Contra Celsum, Book 5

We are not pursuing the forbidden wordiness, from which one cannot escape "sin," as we now begin a fifth book against Celsus's treatise, holy Ambrose, but are trying as far as we can to let nothing he said pass unexamined, and especially those points where some might think he has accused us or the Jews shrewdly. And if it were possible to enter with our argument into the conscience of each and every reader of his treatise, and draw out every arrow that wounds one not fully protected by the whole armor of God, and apply a rational remedy to heal the wound from Celsus, which makes those who listen to his words not "sound in the faith," we would have done so. But since this is God's work, to come invisibly by his own Spirit, with the Spirit of Christ, to those to whom he judges he must come, while it is set before us, who try to make people believers through words and writings, to do everything in order to be called workers who need not be ashamed, "rightly handling the word of truth," and one of these things seems to us to be to refute Celsus's plausible arguments as best we can, faithfully doing what you have commanded: come, let us set out what follows the words of Celsus that we have already answered (the reader will judge whether we have also overturned them), and add our reply to them. May God grant that we do not come to the task with a mind and word bare and stripped of divinity, "so that the faith" of those we pray may be helped "may not rest on the wisdom of men," but that, receiving "the mind of Christ" from his Father, who alone gives it, and helped toward sharing in the Word of God, we may pull down "every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God," and also the conceit of Celsus, raised up against us and against our Jesus, and further against Moses and the prophets; so that, as the one who gives "a word to those who proclaim the good news with great power" supplies it to us too and grants the great power, faith may come to those who will read, in the word and power of God.

Our task now, then, is to overturn his passage, which reads as follows: "Jews and Christians, no god and no child of God has come down or would come down. And if you speak of certain angels, whom do you call these, gods or some other race? Some other race, probably: the demons." Since Celsus repeats himself here (for he has already said this many times above), there is no need to discuss it further; what we have said on this will be enough. We will set out a few things out of many, which we think agree with what was said before but do not have wholly the same sense; in them we will show that, by declaring universally that no god or child of God has come down to human beings, he also does away with what most people believe about God's appearances, and what he himself said earlier. For if the universal statement "no god and no child of God has come down or would come down" has been truly said by Celsus, then clearly the existence of gods on earth, who came down from heaven either to give oracles to human beings or to heal them through oracles, has been done away with; and neither the Pythian nor Asclepius nor any other of those believed to do such things would be a god who came down from heaven; or else he would be a god who has always been allotted to dwell on earth, like an exile from the place of the gods, or one of those who have no right to share with the divine beings there. Or else Apollo and Asclepius and all those believed to do something on earth would not be gods, but certain demons, much worse than the wise among human beings who by virtue ascend even to the vault of heaven.

See, then, how the man who throughout his treatise did not admit to being an Epicurean is shown, in wishing to destroy our teaching, to be deserting to Epicurus. Now is the time, then, for you who read Celsus's words and agree with what he puts forward either to do away with God's coming to watch over individual human beings, or, if you hold such a thing, to show Celsus's argument to be false. If, then, you do away with providence altogether, you will show his words to be false in which he posits gods and providence, so that you may say these things are true; but if you nonetheless posit providence, as not agreeing with Celsus when he says that neither a god nor a child of God has come down or comes down to human beings, why will you not examine carefully, from what we have said about Jesus and what was prophesied about him, whom one should rather believe to be God and a child of God who came down to human beings: Jesus, who arranged and did so many things, or those who, on the pretext of oracles and divinations, do not reform the characters of those they heal, and who moreover have fallen away from the sincere and pure reverence toward the Maker of the universe, and split the souls of those who attend to them, on the pretext of honoring many gods, away from the one and only manifest and true God?

Since after this, as if Jews or Christians would answer about those who come down to human beings that they are angels, he says: "And if you speak of certain angels," and asks further: "Whom do you call these, gods or some other race?" and then again brings us in as though answering: "Some other race, probably: the demons," come, let us consider this too. We do indeed acknowledge that there are angels, "ministering spirits sent out for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation," who ascend bearing the petitions of human beings to the purest heavenly regions of the world, or even to the super-heavenly regions purer still, and who descend again from there bearing to each, according to his worth, something of what God commands them to minister to those who receive his benefits. These, having learned to call them angels from their work, we find sometimes named even "gods" in the holy Scriptures because they are divine; but not in such a way that we are commanded to reverence and worship, instead of God, those who minister and bring us the things of God. For every request, prayer, petition, and thanksgiving must be sent up to the God over all through the High Priest who is above all angels, the living Word and God. And we will make requests of the Word himself, and petition him, and give thanks, and also pray to him, if we are able to understand the proper and the looser use of the term "prayer."

For it is not reasonable to invoke angels without having acquired a knowledge about them that is beyond human capacity. And even if, by hypothesis, the knowledge about them, being something wonderful and secret, were grasped, this very knowledge, having shown their nature and the tasks to which each is assigned, will not allow one to dare to pray to anyone other than the God over all, who is sufficient for all things, through our Savior, the Son of God, who is the "Word," and Wisdom, and Truth, and whatever else the writings of God's prophets and of Jesus's apostles say of him. To make the holy angels of God gracious to us and to have them do everything on our behalf, it is enough that our disposition toward God, as far as human nature can, imitate their choice, since they imitate God; and that our understanding of his Son, the Word, as far as we can attain it, not be opposed to the holy angels' clearer understanding of him, but press on toward it day by day in clarity and distinctness. But Celsus, as though he had not read our holy Scriptures, answers himself as if on our behalf, that we call the angels who come down to benefit human beings a race other than God, and says that they would probably be called demons by us. He does not see that the name demons is not neutral, like the name human beings, among whom some are good and some bad; nor is it good, like the name gods, which is applied, not to the wicked, nor to demons, nor to statues, nor to animals, but by those who know the things of God to beings that are truly more divine and blessed. The name demons is always applied to wicked powers outside the coarser body, which lead human beings astray and distract them and drag them down from God and the super-heavenly things to the affairs of this world.

After this he sets out a passage about the Jews such as this: "First, then, one may wonder at the Jews, that they revere heaven and the angels in it, but pass over its most revered and powerful parts, the sun and moon and the other stars, fixed and wandering, as though it were possible for the whole to be God but its parts not divine; or that they worship very devoutly those who are said to approach people who are blinded in darkness somewhere by crooked sorcery or who dream through dim phantoms, while those who prophesy so clearly and brightly to all, through whom rains and heat, clouds and thunders (which they worship), lightnings, crops, and all generation are dispensed, through whom God is revealed to them, the most manifest heralds of the things above, the truly heavenly angels, these they count as nothing." In this Celsus seems to me to be confused, and to have written, from things he misheard, what he did not know. For it is clear to those who examine the practices of the Jews and compare those of the Christians with them that the Jews, following the law, which says in the person of God: "You must have no other gods besides me. You must not make for yourself an idol, or a likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. You must not worship them nor serve them," revere nothing other than the God over all, who made heaven and all the rest. And it is clear that those who live according to the law, revering the one who made heaven, do not revere heaven together with God; and none of those who serve the law of Moses worships the angels in heaven either. In the same way that they do not worship the sun and moon and the stars, "the ornament of heaven," they refrain from worshiping heaven and the angels in it, obeying the law that says: "Take care that, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, all the ornament of heaven, you are not led astray to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations."

But taking it for granted that the Jews regard heaven as God, he adds, as though it were absurd, a charge against those who worship heaven but not also the sun and the moon and the stars, that the Jews do this "as though it were possible for the whole to be God but its parts not divine"; and he seems to call heaven the whole, and the sun and moon and stars its parts. Neither Jews nor Christians plainly say that heaven is God. But let it be granted, on his view, that the Jews say heaven is God, and let the sun and moon and stars be parts of heaven (which is not at all true; for neither are the animals and plants on earth parts of the earth): how is it true, even according to the Greeks, that if some whole is God, its parts too are therefore divine? The Greeks plainly say that the whole world is God: the Stoics, the first God; the Platonists, the second; and some of them, the third. Is it, then, according to such people, since the world as a whole is God, that its parts too are therefore divine, so that not only human beings but also all the irrational animals are divine, being parts of the world, and besides these the plants too? And if mountains and rivers and seas are parts of the world, then since the whole world is God, are rivers and seas also gods? But not even the Greeks will say this; rather they might call gods those who preside, as demons (or gods, as they name them), over rivers and seas. And Celsus's universal claim proves false even according to the Greeks who introduce providence: that if some whole is God, its parts are in every case divine. It follows from Celsus's argument that, if the world is God, everything in it is divine, being parts of the world; and on this reasoning flies, gnats, worms, every kind of snake, and indeed every kind of bird and fish will be divine animals; which not even those who say the world is God will say. But the Jews who live according to the law of Moses, even if they do not know how to interpret the intent of the law spoken in a hidden way and showing something secret, will say neither that heaven nor that the angels are God.

Since we claim he has been confused by certain things he misheard, come, let us make these matters clear as best we can, and show that, while Celsus thinks it Jewish to worship heaven and the angels in it, such a thing is not Jewish but a violation of Judaism, just like worshiping the sun and moon and stars, and indeed statues. At any rate, you will find especially in Jeremiah the word of God, through the prophet, rebuking the Jewish people for worshiping such things and sacrificing "to the queen of heaven" and "to all the host of heaven." And the writings of the Christians too, accusing the sins committed among the Jews, show that these sins were committed by them when God had abandoned that people for certain sins. For in the Acts of the Apostles it is written about the Jews: "But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you offer me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel? And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship them." And in Paul, who was thoroughly trained in Jewish ways and later became a Christian through a wondrous appearance of Jesus, the following is said in the letter to the Colossians: "Let no one disqualify you, insisting on humility and the worship of angels, taking his stand on what he has seen, puffed up without reason by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, supplied and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God." Celsus, having neither read nor learned these things, has somehow represented the Jews as not breaking the law by worshiping heaven and the angels in it.

Still somewhat confused, and not having looked carefully into the subject, he supposed that the Jews, urged on by the incantations used in magic and sorcery, worship the angels in heaven because of certain phantoms that appear to those who chant the incantations. He did not see that this too, for those who did such things, was contrary to the law, which says: "You must not follow spirit mediums, nor cling to enchanters so as to be defiled by them; I am the Lord your God." He ought, then, either not to have attributed these things to the Jews at all, since he observes that the Jews keep the law and says they are those who live according to the law, or, if he attributed them, to have shown that it was Jews who broke the law who did such things. But again, just as those break the law who, blinded in darkness somewhere and by sorcery, and dreaming through dim phantoms, worship "those said to approach" such people, so too those who sacrifice to the sun and moon and stars break the law very much. And it was not consistent for the same man to say that the Jews guard against worshiping the sun and moon and stars, and do not guard against such worship of heaven and angels.

And if we must defend ourselves, since we equally do not worship angels, or sun, moon, and stars, for not worshiping even those whom the Greeks call the manifest and perceptible gods, we will say that the law of Moses too knows that these have been allotted by God "to all the nations under heaven," but not to those who have been taken as God's special portion in preference to all the nations on earth. At any rate, it is written in Deuteronomy: "Take care that, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, all the ornament of heaven, you are not led astray to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has allotted to all the nations under the whole heaven. But the Lord God took us and brought us out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his inheritance, as on this day." The people of the Hebrews, then, called by God "a chosen race" and "a royal priesthood" and "a holy nation" and "a people for his own possession," of whom it was said beforehand to Abraham by the voice of the Lord to him: "Look up to heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And he said to him: So will your offspring be," were not, while having the hope of becoming like the stars in heaven, going to worship those whom, by understanding and keeping the law of God, they would come to resemble. For it has been said to them: "The Lord your God has multiplied you, and look, you are today like the stars of heaven in multitude." And in Daniel too such things are prophesied about the resurrection: "And at that time your people will be saved, everyone who is written in the book; and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to disgrace and everlasting shame; and those who understand will shine like the brightness of the vault of sky, and some of the many righteous like the stars, for ever and ever." So Paul too, taking this up, says in his discussion of the resurrection: "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead." It was not reasonable, then, that those who had been taught to rise nobly above all created things and to hope for the best things from God for a most beautiful life, and who had heard "You are the light of the world" and "Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven," who train themselves to have the bright and unfading wisdom, or have already received it, which is "the radiance of eternal light," should be so struck with amazement at the perceptible light of the sun, moon, and stars as to think themselves somewhere beneath them because of their perceptible light, when they have so great an intelligible light of knowledge, and "the true light," and "the light of the world," and "the light of human beings," and should worship them. If they ought to be worshiped at all, they ought to be worshiped not for the perceptible light admired by the many, but for the intelligible and true light, if indeed the stars in heaven are rational and good living beings, and have been enlightened with the light of knowledge by Wisdom, which is "the radiance of eternal light." For their perceptible light is the work of the Creator of the universe; but their intelligible light has perhaps come from themselves as well, from the free will in them.

Nor should even this light be worshiped by one who sees and understands the true light, by sharing in which these lights too have been enlightened, nor by one who sees God, the Father of the true light, of whom it has been well said: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." And just as those who worship sun and moon and stars because their light is perceptible and heavenly would not worship a spark of fire or a lamp on earth, seeing the incomparable superiority of what they consider worthy of worship over the light of sparks and lamps, so those who have understood how "God is light," and grasped how the Son of God is "the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world," and understood also how he says "I am the light of the world," could not reasonably worship what is, as it were, a small spark in sun and moon and stars compared with God, the light of the true light. And it is not in dishonor of such great works of God, nor saying with Anaxagoras that sun and moon and stars are "a red-hot mass," that we speak this way of sun and moon and stars; but, perceiving the divinity of God, which surpasses them with unspeakable superiority, and also that of his Only-begotten, which surpasses all the rest, and being persuaded that sun and moon and stars themselves pray to the God over all through his Only-begotten, we judge that we ought not to pray to those who themselves pray; since they themselves wish rather to send us up to the God to whom they pray, than to bring us down to themselves or divide our power of prayer between God and themselves. And on this subject I will use this example concerning them: our Savior and Lord, once hearing "Good teacher," sent the one who said this up to his own Father, saying: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God the Father." If the Son of the Father's "love," being the "image" of God's goodness, said this reasonably, how much more reasonably would the sun say to those who worship it: "Why do you worship me? For 'you must worship the Lord your God and you must serve him alone,' whom I too and all who are with me worship and serve." And even if someone is not so great, let such a person nonetheless pray to the Word of God, who is able to heal him, and much more to his Father, who also for the righteous of former times "sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction."

God, then, in his goodness comes down to human beings not in place but in providence. And the child of God is not only then but always with his own disciples, fulfilling "Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." And if "a branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains in the vine," it is clear that the disciples of the Word too, the intelligible "branches" of the true vine, the Word, cannot bear the fruits of virtue unless they remain in the true vine, the Christ of God, who is with us who are locally down here on earth, who, being with those everywhere who have grown into him, is also already everywhere with those who do not know him. This John, who wrote the Gospel, shows in the person of John the Baptist, who says: "Among you stands one whom you do not know, who comes after me." It is absurd, when the one who has filled heaven and earth and said, "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord," is with us and near us (for I believe him when he says: "I am a God near at hand, and not a God far off, says the Lord"), to seek to pray to the sun, or moon, or any of the stars, which do not reach to all things. But let it be granted, to use Celsus's very words, that the sun and moon and stars prophesy rains and heat and clouds and thunders: if these prophesy such great things, should not the God whom they serve in prophesying be worshiped and revered rather than his prophets? Let them prophesy lightnings too, and crops, and all generation, and dispense all such things; but we will not for that reason worship those who themselves worship, just as we do not worship Moses and those after him who by God's gift prophesied better things than rains and heat and clouds and thunders and lightnings and crops and all perceptible generation. Even if sun and moon and stars could utter prophecies better than those about rain, not even so will we worship them, but the Father of the prophecies in them, and his minister, the Word of God. But let them even be his heralds and truly heavenly angels: even so, how should not the God proclaimed and announced by them be worshiped rather than his heralds and his angels?

Celsus takes it for granted that we regard the sun and moon and stars as nothing. About them we acknowledge that they too await "the revelation of the sons of God," being subjected for the present "to the futility" of material bodies, "because of the one who subjected them in hope." If Celsus had read the countless other things we say about the sun and moon and stars, and "Praise him, all you stars and light," and "Praise him, you heavens of heavens," he would not have declared that we say such great beings, which greatly praise God, are nothing. Nor does Celsus know this: "For the eager longing of the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." With this let our defense for not revering the sun and moon and stars come to an end. Let us set out the next passage too, so that after this we may say in reply to it, God granting, what will be given us from the light of truth.

He says, then, this: "It is also foolish of them to think that when God, like a cook, brings on the fire, all the rest of the race will be roasted, while they alone will remain, not only the living but also those who died long ago, rising up from the earth with those very same bodies of flesh: plainly the hope of worms. For what sort of human soul would still long for a body that has rotted? Especially as this doctrine of yours is not shared even by some of the Christians, and they declare it very foul, abominable, and at the same time impossible. For what sort of body, utterly corrupted, could return to its original nature, and to that very first composition from which it was dissolved? Having nothing to answer, they take refuge in a most absurd escape, that everything is possible for God. But God cannot do shameful things, nor does he will what is contrary to nature; nor is it the case that, if you desire something loathsome in your own wickedness, God will be able to do it and one must believe immediately that it will be. For God is the author not of faulty appetite nor of wandering disorder, but of right and just nature. He could provide everlasting life for the soul; but 'corpses,' says Heraclitus, 'are more fit to be thrown out than dung.' As for flesh, full of things it is not even decent to name, God will neither wish nor be able to make it everlasting contrary to reason. For he himself is the reason of all things that exist; so he cannot do anything contrary to reason or contrary to himself."

See, then, from the very beginning how, slandering with mockery the great fire that will consume the world that is also introduced by some of the Greeks who have philosophized in a respectable way, he wishes us to be introducing the doctrine of the great fire as though we made God a cook. He does not see that, as some of the Greeks thought (perhaps having taken it from the most ancient nation of the Hebrews), fire is brought upon the world as a purifier, and probably also upon each of those who need both punishment and healing through fire: a fire that burns but does not consume those who have no material that needs to be destroyed by that fire, but burns and consumes those who, in the building spoken of figuratively, made of actions and words and thoughts, have built with "wood, hay, or straw." The divine words say that the Lord will come to each of those who need it "like a refiner's fire and like cloth cleaners’ soap," because there has been mixed in with them, as it were, a base molten material from vice; those needing fire, I mean, as it were melting down those mixed with "bronze and tin and lead." Whoever wishes can learn this from the prophet Ezekiel. And that we do not say God brings fire like a cook, but as God the benefactor of those who need hardship and fire, the prophet Isaiah too will testify, in whom it is written that it was said to a sinful nation: "Because you have coals of fire, sit upon them; these will be a help to you." But the Word, arranging things suitably for the multitudes who will read Scripture, speaks the grim things with wisdom in a hidden way, to frighten those who cannot otherwise turn from the flood of their sins; yet even so the attentive reader will find indicated the end brought about for those who suffer through grim and painful things. It is enough for the present to cite from Isaiah: "For my name's sake I will show you my anger, and I will bring my glorious things upon you, so that I may not utterly destroy you." We have been compelled to hint at things not suited to those who believe more simply and who need a simpler handling in words, so that we might not seem to leave unrefuted Celsus's accusation when he says: "when God, like a cook, brings on the fire."

From what has been said it is clear to those who listen more intelligently how one must answer this too: "All the rest of the race will be roasted, while they alone will remain." It is no wonder if those among us whom the Word calls "the foolish things of the world," and "low-born," and "despised," and "things that are not," whom "God was pleased to save, those who believe in him, through the foolishness of the preaching, since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom," being unable to articulate the meaning of these passages, and unwilling to devote time to searching the Scripture, though Jesus says, "Search the Scriptures," have understood such things, and have supposed such things about the fire brought by God and about what will happen to sinners. And perhaps, just as it is fitting to say certain things to children suited to their infancy, to turn them to what is better as very small children, so to those whom the Word called the foolish of the world, and low-born, and despised, the obvious interpretation of the punishments is fitting, since they are not capable of any other turning, and abstinence from many evils, than that which comes through fear and the imagination of punishments. The Word, then, says that only those will remain untouched by the fire and the punishments who are utterly purified in doctrines, in character, and in their ruling faculty; while those who are not such, who according to what they deserve need the application of punishment through fire, it says will be in these things for a certain end, which it is fitting for God to bring upon those made "in his image" who have lived contrary to the will of the nature made "in his image." This, too, is in reply to: "All the rest of the race will be roasted, while they alone will remain."

Next, having misheard either the holy writings or those who have not understood the holy writings, he says that we say that, at the time when the purifying fire is brought upon the world, not only those then living will remain, but also those who died long ago. He did not grasp that it was with a certain secret wisdom that the apostle of Jesus said: "We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." He ought to have considered what the one who said this meant when, separating himself and those like him from them, as though he were in no way dead, he said after "and the dead will be raised imperishable": "and we will be changed." And to confirm that the apostle wrote what I cited from the First Letter to the Corinthians with some such meaning, I will cite also the passage from the First Letter to the Thessalonians, in which Paul, as one living and awake and different from those who have fallen asleep, says: "For this we declare to you by a word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep; for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God." Then again, next, knowing that the dead in Christ are others besides himself and those like him, he adds: "The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Since he has further mocked the resurrection of the flesh, which is preached in the churches but understood more clearly by the more intelligent, and there is no need to set out again his passage, already quoted once, come, let us set out and present a few things on this problem too, as best we can, aiming at those who will read, since this is a defense written against a man alien to the faith, for the sake of those who are still infants and tossed back and forth and carried about "by every wind of doctrine, by human trickery, by craftiness in deceitful scheming." Neither we nor the divine writings say that those who died long ago will rise from the earth and live in the very same flesh, having undergone no change for the better; Celsus slanders us in saying this. For we hear many scriptures speaking about the resurrection in a way worthy of God, but it is enough for the present to cite Paul's passage from the First Letter to the Corinthians, where he says: "But someone will say: How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each of the seeds its own body." See how he says in these words that it is "not the body that is to be" that is sown, but that from what is sown and thrown bare onto the earth, with God giving "to each of the seeds its own body," a kind of resurrection takes place, an ear rising from the seed sown in the case of grain, or a mustard plant from its seed, or a larger tree from an olive pit or the seed of another fruit tree.

"God," then, "gives to each a body as he has chosen," as with things that are sown, so also with those who are, as it were, sown in dying, and who at the appropriate time receive from what is sown the "body" that God puts upon each according to his worth. We hear also the Word teaching at greater length the difference between what is, as it were, sown and what is, as it were, raised from it, and saying: "It is sown in decay, it is raised in freedom from decay; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Let one who is able grasp further what is meant by the one who says: "As was the man of dust, so are those who are of dust; and as is the heavenly man, so are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so let us also bear the image of the heavenly man." And although the apostle wished to conceal the secret meanings of the passage, which are not suited to the simpler and to the common hearing of those led to what is better by believing, he was nevertheless compelled afterward, so that we might not misunderstand his words, to say after "let us bear the image of the heavenly man": "But I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does decay inherit freedom from decay." Then, knowing that there was something secret and mystical in the passage, as was fitting for one leaving his meaning in writing to those after him, he adds: "Listen, I tell you a mystery," which is the customary formula for things that are deeper and more mystical and are rightly hidden from the many; as it is written in Tobit too: "It is good to hide the secret of a king," while, as regards what is glorious and suited to the many, with what is true in the working of the divine plan, it is "good" "to reveal the works of God gloriously." Our hope, then, is not that of worms, nor does our soul long for the body that has rotted; but, even if it needs a body for moving from place to place, the soul that has meditated on "wisdom," according to "the mouth of the righteous will meditate on wisdom," understands the difference between the earthly house, in which the tent is, which is being destroyed, and the tent in which the righteous, "being" in it, groan, "being burdened," not wishing to put off the tent but to "put on" over the tent, so that by "putting on" over it "what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." For since every nature of body is perishable, "this perishable" tent "must put on freedom from decay," and the other part of it, being "mortal" and liable to the death that follows sin, "must put on immortality"; so that when "the perishable puts on freedom from decay and the mortal immortality, then" there "will come about" what was foretold long ago by the prophets: the abolition of the victory of death, by which it conquered us and subjected us to itself, and of its sting, with which it stings the soul that is not fully protected and inflicts on it the wounds of sin.

But since our views on the resurrection have now been stated in part, as far as the occasion allowed (for we have composed a work on the resurrection elsewhere, examining the subject at greater length), we must now reasonably take up Celsus's views. He neither understood what is written among us nor could judge that one must not think the meaning of those wise men is represented by people who profess nothing more than faith in the Christian message. Come, let us show that men who should not be dismissed for their rational contemplation and dialectical inquiries have said things that are very incongruous; and if anyone must be scorned for low and old-wives' talk, it should be they rather than we. The Stoics say that periodically a great fire that consumes the universe takes place, and after it a new ordering, which has everything indistinguishable from the previous ordering. Those of them who were ashamed of the doctrine have said that there is a slight and very small difference in each cycle from those in the cycle before it. These men say that in the next cycle things will be such that Socrates will again be the son of Sophroniscus and an Athenian, and Phaenarete, married to Sophroniscus, will again bear him. So even if they do not use the word resurrection, they indicate the thing: that Socrates, starting from the seed of Sophroniscus, will rise again and be formed in the womb of Phaenarete, and, brought up in Athens, will practice philosophy, as though his former philosophy too were rising again and would be likewise indistinguishable from the former. And Anytus and Meletus will rise again as Socrates's accusers, and the council of the Areopagus will condemn Socrates. And what is more ridiculous than these, Socrates will wear clothes indistinguishable from those of the former cycle, and will live in indistinguishable poverty and in a city, Athens, indistinguishable from that of the former cycle. And Phalaris will again be tyrant, and his bronze bull will bellow with the voices of those inside, men indistinguishable from those condemned in the former cycle. And Alexander of Pherae will again be tyrant, with a cruelty indistinguishable from the former, condemning men indistinguishable from the former ones. And why must I list the doctrine on such matters taught by the Stoics, which is not mocked by Celsus but perhaps even revered, since he thinks Zeno wiser than Jesus?

And the followers of Pythagoras and Plato, even if they seem to keep the world indestructible, fall into similar absurdities. For since the stars, at certain appointed periods, take up the same configurations and relations to one another, they say that everything on earth is in the same state as when the world contained the same configuration of the stars' relation. By this reasoning, then, when the stars, after a long period, come to the same relation to one another that they had in the time of Socrates, Socrates must be born again of the same parents and suffer the same things, accused by Anytus and Meletus and condemned by the council of the Areopagus. And the learned among the Egyptians, who hand down such things, are held in honor and not mocked by Celsus and those like him; while we, who say that the universe is administered by God in proportion to the free will of each person, and is always being led, as far as possible, toward what is better, and who know the nature of our free will, with its own range of possibilities (for it cannot hold the complete unchangeableness of God), are not thought to say anything worthy of testing and examination.

Let no one suspect, because we say these things, that we are among those who are called Christians but reject the doctrine of the resurrection according to the Scriptures. For they, as far as their own opinion goes, can in no way show the ear or the tree rising, as it were, from a grain "of wheat or of some other kind"; but we, persuaded that what is sown "does not come to life unless it dies," and that "not the body that is to be" is sown (for "God gives it a body as he has chosen," raising it "in freedom from decay" after it has been sown "in decay," raising it "in glory" after it has been sown "in dishonor," raising it "in power" after it has been sown "in weakness," and raising it "spiritual" after it has been sown "a natural body"), keep both the mind of the church of Christ and the greatness of God's promise, showing its possibility not by bare assertion but also by reason; knowing that even if "heaven and earth" and what is in them pass away, yet the "words" (logoi) concerning each thing, being like parts in a whole or species in a genus of the Word who was "in the beginning with God," God the Word, will never pass away. For we wish to heed the one who said: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

We, then, do not say that the body that has been corrupted returns to its original nature, just as the corrupted "grain" of "wheat" does not return to being the "grain" of "wheat." For we say that, just as an ear rises from the grain of "wheat," so a certain principle (logos) is present in the body, from which, since it is not corrupted, the body "is raised in freedom from decay." It is the Stoics who say that the body utterly corrupted returns to its original nature, because of their doctrines about indistinguishable things in each cycle, and they say that the very first composition, from which it was dissolved, will be composed again, establishing this, as they think, by dialectical necessities. Nor do we flee to "a most absurd escape" in saying that "everything is possible for God"; for we know how to understand "everything" as not applying to things that do not exist, or to things that are inconceivable. And we also say that God cannot do shameful things, since then God would be able not to be God; for if God does something shameful, he is not God. And since he states that God does not will "what is contrary to nature" either, we distinguish what is said: if someone calls vice contrary to nature, we too say that God does not will what is contrary to nature, whether what comes from vice or what happens irrationally; but if things happen according to God's reason and will, it follows immediately that they are not contrary to nature; for what God does is not contrary to nature, even if it is marvelous or seems marvelous to some. And if we must use a forced expression, we will say that, in relation to what is more commonly understood as nature, there are some things above nature which God might sometimes do, raising man above human nature and making him change into a better and more divine nature, and keeping him such, as long as the one kept shows by his actions that he wishes it.

Having said once that God wills nothing unworthy of himself, which would do away with his being God, we will say that, if a man in his wickedness wills something loathsome, God will not be able to do it. We are not contentious toward what Celsus says, but, examining it with love of truth, we will agree that God is the author not of faulty appetite nor of wandering disorder, but of right and just nature, since he is the founder of everything good. And we also acknowledge that he can provide everlasting life for the soul; and not only can, but does provide it. And, especially because of what was said before, we are not at all troubled by the saying of Heraclitus that Celsus quoted, that "corpses are more fit to be thrown out than dung." Yet one might say of this too that dung is fit to be thrown out, but human corpses, because of the soul that dwelt in them, and especially if it was a better one, are not fit to be thrown out. For according to the better laws they are thought worthy of burial with such honor as is possible for such things, so that we may not, as far as in us lies, insult the soul that dwelt in the body by throwing the body away, after the soul has left it, like the bodies of cattle. Let God, then, not will to make everlasting, contrary to reason, the "grain" of "wheat," but rather the ear that comes from it; nor what is sown "in decay," but what is raised from it "in freedom from decay." But the Reason (Logos) of all things is, according to Celsus, God himself; according to us, his Son, concerning whom we say in our philosophy: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But according to us too, God cannot do anything contrary to reason or contrary to himself.

Let us look also at Celsus's next passage, which reads as follows: "The Jews, then, having become a nation of their own and made laws according to their country's custom, and still maintaining these among themselves, and keeping a worship, whatever sort it may be, but at any rate ancestral, act like other human beings, since each people cherishes its ancestral customs, whatever they happen to be. And this seems to be beneficial, not only because it has occurred to different peoples to think differently and one must keep what has been established for the community, but also because, as is likely, the parts of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different overseers and divided into certain dominions, and are administered in this way. And indeed, the things done among each people would be rightly done in the way that pleases those overseers; while it is not holy to abolish what has been customary in each place from the beginning." In this Celsus claims that the Jews, formerly Egyptians, later became a nation of their own, and having made laws they maintain them. And, not to repeat Celsus's words set out above, he says it is beneficial for them to practice their ancestral worship, as other nations cherish their own. And he sets out a deeper reason why it is beneficial for the Jews to cherish their ancestral customs, hinting that the laws of each people were made by those allotted to be overseers of the earth, who cooperated with the lawgivers of the lands being given laws. He seems, then, to indicate that someone, or some beings, oversee the land of the Jews and the nation in it, by whose cooperation Moses made the Jews' laws.

"And one must keep the laws," he says, "not only because it has occurred to different peoples to think differently and one must keep what has been established for the community, but also because, as is likely, the parts of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different overseers and divided into certain dominions, and are administered in this way." Then, as though forgetting what he said against the Jews, Celsus now includes them in his general praise of all who keep their ancestral customs, saying: "And indeed, the things done among each people would be rightly done in the way that pleases those overseers." And see whether he does not, as far as in him lies, plainly wish the Jew living by his own laws not to depart from them, as though he would act in an unholy way if he did; for he says that "it is not holy to abolish what has been customary in each place from the beginning." I would like to ask him, or those who agree with him, in reply to this, who it was that from the beginning allotted the parts of the earth to different overseers, and clearly the land of the Jews and the Jews themselves to the one or ones to whom it fell. Did Zeus, as Celsus might call him, allot the Jewish nation and their land to someone or some beings, and did he wish the one to whom Judea fell to make such laws among the Jews? Or did this happen against his will? Whichever way he answers, you see that the argument will be hemmed in. And if the parts of the earth were not allotted to their overseers by some one being, then each took a share of the earth by lot, as it happened, without anyone presiding; but this too is absurd, and in some measure does away with the providence of the God over all.

Let anyone who wishes explain how, and according to what dominions, the parts of the earth are divided and administered by those who oversee them; and let him tell us also how the things done among each people are rightly done, in the way that pleases the overseers, and whether, for example, the laws of the Scythians about killing fathers are right, or those of the Persians, which do not forbid mothers to be married by their own sons nor daughters by their fathers. And why need I, selecting from those who have written about the laws among different nations, raise further difficulties about how the laws among each people are rightly practiced as it pleases the overseers? Let Celsus tell us how it is unholy to abolish ancestral laws about marrying mothers and daughters, or about its being blessed to depart from life by hanging, or about those who give themselves up to the fire and to release from life by fire being wholly purified; and how it is unholy to abolish laws, for example, among the Taurians about offering strangers as sacrifices to Artemis, or among some of the Libyans about sacrificing children to Cronus. Yet it follows for Celsus that it is not holy for the Jews to abolish their ancestral laws about not worshiping any other God besides the Creator of the universe. And on his view holiness will be divine not by nature but by some convention and custom: for among some it is holy to revere the crocodile and to eat something that others worship; for others it is holy to revere the calf, and among others to consider the goat a god. So the same person will act in a holy way under these laws and in an unholy way under others; which is the most absurd of all.

But perhaps they will say in reply to this that one who keeps his ancestral customs is holy and in no way unholy, since he does not also keep those of others; and again that one thought unholy by certain people is not unholy when, according to his ancestral customs, he reveres his own objects of worship and makes war on, and feasts on, those revered among people with contrary laws. But see whether this does not show great confusion about justice, holiness, and piety, as if piety were not clearly defined, nor had any nature of its own that marks out as pious those who act according to it. If, then, piety, holiness, and justice are relative, so that the same thing is holy and unholy according to different relations and laws, see whether self-control too will not consequently be relative, and courage, and prudence, and knowledge, and the other virtues; than which nothing could be more absurd. For those who take their stand more simply and in common terms against Celsus's passages, what has been said is sufficient. But since we think that some of the more inquiring will also read this work, come, let us dare to set out a few of the deeper matters, which contain a certain mystical and secret contemplation, concerning the allotment from the beginning of different regions of the earth to different overseers; and, as far as we can, let us show that the doctrine is free of the absurdities listed.

Celsus seems to me to have misheard certain more mystical accounts of the distribution of things on earth, which Greek history also touches on in a way, when it presents some of those considered gods as contending with one another over Attica, and when in the poets it makes some of the so-called gods acknowledge certain places as more their own. And barbarian history too, especially that of the Egyptians, shows something of this sort about the division of the so-called nomes of Egypt, saying that Athena, to whom Sais fell, is the same who also has Attica. The learned among the Egyptians will say countless things of this kind, though I do not know whether they also include the Jews and their land in the distribution to some being. But about what is said on these matters outside the divine word, enough for the present. We say that Moses, the prophet of God according to us and his genuine servant, sets out in the Song of Deuteronomy the following about the division of things on earth: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, Israel the lot of his inheritance." And the same Moses, in the book entitled Genesis, speaks of the distribution of the nations in the form of a narrative as follows: "And the whole earth had one language, and there was one speech for all. And it happened, as they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there"; and a little later: "The Lord came down," it says, "to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said: Look, they are one race and all have one language; and this they have begun to do, and now nothing that they set out to do will fail them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they may not understand each one the speech of his neighbor. And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city and the tower. Therefore its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord God confused the languages of all the earth, and from there the Lord God scattered them over the face of all the earth." And in the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, concerning wisdom and the events at the confusion of languages, at which the division of those on the earth took place, the following is said about wisdom: "She too, when the nations had been confused in their wicked agreement, recognized the righteous man and kept him blameless before God, and kept him strong against his compassion for his child." The account of these things is long and mystical, and to it applies: "It is good to hide the secret of a king," so that the doctrine of souls bound into a body, not by transmigration, may not be thrown to any chance hearers, nor holy things be given "to the dogs," nor pearls cast before swine. For such a thing would be irreverent, involving betrayal of the secret oracles of God's wisdom, of which it is well written: "Wisdom will not enter a soul that plots evil, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin." It is enough to present what is said in a hidden way, as in the form of a narrative, according to the manner of the narrative, so that those who are able may work out for themselves the meaning of the passage.

Let all those on earth, then, be understood as using one divine language, and as long as they are in harmony with one another, let them be kept in the divine language; and let them remain unmoved "from the east," as long as they think the thoughts of the light and of the radiance from "eternal light." And these, when they move themselves "from the east," thinking thoughts foreign to "the east," let them find "a plain in the land of Shinar," which is interpreted "shaking out of teeth," as a symbol of their losing the means by which they are nourished; and let them settle there. Then, wishing to gather together the things of matter and to join to heaven what cannot by nature be joined to it, so as to plot against immaterial things by means of material ones, let them say: "Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire." So, as they harden and set fast the clay and material things, wishing to make brick into stone and clay into bitumen, and by these to build "a city and a tower whose" (as far as their supposition goes) "top will reach to heaven," according to the lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God, let them each be handed over, in proportion to their movement "from the east," which has happened to a greater or lesser degree, and in proportion to their making bricks into stones and clay into bitumen and building from these, to angels, harsher to a greater or lesser degree, and of this kind or that, until they pay the penalty for what they have dared. And let them be led by the angels, each of whom produced for them their own language, to the parts of the earth according to what they deserve: some, for example, to a scorching land, others to one that punishes its inhabitants by its cold, some to one harder to farm and others to one less so, some to one full of wild beasts and others to one with fewer.

Then, if anyone can, as in the form of a narrative, which has something true in itself but also indicates something secret, let him see also those who have kept the original language, remaining in the east and in the eastern language because they did not move "from the east"; and let him understand that these alone became the Lord's portion and his people called "Jacob," and became "Israel the lot of his inheritance"; and let these alone be governed by a ruler who did not receive those under him for punishment, as the others did. And let one who is able see, as among human beings, sins arising in the community of those assigned to the Lord as his distinct portion: at first tolerable, and such that they were not wholly deserving to be abandoned; later more numerous, but still tolerable. And understanding that this went on for a long time, with healing always applied and these people turning back at intervals, let him see them left, in proportion to their sins, to those to whom the other lands fell: at first punished to a lesser degree and paying the penalty, as though disciplined, and returning to their own land; but later let him see them handed over to harsher rulers, as the Scriptures would name them, the Assyrians and then the Babylonians. Then, as healing is applied, let him see them nonetheless increasing their sins, and for this reason scattered by the rulers of the other nations who plunder them among the other portions. And let their ruler deliberately overlook their being plundered by the rulers in the other nations, so that he too, with good reason, as though avenging himself, having received authority to draw away from the other nations whomever he can, may do so, and give them laws and show them a life by which to live, so as to lead them up to the end to which he used to lead those of the former nation who did not sin.

And from this let those who are able to see such great things learn that the one to whom fell those who formerly had not sinned is far more powerful than the others; since he has been able, taking chosen ones from the portion of all, to withdraw them from those who received them for punishment, and to bring them to laws and a life that contributes to the forgetting of their former sins. But, as we said before, let these things be said by us in a hidden way. They show what was misheard by those who said that "the parts of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different overseers and divided into certain dominions, and are administered in this way"; from whom Celsus too took the words set out above. But since those who moved "from the east" were, because of their sins, handed over "to a base mind" and "to dishonorable passions" and "in the desires of their hearts to impurity," so that, glutted with sin, they might hate it, we will not submit to Celsus's opinion when he says that because of the overseers allotted to the parts of the earth the things done among each people are rightly done; rather, we wish not to do what is done among them in the way that pleases those overseers. For we see that it is holy to abolish what has been customary in each place from the beginning by better and more divine laws, which Jesus, as the most powerful, laid down, rescuing "us from the present evil age" and from "the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing"; and that it is unholy not to throw oneself upon the one who has appeared and been shown to be purer and more powerful than all rulers, to whom God said, as the prophets foretold many generations before: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." For "he himself" has become the "expectation" of us who are from "the nations" and have believed in him and in the God over all, his Father.

These things have been said by us not only in reply to what was set out about the overseers, but they also go some way toward anticipating what Celsus says against us, where he says: "Let the second group come forward; I will ask them where they have come from, or what founder of ancestral laws they have. They will say none, since they themselves started from there, and they bring their teacher and chorus-leader from nowhere else; yet they have broken away from the Jews." We have come, then, each of us, "in the last days," when our Jesus came to live among us, to "the clearly revealed mountain of the Lord," the Word that is "above" every word, and to the house "of God," which "is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." And we see in what way this house is built "on the tops of the mountains," all the prophetic words, which are its foundation. And this "house" is lifted up "above the hills," those who seem among human beings to profess something exceptional in wisdom and truth. And we, "all the nations," come to it, and we, the many nations, go and say to one another, urging each other on to the worship of God that shone forth "in the last days" through Jesus Christ: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will tell us his way, and we will walk in it." For the "law" went out from those in "Zion" and passed over to us, spiritual. And "the word of the Lord" also went out from that "Jerusalem," so that it might spread everywhere and judge "between the nations," choosing those it sees are obedient and rebuking "many people," the disobedient. And to those who ask us where we have come from or what founder we have, we say that we have come, according to Jesus’ instructions, to beat our rational "swords," warlike and insolent, "into plowshares," and we refashion the "spears" of our former fighting "into pruning hooks." For we no longer take up "sword against nation," nor do we learn "war any more," having become sons of peace through Jesus, who is our founder, instead of the ancestral customs in which we were "strangers to the covenants"; receiving a law for which, giving thanks to the one who rescued us from error, we say: "How false are the idols our fathers acquired, and there is none among them who gives rain." Our chorus-leader and teacher, then, having come out from the Jews, holds the whole world as his own by the word of his teaching. And having anticipated these things, we have overturned as best we could a passage of Celsus that comes many pages later, joining it to the passages of his set out here.

So as not to pass over what Celsus says in between, come, let us set that out too: "One might also use Herodotus as a witness on this point, who says: 'For the people of the city of Marea and of Apis, who live in the parts of Egypt bordering on Libya, thinking themselves Libyans and not Egyptians, and annoyed by the religious rules about sacrifices, and wishing not to be barred from eating cows, sent to Ammon saying that they had nothing in common with the Egyptians; for they lived outside the Delta and did not agree with them, and they wished to be allowed to eat everything. But the god would not let them do this, saying that Egypt was the land that the Nile reaches and waters, and that those were Egyptians who live below the city of Elephantine and drink from this river.' This is what Herodotus reports. And Ammon is no worse at conveying the will of the divine powers than the angels of the Jews; so it is not at all unjust for each people to practice its own customs. Indeed, we will find the greatest difference among them from nation to nation, and yet each people thinks itself to be best at holding customs: of the Ethiopians, those who live in Meroe revere 'Zeus and Dionysus alone,' the Arabians Urania and Dionysus, these alone; all the Egyptians revere Osiris and Isis, the people of Sais Athena, and the people of Naucratis, not long ago, began to name Sarapis, and the rest according to their nomes, each in their own way. And some abstain from sheep, revering them as sacred, others from goats, others from crocodiles, others from cows, while they abstain from pigs, loathing them. For the Scythians, indeed, it is a fine thing even to feast on human beings; and there are Indians who think they act piously in eating even their fathers. And somewhere the same Herodotus says (I will again use his own words for the sake of trustworthiness), he reports as follows: 'For if someone were to set it before all humanity, telling them to choose the finest customs of all customs, after examining them each would choose their own; so much does each think its own customs the finest by far. It is not likely, then, that anyone but a madman would make a mockery of such things. That all human beings think this way about customs one can judge by many other proofs, and in particular by this. Darius, during his reign, summoned the Greeks who were present and asked them for what price they would be willing to eat their fathers when they died; and they said they would not do it for anything. After this Darius summoned those Indians called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them, in the presence of the Greeks, who understood what was said through an interpreter, for what price they would agree to burn their fathers with fire when they died; and they cried out loudly and told him not to speak such offensive words. So these things are customary now, and Pindar seems to me to have been right when he wrote that custom is king of all.'"

Through these words Celsus's argument seems to be heading toward the claim that all human beings should live according to their ancestral customs and would not be blamed for this; but that Christians, having abandoned their ancestral customs, and not being a single nation as the Jews are, are culpable in attaching themselves to the teaching of Jesus. Let him tell us, then, whether those who study philosophy and are taught not to be superstitious will rightly abandon their ancestral customs, so as even to eat what is forbidden in their native lands, or whether they will do this contrary to what is right. For if, because of philosophy and the teachings against superstition, they do not keep their ancestral customs and would eat what their fathers forbade them, why should not Christians too, since reason chooses not to fuss about statues and shrines, or even about the created works of God, but to rise above them and present the soul to the Creator, do the same as the philosophers and do it without blame? But if, to preserve the thesis he has set himself, Celsus or those who approve his views say that even one who has studied philosophy will keep his ancestral customs, it is time for philosophers, among the Egyptians for example, to become utterly ridiculous, guarding against eating an onion so as to keep their ancestral customs, or certain parts of the body, such as the head and the shoulder, so as not to violate what their fathers handed down to them. And I do not yet speak of those Egyptians who shudder at the body’s small noises from passing gas, that if one of them becomes a philosopher and keeps his ancestral customs, he would be a ridiculous philosopher acting unphilosophically. So too, then, the one who has been brought by reason to worship the God of the universe, but because of ancestral customs remains down below among statues and human-made shrines, and is unwilling to rise up in his choice to the Creator, would be like those who have learned philosophy but fear what is not to be feared and think it irreverent to eat such and such things.

And what sort of god is Herodotus's Ammon, whose words Celsus has adopted as proof that each should keep his ancestral customs? For their Ammon does not allow the people of the city of Marea and of Apis, who live in the parts bordering on Libya, to be indifferent about eating cows; a thing that is not only indifferent by its own nature, but also does not prevent anyone from being noble and good. And if their Ammon had forbidden the eating of cows because the animal is useful for farming, and moreover because their kind increases chiefly through the females, perhaps the argument would have had some plausibility; but as it is, he simply wants them, because they drink from the Nile, to keep the laws of the Egyptians about cows. And in this Celsus, mocking the angels among the Jews who convey the will of God, said that "Ammon is no worse at conveying the will of the divine powers than the angels of the Jews"; but he did not examine their words and appearances, and what they mean. For he would have seen that "it is not for oxen that God cares," even where he seems to legislate about oxen or irrational animals, but that what was written for the sake of human beings contains, under the guise of laws about irrational animals, a certain teaching about nature. Celsus, then, says that no one does anything unjust in wishing to practice his own customs; and it follows on his view that the Scythians do nothing unjust when they feast on human beings according to their ancestral customs. And those Indians who eat their fathers think they act piously, and according to Celsus they at least do nothing unjust. At any rate, he sets out a passage of Herodotus arguing that each rightly uses his ancestral customs, and he seems to approve the Indians called Callatiae in the time of Darius, who ate their parents, since, when Darius asked for what price they would be willing to give up this custom, they cried out loudly and told him not to speak such offensive words.

Since, then, there are in general two laws before us, one being the law of nature, which God would lay down, and the other the written law in cities, it is good, where the written law does not oppose the law of God, not to trouble the citizens on the pretext of foreign laws; but where the law of nature, that is, of God, commands things contrary to the written law, see whether reason does not choose to say a final farewell to what is written and to the intent of the lawgivers, and to give oneself to God the lawgiver and choose to live according to his word, even if one must do this with dangers and countless hardships and deaths and disgrace. For it is absurd, when what pleases God is different from what pleases some of the laws in cities, and it is impossible to please both God and those who uphold such laws, to despise the actions by which one will please the Creator of the universe and choose those by which one will be displeasing to God, but pleasing to laws that are no laws and to their friends. And if in other matters it is reasonable to prefer the law of nature, which is the law of God, to the law written and enacted by human beings contrary to God's law, how much more must this be done in the laws about God? And we will not, like the Ethiopians who live around Meroe, worship Zeus and Dionysus alone, as pleases them; nor will we honor Ethiopian gods at all in the Ethiopian way. Nor, like the Arabians, will we consider Urania and Dionysus alone gods, nor gods at all, in whom female and male have been glorified (for the Arabians worship Urania as female and Dionysus as male). Nor, like all the Egyptians, will we consider Osiris and Isis gods; nor will we rank Athena with them according to the opinion of the people of Sais. And if the older people of Naucratis chose to worship other gods, and those who began only yesterday or the day before to worship Sarapis, a god who never existed, we will not for that reason say that there is a new god who did not exist before and was not known to human beings. For the Son of God, "the firstborn of all creation," even if he appeared to have become man recently, is not for that reason new. For the divine words know him to be the oldest of all created things, and that it was to him that God said concerning the creation of man: "Let us make man in our image and likeness."

I wish to show how unreasonably Celsus says that each should revere his own and ancestral gods. For he says that the Ethiopians who live in Meroe know only two gods, Zeus and Dionysus, and revere them alone; and the Arabians also only two, Dionysus, as the Ethiopians do, and Urania, their own. According to his account, neither do the Ethiopians revere Urania nor the Arabians Zeus. If, then, an Ethiopian, finding himself among the Arabians by some circumstance, were thought irreverent for not revering Urania, and were in danger of death for this, would it be right for the Ethiopian to die, or to act contrary to his ancestral customs and worship Urania? If it is right for him to act contrary to his ancestral customs, he will act in an unholy way, as far as Celsus's words go; but if he were led off to death, let him show the reasonableness of choosing death, when I do not know whether the Ethiopian doctrine teaches them to philosophize about the immortality of the soul and the honor for piety, if they revere the gods held such according to their ancestral laws. The same can be said about Arabians who by some circumstance stay among the Ethiopians around Meroe. For they too, taught to revere Urania and Dionysus alone, will not worship Zeus with the Ethiopians; and if, thought to be irreverent, they were led off to death, let Celsus say what they would reasonably do. As for the myths about Osiris and Isis, it is unnecessary and untimely for us to list them now. Even if the myths are interpreted figuratively, they will teach us to revere lifeless water and the earth that lies beneath human beings and all animals; for so, I think, they take Osiris as water and Isis as earth. About Sarapis there is a long and conflicting story: he came onto the scene only yesterday or the day before, through certain magical practices of Ptolemy, who wished to show the people of Alexandria a god, as it were, made manifest. We have read in Numenius the Pythagorean about his construction, that he shares in the substance of all the animals and plants administered by nature; so that he might seem to be made a god, with irreverent rites and magic that invokes demons, not by sculptors alone but also by magicians and sorcerers and by the demons charmed by their incantations.

One must therefore inquire what is edible and what is not in a way fitting for a rational and civilized animal that does everything by reasoning, and not revere sheep, or goats, or cows arbitrarily. To abstain from these is moderate, for much benefit comes to human beings from these animals; but to spare even crocodiles, and to hold them sacred to some mythological god or other, how is this not the most foolish thing of all? For it is the mark of people quite thunderstruck to spare animals that do not spare us, and to cherish animals that feast on human beings. But Celsus approves of those who revere and cherish crocodiles according to some ancestral custom, and he has written no word against them; while Christians appear to him blameworthy, who are taught to loathe vice and turn away from the works of vice, and to revere and honor virtue as born from God and as being the Son of God. For we must not think that Wisdom and Righteousness, which in our view are the Son of God, are female in substance because their Greek names are feminine, as his genuine disciple showed when he said of him: "who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." So even if we speak of a second God, let them know that by the second God we mean nothing other than the virtue that comprises all virtues, and the Reason (Logos) that comprises every reason of the things that have come into being according to nature and principally, and for the benefit of the universe; which Reason, we say, was joined and united to the soul of Jesus above every other soul, since he alone was able to receive perfectly the highest share in Reason itself, Wisdom itself, and Righteousness itself.

And since, having said such things about the different laws, Celsus adds: "Pindar seems to me to have been right when he wrote that custom is king of all," come, let us discuss this too. What law do you say, sir, is king of all? If you mean the laws of each city, this is false; for not all are ruled by the same law. It should rather have been said, "laws are kings of all," since some law is king of each nation among all. But if you understand law in the proper sense, this is by nature king of all things; even if some, like robbers who have revolted from the law, deny it and live lawlessly and unjustly. We Christians, then, having recognized the law that is by nature king of all, which is the same as the law of God, try to live by it, saying a final farewell to laws that are no laws.

Let us look also at what Celsus says next, in which there is very little about Christians and a great deal about Jews. He says: "If, then, the Jews maintain their own law on these grounds, they are not to be blamed, but rather those who have abandoned their own customs and adopted those of the Jews. But if they pride themselves as knowing something wiser, and turn away from fellowship with others as not equally pure, they have already heard that not even their doctrine about heaven is their own, but, to pass over everything else, was held long ago by the Persians too, as Herodotus shows somewhere. 'For they are accustomed,' he says, 'to go up to the highest mountains and offer sacrifices to Zeus, calling the whole circle of the heaven Zeus.' I think, then, that it makes no difference whether one calls the Most High Zeus, or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or Amoun, as the Egyptians do, or Papaeus, as the Scythians do. Nor would they be holier than others on this account, that they are circumcised; for the Egyptians and Colchians did this before them; nor because they abstain from pigs; for the Egyptians do this too, and besides from goats and sheep and oxen and fish, and Pythagoras and his disciples from beans and from all living things. Nor is it likely that they are in favor with God and loved in any way differently from others, and that angels are sent from there to them alone, as though they had been allotted some land of the blessed; for we see what sort of fortune both they and their land have been thought worthy of. Let this chorus, then, depart, having paid the penalty for its boasting, not knowing the great God, but led on and deceived by the sorcery of Moses, and having become his disciples for no good end."

It is clear that here he accuses the Jews of falsely supposing themselves to be the chosen portion of the God over all in preference to all the nations. He accuses them of boasting, as though they boast of the great God, yet do not know him, but were led on by the sorcery of Moses and deceived by him, and were made his disciples for no good end. We have already spoken in part, in what went before, about the revered and exceptional state of the Jews, when the symbol of the city of God, and of his temple, and of the priestly worship at it and at the altar, still stood among them. And if anyone, fixing his mind on the intent of the lawgiver and the state he established, were to examine their way of life and compare it with the present conduct of the other nations, he would admire none more, as far as human beings go, for having removed everything not useful to the human race and accepted only what is beneficial. That is why there were among them no athletic, theatrical, or horse-racing contests, nor women selling their youthful bloom to anyone who wished to sow in vain and outrage the nature of human seed. And how great a thing it was among them to be taught from their earliest years to rise above all perceptible nature, and never to think that God is set up anywhere in it, but to seek him above and beyond bodies! And how great to be taught, almost as soon as they were born and their reason was complete, the immortality of the soul, the courts of judgment beneath the earth, and the honors of those who have lived well! These things were proclaimed in a more mythical form to those who were still children and thought as children; but to those already seeking the meaning and wishing to advance in it, what had till then been myths, if I may call them that, were transformed into the truth hidden in them. And I think that, in a manner worthy of their being called God's portion, they despised all divination, as bewitching human beings in vain and coming from wicked demons rather than from some higher nature, and sought the knowledge of the future in souls that, through their utmost purity, had received the Spirit of the God over all.

And what need is there to say how reasonable it is, and unjust neither to master nor to slave, that one who starts from the same doctrines may not be kept a slave for more than six years? The Jews, then, would not maintain their own law on the same grounds as the other nations. For it is blameworthy of them, and brings a charge of insensibility to the superiority of their laws, if they were to think them written in the same way as the others among the nations. And even if Celsus does not wish it, the Jews know something wiser, not only than the many, but also than those who seem to philosophize; because the philosophers, after their revered words in philosophy, fall down before idols and demons, while even the least of the Jews looks to the God over all alone. And in this respect they rightly pride themselves and turn away from fellowship with others as defiled and irreverent. And if only they had not sinned by breaking the law, and first killed "the prophets" and later plotted against Jesus too, so that we might have an example of the heavenly city, which Plato too sought to describe, though I do not know whether he was as able as Moses and those after him proved to be, who nurtured "a chosen race" and "a holy nation," dedicated to God, with words pure of all superstition.

Since Celsus wishes to make the revered practices of the Jews common with the laws of certain nations, come, let us consider these too. He thinks that the doctrine about heaven differs in no way from that about God, and says that the Persians, like the Jews, perform sacrifices to Zeus, going up to the highest mountains. He does not see that, as the Jews knew one God, so they had one holy house of prayer, one altar of whole burnt offerings, one altar of incense, and one high priest of God. The Jews, then, had nothing in common with the Persians, who go up to the highest mountains, which are many, and perform sacrifices that have nothing like those under the law of Moses, according to which the priests of the Jews served "a copy and shadow of the heavenly things," explaining in secret the intent of the law concerning the sacrifices and what they were symbols of. Let the Persians, then, call the whole circle of heaven Zeus; but we say that heaven is neither Zeus nor God, since we know that even some beings lower than God have risen above the heavens and all perceptible nature. And so we understand: "Praise God, you heavens of heavens, and the water above the heavens; let them praise the name of the Lord."

But since Celsus thinks it makes no difference whether one calls the Most High Zeus, or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth, or, as the Egyptians do, Amoun, or, as the Scythians do, Papaeus, come, let us discuss these matters briefly too, reminding the reader at the same time of what was said above on this problem, when Celsus's words called us to such matters. We say now too that the nature of names is not a matter of conventions made by those who assign them, as Aristotle thinks. For the languages among human beings do not have their origin from human beings, as is clear to those who can attend to the nature of incantations, which are appropriated, according to the different languages and the different sounds of the names, by the fathers of those languages. About these we spoke briefly above, saying that what naturally has power in a given language, when translated into another language, no longer accomplishes anything as it did in its own sounds. This is found even with human beings: for if someone has been called by a certain name from birth in the Greek language, we would not, by translating it into the language of the Egyptians or the Romans or any other people, make him suffer or do what he would suffer or do when called by the original form of his name. Nor, if we translated into Greek the name of someone called from the beginning in the Roman language, would we accomplish what the incantation promises to do while keeping the name first given him. If these things said about human names are true, what must we think about names that are for whatever reason referred to the divine? For something is translated into Greek, for example, from the name Abraham, and something is signified by the name Isaac, and something shown by the word Jacob. And if the one who invokes or commands under oath names "the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob," he may accomplish a certain thing, whether through the nature of these names or through their power, demons being overcome and made subject to the one who says them; but if he says "the God of the chosen father of the echo, and the God of laughter, and the God of the heel-grabber," what is named accomplishes nothing, like anything else without power. So too, if we translate the name Israel into Greek or another language, we will accomplish nothing; but if we keep it, attaching it to what those skilled in these things thought fit to combine it with, then something might happen, according to the promise of such invocations, from such a word. We will say the same about the word Sabaoth too, which is used in many incantations: if we translate the name as "Lord of the powers" or "Lord of hosts" or "Almighty" (for its interpreters have understood it differently), we will accomplish nothing; but if we keep it in its own sounds, we will accomplish something, as those skilled in these things say. We will say the same about Adonai too. If, then, neither Sabaoth nor Adonai, translated into what they seem to mean in the Greek language, accomplishes anything, how much less would it accomplish or have any power among those who think it makes no difference whether one calls the Most High Zeus, or Zen, or Adonai, or Sabaoth?

Knowing these and similar secret matters, Moses and the prophets forbid us to name "the name of other gods" with a mouth trained to pray to the God over all alone, or to call them to mind in a heart taught to be pure of all vanity of thoughts and words. And for such reasons we choose to endure every outrage rather than acknowledge Zeus as God. For we do not suppose Zeus and Sabaoth to be the same; indeed we do not think Zeus divine at all, but a certain demon who delights in being so named, no friend to human beings or to the true God. And even if the Egyptians hold out Amoun to us, threatening punishment, we will die rather than proclaim Amoun a god, who is probably invoked in certain Egyptian incantations that call up this demon. And let the Scythians say that Papaeus is the God over all; but we will not be persuaded. We do acknowledge the God over all, but we do not name God by Papaeus as a proper name, as pleases the one to whom the Scythian wilderness and their nation and language fell. For one who names God by the common noun in Scythian, or Egyptian, or any language in which he has been brought up, will not sin.

The reason for the circumcision of the Jews is not the same as the reason for the circumcision of the Egyptians or the Colchians; so it would not be considered the same circumcision. And just as one who sacrifices does not sacrifice to the same being, even if he seems to sacrifice in the same way, and one who prays does not pray to the same being, even if he asks for the same things in his prayers, so, if someone is circumcised, this is not simply interchangeable with another person’s circumcision. For the purpose, the law, and the intent of the one who circumcises make the thing different. To make the subject still more understood, it must be said that the name of justice is the same among all the Greeks; yet it is shown that justice according to Epicurus is one thing, according to the Stoics, who deny that the soul has three parts, another, and according to the Platonists, who say that justice is each part of the soul doing its own work, another. So too Epicurus's courage, who endures pains to escape greater pains, is one thing; that of the Stoic, who chooses every virtue for its own sake, another; and that of the Platonist, who says it is the virtue of the spirited part of the soul and assigns it a place about the chest, another. So too circumcision would differ according to the different doctrines of those circumcised; but there is no need to speak of it now in such a treatise. Whoever wishes to see what moved us on this subject, let him read about it in what we have written on Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Even if the Jews pride themselves on circumcision, they will distinguish it not only from the circumcision of the Colchians and Egyptians but also from that of the Ishmaelite Arabs, although Ishmael was born of their forefather Abraham and was circumcised with him. The Jews say that circumcision on the eighth day is the principal one, and that which is not so is from circumstance; and perhaps it was performed because of an angel hostile to the Jewish nation, who was able to harm those of them who were not circumcised but was powerless against those who were circumcised. Someone will say this is shown by what is written in Exodus, where the angel was able to act against Moses before the circumcision of Eliezer, but when he was circumcised had no strength. And having learned such things, "Zipporah took a stone and circumcised" her child; according to the common copies she is recorded to have said, "The blood of my child's circumcision has stopped," but according to the Hebrew itself, "You are a bridegroom of blood to me." For she knew the account of this angel, who had power before the blood and ceased because of the blood of circumcision; for which reason it was said to him: "You are a bridegroom of blood to me." But let these matters, which seem rather curious and not suited to the hearing of the many, be explored this far; I will add one thing to them, as is fitting for a Christian, and pass on to what follows. This angel, I think, had power against those of the people who were not circumcised, and in general against all who worship the Creator alone, and had power as long as Jesus had not taken a body. But when he took one, and his body was circumcised, all this angel's power against those circumcised in this religion was destroyed; for Jesus destroyed him by his divinity beyond words. That is why his disciples are forbidden to be circumcised, and it is said to them: "If you are circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you."

Nor do the Jews pride themselves on abstaining from pigs as something great, but on having learned the nature of clean and unclean animals and known the reason for it, and that the pig is placed among the unclean. These things too were symbols of certain realities until the coming of Jesus; after him it was said to his disciple, who did not yet understand the meaning of these things and said, "Nothing common or unclean has entered my mouth": "What God has cleansed, do not call common." It is nothing, then, either to the Jews or to us, that the priests of the Egyptians abstain not only from pigs but also from goats, sheep, oxen, and fish. But since "it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man," and "food will not commend us to God," we do not think much of ourselves for not eating, nor do we come to eating out of gluttony. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, let the followers of Pythagoras, who abstain from living things, go their way. And see the difference between the reason for abstaining from living things among the followers of Pythagoras and among the ascetics among us. They abstain from living things because of the myth of the soul's transmigration: "And who, lifting up his dear son, will kill him with a prayer, the great fool?" But we, if we do such a thing, do it because we pummel "the body" and bring it under control, and wish to put to death "the members that are on earth: sexual immorality, impurity, sexual excess, passion, evil desire"; and we do everything in order to put to death "the deeds of the body."

Still pronouncing on the Jews, Celsus says: "Nor is it likely that they are in favor with God and loved in any way differently from others, and that angels are sent from there to them alone, as though they had been allotted some land of the blessed; for we see what sort of fortune both they and their land have been thought worthy of." We will refute this too, saying that this nation's being in favor with God is shown also by the fact that the God over all is called the God of the Hebrews even by those alien to our faith. And, being in favor, as long as they were not abandoned, although they were few in number, they continued to be guarded by divine power, so that not even in the time of Alexander of Macedon did they suffer anything from him, although, because of certain treaties and oaths, they had refused to take up arms against Darius. They say that at that time the high priest of the Jews, having put on his priestly robe, was even bowed to by Alexander, who said that someone in this very dress had appeared to him and promised him "in his sleep" that he would subdue all Asia. We Christians, then, say that being in favor with God and loved in a way different from others did indeed belong to them; but that this arrangement and the grace have passed over to us, since Jesus transferred the power that was among the Jews to those from the nations who believed in him. That is why the Romans, though they have wished to do much against the Christians to prevent their continuing to exist, have not been able to; for a divine hand was fighting for them, wishing to sow the Word of God from one corner of the land of Judea among the whole human race.

But since what was set out has been answered as best we could against Celsus's accusation of the Jews and their doctrine, come, let us set out what follows and show that we are not boasting when we profess to know the great God, nor were we led on, as Celsus thinks, by the sorcery of Moses, or even of our Savior Jesus himself; but for a good end we both listen to the God who spoke in Moses and have received Jesus, to whom he bears witness as God, as the Son of God, hoping for the best things if we live according to his word. We will willingly pass over saying again what we set out in anticipation, teaching where we have come from, and whom we have as founder, and what law comes from him. And if Celsus wishes us to differ in no way from the Egyptians who revere the goat, or the ram, or the crocodile, or the ox, or the hippopotamus, or the baboon, or the cat, he and anyone who agrees with him about this may know it for themselves. But we, as best we could, have defended at length in what went before our honor toward our Jesus, showing that we have found something better; and we alone, declaring the truth pure and unmixed with falsehood to be in the teaching of Jesus Christ, commend not ourselves but our teacher, who has been attested by the God over all in many ways, both by the prophetic words among the Jews and by the plain evidence itself; for it is shown that he did not accomplish such great things without God.

The passage of Celsus that we now wish to examine reads as follows: "Let us pass over, then, the arguments by which they are refuted about their teacher; and let him be regarded as truly an angel. Did he come first and alone, or did others come before? If they said that he alone came, they would be convicted of lying and contradicting themselves. For they say that others too came often, and indeed sixty or seventy together, who became wicked and are punished, being cast in chains under the earth, which is why the hot springs are their tears.⁠a And moreover an angel came to this man's own tomb (some say one, others two) who answered the women that he had risen. For the child of God, it seems, could not open the tomb, but needed another to roll away the rock. And again, about Mary's pregnancy an angel came to the carpenter, and another angel so that they might snatch up the infant and flee. And why need I go through everything in detail, and count up those said to have been sent to Moses and others among them? If, then, others too were sent, it is clear that this one also came from the same God. But let him be regarded as announcing something more, as though the Jews were doing wrong, or debasing piety, or not doing holy things; for this is what they hint."

What was said earlier, in our separate examination of Celsus's words about our Savior Jesus Christ, would be enough; but so that we may not seem to pass over any part of his writing deliberately, as though unable to answer him, come, even if we are going to repeat ourselves, since Celsus challenges us to it, let us cut the discussion as short as we can, in case something clearer or newer on the same subjects occurs to us. He says that he passes over the arguments by which Christians are refuted about their teacher, though he has passed over nothing he could say, as is evident from what he said above; he does this simply following a rhetorical device. But that we are not refuted about so great a Savior of ours, even if the accuser seems to refute us, will be clear to those who read, with love of truth and careful examination, all that has been prophesied and recorded about him. Next, since he is thought to speak by way of concession about the Savior, "let him be regarded as truly an angel," we say that we do not accept this as conceded by Celsus, but look to the work of the one who came to the whole human race according to his own word and teaching, as each of those who received him could contain it. This was the work of one who, as the prophecy about him named him, is not simply an angel but the angel "of great counsel"; for he announced to human beings the great counsel of God, the Father of the universe, concerning them: of those who yield to live in pure worship of God, as ascending to God through great deeds, and of those who do not receive it, as putting themselves far from God and traveling toward destruction through unbelief concerning God. Then he says next: "If this one too came to human beings as an angel, did he come first and alone, or did others come before?" And he thinks he answers both alternatives at length, though no true Christian says that Christ alone came to the human race; and Celsus says that others too appeared to human beings, "if they said that he alone came."

Then he answers himself as he wishes; yet he is not reported to have come to the human race alone, so that even those who, on the pretext of the teaching of the name of Jesus, have departed from the Creator as an inferior being and gone over to some supposedly higher God, Father of the one who came, say that even before him some came to the human race from the Creator. But since we examine the subject with love of truth, we will say that Apelles, the student of Marcion, who became the father of a certain heresy and considered the writings of the Jews a myth, says that this one alone came to the human race. Not even against him, then, who says that Jesus alone came to human beings from God, could Celsus reasonably bring the claim that others too have come, since Apelles, as we said before, disbelieves the Jewish Scriptures that tell of more marvelous things; and much less will he accept what Celsus seems to have set down having misheard it from what is written in Enoch. No one, then, convicts us of lying and contradicting ourselves, both that our Savior alone came and that many others have often come. And in examining the angels who have come to human beings, Celsus sets down, very confusedly, what came to him indistinctly from what is written in Enoch; he does not seem to have read these writings himself, nor to know that the books inscribed with the name of Enoch are not at all accepted as divine in the churches. So he might be thought to have thrown out the "sixty or seventy together" who came down and became wicked.

But, to grant him more generously what he did not see in what is written in Genesis, that "the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they chose," we will nonetheless persuade those able to hear the prophetic intent on this subject too that one of those before us referred these words to the doctrine of souls that came to desire life in a human body, which, he said, is figuratively called "daughters of men." However things stand concerning the sons of God who desired the daughters of men, the account contributes nothing to Celsus's claim that Jesus was not the only one who came to human beings as an angel, having clearly become the Savior and benefactor of all who turn from the flood of vice. Then, mixing and confusing whatever he heard in whatever way, and what is written wherever it may be, whether considered divine among Christians or not, he says that the sixty or seventy who came down together are punished, being cast in chains under the earth. And he brings in, as from Enoch, without naming him: "which is why the hot springs are their tears," a thing neither said nor heard in the churches of God. For no one was so foolish as to give bodily form to tears like those of human beings in the angels who came down from heaven. And if we may joke in reply to what Celsus earnestly urges against us, it must be said that no one would have said that hot springs, most of which are fresh, are the tears of angels, since the nature of tears is salty; unless perhaps Celsus's angels weep fresh tears.

Then, next, mixing and likening things that cannot be mixed and are unlike, he adds to his account of the sixty or seventy angels who, as he says, came down and wept hot springs, as he would have it, that some report two angels and some one as having come to the tomb of Jesus himself. He did not observe, I think, that Matthew and Mark reported one, and Luke and John two; which are not contradictory. For those who recorded one say that this is the one who rolled away "the stone" from the tomb; the others speak of the two who stood by the women who came to the tomb "in dazzling clothing," or who were seen inside "sitting in white." To show now that each of these both happened and indicates some figurative meaning, concerning what appears to those prepared to contemplate the resurrection of the Word, belongs not to the present treatise but rather to commentaries on the Gospel.

That marvelous things have sometimes appeared to human beings has been reported even by the Greeks, not only by those who might be suspected of making up myths, but also by those who have shown in many ways that they practice philosophy genuinely and set out truthfully what reached them. We have read such things in Chrysippus of Soli, some in Pythagoras, and even in some more recent writers who lived only yesterday or the day before, such as Plutarch of Chaeronea in his work On the Soul and Numenius the Pythagorean in the second book of On the Incorruptibility of the Soul. Or is it that if Greeks, and especially the philosophers among them, narrate such things, what they say is not mockery or laughter, nor fictions and myths; but if those devoted to the God of the universe, who for the sake of not uttering even with their voice a falsehood about God accept every outrage even to death, report appearances of angels as having seen them, they are judged unworthy of belief and their words are not ranked among true ones? But it is not reasonable to judge this way about those who tell the truth or lie. For those who train themselves not to be deceived, after much careful research and examination of each subject, declare more slowly and securely that such people are truthful and such others lie in the marvels they report, since not all show themselves worthy of belief, nor are all plainly shown to have handed down fictions and myths to human beings. Further, concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, this too must be said: that at that time one or two angels were seen, announcing that he had risen and caring for those who believed this to their own benefit, is no wonder. And it seems to me not unreasonable that those who always so believe that Jesus has risen, and who show as a fruit of their belief, which should not be dismissed, a vigorous life and a change from the flood of evils, do not live without angels who help them in their turning to God taking hold of them.

Celsus also accuses the account that says an angel rolled "the stone" away from the tomb where Jesus's body was, like a youth who has seized on something in a school exercise to accuse, as a set topic; and, as though he had found something clever against the account, he says: "The child of God, it seems, could not open the tomb, but needed another to roll away the rock." So as not to be overly curious about the passage, or seem to philosophize at an unsuitable time by setting out a figurative interpretation at present, I will say about the narrative itself that it is plainly more dignified for the lesser being and servant to have rolled away "the stone" than for the one rising for the benefit of human beings to have done it. I will not dwell on the point that those who plotted against the Word, and wished to kill him and show him to all as dead and of no account, wanted his tomb never to be opened, so that no one might see the Word alive after their plot; while the angel of God, who came as fellow-worker with the Angel for the salvation of human beings and was stronger than the plotters, rolls away the heavy stone, so that those who think the Word has died may be persuaded that he "is not" "among the dead," but lives and "goes before" those who wish to follow him, so as to show them what comes next after what he showed before, to those who during the earlier period of their instruction could not yet contain greater things. Then, I do not know how, after this he throws in, for I know not what useful purpose to his aim, that when Mary was pregnant an angel came to Joseph, and again that they might snatch up the child who had been born and was being plotted against, and flee to Egypt. We have discussed these things above too, in reply to what he said. And what does Celsus mean by the fact that the Scriptures report angels sent to Moses and the others? It seems to me to contribute nothing to what he wants, especially since none of them struggled for the human race to turn it, as far as possible, from its sins. Let others, then, have been sent from God, and let this one announce something more; and since the Jews were doing wrong, debasing piety, and not doing holy things, let him give the kingdom of God "to other tenants," those everywhere in the churches who take care of themselves and do everything to bring the starting points given by Jesus's teaching to the God of the universe through a pure life and a word consistent with that life.

Then next Celsus says: "So the same God is God both of the Jews and of these," meaning clearly the Christians; and, as though drawing a conclusion that would not be granted, he says this: "Clearly those of the great church admit this, and accept as true the cosmogony current among the Jews, at least about the six days and the seventh," on which, as the Scripture says, God "stopped working," withdrawing to his own vantage point, but, as Celsus says, not having observed or understood what is written, "took a rest," which is not written. About the making of the world, and the sabbath rest that remains after it for the people of God, there would be "much" to say, and it is mystical and deep and "hard to explain." Then, it seems to me, wishing to fill up his book and make it seem large, he adds some things at random, such as those about the first man, that we say he is the same as the Jews do, and trace the descent from him in the same way as they. And we know of no plots of brothers against one another, except that Cain plotted against Abel and Esau against Jacob; for Abel did not plot against Cain nor Jacob against Esau; if that had happened, Celsus would consistently have said that we report the same plots of brothers against one another as the Jews do. Let it be granted that we also speak of the same journey into Egypt as they do, and the return from there, and not a flight, as Celsus thinks: what, then, do these things contribute to the accusation against us or against the Jews? Where he thought he could mock us in his account of the Hebrews, he called it a flight; but where the substance lay, to examine the recorded plagues brought upon Egypt by God, he deliberately kept silent.

If we must answer Celsus precisely, since he thinks we hold the same views as the Jews on the matters set out, we will say that we both agree that the books were written by the divine Spirit, but about the interpretation of what is in the books we no longer say the same things, since we do not even live as the Jews do, because we think that the literal interpretation of the laws is not what contains the intent of the legislation. And we say that "whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over the heart," because the intent of the law of Moses has been hidden from those who have not embraced the way through Jesus Christ. And we know that "if anyone turns to the Lord" ("and the Lord is the Spirit"), having had "the veil" removed, he sees as in a mirror, "with unveiled face," "the glory of the Lord" in the thoughts hidden in the letter, and shares in what is called the divine glory for his own glory ("face" being said figuratively, and, as one might put it more plainly, meaning the mind), in which is the face "of the inner man," filled with light and glory from the truth contained in the laws.

Next he says: "Let no one think that I am unaware that some of them will agree that their God is the same as that of the Jews, while others say he is another, to whom this one is opposed, and that the Son came from that other." If he thinks that the existence of many sects among Christians is an accusation against Christianity, why should not, by analogy, the disagreement among the schools of philosophers, not about small and ordinary matters but about the most essential, be thought an accusation against philosophy? It is time for medicine too to be accused because of its schools. Let there be among us, then, those who say that God is not the same as the God of the Jews; but those who show from the same writings that the God of the Jews and of the nations is one and the same are not therefore to be accused, as Paul too plainly says, who came over to Christianity from the Jews: "I thank my God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a pure conscience." Let there be also a third kind, those who call some people natural and others spiritual; I think he means the followers of Valentinus. And what has this to do with us of the church, who accuse those who introduce natures saved by their constitution or lost by their constitution? Let there be also some who profess to be Gnostics, like the Epicureans who proclaim themselves philosophers. But neither would those who do away with providence truly be philosophers, nor would those who have introduced strange fabrications, which do not please those in the succession from Jesus, be Christians. Let there be also some who accept Jesus and on that account boast of being Christians, yet still wish to live according to the Jewish law like the multitudes of the Jews; these are the two kinds of Ebionites, who either confess, as we do, that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that he was not born so but like other human beings: what charge does this bring against those of the church, whom Celsus named after their great number ("the great church")? He said that there are also some Sibyllists, perhaps having misheard some who accuse those who think the Sibyl was a prophetess and call such people Sibyllists.

Then, pouring a heap of names over us, he says he knows also of some Simonians, who, revering Helena or a teacher Helenus, are called Helenians. But it escapes Celsus that the Simonians in no way confess Jesus as the Son of God, but call Simon the power of God, telling marvels about him, since he thought that if he pretended to do things like those Jesus seemed to have done, he too would have as much power among human beings as Jesus had among the many. But neither Celsus nor Simon could understand how Jesus, as a good "farmer" of the word of God, was able to sow much of Greece and much of the barbarian world and fill it with words that transfer the soul from all evil and lead it up to the Creator of the universe. Celsus, then, knows also of Marcellians from Marcellina, and Harpocratians from Salome, and others from Mariamme, and others from Martha; but we, who out of love of learning, as far as we could, have examined not only the contents of our faith and the differences within it, but also, as far as possible, investigated with love of truth the views of the philosophers, have never met these. Celsus also mentioned Marcionites, who have Marcion as their head.

Then, so as to seem to know others besides those he named, he says, in his usual way, that "some have one teacher and demon, others another, wandering miserably and rolling about in great darkness, more lawless and foul than the revelers of Antinous in Egypt." And in touching on the facts he seems to me to have said something true: that some, wandering miserably and rolling about in the great darkness of ignorance, have found one demon or another as their patron. About Antinous, who is compared with our Jesus, we have spoken earlier and will not repeat ourselves. "And these people," he says, "utter against one another dreadful blasphemies, speakable and unspeakable; and they would not yield in the slightest to agreement, loathing one another utterly." To this too we have said that in philosophy and in medicine one can find schools warring with schools. But we who follow the word of Jesus, and have trained ourselves to think and say and do his words, "when insulted, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we appeal"; and we would not say things speakable and unspeakable against those who hold views different from ours; but, if we can, we would do everything to change them for the better, by attaching themselves to the Creator alone and doing everything as those who will be judged. And if those of other opinions are not persuaded, we keep the word that commanded such things about them: "After a first and a second warning, have nothing more to do with a heretical man, knowing that such a person is perverted and sins, being self-condemned." Further, those who have understood "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Blessed are the meek" would not loathe those who debase the things of Christianity, nor would they call those who have gone astray Circes and crafty deceivers.

He seems to me to have misheard both the apostle's words that say, "In later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose own conscience is seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful," and those who have used these words of the apostle against those who have debased the things of Christianity. That is why Celsus said that some among the Christians are called "branding irons for the ears." He says also that some are called "riddles," which we have not come across. It is true that the word "stumbling block" occurs often in these writings, which we are accustomed to use of those who pervert the simpler and easily deceived from sound teaching. As for "certain Sirens dancing lewdly and sophistical, sealing up the ears and giving swine's heads to those who obey them," we do not know of any so named, nor, I think, does anyone else among those of our faith or in the sects. But this man, who professes to know everything, says such things too: "And you will hear," he says, "all of them, though so divided and refuting one another most shamefully in their quarrels, saying: 'The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.'" This seems to be the only thing Celsus remembers from Paul; for why do we not also quote countless other things written, such as: "For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly but powerful for God for the destruction of strongholds, destroying reasonings and every high thing raised up against the knowledge of God"?

And since he says "you will hear all of them, though so divided, saying: 'The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,'" we will refute this falsehood too. For there are some sects that do not accept the letters of the apostle Paul, such as both kinds of Ebionites and those called Encratites. Those who do not use the apostle as a blessed and wise man would not, then, say "The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world"; so Celsus lies in this too. And he dwells on accusing the differences among the sects; but he does not seem to me to distinguish at all clearly what he says, nor to have considered it carefully, nor to have understood how the Christians advanced in learning say they know more than the Jews, and whether they do so while accepting the books but interpreting their sense differently, or not even accepting their writings; for we would find both among the sects. After this he says: "Come then, even if they have no foundation for their doctrine, let us examine the doctrine itself. But first we must state what they have misheard and corrupt through ignorance, arrogantly overbearing, without good taste, right from the beginning about things they do not know; these are the following." And immediately, against certain expressions constantly used by those who believe in the Christian doctrine, he sets passages from the philosophers, wishing to show that the good things that Celsus supposes are said among Christians have been said both better and more clearly among the philosophers, so as to draw toward philosophy those who are captivated by doctrines that plainly display what is noble and pious. And ending the fifth book here, let us begin the sixth from what follows.