Against Celsus 4.19–4.31

Let others, then, grant Celsus that he does not change, but makes those who see him think that he has changed. But we, being persuaded that in the coming of Jesus to men there was no appearance but truth and clear reality, are not subject to Celsus's accusation. Nevertheless we shall reply: Do you not say, Celsus, that it is sometimes permitted to use deceit and lying as a kind of medicine? What absurdity then, if something of the kind was going to save, that something of the kind should have happened? For some words, spoken rather in the manner of falsehood, convert such characters, as sometimes physicians' words of this kind do with the sick, rather than words spoken in the manner of truth. But let this defense be made by us on behalf of others. For it is not absurd that he who heals sick friends should heal the dear human race by such means as one would not use by preference but by force of circumstance. And the human race, being mad, had to be healed by methods which the Word saw to be useful for the mad, so that they might come to their senses. He also says that one does such things with enemies, taking care to escape danger. But God does not fear anyone, so as to escape danger by leading astray those who plot against him. It is altogether superfluous and unreasonable to answer what no one says about our Savior. And in our defense on behalf of others we have already answered, “But no one sick or mad is a friend to God”; for the one who made that defense says that such a dispensation took place not on behalf of those already friends who are sick or mad, but on behalf of those who, through sickness of soul and departure from natural reason, are still enemies, so that they may become friends of God. For it is clearly said that Jesus took everything upon himself for sinners, so that he might “free” them from sin and make them “righteous.”

Then, since he represents in their own persons the Jews explaining the reason for the coming of Christ which they expect, and the Christians speaking about the coming of the Son of God into human life which has already taken place, come, let us consider these things too briefly, as far as possible. The Jews in his work say that “life, being filled with every wickedness, needs one sent down from God, so that the unjust may be punished and all things purified, as in the first flood that happened.” And since the Christians are said to add other things to these, it is clear that he says these things are said by them too. What absurdity is there in one coming, when wickedness overflows, to purify the world and treat each according to his worth? For it is not in keeping with God not to stop the spread of wickedness and renew all things. The Greeks too know that the earth is purified periodically by flood or fire, as Plato somewhere says thus: “When the gods, purifying the earth with waters, flood it, those in the mountains,” and so on. It must be said, then: If they say these things, are the things promised dignified and worthy of consideration, but if we too establish some such things praised by the Greeks, are these no longer good doctrines? And yet those who care for the careful and accurate treatment of everything written will try to show not only the antiquity of those who wrote these things, but also the dignity of what was said and its consistency.

I do not know how he thinks that the overthrow of the tower also took place like the flood that purified the earth, as the teaching of Jews and Christians holds. For even if the story about the tower in Genesis hints at nothing, but, as Celsus thinks, is plain, not even so does it appear that this happened for the purification of the earth; unless perhaps he thinks that the so-called “confusion” of tongues was a purification of the earth. About this, one who is able will give an account more opportunely when the task at hand is to show both what meaning the story of this passage has and what its higher sense is. And since he thinks that Moses, who wrote about the tower and the confusion of languages, corrupted the stories told about the sons of Aloeus and wrote such things about the tower, it must be said that I do not think anyone before Homer spoke about the sons of Aloeus, but I am persuaded that Moses wrote about the tower, things much older than Homer and even than the invention of Greek letters. Who then are the more likely to corrupt whose stories? Those who tell about the sons of Aloeus the stories about the tower, or the one who wrote about the tower and the confusion of languages the stories of the Aloadae? But to unbiased hearers Moses appears older than Homer. And the account given by Moses in Genesis of Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by fire because of their sin, Celsus compares with the story of Phaethon, having done everything consistently with one mistake, that of not observing the antiquity of Moses. For those who tell the story of Phaethon seem to be even later than Homer, who is much later than Moses. We do not deny, then, the purifying fire and the destruction of the world for the removal of wickedness and the renewal of the universe, saying that we have learned it from the prophets out of the sacred books. When, as we said above, the prophets, who said much about the future, are shown to have spoken the truth about many things now past and to give evidence that the divine Spirit was in them, it is clear that they must be believed also about the future, or rather the divine Spirit in them must be.

And the Christians, according to Celsus, adding some words to what the Jews say, claim that “because of the sins of the Jews the Son of God has already been sent, and that the Jews, having punished Jesus and given him gall to drink, drew upon themselves the wrath of God.” Let whoever wishes refute this statement as false, if the whole Jewish nation was not overthrown within one whole generation after Jesus suffered these things at their hands. For there were, I think, forty-two years from the time they crucified Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem. And never, since the Jews have existed, is it recorded that they were cast out for so long a time from their holy worship and service, subdued by those more powerful; but even if at times they seemed to be forsaken because of sin, they were nonetheless visited, and returning they recovered their own and practiced their customary rites unhindered. One of the proofs, then, that Jesus was something divine and holy is that such great and grievous things have now for a long time befallen the Jews on his account. And we shall say with confidence that they will not even be restored. For they committed the most unholy crime of all in plotting against the Savior of the human race in the city where they performed for God the customary symbols of great mysteries. That city, then, where Jesus suffered these things, had to be utterly destroyed, the Jewish nation overthrown, and God's call to blessedness transferred to others, I mean the Christians, to whom came the teaching about sincere and pure worship of God, and who received new laws suited to the constitution established everywhere; since the laws given before, as to one nation ruled by kings of its own race and customs, could not all be carried out now.

After this, laughing in his usual way at the race of Jews and Christians, he has compared them all to “a cluster of bats, or ants coming out of their nest, or frogs holding council around a marsh, or worms in assembly in a corner of the mud, disputing with one another which of them are the greater sinners, and saying: ‘God reveals and announces everything to us beforehand; and, abandoning the whole world and the heavenly motion and disregarding the vast earth, he governs for us alone, and makes proclamations to us alone, and does not cease sending and seeking how we may be with him forever.’” And in his fiction he makes us like worms saying: “There is God, and after him we, who have been made by him wholly like God; and all things have been put under us, earth, water, air, and stars; and all things are for our sake, and have been appointed to serve us.” And the worms in his account, that is, we, say: “Now, since some among us do wrong, God will come or will send his Son to burn up the unjust, and the rest of us will have eternal life with him.” And he adds to all this that “these things would be more tolerable from worms and frogs than from Jews and Christians disputing with one another.”

To this we ask those who accept what is said against us in this way, and we say: Do you consider all men a cluster of bats, or ants, or frogs, or worms, because of the greatness of God? Or do you not include other men in the image before us, but, because of their reason and the established laws, keep them as men, while you belittle Christians and Jews because of their doctrines that do not please you and compare them to these animals? Whichever of the two you give in answer to our question, we shall reply by trying to show that such things are not rightly said either about all men or about us. Suppose first that you say that all men, compared with God, are likened to these lowly animals, since their smallness is in no way comparable with God's greatness. What smallness, pray? Answer me, sirs. If that of their bodies, hear that superiority and inferiority, when truth is judge, are not decided by the body; for in that case griffins and elephants will be superior to us men, since they are larger, stronger, and longer-lived. But no one in his right mind would say that these irrational creatures are superior to rational ones because of their bodies (for reason raises the rational far above all irrational things); nor are the good and blessed beings superior because of their bodies, whether, as you say, the good daemons, or, as we are accustomed to call them, the angels of God, or whatever natures surpass men; but they are superior because the reason in them has been perfected and formed in every virtue.

But if you belittle the smallness of man not because of the body but because of the soul, as being inferior to the other rational beings, especially the good, and inferior for this reason, that wickedness is in it, why should the bad among Christians and those among the Jews who live badly be a cluster of bats or ants or worms or frogs, rather than the wicked among the other nations? In this sense everyone whatever who indulges in overflowing wickedness is a bat, a worm, a frog, and an ant compared with the rest of men. Even if someone is a Demosthenes the orator, with wickedness like his and the deeds he did from wickedness, or an Antiphon, another who was considered an orator, who abolished providence in his books entitled On Truth, like Celsus's title, these are no less worms rolling in a corner of the mud of stupidity and ignorance. And yet no rational being, of whatever kind, could reasonably be compared to a worm, since it has the starting points for virtue. For these rudiments of virtue do not allow those who have virtue potentially, and who can never wholly lose its seeds, to be compared to a worm. It appears, then, that neither men in general could be worms compared with God, for reason, which has its origin from the Word who is with God, does not allow the rational animal to be thought wholly alien from God; nor could the bad among Christians and Jews, who in truth are neither Christians nor Jews, be compared rather than the rest of the wicked to worms rolling in a corner of the mud. And if the nature of reason does not allow even this, clearly we shall not insult human nature, made for virtue, even if it sins through ignorance, nor liken it to such animals.

But if, because of doctrines of Christians and Jews that do not please Celsus (which he seems not even to understand at all), these are worms and ants and the rest are not, come, let us compare the doctrines of Christians and Jews that are evident to all with those of the rest of mankind, and see whether it will not appear, to those who have once granted that some men are worms and ants, that the worms, ants, and frogs are those who have fallen from the sound conception of God and, in a semblance of piety, worship irrational animals, or statues, or even created things, when they ought to admire the Maker from their beauty and worship him; whereas men, and whatever is more honorable than men, are those who, following reason, have been able to ascend from stones and wood, and even from what is considered the most precious matter, silver and gold; and ascending also from the beautiful things in the world to the Maker of the universe, have entrusted themselves to him, and as to the one alone able to reach through all beings, to oversee the thoughts of all, and to hear the prayers of all, send up their prayers to him, and do everything as with him as spectator of what happens, and as with him as hearer of what is said, beware of saying anything that would be reported to God as displeasing. Unless, perhaps, such great piety, conquered neither by toils nor by danger of death nor by plausible arguments, does not help those who have taken it up so that they are no longer compared to worms, even if they were compared to them before such great piety! And do those who conquer the most violent desire for sexual pleasure, which has made the spirits of many soft and waxen, and who conquer it because they are persuaded that they cannot otherwise be brought near to God unless they ascend to him through chastity, seem to us brothers of worms, kinsmen of ants, and like frogs? And what of the splendor of justice, which keeps toward one's neighbor and kinsman what is sociable, just, humane, and kind: does it do nothing to keep such a man from being a bat? But are not those who wallow in licentiousness, as most men do, and who go indifferently to common prostitutes and teach that this is not altogether contrary to duty, worms in the mud? Especially when compared with those who have been taught not to take “the members of Christ” and the body inhabited by the Word and make them “members of a prostitute,” and who have already learned that the “body” of a rational being devoted to the God of the universe “is a temple” of the God they worship, becoming such from their pure conception of the Creator; and who, guarding against destroying “the temple of God” through unlawful intercourse, practice chastity as piety toward God.

And I do not yet mention the other evils among men, from which not even those who seem to practice philosophy are quickly free (for many in philosophy too are bastards); nor do I say yet that many such things are found among those who are neither Jews nor Christians, but that they either do not exist at all among Christians, if you examine strictly who is a Christian, or, if they are found, at any rate not among those who meet together, come to the common prayers, and are not excluded from them, unless perhaps someone of that sort is found rarely, hidden among the many. We who hold assemblies are not worms, then, we who stand against the Jews on the basis of the writings they believe to be sacred and show both that the one prophesied has come and that they have been forsaken because of their very great sins, and that we who have accepted the word have the best hopes with God, from faith in him and from a life able to bring us near to him, pure from all wickedness and vice. It is not simply, then, if someone calls himself a Jew or a Christian, that he could say that God made the whole world and the heavenly motion especially for us. But if someone, as Jesus taught, is pure “in heart,” gentle, a peacemaker, and readily endures dangers for the sake of piety, such a one might reasonably have confidence toward God, and, understanding the word in the prophecies, might even say: “God has revealed and announced all these things beforehand to us who believe.”

And since he has made the Christians, whom he regards as worms, say that “God, abandoning the heavenly motion and disregarding the vast earth, governs for us alone, and makes proclamations to us, and does not cease sending and seeking how we may be with him forever,” it must be said that he attributes to us what we do not say, we who read and know that God loves all things that exist and abhors nothing that he has made; for he would not have fashioned anything if he hated it. We have read too: “You spare all things, for they are yours, O lover of souls; for your incorruptible Spirit is in all things. Therefore you correct little by little those who fall, and admonish them by reminding them of the things in which they sin.” How can we say that God, abandoning the heavenly motion and the whole world and disregarding the vast earth, governs for us alone, we who have found that in our prayers we must say, with understanding, that “the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord,” and that “the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh,” and that God, being good, “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust,” urging us to similar things so that we may become his sons, and teaching us to extend our good deeds to all men as far as we can? For he himself is called “Savior of all men, especially of believers,” and his Christ is said to be “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Perhaps some of the Jews might say, not the things Celsus recorded, but some other unlearned things; but not the Christians, who have been taught that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And yet “one will scarcely die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone might even dare to die.” But now Jesus, who by a custom traditional in these Scriptures is also called the Christ of God, is proclaimed to have come for sinners everywhere, so that they may leave sin and entrust themselves to God.

Perhaps Celsus misheard some who said, “There is God, and after him we,” the people he called worms. He does something like those who accuse a whole school of philosophy because of things said by a rash youth who has attended a philosopher's lectures for three days and is puffed up against the rest as inferior and unphilosophical. For we know that there are many things more honorable than man, and we have read that “God stood in the assembly of gods,” gods not those worshiped by the rest (“for all the gods of the nations are demons”); and we have read that “God,” standing “in the assembly of gods, judges gods in their midst.” We know also that “even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him.” We know too that the angels are so much superior to men that men, when perfected, become equal to angels; for “in the resurrection of the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but the righteous are like the angels in heaven” and become “equal to angels.” And we know that in the ordering of the universe there are some called thrones, others dominions, others authorities, and others principalities; and we see that we men, falling far short of these, have hopes, from living well and doing everything according to reason, of ascending to likeness with all of them. And finally, since “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, we know that when it is revealed we shall be like God and shall see him as he is.” And if anyone should cite what is said by some, whether by those who understand or by those who do not understand but have misheard sound teaching, “There is God, and after him we,” I too might interpret it, taking “we” to mean rational beings, and still more the good among rational beings. For in our view the virtue of all the blessed is the same, so that the virtue of man and of God is the same. That is why we are taught to become “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” No noble and good man, then, is a worm swimming in the mud; no pious man is an ant; no righteous man is a frog; and no one whose soul is illuminated by the bright light of truth could reasonably be compared to a bat.

Celsus seems to me also to have misheard the words, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and for this reason to have made the worms say that “having been made by God we are wholly like him.” If, however, he had known the difference between man's having been made “according to the image” of God and “according to the likeness,” and that God is recorded to have said, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” but that God made man “according to the image” of God and not yet also “according to the likeness,” he would not have made us say that we are wholly like God. Nor do we say that even the stars have been put under us; since the resurrection of the righteous, as it is called and as the wise understand it, is compared to the sun, moon, and stars by the one who says, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead,” and since Daniel prophesied about these things long ago. He says that we claim that “all things have been appointed to serve us,” perhaps not having heard the intelligent among us say such things, and perhaps not knowing in what sense it has been said that the greatest among us is the servant of all. And if the Greeks say, “Then sun and night serve mortals,” they praise the saying and explain it; but when such a thing is either not said or said in another sense, Celsus slanders us for this too. In Celsus's account we, whom he calls worms, said that “since some among us do wrong, God will come to us or will send his Son to burn up the unjust, and the rest of us frogs will have eternal life with him.” And see how, like a buffoon, the dignified philosopher has turned into mockery, laughter, and ridicule the divine announcement of judgment, of punishment “upon the unjust,” and of reward for the righteous. And he adds to all this that these things would be more tolerable said by worms and frogs than announced by Jews and Christians disputing with one another. But we shall not imitate him or say similar things about philosophers who profess to know the nature of the universe and debate with one another how the universe was put together, and how heaven and earth and all that is in them came to be, and how souls, being unbegotten and not created by God, are ordered by him and change bodies, or, sown together with bodies, survive or do not survive. For instead of speaking respectfully and approving the purpose of those who have devoted themselves to examining the truth, one could mock and revile these too, saying that they are worms in a corner of the mud of human life, not measuring themselves, and therefore pronouncing on such great matters as if they had grasped them, and insisting that they have contemplated things that cannot be contemplated without the inspiration of a higher and more divine power. “For no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him; so also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.” But we are not mad, nor do we compare such great understanding of men (I use “understanding” in a general sense), occupied not with the affairs of the many but with the examination of the truth, to the movements of worms or of any other such creatures. With love of truth we bear witness to certain Greek philosophers that they knew God, since “God made it plain to them,” even if “they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their thinking,” and “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.”

After this, wanting to establish that Jews and Christians differ in no way from the animals mentioned before in his work, he says that “the Jews were runaways from Egypt, who never did anything worth mentioning and were never of any account or number.” That they were not runaways, nor Egyptians, but Hebrews who sojourned in Egypt, we have said above. And if he thinks that their having been of no account or number is established by the fact that their history is scarcely found among the Greeks, we shall say that if anyone looks closely at their way of life from the beginning and the arrangement of their laws, he would find that they were men who showed on earth a shadow of heavenly life. Among them nothing was held to be God except the One over all, and none of those who make images was a citizen. For there was neither painter nor sculptor in their commonwealth, since the law expelled all such from it, so that there might be no pretext for making statues, which attract foolish men and drag the eyes of the soul down from God to earth. They had, then, a law such as this: “Do not act lawlessly and make for yourselves a carved likeness, any image, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies under heaven, the likeness of any creeping thing that creeps on the earth, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters under the earth.” The law wanted them to deal with the truth of each thing and not to fashion other things contrary to the truth, falsifying what is truly male or really female, or the nature of beasts, or the race of birds or of creeping things or of fish. Dignified and lofty too among them was the command: “Do not, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, all the array of heaven, be led astray and worship them and serve them.” And what a commonwealth there was for a whole nation, in which it was not even possible for an effeminate man to appear! Admirable too was the removal from their commonwealth of prostitutes, the kindlers of young men's passions. There were also courts of the most just men, who had given proof of a sound life over a long time and were entrusted with judgments, who, because of their pure character, surpassing the human, were called gods by an ancestral custom of the Jews. And one could see a whole nation practicing philosophy; and for the leisure to hear the divine laws there were the so-called Sabbaths and the other [festivals] among them. [And why speak of the orders] of priests and sacrifices, which contain countless symbols made clear to those who love learning?