Against Celsus 2.17–2.33

Very stupid too is this: “What god, or daemon, or sensible man, foreseeing that such things would happen to him, would not avoid them if he could, instead of falling into what he knew beforehand?” Socrates, at any rate, knew that he would drink the hemlock and die, and he could, if he had listened to Crito, have escaped from prison and suffered none of these things; but he chose, according to what seemed reasonable to him, that it was better for him to die as a philosopher than to live unworthy of philosophy. Leonidas too, the general of the Lacedaemonians, knowing that he was about to die with those at Thermopylae, did not contrive to live shamefully, but said to those with him: “Let us breakfast as men who will dine in Hades.” Those who care to collect such stories will find many. What wonder, then, if Jesus, knowing what would happen, did not avoid it but met what he also knew beforehand? When Paul too, his disciple, heard what would happen to him if he went up to Jerusalem, he went to meet the dangers, rebuking those who wept around him and tried to keep him from going up to Jerusalem. And many in our own time, knowing that if they confessed Christianity they would die, but if they denied it they would be released and recover their property, have despised life and willingly chosen death for the sake of piety.

Next the Jew in Celsus says something else foolish: “How, if he foretold both who would betray him and who would deny him, did they not fear him as a god, so that the one would no longer betray him and the other would not deny him?” The most wise Celsus did not see the contradiction in this passage. If he foreknew as God, and his foreknowledge could not prove false, then it was impossible for the one known as the future betrayer not to betray, or for the one shown to be the future denier not to deny. But if it was possible for this one not to betray and that one not to deny, so that not betraying and not denying could have happened among those who had learned of it in advance, then the one who said, “This one will betray and that one will deny,” was no longer truthful. For if he foreknew the betrayer, he saw the wickedness from which he would betray, and that wickedness was by no means overturned by the foreknowledge. Again, if he recognized the one who would deny, seeing the weakness from which he would deny, he foretold that he would deny; and that weakness was not going to be overturned so suddenly by the foreknowledge. And where does he get this: “But they betrayed and denied him without caring for him at all”? For it has been shown about the betrayer that it is false that he betrayed his teacher without caring for him at all; and this is shown no less about the one who denied, who “went out” after denying and “wept bitterly.”

Superficial too is this: “For already, surely, even a man who is plotted against, if he learns of it beforehand and tells the plotters in advance, turns them back and puts them on their guard.” For many have plotted against people who knew of it beforehand. Next, as if drawing the conclusion of his argument, he says: “So these things did not happen because they had been foretold, for that is impossible; but since they happened, the claim that they were foretold is proved false. For it is utterly impossible that those who heard it beforehand should still betray and deny.” Now that his premises have been overturned, the conclusion too is overturned with them: “(Not) because these things were foretold did they happen.” We say that they both happened, since it was possible, and that because they happened the foretelling is shown to be true; for what is said about the future is judged true by the outcome. His statement, then, is false: that the foretelling is proved false. And Celsus's words, “For it is utterly impossible that those who heard it beforehand should still betray and deny,” were said in vain.

After this let us see how he speaks: “He foretold these things,” he says, “being a god, and what was foretold had to happen in any case. A god, then, led his own disciples and prophets, with whom he ate and drank, into this, so that they became impious and unholy, when he above all ought to have done good to all people, and especially to those who shared his table. Or would a man who had shared a table with another no longer plot against him, whereas one who feasted with a god became his plotter? And what is still more absurd, the god himself plotted against those who shared his table, making them traitors and ungodly.” Since you wish me to answer even Celsus's arguments that seem to me trivial, we shall say the following to this too. Celsus thinks that what is declared by some foreknowledge happens because it was declared; we do not grant this, but say that the one who declared it is not the cause of what will be because he foretold that it would happen; rather what will be, which would have been even if it had not been declared, provided the foreknower with the reason for foretelling it. And this whole matter lies in the foreknowledge of the one who declares it: when it is possible for a certain thing to happen and possible also for it not to happen, one or the other of them will be the case. And we do not say that the foreknower, taking away the possibility of its happening or not happening, says something like this: “This will certainly be, and it is impossible for it to happen otherwise.” This applies to every foreknowledge of something that depends on us, whether in the divine Scriptures or in the histories of the Greeks. And what the dialecticians call the “idle argument,” which is a sophism, will not be a sophism as far as Celsus is concerned, but by sound reason it is a sophism. So that this may be understood, from Scripture I shall use the prophecies about Judas, or our Savior's foreknowledge of him as the one who would betray him; and from Greek history the oracle to Laius, granting for the present that it is true, since this does not harm the argument. About Judas, then, it is said in the hundred and eighth psalm, spoken in the person of the Savior, which begins: “O God, do not pass over my praise in silence; for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful has been opened against me.” And if you observe what is written in the psalm, you will find that, just as he was foreknown as the one who would betray the Savior, so he was also the cause of the betrayal and deserved, because of his wickedness, the curses spoken in the prophecy. For let him suffer these things, “because,” it says, “he did not remember to show mercy, and persecuted a man poor and needy.” So he was able to remember “to show mercy” and not to persecute the one he persecuted; but though he was able, he did not do so, but betrayed him, so as to deserve the curses against him in the prophecy. And against the Greeks we shall use what was said in this way to Laius, whether the tragedian recorded its very words or their equivalent. It is said to him by the one who foreknew what would be: “Do not sow the furrow of children against the will of the gods; for if you beget a child, your offspring will kill you, and your whole house will wade through blood.” In this, then, it is clearly shown that it was possible for Laius not to sow “the furrow of children”; for the oracle would not have commanded him what was not possible. But it was also possible to sow, and neither of the two was compelled. It followed for him who did not guard against sowing “the furrow of children” that, from having sown, he suffered the tragedy of Oedipus, Jocasta, and their sons. So too the so-called idle argument, being a sophism, runs like this when put hypothetically to a sick man, deterring him, as a sophism, from using the physician for his health. The argument goes thus: “If it is fated for you to recover from the illness, you will recover whether you call in the physician or not; but if it is fated for you not to recover, you will not recover whether you call in the physician or not. Either it is fated for you to recover or it is fated for you not to recover. So you call in the physician in vain.” But this argument is wittily met by one like it: “If it is fated for you to beget children, you will beget them whether you lie with a woman or not; but if it is fated for you not to beget children, you will not beget them whether you lie with a woman or not. Either it is fated for you to beget children or not to beget them. So you lie with a woman in vain.” For just as in this case, since it is impossible and cannot be that one who does not lie with a woman begets children, lying with a woman is not undertaken in vain, so, if recovery from illness comes by way of medicine, the physician is necessarily called in, and “you call in the physician in vain” is false. We have brought in all this because of what the most wise Celsus put forward when he said: “Being a god he foretold it, and what was foretold had to happen in any case.” For if he takes “in any case” to mean “by necessity,” we shall not grant it to him, since it was possible also for it not to happen. But if he means “in any case” in the sense of “it will be,” which may well be true even if it is possible for it not to happen, this does not harm the argument. Nor did it follow from Jesus' truly foretelling what concerned the betrayer or the one who denied that he himself became the cause of their impious and unholy act. For he who, as we believe, knew “what was in man,” saw his wicked character and what he would dare from being a lover of money and from not holding firmly the right convictions about his teacher, and among much else he said: “He who has dipped his hand with me in the dish, he will betray me.”

See also how superficial and how plainly false is this statement of Celsus. He declared that a man who had shared another's table would not plot against him; and if he would not plot against a man, much more would one who had feasted with a god not become his plotter. For who does not know that many who shared salt and table have plotted against their companions at table? The history of Greeks and barbarians is full of such examples. And the iambic poet of Paros, reproaching Lycambes for breaking agreements made over “salt and table,” says to him: “You set aside a great oath, both salt and table.” Those who care for learning in histories, who have given themselves wholly to it and left aside the more necessary lessons about how one ought to live, will cite more examples showing that those who shared a table with some have plotted against them.

Then, as if he had concluded his argument with firmly fitted proofs and consequences, he said: “And what is still more absurd, the god himself plotted against those who shared his table, making them traitors and ungodly.” But how Jesus either plotted against his disciples or made them traitors and ungodly, he could not show, except from the chain of reasoning he imagined, which anyone at all could very easily refute.

After this he says: “If he had decided on these things and was punished in obedience to his Father, it is clear that, since he was a god and willed it, what was done to him according to his own purpose was neither painful nor grievous to him.” He did not see that he was contradicting himself at once. For if he granted that he was punished, since he had decided on these things and in obedience to his Father gave himself up, it is clear that he was punished, and it was not possible for what the punishers inflicted not to be painful; for pain does not depend on the will. But if what was inflicted was neither painful nor grievous to one who willed it, how did he grant that “he was punished”? He did not see that, having once taken the body that comes through birth, he took a body capable of suffering pain and the grievous things that befall those in bodies, if we understand “grievous” as something not chosen. So then, just as he willingly took a body not wholly of another nature than human flesh, so together with the body he also took its pains and griefs. He was not master of not suffering these, since it lay with those who handled him to inflict on him what was grievous and painful. We have already made our defense above, that if he had not wished to come into human hands he would not have come; but he came, since he wished to, because of the benefit to the universe, stated earlier, from his dying for human beings.

Next, wishing to show that what befell him was painful and grievous, and that it was not possible for him to make it otherwise by willing it, he says: “Why then does he cry out and lament and pray to escape the fear of destruction, saying something like this: ‘O Father, if this cup could pass by’?” Here too see Celsus's malice. He does not acknowledge the love of truth of those who wrote the Gospels, who could have passed over in silence what Celsus thinks blameworthy, yet did not keep silent, for many reasons which someone will set out at the proper time in expounding the Gospel. Instead he accuses the Gospel text, adding tragic exaggeration and putting down what is not written; for it is not found that Jesus laments. He paraphrases “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass,” but no longer cites what is written right after it, which plainly shows his reverence toward the Father and his greatness of soul, and which runs: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Nor does he pretend to have read the ready obedience of Jesus to his Father's will concerning what had been decided that he should suffer, shown in the words: “If this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” He is doing something like the impious who hear the divine Scriptures maliciously and “speak unrighteousness on high.” For they seem to have heard “I will kill,” and they often reproach us with it, but they do not even remember “I will make alive.” Yet the whole saying shows that those who live to the common harm and act in wickedness are killed by God, and a better life is brought in for them in exchange, one that God would give to those who have died to sin. So too they have heard “I will strike,” but do not see “and I will heal.” This is like what a physician says when he has cut into bodies and made severe wounds in order to remove what harms them and hinders their health, and does not stop at the pain and the cutting, but by his treatment restores the body to the health he intends for it. Nor have they heard the whole of “For he causes pain and restores again,” but only “he causes pain.” In the same way the Jew presented by Celsus has set out “O Father, if only this cup could pass by,” but not what follows, which displays Jesus' readiness and firmness toward his passion. These matters too, which admit of a long exposition from the wisdom of God, fittingly to be handed on to those whom Paul called “perfect” when he said, “We speak wisdom among the perfect,” we put off for the present and briefly recall only what is useful for the matter at hand.

We said above too that some sayings are those of the firstborn “of all creation” in Jesus, such as “I am the way and the truth and the life” and others like it, while others are those of the man understood to be in him, such as “But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from the Father.” Here, then, in his human nature he portrays both the weakness of human flesh and the eagerness of the spirit: the weakness in “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” and the eagerness of the spirit in “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” And if one must also observe the order of what was said, notice that first is said what belongs to the weakness of the flesh, being, so to speak, one thing, and afterward what belongs to the eagerness of the spirit, which is more. For there is one saying, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” but more: both “not as I will, but as you will” and “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” It must also be observed that he did not say, “Let this cup go away from me,” but said this whole sentence reverently and with reserve: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” I also know of an interpretation of the passage like this: the Savior, seeing what the people and Jerusalem would suffer in punishment for what the Jews had dared against him, for no other reason than his love for them, wished that the people should not suffer what they were going to suffer, and said, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; as if he were saying: “Since, because I drink this cup of punishment, a whole nation will be forsaken by you, I pray, if it is possible, that this cup may pass from me, so that your portion, which has dared this against me, may not be wholly forsaken by you.” But if, as Celsus says, nothing painful or grievous happened to Jesus at that time, how could those who came afterward use Jesus as an example of enduring hardships for the sake of piety, if he had not suffered human things but only seemed to have suffered?

The Jew in Celsus further says to Jesus' disciples, as if they had invented these things: “Even with your lies you could not cover up your fictions plausibly.” To this it will be said that an easy way of covering up such things was not to record them at all. For if the Gospels had not contained them, who could have reproached us with Jesus having said such things during his dispensation? Celsus did not see that it is not possible for the same people both to have been deceived about Jesus as God and as the one foretold by prophecy, and to have invented things about him, obviously knowing that the inventions were untrue. Either, then, they did not invent them, but thought so and wrote without lying; or they wrote lying, and did not think so, and were not deceived into believing him to be God.

After this he says that some of the believers, as if coming from drunkenness to laying hands on themselves, have altered the Gospel from its first writing three and four and many times, and remodeled it, so as to be able to deny things in the face of refutations. I know of no others who have altered the Gospel than the followers of Marcion and those of Valentinus, and I think also those of Lucanus. But this, if said, is a charge not against the teaching but against those who dared to tamper with the Gospels. And just as sophists, Epicureans, Peripatetics, or whoever hold false opinions are not a charge against philosophy, so those who alter the Gospels and bring in heresies foreign to the intent of Jesus' teaching are not a charge against true Christianity.

Since after this the Jew in Celsus also reproaches Christians for appealing to the prophets who proclaimed beforehand what concerned Jesus, we shall say, in addition to what was said on this above, that he ought, sparing people as he claims, to have set out the prophecies themselves, and, after conceding their plausibility, to have set out what seemed to him the refutation of the use made of the prophetic writings. For in this way he would not have seemed to snatch at so great a question with a few trifling words, especially since he says that the prophecies can be applied to countless others much more plausibly than to Jesus. He ought to have taken a careful stand against this proof, which has prevailed among Christians as the strongest, and to have shown, prophecy by prophecy, how it can be applied to others much more plausibly than to Jesus. But he did not even see that, if this could plausibly be said against Christians by anyone, it could perhaps plausibly be said by those who are strangers to the prophetic writings; as it is, Celsus has put into the mouth of the Jew what a Jew would not say. For the Jew will not agree that the prophecies can be applied to countless others much more plausibly than to Jesus; but, giving what seems to him the interpretation of each, he will try to stand against the Christians' understanding, not saying things that are altogether convincing, but trying to do so.

We have already spoken above about the prophecy that the Christ would make two comings to the human race. So we no longer need to defend ourselves against what is said as if by the Jew, that the prophets say the one who will come will be great, a ruler, and lord of the whole earth and of all nations and armies. But I think he spoke in a Jewish manner and in keeping with their bitterness, in reviling Jesus without proof, not even plausibly, when he says that they did not proclaim “such a pest.” And yet neither the Jews nor Celsus nor anyone else can show with proof that a pest turns so many people from the flood of evils to a life according to nature, with self-control and the other virtues.

Celsus also threw in this: “No one proves a god and son of God from such signs and misunderstandings, nor from such ignoble evidences.” But he ought to have set out the misunderstandings and refuted them, and to have shown by argument that the evidences were ignoble, so that, if the Christian seemed to say anything plausible, he might try to contend against it and overturn the argument. What he did say about Jesus, as though of something great, did in fact come to pass, but he would not see that it came to pass, as the evidence shows concerning Jesus. “For as the sun,” he says, “by illuminating everything else first shows itself, so the Son of God ought to have done.” We would say, then, that he did so. For “in his days righteousness dawned, and an abundance of peace” came about, beginning from his birth, as God prepared the nations for his teaching, so that they might come under one king of the Romans, and so that, through the lack of intercourse among nations caused by many kingdoms, it might not be harder for Jesus' apostles to do what Jesus commanded them when he said: “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” It is clear that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, who, so to speak, leveled the many peoples of the earth into one kingdom. The existence of many kingdoms would have been a hindrance to the spread of Jesus' teaching through the whole inhabited world, not only for the reasons stated but also because people everywhere were compelled to serve as soldiers and fight for their countries. This happened before the times of Augustus and still earlier, when there had to be war, as between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, so also between other peoples. How then could this peaceful teaching, which does not allow even revenge on enemies, have prevailed, if the state of the world had not everywhere been changed to a gentler one at Jesus' coming?

After this he accuses Christians of sophistry in saying that the Son of God is the very Word himself, and he thinks he strengthens the charge because, while announcing that the Son of God is the Word, we present not a pure and holy Word but a man most dishonorably arrested and put to death by torture. On this too we have spoken above, in summary, in reply to Celsus's accusations. There it was shown that the “firstborn” “of all creation” took a human body and soul, and that God gave the command concerning the many things in the world and they were created, and that the one who received the command was God the Word. And since the one saying these things in Celsus is a Jew, we shall not unfittingly use the words, “He sent out his Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions,” which we mentioned above too. But I have met many Jews, even ones who professed to be wise, and I have heard none approve the view that the Word is the Son of God, as Celsus has said, attributing this to the character of the Jew, who says: “As if, indeed, the Word is your son of God, we too approve it.”

We have already said that Jesus cannot be either a braggart or a sorcerer; so it is not necessary to repeat what has been said, lest we too repeat ourselves in reply to Celsus's repetitions. In finding fault with the genealogy he did not mention at all the questions that are raised among Christians too, and that some bring as charges, concerning the disagreement between the genealogies. For Celsus, who is truly a braggart and professes to know everything about Christians, did not know how to raise difficulties about Scripture intelligently. He says that those who traced Jesus' genealogy from the first man and from the kings among the Jews were arrogant. And he thinks he brings forward something fine, that the carpenter's wife, if she had been of so great a lineage, would not have been unaware of it. What has this to do with the argument? Suppose she was not unaware: what harm does that do to our case? But let her be unaware: why, because she was unaware, was she not descended from the first man, and did her line not go back to those who reigned among the Jews? Or does Celsus think it necessary that poorer people are born from ancestors who were all poorer, or kings from kings? It seems to me idle to spend time on this argument, since it is plain that even in our own times some people poorer than Mary have been born of rich and famous families, and leaders and kings of the most obscure nations.

“What noble deed did Jesus do,” he says, “like a god, despising men and laughing and making sport of what befell him?” To his question, where should we answer from, even if we are able to show the noble and marvelous in what befell him, but from the Gospels? That “the earth shook and the rocks were split and the tombs were opened,” “and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,” “and darkness came” in the daytime “as the sun failed.” But if Celsus believes the Gospels where he thinks he can accuse Christians, and disbelieves them where they establish the divinity in Jesus, we shall say to him: “Sir, either disbelieve them all and do not think to accuse us, or, believing them all, marvel at the Word of God who became man and wished to benefit the whole human race.” A noble deed of Jesus is that to this day those whom God wills are healed in his name. As for the eclipse in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus seems to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes that took place then, Phlegon too recorded them, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles.