active 180 Celsus

“ If God, like Jupiter in the comedy, being roused from a long sleep, wished to liberate the human race from evils, why did he send only into a corner of the earth this spirit of whom you boast? though he ought in a similar manner to have animated many other bodies, and to have sent them to every part of the habitable globe. ”

“ To masters and teachers let this be a common law. But let no youths be prevented from resorting to whatever schools they please. It would be as unreasonable to exclude children, who know not yet what road to take, from the right path, as it would be to lead them by fear and with reluctance to the religious rites of their country. And though it would be just to cure such reluctance, like madness, even by force, yet let all be indulged with that disease. ”

“ At first, in the provinces in which they were in power, they razed them to the very foundations, that nothing might be visible to posterity that could perpetuate impiety, or the sight of which could recall mankind to an abominable worship. But when the same Christians had firmly established their religion, it appeared more rational to them, after destroying the altars and statues of the gods, to preserve the temples, and by purifying them, to make them serviceable for the worship of the true God. ”

“ In the next place, is it not absurd that you should desire and hope for the resurrection of the body, as if nothing was more excellent or more honourable to us than this; and yet again, that you should hurl this same body into punishments, as a thing of a vile nature? To men, however, who are persuaded that this is true, and who are conglutinated to body, it is not worth while to speak of things of this kind. For these are men who in other respects are rustic and impure, without reason, and labouring under the disease of sedition. ”

“ Are not the temples the possession of the Emperors as well as other things? Is it the part of wise men to sink their own goods? Does not every one suppose him to be distracted, who throws his purse into the sea? Or if the master of the ship was to cut those ropes which are of use to the ship; or if any one should order a mariner to throw away his oar,—would you think it an absurdity? and yet think it proper for a magistrate to deprive a city of such a part of it? ”

“ I entreat you, therefore, O Emperor, to turn your countenance to me while I am speaking, and not to cast your eyes upon those who in many things aim to molest both you and me; forasmuch as oftentimes a look is of greater effect than all the force of truth. ”

“ AN EDICT, FORBIDDING THE CHRISTIANS TO TEACH THE LIFE-RATURE OF THE HEATHENS.
"We are of opinion that proper erudition consists not in words, nor in elegant and magnificent language, but in the sane disposition of an intelligent soul, and in true opinions of good and evil, and of what is beautiful and base. Whoever, therefore, thinks one thing, and teaches another to his followers, appears to be no less destitute of erudition than he is of virtue. ”

“ If, closing the perceptive organs of sense, you look upward with the visive power of intellect, and, averting the eye of the flesh, you excite the eye of the soul, you will thus alone behold God*. And if you seek for the leader of this path, you must avoid impostors and enchanters, and those who persuade you to pay attention to [real] idols; in order that you may not be entirely ridiculous, by blaspheming as idols other things which are manifestly Gods**, and venerating that which is in reality more worthless than any image, and which is not even an image, but a dead body*** ”

“ CHRISTIANS.
EXTRACT FROM EPISTLE LI. TO THE ALEXANDRIANS.
"As the founder of your city was Alexander, and your ruler and tutelar deity King Serapis, together with the virgin his associate, and the queen of all Egypt, Isis, * * *, you do not emulate a healthy city, but the diseased part dares to arrogate to itself the name of [the whole] city. By the gods, Men of Alexandria, I should be very much ashamed, if, in short, any Alexandrian should acknowledge himself to be a Galilæan.
"The ancestors of the Hebrews were formerly slaves to the Egyptians. ”

“ The Christians are most impiously deceived and involved in error, through the greatest ignorance of the meaning of divine enigmas. For they make a certain being whom they call the Devil, and who in the Hebrew tongue is denominated Satan, hostile to God. It is therefore perfectly stupid and unholy to assert that the greatest God, wishing to benefit mankind, was incapable of accomplishing what he wished, through having one that opposed him, and acted contrary to his will. ”

“ Is it not, therefore, a miserable thing, to consider, from the performance of the same deeds, this man to be a God, but others to be nothing more than enchanters? For why, employing his testimony, should we rather think those other workers of miracles to be more depraved than himself? Indeed Christ confesses that these arts are not indications of a divine nature, but of certain impostors, and perfectly wicked characters. ”

“ There are essence and generation, the intelligible and the visible. And truth indeed subsists with essence, but error with generation*. Science, therefore, is conversant with truth, but opinion with generation. ”

“ For the truth is, they have not changed the objects of their worship, but only appear to have done so. They join themselves with them in appearance, and outwardly perform the same things that they do: but when they are in a praying posture, they address to no one, or else they invoke the gods; not rightly indeed in such a place, but yet they invoke them. Wherefore as in a tragedy he who acts the part of a king is not a king, but the same person he was before he assumed the character, so every one of these keeps himself the same he was, though he seems to them to be changed. ”

“ But the unlearned and impious natures, to whom Fate has not granted truly to obtain gifts from the gods, and to have a knowledge of immortal Jupiter,—these not attending to the gods and divine men, reject indeed all the gods, and are so far from hating prohibited demons, that they even choose to reverence them*. But pretending that they worship God, they do not perform those things through which alone God is adored. ”

“ Whoever, therefore, loves his king, beholds with pleasure the image of his king; whoever loves his child is delighted with his image; and whoever loves his father surveys his image with delight. Hence, also, he who is a lover of divinity gladly surveys the statues and images of the gods ”

“ In consequence of this, they will neither eat nor drink with any one of a different nation, nor wish him any prosperity. For, say they, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, having subdued the Jews, entered into the temple of God, into which by their law no one was permitted to enter but the priest. Here, when he found the image of a man with a long beard carved in stone sitting on an ass, he conceived it to be Moses who built Jerusalem, established the nation, and made all their impious customs and practises legal: for these abound in hatred and enmity to all other men. ”

“ The first elements of their religion teach their proselytes to despise the gods, to abjure their country, and forget their parents, their brothers, and their children. With the Egyptians they agree in their belief of a future state; they have the same notion of departed spirits, the same solicitude, and the same doctrine. With regard to the Deity their creed is different. The Egyptians worship various animals, and also symbolical representations, which are the work of man: the Jews acknowledge one God only, and him they adore in contemplation ”

“ He, however, who invokes these powers ought to be careful, lest being conglutinated [as it were] to the worship of them, and to a love of the body, he should turn from and become oblivious of more excellent natures. For it is perhaps requisite not to disbelieve in wise men, who say that the greater part of circumterrestrial dæmons are conglutinated to generation, and are delighted with blood, with the odour and vapour of flesh, with melodies and with other things of the like kind** ”

“ Is it to be believed that Christ, when he was alive, openly announced to all men what he was; but when it became requisite that he should procure a strong belief of his resurrection from the dead, he should only show himself secretly to one woman and to his associates? ”

“ Men then having at first secured themselves in dens and cottages, and having there experienced the protection of the gods, they soon perceived how beneficial to mankind their favour must be: they therefore, as may be sup-, posed, erected to them statues and temples, such as they could in those early times. And when they began to build cities, upon the increase of arts and sciences, there were many temples on the sides of mountains and in plains: and in every city [as they built it] next to the walls were temples and sacred edifices raised, as the beginning of the rest of the body. ”

“ But neither is it at Rome only that the liberty of sacrificing remains, but also in the city of Serapis*, that great and populous city, which has a multitude of temples, by which it renders the plenty of Egypt common to all men. ”

“ The Origenians, who denied the truth of the resurrection, and asserted that men should have only aerial and spiritual bodies in the next world, made jests upon the Catholics, because they maintained the contrary, that our bodies should be the same individual bodies, and of the same nature that they are now, with flesh and bones, and all the members in the same form and structure, only altered in quality, not in substance. ”

“ The scum and refuse of other nations, renouncing the religion of their country, flocked in crowds to Jerusalem, enriching the place with gifts and offerings. Hence the wealth and grandeur of the state. Connected amongst themselves by the most obstinate and inflexible faith, the Jews extend their charity to all of their own persuasion, while towards the rest of mankind they nourish a sullen and inveterate hatred. Strangers are excluded from their tables. Unsociable to all others, they eat and lodge with one another only ”

“ This, however, is evidently the language of a man who is an impostor earnestly endeavouring to prevent, and previously guarding himself against, the attempts of those who think differently from and oppose him. But, according to the Christians, the son of God is punished by the devil, who also punishes us in order that through this we may be exercised in endurance. These assertions, however, are perfectly ridiculous. For it is fit, I think, that the devil should be punished, and not that men should be threatened with punishment who are calumniated by him. ”

“ But if in the sacrifices there performed consists the stability of the empire, it ought to be reckoned beneficial to sacrifice every where; and to be allowed that the dæmonss at Rome confer greater benefits, these in the country and other cities less. This is
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what may be reasonably granted: for in an army all are not equal; yet in a battle the help of each one is of use: the like may be said of rowers in a vessel. So one [dæmons] defends the sceptre of Rome, another protects a city subject to it, another preserves the country and gives it felicity. ”

“ For, be the will ever so good, impossibilities are not to be surmounted. Of such mischievous consequence are the arbitrary proceedings of those persons in the country, who say, 'they fight with the temples.' But that war is the gain of those who oppress the inhabitants: and robbing these miserable people of their goods, and what they had laid up of the fruits of the earth for their sustenance, they go off as with the spoils of those whom they have conquered. ”

“ After his death in Persia, the liberty of sacrificing remained for some time: but at the instigation of some innovators, sacrifices were forbidden by the two brothers**, but not incense;—which state of things your law has ratified. So that we have not more reason to be uneasy for what is denied us, than to be thankful for what is allowed. You, therefore, have not ordered the temples to be shut up, nor forbidden any to frequent them: nor have you driven from the temples or the altars, fire or frankincense, or other honours of incense. ”

“ For you have no other origin of your dogma, than our law. Many. other such persons also as Jesus was, may be seen by those who wish to be deceived. How too is it probable that we, who have declared to all men that a person would be sent by God as a punisher of the unjust, should treat him ignominiously, if such a person had appeared among us? ”

“ In contempt of Jupiter Hammon they sacrifice a ram. The ox worshiped in Egypt for the god Apis is slain as a victim by the Jews. From the flesh of swine they abstain altogether. An animal subject to the same leprous disease that infected their whole nation, is not deemed proper food. The famine with which they were for a long time afflicted, is frequently commemorated by a solemn fast. Their bread, in memory of their having seized a quantity of grain to relieve their wants, is made without leaven. The seventh day is sacred to rest, for on that day their labours ended ”