Against Celsus 4.89–5.4

Celsus, then, wishing by what he put forward to show that irrational animals are more divine and wiser than human beings, ought to have established at length that such divination exists, and after that to have shown his defence more clearly: to reject by demonstration the arguments of those who do away with such divinations, to overturn by demonstration also the arguments of those who said that the movements for divining come to the animals from demons or gods, and after that to establish his view about the soul of the irrational animals as more divine. For then, since he would have displayed a philosophical competence on such great matters, we would have opposed his plausible arguments as best we could, overturning the claim that irrational animals are wiser than human beings, and exposing as false both that they have holier notions of the divine than we do and that they have some holy conversations with one another. But as it is, the one who accuses us for believing in the God over all asks us to believe that the souls of birds have more divine and clearer notions than human beings. If this is true, birds have clearer notions of God than Celsus; and it is no wonder if they have clearer notions than Celsus, who belittles man so much. But, as far as Celsus is concerned, birds have greater and more divine notions, I do not say than we Christians, or than the Jews who use the same Scriptures as we do, but even than the theologians among the Greeks; for they were human beings. According to Celsus, then, the race of supposedly prophetic birds has grasped the nature of the divine better than Pherecydes and Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato. And we ought to go to the birds as teachers, so that, as on Celsus's supposition they teach us the future by divination, so too they may free human beings from doubting about the divine, by handing on the clear notion they have grasped of him. It follows, then, that Celsus, who thinks birds surpass human beings, should use birds as his teachers, and none of the philosophers among the Greeks.

but we must say a few things out of many in reply to what has been put forward, refuting his ungrateful false opinion toward the one who made him. For Celsus too, being "a man, when he was in honour, did not understand"; therefore he was not even "compared" to the birds and the other irrational animals that he thinks prophetic, but, yielding them first place, more than the Egyptians who worship irrational animals as gods, he subjected himself, and as far as in him lies the whole human race, to the irrational animals, as worse and understanding less about the divine. Let it first be examined, then, whether divination through birds and the other animals believed to be prophetic exists or not. For the argument attempted on either side is not to be despised: on one side it urges us not to accept such a thing, so that the rational being may not abandon the oracles of demons only to use birds instead; on the other it shows, by evidence attested by many, that many have been saved from the greatest dangers by trusting divination through birds. For the present, let augury be granted to exist, so that even so I may show to those who are prejudiced that, even granting this, the superiority of man over the irrational animals, even over the prophetic ones themselves, is great, and in no way comparable to them. It must be said, then, that if there were some divine nature in them able to foreknow the future, and so rich that out of its abundance it could show the future even to any human being who wished, clearly they would have known their own affairs much earlier; and knowing their own affairs they would have taken care not to fly up over the place where human beings had set snares and nets against them, or where archers, taking the flying creatures as their target, loosed arrows at them. And eagles, if they foreknew the plot against their young, whether of snakes climbing up to them and destroying them, or of some human beings taking them for sport or for some other use or service, would surely not have nested where they would be plotted against. And in a word, none of these animals would ever have been caught by human beings, if it were more divine and wiser than human beings.

Moreover, if omen-birds fight omen-birds, and if, as Celsus says, the prophetic birds and the other irrational animals, having a divine nature and notions of the divine and foreknowledge of the future, foretold such things to others, then neither would Homer's sparrow have nested where a serpent was going to destroy her and her young, nor would the serpent in the same poet have failed to guard against being seized by the eagle. For Homer, admirable in poetry, says this about the first: "Then a great sign appeared: a serpent, blood-red on its back, terrible, whom the Olympian himself sent into the light, darting from beneath the altar, rushed to the plane tree. There were the young of a sparrow, tender nestlings, on the topmost bough, cowering beneath the leaves, eight of them, and the mother that bore the young was the ninth. There he devoured them as they cheeped piteously, while the mother fluttered round, lamenting her dear young; but he coiled himself and seized her by the wing as she shrieked. But when he had eaten the sparrow's young and herself, the god who had shown him made him conspicuous: the son of crooked-counselling Cronus turned him to stone. And we stood and marvelled at what had happened. So the dread portents of the gods came in among the hecatombs." And about the second: "For a bird came upon them as they were eager to cross, a high-flying eagle, skirting the host on the left, carrying in its talons a blood-red serpent, monstrous, alive and still writhing; and it had not yet forgotten the fight. For it struck the eagle that held it on the breast beside the neck, bending itself back; and the eagle, stung with pain, let it fall from him to the ground and dropped it in the midst of the throng, and itself, with a cry, flew off on the blasts of the wind. And the Trojans shuddered when they saw the gleaming snake lying in their midst, a portent of Zeus who bears the aegis." Was the eagle, then, prophetic, and the serpent, since augurs use this animal too, not prophetic? And since it is easy to refute the choice of one over the other, would not the claim that both are prophetic be refuted too? For would the serpent, if it were prophetic, not have guarded against suffering this from the eagle? And one could find countless other such examples showing that it is not the animals that have a prophetic soul in themselves; rather, according to the poet and most people, "the Olympian himself sent it into the light," and for a certain sign Apollo too uses a hawk as messenger; for "the falcon" is said to be "Apollo's swift messenger."

In our view, certain wicked demons, of the Titanic or Gigantic kind, if I may so call them, who have become impious toward what is truly divine and toward the angels in heaven, and have fallen from heaven and roll about the grosser and unclean bodies on earth, having some power of discerning the future, since they are bare of earthly bodies, and occupying themselves with this kind of work, wishing to lead the human race away from the true God, slip into the more rapacious and savage animals and others that are more cunning, and move them to whatever they wish, when they wish; or they turn the impressions of such animals toward such flights and movements, so that human beings, caught by the divination in irrational animals, may not seek the God who encompasses the universe, nor examine pure worship of God, but may fall in their reasoning to the earth, and to birds and serpents, and even to foxes and wolves. For it has been observed by those skilled in these matters that the clearer foreknowledge comes through such animals, since the demons cannot do as much in the tamer animals as they can, because of the likeness of vice (not vice, but something like vice) in such animals, to make these animals act.

Hence, if I have admired anything else in Moses, I will declare this too worthy of admiration: that, having understood the different natures of animals, and whether he learned from the divine about them and the demons akin to each animal, or found it out himself, rising up by wisdom, in his ordinance about animals he said that all those thought prophetic by the Egyptians and the rest of humanity are unclean, and that, in general, those that are not such are clean. And among the unclean in Moses are the wolf, the fox, the serpent, the eagle, the hawk, and those like them. And in general, not only in the law but also in the prophets, you would find these animals taken as examples of the worst things, and never a wolf or a fox named for a good thing. It seems, then, that there is some fellowship between each kind of demon and each kind of animal. And just as among human beings some are stronger than others, not at all because of their character, in the same way some demons would be more powerful than others in matters indifferent; and some use these animals to deceive human beings, according to the will of the one called in our writings "the ruler of this age," while others foretell through another kind. And see how foul the demons are, so that even weasels are used by some to show the future. And do you judge for yourself which is better to accept: that the God over all and his Son move birds and the other animals to divination, or that those who move such animals, and not human beings though human beings are present, are wicked demons, and, as our holy writings have called them, "unclean."

If the soul of birds is divine because the future is foretold through them, why should we not say rather, where omens are taken from human beings, that the soul of those through whom the omens are heard is divine? On this view, then, the "grinding woman" in Homer was divine, who said of the suitors: "May they now dine here for the last and final time." And she was divine, while great Odysseus, the friend of Homer's Athena, was not divine, but understanding the omens spoken by the divine grinding woman he rejoiced, as the poet says: "And noble Odysseus rejoiced at the omen." Now see: if birds have a divine soul and perceive God, or, as Celsus calls them, the gods, clearly we human beings too, when we sneeze, sneeze from some divinity in us and a prophetic power in our soul. For this too is attested by many; which is why the poet says: "and he sneezed as he prayed." Which is why Penelope too says: "Do you not see that my son sneezed at your words?"

What is truly divine, for knowledge of the future, uses neither irrational animals nor ordinary human beings, but the holiest and purest human souls, which it inspires and makes prophets. Therefore, if anything else is admirably said in the law of Moses, such things as these must be counted among them: "You shall not practise augury, nor watch birds for omens"; and elsewhere: "For the nations whom the Lord your God will destroy from before you, these will listen to omens and divinations; but the Lord your God has not given it so to you"; and then next he says: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." And once, when God wished to turn people away from augury through an augur, he made the Spirit say in the augur: "For there is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel; in due time it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God will accomplish." Knowing these things and others like them, we wish to keep the commandment spoken in a mystery: "Keep your heart with all vigilance," so that none of the demons may lay hold of our ruling faculty, and no spirit of the adversaries may turn our imagination to what it wishes. And we pray that "the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God" may shine "in our hearts," as the Spirit of God dwells in our imagination and shows us the things of God; since "all who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."

One must know that to foreknow the future is not in every case divine; for in itself it is indifferent and falls to both the wicked and the good. Doctors, at any rate, foreknow certain things by medicine, even if they happen to be wicked in character; and so also helmsmen, even if they happen to be depraved, foreknow the signs of weather, the violence of winds, and changes in the atmosphere, from some experience and observation; and surely no one will say for this reason that they are divine, if they happen to be depraved in character. False, then, is what Celsus says: "What could one call more divine than to foreknow and foretell the future?" False also that many animals lay claim to notions of the divine; for none of the irrational animals has a notion of God. False also that irrational animals are nearer to divine converse; since even those human beings who are still wicked, even if they make the utmost progress, are far from divine converse. Only those, then, who are truly wise and genuinely pious are nearer to divine converse, such as our prophets and Moses, to whom Scripture bore witness because of his great purity, saying: "Moses alone shall come near to God, but the rest shall not come near."

How impiously has the one who charges us with impiety said that irrational animals are not only wiser than human nature but also dearer to God! And who would not be turned away, if he paid attention to a man who says that the serpent, the fox, the wolf, the eagle, and the hawk are dearer to God than human nature? It follows for him to say that, if these animals are dearer to God than human beings, clearly these animals are dearer to God than Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras and Pherecydes and the theologians he praised a little earlier. And one might pray for him, saying: "If these animals are dearer to God than human beings, may you become dear to God with them, and be made like those who, in your view, are dearer to God than human beings." And let him not suppose such a thing to be a curse; for who would not pray to become wholly like those he is convinced are dearer to God, so that he himself may become dear to God as they are? Celsus, wishing the conversations of irrational animals to be holier than ours, does not attribute this report to ordinary people but to the intelligent. But the intelligent in truth are the good, for no wicked person is intelligent. He speaks, then, in this way: "And the intelligent among human beings say that they have conversations too, evidently holier than ours, and that they themselves somehow understand what is said and show by the deed that they are not ignorant, when, having said beforehand that the birds said they would go somewhere and do this or that, they show them going there and doing what they had already foretold." In truth no intelligent person has reported such things, and no wise person has said that the conversations of irrational animals are holier than those of human beings. But if, to examine Celsus's views, we look at what follows from them, it is clear that on his view the conversations of irrational animals are holier than the venerable conversations of Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the philosophers; which is plainly not only incongruous but most absurd. But even if we should believe that some people, learning from the inarticulate cry of birds that the birds will go somewhere and do this or that, foretell it, we will say that this too has been shown to human beings symbolically by the demons, with the aim that man should be deceived by the demons and his mind dragged down from heaven and God to earth and to things still lower.

I do not know how Celsus heard of an oath of elephants, and that they are more faithful than we are toward the divine and have knowledge of God. For I know many wonderful things reported about the nature of this animal and its tameness, but I am not aware that anything about the oaths of an elephant has been said by anyone; unless perhaps he called their tameness, and their keeping of a kind of compact with human beings once they have come under them, faithfulness to an oath; and this itself is false. For even if rarely, it has nonetheless been reported that after apparent tameness elephants have turned savage against human beings and committed murders, and for this reason were condemned to be killed as no longer useful. And since after this he takes up, to establish, as he thinks, that storks are more pious than human beings, what is reported about this animal, that it repays its parents' care and brings food to those who begot it, it must be said that storks do this too not from a principle of duty nor from reasoning, but from nature, the nature that formed them having wished to set forth, among irrational animals, an example able to shame human beings into repaying gratitude to their parents. If Celsus had known how different it is to do these things by reason from doing them irrationally and naturally, he would not have called storks more pious than human beings. Further, as though standing up for the piety of irrational animals, Celsus takes up the Arabian animal, the phoenix, which after many years visits Egypt, carrying its dead father buried in a ball of myrrh, and places it where the precinct of the sun is. This too is reported; but, if it is true, it may also be natural, divine providence having been generous in setting before human beings, in the differences among animals, the variety of the structure of things in the world, reaching even to birds; and it made a certain "only-begotten" animal, so as to make people admire in this too not the animal but the one who made it.

Since, then, to all these things Celsus adds: "So all things have not been made for man, any more than for the lion, or the eagle, or the dolphin, but so that this world, as God's work, might come to be complete and perfect in all its parts. For this reason all things have been measured out, not with a view to one another, except incidentally, but with a view to the whole. And God cares for the whole, and providence never abandons it, nor does it become worse, nor does God turn it back to himself after a time, nor is he angry on account of human beings, any more than on account of apes or mice; nor does he threaten these, each of which has received its own lot in its part," come, let us reply to this, if only briefly. I think I have shown from what was said before how all things have been made for man and for every rational being; for all things have been created principally for the sake of the rational animal. Let Celsus, then, say that they were made no more for man than for the lion or the others he names; but we will say: the Creator did not make these things for the lion, nor for the eagle, nor for the dolphin, but all things for the sake of the rational animal, and "so that this world, as God's work, might come to be complete and perfect in all its parts." For we must agree with this as well said. But God cares, not, as Celsus thinks, only for the whole, but beyond the whole, especially for every rational being. And providence will never abandon the whole; for even if some part of the whole becomes worse because the rational being sins, he arranges to cleanse it and after a time to turn the whole back to himself. And he is not angry on account of apes or mice; but on human beings, since they have transgressed their natural starting points, he brings judgment and punishment, and he threatens them through the prophets and through the Saviour who came to the whole human race, so that through the threat those who hear may turn back, while those who neglect the words calling them to turn may pay the penalty they deserve, which it befits God to impose, according to his own will and for the benefit of the whole, on those who need such painful treatment and correction. But since the fourth book has reached a sufficient length, we will end our discussion here. May God grant, through his Son, who is God the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness, and everything else that the holy Scriptures say of him in their teaching about God, that we may begin the fifth book too for the benefit of those who will read it, and finish it well also, with the coming of his Word into our soul.

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

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

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

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