Against Celsus 3.17–3.33

He wishes to compare the things of our faith with those of the Egyptians. Among them, “as you approach, there are splendid precincts and groves, great and beautiful gateways, wonderful temples, magnificent tents around them, and very superstitious and mysterious rites; but when you have entered and come further inside, a cat or an ape or a crocodile or a goat or a dog is seen being worshiped.” What among us corresponds to the imposing things the Egyptians show those who approach, and what corresponds to the irrational animals worshiped inside after the imposing gateways? Or are the prophecies, the God over all, and the teaching against images … the things that are imposing even in his view, and Jesus Christ crucified what corresponds to the irrational animal that is worshiped? But if he says this (for I do not think he will say anything else), we shall answer that we have said a good deal above in support of what concerns Jesus: that even what seemed to befall him as a man has happened usefully for the universe and for the salvation of the whole world.

Then he says that the doctrines of the Egyptians, who speak solemnly even about the irrational animals and say they are symbols of God, or whatever their so-called prophets like to call them, give those who have learned them the impression that they have not been initiated in vain. But what is presented to those in Christianity who are learned in our writings, from what Paul calls the gift of a word of wisdom “through the Spirit” and a word of knowledge “according to the Spirit,” Celsus seems to me not even to have imagined, not only from this, but also from what he says later in accusing the Christian community, as if they drove every wise man away from the teaching of their faith and invited only the foolish and servile. We shall consider these things in due course, when we come to the passage.

And he says that we laugh at the Egyptians, although they present many enigmas that are not contemptible, when they teach that such things are honors paid to eternal ideas and not, as most think, to ephemeral animals; but that we are simpletons, bringing in nothing more dignified than the goats and dogs of the Egyptians in our narratives about Jesus. To this we shall say: “Good sir, do you reasonably exalt in your account the Egyptians' presenting many enigmas that are not contemptible and obscure narratives about their animals, while you do wrong in accusing us, as if persuaded that we say nothing, but everything we say is worthless and contemptible, when we expound what concerns Jesus according to the wisdom of the teaching to those who are perfect in Christianity?” Paul, teaching about them as able to hear the wisdom in Christianity, says: “We speak wisdom among the perfect, but a wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has known.”

And we say to those who agree with Celsus: did Paul, then, imagining no surpassing wisdom, profess to speak “wisdom among the perfect”? When, with his usual rashness, he says that Paul professed this while having nothing wise, we shall answer him, saying: “First explain the letters of the one who says this, and, fixing your eyes on the intent of each expression in them, say in the letter to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to the Philippians, and to the Romans, show both: that you have understood Paul's words, and that you can show some of them to be foolish or silly.” For if he gives himself to reading them attentively, I know well that either he will marvel at the man's mind, which comprehends great things in ordinary language, or, if he does not marvel, he himself will appear ridiculous, whether in expounding the man's intent as though he had understood it, or in trying to contradict and overturn what he imagined he had understood.

And I do not yet speak of the careful attention to everything written in the Gospels, each of which contains a meaning great and hard to discern, not only for the many but even for some of the intelligent. They include a most profound exposition of the parables which Jesus spoke to “those outside,” keeping their clear meaning for those who had passed beyond hearing from outside and came to him privately “in the house.” One will marvel, having understood it, at what reason there is for some being called “outside” and others “in the house.” And again, who among those able to see would not be amazed at the movements of Jesus, going up a mountain for certain words or deeds or for his own transfiguration, and below healing the sick who were unable to go up where his disciples follow him? But to expound now what is truly dignified and divine in the Gospels, or the mind of Christ in Paul, that is, of Wisdom and the Word, is not timely. These things are enough against Celsus's unphilosophical mockery, when he likens the inner mysteries of the church of God to the cats, apes, crocodiles, goats, or dogs of the Egyptians.

Leaving no kind of disparagement and ridicule of us untried, the buffoon Celsus in his book against us names the Dioscuri, Heracles, Asclepius, and Dionysus, who are believed among the Greeks to have become gods from being men; and he says that “we cannot bear to consider these gods, because they were men at first, even though they displayed many noble deeds on behalf of mankind; but we say that Jesus, after he died, was seen by his own band of followers.” He further accuses us of saying that he was seen, “and that as a shadow.” To this we shall say that Celsus has cleverly neither made it plain that he does not worship these as gods (for he was wary of the opinion of those who would read his book, who would suppose him an atheist if he championed what seemed to him the truth), nor on the other hand pretended that he himself considers them gods; for we would have answered either position. Come, then, let us say this to those who do not consider them gods. “Do these not exist at all, but, as some think of the human soul, that it perishes immediately, did their soul too perish? Or, according to the opinion of those who say it survives or is immortal, do they survive or are they immortal, and are not gods but heroes? Or not even heroes, but simply souls? If you suppose that they do not exist, we must establish our principal doctrine about the soul; if they do exist, we must still accept the doctrine of immortality, not only from those Greeks who spoke well about it but also according to the divine teachings. And we shall show that it is not possible that these, who were polytheists, came to a better place and portion after their departure from here, citing the stories about them, in which is recorded much licentiousness of Heracles and his womanish servitude to Omphale, and the story that Asclepius was struck by a thunderbolt from their Zeus.” And the story of the Dioscuri will be cited too, that “now they live on alternate days, and now again they are dead; and they have received honor equal to the gods,” though they die many times. How then do they think any of these can reasonably be considered a god or a hero?

But we, showing from the prophetic writings what concerns our Jesus, and then comparing his story with the stories about them, … that no licentiousness of his is reported. For not even those who plotted against him and sought “false testimony” against him found anything plausible for their “false testimony” so as to accuse him of licentiousness. And his death came about from a human plot and had nothing like the thunderbolt against Asclepius. And what dignity has the raving Dionysus, dressed in women's clothes, that he should be worshiped as a god? If those who defend these beings take refuge in allegories, we must examine separately whether the allegories are sound, and separately whether beings torn apart by Titans and cast down from the heavenly throne can really exist and be worthy of reverence and worship. But our Jesus, who was seen by his own band of followers (for I shall use Celsus's term), was seen in truth; Celsus slanders the account when he says he was seen as a shadow. And let the stories about those beings be examined together with the story of Jesus. Or does Celsus want those to be true, but these, recorded by those who saw them and showed by their deeds the clarity of their grasp of what they had seen, and displayed their disposition in what they eagerly suffered for his word, to be fictions? And who that wishes to do everything reasonably would arbitrarily assent to the stories about those, and rushing without examination into what concerns this one, disbelieve the accounts of him?

Again, when it is said of Asclepius that a great multitude of people, Greeks and barbarians, acknowledge that they have often seen, and still see, not a phantom but him himself, healing and doing good and foretelling the future, Celsus asks us to believe it and does not accuse those who believe in Jesus when we believe these things. But when we assent to the disciples who saw Jesus' wonders and clearly show the good faith of their conscience, seeing their lack of guile as far as one can see a conscience from writings, we are called simpletons by Celsus, who cannot show the countless multitude, as he says, of Greeks and barbarians acknowledging Asclepius. For if he thinks this impressive, we clearly show a countless multitude of Greeks and barbarians acknowledging Jesus. And some show signs of having received something more marvelous through this faith in the healings they perform, invoking over those who need healing nothing other than the God over all and the name of Jesus, together with the story about him. For by these we too have seen many freed from grievous afflictions, derangements, madnesses, and countless other things, which neither human beings nor daemons had healed.

Even if I grant that a certain healing daemon called Asclepius heals bodies, I would say to those who admire this, or the divination of Apollo, that if the healing of bodies is an indifferent thing, falling to the lot not only of the good but also of the bad, and foreknowledge of the future is indifferent too (for the one who foreknows does not necessarily show goodness), then show how those who heal or foreknow are in no way bad, but are proved in every way to be good, and not far from being thought gods. But they will not be able to prove that those who heal or foretell are good, since many are said to be healed who are unworthy to live, whom not even a wise physician would have wished to heal, since they live improperly. And in the oracles of the Pythian god you would find some commands that are not reasonable. I shall cite two of them for the present. He ordered Cleomedes, the boxer I think, to be honored with honors equal to the gods, seeing I know not what dignity in his boxing; yet he did not honor Pythagoras or Socrates with the honors of the boxer. And by calling Archilochus “servant of the Muses,” a man who displayed his poetic art on the basest and most licentious subjects and showed a licentious and impure character, he proclaimed him pious, insofar as he was a “servant of the Muses,” who are considered goddesses. I doubt whether even an ordinary person would say that the pious man is not adorned with every moderation and virtue, and whether a decent man would say the kind of things the undignified iambics of Archilochus contain. If nothing divine is shown in itself by the healing of Asclepius and the divination of Apollo, how could anyone reasonably, even granting these things are so, worship them as gods who are pure? Especially when, through the Pythian cavern, the prophetic spirit, Apollo, the one who is pure of an earthly body, enters the so-called prophetess seated over it through her woman's parts. We hold nothing of this kind about Jesus and his power. For the body born of the virgin was composed of human matter, capable of human wounds and death.

Let us see also what Celsus says next, citing from histories marvels that seem incredible in themselves but are not disbelieved by him, as far as his words go. First, the story of Aristeas of Proconnesus, about whom he says this: “Then Aristeas of Proconnesus, who vanished from among men in so divine a way and appeared again clearly, and many years later visited many parts of the world and reported wonderful things, and whom Apollo commanded the Metapontines to count among the gods: this man no one any longer considers a god.” He seems to have taken the story from Pindar and Herodotus. It is enough now to cite Herodotus's words from the fourth book of his Histories, which run thus about him: “I have said where Aristeas, who said these things, came from; I shall now tell the story I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, who was inferior in birth to none of the citizens, went into a fuller's shop in Proconnesus and died; and the fuller locked the workshop and went to tell the dead man's relatives. When the report had already spread through the city that Aristeas was dead, a man of Cyzicus who had come from the town of Artace disputed with those who said so, declaring that he had met him going toward Cyzicus and spoken with him. While he was vehemently disputing, the dead man's relatives came to the fuller's shop with what was needed to take up the body; but when the building was opened, Aristeas was seen neither alive nor dead. In the seventh year afterward he appeared in Proconnesus and composed those verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea, and having composed them he vanished a second time. So these cities say; but I know that this happened to the Metapontines in Italy two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I found by reckoning in Proconnesus and Metapontum. The Metapontines say that Aristeas himself appeared in their country and commanded them to (set up) an altar to Apollo and to set beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus; for he said that Apollo had come to their country alone of the Italiots, and that he, who was now Aristeas, had followed him; but then, when he followed the god, he was a raven. Having said this he vanished; and the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi and asked the god what the apparition of the man might be. The Pythia bade them obey the apparition, saying that if they obeyed it would be better for them. They accepted this and carried it out. And now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas stands beside the image of Apollo itself, with laurels around it; and the image is set up in the marketplace. Let this much be said about Aristeas.”

It must be said about the story of Aristeas that, if Celsus had set it out as a story, without showing his own assent by accepting it as true, we would have answered his argument differently. But since he says that Aristeas vanished in a divine way and appeared again clearly, visited many parts of the world, and reported wonderful things, and further sets out the oracle of Apollo commanding the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods, as on his own account and assenting to it, … our reply to him: “How is it that you suppose the marvels recorded about Jesus by his disciples to be altogether fictions, and blame those who believe them, while you think these to be neither marvel-mongering nor fictions? And how is it that you, who accuse others of believing the marvels about Jesus irrationally, show that you have believed so many things, bringing no proof or argument that they happened? Are Herodotus and Pindar thought by you not to lie, while those who practiced dying for Jesus' teachings and left such writings to their successors about what they were persuaded of, contend so hard, as you think, for fictions, myths, and marvel-mongering, as to live in distress and die violently for them? Place yourself, then, between what is written about Aristeas and what is related about Jesus, and see whether, from the outcome and from those helped toward the correction of their morals and reverence for the God over all, it can be said that we must believe the accounts about Jesus as having happened not without God, but not those about Aristeas of Proconnesus.”

For what purpose did providence bring about the marvels concerning Aristeas, and what did it wish to benefit the human race by displaying such great things, as you think? You cannot say. But we, when we relate what concerns Jesus, bring no ordinary defense of these things having happened: that God wished to establish the word through Jesus as saving for mankind, made firm on the apostles as on the foundations of the building of Christianity that was being laid, and growing also in the times that followed, in which not a few healings are performed in the name of Jesus, and certain other manifestations not to be despised. And what sort of being is Apollo, commanding the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods? For what purpose does he do this, and what benefit does he arrange for the Metapontines from the honor paid to him as a god, if they should reckon a man of a little while ago as now a god? But the recommendations about Aristeas by Apollo, who in our view is a daemon that has obtained the privilege “of libation and the savor of sacrifice,” seem to you worthy of note; while those of the God over all and his holy angels, proclaimed through prophets not after Jesus came but before he came to dwell in human life, do not move you to admire both the prophets who received a divine Spirit and the one prophesied by them? His coming into the world was proclaimed so many years before by so many that the whole Jewish nation, hanging on the expectation of the one hoped to come, came to dispute among themselves when Jesus came; and a great multitude of them confessed Christ and believed him to be the one prophesied, while those who did not believe, despising the gentleness of those who, because of Jesus' teachings, would not rebel even in the least, dared such things against Jesus as his disciples truthfully and fairly recorded, not stealing away from his marvelous story what seems to most to bring shame on the Christian teaching. For Jesus himself and his disciples wished those who came to them to believe not only in his divinity and his marvels, as if he had not shared in human nature or taken the flesh that among human beings desires “against the Spirit”; but they saw that the power which came down into human nature and human circumstances, and took a human soul and body, contributes, by being believed together with the more divine things, to the salvation of believers. For they see that from him the divine and human natures began to be woven together, so that the human, by communion with what is more divine, might become divine, not in Jesus alone but also in all who with faith take up the life Jesus taught, which leads to friendship and communion with God everyone who lives according to Jesus' precepts.

Celsus's Apollo, then, wishes the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods. But since the Metapontines thought the evidence about Aristeas, a man and perhaps not a good one, stronger than the oracle about him as a god or worthy of divine honors, they would not obey Apollo, and so no one considers Aristeas a god. About Jesus we would say: since it was beneficial to the human race to accept him as the Son of God, God come in a human soul and body, and this did not seem advantageous to the gluttony of the body-loving daemons and of those who consider them gods, therefore the daemons on earth, thought to be gods by those not instructed about daemons, and also those who serve them, wished to prevent the spread of Jesus' teaching; for they saw the libations and the savor of sacrifice, in which they greedily delighted, being done away with as Jesus' teachings prevailed. But the God who sent Jesus, undoing every plot of the daemons, made the gospel of Jesus prevail everywhere in the world for the conversion and correction of mankind, and made churches arise everywhere, living as rival communities to the assemblies of the superstitious, licentious, and unjust; for such are the multitudes that everywhere take part in the assemblies of the cities. But the churches of God, made disciples by Christ, when compared with the assemblies of the peoples among whom they live as sojourners, are “as lights in the world.” For who would not acknowledge that even the worse members of the church, who are much inferior compared with the better, are far superior to the assemblies of the peoples?

For the church of God, say, at Athens is gentle and orderly, since it wishes to please the God over all; but the assembly of the Athenians is factious and in no way comparable with the church of God there. You will say the same about the church of God at Corinth and the assembly of the people of Corinth, and, say, about the church of God at Alexandria and the assembly of the people of Alexandria. And if one who hears this is fair-minded and examines things with love of truth, he will marvel at the one who both planned and was able to establish everywhere churches of God, living as sojourners beside the assemblies of the peoples in each city. So too, comparing the council of the church of God with the council in each city, you would find that some councillors of the church are worthy, if there is a city of God anywhere in the universe, to be citizens of it, while the councillors everywhere else display in their characters nothing worthy of the pre-eminence of rank by which they seem to surpass their fellow citizens. So too the ruler of the church in each city should be compared with the ruler of those in the city, so that you may perceive that even among the councillors and rulers of the church of God who fall far short and live more carelessly than the more vigorous, one can nonetheless generally find a superiority in progress toward the virtues compared with the characters of the councillors and rulers in the cities.

If this is so, how is it not reasonable to think of Jesus, who was able to establish so much, that no ordinary divinity was in him, but not so in Aristeas of Proconnesus, even if Apollo wishes to count him among the gods, nor in those Celsus lists when he says that “no one considers a god Abaris the Hyperborean, who had such power that he was carried along on an arrow”? For with what purpose did the divinity that granted Abaris the Hyperborean to be carried on an arrow bestow so great a gift on him? So that the human race might be benefited in some way? Or what did he himself gain from being carried on an arrow? This even granting that these things are not fictions at all but happened through some cooperation of a daemon. But if my Jesus is said to have been taken up “in glory,” I see the dispensation: the God who brought this about commended the teacher to those who saw it, so that, contending not for human lessons but for divine teaching, they might dedicate themselves as far as possible to the God over all and do everything to please him, as those who will receive in the divine court according to their deserts what they have done well or badly in this life.

Since after this Celsus also spoke of the man of Clazomenae, adding to the story about him: “Do they not say this, that his soul often left his body and roamed about bodiless? Yet people did not consider him a god either,” we shall say to this that perhaps some wicked daemons arranged for such things to be written (for I do not believe they arranged for them to happen too), so that what was prophesied about Jesus and said by him might either be slandered as fictions like those, or, as having nothing more than others, not be greatly admired. My Jesus said about his own soul, which was separated from the body not by human necessity but by the marvelous authority given him in this too: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” For since he had “authority to lay it down,” he laid it down when he said, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”, and, “crying with a loud voice, gave up his spirit,” anticipating the executioners of the crucified, who break the legs of those crucified, and break them so that they may not suffer punishment any longer. And he took “his life” again when he showed himself to the disciples, having foretold it in their presence to the Jews who disbelieved him: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And “he spoke this of the temple of his body”; the prophets too having proclaimed this in many places, including: “Moreover my flesh also will dwell in hope; for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.”

Celsus showed that he had read quite a few Greek histories when he cited the story of Cleomedes of Astypalaea, who, he related, went into a chest and, though shut up inside it, was not found inside, but by some divine fate had flown out, when some people broke open the chest to seize him. If this is a fiction, as it seems to be, it is not comparable with what concerns Jesus. For no token of their reported divinity is found in human life, whereas for Jesus there are the churches of those who have been helped, the prophecies spoken about him, the healings done in his name, and the knowledge and word with wisdom concerning him found among those who have taken care to rise above bare faith and search out the meaning in the divine Scriptures, according to the precepts of Jesus, who said, “Search the Scriptures,” and according to the intent of Paul, who taught that we must “know how to answer each one” as is fitting, and also of the one who said: “Always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the faith that is in you.” But if he wishes it to be granted that it is not a fiction, let him say for what purpose the superhuman power made him fly out of the chest by some divine fate. If he presents something worthy of note and a purpose worthy of God that bestowed such a thing on Cleomedes, we shall decide what to say to him. But if he is at a loss to say anything even plausible on the matter, clearly, since no reason is found, we shall either disparage the story to those who have not accepted it and charge it with being untrue, or we shall say that some daemon did something to the man of Astypalaea like what sorcerers show by deceiving the eyes; Celsus thinks that an oracle declared of him that by some divine fate he flew out of the chest.