Against Celsus 1.66–2.7

Next after this, Celsus's Jew says to Jesus: "And why did you have to be carried off to Egypt while still an infant, so that you would not be slaughtered? For it was not likely that a god would be afraid of death. But an angel came from heaven, commanding you and your family to flee, lest you be left behind and die. Could not the great God, who had already sent two angels on your account, guard his own son there?" In this Celsus supposes that what was divine in Jesus could not have been in a human body and soul, but that his body too must have been such as Homer's myths portray. At any rate, mocking the blood of Jesus poured out on the cross, he says that it was not "ichor, such as flows in the blessed gods." But we, believing Jesus himself when he says of the divinity in him, "I am the way and the truth and the life," and anything similar, and when he says of his being in a human body, "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth," say that he was a certain composite being. And it was necessary that one who provided for his own coming into life as a man should not rush into danger of death out of season. So too it was necessary that he be led by those who brought him up, who were guided by a divine angel. First the one giving the warning said, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife; for what is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit"; and second, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you; for Herod is about to seek the child to destroy him." In these things what is recorded seems to me not at all extraordinary. For in both places of Scripture the angel is said to have said these things to Joseph in a dream; and it happens to many others to be shown in a dream to do certain things, whether an angel or anyone else gives the soul the vision. What is absurd, then, in one who had once become man being guided also in a human way to avoid dangers—not because it was impossible to happen otherwise, but because what was possible had to be managed by way and order concerning the safety of Jesus? It was better for the child Jesus to escape Herod's plot and go away with those who brought him up "to Egypt" "until the death" of the plotter, than for providence for Jesus to hinder the free will of Herod, who wished to kill the child, or to put around Jesus what the poets call "the helmet of Hades" or something similar, or to strike those who came to kill him as those in Sodom were struck. For help given to him that was wholly extraordinary and too manifest would not have been useful for his purpose of teaching that, as a man attested by God, he had something more divine in the man who was seen. That was, in the proper sense, the Son of God, God the Word, the power of God and the wisdom of God, the one called Christ. But this is not the time to explain the composite, and the elements of which Jesus, who became man, was composed; that is, so to speak, a special question for believers.

After this Celsus's Jew says, like some Greek fond of learning and educated in Greek culture: "The ancient myths, which ascribed divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus, and Minos (we did not believe even them), nevertheless showed great and wonderful deeds of theirs, truly beyond human power, so as not to seem unconvincing. But you—what fine or wonderful thing have you done in deed or word? You showed us nothing, though we challenged you in the temple to produce some clear sign that you were the son of God." To this we must say: let the Greeks show us, of those listed, some deed useful to life, splendid, extending to later generations, and so great as to make plausible the myth about them that says they were born of divine seed. But they will show nothing even a little less than what Jesus presented, concerning the men about whom they wrote—unless the Greeks take us back to myths and their stories, wishing us to believe them without reason and to disbelieve these even after much evidence. We say, then, that the whole inhabited world of human beings holds the work of Jesus, in which dwell the churches of God, through Jesus, made up of those who have turned from countless evils. And still the name of Jesus removes mental derangements from human beings, and demons, and diseases too, and produces a wonderful gentleness and restraint of character, love of humanity, kindness, and mildness in those who have not feigned for worldly reasons or some human needs but have genuinely accepted the teaching about God and Christ and the judgment to come.

Next after this, Celsus, suspecting the great deeds of Jesus that would be shown—of which we have mentioned a few out of many—pretends to grant that what is recorded about healings, or resurrection, or a few loaves feeding many, from which many fragments were left over, or whatever else he thinks the disciples told as marvels, is true; and he adds: "Come, let us believe that these things were done by you." And at once he puts them on a level with the works of sorcerers, as though they promised more wonderful things, and with what is done by those who have learned from the Egyptians, who in the middle of the marketplaces sell their venerable lessons for a few obols, drive demons out of people, blow away diseases, call up the souls of heroes, display costly banquets, tables, cakes, and dishes that do not exist, and set in motion as living things what are not really living things but only appear such to the imagination. And he says: "Since they do these things, shall we have to think them sons of God? Or must we say that these are the practices of wicked men possessed by evil demons?" You see how by these words he in effect accepts that magic exists—I do not know whether he is the same as the one who wrote several books against magic—but, as it is useful to him for his purpose, he likens the stories of Jesus to the results of magic. And they would have been similar if Jesus, like the tricksters, had gone only as far as display. But as it is, none of the sorcerers by what he does calls the spectators to the correction of their character, or trains in the fear of God those amazed at the spectacles, or tries to persuade those who have seen to live as people who will be judged by God. Sorcerers do none of these things, since they cannot, or do not even wish or want to take up the correction of human beings, being themselves full of the most shameful and notorious sins. But how is it not likely that he who by the wonders he did called those who saw them to the correction of their character offered himself as an example of the best life not only to his genuine disciples but also to the rest? So that the disciples might be moved to teach human beings according to the will of God, and the rest, taught more by his word and character than by his wonders how one must live, might do everything with reference to pleasing the God over all. If such was the life of Jesus, how could one reasonably compare him with the purpose of sorcerers, and not believe, according to the promise, that he is God appearing in a human body for the benefit of our race?

After this, confusing the argument and bringing against all who come from the divine word, as common charges of Christians, things said by some sect, he says: "The body of a god would not be such as yours." To this we say that he took a body, coming into life from a woman, a human body capable of human death. That is why, among other things, we say he became a great contender: because his human body was "tempted in every respect" like all human beings, yet no longer as human beings are, with sin, but wholly "without sin." For it is clearly evident to us that "he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth"; and God handed him over, as pure, who "knew no sin," for all who have sinned. Then Celsus says: "The body of a god would not be so begotten as you, Jesus, were begotten." However, he suspected that if he had been born as is written, his body could in some way be more divine than that of the many, and in some sense a body of God. But he disbelieves what is recorded about his conception by the Holy Spirit and believes that he was begotten by a certain Panthera who seduced the virgin; that is why he said, "The body of a god would not be so begotten as you were begotten." But we have spoken more about this above.

He says too that "the body of a god does not eat such things," as though he could show from the Gospel writings that he ate, and what sort of things he ate. But suppose so: let him say that he ate the Passover with his disciples, not only saying, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you," but also eating it; and let him say that, being thirsty, he drank at the well of Jacob. What has this to do with what we say about his body? He is clearly seen to have eaten fish after the resurrection; for in our view he took a body, since he was "born of a woman." "But," he says, "the body of a god does not use such a voice, nor such a manner of persuasion." These things too are trivial and quite contemptible. For it will be said to him that the one believed by the Greeks to be a god, the Pythian and the Didymaean, uses such a voice as that of the Pythia or of the prophetess at Miletus; and the Pythian or the Didymaean, or any other such Greek god established in one place, is not for this reason charged by the Greeks with not being a god. But it was much better for God to use a voice that, because it is proclaimed with power, produces an inexpressible persuasion in the hearers.

Then he says, reviling Jesus—he who, because of his impiety and wicked doctrines, is, so to speak, hateful to God himself—that "these are the doings of someone hateful to God and a wicked sorcerer." Yet if the words and the facts are examined strictly, a human being cannot be hateful to God, since God loves all things that exist and loathes nothing of what he made; for he did not make anything hating it. And if some prophetic sayings say such a thing, they will receive this general explanation: that Scripture uses words about God as about one subject to human passions. What need is there to say in defense against one who thinks that, in what he professes to be persuasive arguments, he should use abuse and reviling of Jesus as a wicked man and a sorcerer? That is not the work of one who demonstrates, but of one who has fallen into a vulgar and unphilosophical passion. He ought, setting out the matter, to examine it fairly and say against it, as best he can, what occurs to him. But since Celsus's Jew ends his speech to Jesus here, we too will end here the scope of our first book against him. And if God grants the truth that destroys false arguments, according to the prayer that says, "In your truth destroy them," we will begin in what follows the second speech, in which his Jew is made to say what follows to those persuaded by Jesus.

Having ended the first book of what we dictated against Celsus's work entitled The True Word with the speech of the Jew to Jesus, which received a sufficient treatment, we intend to compose this one in defense against the charges he brings against those from the Jewish people who have believed in Jesus. And we first note this very point: why, having once decided to use an imaginary speaker, does Celsus not have the Jew speak to believers from the nations, but to those from the Jews? The argument would have seemed most plausible to him if it had been written against us. But perhaps the one who professes to know everything did not see what was consistent in the matter of his imaginary speaker. Let us consider, then, what he says to believers from the Jews. He says that, having left their ancestral law because they were beguiled by Jesus, they were deceived quite ridiculously and deserted to another name and another life—not observing even this, that those from the Jews who believe in Jesus have not left their ancestral law. For they live according to it, and have been named after the poverty of their interpretation of the law. For among the Jews the poor man is called "Ebion," and those from the Jews who have accepted Jesus as the Christ are called Ebionites. Peter too is seen to have kept the Jewish customs according to the law of Moses for a long time, as not yet having learned from Jesus to rise from the law according to the letter to that according to the spirit, as we have learned from the Acts of the Apostles. For "on the next day" after the angel of God appeared to Cornelius, directing him to send "to Joppa" for Simon who is called Peter, "Peter went up to the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became hungry and wanted to eat. While they were preparing it, a trance came upon him, and he saw heaven opened and a certain vessel coming down like a great sheet, let down by four corners to the earth, in which were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and birds of the heaven. And a voice came to him: Rise, Peter; kill and eat. But Peter said: By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And the voice came to him a second time: What God has cleansed, do not call common." See in this how Peter is presented as still keeping the Jewish customs about clean and unclean. And from what follows it is shown that he needed a vision in order to share the words of faith with Cornelius, who was not an Israelite according to the flesh, and those with him, since he was still a Jew living according to the traditions of the Jews and despising those outside Judaism. And in the letter to the Galatians Paul shows that Peter, still fearing the Jews, stopped eating with the Gentiles when James came to him, and "separated himself" from the Gentiles, "fearing those of the circumcision"; and the rest of the Jews and Barnabas did the same with him. And it was consistent that those sent to the circumcision should not abandon Jewish customs, when "those who seemed to be pillars gave Paul and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship," themselves going "to the circumcision," so that those two might preach to the Gentiles. But why do I say that those who preached "to the circumcision" held back and separated themselves from the Gentiles, when Paul himself became "to the Jews a Jew, that he might win Jews"? That is why, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles, he even brought an offering to the altar, to persuade the Jews that he was not an apostate from the law. If Celsus had known all this, he would not have had the Jew say to believers from Judaism: "What happened to you, fellow citizens, that you abandoned the law of your fathers and, beguiled by that man with whom we have just been conversing, were deceived quite ridiculously and deserted from us to another name and another life?"

Since we have come to the subject of Peter and of those who taught Christianity to those of the circumcision, I think it not out of place to set out a saying of Jesus from the Gospel according to John and its explanation. It is written that he said: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak." And we ask in this passage what the "many things" were that Jesus had "to say" to his disciples but which they could not "bear" then. And I say: perhaps, since the apostles were Jews and had been brought up in the law of Moses according to the letter, he had "to say" what the true law is, and of what "heavenly things" the worship among the Jews was performed "as a copy and shadow," and of what "good things to come" the law about food and drink and festivals and new moons and sabbaths contained "a shadow." These were the "many things" he had "to say" to them. But seeing that it is very hard to overturn from the soul doctrines that were almost born and brought up with a man until adulthood, which had persuaded those who received them that these are divine and that to unsettle them is impious, and to prove them, by the surpassing worth of the "knowledge" according to Christ, that is, the truth, to be "refuse" and "loss" so that the hearers would be persuaded, he postponed this to a more suitable time, after his passion and resurrection. For truly the help would have been brought out of season to those not yet able to receive it, and it would have overturned the belief about Jesus which they had already received, that he was the Christ and the Son of the living God. And consider whether it does not make no contemptible sense to understand "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now" in this way. For "many" are the matters of the explanation and clarification of the law according to its spiritual meaning; and the disciples, having been born and brought up among the Jews at that time, somehow could not "bear" them. I think too that because those things were a type, while what the Holy Spirit was going to teach them was truth, it is said for this reason: "When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth"—as if he said, into all the truth of the realities in whose types you have been, thinking that you worship God with true worship. And according to Jesus' promise, "the Spirit of truth" came upon Peter, saying to him about the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and birds of heaven, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." And it came to him while he was still superstitious; for he said even to the divine voice, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean." And it taught him the doctrine of true and spiritual foods in the words, "What God has cleansed, do not call common." And after that vision "the Spirit of truth," guiding Peter "into all the truth," told him the many things that he could not "bear" while Jesus was still with him in the flesh. But there will be another occasion for explaining these things concerning the interpretation of the law of Moses.

Now our task is to refute the ignorance of Celsus, whose Jew says to his fellow citizens and Israelites who have believed in Jesus: "What happened to you that you abandoned the law of your fathers?" and so on. But how have those abandoned the ancestral law who rebuke those who do not listen to it, saying: "Tell me, you who read the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons," up to "which are allegorized," and what follows? And how have those abandoned the ancestral law who always mention in their words their ancestral writings, saying: "Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses: You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Is it for oxen that God cares? Or does he speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake," and so on? And how confusedly Celsus's Jew says these things, when he could have said more plausibly: "Some of you have abandoned the customs on the pretext of interpretations and allegories; some of you, while interpreting spiritually, as you profess, nonetheless keep the ancestral customs; and some of you, without even interpreting, wish both to accept Jesus as the one prophesied and to keep the law of Moses according to the ancestral customs, as having the whole meaning of the Spirit in the letter." But how could Celsus make the matter clear—he who in what follows mentioned godless sects wholly alien to Jesus, and others that abandon the Creator, but did not know that there are also Israelites who believe in Jesus and have not abandoned the ancestral law? For it was not his purpose to examine the whole subject with love of truth, so as to accept whatever useful thing he might find; but he wrote such things as an enemy, wholly bent on overturning them as soon as he heard them.

Then his Jew says to believers from the people: "Yesterday and the day before, when we were punishing this man who was leading you like cattle, you abandoned the law of your fathers"—knowing nothing accurately in what he said, as we have shown. After this, what follows seems to me to have some cleverness: "Or how is it that you begin from our sacred writings, but as you go on you dishonor them, though you have no other origin to name for your doctrine than our law?" Truly the introduction for Christians is from the sacred writings of Moses and the prophetic writings; and after the introduction, progress for those being introduced lies in the interpretation and clarification of them, as they seek the mystery "according to revelation," kept silent "for long ages" but "now made manifest" in the prophetic words and in the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not, as you say, that those who go on dishonor what is written in the law; rather, they give it more honor, showing what a depth of wise and secret meanings those writings have, which have not been perceived by the Jews who read them rather superficially and as myths. And what is absurd in the law being the origin of our doctrine, that is, of the gospel? Our Lord himself says to those who did not believe him: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" And one of the evangelists, Mark, says: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you," showing that the beginning of the gospel depends on the Jewish writings. What, then, is said against us by Celsus's Jew in the words: "For if anyone foretold to you that the son of God would come to men, he was our prophet and the prophet of our God"? And what charge against Christianity is it if John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew? For it does not follow, because he was a Jew, that every believer, whether he comes to the teaching from the nations or from the Jews, must keep the law of Moses according to the letter.

After this, although Celsus repeats himself about Jesus, saying now for the second time that he was punished by the Jews for his offenses, we will not repeat our defense, being content with what was said before. Then, since his Jew belittles as stale the teachings about the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of God, and reward for the righteous but fire for the unrighteous, and thinks he overturns Christianity by saying that Christians are taught nothing new in these matters, we must say to him that our Jesus, seeing that the Jews did nothing worthy of the teachings in the prophets, taught by a parable that "the kingdom of God will be taken away" from them "and given" to those from the nations. That is why one can truly see that all the teachings of the Jews of today are myths and trifles (for they do not have the light of the knowledge of the Scriptures), while those of the Christians are truth, able to lift up and raise the soul and mind of a human being, and persuading us to have a "citizenship," not like the Jews below, somewhere below, but "in heaven." This is evident among those who contemplate the greatness of the thoughts in the law and the prophets and are able to present them to others.

Suppose that Jesus kept all the Jewish customs, even including their sacrifices: how does this contribute to the view that one must not believe in him as Son of God? Jesus is, then, the Son of the God who gave the law and the prophets; and we of the church do not transgress it, but we have fled the mythologies of the Jews and are made wise and trained by the mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets. For the prophets, not letting the meaning of what is said rest in the obvious history or in the legislation according to the words and the letter, say in one place, when they are supposedly about to set out histories, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter problems from the beginning," and in another, praying about the law as obscure and needing God to be understood, they say in prayer: "Unveil my eyes, and I will perceive your wonders out of your law."

Let them show where even a hint of a word spoken from boastfulness is found in Jesus. For how is he boastful who says, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls"? Or how is he boastful who, "during supper," took off his garments before the disciples, girded himself with a "towel," poured "water into the basin," washed each one's "feet," rebuked the one who did not want to offer them, and said, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me"? Or how is he boastful who says, "I was in your midst not as one who reclines at table, but as one who serves"? Let someone prove what lies he told, and set out great and small lies, so as to show that Jesus told the great ones. He can be refuted in another way too: just as no lie is more a lie than another lie, so none is greater; as no truth is more true than another truth or greater in truth. And let Celsus's Jew in particular declare what Jesus' unholy deeds were. Or is it unholy to turn people away from bodily circumcision, a bodily sabbath, bodily festivals, bodily new moons, and clean and unclean foods, and to turn the mind to a law worthy of God, true and spiritual—while the one who is an ambassador "for Christ" knows how to become a Jew "to the Jews, that he might win Jews," and "to those under the law as under the law, that he might win those under the law"?