Against Celsus 1.43–1.54

We will say first, then, that if the one who disbelieves the apparition of the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove had been described as an Epicurean, a Democritean, or a Peripatetic, what is said would have been consistent with the character portrayed. But as it is, not even this did the most wise Celsus see: that he attached such an argument to a Jew, who believes things more numerous and more extraordinary, from the prophetic writings, than the story about the form of the dove. For one might say to the Jew who disbelieves the apparition and thinks he can accuse it as a fiction: How, sir, could you prove that the Lord God said to Adam, or Eve, or Cain, or Noah, or Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob what he is recorded to have said to these men? And to set story beside story, I might say to the Jew: Your Ezekiel too wrote, saying: "The heavens were opened, and I saw a vision of God"; and after describing it he adds: "This was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord; and he spoke to me." If what is recorded of Jesus is false because, as you suppose, we cannot clearly prove how these things are true that were seen or heard by him alone and, as you thought you had noticed, by one of those who were punished, why shall we not rather say that Ezekiel too was telling marvels when he said, "The heavens were opened," and so on? And if Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting on a high and lofty throne, and the Seraphim stood around him, six wings to the one and six wings to the other," and so on, how do you know he truly saw it? For you have believed these things, O Jew, as free from falsehood, and as not only seen by the prophet by a more divine spirit but also spoken and written down. Whom is it more worthy to believe when he says that the heavens were opened to him and that he heard a voice, or saw "the Lord Sabaoth sitting on a high and lofty throne"—Isaiah and Ezekiel, or Jesus? For no work of theirs so great is found; but the noble achievement of Jesus did not happen only in the time of his embodiment; even to this day the power of Jesus is working conversion and improvement in those who believe in God through him. A clear proof that these things happen by his power is that, as he himself says and as is evident, though there are not workers to work the harvest of souls, there is so great a harvest being gathered and brought together into the threshing floors of God everywhere, the churches.

And I say this to the Jew not as a Christian who disbelieves Ezekiel and Isaiah, but to put him to shame on the basis of what we both believe: that this man is far more worthy than they to be believed when he says he saw such things and, as is likely, handed on to his disciples the vision he saw and the voice he heard. Another might say that not all who recorded the form of the dove and the voice from heaven heard Jesus telling of these things; but the Spirit that taught Moses the history older than himself, beginning from the making of the world and reaching to the time of Abraham his forefather, also taught those who wrote the Gospel the wonder that happened at the time of Jesus' baptism. And one who is adorned with the gift called "the word of wisdom" will also explain the reason for the opening of the heavens and for the form of the dove, and why the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of this creature and not of some other. But the argument does not now require us to explain this; for our purpose is to show that Celsus did not soundly attribute to a Jew, with such words, disbelief in an event that, as is likely, happened—rather than in the things that the Jew himself believes.

I remember once, in a debate with some Jews who were said to be wise, using this argument, with many people judging what was said: "Tell me, sirs: two men have come to dwell among the human race about whom extraordinary things, beyond human nature, have been recorded—I mean Moses, your lawgiver, who wrote about himself, and Jesus, our teacher, who left no writing of his own about himself but is witnessed to by his disciples in the Gospels. What arbitrary choice is it that Moses is believed as telling the truth, although the Egyptians slander him as a sorcerer who seemed to do his mighty works by trickery, while Jesus is disbelieved because you accuse him? For nations bear witness to both: the Jews to Moses, and the Christians, who do not deny the prophetic office of Moses but prove from it the things about Jesus, accept as true the extraordinary things about him recorded by his disciples. If you demand from us an account of Jesus, first give one of Moses, who came before him, and then we will give ours about him. But if you back away and flee from the proofs about Moses, then for the present we will do the same as you and give no proof. Nevertheless, admit that you have no demonstration about Moses, and hear the proofs about Jesus from the law and the prophets. And the remarkable thing is that from the proofs about Jesus in the law and the prophets it is proved that both Moses and the prophets were prophets of God."

The law and the prophets are full of wonders similar to the one recorded of Jesus at his baptism concerning the dove and the voice from heaven. And I think a sign of the Holy Spirit who was then seen in the form of a dove are the wonders done by Jesus, which Celsus slanders, saying that he did them having learned them among the Egyptians. And I will use not only those but also, as is fitting, those that the apostles of Jesus did. For without mighty works and wonders they would not have moved those who heard new teachings and new lessons to abandon their ancestral ways and accept their teachings at the risk of death. And traces of that Holy Spirit who was seen in the form of a dove are still preserved among Christians. They drive out demons, perform many healings, and see certain things about the future according to the will of the Word. And even if Celsus, or the Jew he introduced, mocks what I am going to say, it will be said nonetheless: many have come to Christianity as if against their will, some spirit having suddenly turned their ruling faculty from hating the teaching to dying for it, and having shown them visions awake or asleep. We have known many such cases; if we write of those at which we ourselves were present and which we saw, we will incur loud laughter from unbelievers, who think that we, like those they suppose to have invented such things, are inventing them too. But God is witness to our conscience, which wishes to commend the divine teaching of Jesus not by false reports but by manifold evidence. And since it is a Jew who is at a loss about the recorded descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus in the form of a dove, one might say to him: Sir, who is it that says in Isaiah, "And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit"? Here, since the text is ambiguous—whether the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Jesus, or the Father sent both the Christ and the Holy Spirit—the second is true. And since the Savior was sent, and then the Holy Spirit, so that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled, and the fulfillment of the prophecy had to be made known to those who came after, the disciples of Jesus recorded what happened.

I would have liked to say to Celsus, who portrayed the Jew as in some way accepting John as a baptizer who baptized Jesus, that John's having been a baptizer, baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, was recorded by one who lived not long after John and Jesus. For in the eighteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities Josephus bears witness to John as having been a baptizer and as promising purification to those who were baptized. The same writer, although he did not believe in Jesus as the Christ, when seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple—though he ought to have said that the plot against Jesus was the cause of these things for the people, since they killed the prophesied Christ—nevertheless, as if against his will not far from the truth, says that these things befell the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was the brother of "Jesus who is called Christ," since they killed him though he was most righteous. This James Paul, the genuine disciple of Jesus, says he saw, as "the brother of the Lord," not so much because of blood relationship or their common upbringing as because of his character and his teaching. If, then, he says that the desolation of Jerusalem befell the Jews because of James, how is it not more reasonable to say that it happened because of Jesus the Christ? Witnesses to his divinity are the many churches of those who have turned from the flood of evils and depend on the Creator and refer everything to what pleases him.

Even if the Jew will not defend Ezekiel and Isaiah when we compare the opening of the heavens for Jesus and the voice he heard with similar things recorded in Ezekiel and Isaiah or some other prophet, we at least will establish our case as best we can, saying this: just as it is believed that many have seen in a dream visions announcing some things more divine, and some things about the future of this life, either clearly or in riddles—and this is evident to all who accept providence—so what is absurd in supposing that what impresses the ruling faculty in a dream can impress it also when awake, for the benefit of the one in whom the impression is made or of those who will hear from him? And just as we have the impression in a dream of hearing, of the bodily hearing being struck, and of seeing with the eyes, though neither the eyes of the body nor the hearing is struck, but the ruling faculty experiences these things, so there is nothing absurd in such things having happened to the prophets, when they are recorded to have seen extraordinary things, or heard words of the Lord, or beheld the heavens opened. For I do not suppose that the visible heaven was opened, and its body split apart by the opening, for Ezekiel to record such a thing. Perhaps, then, one who hears the Gospels with understanding should take the same to be true of the Savior too, even if this offends the simpler folk, who in their great simplicity set the world in motion, splitting apart so vast and unified a body as the whole heaven. But one who examines the matter more deeply will say that there is, as Scripture has named it, a certain divine sense in general, which only the blessed man finds, according to what is said in Solomon: "that you will find a divine sense"; and that there are kinds of this sense: a sight naturally fitted to see things higher than bodies, among which the cherubim or seraphim are shown; a hearing that perceives voices that do not have their being in the air; a taste that feeds on the living bread which came down from heaven and gives life to the world; so too a smell that smells such things, in the sense in which Paul says there is "a fragrance of Christ to God"; and a touch, by which John says he has handled with his hands "concerning the word of life." The blessed prophets, having found the divine sense, and seeing divinely, hearing divinely, and likewise tasting and smelling, so to speak, with a sense not of the senses, and touching the Word with faith, so that an emanation from him came to them and healed them—in this way they saw what they record that they saw, and heard what they say they heard, and experienced similar things, as they recorded, eating the "roll" of a book given to them. So too Isaac "smelled the smell" of his son's more divine "garments," and added in a spiritual blessing: "See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." Similarly to these, and in an intellectual rather than a bodily way, Jesus "touched" the leper to cleanse him—in two ways, I think: freeing him not only, as the many understand it, from bodily leprosy by bodily touch, but also from the other by his truly divine touch. In this way, then, "John bore witness, saying: I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. And I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me: He on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God." And for Jesus the heavens were opened; and at that time no one except John is recorded to have seen the heavens opened. But the Savior, foretelling to his disciples that this opening of the heavens would happen and that they would see it, says: "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." And so Paul was caught up to the third heaven, having first seen it opened, since he was a disciple of Jesus. But to explain now why Paul says, "whether in the body I do not know, whether out of the body I do not know; God knows," is not for the present occasion. I will add to the argument also this: Celsus thinks that Jesus himself told of the opening of the heavens and of the Holy Spirit coming down on him in the form of a dove at the Jordan, though Scripture does not state that he himself said he had seen this. This most noble man did not perceive that it is not in keeping with one who said to his disciples about the vision on the mountain, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is raised from the dead," to have told his disciples what was seen and heard by John at the Jordan. One can see this also in the character of Jesus, who everywhere avoided talking about himself and for this reason said, "If I bear witness about myself, my witness is not true." And since he avoided talking about himself and wished to show that he was the Christ by his works rather than by words, the Jews said to him for this reason: "If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." But since it is a Jew in Celsus who says to Jesus about the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, "Except that you say so, and bring forward one of those who were punished with you," we must show him that this too he did not attribute appropriately to the Jewish character. For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor John's punishment with that of Jesus. In this too, then, the one who boasted that he knew everything is convicted of not knowing what words to attach to the Jew's speech to Jesus.

After this, I do not know why, he deliberately passes over the most important heading for establishing Jesus' case—that he was prophesied by the prophets among the Jews, Moses and those after him, or even before Moses—I suppose because he could not answer the argument, just as neither the Jews nor the sects that do not want Jesus to have been prophesied can. Perhaps he did not even know the prophecies about Jesus; for otherwise, in setting down what Christians say—that many prophets foretold the coming of the Savior—he would not have attached to the Jewish character things more fitting for a Samaritan or a Sadducee to say. Nor would the Jew in the imaginary speech have said: "But a prophet of mine once said in Jerusalem that a son of God would come, the judge of the holy and the punisher of the unjust." For not one prophet only prophesied about Christ; and even if the Samaritans or Sadducees, who accept only the books of Moses, were to say that the Christ was prophesied in them, the prophecy was certainly not spoken in Jerusalem, which had not yet even been named in Moses' time. Would that all the accusers of the teaching were in such ignorance, not only of the facts but even of the bare letters of Scripture, when they accuse Christianity! Then their argument would not have even ordinary plausibility, able to draw away the unsteady, those who believe "for a while," from—not faith, but little faith. A Jew would not admit that some prophet said a son of God would come; what they say is that the Christ of God will come. And indeed they often question us at once about a son of God, as though there were no such being and none had been prophesied. We are not saying that a son of God is not prophesied, but that Celsus did not fittingly attribute to the Jewish character, which does not admit such a thing, the words, "A prophet of mine once said in Jerusalem that a son of God would come."

Then, as if this alone had been prophesied, that he would be the judge of the holy and the punisher of the unjust, and neither the place of his birth, nor the suffering he would undergo from the Jews, nor his resurrection, nor the wonderful mighty works he would do had been foretold, he says: "Why you, rather than countless others who were born after the prophecy, about whom these things were prophesied?" And, I do not know why, wishing to attribute to others too the possibility of being suspected of being the ones prophesied, he says that "some in ecstasy and others begging say that a son of God has come from above." For we have not learned that the Jews admit that this has happened. We must say first, then, that many prophets foretold the things about Christ in all sorts of ways—some in riddles, others by allegory or some other way, and some even in plain words. And since in what follows, in the speech of the Jew to believers from his own people, he says that the prophecies referred to his case can be applied to other events as well—saying this cleverly and maliciously—we will set out a few out of many. About these, let whoever wishes say something compelling to overturn them, able to move from their faith those who believe intelligently.

It has been said, then, about the place of his birth, that the ruler "will come forth" from "Bethlehem," in this way: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are the least to be among the thousands of Judah; from you will come forth for me one to be ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity." This prophecy would not fit any of those whom Celsus's Jew calls ecstatics and beggars saying they have come from above, unless it were clearly shown that he was born in Bethlehem, or, as someone else might put it, came from Bethlehem to rule the people. As for Jesus' being born in Bethlehem, if anyone wants to be persuaded from other sources besides the prophecy of Micah and the story recorded in the Gospels by Jesus' disciples, let him note that, in agreement with the story in the Gospel about his birth, there is shown in Bethlehem the cave where he was born and the manger in the cave where he was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And what is shown there is famous in those parts, even among those alien to the faith, namely that in this cave was born the Jesus who is worshiped and admired by Christians. I think that before the coming of Christ the chief priests and scribes of the people taught, because of the clearness and plainness of the prophecy, that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem; and this teaching reached the many among the Jews too. That is why Herod is recorded, when he inquired of the chief priests and scribes of the people, to have heard from them that the Christ would be born "in Bethlehem of Judea," where David came from. And further, in the Gospel according to John it is said that the Jews said that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, where David was from. But after the coming of Christ, those who busied themselves to overthrow the belief that his birth had been prophesied long before took such teaching away from the people—doing something akin to what was done by those who persuaded the soldiers guarding the tomb, who had seen him risen from the dead and were reporting it, and said to those who had seen: "Say that his disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him and keep you out of trouble."

For contentiousness and prejudice are hard things, able to make people shut their eyes even to what is evident, so as not to abandon doctrines that have dyed their souls deeply, to which they have somehow become accustomed, and which have given their souls their quality. A person would more easily abandon his habits in other things, even if he is hard to tear away from them, than those concerning doctrines. Yet not even those do people accustomed to them easily disregard; so those who have become attached to houses, or cities, or villages, or familiar people are not willing to leave them easily. This, then, was the cause for many of the Jews at that time of shutting their eyes to the evidence both of the prophecies and of the wonders that Jesus is recorded to have done and suffered. That human nature is affected in this way will be clear to those who observe that people once prepossessed, even by the most shameful and senseless traditions of their fathers and fellow citizens, are not easily changed. One would not quickly persuade an Egyptian, at any rate, to despise what he has received from his fathers, so as not to regard such-and-such an irrational animal as a god, or not to guard himself even to death against tasting the flesh of such-and-such an animal. If, then, examining this argument at greater length, we have gone through the matters concerning Bethlehem and the prophecy about it, we think we have done so necessarily, answering those who might say: if the prophecies about Jesus among the Jews were so clear, why, when he came, did they not assent to his teaching and change over to the better things Jesus showed? But let no one reproach us believers with something similar, seeing that no contemptible arguments are brought forward about faith in Jesus by those who have learned to uphold them.

If there is need of a second prophecy about Jesus which seems to us clear, we will set out the one recorded by Moses very many years before Jesus' coming. He says that Jacob, when departing this life, prophesied to each of his sons, and said to Judah among other things: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until the things laid up for him come." Anyone reading this prophecy—which in truth is much older than Moses, though an unbeliever might suppose it spoken by Moses—might wonder how Moses was able to foretell that the kings of the Jews, though there were twelve tribes among them, would be born of the tribe of Judah and rule the people; which is why the whole people is called Jews, named after the ruling tribe. And second, one who reads the prophecy fairly might wonder how, having said that the rulers and leaders of the people would be from the tribe of Judah, he also set the end of its rule, saying that a ruler shall not fail "from Judah," nor a leader "from his loins, until the things laid up for him come; and he is the expectation of the nations." For he has come to whom "the things laid up" belong, the Christ of God, "the ruler" of God's promises; and clearly he alone, compared with all before him—and I would boldly say, all after him too—has become "the expectation of the nations." For from all the nations they have believed in God through him, and, according to what Isaiah said, the nations have hoped in his name, since he said: "In his name the nations will hope." He also said "to those in bonds," in the sense that "each is bound fast by the cords of his own sins," "Come out," and to those in ignorance to come to the light, these things having been prophesied thus: "And I have given you as a covenant of the nations, to establish the earth and to inherit a desolate inheritance, saying to those in bonds, Come out, and to those in darkness, Be revealed." And one can see, at his coming, through those everywhere in the world who believe more simply, the fulfillment of: "And they shall feed in all the ways, and in all the paths shall be their pasture."

Since Celsus, who professes to know everything of the teaching, reproaches the Savior for his suffering, as not having been helped by the Father or not having been able to help himself, we must set out that his suffering was prophesied together with its cause: that it was useful for human beings that he should die for them and suffer the stripes of one condemned. It was also foretold that those from the nations, among whom the prophets had not been, would "understand" him, and it was said that he would be seen with a "form without honor" in the eyes of men. The text runs thus: "Behold, my servant will understand, and he will be exalted and glorified and lifted up greatly. As many will be astonished at you, so will your form be without glory among men, and your glory among men. So will many nations marvel at him, and kings will shut their mouths; for those to whom nothing was announced about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced him as a child before him, as a root in a thirsty land; he has no form nor glory. And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty; but his form was without honor and failing beyond all men: a man in affliction, and knowing how to bear sickness, for his face is turned away. He was dishonored and not esteemed. This man bears our sins and suffers pain for us, and we reckoned him to be in toil and in affliction and in ill treatment. But he was wounded for our sins and made sick for our lawless deeds; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his stripes we were healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; each has gone astray in his own way; and the Lord handed him over for our sins. And he, because he has been ill treated, does not open his mouth; like a sheep he was led to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away; who will tell of his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth; from the lawless deeds of my people he was led to death."