Against Celsus 4.32–4.43

But since nothing is stable in human nature, that commonwealth too, gradually corrupted, had to be changed. And providence, having transformed the dignity of their teaching where it needed transformation to suit people everywhere, has handed over, in place of them, to those from all nations who believe, the dignified worship of God according to Jesus. He, adorned not only with understanding but also with a divine portion, and having overthrown the doctrine concerning the daemons on earth, who delight in frankincense and blood and the steam of burnt fat, and drag men down from the conception of God like the Titans or Giants of myth, himself heedless of their plotting, which is aimed especially at the better people, laid down laws by which those who live will be blessed, in no way flattering the daemons with sacrifices, but wholly despising them through the Word of God, who helps those who look up to God. And since God willed that the word of Jesus should prevail among men, the daemons have been able to do nothing, though they moved every rope so that Christians might no longer exist; for they stirred up kings, the senate, rulers everywhere, and even the peoples themselves, who did not perceive the irrational and wicked working of the daemons, against the word and those who believe in it. But the Word of God, more powerful than all, taking hindrance as it were for food for its growth, advanced and won more souls; for God willed this. We have said these things, though in a digression, necessarily, I think; for we wanted to answer what Celsus says about the Jews, that they were runaways from Egypt, and that these men beloved of God never did anything worth mentioning. And to the claim that “they were never of any account or number,” we say that as “a chosen race” and “a royal priesthood,” withdrawing and avoiding mixing with the many so that their character might not be corrupted, they were guarded by the divine power; neither desiring, as most men do, to gain other kingdoms for themselves, nor abandoned so that, because of their small numbers, they became easy to attack and, as far as their small numbers went, were utterly destroyed. And this happened as long as they were worthy of God's protection. But when they had to be turned back to their God through sufferings, as a whole nation that was sinning, they were forsaken, sometimes more and sometimes less, until, under the Romans, having committed the greatest sin in killing Jesus, they were forsaken completely.

Next after this Celsus, running over what is in the first book of Moses, which is entitled Genesis, says that “they tried to trace their genealogy from the first seed of sorcerers and deceivers, calling to witness dim and ambiguous words hidden somewhere in darkness, and misinterpreting them to the ignorant and foolish; and this though in all the long time before no one had ever even disputed such a thing.” In these words he seems to me to have expressed very unclearly what he meant. It is likely that he deliberately made this passage unclear, since he saw the strength of the argument that the Jewish nation descends from such ancestors; and again he did not want to seem ignorant of something about the Jews and their race that is not to be despised. It is clear that the Jews trace their genealogy from the three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; whose names, joined to the title of God, have such power that the formula “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” is used not only by those of that nation in their prayers to God and in exorcising daemons, but by almost all who practice incantations and magic. For such an invocation of God, and use of the name of God as belonging to these men, is found in many places in magical writings for use against daemons. These things, then, which are brought forward by Jews and Christians to prove that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fathers of the Jewish nation, were holy men, Celsus seems to me not to have been wholly ignorant of, yet not to have set out clearly, since he could not answer the argument.

For we ask all who use such invocations of God: Tell us, sirs, who was Abraham, how great was Isaac, and of what power was Jacob, that the title “God,” joined to their name, can work such wonders? And from whom have you learned, or can you learn, about these men? Who troubled to record their history, whether one that openly exalts the men in secret writings, or one that hints through hidden meanings at great and marvelous things for those able to contemplate them? Then, when we ask and no one can show from what history, Greek or barbarian, or, if not history, some mystical record, the facts about these men come, we shall bring forward the book entitled Genesis, which contains the deeds of these men and God's oracles to them, and we shall say: Does not the fact that you too use the names of these three founders of the nation, since you perceive by experience that no small effects are produced by invoking them, show the divine character of these men? And we know them from nowhere else than from the sacred books of the Jews. Moreover, “the God of Israel,” “the God of the Hebrews,” and “the God who drowned the king of the Egyptians and the Egyptians in the Red Sea” are often named and used against daemons or certain evil powers. And we learn the history of those named and the interpretation of the names from the Hebrews, who glorify and relate these things in their ancestral writings and their ancestral language. How then do the Jews, trying to trace their genealogy from the first seed of these men whom Celsus supposed to be sorcerers and deceivers, shamelessly try to trace themselves and their origin back to men whose names, being Hebrew, bear witness to the Hebrews, who have their sacred books in the Hebrew language and letters, that their nation is related to these men? For even to this day Jewish names, belonging to the Hebrew language, were taken either from their writings or simply from what the Hebrew language signifies.

And let the reader of Celsus's book see whether he is not hinting at these things in the words, “They tried to trace their genealogy from the first seed of sorcerers and deceivers, calling to witness dim and ambiguous words hidden somewhere in darkness.” For these names are hidden, and not in the light and knowledge of many. In our view they are not ambiguous, even if they are used by those alien to our worship; but in Celsus's view, though he does not show the ambiguity of the words, they have somehow been tossed aside. And yet, if he wanted fairly to overturn the genealogy which he thought the Jews had most shamelessly adopted in boasting of Abraham and his descendants, he should have set out the whole passage, first argued for it with whatever plausibility he thought it had, and after that nobly overturned it with what seemed to him the truth and the arguments for it. But neither Celsus nor anyone else, discussing the nature of names used for works of power, will be able to present an accurate account of them and to prove that men whose very names have power not only among their own people but also among foreigners were contemptible. He should have shown how we deceive our hearers, as he thinks, by misinterpreting to the ignorant and foolish the facts about these names, while he himself, who boasts that he is neither ignorant nor foolish, gives the true interpretation of them. He also tossed out, concerning these names from which the Jews trace their genealogy, that “in all the long time before, no dispute had ever arisen” about such names, but that now the Jews dispute about them with certain others whom he did not name. Let whoever wishes show who these are who lay claim to them and use even plausible arguments against the Jews to show that the Jews and Christians do not report soundly about those to whom the names belong, and that others are the ones who have understood the wisest and truest things about them. But we are persuaded that no one can do such a thing, since it is evident that the names are taken from the Hebrew language, which is found among the Jews alone.

After this Celsus, setting out from history outside the divine word the claims of men who laid claim to antiquity, such as the Athenians, Egyptians, Arcadians, and Phrygians, who say that some among them were born from the earth and each offer proofs of this, says that “the Jews, huddled together in some corner of Palestine, utterly uneducated and not having heard long before what had been sung by Hesiod and countless other inspired men, composed a most implausible and tasteless story: that a man was formed by the hands of God and breathed into, and a woman from his side, and commands of God, and a serpent opposing them and prevailing over God's commands; telling a myth as if to old women, and most impiously making God weak from the very beginning and unable to persuade even one man whom he himself had formed.” By these words the widely read and learned Celsus, who accuses both Jews and Christians of ignorance and lack of education, clearly shows how accurately he knew the dates of each writer, Greek and barbarian, since he thinks that Hesiod and countless others, whom he calls inspired men, are older than Moses and his writings, Moses, who is shown to be much older than the Trojan War! It was not the Jews, then, who composed a most implausible and tasteless story about the earth-born man, but the men whom Celsus calls inspired, Hesiod and his countless others, who, neither learning nor hearing the much older and most dignified words in Palestine, wrote such stories about the ancients as their theogonies, attributing birth, as far as they could, to gods, and countless other things. Reasonably, then, Plato expels from his republic Homer and those who write such poems, as corrupting the young. But Plato clearly did not think the men who left such poems were inspired; whereas Celsus the Epicurean, who can judge better than Plato, if indeed he is also the one who composed two other books against the Christians, perhaps from contentiousness against us called inspired those whom he did not think inspired.

He accuses us of introducing a man formed by the hands of God, though the book of Genesis mentions God's hands neither for the making of man nor for his forming; but Job and David said, “Your hands made me and formed me,” concerning which “there is much to say” to show what was meant by those who said it, not only about the difference between making and forming but also about the hands of God. Those who have not understood these and similar expressions of the divine Scriptures think that we attribute to the God over all a shape like the human one; and by their reasoning it would follow that we think there are wings on God's body, since the Scriptures taken literally say this too of our God. The present work does not require us to interpret these things now; for we have examined them as best we could, primarily, in our exegetical works on Genesis. Then see Celsus's malice in what follows. For when our Scripture says of the forming of man, “And he breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul,” he, maliciously wishing to ridicule “he breathed into his face the breath of life,” which he did not even understand in what sense it is said, wrote that they composed a story of “a man formed by the hands of God and breathed into,” so that someone, thinking “breathed into” was said like bellows blown up, might laugh at “he breathed into his face the breath of life,” which is said figuratively and needs explanation, showing that God gave man a share of the incorruptible Spirit, as it is said: “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.”

Then, since his aim was to disparage what is written, he also ridiculed the words, “God cast a trance upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place; and he built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman,” and so on, without even setting out the wording, which could make the hearer notice that it is spoken figuratively. And he did not choose even to let on that such things are interpreted allegorically, although he says in what follows that “the more reasonable of the Jews and Christians, ashamed of these things, try somehow to allegorize them.” One may say to him: Are the things said by your inspired Hesiod in the form of a myth about the woman allegorized, that she was given to men by Zeus as “an evil in exchange for fire,” while the woman taken from the side of the man who slept after a “trance,” and built by God, seems to you to have been said without any reason or hidden meaning? But it is not fair not to laugh at the former as myth but to admire it as philosophy in myth, while resting one's understanding on the bare wording of the latter, sneering and thinking it will have no meaning. For if one must accuse what is said in hidden meanings for the sake of the bare wording, see whether Hesiod's words will not rather incur laughter, a man, as you say, inspired, who wrote such things: “And Zeus the cloud-gatherer said to him in anger: ‘Son of Iapetus, knowing counsels beyond all others, you rejoice that you stole fire and deceived my mind, a great bane to yourself and to men who will come. To them in exchange for fire I will give an evil in which all may delight in their hearts, embracing their own evil.’ So he spoke; and the father of men and gods brought it to pass. And he bade famous Hephaestus as quickly as possible to mix earth with water, to put in it a human voice and strength, and to liken her in face to the immortal goddesses, the fair, lovely form of a maiden; and Athena to teach her works, to weave the intricate web; and golden Aphrodite to pour grace about her head, and painful longing and limb-wearying cares; and he bade Hermes, the guide, the slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a thievish character. So he spoke, and they obeyed Zeus, son of Cronus, the lord. At once the famous Lame God formed from earth the likeness of a modest maiden, by the counsels of the son of Cronus; and the goddess, grey-eyed Athena, girded and adorned her; and the divine Graces and queenly Persuasion put golden necklaces about her body; and the fair-haired Hours crowned her with spring flowers; and Pallas Athena fitted every adornment to her body. And in her breast the guide, the slayer of Argus, fashioned lies and wily words and a thievish character, by the counsels of loud-thundering Zeus; and the herald of the gods put speech in her, and named this woman Pandora, because all who have homes on Olympus gave her a gift, a bane to men who eat bread.” Laughable at once too is what is said about the jar: “For before, the tribes of men lived on the earth apart from and without evils, and without hard toil and grievous diseases, which bring death to men. But the woman, taking the great lid from the jar with her hands, scattered them, and devised grievous cares for men. Hope alone remained there within, in the unbreakable house, under the lip of the jar, and did not fly out of doors; for before that she put back the lid of the jar.” To one who allegorizes these things solemnly, whether he succeeds in his allegory or not, we shall say: Is it permitted to the Greeks alone to philosophize in hidden meaning, and also to the Egyptians and to those barbarians who pride themselves on mysteries and truth, while the Jews alone, their lawgiver and their writers, seemed to you the most foolish of all men, and this nation alone has had no share of any power of God, a nation taught so nobly to ascend to the unbegotten nature of God, to look to him alone, and to expect hopes from him alone?

And since Celsus also ridicules the story of the serpent as opposing God's commands to man, supposing the account to be a myth like those handed down by old women, and deliberately did not name God's “paradise,” nor how “God” is said to have planted it “in Eden toward the east,” and after that to have made to grow “out of the earth every tree beautiful to see and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and what is said after this, which could at once move a well-disposed reader to see that all these things are figuratively, and not unworthily, expressed: come, let us set beside it what is said about Eros by Socrates in Plato's Symposium, which is attributed to Socrates as more dignified than all that the speakers in the Symposium said about him. Plato's words are these: “When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a feast, and among them Poros, the son of Metis. When they had dined, Penia came to beg, as there was a banquet, and was about the doors. Now Poros, drunk with nectar (for there was not yet wine), went into the garden of Zeus and, heavy with drink, slept. Penia, then, plotting because of her own lack to have a child by Poros, lay down beside him and conceived Eros. That is why Eros has become the follower and attendant of Aphrodite, having been begotten on her birthday, and being by nature a lover of the beautiful, Aphrodite too being beautiful. Being then the son of Poros and Penia, Eros is in this condition. First, he is always poor, and far from being tender and beautiful, as most think, he is hard and parched and barefoot and homeless, always lying on the ground without bedding, sleeping in the open at doors and in the roads, having his mother's nature, always dwelling with want. But after his father he plots for the beautiful and the good, being brave, bold, and intense, a skilled hunter, always weaving some devices, desirous of understanding and resourceful, philosophizing all his life, a skilled sorcerer, poisoner, and sophist. And he is by nature neither immortal nor mortal, but on the same day he now flourishes and lives, when he has plenty, and now dies, and comes back to life again because of his father's nature. But what he acquires always slips away, so that Eros is never in want nor rich, and is in the middle between wisdom and ignorance.” If those who read this imitate Celsus's malice, which be far from Christians, they will laugh at the myth and mock the great Plato; but if, examining philosophically what is said in the form of a myth, they are able to find Plato's intention … how he was able to hide, for the sake of the many, in the form of a myth the doctrines that seemed great to him, but to speak as he should to those who know how to find from myths the intention of their author concerning the truth. I have set out this myth in Plato because of “the garden of Zeus” in it, which seems to have something like the paradise of God, and because of Penia, who is comparable to the serpent there, and Poros plotted against by Penia, comparable to the man plotted against by the serpent. It is not very clear whether Plato hit upon these things by chance, or, as some think, on his visit to Egypt met those who studied the philosophy of the Jews and, learning some things from them, kept some and altered others, taking care not to offend the Greeks by keeping the wisdom of the Jews entirely, since they were slandered among the many because of the strangeness of their laws and their peculiar way of life. But it was not now the occasion to explain either Plato's myth or the story of the serpent and the paradise of God and all that is recorded to have happened in it; for we have dealt with these things primarily, as best we could, in our exegetical works on Genesis.

And when he says that the account of Moses most impiously introduced God as “weak from the very beginning and unable to persuade even one man whom he himself had formed,” to this too we shall say that the statement is like accusing God because of the existence of wickedness, which he has not been able to prevent even from one man, so that at least one man might be found who from the beginning had never tasted wickedness. For as those who care to defend providence make a defense on this point with arguments neither few nor contemptible, so too those will philosophize about Adam and his sin who know that in Greek “Adam” means “man,” and that in what seems to be about Adam Moses is treating the nature of man. For “in Adam,” as the Scripture says, “all die,” and they were condemned “in the likeness of Adam's transgression,” the divine word saying these things not so much about one individual as about the whole race. For in the sequence of what is said as if about one person, the curse of Adam is common to all; and there is no woman against whom what is said against the woman is not said. And the man cast out of paradise with the woman, clothed in the “garments of skins,” which God made for those who had sinned because of the transgression of men, has a secret and mystical meaning, beyond Plato's descent of the soul, which sheds its wings and is borne here “until it lays hold of something solid.”

Next he says this: “Then a flood and a monstrous ark holding everything inside, and a dove and a crow as messengers, counterfeiting and recklessly altering the story of Deucalion; for I do not think they expected these things would come to light, but they simply told myths to little children.” In these words too see the man's unphilosophical hatred of the most ancient Scripture of the Jews. For, having nothing to say against the story of the flood, and not noticing what he could have said against the ark and its measurements, namely that if one takes in the common sense what is said of the “three hundred cubits” of the length “of the ark,” the “fifty” of the breadth, and the “thirty” of the height, one could not say that it held the animals of the earth, fourteen of each clean kind and four of each unclean, he simply said “monstrous, holding everything inside.” For what is monstrous about it, when it is recorded to have been built over a hundred years and to have narrowed from the “three hundred cubits” of length and the “fifty” of breadth until the “thirty” cubits of height ended in one cubit of length and breadth? And was not the construction rather marvelous, like a very great city, when its measurements are taken in the sense of squares, so that the length at the base is ninety thousand and the breadth two thousand five hundred? And was it not admirable to conceive it so that it was made firm and could withstand a storm that produced a flood? For it was smeared firmly not with pitch or any other such material, but with asphalt. And is it not marvelous that by God's providence living sparks of every kind were brought inside, so that the earth might again have the seeds of all animals, God having used a most righteous man, who was to be father of those after the flood?

Celsus threw in the matter of the dove to seem to have read the book of Genesis, though he could say nothing to prove that the story of the dove was fictitious. Then, as is his custom, to paraphrase what is written in a more ridiculous way, he changed “the raven” into a crow, and thinks that Moses wrote these things by recklessly altering the story of Deucalion among the Greeks; unless perhaps he thinks the writing is not even Moses' but that of several people; for this is what “counterfeiting and recklessly altering the story of Deucalion” indicates, and this: “For I do not think they expected these things would come to light.” But how did those who gave writings to a whole nation not expect them to come to light, when they even prophesied that this worship of God would be proclaimed to all the nations? And when Jesus said to the Jews, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits,” what else was he arranging than to bring to light himself, by divine power, the whole Jewish Scripture, which contains mysteries of the kingdom of God? Then, if they read the theogonies of the Greeks and the stories about the twelve gods, they dignify them with allegories; but if they want to ridicule ours, they say they were simply told as myths to little children.

He speaks of “a most absurd and untimely begetting of children,” and though he did not name it, it is clear that he means that of Abraham and Sarah. And throwing in “the plots of brothers,” he means either Cain's plot against Abel or, besides this, Esau's against Jacob; and “a father's grief,” perhaps Isaac's at Jacob's departure, and perhaps also Jacob's because of Joseph's being sold into Egypt. And in recording “the treacheries of mothers” he means, I think, Rebecca, who contrived that Isaac's blessings should come not upon Esau but upon Jacob. If we say that God was very close to all these, living among them, what absurdity do we commit in being persuaded that he never withdraws his divinity from those devoted to him with a good and steadfast life? He mocked Jacob's acquisition of property with Laban, not understanding to what the words refer: “And the unmarked were Laban's, and the marked were Jacob's.” And he says that God gave his sons little donkeys and little sheep and camels; and he did not see that “all these things happened to them as types, and were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” Among us the varied characters, made “marked” by the Word of God, live as citizens, given as a possession to the one figuratively called Jacob. For those from the nations who believe in him were signified by what is recorded about Laban and Jacob.