Against Celsus 6.67–6.78

Here Celsus said something true: that someone, having heard his words, answers, seeing that his words are words of darkness, “You cast darkness over my eyes.” Celsus and those like him wish to cast darkness over our eyes; but we, by the light of the Word, dispel the darkness of impious doctrines. A Christian might say to Celsus, who says nothing clear or striking, “I see nothing clearly in your words.” Celsus, then, does not lead us out of darkness into bright light, but wishes to move us from light into darkness, making “darkness light and light darkness,” and falling under what Isaiah well said in this way: “Woe to those who make darkness light and light darkness.” But we, since the Word has opened the eyes of our soul, seeing the difference between light and darkness, choose by every means to stand in the light and do not wish to be near the darkness at all. The true light, being living, knows to whom its brilliance should be shown and to whom only light, not displaying its own brightness because of the weakness that still remains in the other's eyes. And if we must speak at all of sight suffering and being harmed, whose eyes should we say suffer this but those of the one held fast by ignorance of God and hindered by his passions from seeing the truth? Christians, then, by no means think they are blinded by the words of Celsus or of anyone estranged from piety. But let those who perceive that they are being blinded by following crowds that go astray and nations that keep festival to demons come to the Word who gives eyes, so that, like the poor and blind men lying by the road who were healed by Jesus because they said to him, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” they too may receive mercy and get back their eyes, new and beautiful, such as the Word of God would create.

Therefore, if Celsus asks us how we think we know God, and how we shall be saved by him, we shall answer that the Word of God is able, when he comes to those who seek him or who receive him when he appears, to make known and reveal the Father, who was not seen before his coming. And who else can save the soul of man and bring it to the God over all but God the Word? He, being “in the beginning with God,” for the sake of those who had cleaved to the flesh and become what flesh is, “became flesh,” so that he might be received by those unable to see him as he was, the “Word,” “with God,” and “God.” And being spoken of in bodily terms and proclaimed as “flesh,” he calls to himself those who are flesh, so as first to make them be formed according to the Word who became flesh, and after this to lead them up to see him as he was before he became “flesh”; so that, having been helped and having ascended from the introduction according to the flesh, they may say: “Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” He “became flesh,” then, and having become “flesh” he “dwelt among us,” not coming to be outside us; and having dwelt and come to be among us, he did not remain in his first form, but, leading us up to the spiritual “high mountain,” he showed us his glorious form and the brightness of his garments, and not only his own but also that of the spiritual law, which is “Moses,” seen “in glory” with Jesus. He also showed us all prophecy, which did not die even after he became man but was taken up into heaven, of which Elijah was a symbol. And the one who has seen these things could say: “We beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Celsus, then, rather naively fabricated what he thinks we will say to his question how we think we shall know God and how we shall be saved by him; but we would say what has been set out above.

But Celsus says that we answer by a plausible conjecture, and he professes to record our answer as follows: Since God is great and hard to see, he put his own spirit into a body like ours and sent it down here, so that we might be able to hear and learn from him. But in our view the God and Father of the universe is not alone great; for he has given a share of himself and of his greatness to the only-begotten and firstborn “of all creation,” so that, being himself “the image of the invisible God,” he might preserve the image of the Father in greatness too. For it was not possible to be a well-proportioned, so to speak, and beautiful image “of the invisible God” without also representing the image of his greatness. And in our view God is invisible because he is not a body, but can be seen by those able to see with the heart, that is, with the mind; not with any heart at all, but with a pure heart. For it is not lawful for a defiled heart to look upon God; that which is to see the pure one worthily must itself be pure. Let it be granted that God is hard to see; but he is not alone hard for anyone to see; his only-begotten is so too. For God the Word is hard to see, and so also is the Wisdom in which God made all things. For who can see, in each and every thing, the Wisdom in which God made each and every thing? It is not, then, because God is hard to see that he sent his Son as easy to see. Not understanding this, Celsus said as though in our person: Because he is hard to see, he put his own spirit into a body like ours and sent it down here, so that we might be able to hear and learn from him. But, as we have explained, the Son too, being hard to see, as God the Word through whom all things came to be, also “dwelt among us.”

If Celsus had understood what we say about the Spirit of God, and that “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” he would not have declared for himself, as though from us, that God put his own spirit into a body and sent it down here. For God always gives a share of his own Spirit to those able to partake of him, the Spirit coming to be in the worthy not by cutting off and division. For the Spirit, in our view, is not a body, just as fire is not a body, which God is said to be in the words, “Our God is a consuming fire.” For all these things are said figuratively, to represent intelligible nature by familiar and bodily names. And just as, if sins are said to be wood and hay and straw, we shall not say that sins are bodies, and if good deeds are said to be gold and silver and precious stone, we shall not say that good deeds are bodies, so too if God is said to be “a consuming fire” of the “wood” and “hay” and “straw” and all the substance of sin, we shall not think of him as a body. And as, when he is called “fire,” we do not think of him as a body, so when God is called “spirit,” we do not say that he is a body. For Scripture customarily calls intelligible things spirits and spiritual, in contrast to sensible things; as when Paul says: “But our sufficiency is from God, who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,” he called the sensible interpretation of the divine writings “letter,” and the intelligible interpretation “Spirit.” So too in “God is spirit.” Since both Samaritans and Jews carried out the commands of the law bodily and typologically, the Saviour said to the Samaritan woman: “The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain will they worship the Father. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” By these words he taught that God must be worshipped not in the flesh and with fleshly sacrifices but “in spirit.” For he himself would be understood as “spirit” in proportion as one serves him “in spirit” and intelligibly. And the Father must be worshipped not in types but “in truth,” which “came through Jesus Christ” after the law was given “through Moses.” For “whenever we turn to the Lord” (“and the Lord is the Spirit”), “the veil” lying on the heart “is taken away,” “whenever Moses is read.”

Since Celsus has not understood what concerns the Spirit of God (“for the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned”), he goes on to join things together for himself, supposing that when we say God is “spirit” we differ in no way from the Stoics among the Greeks, who say that God is a spirit that has passed through all things and contains all things in itself. The oversight and providence of God do indeed pervade all things, but not as the spirit of the Stoics does; and providence does contain and encompass all the things it provides for, yet not as a containing body contains, when what is contained is also a body, but as a divine power that encompasses what it contains. According to the Stoics, who say that the first principles are bodily and for that reason make all things perishable, and who run the risk of making even the God over all perishable, had this not seemed to them too glaringly absurd, even the Word of God, who comes down to men and to the least of things, is nothing other than a bodily spirit. But according to us, who try to show that even the rational soul is superior to all bodily nature and is an invisible and incorporeal being, God the Word, through whom all things came to be, would not be a body; he reaches, so that all things may come to be through the Word, not only as far as men but also to things thought to be the least and governed by nature. Let the Stoics, then, consume everything in their conflagration; but we do not know of any incorporeal being that is consumed by fire, nor that the soul of man, or the substance of angels or thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, is dissolved into fire.

Therefore Celsus, as one who does not know the things of the Spirit of God, has said to no purpose that, since the Son is a spirit from God that came to be in a human body, the Son of God himself would not be immortal. Then again he confuses the argument for himself, as though some of us would not acknowledge that God is spirit, but only his Son, and he thinks he answers by saying that there is no nature of spirit such that it lasts for ever. It is as if, when we say that God is “a consuming fire,” he were to say that there is no nature of fire such that it lasts for ever, not seeing in what sense we say that our God is “fire,” and what he consumes, namely sins and wickedness. For it befits a good God, after each person has shown what kind of contestant he has been, to consume wickedness with the fire of punishments. Then again he takes for himself something not said by us: that God must necessarily have breathed out his spirit again; and following from this, that Jesus could not rise with his body, for God would not have taken back the spirit he had given, defiled by the nature of the body. It is foolish, then, for us to answer arguments that are not ours as though they were ours.

Next, repeating himself after having said much above and mocked the birth of God from a virgin, to which we replied as well as we could, he says: If he wanted to send down a spirit from himself, why did he need to breathe it into a woman's womb? For since he already knew how to form men, he could have formed a body for this one too, and not have thrown his own spirit into so great a defilement. In that way he would not even have been disbelieved, if he had been produced directly from above. He said this because he did not see the virginal and pure birth, free from any corruption, of the body that was to serve for the salvation of men. And the man who sets out the Stoic doctrine, and does not pretend to have learned about things indifferent, thinks that the divine nature was thrown into defilement and was defiled, whether in coming to be in a woman's body until a body was formed around it, or in taking up a body. He does something like those who think that the rays of the sun are defiled in mud and foul-smelling bodies and do not remain pure even there. And even if, according to Celsus's supposition, a body had been formed for Jesus without birth, those who saw the body would not at once have believed that it did not come from birth; for what is seen does not also announce the nature from which it came. For example, if hypothetically there were some honey not from bees, no one would declare from taste or sight that it was not from bees; just as honey from bees does not show its origin to the senses, but experience shows that it comes from bees. So too experience teaches that wine comes from the vine; for taste does not trace it back to the vine. In the same way, then, a sensible body does not announce the manner of its coming into being. You will be led to accept this from the heavenly bodies, whose substance and brightness we perceive by seeing them, yet sense certainly does not tell us whether they are generated or ungenerated. There have in fact been rival schools of thought about these; and even those who say they are generated do not agree about how they are generated; for sense does not tell them, even if reason, by force of argument, finds that they are generated, how they came to be.

Next he repeats what he has already said many times about the opinion of Marcion; in part he sets out Marcion's views truly, and in part he has misunderstood them too. We need not answer or refute this. Then again he brings up for himself what may be said for Marcion and against him, saying which charges they escape and which they fall into; and when he wishes to support the argument that says Jesus was prophesied, so as to accuse Marcion and his followers, he says plainly: How will one who was punished in this way be shown to be the child of God, unless this had been foretold about him? Then again he jests and, as is his habit, mocks, bringing in two sons of gods, one of the Creator and the other of Marcion's god, and paints their single combats, saying they are like those of quails, and the battles of their fathers, who, being useless from old age and doting, do nothing to each other but let their sons fight. What he said above we shall say to him: What old woman lulling a child to sleep would not be ashamed to say such things as he says in the book entitled The True Word? For he ought to have stood up to the arguments in a businesslike way; but he leaves aside the matters themselves and jests and plays the buffoon, thinking he is writing mimes or lampoons, not seeing that such a way of arguing is contrary to his own purpose, since he wishes us to abandon Christianity and pay attention to his doctrines. If he had set these out seriously, they might perhaps have been more persuasive; but since he mocks, jests, and plays the buffoon, we shall say that it was for lack of serious arguments (for he did not have them and did not know them) that he fell into such nonsense.

Next he says: Since a divine spirit was in the body, it must certainly have differed somewhat from the others in size, or beauty, or strength, or voice, or impressiveness, or persuasiveness. For it is impossible that one to whom something divine belonged more than to others should differ in no way from another; but this body differed in no way from another, but, as they say, was small, ugly, and ignoble. Here too it is plain that when he wishes to accuse Jesus, he quotes from the Scriptures as though he believed those that seem to give him grounds for accusation; but where, according to the same Scriptures, things might seem to be said contrary to what he takes up for his accusation, he does not even pretend to know them. It is admittedly written that the body of Jesus was ugly, but not, as he has set out, ignoble too; nor is it clearly shown that he was small. The passage is recorded in Isaiah, who prophesies that he will come to the many not in a comely form or with any surpassing beauty, as follows: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We announced before him as a child, as a root in a thirsty land; he has no form (nor glory; and we saw him, and he had no form) nor beauty; but his form was without honour, failing beyond the sons of men.” Did Celsus, then, listen to these words because he thought them useful to him for accusing Jesus, but pay no more attention to what is said in the forty-fourth Psalm, where it is said: “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, in your comeliness and your beauty; and bend your bow, and prosper, and reign”?

But suppose he had not read the prophecy, or, having read it, had been led astray by those who misinterpret it as not prophesied about Jesus Christ. What will he say about the Gospel, in which Jesus went up “on a high mountain” and “was transfigured before” the disciples and was seen in glory, when also “Moses and Elijah,” “appearing in glory, spoke of his departure, which he was about to fulfil in Jerusalem”? Or, when a prophet says, “We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty,” and so on, does Celsus accept that this prophecy refers to Jesus, being blind in accepting what is said, and not seeing that it is a great proof that Jesus, who seemed to be without form, is the Son of God, that even his appearance was prophesied many years before his birth; but when another prophet says that he has comeliness and beauty, does he no longer wish the prophecy to refer to Jesus Christ? And if it were clearly to be gathered from the Gospels that “he had no form nor beauty, but his form was without honour, failing beyond the sons of men,” one might say that Celsus said this not on the basis of the prophecy but of the Gospel. But as it is, since neither the Gospels nor the apostles show that “he had no form nor beauty,” it is plain that he is compelled to accept what comes from the prophecy as true of Christ; and this no longer allows his accusations against Jesus to proceed.

Again, the man who says, Since a divine spirit was in the body, it must certainly have differed somewhat from the others in size or voice or strength or impressiveness or persuasiveness, how did he not see that his body differed according to what the beholders could bear, and for that reason appeared in a useful way, such as each needed to see it? And it is not surprising that matter, which is by nature changeable and alterable, transformable into whatever the Creator wishes and receptive of every quality the craftsman wishes, should at one time have the quality according to which it is said, “He had no form nor beauty,” and at another time one so glorious, impressive, and wonderful that the three apostles who had gone up with Jesus and saw such beauty fell “on their faces.” But he will say that these are fictions differing in no way from myths, like the rest of the wonders about Jesus. We have answered this at length earlier. But the account has also a more mystical meaning, declaring that the different forms of Jesus are to be referred to the nature of the divine Word, who does not appear in the same way to the many and to those able to follow him up the “high mountain” we have spoken of. For to those who are still below and not yet prepared to ascend, the Word “has no form nor beauty”; for to such his “form” is “without honour and failing” beside the words produced by men, which are figuratively called here “sons of men.” For we might say that the words of the philosophers, being “sons of men,” appear much more comely than the Word of God preached to the many, which displays even the foolishness “of preaching”; and because of the apparent foolishness “of preaching,” those who see only this say: “We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty.” But to those who, by following him, have received power to go after him even as he ascends “the high mountain,” he has a more divine form. They see it if one is a “Peter,” who has received in himself the building of the Church from the Word and has acquired such a habit that no gate of Hades will prevail against him, since he has been lifted up through the Word “from the gates of death, so that he may” proclaim “all the praises” of God “in the gates of the daughter of Zion”; and those too see it who have taken their birth from words of great voice, who fall in no way short of spiritual “thunder.” <And “his garments” below are different; they are not “white,” they are not “as the light”; if you go up “to the high mountain,” you will see his light and “the garments.” “The garments” of the Word are the expressions of Scripture; these words are the clothing of the divine thoughts. As, then, he himself appears different below and, having gone up, is transfigured, and “his face becomes like the sun,” so also are his clothes and “his garments”: when you are below, they are not bright, they are not “white”; but if you go up, you will see the beauty and “the light” of the garments and will marvel at “the face” of Jesus transfigured. See whether it is not similar to learn this from the Gospels about the Saviour. For what concerns his birth, when he is traced by genealogy from Abraham and “born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” is “the book of the genesis of Jesus Christ”; but of the more divine and greater things that might be said about him and that are declared by him, John says that “I suppose not even the world could contain the books that would be written.” For the saying that “the world could not contain the books that would be written” must be understood not, as some think, because of the number of the writings, but because of the greatness of the matters; since the greatness of the matters not only cannot be written but cannot even be declared by a fleshly tongue or signified in human languages and sounds. That is why Paul too, when he is about to learn more divine things, comes to be outside our world around the earth and is caught up to the third heaven, so that he may hear the “inexpressible words” there. For the things spoken here, which are thought to be the word of God, are declared by the Word made flesh, who, being “God” “with God,” empties himself. Therefore we see the Word of God on earth as human, since he became man; for always in the Scriptures “the Word became flesh,” so as to dwell “among us.” But if we recline on “the breast” of the Word made flesh and are able to follow him as he goes up “the high mountain,” we shall say: “We beheld his glory.” Perhaps others too, besides those who reclined on his breast and followed him “to the high mountain,” will say, “We beheld his glory,” but will not add “glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”; for this utterance befits John and those like him. And according to another, loftier interpretation, those who have been able to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as he ascends and is transfigured from his earthly appearance will see his transfiguration in each Scripture: as though the Jesus who appears to the many were the obvious wording, while the one who goes up “a high mountain” and is transfigured before a very few of the disciples, and before those able to follow to the heights, were the highest and most exalted meaning, containing oracles of the wisdom hidden “in a mystery,” “which God foreordained before the ages for the glory” of his righteous ones.> But how could Celsus and the enemies of the divine word, who have not examined Christianity as lovers of truth, know the meaning of the different forms of Jesus? And I mean his ages too, and anything he did before his passion and after his resurrection from the dead.

Next Celsus says something like this: Further, if God, like Zeus in the comic poet, woke up from a long sleep and wished to rescue the human race from evils, why did he send this spirit you speak of into one corner? He ought to have breathed similarly into many bodies and sent them out over the whole world. But the comic poet, raising a laugh in the theatre, wrote that Zeus, when he woke up, sent Hermes to the Athenians and Spartans; do you not think that you have made the Son of God, sent to the Jews, more ridiculous? See here too the irreverence of Celsus, who unphilosophically takes up a comic poet trying to raise a laugh, and compares our God, the Creator of the universe, with the one in the poet who woke up and sent Hermes. We said earlier that God did not send Jesus to the human race as though rising from a long sleep. He has assigned the dispensation of the incarnation to the present time for good reasons, but he has always done good to the human race. For nothing good has come about among men without the divine Word visiting the souls of those who were able, even for a short time, to receive such workings of the divine Word. And the coming of Jesus to what seems one corner took place for good reason, since the one prophesied had to come to those who had learned of one God, who read his prophets and learned of the Christ who was proclaimed; and to come at a time when the Word was about to be poured out from one corner over the whole world.