Against Celsus 6.77

Again, the man who says, Since a divine spirit was in the body, it must certainly have differed somewhat from the others in size or voice or strength or impressiveness or persuasiveness, how did he not see that his body differed according to what the beholders could bear, and for that reason appeared in a useful way, such as each needed to see it? And it is not surprising that matter, which is by nature changeable and alterable, transformable into whatever the Creator wishes and receptive of every quality the craftsman wishes, should at one time have the quality according to which it is said, “He had no form nor beauty,” and at another time one so glorious, impressive, and wonderful that the three apostles who had gone up with Jesus and saw such beauty fell “on their faces.” But he will say that these are fictions differing in no way from myths, like the rest of the wonders about Jesus. We have answered this at length earlier. But the account has also a more mystical meaning, declaring that the different forms of Jesus are to be referred to the nature of the divine Word, who does not appear in the same way to the many and to those able to follow him up the “high mountain” we have spoken of. For to those who are still below and not yet prepared to ascend, the Word “has no form nor beauty”; for to such his “form” is “without honour and failing” beside the words produced by men, which are figuratively called here “sons of men.” For we might say that the words of the philosophers, being “sons of men,” appear much more comely than the Word of God preached to the many, which displays even the foolishness “of preaching”; and because of the apparent foolishness “of preaching,” those who see only this say: “We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty.” But to those who, by following him, have received power to go after him even as he ascends “the high mountain,” he has a more divine form. They see it if one is a “Peter,” who has received in himself the building of the Church from the Word and has acquired such a habit that no gate of Hades will prevail against him, since he has been lifted up through the Word “from the gates of death, so that he may” proclaim “all the praises” of God “in the gates of the daughter of Zion”; and those too see it who have taken their birth from words of great voice, who fall in no way short of spiritual “thunder.” <And “his garments” below are different; they are not “white,” they are not “as the light”; if you go up “to the high mountain,” you will see his light and “the garments.” “The garments” of the Word are the expressions of Scripture; these words are the clothing of the divine thoughts. As, then, he himself appears different below and, having gone up, is transfigured, and “his face becomes like the sun,” so also are his clothes and “his garments”: when you are below, they are not bright, they are not “white”; but if you go up, you will see the beauty and “the light” of the garments and will marvel at “the face” of Jesus transfigured. See whether it is not similar to learn this from the Gospels about the Saviour. For what concerns his birth, when he is traced by genealogy from Abraham and “born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” is “the book of the genesis of Jesus Christ”; but of the more divine and greater things that might be said about him and that are declared by him, John says that “I suppose not even the world could contain the books that would be written.” For the saying that “the world could not contain the books that would be written” must be understood not, as some think, because of the number of the writings, but because of the greatness of the matters; since the greatness of the matters not only cannot be written but cannot even be declared by a fleshly tongue or signified in human languages and sounds. That is why Paul too, when he is about to learn more divine things, comes to be outside our world around the earth and is caught up to the third heaven, so that he may hear the “inexpressible words” there. For the things spoken here, which are thought to be the word of God, are declared by the Word made flesh, who, being “God” “with God,” empties himself. Therefore we see the Word of God on earth as human, since he became man; for always in the Scriptures “the Word became flesh,” so as to dwell “among us.” But if we recline on “the breast” of the Word made flesh and are able to follow him as he goes up “the high mountain,” we shall say: “We beheld his glory.” Perhaps others too, besides those who reclined on his breast and followed him “to the high mountain,” will say, “We beheld his glory,” but will not add “glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”; for this utterance befits John and those like him. And according to another, loftier interpretation, those who have been able to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as he ascends and is transfigured from his earthly appearance will see his transfiguration in each Scripture: as though the Jesus who appears to the many were the obvious wording, while the one who goes up “a high mountain” and is transfigured before a very few of the disciples, and before those able to follow to the heights, were the highest and most exalted meaning, containing oracles of the wisdom hidden “in a mystery,” “which God foreordained before the ages for the glory” of his righteous ones.> But how could Celsus and the enemies of the divine word, who have not examined Christianity as lovers of truth, know the meaning of the different forms of Jesus? And I mean his ages too, and anything he did before his passion and after his resurrection from the dead.