Against Celsus 8.3–8.18

Before what follows, let us see whether we do not rightly accept the saying, “No one can serve two masters,” which is followed by “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other,” and after that, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Our defence calls us to a deeper and secret teaching about gods and lords. For the divine Scripture knows that the great Lord is above “all the gods”; and by “gods” here we do not understand those worshipped among the nations, since we have learned that “all the gods of the nations are demons,” but “gods” of whom the prophetic word knows a certain assembly, and knows that the God over all judges between them and appoints to each his proper work. For “God has taken his place in the assembly of the gods; in the midst he judges gods.” For he is “God of gods, the Lord,” who through the Son “has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.” And we are commanded to give thanks “to the God of gods,” having learned also that “God is not the God of the dead but of the living”; and these things are said not only in the passages cited but in countless others.

The divine words teach us to examine and think such things about Lord and lords, saying in one place, “Give thanks to the God of gods, for his mercy endures for ever; give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endures for ever,” and in another that God is “King of kings and Lord of lords.” The Word knows that some gods are so called, while others really are gods, whether so called or not; and Paul, teaching the same about lords that are and are not, says: “For although there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.” Then, since “the God of gods” calls whom he wills “from the east” and “the west” to his own portion through Jesus, and Christ, being Lord, shows by having gone to the ends of all the earth and calling to himself from all its ends that he surpasses all who are lords, therefore Paul, knowing this, says after the words I have cited: “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” And perceiving a wonderful and mysterious teaching in the passage, he adds, “But not all have this knowledge.” When he says, “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” he says “for us” of himself and of all who have ascended to the God over all “the gods” and to the Lord over all “the lords.” And he has ascended to the God over all who worships him without division, without separation, and without partition, through the Son alone who brings to him those who try in every way, by excellent words and deeds and thoughts, to bring themselves into kinship with God, the Creator of the universe; the Son, God's Word and Wisdom, beheld in Jesus. For this reason, and for others like it, I think that the ruler “of this age,” who transforms himself “into an angel of light,” caused the words, “And there follows him a host of gods and demons, arranged in eleven divisions,” where he says of himself and of those who have philosophized, “We with Zeus, and others with other demons.”

Since, then, there are many so-called or real gods, and likewise lords, we do everything to rise above not only what is worshipped as gods among the nations on earth, but also those whom the Scriptures call gods, of whom those know nothing who are “strangers to the covenants” of God given through Moses and through Jesus our Saviour, and who are aliens from his promises made known through them. He rises above servitude to all demons who does nothing that is pleasing to demons; and he rises above the portion of those who in Paul are said to be gods who looks, whether like them or in whatever way the matter stands, “not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.” And whoever sees how “the eager longing of the creation awaits the revealing of the sons of God,” subjected “not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope,” and, speaking well of the creation, sees how the whole of it “will be set free from the bondage of corruption” and will attain “to the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” is not distracted into serving anyone else together with God, nor into “serving two masters.” It is not, then, the voice of sedition in those who have understood such things and do not wish to “serve” many “masters,” and for this reason are content with the Lord Jesus Christ, who trains under himself those who serve him, so that, when they have been trained and become a “kingdom” worthy of God, he may hand them over to God the Father. They do indeed separate and break away from those who are aliens to “the commonwealth” of God and strangers “to his covenants,” so that they may live as citizens of “the commonwealth in heaven,” coming to the living God “and to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.”

Nor is it as though God were harmed, as a man seems to be harmed by one who serves another besides him, that we decline to serve anyone other than God through his Word and his truth, but so that we ourselves may not be harmed by separating ourselves from the portion of the God over all, since we live in a way that belongs to his blessedness by the special Spirit “of adoption.” This is to be among the sons of the Father in heaven, who cry out mightily in secret, not in mere words but in deeds, “Abba, Father.” The Spartan envoys did not bow down before the king of the Persians, although his bodyguards pressed them hard, because they feared their one master, the law of Lycurgus; and those who serve on the far greater and more divine embassy “for Christ” would not bow down before the ruler of the Persians, or of the Greeks, or of the Egyptians, or of any nation whatever, even if the demons, bodyguards of those rulers, and the angels of the devil, wish to force them to do so and try to persuade them to bid farewell to him who is higher than every law on earth. For the Lord of those who are ambassadors “for Christ” is Christ, for whom they are ambassadors, who is the Word, who was “in the beginning,” and was “with God,” and was “God.”

Then, since Celsus thought he was raising a teaching deeper than appears about heroes and certain demons, saying, after his argument about service to men (that the first person one wishes to serve is harmed if one wishes to serve a second as well), that “the same would hold of heroes and such demons,” we must ask him what he means by heroes, and of what kind he says such demons are, so that one who serves this hero must not serve another, and one who serves such a demon must not serve another as well, as though the first demon, to whom one gave worship before the second, were harmed in the same way as men are harmed. Let him show too what harm he thinks heroes or such demons suffer. For he will be forced either to fall into a sea of nonsense and then take back his argument and reject what he has said, or, if he does not wish to talk nonsense, to admit that he knows neither heroes nor the nature of demons. And to his argument about men, that the first are harmed if one serves a second, we must say: what harm does he say comes to the first man if one who serves him wishes to serve another as well?

For if he were speaking as a layman and not a philosopher of harm concerning money and the things we call external, he would be refuted as not even having attended to what Socrates said well: “Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me; for it is not lawful for the better to be harmed by the worse.” And if by harm he means a movement or state according to wickedness, it is clear that, since no harm happens to the wise, one may serve two wise men living in different places. And if not even this is reasonable, then the example he used to discredit “No one can serve two masters” was taken up in vain. Rather, the teaching about serving the God of the universe alone, through his Son who brings us to God, will prevail. Moreover, we shall serve God not as though he needed it, nor as though he were grieved if we do not serve him, but because we ourselves are benefited by the service of God and become free from grief and passion by serving the God over all through his only-begotten Word and Wisdom.

See how unexamined is his remark, “For if you serve anything else in the universe,” in which he suggests that the service of God is brought about for us, without any harm to ourselves, by simply attaching ourselves to anything that belongs to God. But as though aware that he had not spoken soundly in saying, “For if you serve anything else in the universe,” he then takes it up again and adds a correction to what he said, in this way: “It is not permitted for anyone to be honoured to whom this has not been granted by him.” And let us ask Celsus about those honoured as gods or demons or even heroes: from where, my good man, can you show that the right to be honoured has been granted to them by God, and not by the ignorance and stupidity of men who have gone astray and fallen away from the one who is properly honoured? At any rate, as you said a little before, Celsus, Hadrian's favourite is honoured, and surely you will not say that it was granted by the God of the universe to Antinous to be honoured as a god. We shall say the same about the others, demanding proof that the right to be honoured was granted them by the God over all. And if he retorts the same thing to us about Jesus, we shall show that it was granted to him by God to be honoured, “so that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father.” For the prophecies before his birth were commendations of the honour due to him. And the marvellous things he did, not by sorcery, as Celsus thinks, but by a divinity foretold by the prophets, had God's testimony; so that “whoever honours the Son,” who is the Word, by doing nothing contrary to reason may be benefited by honouring him; and by honouring him who is the Truth, may become better from honouring truth, and likewise from honouring wisdom and righteousness and all that the divine words say the Son of God is.

That honour toward the Son of God, and likewise toward God the Father, consists in a sound life, see whether we are not taught this from “You who boast in the law dishonour God by breaking the law,” and from “How much worse punishment, do you think, will he deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and regarded as common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” For if the one who breaks the law dishonours God “by breaking the law,” and the one who tramples on the Word tramples “the Son of God” underfoot, it is clear that the one who keeps the law honours God, and the one adorned with the Word of God and with his works worships God. If Celsus had known who belong to God, and that only the wise do, and who are strangers to him, namely all the wicked who in no way incline toward taking up virtue, he would have seen how one ought to understand, “What grief, then, does one cause God, to whom all belong, by honouring and worshipping all who are his?”

Next after this he says: “And indeed whoever claims that one Lord has been spoken of, meaning God, acts impiously in dividing the kingdom of God and stirring up sedition, as though there were factions and some other rival opposed to him.” This would have had force if he had shown by geometric proofs that those worshipped as gods by the nations are gods, and had shown that those supposed to dwell in the images, temples, and altars are not some wicked demons. But as for the kingdom of God, continually spoken of and written about among us, we pray both to understand it and to become such that we may be ruled by God alone, and the kingdom of God may be ours too. He, on the other hand, teaching us to worship many gods, ought, if he considers what is consistent with himself, to speak of a kingdom of gods rather than of God. There are no factions with God, then, nor is there any god who is his rival, even if some, like Giants or Titans, wish in their own wickedness to fight against God together with Celsus and those who have made war on him who has established the facts about Jesus through countless proofs, and on Jesus himself, who, being the Word, has given himself for the salvation of our race to the whole world at once, as each can receive him.

Next after this he might seem to say something plausible against us in the words: “If these people served no one else but one God, they might perhaps have a firm argument against the others; but in fact they give excessive worship to this man who appeared recently, and yet they think they commit no offence against God if his servant too is served.” To this too we must say that if Celsus had understood “I and the Father are one,” and what was said in prayer by the Son of God in “as I and you are one,” he would not have thought that we serve anyone else besides the God over all. “For the Father,” he says, “is in me, and I in the Father.” And if anyone is troubled by these words, lest we somehow go over to those who deny that there are two subsistences, Father and Son, let him attend to “And the heart and soul of all who believed was one,” so that he may understand “I and the Father are one.” We worship, then, one God, as we have explained, the Father and the Son; and our firm argument against the others remains, and we do not give excessive worship to one who appeared recently as though he did not exist before. For we believe him who said, “Before Abraham came to be, I am,” and who says, “I am the truth”; and none of us is such a slave as to think that the substance of truth did not exist before the time of Christ's appearing. We worship, then, the Father of the truth and the Son who is the truth, being two things in subsistence, but one in concord, in agreement, and in identity of will; so that whoever has seen the Son, who is “the radiance of the glory” and the exact representation “of the subsistence” of God, has seen God in him who is the image of God.

Then he thinks it follows, from our worshipping his Son together with God, that on our view not only God but also his servants are to be served. Now if he meant those who are truly servants of God after the Only-begotten of God, Gabriel and Michael and the rest of the angels, and said that these ought to be served, perhaps, having clarified what he means by “serve” and what the actions of one who serves are, we would have said on the subject, as discussing such great matters, what we were able to understand about them. But as it is, since he thinks the demons worshipped by the nations are servants, he does not bring us by any logical consequence to serve such beings, whom the Word shows to be servants of the evil one and of the ruler of this age, who draws away from God whomever he can. It is, then, because they are not servants of God that we decline to reverence and serve all those whom the rest of mankind reverence; for if we had been taught that they were servants of the God over all, we would not have called them demons. That is why we reverence the one God and his one Son, Word and Image, with supplications and petitions as far as we are able, bringing our prayers to the God of the universe through his Only-begotten; to whom we offer them first, asking him, who is “the propitiation for our sins,” as high priest to bring our prayers and sacrifices and intercessions to the God over all. Our faith, then, is directed to God through his Son, who confirms it in us, and Celsus can show no sedition of ours concerning the Son of God. And we reverence the Father, admiring his Son, who is Word, Wisdom, Truth, Righteousness, and everything that we have learned the Son of God to be; and so too we reverence the one begotten of such a Father. So much for this.

Since Celsus says again, “If you were to teach them that this man is not his Son, but that he is the Father of all, whom alone one ought truly to worship, they would no longer be willing, unless they worship this man too, who is the leader of their sedition. And they called him Son of God not because they greatly reverence God, but because they greatly exalt this man”: we, having learned who the Son of God is, and that he is “the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his subsistence,” and “a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty,” and further “a radiance of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness,” know that he is Son from the Father, and the Father is his Father. There is nothing unfitting in this teaching, nor unbecoming to God, who has given subsistence to such an only-begotten Son. And no one could persuade us that such a one is not the Son of the unbegotten God and Father. If Celsus has heard some who do not confess that the Son of God is the Son of the Creator of this universe, that is for him and for those who agree with such a teaching to answer for. Jesus, then, is the leader not of sedition but of all peace, who said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Then, since he knew that the men of the world and not of God would make war on us, he added to these words, “Not as the world gives peace do I give you peace.” And we take courage because of him, even if we are afflicted in the world, since he said, “In the world you have affliction; but take courage, I have overcome the world.” And we say that he is the Son of God, of the God whom, to follow Celsus's words, we greatly reverence; and we know that his Son has been greatly exalted by the Father. Granted that there may be some, as in a multitude of believers who admit differences of opinion, who through rashness suppose that the Saviour is the greatest God over all; but we do not, since we believe him when he says, “The Father who sent me is greater than I.” That is why we would not subject him whom we now call Father to the Son of God, as Celsus slanderously claims.

After this Celsus says: “That I do not form this opinion wide of the mark, I will use their own words. For somewhere in the heavenly dialogue they say something like this, in these words: ‘If the Son is mightier than God, and the Son of Man is his lord (and who else will be lord over the God who rules?), how is it that many are around the well and no one goes into the well? Why, having travelled so long a road, are you without courage? You are mistaken; for I have courage and a sword.’ So it is not their aim to worship the supercelestial God, but the one they have supposed to be the father of this man, around whom they have gathered, so that, under the pretext of the great God, they may worship only this man whom they set at their head, the Son of Man, whom they declare mightier than and lord of ‘the God who rules.’ From this comes that precept of theirs, not to ‘serve’ two ‘masters,’ so that the faction around this one man may be preserved.” And here again, having taken these things from I know not what most obscure heresy, he charges all Christians on the strength of them; I say most obscure, since the opinion from which Celsus took them is not known even to us, who have often exercised ourselves against those of the heresies; if indeed he took it and did not invent it or add a consequence of his own. For we, who say that the sensible world too belongs to the Creator of all things, say plainly that the Son is not mightier than the Father but inferior to him. And we say this because we believe him when he says, “The Father who sent me is greater than I.” And none of us is so thunderstruck as to say, “The Son of Man is lord” of God. We say that the Saviour rules, especially when we understand him as God, Word, Wisdom, Righteousness, and Truth, over all things subject to him in so far as he is these things, but not over the Father and God who rules him. Then, since the Word does not rule the unwilling, and there are still some wicked beings, not only men but also angels and all demons, we say that he does not yet rule these, since they do not yield to him willingly; but in another sense of “rule” he rules them too (as we say that man rules the irrational animals, not by subjecting their ruling faculty, as he rules certain lions and beasts of burden that he has tamed), yet he does everything so that by persuading those who do not now obey him he may rule them too. On our view, then, what Celsus reports as said by us is false: “Who else will be lord over the God who rules?”

Then, I think, again confusing matters, he brings from another heresy the words, “How is it that many are around the well and no one goes into the well?” and “Why, having travelled so long a road, are you without courage? You are mistaken,” and “For I have courage and a sword”; none of which we, who belong to the church named after Christ alone, say is true. Having said this, he thinks he is saying things consistent with himself which have nothing to do with us. For our aim is not to worship some god on a hypothesis, but the Creator of this universe and of anything else there may be that is not sensible or shown. Those who walk “another way” and “other paths,” who deny him and have given themselves to a novel fiction and a mere name of a god as though greater than the Creator, will know, and whoever it may be who says that the Son is mightier than and lord “of the God who rules.” We have given the explanation that seems right to us of why one must not “serve two masters,” when we showed that no sedition concerning Jesus the Lord can be proved among those who confess that they have risen above every lord and serve only the Lord, the Son of God, the Word of God.

After this Celsus says that we avoid setting up altars, images, and temples, because he thinks this is our token of a secret and forbidden association; not seeing that our altars are the ruling faculty of each righteous man, from which fragrant incense, prayers from a pure conscience, is truly and spiritually sent up. That is why John says in the Revelation, “The incense is the prayers of the saints,” and the psalmist, “Let my prayer be set as incense before you.” And our images and offerings fitting for God are not made by vulgar craftsmen, but are shaped and formed in us by the Word of God: the virtues, which are imitations of the firstborn “of all creation,” in whom are the patterns of righteousness, self-control, courage, wisdom, piety, and the other virtues. In all, then, who by the divine Word have formed in themselves self-control, righteousness, courage, wisdom, piety, and the works of the other virtues, there are images; by these we are persuaded it is fitting to honour the prototype of all images, the image “of the invisible God,” the only-begotten God. Moreover, those who put off “the old man with his deeds and put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him,” taking up what is “after the image of him who created him,” make images of him within themselves such as the God over all wishes. And just as among sculptors some accomplish their work marvellously, such as Phidias or Polyclitus, or among painters Zeuxis and Apelles, while others make images less well than these, and others less well than the second, and in short there is a great difference in the making of statues and pictures; in the same way some make images of the God over all better and with perfect knowledge, so that there is no comparison between the Olympian Zeus made by Phidias and the man made “after the image of him who created him”; but far better and more excellent than all those in the whole creation is the image in our Saviour, who says, “The Father is in me.”

And in each of those who imitate him in this as far as they can there is an image “after the image of him who created him,” which they form by looking to God with a pure heart, having become “imitators of God.” In short, all Christians try to set up such altars as we have described and such images as we have shown, not lifeless and senseless, nor able to receive greedy demons lying in wait at lifeless things, but able to receive the Spirit of God, who dwells in the images of virtue we have mentioned and in what is “after the image of him who created him” as in his own home; and so too the Spirit of Christ settles on those who are, so to speak, conformed to him. Wishing to show such things, the Word of God recorded God as saying in a promise to the righteous, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” and the Saviour as saying, “If anyone hears my words and does them, I and my Father will come to him and make our home with him.” Let whoever wishes, then, compare the altars I have described with the altars Celsus speaks of, and the images in the soul of those who worship the God of the universe with the images of Phidias and Polyclitus and the like; and he will clearly see that the latter are lifeless and decay with time, while the former remain in the immortal soul as long as the rational soul wishes them to remain in it.