Against Celsus, Book 1

Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, when falsely accused, "kept silent," and when charged, "made no answer," persuaded that his whole life and his deeds among the Jews were stronger than any voice that might refute the false testimony, or any words that might defend him against the charges. But you, God-loving Ambrose, I do not know why, wished us to make a defense against Celsus's false accusations against the Christians in his writings, and against the charges brought in his book against the faith of the churches.

as though there were no clear proof in the facts themselves, and no argument stronger than all writings—one that both dispels the false accusations and leaves the charges not even a shred of plausibility to carry any weight. Concerning Jesus, that he "kept silent" when falsely accused, it suffices for the present to set out the words of Matthew, for what Mark wrote amounts to the same thing. The text of Matthew runs thus:

"Now the chief priest and the council sought false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put him to death, and found none, though many false witnesses came forward. But afterward two came forward and said, This man declared, I have power to tear down the temple of God and raise it up again within three days. And the chief priest stood up and said to him,"

"You answer nothing? Is it not this that these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent." And that he also did not answer when accused, the following is written: "Now Jesus stood before the governor; and he questioned him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? To this Jesus replied, You say so. And while accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then"

Pilate says to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? And he did not answer him a single word, so that the governor marveled greatly." And indeed it was a thing worthy of wonder, to those capable of even moderate reflection, that one who was accused and falsely testified against, though capable of defending himself and demonstrating that he was liable to no charge, and to recount the praiseworthy things of his own life and of his powers, since these

had come to be from God, so as to give the judge occasion to declare something more favorable about him, did not do this, but rather looked down upon his accusers with contempt and a certain greatness of soul. And that if he had defended himself the judge would have released Jesus without even hesitating is clear from what is recorded about him, where it says: "Which of the two do you wish me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus"

"who is called Christ?" and also from what the scripture adds, saying: "For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over." Jesus, then, is always falsely accused, and there is no time, so long as wickedness exists among men, when he is not charged. And even now he himself keeps silent before these things and makes no answer in speech, but he defends himself in the life of his genuine disciples, which proclaims aloud

the things that set him apart, and which is stronger than every false accusation, refuting and overturning the false testimonies and the charges. I venture, then, to say that the defense you ask us to compose weakens the defense that lies in the facts themselves, and the manifest power of Jesus to those who are not without perception. Nevertheless, so that we may not seem to shrink from what has been enjoined upon us by you, we have undertaken to dictate, in accordance with

the power at hand against each of the things written by Celsus, whatever appeared to us capable of overturning arguments of his that can shake no one who is faithful. And may there never be found anyone who has embraced such love of God "in Christ Jesus" as to have his resolve shaken by the words of Celsus or of anyone like him. Paul, listing countless things that are apt to separate

"from the love of Christ" and "the love of God in Christ Jesus," greater than all of which was the love within him, did not rank reason among the things that separate. Notice that he first says: "What shall part us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or hardship, or persecution, or hunger, or want of clothing, or peril, or the sword? As it is written,

'For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we were reckoned as sheep for slaughter.' Yet amid all this we prevail completely, through him who loved us." Then, setting out a second list of the things by nature apt to separate those not firmly rooted in the worship of God, he states: "For I am convinced that death itself cannot, nor life, neither messengers nor powers, neither what now stands nor what is to come, neither might nor height, nor depth, nor

any other creature shall have power to sunder us from the love God bears us in Christ Jesus our Lord." And it is truly fitting for us to take pride over tribulation that does not separate, or over the things listed after it — though not for Paul and the apostles. And if anyone has become like them, because he is, as Paul says, very far above such things, saying: "In

amid all this we prevail completely, through him who loved us" — which is a greater thing than merely conquering. But if the apostles too must take pride in remaining unsundered "from the love God bears us in Christ Jesus our Lord," they might take pride in this: that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers," nor anything else that follows, has power to "sunder them (from) the love of God

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Accordingly, I take no pleasure in someone who has believed in Christ in such a way that his faith could be shaken by Celsus — who no longer even lives an ordinary life among men but has already long been dead — or by any persuasive argument. I do not know into what category one ought to place a person who needs arguments to answer the accusations Celsus has set down in books against Christians,

in order to restore him from the shaking of his faith to a firm standing in it. Nevertheless, since among the multitude of those reckoned believers there might be found some so disposed as to be shaken and overturned by Celsus's writings, yet healed by the defense made against them — provided what is said here has some character capable of demolishing Celsus's claims and of establishing the

truth — we resolved to be persuaded by your instruction and to dictate a reply to the treatise you sent us; a treatise which I do not think anyone who has made even a little progress in philosophy would agree is a true account, as Celsus has entitled it. Now Paul, perceiving that in Greek philosophy there are things, not easily despised by the many, that are persuasive and present falsehood as truth,

After that he says: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ." And seeing that there is a certain greatness apparent in the arguments of worldly wisdom, he said that the arguments of the philosophers are "according to the elements of the world." No one

of sound mind, however, would say that Celsus' own writings are also "according to the elements of the world." And those he named a deceit having something delusive in it, and an empty deceit, perhaps to distinguish it from a deceit that is not empty—the deceit which Jeremiah, having beheld it, dared to say to God: "You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed." But Celsus' writings seem to me to contain no deceit at all,

and therefore not an empty one either, of the sort possessed by the writings of those who have founded schools of thought in philosophy and who have adopted no ordinary intelligence in doing so. And just as one would not call every mistaken diagram in geometrical demonstrations a false drawing, nor record it as such, when it is done for the sake of exercise arising from such things, so too the thoughts of those who have founded schools in philosophy must be regarded as comparable,

and what is going to be said, in a manner similar to theirs, should not be called empty deceit and "the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world." Now it seemed good to us to place this preface before the beginning, after we had dictated everything up to the point of the character Celsus assigns to the Jew speaking against Jesus, so that whoever is about to read what we have dictated against Celsus may first encounter it and see that this book has not been written for

those who are altogether firm in faith, but rather for those entirely untasted of faith in Christ, or for those who, as the apostle called them, are "weak in faith." For he spoke thus: "But the one who is weak in faith, receive." Let this preface serve as an apology, on the ground that we dictated the beginning of our reply to Celsus with one purpose, and what comes after the beginning with another. For at first we intended

to note down the chapter-headings and briefly what is said in reply to them, and then afterward to give the discourse body; but later the subject matter itself led us, sparing of time, to be content with what had been dictated in that manner at the beginning, while in what follows to contend, as far as we are able, in a more literary fashion against the charges Celsus brings against us. For this reason we ask forgiveness for the beginning,

as distinct from what comes after the preface. But if you are not moved usefully even by what follows in dictated form, then, asking the same forgiveness for that as well, I send you on—if indeed you still wish the refutations of Celsus' arguments to be given to you through dictated words—to those among us who are more intelligent and capable, able through composed speech and books to overturn the charges Celsus brings against us. Yet better

is the one who has not needed, from the very beginning, even if he has come upon Celsus' treatise, any defense against it at all, but who has looked down upon everything in his book as things reasonably despised even by an ordinary believer in Christ, because of the spirit within him. The first chapter for Celsus, wishing to slander Christianity, is that Christians make secret compacts with one another contrary to what is lawfully established,

That of agreements, some are open, namely those made according to law, while others are secret, namely those concluded contrary to what is lawful. And he wishes to slander the so-called love of Christians for one another, as arising from a common danger and capable of leading to oath-breaking. Since, then, he keeps harping on the common law, saying that the agreements of Christians go against it, we must say to this that just as if someone

who found himself among the Scythians, who have lawless customs, and had no opportunity to withdraw, were compelled to live among them, this person would reasonably, on account of the truth's own law—which, relative to the Scythians, would count as lawlessness—also make agreements with those who thought as he did, contrary to what was customary among the Scythians; so too, in the judgment of truth, the laws of the nations concerning images and their godless

polytheism are laws of Scythians, or of something even more impious than Scythians. It is not unreasonable, then, to make agreements contrary to what is customary for the sake of truth. For just as, if certain people were secretly making agreements to destroy a tyrant who had seized control of the city, they would be acting rightly, so too Christians, since the one called the devil among them, along with falsehood, plays the tyrant, make agreements contrary to what

is customary for the devil, against the devil, and for the salvation of others—those whom they are able to persuade to withdraw from the law of, so to speak, the Scythians and of the tyrant. Next he says that the doctrine is barbarian from of old, meaning obviously Judaism, from which Christianity has its origin. And to his credit he does not reproach the doctrine for its barbarian beginning, praising the barbarians as capable of discovering doctrines; but he adds

to this that the Greeks are better able to judge, confirm, and put into practice for virtue's sake what was discovered by barbarians. This, then, from what he himself says, serves us for a defense concerning the things laid down in Christianity, since they are true: that someone who came to the word from Greek doctrines and training would not only judge them to be true but, by practicing them, would also supply

whatever seemed lacking as measured against Greek proof, thereby establishing the truth of Christianity. But we must say further to this that there is a proof proper to the word, more divine than the Greek proof from dialectic. This more divine proof the apostle calls the proof "of spirit and of power"—the element "of spirit" resting on the prophecies, which are adequate to persuade the reader who attends especially

to the matters concerning Christ, and "of power" on account of the marvelous powers, which must be shown to have occurred, both from many other things and from the fact that vestiges of these still survive among those who live according to the will of the word. After this, having said that Christians do and teach what pleases them in secret, and that they do this not without reason, since they are avoiding

the sentence of death hanging over them, he likens their danger to the dangers that befell others on account of philosophy, as with Socrates; he could also have spoken of Pythagoras and other philosophers. To this we must say that with Socrates, the Athenians repented right away, and nothing bitter remained with them concerning him, nor in the case of Pythagoras either; at any rate the Pythagoreans continued their schools for a long time in Italy,

what was called Magna Graecia; but against the Christians, the Roman senate and the emperors of each period and the armies and the populace and even the relatives of believers, waging war on the word, would have prevented it from being victorious over the plotting of so many, had it not, by divine power, risen above and surmounted them, so as to conquer a whole world plotting against it. Let us also see how

he thinks he can discredit the ethical topic on the ground that it is common to the other philosophers as well, and not some solemn and novel teaching. To this it must be said that if all people did not possess, according to common conceptions, a sound preconception concerning the ethical topic, then justice for those who commit sins would have been closed off to those who introduce a righteous judgment of God. It is therefore not at all surprising that the same

God should have sown into the souls of all human beings the very things he taught through the prophets and the Savior, so that every person may be without excuse at the divine judgment, having the intent "of the law written" in his own heart — which the word hinted at through what the Greeks take to be a myth, when it represented God as having written the commandments with his own "finger" and given them to Moses, which

the wickedness of those who made the calf "shattered," as if it said, the flood of sin swept over them. And a second time, having written again, God gave them to Moses after he had hewn the stones, as though the prophetic word were preparing the soul, after the first sin, with a second writing of God. As for what he sets out about idolatry as though it were peculiar to those of the word, he also lays the groundwork for this by saying that they hold this view for this reason —

that they do not consider them gods made by hand, since it is not reasonable that things fashioned by the most worthless craftsmen, wicked in character, should be gods, often even made by unjust men. Wishing next to show this to be common property, as not first discovered by this man, he sets out a saying of Heraclitus which runs: "it is like as if one were to converse with houses, so do those approach as though

to gods who are lifeless." On this point too, then, it must be said that, just as with the rest of the ethical topic, conceptions were sown into human beings, from which both Heraclitus and any other of the Greeks or barbarians who thought of establishing this drew. For he also sets out the Persians as holding this view, citing Herodotus as recording it. But we for our part will add that Zeno of Citium too, in his Republic,

says: "temples will need no building at all; for nothing ought to be reckoned sacred, or of great worth, or holy, that is the product of builders and common artisans." It is clear, then, that concerning this doctrine too it has been written "in the hearts" of human beings, in God's own writing, what is to be done. After this, Celsus, moved by I know not what, says that Christians seem to have power through the names of certain demons and through incantations —

as I think, hinting at those who chant over demons and drive them out. But he clearly seems to be slandering the word falsely. For they do not seem to have power through incantations, but through the name of Jesus together with the recitation of the histories concerning him. For these, when spoken, have often caused the demons to be separated from human beings — most of all when those who speak them do so from a sound disposition and with genuine belief in them

however they may put it, the name of Jesus has such power against demons that at times it accomplishes its effect even when spoken by base people. Jesus himself taught this when he said, "Many will say to me on that day, 'In your name we cast out demons and performed mighty works.'" I do not know whether Celsus has willfully overlooked this and acted maliciously, or whether he simply does not know it.

In what follows he also accuses the Savior of having accomplished, by sorcery, what seemed to be his marvels, and of having foreseen that others too, once they had learned the same techniques, would be able to do the same things and would boast of doing them by the power of God—men whom Jesus drives out from his own citizenship. And he accuses him of this: that if he rightly drives them out even though he himself is guilty of the same things, he is base;

but if he himself was not base in doing these things, then neither are those who act as he did. But directly—even if the question of how Jesus did these things seems to admit of no refutation—it is clear that Christians make use of no practiced incantations at all, but rely on the name of Jesus together with other words that are believed according to the divine Scripture. Then, since he repeatedly calls the doctrine secret, on this point too

he must be refuted, since virtually the whole world has come to know the proclamation of the Christians better than the doctrines that please the philosophers. For to whom is the virgin birth of Jesus unknown, or his crucifixion, or his resurrection, believed by many, or the judgment that is proclaimed, which punishes sinners according to their desert and deems the righteous worthy of reward? Even the mystery

concerning the resurrection, though not understood, is bandied about, mocked by unbelievers. Given all this, then, to say the doctrine is secret is quite absurd. But that there should be certain things beyond the exoteric teachings, not reaching the multitude, is not peculiar to the Christian message alone, but belongs also to the philosophers, among whom there were some exoteric teachings and others esoteric. And

some, on hearing Pythagoras, were content with "he himself said it," while others were taught in secret matters not fit to reach ears that were profane and not yet purified. And all the mysteries, everywhere, both among the Greeks and among the barbarians, being secret, have not thereby been discredited. It is therefore in vain that Celsus, without even understanding accurately what is secret in Christianity, discredits it. He seems, with some cleverness, to be pleading a case

somehow on behalf of those who bear witness to Christianity even unto death, saying: and I do not say this, that one who holds fast to a good doctrine, if he is going to be endangered on account of it among men, ought to abandon the doctrine, or pretend that he has abandoned it, or deny it. And indeed he condemns those who hold the beliefs of Christianity but pretend not to hold them, or who deny them, saying that the one who holds the

doctrine ought not to pretend that he has abandoned it or to deny it. He must, then, be refuted as one who contradicts himself. For it is found, from his other writings, that he is an Epicurean; but here, because he thinks it more plausible to accuse our doctrine this way, he does not admit to holding Epicurus's views, and pretends that there is in man something superior to the earthly, akin to God, and says that for those in whom this is well disposed,

that is, the soul reaches out in every way toward what is akin to it—he means toward God—and longs always to hear and to be reminded of something concerning him. Notice, then, how spurious his own soul is in this: having said beforehand that a man who holds a good doctrine, even if he is going to be endangered by it among men, ought not to abandon the doctrine, nor pretend that he has abandoned it, nor deny it, he himself

falls into every one of the contrary practices. For he knew that if he confessed to being an Epicurean, he would have no credibility in accusing those who in whatever way introduce providence and set a god over the things that exist. Now we have learned that there were two Celsuses who were Epicureans: the earlier one under Nero, and this one under Hadrian and later still. After this he urges people to accept doctrines by following reason and a rational guide,

as though it were altogether a case of deception when someone does not give assent in this way to certain things; and he likens those who believe without reason to begging priests of the Mother of the Gods, to fortune-tellers from portents, to devotees of Mithras and Sabazius, and to whatever apparition of Hecate or some other daemon or daemons a person might encounter. For just as in those cases wicked men, preying on the ignorance of the easily deceived, lead them wherever they wish, so too, he says, it happens among the

Christians. He says that some, unwilling even to give or receive a reason for what they believe, employ the maxims "Ask no questions, only trust," and "Your trust is what will rescue you." And he says they say: "Wisdom in the world is a bad thing, but folly is a good thing." To this it must be said that if it were possible for everyone, having left behind the business of life,

to devote themselves to philosophizing, no other path ought to be pursued by anyone than this alone. For one will find within Christianity—not to put it too strongly—no lesser an examination of what is believed, along with an account of the riddles found among the prophets, the parables set within the Gospels, and countless other matters enacted or legislated in symbolic form. But if this is impracticable, in part because of life's

necessities and in part because of human weakness, so that very few indeed apply themselves to reasoned study, what better method could be found for helping the many than the one handed down from Jesus to the nations? And we do inquire concerning the multitude of believers, who have laid aside the great flood of wickedness in which they formerly wallowed: which is better—

that they, believing without reason, should have their characters somehow restrained and should be benefited through their faith concerning those punished for their sins and honored for their good deeds, or that their conversion should not be accepted along with mere faith until they have submitted themselves to a searching examination of arguments? For it is plain that virtually all of them, except for very few, would not even receive that benefit which they have received from simply believing, but would remain in

the worst kind of life. If, then, there is any other proof that the loving-kindness of the word has not visited the life of men without divine agency, this too must be counted among the proofs. For a cautious person will not suppose that even a physician of bodies, who has brought many who were sick to a better state, has visited cities and nations without divine agency; for nothing good comes about among men without divine agency. And if the one who has healed the bodies of many

or by leading it forward to what is better, heals it not without God's help — how much more the one who has cured the souls of many, turned them, and made them better, and has bound them fast to the God over all things, and has taught them to refer every act to his approval, and to turn away from everything displeasing to God, down to the very least of what is said or done or even comes into the mind? Then, since

they keep chattering about faith, it must be said that we, for our part, taking it up as useful to the many, openly admit that we teach people to believe — even without argument — those who are unable to abandon everything and follow a rational inquiry, whereas those others, without admitting this, do the very same thing in practice. For who, having been urged toward philosophy and having thrown himself, as if by lot, into some particular school of philosophers, or because he happened to have found such-and-such a

teacher, comes to this in any way other than by believing that that school is the better one? For he does not wait to hear the arguments of all the philosophers and of the various schools, and the refutation — the overturning of these and the establishment of others — and only then decide to belong to the Stoics, the Platonists, the Peripatetics, the Epicureans, or any philosophical school whatsoever; rather, by some irrational impulse, even if they are unwilling

to admit this, they arrive, carried along by an impulse, at practicing — let us say — the Stoic teaching, abandoning the rest; or, looking down on the Platonic teaching as more lowly than the others, or on the Peripatetic as extremely human and, more than the rest of the schools, honestly acknowledging the goods that belong to humanity. And some, disturbed from their very first encounter with the argument about providence, on account of the things that happen on earth to the wicked

and to the good, gave their assent too rashly to the view that there is no providence at all, and chose the teaching of Epicurus and of Celsus. If, then, one must believe — as the argument has shown — in some one of those who introduced schools of thought among the Greeks or the barbarians, how is it not more reasonable to believe instead in the God who is over all, and in the one who teaches that he alone must be worshiped, while the rest are, either as not existing, or as

existing but not worthy of prostration and worship, though worthy of honor, to be passed over? Concerning these things, the one who not only believes but also examines the matters rationally will state the proofs that occur to him and that are discovered by thoroughgoing inquiry. And how is it not more reasonable, since all human affairs depend on faith, to believe in God rather than in those others? For who sails, or marries, or

has children, or scatters seed on the earth, without trusting that a better outcome will follow — though it is possible for the opposite to happen, and it sometimes does? And yet the belief that better things, the things one prays for, will come about makes everyone dare even what is uncertain and could turn out otherwise. And if, in every action, it holds life together

though the outcome is uncertain, hope and the more auspicious faith concerning what is to come — how will this not, more reasonably, be embraced by the one who believes — beyond the faith involved in sailing the sea, sowing the earth, marrying a wife, and the rest of human affairs — in the God who fashioned all these things, and in the one who, with surpassing greatness of mind and divine magnanimity, dared to set forth this teaching before

everywhere in the inhabited world, amid great dangers and a death considered disgraceful, which he endured on behalf of human beings, having taught also those who were persuaded from the outset to serve his teaching to dare, amid all dangers and the deaths always expected, to travel abroad everywhere in the world for the salvation of humankind? Then, since Celsus says, in these very words: "If indeed they will be willing to answer me,"

not as to one testing them (for I know everything) but as to one caring equally for all, it would be well; but if they are unwilling and instead say, as they are accustomed, 'Do not examine,' and so on, then, he says, they must be made to teach what sort of things these are that they say, and where they flowed from, and so on. It must be said, in response to "for I know everything" — a most boastful thing ventured by him —

that if he had actually read the prophets, admittedly full of riddles and of sayings obscure to most people, and had he encountered the gospel parables and the remaining scripture of the law and of the history of the Jews, together with the apostles' own recorded words, and, having read them, had wished in good faith to enter into the meaning of the words, he would not have been so brazen, nor would he have said, "for I know

everything." Not even we, who have spent our time on these matters, would say: "for I know everything" — for truth is dear to us. None of us will say: "for I know everything of Epicurus," nor will anyone be confident that he knows everything of Plato, given how many disagreements there are even among those who expound him. For who is so brazen as to say: "for I know everything of the Stoics," or everything of the Peripatetics? Unless

perhaps he heard "for I know everything" from some uneducated, senseless laypeople who did not perceive their own ignorance, and thought that by relying on such teachers he had come to know everything. It seems to me he has done something like this: as if someone visiting Egypt, where the wise among the Egyptians, following their ancestral writings, philosophize at length about the things held sacred among them, while the laypeople, hearing certain myths

whose meaning they do not understand, take great pride in them — this person thought he had come to know everything about the Egyptians, having become a disciple of their laypeople and having mingled with none of the priests nor learned from any of them the secret things of the Egyptians. What I have said about the wise and the laypeople among the Egyptians one may also see concerning the Persians, among whom there are initiation rites, conducted with rational meaning by

their own learned men, but carried out symbolically by the many among them who are more superficial. The same must also be said concerning the Syrians and Indians and all who possess both myths and sacred writings. Since Celsus put forward, as something said by many Christians, "wisdom in this life is evil, but folly is good," it must be said that

he misrepresents the argument, not setting out the very statement found in Paul, which reads as follows: "If any among you supposes himself wise in this present age, let him turn fool, so as to attain wisdom; since the wisdom belonging to this world is, before God, mere folly." The apostle, then, does not say simply, "wisdom is foolishness with God," but "the

the wisdom of this world." And again, it does not say "if anyone among you seems to be wise" that he should simply "become foolish," but that he should "become foolish in this age, so that he may become wise." We call "the wisdom of this age," then, all the falsely reputed philosophy that is, according to the scriptures, being nullified; and we call foolishness a good thing not without qualification, but only when someone becomes "foolish" with respect to this age.

as if we should say that the Platonist too, trusting that the soul is deathless and holding what is said about it regarding reincarnation, has taken on foolishness in the eyes of the Stoics, who mock their assent to these views, and in the eyes of the Peripatetics, who scoff at Plato's "warblings," and in the eyes of the Epicureans, who charge with superstition those who introduce providence and set a god over the universe. And further, that it also, according to

what is pleasing to reason, makes a great difference to assent to these teachings with reasoning and wisdom rather than with bare faith, and that it was because of circumstance that the Word willed this too, so as not to leave people wholly without benefit — this Jesus' genuine disciple Paul makes clear when he says: "for since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through

wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the proclamation." Clearly, then, it is shown through these words that God ought to have been known in the wisdom of God. And since this did not happen so, God was pleased, in the second place, to save those who believe, not through foolishness taken absolutely, but through foolishness so far as concerns the proclamation. For Jesus Christ crucified, when proclaimed just as he is,

is foolishness of proclamation — as Paul too, being aware of this, says: "yet we proclaim a crucified Christ Jesus — for Judeans an offense, for the nations foolishness, but for the summoned themselves, Judean and Greek alike, Christ as God's power and God's wisdom." Celsus, supposing there to be a kinship among many of the nations regarding the same doctrine,

names all the nations as having originated this sort of teaching; but I do not know why he slanders the Jews alone, not reckoning their nation among the rest, as though it had either worked together with them and shared their thinking, or had held similar doctrines on many points. It is worth asking him, then, why in the world he has believed the histories of barbarians and Greeks concerning the antiquity of those he has named, while falsifying the histories of this nation alone.

For if each people set forth their own affairs with love of truth, why do we distrust the Jews' prophets alone? And if Moses and the prophets, out of partiality, wrote down many things in their own account concerning their own people, why shall we not say the same about the writers among the other nations as well? Or are the Egyptians, in their own histories,

trustworthy when they speak ill of the Jews, while the Jews, saying the same things about the Egyptians — recording that they themselves suffered many injustices, and saying for this reason that the Egyptians were punished by God — are lying? And this need not be said of the Egyptians alone; for we shall find an entanglement of the Assyrians with the Jews, and this too recorded in the Assyrian antiquities. Thus the Assyrians too were recorded as enemies to themselves by

Jewish writers, lest I seem to be jumping ahead by saying "the prophets." Observe, then, right away the self-love of a man who trusts certain nations as wise while condemning others as utterly foolish. For hear Celsus saying that there is an ancient doctrine from long ago, with which the wisest nations, cities, and wise men have always been concerned. And

he was unwilling to call the Jews a wise nation even in a way comparable to the Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Persians, Odrysians, Samothracians, and Eleusinians. How much better than Celsus is the Pythagorean Numenius—who has shown himself in many respects to be most learned, has examined a great many doctrines, and has gathered from many sources what he supposed to be true—when, in the first book On the Good, speaking

about the nations, he lists among all those who have held that God is incorporeal the Jews as well, not hesitating in his treatise to make use of prophetic sayings and to interpret them allegorically. It is also said that Hermippus, in the first book On Lawgivers, recorded that Pythagoras brought his own philosophy to the Greeks from the Jews. And a book about the Jews is also attributed to Hecataeus the historian,

in which the nation is credited, in a manner, with being so wise that Herennius Philo devotes his treatise On the Jews first to doubting whether the work belongs to the historian at all, and second to saying that, if it is indeed his, it is likely that he was carried away by the persuasiveness found among the Jews and gave his assent to that very argument. I am amazed, though, how Celsus ranked the Odrysians and

Celsus placed the Samothracians, Eleusinians, and Hyperboreans among the nations most ancient and most wise, yet he refused to grant the Jews standing among either the wise or the ancient—even though many writings survive among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Greeks attesting to Jewish antiquity, which I have judged unnecessary to lay out here. Anyone so inclined may instead read what Flavius Josephus wrote about

the antiquity of the Jews, in two books, where he assembles a great collection of writers testifying to the antiquity of the Jews. There is also current the Address to the Greeks by the younger Tatian, who most learnedly sets forth those who have written about the antiquity of the Jews and of Moses. It seems, then, that Celsus says these things not truthfully but out of spite, with the aim of accusing the origin of Christianity as dependent on the Jews. But

he declares Homer's Milk-Drinkers, the Gallic Druids, and the Getae to be nations both wise in the extreme and ancient, treating of matters related to Jewish teachings—though whether writings of theirs survive I cannot say; the Hebrews alone, however, he strips, so far as it lies in his power, of both antiquity and wisdom. Again, moreover, when drawing up a catalogue of ancient and wise men who benefited

those of their own time, and through their writings those who came after them, he cast Moses out of the catalogue of the wise. And as for Linus, whom he placed first among those Celsus named, neither laws nor sayings of his survive that turned and healed nations; but the laws of Moses an entire nation carries, scattered throughout the whole inhabited world. Consider, then, whether he has not, quite plainly and out of malice, cast him out of the catalogue of the wise

...and Moses. He says that Linus, Musaeus, Orpheus, Pherecydes, the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras gave accounts concerning these matters, and set down their own doctrines in books, and that these have been preserved until now. And he deliberately forgot the myth about the so-called gods as subject to human passions, a myth recorded above all by Orpheus. And in what follows, accusing the...

...history of Moses, he blames those who give it a tropological or allegorical reading. One might say to this most noble fellow, who titled his own book The True Word: Why in the world, my good man, do you solemnly claim it has been written that the gods fell into misfortunes as great as those your wise poets and philosophers record, engaging in unholy unions, making war on their own fathers, and cutting off their genitals—that they dared, did, and suffered such things...

...but when Moses says nothing of the kind about God, nor even about holy angels, but says far lesser things about human beings (for among his people no one is credited with daring what Cronus did against Uranus, or what Zeus did against his father, nor that 'the father of men and gods' had intercourse with his own daughter), do you suppose that those given laws by him are being deceived, led astray?

It seems to me that Celsus does something very like what Plato's Thrasymachus does: he does not allow Socrates to answer about justice as he wishes, but says, 'See that you do not say the just is the advantageous, nor the necessary, nor anything else of that sort.' For Celsus too, having accused, as he supposes, the histories found in Moses, and having censured those who...

...allegorize them—while also granting them some praise as being the more reasonable ones—in effect, having leveled his accusation as he pleases, he prevents those who are able from defending themselves according to how the matters actually stand. We might, in turn, propose comparing books with books, and say: Come now, my good man, take the poems of Linus, Musaeus, and Orpheus, and the writing of Pherecydes, and examine them side by side with the laws of Moses—history against history...

...and ethical discourses against laws and commandments—and see which of them is better able to turn even ordinary hearers toward itself on first encounter, and which of them can even wear its hearer down; and observe how the whole company of your writers gave little thought to those who would meet them directly, and wrote their own philosophy, as you say, only for those capable of reading it tropologically and allegorically. Moses, by contrast...

...composed his five books after the manner of a noble orator practicing rhetorical figure, everywhere carefully preserving the double sense of his language—neither giving the mass of Jews under his laws occasions for harm in the ethical sphere, nor, for the few capable of reading with more understanding, setting forth a text lacking in contemplation for those able to search out his intention. As for your wise...

...poets, it seems that not even their books are still preserved—books that would have survived had their readers perceived some benefit in them. But the writings of Moses have moved many, even among those foreign to the Jewish way of life, to believe that, in accordance with the promise contained in those writings, the one who first legislated them and gave them to Moses was the God who created the world. For indeed it was fitting that the...

...as craftsman, having set laws for the whole cosmos, to supply the arguments with power able to prevail everywhere. And I say this not yet examining the case concerning Jesus, but still demonstrating that Moses—far inferior to the Lord, as the argument will show—differs greatly from your wise poets and philosophers. Next, Celsus, wishing covertly to slander the cosmogony according to Moses, by implying that the cosmos does not yet

have a count of ten thousand years but falls far short of this, adds on, stealing his intention, to those who say the cosmos is uncreated. For the fact that there have been many conflagrations from all eternity and many floods, and that the flood in the time of Deucalion is more recent, having occurred not long ago, makes clear to those able to understand him that, in his view, the cosmos is uncreated. Let him then tell

us—he who accuses the faith of Christians—on what demonstrative grounds he found himself forced to accept that numerous conflagrations and numerous floods have occurred, and that of all of these the flood under Deucalion, and the conflagration under Phaethon, are the most recent. But if he brings forward Plato's dialogues on these matters, we shall say to him that we too are permitted to believe, with a pure and pious soul, in Moses, who has risen above everything created

and has attached himself to the creator of all things—that a divine spirit had taken up residence within him, presenting the realities of God with far greater clarity than the sages of the Greeks, the barbarians, or Plato himself. And if he demands from us arguments for such a faith, let him first give arguments concerning the things he himself declared without proof, and then we shall in turn establish that our claims stand thus. Yet even unwillingly Celsus has fallen into

testifying that the cosmos is more recent and not yet ten thousand years old, saying also that the Greeks consider these things ancient because, on account of the floods and conflagrations, they have not observed or do not remember things more ancient. Let the teachers of Celsus's myth about conflagrations and drainings-away of water be, according to him, the wisest of the Egyptians—the traces of whose wisdom are irrational animals worshipped, and accounts

presenting as reasonable that such a service of God is somehow withdrawn and mystical. And if the Egyptians, in dignifying their account concerning the animals, bring forward theology, they are wise; but if the man who has agreed with the law and lawgiver of the Jews refers everything to the creator of all, the one God alone, he is judged by Celsus and those like him to be inferior to those who

bring divinity down not only into rational and mortal creatures but also into irrational ones, beyond the mythical transmigration—the account of the soul falling from the vaults of heaven and descending as far as irrational animals, not only tame ones but also the most savage. And if the Egyptians tell myths, they are believed to have philosophized through riddles and secret things, but if Moses, writing histories and laws for an entire

nation, leaves them these, his accounts are considered empty myths that do not even admit of allegory; for this is what seems true to Celsus and the Epicureans. This word, then, he says, which he had heard from the wise nations and distinguished men, gave Moses a divine name. And to this too it must be said, granting to him that Moses heard an older account, and that this

handed down to the Hebrews, that if it was after hearing a false account, one neither wise nor solemn, that he accepted it and handed it on to those under him, he is culpable; but if, as you yourself say, he assented to teachings that are wise and true and educated his own people by means of them, what has he done that deserves accusation? Would that Epicurus too, and Aristotle, who is less impious than he toward providence,

and the Stoics who said that God is a body, had listened to this account, so that the world might not be filled with an account that either denies providence, or cuts it off, or introduces a corruptible bodily first principle — the very principle by which, for the Stoics, God is a body, since they are not ashamed to say he is changeable and alterable throughout and subject to transformation, and altogether capable of being destroyed if he has

that which destroys him, and escapes destruction only by good fortune, because there happens to be nothing that destroys him. But the teaching held by Jews and Christians alike, guarding as it does the unchanging and immutable nature of God, has been judged impious, precisely because it will not share in the impiety of those whose notions of God are impious, when it declares in its prayers addressed to the divine, "Yet you remain the same." And it is believed that God himself has said,

"I have not changed." After this, Celsus, without actually attacking the circumcision of the genitals as practiced by the Jews, says that it came to them from the Egyptians; here he places more confidence in the Egyptians than in Moses, though Moses states that Abraham was the very first human being to undergo circumcision. And it is not Moses alone who records the name of Abraham, claiming him for God, but indeed many of those who chant incantations to demons also use, in their

formulas, the phrase "the God of Abraham," doing so because of the name and its kinship with the God of the righteous man — which is why they take up the expression "the God of Abraham" — without knowing who Abraham is. The same must be said also concerning Isaac and Jacob and Israel, names which, though admittedly Hebrew, have in many places

been sown into the incantations of the Egyptians who profess to work some power by means of them. As for the doctrine of circumcision, which began with Abraham and was forbidden by Jesus, who did not wish his own disciples to do the same thing — it is not my present purpose to explain it. For the present occasion is not for teaching about these matters, but for a contest that demolishes the charges brought by Celsus against the doctrine of the Jews, since he thinks

he will more quickly prove Christianity false if, by attacking its origin — which lies in the Jewish writings — he shows that origin too to be false. Next after this Celsus says that goatherds and shepherds, following the one who led them, namely Moses, were led astray by rustic deceptions and came to believe there is one God. Let him show, then, how — when, as he supposes, goatherds and shepherds irrationally abandoned the worship of the gods —

he himself can establish the multitude of gods held by the Greeks or the rest of the barbarians. Let him show the subsistence and essence of Mnemosyne bearing the Muses from Zeus, or of Themis bearing the Hours, or let him demonstrate that the Graces, forever naked, are able to subsist according to essence. But he will not be able to embody the fictions of the Greeks, which merely seem, from the events, to point to gods. For why should the myths of the Greeks about the gods

Are they true — or shall I say, are the Egyptians' names true, who in their own dialect know nothing of Mnemosyne as mother of the nine Muses, nor of Themis as mother of the Seasons, nor of Eurynome as one of the Graces, nor the rest of their names? How much more effective, then, and better than all these fabrications, is the belief which, persuaded by the things that are seen, worships the craftsman of the world according to the good order of the cosmos — a craftsman who is one, since the cosmos is one

and breathes together as a whole with itself, and for this reason cannot have come into being through many craftsmen, just as the entire heaven is not sustained by many souls in motion; for one soul suffices to carry the whole fixed sphere from east to west and to enclose everything within it. The things the world needs are things that are not self-sufficient. For all things are parts of the world, but no part

of the whole is god; for god must not be incomplete, just as a part is incomplete. But perhaps a deeper argument will show that, properly speaking, god is neither a part, nor likewise a whole, since a whole is composed of parts; and argument does not allow us to accept that the god over all is composed of parts, of which each is incapable of what the other parts are.

After this he says that the goatherds and shepherds conceived of one god, whether Most High, or Adonai, or the Heavenly One, or Sabaoth, or however and by whatever name they are pleased to call this world — and they knew nothing more. And next he says it makes no difference whether one calls the god over all by the name current among the Greeks, Zeus, or by that of the god, let us say,

among the Indians, or that of the god among the Egyptians. To this too it must be said that a deep and hidden argument falls within the subject before us — that concerning the nature of names: whether, as Aristotle supposes, names exist by convention, or, as those of the Stoa hold, by nature, the first utterances imitating the things they name, in accordance with which they even introduce certain elements

of etymology — or, as Epicurus teaches, differently from what those of the Stoa suppose, names exist by nature, the first human beings having burst out with certain utterances directed at the things. If, then, we are able in a preceding discussion to set forth the nature of effective names, some of which the wise men among the Egyptians use, or the learned among the magi among the Persians, or those among the Indians

who philosophize, the Brahmans or the Samanaeans — and so among each of the nations — and if we are able to establish that what is called magic is not, as those of the school of Epicurus and Aristotle suppose, a thing wholly without coherence, but, as those skilled in these matters demonstrate, a coherent thing, possessing principles known to very few — then we shall say that the name Sabaoth, and

Adonai, and whatever other names are handed down among the Hebrews with great solemnity, are not applied to ordinary, created things, but to a certain hidden theology referring to the maker of all things. That is why these names, when spoken together with the sequence proper to them, have power. But other names, current in the Egyptian tongue, are applied to certain demons — those which have power over these things alone

and other names in the Persian language for other powers, and so on for each of the nations, are taken up for certain uses. And in this way it will be found that among the daimones on earth, who have been allotted different regions, the names in use correspond appropriately to the local and national dialects. So anyone of somewhat greater discernment, even if he has grasped only a little of these considerations, will be cautious about fitting names belonging to one thing onto another, for fear he may

suffer something like what happens to those who, in error, attach the name "god" to matter devoid of soul, or who pull the designation "the good" down from its first cause—or away from virtue and nobility of character—applying it instead to blind wealth, or to a well-balanced state of flesh, blood, and bone in health and vigor, or to what people count as noble birth. And perhaps the danger is no less

for one who drags the name of God, or the name of the Good, down to what it ought not be applied to, than for one who interchanges the names belonging to a certain hidden system of reasoning, applying the names of the lesser powers to the greater and those of the greater to the lesser. And I do not mean merely that the name Zeus immediately brings to mind the son of Cronus and Rhea,

the husband of Hera, the brother of Poseidon, the father of Athena and Artemis, and the one who had intercourse with his own daughter Persephone; or that the name Apollo brings to mind the son of Leto and Zeus, the brother of Artemis, and the brother by the same father of Hermes, and all the other things that the wise fathers of Celsus's doctrines and the ancient theologians of the Greeks report. For what is the basis for the arbitrary rule that Zeus

is used in its proper sense while it is not also proper to say that his father is Cronus and his mother Rhea? The same must be done for the other so-called gods as well. But this charge does not touch in the least those who, following a certain hidden system of reasoning, apply the name Sabaoth to God, or Adonai, or one of the remaining names. And whenever someone becomes capable of reasoning philosophically about names in light of their hidden meanings,

he would find much also concerning the invocation of God's angels — one bears the name Michael, a second Gabriel, a third Raphael — names fittingly assigned to the tasks each performs throughout the universe under the purpose of the God who governs all things. And our Jesus too holds to a similar philosophy concerning names, for his name

has already been seen, in countless clear instances, driving daimones out of souls and bodies, and working effectively upon those from whom they were driven out. Further, on the subject of names it must be said that those skilled in the use of incantations report that the same incantation, spoken in its own proper language, is able to produce the effect which the incantation promises; but if it is translated into any other language whatsoever, it can be seen to be

powerless and capable of nothing. It is therefore not the meanings attached to things but rather the qualities and peculiar properties belonging to the sounds themselves that carry a certain power toward this or that effect. And it is by such considerations that we shall also give our defense concerning why Christians contend even unto death not to proclaim Zeus as God, nor to name him by any other dialect's word for God. For either it is used without qualification

they acknowledge the common name "god," or even with the addition of the phrase, "he who fashioned everything that exists, who built the sky and the earth, who sent down to the human race these particular wise men" — as though the name "god," when applied to it, accomplishes some power among men. Much more could be said touching this matter of names, against those who

suppose one need not be careful about their use. And if Plato is admired for saying in the Philebus, "My own fear, Protarchus, concerning the names of the gods is not small" — since it was Philebus, conversing there with Socrates, who had named pleasure a god — how much more should we approve the caution of Christians, who attach none of the names taken up in mythmaking to the maker of the universe?

But enough of these matters for the present. Let us see in what way Celsus, who professes to know everything, slanders the Jews, saying that they worship angels and are devoted to sorcery, of which Moses became their expounder. For where in the writings of Moses did he find the lawgiver handing down the worship of angels? Let him who professes to know the affairs of Christians and Jews say how sorcery

exists among those who have accepted the law of Moses — have they not read, "You shall not cling to enchanters, to be defiled by them"? He promises next to teach how the Jews too were led astray by ignorance and deceived. And if he had found ignorance among the Jews concerning Jesus the Christ — their not heeding the prophecies about him — he would truly have taught how the Jews were led astray. But as it is,

without even wishing to imagine what are not in fact errors of the Jews, he assumes them to be errors of the Jews. And Celsus, having promised to teach about the Jews later, first makes his discourse about our Savior, as though he had become the leader, with respect to our birth as Christians, of our origin. And he says that he took the lead in this teaching only a very few years before, and was considered by Christians to be the son of God. And

concerning him, as having come into being only a few years before, we shall say this: is it not the case that, though he wished to sow his own word and teaching in so few years, Jesus was able to do so much that, in many parts of our inhabited world, no small number of Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish, were so disposed toward his word that they contended even unto death on behalf of Christianity, so as not

to renounce him under oath — a thing which no one is recorded to have done on behalf of any other doctrine — that this came about without divine agency? I, then, not flattering the doctrine but attempting to examine matters with due consideration, would say that not even those who heal many ailing bodies attain the goal of bodily health without divine agency. And if someone were able to free souls from the outpouring of vice, from licentiousness,

and from wrongdoing, and from contempt for the divine, and could give proof of such a work by pointing to a hundred people made better by it (let the argument stand at that number), would anyone reasonably say that not even this word, which produced deliverance from so many evils in a hundred people, came about without divine agency? And if the one who considers these things fairly will agree that nothing better has come about among men without divine agency, how much more...

will confidently declare so much about Jesus, comparing the more ancient lives of the many who come to his word with their more recent lives, and observing in how many acts of licentiousness, injustice, and greed each of them lived before, as Celsus says (and those who think as he does), they were deceived and accepted a word that corrupts, as those people put it, the life of men — from the time when

they received the word, in what way have they become more decent, more dignified, and more steady, so that some of them, out of love for surpassing purity and for worshiping the divine more purely, will not even touch the acts of intercourse permitted by the law? But anyone who examines the facts will see that Jesus dared something beyond human nature, and having dared it, accomplished it. For although from the beginning

everyone opposed the sowing of his word over the whole inhabited world — the kings of each period, and the generals and governors under them, and virtually everyone, so to speak, entrusted with any authority whatsoever, and further the rulers of cities and the military commanders and the populations — he prevailed, since, being the word of God, he was not the sort of thing that could be hindered. And having proved stronger than so many opponents,

he mastered the whole of Greece, and still more of the barbarian world, and won over countless souls to the reverence for God that comes through him. It was inevitable that, among the multitude mastered by the word, since the uneducated and more rustic are many times more numerous than those trained in reasoned discourse, the uneducated and more rustic should turn out many times more numerous than the more intelligent. But Celsus, unwilling to take this into account,

thinks that the word's love for humanity, reaching every soul "from the rising of the sun," is a vulgar thing — because of its vulgarity and because it is in no way capable, in matters of reasoning, of mastering anyone but the uneducated — even though he himself does not claim that only the uneducated were brought by the word to the reverence for God that comes through Jesus; for he even admits that among them are some who are moderate, decent, intelligent, and ready for allegory. Since

he also creates a character, imitating in a way a child brought forward by an orator, and introduces a Jew speaking to Jesus, saying certain things childishly and unworthy of a philosopher's grey hairs — come, let us examine this too as best we can and prove that he has not even kept the character altogether fitting for the Jew throughout what is said. After this he creates the character of a Jew conversing with Jesus himself and refuting him about many things —

so he supposes — but first, as though Jesus had fabricated his birth from a virgin. He also reproaches him for having been born in a Jewish village, from a woman of that country who was poor and worked with her hands. And he says that she was even driven out by the man who had married her, a carpenter by trade, after being convicted of adultery. Then he says that, having been cast out by her husband and wandering about,

she bore Jesus in disgrace, in secret; and that he, because of poverty, hired himself out for wages in Egypt, and there, having gained experience of certain powers in which the Egyptians take pride, returned thinking highly of himself because of those powers, and on account of them proclaimed himself a god. All this seems to me to hang together for anyone who is unable to leave unexamined anything said by unbelievers, but who instead investigates the origin of the matters.

that it was fitting for the prediction concerning God that Jesus should be his son. For among human beings, that one of them become distinguished and renowned, and his name become a household word, is aided by lineage, when it so happens that his parents occupy a place of eminence and prominence; and by the wealth of those who raised him and were able to spend it on their son's education; and by a homeland that is great and

notable. But when someone possessing everything opposite to these is nevertheless able, by rising above the obstacles to his being known, to shake those who hear about him and to become manifest and evident to the whole inhabited world -- which says contradictory things about him -- how can one not marvel at such a nature as one that, from the very outset, is great by nature and takes hold of great matters and possesses a boldness of speech not to be despised? And if

one examines still further the circumstances of such a man, how would one not inquire in what way, though raised in meanness and poverty, and having received no general education, nor having learned the words and doctrines from which he might at least have become persuasive enough to converse with crowds, to play the demagogue, and to draw in ever more hearers, he gives himself over to teaching new doctrines, introducing to the human race an account that

abolishes the customs of the Jews -- while at the same time treating their prophets with reverence -- and overturns the laws of the Greeks, especially those concerning the divine? And how could such a man, so raised, and having learned nothing venerable from any human being (as even those who speak ill of him admit), have been able to speak, not contemptibly, such things about the judgment of God, about the punishments meted out against wickedness, and about the honors bestowed for

the good -- so that not only rustics and simple folk were led along by what he said, but also not a few of the more intelligent, who were capable of discerning, concealed beneath what were taken to be rather ordinary things, something -- so to speak -- more secret contained within? Now the Seriphian in Plato, reproaching Themistocles, who had become renowned for his generalship, as one who had won

his fame not from his own character but from the good fortune of a homeland that was the most eminent in all Greece, heard from the fair-minded Themistocles, who recognized that his homeland too had contributed to his renown, that "had I myself been born on Seriphus I would never have grown so renowned, and had you not had the luck to be born Athenian, you would never have become Themistocles." But our Jesus, even when reproached as having come from

a village -- and one not even Greek, nor belonging to any nation held in esteem among the many -- and ill spoken of besides for being the son of a poor woman who worked with her hands, and for having, on account of poverty, left his homeland to hire himself out for wages in Egypt: as it were, set against the example just taken, he was not only a Seriphian, from the smallest and most obscure island, but, one might say, even

the most ignoble of the Seriphians, and yet he has had the power to set the whole inhabited world of humankind in motion -- not only surpassing Themistocles the Athenian, but also Pythagoras and Plato and certain others among the sages or kings or generals of the world, whoever they may be. Who, then, examining the nature of these matters not carelessly, would not be astonished at him, who conquered and was able to rise above in reputation the poetic

of ill repute — all of them, and all who have ever been renowned? And yet it is rare for men of renown to be able to attain more than one kind of glory at the same time. One is admired for wisdom, another for generalship; certain barbarians for their remarkable powers derived from incantations; and others for other things — not many at once — and so they have become famous. But this man,

besides everything else, is admired both for wisdom and for powers and for his capacity to rule. For he did not, like a tyrant, persuade certain people to revolt against the laws along with him; nor, like a bandit, did he anoint his followers to move against other men; nor, like a rich man, did he supply resources to those who came to him; nor did he act as one of those who are acknowledged to be blameworthy. Rather, he acted as a teacher of the doctrine concerning the God of the universe and of the worship due

to him and of every kind of moral conduct — a doctrine able to make familiar with the God over all whoever lives according to it. And to Themistocles, or to any other of the famous, nothing arose that ran contrary to their reputation; but for this man, in addition to what has been said — things quite capable of burying the soul of even a very well-endowed man in obscurity — there was also the death that seemed dishonorable, that of crucifixion, which was enough to blot out

even the fame that had already gone before and taken hold in advance, and to make those who, as those who do not assent to his teaching suppose, had been previously deceived, abandon their deception and condemn the one who had deceived them. Besides this, one might well wonder where it occurred to his disciples — as those who speak ill of Jesus claim — since they had not seen him risen from the dead nor been persuaded that anything divine was in him,

beyond not fearing to suffer the same fate as their teacher, to go to meet the danger head-on and to leave their homelands in order to teach, in accordance with the will of Jesus, the doctrine he himself had entrusted to them. In my view, anyone examining the matter fairly would not say that these men handed themselves over to a life of persecution for the sake of Jesus' teaching without some great conviction

which he instilled in them, teaching them not only to be so disposed themselves in accordance with his teachings but also to dispose others likewise — and to dispose them even though it was obvious that ruin, as far as human life is concerned, awaited anyone who dared everywhere and before everyone to introduce innovations and to keep no man for himself as a friend among those who remained attached to their former beliefs and customs. For did the disciples of Jesus not perceive, daring not only

to demonstrate to the Jews from the prophetic writings that this was the one prophesied, but also to the rest of the nations, that the one crucified only yesterday or the day before had willingly undergone this death on behalf of the human race — comparable to those who have died for their homelands to quench plagues that had taken hold, or famines, or dangers at sea? For it is likely that in the nature of things,

according to certain hidden accounts, difficult for the many to grasp, there is such a nature that one righteous man, dying willingly on behalf of the common good, produces the averting of evil spirits at work causing plagues or famines or dangers at sea or something of the sort. Let those, then, who wish to disbelieve that Jesus died on behalf of mankind by the manner of the cross say whether they will also refuse to accept the many Greek and barbarian stories concerning

that some have died for the common good, to overthrow the evils of those who had seized cities and nations beforehand; or that those things have indeed happened, but that the man they suppose has nothing plausible about him with regard to dying for the overthrow of a great daemon and ruler of daemons, who has subjected to himself all the souls of men that have come upon earth. But when the disciples of Jesus saw these things, and other things more numerous than these, which

it is likely they learned from Jesus in secret, and moreover were filled with a certain power — since it was not some poetic maiden who granted them vigor and boldness, but God's own genuine understanding and wisdom — they hastened, that they might become manifest not to the Argives alone but to all Greeks and barbarians together, and win noble renown. But let us return

to the impersonation of the Jew, in which it is written that the mother of Jesus was cast out by the carpenter betrothed to her, having been convicted of adultery and bearing a child fathered by a soldier called Panthera; let us examine whether those who concocted the story of the virgin's adultery with Panthera, and of the carpenter driving her out, did not fabricate all this blindly, in order to undermine the extraordinary

conception by the Holy Spirit. For they could have falsified the story in some other way, given how utterly extraordinary it was, rather than conceding, as it were unwillingly, that Jesus was not born from marriage in the ordinary human manner. And it would have followed that those who would not concede the extraordinary birth of Jesus should fabricate some falsehood; but that they did not do this plausibly, but rather in a way that preserved the fact that

it was not from Joseph that the virgin conceived Jesus — this was, to those capable of hearing and detecting fabrications, an obvious lie. For is it reasonable that the one who ventured so much on behalf of the human race, so that, as far as lay in him, all Greeks and barbarians, expecting a divine judgment, might turn away from wickedness and do everything pleasing to the Maker of the universe, should have had, instead of an extraordinary birth,

the most lawless and shameful of all births? I will speak as to Greeks, and especially to Celsus — whether he believes it or not, since he at any rate cites the words of Plato — is it not so that he who sends souls down into human bodies would not have thrust the one who was to venture so much and teach so many, and turn many men away from the flood of wickedness, into the most shameful of all births, without

bringing him into human life through a legitimate marriage? Or is it more reasonable that each soul, according to certain secret principles (I speak now according to Pythagoras and Plato and Empedocles, whom Celsus has often named), is introduced into a body worthy of it and in accordance with its former character? It is likely, then, that this soul too — since I do not wish to seem to be sweeping it in with many, or rather

with all souls — being more beneficial to human life than that of all other men who have sojourned in it, had need of a body, not merely one distinguished among human bodies, but the best of all. For if this soul, having become worthy according to certain secret principles neither to enter altogether into the body of an irrational creature, nor yet purely into that of a rational one, puts on a monstrous body, so that not even the reasoning power could be brought to completion

is able, for the one who has been born in such a way and has a head disproportionate to the rest of the body and far too short, while a different soul takes on such a body as to be a little more rational than that one, and yet another still more so, as the nature of the body resists the apprehension of reason to a greater or lesser degree — why then will there not also be some soul that takes on an altogether extraordinary body, having

something in common with human beings, so that it might be able to live among them, but also having something exceptional, so that the soul might be able to remain untasted by wickedness? And if the claims of the physiognomists also hold good — whether of Zopyrus, or Loxus, or Polemon, or whoever else has written such things and professed to know something remarkable — namely that all bodies are proper to the characters of the souls

then for the soul that was to sojourn extraordinarily in this life and do great things, the body that had to come into being (not, as Celsus supposes, from Panthera the adulterer and a virgin who committed adultery — for from such impure unions there would have had to come into being some foolish person, harmful to human beings, a teacher of licentiousness and injustice and the rest of the vices, and not of self-control and justice and the rest of the

virtues) — but rather, as the prophets also foretold, from a virgin, who according to the promise of a sign gives birth to the one named after the matter, showing that at his birth God would be among human beings. And it seems fitting to me, in relation to the Jew's impersonation, to set beside it the prophecy of Isaiah, which says that Emmanuel would be born from a virgin — a prophecy that he did not set out, whether Celsus, who professes to know

everything, did not know it, or whether he read it but deliberately kept silent, so that he might not appear, against his will, to be constructing an argument opposed to his own purpose. The passage runs thus: "And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. (And

he said:) Listen now, house of David: do you count it a slight matter to weary men, that you weary my God as well? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin will conceive in the womb and will bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel" — which is translated "God with us." That it was through malice that Celsus did not set out the prophecy is clear to me

from the fact that, though he set out many things from the Gospel according to Matthew — such as the star that rose at the birth of Jesus and other extraordinary things — he made no mention at all of this one. And if some Jew, quibbling, should say that "behold, the virgin" was not written, but instead "behold, the young woman," we shall say to him that the word "almah,"

which the Seventy rendered as "the virgin" while others rendered it as "the young woman," occurs, as they say, also in Deuteronomy in reference to a virgin, running thus: "But if there is a young girl, a virgin betrothed to a man, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, you shall bring both of them out to the gate of their city, and they shall be stoned with stones, and they shall die: the young woman

concerning the word, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man concerning the word, because he humbled the wife of his neighbor." And next: "But if a man finds the betrothed girl in a field, and the man forces her and lies with her, you shall put to death only the man who lay with her, and you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is

no sin of death for the young woman." But so that we may not seem, to those who do not understand it, to be relying on a point of Hebrew wording — whether or not one ought to agree with it — in order to bring forward a defense concerning the prophet's having said that this one would be born of a virgin, of whom it is said at his birth, "God with us," come, let us offer our defense of what is said on the basis of the wording itself. The Lord is recorded as having said to Ahaz:

"Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height," and next comes the sign that is given: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son." What sort of sign, then, would it be for a young woman, not a virgin, to give birth? And to whom is it more fitting to give birth to "Emmanuel," that is, "God with us" — to a woman joined with a man in intercourse and conceiving through the ordinary experience of women,

or to one who is still pure and chaste and a virgin? For it befits her to bring forth that offspring, of whose birth "God with us" is spoken. But if he still quibbles in this way, saying that it was said to Ahaz, "Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God," we shall answer: who was born in the days of Ahaz, of whose birth it is said, "Emmanuel, which

is, God with us"? For if no one is found, it is clear that the word spoken to Ahaz was addressed rather to David's house, since the Savior is recorded to have sprung from David's seed, according to the flesh. Yet this "sign," too, is said to reach "to the depths or to the heights," inasmuch as "he who descended is the very one who also ascended far above all the heavens, so that

he might fill all things." I say these things as addressed to the Jew who agrees with the prophecy. But let Celsus, or someone of his company, tell us with what mind the prophet speaks about future things — whether these or the other things recorded in the prophecies. For does he speak with foreknowledge of the future, or not? For if with foreknowledge of the future, the prophets possessed a divine spirit; but if

not with foreknowledge of the future, let him set forth the mind of the man who dares to speak about future things and is admired among the Jews for prophecy. But since we have once come to the discussion concerning the prophets, for the Jews, who believe that they spoke by a divine spirit, what will be added will not only be useful, but also for those of the Greeks who are fair-minded. To them we shall say

that it is necessary to grant that the Jews also had prophets, if they were going to be held together in the lawgiving given to them and to believe in the Creator, just as they had received him, and, so far as depended on the law, to have no occasion to fall away into the polytheism of the nations. And we shall establish the necessity of this as follows. "The nations," as it is written even in the Jews' own law, "listen to omens and divinations,"

...they will hear." But to that people it was said: "But the LORD your God has not given to you in this way." And to this is added: "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers." If, then, while the nations make use of divinations, whether by "omens" or by auguries or by birds or by ventriloquists, or even by those claiming expertise in the art of sacrifice,

or even by Chaldeans who cast nativities — all of which were forbidden to the Jews — the Jews, if they had no consolation from the knowledge of things to come, would, driven by that very human craving for the knowledge of what was to happen, have despised their own institutions as having nothing divine in them, and would not have received a prophet after Moses nor recorded his words, but would have deserted to

the divinations and oracles of the nations and gone over to them, or would have attempted to establish something of that kind among themselves as well. So it is nothing strange that their prophets, concerning even chance matters, foretold things for the consolation of those who longed for such things, so that Samuel prophesied even "concerning asses that had been lost," and the one recorded in the third book of Kingdoms prophesied concerning the illness of the king's son.

And how would those among the Jews who championed the requirements of the law have rebuked a man wishing to obtain divination from idols? Just as Elijah is found rebuking Ahaziah, saying: "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you go to seek an answer from Baal, fly-god of Ekron?" It seems to me, then, that it has been adequately established not only that our savior

would come into being from a virgin, and further that prophets arose among the Jews, foretelling not only the general matters of what was to come — the matters concerning Christ, the matters concerning kingdoms of the world, what would befall Israel, the nations destined to trust in the savior, and many further things spoken about him — but also matters concerning single individuals, such as the asses belonging to Kish that had gone missing,

how they would be found, and concerning the illness which the son of the king of Israel suffered, or whatever else of this kind is recorded. Further, it must be said to the Greeks, who refuse to accept that Jesus was born of a virgin, that the Creator, in bringing into being the various kinds of animals, showed that it lay within his power, had he so willed, to do in the case of one creature what he did in the case of others, and even in the case of human beings themselves.

For it is found that some female animals have no union with a male — as those who have written on animals say concerning vultures; and this creature preserves the succession of its kind without any mating. What, then, is strange if God, wishing to send some divine teacher to the human race, brought it about that, instead of the seminal principle that comes from

the union of males with women, the account of the one who was to be born should come about in another way? Indeed, even according to the Greeks themselves, not all human beings came from a man and a woman. For if the world had a beginning, as has been the view held by many of the Greeks, it is necessary that the first human beings came into being not from intercourse but from the earth, seminal principles having come together in the earth — which I think

...more paradoxical than for Jesus to have come into being in a way similar to the rest of men, from a half-share. There is nothing strange about our appealing to Greeks and making use of Greek stories, so that we may not seem to be the only ones who have made use of this paradoxical account. For it has seemed good to some to record, not only concerning certain ancient and heroic stories but also concerning things that happened only yesterday or the day before, as far as possible, that even Plato was born from...

...Amphictione, after Ariston had been prevented from coming together with her until she should bear the child sown by Apollo. But these are truly myths, which prompted people to fabricate something of this kind about a man whom they considered to possess wisdom and power greater than most, and to have received the beginning of the formation of his body from better and more divine seeds, as being fitting for one greater than...

...an ordinary man. But since Celsus has brought in the Jew conversing with Jesus and ridiculing, as he supposes, the pretense of his birth from a virgin, citing the Greek myths about Danae and Melanippe and Auge and Antiope, it must be said that such language befits a buffoon, not someone speaking in earnest. Further, having taken from the account written in...

...the Gospel according to Matthew concerning Jesus' having journeyed to Egypt, he did not believe the marvelous elements involved—neither that an angel gave this oracle, nor whatever it was that Jesus, after leaving Judea and residing in Egypt, was hinting at; instead he fabricated something else. He grants, in a way, the marvelous powers that Jesus performed, by which he persuaded the many to follow...

...him as the Christ, but wishing to discredit them as having come about through magic and not through divine power. For he says that Jesus, raised in obscurity, hired himself out in Egypt, and having gained experience of certain powers there, returned from there proclaiming himself a god on account of those powers. Now I do not see how a magician could have striven to teach a doctrine that persuades people to do everything on the assumption that God judges each person for all...

...that has been done, and to bring his own disciples into this disposition—the very ones he intended to use as ministers of his teaching. Did those disciples, then, taught in this way, perform powers that won over their hearers, or did they perform no powers at all? To say that they performed no powers whatsoever, but that, having believed with none of the argumentative skill comparable to the dialectical wisdom of the Greeks, they gave themselves to teaching a new doctrine to whomever...

...they happened to visit, is altogether unreasonable. For on what basis did they teach this doctrine and introduce such innovations, with any confidence at all? But if they too performed powers, what plausibility is there in magicians exposing themselves to such dangers for the sake of a teaching that forbids magic? This does not seem to me worth contending against as a serious argument, since it was spoken not in earnest but in mockery: that if indeed the mother of Jesus was beautiful, and it was because she was beautiful that...

...the god had intercourse with her, though he is not by nature inclined to love a corruptible body; or that it was not even likely that the god would fall in love with her, since she was neither prosperous nor of royal birth, given that not even her neighbors knew her. He jests also in saying that, though she was hated by the carpenter and cast out, no divine power nor persuasive word saved her. None of this, then, he says, has anything to do with the...

the kingdom of God. How, then, would these differ from people who hurl abuse at one another in the streets and say nothing worth taking seriously? Next, taking material from Matthew — and perhaps from the other Gospels as well — about the dove that flew down upon the Savior as he was being baptized by John, he wants to discredit what is said as a fabrication. Having ridiculed, as he thought,

the account of our Savior's birth from a virgin, he does not set out what follows in proper order, since anger and hostility have nothing orderly about them; rather, those who are enraged and hostile speak evil of the people they hate just as it occurs to them, not allowing themselves, because of their passion, to state their charges with deliberation and in proper sequence. For if he had kept to the order, he would have taken the Gospel,

and, having set out to accuse it, he would have finished denouncing the first narrative before proceeding in order to the next, and likewise on through the remainder. But as it is, after the birth from a virgin, Celsus — who professes to know everything — brings his accusation against our account of the Holy Spirit that appeared at the baptism in the form of a dove, and then after that attacks the claim that our Savior's coming was prophesied,

and after that runs back to what is recorded next after the birth of Jesus, the story of the star and of the magi, who had traveled from the east, coming to "do homage" to the child. And if you yourself keep watch you would find much in Celsus stated in confusion throughout the whole book, so that by this very fact he may be shown up, by readers skilled at tracking sequence and searching it out, as acting with great

rashness and pretension in having entitled his book A True Account — something none of the reputable philosophers did. Plato, for instance, says that it is not the mark of a sound mind to insist dogmatically on such obscure matters; and Chrysippus, though he often sets out what led him to his views, refers us on to those we might find arguing better than himself. This man, then, who claims to be wiser

than these and than the rest of the Greeks, in keeping with his claim to know everything, entitled his book A True Account. But so that we may not seem willingly to pass over his chapters for lack of an answer, we have decided to resolve, as best we can, each of the points he puts forward, attending not to the order and connection things have in nature but to the sequence of what is written in

his book. Come, then, let us see what he says in trying to discredit the Holy Spirit that appeared, as it were bodily, to the Savior in the form of a dove. It is a Jew he brings forward as the speaker of these words, still directed at the one we confess to be our Lord, Jesus: "While you were bathing beside John," he says, "you claim that an apparition of a bird flew down to you out of the air." Then, inquiring further, the Jew he introduces

says: "Who saw this apparition — what trustworthy witness? Or who heard a voice from heaven proclaiming you God's son? Except that you say so, and you bring forward one of those who were punished along with you." Before we begin our defense, it must be said that virtually every history, even a true one, wishes to be established as having actually happened and to produce in its readers a conviction that grasps it as such,

is extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible. For suppose someone were to say that the Trojan war never happened, mainly on the ground that an impossible story has been woven into it—that a certain Achilles came from the union of a sea goddess, Thetis, with a mortal man, Peleus, or that Sarpedon sprang from Zeus, that Ascalaphus and Ialmenus were begotten by Ares, or that Aeneas was born of Aphrodite. How could we establish such a thing, especially when we are hard pressed by the fact that we do not

know how a fabrication has somehow been woven, alongside the opinion that has prevailed among everyone, into the belief that the war between the Greeks and the Trojans at Troy truly happened? Or again, suppose someone were to disbelieve the story of Oedipus and Jocasta and their children Eteocles and Polynices, because a certain half-maiden Sphinx has been woven into the account—how could we prove such a thing? So too with the story

of the Epigoni, even if nothing of that sort has been woven into the account, or with the return of the Heraclidae, or with countless other cases. But whoever reads such histories fair-mindedly, and wishes to keep himself free from deception even in dealing with them, will judge which points he will accept and which he will interpret figuratively, searching out the intention of those who invented such things, and which points he will disbelieve as having been written down to gratify certain people.

And it is with this principle taken up in advance that we have spoken about the entire narrative concerning Jesus that is found in the Gospels—not summoning the more discerning readers to a bare and irrational faith, but wishing to show that fair-mindedness is needed by those who encounter it, along with much careful examination, and, if I may put it this way, entry into the intention of the writers, so that it may be discovered with what understanding each thing was written. We shall say, then,

first, that if the man who disbelieves the vision of the form of a dove belonging to the Holy Spirit had been recorded as being one who followed Epicurus, or belonged to the school of Democritus, or was a Peripatetic, the statement would have had a place consistent with the character being portrayed. But as it is, this most wise Celsus has not even noticed that it is upon a Jew—one who believes many things even more paradoxical drawn from the prophetic writings than the account of the form of the dove—that he has placed such an argument.

For one might say to the Jew who disbelieves the vision and thinks he is accusing it of being a fabrication: "But friend, where would you get your proof that the Lord God spoke these words to Adam, to Eve, to Cain, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, or to Jacob—the things

that are recorded as having been said by him to these men?" And to set narrative against narrative, I would say to the Jew: "Your own Ezekiel likewise set down in writing, 'The sky split open, and before me appeared a vision from God,' and having recounted this he continues, 'Such was the vision of a shape resembling the Lord's glory; and he spoke to me.' For if the things written about Jesus are false, since we cannot,

as you suppose, demonstrate clearly that these things are true, having been seen or heard by him alone and, as you thought you had observed, also by one of those who suffered punishment—why should we not instead claim that Ezekiel too, putting on a display of marvels, uttered the words 'The heavens were opened' and what follows? But then too, if Isaiah says, 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting upon a high throne, and'"

raised up; and the Seraphim stood around him, six wings for the one and six wings for the other," and so on—how does he know that he has truly seen this? For you, Jew, have believed these things as free from falsehood and as not merely seen by the prophet under a more divine spirit but also spoken and recorded by him. But whom is it more worthy to believe—one who says the heavens were opened to him

and that he heard a voice, or one who says he saw "the Lord Sabaoth seated upon a throne, exalted and raised on high"—Isaiah and Ezekiel, or Jesus? For no work of that magnitude is found among those men, whereas the valorous deed of Jesus did not occur only in the time of his embodiment; rather, even to this day the power of Jesus is at work, bringing about the turning

and the improvement of those who through him believe in God. A clear proof that these things happen by his power is this—as he himself says, and as is understood—that although there are no laborers working the harvest of souls, so great a harvest is nonetheless being gathered in and brought together into God's threshing floors and churches everywhere. And I say these things to the Jew, not because the Christian disbelieves

Ezekiel and Isaiah, but because I press him, on the basis of what is believed in common by us both, that this man is far more worthy than they to be believed when he says he has seen such things and, as is likely, handed on to his disciples the vision he saw and the voice he heard. But someone else might say that not all who wrote down the things concerning the

form of a dove and the sound from heaven heard Jesus himself recount these matters; rather, the spirit that instructed Moses in his earlier record, beginning from the world's coming-into-being down to the era of Abraham his father, this same spirit likewise instructed those who composed the gospel account of the marvel that occurred when Jesus was baptized. And he who was adorned with the gift called "the word of wisdom" will also explain the reason

for the opening of the heavens and for the form of the dove, and why it was in the shape of that one creature alone, and none other, that the holy spirit showed itself to Jesus. But our argument does not now require us to explain this matter; for what lies before us is to refute Celsus, who has unsoundly attributed to a Jew, along with words of this sort, disbelief concerning a matter which, according to probability, is more likely

to have happened than the things believed by him. And I recall that once, in a certain debate with those called wise men among the Jews, when a good many were present as judges of what was said, I made use of an argument of this kind: "Tell me, sirs—of two men who sojourned among the human race, concerning whom things extraordinary and beyond human nature have been recorded—I mean Moses, your lawgiver, who wrote about himself, and Jesus, our

teacher, who left behind no writing at all about himself but is instead attested to by his disciples in the gospels—what is the basis for allotting belief to Moses as one who speaks truly, even though the Egyptians slandered him as a sorcerer and one who seemed to have performed his powers by magic, while Jesus is disbelieved, since you yourselves accuse him? For nations testify on behalf of each: to Moses stand the Jews, and to Jesus the Christians, who do not deny"

...the prophecy of Moses, but by demonstrating the things concerning Jesus even from that source, they accept as true the paradoxical things about him recorded by his disciples. For if you demand from us an account concerning Jesus, give first an account concerning Moses, who lived before him. Then, next, we will give the account concerning this one; but if you shrink back and flee the proofs concerning that one, as...

...for the present, doing the same thing you do, we offer no proof. Nonetheless, admit that you have no demonstration concerning Moses, and hear the proofs concerning Jesus drawn from the law and the prophets. Indeed the paradox is demonstrated from those proofs concerning Jesus: within the law and among the prophets it is shown that Moses himself, together with the prophets, belonged among God's prophets.

Full of paradoxes akin to what was recorded about Jesus at his baptism are the law and the prophets, concerning the dove and the voice from heaven. I think that the miracles worked by Jesus are a sign of the holy spirit that showed itself then in a dove's shape — the very things which Celsus, slandering him, says he learned among the Egyptians and performed. And I will not...

...rely on those examples alone, but also, as is reasonable, on what the apostles of Jesus did. For they would not have moved, apart from powers and wonders, those who heard new words and new teachings to abandon their ancestral customs and to accept, at the risk of death itself, the teachings of these men. And traces of that holy spirit, which appeared...

...in the form of a dove, are still preserved among Christians. They charm away demons, perform many healings, and see certain things about the future according to the will of the word. And even if Celsus should mock what is about to be said, or the Jew whom he introduced should mock it, it will nevertheless be said that many have come to Christianity as though unwillingly, some spirit having suddenly turned their guiding mind from hating the word to being ready to die for...

...it, presenting them with an apparition, whether waking or in a dream. For we have recorded many such things ourselves; and if we, having been present ourselves and having seen them, write them down, we will draw broad laughter from unbelievers, who will suppose that we, like those they imagine to have fabricated such things, are ourselves inventing them. But God is witness of our conscience, which wishes to establish the divine teaching of Jesus not through false reports but through a certain manifold clarity.

Since it is a Jew who is at a loss over what is recorded — that the holy spirit came down onto Jesus taking the shape of a dove — one should say to him: My good man, who is the speaker in Isaiah's text: "And now the Lord, and his spirit, has sent me"? Since the saying here is ambiguous — whether the Father and the holy spirit...

...sent Jesus, or the Father sent both the Christ and the holy spirit — the second is true. And since the Savior was sent, and then the holy spirit, in order that what was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled — and it was necessary that the fulfillment of the prophecy be known also to those who came after — for this reason the disciples of Jesus recorded what had happened. I would wish...

To Celsus, who has represented the Jew as accepting, in a way, that John was a baptist who baptized Jesus, one might reply that the fact of John's having been a baptist, baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, was recorded by one of those who lived not long after John and Jesus. For in the eighteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, Josephus bears witness that John was a baptist and promised purification

to those who were baptized. This same man, though he disbelieved that Jesus was the Christ, when seeking why Jerusalem had fallen and its temple been torn down—when he should rather have stated that it was the plot devised against Jesus which brought these calamities upon the people, since they had killed him who was prophesied to be the Christ—instead says, as if unwillingly and not far from the truth, that these things came to

pass for the Jews in vengeance for James the Just, who was the brother of "Jesus who is called Christ," since they had killed him, though he was a most righteous man. And this James, Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says he saw as "the brother of the Lord"—not so much because of blood kinship or their common upbringing as because of his character and teaching. If, then,

Josephus says that what happened to the Jews concerning the desolation of Jerusalem came to pass because of James, how is it not more reasonable to say that it happened because of Jesus the Christ? Of his divinity, so many churches bear witness—churches of those who have turned from the flood of evils, who are devoted to the Creator, and who refer everything to what pleases him. And even if the Jew

does not offer a defense concerning Ezekiel and Isaiah, when we point out in common what is said about the opening of the heavens in the case of Jesus and the voice heard by him, and find similar things recorded in Ezekiel and in Isaiah or in some other prophet as well—we, at least, will set forth the argument as best we are able, saying that, just as it is believed that many, as in a dream, have had visions of some things that are

more divine, and of some things concerning matters of daily life yet to come, announced either plainly or through riddles—and this is evident to all who admit providence—so what is strange in the mind's governing faculty being able to be shaped in a dream and to shape waking perception as well, for the benefit of the one in whom it is shaped or of those who will hear from him about it? And just as we get the impression in a dream of hearing

and of the sense of hearing being struck, and of seeing through the eyes, though neither the eyes of the body nor the hearing is actually struck, but the governing faculty undergoes these experiences—so it is nothing strange that such things happened among the prophets, given that it stands written that they perceived matters more astonishing than this, whether catching words from the Lord's own voice or gazing upon heavens thrown open. Indeed I do not take it that the perceptible heaven was opened and its body

was split apart and thrown open, so that Ezekiel might record such a thing. Perhaps, then, in the case of the Savior too, one who hears the Gospels wisely ought to understand the matter in a like manner, even if this offends the more simple-minded, who because of great simplicity set the world in an uproar, splitting apart so vast a body—the whole heaven united as one. But whoever examines the matter more deeply will say that, since

Scripture named it, of a certain divine generic perception, which the blessed man alone finds, already in accordance with what is said in Solomon as well: "for you will find divine perception," and since there are kinds of this perception—sight, whose nature is to see the realities greater than bodies, in which the cherubim or the seraphim are made manifest; and hearing, apprehending sounds whose substance is not in the air; and

taste, using bread that lives, having descended out of heaven, giving life to the world; and likewise also smell, perceiving such things as these, in accordance with which Paul says that "the fragrance of Christ" is "to God"; and touch, in accordance with which John says he has felt with his hands "concerning the word of life"—these blessed prophets, having discovered a divine perception, seeing in a divine way, and hearing in a divine way, and

tasting likewise, and smelling too, if I may so call it, with a perception that is not perceptible by the senses, and touching the Word with faith, so that an emanation from him came to them and healed them—thus they saw the things they record having seen, and heard the things they say they heard, and underwent things similar to what they wrote, as when they ate the "little scroll" given to them of a book. So too Isaac "smelled the fragrance of" his son's

more divine "garments," and pronounced with spiritual blessing the words: "see, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed." In a similar way to these, and more intellectually than sensibly, Jesus "touched" the leper, in order to cleanse him, in two ways as I think—freeing him not only, as most people hear it, from perceptible leprosy by means of perceptible touch, but also from the

other kind, by means of his truly divine touch. Thus, then, "John testified, saying: I have beheld the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained upon him. And I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize in water, he said to me: the one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who

baptizes in the Holy Spirit; and I have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God." And indeed for Jesus the heavens were opened; and at that time, apart from John, no one is recorded as having seen the heavens opened. And regarding this opening of the heavens—which the Savior foretold to his disciples as something that was going to happen, that they themselves would see—he says: "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heaven

opened, and God's angels going up and coming down upon the Son of Man." And thus Paul was caught up into the third heaven, having earlier beheld it open, given that he was a follower of Jesus. But to explain now why Paul states: "whether in the body I do not know, or apart from the body I do not know, God knows," is not the business of the present

occasion. I will further add to my argument this too, which Celsus supposes—that Jesus himself said the things concerning the opening of the heavens and the Holy Spirit that descended upon him in the form of a dove beside the Jordan—whereas Scripture does not establish this, that he himself said he had seen this. And this most noble fellow did not perceive that it is not in accordance with

the one who said to the disciples, concerning the vision on the mountain, "Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man rises from the dead," had told the disciples about what John saw and heard beside the Jordan. One can also observe in the character of Jesus that he everywhere avoided self-praise, and for that reason said, "Even if I speak concerning

myself, my testimony is not true." And he everywhere avoided self-praise, and wished to show by his works rather than by his own word that he was the Christ; for this reason the Jews say to him, "If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." Now since the figure in Celsus who speaks to Jesus is a Jew, concerning the things relating to the

holy Spirit, descending in the shape of a dove, saying: "except that you claim, and bring forward some one of those punished along with you" — it is necessary to point out to him that this too he did not fittingly attach to the Jewish persona. For the Jews do not link John to Jesus, nor John's punishment to that of Jesus. And in this too the one who boasted to know everything is convicted of not

having known what words he ought to attach to the Jewish persona in addressing Jesus. After this — I do not know how — he willingly passes over the greatest point concerning the establishment of Jesus, namely that he was prophesied by the prophets among the Jews, by Moses and those after him, or even before Moses, because, I think, he is unable to answer the argument, since not even the Jews, nor any of the

sects, are willing to concede that Jesus was prophesied. Perhaps he did not even know the prophecies concerning Jesus; for otherwise, having set aside what is said by Christians — that many prophets foretold the coming of the Savior — he would not have attached to the Jewish persona words that fit a Samaritan better than a Sadducee to say; and no Jew in that assumed role would have said this, but rather would have said,

"my prophet once said in Jerusalem that the son of God would come, judge of the holy and punisher of the unjust." For it was not one prophet who prophesied the things concerning Christ; and even if the Samaritans or Sadducees, who accept only the books of Moses, claim that Christ was prophesied in those books, it was certainly not in Jerusalem — a city not yet named in the time of Moses — that the prophecy

had been spoken. So then, let all the accusers of our teaching be shown to be in such ignorance, not only of the facts but even of the bare text of scripture, and to accuse Christianity in such a way that their argument does not have even the slightest plausibility — the kind that could turn away the unstable, those who believe only "for a time," not from faith itself but from a weak faith. A Jew would not admit that

some prophet said the son of God would come; for what they say is that the Christ of God will come. And indeed they often ask us directly about a son of God, as though there were no such thing and it had never been prophesied. And we do not say that a son of God is not prophesied, but that it was not fittingly attached to the Jewish persona, which does not confess any such thing, when he made it say

"My prophet in Jerusalem once said that a son of God would come." Then, as if this alone had not been prophesied — that he would be judge of the righteous and punisher of the unjust — and as though no prediction had touched the site of his birth, or the torment he was destined to suffer from Jewish hands, or his rising again, or the astonishing feats of power he would perform, he says: "Why should this apply more to you than to the countless others who, after the

prophecy, have come along? About whom were these things prophesied?" And somehow, though wishing to attach to others as well the possibility of being suspected of being the ones prophesied about, he says that some, being inspired, and others, begging, claim that a son of God has come from above; for, he says, "we have not found this recorded as agreed upon among the Jews to have happened." It must be said, then, first, that many prophets in all sorts of ways foretold the things

concerning Christ, some through riddles, others through allegory or in some other manner, and some in plain words. And since, further on, in the persona of the Jew addressing those of the people who believe, he says that the prophecies referring to matters about him could also be applied to other events — saying this cleverly and maliciously — we shall set out a few examples from among many.

Concerning these, let whoever wishes state something compelling to overturn them, something capable of skillfully turning believers away from their faith. Now, concerning the place of his birth, it has been said that the leader would come forth from "Bethlehem," in this way: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, you are too small to be among the thousands of Judah; out of you shall come forth for me one who is to be

a ruler in Israel, and whose goings-forth are from the beginning, from the days of old." This prophecy could not fit any of those, as the Jew in Celsus's work puts it, who are inspired and who beg and who claim to have come from above, unless it is clearly shown that he was born in Bethlehem, or, as someone else might put it, came from Bethlehem to take up the leadership of the

people. As for Jesus having been born in Bethlehem, if anyone wishes, beyond Micah's prophecy and the account recorded in the gospels by Jesus's disciples, to be persuaded from another source as well, let him consider that, in keeping with the gospel's account of his birth, the cave in Bethlehem where he was born is pointed out, and the

manger in the cave, the place where his infant body was bound in strips of cloth. And this thing that is pointed out is well known in those parts even among those who are strangers to the faith — that in this cave was born Jesus, the one worshipped and admired by Christians. I myself think that, before Christ's coming, those set over the priesthood and the people's scribes, because of how plain and unmistakable the

prophecy, taught that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. And this report reached even the majority of the Jews; hence Herod too is recorded as having inquired of those set over the priesthood and the people's scribes and heard from them that the Christ would be born "in Bethlehem of Judea," from where David was. Furthermore, it is also stated in John's account that the Jews

having said that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, from which David came. But after Christ's coming, those who worked to overturn the belief about him — that he had been prophesied from of old regarding his birth — removed such teaching from the people, doing something akin to those who had persuaded the soldiers guarding the tomb, who had seen him risen from the dead, to

report to those who had seen them, saying, "Say that his disciples stole him by night while we were asleep. And if this is heard by the governor, we will persuade him and set your minds at ease." For rivalry and preconception make it difficult even to look the plain facts in the face, so as not to abandon doctrines that have dyed them through, doctrines to which they have somehow grown accustomed and which have colored their soul. And

a person would more readily abandon habits concerning other things, even if hard to tear away from, than those concerning doctrines. Yet not even those do the accustomed easily disregard; so too they are not willing easily to abandon houses, cities, or villages, or the people they are used to, once they have become attached to them. This, then, became for many of the Jews at that time the cause of their refusing to look in the face the plain evidence both of the prophecies and of the

wonders which Jesus is recorded to have both performed and suffered. That human nature has undergone something of this kind will be clear to those who consider that people who have once been given over to preconceptions, even in the most shameful and frivolous traditions of their fathers and fellow citizens, do not readily change their minds; at any rate, one could not quickly persuade an Egyptian to despise what he has received from his fathers, so as not to regard

this irrational animal as a god, or to refrain, even at the cost of death, from tasting the flesh of that animal. If, then, we have pursued at some length this line of argument concerning Bethlehem and the prophecy about it, we consider that we have done so out of necessity, in defense against those who would say that, if the prophecies about Jesus among the Jews were so plain, why then,

when he came, did they not assent to his teaching and turn instead to the things Jesus demonstrated to be better? But let none of us reproach believers with a similar charge, seeing that no contemptible arguments are brought forward by those who have learned to advocate them concerning faith in Jesus. And if there is need for us to bring forward also a second prophecy that appears to us clear concerning Jesus,

we will set out the one recorded by Moses a great many years before Jesus' coming, where he says that Jacob, as he was departing from life, prophesied to each of his sons, and said to Judah, along with the others, this: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until what is laid up for him comes." Now if someone comes upon this prophecy —

which in truth is much older than Moses, but which, as one of the unbelieving might suppose, was spoken by Moses — he would marvel at how Moses was able to foretell that those of the Jews who would reign, there being twelve tribes among them, would descend from the tribe of Judah in order to rule the people; for which reason the whole people are also named Jews, being called after the ruling tribe. And

Second, anyone who reads the prophecy with an open mind would marvel at the way it, having said that the rulers and leaders of the people would come from the tribe of Judah, also set the end point of that rule, saying that a ruler "from Judah" and a leader "from his loins" would not fail, "until the things laid up for him come, and he himself is the expectation of the nations." For he came,

the one for whom "the things laid up" are meant, the Christ of God, "the ruler" of God's promises. And clearly this one alone, beyond all who came before him — and I would confidently say beyond all who came after him too — has become the "expectation of the nations." For out of all the nations people have come to believe in God through him, and in accordance with what was said by Isaiah concerning his name,

that nations hoped, as he said: "in his name will nations hope." And this one also said to "those in bonds," that is, to each person bound by the cords of his own sins, "come out," and to those in ignorance, that they should come into the light — and this was so prophesied: "and I have given you as a covenant of the nations, to establish the land and to inherit a desolate inheritance, saying to those in

bonds, come out, and to those in darkness, be revealed." And one can see, at this one's coming, on account of those everywhere throughout the inhabited world who believe with simple faith, the fulfillment of: "and in all the ways they will be fed, and on all the paths will be their pasture." But since Celsus, who professes to know everything about our doctrine, reproaches the Savior for his suffering, as one who was not

helped by the Father, or who was unable to help himself — we must set beside this the fact that his suffering was prophesied, together with its cause: that it was beneficial to human beings that he should die on their behalf and suffer the bruising that came from being condemned. It had also been foretold that those from the nations, among whom the prophets had not arisen, would "understand" him, and it had been said that he would be seen having

a "dishonored appearance" as he showed himself among men. The passage runs thus: "Behold, my servant will understand, and he will be exalted and glorified and lifted up exceedingly. Just as many will be astonished at you, so will your appearance be without honor before men, and your glory before men. So will many nations marvel at him, and kings will shut their mouths; for

those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We proclaimed him, before him, like a young child, like a root sprung from parched soil; there is in him no shapeliness nor splendor. And we looked upon him, and he possessed no comeliness or beauty, but his appearance was scorned and diminished

beyond all men — a man in suffering, and knowing how to bear infirmity, for his face has been turned away; he was dishonored and not esteemed. It is he who carries our offenses and grieves on our behalf, while we ourselves supposed him to be caught up in torment, in suffering, and under affliction. Yet he was pierced through on account of our offenses, and he has been broken because of our lawless deeds;

the chastening that brought us peace fell upon him. By the wound he bore we were made whole. All of us wandered like sheep, each going astray along his own path; and the Lord gave him over on account of our sins. And having been mistreated, he refrains from opening his mouth; led like a sheep to the slaughter, and voiceless as a lamb before its shearer, so he refrains from opening his mouth. In

his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth; because of the transgressions of my people he was led to death." I recall once, in a certain inquiry with those called wise men among the Jews, having made use of these prophecies, in response to which the Jew said these things had been prophesied as concerning one

of the whole people, one who had come to be in the dispersion and had been struck, so that many might become proselytes on the pretext that Jews had been scattered among the rest of the nations. And in this way he explained "your form shall be without honor before men" and "those to whom it was not announced concerning him shall see" and "a man being in affliction." Many things, then, were said at that time in the inquiry

refuting the idea that these things, prophesied concerning some one individual, are unreasonably referred by them to the whole people. And I asked whose persona it might be that says, "this one carries away our sins, and is pained on our behalf," and, "he was wounded because of our sins, and has been made sick because of our transgressions," and whose persona it was that declares, "by his

bruise we were healed." For clearly those who had come to be in sins and were healed by the Savior's having suffered - whether from that people or those from the nations - say these things, spoken through the prophet, who had foreseen them and, by the Holy Spirit, had put them into that persona. And we thought it especially pressing to press the point from the phrase that says, "because of the transgressions of my people he

was led to death." For if the people, on their account, are the ones being prophesied of, how can it be said that this one "was led to death because of the transgressions of the people" of God, unless he is someone other than the people of God? And who is this, if not Jesus Christ, by "whose bruise" those who believe in him "were healed," he having stripped off the "rulers and

authorities" within us, and "made a public example" of them "openly" on the wood? But to clarify each point in the prophecy and to leave none of them unexamined belongs to another occasion. And these things have been said at greater length, I think, of necessity, on account of the passage set forth by the Jew in Celsus's work. Celsus, however, along with his Jewish spokesman and everyone who

have not believed in Jesus, that the prophecies say there are two comings of Christ: the first more subject to human suffering and humbler, so that Christ, being among men, might teach the way that leads to God and leave no one in human life any excuse, as though he had not known concerning the judgment to come; and the other glorious and alone more divine, with nothing

interwoven with divinity while containing something that suffers as a human does. It would take a great deal to cite the prophecies as well; but for the present it suffices to quote from the forty-fourth psalm, which is also inscribed, among other things, as "a song for the beloved," where he is also clearly proclaimed God through these words: "Grace has been poured out upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you"

forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, mighty one, in your splendor and your beauty; bend your bow and ride on prosperously, and reign for the sake of truth and gentleness and righteousness, and your right hand will guide you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharpened, mighty one; peoples will fall beneath you, into the heart of the king's enemies." Pay attention

carefully to the verses that come next, where he is addressed as God: "Your throne," he says, "O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." And observe that the prophet, addressing a God whose "throne"

is "forever and ever," and whose kingdom's scepter is "a scepter of uprightness," says that this God was anointed by God, who was his God — anointed because he loved "righteousness" beyond "his companions" and hated "lawlessness." And I recall pressing hard, on this very text, a Jew who was reputed to be wise, and who, at a loss for a reply,

said what followed from his own Judaism: he said that "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom" was spoken of the God of all things, but that "You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you" and what follows was spoken of the Christ.

Further, the Jew in his work says to the Savior that if you mean this — that every man who has come into being by divine providence is a son of God — how then would you differ from anyone else? To him we shall reply that everyone who, as Paul termed it, is no longer schooled by fear but chooses what is good for its own worth, thereby counts as a child of God; yet this one differs by far,

and by a great measure, from everyone who bears the name "son of God" on account of virtue, since he is, so to speak, a spring and source of such people. Paul's own words run thus: "For you did not again receive a spirit of slavery leading back to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry, Abba, Father." And some will also refute, as the Jew in Celsus's work says,

the countless people who claim that these things said of Jesus were prophesied about themselves, the very things that were prophesied of him. We do not know, then, whether Celsus knew of certain persons who had lived in the world and wished to do something similar to Jesus, proclaiming themselves sons of God, or a power of God. But since we examine these matters, place by place, in a truth-loving spirit, we shall say that Theudas arose

a man among the Jews who called himself "someone great"; and when he died, those who had been deceived by him were scattered. Following him, during the period of the enrollment—about when Jesus appears to have been born—a certain Judas the Galilean drew many of the Jewish people away with him, as a wise man and an innovator of a sort; and when he too paid the penalty, his teaching was almost entirely destroyed, surviving among only a very

small number. And even after the time of Jesus, Dositheus the Samaritan wanted to convince his fellow Samaritans that he himself was the Christ foretold by Moses, and he seemed to have won some over to his teaching. But it is not unreasonable to set beside this the very wise statement made by Gamaliel, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, to show how those men were strangers to the promise,

being neither sons of God nor his powers, whereas the Christ, Jesus, truly was the Son of God. Gamaliel said there: "if this plan and this undertaking is of men, it will be overthrown," just as their movements were overthrown once they died; "but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow this man's teaching, lest you even be found

fighting against God." Simon the Samaritan magician also wanted to steal followers away by his magic. And at the time he did deceive some, but now, in the whole inhabited world, one cannot find Simonians numbering, I think, even thirty—and perhaps I have said more than there actually are. Around Palestine they are exceedingly few, and in the rest of the inhabited world his name is nowhere found, in the fashion he wanted

to spread a reputation about himself. For where he is mentioned at all, it is from the Acts of the Apostles that he is mentioned; and it is Christians who say these things about him, and plain fact bore witness that Simon was nothing divine. After this, the Jew in Celsus's work says that, instead of the magi in the Gospel, Chaldeans were said by Jesus to have come, moved by his birth,

to worship him while still an infant, as a god, and that they revealed this to Herod the tetrarch; and that he, having sent them, killed those born at the same time, thinking to destroy this child along with them, lest he live long enough to reign as king. Observe, then, in this the mishearing of a man who does not distinguish the magi from Chaldeans, and who has not noticed that their professions are different,

and who for this reason has misrepresented the Gospel writing. And I am at a loss to see why he has likewise kept silent about what stirred the magi, failing to state that it was a "star" they beheld "in the east," in accordance with what stands written. Let us see, then, what should be said about this too. We hold that the "star seen in the east" was new, and unlike any of the familiar ones,

neither those in the fixed sphere nor those in the lower spheres, but was of the kind that comes to be from time to time—comets, or beams, or bearded stars, or jar-shaped stars, or whatever else the Greeks are fond of calling their various forms. We establish the matter in this way. It has been observed that at the time of great events and the greatest changes on earth, such stars rise,

signifying either the change of kingdoms or wars or whatever else can happen among human beings — things capable of shaking what is on earth. Now we have read, in the treatise of Chaeremon the Stoic on comets, in what way comets have sometimes even risen at the coming of good things, and he sets out the history concerning these matters. If, then, at new kingships or other great occurrences on earth a

so-called comet, or one of the similar stars, rises, what is astonishing about a star having risen at the birth of one who was about to introduce something new among the human race and bring in a teaching not only to the Jews but also to many Greeks, and even to nations of barbarians? For my part I would say that concerning comets no prophecy is on record to the effect that, under such-and-such

a kingship or at such-and-such a time, a comet of such a kind would rise; but concerning the star that rose at the birth of Jesus, Balaam prophesied, as Moses recorded, saying: "A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel." And if it is also necessary to examine what has been recorded about the magi at the birth of Jesus and about the star's having been seen, we would say things of the following kind,

some directed toward the Greeks, others toward the Jews. To the Greeks, then, that magicians, consorting with demons and summoning them to the things they have learned and wish for, do indeed produce such an effect, to the degree that nothing more divine or more powerful than the demons and the incantation that summons them appears or is said to appear; but if some more divine manifestation occurs, the workings of the demons are brought low, being unable

to look back at the light of that divinity. It is likely, then, that at Jesus' birth as well, since "a host of heavenly troops," as Luke recorded—and I accept his account—praised God, declaring, "Glory to God among the highest, and upon earth peace, favor toward men," the demons for this reason grew faint and powerless, their sorcery exposed and their power dismantled,

brought low not only by the angels who came to dwell in the region around the earth on account of Jesus' birth, but also by the soul of Jesus and the divinity within him. The magi, then, wishing to do their accustomed practice, which they had formerly done by means of certain incantations and spells, sought out the cause, conjecturing it to be something great, and having seen a sign from God in the sky, wanted to see

what was signified by it. It seems to me, then, that having the prophecies of Balaam which Moses also recorded, since he too had proved formidable in such matters, and having found there, concerning the star, also the words "I will show him, but not now; I bless him, but he does not draw near," they conjectured that the man prophesied together with the star had come to dwell among the living, and, having taken him in advance as superior to all demons

and to the things that customarily appeared to them and worked through them, they wished "to worship" him. They came, then, into Judea, persuaded that a certain "king" had been born, and knowing where he would be born, but not knowing what kind of kingdom he was to reign over; bringing "gifts," which — if I may put it this way — they "offered" to one composite of God and mortal man, as symbols: "gold" as to a king,

and "myrrh" for him as one about to die, and frankincense for him as God; and they "offered" these gifts after discovering where he had been born. But since the one who was the savior of the human race, existing beyond the angels who help human beings, was God, an angel replaced the magi's reverent worship of Jesus with a warning, instructing them by revelation to avoid returning to Herod and instead travel home by a different route

to their own country. And if Herod plotted against the child who had been born, it is not surprising that the Jew in Celsus's dialogue does not truly believe this happened. For wickedness is a kind of blindness, and in wishing to be stronger than what is fated, it wants to conquer it. This is exactly what happened to Herod: he came to be convinced a Jewish king had come into the world, yet he held an assent to this conviction that contradicted itself, failing to see that

either he is altogether king and will reign, or he will not reign and will be killed for nothing. So he wanted to kill him, holding judgments that conflicted with one another because of his wickedness, moved by the blind and evil devil, who from the beginning had also plotted against the savior, imagining him to be someone great, and that he would become so. An "angel," then, gave an oracle to Joseph, watching over the sequence of events, even if Celsus does not believe it, telling him to

withdraw together with the child and his mother "to Egypt"; while Herod "put to death" all the children "in Bethlehem" and "throughout its region," intending to destroy along with them the one born as king of the Jews. Yet he failed to perceive the ever-watchful guardian power that watches over and keeps safe those worthy of protection for the salvation of humankind, among whom Jesus held first place, greater in honor and in every form of preeminence,

since Jesus was going to be a king not as Herod supposed, but as it was fitting for God to give a kingdom for the benefit of those ruled, not one who would confer some middling and indifferent benefit, so to speak, on his subjects, but one who would truly instruct them by God's laws and lead them under those laws. Jesus, knowing this, and denying that he was king in the sense that most people understand it, taught instead

the distinctive character of his own kingdom, saying: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought, so that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not from this world." If Celsus had seen these words, he would not have said what he said; but if he had, he would have said: so that you, once grown, might not

reign in his place, why, now that you have grown, do you not reign, but instead, son of God that you are, so ignobly go about gathering followers, cowering in fear and being worn down every which way? But it is not ignoble for one who circumvents dangers through careful management, not going to meet them head-on, to do so not out of fear of death but for the sake of benefiting others by remaining usefully present in life, until

the fitting time arrives for the one who has taken on human nature to die a human death, having something beneficial for human beings in it — which is clear to anyone who understands that Jesus died on behalf of human beings, a matter we have addressed as fully as we were able earlier in this treatise. After this, since he does not even know the number of the apostles, having said that Jesus had gathered ten or eleven disreputable men and attached them to himself,

tax collectors and sailors, the most wicked sort, and that with these he had run about from place to place, shamefully and meanly gathering food — come, let us also discuss this to the best of our ability. It is plain to those who read the gospel accounts, which Celsus does not even appear to have read, that Jesus chose twelve apostles, of whom Matthew was a tax collector, and of those he calls, confusedly, sailors, presumably James

and John are meant, since they left the boat and "their father Zebedee" and followed Jesus. As for Peter and his brother Andrew, who used a fishing net for their necessary food, they must be counted not among sailors but, as the scripture recorded, among fishermen. And let it be granted too that Levi was a tax collector who followed Jesus; but he was not at all counted among the number

of his apostles, except according to some copies of the Gospel according to Mark. As for the rest, we have not learned their occupations, from which they provided for themselves before becoming disciples of Jesus. I say, then, in reply to this too, that to those able to examine the matters concerning the apostles of Jesus with sound judgment and good will it is apparent that these men taught

Christianity by a divine power and succeeded in bringing people over to the word of God. It was not, in fact, skill in speaking or an orderly manner of delivery, of the sort found in the dialectical or rhetorical arts of the Greeks, that was at work among them to win over their hearers. It seems to me rather that if Jesus had chosen and made use as ministers of his teaching some who were wise, as judged by the estimation of the many, and capable of understanding in a way pleasing to the crowds and of speaking accordingly,

he would very reasonably have been suspected of having proclaimed a way of life similar to that of the philosophers, who stand at the head of some school; and the claim that the word was divine would no longer have appeared credible, inasmuch as the word and the preaching would then have relied on the persuasiveness of wisdom in the phrasing and arrangement of words; and "faith" would have been like

the faith which the philosophers of the world place in their doctrines, resting "in the wisdom of men" and not "in the power of God." But as it is, who, seeing fishermen and tax collectors who had not even learned their first letters (as the gospel records concerning them, and Celsus, in agreement with this, has believed them, tells the truth about their lack of education),

speaking boldly not only to Jews about faith in Jesus but also proclaiming him among the rest of the nations and succeeding in this, would not ask where their power of persuasion came from? For it was not the kind reckoned ordinary among the many. And who would not say that Jesus, through some divine power at work in his apostles, brought to fulfillment the words "Follow after me, and fishers of men is what I will make you"? This power Paul too,

setting it forth, as we said above, states: "and my word and my preaching lay not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but rested on a showing forth of spirit and of power, so that our faith would stand not upon human wisdom but upon the power of God." For in accordance with what was said by the prophets, they announce beforehand, by way of foreknowledge, the preaching of the gospel,

"The Lord gave a word to those who proclaim good news with great power, the sovereign over the hosts of the beloved one," so that the prophecy which says, "his word will run with speed," might also be fulfilled. And indeed we see that the utterance of Jesus's apostles "went out into all the earth" and "their words reached the farthest bounds of the inhabited world." For this reason those who hear the word

that is proclaimed with power are filled with power — power which they display both in their disposition and in their way of life, and in contending for the truth even unto death. But some are empty, even if they claim to put their trust in God by way of Jesus, since they do not have the divine power they seem to bring to bear through the word of God. And although I mentioned above a gospel saying spoken by the Savior,

nonetheless I will make use of it again now, at the fitting moment, setting forth both the foreknowledge of our Savior concerning the proclamation of the gospel, revealed in a most divine way, and the strength of the word, which prevails over believers without the need of teachers, through persuasion accompanied by divine power. Jesus says: "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore,"

"that he may send out workers into his harvest." Since Celsus also called the apostles of Jesus infamous men, calling them tax collectors and most wicked sailors, we will say about this too that it seems he believes the scriptures wherever he wishes, in order to bring an accusation against the word; but in order not to accept the divinity that shines forth and is proclaimed in these same books, he disbelieves the gospels. Yet it was necessary

having seen the writers' love of truth from their record concerning the worse things, also to believe concerning the more divine things. Indeed it is written in the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas — from which Celsus, perhaps taking his cue, said that the apostles were infamous and most wicked — that Jesus "chose his own apostles, who were more lawless than all lawlessness." And in the Gospel according to Luke he says

that Peter said to Jesus: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord." But Paul too, in his letter to Timothy — he himself having later become an apostle of Jesus — says that "the saying is trustworthy," namely that "Christ Jesus entered the world in order to rescue sinners, and among these I hold the first place." How he came to forget this, or failed to give thought to it, when speaking of Paul, I cannot say,

who, after Jesus, established the churches in Christ. For it is likely that he saw that the account concerning Paul would require a defense on his part — how, after persecuting the church of God and contending bitterly against the believers, to the point of wishing to hand the disciples of Jesus over to death, he later changed so greatly that he could say he had "fulfilled, from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum,"

"the gospel of Christ," and being "ambitious to preach the gospel" in such a way as not to build "on another man's foundation," but rather where God's gospel in Christ had never once before been announced. What, then, is strange in the fact that Jesus, wishing to show the human race what great skill he has in healing souls, chose out infamous and most wicked men and advanced them to such a degree that they became an example of the purest character

...those who are brought through them to the gospel of Christ? But if we are going to reproach those who have changed on account of their former life, it is time for us to accuse Phaedo as well, though he became a philosopher, since, as the story tells, Socrates transferred him from the roof of a [brothel] into philosophical study. But then we shall also reproach philosophy for the profligacy of Polemo, the successor of Xenocrates — though there too we ought to credit this to her account. That...

the argument, in those whom it has persuaded, has had the power to remove from such great evils those who had previously been gripped by them. And among the Greeks there was one Phaedo — and I do not know whether there was a second — and one Polemo, who, having changed from a profligate and utterly wretched life, became philosophers; but with Jesus it was not only the twelve at that time but always many times more, who, having become a chorus of the sound-minded, say

concerning their former state: "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our days in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another; but when the kindness and love for mankind of God our savior appeared," "through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Spirit, which he poured out on us richly," such we have become. For God "sent forth his

word and healed them and rescued them from their corruptions," as the one who prophesied in the psalms taught. And I would add this too to what has been said: that Chrysippus, in his Therapeutic treatise on the Passions, attempts, for the sake of calming the passions within human souls, without committing himself to any particular doctrine of truth, to treat according to the different schools

those who have been previously seized by the passions, and says that, even if pleasure is the end, the passions must be treated in such and such a way; and even if there are three kinds of goods, by this same reasoning no less must those caught up in the passions be freed from them in this way. But the accusers of Christianity do not see how many people's passions, and how great an outpouring of vice, are checked, and how many savage characters are tamed on the pretext of the

word. For this they ought, while boasting of their own communal spirit, to acknowledge their gratitude, since by a new method it has turned people away from many evils, and to bear witness to it, even if not to its truth, then at least to its benefit for the human race. Now since Jesus, teaching his disciples not to be rash, said to them, "Should they pursue you within one town, escape to another;

and if they persecute you in that one, flee again to yet another" — and by this teaching he became for them an example of a stable life, one that arranges things so as not to rush headlong into dangers rashly, untimely, and without reason — this again Celsus maliciously distorts, and the Jew in his work says to Jesus that he runs off here and there with his disciples in flight. Similar to the slander made against

Jesus and his disciples, we shall say, is also what is reported about Aristotle. For when he saw that a court was about to be convened against him as an impious man on account of certain doctrines of his philosophy, which the Athenians considered impious, he withdrew from Athens and held his lectures in Chalcis, defending himself to his acquaintances and saying, "Let us depart from Athens, so that we may not give occasion

let the Athenians incur a second guilt like the one against Socrates, so that they may not sin a second time against philosophy." He claims that Jesus traveled about with his disciples, gathering food in a shameful and stingy fashion. Let him say where he got this notion of the shamefulness and stinginess of the gathering; for in the Gospels it is women who had been healed of their various infirmities—one of whom was

Susanna as well, provided the disciples with food out of their own possessions. And which of the philosophers, along with those disciples devoted to their benefactor's welfare, did not receive from them what was needed? Or did they do this properly and well, while, when the disciples of Jesus do the very same thing, they are accused by Celsus of gathering their food shamefully and stingily? Next, after this,

the Jew in Celsus says to Jesus: "Why, when you were still an infant, did you have to be carried off to Egypt, so that you would not be slaughtered? For it was unbecoming for one who is a god to fear death. But an angel came from heaven, commanding you and your household to flee, lest, being left behind, you should die. Could not that same being, who dispatched a pair of angels already for your sake,

keep watch over you there himself — the great God over his own son? Celsus supposes, in saying this, that there is nothing divine in a human body and soul in the case of Jesus, but that his body too came to be of the sort that Homer's myths describe. So, mocking, he says that the blood that flowed from Jesus on the cross was not ichor, such as

flows in the blessed gods. We, however, trust Jesus when he speaks of the divinity within him, saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and whatever else is like this; and also when, concerning the fact that he was in a human body, he says these words: "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you." We say that he became something composite —

that is what we affirm he became. And it was necessary that the one who took thought for his own visitation, as a man, into human life should not rashly rush headlong into mortal danger. And so he also had to be guided by those who raised him, being directed by a divine angel — first when the one delivering the oracle said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which

is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit," and second, "Get up, take along the child with his mother, escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod intends to search for the child in order to kill him." In these things, what is recorded does not seem to me at all extraordinary. For in each place of the text it is said that an angel spoke these things to Joseph in a dream;

and that a dream reveals to some people that they should do this or that also happens to many others, whether it is an angel or something else that puts an image into the soul. What, then, is strange about the one who once became human also being guided, according to human ways, so as to avoid dangers — not because it was otherwise impossible for such a one to come to be so, but because what was possible had to proceed, by way and by order, regarding salvation

of Jesus have been arranged by providence? And was it better for the child Jesus to escape Herod's plot and travel abroad with those raising him "into Egypt" "until the death" of the one plotting against him, than for the providence concerning Jesus to prevent what was within Herod's power when he wished to kill the child—or than to do something like the "cap of Hades" spoken of among the poets, or something similar,

around Jesus, or to strike down those who came to kill him, as happened to the men of Sodom? For the utterly extraordinary character of the help given to him, if made too openly manifest, would not have been useful for his purpose of teaching that a man attested by God possesses something more divine within the man who is seen—which was precisely the true Son of God, God the Word,

God's power and God's wisdom, the one termed Christ. But this is not the occasion to explain the matters concerning the composite being, and the elements of which Jesus, having become man, was composed�since there is a certain inquiry proper, if I may call it so, to this topic for those who believe. After this the Jew in Celsus's dialogue says, like some Greek fond of learning and trained in Greek culture, that the

old myths, though they assigned divine begetting to Perseus and Amphion and Aeacus and Minos—and we did not believe even them—nevertheless displayed their great and truly superhuman deeds, so that they would not seem incredible. But you—what fine or wondrous deed have you done, in action or in word? You showed us nothing, even though we challenged you in the temple to provide some clear proof

that you were the son of God. To this it must be said: let the Greeks show us, of those they have listed, some brilliant deed beneficial to life, extending to later generations, and so great a work as to lend credibility to the myth told about them—that they came from a divine begetting. But in fact they will show nothing, not even slightly inferior, concerning the men they wrote about, compared with those whom Jesus presented.

unless indeed the Greeks lead us off into myths and their own stories, wishing us to believe those irrationally while disbelieving these even after great manifest evidence. We ourselves, then, say that the whole inhabited world of men holds the work of Jesus, in which the churches of God through Jesus dwell as resident aliens, made up of those who have turned from countless evils. And

further still, the name of Jesus removes derangements of the mind from men, and also, even now, demons and diseases, and it produces a certain wondrous gentleness and composure of character, and love of humanity, and goodness, and mildness, in those who do not merely feign it for the sake of livelihood or some human need, but who have truly embraced the teaching about God, about Christ, and about the judgment yet to come.

Next after this, Celsus, suspecting the great deeds that would be shown to have been done by Jesus—about which we have said a little out of many—pretends to concede that the things recorded about healings, or resurrection, or the few loaves that fed many, from which many fragments were left over, are true, or whatever other things he supposes the disciples reported as wonder-working, and he adds to this: come, let us believe that these things happened

...done these things to you. And he immediately links these to the deeds of sorcerers, as though they promised even more marvelous things, and to what those who learned from Egyptians accomplish—selling their solemn teachings in the middle of marketplaces for a few obols, driving daemons out of people, blowing away diseases, calling up the souls of heroes, and displaying costly banquets and tables and pastries and dishes that...

...do not exist, and making them move as though they were living creatures, though they are not truly living creatures but only appear so as far as illusion goes—and he says: 'Since those men do these things, must we then consider them to be sons of god? Or should it rather be said that these are the practices of wicked and ill-starred men?' You see how, through these words, he as good as concedes that magic exists—though I do not know whether he is the same man who wrote...

...several books against magic. Still, since it serves his purposes, he likens what is recorded about Jesus to the deeds of magicians. And they would indeed be alike, if he had only gone so far as to demonstrate a resemblance to conjurers up to the point of proof; but as it stands, none of the sorcerers, through what he does, calls those who watch him to the correction of their character, nor does he train those who are struck with fear at the spectacles into the fear of god, nor does he...

...try to persuade those who have seen him to live in such a way that they will be justified by god; and sorcerers do none of these things, because they are neither able nor even willing, nor do they wish, to concern themselves with the correction of human beings, seeing that they themselves are full of the most shameful and most notorious sins. But he, by the marvels he worked, called those who observed what...

...was happening to the correction of their character—how is it not likely, then, that he presented himself as a pattern of the best life, not only to his own genuine disciples but to the rest as well? So that the disciples might be prompted to teach people according to the will of god, and the rest, having learned more from his teaching, or indeed from his character and his marvels, how they ought to live, might do everything...

...with reference to pleasing the god who is over all. But if such was the life of Jesus, how could anyone reasonably compare him to the purpose of sorcerers, and not rather believe, in keeping with the promise, that he is god who appeared in a human body for the benefit of our race? After this, confusing the argument, and bringing what is said by some sect...

...forward as though it were a charge common to all Christians, brought against those who come from the divine word, he says that god could not have a body such as yours. But in reply to this we say that he assumed a body, having come to dwell among human life from a woman, a human body, and one capable of receiving human death. For this reason, among other things, we say that he also became a great contender, because of his human body...

...'having been tempted' like all human beings 'in every respect,' yet no longer, as human beings are, with sin, but entirely 'apart from sin.' For it is plain to us that 'he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth'; and god delivered him up, him 'who knew no sin,' as pure, on behalf of all who had sinned. Then Celsus says that it would not be...

a body sown in the way that you, Jesus, were sown. Yet he suspects that if, as it is written, he had been begotten in that way, his body could somehow be more divine than that of most people and, in some sense, could be called the body of a god. But in fact he disbelieves what is written about his conception from the Holy Spirit, and believes instead that he was conceived after a certain Panthera corrupted the virgin.

For that reason he said that a body sown in that way could not be the body of a god, sown as you were sown. But we have already said more about these matters above. He also says that the body of a god does not eat such food as he claims he can show, from the Gospel writings, that he ate — and what sort of food he ate. But let it stand — let him say that Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples, and not only said,

Let Celsus note he said, "I have greatly longed to eat this Passover with you," yet he really did eat it; and let him likewise say that he grew thirsty and drank from Jacob's well. What does this have to do with what we say about his body? He clearly appears to have eaten fish after the resurrection, for according to us he took on a body inasmuch as he was born "of a woman." But, he says, the body of a god

does not employ such a voice, nor such a means of persuasion. And these objections too are cheap and thoroughly contemptible; for it will be said to him that the one believed by the Greeks to be a god, the Pythian and the Didymean, employs just such a voice as that of the Pythia or of the prophetess who arose at Miletus, and the Pythian or

the Didymean, or any other such Greek god fixed in a single place, is not for that reason charged with not being a god. It would have been far better for the god to employ a voice that instilled, by being delivered with power, a certain ineffable persuasion in his hearers. Then, reviling Jesus, he — who on account of his impiety and wretched doctrines is, if I may put it so, hateful to God — says that these were the teachings of some hateful-to-god and wretched

sorcerer. And yet, if names and things are examined properly, it will be impossible for a man to be "hateful to God," since God loves all things that exist and abhors nothing that he has made — for he did not fashion anything he hated. And if certain prophetic expressions say such a thing, they will find their explanation by this general rule: that Scripture uses expressions about God as though he were subject to human passions.

But what need is there to speak in our own defense against one who thinks that in words that profess to inspire belief he must use slanders and abuse, as though Jesus were wretched and a sorcerer? For this is not the work of one who demonstrates something, but of one who has succumbed to a vulgar and unphilosophical passion, when he ought instead to set out the matter fairly and examine it, and say what can reasonably be said about it, as far as possible. But

since the Jew in Celsus's work here brings his speech to Jesus to an end, we too shall bring to an end, at about this point, the compass of our first book against him. And with God granting the truth that destroys false arguments, in keeping with the prayer that says, "In your truth destroy them," we shall begin, in what follows, a second impersonation, in which the Jew

is made by him to address, to those who had been persuaded by Jesus, what follows.

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