Against Celsus 3.67–4.2

It is likely that he means something like this: that no one could wholly change, not even by punishing them, those who are not only by nature inclined but also accustomed to sins such as the most abandoned commit. But this too is shown to be false from the history of certain men who became philosophers. For who would not rank among the most abandoned a man who somehow endured to yield to a master who set him in a brothel, so that he should receive anyone who wished to abuse him? Such things are related about Phaedo. And who will not say that the man who burst into the school of the most venerable Xenocrates with a flute-girl and a band of fellow revelers, to insult a man whom even his companions admired, was the most defiled of all men? Yet the word was strong enough to convert even these and make them advance so far in philosophy that the one was judged by Plato worthy to narrate Socrates' discourse on immortality and to portray his steadfastness in prison, as he paid no heed to the hemlock but fearlessly and with all calm of soul went through so many and such great arguments, which even the most settled people, troubled by no circumstance, can scarcely follow; and the other, Polemo, having become from a profligate a man of the greatest self-control, succeeded to the school of Xenocrates, famous for his dignity. So Celsus does not speak truly when he says that no one could wholly change those by nature inclined and accustomed to sin, not even by punishing them.

But that the order, composition, and style of philosophical discourses should have produced such effects in the men named above, who had otherwise lived badly, is not very surprising. But when we consider the words which Celsus calls those of common people, filled with power as if they were incantations, and see these words exhorting multitudes all at once to pass from licentiousness to the most stable life, from injustice to goodness, and from cowardice or unmanliness to such steadfastness that they despise even death for the sake of the piety that has appeared in them, how shall we not justly marvel at the power in them? For “the word” of those who first proclaimed these things and labored to establish churches of God, and also their “preaching,” came with persuasiveness, yet not such persuasiveness as is found in those who profess the wisdom of Plato or of some other philosopher, who were men and had nothing but human nature. The demonstration in the apostles of Jesus, given by God, was persuasive by “the Spirit and power.” That is why their word, or rather the word of God, ran most swiftly and keenly, changing through them many of those by nature inclined and accustomed to sin, whom no man could have changed even by punishment; but the word transformed them, shaping and molding them according to its own will.

Celsus, adding what follows from his own view, says that “to change nature completely is extremely difficult.” But we, knowing that there is one nature of every rational soul, and maintaining that none was created evil by the Creator of the universe, but that many have become evil through their upbringing, perversions, and surroundings, so that in some wickedness has even become second nature, are persuaded that for the divine Word to change wickedness that has become second nature is not only not impossible but not even very difficult, if only one accepts that he must entrust himself to the God over all and do everything with reference to pleasing him; with whom it is not true that “the bad and the noble are held in one honor,” nor that “the idle man and the man who has done much die alike.” And if for some it is very difficult to change, the cause must be said to lie in their assent, which hesitates to accept that the God over all is a just judge for each of everything done in life. For choice and practice can do much even toward things that seem most difficult and, to speak with exaggeration, almost impossible. Or has human nature, when it wished to walk on a rope stretched on high across the middle of a theater, and to carry so many and such heavy weights at the same time, been able to do such a thing by practice and attention, but when it wishes to live according to virtue, is it unable, even if it had formerly been most wicked? But see whether one who says such things does not accuse the nature that created the rational animal rather than the one created, if it made human nature capable of such difficult things that are of no use, but incapable of its own blessedness. But this suffices in reply to “for to change nature completely is extremely difficult.” Next he says that “those without sin are better partners in life,” without making clear whom he calls “without sin,” those so from the beginning or those so by change. Those from the beginning are impossible; those by change are rarely found, and they become such by coming to the saving word; they do not come to the word already being such. For without the word, and the perfect word at that, it is impossible for a man to become sinless.

Then he raises as an objection, as if said by us, “God will be able to do all things,” not seeing even this, how it is said, what “all things” are included in it, and how he is able. It is not necessary to speak about these matters now, for he himself did not take a stand against it, though he could have done so plausibly; perhaps because he did not grasp the plausible argument that could be made against it, or because he grasped it but also saw the answer to it. In our view God can do all things which he can do without ceasing to be God, good, and wise. But Celsus, as one who has not understood in what sense God is said to be able to do all things, says that “he will not want anything unjust,” granting that he can do even what is unjust, but does not will it. We say that just as what is by nature sweetening, because it is sweet, cannot make bitter contrary to its own sole cause, and what is by nature illuminating, because it is light, cannot darken, so neither can God do injustice; for the power to do injustice is contrary to his divinity and to all the power that belongs to it. And if any being can do injustice because it is also by nature inclined to do injustice, it can do injustice because it does not have in its nature the utter inability to do injustice.

After this he assumes for himself what is not granted by those who believe more rationally, though perhaps it is held by some foolish people: that God, like those who are slaves to pity, is himself a slave to the pity of those who lament, relieves the wicked, and rejects the good who do nothing of the kind, which is most unjust. For in our view God relieves no wicked man who has not yet turned toward virtue, and rejects no one who is already good; nor does he relieve or have mercy on anyone who laments merely because he laments, to use “mercy” in a more common sense. But those who have strongly condemned themselves for their sins, so that on this account they as it were mourn and lament themselves as lost, as far as their former deeds are concerned, and who show a notable change, God accepts for the sake of their repentance, even those who come by change from the worst life. For virtue, coming to dwell in their souls and having driven out the wickedness that occupied them before, grants such people an amnesty. And even if not virtue, but notable progress takes place in the soul, this too, in proportion to its degree of progress, is enough to drive out and wipe away the flood of wickedness, so that it is nearly no longer in the soul.

Then, as if in the person of one who teaches our doctrine, he says something like this: “For the wise turn away from what we say, being led astray and hindered by their wisdom.” To this too we shall say that if wisdom is knowledge of “divine and human” things and their causes, or, as the divine word defines it, “a vapor of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty” and “a radiance of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness,” no one who is wise would turn away from what is said by a Christian who understands Christianity, nor would he be led astray or hindered by wisdom. For it is not true wisdom that leads astray, but ignorance; and of all things only knowledge is firm, and truth, which come from wisdom. But if, contrary to the definition of wisdom, you call wise one who lays down any doctrine whatever with some sophistries, we shall say that indeed one who is wise according to the wisdom you speak of turns away from the words of God, led astray by plausibilities and sophistries and hindered by them. And since according to our teaching “the knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom,” and a “knowledge of wickedness,” if I may so name it, is in those who hold false opinions and are deceived by petty sophistries, I would call it ignorance rather than wisdom in such people.

After this he again reviles the one who proclaims Christianity, and declares that he recounts ridiculous things, but does not demonstrate or clearly show what he says are ridiculous. And in his abuse he says that no sensible man is persuaded by the teaching, being distracted by the multitude of those who come to it. In this he does something like one who says that, because of the multitude of common people led by the laws, no sensible man obeys, say, Solon, or Lycurgus, or Zaleucus, or any of the rest, especially if he takes “sensible” to mean the man of virtue. For as the lawgivers, in the case of these people, did what seemed useful to them in surrounding them with such a way of life and laws, so God, giving laws in Jesus to men everywhere, leads even those who are not sensible, as far as such people can be led to what is better. Knowing this, as we said above, God says in Moses: “They made me jealous with what is no god, they provoked me with their idols; and I will make them jealous with what is no nation, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.” And knowing it, Paul too said: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,” using “wise” in a general sense of all who seem to have advanced in learning but have fallen into godless polytheism; since “claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

He also accuses the teacher of seeking out the foolish. To him we would say: Whom do you call foolish? For strictly speaking every bad man is foolish. If then you call the bad foolish, when you bring men to philosophy, do you seek to bring the bad or the good? But you cannot bring the good, for they already practice philosophy; so it is the bad; and if the bad, the foolish. And you seek to bring many such people to philosophy; so you too seek the foolish. But I, even if I seek those who are called foolish in this sense, do something like a humane physician who seeks out the sick, to bring them remedies and strengthen them. But if you call foolish those who are not quick-witted but rather dull among men, I will answer you that I try to improve these too as far as possible; yet I do not wish to build up the Christian community from them. For I seek rather the quicker-witted and sharper, as able to follow the explanation of the riddles and of what is spoken with concealment in the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, which you have despised as containing nothing worthy of note, without testing their meaning or trying to enter into the intention of their writers.

And since after this he says that the one who teaches Christianity does something like a man who promises to make bodies healthy but turns people away from heeding skilled physicians because his own lack of skill would be exposed by them, to this too we shall say: Which physicians do you mean, from whom we turn away ordinary people? For surely you do not suppose that we bring our exhortation to the word to philosophers, so that you should think them the physicians from whom we turn away those whom we call to the divine word. Either, then, he gives no answer, having no physicians to name, or he must take refuge in ordinary people, who themselves slavishly chatter about many gods and whatever else ordinary people might say. Either way he will be refuted as having brought in to no purpose, in his argument, the one who turns people away from skilled physicians. And if we turn away from the philosophy of Epicurus, and from those thought to be Epicurean physicians after Epicurus, those deceived by them, how shall we not act most reasonably in removing them from a grievous disease which Celsus's physicians have produced, that of abolishing providence and bringing in pleasure as the good? But suppose that we draw those whom we exhort to our teaching away from other physicians who are philosophers, those of the Peripatos, who abolish providence toward us and the relation of the divine to men: how shall we not make pious and heal those who have been won over, persuading them to devote themselves to the God over all, and free those who obey us from great wounds inflicted by the words of those considered philosophers? But let it be granted that we turn others away from Stoic physicians, who introduce a corruptible god and say that his substance is a body changeable throughout, alterable, and mutable, and who at some time destroy all things and leave God alone: how shall we not, in this case too, free those who obey us from evils, and bring them to the pious teaching about devoting oneself to the Creator and admiring the Father of the Christian teaching, who most humanely arranged for lessons that convert souls to be sown throughout the whole human race? And if we heal from physicians those who suffer from the folly of transmigration, who bring the rational nature down sometimes to every irrational nature and sometimes even to one without imagination, how shall we not make better in soul those who obey the word, which does not teach that insensibility or irrationality is given to the wicked as a portion of punishment, but shows that the toils and punishments brought upon the wicked by God are medicines that convert them? For Christians who live wisely, understanding this, deal with the simpler people as fathers deal with young children. We do not, then, take refuge with children and foolish rustics and say to them, “Flee the physicians”; nor do we say, “See that none of you lays hold of knowledge”; nor do we assert that knowledge is an evil; nor are we mad enough to say that knowledge trips men up from health of soul. Nor would we ever say that anyone perishes because of wisdom, we who, even when we teach, do not say, “Attend to me,” but, “Attend to the God of the universe and to Jesus, the teacher of the lessons about him.” And none of us is so boastful as to say to his pupils what Celsus put in the mouth of the teacher: “I alone will save you.” See, then, how many lies he tells about us. Nor do we say that true physicians destroy those whom they promise to heal.

He also brings a second comparison against us, saying that the teacher among us does something like a drunkard who, going among drunkards, accuses the sober of being drunk. Let him show, then, from the writings of Paul, say, that the apostle of Jesus was drunk and his words were not sober; or from what John wrote, that his thoughts do not breathe of one who was self-controlled and free from the drunkenness of vice. No one, then, who is self-controlled and teaches the Christians' teaching is drunk; but Celsus says these things reviling us unphilosophically. And whom among the sober do we who proclaim the doctrines of Christians accuse? Let Celsus say. For in our view all are drunk who speak to lifeless things as to God. And why do I say drunk? Rather, they are mad, who hasten to temples and worship statues or animals as gods. And no less mad than these are those who think that things made by artisans, sometimes the most worthless of men, have been made in honor of true gods.

After this he likens the teacher to a man with diseased eyes and the learners to people with diseased eyes, and says that among the diseased-eyed he accuses the sharp-sighted of being blind. Who then, Greeks, would we say are the ones who in our view do not see, if not those who cannot look up from the great magnitude of the things in the world and the beauty of the works of creation and perceive that one must worship, admire, and revere only the one who made them, and that none of the things made among men and taken up for the honor of gods can be fittingly revered, whether apart from God the Creator or together with him? For to compare things in no way comparable with the infinite, who surpasses all created nature with transcendent superiority, is the work of those blind in understanding. We do not, then, say that the sharp-sighted have diseased eyes or are blind, but we declare that those whose mind is blinded are the ones who, in ignorance of God, roll toward temples and statues and so-called holy days; and especially when, besides their impiety, they also live in licentiousness, not even seeking any honorable work, but doing everything worthy of shame.

After this, having brought so many charges against us, he wants to show that, though he could say other things, he passes over them in silence. His words run: “These things I blame, and others like them, not to list them all; and I say that they do wrong in insulting God so as to lead wicked men on with empty hopes and persuade them to despise better things, on the ground that if they keep away from them it will be better for them.” To this it might be said, from the actual effect on those who come to Christianity, that it is not so much the very wicked who are led by the teaching as the simpler and (as most people would call them) unsophisticated. For these, through fear of the punishments proclaimed, which moves them and urges them to abstain from the things that bring punishment, try to give themselves to the worship of God according to Christianity. And they are so held fast by the teaching that, through fear of what the teaching calls eternal punishments, they despise every torture devised against them among men, and death with countless pains; which no one in his right mind would say is the work of wicked choices. How can self-control and chastity, or generosity and sharing, be practiced from a wicked choice? Nor can the fear of the divine arise from wickedness: the teaching, as something useful to the many, urges this fear on those who are not yet able to see what is to be chosen for its own sake and to choose it as the greatest good, beyond every promise; and it is not natural for it to arise from such things in one who chooses to live in wickedness.

But if anyone imagines that in these matters there is superstition rather than wickedness in the many who believe the teaching, and accuses our teaching of making people superstitious, we shall say to him that, as one of the lawgivers said to the man who asked whether he had given the citizens the best laws, “Not the absolutely best, but the best of those they could receive,” so it might be said by the Father of the Christians' teaching: “I have given the best laws and teaching, of those which the many could receive, for the improvement of their character, threatening sinners not with false toils and punishments, but with true ones, necessary and applied for the correction of those who resist, though they do not wholly understand the intention of the one who punishes or the working of the toils.” For this too is said usefully and truly, and, for their benefit, with some concealment. But in general those who proclaim Christianity do not lead on wicked people. Nor do we insult the divine; for we say about him things that are true, and that seem clear to the many, but are not clear to them as they are to the few who practice philosophy in accordance with the word.

And since Celsus says that those who become Christians are led on by empty hopes, we shall say to him, since he finds fault with the teaching about the blessed life and about fellowship with the divine: As far as you are concerned, sir, those who have accepted the teaching of Pythagoras and Plato about the soul, that it is by nature able to ascend to the vault of heaven and in the place beyond the heavens to behold the sights seen by the blessed spectators, are also led on by empty hopes. And according to you, Celsus, those who have accepted the survival of the soul and live so as to become heroes and to spend their time with the gods are led on by empty hopes. And perhaps those persuaded that the mind that comes “from outside” is immortal and will have a life of its own as mind might be said by Celsus to be led on by empty hopes. Let him, then, no longer concealing his own school but confessing that he is an Epicurean, contend against the teachings, not easily despised, among Greeks and barbarians about the immortality of the soul, or its survival, or the immortality of the mind; and let him show that these are words that deceive with empty hopes those who assent to them, but that the words of his own philosophy are free of empty hopes and either lead to good hopes or (which is more consistent with it) produce no hope at all, because of the immediate and complete destruction of the soul. Unless, perhaps, Celsus and the Epicureans will not say that their hope concerning their end, pleasure, is empty, which according to them is the good: “the stable condition of the flesh and the confident hope concerning it,” as Epicurus says.

Do not suppose that I have, in a way unsuited to the Christians' teaching, brought in against Celsus those who philosophized about the immortality or survival of the soul. Having certain things in common with them, we shall more conveniently show that the future blessed life will belong only to those who have accepted the worship of God according to Jesus and a piety toward the Creator of the universe that is sincere, pure, and unmixed with anything created. And let whoever wishes show what better things we persuade men to despise, and let him compare with the end proposed in each philosophical school among Greeks or barbarians, or in the promise of the mysteries, our end, which is with God in Christ, that is, in the Word, Wisdom, and every virtue; a blessed end that will come to those who have lived blamelessly and purely and taken up an undivided and unbroken love toward the God of the universe, and that will meet them as a gift of God. And let him show that the end according to some other school is better than ours, and that it follows as true, while ours is not fitting as a gift of God, nor to those who have lived well, or that these things were not spoken by the divine Spirit who filled the souls of the pure prophets. And let whoever wishes show that words which all admit to be human are better than those demonstrated to be divine and announced by divine inspiration. And from what better things do we teach those who accept our teaching that they will be better off turning away? For, if it is not tiresome to say so, it is plain at once that nothing can be conceived as better than to entrust oneself to the God over all and to devote oneself to a teaching that draws one away from everything created and brings one, through the living and ensouled Word, who is also living Wisdom and Son of God, to the God over all. But since the third book of what we have dictated against Celsus's treatise has reached a sufficient length with these words, we shall end our discourse here, and in what follows we shall contend against what Celsus wrote after this.

Having gone through in the three books before this, holy Ambrose, what occurred to us in reply to Celsus's treatise, we now dictate a fourth in reply to what follows, having prayed to God through Christ. May words be given to us of which it is written in Jeremiah, where the Lord says to the prophet: “Behold, I have given my words into your mouth as fire. Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to tear down, and to build and to plant.” For we too now need words that root out what is against the truth from every soul harmed by Celsus's treatise or by thoughts like it. And we need thoughts that pull down the buildings of every false opinion, and the building of Celsus in his treatise, like the building of those who said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach to heaven.” And we also need wisdom that tears down every high thing lifted up “against the knowledge of God,” and the “high thing” of Celsus's boastfulness “lifted up” against us. Then, since we must not stop at “rooting out and pulling down” what has been mentioned, but must “plant,” in the place of what has been rooted out, the planting of God's field, and in the place of what has been pulled down build God's building and a temple of God's glory, we too must therefore pray to the Lord who gave what is written in Jeremiah, that he may give us too words for building up the things of Christ and for “planting” the spiritual law and the prophetic words that correspond to it. And above all we need, in reply to what Celsus says next after the passages already treated, to establish that the things concerning Christ were rightly prophesied. For Celsus, standing against both at once, against the Jews who deny that the coming of Christ has taken place but hope that it will, and against the Christians who confess that Jesus is the prophesied Christ, says:

“That some Christians and Jews say, the former that some god or son of God has come down to earth, the latter that he will come down, as judge of the things here, is most shameful, and the refutation does not need a long argument.” He seems to speak accurately about the Jews, not some but all, that they think someone will come down to earth; but about the Christians, that some of them say he has come down. For he is pointing to those who establish from the Jewish Scriptures that the coming of Christ has already taken place, and he seems to know that there are some heresies that deny that Christ Jesus is the one prophesied. We have already discussed, as far as we could, in the earlier books the prophecies of Christ; therefore we do not repeat much of what could be said on this subject, so as not to say the same things twice. But notice that if he wanted, with at least an appearance of consistency, to overturn faith in the prophecies, or in the coming or the having come of Christ, he ought to have set out the very prophecies which we Christians and Jews use in debating with one another. For in that way he might at least have seemed to turn those distracted by what he thinks is persuasive away from assent to the prophecies and from faith in Jesus as Christ on account of the prophecies. But as it is, either unable to answer the prophecies about Christ or not even knowing at all what the prophecies about him are, he quotes not a single prophetic saying, though there are countless ones about Christ, and thinks he is accusing the prophecies without setting out even the persuasiveness he might claim for his view. He does not know, however, that the Jews do not by any means say that the Christ who will come down is God or the Son of God, as we have said above too.