Contra Celsum, Book 3

In the first book of our reply to the boastful title of Celsus, who entitled the book he composed against us True Discourse, we treated, as you commanded, most faithful Ambrose, and as well as we could, his preface, and then examined each of his statements in turn, until we came to the speech of the Jew in his book, fashioned against Jesus. In the second we answered, as best we were able, the whole speech of his Jew against us who believe in God through Christ. We now begin this third book, in which we are to contend with what he sets out in his own person. He says that Christians and Jews quarrel with each other most foolishly, and that our dialogue with one another about Christ is no different from what the proverb calls a fight over a donkey’s shadow; and he thinks there is nothing worthy of respect in the inquiry of Jews and Christians with each other, since both believe that it was prophesied by a divine Spirit that a Savior would come to the human race, but no longer agree whether the one prophesied has come or not. For we Christians have believed in Jesus as having come according to the prophecies; but most of the Jews are so far from believing in him that those of that time plotted against Jesus, and those of the present day, approving what the Jews then dared against him, malign Jesus as one who by some sorcery pretended to be the one proclaimed by the prophets as coming, who according to the ancestral custom of the Jews is called Christ.

Let Celsus and those who approve what he says against us tell us whether it is like a donkey’s shadow that the prophets of the Jews foretold the place of birth of the one who would lead those who have lived well and are called God's portion; and a virgin who would conceive Emmanuel; and such signs and wonders to be done by the one prophesied; and that “his word will run swiftly,” so that the voice of his apostles went out “into all the earth”; and what he would suffer when condemned by the Jews, and how he would rise. Did the prophets say these things at random, with no plausibility to move them not only to speak but to think what they said worth recording? And did so great a nation as the Jews, long settled in its own land, with no plausible grounds proclaim some as prophets and reject others as false prophets? And was there nothing among them to lead them to include the words of those later regarded as prophets among the books of Moses, believed to be sacred? And can those who charge Jews and Christians with foolishness show us that the Jewish nation could have held together with no promise of foreknowledge among them; and that, while the nations around them each believed, according to their ancestral customs, that they received oracles and divinations from those they considered gods, these alone, taught to despise all the gods worshiped among the nations as not gods but demons (since their prophets said, “All the gods of the nations are demons”), had no one who professed to prophesy and was able to hold back those who, from desire to foreknow the future, wished to desert to the demons of the others? Consider, then, whether it is not necessary that a whole nation taught to despise the gods of the rest should have had an abundance of prophets, who showed on their own something greater that surpassed the oracles everywhere.

Next, miracles occurred everywhere or in many places, as Celsus himself later cites: Asclepius doing good and foretelling the future to whole cities dedicated to him, such as Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos, and Pergamum; and Aristeas of Proconnesus, a certain man of Clazomenae, and Cleomedes of Astypalaea. Was there, then, among the Jews alone, who say they are dedicated to the God of the universe, no sign or wonder to help and confirm their faith in the Creator of all things, together with the hope of another, greater life? How could that be? They would immediately have gone over to worshiping the demons who gave oracles and healings, abandoning the God they believed would help them only in word, who never showed his own manifestation. But if this did not happen, but they endured countless sufferings rather than renounce Judaism and its law, suffering now in Assyria, now in Persia, now under Antiochus, how is it not established with probability, for those who disbelieve the marvelous histories and prophecies, that these things were not fictions, but that some divine Spirit, dwelling in the pure souls of the prophets, who had undertaken every labor for virtue, moved them to prophesy some things to their contemporaries and others to later generations, and especially about a Savior who would come to the human race?

If this is so, how is it a question about a donkey’s shadow that Jews and Christians debate with each other, examining from the prophecies both believe whether the one prophesied has come, or has not come at all but is still expected? Even if it were granted to Celsus, for the sake of argument, that Jesus is not the one the prophets proclaimed, even so the inquiry into the meaning of the prophetic writings is still not about a donkey’s shadow: so that the one proclaimed beforehand may be clearly shown, what sort of person he was prophesied to be and what he would do, and, if possible, when he would come. Above we set out a few prophecies out of many to show that Jesus is the prophesied Christ. Neither Jews nor Christians, then, err in accepting that the prophets spoke from God; but those who err about the one prophesied and expected, as to who and what kind of person he was proclaimed to be according to the true meaning of the prophets, hold false opinions.

Next Celsus, thinking that the Jews were Egyptians by race who left Egypt after rebelling against the Egyptian state and despising the customary religion of Egypt, says that they suffered at the hands of those who followed Jesus and believed in him as Christ what they had done to the Egyptians, and that for both the cause of their innovation was rebellion against the state. We must consider what Celsus has done in this passage. The ancient Egyptians, who treated the Hebrew race badly after they came to live in Egypt because of a famine that struck Judea, suffered, for wronging strangers and suppliants, what a whole nation had to suffer at the hands of divine providence, since it had conspired against the whole race of its guests, who had done it no wrong. And struck by God’s punishments, they reluctantly, and after not long, let go where they wished those who were being unjustly enslaved. Being then self-loving, and preferring those of their own race, whatever they were like, even to more righteous foreigners, there is no accusation they have not made against Moses and the Hebrews: not wholly denying the wonders done through Moses, but saying they were done by sorcery and not by divine power. But Moses, as no sorcerer but a pious man, dedicated to the God of the universe and sharing in a more divine Spirit, both gave laws to the Hebrews as the divine prompted him and recorded what happened as it truly was.

Celsus, then, not being a fair examiner of what the Egyptians say one way and the Hebrews another, but prejudiced in favor of the Egyptians as dearer to him, agreed with those who wronged the strangers, as though they spoke the truth, and said that the wronged Hebrews left Egypt after rebelling. He failed to see that such a great rebellious multitude of Egyptians, beginning in rebellion, could not become a nation at the same time as it rebelled and changed its language, so that those who until then spoke the Egyptian language suddenly developed the Hebrew language. Suppose, for argument's sake, that having left Egypt they came to hate the language they had grown up with: why then did they not afterward use the Syrian or the Phoenician language, but establish Hebrew, different from both? My argument means to conclude that it is false that some who were Egyptians by race rebelled against the Egyptians, left Egypt, came to Palestine, and settled in what is now called Judea. For the Hebrews had an ancestral language before their descent into Egypt, and Hebrew letters were different from those of the Egyptians; Moses used them to write the five books believed by the Jews to be sacred.

Equally false is it that the Hebrews, being Egyptians, originated from a rebellion, and that others, being Jews, rebelled in Jesus' time against the Jewish state and followed Jesus. For neither Celsus nor those who agree with him will be able to point to any act of rebellion by Christians. Indeed, if rebellion were the cause of the formation of Christians, who took their origin from the Jews, for whom it was lawful to take up arms for their own people and kill enemies, the lawgiver of Christians would not have entirely forbidden the killing of a human being, teaching that his disciples' violence against a man is never just, even if he is most unjust (for he did not think it fitting for his divinely inspired legislation to permit the killing of any human being whatever); nor would Christians, if they began in rebellion, have accepted such gentle laws, under which they came to be killed “like sheep” and never to be able to defend themselves against their persecutors. And indeed, examining things more deeply, one can say of those who came out of the land of Egypt that, marvelously, the whole people took up at the same time, as a gift of God, as it were, the language called Hebrew; as one of their prophets said: “When they came out of the land of Egypt, he heard a language which he did not know.”

It must also be established in this way that those who left Egypt with Moses were not Egyptians. If they were Egyptians, their names would have had to be Egyptian, since the names in each language are akin to it. But if it is clear from their names, which are Hebrew, that they were not Egyptians (for Scripture is full of Hebrew names, including those given to their sons by people in Egypt), it is evident that what the Egyptians say is false, that they were Egyptians driven out of Egypt with Moses. And it is plainly clear that, having their descent from Hebrew ancestors according to the history recorded by Moses, they used their own language, from which they also gave names to their sons. As for Christians, since, taught not to defend themselves against enemies, they kept the gentle and humane legislation, they have for this reason received from God what they would not have achieved if they had been given the right to make war, even if they had been very powerful: God has always fought for them and at times stopped those who rose against Christians and wished to kill them. For the sake of reminder, so that seeing a few struggle for piety might make others prove themselves more fully and despise death, a few at times, and very easily counted, have died for the Christian worship of God, while God prevented their whole nation from being destroyed by war; for he wished it to stand firm and the whole earth to be filled with this saving and most pious teaching. And again, so that the weaker might breathe freely from anxiety about death, God provided for believers, scattering by his will alone every plot against them, so that neither kings, nor local governors, nor the people could be inflamed against them any further. So much in reply to what Celsus said about rebellion having been the origin, long ago, of the formation of the Jews, and later of the Christians' coming to be.

Since in what follows he plainly lies, let us set out his very words: “If all people wished to be Christians, these people would no longer wish it.” That this is false is clear from the fact that, as far as lies in them, Christians do not neglect to sow the word in every part of the world. Some, at any rate, have made it their work to travel around not only cities but also villages and farmsteads, so as to make others pious toward God too. And no one could say that they do this for the sake of wealth, since sometimes they do not even accept what they need for food, and if they are ever compelled by their lack of it, they are content with what is needed alone, even if many wish to share with them and give them more than they need. Now, perhaps, when because of the number of those coming to the word even rich men, some persons of rank, and refined women of high birth welcome those who come from the word, someone will dare to say that some lead in Christian teaching for the sake of a little glory. But at the beginning, when the danger was great, especially for teachers, it was not possible reasonably to suspect such a thing. And even now the disrepute among the rest is greater than what is thought to be glory among fellow believers, and not all have even that. It is therefore plainly false that “if all people wished to be Christians, these people would no longer wish it.”

See also what he says is the proof of this: “When they began,” he says, “they were few and of one mind; but having spread into a multitude, they are divided and split again and again, and each wishes to have a separate faction; for this is what they wanted from the beginning.” That Christians at the beginning were few compared with the later multitude is clear; yet they were not altogether few. For what stirred envy against Jesus and provoked the Jews to plot against him was the multitude of those who followed him into the deserts, five thousand and four thousand men following him, not counting women and children. For there was such a charm in Jesus' words that not only men wished to follow him into the deserts, but also women, disregarding their womanly weakness and appearances in following the Teacher into the deserts; and children too, least affected by such things, followed with their parents, either following their parents or perhaps also led by his divinity, so that divinity might be sown in them. But grant that there were few at the beginning: how does this contribute to showing that Christians would not wish to bring all people to be persuaded of the word?

He says also that they were all of one mind, not seeing even in this that from the beginning there have been disagreements among believers about the interpretation of the books believed to be divine. While the apostles were still preaching, and the eyewitnesses of Jesus were teaching his lessons, there was a major dispute among the believers from the Jews about those from the nations who were coming to the word: whether they must keep the Jewish customs, or whether the “burden” concerning clean and unclean foods should be removed, as not binding, from those among the nations who had left their ancestral customs and believed in Jesus. Moreover, in the letters of Paul, who lived in the time of those who had seen Jesus, things are found said as if some questions had been raised about the resurrection and about its “having already taken place,” and about the day of the Lord, whether it “has come” or not. And the words, “avoiding the irreverent empty talk and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed” and “have shipwrecked their faith,” show that from the beginning there were some misinterpretations, when believers had not yet become many, as Celsus thinks.

Then, since as if accusing our teaching he criticizes us for the heresies in Christianity, saying, “But having spread into a multitude, they are split and divided again and again, and each wishes to have a separate faction”; and he says that “being again divided by their multitude they refute one another, still sharing, so to speak, only one thing, if indeed they share it, the name; and this alone they are nevertheless ashamed to abandon; but in everything else they are ranged on different sides”: to this too we will say that different schools have never arisen in a field unless its origin is serious and useful to life. For since medicine is useful and necessary to the human race, and there are many questions in it about the method of treating bodies, schools are admittedly found in medicine among the Greeks, and I think also among the barbarians, as many (at least) as profess to use medicine. Again, since philosophy, which professes truth and the knowledge of what exists, explains how one ought to live and tries to teach what is beneficial to our race, and the questions it investigates allow great divergence, a great many schools have formed in philosophy, some more famous than others. Judaism too had an occasion for the rise of sects in the different interpretation of the writings of Moses and the words of the prophets. So, since Christianity appeared something worthy of respect to people, not only, as Celsus thinks, to the more servile, but also to many of the learned among the Greeks, heresies necessarily arose, not at all because of factions and contentiousness, but because many of the learned too were eager to understand the teachings of Christianity. From this it followed that, as they interpreted differently the words all believed to be divine, there arose heresies named after those who admired the origin of the teaching but were moved, in one way or another, by certain plausible arguments to disagree with one another. But no one would reasonably shun medicine because of its schools, nor would anyone who aims at what is fitting hate philosophy, making its many schools a pretext for hating it. So neither should the sacred books of Moses and the prophets be condemned because of the sects among the Jews.

If this is consistent, how should we not make the same defense concerning the heresies among Christians? About them Paul seems to me to have said, very wonderfully: “For there must also be heresies among you, so that those found trustworthy may become evident among you.” For just as the person found trustworthy in medicine is the one who, having trained himself in various schools and examined most of them fairly, has chosen the best; and as the one who makes great progress in philosophy is he who, by knowing more of them, has trained himself in them and attached himself to the prevailing doctrine; so I would say that one who has carefully examined the sects of Judaism and Christianity becomes a very wise Christian. And one who accuses the teaching because of the heresies would also accuse the teaching of Socrates, from whose school many schools of people not holding the same views have come; and one might also accuse the doctrines of Plato because of Aristotle, who left his school with innovations, of whom we have spoken above. It seems to me that Celsus has known certain heresies that do not even share the name of Jesus with us. Perhaps he had heard of the so-called Ophites and Cainites, or any other such opinion that has arisen, having departed from Jesus altogether. But this has nothing to do with the Christian teaching being blameworthy.

After this he says: “Their association is the more marvelous, the more it can be shown to rest on no worthwhile foundation. But rebellion is a worthwhile foundation, and the advantage it brings, and fear of those outside; these confirm their faith.” To this we will say that our association rests on a foundation, or rather not a foundation but divine working, so that its origin is God, who in the prophets taught people to hope for the coming of the Christ, who would save them. For insofar as this is not truly refuted, even if unbelievers think it is, to that extent the teaching is established as God's word, and Jesus is shown to be the Son of God, both before he became man and when he had become man. And I say that even after his becoming man he is always found, by those who have the most sharp-sighted eyes of the soul, most worthy of God and truly come down to us from God, having his origin and what followed it not from human intelligence but from the manifestation of God, who with wisdom and powers of many kinds established first Judaism and after it Christianity. And the idea that rebellion and the advantage from rebellion are the origin of the teaching that has converted and improved so many people has been refuted.

That fear of those outside does not hold our association together either is clear from the fact that, by God's will, this too has now ceased for a considerable time. And it is likely that the freedom from fear, as far as this life goes, that believers now enjoy will cease, when those who slander the teaching in every way again think the cause of the present great rebellion, as they call it, to be the multitude of believers and their not being attacked by the rulers as in former times. For we have learned from the teaching neither to grow slack in peace and give ourselves up to ease, nor, when the world makes war on us, to lose heart and fall away from the love of the God of the universe in Jesus Christ. We clearly show, and do not hide, as Celsus thinks, the dignity of our origin, when we instill in those first being introduced a contempt for idols and all images, and in addition, raising their thoughts from serving created things instead of God, lead them up to the Creator of all things; plainly showing the one prophesied both from the prophecies about him (and they are many) and from what is handed down with careful examination, to those able to hear more intelligently, from the Gospels and the apostolic words.

What varied means we use to draw people, or what terrors we invent, as Celsus writes without proof, let anyone who wishes show; unless Celsus means by invented terrors the teaching about God as judge and about human beings judged for all they have done, set out with various arguments, some from the Scriptures and some from probable reasoning. And yet (for we value truth) Celsus says toward the end that “neither these people nor I nor any other human being should reject the doctrine that the unjust will be punished and the just deemed worthy of rewards.” What terrors, then, apart from the teaching about punishment, do we invent to draw people? And when he says that “inventing misunderstandings of the ancient doctrine, we play the flute to people beforehand and fill their ears, like those who make a din around people in Corybantic frenzy,” we will say to him: “Misunderstandings of what ancient doctrine?” For whether he means the Greek doctrine, which taught about the courts beneath the earth, or the Jewish, which among other things prophesied about the life after this one, he could not show that we who try to believe with reason live by such doctrines because we have misunderstood the truth.

He wishes to compare the things of our faith with those of the Egyptians. Among them, “as you approach, there are splendid precincts and groves, great and beautiful gateways, wonderful temples, magnificent tents around them, and very superstitious and mysterious rites; but when you have entered and come further inside, a cat or an ape or a crocodile or a goat or a dog is seen being worshiped.” What among us corresponds to the imposing things the Egyptians show those who approach, and what corresponds to the irrational animals worshiped inside after the imposing gateways? Or are the prophecies, the God over all, and the teaching against images the things that are imposing even in his view, and Jesus Christ crucified what corresponds to the irrational animal that is worshiped? But if he says this (for I do not think he will say anything else), we will answer that we have said a good deal above in support of what concerns Jesus: that even what seemed to happen to him as a man has happened usefully for the universe and for the salvation of the whole world.

Then he says that the doctrines of the Egyptians, who speak solemnly even about the irrational animals and say they are symbols of God, or whatever their so-called prophets like to call them, give those who have learned them the impression that they have not been initiated in vain. But what is presented to those in Christianity who are learned in our writings, from what Paul calls the gift of a word of wisdom “through the Spirit” and a word of knowledge “according to the Spirit,” Celsus seems to me not even to have imagined, not only from this, but also from what he says later in accusing the Christian community, as if they drove every wise man away from the teaching of their faith and invited only the foolish and servile. We will consider these things in due course, when we come to the passage.

And he says that we laugh at the Egyptians, although they present many enigmas that are not contemptible, when they teach that such things are honors paid to eternal ideas and not, as most think, to ephemeral animals; but that we are simpletons, bringing in nothing more dignified than the goats and dogs of the Egyptians in our narratives about Jesus. To this we will say: “Good sir, do you reasonably exalt in your account the Egyptians' presenting many enigmas that are not contemptible and obscure narratives about their animals, while you do wrong in accusing us, as if persuaded that we say nothing, but everything we say is worthless and contemptible, when we explain what concerns Jesus according to the wisdom of the teaching to those who are mature in Christianity?” Paul, teaching about them as able to hear the wisdom in Christianity, says: “We speak wisdom among the mature, but a wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has known.”

And we say to those who agree with Celsus: did Paul, then, imagining no surpassing wisdom, profess to speak “wisdom among the mature”? When, with his usual rashness, he says that Paul professed this while having nothing wise, we will answer him, saying: “First explain the letters of the one who says this, and, fixing your eyes on the intent of each expression in them, say in the letter to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to the Philippians, and to the Romans, show both: that you have understood Paul's words, and that you can show some of them to be foolish or silly.” For if he gives himself to reading them attentively, I know well that either he will marvel at the man's mind, which comprehends great things in ordinary language, or, if he does not marvel, he himself will appear ridiculous, whether in explaining the man’s intent as though he had understood it, or in trying to contradict and overturn what he imagined he had understood.

And I do not yet speak of the careful attention to everything written in the Gospels, each of which contains a meaning great and hard to discern, not only for the many but even for some of the intelligent. They include a very deep explanation of the parables which Jesus spoke to “those outside,” keeping their clear meaning for those who had passed beyond hearing from outside and came to him privately “in the house.” One will marvel, having understood it, at what reason there is for some being called “outside” and others “in the house.” And again, who among those able to see would not be amazed at the movements of Jesus, going up a mountain for certain words or deeds or for his own transfiguration, and below healing the sick who were unable to go up where his disciples follow him? But to explain now what is truly dignified and divine in the Gospels, or the mind of Christ in Paul, that is, of Wisdom and the Word, is not timely. These things are enough against Celsus's unphilosophical mockery, when he likens the inner mysteries of the church of God to the cats, apes, crocodiles, goats, or dogs of the Egyptians.

Leaving no kind of disparagement and ridicule of us untried, the clown Celsus in his book against us names the Dioscuri, Heracles, Asclepius, and Dionysus, who are believed among the Greeks to have become gods from being men; and he says that “we cannot bear to consider these gods, because they were men at first, even though they displayed many noble deeds on behalf of humanity; but we say that Jesus, after he died, was seen by his own band of followers.” He further accuses us of saying that he was seen, “and that as a shadow.” To this we will say that Celsus has cleverly neither made it plain that he does not worship these as gods (for he was wary of the opinion of those who would read his book, who would suppose him an atheist if he championed what seemed to him the truth), nor on the other hand pretended that he himself considers them gods; for we would have answered either position. Come, then, let us say this to those who do not consider them gods. “Do these not exist at all, but, as some think of the human soul, that it perishes immediately, did their soul too perish? Or, according to the opinion of those who say it survives or is immortal, do they survive or are they immortal, and are not gods but heroes? Or not even heroes, but simply souls? If you suppose that they do not exist, we must establish our principal doctrine about the soul; if they do exist, we must still accept the doctrine of immortality, not only from those Greeks who spoke well about it but also according to the divine teachings. And we will show that it is not possible that these, who were polytheists, came to a better place and portion after their departure from here, citing the stories about them, in which is recorded much sexual excess by Heracles and his effeminate servitude to Omphale, and the story that Asclepius was struck by a thunderbolt from their Zeus.” And the story of the Dioscuri will be cited too, that “now they live on alternate days, and now again they are dead; and they have received honor equal to the gods,” though they die many times. How then do they think any of these can reasonably be considered a god or a hero?

But we, showing from the prophetic writings what concerns our Jesus, and then comparing his story with the stories about them, [show] that no sexual excess by him is reported. For not even those who plotted against him and sought “false testimony” against him found anything plausible for their “false testimony” so as to accuse him of sexual excess. And his death came about from a human plot and had nothing like the thunderbolt against Asclepius. And what dignity has the raving Dionysus, dressed in women's clothes, that he should be worshiped as a god? If those who defend these beings take refuge in allegories, we must examine separately whether the allegories are sound, and separately whether beings torn apart by Titans and cast down from the heavenly throne can really exist and be worthy of reverence and worship. But our Jesus, who was seen by his own band of followers (for I will use Celsus's term), was seen in truth; Celsus slanders the account when he says he was seen as a shadow. And let the stories about those beings be examined together with the story of Jesus. Or does Celsus want those to be true, but these, recorded by those who saw them and showed by their deeds the clarity of their grasp of what they had seen, and displayed their disposition in what they eagerly suffered for his word, to be fictions? And who that wishes to do everything reasonably would arbitrarily assent to the stories about those, and rushing without examination into what concerns this one, disbelieve the accounts of him?

Again, when it is said of Asclepius that a great multitude of people, Greeks and barbarians, acknowledge that they have often seen, and still see, not a phantom but him himself, healing and doing good and foretelling the future, Celsus asks us to believe it and does not accuse those who believe in Jesus when we believe these things. But when we assent to the disciples who saw Jesus' wonders and clearly show the good faith of their conscience, seeing their lack of guile as far as one can see a conscience from writings, we are called simpletons by Celsus, who cannot show the countless multitude, as he says, of Greeks and barbarians acknowledging Asclepius. For if he thinks this impressive, we clearly show a countless multitude of Greeks and barbarians acknowledging Jesus. And some show signs of having received something more marvelous through this faith in the healings they perform, invoking over those who need healing nothing other than the God over all and the name of Jesus, together with the story about him. For by these we too have seen many freed from severe afflictions, derangements, madnesses, and countless other things, which neither human beings nor demons had healed.

Even if I grant that a certain healing spirit called Asclepius heals bodies, I would say to those who admire this, or the divination of Apollo, that if the healing of bodies is an indifferent thing, falling to the lot not only of the good but also of the bad, and foreknowledge of the future is indifferent too (for the one who foreknows does not necessarily show goodness), then show how those who heal or foreknow are in no way bad, but are proved in every way to be good, and not far from being thought gods. But they will not be able to prove that those who heal or foretell are good, since many are said to be healed who are unworthy to live, whom not even a wise doctor would have wished to heal, since they live improperly. And in the oracles of the Pythian god you would find some commands that are not reasonable. I will cite two of them for the present. He ordered Cleomedes, the boxer I think, to be honored with honors equal to the gods, seeing I know not what dignity in his boxing; yet he did not honor Pythagoras or Socrates with the honors of the boxer. And by calling Archilochus “servant of the Muses,” a man who displayed his poetic art on the lowest and most sexually uncontrolled subjects and showed a sexually uncontrolled and impure character, he proclaimed him pious, insofar as he was a “servant of the Muses,” who are considered goddesses. I doubt whether even an ordinary person would say that the pious man is not adorned with every moderation and virtue, and whether a decent man would say the kind of things the undignified iambics of Archilochus contain. If nothing divine is shown in itself by the healing of Asclepius and the divination of Apollo, how could anyone reasonably, even granting these things are so, worship them as gods who are pure? Especially when, through the Pythian cavern, the prophetic spirit, Apollo, the one who is free from an earthly body, enters the so-called prophetess seated over it through her genitals. We hold nothing of this kind about Jesus and his power. For the body born of the virgin was composed of human matter, capable of human wounds and death.

Let us see also what Celsus says next, citing from histories marvels that seem incredible in themselves but are not disbelieved by him, as far as his words go. First, the story of Aristeas of Proconnesus, about whom he says this: “Then Aristeas of Proconnesus, who vanished from among men in so divine a way and appeared again clearly, and many years later visited many parts of the world and reported wonderful things, and whom Apollo commanded the Metapontines to count among the gods: this man no one any longer considers a god.” He seems to have taken the story from Pindar and Herodotus. It is enough now to cite Herodotus's words from the fourth book of his Histories, which read as follows about him: “I have said where Aristeas, who said these things, came from; I will now tell the story I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, who was inferior in birth to none of the citizens, went into a cloth cleaner’s shop in Proconnesus and died; and the cloth cleaner locked the workshop and went to tell the dead man's relatives. When the report had already spread through the city that Aristeas was dead, a man of Cyzicus who had come from the town of Artace disputed with those who said so, declaring that he had met him going toward Cyzicus and spoken with him. While he was vehemently disputing, the dead man's relatives came to the cloth cleaner’s shop with what was needed to take up the body; but when the building was opened, Aristeas was seen neither alive nor dead. In the seventh year afterward he appeared in Proconnesus and composed those verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea, and having composed them he vanished a second time. So these cities say; but I know that this happened to the Metapontines in Italy two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I found by calculating in Proconnesus and Metapontum. The Metapontines say that Aristeas himself appeared in their country and commanded them to set up an altar to Apollo and to set beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus; for he said that Apollo had come to their country alone of the Italiots, and that he, who was now Aristeas, had followed him; but then, when he followed the god, he was a raven. Having said this he vanished; and the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi and asked the god what the apparition of the man might be. The Pythia told them to obey the apparition, saying that if they obeyed it would be better for them. They accepted this and carried it out. And now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas stands beside the image of Apollo itself, with laurels around it; and the image is set up in the marketplace. Let this much be said about Aristeas.”

It must be said about the story of Aristeas that, if Celsus had set it out as a story, without showing his own assent by accepting it as true, we would have answered his argument differently. But since he says that Aristeas vanished in a divine way and appeared again clearly, visited many parts of the world, and reported wonderful things, and further sets out the oracle of Apollo commanding the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods, as on his own account and assenting to it, [here is] our reply to him: “How is it that you suppose the marvels recorded about Jesus by his disciples to be altogether fictions, and blame those who believe them, while you think these to be neither peddling marvels nor fictions? And how is it that you, who accuse others of believing the marvels about Jesus irrationally, show that you have believed so many things, bringing no proof or argument that they happened? Are Herodotus and Pindar thought by you not to lie, while those who practiced dying for Jesus' teachings and left such writings to their successors about what they were persuaded of, contend so hard, as you think, for fictions, myths, and peddling marvels, as to live in distress and die violently for them? Place yourself, then, between what is written about Aristeas and what is related about Jesus, and see whether, from the outcome and from those helped toward the correction of their morals and reverence for the God over all, it can be said that we must believe the accounts about Jesus as having happened not without God, but not those about Aristeas of Proconnesus.”

For what purpose did providence bring about the marvels concerning Aristeas, and what did it wish to benefit the human race by displaying such great things, as you think? You cannot say. But we, when we relate what concerns Jesus, bring no ordinary defense of these things having happened: that God wished to establish the word through Jesus as saving for humanity, made firm on the apostles as on the foundations of the building of Christianity that was being laid, and growing also in the times that followed, in which many healings are performed in the name of Jesus, and certain other manifestations that should not be dismissed. And what sort of being is Apollo, commanding the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods? For what purpose does he do this, and what benefit does he arrange for the Metapontines from the honor paid to him as a god, if they should reckon a man of a little while ago as now a god? But the recommendations about Aristeas by Apollo, who in our view is a demon that has obtained the privilege “of drink offerings and the aroma of sacrifice,” seem to you worthy of note; while those of the God over all and his holy angels, proclaimed through prophets not after Jesus came but before he came to dwell in human life, do not move you to admire both the prophets who received a divine Spirit and the one prophesied by them? His coming into the world was proclaimed so many years before by so many that the whole Jewish nation, hanging on the expectation of the one hoped to come, came to dispute among themselves when Jesus came; and a great multitude of them confessed Christ and believed him to be the one prophesied, while those who did not believe, despising the gentleness of those who, because of Jesus' teachings, would not rebel even in the least, dared such things against Jesus as his disciples truthfully and fairly recorded, not stealing away from his marvelous story what seems to most to bring shame on the Christian teaching. For Jesus himself and his disciples wished those who came to them to believe not only in his divinity and his marvels, as if he had not shared in human nature or taken the flesh that among human beings desires “against the Spirit”; but they saw that the power which came down into human nature and human circumstances, and took a human soul and body, contributes, by being believed together with the more divine things, to the salvation of believers. For they see that from him the divine and human natures began to be woven together, so that the human, by communion with what is more divine, might become divine, not in Jesus alone but also in all who with faith take up the life Jesus taught, which leads to friendship and communion with God everyone who lives according to Jesus’ instructions.

Celsus's Apollo, then, wishes the Metapontines to count Aristeas among the gods. But since the Metapontines thought the evidence about Aristeas, a man and perhaps not a good one, stronger than the oracle about him as a god or worthy of divine honors, they would not obey Apollo, and so no one considers Aristeas a god. About Jesus we would say: since it was beneficial to the human race to accept him as the Son of God, God come in a human soul and body, and this did not seem advantageous to the gluttony of the body-loving demons and of those who consider them gods, therefore the demons on earth, thought to be gods by those not instructed about demons, and also those who serve them, wished to prevent the spread of Jesus' teaching; for they saw the drink offerings and the aroma of sacrifice, in which they greedily delighted, being done away with as Jesus' teachings prevailed. But the God who sent Jesus, undoing every plot of the demons, made the gospel of Jesus prevail everywhere in the world for the conversion and correction of humanity, and made churches arise everywhere, living as rival communities to the assemblies of the superstitious, sexually uncontrolled, and unjust; for such are the multitudes that everywhere take part in the assemblies of the cities. But the churches of God, made disciples by Christ, when compared with the assemblies of the peoples among whom they live as temporary residents, are “as lights in the world.” For who would not acknowledge that even the worse members of the church, who are much inferior compared with the better, are far superior to the assemblies of the peoples?

For the church of God, say, at Athens is gentle and orderly, since it wishes to please the God over all; but the assembly of the Athenians is divided by factions and in no way comparable with the church of God there. You will say the same about the church of God at Corinth and the assembly of the people of Corinth, and, say, about the church of God at Alexandria and the assembly of the people of Alexandria. And if one who hears this is fair-minded and examines things with love of truth, he will marvel at the one who both planned and was able to establish everywhere churches of God, living as temporary residents beside the assemblies of the peoples in each city. So too, comparing the council of the church of God with the council in each city, you would find that some council members of the church are worthy, if there is a city of God anywhere in the universe, to be citizens of it, while the council members everywhere else display in their characters nothing worthy of the preeminence of rank by which they seem to surpass their fellow citizens. So too the ruler of the church in each city should be compared with the ruler of those in the city, so that you may perceive that even among the council members and rulers of the church of God who fall far short and live more carelessly than the more vigorous, one can nonetheless generally find a superiority in progress toward the virtues compared with the characters of the council members and rulers in the cities.

If this is so, how is it not reasonable to think of Jesus, who was able to establish so much, that no ordinary divinity was in him, but not so in Aristeas of Proconnesus, even if Apollo wishes to count him among the gods, nor in those Celsus lists when he says that “no one considers a god Abaris the Hyperborean, who had such power that he was carried along on an arrow”? For with what purpose did the divinity that granted Abaris the Hyperborean to be carried on an arrow give so great a gift on him? So that the human race might be benefited in some way? Or what did he himself gain from being carried on an arrow? This even granting that these things are not fictions at all but happened through some cooperation of a spirit. But if my Jesus is said to have been taken up “in glory,” I see the divine plan: the God who brought this about commended the teacher to those who saw it, so that, contending not for human lessons but for divine teaching, they might dedicate themselves as far as possible to the God over all and do everything to please him, as those who will receive in the divine court according to what they deserve what they have done well or badly in this life.

Since after this Celsus also spoke of the man of Clazomenae, adding to the story about him: “Do they not say this, that his soul often left his body and roamed about bodiless? Yet people did not consider him a god either,” we will say to this that perhaps some wicked demons arranged for such things to be written (for I do not believe they arranged for them to happen too), so that what was prophesied about Jesus and said by him might either be slandered as fictions like those, or, as having nothing more than others, not be greatly admired. My Jesus said about his own soul, which was separated from the body not by human necessity but by the marvelous authority given him in this too: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” For since he had “authority to lay it down,” he laid it down when he said, “Father, why have you abandoned me?”, and, “crying with a loud voice, gave up his spirit,” anticipating the executioners of the crucified, who break the legs of those crucified, and break them so that they may not suffer punishment any longer. And he took “his life” again when he showed himself to the disciples, having foretold it in their presence to the Jews who disbelieved him: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And “he spoke this of the temple of his body”; the prophets too having proclaimed this in many places, including: “Moreover my flesh also will dwell in hope; for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.”

Celsus showed that he had read quite a few Greek histories when he cited the story of Cleomedes of Astypalaea, who, he related, went into a chest and, though shut up inside it, was not found inside, but by some divine fate had flown out, when some people broke open the chest to seize him. If this is a fiction, as it seems to be, it is not comparable with what concerns Jesus. For no token of their reported divinity is found in human life, whereas for Jesus there are the churches of those who have been helped, the prophecies spoken about him, the healings done in his name, and the knowledge and word with wisdom concerning him found among those who have taken care to rise above bare faith and search out the meaning in the divine Scriptures, according to the instructions of Jesus, who said, “Search the Scriptures,” and according to the intent of Paul, who taught that we must “know how to answer each one” as is fitting, and also of the one who said: “Always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the faith that is in you.” But if he wishes it to be granted that it is not a fiction, let him say for what purpose the superhuman power made him fly out of the chest by some divine fate. If he presents something worthy of note and a purpose worthy of God that bestowed such a thing on Cleomedes, we will decide what to say to him. But if he is at a loss to say anything even plausible on the matter, clearly, since no reason is found, we will either disparage the story to those who have not accepted it and charge it with being untrue, or we will say that some spirit did something to the man of Astypalaea like what sorcerers show by deceiving the eyes; Celsus thinks that an oracle declared of him that by some divine fate he flew out of the chest.

I think these were the only ones Celsus knew; and so as to seem to have deliberately left out similar cases, he said, “And one could name many others of this kind.” Suppose it granted that there were many more of this kind, who did the human race no good: what would each of them be found to be compared with the work of Jesus and the marvels about him, of which we have spoken at length? After this he thinks we have done something similar in worshiping one who, as Celsus says, “was taken and died,” to the Getae who revere Zamolxis, the Cilicians Mopsus, the Acarnanians Amphilochus, the Thebans Amphiaraus, and the Lebadeans Trophonius. Here too we will show that he has not reasonably likened us to those mentioned. For they built temples and statues to those listed, whereas we have removed from the divine the honor paid through such things (as more suited to spirits, who are somehow established in a certain place, which they either seize beforehand or, drawn by certain rites and charms, as it were inhabit), and we are amazed at Jesus, who transferred our minds from everything perceptible, as not only perishable but destined to perish, and leads them up to the honor paid, with an upright life, to the God over all, with prayers which we offer to him through Jesus, as one who is between uncreated nature and the nature of all created things, who brings us the benefits from the Father and, like a high priest, conveys our prayers to the God over all.

I would like to talk, as suits him, with one who, I know not how, says such things, in this way: “Are these beings you listed nothing at all, and is there no power at Lebadea in Trophonius, or at Thebes around the temple of Amphiaraus, or in Acarnania around Amphilochus, or in Cilicia around Mopsus? Or is there in such places some being, whether a spirit or a hero or even a god, working things greater than human?” If he says that there is nothing else, neither spiritual nor divine, about them, let him admit his opinion at least now, that he is an Epicurean who does not think the same as the Greeks, who neither recognizes spirits nor worships gods as the Greeks do; and let him be convicted of having brought forward in vain both what was said before, as if he accepted it as true, and what he adds later. But if he says that those listed are spirits or heroes or even gods, let him see that by what he has said he will establish what he does not wish, that Jesus too was something of this kind; which is why he was able to convince many people that he had come from God to the human race. And once he accepts this, see whether he will not be forced to say that he is more powerful than those with whom he has counted him. For none of them forbids honors to the others, but this one, confident that he is more powerful than all of them, forbids their acceptance, as of wicked demons who have seized places on earth, since they cannot reach the purer and more divine region, where the coarseness of the earth and its countless evils does not reach.

Since after this he thinks that what concerns Hadrian's favorite (I mean the youth Antinous and the honors paid him by the people of Antinoopolis in Egypt) falls in no way short of our honor for Jesus, come, let us refute this too as spoken out of hostility. For what has the life of Hadrian's favorite, who did not keep even his manhood free from the disease of effeminacy, in common with our dignified Jesus, against whom not even those who brought countless accusations and told so many lies could allege that he tasted even the least sexual excess, even for a little while? If one examines the case of Antinous truthfully and impartially, one would find that Egyptian sorceries and rites are the causes of his seeming to do something at Antinoopolis even after his death. The same is related by the Egyptians, and by those skilled in such things, of other temples: they establish in certain places demons that give oracles or heal, and often also torment those thought to have violated the rules about common foods or about touching a dead human body, so that they may seem to frighten the ignorant multitude. Such also is the one thought to be a god at Antinoopolis in Egypt, whose powers some who live rather like gamblers falsely proclaim, while others are deceived by the daemon established there, and others, convicted by a weak conscience, think they are paying a god-sent penalty from Antinous. Such are also their mysteries performed and their supposed oracles, from which the things of Jesus are very far removed. For it was not sorcerers meeting together, doing a favor to some king who ordered it or a governor who commanded it, who seemed to have made him a god; but the Creator of the universe himself, in keeping with the marvelously persuasive power of his speaking, commended him as worthy of honor not only to human beings who wish to think rightly but also to demons and other invisible powers, which to this day show that they either fear the name of Jesus as stronger, or reverently accept him as their lawful ruler. For if his commendation had not been given him by God, demons would not yield and withdraw from those they were attacking at the mere pronouncing of his name.

The Egyptians, then, taught to worship Antinous, will tolerate it if you compare Apollo or Zeus with him, exalting Antinous by counting him with them; for here too Celsus plainly lies when he says, “Even if you compare Apollo or Zeus with him, they will not tolerate it.” But Christians, who have learned that eternal life for them is to know “the only true God” over all “and Jesus Christ whom” he “has sent,” and have learned that “all the gods of the nations are demons,” gluttonous, rolling about sacrifices, blood, and the portions from the sacrifices, to deceive those who have not fled for refuge to the God over all, while the divine and holy angels of God are of another nature and will than all the demons on earth, and that these are known to very few who have inquired into such matters intelligently and carefully: Christians will not tolerate it if you compare Apollo and Zeus, or any of those worshiped with the aroma of sacrifice, blood, and offerings. Some do so from great simplicity, not knowing how to give an account of what they do, but faithfully keeping what they have received; others with arguments not to be despised, deeper, and, as a Greek might say, esoteric and belonging to the higher initiation, in which there is much teaching about God and about those honored by God, through the only-begotten God the Word, with a share in divinity and therefore also in the name. There is much teaching too about the divine angels and about those who oppose the truth, who have been deceived and out of deception proclaim themselves gods, or angels of God, or good spirits, or heroes formed by a good transformation of a human soul. Such Christians [can show] that, just as many in philosophy think they are in the truth, either deceiving themselves with plausible arguments or rashly assenting to those offered and devised by others, so also among souls outside bodies, angels, and spirits there are some who have been drawn by plausibilities to proclaim themselves gods. And because such matters cannot be found out with perfect exactness among human beings, it was considered safe that no one, being a man, should entrust himself to anyone as to God except to Jesus Christ alone, who is, as it were, the arbiter over all, and who contemplated these things most deeply and handed them on to a few.

Faith concerning Antinous, or any other such figure, whether among Egyptians or Greeks, is, if I may so call it, an unlucky faith; but faith concerning Jesus would seem either lucky or thoroughly examined: lucky among the many, thoroughly examined among very few. And if I say that a certain faith is, as the many would call it, lucky, in this too I refer the matter to God, who knows the causes of what is allotted to each who comes into human life. The Greeks too will say that even among those considered wisest, good fortune is in many respects the cause, for example regarding what teachers one had and falling in with the better ones, when there are also those who teach opposite doctrines, and regarding upbringing among better people. For many have had an upbringing in such circumstances that they were not allowed even to form an impression of better things, but always, from earliest youth, were either the favorites of sexually uncontrolled men or masters, or in some other misery that prevented the soul from looking up. The causes of these things are surely to be found in the reasons of providence, but they are not easily grasped by human beings. It seemed good to me to say this in a digression, because of how much a faith, of whatever kind, does when it takes hold first. For one had to say that differences in people's faiths arise from different upbringings, as they believe more or less fortunately; and from this to rise to the point that what is called good fortune and what is called misfortune would seem to contribute even for the more accomplished to their seeming more rational and to their more rationally adhering to most doctrines. But enough of this.

We must consider what Celsus says next, in which he says that faith, having taken possession of our soul beforehand, produces in us such assent concerning Jesus. It is true that faith produces such assent in us; but see whether faith itself does not immediately show what is praiseworthy, when we entrust ourselves to the God over all, giving thanks to the one who guides us to such faith and saying that he did not dare and accomplish so great a thing without God. And we trust also the intentions of those who wrote the Gospels, judging from their piety and conscience, which show in their writings, which have nothing false, deceitful, fabricated, or crafty. For it is evident to us that souls which had not learned such things as are taught by the crafty sophistry among the Greeks, with its great plausibility and sharpness, and by the rhetoric that rolls about the law courts, could not have invented things able of themselves to lead to faith and to a life in keeping with that faith. I think that Jesus wished to use such men as teachers of his doctrine for this reason: so that no suspicion of plausible sophisms should have any room, but it should be brilliantly evident to those able to understand that the guilelessness of the writers' intention, which had much, so to speak, simplicity, was deemed worthy of a more divine power, which achieves much more than elaborate speech, composition of phrases, and a chain of argument with divisions and Greek technical rules seem able to achieve.

See whether the teachings of our faith, agreeing from the beginning with the common notions, do not change those who hear what is said with good will. For even if perversion, aided by much instruction, has been able to implant in the many the doctrine that images are gods, and that things made of gold, silver, ivory, and stone are worthy of worship, yet the common notion requires one to think that God is in no way perishable matter, and is not honored when shaped by human beings in lifeless materials made as his “image” or certain symbols of him. Therefore it is said immediately of images “that they are not gods,” and of such works of craftsmen that they are not comparable with the Creator; and a little is said about the God over all, who created, holds together, and governs the universe. And immediately, as if recognizing its kin, the rational soul casts away what it formerly thought to be gods and takes up a natural love for its Creator; and because of this love for him it welcomes all the more the one who first presented these things to all the nations through the disciples he trained, whom he sent out with divine power and authority to proclaim the word about God and his kingdom.

Since he accuses us, I no longer know how many times, concerning Jesus, that we consider one who was of a mortal body to be God and think that in this we act piously, it is unnecessary to say anything more in reply, for more has been said above. Nevertheless, let those who accuse us know this: the one whom we consider and are persuaded to be from the beginning God and Son of God is the very Word, the very Wisdom, and the very Truth; but his mortal body and the human soul in him, we say, received the greatest gifts not only by communion with him but also by union and blending, and, having shared in his divinity, were changed into God. And if anyone takes offense that we say these things also about his body, let him consider what the Greeks say about matter, which by its own nature is without qualities and is clothed with such qualities as the Creator wishes to put around it, and which often lays aside its former qualities and takes on better and different ones. For if such teachings are sound, what wonder is it that the quality of mortality in the body of Jesus, by the providence of God who so willed, should have been changed into an ethereal and divine quality?

Celsus did not speak like a skilled dialectician, then, when he compared the human flesh of Jesus with gold, silver, and stone and said that it is more perishable than they. For in strict reasoning, neither is an imperishable thing more imperishable than another imperishable thing, nor a perishable thing more perishable than another perishable thing. But even if it is more perishable, we will still say this in reply: if the matter that underlies all qualities can exchange its qualities, how is it not possible that the flesh of Jesus too, having exchanged its qualities, became such as it had to be to dwell in the ether and the places above it, no longer having the properties of fleshly weakness and those which Celsus called “more defiled”? Nor was he acting as a philosopher in this; for what is properly defiled is such because of vice, and the nature of a body is not defiled; for insofar as it is the nature of a body, it does not have vice, which is what generates defilement. Then, since he suspected our defense concerning the change of his body, he says: “But when he has laid these aside, then he will be a god? Why not rather Asclepius, Dionysus, and Heracles?” We will say: What so great a thing did Asclepius or Dionysus or Heracles accomplish? And whom will they be able to show improved in character and made better by their words and life, so that they should become gods? For after reading the many stories about them, let us see whether they were free from sexual excess, injustice, folly, or cowardice. And if nothing of the sort were found in them, Celsus's argument, which puts those just named on a level with Jesus, would be strong. But if it is clear that, even if some rather good things are reported of them, they are recorded to have done countless things contrary to right reason, how can you still reasonably say that they, rather than Jesus, became gods by laying aside the mortal body?

After this he says of us that we laugh at those who worship Zeus because his tomb is shown in Crete, and yet we revere no less the one from the tomb, “not knowing how and in what sense the Cretans do such a thing.” Notice, then, that in these words he defends the Cretans, Zeus, and his tomb, hinting at figurative meanings according to which the myth about Zeus is said to have been fashioned; but he accuses us, who acknowledge that our Jesus was buried but declare that he also was raised from the tomb, which the Cretans do not go on to relate about Zeus. And since he seems to speak up for the tomb of Zeus in Crete when he says, “not knowing how and in what sense the Cretans do this,” we will say that even Callimachus of Cyrene, who read a great many poems and gathered up nearly all Greek history, knows no figurative interpretation in what is said about Zeus and his tomb. That is why he accuses the Cretans in the hymn he wrote to Zeus, saying: “Cretans are always liars; for the Cretans even built a tomb, lord, for you; but you did not die, for you are forever.” And he who said, “you did not die, for you are forever,” while denying the burial of Zeus in Crete, relates that the beginning of death happened to Zeus; for the beginning of death is birth on earth. He says this: “And in Parrhasia Rhea bore you, having had sex.” But he should have seen, since he denied the birth of Zeus in Crete because of his tomb, that from his birth in Arcadia it followed that the one who was born also died. Callimachus says such things about these matters too: “Zeus, some say you were born on the Idaean mountains, Zeus, others in Arcadia; which of them, father, lied? Cretans are always liars,” and so on. Celsus has led us into these things by being unfair about Jesus, agreeing with what is written, that he died and was buried, but thinking it a fiction that he also rose from the dead, and that although countless prophets foretold this too, and there are many signs of his appearance after death.

Then next Celsus, bringing forward what is said, contrary to the teaching of Jesus, by very few who are considered Christians (not, as he thinks, the more intelligent, but the most ignorant), says that commands like these are given by them: “Let no one educated approach, no one wise, no one sensible; for these things are thought evil among us. But if anyone is ignorant, if anyone is foolish, if anyone is uneducated, if anyone is a child, let him come with confidence.” “For by acknowledging outright that such people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to persuade only the simple-minded, the lowborn, the dull, slaves, silly women, and little children.” To this too we say: just as, if someone, while Jesus teaches about chastity and says, “Whoever looks at a woman so as to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” were to see a few out of so many who are considered Christians living in sexual excess, he would very reasonably accuse them of living contrary to the teaching of Jesus, but would act most unreasonably if he attached the charge against them to the teaching itself; so, if the Christians' teaching is found to invite people to wisdom as much as any, the blame will belong to those who defend their own ignorance and say, not what Celsus recorded (for even if some are uneducated and ignorant, they do not speak so shamelessly), but other things much less serious, which yet turn people away from the pursuit of wisdom.

That the teaching wants us to be wise must be shown both from the ancient Jewish writings, which we too use, and no less from those written after Jesus and believed in the churches to be divine. It is written in the 50th psalm that David, in his prayer to God, says: “The unseen and hidden things of your wisdom you have made known to me.” And anyone who reads the psalms will find the book full of many wise doctrines. And Solomon, since he asked for wisdom, was approved; and the traces of his wisdom can be seen in his writings, which express great understanding in few words; in them you would find many praises of wisdom and exhortations to the need to take up wisdom. And so wise was Solomon that the queen of Sheba, having heard “his name” “and the name of the Lord,” came “to test him with riddles.” She “also spoke to him all that was in her heart. And Solomon answered all her questions; nothing escaped the king that he could not explain to her. And the queen of Sheba saw all the understanding of Solomon” and the things belonging to him, “and she was beside herself. And she said to the king: The report is true which I heard in my land about you and about your understanding; and I did not believe those who told me until I came and my eyes have seen; and look, not even half was reported to me. You have added wisdom and good things to them beyond all the report which I heard.” And it is written about him that “the Lord gave understanding to Solomon and very great wisdom, and breadth of heart like the sand by the sea. And wisdom was multiplied in Solomon greatly, beyond the understanding of all the ancients and beyond all the wise men of Egypt. And he was wiser than all men, and he was wiser than Gethan the Ezrahite, and Emad, and Chalcadi, and Arada, sons of Mad; and he was renowned among all the nations all around. And Solomon spoke three thousand parables, and his songs were five thousand. And he spoke about trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that comes out through the wall. And he spoke about fish and cattle; and all the peoples came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who heard of his wisdom.” So much does the teaching want there to be wise men among believers that, to exercise the understanding of the hearers, it has spoken some things in riddles, some in what are called dark sayings, some through parables, and others through problems. And one of the prophets, Hosea, says at the end of his words: “Who is wise, and will understand these things? Or intelligent, and will know them?” And Daniel and those taken captive with him made such progress even in the studies which the wise men around the king practiced in Babylon that they were shown to surpass them all “tenfold.” And in Ezekiel it is said to the ruler of Tyre, who was proud of his wisdom: “Are you wiser than Daniel? Has no secret been shown to you?”

And if you come also to the books written after Jesus, you would find that the crowds of believers hear the parables as being outside and worthy only of the outward words, but the disciples learn privately the explanations of the parables; for “privately” Jesus “explained everything to his own disciples,” honoring above the crowds those who laid claim to his wisdom. And he promises to send to those who believe in him “wise men and scribes,” saying: “Look, I will send you wise men and scribes, and some of them they will kill and crucify.” And Paul, in the list of the gifts given by God, placed first the word of wisdom, and second, as inferior to it, the word of knowledge, and third, somewhere lower, faith. And since he valued the word above miraculous workings, he therefore puts “workings of powers” and “gifts of healings” in a lower place than the gifts of speech. And Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles bears witness to Moses' great learning, surely taking it from ancient writings that had not reached many; for he says: “And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” For this reason he was even suspected in his miracles of doing them, perhaps, not, as he professed, by coming from God, but by the learning of the Egyptians, being wise in it. For the king, suspecting such things about him, called the enchanters of the Egyptians, the sophists, and the sorcerers, who were proved to be nothing compared with the wisdom in Moses, which surpassed all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

But it is likely that what Paul wrote in the first letter to the Corinthians, as to Greeks greatly puffed up with Greek wisdom, has moved some to think that the teaching does not want wise men. But let whoever thinks such things hear this: just as the teaching, when it criticizes bad people, says that they are wise not about intelligible, invisible, and eternal things, but, occupied only with things of sense and placing everything in them, are wise men of the world; so also, since there are many doctrines, those which speak for matter and bodies and say that all things that fundamentally exist are bodies and that there is nothing else besides them, whether called invisible or named incorporeal, it calls “wisdom of the world,” which is being brought to nothing and made foolish, and wisdom of this age; but those which transfer the soul from the affairs of this world to the blessedness with God and to what is called his kingdom, and which teach to despise all things of sense and sight as temporary and to hasten to the invisible things and to look at the things that are not seen, these it calls the “wisdom of God.” And Paul, as a lover of truth, says of certain wise men among the Greeks, in the things in which they speak truly, “that, knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks.” And he bears them witness that they knew God; and he says too that this did not come to them without God, where he writes, “For God has shown it to them,” hinting, I think, at those who ascend from visible things to intelligible ones when he writes that “the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse; because, knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks.”

Perhaps also from the words, “For consider your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many well-born; but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the lowborn and despised things, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before him,” some have been moved to think that no educated or wise or sensible person comes to the teaching. To such a person too we will say that it is not said that no one is wise “according to the flesh,” but “not many are wise according to the flesh.” And it is clear that when Paul, in the characteristic description of those called bishops, sets out what sort of person the bishop must be, he also laid down that he be a teacher, saying that he must be able “also to refute those who contradict,” so that he may stop the mouths of empty talkers and deceivers by the wisdom in him. And just as he chooses for the office of bishop one married once rather than one married twice, and one “above reproach” rather than one open to reproach, and one “sober” rather than one who is not, and “self-controlled” rather than one not self-controlled, and “orderly” rather than one even slightly disorderly, so he wants the one who is to be appointed primarily to the office of bishop to be able to teach and able “to refute those who contradict.” How then does Celsus reasonably accuse us as saying, “Let no one educated approach, no one wise, no one sensible”? No: let the educated, wise, and sensible man approach, whoever wishes; but no less let anyone approach who is ignorant, foolish, uneducated, and a child. For the teaching promises to heal such people too when they come, making them all worthy of God.

It is also false that those who teach the divine word want to persuade only the simple-minded, the lowborn, the dull, slaves, silly women, and little children. The word does call these, in order to make them better; but it calls also those who far surpass them, since Christ is “the Savior of all men,” and “especially of believers,” whether intelligent or simpler, and he is “the propitiation” “with the Father” “for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.” It is unnecessary, then, for us after this to want to answer Celsus's words, which run: “For what evil is there otherwise in being educated, and in having studied the best teachings, and in being and appearing sensible? What hindrance is this to knowing God? Is it not rather an advantage, and something by which one might better be able to attain the truth?” Now, to be truly educated is not evil, for education is a road to virtue; but not even the wise men of the Greeks will say that those who hold erroneous doctrines should be counted among the educated. And again, who would not agree that to have studied the best teachings is good? But which should we call the best teachings, if not those that are true and exhort to virtue? And to be sensible is also good, but no longer to appear so, which Celsus said. And being educated, having studied the best teachings, and being sensible do not hinder the knowledge of God, but even help it. And it is fitting for us to say this more than Celsus, especially if he is shown to be an Epicurean.

Let us see also his next words, which run: “But we see, surely, that those in the marketplaces who put on the most disreputable shows and go about collecting money would never come forward into a gathering of sensible men, nor dare to display their tricks among them; but wherever they see adolescents and a crowd of house-slaves and a throng of foolish people, there they push themselves in and show off.” See how in these words too he slanders us, likening us to those who put on the most disreputable shows in the marketplaces and collect money. What disreputable things, then, do we display? Or what do we do that resembles them, we who, both through readings and through explanations of the readings, exhort people to piety toward the God of the universe and to the virtues enthroned with it, and turn them away from despising the divine and from all things done contrary to right reason? Philosophers too would pray to gather so many hearers of words that summon them to the good; which some of the Cynics in particular have done, conversing in public with whoever happened by. Will they then say that these men too, who do not assemble those thought to be educated but call hearers from the crossroads and gather them, are like those who put on the most disreputable shows in the marketplaces and collect money? But neither Celsus nor anyone of the same mind accuses those who, from what seems to them love of humanity, address their words even to the common people.

But if those men are not blameworthy for doing this, let us see whether Christians do not summon the multitudes to nobility of character even more, and better, than they. For the philosophers who converse in public do not sort their hearers; whoever wishes stands and listens. But Christians, as far as they can, first test the souls of those who want to hear them and first instruct them privately; and when the hearers, before entering the community, seem to have made sufficient progress in the will to live well, then they bring them in, forming one order apart of those just beginning and being introduced who have not yet received the sign of having been purified, and another of those who, as far as they can, have shown that their purpose is to want nothing other than what Christians approve. Among them some are appointed to inquire into the lives and conduct of those who come, so as to prevent those who do disreputable things from coming to their common assembly, but to welcome with all their soul those who are not such and make them better day by day. And such is their discipline toward sinners, and especially the sexually uncontrolled, whom they drive out of the community, these people whom Celsus likens to those who put on the most disreputable shows in the marketplaces! The revered school of the Pythagoreans used to build cenotaphs for those who had abandoned their philosophy, counting them as dead; but these mourn as dead those overcome by sexual excess or some other outrage, as lost and dead to God. And if they show a notable change, they receive them again later, as risen from the dead, after a longer time than those who are first being introduced; but they do not enroll in any office or leadership of what is called the church of God those who, after coming to the word, have fallen.

See then, after this, whether what Celsus says, “We see, surely, that those in the marketplaces who put on the most disreputable shows and go about collecting money,” is not stated outright falsely and compared unfairly. These people to whom Celsus likens us, those who put on the most disreputable shows in the marketplaces and collect money, he says would never come forward into a gathering of sensible men, nor dare to display their tricks among them, but wherever they see adolescents and a crowd of house-slaves and a throng of foolish people, there they push themselves in and show off. In this he does nothing but insult us, like women at the crossroads whose aim is to speak ill of one another. For we do everything in our power to make our gathering one of sensible men, and we dare to bring forward in our public discourses the most beautiful and divine things among us when we have a good supply of intelligent hearers; but we conceal and pass over in silence the deeper things when we see that those who come together are simpler and need the teachings figuratively called “milk.”

For it is written in our Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who were Greeks but not yet purified in their character: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not yet able; for you are still fleshly. For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and walking in a merely human way?” And this same man, knowing that some things are food for a more mature soul, and that the teachings of beginners are compared to the milk of infants, says: “And you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who drinks milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant; but solid food is for the mature, who by habit have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil.” Would those who believe these words to be well spoken suppose, then, that the beautiful things of the word would never be spoken in a gathering of sensible men, but that wherever they see adolescents and a crowd of house-slaves and a throng of foolish people, there they bring forward the divine and holy things and show off about them before such people? But it is clear to anyone who examines the whole intention of our writings that Celsus, hating the Christian race like the common crowd, says such things without examination and falsely.

We admit that we want to educate all people with the word of God, even if Celsus does not wish it, so that we give adolescents the exhortation suited to them and show house-slaves how, taking on a free spirit, they may be ennobled by the word. And those among us who are ambassadors of Christianity say plainly that they are debtors “to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish”; for they do not deny that the souls even of the foolish must be healed, so that, laying aside their ignorance as far as possible, they may hasten toward greater understanding, hearing Solomon too when he says, “And you foolish, gain understanding,” and, “Whoever of you is most foolish, let him turn aside to me; and to those lacking sense I give command,” says Wisdom: “Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have mixed for you; leave folly, that you may live, and direct understanding in knowledge.” I would also say this, because of what lies before us in Celsus's discourse: Do not those who practice philosophy invite adolescents to hear them? And do they not exhort young men from the worst life to better things? And why do they not want house-slaves to practice philosophy? Or are we too going to accuse philosophers who exhorted house-slaves to virtue: Pythagoras teaching Zamolxis; Zeno teaching Persaeus; and, just the other day, those who exhorted Epictetus to philosophy? Or is it permitted to you, Greeks, to call adolescents, house-slaves, and foolish people to philosophy, but when we do this, are we not acting from love of humanity, wanting to heal every rational nature with the medicine of the word and to bring it into fellowship with God who created all things? These things, then, are enough against Celsus’s insults, rather than accusations.

But since, delighting in his discourse of abuse against us, he has added other things too, come, let us set these out also and see whether Christians behave disgracefully or Celsus in what he says. He says: “We see also in private houses wool workers, shoemakers, cloth cleaners, and the most uneducated and boorish people, who do not dare to utter a word in front of their elders and more sensible masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and some foolish women with them, they tell marvelous things: that they must not pay attention to their father and their teachers but must obey them; that those others talk nonsense and are senseless, and neither know nor can do anything truly good, being preoccupied with empty chatter; but that they alone know how one ought to live, and if the children obey them they will be happy and will make the household prosperous. And while they are speaking, if they see one of the schoolteachers coming by, or one of the more sensible people, or even the father himself, the more cautious of them run off in fright, but the bolder urge the children to break loose, whispering such things as that while the father and the teachers are present they will not want, nor be able, to explain anything good to the children, since they turn away from their stupidity and coarseness, who are utterly corrupt and far gone in wickedness and would punish them; but if they wish, they must leave their father and their teachers and go with the women and their little playmates into the women's quarters, or the shoemaker’s shop, or the cloth cleaner’s shop, so that they may receive perfection. And by saying these things they persuade them.”

See, then, in these words too, how he disparages those among us who teach the word and try in every way to raise the soul to the Creator of the universe, showing that we must despise all things of sense, temporary and visible, and do everything to attain communion with God and the contemplation of intelligible and invisible things, and a blessed life with God and with those who belong to God; he compares them to wool workers in houses, shoemakers, cloth cleaners, and the most boorish of men, who summon mere infant children and silly women to base things, so that they may leave father and teachers and follow them. From what sober-minded father, or from what teachers who teach more holy things, do we draw away children and women? Let Celsus show it, and let him compare, in the case of the children and women who come to our teaching, whether any of the teachings they heard were better than ours, and in what way we draw children and women away from beautiful and holy studies and summon them to worse. But he will not be able to show such a thing against us. On the contrary, we draw women away from sexual excess and from the perversion that comes from their companions, and from all mania for the theater and for dancing, and from superstition; and we bring to self-control boys just reaching puberty and swelling with sexual desires, setting before them not only the shamefulness of such sins but also the state in which the soul of the wicked will be because of such things, what penalties it will pay, and how it will be punished.

And which teachers do we say talk nonsense and are senseless, those on whose behalf Celsus stands up as teaching better things? Unless, perhaps, he thinks good teachers of women, and not talkers of nonsense, to be those who summon them to superstition and sexually indecent spectacles, and not senseless those who lead and drive the young into all the disorderly things we know are done by them in many places. We, for our part, summon as far as we can even those from philosophical schools to our worship of God, showing its excellence and purity. But since Celsus by his words has represented that we do not do this but call only the foolish, we would say to him: If you accused us of drawing away from philosophy those already engaged in it, you would not be speaking the truth, but your argument would have some plausibility. But as it is, since you say that we draw those who come to us away from good teachers, show us teachers other than the teachers of philosophy, or those who have worked at some useful subject. But he will have nothing of the kind to show. And we promise openly, and not in secret, that those will be blessed who live according to the word of God, look to him in all things, and do whatever they do as with God looking on. Are these then the teachings of wool workers, shoemakers, cloth cleaners, and the most uneducated boors? But this he will not be able to show.

Those whom Celsus likens to wool workers in houses, and compares to shoemakers, cloth cleaners, and the most uneducated boors, “will not want,” he says, “nor be able, while the father and teachers are present, to explain anything good to the children.” To this too we will say: What sort of father do you mean, sir, and what sort of teacher? If one who approves virtue, turns from vice, and embraces better things, hear that we will speak our teachings to the children with great confidence, knowing we will win approval before such a judge. But if we keep silent in the presence of a father notorious for hostility to virtue and nobility of character, and of those who teach things contrary to sound reason, do not blame us for this, for you would not blame us reasonably. You yourself, at any rate, when handing on the mysteries of philosophy to young men and sons whose fathers consider philosophy an idle and useless business, will not speak in front of the bad fathers; but, wishing to separate the sons who have been drawn to philosophy from their wretched fathers, you will watch for opportunities for the words of philosophy to reach the young. And we will say the same about teachers. If we turn people away from teachers who teach the indecencies of comedy and the sexually indecent iambic poems and whatever else neither improves the speaker nor benefits the hearers, and who do not know how to understand poetry philosophically and to pick out in each work what tends to the benefit of the young, we are not ashamed to admit that we do this. But if you present to me teachers who give a preparatory education for philosophy and train people in philosophy, I will not turn the young away from them, but will try, when they have been trained first as in the general studies and in philosophical subjects, to raise them to the majestic and lofty grandeur of Christian speech, hidden from the many, which treats the greatest and most necessary matters and demonstrates and shows that they were treated philosophically by the prophets of God and the apostles of Jesus.

Then after this Celsus, perceiving that he had insulted us rather bitterly, says something like this, as if defending himself: “That I make no more bitter charge than the truth compels, let anyone judge from the following. Those who invite people to the other mysteries proclaim beforehand: ‘Whoever has clean hands and wise speech’; and others again: ‘Whoever is pure from all defilement, and whose soul is conscious of no evil, and who has lived well and justly.’ And those who promise purifications from sins proclaim these things. But let us hear whom these people invite. ‘Whoever is a sinner,’ they say, ‘whoever is without understanding, whoever is a child,’ and, to put it simply, ‘whoever is wretched, him the kingdom of God will receive.’ Do you not mean by the sinner the unjust man, the thief, the housebreaker, the poisoner, the temple-robber, the grave-robber? Whom else would a robber invite by proclamation?” To this we say: it is not the same thing to call those sick in soul to healing and to call the healthy to the knowledge and understanding of more divine things. And we, knowing both these things, at first, inviting people to be healed, exhort sinners to come to the teachings that teach them not to sin, those without understanding to the teachings that produce understanding, children to rise in mind to manhood, and the simply wretched to happiness, or, to speak more properly, to blessedness. But when those of the exhorted who make progress show that they have been purified by the word and, as far as they can, have lived better, then we call them to our mysteries; “for we speak wisdom among the mature.”

And teaching “that wisdom will not enter a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body involved in sin,”⁠a we say: Whoever has clean hands, and for that reason lifts up “holy hands” to God, and because he offers lofty and heavenly things can say, “The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice,” let him come to us. And whoever has wise speech, through meditating on the law of the Lord “day and night,” and through having “by habit his faculties trained to distinguish good and evil,” let him not hesitate to come to the solid, rational food suited to athletes of piety and of every virtue. And since “the grace” of God is “with all who love” the teacher of the lessons of immortality with undying love, whoever is pure not only from all defilement but also from what are thought to be lesser sins, let him boldly be initiated into the mysteries of the worship of God according to Jesus, which are reasonably handed on only to the holy and pure. Celsus's initiator says, “Whoever's soul is conscious of no evil, let him come”; but the one who, according to Jesus, leads people into the mysteries of God will say to those whose souls have been purified: “Whoever's soul has for a long time been conscious of no evil, especially since he came to the healing of the word, let him hear also the things spoken privately by Jesus to his genuine disciples.” So even in contrasting the practices of those who initiate among the Greeks with those who teach the things of Jesus, he does not know the difference between the wicked, who are called to healing, and those already most pure, who are called to the more mystical teachings.

It is not, then, to mysteries and to fellowship in the wisdom hidden “in a mystery,” “which God predestined before the ages for the glory” of his righteous ones, that we call the unjust man, the thief, the housebreaker, the poisoner, the temple-robber, the grave-robber, and whatever others Celsus in his exaggeration might name, but to healing. For in the divinity of the word there are, on the one hand, aids that heal those who are “sick,” of which the Word said, “Those who are strong do not need a doctor, but those who are sick”; and on the other hand, those that show to the pure in soul and body “the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages but now revealed through the prophetic Scriptures” and “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who appears to each of the mature and enlightens the ruling faculty for undeceived knowledge of realities. But since, exaggerating his charges against us, he adds to those whom he named among the most defiled of men the question, “Whom else would a robber invite by proclamation?”, to this too we will say: a robber invites such people in order to use their wickedness against men whom he wants to murder and rob; but a Christian, even if he calls those whom the robber calls, calls them with a different calling, so that he may bind up their “wounds” with the word and pour the medicines of the word onto the soul inflamed with evils, like wine and oil and poultice and the other aids of the medicine of the soul.

Then, slandering what has been said and written for the sake of exhortation to those who have lived badly, which calls them to repentance and the correction of their souls, he says that we claim that God was sent to sinners. He does something like accusing some people for saying that a doctor had been sent by a most humane king because of those who were sick in the city. God the Word, then, was sent as doctor to sinners, but as teacher of divine mysteries to those already pure and no longer sinning. But Celsus, unable to distinguish these things (for he did not wish to learn), says: “Why was he not sent to those without sin? What evil is it not to have sinned?” To this we say that if he calls “without sin” those who no longer sin, our Savior Jesus was sent to them too, but not as doctor; but if he means by “without sin” those who have never sinned at all (for he did not make the distinction in his wording), we will say that it is impossible for a man to be without sin in that sense. We say this excepting the man understood to be in Jesus, “who committed no sin.” Maliciously, then, Celsus says of us that we claim that “God will receive the unjust man if he humbles himself because of his wickedness, but will not receive the righteous man if he looks up to him with virtue from the beginning.” We say that it is impossible for a man to look up to God with virtue from the beginning; for wickedness must first exist in men, as Paul too says: “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Nor do we teach about the unjust man that it is enough for him to humble himself because of his wickedness in order to be received by God; but if, condemning himself for his former deeds, he lives “humbly” on their account and “with good order” on account of the later ones, God will accept him.

Then, not understanding in what sense it is said, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,” and not having been taught even by Plato that the noble and good man lives “humbly and with good order,” and not knowing either that we say, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the right time,” he says: “Men who rightly preside over justice stop those who lament their crimes from making pitiful speeches, so that they may not judge from pity rather than from truth; but God, it seems, judges not by truth but by flattery.” What flattery, and what pitiful speech, is there in the divine Scriptures, when the sinner says in his prayers to God, “I made known my sin, and I did not hide my wickedness; I said, I will confess my wickedness against myself to the Lord,” and so on? Can he show that such a thing does not turn sinners back when they humble themselves before God in their prayers? And confused by his eagerness to accuse, he contradicts himself: in one place showing that he knows of a sinless and righteous man who looks up to God with virtue from the beginning, in another accepting what we say, “What man is perfectly righteous, or who is without sin?” For he says as if accepting it: “This is fairly true, that the human race is somehow naturally inclined to sin.” Then, as though not all were called by the word, he says: “Then they ought simply to call all, if indeed all sin.” But in what precedes we showed that Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who work hard and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” All men, then, because of the nature of sin, “working hard and heavily burdened,” are called to the rest with the Word of God; for God “sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions.”

And since he also says, “What then is this preference for sinners?” and adds similar things, we will answer that the sinner is not preferred absolutely to one who is not a sinner. But there are times when a sinner who is aware of his own sin, and for that reason goes to repentance humbled by his sins, is preferred to one who is thought to be less of a sinner, but who does not consider himself a sinner, and is elated over certain better things of which he seems to be conscious in himself, and is puffed up about them. This is shown, to those who wish to read the Gospels fairly, by the parable about the tax collector who said, “Be merciful to me, the sinner,” and about the Pharisee who boasted with a certain wicked conceit and said, “I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, robbers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” For Jesus adds to the account of both: “This man went down to his house justified rather than that one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.” We do not, then, blaspheme God or lie about him when we teach every person whatever to be aware of human smallness compared with God's greatness, and always to ask from him what is lacking to our nature, since he alone can fill up our deficiencies.

He thinks that we say such things to encourage sinners because we are unable to win over any man who is truly good and righteous, and that for this reason we open the gates to the most unholy and morally corrupt. But if anyone considers our gathering fairly, we can show more who were converted from a life not very bad than from the most depraved sins. For those conscious of better things in themselves, praying that what is proclaimed about God's reward for the better is true, are naturally more ready to assent to what is said than those who have lived very wickedly, who are prevented by their very conscience from accepting that they will be punished by the Judge of all with a punishment that would be fitting for one who has sinned so greatly, and would not be inflicted contrary to right reason by the Judge of all. And sometimes, even if the utterly corrupt wish to accept the teaching about punishment, because of the hope of repentance, being persistently steeped in the habit of sinning, they are held back, as though dyed fast by wickedness and no longer able to depart from it easily for a settled life according to right reason. Celsus too perceived this, and somehow says in what follows: “And indeed it is surely clear to everyone that no one could wholly change those who are by nature inclined and accustomed to sin, not even by punishing them, let alone by pitying them; for to change nature completely is extremely difficult. But those without sin are better partners in life.”

In this too Celsus seems to me to be greatly mistaken, not granting complete change to those by nature inclined to sin and accustomed to do it, since he thinks they are not healed even by punishments. For it plainly appears that all we men are by nature inclined to sin, and some are not only so inclined but also accustomed to sin; but not all men are incapable of complete change. For both in every school of philosophy and according to the divine word there are people recorded as having changed so much that they stand as an example of the best life. Some cite among the heroes Heracles and Odysseus, among later men Socrates, and among those of just the other day Musonius. So Celsus lied not only against us in saying that it is surely clear to everyone that those by nature inclined and accustomed to sin could not be brought by anyone, even by punishment, to a complete change for the better, but also against those who have practiced philosophy nobly and have not despaired of men's ability to take up virtue. But even if he did not express precisely what he meant, we will hear him fairly and still refute him as speaking unsoundly. For he said, “No one could wholly change those who are by nature inclined and accustomed to sin, not even by punishing them”; and we have overturned, as far as we could, what is understood from the wording.

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 morally corrupt 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 morally corrupt 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 revered 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 attention 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 dissolute man into 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 sexual excess to the most stable life, from injustice to goodness, and from cowardice or lack of manly courage to such steadfastness that they despise even death for the sake of the piety that has appeared in them, how should 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 is enough 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 one defining property, 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 will 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,”⁠a 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 will 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 insults 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 imperishable God for the likeness of an image of perishable 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 doctor 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 listening to skilled doctors because his own lack of skill would be exposed by them, to this too we will say: Which doctors 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 doctors from whom we turn away those whom we call to the divine word. Either, then, he gives no answer, having no doctors 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 doctors. And if we turn away from the philosophy of Epicurus, and from those thought to be Epicurean doctors after Epicurus, those deceived by them, how should we not act most reasonably in removing them from a severe disease which Celsus's doctors 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 doctors who are philosophers, those of the Peripatetic school, who abolish providence toward us and the relation of the divine to men: how should 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 doctors, who introduce a perishable 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 should 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 rescue from these doctors 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 should 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, unsophisticated people and say to them, “Flee the doctors”; 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, “Listen to me,” but, “Listen 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 students 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 doctors 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 insulting us in an unphilosophical way. 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 irreverence, they also live in sexual excess, 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 will 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 hardships 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 effect of the hardships.” 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 will 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 see 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 goal, 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 will 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 goal proposed in each philosophical school among Greeks or barbarians, or in the promise of the mysteries, our goal, which is with God in Christ, that is, in the Word, Wisdom, and every virtue; a blessed goal 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 goal 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 immediately clear 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 will end our discourse here, and in what follows we will contend against what Celsus wrote after this.