Against Celsus 1.55–1.65

I remember once, in a discussion with some who were called wise among the Jews, using these prophecies. The Jew said that they had been prophesied as about one person, namely the whole people, which had been dispersed and smitten, so that many might become proselytes on the occasion of the Jews' being scattered among the other nations. And in this way he explained "your form will be without glory among men," and "those to whom nothing was announced about him will see," and "a man in affliction." Many things were said in that discussion to prove that these prophecies, which are about one particular person, are not reasonably referred by them to the whole people. I asked whose character it could be that says, "This man bears our sins and suffers pain for us," and, "But he was wounded for our sins and made sick for our lawless deeds," and whose character it was that says, "By his stripes we were healed." For clearly those who were in sins and were healed by the Savior's suffering, whether from that people or from the nations, say these things in the prophet, who foresaw them and, by the Holy Spirit, gave them this speaking part. But we seemed to press him hardest with the words: "From the lawless deeds of my people he was led to death." For if, according to them, the people are the ones prophesied, how is this man said to have been led "to death" "from the lawless deeds 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 "stripes" we who believe in him "were healed," when he stripped off "the principalities and powers" within us and made a public example of them "openly" on the tree? To make each point in the prophecy clear, and leave none of them unexamined, belongs to another occasion. These things too have been said at some length, necessarily, I think, because of the words of Celsus's Jew set out above.

It escaped Celsus, and his Jew, and all who have not believed in Jesus, that the prophecies speak of two comings of Christ: the first more subject to human experience and more humble, so that Christ, being with human beings, might teach the way that leads to God and leave no one in human life room for excuse as not knowing about the coming judgment; and the other glorious and wholly divine, having nothing of human experience woven into its divinity. To set out the prophecies would take long; for the present it is enough to cite the forty-fourth Psalm, which is entitled, among other things, "A song for the beloved," where he is also clearly proclaimed God in these words: "Grace has been poured out on your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your comeliness and your beauty; and bend your bow, and prosper, and reign for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness, and your right hand will guide you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharp, O mighty one—peoples will fall under you—in the heart of the king's enemies." But pay careful attention to what follows, where he is called God: "Your throne," he says, "O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions." And notice that the prophet, addressing God, whose "throne" is "forever and ever" and "a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of" his "kingdom," says that this God has been anointed by God, who was his God; and anointed because, "above his companions," he loved "righteousness" and hated "lawlessness." And I remember pressing hard a Jew thought to be wise with this passage. At a loss before it, he said what was consistent with his Judaism: that "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom" was said to the God of the universe, and "You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you," and what follows, to the Christ.

Further, his Jew says to the Savior: "If you say this, that every human being who has come into being by divine providence is a son of God, how would you differ from anyone else?" To him we will say that everyone who, as Paul put it, is no longer trained by fear but chooses the good for its own sake is a son of God; but this one differs greatly, by far, from everyone who is called a son of God on account of virtue, since he is, as it were, a source and origin of such. Paul's words run thus: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father." But, as Celsus's Jew says, "countless people will refute Jesus, claiming that what was prophesied of him was said about themselves." We do not know, then, whether Celsus knew of some who came into life and wished to do something like Jesus and proclaim themselves sons of God or a power of God. But since we examine these matters with love of truth, we will say that Theudas arose among the Jews before the birth of Jesus, "saying that he himself was somebody" great; and when he died, those deceived by him were scattered. And after him, "in the days of the census," when Jesus seems to have been born, a certain Judas the Galilean drew away many of the Jewish people after him, as though he were wise and introducing some new things; and when he too paid the penalty, his teaching was overthrown, surviving among only very few and insignificant people. And after the time of Jesus, Dositheus the Samaritan too wished to persuade the Samaritans that he was the Christ prophesied by Moses, and he seemed to have won some over by his teaching. But it is not unreasonable to set out what was said very wisely by Gamaliel, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, to show how those men were strangers to the promise, being neither sons of God nor powers of his, whereas the Christ, Jesus, was truly the Son of God. Gamaliel said there: "If this plan and this word is from men, it will be destroyed"—as theirs too were destroyed when they died—"but if it is from God, you will not be able to destroy" this man's teaching, "lest you even be found fighting against God." Simon too, the Samaritan magician, wished to steal some away by his magic; and at that time he deceived them, but now, I think, it is impossible to find thirty Simonians in the whole world, and perhaps I have said more than there are. There are very few around Palestine; in the rest of the world, throughout which he wished to spread his fame, his name is nowhere mentioned. And among those where it is mentioned, it is mentioned from the Acts of the Apostles; it is Christians who say these things about him, and the evidence has testified that Simon was nothing divine.

After this Celsus's Jew, instead of the magi of the Gospel, says that Jesus said that Chaldeans, moved at his birth, came to worship him as God while he was still an infant, and made this known to Herod the tetrarch; and that Herod sent to kill those born at the same time, thinking to destroy him too along with them, lest, having lived long enough, he should become king. See in this the misunderstanding of one who does not distinguish magi from Chaldeans, and who has not observed that their professions differ, and so has falsified the Gospel writing. I do not know why he also kept silent about what moved the magi, and did not say that it was a "star" seen by them "in the east," as is written. Let us see what must be said to this too. We think that the "star" seen "in the east" was a new one, not like any of the familiar ones, neither those in the sphere of fixed stars nor those in the lower spheres, but of the same kind as those that appear from time to time—comets, or meteors, or bearded stars, or jar-shaped stars, or however the Greeks like to name their different kinds. We establish this in the following way.

It has been observed that such stars rise at great events and very great changes on earth, signifying either the transfer of kingdoms, or wars, or whatever can happen among human beings capable of shaking things on earth. And we have read in the treatise On Comets by Chaeremon the Stoic how comets have sometimes appeared also when good things were to come, and he sets out the history of these. If, then, at new kingdoms or other great events on earth the so-called comet, or some similar star, rises, what wonder is it that at the birth of one who was to bring newness into the human race, and introduce a teaching not only to Jews but also to Greeks and to many barbarian nations, a star rose? I would say that no prophecy is current about comets, that such-and-such a comet will rise in such-and-such a kingdom or at such-and-such times; but about the one that rose at the birth of Jesus, Balaam prophesied, saying, as Moses recorded: "A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall rise up out of Israel." And if we must also examine what is recorded about the magi at the birth of Jesus and the appearance of the star, we would say the following, some things to Greeks and others to Jews.

To the Greeks, then, we say that magi, having dealings with demons and summoning them for the purposes they have learned and wish, do such things so long as nothing more divine and more powerful than the demons and the incantation summoning them appears or is spoken; but if a more divine manifestation occurs, the activities of the demons are brought down, unable to face the light of divinity. It is likely, then, that at the birth of Jesus too, since "a multitude of the heavenly host," as Luke recorded and I believe, praised God and said, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men," the demons for this reason lost their strength and were weakened, their sorcery refuted and their activity destroyed, being brought down not only by the angels who came to the region around the earth because of Jesus' birth but also by the soul of Jesus and the divinity in him. So the magi, wishing to do their usual things, which they formerly did by certain incantations and tricks, sought the cause, judging it to be great; and seeing a divine sign in heaven, they wished to see what it signified. It seems to me, then, that having the prophecies of Balaam, which Moses also recorded, since he too had been skilled in such matters, and finding there the passage about the star and the words "I will show him, but not now; I call him blessed, but he will not come near," they guessed that the man prophesied along with the star had come into life; and, anticipating that he was stronger than all the demons and than what usually appeared to them and worked for them, they wished "to worship" him. So they came to Judea, persuaded that some "king" had been born, and knowing where he would be born, but not understanding what kingdom he would rule. They brought "gifts," which they "offered" to one who was, so to speak, composite of God and mortal man: gold as symbols to a king, myrrh to one who would die, and frankincense to God; and they "offered" them after learning the place of his birth. But since the Savior of the human race was God, above the angels who help human beings, an angel repaid the magi's piety in worshiping Jesus by warning them not to go to Herod but to return to their own country by another way.

If Herod plotted against the newborn child—even if Celsus's Jew does not believe that this really happened—it is no wonder. For wickedness is a blind thing, and wishes to conquer fate as though stronger than it. Herod experienced this: he both believed that a king of the Jews had been born and gave his assent openly to this belief, not seeing that either he is certainly a king and will reign, or he will not reign and will be killed in vain. So he wished to kill him, having judgments at war with one another because of his wickedness, moved by the blind and wicked devil, who from the beginning plotted against the Savior, imagining that he was and would be someone great. So an "angel," keeping to the sequence of events, even if Celsus does not believe it, warned Joseph to withdraw with the child and his mother "to Egypt"; and Herod "killed" all the children "in Bethlehem" and "in all its region," intending to kill with them the newborn king of the Jews. For he did not see the sleepless guardian power of those worthy to be guarded and kept for the salvation of human beings, of whom Jesus was first of all, greater in every honor and eminence. He was to be king, not as Herod thought, but as it was fitting for God to give a kingdom for the benefit of its subjects to one who would confer on those subject to him no middling and indifferent benefit, so to speak, but would train them and bring them under laws truly of God. Jesus too knew this; and denying that he was a king in the sense the many understand, but teaching the special character of his kingdom, he says: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, that I should not be handed over to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from this world." If Celsus had seen this, he would not have said: "If it was so that you might not grow up and reign in his place, why, now that you have grown up, do you not reign, but, being the son of God, go about begging so ignobly, cowering from fear and wandering to and fro?" But it is not ignoble to avoid dangers with wise management and not rush into them—not from fear of death, but so as, by living usefully in this life, to benefit others—until the suitable time comes for one who has taken on human nature to die a human death, one that has some benefit for human beings. This is clear to one who has understood that Jesus died for human beings, about which we have spoken as best we could above.

After this, since, not even knowing the number of the apostles, he said that Jesus attached to himself ten or eleven notorious men, tax collectors and the most wicked sailors, and with them ran away here and there, gathering food in a shameful and beggarly way, come, let us deal with these things too as best we can. It is plain to those who read the Gospel accounts, which Celsus does not appear even to have read, that Jesus chose twelve apostles: Matthew a tax collector; and those whom he vaguely called sailors are perhaps James and John, since they left the boat and "their father Zebedee" and followed Jesus. For Peter and his brother Andrew, who used a net to earn their necessary food, are to be counted not among sailors but, as Scripture recorded, among fishermen. Let Levi too be a tax collector who followed Jesus; but he was not of the number of his apostles, except according to some copies of the Gospel according to Mark. Of the rest we have not learned the occupations by which they earned their food before becoming Jesus' disciples. I say, then, to this too, that to those able to examine the story of Jesus' apostles intelligently and fairly, it is evident that these men taught Christianity by divine power and succeeded in bringing people under the word of God. For it was not power of speech and orderly exposition according to the dialectical or rhetorical arts of the Greeks that was in them to win over their hearers. It seems to me that if Jesus had chosen men who were wise in the opinion of the many and able to think and speak in a way pleasing to crowds, and had used them as ministers of his teaching, he would most reasonably have been suspected of having proclaimed his teaching by a method like that of philosophers who head some school. And the claim that the teaching is divine would no longer have been evident, since the teaching and the preaching would have been in the persuasiveness of wisdom in the style and composition of words; and "faith" would have been, like the faith of the world's philosophers in their doctrines, "in the wisdom of men" and not "in the power of God." But as it is, who, seeing fishermen and tax collectors who had not even learned their first letters (as the Gospel records of them, and as Celsus has believed them on this point, since they tell the truth about their lack of education), boldly speaking not only to Jews about faith in Jesus but also preaching him among the other nations and succeeding, would not ask where their power of persuasion came from? For it was not the kind the many recognize. And who would not say that Jesus fulfilled by some divine power in his apostles the words, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men"? Paul too, setting forth this power, as we said above, says: "And my word 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." For according to what is said in the prophets, who foretold the preaching of the gospel, "The Lord gave a word to those who preach the good news with great power, the King of the powers of the beloved," that the prophecy that says, "His word will run swiftly," might also be fulfilled. And we see that "into all the earth" has gone out "the sound" of Jesus' apostles, "and their words to the ends of the world." For this reason those who hear the word proclaimed with power are filled with power, which they show in their disposition, their life, and their struggle for the truth even to death. But some are empty, even if they profess to believe in God through Jesus, who, not having divine power, only seem to be brought to the word of God. Although I mentioned above a Gospel saying spoken by the Savior, I will use it again now at the right moment, to show both our Savior's foreknowledge concerning the preaching of the gospel, most divinely shown, and the strength of the word, which without teachers wins over believers by persuasion joined with divine power. Jesus says: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Since Celsus also called Jesus' apostles notorious men, saying they were tax collectors and the most wicked sailors, we will say about this too that, in order to find fault with the teaching, he seems to believe what is written where he wishes, but, so as not to accept the divinity that appears and is proclaimed in the same books, to disbelieve the Gospels. He ought rather, seeing the writers' love of truth in their recording of worse things, to believe them also about the more divine. Now it is written in the catholic epistle of Barnabas—from which Celsus perhaps took his saying that the apostles were notorious 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." And Paul too, who later himself became an apostle of Jesus, says in the letter to Timothy: "The saying is trustworthy, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." I do not know how he forgot, or did not think, to say something about Paul, who after Jesus founded the churches in Christ. Probably he saw that the account of Paul would need an explanation from him: how one who persecuted the church of God and fought bitterly against believers, so as even to wish to hand Jesus' disciples over to death, later changed so much that "from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum he fully preached the gospel of Christ," and made it his "ambition to preach the gospel" so as not to build "on another's foundation," but where the gospel of God in Christ had not been preached at all. What, then, is absurd in Jesus, wishing to show the human race how great a healing of souls he possesses, choosing notorious and most wicked men and bringing them so far forward that they became an example of the purest character to those brought through them to the gospel of Christ?

If we were going to reproach those who have changed for their former life, it would be time for us to accuse Phaedo too, even after he became a philosopher, since, as the story says, Socrates brought him from a brothel to the philosophical school. And we will reproach philosophy with the profligacy of Polemon, the successor of Xenocrates—when we ought, there too, to credit philosophy with this: that the reasoning in those who persuaded them was able to bring those previously held by such great evils away from them. Among the Greeks there was one Phaedo, and I do not know of a second, and one Polemon, who turned from a profligate and most wicked life to philosophy; but with Jesus there were not only the twelve at that time, but always, and many times as many, who, having become a company of the self-controlled, say of their former state: "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another; but when the kindness and love of humanity of God our Savior appeared," "through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Spirit, which he poured out on us richly," we became such as we are. For God "sent his word and healed them and rescued them from their corruptions," as the prophet in the Psalms taught. I might add this to what has been said: Chrysippus, in his Therapeutics of the Passions, wishing to restrain the passions of human souls, tries, without making it an issue which doctrine is true, to treat those held by the passions according to the different schools; and he says that even if pleasure is the goal, the passions should be treated in this way, and even if there are three kinds of goods, no less according to that view those caught in the passions should be freed from them in this way. But the accusers of Christianity do not see how many people's passions, and how great a flood of wickedness, are restrained, and how many people's savage characters are tamed, by means of the teaching. They ought, boasting as they do of their public spirit, to acknowledge their gratitude to it for turning human beings from many evils by a new method, and to bear witness to it, if not as truth, at least as beneficial to the human race.

Since Jesus, teaching his disciples not to be rash, 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, as he taught, became to them an example of a steady life, managed so as not to rush into dangers at random, out of season, and without reason, Celsus maliciously slanders this too, and his Jew says to Jesus: "You run away here and there with your disciples." We will say that the story told about Aristotle is like the slander made against Jesus and the disciples. For he, seeing that a court was about to be assembled against him as an impious man, because of certain doctrines of his philosophy which the Athenians thought impious, withdrew from Athens and held his school at Chalcis, defending himself to his pupils and saying: "Let us leave Athens, so as not to give the Athenians an occasion to incur a second guilt like that against Socrates, and so that they may not commit impiety against philosophy a second time." He also says that Jesus went about with his disciples gathering food in a shameful and beggarly way. Let him tell us where he got the shamefulness and beggarliness of the gathering. For in the Gospels "certain women," "healed of" their "infirmities," among whom was "Susanna," provided the disciples with food "from their own means." Which of those who philosophize and devote themselves to the benefit of their pupils did not receive from them what was needed? Or did they do this fittingly and well, while when Jesus' disciples do it they are accused by Celsus of gathering their food in a shameful and beggarly way?