, to what the Word exhorts us when it speaks of assuming incorruption and immortality; these, when as garments the one who is clothed and encompassed by such vestments assumes, allow him neither to be corrupted nor to perish.
A And these things have been boldly stated by us for the sake of one who has not understood what we mean 52 by the resurrection, and who for this reason mocks and ridicules a teaching he does not know. Thinking that we, because we speak of knowing and seeing God, represent the arguments concerning the resurrection [in a certain way], he strings together for himself whatever he pleases and says such things as: "After they are refuted and convicted from every side, they return again, as if they had heard nothing, to the same question: 'How then shall we know and see God? And how shall we go to him?'" Let him know, therefore, whoever wishes, that even if we need a body for other purposes, in order to be in a corporeal place—and one of such a kind as is the nature of the corporeal place—and being in need of the body, we are clothed upon the tabernacle with the things previously mentioned; yet for the knowledge of God we have absolutely no need of a body. For that which knows God is not the eye of the body, but the mind, B which sees that which is according to the image of the Creator, and which, by the providence of God, has received [the capacity] to be able to know God. And that which sees God is a pure heart, from which no longer proceed evil thoughts, nor murders, nor adulteries, nor fornications, nor thefts, nor false testimonies, nor blasphemies, nor a wicked eye, nor any other of the things that are contrary to nature; on account of which it is said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." But since our own power of choice is not sufficient for having a heart that is entirely pure, but we need God, who creates it as such; for this reason it is said by the one who prays knowledgeably: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." And we do not ask "How shall we go to him?" as if God were in a place; for God is superior to every place, and holds together everything whatsoever—and there is nothing that holds God. The command to go to God is not, therefore, given to us in a bodily sense; [nor is] "You shall walk after the Lord your God" [meant] in a bodily sense; nor does the Prophet, having cleaved to God, speak in his prayer [of a bodily thing]: "My soul has cleaved after Thee." C Celsus therefore falsely accuses us when he says that we expect to see God with the eyes of the body, and to hear his voice with ears 56, and to touch him with sensible hands. We know that the divine Scriptures mention eyes, and ears, and hands, which have the same name as the eyes of the body, but which are likewise distinct from them, and, what is more paradoxical than these, a more divine sense, and one different from that which is commonly named by the many. For when the Prophet says: "Open thou my eyes, and I shall behold wondrous things out of thy law"; or, "The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes"; or, "Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death"; no one is so stupid as to [think that] these things [refer to the eyes of the body].
wonders of the divine law are to be discerned by the eyes of the body, or that the commandment of the Lord is to enlighten the eyes of the body, or that the sleep of death happens to the eyes of the body. Furthermore, when our Savior says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," even a person of ordinary intelligence understands that these things are said concerning divine matters. And when it is said that "the word of the Lord came by the hand of Jeremiah the prophet" or of any other, or "the law by the hand of Moses," or, "I sought God with my hands and was not deceived," there is no one so foolish that he does not understand that there are hands which are spoken of in a figurative sense, concerning which John also says: "Our hands have handled concerning the Word of life."
But if you wish to learn from the Holy Scriptures of a higher sense that is not bodily, hear Solomon saying in the Proverbs: "You will find a divine sense." We have no need, therefore, since we seek God in this way, to depart to the places where Celsus sends us—to the shrines of Trophonius, Amphiaraus, and Mopsus—where he says gods in human form are seen, and, as Celsus says, they are not deceivers but are manifest. For we know that these are demons, sated by the savors and blood of sacrifices and by the fumes from the offerings, and held fast in the prisons which they constructed for themselves through their own desire. These prisons the Greeks consider to be temples of the gods, but we know them to be the habitations of deceitful demons.
Following this, Celsus maliciously says of the aforementioned gods—who are, according to him, in human form—that one will see them not just once, fleetingly, like the one who deceived these people, but always conversing with those who wish it. And he seems through these words to have judged Jesus a phantom, who, after his resurrection from the dead, appeared to his disciples as if fleetingly before their eyes. But those whom he calls gods in human shape, he thinks are always conversing with those who wish it. C Yet how can a phantom, as he calls it, passing by to deceive the spectators, and after that appearance achieve such things, and convert the souls of such men, and produce in them the conviction that they must do everything in a way pleasing to God, as those who are to be judged? How does that which is called a phantom cast out demons and perform other wonders that are not to be despised—that which has not been allotted one specific site, like the gods in human form according to him, but pervades the whole world, gathering and drawing to itself by its own divinity those whom it finds inclined toward a good life? After this, in regard to what we have said as far as we were able, Celsus again says such things: "But they will ask again, how are they to know God..." [index: entries preserved]
for how are those who cannot grasp Him by sense to know God? Or what is it possible to understand without sense?" Then, responding to these points, he says: "This is not the voice of a man, nor of the soul, but of the flesh. Let them hear, however, if indeed they are capable of hearing anything at all, as they are a cowardly and body-loving race: if you shut off your sense, and look up, and, having turned away from the eye of the flesh, awaken the eye of the soul, only in this way will you see God. And if you seek a guide for this way, you must flee the impostors and charlatans A who commend idols; otherwise you will be altogether ridiculous, you who condemn other gods—those who are manifest—as idols, while you worship this one, a phantom more wretched than the phantoms themselves, and now not even a phantom, but truly a dead thing, and you seek a father resembling him."
And first, one must speak against his impersonation, in which he assigns to us arguments, as if spoken by us in defense of the resurrection of the flesh—for a virtue of him who makes a prosopopeia is to observe the purpose and character of the person being impersonated; but it is a vice when someone assigns words to the person speaking that do not befit him. And it is equally blameworthy to assign philosophy to barbarians, to the unlearned, to home-born slaves, or to those who have never heard the discourses of philosophers nor have ever spoken well—a philosophy which the impersonator learned, but which it was not likely the one being impersonated would know; and again, to assign to those who are supposed to be wise and who have known divine things, the B arguments of private affections C spoken by the unlearned and uttered out of ignorance. Whence, Homer is admired by many because he preserved the characters of his heroes as he conceived them from the beginning, such as those of Nestor, or Odysseus, or Diomedes, or Agamemnon, or Telemachus, or Penelope, or any of the others. But Euripides is ridiculed by Aristophanes D as someone who speaks at the wrong time, because he frequently assigned the arguments of doctrines, which he had learned from Anaxagoras or some other of the wise men, to barbarian women or servants. If then such is the virtue in impersonation, and such the vice, how could one not reasonably ridicule Celsus for assigning to Christians things that are not said by Christians? For if he fashioned the speeches of unlearned men, whence would such men have learned to distinguish sense from intellect, and sensible things from those that belong to the understanding, and to dogmatize in a way similar to those who abolish intelligible natures, C arguing according to the Stoics, that things grasped are grasped by sense, and that all comprehension D...
depends upon the senses. But if he is inventing the discourses of those who philosophize and who diligently examine the doctrines of Christ to the extent of their ability, he has not produced things that are consistent even with them. For no one who has learned that God is invisible and that there are certain invisible—that is, intelligible—works of His would say, as if defending the resurrection: "How will they know God if they cannot grasp Him by sense?" or "What is possible to learn without sense?" And it is written not only in books that are withdrawn and read only by the few and the inquisitive, but in the more popular ones, that "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." From which it is possible to know that, even if men in this life must begin from the senses and from sensible things, intending to ascend to the nature of intelligible things, yet one must not remain in the sensible things, nor would they say that it is impossible to learn the intelligible things without sense; and using the question, "Who is able to learn without sense?" they would refute that it is not reasonably imputed by Celsus that this is "the voice not of a man, nor of a soul, but of flesh." Therefore, saying that the God of all is mind, or beyond mind and being—simple, invisible, and incorporeal—we would not say that God is grasped by anything other than that which has been made according to the image of that mind; now indeed, to use the word of Paul, "through a glass and in a riddle," but then "face to face." And if I say "face," let no one slander the mind signified by the word because of it, but let him learn from the passage, "with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and are changed into the same image from glory to glory," that a sensible face is not to be understood in such matters, but that it is understood metaphorically, just as the eyes, and ears, and as many things as we have shown above to have the same name as the members of the body. And thus a man—that is, a soul using a body, called the "inner man," and sometimes "soul"—will not answer what Celsus wrote, but what the man of God himself teaches. Nor would a Christian use the voice of the flesh, having learned to mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit, and to "always bear about in the body the dying of Jesus," and to "mortify the members which are upon the earth"; and knowing what is meant by the words, "My spirit shall not remain in these men forever, for they are flesh," and this: "He who is
in the flesh cannot please God," he does everything that he might not be in the flesh any longer, but in the spirit alone. Let us see also to whom he calls us, so that we might hear from him in what manner we shall know God; concerning which he thinks that no Christian is able to understand the things said by him; for he says: "Yet, however, let them hear, if they are able to understand anything." What, then, the philosopher wishes us to hear from him must be considered. He ought to teach us, yet he rails; and he ought to show goodwill toward his listeners in the introduction of his discourse, yet he calls them a "cowardly race" who, so that they might not deny Christianity even by a word, struggle firmly unto death, ready to undergo every kind of punishment A and death. He also calls us a "body-loving race," although we say: "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know Him no longer," and we lay aside the body for the sake of piety more readily than a philosopher would remove his garment. He speaks to us, therefore, saying that only when you have closed your senses and looked upward with your mind, and, having turned away from the eye of the flesh, you rouse the eye of the soul, shall you see God; and because he drew that double kind of eyes from the Greeks, he thinks the idea had not previously occurred to our authors. It must be answered to him that Moses, when describing the creation of the world, introduces man before his sin as both seeing and not seeing; seeing, indeed, where it is said concerning the woman: "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and beautiful to behold"; but not seeing, truly, not only where the serpent says to the woman, B as if they had been blinded: "For God knows that on whatever day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened"; but also when it is said: "They ate, and the eyes of both were opened." The eyes of the body were therefore opened, which they had kept closed to good effect, so that they might not be distracted and prevented from seeing with the eye of the soul; but those eyes of the soul which they had hitherto kept seeing, and delighted in the contemplation of God and His paradise, these, in my judgment at least, they closed because of sin. Whence also our Savior, knowing this twofold species of eyes in us, says: "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see might see, and those who see might C become blind," indicating by those who do not see the eyes of the soul, which His doctrine makes clear-sighted; and by those who see, he signifies the eyes of the senses, which that same doctrine blinds, so that the soul may contemplate without any distraction the things which it ought. Whoever, therefore, is a true Christian, the eye of his soul is raised up, while that of the body is closed; and in proportion as the better eye is raised,
and the eyes of sense are closed, each one understands and contemplates God who is over all, and His Son, who is the Word and Wisdom, and the rest. B Next to the points examined, Celsus directs his speech toward all Christians—a speech which, if he wished, he ought to have directed to those who confess themselves to be entirely foreign to the teaching of Jesus. For those impostors and conjurers who commend idols are the Ophites—from whom, as we have said above, Christ is entirely rejected—or any others who hold opinions similar to theirs. Those are they who miserably learn by rote the names of the janitors. In vain, therefore, does he say against the Christians: "If you seek a leader of this way, you must flee those impostors and conjurers who commend idols." And, not knowing that such men, as conjurers, no less than Celsus, speak ill with him of Jesus and of all the piety associated with Him, he says: C "Otherwise you would be altogether ridiculous, you who curse other gods, who are manifest, as being idols, while you worship one who is truly more wretched than the idols themselves, and is not even an idol anymore, but a dead man in very truth, and you seek a Father like to him." That it was unknown to him what Christians say, and what those who have fashioned myths of this kind say, and that he said these things—which do not apply to us—because he thought that we were as much subject as they to the same accusations, is clear from his words: "That deceit, those admirable counselors, and those demoniacal words, directed D toward the lion, and the amphibious creature, and the ass-formed one, and the others, and those divine janitors, whose names you miserably learn by rote—those are the reasons why you are wretchedly bedeviled, and are crucified." And indeed he does not know that no one of those who imagine that the lion-formed, and the ass-formed, and the amphibious ones are the janitors of the way to heaven, defends until death what he thinks he has found to be the truth. But that which is done by us through, so to speak, a great passion of piety, when we, for the sake of the truth, surrender ourselves to every kind of death...
and to being crucified, he attributes to those who suffer nothing of the kind. But to us, who are crucified for the sake of piety, he objects with their fables about the lion-formed being, the amphibious one, and the rest. Therefore, it is not because of Celsus that we avoid the doctrine concerning the lion-formed being and the others; for we did not receive any such thing from the beginning. Rather, following the teaching of Jesus, we say things contrary to them, not agreeing that Michael—or any other of those previously recorded—is of such a form.
As to his claim that we should not be at a loss for ancient leaders and sacred men, we must consider this. He refers us to poets whom he calls inspired, and to wise men and philosophers, without setting down their names. Having promised to show us leaders, he speaks indefinitely of inspired poets, wise men, and philosophers. If he had set down the names of each of these, it would have seemed reasonable for us to struggle to show that he is giving us guides who are blind to the truth so that we might stumble, or if not entirely blind, that they are at least mistaken concerning many dogmas of the truth. Whether he wishes Orpheus to be an inspired poet, or Parmenides, or Empedocles, or Homer himself, or even Hesiod, let him who wishes show how those who use such guides will travel better and have been helped in the matters of life compared to those who, because of the teaching of Jesus Christ, have left behind all images and shrines, and indeed every Jewish superstition, and gaze only through the Word of God at the Father of the Word, God.
And who are these wise men or philosophers from whom Celsus wishes us to hear many and divine things, leaving behind Moses, the servant of God, and the prophets of the Creator of all, who have uttered truly divine things, and Him who shone upon the race of men and announced the way of piety, and who, as far as it depended on Him, left no one without a taste of His own mysteries—but because of His surpassing philanthropy, while He had it in Him to give theology to those who were more understanding, capable of lifting up the soul from the things of this world, He nonetheless also accommodated Himself to the weaker dispositions of common men and simpler women, and slaves, and in a word, to all who were helped by none other than Jesus alone to live as well as possible according to the dogmas they were able to grasp about God
A he refers us back to Plato, setting forth his words from the *Timaeus* which run as follows: "To find the maker and father of this all is a task, and having found him, to declare him to all is impossible." He then adds to these words, saying: "See how the way of truth is sought by men of God-like understanding," and how Plato knew that it is impossible for all to walk by this way. "Since, however, for this reason it has been devised by wise men, that we might obtain some notion of the unnameable and first, which through either composition with other things, or analysis from them, or analogy, might represent him—I wishing to teach what is otherwise ineffable—I would wonder if you would be able to follow, being utterly bound to the flesh and seeing nothing pure." Plato brings forward the passage before us in a high-minded manner and not one to be despised. But see whether the divine Word does not introduce the One who was in the beginning with God, the Word being God, B becoming flesh, with greater concern for humanity, so that the word might be able to reach all men, even if Plato says that it is impossible for one who has found him to declare him to all.
Plato, then, may say that it is a task to find the maker and father of this all, signifying that it is impossible for human nature to find God according to his worth—or if not according to his worth, at least to a greater degree than the many. (This, if it were true, and if God had been truly found by Plato or by any of the Greeks, they would not have worshipped anything else, nor called anything else God, nor offered worship, either by abandoning this one or by associating with him C things that cannot be associated with so great a God.) We, however, declare that human nature is not sufficient to seek God in any way whatsoever, and to find him correctly, unless it is helped by the One who is sought; for he is found by those who admit, after they have done what is in their power, that they are in need of him, and he makes himself manifest to those to whom he judges it to be reasonable to be seen, insofar as it is possible for God to be known by man and for a human soul, while still in the body, to know God.
But also, in saying that it is impossible to declare the maker and father of all to all men, Plato does not say that he is ineffable and unnameable, but that, being expressible in words, it is possible for him to be spoken of. D Then, as if he had forgotten the words of Plato that he had set forth, Celsus says that God is unnameable to these men: "Since, however, for this reason it has been devised by wise men, that we might obtain some notion of the unnameable and first..."
A principle, we say that not alone is God ineffable, but also other things that are after Him. These things Paul endeavored to signify when he said, 'I heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,' [Cor. XII, 4.] using 'I heard' instead of 'I understood,' analogous to that saying, 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.' [Matth. XI, 15.] We say, moreover, that to see the Maker and Father of the universe is a difficult task. Yet He is seen, not only according to the saying, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' [Matth. V, 8.] but also according to that which is said by the image of the invisible God: 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father that sent me.' [Joan. XIV, 9.] For in these words, no one possessed of a sound mind would say that Jesus, by referring to his own perceptible body that was visible to men, said, 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father who sent me'; otherwise, those who were crying, 'Crucify, crucify him,' [Joan. XIX, 6.] and Pilate also, who had received power over his human nature, would have seen God the Father, which is absurd. That the saying, 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father who sent me,' is not to be referred to the commoner interpretation, is clear from what was said to Philip: 'Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known me, Philip?' [Joan. XIV, 9.] which was said to him after he had requested and said: 'Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.' [Joan. XIV, 8.] Whoever, therefore, understands how one ought to think concerning the only-begotten God, the Son of God, the firstborn of every creature, [Coloss. I, 15.] inasmuch as the Word was made flesh, [Joan. I, 14.] will see how one, having beheld the image of the invisible God, will know the Father and Maker of this whole universe. Celsus therefore supposes that God is known either by composition toward other things, analogous to the composition called by the geometers, or by analysis from other things, or also by analogy B analogous to the analogy in use among the same, and that thus the entry to the good may perhaps be reached by one capable of such things. But the Word of God, when He says, 'No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him,' [Matth. XI, 27.] declares that God is known by a certain divine grace, which does not arise in the soul without God, but with a certain sort of inspiration. For it is probable that the knowledge of God is greater than human nature—which is why there are so many errors regarding God among humans—but by the goodness and love of God toward men, and by a miraculous and more divine grace, the knowledge of God reaches those who are caught beforehand by the foreknowledge of God because they will live lives worthy of Him who is known, in no way corrupting their piety toward Him, neither being led away to death by those who are ignorant of what piety is and who invent anything at all to be piety rather than what piety is, nor becoming subjects of the greatest ridicule. Perceiving this, I think, God also [regards] the arrogance...
[GREEK COLUMN] [LATIN COLUMN] πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ὑπεροψίαν τῶν μεγάλα μὲν φρονούντων ἐπὶ τῷ ἐγνωκέναι τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας τὰ θεῖα μεμαθηκέναι, παραπλησίως δὲ τοῖς ἀπαιδευτοτάτοις ἐπὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα, καὶ τοὺς νεὼς αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ θρυλλούμενα μυστήρια ἄγοντας, ἐξελέξατο τὰ μωρὰ τοῦ κόσμου, τοὺς ἐν Χριστιανοῖς ἁπλουστάτους, καὶ πολλῶν φιλοσόφων μετριώτερον καὶ καθαρώτερον βιοῦντας· ἵνα καταισχύνῃ τοὺς σοφούς, οὐκ αἰδουμένους ἐν τῷ τοῖς ἀψύχοις προσομιλεῖν ὡς θεοῖς ἢ θεῶν εἰκόσι. Τίς γὰρ νοῦν ἔχων οὐ καταγελάσεται τοῦ μετὰ τοὺς τηλικούτους καὶ τοσούτους ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ περὶ Θεοῦ ἢ θεῶν λόγους, ἐνορῶντος τοῖς ἀγάλμασι, καὶ ἤτοι αὐτοῖς ἀναπέμποντος τὴν εὐχὴν, ἢ διὰ τῆς τούτων ὄψεως ἐφ᾽ ἃ φαντάζεται δεῖν ἀναβαίνειν ἀπὸ τοῦ βλεπομένου καὶ συμβόλου ὄντος, ἀναφέροντός τε ἐπὶ τὸν νοούμενον; Χριστιανὸς δὲ, καὶ ὁ ἰδιώτης, πάντα μὲν τόπον τοῦ κόσμου πέπεισται εἶναι μέρος τοῦ ὅλου, ναοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ὄντος τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου· ἐν παντὶ δὲ τόπῳ εὐχόμενος, μύσας τοὺς τῆς αἰσθήσεως ὀφθαλμοὺς, καὶ ἐγείρας τοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς, ὑπεραναβαίνει τὸν ὅλον κόσμον. Καὶ οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ τὴν ἁψίδα ἴσταται τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸν ὑπερουράνιον γενόμενος τῇ διανοίᾳ τόπον, ὁδηγούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Πνεύματος, καὶ ὥσπερεὶ ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου τυγχάνων, ἀναπέμπει οὐ περὶ τῶν τυχόντων τὴν εὐχὴν τῷ Θεῷ· ἔμαθε γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ μηδὲν μικρὸν, τουτέστιν αἰσθητόν, ζητεῖν, ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ μεγάλα καὶ ἀληθῶς θεῖα, ὅσα συμβάλλεται διδόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, πρὸς τὸ ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν παρ᾽ αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Λόγου ὄντος Θεοῦ μακαριότητα. Ἴδωμεν δὲ καὶ ἃ φησιν ἡμᾶς διδάξειν, εἰ ἄρα αὐτοῖς ἀκολουθῆσαι δυνησόμεθα, ἐν οἷς λέγει ἡμᾶς παντελῶς ἐνδεδέσθαι τῇ σαρκὶ, οὓς ἐὰν βιῶμεν ὀρθῶς, καὶ κατὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦ λόγον, ἀκούοντας τὸ, Ὑμεῖς οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐν σαρκὶ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πνεύματι, εἴπερ Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν. Φησὶ δ᾽ ἡμᾶς καὶ μηδὲν καθαρὸν βλέπειν, τοὺς πειρωμένους μηδὲ μέχρι τῶν λογισμῶν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνθυμημάτων τῆς κακίας μολύνεσθαι, καὶ ἐν τῇ εὐχῇ λέγοντας, Καρδίαν καθαρὰν κτίσον ἐν ἐμοὶ, ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ πνεῦμα εὐθὲς ἐγκαίνισον ἐν τοῖς ἐγκάτοις μου· ἵνα τῇ μόνη πεφυκυία βλέπειν Θεὸν καρδίᾳ καθαρᾷ θεασώμεθα αὐτόν. Ἃ δὲ λέγει, τοιαῦτά ἐστιν· A πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ὑπεροψίαν τῶν μεγάλα μὲν φρονούντων ἐπὶ τῷ ἐγνωκέναι τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας τὰ θεῖα μεμαθηκέναι, παραπλησίως δὲ τοῖς ἀπαιδευτοτάτοις ἐπὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα, καὶ τοὺς ναοὺς αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ θρυλλούμενα μυστήρια ἄγοντας, ἐξελέξατο τὰ μωρὰ τοῦ κόσμου, τοὺς ἐν Χριστιανοῖς ἁπλουστάτους, καὶ πολλῶν φιλοσόφων μετριώτερον καὶ καθαρώτερον βιοῦντας· ἵνα καταισχύνῃ τοὺς σοφούς, οὐκ αἰδουμένους ἐν τῷ τοῖς ἀψύχοις προσομιλεῖν ὡς θεοῖς ἢ θεῶν εἰκόσι. Τίς γὰρ νοῦν ἔχων οὐ καταγελάσεται τοῦ μετὰ τοὺς τηλικούτους καὶ τοσούτους ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ περὶ Θεοῦ ἢ θεῶν λόγους, ἐνορῶντος τοῖς ἀγάλμασι, καὶ ἤτοι αὐτοῖς ἀναπέμποντος τὴν εὐχὴν, ἢ διὰ τῆς τούτων ὄψεως ἐφ᾽ ἃ φαντάζεται δεῖν ἀναβαίνειν ἀπὸ τοῦ βλεπομένου καὶ συμβόλου ὄντος, ἀναφέροντός τε ἐπὶ τὸν νοούμενον; Χριστιανὸς δὲ, καὶ ὁ ἰδιώτης, πάντα μὲν τόπον τοῦ κόσμου πέπεισται εἶναι μέρος τοῦ ὅλου, ναοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ὄντος τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου· ἐν παντὶ δὲ τόπῳ εὐχόμενος, μύσας τοὺς τῆς αἰσθήσεως ὀφθαλμοὺς, καὶ ἐγείρας τοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς, ὑπεραναβαίνει τὸν ὅλον κόσμον. Καὶ οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ τὴν ἁψίδα ἴσταται τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸν ὑπερουράνιον γενόμενος τῇ διανοίᾳ τόπον, ὁδηγούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Πνεύματος, καὶ ὥσπερεὶ ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου τυγχάνων, ἀναπέμπει οὐ περὶ τῶν τυχόντων τὴν εὐχὴν τῷ Θεῷ· ἔμαθε γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ μηδὲν μικρὸν, τουτέστιν αἰσθητόν, ζητεῖν, ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ μεγάλα καὶ ἀληθῶς θεῖα, ὅσα συμβάλλεται διδόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, πρὸς τὸ ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν παρ᾽ αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Λόγου ὄντος Θεοῦ μακαριότητα. B Ἴδωμεν δὲ καὶ ἃ φησιν ἡμᾶς διδάξειν, εἰ ἄρα αὐτοῖς ἀκολουθῆσαι δυνησόμεθα, ἐν οἷς λέγει ἡμᾶς παντελῶς ἐνδεδέσθαι τῇ σαρκὶ, οὓς ἐὰν βιῶμεν ὀρθῶς, καὶ κατὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦ λόγον, ἀκούοντας τὸ, Ὑμεῖς οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐν σαρκὶ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πνεύματι, εἴπερ Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν. Φησὶ δ᾽ ἡμᾶς καὶ μηδὲν καθαρὸν βλέπειν, τοὺς πειρωμένους μηδὲ μέχρι τῶν λογισμῶν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνθυμημάτων τῆς κακίας μολύνεσθαι, καὶ ἐν τῇ εὐχῇ λέγοντας, Καρδίαν καθαρὰν κτίσον ἐν ἐμοὶ, ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ πνεῦμα εὐθὲς ἐγκαίνισον ἐν τοῖς ἐγκάτοις μου· ἵνα τῇ μόνη πεφυκυία βλέπειν Θεὸν καρδίᾳ καθαρᾷ θεασώμεθα αὐτόν. Ἃ δὲ λέγει, τοιαῦτά ἐστιν·
ἐστιν· A νοητὸν, ὁρατόν· μετ' οὐσίας μὲν ἀλήθεια συνείπεται, μετὰ δὲ γενέσεως πλάνη· περὶ ἀλήθειαν μὲν οὖν ἐπιστήμη, περὶ δὲ θάτερον δόξα· καὶ τοῦ μέν ἐστι νόησις, ὁρατοῦ δὲ ὄψις. Γινώσκει δὲ νοητὸν μὲν νοῦς, ὁρατὸν δὲ ὀφθαλμός. Ὅπερ οὖν ἐν τοῖς ὁρατοῖς ἥλιος, οὔτ' ὀφθαλμὸς ὢν οὔτ' ὄψις, ἀλλ' ὀφθαλμῷ τε τοῦ ὁρᾷν αἴτιος, καὶ ὄψει τοῦ δι' αὐτὸν συνίστασθαι, καὶ ὁρατοῖς τοῦ ὁρᾶσθαι, πᾶσιν αἰσθητοῖς τοῦ γίγνεσθαι, καὶ μὴ αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ τοῦ βλέπεσθαι· τοῦτο ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς ἐκεῖνος, ὅσπερ οὔτε νοῦς, οὔτε νόησις, οὔτ' ἐπιστήμη, ἀλλὰ τῷ τε τοῦ νοεῖν αἴτιος, καὶ νοήσει τοῦ δι' αὐτὸν εἶναι, καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ τοῦ δι' αὐτὸν γιγνώσκειν, καὶ νοητοῖς ἅπασι, καὶ αὐτῇ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ αὐτῇ οὐσίᾳ, τοῦ εἶναι· πάντων ἐπέκεινα ὤν, ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ δυνάμει νοητός. Ταῦτ' εἴρηται μὲν ἀνθρώποις νοῦν ἔχουσιν· εἰ δέ τι αὐτῶν καὶ ὑμεῖς συνίετε, εὖ ὑμῖν ἔχει. B Καὶ πνεῦμα, εἴ τι οἴεσθε κατιὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ προαγγέλλειν τὰ θεῖα, τοῦτ' ἂν εἴη τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ταῦτα κηρύττον, οὗ δὴ πλησθέντες ἄνδρες παλαιοὶ πολλὰ κἀγαθὰ ἀνήγγειλαν· ὧν εἰ μὴ δύνασθε ἐπαίειν, σιωπᾶτε, καὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀμαθίαν ἐγκαλύπτετε, καὶ μὴ λέγετε τυφλώττειν τοὺς βλέποντας, καὶ χωλοὺς εἶναι τοὺς τρέχοντας, αὐτοὶ πάντη τὰς ψυχὰς ἀποκεχωλευμένοι καὶ ἠκρωτηριασμένοι, καὶ τῷ σώματι ζῶντες, τουτέστι τῷ νεκρῷ.
Πρὸς ταῦτα δ' ἡμεῖς φήσομεν οἱ μελετήσαντες μηδενὶ ἀπεχθάνεσθαι τῶν καλῶς λεγομένων, καὶ οἱ ἔξω τῆς πίστεως λέγωσι καλῶς, μὴ προσφιλονεικεῖν· ὅτι οἱ μὲν διαλοιδορούμενοι τοῖς κατὰ δύναμιν εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων Θεὸν εὐσεβεῖν θέλουσιν, ἀποδεχομένων ἰδιωτῶν τὴν εἰς αὐτὸν πίστιν, καὶ συνετωτέρων τὴν μετὰ λόγου εἰς αὐτὸν εὐσέβειαν, μετ' εὐχαριστίας ἀναπεμπόντων εὐχὰς τῷ Δημιουργῷ τοῦ παντὸς, καὶ ἀναπεμπόντων αὐτὰς, ὡς δι' ἀρχιερέως τοῦ τὴν εἰλικρινῆ θεοσέβειαν ἀνθρώποις παραστήσαντος· C καὶ καλοῦντες αὐτοὺς κεχωλευμένους τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ ἠκρωτηριασμένους, λέγοντες δὲ καὶ σώματι ζῶντας τῷ νεκρῷ τοὺς μελετῶντας ἀπὸ διαθέσεως λέγειν τὸν· Ἐν σαρκὶ γὰρ ζῶντες οὐ κατὰ σάρκα στρατευόμεθα· τὰ γὰρ ὅπλα τῆς στρατείας ἡμῶν οὐ σαρκικά, ἀλλὰ δυνατὰ τῷ Θεῷ· ὁράτωσαν, μὴ κατ' αὐτὸ τοῦτο λέγειν κακῶς ἀνθρώπους εὐχομένους εἶναι Θεοῦ, τὰς ψυχὰς ἑαυτῶν χωλὰς κατασκευάζωσι, καὶ τὸν ἔσω ἑαυτῶν ἄνθρωπον ἀκρωτηριάζωσιν, ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτοὺς, διὰ τῶν εἰς ἑτέρους δυσφημιῶν, τοὺς καλῶς βιοῦν ἐθέλοντας, τὸ ἐπιεικὲς καὶ τὸ εὐσταθὲς ἐνεσπαρμένα φυσικῶς ὑπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ τῇ λογικῇ φύσει. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει, D ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτοὺς, ἀπολύοντες αὐτοῦ οἱ τὸ ἐπιεικές. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει, ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτοὺς, ἀπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ τὸ ἐπιεικὲς καὶ τὸ εὐσταθὲς ἐνεσπαρμένα τῇ λογικῇ φύσει, οἱ δὲ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει, ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτους. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει. Ὃ δὲ λέγει ἐστὶν ὅτι οἱ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει, ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτοὺς, ἀποκόπτοντες αὐτοῦ τὸ ἐπιεικὲς τὸ ἐνεσπαρμένον ὑπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ τῇ λογικῇ φύσει, οἱ δὲ ἑτέρων ὄντες, ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἔχει ἡ ἀπόκρισις πρὸς τοὺς λοιδοροῦντας. Ὡς δὲ ἑτέρων ὄντων, πρὸς ταῦτα καὶ ἡμεῖς φήσομεν οἱ μελετήσαντες μηδενὶ ἀπεχθάνεσθαι τῶν καλῶς λεγομένων, καὶ οἱ ἔξω τῆς πίστεως λέγωσι καλῶς, μὴ προσφιλονεικεῖν, καὶ ὅτι οἱ μὲν διαλοιδορούμενοι τοῖς κατὰ δύναμιν εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων Θεὸν εὐσεβεῖν θέλουσιν, καὶ ὅτι μελλούσης τῆς φύσεως τῆς λογικῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ ἐσπαρμένης, οὐ δεῖ κατακρίνειν τοὺς λοιδοροῦντας.
λοιδοροῦντας. A And being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat: [1 Cor. IV, 12, 13] these are they who have strengthened the foundations of their soul, and who cleanse and prepare the whole soul; not that they might merely distinguish in words the substance from generation, and the intelligible from the visible, and knit the truth to substance, and avoid by every means the error joined to generation; contemplating, as they have learned, not the things of generation—which are things seen, and therefore temporal—but the superior things; whether one desires to call these "substance," or, because they are intelligible, "invisible," or because their nature is outside the reach of sense, "things not seen." For the disciples of Jesus look upon the things of generation in such a way that they use them, as it were, as a stepping stone toward the understanding of the nature of intelligible things; for "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world," that is, the intelligible things, "being understood by the things that are made, are seen." [Rom. I, 20] And they do not stop, having ascended from the creatures of the world, in the invisible things B of God; but having exercised themselves sufficiently in these, and understanding them, they ascend to the eternal power of God and, in a word, to his divinity; knowing that the philanthropic God has manifested the truth and that which is knowable of himself not only to those who are consecrated to him, but also to some who were outside a pure piety and devotion to him. But some of those who, by the providence of God, have risen to the knowledge of such things, seeing things unworthy of the knowledge, act impiously and "hold the truth in unrighteousness," [Rom. I, 18] and no longer have any room for apology before God regarding the knowledge of such things. At any rate, those who have grasped what originates with Celsus, and who profess to philosophize according to these doctrines, are witnessed to by the divine Word: that knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, "but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart" [Rom. I, 21] was darkened after such a light of the knowledge of the things which God had revealed to them. It is at any rate possible to see in what way those who claim to be wise exhibit proofs of great folly, when, after such great discourses in their schools concerning God and the intelligible things, they "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." [Rom. I, 23] Therefore, having been abandoned by Providence—as they have not lived in a manner worthy of the things manifested to them by God—they are left to wallow in the "desires" of their hearts "unto uncleanness," and their bodies are disgraced in indecencies and intemperance, "for they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." [Rom. I, 24, 25] But those who are despised by them on account of their simplicity, for others toward others.
whom they use terms like "fools" and "base slaves," these people—as soon as they have believed in God and accepted the teaching of Jesus—depart so far from licentiousness, A impurity, and every kind of shameful conduct in sexual matters, that many of them even prove themselves to be pure in every respect, in the manner of perfect priests, who abstain entirely from all sexual intercourse. Among the Athenians, there is indeed a *hierophant*, who—since he is not even deemed capable of controlling his male appetites and holding them in check at his own will—is rendered chaste by hemlock, and is considered pure for the sake of the religious worship established among the Athenians. But among the Christians, one may see men who do not need hemlock to serve the Divine purely; for the Word of God suffices them instead of hemlock, so that, having driven every desire from their mind, they serve the Divine with prayers.
And among those other beings who are considered gods, there are virgins—and very few at that, B whether they are guarded by men or not (for it is not the point now to examine this)—who *seem* to persevere in the purity required by the honor due to the divine; but among the Christians, it is not for the sake of human honors, nor for monetary rewards, nor for vainglory that they pursue perfect virginity. And "as they approved to have God in their knowledge," they are kept by God in a sound mind, "filled with all righteousness and goodness" in doing the things that are meet. These things, then, have been spoken by me, not to contend against what has been well understood by the Greeks, nor to accuse sound doctrines, but to demonstrate that these things—and even greater and more divine things than these—have been spoken by divine men, C the prophets of God and the apostles of Jesus. These are examined by those who desire to live as Christians more perfectly, and who know that "the mouth of the righteous will meditate on wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment; the law of his God is in his heart." But even among those who, whether through great ignorance or simplicity or the lack of those to urge them toward rational piety, do not have these things clearly manifested, they still believe in the God who is over all, and in His only-begotten Son, the Word and God; among them one might find a gravity, integrity, and guilelessness of character, and a simplicity—often better D than that of those who claim to be wise, but who, having not attained such things, wallow with boys in what is forbidden, males working in males that which is shameful.
A Now, he did not explain how there is error connected with generation, nor did he set forth what he intended, so that we might understand it by comparing his ideas with ours. But the prophets, hinting at what is wise regarding those things that arise from generation, say that a sin offering is brought because of them, and for those recently born B as not being pure from sin. They speak also of that which is said: "In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me." Moreover, they declare that sinners are alienated from the womb, stating also—a paradoxical thought—"They went astray from the womb, they spoke lies." So thoroughly do the wise men among us disparage the entire nature of perceptible things, that at one time they call bodies "vanity," as in the passage: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope"; C at another time they call them "vanity of vanities," as the Ecclesiastes said: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Who has so disparaged the life of the human soul here as the one who said: "Nevertheless, all things are vanity, every man living"? For he did not remain in doubt regarding the difference between the life of the soul here and that outside of these present things; nor did he say: "Who knows whether to live is to die, and to die is to live?" but he is confident in speaking the truth when he says: "Our soul has been humbled to the dust"; and, "You have brought me into the dust of death." D To which corresponds also: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" It has been said also: "Who shall transform the body of our humiliation." It is a prophet, too, who said: "You have humbled us in a place of affliction"; calling the earthly region the "place of affliction," to which Adam (which is to say, man) came after being cast out of paradise because of his wickedness. And consider also the one who says that "we see now through a mirror and in a riddle, but then face to face," and furthermore: "While we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord; therefore we are well-pleased to be away from the body and to be at home with the Lord." See what great insights he had regarding the different life of souls. And why must I, at greater length, contrast my words with Celsus’s statement, since these things were said by us long before, when it is also clear from what has been said what our intention is? To these points he adds, as it were: "And if you think any spirit comes down from God to announce divine things, this would be the spirit that..."
A proclaims, which ancient men, having been filled with it, proclaimed many good and beautiful things." But he did not know the difference between what we have accurately understood and those who say that "Your incorruptible spirit is in all things, for which reason God reproves those who fall short, little by little," and who say, among other things, the words: "Receive the Holy Spirit," which signifies a different quantity of the given Spirit than that which is denoted by the passage: "You shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days after this." But it is a task, once these things have been diligently considered, to see the difference between those who, at wide intervals, attain the apprehension of truth and a slight conception of God, and those who are more fully possessed by God, and who always stand with God, and are through everything led by the divine Spirit. If this had been examined and understood by Celsus, he would not have blamed our ignorance, nor would he have ordered us not to call blind those who, in the material arts of men—such as those involving statues—think that they are demonstrating piety. For no one who has the eyes of the soul open worships the Divine in any other way than the one who is taught to look always at the Creator of the universe, to offer every prayer to Him, and to do everything as if in the eyes of God, the Spectator B who looks into our very thoughts. We therefore pray both to see and to be guides of the blind, until they, approaching the Word of God, recover the sight of their souls which has been blinded by impurity. If we also do things worthy of Him who said to His disciples, "You are the light of the world," and of the Word who teaches that "the light shines in the darkness," we shall also be a light to those in darkness, and we shall educate the foolish and teach the simple. Let not Celsus be indignant when we call those "lame" and crippled in the foundations of their souls—those who hasten to supposed sanctuaries as if they were true sanctuaries, and do not see that no work of artisans can be holy. But those also who practice the piety consistent with the teaching of Jesus run, until, having reached the end of the race, they say with a strengthened and sincere disposition: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness." And each of us runs in this way, "not as uncertainly"; and we thus box C against wickedness, not as though beating the air, but against those who are under "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." Let Celsus call us people who live by a dead body—we, that is, to whom it has been said: "If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live"; and who learn: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." And would that we were able to demonstrate by our deeds that he is lying when he says of us that we live by the "dead body." D
A After these things, therefore, to which we have replied as we were able, he says to us: "How much better would it have been for you, since you desired to introduce something new, to have applied yourselves to some other person who died nobly, and who was capable of having a divine myth received about him? Come, if Hercules and Asclepius and those of old who have been glorified did not please you, you had Orpheus, a man acknowledged to have made use of a holy Spirit, and who also died a violent death." But perhaps he had been pre-empted by others. At any rate, there was Anaxarchus, who, when cast into a mortar and being crushed in the most lawless manner, made great light of the punishment, saying: "Pound, pound the pouch of Anaxarchus, for you are not pounding him." A voice, indeed, of a truly divine spirit. But even to this man, certain natural philosophers had already followed him. Why therefore not Epictetus? who, when his master was twisting his leg, smiling and undisturbed, said: "You will break it"; and when he had broken it, he said, "Did I not tell you that you would break it?" What like thing did your God say while being punished? You might even have more reasonably put forward Sibylla B (37), whom some of you use, as the Daughter of God; but as it is, while you have the power to foolishly insert into her writings many things that are blasphemous (38), you set up as God one who lived a most infamous life and met with a most miserable death. How much more suitable for you was Jonah in the belly of the whale (39), or Daniel from the beasts, or others even more prodigious than these? Since then he sends us back to Hercules, let him set before us a record of his words (40), and let him offer a defense for his shameful servitude to Omphale; and let him show if he was worthy of divine honor, he who took the ox from the farmer by force and like a bandit, and feasted upon it, and took pleasure in the things which that man, while he was eating, said to him in his curses; so that even until now it is told that the daemon of Hercules (41) receives the sacrifice along with the curses. He calls us back to the tautology concerning Asclepius, although we have spoken before concerning him as well; but let what has been already said suffice.
But what of him who wondered at Orpheus? He says that he is acknowledged to have made use of a holy Spirit, and to have died a violent death, and so forth. C [alt-version omitted] D
A I am amazed, however, if Celsus does not also—because of his contentiousness against us, and in order to belittle Jesus—now praise Orpheus; whereas when he encountered his myths that are, as it were, impious regarding the gods, he did not treat his poems as detestable—as being even more worthy of being cast out of a well-ordered commonwealth than those of Homer. For Orpheus wrote much worse things about the supposed gods than Homer did. Noble, indeed, is the story of Anaxarchus, who said to Aristocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus: "Beat, beat the pouch of Anaxarchus"; but this is the one thing about Anaxarchus that the Greeks know to be worthy of admiration, and even if, as Celsus thinks, one ought to worship a human being for the sake of virtue, it was not reasonable for Anaxarchus to be proclaimed a god.
He also sends us to Epictetus, having admired his noble saying regarding the breaking of his leg—a saying which is not, however, of such a nature that it can be compared to the extraordinary works and words of Jesus which are disbelieved by Celsus; for the reason that those words of Jesus were spoken with divine power, and even until now they turn back not only some of the simpler people, but also many of the more intelligent ones. And since he says, after listing such a number of men, "What like thing did your God, when he was being punished, utter?" we would answer him that his silence amidst the scourging and the many torments betrayed a constancy and endurance greater than that of any among the Greeks who, finding themselves in difficult circumstances, voiced their complaints; provided that Celsus is willing to believe, with an open mind, what has been recorded by men who were lovers of truth, who have told even his extraordinary deeds without falsehood, and who have numbered among them his silence amidst the scourging. But he also, when being mocked and clothed in a scarlet cloak, and when a crown of thorns was placed upon his head, and when he took a reed into his hand in place of a scepter, made use of the utmost gentleness, saying nothing base B or resentful toward them, though they dared to do such things against him. It was not possible, therefore, for him who, out of endurance, was silent amidst the scourging and, out of gentleness, suffered everything brought upon him by those who mocked him, to have said out of baseness—as some suppose—that which is written: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." There is, indeed, a reason for the seemingly requested avoidance of what is called the "cup," which we have examined and set forth at greater length elsewhere. But that we may understand what was said more simply, consider whether that prayer was not spoken with piety toward God, because any person C who does not consider that a difficult circumstance arises not from a preceding cause, but rather endures it, when the time demands it, that which is not from a preceding cause...
A Furthermore, it was not the voice of one yielding, but of one well-pleased with what befell him, and preferring the circumstances sent by Providence, that said: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." 57. Then, I know not how he wished us to announce the Sibyl as the daughter of God rather than Jesus, claiming that we have inserted many blasphemous things into her writings; yet he did not even demonstrate what we have inserted. He would have demonstrated it if he had shown the more ancient copies to be purer, and not possessing what he thinks has been interpolated. But having demonstrated neither that these are blasphemous—then again, not twice or thrice, but very often, he called the life of Jesus most shameful—without dwelling upon each of the things done in his life that were considered most shameful; so that by saying this, he might appear not only to be asserting things without proof, but also to be insulting one of whom he knows nothing. For if he had set forth the forms of the shameful life that appeared to him in his deeds, we would have struggled against each of the things that seemed to him to be most shameful. B But that Jesus also met a most pitiful death, this could also be said regarding Socrates and Anaxarchus, whom he mentioned a little before, and regarding countless others. Is the death of Jesus pitiful, but not that of those others? Or was theirs not pitiful, while that of Jesus was? You see, therefore, even in this, that the intent for Celsus was to rail against Jesus, moved, I think, by some spirit that had been defeated and cast down by Jesus, so that it might no longer have the savor and blood by which it was nourished and deceived those who sought God in images upon the earth, and who did not look up to the God who is truly over all. Then, next, as if having the goal of filling out the volume, he wished us to think of Jonah as God rather than Jesus; preferring Jonah, who preached repentance to the one city of Nineveh, to Jesus, who preached repentance to the whole world, and who accomplished it more successfully. And one who was miraculously and paradoxically maintained for three days and three nights in the belly of the whale he wished us to proclaim as God; but Celsus did not want one who undertook to die for the sake of men, who is attested by God through the prophets to be worthy of the honors second after the God of all—on account of the noble deeds he performed in heaven and on earth—to be so honored. And Jonah, C indeed, because he would not preach what was commanded by God, was swallowed by the whale; Jesus, however, since he taught what God willed, undertook death for the sake of men. Next he says that Daniel, having ascended from the lions, ought rather to have been worshipped by us above Jesus, who trampled underfoot the ferocity of every opposing power, and gave us authority to tread upon
B serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Then, having no others to speak of, he says: "Or others still more monstrous than these," intending thereby to insult Jonah and Daniel; for the spirit that is in Celsus did not know how to bless just men. After this, let us look at his next remark, which runs as follows: "They have also this commandment: not to avenge the one who commits an injury. If anyone strikes you, he says, on one cheek, offer the other as well. This is an ancient saying and was elegantly stated long ago, although they have reported it more rustically." For Plato makes Socrates converse with Crito thus: "Should one never do wrong? Certainly not. May one not, then, return an injury with an injury, as the majority think, since one should never do wrong? It does not seem so. What then, Crito? Should one do harm or not? It should not be done, I suppose, Socrates. What then? Is it just or unjust to do harm in return for harm received, as the majority say? Not at all. For to do harm to men differs in no way from doing wrong. You speak the truth. Therefore, one should not return an injury, nor do harm to any human being, no matter what you may have suffered from them." These are the words of Plato; and again: "Consider therefore well, you too, whether you are of this same opinion and concur; and let us take this as our beginning for deliberation, that it is never right to do wrong, or to avenge wrong with wrong, or when one has suffered harm, to do harm in return; or do you dissent and not concur in this principle? For my part, I have held this opinion for a long time, and I still hold it." To Plato, therefore, it seemed thus; and it had been ordained by divine men even before him. But as regards these points and the others which they distort, let these things suffice. Whoever desires more will easily discover it himself.
B Regarding this, and regarding all the points that Celsus has made common property—being unable to face their truth, claiming that they were said also among the Greeks—the following must be said: If the doctrine is useful and its intention healthy, whether it is said among the Greeks by Plato or some other of the Greek sages, or among the Jews by Moses or some of the prophets, or among the Christians in the recorded words of Jesus or as spoken by one of his apostles, one ought not to think that what is said by Jews or Christians is to be blamed because the Greeks also have said the same things; especially if it is demonstrated that the writings of the Jews are older than those of the Greeks. Nor, again, ought one to think that the beauty of the Greek phrasing makes that which is expressed by them superior to what is reported more plainly elsewhere.
and in simpler words by the Jews or Christians. Although the initial Jewish diction, with which the prophets left us the books they wrote, is recorded in the Hebrew tongue and in a wise composition characteristic of that language. A If it is necessary also to show that the identity of the doctrines — even if the claim seems paradoxical — is expressed better by the Jewish prophets or the words of the Christians, the argument must be constructed from a certain example concerning food and its preparation. Let there be some healthy food capable of producing strength in those who eat it; and let this food, when prepared in such a way and seasoned with certain spices, be eaten not by the unlearned, the rustic, or the poor brought up in huts, who are not accustomed to eating such things, but only by the wealthy and those of delicate living; B or, alternatively, let it be prepared not in that way—which seems good to those who pass for more refined—but as the poor, the more rustic, and the masses of men have learned to eat it, in such a way that myriads of people may eat of it. If, therefore, it were granted that by the former preparation those considered more refined are alone restored to health, with none of the masses enjoying such food, while by the latter preparation the multitudes of men live more healthily, whom shall we more commend, for the sake of the common good, regarding the healthy foods? C Is it those who prepare them usefully for the elite, or those who prepare them for the masses? For let it be granted that there is an equal amount of health and good condition resulting from the food prepared in either way; yet it is clear, and our very love of humanity and regard for the common good suggests, that a physician is more useful who provides for the health of many than one who provides only for the few. If the example is understood, it must be transferred to the quality of the rational food for rational beings. And see if Plato and the wise men of the Greeks, in what they say well, are not like those physicians who take thought D for those alone who are considered more refined, while despising the multitude of men; whereas the prophets among the Jews and the disciples of Jesus, having said farewell to the versatile composition of words and to the "wisdom of men," as Scripture calls it, and "wisdom according to the flesh," which obscures the language, would be likened to those who have provided that the quality of the foods be most healthy, having prepared and arranged them with a composition of words that is accessible and adapted to the masses of men, neither making their dialect strange, nor—by the [use of such]—averting them from listening as if they were hearing something unusual...
A but rather manifesting a meaning that can be perceived by those who dedicate themselves to the examination of the Word, which becomes clear in proportion to the leisure and readiness one brings to the Word. For indeed, if the object is—to name it so—by means of a rational food to make the eater patient and gentle, how would the Word not be better prepared which makes a multitude of people patient and gentle—or at least progressing in these virtues—than one which (if this even be granted) makes only a very few and easily countable people patient and gentle? Just as a Greek who wishes to benefit those who speak Egyptian or Syrian B with healthy doctrines would have cared to learn the dialects of those about to hear him, and—as the Greeks call it—would choose to "barbarize" for the sake of the improvement of the Egyptians and Syrians, rather than remain a Greek and be able to say nothing useful to the Egyptians and Syrians; so too did the divine nature, which provides for not only those who are thought to be educated in Greek learning, but also for the rest of the Greeks, accommodate itself to the ignorance of the multitude of hearers, so that it might, by using words familiar to them, call forth the multitude of the uneducated to hearing, who, after the introduction has once taken place, can exert themselves C to grasp even the deeper meanings hidden in the Scriptures. For it is manifest to anyone who reads them that there is much that is deeper than what is immediately apparent. Therefore, it is established that, as Celsus says, Jesus, by speaking somewhat more rustically: "To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer also the other, and to him who wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well," has moved the Word toward greater utility for life, and has presented it in such a way—or as it is said in the D *Crito* of Plato, which even the uneducated cannot hear, but which is scarcely understood by those who have learned the standard liberal arts before the solemn philosophy of the Greeks. Furthermore, it must be understood that the precept concerning patience is not corrupted by the simplicity of the words; rather, in this too, Celsus slanders the Word, saying, "But let these things and others, which corrupt, suffice; and whoever wishes to seek more of them will know." Let us stand there: "They do not endure seeing temples, and altars, and images." For neither the Scythians, nor the Nomads in Libya, nor the Seres—who are without any god—nor other most impious and barbarous nations...
and indeed not even the Persians themselves, can endure to see temples, and altars, and images; yet it does not follow from this that their reason for not enduring them is the same as ours. For one must examine the doctrines from which they proceed in refusing to endure temples and images, so that if one does not endure them on the basis of sound doctrines, he may be praised, but if on the basis of erroneous ones, he may be blamed. For it is possible for the same thing to result from different doctrines. For example, those who philosophize after the manner of Zeno of Citium avoid adultery, A but so do those who follow Epicurus, and even some who are entirely unlearned. But look at how great a disagreement there is concerning the avoidance of adultery among these [different groups]: some avoid it because it is contrary to the social nature of the rational animal to debauch a woman already taken by the laws and to ruin another man's household; but those who follow Epicurus, when they refrain from adultery, do not refrain for this reason, but because they consider pleasure to be the end, and they judge that many things impede pleasure for one who gives way to the single pleasure of committing adultery, and sometimes they [refrain from it] because of the fear of guards, or exile, or death.
B That the Persians also think in this way, Herodotus records in these words: "I know that the Persians use these customs: they do not hold it lawful to set up images, and altars, and temples, but they even bring a charge of folly against those who do so. As I believe, it is because they have not deemed the gods to be of human form, as do the Greeks." And furthermore, Heraclitus also declares himself after this fashion: "And they pray to these images, just as if one were to converse with houses, not knowing who the gods and heroes are." What, then, do they teach us that is wiser than Heraclitus? He, indeed, significantly intimates that it is foolish to pray to images if one does not know who the gods and heroes are. So says Heraclitus; but others flatly dishonor the images. If it is because a stone, or wood, or bronze, or gold—which such a one or such a one fashioned—cannot be a God, that would be a ridiculous piece of wisdom; for who else, unless he is a complete simpleton, considers these to be gods, rather than offerings and images of the gods? But if [they reject them] because one must not suppose these to be divine images, since the form of God is different, as it also seems to the Persians—they are caught contradicting themselves when they say that God made man in His own image, and that the form is like unto Himself. But they will agree that these exist for the honor of certain beings, whether similar or dissimilar in form; yet that those to whom these are dedicated are not gods, but demons; and that one who worships God ought not to pay honor to demons.
C And to these things it must be said: that if the Scythians, and the Nomads of Libya, and the Seres—whom Celsus says are without gods—and other most savage and barbarous nations, and furthermore the Persians, do not endure to see temples, and altars, and images, it is by no means equal that their not enduring these things is the same as our not enduring them. For one must examine the doctrines from which those who do not endure them are impelled to refuse to endure temples and images; in order that, if one does not endure them because of healthy dogmas, he may be praised; if because of mistaken ones, he may be blamed. For it is possible that the same thing may come to pass from different dogmas. Take, for example, those who philosophize according to Zeno of Citium refrain from adultery, but so do those who follow Epicurus, and some even of simple, uninstructed people. But look, how great a discord there is concerning the refusal to commit adultery among such as these: some [do so] because of what is social and because it is contrary to nature for a rational animal to debauch a woman pre-empted by the laws for another, and to ruin another man's household; but those who follow Epicurus do not for this reason not commit adultery when they refrain from it, but because they have come to regard pleasure as the end, and they judge that many things arise D that prevent pleasure for one who yields to the one pleasure of committing adultery; and there are times when they deem guard-duties, or exile, or death...
and frequently B even dangers beyond these, while he watches for the husband’s departure from the house, and the movements of those who favor the husband’s interests — that if one were to suppose it possible for an adulterer to remain unnoticed by the woman’s husband, and all his household, and those among whom one would have a bad reputation from the act of adultery, then even the Epicurean would commit adultery for the sake of pleasure.
But as to the common man, if at any time, when there is an opportunity for adultery, he keeps himself from adultery, the cause is often not the pursuing of more pleasures, but the fear of the law and the punishments that are present. You see, therefore, that this action which is thought to be one, the abstaining from adultery, is not the same for all, but becomes different according to the intentions of those who abstain; for it proceeds either from sound doctrines, or from those that are wicked and most impious, such as those of the Epicurean or of that common man.
As, therefore, this one thing, the abstaining from adultery, while appearing to be one, is seen to be manifold, being various according to the different doctrines and intentions, so too in the case of those who do not endure to worship the Divine at altars, and temples, and statues — such as the Scythians, or the Nomads of Libya, or the Seres who have no god, or the Persians — they do this from different doctrines than those from which Christians and Jews refuse to worship the Divine in such a way. For none of those avoids temples, and altars, and statues because he fears C to bring down and reduce the worship of the Divine onto such material, fashioned in this way; nor because he considers that demons reside in certain statues and places, having been brought down by some incantations, or having been able otherwise to seize for themselves places where, greedily partaking of the odor of the sacrifices, they hunt for unlawful pleasure in an unlawful way.
But Christians and Jews, because of, "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve," and because of, "Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me," and, "Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol, nor any likeness, of what is in the heaven above, or in the earth below, or in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor shalt thou serve them," and because of, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve," and many other things similar to these, not only turn away from temples, and altars, and statues, but also, when the occasion arises, they are ready to die, in order not to defile their conception of the God of all by any such impiety. D
A It has been said in the preceding pages regarding the Persians, that they do not build temples, but honor the sun and the works of God. This has been forbidden to us, who have been taught not to worship the creature in place of the Creator; but to know that the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God; and that the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God; and that the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Furthermore, we must not consider that things subject to the bondage of corruption and to vanity, and which remain in that state only in the hope of something better, are to be honored in place of the self-sufficient God, or of His Son, the Firstborn of all creation. It is enough, then, having added these things to what was said before, to speak regarding the Persian nation, which avoids altars and statues, but worships the creature rather than the Creator.
Since he has also cited the word of Heraclitus, having explained it as indicating that it is foolish to pray to statues if one does not know who the gods and heroes are, it must be said that it is possible to know God, and His Only-begotten, and those who have been honored by God with the title of God, and who partake of His divinity—who are different from all the gods of the nations, for these are demons—and yet not to pray to statues. And not only is it foolish to pray to statues, but it is also foolish to assume the appearance of praying to statues merely to conform to the crowd; which is what those who philosophize according to the Peripatetic school B do, or those who embrace the views of Epicurus or Democritus. For nothing counterfeit ought to dwell in the soul of one who is truly pious toward the Divine. We do not honor statues also so that we may not, as far as it depends on us, fall into the assumption that statues are other gods. This is why we reproach Celsus and all who confess that these are not gods, yet appear to render honor to statues, as they are considered wise. Following them, many of the masses not only err in thinking that they should worship them for the sake of conformity, but they also fall in their souls into the belief that they are gods, and cannot even endure to hear that the things which they worship are not gods. Celsus indeed says that he does not consider them gods, but offerings to the gods; he does not demonstrate how they are not rather offerings of men than, as he named them, of the gods themselves. For it is clear that these are offerings of men who are wandering in their understanding of the Divine. Nor do we suppose that statues are divine images, inasmuch as they do not depict the form of the invisible and incorporeal God. Since C Celsus assumes that we are... [The text here breaks off as the English translation ends at the end of the printed page.]
depict the form of the invisible and incorporeal God. Since Celsus assumes that we are A in contradiction with ourselves when we say that the Divine has no human form, yet believe that God made man in His own image and that He made him in the image of God, it must be said, as has been stated above, that we maintain the "in the image of God" resides in the rational soul, fashioned according to virtue. And Celsus, remaining there, not seeing the difference between being the image of God and being made according to the image of God, says that we claim God made man His own image and a form similar to Himself. But this too has been discussed above. B Next he says concerning the Christians that "They will agree that these are dedicated to the honor of some beings, whether they are similar or dissimilar in form; but that those to whom these are dedicated are not gods, but demons; and that one who worships God ought not to serve demons." If he had known the doctrine concerning demons, and what each of them effects, whether invited by those who are adepts in such arts or by voluntarily exerting themselves as they desire and are able to act, and had grasped the doctrine concerning demons, which is vast and difficult for human nature to comprehend, he would not have reproached us for stating that one who worships the God over all ought not to serve demons. And we are so far from serving demons that we even drive them out of human souls C and from the places in which they have settled, and sometimes even from animals, by prayers and by the lessons from the Sacred Scriptures. For often demons perform certain things for the injury of even such creatures. But because many things have previously been said by us concerning Jesus, it is not necessary now to repeat the same thing in reply to the statement: "That they are clearly convicted of worshipping not God, nor even a demon, but a dead man." Passing over this for the moment, let us look at the next words of Celsus, in which he says: "But first I will ask, why should demons not be served? Is not all things administered according to the will of God? And is not all providence from Him? And whatever occurs in the universe, whether it be the work of God, or of angels, or of other demons, or of heroes, does not all this have its law prescribed by the greatest God? And is not one who has been deemed worthy of this office appointed over each thing, having received power?" D "Does not he, therefore, who has obtained authority from thence, justly serve him to whom power has been granted by God? For it is impossible, he says, for the same person to serve many masters." See here too how many things he takes for granted, which require no trivial investigation, but rather a knowledge of deeper and more recondite matters concerning the administration of the affairs of the universe. For it must be examined how it is said that "all things are administered according to the will of God," and whether this administration extends even to the sins that are committed or not. For if the administration extends even to sins, not only among men but also among demons, and if any other thing devoid of body is liable to sin; let the one who says this see how absurd it is that all…
...to see the absurdity of him who says that all things are administered by the will of God; for it follows from this reasoning that sins themselves and everything that proceeds from vice are administered according to the will of God, which is not the same as saying that they occur while God does not prevent them. But if one were to understand properly what it means to be "administered," to say that things resulting from vice are administered, it is evident that all things are administered by the will of God, and that anyone who sins does not sin against the administration of God. A similar distinction must be made concerning Providence; one must say that the statement "All providence is from Him" signifies something true, provided that providence is understood to be something good. But if we were to say without qualification that all things that happen occur by providence, then if anything happens in an evil way, the statement "All providence is from Him" would be false, unless perhaps one were to say that things which happen as a consequence of the operations of God’s providence are also from God’s providence. He also declares that whatever exists in the universe, whether it be the work of God, or of angels, or of other demons, or of heroes, all these things have a law prescribed by the Most High God. But his assertion is not true. For even those things that transgress do not follow the law ordained by the Most High God when they transgress. Logic shows that it is not only vile men who transgress, but also vile demons and vile angels. B We are not the only ones who call demons vile; almost everyone who posits the existence of demons does so. Therefore, not everything has a law from the Most High God. For whatever has fallen away from the divine law through individual negligence, vice, wickedness, or ignorance of the good, does not have the law of God, but, to use a new term and one common to Scripture, has the law of sin. According to many of those who postulate the existence of demons, even vile demons do not have the law from God, but transgress; according to us, all demons, having fallen from the path that leads to the good, were not originally demons; and the class of demons is a type of those who have fallen from God. Therefore, whoever worships God ought not to worship demons. What concerns demons is also manifested by those who call upon them C for the sake of what are called love charms, or hatred charms, or for hindering actions, or for myriad other such things; things which are practiced by those who, through incantations and sorcery, have learned how to call and summon demons whenever they wish. Therefore, the worship of all demons is foreign to us who worship the God over all; and the worship of demons is the worship of those who are considered gods: "For all the gods of the gentiles are demons." This is also clear from the fact that curious invocations were used in sanctuaries that appeared to be more effective, and that this was the case at the very beginnings of the establishment of such statues and temples.
A These evocations were performed by those who, employing magical arts, were addicted to the worship of demons. Hence it is that we shun the cult of demons as a ruinous thing, and consider those rites which the Greeks use before altars, statues, and temples to be the worship of demons.
Was each one appointed to a task, and has he received power from God, whoever was deemed worthy of any work? But this requires a deeper knowledge, by which it might be determined whether, just as executioners in cities and others are assigned to cruel but necessary duties in the state, such evil demons were in like manner appointed by the Word of God who administers all things; or whether, just as robbers in desert places set up one from among themselves to rule over them, so the demons, having gathered as if in groups in different regions of the earth, have appointed for themselves a prince whose lead they might follow in the actions B they chose for the sake of stealing and robbing the souls of men.
He who desires to speak well on these matters, that he might defend the Christians — who shun the worship of anything other than the God over all, and his Word and God, the firstborn of every creature — must expound upon this: "All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them"; and this: "The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy"; and if anything else similar to this is said in the sacred Scriptures, such as this too: "Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you"; and this other: "You shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon."
But Celsus knew nothing of these things. For if they were known to him, he would not have said: "Does not whatever happens in this universe—whether a work of God, or of angels, or of demons, or of heroes—have a law prescribed for it by the greatest God? Was not each one, having received power, appointed to each thing, whoever was deemed worthy?" Consequently, will not one who worships God rightly worship also him to whom power has been given by God? To these he adds: "For it is impossible to serve many masters." C But we shall discuss this in the following book. For this seventh book, which we have written against the treatise of Celsus, has grown to a sufficient size.
ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS, BOOK EIGHT
I have now reached the point of finishing seven books, and I wish to begin the eighth. May God and his only-begotten Word be present with us, that Celsus’s lies—falsely given the title of "True Word"—may be courageously refuted, A and that the truth of Christianity may be powerfully demonstrated, as much as our subject matter allows. We pray that we may be able to speak with the same disposition as Paul: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were exhorting through us," and to be ambassadors for Christ toward men, just as the Word of God exhorts them to love for Himself; for He desires to reconcile to justice, truth, and the remaining virtues those who, before the acceptance of the doctrines of Jesus Christ, were dwelling in darkness regarding God and in ignorance of the Creator. I will say again: may God grant us the brave and true word, the Lord who is mighty and strong in the war against malice.
Now we must proceed to the next passage of Celsus and the response to it. He previously raised the question toward us as to why we do not worship demons, and to what he said regarding demons, we replied according to the will of the divine Word as it appeared to us. B Next, he introduces us as replying to his objection—in which he wished us to worship the demons as well—by saying that it is impossible for the same person to serve many masters. This, according to him, is the language of sedition, adopted by those—as he phrased it—who seclude and tear themselves away from the rest of mankind. He thinks that those who say this, as far as they are able, transfer their own affectation onto God.
For which reason, he thinks it has a place among men—that one who is serving a certain person could not reasonably serve another man as well, as if the other party would be harmed by the divided service; nor should one who has already sworn an oath to one person swear it to another, as it implies an injury to serve different heroes and demons of that sort at the same time. But concerning God, toward whom no harm or grief can befall, he considers it absurd to be similarly cautious and to avoid the worship of many gods, as if He were being treated like men, heroes, and demons of that sort.
C He also says that he who worships many gods does something pleasing to that one God, by worshipping one of the things that belong to Him; and he adds that it is unlawful to pay honor to anyone to whom this has not been given by Him. Wherefore, he says, the cult offered to all who belong to God does not displease Him, because they all belong to Him. Let us see, then, before proceeding further, whether we might not justly accept the saying: "No man can serve two masters," to which is added: "For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other." And next: "You cannot serve God and mammon." The defense of this saying calls us to a deeper and more recondite discourse concerning gods and lords. For the divine Scripture knows that the Lord is great above all gods; by whom we do not understand those who are worshipped among the nations—since we have learned that all the gods of the nations are demons—but rather those gods of whose gathering the prophetic word takes note, and the God over all who judges them and assigns to each his own proper work. "For God has stood in the gathering of gods, and in the midst He will judge the gods." For He is the God of gods and Lord, who through the Son has called the earth from the rising of the sun to the setting. We are commanded also to confess to the God of gods; having learned also that "God is not of the dead, but of the living." These things are said not only through the passages set forth, but also through ten thousand others. The divine Words teach us to examine and understand such things also concerning the Lord of lords; at one point saying, "Confess to the God of gods, for His mercy is to eternity; confess to the Lord of lords, for His mercy is to eternity"; at another point, "For God is the King of kings and Lord of lords." The Word knows some who are called gods, and others who truly are, whether they are called so or not; and teaching the same concerning lords who exist and those who do not, Paul says: "For even if there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords." D Since, then, the God of gods calls through Jesus from the sunrise and the sunset whom He wills to His own portion, and since Christ, being the Lord of God, shows by the fact that He has traversed the boundaries of all and calls to Himself from all boundaries that He is superior to all who are called lords—it is for this reason that Paul, knowing these things, says after the things I have quoted: "But for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him." And observing a wonderful and mysterious truth on this topic, he adds to them: "But knowledge is not in all." When, however, he says: "But for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things," by this voice he signifies to us...
A and to all who have ascended towards the God of gods over all, and to the Lord of lords over all, that one. And he has ascended towards the God over all who worships Him inseparably, indivisibly, and without division through the only Son who leads to Him, the Word of God and wisdom seen in Jesus, for those who in every way attempt to make themselves familiar—through singular words, actions, and thoughts—with the Creator of the universe, God.
Besides these things, I think that the one who transforms himself into an angel of light, the prince of this age, has also devised things similar to these, saying: "Then follows an army of gods and demons, ordered in eleven parts"; among which he says regarding himself and those who have philosophized: "With Zeus we, but others with other demons." Since, therefore, many are called or are gods, and B likewise lords, we do everything so that we might transcend not only those things worshipped as gods by the nations on earth, but also those whom the Scriptures call gods—concerning whom those who are strangers to the covenants of God given through Moses and our Savior Jesus, and who are aliens to His promises revealed through these, know nothing.
But he rises above the servitude toward all demons who does nothing friendly to demons; and he rises above the portion of those whom Paul calls gods who considers, whether as they do or however the situation may be, not the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen; and one who sees in what way even the "earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God," not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope—praising the creation, and seeing in what way "the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and shall arrive at the freedom of the glory of the children of God"—is not distracted toward serving God and some other one alongside Him, nor toward serving two masters.
There is, therefore, no voice of sedition among those who have understood such things and who do not wish to serve many masters; for this reason, they are satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ, who disciplines under Himself those who serve Him, so that He may deliver them, trained and become a kingdom worthy of God, to God and the Father. C But also they separate and tear themselves away from those who are aliens to the commonwealth of God and strangers to His covenants; that it may be that in heaven... D [The following is a citation from Plato's *Phaedrus*, which Celsus employs:] "For the great leader in heaven, Zeus, driving a winged chariot, goes first, ordering all things and taking care of them; and an army of gods and demons follows him, arranged in eleven parts. For Hestia remains alone in the house of the gods; but of the others, as many as are ranked in the number of the twelve ruling gods, they lead according to the order in which each was stationed. And it was then a beautiful thing to see, when they followed with a blessed choir, viewing a blessed vision and spectacle; we were with Zeus, while others were with another of the gods, and they saw and were initiated into those rites, which it is right to call most blessed."
A ... alienated from the commonwealth of God and strangers to his covenants; so that they may live as citizens of heaven, approaching the living God and the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the myriads of angels, the festal gathering, and the church of the firstborn who are written in the heavens. But it is not because God receives injury—as a man is thought to be injured by someone who serves another besides him—that we decline to serve any other than God through his Word and his truth; rather, it is so that we ourselves may not be harmed by separating ourselves from the portion of the God over all, in which we live fittingly for his blessedness, inspired by an excellent spirit of adoption; a spirit that cries out in the sons of the heavenly Father, not in words, but in reality, in secret: Abba, Father.
Indeed, the ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians did not worship the Persian king, even though his bodyguards strongly compelled them, revering their one lord, the law of Lycurgus; but those who perform the much greater and more divine embassy for Christ would not worship the ruler of the Persians, nor the Greeks, nor the Egyptians, nor any ruler of any nation, even if the demons—the bodyguards of the rulers—and the angels of the devil wish to compel them to do so, and persuade them to tell that which is better than any law on earth to go a long way off. For the Lord of those who serve as ambassadors for Christ is Christ, for whom they act as ambassadors, who was the Word in the beginning, and was with God, and was God.
Next, since Celsus thought to raise a more profound argument regarding heroes and certain demons, saying, after his argument concerning servitude towards men—as if the superior to whom one intends to serve is injured if one also wishes to serve a second—that the same must be thought regarding heroes and such demons; we must ask him what he deems these heroes to be, and what sort of beings he says these such demons are, so that one serving this hero must not serve another, and one serving this demon must not serve another, as if the prior demon were injured in a way analogous to those humans who are injured when someone who previously served them gives himself to others. But let him also show what sort of loss he thinks these heroes or demons suffer. For he will be forced either to B fall into a sea of nonsense C and D be obliged to take back his words and retract what has been said; or else—
if he does not wish to be talking nonsense, to confess that he knows nothing of the nature of heroes or demons. A Regarding his argument about men—that they are harmed if one, while serving them, serves another—we must ask: what injury does he claim happens to the first man if the one serving him desires to serve another as well? For if he speaks as a layman and as an unphilosophical person about damage concerning the money or external things signified to us, he would be refuted as never having understood that which was well said by Socrates: "Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me; for it is not right that the superior be harmed by the inferior." B But if he means by "harm" a movement or habit according to vice, it is clear that, since no such harm happens to the wise, one may serve two wise men even if they are in different places. And if this meaning is not reasonable, he has taken the example in vain to reproach the saying, "No man can serve two masters"; for the statement is most true when it refers to the duty toward the God of all through his Son, who brings us to God. We do not worship God as one who is needy, nor as one who would be grieved if we did not worship him; but we ourselves receive benefit from our worship of God, and we become free from grief and passion by serving the God over all through his only-begotten Word and Wisdom. C And observe how unexamined is the statement, "For if you worship anything else of those in the universe," in which he implies that we bring our worship of God, without any harm to ourselves, simply to some other thing belonging to God. But as if he perceived that he had spoken unhealthily when he said, "For if you worship anything else of those in the universe," he subsequently turns back and adds a correction to what he said: "In this case, it is not possible for anyone to be honored unless it has been given to him by that One." Let us ask Celsus regarding those who are honored as gods, demons, or even heroes: "From where, O excellent man, are you able to prove that it was given by God that these should be honored, and not rather that this happens from the ignorance and lack of learning of men who wander D and fall away from the One who is properly honored?" For instance, as you said a little while ago, Celsus, the favorites of Hadrian are honored; and you would hardly say that it was given by the God of all that they should be honored, like Antinous as a god. We shall say the same thing regarding others, demanding a proof that it was given to them by the God over all that they should be honored. And if he should counter-object something similar regarding the [Jesus]—