Against Celsus 2.34–2.50

The Jew in Celsus, mocking Jesus, as he thinks, is represented as knowing the Bacchus of Euripides, who says: “The god himself will free me, whenever I wish.” Jews are not at all given to the study of Greek literature; but suppose some Jew had become so learned. How then does it follow that Jesus, because he did not free himself when bound, could not have freed himself? Let him believe from my Scriptures that Peter too, bound in prison, went out when an angel loosed his chains, and that Paul with Silas, bound in “the stocks” at Philippi in Macedonia, was freed by divine power, when also “the doors” of the prison “were opened.” But probably Celsus laughs at these things, or has not read the story at all; for he would have seemed to say in reply that some sorcerers too loose chains and open doors by incantations, so as to put what sorcerers do on the same level as what is recorded among us. “But,” he says, “not even the one who condemned him suffered anything, like Pentheus, who went mad or was torn apart.” He did not see that it was not so much Pilate who condemned him, since he “knew that out of envy” the Jews “had handed him over,” as the Jewish nation; which has been condemned by God, torn apart and scattered over the whole earth, beyond the tearing of Pentheus. And why did he deliberately pass over what concerns Pilate's wife, who had a dream and was so moved by it that she sent to her husband and said: “Have nothing to do with that righteous man; for I have suffered much today in a dream because of him”? Again, keeping silent about what displays Jesus' divinity, Celsus reproaches Jesus with what is written about him in the Gospel, citing those who mocked him and put a purple robe on him, and the crown of thorns, and the reed in his hand. Where then, Celsus, did you learn these things but from the Gospels? Did you then see that these things deserved reproach, while those who recorded them did not perceive that you and those like you would laugh at them, but that others would take an example from him who readily died for piety, so as to despise those who laugh at and mock them for piety? Marvel rather at their love of truth, and at him who suffered these things willingly for human beings and endured them with all forbearance and patience. For it is not recorded that he lamented, or that because he had been condemned he thought or uttered anything ignoble.

To this: “Why does he not, if not before, at least now show something divine, and rescue himself from this shame, and punish those who insult both him and his Father?” it must be said that the same thing can be said to the Greeks too, who bring in providence and accept that divine signs occur: why does God not punish those who insult the divine and do away with providence? For as the Greeks defend themselves on this, so shall we say similar or even better things. But there was indeed a divine sign from heaven, the failing of the sun, and the other marvels, which showed that the crucified one had something divine, something more than most people.

Then Celsus says: “What does he say too while his body is being crucified? ‘What ichor, such as flows in the blessed gods’?” He, then, is jesting; but we, from the serious Gospels, even if Celsus does not wish it, will show that the mythical, Homeric ichor did not flow from his body; but when he was already dead, “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water came out. And he who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.” In other dead bodies the “blood” congeals and pure “water” does not flow out; but in the dead body of Jesus there was this marvel even about the dead body, that “blood and water” poured from his side. If he brings words from the Gospel, not even rightly interpreted, in order to accuse Jesus and Christians, and keeps silent about what shows Jesus' divinity, and wishes to hear of divine signs, let him read the Gospel and see that “the centurion and those with him who were keeping watch over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and what took place, were very much afraid, saying: This was the Son of God.”

After this he who has taken from the Gospel words he thinks he can accuse reproaches Jesus with the vinegar and gall, as if he rushed greedily to drink and did not endure his thirst, as even an ordinary man often endures it. This belongs by itself to exposition in the figurative sense; but now what is said would call for a more general answer to the objection, namely, that the prophets foretold this too. For it is written in the sixty-eighth psalm, in the person of the Christ: “And they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Or let the Jews say who it is in the prophet who says these things, and let them show from history the one who took “gall” into his “food” and was given “vinegar” to drink. Or let them even dare to say that the Christ whom they think will come is going to be in these circumstances; so that we may say: what harm is there in what was prophesied having already happened? This very thing, said so long before, is enough, together with the other prophetic foreknowledge, to move one who examines the whole matter fairly to agree that Jesus is the Christ who was prophesied and the Son of God.

After this the Jew says further to us: “Is this, then, what you charge us with, most faithful ones, that we do not think this man a god, nor agree with you that he endured these things for the benefit of mankind, so that we too might despise punishments?” To this we shall say that we charge the Jews, who were brought up on the law and the prophets who proclaimed the Christ beforehand, because they neither refute what we bring before them as proof that this is the Christ, offering the refutation as their defense for not believing, nor, while failing to refute it, believe in the one who was prophesied; who clearly showed in those who became his disciples, even after the time of his embodiment, that he endured these things for the benefit of mankind. The purpose of his first coming was not to judge human deeds, before teaching and testifying about what ought to be done, nor to punish the wicked and save the good, but to sow his own word marvelously and with a more divine power among the whole human race, as the prophets also showed. We further charge them because, when he displayed the power he had, they did not believe, but said that he cast demons out of people's souls “by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” And we charge them because they slander even his love for mankind, since he passed over not only no city but not even any village of Judea, so as to proclaim the kingdom of God everywhere, and accuse him of vagrancy, as a wanderer roving about in an ignoble body. For a body that endured so many labors for the benefit of those everywhere who could hear is not ignoble.

How is it not plainly false, what is said by the Jew in Celsus, that “having persuaded no one while he lived, not even his own disciples, he was punished and endured such things”? For where did the envy of the chief priests, elders, and scribes among the Jews against him come from, if not from the crowds who were persuaded to follow him even into the deserts, held not only by the coherence of his words, since he always spoke what suited his hearers, but also because he astonished by his miracles those who did not believe through the coherence of his word? And how is it not plainly false that he did not persuade even his own disciples, who then suffered something human from cowardice (for they were not yet sharpened to courage), yet did not lay aside their judgment about him as the Christ? For Peter, after denying him, realizing what evil he had come to, “went out and wept bitterly”; and the others, struck by their dejection over him (for they still admired him), were strengthened by his appearance to believe still more, and more firmly than before, that he was the Son of God.

Celsus, in an unphilosophical way, imagines that pre-eminence among human beings lies not in saving teaching and a pure character, but in acting contrary to the part one has taken on, so that one who has taken on what is mortal should not die; or should die, but not a death able to become an example to those who would learn from the very deed to die for piety and to speak boldly for it before those who have gone astray in the matter of piety and impiety, who think the pious most impious, and suppose that those who err about God and apply their undistorted notion of him to anything rather than to God are most pious; and especially when they rush to kill those who, in the clear light of the one God over all, have given themselves with their whole soul “even to death.”

Celsus further accuses Jesus, through the character of the Jew, of not showing himself pure from all evils. From what evils, let Celsus's argument say, did Jesus not show himself pure? For if he says that he was not pure from evils in the proper sense, let him clearly show a deed of wickedness in him. But if he considers poverty, the cross, and the plotting of wicked men to be evils, it is clear that he says evils befell Socrates too, who could not show himself pure from evils. And how great a company of poor men there is besides among the Greeks, who practiced philosophy and accepted voluntary poverty, most Greeks know from what is recorded: of Democritus, who let his property become sheep pasture; of Crates, who freed himself by giving the Thebans the money paid to him for the sale of all his possessions. Diogenes too lived in a jar out of extreme frugality; yet among no one with even moderate sense was Diogenes, for this reason, in evil.

Further, since Celsus will have it that Jesus was not blameless either, let him show which of those who accepted his teaching recorded anything truly blameworthy in Jesus; or, if he does not accuse him as blameworthy on the basis of these writings, let him show where he learned that he was not blameless when he said so. Jesus did do what he promised, things worthy of belief, by which he benefited those who paid heed to him. And as we continually see fulfilled what he said before it happened, that “the gospel would be preached” in the whole world, and that his disciples would go into “all the nations” and proclaim his word, and further that they would be brought “before governors and kings” for no other reason than his teaching, we are amazed at him and daily confirm our faith in him. I do not know by what greater and clearer proofs Celsus wished him to make his predictions credible; unless, as it seems, not understanding that the Word became the man Jesus, he wished him to suffer nothing human and not to become for human beings a noble example of bearing what befalls them. Even if these things seem to Celsus most pitiable and most shameful, that is because he regards pain as the greatest of evils and pleasure as the perfect good, a view that none of the philosophers who bring in providence and acknowledge courage, endurance, and greatness of soul to be virtues has accepted. Jesus, then, did not discredit faith in him by what he endured; rather he strengthened it among those who wish to embrace courage, and among those taught by him that to live properly and truly, the blessed life, is not here but “in the age to come,” as it is called in his words, while living in what is called “the present age” is a misfortune, or the first and greatest contest of the soul.

After this he says to us: “Surely you will not say of him that, having failed to persuade those who were here, he went to Hades to persuade those there.” Even if he does not wish it, we say this: that while he was in the body he persuaded not a few but so many that he was plotted against because of the number of those persuaded; and that, having become a soul stripped of the body, he conversed with souls stripped of bodies, turning to himself those of them that were willing, or those he saw to be more fit for reasons he himself knew.

Next to this he says, very foolishly, I do not know how: “If, finding absurd defenses by which you were ridiculously deceived, you think you are truly defending yourselves, what prevents others too, who were condemned and came to a more wretched end, from being thought greater and more divine messengers than he?” That Jesus, who suffered what is recorded, is plainly and clearly nothing like those who came to a more wretched end for sorcery or any other charge is clear to everyone. For no one can point to a work of sorcerers that has turned souls from the many sins among human beings and from the flood of wickedness. And since the Jew in Celsus compares him with robbers too, saying: “One could equally shamelessly say of a robber and murderer who was punished: ‘This man was no robber but a god; for he foretold to his fellow robbers that he would suffer such things as indeed he has suffered,’” it may be said first that we do not hold the views about Jesus that we hold, and speak boldly in him as one who came down to us from God, because he foretold that he would suffer such things. Second, we say that this too was in a way foretold in the Gospels, since God “was reckoned with the lawless” by the lawless, who wished rather that a robber, thrown into prison “for insurrection” “and murder,” be released and that Jesus be crucified, and who crucified him between two robbers. And always, in his genuine disciples who bear witness to the truth, Jesus is crucified with robbers and suffers the same condemnation among men as they. And we say that if those who, for the sake of piety toward the Creator, accept every outrage and every kind of death so as to keep that piety sincere and pure according to Jesus' teaching, have anything in common with robbers, then clearly Jesus too, the father of such teaching, is reasonably compared by Celsus with robber chiefs. But neither was he who died for the common good, nor are these who suffer these things for piety, and who alone of all human beings are plotted against because of the way of honoring the divine that has been revealed to them, put to death justly; nor was Jesus plotted against without impiety.

Notice too the superficiality of his argument about Jesus' disciples at that time, where he says: “Then those who were with him while he lived, who heard his voice and had him as teacher, when they saw him punished and dying, neither died with him nor for him, nor were they persuaded to despise punishments, but even denied that they were his disciples. But now you die with him.” Here he believes that the sin committed by the disciples while they were still beginners and less perfect, and recorded in the Gospels, took place, so that he may accuse the teaching; but he passes over in silence what they did rightly after their sin, speaking boldly before the Jews, suffering countless things at their hands, and finally dying for Jesus' teaching. For he did not wish to hear Jesus foretelling to Peter, “But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands,” and what follows, on which the Scripture comments: “He said this to signify by what death he would glorify God”; nor that James the brother of John, an apostle and brother of an apostle, was killed by Herod “with the sword” for the word of Christ; nor all that Peter and the other apostles did, speaking boldly for the word, and how they went out “from the presence of the council” after being flogged, “rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to be dishonored for the name,” surpassing much of what is related among the Greeks of the endurance and courage of the philosophers. From the beginning, then, this teaching of Jesus above all prevailed among his hearers, teaching them to despise the life that the many cling to, and to strive for a life like the life of God.

How is the Jew in Celsus not lying when he says that “while he was present he won over only ten sailors and tax collectors of the most accursed kind, and not even all of these”? For it is clear that even Jews would admit that he won over not only ten, nor a hundred, nor a thousand, but at once sometimes five thousand, sometimes four thousand; and he won them over to such an extent that they followed him even into the deserts, which alone could hold a great crowd of those who believed in God through Jesus, and there he showed them not only words but also deeds. His repetitions force us to do something similar, since we are careful not to be thought to pass over any of the charges he makes. In the passage before us, then, in the order of his writing that we are following, he says: “If, while he lived, he persuaded no one, but after his death those who wish persuade so many, how is this not utterly absurd?” He ought, keeping the logical sequence, to have said: “If after his death not simply those who wish, but those who both wish and are able, persuade so many, how much more reasonable is it that he, when he was living among us, persuaded many times more by a more powerful word and deeds?”

He takes as our answer to his question something he himself says, when he asks: “By what reasoning were you led to think this man the Son of God?” For he has made us answer that we were led to this because we know that his punishment took place for the overthrow of the father of wickedness. But we were led by countless other reasons, a very small part of which we have set out above, and, God granting, we shall set out, not only in dealing with what is regarded as Celsus's True Discourse but in countless other works. And as if we were saying that we think him the Son of God because he was punished, he says: “What then? Were not many others also punished, and no less ignobly?” In this Celsus behaves like the most servile of the enemies of the faith, who think it follows from the story of Jesus' crucifixion that we worship those who have been crucified.

Celsus has often before, unable to face the miracles Jesus is recorded to have done, slandered them as sorceries; and we have often answered his argument as best we could. Now too he says, as if we had answered, that we thought him the Son of God because he healed the lame and the blind. He adds this too: “He raised the dead, as you say.” That he healed the lame and the blind, for which we consider him the Christ and the Son of God, is clear to us from its also being written in prophecies: “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear; then the lame will leap like a deer.” That he also raised the dead, and that this is not an invention of those who wrote the Gospels, is shown by this: if it were an invention, many who rose would have been recorded, including those who had already been a long time in their tombs; but since it is no invention, very few are mentioned: the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue (of whom, I do not know why, he said, “She is not dead but sleeping,” saying something about her that did not apply to all the dead), the only son of the widow, whom he raised out of compassion, having stopped those who carried the dead man, and third, Lazarus, who had been four days in the tomb. And we shall say further about these things to the more fair-minded, and especially to the Jew, that just as “there were many lepers in the days of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian,” and “there were many widows in the days of Elijah” the prophet, “and Elijah was sent to none of them except to Zarephath in Sidon” (for she had become worthy, by a certain divine judgment, of the marvel the prophet worked with the loaves), so there were many dead in the days of Jesus, but only those rose whom the Word knew to be fit for the resurrection, so that what the Lord did might not only be symbols of certain things but might also by itself bring many to the wonderful teaching of the Gospel. I would say that, according to Jesus' promise, the disciples have done even “greater” works than the perceptible ones Jesus did. For the eyes of those blind in soul are always being opened, and the ears of those deaf to words of virtue hear eagerly about God and the blessed life with him. And many who were lame in the feet of what Scripture called the “inner” man, now that the Word has healed them, do not merely leap but leap “like a deer,” an animal hostile to serpents and stronger than all the poison of vipers. These healed lame men receive from Jesus “authority to tread,” with the feet on which they were formerly lame, “upon the serpents and scorpions” of wickedness, and in short “over all the power of the enemy,” and treading they are not harmed; for they too have become stronger than the poison of all wickedness and of the demons.

Jesus, then, turned his disciples away, not from paying attention in general to sorcerers and to those who profess to do wonders by any means whatever (for his disciples did not need this), but from those who proclaim themselves to be the Christ of God and try by certain apparitions to turn Jesus' disciples to themselves. In one place he said: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There,’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the desert,’ do not go out; ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” In another: “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not eat in your name and drink in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works?’ And I will say to them, ‘Depart from me, for you are workers of unrighteousness.’” But Celsus, wishing to put Jesus' wonders on the same level as human sorcery, says in these very words: “O light and truth! With his own voice he expressly declares, as you yourselves have written, that others too will come to you, using similar powers, wicked men and sorcerers, and he names a certain Satan as contriving such things; so that not even he denies that these things are in no way divine but are the works of wicked men. But compelled by the truth, he both revealed what others do and convicted himself. How then is it not wretched to consider him a god because of the same works, and them sorcerers? Why, on the basis of these, should we think the others wicked rather than him, when we use him as witness? He himself admitted that these are the marks not of a divine nature but of certain deceivers and utterly wicked men.” See whether in this Celsus is not clearly convicted of perverting the text, since Jesus says one thing about those who will do “signs and wonders,” and the Jew in Celsus claims another. For if Jesus had simply told his disciples to guard against those who profess to work wonders, without adding what they will claim to be, his suspicion might perhaps have had some ground. But since those Jesus wants us to guard against profess to be “the Christ,” which sorcerers do not do; and since he also says that some who live wickedly in the name of Jesus will do certain mighty works and cast demons out of people; rather, if one must put it so, sorcery is disowned for those in the passage, along with every suspicion against them, and the divinity of Christ and of his disciples is brought in: since it is possible for someone who uses his name, and is moved, I know not how, by some power to pretend that he is the Christ, to seem to perform things like Christ's, and for others, in the name of Jesus, to perform things seemingly like those of his genuine disciples.

Paul too, in the second letter to the Thessalonians, declares in what way there will one day be revealed “the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” And again he says to the Thessalonians: “And now you know what restrains him, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord God will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; the one whose coming is by the activity of Satan with all power and with signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all deception of unrighteousness among those who are perishing.” And setting out the reason why the lawless one is allowed to come into the world, he says: “Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God sends them a working of error, so that they believe the lie, in order that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” Let someone tell us, then, whether anything in the Gospel or in the apostle can give room for suspecting that sorcery is being foretold in the passage. Anyone who wishes can also take the prophecy about the Antichrist from Daniel. But he falsifies Jesus' words, since Jesus did not say, “Others will come using similar powers, wicked men and sorcerers,” yet he himself says that Jesus said this. For just as the power of the enchanters in Egypt was not like the marvelous grace in Moses, but the outcome proved that what the Egyptians did was trickery and what Moses did was divine, so the signs and wonders of the antichrists, and of those who pretend to powers as disciples of Jesus, are said to be “of falsehood,” prevailing “with all deception of unrighteousness among those who are perishing,” whereas those of Christ and his disciples bore fruit, not in deception but in the salvation of souls. For who can reasonably say that a better life, which daily reduces wickedness, comes from deception?