Against Celsus 3.49–3.66

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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